Amparo’s love

By Alex P. Vidal

“As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.” – John Lennon

When Amparo Trias landed in the United States via Los Angeles, California sometime in 1990, she knew flying back again to the “land of milk and honey” – if ever she decided to return to the Philippines–would be next to impossible.

“So, I decided to go TNT (tago ng tago),” she admitted while flashing a funny face, her mannerism.

Trias, 65, of Purok 1 Sisi, Magsungay, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines, used a fake name in a valid passport when she obtained a tourist visa.

Her first application was denied in the US Embassy in Lahug, Cebu City.

“I was so desperate to go to the United States because of a very humiliating incident in our place where my name was implicated,” Trias volunteered.

She did not give details.

“It was a love triangle and I don’t want to recall the past now. It gives me more pain each time I remember it,” Trias explained in vernacular.

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When she first applied for a tourist visa three months earlier sometime in 1990, she was denied “because I didn’t know how to describe Mickey Mouse,” Trias chortled.

“The consul asked, ‘what is the purpose of your travel?’ I answered, ‘to see the Disneyland, sir.’ He asked me, ‘what is there in Disneyland that you want to see?’ I answered, ‘Mickey Mouse, sir.’ He asked more: ‘Who is Mickey Mouse?’ I answered, ‘He is a rabbit, sir. A big rabbit with tall ears, two big teeth, and small begotes (beard)’,” disclosed Trias.

“It’s Bugs Bunny you are describing,” Trias recalled the consul as telling her.

Nursing a heartache, Balajadia returned to Bacolod, her passport stamped with a word “denied.”

Upon advice of a travel fixer, she changed her name and renewed her passport.

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Trias tried her luck in the US Embassy in Manila.

She was granted a tourist visa with multiple entry good for 10 years.

Trias, an LGBTQ, stayed alternately in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Sacrameto in California for three years working as nanny and dabbling in housekeeping before flying to El Paso, Texas to work “under the table” in a garment factory.

“That’s where I met Rosanita, the love of my life,” revealed Trias, who was then 43 years old.

Rosanita, 30, was a Mexican illegal immigrant, who entered El Paso through the barricade or popularly known as “over the bakod” (over the fence).

“I loved Rosanita and she loved me, too. That’s what she told me,” Trias alleged.

Single, with money to burn, and with no big family to support in the Philippines, Trias showered Rosanita with amenities in life, including expensive jewelry and signature handbags.

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Through Trias’ “kindness”, Rosanita was able to send $500 a week to her family in Ciudad Juarez, a neighboring Mexican border city located a stone throw away from El Paso, Texas.

“Rosanita was my world; she was my everything until one day in 1994 she just disappeared without a trace,” she said. “No sign of any departure. No letter. No notice whatsoever.”

Rosanita’s mobile phone “could no longer be reached,” added Trias.

Trias surmised either Rosanita was caught by border patrol guards and deported back to Ciudad Juarez or had eloped with a Hispanic man.

Trias discovered that their joint savings account at Wells Fargo had been emptied.

“Only $15 was left out of about $8,000 in our joint account,” revealed Trias

She approached a certain Romulo Contreras, a Hispanic-speaking bank executive and learned from him the money had been withdrawn through normal processes via ATM.

Trias refused to believe she had been conned after being castigated by friends.

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After a futile attempt to search or “rescue” her girlfriend in 1996, Trias decided to “forget Rosanita for a while” and made a rendezvous to Jersey City in New Jersey.

When her tourist visa expired in 2000, Trias was already a long-time “resident” of New York.

“I have adjusted (with my life here) and I don’t intend to go back to the Philippines anymore,” she intoned.

Trias found a new flame, Anita, a Pinay caregiver in Long Island.

They lived together in one apartment in Queens.

Trias disclosed she also maintained “off and on” relationships with two other Pinoy women – Janice and Rhodora, both caregivers.

Anita, a public school teacher in Carmona, Cavite, Philippines, was building a P1.8-million house in Brgy. Barrios, Carmona through Trias’ “generosity.”

Trias admitted that at that point of her life, “I couldn’t afford to be alone. All I wanted was a woman, a life-time partner.”

Warned by “concerned” friends of possible repeat of her ill-fated romance with the “desaparecido” Rosanita, Trias bemoaned, “Give me a woman or give me death.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)