Where Was I on 9-11

 Where Was I on 9-11

What's with '9-11'? In my 30s, 9-11 meant four different things all at once: One, September 11 was the birthday of my father. It was also the birthday of President Ferdinand Marcos. 911 was America's emergency hotline, and at the time, a popular TV show was named after it.

But when another 911 came into our lives and entered our language in 2001, I think I was at home at night in Pasay when someone watching the news on TV drew my attention to it. We were, of course, shocked, wondering what it was all about and whether World War III had begun.

The next day, I was at work in Makati when the day's newspaper arrived with the unimaginable image of the Twin Towers of New York City on fire. The Twin Towers were a familiar image to Filipinos watching Hollywood movies regularly because NYC is a favorite location of Hollywood movies. To us, attacking it was like attacking modern Western civilization itself.

I managed to read a few paragraphs just to get to know what it was all about, and after learning the key details, I couldn't go on any further. I guess I was too overwhelmed I chose to be in denial. If you are surrounded by skyscrapers and work inside such a building, the front-page image of two burning towers wasn't a very comforting thought.

But everywhere I went, it was the topic du jour. I eventually heard about entire offices, entire companies, entire floors being gone in an instant. I couldn't help but think about the last few moments of those workers gathered at each floor's edge in their work clothes about to plunge several meters to the ground. It was a most haunting image. Most unforgettable too was this particular shot of a man falling off with his head heading straight to the ground.

Then there were stories of miraculous survivals, stories of the heroism of firefighters--inspiration that gave hope, and on the other hand, critiques of why horrifying images of such proportion shouldn't be normalized and made easily accessible to all.

The world was collectively traumatized by political Islamists forever.

In a world that was already fraying at the edges in terms of safety, the fragility got intensified even more. More security measures were enforced in every portal of every major facility, from body search to sophisticated thermal scanners to having your shoes removed at the airport before boarding planes.

911, to me, is something that made me wary of any form of extremism, especially religious extremist thought--and conditions that give rise to it. I shall never forget. I shall always take note.