Summer of '81, I started to take my masters course in biology back at SLU in preparation for instructor position at the college of human sciences the next semester. I liked teaching and looked up to my teachers in the elementary and high school even my instructors in college. I was teaching natural sciences and we discuss evolution with our students just like a fact, not just a theory...
I thought this will be my lifetime career so I agreed to marry my college boyfriend, who belongs to a family of Filipino - Japanese, whose mother is also a member of our high land community. He did not grow up in our community though as his parents were teaching further in the north then went to his father's roots in the lowlands for his high school. There, he started his alcoholic drinking habit. I was attracted with his voice and his being a musician. He played the lead guitar and was the lead singer in their band. He would bring me to their band practices on weekends and also to their basketball games. We were with our local church choir too. Though he was like under the influence of alcohol almost every day in college, he was bright enough to finish his electrical engineering course and passed the board without even taking a review course. He first shifted to mathematics, graduated while I was teaching in high school, then taught at the national high school in our community.
I was instructor 3 and he was teacher 2 when he proposed marriage which I accepted. My family accepted him to end years of animosity among our elders. His aunt was my uncle's (mother side)sweetheart during their years, he helped her finish her studies. But on their wedding day, her elder brothers did not allow her to marry my uncle and prevented her to come to their wedding feast. My grandfather had to choose another woman in the community to be my uncle's wife during that three days wedding feast. In my father's side, my grandfather gave his other uncle parcel of land because he was their foster son. Their clan extended far beyond what was given to them and took it for themselves and their children. Because our parents were living on what their parents left for them, they did not think of the importance of land titles and documents. Their law is their word. But they cannot guard a wide land area, people came to squat and grab then paid only what they can to our parent's generation. Our generation was left with only enough to build our houses in the end.
I didn't expect his drinking habits would become worse after our wedding. He was worse when he was in high school, I found out, and became better when he was my boyfriend. Promising to kick the habit, I agreed to marry him. I thought it would be his way to full recovery but I was very wrong. He relapsed and became worst, I could not handle the situation while we were both teaching. The situation affected my work and our Dean would always call my attention to his fetching me from school under the influence of liquor. I decided to leave my job thinking that he was my husband and must choose him over other things. He too decided to leave his teaching job as his situation is not fitted for it. I was already four months pregnant then with my first son. We concentrated on my boutique and marketing that I opened when I started at SLU. But that year, our country underwent the worst financial crisis of all time - brought about by unstable national political situation. The strong man leader is being defeated by people power and triggered by the death of the head of the people power movement, economic crisis was nationwide. Many businesses closed and we were greatly affected.
I decided to apply for work again when my son was one year and a half but had to move with my husband to the metro where hiring was open leaving my son with my mom at home. Seeing that my husband was not keen on his promise to kick the habit, I decided to ask for separation from him. I fell out of love. He went back home and his brother overseas supported him back to college where he finished his engineering course. He and his parents took my son from my mom after they retired taking the responsibility of rearing him up as they were capable of.
Alone now in the metro, I remembered my mom telling me to read the Bible when I was leaving my son with her. I bought one and started reading at nights after work. All my questions about our life style and customs and traditions were answered in the first books and I just kept on reading whilst receiving answers and revelations for several months. Realizing things every time I received enlightenment, I always cried and repented even my marriage and having a son that I could not be with. But I came to know in the Bible that even God regretted having created humans at one point. His love for us prevailed however that He gave His son to save us.
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