A romantic thriller in 15 chapters.
This is a story of a maiden in moral hazard. For some, no Apocalypse is needed to deliver them into a corrupt, dog eat dog world. Blen, is one such. Surrounded on all sides by dangerous people, facing the ultimate sacrifice to secure the future of her family, with cunning and artifice she employs her opponents' weapons to defeat them. But, not without highly erotic misadventures along the way.
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Chapter 1. "Wala."
The Land of Wala. Poverty and Provincial life. Amor. Precious. Girlie. Blen. Jesusa. Political backdrop. Mama Mutia and recruitment.
In the Land of Wala, with money you are fireproof, without it you are lost; without the love and protection of family you are nothing at all.
The rice seeds had germinated in the incubation fields and it was time to transplant these seedlings into the rice fields; backbreaking work, done by hand. Deep in the Land of Wala, on one of the hundreds of islands in the Visayan Sea, a group of day labourers dressed in straw hats secured by scarves, and cloaks made from palm leaves, their only shelter from the oppressive sun, sat down beside a paddy to eat a bowl of rice provided by the farmer.
Five teenage girls, bare foot and thin as sticks, settled in the shade of a palm.
Precious, Girlie and Amor were cousins, and Jesusa was the younger sister of Blen. Snub nosed, high cheeked and tanned, in the Malay way, the girls' shining black hair, never cut, hung to their waists, except for Blen's, whose hair was waved, voluminous, and fell only to her shoulders.
In a land where four out of ten lived on less than a dollar a day, they had the misfortune to count as unfortunate even to the unfortunate, each member of their families consuming about thirty cents of the world's abundance daily. Today, these girl-labourers would eat well; bellies full of sticky rice would be their payment for a long day labouring under the sun.
At first, they squatted silently, busy filling their mouths with balls of rice, then, as hunger waned, they gossiped.
"Lola says there is another bomb in Mindanao," said Girlie, the chatterbox, knowing this would excite Blen.
Precious, their emotional leader seeing a provocation, attempted to blunt it. "But, maybe there is no damage?"
"It is bad. There is five dead and ten injured, just bystanders, they try to blow up Ampatuan," asserted Girlie.
Blen's face coloured with anger. "Ampatuan!" She hurled a rock at some unseen target and watched it splash harmlessly in the paddy. "Where is God? Five innocents are dead and Ampatuan live. Why do God protect the rich and abandon the poor?"
"Maybe there is no God," said Amor, seeking to explain this injustice to her close friend, "maybe it is just a poor guy with a bad aim?"
Blen wilted a little. "Then, if there is no God, who is to rescue us?"
"Do not blaspheme." Precious now sought to smooth this wrinkle in the fabric of divine providence. "And do not despair, that is the great sin. God will help those who will help themselves."
Blen sat up abruptly, her face hard, her voice harsh. "That is why he protect Ampatuan. Ampatuan help himself. He help himself to our land, our crops, our labour and our votes. That God is the God of thieves. Why do we have that God? He is not in other lands. He is not in America."
"I want to live in California," said Jesusa, with child-like indifference allowing her dream to intrude on others' reality. "When I grow up, I will go in America."
Hearing this, Blen felt the weight of familial responsibility crush down on her shoulders. At fourteen, Jesusa was working in the fields for a meal. How could she, Blen, who was unable to provide for herself, provide a future for her little sister? It was time to enrol in school for the next school year, but there was no money to enrol in even the state schools, so Jesusa would go another year without formal education.
"Florita have buy a fridge." Girlie presented her second morsel for consideration. "She have electric now, and she buy appliances."
Behind her long, dark lashes, Amor's eyes brightened with anticipation. "Maybe we will go over and watch TV tonight."
"See, God help some of us," said Precious, vindicating her belief in a divine plan.
Girlie garnished her morsel. "It is her daughter, Marisol, sending a remittance. She have gone in Angeles. She work in the bar."
The group fell silent as they considered the implication for themselves. Remittances came from either the vaunted Filipino Overseas Worker, working as maids in Saudi and Hong Kong, or the bar girls working in Angeles City. The girls knew they were unqualified even to work as maids.
Girlie, Amor, Precious and Blen were eighteen, the watershed age for the girls of their barangay. If they were unable to change the direction of their lives now, the opportunity would pass, and they would become unwanted dependants, vulnerable to exploitation by anyone able to offer them a meal.
Girlie again broke the silence. "She is to be marry."
"Marisol?" queried Precious.
"Yes, she is to marry with a German guy, she will go to live in Germany this year."
"I like to marry with a foreigner," said Blen.
The girls laughed.
"We all like to marry with a foreigner," Precious chided. "We must all pray that God send us our foreigner."
Blen had little faith in prayer unsupported by action. "God help those who help themselves," she reminded Precious. "We must find our own foreigner."
The 'Land of Wala', is what poor Filipinos call their homeland. 'Wala' means 'the absence of', or 'nothing'. If one desires something, and there is none, the response is 'wala'. For far too many Filipinos, whatever they wish for, the answer is 'wala', thus, this word accurately describes their land, where everything seems absent. No shoes. No clothes. No food. No education. No job. No money. No future. No hope. The only prospect is a life of destitution, mitigated solely by the love and support of family.
The last President of the Land of Wala was now on trial for Plunder. As a popular action-movie actor, in a country where the rural poor vote for the dreams they see in the movies, 'Erap' Estrada's high recognition factor had made him a shoo-in for the presidency. In office, his binge drinking brought civil administration at the highest levels to a standstill, and the political classes were so scandalised that a palace coup was arranged.
The Supreme Court readily agreed that intoxication in office amounted to constructive resignation, and the Vice President, in line with the constitution, succeeded to the Presidency. To rub salt into the wound, Estrada was charged with Plunder, on the basis that he had accepted the large bribes always paid to the President by the organisers of the numbers racket, an immensely popular, technically illegal gambling game, available on any street corner.
He was succeeded by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who, in turn, though she had subsequently legitimised her Presidency through re-election, offended some members of the plutocracy. In February 2006, a planned military coup had leaked and been foiled. A state of emergency was briefly declared while many of the plotters were rounded up. So, a few months later, simultaneously, the last President, the plotters against the present President and the present President herself were on trial; Estrada in a specially constituted corruption court, the generals before the criminal courts, and Arroyo before Congress.
Twenty years before, the poor had risen up to cast out the Marcos regime, which had sustained itself in power by the use of Martial Law. Hopes of material improvement through improved government had diminished over the years and, when in February 2006 the 20th anniversary celebrations were cancelled due to a State of Emergency declared to forestall the military coup, there was little surprise, and little disappointment as there was precious little to celebrate.
The poor, who constituted three quarters of the rural population, saw their standard of living decline further and despaired of their dysfunctional political class ever delivering an improving standard of living. The political mood music was punctuated by the explosions of terror bombs set off in public places by Moro separatists in the south, the random assassination of local functionaries by the New Peoples' Army (NPA) in the east and north, and the targeted murder of journalists as a routine part of political campaigning throughout the country.
Now, in June, the rains were about to arrive in earnest. The sun had reached its highest and hottest in a deep blue sky that stretched like a velour canopy over neat water meadows, and the lush palms that fringed the paddies stood green and erect against the hills shimmering mysteriously in the heat haze beyond. This centuries old scene, of order, abundance and beauty, concealed in its detail, misery and despair.
In 1990, the two-year-old Blen and her parents had been resettled in the barangay of Desbilla on the remote island of San Fernando because distant relatives lived there. She and her parents had been displaced as a result of fighting between the Muslim Ampatuan clan and Christian militias. The Ampatuans had swept through the small farming settlement killing all those present. Blen's parents, on their return, had scoured the huts and fields to find and bury the bodies of their own parents and other extended family. On hearing her parents' calls, Blen had emerged, quivering with fear, from the broken water butt into which she had been dropped by her grandmother.
As soon as the bodies were buried in shallow graves, and they had bagged up what possessions they could, the family abandoned its land to the Ampatuans and left for the relative safety of the Displaced Persons Settlement.
Years later, when Blen was twelve, her parents had travelled by boat to the provincial capital to claim some public land to farm. On the return trip, a typhoon had passed. Many small boats were lost, including the one on which her parents travelled. Blen and Jesusa had since lived in the care of neighbours, as foster children. The foster parents were dutiful, but the girls were a burden on a poor family.
Now eighteen, with a patchy education reflecting the scanty money available to pay the school fees of forced dependants, working in the fields for her food but bringing nothing home for the pot, Blen knew she must contribute or leave. This meant parting from her one blood relative, Jesusa - but to fulfil her familial obligation of support, she must leave. With Blen sending remittances, Jesusa would go to school - the private school - and get qualifications. She would wear new clothes, would have pocket money, and could mix with any child in the barangay on equal terms. Jesusa, at eighteen, could then go to nursing school, and, from there, to jobs in America or Europe. She would have a future.
