Try not to cry

THAT was the accompanying admonition in the piece titled “This is beautiful” e-mailed me June 18 by my Betis-born and now Florida-based seminary brother Herminio David.
It went thus:
She jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room. She said: “How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see him?”
The surgeon said: “I’m sorry. We did all we could, but your boy didn’t make it.”
Sally said: “Why do little children get cancer? Doesn’t God care anymore? Where were you, God, when my son needed you?”
The surgeon asked: “Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he’s transported to the university.”
Sally asked the nurse to stay with her while she said goodbye to her son. She ran her fingers lovingly through his thick red curly hair.
“Would you like a lock of his hair?” the nurse asked.
Sally nodded yes. The nurse cut a lock of the boy’s hair, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Sally.
The mother said: “It was Jimmy’s idea to donate his body to the University for study. He said it might help somebody else. I said no at first, but Jimmy said, ‘Mom, I won’t be using it after I die. Maybe it will help some other little boy spend one more day with his mom.’”
She went on: “My Jimmy had a heart of gold. Always thinking of someone else. Always wanting to help others if he could.”
Sally walked out of Children’s Mercy Hospital for the last time, after spending most of the last six months there. She put the bag with Jimmy’s belongings on the seat beside her in the car. The drive home was difficult. It was even harder to enter the empty house.
She carried Jimmy’s belongings, and the plastic bag with the lock of his hair to her son’s room. She started placing the model cars and other personal things back in his room exactly where he had always kept them. She laid down across his bed and, hugging his pillow, cried herself to sleep.
It was around midnight when Sally awoke. Laying beside her on the bed was a folded letter. It said:
“Dear Mom, I know you’re going to miss me; but don’t think that I will ever forget you, or stop loving you, just ‘cause I’m not around to say ‘I love you.’ I will always love you Mom, even more with each day.
Someday we will see each other again. Until then, if you want to adopt a little boy so you won’t be lonely, that’s okay with me. He can have my room and old stuff to play with. But, if you decide to get a girl instead, she probably wouldn’t like the same things us boys do. You’ll have to buy her dolls and stuff girls like, you know. Don’t be sad thinking about me. This really is a nest place. Grandma and Grandpa met me as soon as I got here and showed me around some, but it will take a long time to see everything.
The angels are so cool. I love to watch them fly. And you know what? Jesus doesn’t look like any of his pictures. Yet, when I saw Him, I knew it was Him. Jesus Himself took me to see God! And guess what, Mon? I got to sit on God’s knee and talk to Him, like I was somebody important. That’s when I told him that I wanted to write you a letter, to tell you goodbye and everything. But I already knew that wasn’t allowed. Well, you know what, Mom? God handed me some paper and His own personal pen to write you this letter. I think Gabriel is the name of the angel who is going to drop this letter off to you. God said for me to give you the answer to one of the questions you asked Him ‘Where was He when I needed Him?’
God said He was in the same place with me, as when His son Jesus was on the cross. He was right there. As He always is with all His children. Oh, by the way Mom, no one else can see what I’ve written except you. To everyone else this is just a blank piece of paper. Isn’t that cool? I have to give God His pen back now. He needs it to write some more names in the Book of Life. Tonight I get to sit at g
the table with Jesus for supper. Im sure the food will be great.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I don’t hurt anymore. The cancer is all gone. I’m glad because I couldn’t stand that pain anymore and God couldn’t stand to see me hurt so much, either. That’s when He sent the Angel of Mercy to come and get me. The angel said I was a special delivery! How about that?
Signed with love from God, Jesus and Me.”
TRIED as I did, I wasn’t able to stop myself from crying. And on June 24, I cried some more.
God wrote the name Jan Erick Z. Manese in the Book of Life and the Angel of Mercy had another special delivery.
Janick – whom I named – was the son of my cousin Roberto Lacson Manese and Ofelia Zapata. Hydrocephalic at birth, Janick had his first surgery at four months, then at age 13 followed by three more with last two in a matter of one week this June. He succumbed at the fifth. He was all of 20 years.
Deprived of the full blossoming of his intellect, Janick had a surplus of love and goodness. Ever the caring child at heart, he was quick to the touch, the embrace and the hug.
Household chores he would volunteer to do to spare his elders the task: wash clothes and clean house for his mom; cook for his Lola Laring; ran errands for his Apung Tina; sweep the floor for his Ingkung Diyung – all in cheerful disposition.
To me, and my kids, his greeting after the routine kisses at each meeting had always been: “Nanu ya ing cellphone mu?” And therewith asked to hold our mobiles. He was fascinated with them, keen on hearing the myriad ringing tones.
Though a kid at heart, he had this tremendous threshold of pain. Never was he heard to have cried in all the operations he underwent. Never did he complain.
When his father came home on vacation from his work in Saudi Arabia on the first week of June in time for his fourth surgery, Janick told him that he should not have bothered if he paid for his fare, “Agyu ku naman, sayang nung ginastus ka pa.” Never wanting to be a burden to the family, he only felt at ease when his father said it was the company that paid. Friday my cousin left for Saudi, knowing that his son was recovering. Sunday he received the news of his passing. Monday he was back in mourning.
Even as we mourn, we take comfort in supernatural joy over Janick’s journey home.
That God was “in the same place” with him even at the hospital was never in doubt. At the CT Scan machine where Janick expired, the technician got the surprise of his life: the scan of his brain showed silhouettes of angels.
Janick is with God. God is with us.

Rewarding mediocrity

THIS country is not going to the dogs. It has long gone not just to the groomed de rasas but to the mangy askals. That is not a Lacson original but a paraphrase of somebody whom I can only remember as having a Ph.D attached to his name.
The state of things Filipino is damaged. Heavily damaged. Someone who said we have hit rock bottom and thus have no other way to go but up is an illusionary idealist if not a delusional optimist with a supreme underestimation of the capacity of the Filipino to burrow even deeper into the shithole he has thrown himself in.
Blame this for our penchant to lower the grade whenever faced by difficulties. Instead of striving for excellence, we seek the easiest way out. Even if it meant short circuiting processes, circumventing rules or breaking laws.
So long inured in such practice, we have adopted the characteristic of water – seeking the lowest levels.
Thus, those congratulatory streamers perfunctorily put up by politicos for passers of just about any examination hereabouts: “Congratulations Iska for passing the CPA Board Exams.” “We are proud of you Tecla for passing the teachers’ examinations.”
What is so extraordinary in the mere passing of an exam that calls for all those congratulations? It won’t be long when we would behold something like “Congratulations Jokjok for passing the entrance exams to the Paaralang Elementarya ng T. Tinio.”
During our time – now long bygone, the passing grade in examinations – from the shortest quizzes to the longest periodicals and the dreaded orals in-between – was 75 percent, not a fraction less. Today it is said to be 50. With bonus points for writing the teacher’s first name and title – two for Attorney and Doctor, three more for Professor, and with a Ph.D after the comma, plus two more.
Fifty percent, to put it plainly, comprises just half of the total amount of learning required. It does not take an Einstein to understand that half-full means half- empty. Which, by no stretch of the imagination could ever be deemed exemplary. There is nothing outstanding here. There is everything mediocre here.
During our time, a 75 was a mark of shame. Derisively dismissed as Sampay-bakod , if not pasang-awa. Today, it is a cause for celebration proudly heralded in big bold-lettered streamers.
What have become of our sense of honor, indeed, of our sense of shame?
Speaking of streamers and shame I remember one that was put up at the McDonald’s side of the Dolores Junction sometime in 1999, on the very day Governor Lito Lapid reassumed reins at the Capitol after serving the six-month suspension imposed on him by the Ombudsman consequent to the quarry scam.
“Welcome back Gov, we are proud of you.” Proud of Lapid for earning the distinction as the first ever suspended governor in the history of Pampanga?
There is no pride here. There is only shame here.
Congratulatory streamers are by no means purely shameless showcases of inflated unimportance. The thing here is to make them hew substantially to their very purpose. Only to the best should they be posted, say bar and board topnotchers, winners of international or national contests, really outstanding citizens.
It is excellence that must be rewarded; mediocrity be damned. That is a sure way to raise the level of national intelligence which at present is but a notch above that of a moron.

Only Oca

AT least the governor-elect is sincere enough to admit his want of experience in governance and is willing to do something about it – enrolling himself in a three-year course at the Ateneo de Manila School of Government.
This augurs well for a career in government, most especially if Eddie T. Panlilio or his Third Force ever decides to transcend his self-announced three-year transition governance at the Capitol and totally cross over to the realm of politics.
(Three-year course within a three-year term, a slip may be showing there.)
There is no doubt that Panlilio will learn a lot from Ateneo, it arguably being the seat of intellectual aristocracy hereabouts. That elitist milieu though is not the best place for Panlilio to learn the ropes of governance, given the kind of people he will govern and the kind of governing they expect from him.
This is no advice, unsolicited or otherwise. This is a statement of a fact: Panlilio’s tabula rasa in governance can best be filled up, and in the shortest time at that, with mentoring by the honorable mayor of the City of San Fernando.
There is absolutely no way for anyone in the School of Government of Arneeow to surpass Oscar Samson Rodriguez in matters of local governance and public administration.
The slew of awards and recognition Oca and his city have been getting for the last three years makes a grand masteral diploma superior to anything and everything the “best schools” could ever offer. For these are solid testaments to actual accomplishments, not mere certificates of passing grades in untried theories and untested theses.
Fourth best mayor in all the world – besting even the hizzoners of San Francisco, California and Atlanta, Georgia in grand old US of A – is no mean feat, unparalleled in the whole of Asia yet. Other than Oca, can Panlilio get a better teacher?
So what can Panlilio learn from Oca?
Transparency, not only in official government transactions but even in his private person. Neither prism nor distorted mirror, Oca’s life is a looking glass through and true. All adornments be damned, Oca’s a real deal.
Sincerity – by simply saying what he means and meaning what he says – makes Oca the antithesis, the sore thumb to the Filipino politico. More than an epithet for disgust, ”kamatis” is Oca’s pet peeve.
Collegiality – empowering, not simply involving, all strata of local society in the conduct of the city affairs. Oca has institutionalized this very essence of democracy in a multi-sectoral governance council that counts among its members representatives of church groups, both Christian and Muslim; business and labor, the academe, jeepney drivers and market traders, poets and journalists, doctors and farmers.
Political will – for the welfare of the people, no matter the cost. Something akin to Admiral Farragut’s immortal words, “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead” found manifest in Oca’s determined bid to build more schools, Rey Aquino’s “legal” ululations be damned.
An unsolicited advice to the governor now: Read Oca to understand him.
“Rare is he who has struggled through life firmly fixed on a single ideological vision.
Oscar Samson Rodriguez is that rarity.
His is a story that makes a compelling study of the merging of individual life with the unraveling process of history.
His is a story that bears witness to the continuing relevance of an ideology – call it an article of faith, if you will – in the most uncertain times, in the ever-changing climes in this benighted republic.”
So goes the foreword of my proto-biography About Oca: A Story of Struggle.
Read the living Oca, more than his biography. Then go beyond reading, beyond understanding him and learn. Go into a conscientization process to internalize Oca, by living his article of faith – his ”sandigan ng aking pananalig at saligan ng aking paninindigan” that is Magsilbi Tamu.
No, they can’t teach that in Ateneo. As only Oca is, so only Oca can.

Atmosphere of paranoia

ONE fatality is one death too many. A tragedy, conceded the dictator Stalin, who thereafter imploded his proffered humaneness by calling the death of thousands as statistics.
Statistically, not in the Stalinist sense now, the recent fatalities in Pampanga – all of two – do not constitute a “spate of killings.” Spate precisely indicating a large number or amount, per the word’s dictionary definition and common usage.
There is a spate, yes – in text messages that either “killed” very much alive barangay chairs – at least four in Mabalacat – or warned others of their impending demise.
One of Mayor Boking Morales’ barangay chairmen – that of Bikal, if I am not mistaken – had a blast doing a Samuel Clemens: “The reports of my death are grossly exaggerated” or something to that effect.
The scores of “texted” deaths found serious credence though in the two “actual” deaths and – with some media turns and twists – fomented the “climate of fear” said to be permeating the province today.
To me though, what obtains in Pampanga these days is less a climate of fear than an atmosphere of paranoia.
The rumored hegira of a number of barangay chairmen of the City of San Fernando and the towns of Bacolor, Arayat, and Guagua to parts unknown purportedly for their self-preservation is decidedly symptomatic of paranoia. It falls well within the ambit of “non-degenerative, limited, usually chronic psychosis characterized by delusions of persecution or grandeur, strenuously defended by the afflicted with apparent logic and reason” that defines the malady.
In the non-scientific language of the streetwise: “Gumawa ng multo ang mga kapitan ng barangay na kanila ngayong kinatatakutan.”
And where paranoia comes around, can hysteria be far behind? Calls for sobriety from the Church, multi-sectoral manifestoes of peace, militant denunciations of the “spate of killings” all amounting to nothing but reactive hysterics.
Selective hysterics even, if I may qualify.
For, where were these Church calls and civil society manifestoes when barangay chairs, kagawads and members of militant movements were falling like Baygon-sprayed and swatted flies in Mexico, Sta. Ana, Arayat and Angeles City during the encampment of GMA’s favorite general hereabouts which ended only last year?
For the record, in Mexico alone, three barangay chairmen and two kagawads lead the documented list of 44 fatalities from July 2004 to September 2006, exclusive of the 13 dead in the 2005 Independence Day encounter between Army troopers and the Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Bayan.
For the record again, only the orphans and the widows grieved in sorrowful indignation, only the militants raised muffled cries of denunciation over their dead. Where, indeed, were the Church of the poor and the “moral alternative” then?
If anything, the current of events in Pampanga today once again proved the universality of the view of the red czar Josef the Steel: large numbers of death comprised cold statistics, one – or two made – unspeakable tragedies.
“Our situation in Pampanga now calls for calm and sobriety.” Thus spake the governor-elect in a “Statement on the Recent Spate of Violent Incidents in Pampanga.”
On that call, we join him. But in its delivery, we find the joke in him.
You make calls for calm and sobriety among your people, even as you are ensconced in a circle of full-combat- ready troops and covered in body armor.
We ain’t nowhere near Iraq or Afghanistan. So where’s the war, reverend governor?
Asked by your favorite newspaper “if there were concrete threats on the life of Panlilio, (PNP Director General Oscar) Calderon said there was none.” (Underscoring mine.)
So what’s to fear, reverend governor?
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” So said the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Fearing fear itself is paranoia in its advanced stage. So claimed the never-great alumnus of numerous hospital basements.
“Kung may mga pangitain ka ng multo saan ka man makatingin, tiyak diwa mo’y tumutulay na sa hangin.” So affirmed Kuhol, the taong-grasa bunking near that bankrupt restaurant named Patria’s.