Who was to say, that someone with so angelic a face would be capable of inflicting the most cruel pain. We had our arguments of what 'cruel' really meant. She almost spat in all of our faces when at 8 and 9 years of age, we were in the early stages of rebellion and accused her of cruel acts. She would hiss at us and lash out with her all powerful leather belt - "you all think I do this out of cruelty?" We all thought and felt she did. She was clearly on the road to self denial and we were paying the price. How we hated how she'd swing at us and not even care what part of our body she'td hit. She loved hitting us in places that were hidden from the public eye. But yes, to get back to the topic of cruelty, everything she did to us - fasting, having us memorize passages from the Psalms, Proverbs, the Book of Solomon, etc, were all acts of love. Even when we were black and blue and bleeding, to her, it was still an act of love.
I don't even remember how she came to be part of our lives. I just remember her being there. I remember how at the very start, she wouldn't really hit us with anything but would not let us talk to each other. We were 4 or 5 year old girls and boys. Imagine how difficult that was for us. One word, and she'd bend our fingers and our arms at unnatural angles and tie it in place until our joints became black and blue. This was how she instilled fear in all of us. The way she bent our arms behind our backs, it hurt so much and the more we cried, the tighter she'd tie us. We had no choice but to just shut up. We didn't really want to wait to know what happened if we didn't keep quiet. For all we knew, she could have broken our fingers and our arms. This was a method of punishment she enjoyed and it was the start of many more horrors.
Mona, grew up in one of the affluent families in Manila. Her parents were from the old rich families. She, along with her siblings studied in private schools. They lived in a private and well guarded subdivision. I don't know why she became the monster we knew her to be. I keep thinking to myself just how horrid her childhood may have been for her to think of all the abuse she dealt us.
Ironically, I studied in the very same school where she studied so many years ago. I grew academically, spiritually, psychologically in the love and care of the Assumption nuns. They knew about my past and just like me, they were literally dumbfounded that a student of theirs would commit such cruel acts. There was nothing in the curriculum that could have even hinted at the kind of life or the kind of treatment she gave us. All that had nothing to do with what we learned in school. I guess, it will always be a mystery to me. That's why I always think that there must have been something dark about her childhood that made her the way she is.
