Sopas reminiscing

As a lad of 14, when girls on pedestals cavorted on my mind while awake and asleep, the death of Ninoy Aquino on August 21, 1983 – 32 years ago today – first manifested itself in the form of a half-eaten sopas.

I and a friend, Rico “Barok” De Leon, were at the time going through our cups of the steaming elbow noodles made succulent and creamy by bits of chicken liver and Darigold milk. And then the lights went out.

It was the night of August 20, the first day of the wake of my Lolo Narding, one of the first overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who always told us that a man should never be caught with shoes crying for the attention of a limpia-bota (shoeshine boy).

That would be a crying shame, Lolo Narding, he who was always impeccably dressed and groomed with his Tancho pomade and splash of the latest and greatest cologne at the time, would use to say.

It was already past noon of August 21 when news filtered out that Ninoy Aquino, the firebrand oppositionist, was shot dead – murdered – on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport (MIA).

The rest, as they say, is now history. Three years later, in 1986, the seemingly unending Marcos presidency came to a grinding halt with the ascent to power of Ninoy’s widow, Cory Aquino, through People Power at EDSA.

Now, 32 years since the shots that signaled the end of Marcos’ hold to power, Ninoy’s and Cory’s son, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, has less than a year away to chisel whatever legacy he wants to leave behind.

Time flies, governments fall and rise, and the resilient Filipino always hangs tough. One thing will never change, though. Sopas should never be left half-eaten for whatever reason. Nope, never. Sayang. –End-                                           

Image by: gutomna.com