Pinguiaman

Pati ba naman diri may toll fee?

Stop Station. They found the boat ride daunting.

I felt like we were in Central Africa or some exotic marshland. Water stretched as far as our eyes could see. The pump boat we were riding had to navigate around grasses and steer clear of tree limbs and shallow water. While we were passing through one particularly placid pool, I reached on instinct for the water below—only to yank my hand back. Far from the clear, turquoise water of Central Africa or some exotic marshland, the water around us was murky and germ-infested.

There were 15 of us in four boats: six faculty members, three officers from the Muslim Students Organization, two municipal social workers, two military men, one local guide, and one village chief. Our destination: Pinguiaman, the farthest among the flooded barangays of Lambayong, Sultan Kudarat. Our mission: To deliver 390 bags of food and 390 bags of used clothing to 370 Muslim families.

I was seated beside Jawali Mambao, Pinguiaman’s barangay chairman. In a heavily accented Tagalog, he told me his village had been flooded since February.

“Kap” pointed at a cluster of empty huts. He said it was part of Tinumigis, a barangay where Ilocanos and Maguindanaons lived together. Most of it half-buried in the flood, the barangay had turned into a ghost village. We passed by in quiet. The only noise we could hear was coming from our boat’s engine.

After an hour of traveling through the wet wasteland, we reached our destination, where we had no choice but wade through the ankle-deep flood. We took our delayed lunch as the residents started trooping to the barangay hall. Aware that I was eating in full view of hungry people, I gobbled my fried chicken and didn’t bother to use my ketchup.

While our three Muslim students distributed the goods, I took some pictures, since it's part of my work as the school's publication staff. The confidence and efficiency of the students amazed me. Norhashim, who told me “pinguiaman” means “prayer room”, stood on a chair, shouted instructions in Maguindanaon, and started calling the names in a list. Norodin and Javier, with the help of some local officials, handed out the plastic bags.

I noticed a yellow cartolina pasted in the bare, unpainted wall of the office. From it, I learned that Pinguiaman had a population of 2,429, half of whom—620 male and 585 female—were illiterate. It struck me that long before the heavy rains came, the village had been stuck in a swamp.

Taking pictures made me sick. I felt like it was a cruel act. I knew that the people of Pinguiaman had survived because they still had dreams to hold on to. They believed this suffering was just fleeting, that one of these days everything would turn to normal, or would even be better than what they had before. I was afraid that when they saw me taking a permanent evidence of their plight, I pulled them back to reality—the grim reality that their suffering could last as long as the image captured by my camera, which meant forever.

I went outside the barangay hall. By this time, the styrofoam packs of our lunch had turned into a girl’s prized possession. She had tied three packs together and was carrying them proudly in her side. The other kids were seated on a small pile of rocks, licking their thumbs in silence. They were licking the ketchup I discarded earlier. I averted my gaze.

I talked to the social workers who accompanied us. Ma’am Crisanta and Ma’am Cora said that in February, the flood affected three barangays only. When June came, the raging water invaded 10 more barangays. About 1,400 families had to evacuate to the town’s poblacion. More than 5,000 hectares of rice fields were damaged. The figures astounded me. All this time, I was thinking that what happened to Lambayong, the rice granary of Sultan Kudarat, was just some minor flashflood.

Throughout the ordeal, the people of Pinguiaman never left their village. I don’t want to think what they had been eating. They were left to fend for themselves. Ma’am Cris and Cora said relief goods and donations didn’t reach the barangay, for the supply wasn’t even enough for the people at the evacuation center.

Nothing was enough. And we could only do so much. Each of the 390 bags we distributed contained merely three kilos of rice, two cans of sardines and two packs of instant noodles. For a family of six, roughly the average size in Pinguiaman, it would be good for a day only—four days at most, if stretched. I don’t want to think what they ate after that.

I used to think handing out donations to victims of a calamity would make you happy. I wasn’t happy. The depression was simply overwhelming. I thought the beneficiaries would be happy, too. The people of Pinguiaman were probably thankful, but with the situation they were in, it was difficult to be happy.

And it looked like the people of Pinguiaman and other villages of Lambayong wouldn’t find happiness anytime soon. Ma’am Zenaida, our guide, said the water wasn’t only a passing flood. It was the body of Allah River, which for the past 16 years flowed through Sultan Sa Barongis, Maguindanao. The heavy downpour recently caused it to swell and change course. Some old Muslim seers forecasted that the river would stay in Lambayong for seven years, said Ma’am Zen. It was folklore, but not really far from what geologists would also estimate.

When we were riding the boats back home, the water had gone high by a few inches. Large, dark clouds were forming in the sky. We could see rain miles away. I thought of the gaunt men and women who lined up for free sardines and noodles that would last only for a day. I thought of their children who scavenged for ketchup. I thought of what they would do when another rain came.

It was July 28, 2008. At Batasan Pambansa that time, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was delivering her State of the Nation Address. They say she received so much applause from our congressmen.

T'nalak Uplate

Aw, it's the foundation anniversary of South Cotabato and I'm not living up to the "vision/mission" of my blog.

Yawwwn! Feeling sleepy again. Those few gulps of Red Horse have surely killed a few hundred cells of my sick liver. When will I ever learn?

I'll update this some other time. Thanks to those who have checked my blog lately even if it has nothing but stale info.

Scars

When I saw my cousin King’s face, I knew something terrible had happened to him. His cheek was black and blue, swollen, and lined with stitches.

Knowing him, I wasn’t so surprised that he got into trouble. He’s a problem kid in his family. He’s the type who would run away for weeks and then come back home with a bad news about himself, which would make his mother cry in stifled anger.

What surprised me was that he did not ask for, or walk into, trouble this time. He was an innocent victim—someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A visiting cousin and his friend invited him to check out a mini-fair here in Isulan, the capital town of Sultan Kudarat. After knocking down a big bottle of rum, the three teenagers walked home, dead drunk and unaware of the danger that has been prowling the roundball at night.

The guy who did it had been waiting in a corner with someone. Who or what they were really waiting for we never came to know. What we know is that when the three kids came near, he sped off in his bicycle and swung a chain toward his unwitting preys. My other cousin was able to duck in time, but King, following closely behind, was drooping and too drunk to notice. The chain hit his face. His bad luck didn't end there; the chain’s end was curled around a bicycle's sprocket—that flat, round metal rimmed with spikes.

Blood from King's face must have splattered. But the gangster wasn't satisfied yet. He swung again.

The weapon hit King in the calf. So, for all the majestic meanings attached to his name, King was reduced to a fleeing man, a black slave pursued by lynchers.

The sprocket cut four of his front teeth. Another tooth was shaken loose, which he said causes the worst pain. The doctor had to stitch two long cuts in his face: one below the left eye and another above his mouth, which formed a slanting harelip.

I learned about his misfortune (or near-death experience, if you will) a day later, when I went home from Koronadal. After knowing that he had been treated in a clinic, I asked if the assault was reported to the police. King’s eldest sister said they didn’t. (She acts as her guardian since their parents live in a far-away town.) I suggested they do it the soonest possible time.

Everyone, however, seemed to agree with how my mother viewed the whole thing. When she found out what happened, she took to task my cousin for going out so late. She then went on to say that in such kind of situation, the bad guys simply can’t be brought to justice. Everything is “thank you na lang.” She mentioned something about having the incident blottered, but I could tell from her voice she didn’t really believe it would result to something hopeful.

When my father got drunk, he suggested King form his own group, hunt the sprocket-wielding gangster, and bash his head. That idea crossed my mind, too, but never escaped my lips. Hearing it from a drunk, even if he was my father, only convinced me more that such an idea is foolish and self-defeating.

We don’t know what’s going on in King’s mind, though. He doesn’t talk much, even before this happened to him. He slurps his saliva in pain but doesn’t complain aloud. He tends to his wound, swabbing it with antiseptic, with a nurse’s patience.

I’ve been thinking lately the kid is like a character in a tritely plotted tragedy. Just when he turns his back to violence, violence confronts him.

I heard him the other week talk about his experience when he joined a gang while staying somewhere in Cotabato province. He described the initiation rites. (“I was blindfolded. My fingers were pressed hard against each other while a round metal was wedged between them.”) He shared his realizations. (“Some members were kind and upright but most were thugs and selfish crooks.”)

For a few years now, he appeared to have changed his ways. He has managed to finish high school, at 18. But fate seems to be telling him, “Not so fast…”

For me, the best and right thing to do is inform the authority of the assault. But I didn’t push for it. King didn’t see the guy’s face and those who did—the other cousin and his friend—have gone home. King and his sister seem to have decided to chalk it all up to experience. While I just promised myself that if I become a public official, prevention of juvenile delinquency would be my pet project.

It isn’t difficult to understand King’s sister’s reluctance to ask help from the cops. She knows justice anywhere in this country is served in a snail’s pace. How could she pin her hope on people who haven’t shown much efficiency in their work? We’ve been hearing stories that the tun-og (night-time fog) kids have been spreading violence in the highway for quite some time already. Before King, at least two other innocent guys had been mauled, within days of each other. Apparently, nothing has deterred the delinquent youngsters so far. It’s probably better to leave justice to God.

I have not given up on man’s justice system yet. Maybe the previous victims did not also tell the police, that’s why it happened to King. And maybe if we don’t report now what happened to him, more people will become victims. The senseless violence will likely continue.

But perhaps I can’t care much. I’m safe. I’m whole. I’m untouched. I’m not the victim.

King will be all right. The broken gums around the tooth will be firm again in no time. The wounds in his face will heal and leave nothing but scars—scars that will always remind me of this time, when I know there’s something I can do but allow apathy to get the better of me.