(Disclaimer: This narrative is a creative interpretation of real-life events, and thus contains fictional elements and other embellishments. No disrespect or harm is intended.)
MY land problem just continues to crop up in this series of True Confessions stories, the latest of which—the one you’re about to read—is rather gory. So before I begin, I apologize to those partaking of chorizos, sausages or hotdogs, or licking lollipops.
Phallic pleasure is one of the experiences a man values most. To be deprived of it is a punishment that can even be worse than death. Of what use is a man who got his very manhood chopped off? For losing his spring of procreation, he contributes not a bit to propagating his race. Isn’t that the pinnacle of man’s utter uselessness?
There was this handsome, virile-looking US Marine who doggedly wooed one of those beauteous Filipino bar girls in Angeles, Pampanga. That was the time when Mt. Pinatubo had not yet ejaculated those kilotons upon kilotons of lahar that actually buried to extinction the US Clark Air Base in the area. The girl took the Marine’s suit as a golden opportunity, because he was ready to take her into his household in the States, together with her three children by her Filipino husband who already abandoned her. Mr. Handsome would marry her once they got to America. With everything put in place for their eventual union, the girl accepted the guy’s invitation to a date in one of the brothels in the city.
To make a long story short, they were fiercely storming in bed, her in full naked glory, but him still keeping his groins in the sanctum sanctorum of his boxers. And each time she attempted to return his touching her genitalia by touching his, he either moved his front away or he made her hand touch elsewhere. Until she could not hold off not putting his instrument inside her. With lightning-fast speed, she grabbed his shorts and pulled them down, giddy with delight…until she saw there was nothing there!
The romantic bed storm just went pfft.
The girl’s reaction was so indescribable; no word could capture her feelings. The guy was obviously ready with a response.
“I got it in battle,” he lamely explained. “I got hit there, and that’s it. The doctor had to cut it all off.”
The soldier then moved to make up for his shortcomings—nay, nonecomings—by pulling the girl back to bed again.
“Don’t worry, darling. I’ve got my hands, my fingers, my tongue. I can make you happy after all. Think of the good life I’m gonna give you in America. You and your kids.”
And he resumed rummaging with his hands and mouth through her flesh, caressing every soft spot, every little lump, every minute mound, seeking out every concealed crevice, and digging into every depth.
It did not take long before the girl let out her utter womanly candor by pushing him away.
“What the f**k!” he fumed.
She stared hard at him, then started getting back into her clothes pronto.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said, trying to stop her from getting dressed.
“Sorry,” she said. “It won’t do.”
He ended up moving to grab at her front, asking, “Is a woman good for nothing other than a man’s dick?”
She madly parried his move and quickly zipped up her pants.
She yelled, “Yes!”
SO how was that incident connected to the topic at hand? Read on.
Before I got the Department of Environment and National Resources’ (DENR) ruling declaring spurious and recommending their cancellation the documents used by a land grabber in claiming my property, that claimant breezed through the inaccuracies of the court mode of summary proceedings (in which no trial is held and cases are judged based solely on the presentation of documents by both parties to the dispute) in getting a court order ejecting me from the property.
That order came from the Municipal Trial Court for Cities (MTCC) of Antipolo, appealable to the regional trial court (RTC), which I eventually did. The case landed in the sala of Judge Antonio Quisumbing. Upon the advice of my lawyer, I approached Gov. Gilbert Simeon, powerful kingpin and executive of a Luzon province, for intercession in the case.
“If you can find a way to Gilbert, then that will do the trick. Gilbert is the main sponsor of Quisumbing in getting appointed to his post in the Rizal RTC,” my lawyer said. “He can’t say no to Gilbert.”
“Yes!” I ejaculated audibly at the information. “I have a way.”
It just so happened that I have grown close to the statuesque, stately beauty Jean Mae Sanjit, who was a national teen beauty queen before she joined the movies in the late 1980s. And Jean belonged in the inner circle of playgirls around the playboy Gilbert. It was not that Jean herself was among Gilbert’s kept women. It was that she was the closest friend of Cherrie Pie, the current girlfriend (some call her the wife) of Gilbert, whom he had, in vulgar parlance, “iginarahe (settled in)” as a kept woman.
In other words, Cherrie Pie exerted just that kind of influence over Gilbert to persuade him into taking up my cause with regard to Judge Quisumbing. And with at least four movies I had cast Jean in at the time, I believed I enjoyed enough clout over her to persuade her in turn to make Cherrie Pie do such persuasion on Gilbert.
True enough, even as it was raining that afternoon I called Jean for the purpose, she immediately acceded, setting an appointment with me at 4 p.m. in a certain shop at Metrowalk in Ortigas Center, where she said Gilbert would be at that time. Thus, it came about that as Jean made that recommendation to me, Cherrie Pie persuaded Gilbert to attend to my concern.
“Daddy, si Direk (director),” Cherrie Pie pointed me to Gilbert.
“Direk Mauro Gia Samonte,” Jean cut in. “Nakakaapat na akong pelikula sa kanya (He has cast me in four pictures already).”
“Ah, Samonte…Dating governor ng (Former governor of) Ilocos Sur, Samonte. Kaanu-ano mo (How are you related to him)?”
“Kaapelyido lang (We’ve only have the surname).”
“May kailangan siya sa iyo, Gov (He needs something from you, Gov),” said Jean.
“Tulungan mo (Help him), Daddy,” said Cherrie Pie, fondling Gilbert’s hand.
From the body language of Gilbert, I could tell that he sensed the gravity of my situation and, by the way Cherrie Pie indicated me to the governor, it was easy to tell she was impressing upon him that what I needed was something he must give. So I deduced early on that I was going to get what I went there for.
“Halika (Come),” Gilbert said, signaling me to come near the table, where he sat next to Cherrie Pie, who was next to Jean. From where I had stood waiting, I approached the governor in response to his signal.
“Ano ba ‘yon (What is it about)?” he asked. Nobody invited me to a seat, so I stayed standing beside Gilbert.
“I have this case, Governor…”
Gilbert cut me short, indicating by his language that I should speak in Filipino. “Anong kaso (What case)?”
“Ejectment po. Natalo ako sa lower court. Naka-appeal ngayon kay Judge Francis Quisumbing. Baka po pwedeng kausapin ninyo si Judge Quisumbing. (Ejectment. I lost at the lower court. Case on appeal at the sala of Judge Francis Quisumbing. I wish you could talk to Judge Quisumbing).”
Gilbert didn’t seem to relish my information. He stared at me, as if about to chide me, and asked: “Sinong nagsabi sayo na kilala ko si Judge Quisumbing (Who told you I know Judge Quisumbing?)”
“Ang lawyer ko po (My lawyer).”
Cherrie Pie sensed that Gilbert was hesitating. She gripped his arms caressingly.
“Tulungan mo na siya (Do help him), Daddy.”
Gilbert gazed at Cherrie Pie, sighed slightly, threw a flitting glance at me, brought his cellphone out of his pants’ pocket, and dialed a number.
A few rings, then Gilbert spoke: “Hello, Francis… Kausap ko itong si Samonte (I am talking to this Samonte)…May kaso daw sa’yo (He says he has a case with you)… (I had quickly scribbled the case number and handed it to Gilbert, who read it) Eto ang (Here’s the) case number…11-2005…Oo (Yes)…Mauro Gia Samonte…Ah…Ganun (So that’s it)?…Basta bahala ka na (Do whatever you can)… Kaibigan ito ni (This is a friend of ) Jean at (and) Cherrie Pie…Tulungan mo na (Help him)…Sige (Okay)…”
Gilbert hung up, closed the mobile phone, and put it back in his pocket. He looked to me.
“Okay na (It’s okay now),” Gilbert said.
I was tentative with my reaction.
“Thank you—”
Jean cut in, saying, “ Hug mo si Gov (You hug Gov), Direk.”
I hugged Gilbert around the shoulders. He tapped my arm gently while eyeing Cherrie Pie in a manner that struck me as saying there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.
I had come home from that meeting brimming with a feeling that I had survived already the landgrab attack on my property through the courts. To begin with, the decision at the MTCC was in blatant violation of judicial process, with the judge, realizing that the original complaint for ejectment for forcible entry would not stand against my documented possession of the property since the late 1960s, arbitrarily changing that complaint from one for forcible entry to one for unlawful detainer.
With Gilbert having talked to Quisumbing, telling the judge “bahala ka na” within earshot, I felt I was out for smooth sailing in the land case from then on. For that reason, even as Quisumbing proceeded to issue one order after another denying my appeal and thence for the execution of a writ of demolition of my house (estimated to cost P2 million at the time), I stood my ground. And with the sheriff backing out from a number of demolition attempts, I had the sense that I would prevail in the end.
What transpired between Gilbert and Cherrie Pie since then was completely lost to me. And this became a hallmark of my naiveté. As the girl in the opening part of this piece realized in one fell swoop—that it did not matter at all that her Marine boyfriend was giving her all the comfort she needed for herself and for her kids, that to the serviceman’s question “Is a woman good for nothing other than a man’s dick?” and her unequivocal answer was “Yes!”—so did Cherrie Pie begin seeking that supreme feature of a man’s groins once he realized Gilbert was increasingly getting into practically that Marine’s dicklessness due to erectile dysfunction. I did not realize that Gilbert’s intercession for me with Quisumbing was completely contingent upon the continuing amorous relationship between the governor and Cherrie Pie, and when that relationship began to sour, what the heck did Quisumbing have to do business with me?
Beginning in 2005, developments in my land case appeared to belong to the dynamics of interconnectivity with the storm the Gilbert-Cherrie Pie romance was degenerating into. In that period, Gilbert—who should not be a national security expert for nothing—began sensing that Cherrie Pie was having romantic liaisons with younger men. But he did love her as he did the 18-year-old virginal beauty queen that she was when he first met her, so that as all old lovers tend to do, which is to pass off tales of their partners’ indiscretion as pure dirty gossip, he let in one ill talk of Cherrie Pie’s indiscretion through one ear and out of the other.
It was testimony to Gilbert’s high breeding as a gentleman and a true and sincere lover that even when he caught Cherrie Pie actually having a romance with a young movie actor, he still sought to just dissuade her from cheating and start anew with him.
But on my birthday in August 2009, Gilbert must have reached his Rubicon. Despite having been forgiven by Gilbert quite a few times, Cherrie was cheating again, and this time with unabashed passion. Instead of just trysting with her current boyfriend in some unobtrusive hideaway, she dated him right in the apartment that served as her love nest with Gilbert in Metro Manila.
Gilbert’s superb intelligence network had unearthed this modus operandi of the illicit duo. Whenever Gilbert would be off to his home province, Cherrie Pie’s lover would sneak into the apartment and make love there to their hearts’ content.
That night was, for the duo, just one more evening of romantic routine. But for Gilbert, it was for the execution of his coup de grace. He pretended to leave for his home province, and he took her routine goodbye kiss and such other niceties as “love you, take care, and be back soon, I’ll miss you,” nice little thoughts that actually fatten the heart of a man truly in love. But that evening, Gilbert was already a man scorned and must summon much human restraint to prevent himself from getting pissed off by what to him were pure gestures of hypocrisy made to hide an abominable infidelity.
Once Gilbert’s car disappeared down the bend, Cherrie Pie hurried into the family car and drove off. Unknown to her, Gilbert, in his car that was surreptitiously parked along the way, was tailing her, making a determined grip of a lion whip in his hand, already grudging at visuals of her picking up her guy somewhere and then bringing him right to the apartment to indulge in their indiscretion.
So it was that Gilbert caught the couple copulating as he suddenly barged into the apartment. It is often said that hell hath no fury than a woman scorned; I’d say not until you get an old casanova gone crazy at seeing his beloved in coitus with a young lover. Gilbert lost no time in beating Cherrie up with the whip he had been gripping tight in his hand—the instrument he used for chastening the wild lions in his mini zoo in the province. Meanwhile, Gilbert’s goons manhandled the defenseless, docile gigolo, a little-known movie actor named Willy whose sole forte was using his cock and machismo in getting roles in second-rate bold movies.
It shocked me to learn of the terrible incident from graphic accounts in the media. This happened some four years after Quisumbing—in one more dastardly bastardization of judicial processes—ordered the final demolition of my house and the takeover of a portion of my property by the claimant.
Thus, it came to pass that for every strike of Gilbert’s lion whip on the bare body of Cherrie Pie, and for every blow the bare body of Willy got from Gilbert’s goons, I thought of images of a large demolition crew bringing down in one tremendous move the entire iron sheet fencing off the frontage of my property and then charging forward, like a rampaging conquering army, onto images of crowbars tearing off the galvanized iron roof of my house, sledge hammers crashing the concrete walls, though hardly dinting the sturdy concrete posts and beams, but otherwise completely shattering the glass panels, whose sharp pieces were as the one single blade with which, for the finale of the torture episode, Gilbert sent slicing into Willy’s genitals.
“Pinutol” would be a fitting title if the incident were turned into a movie.
“Arghhh…Owww…” went the cry of anguish that echoed into the night, even as it seemed the needed prompting for Cherrie Pie to scurry to the balcony and from there jump into a neighbor’s compound in order to escape a similar castration by the raging Gilbert.
The cry of the amateur lover was veritably my own at the shattering of my home.
But the analogy must stress this difference: Cherrie Pie and the gigolo were the bastards, and they deserved their ugly fate; I was the bastardized, I deserved my just due.
In September 2009, after a thorough investigation of my complaint lodged against the land grabber, DENR ruled that the property is owned by me and that the documents used by the land grabber in claiming it were spurious and recommended ther cancellation by the Anti-Fake Titles Board.
And that, as the reader can tell from the narrative, no thanks to Gilbert after all, and to Cherrie Pie, for that matter.
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