Three Sundays ago, I wanted desperately to go home after a long week at work. I wanted to be home because I realized that I have become a captive of papers to check and deadlines to beat. I wanted to go home where my heart is; to Bukidnon whose green scenery and beautiful landscape of mountains and trees soothes my inner being. Home where I could have some quiet place to reflect and to reexamine my priorities. Home where my loved ones await my coming.
For the last years, it seems that working in the city has eaten up almost all of my time, and my life has become bounded by work alone (forget love life). My family, who stays in Bukidnon, rarely gets a piece of my time because going there entails some form of sacrifice on my part. Since I report to work even on Saturdays because of my irregular work schedule, I usually devote my Sundays to resting. That means just staying at home for most of the time, then going to church during my preferred schedule which is usually at 5:30 in the afternoon. Sometimes, I take Sundays for leisure like going to the mall or watching movies to keep my sanity intact. Going home, therefore, is not really on top of my list. Anyway, what with cell phones which allow us to connect with our loved ones any time?
One Sunday, however, I decided to go home to relax and to see my newly born nephew named Gerald Merck. Waking up on that day, I suddenly missed Mama and Papa and my siblings and their children. I simply missed their presence. As practiced, I had bought them some pasalubong on my way home. A box of donuts and a box of pizza. I pictured the children running towards me, shouting “Naa na si Tito!” (Tito is here!) The thought itself had made me smile.
I was already on my way to the terminal when I happened to meet a number of vendors lining up their display of pirated DVDs. I couldn’t help but be tempted to buy. I was mulling over the idea of having something to watch while I would be home. I looked at the display, searching for something that would also be of interest to Mama and Papa and the children at home. I got to the area where a child was looking after their display. He was a boy of around eight or seven. He looked at me and asked me to just go on and to keep on looking. I heard his mother called his name and told him to look after the store for she had something else to do. That’s how I learned his name. Mark.
Mark was squatting, busy with other DVDs in his hand. He carefully stacked them one by one in the lower portion of the rack. Maybe because he kept staring at the DVD covers or maybe it was his occasional chortle while looking at the DVDs that took my attention away from Jackie Chan or Brad Pitt or Bruce Willis. I looked down and saw in his hands pornographic DVDs, many of them. They occupied the last row of the lower portion of the rack. Some were foreigners. A few displayed the title of the scandal made from different local areas in the Philippines.
I did not know what happened after that. I found myself boarding the jeepney and joining my family in our house eating rambutan instead of watching a movie. I then realized and found out that I did not buy any DVDs that were of my interest. Not Jackie Chan, not even the most recent cartoon movies that would have been a hit among my nieces and nephews. While peeling rambutan, I thought of Mark. Young, yet his innocence has already been corrupted. I thought of the recent alarming number of rape cases reported on television and I couldn’t help but account our government’s negligence for all those violation to human dignity.
I sometimes think of the hard times I had to go through when I decided to study in the city after having graduated high school from our small town in Bukidnon. I used to wish for my siblings to move to the city where they could send their children to better schools. I want my nephews to be better prepared than I had been when I entered college. I want them to be exposed to social realities as early as now. But after meeting Mark, I have changed my mind.
I’m glad that my siblings have decided to keep my nephews and nieces close to them while growing up. And I am more than happy that they are at home on Sundays.
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