Ted went to Fort Santiago. And it would be a journey he would take every afternoon…by bus and jeepney through Manila, a city so congested that it took some getting use to, so much so that at first he found himself wandering around aimlessly. So he tried to detach himself and allow himself time to get over the initial shock, so later…when he tried to recall those first days, he couldn’t remember that much.
He knew that Manila had been destroyed during its liberation. He wasn’t surprised then that most of Intramuros hadn’t been rebuilt, but when he got to Fort Santiago and began walking around he saw more than a ruin. He knew about Jose Rizal from training. However, he hadn’t come to go through the museum or see the place where the national hero was held before he was executed. He let the docents assume that he wanted to go down into the dungeons where throughout the ages so many prisoners had died, but Ted hadn’t come to the old fort to sightsee.
He had known the person he was to meet there back in the States. He was disappointed that she wasn’t there yet. He thought she was more reliable than that, more like an American when it came to being on time, and this made him feel worried that he had somehow missed her or had the time wrong or maybe even the date. His worry turned to panic…with the thought that he had somehow screwed up, for this meeting was extremely important to him…when he went and stood by the flagpole. He knew about the fort in a general way, again from training. He expected it to be larger. He hadn’t expected it to be manicured. Most of the people who walked passed him headed first to the museum. Some of them had very personal reasons for coming, and those with cameras took pictures.
He looked beyond the people and tried to imagine where the theater would be. He paced without realizing it. All at once, he stopped and in his mind’s eye turned the whole inner court into one huge stage. He could see armored Spaniards arriving on horses riding through the gate. And onto this stage, finally came two people, one the woman he was waiting for, the other, a graying Filipino, a man then famous as a columnist but now rapidly walking with a walky-talky. Ted didn’t know him. The American hadn’t started reading the Manila Times yet, or else he would’ve known about the Drew Pearson of the Philippines and his column “Over a Cup of Coffee.”
The man was very powerful and in charge, was looked up to, and had the ear of the First Lady of the Philippines. He was clearly on the move, with an amazing ability to get things done: hence the walky-talky. Every action of the man now leading the woman Ted knew produced a result: he was the one man in the Philippines who could say “I want a flower clock here” and by George, almost over night a flower clock would appear. It was DeRoy Valencia, the close friend of Emelda Marcos and Manila’s miracle worker. He was talking on the walky-talky as he walked, barking instructions. He stopped long enough to be introduced to Ted, and instead of rushing it he took time to be genuinely warm. Ted never expected to be part of what happened next. And then to have the woman he knew show Mr. Miracle Worker exactly where she wanted a theater built. She took Ted and DeRoy Valencia inside a space that was once a building inside the inner court, situated to the east of the flagpole, an empty space no larger than twenty by eighty feet, the back wall of which was also the outer-wall of the fort. In this space, under the auspices of Emelda Marcos, a miracle happened. Within a week or two, a theater appeared. Ted was amazed.
Randy Ford
