“Can’t Cry Hard Enough”

By Marilyn Paed Rayray

THE August 23rd hostage-taking debacle in the country caused me unfathomable bitterness. It had turned my sober disposition upside-down. The shock of it almost felled me. The pull of its effect almost unbearable. My hopes and dreams shattered into pieces like the tall, slim glass, which had slipped through my hand after drinking water from it. I gazed at the shimmering bits of crystalware scattered all over the kitchen floor in agony. The stomps on the floor rushing to get to where I was, urged me to grab the handy dustpan  and brush situated in the corner.

“Oh, you broke a glass. Are you hurt?” my worried employer asked.

“I am so sorry, Madame. It was an accident, I… I will just replace it,” I stammered.

She told me not to worry about replacing the broken glass and to be careful not to get myself hurt when I cleaned up the mess. I got myself a small prick on my finger nonetheless. It did hurt, a tear-size blood came out but what could be worse than the pain I felt inside?

I read it first from my friends’ posts on Facebook that afternoon (Paris time). The latest news feed in my favorite social network displayed news and video links about the hostage-taking with their disappointed comments. I just could not get enough from my iPhone which had a very slow connection that day so when my boss went out, I scoured the French newspaper on her table, found nothing. I was on my knees copying the Wi-Fi passcode key when she popped out before me.

“I forgot something Marilyn so I have to come back, are you sure you’re all right?” she said with an astonished look on her face.

“Something happened in the Philippines, it’s uhm…urgent. I am not well Madame, I feel like getting sick.” I looked down to hide my embarrassment.

My employer was kind enough to allow me to go home earlier than usual. I’ve read and watched everything related to the hostage-taking fiasco before I got home. While in the subway, I had to hold tightly onto the vertical steel bar of the train, had to clench my hands and took long even breaths so I wouldn’t cry. Rancor swept over me in huge waves. I was deeply agitated, oblivious to my routine. I found myself lying in my bed staring at the ceiling for quite a while. Suddenly, I felt Lhyanne cradling her head in my arm.

“Sa ulo ng mga nagbabagang balita…” I jumped out of bed automatically upon hearing the familiar intro of the news bureau and turned the computer off.

“Mais, Maman…” my little girl complained.

“Lhyanne, you shouldn’t be turning the computer on during weekdays. Don’t you remember these rules?” I asked her as I pointed on the paper posted on the wall.

“Ma, it’s not fair. We always watch TV Patrol every night and those rules take effect next week. Wala pa kaming pasok, Ma, Aout pa lang ngayon.”

I was once again caught-off-guard by my combative daughter. Helpless and could not find suitable refute, I stormed out the room and I went to the bathroom realizing that I entered the flat without washing my hands first. How am I going to break this news to her, I   daftly asked the person in the mirror. “How in the world will she accept this tragedy, forget and come out of it unscathed?”

I have avoided her acts of annoyance that night but did not succeed the following morning when she found out that I protected the computer with a password.

“Ce n’est pas juste, Maman. I only have one week left of my holidays and all year will be spent studying and going to school. What would you want me to do, die in boredom?” she exaggeratedly protested while eating her cereals.

“Yes, you’re right. You only have one week before school and that should be spent reading books and conditioning your brain. And don’t you ever tell me that I am unfair, because if I am, I have confiscated your DS and PSP,” I snapped.

At work, the bad news tormented me. All summer I consumed writing articles and memoirs conveying how proud am I to be a Filipino, even came up with an argumentative piece addressed to co-patriots who have turned their backs on the country. It has been an additional duty in my part to instill and develop the love for country in my children’s mind and heart. Patriotism is innate to one who is born and brought up in his own country but in my children’s case, my guidance is significant so as they would grow and not forget where they have come from. This role, I intend to do unfailingly.

But how could I stand and make the firm conviction? The hostage-taking crisis itself is terrible, cruel and life-changing. I wondered how my children would understand this reality — not the hostage-taking they’ve seen in films. Having achieved my goal since the new administration assumed post, I realized its futility.

I opened our door, stepped inside and began to take-off my shoes. Before I could unlace the first shoe, the conflict began. My husband and my son who were playing chess in the living room exchanged nervous glances.

“You can’t believe what happened in the Philippines yesterday, chérie. It’s all in the news, CNN, BBC all over the world. Have you heard about it? What a shame, right? Bida na naman, tayo. C’est la vie ma chérie. Lhyanne felt so bad about it,” my husband struggled to blurt it all out with ease.

I barely heard my own voice, I was deafened by its thunderous resonance. He appeared too small to my sight. “How could you…!” Before I managed to say more my son intervened.

“Ma, it was Lhyanne who figured out the password of the computer, you indicated a password hint and she guessed it right. You know her, you should have put a stronger password.”

“Oh, yeah? So now, it’s my fault eh,” I scurried off to the bathroom to hide my tears. I fought to keep from crying. Gripped with guilt and anger, I feared to face my daughter. How am I supposed to come to terms with our drawing confrontation? How am I to retort her questions? Have I been giving my children false hopes and should I be held accountable doing so? I knew parenting involved sheer hard work but to get into this emotional trap, no one had prepared me for this. Being a mother was not at all it was cracked up to be, I thought. I had wished I could just jet off somewhere.

That Mendoza, what had he done? He’s ruined my hopes and dreams for my children. My precious suffers and I don’t know how in the world to comfort her. He is so unfair. A lot of Filipinos like us are simply doing their job, earning for our families in the Philippines, leading a hard yet clean living abroad and with him just losing his head, we will all be hated and judged. Darn, I am a Mendoza myself. What a disgrace. It all resounded in my head.

I made supreme effort to walk into our bedroom where Lhyanne busied herself with her Manga sketches. She didn’t say a word nor lifted her head to see who came in. Instead she kept on stroking the lead pencil aimlessly on the sketch pad. When I got near her, I glanced at a drawing of a beautiful comics character ruined by her continuous nudging.  I gently pressed her head on my chest, my fingers brushing through her hair, my lamenting hand held her face. We’ve uttered our sorry’s almost at the same time, hers in French. She was sorry that she opened the computer, that she disobeyed me but in her eyes was deep sorrow as if she had lost something or someone important to her.

“Ma, kawawa naman sila. Mendoza killed them. I thought we were watching a film but Papa said it was real. I was so scared, Mum,” tears fell from her eyes.

I felt my own began to fill. “It all happened, anak. It was sad, unfair, but it’s all real.”

“Why did he do such a thing?”

“We can’t just judge him, anak. We barely knew him. I am sure he didn’t want to end it that way. A man who kills is someone who had lost control over himself. He had become deranged. For Mendoza, it could be an act of revenge for him who could not accept his career was over. He was an outstanding policeman who got fired, you know? I am sure he didn’t plan to hurt or kill anyone but consequences provoked him to do so,” I answered. I once again “darned” Mendoza in my mind for justifying what he did.

“What’s outstanding, Ma?” she asked.

“An outstanding policeman, say in the case of Mendoza, is that during his service he knocked off criminals, got them jailed, he’s maintained a good record, led a career of a worthy public servant safeguarding the nation and the future…” I’ve definitely ran out of words and totally unprepared for not having read Mendoza’s profile at that moment.

“Ma, I believe he didn’t want to hurt anyone because I saw he freed some of them, but why did he end up killing the rest, anyhow?”

Oh dear, she had officially started giving me the taste of my own medicine now. It took me a minute to gather reasons from my faculties nowhere before I answered:

“You see, there are what we call grounds of provocation and diminished responsibility. Like for example, the media that aired the whole thing could have urged Mendoza to kill after watching the whole incident on the television set inside the bus. He felt helpless, desperate and had no choice seeing that there were a lot of policemen hounding the bus. They drove him round the bloody bend.”

She had also asked what would become of the Philippines. I assured her that it will survive just as she survived years of tyranny of its conquest.

“I hope my friends and my teachers will not hear of it, Ma.”

“Honey, if they do and talk about it, it’s all right. Don’t feel ashamed about it. What he did does not define you as a Filipino, or me, or our fellow Filipinos. There’s more to be proud of — our heroes, our intellectuals who have done great deeds will never be forgotten. This one had happened to some nations, too. It is just another blow and it is nothing that Philippines cannot overcome.”

“Are we still going to visit Philippines next year, Ma?” I felt an immense relief from her sudden turn of question but remain caught-off-guard.

“What do you think, anak? We are all excited and been looking forward to that vacation.”

“Ce n’est pas moi qui décide, c’est toujours toi et papa…” she eyed me with impatient look.

“We’ll pursue our plans. Nothing can stop us,” I mentioned with certainty. “Why, are you afraid to go to the Philippines?”

“Basta, hindi po tayo sasakay ng bus. We’ll take the Metro, huh Ma?

I grinned, hugged her tight delighted by her sweet innocence.

Everybody had something to say about it at my workplace. Their reactions varied from rational to undermining the Philippine police force’s credibility. Most employers in Paris sympathized with how their Filipino employees felt. In Chinatown area where Filipino friends and relatives shopped for food commodities, they were regarded and treated with disgust and hate. On my part, there were instances where not one or two stopped me in public and asked me if I were a Filipino and I had kept my mouth shut and measured what they wanted to tell me just by staring blankly at them. They left convinced that I am from the Philippines. My skin, facial features all screamed of my nationality. I am thankful that no one ever uttered bad comment about Filipinos to my face. I could not imagine what I was capable of doing otherwise.

I was invaded with grief the following weeks. I grieved for the families of the Hong Kong nationals who got killed, I mourned for the family of Rolando Mendoza, I wept for the bad allegations and commentaries about my country, I sympathized with the new administration and the SWAT team, I especially felt sorry for my policemen friends who are young in the service, religiously doing a good job and who are greatly affected by Mendoza’s recklessness. We shared the pain we equally felt through e-mail exchanges.

Students from different schools and universities in the Philippines, friends and people abroad who have read my previous blogs sent me e-mails inquiring how Lhyanne reacted to the hostage-taking tragedy but I didn’t send a reply back. The disappointment overpowered me that I locked my USB containing my collection of memoirs and articles into oblivion, my unfinished blogsite left frozen. I didn’t want to write anymore. With everything that I have written in the past, I felt liable, a criminal disseminating false hopes. True, I have alleviated the dismayed feelings of my children; but as an adult faced with the reality… It really sucks.

All my sentiments were conveyed and commented by friends in my Facebook profile:

“Marilyn Paed Rayray ‎–is contemplating on the hostage tragedy… I do understand and appreciate the value of news and information but I think that Philippines’ news media have too many privileges that they’ve gone too far during the hostage crisis. It’s not only the SWAT’s fault now but also the media who had been exercising too much freedom. So depressing…”

August 27 at 11:15pm · Comment · Like

“Marilyn Paed Rayray Can’t cry hard enough. My answer to my country’s suffering. It’ll change nothing on how I hold it to my heart. The saying goes that you can change the sky over your head, but you can’t change the heart. Whether the mind dictates that home is here or there, no matter what the world tells against my country it’s always a private decision of a Filipino by heart.”

As a mother, it’s my children’s future I want to protect. I want to see my children grow up and have their own kids. I call to you my fellow mothers to instill many valuable traits to your children that society seems to lack – love for the living, honesty, courage, willingness to act, camaraderie and pride in oneself. As a constituent of my own nation, I support the brave policemen (SWAT team in the hostage-taking fiasco) who are out on the front line but not those who sent them there and ordered what should be done. I was moved deeply by the inspirational articles written by co-patriots who held on to nationalism in spite of the tragedy but upset with the media who had too much use of freedom but neglected responsibility, which should have been the primordial concern.

This was not the first and definitely won’t be the last but Philippines is sure to rise over again from all of its falls. Let’s live and let live…

(Marilyn Paed-Rayray is a member of Class 1995, Bayambang National High School and currently lives with her family in France).

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