Who I am today

Note:  The blue marks come from The Philippine Star where this column first appeared.  Don't worry one day very soon I will really blog.

It was 1966, a few weeks after Holy Week. My grandmother was dying of cancer. I decided to go to confession and communion. I was only 22 years old. So I went to church and headed for the confessional. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been eight months since my last confession. You did not do your Easter duty! How could you wait that long without going to confession? The old white priest shouted. I got up and left and never went to confession again. That was 45 years ago. That was when I began to lose my Catholic faith.


Nevertheless…It was 1974 and we were in Rome. We decided to go see the Pope in his auditorium. Our guide got us the cheapest tickets saying he could have us moved up once we got there. I saw him discreetly slip some money into one of the Swiss guards’ hands and we were allowed to move up. Then I still believed — or better yet, I did not question — the infallibility or the greatness of the Pope. I waited patiently studying the audience. Quite a few nuns and little children, tourists and pilgrims. We were told to hold up our rosaries for the Pope’s blessings. Someone behind me said that would increase the price of the rosary.

Then the Pope entered, carried in by Swiss guards. He sat on a gilt chair and was carried on the shoulders of men. The nuns began to scream and applaud. This jolted me. I expected some reverence. This was not a Mick Jagger (the rock star then, today Justin Beiber) concert. This was Pope Paul VI, one of the forgettable ones. I would have screamed that way if I saw Elvis Presley gyrate a meter in front of me. But, please, this is the Pope. The nuns, rapture written all over their faces, some of them with tears streaming down their cheeks, continued to scream. Viva il Papa. Viva Il Papa. The only thing that popped into my mind was a quote: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

They set the dais that bore the small Pope near the papal chair at the center of the stage. They helped the Pope out of his carried chair into his stage-center chair. He sat down and lifted his feet. They carried the dais off the stage but the Pope still had his feet sort of lifted in the air. Then a boy came with a red velvet cushion. He set in down at the Pope’s feet. The Pope put his feet down on the cushion. There on the right side, lower than the cushion — my faith crashed and broke into pieces. Jesus Christ, who to me the Pope represented, walked the desert sands either in sandals or barefoot. What is the point of the Pope wearing embroidered shoes and refusing to set down his feet on the red carpet? Why did he need a red cushion? To me, there was no point and it even bordered on — for lack of a better word — something almost sacrilegious.

But never mind. I returned to Manila, still went to Sunday Mass but I was going as a matter of form. I was not ready to admit it, but my heart was not with me. Only my body was at Mass. At some point I had to see one of the monsignors usually in the news now because I was trying to get my marriage annulled. All I remember is he asked for my consent to an appeal to annul the marriage for some apostolic reason. I cannot now remember what he said and it doesn’t matter. What matters is I did not get the annulment so as far as the church is concerned I am still married to my husband who has converted to another faith and married somebody else with my full consent.

Once again, never mind. I was confined in the hospital undergoing a major checkup because I was quite sick. My significant other then, who has since passed away, called to say he was sending over an ecclesiastical lawyer from Rome whom his associate had recommended. This lawyer had gotten her annulment done for her. Please see him, the significant other said, and tell me what you think. Having no other choice, I did see him. He arrived in the middle of the afternoon.

In short he offered to get me a Roman marriage annulment for US$15,000 or about P300,000. This was in 1977. That was a lot of money then. Would I spend that much to buy a church annulment? Thank you, I said, I will call you. I did not call him. That afternoon, watching his back disappear through my hospital room’s doors I wondered —what kind of a church sells its annulments? Whatever the answer, I don’t want to belong to it. It feels as corrupt as the government.

But I have been most respectful. I have relatives who belong to the Catholic Church, I did not tell them that I considered myself out of it. I still believe in a power greater than me. The entity I call God I think is a spirit who lives in me and with me, who keeps me company, fills my home with his presence. He has two rules. He tells me to love myself and to love others, to do good for them.

And that’s the way I live.

Furthermore, I realized late in my life that the Catholic Church in the Philippines ordered Jose Rizal executed and never once apologized for it. I think they should apologize for their cruel misdeed. But they never have. Anyway, to me, all religions are man-made, a way for man to discipline himself without taking responsibility, actually an escape from responsibility. I think I am now, if I have to be anything at all, what other people call a free thinker. I think therefore I am and I take full responsibility for myself.
That’s who I am today.

MAKING AN OMELET

How do I make an omelet? First I open my refrigerator and bring out the eggs, either how many I have leftover or how many I think I need if I am making an omelet for guests. All depends on the circumstances.

Then I open the vegetable drawer and take out the overripe tomatoes, the wilting leeks, whatever other green, yellow and red stuff I might have that are on the verge of death. Chop them and set them aside. Now I search for the leftover cheese – queso de bola, a little manchego that gets harder by the day, ordinary cheddar – then grate and set aside.

Then I rummage throught the fridge searching for leftovers, some tomato-based, others soy-based, others forgotten-based and I take them out, mix them up and set them aside. All of these will become part of my omelet.

Now I take my whisk and beat the eggs until they are light yellow and fluffy. I take my non-stick frying pan and melt enough butter in it. Salted butter. I always love salted butter. Then I pour in half of the eggs, all the chopped vegetables, all the grated cheese, all the leftovers. Then I pour over the other half of the eggs. Depending on my mood I may add other spices but no more salt because the butter has it, the leftovers too and there's enough cheese.

While that omelet is cooking I take another non-stick frying pan and melt a small amount of salted butter on it. When it looks like it's the right time, meaning the egg at the bottom of the first frying pan is cooked, I cover it with the new pan and very quickly, with conviction, turn the two pans over transferring the omelet from the old pan to the new one. Sometimes it will work, other times it won't but whether or not the omelet comes out looking perfect it is still going to taste delicious and I know it will never be repeated because I never have the same leftovers twice.

That is the way I make an omelet and that is also the way a democracy works. The eggs are the decent intelligent people who are educated, well-read, who think and form opinions that are well considered. The rest of the folk – well, there you are. They are opinionated like the overripe tomatoes and other vegetables. Some, while witless, are quite sharp with their use of language, they represent the cheese that I grate. Then there are others who have still other diverse shades of opinion represented in the omelet by my mixed-up little leftovers. They all come out at times maybe when we are hungry for news or excitement because life is generally unexciting until there is a crisis.

This happened recently at the CCP regarding their controversial art show, which, in my opinion should not have closed early. The solution was simple. Media had carried the story so people already knew beforehand if they would like it or not. If you knew you would not like it, then you know you shouldn't go. Like if you know you do not like what I write, then don't read me. That's better than going or reading then assaulting and demonstrating and using foul language. But no matter what one says, there are always crazies who will assault and demonstrate and use foul language. Or a Senate that will call for a hearing. It's inevitable. That is what's supposed to happen in a democracy.

So to be able to adjust to the madness of things I sometimes think it's like an omelet full of things that may be acceptable to some people, not acceptable to others, but exist side-by-side without anybody demanding the removal of one or the other. This system of forcing people not to understand necessarily but to tolerate manners of thinking or interpretation that do not agree with theirs is a way for democracy to teach character to people, to force them (we cannot change a democracy unless we revolt and it looks like as a country we are too lazy to do that) to accept that the notion of liberty is to allow the freedom of expression of everyone. One person wants to express his or her rage at me accusing me of being an ilustrada, which he or she hates, I let him. I text back. Then don't read me, I say.

I think the lesson we have to learn in a democracy is patience. I will say from my own experience it is hard to be patient sometimes. But I know it's a lesson I must continue to learn better because others are entitled to their opinions and there are about as many opinions as there are people in this world.

What is the tolerant palliative to patience or the lack of it? The ability to laugh. I often laugh alone because I live alone so I don't have to worry about offending others with my laughter. But I laugh when I feel people are being silly or stupid or extraordinarily inane. I laugh and remind myself they are only parts of the omelet, little insignificant bursts of flavor that would be meaningless unless bound together by the eggs. That's what a democracy is. It is a delicious omelet. As inconvenient as it sometimes feels, we might as well eat it and enjoy it.

Apology for Noli Me Tangere

Ninoy Aquino was not shot in 1986.  That was the year of People Power 1.  Sorry, senior moment.

Locsin's 'Noli Me Tangere'

I have just finished reading Jose Rizal’s novel, Noli Me Tangere, translated by Soledad Lacson-Locsin, the late, great mother of one of my late, great friends, Raul Locsin, once publisher of the newspaper Business World. Doña Soledad was a dignified, well-educated lady who grew up speaking beautiful Spanish and therefore translated the novel masterfully. On the first page of her Notes or the book’s glossary, it reads: The title, Noli Me Tangere, is Latin for “Touch Me Not,” and comes from the Gospel of St. John, XX: 17, where Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father...” The author relates this to a social cancer “of a breed so malignant that the least contact exacerbates it and stirs in it the sharpest of pains” in his dedication: “To My Motherland (A mi patria). On March 5, 1887, Rizal wrote to the painter Resurreccion Hidalgo: “The book (Noli) has matters which no one among ourselves has spoken of until now — so delicate that they cannot be touched by anybody…”
I have had this book for many years but never read it. It was not very easy to read, not because of the content but because of the book’s size and weight, being thick and hardbound, difficult to read in bed where I do most of my reading. I know I have read parts of the Noli before, in English, when I was much younger, but no translation is as good as this one. I know I also read a few chapters in Pilipino — even acted them out for my eldest daughter so she would understand and pass her school year — but nothing was as beautiful or comprehensible as this translation. It is also obvious to me that Doña Soledad Locsin respected the writer and sought to translate exactly what it is he wanted to say.
Rizal wrote each chapter as a piece of a large puzzle, randomly handed to the reader so that in the end we would see not quite the whole picture. In the end we know what happened to everyone, from Capitan Tiago to Padre Damaso, Doña Victorina to Linares, who became Maria Clara’s jilted fiancé. We even know that Maria Clara became a somewhat crazy nun. But we do not know what happened to Crisostomo Ibarra, except that he was lying at the bottom of a banca that floated away, while the pursuing Spanish police called the Guardia Civil shot at Elias as he jumped out of the banca that he had shared with Ibarra to distract the guards.
If you are over 60, I recommend you read this translation of Noli Me Tangere. You will see fully what life was like when we were under the friars. How petty they were! You will question: what happened to our country? You will see how little has changed or that whatever has changed is very superficial. Filipinos stepped into the shoes of their colonizers and now act exactly the same way as the friars. And you will want to weep like Rizal did. He was executed at Bagumbayan, now the Luneta, in 1896, 115 years ago. Ninoy Aquino was shot at the airport in 1986, just a scrambling of the very same numbers. That was 25 years ago. Two executions. Two heroes. Each one followed by its own brand of uprising and still nothing much has changed.
Last Friday, Aug. 5, I was at the Little Theater watching the musical of Noli Me Tangere, tickets compliments of the National Historical Commission, who gave them to Rizal descendants. I would give the Noli production an “A” for effort. The libretto, if you could understand the words — because the orchestrated minus one was too loud so you couldn’t understand what they were singing — was written by National Artist Bien Lumbera, who was there. The performance, I thought, was too level. I am not sure I can explain it well. Usually you can draw a stage performance in waves, there are high, medium and low points, which shadow the plot. In this case it was like a straight line. Many of the descendants fell asleep. A few developed crushes on Gian Magdangal, who made a very good-looking Crisostomo Ibarra.
Ryan Cayabyab composed the music but there was no real standout piece. I thought that Sisa’s song, as she was singing it, was the best but I could not even attempt to hum it afterwards, meaning the melody was not compelling enough to stick in the audience’s mind. I was just glad that I was still reading the Noli when I watched the show because, I guess, I understood it more. While the cast and crew deserve congratulations for their work — an A for effort, as I said — it still needs a lot of polishing to make the audience truly understand the Noli. I think that is the point of a stage performance — to enlighten an audience. You perform to make the audience understand the story. That night nobody understood what was going on except that Crisostomo Ibarra and Maria Clara were in love and had to say goodbye because Padre Salvi was in love with her. But that was not all of the Noli.
I finished the book last night before going to sleep. I shut the book, put it on the floor beside my bed, and said aloud to no one in particular, “That was beautiful.” It really and truly was.

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