IT WAS late afternoon of All Saints Day, Monday, November 1, 2015, when I left the Baguio Public Cemetery. By that time in past years, tons of garbage would have been seen gathered randomly if not carelessly strewn around between tombs and along people’s paths including the main approach road. This time, however, this was not the case. There were low piles of trash between some tombs but they were neatly put in place and seemed to be remnants of cut shrubs and grass that maintenance workers may have missed to take away before visiting people flocked into the areas and dump trucks could no more enter. Everything looked all white, without any spoiling graffiti or neglect. As things were when people entered, so they more or less were when people left.
Even in the morning when I was going there, intentionally by foot, after I was dropped by a service vehicle somewhere at Brgy. Dominican Hill, people just followed the crowd in the Filipino “bigayan” way, no shoving one’s way through, so that no one got chagrinned or irritated among slower or hindered hikers. Much more impressive to me was an absence, the absence of something common in the past-arguings between drivers or unloading passengers and law enforcers. No more also the sight of steady side-road and itinerant vendors that disturbed or blocked the flow of traffic from afar to the vicinity of the main cemetery entrance.
Above all, unforgettable to me was the case of that youngster who, while walking with two others, kept nibbling at her coned ice cream. She dropped the cartoon lid of her newly opened cone to the newly swept road. Seeing that she continued walking without picking up what she had dropped, I called her attention above the controlled din of pedestrians, who themselves were now faithfully following their proper lanes. She smiled then returned to pick the refuse up. Upon my thanking her in appreciation, she smiled again. I wondered if she would have followed my admonition that way in the pre-Duterte past. Perhaps she might have just looked at me and acted as if I was not present at all, if not told to my face explicitly or implicitly that what she had done was none of my business. Samples of such unpleasant past experiences started to come rushing to my "pakaalamero" mind when my cellphone rang. My one and only daughter Gina was contacting me from across the big ocean. I knew she wished she were with me those moments by the resting memorial of her late brother Johnsonee or to that of her Mommy Suzy, now three years gone contrary to my expectation for me to go ahead of her.
After the expected excited infos on our respective personal and family affairs, my prolonged cellphone chat with Gina came to focus on the Trump and Hilary Clinton campaign and the Duterte war against illegal drug and corruption strategies. When I asked if people in their U.S. neighborhood came to know of President Duterte and how they feel about his cussed language against Americans, she elatedly informed me that they now know the name of Duterte and that they take the thing (his way of talking) good-naturedly to a point of being entertained understanding that he is directing himself in those portions to the State Department and not the American people. However, she insinuated in the end that it might be better if there will be no more need for him to employ unconventional style like the insertion of rustic cussed expletives to draw attention or express strong emotion, because they might adversely boomerang if taken out of context or translated literally in other languages. Social media can start feasting on such practice for better or for worse, often for worse to the detriment of the original intention, she sounded like becoming more serious.
“Amen, Halleluia!” I interjected and we both laughed. In soul-searching and discussing, we agreed that discipline in thought, word and action still is the necessary conduit to peace and joy.