When I held you last

Is it even possible to forget?

I held you in my arms when there was no more life in you. I kissed your head and your feet. Before that, I watched you die. I knew I had to let you go.

Still, I had hoped the day would never come. I had always hoped that I would go before you.

I still cry.

I often relive that day. After all, it happened just months ago. It feels like years. Still, not a day goes by when I don’t remember that day I held you last. I never thought I could do it, but I did. It was my last gift to you.

I held you and gave you those gestures of love that I had given you for years.

To this day, I keep thinking, “Why did you leave me?”

“Get over it”

How do you do that anyway?

One of the worst things anyone has to go through is to see a loved one in pain. Quite close to that is to see the loved one go. In the end, perhaps, death is easier than pain, and even in intense grief, you realize that death is better than to have your loved one go through further suffering.

There are experiences you simply can’t forget. They haunt you.

My father suffered a stroke in September last year, two days before my mother’s birthday. They never got to celebrate a golden wedding anniversary. It wasn’t meant to be.

The frenzy of that day is still so clear to me. I took all my cards, knowing there would be a lot of expenses. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital where he could at least be stabilized, then later that same day to a different hospital.

Looking back, it was all just a matter of prolonging the agony.

On that first night, I wept outside the hospital’s emergency room as doctors attended to my father.

Sixteen days later, with my father gone, I wept inside the neurological ICU as hospital personnel “prepared” him for the morgue and contacted doctors on their fees (most were “no charge” out of professional courtesy). I was alone then; I volunteered to stay there till my father could be taken to the morgue.

Later, in the evening, at the place where the viewing was to be held, I looked upon my father again, this time as he was about to be “prepared” for the wake. They had questions about how he was to look. The answers didn’t come easily.

My father died on a Sunday. He was cremated on a Thursday.

My mother wrote a letter to him. It remained in his coffin during the wake, unseen. When he was about to be cremated, I put the letter in his hands.

That was it.

There are things you never forget.

###

"In fond memory of Dr. Bonifacio P. Sibayan, Ph.D"
Former president, Philippine Normal University
Former Commissioner, Commission on the Filipino Language
Former Editor-in-Chief, CEAP Perspective

Dear Sir,

I could have written this in my journal, but after some soul-searching, I decided not to do so. Perhaps I just wanted to pay some tribute to a great man, especially since I wasn’t able to attend your wake and your funeral. I’m sorry, Sir, I just didn’t know. I would have been there had I known, but I learned about it months later. And some time after that, I had my own deep personal losses to deal with.

I visited your grave for the first time last Monday. It was nice to see that your final resting place in this world looks well. I laid some flowers and a clipping of one of your articles there.

Quite appropriately, it rained.

You were a great man, Sir. The records will attest to that. This is my simple contribution.

Sir, I know you suffered a lot during the last five years or so of your life. You lost two sons. Your wife suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps there was some sense of divine mercy that you passed away within a year of your beloved wife.

You had a great way of putting things. Back in 1993, while we were in Bacolod, a convention organizer invited you to attend a workshop. What did you say? “But workshops are talkshops!” At one time, you came to my home for some personal matters, and you remarked, “You’re like Edgar Allan Poe!” because of the glass of vodka before me .

I disappointed you a lot of times, but I can never forget how, at one time, you actually called me a friend. You may remember, Sir, that I was just close to 30 when we met. You were already 75.

You were my mentor in things professional and otherwise. I never dared to call you my friend, but how I enjoyed all those vegetarian meals we shared at Organix (now gone) along Jupiter St. Or even how we saw a certain Comelec official in an unexpected outburst at AIM. We really laughed then.

During our last lunch together, you said to me, “It doesn’t matter what you achieve. As long as you’ve raised good children, you’ve done well.”

The last time we talked, over the phone, we were supposed to have lunch again. It never happened.

I can no longer say “Take care,” Sir, because something in me says that now, far from us, you are happy with your wife and sons.

So please whisper a bit to whoever is in charge of the universe. Some of us who are still here could use some help.

I miss you, Sir. I really do.

###

“Crying is contagious”

Today I attended the necrological services for a great-uncle of mine, the last of the male siblings to go. He was my mother’s favorite among them, because he was the one who welcomed her warmly into the family.

Following the mass, his daughter read an e-mail from one of her brothers who resides abroad. She then read a letter that she wrote to her father. During all this time, she was in tears. It had to take great courage to do what she did. There were times when it seemed she would not be able to continue, but she did…even though she kept crying and her hands trembled.

I never knew my great-uncle that well, if at all. Still, I had to try very hard to hold back the tears.

His demise couldn’t have been that much of a surprise. For years, he had been in a wheelchair following a stroke. He was under 24-hour care because of his condition. It was really just a matter of time.

Yet they cried. I nearly did. I didn’t want to cry because I thought it would be inappropriate, since we never knew really knew each other.

But to see his daughter cry was something else.

Crying is contagious. Loss is difficult. Loss is painful, whether the life lost was old or young.

Contrary to what some people say, growing old and gray isn’t fun. Death touches us at any age, but more so as we grow older. We lose the lives that nurtured us. We also lose the lives we nurtured. Which is more painful? I would think the latter. It has been so in my case anyway.

Then again, everyone has his or her own story to tell...and pain to bear.

###

“Debating Our Future”

(Note: This was written in October 2003)

I can only sympathize with the people of Iraq. Looking at it from far away, from the perspective of both the conquered and the conqueror, I can’t help feeling that Americans get some kind of perverse pleasure from debating, and perhaps even determining, the future of a nation they know little of, and of a people they know even less of.

But coming as I do from the Philippines, I know whereof I speak.

My own third-world country is once more in the news, particularly those generating from US-based news organizations. Once more we find ourselves in the map of the world, as defined by the United States. Bad news for us, though the Philippine president and the White House may think otherwise.

We had a number of good years when America didn’t care, because it didn’t have a stake in what we did. But that was just too good to last. Now we’re back to the bad old days.

I leave any analysis of the pre-Marcos era to my elders. They know far more than I. But from the Marcos regime to its fall in 1986, to the shaky Aquino years with all its coup attempts, particularly the nearly-decisive December 1989 coup attempt where Bush the Elder practically saved the Aquino administration with the “persuasion flights” of US fighter planes, the United States had been a major determinant of Philippine political life.

During those years, it was always a matter of pleasing America.

Things changed, however, with the historic Philippine Senate vote in September 1991 to reject a treaty that would keep US military bases in the Philippines. No more US bases, no more US aid (or “rent” as we liked to call it), no more GIs spending their oh-so-wanted dollars for the company of “willing” Filipinas. Use your imagination to what that actually means.

That withdrawal of US military bases was supposed to be the death of the Philippines, if US and Philippine officials at the time were to be believed.

In a way it was.

Suddenly, America no longer cared. We had to have a great catastrophe and a lot of body bags to even find our way to CNN.

What a blessing that was for the Philippines.

Suddenly lost in the US and international media, the Philippines experienced a period of peace and, well, relative prosperity. Out of America’s graces, the country saw not a single coup attempt. Not even the threat of it.

Instead, we converted a former military base into an industrial and tourist zone that many Filipinos today are proud of, and quite rightly. We had, rather unbelievably in these troubled days, a coup-free presidency. We actually experienced economic growth. We had good years despite the Asian financial crisis. True, we later elected a bad president, but we also removed him through extra-constitutional means.

Then came 9/11. And a Philippine president, who ironically was sworn in on the same day George W. Bush was, determined to reconnect the umbilical cord to America.

Now we hear talk of military aid. Or aid of any kind. A case for Ripley, at the least.

As we found out in the Philippines on Saturday, October 18, George W. Bush in his address to a joint session of the Philippine Congress, couldn’t even pronounce the name of Jose Rizal, the Philippine national hero, right.

Give me insignificance, even anonymity, any time.

###

“Open for business or closing shop?”

Is the Philippines open for business or is it closing shop?

The answer to that question will depend very much on where you’re coming from, geographically and metaphorically. If you’re a big business, you’ll probably say that the country is open for business. If you’re on the other end of the spectrum, you might feel otherwise.

I took a walk around my neighborhood today. For years now, I’ve been aware of the short life span of businesses in the area. I’ve often attributed that to faulty cash flow planning. The McDo, Jolibee, Shakey’s, Pizza Hut, and similar establishments in the area can survive. But how about the smaller establishments?

Put simply, so many have closed shop.

Even during the Estrada years, I knew that things were going bad. Today, I saw just how much worse they have become. Businesses that looked OK just months ago are no longer there. Years ago, I saw this in Makati, particularly in the Pasay Road area. Elsewhere, while riding the MRT, I saw how buildings along EDSA had become unoccupied.

“For rent”

“For lease”

Those words seemed to say just where we were. Or where we are now.

I live close to two top universities, two colleges, and a lot of other schools at the basic education level. If businesses can’t make it here, then there’s something very wrong in the economy.

No one wants to be pessimistic, but all those closed shops seem to point to something.

Oh by the way, even a Jolibee branch in the area has closed.

So is the Philippines open for business or is it closing shop?

###

“Occupation is Ugly”

My country was occupied for centuries, by the Spanish, the Americans, and the Japanese. Some would say that the Spanish rule was more a colonization than an occupation, but the effects were still very much the same. Many would even argue that, up to 1992, the Philippines was under quasi-occupation by the United States, since American GIs could not be touched by Philippine authorities while there were US military bases in the country.

I remember the stories of World War II and the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. My father often recounted how he and his uncles looted the stores of the ethnic Chinese in their neighborhood, just so they could have something to eat.

They would find just raisins, though, but that was enough to survive. Food was so scarce.

Another story I can’t forget involved a family that killed their dog so they could have something to eat. At the table, when the dish was there, they couldn’t eat. After all, that was their beloved pet.

An uncle of mine still fumes at how he was slapped by Japanese soldiers if he didn’t greet them properly. His daughter doesn’t like to listen to such stories, because my uncle always curses every time he recounts them.

A great-uncle of mine was imprisoned because he was having so much fun watching dog-fights in Leyte, before the “liberation.” He was then on the roof of his house, and he was jumping in joy as he watched the planes going after each other.

My grandfather was imprisoned by the Japanese, then later by the Americans, both times at Fort Santiago. During the Japanese occupation, upon his release from Fort Santiago, he worked as a mason, even though he was a lawyer and a teacher by profession, and an honor graduate of the University of the Philippines.

But that’s an occupation. It’s ugly.

There’s nothing nice about it, particularly for the occupied. For the occupier, there’s home, even if its thousands of miles away. For the occupied, home is gone.

You’re a second-class citizen in your own land. You have no rights. It’s a blood-curdling thought, that an invading army can just barge into your house and hold your family, including your children, at gunpoint so they can search your home for weapons, information, or whatever.

Or perhaps haul you to the public square so someone in a mask can point out a suspected rebel, insurgent, or “terrorist.” In the Philippines, during the Japanese occupation, that person was called a “makapili” (someone who chooses). It was surprising to learn that the coalition forces in Iraq, according to some reports, had been using the same tactic. People in masks.

But that’s an occupation.

Occupation is ugly, and anyone who had been through a history of it can understand why there’s so much trouble in Iraq today. The basic principle is “You don’t belong there.”

Or, from the perspective of the occupied, “You don’t belong HERE.”

Perhaps it’s hard for a country like the United States, that has never been occupied, to understand (the colonial experience doesn’t count, unless it’s from the perspective of native Americans), Imagine the insult. To have foreign troops in your land dictating things. To have them barge into your homes without warrants. That’s enough to make you want to kill. Or to die in the process. After all, that’s all you have. There are practically no judicial processes when it comes to the occupier.

Then again, it’s an occupation.

America’s experiences with occupation have always been in another country. Thus, there was always the comfort of the thought that, at least, the family was safe.

There’s no such comfort for the occupied.

###

"WHY NOT NEW YORK? ASK THE WORLD"

Just about everyone who knows about the Olympics dreams of watching the Games live, in person. I’m sure New Yorkers would have loved the chance to do so. Sorry, but apparently the world didn’t bite.

After all, no one outside the United States likes to have people shout “USA! USA! USA!” to his or her face. That was the experience of Salt Lake, or other international events held in the US. That’s an experience no one outside the United States wants repeated, especially where the Olympics are concerned.

Forget stadiums and logistics. It’s about hospitality.

A columnist once observed that hospitality was about making people feel comfortable, and that the opening ceremonies of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics were too much about the red, white and blue. Outside of Berlin, Salt Lake had to be the most politicized of Olympics (winter or summer), from George W. Bush’s statement (“On behalf of a determined nation…”), to the display of the torn flag, to that unending chant of “USA! USA! USA!”

Stupid world. We thought that the Olympics were about THE world.

Unfortunately, Americans tend to turn things around and make it about America. As someone in “Fox and Friends” once said during the lead-up to the Salt Lake Games, “No one cares about the Olympics. But people care about this country.”

Sorry, New York. Let’s have the Olympics somewhere else.

The Olympics are about camaraderie and friendly competition, not about flag-waving and in-your-face gloating. We love our respective nations, but we extend our hands to our competitors. We enjoy a victory. At the same time, we salute those we somehow managed to defeat.

We also welcome them to our land. That’s what being a host is all about.

The Olympics aren’t about fingerprinting and photos at the port of entry. If you’re not among the lucky people who don’t need a visa to get to the US, you’ll have to shelve out $100 just to apply for one…and get rejected. Goodbye $100, an entire month’s earnings for many people in developing nations. And you spend the amount just to get insulted by an embassy official.

Who needs that?

Can you imagine the kind of hype that would have come out of New York in a post-9/11 scenario? The US president, whether Republican or Democrat, would have surely invoked 9/11. Then the crowd would chant that, that, that…

Sorry, I can’t say it anymore.

And the rest of the world just watch in dismay. No one would feel welcome.

Ever been interrogated at a US airport? If you’re an Asian, they look at you and talk to you as if you’re a felon. At Vancouver, on the other hand, they smile at you. They welcome you.

Would New York have welcomed people outside of Europe and a few Asian countries? Perhaps. For Asians, though, the port of entry would be on the West Coast. And there, be prepared to be treated like a criminal.

I’d bet, however, that a lot of money would have been made from rejected visa applications.

“It’s the Olympics, I know, but you’re from the Philippines. You can’t go. You might not return to your country.”

Fine.

I’m sure New York is a lovely place with a lot of beautiful people. But not for the Olympics.

And so it’s London. Great. We’ll watch the Games from our television sets, assuming of course that we’re still alive in 2012. I’m sure the Brits will have a blast at the football (yes, football, not soccer) matches, shouting, “Goooaaaallll!!!!!”

Good for them.

###

“The Dancer: A celebration of motion”

For a layman such as myself, sculpture may seem static. It’s often about poses, which could apply even to the best. Look around your home and you’ll probably find pieces with “posed figures.”

Ferdinand R. Cacnio’s “The Dancer,” on the other hand, is all about motion. It celebrates motion through dance. Dance also involves form, but in this case form is secondary. The object is to portray movement in something that doesn’t move.

Mr. Cacnio brings motion to something inanimate.

Because the pieces themselves have no titles, we have to go by description.

For the most part, motion in the pieces is expressed by the way the head, the arms, and the torso are positioned. There is a sense of movement. Another element is the attire. The skirts in some pieces enhance the expression of motion. The forms themselves show little difference in the sense that the bodies depicted are practically the same. The difference lies in how the movements of these bodies are expressed.

The pieces with wild twists may be more attention-getting, There are ballet moves. There are “formal” moves. There are pieces that feature rather wild dancing. Stay a while, however, to contemplate what would perhaps be considered the milder pieces. They’re more interesting because of their sensuality…and their mystery.

Three of the smaller sculptures are particularly seductive.

One features a dancer in a crouching position, with arms spread, her face looking sideways. Another features a dancer with her hands before her–tame compared to the others, but very mysterious. The third depicts a dancer with one arm down and one up, her torso tilted to her right as she looks down.

View these sculptures while alone. Viewing them with friends will get a lot a adjectives, but these pieces are best seen alone, when you can contemplate the motion and perhaps try to delve into the artist’s mind.

Mr. Cacnio’s works are currently on display at the Avellana Art Gallery along F.B.Harrison Street in Pasay City.

“Dying and dyeing my hair”

On the day my father died, I dyed my hair.

It was getting white all over, and since I worked mostly with young people at the time, I had very practical reasons to keep it black. Still, it was the day my father died, after 16 days in an intensive care unit.

Since then, my hair has gone black and white over and over. And like the changes in the color of my hair, the grieving hasn’t stopped.

What struck me through the whole affair was the wealth of stories that an intensive care unit can present to a writer. For the most part, writers speak of pain. And there are few places where pain is more apparent than in an intensive care unit.

In our time at the hospital, we often saw and at times commiserated with an attractive young woman who was married to an elderly foreigner. Her husband had suffered a stroke, as had my father. She became kind of a friend.

Then there was this large family whose father was confined at the same intensive care unit. He died on the first Sunday night that my father spent at the hospital. I remember how one of his daughters burst into tears when he flatlined, even as several doctors tried to revive him. When they finally gave up, everyone was speaking on a cellphone.

“Tatay [father} is dead.”

While all that was happening, my own father was having trouble breathing, and my mother was in tears. But with the doctors’ care, my father survived that night. He survived more moons after that. Finally, he died.

That was on the 10th day of the 10th month, at 10:10 a.m.

And the thought came to me again, as it had many times during the entire episode: I could write about all this.

What a horrible thought to have at such a time. Even worse, to dye my hair.

Perhaps, till then, I had been at least relatively content with how my life was going. Pain is a writer’s resource. Frankly, despite the material that pain provides, I can do without it.

I’d rather have my father back.

Later that day, at a mid-afternoon meal at the hospital canteen while waiting for my father’s remains to be released, someone chuckled, having noticed that I actually dyed my hair that day, particularly my mustache and my beard.

I chuckled as well, but with a sense of guilt.

Perhaps it was an acknowledgment that life does actually go on, even in the event of death. It sounds flimsy, I know, but still…

###

“Death Watch”

Tonight I’m on a death watch.

So close to where I write this now, five puppies, born just a little more than 48 hours ago, are sleeping with their mother. One puppy is dying. He apparently had some accident at birth. He was the last to come out, so I was already asleep by then and thus never saw what actually happened. My vet feels that, in the process of his mother peeling away at the placenta, part of his head’s skin was torn off, thus exposing his skull.

I had hoped we could save him. Just yesterday he was as active as any day-old puppy. Today I came home to find him very weak, despite the remedies my vet had prescribed. He isn’t even suckling anymore. He just sleeps. I guess it is a quiet way of dying. That doesn’t make it any easier.

I’ve already shed my tears, but most probably not all of them yet. In a way, however, I’ve already said goodbye.

Now I wait. Already I grieve.

As a writer for many years now, I’ve always been intrigued by the mystery of death. What actually goes on in the mind of one surely dying during those final moments? Only the dead can say for sure.

Many years ago, at the same time that my writing career was finally making some headway, my uncle, blindfolded and hog-tied in the bathroom of the house of his common-law wife, bled to death from stab wounds inflicted by his own driver and several others.

What were his thoughts then, at that last moment of life, knowing he was dying in a home and in the company of a woman his legal wife never even knew about?

All these years, I’ve never found the words to even describe that moment. I could only imagine, and guess.

Just as I watch over a lovely little puppy dying (dying quietly, thank God for little favors)…and think of how, had he been lucky enough, he could have made some kid or daddy or granddaddy out there so happy.

And me as well.

###

KILLING WORDS: THE LANGUAGE OF WAR AND OCCUPATION

Were the four Americans who died in Fallujah killed, slain, massacred, murdered or executed? Were they civilians, mercenaries, armed security personnel, or civilian combatants?

Anyone who has lived in a country that’s been occupied knows that there’s no distinction between an occupier in uniform and one in civvies. They’re both legitimate targets. After all, they pursue the same goals. They both benefit from the occupation—the civilian occupiers, whatever their names or designations may be, perhaps even more since they, after all, have a choice.

They can be there or not.

Soldiers, on the other hand, simply obey.

But even where soldiers are concerned, the language of war and occupation seems to tilt toward the occupier’s favor, especially if the occupier is supported by news organizations.

Describing what he felt upon seeing American soldiers inspecting an Iraqi home, CNN correspondent Martin Savidge said that the Marines were “trying to clear a village, a town. And they're trying to control a population, and that there are embedded within that population, people trying to murder them at that moment.”

What a novel concept: invading soldiers being “murdered.”

Now the Japanese can claim that their soldiers were “murdered” as they enforced the occupation in many Asian countries during World War II.

Too bad for the Japanese. They didn’t have CNN or Fox News to promote their “liberation” of Asia.

Had they had that privilege, resistance forces would have been called terrorists.

Today we have GIs in Iraq raiding homes without warrants and “detaining” suspected terrorists and insurgents. Iraqis, however, “abduct” foreign civilians aiding in the occupation.

Coalition forces “detain prisoners.” Iraqis “kidnap hostages.”

If it sounds crazy, well, it is. Many of the heroes of World War II, by the standards of today’s international news organizations, would be considered thugs and terrorists.

There’s more.

A US “civilian administrator” closes down a newspaper in Iraq. Elsewhere, “dictators” do very much the same thing.

The difference? Sorry, can’t find it.

We can perhaps forgive US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he said, “Well, we know the Iranians have been meddling, and it's unhelpful to have neighboring countries meddling in the affairs of Iraq. And I think the Iraqi people are not going to want to be dominated by a neighboring country, any neighboring country. No country wants to be dominated by its neighbors.”

Perhaps it escaped him that the US is in fact dominating Iraq. Then again, the United States is not a neighboring country, so maybe that makes it all right.

But that’s Rumsfeld. The sophistry is expected.

When it comes from respected journalists and news agencies, however, it makes sense for people to switch their channels from Fox News and CNN to, say, Al Jazeera.

That is, if you can get it, and understand Arabic.

###

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.
Some of the things you may read in here, you may not like, depending on where you come from or where you're coming from.
The pieces may be irreverent. Oftentimes they go against popular (or seemingly popular) beliefs and attitudes. You might even find some downright nasty. I hope not, though.
Give me a day or two to get started.
I'm well past the midway point in my life, but I'm still new at this.