General Admission
Who said the Pangasinan language will die?
By Al S. Mendoza
WE left Quezon City mid-morning for Lingayen, Pangasinan, to fulfill a date with F. Sionil Jose, the national artist for literature and, yes, Raffy Baraan, the soft-spoken provincial administrator.
But in Tarlac City, some two hours away from home, my wife, the writer-journalist Sol F. Juvida, fell ill.
She complained of dizziness and a severe headache.
We pulled over at Mercury in Tarlac to seek help, particularly to check on her blood pressure.
Unfortunately, Mercury didn’t have that kind of service.
What an irony. Mercury is supposedly the nation’s largest chain of drug stores and it didn’t have that kind of service?
This should be a wake-up call for Mercury, I hope.
Anyway, as we proceeded with our journey, I was mindful of a possible clinic where we could possibly stop by.
No luck.
Approaching Sta. Ignacia, we pulled over.
My wife vomited.
I didn’t panic, although I had wanted very much to stop at a hospital at the first sighting.
There was none. Or I didn’t see one?
Luckily for us – if you could call it that – there was no traffic at the Romulo Highway.
I had thought of my cousin’s clinic in San Clemente, Tarlac. It was just minutes away from where we were then.
Because God is good, Dr. Leah Velasquez-Guico, the kindly wife of Dr. Jun Jun Gomez Guico, was at the clinic.
Immediately, Dr. Leah herself attended to my Sol, taking her blood pressure and asking questions.
“Are you having double-visions,” Dr. Leah asked.
“No,” Sol said. “I feel dizzy and my head aches that much.”
“Do you have a history of hypertension?”
“None.”
Sol’s blood pressure read “110/70.”
Now, listen. That was already considered high blood!
“Blood pressures vary and to some, this is considered high blood,” Dr. Leah said, who would next listen to her heartbeat.
She had Sol lie down in bed. I sat down beside her.
She placed a small white pill underneath Sol’s tongue.
“Rest now,” Dr. Leah said. “Sleep if you can.”
Sol had fallen asleep for, maybe, 15-20 minutes.
When she woke up, she immediately said she was A-OK.
“The dizziness is gone,” she said. “The headache is gone, too.”
Dr. Leah and I smiled at each other.
Relief was written all over her face.
In joy, I was almost tempted to scream that primal scream.
Dr. Leah took Sol’s blood pressure again.
“It’s 100/60,” she said. “That seems normal to you?”
“It is,” Sol said.
Because Sol had watered the plants and done some chores at home before we left, getting up very early even to cook breakfast, Dr. Leah declared: “Fatigue and, yes, the heat conspired to pull you down. It could also be heat stroke.”
Sol and I could only nod in agreement.
In a little while, we bade farewell.
When I requested for the bill, Dr. Leah said, “Anto kayo? Singa tayo aga mangkanayon?”
In our town of Mangatarem, we seem to be all related to each other.
I clasped Dr. Leah’s hand a bit tight in gratitude as we said our goodbyes.
During the handshake, and the gentle hug, I could feel her kindness and sincerity enveloping my wholeness.
Arriving in Lingayen some 40 minutes later, Sol had appeared brand new.
Immediately, she ordered hot tea at the Capitol Hotel restaurant.
Sol and I missed our roles as panelists in the Writers Forum for Pangasinan’s literary writers during the talk of F. Sionil Jose.
But before, during and after dinner, we had an animated chat with the national artist as we shared the same table with writers Sonny Villafania and Atty. Ferdi Quintos and, yes, Larry Henares.
“I like the French writers because there is always philosophy in their literature,” said F. Sionil Jose.
The next morning, F. Sionil Jose, in his speech as the guest of honor and speaker of “Agew na Pangasinan” that was smashingly staged, again, by Guv Spines, he said, “I have bad news for you. The Pangasinan language will die 300 years from now.”
Manong Ferdi, seated beside me, whispered in my ear, “That’s like saying, the Pangasinan language will never die at all.”
I believe him.
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
