DO DOGS CRY?

She was a frightened little puppy, barely a month old, a sorry little creature made up of nothing but skin and bones. For days, she cried pitiably for the family from whom she was separated far too soon.

I never paid this puppy any particular attention. Our houseboy brought her home so technically she was his puppy.

I quickly forgot all about her as soon as she quieted down. I am used to having dogs and cats of all ages around our home. Abby and I have a habit of picking up abandoned kittens and puppies that we’d pass along the streets. We do not have the heart to leave them to their inevitable fate … a slow, agonizing death by starvation or a quick, gruesome one brought on by the crushing wheels of uncaring drivers.

We have had our share of deaths over the years. Most of the kittens we picked up were far too gone to be saved. But we also have our successes. Just a few days ago, one cat I rescued as a kitten brought down her two adorable bundles of fur from our roof.

Like most of our cats, she has remained unnamed. I have long since given up naming each and every one of them. But they are all loved and cared for. My wish for them to have a home where they are safe and well fed has been fulfilled.

We also have our share of adopted cats and dogs like Kitty Girl, a pretty white cat that could no longer be kept but its previous owner, or Creepy who, despite his name, is the most lovable imp there is. He almost drove his former owners and their neighbors crazy with his nightly pleas to be allowed inside their home. Then there’s friendly Brownie, abandoned by our neighbors, and fearsome Takoy, an all-black mongrel whom my husband Nonoy rescued from a certain death. Takoy, along with gentle Cutie, another adoptee, added three more dogs to our zoo, as Nonoy would call our home.

And a virtual zoo, our home is! Our houseboy had also picked up our habit and started bringing back his own collection of animals starting with a black cat and ending with several fighting cocks along with hens that have since given us a periodic supply of eggs. Add to that the flock of bantam chicken that have so fascinated me and lo and behold! A home, zoo and farm all rolled into one! Our little piece of heaven.

And then there was that scrawny brown mongrel pup that kept to herself. I barely noticed her and only came to know so much later that our houseboy had named her Dayang. Abby got to know her first. They quickly built a friendship and often played their favorite game together - fetching stones.

Without my knowing it, this little askal slowly wormed her way into my heart with her sweet and gentle nature. What a joy she was! She was always the first to greet me when I’d arrive home. My fondest memory of Dayang is of her coming towards me with tail wagging shyly, eyes half-closed, ears pulled back with glee and a face that exuded nothing but pure goodwill.

Dayang left us today. She started ailing a few days ago. I was supposed to take her to the vet today. Instead, I found her lying flat on the ground, her entire body convulsing wildly. I have never seen a more horrible sight. And I have never felt more helpless. But what broke my heart was to see this tormented little dog managing a weak wag for me when I came to her. I cried when I saw what looked like tears welling up from her eyes as her whole body shook and convulsed. Do dogs cry? I stayed with her until the end, telling her that I loved her, and praying for God to end her agony.

I really loved that little dog. But I remember how I used to shoo her away as I gave food scraps to our 11-year old Nono and 10-year old Chacha, geriatrics in the canine world … often telling Dayang that the food were only for the lolo and lola. I used to tell her, when you’re old, you’re turn will come. But Dayang never grew old.

Dayang’s death today taught me a very valuable lesson about relationships. It’s something that I have always known with my mind but have never felt with my heart. It’s all about love and letting our loved ones know today that they are loved. We should never reserve that expression of our love for later. Today is what matters. For we never know what will happen tomorrow.

OUST WILLIE REVILLAME!

I AM JOINING THE CALL OF THOUSANDS OF FILIPINOS FOR THE OUSTER OF WILLIE REVILLAME FROM NATIONAL TV!

I AM JOINING THE CALL FOR HARSHEST FORM OF DISCIPLINE THAT COULD BE METED ON WILLIE REVILLAME!

I AM JOINING THE FILIPINO PEOPLE IN CONDEMNING WILLIE REVILLAME FOR THE EXTREME DISRESPECT THAT HE SHOWED TO OUR BELOVED PRESIDENT CORY!



Those who wish to sign the petition, please follow the link below:

http://www.petitiononline.com/badwilly/petition.html


* I am reproducing here a copy of the petition.



To: ABS CBN Management, MTRCB and PANA
To Whom It May Concern:


I am an avid viewer of ABS CBN and I am very well up-to-date regarding their shows. Without any doubt, I am a Kapamilya. However, last August 03, 2009, an incident happened when Wowowee Host Willie Revillame blurted out comments when a video of Pres. Cory's cortege appeared on the screen.

While a contestant was dancing for the talent portion, a snippet of Pres. Cory Aquino's cortege was shown on the screen. But Willie did not cut short the dancing portion. Instead, he let the contestant finish her routine. After that, he blurted out comments regarding the video of Pre. Cory's cortege. He said:


"Kung ganyan, pakita na lang natin 'yan. Kasi nagsasaya kami dito, tapos... Masakit sa akin 'yan, e. Nagsasalita ako dito... 'yan, please. Sana maintindihan n'yo. Nagsasaya kami dito, papakita n'yo sa amin yun ang... di ba? Hindi tama, e. Okey? Hindi ba?"

"Pangit! Hindi ho maganda sa atin. Nagsasalita, ipinapakita yung kabaong ni Tita Cory, hindi ba? Papano kami makapagsasaya, nahihirapan kami? I'm sorry ho, ha. Pero ako, totoo ako, e. 'Wag n'yo akong pagagalitan, kasi totoo ang gusto kong malaman...

"Pagkatapos ng show, ipakita n'yo ang gusto n'yong palabas. Kasi itong Wowowee, gusto ko... Hindi ba, at alam din ni Tita Cory 'yan dahil napasaya rin siya ng show na ito na laging masaya dito, ok?"



Some may argue that Willie's intention was good, but I rather find these statements rude and arrogant. Wowowee and Revillame is known by millions of Filipino viewers and the show is even watched across several countries through TFC. To react in such way is downright arrogant and disrespectful to the former President Corzaon Aquino. I know that it was a bad taste for ABS-CBN to show a snippet of the funeral on Wowowee, but it was worst for Revillame to react that way.

Willie have chosen to let the contestant dance instead of cutting short her act and give way to the coverage of the cortege. Willie have chosen to blurt out his rude comments ON-AIR instead of Off-cam. In short, Willie have chosen to have fun instead of giving way to the funeral of Pres. Corazon Aquino. So they'd rather have fun instead of pay our respects to our democracy icon? That was not a good example to our youth today.

Was it really hard for him to be humble and human? I believe that this is not the first time that he aired his views and rather arrogant comments On-air. He embarasses his staff, makes fun of the contestants, and arrogantly act on TV almost everyday. Pres. Aquino taught us humility, and Revillame is showing us the exact opposite: arrogance.


This time, Willie's statement should be condemed not only by the public, but by the management of ABS-CBN as well. It also creates a public outrage in the internet forums, chatting boards, and online-newspapers. Majority have negative reactions and have condemned Willie Revillame's brutal statements.

With this, I am calling the attention of the management of ABS-CBN to stop the “arrogant act†of Willie Revillame on National TV program and reprimand him because of his actions. Willie Revillame had been very disrespectful to the Pres. Cory Aquino's cortege, Filipinos icon of democracy. It was also worst for your company that your own employee criticize you on national television instead on off the air conversations.

I am calling the attention of the MTRCB to be more vigilant, so that this lowest form of personal attack by a tv showbiz talk show host, for her/his personal agenda, will not happen again

I am calling the PANA to stop supporting Wowowee until they axe or reprimand Willie Revillame due to his actions. With him as one of the hosts, your product does not project a positive image to the public.

The public and TFC subscribers deserve better programming, and we deserve better than the likes of Willie Revillame.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

HOW DOES ONE SAY “THANK YOU”?

I am going and you can’t stop me!” I was 18 years old then. I stood in front of my Dad defiantly and repeated that I was going to EDSA with or without him. With that, I marched out of the house, with only one 5-peso bill tucked between the pages of a pocketbook I was reading at that time, a bottle of tap water, a towel and my school ID, just in case …

My mind was in turmoil, trying to figure out how I could get to Ortigas Avenue from Quezon City. I was halfway out of the gate when Daddy ran out after me and told me to wait for him. His concern for his headstrong daughter overcame whatever trepidation he may have had about going to EDSA on that day.

With public transport practically non-existent, we walked from our home all the way to Muñoz Market and hitched a ride to Cubao. Again we walked to Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame.

And glad that he went, Daddy was! Those days in EDSA proved to be the most triumphant days we’ve ever had. We survived on shared food and slept on the ground. We joined fellow Filipinos as we chanted the name of Cory until our voices became hoarse. We scampered for cover whenever helicopter gunships would come into view or when word about nearby loyalist troops would reach us. But stayed we did. In our minds at that time, if worse came to worst, we would stand our ground.

We were in EDSA when the first of those gunships landed in Camp Crame. Oh! The jubilation as we witnessed one land after another and we realized that they have come to “our” side. We shouted with joy and Daddy danced in the street! We laughed and hugged each other and together, we all prayed. Laban signs flashed all over.

We were in EDSA when news of the Marcoses’ flight reached the people. We were in EDSA when Corazon C. Aquino was sworn in as President of the Philippines.

Those were the heady days of EDSA, when after years of darkness, we finally saw the sun again.I have never been more proud of being a Filipino than in those days when we amazed the world … timid Filipinos finally rising up to topple a dictatorship in a way never before seen in history. I have never loved our country as much as I loved the Philippines then. All that love, that hope and optimism, all that pride of our accomplishment as a people, I directed them all to President Cory. How I loved and respected her. I hanged on to her every word, scanned the papers for the latest news about her, and had my heart almost bursting with pride each time she went abroad .. that little, bespectacled housewife in yellow, receiving the world’s accolade, standing shoulder to shoulder with its greatest leaders.

But reality soon caught up with us Filipinos. The President started getting criticized by people who expected too much, too soon. But I stayed by her side, my faith unwavering. I believed in her and knew that what the people had expected from her was too much for anybody to ever achieve. Twenty years of looting could not be undone in one or two years.

In the years that followed however, as President Cory faded from the national center stage, I became guilty of forgetting her. I became cynical again, weary of politics and blasphemous of anything nationalistic. To me, she eventually became simply the ever-supportive mother of Kris Aquino. I’d see her in the news occasionally, espousing one cause or another, and the most thought I’d spare her had been, “she’s too old to be doing that” or “she is better off staying home”.

News of her illness barely moved me as well. My reaction had been more of personal concern over the indiscriminate reach of cancer.

Then one day, as I was driving towards my daughter’s school, I caught a glimpse of a newspaper headline. It blared: “Cory fighting for her life!” I choked as if my entire heart just went up my throat and tears started falling. I could barely see the road. My beloved President Cory was dying! Everything that I ever felt for her came rushing back. I was beside myself with grief.

And now she is gone, that lone ray of hope that guided us Filipinos out of the darkness. She is gone, that shining example of how every Filipino, every person, every woman, every mother, and every leader should be. Bundled all together in her small frame was the purest form of integrity and humility, selfless service, strength of conviction, and indestructible faith in God. Now that she is gone, who else will show us how we should be?

And how do we say “Thank You” to President Cory for the person that she was? How do we say “Thank You” for giving herself so selflessly to us? How do we say “Thank You” for that hope that she inspired, for that fierce pride that she made us feel, for that intense love of country that she gave us?

How do we say thank you to a beloved? How do we say goodbye?

GOODBYE BELOVED PRESIDENT

CORAZON C. AQUINO
President
Republic of the Philippines
1933 - 2009

KIDS AND THE FLU

What I have in mind now might cost me some acquaintances and a lot of goodwill among some readers. I actually spent time debating with myself whether to take up this topic or not. But those who know me well enough are aware that I couldn’t let go once something starts eating at me. I just have to take that off my chest or I’ll explode!

I hope that we have broadminded readers who will understand that I am not deliberately targeting anybody. I may appear critical of some parents and I may be met by a lot of opposing ideas after this. But that’s a risk that I’m prepared to take. Bato-bato sa langit na lang …

It’s really very simple, nothing big and earth shattering. It’s about the flu and the issue of whether or not we should send our kids to school when they start exhibiting symptoms of the illness.

At first look, the answer seems pretty simple: child with fever = home.

But you would be surprised to know that there were actually some parents who still sent their kids to school despite elevated temperatures! I have seen this happen first hand. I have also heard of stories, uncorroborated of course, of parents who pressed ice cubes into their children’s foreheads so they could pass the temperature check at the school entrance. Others were said to have given their children paracetamol prior to going to make sure that their temperature would be down by the time they got to school.

I personally know of others who had to struggle with the idea of a slightly sick child having to stay home, thereby missing seatworks, quizzes and exams.

From what I have gathered, all these boil down to one concern: inconvenience. It is inconvenient for some to go after teachers to arrange for make-up quizzes and exams for the absent child. It is too much effort for some to borrow notebooks so their kids could copy the notes that they missed while they were sick.

I am perplexed. These stories, if true, are entirely against what I believe to be every mother’s primordial instinct when her child becomes sick! And that is to keep the child at home, well rested and fed and properly medicated to boot!

I had hoped that these stories were nothing but mere fabrications dreamed up by tongues that had nothing better to do. But the sad fact is that there are actually parents out there who do not consider a slight illness or an elevated temperature as enough justification for a missed day in school. They had to wait for 40-degree fevers perhaps?

And why is that? It seems that there is concern that their kids’ absence will affect their academic performance. I am thinking right now of what my daughter’s school principal, Sister Marissa Palomar, repeatedly says to the parents: let you children be children. Let them enjoy being such. Do not concern yourself too much over their academic performance. Their grades in elementary and high school will not show when they will apply for jobs in the future.

I completely agree. And if I may add … when they are sick, let them stay home even if they insist on going! Who are the parents anyway? I say, forget the missed quizzes and whatnot! Your children will not fail with two or even more missed seatworks.

And in addition to that, I enjoin parents to think of the other children who will be interacting with your sick ones. Spare them from contracting the same illness.

And this brings us to the crux of the matter … I can’t help but think that if the parents of sick children had only exercised the right discretion, maybe, just maybe, the reach of the flu would not have been as widespread as it is now. After all, if the sick ones had stayed home, who would infect the healthy children in school?

MORE!!!

This probably is one of the most popular clamors around Dumaguete nowadays, next only to the people’s collective shout of “ENOUGH!!!” as they struggle through the ongoing road construction projects that got our streets shrouded under a perpetual cloud of dust.

I can think of a few choiced words and phrases to express the sentiment of most, but I would rather keep them to myself. Instead, I’ll content myself with “FASTER!!!” and “NEXT TIME, COULD YOU DO THESE PROJECTS GRADUALLY?? MEANING NOT ALL ROADS AND HIGHWAYS AT THE SAME TIME??? or DID YOU HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL IT’S ALMOST ELECTION TIME???”

But here I go again, getting carried away, as in literally getting away from my intended topic. “More” is about the popular clamor for a repeat of the Cebu Exporters’ Furniture Sale that was held in Hypermart recently. For those who did not know about this, woe to you. You just missed what I would personally refer to as the buy of the lifetime.

This furniture sale came to us through the Department of Trade and Industry whose efforts facilitated the coming over of Cebu-based furniture exporters. Mind you, the furniture that were put on sale were not merely export-quality … these were the real deal, furniture made for an intended foreign market, but which were not shipped out to serve as showpieces for the manufacturers. This accounts for the fact that, for most of the furniture that were brought over, only one unit per design was put on sale.

The cream of Dumaguete’s society came in droves, the landed gentry, the professional circles and of course, the people who make up our City’s business community.

I would say that this sale came as a pleasant surprise to us who went over to Hypermart. Not only was the actual event unprecedented, but the furniture that greeted us as we entered the exhibit area left as gasping and incredulous! These were the kind of furniture that we see only in glossy foreign magazines!!! These were not the ran-of-the-mill China-made types that are practically the only ones that are available around here!!!

But what really got Dumaguete dizzy with delight (with the exception, of course, of the local manufacturers and furniture dealers) and got yours truly drooling with desire and at the same time sighing with regret … were the prices! OMG! The prices were to die for, believe me!

I am not saying that the furniture were cheap, but they came to us at almost 50% off … and that my friends, was what got Dumaguete’s elite scrambling over each other in their haste to snatch up the most beautiful pieces.

Even at 50% off, most of the pieces were still too steep for us unfortunate souls, but to the monied ones, they were too good to pass up. By the end of day one, I would say that almost 80% of the pieces that were brought over from Cebu have been marked “sold”.

This actually came as a relief to me. Imagine how it made me feel, wanting to own a beautiful and oh-so-comfortable sofa so much that I could cry, but helpless to do something about it because I could not afford it? Multiply that agony a dozen times over … and that my friends, was my emotional picture down there at Hypermart.

A piece of L-shaped sofa, originally priced at more than sixty thousand pesos, was offered for only thirty-five thousand and after much haggling, sold off at twenty-eight! That was actually cheap considering the quality, but really “cheap” only for those who could afford.

That was why the sight of that hated word “SOLD” actually came as a relief to poor me. At least, I could stop thinking of what I could pawn off to raise the amount I would need to buy off everything there, ha ha ha! With the exception, of course, of that headless naked figure of a reclining male! I would gladly have somebody else walk away with it!

Incidentally, I had the hardest time with my brat when it came to that figure. She saw it first! Poor doberdog mama was too late! Abby had already seen it. And the reaction? … “ewwww! Who would want to buy something like that?!?!” It was too anatomically accurate for words. I could only order, with all the authority that I could muster … “stop looking at it!!!” But that was like closing the gate after the flock had ran off …

Looking back though, now that I could view that incident with some sort of objectivity … me, Abby and that figure were kind of funny in the sort of praning-mom way. Preventing my daughter from wising up to the world is like trying to stop the tides from turning. I can but sigh!

And I veered from the main topic again! Well, that’s me! Your impoverished housewife, recently tormented by that figure and all the cheap furniture and accessories that were not really “cheap”!!!

So I’m now joining the clamor for “MORE” of that sale. More!, More!, More! … as if, granting that there would be a next time … I won’t be left tormented again. But who knows? I could start betting in the lotto … who knows?

I Love You Dumaguete!

My love affair with Dumaguete started the moment I set foot on its shores. I love her, love her, love her!

But this love affair is nothing to the fire and passion between this City and Prof. David Padilla, a professor in the College of Law of Silliman University.

Let me share with you what he had written about our beloved ...

"I suppose it’s a bit odd to be sitting and proctoring a three-hour final examination on the law of corporations in a classroom in Kigali, Rwanda while musing about Dumagete on Negros Oriental in the Philippines. But my life has sort of gone that way since retiring as a lawyer and becoming an itinerant college professor.

But Dumaguete is special. Not to take anything away from Kigali or Pretoria or Miami, where I also teach each year. Dumaguete, a city of maybe 100,000 people, an hour’s flight south of Manila, is the home of Silliman University where I first taught two years ago on a Fulbright. Now I go back each year as long as they’ll have me.

The place is a noisy, joyful, unvarnished tropical paradise, a mix of Asia and pop western culture where Catholics and Buddhists meet and marry, do business and play.

These jottings are not only a reflection of the pleasant nostalgia I feel for Dumaguete and Silliman University, but also the fulfillment of an overdue promise to my friend Ipe Remollo, the ex-Mayor, who one evening at his home while listening to the visiting Manila Symphony Orchestra, said to me in so many words – “If you’re so crazy about our town why don’t you write about it?” I said “OK”. And here it is, more than a year later.

Dumaguete, home to four universities, sits on the Sea of Tanon on the Pacific Ocean. It’s located in Negros, one of more than hundreds of islands in a cluster called the Visayas. The town is a port and its Boulevard runs the curve of the sea.

The streets are a controlled chaos of motorbike-propelled tricycles and thousands of mostly university students mounted on motor scooters weaving in and out of traffic. Despite the law, virtually no one wears a helmet. A two-kilometer ride in a colorful tricycle carriage will set you back 12 cents. There are no traffic lights and only one stop sign, a home made job a resident placed in front of his home.

Yet everything moves, the streets are teeming and, amazingly, there are very few mishaps. Nothing is more delightful than to sit at an open air cafe on the Boulevard to watch single-man bancas and large white pump boats with graceful outriggers bob on the water. From there one's eyes drift to the vehicular madness of the roadway, endless, joyous, confused but functional.

Dumaguetenos are so polite. I’ve yet to see an accident, and have never witnessed an argument. And while I’ve never seen a youth carded at a bar, I’ve also never seen drunken students causing a ruckus.

I’ve never heard bad language, at least in English which is widely spoken and along with Tagalog is one of the country’s official languages. I should hasten to add that in these parts people speak a Visaya dialect they refer to as Cebuano – named for Negros’closest sister island – Cebu.

Of course there is the natural beauty of the place. The palms, the flowering trees, the lianas and bougainvillea which soften and give charm to the architectural hodgepodge of new and old, modern and Spanish colonial buildings and homes. And the mountains and nearby waterfalls and the thermal energy taken from the earth which powers the island’s electrical system.

And if you stand in the sun at midday you will perspire. But step into the shade and the sea breeze will put things right.

But let me return to the people and the food and the music, and inevitably, the cost of living.

Men are called “Sir,” and ladies, “Maam.” Students rise to recite in class, and smile naturally. Please and thank you, good morning and “bless you” are the universal civilities, not just on campus, but on the street and in the shops of Dumaguete. A child on meeting an adult takes the back of the elder's hand and presses it to his forehead and bows out of respect. Across

the parking lot at the municipal airport there is a sign on a somewhat dilapidated eatery

that says, “Welcome to Dumaguete – Home of the Gentle People.” And it is true.

There may be corruption in Manila, but I’ve never encountered it in Dumaguete. And

while friends, and I’ve made some good ones, descry crime in Dumaguete, for a boy who

spent the first half of his life in Detroit, and the second in Washington, D.C. with stints in

Philadelphia and Boston, crime there is laughable. Once a month you’ll read about a

purse snatching near the market.

Do you like seafood? Blue marlin, sea bass, and varieties too numerous and

unpronounceable to mention abound at local restaurants. Oysters and swordfish. And

rice, of course, at every meal. I draw the line at breakfast rice. But you rarely see an

obese filipino. A friend recently told me about a new Italian restaurant in town but he cautioned, "it's kind of pricey." The most expensive item on the menu is $7.00.

Street life in the barrios is lively. Kids play basketball especially at night on

jerry rigged courts. The churches are full on Sundays and feast days.Ex pats from Australia, Scandinavia and a few Americans have begun to discover Negros. A considerable number have married attractive Philippine women and settled down. And why not? Cyber cafes, bookstores, four-dollar Thai massages, beach front

property - a buildable lot twenty minutes out of town is available through a legal loophole for a dirt-cheap price

Did you know that the Philippines is the cell phone and text messaging capital of the world? Did you know that Filipinos are extremely musical? Videoke and karaoke were supposedly invented there and are featured in many bars and restaurants that line the Boulevard in Dumaguete. Those without the machines often feature live singers and musicians who may only have a rudimentary command of English but close your eyes and you will think you're listening to a live performance by top international stars. As a matter of fact, Filipino entertainers are in demand throughout the middle and far east.

And a sense of humor? A couple of years ago some fifteen thousand people in Manila set a new Guiness book record for the most people brushing their teeth at the same time.

And nicknames given with affection among my friends include Raffy, Boy a/k/a Dad, Bong and Bimbo.

How about this? The yo yo was invented in the Philippines more than five hundred years

ago. On flights to and from Manila on Cebu Pacific Airlinesmostly adult passengers play "Show Me," for small prizes.The flight attendant says "Show me a rosary" and the first passenger to hold one up wins a baseball cap or a key chain.

Sports nuts? Besides basketball, cockfights, pool and boxing are big. Manny the 'Pacman" Paquiao is the current lightweight champion of the world and his following is huge and fanatical.And I have friends, including some ladies, who can relate the last three minutes of the final game of the NCAA tournament in 1997.And I almost forgot to mention world class scuba diving on Apu Island as well as spectacular reefs just off shoreAnd while not a player, I should mention that Dumaguete has a number of golf courses. Finally, let me mention that the Philippine wushu team took the gold in this exhibition martial arts sport at the recent Beijing Olympics.

Problems? By all means. Mostly economic. But life in Dumaguete is pretty laid back. Cheering contests among

students, municipal festivals, parades, student carnivals, and at the school where I teach, the pageantry and anxiety of Silliman graduates sitting for the bar exam along with thousands of others gives the place a special tone and spirit.

I have also found a serious side in Dumaguete, a pride and competitiveness in its best students known as "top

knotchers."The campus fences are draped in long streamers proudly listing graduates who have passed licencing exams or achieved special honors in law, medicine, nursing, business and other fields. Young people who earn distinction or go abroad on post graduate fellowships, and there are a considerable number of them, are particularly lionized.

In the final analysis what makes for a coherent community that welcomes the outsider is kindness in the form of hospitality and pride in its achievements. These I found in Dumaguete.

UPDATE:

It is now eight month later and I am back in Dumaguete once again teaching at Silliman University. Yesterday on my way to swim my small moptorbike came to a sudden and noisy halt. I thought I had blown the engine. A little old man happened by. He pointed out that my chain had come off and promptly put it back on. I gave him a little money and he was happy. A mile later the same thing happened. This time a tricycle driver stopped and got out his tools, shortened the chain, reinstalled it and oiled the whole thing as I stood by uselessly. I offered to compensate him. He smiled, refused politely and drove off."

His article came out in Metropost, July 19, 2009.

MISSING SOMETHING AND NOT EVEN KNOWING IT

Have you ever left something behind and never looked back? You move on convinced there was nothing to look back to. You live your life … past memories consigned to the farthermost parts of your mind … life is good now … it’s all that matters.

Then one day your past waves a hand at you. You stop in mid-stride … it looks familiar and it is beautiful! Your memories, long suppressed and denied, come back to you in trickles … then the tears come … the very ones you didn’t shed before, back at that time when you have convinced yourself that there was no reason to.

You catch a drop in your finger and you ask yourself what this is for? But you already know … deep inside you know what your tears are for … you are crying for that that is lost and you are crying for those that are missed.

My tears were for the childhood that I lost, for the young life that I missed out. I cried for my lost family, my lost home, my lost friends … and for the joys of childhood that I never again experienced.

This is what happens to children when parents decide that they have had enough. They become collateral damage, bemused onlookers to an event too incomprehensible for their young minds to grasp and beyond their power to stop. That’s when childhood ends. A child went to bed. A weary old man woke up.

But I survived. Oh yes! I survived and I did well. I didn’t travel that road where so many like myself have gotten lost in. People commended for me my strength, praised me for not letting my sorry past affect my present. “Of course!” answered confident me. “I couldn’t be affected by something that isn’t of my own doing!”

But did I really manage to escape unscathed? Could it be possible that the shards left by my broken family missed wounding me in any way?

I realize now that it couldn’t be possible. A blow like that couldn’t miss leaving a wound. I didn’t even know that the wound was there. The discovery of a scab was met by amazement. Like a child mesmerized by the newness of its discovery, I couldn’t stop looking and just like any child, I couldn’t stop peeling off a bit, just to see what wonders it might hide.

But I didn’t discover wonderful things. Instead I found a wound as raw and as fresh as the day when it was inflicted. Then the pain hit me. And I cried as I should have cried 28 years ago.

No. We can’t ever escape unscathed. We will always carry that baggage with us wherever we’d go. Some may be painfully aware of its burden, others carry on like I did, blissfully unaware of that extra weight.

Opening that wound left me wondering … has it belatedly crippled me? I hope not. Rather, I would like to believe that the pain that I have denied for so long is going to make me a better wife and mother. Pain at its most raw for the first time in 28 years strengthened my resolve to spare my own child from the same fate. I could do it. It’s within my own power this time. With God’s help I’ll spare her.

Life is good now. Happy with my present and surrounded by the warmth of my family’s love, I should stop looking back to that life of long ago. But there are times when I couldn’t help myself … I had to go back and remember that beautiful childhood that I so suddenly lost. My heart would then feel heavy with regret … and the tears would begin flowing again.