Chapter 4 - The Darkness in the House
By four o'clock that afternoon, the temperature inside the Parañaque residence had risen to thirty-four degrees Celsius.
The house was suffocatingly hot. The large, floor-to-ceiling glass windows that usually looked so luxurious now acted like a greenhouse, trapping the tropical heat inside the two-story structure.
Mateo sat on the leather sofa, his shirt unbuttoned, drenched in sweat.
At 02:00 PM, the Meralco electric utility company had remotely terminated the power supply to the property following the automated cancellation of the corporate account billing cycle. The ceiling fans were still. The massive inverter air conditioning units were dead. The double-door French refrigerator in the kitchen had ceased humming three hours ago, and inside, two hundred thousand pesos worth of imported steaks, cheeses, organic produce, and Doña Teresa’s expensive insulin medications were slowly warming up.
At 03:30 PM, Maynilad Water Services followed suit, shutting off the main valve at the street meter due to a pending account verification request filed through my corporate portal.
When Mateo turned the kitchen faucet, only a dry, rattling gasp of air hissed from the stainless-steel pipe.
"Mateo!" Doña Teresa whimpered from her bedroom. She was lying on top of her sheets in a thin cotton nightgown, an ice pack resting on her forehead—ice she had managed to buy from the neighborhood sari-sari store using the last fifty-peso bill in her purse. "I can't breathe in here! Turn the air conditioning on!"
"There is no power, Mamá!" Mateo shouted back, his voice cracked with frustration as he paced the darkened hallway. "There's no water! There's no internet! She canceled everything!"
"Then call the electric company!" Doña Teresa yelled, sitting up, her face twisted with fury. "Tell them there is an elderly woman with hypertension in this house! Tell them it's an emergency!"
"I called them!" Mateo slammed his fist against the wall. "They said the account is registered under Elena Corporation Holdings, and only the primary account holder can authorize service restoration! They don't care about my blood pressure! They don't care about who I am!"
Mateo sank onto the dining table chair—the chair where six hours earlier he had casually eaten his breakfast while dismissively telling me that my hair "grows back."
His phone buzzed. It was a text message from his supervisor at the shipping agency where he worked as an administrative assistant:
“Mateo, you missed your morning shift without prior leave approval. Mr. Tan is extremely upset. If you are not in the office tomorrow by 8:00 AM, consider your employment contract terminated.”
Mateo stared at the glowing screen. His salary at the agency was 35,000 pesos a month. Without my supplementary credit card covering his daily gas, his lunch allowances, his car maintenance, and his clothing, 35,000 pesos wouldn't even cover his sedan’s monthly bank financing payment.
He was broke. Unemployed in practice, if not yet on paper. Living in a house with no water, no power, and a mother who was demanding gourmet meals every three hours.
Suddenly, the heavy iron gate at the front of the driveway rattled loudly.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
Mateo jumped up, a sudden surge of pathetic hope surging through his chest. "Elena?" he gasped. "She came back!"
He ran to the front door, threw it open, and sprinted out onto the driveway under the late afternoon sun.
Standing outside the iron gate were three men. None of them was me.
Two of them wore dark blue uniforms with the logo Manila Estate Holdings & Asset Protection. The third man was a sleek, thin lawyer carrying a black leather briefcase and a clipboard.
"Mr. Mateo Reyes?" the lawyer asked through the iron bars, checking his glasses.
Mateo stopped three feet from the gate, his heart sinking into his stomach. "Yes? Who are you? Did Elena send you?"
"My name is Attorney Jose Bernardo," the man said professionally, pulling a thick stack of legal documents from his briefcase. "I represent Director Elena Vance-Reyes and her corporate legal asset firm, EVR Logistics Properties LLC."
"What is this?" Mateo demanded, grabbing the iron bars. "This is my house!"
"Correction, Mr. Reyes," Attorney Bernardo said, handing a document through the metal bars. "This property is registered under Transfer Certificate of Title No. 409-221, sole owner Director Elena Vance-Reyes. On behalf of my client, I am serving you with a formal Notice of Intent to Liquidate Real Property and Demand to Vacate."
Mateo’s hands began to shake violently. "Demand to... to what?!"
"You have seventy-two hours to clear your personal belongings from the premises," Attorney Bernardo stated, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "On Monday at 09:00 AM, a private commercial appraisal team will enter the property to prepare it for open-market auction. If you and your mother remain on the premises after Monday morning, local law enforcement officers will execute a formal writ of possession for unlawful detainer."
Doña Teresa came shuffling out onto the porch, clutching her floral dressing gown, her face pale with horror. "What are those men saying, Mateo?! Who are they?!"
"She's selling the house, Mamá..." Mateo whispered, his voice barely a squeak. "She's selling the house..."
Attorney Bernardo adjusted his tie, pulled a thick roll of yellow industrial plastic tape from his bag, and began taping a large, bold sign directly onto the center of the black iron gate.
The sign read in large, black block letters:
NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE & PRIVATE LIQUIDATION PROPERTY OF EVR LOGISTICS HOLDINGS UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE
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"Have a good evening, Mr. Reyes," Attorney Bernardo said, bowing slightly. "I advise you to start packing your clothes. The humidity in this region is particularly harsh when the air conditioning isn't operational."
The three men turned, got into their air-conditioned SUV, and drove away down the quiet, tree-lined street, leaving Mateo and Doña Teresa standing in the dust of their lost paradise.
