Story and photo by Oliver Samson / Correspondent
YES, Aubrey is her name and she leads a life apart from all the rest. In a society saddled with massive corruption, widespread poverty, abuses on environment and human-rights violations, Aubrey Garchitorena Abella proves love for country still lives among millennials.
She yells at the driver to stop the jeepney so it doesn’t run over a cat on the street, according to her mother, Mencel.
For three days in 2009 she packed groceries for families at centers evacuated when Typhoon Ondoy flooded Metro Manila and nearby provinces.
“There was a great pleasure being part of the effort to help other people in times of calamity,” Aubrey told the BusinessMirror at Casa Roces, home of the late Sen. Chino Roces and near Malacañan Palace in San Miguel, Manila.
Today the 15-year-old Aubrey wields a pen for Junior Veritas, a publication of College of the Holy Spirit Manila, where she studies.
She was always a writer, Mencel, who works at the Office of the President, said of her daughter. I noticed the poems she wrote during her primary school years were marked by patriotism.
“All the while she was playing Barbie Doll, [she was also already writing such poems],” Mencel said.
Through her editorials in the magazine-type school publication, Aubrey shares with readers her views on social issues. The nuns who run the school always agree with her editorial.
She writes to evoke patriotism among fellow young people, a nun who declined to be named in this story said.
She also complains over destructive mining, some of her writings read. The wide and yawning open pits that mining companies simply abandon after done with excavations worry her, she said.
“The landslides it may cause can endanger the lives of people living near the area,” Aubrey explained.
Aubrey has also received a number of literary contest awards from her school.
The young writer also tries to avoid the trappings of wealth that comes with her mother’s position.
She walks from home inside the compound of Malacañan Palace to school, where she attends classes on a scholarship. It’s faster, she said, since it only takes her about five minutes to walk.
On weekends she and her mom travel to the province to stay with her grandmother in Binangonan, Rizal. There she spends time with her pet dogs and cats.
She encourages her peers, especially young ladies like her, to take lessons on Aikido, which she describes as a compassionate form of martial arts. She took up classes not only for defending herself and her mother, but also boosted her self-confidence.
Aikido also seeks to protect the attacker from injury, which is very compassionate because he or she can be just another victim of the neglect of the state, so why hurt him? Aubrey explained.
Nonetheless, she can fire a handgun.
“I have not engaged much in any sport but I can shoot.”
Aubrey’s patriotic genes come from her mother Mencel, whose forebears in Camarines Sur were revolutionaries during the Spanish colonial period.
Mencel, a political science and law graduate, is also anti-imperialist.
“We are not against America, but we are anti-imperialist,” she once posted on Facebook.
Hence, Aubrey said even as she sets her sights on becoming an officer of the US Navy, she said her patriotism for her own country will not die with her service in the US Armed Forces.
While in the US Navy service, she wishes to study nuclear physics.
“Aside from energy, I will explore nuclear physics for other purposes,” she said. “When the right time has come, I will return to motherland with the knowledge.”
Sometimes, Mencel attended law classes with Aubrey who, she said, sat quietly and listened to discussions. Maybe she was trying to understand what was being discussed through her young but inquisitive mind, Mencel said.
Aubrey believes the country’s future rests not only in the hands of its leaders, but also in its people.
She wishes that someday Filipinos will become mature electorates and socially sensitive and responsive citizens.
Image credits: Oliver Samson