The Old and the New

By Emmanuelle

This week’s article was written while waiting for the Cebu Pacific flight to Mindanao, the fabled land of promises.

You see, before this writer plans to lay her head down to a sleep where there is no awakening, there is this standing promise to herself to see with her own eyes, to hear with her own ears, to smell with her own senses, to taste with her own buds – in short  to feel with her own senses – the fable that is Mindanao, the land of promises, promises seldom kept, promises never kept, promises held on hold pending fulfillment of conditions stated or unstated within the context of the agreement, and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, our Muslim brothers and sisters uproot themselves from the oldest to the youngest and migrate almost en masse to the extreme northern cities and towns of Luzon. They scuttle away from Mindanao as far as they possibly can, insisting to integrate themselves into communities in Baguio and Dagupan and in the most unlikely places in-between, hoping to ultimately blend in, preferably unnoticed. A difficult task to do, seeing how colorful their garbs are, how tangy their accents sound. Tempers, too.

So great a distance deaden the echo of bullet fires. Silence at last.

Tonight, this writer will walk where they have walked and ran before. Ran from, too. But that is tonight.

Today, she savors the memory of a few hours ago, from eight p.m. to 1 a.m., before she picked up at 2 a.m.  the instant backpack of her life.

She was a guest at this Juniors-Seniors Prom of one of Pangasinan’s thickly populated National High Schools. Almost one thousand five hundred bold ones, who bravely cut-short the two-years past of abstinence without such event in deference to the economy of the times.

The boys were in Barong-Tagalog. Senior girls were in purple lightening to pink, no matter. The Junior girls were in apple green, darkening to deeply-watered weed.

The students did the Grand March for all, paired boy to girl, girl to girl, sometimes boy to boy. Their huge totality filled the huge pergola from the center of the tiled dancefloor to the seats where parents looked on tall and proud. They were more than a little noisy and rowdy; but all in all, this group was one just full of glee.

Then, the honor students and the class officers had their own Grand March. This group was roughly one-fourth of the original number, seniors paired with the juniors. Unlike the first, they had room to form straight lines with. They were also more subdued in expressing their excitement.

What caught the attention of this writer were the presidents. The female of the specie led each year! With a female secretary each, to boot! And the Junior girl, although shorter, was as pretty and as self-confident as the senior president.

The senior president was tall, fair and slim. She possessed a quiet beauty that bloomed from within. She had the grace of command. And she smiled, all her teeth showing, high cheeks rounding as she urged her class and the younger ones to keep on, keep up, keep still. A queen in training.

And as the writer left the pergola to keep her date with the next project, she was smiling just as broadly. The senior girl was given two special awards. One was for being adjudged as model guardian of morals. Whatever that meant.

The other one, an award for being “pinakamabisang mamamahayag”. To mean, a most effective writer.

Though the night hours were just counting to early dawn, this writer saw no darkness. There was light at the end of the tunnel. Though the end of the tunnel may come out yet among the hovels of Mindanao.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)

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