NIGHT OF MAKING PURE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION

By Mauro Gia Samonte

WEDNESDAY was the day I made for finishing Alaalang Magbabalik, one of four films contemplated as entries in a movie festival to be held end of November. The Iglesia ni Cristo is in the process of popularizing its concept of INCinema,  among various activities being vigorously pursued by the church in anticipation of the grand centennial celebration of the INC in 2014. In an effort to lend a hand in the undertaking, the Ecclesiastical District of Rizal had thought of conducting the festival. The District had been divided into four groups, each group to do a movie as its entry in the festival. Because all those who would be participating in the activity, whether cast or production staff, would be amateurs, a professional filmmaker was needed to train them in the craft of filmmaking. The task was assigned to me by the INC District Staff.

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That Wednesday was October 17, already 5 days past the deadline set by the District Staff for submitting a finished copy of the film, assigned to Area 6 of the District composed of Rodriguez and San Mateo. The deadline I set for myself to finish the film that day was not so much about meeting the timetable set by the District for submission of entries to the festival  as about my own personal urgency. The District deadline was surely extendable, the exhibition of the film being November 30, still much way off.

My personal urgency was most pressing.

Over the past two weeks, I had been receiving text messages from my sister Violeta about Nanay getting in and out of the hospital in my hometown in Catanduanes due to recurrent fever; Violeta was constantly monitoring Nanay’s condition through advice by my sister-in-law, Peng, who was mainly attending to Nanay back in the province. I, in turn, got my updates from Violeta.

During the first hospitalization of Nanay, prayers poured in on Facebook from relatives, friends and sympathizers from the country and world over, and we, her children, were profuse with thanks to all of them when after a week, Nanay recovered and was brought home from the hospital.

Personally, I felt being given a reprieve from having to rush to the province and attend to Nanay, one thing I could not easily do at that moment. Besides the post-production for Alaalang Magbabalik, I still had one day to finish shooting Ang Mga Tagapagmana, the Antipolo City  (Area 5) entry in the INCinema Rizal Ecclesiastical District Festival.

That weekend, I finally got to schedule the last shooting day of Tagapagmana, and it was a big relief since the director handling the movie was a professional video editor to whom I could entrust the post-production work. This meant I only needed to finish Alaala to get filming worries off my head (Area 1,2,3 had momentarily begged off from the undertaking, while Area 4 had manifested a desire to work independently of my overall direction) and then hie off to Catanduanes to attend to Nanay.  

Night of that last shooting day, Violeta texted me that Nanay had once again been brought to the hospital for the same ailment, meaning fever. Well, the brevity endemic in SMS has a way of understating the gravity of things. Fever, by any reckoning, is no serious ailment, much less a question of life and death. But immediately I surmised something a lot graver than fever from the other components of the message, which told of our youngest sister, Ellen, flying in from Kuwait on the next weekend and told also of all us siblings getting booked for a bus trip to Catanduanes soon after she arrived.

The text message was followed by a call, “Manoy Mauro, hala.” It was an expression of some warning from Violeta, whose speech style belied the serious impact of her message.

“Ta ano? (Why? What about?)” I replied.

“Si Nanay, ga halat na sana daa satuya, (Seems Nanay is just waiting for all of us.)”

A punch to my breadbasket, a thump to my chest or a whack to my back. Whatever it was, it hit me with a suddenness that stunned my senses. For a moment I could not say a word.

“Ano, Manoy Mauro? (What now, Manoy Mauro?)” prompted Violeta.

“O sige (Okay),” I found myself saying. “Dai na ako mahalat kang ibinook na bus trip. Matapos ko sana ang dubbing kang pelikulang pigagibo ko, malarga ako. (I won’t wait for the booked bus trip. Soon as I’m done with the film dubbing, I’ll go.)”

“Sa arin iyan? (When will that be?),” she asked.

“Wednesday,” I said.

SEVEN hours was all I needed to get Alaalang Magbabalik over with. So I scheduled the dubbing to begin at 9 in the morning, give 7 hours and the job would be over by four o’clock, enough time to catch the five o’clock bus to Catanduanes, which leaves at between 5 and 5:30.

But the post-production studio was insisting on getting the previous bill settled before resuming another work. The previous day, somebody had pledged to deliver the amount that Wednesday morning, but the hours were dragging and no bill payment was in sight. By past noon, I gave up the hope of ever catching that bus trip anymore.

A member of the District Staff finally decided to answer for the balance payment, but since it was way past banking hours, he advised me to request the studio owner to give us one last trust, take my word for it that he would deposit the amount the following morning just so the scheduled dubbing would proceed. I got the request granted.

We began dubbing 7 in the evening.

It was a lively evening. One guffawed at his miscues then got applauded even as he too applauded upon getting his cues right.

It was an inspiring evening. People, mostly young ones, aspiring for good performance like true blue professionals but unlike true blue professionals, not paid even a cent for doing their job well. Thinking back on my goodie ole days as a filmmaker,  I realized that what was taking place now was nothing short of a miracle. Which movie prima donna would bear waiting for ten hours to start dubbing, then dub for the next 7 hours, all for no pay at all.

My brother would ask how much I was being paid for doing the job and I would say, not a cent.

“Aw, paano man kaan? (What would you get out of that!)” he would blurt out.

Such are questions unanswerable with words. Rather you word the answers with a feeling of great joy.

Imagine complete film ignoramuses, you transform them into dedicated film artists and craftsmen, bearing all sorts of difficulties, from dawn to dusk back to dawn continuously all the way to the next evening, missing classes, office works, employment and other worldly opportunities, just to meet schedules and deliver the promised job on time.

Why, that’s creation!

What greater joy is there than to realize that you have done it yourself?

Creation!

An opportunity for doing an act out of pure love presented itself to me. To have not missed out on that opportunity, than that alone is there no greater prize.

And so for all the delays and early uncertainties, that Wednesday evening went lovely after all starting 7. No matter that text messages kept coming from Violeta.

“Si Nanay linaog na naman sa hospital (Nanay was brought again to the hospital.)”

I must dismiss a surge of hot sensation swelling in my chest and clogging my throat so that I felt I could choke. It was through some lump in my throat that I spoke to my actors and actresses,

“Okay, mga kapatid, Trabaho tayo. (Okay, brothers and sisters. Let’s get it on.)”

Toward midnight, I felt extremely satisfied with the progress of the dubbing session. I had asked for a studio time of only 7 hours. This was cause for another worry. If we exceeded 7 hours, the studio would be charging extra fees. But from the looks of it, the session won’t go beyond 7 hours.

At around that time, a text message came from my nephew. Noel: “Apod lamang tabi kamo. Ta si Lola pababa ng pababa ang blood pressure. (Do call please. Because Lola’s blood pressure is getting lower and lower.)”

“God,” I could no longer help weeping inside. “No, please. Keep Nanay. This job will be over in three hours. I could catch a plane perhaps or an early morning bus trip.”

At the same time, something was prompting me inside:”Dammit! Go if you must. What you are doing does not need the meticulous care you are giving it. It’s no big deal. It’s amateur work. Infirmities will be forgiven. No need to be perfect.”

Tough luck for Nanay, I seemed to think in panic. I had long gotten over that attitude of letting a job be, whatever it is.. In fact, the reason I had not been doing scripts for long already was that television offers a scanty ten thousand pesos for a script per episode, but I could not tell my mind to write scripts only worth that much and not the 200-thousand-peso kind of scripts it had risen to long ago.

When I agreed to do Alaalang Magbabalik, I had the mind set of striving for perfection achievable under the circumstances, as had been my attitude in doing all my past movies.

So I called, and Peng answered: “Ang luya na ni Nanay. Habo na magkaon. Ang blood pressure, parababa na. Ang hapot kang mga doctor kung pakag-an daa ning support sa kimot. Kagamuhan ko na digdi. Ano ang gigibohon ko…(Nanay is too weak. She won’t take any food. Her blood pressure goes lower and lower. Doctors ask whether to administer life support through the mouth. I’m so confused here. What shall I tell them…)” A rolling tone cuts off the call.

My cellphone had gone out of load. What happened to Nanay after that, I had no way of knowing anymore.

At exactly 3:00 in the morning of October 18, the dubbing was finished. It was the 7^th hour from the time it began at 7:00 Wednesday night.

I was walking with a number of actor-dubbers along Anonas Street on the way to taking a jeepney ride to Antipolo (the rest were bound for Rodriguez) when my cellphone text message alert tone rang. I viewed the curt message. Instantly I felt like crumbling on my knees. A lump of some hot air felt like ready to shatter my chest. I did choke on a fire that clogged my throat and drew tears in my eyes. I threw myself against an electric post at the corner or else I would throw to the ground.

My companions all worriedly attended to me as I leaned against the post, trying hard to control my convulsive sobs.

“Ano’ng nangyari, Direk? (What happened, Direk?)” asked the guys.

I could not speak a word.

“Exhaustion lang ‘yan. Masyado kayong napagod sa trabaho (That’s just exhaustion. You got too tired),” said another guy and hurried to buy bottled water.

“Ano’ng nangyayari, Direk? (What’s the matter, Direk?)”

I wanted to tell them what happened, but I could not speak a word. I wanted to show them the text message on the cellphone which I clutched in my hand. But then, in that case, because the message was in Bicol, I still had to do some explaining, which was impossible to do because I was utterly speechless.

:

So I could just cry convulsively on and on and on.

Said Violeta in the message: “Dai na si Nanay (Nanay has gone.)”

“TIYA PUPING lived her life to the fullest,” said my cousin Celes, a Catholic Priest, during his homily in a mass he officiated at the family home in San Andres, Catanduanes before the immaculate coffin where rest the remains of Nanay elegantly garbed in a newly-made attire of silk, lace and organdy all colored in the tradition of her devotion to the Nuestra Senora del Carmen. Stressing her age of 97, he pointed out that NINE is derived from the Latin word NOVUM, which means “new life” and 7 is the perfect number, as exemplified by the Seven Beatitudes.  Deferring to the doctrines of Iglesia ni Cristo, I kept a distance from the Catholic celebration of mass but went out of the way to get a clear hearing of Celes’ elucidation on the significance of Nanay’s age. “Her departure from us at the age of 97, therefore, signifies not death but her entry into a new life, novum, after attaining perfection, seven.”

“On the other hand, her very name signifies the purity of living she has instilled in the family so that they become examples to others as obedient servants of God. PURIFICACION. FICACION being a derivative of ficar, in turn a derivative of facere, which means “to make”, and PURI, from PURA, which means “pure”. PURIFICACION, therefore, means “to make pure”.

According to the priest, Nanay’s maiden name GIANAN signifies being a guide in a journey, a significance that gained completion when she married my father,  the simple, amiable, meek man named SIMO, meaning highest,  surnamed SAMONTE, meaning mountain.. PURIFICACION GIANAN SAMONTE, therefore, means making pure in guiding  a journey to the top of the mountain.

I made sure to be out of the house, hence of the ceremonies, in deference to Iglesia Ni Cristo strictures, but I must confess to breaking some decorum by stepping closer to the window at least to hear clearly those pronouncements on Nanay’s age and name. 

For the words were striking me as all so true. I would have  wished Nanay had lived up to the ripe age of 100 as I, in fact, had told her time and time again. But now hearing cousin Celes, I was seriously wondering if I were not being cruel to her in wishing so. Nanay had been destined to meet her creator at the precise moment she went, and so I had to be kept pursuing my passion for making Alaalang Magbabalik perfect to the best means available to me, for otherwise I would be with Nanay trying to intervene in her departure. When Peng called asking for advise whether to allow doctors to put life supports through her mouth, my cellphone went out of load, preventing me from giving the go-signal. Curiously enough, happenings for the dubbing session that Wednessday were an interplay of 9 and 7, from the schedule to start at 9:00 in the morning for a 7-hour dubbing session, to the actual start of dubbing at 7:00 in the evening up to 3:00 the following morning, or a total of 7 hours work, after which I got the message from Violeta that Nanay had –  having already reached 97, a new life of perfection – finally gone.

Nanay had lived her life to the fullest, had suffered pains and sacrifices in guiding us her children through all those difficult  mountain climbs – and overcome. She had attained perfection and must now enter a whole new world that had been opened up for her.

There is just one  little pain she would have wished to overcome, and this was the pain of having to leave without any of us her children in her embrace. And she did open up her arms, perhaps make-believing that we were there, but all of us were busy elsewhere pursuing our own quests for perfection, and so not feeling any of us in her arms, she gave up the effort, closed her eyes, breathed her last, shedding a tear.

Ah, the agony from your lonely teardrop! Can we by ourselves banish it?   

No, Nanay. Not in our lifetime.  

It will be our continuing terrible torment.  

That’s why we need you even as you must go.

Continue guiding us, helping us persevere in the life of perfection you have shown us to emulate.

Then surely we will meet again.

For then we shall have deserved the peace you now enjoy.

Godspeed, Nanay.      

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