In a high-end private hospice in the heart of Lakan city, there is a heavily guarded room reserved only for one lady who is now bound to spend her last days on her death bed. Diagnosed with a terminal stage disease and given only a few months at most to live, she is now nothing more than a vaguely conscious vegetable who can do nothing but groan and open and close her eyes in response to her visitors.
Her name is Maria Andrea Pamuceno-Santiago, a former senator of Marl Kah during the reign of King Fernando II. She rose through the ranks in government service starting from being a city counselor in her home city of Casa Verde, a congresswoman representing her district and later on a senator within King Fernando II's royal parliament, she has decades of government service beneath her belt.
However, despite her supposedly clean image as a public servant, she is also known for being a shady politician. There is no shortage of stories and rumors about her unscrupulous dealings and under-the-table schemes from the time that she was a city counselor to the very day when she left office and retired from politics.
There were the confirmed facts such as her family's vast farm lands being excluded in the sweeping agrarian reforms that she personally penned and passed into law, making every rival landlord family to lose their lands by being legally obligated to distribute their lands to farmers, while they remained owners of their own lands because they instead gave the farmers a "percentage" in the land's profits.
There is also the "Majoha Massacre", an infamous event that happened after the disgruntled farmers of her family's farm land, who did not like the "percentage" compromise, peacefully protested in front of her family's mansion with placards and shouts. However, instead of talking things through with the farmers, she sent for men armed with clubs and handguns to disperse the crowd, who fought back to protect themselves, culminating in a shootout that resulted to the deaths of numerous people, including children and elderly, along with hundreds of wounded. The farmers would later approach the king, pleading for the event to be investigated.
Unfortunately, instead of King Fernando II, their plea reached the prime minister, who at that time was Simon Concepcion Santiago, her husband and someone whose family of landowners also benefited greatly from the exemption in the land reform law. He would bury the story from the media's attention and perform a "self-investigation", resulting to the finding that "the massacre was self-inflicted by groups of farmers fighting about who would take which patch of land". To this day, only a few people knows about this, and even fewer records exists about this cover-up.
However, her acts of subterfuge and self-interest doesn't end here. While those two examples were confirmed to be factual, her greatest act of conspiracy remains to this day as a rumor... but one that is becoming clearer and clearer as people dig up evidences of her actions.
Because it is said that in order to secure a position of power that her family has been vying for since antiquity, she performed the greatest conspiracy to ever be done in the history of Promethea.
"Madame... Sir Armando is here to visit you."
"...Let him... in..."
Today, right when Marl Kah is about to rise up in open rebellion against the royal government, this lady who once played an important role on their last attempt is about to give her final contribution to their cause.
"Good morning, mother... It's been a while, hasn't it?"
After hearing the door of her room opening and someone entering, she turned her eyes to the side and saw her child, Armando. The chairman of the Makabayan party and the leader of the Marl Kahn United Socialist Front. On his hand was a basket covered with a cloth, and a bouquet of lilies whose petals are yellow and red.
"Good day too... Son..."
Even as a busy man, Armando never missed to visit his mother several times a week either before he goes to work or after he leaves his office for the day. He always brought her warm homemade food and kept her room vibrant with her favorite native Marl Kahn lilies. Unlike her four other children, Armando, her youngest, was the only one who remembered her and did all of this for her.
"I'm sorry that I didn't get to visit the previous day, mother. Things has been busy ever since one of the royal army divisions was sent to the battlefield in the south-west. They even had that young nobleman and his private army with them. I heard they were kicking the rebels' asses from sunrise to sunset until they reached the stronghold in one of the islands."
"No need... to apologize... Son. I was not... really bored... to be honest..." Right as she said that, she pressed a button on her bed's attached control console to raise a table that contained a few folders and a book. "That "man"... sent these to me... the day before..."
"Oh..."
"I know... everything... that is happening... out there... Son."
Armando was visibly surprised to see the book and the folders. From a glance alone, he already knew what it contained and why it caused the gaze of his mother who already had all of her vigor and sense of authority sapped by her disease to once again harden into one that haunted him even decades since he left her home.
"Was all of it to your liking? Did I... No, we. Did we do it just like how you would've done it if that revolution did not fail?"
This is the truth hidden beneath layers upon layers of lies, conspiracies and cover-ups. While it's true that King Fernando II failed many times during his reign, none of it could've ever caused an outright rebellion against him if some of those factors wasn't manipulated by other parties.
"..."
"Don't stay silent like that, mother. I never said that it was your fault... General Ocampo, Congressman Carmen, even Ambassador Ignacio caused the revolution's failure. But at least they willingly took all the blame to protect us, right?" Armando spoke while taking the withered flowers out of the vase on her bedside table. "I mean... who would believe that the good and trustworthy Senator Maria Pamuceno would betray her king and country for something like petty politics."
"What are you getting at exactly... boy?"
Sensing that her son is insinuating something that she never expected to be uncovered, she took off the oxygen mask that was muffling her words earlier. She kept her eyes on him the whole time, knowing full well that she still had her son tightly within her grip.
"Nothing special, really. Just that your words back then where we were young, "Saving Marl Kah is worth dying for"... I guess I finally understood what you meant by that and why father always seemed wary of what you were planning to do with that."
"You..." she narrowed her eyes and made her tone stiff.
"You see, mother... When the late king did all of those mistakes, the people were disappointed with him, but they never really hated him. Only the members of the republican and workers' parties voiced hate towards the king, and even then, they were just calling for more laws to limit the crown's direct control over policy-making and governing the nation. The call to overthrow the monarchy was nearly non-existent because all of Marl Kah knows how much the crown unites our people's identity and cultures."
"Obviously... what are you getting at then by saying all of this?"
After setting the new flowers into the vase, Armando opened the basket covered with a white cloth and from it, took out a small, brown envelope and a small notebook. He handed it to his mother who opened them and was shocked with what she saw.
"T-T-These are—"
"Tell me, mother..."
*Pshk—!!!*
"—!!!"
"...Did you enjoy killing your own blood and flesh?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
This was the truth that I have hidden from my family, his family, our family and this nation that I have tried again and again to bring into my control.
"Nothing is immoral. Nothing is illegal. If in the end, you will win. That is all that matters because you have won."
Throughout my entire life, this is what I believed in and this is something that I will never change. I live in a patriarchal, bigoted and restrictive country with an equally reprehensible culture and people. Girls are expected to be passive, silent and nurturing. We aren't meant to lead or speak our mind about how things should be done and what direction this country should go.
In fact, it was only in my grandmother's generation, 70 years before I was born, that women were able to vote and be able to own property without needing a male co-owner or guarantor... and even though it became legal in law, the culture and people never viewed it in the same light, even as I draw breath, only a figment of a part of a part of a part of the population of women owns anything to their name... at least when it comes to the poor.
I still remember when I became of age and I registered myself to be a voter... the coldness of the clerk's gaze, the raised eyebrows of the men around me, and even the sneer of the city counselor who interviewed me and made me give my pledge as a voter. They all saw one thing...
an [Insolent Wench].
I hated this country. I hated this culture. I hated these people.
They saw me as someone who went against social norms and should rightfully be shamed and put in her place. But my generation saw me as something else. They saw from me a hope for a fairer and better nation, and thus, every speech, rally and election campaign that I went to, they cheered for me and gave me their unyielding trust. Under me, the old stigma of strong, independent women disappeared like a drop of water on a white-hot stove, and once I entered the senate, I became the hope for not only women, but every underrepresented and marginalized person.
Throughout my political career so far, I only had that goal to become someone that can change Marl Kah for the people who looked up and placed their hopes on me. But soon, I realized that I may have fulfilled their dreams, but I never fulfilled mine.
As I gained power, influence and riches, my enemies became less and less. The political candidates who once sent assassins to kill me became the ones who no longer draw breath. The businessmen who thought they could buy me to give their businesses favors was bankrupted or forcibly closed by "tax evasion" audits that I informed the royal internal revenue commission. Soon enough, there was only one person that I viewed as my ultimate enemy despite him not even knowing that I view him as such.
Throughout Marl Kah's turbulent history, that family remained the one unassailable political force in this country. Once, their very word was both gospel and law. No one can question them nor criticize them, but as people began to be more educated and live more comfortable lives, they gave up those privileges and authorities in order to live more amicable lives with their subjects.
My family wanted that. My family desired to drag them from their place on the throne and put us on it. We will control Marl Kah, after all, before these islands were colonized, our family was the true powerhouse because of our vast lands and riches. We might be the lowest in the social caste except for the slaves, but the truth remains that none of the tribal chiefs or regional kings were able to defy us. While the Salongas became nothing more than swine farmers, we were land owners and honorary Cattleyans, beloved friends of the governor-generals and the trusted left hand of the friars.
However, instead of my family's desire to become the new royal family for the sake of taking control of this country, I have a better agenda than them.
[Saving Marl Kah is worth dying for]
I will save Marl Kah from the clutches of its squabbling political fronts and individuals. This country doesn't need a king, minister or any politician, it only needs me. It only needs me who has this vision of a country that is made up of Marl Kahns, ruled by Marl Kahns and exists for Marl Kahns.
To save Marl Kah, it would take lives... and I am willing to throw as many of them as I need to.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"...You're ruthless, mother. To think that you were behind the deaths of father, elder brother and aunt Hilda... but if it wasn't for them, the revolution wouldn't have happened, isn't it?"
For the sake of inciting the people to fight against the monarchy, she sent her eldest son, Marl Kah's ambassador to the kingdom of Albion, to request their aid in convincing King Fernando II to depose from the throne, only to be shot in his hotel room in Albion with a gun that shares the same serial number as a civilian owned gun that never left its gun safe in Marl Kah.
In order to further sell that tragedy, she sent an assassin to bomb her own sister's carriage as she is going home from a protest against the king. A carriage that was later identified to be a replica of her real one, with the real carriage being found 30 years later in the middle of a secluded forest within their family's land.
But the greatest conspiracy of all was when she conspired to kill her husband by bombing his private airship as he was coming back from Tenka alongside a rumored letter from the other Alliance members for King Fernando II to depose from his throne due to his failures... a letter that was later found to never have existed.
All of these were, both through bribed journalists and fellow politicians who shares her beliefs, were all blamed on the king, causing massive public outrage that culminated in the Salonga family's loss of power and exile from the country.
"Sadly though, you may have a vision, but you are awfully short-sighted. You knew that you can never appear as the new leader of the new Marl Kah since you have always been a supporter of the monarchy to the point that Queen Liwayway is the Best Lady in your wedding. Because of that, you controlled everything from behind the scenes. You gave orders to General Ocampo to stiffle the unrest of the starving and struggling citizens, you convinced Congressman Carmen to suspend some parts of the constitution to imprison and silence the dissidents of the new government— Hell, you even told Ambassador Ignacio to go to Atlanterra ask for their aid in bringing Marl Kah out of the Empire and into the Confederation... You sure are one impeccable politician, mother."
On her bed, Maria convulsed with deep and painful breaths. The whites of her eyes began to be bloodshot and her lips and fingernails began to become dark. On her neck was a small wound where her own son injected her with a fluid that caused all of this to happen.
"You tricked the people of Marl Kah to overthrow and kill their king out of grief for failing them when it was your doing all this time. The same goes to our three beloved family members... they could've all lived long and happy lives if you never saw them as playing cards that you can throw down to further your agendas and victories."
Her breaths became more labored and painful. Soon, it began to feel like she's drowning in her own blood as her lungs started to deteriorate from the fluid that she was injected with.
"Don't worry, you will understand them soon enough. The betrayal, the agony... even the feeling of hopelessness as you stare up a ceiling as your consciousness slowly wavers... You will feel all of it, and in the end, just like how you did before, the one responsible for this will stand to profit the most from it. How poetic, isn't it? We are a family of businessmen, this is just another form of a business transaction, isn't it?"
"Y-Y-Y-You..." Even with the intense pain and suffering that she is feeling, the dying woman spoke up against her son. "You will pay... for this...! Marl Kah... will never follow... someone like you!!!"
"Oh? About that..."
Armando leaned forward slightly to whisper right beside his mother's ear.
"Did I ever say that I will repeat your mistake of trying to take over this country? You're wrong mother. I will not repeat the mistake that now is costing your life. I'm not going to "raise" or "save" this country. I'm going to destroy it."
The old woman's eyes and breath became shot with shock. She finally realized what Armando was trying to do.
"The royalists, nationalists, republicans and socialists all desire the best for Marl Kah to the point that they are ready to fight over every figment of influence or foothold that they have with the people. They fight over all of these things so much that they don't care anymore about logic or morality, only about power and how to keep it in their hands... Which is why I decided to do the opposite of what you did, mother."
"N-N-No... don't—"
"You said it yourself, you hate this country, its culture and its people. You tried to change it but it never really changed. People would always end up bowing to law and order once the chaos of their rebellion robs them of the comforts that they took for granted. Which is why this time, I'm not going to depend on people doing what I want them to do to destroy the problem, I'm going to destroy the problem alongside the people. You get it? Marl Kah will be no more."
"If I cannot stop you... then the people will...! They will never... choose to follow... a monster like you...!" Giving out her last breaths and the last drop of her strength, Maria spoke to her son a threat and curse. "You will die a painful... and pathetic death!"
"Well that's perfect then... Now, all of Marl Kah can follow your very own words, mother."
"—!!!"
"After all, saving Marl Kah is worth dying for, isn't it?"
Later that afternoon, the Santiago family would announce the death of its head matriarch and the late Senator Maria Andrea Pamuceno-Santiago. Every public ManaCom line in the country would spread this news and by evening, almost all newspapers would print a special issue detailing the senator's proud and emotional end... as dictated by her son, Armando Santiago.
There were many words that the newscasters in the ManaCom services and newspaper editors used to describe the late politician's life story, but all of them shared the same words when it comes to how this relates to the current turbulent political climate of the country.
[It is time to revolt against the failure of the crown to resolve our national issues.]