General Admissions
Again, a story of courage
By Al S. Mendoza
HEJESIPO OMAR AGGABAO was 27 when his third of 11 children was born. He and his wife, Imelda, named the baby, Jamille Ann.
Jamille Ann would grow up to establish a record of sorts, in the process placing her hometown, Sta. Maria, to a zone that should be hard to scale.
Call me a KJ again, but why go beg Guinness officials to put those “kalutan” in their books?
Hey, right in our own backyard, there’s a record crying to be heard.
Give Eva C. Visperas a warm hug for writing here about Jamille Ann Aggabao (05/07/06 PUNCH issue).
I’ve raised my glass already to Eva, whose piece on Jamille Ann should be the hands-down choice as PUNCH Story of the Year.
Look, as I’ve said, those “kalutan” here and there are nothing but “kalokohan” for they are nothing but empty feats designed mainly to massage the egos of only a few.
You want a record? There it is, right at your doorstep.
When she turned 18 in 2004, Jamille Ann was crowned Miss Rosales.
At 19 in 2005, she was Miss Sta. Maria. That same year, she was first runner-up in the Miss Tourism Baguio pageant.
On April 30 this year, Jamille Ann won the Limgas na Dayat (Maiden of the Sea) scepter.
Four beauty queen titles in 2-1/2 years – wow!
Who can beat that?
What Jamille Ann did could be like seeing Lito P. Ang score two hole-in-one shots in a single round at the tough Dagupan Beach course.
Now if her achievements are surefire ingredients to a celebrity status worthy of a Hollywood script, the Jamille Ann act that followed her April 30 victory is the stuff that makes one an instant hero.
What she did after the Limgas victory even made her a role model to any one that puts premium to love for parents.
And what was that act again?
Jamille Ann would spend her P74,000 prize – all of it if need be – for the medical needs of her father, who had been complaining of abdominal pains for some time now.
A while back, Jamille Ann cried and agonized over the family’s inability to have her father CT scanned because they didn’t have the P8,000 for it.
It pained her all the more thinking she couldn’t lift a finger to help ease her father’s pain since, as a nursing senior at the St. Louis University in Baguio, she was helping treat people not of her kin.
“I could care for other people at the hospital but not my father,” our Eva quoted the scholar of Rep. Conrad Estrella of the province’s sixth district as saying, sobbing as the words left her lips.
Grimly determined to win the “Limgas” plum, Jamille Ann fortified her dream by bringing a streamer to the pageant: “Jamille, trust God.”
Who said God doesn’t play favorites?
Seek and you shall find, says the Good Book.
More than finding victory, Jamille Ann found allies in her hometown – much ahead of the pageantry.
While her 14 or so rivals each rode in a car going to Lingayen, Jamille Ann and her mom Imelda took the bus, using the P2,000 given by the Sta. Maria municipal council as fare money.
In Lingayen, Jamille also won tickets – a 3-day, all-expense paid trip for two to Hong Kong. She said she would give both to her parents.
In due time, Jamille Ann will become a nurse and the odyssey of brains and beauty shall have been completed.
And hers will be trumpeted anew as the endless refrain of the story of courage, of triumph of the spirit.
But will she, like many of those ahead of her, go abroad, too, after passing the board?
With 10 siblings who aren’t maybe that well off, plus the thought of giving eternal comfort to an ailing father, can we blame Jamille Ann if she falls to succumb to the lure of the proverbial greener pastures overseas?
No doubt, Jamille Ann symbolizes the undying aspirations, dreams, of a typically misery-saddled family under a system that, sadly, continues to favor the rich and powerful over the poor and weak in virtually all spheres of life’s endeavors.
Will she be the savior, the hope, the cure?
At 47, Hejesipo Omar Aggabao, a father of 11, can probably give us the best answer.
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