passing on at sixty

“Doing the garden, digging the weeds,

Who could ask for more?

Will you still love me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty-four?”

            ─ The Beatles

              “When I’m Sixty-Four”

I’m back to my early morning and late afternoon ritual of sitting in our garden set, leisurely sipping my favourite local brew, and toying with my hand-me-down netbook hoping I could hook up with the Muse.  Well, there’s no reason why I can’t revive (again) this blog—from its hiatus after I posted my last article on 7 December—and help me put some diversity in my rather uneventful life now that my youngest daughter had handed me down anew her netbook.  Since I’m through with my caregiving chores to my parents and went on to live with my ex-girlfriend (who’s now my wife J and mother to my two daughters) in our Playpen, my life practically revolves around the new member of the household, Mingo, my youngest daughter’s dog left to my care while she’s earning her keeps.

Actually, my life’s circumstance has hardly changed.  This time around I’m looking after a playful dog, whose energy appears without expiration in contrast to the lethargic existence of my then nonagenarian parents, especially my wheelchair-bound mom.  Coming out with my blog with a semblance of regularity is the major lack in my life’s previous formula; and this, I believe, is a vital element to meaningfully embark on another phase of my life and meet head on my twilight years.  I’m now striving to get into the groove and gain the momentum to resume my blog writing.  Unlike the pros, I just can’t sit in front of a computer and start writing.

  The bigger challenge I’m putting myself in  is up my output, which were two articles per month after I recovered from the unexpected death of my mother in April until the equally unexpected demise of my father in early December last year.  Since his passing on, I was only able to come out with just one post, which was actually up for final editing when he succumbed from haemorrhagic stroke two weeks after it struck him.  This is my first for 2014.

Looking after Mingo is very much unlike caring after my parents.  It’s more laidback and fun; in fact, it makes me forget all the cares in the world.  This was unlike the latter where the act itself is already a major worry.  Moreover, I now have time to attend some personal concerns after making sure that Mingo has access to his needs when I'm out.  In fact, I recently touched base with my alma mater, Gregorio Araneta University Foundation, or, to be more precise, its bastardized metamorphosis, De La Salle Araneta University.  (See my related blog, http://raulgalangsarmiento.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-noble-bastard-son_30.html, why this claim.)  This was practically impossible before.  On the other hand, with Mingo around, staying at home all day has become more fun.

As I see it, there is no reason why I can’t increase my blog output.  When I was just toying with the idea to come out with this, I assumed I could easily finish an article a week.  I thought I was still the 32-year old committed and gung-ho development worker that can finish a project proposal in a week’s time or less when some colleagues and I tried to nurture a NGO that embodies our nationalist and development ideals.  But I found out blog writing was different and my personal circumstance was different, too; there was simply a plethora of distraction that kept on upsetting my efforts to meet that target.

Before thinking of increasing my output, though, I have to get into the groove first and establish a momentum.  More than other things, that’s my biggest concern right now.   I won’t be lacking in topics to write on even if I’ll just limit myself to writing follow ups on the two most read topics I’d came out with—GAUF/DLSAU and Potrero, the barrio of my birth.  I sincerely believed it’s high time to make an update on “the noble bastard son” in the light of new developments at the DLSAU and after reading a book on Dr. Salvador Z. Araneta—“Glimpses on the Life, Philosophy and Advocacies of Dr. Salvador Z. Araneta” (Tadena, Callangan and Blancaflor, 2005)—given to me by the outgoing DLSAU Supreme Student Council President Robert Gatbonton after I gave a brief talk on “The Lasalyanetan Identity Forum” last January 2014.

There’s also no more opportune time, I believe, to take an in-depth look into the reasons and events that led to my barrio’s sluggish rise from the ashes of Mount Pinatubo eruption nearly a quarter of a century after that cataclysmic, life-changing event.  This too is the most apt juncture to examine and investigate how the padding of the list of voters that came to the fore in the last barrio (barangay) elections was perpetrated.  This may be amateurishly undertaken but the thing is something is being done on this shameful, deceitful and immoral act. 

A look into the fiscal management, how the finances of the barrio were disbursed in the past eleven years is also in order.  The financial resources may be meagre but I sincerely believed more projects, even if small, could have been undertaken to uplift the social well-being of the most vulnerable residents especially in the light of dearth in physical projects that the previous barrio council could brag. Traditional politicians usually undertake physical projects to easily rationalize their SOPs or tongpats and the people hardly complained because they could see where their money goes, even if, sometimes, these projects would crumble easily like the savoury puto sekos of Cabalantian.

This is the more rational and inevitable thing to do in the absence of barangay assemblies where the barangay council could have presented financial reports on how the barangay funds were disbursed. 

At the rate the situation evolves, there are more and more issues of national importance that every Johnny, Bong and Jinggoy could sink their teeth on.  But I’ll leave these to the more seasoned and more competent commentators and political analysts to explore and elucidate.  I would rather delve on parochial concerns and try to link these with the broader and encompassing national issues.  In this same vein that this angry old man believes that national social and political maladies should be treated at the grassroots.  All acts geared toward reforming and redressing the status quo will all go to naught unless independent and strong constituencies are nurtured in every nook and cranny in the country.

But is this all that there is to the life of a prematurely retired old man who opted to pursue an unconventional career as a young lad?  For someone who retired without any retirement plan and has to rely—literally and figuratively—on his better half for his sustenance?  Surely my blog writing and looking after Mingo and, may be, my grandchildren later, are beautiful distractions of my twilight existence, together with the usual old age maladies I’d witnessed in my parents.   I’m also certain the love of my life would still feed me and would continuously shower me with the simple luxuries I’ve enjoyed since I retired.      

Actually, this old man is not whining.  It’s just that I feel I have to say (write) something.  The truth is I have accepted this fate.  In fact, I didn’t even bother to look for a job after both my parents were gone and resume my development career.  My wife was right; the few pesos I’ll earn would not be enough to recompense for all the stresses I’ll have to endure working either in the public or private sector, or even in NGOs.  I mistakenly believed that NGO workers are a breed apart, to borrow a Merrill Lynch tag, only to hear from the human relations manager of an international NGO if I’m not bothered working with and reporting to younger people before I opted to prematurely retire and take care of my parents after my aborted “adventure” as a development volunteer in Kenya in 2007.  

Surely I had previous misgivings and unpleasant experiences with my previous NGO employers but that question was the most stupid I’d heard and could not believe it came from an institution that openly declared, even boasted in its website, its non-discriminatory and equal opportunity hiring policy.  Working with people like that HR manager, irrespective of age, gender and religion, would surely not be fun in a supposedly progressive development institution that advocates humane reforms and changes in social structures.

In a macho society like ours, it's not the norm for the husband to be the stay-at-home guy; he's supposed to earn the upkeep of the family.  Though there are now more and more men, younger, healthier and more productive than I, forced into this situation because our economy, aside from being non-inclusive, fails to generate the number and kind of jobs to keep our ever growing work force gainfully employed.  But I've long shed my machismo, at least that's what I thought, and would be contented with this situation until I pass on, hopefully, when I'm still strong and not ravaged by the usual old age disorders whose symptoms I'm now beginning to experience.  I've repeatedly told my wife and daughters that I would be happy passing on at sixty.  In the meantime, I'll relish blog writing on selected social and personal issues, looking after Mingo, housekeeping for my family and the simple luxuries I'm accorded.  (30)