Patron Saint of San Luis Rey

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.