In The Eyes of Maria Sinukwan

When will she wake up?

Arturo Salvador stands alongside the highway of Bacolor, the town is no longer dusty and dry. Tall blades of grass have carpeted it and now, there are young trees dotting the landscape. They told him before that Bacolor would turn into desert. There is no desert. Instead, there is the face of an emerging jungle. Arturo wishes Bacolor to remain untouched. Just leave her alone. And let her become what God and Nature want her to become.

It's been five years since he visited the town that opened the doors for him. Bacolor has not changed much, the Philippines doesn't have the rapidity other countries have in industrialization. Industrialization isn't always nice though. Manila has embarked on  industrialization and look at her! Arturo doesn't wish Bacolor to become a city like Manila - heavens forbid! He wants her to be the way she is today. Serene. Quiet. Green. Pleasant to the eyes. And oh, look at the Zambales mountains! They may not be majestic but they are  blue under the Philippine sky. They spread like walls with silvery linings. Arturo wants to climb them. The way he climbed Arayat in college with his friend Brian, who is dead now. Arturo's forty year old eyes no longer carry the brightness and clarity of  youth. He seems to be forgetting people, places and events. Even Brian he could no longer visualize clearly in mind anymore. Time heals wounds and makes one forget. Healed wounds form scars - tough, thick, numb. Brian was a healed wound.  But then,  Mt. Arayat reminds him of things - sounds, voices, feelings, the freshness of air, the smell of plants and trees and the lady lying on top, the dead Maria Sinukwan. How is her story again?

She was the immortal who fell in love with the mortal. In pregnancy she was banished and died. The ground she died on formed Mount Arayat. The top of the mountain still resembles a pregnant woman. For millions of years she had been there. Until now, she is still there lying in repose, sleeping yet one senses her to be watching. Maria Sinukwan watches the whole Pampanga. Arturo goes to Floridablanca and there she is. He goes to San Fernando and there she is. He goes to Angeles and there she is.

Arturo Salvador's sensitivity gets sharper. Standing there, he hears the soil.  In the quietness of Bacolor, the winds whisper to him sweet nothings, the weed under his feet  invite him. The tall blades of grass sway and dance for him. The Zambales mountains show him the history he left behind. And of course, Maria Sinukwan lies in repose beside him.

Imagine the many events Maria Sinukwan must have witnessed were she the living goddess who remained eternal? Imagine Maria Sinukwan  inviting him to her dwelling in Mt. Arayat and telling him the stories she heard? Imagine how much stories those are! 

But Arturo need not hear Maria Sinukwan's stories. Standing on the Bacolor soil, the stories of the people come inside him.  The soil is the spirit of centuries and the realm of  millions of people. Pampanga soil is where he came from. It is what makes his physicality. He gets cleansing here, his skin allergies disappear. His body releases the sweat and smell of the soil. His skin re-acquires its old tone. He becomes the true native again.

One thing different about Bacolor today is the paved road  at least,  it follows the route that was on Bacolor before Pinatubo. There are four structures rebuilt, immediate structures  which are reflective of Pinoy character - the church, the school, the municipio, and of course, the cockfighting pit. 

There's  an event being celebrated, the feast. And there is an emerging population. Still - nowhere did Arturo find the old friends he knew. 

Five years since he last visited, life is springing back in town. Arturo knows he will never see the old Bacolor he once used to know. But he is excited about the new town that will form out of the ravages of the volcano. He is glad he took pictures five years ago. The sand is gone - the weeds have taken over. Few of the structures he saw five years ago are still there, but the soil is patiently claiming them back. He took time to stand beside the public market  and wondered why he seemed to be looking at a tomb - a tomb of memories  now vanishing right before his eyes. The market place is giving him the last look and ....

Here they come again - the loud voices he heard in this market place twenty-five years ago, when during lunch time, he'd sit in one of its eateries, together with other student mates,  and eat lunch away amidst the animated  stalls of fish,  vegetables, meat and all sorts of things. How many market places have stood here through centuries? He did not want to wonder anymore. Because time is running out. He too would one day be claimed by the soil. 

Felix Galura and Crissot are now painted  gold.

crissot

galura

He does not go inside his high school anymore because  its wall is now painted cream - ugly, very ugly. 

It too, is beginning to bear life -  the depressed mood it carried five years ago has been replaced by the noise of students. Arturo  was one of these students twenty-five years ago. How fast time passed him by.

He asks  his brother to drive him in their old Toyota to the Bacolor Church. Bacolor used to have many churches and Arturo loves them because of their permanence. His brother says in the Bacolor Church, there is a cross that is expanding each day.  

"Do you want to see it?"

"No." Arturo answers. He knows better. Arturo's faith doesn't rely on expanding woods.

In Pampanga, everything vanishes except The Church. It is a Rock, the foundation of Pampanga life. Many would rather ignore religion and God but Arturo could not, he can not.  To become atheist is to forsake his history and for a country like the Philippines - whose face changes everyday - whose memory is one of the most  short-lived in the world - a Catholic Church is the only recorder of everything.

LUBAO CHURCH

Alex Maskara Is Pinoy

Volume 1