Life Changing, Part 1

Saturday, June 30 of 2007, Hannah's 18th birthday. Event was held in Orchard. I left the place at around 10:30PM, with my own car, with nobody but myself. It was raining. I'm wearing light blue long sleeves polo, sleeves folded thrice, slacks, belt, black socks, black shoes. No tie.

I drove along the road of Salitran. Dark, raining, nobody around. There was this van, in the middle of the road, coming to a stop, in an area in Salitran called 'crossing'. The van seemed to be parking toward the right side of the road. With these instincts, I overtook the van on his left. Suddenly, from a complete stop, the van turned left while I was overtaking it. Oops, with spider-like senses, I maneuvered in the same direction as the van's direction. In a split second, I confidently thought, "naah, I've been through many similar car-to-car incidents, I've never missed!"

*Scraaatch*

Oops.

The van caught my rear.

"This isn't happening, its 10:30, it has been a long day, I'm really tired, I want to sleep, and THIS isn't happening to me!" Nevertheless, reality came to me.

The van at halt, I was at halt, in the middle of the road. No people, very dark, raining.

Logically, it was my fault. But, it could have been prevented if he was using his courtesy lights -- "naka-signal".

I calmly parked my car in the left side of the road. Hazard lights on. Head lights on. Grabbed my cellphone. Ready to leave the car. I opened the door, almost coming out, left foot out of the car already. I noticed that the van wasn't moving at all. In the midst of the darkness, and rain, the van doesn't seem to have any reaction.

Well, in my own pride, I thought, "Mali naman siya, mali rin ako, nagasgasan kami parehas, so quits lang". And off I went! I calmly closed the door and calmly drove off thinking that the van was "ok" with what just happened.

10 meters, 20 meters, 40 meters away from the scene... 30 seconds later, I hear police siren. I instantly thought, "Uy, nakatawag siya agad ng pulis?" But events happened so fast, I realized that the van was overtaking me calmly and forcing me to park. We were like 20 meters away from the Salitran intersection.

But I was like.... UH OH, police siren!? Oh my gosh, Did I just hit a police van?

The life changing event begins here.

The driver came to me with a gun on his right hand.

Me? I was stuck in my seat watching the man approach with a gun as my brain quickly flash things to me -- things about life, things that talks about death, things that were life changing to people.

The driver was a man, he was only wearing shorts, a pinoy definitely, mataba ang tiyan, kayumanggi, di masyado matangkad.

With a gun, he approached me as I stayed in my seatbelt. He was enraged. I could already hear him curse at me even though my door/window was closed.

He then clocked the gun. -- I was like, "This is it. Mamatay na ako, la lang, madaming malalungkot."

I was calm, because I've nothing to lose when I die.. but at the same time worried, because others will have everything to lose when I die.

I just looked straight. The man was already in my side. I opened the window.

The gun was pointed at me.

Yup, looking straight, with my peripheral vision, I saw a real gun, it was a revolver type of gun, I saw the barrel where the bullet comes out, it was pointed directly at me.

The man? He was throwing curses at me. He was enraged. He's pointing out that he is a soldier. Sundalo. He was explaining that he's ready to kill me. "Eh kung pagbabarilin kaya kita ngayon?"

Ako naman? My thoughts were really clear -- patay kung patay, makakasama ko na naman si God. On the other hand, I was sad knowing that, people close to me will be really sad if I die.. And, I felt that, I don't want to die yet because I want to do more things for the Lord.

A boy came out of the van, his son, stopping his father. Another boy, stuck his half body out the window shouting at his dad to stop. What amazing kids.

To cut the long story short, God saved me that day. God allowed that to happen. Somebody prayed on my way home. God heard. God was with me.

The place where we stopped? There were 8 people watching from a tindahan in the right side of the road, lights in the streets, many cars passing, Barangay naman sa left side of the road. I didn't notice that at all. Why? Because I was like... *fainting to death* :)

I got out of the car. His gun on his pocket. The man continued to express his intention of killing me. I was calmly listening and acknowledging by nodding. I kept my cool. He seemed to be cooling down as well. I felt a sense of relief -- I felt that, nope, today is not the day of my death.

Consciously, I walked with him, directing him towards the Barangay office. He continued to talk more. He confessed he was drunk, that he was enraged when I tried to "flee" from him. He gave me a hint that he wants to settle this already. (by not killing me ofcourse).

We were already in the entrance of the Barangay office, when he refused to go inside and he offered me to settle it 'outside the office'. In fear of the gun, I, went with him to the other side of the road. Where there was a tindahan. (Ang dami palang taong nakakita na tinutukan ako ng baril?)

He went on with saying that I was wrong, and that I could've been shot. Me? I was like... "ok", *nod*, "oo nga ho, sensya na", *nod*... I looked over to my left shoulder, there was this "tindera"-like get up, on her small tindahan stall. She was shaking her head at me. In my mind, I was like "tindera ka di ba? bakit mo ko sinesenyasan na 'wag'?"

That was the time that I noticed, that 8 people were watching the scene! They were intently watching us as we talked.

To be continued...

I'm too tired to go on typing now. I gotta find the Lord now and thank Him.