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Abet

By Cliff Favro Rivera

“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. POr PnOI sOn. Phoenix Rivera. Forrest Fire. 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 nickname because I never got a chance to. One night, in August of 1985, he 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 Filipino-time, not on time, but fashionably late, so the Manila airport loiterers could see that we have it made in matching red, white, and blue Barongs. I’d eavesdrop on Dad slurring Taglish commands like the Godfather 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. Mom had bills to prove her scathing accusations the next morning. In retribution, she’d nurse black and blue bruises, in contrast to her white hospital scrubs. Dad 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 the number codes for him, loud enough because he doesn’t have ears to hear just yet. It’s an acquired taste, Salvation. Like wineskins, old-shul and new-shul. Estong would drive under the influence of Budweiser to the nearest gas station. A funny guy is undignified. Dad was known as funny guy at block parties, had to be, far from plastic because Mom had a monopoly on the emergency credit cards, too. Kuya Abet never picked us up at the airport. I suppose Dad still blames his vacancy on the absence of liquor and Marlboro Reds. I am haunted by my first cousin’s legacy. His soft spoken-ness, studious eyes, and sanguine posture while I pore over a black and white newspaper photocopy of him, singing Tagalog hymns belie the fierce outrage against tyranny he so eloquently rendered which only feed my quiet jealousy, my own longing to make sense of this mystery. He was in his twenties, pursuing with zeal his studies, doted on by proud parents as I am. Yet he, too, must have been beset by frustration: torn between honoring his mother and father versus living out his dreams, hungry for bridled freedom as I am. The echo of his tenor voice remains, leaving his widowed uncle strangely silent in the midst of a cocky, brash Amerikano, that is me. Chismis runs rampant, years after his abduction. Some relatives believe Kuya Abet’s disappearance was fabricated so he could leave his family his past unblemished and join the New People’s Army. The Baguio mountains are where Ferdinand Marcos chiseled his bust into Fodor’s history. Lurking in the jungle bearing his weapon with clenched teeth ready to pounce on the next challenger is Kuya Abet covered happily with mosquito bites, altering Marcos’s flat nose into Pinocchio’s. Does he know Mom is listening to cassette tapes of him cantoring, back and forth, back and forth on her rocking chair, weeping? Does he know that I have slept terrified in his moratorium, a mosquito net protecting my immaturity 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 engraved in Bantayog Ng Mga Bayani (The “Wall of Remembrance” honors those who had given their lives for the sake of freedom, justice, and democracy in the Philippines) reflects the sun’s magnificence as well as his modest 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. Oddly enough, Albert shares the same portion of wall as celebrated Pilipino poet/activist/martyr, Emmanuel Lacaba, otherwise known as the Brown Rimbaud. Theirs is a sobering reminder: names etched into memorial stone that warrants further inquiry, Oscar consideration, happily ever after. Doesn’t have to be. Kuya, 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 Jose 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.

Cliff is an accomplished writer, having been published in Sojourners Magazine, Matthew’s House, and Infuze Magazine. About “Abet,” he says, “[It] chronicles my cousin’s legacy in the Philippines and his profound effect on my spiritual journey: Albert was a student activist at the height of the Marcos Regime, kidnapped and summarily salvaged.”