Watching Daddy Struggle to Read

(My parents and older siblings taught me to love books. But Dad was the one who told me that reading could be humbling. It expands your knowledge, but it reveals your smallness. The more you read, the more you realize how little you know.

In the years before he left us, it was so sad to see him holding his grandchildren's books, turning their pages, and unable to read the letters. I wrote a poem after watching one such incident in 2011 or 2012.

Watching Daddy Struggle to Read

You hold a book open on pages 44 to 45

But it is just a weight on your jittery hands

Your decades of alliance with the written word

Have been broken, or worse totally obliterated

Your unsure smile reveals the hidden helplessness

You used to have such a sharp mind:

Your high school classmates would say

A genius with numbers

An English grammar police

Despite the strong accent

Reminiscent of that rustic place

You were born in

Where forthrightness and truth

Are more important than oration

With a foreign accent

I remember everything:

“You say, ‘independent of,’ not ‘from’

‘Result in,’ not ‘to’

‘Comply with’, not ‘to.’” I was nine or ten

But never too young to learn

For someone who believed

So much that familiarity with correctness

Could lead his child to bigger things

Perhaps, a voice for the unheard

A defender of the oppressed

Now, at 75, like a baby taking her first steps

You struggle hard-

I can only imagine how much-

To make sense of the letters

Your hand used to write so beautifully

The words you wrote were always

Shaped like an artist’s masterpiece

Now they are jagged on the edges

Like your memories- fuzzy on the corners

I wonder, Daddy, do you have nostalgia

Of the days when it was not like this?

How I wish the vacuum in your memory

Did not swallow remembered love for us

And our obedience, however failing, to your edict:

"Always be something for others

All the good books teach that."

DADDY AND THE GLOBE

Last week, I saw a globe lamp in a store in Geneva and felt something tug at my heart. I bought it.

To me, a globe is less about geography than it is about memory. Every time I see a globe, my eyes well up with tears.

You see, the second to the last face-to-face conversation I had with my father involved a globe.

I went to my parents’ place to borrow a weighing scale. I was traveling to the US for an academic fellowship for a year. I had to make sure I would travel without excess baggage.

In the family area near the dining room, I saw the globe. It used to belong to my brother’s family who moved to Canada.

My daughter, Kathlea Francynn Gawani was then 9 and was fascinated with geography and the capitals of countries. I asked Dad if she could have the globe. Dad said yes so I brought it home. That day, I also gave Dad bread I bought from a bakery in Agoo, La Union where I had a court hearing.

Two days later, I drove to my parents’ house to return the weighing scale and to say goodbye. Mom was there.

Mom said, “So it was you who got that. Your Dad said a woman came and took the weighing scale and the globe.” I also learned Dad put the bread I gave him under the kitchen sink. Maybe, since the bread was given by someone he thought was a stranger, he did not want to risk anyone harmed from eating it.

That was amusing, although a bit hurtful. Mom and I had a good laugh.

Dad would die five months later. It was winter. I flew to the Philippines for his funeral. When I was on the plane, I withdrew from my memory bank my last conversations with him. I remembered the globe and sadly thought that I was practically circling Earth to be with Dad. I wrote a poem.

That was when my memory of the globe evolved from amusing to poignant. The sight of a globe now makes me sad and happy at the same time. Sometimes, it reminds me of my grief at its worst.

A few weeks after we buried Daddy, I returned to the US. My sorrow reached its pinnacle when I was alone in my apartment. There was a protracted time I who, by nature, draw energy from being with people, preferred solitude, turned off my phone, and shut the world out. I kept going back to that day I got the globe and, even if I was no believer in the existence of ghosts, kept praying that Dad would show himself to me. I would force myself to sleep, hoping I would dream of him. I alternated between sleeping with the help of tablets, and remembering the globe, crying, and grieving.

My friends got worried when they could not connect to me and decided to call 911. But they thought of doing a wellness check first. Of course, Kuya Judge Philip Aguinaldo and Desmond Kaunda found me alive but distraught. I told them about the globe, my last conversation over the phone with Daddy when he was struggling to remember me (“If you are my daughter, why are you not here?”) and my pain that he died when I was away from home. I was in another part of the globe.

Yes, Daddy had Alzheimer’s as did his siblings. He was a man of intellectual brilliance . Yet, in his final years, his brain shrank. Asking him what his children’s names were would make him draw a blank and, later, recognizing them was a wrestle he could not win.

I may suffer from Alzheimer’s when I get old(er), too. I may forget what a globe is for or what it means to me these days.

But for now, I will always cherish globes, even if they make me sad. They also remind me of my father’s smile on that day when he received me in his house and I assumed he knew it was me he was smiling to (It took some prodding for him to recognize me - or so I thought.) and not some strange woman whose bread offering was suspicious and should not be put on the family dining table.

That day, while I knew he had trouble remembering his children, I forgot that. He made me forget it with his welcoming smile.

LESSONS FROM DAD ON PUBLIC MANAGEMENT, EFFICIENCY, AND EFFECTIVENESS

I was wet behind the ears - virtually a fresh college graduate and a lawyer under construction - when I first got appointed by a Philippine President. I became a Director of the now-defunct Cordillera Executive Board and was the youngest then. I understood the Cordillera struggle for self-determination very well and probably used a better lens in deconstructing social issues than much older colleagues, thanks to my exposure to activism. However, I was inexperienced as a manager or administrator. I was, in two words, scared and insecure.

Thankfully, I had a father for an adviser. Do not push and throw your weight. Do not cover up your inexperience with arrogance. Do not engage in power trip. Do not mistreat the people under you. Use your power for the needy and weak. Give priority to those who traveled miles to see you. Aside from his reminders, Daddy pushed me to pursue a master's degree in public administration so I could fill the lacuna in my experience.

In UP, I had the best management professors. But my biggest mentor was Daddy. His long and diverse experience in public service and the wisdom he imbibed from growing up in an indigenous society where he observed collective decision-making on and management of community affairs became my Public Ad 101 lessons that I cannot forget. He imparted the same lessons to my siblings.

One time, I discussed Max Weber with Daddy. We talked about efficiency and effectiveness. What is the difference? I asked him.

My father, a baby boomer then in his 50s and member of the old school whose love affair with the Olivetti typewriter was characterized by eternal devotion and exclusivity, would always explain with illustrations.

"I draft a communication and give it to my secretary for typing. Inadvertently, there is a misspelled word. My secretary types the letter exactly as I drafted it. That is efficiency. "

How about effectiveness, Daddy?

"Effectiveness is when my secretary corrects my error."

I relate these because it seems even efficiency is a forgotten value among some civil servants in possession of managerial or supervisory powers. I heard complaints from various agencies. I have observed it myself. This contributes to bureaucratic malaise and the often-complained-about bureaucratic red tape. Some use the little power in their hands to promote self-interests and/or to inflate their relevance. They are threatened or intimidated by colleagues and subordinates who have initiatives or usher in new ideas or invoke old ideas that are not obsolete but remain practical. Some are simply incorrigible and lack imagination that they refuse to abandon old systems that are not working and have become obsolete. Others have no capacity to be shakers and movers even if their positions require them to be so. Imagine a manager saying, "We cannot do anything, " or "We have no control over those matters," when clearly he or she has. (This week alone, I heard this twice from two different agencies. One was the agency to whom I referred three people whose issues were brought to my attention by Samaria Santa Gall-Tang. They traveled from the province to seek the intervention of government on their plight only to be told nothing could be done. I am still incensed.)

In the process, these civil servants derail public service. They sabotage the quantity and quality of public service. So what? They will still receive their salaries. And they enjoy security of tenure. No one gets dismissed from the civil service for lack of imagination and creativity, or inability to be practical, or insecurity.

In their minds, they probably rationalize they are not stealing from the public coffers. But they are in a way. Incompetence in the form of a non-performing manager or civil servant who gets paid nonetheless is expensive. It is money lost. Every derailed public service is money lost. Lack of creativity and the feeling of lack of control or refusal to take control of matters within one's turf bear striking semblance to corruption in consequence.

I wish we all endeavor to optimize whatever little power we have to serve the people. If there are people we can command to accomplish things, let us use them. Only the insecure people in positions of power -great or small- are uncomfortable when surrounded by people who are highly accomplished, or driven, visionaries, or brilliant.

Having said that mouthful which is also a lecture to myself, I am glad I work under a leader who inspires his lieutenants to steer the move forward towards the vision, to deliver without being told, to take initiatives aligned with the vision, to self-actualize with no motivation higher than to serve the people. What a shame to respond to the expectations with inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

I am glad I am led by Department of Labor Secretary Silvestre "Bebot Bello.

#Theteacherisonlecturemode

#Waragainstlackofimagination

IS AN EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE PART OF THE TERRITORY OF A COUNTRY?

 

I read that Nemo was finally found and he knows where he is.

But Nemo does not want his friend Dory to get lost - again. He wants you to tell him if the West Philifin Sea as Philifin Exclusive Economic Zone is part of the national territory of his beloved Philifins. The debates are confusing him.

Why is the question material? Dory wants to visit Nemo. He is now in the Recto Bank. Is he in the Philifins? If he is, Dory must get a fisha (the equivalent of the visa humans use) from the Philifin Emfishy (the equivalent of the embassy for humans). She was advised to get a fisha from the Chinapa Emfishy  by her best friend, Finyol.

Or Dory might not need a fisha at all because the Recto Bank, while within the EEZ of the Philifins, is outside of its territorial waters.

(Of course, Nemo says that regardless of whether the EEZ is part of Philifin territory or not, the Philifins should tell Chinapas not to gather planktons there. He plans to gather the members of Congdilis, the lawmaking body, to study the matter.)

SOME TEACHINGS FROM DAD ABOUT ENTITLEMENT

When we attended a social gathering two years ago, my aunt, who is with the UN, and I joined the queue for lunch. An in-law who has a column in a newspaper wrote about it. Just. Because. We. Queued.

But queuing was not really something spectacular we did. My father instilled that in me and my siblings. And he must have been molded by his own clan to think the way he did. My relatives -at least, most of us - abhor the sense of entitlement people think are attached to positions or social status.

Dad always stressed that a high post in government does not give one entitlements. You become a public servant. It is just a role which is not more than that of the farmer who produces our food, the teacher who educates our children, the activist who struggles to change the world, the doctor or nurse who takes care of the health of others, the driver who takes us places, the janitor who keeps our workplaces and environment clean.

What is important is that we do right by our roles, regardless of how high or low, or how important or not, society views them. No role is more important or higher than the others. What matters is we do not use them to take advantage of others. We use them to help humanity.

But stratification and the entitlement attached to it are a social reality. In the Department of Justice, there are celebrations to mark milestones. During the anniversary in 2017, there was free lunch for everyone. When I said to the staff, "Let us now have lunch, " Kuya Loloy, a staff of ASec Macarambon, said to me, "Ma'am, VIPs will have lunch in the (other building). Let me take you there." I jokingly told my staff, mostly Igorots, and ASec Macarambon's staff, all Muslims, "You are also VIPs - Very Indigenous People. I will join my cohort of Very Insufferable People." We all laughed.

Anyway, back when when we were making the invitations to my wedding, someone - a relative of my husband- said we should list the sponsors according to "order of importance" and that meant putting the names of the high-ranking politicians (Two were asked by us while the rest offered.) ahead with their titles prefixed by Hon. (eg. Hon. Juan Dela Cruz). To the long list, I added my Aunty Francisca Lim-ay Anton, Ms. Rosita Dang-awen and Ms. Paula Agdaca, also aunts who were among my favorite elementary school teachers, Mr. Esteban Tiwaken (to appease my aunts who so wanted him to become my father-in-law even if his son did not intend to make me his wife. Haha. And I also wanted him to be there.), Ms. Dolores Lagyop, one college professor of mine, Cong. Victor Dominguez who was like a second father to me, and Mayor Mauricio Domogan (who happens to be a relative).

I objected to the "marching order" of the well-meaning relative from the other side to list the ninongs and ninangs according to "order of importance." The well-meaning relative insisted that we use "Honorable" for the incumbent politicians who should be first on the list, "tay siya ino nan maik-ikkan (it is how it is being done)." I said, "What makes them more honorable than the others? They are all honorable." My mom said to me, "You give in. That is not enough reason to create conflict." I would not give in to convention but I also saw wisdom in Mom's entreaty. So in the end, the ninongs and ninangs were listed in ALPHABETICAL ORDER and everyone's name was prefixed by "Hon." That was my small defiance.

Every time I look at the invitation, I laugh and remember how I stuck to "honorable" in its ordinary meaning (The political meaning is different. "Honorable" means you are an elective official or hold a high-ranking government post, even if you do dishonorable things.). I bite my tongue, too, for my hard-headedness.

But I stayed true to a belief my father taught me: Human beings are equal. Treat the powerful guy as you would the weak one. And if you have power in your hands, use it for the weak.

I remember Daddy poignantly today, Father's Day. It has been 6 years since he left us. But his words abide in his children. May our children catch them.

(He wrote me a letter when I graduated from high school. He wrote me when I graduated from college. I guess I was

his problem child.)