By Rex Catubig

 

SABEL, for her part, chooses to set up her “pakanan” — a street version of fast-food, further down the main street, in front of a store that is already closed for the night, and just slightly across the CSI Square.

In a departure from the carinderia-caldero-caserola style, she serves her dinner menu in stainless steel oblong chafing dishes or what passes for it. Her food looks yummy and I’d bet, lovingly prepared. Rice is Fifteen pesos and viand is Twenty five. But she claims that the profit earner is the 3 in 1 coffee which tricycle drivers and itinerant vendors gulp down to keep awake for the long haul.

She’s now 39 and  can be a run-in for the Guinness with 13 children–11 of whom are alive. She just had miscarriage for her 13th recently, she intimated. Being the sole breadwinner, her husband is a stay-home espouse who does the baby-sitting, I complimented her for looking un-stressed and unfazed by her responsibility. “Iyelek labat dapat so problema” she philosophized. One has to smile off one’s problems. And she broke into a girlish giggle.

After my chat with these two wonderful women, I wanted to walk some more, and get to know more of their kind. Women who have taken on the sisyphean job of keeping body and soul together and remaining un-frustrated and undefeated. I wanted to know where they derive their nonchalant albeit stubborn stance in the face of hardship and life’s cruel vagaries. Where is that hard core perseverance coming from?

But it was getting late and I had to take a jeepney ride back to where I was lodged. I caught a Bonuan jeep after several minutes of waiting. “Iner kayo? Last trip ko la ya“, the driver made it clear. “Where will you get off? This is my last trip for the night”.

I hopped on in the back: “Niay bayar ko– senyor“, ” Here’s my senior fare”, I proclaimed, handing over to the driver a fistful of coins. The driver stepped on the pedal, and the traffic-scarred jeepney snaked its way through the maze of the night market along Galvan street.

As we bailed out of this produce jungle and sped across the now dark and desolate streets, the driver’s words ricocheted in my head: “Last trip ko la ya“. I realized I was glad to hear that. I thought it made sense and I felt reassured.

After all the hustle and bustle, things come to a halt. At the end of the day, there is a stop to the daily grind. It’s a time when one can pause and think of Aling Mely and Sabel and their ilk –reflect on their nightly struggle—as they take on life on their own terms and lock horns with life’s nocturnal demons.

Ruminating thus, we are emboldened to nurture and reinforce the recalcitrant notion that we can do it.

At the end of the day, there is hope and healing, and we embrace the women who make inroads into the challenges they face, and show they are empowered,  equal to the task—who prove without a doubt, they count as indispensable part and parcel of the whole.

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