There was once a girl named Fe. She
was of native Filipino parents born in Manila. At an early age, she was
orphaned when her parents were killed in a land dispute. The Spanish priest who
took over their land took care of the little orphan with no relatives, raised
her and taught her catechism, taught her to be a good Catholic.
She grew up to be a beautiful young
woman, the envy of her youth. However, she was maltreated by this friar who
kept her like an unpaid servant, who often beat her and insulted her for being
an Indio, or inferior to the white
man. Throughout her youth, she lived under an atmosphere of abuse and
deprivation.
Until one day, he tried to molest
her. She resisted and barely escaped. With nowhere else to go, tried her luck in
the streets of Manila.
She found work serving an American
couple, the only work she knows. They were kind to Fe, and they treated her
like the daughter they’ve always wanted to have. They sent her to a school and
taught her Western ways. They even bought her clothes and goods from the good
ol’ US of A. She liked having these “stateside”
items with her, made her feel special, Western, modern. But somehow, she wanted
to have her own life, to be free, to master her own fate.
Suddenly, war broke out. The
Americans were at war with the Japanese, and Fe, like the rest of the people
around her, didn’t know what was happening. Before they knew it, Manila fell to
the Japanese without a fight. Her foster parents got out of the country in time
but left Fe in Manila, promising to return as soon as the events will permit.
For three years she lived under the
Japanese invaders, scrounging for food wherever she can find, trading valuables
for sustenance.
Then, just when the American Army
was retaking the city, Fe, along with other civilians, were trapped between the
advancing American forces and the Japanese who refused to let go without a
fight. Fe was in Intramuros during the fiercest days of the battle. A Japanese
soldier, frustrated with being trapped and cornered, vented his ire on Fe, whom
he found hiding in one of the houses. The soldier brutally raped her until an
American GI took the animal off her and killed him in front of her.
After the war, the American couple
came back for her. But she did not want anything to do with them anymore. She
was angry at them for leaving, blamed them for her misfortunes. Fe was left
with nothing to sustain herself, as with anybody else, in the ruins of Manila.
War has ravaged the city, and so has her spirit.
Too tired to realize her dreams,
yet too proud to take her own life, she continued to live a scarred woman. She
earned money by the only way she thought a woman like her deserves –
prostitution.
She continued to live this way, often
with foreigners who flocked Manila’s Red Light district. She did not care for
her life anymore, but she needed the dollars, the yen or whatever currency they
give her, and this was a good way to get it.
Until one day, a guy she met proposed
to marry her, to take her away from that life, to give her a new lease in life,
to “make her great again.” She accepted, and they wed. She left the past behind
her, and looked forward to the future with optimism.
For some time, the two were happily
married. But soon her husband, who often had many debts, became abusive, and
soon forced her back to her old profession to produce money for their children.
After much struggle, she left her
husband, and, thinking about her children, tried to find other jobs to sustain
her little family. She has lost her faith in men, and had relationships which often
ended fast, all with promises of a better life, but ends up the same as her
erstwhile husband if not worse.
Today, grown old by the trials of
her life, she faces the future with uncertainty. Though she has not forgotten
her old dream of freedom, she has lost her faith in a world which had not given
her any chance at all. She worries for the fate of her children, whom she fears
would not have a chance in life as she did.
