Perok and Rina Rodriguez

Originally written for the Rotary Club-Ormoc newsletter

Peter “Perok” Rodriguez and Cristina “Rina” Pongos grew up a stone’s throw from each other in Bonifacio St, Ormoc City but this convenience would only have a small role in the he said, she said story of their romance.

Rina’s earliest memory of Perok goes back to 6^th grade when she first formally met him. It was a big deal then that he was 8 years older, but as she would admit today, she had a crush on him ever since and even had a code for him, “Chori Burger”.

Years passed and the time when Rina was allowed to go out came. She would see Perok painting the town w/ his colors, mostly at the Swing disco doing half-naked cartwheels and

getting on his ride with a couple of girls. She was easily disenchanted and would relay these youthful exploits to her dad, the late Atty. Benjamin Pongos, who kept on telling his two daughters that one of them ought to marry him. “Kung makakita lang ka niya mag tumbling, tumbling, ma turn-off jud ka dad!”

Rina moved to Manila to study Accountancy at UP Diliman. At that time, her acquaintance with Perok had reached easy-banters level. She remembers getting a call from Perok asking her to tell Maric, her older sister who was already based in the US, to come home with a wedding gown as he would marry her here. Perok, who was also a kabarkada of Rina’s older brother Bennet, became a kuya figure to her.

Following her graduation from college and a few years’ work in Manila, Rina came home in 2007. She joined the BCBP Singles, an endeavor that Perok now claims was her strategy to get closer to him as he was already a member of the community. Rina refutes this confident assumption, reminding him that she was still dating somebody from Manila then.

In those years, Perok was actively looking for somebody to settle down with. His fellow members started teasing him to Rina, downplaying the long-distance relationship she was in. None of them knew they were all playing prophetic.

This mild encouragement turned into a full-blown pep-talk after a Bo Sanchez concert at the Abellana Complex in Cebu that the Singles attended. Rina came late in her car and got stuck in a parking ordeal. She called up her male friends for help, but by Somebody’s playful blessing, she only got through Perok’s line. Rina (resignedly) shares that at the very instant she spotted him amongst the busy crowd, walking towards her car, he “took her breath away” for the first time. The Singles saw them enter the event together and the “walang kamatayang sungog” peaked.

That night made her see Perok in a different light. It did help that they would pass each other’s homes almost every day, but it was the community that buoyed up whatever was brewing inside. Perok would occasionally ask Rina to help him compose prayers and talks, a gesture that Rina admired as she was so used to guys competing with her. She found Perok very confident, but also humble enough to ask for her help.

Fast forward to 1999, Perok finally asked the already unattached Rina out. She only said yes on his second dinner invitation, and the third, which was to join him and his family at the beach for the Holy Week. Rina did not have an idea that before taking her, Perok had announced to the whole clan that the woman he would bring to that gathering is the one he would marry.

At the April wedding of their fellow BCBP members Mike and Charity Tan, Perok and Rina lay bare all their feelings for each other. By the end of the night, they were already engaged. Rina remembers being congratulated by their friends. When she asked why, they answered that Perok had told them they were getting married in August. Her jaw dropped in shock, but by instinct, she replied, “Pwede sa December lang?!?”

A bit worried that all of the evening’s surprises were only fruits of a drunken night, Rina stayed up until 3 am with her friends. Perok kept her on such state until he called up at 7 pm the next evening. She was no longer Rina, but “Darl.”

As in all stories, Perok and Rina’s love affair has two versions, his and hers. But however the two goes, the end is the same. They got married on December 11, 1999 and moved to one address.

~~~

Perok is my father's younger brother while Rina is my mother's distant cousin. They now have four kids: Andre, Kyra and Peter who are all in grade school, and little Ben, in preparatory school.

Casmer Ampaso

Casmer's official campaign photo

Originally printed in EV Mail

You rarely hear of people who turn 24 and in the running for a seat in the city Council; or studying law and teaching medical courses at the same time; or, in the case of Casmer Ampaso, juggling all three together. Such is the exuberance of youth, and Casmer puts this privilege to full use that her track record reads like it’s been enriched for more than 24 years.

“There was a stage in my life when I just wanted to work in an office and sit on a swivel chair,” Casmer grins, “But through time, I realized it’s nice to get out of your comfort zone and do things out of the ordinary.”

Late in 2009, she accepted a friend’s invitation to attend a meeting of a new political movement that sprung from the shared grievances and aspirations of a venturesome group of Ormocanons. The extent of her willingness to set foot into the unknown was put to test when she was asked to be the youth representative of the group’s slate for Council Seats in the 2010 Elections.

“I joined Kaabag because it carries a new perspective on governance that I strongly agree with. I also share its vision for Ormoc. But it took a while before I accepted their invitation to run for Councilor. I live a simple life. I didn’t want to complicate it.”

Ultimately, her decision would not hinge on what such enterprise would demand of her life, but what it could do to a long-running dream. “I always knew somebody with clear intentions should stand for the youth and take care of their needs and rights,” Casmer shares.

Rest assured this is not just a hazy, flat concept she randomly picked up. Having served as Chairman of the Sangguniang Kabataan in Brgy. San Pablo and as Secretary of the local SK Federation, Casmer knows where she is coming from. During her 5-year term, she encountered mini-mirrors of the traditional politico that equates public infrastructure with success in leadership. “Most of the projects they approved are those that are beneficial to them, projects that are immediate and can be seen,” Casmer says.

As an alternate, she utilized her post to extend the education she got at the Girl Scouts and the Red Cross to her fellow youth. “What I learned being a volunteer, I applied to my service as SK Chair.” She organized First Aid symposiums and clean-up drives, and facilitated livelihood projects for out-of-school youths, for whom she seems to have a very soft spot for.

“There are so many talented and skillful youths in Ormoc – and many of them not in school – but they are not offered the opportunity to develop themselves. Instead they turn to gangs, drugs or anything that gives them a sense of identity.”

But she is quick not to generalize all gangs or fraternities as only good for nothing. “Let’s not dismiss the potential of these brotherhoods. We can take advantage of their organization for the city’s socio-civic projects or events. Let’s help them make a clean image of their groups.”

This sympathy and the resolute vow to change things will certainly go a long way in the city Council, but Casmer is aware that it is a long stretch from her experience at the SK. What helped her make up her mind were the inspiriting words of the Dean at the Western Leyte College of Law, where she is currently having her post-grad studies.

“He knew I have a strong inclination towards service so he suggested organizations that will allow me to practice my profession as a nurse and serve the public at the same time. He was scared of what politics could do to me. But in the end, he told me I should follow what I want.”

So on November 30, with 8 members of the Kaabag, Casmer filed her Certificate of Candidacy for the City Council. Apprehensions were building up inside, but a fellow Kaabag reminded her that they all had an open window until December 14, in case any of them decide to jump out of the race.

That window would prove to be most attractive exactly two weeks later, when Casmer received a confirmation from her agent that her request for a US working visa has come through. “But my mind was set already by December 14. And I’m the type of person who sticks to what I have set my mind on. I know it’s a wasted opportunity, but I want to make a difference and see changes, not just in my life.”

This propensity for altruism derives from a powerful experience during the Ormoc flashfloods, when she was only 5 years old. In the flurry of the raging waters, Casmer was separated from her parents and rescued by a neighbor that she only knew by face. It was a traumatic time that had emotional aftershocks whenever even the slightest of drizzle would fall. But the Casmer that emerged from it would grow a heart that always paired compassion with action.

“That neighbor made me realize the importance of helping other people,” she recalls. The droves of NGO workers that arrived seemingly out of nowhere to distribute relief goods and offer medical services also imprinted a sense of mission in her. “I wanted to become one of them.”

This childhood episode would have a bearing in many directions she would choose to take growing up. While at the Ormoc City National High School, she volunteered with the Red Cross; in Nursing School at Cebu’s Southwestern University, she got herself actively involved with Tsinelas, a non-governmental slipper-for-every-child crusade.

Law was never part of the plan but, “It coincides with a desire to be able to fight for my rights, and give people the same freedom.”

Weighing at the same importance as the youth in Casmer’s platform are issues concerning Ormoc’s women. On top of her list is prostitution, which she says remains a dark cloud in the city’s landscape. She refers to a place near the Public Market that runs by the street name ‘Langub’ where pimps operate. “As long as there are places like this, prostitution will always be the last resort for destitute women. It’s the government’s job to provide rightful alternatives.”

She mentions administration effort to organize workshops and supply materials for its baranggay livelihood projects but says it’s futile in the end as there are no intermediaries between them and the market. “During our baranggay visits, women have approached me for assistance. I see they are very empowered but just don’t know how to carry it out.”

Casmer explains that her choice to have all these on her plate at the tender age of 24 was driven by her exposure to how hard life is and the desire to affect change. She could have chosen the swivel chair or jumped out of the window, but instead, she sets out to teach us how to maximize one’s young life in the service of many.

Casmer, 4th from right, is the only girl in the Kaabag line-up in the 2010 Elections for Council Seats. After the votes have been casted, she ranked 5th among them. But only one of these kaabags got a seat.

Maria Cara Rodriguez-Larrazabal

Originally published in EV Mail.

There’s a hole in our home now. The last time I saw the person who used to fill it with big-sisterly guidance and care, and infectious joy (and occasionally, a quick temper :), she was ready with her whole life in 3 balikbayan boxes and 2 huge luggage, to move to a place 1000 oceans away from what she called home for 27 years.

This explains the morning of her wedding day when she woke up with eyes swollen from crying. Everyone panicked but the make-up artist, who coolly walked to the kitchen to wrap frozen water with a hanky and asked the bride to hold it against her eyes.

For the rest of the morning, with our hair and make-up all ready for the camera, the threat of crying hung over us bridesmaids. The mother of the bride, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about the many beautifying hours already spent on her. Through tears-stricken eyes, she did not drop her duty of making sure the bride’s eyebrows were not too thick and the cheeks were only softly colored.

It would have made for an ideal start to a highly emotional wedding, but the family preferred the drama stay at home and proceeded to the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, where the ceremony took place like how it should: merry, delightful, and in denial that somebody is about to leave.

Tears of joy make funny storytelling later; but laughter of joy shows the face of certainty, as the bride had executed on her wedding march to a moving string version of U2’s With or Without You. She opted not to cover her face with a veil for fear it would induce claustrophobia (oh, the things we pick up from our mother!), leaving facial traces of jitters or doubts to everyone’s full view. But there was none such betrayal.

She was at her happiest, looking glorious in her all-lace Felix Yu gown, and wearing a radiant smile that I feel moved the hearts of the many who knew she deserved such pure bliss. Throughout the afternoon heat, the careful but relentless jests from cousins and friends, the reality of getting hitched, and the sweating that it all caused, Pancho Larrazabal’s smile (the one that stretched from ear to ear) also never left his face.

Such high spirits set the mood for the rest of the wedding and through the celebration. There was no need for a first shot or bottle to get the bridal entourage to do a grand entrance to the reception hall, which meant ladies in figure-hugging, flamenco-inspired gowns and men in Barong Tagalog dancing to Natalie Cole’s This Will Be (An Everlasting Love). One of the lolaswould say, “Your poise was slightly broken; but it was very refreshing and fun!”

Not to be outdone were the newly-weds, who entered the ballroom to Flo Rida’s Low and invited all the guests to their feet. Even the ninongs and ninangs in front stood to welcome and dance with them. Watching this unique spectacle, I realized my sister had a natural groove to her; but kudos goes to the groom for pulling all efforts to make it seem like he had, too.

Dinner was had to the live accompaniment of a string quartet. Pancho’s uncle and Sabin Hotel’s main chef, Butch, had prepared Paella, Lengua, Caldereta and Canonigo, to keep to the wedding’s Spanish theme. The bride’s cousin, Tina Santiago of Tina’s Sweets, laid out a smorgasbord of treats to the sweet teeth such as cream puffs, cheesecake, tarts and brownies.

Four hundred guests make a crowd, but the couple injected personal touches to the affair that allowed a measure of intimacy in. As hosts for the evening, they picked Perok Rodriguez, a very close tito to the bride, and Vannie Ocampo, a very good friend.

Every table at the ballroom had a name of a person, a place, or a thing that played a part in the couple’s love story. The hosts lured the guests to share a story with a pack of Tina’s goodies. By the end of the night, everyone would know that the two were set up at the wedding of Lito & Diane del Rio in 2007 by enthusiastic aunts and cousins; that at 25, my sister was not allowed by our mother to go on her first date with Pancho without a chaperone (thank you, Monica Rizarri-Veloso); that it was thru the help of a singing Pepe Le Peu stuffed toy that Pancho was able to give voice to his feelings for her; and that after their honeymoon in Hawaii, the couple will be based in Pancho’s home in California.

Other personal touches to the evening were the postcards left on the table for guests to write down their best wishes and goodbye messages; the longest-kissing couple game, the winners of which did not beat the night’s record of 28 seconds set by the newlyweds; and a special tribute, during which the groom and bride gave a bouquet each to their mothers.

But the one part that brought the house down was the brother of the bride, Tingtong. After the toast of the Best Men and the teary Maids of Honor, he walked up front by house demand. He struggled with his English words, ignoring the crowd’s encouragement for him to say what he wanted to say in Bisaya. “My sisters speak in English, so I will speak English, too!”

The protective brother role seized him as soon as the crowd settled down, first coming clean about his initial disapproval of Pancho for his sister. It was through the fact that more than a dozen of Pancho’s friends flew in from California to see him get married and the things he’s heard about Pancho from them, that he learned to fully accept him. But so characteristic of Ting, he ended his speech with a threat. We all know how that goes.

If there was any semblance of Tingtong’s toast to the father of the bride’s welcome message earlier in the evening, it was the glimpse they gave the guests into how they were feeling about giving away their Maica. But unlike the brother’s apprehension, Mayong felt instant relief that his eldest daughter found somebody from a family he grew up with on Bonifacio Street.

He also used the opportunity to squeeze in a few words of reality check for the newlyweds. “As your relationship had been long-distance from the start, you haven’t seen the best and the worst of each other. You have to learn to accept the strengths and weaknesses that both of you will carry into this marriage.”

Later that night, while a live band played the newlyweds’ favorite song, Always and Forever by Luther Vandross, there was a short lull in the merriment when Mayong danced with the bride. It was a bittersweet moment, magnified not only by the daughter’s tears on her father’s shoulder, but by the great distance that was to come between them.

But the night was young and with the help of two shots of Tequila and several swigs of GPS, everybody felt so, too. Indeed, the best way to enjoy is to live and party in the moment, and save the blues when the time gets us there.

In the case of the newlywed’s departure, time did not take its time. In fact, it hurried. It may have played along with the excitement of their honeymoon or sympathized with the bride’s mother and shortened the farewell. The last time I saw my sister was on the day after her wedding, and she was smiling radiantly through wet eyes with her husband’s hand in hers.

When we went home, the drama was waiting. There was a hole with it, and it was shaped a Maica.

~~~

I wrote this piece as requested by Ms. Lalaine Jimenea, editor in chief of EV Mail. It's one of the most difficult articles I ever finished -- must be that it's about somebody I'm too close to. In fact, I worked on it in bed for a whole weekend!

Ultimately though, I'm glad I took on Lalaine's challenge. Since I started this blog, my sister Maica has been bugging me to write about her. Well sis, this may not be so much about you as it is about your wedding to Pancho. But on second thought, you would agree that the wedding you had greatly reflected the kind of person you are.

Erica Palou Borromeo

I know somebody who can tell on what day August 29, my birthday, or any date will land in year 2010 without looking at the calendar.

I don't think she cheats. How could she pull one on us? Aside from that it is unlikely she would be carrying a calendar in her bag, and one with a 2010 agenda at that, Erica, that's her name, is blind. It has not been made clear if she was born blind or if she steadily lost her vision through the years. The reality that she is blind has long been established in the clan nobody bothered to check anymore how she came to be.

When the question of her years is hung in the air, just how old she is remains elusive. When discovered, confusing. Erica is 24. She has the built of somebody in her 30s but her ways are characteristic of a boy in his early teens. Her mind is that of a storyteller. She is not a Benjamin Button.

The case is, it's not only Erica's vision that's impeded. She is a case of a mental condition. I haven't got the word for it -- but it shows in how she cannot fully connect herself to the rest of the world. Something more interesting and needful of her attention is happening in her world.

That's why when I challenged her to guess on which day August 29 will be in 2010, I first needed to call out her name 3x and fix her to my request and away from Lola Hermana, a character in her world who my sister and I taught she made up but later, whose existence was confirmed by Erica's yaya Alice. In the hours before I challenged her, Erica repeated the story of Lola Hermana like a broken record. She asked me a dozen times why I didn't sleep beside Lola and reprimanded me for what to her was despicable. When I reasoned out that Hermana is not my grandmother, she wouldn't take a word of it.

Another story that she put on repeat mode happened in her mother's Theresian days (in Cebu). Somebody in the family must have told Erica about it to point out where she got her easy flair for talking from. Or perhaps, it was her mother who relayed it to her in one of their few lazy Sunday afternoons together. So the story goes, in high school, Erica's mother was a usual in the nun's list of the most talkative, always eliciting from the robed teacher, "Ms. Borromeo, stop talking! You are very talkative Ms. Borromeo! Stand in front!" This story regaled Erica - the storyteller - like it was the first time she heard herself share it, and it worked her up to uninhibited laughter.

In the many hours we were in her company, when she spoke of her mother moved us the most. She speaks of her with such detachment she doesn't even know her by mama, or mommy, or mother. It's plainly Mita.

Tita Mita spent most of her life shuffling in and out of the country as a Flight Attendant at Philippines Airlines. In her last hours, it would be summed up that she spent more time looking after strangers than her own daughter. She died a few years, or months, short of a self-imposed deadline to wrap up her jet-setting life and start anew in a career that will allow her to settle down with her daughter. But cancer claimed her before she could reclaim those lost years that she should have spent with her daughter.

Now she could never.

Some sort of salvation in Erica's busy world (of Lola Hermana, etc) is that it keeps her away from awareness that she is already without mother, if the role of a mother ever registered in her world anyway. She continues to regale those within earshot (whether willing or not willing to lend an ear) with her stories and more recently with her singing. Out of the blue, she would charge into the tune of Rock-a-bye Baby with a different set of lyrics each time.

Her double case have mostly its downs. Her mental condition makes it difficult for her to sit still with braille. With it, she couldn't be trusted without her yaya Didit or yaya Alice (both have seen her since infancy). She has tantrums that she herself couldn't control.

But it also has its ups. Her condition gives her blindness vitality. She is able to see through the fixed darkness she wakes up to every morning, and seize whatever she can of the days as breathed, lived out, and seen by the people around her. With this, she is able to color her world with interesting characters and fascinating stories in a way that doesn't leave her in silence, in the corner, in obscurity. Whether fiction or real, she keeps everyone within earshot bracing for these stories.

After proposing my challenge, I readied myself to forgive in case she gets it wrong. But barely a minute passed before she answered.

"Sunday," she said, not guessed.

Correct, August 29 is a Sunday in 2010. Unlike Erica, I needed a calendar to confirm that.
~~~
May you rest in peace, tita Mita.

Ida Mae Larrazabal

i had a nice chat with my cousin by birth and all-time friend ida. i think i have to mention this since she's found this site and even bookmarked it. awww.... in grade school, we used to schedule house visitations on weekends. mostly it was at her house. no longer sure why exactly (was it because her father didn't want her out always?), but it didn't matter. her house sat on a huge lot, and there were many things we could do. we would play with her mother's plants, or run to the end of their back garden, to the small gate that opened to the groto with a huge Mama Mary facing the rest of the baranggay Nadongholan. or we would hang out in her room, scan books, talk, play with barbie dolls, go thru the collections she shared with her sisters. or stay downstairs and listen to the piano (with her playing on it of course). those were the good times.

she gave me chinchin in grade 5. at first, my parents didn't want chinchin but i cried my heart out. when they found out chinchin was a terrier, they changed their minds. chinchin wasn't chinchin then of course. my mother gave chinchin that name, to chinchin's despair. chinchin?!? but i would grow to love that name, or maybe, only the one who carried it.

chinchin made me fall in love with dogs. or maybe not all dogs. chinchin was the only dog i only really loved. the others were mere attempts to bring that much fascination back. but didn't work out with the ones who followed: poochie (she ran away) and now, twoshe (has her own world). chinchin was my bestfriend. she died in 2005 to a hit and park.

ok so that's what ida gave me. a friend.

she moved to cebu in high school. we would trade books, but distance wouldn't trade time with us. i think the most we saw of each other at that time was once a year, during summer. same with college. i moved to cebu and she moved to manila. i think we always knew we both still existed, and our past closeness made that matter (not once did she forget to greet me on my birthday). but that didn't change the condition that we were separated by distance, growth, interests, and well, dreams.

we would eventually finish schooling. ida's back in ormoc to prepare for another year of schooling (in scotland, no less). and i'm still stuck here in cebu to prepare for the great vague world (on earth, no less). we now talk more often than i ever remember we did. i'm sure we logged in more hours in grade school but i don't remember much from that. 8 years of near silence counted for something, i guess. but the good thing is that we both grew up from that. now, we're bringing into our friendship all that we have learned along the way. i'm glad at the end, we were to meet again.

~~~
I originally wrote this for my other blog, www.ilovemyupper.blogspot.com on February 13. On Sunday, September 7, 2008, Ida will be leaving for Scotland to study Music Technology and Acoustics at the University of Edinburgh. Have the time of your life, Id. Sorry if my broken promises and seeming aloofness may have given grounds for your doubts on what your friendship means to me. :)

Maria Carlyn Villarosa Rodriguez

A person is often construed by his outward manners. An established social case or an old cliché, this works both goodly or badly against Maria Carlyn Rodriguez, depending on what people think of the feisty that is her.

Carlyn's (or Cai) presence involuntarily demands attention. Aside from that she relies on a big-boned, 5’8” frame and carries around a disarmingly pretty face, her voice registers more than the number of decibels that’s expected from women, she walks around with a gift for chatter, and more often than not, wears bubbly with a winning smile like both are her best accessories.

But these are only the Cainess hanging from her sleeve. Up close and personal, she is bright, sensitive, thoughtful, and insightful beyond her 20 years. As a friend, she has many descriptions: one who would drive anywhere to comfort you in your emotional downtime, one who sometimes forgets your birthday but otherwise, would have prepared a candle on a cupcake for you, one who doesn’t mind hours of dispensing sound advises when you need, one who listens all too willingly. If you stay long enough to take this side out of her, congratulations, you’ve just made one good friend.

Hope you also stay long enough to be a good friend to her. No question Carlyn is strong, independent, and decisive; these are clearly part of her feistiness. But she also has fears and a lot of questions, suffers from insecurity and sometimes, alienation, and most crucial of all, she is needy of somebody to whom she could show this weaker side of hers. She is just 20 after all, the age that holds the threshold to a major crossroad in life.

Other people may busy themselves more with noting down her flaws, which at many times, are hard to miss. BUT who doesn’t wake up late in the morning or arrive late at a gathering? Who doesn’t leave or misplace stuff everywhere? Who doesn’t get confused by suggestions? Who doesn’t get something wrong once in a while? Who doesn’t want to insist on what she believes in? Carlyn may fall victim to these more often than other people, but as I have earlier mentioned, this is not all that she is.

On a final note, Maria Carlyn Rodriguez is a bundle of sunshine whose light she shares and extends beyond her daddy Bingcol and mommy Judy, brother Vincent, and sister Alyssa, beyond her huge family scattered around Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, beyond her high school and college friends, beyond the one guy she calls her sunshine (I’m assuming Cai :)… to everywhere that she blesses with her presence. She was born on April 29, 1987, and in behalf of all whose lives she came across with or she is yet to touch, we’re glad her sun shines at this corner of the world.

*** Carlyn is now a first year med student at the Cebu Institute of Medicine.
~~~

I originally made this in my cousin Carlyn's request for her school project. (so to my dearest sisters, don't feel bad i have not put you down in words yet)

Mamita

I honor my grandmother today on her 76th birthday.

MY GRANDMOTHER, YOUR GRANDMOTHER
originally published in Cebu Daily News

There are people who are easy to write about; say, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. It helps that their lives are laid out in a platter like Wikipedia, but it is having read so much about them that makes it easier. We are already familiar with the range that writing on them entails as to not downgrade, overrate, or falsify their lives.

The stories of our grandmothers would have been easier baits to a blank page. No persistent editing and the four sides of a webpage bind it to any limitation. In place of Wikipedia are their lives as they share it with us. But too much familiarity, I dare say, breeds the apprehension to even start, for fear I might miss something. However, as grand-motherhood hits a woman at any point later in her life, so should her story begin.

It was an August day 27 years ago that first introduced my mamita to the role of a grandmother. This she would play 33 times over again and would master throughout the years. What she shares with all of us and we to her is best exemplified by an unassuming cross-stitch frame that hangs on a wall at the beach house. Stitched beside a lovely illustration of little kids cuddling with their grandmother are the words, “Had I known my grandchildren would be this fun, I would have had them first.”

She delights in seeing us all gathered together. We do not go by the holiday calendar and wait for December or birthdays to schedule jamborees; ordinary weekdays are options, but Sundays at the beach has become a family tradition. In these gatherings, she is a queen who is difficult to pin down to her throne as she insists on taking care and making sure all is prepared. As we would discover, being up on her feet is her energizer, and sitting down a power-drainer.

To her, traveling for more than 5 hours in one day, from one city to another, is just like a walk in the beach. It is because of this that having her around is as much a pleasure as it is a relief; it means taking time off from her city-hopping.

Yes, she is still a working woman at 75, a choice that reflects that time in her 20s, when she was called back to the province from her college studies to work for the family. Ever since, mamita has always had her hands all over things, from the farm to her business, to her 10 children, and now to her 34 apos. An aunt once quipped that when God was raining skills on earth, mamita was not able to bring an umbrella.

To her children, she is an amazing mother. To us grandchildren, she is a wonder grandmother. To all of us, she is the foundation on which the strength of our family stands on.

There is an image that’s etched in my mind from six years ago. Seeing her daughter trying to sit up in bed, mamita briskly walked to her bedside and bent down to help her up. It was a motherly instinct that was brushed off as quickly as it was offered. My tita’s cancer has reduced her spirit to frailty that she had a hard time moving in any way, but she did not accept the help as she knew it might aggravate mamita's back pains. That moment’s exchange between a mother and a daughter imprinted in my mind the selflessness of love, and just how much mamita has of it coming out of her as there is going in to her.

Perhaps of all that she has given us, her greatest legacy would have to be our parents. It is but the natural order of things that they came before us; but it is a blessing of a great woman that they came to be the kind of parents any mother would have been proud of having brought up.

This is the first that’s written about mamita, but some of you would have probably known of her kind and witnessed yourselves in your own grandparents. Theirs is the universal story of selflessness and love. It runs along the same lines as that of King, Jr. and Mother Theresa. But while these modern day heroes are heralded by a page or two in Wikipedia and the history books, the stories of our grandparents are heralded by our lives and the many ways that they have touched it.

edited by Ms Annabelle Tan-Amor

Bien Maria Tan Rodriguez

Bien Maria was a stranger to my world until she was three days old. We picked her up at an orphanage in Borongan, a small city in Eastern Samar that's 5 hours away from Ormoc. The nuns who run the place left her nameless for the first three days, so my mother unofficially christened her Bien Maria the moment she scooped her from a bed she shared with four other babies and arranged her in her arms.

It was quite a funnily memorable setting. My mother was expecting a light-skinned baby since she was told the baby would be, but in the room where all the baby orphans were, there was only one who fared lightly, and it was Francisco, a boy. The nuns instead pointed out to her a crying infant with Hershey's Symphony chocolate dark-colored skin. My mother laughed off the skin-reference mistake with the nuns, but it was too late to back out. She was already smitten. (Don't fault my mother for being skin-discriminating. While she was growing up, her dark color against her older sisters' lightness made her the butt of jokes.)

Our pick-up did not take long as we had another 5-hour ride ahead. For the long trip, Bien was dressed in a sleeveless shirt and a lampin secured around her bottom. The orphanage's budget does not afford them the convenience of diapers, and my mother completely forgot about that part (and the powdered milk, the bottles, etc etc). More than 20 years has passed since she last put a diaper on a baby and Bien forced her to an instant re-orientation to that motherly-at-an-infant-stage job.

Jackie, Bien's biological mother, was there the whole time we were readying Bien to a life. She stunned me with her seeming aloofness. She dressed up Bien at a half-hurried pace, with an expression on her face so blank you wouldn't be able to draw any emotion from it. If there was, then maybe I'm just bad at drawing.

Before we left, she handed my mother a letter that detailed her past affair with a 20 year old guy, her pregnancy, her intention to give away her baby, and her deep gratitude. This letter was all the authorization we needed to prove to the court that we did not kidnap Bien. I could not remember what my mother handed in return, if she did.

It was Jackie's mother who cried the tears of a woman who is to be separated from her child. As we were leaving, Jackie remained at a corner and looked elsewhere. You would think she was built for this kind of drama, and structured in her was a restraining order for any amount of tears to escape from her, no matter how hard-knock the circumstance is. That, or maybe her baby (Bien to us) was just another toy from a thrift shop that she no longer found a need for. Jackie was only 15, after all. Knowing that she's only at the prime of her teens allows her nonchalance a bit of integrity.

On the way home, we stopped by a convenience store and bought a bottle for the milk, a can of powdered milk, and diapers. Good thing we were convinced not to wait until the 5-hour travel was over, because just as we were nearing the exit of Borongan, we got stuck for almost an hour when up ahead a 2-lane dirt-road, an accident stalled the traffic. Well, actually, it was one-lane at that time since they blocked off the other one for pave-men at work. (I forgot what kind of accident it was.) It was a perfect time to be stuck in traffic. We had a stranger with us, and we were taking her, her three days so far in the world, and the rest of her days, home.

During those three days (the only days in Bien's life that we missed), we were half-excited and half-reeling at the prospect of a new member in the family. We only had three days to take in everything -- the announcement/invitation made by my grandmother who saw the baby on the day it was born, the discussion between my parents, the decisioning c/o mother (since she is always the one who decides on domestic matters). Thus, we forgot about the milk, diapers, etc, etc. The only crib Bien ever slept on was a basket my mother used to put fake fruits on. My mother paraded Bien to the family and to her friends on that basket.

The inevitable changes a new member (and a very young one at that) would bring to our family were left unlisted and unspoken. But even before Bien arrived, my siblings and I, my father, and my mother knew what they were. There will already be 7 plates on the dining table. There is a kid we will have to consider in every travel itinerary we prepare (amusement parks!). All of us -- except for pop and my brother Ting -- will have to be acquainted with baby bottles, diapers, cans of powdered milk, infant cries in the middle of the night, turns to clean up the baby or feed the baby in case yaya is not around, etc etc. (But I do remember that one time when Papa prepared a bottle of milk for Bien, as demanded by my mother... awww.)

Bien is now 6 years old. Through the years, we discovered how trivial the changes we expected were. Anybody could have easily guessed them; the psychologist could have easily pointed them out to us. The greatest gift that Bien gave us is happiness. Not to say we were living in gloom before she arrived, but there's a remarkable difference in happiness that a kid brings with her. Its face has more sheen, its laughter comfortably louder, its constancy more trustworthy. Even without her actually promising it, we are sure could always hook ourselves on this happiness. She's the sunshine that is always there, even if we want to sleep more.

We have come across a lot of strangers whom we now call friends, but only a few have made sisters of them. The most important stranger in my life laughs like it's the happiest day of her life, makes funny faces, has a comic dance, intervenes in conversations, has 20 sleeping positions, snores like my pop, obeys my mother like her lifeline, can shift from friendly to grumpy in a second, sees colors in all aspects of her life, and the most marvelous of all her blessings, she lights up our home. We adopted this stranger and now, she's among us.

Our Little Ballerina, who learned LOVE 3 days late

~~~

What She Learned at 2

Mother: How many mommies do you have, Bien?
Bien: Two, mommy Jackie and mommy Janet.
Mother: Why do you have two mommies?
Bien: Mommy Janet was praying to the Lord for a baby so mommy Jackie gave me to her.
Mother: Bien, what does adoption mean?
Bien: Love!