Naguenos by Carlos Ojeda Aureus

Naguenos
CARLOS OJEDA AUREUS
University of the Philippines Press

1997
Copyright 1997 © by Carlos Ojeda Aureus
Published by the University of the Philippines Press

and the UP Creative Writing Center
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of The Director, University of the Philippines Press, U.P. Diliman,
Quezon City 1101, Metro Manila, Philippines.
PHILIPPINE WRITERS SERIES 1997

LIKHAAN: Sentro ng Makathaing Pagsulat
Editorial and Production Supervision by

Gemino H. Abad and Laura L. Samson
Cover Design by
Arne Sarmiento
Book Design by
Linda T. Lingbaoan-Bulong
Body text set in Revival and titles in Fujiyama2
ISBN 971-542-146-6
The stories in this collection have been previously published in the

Philippines Free Press and the Philippine Graphic. Grateful
acknowledgement is due these two magazines for permission to
reprint these stories.
Printed in the Philippines by the

University of the Philippines Press Printery Division
Naguenos
Contents
Chinita 1
Sanctuary 25
Flakes of Fire, Bodies of Light 44
Wings 70
The Late Comer 83
Typhoon 109
The Night Express Does Not Stop Here Anymore 125
Chinita
CHOC-NUT in hand, and a brown envelope tucked under an arm,

Ricardo Caceres entered the seminar room wheezing.
He was not tired: the trimobile had dropped him in front of the
seminary entrance, right under the streamer announcing the two-day
seminar-workshop in Naga. That was just a few steps to the seminar
room.
He was not late, either: the registration of participants went on
in the hallway, and Msgr. Nero, who was to deliver the invocation,
was still in the parlor chatting with the delegates from Sorsogon.
He was wheezing because one of the student observers, a coed
from the Ateneo de Naga, had walked up to him earlier in the porteria
to ask which way it was to the registration table, and when he opened
his mouth, no sound came out. Instead, his ears flushed hot and his
heart pounded in his temples and his bronchial tubes tightened.
Mr. Caceres hoped the wheezings would subside, but he labored
and whistled—even after every one had risen and sung the Pamban-
sang Awit, even after Elmer Alindogan had delivered the opening
remarks and Lily Fuentebella had read the message of the Archbishop.
He kept rewinding and playing back the scene: a chinky-eyed
schoolgirl in cotton-knit sleeveless blouse and patchwork shorts ap-
proaches him, brows drawn a bit together, lips half-pouting—excuse
me, sir, can you tell me which way it is to the registration table?—her
2 Carlos Ojeda Aureus
eyes squinting against the sun, her hair freshly moistened by an early
bath, her nose beaded with sweat...
Rosendo Alvarado, the emcee, set the tone for the self-introduc-
tions—just call me Ross, as in Diana Ross: couturier, beautician, mani-
curist, ex-Miss Gay Penafrancia, gay rights activist, atbp. I'm also a
Leo, I finished in Ateneo, and I like Msgr. Nero because he buys my
nata de coco—and soon after, every participant stood up and dished
out similar CVs. So her name was Cynthia Dee, Chinita for short, a
graduate of St. Joseph Chinese High School, now enrolled in Ateneo
de Naga, majoring in English, minor in History. She also described
herself as a Gemini (what white, perfect teeth), an ACIL treasurer,
a Depeche Mode follower, a typical Atenista, and an avid fan of Greg
Brillantes and Horacio de la Costa.
He sat two chairs behind her. It was not exactly the best spot,
considering that a Gerard Depardieu look-alike already sat right in
front of him, and Mr. Caceres had to strain sideways to make believe
he was listening intently at the speakers to be able to watch the white
curve of her nape and bare shoulders slightly reddened by sunlight
from the latticed windows. The bra, strapped precariously at the back
and embossed cleanly through the thin blouse caused his imagination
to run amuck, so that when his turn came to introduce himself, he
squeaked his name, cracked a flat joke, and shrunk down to three
inches.
What was happening to him? He felt fine when he left the house
that morning.
Mr. Caceres' bronchial complaint was not congenital. It came to
him (he remembered it very clearly; he had written it in his diary)
one Septuagesima Sunday thirty years ago in the Naga Cathedral
when he first heard the Mass said in the vernacular and the priest
faced the people instead of the altar. At first the attacks were not
that bad. The whistling sounds came in 1968 when he read Paul VTs
Humanae Vitae. With medication, however, he had kept his ailment
under control. Lately, he found out that he could dispense with the
medication if he listened to Las Mejores Obras del Canto Gregoriano.
In fact, the cromolyn sodium had lain in his cabinet for more than
Naguenos 3
a week now, virtually untouched ever since he had been soothing

himself with Gregorian music.
But after she had approached him that morning, not only had the
attacks recurred: strange things started happening too. Familiar sights
and sounds—the arcaded facade, the Spanish windows, the clip-clop-
pings of calesas in Barlin Street, the whirring of the lawn mower in
the football field—all had suddenly sprung up to giddying light and
sound and color. His energy had perked up and seemed boundless.
Even his Casio quartz sped up to a point that one number of the
program blurred into the next in rapid succession.
She was no Elle Macpherson, he kept snapping himself out of it,
just a little girl lost asking directions. By whose authority do little
girls wield the power to upstage the high and the confident, and put
them off guard and awkward? What right do they have to constrict
a man's bronchial tubes and have him all choked up? And all she did
was ask where the registration table was.
Was he in love? But how could anybody in Naga possibly imagine
a cranky old bachelor like Mr. Caceres in love? Why, in the words
of Ross Alvarado, Mang Carding had not even been in like—naku
ha—why, but Mang Card-wing did not even know how to smile, ex-
cuse me. Of course, he was vain about his looks—a cross between
Ric Manrique and Diomedes Maturan—although at fifty-two (and
despite pints of Foltene applications) he could easily pass a stage audi-
tion for the role of St. Anthony of Padua or Thomas Aquinas. That
would be in character, for he spent his life reading up anything and
everything about the Catholic Church, from the Code of Canon Law
to the latest Catechism of the Catholic Church. There was this sense
of urgency about him: the Naga diocese was marking its 400th year,
the millennium was ending, and the future of Catholicism was too
important to be left to the theologians alone, just as Bicol culture
was too important to be left to the Jesuits alone. The Archdiocese,
in recognition of his efforts, invited him to speak in the seminar-
workshop tomorrow afternoon. He himself chose the topic: The Fu-
ture of Catholicism: Her Relevance in the Twenty-First Century.
He liked the slight decongestion in his breathing.
NOBODY in Naga quite understood Mr. Caceres. In one sense,

he was deeply conservative—as conservative as corduroy. For exam-
ple, he was pre-Conciliar in thought, word, and deed. He believed
that the Church should return to angels and saints, to miraculous
medals and natural law, to scapulars and prayers for the souls in pur-
gatory, to good manners and right conduct. He carried this air of
conservatism about him a bit too far that nobody, including Msgr.
Nero himself, dared call him Rick, but either Mr. Caceres or Mang
Carding. But in another sense, he was radical too. He believed that
unless the Church did something about her boring homilies and lousy
guitar Masses, she might as well close shop.
During the workshop, Lily Fuentebella divided the participants
into two groups, alphabetically splitting them at L, on Lorenzana.
Group A remained in the room whereas Group B transferred to the
next. They arranged the chairs in a circle. Mr. Caceres grabbed the
chair directly facing Cynthia Dee. From that time on, he had no idea
what the group discussed about during the next one hour and a half.
Cynthia Dee kept playing with her shoes, sliding them off and on,
exposing those soft small white naked feet, so that for one hour and
a half, his mind was occupied with nothing else save doing everything
to them Joaquin had described in that foot-smooching classic of his.
DURING lunchtime, in the refectory, he saw his opportunity: she

sat alone in an isolated table near the entrance. The chairs beside her
were empty. He sucked in his belly and dashed up to her, bumping
tables and knocking off chairs; but as soon as he approached to ask
if he may join her, Msgr. Nero called him from the other end of the
room and requested that he sit at the presidential table with the
priests and the nuns. Cynthia's table filled up in no time with her
barkadas and former teachers from St. Joseph School. Henceforth,
announced Msgr. Nero, this was going to be their "permanent places"
during meals. (What the good monsignor actually meant was, national
landmark or not, this was still the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary where
old habits, like Ptolemy's fixed spheres, die hard):
Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive
from thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
Naguenos 5
A special added attraction, Msgr. Nero announced in the middle

of lunch, was a tour of the premises, to be conducted by no less than
the ever-charming Ross Alvarado, let's give her a big hand. (Up here]
Up here1.) At one-thirty p.m., Ross stood up to remind them, the
participants were to assemble at the salon de recreos where s/he
would orient them on the history of the Holy Rosary Seminary. From
there s/he would lead the group through the study hall, the class-
rooms, the multi-purpose rooms, the parlors, the dormitories, the
library, the chapel and the museum, anong say n'yo, mga beauties.
As he picked his fork on the tasteless fried bangus, Mr. Caceres
imagined what he'd do during the tour. He would not rush her. Cyn-
thia Dee would be with the group asking questions, taking down
notes. He would take his time. Haste, according to Saint Francis de
Sales, is the enemy of true devotion. He would butt in casually and
pretend to recognize her. Oh hi there, he'd say, not in a fresh tone
though, just a fatherly-like tone. On second thought, he might come
on too strong she might think he was one of those child molesters
from Pagsanjan or those sexual harassers from U.P. and she'd freeze
up and avoid him hereafter. No, he must come on more suave, less
eager, like Rick Blaine in Casablanca, something like that, so the
initiative would have to come from her.
Like maybe she'd be walking from behind him and then he'd
purposely stop and pretend to admire some cornices atop the balcony,
and she'd accidentally bump up to him and say oh I'm so sorry sir
and he'd tell her that's all right hija and he'd bow politely like a
Spanish gentleman and she'd smile but he won't smile back because
he wanted her to think he was kind but disinterested. But he'd fol-
low-up immediately and assure her it's not your fault hija I just
couldn't help admiring those delicately wrought iron grilles over there
did you know they came all the way from Mejico and the black and
white tiles we saw a while ago downstairs did you know they remind
me of those I saw in Sevilla when I was there? something like that
to show her he knew a bit about culture too and was well-traveled.
And she'd be very flattered by his attention she'd keep cooing really
sir? talaga? impressed not so much by the information but by his
Rick Blaine voice.
Like bicol express, she'd be so spiced up (seventeen-year-old girls

do go ninnies over lesser excuses) that she could not resist breaking
away from her group to walk alongside him. She'd put on the same
face she wore that morning at the entrance, pouting and beseeching,
and confess that she'd actually heard of him and knew that he was
a Bicol historian too would he mind if she asked him a few questions
about the history of the seminary? and he'd pretend he was a very
busy man but he wouldn't mind sparing her a few minutes of his
time by obliging her, knowing it was within his power to remove her
innocence, este, ignorance, and he'd spice up his answers with smat-
terings of Spanish and Latin, dropping a few historical names here
and there like Jose Maria Panganiban, Tomas Arejola, Jorge Barlin and
a few other alumni of the seminary, to show her he was well-versed
in history too.
Then, just as they'd go down the balustraded marble stairs, she'd
extend her hand to him for help and he'd touch her soft hands and
feel her soft fingers and press them extra tight but he'd pretend it
was nothing as he was more interested in commenting on the black
and white checkerboard pattern of the tiles.
Finally, in the archeological room, she'd feel more comfortable
with him. He would show her the burial jars, the anting-antings, the
ancient gold teeth—he was into archeology too, in case she didn't
know it yet (really? just like Indiana Jones? well, if you like to call
it that, yes, something to that effect)—when suddenly she'd tell him
she was frightened. So she would brush her body against his and he
would step back a little because he was a respectable man and besides
he had a reputation to maintain. But later she'd take advantage of
the situation: as he talked busily about the bark-cloth beaters, the
iron blades, the pottery vessels, she'd move closer to him because it
was too hard to resist the charms of a walking encyclopedia. This
time she'd be listening real close and looking intently at him with
those pleading, chinky eyes, pouting her lips in irascible excitement
and groaning oh? oh! ooohhh! like she was all worked up and coming,
but he'd not stiffen up lest she'd notice the swelling in his corduroy
and think he was one of those cuchinos who drank beer at Naga
Cabaret. Finally, she'd press her body against his, and Elmer, who
Naguenos 7
would be with the group, could not help admiring his way with the
fair sex, because this time she would be so demonstrative Msgr. Nero
himself would start doubting his own vocation. She'd tell him she
wanted to know more about him, and he'd tell her he wasn't much,
really, just a modest scholar he'd rather know more about her, and
her face would turn red as litmus paper, awfully flattered that a per-
son eminently namedroppable and of such intellectual and cultural
calibre should even go down to her level let alone show interest in
her. Then he'd tell her he was writing a book about all this he'd like
to tell her more about it and he'd mention a decent place like Carl's
Diner in downtown Naga if she were not doing anything in particular
that Saturday—but she'd not let him finish because she'd be so gigil
by now she couldn't help jumping and squealing, sure! I'd love to!
talaga, ha? it's a date, ha, sir? But he'd be cool as ice cubes: the
name's Rick. Just call me Rick.
It was the perfect plan, he thought as he struggled to swallow
the mess of unfamiliar food on his plate: fool-proof, fail-safe, sure-fire.
It would all happen.
None of the above happened. Right from the start, in the rec-
reation hall alone, Mr. Caceres' hands went clammy, his palms froze
and sweated, his vision blurred, and his knees wobbled. During the
walking tour itself, during which her hips curved as heavenly as a
hula dancer's, Cynthia Dee did not walk behind him: he did—a timid
distance away—far enough to ogle the firm round cheeks of her but-
tocks and near enough to salivate at the chair-marked bacon strips-like
bands of pink at the back of her thighs.
He attempted every possible angle of attack: frontal, sneak, side-
ward, but her companions guarded her tight—"man-to-man"—even
Jaworski himself could not penetrate such defense. So he followed
her through the long corridors and up and down the stairs like a
Singer sewing machine: atras-abante.
She is a phantom of delight, he sighed, a child whose laughter
flowed uncensored by propriety, a beauty among beasts. A cross-sec-
tion of the latter: the high-heeled, bow-legged beata with the karaoke
voice who guarded her on her left, the muscular English teacher with
cotton candy hair whose English was as bad as the English translations
from the Latin that resulted from Council reforms, the high-pitched
fishwife in front who kept turning around every few paces and open-
ing wide those hideous eyes that appeared even wider through thick
glasses that looked like swimming goggles, the toothless CWL who
kept laughing and laughing.
The museum was located in the central pavilion, occupying rooms
which used to be the administrative offices of the Spanish Vincen-
tians. It had three sections: the liturgical room, the archeological
room, and a bolted, nail-studded bodega that no one, said the aged
nun who was with them, save an old janitor had seen in the last thirty
years. Ross led the group to the first room and explained the mixed
collection of church vestments, monstrances, chalices, candelabra,
retablos, and candeleros.
In the archeological room, Cynthia Dee was anything but fright-
ened. On the contrary, she and her friends spent a delightful time
giggling and pinching each other as each one stood up in line to peep
at the interior of the burial jars before looking up to say Yesss. How
he abhorred that expression. It stood for everything he despised about
the way they have renamed everything. The word stood for all the
silly, trivial, and unimaginative manner they have renamed Baptism
into the rite of Christian initiation and Penance into the rite of Chris-
tian reconciliation and Extreme Unction into the sacrament of the
sick and Holy Communion into the Eucharist. Nobody could ever
get him to mention those new names, just as nobody could get him
to say Yesss. Over his dead body.
Realizing it was useless trying to penetrate Cynthia Dee's heavy
guard, especially as they kept ejaculating that silly word, he joined
the group of nuns hoping they might shed light on what was inside
the third room and why it remained bolted and locked and why they
were not allowed to see it. But all save one talked of nothing but
their next planned march at the picket lines; so he finally settled
with this lone aged nun who thought she looked like Louise de Mar-
illac, and all through the corridors and the halls and up and down
the stairs and the rest of the tour she talked of nothing but the daily
obituaries and Jennifer Jones and how great she was in The Song of
Bernadette.
Naguenos 9
After the afternoon lectures, during which he sat in his usual

place behind her, committing every conceivable sin against the Ninth
Commandment, he came up with another strategy. Before the par-
ticipants poured out of the seminar room to go home after the first
day session, he would beat them to the porteria. There he'd beso-beso
the matronas goodbye, hope you liked the lectures, see you tomorrow,
hasta manana. He'd also shake some hands and crack a couple of
Jesuit jokes. Cynthia Dee would be going out that way of course,
and he'd beso-beso her too, just like he'd done the matronas. So he
made a dash to the exit and waited there, squinting horribly. But no
sooner had the participants arrived at the gate where Mr. Caceres
stood with his eagerly extended hands, somebody shouted pa-Kodakl
and the once tame departing guests suddenly transformed themselves
into a horde of camera-hungry maniacs hurling themselves through
the exit past him towards choice places in the patio, the lunatics
armed with their Instamatic cameras and reminders for every one to
say cheese.
Shortly after, Cynthia Dee and her group climbed aboard the
waiting St. Joseph School Bus. As soon as it coughed and sneezed
and sputtered away, everyone inside waved wildly. Mr. Caceres waved
back tamely, like a kindly priest, his hand in a gesture of blessing,
just like Msgr. Nero's. It was an unexpected gesture, especially when
Cynthia Dee was actually waving at him, but if there were a time to
appear harmless, this was it, especially when one of Cynthia Dee's
seat mates, the one who looked like Lorena Bobbitt, kept giving him
that snipping look.
ALL male participants who were not from Naga were to sleep in
the seminary. Although Mr. Caceres was from Naga, he volunteered
to sleep in the dormitory—not to keep the visitors company, but to
be able to wake up early next morning and wait for Cynthia Dee
downstairs in the porteria—excuse me, sir, has the Mass started yet?
(her brows drawn a bit together, her hair freshly moistened from an
early bath, her lips half-pouting...)
Ross Alvarado regaled every one with her/his yarns about aswangs
and dwarfs and UFO's and weeping statues and soul mates and earth-
bound souls. S/he also read palms, analyzed handwritings, read some
faces, and insulted others. Then s/he talked about the latest Marian
apparitions, the poor souls in purgatory, the power of prayer, and the
forthcoming Papal visit. Mr. Caceres liked the last one best (Ross
promised to give him a copy tomorrow of the Pope's itinerary) be-
cause they were familiar to him, even as he marveled at Ross' enthu-
siasm for topics both sacred and profane, and how s/he effortlessly
shifted from one subject to the other as casually as the box of Fig
Newtons s/he was passing around for everybody.
All but Mr. Caceres took from the box. He didn't like the taste
of Fig Newtons. They were too soft, too doughy, too fake, too so-
syal—as chippy as the Yesss expression of the young. Give him an
old-fashioned Choc-Nut instead—the cool film pooling under his
tongue, the chocolate seeping into his throat, the gritty nuts pressing
against the roof of his mouth and clinging to his teeth as he rounded
them off and carried them down his throat—that was genuine, that
was natural and honest, like pre-Conciliar liturgy. Not to offend Ross,
however, who insisted on the offer (don't snub my beauty, Mang
Carding), Mr. Caceres took a piece, wrapped it in napkin, and put
it in his breast pocket. Nobody could get him to eat that silly thing
just as nobody could get him to say Yesss. Over his dead body.
About half past midnight, everyone took Ross' advice on beauty
sleep, enough of stories and free snacks, ano kayo, sinesuwerte?—eve-
ryone but Mr. Caceres. The springs in his brass bed squeaked and
squeaked. Tomorrow would be the last day of the seminar, and he
hadn't spoken a single word to Cynthia Dee yet. If only he could
meet her again downstairs early tomorrow morning. This time he
would be more assertive—good morning, hija, I was just on my way
to the chapel. Come, let me take you there—the hell with the rest.
He strained his head to peer at Elmer and the rest: they were
padded lumps of darkness against the floral curtains in the Spanish
windows. Four things bothered him that night. The first was this way
he felt about Cynthia Dee. How could this have happened to him.
Of course, it did not mean he had no eye for beauty, for on the
contrary, his tastes in matters of beauty were quite fastidious. For
example, he thought Christelle Roelandts should have won the Miss
Naguenos 11
Universe crown. It was a beauty, not an I.Q., contest. Too, when it

came to beauty, he knew where to look. Last week he was in Robert-
son Cinema to watch Darna, not for the story but for the filmily
clad Anjanette Abayari. And the week after that he was at Naga Caba-
ret, not for the beer but for the beauteous fig-leafed stripteaser, that
most beautiful working student in Naga. But that was all there was
to it; he admired Beauty—from Venus to Astarte to Isis to Shakti to
Kwan Yin to Ikapati—from an aesthetic distance: these girls were
beauteous beyond compare, stars in the firmament, but unreachable,
impossible dreams.
The second thing that bothered him was his lecture tomorrow..
He himself had been having doubts about the future of the Church.
Despite the charisma of John Paul II and Veritatis Splendor, he felt
that the visiting Pope no longer commanded agreement among many
Catholics who did not accept principal doctrinal propositions and
ethical norms. Three decades of Ecumenism had not only brought
about too much autonomy of parish and diocesan structures; they
had also minimized important differences among religions and eroded
whatever distinctive traits left in Catholicism. Everything solemn
seemed collapsing quickly, so that if no one did anything about it, he
was sure that by the turn of the century there would be nothing left
of Catholicism except perhaps some indigenous Bicol customs to dis-
tinguish it from other Christian denominations, like Presbyterianism.
Could the Church be revivified? If so, how? He did not know.
The third thing that bothered him was Ross her/himself. There
was something that bothered him about Ross' manner of addressing
God. Why did Ross keep addressing God in the feminine gender?
Or was it one of those lapses in grammar that accompanied gender
mix-up? But not once that night did Ross address God in the mas-
culine. The address seemed deliberate. Was God to Ross a She?
The fourth thing that bothered him was the bodega. Why did
they keep it bolted under lock and key? What was inside that room?
These four things kept disturbing him, and each one appeared
unrelated to the rest. Or were they? If David Bohm were to be taken
seriously, then they had to be related somehow in the implicate order.
A farfetched thought, he forced a yawn, but a consummation devoutly
to be wished—for he belonged to an ordered pre-Conciliar universe,

and the thought of unity amid chaos thrilled him. Come to think of
it: if the four things were indeed related, can spring, O Bysshe, be
far behind? He would whirl like the ceiling fan, spin around the foot-
ball grounds, soar above the rooftops of Naga, fly above the clouds,
yodel in Mount Isarog. A farfetched thought, he forced another yawn.
He pulled the freshly starched sheet over him, tucked his feet in its
cold folds, and worked his way to sleep, but all through the night
and the wee hours of the morning, he was sole captive audience to
the bullfrog concertos in the football field and the fieldmice playing
patintero in the roof.
His half-closed eyes fell on the Catholic calendar on the wall. It
read: October 1994. By the light of the full moon, however, the 1994
appeared like 1944. That was wartime Naga, he thought, a tense and
dramatic year. How come his life had no drama? What if he traveled
back in time and found himself with Cynthia in 1944? What a dra-
matic setting to meet each other—such stuff as great Hollywood ro-
mances are made on. What if he wrote a true-to-life screenplay
starring Rick Caceres and Cynthia Dee set in wartime Naga? He
would base the story on a Hollywood classic already too familiar to
him for having watched it on Betamax tape dozens of times. He
thought of the synopsis:
The date is October 1944. The war in the Pacific drags on. In
Japanese-occupied Naga, a general confusion is in the air, as Chinese
businessmen wait for their exit visas to Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, life goes on in Rick's Cafe, a nightclub owned and
managed by the cynical and mysterious Rick Caceres, alias Bogey.
Rick's Cafe is situated in the heart of downtown Naga in the area
where Carl's Diner now stands. It is a famous place in Bicol patronized
by both Japanese and Filipinos who come to its neutral grounds as
friends to seek respite from a world gone mad.
Enter Victor Dee and his lovely young niece Cynthia. They come
from Manila. They came to Naga, they say, because they heard that
their exit visas are here. Victor needs an exit visa badly before the
enemy finds out about his underground activities. When Cynthia sees
Rick, her face turns red like litmus paper. Rick, on the other hand,
Naguenos 13
wears a poker face. A messenger comes in with bad news: General

Hasaharu Homma is in Naga searching for the killers of two Japanese
couriers who were carrying the exit visas. With Homma are Bhoy and
Jhun, two Bicolano pro-Jap informers, and they are doing a house-to-
house search for the "bandits."
Exit Victor and Cynthia. Enter Rosendo, a small-time spy for the
underground resistance movement. S/he has the exit visas, but before
s/he is caught by Bhoy and Jhun, s/he succeeds in passing them over
to Rick.
Victor hears from Rick's barber at Tolentino barbershop (where
Rick has his full, thick hair trimmed regularly) that Rick has the exit
visas. Victor tells Cynthia this. Cynthia, knowing that the visas would
get her and her uncle out of Naga, returns to Rick's Cafe and confronts
Rick. Rick admits to her that he has the exit visas, but he scorns her
for breaking a promise she made three years ago.
Flashback to December 1941, in Manila. Cynthia Dee, a pretty
senior high-school student at St. Joseph College, in search of her lost
uncle, meets Rick, a Nagueno on a business trip to the Open City,
and finds herself terribly drawn to the charms of the irresistible bache-
lor. Rick himself is aware of her interest in him, but he is not too keen
in courting her. Besides, he is a respectable man, not a crib-snatcher.
But Cynthia persists in dating him, so Rick acquiesces. After two meet-
ings, a romance develops between them. But time is against them: the
Open City has just become an Occupied City. So Rick and Cynthia
decide to escape to Naga. Just as Cynthia is about to meet Rick at
the Tutuban Station, she learns that her lost uncle Victor whom she
believed to be dead is alive but badly injured. Bound to her uncle by
his desperate need for help and by her conscience, she fails to meet
Rick at the train station. Ignorant of Cynthia's plight, an embittered
Rick leaves alone. In Naga he broods and drinks as the war rages on.
Only Sammy Benito, the pianist-crooner at the club soothes Rick's
loneliness by singing 'As Time Goes By."
Forward to October 1944. When Rick and Cynthia meet again,
it is clear that they still love each other. He agrees to help them—on
one condition: that she stay behind. Cynthia, torn between her uncle's
need to escape and her love for Rick, agrees. Rick personally brings
them in his Oldsmobile to the Naga Airport. Meanwhile, Bhoy and

Jhun find out about the plan and report this to General Homma. As
Victor is about to board the plane, a convoy of military jeeps, led by
Bhoy, arrives. Bhoy says the three of them are under arrest. He orders
them to surrender. Or else. Rick ignores Bhoy's warning and orders
Victor and Cynthia to board the plane. Then he faces Bhoy: Go ahead,
make my day.
That one-liner galls Bhoy. If there's anything Bhoy doesn't want,
it is plagiarism. A volley of gunfire strafes the building. Bhoy is de-
termined to punish Rick by cuting him down into tiny pieces. Rifles
and semi-automatics pound continuously, but none of them hit their
mark, as Rick ducks and jumps from one parked car to another. The
Japs keep firing at the cars. The bullets dig holes in them, but Rick is
nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly he emerges, this time wearing a facial expression that is
a dead ringer for Fernando Roe, Jr. He infiltrates in the dark and
blows up military jeeps. He snipes from one hidden position and slashes
throats with switchblades. He makes a punching bag out of Bhoy and
Jhun, beating them up black and blue, using the FPJ "labu-labo" non-
stop punching technique. The enemy is confused. They cannot pin down
this savage fighter, this ruthless man-at-arms, this hit-and-run fusiler
who hits with deadly precision, this fire-spitter, this "Indian Warrior,"
this king of action stars.
As the enemy runs, Rick orders Cynthia to go join her uncle quickly
on the plane, for Victor needs her more than he. Besides, a hero must
be willing to sacrifice self-interest for the larger interest. Cynthia begs
to remain behind. She tells him his bravery and indifference to danger
has made her fall in love with him even more. But Rick is adamant
and orders the reluctant girl to forget him and board the plane to
freedom.
Alone again the next evening at the cafe, Rick listens to his favorite
song and keeps telling the pianist to play it again, Sammy. He is wait-
ing for the Japanese to come and arrest him. But he is armed to the
teeth and ready for action. Suddenly the door swings open and in
comes Cynthia. She brings good news: MacArthur has returned and
has landed in Leyte, and the enemy is on the run. Liberation is in the
Naguenos 15
air. Victor, she says, does not need her anymore. He met two business
partners in Manila and together they had planned to start a corpora-
tion. So Cynthia bid her uncle goodbye and took the next available
flight back to Naga to be with her T. L. She throws herself at him,
almost spilling his drink, and begs him to embrace her, to take all of
her, to kiss her lips, to marry her—but Rick, ever maintaining that
characteristic poker face, pushes her gently aside and shakes the ice
cubes in his glass: Here's looking at you, kid.
THE carillon chimed thrice in the chapel, to wake everybody up,

but it was mezzo soprano Ross' bathroom aria in B flat major (To-
gee-a-thur Again) and whiff of heavy cologne that drove Mr. Caceres
out of bed. After brief ablutions, he dressed up quickly and rushed
downstairs to the porteria. Shadows still deepened the crevices in
the corridors, but the security guard had already opened the main
door. Mr. Caceres sat in the parlor sofa, partly hidden in shadows,
an early bird but no worm he. No sir, not anymore. The sights and
sounds of Sunday morning in Naga enclosed him: the panadero yelling
tinapay in Barlin Street, a flock of geese cackling in Judge Grageda's
backyard, a street sweeper picking up dirty newspapers in the Ca-
thedral parking lot and shooing a congregation of neighborhood dogs
on overtime committee meeting.
The St. Joseph School Bus arrived first. His heart leapt m ex-
citement. But Cynthia Dee was not among the passengers. Another
car, a Tamaraw, followed shortly. She was not in it, either. Mr. Caceres
stayed on in the entrance, watching every arriving participant, but
none turned out to be her. The Mass upstairs had ended, but he was
still in the porteria, waiting. He skipped breakfast. He had no appe-
tite, no energy, no strength left, no desire to do anything but wait.
And wait. Then the program started. But he remained in the porteria,
waiting. And waiting. When it became clear she was not coming at
all, he walked to the seminar room, his shoulders drooped, and sat
through the lectures and the open forums and the musical numbers
and the poetry readings with a gaze as empty as a patient coming out
of amphetamines.
SHE arrived in the middle of the afternoon, right after merienda,

and just before Mr. Caceres' scheduled talk. This time she wore a
drop-waist peach sun blouse that emphasized her curves, and a mini-
skirt with a waist which rose just under her breasts, giving her a
girlish fresh outdoor look. Suddenly everything burst into a dizzying
conflagration of light and sound and color again, and Mr. Caceres'
energy seemed boundless. Ross Alvarado presented the last lecturer
as no other than El Senor Don Ricardo Caceres.
Ross could well have announced Heeeeere's Johnny! when s/he
introduced Mr. Caceres, for the latter mounted the platform wearing
that confident smirk of Johnny Carson every time he makes that
entrance in The Tonight Show.
Thank you, thank you. Applause, my friends, at the beginning of
a lecture, is a manifestation of faith. If it comes in the middle, it is
a sign of hope. And if it comes at the end, it is always charity. Words
taken, my friends, from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
The audience laughed and applauded. Mr. Caceres glanced at
Cynthia Dee and saw her giggle.
There never was a speaker quite like Mr. Caceres. He was a man
possessed. Is the Catholic Church relevant to the future? he began.
If so, can Catholicism survive after three decades of post-Conciliar
changes? The timbre in his voice surprised and pleased him. Can we
bring the Faith to the twenty-first century and beyond? his hands
swooped up the ceiling a la Zubin Mehta. Are there elements in
Catholicism that represented a unique contribution to the human
condition, elements which Roman Catholicism alone is capable of
contributing differently from, if not better than, other religions? After
a dramatic pause, he answered all his questions in the affirmative.
He glanced at Cynthia Dee. She appeared spellbound! Every one in
the audience was all ears. Then in trumpet-like voice, he spoke out
loud and bold in praise of this Great Monolith, this marine corps of
churches, this rock and how it stood firm against the turbulence of
the centuries, this solid and permanent and immovable and inert bas-
tion of faith and morals that had inspired converts like Cardinal New-
man and Dorothy Day, this massive structure that had produced
intellectual giants from Augustine to Aquinas to Dante to Joyce to
Naguenos 17
Joaquin to Brillantes to de la Costa. True it is that Vatican II had

decaffeinated the liturgy, he argued, but to leave the quotidian
Church over mere post-Conciliar disagreements would be like throw-
ing the baby with the bath water. No, the idea was neither to leave
it nor to wring drops of sustenance from its dry dugs, but to redis-
cover, to recapture the primal joy of the Roman Catholic Faith and
carry it gloriously over to the next millennium. That was his mag-
nificent obsession, for his heart was a-song (move over Carreras,
Domingo, and Pavarotti) and his soul a-flame. He was a man in love.
Then, something happened. Cynthia Dee started scribbling a
note. It distracted him. Was she taking down notes? He looked at
her again. She seemed engrossed writing something that had nothing
to do with the topic. It was too long to be a note. It must be a letter.
She was actually writing a letter (to her boyfriend, how dare she1.)
in the middle of his lecture. She was not paying attention. His ears
flushed hot and his eyes blinked and blinked furiously. When he
opened his mouth, no sound came out. He had no choice but to
squeak an abrupt thank you, pull himself out of the podium, and
shrink down to three inches in his chair.
Then he started wheezing again.
It was a torment for him to remain in the seminar room, so he
walked out and skipped the open forum and the musical numbers
and the poetry readings to ramble aimlessly about the dark corridors.
Suddenly he had no energy again, no strength left, no desire to do
anything else but to wander and mope, his shoulders drooped, his
gaze empty like a patient coming out of amphetamines.
From beyond the seminar room, he noticed the museum door
open. He needed desperately to be alone, so he walked in and shut
the door on his back. He liked the sound of door shutting. It muffled
the noises of the participants outside. Nobody else was inside the
liturgical room, so he diverted himself by going over some yellow
books owned by Bishop Jorge Barlin, the directory of the Bicol clergy
now brittle as eggshells, and a few antiquated scholastic records laid
out on the table. In a corner was a pile of ancient prayer books. A
pile of rubbish, he muttered scornfully. Of what use was prayer in
post-Conciliar times? Where was God when that C-130 PAF plane
bringing relief goods to Typhoon Monang victims crashed in barrio

Tanang, Libmanan, killing all twenty-nine social workers, including Fr.
John Tria? Where was this God when the Colgante bridge caved in
crushing, drowning, and impaling helpless women and children?
Where was God when his first cousin lay dying in Mother Seton
Hospital's ICU—the Carmelite nuns prayed, the family prayed no-
venas and Rosaries hour after hour—and he died anyway? Praying to
a deaf God was an exercise in futility, because this post-Conciliar
God preferred to perform His operations through the Rotary Club
of Naga rather than deal directly with the petitioner.
The tomb-like smell of the archeological room assailed his nostrils,
already flared wide open by forced breathing. He looked at the pre-
Christian artifacts on the floor and wondered if Catholicism was on
the way to becoming a post-Christian artifact too. All the signs were
there. They had removed the sacred, the solemn, the beautiful from
the Church. The stations of the cross, the statues of saints, the stained
glass windows have all disappeared from their familiar places in the
Naga Cathedral. They had replaced Gregorian music with pseudo-folk
guitar music, and worse, sung by lousy singers who moved him to
tears of disgust. He never thought he'd live to see the day the laity
could receive the Sacred Host in their hands instead of having it put
in their mouths. There seemed nothing distinctive left in the Catholic
Church anymore, no reason to belong except the accident of birth.
His lecture did not paint the true picture: The Great Monolith, the
solid, inert, geocentric Church had in fact moved as early as the mid-
sixties and had kept on moving, there was no use ignoring it, and he
knew that by the time the world entered the Third Millennium there
would be nothing left of Catholicism to distinguish it from other
churches. Year after year, he had witnessed the dwindling attendance
in Naga's churches, the uncertainty about doctrine, the mass exodus
of Roman Catholics to other denominations, from Praise the Lord
and Charismatic groups to New Age pap and Aquarian mush. And
as if that were not enough, inside the Church herself, like termites
eating it up from within, a new breed of "sinister, secretive, and Or-
wellian" ultra-conservative elites have sprung up to hasten her demise.
Naguenos 19
There was no use denying it: after three decades of post-Conciliar

changes, the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church had reached its
level of incompetence. This idea of trying to renew it by taking bits
and pieces here and there to adapt it to the next century seemed to
him useless now. For thirty years, he had hoped the old certainties
would return, but all those years had gone to waste: like him, Roman
Catholicism had outlived its purpose, and had reached the end of a
very long phase.
Perhaps Catholicism was not meant to be. Or even Christianity
itself. Or any religion. Or God. What was the use serving a God who
never answered your prayers? Power of prayer? According to who—
Ross? Bah. If you talked to a stone, it didn't answer you. If you talked
to plants, you might get a little response. If you talked to your pet
dog, you'd get more response. If you talked to other people, they
talked back at you. But if you talked to God, you got no response,
nothing, nada, silence. Was this God less responsive than a stone?
Two thousand years of praying the Christian way and men were no
better, if not worse, than before Christianity: the rapes went on, the
corruption went on, the hatred, the greed, the envy, the violence
went on. What kind of God was this who could stand the ethnic
slaughters in Rwanda and the carnage to go on in Bosnia and Somalia
and Haiti? A remote Being, nothing more, who merely loved to re-
ceive but not to respond; an omniscient, heartless, powerless Snob:
Yahweh the self-evident, Jehovah the jealous and cruel and genocidal
God of Israel who ordered Joshua to slaughter the innocent men,
women, and children of Jericho; Jehovah the sadistic who spread
diseases and pestilence upon the helpless Hebrews; Jehovah the
Machiavellian, slave-driving, alarmist, insecure, sexist, male-chauvinist
God who punished Eve and Adam and all of us for one measly bite
at that silly fruit. He wheezed and he whistled and he gasped his
way back to the exit, his vision blinded by tears.
Just as he was about to leave the archeological room, his blurred
eyes fell on the door of the third room: it appeared unlocked. He
wiped his eyes: it was indeed unlocked. He turned around to look
for the janitor, but nobody else was inside the museum. The door
creaked when he pushed it open. It was dark inside, like the murky
dimness that meets movie-goers when they first enter Cine Bichara,
so all he noticed were the flaked chunks of plaster detached from
the limestone walls, crumpled and damaged by heat and humidity.
He looked up the ceiling and noticed the plaster in a sorry state of
deterioration. For all the decomposition, however, he felt strangely
different here. None of that strait-laced solemnity of the liturgical
room, nor the sepulchral air of the archeological room. This room
was cool and quiet in a special way, and for some wordless reason,
he felt at peace here. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he found
himself standing before an area that was designed to look more like
a parlor than a bodega.
Gradually, like the dim lights of a stage, the parlor began pre-
senting a tableau of its own distinct iconography: gilt-framed portraits
unevenly distributed, tables too high for the chairs, furniture obvi-
ously donated by some prosperous Bicolano family that had moved
on to more modern lifestyles. On one corner, a green sofa appeared
orphaned, self-conscious amid the company, and fighting back single-
handedly the brown and dust motif of the room that was planned
not for comfort but to serve as mock setting for visiting church dig-
nitaries in their medieval robes and their deacons who spoke only in
carefully calibrated declensions. Not to be outdone, the black and
white polished floor tiles drew attention to themselves by emitting
a strong odor of floor wax.
A glint from an outside electric bulb seeped in the space between
the plywood and lawanit boards they had nailed clumsily across the
latticed windows to shut out the light. When he moved closer to the
darkest corner of the room, he found himself surrounded by strangely
familiar things. Here were the statues they had removed from the
Naga Cathedral thirty years ago; here were St. Anthony of Padua,
St. Christopher, St. Joseph, St. Dominic Savio, St. Aloysius Gonzaga,
St. Catherine; here were the stained glass windows, the Missalae
Romanum, the brown scapulars, the miraculous medals, the estampi-
tas, the novenarios to the souls in purgatory, the Baltimore Catechism.
He noticed white ants on top of the brittle pages of The Vinculum,
but when he blocked the light, they were the color of dust, gritty
and brown.
Naguenos 21
Then he saw Her.

Her face was serene but not cold. She stood there as if expecting
him, but there was neither blame nor reproach in Her expression,
for Her face was full of warmth and understanding. Yet when he
tried to ask himself what that face expressed, he had no ready answer
except that the face was neither indifferent nor aloof. On the other
hand, it would be inaccurate for him to say that it expressed eagerness
and devotion, for it was quiet and eloquent at the same time. No, it
was an innocent little girl's face, yet at the same time a face which
innocent little girls did not happen to have, for the face was also full
of wisdom. He felt that all the words put together could not describe
the expression of that face.
There She stood locked up by three decades of neglect. There
She stood, a Divine Bobbin wound by centuries of distortion and
sexual repression and discrimination; paralyzed and de-eroticized by
a patriarchal religion that for centuries had robbed Her of Her femi-
ninity by bogus practices of sentimental and fatalistic and fanatical
and pietistic rituals to hide Her True Nature. There She stood sur-
viving centuries of unfairness and wife abuse and prostitution and
rape and slaying. There She stood ready to be rediscovered and rear-
ticulated by a world gone mad as it struggled clumsily towards the
Third Millennium. Ross was right about the gender preference: it was
no lapse in grammar.
Suddenly he began to feel the strange effect produced on him
by the face. All the doubts that had lodged in his brain started clearing
up. It was as if the face communicated all the answers he needed to
his satisfaction. All the troubles and pains that up to now had both-
ered him became so insignificant that he wondered how they had
ever affected him in the first place. But most of all, he felt this
strange, tingling sensation rising over him, loosening his bronchial
tubes, enabling him to breathe freely and deeply as he had never
done before. His wheezings had suddenly disappeared.
Finally, She revealed Herself. He no longer saw a face, but a
stream of faces—Venus and Isis and Astarte and Shakti and the Virgin
Mary and Kwan Yin—all materializing and dematerializing, yet all ap-
pearing to be there at the same time: Christelle Roelandts and An-
janette Abayari and the fig-leafed stripteaser in Naga Cabaret—and

Cynthia Dee1, (so this was what she came here for)—all continually
alternating and renewing themselves, flowing and merging and swim-
ming with the next transfiguration of faces which were yet all one
and the same stunningly ravishing and cuddly and arousingly divine
and beauteous She, so that for the first time in thirty years he fell
on his knees and poured his heart and soul to the figure of his child-
hood years that was his life, his sweetness, and his hope:
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known
that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought
thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly
unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother1. To thee do I come, before
thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions, but, in thy mercy, hear and answer me. Amen.
DUSK was settling quickly when he left the museum. In the patio,
a brisk south wind from Mount Isarog stirred the bougainvillea stems,
ticking them against the gritty surface of the sunburned walls. The
closing ceremonies were over. He took a deep breath. The evening
air filled his lungs to the brim, rushing in like it does to a diver's
after surfacing from too long a time under the sea. He felt chilly in
the sudden afterglow, but he liked the feeling this twilight time in
Naga. His lungs were clear and strong and he felt a well-being he
had not felt in thirty years.
He stepped on dry leaves, crunching them like chicharon, as he
negotiated the short-cut across the lawn towards the empty seminar
room that smelled like a deserted stage after a play. Except for the
muffled voices saying goodbye in the porteria, he felt alone. So that
was what Cynthia Dee came here for. Never mind if he did not see
her anymore. She had done her job, bless this Godsend, this unreach-
able star that had come down from the firmament to touch his life.
That was good enough. To ask for more of Cynthia Dee would be
too much importuning, and he vowed never to importune. The semi-
nary was quiet now. Through the latticed windows, he noticed the
electric light illumine the patio, bathing the lawns and brick-paved
paths in golden yellow. It was time for him to go.
Naguenos 23
He hurriedly picked up his folder and brown envelope on his

chair and walked briskly towards the porteria that he might still catch
Ross who had promised him last night the itinerary of the Papal visit.
As he walked out of the room, a short-size pink envelope fell to the
floor. He picked it up and looked at the address: To Mr. Caceres.
He flipped open the unsealed envelope and pulled out a neatly folded
pink Cattleya. How typical of Ross: not only had s/he not forgotten;
but the compleat beautician had also given the Papal itinerary a special
feminine touch. When he unfolded the sheet, however, he found out
that it did not contain Ross' promised Papal itinerary, but a letter:
Dear Mr. Caceres,

I like your lecture very much. I am interested to know
more about the Future Church. I like it very much when some-
one like you cares so much about our Catholic Faith. Miss Di-
zon assigned us to write a reaction paper on any of the topics
here and I have chosen you. I wanted to ask you sana but I'm
too dyahe to approach you. So I'm writing you na lang to in-
vite you to join me for merienda at Carl's Diner this Satur-
day at 4 p.m. I invited Tita Ross too. Tita Ross will tell you
where you can pick me up. Don't worry it's my treat. I sin-
cerely hope you can make it, sir. Please don't Indian me. I re-
ally want to talk to you. See you Saturday. Bye.
Luvlots,
Chinita
He read the letter again. He double-checked the signature once,

twice. Then he read the letter again. And again. He was grinning
from ear to ear. Ross, on entering the room with the Papal itinerary,
asked if anything were the matter. But Mr. Caceres was reading the
letter again. He gazed at the latticed window across the patio and
swore he saw the Virgin inside wink at him. He wanted to make a
dash to the porteria and run to the football field and shout and jump
and kick his heels together. He pressed the letter to his chest, looked
up the ceiling, and said Yesss. Are you all right, Mang Carding? Mr.
Caceres felt his pockets. He wanted to give Ross something, anything,
to show her/him how he felt, for he felt like spreading his hands out
straight and whirling like a motor fan and spinning around and around
the football grounds and soaring above the rooftops and weather vanes
and church steeples of Naga and flying above the clouds and yodeling
in Mount Isarog, his bronchial tubes clear and strong, his voice boom-
ing all over Naga, his heart pounding like mad, his fists punching the
air—Yesss1.
Mang Carding, are you all right, Mang Carding?
The name's Rick, he said, Fig Newton in hand: Just call me Rick.
Sanctuary
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our pro-

tection against the wickedness and snares of the enemy. May
God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O prince of
the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan
and all the other evil spirits roaming around the world, seek-
ing the ruin of souls. Amen.
—Pre-Vatican II prayer of exorcism said
by the priest at the foot of the altar after
Mass, composed by Pope Leo XIII after
he had seen a vision of the mortal battle
between Satan and St. Michael over the
Future Church.
SWEETNESS and light—with a pinch of impishness—these to Rick

Caceres were the ingredients that went into the irresistibility of the
Bicolana; that is why when Cynthia Dee asked to interview him on
the lecture he delivered during the seminar-workshop last Sunday at
the Holy Rosary Seminary on the future of the Catholic Church (an
interview garnished cum merienda in Carl's Diner in downtown Naga
City), he walked on air.
Until the Saturday afternoon he picked her up in Santa Cruz
Street. It took only one word to bring him back to earth: gago. A
group of tambays outside Cynthia's house called him that. He heard

it twice: the first time when he entered the Dee compound, and the
second when he and Cynthia left the gate on their way to Carl's.
"Coffee, tea; or me?" she teased him as they stood in front of
the neon-lighted counter. That would have tickled him. But not this
time. Gago killed him. He pretended to look intently at the variety
of choices on display up front—fish fillet, hamburger steak, crispy
chicken, goto regular/special, tokwa't baboy—but could not take his
mind off the tambays. Gago. The word lacerated him. Why did they
lash at him like that? It was totally unprovoked. What right did these
proto-humans have to call him that? They made sure he heard it, for
the venom shot straight from their fangs despite the din of radio-cas-
sette players turned full blast inside their Willys jeep—a stainless
mean-looking four-cylinder canvass-topped four-wheel drive with a
battery of decals, headlights, halogen lamps and fog lights familiar in
the centro for its noise pollution. They spat the poison right smack
at his face: gago.
"Mr. Ca-ce-res," Cynthia Dee prompted him in teasing sing-song.
Rick flushed horridly. A red-capped waiter in red-striped apron
had already taken Cynthia Dee's order—pizza-—and he kept tapping
his ballpen on the-order pad. A queue had built up behind them.
"Tanguigue steak," he said quickly without thinking.
He insisted on paying the bill, but Cynthia Dee beat him to it:
"It's my treat, remember?" He did remember, but the reflex gesture
was obligatory. She dished out a five hundred peso bill and handed
it to the girl behind the cash register who pressed open the metal
drawer that chimed with her rehearsed smile and loose change. No
mean spending for Cynthia, thought Rick, considering that she could
have spent more if Ross Alvarado, a third party to the treat, had not
begged off at the last minute to attend to another engagement—
something about lamierda—a cancellation that thrilled Rick to no
small extent because that meant having Cynthia Dee all for himself—
and in Carl's.
Carl's Diner is a loud, technicolored luncheonette perched atop
New England Bakery that guaranteed instant nostalgia even to the
hardened postmodern. No other building in the vicinity flies in the
Naguenos 27
face of its come-on look except perhaps Bichara Theater. Even then,
a lawanit board strip (building permit no. 099205157) indicated
renovation going on so that the cinema was no rival for attention for
the time being. Carl's, however, draws attention not so much to its
menus painted loudly outside the glass windows (cakes, fries, steaks,
pancakes, tacos, chili, pizza) but the sight of a red vintage Cadillac
crashing through a huge 45 rpm Beatles record, the car hovering pre-
cariously over the parking lot along Evangelista Street right in the
area where the shoe shine boys and local newsmen congregated.
Inside Carl's the ambiance is the fifties: black and white check-
ered floor tiles; huge posters of Brando, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, and
James Dean; piped-in music of Nat King Cole's unforgettable songs—
all these belonged to his age, all conducive to his style of romance.
Cynthia would be in his territory.
But all that excitement caved in over just one word: gago.
The girl behind the cash register gave them their plastic number
and her plastic smile. Rick pouted at the farthest corner across the
room under the No Smoking sign and pushed Cynthia Dee's arm
gently so that she could walk ahead while he followed, taking the
opportunity to pat his temples and fill up his thinning crown. When
they reached their table, he waited for her to sit first before he him-
self sucked in his belly and slid smugly into the cushioned red stool
facing her.
To Cynthia Dee, a sophomore coed at the Ateneo de Naga, getting
Rick to talk was accomplishment enough. Everybody in Naga knew
the old bachelor was not exactly the gregarious type. But after he
had given that lecture last Sunday, Cynthia Dee thought his views
on the Future Church were just perfect for her RS 3 class report on
the Church and Philippine Society. Her problem was how to approach
him.
Rick Caceres, an ex-seminarian, was an expert in Church matters.
Although he had left the seminary years ago, the Catholic imprint
had never left him. He had spent his life reading up on anything and
everything about the Catholic Church, from the Code of Canon Law
to the latest Evangelium Vitae. The future of the Church concerned
him. The Naga Archdiocese was celebrating its 400th year, but de-
spite the celebrations, he worried about the millennium ending, be-

cause the post-Conciliar Church—the once solid, inert, geocentric,
monolithic sanctuary that he knew—was changing so fast he won-
dered if there would be anything left of it to distinguish it from other
religions by the time Naga entered the next millennium. The Arch-
bishop, in recognition of Rick's concern, had invited him to speak in
the seminar-workshop last Sunday on the occasion of the quadricen-
tennial of the elevation of Naga into a diocese and the bicentennial
of the canonical erection of the Holy Rosary Seminary. Cynthia Dee
was among the student observers whom Rick instantly impressed by
his mastery of Church history, but she was too timid to approach
him. So she wrote him a note asking if it were possible to interview
him at Carl's, and he wrote back and said yes why not—a gesture
that flattered her, considering his senior position in the Naga com-
munity. What she did not know was the way Rick walked on air the
whole week.
She said he could choose any approach to the topic, but she had
some ready questions just to get the ball rolling. She pulled out a
pocket cassette recorder from her handbag. Rick stiffened.
"May I?" she said.
"Sure," he said in a falsetto voice, "go ahead." He did not like
his pitch.
"This is my favorite nook," he said quickly, trying to suppress a
nervous tick. He needed to warm up his voice some more, to get it
right. He looked through the slanting glass window. He wanted to
say something more before going down to business, something infor-
mal like how he'd come here often and how he liked this raised
corner table because it gave him a second floor view of downtown
Naga not available elsewhere. But Cynthia Dee had already pressed
the recorder on.
"In your lecture," she began, "you said that despite its faults,
many good things attract you to the Catholic Church." She read from
her note pad. "Can you name one?"
"Her comic narrative," he spoke to the recorder in his suddenly
changed Eddie Rodriguez voice. He had two voices, one baritone and
Naguefios 29
another falsetto. The former was conscious and came out well when
he was in condition; the latter was his natural voice.
"You mean cosmic."
"No, comic—comic as opposed to tragic. Catholicism is a religion
of stories with happy endings. The Catholic Church teaches that good
always triumphs over evil. Hence, it is a joyful religion"—he ended
that phrase with a hum—"that's what attracts me to the Church."
He liked the way she looked at him intently. He shifted his weight
to the other buttock and explained further:
"The Son suffered and died, but on the third day He rose again—
that's a happy ending. I think Catholics remain Catholics or return
to the Church not because of the doctrines and laws but because of
the comic narrative."
"Number nine, please," the counter called out in the loudspeaker.
"I'll take it," Cynthia said, and pressed off the recorder.
Their knees brushed together when she stepped down the stool.
He could not help ogling her behind as she walked towards the
counter to pick up the order. He noticed the other customers follow
her with their eyes when she walked back to him. He was sure it
was more than her clothes: she wore an extra-large Naga Quadricen-
tennial shirt over a pair of white shorts, but the shirt was extra long
you'd think she wore nothing under it. No, he assured himself, it
was more than that: it was the aura she exuded: sweet and light,
with a pinch of impishness. Simply irresistible.
She laid the tray on the table and allowed Rick to distribute the
plates, as she pressed back on the recorder.
"In your lecture," she read again from her note pad, "you men-
tioned that Vatican II took away the sacred and the mysterious from
the Church."
"That's right," he said, putting back his filled-up spoon on the
plate. "They took away Latin, the Gregorian Chant—they even re-
moved the statues of the saints from the side altars of the Naga
Cathedral." He wondered if she really understood what that implied.
"Ah, but you are too young to appreciate the past, you know, the loss
of order and mystery."
She held her crust to her lips: "I don't know about the loss, but
I'm not too happy about the present, either."
"What do you mean?"
She continued holding the crust to her lips. "I think my generation
is too mababaw. You know, if I could only have Doc Brown's time
travel machine—you know, in the movie Back to the Future—I'd like
to go back to the fifties, especially to the time you described in your
lecture, you know, the years before Vatican II. I liked the way you
described it so beautifully." The crust popped inside her mouth when
she bit it.
Now here was a girl who talked his language, he thought. Here
was someone who could connect.
"What was the world like before Vatican II?" she asked him.
"See those cars over there?" He pointed to the glass-framed pho-
tos of vintage cars hanging on the wall. He told her to take note of
the hardtop convertible automobiles of the fifties with their exagger-
ated body styles and outrageous fins—take particular note too of
those sleek, bulky, chrome gas guzzlers that dated back to the days
of the fifty-cent drive-in and cafe rendezvous one saw in old 16 mm
black and white movies. "That's how the world was like before Vati-
can II: genuine, elegant, tough."
"They don't make cars like that anymore, right?"
"That's right," he said. "Car bodies now are as thin as sardine
cans."
Her eyes lost themselves in slits of laughter when he said that.
How childlike, he thought, how easy to please. He liked her teeth:
white and perfect. He liked the way she tamed her unruly pinned-up
hair: how sassy, he thought. She kept swinging the revolving stool
from side to side between bites on her crust, revealing those diminu-
tive white shorts enticingly slit at the sides and gartered at the waist.
How innocent to the ways of the world, he thought.
"You also said they took away important prayers. Like what, for
example?" The onion rings crackled as she bit them.
"The prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel," he said.
"Saint Michael? Why?"
"Because there's so much evil in the world now."
Naguenos 31
The word "evil" churned his stomach. It moved his mind again
to the tambays. "Mind if I ask you something?" he said.
"Course not. Ask anything." She held another crust to her lips.
"Off the record."
"Okay." She turned off the recorder with her free hand.
"These guys, these tambays," he said very casually as he uncapped
the Worcestershire sauce in front of her, "do they always bother you?"
Suddenly her face dropped. She put the crust back to her plate
and looked intently at the Orange Julius. Then she heaved a sigh and
looked out into space. She seemed on the verge of making a confes-
sion.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Let's continue with the interview."
"No, no," she said. "I'm glad you brought it up. His name is
Bhoy," she said spelling the "h."
So that was his name. So that was the owner of that Willys jeep.
He had seen that jeep several times in the centro. He recognized it
by the PROGUN bumper sticker glued up in the fender right under
the masking-taped paste-up letter strips of the owner's name: BHOY.
He and his companions were the local untouchables who joy-rode
downtown daily to jar the residents with shock waves of bass and
cymbals wafting from the stainless steel's overhead stereo consoles,
equalizers, and speakers.
No Naga resident dared complain of the noise pollution. No con-
cerned citizen dared tell Bhoy and company to their face to tone
down the volume. They played as they pleased and parked as they
pleased.
Especially on Ateneo de Naga campus. Ever since the start of the
semester, Cynthia said, Bhoy would park his jeep there and wait for
her class to dismiss. Then he would offer to bring her home in his
Willys, an offer she would nicely but firmly refuse. She knew what
riding with him meant. Word had spread on campus that Bhoy picked
up girls and raped them at the back of his jeep. Of course, that was
just a rumor, like the rumor that he had something to do with the
mysterious disappearance of a coed last year, although none had come
out with convincing evidence to implicate him. But he did have a
reputation for exposing parities in public. It was the group's little
game, she said, a pustahan. First, they'd choose a girl with "remov-
able" shorts; next, they'd bet on the color of her panties; then, Bhoy'd
approach the girl and ask for directions, would she care to look up
if this house were the right house; finally, as she looked up, he'd grab
her shorts and pull them down. The guy who guessed the correct
color won the game and collected the money he'd later spend to
treat the group to a drinking spree. Last month, he did just that to
a freshman student on her way to her P.E. class, and the girl, terribly
embarrassed, was forced to drop all her subjects in Ateneo. Cynthia
knew the girl because she belonged to the Chinese community. So
she feared him and so she avoided him.
Bhoy, however, was not the kind to take no for an answer—the
word reject, he once bragged to his drinking buddies, was not found
in his vocabulary—that is why the more Cynthia refused, the more
he pressed on, confident he would wear her down by sheer persist-
ence, just like he did the rest of them.
In the meantime she would take the trimobile home. But the
Willys jeep would follow, and when she reached home Bhoy would
park in front of her house. She dared not tell her parents. They could
not do anything anyway. Bhoy's two companions, a fat man and a
ponytailed man, lived within a stone's throw from the Dee residence.
Bhoy had one pet peeve though: sopot. Every tambay knew Bhoy
had not been circumcised because years ago when the herbulario
came to that street to circumcise the kanto boys, Bhoy had run away
when his turn came as soon as he saw the razor blade.
Cynthia felt guilty about asking Rick to pick her up at home. The
tambays had been heckling even her groupmates who came to work
on their projects there. She should have warned him about them and
asked him to meet her instead in front of Robertson Department
Store.
She did not touch her pizza all the while she talked about Bhoy.
"Don't mind them," she said.
That was difficult, he thought. The more she talked about her
problem, the more his thoughts moved towards Bhoy and company
with resentment. He abhorred these tyrants. They stood for all the
negative elements that infested Naga: these were the neighborhood
Naguenos 33
drunks who sang loudly in the middle of the night, these were the
sando-sporting movie-goers who put their smelly feet behind your
back, these were the tambays who heckled you if they overheard you
converse in English. Once upon a time he encountered these proto-
humans only in sari-sari stores and construction sites—verbal snipers
who took pot shots at passing mestizas and colegialas. But this time
they were all over the place and filled up every nook and cranny of
Naga—zealots of pakikisama and utang na loob, secure in their being
tunay na lalake, formidable by their sheer number in preying on the
good, the meek, and the beautiful.
What started as a simple desire to date Cynthia Dee now included
a desire to find a meaning behind the grossness he saw in these ty-
rants. He was not too keen on granting interviews, but this time he
thought he was lucky they talked because by articulating his thoughts
about the problem of evil, he might be able to arrive at some answer
to the question on why the Catholic Church was no longer capable
of delivering the good from the bad. He had suffered long and alone
from the tyranny of the strong. With no answer in sight, he thought
what he needed now was dialogue: to talk to someone not so much
to reveal ready-made thoughts but to discover for the first time so-
lutions not accessible in solitary thinking but in dialogue. To commu-
nicate dialogically was to be clarified. And Cynthia Dee was willing
to provide the company.
"Turn on the recorder," he said. "I think I know what to talk
about for your report."
She pressed on the recorder. He moved it in front of him, took
a deep breath, and talked directly to it: Why is there so much evil
now? he began. Just read the papers: a man rapes a girl then slays
her in the most gruesome manner, a motorist shoots a fellow motorist
through the^chest over a parking space, a jobless bolo-wielding laid-off
employee blames it on the boss and massacres the boss' whole family
in their sleep, a laid-off driver walks into the house of his former
employer and sprays bullets on the sleeping family members, a baker
hacks his 65-year-old employer, his 65-year-old wife, and their 25-
year-old daughter because they would not lend him money for New
Year's Eve, a houseboy stabs dead a live-in couple over an argument
about money. And that is just the local news. What about that suicide
cult in Cheiry, Switzerland, that what's his name Luc Jouret's Order
of the Solar Temple, that cost the lives of 53 people; and what about
that poison gas attack in a Japan subway, that bombing of a Federal
building in Oklahoma City—how do I describe all these, these mo-
tiveless malignities of Iagos. What is going on in the world?
You ask me why I think the prayer to Saint Michael should be
recited again at the end of the Mass? This is my answer: Because
Saint Michael is the Archangel divinely mandated to protect us against
the malicious activities of Satan. I cannot understand why in the re-
form liturgy during the pontificate of Paul VI, they took away the
recitation of this powerful prayer without taking into account the
fact that we need the Archangel's protection especially now that the
millennium is ending and the forces of evil are getting very powerful.
Why did they remove it? Satan must be having a ball as the Church
keeps disarming itself.
Why has the Church ceased to be the refuge of the good, the
meek, and the beautiful? he went on, all warmed up now. What has
caused the Catholic Church in the Philippines to degenerate into an
institution of arrogant and insecure clerics whose aim it seems is to
gain political clout by heckling and insulting fellow Christians over a
one-issue policy on birth control? You're taking Art Appreciation in
Ateneo, right? Are you familiar with Raphael's fresco, Repulse of At-
tila? Or Alessandro Algardi's bas-relief also depicting the same theme?
You know, hija, these works of art tell us that once upon a time the
Church was genuine and apostolic. When Attila the Hun threatened
the Holy City, the people of Rome ran to the Pope for protection.
I'll tell you an interesting story: The year is 452 A.D. The Huns have
razed Aquileia, and Western Europe has crumbled. Meanwhile the
Vandals have taken North Africa, and the Suevi have captured Iberia.
Britain has fallen too under the barbarians, and the Gauls sign a sepa-
rate peace with the Goths and Burgundians. All these prepare the
ground for the Huns to invade Northern Italy. Their intention is to
lay it in ruins. And now we see the Huns thundering directly toward
Rome, the heart of western civilization. The people of Rome, aban-
doned by their own rulers, run to Pope Leo the First for help. The
Naguenos 35
Pope immediately orders his cardinals and archbishops to assemble

together and lead the people in procession to Mincio in the vicinity
of Mantua, there to meet the barbarian invaders. Vexilla Regis Prode-
unt, he assures his flock. The Huns witness a long procession coming
out of the city to meet them. Attila is awed by the strange pomp of
incense and stately robes and the singing of sacred hymns led by an
aging Pope holding aloft the processional crucifix. As soon as he is
face to face with the invader, Leo, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ,
Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Servant of the servants of
God, successor of Peter who holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
points the crucifix at Attila, the Scourge of God, and orders him in
the name of Christ to depart from Rome. Attila, confused, turns back
and retreats to the Danube, never to bother Rome again.
That was glorious. That was an incident of a magnificent past
when the Church was sanctuary of the good, the meek, and the beau-
tiful—the Holy Ghost descending upon the Vicar of Christ. Why is
the Church no longer like this?
And why have they replaced the crucifix with a mere cross? What
is wrong with the image of a crucified Christ? True it is that a crucifix
accentuated the Passion, but the Passion won the victory over evil.
Rick was in his element. To him, the crucifix was the Supreme
Symbol. Cynthia was absorbed taking down as much notes as she
could, as Rick asked and answered his own questions, argued, de-
fended, and amplified his positions. He said he could not understand
why the post-Conciliar Church saw an irreconcilable contradiction in
the ignominity of a God crucified and a God triumphant. The crucifix
was the ultimate comic narrative epitomized, he asserted, because
through it, Christ had conquered death and sin—good had triumphed
over evil. He knew of the apostolic indulgences attached to the cru-
cifix. He himself carried a Latin crucifix everywhere he went, he
said, and unzippered his shirt-jack to show it to her—a heavy Crux
Immissa with a metal base stem longer than the other three arms.
"This is no ordinary crucifix," he told her. "This was blessed be-
fore the Second Vatican Council." He zippered it back inside his
shirt-jack. "A crucifix blessed before Vatican II is an effectual sanc-
tuary against evil."
Suddenly the glass doors swung open, and three men in sando
and dirty slippers burst in. Rick's stomach churned. He immediately
recognized the sun-burnt leader whose sharp looks darted at him.
The guy wore a baseball cap with his name embossed in front all
caps: BHOY. Cynthia's back was to the door, so she kept taking down
notes, unaware of the group's arrival.
"Hoy1." Bhoy yelled at her. "Seen-Cha!"
Cynthia froze at the sound of the voice.
"Why you hiding-hiding here?" Bhoy lunged from behind her. His
two companions followed their leader. "Why you hiding-hiding here?"
He fondled a greasy gasket as he faced her.
Cynthia smiled meekly: "Hi, Bhoy." Rick felt the rapid pulsing in
his veins.
"We looking-looking for you in beer garden." The smell of his
armpit and motor oil infected the area. "Well-well-well-well, so-o-o-o
you dating-dating, ha?" Bhoy licked a rotten front tooth. "You no
introducing your date?" He stabbed her side with a dirty finger. "You
no introducing"—pointing the dirty finger at Rick—"him?"
Rick burned.
"S...sure, Bhoy. This is Mr. Caceres, my...adviser."
The three men looked at each other with mock surprise. The fat
companion made throat noises of the word "adviser." Bhoy lit a ciga-
rette and sucked the smoke deeply. The red glow of the stick's tip
caused the stubble of whiskers on his chin to appear like flax fiber
before scutching. He crouched close to Cynthia's face and exhaled:
"You no introducing your—Sugar Daddy?" A ripple of chuckles spread
among the group.
Cynthia begged Rick with her eyes to do something.
"Brods, please lang," Rick begged them in his falsetto voice. He
was blinking furiously.
"Okay lang, p're," cut in the ponytailed companion who kept
twisting a number 12 electric wire with a pair of pliers. He wore a
basketball uniform with the words D' Bad Bhoys of Naga printed
in front of the shirt. A rose tattoo quivered in his right forearm each
time he squeezed the pliers. "Easy ka lang—gurang."
Naguenos 37
"We understanding/' Bhoy assured Rick. "Old carabao eat young

grass." He grabbed Cynthia's arm. "Correct, Cynthia?"
Cynthia winced at being gripped near her armpit. She felt ticklish.
"Please, Bhoy, I'm not..."
"Answer me1." Bhoy pressed the arm tighter, his middle finger
ringed with a thick Greek-lettered ring pressing her arm-bones. "An-
swer meee! Correct, Cynthia?"
Yes."
"Speaking Inglis da puta," Bhoy applauded. Turning to Rick:
"Suwerti mo, p're. After you pucking her, me next, ha?"
Cynthia jerked her arm away. She stood up and glared at Bhoy,
her eyes brimming with tears. The other customers stopped clicking
their spoons and forks and watched them. Rick despised them for
just staring at them, doing nothing.
"Tara, p're," the fat, squat-stanced companion urged Bhoy.
"SibatV' Bhoy ordered his two companions, as they pulled out of
the table and stormed out of the room, slapping each other's backs
and guffawing at their own spew of billingsgate, evaporating as
abruptly as they had burst in.
Cynthia shuddered in sobs. Rick's hands trembled uncontrollably
as he helped her fix her notes and put back the tape recorder in her
handbag. "Let's go," he said quietly.
The walk to the exit seemed endless, for they negotiated their
way through a swarm of eyes that scrutinized their every step all the
way to the glass door.
He made the sign of the cross when he descended the stairs.
Cynthia kept blowing her nose in a paper napkin. He felt like saying
something, anything to comfort her but could not find the right
words. Midway, in the landing, he felt like putting one arm around
her, but on second thought felt it not proper, so they descended the
stairs in silence.
When they stepped out of the arched exit downstairs into
busy centro, he saw an uncaring city. Here he was, mortified and
humiliated, but Naga went about its usual cadging self concerned
only with its own vested interests: street urchins ganging up on him
with outstretched palms as soon as they spotted him, shoe shine boys
insisting to shine his shoes even if he had already said no a thousand

times, strikers squatting in front of a padlocked store across Elias
Angeles Street clanging their donation cans at every passing pedestrian
while holding aloft a begrimed streamer that cautioned the military
to back off 50 meters away—all insensitive to his feelings.
They crossed General Luna Street to merge with the bottleneck
of pedestrians funneling through the fruit stands under the Kevin
Gold Pawnshop sign on the other side of the street. The roar of
passing trimobiles exonerated him from saying something to break
the uncomfortable silence between them. They kept pace with a roll-
ing pison that jangled alongside them as they negotiated the length
from Robertson Department Store to the PNB building. The racket
was panacea—the sound reminded him of a tugboat berthing a
freighter up the Bicol River—but short-lived, for when they turned
left on P Burgos Street then right again on Igualdad, they lost the
sound completely.
Halfway in Igualdad, right in front of the Rizal Technical Institute,
he heard another sound—this time a faint brass rhythm thumping
out from behind. He looked at Cynthia: she heard it too—the familiar
chunking and syncopating fracas of a car stereo wafting full blast from
behind. Rick looked back. His nerves shot up. There it was, the
lighted dragon of steel with clashing cymbals stalking from behind
and leering at them through blinding halogen lamps.
The fat man drove the jeep. Bhoy sat in the front seat while the
ponytailed man hunched himself up at the back like a wolf salivating
at a prey.
Rick and Cynthia walked faster, but the mean machine whoomed
once and took a cruising position alongside the walking couple.
Bhoy kept repeating the word "sorry" above the din of equalizers
and speakers, but Cynthia ignored him and walked straight ahead.
"Sorry, Cynthia, okay?"
Cynthia refused to look at him; she walked faster each time Bhoy
mentioned the word. Rick kept up with her pace, but the couple
were no match for the four-cylinder steel which had only to whoom
again to catch up with them. "Sorry talaga, okay?"
She pretended to talk to Rick.
Naguenos 39
"Sigue na, sorry na, okay? You now riding-riding with me, okay?"
Cynthia held Rick's hand and walked hurriedly on.
"Buray ni ina mo}" Bhoy spat in front of her.
The couple broke into a run. Rick heard them cursing behind. As
soon as the couple reached the grotto at the end of Igualdad, they
knocked and knocked at the door of the PNP Kabayan Center. No-
body answered. They rattled and twisted the locked doorknob. A
burst of loud laughter wafted from the jeep. The couple turned right
and ran the whole stretch of Santa Cruz Street, then turned left at
Barlin, and left again at Iglesia Street and right at the guava-lined
path towards the side entrance of the Holy Rosary Seminary. A rusty
padlock locked the rusty iron gate. Rick rattled and rattled the bars.
Cynthia tried to climb it, but the jeep had arrived and parked itself
outside Judge Grageda's compound. Bhoy jumped out of the jeep
and stalked towards her. Cynthia came down helplessly, unable to
climb over the gate. "Why you so pakipot to me, ha? I said sorry na,
okay? You riding-riding with me na, okay?" She tried to move away
from him, but Bhoy would cut her off in whichever direction she
moved into. He would not let her go, he said, unless she talked to
him—face to face.
Sensing her way blocked, Cynthia turned her back on him every
time Bhoy spoke to her. Bhoy kept moving from side to side to get
her to face him but each time he did she changed position. Rick
watched lamely, especially when the fat man in the jeep caressed an
aluminum baseball bat. After several tries, Bhoy stood still, apparently
on the verge of giving up, and spoke to her from behind. Then he
dropped on his knees and begged her to forgive him. He asked her
to look at the skies. Rick noticed a faint smile in Bhoy's mouth.
Suddenly, Bhoy grabbed both sides of her shorts and pulled them
down, down to her knees, gripped them harder and pulled them
further down to her ankles, exposing her panties. She squatted awk-
wardly and pulled up her shorts quickly. The jeep's occupants roared:
pink! pink1.
Bhoy walked back leisurely towards the jeep, snickering from ear
to ear. The fat man turned on the engine.
"Sopot!" Cynthia shouted at Bhoy as he boarded the jeep. Bhoy's

mouth curled like a botete fished out of the Bicol River. He turned
around. "What you say?"* Cynthia saw his eyes turn bloodshot.
He charged at her and slapped her face. It made a dull, flat sound.
"You no call me that, ha?" Cynthia cupped her face and screamed:
"AraaayV' Bhoy grabbed her by the scruff and dragged her towards
the guava tree. "Sopot, ha?" He grabbed her shorts and tried to pull
them down again but she crouched her body and gripped her garter
tight. When the other companions saw this, they jumped out of the
jeep and grabbed her arms and legs, lifted her hip-high, dropped her
torso to the ground, raised her legs high up in the air, and pulled,
pulled her shorts off. Bhoy hid her shorts in his maong jacket. "Sopot,
ha?" He started unfastening his belt.
Rick pushed the ponytailed companion against the wall. "Run!"
Rick yelled at her. "Run!"
She sprang up to run, but the fat man caught her hair and shook
and shook it, dragging her to the ground. She wobbled in sharp pain
and kicked blindly, but the iron hand gripped tighter and towed her
back to Bhoy.
Rick lunged blindly at the fat man, but a fist from nowhere
punched him in the face. The whack startled more than hurt him.
Cynthia thrashed her body from side to side, but the ponytailed man
joined the fat man drag and heave and push and pull her back to the
guava tree where Bhoy stood rubbing his pants and groaning.
Rick jumped at the ponytailed man, but another fist, this time
from Bhoy, struck him squarely in the mouth and sent him reeling
against the iron gates of the seminary side entrance.
As soon as the two companions had delivered the girl back to
Bhoy, the fat man released her, picked up the aluminum baseball bat,
and sloped towards Rick for the coup de grace.
Suddenly, Cynthia kicked herself free and rushed to Rick. But
Bhoy ran after her and pulled her easily by the nape. Rick took ad-
vantage of the split-second distraction to kick the fat man in the
groin. Then he ran towards Cynthia, punched Bhoy in the chest, and
pulled her free.
Naguenos 41
A flying kick from behind sent Rick thudding face flat on the
ground. "Hold her!" Bhoy ordered his two men. Looming over Rick,
Bhoy's face wrinkled up into a grimace of displeasure. "You hitting-
hitting me, ha? HA?" Then he punched and elbowed and kicked,
kicked Rick wildly in the head and chest and nape and kidneys. The
fat man passed the baseball bat on to Bhoy. Bhoy grabbed it, took
aim, and struck, struck Rick in the chest and ribs and neck and mouth
until Rick curled up in pain in the swath of uncut grass, his mouth
salty with blood.
Cynthia rushed up to Rick, but the fat man grabbed her ankles
and yanked them up, up, throwing her violently, face first, against
the ground. She turned about face quickly and kicked and kicked
the air, but the ponytailed man ran up to her, grabbed her wrists and
pinned them overhead. "Sigue na, sigue na," the ponytailed man said.
"Ako muna, ako muna," Bhoy said, and he fell on her clumsily. His
rubbery mouth stopped her cries. She twisted from side to side to
avoid his mouth, but his weight pressed her ribs. Bhoy gripped her
face to steady it, digging his long fingernails into her cheeks. The ring
finger dug her jaws like a dentist's tool. When he steadied her head,
he kissed and kissed her mouth. "Mmm, Cynthia, mmm, Cynthia,
ahhh." His breath smelled like rotten egg. She opened her mouth to
scream, but he gagged her mouth with his face towel. She whimpered
and moaned when his hands searched under her shirt, pushed up her
bra and cupped her breasts. "Oh Cynthia, I labing-labing you," he
kept groaning, as she arched her back each time he released his weight
to stroke her breasts. Then he grabbed the shirt and pushed it up
and across her bare shoulders—up some more until the shirt covered
her face. Her breasts popped out and swung like bells.
"Take it off, take it off," the ponytailed man pinning her arms
overhead said, pouting to her panties. Bhoy and the fat man grabbed
both sides of the garters of her panties and yanked them off, slid
them off one leg, and left them to dangle on the other. Then Bhoy
knelt in front of her, between her legs, forced her knees apart, and
smooched and smooched her pudenda. Finally Bhoy prepared himself
for thrusting position, unzippered his pants, dug in, and pulled out
his bloated member.
Suddenly Rick lunged in from the side, unzippered his shirt-jack

and pulled out his crucifix. "Satan1." he screamed, thrusting the cru-
cifix at Bhoy's face: "Depart!"
Bhoy pushed Cynthia to the ground with his left hand and used
his right to parry Rick's arm but recoiled when he saw the crucifix
in front of him. Rick stiffened his arm: "Blood of Christ, save us!
Deliver us from evil, Lord, deliver us from evil!" A strange energy,
like an electric current, surged up through his body. "The power of
Christ commands you!"
Bhoy jerked back and stood up. The crucifix seared him. His two
companions released Cynthia's arms and legs when they saw their
boss awkwardly parrying Rick's arm. Bhoy shunned the crucifix aimed
directly at him, and waggled a finger in warning, but Rick kept jabbing
it to his face.
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in this battle—NOW!"
Rick charged forward. "Pope Saint Leo the Great, help us—NOW!"
Bhoy licked his rotten tooth. The unexpected defiance confused him
he had forgotten to tuck in his shriveled sopot that peeped out of
his unzippered trousers.
"Jesus Christ!" Rick pressed forward, his stiff arm aimed at Bhoy's
face, "Save us! Water from the side of Christ, save us!" Rick's entire
body shuddered from the voltaic energy inside him: "Vexilla Regis
Prodeunt! Vexilla Regis Prodeunt!"
The trio kept backing off until they reached the jeep. The fat
man fumbled with the ignition keys.
"Depart!" Rick boomed, "Satanists!"
"Sibat!" Bhoy snapped back in his falsetto voice.
The jeep whined, backed up hurriedly and whoomed away.
But Rick would not stop. "Vexilla Regis Prodeunt! Vexilla Regis
Prodeunt!" he roared and roared. His voice echoed through Barlin
Street, and his whole body shook in convulsions, unable to contain
the surge of energy rising over him. But the power left him as soon
as the jeep had turned right in the main street and disappeared. Ex-
hausted, he dropped on his knees and pressed the crucifix to his lips
and just knelt there in the tall grass and closed his eyes and bowed,
sobbing his thanksgiving to the God represented by the crucified im-
Naguenos 43
age he was clutching. When he opened his eyes, the surroundings

were too dark to see the details of the crucifix.
He went back to Cynthia and saw that she had already put on
her panties. She was searching in the grass for her shorts, but Rick
reminded her that Bhoy had inserted them in his maong jacket. "It's
all right," she said, slipping in her sneakers. Evening had fallen, and
besides the extra-large Naga Quadricentennial shirt was long enough
to cover her down on their way home to Santa Cruz.
Flakes of Fire, Bodies of Light
In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness:

there was the Fire.
Teilhard de Chardin
Hymn of the Universe
TANYA agreed to allow her husband to die at home, but when he

lost consciousness, she panicked: she phoned for an ambulance.
"I can't do it, Sid," she kept telling him inside the ambulance. "I
can't do it."
The screaming wagon careened right and left as it weaved its way
through the early streets of Naga City. When it reached the back
door entrance of Mother Seton Hospital, Tanya disembarked first and
supervised the transfer from stretcher to hospital carriage. She stood
alongside her husband to make sure he reclined securely, steadied
the carriage when the crew wheeled it noisily through the corridor,
steadied the carriage some more when it turned a right angle, steadied
it again as it rammed the swinging doors of the emergency room
where Dr. Go, the resident physician, stood by waiting.
The dizzying activity of hospital business confused her. She found
herself signing papers, taking down instructions, buying vials from the
pharmacy. When she returned to the room, a surgical nurse had al-
ready swabbed Sid's shaven head, neck, and chest with a disinfectant,
Naguefios 45
then painted the entire area with tincture of iodine. Tanya was sure
Sid had opened his eyes to protest what was going on, because at
this moment the anesthesiologist lunged forward to knock him out
with sodium thiopental.
After doing this, the team transferred the patient to the nearby
catheterization section where they inserted a rubber tube through his
trachea down to his lungs. Then they attached the same tube to a
flexible hose fastened to a machine.
They punctured his body with intubated needles and drew long
incisions in the legs and thighs, before they wheeled him into the
operating room where the surgeon, his arms resting on green-draped
armrests for maximum steadiness, gripped a scalpel, took aim, and
slit open the patient's neck right under the jawbone so the team
could work directly on the insides of the throat.
The battle to save Sid's life lasted till noon. As soon as they closed
him up, Dr. Go emerged from the operating room and announced
to Tanya the success of the operation: after extensive mouth surgery,
he said, they were able to save her husband's life.
At the Intensive Care Unit, Tanya asked the surgical nurse who
monitored Sid's vital signs why the shape of her husband's face had
changed. The nurse assured her the disfigurement resulted from the
removal of certain affected parts. Tanya asked what these affected
parts were, and the nurse named over the tongue, the larynx, the
jawbone, some tissues in the neck; but told her not to worry but be
thankful her husband was alive.
Why? Sid's eyes said it all when he came out of sedation. Why?
His head throbbed and his nose bled from the nasal tubes. Why?
"I'm sorry, darling," Tanya kept repeating. She stroked his arm to
explain to him what had happened, but he lapsed back into uncon-
sciousness. Ramon, the electrician at the telegraph office where Sid
worked, arrived, carrying a vinyl chair for Tanya. He checked out the
bottles and tubes while Tanya sat and stared blankly at the encepha-
logram.
EARLY that year, after his biopsy had determined terminal cancer,
Sid and Tanya had made up their minds to refuse surgery and further
hospital treatment, and allow Sid to die at home. He told her he was
ready: he'd lived a good life, and now that it was ending, like every-
thing else must end, he accepted it and resigned himself to the in-
evitable. When the time came, he had entreated Tanya, his only favor
from her was to promise him not to prolong his life unnecessarily—no
surgery, no artificial gears—but to allow nature to take its course. He
had no regrets, he had told her: the years they'd been together were
the time of his life. "And to think everybody in Naga predicted our
marriage would not last," he had quipped. "But look at us now—ten
years and still very much in love."
Nobody in Naga had approved of their relationship. Tanya's par-
ents categorically opposed the idea of their daughter marrying a man
older than they. Her sodalist friends were leery of the old goat (Has
Naga run out of young, eligible bachelors?). The Sisters of Charity
frowned on the mis-match not so much over the age-gap but over
this lecher's wrecking the plans—better plans—they had laid out for
her. Tanya had graduated magna cum laude from the Colegio de Santa
Isabel, and the nuns had already groomed her up for the convent, an
invitation she kept postponing even after graduation. In the mean-
time, she taught College Physics at the Colegio.
None of the Ateneans her age dared court her. Not that she had
a wallflower face (the boys chased her classmates whose faces, ac-
cording to Dona Choleng of the CWL, could stop a clock). Far from
it. She had a clean, freshened-up face that required no make-up—a
cross between Marlene Dietrich and Saint Catherine Laboure—and
a whistle-bait figure (firm turned-up breasts, deliriously huggable
curves, straight long round legs) not even her Mary-like dress could
conceal. The boys steered clear of her because she found them trivial
and corny—and she showed it. She had a talent for wearing that
long, sack-cloth-and-ashes face whenever the Ateneo boys were
around, and a genius for compelling everyone to act medieval when-
ever she was around. She had built a wall around herself that was as
impregnable as the Colegio's of the 50's no Ateneo braggadocio nor
Jesuit jokes could break down. To enter her required an inside job.
Even then, it was no guarantee of winning over Miss Manhid.
Naguenos 47
They met because Sid's niece Margot became Tanya's student,

and Margot had employed aggressive selling techniques to pressure
her uncle dear to buy a sponsor ticket the nuns had dragooned each
graduating student to dispose of for the school's presentation of Rodg-
ers and Hammerstein's The King and I. Tanya herself led the
usherettes on gala night. She welcomed him at the entrance (Margot's
uncle? I'm very pleased to meet you, sir), praised his niece's class
performance (Took after her uncle, right, sir?), inquired about his
huge private library and collection of 75 rpm records (Margot told
me a lot about you, sir), and escorted him all the way down the front
row of the CSI Auditorium. When he went home that evening, Mar-
got wondered why her usually caustic self-proclaimed opera expert
critic uncle mentioned nothing of the musical but bombarded her
instead with questions about her Physics teacher.
Nobody in Naga had expected Sid to marry—including Sid him-
self. His former classmates in the Ateneo de Naga had all gotten
married, many of them to each other, as evinced by the familiar pairs
who attend AdeN Alumni Homecomings yearly. Marriage had never
crossed his mind, not even during Fr. Bob Hogan's Marriage Guidance
class in the old days. He gave three reasons: First, because as a stu-
dent, the Jesuits had taught him that God and studies came first:
Primum Regnum Dei. Second, after graduation, because Ignatius of
Loyola, whose own hour of grace arrived late in mid-life, taught him
that late vocations to the Order were not impossible. And third, after
he passed the "Cape of Good Hope"—and Camus had replaced Ig-
natius—because marriage was an institution, and only absurd people
lived in institutions.
Tanya changed all that.
Sid knew nothing of Physics but a lot about old-fashioned tactics:
he opened doors, stood up every time she entered the room, walked
on the outer curb of the sidewalk. He came from a different world.
He courted her with roses and haranas of Sarung Banggui under her
verandah. He comported himself like an Atenean of the fifties, an
Alter Christus who did everything for the greater glory of God, ex-
uding good manners and right conduct that showed even in the way
he dressed—the white bucks of Pat Boone—differently but immacu-

lately.
This neatness in thought, word, and deed charmed her. He was
different. He told her about the world where he came from, and it
fascinated her. In the fifties, he said, they built houses in Naga with
neither grills nor bars, and they slept with open doors and windows
(this last one was beyond her). During their Saturday afternoon hiking
paseos (the hell with Naga's chismosas) on their way to Mass at the
old Penafrancia Shrine, he'd point out to her the areas where the old
sites once stood: Bragais Studio, the Esso gasoline station (put a tiger
in your tank), the Macandog dormitory, Radio wealth, Tolentino's bar-
bershop, Bib's tailoring. None of them stood in their proper places
anymore. Then he'd tell her about the Hula-Hoop, Sarsaparilla,
monggo con hielo at K. Mori, the Queen Anne lollipop, Tootsie Roll,
the Howdy Doody comic books, Sputnik, so she'd get an idea of
Naga's past.
More important, during these paseos, he'd sing to her the songs
of Nat King Cole, then ask her, between songs, if it were true "as
they say" that he sounded like the Unforgettable Cole himself
(smooth as silk ba? soft as velvet ba?), and she'd say iyo nat sigue
na emboldening him to sing to her in succession "Mona Lisa," "Pre-
tend," "Once in a While," "The Very Thought of You," and "Quizas,
Quizas, Quizas" all the way to the door of the Church. One day, he
asked her why she never sang along with him, and she said she did
not sound like Nat King Cole. So he told her he collected other
records too like those of Jerry Vale and Vic Damone and The Platters
and The Four Aces and Tony Bennett (ah, that King of Broken
Hearts); but she said how about the women singers, and he said he
knew their songs too, so he taught her the songs of Doris Day and
Joni James and Sarah Vaughan and Patti Page and Patsy Cline and
Dinah Shore, and before long she found herself singing along with
him "Que Sera Sera," "Secret Love," "It's Magic," "Crazy," "I'll Be
Seeing You," "Hi-Lilli, Hi-Lo," "Days of Wine and Roses" as they
walked to Church. On the way home, however, their signature song
was always "Walking My Baby Back Home."
Naguenos 49
He sang and he lectured. He seemed to know everything about

what he called the good old pre-Gonciliar Naga. Very soon she had
in her fingertips names like Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson,
Rogelio de la Rosa and Carmen Rosales, Sandra Dee and Troy Dona-
hue—all the way down to John F. Kennedy, the Peace Corps in Naga,
Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson. His sense of history, however,
ended in 1965, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, to be
exact, when Vatican II came to a close and the Church started chang-
ing the liturgy.
This intrigued her because he would not explain why he refused
to update his history after that; and the more she asked him about
this, the more he intrigued her. He was like sin: at first she resisted,
next she yielded a bit, then she liked it, finally she embraced it.
And so they got married and so they raised two daughters: Mar-
lene and Lana. They rented an apartment in Barlin Street and de-
signed the interior in the ambience of the fifties. He worked in the
telegraph office and she held on to her teaching position at the Cole-
gio. To augment their income, she threw Tupperware parties. Naga
accepted the age-gap and allowed them to live as ciphers, but when
they came home, they danced the Cha-Cha (move over Arthur and
Kathryn Murray) and sang the songs of Sarah Vaughan and Nat King
Cole and prayed the Rosary nightly—for thanksgiving, she'd insist,
not for favors, for her cup runneth over.
That was why the diagnosis caught her by surprise.
It all started with a persistent sore throat and hoarseness. He
relieved the sore throat by chewing lozenges in the office and gurgling
warm water and salt at night. The hoarseness, however, would not
go away. After a couple of months, Tanya noticed a swelling on the
right side of his neck, but he paid no attention to it (just tonsillitis
or mumps) until his nose started to bleed when he sang. When the
lump increased in size, Tanya insisted they go see Dr. Go immediately.
The physician looked at Sid's throat with a small mirror. When
he used a laryngoscope to look deeper, Tanya's pulse quickened. Dr.
Go suggested more tests. After a series of X-rays and scans, the phy-
sician advised a biopsy.
When Sid awoke from the surgery, Dr. Go told him that the
laboratory results would be in by next week. Meanwhile, he advised
Sid not to worry because they had ascertained nothing yet, and be-
sides, he assured the couple, most biopsies turn out to be benign.
They braced themselves up for the longest week in their lives.
More important, they doubled their prayers. By the end of the week
Dr. Go rang them up and asked them to come to his clinic imme-
diately.
Dr. Go's facial expression said it all. Sid's condition was far more
serious than he had feared: infiltrating squamous cell carcinoma, said
Dr. Go. The leech had seized the epithelium of his jugular vein and
slowly choked his carotid artery. The remedy: a series of cobalt ra-
diations on his neck and head, and chemotherapy to contract the
swelling, and later, within six to eight weeks, radical neck surgery to
remove the malignancy. He also advised Sid to stop singing.
The first thing Sid thought of were the children. What would
happen to Marlene and Lana? They were only in elementary school.
To leave them this early would be cruel. In fact, together they had
already planned up their lives: Marlene, the bookworm, wanted to
take up literature, and Lana medicine (although the younger looked
forward more to her forthcoming birthday party with the usual bar-
quillos and ice cream and balloons and games and Daddy's magic
tricks). Apart from this anxiety of disappointing his little girls, Sid
did not go through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression
characteristic of the terminally ill, but accepted his condition in a
spirit of total resignation that amazed everyone including Dr. Go him-
self who couldn't help admiring him for taking it all, in Sid's own
word, philosophically.
Tanya did not. The death sentence crushed her. Morbid thoughts
plagued her. Was God punishing her for turning her back on the
convent? What sin had she committed that God was now robbing
her of the only happiness in her life? Eventually she lost her appetite
and will to live. She avoided socials and canceled the Tupperware
parties. She also stopped singing to her husband. One night, returning
home from school, she felt a black veil drop over her face, shutting
from her the sights and sounds of Naga.
Naguenos 51
This numbness happened every night. Daytimes were normal, but

as soon as evening fell, she experienced difficulty in seeing, as if she
looked through a veil—darkly. Like night blindness. Like Naga's
brownouts. On really bad nights, even her hearing suffered: she felt
as if corks were plugging her ears, as if she were listening to their
old phonograph with defective speakers.
In the meantime, Sid. acquiesced to it all: he wore a plastic mask
so he would not move when they bombarded him with radiation; he
sat through every new fitting to re-adjust the mask; he closed the
lead door docilely every time they gave him the signal.
He put up with all the side effects of the treatment: diarrhea,
fatigue, nausea, mouth and throat sores. The radiation burned one
side of his face and dried up his saliva and caused his hair to fall out.
His teeth decayed, and his skin peeled and changed color. He lost
all appetite and vomited daily.
After a month and a half, Dr. Go decided to open him up. Sid
stared at the X-ray photos showing the shaded areas marking the
tumor, as the doctor explained to him the details about the forth-
coming surgery: he'd remove the tongue starting from here, yank out
the jaw bone under that area there, slice off the inner parts of his
throat from here to there.
That was when Sid decided to die at home—in one piece.
Tanya opposed the idea. It is suicide, she unleashed her grab-bag
of arguments inside the trimobile on their way home, life is a gift
from God, if you refuse treatment you are transgressing God's
authority over life, the Church commands us to preserve life at all
costs. The Church especially backed him up, Sid whispered back
hoarsely when he reached home and found his reference books on
the subject. He showed her Augustine's Confessions and let her read
the part where the saint pleaded for a keener awareness of death;
he showed her Pius XII's 1957 address to the International Congress
of Anesthesiologists where the Pope said that although the physician
had the obligation to use all ordinary means of preserving life, there
was no obligation to use extraordinary means; he showed her the
quotation from Paul VI who said that heroic measures were not in-
dicated in hopeless situations; he showed her Iura et Bona and asked
her to read aloud the last paragraph under "Due Proportion in the
Use of Remedies":
When inevitable death is imminent in spite of the means used, it
is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treat-
ment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation
of life.
But none of the above placated her: it is not for lay persons like
us to interpret Church teachings, she insisted, no person has juris-
diction over his life, our dominion over it is one of stewardship only,
nobody has the right to end his life on his own authority because
that authority is God's alone who is the absolute author of life, and
do not forget that Canon Law imposes Ecclesiastical penalties on
those who practice euthanasia. And what about Evangelium Vitae?
You did not show me Evangelium Vitae.
"Then get Evangelium Vitae," he said in a barely audible whisper.
So that afternoon, during her vacant period, she dropped by St.
Paul's Bookstore to buy Evangelium Vitae, the Pope's latest and
strongest encyclical so she could show to Sid how the Pope con-
demned the "culture of death" as a sign of the defeat of the culture
of life. Sid read it avidly, then asked her to read aloud the second
paragraph of section 65:
Euthanasia must be distinguished from the decision to forego so-
called "aggressive medical treatment," in other words, medical proce-
dures which no longer correspond to the real situation of the patient,
either because they are by now disproportionate to any expected results
or because they impose an excessive burden on the patient and his
family.... To forego extraordinary or disproportionate means is not the
equivalent of suicide or euthanasia; it rather expresses acceptance of
the human condition in the face of death.
That silenced her. Her Church, the One Holy Roman Catholic
and Apostolic Church, the Church that had promised to lead her
back to heaven, had spoken through the Pope, and spoken out loud
and bold. So he stayed home and refused all medication save the
anodynes which a private nurse administered daily. The children,
meanwhile, transferred temporarily to their maternal grandparents'
home. Unlike Dylan Thomas, he whispered to the tearful Marlene
Naguenos 53
who liked modern poetry, he would not rage against the dying of the
light; instead, he would go gentle into that good night.
Until that morning. Before the private nurse had reported for
duty, he jerked and arched like a fish out of water. Tanya tried to
stabilize him, but when he lost consciousness, she panicked and called
for the ambulance.
SHE stared at the encephalogram. The small, luminous objects

darting on waves along the dark background reminded her of the
measured cadences pf Sid's old songs. She knew Sid missed the music
from the old phonograph, but she could not bring the thing here:
even private radios were not allowed in the ward.
She stared again at the encephalogram: the small, luminous ob-
jects darting on waves along the dark background hinted to her the
transience of it all. How short life is, she mused, as each flake ap-
peared and disappeared on the screen so fast it hardly had time to
say hello. One flake entered her life ten years ago and now this one's
going away so soon she wished she could hold on to it and stay its
disappearance (for at least a few more years, perhaps? until the chil-
dren were grown up, perhaps?). Sid was a flake all right, but a very
special flake among the millions, could the Fates and Furies make an
exception just this once to a special flake whom she loved without
reserve, absolutely without reserve?
Well, almost, she smiled amusedly. Two things she did not un-
derstand about him, two peccadilloes. The first was his sense of hu-
mor. Once in Farmacia Uy to buy alcohol, he had said to the saleslady
in front of his wife: "Knock-knock. Who's there? Alcohol. Alcohol
who? Don't call me, I'll call you." And he laughed out so loud Tanya
looked sheepish trying to extricate herself from the embarrassing situ-
ation.
In another instance, when Lana was doing her Biology homework,
he asked his youngest daughter to use Anatomy in a sentence. None
of her sentences pleased him, until she said "sirit" and he gave the
"correct" answer: "Bring back my Anna to me."
Tanya could not quite understand how a person his intelligence
fussed over picayune jokes. He had a profusion of them. She could
take Bob Hope or George Burns, but not this type of jokes. But
nothing really puzzled her more than the ad he paraded in the sala
one morning that showed a fair-skinned teen-aged girl inviting eve-
ryone to try this new skin whitener lotion because it had worked on
her to the effect that she obtained dramatic results after only four
weeks' application. He laughed out so loud when he showed the ad
to her he almost tore up the newspaper. Exasperated, Tanya asked
what on earth was so funny about it. He said he gave up on her, but
if he died ahead, he wanted her to remember him for this particular
ad, in fact he'd see to it, he said, his shoulders now shuddering in
uncontrollable guffaws, that he'd come back to her in the form of
that ad three days after his death—ha-ha-hala ka, Tanya—so she'd
know he was alive and laughing on the other side and she'd stop all
the silly mourning for him.
That was the first time he mentioned death.
The second thing that puzzled her was his attraction to Hinduism.
Catholicism resembled Hinduism, he once said, in color, fire, and
ritual—until the Second Vatican Council denatured it. Lucky Hindus,
he said, who never had a Council. Then he told her the reason why
he refused to update his history beyond 1965: He never quite got
over the changes in the Church, he said. He believed that ritual was
sacred, and anything sacred needed a special language—Latin for Ro-
man Catholicism—and special music—Gregorian—and special vest-
ments to express itself. He disagreed with the reformers' opinion
that you had to understand every ritual in order to appreciate it. Do
the Hindus understand their mantras? Latin was full of mantras, but
it was not their meaning as much as the sound that mattered, for
the idea was to raise one's consciousness to an altered state of worship
and not reach out and shake hands like the way the Naga Lions Club
members conduct their meetings.
More important, he said, he liked Hinduism because, like Ca-
tholicism—and unlike Protestantism—it did not mind bringing God
too close to nature, a tendency that made Paul Tillich very nervous.
He likened Protestantism to Buddhism: pure, ineffable, simple, ab-
stract, transcendent, dry. Pre-Conciliar Catholicism, on the other
hand, with its fiestas and processions and angels and patron saints
Naguenos 55
and stained glass windows, was baroque. So he was going to be faithful

to Trent.
That was fine to Tanya as far as it went—until he brought up the
topic of the Hindu practice of cremation. Only then did she realize
he was that interested.
Sid himself designed the first crematorium in Naga. Ramon, Sid's
electrician at the telegraph office, installed the wirings for the blow-
torches. In an interview with local newsmen during the ribbon-cutting
ceremonies, Sid had specified the shortage of land in Naga, the ex-
orbitant prices of burial services, and the overcrowded cemeteries as
the reasons why he built the Naga Crematorium. Cremation, he said,
was not only economical but also swift and hygienic, because there
was no slow process of decomposition to worry about. For starters,
he said, he had written a will requesting that his body be cremated
and his ashes scattered in the Bicol River.
In spite of the fact that the crematorium had been completed
months ago, no cremation had occurred in Naga. This surprised Sid
especially when the local clergy had neither opposed nor encouraged
the idea as a result of Vatican II's lifting its prohibition of the practice
as intrinsically evil and incompatible with Church teaching. Later, he
discovered the real reason behind Naga's reluctance: Naguenos feared
that cremation might interfere with the resurrection of the body.
Tanya herself never visited the place. She listened to him and
backed him up on it, but crematoriums were not her cup of tea. At
any rate, during one of their last paseos in the centro after the prog-
nosis, he bought a cartolina canister in the Naga Supermarket, and
told her that that was where he wanted his ashes to be placed. Then
he led her to the Dagsaan, the concrete landing under the Tabuco
bridge where the Virgin of Penafrancia begins her annual Fluvial Pro-
cession every September, and right under the ogee arch, as he hoisted
her elbow to steady her steps, he told her where exactly to scatter
his ashes before throwing everything, canister and all, into the river.
And do not worry about the cartolina canister polluting the river, he
joked, because it's biodegradable. Apart from this "morbid" side of
his personality—and the jokes on the corncob—she considered herself
lucky to have found the perfect husband in the world.
And now this perfect husband lay dying.
DAY in and day out she'd sit in front of the encephalogram, pre-
paring her Physics lessons. Next week she would be lecturing on Feyn-
man's diagrams. The chapter had always intrigued her. She would
always start by looking at the reaction of one collision—a K-meson
and a proton coming together:
K" + p -> p + K" 4- 7t+ + 71" + n°
Not much problem there, she would muse, because then she
could work out what she did not find—
K- + p —> p + K- + 7t+
—using Feynman's conservation of charge.
Then she looked at one diagram: an electron and a positron col-
lide, mutually annihilating each other. Instead of disappearing, how-
ever, the impact created two photons traveling at the speed of light.
Where did they come from? She looked at the other diagrams in the
book. All of them followed the same process: the annihilation of initial
particles in a subatomic event resulted in the creation of new ones.
But where did these new ones come from? How she wished Sid
could talk to her again and give her his usual "philosophic" answers.
How she missed his lectures.
One morning, Ramon brought into the hospital the old buzzer
set they used for practice in the telegraph office. He slid it under
Sid's right hand. Sid recognized it immediately. His middle finger
pressed the key: di-di-di-dit dit di-dah-di-dit di-dah-di-dit dah-dah-
dah. Ramon deciphered it: H-E-L-L-O. Tanya's eyes lit up.
In the following days, Sid communicated to her via the buzzer.
He asked about the kids, informed her where it hurt, and advised
her what to do. Very soon, both of them cobbled their own "short-
hand" conversation with Ramon acting as interpreter. It was like re-
ceiving telegraph messages over a long distance.
But the conversations always ended up with P-L-S P-U-L-L P-L-
U-G.
It was during these "conversations" that Sid amplified his reasons
why he remained faithful to Trent: Vatican II had denatured Catholi-
cism. And he meant not just the sight of nuns in mufti or priests in
Naguenos 57
civvies. His grievance went deeper than the cloying sentimentality or

the brainless homilies by boy-priests, deeper even than Humanae Vi-
tae or the Mass in shopping malls or Liberation Theology with its
emphasis on social justice that substituted for genuine Catholic doc-
trine.
The whole issue, he said, was the loss of order. Because of the
Council, Roman Catholic Naga suffered a sea change from order to
disorder. In the past, he said, the riddles of life posed no major prob-
lems for Naguenos, for the Church gave purpose and meaning to
everything. Even if they did not understand its complexities,
Naguenos lived in a universe as children lived in their parents' home,
secure that the cosmos was in good hands. The Church was mono-
lithic and the way to salvation lay not in ordering the world to one's
purposes but through aligning one's purposes to Rome. If the Naga
faithful hearkened to their duties—The Commandments, Mass and
Communion, evening processions—they would reap eternal reward;
but those who refused to do so would perish.
But suddenly this monolithic, inert, geocentric Church had
changed. Suddenly the universe no longer pivoted around the litur-
gical cycle but around social activism and politically correct histories
on one hand and upraised arms in Evangelical-charismatic emotion-
alism on the other. Speaking in tongues had replaced Tantum Ergo.
Suddenly the Church had deconstructed itself.
He wanted none of this. He believed that if the Catholic Church
were to survive, it had to sift the lessons from Vatican II and commix
them with the best of Trent. Otherwise it would die a natural death
as it crossed over into the next millennium. Post-Conciliar Catholics
keep forgetting, he complained, that Christianity is more than social
activism or group dynamics. Christianity, he added, is more than
"Amen-Amen" or hand-clapping or tearful testimonies or peace-be-
with-you greetings during Mass. More, he believed that the Church
went deeper than doctrines and laws. The enduring appeal and
strength of Catholicism was its sacramental experience, not dogma.
Catholics remained Catholics not so much because of the Church's
doctrines and laws but because of its imagination and intellectual
consistency, its mystery and rituals. If the Church went back to its
roots, it could survive. He said he believed this because the Church

was for spirituality, and not expression of community or Lacanian
psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, affirmative action, semiotics, her-
meneutics, or other lintiks.
Tanya belonged to the future, not his past. Her job was to bring
the richness of his past into the new century. He had given her a list
of must read books—the best ever that have been written—to nourish
her as she crossed over into the next millennium, for nothing beats
a good book to plumb life's impasses, he said.
But she had to release him and let him go, because he was drag-
ging her down by his unwillingness to change. If Vatican II was not
for him, he reasoned out, the next century would even be less so. If
he were going to heaven, he was going there now as a pre-Conciliar
Catholic or not at all.
His work was done. He'd given her a first-hand experience of
how it was like to live in pre-Conciliar times so she'd appreciate the
past's importance as the Church moved towards the future. If she
did not release him, she'd never be able to bring his past into the
new century. That was the way it went: Moses had to fade out so
that Joshua could lead the people to the Promised Land, Anchises
had to die so Aeneas could realize his pietas and found a new Troy,
the Precursor had to diminish so the Messiah could begin His Work.
So P-L-S P-U-L-L P-L-U-G.
But still, she could not do it.
In the days that followed, she agonized more than her husband
did just watching him decline and transform flab to skin and bones.
His independent nature rebelled against any form of assistance, and
this time he could not even go to the bathroom or dress himself up.
They had stuck tubes all over his body so that the slightest motion
even to slide in the bedpan was torture. To sensor arterial pressure,
they had attached an arterial transducer to his calf to make sure blood
reached his toes so that he would not develop gangrene. In addition,
wall-hung machines monitored his lung and blood and brain activities.
Because he was unable to swallow solid foods, the glucose and fats
and amino acids and vitamins and medicine from hanging plastic-
Naguenos 59
packed colored liquids entered his system via a catheterized large

wrist vein.
Meanwhile, the duty visits grew more and more stilted (You're
looking better, buddy. Back on your feet in no time.) and brief. After
a month, except for Ramon who did the errands and scut work, no-
body bothered to come.
Ramon and Tanya took turns watching the patient. Ramon re-
mained in the hospital while Tanya checked out the house. Last week,
three nights in a row, Ramon stood vigil because Tanya attended to
Marlene, who had fever, at her lola's house. Every time her tempera-
ture rose, she kept calling for her dad.
Tanya stared at the encephalogram: luminous objects darting on
waves along the dark background. She greeted each object as it ap-
peared and bid it goodbye as it disappeared. She tried to acquaint
herself with each object to ask where it came from and where it was
going, but they all moved on without pausing—darting in view and
disappearing, darting in view and disappearing. They reminded her
of the Venerable Bede's stray sparrow that swiftly flew through a
house, entering one door and passing out through another. As she
stared at the encephalogram pondering on these things, she noticed
something familiar: the luminous objects darting on waves resembled
the shape and movement of the wriggling sperms of life.
Life is a flake of fire, she thought. So ephemeral. Where it came
from and wither it will go she did not know. But it is there, she
thought, surely it comes from somewhere and surely it has to go
somewhere. What if it disappeared completely? No. The Feynman
diagrams disproved this. Sid's old songs disproved this.
Perhaps, not by holding on but by letting go lay the secret of life,
she reflected, surprised by her sudden insight. Whatever she pos-
sessed she needed not cling to, for she could have it again and again:
perhaps the eternal became possible only if she released the temporal.
Or perhaps, she should not grieve too much over passing things
as a singer should grieve over the vanishing notes of a song, for she
could always recreate them whenever she wished. Death was just
the pause within the melody, the silence and apparent emptiness that
each song needed to express itself with greater panache.
She looked at her husband. He had been gazing at her. She nod-
ded at him and smiled. He smiled back. She did not have to tell
him: he knew. He pressed the buzzer key. Ramon deciphered it: T-Y.
She rearranged Sid's pillows and guided his head to sink back into
them. Dr. Go had informed her Sid would live for a few more days,
give or take a few, after she'd have withdrawn the life supports. Be-
cause it was evening already, the hospital would give permission to
discharge the patient early the next day, as soon as Dr. Go arrived
to sign the walking papers. Once home, however, a private nurse was
to continue administering a narcotic painkiller. That was the arrange-
ment with Dr. Go as soon as she decided to make up her mind.
She held Sid's left hand, while her other hand felt the chord.
Ramon deciphered the rapid di-dah's in the buzzer set: A-M G-O-
I-N-G H-O-M-E T-Y F-O-R E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G L-O-V-E Y-O-U.
"I love you too, darling," she said.
And then she pulled the plug.
That night, at home, Tanya sorted out Sid's bedside books from
the heap of pajamas and shirts that lay at the foot of the bed. To-
morrow, when the hospital discharged him, she wanted to be pre-
pared to read to him his favorite classics. She busied herself fixing
up the bedroom. She dusted the cabinets, mopped the floor, deo-
dorized the bathroom. She was playing Nat King Cole's "Red Sails
in the Sunset" in the old phonograph when the telephone rang in the
sala.
"This is Mother Seton Hospital," the voice said.
THE necrological services started about mid-afternoon, three days

after Sid's remains had lain in state in the old Penafrancia Shrine.
During those three days, the casket rested on a wooden bier at the
side altar, but Father Itos Caceres ordered it transferred to the main
altar for the final rites. Two office mates delivered impromptu eulo-
gies to a rarefied audience composed of Tanya's parents, her two
daughters, Margot and her husband, Dona Choleng of the CWL, some
nuns, and Tanya's sodalist friends. Tanya herself conveyed her brief
thank you's to all those who helped Sid in life.
Naguenos 61
After Father Itos had finished the rites for the dead, the mourners
queued up to file past the open casket for one last look at the dead.
Tanya stood by her husband while the rest passed by to bid him
goodbye. She looked at Sid inside his satin-quilted bed. The cadaver
looked prim in Barong Tagalog. His cosmeticized face reminded her
of the sun-tanned look of the groom ten years ago she caught cat-
napping after the hectic wedding reception, except this time the
wrong shade of lipstick gave him away. The pallbearers shut the lid
and carried the casket to the funeral coach outside the Church.
Tanya and her two daughters walked the whole length of the
funeral procession along Penafrancia Avenue. The others rode on a
rented passenger jeepney. Along the way, Tanya remembered the areas
Sid had pointed out to her during the times they had walked together
to Church where once stood the old landmarks of Naga, and she
wept uncontrollably each time she remembered the "Walking My
Baby Back Home" Saturday afternoons.
The funeral coach played Schubert's Ave Maria until the proces-
sion arrived at the Naga Crematorium.
The funeral director, in a gray-cum-dark-stripes uniform, un-
locked the Cadillac's tail end and lifted its humpbacked stern—his
cue for the staff to move in and steady the casket that was now
gliding easily toward the coach's exterior ridge where a hydrolically
operated porto-lift receiver caught the casket for the pallbearers who
transferred it to an accordion-shaped, balloon-tired carriage which
they wheeled noisily from the foyer to the center of the hall where
Ramon and his office mates stood by waiting.
It was the first time that Tanya had seen the crematorium. The
austerity of the building exterior would have provided her no relief
if those narra trees at the back did not soften the architecture. She
walked carefully as she entered the unfamiliar portico with its unre-
lieved uprights and horizontals. But her uncertainty quickly turned
to awe and comfort as soon as she passed through the waiting room
and entered the chapel that was both sanctuary and room with a
view of a large crucifix outside standing as a beacon on a mound
isolated from the building.
The tiled walls inside the Naga Crematorium proper exuded a

spruce and sterile look—a cross between an operating room and an
undertaker's morgue, except that this place smelled neither of alcohol
nor formaldehyde. Tanya noticed the absence of the usual scalpels
and needles and tubes and congers and scissors and forceps and pumps
she associated with unpleasant rooms. Ramon had obviously looked
after Sid's work and maintained it as instructed.
In the middle of the hall loomed the oven-shaped dome of the
incinerator.
The pallbearers pried off the coffin's lid and lifted the stiff ca-
daver from its narrow bed. The two office mates helped support the
corpse descend and lie down in the flat metal sheet facing the mouth
of the incinerator. Ramon opened the iron door. The mortician po-
sitioned the body by turning it slightly to the right so that it would
not roll down the metal bed. Tanya came forward to check out on
last minute preparations. She held her husband's stiff arm. Sid ap-
peared more like a gigantic wax-doll than a corpse, even if the right
shoulder pressed down exaggeratedly to reveal the suture incisions
in the carotid artery. A portable tape recorder kept playing "Immacu-
late Mother," pre-taped for the occasion by the sodalists. Tanya
checked out the Rosary in Sid's left hand. On his right hand rested
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
When she gave the signal, the men inserted Sid's body in the
retort. Tanya took one last glance at her husband inside the chamber
before Ramon clamped the iron door and bolted it, the solid clank
sounding like a street manhole cover when a car runs over it.
Ramon pushed up the switch-bar. The cracked petroleum
whooshed out of the chamber's interior ducts. Through the tiny ob-
servation vent Ramon checked the flame inside and saw the overhead
blowtorch strike Sid head first burning all his hair. The side flames
fanned out and enveloped the body. The crematorium worked exactly
as Sid had intended it, Ramon thought. Then, his face aching from
trying to hold back his sniffles, Ramon worked on more gadgetry.
The plastic gauge above the machine sloped up as the heat kept rising
inside the chamber.
Naguenos 63
Tanya peeped in the observation vent. The overhead blowtorch

had bored a hole through Sid's cranium, while tongues of flames clung
tenaciously over the rest of the body. Fire consumed, fire purified,
and fire lighted up one's journey, she mused, as the chamber
hummed. She looked up at the plastic gauge: 2,000 degrees Fahren-
heit. When she peeped in again, Sid's torso had cracked open, ex-
posing a luminous interior. From the depths of the pylorus, a swarm
of glowing red spots, like burning red ants, lit up the blooming entrails
and disgorged itself along the pelt-like furrows of the body. Suddenly
Tanya saw flakes of fire jet out of the flame and dart out in all di-
rections, spawning a conflagration of pyrotechnical objects that re-
minded her of the luminous objects that darted on waves along the
hospital encephalogram.
The sight fascinated her. She felt strangely drawn to it, as if an
unseen hand held her in place. The longer she observed, the more
the darting flakes reminded her of something else even more familiar:
they left trails similar to the vapor trails of particle collisions in the
bubble chamber photographs of her Physics textbook. A surge of
strong emotion rose from inside her. She could hardly believe her
eyes. Right in front of her unfolded an intricate sequence of particle
collisions and decays. She saw negative pions dart out from Sid's
body of light, collide with the flying protons, and annihilate each
other on impact. But instead of a vacuum, the explosion created a
shower of positive kaons, negative kaons, and neutrons. The neutrons
flitted off without a trace, but the positive kaons decayed into three
pions each1 Where did they come from? Then the negative kaons
jetted out once more and collided with the flying protons, annihilating
each other on impact. Again, instead of a vacuum, the explosion cre-
ated new photons and lambdas which decayed into—again!—new
photons and new negative pions. But that's impossible! she thought.
Until that moment she "believed" in the mathematical truth of
Feynman's diagrams in theory only. But right before her eyes the
diagrams repeated themselves over and over in sweeping curves of
anti protons shooting up from Sid's luminous body and colliding with
the flying protons and creating positive pions flying off clockwise and
negative pions flying off counterclockwise and pairs of photons ere-
ating electron-positron pairs of electrons curving counterclockwise

and positrons curving clockwise. How is this possible? She stared in
disbelief.
Stunned, she returned to her bench.
After two hours, Ramon turned off the heat. Then he unbolted
the iron door to fast-cool the retort. Using iron pincers, he tugged
out the hot metal sheet. The fire had reduced Sid's remains to bone
fragments. Ramon used the same pincers to segregate the burnt up
shards of clothing from the bone fragments. The ribs caved in at the
pincers' slightest tap. He picked up a wooden bush hammer and pul-
verized the larger fragments into chalk-like pieces, then pulverized
these geometric-shaped bits further until they evened off into a heap
of powdery ash and white gravel which he swept into the mouth of
the cartolina canister Tanya had provided him earlier.
Only a few visitors remained. Tanya's parents had gone ahead to
bring the others to the house for the novena. Tanya said she'd follow
later, as soon as she had disposed of the ashes. Her friends respected
her wish to do this alone.
Cradling the canister in her arms, Tanya flagged a trimobile and
instructed the driver to conduct her to the Tabuco bridge. A certain
apathy in her brain caused her to allow the trimobile to take its own
route, blurring everything in view. The driver dropped her right in
front of the arched Dagsaan, the concrete landing under the bridge
Sid and she had visited during their last paseo.
She descended the concrete steps of the ghat, but teetered pre-
cariously when the high tide swept past the middle aisle and mois-
tened her moccasins. The habit of counting upon his hand to hoist
her elbow to steady her steps lingered. A gust of wind from up the
river chilled her sodden feet, causing her whole body to feel prickly
inside her husband's bulky jacket she was wearing.
She uncovered the canister's lid. This was the way he had wanted
it: no tomb, no spot, no cinerarium, no marker to bind him to a focal
point of sorrow. She poured out the contents in a scattering motion.
The ashes gushed out and floated, then forked out in V-shaped for-
mation. One prong journeyed toward a promontory of dune that jut-
Naguenos 65
ted near the scree, while another lengthened toward the water lilies
before a freak wave whirlpooled its crest down the river-floor.
She patted the canister's bottom to release the clinging residue.
The chalky particles flew off and blanketed the coruscating pebbles
along the banks. A passing banca sliced through the now elongated
bands of ashes and forced the nicked parts to wend their way under
the houses on stilts until they crossed inlets where fingers of narrow
gorges daubed them in mud.
She bent low and pushed the empty canister, mouth first, in the
water. The vessel resisted. She tilted it, then thrust it deeper, causing
it to gurgle and belch forth shampoo-like bubbles. After water had
rushed inside the canister, she released her pressure and allowed the
vessel to sink in its own weight. Won't pollute river. Biodegradable.
Sid's words.
Meanwhile, the breeze had puffed the remaining ashes up the
river. She watched the waves carry the chalky particles past swaths
of grass and round the bends curving around marshes glutted with
industrial debris. She watched them appear and disappear in the rows
of sand dunes that tried to deflect their paths. Soon they were out
in the open river, free at last.
The rim of the horizon shimmered like lit gunpowder, causing
the distant ashes to emit a mineral glow. The brightness induced vi-
tality globules to dance before her eyes, reminding her of the white
dots in the encephalogram and the flakes in the crematorium. They
danced to and fro as the afternoon sun hit the waters, forcing her to
close her eyes.
When she opened her eyes, she felt as if the black veil had been
lifted from her face. But the place did not look familiar. The sur-
roundings had suddenly changed in appearance. Everything throbbed
with life. The stones, the river, the trees, the air, all pulsated with
life. She saw the sun's rays spritz the earth's atmosphere with a
shower of energy. When they collided with the nuclei of the air mole-
cules, they refracted in smithereens of secondary particles that sprin-
kled the earth and descended in powdery mist upon the river. She
saw subatomic particles oscillate and flow through dee-like cloud-for-
mations in the sky, and spin and spin inside the cyclotron-shaped
cloud-accelerator very much like the collision experiments of high

energy physics in her textbook.
Then she heard what sounded like the faint tweedle of sitars.
The diacoustics came from the sky and sounded like the playing of
a shringar Hindu raga. The sound grew louder and louder until the
sympathetic effect of double violins enveloped all Naga. As she gazed
up, she saw forming up the faint outlines of a strange figure with
four hands and two feet tiptoeing in space. One hand held a drum.
She could not look directly at the other hand because it held a flaming
torch as glaring as the sun with flakes of fire jetting out across space.
Then, half-squatting on balanced hips in what seemed like the mo-
tions of a dance, it slapped the drum with its third hand: the pri-
mordial sound stirred the figure to sway gracefully in rhythmic
motion, its limbs moving like those of a giant centipede. The figure
vanished as quickly as it appeared, but before it did, it looked at
Tanya, smiled softly, and raised its fourth hand in a gesture of "Do
not fear, all is well."
When her surroundings returned to normal, she felt that all her
fears had disappeared. With their disappearance came a strange un-
derstanding how simple and obvious the analogues for life have been.
Why she had not seen all these before, like the illusion of death, for
example, which was no different from the sun sinking in the horizon
only to shine brightly in another part of the world, she did not know.
All she knew was she needed not fear anymore because the God of
Death was also the God of Life who never ceased Her/His dance of
destruction and creation from subatomic particles to spiral galaxies
millions of light years away. The soft smile from the dancing figure
in the sky thrilled every atom of her body that she just stood there
breathless with bliss, gazing at the river and the sky until the distant
coconut trees darkened and the sun disappeared on the horizon.
WHEN she turned around, she saw that evening had fallen in
Naga. She also noticed that her night blindness had disappeared. For
the first time in weeks, she saw the centro light up for the night.
First flashed out the headlights of private cars, next the street lights,
then the electric yellow bulbs of vendors along the sidewalks. Finally,
Naguenos 67
one by one, other lights followed. She saw fluorescent lights peer
out of the shops, kerosene lamps light up the second floor of the
Naga Supermarket, glints of silver streaks perk up like tinfoil the
dark facades of distant apartments—all blending with the suddenly
switched on neon lights of Zenco Footstep and New South Star Drug
and flood the centro with a motley of colors that looked like Christ-
mas lights reflecting on polished vinyl table covers.
This sudden conflagration of light and color of early evening in
Naga cuddled her and stirred her to stare off into space in wordless
joy. The sky had changed from red to violet, like a priest changing
his liturgical vestments. Suddenly, the flapping of wings from a flock
of salampati blocked her view. The cacophony of rush hour traffic
had driven them from the mezzanine window of Fiesta Hotel to perch
in single file onto the relative safety of the telephone cable in front
of Benito Commercial.
She walked past Pacific and Atlantic bakeries, occasionally scrap-
ing the mud-packed soles of her moccasins against the gritty stretch
of the side road. When she crossed Padian Street she felt as if the
corks of her senses had popped off, leaving her vulnerable to the
sights and sounds and smell of the city. She picked up the minutest
details: the click of billiard balls two blocks away across the din of
traffic, casserole lids clanging inside Cosmos Restaurant, a toothpick-
chewing man coming out of New China Restaurant and shredding a
piece of napkin into tiny pieces. In the sidewalk intersection, a clutch
of vendors compared wares. A tubercular-looking man butted in,
flashing a broad grin, but he changed it into a frown when he realized
his "wrong entrance." A woman in Allied Bank uniform pushed herself
through the slow-moving crowd and dragged along a reluctant Naga
Parochial School boy on one hand and a roller of groceries on the
other.
The smell of freshly baked mamon wafting from Madame Poon
reminded Tanya to hurry home. She remembered that tonight the
neighbors were joining the Sodality of Our Lady in reciting the Rosary
and prayers for the dead. Her sodalist friends promised to bring the
viands for supper, but Tanya said she would cook the rice. She thought
of dropping by Naga Restaurant to buy wrapped pancit canton and
toasted siopao in case more visitors arrived. After all, this was the
first day of the cremation and some friends might stay late to keep
her company during her first night alone.
Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, she'd give his clothes away
to the Penafrancia parish. In the afternoon, the Tamaraw from the
Holy Rosary Minor Seminary was coming over to pick up the two
balikbayan boxes of books Sid had set aside for donation to the li-
brary. All these, she promised him, would go.
All except the must read books. And the old 75 rpm records.
She had asked to keep the records. She'd asked to hold on to them
so she could play them over and over in the old phonograph: the
cool and reassuring voices of Nat King Cole and Vic Damone and
The Platters and The Four Aces and Jerry Vale and Patsy Cline and
Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Shore and Doris Day and Tony Bennett.
She'd asked to keep them because she'd need their company in the
coming years and evenings ahead when she'd be reading, batch by
batch, Sid's must read classics beginning, this month, with Augustine's
Confessions and Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Teilhard de
Chardin's Future of Man and Cervantes' Don Quixote and the other
classics Sid had lined up for her to stand her in good stead as Naga
crossed the fjord towards the Third Millennium—for she'd need the
background voices, while she read, of the Four Aces singing "Three
Coins in the Fountain" or Doris Day's "Que Sera, Sera" to bring her
back to the kinder years that Sid had stood for to give her strength:
the Naga years before the Internet and CATV and the Big Mac, the
pre-Conciliar years when Naga was young and easy as the Underwood
typewriter and carbon paper and mimeograph machines and stencils
and bingo parties in the parish hall—those days of wine and roses so
essential for the sudden epiphanies of Bicol exiles, in or out of Naga,
who, like her, had put their faith in a Church that promised to lead
them safely into the next millennium and, after this exile, all the
way to the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resur-
rection of the body...
A burst of loud laughter broke off her train of thought. Outside
Boning's Trading a group of girls in UNC high school uniform were
gawking at some poster the harried saleslady kept smoothing back in
Naguenos 69
place at the glass display window, but the breeze kept flapping it off
the masking tape. As draconian remedy, she drew out a long strip of
Scotch tape and plastered it across the poster, there. The students'
fits were contagious. One girl, patently the class comedian, ap-
proached the poster and pointed a chubby finger at the printed tes-
timonial. Then she twisted her rubbery face and mimicked the
poster's model's come-on smile, causing the whole barkada to roll
up and shake in uncontrollable guffaws. Tanya moved in closer to
examine the butt of such irresistible hilarity. The poster showed a
fair-skinned teen-aged girl inviting everyone to try this new skin whit-
ener lotion because it had worked on her to the effect that she ob-
tained dramatic results after only four weeks' application.
Wings
FLYING terrifies me, that is why I have never taken a plane ride in
my life. But last week I dragged myself by the ears to buy a one-way
plane ticket from Manila to Naga for two reasons: first, because my
mother is celebrating her seventieth birthday today (next to the
Penafrancia fiesta, I do not miss my mother's birthdays); and second,
because landslides have blocked off the South Road again.
You heard me right: I have never been on a plane. I have never
seen the inside of a plane except in the movies. In fact, I have never
been higher than the top storey of the Naga PNB building. Even that
experience made me airsick for a week. I know what you're thinking.
But let me tell you this: sitting on a plane that soars at 16,000 feet
is not exactly my idea of travel. Even a bird does not fly that high.
Maybe heaven is up there somewhere; but I'm in no hurry to go to
heaven yet.
What's all this big deal about air travel, anyway? All the great
men and women before Kitty Hawk never got a few feet off the
ground—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cleopatra, Taras Bulba—and they
got where they were going. But today, if you say you haven't been
on a plane, people snicker.
I have watched commercials of contented passengers dancing and
dining in the "friendly skies"—the airlines would do anything to entice
you to fly—but to me, they don't mean a thing. The bus or train it
is. So what if you call me a coward. I'd rather look foolish than dead.
Naguefios 71
So what if I never enjoyed a fellowship for overseas study because

none of those silly, smirking exchange program directors approved of
my special requests to travel by sea. So what if I'm fifty years old!
Flying is unnatural, chico. It defies the laws of nature. It goes
against God's will. It is suicide, and suicide is a mortal sin. If God
intended us to fly, He'd have given us wings. Until today, there was
no way anybody could do to get me on a plane because I have vowed
to myself I'd never fly unless it was a matter of life and death and
the pilot's family and the Pope were on board the same plane with
me.
Why did I change my mind? Like I said, it's my mother's birthday.
The second reason, however, is a lie: the South Road's passable al-
ready. So why am I flying?
It's the South Road. You see, for years I always kidded myself
that the South Road, however long it took (the longer, the better,
I'd chime), was fun. The bus trip is a vacation itself, I'd convince my
friends. Your vacation starts the very minute you board the bus. You
meet interesting people on the bus. The food at the stop-overs is
great, and you get the chance to treat yourself to the roadside lanzones
stands. Besides, what's the hurry? I don't want to arrive at my des-
tination that fast.
The brutal reality, however, is that the fifteen-hour South Road
trips (if you're lucky) mean detours, zigzags, lunar craters, smashed
up concrete blocks that cause broken transmissions and flat tires, if
not from your bus, from cargo trucks stuck up in the middle of one-
way roads under repair. And since Bicolanos, when they travel, bring
the whole house with them, the brutal reality also means traveling
under overhead racks loaded with sacks of laundry and copra and
cans of biscuits and boxes of leaking fish sauce.
For years I'd arrive at my destination weary, bleary-eyed, un-
kempt, foul-smelling, beat up from being jammed up for so many
hours, my buttocks flattened, my feet swollen; but I kept kidding
myself it was fun all the way. Perhaps I got special delight in torturing
myself.
What about the train? Once upon a time I took the train, but I
stopped it because the toilets were very dirty—as dirty as our national
elections. I think they deliberately make the toilets dirty so passengers

would not use them. I also stopped taking the train because on one
night trip while I was trying to open a window (before they perma-
nently grilled them up) to let in some fresh air, somebody out there—
a dead shot—threw shit at the train, and the passengers (who were
asleep at that time) woke up and thereafter kept their aesthetic dis-
tances from me.
I love coming home because my mother lives in Naga and refuses
to move in to Manila. Not that I have to. But I'd take every oppor-
tunity to come home no matter how long it took because I, too, love
everything about Naga. Well, almost everything. I dread Monico's
Naga jokes. Monico is our family driver and a self-anointed wit and
positive thinker (if you're a driver, don't say you're a driver; say you're
in the transportation business). He's going to meet me at the airport
and "educate" me on his "music lesson" quizzes I heard a thousand
times already: Does music make you happy? No, it makes Marvin
Gay. Does music make you think? No, it makes Stevie Wonder.
Kurnel
Anyway, my strongest reason for flying eclipses all others: I want
to conquer my fear—no, not of flying—of beautiful girls. You heard
me right. I'm fifty years old and I'm still a bachelor. My friends envy
my single-blessedness; they admire my talent in eschewing the tender
trap. What they don't know is I'm single because courting girls ter-
rifies me as much as flying. What's the connection? Everything. You
see, when I was in elementary school, I admitted my fear of flying
to my crush. She guffawed and hooted at my face so lustily I saw
her tonsils vibrate. Then she turned to her barkadas, and they too
bent over and howled and shrieked their lungs out the uproar shook
the walls of the Colegio de Santa Isabel. I don't know, but since then,
every time I'd approach a girl with the intention of courting, my
knees would wobble, my voice would quiver, my jaws would tighten,
my eyes would blink furiously. I'm afraid my fear of flying is inex-
tricably linked with my fear of beautiful girls. I'm sure that if I con-
quered my fear of flying, I'd conquer my fear of courting girls. This
is the reason why I bought this ticket. Imagine the sea-change I'd
experience, the self-confidence I'd exude. For once, I want to feel
Naguenos 73
like a hero. I want to be self-confident like, well, Arnold Schwar-

zenegger.
I once watched a movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger grabbed
the horizontal bars of a plane's landing gears and hung on there in
midair. Boy, did he impress the girls in Emily Theater! I want the
girls to call me a hero, too, but how can they when I'm riddled with
phobias? Somebody jostles me in SM Cubao and I quickly check out
my wallet. I hear a rustle and I'm sure there's a burglar downstairs.
I'm afraid of black cats, open spaces, computers, ladders, the number
13. I'm allergic to dust, tall buildings, English teachers, bridges, ele-
vators, born-against Christians, Opposite Dei Catholics, Cardinal
Ratzinger, underwriters, work. I'm also a hypochondriac. I'm afraid
my shortness of breath is a symptom of a heart attack. I'm afraid my
migraine is a symptom of a brain tumor. I'm afraid these contortions
in my stomach are symptoms of cancer. I'm afraid of being buried
alive. I'm afraid the Graphic literary editor would sneeze at this short
story and advise me instead to plant camote.
To think that all these grew out of my fear of flying.
But the die is cast. I am going to cross the Rubicon and I'm going
to conquer these silly fears once and for all. I can hardly wait for the
thrill of triumph once this ordeal is over. For fear, wrote Cardinal
Newman, is the lengthened shadow of ignorance; and I scoff at the
face of superstition. For starters, I refused to mail those chain letters
this morning. I'm going to fly and that's it, let the fears be damned.
Besides, this is no way a fifty-year-old man should behave.
So I unplugged all the cords in the office, cleaned up my desk,
donated eggs to the Carmelite Monastery, paid up my water and
electric bills, picked up my clothes from the washer-woman, returned
all phone calls, returned the empty softdrink bottles to the sari-sari
store that did not charge me for deposit, and, for good measure,
made a quick pilgrimage to Agoo. I also bought myself a brand new
Ray-Ban sunglasses for the heroic look.
Despite the heavy traffic jam, I finally make it to the Manila
Domestic Airport, so here I am, Ray-Ban and all, standing in front
of the Departure Area, in two minds whether or not I should cross
the Rubicon. I look around for reassuring sights, but two things im-
mediately attract my attention: a sign that tells me to beware of

low-flying aircraft (as if I can do something about it) and an insurance
counter that reminds me'there is something unsafe about flying (why
aren't there insurance counters in bus or train terminals?).
I want to turn back. But a baggage boy appears from nowhere
and threatens to carry my maleta (where were you when I was car-
rying my burden from the gasoline station to this place?), and I avoid
him by entering the main door of the passenger terminal. As soon as
I'm in, I show my ticket to the guard (all right, all right, I'll place
my luggage on the belt of the X-ray machine, and my attache case
too, you don't have to repeat it, I'm not from Libmanan, you know).
I walk towards the check-in area and weigh-in my maleta. A uni-
formed lady attaches a tag around the handle and adheres a baggage
claim stub on my ticket. I tell her, as confidentially, as discreetly as
possible, that I want a seat as near the emergency exit as possible,
and that I want a window side seat, you know, the ustial, I tell her,
to impress her that I'm a regular flyer here. I need to look out the
window so that I can anticipate the impact of the crash. A uniformed
male attendant behind her lifts my bag from the weigh-in counter
and throws it at the back. I worry that these guys might load it in
the wrong plane.
Before entering the pre-departure lounge, I show my I.D. and
ticket to the two officers at the counter. While they're busy scruti-
nizing my photo sans the sun glasses, I drop a twenty peso bill in the
Red Cross can, and the nice round lady behind it beams at me and
says thank you. A Jesuit priest once told us that no harm could pos-
sibly come to a traveler who donates to the Red Cross.
Once inside the pre-departure lounge, the first thing I notice is
the profusion of No Smoking signs. This is the airport's subtle way
of warning us of danger, I assure myself to slow down my palpitations.
I walk past the doughnut stand but I restrain myself from eating
because fasting is good for the soul. At the magazine stand, I buy
myself the latest copy of Graphic to relax myself, and, boy, do I relax
when I read this well-written feature by a Jesuit-educated, brilliant
Catholic thinker who's telling me, true to the spirit characteristic of
that Society, that the mysteries of Agoo were not so joyful after all .
1
Naguenos 75
Boarding for Naga passengers is on Gate One 1, but I sit in front

of Gate 5 outside the medical clinic because I want to have a better
view of the framed picture of the Divine Mercy (Jesus, I trust in
You, I keep repeating the prayer below the picture).
Five minutes before boarding time, I go to the men's room even
if I do not feel like it so I won't have to use the plane's lavatory. The
pressure up there is so great you could get sucked out of the toilet
bowl, you know.
Suddenly, the yellow light with NAGA written on it and the green
light beside it start blinking. My eyes start blinking along with it as
I solemnly rise to join the queue on Gate 1, my head bowed in
resignation. I take off my Ray-Ban and put on the viernes santo look.
You don't feel like a hero when you're in Death Row. I pull out my
boarding pass, hand it to the uniformed lady at the door, and with
feet of clay, trek my last mile towards the waiting Fokker 50. I feel
like Longinus of Marinduque on his way to decapitation, my attache
case on one hand and a photo of John Paul II on the other.
I see tow tractors pulling baggage trailers and I worry again if
those guys loaded my maleta in the wrong plane. I see water trucks,
refueler trucks, boom trucks—how keen our senses become when
we're dying—until I walk past the huge wings of my plane. What's
this fire extinguisher doing under the steps of the ramp? My heart
is in my throat. I look at the wings and the wheels and I wonder
admiringly how Arnold Schwarzenegger did it.
We are welcomed by a heavily made up stewardess, and my knees
start wobbling again, so I wear a deadpan face to appear businesslike,
and besides, this is not the time to entertain impure thoughts and
desires. Once inside, I see the other stewardess, similarly made up,
assist the other passengers in finding their seats. I look at one stew-
ardess and the other and I get this impression that they spend more
time on grooming trying to look like Dolores Hart instead of checking
out the safety devices.
I don't like this idea of sitting in this enclosed cabin, all strapped
in. I feel as if I'm inside a giant metal toothpaste tube before they
screw the cap on and seal us in. I scan the passengers as they come
in. This guy looks like a mad bomber. Here's a guy who looks like
that fiend in that Texas chain saw massacre movie. A family of four
pops in and my blood pressure shoots up because their faces remind
me of the Addams Family. Ah, a young mother with her infant, a
Madonna and Child, thank God, I hope she sits beside me. She does
not. Instead I have this matron who looks like a steroid-addled body-
builder for company. I see a foreign-looking guy embark. He's carrying
an attache case like mine. Did they check his hand-carried luggage
for plastic explosives? His eyes appear cloudy. I think he has some-
thing else in mind besides flying to Naga—like forcing this plane to
fly to Libya. There is a lapse in security around here . More passengers
1
come in, and I'm annoyed by the fact that they are all male. That's
fine, so long as they don't look like terrorists on a suicide mission.
Oh, they look harmless enough; they only remind me of Bela Lugosi,
Christopher Lee, Peter Lore, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing, Lon
Chaney Jr., Vincent Price, Max Schreck...
Now that they have locked us in, I guess this is it. No way to
back out now. That's the main difference between air and land travel.
When you're on a bus, you can get off anytime, but when you're on
a plane, once the exit door is locked and you're up there, that's it.
You can't change your mind in mid-air. By the way, did she lock the
door properly?
Both propellers are whirring, and our plane is now taxiing towards
the runway. The captain introduces himself and welcomes us on board
over the public address system. His voice is calm and reassuring. He
says we'll be cruising at an altitude of 16,000 feet. Our flying time
is 45 minutes. The weather is fine in Naga which has a temperature
of 32 degrees centigrade today. He reminds us that this is a No Smok-
ing flight and requests that we fasten our seat belts and refrain from
operating any electronic device lest it interfere with the aircraft's
electronic navigational equipment. For our own safety and conven-
ience, he says, we must observe all safety regulations. Otherwise we
may sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. Some comedian.
A sweet, reassuring, but impersonal lady's voice takes over the
microphone and repeats the captain's instructions about the No
Smoking and fasten seat belt signs. Then she gives her own instruc-
tions over the microphone. As she's doing this, her companion appears
Naguefios 77
in front to demonstrate the safety procedures by pointing out the

location of the emergency exits. I like the way this girl moves as she
demonstrates the use of the inflatable life vest and flotation device.
She reminds me of Jean Harlow in Red Dust. Pull tab, the voice says,
to activate the light, and this pretty girl does just that with all the
sensuousness of an ecdysiast. Vanish the thought, you lecher, how
can you think of that at a time like this! Think about saving your soul
instead. And stop imagining her wearing only a smile. Think of some-
thing cerebral. Ask a philosophical question: Does she or doesn't she?
Lecherous goat!
I need help with this seat belt. Is this properly fastened? I'll talk
to the stewardess. I still don't have the guts to do that. I rehearse
an approach befitting a refined, well-bred, formal, disinterested gen-
tleman. Are you a Bicolana? I'll ask her first. I think she'll smile and
say yes sir, and I'll say what a coincidence, hija, I'm a Bicolano too,
from Naga, and she'll say, really? and then we'd be in thick with each
other. How does this seat belt work? Easy does it, sir, just pull this
and insert this, here, let me do it for you, and her hands would slide
down, no, not down there, not below the seat belt, ahay, not below
my belt, not that low, not in there, ohhh, not inside there, ahaaay,
hi-hi-hi-hi. Lecherous goat!
The engines roar. The noise sears my eardrums despite the pres-
surized interior. I sit tense and feverish and my palpitations reach up
to my temples. I look out the window. The plane has stopped moving
and is now aiming itself for take-off. The engines roar again. Then
the plane rolls off and accelerates at breakneck speed. This is too
fast, chico, I protest, as I watch the runway side strip markings out
the window flit like arrows. Suddenly the plane leaps into the air,
climbing steeply at a tilted angle. The airport buildings sink away. I
see shimmering rooftops, arteries-like roads, Lego-shaped toy cars.
The plane keeps climbing. I keep forcing myself to yawn to ease the
pressure in my eardrums. I see rivulets twisting like arrested snakes.
I see fish pens in Laguna lake. I see canoes and sandbanks. My God,
we're high over Metro Manila in every sense of the word! The plane
turns over the harbor and heads toward the open sea.
The seat belt light is off but I do not unfasten mine. A hundred
possibilities invade my mind. What if we're on a collision course with
another plane? What if the coffee burner catches fire? What if there's
a leak in the fuel tank? What if my seat falls out and ejects me into
space? What if the pilot fought with his wife this morning? What if
he is not on speaking terms with his co-pilot? What if his mortgage
payments are due? What if...
I look out the window to check if the wings are still attached to
the plane, but the stewardess is offering me a bundle of today's news-
papers. How beautiful she is up close. No, thank you, is all I tell her
without looking at her eyes or at the headlines. Air disasters always
occupy the front pages, you know. Don't worry, chico, tomorrow, my
name will be all over the papers. I'll be famous, you'll see, with a
little help from the tabloids. O will they have a field day showing
pictures of my corpse, or what remains of it, all charred up and mu-
tilated and blown up into tiny pieces. They will show pictures of me
in a plastic bag all zipped up and ready to go. No, thank you, senorita,
sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Is this all the airline can feed us? A measly muffin and a tetra-
packed juice? I paid a fortune for this ticket and this is all I get? This
is highway robbery] Boy, am I in a blue funk today.
The minutes pass. The matron beside me is snoring. I look around
me and see a couple more sleeping. I don't understand how people
can sleep in critical situations like this. If I sleep, something will go
wrong, I just know it. The young mother opens her bag and takes
out a feeding bottle, a jar of baby food, a bowl, a spoon, a diaper. I
press open the clasps of my attache case and look at the contents:
Band-Aid, White Flower, a tourniquet, Salonpas, a first aid kit, Alka-
Seltzer, tranquilizers, Dramamine, aspirin, an extra brown scapular,
a miraculous medal. I look out the window to check if the propellers
are still working. I think there's an abnormal sputter in the whirring.
I should have mailed those chain letters.
Suddenly, the plane drops. The Fasten Seat Belt light is on. This
is it. The captain's voice mentions something about turbulence but
his warning comes a bit late. Looks like he himself cannot detect air
pockets. I bet he can't even tell us if we're moving towards a giant
Naguenos 79
air pocket reaching all the way to the ground. I close my eyes and
will the ordeal to go away. Visualize, OOOM, visualize.
The air pockets worsen and the plane jounces all over the place.
Lord, I'm heartily sorry for all my sins against the Sixth and Ninth
Commandments. I feel as if I'm inside an elevator making sudden
descents and ascents. Lord, I'm too young to die. Lord, I donated to
the Red Cross. Lord, I'll do anything religious if you spare my life—
anything. I'll take the Singles for Christ course for nine consecutive
Saturdays and Sundays. I promise to laugh at Monico's jokes from
now on. I promise to give up dreaming of Amanda Page alone on an
island with me. I'll make a panata to walk on my knees this Holy
Week until they bleed. I'll even wear a crown of barbed wire, Lord.
I'll have my bare back cut by a magkakadlit. I'll whip myself with a
home-made whip with ends tied to glass shards. I'll prostrate myself
right across the street in front of the Naga Cabaret so that all Naga
will know what a regular customer I am. I'll have myself nailed to
the cross, if that's what you want. It will be a passion play to end
all passion plays, Lord, as convincing as the pagtaltal of Jordan, Gui-
maras. I'll...
The plane stops jouncing. We float beautifully in midair for some
time. But just as I'm sitting here grateful for my reprieve, this cloudy-
eyed, foreign-looking guy appears from behind us and starts stalking
in the aisle right in the direction of the cockpit. It's just my imagi-
nation, really now, he's going to the lavatory. Wait, he's not going
there. He's heading for the cockpit! I told you there's a lapse in
security around here. Should I alert the stewardess before it's too
late? This guy looks nervous. He's not a pro. All the more dangerous.
I don't think the stewardess can handle him. Now where are those
stewardesses? He must have gagged and hog tied them up already.
That means I'll have to grab his revolver myself and subdue him.
What if he's not alone? He's going to force this plane to fly to Libya.
This is a hostage situation!
Now he's knocking at the captain's door. The cockpit door opens
and out comes a guy dressed like a pilot. Is that the captain? They
greet each other then burst out laughing. They chat for a few minutes
then burst out again in uncontrollable guffaws before parting. I learn
a valuable lesson today. Looks can indeed be deceiving. No, not that
cloudy-eyed guy. I mean the captain. He doesn't look a whit like
Charlton Heston. Or Gregory Peck.
The plane begins to descend. The captain informs us that we are
now approaching the Naga Airport. He instructs us to fasten our seat
belts and return our seat backs and folding tables to upright position.
I look out the window and see Mount Isarog. I look down below and
sigh at the panoramic view of the green sea with her islets and coral
reefs. How beautiful thou art, Bicolandia, now and at the hour of
our death. Don't cry for me, Filipinas. Now we're over shorelines
and sandy beaches. I see mountain lakes—natural swimming pools—
nourish the lush and wild vegetation of mangroves and trees dotting
the Bicol jungles, like Seurat's dots, down their flanks. I see jagged
rocks with their pointed spots that appear like Madonna's pointed
bustiers, while I, dying, sigh my last farewell to the beauty of Ma-
donna, este, Bicolandia.
I hear hangings under the floor. They sound like gasoline drums
tied to the rear of a speeding car. Something's terribly wrong around
there. Why doesn't the stewardess tell us what's going on? I look out
the window to check if the engines are on fire, and I find out that
the buffering sound is coming from the wing flaps which are supposed
to slow us down during our descent. I think the captain is in a jam
targeting the runway because I hear loud flapping sounds—he's jum-
bling up the controls!—right inside the plane, right beside me! I close
my eyes—the end is near—and then open them again because I have
just traced the sounds to my seatmate's clicking open her makeup
kit, her lash comb case, her lip liner and eyeliner boxes. Caramba,
she's snapped open all of them, and now she's frantically re-making
her eyebrows, powder-brushing her face, affixing her false eyelashes,
combing her hair and flicking her dandruff in my direction—pweh!
The plane lowers its landing gears and locks them into place. The
landscape below magnifies as we descend. I see billiard table green
rice fields, coconut trees, carabaos, farmers planting rice, electric
power lines, rusty rooftops, palay on the roadside, the provincial capi-
tol, the Naga Airport.
Naguenos 81
Our plane touches down with a screech and a roar. I think We

have just touched the ground. I hope. I pray. I wonder. I look out
the window. It looks like we made it. Good heavens, we made it. I
can't believe we made it. Hallelujah, we made it. Pucha, we made
it. The captain's voice advises us to maintain our seat belts and remain
in our positions until the plane has come to a full stop, but I yank
off my seat belt in bravado. What seat belt? A hero needs no seat
belt. I put back on my brand new Ray-Ban sun glasses. The eagle has
landed.
We file past the stewardess at the exit who smiles and chimes
thank you to every passenger leaving the plane. When my turn comes,
I pause and look at her behind my brand new Ray-Ban sun glasses.
Then I flash her my megawatt, Arnold Schwarzenegger smile: Hasta
la vista, baby.
I walk with my head in the clouds. Then, I step aside, turn
around, and wave at the smiling stewardess. She waves back at me
and I feel my testosterone rising to the max. How postcard pretty
she glows just standing there: tall and tan and young and lovely, this
girl from Filipinas. Suddenly, I feel all my fears have disappeared. I
size up the plane's wing span and wheels, now locked up by chocks,
and I feel I can easily hang out here in midair, just like what Arnold
Schwarzenegger had done in the movies. Piece of cake. Want a demo?
Are those pretty stewardesses watching? If only I weren't in a hurry...
At the arrival area I see my mother herself, all of her seventy
years but looking ten years younger, waiting to meet her fifty-year-old
fearless adolescent bachelor son. I kiss her happy birthday and begin
to narrate my great sky adventure, but Monico reaches out for my
attache case, takes my ticket, looks at the baggage claim stub, and
exclaims, VAT is this? We were JUETENG for you. EVAT are you
JUETENG for? I feel like going back to the plane.
I greet my mother's friends at the parking lot. They are all talking
animatedly in the characteristic Naga way—everybody speaking, no-
body listening. I excuse myself and go up the flight of stairs to the
second floor of the passenger terminal building to see if my maleta
is among those being unloaded. When I reach the top, I catch the
tail end of the tow tractor pulling the luggage trailer towards the
baggage claim area. I spot my own maleta by its unmistakable red

gonfalons, and I heave a sigh of relief.
I take one last look at the plane before I leave, but suddenly out
comes through the exit door one of the stewardesses, pauses to fix
her flowing hair, then descends the ramp in agile, delicious, elegant,
delicate steps. How gorgeous, how ravishingly pretty, how body beau-
tiful, how symmetrical: Nude Descending a Staircase. Then she starts
walking as if she were doing the "Margarita." I follow her every move
every step of the way until she disappears in the personnel quarters,
as I catch myself committing again all the sins against the Ninth Com-
mandment.
I hurry downstairs towards the waiting car. Monico has claimed
my luggage and we are all ready to drive to the Carmelite Monastery
for thanksgiving Mass and merienda. It is a balmy day. The eggs have
worked. Monico slips in the car stereo his favorite Bee-Cool cha-cha
medley cassette tape. We all sing along "Babaeng Taga Bicol." I think
of my triumph and of the two pretty flight stewardesses walking back
to the plane, their beauty shining through, their smiles flying high,
but Monico suddenly turns down the volume, grins from ear to ear,
and asks us, Does music make you think? Does music make you
happy? Does music...
The Late C o m e r
T H E hotel management had reserved the lobby for the patrons and
guests, but the sudden outburst of evening rain drove pedestrians
along P. Burgos Street to dash to the foyer. The wind blasted spritzes
of drizzle through the jammed-up glass doors, forcing the crowd to
press inward and shove the guests through the side door leading to
the Karihan Fastfood restaurant.
Epifanio Bagting sat in his usual corner of the restaurant, indif-
ferent to the crowd pouring in. It was the second heavy downpour
that early evening. The first had caught him along Igualdad Street
earlier, but he snuggled safe in his favorite nook now drinking the
drab of a rainy evening, browsing a new book he had just bought at
Master Square, and mentally going over the short talk he was deliv-
ering before the Ateneo de Naga alumni fellowship on Easter Sunday.
He fished for an appropriate approach to his topic while watching
the strips of paper flutter in the louvers of the Koppel air conditioning
unit.
He felt his attache case. The cool air made the leather smooth
to the touch. As his fingers slid past the square corners of the frame,
however, he noticed the sides water-logged. After setting up the com-
bination lock, he snapped open the clasps of his case and checked
out the contents inside. When he saw some papers slightly drenched,
he ransacked the folders, worrying over ruined documents so that he
did not hear the girl's voice calling him until she tugged at his elbow:
"Kuya Panol" The timbre in her voice startled him. He stood up on

reflex and gawked at the girl, but his mind remained in the attache
case. He examined her from head to foot as though she were a speci-
men under a microscope before the face registered in his brain: "Su-
zette? Suzette Uy?"
She put on a flippant expression of reproach: "I kept calling you
from the door, ano ba talaga, Kuya."
"Naku, Suzette, I'm so sorry, hija." He did not recognize her in
semi-braided hair. He was used to seeing her in bangs. "What are
you doing here?"
"We're usherettes."
"Oh?" His thoughts lingered in the wet papers.
"We're closing our art exhibit of Bicol artists in the lobby," she
said.
He took a worried peek inside the divider of his open attache
case.
"What are you reading, Kuya Pano?"
"This one?" He handed her George D. Moffet's Critical Masses:
The Global Population Challenge. "I just bought this today."
"Interesting. What's that other book inside?"
"The Sensuous...I mean, Crossing the Threshold of Hope," he said
quickly closing the attache case.
"My, my, how you have grown." He simpered sheepishly, trying
to suppress a facial tic.
"How's Kring-Kring, Kuya?" She handed him back the Moffet
book.
"She's fine." Kring-Kring was his eldest daughter, Suzette's high
school classmate. Both girls had been barkadas since elementary
school, but Suzette moved to the Ateneo de Naga after high school
whereas Kring-Kring remained in the Colegio de Santa Isabel. They
still kept in touch by phone even though Suzette no longer dropped
by Kring-Kring's house.
"So you two have resolved who the national hero should be?"
Her eyes lost themselves in slits as she giggled. "You still remem-
ber that, Kuya?"
"Of course I do. How can I forget those endless debates."
Naguefios 85
A voice from the crowd called her. She raised her hand at the
group in an exaggerated manner—wait—then turned to Epifanio:
"I want to show you the paintings, Kuya. Don't leave yet. I'll be
right back."
He sat down as soon as she had left to join her group. He noticed
how different she looked in her evening attire. No wonder, he
thought, he did not recognize her. He was used to seeing her dressed
up differently. To him, Suzette was the beatle-mopped little girl in
back pack with her faded maong jeans and Hush Puppies Bounce
shoes who fetched his daughter on weekends to work on their algebra.
He opened the attache case but slammed it shut when he saw
her coming, her eyebrows furrowed in the middle. "We have a guest
from the Archbishop's palace. Can you wait, Kuya? I'll be right back,
promise. Oh I'm so praning already."
"Relax, hija." Her mock frantic motions amused him. "I'm in no
hurry."
"Talaga, ha? Just stay here, Kuya. You should see the paintings."
"Take your time," he said smiling. "I'll wait here."
As soon as Suzette had disappeared in the lobby, Epifanio rapidly
opened his attache case. No documents ruined. Relieved, he shut the
case immediately. He could wait. He was in no hurry to go home.
He had come to Karihan Fastfood to order take-home food, but Mar-
gie and the children were still in the prayer meeting. Besides, even
if they came home and found him there, nobody would notice, since
everyone would be busy doing her/his own thing. So he sat in his
favorite corner browsing his new book, rehearsing in his head what
he would say before the Ateneo alumni, and relishing every drop of
his usual "two for the road," since he'd not be touching the stuff
until next Sunday, for tomorrow was Holy Monday.
The last thought depressed him. Every year he would bring the
family to the Cathedral for Lenten services that bored him: Holy
Thursday for the via cruris, the Chrism Mass, the washing of the
feet; Good Friday for the Seven Last Words, the veneration of the
cross, the Tenebrae; Black Saturday for the blessing of the new fire,
the renewal of baptismal vows, the Easter Vigil. Not that he detested
his Church. The services had just lost their meaning. He felt that
everything had degenerated into mindless, maudlin routine. After two

millennia of intellectual consistency, he thought the Catholic religion
had calcified its spirituality into dogma, virtue into adherence to rigid
rules, devotion into ritualism, wisdom into legalism, mysticism into
catechism, paradox into moral formulations, the spirit of inquiry into
emotionalism, priesthood into priestcraft. He wondered if his beloved
Church could still return to those best moments during her High
Ages when everything was a revelation, everyday life a wonder.
Epifanio looked at the young ones and noticed how fashions had
changed. Like his Naga. He felt uneasy about the external changes:
familiar landmarks disappearing, new buildings rising, parks and play-
grounds yielding to shopping malls, old edifices changing names. This
hotel, for example, once known all over Bicol as Hotel Lindez, was
now Grand Imperial Plaza; in the corner, across the street, what once
used to be the Bicol Mail building was nowr Baker's Plaza.
He wondered why Naga had suddenly hurried to change. It was
very un-Naga. In the old days, the city had moved very slowly, if at
all, and if changes had occurred, they were nondescript that nobody
noticed nor minded them. It was easy, for instance, to connect the
transition from Saint Francis Xavier to Xavier Cugat. But how did
one connect John Wayne to John Wayne Bobbitt?
Not that he disapproved of change per se. On the contrary, he
welcomed many last-minute changes of the century: the collapse of
communism, the dismantling of apartheid, the end of the Cold War.
With these global changes, he thought, it was but natural for Naga
to refuse to remain in the past. But that was not the point. If the
city had chosen to ride the crest of material progress with its atten-
dant brownouts and water shortages and massive layoffs, the least
she could have done was to see to it that material progress went hand
in hand with spiritual progress.
Perhaps he was just blaming his own moral paralysis on the city,
he thought; the millennium was ending and he felt he had not pro-
gressed spiritually at all since he graduated from the Ateneo de Naga.
This feeling of emptiness started lately when he met a couple of his
former Jesuit professors at the Ateneo de Naga chapel one afternoon
and started attending the alumni Masses. Suddenly he started feeling
Naguenos 87
again the Atenean's sense of urgency to change inwardly for the

greater glory of God. Suddenly he felt this need for a qualitative
change, a dramatic change, something akin to Saint Ignatius' sitting
by the stream and watching the running water before the spirit moved
him, anything that would mean an alteration of his whole spiritual
life. He did not know exactly why—perhaps it was the millennium
ending—but so determined was he to progress spiritually that he did
not care how the means came about so long as he grew spiritually,
so long as he improved morally; and he was willing to endure anything,
even a self-abnegation or a reversal of some of his most cherished
fantasies to achieve it. He had prayed to the miraculous Virgin of
Penafrancia and importuned Her to change him before the end of
the millennium. Despite the mass exodus of many Catholics to other
faiths, he did not leave the Church, for he felt that this touch of
grace would come through the conduit of the Roman Catholic
Church. But lately, after he had started seeing the Jesuits again, he
began doubting this possibility because of one reason: the Vatican
refused to change its stand on birth control.
He suspected something intrinsically wrong about Humanae Vi-
tae. But he had kept his views to himself because of his reputation
in the Naga community. Even if he were an Atenean, it was not easy
to disturb the Parish of Saint John the Evangelist which looked up
to him for living what it thought was the ideal Catholic conservative
life: Mr. Bagting the respectable, churchgoer who practiced monog-
amy and did not practice contraception but bore as many children as
God wanted; Mr. Bagting the proud father of six children all involved
in Catholic activities from Kids for Christ to Youth for Christ, from
Singles for Christ to the Handmaids of the Lord.
The Bagtings centered their lives on the parish. This year, his wife
acted as facilitator and he as resource speaker in the renewal and
strengthening of the local Catholic charismatic group's family life.
Last year, husband and wife spearheaded the Marriage Encounter
seminar in Naga. The year before that, it was the Life in the Spirit
seminar; and before that, the Tipanan, the Panayam, the Suyuan, the
Couples for Christ. And this month, the Ateneo de Naga Alumni
Association invited him to talk on marriage at its monthly fellowship.
Last month, the parish priest awarded him a plaque that started his
depression: a model family plaque awarded to the Bagtings for no
special reason other than their having bred so many children. The
citation read that Mr. Bagting, in raising a large family, all serving the
parish, proved that Humanae Vitae was right.
In the days that followed, his depression plunged deeper. He wor-
ried over every ache and pain, he imagined enemies, and he found
himself bored and bitter with Naga. He thought of Matisse whose
paintings brightened the older he grew, then he thought of himself
and wondered why the older he grew, the darker grew the insomnia,
the palpitations, the anxiety attacks, the irritability, the loss of illu-
sions, the despair. His life was a gaffe; he had reached a cul-de-sac.
He felt as if everyone had taken the train ride towards the twenty-
first century while he stood behind at the old MRR station watching
the train get smaller and smaller. His only contact with sanity was
the old fashioned belief that a bottle of beer was the better anti-de-
pressant than Prozac. That was why he liked this corner at Karihan.
He wondered what he would talk about during the alumni fellowship.
Suzette arrived. "Sorry to keep you waiting."
"Naaah. I'm enjoying myself."
"7am," she said. "I'll show you the paintings."
The first thing that grabbed his attention were the nudes. His
facial tic resumed. He looked at the nudes, then looked at Suzette.
She did not look a whit scandalized. In fact, she was animatedly
explaining to him the plethora of colors, lines, textures, although he
did not quite follow the niceties of her lecture because his eyes flitted
back and forth from the nudes to her plunging evening slip: a stark,
slip-style see-through seaming silk chiffon supported by a pair of pre-
carious straps which accentuated her cleavage. He thought the clingy
stretch fabric of her mini skirt restricted rather than facilitated her
freedom of movement. He looked at her face: chinky eyes, chiseled
cheekbones, a knowing grin. He observed her lips and how they
parted perfectly. He looked at her eyes and observed how they
thinned prettily when she smiled. Like Amanda Page, he thought.
Her braids glowed under the overhead lamps, framing her face like
a little girl's. She also wore a graphically decorated technicolored
Naguenos 89
Swatch which to Epifanio provided the cutest contrast to her evening

formal wear.
She stopped talking and stared blankly at him, but he quickly
looked away, guilty of the dark thoughts she must have read on his
twitching face. Then she resumed talking. He was alert to her scent:
anxious, innocent, inviting. His mind moved to Margie with resent-
ment. She never smelled like this anymore. Once, on their seven-
teenth anniversary he'd bought her a bottle of Blue Grass, but she
said she didn't like it, he should have saved the money to pay for
the insurance premium instead.
"We have more paintings upstairs," she said, patting the handrail
of the white staircase. "Tara, I'll show you." She preceded him up
the flight of stairs because he paused in front of the mirror at the
counter to pat his toupee: narrow eyelids, musty eyes, haggard face.
I am passe, he breathed wearily.
He glanced up the stairs and noticed how long and straight her
legs were. When she moved farther up, he caught himself ogling the
firm round cheeks of her buttocks. The attraction surprised him. The
unexpected intrusion of a physical desire for a girl young enough to
be his daughter caught him off guard. He tried his best not to en-
tertain impure thoughts and desires. It was Palm Sunday, he reminded
himself. Besides, she was his daughter's former classmate, period. He
deliberately lowered his eyes, but the sight of her shoes—a pair of
two-inch-heeled black satin evening shoes—deepened his inhalation.
When they reached the second floor, he saw paintings of old Bicol
churches hung on the walls. An elderly couple upstairs approached
Suzette and asked questions about the paintings. She led Epifanio
and the couple by their arms towards the corner between the nest
of serving tables and the hassock, and began her lecture. She pointed
out details found on baroque facades, arched doors, brass grills,
pointed gable columns, central bell towers, cupolas. She pointed to
sculptured figures in niches between columns, to white plaster cusp
arcs in scalloped ruffles. She told them to notice the earth-brown
walls under the Bicol sun, the mango trees in the background, the
distant hills. But still, Epifanio could not concentrate. The intensity
of her bodily attraction disturbed him. He thought these feelings be-
longed downstairs: the nudes understandably stirred his baser in-

stincts. But old Bicol churches?
The elderly couple thanked her for her time and walked towards
the stairs.
"I love old churches," Epifanio said.
She smiled. The distant voices of an ongoing pabasa, magnified
by microphones, rode in the wind blowing in from Barlin Street.
"I want to know more about them," he said quickly. "You see,
there's this research I'm doing about Bicol..."
"That's great, Kuya Pano. I'll call Miss Dizon downstairs."
"No! You're more interesting, I mean, you're doing a fine job
yourself." He did not like to be taken by surprise. It exacerbated his
Freudian slips.
"I am?"
"Of course you are. Why don't you tell me more about elongated
stones and arched doors in there?" He blinked uncontrollably. He did
not like it when he blinked. It always gave him away. He pushed the
swinging door leading to the bar and filled his lungs with the cool air
inside. The bar was empty of customers. It was too early.
"Groo-vie!" she said when she saw the interior. "Where do we
sit?"
"Over there, beside the window."
He eagerly pulled her a chair. She sat down while he stood behind
her, unable to decide where to settle his eyes: in her low V neckline
or in the diminutive mini skirt that shrunk as she sat.
"Miss Uy," a waiter called in from the main door. "Miss Dizon
calling downstairs."
"Coming." She carelessly spread her legs to stand up. Old habits
in maong jeans die hard, he thought, elated by the lucky glimpse of
heaven. If old goats were natural voyeurs, he thought, nineteen-year-
old girls are natural exhibitionists.
"Wait here, Kuya Pano. I'll just give her the keys." Before leaving
the room, she called out, "How's auntie?"
"Oh fine, fine."
Naguenos 91
T i l be back/' she said hurrying through the door, almost bumping

into the bartender who came in with a kettle of water. Epifanio or-
dered a pitcher of beer.
Twenty years, Epifanio moaned to himself, twenty long, boring
years. Once upon a time Margie had been as fresh and sprightly as
this girl. They'd had a good deal of loving and romancing in the be-
ginning, but it didn't last very long. The children came along: first
he begot Kring-Kring, then he begot Bing-Bing, then he begot Jun-Jun,
then he begot Bek-Bek, then he begot Pot-Pot, then he begot Lot-Lot.
Suzette returned immediately. Epifanio stood up and pulled her
chair.
"Miss Dizon wants me to entertain some guests downstairs," she
said, catching her breath, "but I told her I'm entertaining a guest
upstairs. How's that."
"I like that." •
"Good. Anyway, I'll rush downstairs every now and then, and
come back here so we can talk, okay?"
"Great. I want to know more about your private parts, este, pri-
vate life, I mean, what have you been doing lately besides interpreting
paintings?"
"I'm into mountain climbing, hang gliding, bungie jump."
"Aren't those dangerous?"
She laughed out loud, tilting her head backward. He saw her two
front teeth crammed together and nudged slightly forward—the se-
cret of her cute smile, he thought.
"I'm just joking, Kuya Pano."
He liked the way she kidded him. "Let me guess: you're also into
solar energy, the total log ban, a nuclear free world."
"And tattoos."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to have myself tattooed."
"Where? I mean, why?"
"Why not?
"I think it's ugly."
"I think it's groovy. It's just another form of body adornment,
like jewelry. Besides, it freaks out the oldies—like you."
"I'm not old."

"Aminin. Uuuy."
Her flippancy tickled his loins.
"You asked where? Right down here, in my buttocks."
His face twitched at the last word. "You'll disfigure your, er, but-
tocks."
"Sabagay. Hey, did you know one of my friends had his nipples
pierced last week?"
"He had—what? That's terrible."
"Not if you found out that nipple piercing is an ancient tradition.
We're just reviving it."
"So you're going to have your, er, nipples pierced too?"
"Yikes, no. I like to breastfeed my future children."
"I'm glad the world hasn't changed that much."
"It hasn't. You're just very conservative, Kuya Pano."
"I'm not conservative."
"Aminin. Uuuy." Her flippancy aroused the fire in his loins.
"All right, I'm conservative—but only in the sense that I advocate
a return to angels and saints and miraculous medals and good manners
and right conduct. But I'm not conservative in the sense that I don't
agree with the Church's stand on birth control."
He suddenly said it. He should not have said it but he just did.
Was it the beer—or her? The ease in which he expressed his opinion
openly on the subject surprised him.
"You don't agree?" Her pitch soared falsetto in shock. "Talaga?"
She saw him as all Naguenos saw him—as the local champion of
Humanae Vitae—so the remark bowled her over. "You do not agree
with the Church's teaching on birth control?"
"That's right, I don't."
"You mean, you're not catolico cerrado after all?"
"I'm not catolico cerrado, excuse me."
"Kuya Pano!" She relished the revelation.
The bartender arrived with the pitcher of beer and two mugs,
distracting them temporarily.
"Can't drink," she said. "On duty. Going back to our topic..."
Naguenos 93
"I'm actually a closet cultural Catholic," he said. "You know, a

Catholic on my own terms."
"Right on!" she said. "Why don't you tell me more about your
views on birth control. We'll discuss old churches later, okay?"
"All right."
The mug of beer filled the bar with a mist, and he felt a surge
of joy that drove him to speak boldly. He began by admitting to her
how he had tried to leave the Church in 1968, when Paul VI issued
his controversial encyclical, but he said he did not do so because he
had hoped the Pope would reverse his unrealistic decision. After all,
he said, didn't the Church change her stand in the past every time
she realized that a new understanding of human nature had surfaced?
Didn't Suzette know, for example, that for centuries after Christ's
Ascension, priests were married? Then the Church changed its stand.
Didn't she know that Canon Law forbade usury and held it sinful to
profit from the needs of others? Then the Vatican went into banking.
Veritatis Splendor condemns slavery as intrinsically evil, but didn't
she know that until 1890, the Church defended the right to own
slaves, including the right of victors of war to enslave their captured
enemies? Leo XIII condemned slavery in 1890, but only because
every civilized nation had abolished it and the Protestant Churches
had condemned it. He said he did not question papal infallibility, for
he believed in the infallibility of other papal teachings formularized
ex cathedra, like the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. But the
birth control issue, like the issue of celibacy or slavery, was not inert.
He said he did not understand why Paul VI formed a special
advisory commission only to repudiate its recommendations and issue
the inane encyclical. He said his hopes had soared when John Paul
1 ascended the throne but his hopes had died with that Pope's mys-
terious death within thirty-three days of his papacy. He said that the
present Pope, for all the media hype, was nothing but a dictator, an
arch-conservative, a showman, and a tourist who thought it right to
impose his religious beliefs on the rest of the world.
"Kuya Pano!" Her eyebrows arched upward. "You really mean
that? Talaga? Wow! Why?"
"Because we're reproducing more than we're producing/' he said,

shaking with emotion. "Because population explosion is driving
Naguenos to poverty, to child prostitution, to crime, to mendicancy,
to enslavement in foreign lands. Go around Naga's slum areas and
what do you see? Infants crippled by severe malnutrition, babies
twisting from hunger, children disabled by disease, parents distraught
by unemployment. And yet the Church cries out more, more. This
policy is not only irresponsible; it is wicked, cruel. How can the
Church go on encouraging us to reproduce more and more babies
with no future except pain and suffering. How can the Church go
on kidding us when we all know the rhythm method does not check
population growth. This is not the Church I know. These pharisees
should bear in mind that they have a moral responsibility to answer
for the consequences of their irresponsible decrees!"
"Miss Uy, telephone call downstairs," a waiter called in.
"Coming. I'll be right back, Kuya Pano. Wow, you're groo-vie."
He gulped his mug of beer to the lees; then, his hands still shak-
ing, he poured more into the mug from the pitcher. He liked the
way she listened to him. Nobody encouraged him to talk like this
anymore. She did not humor him like Margie did. She seemed very
concerned about his feelings. Would he tell her about his wife, too?
He sipped from the mug. Yes, he would. He'd tell her it was Margie
and not he who was the fanatic of Humanae Vitae. He'd tell her
how he urged Margie to follow her conscience and practice birth
control like many Catholics did. He'd tell her how Margie regarded
all artificial means of contraception as pregnancy termination.
He wondered if the resentment he felt for his wife correlated
with the resentment he felt for his Church. Margie was his cross.
They had practiced the rhythm method because Margie's conscience
would not accept anything else. Even then, she treated rhythm as a
concession. He had given up all arguments in favor of the pill. The
mere mention of it provoked her to reach her grab bag of arguments
in favor of natural law and the Bible's command to go and multiply.
To her, love was dependent on the thermometer and the calendar. If
he put his arm around her during unsafe days, even when they were
only watching TV, she'd mutter "and lead us not into temptation."
Naguenos 95
On these days, too, only the beso-beso was allowed. If he kissed her
longer than usual on his return from work, she would push him away.
The pill was out of the question. If they had six children now because
each of the last four was "Our Mistake," she said they should praise
God instead and sing "the more the merrier" even if it meant more
hospital bills to pay, more mouths to feed, more clothes to wash.
He conceded to her caprices for a time. He agreed to watch the
Family Rosary Crusade on TV to take his mind off sex. He agreed
to join her in praying to Him who is more than enough in an Amen-
Amen euphoria that disgusted him. He agreed to read aloud Breakfast
with the Pope every morning even if it gave him LBM. He agreed to
listen to the two I Am Sending You cassette tapes back to back every
night before going to bed.
One night, when she hissed Yesss tonight, dah-ling, with a breath
powerful enough to deflect a guided missile, he found out he could
no longer get the thing to stand up. They tried everything. They even
stopped listening to I Am Sending You, but even that did not help.
She suggested he consult Dr. Macatangay in Pasig for ErecAid, but
Epifanio would have none of it. To admit it, he said, was worse than
admitting to a case of STD.
When Suzette returned, she handed a bunch of cassette tapes to
the bartender and instructed him briefly which pieces to play on the
room stereo. Then she went over to Epifanio's table.
"So who was that?"
"Rex."
"Your boyfriend?"
"Ngeee."
"An admirer, then."
"Freak out. I'm not that gaga over him. He's so nerdy."
"What do you mean? Why did he call?"
"He wants to bring me to his office tonight."
"He wants to bring you where?"
"To his private office. He wants me to be his company's promo
girl and he wants us to do a taping session."
"At night? Just the two of you?"
"He's a very busy person."
"Really. What does he do?"

She gave him Rex's bio-sketch. He was in his mid-twenties, she
began, who worked ten hours a day. He was restless, assertive, am-
bitious, and abreast with the latest trends in the Wall Street Journal.
He was an infonaut, a Netsurfer. He worked on a Pentium processor.
He had stock options and extra life insurance. He decided the fi-
nances of his company's budgets (in millions, take note, Kuya Pano)
allocated for data processing. He read Datamation, Fortune, and the
Free Press. He drove a BMW Last year, he broke into mainstream
corporate management when two of Naga's major corporations en-
tered into a joint venture and elected him CEO. He was a "techie"
who started as a computer specialist but because he was an Atenean
he was also a generalist, so he moved upward into senior management.
She described him as sharp, clean-cut, very eligible and very sexy.
Epifanio crossed and uncrossed his legs as she talked.
"Let's not talk about him," she said. "Tell me, if the Church would
not change its stand on birth control, would you leave it?"
"I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"No Nagueno ever leaves the Catholic Church. If you studied in
the Naga Parochial School or the Colegio de Santa Isabel or the
Ateneo de Naga, the odds are overwhelming that the Catholic imprint
will remain with you for good."
"It's permanent then."
"I guess so. I did think of leaving it once or twice, though, but I
kept putting it off until I just grew too old to care. When you get
to be my age, hija, you'll understand what I mean. It's called manyakis
habit, este, manana habit.
"Another question, Kuya Pano."
"By the way, stop calling me Kuya Pano. It makes me much older
than I already am."
"How do I call you, then?"
"Just call me—Eppie."
She tried to suppress her giggles, but she lost her poise as her
body shook in guffaws, causing her breasts to heave and quiver inside
the low V neckline.
Naguenos 97
Epifanio liked the way she loosened up to him. In a while, he

found himself laughing at her jokes, although he laughed not so much
because he understood them—how different the postmodern innu-
endoes were—but to camouflage the stiffness that kept raising the
napkin on his lap. He pretended to adjust his napkin several times,
but the looseness of his low-waist gabardine pair of pants only helped
the thing to rise prominently. A frisson of rapture rose over him.
Good Lord, he thought, this girl's better than Dr. Macatangay! But
he did not like her to read his unedited thoughts. He tried to think
of something else. He looked out the glass windows and noticed that
evening had fallen in Naga. The rain spattered on the glass outside
in receding rivulets.
"Is it, Kuya? I mean, Eppie?"
"Yes, it is." he said laughing.
"No, I said it isn't fair, is it?"
He flushed horridly. He wasn't paying attention to her tale of
woe. "That's right, it isn't fair," he said without knowing exactly what
world-shaking thing it was that needed instant reassurance.
She smiled. He felt silly but he smiled along with her. He groped
for a topic. "Nice perfume you're having on."
"Thank you. It's Safari."
"Oh?"
"Ralph Lauren."
"You know, hija, I'm so gross I can hardly distinguish one perfume
from another. In fact, the only smell I can recognize is white slavery,
este, White Flower."
"Miss Uy," a waiter called in from the door.
"Another telephone call—from your admirer again?" Epifanio's
blood pressure shot up.
"Miss Dizon calling you," said the waiter.
Epifanio's blood pressure returned to normal.
"Excuse me, I'll be right back." She rushed back downstairs.
Epifanio looked at his present life and cogitated how it had para-
lyzed him. Then he thought of Suzette and cogitated how much she
had resuscitated him. Would she consent to have an affair with him?
He smiled to himself and looked at his life: a stable home, a squeaky-
clean reputation, a secure job. Would he be willing to disturb the

universe in exchange for many nights of romancing Suzette? Was he
prepared to mess up the future of his children, his wife, Suzette
herself? But why in the world was he suddenly, desperately, crazily,
hungering and thirsting for Suzette?
He heard the kettle whistle at the bar. He watched the steam
gush from the kettle's mouth, as the bartender turned off the heat.
He tried a jesuitic analogy: a while ago, when the bartender laid that
kettle on the electric stove, the water was just water. It did not
produce any qualitative change—like himself—only quantitative
change, a change in degree. The water just became warmer and
warmer. But then came the boiling point. When the water reached
a hundred degrees centigrade, suddenly it transformed itself into
steam and then it hissed and whistled and gushed forth and refused
to remain confined in the kettle. Suddenly it underwent a radical,
qualitative change, a complete transformation of characteristics op-
posite that of water, a terrific shock: Paul blinded for three days by
the shaft of light, Augustine reeling before the City of God. You're
waxing jesuitic again, Eppie, you jejune Jesuit.
But he pursued the thought: Was he at that critical point in his
life where unless he took a deliberate step in overcoming his lower
nature, he could not progress further? He remembered his novenas
to the Virgin of Penafrancia importuning Her to change his life. Was
this his opportunity? Could he, by overcoming this temptation,
strengthen his character and, like Ignatius, grow spiritually in leaps
and bounds he'd never imagined? Was this his soul's chance to im-
molate its old self in the burning ground, so that the new self might
resurrect?
Still, nobody was forcing him to do anything against his will. That
was the hard part—the freedom to choose, to work out his salvation.
But was this attraction to Suzette a yank from his lower nature? What
if she were a godsend, the real answer to his novenas? What if she
came down to save him from spiritual aridity so that through her he
might know God more? Didn't Ignatius tell us to find God in all
things? Didn't Teilhard try to bring about a plainer disclosing of God
in the world?
Naguenos 99
Furthermore, what if the process of self-immolation was not for

him, not yet, at least? The burning ground, said the Jesuits, came
only to those who had answered every call of the flesh and, rich in
experience but poor in attachment, were willing to renounce every-
thing. He was still poor in experience.
Nevertheless, he felt that sooner or later he'd have to face up to
the challenge. If he didn't meet it at this point in his life, he'd have
to wait for another opportunity and that opportunity might never
come. And the millennium was nearly over. While he imagined him-
self giving up Suzette with all the sorrows attendant to the renun-
ciation—especially that extremely difficult renunciation of many
nights of love with a nineteen-year-old girl wearing only a smile—he
also imagined himself winning over his lower self and gaining a new
conversion of consciousness, like the steam gushing upwards from
the kettle's mouth, a radical spiritual transformation attendant to the
renunciation. Wasn't this the better desire? Wasn't passion a fluke?
Didn't he feel the same passion with Margie when she was this age
before she ballooned?
When Suzette returned, she signaled the bartender to turn on
the stereo. A mellow saxophone filled the air. It was a song he liked
best, something about the way you looked tonight.
"Do you still dance, Eppie? Miss Dizon tells me you were one of
Naga's best dancers."
"It's been ages."
"Sample naman, Eppie, sigue na," she teased him.
"But this is a slow-drag."
"So? Teach me the slow-drag."
She took his hand. She giggled and pulled him up towards the
dance floor.
It really had been ages since Epifanio had danced. He felt clumsy
at first but she held onto him eagerly, trustingly, and allowed him
and the music to guide her steps.
"Do you mind? I mean, dancing with a married man?"
"Course not. You're my kuya. So how's auntie?"
There she goes again, he thought. Did she always have to ask
about Margie? He said her auntie was fine and all that, but in his
mind, as he talked, he thought of overdue house bills, torn up screen

windows, mosquito bites, cockroaches, Katol fumes which made him
dizzy. When Suzette's turn came to talk, he thought: could he not,
just for tonight, forget that self-pitying fool back home who never
gurgled off her bad breath in the mornings and never did anything
to remove the ugly corns in her feet—that bear in curlers on the
breakfast table who sipped her cup of black coffee so noisily until
his scalp itched; who drank with the serving spoon in the cup; who
preferred her toenails pointed; who forgot all taste for clothes by
mismatching every color of the spectrum when she dressed up for
Sunday Mass that she gave an overall effect of a primitive who had
salvaged the wreckage of a sunken ship in an offshore island?
When the music ended, he walked her back to the door, because
she said she had to go back downstairs to entertain the guests. "I'll
be right back."
Alone in his table again, he looked out the glass window. The rain
sprayed the glass into irregular crystal shapes before allowing the
water to slue to the sides. From under the table flowed the stream
of evening traffic. He liked the psychedelic effect of headlights as
they came in a steady flow down the rain-swept street. It felt like
the strange illusion of falling forward while watching the Bicol River
flow from under the Colgante bridge.
For all the girl, the night, and the music, Epifanio still felt hollow.
To succumb to Suzette was too easy. Wouldn't every normal male in
the street have fallen into the same trap? Perhaps this aversion to his
wife was good for his soul. Perhaps this was the challenge. He thought
how much he would learn if he overcame this aversion. Deep within,
he knew he could progress spiritually not by loving somebody he
already loved but by learning to love again somebody he had ceased
to love.
Perhaps this renunciation demanded of him pointed towards the
true meaning of Lent—a passion and death to self as prerequisite to
a new life. Wouldn't an excellent Lenten penance include a renewal
of romance with a spouse one has ceased to find attractive? But re-
kindling a love affair with a spouse like Margie was the most arduous
of tasks. It would require from him all the humility, the vulnerability,
Naguenos 101
the patience, the courage, the determination, the patience, the for-
giveness he could muster. Few enterprises were more difficult, few
deaths more painful.
He wondered why the Church would not rejuvenate her concept
of sanctity to include more married saints, saints who were neither
virgins nor martyrs, who did not have to suffer corporeal pains for
the Faith, but saints who bore the storms and stresses of married life
and emerged spiritually victorious. Wasn't this more in line with the
carrying of one's cross? Wasn't this the true imitation of Christ? He
wondered when the flagellantes would stop taking things literally and
flog their old selves instead so the old self would no longer enslave
the new. Would he scourge his old self? Would he crucify it so that
it no longer enslaved him?
He thought of the candle plunging into the holy water during the
coming Easter Vigil symbolizing the marriage of Christ and His
Church, and he thought that perhaps that would be the perfect time
for him to renew his married vows. That would be a good time be-
cause then he would be in the heart of one of the Church's most
passionate phases. Would he do it?
Suzette returned and stopped by the bar and instructed the bar-
tender to play one piece from each of the two cassette tapes she
handed him. Then she went over to Epifanio and asked him to dance
with her again.
It was another song he liked very much, something about having
eyes only for you. She allowed him to press his firm eager hand about
her lower back, and feel his chin against her hair that smelled of
youth and warmth and eagerness. He lavished his body and soul to
her clinch.
Suddenly the music stopped, and the jumpy, catchy number of
"Macarena" crossfaded with the song. The bartender had connived
with her. He released her and headed for the table, but she broke
into joyous little shrieks and begged him to try this one, sigue na, be
a sport. He said he had no idea how to dance this thing. She said
just move with the beat. He tried the steps of the Charleston, the
Foxtrot. She said no, not that way, follow me. He aped her jerking,
slithering motions, her little jumps and shakings, but he felt awkward
and sought the safety of the table. She jumped ninety degrees to the
right and blocked his way, grinning naughtily. Before he could move
away, she stretched out her arms and swung her hips, and, clenching
the cheeks of her buttocks, lifted her hips in forward upward thrusts
as if she were riding a bronco.
He watched her shake and stomp to the tribal beat—hey, Maca-
rena, whooo!—her chin lifted slightly, her braids flying, her breasts
heaving, her trunk muscles swaying from side to side. His eyeglasses
fogged up. She spread her legs and favored him with a generous view
of her thighs: how firm, how round, he thought. He started fixing
his deformed pants. He said he'd prefer to watch her dance from
the sidelines, preferably from the table, but she said no, and facing
him squarely, she contracted her diaphragm and thrust and thrust
her hips at him, her tongue touching her upper lip, her small mouth
half-open and moistened, her fingers running down her breasts and
massaging her nipples, before she slid her hands down in the area
between her thighs and slid them farther down all the way to the
anus and back up again.
Her pumping motion fueled a conflagration in his loins. The
moaning look on her face dared his stiffness to come out, to charge
at her, to penetrate her, to feel her warmth and softness, to pump
and pump her in standing position—he going deeper, she getting
tighter—until he released his pent up energies inside her.
Suddenly he improvised—that's it, Eppie, right on, Eppie,
whooo!—and Epifanio found himself young again, and wild and dar-
ing, jumping and shaking with abandon, forgetting the kids and the
wife waiting for him back home.
"I like this—whooo!"
"Sigue, Eppie, lira.
"I like you, Suzette," he said, wiggling his shoulders and patting
his toupee in place.
"Same here," she grinned prettily.
He surged here, he jerked there, then he hopped and hopped in
reckless delight.
"I'm having so much fun I can't stop."
"Don't stop, Eppie, sigue, tira."
Naguenos 103
"Whooo!"
"Enjoy."
"Suzette," he croaked from a dry throat. "Suzette."
"Yes?"
"I want to tell you something. Don't get mad, okay?"
"Of course I won't get mad," she said, tossing back her braids.
He lurched to the left, then leaned to the right. "I like you very
much."
"Talaga?"
"Corny, no?"
"I like you too."
"Really? "
"Uuuy."
He felt the pounding in his temples. "What I'm trying to say is,
can we...would you like to..."
Suddenly the glass door swung open and a tall silhouette sporting
a men's pompadour hair style walked right in and moved towards
the dancing pair. The bartender turned off the stereo.
"Suzettel" the figure called out. Both of them froze up as the
figure stalked towards them. When the overhead lamp lit the face,
Epifanio knew that this guy was obviously not a waiter. "I kept looking
for you downstairs."
"Rex!" she screamed. "It's you!"
Epifanio blinked furiously when he heard the name.
"Am I interrupting anything?" Rex said.
"Oh no, no! Oh not at all. Ep—, Kuya Pano, this is Rex. Rex,
this is Mr. Bagting, my, er, uncle. He's teaching me how to dance,
Rex, you know, for my P.E. class."
Rex held out his hand. Epifanio could not control his facial tic.
He shook the hand but cowered at the way Rex towered over him.
"Mr. Bagting? Mang Pano? I'm sure you know my mom and dad,
sir. I'm the son of Alberto."
At least the boy is diplomatic, thought Epifanio. He could have
gone alboroto. "Berting?"
"Yes, sir."
"Of course I know your dad. He's an Atenista. He was ahead of

me. Your mother, yes, she was my bedmate, este, classmate." Epi-
fanio's face twitched wildly. "How's your dad?"
"Fine, sir. Much better now after his prostate operation. Look, I
can come back later."
"Oh no-no-no. Suzette here was just about to leave." Epifanio
aspirated the last word through his teeth. His facial tic persisted an-
noyingly. "Suzette here was just telling me about your raping session,
este, taping session."
"So, can we drop you off somewhere, sir?"
This jerk wastes no time, thought Epifanio. He's in such a hurry
to drop me off so he can romance the girl. "No, that's all right."
"Really, Kuya Pano, we don't mind," said Suzette.
Rex's black leather case started buzzing. "Excuse me," he said
and pulled out a cellular phone.
Epifanio observed the young CEO in action. He heard him give
instructions regarding spreadsheets, faxes, e-mail. The guy's assertive,
self-assured, he thought, wired since birth, just like she said, and yet
this local Kevin Mitnick betrays no earnestness in his voice—a prod-
uct, alas, of Ateneo de Naga's academic rigor.
He wondered what this guy possessed—and what Epifanio, the
once and future Pol Salcedo of Naga, did not possess—that made
this denizen of the online world irresistible to Suzette. Epifanio ex-
amined his own shirt-jack (wide lapels, unpadded pockets, lotto tick-
ets sticking out of oversized flap pockets) and looked at Rex's white
Belmondo turtleneck (saddle shoulders, waffle-knit collar). He
looked at his own gabardine pair of pants (bell-bottomed, low-
waisted, tailored by Bib's Naga) then looked at Rex's dark Vercelli
slacks (superb fit, double-pleated, lean, sharp, balanced, tapering
down to narrow, defined ankles). He looked at his own chukka boots
(wrinkled tips from too much kneeling in church, curved like the
bows of two bancas dry-docked on the banks of the Bicol River, made
in Marikina) and looked at Rex's shiny, jet-black Brazilian wingtip
shoes (calfskin-handcrafted and overlaid with embossed crocodile ac-
cents). He looked at his own Casio quartz (bought at the watch repair
Naguenos 105
shop in front of Lacerna's Pawnshop, assembled in Cubao) then

looked at Rex's Patek Philippe.
"You sure you don't want us to drop you off somewhere?" Rex
tucked up his cell phone.
"Naaah. You guys go ahead and enjoy yourselves. I'll stay."
T i l leave the tapes with the bartender," she told Epifanio, "so
you can listen to them. I'll have the driver pick them up tomorrow."
"Let's go, Suzette," Rex said.
"Goodnight, Kuya," Suzette said as she leaned forward to plant
a peck on Epifanio's cheek. When her cheek touched his, she whis-
pered "Eppie" directly to his ear, then moved back tittering. It was
their naughty secret, and she assured him with her eyes that she
would not betray him, promise.
Epifanio's jaws tightened to restrain the facial twitches. "You'll
make a good porno girl, este, promo girl."
Rex extended his hand. "I'm very glad to meet you, sir."
Epifanio reached out and shook it. An old fogy is a good sport,
he thought, and besides, the guy's an Atenean, leave him be for the
greater glory of God. "Give my regards to your dad. Tell him to come
to our monthly alumni Masses, okay?"
"I'll tell him that, sir. Goodnight, sir. Let's go, Suzette."
"Goodnight, Kuya Pano. Thanks for the nice evening."
"Goodnight, hija," Epifanio said, trying to sound very casual.
"Have fun with sex, este, Rex." His face twitched crazily.
The couple walked towards the door. Rex opened it for her and
guided her through it with one possessive arm around her waist. Epi-
fanio's scalp started itching. The iiberhacker can hardly wait, he
thought. Before Rex could close the door, Suzette held it for a while,
turned around, looked at Epifanio, and flashed him that testoster-
one-raising Amanda Page smile. The overhead lamps illumined her
face with a glow very much like the mist in old photographs, but in
a second she allowed the door to swing shut by itself. Take good care
of her, Rex. You have the strength and she has the warmth. You'll
blend. Take good care of yourself, Suzette. Don't worry about me. I
can manage.
He collapsed in his chair as soon as the bartender had started

replaying the only-have-eyes-for-you song in the stereo. He would
manage. Wasn't this what he wanted? Did he not pray to the Virgin
of Penafrancia to assist him in his spiritual life? Did he not pray for
a dramatic qualitative change so earnestly that he cared not how it
came about even if the means arrived in the form of a self-abnegation
or a reversal of his most cherished fantasies? No, he would not leave
his Church. On the contrary, he would live it now that he had suf-
fered passion and death. Then, as a bona fide member of that mystical
body, he would use his new consciousness, his talents and his energies
to persuade her to reconsider her deleterious position on birth con-
trol. The stupor he was feeling tonight, he assured himself, was nor-
mal and symptomatic of the paradigm shift following every critical
point: Paul blinded for three days by the shaft of light, Augustine
reeling before the City of God. There you go waxing jesuitic again,
Eppie, you domsat.
What matter. On Holy Thursday, when he would bring the family
to the Cathedral for the Chrism Mass, the kids would notice a sudden
change in him as he would explain to them the special meanings
behind the consecration of the oils and the washing of the feet—a
dramatic change even as they walked the streets of Naga for the
visita altares.
That change would even be more marked the next day, Good
Friday, when he would bring them back to the Cathedral for the
Seven Last Words and the veneration of the cross—although during
the Tenebrae, as they watched the seminarians extinguish the candles,
he would think of his own candle extinguished again, and this time
he would pray that it remained that way until the Church reconsid-
ered its stand.
That Saturday evening, they would go back to the Cathedral to
experi§$jp& the total darkness in preparation for the blessing of the
new fire. After the priest had lighted the Paschal candle, blessed it,
and taken it in solemn procession throughout the church, lighting all
the candles of the faithful inside the now luminous Cathedral, he
would tell his family of the genius of Catholicism and how during
her High Ages she had codified through this ancient ceremony all
Naguenos 107
the mysteries contained in the triumph of light over ignorance. Later

in the night, during the singing of the Exsultet, as they renewed their
baptismal vows to prepare themselves for the most awaited celebra-
tion of the greatest miracle commemorated in the liturgical year, at
the very moment the candle plunged into the holy water, he would
renew his vows to his wife. This Easter Vigil, these last minutes of
the Season of Lent, albeit late, he would tell Margie, were still the
best opportunity to renew his marriage vows. He imagined himself
delivering his address to the Ateneo alumni fellowship and telling his
fellow Ateneans that marriage was not a smooth line drawn on the
chart, but a series of ups and downs, of second chances, of cycles of
deaths and rebirths, of old endings and new beginnings. He imagined
telling them that marriage was a string of love affairs with the same
person, and to experience this, it was sometimes necessary to suffer
passion and death to the wrong notion of love so that love's potential
might resurrect from the dead to reveal to those who have ears that
the Risen Christ was committed to the Church as a lover was com-
mitted to the beloved—for he understood that the strain between
himself and his wife correlated with the strain between himself and
his Church who was trying her best to strive towards the formation
of a future Catholicism that was more compassionate and universal
and humble and capable of repeated renewals.
The Church would change its stand, he was sure of it, as it had
done so in the past each time she realized that a new understanding
of human nature had surfaced. She would change her stand when an
enlightened and less legalistic clergy, resonating better with the
Church's intellectual consistency, would appear. The Church would
change its stand as sure as the Mater Dolorosa would meet the Risen
Son in the salubong of the two carrozas at the Galilea, as sure as the
angelito, descending from above, would lift the mother's veil amidst
the singing of halleluiah's. For these reasons and convictions—and a
host of other intimations—he would remain a Roman Catholic. But
he would not go and see Dr. Macatangay.
He walked towards the window to watch the street below, hoping
to catch a last glimpse of Suzette entering Rex's car, but he only saw
a blur. The weather must be warm outside despite the showers, he
thought, because the Koppel air conditioning unit began to fog the
glass, causing the moisture to condense until it became difficult to
determine whether the shapes he saw were reflections of neon lights
from Baker's Plaza on Naga's rain-swept streets or the frosted tex-
tures of warm air as it congealed on the pane.
Typhoon
M Y parishioners call me Father Itos. But after today, you may

drop the "Father" and just call me Itos. You see, this afternoon, after
the Fluvial Procession, I am leaving the priesthood.
No, I do not intend to marry. I love the priesthood more than
the married state. Or better still, I love the priesthood more than
any state.
But I'm leaving because of a woman. Her name is Rosing. I am
leaving because I do not agree with the way the Church has treated
her. Rosing left my parish nine days ago. She told me she was leaving
to spare me from further trouble with my superiors.
Rosing's case scandalized our parish. You see, I gave her Holy
Communion knowing full well she was a married woman who lived-in
with another man. And she practiced contraception. Now that's two
counts for refusing her the Sacraments. Yet I gave her Holy Com-
munion. You can just imagine how my parishioners kicked up a fuss,
so to speak, and complained to my superiors who summoned me and
threatened to discipline me. But I knew her story, and I explained it
to the tribunal, and they would not listen. To them, Rosing lived in
sin and the CBCP said this was ground enough to refuse her the
Sacraments. They ordered me to "inflict spiritual penalty" on her for
adultery and for practicing birth control. They warned me that if I
went ahead and gave her Holy Communion, they would defrock me.
All my arguments fell on deaf ears. They even insulted me. They
said that for a secular priest I intellectualized too much I should have
been a Jesuit.
It is now nine days since she left. During this time I have prayed
to the Virgin of Penafrancia to help me decide: Should I remain a
priest and change the Church from within the corpus doctrinnae, as
Assisi and Dominic had done, or should I nail my proverbial ninety-
five theses on the door of the Naga Cathedral and change the Church
from without? Where would I be more effective? I had entreated
the Virgin for a sign—a blue handkerchief, as blue as the one I gave
Rosing on the night she left, as a sign that I should remain a priest—
and gave Her until the Fluvial Procession to answer me. It seems
now that even She has abandoned me. So I take this as a sign that
I should leave.
In my youth the Virgin had always answered my prayers with
giveaway signs, whether they be white roses or blue handkerchiefs.
I don't know why I'm not getting those signals anymore. Is it because
those were childish things that belonged to pre-Conciliar times? Or
is it because She is telling me that now that I have become a man I
should put away childish things?
I don't know. V/hat I'm certain is that it is not easy to leave the
priesthood. Modesty aside, I have always taken my vocation seriously.
As parish priest I am volleyball coach, choir director, organist, bazaar
organizer, school organ adviser, fund raiser, raffle ticket salesman, and
last minute guest speaker in case the invited guest speaker does not
arrive. You can say I am a devoted priest. As far as I know, not once
have I turned down a house or office blessing, a baptism, a marriage,
a burial, you name it. Did you know that at one time, my parishioners
said I could hold a candle to the Cure d' Ars when they noticed the
marathon Confessions I would hear every month interrupted only by
Breviary and meals. That's how much I love my vocation.
Not only that. When I became parish priest here, I saw to it that
my church was not only a religious center, but a social, recreational,
and cultural center as well. I thought that the youth, by seeing a
basketball-playing priest on the parish court, for example, would not
only stay away from drugs but also develop positive attitudes towards
Naguenos 111
the Catholic Church. Parents knew their children were safe in my

parish.
You see, despite Cable TV and CNN and the Internet in Naga
that globalize the Vatican's significance in the lives of Naguenos, Rome
to my parishioners still means the local parish. To Bicol Catholics,
the Church is the priest, and vice versa: Christ Himself speaks
through the priest, because the priest, as the Baltimore Catechism
has taught us, is an Alter Christus. Few Catholics I know leave the
Church because of the Pope or the Archbishop, but many leave it
because of a certain parish priest.
But tonight, after the Fluvial Procession, I am leaving the
priesthood.
Believe me, it is not easy. I shall miss many faces: from the kin-
dergarten-school kids to the teen-agers, from the young-marrieds to
the senior citizens—all of them with their ready smiles everytime
they meet "Father." And I think I shall also miss the homes that
reserve the best cookies and coffee for me, the CWL matrons who
laugh out loud at my slightest jokes, the Rotarians who frown and
nod seriously at every word I say even if I myself don't know what
I'm talking about.
Right now I am waiting for the Virgin's Image to come out of
the Naga Cathedral. I am to accompany it in procession to the Basilica
via the Bicol River. Since it is still early, I decided a while ago to
come up here to the second floor of the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary
(where I studied for twelve years) overlooking this mammoth crowd
outside the patio so I can type my resignation letter to the Arch-
bishop.
I look out the window. Suddenly, it is September again, and Naga
awakens once more to the noise and celebrations of the Penafrancia
season. All the sights and sounds of the fiesta are here: from
processions to parades and from novenas to carnivals.
Come to think of it: I have never broken my promise, not even
when I was in Spain, to attend all the Penafrancia fiestas during my
lifetime. Indeed, even when I was in Spain, I celebrated the fiesta
right at the very shrine of Nuesta Senora de la Pena de Francia, on
top of that sacred mountain in Salamanca, so determined was I to
keep my promise.
But oh to be in Naga in September. So here I am again watching

from beyond my room in the seminary the patio swell with devotees
waiting for the Image to come out of the Cathedral. What a festive
afternoon this Saturday of the Fluvial Procession is. Even the mon-
soon winds have come to Naga to stir the teeming flames of votive
candles on the church grounds. Aha, the dust gyrates, forcing our
beatas to cover their heads and faces with red and yellow bandanas.
I think those schoolchildren over there especially celebrate the fiesta
best because I see them continuously screaming as they play daracu-
pan, trailing a clutch of fidgety yayas on the lookout for calesas and
jeepneys and trimobiles and mini-buses. Look at those little rascals
ramming themselves against the crowd, then squeeze themselves in,
and—careful—throw an old woman off balance. The poor old lady.
She was in the act of offering her right hand to a young man (an
Atenean, no doubt) who has just caught the hand in time to bring it
to his forehead.
Roman Catholic Naga! A city of parades and processions, of es-
tampitas and barajas, of pharisees and publicans, of faith and super-
stition, of daily communicants and chismosas, of beatas and
mahjonggeras, of saints and sinners.
Then my mind moves to last Friday's Traslacion, and suddenly
my mood changes. I flinch at the way they disrobed the Image and
tore away the crown. I squirm at the way they allowed a naked,
crownless, hairless Virgin to stand in front of all those men. I fear
the consequences of this sacrilege, for I know that no desecration is
without its aftermath. How could they have done this to Her?
Especially, the incident disturbed me because it reminded me of
the way we treated Rosing.
Rosing was a very pretty girl—the prettiest girl in my parish. I
saw her grow up from childhood to young womanhood because she
was among the children from the orphanage who were brought in by
the Daughters of Charity to the parish home. I do not know exactly
where she came from or who her parents were, and I did not bother
to listen to Dona Choleng's CWL version of her "mysterious concep-
tion."
Naguenos 113
When Rosing was sixteen, she married somebody in my parish.

I thought she was too young, but the couple insisted they had to get
married. I had no choice. Anyway, I knew the boy's family, so I of-
ficiated the marriage.
Six months later, after her child was born, she was living in hell.
The husband resigned from his job and refused to work. She sup-
ported him by quitting school and working full-time in the parish
while he played billiards and drank. I took this as a period of adjust-
ment. Then one day her husband stormed into my office screaming
that Rosing had left him to live with another man. I raised hell. I
summoned Rosing and rebuked her in front of her husband. I re-
minded her of the sanctity of her marriage vows and ordered her to
return to her husband immediately or lose her soul.
As soon as the husband had left the room, I asked her why in
God's name she had done such a thing. She told me her husband
would beat her up daily. She complained of cruelty and of how much
pain she had suffered. Because of my training, these things meant
nothing to me. Then she told me of this other man, Jose, who had
rescued her from this hellish life and how much they loved each
other. Now that meant something to me. She begged me to under-
stand.
I said I could not help her. I quoted Sirach and Leviticus. I told
her God hath permanently joined her to her husband, period. I told
her that marriage was a sacrifice to test her love for God. I told her
she had no right to complain because her suffering could not match
Jesus' suffering on the Cross. I told her I would have to refuse her
Holy Communion if she persisted in living with this other man. Her
contumacy was a defiance of Church authority, and her open disre-
gard of penalty invoked automatic censure. My duty, I said, was to
deter her from committing sin further because her sin threatened
the common good of the Church and its members. I said my purpose
in punishing her was to correct her, and unless she made reparation
for the harm she had done to the Catholic community, I had no
choice but to exclude her from the community of the faithful, and
that meant barring her not only from participating in liturgical activi-
ties but also from receiving the Sacraments. I told her that absolution
could be obtained so long as she desisted from obstinacy and so long

as she repented. As penance for her sin, I suspended her from her
job for a month.
I did not hear from her for three weeks, until one late night, as
I was praying in the sacristy, she appeared, limping barefoot, wearing
only a bathrobe. Her face swelled and her nose bled. I asked her
what had happened. She shook in sobs and said her husband had
tried to kill her. I asked why, for crying out loud. She said he returned
home drunk and demanded a stick of cigarette, but she said she didn't
have any in the house, so he ordered her to go out and buy some in
the sari-sari store. She refused because of the late hour, and besides
she feared the tambays might molest her. So he grabbed her by the
throat and twisted her arm behind her back and forced her through
the main door. She resisted, so he wrapped his arm across her throat
until she went blue in the face and passed out. When she recovered,
she found out that she had no clothes on, and her husband was raping
her. She pushed him away. This enraged him so he punched and
punched her until she thought he would kill her.
When he sat down to rest from exhaustion between punches,
she escaped, grabbing only a bathrobe to cover her nakedness. She
begged me to rescue her baby that lay in the bed while her Nean-
derthal husband seethed. I advised her to wait in the sacristy while
I drove down in my jeep to their house only to find the father dead
drunk so that I was able to snatch the baby easily and bring it back
to the mother.
I invited mother and child to rest in my room while I finished
my prayers. After she had put the baby to sleep, I asked her to lay
it on my bed so she could tell me everything her husband had done
to her. I could not believe what I heard.
She said her husband would force her to dance naked in front
of him every Saturday night (he called these his Sabado Nights Spe-
cial), then he would slap her face because he demanded to know
where she learned to dance like that. She said he'd force her to look
at> pornographic pictures, then compel her to try the new positions,
only to throw her down the stairs because she would not squeal prop-
Naguenos U5
erly, with feeling, he'd insist, like a pig—oink! oinkl—when he en-

tered her from behind and pulled her ears as he thrusted.
She said she did not understand his moodswings from violence
to tenderness. After having made a punching bag out of her, he'd
vow not to do it again, and in the next few days he would behave
like an angel. But before the bruises went away, his irritation would
build up. Minor things would displease him: the coffee was too sweet,
the rice too soft. He'd complain she did not serve him enough, or
he'd resent her suggestion that he help wash the dishes because he
insisted he wore the pants in the house. Then, without warning, he
would smash the household ornaments.
His favorite pastime, however, was the hair-pulling sessions. For
no reason at all—what had she done or not done again?—he'd grab
her hair and drag her across the sala then bang and bang her head
against the wall. And then he'd say sorry. It was a cycle, she said:
after the violence, the forgiveness, then back to the violence. She
said he would beat her up so fiercely that he would sleep afterwards
from exhaustion. But as soon as he woke up in the dead of night, he
would strangle her while she slept.
What was I to do with her? She was married in my parish. She
exchanged her vows before me. She had knelt at the foot of the altar
and received Holy Communion with her groom after she heard me
describe the sanctity of matrimony. Her resolutions were intent, her
love honest, her hopes high. In less than a year, she was in my sacristy
all back and blue.
Was I going to send her back to her husband like I did the last
time? She obeyed me as she obeyed her Church. I remember the
words I told her the time after her husband had stormed into my
office: No Rosing, no can do, I said through my pursed lips. The
Church condemns adultery, you know that, you are a Colegiala. I
knew my rebuke chagrined her, but in my lexicon, she broke the law.
I remember walking her to the front door as I kept looking at my
watch to drive home the message that I would have none of her silly
excuses even if she groused how much she suffered from her husband.
My law and my heart were set. I told her she did not understand
the Church's concept of suffering. I told her that suffering was not
all negative, that it had a religious and spiritual value too because it
provided a means of purification, especially for sinners like her. I told
her she deserved to suffer because she had sinned, and I counseled
her to accept her suffering in a spirit of penance. Like I said earlier,
I suspended her and ordered her to return to her husband immedi-
ately or else I would have to deny her the Sacraments, and if she
died in that state, I warned her I would have to deny her Christian
burial too.
That night she came to me three weeks later I knew she drowned
in distress and grasped at the Church for help. She came to me be-
cause she had nobody else to turn to. She came to me to find the
Christ Who could not be contained in the fetters of rigid laws. And
what did I do? I, the coward, let her listen to my stilted arguments—it
is a period of adjustment, a lovers' quarrel—and to my laws. I quoted
Paul and Genesis. The passages did not honestly convince her—nor
myself—but I mouthed them in loyalty to my Church. Then, as the
"most unkindest" cut of all, I told her I doubted if her husband was
capable of doing all that violence she was telling me about because
I knew the boy and in public he was the perfect gentleman and eve-
rybody said he was such a nice boy I even thought he was going to
enter the seminary and besides I did not see evidence of those body
bruises she was talking about for all I knew she had none of them.
I demanded to see those bruises.
So she untied her waistband and took off her bathrobe, allowing
it to drop to the floor. I tried to stop her, realizing what I had just
said, and forgetting what she had told me earlier that she had no
underwear, but it was too late. Suddenly, she stood completely naked
before me to allow me to see for myself the lesions, the welts, the
gashes, the cigarette burns all over her body. I gaped in disbelief. I
could not understand how a husband could have done this to a beau-
tiful body like hers—for she was breathtakingly beautiful despite the
lacerations, more beautiful than anything I had ever laid my eyes on
or ever imagined. Indeed, as she stood unclad before me, with all
that strange frailty and wraithlike incorporeality and ethereal purity
that were not of this world—the embodiment of Ficino's idea of
Beauty—I could not help thinking she was Botticelli's Venus Herself
Naguenos 117
blown ashore, to my room, by the wind gods so that I could catch

a glimpse of the beauty of God standing weightless upon a shell,
trying to cover her sacred pudenda with one of her pretty hands—
albeit unsuccessfully—before Pomona hid her with a brocaded man-
tle. How a husband could desecrate a body like that was beyond me.
Then, without saying a word, she put back on her bathrobe, picked
up her baby, and limped out of my room into the night.
I do not know how long I stood there after she left. All I know
is I could not take my mind off her body and the bruises her husband
had inflicted on it—and my Church's indirect hand in causing them.
I do not know why, but the experience laid bare the cause of the
hardening of my organ, I mean, my heart: I suddenly realized I did
not know Theology. Yes, I studied twelve years in the seminary, but
that night I realized for the first time that in all those twelve years
we never studied Theology. Theology teaches us how we can better
love God. Theology makes the words of Christ alive in every age.
But in the seminary, what they called Theology was boxed
thought, dead-ended definitions, narrow rules. I memorized doctrines
and laws without understanding them. I knew all the guidelines con-
cerning Christian burial, the penalties for contraception, the condi-
tions for excommunication. I learned to package grace and measure
God's gifts. I classified sins into mortal or venial, and I saw sin eve-
rywhere. I learned the meaning of fear and cringed at God's .fickle-
mindedness: a single Mass missed because of weariness was a mortal
sin and if a person died in that state s/he would go to hell as surely
as the rest of the murderers and the criminals. No, we had no The-
ology.
Instead, we had an education without sympathy, a training with-
out compassion. Seldom did we talk of life's complexities save only
about what was right and what was wrong. "Canon Law says" outlined
every debate, "That's heresy" ended all arguments. Doubts found no
voice there. In philosophy, for example, we took up Kant and
Kierkegaard and Hume all in one meeting. We dismissed Camus as
palpably confused. We laughed at Nietzsche for his madness. I studied
only what my professors told me to study, and accepted only what
they told me to accept even if I did not understand, for example,
how some prayers could be made more effective than ten years' pen-
ance if they involved some motion of the lips to make them public
as required by Canon Law
They discouraged poetry writing unless our poems conformed to
the literary standards of Mary's Army. They trained us to memorize,
not to reflect; to defend, not to think. We studied the Bible to defend
the Church from the Protestants; we studied John to defend Con-
fession; we studied Paul to defend the superiority of husbands over
their wives. In effect, we ended up as staunch defenders of the Faith,
but we learned nothing of human weaknesses or the limits of a per-
son's capacity to obey.
When I became a priest, I knew nothing about psychology or
counseling. I only knew the law and how to enforce it. Imagine I, a
boy-priest, who had neither lived nor hurt in the world, out there
enforcing Church laws to men and women who, unlike myself, did
not see the world in black and white. Fortified by cubed formulas,
I refused the sacraments to the divorced; blind to human frailties, I
called my lack of feeling "saintliness," and my unreasonable advises
as expressions of "God's will." In a word, I was ridiculously sincere.
No one with an original and independent mind could become a
priest. The seminary weeds him out long before ordination, leaving
only the docile, the naive, the legalistic, the sanctimonious, the phar-
isaical, the mediocre to serve God. These are the arch-conservatives
on one side, and the social activists on the other, that make up the
fabric of today's postmodern Church. These are the young monsi-
gnors with their confident smiles and ambitious eyes: they who have
earned their purple stripes by right connections and one-pointed de-
votion to the law which they guard from honest dialogue. From such
a group can never come a Horacio de la Costa or a Teilhard de Chardin
or a Bernard Lonergan.
I welcomed the winds of change of Vatican II, hoping it would
heal our clerical hatred and fear of women. My euphoria was short-
lived. Humanae Vitae canceled out the positive results of the Council.
Today, three decades later and on the threshold of the Third Millen-
nium, we still treat women's bodies as painted tombstones—or quick-
sands ready to suck men into hell. Because my Church does not
Naguenos 119
understand the mysteries of sexuality and female reproduction, all

the Pope's hullabaloo notwithstanding, it continues to reject woman's
personhood without realizing that by doing so, it also turns a blind
eye to the fullness of God Who is mirrored in all creatures, male
and female, made in God's image.
Rosing came to me as she came to Christ. When a Bicolana has
a marital problem, she does not go to the Women's Crisis Center or
to Lorena or to Gabriela. She comes to the priest. She came to me
because the law had bound her and frightened her. She came to me
because she could not make a moral decision without my priestly
advice. Yet all I did was quote Genesis and Paul to fortify the De-
cretum of archaic laws commanding women to fear their husbands.
Then I sent her away.
I agonize over what I had done to her. She believed in me as she
believed in her Church. When she was a little girl, I taught her how
good God was. She listened to me speak of God's angels and saints.
I told her Bible stories, blessed her rosaries and estampitas, held relics
for her to kiss, taught her how to pray in Latin and Spanish, gave
her First Communion, brought her to the Archbishop for Confirma-
tion, enrolled her to the miraculous medal apostolate, scolded her
for her childish mistakes, urged her to pray for the poor souls in
purgatory, make the nine First Fridays devotion, honor the Sacred
Heart. All these and more. In a word, I made the Roman Catholic
Church the center of her life, her reason for living. I assured her the
Catholic universe was ordered and promised her the reward of heaven
when she died. But when she grew up, I abandoned her.
Realizing my most grievous fault, I hurried downstairs to my jeep
to go after her lest she reach her house before I did. But I found her
in the corner of the church's door, crouched and shivering, with her
baby fast asleep in her arms. I told her to board the jeep. Then I
brought her to the home of Jose who received mother and child with
all the kindness and the gentleness and the love that I have ever seen
in a man's eyes. Before I left them, I gave them my blessing and told
them that if they went to Mass that Sunday I would give them Holy
Communion.
So the following Sunday I gave them Holy Communion. And like

I said, the whole community took up arms against me. Many avoided
me. Lay leaders threatened to picket the church premises. Moral
crusaders called me consentidor. But I held my ground. I told Rosing
to return the next Sunday and receive Holy Communion. I disagreed
with the CBCP, but this time I was not going to suffer for the truth
in silence and in prayer. I was going to fight back, as Christ had
fought the Pharisees. I believed that the CBCP no longer represented
true Catholicism. It had strayed from it. They and their followers
are not the Catholics of Good Pope John XXIII's Aggiornamento, but
Wojtyla's unthinking conservatives, first cousins of Pat Buchanan, Pat
Robertson, and Pat Boone. Then I thought of my decision and its
consequences. I thought of Hans Kting and Charles Curran and Ed-
ward Schillebeekx and Bernard Haring and Yves Congar and of many
other sincere and deep-thinking Catholics who no longer allow them-
selves to be bullied by a Church grown arrogant and inhumane, a
Church that caricatures Catholicism, and I took comfort in the
thought that I wasn't exactly in bad company. I was ready.
That Sunday never arrived. On Thursday night, the eve of the
Traslacion, she came to the rectory to say goodbye.
I did not quite understand where she said she was going, for she
kept mentioning the word Traslacion. It did not make sense to me.
In fact, none of the things she told me that last night made much
sense to me. For example, when I asked her if she was coming back,
she said yes, but in another form. I asked her what she meant by
that, and she answered by talking of deaths, strong winds, floods,
famine, epidemic. I started to worry about her mental health, espe-
cially when she kept describing ripped off roofs, drownings, brown-
outs, stranded passengers. For a while, she would not let me talk.
She advised me to fix my generator, gird my windows, lay up food-
stuffs and candles, and prepare the sacristy as a refugee center. I
tried to figure out what she meant when she said that unless men
stopped abusing her, she could not help coming back in a different
form. She said she had come to help us take away our sense of sepa-
rateness in the gentlest of ways, but men's hearts were hard so she
Naguenos 121
had to return in a different form to teach us the hard way so that

through pain we would realize our mistakes.
Too, I could not understand why she kept talking of trees and
how we have denuded our forests then shift the topic to her hair, as
if the trees and her hair were one and the same thing. She wept as
she complained of so much hair pulled from her head that I gave her
my blue handkerchief, a souvenir I had bought in Salamanca, with
my name—Padre Itos—embossed in lemon lace, to wipe away her
tears. I told her to keep it as my going away present. She tucked it
between her breasts and said she was returning it someday so I would
know who she was. Then she kissed my hand and mentioned again
the Traslacion and begged me to pray hard to the Virgin for forgive-
ness for the harm men had done to nature and to women, before
she disappeared in the night.
That was nine days ago. My mind moves again to the desecration
of the Image. How similar to the way we treated Rosing. How com-
parable to the way we have denuded our forests. My soul cringes at
the questions I have held back all these years: Why is my Church so
prejudiced against women? Why does my Church lump together abor-
tion, contraception, divorce, and fornication as if they were all equally
reprehensible? Why is it quick to jump the gun on women abortionists
yet silent on rape-slayers and mass-murderers? Why does it avoid
honest dialogue on the birth control issue and instead assert ecclesi-
astical discipline and authority? Is my Church interested in the truth
or in politics? If the Second Vatican Council called for collegiality,
then why is Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
still behaving like the Holy Inquisition? Why does the Church drag
its feet for years on petitions for marriage annulments yet grant them
easily to the rich and the influential, especially if one of them happens
to be the Princess Caroline of Monaco, whose case no less than the
Pope himself personally handled? Why did the Pope hurry to beatify
a controversial arch-conservative just fifteen years after the latter's
death despite fierce opposition from clergy and laity? What are the
Neocatechumenate, the Focolare, and the Communion and Libera-
tion doing inside the Church? Why did the Pope grant a papal award
to Kurt Waldheim, an ex-Nazi known for his anti-semitic activities
in the Wehmacht during World War II? Why is the Church run ac-
cording to Polish Catholic, German, and personal prelature standards?
Why does my religion teach nature to be inferior and contaminated
with evil? Why do we teach that spirituality is in opposition to nature?
If we follow the line of reasoning that nature is evil, then it follows
that women, whom we associate with nature, are evil too. Is there
a connection between man's violence against nature and his violence
against women?
Suddenly fireworks swish up and explode. Then the Cathedral
starts ringing with bells. I wonder what's going on, for it is too early,
so I rush downstairs to find out. When I reach the patio, however,
I see the Image already being brought out of the side exit of the
Cathedral, then loaded onto an open van. I hurry towards the Image,
forcing myself through the crowd, waving at the other priests to wait
for me to board the van, before we plow our way through Naga's
main street all the way to the banks of the Bicol River for the Fluvial
Procession.
As soon as we transfer the Image to the Pagoda, a bogador calls
out my name. He is waving a blue handkerchief. He hands it to me
and tells me he saw this thing jutting from the Image's bosom, and
he pulled it off because he thought it was one of those banners caught
up in the procession. He asks me if it's mine because my name is on
it. I read the embossed name: Padre Itos. Yes1. I tell him, it is mine!
Then I look at the Virgin and recognize that face. To my amazement
and shock, a great sweetness I cannot put into words suddenly floods
my heart.
The fullness overwhelms me so that I can do nothing save to flow
with this stream of consciousness cascading with the clash of the
cymbals from this band beside me now playing a religious march to
signal the start of our cruise down the river amidst the clapping of
hands and the explosion of fireworks and the splashing of paddles
that spray the skies with blinding sparkles of millions of waterbursts
in a spasm of joy spritzing the hoarse shouts of Viva la Virgen! ex-
ploding on both banks of the river all the way to the hillsides now
dotted with votive candles that look like dancing fireflies from our
Pagoda that is beginning to wobble as a result of the weight of
Naguenos 123
bogadores who are bobbing and weaving in the waters below and
clinging to the raft and bearing it down forcing it to half-sink and
graze on one side of the bank of the river close enough for us to see
the swarm of eyes peep through the clusters of leaves before we
cleave the waters again in the direction of the distant sound of
churchbells and the loudspeaker leading the raft and the faithful to
prayer and a song we have known all our lives:
Resuene vibrante el himno de amor

Que entona tu pueblo con grata emocion.
Resuene vibrante el himno de amor
Que entona tu pueblo con grata emocion.
Patrona del Bicol, gran Madre de Dios
Se siempre la Reina de nuestra region.
Patrona del Bicol, gran Madre de Dios
Se siempre la Reina de nuestra region.
I sing as I have never sung before, pouring my heart and soul to

the Virgin of Penafrancia who wants me to help Her rebuild the
Church. And I wave and wave my blue handkerchief as I sing till I
choke in tears. Yes, I shall remain the Virgin's priest. What matter
if the gender-chauvinists jeer at Her; what matter if the Amen-Amen
fanatics ignore Her. The Virgin is alive and well in the Roman Catholic
Church, and the sooner we recognize that, the better for us. She
stands for the Power behind the Church, the Woman we need to
survive the turbulent years ahead; and when She is rediscovered,
everything else will be rediscovered, for She is more radiant than the
sun, gentle as the summer rain, Nuestra Senora de Penafrancia, Pa-
trona del Bicol, Mother of God, Holy Virgin of virgins, Mother of
Christ, Mother of divine grace, Mother most pure, Mother most
chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother undefiled, Mother immaculate,
Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable, Mother of good coun-
sel, Mother of our Creator, Mother of our Savior, Virgin most pru-
dent, Virgin most venerable, Virgin most renowned, Virgin most
powerful, Virgin most merciful, Virgin most faithful, Mirror of jus-
tice, Seat of wisdom, Cause of our joy, Spiritual vessel, Vessel of
honor, Singular vessel of devotion, Mystical rose, Tower of David,

Tower of ivory, House of gold, Ark of the covenant, Gate of heaven,
Morning star, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the
afflicted, Help of Christians, Queen of angels, Queen of patriarchs,
Queen of prophets, Queen of apostles, Queen of martyrs, Queen of
confessors, Queen of virgins, Queen of all saints, Queen conceived
without original sin, Queen assumed into heaven, Queen of the most
holy Rosary, Queen of peace, Queen of my heart: Viva la Virgen!
The N i g h t Express
Does N o t Stop H e r e A n y m o r e
And if the sufferings of children go to make up the sum of

sufferings which is necessary for the purchase of truth, then I
say beforehand that the entire truth is not worth such a
price.... I do not want a mother to embrace the torturer who
had her child torn to pieces by his dogs1. She has no right to
forgive him1.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov
^^IATY ANGELES was a devout Roman Catholic, but when her

only son died in a hazing incident, she refused to go to Church.
She threw away her rosaries, tore up her prayer books and no-
venas, and smashed up the statuettes and sacred images in her apart-
ment.
She had every reason to blame God. She raised her son in the
best Catholic way. She taught him to obey the Ten Commandments,
to observe the theological virtues, to avoid occasions of sin. In fact,
so O. A. was she, as Naty's neighbors were wont to describe her,
that her son grew up praying the Rosary nightly, visiting the Blessed
Sacrament daily, singing in the parish choir weekly, joining processions
regularly, and performing spiritual and corporal works of mercy at

the drop of a hat.
Yet her son died just the same—and died violently.
Naty trusted Catholic schools. She sent her son to the Naga Pa-
rochial School and the Ateneo de Naga because she believed that all
Catholic schools belonged to a tradition of quality education dating
back to Europe's medieval universities which fashioned boys and girls
into Christlike and Marylike individuals.
Indeed, both the NPS and the AdeN did not disappoint her, for
hardly had the boy learned to spell, when he already knew by heart
basic Catholic doctrine. For example, he knew the difference be-
tween actual and sanctifying grace,' and explained each of the seven
sacraments, as well as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to a delighted
mother who attributed these achievements to the superiority of
Catholic education. What's more, not only did her son reap spiritual
fruits, but also, in the words of Dona Choleng of the CWL, temporal
"fringe benefits" as well: Naga's prominent families sent their children
to Catholic schools; ergo, if you sent your children there, Dona
Choleng would chime, they'd have classmates belonging to Naga's
upper crust—an edge so imperative to every mother's son's future
career.
That, of course, was Dona Choleng's point of view. Naty's was
different, albeit no less pragmatic: she sent her only son to Catholic
schools because these schools taught Theology, and Theology pleased
God who showed His approval by watching over the students. In
other words, she chose Catholic schools because God protected the
students from evil.
Yet her son died in a Catholic law school in Manila—a victim of
fraternity initiation rites.
He died in the middle of his studies. When Naty arrived at the
hospital, her son still breathed, but his kidneys had ruptured beyond
repair the physicians had to attach the boy to a dialysis machine to
keep him alive. The attending physician informed her that the hazing
had been so brutal that he listed down, among the major injuries, a
severed spinal column, a cracked skull, a burst right lung, and a series
of internal hemorrhages resulting from injuries sustained in the vital
Naguenos 127
organs. They had paddled him, the physician said lifting the bedsheet
to show the patient's distended thighs, until his legs had turned pur-
ple as eggplants. They had whipped him with belt buckles, the phy-
sician added, lifting the bedsheet farther up, until the blue and violet
welts showed up all over the body.
Three times in a row after Naty had arrived, her son complained
of severe abdominal pains and vomited blood, the effect of the times
his initiation masters had jumped on his stomach while he slept; and
three times in a row, the boy's heart stopped beating, forcing the
doctors to revive him twice. The boy's heart stopped beating perma-
nently on the third attempt, barely three hours after his mother had
arrived from the airport.
To Naty Angeles, a public school teacher turned OCW, her son's
death drew only one conclusion: an indifferent God. She did not
understand. She had prayed and prayed. She had lived the Faith to
the letter. How none of these things had done her any good devas-
tated her.
Only last year her son had throbbed with life. She remembered
how he had traveled the Naga-Manila South Road just to meet his
mother at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport even if she had
written to him it was not necessary because she was proceeding to
Naga anyway. But he went there just the same to surprise her. How
her heart leapt in the arrival area when she saw him among the crowd.
The first thing he noticed were his mother's bandaged hands. But
when he asked her about them, she glossed over the subject by leading
the boy through OCWs and balikbayans and tourists and returning
residents towards the Duty Free Shop and telling her wide-eyed son
to choose anything he wanted that he forgot about the bandages.
They went to Naga that same day via Sarkies Tours to spend
Christmas in the apartment where he grew up. Once home, the boy
went off his head hollering Yeyyyl as he unpacked the two Pullman
cases, and sliced layers of masking tapes off the balikbayan box to
wrench out the tape recorder and the Walkman she had promised
him so he could tape his lessons and review them in his Walkman.
Then he pulled out the set of Christmas lights and decorations which
they both unwrapped and assembled with sporadic mock screams of
glee and zest. Sometimes the boy stood back to direct his mother,
grave in concentration, where to hang the paper lanterns and the
silver bells. Most of the time, however, the mother let him stand on
the chair to load the upper lights and decorations, including the top-
most star, while he arranged the tinfoil-wrapped presents at the foot
of the tree. The belen took a longer time to set up, so when they
finished the job, they gave themselves a break by eating out—what
tapsilog? filet mignonl—and later sitting in Plaza Quince Martires, in
the same spot they always sat, fronting San Francisco Church, to wait
for the afternoon Mass. This was their usual practice before she left
for abroad, and they were doing a replay "as scheduled." When the
Mass ended, they did their groceries and returned to the plaza to eat
their toasted siopao and talk—and sometimes sing Christmas carols
a cappella—until evening fell and sent them back to the apartment.
The next day, they woke up early to attend the Misa de Aguinaldo,
then hurried back home to eat their puto bungbong and bibingka and
their slices of queso de bola and french baguettes, downed by sips of
hot salabat, and wrapped up by postres of pastillas de pili, bucayo,
and mazapan cakes. It was the first time mother and son had reunited
after six months, and they promised each other to cash in on the
Christmas break to the max before she left again for abroad.
NATY had not planned to work abroad. She had neither the
wherewithal nor the desire to leave Naga. But when her son had
expressed his desire to take up law in a Catholic school in Manila
after graduation, she changed her mind. Her minuscule salary could
not put him through law school, especially when no husband stood
by.
The boy never really knew a dad. Naty had met her son's father
during a sports fest in downtown Naga during a precarious phase in
her life—that age when many a lady schoolteacher panics when she
finds herself poised on the precipice of spinsterhood. Despite his
being ten years her junior—or rather because of it—he impressed her
by his athletic prowess, his boyish charm, and his Van Damme looks,
that is why when he invited her to a resort in Carolina for a two-day
live-in sports-awareness seminar that weekend, she said yes without
Naguenos 129
demur. As the saying goes, one thing led to another—the night swim-
ming, the jamming sessions, the private cottages, the air-conditioned
rooms, the Jakuzi baths—until she found herself yielding to Van
Damme's chutzpah. In those days, she forgave him when he apolo-
gized because he "got carried away." But these days, as she looked
back at the incident through politically correct eyes, she called it
"date rape." If only she were wiser. But she was not. In fact, she was
worse than not wise: she consented to a series of encores until one
day she discovered that she was in the family way. To placate queru-
lous Naga, she allowed herself to be married to a man she hardly
knew.
Her former teacher, Mr. Caceres, gave the bride away, for Naty's
parents had long separated and acquired new spouses. They had also
left Naga for good. She lived with her in-laws for a while, but insisted,
after barely a month, that she and her husband transfer, to the apart-
ment—her former home—when her aging widowed diabetic aunt-in-
law vacated it to return to Tugatog, Malabon, where a younger sister,
a retired nurse, attended to the insulin shots. Naty said she and her
husband needed privacy if they were to take their married life seri-
ously.
Her husband turned out to be a mama's boy, a spoiled brat, and
a bum. He refused to finish college or go to work, so Naty supported
him by teaching overload. He complained to his drinking buddies
that he had married too soon; he complained to his parents that Naty
had seduced him; he complained to his wife, when their child was
born, that the baby was not his.
He refused to do any work in the house because he said it was
menial stuff, and besides his mother had said only sissies washed
dishes or changed babies' diapers. So Naty hired a part-time yaya—a
working student—to babysit while Naty taught, went to market,
cooked the food, and scrubbed the floor.
The yaya left two months later because Naty's husband caressed
the yaya more than the baby. Despite this, Naty neither confronted
nor blamed her husband. Instead, she promised to look for another
yaya. Bothered by a rare streak of guilt, he agreed to babysit tempo-
rarily while Naty went to work. One late afternoon, however, Naty
arrived home to find the baby crying alone in the crib. Her husband
was nowhere in the house. She waited for him until supper became
cold, but he did not come home.
The next day she looked for him around Naga. She went to his
usual hangouts in the centro, but none of his drinking buddies knew
where he was. She checked out his parents' house. They, too, had
no idea where he was albeit they did not invite her in.
A week later, she heard conflicting rumors of his whereabouts.
Some said he had left for abroad; others, that he was in Legazpi
living-in with a former Agnesian.
His sudden disappearance baffled her. She saw no reason why he
should leave. There was no altercation, no disagreement, no warning.
He just walked out of the house and never returned.
At first the experience crushed her. But as time went by, she
eschewed the self-pity and shifted her attention from her husband
to her son. And to prayers.
Naty had not been that religiosa to start with. Her piety stemmed
from the belief that she deserved all her problems because she was
remiss of her duties as a Catholic and this was God's way of "re-
minding" her. So she started to pray.
Surprisingly, her life improved. First, she won a one-step promo-
tion; second, she convinced her landlady not to raise the rent. The
bugbear of losing her son impelled her to herd the boy to Mass and
Communion every afternoon at San Francisco Church. Their "regular
schedule" consisted of Mass every afternoon, groceries after Mass,
and long chats in Plaza Quince Martires where they sat to eat their
toasted siopao while facing the church's facade.
Her prayers paid off. The boy never gave her any trouble. The
more they prayed and went to church, the more she felt secure. If
only people realized how good God was, she would often tell her
students. God created an ordered universe; if we only followed His
laws, blessings would pour forth into our lives. Especially, she liked
her son's sense of humor. She liked the way he mimicked the Yeyyy!
of that local TV commercial (Mommy, are we going to go to Sam-
paguita Department Store today? Yes, we are. Yeyyy1.). That nasal
Naguenos 131
voice and quaint smirk on his rubbery face never failed to drive her
crazy with laughter.
Of course, once in a while the boy would ask about his father,
but she filled that gap by teaching him how to dribble, block and
pass a ball so that by the time he had grown taller and she would be
cheering for his basketball team from the bleachers instead, he would
ask less and less about his dad.
The boy stopped asking about his father when he went to the
Ateneo de Naga. This time he found substitute dads in the Jesuits.
Their slightest notice took up every conversation topic at the plaza.
He said he'd read up the Jesuits in the Ateneo library. He espe-
cially admired Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Teilhard de Chardin, and
Horacio de la Costa. He sought her advice which campus org he
would join—the Ateneo Forensic Society, the Apostleship of Prayer,
the Sanctuary Society, the Glee Club, the Adoracion Nocturna, the
Kabonyogan Bicolnon—for he liked them all. His mother suggested
the ACIL. When he rose to platoon leader of the ROTC, he asked
his mother if he could join the Saint Francis Xavier Cross and Saber
Fraternity. The word "fraternity" alarmed her. But her son reminded
her this was a Xavierian fraternity to the effect that members proved
their manliness not by inflicting pain but by removing pain, and where
freedom meant the Xavierian freedom to do good. She granted per-
mission. Again, her son's decision did not disappoint her. Henceforth,
the word "fraternity" lost its negative connotation. He said you could
tell he was an Atenean because of the three things he carried in his
backpack—a glow-in-the-dark Rosary, a Roman Missal, and Horacio
de la Costa's Jesuits Today—so much so that his mother thought her
son would join the Order. He did not. Instead, he told her he wanted
to be a lawyer.
It happened one evening in the plaza while they were discussing
Teilhard de Chardin's interpretation of the problem of evil, when
suddenly they saw a shooting star. Its bright streak, like a particle
from fireworks, lasted only a second, as it flashed briefly across the
sky, but the sight lifted his heart. How timely, he said. She did not
see the connection. Let me explain, he said in mock sophistry char-
acteristic of Ateneans: meteors followed no law. Because they took
no definite paths as planets did, they would often hurl themselves

at us. But they could not harm us because the earth's atmosphere
burned them up before they reached our surface.
The evils in this world were like meteors, he went on, stray frag-
ments that refused to follow the law. They existed because the uni-
verse was evolving, and Father Teilhard said there was no order under
formation. Whatever was evolving was incomplete, unfinished, de-
fective. Evil was part of our evolving universe. The best defense
against evil, however, was to follow the example of law-abiding plan-
ets. Their faith in an ordered universe dissipated meteors. With the
help of Francis Xavier's "holy cunning," he was going to hasten Teil-
hard's vision about the future of man. He was going to be a good
lawyer for the greater glory of God.
The motive inspired the mother. That was why none of the horror
stories she'd heard about Filipina OCWs dissuaded her from going
abroad: the Filipina who was forced to kill her employer in order to
save her honor, the maid who jumped to her death from a high-rise
apartment to escape her employer's brutality, the woman who arrived
home in a box, the girl who came home insane after having been
held as a sex slave, the neighborhood lass who was forced to sell her
body, the domestic helper pinched, punched, and singed with hot
iron—all these she would face rather than stymie her son's ambition.
So in June of that year, after her son had enrolled in senior college,
she left Naga to work abroad.
Except the time she attended her aunt's burial in Tugatog, Naty
had not left her son longer than three days. That was why on the
eve of her departure, in the plaza, they asked themselves over and
over if she really had to leave. But it was too late to back out. Her
recruiter had assured her of his legal connections and promised she'd
get her travel papers so long as she paid the placement fee—an
amount she had raised by selling the sala set and borrowing at interest
rates that, in her son's opinion, cried to heaven for vengeance.
Meanwhile, the boy would stay in the apartment. She would send
him money every month. She told him not to worry because she'd
be back in December.
Naguenos 133
True to her recruiter's promise, he not only processed her travel

papers but also got her a service staff passport which allowed her to
slip past immigration and the NAIA labor assistance center with "no
sweat." So smooth was her departure that she wondered where the
horror stories came from, because as far as she was concerned, no
problem cropped up.
Her problems began the moment she arrived at her destination.
First, she found out that her salary was much lower than what they
had stipulated in the contract. Her recruiters promised her a starting
salary three times her pay back home but she ended up barely dou-
bling it. Next, her employer informed her she had no day-offs unlike
other countries that allowed Filipinas to get together and pollute the
public parks once a week. Finally, she was not to leave the house
except to go to market or unless her employer loaned her to other
families.
Even if she did menial work back home, she found her present
job back-breaking. To please her employers, she worked conscien-
tiously: she not only washed the dishes, but meticulously scrubbed
off the grease from the pans. In return, her employers rewarded her
with more elbow grease. They saw to it that she worked all the time.
If they caught her sitting down to rest, they'd let her do anything—
like re-wash the cars or re-arrange the furniture. She slept past mid-
night, and only after she had tutored her employer's son who slapped
her face every time he committed a mistake in grammar.
She bore all these. Three things gave her strength: her nightly
prayers, the satisfaction of seeing her son finish law, and the letters.
The boy kept her posted on everything, from academic work to ex-
tra-curricular activities. Among his latest triumphs: head catechist of
the ACIL. His indispensable learning tools: the tape recorder and the
Walkman. On the sour side: he failed to grab the ANSCO first vice
presidency. This disappointment over what he considered his first
important defeat drove him to brood in the plaza. Other matters:
the meteor shower he saw one clear night. The phenomenon fright-
ened him. What would happen, he wrote, if all these meteors directed
at us the whole extent of their malice? Could the earth protect her-
self? He wrote her every week, every letter counting down on Christ-
mas (three months more, two months...) and planned the thousand
and one things they would both do when she returned.
That was why last year, when she came home finally, they cele-
brated and maximized every moment of her vacation. And when the
time came for her to leave again, her son asked if she really had to
go back. He hated to mention it, he said, but he could not help
noticing the deep hand wounds each time she changed the bandages—
wounds, she admitted, caused by the many hours of manually washing
clothes abroad. He said he did not mind pursuing law in Naga, he
would even work part-time, just don't leave, mother. But she told
him they had already made up their minds that he study in a pres-
tigious Catholic school in Manila. He was graduating that March from
the Ateneo de Naga but he told his mother not to attend that any-
more so she could save her home leave for next Christmas. He would
be in Manila by then, a freshman law student, but they would both
go home and spend Christmas in Naga just like old times. Then she
asked him what he thought about her plan of setting up a small busi-
ness in Naga—no, not their planned lechon manok—a shawarma
stand, how's that. She said she had seen a new, shiny A1 Jalabbi silver
roasting machine abroad and thought about bringing it home next
December. God willing, if their shawarma business clicked, then she
wouldn't have to go back abroad. The proposition appealed to the
boy that he closed the deal with a mock handshake: Yeyyy! Know
what, she said, we'll serve the best pita bread and cook the best
marinated meat and strew in the most garlic and tomatoes and onions
and hot sauce and what have you. And let's put colorful banners, he
chipped in, to entice the customers: Sauding saudi ang lasa—Yeyyy!
He kept bleating Yeyyy! until his mother begged him to stop because
he was such a card and she found it hard holding her sides to suppress
her mirth until thunder growled in the distance and reminded them
it was time to go home and pick up her luggage and bring them to
the bus terminal. A few minutes before she boarded the bus, she
reminded him to pray, to study hard, to take his vitamins regularly,
and to stop worrying because before he knew it they'd be back in
the plaza again with their toasted siopao and their stories about life,
meteors, the Jesuits, when suddenly the boy broke into tears, buried
Naguenos 135
his face in his mother's embrace, and promised her fiercely that when
he became a lawyer, she would never have to work a single day in
her life again ever.
The next December he was dead.
At the funeral home, two young men approached her and intro-
duced themselves as fellow neophytes. They gave their names—
Henry I. Vargas and Salvador T. Diaz—and phone numbers. They
came to her, they said, because they disagreed with the hazing, and
volunteered to expose their frat brods.
She probed them: what really happened? They said, okay, we'll
mince no words. What they narrated smothered her.
First, they said, they were blindfolded and herded to a private
compound where they sat on the cement floor and listened to their
initiation master mouth platitudes about honor and brotherhood.
Then suddenly, without warning, several frat brods started jumping
on their legs. It was only the beginning.
Kicks and blows marked the initiation rites, the two went on.
When their masters were not busy beating them up, they were forcing
them to do things to take the wind out of their sails. Between in-
doctrinations, for example, the initiation masters forced the neo-
phytes to lick the soles of their shoes and then order them to french
kiss each other.
They said her son bore the brunt of the hazing for three reasons:
first, because he showed disappointment over the way their master—
A.I. Damian Sr.—introduced himself by jesting that he added the
"senior" after he had sired a "junior," courtesy of a sorority sis; second,
because her son could not make the audience laugh in the comedy
skit; and third, because her son never raised his voice to scream in
pain. To teach him, therefore, to truckle to them, they stripped him
from the waist down and ordered him to march like an ROTC cadet
around the compound carrying a block of stone attached to his tes-
ticles by a short thread. Next, they ordered him to walk on his knees
in the servants' toilet's cement floor mucky with vomit and feces and
globs of phlegm. Then they shaved his pubic hair and anointed his
penis with oil of wintergreen. Finally, he squirmed in pain. The master
held a glass of water and asked if he wanted it poured over the area.
Her son begged him yes, yes. It was a trick. The water spread the
oil and singed him until he yelped and hopped and skipped and leaped
in pain to the delight and the approval of the audience composed of
senior frat brods some of whom were now in government, business,
and law firms in the country.
But why, she shuddered as she asked, why all the violence. Male-
bonding, they said. When you join a fraternity, you just do not fill
up an application form. You have to pass a ritual that separates the
boys from the men. Becoming a man does not happen automatically,
they said. To prove you are a man, you must meet the challenge of
violence and humiliation. She insisted they tell her who recruited her
son. They said nobody recruited him; he applied. She did not buy
that. She knew her son. They said she probably did not. She de-
manded one good reason why her son would join. They enumerated
many: brotherhood, honor, the basic need to belong to a group, emo-
tional support in a hostile surrounding, access to teachers' examina-
tion questions, assistance all the way to the bar exams, choice jobs
after passing the bar—the contacts, they emphasized. What about
hard work, merit, honesty, Christian virtues, knowledge, she asked.
No dice, they said. In this society, it was not what you knew that
mattered. Lines were drawn by personalism, barkadahan, exclusive
clubs, old classmates, palakasan, lusot, you know what we mean,
ma'am. They said our culture prized connections rather than merit,
so if you gave your body and soul to a fraternity, wow pare, you're
made. She looked at their simian features and thought: so young, so
smart, so corrupt.
The next day, she called up Henry. The voice at the other end
of the line said he had thought about it and decided not to testify,
sorry. She then called Salvador. He was "out of town." The code of
silence had won again, she thought. Fear of retaliation from frat brods
had sealed their lips. So she herself went to the campus to talk to
the school authorities. In a tambayan, she saw handshakes charac-
teristic of frat brods. She mentioned this to the school authorities.
Yes, they admitted, A.I. Damian Sr. and his brods went to school as
usual since no formal charges had been filed against them. Neverthe-
less, they assured her, the school did not sanction hazing. Her indig-
Naguenos 137
nation, however, rose when they advised her, before she left, to avoid
jumping to conclusions because "it's really hard to judge."
Why did the school authorities refuse to crack the whip on the
suspects? she squirmed in silent rage, as she left the building. Why
did they play everything down? Was the fraternity so powerful it
controlled even the school authorities? How could they have allowed
murderers to go to school "as usual" in their sleek cars and all, thumb-
ing their noses at everyone?
Including the law, she thought, as she flagged a taxi. Coccooned
behind the sealed up windows of the air-conditioned cab, she cursed
the heavy traffic. How inconsiderate, how rotten, how reflective of
the frat mentality of Filipinos—a culture where frat brods twisted
everyone round their dirty fingers, where might was right, where
loyalty to frat brods superseded loyalty to law and order. And they
were all over the place, shielded by well-paid legal corps who could
bring anybody to her/his knees anytime. They were metastatic moving
targets, like the AIDS virus, outsmarting everyone by mutating and
transforming themselves into different strains and building swift re-
sistance to all therapies. She despaired as she thought of the judicial
system that would try her son's case—for that body crept with frat
brods who had hides like a rhinoceros. For the first time in her life,
she felt the power of the evil force that killed her only child.
HER son died on the second Sunday of Advent. His remains were
brought to Naga via the Philippine National Railways the next night,
the feast of the Immaculate Conception. At the Tutuban terminal, a
woman's voice interrupted the Christmas songs over the loudspeakers
to page her for a telephone call. In the counter, a man's voice at the
other end of the line conveyed his condolences, then advised her to
desist from pursuing the case if she did not want to join her son six
feet below the ground.
Fear and anger numbed her body. Here she was, down, out, and
alone with her dead son, yet evil men would not leave her alone. She
squirmed in imploding rage and prepared to scream, but a woman
approached her and introduced herself (Gaia Crisostomo, a former
teacher turned health educator, she described herself) and her three-
year-old son Joshua. Their emaciated appearance struck Naty as cu-

rious since they dressed up neatly. Gaia said she was from Naga. She
had heard what happened to Naty's son. She approached her when
she heard Naty's name over the loudspeaker. They were on their way
to Naga for the holy days but all tickets had been sold out, would
Naty care to let them join her in the special coach? They could keep
her company. Naty normally kept herself at arm's length with first
acquaintances, having learned the folly of wearing her heart on her
sleeve; but something in Gaia's soft smile touched her that she not
only said yes once but said it several times.
The long night trip allowed Naty to pour her grief on Gaia. They
sat beside the coffin. Would a civilized person beat you up, Naty
said, make you rest, then beat you up again? She averred her disap-
pointment with Catholic schools. Weren't fraternities of Masonic ori-
gin? Naty asked. Then what were they doing in Catholic schools? She
said she insisted on a Catholic school and not U.P. because anomie
prevailed there: U.P. was the school where frat rumbles and hazing
had long blotted its escutcheon, and besides, U.P. was the school of
hoodlums and crooks in government. But Catholic schools? If the
Church were that powerful, how come it did not condemn fraterni-
ties as it condemned fornication and divorce and contraception and
abortion? Why did it not excommunicate members of fraternities in-
volved in satanic initiation rites?
Naty paused as the train rumbled over a bridge. Then she con-
tinued: Was the Church really pro-life? Then why was it not consis-
tent? The revised Code of Canon Law automatically excommunicated
a woman who has had an abortion. But if a man raped a minor or
butchered a helpless girl or bombed a building with nursery kids in
it or robbed the people blind or tortured or killed or beheaded a
neophyte in sadistic initiation rites—these were not considered grave
enough offenses to deserve excommunication. Why?
The night train's wheels clicked like castanets. When the clatter
faded away, Naty said gravely: The Church was not really concerned
with our spiritual welfare. It was too busy politicking and lobbying
against gambling and divorce and adultery and pornography and pros-
titution to attend to religion's chief concern which was spirituality.
Naguenos 139
Naty's words smarted, but Gaia neither interrupted nor contra-

dicted her. She listened. Occasionally she proffered words of comfort,
but most of the time she just listened, cautious not to break in on
Naty's grief. Naty looked at Joshua's pallid face. He neither fretted
nor nettled his mother, but comported himself punctiliously. To
amuse himself, he loped a rubber band over his fingers and transferred
it back and forth to form a star. Naty wondered if the boy's emacia-
tion were fortuitous or genetic, for Gaia likewise looked pale and
wan.
When they arrived in Naga, Gaia helped Naty negotiate the
body's transfer from the Naga station to San Francisco Church's an-
nex for the wake. Naty said that was as far as she would go. She
would not enter the church. On the wall, outside the church, between
the two huge stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, the words
THY WILL BE DONE, all caps and painted blue, affronted Naty's
grief. She held her temper, but as soon as she went to the apartment,
she threw away her rosaries, tore up her prayer books and novenas,
and smashed up the statuettes and sacred images in the home altar.
When she returned to the wake, Gaia had everything in order.
Something in Gaia made Naty trust her. She touched Naty more
than the priests and the moral guardians of Naga. Gaia was different.
She cared—in her voice, manner, and actions—unlike the nuns who
came in and condoled her with their formulated "I know how you
feel" or "he's in heaven" or "his problems are over." How could his
problems be over when he died before he was fully born? But then,
what could she expect from nuns who spent more time in the picket
lines than in prayer and contemplation? An Amen-Amen convert
dropped in and quoted Paul to the Romans urging her to rejoice in
her suffering and be grateful for her grief, for suffering was good.
She disagreed. People were destroyed, not strengthened, by suffering.
But Gaia was different. She accompanied Naty every day and
night of the wake. She received well-wishers, did the groceries,
cashed the cheques, listed down the names of those who sent flowers
and donations, and made the final arrangements for the burial plot.
During the last night of the wake, however, Gaia bid Naty good-
bye. Joshua had fallen ill and lay alone in bed. Gaia said not to worry
because everything was in order for the burial services tomorrow. She
had asked a seminarian to do the Readings, invited the Ateneo Glee
Club to provide the music, and contracted a mini bus to provide the
transportation for the cortege.
For all these gestures, however, Naty forgot to thank Gaia, be-
cause before the latter left, Naty smarted from a suggestion Gaia had
made to solve Naty's confusion: forgiveness.
The suggestion angered Naty. How could Gaia have dared to ad-
vise forgiveness at a time like this. Didn't she understand the cir-
cumstances? If she were in Naty's shoes, would she forgive those
who killed her son and threatened to kill her too? Wasn't contrition
a prerequisite to forgiveness?
Gaia paused and, in all gentleness, explained to her the benefits
of forgiveness—the freedom, the clarity, the peace of mind that went
with the change of heart. She said the word came from the Hebrew
—shuv—to turn—whose meaning was no different from the Earth's
rotation on its axis or its revolution around the sun. If she did not
forgive, she would not "turn." So she would not be able to dissipate
the meteors her son talked about, for she would not follow the law.
So the past would imprison her and evil would catch up with her.
She said forgiveness stood at the heart of the Faith, and remained
the best armor we could use to fight evil as we crossed the dangerous
fjords towards the next millennium.
Naty did not agree. She said it was easy for Gaia to talk of for-
giveness because she was not directly involved. Even God was not
directly involved here; these frat thugs did not sin against God but
against her. And besides, God did not practice what He preached.
God commanded us to forgive but He Himself was quick to revenge.
Naty's last words still stung: If this God were all powerful, why did
He let her only son die? Gaia's last words to Naty before she em-
braced her and disappeared in the streets: Why did God let His only
Son die?
The question roused Naty. Why was suffering a mystery—even
to Jesus Himself who prayed if it were possible to let the cup pass
away from Him? Indeed, why did God let His own Son die?
Naguenos 141
Her son was buried the next day, the third Sunday of Advent.
At the Santo Nino Memorial Park, her son's former Ateneo classmates
eulogized him in a way that surprised the mother. She did not realize
how much her son had touched others' lives. The cell leader of the
Ateneo de Naga Sanctuary Society summed up her son's life in one
sentence that sent Naty bawling in gratitude: He was a man for oth-
ers, a true Atenean.
Before she closed the coffin's lid, she double-checked the three
things her son would have wanted to bring along with him: his glow-
in-the-dark Rosary, his Roman Missal, and his copy of Horacio de la
Costa's Jesuits Today. When she saw them safely tucked inside the
coffin, she calmly shut the lid and allowed the mechanical device to
lower the casket into the ground. After the ritual scattering of earth
and flowers, she stayed behind and waited until the workers filled
up the grave and concealed the sky which would not be visible until
the resurrection of the body. Then she placed the slab of ready grass
mat over the fresh grave and walked away.
The next day, at dawn, the bells clanged in San Francisco Church,
inviting the faithful to the first day of Aguinaldo. Naty covered her
ears and groaned in agony. Every peal gored her. She dreaded the
dawns. Because he was all the world to her, old habits died hard. For
example, she prepared breakfast for two. One afternoon, riding a
trimobile downtown, she thought she saw her son sitting in the plaza,
only to discover the figure to be somebody else. Two days later, in
the centro, she heard her son's familiar Yeyyy! among the pedestrian
crowd behind her, but when she turned around, none of them looked
like him. One morning, as she polished the pedals of her son's rusty
bicycle, she thought she heard his footsteps at the gate. It was the
postman. The two cards bore no return addresses. She opened the
first and read the typewritten greeting: "Dear Mrs. Angeles, shut up
and live; talk and you're dead. Merry X mas." A skull appeared above
the "X" crossbones beside the Greek-lettered signature.
A frisson of horror gripped her. Evil had stalked her all the way
to Naga. She careered to her room and took out the box of padlocks
and bolts, and installed them on the windows and doors.
She lived in fear. Christmas eve was just three days away, but
her apartment stood out as the only house in the neighborhood with-
out lights. Most of all, she dreaded opening the other Christmas card.
This stress plus the dread of Christmas without her son altered her
appearance that even the neighbors mistook her for a tubercular house
guest, were it not for her widow's weeds.
As the unopened card lay on-the table, she thought how evil had
overcome the world. Nobody was safe. There was no security in good-
ness. The good as well as the wicked suffered. You could be in a
jeepney on your way home and be robbed, stabbed, or shot by holdup-
pers. You could be jogging inside your subdivision and find yourself
forced inside a car and kidnapped for ransom. You could be driving
your own car and find it blocked by another with heavily armed men
inside. No place was safe. She had heard of babies seized from car-
riages, necklaces and bags snatched from matrons, salesgirls raped
and mutilated in broad daylight. Even the homes were not safe. The
Vizcondes and the Payumos and the Kehs bore out the hard reality
that anybody could be butchered right inside one's own house. Her
brain swirled in a flurry of images she had watched on TV just the
past week—the akyat bahay gangs, the hostage-takings, the massa-
cres, the rapes, the Uzis, the machetes, the fan knives, the jailbreaks,
the whitewash—and she thought of the victims and the widows and
the orphans and the mothers whose prayers went unanswered while
their own lives crumbled under a silent heaven.
She felt duped, conned. She had put all her faith in God, and
this God cared not a brass farthing whether her son lived or died. If
God were all powerful as He claimed himself to be, how could He
not have prevented her son's death? A powerless God indeed, this
Chauvinist who hid in His heaven, if not dead—or evil: a demented
Parent who believed in beating His children to death to prove how
much He loved them.
Gaia was naive. It was one thing to give counsel and another to
directly experience the pain. Because Gaia was not directly involved,
she did not understand Naty's grief. It was easy for her to give advice.
Gaia had her son, so she trusted the Church. If she had suffered like
Naty, she would have damned the Church for bamboozling her.
Naguenos 143
The Church was based on a lie. All things did not work together
for good. No happy endings existed here or elsewhere. Granted that
heaven existed, what heavenly reward, for crying out loud, could heal
the scars of this suffering? No, it was a malevolent universe. Life was
too ambiguous, too contradictory, too treacherous. Christmas was
meaningless. Crime paid and evil won.
For three days she wallowed in these dark thoughts. On the third
night, Christmas eve, about ten o'clock, an image—the most hideous
—invaded her thoughts. She remembered Tugatog cemetery and the
sight she saw there of Saint Michael and Satan locked up in battle
inside a cage on top of a tomb, with the soot-coated Satan on top of
the fallen Archangel! She remembered the crypts below the cage
where lay buried a mother and her daughter raped and murdered in
1983 by still unidentified men, and the mother's wish, as she lay
dying, to plant the cage on top of her tomb, for the day would come,
she had prophesied, when evil would overcome good. Today that
prophecy had come true.
Meanwhile, the unopened card lay on the table. She had to choose
between two things: get sucked up in the whirlpool of fear—or face
the menace. She realized her powerlessness, but she also saw the
foolhardiness of burying her face in the sand like the ostrich. Whether
she knew it or not, evil stalked her. Since she could not count on
God, she would have to face the menace herself. Better to burn,
prepared by knowledge, than to burn unprepared by self-inflicted
ignorance.
So she picked up the unopened envelope. Her heart pounded in
her ears. She ripped the flap open. It was a UNICEF card. Naty read
the scrawl: "Dear Tita Naty Merry Christmas God Loves You Love
Joshua." A star capped the signature. A frisson of relief overwhelmed
her. The return address inside the card drove her to rush out of the
house, as she grabbed whatever presents she could bring—a Nintendo
set, her son's Walkman, boxes of Pretzels, bon bons—for the boy.
When Naty reached the address, however, Gaia had gone. A fe-
male lodger told her Gaia had returned to Manila after the burial of
Joshua. The word "burial" took some time to sink in. Naty asked
again: Joshua? burial? The lodger said yes. Gaia's son? Yes. When?
Last week. Of what? The lodger told her. The answer stunned Naty.
But didn't she know? the lodger said. Contracted it from her seaman
husband. Tried to protect herself at first, but, you know, wouldn't
want to hurt his feelings. Also, Catholic bishops said use of condoms
immoral, and also not effective protection. At first, diagnosis showed
pulmonary infection. But after the blood samples were taken....
Joshua tested positive at birth. The boy's strong. Took a long time
for the virus to finish him off. No, the lodger didn't know where
Joshua was buried. Somewhere in the rinconada area. A pauper's
cemetery, perhaps. Gaia returned to Manila after the burial. Works
as a health educator at Pinoy Plus, you know, Bahay Lingap. Came
here for the holy days to help a friend, a certain Mrs. Angeles. Her
plan was—excuse me, are you all right? Yes, I'm okay, sorry. Would
you like to come in? No. Thanks for your time. I really have to go.
Merry Christmas. Same to you.
IN the centro, Naty saw a city marking time for midnight. A

brigade of carolers scooted towards the half-open shops, importuning
the occupants with clamorous noels and percussive sound effects. A
lone saleslady struggled with a stubborn set of lights inside the glass
display window of Naga Optical. Naty swam in a stream of mixed
emotions. She did not know. She was too engrossed with her own
loss to notice Gaia and Joshua. She shuffled along the streets like an
intoxicated man with no particular place to go.
She did not feel like going home. She just walked and walked.
The streets of Naga were a labyrinth. One moment she was in Zamora
Street, listening to the high tension wires emit a buzzing sound; the
next, she was in Sabang Street where the estero gurgled like sandpaper
scraping the sides of teak until they gleamed smooth as glass. She
walked past the barking dispatchers at the mini bus terminal, then
made her way back to General Luna Street to walk past the Pugad
Lawin Sa Isarog, the OPAC center, the rush passport/ID stalls and
Xerox stands alongside Concepcion Building, Venancio Hardware, Ro-
land's Supermart, Rose Pharmacy, and Universal Hopia, making no
effort to guide her legs but allowing them to lead her where they
chose.
Naguenos 145
In Prieto Street, she paused to watch the crumbling ceilings of

old buildings droop like bedsheets strung over clotheslines. Further
up on the left, shovel-shaped figurines camouflaged the upside down
bear mugs inside a carinderia. In the blackboard, resting against a
piece of scrap iron outside, in letters of irregular geometric sizes, the
chalk scrawled today's menu: tokwa't baboy, goto regular/special. On
the door hung the sign CLOSED. Naty stared at it blankly, then went
on walking.
When she reached Plaza Rizal, she paused beside the skating rink
to allow the array of lights to swallow her up. But the ruckus in the
recreation grounds aggravated her interior chaos that she glanced up
at the sky for comfort—only to see a blur caused by the bright lights
of Plaza Rizal.
So she crossed Elias Angeles Street, turned left at the Naga Op-
tical, then walked straight towards the corner of Crown Hotel where
she paused again to quell her raging emotions. When this failed, she
crossed P. Burgos Street and ended up in Plaza Quince Martires.
The soft lights of the plaza soothed her nerves. A mist had
shrouded the hedges of the flower beds. She walked past the Rotary
wheel and the white stone faces of Bicol's fifteen martyrs to make
for the spot fronting San Francisco Church. In the familiar dim lights
of the plaza she realized it had been a year since she and her son had
last sat in their usual place. A tidal wave of memories overwhelmed
her, forcing her to sit, as she started shaking again in loud sobs.
Then she noticed the plastic bag she was carrying. She looked at
the things she had put in there for Joshua. She took out her son's
Walkman. A tape inside tempted her to try on the earphones. She
turned on the tape. Her son's voice reviewed his science exams way
back in the Ateneo de Naga.
The voice measured space and time in terms of the speed of light
which her son amplified by comparing it to seven Earth circumfer-
ences per second which was incredibly fast albeit not fast enough to
travel from one place of the universe to another considering that even
if a quantum of electromagnetic radiation traveled at this breakneck
speed from the Earth's trajectory and flitted past Neptune and Pluto
and the Oort cloud of comets at the wink of an eye so to speak
before it plunged into interstellar space still it would reach Proxima

Centauri only after 1.32 parallax seconds or 4.29 light years which
was nothing compared to the vast amount of space and time necessary
to reach the other heavenly bodies like Altair in the constellation
Auriga which was 16.5 light years away or Betelgeuse at Orion's head
which was 520 or Rigel at Orion's foot which was 900 to name only
those nearest this speck of dust called Earth in a galaxy that contained
no less than 300 billion stars occupying space equivalent to 100,000
light years iri diameter which again was nothing because other galaxies
like the large and small Magellanic Clouds or the M31 (the galaxy
which Hubble saw to confirm his hypothesis that some nebulae ac-
tually existed outside the Milky Way and are in fact galaxies them-
selves) to name only three of the twenty galaxies in the Local Group
orbiting near the Virgo Cluster occupying a diameter of ten million
light years occupied a territory too vast for our poor quantum of
electromagnetic radiation to negotiate because even if it traveled its
length and breadth the feat amounted to nothing compared to the
length and breadth of the Coma Cluster and farther on to the Cluster
of Clusters or the Supercluster looming in Hercules which again was
nothing compared to the Supercluster Coma-A1367 that swam in a
region of Dark Matter of undetected subatomic particles where myr-
iad galaxies gyrated like concentric shells disappearing in Deep Space
where no galaxies existed but a vast Void of total darkness grounded
upon an abyss with no end in sight as her mind reeled at the endlessly
receding horizon where neither edge nor sign of leveling off nor thin-
ning out existed in any direction save more space and time plunging
deeper and deeper into range after range and world after world and
island universe after island universe of darkness until her brain spun
and cried out for a halt because from the vantage of her puny self
in the plaza under the December midnight skies of Naga she said
that the space-time distances could not possibly be true for they were
absolutely utterly completely mind-boggling.
Except, of course, they were true.
Now along would come this God-Babe whose birth the whole
world awaited tonight, and He would teach her truths equally mind-
boggling about the universe in its spiritual continuum, like if she loved
Naguenos 147
her enemies and did good to those that hated her and prayed for
those who persecuted her; then she might plumb the riddle of the
universe which, for all its vastness, as this Child would teach her,
orbited around and actually existed because of Love. Now that was
mind-boggling, for when she looked at what had happened to her or
at the daily newspapers, with the rapes and murders and wars and
kidnappings and hatred and violence and corruption, she thought that
this could not possibly be, that this was impossible. Yet in the dim
lights of the plaza, as she turned off the Walkman, she asked herself
if these truths were after all more mind-boggling than what she had
heard in the Walkman about the universe in its space-time dimen-
sions.
What's more, if the physical universe were not evident to ordinary
senses unless it were perceived through an appropriate instrument
like the telescope, she wondered if there were any reason why the
same principle should not apply to the spiritual universe as well. Two
pairs of naked eyes see a faint, fuzzy smudge in the sky. One formu-
lates a nebular hypothesis; the other, an island universe theory.
But no amount of speculating could prove either observer right
as could direct knowledge arrived at through the aid of a telescope,
a spectroscope, a radio telescope. Perhaps the same held for spiritual
perception as well. Perhaps the original and unadulterated teachings
of the Roman Catholic Church were the instruments she needed to
see an implicate order behind the chaos of the world.
Suddenly, a panoply of lights blazoned the church's fagade, irra-
diating the stained glass rose window outside like a huge mandala,
signaling the start of Midnight Mass. She resisted the invitation to
enter the church by ignoring the lights and gazing up at the midnight
sky, clearly visible now from the half-lights of the plaza. The swarm
of stars over Naga reminded her of her son's shooting stars and the
power of law-abiding planets to burn them up. As her emotions sim-
mered, she felt something rise over her, something unexpressed, at
the tip of her tongue, but the words slipped off like the rarefied
midnight air on her face, so unspecific—like the roar of distant gen-
erators, like the promise of life after death—yet sustained, like the
rubber band stars of Joshua, like the faith of Gaia who lightened
Naty's burden despite the calvary of her own spiritual adventure. She
thought of her son who, like Saint Stephen, forgave his enemies even
as they bashed him to death. And then her thoughts moved to a God
who gave His only begotten Son to the world knowing full well that
He would suffer'and die, and her brain reeled at the puzzle of it all.
She wiped her Wet cheeks. Perhaps there was no answer but the
acceptance. Yet how difficult that was. For wouldn't this Child later
pray if it would be possible to let the cup pass away from Him? But
then, when He saw that death was unavoidable, He would accept it,
face it, and defeat it by rising again. Perhaps this was the only way.
Perhaps it was precisely because evil was so victorious that the world
stood in such urgent need for no less than the Lamb of God Himself
to die so He could take away the sins of the world. Perhaps the
Apostle was right when he advised the Thessalonians to grieve not
as people who have no hope but as people of hope and faith; for the
Child to be born a heartbeat from now would suffer and die, but on
the third day would rise again to pave the way for those who believed
in Him so that they too would rise and never die—a creed she be-
lieved through faith, even as she struggled with her unbelief; for she
needed more time to think things over before she re-entered Naga's
church, time to decide whether she should see the universe again
through Roman Catholic eyes, time to quell this voice crying in the
wilderness, time to wait for more Gaias and Joshuas to populate the
earth and burn the meteors of these dark ages and usher in a new
millennium of peace on earth and goodwill to men—but the hum of
the Hammond organ accompanying the crescendo of voices singing
the Gloria reminded her that the Season of Advent was over, that a
new liturgical year had arrived, inviting her to step out of the shadows,
and take one last glance at the darkness of the plaza, before she
crossed the street to enter the luminous interior of San Francisco
Church now clanging with bells.
A b o u t the A u t h o r
Caloy Aureus, an ex-seminarian and an old bachelor, was born in

Naga City. He was educated at the Naga Parochial School, the Holy
Rosary Seminary, the Ateneo de Naga, Silliman University, the Uni-
versity of the Philippines in Diliman, the Universidad Central de Ma-
drid in Spain, and Fordham University in New York. He held the
Diamond Jubilee Professorial Chair in English and Comparative Lit-
erature in UP Diliman. He also taught Latin and Spanish at UP's
Department of European Languages. He holds the record of having
been the first and only UP post-graduate student to finish a Ph.D.
(Anglo-American Literature) in less than one year and a half. Now
on leave from the UP English Department, he is writing his second
dissertation (on postmodern physics and poetry) leading to a second
Ph.D. degree after finishing all academic requirements with a grade
of 1.0 in all subjects.... Extremely shy and reclusive, he dislikes so-
cials, public speaking, and politics. He belongs to no organization,
fraternity, or association. His hobbies are cooking, reading, and going
to market. A celibate Roman Catholic who neither smokes nor drinks,
he spends most of his quiet, semi-retired life with his mother in Naga
City.
(From the Philippine Graphic)

Naguenos by Carlos Ojeda Aureus

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Naguenos

CARLOS OJEDA AUREUS

University of the Philippines Press

Published by the University of the Philippines Press

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced,

PHILIPPINE WRITERS SERIES 1997

Editorial and Production Supervision by

The stories in this collection have been previously published in the

Printed in the Philippines by the

CHOC-NUT in hand, and a brown envelope tucked under an arm,

a week now, virtually untouched ever since he had been soothing

NOBODY in Naga quite understood Mr. Caceres. In one sense,

DURING lunchtime, in the refectory, he saw his opportunity: she

A special added attraction, Msgr. Nero announced in the middle

Like bicol express, she'd be so spiced up (seventeen-year-old girls

After the afternoon lectures, during which he sat in his usual

Universe crown. It was a beauty, not an I.Q., contest. Too, when it

to be wished—for he belonged to an ordered pre-Conciliar universe,

wears a poker face. A messenger comes in with bad news: General

them in his Oldsmobile to the Naga Airport. Meanwhile, Bhoy and

THE carillon chimed thrice in the chapel, to wake everybody up,

SHE arrived in the middle of the afternoon, right after merienda,

Joaquin to Brillantes to de la Costa. True it is that Vatican II had

bringing relief goods to Typhoon Monang victims crashed in barrio

There was no use denying it: after three decades of post-Conciliar

Then he saw Her.

janette Abayari and the fig-leafed stripteaser in Naga Cabaret—and

He hurriedly picked up his folder and brown envelope on his

Dear Mr. Caceres,

He read the letter again. He double-checked the signature once,

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our pro-

SWEETNESS and light—with a pinch of impishness—these to Rick

group of tambays outside Cynthia's house called him that. He heard

spite the celebrations, he worried about the millennium ending, be-

Pope immediately orders his cardinals and archbishops to assemble

"We understanding/' Bhoy assured Rick. "Old carabao eat young

insisting to shine his shoes even if he had already said no a thousand

"Sopot!" Cynthia shouted at Bhoy as he boarded the jeep. Bhoy's

Suddenly Rick lunged in from the side, unzippered his shirt-jack

age he was clutching. When he opened his eyes, the surroundings

In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness:

TANYA agreed to allow her husband to die at home, but when he

They met because Sid's niece Margot became Tanya's student,

he dressed—the white bucks of Pat Boone—differently but immacu-

He sang and he lectured. He seemed to know everything about

This numbness happened every night. Daytimes were normal, but

SHE stared at the encephalogram. The small, luminous objects

and stained glass windows, was baroque. So he was going to be faithful

And now this perfect husband lay dying.

civvies. His grievance went deeper than the cloying sentimentality or

roots, it could survive. He said he believed this because the Church

packed colored liquids entered his system via a catheterized large

THE necrological services started about mid-afternoon, three days

The tiled walls inside the Naga Crematorium proper exuded a

Tanya peeped in the observation vent. The overhead blowtorch

ating electron-positron pairs of electrons curving counterclockwise

cloud-accelerator very much like the collision experiments of high

So what if I never enjoyed a fellowship for overseas study because

elections. I think they deliberately make the toilets dirty so passengers

like a hero. I want to be self-confident like, well, Arnold Schwar-

mediately attract my attention: a sign that tells me to beware of

Boarding for Naga passengers is on Gate One 1, but I sit in front

in front to demonstrate the safety procedures by pointing out the

Our plane touches down with a screech and a roar. I think We