ivy terasaka 2005 short story competition first prize

Give the Gun to Father
By Denis Murphy

Bang, the gun hit hard against the cement floor. I stayed down and slowly we held our breaths. I raised the host, and knelt again, very slowly this time, yet still we heard the gun bump the ground, like a shark bumping the side of a banca.

"Give the gun to Father”. The Franciscan sister was 80 and no taller than a child. She had her hand on the barrel of the gun and was trying to work it out of Minerva’s hand. Minerva stared straight ahead to the end of the pier and Manila Bay.

“Minerva, I’m going to take the gun now and give it to Father and then he’ll say mass for you. He’ll give it back after mass if you want.” Even as she talked the sister was unwinding Minerva’s finger from the trigger. She wasn’t nervous, at least she didn’t seem to be.

We were crowded into a small patch of shade alongside the chapel. Then the sister had the gun and a young catechist gave Minerva a valium tablet.

The sister handed me the gun. “Keep it, Father. I’ll get it after mass.”

I put it in the deep side pocket of my soutana where I felt it knocking against my knee―that’s how deep those pockets were. We went into the chapel and began the mass. The chapel was as shabby as the squatter huts along Pier Dos, but it faced toward Manila Bay and the Bataan Mountains and when I looked up, I saw fish hawks drifting lazily high over the water.

“Father!”. The sister wanted me to get moving. I said the first prayers. I gave my sermon; rather I read the talk I had prepared in Tagalog with the help of our houseboy. Did it make sense to them? Anyway they listened politely. A little girl talked all through the sermon until I asked her, “Who’s giving the sermon, me or you?” “Sino ang nagsesermon dito, ikaw o ako?” Everyone laughed but the mother. Then the woman next to her whispered something and she, too, smiled. She had no teeth in front.

I said the words of consecration and knelt before raising the host. Bang, the gun hit hard against the cement floor. I stayed down and slowly we held our breaths. I raised the host, and knelt again, very slowly this time, yet still we heard the gun bump the ground, like a shark bumping the side of a banca. I said the words of consecration over the wine, and as I prepared to kneel, people edged away from the altar. Sister whispered, “No more kneeling. You’re scaring us.”

Minerva was a handsome woman of 40 or so. She was our chapel leader but she was also the head of the gang that controlled Pier Dos. I forget now if she was with Sige Sige or OXO or another gang. She and her men controlled the drugs and smuggling, and other rackets. They protected the pier from other groups. They were enforcers for usurers and if you wanted someone killed, they’d do it for 50 pesos, which was about $10 then, and yet on Sunday when she had her valium Minerva would clean the chapel with the older women and attend mass as piously as the Sister herself, except she looked around her constantly like she expected someone. She was good looking as I mentioned but she had a tic that drew the right side of her mouth down in a grimace. I never got used to it.

At the time there was a TV series about a German prison camp. I was like the dense German guards who knew little of all that went on, especially at night when the prisoners plotted.

I asked the Sister, when I knew a little of Minerva’s dark side, if she should remain our chapel leader. “There’s no problem,” Sister told me; she had worked in Manila slums for 45 years, back to the 1920’s when the Americans still ran the country. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Minerva were a relative of the Sister. That’s how confused everything seemed to me then. She wasn’t of course.

Minerva organized the children for catechetical instructions after mass. She prepared for the medical missions from UST. She gave out any gifts of rice we brought and she talked to the mayor’s office if there were problems, and got good results. Did it make people wonder about our values, I asked sister? She told me, “Why would they worry about Minerva, that poor woman? They don’t worry that way about each other.”

I went to Pier Dos on weekends when I wasn’t teaching. I was studying Tagalog and able to carry on simple conversations, but as soon as people talked seriously of their problems or feelings, I lost them. It’s not a nice way to go around. Think of watching a movie in a foreign language. At the time there was a TV series about a German prison camp. I was like the dense German guards who knew little of all that went on, especially at night when the prisoners plotted.

The prison camp by the way is a good analogy for our slums. The guards let the people do whatever they want inside, but don’t try to escape. “Day and night,” the Psalmist says, “the watchmen make their rounds upon her walls, but trouble and misery are in the midst of her.”

Maybe because of my weak Tagalog I saw more than I would otherwise; I would have been talking and not watching. If I could talk, I would have been full of suggestions for the people instead of listening. That’s the way we were trained, Filipino and American Jesuits, maybe all outsiders. What good was there in Tondo to listen to? That’s what we thought, albeit unconsciously. What good could there be in such ignorance and filth?

Because I didn’t talk much, I noticed the thin, almost reddish hair and distended stomachs of children, the lusterless eyes, and how slowly they turned their heads to see something. I remember how the little girls in the doorways of their huts with strands of long black hair across their faces looked at me. Like the children you see on TV in the remote Amazon villages who have grown up looking across the 10-mile wide river, or up hundred foot trees for monkeys and birds. There is great distance in their eyes. Where does it come from in the slums?

She probably ordered murders and beatings. She was a dangerous woman, yet the Sister trusted her and the women treated her as one of their own. The men avoided her.

The mothers looked so tired at mass I tried to find seats for the chapel so they could sit down. A friend gave me six garden benches, brand new with wooden seats and black iron framing. They were such a contrast with the water-logged walls and cracked floor that when they were stolen one night, no one seemed to miss them. Minerva said she could get them back, but I told her never mind. We were better off without them.

The people’s shacks crowded along the sides of the pier with a broken cement road in between. The pier ran 100 meters or so into the Bay and hadn’t been used since the war. Once there were bodegas and the other apparatus of a pier, but all that was destroyed and people built their homes among the ruins. Always there was the smell of garbage and urine.

The mass ended that day and I gave the gun back to Sister who had to use two hands to hold it. She gave it to Minerva who put it in a straw hand bag she carried over her shoulder. Minerva was better now with the valium; she nodded while Sister gave her a long list of things she should do. I found out as the weeks went by she wasn’t married, but men stayed with her for periods. She had a child, but no one knew where it was. She probably ordered murders and beatings. She was a dangerous woman, yet the Sister trusted her and the women treated her as one of their own. The men avoided her. She was after a man with the gun that morning when we arrived for mass.

After mass in Pier Dos I went with Sister to the other end of Tondo, two or three kilometers away to Magsaysay Village to say another mass. In Pier Dos Minerva gathered people. In Magsaysay Village we had to do that ourselves. We spread out, the sister, the catechists and myself, and began calling people. On Pier Dos 500 families crowded into a space little more than a half a hectare. Often five families lived in a two story shack of old wood and rusted corrugated iron roofing, that was maybe 25 sq. meters in all up and down. The shacks leaned on one another when the typhoons blew. The roofs flew off and were driven like witches on brooms across the sky despite the stones, old tires and pieces of junk set on them to keep them down. At least the houses stayed; they are stronger than they look. In Magsaysay Village the shacks were set apart from one another. There were empty lots. Sometimes the wind blew down the houses here.

Walking in an empty church, looking perhaps at the leaking roof or the old statues, and all the while being aware of the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, that’s how it was.

The slums were an eyesore to be sure but my first Christmas there at night when there were lanterns and colored lights, I found there was a quaint and magical look to even the worst areas.

It was the first of 40 years for me in the Manila slums.

As the months went by I began to feel God’s presence, even in the dirtiest corner. It was a new experience. We were trained from the novitiate to see God everywhere and in everything and we tried as best we could, but most often it was difficult. Now here He was alongside me everyday. I had a companion.

Comrade is a better word. We were comrades in a very difficult post. We were dependent on one another. But don’t press any analogy when talking of God. Walking in an empty church, looking perhaps at the leaking roof or the old statues, and all the while being aware of the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, that’s how it was. Catholics would understand. Isn’t He present most in the old churches that have been neglected for years, where the walls are marked with green mold and you can smell the wet earth and the hundreds of years of funerals and incense? There are few electric lights, but enough daylight from windows high over the altar so the silver altars shine darkly.

God was involved with the Tondo people and He was furious at what He saw. He loomed like storm clouds over that slum, and He let me know I better not fool around. I should become as serious as He was or leave. It wasn’t about being good or perfect, but about being serious for the long run. I agreed and slowly I realized I would never be happy away from those streets and that brooding God.

There were many things I didn’t understand about Tondo but the most baffling had to do with God himself. If He has such love for the poor, why doesn’t He do better by them? Testing God in this way didn’t come easily to me, any more than it is easy for a teenager to ask if his father really died in the war, as he had been told from the time he was a child, or had he run off leaving a young boy and his mother alone? The question threatens everything, as the first searching winds of a typhoon send a shiver of dread through everyone in the house. Do we really want to know?

What kind of God chooses people He will love in a special way and then leaves them in misery? What is love if not to help? There is no answer except that of Yahweh to Job. Or does God soothe the pain of the poor and give them joy in ways we can’t imagine? We don’t understand God’s love. He doesn’t help the poor, it seems, though He loves them more than He loves us.

Sometimes I imagined Him as a father, a working man with strong dirty hands, holding his child who has been injured, perhaps hit by a car. He is furious at those who did it, but he cradles the child and grieves. He can’t help the child. He doesn’t do anything to the guilty party. He kneels in the street as the child dies, while the noise, crowds, smells and misery all around suck the air from his lungs. It is hard to understand but easy to love the God of the slums.

I even married live-in couples after one of them died and the survivor needed a marriage license to get the insurance. I made up a prayer for those occasions.

But He doesn’t let the poor die on Him. He does stand between them and despair. He brings enough hope or forgetfulness or whatever you want to call it when the poor are at the limit of their strength. He patches up the wounded and sends them back to the struggle. This is how He is their opiate.

The leader in Magsaysay Village is Tan. No first name. He’s about five foot two or three, a squat powerful man with a big stomach he shows off by never wearing a shirt. He killed men in knife fights, people told me. Eventually he would die in such a fight when a rival plunged a knife into that big stomach.

In between Pier Dos and Magsaysay Village was Barrio Magsaysay where we also said mass. The leader here was a bull of a man we called Soti, a good man but beside strength he had the bad temper and recklessness of the bull. He wasn’t in the rackets as far as we knew. He fought with the gangs as he did with everyone who had any other ideas than his own for the area, including the Don Bosco Fathers who wanted land in the barrio to build a technical training school for boys. One story has it that he levelled the Italian priest in charge of the negotiations at one of the meetings.

At most 150 adults attended mass in the three areas out of 90,000 adults. We began at 7:00 in the morning and came out of Tondo near 6:00 p.m. I blessed the sick, and the dead who lay in gray coffins before the shanties where they had lived, while the neighbors drank and gambled to raise money for the burial. I heard confessions. I wasn’t supposed to marry people— the parish was to do that—but I joined couples who said they wanted to be married in God’s eyes and didn’t feel up to going to the big Church for one reason or another. I even married live-in couples after one of them died and the survivor needed a marriage license to get the insurance. I made up a prayer for those occasions. I saved a thief from being killed by the people. I stood between him and the angry crowd, with their stones and clubs and raw foul-smelling anger. Minerva finally came and eased things.

Everyday as I walked into Tondo I felt the load of hardship that presses on the people’s necks like the sacks of rice you see the men carry. It was tiring in that heat even to sit at meetings, yet while we talked, other people older than ourselves, scavenged in the garbage for metal, glass or plastic they could sell, or carried 50 kilo loads of softdrinks, beer and rice through mud and filth to small sari sari stores deep inside the squatter area where there were no roads. Women washed their clothes, squatting at the huge batya with suds up to their elbows, the same old shirts and shorts they had washed a thousand times. People worked though they were ill fed and sick, like primitive men who had no remedies for illness, and maybe no notion at all like the animals that they could be free of disease, hunger and pain. They worked, though the smartest knew there was no hope and their children would be as poor as they were.

...but when I ask any of them to say a prayer to start a meeting, they start right in, especially the women, as if they were continuing a conversation.

Yet they laughed at small things. One day at noon a young boy greeted me “Good evening, Father,” and the people around laughed heartily as if they hadn’t a care in the world. I watched a woman take a break from her work to sit in the shade and drink a glass of water; she seemed fully content, with nothing more to ask of life. An older heavy woman used a tabo to wash, pouring the water over her head and down inside the sarong she holds away from her breasts. Even the gray flesh needs care. She smiled to herself. The women washing clothes—seemed lost in their memories. Maybe the clean smell of the suds and clothes took them back to earlier, less troubled times in rural villages.

Do they get used to their hard lives as prisoners do to their cells? They do, I think. We get used to everything, don’t we? A young mother told me, “My parents were poor, I’m poor and my children will be poor. That’s the way it is.” Do they hope for a miracle or for something that will take them away from the crowds, the people yelling at one another? I think they do.

I don’t think the poor are aware moment by moment of God any more than the rest of us, but when I ask any of them to say a prayer to start a meeting, they start right in, especially the women, as if they were continuing a conversation.

You came to know your sinfulness in the slums, and what a shock that first real appreciation of one’s sin is. You feel like the antelope bending to drink at the river’s edge, leaning low only to find in the water inches from its face a crocodile surfacing. Sin surfaces with horrible clarity. I know all about you, God is saying. Be grateful. My strong right arm has pulled you from the crocodile’s jaws.

The people are very aware of their sinfulness. God is with the poor, an Indian Jesuit theologian told me, not because they are good, but simply because that’s the way He wants things to be.

I could go home to our Jesuit Institute of Social Order on Padre Faura when I wanted, where we rented a former Protestant church and its manse or convento. There were huge acacia trees in front and a wicked looking spirit-laden balete tree in the space between the former church and the manse. I had my quiet room.

I led two lives, one life on Padre Faura and one in Tondo. Padre Faura was still lined with acacia trees and old schools and government buildings rebuilt after the war: Philippine General Hospital, the Supreme Court, Foreign Affairs, the PGH nursing school, Ateneo’s old campus. The street spoke of age and power, but at night it was lonely. You could walk from our ISO near Mabini to Taft and not meet anyone. There were old bookstores, one run by a writer who became a National Artist; there were good restaurants, including a Spanish one just off Padre Faura where I used to take friends from the underground. The food was good; the servings of paella were huge, since I think they knew who we were. As I said we lived in the manse with the crabbed balete tree looking in our windows. Usually there wasn’t a sound, though five other Jesuits also lived there. Compare that with Tondo.

And hunger, there were always children picking through the garbage for something to eat. If children don’t eat, can they really think? Life closes slowly down around the hungry child.

That was the cast—180,000 people, 20 or 30 leaders most of them just like Minerva, Tan or Soti, a few sisters, ministers, social workers and myself. The police left us alone. They patrolled the edges of the slum; what went inside wasn’t their concern. There were no churches, except the one of the Don Bosco Fathers, no hospitals, movie houses, parks.

We had innumerable meetings of the leaders to discuss the land problem, which was everyone’s prime concern; at least it was the leaders’ concern. I often wondered if ordinary poor people wouldn’t be more interested in food or money to send their children to school. There was free tuition, but the parents spent for snacks, uniforms, papers, transportation if the children took tricycles, and fund raising drives. And hunger, there were always children picking through the garbage for something to eat. If children don’t eat, can they really think? Life closes slowly down around the hungry child.

We met outside Tondo in Mary Johnson Hospital now called something else, around a table of glistening reddish hardwood. The leaders sat like Mafia dons, with one or two assistants at their shoulders. The religious sat together at one end of the table. Surprisingly the meetings were in English. It was like that as late as the early 1970s. The leaders were formally polite with one another. The suspicion, hatred and scorn they held for one another were hidden. Regularly at these meetings someone gave a long lecture on the laws governing the land, always beginning, with the incantation, “Republic Act 1597 as amended by R.A. ___ and R.A. ___… otherwise known as the Tondo Foreshore Land Act.” They were all lawyers. I forget the numbers of the amendments.

Our strategy was simple, march as many people as possible to Malacañang. We were surprised by the respect the marches of 2,000 – 3,000 people got. Marcos came out to meet us on the palace lawn. The police cleared traffic. I think they had made Tondo out to be such a rats’ nest of evil, they came to believe the image themselves. They were afraid of us. Marcos promised the land every two years at election time, but now we demanded more than promises.

One thing about our leaders was despite their faults they could gather people and they looked the part of the Tondo desperados the government feared. Our women leaders frightened people with their sad, spiritless eyes. After one of our marches I was walking home near the San Miguel Church and saw a poster in the street. “Pagkain, Lupa, Kapayapaan”, it read: Lenin’s cry, “Bread, Land, Peace”. One of our people had made it. There were old Huks mixed in with the poor. Their revolt in Central Luzon had failed and the new party wasn’t yet active in Tondo. Actually we would show the new rebels how to operate in urban poor areas, but that would come much later.

They had no idea of what awaited them. They missed the small mountain villages they had left, though there was no life for them there and never would be.

We were happy with our marches. The leaders told their people, “I met the president and I told him…” For the poor it was marvelous that one of their neighbors had been to Malacañang and talked to Marcos, as wonderful as going into the belly of the whale to meet Jonah.

Nothing, however, happened about the land office that was supposed to be set up to take our applications for the lots. Instead engineers appeared on Azcarraga one day measuring for a highway that would pass directly through the heart of our area. The engineers planned a 50-meter wide swath through 3 kilometers of our densest housing. People drove away the engineers.

We met at Mary Johnson and decided to hold the largest march of poor people ever seen in Manila if they didn’t stop that road. We wrote to Marcos, and delivered the letter that night. Next morning the executive secretary, Marcos’ right hand man, was in Tondo, inviting us to join him on a barge in the harbor for a meeting. We went aboard about noon. The executive secretary was by all accounts a decent, hardworking man. He said it was impossible the engineers were really planning a road through the heart of Tondo. We provided witnesses who had talked to the engineers. “That’s an insane plan,” he said, and while we sat around he talked to someone through a radio he held in the palm of his hand. There were no wires. We had never seen anything like that. He was getting angry on the radio: “… tell that jackass I never heard anything so stupid in my life.” He went on like that. Whether there was anyone on the other end, we didn’t know. Some of us suspected there was no one there.

While he was talking the gangplank splashed in the water and the barge drifted out toward the Bay and then around Isla Puting Bato. The secretary saw the people were worried about the movement. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a few hours”, he told them. “We’ll have a good talk.” We sailed into a breeze so lovely no one spoke; we let it flow over us. We went out beyond the anchored freighters until flying fish leaped alongside us with wings flashing in the sunlight.

The people were quiet with their memories: maybe memories of the last boat they had been on, a crowded inter-island ship that brought them from Samar or Leyte to Tondo 20 or 30 years before.They had no idea of what awaited them. They missed the small mountain villages they had left, though there was no life for them there and never would be.

The secretary’s staff served lunch boxes that were heavy as stones with rice, lechon, vegetables, chicken, rolls and chocolate bars. We had soft drinks, and, as we glided over the glossy water, he told us what he wanted to happen.

We landed after dark and went immediately to Mary Johnson and planned the largest, noisiest rally we could possibly have. We sent word to Malacañang.

His road would run along the Western or Manila Bay side of Tondo. It would require only 25 meters of our houses because it would be elevated, though in places he would need another 15 meters for ramps to the highway. I don’t know what the man thought. Did he think we were stupid, or was he so focused on his own goals he couldn’t understand how people would react? He was only a little better than the engineers. We were still eating when he finished, so no one challenged him. Some wondered, I found out later, what would happen if we disagreed. We weren’t far from Corregidor where only a year before the army had killed 20 or more Muslim enlisted men who refused to obey orders and attack other Muslims in Sabah. If they could kill 20 soldiers, why would they worry about 20 urban poor people and a few religious? They didn’t have to kill us, just leave us on the island for a month or two till we came to our senses.

It was late afternoon. The sunlight had softened and the sky was pastel colors—rose, peach, aquamarine, beige, burnt orange. The sun rested over the Bataan Mountains, red but no longer fiery. More like one of us. Remember the song, “What if God were one of us?” And the Psalm, “You make the dawn and the dusk to sing for joy”

That was years and years ago but I still see the Sisters and the people on that lovely afternoon we had on the barge. They are at peace in my memories, even Minerva. I see the little girl giving her sermon and the shrug of indifference she gave when the mother told her to stop.

We told the secretary we’d think about everything he told us. He seemed like a good man, though they are the hardest to argue with. The barge had turned around; we were off Parañaque when the sun went down. It was beautiful and maybe that was another reason we were quiet and content to watch. We landed after dark and went immediately to Mary Johnson and planned the largest, noisiest rally we could possibly have. We sent word to Malacañang.

A few days before the rally Marcos sent another man to talk to us, the very opposite of the executive secretary. This one worked with tribal people. The story was his family was interested in mining claims in the tribal areas. He came in his own yacht, docked just off Tondo and sent his aides to summon the leaders, but not the religious. These aides included former well known basketball players who were big and tough and awed our leaders, even Tan. They met on his ship and I don’t know what exactly was said, but he gave each leader 1,000 pesos, which would be about 15,000 pesos now, and asked them not to rally and he would solve their problems. The leaders quickly agreed there was no need to march. “Wasn’t the president’s man there to hear complaints and take action?” the leaders told their people. The Delegate, for that’s what everyone called him, had told the leaders, “If you talk to me, you talk to the president.”

But even as I said it I saw in the faces around the table, even on Minerva’s face, a look of pity. They pitied me, and maybe they pitied themselves.

The leaders, except Soti, took the money and the next time we met in Mary Johnson, the night before the march, they got up one after the other to repeat the message that there was no need to rally. Soti called them traitors, but for once they didn’t react. Tan told us he had invited the Delegate to address the meeting. Everyone knew the man was outside waiting, except myself and the UCCP Minister who were the only religious at the late hour meeting. The Delegate entered with his bodyguards.

He gave the same reasons for calling off the rally and Soti didn’t argue anymore. Maybe he felt it was dangerous. He had no allies and he had children at home. I told the Delegate it was a lousy way to do things. “We are not primitive tribes here. You don’t have to buy us off by giving us a goat or the leader a new hat. The people will disown this. They want to march.” But even as I said it I saw in the faces around the table, even on Minerva’s face, a look of pity. They pitied me, and maybe they pitied themselves. Anyway I said, “The people will meet for the march tomorrow as we planned. You talk and I’ll talk and the people will decide.” One of the bodyguards came over. “Enough, Father,” he whispered in my ear; he had come up behind me and had a hold of my arm just above the elbow and was forcing me to sit. At this Soti left and we found out later the police were waiting to arrest him on a charge he had threatened violence to another leader years before. They showed a warrant and took him off.

When I left a little later I found myself alone on the front steps of the hospital, except for Minerva and two of her people. “Come with me, Father”, she told me. “It’s not safe here.” They told me about Soti.

We walked toward Sto. Niño Church until a taxi came along and they put me in. “Please don’t come tomorrow. It won’t do any good,” Minerva told me. I drove off but instead of going home I went to the police station on United Nation Avenue. Soti had been booked, but I found him with some of the policemen watching television.

“What are you doing here, Father?” he asked.

“I’ll keep an eye on you. Things happen.”

“No need. These are my friends.” He gestured at the police around him, but they didn’t look away from the screen. Soti was brave, but he wasn’t shrewd like the others.

I stayed with him till 4:00 a.m. till some of the Tondo leaders, including Tan, came and said they’d stay the rest of the night. Soti was happy to see them. What did I know of what was going on? I went home to our Institute on Padre Faura, just a short walk in the fresh night air, in a silence I’d never experienced before in the city. It was so tranquil, you could believe everything would work out. “I thank you Lord for showing me your love in a besieged city,” the Psalmist once said. Then I heard thunder roll down the night sky, like a thief running away from a crime.

Sunday morning life went on around us as if there were no march. Usually we marched as if we were proud of what we did, but now the people strung out behind me. I found myself far in the lead. Even Sister was way back.

I knelt by the bed to pray and asked God to help us. I asked Him to give us courage and lead us to the gates of Malacañang. It turned out it was the last time I prayed like that. I pray now for small things. I pray that no one will be hurt in marches, or that the people won’t be humiliated, but never again for success. That was the end. I think the old Israelites found that out too in the end. Didn’t one of their poets admit, “You no longer go out, O Lord, with our armies.”

I was up early and took a cab to Pier Dos where of all the places in Tondo I felt safe. I still thought enough people would march to impress Malacañang. When it was all over I’d go to the Ateneo for dinner. It’s special on Sunday nights.

Some people gathered at the chapel as they were supposed to in preparation for the walk to Barrio Magsaysay where the march to Malacañang would begin. I had expected many more. Minerva wasn’t there. We waited a half hour, then started off, maybe 20 of us altogether with the Sister. We went out through Kagitingan past Araullo School, then up to the harbor area and along it to the meeting place. We didn’t run into people waiting to join us as planned: Sunday morning life went on around us as if there were no march. Usually we marched as if we were proud of what we did, but now the people strung out behind me. I found myself far in the lead. Even Sister was way back. Still a few stragglers joined, and by the time we reached Barrio Magsaysay we were about 40. We had expected hundreds. In front of the school there were another hundred people. On the steps of the school the Delegate waited with his bodyguards and our other leaders, all of them except Soti.

The Delegate was telling the people to go home: “There aren’t more of you here because your neighbors see what I propose is reasonable. Go home now.”

I surprised myself. I walked to where he was standing and took the mike from his hand. He whispered to me, “Tell them to go home. It’s best for everyone.”

No one looked at me. Our other leaders stood off to the side in chilling silence. The Sister stood next to me. She had seemed ready to march, but now she was crying.

I showed the people a copy of the Manila Times where the main headline on the first page read, “Tondo Folk March Today.” Jesuit friends had arranged it. “The president is waiting for us,” I told the crowd.

The Delegate grabbed the mike. “The president is not waiting.”

“He is,” I shouted. “Even if only five of us get there.”

The Delegate lost his temper. “If you say one more word, I’ll punch you upside your head.” His words carried out over the crowd. For a long minute or two there was silence.

“Even if you do, what I’m saying is the truth.”

A basketball player, the one who had sat me down in the hospital meeting, got between us and led the Delegate away and inside the school.

Some of the people were heading home. A few took care of their children. No one looked at me. Our other leaders stood off to the side in chilling silence. The Sister stood next to me. She had seemed ready to march, but now she was crying.

“I know, Sister. Don’t worry,” I told her.

“People may get hurt, Father,” she said.

“Yes, Sister. I’m going.”

She said she would stay, so I went into the crowd and told them to go home. I shook hands with the men and kissed the women and children on the cheek. Then I walked back with the Pier Dos people the way we had come.

It took time for the crassness of our defeat to settle in: a thousand pesos here and there, and all hope of land security and our dignity, too, were gone.

I didn’t go home. I left the people back in Pier Dos and continued to Malacañang the way we usually went, down Divisoria into Binondo, Sta Cruz, Quiapo, finally Mendiola. I went to Gate 6 in front of the President’s residence. There was no preparation for a rally. The guards stayed seated inside the sentry box and on benches by the gate.

“Is the president in?” I asked them.

“He’s in the North,” a sergeant told me. They were all sergeants. I still had the paper with the headline. I showed it to them. Some got off their benches to come over and look. Then they talked among themselves. It was the first they had heard of a rally, that was clear. “No rally, Father,” the sergeant said finally. They sat down again. Marcos knew there would be no rally. He knew his urban poor.

What I could see of the palace from the gate was beautiful, the Spanish style buildings gleaming white, huge acacia trees, branches weighed down almost to the grass with the weight of their leaves and their own languor. Fields of fresh mowed grass stretched away on all sides, and nothing moved.

I headed home. I walked toward the Ayala Bridge and when I saw San Miguel Church, I stopped in. The masses for that Sunday were over. I sat near the back. A breeze from the river came through the church garden and in the wide open side doors. There was a faint smell of incense. The altar seemed packed with statues of angels with huge white wings. San Miguel drove a spear into the devil dragon; others angels posed, eyes lowered as if in prayer. A Hindu coming in would feel right at home.

I sat without moving or even thinking and soon I felt a little better. We’re to blame too, I thought, the priests, ministers, sisters, social workers, all of us part timers in Tondo going around without a clue what to do. Was it too much, however, to expect God to help?

I asked Him, “Are you satisfied with what happened to us?”

There was no answer for a while, then I felt heavy steps in the aisle behind my pew, and a heavy hand on my shoulder. No words. No explanation.

* * *

I’ve been 40 years now in Tondo. I understand a little more, but not much. We have had small victories and big defeats, as one of my friends said. The steady growth of our slums outdistances anything we are able to do to improve them. I don’t think we’ve done much to make the well-off more understanding. Maybe we’ve made them uncomfortable at times. The poor are better organized and government pays some attention, but not much.

Some say we gave the poor a choice. It’s true; it wasn’t as stark a choice as that day of the march when they were asked to march or not, but yes, we did regularly offer the poor a choice: “Work with us, organize and struggle for a better life,” we told people, “and you have a chance. Don’t join us, don’t organize and your lives will be as they are or worse.” Many joined us. Many did not. A choice is all you can give, some say. I don’t know, it seems too neat a saying.

We came very near at times to achieving what we wanted, at least it felt like that when we marched with 5,000 people and our ragtag ati-atihan drummers. I was never as happy as when I was walking along with them. It looked like all the city’s poor were marching. We came close when we had a mass for thousands in the streets after a march, sometimes after people were beaten, and there wasn’t a sound as one of the leaders read the scriptures, and all of us heard God speak directly to them. He always encouraged us.

I don’t talk about God’s presence now, or question Him about His ways. We have become quite used to each other with the years.

We made an agreement long ago. I leave success or failure to His mysterious ways. I pray for small things, as I mentioned, people’s safety, and children. In return He is always with us. We are always together.

© Denis Murphy

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