Feelings
Ina ng Sison
By Emmanuelle
She: I am not ready for this moment. Me: I believe you are.
She: I have not prepared for this moment. Me: I believe you had.
She: What shall I tell them? Me: What is in you heart.
She: How shall I talk to them? Me: Straight from your heart.
She: I know that, silly. I mean, what language? Me: Definitely not German. I suggest the language of your heart. And theirs, too.
She: It is Filipino then. Me: You read my thought.
Or words to these effects. Could not reproduce the exact vocabulary and the grammar. Could reproduce the scene though. We stood a little distance away from the chieftains and the chieftains-in-line. The wistfully hopeful and the woefully hopeless. The chiefmakers and the history scribblers. The hangers-on and the hanged, hypnotized by a lifestyle too-hyped by life itself. Etcetera, etcetera.
We stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the right side of the gigantic stage. Our faces glowed in the dark. Not from radiation bursting through to our already irradiated innards. From the neon lights, from the stars-starring sights. Dami-dami talents, from ABS-CBN and GMA7, the soapy ones and the entertainment series sometimes surprisingly entertaining.
Our ears though are near to bursting with the sound. The sounds of the young. Drums, cymbals, acoustics blaring high and loud to reach the farthest corners of the park seemingly kilometers and kilometers away. Such vast vastness.
Our fingers linked for good luck, you can do it. Believe it or not, we are forever friends. Kindred hearts. Never master and slave. See each other now, see each other not. We always start where we left off. The last time we left off was not so long ago, yesterday in fact. Chop the months down pat to yesterday. It was not so long ago I said.
She climbed up the stage. She followed no script, she carried no prepared message. Just what was in her heart. And those were messages a-plenty.
She clutched the mike tight. She looked down the stage, up to mid-park, farther to the farthest sight. And those were people a-plenty. Getting more plenty by the minute. A vast vastness I said.
She spoke in Filipino with a slight foreign accent. Not so accented now as it was years ago. She even seemed to have a wider and deeper range of the language, if that were possible. She already had a wide and deep range years ago.
If I were a writer, I believe I shall write her speech in English and it will come out like this: This is the last time I shall join in this event as your chieftain. Six months from now, the circlet of feathers and beads and all that they stand for shall circle the brows of a chieftain, not I. Not that I have tired of serving you whom I call my people, and this place, which I call my home. I believe I shall serve you better and more if I travel farther up the river. Water from the mountains and the hills shall then flow to the right streams and brooks where you and your fields and your animals may drink. Everything will be as it should be, you will see.
For the next years, it shall not be I who will invite you to join me to watch this same glowing of lights and to listen to this same blaring of sounds. You shall invite me to join you. And I assure you, I shall be here.
Or words to these effects. Literary now but literally then.
I knew water was stinging the corners of her eyes. I can hear the quiver in her voice. My eyes stung too. I too needed to clear out the stone blocking my throat.
How do the people of Sison call her? She who had led her children to the door of their knowing, their being?
Sisonians respectfully, adoringly call her Mayor Kimi. Mayor Kimi Cojuangco.
In their hearts, they call her Ina. She is.
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