Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum...

 The men sitting outside didn’t have their shirts on, and looked like they just got off from working in the fields. Kids were everywhere. The women were peering out from their houses. We were expected.

Jeric, who speaks better Hiligaynon (the local language), went ahead with the questions—the negotiations will follow suit. The men were detrashing the cane (i.e. taking out the dried cane leaves from the stalk) when the ‘nest’ was discovered by someone’s dog. The dog gave the adult maral a chase, apparently killed it, and one of the men took the kittens and the carcass home with him about an hour before we came. The fur was seared with fire—the mother maral will go on someone’s dinner plate tonight.

He didn’t want to give up the kittens for donation. He said he’s saving them for a certain rich person in Bacolod City, who bought a couple of kittens from him last year for PhP1500 apiece (~$35 US). We never paid for any of the kittens we rescued before. We didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea, so we chose to give the captor/donor a packet of cigarettes for their trouble, and our eternal gratitude. In my broken Hiligaynon, I negotiated with Jeric. We were hoping that they’ll take pity on the tiny kittens, which will surely die with them. We could feel that they were about to give in, and Jeric was going to ‘sacrifice’ his unopened pack of cigarettes, when nong Aying interfered with, “Day, maybe you should give them a bit to buy rum.” Jeric gave me a look that said, “We were so close…” I nodded so he handed them a hundred-peso bill which we had to borrow from nong Aying—neither of us had money on us.

I took the kittens home in, ironically, a used box of rum.