Friendship in the Time of Tokhang

Incumbent Philippine President Duterte vowed to fight drug trafficking, and this has led to “tokhang.”  Wiktionary defines tokhang as “1. (of a law enforcer) to knock on a suspected drug trafficker or drug addict’s home to persuade them to surrender and stop their illegal activities; 2. (slang) to fall victim to extrajudicial killing…”¹

I have had friends who are drug users.  I do not know of anyone who is a drug pusher.  A very dear friend uses methamphetamine once a month (with occasional 3-month intervals).  I have never witnessed him take drugs because I told him a long time ago that we can not be under the same roof when he is taking prohibited drugs.

Recently, my friend told me that the barangay had told him someone’s looking for him.  He is now in the tokhang watchlist.  My friend and whoever was looking for him have never crossed paths, so far.

My dear friend has visited me a number of times since learning of his inclusion in the watchlist.  He likes to stay outside the gate.  I tell him in jest, “Bullets can pierce the metal gate.  The holes won’t look good on the façade.  Please stay inside.”  Whenever we walk along dark streets, we joke about a rain of bullets welcoming our arrival.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has ended tokhang,² but will the extrajudicial killings stop?

Blood relatives have told me not to associate with my friend anymore; at the very least, I should only go out with him during the day when extrajudicial killings are not rampant.  Their words fell on deaf ears.

A week or so ago during dinner with his two former tenants (my friend has rooms for rent), I told my friend to collect my body in case I get killed – and he gets to escape – because of the vigilante or extrajudicial killer gunning for him.  He should at the very least tell my folks about the incident so that I can be given proper suprema dona.³  The two tenants laughed about what I said because my delivery was light.  We laughed about other things after that declaration of friendship.

I can sense my family’s fear for my life when I’m with him.  But, we still go out even when night falls.

I believe – and do not believe – in a lot of things.  But, friendships tempered by love transcend beliefs and mortality.

Notes

¹”Tokhang.”  Wiktionary: The free dictionary, 5 Oct. 2017.  Web.  15 Oct. 2017.  <en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=tokhang&oldid=47663584>.

²Emmanuel Tupas.  “PNP Ends Tokhang, Double Barrel.”  Headlines.  The Philippine Star, 13 Oct. 2017.  Web.  15 Oct. 2017.  <www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/10/13/1748255/pnp-ends-tokhang-double-barrel>.

³Latin phrase that means funeral rites.  Suprema as a stand-alone word may mean a number of things like super, superwoman, last, greatest, etc.  Dona as a stand-alone may mean gift, offering, etc.  In short, suprema dona may also mean last gifts.  Remember the importance of context in translation.

Crabs of a Kind

Dr. Elle has not been feeling well.  She massages her chest lightly now and then while seeing patients.  Her face crumples in pain unpredictably, but she carries on, seeing patients as often as she can in the different clinics and hospitals she moonlights in.

On her last day at the clinic (where we both moonlight), she goes straight to the hospital after her duty and dies.  Metastatic breast cancer.

I usually arrive early for my clinical duties such that I often meet the owner before she signs off.  I leave stuff on the table in preparation for my turn to see patients.

During acute attacks, my gait seems normal on the surface because I have learned to move my body through my pain.  Arthritis is the legacy of the aging.  Pain, Heberden’s and Bouchard’s nodes are the yoke of arthritis.  Outgrowths at the end joints of fingers are called Heberden’s nodes, while those on finger joints nearest to the palm are called Bouchard’s nodes.  I have not developed either kind of nodes, but the pain I occasionally feel is just as intense as though I’ve got both.

It is lunch hour, and the female patient sits waiting.  She says she is there just to visit and talk to a health professional, preferably me.  I vaguely remember her face, but she seems to remember me well enough.

My gracious friend, the clinic owner, leaves the patient to me before going home.

The patient tells me she has metastatic breast cancer.  She asks, “Am I going to die?”  The answer is too hauntingly real.

I tell her, “I am certain we all will, as sure as seasons will change.”

She looks at me, wide-eyed, seemingly with a blob of tear forming in both eyes, then she suddenly laughs, an infectious laugh that echoes through the aseptic walls of the clinic.

I hold her hand and smile through her pain.  Health professionals are not immune to the specter of disease and, more importantly, to the gift of affection.  No mortal is.

We discuss things she cares to talk about.  Silence punctuates the air when the talk gets emotional.

She holds my knuckles in a tight squeeze, with a face divided between smiling and crying, before she leaves.  I shall never see her again.

I go back to the doctor’s chair, rummage through the table and open an envelope with a report that contains words like “metastases,” etc.

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The crab is the symbol of cancer, both the zodiac sign and the medical condition.  Some cancer cells penetrate normal tissues with projections that resemble crab’s claws, hence the moniker.

“Cancer” is also a Latin word for crab.