Feelings
September Morns
By Emmanuelle
IT was four week ago; it seemed like yesterday. Then, this writer was humming the song September Morn, in joy! over the settling in of the -ber morns. Now, September ends. And yet, not.
Actually, September in Latin means not the ninth but the seventh month of the year in the old Roman calendar. In 46 B.C., when Julius Caesar moved the beginning of the year from March 1 to January 1, the numerical names of the months remained unchanged. Thus, October, November and December still means the eighth, ninth and tenth months.
Every year, on September 8, women and children and some men too of the Catholic faith flock to the church clutching flowers that have bravely survived the trashing of the August and September rains. After the mass, they offer the flowers to the altar of the Blessed Mother of Christ. It is Her birthday.
On September 11, relatives and friends flock to the three sites of entombment of their loved ones, the thousands who perished from the planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and that lonely field in Pennsylvania. To this dark day of endless 9/11, they continue to grieve for these deaths without proper closures. They clutch their offerings to their hearts, bunches and bunches of bouquets, flowers of all colors and hues, then pile these lovingly to flood grounds zero, the last sightings of unsaid farewells.
On September 21, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, his last desperate act to keep himself in power. History notes that, well into his second term, FM had the constitutional covention (ConCon) to revise the 1935 constitution, which would then convert the government into a parliamentary system to allow him to remain as its head. This ConCon was very unpopular, even among its delegates, and there were these endless rumors and exposes of briberies made to make them not forget to toe the Marcos line.
With Martial Law, FM had all the time to find other ways to revise the constitution. At the same time, a presidential decree he issued declared rumor-mongering a subversive crime. Remember this part of our not-so-ancient history. And may our present thoughts and our actions be guided thus as the Charter Change movement goes through the august body that is the Supreme Court.
September, too, is a month for a lot of birthdays. Count nine months back, these celebrants would have been conceived on any of the days of December, when the days dawn cold, and the nights were even colder. Unless your mother counted wrong, or you were simply premature.
On September 24, the Ama of Pozorrubio, Mayor Artemio Q. Chan celebrated his birthday with his family, personal and political friends, the punong-barangays and their kagawads. The event extended up to the 25th, to include the members of the media, more personal and political friends. The Whole of the economic-miracle that is This Town.
On September 28, Binalonan Vice-Mayor Myrna Bell, beloved wife to Board Member Danny UY, graciously toasted another year, at their farm at the fringes bordering the two towns of Pozorrubio and Binalonan. Mayor Ramon Guico was there, Mayor Chan was there, joining the toasts with the rest of us mortals.
September 28 is also the birthdate of one of the only two persons closest to me, Dennis Pusit or Dennis Squid, former manager of Star-FM, Dagupan now one of the bright, sterling managers of Kapuso.
September 29, Pozorrubio Councilor Dennis Uy, eldest son of Danny and Myrna Bell Uy and the subject of this writer’s Feelings last week, treats the town and its leaders to a simple merienda at the halls of the Sangguning Bayan, the scene of his legislative joys.
“And what shall I give unto him who has left his plough in midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress” for me? There is none more or less precious than the most sincere of wishes – may you live long and safe and happy.
Picture, picture.
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