(1st of 2 parts)
by ramon dacawi

A FEW DAYS BEFORE Nino Joshua Molintas blew his candle last Tuesday, his mother texted a few relatives and friends to come help celebrate. “…23 na yong binata ko (my young man is now 23),” she noted.

To Maria Paz “Datsu” Infante-Molintas, the double figure is simply magical. As the previous ones were. How simple the fare may be – barbecue, grilled tilapia, adobo, and always with “pansit” – , marking each year of her youngest is always a blessing, a celebration of answered family prayers since Nino was born.

Twenty three years ago, Nino came forth with a heart so fragile he had to stay in the hospital for a month after delivery. Doctors told Datsu and her husband Mike the congenital defect was so serious and complicated their baby could go anytime.

But Nino, so named for his striking resemblance to the Holy Child, just wouldn’t give up – and never did.

Datsu recalls how doctors would now and then check on the baby and then ask the hospital chaplain for the final blessing. After the first sign of the cross, the priest was summoned back several times for the same rite. He had that pleasant oh-it’s-you-again look on him, as if the last sacrament was like mass that’s offered everyday.

Corrective surgery to mend his ailing heart could only be done when he’d be older and stronger. That’s if he’d survive, notwithstanding his weak lungs, aside from a cleft palate and other woes that would eventually emerge.

With maintenance medication, regular monitoring and hospital confinement, his parents’ tenacity, support and love - and, later, a widow’s might -, the baby survived and grew up. He even went to the primary grades, but had to stop when he started going in and out of hospitals.

In summer of 1997, the 10-year old Nino was wheeled into the operating room of the Philippine Heart Center. Then Philippine Star columnist Art Borjal, who got wind of the boy’s plight, arranged the charity admission. Pedia-cardiologist Emerenciana Collado arranged the surgery with Dr. Serafin de Leon, a noted U.S.-based specialist who made it a point to come home now and then to do pro bono cases.

Baguio folksingers belted out “If It Hadn’t Been You”, Billy Dean’s plaintive piece about gratitude, a copy of which Nino delivered to Borjal two months after pulling through the delicate operation. Nuns of the Good Shepherd and people from all walks prayed for and contributed to the boy’s medical deliverance. All were moved by his parents’ unusual love story, courage and sacrifice to save the boy and raise a family against seemingly unending trials.

It’s “A Love Story that goes beyond Valentine’s Day”, headlined The Manila Times on Feb. 14 years back. It’s about a mother’s love that goes beyond Mother’s Day, the stuff movies and paperback novels are made of. It’s a story’s being retold to mark Nino’s turning 23.

In her teens, Datsu, a daughter of a sugar plantation owner in Bacolod, spent summers in her family’s vacation house at Gibraltar barangay here. She’d see Mike, a scion of the once-landed Ibaloi clan who would pass by on the way to and from renting his pony at Wright Park. Their different worlds met and the two fell in love. At the risk of being disowned, Datsu gave up a life of ease and followed her heart.

They started out on their own. The former senorita of the hacienda learned to cut sacate, feed, saddle and even rent out horses. In a sudden shift that earned the respect of Mike’s kin and fellow pony boys, the instant pony girl also got into raising cactus she sold to her former fellow horseback riding enthusiasts.

She bore him four sons – Michael, Mark, Jules Byron and the frail Nino. They lost Charity Faith, their only daughter, just after her birth. To save Nino, they eventually lost their horses. Mike then turned to repairing and fashioning out saddles, stirrups, bridles and reins, bags and belts.

Datsu remembers that time Mike came home without his prized cowboy boots; he had sold the pair for Nino’s maintenance dose. And how he sat by her bedside when she was confined for a sudden heart ailment.

Mike never showed signs of a heart condition, until a fatal attack in 1994. After the burial, Datsu gathered her four sons. The orphans made a pact never to give up on each other – specially on Nino. She asked them to decide where they wanted to grow up in – Baguio or Bacolod. They opted to remain here, in their shanty near the bridle path where Datsu, with support from her elder sister Ging, continued to raise anthuriums to raise her sons.

In 1999, two years after Nino’s heart surgery, Datsu suffered a slip disc triggered by her having to lift planting materials. She was bed-ridden for months, then underwent surgery. She slowly recovered – but never fully. Last Tuesday, she held on to a crutch while grilling tilapia she and Nino raised from their small pond,

Nino then underwent palate surgery. Still later, he was admitted to the National Kidney and Transplant Institute for urinary tract surgery, The operation, however, was called off when further tests inexplicably showed no trace of the ailment diagnosis. Datsu called it a miracle.

Two years ago, tests showed Nino’s heart had recovered. That cleared him for hernia surgery that almost turned awry. Hours after the operation, Datsu was told by the medical staff of unusual complications. She was told her boy’s condition was fast deteriorating, that Nino was going.

But the boy recovered. He showed up for post surgery check-ups, during which doctors would try to discuss and grope for a medical explanation of the case. A doctor asked Nino if he saw angels that time they thought he was already gone. The boy said all he saw were white surroundings. He recalled he was looking for her cousin, dentist Myla Dangatan who had then recently succumbed to lupus. Through all those years of trials, Myla stood by him and Datsu. (To be continued). – Ramon Dacawi.