In Corregidor

Ramon was our tour guide. He's seventy-four years old and has been a tour guide all his life, except for when he was a boy. When he was a boy, he was just a boy in the war, and now that is all he can talk about. He is old and he looked it, but he also looked strong. Throughout the trip, he stood erect and flailed his arms about energetically whenever he thought he was sharing something interesting. Other times, he indulged in salacious jokes, the kind that certain old people find awfully funny and which young people find more than a little creepy, and I longed to cover my students' ears. I asked him where he lived and he said in Sucat, Paranaque. He took the bus and ferry early that morning to get to Corregidor to show tourists the sights. In Corregidor, there was nothing much to see except for remnants of buildings with some bullet holes in them. I inspected the buildings and they did not impress me—I did not think they have ever been beautiful. Loss is only tragic when it’s the loss of the beautiful. When these structures were destroyed, all that was lost were the lives of people who probably have been dead by now, too. Loss is only tragic when the thing lost could still be here now but isn’t. Great people, they could have been, but every time has its own great people, anyway. The grief for the island belongs to the people of the past. We will have our own reasons to mourn. I did not know to which time Ramon belonged. I asked him if he does this everyday. He said not anymore, only four to five times a week. He can no longer do it, he said, what with his health. I said I think no one can, and turned my head away.

That night, Ice and I attended a dinner party in Ayala Heights’ Corregidor Street. Ice marveled at the coincidence, and at the irony of it all. We drank wine and nibbled cheese and ate caviar spread on crackers, and they talked and I quietly laughed until almost midnight when I knew I truly had to get some sleep.