pillars of progress.

(The piece below was written in support of Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog's nomination for World Mayor 2014 - an annual award given to outstanding mayors all over the world. He is the only Philippine mayor to be included in this year's shortlist. Read more about the award at http://www.worldmayor.com/)

I first met Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog back in 2004 when I was selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Student Leaders of Iloilo City (TOSLIC), an event spearheaded by his HALIGI Foundation. For the non-Ilonggo speaker, “haligi” means support or pillar, and my initial impressions of him were just that: A big man with an even bigger heart, a “haligi” in every sense of the word.

In its website, The World Mayor Award seeks to recognize “a mayor who has made outstanding contributions to his/her community and has developed a vision for urban living and working that is relevant to towns and cities across the world.” For Mayor Jed, the contributions are surely many, but the vision has always been the same: Elevate Iloilo City to premier status by 2015, and snatch back its coveted title as the historical Queen City of the South.

And why not? History has always been the city’s claim to fame. Thanks to the efforts of the Iloilo City Cultural Heritage Conservation Council, restored Art Deco buildings now bask in resplendent glory along downtown Calle Real, the country’s newest heritage zone as declared by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines. Elsewhere, it’s a more striking tryst of the old and new: With business permits streamlined, government efficiency bolstered, and corruption kept in check, the city’s bullish climate became the prime battleground for the movers and the shakers of Philippine economy: Industrial parks took shape, shiny edifices rose one after another, and gung-ho investors arrived in droves. Roads and bridges enjoyed a facelift, and crime rate remained low. As a testament to these achievements, the city gained prominence in the Red Orchid Awards, the International Livable Communities Awards, and the National Competitiveness Council’s Most Competitive Cities, and bagged the honor as one of the official venues for the 2015 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meetings.

Amid all these, environmental sustainability has not taken a back step. An avid cyclist, Mayor Jed championed the creation of crisp bike lanes along the swanky avenue slicing through the city’s new, burgeoning Central Business District. To alleviate the city’s perennial flooding problem (and avoid the cataclysmic scale of destruction spawned by Typhoon Frank in 2008), floodways were constructed in the suburbs, and the streets kept litter-free. But the administration’s crowning glory in the environmental arena would have to be the remarkable transformation of the Iloilo River – a dying waterway given a second lease on life, paragon host of the first ever Philippine International River Summit in 2012 and a finalist in the 2013 Theiss International Riverprize Awards.

Throughout the pursuit of progress, Mayor Jed has not forgotten the greatest catalysts of a city’s success: its people. In keeping with Iloilo City’s reputation as an academic center, education continued to be a top priority especially with the establishment of the Iloilo City Community College. Moreover, the government’s trademark womb-to-tomb program provides socialized services including maternal care, child immunizations, mass weddings, livelihood trainings, low-cost housing for informal settlers (especially those along the riverbanks), and even free coffin and embalming services. 

Early on, Mayor Jed realized the importance of partnerships. He has harnessed the tremendous power of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in many of the government’s key projects, and has forged a crucial alliance with Iloilo City Representative and former Mayor Jerry P. Trenas (whom I had the pleasure of working alongside during Rotary Club’s Boys and Girls Week in 2002) and incumbent Senate President Franklin Drilon – the dynamic triumvirate orchestrating Iloilo City’s metamorphosis.

“I love it here. It’s very progressive,” quipped one of my medical colleagues during a trip to the city earlier this year. We were taking a leisurely nighttime stroll along the lush River Esplanade, a tourist attraction in itself. In front of us, a group of youngsters scrambled for a mandatory photo-op before a huge sign that read, “I Am Iloilo.” Such words, I believe, must have grown to become a slogan of shared sentiments, a symbol for a city on the cutting edge of change. Under Mayor Jed’s leadership, that change had indeed spiraled into an unstoppable wave breaking barriers in all directions. He became Iloilo City’s infallible “haligi”, the proverbial pillar behind the city’s sterling story of success.

the rules of romance.

Last weekend, I hopped home to attend a joyous reunion of sorts: Two high school friends got married, and my dear cousin got engaged to an upperclassman. There’s the usual banter, of course, the all-too-familiar buzz of how their love stories unfolded: how girl met boy, or vice versa, the courtship, the proposal, preparations for the big day. The Filipino-Chinese community in Iloilo is quite small, so to speak, and in a city where everybody knows practically everybody else, one would be hard-pressed to find a huge surprise (True enough, there were no real surprises – both couples had been going at it for several years already.) The only surprise arrived way before the wedding ceremony began, in the middle of a somewhat sweltering June afternoon, with someone sidling up to me on the pew and blurting out, quite matter-of-factly: “So, when’s yours?”

Stuck in the roaring years of the turbulent twenties, it’s not as if this were the first time I found myself facing the music of the magic question, one best handed out to old, graying maids and fat, balding bachelors. As one of my erstwhile Chinese teachers remarked, “When people reach the right age, what do they do? They get married!”

Ah, if only it were that easy.

Growing up, I never considered myself really ripe enough for the romance arena, at least one to be taken seriously. My childhood and teenage years were chock-full doing academics and career stuff at school, while hobbies and family took priority at home. It didn’t help that I grew up in a society of 100 million inhabitants, propelled at a furious pace by the highest birth rate in Southeast Asia, and marred by daily news of gruesome abortions, unwanted teenage pregnancies, and broken families (Add a staunchly anti-Rh bill church and years of rotating in congested obstetric labor rooms.) It didn’t occur as a surprise therefore, that romance has always been out of the question. A personality test I took years back required me to rank the following in terms of priority: family, career, health, personal development, and romance – to which I immediately ranked romance at the very bottom, with a smug expression on my face.

Through all seven years of medical school – plus another three for residency training, I have seen how it takes an especially gargantuan degree of patience, dedication and selflessness to establish a solid relationship and make it work, or to keep an existing one going strong. For the less fortunate ones like me who had to contend with the phenomenon of single blessedness in the meantime, it's a fact of life we've grown to accept – the numerous February 14 solo dates where you pitifully got your own cake and ate it, the parties where you had no one else but your best friend or block mate to drag to, the myriad high school reunions where everyone else had husbands and babies and you still had your boring exams and textbooks. In the latter case, typical conversations included snippets of "So, have you found her yet?" to be followed after by my subtle attempt to digress. Only time will tell, I always retorted.

But time is also ticking, and my medical colleagues know it best.

I once had a conversation with a medical school classmate who’s right smack in her thirties. When I asked her about residency plans after graduation, she became pensive and shook her head. “Oh dear, I don’t think I can do residency anymore. My ovaries’ days are numbered.” I nodded slowly, smothered with a lot of understanding. Another classmate, currently in her last year of residency, bemoaned the fact that her own mother threatened her with so much as a trip to the local matchmaker should she fail to, ahem, comply with due requirements in the romance department. The urgency seemed appalling. As one family friend who got married in the nick of time narrated: “Getting married has its own rules: When you’re young, it’s all about the heart. When you’re old, it’s all about the head.” (In other words, kailangan mautak na.) When one beholds the fact that she came from a family of three consecutive old maids, such words are bound to be perfectly understandable.

Having grown up in a typical Filipino-Chinese family, you eventually get the gist of everyone else’s expectations: take a wife, bear a child (preferably a boy), and carry the family name for generations hence. In this regard, Charles Tan has an interesting and very informative take on the Filipino-Chinese wedding custom (http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/2008/06/essay-filipino-chinese-marriage.html) But just as the tides wax and wane and cutting-edge trends evolve, the once elaborate rules and traditions governing Filipino-Chinese marriages have changed as well. No, we don’t do arranged marriages anymore, sacred tea ceremonies are not an absolute necessity, and last I heard, getting kicked out of the family inheritance for failing to marry a “purebred” Chinese is about as passé as the ancient ritual of foot-binding.

So, in this crazy, postmodern 21^st century era, what exactly are the rules of romance?

I can best sum it up in perhaps three words: Follow your heart.

May you all have a lifetime of love and romance!

psf 9 update.

At long last, the Philippine Speculative Fiction 9 anthology - which includes my short story "Mater Dolorosa" - has revealed its table of contents. From the blog of editor Andrew Drilon (http://andrewdrilon.livejournal.com/93889.html):

Charles and I are very proud to announce the Table of Contents for Philippine Speculative Fiction 9. We have a wonderful range of stories for this volume, from the absurd to the ominous, profane to pious, fabulous to phantasmagoric. They are:

Blood of Iron by Christian Renz Torres
Panopticon by Victor Ocampo
A Cha-cha with Insanity by Vida Cruz
Only Dogs Piss Here by Michael Aaron Gomez
Last Race by Jenny Ortuoste
Oscar's Marvelous Transformation by Kat Del Rosario
Stations of the Apostate by Alexander M. Osias
Sikat by William Robert Yasi
Deliver Us by Eliza Victoria
Miracles under a Concrete Sky by Franz Johann Dela Merced
The Unmaking of the Cuadro Amoroso by Kate Osias
The Woodsman by Cedric Tan
And These were the Names of the Vanished by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
Anthropomorpha by Crystal Koo
Sofia by Marianne Villanueva
Transcripts from the Investigation on the Life and Death of Alastor de Roja by Vincent Michael Simbulan
TG2416 from Mars by Nikki Alfar
Mater Dolorosa by Marc Gregory Yu
Scissor Tongue by Elyss Punsalan
Cogito by AJ Elicaño

Definitely looking forward to the book launch and to meeting the other authors as well!

bright lights, bittersweet glory.

There are battles, and there are battles.

There are Olympic Games, and there are PCP Quiz Competitions.

Thank you to everyone who came, watched, and cheered their hearts out for the PGH team.

To Deonne, Jay, and Julie – one could not ask for better teammates to fight the battle with.

To our coach Dr Mark Sandoval – thank you for your time, effort, and dedication in helping us reach peak fighting form and play the game to a triumphant finish.

To our resident colleagues in the Department, our Chair Dr Rody Sy, and our respective families – thank you for your love and support.

Most of all, to the Almighty Himself who makes all things possible – this is for You.

graphic tales (part IV)

My short story "Storms" got published in Graphic today. Of all the stories I've written, I considered this the most relevant as it deals with the struggles of an ordinary Filipino family bracing itself for the imminent attack of yet another perennial nationwide calamity, in the process forcing each member to relive the ghosts of storms past. The story's publication comes just a few months after Typhoon Yolanda brought the entire nation down on its knees, with endless communities still reeling from the impact of the disaster. But similar to the Filipinos' resilience, the story is also testament to the fact that sometimes, however ruthless the storms that come and go, the strength of the human spirit still prevails.

Read below an excerpt from "Storms":

When Lola first got wind of the tragedy, she had stood petrified, her famished heart bursting with a sorrow so great it seemed to engulf her entirely. Over and over she repeated to herself that it had only been a simple journey: He had merely boarded a ship and sailed out to the Visayan Islands where a crucial business meeting awaited him. She had kissed him off at the port with the toddler in her arms and he had waved a cheeky goodbye, promising a swift return after five days, and he would bring her postcards of Magellan’s Cross, the Chocolate Hills, a cute, cuddly tarsier. She had watched with a doleful look as the ship drifted along – as far as her hazy memory allowed her – smooth, azure waters that bore no inkling whatsoever of the terrible disaster that is to befall it, brimming instead with crystalline ripples of infinite potential. She remembered that scene as though it had been imprinted in her paltry mind: Her anxious face and his mirthful smile, the last rays of the afternoon sun atop the foamy bed of crashing waves.

torrents and regrets.

After the torrents, they came – in torrents.

Storms and typhoons have become a rather inconvenient norm for us Filipinos. And every year, we brace ourselves for the storm of all storms: Last time, it was Milenyo whipping up a tumult; the other time, it was Ondoy, swamping up everything in its path; and for the past two years (this year included), we buckled under the torrential rains of the not-so-puny habagat.

But storm or not, all of them carried a similar denominator in their aftermath – swarms and swarms of leptospirosis patients.

They came – burning fevers, yellow eyes, failing kidneys, and all – to the gates of the hospital, oftentimes armed with nothing but stories in their heads and telltale cuts on their feet. And like the old times, we doctors were there to promptly answer the call of duty – but only just.

Only just?

I regret nothing in the way we handle our leptospirosis patients in PGH. Having been stationed in the ER the past month and rotating with Infectious Diseases this month, I only have praises for the selfless medical teams who work overtime – from the fellows and staff manning the dialysis unit to the pharmacists dispensing boxes of antibiotics, to the administrators formulating workable guidelines all the way to the unnamed benefactors of the PGH Leptospirosis Fund.

What I – and most of us – wholeheartedly regret is the fact that every year, we hear the same old stories. We see the same old faces, and face the same old frustrations. The root of these endless leptospirosis epidemics obviously stretches far beyond the confines of murky, rat-infested waters and life-altering storms. It seeps its way into the shameless pork barrels of lawmakers who’d rather guzzle up taxpayers’ cash abroad rather than invest on preventive health programs. It finds its way into the shanties of the abject poor, devoid of any access to basic education or information, oblivious to the fact that potential deaths from complications such as kidney failure or pulmonary hemorrhage can be averted with timely doses of an inexpensive pill. It knocks on the doors of Mother Nature herself, collateral victim of haphazard and oftentimes senseless urbanization.

Sadly, our role as doctors can only do so much. We see a case, work our asses off, heave a sigh of relief upon the patient’s discharge, or mope in silence after signing yet another death certificate. We know that each leptospirosis patient will always be part of a far bigger problem – one that will take a huge amount of national resolve, environmental advocacy, and political will to address.

Then, and until then, we shall always remain a nation of torrents – and regrets.

closures.

“Thank you, doctor, for giving us closure.”

That was what the patient’s sister said, in between shedding tears, as she gathered with the rest of her family inside the humid, overcrowded emergency room of the country’s biggest tertiary hospital. A frantic call in the middle of the night relaying news of her brother’s moribund state had forced her on the first flight back to the Philippines, and her weary face was at once a tapestry of mixed emotions: denial, grief, desperation, guilt, and finally, acceptance. Earlier that morning, I had engaged the family in an exhaustive talk that entailed a detailed explanation of the patient’s condition (best summarized as terminal cancer, comatose, poor prognosis), available options (to resuscitate or not, to continue aggressive medical management or not), and continuous reassurance (whatever your decision is, we will still provide the best possible care.) In the end, everyone settled for a quiet, non-intrusive approach that allowed the patient a peaceful death; no hefty measures.

Medicine in the new millennium has always focused on the quest for innovation: new drugs, new tests, new surgeries. These advancements in health care enabled doctors to work at a faster pace and deliver better outcomes, but somehow at the expense of less patient interaction. In an age where speed is king and efficiency is the rule, barely enough time is spent explaining the nature of the disease, offering diagnostic and therapeutic choices, providing ample reassurance – things which are incidentally just as important as their biomedical counterparts.

I, too, used to believe that the magic formula of “subjective-objective-assessment-plan” – so lovingly imparted to us in medical school – was the celebrated panacea to all my patients’ complaints. There’s the stirring fire of youth and idealism, plus the messianic way Filipinos often regard their doctors (As one patient entreated with supplication, “Kayo na po ang bahala sa lahat.”) During my residency training in Internal Medicine, I was stationed inside a government institution bursting at the seams with patients from all corners of the country. A lot of these were intriguing, complicated cases, and I was determined to push for gallant interventions no matter what. Many times, however, after an overwhelming rollercoaster ride that cost my patients an arm and a leg, I ended up tired and frustrated – a good number died despite my best efforts, and I further faced relatives who were just as confused, angry, and depleted to the hilt of financial and material resources. What happens when even the most exacting principles of science cannot give us solutions? What happens when even our noblest intentions fail to prolong life?

And then, my patients slowly taught me the value of the talk.

By talking, I mean a frank, honest, no-frills talk: A talk that raises no undue expectations; only real ones. A talk that might sting with the intensity of freezing water, but which will lead to a much-needed, much-yearned closure.

The realm of medicine is a rapidly evolving one, with mysteries lurking at every corner, answers waiting to be unearthed in the depths. Dr. William Osler, the pioneer of modern medical teaching, often preached that the role of a doctor is “to cure sometimes, to relieve often, and to comfort always.” Cure is perhaps the most tangible concept, manifest in the myriad breakthroughs and discoveries of medical research. Relief, too, comes in the form of alleviating pain and affording a more acceptable health-related quality of life. But comfort is rooted deep in empathy, the embodiment of an innate desire to help a genuinely suffering person. Despite the inherent shortcomings of our relatively resource-poor health care system, I realized that proper and meaningful communication seemed to raise the bar each time I sat down with a patient and/or his/her relatives, making the experience much more personal and profound. I eventually learned to throw away the proverbial coat of invincibility and omniscience and lay down all my cards: As physicians, we may not always have the remedy to every ailment – but we are there to reach out a hand, to walk every step of the way.

It is a task both daunting and difficult, especially when you find yourself confronted with a visibly distraught husband, a daughter transformed into a huge bawling mess, or several passionately argumentative family members. And perhaps quite understandably so. For how could a star athlete suddenly succumb to a heart attack? (“Hindi ito posible,” his bereaved girlfriend pronounced.) How could someone walking and laughing a few minutes ago abruptly collapse from a massive stroke? (“Paano nagkaganyan?” The horrified brother countered.) Discussing advanced directives, in particular, is a delicate matter. Many family members are unwilling to make decisions for an incapacitated patient even though they possess the legal right to do so. “Ayoko masisi ng mga kapatid ko,” reasoned the eldest son. “Hintayin na lang natin ang aking manugang,” begged the elderly wife. It takes a lot of patience and perceptive acumen to guide the surviving family members through the crucial process, but it is a necessary means for closure – and the result can prove both enlightening and empowering.

More than anything, helping people achieve closure made me marvel at the unique strength of character, the tightknit closeness of kith and kin, and the earthshaking, resounding faith in God that proudly characterizes the Filipino spirit. I met families who chose to have their loved ones spared from traumatic intubations or fractured ribs from excessive chest compressions during resuscitation. I met families who chose to forego gargantuan procedures bordering on the futile, with a firm decision not to pursue the farfetched moon and stars. I met families who nodded with understanding, who managed to smile despite the grim reality, who offered gestures of gratitude for words well-spoken and time well-spent. I met families who saw the value of dying peacefully.

Looking back at that pivotal moment in the emergency room, I may have failed to keep the patient physically alive, incurable as his disease is. But it warms the heart a little to know that I was able to share what little time I had with the family he left behind – now coming full circle, now cloaked in mourning, now bonded in closure. I am reminded of Dr. Osler’s fabled words to “cure sometimes, relieve often, comfort always,” and just like that, I learned to find it in myself as well – a certain kind of closure no amount of medical training can ever give.

graphic tales (part III)

Another short story published in Graphic today! I must say that this is turning to be quite a yearly tradition - in reality, more of a personal goal - just to goad myself into getting those creative juices flowing amid the doldrums of residency life (and believe me, the intense scientific atmosphere can get quite nauseating at times.) I find this story, "The Broadway Covenant", particularly close to my heart as it is a loving tapestry of two of my cherished passions: literature and musical theater. Set amid the backdrop of the blockbuster musical Phantom of the Opera, the story chronicles the pursuits of a Filipino theater actor in the glitzy, gaudy world of Broadway. Here's hoping for another score at an awards night!

Below is an excerpt from "The Broadway Covenant":

At the back of his mind, he had other favorite musicals, of course. Les Misérables was definitely a stroke of genius, with its poignant songs and stirring patriotism. He remembered keenly devouring the Victor Hugo classic in high school, and had always wondered how it would feel to play the part of the perpetually torn Jean Valjean, the infatuated Marius, or the morally tragic Javert. His mind then flew to Evita, with its elegant air and quiet sophistication, and somehow fancied himself portraying the celebrated yet largely misunderstood Che Guevara. But no, he reckoned playing the ambivalent Dan Goodman in the Pulitzer-winning masterpiece Next to Normal would be so much better, where he could easily show off his acting chops and singing prowess to the delight of the spectators. Other times, he acquiesced to the classics, thinking it immensely rewarding to slip into the shoes of the debonair Emile de Becque in South Pacific, the nomadic El Gallo in The Fantasticks, or the sweet-tongued Billy Flynn in Chicago. Of course, no one came close to Phantom – with its magnificent, operatic tunes and timeless plot of romance and betrayal, the epic tale of a man eternally disfigured by the gruesome ills of society. 

graphic tales (part II)

In the midst of a hectic first-year residency, I got a nice surprise when my short story "Scars" was selected as part of the long list of this year's Philippines Graphic-Nick Joaquin Literary Awards. "Scars" was my first foray into the realm of horror fiction, and eventually appeared in Graphic's Halloween issue. With a sprinkling of Gothic and Filipino-Chinese religious elements, I thoroughly enjoyed writing it very much - so much that I had to scratch the writing itch inside an impromptu internet cafe of a mall! To cut the long story short (pun intended), I didn't make it to the top three, but what the heck - literary awards nights are always magical. Congrats to this year's winners, and heaps of thanks to the ever-fabulous Joti Tabula for accompanying me!

An excerpt from "Scars":

When war broke out and the Cantonese boss was abruptly dragged off by the ruthless Kempeitai for interrogation, the family was forced to evacuate to safety. How Vladimir managed to survive the war with nary a bruise or an injury puzzled many people. According to one account, both his parents were shot dead by belligerent Japanese sentries as they were fleeing from the city, but the bullets only seemed to whizz past the boy’s puny body as he raced for the hills. Another bystander claimed that the bullets indeed hit him and he swiftly crumpled to the ground, only to rise seconds later as if nothing happened. A third account contained more grisly details. Seeing his parents sprawled motionless, the young Vladimir, not more than twelve years old by all appearances, flew into a fit of rage and single-handedly strangled the Japanese soldier with incredible superhuman strength, lifting his burly frame off the ground. When the dust had cleared, the ill-fated soldier was found slumped in a pool of blood, reddish froth oozing from his mouth.

a leap for lauriat.

Finally, the table of contents for the upcoming anthology "Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology" is out! The book, edited by speculative fiction champion Charles Tan, includes my story "Chopsticks" (which previously appeared in Graphic and subsequently won a Nick Joaquin award) as well as other stories rooted in the richness and vibrancy of Filipino-Chinese culture.

The stories are:

“Two Women Worth Watching” by Andrew Drilon
“Ho-We” by Erin Chupeco
“The Chinese Zodiac” by Kristine Ong Muslim
“Pure” by Isabel Yap
“Dimsum” by Christine V. Lao
“August Moon” by Gabriela Lee
“The Captain’s Nephew” by Paolo Chikiamco
“The Stranger at my Grandmother’s Wake” by Fidelis Tan
“Chopsticks” by Marc Gregory Yu
“Fold Up Boy” by Yvette Tan
“The Tiger Lady” by Margaret Kawsek
“The Perpetual Day” by Crystal Koo
“Cricket” by Kenneth Yu
“The Way of Those Who Stayed Behind” by Douglas Candano

Can't wait for the book's release - and congrats to everyone!

a hundred years of excellence.

(The piece below was written for the official coffee table book in commemoration of the Centennial Founding Anniversary of my high school alma mater – Iloilo Central Commercial High School (ICCHS), now renamed Hua Siong College of Iloilo.)

The French have a term for having the right word to express something. They call it “mot juste” – “exact word” – the embodiment of the proverbial tip of one’s tongue. And that, I suppose, is precisely what defining Hua Siong is anything but. There are no exact words to define an institution that has stood ground for a venerable century, the spectator of a brutal war, a cruel fire, the iconic rise and fall of democracy, the advent of a new millennium. There are no exact words to describe her generations of alumni, the motley lot who have flown out of her nest and affirmed themselves as citizens of the world. Most importantly, there are no exact words to gauge her tradition of excellence, stalwartly championed and peerlessly untarnished even after a hundred years of existence.

To speak of Hua Siong merely as a place where I received my kindergarten, elementary and high school education would be a glaring understatement. In fact, the correspondence borders on being pied-a-terre, a second home. My grandfather, the late Gregorio Yu Sr., was Chairman of the Board of Trustees sometime in the 1980s, the bony but big-hearted old man who juggled official duties in between introducing his toddler grandson to colleagues in school. That scene, I believe, fondly remains etched in perpetual wisdom: Toothless gums and a generous smile, crisps of red and gold crepe paper, a battalion of studentry cheering their hearts out as an entourage of distinguished guests entered the pearly red gates. So goes the funny anecdote that I was mistaken for one of the guests, and was even dubbed the progenitor of the mythical Shaolin with my nearly-shaven head!

Hua Siong was certainly privy to my formative years in life, bearing witness as I reached milestone after milestone. As a wide-eyed preschooler, I cavorted with a lovely peacock dancer from China and portrayed someone else’s little son in a play. These eventually paved the way for more ample opportunities and achievements. My thirteen-year stay in ICCHS allowed me to expand horizons and harness hidden talents – joining interschool competitions, assuming the editorship of The Chain, being part of the historic Constitutional Commission, giving politics a shot during my stint as City Mayor of Rotary Club’s Boys and Girls Week.

I sometimes look back and wonder how these years had truly been an incomparable experience. More than simply being overwhelmed with a soaring, sweeping sense of nostalgia, our Hua Siong education stretched far beyond the confines of the measly four walls of the classroom. We recall her rallying motto of “Diligence, Sincerity, Loyalty, Courage” – the unseen conscience that pervaded everyone’s hearts and minds, the much-respected reminder to give it your all, do what is right, stick to your side, and face the music without fear. As if somehow breathing life to the slogan itself, activities inside Hua Siong translated to service personified: We took required scouting subjects in the elementary grades, went through the “hok bu” system from first to third year high school, and had regular CAT instruction in fourth year high school, the emphasis on discipline and industry rubbing off quite handsomely.

The enormity of this outstanding legacy goes on further to include the awareness of a dual heritage, as only the second oldest Chinese school in the Philippines can. We left Hua Siong enlightened persons with a heightened social consciousness, courtesy of an intensive Chinese, English, and Filipino curriculum that highlighted Buwan Ng Wika as much as the Mid-Autumn Festival. What took place was even more significant: the seamless integration of Chinese and Filipino values that guided us to our rightful place under the sun. We learned the invaluable ropes and the myriad highs and lows that came with being at the crossroads of two equally rich cultures, exposing and enabling us to appreciate a culture that is uniquely Chinese-Filipino.

Our celebration of Hua Siong’s centennial means saluting the sterling individuals who have selflessly played a crucial role in the school’s robust existence – from a fledgling barely holding her own in 1912 to a defiant bastion of anti-Japanese resistance, razed to the ground in the 1966 fire and reborn from the ashes, cruising onwards to meet the challenges of the 21^st century. In particular, we honor our teachers, the unsung heroes of the classroom, relentless warriors in the crusade against ignorance and indifference. I remember most vividly the late Mr. Ty Eng Liong, hailed as one of the best Chinese teachers of all time. Out of the corner of my mind’s eye there he stood, the gentle giant greeting students at the gate during dismissal time, his stature a fitting semblance to his reputation as a noteworthy pillar of Hua Siong.

With the auspices of time, these pillars have only grown stronger, taller, and sturdier, and the school transformed into a gleaming oasis of pedagogy with a spanking new building, a swanky elevator, and a sea of unfamiliar faces. But looking beyond this pristine exterior, I shall always choose to see the Hua Siong I knew and loved, the enduring vestiges of yesteryears quietly tugging at the senses and the catacombs of memory lane: Peeking hues of rusting red-and-white paint, strict bespectacled teachers roaming the corridors, black-and-white computer screens that evolved in sync with my journey from youngster to teenager.

In the same way, I would quite like to believe that for every Hua Siong student nurtured under the vigilant eyes of his Alma Mater, this journey shall always be fashioned out of the same substance every well-lived life is made of – a saga of unforgettable moments, of unending departures and returns, of the vibrant intertwining of memories and experiences that have molded me into what I am today: a product of her long, epic past; a testament to her glorious present; and hopefully, a part of her expectant future.

Who knows? “Mot juste” might just get to mean a hundred years of excellence, no less.

fairy tales and not-so-happy endings.

Glad tidings arrived today in the form of my very first story published in the Philippines Free Press (the other magazine great that regularly publishes literary works, apart from Graphic.) I was notified via email by no less than literary editor Joel Toledo himself - whose Palanca-winning poems are simply lovely. The story, entitled "Fairy Tales", was an experiment in the use of the female voice which I actually found quite enjoyable, a refreshing departure from my usual writing style. Add to that my childhood fascination with fairy tales and presto - as I wrote in my cover letter - read the story "as you would read a fairy tale." 

Here's an excerpt from "Fairy Tales":

The stories of my childhood come alive in my daughter’s mind, weaving in and out of her days, as only creative five year olds are wont to do. Seeing her engrossed in the intricacies of a fantastic tale, the rest of the outside world shut out at the corners, it occurred to me that Sam truly is her mother’s daughter, but that she might be only coping with her father’s progressively protracted absences. She pretends to be Thumbelina, impishly flitting among the flowers in the yard, with the glittery cardboard wings Elmer made her for a neighbor’s masquerade party. Other times, she is Goldilocks with a blue gingham frock and an abandoned blond wig she found in the attic, Esmeralda with dangling earrings and a hanky for a turban, the Little Matchgirl with a patched-up petticoat and some leftover matchsticks in the kitchen. She would indulge herself in the company of her animal friends from the forest – Simba, Bambi and Puss in Boots – “who are intelligent talking creatures, Mommy,” she would tell me with broad, enthusiastic eyes. “They make me happy when I am sad or lonely.” Sadness and loneliness, those two deadly foes, treacherous cousins that took me forever to distinguish.

(Postscript: At the time of the story's acceptance, Free Press went strictly online leaving me no chance to go out and buy copies of the magazine for keeps. Unfortunately, things didn't quite get a happy ending because Free Press - with all its online stories, including mine - eventually ceased to continue operations soon after. There goes my shot at a possible Free Press Literary Awards night. Sigh.)

fluidity.

“What goes in... must go out.”

Dr. R Alonso

The domain of fluids, electrolytes, and complex countercurrent mechanisms has always been a feared and daunting one, the undisputed Achilles heel of medical school. Time and again, we have continually persevered and grappled with its intricate theories and mechanisms, poring over mammoth books in vain and groaning in frustration over seemingly incomprehensible concepts. There’s supporting evidence to boot: Just recently, it has been pointed out in a survey that renal topics were the ones deemed most important by medical faculty and students alike, yet ironically were also the ones considered most mind-boggling and difficult to deal with.

I guess that perhaps, part of its notoriety stems from the fact that Nephrology shuns the straightforward scheme of things and painstakingly pursues our unseen inner workings, stripping us bare to our most fundamental functional elements – fluids, molecules, and the myriad physiological and biochemical interactions that govern them. In time, I found myself growing a soft spot for its web of challenges, lack of candor, and rush of adrenaline that overwhelms you as you carefully tip the scales and juggle cations, anions, and their ilk in an effort to preserve the impeccable rhythm of life, weaving a seamless balance that reverberates through the entire human body in striking fashion. One step turned wrong, and the whole system might just go haywire. A nephrologist, after all, isn’t called an internist’s internist for nothing.

Two weeks of rotating in the section exposed me to the fluidity of our wonderfully structured kidneys, and conversely, to the remarkable, sometimes even dramatic, clinical results that materialize in their stead. I  must admit that I never fail to get short of amazed whenever I see a previously confused, drowsy, and disoriented patient zap back to sanity and reality with just a mere few sessions of hemodialysis, or a previously wan and weak-looking patient suddenly appear with the rosy touch of health after a quick correction of sodium and potassium deficits. By delving into the root of the problem and going molecular, we consequently trigger nano-ripples of change that eventually translate into meaningful overt clinical outcomes and manifestations.

Unfortunately, I also got to realize that many, if not most, patients hardly recognize or are even aware of kidney disease at all. A good number dismiss it as something similar to and as trivial as an uncomplicated urinary tract infection – and thus tragically arrive only for consult when they have already been plagued to unbearable lengths by anemia, breathlessness, and extreme bodily discomfort – with no possibility whatsoever of fully reversing the damage save for a lifetime contract with dialysis. Which is why, marching down the streets and waving balloons and hollering cheers on World Kidney Day couldn’t have been timelier to serve as the rallying cry for such an endeavor. In the lay forum that followed, we tirelessly promoted the relevance of CKD to the public and felt immensely satisfied when a few patients and watchers came up to us to show their appreciation, casually stating that the activity inadvertently pushed them to acquire a newfound change of paradigm.

What goes in must go out. As I entered this rotation exactly two weeks ago less informed and less confident, so I emerge from it more assured and armed with extra ammunition of knowledge and food for thought (getting to observe catheter insertions were definite bonuses.) At this point, I am still far off from being a perfect master of fluids and electrolytes, just as Dr. Alonso’s CRRT talk still keeps me mildly at a loss. But I know I’m getting there. All I need is to focus, plod down the long winding path, and let the fluidity of things take over.      

first aid(s).

I still remember that fleeting moment way back in ICC year when we had our very first lecture in HIV/AIDS, handled ever so unpretentiously and so ingeniously by the tireless Dr. Lim, with matching “Wildfire” games and mock condom demos (using a banana to represent the, ahem, thing) to boot. At the end of the session, seeing us sated and sedated with a plethora of information ranging from “retrovirus” to “non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor”, he decided it was time. He finally brought her in.

The very first HIV-positive patient I encountered in medical school.

“I want you to hold her hand. I want you to know that she is just like any one of us.”

I was one of those who readily shook hands, although deep inside still half-harboring the slightest hint of reluctance as to the true extent of such a feared disease and wondering about its consequences. Of course, textbooks and common sense would easily tell you now that you don’t contract full-blown AIDS from a mere handshake alone, but what I realized that fateful morning stretched farther than just a sheer mechanical dialogue on retroviral genetics and pathogenesis: They are simply one of us – walking, talking, breathing human beings with their own lives to live.

And now, two weeks after and nearing the tail end of my Infectious Diseases stint, I must say that the single most significant thing about this rotation was the way it exposed me, in all honesty and openness, to the burgeoning spectrum of HIV/AIDS patients and thus continued the crucial legacy left off after ICC year (History actually repeated itself when I attended the same HIV/AIDS lecture given by Dr. Lim, who also facilitated a “Wildfire” activity, this time among the unsuspecting fellows.) My rotation aptly came at a time when I was fresh off watching the blockbuster musical “Rent” with its bohemian and HIV/AIDS awareness themes. It was as if cryptic skeletons finally tumbled their way out of an invisible closet, where I had to face the reality of seeing call center agents, bank employees, massage therapists, teenage students, and even an Ateneo professor congregate in pursuit of a common goal – to confront the disease squarely in the eyes, at the same time seek timely help in the process of rebuilding the momentum of their callow youth, shattered so abruptly by the stigma of a society that fears what it does not fully know. There’s no denying the clarity of the message, though: HIV/AIDS is quickly becoming a global epidemic, and it’s closing in on us faster than we can say “PCP pneumonia prophylaxis”.

I was fortunate enough to be working alongside a bunch of feisty fellows who knew their stuff, and knew it well. This was manifest in the way the patients rendered their trust and starkly divulged even the most sensitive bits of information, without so much as a trace of hesitation. In all aspects of the past two weeks, from the wards and OPD to the pay floors, peripherals, procalcitonin lectures and PPRISM conferences, I have to admit that it had been quite an enjoyable and insightful experience. The nature and practice of infectious diseases has indeed grown on me, with its corresponding nuances and peculiarities. What initially seemed a drab, dreary realm of boring antibiotics and culture studies was revealed to be so much more with a closer, more discerning look – what with my share of exciting mycoses and unconventional TB cases, not to mention the handful of STD patients that destiny unwittingly transported to my doorstep.

And by bringing to fore the clarion call of giving first “aid” to “aids”, I thank the world of Infectious Diseases with all my heart for these unwritten lessons, and for igniting in my head the rallying cry of such a relevant endeavor. 

breathing space.

We inhale oxygen, and we exhale carbon dioxide. This has been fundamental knowledge taught to us in grade school, brought up again in biology class, and resurrected in clinical parlance during medical school. It is the most basic respiratory process there is, and yet, every single minute, or fraction thereof, is a continual affirmation of the dynamism of life, as we take in and give off each specified quantity of air in a repeated process that we so easily take for granted in our daily humdrum.

For my part, I guess all it takes is one glance at a bedridden patient, stricken with end-stage lung cancer and/or COPD and perpetually hooked to an AC mode mechanical ventilator, to realize the fact that the ability to breathe – fully and freely – is tantamount to being greatly fortunate.

It is all about breathing space, I thought. Hypoxia, hypercarbia, ventilation-perfusion mismatch, shunts, and similar mechanisms lend themselves to a host of airway diseases, parenchymal pathologies, and other pulmonary aspects of systemic disorders, the result almost always a harrowing, inhuman sense of difficulty to breathe. As pulmonologists, we can’t always bring our patients back to the fullness of normalcy (COPD and lung cancer being hard or altogether impossible to reverse, for instance) but we can at least alleviate their difficulty and help them avail, in one way or another, of this basic respiratory instinct of humankind.

Of course, there are the usual culprits. PGH as a whole continually reeks of PTB; in my two week rotation alone, just when I thought TB couldn’t surprise me any further, I was able to witness the metamorphosis of this dreaded mycobacterial disease in all its notorious forms and stages: from the completely asymptomatic suspect to the patient with active disease to cases of relapse, retreatment, and multi-drug-resistance, on to tuberculomas, tuberculous effusions and heavily disseminated cases. Even with the earnest efforts of the TB-DOTS programs that abound in the country, I believe much is still to be done and overcome in the long, hard battle against TB, in changing preconceived notions and false practices, and in the due encouragement of both collective and individual vigilance.

These diseases, I saw engraved on paper, thanks to the spirometry sessions that provided a breath of fresh air from the atmosphere of wards and clinics. My PFT sessions were a joy in themselves, as we went about trying to instruct patients on how to blow properly and then gradually seeing the graphic lines evolve on paper. It didn’t take me long to recognize the power of such a simple procedure. By merely looking at values and ratios alone, one could already determine the general pattern of pulmonary dysfunction and consequently take steps in further addressing and preventing functional deterioration.

But perhaps the most significant moment for me was when I stood inside the endoscopy unit keenly observing the conduct of video-assisted bronchoscopy being performed on a patient with a bullet to his chest. From an ordinary bystander, the airways seemed to look like ringed tubes with occasional streaks of mucus here and there, and I reckoned this is where one must submit to a flawless mastery of pulmonary anatomy, the scope poking and scouring the sturdy bronchi for potential problems.

Emerging from that endoscopy unit, I can’t help thinking how pulmonologists, in treating respiratory ailments and helping our patients to breathe, can create so much impact and difference in their quality of life. My meager experiences are but a slight preview of what lie ahead, the long road towards flawlessly performing endotracheal intubation, doing thoracentesis dexterously, or tinkering with the finer points of MV settings, but I hope I’m getting there. All it takes is one simple, genuine desire to help patients get better – and assure them their share of ample breathing space in the world.

graphic tales.

Just when I thought winning second place in the Palanca six years ago was the ultimate feather in my writing cap, the venerable muse of literary graces treasured me with yet another orgasmic delight: my short story "Chopsticks" - submitted to and which apparently got published in the Philippine Graphic last year - won third place in the 2010 Philippines Graphic - Nick Joaquin Literary Awards. First place went to Kit Kwe for "The Fires of the Sun in the Crystalline Sky" while second place went to Easy Fagela for "Deadlines."

Now I've always considered myself more of a creative non-fiction person, and "Chopsticks" was actually my first genuine foray into the realm of short stories. The spark came from out of nowhere, and before I knew it I was writing of silly feng shui anecdotes, painful memories, and your typical Filipino-Chinese family fussing over chopsticks. With a twist, of course. While this year's first and second place winners were both Silliman veterans, I am yet to sail the night boat to Dumaguete - that is, if I even get to. First timer's luck? Maybe. But then again, maybe not just.

Thank you to the judges: the trio of eminent writers Krip Yuson, Susan Lara and Charlson Ong for believing in my work. Thank you also to the equally eminent Marra PL Lanot - Graphic literary editor last year and also my brother's Palanca judge - for deeming my work worthy of publication. And many thanks to the awesome Pete Lacaba for taking time to personally inform poor old clueless me of the great, great news.

Last but not the least, thank you to dear old Mang Nick (wherever you are) for serving as the hefty inspiration and the indelible spirit behind our colorful literary journeys – and victories.

Beyond the numerous congratulatory remarks and handshakes, everyone summed it all up with a single piece of advice: "Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing." Oh yes, I definitely will (As if this year's generous prizes aren't more than enough motivation, haha.)

Kidding aside, here's to the future of writing. Here's to the future of Philippine literature. You'll be seeing more manuscripts from me.

An excerpt from "Chopsticks":

When I was five, I thought chopsticks were an absolute pain in the neck. The first time I held them, they kept slipping from my fingers, and I fumbled about gripping them awkwardly, each stick bumping into the other every time I twisted them in the wrong direction. Mother always made it look so easy. The chopsticks would lithely rise in her hands as she directed them into a plate of steaming noodles, securely clipping a reasonable amount and bringing them to her plate – or straight to her mouth.

“You have to hold them like tongs,” she demonstrated. “And by all means, grasp them firmly. You don’t want to end up with nothing.” It was understandably a test of control and coordination, and somewhere at the back of my head I recalled her narrating that five thousand years of practice made China home of the world’s best surgeons, her voice swelling with pride.

(Postscript: "Chopsticks" was eventually republished in Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology, which came out in 2012 - see blog post.)

a joint affair.

Flashback to LU4. During our very first lecture in Rheumatology, the lecturer (the indefatigable Dr. Penserga) stepped up the podium and uttered her first sentence: A joint is an organ. Right away, there was a personal moment of epiphany. What I had previously believed to be a mere site of connection between two bones was, in fact, an active organ harboring a host of cells, cytokines, and everything in between.

Three years seems an awfully long time when one looks back at that definitive split-second and pauses to consider the potential array of knowledge (and yet to be discovered knowledge) that lay beyond the simple fabric of a joint capsule. Joints, as I later found out, only comprise a minute fraction of this exciting field. In rheumatology, it was always about recognizing patterns and asking oneself: “Could it be?” with surefire gusto and the confidence of an acrobat on a tightrope, hovering between a particular diagnosis and its really close mimic, never mind that one or the other appeared nothing like the classic textbook illustration. Dermatomyositis, polymyositis. Scleroderma, scleredema. (And you have overlap syndromes, too.) For the unwitting novice with the untrained eye, the difference could only stretch a little farther than a syllable – and the subtle signs that come with it.

Add that to the fact that the Philippines only has about 90+ rheumatologists wracking their brains off a plethora of syndromes and one rare disease after another. In my two week rotation alone, I was lucky to have seen both ends of the spectrum – from the almost symptom-free individual in remission to the barely conscious, intubated patient; from several cases of Behcet’s disease to Takayasu’s arteritis and polyarteritis nodosa – and smugly went home knowing something has piqued my intellectual curiosity and slaked my inner thirst for the unconventional and the unfamiliar.

Two weeks slowly gave me insight into the palpable difference between rheumatology and most other specialties. Rheumatologists seek not an ultimate cure but rather, an acceptable functional capacity and health-related quality of life for patients. And this is where tinkering with steroids and NSAIDS comes into the picture – the same old drugs with brand new tricks.

Even now we are already being ushered into the age of biologicals. Meeting IL-17 – the latest kid on the block – had been a real pleasure and so is trying my hand on the ultra-modern MSK UTZ. I thank all the consultants and fellows for a time well spent and for generously accommodating me into the world of inflammation and autoimmunity, where SLE and SSc are close cousins with everyone else. When all else fails, I guess there will always be your friendly neighborhood rheumatologist to help solve that rigged diagnostic dilemma.

Now I say: ankylosing spondylitis, anyone?

(Postscript: I eventually did my internship research on ankylosing spondylitis, which went on to win second place in the Annual Interns’ Research Forum for that year, got accepted for poster presentation in an international conference in Granada, Spain, and was eventually published in the Philippine Journal of Internal Medicine.)

reading dan brown.

Just as he had done for the past two times, he did it again.

I reluctantly pushed my nocturnal limits to an ungodly two-thirty in the wee hours of the morning, eagerly devouring the last few pages of Dan Brown’s latest novel The Lost Symbol. In the who’s who of bibliophiles, I don’t classify myself as a sprinter; but perhaps it merited some measure of braggadocio to have also wrapped up two of his other books in record time: The Da Vinci Code in ten hours, Angels and Demons in about twelve – apparently good enough response for someone whose writing has been dubbed by critics as clumsy, and whose works have been diversely labeled as inaccurate, fanciful, abstruse, slanderous, even sacrilegious.

The question is not what causes us to gravitate to the pull of his fiction, but rather, why we gravitate to them. Like millions of readers, I turn to Brown’s books for the primary purpose that he wrote them: entertainment. His masterful thrillers provide a sought-after adrenaline rush, and a much-welcomed change from the humdrum of deadened routines. Through his stories, he has concocted a delectable compendium of just about everything that piques my interest – history, geography, art, literature, science, mathematics, even religion – seamlessly crafted into one gigantic, smashing, rollercoaster ride. Best of all, he toyed a bit with my fascination about Harvard (although I more than duly content myself with being currently schooled in the Harvard equivalent of the Philippines.)

Reading Dan Brown is, in every sense, experiencing the inexperienced, expecting the unexpected, initiating the uninitiated. Villains become heroes, and heroes become villains. When I first plunged head-on into the then uncharted waters of the polemic The Da Vinci Code five years ago, I was instantly thrown into his clandestine world of arcane symbols, antediluvian legends, mystical phenomena – the plot thickening with every page, the secrets revealing themselves with every twist of the story. The thirst for unbridled momentum was infectious. As I picked up Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol later on, a hazy pattern began to emerge.

Somewhere that’s neither here nor there, Brown writes of a well-loved savant getting killed or kidnapped. He brews forth a terrifying madman, the unraveling of an ancient controversy, the pursuit to solve the mystery hurtling at full speed towards an electrifying climax. The meandering paths seemingly trail and coalesce downhill to an incredibly simplistic resolution, interjected with a handful of profound lessons that leave you thinking much more than just the way his fantastic tales ended. Because yes, there’s more.

In a world beset with societal woes and plagued with problems from every side, Brown’s irrepressible characters have given us hope that we can always be unlikely saviors of our own generation. With his protagonist, Robert Langdon, he successfully painted the image of a renaissance man, the embodiment of someone imbued with messianic potential without actually realizing it. Langdon is hardly the epitome of a perfect individual. A noted historian and cryptologist, he waxes idiosyncratic philosophical for the greater part of his presence, oftentimes bordering on being overly quixotic. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however. Langdon promptly springs to action at the flick of a finger, whipping up a plausible solution faster than you can mouth “Eureka!”

Fortunately, his moments of epiphany are as good as ours. Not content to sit back and let fate steer its sinister course, we gamble the odds with his every move, brainstorm with his every impediment, and silently rejoice with his every triumph. Indeed, Brown’s novels are thoroughly enjoyable not so much stark anthologies of facts as they are exercises in ingenuity. You exit his enigmatic world with no exact objects, locations, or explanations in mind; only the pleasant aftertaste of an enriching, gratifying, cerebral experience.

I should know. Once upon a time, I, too, sat down in Philosophy class blatantly asking for the moon and the stars. What is truth? What is man’s destiny? What’s after forever? In the end, much like Brown’s novels, I was trained instead to strip myself of any existential pretensions and focus on the intangibility of human inquiry, to proffer the questions without waiting for the answers.

In this regard, his novels incidentally helped me discover that hindsight can only yield so much insight. A stir of familiarity struck me upon mention of German painter Albrecht Durer, evoking unmistakable images of Humanities class as our professor engaged us to probe deeper and to scrutinize each artwork beyond what’s merely concrete and abstract. In between lines of an archaic riddle, in between elaborate depictions of The Louvre or The Washington Memorial, I surmise that this is what Brown tells us with overwhelming audacity: To look. Heightened observation, after all, serves as the very antithesis of perceptive mediocrity.

There are heaps to be learned in the minutest and most puzzling of details, in the most insignificant of entities. There is more than meets the eye in those picture-perfect postcard panoramas of St. Peter’s Basilica, Westminster Abbey, or the soaring dome of the US Capitol. There is more than greets the mind behind the Mona Lisa’s captivating smile, the obscure markings on Raphael’s sculptures, or closer to home, the sacred texts of The Bible. Who knows? Our world is a world of possibilities.

Yet akin to the celebrated Holy Grail or the fabled Ancient Mysteries, Brown’s works have never been about claiming that coveted trophy of the ages or that proverbial pot of gold at rainbow’s end. The spotlight is always fittingly passed on to something of far humbler, far higher substance – a quest for prayer, an affirmation of belief, an attempt to rescue an honorable reputation. Most importantly, his novels have aptly demonstrated that it takes a person of solid, unwavering faith to effectively hold his own against the persuasive tides of crafty reasoning, against the evidence-based debates of logic and scientific thought. What is faith, as Brown candidly put it, but the “acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove”?

In literary context, I guess it takes a similar amount of faith, then, to keep the real from the unreal and still accept, albeit fleetingly, that which is imagined to be true, yet which cannot be proven. When all else stands unlocked and laid bare, Dan Brown’s saga of codes and secrets ultimately boils down to shedding light on the world as it is – rich, vibrant, unique – and being supremely thankful for it.

And just like that, just as he had done for the past two times, he did it again.

gold, spice, and everything nice.

Now we're talking.

beyond yellow.

I first saw Cory Aquino in person during the premiere night of “Cory: The Musical” last November 2008, that loving tribute of songs and stories written in the eyes of and exclusively penned for her by close family friend Bing Pimentel. At the end of the production, when lead star Isay Alvarez and the rest of the main cast led the way for a thunderous applause, the 75-year old former president struggled up from her seat to give a few words of thanks and inspiration. It was almost clear then that her fragile state could not anymore hide the fact that this icon of democracy was, in fact, suffering from the terminal stages of colon cancer. It was almost clear, too, that I may well be seeing her for the first and the last time alive.

My parents were not even married when Ninoy Aquino was killed at the height of the Marcos regime in 1983. I can plainly say with all honesty and naiveté that I never went through the odious years of Martial Law era, never felt the stirring emotions of a unified People Power in EDSA I, never experienced the harrowing loss of democracy in the dead of night – only to have it resurrected by an unlikely heroine-of-a-housewife more than a decade after. To stretch the gap even farther, I never had the privilege of shaking hands with the woman once famously chosen by Time Magazine as Person of the Year, never knew how it was to work alongside this Fulbright Awardee for International Understanding, never had an inkling on how it felt like to be a doting grandchild to “one of Asia’s most influential leaders of the 20th century.”

What I have, beyond a few surreal meters of plush theater rows, is the lingering memory of having been able to vicariously trace her origins back to the old ancestral home in Quanzhou, China, eight years ago. More matter-of-factly, her husband Ninoy was also my exact natal predecessor of 55 years, a boon we share together with our noteworthy ears, academic inclination, and keen literary fervor (the idea of assassination has not occurred to me in my wildest dreams – yet.) Ninoy was the yang to Cory’s yin, the articulate voice to her lending ear, the convivial soul to her kindred spirit. With his death, she had to be yin and yang at the same time. As he watered the tarmac with senseless blood that fateful day in August, so must she sensibly redeem it three years later with a bloodless revolution in February. As his death sparked the flames that sent irate millions into a quest for democracy, so must her death fan the same flames that brought back the lessons of history.

And so I write, because to write is sometimes all one can do in the aftermath of a nation’s sorrowful outpouring, in the aftermath of unabashed, unexplained grief. Because to write is to proffer the humble gift of words, served on the simple platter of reminiscence and tendered in the hope that heaven reads the muffled lips of a now orphaned people. Most importantly, because to write of the life Cory Aquino lived is to write of snippets of each and every Filipino’s life – and incidentally, mine as well: grim shadows of the past, firm reminders of the present, hopeful exhortations of the future.

Fr. Catalino Arevalo, SJ, in his poignant eulogy, quietly pointed out how “selflessness, faith and courage” have always remained at the forefront of Cory’s life, the indelible trio of principles that constituted the bedrock of morals by which her whole life was founded on. Selflessness, manifested in the concrete hierarchy of “God, country and family”, has been her battle cry for living for others, for the continuous betterment of those around her even in her darkest, most painful days. It is with this realization that I marvel at the frail gallantry of Cory as a human person, and if only to generalize – to the extent by which the lot of ordinarily extraordinary persons make themselves extraordinarily ordinary. Courage, by way of defying fraudulence and a feared despot with the striking candor of truth and sincerity, places her in the league of a modern day Joan of Arc – shining sword traded for rosary beads, blazing red for canary yellow, final martyrdom on the stake with serene acceptance of disease.

Cory, however, is not Cory without the unwavering and almost saint-like faith that shook mountains with a single prayer, and yet, in itself, was virtually unshakeable. (If a “Hail Mary Squad” so much as existed, she would have been, hands down and without question, ringleader of the gang.) As someone once put it: “Before, I was not too entirely convinced of a woman who brandishes prayer as her prime weapon; but it never budged under duress, and now she has made me a total believer.” Even as she reluctantly ascended the silver steps to Malacañang, and even as she voluntarily exited the chief commander’s throne with paramount grace, she knew her real power – and wielded it effortlessly across an archipelago mobilizing an army of sorts that rejoiced as she rejoiced, wept as she wept, and fought on even as her strength slowly succumbed to the dreaded Big C. We again swarmed out to the streets when she called for a defaced president’s ouster. We rallied behind her as she sought asylum for rebelling soldiers. We marched with her, church to church, school to school, when she took a stand behind the reputed underdog of a boiling political scandal. And now, more than ever, we raised the cudgels for her with her recent denunciation of the infamous Con-Ass, read aloud by a grandson as she lay stricken on her pristine hospital bed. All of which prompted me to ask: What is it about her that moves us? Rather, what is it about her that moves us into action?

The celebrated Pablo Picasso believed that “some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, while others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Yellow, of all colors, permeates the darkness the easiest and the most; the veritable, elemental mother of light. Cory, who took up painting in her twilight years, must have wisely understood the connection and so chose yellow to initiate the illustrious spectacle that dramatically engraved itself across the surface of our nation’s history, conveying a people’s shared sentiments and brilliantly capturing that tearful moment of joy once victory has been claimed. In a country barely holding its own under the dark for so long, yellow was a refreshing change, the gentle impeding strand that could, the provident beacon slowly but surely leading the way out of the proverbial tunnel. Yellow depicted the outrage of the angry throng of two million escorting Ninoy to his grave, and yellow, too, emblazoned the banner bearing our tireless crusades for deliverance. For all she’s worth, and for the “crosses and roses” patiently borne for the sake of an ailing nation, we thank Cory Aquino for transforming a yellow spot into the yellow sun of Philippine colors, for her legacy of light and the things that stood beyond it.

But even in the light of one’s best and most noble intentions, one cannot please all, and at all times. There are those who attack her feeble handling of fiscal policies, the lackluster response to communist insurgents, the burgeoning energy crisis, the way she opted to tread the path of honor and hard work by politely shunning the World Bank’s offer to absolve us of our debt-rigged dilemma. Even then, in the midst of a thousand detractors, it is all too easy to single her out with her signature smile, shrugging her shoulders as if resigned to the fact that she was, and will always be, limited. A classmate of mine, a not-so-ardent fan in the spectrum of Cory fanaticism, once dreamt of her “on her knees, pleading for forgiveness for whatever errors she may have committed.” And it occurred to me that perhaps, it has always been her nature to forgive: Gringo and the numerous grisly attempts to throw her out of office. EDSA II and the eventual reconciliation with Erap. Bitter factions right smack in the Cojuangco clan. Daughter Kris and her rocky romances. Conrado de Quiros, the very same writer whom Kris once rued as being “so mean to my mom”, would later mean what he said and say what he meant when he called her “one damn good person.”

With her passing arose a great many speculations about the theory of goodness, goodwill, good people. Sometimes, it meant introspectively looking at the fundamental basis of human nature and discovering that moral lodestar deep within. Other times, it rested on the more profound grounds of relativity, on cautious, unbiased deliberation of graded evilness: greater evil, lesser evil. In his speech at the start of “Cory: The Musical”, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III described his mother as being “so different from the powers that be that govern us today”. Without being unjustifiably cynical, I have come to consider her death as the unofficial end of an era, of bygone days where public service was an untarnished honor and personal integrity was still in vogue. No one would argue when I propose that for most of her life Cory played the part of a much lesser evil, her flaws a mere speck in the rancid frays of the contemporary political arena already marred and marred still, her shortcomings presumably given in to inexperience that had much to do with coping with gargantuan responsibility and generic demands at the same time. I once fielded such a question to my aunt: “How good was she?” To which she readily answered, “Well, I say she was good enough, wasn’t she?” For most of this country’s 80 million denizens, there was no doubt. She was good enough, damn good enough.

In burying Cory, we give tribute to her simple yet significant contribution to the restoration of a free Philippines, tainted as it is by the unbecoming forces that threaten to break its cornerstone of nobility. In accompanying her for a straight, sacrificial eight hours to her final resting place, we commit ourselves to the perpetual cause of upholding democracy that she so adamantly fought for for much of her widowed lifetime. In braving the corporeal embodiments of searing sun and roaring rain, we testify our solidarity as a Filipino nation cloaked in mourning, sealed in love, and bonded in hope.

“It is good to see the (people power) spirit still alive,” one person commented, no less than struck short of awed at the heartwarming sight of a million Filipinos flooding the flooded streets of the metropolis in a desperate attempt for last minute glimpses, tributes, and farewells (plus photo-ops.) It was definitely larger than life; the wonderful frenzy now fondly referred to as “Cory magic”. I was inclined to think that in this age of ephemeral transitions, just as pages yellow away and persist beyond the mortal days of their venerated authors, so shall the robust yellow of “Cory magic” elude death in its agelessness. After all, way after she stepped down as president, I was a personal witness to how a catchy Hiligaynon jingle (sung to the tune of a then popular jukebox dance hit, the title of which I cannot recall) continued to gain popular acclaim back home, ingeniously crafted as follows:

“Everybody/saka sa lubi/
Kung mahulog/singgit lang kay Cory…”

(“Everybody/climb the coconut tree/
If you fall down/just call out for Cory…”)

The creator’s first intention, I would suppose, was certainly and primarily for amusement (as if anything else mattered more to a five year old kid.) But for those who knew better, it was more than an act of endearment, more than an acknowledgment of trust that goes well beyond embracing her as president, wife, and mother. With her passing, it is in confidently affirming that we can always count on the Tita Cory we knew to bring the country back to its feet, albeit in spirit, and to bring us Filipinos back to our feet, whenever, wherever, and always with a pleasing, soaring sense of heightened national consciousness.

Twenty-three years ago, as the newly-instated president of a republic on wobbly knees, she beseeched the joint Houses of Congress to “join us, America, as we build a new home for democracy; another haven for the oppressed so it may stand as a shining testament of our two nations’ commitment to freedom.”

Twenty-three years later, as a medical student of an institution sailing past its centennial year, I entreat my fellow countrymen to “join us, Philippines, as we build a new home for democracy; another haven for the oppressed so it may stand as a shining testament of our two heroes’ commitment to freedom.”