By Rex Catubig

 

CARINA’S tempest hurled me back to childbirth at the height of typhoon monsoons ago. The surreal scene showed a disheveled woman slouched on a dark narrow pavement, while a SWAT officer cuddled a newborn in a yellow cloth.

Taken during Typhoon Karding which lashed the city in August 2018, it was poster image of how man endures in dire straits and how life prevails even under the harshest conditions. It was a moment of victory for the mother who gave birth and a heroic act of humanity for the officer who saved a life.

But desirous to dig deeper, I didn’t realize I was diving into murky waters. The stormy years had blown off the romantic aura of the blessed event, leaving venomous detritus and malice in its wake.

“Pokpok man, sir”, tricycle drivers rat out on the peripatetic woman with a young boy in tow.  A far cry from the Madonna and Child that I had imagined.

That piqued my interest.

Backtracking on the flood nativity, six years hence, took me on a roundabout cat and mouse chase around two bridges where the elusive subject is reputed to hang out.

I caught up with her on a sultry noon, sure enough, at the foot of Quintos bridge, opposite Star Plaza.

She is evasive, secretive– guarded with her life details. Maybe because privacy is a thing of value she can keep to herself. But after reassuring her, she opens up, albeit incoherently.

She is unsure how old she was then.  Maybe 32 she surmises. For certain, that baby born during the typhoon in August 13, 2018, is now a handful six-year-old.

PO2 (now PSSG) Juven L. Fermin, the young officer who rescued her, remembers vividly the stormy night:

Because their SWAT headquarters in Perez market was flooded, his group had encamped at the foot of Magsaysay Bridge on board their mobile patrol unit. At around 6:30pm, as they were cooking dinner, a guy knocked frantically on their mobile. “Walay biin manpapasakit diman ay!”, he shouted, panic stricken, pointing towards where a woman was in labor. They dropped what they were doing and drove hurriedly to the spot–around the bend from the Perez market road. A bedraggled woman was writhing in pain on the wet pavement. She was giving birth!

Upon seeing her, PO2 Fermin was taken aback. He had not experienced this before and momentarily hesitated. But the vision of his wife giving birth flashed on his mind. He quickly regained his bearing, scooped the newborn between the woman’s legs, reached for a piece of clothing and gingerly wrapped the baby. Promptly, his team loaded the mother and her newborn on the mobile, sloshed their way through the knee-deep floodwater at the Herrero junction and rushed to the Region 1 hospital

She is Annabelle, which means beauty that’s full of grace. No doubt, it was grace that saved her. She is pretty but shy and reticent. Despite her thickly penciled eyebrows, her simple demeanor belies the coquettish reputation she has been unkindly branded with.

Her mother had intimated to PO2 Fermin, that Annabelle is slow witted, which a tricycle driver took advantage of–allegedly raping her and getting her pregnant. But Annabelle is adamant that her flood baby, the youngest of five, is sired by her partner.

Whatever circumstances surrounded her misfortune is moot now. So much water has passed under the bridge. Her giving birth amid the harshness of the storm is heaven-ordained.

Yet, I’m left wondering what draws her to hang out at bridges. Coincidentally, her rescuers had sought shelter by the bridge at the time they responded to her emergency.

The symbolism is lost on me, unable to fathom the tide of life, nor the secret, bridges that cross turbulent waters bear, nor the ancient currents that flow through.

Maybe, bridges are like the umbilical cord that stretches along the amniotic waters of the womb. Ancient lifelines in our stormy voyage through birth, being and becoming. At the foot of which, is safe harbor.

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