Abet

"I want to pursue my principles of serving others, of strengthening this kind of commitment, and this I could only do by leaving the comforts of my home to take part in the pursuit of that commitment (actively). I want this but at the same time I want to please my parents, and definately they will not be pleased if I go with this plan..." 

~ Albert R. Enriquez, from his last, unfinished letter

___________________

Risk-taking is inherent in my name. I have been called "Clifford the Big Red Dog" to "Clifford Huxtable" of the Cosby Show. I've been called worse. You can call me Brown Out. Gentleman Gago. Pyro. POr PnOI sOn. Cliff Notes. E.E. Kummings. Rainbow Rivera. Guro Hudyo. Dragon-Firefly of August Heaven. Anghel Aba. Forrest Fire. Caveman. C4. E2. Ché Eliyahu. Anytime. Day or night. Take your pick. People easily forget. That is why I write you. To encapsulate faces. To validate names. To weave rainbows, together with my destiny on blank paper.

Abet. I never called Albert by his subversive nickname because I never got a chance to. One night, in August of 1985, he hailed, then boarded a tricycle in front of his home in Quezon City, Philippines. He and his driver have not been seen since.

That's Kuya Abet, out of respect.

In the States, arrangements would be made over landline to insure Filipin@-time, not on time, but fashionably late, so the Manilaner airport loiterers could see that we have it made in matching red, white, and blue Barongs. I'd eavesdrop on Ama slurring Taglish commands like the G-dfather on school nights, insisting he was not Marlon Brando, drunk. Kuya Abet would reassure Tito Estong that the driver, translator, and bodyguards would not be in-laws. Ema had bills to prove her scathing accusations the next morning. In retribution, she'd nurse black and blue bruises, in contrast to her Snow White hospital scrubs.

Ama couldn't make long-distance phone calls after that, so he resorted to collecting a kitchen drawer full of used phone cards. Years later, as his eyes grew dimmer, I'd decipher number codes for him, loud enough because he's slightly def and can't voluntarily leave his adopted homeland just yet. We've got lesions. He chose long ago not to listen to unsubstantiated promises, promises in English As A Diminutive Language. Besides all that Angster commotion, it's an acquired taste, Revolution: more priceless than inflated tuition bills. Like winoskins, old-school and new-school. Estong would drive under the influence of Budweiser to the nearest gas station {San Miguel is hard to find, Stateside}. A funny guy is undignified. That's what the kids loitering on the stoops would call him, Funny Guy. Ama was known as Funny Guy at block fiestas, had to be, far from plastic because Ema had a monopoly on the emergency credit cards, too. Kuya Abet never picked us up at the airport. I suppose Ama still blames his vacancy on the absence of alak at Marlboro Reds, where you can still find KKK encrypted on its sleeves, or so I've been told by the Manong Sages.

I am haunted by my cousin's Ninjazz legacy. His elián eyes, razor mouth, and sanguine posture while I pore over black and white newspaper clippings of him, strumming Babaylan folk ditties belie the fierce outrage against tyranny he so eloquently rendered: which fuel my quiet jealousy, my own longing to make sense of this ineffable mystery. He was in his twenties, pursuing with zeal his studies, doted on by proud parents. Yet he, too, must have been beset by frustration: torn between honoring his Ema and Ama's dreams versus living out his own, hungry for unbridled freedom. The echo of his tenor voice remains, leaving my centenarian uncle ambivalent to this cocky, brash Amerikano-Gringo's inquisitive Inquisition. That was me, giving a tour of our suburban tire garden: Bitter Melon on foreign fire.

Tsismis runs rampant, years after his abduction. Some relatives believe Kuya Abet's disappearance was fabricated so he could escape his overbearing family – his past unblemished – and join the New People's Army. Baguio Mountain is where Ferdinand Marcos chiseled his bust into Fodor's history. Lurking in the jungle, bearing his Eskrima dagger with clenched fangs, ready to pounce on the next challenger – is Kuya Abet – covered happily with Baybayin tats and mosque2 bites, altering Marcos's flat nose into Pinocchio's. Does he know Tita still listens to cassette tapes of him cantoring, back and forth, back and forth on her Bambu rocking chair, weeping? Does he know that I have slept terrified in his moratorium, a fish net protecting my naïveté from spear-toting kidnappers and lizard tongues? Is the valiant sparrow regretful as he sweats blood profusely behind his mask of ingenuity?

The name, "Albert R. Enriquez" – inducted November 30, 1992 into Bantayog Ng Mga Bayani (The "Monument of Heroes" honors those who had given their lives for the sake of freedom, justice, and democracy in the Philippines) – reflects the sun's eclipse as well as his crescent smile.

Abet is just one hero who fought gallantly for justice, the greater cause:

Lorena: on March 24, 1976 at Cagsley, Mauban, Quezon – ambushed in her mountain hut and host by PC soldiers in a military raid – later found bleeding by a stream down a ravine behind her hut.

Lean: on September 19, 1987 - shot at close range in the front seat of his vehicle, blowing off half his face and neck as his vehicle was cut off by a van, a book by Gramsci in his hand.

Eman: on March 18, 1976 in Davao del Norte – summarily "salvaged" by a bullet through his mouth crashing through the back of his skull – a second bullet fired through his chest.

Strange, Albert shares the same slab of wall as little-known Pilipino author of Salvaged Poems and Salvaged Prose, guerrilla-activist and mARTyr, "Emmanuel Lacaba" otherwise known as the Brown Rimbaud, both executed and reborn The Year of The Fire Dragon. Theirs is a sobering reminder: names etched into memorial stone that warrant further inquiry, Oscar Monk consideration, happily ever after. Doesn't have to be.

Kuy,

Ghost stories may be Child's Play, scribbles on the backs of cigarette tin foil, mere folly – yet your shadow is unmistakably there, following my every move, whispering José Rizal's lasting words:

I die just when I see the dawn break –

through the gloom of night

To herald the day;

And if color is lacking

my blood thou shall take

Pour'd out at need for thy dear sake

To dye with its crimson the waking ray.

NOTE:

Enriquez surname historically synonymous with Martyrdom.

Previous incarnations published in MaARTe and Remembering Rizal: Voices from the Diapora.