Isidro’s Story
by Cristelle Ybanez
Rizal Day is approaching. Here’s another story to remind us of the importance of our freedom as Filipinos. I hope this story inspires you to be more patriotic! Have fun reading!
A boy was sullenly walking along the sand-banks of the Kahilom Island, kicking the white sand from underneath his feet while looking at the crystal-clear waters ahead. Isidro was on his way to the sea cave for his afternoon habit of setting up the sailboat. The vessel was built by his late father. Isidro spends his days reliving his father’s sailing lessons by assembling and disassembling the vessel every afternoon – playing the role of a sailor as his voice echoes back on the cave walls. He dreams of following the footsteps of his father someday. He often daydreams of the sensation of being in deep water, the ocean stretching far and wide in his vision, and an island he will be discovering at the distance – approaching.
His father was Kahilom’s former commander who led his men on a voyage and died at sea after being caught by a violent storm. The village mourned the deaths and forbade sailing in deep waters. All of the sailboats that were used at that time were burned and discarded as a way of paying respect. But Isidro chooses to keep the existence of his father’s boat undiscovered as he doesn’t want to lose the one and only thing his father loved. The title of village commander was relegated to his uncle – Commander Juanito, and since then, Kahilom’s livelihood has focused on farming. Over the years, the Elders stood firm in keeping the village self-sustaining and detached from any reason for leaving the island.
Isidro suddenly found himself toppling, stumbling from an object protruding from the sand. While recovering from the unexpected hurdle, he looked at the object only to see that it was a woman sprawled face-down at the white sands of Kahilom. From where he was sitting, Isidro could only see the woman’s curly, dark hair, burned skin, and purple clothing that had tribal patterns stitched by the hem - stark in contrast to Kahilom’s usual clothing made from straw or wood bark. He looked around for an explanation of the woman’s presence but saw no boat for the woman to fall from in sight. Isidro concluded that she must have washed ashore from the sea. Mortified at the thought of discovering a dead person, Isidro rushed over to the woman, he hovered his hand on her nose and was pleasantly surprised to see her breathing - albeit weakly. Her skin was an unhealthy shade of brown and cold as ice, and her lips were blue from being in the water too long. Relief washed over him as he ran for help to the group of farmers who carried the woman to the village healer.
At the healer’s hut, the neighbors began to cluster outside the opened windows, regarding the woman with both fear and awe. The commotion was heard by Chief Juanito, who arrived at the healer’s hut soon after, hoping to investigate the woman. When the woman awoke later that evening, the village found that she called herself Carmen, and had fled from another island after some foreign invaders set their village ablaze. Carmen sobbed as she narrated how the white men who docked their ships on her village one morning, raped her people and pillaged her home. She described their weapons: cannons - steel tubes attached to their ships which flung balls of an explosion, and guns – handheld versions of the cannon which the men carried into the village to shoot anyone who didn’t kneel in surrender to them. Half of her village kneeled for the sake of the children and the elders, but Carmen’s family – who was the family of the village chief – fought and suffered. She was the only one to survive.
The people of Kahilom were all ears to Carmen’s story – the women with their children suckling their bosoms teared up, the men pausing in their labor to quietly sympathize with this woman who lost her family and her land to invaders. Commander Juanito’s face was taut with tension as he quietly listened by her bed. He expressed gratitude for the woman’s bravery and left the hut for the Elders, no doubt needing immediate counsel.
On the day of the Elder’s communing, Isidro felt anxious from Carmen’s story and intended to wake early to check up on the sailboat. However, outside their hut, he saw the neighbors piled out of their wooden houses. With the sun yet to rise, confusion and chaos have invaded the village - unable to decipher where the explosions were coming from; unable to hide. The men huddled together to protect the growing crowd, wielding bow and arrows, bolo knives, and spears. The women wrapped the infants in fabric, packing up food and water into woven baskets – preparing for any immediate movement. Isidro collected the torches and distributed them to the people.
Carmen who stayed in a neighbor’s hut for the night, walked off from cover and into the sandbank to find the source of the explosions. There she saw the ships, like a picture taken straight from her nightmares – anchored meters away from the shore. Shaking off the momentary terror, she ran back to the huddled villagers and relayed the news. The villagers decided it ideal to put as much distance between them and the ships, and began to hike up the mountains - abandoning their homes. The men fastened the woven baskets in their backs and tread along the tree trunks and the fallen branches, while simultaneously wielding weapons. As the sun rose, the villagers settled into a cave and retreated into its darkness in silence. The piercing sound of explosions still filled the air, no doubt smashing years of labor off the walls of their home.
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Nightfall came and the explosions stopped. The village women arranged a dinner of salted fish and sweet potatoes for the children. Some of the men were outside the cave, patrolling the forest in hopes of finding straggling villagers. Isidro started a fire in the middle of the cave, hoping the darkness of the forest kept the invaders at bay for the night. Isidro was sitting by the fire when he heard the rush of footsteps approaching the bustling cave, the rest of the villagers could hear it too. They doused the fire and retreated into a still moment of utter darkness and silence. They remained that way for a second, listening to the footsteps and the sloshing blades clearing the pathway for passage. The village men who were patrolling the forest appeared at the mouth of the cave, behind them a tall muscular figure that seemed familiar to everyone.
The villagers sighed a breath of relief as Commander Juanito’s silhouette came under the moonlight. The Commander’s face was covered in grime, and dried blood had caked upon an open wound on his left arm – it seemed that he had come from battle. The villagers slowly stepped out of the darkness, delighted at the sight of the village Commander, yet wondering where the rest of the villagers were.
The fire was started again, and the villagers squatted on cold Earth as Commander Isidro relayed the misfortune of the villagers who woke with guns pointed to their children’s heads; those who did not have the chance to run; and those who fought but were slain by the blazing guns. Most of the villagers were being held captive by the white men. Though Commander Juanito’s group fought to save their fellow villagers, their spears and arrows were no match for the guns of the invaders, and they were forced to retreat to the outskirts of the mountains as the sun began to set.
Most of the Elders did not manage to run and were held captive, and so there was no one left for counsel or communing. The villagers began to debate escape plans for the morning. The villagers suggested hiding, remaining in the cave, or settling behind the island’s volcanoes. But Kahilom was a small island, and everyone knew it was only a matter of days for anyone to comb the forest and explore the terrain. In the middle of the adults conversing for plans, Isidro chimed in abruptly – which surprised some of the villagers. He confessed to Commander Juanito, to his mother, and the rest of the villagers, of his father’s sailboat hidden by the sea cave. He announced his plan for departure from the island in the morning, and though no one had to come with him, no one could stop him either. Suddenly everyone remembered that Isidro was the son of a former Commander. Though he stood in front of them as a scrawny boy who’s yet to become a man, the villagers saw in him his father’s determination and bravery – which further stood as a reminder of the same bravery that leads 12 men to death at sea.
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When the first rays of sunshine hit Isidro’s face, he froze in position to listen for the cannonballs he expected would already be wreaking havoc. Upon hearing the silence of the forest, he began to wonder if yesterday had been a dream. He got up and looked around to see that everyone had been up and about. The cave was bustling with activity – mothers tending to their babies, children playing all around the cave seeming uncaring of the world falling into pieces, on one corner Isidro’s mother was tending Commander Juanito’s wounds. It dawned on Isidro that Kahilom was not this island, Kahilom was the villagers. Wherever they went, they brought the same resilient, and hardworking nature of the village’s ancestors.
Isidro was rummaging through his basket for breakfast when a man who was a few years older than him sped past him and into the spot where Commander Juanito was sitting. It seemed the invaders had returned to the village and were inspecting Isidro’s abandoned neighborhood. The man saw several of them inching towards the forest, undoubtedly searching for the villagers who had managed to escape undetected.
The villagers spring into action all at once. The men picked up their weapons – bow and arrows, spears, bolo knives, and daggers – and poured out of the cave to scout the area. Nobody had the mind to pick up the baskets of food, or the sacks of clothing. The villagers of Kahilom simply held the children close, and raced outside the cave. Isidro managed to find his mother in the confusion, and tugged her between the throngs of running people. Outside the cave was a maze of tree trunks that easily swallowed them in confusion and panic. Families were darting left and right: others heading deeper into the forest, another unknowingly running towards the abandoned neighborhood, and a child was screaming somewhere for her mother – lost.
Isidro looked at the chaos with darting eyes, unable to fix his sight into anything. His senses filled with the sound of scrambling feet against fallen leaves, screams of panic and confusion, his palms were being gripped tightly by his mother who was looking around for a voice to follow and a path to take; and suddenly he could not hear, or see any more than the bewildering disorientation.
He was slapped back to reality when a woman ran into him, knocking him to the forest floor and on his back. Isidro swiftly tugged around the passing figures to follow the direction he was pointing to. Before he knew it, he was racing past the trees and the fallen branches – running towards the sound of the ocean. He was looking ahead to see the familiar patch of white sand he’d walked in countless of times – his mother’s hand still gripped in his sweating palms. He broke into the clearing and sped into the sea cave hidden by the foliage. Behind him, Carmen was sprinting hand in hand with a woman carrying her child in one arm.
Isidro let go of his mother’s hand and jumped past the cave rocks. He grabbed the ropes that were tying the boat to a post and began pulling it to the mouth of the cave. Carmen, along with several other men, jumped beside him and helped in pulling the sailboat. In the distance, they can see a huddle of the villagers frantically looking out for invaders. Upon successfully reaching the sea, Isidro jumped into the boat to attach and prepare the sails. He felt the village men jump into the boat after him and suddenly remembered that before his father’s incident Kahilom’s people were voyagers – they knew their way around a sailboat.
Upon preparing the sailboat, an explosion rang through the air. The sound was louder than before - undoubtedly closer. More villagers were boarding, and the sailboat was almost ready. They were running out of time, and Isidro was sure there were villagers left in the forest aside from the ones held captive. Isidro was holding the rope for the mainsail when he heard his name sounding out in the air, Commander Juanito called for him. The Commander was telling them to sail ahead and leave. It was obvious in the fight that the scales were not tipping towards the village’s favor. He looked Commander Juanito in the eyes before turning around to tighten the mainsail, the wind surging the vessel forward and away from the island. Isidro heard the wind fill with cries of despair from the villagers – mournful sobs for their Commander, their husbands, and neighbors. Though he’s spent his life fantasizing of the day he hauls this sailboat to the sea, Isidro stared out at the blue waters in mournful acrimony; thinking of the invader’s audacity of driving his dream to come at such a high price.
