(A Profile of Ms. Marie Grace Tanquilan)
May Love L. Oniola
On the glass window of the cashier’s office, a note is plastered saying: “For STFAP allowances, please see Grace a.s.a.p.” One day, two students approached the window and read the note. One asked her companion, “Kinsa diay na si Grace?” The other one shrugged her shoulders and answered, “Basig kadtong tangkad na payat.” Although the other girls had guessed right, it was obvious that neither of them was sure who Grace was.
Her complete name is Marie Grace P. Tanquilan, and she is the one that students of the University of the Philippines in Mindanao usually go to when they need to get their allowance. I am one of those students who go to her for my allowance. One could say that she holds the key to my future. There was one incident that happened a couple of semesters ago when I almost was not able to get my allowance because when I signed one release paper and she checked my signature with the signature on my ID, she said, “Hala, dili man pareho ang imong signature diri ug dinhi.” Of course I need not tell her that the girl in the picture (without the glasses) and the girl she’s talking to (with the glasses) are the same people. She was already familiar with my face; but the differences with the signature could be held up against her when the auditing of the finances happens. So I let her do her job, and I anxiously waited for her in front of that glass window, like a goldfish waiting for its meal.
Several agonizing minutes later, she came back and apparently whatever problem she had with my signature was smoothened out because the normal procedures for the procuring of my allowance happened without another single hitch. She smiled at me, showing teeth that were hilang, and softly said, “Ayaw’g hilak. Naa na lagi kay kwarta karon.”
Because of that incident, her face was forever engraved inside my head (the tall and thin woman who works in the cashier’s office, and who wears anything but sleeveless or spaghetti-strapped top and short, above-the-knee skirt, and stiletto shoes). I knew her face so well – the curly lashes and the dark-brown eyes, the brown thin cheeks and the modestly painted lips, and the clear glasses that rode her long nose – but I did not know her name. I never took the time to know her name.
Everyday, I would see her walking down the marbled corridors of the Administration building. Sometimes her hands would be burden-free and I would see her snap her fingers to a tune only she could hear. There would always be a light spring on her step whenever she walked, and a ready smile to anyone whom she passes by and who also happens to be looking at her. She does not seem to mind showing her hilang teeth. Sometimes, I would also see her carrying folders and envelopes in her arms, and I would hear her humming.
Several days ago, I happened to be sitting on one of the marble steps of the stairs that led to the second floor of the Administration building. I was reading some articles for my class for that afternoon when I saw her coming up the stairs. She smiled at me, showing me her hilang teeth, and asked me, “Study na pud?” I smiled at her in response and, as she passed me by, I heard her murmuring under her breath a song that I vaguely recalled as one of those songs that I had sung in a Loved Flock fellowship meeting at CAP auditorium last May of this year. And I remembered seeing her there.
She is one of the longtime members of the congregation, and that day, she had gone up the stage with the other longtime members and began leading the other members (including me) into a round of hand clapping, foot-stamping, and body-swaying round of songs. (I remembered one of my classmates saying, when I asked them if they knew who Grace was, “Ah, nikanta man ‘to sya og UP hymn. In fairness, nindot siya og tingug.”)
On her way up, a colleague, who was on her way down the stairs, patted Grace on the shoulder and said in a loud voice, “Salamat ato, Grace, ha?” and she replied in a sing-song voice, “Walay sapayan.” It seemed to me then that she was famous among her colleagues and also with the other students who were familiar with her. I had seen some students approach her and offer her food during break time. Some students prefer dealing with her than with the other people in the cashier’s office because she seems to be the only one who is not frowning when she’s working. But strange enough, even though she was approachable, not many – including me – ever took the time to know her name. Just “Grace” or “Ate” or “Ma’am.” But she doesn’t seem to mind this because whenever one student approaches her in that aquarium-like office, a warm smile always springs on her face and a soft voice follows that: “Unsa ma’y ato, gang?” Indeed her genuinely warm greeting is a welcoming reassurance to those students who anxiously approach her for their allowance. Her name fits her quite perfectly – she is Grace, the woman who graces the poor students with their monthly graces.