Summary of Magnificence

There is couple with a son and a daughter. Their parents have a good job. They go to school. Their
mother is a president in their village. In a meeting the man volunteered to be their tutor because he doesn’t
do anything in the evening also for an extra job. His name is Vicente. He is a bus conductor. So he went
to the house every night to teach the kids.

He promised the kids to give them 2 pencils each. One night he gives the pencil to the kids. That time it
was the "it". The children in this time want pencils. Vincent is nice to the children. He knows their wants.
But when he gave the pencil, he gives 3 pencils for the girl and 2 for the boy. Their mother said to say
thank you. The boy kissed Vicente but Vicente told him that boys don't kiss boys. Then the girl goes to
Vicente to say thank you. He hugs her so tight and the girl started to get out of his too tight hug. The girl
looks at Vicente with a little wonder on his face. The next day they were so proud and happy with their
new pencils. They showed it to their friends in class. They also thought of asking Vicente for new
pencils.

In dinner they talked a little about Vicente but the father is busy reading something. He did not listen
to what the mother said. The mother thinks that Vicente is fond of the children with the way he is treating
them. That evening Vicente arrived earlier. The children are proud of the pencil. Their classmates are
jealous with their new pencils given by Vicente. He asked the little boy to get him a glass of water. Then
he put the girl on his lap. Then he let the girl write her homework. The little girl told him not to carry her
because she is heavy. Vicente is perspiring, and his eyes are strange. Then the girl jumped out of his lap
because she became afraid. Then their mom arrived. She rubs the girls back and told them to go upstairs.
The mother slapped the man repeatedly. Vicente just accepts the entire slap that the mother gave him.
Then he went out of the house. The mother closed the door. She gives a bath to the girl. Then she asked
them to throw the pencil. Then she put her to sleep.
ESTRELLA D.
ALFON
Magnificence

There was nothing to fear, for the man was always so gentle, so kind. At night when the little girl and her
brother were bathed in the light of the big shaded bulb that hung over the big study table in the downstairs
hall, the man would knock gently on the door, and come in. he would stand for a while just beyond the
pool of light, his feet in the circle of illumination, the rest of him in shadow. The little girl and her brother
would look up at him where they sat at the big table, their eyes bright in the bright light, and watch him
come fully into the light, but his voice soft, his manner slow. He would smell very faintly of sweat and
pomade, but the children didn’t mind although they did notice, for they waited for him every evening as
they sat at their lessons like this. He’d throw his visored cap on the table, and it would fall down with a
soft plop, then he’d nod his head to say one was right, or shake it to say one was wrong.

It was not always that he came. They could remember perhaps two weeks when he remarked to their
mother that he had never seen two children looking so smart. The praise had made their mother look over
them as they stood around listening to the goings-on at the meeting of the neighborhood association, of
which their mother was president. Two children, one a girl of seven, and a boy of eight. They were both
very tall for their age, and their legs were the long gangly legs of fine spirited colts. Their mother saw
them with eyes that held pride, and then to partly gloss over the maternal gloating she exhibited, she said
to the man, in answer to his praise, But their homework. They’re so lazy with them. And the man said, I
have nothing to do in the evenings, let me help them. Mother nodded her head and said, if you want to
bother yourself. And the thing rested there, and the man came in the evenings therefore, and he helped
solve fractions for the boy, and write correct phrases in language for the little girl.

In those days, the rage was for pencils. School children always have rages going at one time or another.
Sometimes for paper butterflies that are held on sticks, and whirr in the wind. The Japanese bazaars
promoted a rage for those. Sometimes it is for little lead toys found in the folded waffles that Japanese
confection-makers had such light hands with. At this particular time, it was for pencils. Pencils big but
light in circumference not smaller than a man’s thumb. They were unwieldy in a child’s hands, but in all
schools then, where Japanese bazaars clustered there were all colors of these pencils selling for very low,
but unattainable to a child budgeted at a baon of a centavo a day. They were all of five centavos each, and
one pencil was not at all what one had ambitions for. In rages, one kept a collection. Four or five pencils,
of different colors, to tie with strings near the eraser end, to dangle from one’s book-basket, to arouse the
envy of the other children who probably possessed less.

Add to the man’s gentleness and his kindness in knowing a child’s desires, his promise that he would give
each of them not one pencil but two. And for the little girl who he said was very bright and deserved
more, ho would get the biggest pencil he could find.

One evening he did bring them. The evenings of waiting had made them look forward to this final giving,
and when they got the pencils they whooped with joy. The little boy had tow pencils, one green, one blue.
And the little girl had three pencils, two of the same circumference as the little boy’s but colored red and
yellow. And the third pencil, a jumbo size pencil really, was white, and had been sharpened, and the little
girl jumped up and down, and shouted with glee. Until their mother called from down the stairs. What are
you shouting about? And they told her, shouting gladly, Vicente, for that was his name. Vicente had
brought the pencils he had promised them.

Thank him, their mother called. The little boy smiled and said, Thank you. And the little girl smiled, and
said, Thank you, too. But the man said, Are you not going to kiss me for those pencils? They both came
forward, the little girl and the little boy, and they both made to kiss him but Vicente slapped the boy
smartly on his lean hips, and said, Boys do not kiss boys. And the little boy laughed and scampered away,
and then ran back and kissed him anyway.

The little girl went up to the man shyly, put her arms about his neck as he crouched to receive her
embrace, and kissed him on the cheeks.

The man’s arms tightened suddenly about the little girl until the little girl squirmed out of his arms, and
laughed a little breathlessly, disturbed but innocent, looking at the man with a smiling little question of
puzzlement.

The next evening, he came around again. All through that day, they had been very proud in school
showing off their brand new pencils. All the little girls and boys had been envying them. And their mother
had finally to tell them to stop talking about the pencils, pencils, for now that they had, the boy two, and
the girl three, they were asking their mother to buy more, so they could each have five, and three at least
in the jumbo size that the little girl’s third pencil was. Their mother said, Oh stop it, what will you do with
so many pencils, you can only write with one at a time.

And the little girl muttered under her breath, I’ll ask Vicente for some more.

Their mother replied, He’s only a bus conductor, don’t ask him for too many things. It’s a pity. And this
observation their mother said to their father, who was eating his evening meal between paragraphs of the
book on masonry rites that he was reading. It is a pity, said their mother, People like those, they make
friends with people like us, and they feel it is nice to give us gifts, or the children toys and things. You’d
think they wouldn’t be able to afford it.

The father grunted, and said, the man probably needed a new job, and was softening his way through to
him by going at the children like that. And the mother said, No, I don’t think so, he’s a rather queer young
man, I think he doesn’t have many friends, but I have watched him with the children, and he seems to
dote on them.

The father grunted again, and did not pay any further attention.

Vicente was earlier than usual that evening. The children immediately put their lessons down, telling him
of the envy of their schoolmates, and would he buy them more please?

Vicente said to the little boy, Go and ask if you can let me have a glass of water. And the little boy ran
away to comply, saying behind him, But buy us some more pencils, huh, buy us more pencils, and then
went up to stairs to their mother.

Vicente held the little girl by the arm, and said gently, Of course I will buy you more pencils, as many as
you want

And the little girl giggled and said, Oh, then I will tell my friends, and they will envy me, for they don’t
have as many or as pretty.

Vicente took the girl up lightly in his arms, holding her under the armpits, and held her to sit down on his
lap and he said, still gently, What are your lessons for tomorrow? And the little girl turned to the paper on
the table where she had been writing with the jumbo pencil, and she told him that that was her lesson but
it was easy.

Then go ahead and write, and I will watch you.

Don’t hold me on your lap, said the little girl, I am very heavy, you will get very tired.

The man shook his head, and said nothing, but held her on his lap just the same.

The little girl kept squirming, for somehow she felt uncomfortable to be held thus, her mother and father
always treated her like a big girl, she was always told never to act like a baby. She looked around at
Vicente, interrupting her careful writing to twist around.

His face was all in sweat, and his eyes looked very strange, and he indicated to her that she must turn
around, attend to the homework she was writing.

But the little girl felt very queer, she didn’t know why, all of a sudden she was immensely frightened, and
she jumped up away from Vicente’s lap.

She stood looking at him, feeling that queer frightened feeling, not knowing what to do. By and by, in a
very short while her mother came down the stairs, holding in her hand a glass of sarsaparilla, Vicente.

But Vicente had jumped up too soon as the little girl had jumped from his lap. He snatched at the papers
that lay on the table and held them to his stomach, turning away from the mother’s coming.

The mother looked at him, stopped in her tracks, and advanced into the light. She had been in the shadow.
Her voice had been like a bell of safety to the little girl. But now she advanced into glare of the light that
held like a tableau the figures of Vicente holding the little girl’s papers to him, and the little girl looking
up at him frightenedly, in her eyes dark pools of wonder and fear and question.

The little girl looked at her mother, and saw the beloved face transfigured by some sort of glow. The
mother kept coming into the light, and when Vicente made as if to move away into the shadow, she said,
very low, but very heavily, Do not move.

She put the glass of soft drink down on the table, where in the light one could watch the little bubbles go
up and down in the dark liquid. The mother said to the boy, Oscar, finish your lessons. And turning to the
little girl, she said, Come here. The little girl went to her, and the mother knelt down, for she was a tall
woman and she said, Turn around. Obediently the little girl turned around, and her mother passed her
hands over the little girl’s back.

Go upstairs, she said.

The mother’s voice was of such a heavy quality and of such awful timbre that the girl could only nod her
head, and without looking at Vicente again, she raced up the stairs. The mother went to the cowering man,
and marched him with a glance out of the circle of light that held the little boy. Once in the shadow, she
extended her hand, and without any opposition took away the papers that Vicente was holding to himself.
She stood there saying nothing as the man fumbled with his hands and with his fingers, and she waited
until he had finished. She was going to open her mouth but she glanced at the boy and closed it, and with
a look and an inclination of the head, she bade Vicente go up the stairs.
The man said nothing, for she said nothing either. Up the stairs went the man, and the mother followed
behind. When they had reached the upper landing, the woman called down to her son, Son, come up and
go to your room.

The little boy did as he was told, asking no questions, for indeed he was feeling sleepy already.

As soon as the boy was gone, the mother turned on Vicente. There was a pause.

Finally, the woman raised her hand and slapped him full hard in the face. Her retreated down one tread of
the stairs with the force of the blow, but the mother followed him. With her other hand she slapped him
on the other side of the face again. And so down the stairs they went, the man backwards, his face
continually open to the force of the woman’s slapping. Alternately she lifted her right hand and made him
retreat before her until they reached the bottom landing.

He made no resistance, offered no defense. Before the silence and the grimness of her attack he cowered,
retreating, until out of his mouth issued something like a whimper.

The mother thus shut his mouth, and with those hard forceful slaps she escorted him right to the other
door. As soon as the cool air of the free night touched him, he recovered enough to turn away and run,
into the shadows that ate him up. The woman looked after him, and closed the door. She turned off the
blazing light over the study table, and went slowly up the stairs and out into the dark night.

When her mother reached her, the woman, held her hand out to the child. Always also, with the terrible
indelibility that one associated with terror, the girl was to remember the touch of that hand on her
shoulder, heavy, kneading at her flesh, the woman herself stricken almost dumb, but her eyes eloquent
with that angered fire. She knelt, She felt the little girl’s dress and took it off with haste that was almost
frantic, tearing at the buttons and imparting a terror to the little girl that almost made her sob. Hush, the
mother said. Take a bath quickly.

Her mother presided over the bath the little girl took, scrubbed her, and soaped her, and then wiped her
gently all over and changed her into new clothes that smelt of the clean fresh smell of clothes that had
hung in the light of the sun. The clothes that she had taken off the little girl, she bundled into a tight
wrenched bunch, which she threw into the kitchen range.

Take also the pencils, said the mother to the watching newly bathed, newly changed child. Take them and
throw them into the fire. But when the girl turned to comply, the mother said, No, tomorrow will do. And
taking the little girl by the hand, she led her to her little girl’s bed, made her lie down and tucked the
covers gently about her as the girl dropped off into quick slumber.
Section 8. The right of the people, including those employed in the public and private sectors, to form
unions, associations, or societies for purposes not contrary to law shall not be abridged.

Case 1: Hong Kong protests: two schools pledge not to expel arrested pupils, following lead of
other institutions

Description: At least 26 people, mostly students, were arrested in Fanling on Sunday, according to North
district councillor Chan Yuk-ming. One of those arrested was Form Six student from Christian Alliance
SW Chan Memorial College in Fanling

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3032778/protesters-accuse-hong-kong-school-
suppressing-students

Case 2: Army-PNP ensures peaceful assembly of Anti-Government SONA group in Butuan City

BANCASI, Butuan City – The Philippine Army and Philippine National Police in Butuan City ensured
the peaceful assembly of anti-government rallyists along Montilla Boulevard, Butuan City, today, July 22,
2019.

The 402nd Infantry (Stingers) Brigade in close cooperation with the Butuan City Police Office (BCPO)
have deployed sizeable personnel to ensure that rallyist can peacefully assemble and freely avail their
right and uphold their freedom of expression in connection with the 4th State Of the Nation Address
(SONA) of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD).

More or less eighty (80) rallyists of different ages to include teenagers/minors and senior citizens holding
anti-government placards, have marched from Butuan City Museum and converged along Montilla
Boulevard this city. Anti-government rallyist conducted a brief program to express their sentiments on
different issues.

On the other hand, in order to highlight a peaceful, orderly and meaningful SONA of PRRD, the
Masigasig Band of 23IB under the 402nd Brigade conducted Free Concert in Butuan City Plaza and
distributed information awareness leaflets calling for unity to accelerate peace and development in
Caraga.

Likewise, an unprecedented gesture of empathy to the rallyist and to ease the exhaustion under the
scorching heat of the sun, personnel of 402nd Brigade and BCPO distributed more than one-hundred(100)
bottles of mineral water. The rallyists welcomed the gesture and thanked the soldiers and policemen for
the act.

“We do not consider the anti-government rallyists as our foe, we are just performing our job. As a soldier,
I wanted them to feel that we are their friends and allies. We are here to protect them whichever side they
are in or chose to belong”, said Private First Class Ombo, a female IP soldier who hails from Carromata,
San Miguel, SDS when asked why she still chose to be sympathetic to the rallyists even though some of
the adverse placards aimed at the AFP.

On his part, Col Maurito L Licudine, 402nd Brigade Commander said, “We respect the freedom and the
inalienable rights of every citizen of this country. It is our mandate to be the soldier not only to those who
favor the government but as a soldier of all the Filipino people. However, we encourage the organizers to
spare the minors and the aged in this kind of activity. Children must be in school. Actually, according to
our personnel talking with some of the rallyists, they revealed that they joined because of a promise of
getting paid and for the free snacks and meals and not because they care about the organizers agenda
against the government. As per observation from the previous rallies, the attendance have significantly
decreased because people have already learned that rallies are not going to solve our problems. It only
creates division among us.

“We already have this Regional Task Force on Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF ELCAC)
and will be established down to the barangay level under the principle of Whole of Nation Approach, to
address the issues that were taken advantage of the CPP-NPA-NDF using it as a ploy to deceive and
recruit members thru the arouse, organize and mobilize scheme. Hence, we reiterate our call of unity, let
us talk in an environment of peace and a dialogue that everyone can be heard so that we can resolve the
issues together”. Col Licudine ended.

https://www.kalinawnews.com/army-pnp-ensures-peaceful-assembly-of-anti-government-sona-group-in-
butuan-city/

Case 3: Banned Nigerian Shia group alleges police killed 12 marchers

A Nigerian Shia group banned by the government said police killed 12 of members and wounded 10
others during marches in the north of country to mark the religious commemoration known as Ashoura.

Spokesman Ibrahim Musa said the Shia marchers were killed in the northern states of Kaduna, Bauchi,
Gombe, Sokoto, and Katsina on Tuesday.
"The Islamic Movement in Nigeria has confirmed the killing of at least a dozen Ashoura mourners across
the nation during the peaceful Ashoura mourning procession today," said Musa.

The group, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), was banned in July after a series of deadly clashes
with police. IMN said the police were responsible for the deaths of at least 20 people in July but the police
gave no death toll.

Police in the northern city of Kaduna, where IMN said three were killed and 10 injured on Tuesday,
disputed the account and said it dispersed marchers "professionally".

A national police spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The group was marching to mark Ashoura, the day in Islamic tradition when the Prophet Mohammed's
grandson, Imam Hussein, died in battle in 1680.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/banned-nigerian-shia-group-alleges-police-killed-12-marchers-
190910193029665.html