any single wednesday

When I was just about a year old (and looked like a cherub), my mother and father transferred to their newly erected house in Deparo somewhere in Novaliches. That time, my parents got no inkling that the place that they bought (and thought it actually was a sanctuary for the new Esquivel generation) was in fact a safe haven for criminals (e.g. mga wanted, isnatser, akyat-bahay among others), it is like Baseco that period.

Our first night there was I think one of my folks’ defining moments of their lives, a group of masked (pantyhosed faces?) men clambered in our window. They burglarized every item they saw. One of the robbers my mom said, was very thick faced and even eyeing for my can of Birch Tree Powdered Milk, but the softer one said, “hayaan mo na yan, kawawa naman ang bata!”.

Before that eventful moment happened, my nanay said I was crying out loud. She even thought I was going to split one of my neck nerves because I was howling so hard. Then when the burglars emerged, I strangely stopped from wailing.

The intruders were armed, that’s why my mom, kept me under her, she literally make “dagan” on me, so that I will be hidden under, and in case the thieves shoot them my life will be spared.

And even I was beneath my mom’s belly, I didn’t make a trickle of a sound, I didn’t even cry considering the fact that babies were sensitive to too much heat and shortage of air. “Parang may isip daw ako”, my mother tells me.

When the larceny was done and the unknown men were happy with what they’ve collected, they plan to rush on before anyone could see them. But before they go, they kicked my father, not on his ass but on his face. Then off they go… in the midst of darkness.

I know it’s too Mara Clara, but it’s true.

When I was growing up, I am trying to envisage what is the feeling when your life is being put in jeopardy, holding on that single string of hope, wishing that you could still live and do and say whatever you want, not only the wants but those things you have to speak is the most important.

Until that experience happened last week because of the news.

The news goes like this, that on that date (April 14 to be exact) a huge earthquake is going to hit the Philippines. The said tremor was predicted to occur at around 5 in the afternoon, and its going to be earthquake intensity number 9, “sino ba namang hindi maloloka nun”. I can’t imagine myself still in one piece after that.

I got the news from my friend. He called me up in our office at four in the afternoon that day, he even told me the reports complete with the panting of his breath. When he finally got back to himself after telling me his pieace, I said “no way”. “Yes way!”, he replied radically.

“Japan now has a technology that could forecast an earthquake no!”, he added.

“Eh saan naman narinig ang balitang yan?”, I asked quizzically

“Sa CNN kaya, nakatutok dun ang Napolcom, pinauuwi na nga mga empleyado nila no!”

Then I thought, “CNN na yun!, oh my gosh! It could be true!”

From his last sentence, I can really feel the goose bumps crawling in my skin. I got scared. And for the first time in my life I really felt the genuine sense of being afraid, of course I’ve already experienced panicking before. But that day was a totally different story, I haven’t seen my mom and my two brothers for almost three years now, and no embellishment here, I love them, and I feared for their lives more than I did for myself. The fact of leaving this earth without seeing them again totally smashed my chest. I felt that I haven’t given them yet the life I wanted them to live.

“Wala pa kong nararating, ayoko pa sana mamatay”

When the news spread like a wild fire, text messages about deluge was on everybody’s cellphones, I even saw the horror I on my officemate’s face when she received one (basically she didn’t believed when I told her the tale that my chum told me, only when she received a message on her phone that she’d have this second thought that it could be true.)

She called her family in Batangas. My fright have gone to another height. “Sana may cell din ako”, I thought, so that I could warn everybody back in the province. But damn, I didn’t have, how am I suppose to call them up.

Shush.

It’s 5 pm, I am expecting the earth opening that time, the building’s debris falling on my head knocking me out to unconsciousness, until I was buried under big chunks of rocks. I could imagine myself being dead.

But the shaking of the world I am expecting didn’t happen, to think its five after five. The only sound that came is the ringing of our phone, which was not strange at all. I picked it up and the familiar gay guy’s voice on the other line was my friend, he told me it was a false story.

“Salamat”, and I laughed all my fears off. This one occurrence made me love my life more, made me think of my family more, made me appreciate my dreams more. It made me want to live my life as “life”.

The good thing about this false information, is that they ain’t true, yeah, I mean, because it’s not true, you can still do what you have to do. Targeting your aspirations, seeing the sun set, hug and kiss your loved ones, saying to them how much you appreciate and love them, and making them feel those words.