Gilda cordero

Gilda Cordero-Fernando's "The Visitation of the Gods" While this is not the conventional love story like the other stories here, I thought it was a good addition to this blog.

Loving one's job is a love that is also noteworthy. One's dedication and passion for his or her chosen profession is

as noble as love felt for other people. Ms. Noel's principles and decisions show her dedication not only to her job,

but to her students, as well. This is sharply contrasted against the facade that her co -teachers are putting up and the

jaded opinions of Mr. Sawit. It is a good story that is a true and unforgiving reflection of the culture in public

schools and a must-read for those who are considering teaching as a profession.

Perhaps it's because the theme is close to my heart that I found this story moving. But, perhaps, Cordero-Fernando's

writing is also to blame. Read about the author here.

-

The letter announcing the visitation (a yearly descent upon the school by the superintendent, the district supervisors

and the division supervisors for "purposes of inspection and evaluation") had been delivered in the morning by a

sleepy janitor to the principal. The party was, the attached circular revealed a hurried glance, now at Pagkabuhay,

would be in Mapili by lunchtime, and barring typhoons, floods, volcanic eruptions and other acts of God, would be

upon Pugad Lawin by afternoon.

Consequently, after the first period, all the morning classes were dismissed. The Home Economics building, where

the fourteen visiting school officials were to be housed, became the hub of a general cleaning. Long -handled brooms

ravished the homes of peaceful spiders from cross beams and transoms, the capiz of the windows were scrubbed to

an eggshell whiteness, and the floors became mirrors after assiduous bouts with husk and candlewax. Open wood

boxes of Coronas largas were scattered within convenient reach of the carved sofa, the Vienna chairs and the stag-

horn hat rack. The sink, too, had been repaired and the spent bulbs replaced; a block of ice with patches of sawdust

rested in the hollow of the small unpainted icebox. There was a brief discussion on whether the French soap poster

behind the kitchen door was to go or stay: it depicted a trio of languorous nymphs in various stages

of deshabille reclining upon a scroll bearing the legend Parfumerie et Savonerie but the woodworking instructor

remembered that it had been put there to cover a rotting jagged hole - and the nymphs had stayed.

The base of the flagpole, too, had been cemented and the old gate given a whitewash. The bare grounds were, within

the remarkable space of two hours, transformed into a riotous bougainvillea garden. Potted blooms were still coming

in through the gate by wheelbarrow and bicycle. Buried deep in the secret earth, what supervisor could tell that such

gorgeous specimens were potted, or that they had merely been borrowed from the neighboring houses for the

visitation? Every school in the province had its special point of pride - a bed of giant squashes, an enclosure or white

king pigeons, a washroom constructed by the PTA. Yearly, Pugad Lawin High School had made capital of its

topography: rooted on the firm ledge of a hill, the schoolhouse was accessible by a series of stone steps carved on

the hard face of the rocks; its west windows looked out on the misty grandeur of a mountain chain shaped like a

sleeping woman. Marvelous, but the supervisors were expecting something tangible, and so this ye ar there was the

bougainvillea.

The teaching staff and the student body had been divided into four working groups. The first group, composed of

Mrs. Divinagracia, the harassed Home Economics instructor, and some of the less attractive lady teachers, were

banished to the kitchen to prepare the menu: it consisted of a 14-lb. suckling pig, macaroni soup, embutido, chicken

salad, baked lapu-lapu, morcon, leche flan and ice cream, the total cost of which had already been deducted from the

teachers' pay envelopes. Far be it to be said that Pugad Lawin was lacking in generosity, charm or good tango

dancers! Visitation was, after all, 99% impression - and Mr. Olbes, the principal, had promised to remember the

teachers' cooperation in that regard in the efficiency reports.

The teachers of Group Two had been assigned to procure the beddings and the dishes to be used for the supper. In

true bureaucratic fashion they had relegated the assignment to their students, who in turn had denuded their

neighbors' homes of cots, pillows, and sleeping mats. The only bed properly belonging to the Home Economics

Building was a four-poster with a canopy and the superintendent was to be given the honor of slumbering upon it.

Hence it was endowed with the grandest of the sleeping mats, two sizes large, but interwoven with a detailed map of

the archipelago. Nestling against the headboard was a quartet of the principal's wife's heart -shaped pillows - two

hard ones and two soft ones - Group Two being uncertain of the sleeping preferences of division heads.

"Structuring the Rooms" was the responsibility of the third group. It consisted in the construction (hurriedly) of

graphs, charts, and other visual aids. There was a scurrying to complete unfinished lesson plans and correct

neglected theme books; precipitate trips from bookstand to broom closet in a last desperate attempt to keep out of

sight the dirty spelling booklets of a preceding generation, unfinished projects and assorted rags - the key later

conveniently "lost" among the folds of Mrs. Olbes' (the principal's wife) balloon skirt.

All year round the classroom walls had been unperturbably blank. Now they were, like the grounds, miraculously

abloom - with cartolinaillustrations of Parsing, Amitosis Cell Division and the Evolut ion of the Filipina Dress -

thanks to the Group Two leader, Mr. Buenaflor (Industrial Arts) who, forsaken, sat hunched over a rainfall graph.

The distaff side of Group Two were either practicing tango steps or clustered around a vacationing teacher who had

taken advantage of her paid maternity leave to make a mysterious trip to Hongkong and had now returned with a

provocative array of goods for sale.

The rowdiest freshman boys composed the fourth and discriminated group. Under the stewardship of Miss Noel

(English), they had, for the past two days been "Landscaping the Premises," as assignment which, true to its

appellation, consisted in the removal of all unsightly objects from the landscape. That the dirty assignment had not

fallen on the hefty Mr. de Dios (Physics) or the crafty Mr. Baz (National Language), both of whom were now

hanging curtains, did not surprise Miss Noel. She had long been at odds with the principal, or rather, the principal's

wife - ever since the plump Mrs. Olbes had come to school in a fashionable sack dress and caught on Miss Noel's

mouth a half-effaced smile.

"We are such a fashionable group," Miss Noel had joked once at a faculty meeting. "If only our reading could also

be in fashion!" -- which statement obtained for her the ire of the only two teachers left talking to her. That Miss Noel

spent her vacations taking a summer course for teachers in Manila made matters even worse - for Mr. Olbes

believed that the English teacher attended these courses for the sole purpose of showing t hem up. And Miss Noel's

latest wrinkle, the Integration Method, gave Mr. Olbes a pain where he sat.

Miss Noel, on the other hand, thought utterly unbecoming and disgusting the manner in which the principal's wife

praised a teacher's new purse of shawl. ("It's so pretty, where can I get one exactly like it?" - a heavy-handed and

graceless hint) or the way she had of announcing, well in advance, birthdays and baptisms in her family (in other

words, "Prepare!"). The lady teachers were, moreover, for lack of household help, "invited" to the principal's house

to make a special salad, stuff a chicken or clean the silverware. But this certainly was much less than expected of the

vocational staff - the Woodworking instructor who was detailed to do all the painting and repair work on the

principal's house, the Poultry instructor whose stock of leghorns was depleted after every party of the Olbeses, and

the Automotive instructor who was forever being detailed behind the wheel of the principal's jeep - and Miss Noel

had come to take it in stride as one of the hazards of the profession.

But today, accidentally meeting in the lavatory, a distressed Mrs. Olbes had appealed to Miss Noel for help with her

placket zipper, after which she brought out a bottle of lotion and proceeded to douse the English teacher gratefully

with it. Fresh from the trash pits, Miss Noel, with supreme effort, resisted from making an untoward observation -

and friendship was restored on the amicable note of a stuck zipper.

At 1:30, the superintendent's car and the weapons carrier containing the supervisors drove through the town arch of

Pugad Lawin. A runner, posted at the town gate since morning, came panting down the road but was outdistanced by

the vehicles. The principal still in undershirt and drawers, shaving his jowls by the window, first sighted the

approaching party. Instantly, the room was in a hustle. Grimy socks, Form 137's and a half bottle of beer found their

way into Mr. Olbes' desk drawer. A sophomore breezed down the corridor holdin g aloft a newly-pressed barong on

a wire hanger. Behind the closed door, Mrs. Olbes wriggled determinedly into her corset.

The welcoming committee was waiting on the stone steps when the visitors alighted. It being Flag Day, the male

instructors were attired in barong, the women in red, white or blue dresses in obedience to the principal's circular.

The Social Studies teacher, hurrying down the steps to present thesampaguita garlands, tripped upon an unexpected

pot of borrowed bougainvillea. Peeping from an upstairs window, the kitchen group noted that there were only

twelve arrivals. Later it was brought out that the National Language Supervisor had gotten a severe stomach cramp

and had to be left at the Health Center; that Miss Santos (PE) and Mr. del Ros ario (Military Tactics) had eloped at

dawn.

Four pairs of hands fought for the singular honor of wrenching open the car door, and Mr. Alava emerged into the

sunlight. He was brown as asampaloc seed. Mr. Alava gazed with satisfaction upon the patriotic faculty and belched

his approval in cigar smoke upon the landscape. The principal, rivaling a total eclipse, strode towards Mr. Alava

minus a cuff link. "Compañero!" boomed the superintendent with outstretched arms.

"Compañero!" echoed Mr. Olbes. They embraced darkly.

There was a great to-do in the weapons carrier. The academic supervisor's pabaon of live crabs from Mapili had

gotten entangled with the kalamay in the Home Economics supervisor's basket. The district supervisor had mislaid

his left shoe among the squawking chickens and someone had stepped on the puto seco. There were overnight bags

and reed baskets to unload, bundles of perishable and unperishable going -away gifts. (The Home Economics staff's

dilemma: sans ice box, how to preserve all the food till the next morning). A safari of Pugad Lawin instructors lent

their shoulders gallantly to the occasion.

Vainly, Miss Noel searched in the crowd for the old Language Arts supervisor. All the years she had been in Pugad

Lawin, Mr. Ampil had come: in him there was no sickening bureaucracy, none of the self-importance and pettiness

that often characterized the small public official . He was dedicated to the service of education, had grown old in it.

He was about the finest man Miss Noel had ever known.

How often had the temporary teachers had to court the favor of their supervisors with lavish gifts of sweets, de hilo,

portfolios and what-not, hoping that they would be given a favorable recommendation! A permanent position for the

highest bidder. But Miss Noel herself had never experienced this rigmarole -- she had passed her exams and had

been recommended to the first vacancy by Mr. Ampil without having uttered a word of flattery or given a single gift.

It was ironic that even in education, you found the highest and the meanest forms of men.

Through the crowd came a tall unfamiliar figure in a loose coat, a triad of pens leaking in his pocket. Under the

brave nose, the chin had receded like a gray hermit crab upon the coming of a great wave. "Miss Noel, I p resume?"

said the stranger.

The English teacher nodded. "I am the new English supervisor - Sawit is the name." The tall man shook her hand

warmly.

"Did you have a good trip, Sir?"

Mr. Sawit made a face. "Terrible!"

Miss Noel laughed. "Shall I show you to your quarters? You must be tired."

"Yes, indeed," said Mr. Sawit. "I'd like to freshen up. And do see that someone takes care of my orchids, or my wife

will skin me alive."

The new English supervisor gathered his portfolios and Miss Noel picked up the heavy load of orchids. Silently,

they walked down the corridor of the Home Economics building, hunter and laden Indian guide.

"I trust nothing's the matter with Mr. Ampil, Sir?"

"Then you haven't heard? The old fool broke a collar bone. He's dead."

"Oh."

"You see, he insisted on doing all the duties expected of him - he'd be ahead of us in the school we were visiting if

he felt we were dallying on the road. He'd go by horseback, or carabao sled to the distant ones where the road was

inaccessible by bus - and at his age! Then, on our visitation to barrio Tungkod - you know that place, don't you?"

Miss Noel nodded.

"On the way to the godforsaken island, that muddy hellhole, he slipped on the banca - and well, that's it."

"How terrible."

"Funny thing is - they had to pass the hat around to buy him a coffin. It turned out the fellow was as poor as a

churchmouse. You'd think, why this old fool had been thirty -three years in the service. Never a day absent. Never a

day late. Never told a lie. You'd think at least he'd get a decent burial - but he hadn't reached 65 and wasn't going to

get a cent he wasn't working for. Well, anyway, that's a thorn off your side."

Miss Noel wrinkled her brow, puzzled.

"I thought all teachers hated strict supervisors." Mr. Sawit elucidated. "Didn't you all quake for your life when Mr.

Ampil was there waiting at the door of the classroom even before you opened it with your key?"

"Feared him, yes," said Miss Noel. "But also respected and admired him for what he stood for."

Mr. Sawit shook his head smiling. "So that's how the wind blows," he said, scratching a speck of dust off his

earlobe.

Miss Noel deposited the supervisor's orchids in the corridor. They had reached the reconverted classroom that Mr.

Sawit was to occupy with two others.

"You must be kind to us poor supervisors," said Mr. Sawit as Miss Noel took a cake of soap and a towel from the

press. "The things we go through!" Meticulously, Mr. Sawit peeled back his shirt sleeves to expose his pale hairless

wrists. "At Pagkabuhay, Miss What's-her-name, the grammar teacher, held a demonstration class under the mango

trees. Quite impressive, and modern; but the class had been so well rehearsed that they were reciting like machine

guns. I think it's some kind of a code they have, like if the student knows the answer he is to raise his left hand, and

if he doesn't he is to raise his right, something to that effect." Mr. Sawit reached for the towel hanging on Miss

Noel's arm.

"What I mean to say is, hell, what's the use of going through all thatpalabas? As I always say," Mr. Sawit raised his

arm and pumped it vigorously in the air, "Let's get to the heart of what matters."

Miss Noel looked up with interest. "You mean get into the root of the problem?"

"Hell no!" the English supervisor said, "I mean the dance! I always believe there's no school problem that a good

round of tango will not solve!"

Mr. Sawit groped blindly for the towel to wipe his dripping face and came up to find Miss Noel smiling.

"Come, girl," he said lamely. "I was really only joking."

As soon as the bell rang, Miss Noel entered I-B followed by Mr. Sawit. The students were nervous. You could see

their hands twitching under the desks. Once in a while they glanced apprehensively behind to where Mr. Sawit sat

on a cane chair, straight as a bamboo. But as the class began, the nervousness vanished and the boys launched into

the recitation with aplomb. Confidently, Miss Noel sailed through a sea of prepositions, usin g the Oral Approach

Method:

"I live in a barrio."

"I live in a town."

"I live in Pugad Lawin."

"I live on a street."

"I live on Calle Real…"

Mr. Sawit scribbled busily on his pad.

Triumphantly, Miss Noel ended the period with a trip to the back of the building where the students had constructed

a home-made printing press and were putting out their first school paper.

The inspection of the rest of the building took exactly half an hour. It was characterized by a steering away from the

less presentable parts of the school (except for the Industrial Arts supervisor who, unwatched, had come upon and

stood gaping at the French soap poster). The twenty-three strains of bougainvillea received such a chorus of praise

and requests for cutting that the poor teachers were nonplussed on how to meet them withou t endangering life and

limb from their rightful owners. The Academic supervisor commented upon the surprisingly fresh appearance of the

Amitosis chart and this was of course followed by a ripple of nervous laughter. Mr. Sawit inquired softly of Miss

Noel what the town's cottage industry was, upon instructions of his uncle, the supervisor.

"Buntal hats," said Miss Noel.

The tour ended upon the sound of the dinner bell and at 7 o'clock the guests sat down to supper. The table, lorded

over by a stuffed Bontoc eagle, was indeed an impressive sight. The flowered soup plates borrowed from Mrs.

Valenton vied with Mrs. De los Santos' bone china. Mrs. Alejandro's willoware server rivalled but could not quite

outshine the soup tureens of Mrs. Cruz. Pink paper napkins blossomed grandly in a water glass.

The superintendent took the place of honor at the head of the table with Mr. Olbes at his right. And the feast began.

Everyone partook heavily of the elaborate dishes; there were second helpings and many requests for toothpicks. On

either side of Mr. Alava, during the course of the meal, stood Miss Rosales and Mrs. Olbes, the former fanning him,

the latter boning thelapu-lapu on his plate. The rest of the Pugad Lawin teachers, previously fed on hopia and coke,

acted as waitresses. Never was a beer glass empty, never a napkin out of reach, and the supervisors, with murmured

apologies, belched approvingly. Towards the end of the meal, Mr. Alava inquired casually of the principal where he

could purchase some buntalhats. Elated, the latter replied that it was the cottage industry right here in Pugad Lawin.

They were, however, the principal said, not for sale to colleagues. The Superintendent shook his head and said he

insisted on paying, and brought out his wallet, upon which the principal was so offended he would not continue

eating. At last the superintendent said, all right, compañero, give me one or two hats, but the principal shook his

head and ordered his alarmed teachers to round up fifty; and the ice cream was served.

Close upon the wings of the dinner tripped the Social Hour. The hosts and the guests repaired to the sala where

a rondalla of high school boys were playing an animated rendition of "Merry Widow" behind the hat rack. There

was a concerted reaching for open cigar boxes and presently the room was clouded with acrid black smoke. Mr.

Olbes took Miss Noel firmly by the elbow and steered her towards Mr. Alava who, deep in a cigar, sat wide -legged

on the carved sofa. "Mr. Superintendent," said the principal. "This is Miss Noel, our English teacher. She would be

greatly honored if you open the dance with her."

"Compañero," twinkled the superintendent. "I did not know Pugad Lawin grew such exquisite flowers."

Miss Noel smiled thinly. Mr. Alava's terpsichorean knowledge had never advanced beyond a bumbling waltz. They

rocked, gyrated, stumbled, recovered, rolled back into the center, amid a wave of teasing and applause. To each of

the supervisors, in turn, the principal presented a pretty instructor, while the rest, unattractive or painfully shy, and

therefore unfit offering to the gods, were left to fend for themselves. The first number was followed by others in

three-quarter time and Miss Noel danced most of them with Mr. Sawit.

At ten o'clock, the district supervisor suggested that they all drive to the next town where the fiesta was being

celebrated with a big dance in the plaza. All the prettier lady teachers were drafted and the automotive instructor was

ordered behind the wheel of the weapons carrier. Miss Noel remained behind together with Mrs. Divinagracia and

the Home Economics staff, pleading a headache. Graciously, Mr. Sawit also remained behind.

As Miss Noel repaired to the kitchen, Mr. Sawit followed her. "The principal tells me you are quite headstrong, Miss

Noel," he said. "But then I don't put much stock by what principals say."

Miss Noel emptied the ashtrays in the trash can. "If he meant why I refused to dance with Mr. Lucban…"

"No, just things in general," said Mr. Sawit. "The visitation, for ins tance. What do you think of it?"

Miss Noel looked into Mr. Sawit's eyes steadily. "Do you want my frank opinion, Sir?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, I think it's all a farce."

"That's what I've heard - what makes you think that?"

"Isn't it obvious? You announce a whole month ahead that you're visiting. We clean the schoolhouse, tuck the trash

in the drawers, bring out our best manners. As you said before, we rehearse our classes. Then we roll out the red

carpet - and you believe you observe us in our everyday surrounding, in our everyday comportment?"

"Oh, we know that."

"That's what I mean - we know that you know. And you know that we know that you know."

Mr. Sawit gave out an embarrassed laugh. "Come now, isn't that putting it a trifle strongly?"

"No," replied Miss Noel. "In fact, I overheard one of your own companions say just a while ago that if

your lechon were crisper than that of the preceding school, if our pabaon were more lavish, we would get a higher

efficiency rating."

"Of course he was merely joking. I see what Mr. Olbes meant about your being stubborn."

"And what about one supervisor, an acquaintance of yours, I know, who used to come just before the town fiesta and

assign us the following items: 6 chickens, 150 eggs, 2 goats, 12 leche flans. I know the list by heart - I was assigned

the checker."

"There are a few miserable exceptions…"

"What about the sweepstakes agent supervisor who makes a ticket of the teacher's clearance for the withdrawal of

his pay? How do you explain him?"

Mr. Sawit shook his head as if to clear it.

"Sir, during the five years that I've taught, I've done my best to live up to my ideals. Yet I please nobody. It's the

same old narrow conformism and favor-currying. What matters is not how well one teaches but how well one has

learned the art of pleasing the powers-that-be and it's the same all the way up."

Mr. Sawit threw his cigar out of the window in an arc. "So you want to change the world. I've been in the service a

long time, Miss Noel. Seventeen years. This bald spot on my head caused mostly by new teachers like you who want

to set the world on fire. In my younger days I wouldn't hesitate to recommend you for expulsion for your rash

opinions. But I've grown old and mellow - I recognize spunk and am willing to give it credit. But spunk is only hard-

headedness when not directed towards the proper channels. But you're young enough and you'll learn, the hard way,

singed here and there - but you'll learn."

"How are you so sure?" asked Miss Noel narrowly.

"They all do. There are thousands of teachers. They're mostly disillusioned but they go on teaching - it's the only

place for a woman to go."

"There will be a reclassification next month," continued Mr. Sawit. "Mr. Olbes is out to get you - he can, too, on

grounds of insubordination, you know that. But I'm willing to stick my neck out for you if you stop being such an

idealistic fool and henceforth express no more personal opinions. Let sleeping dogs lie, Miss Noel. I shall give you a

good rating after this visitation because you remind me of my younger sister, if for no other reason. Then after a

year, when I find that you learned to curb your tongue, I will recommend you for a post in Manila where your talents

will not be wasted. I am related to Mr. Alava, you know."

Miss Noel bit her lip in stunned silence. Is this what she had been wasting her years on? She had worked, she had

slaved - with a sting of tears she remembered all the parties missed ("Can't wake up early tomorrow, Clem"),

alliances forgone ("Really, I haven't got the time, maybe some other year?") the chances by-passed ("Why, she's

become a spinster!") - then to come face to face with what one has worked for - a boor like Mr. Sawit! How did one

explain him away? What syllogisms could one invent to rub h im out of the public school system? Below the

window, Miss Noel heard a giggle as one of the Pugad Lawin teachers was pursued by a mischievous supervisor in

the playground.

"You see," the voice continued, "education is not so much a matter of brains as ge tting along with one's fellowmen,

else how could I have risen to my present position?" Mr. Sawit laughed harshly. "All the fools I started out with are

still head-teachers in godforsaken barrios, and how can one be idealistic in a mudhole? Goodnight, my de ar." Mr.

Sawit's hot trembling hand (the same mighty hand that fathered the 8-A's that made or broke English teachers) found

its way swiftly around her waist, and hot on her forehead Miss Noel endured the supreme insult of a wet, fatherly

kiss.

Give up your teaching, she heard her aunt say again for the hundredth time, and in a couple of months you might be

the head. We need someone educated because we plan to export.

Oh, to be able to lie in a hammock on the top of the hill and not have to worry about th e next lesson plan! To have

time to meet people, to party, to write.

She remembered Clem coming into the house (after the first troubled months of teaching) and persuading her to

come to Manila because his boss was in need of a secretary. Typing! Filing! Shorthand! She had spat the words

contemptuously back at him. I was given a head so I could think! Pride goeth… Miss Noel bowed her head in

silence. Could anyone in the big, lighted offices of the city possibly find use for a stubborn, cranky, BSE major?

As Miss Noel impaled the coffee cups upon the spokes of the drainboard, she heard the door open and the student

named Leon come in for the case of beer empties.

"Pandemonium over, Ma'am?" he asked. Miss Noel smile dimly. Dear perceptive Leon. He wanted to become a

lawyer. Pugad Lawin's first. What kind of a piker was she to betray a dream like that? What would happen to him if

she wasn't there to teach him his p's and f's? Deep in the night and the silence outside flickered an occasional

gaslight in a hut on the mountain shaped like a sleeping woman. Was Porfirio deep in a Physics book? (Oh, but he

mustn't blow up any more pigshed.) What was Juanita composing tonight? (An ode on starlight on the trunk of a

banana tree?) Leon walked swiftly under the window: in Miss Noel's eyes he had already won a case. Why do I have

to be such a darn missionary?

Unafraid, the boy Leon stepped into the night, the burden of bottles light on his back.

After breakfast the next morning, the supervisors packed their belongings and were soon ready. Mr. Buenaflor

fetched a camera and they all posed on the sunny steps for a souvenir photo: the superintendent with Mr. and Mrs.

Olbes on either side of him and the minor gods in descending order on the Home Economics stairs. Miss Noel was

late - but she ran to take her place with pride and humility on the lowest rung of the school's hierarchy

“All should be equal” is Karl Marx’s view of things – society, community and the like.

Everyone owns everything. Readers or critics, using the lens of Karl Marx, are interested in

how the lower working classes are opposed in everyday life and in literature. The story of

Gilda Fernando, “The Visitation of the Gods”, had clearly shown the inequality of the system

in the Philippines, especially the Educational System.

The story is about the visitation of the superintendent, the district supervisors and the

division supervisors for the purposes of inspection and evaluation to the public schools,

especifically the Pugad Lawin School. The said event, which was described in the story as

a barring typhoons, floods, volcanic eruptions and other acts of God, means that the school

must prepare itself, making all the necessary cleaning, repairing, beautifying, and even the

faking of a good educational system. The principal of the school, Mr. Olbes, was very

desperate to impress the superintendent and the supervisors that he even asked for the

school facilities, which are supposed to be used but kept unused to preserve them for this

event, to be used and even borrowed the bougainvilla plants from the neighboring house

just for the visitation. One of the supervisors said that some class had been so well

rehearsed that they were reciting like machine guns, it’s like they have some sort of a code,

like if the student knows the answer he is to raise his left hand, and if he doesn’t he is to

raise his right, something to that effect. So it means that the supervisors know all these

pretentions, yet do nothing about them. They also pretend that they don’t know all the

pretentions made by the schools they are to visit.

The oppression of the lower working classes in the story are the teachers, which was

evidently shown when they were ‘invited’ to the principal’s house to make a special salad,

stuff a chicken or clean the silverware. Others are asked to do all the painting and repair

work on the principal’s house, and all that. During dinner, when there was some kind of

party or entertainment, the pretty instructors were presented to each of the supervisors for

dance, which made them like a prostitutes. Whatever the principal orders, the teacher would

follow. The teachers, who exerted much effort for this, receive a deduction from their pay

envelopes to pay for all the expenses of the event’s preparations.

A teacher should be the one who teaches, who educates. He/she is responsible of the

eruditions and even for the future of everyone – of tomorrow’s best doctors, lawyers,

politicians. But the story tells the other way around: what matters is not how well one

teaches but how well one has learned the art of pleasing the powers.Mr. Ampil had been

thirty-years in the service. Never a day absent. Never a day late. Never told a lie. But he

hadn’t reached 65 and wasn’t going to get a cent he wasn’t work ing for. Those who do

good, who do what is supposed to be done, are those who are receiving less, who are

being disliked. Miss Noel was being reminded constantly to give up teaching, to be able to

lie in a hammock on the top of the hill and not have to worry about the next lesson plan.

“Great power comes with great responsibility” the uncle of Spiderman once said, but

the story believes the other way around. The more powerful you are, the more you can be

pleasurable and popular, the easier the tasks you do. The less power you have, the less

opportunity you will have, the more you will be oppressed by those with power. That is the

reason why Karl Marx opposes the capitalism, the social inequalities. All should be equal,

where everyone owns everything.

FAITH, LOVE, TIME AND DR. LAZARO

By: Greg Brillantes

From the upstairs veranda, Dr. Lazaro had a view of stars, the country darkness, the lights on the distant

highway at the edge of town. The phonograph in the sala played Chopin – like a vast sorrow controlled,

made familiar, he had wont to think. But as he sat there, his lean frame in the habitual slack repose took

after supper, and stared at the plains of night that had evoked gentle images and even a kind of peace (in

the end, sweet and invincible oblivion), Dr. Lazaro remembered nothing, his mind lay untouched by any

conscious thought, he was scarcely aware of the April heat; the pattern of music fell around him and

dissolved swiftly, uncomprehended. It was as though indifference were an infection that had entered his

blood it was everywhere in his body. In the scattered light from the sala his angular face had a dusty,

wasted quality, only his eyes contained life. He could have remained there all evening, unmoving, and

buried, it is were, in a strange half-sleep, had his wife not come to tell him he was wanted on the phone.

Gradually his mind stirred, focused; as he rose from the chair he recognized the somber passage in the

sonata that, curiosly, made him think of ancient monuments, faded stone walls, a greyness. The brain

filed away an image; and arrangement of sounds released it… He switched off the phonograph,

suppressed and impatient quiver in his throat as he reached for the phone: everyone had a claim on his

time. He thought: Why not the younger ones for a change? He had spent a long day at the provincial

hospital.

The man was calling from a service station outside the town – the station after the agricultural high

school, and before the San Miguel bridge, the man added rather needlessly, in a voice that was frantic yet

oddly subdued and courteous. Dr. Lazaro thad heard it countless times, in the corridors of the hospitals,

in waiting rooms: the perpetual awkward misery. He was Pedro Esteban, the brother of t he doctor’s

tenant in Nambalan, said the voice, trying to make itself less sudden remote.

But the connection was faulty, there was a humming in the wires, as though darkness had added to the

distance between the house in the town and the gas station beyond the summer fields. Dr. Lazaro could

barely catch the severed phrases. The man’s week -old child had a high fever, a bluish skin; its mouth

would not open to suckle. They could not take the baby to the poblacion, they would not dare move it; its

body turned rigid at the slightest touch. If the doctor would consent to come at so late an hour, Esteban

would wait for him at the station. If the doctor would be so kind…

Tetanus of the newborn: that was elementary, and most likely it was so hopeless, a waste of time. Dr.

Lazaro said yes, he would be there; he had committed himself to that answer, long ago; duty had taken

the place of an exhausted compassion. The carelessness of the poor, the infected blankets, the toxin

moving toward the heart: they were casual scribbled items in a clinical report. But outside the grilled

windows, the night suddenly seemed alive and waiting. He had no choice left now but action: it was the

only certitude – he sometimes reminded himself – even if it would prove futile, before, the descent into

nothingness.

His wife looked up from her needles and twine, under the shaded lamp of the bedroom; she had finished

the pullover for the grandchild in Bagiuo and had begun work, he noted, on another of those altar

vestments for the parish church. Religion and her grandchild certainly kept her busy … She looked at

him, into so much to inquire as to be spoken to: a large and placid woman.

“Shouldn’t have let the drive go home so early,” Dr. Lazaro said. “They had to wait till now to call …

Child’s probably dead…”

“Ben can drive for you.”

“I hardly see that boy around the house. He seems to be on vacation both from home and in school.”

“He’s downstairs,” his wife said.

Dr. Lazaro put on fresh shirt, buttoned it with tense, abrupt motions, “I thought he’d gone out again…

Who’s that girl he’s been seeing?...It’s not just warm, it’s hot. You should’ve stayed on in Baguio…

There’s disease, suffering, death, because Adam ate the apple. They must have an answer to

everything… “He paused at the door, as though for the echo of his words.

Mrs. Lazaro had resumed the knitting; in the circle of yellow light, her head bowed, she seemed absorbed

in some contemplative prayer. But her silences had ceased t disturb him, like the plaster saints she kept

in the room, in their cases of glass, or that air she wore of conspiracy, when she left with Ben for Mass in

the mornings. Dr. Lazaro would ramble about miracle drugs, politics, music, the common sense of his

unbelief; unrelated things strung together in a monologue; he posed questions, supplied with his own

answers; and she would merely nod, with an occasional “Yes?” and “Is that so?” and something like a

shadow of anxiety in her gaze.

He hurried down the curving stairs, under the votive lamps of the Sacred Heart. Ben lay sprawled on the

sofa, in the front parlor; engrossed in a book, one leg propped against the back cushions. “Come along,

we’re going somewhere,” Dr. Lazaro said, and went into the clinic for his medical bag. He added a vial of

penstrep, an ampule of caffeine to the satchel’s content’s; rechecked the bag before closing it; the cutgut

would last just one more patient. One can only cure, and know nothing beyond one’s work… There had

been the man, today, in the hospital: the cancer pain no longer helped by the doses of morphine; the

patients’s eyes flickering their despair in the eroded face. Dr. Lazaro brushed aside the stray vision as he

strode out of the whitewashed room; he was back in his element, among syringes, steel instruments,

quick decisions made without emotion, and it gave him a kind of blunt energy.

I’ll drive, Pa?” Ben followed him through the kitchen, where the maids were ironing the week’s wash,

gossiping, and out to the yard shrouded in the dimness of the single bulb under the eaves. The boy push

back the folding doors of the garage and slid behind the wheel.

“Somebody’s waiting at the gas station near San Miguel. You know the place?”

“Sure,” Ben said.

The engine sputtered briefly and stopped. “Battery’s weak,” Dr. Lazaro said. “Try it without the lights,” and

smelled the gasoline overflow as the old Pontiac finally lurched around the house and through the

trellised gate, its front sweeping over the dry dusty street.

But he’s all right, Dr. Lazaro thought as they swung smoothly into the main avenue of the town, past the

church and the plaza, the kiosko bare for once in a season of fiestas, the lam-posts shining on the quiet

square. They did not speak; he could sense his son’s concentration on the road, and he noted, with a

tentative amusement, the intense way the boy sat behind the wheel, his eagerness to be of help. They

passed the drab frame houses behind the marketplace, and the capitol building on its landscaped hill, the

gears shifting easily as they went over the railroad tracks that crossed the asphalted street.

Then the road was pebbled and uneven, the car bucking slightly; and they were speeding between open

fields, a succession of narrow wooden bridges breaking the crunching drive of the wheels. Dr. Lazaro

gazed at the wide darkness around them, the shapes of trees and bushes hurling toward them and sliding

away and he saw the stars, hard glinting points of light yards, black space, infinite distances; in the

unmeasured universe, man’s life flared briefly and was gone, traceless in the void. He turned away from

the emptiness. He said: “You seem to have had a lot of practice, Ben.”

“A lot of what, Pa?”

“The ways you drive. Very professional.”

In the glow of the dashboard lights, the boy’s face relaxed, smiled. “Tio Cesar let me use his car, in

Manila. On special occasions.”

“No reckless driving now,” Dr. Lazaro said. “Some fellows think it’s smart. Gives them a thrill. Don’t be like

that.”

“No, I won’t, Pa. I just like to drive and – and go place, that’s all.”

Dr. Lazaro watched the young face intent on the road, a cowlick over the forehead, the mall curve of the

nose, his own face before he left to study in another country, a young student of full illusions, a lifetime

ago; long before the loss of faith, God turning abstract, unknowable, and everywhere, it seemed to him,

those senseless accidents of pain. He felt a need to define unspoken things, to come closer somehow to

the last of his sons; one of these days, before the boy’s vacation was over, they might to on a pic nic

together, a trip to the farm; a special day for the two of them – father and son, as well as friends. In the

two years Ben had been away in college, they had written a few brief, almost formal letters to each other:

your money is on the way, these are the best years, make the most of them…

Time was moving toward them, was swirling around and rushing away and it seemed Dr. Lazaro could

almost hear its hallow receding roar; and discovering his son’s profile against the flowing darkness, he

had a thirst to speak. He could not find what it was he had meant to say.

The agricultural school buildings came up in the headlights and glided back into blurred shapes behind a

fence.

“What was that book you were reading, Ben?”

“A biography,” the boy said.

“Statesman? Scientist maybe?”

It’s about a guy who became a monk.”

“That’s your summer reading?” Dr. Lazaro asked with a small laugh, half mockery, half affection. “You’re

getting to be a regular saint, like your mother.”

“It’s an interesting book,” Ben said.

“I can imagine…” He dropped the bantering tone. “I suppose you’ll go on to medicine after your AB?”

“I don’t know yet, Pa.”

Tiny moth like blown bits of paper flew toward the windshield and funneled away above them. “You don’t

have to be a country doctor like me, Ben. You could build up a good practice in the city. Specialized in

cancer, maybe or neuro-surgery, and join a good hospital.” It was like trying to recall some rare

happiness, in the car, in the shifting darkness.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Ben said. It’s a vocation, a great one. Being able to really help people, I

mean.”

“You’ve done well in math, haven’t you?”

“Well enough, I guess,” Ben said.

Engineering is a fine course too, “ Dr. Lazaro said. “There’ll be lots of room for engineers . Planners and

builders, they are what this country needs. Far too many lawyers and salesmen these days. Now if your

brother –“ He closed his eyes, erasing the slashed wrists, part of the future dead in a boarding-house

room, the landlady whimpering, “He was such a nice boy, doctor, your son…” Sorrow lay in ambush

among the years.

“I have all summer to think about, “ Ben said.

“There’s no hurry,” Dr. Lazaro said. What was it he had wanted to say? Something about knowing each

other, about sharing; no, it was not that at all…

The stations appeared as they coasted down the incline of a low hill, its fluorescent lights the only

brightness on the plain before them, on the road that led farther into deeper darkness. A freight truck was

taking on a load of gasoline as they drove up the concrete apron and came to a stop beside the station

shed.

A short barefoot man in a patchwork shirt shuffled forward to meet them.

I am Esteban, doctor,” the man said, his voice faint and hoarse, almost inaudible, and he bowed slightly

with a careful politeness. He stood blinking, looking up at the doctor, who had taken his bag and flashlight

form the car.

In the windless space, Dr. Lazaro could hear Esteban’s labored breathing, the clank of the metal nozzle

as the attendant replaced it in the pump. The men in the truck stared at them curiously.

Esteban said, pointing at the darkness beyond the road: “We will have to go through those fields, doctor,

then cross the river,” The apology for yet one more imposition was a wounded look in his eyes. He added,

in his subdued voice: “It’s not very far…” Ben had spoken to the attendants and was locking the car.

The truck rumbled and moved ponderously onto the road, its throb strong and then fading in the warm

night stillness.

“Lead the way, “ Dr. Lazaro said, handing Esteban the flashlight.

They crossed the road, to a cleft in the embankment that bordered the fields, Dr. Lazaro was sweating

now in the dry heat; following the swinging ball of the flashlight beam, sorrow wounded by the s tifling

night, he felt he was being dragged, helplessly, toward some huge and complicated error, a meaningless

ceremony. Somewhere to his left rose a flapping of wings, a bird cried among unseen leaves: they walked

swiftly, and there was only the sound of the silence, the constant whirl of crickets and the whisper of their

feet on the path between the stubble fields.

With the boy close behind him, Dr. Lazaro followed Esteban down a clay slope to the slope and ripple of

water in the darkness. The flashlight showed a banca drawn up at the river’s edge. Esteban wade waist-

deep into the water, holding the boat steady as Dr. Lazaro and Ben stepped on the board. In the

darkness, with the opposite bank like the far rise of an island, Dr. Lazaro had a moment’s tremor of fear

as the boar slide out over the black water; below prowled the deadly currents; to drown her in the dephts

of the night… But it took only a minute to cross the river. “We’re here doctor,” Esteban said, and they

padded p a stretch of sand to a clump of trees; a dog started to bark, the shadows of a kerosene lamp

wavered at a window.

Unsteady on a steep ladder, Dr. Lazaro entered the cave of Esteban’s hut. The single room contained the

odors he often encountered but had remained alien to, stirring an impersonal disgust: the sourish decay,

the smells of the unaired sick. An old man greeted him, lisping incoherently; a woman, the grandmother,

sat crouched in a corner, beneath a famed print of the Mother of Perpetual Help; a boy, about ten, slept

on, sprawled on a mat. Esteban’s wife, pale and thin, lay on the floor with the sick child beside her.

Motionless, its tiny blue-tinged face drawn way from its chest in a fixed wrinkled grimace, the infant

seemed to be straining to express some terrible ancient wisdom.

Dr. Lazaro made a cursory check – skin dry, turning cold; breathing shallow; heartbeat

fast and irregular. And I that moment, only the child existed before him; only the child and his own mind

probing now like a hard gleaming instrument. How strange that it should still live, his mind said as it

considered the spark that persisted within the rigid and tortured body. He was alone with the child, his

whole being focused on it, in those intense minutes shaped into a habit now by so many similar

instances: his physician’s knowledge trying to keep the heart beating, to revive an ebbing life and

somehow make it rise again.

Dr. Lazaro removed the blankets that bundled the child and injected a whole ampule to check the tonic

spasms, the needle piercing neatly into the sparse flesh; he broke another ampule, with deft precise

movements , and emptied the syringe, while the infant lay stiff as wood beneath his hands. He wiped off

the sweat running into his eyes, then holding the rigid body with one hand, he tried to draw air into the

faltering lungs, pressing and releasing the chest; but even as he worked to rescue the child, the bluish

color of its face began to turn gray.

Dr. Lazaro rose from his crouch on the floor, a cramped ache in his shoulders, his mouth dry. The

lamplight glistened on his pale hollow face as he confronted the room again, the stale heat, the poverty.

Esteban met his gaze; all their eyes were upon him, Ben at the door, the old man, the woman in the

corner, and Esteban’s wife, in the trembling shadows.

Esteban said: “Doctor..”

He shook his head, and replaced the syringe case in his bag, slowly and deliberately, and fastened the

clasp. T Here was murmuring him, a rustle across the bamboo floor, and when he turned, Ben was

kneeling beside the child. And he watched, with a tired detached surprise, as the boy poured water from a

coconut shell on the infant’s brow. He caught the words half-whispered in the quietness: “.. in the name of

the Father.. the Son… the Holy Ghost…”

The shadows flapped on the walls, the heart of the lamp quivering before it settled into a slender flame.

By the river dogs were barking. Dr. Lazaro glanced at his watch; it was close to midnight. Ben stood over

the child, the coconut shell in his hands, as though wandering what next to do with it, until he saw his

father nod for them to go.

Doctor, tell us – “Esteban took a step forward.

“I did everything: Dr. Lazaro said. “It’s too late –“

He gestured vaguely, with a dull resentment; by some implicit relationship, he was also responsible, for

the misery in the room, the hopelessness. “There’s nothing more I can do, Esteban, “ he said. He thought

with a flick of anger: Soon the child will be out of it, you ought to be grateful. Esteban’s wife began to cry,

a weak smothered gasping, and the old woman was comforting her, it is the will of God, my daughter…”

In the yard, Esteban pressed carefully folded bills into the doctor’s hand; the limp, tattered feel of the

money was sort of the futile journey, “I know this is not enough, doctor,” Esteban said. “as you can see

we are very poor… I shall bring you fruit, chickens, someday…”

A late moon had risen, edging over the tops of the trees, and in the faint wash of its light, Esteban guided

them back to the boat. A glimmering rippled on the surface of the water as they paddled across,; the

white moonlight spread in the sky, and a sudden wind sprang rain-like and was lost in the tress massed

on the riverbank.

“I cannot thank you enough, doctor,” Esteban said. “You have been very kind to come this far, at this

hour.” He trail is just over there, isn’t it?” He wanted to be rid of the man, to be away from the shy humble

voice, the prolonged wretchedness.

I shall be grateful always, doctor,” Esteban said. “And to you son, too. God go with you.” He was a

faceless voice withdrawing in the shadows, a cipher in the shabby crowds that came to town on market

days.

“Let’s go, Ben” Dr. Lazaro said.

They took the path across the field; around them the moonlight had transformed the landscape, revealing

a gentle, more familiar dimension, a luminous haze upon the trees stirring with a growing wind; and the

heat of the night had passed, a coolness was falling from the deep sky. Unhurried, his pace no more than

a casual stroll, Dr. Lazaro felt the oppression of the night begin to life from him, an emotionless calm

returned to his mind. The sparrow does not fall without the Father’s leave he mused at the sky, but it falls

just the same. But to what end are the sufferings of a child? The crickets chirped peacefully in the moon-

pale darkness beneath the trees.

“You baptized the child, didn’t you, Ben?”

“Yes, Pa.” The boy kept in the step beside him.

He used to believe in it, too. The power of the Holy Spirit washing away original sin, the purifi ed soul

made heir of heaven. He could still remember fragments of his boy hood faith, as one might remember an

improbable and long-discarded dream.

“Lay baptism, isn’t that the name for it?”

“Yes,” Ben said. I asked the father. The baby hadn’t been baptized.” He added as they came to the

embankment that separated the field from the road: “They were waiting for it to get well.”

The station had closed, with only the canopy light and the blobed neon sign left burning. A steady wind

was blowing now across the filed, the moonlit plains.

He saw Ben stifle a yawn. I’ll drive,” Dr. Lazaro said.

His eyes were not what they used to be, and he drove leaning forward, his hands tight on the wheel. He

began to sweat again, and the empty road and the lateness and the memory of Esteban and of the child

dying before morning in the impoverished, lamplit room fused into tired melancholy. He started to think of

his other son, one he had lost.

He said, seeking conversation, If other people carried on like you, Ben, the priests would be run out of

business.”

The boy sat beside him, his face averted, not answering.

“Now, you’ll have an angel praying for you in heaven,” Dr. Lazaro said, teasing, trying to create an easy

mood between the. “What if you hadn’t baptized the baby and it died? What would happen to it then?”

It won’t see God,” Ben said.

“But isn’t that unfair?” It was like riddle, trivial, but diverting. “Just because..”

“Maybe God has another remedy,” Ben said. “I don’t know. But the church says.”

He could sense the boy groping for the tremendous answers. “The Church teaches, the church says…. “

God: Christ: the communications of saints: Dr. Lazaro found himself wondering about the world of

novenas and candles, where bread and wine became the flesh and blood of the Lord, and a woman

bathed in light appeared before children, and mortal men spoke of eternal life; the visions of God, the

body’s resurrection at the tend of time. It was a country from which he was barred; no matter – the

customs, the geography didn’t appeal to him. But in the care suddenly, driving through the night, he was

aware of an obscure disappointment, a subtle pressure around his heart, as though he had been deprived

of a certain joy…

A bus roared around a hill toward, its lights blinding him, and he pulled to the side of the road, braking

involuntarily as a billow of dust swept over the car. He had not closed the window on his side, and the

flung dust poured in, the thick brittle powder almost choking him, making him cough, his eyes smarting,

before he could shield his face with his hands. In the headlights, the dust sifted down and when the air

was clear again, Dr. Lazaro, swallowing a taste of earth, of darkness, maneuvered the car back onto the

road, his arms exhausted and numb. He drove the last half-mile to town in silence, his mind registering

nothing but the frit of dust in his mouth and the empty road unwinding swiftly before him.

They reached the sleeping town, the desolate streets, the plaza empty in the moonlight, and the dhuddled

shapes of houses, the old houses that Dr. Lazaro had always know. How many nights had he driven

home like this through the quiet town, with a man’s life ended behind him, or a child crying newly risen

from the womb; and a sense of constant motions, of change, of the days moving swiftly toward and

immense reverlation touched him onced more, briefly, and still he could not find the words.. He turned the

last corner, then steered the car down the graveled driveway to the garage, while Ben closed the gate.

Dr. Lazaro sat there a momen, in the stillness, resting his eyes, conscious of the measured beating of his

heart, and breathing a scent of dust that lingered on his clothes, his skin..SLowely he merged from the

car, locking it, and went around the towere of the water-tank to the frotnyard where Ben Stood waiting.

With unaccustomed tenderness he placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder was they turned toward the ement –

walled house. They had gone on a trip; they had come home safely together. He felt closer to the boy

than he hade ever been in years.

“Sorry for ekeeping you up this late,” Dr. Lazaro said.

“It’s all right, Pa.”

Some night, huh, Ben? What you did back in that barrio” – ther was just the slightest patronage in this

one –“ your momother will love to hear about it.”

He shook the boy beside him gently. “Reverend Father Ben Lazaro.”

The impulse of certain humor – it was part of the comradeship. He chuckled drowsily: father Lazaro, what

must I do to gain eternal life?”

As he slid the door open on the vault of darkness, the familiar depth of the house, it came to Dr. Lazaro

faitly in the late night that for certain things, like love there was only so much time. But the glimmer was

lost instantly, buried in the mist of indifference and sleep rising now in his brain.