Arman Dela Cruz and Lia Santos live in Barangay Kamuning, Quezon City. After more than ten years of marriage, they finally had children. This time, God blessed them with twin girls. Everyone who saw them said: “This is truly a blessing from God. The whole family is so beautiful.” Since having grandchildren, Lia’s mother-in-law—Mrs. Rosario, often called Lola Sari by the neighbors—has been very indulgent. Every night, she would ask to let the two children sleep in her room to help take care of them, saying that the “young couple” could rest. Thinking that she was old and truly loved her grandchildren, Arman and Lia felt reassured and even secretly grateful.
Until one day, while they were both at work, Lia’s phone rang. On the other end of the line was Aling Nena, the neighbor who was terrified:
“Come back now, something big is happening to the children… Grandma Sari… You did something incredible!”
Arman and Lia turned pale, quickly riding the tricycle home. As soon as they entered, the scene before their eyes left them speechless: two little girls screaming, their faces purple with fear. Several neighbors rushed in to stop them, otherwise… Who knows what would have happened.
It turned out that Grandma Sari had been carrying jealousy and disappointment in her heart for a long time and she…
She had been hoping to have a grandson—a grandson to “continue the family line.” Seeing that they were both girls, she continued to take care of them on the surface, but inside she was disappointed. The nights of “asking to sleep together” were for her to vent her frustration, to find fault, and to torment her grandchildren.
That day, in a fit of rage and anger, he did something that shocked the entire neighborhood. Fortunately, the neighbors were alert, heard the strange noise, and rushed in time.
Looking at their two young children, Maya and Luna, Arman and Lia were both scared and hurt: the person they trusted the most was the one who acted the most cruelly. The entire family was plunged into tragedy: on one side was blood love, on the other side was the instinct to protect their children.
The question that remains haunts them and the entire Kamuning neighborhood:
“How could you do that to your own family?”
That night, there was no sleep
The hallway smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol and old paint. Lia sat on the vinyl bench with Maya on her shoulder and Luna on her lap, the two girls hiccupping at the end of their cries. Arman walked past the Women and Children Protection Desk, speaking to the officer in a low voice that still trembled at the edges.
“They’re stable,” the ER resident had said a few minutes ago, cautious and calm. “No lasting physical damage that we can see. A few minor bruises. They need rest—and so do you.” He added a note for a social worker and WCPD, because that’s what the checklist calls for when babies arrive with neighbors instead of lullabies.
Outside, Kamuning was like the city at noon—tricycles were whirring, fishball smoke curled into the uneven sky—but somehow it felt different, as if the barangay was tilted a few degrees and everything important was rolling toward the brink.
Aling Nena was waiting by the door, arms folded in her duster. She was the first to hear the twins’ groans, the first to rush in and shout for help. “Son,” she said to Lia, pressing a warm palm to her back, “you did the right thing bringing them. Paper first, tears later.”
Paper. Lia nodded. Paper is how you pull yourself together when your heart is racing—forms for the hospital, a blotter at the barangay hall, a statement to the WCPD. Paper is how you tell the world: this happened to my children; it won’t happen again.
Arman returned with a printed checklist and eyes that couldn’t decide where to land. “The officer said we can file the report tonight,” he said. “They’ll just call the DSWD tomorrow morning.” He swallowed. “They also asked if we wanted protection.”
The words were practical, sturdy, like a guard’s bamboo pole hanging from a nail in the barangay hall. But when Arman said “protection order,” Lia saw their home: the small framed wedding photo, the rose curtains, the crib with a cloud-patterned sheet. She also saw the door they forgot to lock every now and then, because you never think danger is knocking from inside.
“File this,” Lia said, her voice surprised by its firmness. “File everything.”
The story kept repeating itself, no matter how many times Lia opened her eyes. Grandma Sari’s voice—often a coo, a hum, a soft “grandma, grandpa”—became an entirely different instrument when the neighbors pushed open her bedroom door. Sharp. Unreasonable. A thunder that didn’t respect the walls. The twins were red-faced, breathing heavily with sobs; The pillow on the floor looked guilty even though it was only cotton. The room smelled of baby powder and such—regrets released nightly like linen.
Now, in this cool, bright place, Lia finally allowed herself to ask the question that had been swirling like a moth: Why?
The answer came in pieces as the night wore on.
First, from the nurse who used to buy bananas at the sidewalk stall like Grandma Sari. “She talks about wanting a boy,” the nurse whispered, her privacy curtain half-drawn. “A boy will carry the name. You know what old people are like.”
Then, from Arman’s phone, where Aunt Mercy’s message was worried and defensive: Your mother is old. She didn’t mean to. Don’t embarrass the family. Go home and talk first.
Embarrassment. As if embarrassment was the immediate variable, not the tiny twin heartbeats that raced like runaway drums.
And then the final piece—when the WCPD officer, a woman with kind eyes and a crisp ponytail, returned with her notepad. “Your mother-in-law said she lost a child,” the officer reported softly. “Not a child—she miscarried, late, years ago. Her husband blamed her. When she died, the words remained. Sometimes grief is wrong.” She squeezed her pen. “I’m not forgiving. I’m explaining. You’re the parents. Choose what safe looks like.”
Safe. Lia breathed the word in and out until it stopped sounding like a wish and started sounding like a plan.
They walked the short block to the barangay hall, Kamuning mostly asleep except for the sari-sari store that never really closed. The guard on duty took their statements, spelling Lia’s last name the way she said it and not the way she often guessed it. Arman’s hand shook as he signed; when Lia signed, his signature didn’t.
Inside the hall, the smell of wax on the floor and coffee grounds. The captain was called from his house next door; he arrived in slippers and serious eyes. “Children first,” he said, the best four syllables Lia had heard all week.
They decided—no more nights at Lola Sari’s. No unsupervised visits. The barangay issued a written agreement to this effect while their police report was ongoing. The guard volunteered to stop by the house every hour until morning, just to make sure tempers weren’t making up excuses.
When they got back on the road, the air was softer. Perhaps the night was approving of people finally choosing a side.
At home, Aling Nena had left a pot of porridge on the stove and a note on a paper towel: Feed the babies, then feed yourselves. I’m just around if you need me. In another corner of the kitchen, a rosary hung from a thumbtack. She hadn’t been there this morning.
Arman held both hands to the sink and bowed his head. It took a long time before he answered, “I’m sorry.” He turned to Lia, his cheeks wet now. “For not seeing this. For wanting to believe in the best. For asking you to trust a door I should have looked at.”
Lia put down the bottle and reached for her with the same hands that had steadied her daughters. “We can see it now,” she said. “And we can’t lose it.”
Morning draws a fine line under the night. A DSWD social worker arrives with a folder and a voice like that of a good teacher, firm but kind. She asks about activities and support. She notices the neighbors who help, the nurse’s observations, the barangay captain’s statement.
“What do you want to happen next?” she finally asks.
Lia looks at the crib, at the faint trace of two small bodies just learning that the world can be noisy and then gentle again. “I want them to go to sleep and wake up without hesitation,” she says. “I want them to grow up knowing that ‘lola’ means stories and snacks, not fear. And I want our boundaries to be a locked door, not a polite ribbon.”
The social worker nods. “Then, here’s the path.” She outlined it: ongoing monitoring, a formal case file, referrals to counseling—one for the young family, one for Grandma Sari if she comes. A recommendation to family court for a protective order with clear conditions. Visits are supervised at a later time, if—and only if—the professionals believe that safety is not a coin.
Arman was worried by the word “court,” and Lia saw in him the boy who once lined up for roll call in a schoolyard and wanted everyone to get a gold star. She wiped her eyes again. “I’ll tell him,” she said, her voice low. “I’ll tell my mother it’s either this or nothing.”
“Try,” the social worker said. “But remember: trying doesn’t mean giving up on your children’s safety.”
She met her mother in the front yard because the house itself was too soft for the first drafts. The guard waited in the corner, unobtrusive, just there.
Grandma Sari looked smaller than she had been the night before, as if anger were a coat that had been shrugged off and forgotten how to put on. Her hair lay flat where it had met the pillow she hadn’t slept on. When he lifted his face, Arman could still see his childhood—the woman who had wrapped leftover rice in a towel to keep it warm, who had saved for his school shoes, who had cheered for him under a plastic umbrella in the intramurals.
“Ma,” she said, and the syllable was both anchor and wave.
“What did they do to you to sign?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the window where the twin mobiles hung. “What did they put in your brain?”
Arman caught himself. “No one put anything in,” he answered, quietly but completely. “We saw what we saw. We heard what we heard. We won’t risk it again.”
He flinches, then straightens. “A house without children—” he began, and Arman closed his eyes because he knew the line.
When he opened them, he wasn’t contradicting a lecture or a law. He pointed to the door. “Behind that wood are two children who will carry my name the way names should be carried—in kindness. If you want to be a part of this, there will be rules. If you can’t, we will love you from afar.”
For a heartbeat, it seemed he might step forward, demand rules, drink them like medicine and swallow. But his mouth hardened. “You’re embarrassing me,” he said, and the old wound between them and the dead man who blamed him bled again. “Choose your wife over your mother.”
Arman wasn’t looking. “I choose my children,” he said. “I choose what’s right.”
He left without closing the door. The silence he left behind was worse than the noise.
The days were becoming a careful choreography. No one opened the door without looking. The twins returned to their soft conversation, their fists learning the shape of the wind; sometimes they were startled by the sudden rumble from the street, but recovery was quicker now. Lia kept a small notebook in which she wrote down ordinary miracles: Maya smiled at the spoon today. Luna had been asleep for two hours. We laughed out loud at the same stupid commercial.
At night, the barangay watchman still went through his rounds, sometimes tapping his baton on a pole like a metronome for a neighborhood trying to find its pulse again. Aling Nena dropped a banana cue every Thursday. The WCPD officer called to check in. The social worker scheduled counseling.
And then—a week after Kamuning’s sleepless night—there was a soft knock on the door. Arman looked through the peephole. He opened it only halfway.
It was Tita Mercy, her eyes red, her hands clutching a plastic container of ginataang bilo-bilo. “I’m alone,” she said quickly. “No drama. Just… Listen to me.” She sighed. “Mama wants to see the kids. She said she’ll accept your terms. She said she’ll do the counseling. She said she’ll apologize.”
Lia was silent. She had rehearsed this moment in her mind several times, picturing speeches like little shields. But now that it was real, something quieter rose up within her—something like a prayer with rules attached.
“Not now,” she said. “Maybe not next week. Let’s talk to the counselor about a plan. The visits are at the barangay hall, and only if everyone agrees it’s safe. No, ‘maybe,’ not ‘just a moment.’”
Aunt Mercy nodded, tears welling up in the relief of clarity. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
As she walked away, she turned back. “Lia,” he added, his voice low, “I said the wrong thing out of shame. Thank you for doing what I was so afraid to do.”
When the door closed, Arman leaned his forehead against it. “We are not cruel,” he whispered, as if into the wood itself. “We are careful.”
Lia inserted her fingers into his. “Caution is love with a backbone,” she said. “We are learning.”
Behind them, Maya laughed in her sleep, a sound like a small bell. Luna’s hand caressed the mattress, searching for her sister’s warmth and finding it.
Lia lifted her notebook and wrote another line: We chose the difficult thing, and the house remained standing.Outside, Kamuning took a deep breath. The morning light poured across the street like a fresh page.