Kablog2’s Weblog

Rely Tagayun Acosta was murdered last night, May 29, 2006, in Calaca, Batangas. Her house was broken into by still (an) unidentified assailant/s and killed her. At the time of her untimely death, Rely was about 32 years old. She was two months pregnant.

Calaca is a quiet seaside town. I remember the murmur of the waves on its sandy beaches and the singing of the sugar cane leaves as the winds blow toward its inland hills. We once did a remote broadcast in the town about the people’s campaign against the coal-fired power plant the government had erected there.

I now see Calaca differently. It is where we lost Rely.

Rely was a dear friend. She was first my sister Jing’s good friend in our elementary school days. She was Auitan Elementary School Batch 1986 valedictorian. Her academic acuity was quiet but sharp. Her siblings all did well in school but their youngest was the brightest.

She was a good dancer; she was very graceful. I know for a fact that dance presentations were the school activities she liked to participate in the most. She was good in the Maths too, something she probably inherited from her teacher-father who was our best math teacher.

In high school, Rely developed into a comely young lady. She had many suitors. Her first serious relationship was with our batch’s valedictorian Ednie which lasted years.
This was when I grew close to Rely the first time. We used to hang out at their lovely house after dinner. I was there to accompany Ednie as well as our other friends who were sweethearts with her sisters Liza (our classmate and friend) and Lani. The Acosta sisters were the most popular girls in our barangay when we were teenagers.

When Rely and Ednie broke up several years later, she had a string of other sweethearts like Tirso and Joseph.

In college, I used to write her letters just to keep in touch. I wonder why we stopped writing to each other. By that time, I was caught up with my own life. I heard she abandoned her college studies and went to Manila to work. But I never had cause to think that our friendship was over.

The first time I brought my then sweetheart (now my wife, Pom) home, I saw Rely sitting by her lonesome in the park bleachers. I introduced them both to each other and my wife and I sat with her. I linked my arms with hers and Pom as we sat enjoying the fiesta dance.

Years of no communication followed that delightful encounter. But whenever I got home, I asked her father Cesar about her.

Three years ago, we renewed our friendship with a vengeance. We exchanged SMS like mad. We touched on a broad range of topics and we had such a great time. We exchanged secrets and gossip that both delighted and shocked us. I felt we have become closer than ever.

But just like before, we suddenly stopped communicating with each other. I still wonder why.
Then for the first time in years, I received a call from Ednie this morning. In a broken voice he told me the sad news. What is curious, he told me, was that he thought about Rely nonstop just last week.

I was dumbstruck. It took a while for the news to sink in. I do not know what to think. I do not know what to say.

Now, all I have is this heavy feeling on my chest that no sigh can seem to ease.

14 May 2006

Dear Mama:

One of my very first memories is breastfeeding from you.

I was already four years old then. My sister Jing and I were suckling from your generous breasts, a nipple for each of us. I remember you talking to me in your most soothing voice that I soon will have to stop feeding from you because you were pregnant with Karen then. I also remember I said yes. That was my very first act as my sisters’ elder brother.

I will never forget that. I will forever be grateful.

Our life has been difficult. In a poor country such as ours, you and Papa struggled hard to give us your best. You were honest civil servants, never taking more than what the state pays its workers. But you gave us your all. We never slept without a roof over our heads. We were fed with the best of what you have to offer us. We went to the better schools even when it meant that you have to go in debt.

Both you and Papa taught me how to live. It was you who sent me to the hills above our village and the fields and to ford rivers to gather firewood. You sent me scouring the fields to find herbs and weeds to feed the pigs. I learned how to harvest and shell peanuts for a fee. I learned how to separate corn kernels from the cob when you showed me how. It was your idea that I sell ice candy around Auitan, Guminga, San Jose and Caralucud. I set up a table at the street corner to sell snacks upon your prodding. You made me wake up quite early so I can help clean the house to your satisfaction. At noontime, you made me wash the dishes. During siesta, you asked me to pull out your unending supply of white hair. In the afternoons, you made it my responsibility to fetch water and water the plants. In school, I joined various activities because you told me to. Frankly, I would have wanted just to play with friends.

There were lots of things you wanted me to do that I hated. What I remember the most were the clothes and shoes you bought for me and forced me to wear. Many of them were so different from what my classmates wore to class and church. One thing is sure though: our clothes were the cleanest and best pressed. Had I known that being different was cool, I would have gladly put them on everyday.

You believed in corporal punishment. Being the eldest, I got spanked the most. I got spanked even when it was Jing’s fault because I was her manong. You used belts, sticks and hands. I do not begrudge you about it now. You were raised that way yourself. But, should good fortune bless me with a child this is one thing I would like to avoid doing.

At the time when I believed I deserved to be punished, you did not. This was the time when all three of us were playing hide and seek and Jing fell from the roof and cut herself terribly. I was the manong and I thought I was responsible for what happened. But you just cried.

When I was your pupil in Grade Three, you banished me to a lower section when you arrived to find the class in uproar. We were nine year-olds having fun while the teacher was out. That was unfair, Mama.

I now know that much of things you did to us was a reaction to Papa’s alcoholism and having had to live with Ande, your mother, who was just as headstrong as you. She owned the house; we were mere tenants.

You are a hard woman, until now. I suffered much as a child because you are the kind of woman who does not back out from any slight. And you imposed your will on us. You even had your say on the girlfriends I had and the girls I courted.

When I think of all those now, they hardly mean anything. What I remember more was when I came to the brink of death with a rheumatic heart disease and broncopneumonia. The doctors told you I only had a short time to live. You cried all the way from the hospital to Auntie Mila’s house where we were staying–unmindful of people who were staring at you in the jeepney. That you refused the doctors’ initial prognosis and did your best so I may recover and live, I only have my love to repay you.

I see you now taking care of Papa, they way you took care of us all our lives. Caring for the sick is never easy. You complain. But nothing that you say can deny the fact that you are a loving wife. I admire you so much for this. Papa had been a difficult husband and father.

Grandmotherhood has softened you somewhat. I am amused no end when you are with your grandchild. What would have earned us hard stares and a good spanking when we were children you only have gentle reminders followed by soothing words for Chloe. I pray hard that you will have more grandchildren from the three of us.

I am also very grateful for accepting and loving my wife Pom, even if “she’s an activist like me.” I am delighted that you enjoy shopping for clothes, new and used ones, together. She is your third daughter.

I know you still want me to stop my political activities. You rushed to Manila to beg me to stop when you first read my critical articles. You cried when I got jailed. You still panic when you see me on television confronting the police. But I can not stop. This is who I am now—an agent for change. I only console myself that despite failing you on this I know you know deep in your heart what I fight for is right.

Ma, you will never stop being my mother. And I will never be anyone but your son. We will have many more disagreements because I am sure you will always say what you think about what I do or do not do. But I am sure we will never stop loving each other.

Happy Mothers’ Day!

Raymund

The first New Zealander I met was a Maori.  He was an activist and he had a lot of terrible things to say about the white guys who took away their land from them.  It was true; the white guys really did rob lands from the Maori and gave them lots of diseases besides.

It took more than a decade before I had the chance to talk to more New Zealanders, both of whom are white.

The first white New Zealander I met is the director of this international NGO that places volunteers in nearly 30 countries all over the world.  His name is Colin Salisbury.  He is not a stranger to the Philippines having visited the country in years past as a volunteer himself.  He lived on top of the infamous Smokey Mountain and stayed there for weeks.  I have been to Smokey Mountain myself and I thought my one day visit is more than enough horrid memory of a place.  Colin went back several times for different reasons.  He visited us last August when we just started our volunteer placement organization.  I like him.

Our very first volunteer from New Zealand, or Kiwi as they curiously like to call themselves, is someone of a different mold entirely.  Unlike the two activist-type guys I met earlier, this one was a capitalist.  He owned his own company and by any measure was a successful white guy.  He slid into a funk the past couple of yearsthat led him to our shores.

I urge anyone out looking for a good read to log on to http://www.crazymalc.co.nz.  No one in the information superhighway could have put his experiences in the Philippines better than he did.  His website is so good that it is de rigeur  for me to mention his web addy to all our future volunteers.

I am one of the tens of thousands who regularly log on to crazymalc’s website.  I would like to believe that I have the most special reason to do so.  In the many times when I think of giving up our volunteer placement work because of the oh-so-many problems we face, I think of Malcolm and how volunteers like him make all our sacrifices worthwhile.

He says he’s crazy.  But in a crazy country like the Philippines, Malcolm is one of the sanest men I know.

I have always said that Malcolm has been our best volunteer so far.  And although I do sometimes, I really do not like repeating myself.  But, really, Malcolm is the best.
This is just a cobbled up entry.  I only felt obliged to write it because I read that Malcolm misses a whole bunch of Filipinos.  He’s back in his own country–a land where the national bird is a flightless one.

I only wish to tell him that only one guy misses us in New Zealand but there are many who miss him in the Philippines.

It is unfair.

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4-25-2006