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We arrive as the Magsaysay era ends

9/16/2012

American Embassy on Dewey

But the pilot aims low at the summit of Mount Manung-gal. Hrakk! A wing snaps an ibalos tree. With a sickening speed, the plane plunges into the ground, spewing passengers through the gaping metal. Fuselage explodes a glorious orange and the furious heat melts everything left in the plane, including the president. Marcelino Nuya, who lives on the slope, recalls how the raging fire spits like gunshots as he, his son and his dog scramble up the mountain towards the wreckage.

By mid morning on Sunday, March 17 1957, the entire country is filled with anxiety and dread. After a day of fruitless air search, the lone survivor—a journalist badly burned and in shock—is brought by hammock to a hospital in Cebu. Nuya had carried him down the steep slope on his shoulders, then in a hammock to the Balamban River, up and down ravines and slopes for 18 hours. The media praise the heroism of Nuya and his dog Serging. Since the dog was named for the dead president’s rival, its name is changed to Avance!. Both man and dog are honored for their heroism, the man in Cebu and the dog at Malacañang.

My parents learn the news in Tokyo en route to Manila. We arrive the next day at the Manila International Airport. Dick is 31, Eunice is 27, Scott is 3, I’m almost 2, and Johanna is 5 months old. I insist on my sweet blue wool coat, but at the first blast of thick hot air I whip it off.

We clear customs and are greeted by fellow fraternal workers: the Palms, Fern Grant, the Crawfords. The men help with luggage as mom holds Johanna in one arm and my hand in the other. “Move quickly!” says Ernie Frei the Swiss missionary with the car, "Vice President Garcia arrives from Australia in a few minutes.” He takes us past the waiting motorcade of state vehicles, and then rice fields. “Scotty, look,” says dad, pointing to a farmer steering his carabao.

As the car turns onto Dewey Boulevard that runs along Manila Bay, a hot salt-fish breeze rustles the palm trees. We pass gathering mourners and vendors at the Shrine of our Mother of Perpetual Help at Baclaran Church. “You’re looking out on the famed Manila Bay where Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet.” My parents nod. “See that island out there,” he points with one hand as he steers past jeepneys and buses, “see it? Corregidor, last stand of American troops during WWII where the Japanese beat the Americans.” Dick and Eunice peer. “See that white building on the left ahead of us? U.S. Embassy?” He winks, “We only get passes on the 4th of July.” Ernie Frei’s not only Swiss; he’s also American. His Swiss citizenship meant the Japanese couldn’t intern him during the war and he played a critical role as a courier for the resistance.

He swings right down Herran Avenue, and deposits our family at a second floor guest apartment across from an all-night auto shop. The next day, my parents register at City Hall, a large bullet-ridden building with a Quonset hut beside it. On the hottest March on record, Eunice writes in her first letter home:

"We got tied up in the traffic which was mixed up due to the arrival of the cars bringing Magsaysay and the others killed in the plane crash on Sunday. Thousands lined the streets. What a time to arrive here! The next few months are very crucial ones, to say the least. We don’t know what the people’s real feelings are about the loss of Magsaysay."

Two million attended the funeral of President Magsaysay. He was the third president of the new Republic.

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We eat rice

9/15/2012

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“Co-co-coooo!” city roosters wake up the dark. As the air lightens, Manila’s birds burst into chatterous cacophony. By 6:00 a.m., it’s bright, not yet hot. The brown ribs of the walis tingting makes a “thWISK thWISK" sound as it sweeps up leaves for burning. It's an acrid smoke. “Pan de SAL, pan de SAL,” Elena runs out for small warm buns from the boy’s basket. “Ta-TA-ta-TA,” jeepneys honk up Herran.

Across the street at Philippine Christian College high school, there's a growing rumble of cars, vendors and students. At 8:00 a.m., Bayang magiliw blasts over the PCC loudspeakers calling us to school, work, and prayer.

We make our beds, dress, and brush our teeth. “Come to BREAKfast!” calls mom. Scott, Johanna and I scramble to the big wooden table. Mom leads us as we sing,
When morning gilds the skies my heart awakening cries,
May Jesus Christ be praised! At life and work and prayer
To Jesus I repair. May Jesus Christ be praised!

Daddy prays, “Eternal Lord....” If we don’t stuff fried or scrambled eggs into our pan de sal, we have eggs and fried rice, and always a slice of sweet red papaya with calamansi, little round fruit more maásim than limes.

In our blue kitchen, I sit at the middle table getting in the way. Under the porcelain sink, there’s an oilcan full of rice. That’s what we eat, rice. When it’s cooking, which is everyday, it has a bland white smell like laundry soap. “Do you eat bread?” friends and strangers ask, because Americans only eat bread.
“No,” I say proudly, “we eat rice.”

By 6:00 a.m., we start the meal with “Day is dying in the West” or,
Evening is here the board is spread.
Thanks be to God who gives us bread.
Praise God for bread, Amen.
Even though we don’t eat bread, we thank God for it.

My father prays, “Eternal Lord…” The plates are stacked and dad delivers us equal servings. If we eat fast enough, we can have seconds. I eat all the rice. But when Elena cooks bitter ampalaya, I drop-kick the small green stars under the table.

Homage to The Airconditioned Room

By May, the flame trees’ orange blossoms shimmer like fire on naked branches. By the heat of mid morning, it is too bright so you just squint. Your clothes develop pools of dark wet. Your handkerchief, which you have folded to mop your soppy brow, is streaked with dirt.

There is only one place in our house that is dry and cool: The Airconditioned Room. The AirCon is an old cranky King. Daddy shows Scotty how to turn it on.
“I wanna watch!” Dad turns to me,
“Don’t ever turn it on.” He says sternly. I nod meekly.
When I learn how to turn on the AirCon, I turn Off too soon and almost bust it.

How to turn on the air conditioner:

Flick the switch to Fan. Wait ‘til it rumbles and exhales a musty medicine smell. The windows rattle, which is a good sign. Wait a little more.
Then flick the switch to Cold. But don’t turn the arrow to too much Cold or it will turn back to Fan.
Don’t turn it to Off too soon or you will bust the air conditioner, says dad.

The Aircon’s musty rumbling rattles the windows. It purrs like Melting Snow, the cat who visits us on the kitchen stairs.

It’s not an injustice that our parents get to sleep in The Airconditioned Room. It belongs to everyone. This is because the b&w TV lives in The Airconditioned Room. We paddle through the house with a rangy mob for our one-hour ration of Betty Boop, Felix the Cat, and Popeye.

The Airconditioned Room also has the best bed for bouncing.
“Don’t jump on the bed.”
We jump and jump then–Crack! Johanna’s head hits the window sill. “Araayyy!” Blood dribbles through her stringy blond hair onto the sheets.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mooommy!”
Grownups swoop down in great alarm and whisk her away. Other than that, it is the safest bed.

When it's time to get ready for our beds, we squat under the low faucet to wash our pukes. When there’s no water, we scoop water with the tabo from big plastic pails in the bathroom. When pipes are dry, we can’t flush the toilet. It stinks with everybody’s bm together. But mom has stenciled dancing Oklahoma figures from her favorite folksong book on all the bathroom cupboards and toilet seats, so even when it’s stinky, the bathroom is ready for fiesta.

We’re dry; it’s night. The butiki, little lizards, climb onto the screens. A hidden gecko burps. “Gecho,” warns Laling, “stick to your skin.”

“Ping, Ping, read Ping!” We cluster around mom. I suck my two fingers while Ping, a lazy yellow duck, is late to the one-eyed boat with his twenty-one cousins on the Yangtze River. Or we hear how Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, the plump cheerful woman in an upside down house gets the sloppy girl to clean her room or the picky boy to eat his peas.

Then mom guides our words to God’s ears. She curls on the cool mahogany floor near our beds. When we are done, we wait for “Stealaway.” Her voice lifts off in the dark, “Steal away, steal away, steal away, to Jesus, steal away home....”

God is close since “Stealaway” is his most favorite song. Then God goes to bed. Johanna is making slurpy asleep sounds. From Dakota Street you hear “baluuuut,” “baluuuut,” from the duck egg man. Cats yowl. Sometimes deep into the Malate nights, multo rustle against the screens.

When it’s too hot, we each stealaway to The Airconditioned Room.

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No trees of this western world

9/15/2012

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No trees of this western world are as fertile or fierce as those of my first home, Manila. We were chary of the vicious bamboo, with leaves like knives, fine hair splinters, and a habit of hissing on windless nights. We were deceived by the narra, stiff as an aristocrat whose bark bled like menstrual blood. And we were forgiven with fruit: sampaloc, papaya, mangoes, bananas, lanzones and the plump avocado who splattered her soft green bombs throughout the entire side yard.

But the acacia, the acacia, an enormous mouth of a tree, gobbled up the sky. In dry season, fine filmy strings dripped like saliva from its branches. At the end of each string curled a terrible basil, furry black "itchy worms” that left insatiably itchy welts wherever they touched skin. The strings were a hanging mine field. We prayed for those moments when light escaped through the canopy and ran down the lines setting the entire lattice alight. Then, we'd wind our way effortlessly through the treachery.

That Saturday began in a usual manner. The trees calmly chatted with their neighbors while gaggles of birds landed and whooshed through their hair. Just a stone's throw away in the high school yard, Sousa’s marching music blasted the hot morning air, announcing ROTC practice. The high school boys, certain of their beauty in crisp khaki and black shoes, goose-stepped to the captain’s orders. Their secret girlfriends watched from the fence, giggling into their hands as the boys marched past the grand acacia that swallowed a swath of the high school yard.

I was five. My siblings and I were the neighborhood American kids, everywhere noted, then ignored. I wandered past the high school fence on my way to Reyes Sari Sari store for a sipa and plastic balloon, when–it was the next second– something magnificent happens you cannot pray for. You meet the wild angel who annunciates Mary. Huge wings scattered the acacia leaves above us. The girls gasped, “Ang ganda!” They marveled softly in Tagalog: parang Carmen Miranda, from Manila zoo, kaya. She must have escaped and wandered with increasing weariness over Manila's galvanized rooftops.

Oh, I loved her, swiftly. My smallness matched her height. She was my annunciation, regal and strange, her head and bill streaked yellow, maybe green, blue. Fear not. Wide winged, the mal'ach bird shifted slowly on her acacia limb. What? Fear not what? I whisper.

By then, others had seen her too. The ROTC boys gathered at the thick acacia trunk and peered up into the leaves. One boy gave a shout, picked up a small stone and whirled it at her. She gave a small screech and flapped, but did not fly. Pain sliced my heart. And I knew immediately, the way creatures smell terror, that panic had crippled her instincts. Inspired, another boy joined him, then another, another, until pandemonium broke up the military practice. They circled the tree, whooped and threw. Wet stones landed near by and blood splattered the shiny green leaves around me. Her blood was a fire engine red.

I was only five, small and not brave. I knew – don’t make a fuss in public. "Please," I pleaded as the pastor of the big church walked past, "Please tell them to stop!" He shook his head sadly.

Dazed, the bird shifted, one foot to the other. Under my breath, I begged, Fly! Fly, don't stay here, go up to the roof of the church where they can’t reach you! But she smelled her own death. She raised her brilliant bill up towards the crown of the tree and screeched just once. Then she drew up her strength and let go, out over the school yard, wide angel wings over the Quonset roof, toppling down.

*****************************************
I collect bloodied relics of her execution in a cardboard shoe box under my bed. For months, during siesta, I scoop out the box, slip off the cover and whisper to her stained leaves and stones. The old rocks sop up my sorrows, but her blood cries out. One night, four, she presses up through the mattress into my dreams, flapping her wet matted feathers, beak half gasped. I jerk awake, Ay, I can’t save you, Ay!

When we pack up for the ’68 winter of our American discontent, I find the dusty old box mouldering under my bed, spiders' abandoned nests among the stones and the leaves crumbling at my touch. She is distant, sad. “I won’t forget,” I whisper. In the dark earth at the root of the acacia, her elements join the soft bones of fallen fledglings, turtles, ducklings, and our Siamese, Saksit. Through my life she haunts me until she changes back to the angel. I will tell you that story later.

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The street ghosts, Malate 2003

2/25/2012

The digital clock blinks 3:23 a.m. in my fan-only room at Pension Natividad. But the fan doesn't work and after the 13 hour flight from SFO, can't sleep, counting number sheep - 3:24 - 3:25 - 3:26.  How can jeepneys rumble up Mabini and down del Pilar at this hour?  I curl up in my malong, wide awake in the thick pre-dawn.

Then, at the desk in the corner, a soft shift in the airless room. I grab the malong tight, heart lurching, hold my breath, invisible. Soft, like a fade-in, I see a man bent over writing something. When he rises, he's regal. He brushes something off -- is that a waistcoat? I stare hard, heart beating, still trying not to breathe. He absently brushing back his thick hair and turns his head to the door. I gasp, “Mabini?”

"Uh!" he lurches, jostles the papers. Some scatter to the floor. He peers at the bed as he scoops them up. I hoist up the malong, suddenly aware of my open, messy suitcase, my wet underwear on the bathroom rung. He tries a word of Latin, Spanish. Then tight with anger, he lapses into Tagalog, “Ano ang gagawin mo dito sa kwarto ko, American woman?”

His room? “It's Pension Natividad, sir. I paid!”   The architect of the Philippine revolution straightens up, pulls down his dark coat and turns his back. In English he hisses. “American saviors! Pft! What I learned about you in Guam. Umalis ka dyan!" He shoos me like a dog. But at this moment, a man in uniform materializes through the door. Mabini half-turns and murmurs in a low voice, “Kumusta General.” Distracted, they speak quietly. Who is that? Finally, I remember. It's Malvar, General Malvar.

The clock turns to 3:33. On cue, they materialize through the walls, the aparador, the mirror, the window. Luis ma Guerrero nods to M.Y. Orosa who greets Madre Ignacia with a sniff on the cheek. Bacobo arrives and takes up a quiet interchange with Nakpil who pulls out his copy of the anthem he composed for Bonifacio. Bacobo jokes, “ Ito nanaman, Nakpil?”

Marcelo del Pilar arrives with characteristic pomp. The first generation of balikbayan celebrities, he founded the nationalist magazine  la Solidaridad in Europe. The Filipino multo greet del Pilar with deference and nod imperceptibly at the Spaniard Herran who follows him in. Nobody invited his replacement Pedro Gil, so this at least is a sign that he’s welcome.
“Nandito ba lahat?”
“Dalawa pa,” says Gen Malvar slowly, checking the door.
Padre Faura the Jesuit astronomer and meterologist slips in through the dark window. A thick breeze follows in him. The bayani move to let the Spaniard through. He joins his countryman Herran on the edge of my bed. The padre sits with his hands clasped between his knees his profile tilting longingly towards the window and the city night.   Herran's back is tense.

Finally Dr. Vasquez arrives, antiseptic and bustling with friendly busyness. The Malate air in my room sparkles with delight. He is everyone’s favorite. “General, Padre, ah Luis …mi compare Apolinario” (No one else calls Mabini by his full first name, but he smiles back at the doctor affectionately). Dr. Vasquez greets the women, and suddenly stiffens. He sniffs. He looks in my direction, and then sees me, curled against the corner of the bed. The multo stop mid- sentence, turn in unison, and gasp. Their voices rumble “Ah! Aba, aba! ‘susmaryoseph!” "Infiltrator!" I cringe and look pleadingly at Mabini, who does not acknowledge me.

Then a small light brightens the Doctor’s aura.
“Ahhh… iha, iha…” he clears his throat and peers more quizzically.
“Kerry”
“O-o, near Ellinwood. A little girl then… When I was Wright Street…”

The others now gaze with keen interest. A kana who knew Malate streets when they were named American states. The thick air ruffles with ghostly laughter.

General Malvar booms, “Ahay, I lost the revolution but conquered Tennessee!” Everyone titters. “Vermont!” sings Nakpil. "Florida,” Mrs Orosa raises her hand, ”Carolina, Carolina!” the holy Ignacia covers her mouth and giggles like a girl.
“Georgia,” Luis adds his street with dignity. It’s the game, ‘Conquest of the Americas.’
[When did they change the street names in Malate from the American states of occupying troops to bayani of the Philippine- American war. I’m trying to remember all this as the bustle continues.]
“Bacobo?” “Nebraska.”
“Adriatico?” “Dakotas…”
“And who is not here?”
“Leon Ginto…”
“Pennsylvania.” Marcelo del Pilar knows all the street changes but doesn’t want to show off, especially since his street has been del Pilar since the 1950s.
“Sino pa?....”
“Colorado.”
“Sino, sino,”
“Agoncillo!” Marcelo can’t wait.
“Ahhhh,” the ghosts murmur in unison.
“Atchaka” adds the General who won’t be bested, “Admiral Dewey to President Roxas Boulevard!” His voice cracks; it’s a revolutionary memory that still bruises. All heads turn to Manila Bay, two blocks away. A grim, reflective quiet follows the levity.

Mabini watches this, bemused.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but we must begin our meeting.” He speaks in English, as a kind of deference, but doesn’t look at me. I sigh and sit up, gather the top of my malong with one hand, feeling about for my chinellas in the dark.
“Permítame acompañarla,” offers Padre Faura quietly as he rises,
“I will teach her to pray a rosary of the constellations.”
Midst the general mumbling, as I push open the door into the humid night, a light cool sense of the Padre at my elbow.

See:
Mock Battle of Manila, 1898
Old Street Names of Manila, Traveler on Foot

We arrive as the Magsaysay era ends

Handsome President Ramon Magsaysay is a friend of the common tao. He’s a “bare feet in the palace” president, writes an American author. He isn’t tisoy like Quezon, or a Japanese collaborator like Roxas, or corrupt like Quirino. He was a poor boy from Lubao, so he isn’t ashamed to visit the barrios. He invites peasants and laborers to tour Malacañang, the presidential residence, and encourages farmers to telegram him with their complaints. He understands the needs of a rural nation. Throughout the country, people see new bridges, roads, irrigation canals and artisan wells. He starts a land reform plan – mostly it means opening up Mindanao to settlers.

He crushes the Hukbalahap Communists with the help of the American General Lansdale. Some say he won, well, a "Lanslide" in 1953 with America’s assistance. He is America's man in Malacañang.

Cebu island is the domain of his arch-rival Sergio Osmeña, but his trip there is a great success. The president is eager to return to his bed at Malacañang. Past midnight, his plane lifts off from Cebu’s Lahug airport, skims the sea, and turns north towards Manila over the mountainous spine of the island. The night is clear, calm, even beneficent.

But the pilot aims low at the summit of Mount
Manung-gal.

Hrakk! A wing snaps an ibalos tree. With a sickening speed, the plane plunges into the ground, spewing passengers through the gaping metal. Fuselage explodes a glorious orange and the furious heat melts everything left in the plane, including the president. Marcelino Nuya, who lives on the slope, recalls how the raging fire spits like gunshots as he, his son and his dog scramble up the mountain towards the wreckage.

By mid morning on Sunday, March 17 1957, the entire country is filled with anxiety and dread. After a day of fruitless air search, the lone survivor—a journalist badly burned and in shock—is brought by hammock to a hospital in Cebu. Nuya had carried him down the steep slope on his shoulders, then in a hammock to the Balamban River, up and down ravines and slopes for 18 hours. The media praise the heroism of Nuya and his dog Serging. Since the dog was named for the dead president’s rival, its name is changed to Avance!. Both man and dog are honored for their heroism, the man in Cebu and the dog at Malacañang.

My parents learn the news in Tokyo en route to Manila. We arrive the next day at the Manila International Airport. Dick is 31, Eunice is 27, Scott is 3, I’m almost 2, and Johanna is 5 months old. I insist on my sweet blue wool coat, but at the first blast of thick hot air I whip it off.

We clear customs and are greeted by fellow fraternal workers: the Palms, Fern Grant, the Crawfords. The men help with luggage as mom holds Johanna in one arm and my hand in the other. “Move quickly!” says Ernie Frei the Swiss missionary with the car, "Vice President Garcia arrives from Australia in a few minutes.” He takes us past the waiting motorcade of state vehicles, and then rice fields. “Scotty, look,” says dad, pointing to a farmer steering his carabao.

As the car turns onto Dewey Boulevard that runs along Manila Bay, a hot salt-fish breeze rustles the palm trees. We pass gathering mourners and vendors at the Shrine of our Mother of Perpetual Help at Baclaran Church. “You’re looking out on the famed Manila Bay where Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet.” My parents nod. “See that island out there,” he points with one hand as he steers past jeepneys and buses, “see it? Corregidor, last stand of American troops during WWII where the Japanese beat the Americans.” Dick and Eunice peer. “See that white building on the left ahead of us? U.S. Embassy?” He winks, “We only get passes on the 4th of July.” Ernie Frei’s not only Swiss; he’s also American. His Swiss citizenship meant the Japanese couldn’t intern him during the war and he played a critical role as a courier for the resistance.

He swings right down Herran Avenue, and deposits our family at a second floor guest apartment across from an all-night auto shop. The next day, my parents register at City Hall, a large bullet-ridden building with a Quonset hut beside it. On the hottest March on record, Eunice writes in her first letter home:

"We got tied up in the traffic which was mixed up due to the arrival of the cars bringing Magsaysay and the others killed in the plane crash on Sunday. Thousands lined the streets. What a time to arrive here! The next few months are very crucial ones, to say the least. We don’t know what the people’s real feelings are about the loss of Magsaysay."

Two million attended the funeral of President Magsaysay. He was the third president of the new Republic.

Forward>>

We arrive as the Magsaysay era ends

We eat rice

Homage to The Airconditioned Room

No trees of this western world

The street ghosts, Malate 2003

We arrive as the Magsaysay era ends

Kerry (Kathryn) Poethig

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