For those who have been following the career and
real lifestory of Charice, the song
Maghintay
Ka Lamang comes as a reminder of the singer’s struggles and triumphs as an
artist in the music industry. The song is full of
encouraging words about hoping for a better tomorrow, facing
challenges with a strong heart, realizing that life is not all failures and
sufferings, and being patient in achieving one’s dreams.
In a number of interviews and shows, both Charice and her
mother shared the significance of the song in making the
former bounce back from her low moments caused by her failures in getting a
break into a singing career. Her mother said that she would play the song for
Charice to hear in the hope that her daughter would imbibe its message. The
singer must have put the message into her heart and it did work for her.
In her
Valentine’s Special for GMA Network in 2011, before her emotional singing of
Maghintay Ka Lamang, Charice shared the encouraging words from her mother: that the fulfillment of her dreams
would come and all that she (Charice) should do was to keep her hope alive. This
particular number brought tears to many in the studio audience, including her
mother. Charice herself had to hold back her tears until the end of the song. More
than the singing, I believe, the audience applauded the message of the song
and how Charice had learned from it with her mother's help.
In my humble opinion, Charice has not only learned the
message of the song. Maghintay Ka Lamang
is and will always be a part of her being as it is her mother who has
inculcated in her the song’s message of hope and patience. But how do the teacher and the learner handle a situation when the latter applies the learning to their relationship?
It is common knowledge that Charice is now ‘out and
proud.’ Her being homosexual, however, has not been totally accepted by her
mother. In her recent concert with Aiza Seguerra titled Power of Two, Charice sang Maghintay Ka Lamang. Who
would have thought that the same message would be repeated in a concert; although from a different perspective, yet, with the same intensity, if not more? This time, it would be Charice’s (not her mother’s) reminder to
herself. A message—that has encouraged Charice to continue dreaming and to have
hope that someday, people will accept her as a singer—is the same message that
she clings to and that has fervently comforted her that someday, her mother will unconditionally accept the person that she is.
There are people from all walks of life who are in similar
situations of non-acceptance. It doesn’t have to be about homosexuality. It can
be anything from social status to personal preferences like careers,
religions, fashion styles, and so on. How many of us are trapped in being somebody we
are not just because our real selves are not within the so-called norm that our
society dictates? Do we all have the courage to fight for that somebody who
longs to come out from us? There could even be those who do not realize that
there is a much better inner being within them waiting to be discovered but are
not because of the seemingly easier path that is presented to them.
As we journey into the world of
adulthood, we bring with us the influences of our family, peers, elders,
authorities, and those others that we encounter along the way. Most of us carry a big slice of the influence pie from our parents and elders. All of us have
parents and all of us are children. But before being parents or being children,
we are, first and foremost, human beings. What we become in our professional
life and/or social life is only in the peripherals of our being. What we really
are is in the innermost core of our being which is unique and is God-given.
Kahlil Gibran wrote beautiful thoughts on children in his
book The Prophet:
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak
to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for
itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your
dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them
like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows
are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with
His might that His
arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also
the bow that is stable.
Charice singing "Maghintay Ka Lamang" - Power of Two Concert
(Photos captured from a video by Live Music Experience)
In the
Power of Two concert, which had 'Acceptance' as one of its messages, before singing
Maghintay Ka Lamang, Charice said in part, “I
understand that we are in a transition, as a family, to become stronger and
more accepting of each other.”
I was at that concert and I was teary-eyed in the duration
of this number. Charice could not hold back her tears, unlike in the 2011
Valentine’s Special. Tears started running down her cheeks before she could finish
the song. The reason behind those tears, after all, is of much higher importance and value than her career which she referred to in 2011. It is about her inner being. It is about the person that she is. Add to that, it is
not the music fans she is hoping for total acceptance to come from. It is her family; it is her
mother.
I believe everyone in the audience could feel that Charice
was hurting so much that one could hear her controlled sobbing in between notes toward the end of the song. Like in other similar situations, it is, for me, not just a matter of acceptance or
non-acceptance. It is more of a matter of giving happiness to or being the source
of sadness of a child; a matter of being the reason for completeness or incompleteness
of a person. If only all parents and elders could listen to what exactly the hearts of the children are screaming about... If we all could only look beyond what our eyes could see... As the secret revealed by the fox to The Little Prince of Antoine de Saint Exupery goes, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
As I expressed earlier, the message of Maghintay Ka Lamang would always be a part of Charice's being as it was inculcated in her by her mother. I also agree to what many say about teaching and learning: we cannot teach what we do not know; we constantly learn from what we teach others. So, yes, Charice. Maghintay ka lamang.
