I cannot forget August 18, 1994. Started with a phone call early in the morning from a cute girl named Shine (5’4” tall, morena, a little chubby but shapely). We talked for about ten minutes, and after I hung up the phone my body aches of excitement and nervousness. This is what I call a scary good news. It is beyond what I have experienced in my nineteen years. It’s a situation that I have never been to. It’s a good thing but it is unknown to me even after reading a lot of books about it and hearing discussions, stories from people I know and do not. Though it’s not her calling me that I can’t forget, but the message and the tone.
“Are you ready? Fetch me in school around 11 am. We’ll talk it over at lunch.”
“Hey I was about to …”
“Don't worry, I already know!” she answered sarcastically. “Let’s just talk later, okay.” And she hung up the phone.
“With whom were you talking to?” asked mother.
“Oh just a classmate asking for some help with his homework.”
“You better straighten your life because what I hear sounds like a problem.”
“Really it was nothing” I said while avoiding mother’s eyes.
“Can you dust the shelves and mop the floor first before you go?” requested mother.
I dust the shelves; sweep and mop the floor like it was my last time to do it; had a quick bath and went out of the bathroom with my Oi Polloi shirt, long shorts, and my Caballero(skate shoes). I was walking too fast to hide the 16 note of my beating heart.
Oliver, a friend since we were kids shouted, “ where are you going without your skateboard? You look like you’re about to beat someone, hahaha!”
“Well I’m the one about to be beaten- to the floor, hahaha! See you later.”
----
It was an extra ordinary day in the university after the students decided to throw their chairs in the ground and burn it. Security was extra tight, and it seems my intention of going inside without an ID is impossible.
“Where’s your ID?”
“I accidentally left it at home.”
"Then you can’t go inside” the guard said.
“Please, I just need to submit a research paper, deadline is today.” I looked at the other guard named Pestano who I was familiar with after going in and out of the campus for several months for organizing purpose. “You know me right, sir?” I begged.
“Yes you can let him inside” said Pestano, “he’s a student here.” “Do you have other ID’s that you can leave here in the guard-house?”
“Yes, I have. Thank you sir!”
The campus was clean with no trace of a student rebellion just yesterday. No media person was able to come in. I sit in a bench outside, near Shine’s room. The students seems to be more properly behaving than they used to. No one shouts, no one tells stories in a loud voice, and no boisterous laughter too. Everyone seems silent. I caught eye of Shine with her friend Lisa. They were talking and giggling softly while looking at me.
“Bye Shine, see you in the afternoon. "Bye Rudy, take care of my friend always, okay? ”
I just smiled and said, “take care Liz.”, with a deep voice.
I smiled at Shine and asked “ what were you two girls talking about? Both of you were so happy giggling.”
“It’s none of your business, and I’m not happy, I’m mad. I just don’t want to let Lisa notice anything.” Shine said in a soft but very firm tone.
In a bench near the field we sit, then she erupted like Mt. Pinatubo.
“Why was I just told by Lito that you were leaving today? He said, he thought that I know that you were leaving but I don’t. I just nodded pretending to know. I feel like a fool. What am I to you? You confide with me since high school, since afternoon discos, since playing and watching bands, and now in the movement. How many years has passed? We were best friends; I tell you my secrets, you tell me yours, or so I thought. Now we’re more than that; I’m your girlfriend now! You can’t say I won’t understand because we are comrades too. Am I now irrelevant to you to not let me know that you will be gone for three months, inside a zone! Maybe Lin, May, and all your other collectives knows, but I don’t! You let me know when once you had to be away for the weekend to attend an activity in Baguio; when you ran from home because your uncle beats you, and you were just gone for a week but you tell me! What’s the difference now? You could die there for all I care.”
Her eyes watery, her voice hoarser, and her hands begin to tremble. There was a long silence before any of us talked. At that moment I was speechless with just a tubaw in my hand trying to wipe her tears. Then gradually, after a long pause and sobs I told her that I too was surprised. It was supposed to be on October, and I planned to let her know a month before leaving. I was doubting myself, of my readiness to go, of leaving her, my family, friends, the city life. I doubted if I can last the three months and be of use and not be a cross to carry for the comrades. Silently she just cried still sitting, head down to her knees without any sign of confirmation or resentment to my explanation. People were getting curious.
---
We had lunch after. Both of us had sizzling pork chop, a dish she insisted I have. I just noticed while we were eating how nice her green polo shirt fits her. How it goes well with her well chiseled chin, neck, and shoulders. The girl who has been with me for years, who I love, and who loves me, who just expressed it in a very vocal way than before. The girl who I will be leaving tonight; how I had mixed emotions of leaving. She gave in to my request to prepare the pork chop for her. Using the fork and kitchen knife, I cut it first in three, then cut each large piece into four. We ate slowly, savoring each bite or just to past the awkwardness of silence. We’ll miss each.
"Three months isn’t long especially if we both turn our attention to our political works.”I said while slicing the meat to break the silence.
Lito was there in the same canteen and approached us. Looking around and seeing there’s just us he said.”Have you prepared your things?”
“Well I was preparing little by little but never really expected it to be this soon.” I replied.
“You’ll leave tonight. You will be surprise because you’ll be going to the zone with a really big figure.
“So who is it?”
“Can’t tell you right now. You’ll see!”Lito replied.
“Will he be with another schoolmate or someone from here?” asked Shine.
“I’m afraid he’ll be alone, but don’t worry Shine, we have established a line” he said. ”And oh, by the way. How shall we call you? ”
I was stumped for a few seconds. I can’t think of any name right now. Then I remembered just talking with my four-year old nephew over the phone this morning and ask “who’s this ?” and he answered, “Miguel” in a very cute baby voice.
I accompanied Shine back to her school before going home to prepare my things.
“We’ll see each other before I leave right” I asked somehow in a tone looking forward to getting a yes.
“Meet me in the canteen before Lito arrives so we can still talk and…” Shine said.
“I will!” I quickly replied and moved towards her to try to kiss her.
She just stand and looked the other way.
On my way home, I saw Chris the punk who’s a common friend to me and Shine.
“Hey rude boy Rudy, what’s that about in the field this afternoon? Did you got her preggy?”
“You’re a literal punk, you know that! Haha. It’s nothing like that. Just the usual relationship issues.” I replied.
“Maybe you becoming rude to my friend Shine or maybe you took home someone else homeboy?!”
“ You know me Chris. I don’t play around.”
“Well I hope you two patch things up so we can start the side project band and I will now be Chris crust, yeah!”
“Okay! We’re on it and soon you’ll be crustier than Vin” I added to end the-getting-awkward conversation, and again focus on what’s about to happen later that day.
----
I packed secretly, and in a subtle way gathered the things I think I’ll be needing; some pants, some underwear, some shirt preferably dark-colored. Brought a pen and a notebook. I don’t have a flashlight. I checked my wallet. There’s a picture of Shine and me together looking like Sid and Nancy’s popular punk pic except I was a skinhead holding a bottle of beer while she holds a cigarette unlit since she really does not smoke. I think I’ll keep it for souvenir, something for me to look at whenever I get melancholy and tired of the forest sounds. My parents were not home, my little brother is already asleep. While going down the stairs, my eldest brother just arrived.
“Why do you have a big bag?” he asked.
“Oh I’m gonna wash clothes including my bag. And I might go out too to buy some hotdog at Smokey’s, suddenly I feel hungry.”
“Just don’t be gone too long, I’m about to sleep, and here’s P100 so you can have the Footlong okay.” he replied.
I hugged him tight and said thank you for the money but it’s more of because I’ll be missing him. He was too tired to notice my emotions as out of context with the gratitude for the P100 bill. The program or integration is just three months but I know deep in my heart that it will be longer. There’s no turning back and everything changes in a night.
Shine was already waiting with a bottle of coke. The store was about to close.
"It’s about time” she said. “Lito just left and asked me to tell you that your ‘flight’ was cancelled, you’ll be travelling tomorrow night instead. Be at TresOtso 9 pm tomorrow.”
“That’s a relief” I replied.
“Why, don’t you want to go?” she asked.
“Of course I want to, it’s just that it was too quick a notice.” I said.
“Well you can go home first and we’ll see each other again tomorrow if possible.” she said.
“Well I can’t go back now, someone back home might have seen the letter I left to somehow to explain things.”
We went straight to Shine’s house- just a ride away from my place. She said no one’s home since her parents are still in the province and will be back the next day.
She’s not sure if her brother will come home.
“You can sleep in the couch, brother wouldn’t care. I’ll also help you write the letters you’ll be sending home each month so your mom can receive letters even when your dead, joke! And I’ll try to see if I can find a flashlight” she said with a grin.
“Thanks, I really don’t understand why I deserve this pampering from you?” I said.
“Well stop your romanticizing because it doesn’t suit you” she replied smiling.
We were done packing, telling stories, and writing the post dated letters around midnight. I gave her our Sid and Nancy look-alike picture in my wallet telling her I wouldn’t want the enemy to have it, if ever.
“Let me stare at you long enough to picture you in my mind one last time” I said.
We looked at each other intensely, we both knew we want each. And so our hands pulled our bodies closer and released every bit of love and lust we have kept in check for so long now. Two atheist turning a humble home into heaven.
---
Lito was already waiting when we arrived at TresOtso.
“You ready?” Lito said.
I replied with a quick “yes.”
Trying to look modest in front of other people I shake hands with Shine and said goodbye. But after just three steps, she went back and hug me tight. Softly, her lips near my ear- she whispers... “not do anything foolish, don’t oversleep, keep a presence of mind and study the immediate landscape, it’s the only way to stay alive. Remember I’ll be waiting!” she said in her sweetest tone.
“And that’s an order, right?” I said with a grin.
She replied with a silly smile, and a dumbfounded but alluring eyes “Yes! Its a standing order.” with a tone of conviction and sweetness at the same time.
——
——
Travelling with a big figure comrade could make me a wanted man to the ISAFP at this early stage in the movement. Never thought they’d hurl me with someone who most probably have millions of pesos for his head as a bounty. To be fair, he doesn’t look like any of the type. Looks just like a typical jeepney driver with the good morning towel hanging at the back of his neck. He talks somehow with a funny tone and talks about almost anything.
“Rest now kid, we’ll travel tomorrow morning. It’s always better to travel in the day. All the police and military men will be awake to protect us.” He said with an ironic tone.
We travelled with an owner type jeep; me, Big comrade, and Mang Rod. Mang Rod has the same built as Big comrade. Looks almost the same age level which could be around forty-five years old. They both were just wearing shorts, sando and slippers. I was wearing a blue jeans, running shoes, and a yellow shirt but no Ninoy sign on it even though the other day was his death anniversary. I have a black big knapsack. They have two balikbayan box on top of the jeep, a bayong, and a green small pack that looks like the one’s you see clutched at the back of elementary students. There’s no luxury in their bodies, except for big comrades diver’s watch. Still in QC(near Cubao), we were already stopped by a uniformed officer. There was no violation but he just asked to check the identification or driver’s license of Mang Rod. I was a bit worried, tried to hide my face by just looking down. Then after a minute, Mang Rod started driving again.
Big Comrade looked back at me and smiled “He just had me mistaken for Chiquito and asked for my autograph, though I refused.”
He and Mang Rod laughed, so I laughed too. But deep inside I was burning hundreds of calories with how my heart was pounding. He and Mang Rod talked a lot about many things, some I can understand, most I don’t. They were talking in their native dialect. Things like the routes, the highways, how traffic police behaves in each area, the season, the flood, the secret in raising good swine and cows, how to spot a good carabao, the growing of ampalaya, even the latest scoop about Gretchen and Sharon dating this and that congressman and a whole lot more. No discussions of revolutionary politics. I was like a listener in a certain AM radio morning show. I remained and choose to be just a spectator in the two big men’s conversation. I really wish I could follow most of their conversation, but the language barrier makes it difficult; they were conversing in their dialect then shifting back to tagalog after realizing they have a tagalog speaking teenager with them.
---
The sun starts to set and I notice big comrade was the one on the steering wheel. I dozed off while in the highway. We stopped by an ordinary eatery to somehow rest and eat. They slept for about an hour in the jeep parked in a vacant lot while I guard our things. It seems that our travel is slow, lots of stopovers here and there, pick up things here and there. We often strayed from the highway. I always take advantage of stopovers to stretch my arms and legs. It’s difficult to travel for hours on an owner type jeep where you can’t stretch your legs that much. There was this rough road highway where the path is as crooked as a chicken’s intestine with a stiff cliff on the side. It’s a good thing Shine gave me Bonamine and lots of candy. I smoke and chew candy the hours away though my lower back and butt already hurts with all the bumps this highway have. With every stump, bump, and bang the jeep goes, I curse the government official responsible for these roads. Though the two don’t mind the bumps and don’t care about the candy, but they were glad I brought extra packs of smoke. We reached Bicol the next morning.
This is all too different for me. I used to go to the province often specially when I was young during fiestas in Laguna, or to have the summer vacation in in Quezon province where my father was born. Though mostly, it was confined to the centers of the municipality, not really reaching the remote areas in the said places.
Going up to the guerilla zone, we traveled to a dirt road: roads that have never tasted a layer of cement or asphalt. In just about half an hour we stopped by a house beside the road, and It seems it’s where the road ends. We started walking. We turned right to a small footpath circling the foot of a hill. Then at the back of the hill, the vegetation started to thicken. Just about 50 meters from the hill, there’s a steep and rocky path going down a river in a valley. The rocks were mossy. I took extra caution with how I walk. After some curves, some balancing acts and lots of tripps on some rocks on the the river, and another steep footpath going up, I saw a house made of bamboo and anahaw leaves. We passed by four more houses that looks almost the same as the first; small and minor details makes the difference like where the door and windows are facing or located, the size of the house, and how each gardens are designed. In all houses we pass by, my companions would always notify our passing(maki agi tabi) whether there be a person or none seen in the house. It’s a sign of courtesy you give while passing by. The afternoon sun starts to press its presence in our skin with its scorching heat; good thing there were trees everywhere.
We arrived at the house of Mang Bading and was greeted the good afternoon and asked to go inside, and join them with their meal. Lunch was boiled corn. Following the conversation got more difficult since they were speaking purely the local dialect. I tried talking with Mang Bading’s kids but they just smiled and tried to find a reason to go away. This is the same reaction our cousins from the states would get from us back in the eighties when they would try talking to us because they only speak english, and we only speak tagalog. Maybe they too were shy and afraid to try to answer questions I might ask but not capable to answer in the tongue I understand.
---
It was getting dark. Mang Rod and Big Comrade left two hours ago. We had jackfruit(unripe, cooked with coco milk) for dinner before sunset. In the countryside, it seems people starts and ends their day early. No one in the family has talked with me yet, and it was only Mang Bading who briefly talked, just to inform me that the comrades will be fetching me in about two days. I tried talking with the children, but they would just stare at me blankly, look at each other, and smile. Then after that they’d chase each other and run away. The house was almost empty of things. Four plastic plates and plastic cups, two container gallons (to fetch water in the stream), a large clay jar for the water(to keep it fresh and cool), some empty cans of milk(to heat water), a carton for their clothes, a table, and a small net hammock for the baby. Before I came here I thought that I was deprived, It seems I could be considered opulent in this part of the country. Mario, Mang Bading’s eldest son showed me how to create a lamp since it was getting darker and electricity is non-existent in the place. He used a small empty gin bottle, inserted a long cloth to serve as a wick. He asked for the aluminum foil in my cigarette pack to be used to encircle the cloth wick in the mouth of the bottle. Then he shaked it and then borrowed my lighter and lit.
Then he said “O, do you have this in Manila?” and he laughed exposing yellow teeth.
I know he was trying to lighten me up since I was silent since I arrived, so I laughed with him.
I answered “no, we are helpless without electricity- and whenever that happens we use a flashlight and candle. Whenever and if I go back there I’ll do what you just did.”
“In here we call it(flashlight)ispat, and this is called sulo.” he said.
Mario is just fifteen, he said he enjoyed going to school but was just able to reach Grade 4. He had to stop schooling to lend his father an extra hand in the farm. Landlessness, poverty, and being the eldest among six siblings would require him to work early to feed the family. Though there was a barrier with language; as he often mix tagalog with their local dialect, I sense that he was already talking like an adult; more mature than most city boys his age; he was occupied with making a living and caring for the family while city kids are busy finding as much ways to kill themselves with vices. We spread a native matt or banig in the bamboo-floored balcony. Lying down, I immediately noticed how a clear and unpolluted sky reveals a lot more stars. Funny sounds made by different types of insects accompanied the silence. How I wish Shine was here with me to enjoy the placid, the rapture. I fell asleep while looking at the night sky and asking myself if nights in the barrios would always be this serene.
----
“Ms. Sunshine Tuason can you come here in front” Professor Dizon called.
Surprised, she immediately stood as if clueless of why she was standing. Then suddenly realized that she was called by her teacher. In a soft voice her teacher told her that she liked her report about the Nestle workers though it seems that the report lacks balance since most point of views were taken from the workers, and very little from the management, and/or company.
“And also you forgot to date your report, just date it for today- November 18, 1994” Professor Dizon said.
From a deadpan to a bug eyed, her expression changed so suddenly when she heard the date November 18: exactly three months since Rudy left, still no news of, or whatsoever.
Since then, she has been waiting everyday for Lito each day for updates, and everyday would be a disappointment till she learned to stop asking. Never had she waited for the mailman before, and this time none has shown up too. She hates it but she resorted to the newspaper if maybe there would be news about me or Rudy? She listened to AM instead of FM. She was as desperate as the desert waiting for rain in summer. She waited and waited. She even prayed to the church of St. Jude, patron saint of the most troubled of men. She feels like she was waiting too long that sometimes she somehow forgets what she was waiting for. Till the waiting became routine and the waiting turned into a hopeless search. One day it was confirmed- her love was missing.
----
She never have indulged herself to something like this before; she was so immersed to it that she ran out of things to do aside from looking. She was working full-time on it, though still it never satisfied. Never an answer found, just more questions raised, and the already flimsy chance gets smaller each day . There’s doubts in her mind, hopes in her heart; hate and fear at the back of her head. She has been seeking with tears, and confronting uniformed men with a tough look on her face but with trembling knees. How can a long brooding romance since early teens just start then abruptly end, yet in a way lingering and tormenting, how can they just do that! Last she knows was that I (Miguel to the comrades and masses) was in a van accompanying a sick comrade to a doctor, stopped by a military checkpoint, then everything stopped from there.
How she wish I was beside her to comfort and support her, or at least knowing for sure I was somewhere where she can imagine. Somewhere where I can be told that at this exact place and time she was facing life and death. At this exact place and time, she would for the first time hear the sweetest cry from her baby Miguel, our Baby Miguel. This uncertainty, this spirit of hope and hopelessness; this patience to wait and seek; against the decision to put a closure and move on; never stopped causing excruciating pain to her even when faced with the celebration of the new life.
“Should I mourn? Do I still hope or do I move on? Is he still alive or now just a memory? What do I tell baby Miguel when he grows old enough to ask? ” Shine ask herself.
Room 202, the charity ward, a nurse enters with a baby “Miss Tuason here is your baby boy, what will be his name?” the nurse asked.
“His name is Miguel” Shine answered while extending her arms to carry the baby.
“Miguel, I love you so, your father loves you so. Your father may not be present but he’ll always be with us. Maybe he is just waiting for a chance to get to us… Im sure he is finding a way... I’m sure he’s so proud of you right now, and you should be proud of him, he is a people’s true hero.”
Shine talks to the baby, she smiles at him as her eyes spills tears to her cheek.
“I love you Rudy, and I’ll make sure no one can take away my Miguel, our Miguel! And I’m sure we will find you.” she promised to herself and to her baby.
----
Just beneath room 202, a man with combinations of fresh, healing, and healed wounds is dying. He looks like someone just fresh out of college if you look hard, but the state he is right now makes him look older. A nurse said he was brought to the hospital by two people claiming thry do not know the person but just acted of goodwill. They said he was a victim of a hit-and-run, though the wounds does not say it came from just one incident. Broken teeth, bruises and wounds on his legs, arms, chest, and back. Some of the wounds especially near and on the genitals are like burns.
He groans with pain in his sleep. I look at him and I find it hard to believe; I seem to know the person; I can see his nightmare. In it he is trapped in an unending cycle of running and getting caught over and over. His captors would put his head on a tight plastic. Just when the light is about to die out in him they would release his head from the plastic then they would again start the interrogation, insults, and beating.
“Tumuga ka nang puta ka! Ikaw si Ka Jack diba?” they shouted.
And when no answer was even muttered, the beatings resume. I can see his nightmares, each second in the dream world is like hours, each hour is like a year. The scene keeps repeating itself without escape. I can see his fingers with its crushed nails trying to move. He is in an excruciating pain.
I seem to know the person. I can read his thoughts too. He wants to escape. He wants to be found by his loved ones. He wants justice or even revenge.
I seem to know the person. He looks just like me.
----
Outside, I see two military men in civilain clothes wearing dark glasses standing, positioned in a way like they try to avoid attention. I can’t read their minds but I can see their hearts, one was empty and at the same time full of hate, and another afraid, full of questions and doubts. One with a beeper looks at the new message and then hurriedly left. The man full of hate in his heart followed his buddy with a suspicious eye till his buddy is out of sight.
#######
