The Witness

Chapter 8 - Communion

That night, Rosa had a nightmare.

First, she saw the statue of the Immaculate Mother, the one she saw in the parish. The supposedly miraculous one that survived a fire and a war. She dreamed that she was standing in front of it, watching it cry tears of blood. Reaching out to wipe the tears away, Rosa accidentally knocked over a candle and the whole church caught fire.

"Help!"

Rosa then heard a familiar scream and saw Sylvia trapped in the glass case instead of the Immaculate Mother statue. "Help!" she cried over and over, as the flames crept up her school uniform. "Rosa, help me!"

Before she could turn around and find something she could smash the glass case with, Rosa woke up.

***

The media was in a frenzy in the days that followed. Sylvia's killing reached the front page of the papers. Reporters dug up her life story, as well as Joaquin's. Truth mixed with lies, Rosa thought. It was so hard to discern nowadays. But she noticed the fear in everybody's eyes. The stricter rules, the heightened security. Politicians used Sylvia's murder to further their agendas--against crime, brutality, injustice. People everywhere demanded answers.

Then there were the supposed witnesses.

Sylvia Francisco had been missing for more than forty days before her body was discovered. Nobody knew where she had gone, although it was said that she went with a phone pal (which her family vehemently denied; it was not in her character). She was on her way home when she got caught in the wrong time and place. Joaquin and unknown, unnamed others kidnapped her, sexually tortured her, and stabbed her with a knife until she died. Joaquin was in the process of dumping her naked body into the Manila Bay when the police, who were making rounds, caught him in the act. They said that he was armed and that he tried to fight back, so he needed to be shot. The officers were then commended for their courage and given plaques of recognition in a news segment four days later, turning them into heroes in the public eye. A plus point for the police force.

Attorney Steven Alinsangan, Joaquin's only line of defense, declined to be interviewed. Rosa had no idea how he would help Joaquin, or even if he would. She didn't even know what the lawyer looked like. Once, she tried calling his number, but the words she wanted to say got stuck in her throat. "Hello?" asked a female voice on the other end of the line. Rosa could not reply. The lady hung up. Rosa tried calling again, but nobody would answer.

Under the pretext of taking remedial classes, Rosa would head to the West Metro Correctional Facility to visit Joaquin.

Visitors were only allowed in for two hours every day except for Monday. Obviously, Rosa had no excuse for Sunday, but she was able to visit Joaquin several times after school. A skeptic by nature and experience, Rosa kept her mind open to the possibility that Joaquin might at least be an accomplice. But with each visit she became more and more convinced of his innocence.

"Do your family ever visit you?" Rosa had asked him once.

"Lucia and Manolo, sometimes," replied Joaquin, referring to his fifteen-year-old sister and seventeen-year-old brother. "Angeli and the twins aren't allowed; they're under twelve. Mother doesn't know."

"So she's still in the hospital?"

Joaquin just sighed. "I don't know what will happen to them when I die."

"You won't die," Rosa promised. "I'll find a way." She had no clue how to do it, in truth, without endangering herself or sounding crazy.

Joaquin shook his head. "Lucia told me something terrible during their last visit." He lowered his voice. "Rosa, will you promise not to tell?"

Rosa looked at him, and at the desperate, pleading look in his eyes, and nodded.

"I promised them I wouldn't tell anyone. But I have to let it out or I'll go crazy." Joaquin sighed. "Just two nights ago, some men barged into our house. They wore black masks and clothes, and they dragged Manolo off his bed."

Rosa gasped. "And your sisters?"

"Thank god they didn't touch Lucia or Angeli," said Joaquin. "But they beat up Manolo, telling him that he had to testify against me at the trial, or they'll do to our sisters what they did to Sylvia."

"That's messed up," Rosa said. "Go tell the police."

"I think they are the police, Rosa."

Another memory confirmed, Rosa thought, shuddering at Sherwin's image in her mind.

"I just know that they're covering for someone big time," said Joaquin. "The car I saw--that didn't look like a cheap car."

Other times, though, they wouldn't talk about the case at all.

They talked a lot about music. Despite being an altar boy, Joaquin was fond of rap music, and all its cussing and brutal lyrics. "No other kind of music does it for me, to be honest," he told Rosa. "The hardship, the injustice, and the rage...it's all there. And I can relate easily." Rosa would then borrow some of Miguel's rap albums and bring them along with her disc man to prison so that Joaquin could listen.

Rosa, on the other hand, enjoyed pop, particularly soulful ballads about love and heartbreak by female artists. She tried making Joaquin listen to her favorite record once, which had a song about a woman whose lover died in a boat accident. Joaquin was polite about it, but Rosa could tell from the look on his face when he was listening to it that it was not his thing at all.

Thankfully, their music tastes met with local rock music, which were a soulful and rhythmic blend of heartbreak and fast beats. They learned that they had the same favorite albums from the same favorite bands, which led them to discover that they had even more similarities.

They were both allergic to shrimp, which Joaquin had only tried once at a church event. He'd been rushed to the hospital.

Blue was their favorite color--dark, almost-black blue that matched the hue of the clear night sky.

They both loved writing--Rosa with her personal essays and diary entries, Joaquin with his poetry and rap lyrics.

They both preferred English over math in school, although Joaquin excelled in all his subjects while English was the only thing Rosa could pass without having to study.

They both hated being the eldest child of the family--scolded for everything, responsible for everyone's mistakes.

And, best of all--this they knew without having to say a word to each other--they both understood the struggle of being unheard, of fearing no one would believe them.

While Rosa racked her brain for a way to prove Joaquin's innocence, she took comfort in the fact that whenever she stepped in the visiting area (for no one would dare lay a finger on Joaquin when she was with him, for some reason), Joaquin's face would light up, his weariness replaced by a lovely, hopeful smile. A smile that Rosa thought was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

And at night, all Joaquin thought about was Rosa. The odds were unfairly stacked against him. Father Gerard never visited him in prison, nor did anyone else from the parish.  His other relatives and former friends had shunned him. And he had never even seen the lawyer they'd promised him, a lawyer he knew he was supposed to have from the citizens' rights  lessons he learned in social studies class.

But there was Rosa, and every time she showed up around the corner, Joaquin would allow himself to hope a little more. That was how he survived. Just like how a room isn't entirely dark when a single candle in it is lit, Joaquin clung to the one person in the world outside his family who believed him.