WAR STORY

   My friend Marlin told me her story about becoming a solo mother when she was young, when the Phillipines was a staging post for soldiers going to the Vietnam war. It happens in every war doesn't it.

. She wishes she could trace the son she had then to tell him it was not her wish to give him away, and she is proud of his achievements.  

Marlin is one of those wonderfully nurturing women who takes care of everybody who comes into her orbit. She has a beautiful garden and she picks me up after Yoga every Friday, feeds me lunch and we then play Scrabble before I head back to my crib. She is a formidable Scrabble player.

If Marlin's son reads this he can send me an e mail  waiata.davies@xtra.co.nz and I shall put him in touch with her.          

 

 

    My name is Marlin and I come from the Philippines. I have lived in New Zealand for nearly 23 years. I married a Kiwi but have got no children since I married late.

Way back in 1972, when I was 25 years old I became an unwed mother. My mother, afraid anyone will know, decided to hide me in a Catholic convent in Manilla. All my older sisters did not want to help for reasons of their own. Since I couldn’t turn to anyone else to help me, I was helpless.

I had a son whom I named Jerome Gonzales. I signed adoption papers that said I have no rights to the child nor to contact him in the future which was in the Philippine laws.

I have started a search for my son in 1997, when a Kiwi co-employee encouraged me to seek help as she had a child too and her search was successful.

Unfortunately the New Zealand Adoption Authorities informed me they couldn’t help me as they have no connection with the U.S. authorities, where my son is.

When I visited the Phillipines for the first time, I visited the place where I had my son and gathered a few details about him from the Mother Superior. She didn’t of course give me all the information for obvious reasons. The adoptive parents must have instructed them they didn’t wish me to make contact some day.

The following are the pertinent details about my son:

1.    His first name is Ian.

2.    He is living with his adoptive parents in the East Coast.

3.    His birth date is November 10, 1972.

4.    He is very musical.

5.    He had graduated in college and working with an international company.

6.    As I can remember he had very chinky eyes, like a Chinese person.

7.    His adoptive parents worked with the Philoppine U.S. Embassy in Manilla at that time.

8.    Also they adopted again, a baby girl about a year or two after my son’s adoption.

9.    The adoptive parents are apparently very proud of my son who is a very intelligent boy.

P.S. I tried to engage the help of an agency in the U.S, but since they cannot extract an answer from the sisters in Manilla, the agency returned my money.