FOR OUR MISGUIDED FRIENDS, RELATIVES, AND COLLEAGUES
By Cesar Torres
20 May 2014 California Date
20 May 2014 California Date
This post is so loathsome to me. I hate to spend time on this. I have started this on May 8, 12 days ago. It is almost done. But it does not diminish my feeling that I find this contemptible.
The reason, I think, why many people in America and perhaps in the Philippines and other countries, take their own lives, or the lives of innocent people, especially in America, is due to their loneliness. Nobody talks to them. Nobody advises them. Nobody cares for them. They are alienated. Life to them is a never-ending series of disappointments, heartaches, failures, and perhaps mental and physical pain. They have no reason to live for. To them, the sun will no longer rise from the Eastern Skies on a clear day.
This piece just touches on the age-old compulsion of mankind, or anything that has life for that matter. This urgent need to satisfy one’s sexual desires among the weaker sex, the males, among homo sapiens. Sometimes, they are psychopathic and irrational. They rape and kill their victims just to satisfy their sexual urges. As we know, even spouses murder each other.
Due to the massive changes in our once very traditional society back home, it seems that some “modernizing” traits have been imbibed by some of our women. I think, some of them have become unscrupulous for one reason or another, perhaps due to poverty.
And of course, we know there are so many criminals there. Pati babae. Minsan, kasabwat ang mga police. Ito ang nangyari sa aming matalik na kaibigan. He was confronted in Pasay McDo by three women with two children at past midnight. The eldest and perhaps the ugliest of the three women confronted our friend. In a loud voice, our friend was being ask P500,000 dahil our friend minolistya daw ang kanilang youngest sister who disappeared for five days. Tumawag ng police ang ugliest na babae. Dumating agad ang mga polis, a few minutes lang. Sabi ng friend namin, parang naka-standby lang malapit sa McDo. Dinala ang aming kaibigan sa presinto despite his protestations that he did not know those women with the two children. That it was the first time he had seen them.
Dinala pa rin siya sa presinto. Ng makita ang kanyang Driver License na Stateside, the woman reiterated the amount she wanted. The P500,000, kung hindi ikukulong siya right there and then.
Buti na lang mayroon abogado na kakilala ng aming friend. Natawagan niya at 4:00 AM. Gising na. Pinuntahan siya sa presinto. Nag explain, at nag-negotiate. Binigay ang P5,000, the only money that our friend had. Kasi pupunta pa daw ang tatlong babae at mga bata sa Isabela.
I don’t particularly like writing this piece. But if this can diminish the pain and anguish that might ensue because of the naivete, innocence, and perhaps deliberate malice of some people, then my distaste for penning this might be worth it. I think it was Saint Paul who said: “Of all the mysteries of the universe, nothing is more mysterious than man.”
Here goes. Sharing sad and hilarious stories about men and women.
A. That Poor Old White American in Cebu
It must have been in early 2004. Many of us, which included popular and famous alumni of the Samar High/National High School were very busy finalizing our publication for the Centennial Celebration of the founding of our Alma Mater.
We were hard at work finalizing the only written publication to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of our high school. I had to go to the Homeland. We worked in Tacloban in an IT Cafe where there were so many bedbugs and the computers were afflicted with viruses. Then we had to go to Cebu. Our IT expert was graduating Cebu. So we finalized our publication in Cebu and had it published and printed there.
One time in the receiving room of the Hostel where my young IT expert and her family were billeted temporarily, I saw this Caucasian who was walking back and forth. I asked him: “Hello, sir, where are you from?”
He answered: “I am from the US.”
“Oh!”, I said. “I also came from the US West Coast. Although I am a Brownie and you are a Whitie. Why are you here? I noticed you have been walking back and forth here and taking deep sighs. You looked troubled.”
He answered: “I have been here for two weeks. I was supposed to get married to that woman. She never showed up. I have no more money. And I don’t know how to get back to California because my ticket was one-way.”
It took me sometime before I could answer that unfortunate Californian. And I don’t even remember what I said to him. Must have been some inane inconsequential something because we were in a hurry to finish editing our alumni publication. Besides, my knowledge of “mail order brides” who were being brutalized in America and Australia was not that pleasant. But with the benefit of hindsight, I must confess that two cousins are/were married to White Men whom they met in Olongapo. And they are happy together. One is gone now. But that gentleman was possibly the kindest husband to a Filipina that I have ever known. Whether a White Man, a Brownie, a Pinkie, or a Black Man.
In that incident in Cebu, I could only shake my head at the crookedness of that kababayan who had to hoodwink an American, taking advantage of a gullible, innocent, stupid old White Man, a fellow Californian who must have been told how our women relate to White Men. I assume he must have found his way back to the US via the Consulate in Cebu. If he is alive, he is probably cursing our Filipina women.
2. Story of a Famous Samareña Leader, Mrs. Naty Villarin Silva-Padul
Mana Naty, as we fondly addressed her, or Tia Naty as Charo Cabardo would address her because she was Charo’s aunt, was a very famous lady from Catbalogan, the former capital of the entire island of Samar. She was very popular all over Samar also when she was a Supervisor in the Department of Education in Eastern Samar where she had a home in now devastated Guiuan. She was Outstanding Pasigueña in America, among the Samarnons in the US and Canada, and Outstanding Centennial Awardee of the Samar High School.
We wanted her to run for Governor of Samar. Many of us Samarnons in America were prepared to go home to work with her. I was one of them. The Leyte-Samar Songbird, Cielo Tibe Aguirre-Northington, would have gone home and would have sung during Mana Naty’s political campaigns. She would have breezed through as Governor of Samar. And she would have done so much for Samar.
In our frequent gatherings in San Francisco, she told us this story. An elderly US veteran divorced his first wife. He married a young, virgin girl in her 20’s from Guiuan. They settled in Guiuan. One time, Mana Naty and her husband, Mano Peter Padul — a prominent Guiuananon also — overheard a conversation of the honeymooning old US veteran and her young pulchritudinous, dusky, long-haired, dimpled, with curly eyelashes, wife.
It was about 4:00 in the afternoon, according to Mana Naty. A balmy day in Guiuan. A soft breeze was blowing from the peaceful and placid Pacific Ocean. The conversation went like this:
Young wife upstairs in their house, in a loud voice: “Marcus! Hain ka na? Saka na ngadi. Ayaw pag-iha! Kinahanglan ko ikaw.” (“Marcus! Where are you? Come upstairs right now. I want you to do something!”)
There was no answer from Marcus who was busy watering the gumamela plants, the rosebush, and the sampaguita in the front yard of the house. While humming an Elvis Presley tune.
After a few minutes, the young wife, shouted in a very shrill voice: “Marcus, demonyo ka! Kadi naaaaaaaaaa! Daliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!” (Marcus, you demon! Come now! Fast!”)
Marcus shouted back angrily, perhaps to the amusement of their neighbors, listening to the newly-weds shouting back and forth: “Peristihon. Imo iroy! Diri ako. Nagkuri na ako kanina. Haros diri ako makatindog kay masakit akon tuhod kay may reyuma.” (You pest. Your mother! I don’t want to. I had a hard time earlier. I could hardly stand up because my knees were painful with rheumatism. “)
It is at this point when we listeners around Mana Naty would guffaw and laugh so hard. Especially the old Catbaloganons. We were gathered in the church because we had to attend the novena in preparation for the fiesta celebration of Saint Bartholomew, the Patron Saint of the Catbaloganons all over the world. The novena sponsors would be asking us to go inside the church now. The novena had to start now. Father Tony Petilla was getting impatient.
We never knew what happened to that odd couple, the old US veteran who married that young and demanding girl, oozing with sex, as his wife. One of these days, I will inquire from Marina Bamont, a Guiuananon, who is a leader of the Guiuananons in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mana Naty and Mano Peter are gone now. But we always remember them with fondness. When they were still around, those were the halcyon days of the Samarnons in America.
3. Two Sad Stories of Close Friend Concerning Two of his Fraternity Brothers
This friend is a pioneer member of our Global Advocacy Group, the Worldwide Filipino Alliance-Pangdaigdigang Alyansa ng Pilipino, Inc.
An adventurer, he has swam in the Tubbataha Reefs in Southern Philippines. (http://www.tubbatahareef.org/home).
In the Philippine Vietnam Sea, he raced with the smiling dolphins who were protecting him from being gobbled by the Great Whites. He has leisurely glided with the centuries-old Sea Turtles in the Spratlys, Kalayaan and Ayungin. He even rode on their backs. The Sea Turtles which shed tears when they are being hurt, especially when their soft underbellies are being sliced by sharp Chinese knives, are now being massacred by the greedy bullies, the Chinese from the Asian Mainland. A portent of what they are going to do to naïve, uncaring, and hopeless Filipinos.
In the Philippines, he delivers a lecture to the faculties of the U.P. College of Engineering and the U.P. School of Economics. I am not sure if he also lectures some young patriots in some mountain redoubts in the Sierra Madre. I doubt it. He has gout and arthritis. Perhaps in Payatas, Smokey Mountain or the Graveyard Dwellers in the North Cemetery.
Why do I highlight the extraordinary credentials of this friend? I just want to emphasize his credibility, his sincere concern for us. So he has allowed me to share two sad and hilarious incidents of his fraternity brothers.
3.(a) A Retired Filipino US Navy Steward Sending $ and Balikbayan Boxes to His “Girlfriend” and Family Members
This retired US Navy Steward had become disheartened with his numerous dalliances while in the US Navy. So he decided to look for a girl back home.
He was lucky on his first attempt. Via cyberspace, communication with a long-tressed, demure, dusky maiden started. Soon, the exchanges became a torrent. The protestations of eternal love were soon concretized by Greenbacks and Balikbayan boxes not only to the “lady love” of the Marino, but also to her clan.
Obviously, the “lovers” planned to be together for all eternity, but while here on earth, they just wanted to “go home to each other”.
Romeo, pinagbili ang auto, bumili ng maraming balikbayan boxes para ang kanyang mga gamit in Anerika e-ship via several container vans. umutang sa credit card niyang naghihingalo para makasakay sa isang Boeing 777 papuntang Perlas ng Silangan. Kasi nandoon nga ang kanyang “Tala sa Umaga”. Pag nalulongkot daw ang Tala kay Romeo, nagpupunta sa kanilang garden, at namimitas ng Sampaguita at, ginagawang kwentas, linalagay niya sa kanyang leeg. Kaya daw siya ay humahalimuyak parang Sampaguita sa Mt. Makiling. Na tinitinda ng mga maralitang bata sa Quiapo Church at Plaza Miranda.
So the details nga pagnanaig were attended to. Romeo would fly to lousy NAIA and the Gates of Hell on such and such a date. He would check in to a hotel. And then Juliet would go there and will call him first.
So zoom boomed the Boeing 777 to Perlas ng Silangan.
He arrived in NAIA na pinapawisan. Sumakay ng taksi. Checked in to a hotel. Nagshower. At naghintay ng tawag ni Juliet.
He waited and waited. Then at about close to midnight, the telephone rang. It was Juliet. Humihingi ng patawag. Kasi nagkabalikan daw siya at ng kanyang asawa. Naawa daw siya sa kanyang tatlong anak. So she acquiesced.
Before Romeo could verbalize his Yankee expletive na natutohan niya sa US Navy, nobody was on the other end of the line anymore.
3.(b) A Retired Filipino US Navy Steward Sending $ and Balikbayan Boxes to His “Girlfriend” and Family Members
Kasi nakakasuya nga itong ginagawa ko, this one I will cut short.
Via long distance communication, isang lovelorn na Don Juan Tiñoso who was working in Lowes here in Nothern California, nagkaroon ng girl friend in the Homeland. Ganoon din, padala ng padala ng Green bucks atbp.
They agreed to meet in Boracay. Nauna si Don Juan. Naghintay hanggang naubos ang kanyang baon. He was in Boracay for two weeks. Hindi dumating si girl friend. Basta’t walang news. As in no news, as in sinuba sa Don Juan Tiñoso.
4. Huling Pananalita
Ito na lang sa baba. Dedicated sa tunay na nasabit dito sa the most powerful mystery ng humankind.
And please ingat. At sana hindi ma-uto. At pagsamantalahan. And most of all hindi mag dulot ng kalungkotan sa mga dati mahal sa buhay.
And most of all, hindi delikado ang buhay sa Homeland.
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