THE LIST

[February 6, 2013 at 6:51pm]

It hurts the moment you don’t see your name in an official list of successful examinees when you went to check it upon its release. I knew it when Napolcom’s list of exams passers mercilessly excluded my name during Marcos era when I tried the first step to become “Mamang Pulis.”

What made it more frustrating was the fact that right after I finished answering then all the questions, including the supposedly should be left unanswered ones, I was so certain like the rising sun that I would top that year’s exams and would be terribly sad if only in third place would I land.

That’s why for many years it remained an enigma to me when I found out I did not even pass. How could that be when I answered in an objective question that the Army chief then was Josephus Q. Ramas?

When I was asked therein to write down the Minister of Information, I’m sure I wrote Francisco ‘Kit’ Tatad, now a senatoriable, correctly. And I was trembling in fear as I also answered then that the Minister of National Defense was the immortal Juan Ponce Enrile.

Well, that’s life, you’re loftily proudly doing your best, but sometimes that best wasn’t even good enough to make you a police.

Another disappointing example of having a sore sight of not finding your own name in the official list is when you secure a security paper of your “live birth,” and discovered therein that as far as the NSO is concerned, you don’t technically exist!

Imagine having lived on this Earth for as close to half a century and has just discovered that you are not registered nationally? I had my first birthday cake on my 44th year, and I couldn’t believe the cake beat my national registration to the draw much faster.

Well, though this lapse in judgment on my part could be fatal had there been some urgent need for my “live birth” elsewhere, that sin of omission is nothing compared to the scene which will surely happen sooner or later.

That scene would definitely be the scariest, more horrible than any horror-drama movie anyone can get. It’s when we all finally stand before the Holy One’s Judgment Seat, where we’d expect rewards and awards yet finding our name therein nowhere in the list.

And the saddest of all is when we argue our case we gave alms to the poor and did things in His Name only, and He would write His Finger on the ground again and answer nonchalantly: “I never know you. Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity…” (Matthew 7:21-23)