WOMEN

(Memories on October 25, 2012)

The other day, I was nervously sipping my cup of coffee while sitting patiently inside a “turo-turo” resto along Guanco Street. I was waiting for somebody who would lead me to somebody who had a lead about somebody whom I’d need to meet. Half an hour later, a couple of students came in fast and took the table directly across my spot right after they got off a taxi cab. I guessed they were both eighteen or under but they obviously were in this so-called young love, sweet love.

More minutes later, such sugar-sweet love became sweeter. Especially when they both ordered beer as the sugar melted like in a pan getting hotter. I didn’t mind their public caressing of each other, knowing that today’s generation of lovers is nonchalantly daring and bold. I didn’t mind for I understood that when you’re struck by that crazy thing called “love” it’s as if you exclusively owned the whole world.

What caught my attention, aside from the girl’s carelessness and being unmindful of a further drop of her décolleté, was her propensity in gulping down every bottle in just a minute. To think that what they were having were not a beer in Spanish named after an angel but a much stronger sort with a picture of a red Trojan pet.

Wow, like a former Manila councilor in the days of yore, who, according to the late Mayor named Arsenio, “so young yet so corrupt,” when he was then referring to a fellow who’s running next year for senator again: Maceda, Ernesto. 

I said corrupt in the sense that that girl was corrupted by our decaying culture and total loss of values. That girl was corrupted by too much freedom given to her by unsuspecting parents perhaps to the extent that she had it abused. When I imagined replacing that girl’s face with that of my daughter’s, I trembled at the thought as fear gripped my entire body. Such scene is a certified nightmare for a parent and how could I, as a father, bear it inside me upon seeing my beloved only daughter turning into a wild young lady?

God forbid. A very scary scene indeed.

If today’s generation is beyond imagination, what more would be tomorrow’s, the one “beyond redemption”? According to the latest survey, more than half of the drinkers today in our country are women. Well, that’s the problem when you give women their full freedom in this world or let them take the reins. No wonder the Taliban or Muslim hardliners are scared to give powers to them. They probably thought women would cause their eviction from paradise again. We can’t blame them, how many men of valor and renown in all history of the world had ended up in misery and sin because of women? 

But to prove their critics wrong, give always a chance to women. While some of them are ugly, out and in, some have beauty even beyond their skin. And in your relationship with them with avowed commitment, play the game of life like Letran: “don’t give up, don’t give in,” as some are more than just worth loving.