WAS THIS GOD'S WAY? Contd

With little money I was being paid in my job, about 27 pesos a week, I became emboldened to do my own thing like inviting some friends to a drinking spree. I took pride of the fact that I was earning now. Beer was 45 centavos a bottle and a square tanduay was 1.50. When we got into singing it showed that we were already under the influence, and the more we drank the more we sang. This had become a regular rendevouz every time I got paid that trouble became a part of the occasion. A guest of one of the locals joined us and he liked to sing. We got drunk and the more he showed his talent. This annoyed Fred Augusto and he picked up a beer bottle and hit the guy's head with it. He went reeling down unconscious and a free for all fight ensued. I got hit by I did not know who did it and I started picking up chairs and used it to hit everybody in my way. People around were screaming and Tata, known to be a gang leader inside the national prison who was newly released came to pick up the young man who was still groggy. His head gaped of a big cut and blood clotting around to stop the bleeding. "Here's a towel," someone from the stairs inside the house threw the towel to Tata and he carried the man out. News spread like wildfire that I was involved in a rumble. My mother looked for me but I could not be found. I sneaked into my room while my mother was still in the street and I went to sleep. The next morning the Lugait police came and arrested Fred Augusto along with three other people. I was not included.

When school opened I managed to enroll in fourth year. Eng-eng gave me money and said that he would continue to support my schooling. "I will do this until I get married," he said to my family, "and then I will stop." With the way that I was carrying myself now in relation to my befriending the troublemakers, school became vague. I no longer was enthusiastic as before about excelling in my classes. At fifteen running sixteen, I began courting the girls that I liked. I had Dadi and Demi. Dadi became my girlfriend and I was also pursuing Demi. Dadi went to a college in Iligan, and Dimi was just home, she dropped out of school. There was also another girl, Lyn, who came from Cebu to work as a waitress, that I was eyeing on. Lyn was easy because she lived in our house temporarily until she could find another place. Demi was beautiful and I really like her. Alit was her brother and I would visit her using as an alibi that I was looking for Alit. I was slipping away from school, my interest was gone, and, probably because I lost hope about finishing it since Eng-eng was engaged to get married to Gigeng. And I was still hanging out with Jose and urged me to be more daring and to hurt the tagalog workers in the plant because they appeared arrogant to him. There were times we ran after people because we liked to just hit them, for no reason whatsoever. A young man on a bicycle passed by beside us while were walking at around eight at night honking his horn and Jose told him to quiet down. "Who are you?" the young man disdainfully answered. Jose ran after him to hurt him but he managed to slip away and we saw which house he entered in. Jose went inside the house, dragged the young man out, and we beat him up in the street. Jose had lots of enemies. At any moment, when his enemies spotted him, he could be attacked. And when I was with him I'd get in a rumble too. Jose could tell me to beat a man and I would do it. My cousin who owned a store did not want me around. I could pick up someone in the crowd and go to him and beat him up. We go to Iligan in a group just to look for a rumble with the Muslims. I prepared two daggers and a chain around my waist for an occasion like this. Thankfully enough, I did skip the police.

Finally, I quit school. I continued to work in the quarry and my mother and father became involved in the Pentecostal church again pastored by Pastor Codilla, a lawyer by profession. There in the church my name was first in the hit list for prayer request. They had invited the pastor to the house to talk about what they had to do to tame me. Apparently I was a goner. They prayed and here I was and I walked in between of them. My mother mumbled, "bastos," which meant, ill-mannered. I did attend their chapel service one Sunday afternoon and sat in the back. I was only observing but the leader of the service urge me to say something. Shocked, I refused. I got scared to say something. "Here, up here, on the front, brother Boy," the leader said. "No," I told myself. But the ladder took my by the hand and pulled me to the front. I frozed and no words would come out of my mouth, even though I tried to speak. I'd never forget that day as long as I live. I went out from there straight to see Demi, which was a ten minute walk. My heart raced in me with intense feeling that I would now visit Demi. But she was not home. Eddie, her older brother, informed me that there was a new girl in the other house and challenged my guts to go and introduce myself. "Oh, Boy, she is so beautiful," Eddie said. I started to go inside the house but Delfin, a suitor of Demi, walloped me with his fist. I was quick enough to see it and he hit me but not as much. I took to the road and he followed me. We fought. We exchanged hits. I was quicker since I was trained to be a boxer. I managed to subdue him. When people saw that Delfin was terribly hurt I was stopped by Eddie. My brother Rogelio came and saw how I fought and he lauded me for that. Delfin had his face all swollen up and had to be taken to the doctor. I did not have any cut in my face. My mother learned about what happened and she again cried.

I still continued to help my dad in fishing, and sometime I would go alone and he wasn't feeling well. I would go deep sea with a huge net at night to float for hours with a very bright petromax. The rather mild waves rocked me back and forth splashing quite silently against the side of my boat. Flying fishes unintentionally flew inside the boad and I would pick one up, pulled the head out, then wash the body in the sea water, and then eat it. My net got filled with "tamban" fish and I go home with some ample catch. How my life drastically changed. Back in Gatub I ran the trees that my father felled to catch the birds at the end. Here, now, I became a part of the vast ocean. Sicpao, where I was born, was totally remote from the ocean and from civilization. Right now, I had transformed into a wild person, learning how to fight and now called as a troublemaker.

As a man of the sea, I turned extremely dark, and my already curly hair became much more even blacker. Hanging out with the policemen of Lugait when I was not with Jose, becoming their singer in their affairs and events, I gained a good deal of popularity. Wherever I go, people knew who I was. I was the family's balckship, especially so that two of my brothers now, Alfredo and Ramon, were well-known pastors of the Assembly of God. Andresa was one Christian young lady that knew of my brother pastors and desired in her heart to get to speak with me about God. But I was not that easy to talk to about God. I refused to go to church and no one could make me. Andresa was newly married to Nanding Balili and her birthday was coming up. She came up to me when she saw me fetching water from the artesian well and invited me to come to her birthday party. She urged me to bring my guitar and asked me if I could give a song. And I did. That Saturday afternoon in November of 1968 I found myself sitting on a pew attending a church service. Andresa enrolled in a Bible School in Dalipuga, that is a place before Kiwalan, and she invited her co-student to speak in her birthday service. His name was Rudy Macabenta. Rudy was half blind. He stuttered and stumbled in his words. He was preaching from John 3:16. I was embarrased for him. My stomach literally churned listening at him. I had no admiration of him whatsoever; I only had disdain. "How dare he speak, when he doesn't know how to speak at all! I said to myself. After the service, I went to Andresa and told her that if I were the one who would go to school, I'd never mumble and stumble in my words, and that I would never disappoint my hearers. "Why don't you enroll and join us?" Andresa said. "Anyway, you are not in school. You can come with me on Monday."

That Monday I found myself enrolled in the Bible School. My guitar was still with me.