|
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Kabasares: I prayed very hard!
By Cris D. Kabasares
Thru the Net
* I noticed her eyes were still so accustomed to three months of darkness that they repeatedly blinked against the light. At first suspicious and unbelieving that she had at long last been freed, she gathered her blue skirt and looked at me and smiled. "I know, it's God!"
SAN FRANCISCO, California -- In February of 1965, 41 years ago to be exact, I interviewed a 14-year-old girl who had been rescued just three days earlier by Constabulary soldiers from her kidnappers who detained her in an underground cell near the town of Guagua in Pampanga -- for three long months.
For her peace of mind, I'm not identifying her in this piece. She had asked her parents to seek me out to interview her.
She was an honor student in one of Manila's exclusive schools for girls.
Four men snatched her from her parents' home in Quezon City in November of 1964.
For three desperate months, the kidnappers kept the young girl guarded in a small and unlighted dugout.
Her captors were known to police to be desperate and ruthless hoodlums.
Efforts to rescue her had been botched up many times. Police agencies unduly competed with each other to rescue the victim with the motive of reaping the credit for themselves. The bunglings in negotiations for her ransom were increasingly bringing the girl dangerously closer to death.
Surviving the ordeal, she said, was nearly a miracle. She could have died of suffocation, exposure to elements, malnutrition, and disease.
How did she come out of that literal grave alive and unmolested?
How did she overcome each day only to face another grim and seemingly hopeless one?
The young girl had no second thoughts. In her own words, she said: "I prayed to God very hard."
A bright, well-poised and witty girl, she met me at door -- where outside policemen were guarding the house -- and extended her right hand and said: "I'm... I guess you know me by now."
That was a day after her dramatic rescue. I noticed her eyes were still so accustomed to three months of darkness that they repeatedly blinked against the light. At first suspicious and unbelieving that she had at long last been freed, she gathered her blue skirt and looked at me and smiled.
"I know, it's God!"
I let her talk the way she wanted. I held back asking her many questions. She was still slow to react to the outside world.
"I was always dizzy and weak inside that cave. Every day I wanted to get out of the dugout for a little sunshine and fresh air but those men didn't want me to do it," she related softly. At least one man was guarding her at all times.
Tears, she learned, couldn't save her anymore than anything her young mind could ever think of.
Her captors said her parents had agreed to the amount to be given to them, but they (the kidnap gang) stood off several negotiations concerning the mode of delivery of the ransom money because they were wary the Constabulary knew of this and would pounce upon them at the place of the payoff.
Once, she recalled, the kidnappers allowed her to read a newspaper. After reading the news pages, she went to the comic section but her favorite strip "Dennis the Menace" just didn't seem funny at the time.
At Christmas, she begged her kidnappers to give her a Christmas card she intended to mail to her parents. On it she wrote the most loving words she could ever muster under what seemed a hopeless time. She recalled that she wrote those lines in the flickering light of an oil lamp that for a brief moment brightened the dugout. She said she wrote how much she loves them; but forgot to beg them to save her. Tears ran down her cheeks as she recalled this.
"On Christmas, I woke up, it must have been midnight because I could hear the clear sound of the church bell ringing. There must have been a church or a chapel nearby where I was kept because the ringing was very clear, so near, so alive, so life-giving. It was the most beautiful sound I've heard in a long time."
There was a time when she dreamed, she recalled. In her dream she was walking alone in a village road that was leading to a place so familiar that it looked like their home, but as she got closer to it, it turned out not to be, so she kept on walking until she got so tired she could hardly walk anymore.
Days dragged on... her physical strength was slowly slipping away, she said.
One day the kidnappers let her out of the dugout. One of the men said that her parents were ready to deliver the ransom money. But they quickly brought her back to the dugout, something came up, they said. The delivery of the money was called off. The captors did not tell her what really happened.
She had lost hope again. She cried like she never cried before, she sobbed until she fell asleep, she recalled. For the first time in her life she said she was close to believing God had abandoned her at a time she needed Him most. When she woke up the following day she resolved to pray even harder than ever before.
Then things began to brighten up, she didn't know what it was but she felt something was happening to her. Her captors gave her more food everyday and three chocolate bars at night. They let her write to her parents once a week, telling her what to write.
Then at noon one day she heard a commotion outside the dugout. She didn't know what it was but instinctively she covered herself with a blanket and prayed because, she explained, it was the only way she felt safe and secure. She heard a woman (she was one of the Constabulary agents) call her name. She heard banging outside the dugout. She didn't move. Terribly scared, she prayed and prayed. Then the tiny door of the dugout cracked open. Someone pulled her blanket, she saw a man in uniform who introduced himself as Major. He announced to her "young girl, you're safe with us, we are the Constabulary and we're taking you home right now."
"I prayed all the way home," she said, this time she had a big smile.
Cris D. Kabasares writes a column for a New York Newspaper
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (April 16, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
