A Concert for My Daughter and Son-In-Law
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Kerima Tariman and Ericson Acosta (Photo by Kiri Dalena)
“Under Marcos Jr. this year, a rebel-poet, Ericson Acosta, was killed. Last year, under the country’s second dictator Rodrigo Duterte (his daughter is now vice-president), Acosta’s wife, the rebel-poet Kerima Tariman, was killed. For a country whose national hero is a poet, such murders are no small irony — nor a great surprise.”
--Author Gina Apostol
The concert featured young Filipino violinist Jeanne Marquez (with pianist Gabriel James Frias) who won two first prizes in a couple of young artist competitions in New York. The concert received two standing ovations.
In the audience was my daughter’s only son, Emmanuel, now 20 and a second year B.S. Math student at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
My Frankfurt-based granddaughter, Keya (Kerima’s niece) also attended and did the honors of offering the concert bouquet to the violinist while I gave the leis to the pianist. (Keya happens to be the goddaughter of pianist Cecile Licad. On the week Licad learned about my daughter’s death, she told me, “Pablo I will play Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude in the open-air festival in Tivoli, New York with Kerima in mind.” A music fan wrote Licad that it was “the fiercest” Revolutionary Etude he had heard in his life.)
Before and after the concert, my grandson, Emmanuel, was kept busy signing his mother’s last book, Sa Aking Henerasyon – Mga Tula at Saling Tula.
Last book of Kerima Tariman, Sa Aking Henerasyon - Mga Tula at Saling Tula.
Son of Ericson and Kerima during UP Diliman tribute to his parents.
After the last number, I dedicated Massenet’s Meditation again to my daughter and her husband, Ericson Acosta.
I also dedicated the same piece to all people in the audience who have lost their loved ones.
It was a coincidence that actor John Lloyd Cruz made a timely acceptance speech after winning the best actor trophy in the recently concluded 76th Locarno film festival in Switzerland. The actor said he dedicated his award “Para sa Pilipinas, para sa Pilipino, para sa lahat ng pinatay at mga naiwan nila (For the country, for the Filipino, for everyone killed and the people they left behind.”)
Writer and poet Jose Dalisay described the audience reaction and how he related to the concert. “Most moving for Beng (Dalisay’s wife) and me was knowing that the concert was Pablo’s offering to his late daughter Kerima, who—with her husband Ericson Acosta, another gifted writer—died fighting for justice and freedom two years ago. As a father myself I cannot imagine how Pablo bore the pain of her loss, and yet he was graciously smiling last night with his grandchildren, Keya and Emmanuel. Truly music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, turning grief and anger into a celebration of a life lived with purpose and honor. As another attendee noted, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when the violinist played Massenet’s Meditation, which Pablo had chosen to remember Kerima by.”
Photo taken after concert tribute to Kerima Tariman August 17, 2023. From right, Emmanuel Acosta (Kerima's son), Kerima's niece Keya Tariman, the author and violinist Jeanne Marquez and pianist Gabriel James Frias. At the back concert guests Vergel Santos and actors Pen Medina and Mae Paner a.k.a Juana Change.
My daughter died from bullet wounds after an alleged encounter with the military early morning of August 20, 2021 in Silay City.
Ericson, my son in law, also died from bullet wounds on Bonifacio Day, November 30, 2022. The military’s press release noted that he died from an encounter.
Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun in a press conference revealed that Ericson was shot in the front and the back, leading activists to ask if there was even an active shootout. Fatal shots to the chest were also observed. “He had a lot of lacerations on the lungs, and a lot of hemorrhages in the chest and that's what killed him," said Fortun.
The forensic pathologist noted that dead bodies usually do not develop hemorrhages, leading groups to think that Acosta was shot even after his death.
Eyewitnesses claimed that Acosta was unarmed during the incident, claiming that they were taken alive in a house in Kabankalan and then brought some 200 meters away before being shot.
To this day, I cannot open the envelope containing the autopsy report on my daughter made by Silay City health authorities.
When we went to the Silay City police station to secure a police permit to be able to claim my daughter ‘s body in the nearby funeral parlor, he kept revising the incident report through instruction to his police staff. We heard everything that he wanted changed in the police report.
In the light of recent killings of teenagers by trigger-happy policemen, I realized that what happened to my daughter and son in law are not surprising.
Common grave of Kerima Tariman and Ericson Acosta in the Pasig cemetery.
How do I remember my late daughter and son-in-law?
Writer-poet Alfred Yuson in his review of my daughter’s last book – Sa Aking Henerasyon: Mga Tula at Saling Tula -- noted thus: “The girl chose the revolutionary path early. And stuck to it the rest of her life that was made brief by the tragic consequences of her conviction. Last year, on August 20, 2021, this poet of resolute activism met her unfortunate fate in a shoot-out with soldiers at Barangay Kapitan Ramon, Silay City. Her early martyrdom to the cause of the eternal plight of the downtrodden in the countryside echoes precedents set by popularly acknowledged poets of an earlier generation, the best-known being Lorena Barros and Emmanuel Lacaba — who also took to the mountains, literally and metaphorically, and laid their lives on the line as warrior-poets. Tariman comes close to Lacaba in terms of both quantity and quality of poetry. She’s a natural as a poet, so aware of the power of fresh language, imagery, irony, subtlety, and the rhythm and musicality, even humor, that raises verse to exceptional, memorable expression.”
Kerima Tariman with National Artist for Music Lucrecia Kasilag.
Poet Vim Nadera said of my daughter: “Kerima knew the value of people, of the land, and of poetry. As a poet, she also understood the merit of conflict. She sought to make her actions more valuable than words.”
Kerima met Ericson during their stints as editors of the Philippine Collegian in the late ‘90s.
There were married in a civil ceremony in Legazpi City in 2002. Their son, Emmanuel, was born on March 19, 2003 in Ligao City, Albay.
Both are award-winning poets.
Kerima was first prize winner of the Ka Amado Hernandez (the National Artist for Literature) national poetry competition in the late ‘90s.
Ericson was winner of the 2015 National Book Award for best book in poetry in Pilipino for his poetry collection, Mula Tarima Hanggang at iba pang mga Tula at Awit published by the University of the Philippines Press.
Ericson Acosta's 35th National Book Award trophy for best poetry in Pilipino.
In the tribute to his mother’s death, my grandson recalled: “Bata pa lang ako, tinuruan nya na ako ng iba’t ibang bagay na hindi ko matututunan kung saan man at pinakita niya sa akin yung mundo at naiintindihan ko yung mga desisyon na ginawa nya at ng aking ama. Proud ako sa nanay ko, sa kanyang tapang, sa kanyang talino, hanggang sa huling hininga ay nasa isip niya ang masa at sambayanan. Hindi nagtatapos sa kanyang pagpanaw ang laban at marami pang magpapatuloy: tayong mga naririto. Mabuhay ka, Nanay, at maraming salamat sa lahat!” (Even when I was young, she taught me many things that I would not have learned elsewhere, and showed me the world, and I understand the decisions she and my father made. I am proud of my mother, of her courage, her intelligence, until her last breath the masses and the country were on her mind. The fight does not end with her death, and many will continue it: we who are here. Godspeed, Nanay, and thank you for everything!)”
In the final tribute to his father at the Gumersindo Garcia Hall of UP Diliman, my grandson had come to terms with another death in the family.
On a lighter note, he spoke candidly of his father as a musician: “I am my father’s worst critic. I am always critical of everything he does. I notice he plays the guitar with just one chord. So I called him “The One-Chord Wonder.” There was laughter from the audience.
Then his final remarks, which went viral on the internet and reached more than five million netizens: “I have nothing against my parents for spending more time with the poor and the oppressed than with me. I believed in what they fought for. There is no rancor in my heart that my parents have other families—the masses. That was made clear to me by Tatay and Nanay.
When they were heartlessly killed, the more I believed in their cause.”
On the day Ericson joined my daughter Kerima in the grave, I could only react with another poem.
We are done
With grieving
And wiping away
Persistent grief
Like my grandson
Who let it all fall
Where it should
On a street corner
Where his parents used to tread
Along the hollowed street of Mendiola
What were those tears for?
He expected to reunite
With dear father
In a detention cell
And perhaps make music
Together
For the last time
The next thing he knew
His father was arrested
In the hinterlands of Kabankalan
Then made to do a few turns
With his companion
Only to meet their imminent death
In a sudden rain of bullets
And bolos tearing away
At their skin
Months back
I always requested
Massenet’s Meditation
To remember
My late daughter
Now it is time
For that soulful music
To remember his father
I always ask my grandson
To sit with me in rehearsals
While Massenet’s Meditation
Floats eerily
In the auditorium
Surely
Music has a way with grief
Perhaps it is a good way
To confront death
Perhaps the gentle way?
Now tell me
How should music metamorphose
Into balm
For our weary spirit?
Perhaps music
Can guide us
Into the periphery of acceptance
Even if the labyrinth
Is oozing
With excruciating pain
I did carry that urn
With his mother a year ago
Now I am torn with grief
Seeing him
Carrying his father’s ashes.
Is it
Time to move on
And fly on the wings
Of song
And remembrance?
Pablo Tariman carrying daughter Kerima's urn after cremation in a Bacolod crematorium.
Pablo A. Tariman contributes to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Vera Files and The Diarist.Ph. He is author of a first book of poetry, Love, Life and Loss – Poems During the Pandemic. He was one of 160 Asian poets who made it in the anthology, The Best Asian Poetry 2021-22 published in Singapore. Born in Baras, Catanduanes, he has three daughters and six grandchildren.
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