Year 2004-2005

Nobody Plays Our Song

I am very very tired from work today but Celso had just called me and I had no choice but to listen. Dear reader, pardon my English if you find many errors in my rendition of what Celso told me:

Indang Biring, Indang Biring, I kept calling her as she wept and would not stop weeping after she heard the news I am leaving for abroad. She was not crying loud or anything, she was sitting quietly and telling me, "You are my only family Celso and I am an old woman, who will be with me when I die."

But you won't die Indang Biring, I told her, just look at you - your mind is still as sharp as a razor, you hardly have gray hair, you still walk like a bull, like in the days when Mother and Father were still alive and you farmed the land and lifted hogs and drove horses during harvest season. Indang Biring, you will probably outlive me.

She kept weeping.

But Indang Biring, how can I stay here? I have to gather pails and empty cans everytime it rains, I don't have money to fix our roof. The meager money I earn from teaching school could hardly get us by. My first-born will soon enter college and I don't have any funding for that. Indang Biring, how can we go on with my little salary? Oh these pesky flies would not stop bothering me...

Indang Biring, look at the garbage accumulating outside, look at the trees dying one by one, look at all the children being born everyday here, don't you feel cramped? Don't you see the crisis looming here? Soon, these children will grow and God knows how they will live. They are dropping out of school one by one, and they are wandering the streets one by one. Indang Biring, some of them are already sniffing glue because that's the only way for them to forget hunger. Oh Indang Biring, I would not even tell you what happens to the young girls....

Indang Biring, don't cry because no amount of crying will help us, no amount of praying...because no one is thinking about us anymore in this country.

In this country, the only people that matter are those in high positions -- don't you see, they are the only fat pigs in this country. Look how bloated they look, so full, so happy on their chairs complaining about this and that, whining here and there, while I, oh Indang Biring....

I have to sleep until late in the evenings to prepare my lesson plans and wake up early in the morning to help get the children ready for school and cook lunch and sweep the backyard... oh these pesky flies would not go away...and then I have to teach the whole day like teaching trees. My pupils are so deprived they don't even know what I am talking about. They dream of food and happy families somewhere. They think about becoming stars on TV or maybe working abroad. They don't think about what I tell them. What can Algebra feed them?

So what is the point, Indang Biring? What else can I do?

I was hoping our leaders would talk about these things. I was hoping they would come down here to watch me teach and to watch how these kids learn. But Indang Biring it is hopeless. Our leaders have their own fights, they don't care to know what happens here. Do you listen to them on the radio, do you watch them on TV? ... ah, these flies, these pests won't go away...

Indang Biring, read the news and listen to the radio and watch the TV! There is nothing there about me or you or these kids I teach. It's all about the politicians, this country is meant only for them, not for me. And I've had enough of trying to figure out how to tell them my story, they don't give a hoot about me. And then...

Indang Biring, Rene, one of my pupils, his father just died. I attended the funeral and I watched him looking at his stony-cold father, just looking like that, without a tear, without understanding why his father died of tuberculosis, why there was no medicine for him. And he was sitting there staring at his father. And then, he stared at me....

I got scared Indang Biring, I got really really scared. Rene is my most intelligent pupil and I dread the day he'd grow and ask me what I've done to help him as a weak child? What have I really done to help him? What had this country done to help him? What have you done to help him? Don't you see, Indang Biring, don't you see what is going on in this country? Every media, every politician, every newspaperman, everyone has only one person in mind -- the one in Malacanang. Eveything else is blotted, like grass underneath a thick fog. And I can not be a part of this, this cruelty to our people. I can not get old and this boy Rene coming to me in ten or maybe twenty years and spitting at my face. You know why?

I did not do anything. I was silent. I just stood and watched my town turn into what it is now. I stood and did not voice my disapproval to the stupidity of the politicians surrounding us. I did not do anything to howl in anger as I watched these men and women being ripped and torn apart while their children watched. Indang Biring, I can not stay any longer. I can not be a part of this country anymore. Maybe when I am abroad I can send you money back. Maybe when I am abroad I can find ways to howl and scream and get really really mad.

Don't cry anymore Indang Biring becasue it was your fault you did not do anything too.