By Mortz C. Ortigoza
This story is not about an American
preacher in a village in the Philippines asking his congregation who are mostly
peasants “Who among them have sex with a ghost?”
The preacher, whose intention was to
jest, was surprised when a farmer in his early 20s stood to affirm he had
copulation with the object.
“Really,
you had sex with a ghost or spelled G-H-O-S-T?” the stunned preacher asked.
The peasant immediately apologized to
the pastor that it was not a G-H-O-S-T he had sex for countless of times but a
G-O-A-T.
“Unfortunately
that stocky female goat, er, doe had been butchered when Mortz Ortigoza arrived here in
the town last March 13 and could not go back to Luzon because of the locked
down because of the Corona Virus
Disease-19,” he said embarrassed.
Son
of a gun, I remembered the classic case Hustler Magazine and Larry C. Flynt, Petitioners v. Jerry Falwel
where smut Hustler Magazine publisher Flynt sued by Southern Baptist
Reverend Falwel.
Hustler magazine featured in a parody the
first sexual encounter, an incestuous rendezvous, of the Reverend to his mother
in the family outhouse while they were both "drunk off our God-fearing
asses on Campari."
A white clad lady ghost. |
That
criminal and civil cases became a hall mark jurisprudence on press freedom,
when the U.S Supreme Court held that the First and Fourteenth
Amendments prohibit public figures from recovering damages for the tort of intentional infliction of
emotional distress (IIED), if the emotional distress was caused by a
caricature, parody, or satire of the public figure that a reasonable
person would not have interpreted as factual.
***
I bumped into my former “neighbors” in
the middle and the late of the 1970s Manong Korning and Virgie Sullaga when I
passed by with my mountain bike in front
of their swanky bungalow - a far cry to
their humble nipa and sulanggi made abode perched near a big canal where the
water egress at the M’lang, Cotabato River.
They told me at that already dusk
meeting that they were retired already as vegetable vendors in the M’lang
Market.
We recalled the old days when I opened
up those harrowing and gory grenade throwing incident among vendors and their
children who were practicing a dance number for their Christmas Party
presentation one cold December night.
“It
was 1979 where my son Ka-Bot (now an Army Staff Sergeant assigned in a Davao
province) told me: Pang, may ga pang haboy bato (Father, somebody threw a
stone).
Nong Korning, probably whose real name
is Cornelio a former a quarry hand of the original Juson Sand & Gravel in
the 1970s, saw a grenade rolled on the
concrete pavement going to where most of the spectators mostly children
converged.
In that beastly dastardly act, my
playmates at the well manicured grass ground, just like Camp John Hay in Baguio
City, of the then American ran Southern Baptist College died instantly on the
blast from the shrapnel of the grenade.
“Sila
Boyet Bolivar, si Reggie utod ni Elvis Bolivar, bata ni Rudy Manog ginamos,
bata ni Nang Maring Biliones kag iban pa (Boyet, Reggie the younger brother of
Elvis Bolivar, son of Rudy Manog-ginamos (fermented fish), son of Nang Maring
Biliones and other perished),” I recalled to the Sullagas where other “neighbors”
like the Catubay and Greco were listening.
Korning told me that perpetrator was
not apprehended until now. He corrected me that the fall guy locked up in the
slammer of the town’s police station was not a Muslim but a Cebuano man.
He said he and other grieving parents
went there and he called the suspect beyond the prison iron bars to come near
him.
“Nagpalapit
man dayon siya sa akon. Ginbutong ko dayon ang iya nga kuelo kag ihampos iya
nga guya niya sa rehas (He immediately complied by coming near me. I pulled
vigorously his collars and banged his face on the prison bars)”.
Vintage house of my United States based younger brother perched at Rivas Street, M'lang, Cotabato. It overlooks the verdant green plaza. |
“Oh,
that’s why I met a guy the other day in the Cebuano populated Calunasan Village
they called Boy Rehas because his face have three prison bar scars. He was
indeed scarred to life by your violence Nong Korning,” I said.
“Where
are you going now?” Nang Virgie asked me.
“I
will be passing that iron footbridge for a short cut to go at my brother’s
newly bought vintage wood walled house near the plaza. I stayed there for
almost a month now after I was caught by President Duterte’s Luzon Lockdown. My
airplane’s flights to Clark have been cancelled three times,”
I retorted.
Nong Korning told me he knew that
house. It was owned in the 1960s by Mrs Gastar his Grade 4 teacher at the
M’lang Pilot Elementary School.
My brother told me that the storied
now sulangi (bamboo plates) walled two floor rooms’ house was originally owned
by then Kidapawan town Mayor Evangelista (probably ascendant of the present
city mayor who came from Pangasinan -- my huge province).
“Ginpa
nuble ni Mrs Gastar kay uncle niya Mayor Evangelista. Tapos
si Gastar gin baligya nya kay Dr. Sorongon ang balay worth P93,000 in 1991. Si
Doc Sorongon gin panubli niya kay Kabot ang balay. Gin baligya ni Kabot sa akon
ang balay worth P2.5 Million (Mayor Evangelista bequeathed the house to his niece
Mrs. Gastar. Then Gastar sold the house to Doctor Herman Sorongon worth P93,000
n 1991. Sorongon gave to his son Kabot. Kabot sold it to me for P2.5 million),” my younger brother, who was a former military
professor at the Philippine Military Academy (our birthplace) texted me when I
asked him the history of the house I called Dako
nga Balay as compared to our concrete ancestral house near SBC.
From left: Cornelio "Korning" Sullaga and missus Virgie. Mortz Ortigoza, the author, is at extreme right. |
“May
multo dira nga balay kag bagat dira nga banda sa may mga acacia. Sang 1970s gaage
kami dira para Simbang Gabi. Sang galakat kami sang mga 3 A.M may natumba nga
kahoy kusog sa likod namon.Siling ka kumare ko Virgie diretso ang lakat naton
pakadto sa Saint Teresita Church indi ka magbalikid diretso lang ang lakat
(There is a ghost lurking at that house and those acacia tress. In 1970s we
passed by there for the Simbang Gabi. While we walked at 3 A.M a huge tree fell
loudly at our back. My lady friend and co-wedding sponsor told me to walk
straight and never looked back as we were going to the Saint Teresita Chuch),”
Nang Virgie, formerly Miss Delco a Cebuano, recalled that frightening early
dawn experience at Rivas Street.
She said after the mass they pace
back the same route, already broad daylight, but lo and behold “ain’t no
falling tree blocked the road way.
I had goosebumps listening to Nang
Virgie’s recollection.
“Ti
ikaw may nabatyagan ka man nga multo dira sa gina tulugan mo nga ten rooms’ nga
balay? (How about you, have you noticed a specter bothering you in that ten
rooms’ house?)” she asked me curiously.
“Hu-od
last week. Tunga sang gab-e (Yes last week at midnight),” I quipped while
standing in front of her Sari-Sari (Mom and Pop) Store.
Nong Korning asked me with bated
breath what happened while those nervous kibitzers who are residents of the
Sullaga and Catubay Subdivisions wait for my eerie experience.
“Naga
inum ako ka Tanduay nga long neck tapos nahubog ako sa second floor kung diin
naga panago ang White Lady sa mga kuarto didto (I was imbibing Tanduay Long
Neck then I became cockeyed at the second floor where the White Lady hid in one
of the rooms there)”.
“Ti
ano natabo(Then what happened)?!” an effeminate man in his early 50s
surnamed Greco, who used to pass by at our house in the late 1970s near the
river bank owned by the Jusons, blurted with his nervous poser.
Nag singgit ako (I shouted): White Lady mag pakita ka (White Lady I
challenge you to appear in front of me)!
“Ti
ano nagpakita siya (So what happened, did she appear?”
Nang Virgie butted in.
“Wala
pero nag sabat siya (Nope, but she retorted)”.
“Ano gin sabat niya sa hangkat mo nga
pakita siya (What was her answer to your dare)?” Mr. Catubay, the eldest still handsome son of
former councilor Catubay, a known ladies' man, asked me while the crowd was
deafeningly silent.
I emphatically retorted:
“Nag
sabat siya, indi takon pakita sa imo basi luguson mo ako (I will not come near
you. You’re going to rape me)!”
Everybody guffawed while Korning told
me: Marcelo amo kalang gihapon maskin
pila na ka dekada kita wala makita nga ga inum tuba upod mo si Tintay sa tubaan
ni Kalongkong dira sa lot road karon nga puno na ka mga squatters halin sa
Slaughter House (Marcelo you’re the same comic guy I know countless decades ago
where we listen to your antics quaffing tuba (coconut) wine with the village
lass Tintay at Kalongkong Tubaan at the old highway inhabited by squatters who
came from the old Slaughter House).
(You can read my selected columns at
http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles
at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at
totomortz@yahoo.com)
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