Hole in My Shoe

“I did not have 3,000 pairs of shoes; I had one thousand and sixty.”

· Imelda Romualdez Marcos

Former First Lady of the Philippines

I stumbled upon this number-littered line in a news article I found in the internet while waiting for my turn at an online scrabble game. I shifted about and made myself comfortable in my seat. In the midst of the roar of the room’s century-old AC, a question danced the pandanggo in my mind.

Why was Imelda’s 3,000 pairs of shoes such a big deal?

I let go of the computer mouse I was fondling with and my memory brought me back to a time between innocence and malice – high school.

I was in my third year then. We had just been dismissed from last period English class and I was making my way out, excited to catch a glimpse of the cute sophomore in the next classroom since I wasn’t going to see him for two whole days over the weekend. I was by the doorway when Joana, my classmate, caught up to me and said, matter-of-factly, “Sol, may buslot sapatos mo.” (Sol, there’s a hole in your shoe.)

I looked down and saw the object of my classmate’s remark. There it was, screaming to my face: my mahimulmol sock was snaking its way out into the outside world via a gaping hole in my right shoe. It could’ve been worse, really. Without said sock, my big toe would’ve been the one playing peek-a-boo with Joana.

That wasn’t the first time that I saw said hole. I’ve worn those shoes to school every single day since my freshman year. I saw how it had morphed from an innocent baby hole the size of a mung bean during my sophomore year to a full-grown five centavo-wide adult hole a year later. Seeing the hole was one thing, noticing it was another.

I checked back at my scrabble game and the sidebar informed me that my nemesis, mike27 (35/m/spain), just scored 18 points by putting up P-R-I-C-E on the board, with the R landing on a double word square. I retaliated with C-A-V-E-D and saw that I was only trailing by 11 points. Imelda's article had officially caught my attention so I left my scrabble game for a while and went back to inspect the rest of the piece.

The article, which was taken from Newsweek, reported the magazine’s version of the top ten greediest people of all time. Imelda Marcos had the honor of once again putting the Philippines on the map by being on that list, sharing the limelight with no less that Genghis Khan, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and the Empress Dowager. According to the article, Mrs. Marcos enjoyed five million dollar shopping sprees in New York during her husband’s term as dictator. Just imagine the many kinds of shoes that she had gotten during those splurges – red shoes, blue shoes, strappy shoes, shoes with heels and shoes with even higher heels. Imagine, too, the price tag of these feet warmers. I was reminded of that famous credit card commercial.

Black Italian pumps – a public school teacher's salary for a year. Red strappy sandals – adequate hospital facilities. The first lady’s sheer selflessness to put her feet first before the needs of her country – priceless.

I had the luxury of having three pairs of shoes in high school – black ones for school, white sneakers for PE, and fancy 150-peso sandals for those once or twice a year occasions like the prom, recognition programs, formal dinners, and other events that required strapping my feet to those blasted blister-causing contraptions. My mother was a police officer who had to juggle an eight-to-five job, selling SM gift checks on the side, and bringing up four children single-handedly. She was widowed when I, the eldest, was only seven and our youngest was barely a toddler. Money was meant for basic necessities like food, school tuition and medicines; buying new shoes was way below the priority list. My mother made us aware of just how hard money came by; her daily sermon marathons on the topic would’ve put any self-respecting preacher to shame. Besides, having new shoes did not matter to me anyway. I’m sure my mother would’ve probably bought me a new pair had she seen the dire condition my shoes were in. It’s just that until that point when my classmate pointed out that particular shoe anomaly, the hole in my shoe hadn’t been such a big deal to me.

Ping!

Those couches on my ears disguised as headphones told me that mike27 had already put up a word on the scrabble board. I scrutinized my own tiles, arranged and rearranged them until they had made sensible enough words. I let my finger do the talking. Mike27 and I exchanged a flurry of words, much like Ferdinand and Ninoy did during the Martial Law. I was beginning to close in on him; there were 38 tiles remaining and he was now just ahead by two points. I waited for his response to my 26-point Q-U-I-T. Mike27 was taking his time; the waiting bored me more than Abstract Algebra did. So I texted my sister and asked her if she’d seen the top ten list and Imelda’s shoe quote. Moments later, my phone beeped signaling a message from my younger sibling.

“Yup. Better quote: ‘I hate ugliness. You know, I’m allergic to ugliness!’ Winner!”

I was plain looking. I’ve always been plain looking. My eyes, and ears and lips were in the right places but they didn’t seem to spell beauty. I was never beautiful. My mother has called me a lot of names but beautiful was probably one of the last words she’d use to describe her precious eldest daughter. One look at me and it wouldn’t be hard to conclude based on my perennial school org shirt, blue jeans and white rubber shoes that I also didn’t possess any sense of fashion. For me, shopping for new clothes was as pleasurable as a trip to the dentist. You’d be glad to finally rid yourself of your damaged tooth, but you’d also give anything to swap places with the guy in white poking around in your oral cavity. I felt the same way about shopping for shoes. I’d love to own something new but I’d also rather be at home watching TV than drag myself to find a suitable pair of footwear. I usually contented myself with whatever my mother picked out for me as long as they fit.

It was two weeks before I would officially start high school when my mother and I went looking for my school shoes. I made an effort to look around and participate in the shoe-searching process. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black, suede-lined, low cut, boot-style two inch heeled shoe looking regal amongst the rest of her shoe family. I took it off the stands, tried it on, and found that it was about half a size too big for me. I showed the shoe to my mother, told her I liked it, but that I needed a smaller size. The petite saleslady that was listening in on our conversation chirped in and informed us that they probably had the particular size I was looking for in their stockroom. Moments later, she reappeared bringing with her a box of size five-and-a-half suede lined, low cut, boot-style two inch heeled shoes. They fit to a tee and perhaps I had hopped around too much like a puppy that my mother ended up buying my black suede lined shoes.

A couple of weeks ago, I got to chat with one of my college professors. We had initially planned to talk about looking for an apartment for her daughter. Pretty soon, the conversation led to her husband. Sir, my college professor’s husband, was a political prisoner during the Martial Law. He had been a member of the New People’s Army, and was a prominent figure in a number of rallies against the dictatorial government. Sir suffered the same fate as Piolo’s character did in the film Dekada ’70. Sir was, of course, not as handsome as Piolo. Last night, over a cup of hot chocolate, I had a chance to talk with Pietros. Pietros was editor-in-chief of his school publication. He talked about his uncle who was also editor of a school publication during the 70’s. Typical of steel-hearted campus journalists, Pietros’ uncle lambasted Marcos and the government. It was because of this that he was imprisoned in a stockage and was helplessly gunned down.

Then it occurred to me. Was their blood and the blood of many more the price that we had to pay for Imelda’s shoes?

A couple of nights ago, I saw the docu-film Imelda. It told of Imelda’s life story and the role she played in shaping, in a distorted way, the history of our country. The thing that struck me the most was the fact that there was never a hint of remorse on her part. She was oblivious to the horrors that she and her husband had inflicted the people of this country. Apparently, she had no idea that millions of Filipinos hated her guts. Would she have been as unconcerned had there been a hole in one of her thousand dollar shoes?

I knew my shoe had a hole. It took a classmate to point it out but I recognized its flaw right away. That night, after dinner (It was always safer to confront my mother with problems that involved money when she was already propped up in her easy chair and was focusing on her primetime shows.), I told my mother that my shoe had a hole. I even showed it to her for effect. Once again, she launched into a tirade about how hard it was to earn money and that we should be more careful with our things. That Sunday, we went to Sam’s shoe store at Amigo Plaza and bought a pair of black leather shoes.

My scrabble game with mike27 ended, 225 to 217, with me emerging the victor. I was happy with the win but something was churning at the pit of my stomach.

Why was Imelda’s 3,000 pairs of shoes such a big deal?

Maybe Imelda’s 3,000 pairs of shoes didn’t have any holes in them; but they scarred our country more than any hole did any shoe.

*My finished article for the 7th San Agustin Writers Workshop. First published in Irong-Irong 4, The Official Literary Journal of the University of San Agustin (December 2009), and one of my submissions to the upcoming 7th Lamiraw Workshop of the Northwestern Samar State University on 9-13 November 2010.