She described Delfin’s room. “It’s tiny, with just a chair, a table and an iron cot. We sit on the cot when he teaches me.”
I have never been inside that house, that room no larger than the bathrooms in the house, but it was clean and airy. How I wished I could tell my Angela that Delfin was her half brother, not her cousin as she believed. The fullest sense of family, its profound emotional pleasure was beginning to enthrall me, give me an exalted purpose, and not just the business sallies where I had always triumphed. I was beginning to luxuriate in the feeling and Angela had made it all possible.
Delfin flourished in law school. I was not surprised at all when he topped the bar—that was what his classmates and his professors expected. In all those seven years, although I had often asked him, he had never traveled abroad. I would have brought him with me on my trips to Europe or the United States, or even to nearby Hong Kong, where I went as a matter of course, and to Tokyo, too. But he had refused, always saying he had to maintain his scholarship although it was no longer necessary for his sustenance. And then he started working in that infernal law office.
It was Angela again who convinced him to vacation in Hong Kong. Corito came along so that we could have some family life, although I must add that she had now become almost intolerable, demanding my presence, bothering me in my work.
Angela chose the penthouse in the condo named after her, not in the old Kowloon Tong block that was built earlier; the condo’s magnificent view of the busy harbor was unhindered by the new apartment blocks burgeoning all over the place. I had carefully chosen the lot when I was looking for a place to invest in and Ann Lee had located it. It was October and cool, the sky untarnished. Delfin had not put on weight in all these years, but I had. He finally wore the suits that Francesco had cut for him, and he truly looked patrician, urbane, a young up-and-coming professional. They did not call them yuppies in those days—1965 and the last days of Macapagal as president. The Philippines was still prosperous, the Leader had yet to come and set back the nation.
Hong Kong was changing. The old brick buildings had been torn down and, in their place, monoliths of stone and glass had sprung up. More apartment blocks had also risen on the peak. Mine stood out, as did my building in Manila, and the house in Dasmariñas, for all were designed by Tanga, the famous Japanese architect. He had come to Manila and stayed here for a couple of months, and also in Hong Kong for a month before the actual designs of the buildings were even started.
Filipino architects? Not one of them has the intelligence and the imagination to define Philippine architecture itself, to understand the need to merge function and form in consonance with climate, available materials, Philippine aesthetics. All of them are copycats, depending on innovations and styles from abroad. All you have to do is look at the morass in Makati and all those California bungalows there!
Delfin’s first trip out of the country, and I watched him keenly, the unfeigned wonder on his face, how he noticed everything. Angela took him sightseeing in the New Territories and on long walks along the shop-lined streets of Kowloon. She also visited the apartment block there, the three units rented out to American businessmen.
I was now sure Delfin was much closer to me, his resentment slowly vanishing. Angela did this. My ever precious Angela, conceived in sin and now a delight to watch. The cool weather brought the rose to her cheeks. She was much taller than her mother and she moved about, in spite of her frailty, with a graceful liveliness. Now, she and Delfin spoke in Spanish even in our presence. I had suspected all along that he had learned the language well but had not spoken it till he was confident. With Angela, that confidence grew.
We returned to Manila after a relaxed, delightful week in the crown colony. Delfin now had a better position in the law firm—he was made a junior partner. In college, he had stayed away from the demonstrations and the radical rhetoric for which the university was well known. I had wondered why, with his scholastic standing, he had refrained from student politics, not even bothering to be in the student council or on the editorial board of the college paper, which every aspiring student politician sought. I think I know the reason: finally, as a lawyer, he could take on the cases of farmers and workers who were victimized by their landlords and employers. He had not surrendered to the virtuous blather of college juveniles: he had prepared himself for action, for deeds. And I was truly bothered by the direction he had taken.
It was Angela, now that I knew he confided in her, already in high school, who kept me informed of his movements, of the lawyer Nojok himself whom Delfin worshipped. If Nojok could not go to the provinces to defend the peasants, he sent two or three lawyers, Delfin always part of the team, and these, at the expense of Nojok himself. Now Delfin would be in Mindanao defending the settlers from the loggers and banana plantation owners who had grabbed their farms. Now he was in Negros, allied with some priests and the Farmers Federation, fighting for the sugar workers. There was hardly any place he went that I did not know. I didn’t even have to ask Angela anymore—she volunteered the information, knowing how interested I was in my son’s doings. By this time his salary had increased and he had moved to a modest one-room apartment in Quezon City.
The Leader had already declared martial law, a master stroke that could be made only by one who had planned decisively. I have always appreciated such qualities in businessmen, and it is for this reason that I admired him. He would have been a very successful entrepreneur if he hadn’t been waylaid by politics. Nojok was imprisoned for two years but, during this time, Delfin continued working, perhaps even more so than before. Nojok soon organized PLUG (Progress, Liberty Under God), a group of lawyers working voluntarily to assist the political prisoners of the dictator.
At one of those dinners at the palace, the Leader took me aside. I had known him since he was a congressman, and I called him Brod then, just as he always called me by my nickname, C.C. Or Carling, or Charlie, or sometimes Don Carlos. But when he became president, I always addressed him as Mr. President. At a dinner at the Manila Hotel, he told me to drop the Mr. President routine but I persisted, even when there were only the two of us. I think he appreciated it.
“Well, Carling, how is your son?” he asked with a smile.
My chest tightened. I was only too aware of what Delfin was doing and I am sure the Leader did not like it, just as he had no love for Nojok, although he released the man after two years in prison.
“I hope he is not giving your people problems, Mr. President,” I said nervously. “I have tried to keep him in line, but he has a mind of his own.”
“I know.” The Leader continued smiling. Then he told an aide who was standing by to call for the chief of staff. General Beer came in, pompous in white and braid, with a generous splash of fruit salad on his chest.
“General, you know Don Carlos Cobello.”
“Yes, sir,” the general answered stiffly, head erect, eyes stern and unsmiling.
“You also gave me a report on his son, Delfin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, General. Don’t touch him. Leave him alone. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Leader waved him away, then turned to me, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “Ah, the second generation. We really don’t know what they will turn out to be. We are old friends, Carling, and you are on my side. I won’t forget that.” And slapping me on the shoulder, he turned to pay attention to the other guests.
I was never so relieved in my life; I had worried about Delfin getting in the way of people like General Beer—boors and automatons who, as the Leader said, would jump out the window without any question if ordered to.
One day Angela came to my Makati office, her face shrouded with gloom. She said Delfin had gone to Siquijor. “He has a girlfriend there,” she said. Then she told me how in the last eight years or so, he had gone to Siquijor three times, this time very worried because the girl had not written to him in four months although he wrote every so often.
Delfin returned after three days. Angela was very happy, but she said Delfin was inconsolable. “I have never seen him in such anguish, Tito,” she said. I decided to visit him.
I picked him up at the Nojok law office in Quezon City and we went to one of those restaurants in Timog. Angela was right; sorrow was etched deeply on his face.
“Would you like to tell me what happened?” I asked when we were finally seated.
At first, it did not seem like he wanted to talk, but after a while, the words came slowly. “I was faithful to her. I wrote to her very often, told her to wait till I was ready to support her. She couldn’t wait, sir. And I cannot blame her. Eight years is much too long for any girl.”
“She got married?”
“Yes, that is why she never answered my letters afterward. I hope it will be a good marriage. He is well off—he is the governor’s son.”
As I said, Angela did not share Delfin’s loss. In no time, she told me, too, that Delfin had won another scholarship, this time to the law school at Yale.
How soon will he leave for America? But Delfin did not go. The scholarship could wait. All there was to know and do were in the Philippines. And the best teacher in the country was no other than the man he worshipped.
I began to loathe Nojok. My son looked up to him not just as a lawyer and teacher but as a paragon of virtue, committing himself to the common man. And he, a mestizo like me, although it was American genes in his system, not Spanish.
And with Nojok, my son would go to the masses, the rabble. Ah, the masses! I find them contemptible, without ambition, lazy, lying, thieving. How right my father had been! Why are they so fawning? So blatantly ingratiating? Don’t they have any self-respect? They don’t know how to save. Payday—and they don’t report for work the day after; they spend a fortune on beer; I don’t resent that, I am a major stockholder in the brewery. Tomorrow does not matter to them, only ostentation, pleasure now. And they blame us for their plight, we who give them jobs, who are making this nation grow. Yes, I have profited from their labor but I pay and pay, and pay. My workers have the most benefits compared with the pittance the Chinese and Indios give them. Rice rations, hospitalization, vacation leaves, insurance—they got all these without bargaining, without a union. And still they complain. My father and his father before him were right: do not expect gratitude, especially from these Indios. At every turn they are ingrates, traitors. Cuedao!
But I am now in this most pitiable condition, unable to work, to pursue the pleasures that were offered to me even without my asking. And my son, my son! Instead of coming close to me, he is moving away.
I wanted to tell him about my conversation with the Leader, that, because of my friendship with the dictator, he was safe. But I didn’t, for I was sure it would only alienate him further. To know that I had such close ties with the Leader would even make him contemptuous of me. And I know people like him—they would love to go to prison themselves!
Angela, my joy, how happy I am that she cares. But does she really? I now have my doubts, too. It’s her closeness to Delfin that is changing her. It is not school or even growing up. The questions she asks me now are sometimes pointed. I am sure they are all Delfin’s doing. Is he turning my Angela against me, too?
I asked Angela. “The truth, hija. Does Delfin hate me?”
She was in my office waiting for me to put the last paper in my out tray. Only she and Corito could barge in at any time. Only they. I have given Delfin the same privilege, but he has never visited. Here I am, one of the richest men in the country, in the region even, and I am needled, anxious about how one person regards me.
Angela was in her junior year in high school; she had come in, kissed me and wanted me to take her to lunch at this new Makati restaurant that her classmates had been to the day before.
“Why ask such a question!” she exclaimed. “Delf—he is very grateful for all the things you have done for him. But he wants to make it on his own, Tito. You must understand that.”
“He is indifferent then. He just tolerates me …”
“That is not how it is, I know. He is glad you are here, that you have recognized him. You are his last resort!”
“And what am I to you?” I was truly relieved; my assumption was correct that I was his fallback position.
Another kiss. “My first and last resort. In fact, my only resort,” she whispered.
Now it was easy for me to understand his courage, his determination to be on his own. I was there with the safety net in case he failed. But was I really that important to him? His future? I remember only too well how quickly he had walked out on me when I first saw him. Surely he knew by then the magnitude of my means. Now, it was clear to him with his law background that illegitimate children had rights to the property of their parents. But he walked away! He walked away!
Then I thought of the money I had given him; he did not refuse it or deny it. Or throw it away either. He gave the money to his relatives—yes, that was the best thing to do. This meant that he would welcome any sum I would give him. He was not all that proud after all and, again, I felt some comfort with that thought.
I tried bringing Delfin to America and Europe when he did not take the Yale fellowship. Most of all, I wanted to take him to New York and to nearby New Haven so he could see the ivy league school where he should be. But again, he refused. Now PLUG had so much work to do, even on Sundays he was working.
Like his teacher and idol, he was charging into the wild thickets of corruption. He couldn’t win, of course, when it was the truly powerful he finally confronted.
But first, let me sound off on some of my business ideas. I never went to business school, Harvard or Wharton, as so many of our young businessmen had done. But I have employed a few who have. Not that I consider these schools worthless; they are useful, they improve on the jargon of business and make it clearer for us who use it. Entrepreneurship is instinctive, the capacity to recognize opportunities, like I have said, long before others see them, and to exploit them. No sentimentality whatsoever here, just the simple logic of trade, the strong taking advantage of the weak, the equally simple logic of capitalism, profit.
I look at land therefore as no more than a source of profit, none of that vaulting notion about land and nation, and social justice for the peasantry. I often marvel at the naïveté of these so-called social reformers, these mealymouthed armchair revolutionaries always equating land with freedom. With me, it is production, how it can be increased. It was with this objective in mind that my planning staff, looking coldly at our agriculture, decided to go into mechanization on my rice land that was irrigated by rainfall. I would introduce cotton for export—Philippine cotton was known for its high quality long before the Spaniards came. There was demand for it locally in our textile mills. Alfred Dangmount and I had agreed on this venture earlier, did project studies that confirmed our plans. I was going into intercropping, too, where there was irrigation. We had had enough lessons from the Taiwanese. It would not be difficult. My people already had plenty of experience in mechanized farming, as all the sugarlands had long been cultivated mostly by machines. It was necessary to let go several farmers who, before they were uprooted, would be given some form of restitution to tide them over while they looked for new places of work.
I believed in this compensation not because I cared for social justice but because it was necessary. I have always believed in a healthy workforce, in its being emotionally secure, too, so it would be more efficient. The rural workers were not going to be an exception.
I did not know and it really did not matter that a few of Delfin’s relatives were among those to be displaced. I only found out about it when the Nojok law office filed a case against Hacienda Esperanza.
Delfin came to me. He must have surrendered s
ome pride to do so. It was also the first time I learned that Severina’s cousin and his family were to be uprooted, and they had gone to see Delfin about it.
Sunday morning in Sta. Mesa and I could see how happy Angela was that Delfin had come. He joined us at the breakfast table on the terrace, but he had only coffee. He did not waste time. “They have been your workers all their lives, sir. Now they have nowhere to go.”
I knew how important the case was for him. But I have always been judicious in making decisions. I wanted information, and he couldn’t say I procrastinated. In his presence, although it was Sunday, I called up my lawyers and despatched a messenger to Nueva Ecija for the encargado and some members of his staff to come to Manila immediately. Delfin left the house convinced that I had acted on his behalf.
Let me state here that I knew, sooner or later, there would be land reform not because it was demanded by the farmers and their champions but because prosperity demanded it. The Leader was right in abolishing tenancy with one stroke of the pen; the absence of tenure for the peasant had been responsible not just for agrarian discontent but for low productivity; the anachronism had to end. But there must be just compensation to those who owned the land and this is where the trouble starts. What is just compensation? If the peasants are attached to the land, is the landlord less attached? But more than these sentimental considerations, look at what landholding has done to our very rich, particularly those Negros hacenderos. They are imbued with that calcified view of landlords, of doing nothing but waiting for the harvest and the rent. Go to any of the Manila hotel coffee shops. The landlords are there gossiping instead of working hard like I do. Take the land from them and they will be forced to work, to use their brains to create wealth.
Anselmo, the encargado, and two assistants arrived late in the afternoon and they told me the details. Indeed, fifty-four families would be displaced as a result of mechanization and consolidation of the land. Had they already left the hacienda? Not yet—a court order had delayed that.
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