Miguel Olvido arrived at the town of San Luis Rey during the height of
El Niño when wells dried up and townsfolk had to fetch their water in
El Negros River. He had travelled far, past seven mountains on foot,
where the roads has disappeared from pocket avalanches of rocks and mud
from seventeen typhoons. No one knew who he was when he emerged from
the dusty road at the edge of the town. His hair had collected the dust
and mud that covered the leaves and tree branch. His face had written
mournful years of longing that made him older than his twenty-five
years. He emerged from the top of the road as wind swirled before him
and carried up in the air the string of leaves and dried grass stems.
Back then people were convinced that a stranger like him would come and
emerge like a vision in the corner of their eye.
Miguel Olvido would spend the next several years in San Luis Rey as the
new town doctor. People asked a lot of questions why he had chosen to render
his service in a place most of the city people never heard of and or
visited in their entire life. They never understood his reasoning since the first
day he touched with his bare hands the throngs of patient that waited
for him or the words he mumbled on to himself as he put
into writing the disease they never truly understand. All the people
knew was that they are in the hands of a good man and that the pain and
worries they carried for years were profoundly lessened by regular
intake of medicines and daily injections. It only took a few months to
spread the news that a miracle worker was available at the town of San
Luis Rey. People from as far away as the remotest of barrio travelled for
days just to reach the tiny town hospital. They brought children with dengue
fever and elderly people with tell tale signs of Malaria. Sleep is what
most sick people feared back then. They loathe going to deep sleep for
fear they won't wake up anymore. Yet from the days these people spent
inside the dingy ward of the hospital they woke up the morning after
refreshed as if none of the symptoms had happened before. They no
longer remember the nauseating spell and the painful dreams they cried
for days and all they could do was thank the good doctor for it.
It was around September during the height of rainy season when a group of bandits arrived in the dead of night at the hospital doorstep. The nurse cautioned Miguel
Olvido that their guess wanted him and that he should make all the
necessary precaution. Miguel found a wounded amazon inside the
emergency room from gun battle that took place at the slope of the
mountain. "We heard about your miracle doctor, " the leader of the
bandit said to him. He was holding an armalite and his words were more
of a plea rather than an intrusive order. "Who is she?" Miguel asked.
"She is my wife, Maria..." the bandit said. " Please, she's bleeding from her wound." Miguel Olvido answered positively and ordered the nurse to unwrap the
minor operative set. The young woman was no more than twenty years old
and her leg wounds were inflamed with gangrene. "We need to clean
them," Miguel Olvido said." Would it take longer?" the bandit asked.
Miguel Olvido replied, "Yes..." The bandit seemed frustrated. "We don't
have the luxury of staying here more than an hour!" Miguel Olvido put
back the surgical knife in the tray then politely answered,
"She'll die if you take her with you." The young woman was running a
high fever and severe dehydration. "She needed a lot of antibiotics and
fluids." The bandit looked outside of the hospital window. He heard the
loud noise from incoming government jeeps. He decided they have to
leave immediately. Before leaving he made his promise to his wife that
he would come back for her. But it was a promise the young woman barely
heard due to her severe delirium.
From days on end the young woman would shout in the dead of night
screaming from the gun battle she barely survived. Two days later her
fever subside and the first thing she did was to examine her surrounding. After regaining all the strength and nourishment she lost from three months of campaign in the mountain she was able to recall the sad fate of her comrades . On the second week of her hospital stay she sat on the doorway hoping her husband is still alive ready
to pick her up. The rest of the day she just waited but no one came to take
her away. The next morning a group of soldiers arrived to arrest her
but Miguel Olvido intervened by saying he would like Maria to stay inside
the hospital. The soldiers whose indebtedness to the good doctor is immeasurable told their superiors that the young amazon woman escaped.
"My name is Maria," the young woman said to the good doctor when the
soldier left the premises. "I want to thank you for helping me. You did not only save me from severe sickness but from jail as well. I don't know how can I ever repay you," Maria said. The doctor replied that she could start by helping him clean the hospital
premises. From then on Maria became a part of the regular hospital
staff and a portion of donation by wealthy patients was saved for her
wages so she could quietly leave whenever she is ready. Her constant
wait for her husband was endless. The weeks became an excruciating
month, the months become an agonizing year until one day she got tired
of looking at the hospital calendar that she tore the calendar in half.
One night as she mimicked the cry of 'sarimanok' bird in the distant
mountain she resolved to herself that her husband either perished in a
fierce gun battle or had completely forgotten her. It was time to move
on.
When Maria woke up the next morning she saw the handsomest man she ever
saw in her life. She bathed herself and wore the white dress she bought
with her wages and slowly walked down the aisle of the hospital ward.
She saw the doctor waiting for her at the end of the hall with his
rugged looks and forlorn eyes. The doctor could not remember the last
time his heart had felt so much love but the years of longing have
brought him and Maria so much passion that the moment they touched each
other they knew they would not have enough time to contain the fire
they felt inside. In between seeing the dead and the plea of the dying
as incessant pain torture them in their sleep, the two lovers locked themselves in each
other's embrace like a couple of foxes mating in spring. They cried in
each other arms from the severity of their sadness and in the midst of
their sorrow they arched, bend and gently caressed the contour of their
skin. They did not find the time to excuse one self because they find
no use in relieving themselves. They breathe in order to salivate and
the careful words they exchange throughout the whole time they were
together were nothing but pleasant thought and unfounded worries. "What
we're doing is wrong," Maria said. The handsome doctor just looked at
her and carefully examined the lips that he tenderly kissed and said to
her that he did not travelled far so he could make other people unhappy. In fact,
he said to her she was the reason why he was there in the first place
and that she is the woman he was looking for all his life.
Three years, eleven months and twenty-six days later the inevitable
happened. Thirty armed men arrived in San Luis Rey armed with powerful
weapon including a grenade launcher and in a blitzkrieg attack overran
the government army post. They took the army jeep and assorted weapon.
The powerful blast of grenade and gunfire roused in their bed the
sleeping townsfolk. Maria went up from her bed and ran towards the
hospital ward. He saw Miguel running towards her as if he knew this
thing would happen. "This must be the time Maria," Miguel said. Maria
cried. This has got to be the day her husband had promised her he would
come back. The patient in the ward was in frenzy that they huddled
themselves inside the female medical ward. The nurse gathered the
elderly and moved them out of the male medical ward towards the pedia
ward. "They don't touch children," the nurse said. Maria shouted to
Miguel, "What about you?" Miguel just looked at her. Maria ran towards
the last room down the hall and began to undress. She wore the lovely
white dress she bought for her wedding day and began to fix her hair.
She waited so long for this day to come that this is the best time to
make everything perfect. But she was filled with hesitation. Something
was so wrong inside her that suddenly upset her stomach. She does not
want her husband anymore. She wanted to be normal just like everyone
else. She does not like the eerie sound of the mountain at night, the
deafening sound of whistling bullet during gun battle and the sound of
mortar and flying helicopters. She just wanted to stay. When the bandits arrived in the hospital they strafed with bullets the rows of precious medicine in the cabinet. The patients scampered for safety. They destroyed with axe and machetes the walls and hospital bed. Some patient cried when the lawless bandits began to aim their
fire above their heads. "Don't kill them!" Miguel shouted. "So you are
the brave doctor of this town?" the bandit leader said. He then quickly
ordered his men. "Find Maria, my wife!" The he turned his ire to
Miguel's direction." How dare you?" The bandit said as he fired his
armalite in the ceiling. "I asked you to take care of her wounds not
own her!" Miguel was sheltered by a group of patient who ran to cover
him. The fearsome bandit took his machetes and single handedly hacked
to death the patient who covered Miguel from his ordeal. "You cannot
escape my wrath! You will die in my hands!" But before he could cut the
good doctor into pieces he heard a gun shot behind his back. When he
looked back the bandit saw Maria standing behind him. It was something
he did not expect. Something just told the bandit he was an enemy and
he needed to die. He can't seem to grapple with the vision that
appeared before him. Maria wore a glorious white wedding gown and
instead of bouquet of flowers she was holding a gun in her hand. She
was crying a well of tears that could possibly be for him. But the way
her eyes slanted in her beautiful face it was undeniable that she felt
hatred at that unfortunate time. "I cannot let you kill the most
important person in my life!" Maria shouted. It was a word more
powerful than the bullet she fired in her gun. The bandit felt a
tightening feeling in his throat. He grabbed his heart and saw blood
coming out of his chest. "How can you kill me, Maria?" the bandit said.
"You should not have come anymore," Maria said. When the bandits saw
their fallen comrade they retaliated by locking up its occupant inside
and without an ounce of mercy torched down the hospital. Miguel Olvido
and Maria took the chance to save the numerous patients that were
trapped during the fire and saved twenty-three patients from untimely
death.
During their grand trek in the mountains the bandits went down one by
one with high-grade fever. They burned dried leaves and fanned the
smoke to drive away the swarm of mosquitoes that harbor fatal Malaria.
During their unsuccessful escape they saw in their dreams the ghost of
men and women they have killed. They tried escaping as they wield their
machetes and realized the ghost they have killed twice over were
dismembered bodies of their sleeping comrades. They cried when they
cannot find the route to escape as wall of tall grasses and trees
hindered their way. They fall on their knees and told each other they
were just having a bad dream from parasite that inhabited the cavity of
their brain. "This is what Malaria does to its victim," one of the
bandit said. It changed everything one sees.
The town was so shocked to learn that the hospital was razed down to the
ground. They have no idea whether the couple Miguel Olvido, the doctor
and Maria survived the one-hour fire. Patients who were ushered out of
the burning hospital did not saw them come out during the last minute
and efforts to exhume their bodies from the rubble did not yield
conclusive proof of their untimely death due to heavy rain and
flooding. Three typhoons and two major earthquakes later they almost
forgot the tragic incident that happened in the outskirts of their
town. Only when a number of children began to have fever and their
noses and mouth began to bleed that they remembered Miguel Olvido, the
doctor. He was like a mirage that only appeared in their dreams and
only when they are too drunk or in the middle of some terrible pain or
sickness they remember who he was. But no one can tell where he is.
People who were tired of telling that he was dead pointed him at the
deserted compound of the burned hospital that now houses Gemelina and
Acacia Trees that grew to height of twenty feet. Numerous children
began to vomit blood and they appealed to the nearest provincial
capitol for help but the only help they had gotten were piles of
leaflets and reading materials on how to combat dengue fever. No one
was there to help them in times of need. They cried for Miguel Olvido
the whole time their children bleed. In one peculiar incident a man
told the authorities that Miguel Olvido, the doctor visited him and
save his children from death. The grandiose tale he recounted in his
drunken state spread like wildfire and took every unimaginable twist of
plot as it passed through countless word-of-mouth stories. A search to
look for Miguel Olvido created so much confusion among townsfolk that
they experienced numerous cases of mass hysteria. As more and more
people come out to support earlier claims of Miguel Olvido's personal
intervention a rumor ensued that the church already step in to validate
his 'miraculous' intervention. He said to have appeared in people's
dream that no sooner they misconstrued every imaginable shadow as
Miguel Olvido's miraculous images. They drowned their sadness with
tales of his sacred stories that every bit of moment spent in hearing
tales of his miraculous powers jettisoned its listeners and onlookers
in a state that can only be describe as extreme euphoria.
The miracle of Miguel Olvido not only reached the local Archbishop but
the office of El Negros most corrupt congressman as well who shelled
part of his pork barrel fund and erected a substandard hospital in the
site where the gutted hospital once stood. It was inaugurated in a
lavish fanfare that included the Provincial Governor and the town's
council of elders. But it failed to attract enough attention from city
doctors to migrate in San Luis Rey even with compensation that rivaled
city wages. A year after it was established the hospital was left in
neglect and began to collect dewdrops and green moss. Huge cracks began
to appear in its floor and walls as roots sprouted out of the open
crevices. Tiny plants ate the yellow figment in the coat of cheap China
paint while puddle of mud began to harbor mosquitoes and harmful
parasites. Trees skewered at unimaginable height from underneath the
poorly cemented floors while rainwater washed the empty beds and rotten
chairs from flash flood that become San Luis Rey's regular occurences.
When a group of scavengers visited the abandoned government hospital
building they saw the images of Miguel Olvido in its floor and walls.
Expert on visionaries claimed that it was his way of telling the people
of San Luis Rey that he was still looking after them even though he was
gone. People began to flock in the hospital to light up candles and
pray. It was an eerie sight. People lined up to take a peek at the wall
that they claimed contain a human like images that is better seen in
black and white photographs. No one disputed the claim of the poor
scavengers at a time when majority of the hopeless people wanted
miracles for themselves in whatever form or manner to alleviate their
sufferings. They needed a sanctuary other than the church to pour out
their frustrations and ask for deliverance. Later the town council
declared it a holy ground and began to collect donations from visitors
who come from as far away as Aparri and Jolo for construction of a holy
church. The rumors and ancient story that was passed on during town's
gatherings became a cacophony of twisted facts bloated truth and
mythical lies. But whether the story is real or not it is undeniable
that many people who were convinced of the town's incredulous stories
flocked to the abandoned hospital to pay their homage to Miguel Olvido,
the doctor and later the Patron Saint of San Luis Rey.