Being Atenean, Being Human
As a student in Ateneo de Naga some ten years ago, I understood quite well the Atenean spirit. For me, it meant wonderful things. For one, it meant resoluteness and humility. While we were taught to excel in academics and sports, we were also taught to “just keep it cool,” i.e. offer our failures and successes to the Lord for, above all, everything we do is Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam—“first the kingdom of God.”
It stood for personal ingenuity, a strong sense of belonging, and service. From reading the world’s much-appreciated masterworks in literature and useful inventions in sciences to developing camaraderie and teamwork in most class endeavors, our young lives were exposed to the real world, while being taught to live simply and conscientiously.
Nothing was more worthwhile than the time we would spend with the eternally vibrant Fr. Johnny Sanz and the very warm Fr. Bel[ardo] taking part in outreach activities where we would share quality time with the orphan, the sick, the imprisoned and even the mentally ill.
I think nothing more substantiates any young man’s [or woman’s] education than these simple acts of kindness taught to us in our youth. Here we were taught the ability and the generosity to counter acts of cruelty we would meet anywhere in the world; here we were virtually apprenticed to the real world before our time.
If one were so engrossed in school activities, he would be familiar with these things. Some of us just took “Ateneo” and “being Atenean” seriously; while others must have taken it rhetorically, others just did not take it at all. Somehow, the Atenean spirit has become a unique personal term for each and every, single, one, individual (my apologies to Fr. Rolly Bonoan—the last six words in the previous sentence are his favorite expression when addressing the Ateneo de Naga community).
This “Atenista” spirit would extend to our devotion [read: love] to the Lady of Peñafrancia, the patroness of the Bicol region. In various activities throughout the school year, we would dearly pay homage to Ina, our efforts no less than those of the great medieval knights in quest of the Holy Grail—our blood, sweat, and tears, so to speak, like those of Ignatius in his conversion.
During my college days, Father Jack Phelan to me was a towering figure in the Ateneo community [both literally and figuratively]. More than six inches tall, Father Jack stood as high as the school’s fifth pillar so that everyone would look up to him—not just admiring his magnanimity but perhaps looking for hints of serenity, diligence and above all, simplicity. Like other Jesuits who served God selflessly, the soldier in Phelan had courageously directed his energies serving the Ateneo till the end of his life.
Being Atenean also carried the privilege of learning lifelong lessons. The virtue of temperance was best clarified to me one morning when Fr. Frank Dolan celebrated the Holy Mass before the ROTC battalion. According to the Jesuit priest, a young man’s urge to do something with his sexual faculties before his proper time can be redirected to doing other productive chores like turning to writing or playing sports. This is truth to me because from that sleepy morning when I have heard them, they have never left my sensibility. Through time, I have come to realize, one by one by one—like a domino effect—that temperance is sacrifice is honor is self-effacement is love. Despite the tedium and exhaustion that day, my will power to stay my post in the Delta platoon must have taught me [all I need to know about] patience that even my married life now requires.
In one way or another, we Ateneans as we were called, were made to excel in anything we would do. In those days, it was less a spirit of genuine excellence than it was the excellence of a genuine spirit.
For people who believe in the Ignatian spirituality and who follow it with much ardor, this is the spirit of Ignatius; among other learning, this is what makes life worth living.
But now, you see, I may esteem “being an Atenean” for various reasons. It is a pity when I seem to value the Atenean spirit because of the glory [pride] it entails, the favorable opportunities it carries, or the “greener pasture” that comes with it. Unfortunately, the entire spirit may be lost if the spirit—or that being an Atenista becomes a mere household jargon for excellence—which can mean my inability to accept defeat or failure in all endeavors, or my insensitivity to the needs [for success] of others. The worst of all is for me to reduce it to a mere status symbol, my source of clout or influence.
I who desire anything that has to do with being Atenean ought to know deeply what it entails; I must also be geared up to face anything it brings, for it would entirely be self-contradictory having the Atenean spirit simply because I want to share the pride [and just the payoffs] it connotes.
Why do I like to be associated with the words “Atenista” or “Ateneo”? What does being Atenean really mean? Do I really understand what it means? Aside from excellence—which I might just construe for that never-ending desire to be recognized or to be great—what else is there in my being Atenean? I wonder why, if at all, I esteem the word or its connotation. I just know that I put the name as my car sticker, cheer for the Blue Eagles for the sake of toppling the Green Archers—or simply am obsessed by the blue thing for no apparent reason at all.
The words “Ateneo” or “Atenean” which sound like “Ignatian,” connote many wonderful things. I esteem this spirit always with deference, because the Jesuits, the company of men founded by Ignatius of Loyola, aside from having achieved for the world many wonderful things, have also been a formidable group of intellectuals and social workers whose lives have been directed to help make some things better in the world.
Ignatius of Loyola was a Basque soldier whose life turned around after a cannonball injury made him reflect on directing all his efforts to God. As is perfectly summed in a text message forwarded to me by a fellow Atenean, “Ignatius never really thought of forming a group of priests and brothers. He had worldly dreams: be famous and powerful. But in battle, his leg was shattered, along with his dreams. The painful fall led him to look into his life. [But] God had other plans for him.”
This dramatic story of conversion—of self-effacement, of rededication of one’s energy and efforts to God—is the genuine spirit that must inspire me who is continually enamored by Ignatius’s example. Through the existence of the Jesuits, spanning almost five hundred years so far, Ignatius’s example has been immortalized because his is a legacy that reads beyond the words “Ateneo” or “Atenean.” His is a legacy that stemmed from man’s deep understanding and sincere appreciation of God’s generosity and love and that blossomed into his humble, selfless share of God’s wonderful plan.
Wonderful.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Of Rifts and Distances
Home Life’s 2005 Poetry Third-Prize Winners
By coincidence, both winners in home life’s poetry competition in 2005 have one thing in common. Ulysses Aparece’s Spirit Guides” (Third Prize Winner, English, published in the November 2005 issue) and Jane Patao’s “Tayong Dalawa” (Third Prize Winner, Filipino, published in the February 2005 issue) define individual alienations caused by or brought about by deaths and distances, rifts and ruptures in human relationships.
Spirit Guides
(In keeping with the memory of Clovis and Anthony)
Ulysses Aparece
You were fluent about limits and distances:
Water from its skin, breath of wind
And its own beginning, origin and leap of fires,
But, Anthony, when you fell from a bus in transit—
Briefly suspending in air before kissing the pavement—
And when you, Clovis, yielded to your valued burning liquid,
There you both have defined the farthest distance.
What now: these rivers in search of the resident merman
And the sigbin leaping against wind currents?
The santilmo gathering its fragmented flames
And, lost from his thicket trails, the tambaloslos?
Brothers, my lips are eloquent of your names,
Pleading once again the textures of water,
Movements of our wind, tongues of our fire,
And in our own home, master of topographies.
This is our universe, the exact point
Where our realities, now separate, still meet.
Come and make manifest yourself so shall
In me you live: bubble, breath, warmth, ground.
The Distance Between Us
Sometime in 2003, when poet Alfred Yuson learned of the death of Clovis Nazareno, he then shared in our poetry class some text messages he received from a number of friends in their literary circle.
The death of the poet Clovis inspired more literary pieces from them. One text read—“like the news of the death of a friend, it burst some dam, then was gone…” or something to that effect. Later, Yuson would ask the same class to read Clovis’s poem on geckos and reflect on it. As a tribute, then, he would publish the same poem in his newspaper column.
Of course, nothing can be a more poetic or more promising subject of a poem than the death of a poet himself. In “Spirit Guides,” Aparece similarly seeks to recognize the space rendered visible by the lives of these two poets—Boholanos Clovis Nazareno, who succumbed to a disease, and Anthony Incon, who met a tragic vehicular accident in his youth.
The poet persona recognizes that the dead poets are articulate about boundaries and distances. After a prosaic phrasing of the poets’ deaths, he then portrays how the two lives perhaps poetically, sweetly met their own Joe Blacks. He realizes that their deaths themselves have well defined those they in life sought to define with their words. He therefore hints at the thought that there can never be more poetic than what their lives were. Having lived by virtue of poetry itself, or perhaps teaching by example, they are the epitome of the things they choose to pursue.
Then word-lovers now spirits, the dead poets now do not fail to steer the spirit of the poet persona himself as he “shares their universe.”
The persona’s mention of sigbin, merman, santilmo, tambaloslos ground the poem on the essence of the dead poets now becoming spirits. Speaking of these supernatural beings elevates the image of the dead poets as it continues to inspire the poet persona. They themselves have become the objects of myths or legends.
He says his lips have even become eloquent of their art; now it is itself the master of topographies—including perhaps the distances which the dead poets covered, or failed to do so.
However, more than a fitting tribute to these two poets who crossed to the other dimension, so to speak—Aparece belabors on the fact that these two are indeed ever present in the very lives of any other poet—as if to say, they haven’t really died.
Rather, the distances which their deaths themselves defined well have rendered more familiarity with the poet persona who continues to plead again and again textures of water, exploring the same experience with life as the dead poets had had, seeking perhaps fresher, newer images with which he can give birth to more eloquence and articulation about life itself, or death.
* * *
Like any other literary work, a poem is prone to ambiguity, that state of having more than one meaning. What follows then is a single interpretation of this ambiguous but prizewinning work.
Tayong Dalawa
Jane Patao
Third Prize, Filipino
Home Life 2005 Poetry Contest
Ganito madalas
ang ating senaryo
pupunahin ko
ang kung anumang
kahinaan mo
aawayin mo ako
magkakasagutan tayo
magkakasugatan
ng damdamin at puso
ipaggigiitan mong
pareho lang tayo
hihilingin mong
hindi ako ang ina mo
at sasabihin mong
wala
akong
kuwenta
sa iyo
dito huhupa ang galit ko
dito—
sapaw ang lungkot ko
Madonna and the Child
No other song of a mother can be sadder than this piece by a new name from Tarlac. Jane Patao’s “Tayong Dalawa” renders the most lucid tension between mother and her child. In the verbal tussle between mother and child, it is the mother persona herself who gives in—the mother persona defines herself—being a mother.
The poem’s play with words is also effective and quite intelligently executed to effect an emotional intention—“magkakasagutan” and “magkakasugatan” deliver the literal and the figurative images of tension and rift between the characters. The mother persona’s reception of the fight is everything that rends her heart—it rips her open, lays her bare and vulnerable.
One essence of the poem resonates a scene in Luis Mandoki’s Message in a Bottle, in which Garrett Blake (Kevin Costner) and his father Dodge (Paul Newman) are having a verbal altercation on pursuing Theresa Osborne. The father is urging his son to pursue Theresa because she is a special woman to him. Garrett brushes his father off, goes out of the bar, and says (of Theresa) it’s none of his business. Dodge flares up, and tells his son that it is his business because it is his son’s business. Then he asks him what his use is if he doesn’t see to his son’s concerns and issues.
Similarly here the mother breaks down after hearing from her child “wala siyang kuwenta sa kanya”—in these very words the child can denigrate his or her mother. Her words of concern indeed only merit the child’s curses and even accusations which break the mother’s heart through and through.
The drama heightens in the part when the mother is spurned by no less than her own child—this is what maims the mother, this is what makes her “mum,” not “mom” [anymore]. This is what makes the parent feel more worthless—nothing more painful can rip a mother’s heart than when her child realizes [or not at all] that her mother is useless to her children.
The poem ends in the persona’s grief—read: gross unhappiness. The poem ends in tension itself. Indeed, the poet’s task to convey her sense is completed, as the conflict between the characters involved in the poetic image is never resolved.
By coincidence, both winners in home life’s poetry competition in 2005 have one thing in common. Ulysses Aparece’s Spirit Guides” (Third Prize Winner, English, published in the November 2005 issue) and Jane Patao’s “Tayong Dalawa” (Third Prize Winner, Filipino, published in the February 2005 issue) define individual alienations caused by or brought about by deaths and distances, rifts and ruptures in human relationships.
Spirit Guides
(In keeping with the memory of Clovis and Anthony)
Ulysses Aparece
You were fluent about limits and distances:
Water from its skin, breath of wind
And its own beginning, origin and leap of fires,
But, Anthony, when you fell from a bus in transit—
Briefly suspending in air before kissing the pavement—
And when you, Clovis, yielded to your valued burning liquid,
There you both have defined the farthest distance.
What now: these rivers in search of the resident merman
And the sigbin leaping against wind currents?
The santilmo gathering its fragmented flames
And, lost from his thicket trails, the tambaloslos?
Brothers, my lips are eloquent of your names,
Pleading once again the textures of water,
Movements of our wind, tongues of our fire,
And in our own home, master of topographies.
This is our universe, the exact point
Where our realities, now separate, still meet.
Come and make manifest yourself so shall
In me you live: bubble, breath, warmth, ground.
The Distance Between Us
Sometime in 2003, when poet Alfred Yuson learned of the death of Clovis Nazareno, he then shared in our poetry class some text messages he received from a number of friends in their literary circle.
The death of the poet Clovis inspired more literary pieces from them. One text read—“like the news of the death of a friend, it burst some dam, then was gone…” or something to that effect. Later, Yuson would ask the same class to read Clovis’s poem on geckos and reflect on it. As a tribute, then, he would publish the same poem in his newspaper column.
Of course, nothing can be a more poetic or more promising subject of a poem than the death of a poet himself. In “Spirit Guides,” Aparece similarly seeks to recognize the space rendered visible by the lives of these two poets—Boholanos Clovis Nazareno, who succumbed to a disease, and Anthony Incon, who met a tragic vehicular accident in his youth.
The poet persona recognizes that the dead poets are articulate about boundaries and distances. After a prosaic phrasing of the poets’ deaths, he then portrays how the two lives perhaps poetically, sweetly met their own Joe Blacks. He realizes that their deaths themselves have well defined those they in life sought to define with their words. He therefore hints at the thought that there can never be more poetic than what their lives were. Having lived by virtue of poetry itself, or perhaps teaching by example, they are the epitome of the things they choose to pursue.
Then word-lovers now spirits, the dead poets now do not fail to steer the spirit of the poet persona himself as he “shares their universe.”
The persona’s mention of sigbin, merman, santilmo, tambaloslos ground the poem on the essence of the dead poets now becoming spirits. Speaking of these supernatural beings elevates the image of the dead poets as it continues to inspire the poet persona. They themselves have become the objects of myths or legends.
He says his lips have even become eloquent of their art; now it is itself the master of topographies—including perhaps the distances which the dead poets covered, or failed to do so.
However, more than a fitting tribute to these two poets who crossed to the other dimension, so to speak—Aparece belabors on the fact that these two are indeed ever present in the very lives of any other poet—as if to say, they haven’t really died.
Rather, the distances which their deaths themselves defined well have rendered more familiarity with the poet persona who continues to plead again and again textures of water, exploring the same experience with life as the dead poets had had, seeking perhaps fresher, newer images with which he can give birth to more eloquence and articulation about life itself, or death.
* * *
Like any other literary work, a poem is prone to ambiguity, that state of having more than one meaning. What follows then is a single interpretation of this ambiguous but prizewinning work.
Tayong Dalawa
Jane Patao
Third Prize, Filipino
Home Life 2005 Poetry Contest
Ganito madalas
ang ating senaryo
pupunahin ko
ang kung anumang
kahinaan mo
aawayin mo ako
magkakasagutan tayo
magkakasugatan
ng damdamin at puso
ipaggigiitan mong
pareho lang tayo
hihilingin mong
hindi ako ang ina mo
at sasabihin mong
wala
akong
kuwenta
sa iyo
dito huhupa ang galit ko
dito—
sapaw ang lungkot ko
Madonna and the Child
No other song of a mother can be sadder than this piece by a new name from Tarlac. Jane Patao’s “Tayong Dalawa” renders the most lucid tension between mother and her child. In the verbal tussle between mother and child, it is the mother persona herself who gives in—the mother persona defines herself—being a mother.
The poem’s play with words is also effective and quite intelligently executed to effect an emotional intention—“magkakasagutan” and “magkakasugatan” deliver the literal and the figurative images of tension and rift between the characters. The mother persona’s reception of the fight is everything that rends her heart—it rips her open, lays her bare and vulnerable.
One essence of the poem resonates a scene in Luis Mandoki’s Message in a Bottle, in which Garrett Blake (Kevin Costner) and his father Dodge (Paul Newman) are having a verbal altercation on pursuing Theresa Osborne. The father is urging his son to pursue Theresa because she is a special woman to him. Garrett brushes his father off, goes out of the bar, and says (of Theresa) it’s none of his business. Dodge flares up, and tells his son that it is his business because it is his son’s business. Then he asks him what his use is if he doesn’t see to his son’s concerns and issues.
Similarly here the mother breaks down after hearing from her child “wala siyang kuwenta sa kanya”—in these very words the child can denigrate his or her mother. Her words of concern indeed only merit the child’s curses and even accusations which break the mother’s heart through and through.
The drama heightens in the part when the mother is spurned by no less than her own child—this is what maims the mother, this is what makes her “mum,” not “mom” [anymore]. This is what makes the parent feel more worthless—nothing more painful can rip a mother’s heart than when her child realizes [or not at all] that her mother is useless to her children.
The poem ends in the persona’s grief—read: gross unhappiness. The poem ends in tension itself. Indeed, the poet’s task to convey her sense is completed, as the conflict between the characters involved in the poetic image is never resolved.
Homecummings
Reading the Second-Prize Winners
of the 2005 Home Life Poetry Contest
FUNDAMENTAL
(IN MEMORIAM: FELINO ARITAO VILLALVA GARCIA, 1925–2002)
Felino Garcia
Father walked out of our house
dragging his feet heavy with age.
When he rested,
he sat in his wheelchair
beneath the shade of the santol tree
hiding the sun-rinsed clouds.
Days later, something tore at my chest
when I saw him in his hospital gown,
tube down his throat…
Last night I dreamed of father walking
light-footed, weightless like air,
out of his body
as if he had long wanted to leave the body,
the fever, the shivers,
the endless restlessness—lakat ‘t, mapuli ‘ta
and pain—Toto, kasakit, masakit…
on the thin white sheet
and float
up those intravenous needles.
past the oxygen tanks and respirator,
beyond the day’s last
remaining
light—
Father walking into his new home
without roof nor door
in the boundless
sky.
In this cliché, sentimental verse by a son about his father, the younger Felino Garcia laments the death of his parent who has the same name as himself who succumbed to a disease in a hospital bed.
Modern poetry, they say, is still considered poetic and highly artistic even if it reads so prosaic. Why? Perhaps because life’s experience is such. And to turn it into a poem is to elevate the experience for much appreciation.
Here, the son persona relates his father’s story in two parts—the first presents his father as a weak patient, “dragging his feet heavy with age.” He is being wheeled to the yard, where the son saw the sun-rinsed clouds. Such images of nature.
AGUA DE MAYO
Kristian Cordero
Hinimay natin nang matiyagang-matiyaga
Ang muling pagbagsak ng mga luha
Sa bahaging ito naitom ang pisngi ng langit
Alam nating darating ito ngayong gabi,
Walang buwan, ang mga bituin nakatulog
Samantalang gumuguhit ang kidlat at kulog,
Ang ihip ng hangin tumatagos sa laman,
Malamig ngunit tayo’y pinagpapawisan.
Walang ekspresyon ang ating mga mukha,
Ngunit mabilis ang pintig ng ating mga puso,
Nababagabag sa pangambang bumabalot
Sakaling di bumuhos ang ulan ngayong gabi,
Dala ang tubig na siyang hihilom sa sugat na dulot
Ng katotohanang ngayong gabi lang tayo
Maaaring magsama’t maging totoo
Dahil bukas, mag-iiba tayo ng mga anyo,
Iisang uri ng damit ang ating isusuot,
Maliligo sa parehong banyo, kakain nang sabay,
Mag-aaral sa pinaghalo-halong pilosopiya,
Iipunin ang mga natuyong dahon ng akasya,
Susunugin at hahayaang paglaruan ng pantasya,
Mag-uusal ng mga panalanging litaniya
At pag-uusapan ang ilang mga bagay
Na parang mga bata at walang malay
Sa kung ano ang nangyari nu’ng nakaraang dilim
Habang hinihintay natin ang unang pagbuhos
Ng ulan na alam nating di dumating ngunit
Nagising tayong basang-basa
At di makatingin sa isa’t isa.
“I’m coming out, I want the world to know…” goes a radio jingle. The same is true for this poem about a cloistered persona who vacillates between being cloistered himself perhaps in a seminary and being able to break free, and fling himself open to expressing his own true self.
of the 2005 Home Life Poetry Contest
FUNDAMENTAL
(IN MEMORIAM: FELINO ARITAO VILLALVA GARCIA, 1925–2002)
Felino Garcia
Father walked out of our house
dragging his feet heavy with age.
When he rested,
he sat in his wheelchair
beneath the shade of the santol tree
hiding the sun-rinsed clouds.
Days later, something tore at my chest
when I saw him in his hospital gown,
tube down his throat…
Last night I dreamed of father walking
light-footed, weightless like air,
out of his body
as if he had long wanted to leave the body,
the fever, the shivers,
the endless restlessness—lakat ‘t, mapuli ‘ta
and pain—Toto, kasakit, masakit…
on the thin white sheet
and float
up those intravenous needles.
past the oxygen tanks and respirator,
beyond the day’s last
remaining
light—
Father walking into his new home
without roof nor door
in the boundless
sky.
In this cliché, sentimental verse by a son about his father, the younger Felino Garcia laments the death of his parent who has the same name as himself who succumbed to a disease in a hospital bed.
Modern poetry, they say, is still considered poetic and highly artistic even if it reads so prosaic. Why? Perhaps because life’s experience is such. And to turn it into a poem is to elevate the experience for much appreciation.
Here, the son persona relates his father’s story in two parts—the first presents his father as a weak patient, “dragging his feet heavy with age.” He is being wheeled to the yard, where the son saw the sun-rinsed clouds. Such images of nature.
AGUA DE MAYO
Kristian Cordero
Hinimay natin nang matiyagang-matiyaga
Ang muling pagbagsak ng mga luha
Sa bahaging ito naitom ang pisngi ng langit
Alam nating darating ito ngayong gabi,
Walang buwan, ang mga bituin nakatulog
Samantalang gumuguhit ang kidlat at kulog,
Ang ihip ng hangin tumatagos sa laman,
Malamig ngunit tayo’y pinagpapawisan.
Walang ekspresyon ang ating mga mukha,
Ngunit mabilis ang pintig ng ating mga puso,
Nababagabag sa pangambang bumabalot
Sakaling di bumuhos ang ulan ngayong gabi,
Dala ang tubig na siyang hihilom sa sugat na dulot
Ng katotohanang ngayong gabi lang tayo
Maaaring magsama’t maging totoo
Dahil bukas, mag-iiba tayo ng mga anyo,
Iisang uri ng damit ang ating isusuot,
Maliligo sa parehong banyo, kakain nang sabay,
Mag-aaral sa pinaghalo-halong pilosopiya,
Iipunin ang mga natuyong dahon ng akasya,
Susunugin at hahayaang paglaruan ng pantasya,
Mag-uusal ng mga panalanging litaniya
At pag-uusapan ang ilang mga bagay
Na parang mga bata at walang malay
Sa kung ano ang nangyari nu’ng nakaraang dilim
Habang hinihintay natin ang unang pagbuhos
Ng ulan na alam nating di dumating ngunit
Nagising tayong basang-basa
At di makatingin sa isa’t isa.
“I’m coming out, I want the world to know…” goes a radio jingle. The same is true for this poem about a cloistered persona who vacillates between being cloistered himself perhaps in a seminary and being able to break free, and fling himself open to expressing his own true self.
Utos ng Pari
Sa National Press Congress na itinaguyod ng Publishers Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PAPI) sa Hyatt Regency at Ambassador Hotel sa Maynila noong 2003—halos isang dekada na ang nakalilipas—nakatawag ng aking pansin ang keynote address ng batikanong mediaman na si Fr. James Reuter, S.J., isang paring Heswitang nakapaglingkod na sa bayan nang halos anim nang dekada.
Binigyang diin ni Reuter ang value o pagpapahalaga ng tao sa kanyang sarili. Ani Reuter, ang value ng world sa ngayon ay “take”—lahat ng ginagawa ng tao sa kasalukuyan ay puro pansarili lamang. Sa halip, hinamon ng paring Heswita ang mga taga-mediang tingnan ang value ng gospel—o ang value ng “give.” Wala nang ibang tumpak na halimbawa ang pagpapahalagang ito kundi ang kahulugan ng Christmas—o ang pagsilang ng Mesias sa mundong makasalanan.
Malugod na naging makabuluhan ang panayam ito nang mag-react ang mga media audience sa open forum pagkatapos ng lecture ni Reuter. Nang tinanong si Reuter ng isang peryodista tungkol sa ano ang pwede niyang gawin laban sa paglaganap ng mga smut publications sa paligid, mariin ang tugon nitong itigil ang paglathala ng mga bold pictures ng mga babae sa mga tabloid. Subalit tulad ng inaasahan, halong reaksyon ang sumalubong sa opinyon ng pari.
Base sa mga diskusyon ng mga peryodista, hati ang kanilang paninindigan sa usaping ito. Kampante na ang ibang mamamahayag sa pagbasura ng ganitong uri ng publikasyon. Sa kabilang dako, ang mungkahing ito ay hindi ganoon kapraktikal sa mga peryodistang diumano’y “nabubuhay” sa paglathala ng nasabing materyal dahil sila ay mga publishers ng mga ito.
Nang hinamon ng paring Heswita ang mga tagamedia na pag-ibayuhin ang value ng Gospel—“give” o maging mapagbigay sa Kristiyanong sense nito, hinamon niya na rin ang sensibilidad ng bawat peryodistang dumalo sa komperensya. Gaano ba kahanda ang mga Pilipinong mamamahayag sa hamong ito?
Ano na nga ba ang value ng media sa kasalukuyan? Ilan pa nga bang mga mamamahayag ang nagtatrabaho tungo sa kabutihan, tungo sa masasabing moral na kamalayan o pagkatao?
Harapin natin ang kasalukuyang katotohanan—iba ang sinasabi ng realidad sa idinidikta ng moralidad. Hindi natin nakikita sa tunay na buhay ang mga retorikang ibinibandilyo ng mga pangulong-tudling sa mga peryodiko, ang sinasabing kaluluwa ng pahayagan, na siya ring makapagsasabi rin tungkol sa kaluluwa ng may-ari ng pahayagan.
Ang sagot sa ganitong tanong ay magpapakakilala atin sa sa dalawang uri ng mamamahayag na Pilipino. Narito ang dilema na sinasabi ng buhong na peryodista. Kung ang isang pahayagan ay nabibili dahil may mga hubad na babae ito sa cover, ano ang mangyayari kung aalisin mo ang mga come-on elements na ito. Wala bang ibang choice ang publisher maliban dito? Hindi pa maaaring mabili ang isang peryodiko kung walang Sam Pinto o Christine Reyes na nakabuyangyang sa cover?
Subalit narito naman ang sagot ng pwede nating sabihing endangered nang journalist. Aniya, maaari ka namang makapaghikayat ng mambabasa sa iyong pahayagan kung ito’y hitik sa impormasyon, pagsisiyasat at analisis ng mga isyung nakakaapekto sa general public. Napagkasunduan din doon na walang ibang pang-akit ang isang matinong pahayagan kundi ang pagiging puno nito ng kaaalaman para sa mambabasa. Marahil ay hindi naman lubhang kailangan ng mambabasa ang sex—maliban na lang kung ang isang pamayanan ay isang sibilisasyon ng mga perverts o sex addicts.
Anila, there is more to publication come-on than sex. Mas magiging mabenta ang pahayagang puno ng makabuluhang isyu at analisis ng mga isyu. Halimbawa na lang, mas magugustuhan ng mga mambabasa ang kopya ng pahayagang hindi niya ikahihiyang basahin sa loob ng MRT dahil wala itong starlets na malagkit na nakakatitig sa parehong lalaki at babaeng pasaherong nakakaangkas ng mambabasa sa tren. Kailangan lang na ma-educate nang maayos ang mga mambabasa.
Nang sinabi ni Reuter na ang media ang pinakamakapangyarihan instrumento para magturo nang matino sa sangkatauhan, nakita kong hinamon ni Reuter ang bawat mediaman na tingnan ang kanyang sariling bakuran—at simulant niyang walisin ang lugar na yaon—tipunin ang kalat at dumi palabas ng kanyang sariling tugsaran. Sa huli, nakakaawa ang mambabasang tinuturuan ng media ng katotohanan kung ang mga katotohanang kanilang isinasaalang-alang ay iyong mga makapagpapababa ng kanilang pagkatao.
Know thyself, ika nga ng isang dakilang Griyego ng makaunang panahon. Ang mga klasikong kamalayang tulad nito ang gagabay sa atin para suriin ang ating sariling sensibilidad sa ating mga ginagawa sa kasalukuyan. Sa ganyang paraan laman natin masasabing tayo’y mga stewards ng katotohanan. At dahil diyan, tayo’y higit na magiging karapatdapat na basahin ng sangkatauhan.
How I Lived; and What I Lived For
Notes on English and Writing
When I was still in college, our neighbors who were beneficiaries of the PLAN International would ask me to help them write letters to their foster parents. Free of charge, I would write the letter for an American or German benefactor. But after I had finished the letter, they would send to our house food or similar stuff that could “pay” for what I did. I hardly knew then that good writing skill could already mean business.
I myself was a recipient of Salamat Po Kai Foundation at the Ateneo de Naga University, a scholarship which required me to write regularly a Japanese benefactor on how I fared in school, how my grades were, and what activities I involved myself in. So I would write letters in English, as I should, prolifically.
At the time, the best thing to look forward to in a week was to get a reply from my pen friends. And I would gladly write them back. I even wrote to more than three of them at one time. I enjoyed exchanging ideas and sharing stories with them. They simply made my day.
All these nurtured in me the habit of writing letters, and more letters. Initially I was interested in it; but eventually I was hooked in it that it became part of my system.
Normally for a young student like me who preferred writing letters to dunking basketball in the school gym, I was being groomed to becoming a student writer. Perhaps I just recognized that having good English skills, in fact, was a prized possession in school, in college and in the world. And I think it is.
In high school, I began writing for the school paper. I wrote letters to friends constantly or whenever I had the time. Sometimes I really had to find time. I also kept a journal on which I recorded a lot of my ideas, observations, and privations and many experimental works.
I was studying for free so I thought I better maximize the opportunity. I borrowed books from the library, and read them. Then, English was one subject that I could not trade for any computer game—a leisurely activity which I could hardly afford.
There was also no stopping me from reading books, and from making things out of what I read—poems, puzzles, imitations of sayings, and stories.
But I was not really a recluse. More often than not, I was also playing ball with my cousins. I was also active in school clubs—these included writing cliques, collectors’ groups and similar stuff.
In 1996, I found myself working for a newspaper in Bicol. Then, I also wrote articles for Teodoro Locsin’s Today, a Makati-based national broadsheet which has now merged with the Manila Standard.
Both working and writing, I did not stop writing and learning in English—also Filipino and Bikol. I wrote and sent articles and poems to national periodicals. My submissions were rejected and others were published. I even got paid for the ones published in magazines; but the newspapers hardly paid. The newspaper work did not promise compensation, but I held on to writing news and feature articles because I knew I was making sense.
I just kept writing, and with it, I easily found work in publication desks where I managed the newsletter and more importantly, “got to know some real people” [apologies to Sunday Inquirer Magazine].
For the past years I have been writing, I have been enjoying each moment of it.
While some people say that the knack in writing and perhaps everything related to it are given to rare people, I say it’s not absolutely true. I would like to think that all my choices in the past had collectively done their part to make me like writing, and prefer it to any other occupation or preoccupation.
While it may not be a very lucrative occupation, I also consider that with the power to articulate oneself [in English or any language], I have more chances of being privileged—if at all, not actually being gifted.
And times have changed. Nowadays, people who know how to better communicate cannot just remain disadvantaged or say, underpaid, unlike [what] other people [say].
As editor and journalism teacher, I have been editing my own and other people’s writing. When it comes to expressing ourselves in writing, I find some things which hinder the very purpose for which we write. Let me cite them here.
Verbosity or wordiness
Wordiness results from many things. Regardless of where we are, many of us pad our writing with all sorts of empty phrases perhaps to reach the length required in the school or office. Wordiness tends to occur when we are struggling to clarify our ideas or when we’re tired and therefore cannot think clearly. Regardless of our reason for padded writing, we can achieve concise writing if we are aware of the individual patterns of wordiness which is typical of the way we usually write.
Problem comes in when we do not become aware that we are using more words than is necessary. Because we are the authors—we are not inclined to correct ourselves more openly by perhaps slashing the words we have written. We think they are so perfect because they capture what we wish to express so we could get our message across to whoever reads it.
Yet, it’s good when you come to constantly critique your own work—to the extent that pruning words and phrases in your original draft, revising and rewriting your entire work will come naturally. One day, wordiness will be crime to you. Your familiarity with words will tell you whether you have to improve your drafts and can still make it better, even the ones you have written with a colleague.
For one, knowing that language works best by being brief will help you become a more effective communicator.
English is Filipinos’ second language
This issue is nothing new. We Filipinos normally—or more aptly, by heart—speak Hiligaynon, Waray, Bikol, etc., dialect or vernacular, but we are also asked to write and speak English.
Needless to say, we Filipinos are bombarded by so many languages around us—that we find it confusing which to use and how and why. Consider other languages we learned around us, the street language and the television language, aside from our very own vernaculars—modernized Bikol or Hiligaynon, or combined with Taglish, etc.
When we are asked to write in English but we essentially think in the local language—Bikol, Hiligaynon or Filipino—our mother tongue, which we know by heart. Problem sets in because most of the time we are tempted to transliterate: we write in English what we think, know or feel in our mother tongue. Sadly, because a large number of words in our own language have no exact English equivalents, we end up linguistically challenged—we do not realize that, say, not all things in our realities have counterparts in the English language.
All these years of education in the country, our schools must have not succeeded on an effective English language policy. But in the past, our grandfathers and grandmothers must have been well versed in English because they underwent rigid training on the English language, even studying Latin which is the root of [source of the words in] the language.
Today’s schools tell a different story. Despite DepEd’s staunch campaign to use only English or Filipino in the classrooms and schools, everything boils down to what the learners are really comfortable doing—code-switching [speaking combined English with Filipino combined with Bikol or Hiligaynon, etc.]. Moreover, students are overwhelmed by all forms of media; so asking them to speak and write in perfect, flawless English becomes a dream.
It is not cynical to say that young people can learn. In fact, I had students who were inclined to really write well not only because they were inclined—genetically, personally, whatever—but because they chose to do so.
To write and speak good English then is a choice. One simply prefers to do it, for it is something he strives to do—just like someone who endlessly strums the chords, until he masters them, and who later becomes the best guitarist onstage, because he’s strumming most people’s pains away.
Aristotle said we are what we repeatedly do—that excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit. To do something in the best way constantly is to be the very best in it—excel in it.
English is really our second language
Another problem crops up from our unfamiliarity with English. Being Filipinos, let’s face it, we were not born saying, “Oh My God!” or “Ouch!” We rather say things automatically, naturally, using our dialect, depending on our ethnic group.
Despite that some parents today would train their young children to speak English—confident that starting them young might make a difference—it’s the yaya’s English that is rather internalized by their wards. We are naturally born Filipinos, and we live in a country where most people speak countless languages.
This exaggeration is true, given the many kinds of language that we human beings invent to suit their own purposes and eccentricities.
[When we were younger, my brothers and cousins themselves communicated in a way only they understood—they reversed words, phrases and sentences until they learned to speak them spontaneously and with finesse. To them it was cool. I was too young to learn it. I did not find it cool either. So I gave up decoding their conversations. But through the years, that has become their bond. Until now, in family gatherings, they would throw jokes and banters that only they understand.]
Because English is our second language, each of us must be familiar with it.
Back in the campus, I used to tell my students to read English and read anything in English. I asked them further to always find the chance to learn anything in English—word, phrase, title of a movie, catchphrase, etc.—and it will become a habit.
Like many other disciplines, English is habit-forming. Despite what others are saying that it is too late for people to do that, if we do this constantly and earnestly, it will do us good.
The problem with legalese
Browsing over documents—whether in schools or offices—makes me think that we are also hindered by the use of jargon, or technical language, like the ones that lawyers use in public and legal documents.
The use of legalese in government communications has been pervasive. Some people who draft them may be lawyers, law teachers, or administrators who have management credits. In other words, such documents are written by people who have been exposed to organizing their work, starting from what they will do to how they will go about in doing and accomplishing them.
Because legalese reads and sounds so foreign we simply dismiss it as difficult. Indeed, it is difficult because ordinary people have not studied law. Everything legalese sounds alien because it reads so formal—and it sounds detached and impersonal.
Thus our attitude towards this kind of language should be open-minded. For instance, if we encounter a document that reads so difficult—we hardly understand anything it says except the names of those who signed them, let us have this resolve that in our own way, or work, we can simplify our expressions so those who will read anything we have written can understand us.
After all, writing is about seeking understanding.
When I was still in college, our neighbors who were beneficiaries of the PLAN International would ask me to help them write letters to their foster parents. Free of charge, I would write the letter for an American or German benefactor. But after I had finished the letter, they would send to our house food or similar stuff that could “pay” for what I did. I hardly knew then that good writing skill could already mean business.
I myself was a recipient of Salamat Po Kai Foundation at the Ateneo de Naga University, a scholarship which required me to write regularly a Japanese benefactor on how I fared in school, how my grades were, and what activities I involved myself in. So I would write letters in English, as I should, prolifically.
At the time, the best thing to look forward to in a week was to get a reply from my pen friends. And I would gladly write them back. I even wrote to more than three of them at one time. I enjoyed exchanging ideas and sharing stories with them. They simply made my day.
All these nurtured in me the habit of writing letters, and more letters. Initially I was interested in it; but eventually I was hooked in it that it became part of my system.
Normally for a young student like me who preferred writing letters to dunking basketball in the school gym, I was being groomed to becoming a student writer. Perhaps I just recognized that having good English skills, in fact, was a prized possession in school, in college and in the world. And I think it is.
In high school, I began writing for the school paper. I wrote letters to friends constantly or whenever I had the time. Sometimes I really had to find time. I also kept a journal on which I recorded a lot of my ideas, observations, and privations and many experimental works.
I was studying for free so I thought I better maximize the opportunity. I borrowed books from the library, and read them. Then, English was one subject that I could not trade for any computer game—a leisurely activity which I could hardly afford.
There was also no stopping me from reading books, and from making things out of what I read—poems, puzzles, imitations of sayings, and stories.
But I was not really a recluse. More often than not, I was also playing ball with my cousins. I was also active in school clubs—these included writing cliques, collectors’ groups and similar stuff.
In 1996, I found myself working for a newspaper in Bicol. Then, I also wrote articles for Teodoro Locsin’s Today, a Makati-based national broadsheet which has now merged with the Manila Standard.
Both working and writing, I did not stop writing and learning in English—also Filipino and Bikol. I wrote and sent articles and poems to national periodicals. My submissions were rejected and others were published. I even got paid for the ones published in magazines; but the newspapers hardly paid. The newspaper work did not promise compensation, but I held on to writing news and feature articles because I knew I was making sense.
I just kept writing, and with it, I easily found work in publication desks where I managed the newsletter and more importantly, “got to know some real people” [apologies to Sunday Inquirer Magazine].
For the past years I have been writing, I have been enjoying each moment of it.
While some people say that the knack in writing and perhaps everything related to it are given to rare people, I say it’s not absolutely true. I would like to think that all my choices in the past had collectively done their part to make me like writing, and prefer it to any other occupation or preoccupation.
While it may not be a very lucrative occupation, I also consider that with the power to articulate oneself [in English or any language], I have more chances of being privileged—if at all, not actually being gifted.
And times have changed. Nowadays, people who know how to better communicate cannot just remain disadvantaged or say, underpaid, unlike [what] other people [say].
As editor and journalism teacher, I have been editing my own and other people’s writing. When it comes to expressing ourselves in writing, I find some things which hinder the very purpose for which we write. Let me cite them here.
Verbosity or wordiness
Wordiness results from many things. Regardless of where we are, many of us pad our writing with all sorts of empty phrases perhaps to reach the length required in the school or office. Wordiness tends to occur when we are struggling to clarify our ideas or when we’re tired and therefore cannot think clearly. Regardless of our reason for padded writing, we can achieve concise writing if we are aware of the individual patterns of wordiness which is typical of the way we usually write.
Problem comes in when we do not become aware that we are using more words than is necessary. Because we are the authors—we are not inclined to correct ourselves more openly by perhaps slashing the words we have written. We think they are so perfect because they capture what we wish to express so we could get our message across to whoever reads it.
Yet, it’s good when you come to constantly critique your own work—to the extent that pruning words and phrases in your original draft, revising and rewriting your entire work will come naturally. One day, wordiness will be crime to you. Your familiarity with words will tell you whether you have to improve your drafts and can still make it better, even the ones you have written with a colleague.
For one, knowing that language works best by being brief will help you become a more effective communicator.
English is Filipinos’ second language
This issue is nothing new. We Filipinos normally—or more aptly, by heart—speak Hiligaynon, Waray, Bikol, etc., dialect or vernacular, but we are also asked to write and speak English.
Needless to say, we Filipinos are bombarded by so many languages around us—that we find it confusing which to use and how and why. Consider other languages we learned around us, the street language and the television language, aside from our very own vernaculars—modernized Bikol or Hiligaynon, or combined with Taglish, etc.
When we are asked to write in English but we essentially think in the local language—Bikol, Hiligaynon or Filipino—our mother tongue, which we know by heart. Problem sets in because most of the time we are tempted to transliterate: we write in English what we think, know or feel in our mother tongue. Sadly, because a large number of words in our own language have no exact English equivalents, we end up linguistically challenged—we do not realize that, say, not all things in our realities have counterparts in the English language.
All these years of education in the country, our schools must have not succeeded on an effective English language policy. But in the past, our grandfathers and grandmothers must have been well versed in English because they underwent rigid training on the English language, even studying Latin which is the root of [source of the words in] the language.
Today’s schools tell a different story. Despite DepEd’s staunch campaign to use only English or Filipino in the classrooms and schools, everything boils down to what the learners are really comfortable doing—code-switching [speaking combined English with Filipino combined with Bikol or Hiligaynon, etc.]. Moreover, students are overwhelmed by all forms of media; so asking them to speak and write in perfect, flawless English becomes a dream.
It is not cynical to say that young people can learn. In fact, I had students who were inclined to really write well not only because they were inclined—genetically, personally, whatever—but because they chose to do so.
To write and speak good English then is a choice. One simply prefers to do it, for it is something he strives to do—just like someone who endlessly strums the chords, until he masters them, and who later becomes the best guitarist onstage, because he’s strumming most people’s pains away.
Aristotle said we are what we repeatedly do—that excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit. To do something in the best way constantly is to be the very best in it—excel in it.
English is really our second language
Another problem crops up from our unfamiliarity with English. Being Filipinos, let’s face it, we were not born saying, “Oh My God!” or “Ouch!” We rather say things automatically, naturally, using our dialect, depending on our ethnic group.
Despite that some parents today would train their young children to speak English—confident that starting them young might make a difference—it’s the yaya’s English that is rather internalized by their wards. We are naturally born Filipinos, and we live in a country where most people speak countless languages.
This exaggeration is true, given the many kinds of language that we human beings invent to suit their own purposes and eccentricities.
[When we were younger, my brothers and cousins themselves communicated in a way only they understood—they reversed words, phrases and sentences until they learned to speak them spontaneously and with finesse. To them it was cool. I was too young to learn it. I did not find it cool either. So I gave up decoding their conversations. But through the years, that has become their bond. Until now, in family gatherings, they would throw jokes and banters that only they understand.]
Because English is our second language, each of us must be familiar with it.
Back in the campus, I used to tell my students to read English and read anything in English. I asked them further to always find the chance to learn anything in English—word, phrase, title of a movie, catchphrase, etc.—and it will become a habit.
Like many other disciplines, English is habit-forming. Despite what others are saying that it is too late for people to do that, if we do this constantly and earnestly, it will do us good.
The problem with legalese
Browsing over documents—whether in schools or offices—makes me think that we are also hindered by the use of jargon, or technical language, like the ones that lawyers use in public and legal documents.
The use of legalese in government communications has been pervasive. Some people who draft them may be lawyers, law teachers, or administrators who have management credits. In other words, such documents are written by people who have been exposed to organizing their work, starting from what they will do to how they will go about in doing and accomplishing them.
Because legalese reads and sounds so foreign we simply dismiss it as difficult. Indeed, it is difficult because ordinary people have not studied law. Everything legalese sounds alien because it reads so formal—and it sounds detached and impersonal.
Thus our attitude towards this kind of language should be open-minded. For instance, if we encounter a document that reads so difficult—we hardly understand anything it says except the names of those who signed them, let us have this resolve that in our own way, or work, we can simplify our expressions so those who will read anything we have written can understand us.
After all, writing is about seeking understanding.
Walking, graduate studies and other preoccupations
WHILE I consider walking a romantic activity mainly because ever since I could remember I have always walked to wherever I choose to go or to be, or simply because I must have read Henry David Thoreau’s essay on it from Walden and later romanticized the whole idea by treating it as the best daily exercise, I also realize that doing so in the city does not make sense at all.
Funny how I realize that walking from Katipunan Avenue going to the Loyola campus cannot always be a leisurely activity—especially if I have to do it towards noontime. Sun’s heat just becomes unbearable and then it is up for me to be pissed off by the stress it causes me—that later determines my tasks and activities inside the university library where I have to read for my graduate studies.
This morning I realized that taking a tricycle can make a big difference. I chose to ride a tricycle and not walk and that saved my time, effort and energy so that, minutes ago, I already started pounding these keys to write this lament, thus, [this] discourse.
I just realize I am a subject of the urban culture that rather compels people to buy cars so transportation and mobility are a bit easier for them.
Now I also realize I cannot just cater to the demands of such culture. Not right now, at least. I understand I cannot do much to change such culture as I know I am even the object of generosity of the ruling class [my scholarship tells me I am a recipient of their being able to provide for others].
I ride along. There is nothing for me to do. According to literary theorists preoccupied by their presuppositions on the experiencing self, or the subject, I am only a subject.
In fact, I have many subjectivities. I am also a graduate student at the Ateneo de Manila University, an academic institution run by Jesuits that, in more ways than one, have always allowed all kinds of human beings to thrive and live—the dominant ruling class whose names are carved in its buildings, the struggling middle-class who compose the Ph.D. faculty members, and the white-collar workers belonging to either the canteen cooperatives, the maintenance personnel employed by their respective agencies, or the job-hire construction workers hammering at the scaffolds being built for the new social science hall named after a Chinese benefactor. Such culture where I am right now just allows people to live. Yes, live.
That is the essence of life. To live. The purpose of me [read: I] as another subject.
Every single day I get opportunities to study and learn new concepts from reading at the library, attending campus lectures, or sitting in my teachers’ classes. And here I am learning and getting to read many things about my presently being a subject of different social structures—from the traffic rules in Katipunan Avenue to the undergraduate class schedules to the terms of use of computers in the Rizal Library.
My graduate studies are not in vain. While a graduate degree will help me land a university slot in teaching or related work, there is much to savor as I finish it. One of the payoffs is being able to realize and understand some terms in my studies that parallel or reflect the things in my present circumstances.
Class mobility, a phrase I caught from sitting in my professor’s undergraduate class—figures in the Marxist reading of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The Marxist train of thought reads that Jane Eyre’s marriage to a wealthy man rather helps her attain class mobility.
The then orphan girl who struggled her way through the social ranks to become a governess and worked her way up the social ladder is sadly just appropriated by her marriage to the dominant ruling class. Class mobility, vulgarly translated or appropriated, refers to people’s ability to further on with how to go about their lives in a society that is both patriarchal and ruled by the dominant class.
There is much truth when I realize that literary theorists—classic or modern, recognized or unacknowledged, mainstream or recalcitrant—have really something to say whenever they claim that to study literature as it relates to social structures is to help define life itself.
I feel relieved at the end of this lament because bit by bit my ideas are being put into paper. Thoughts become my words, and they become truths, at least my truths. I feel justified and lucky because I am learning beyond what books say or what I understand in books—or maybe I am just learning what the books indeed say—I am living a life that goes beyond what can be taught.
Funny how I realize that walking from Katipunan Avenue going to the Loyola campus cannot always be a leisurely activity—especially if I have to do it towards noontime. Sun’s heat just becomes unbearable and then it is up for me to be pissed off by the stress it causes me—that later determines my tasks and activities inside the university library where I have to read for my graduate studies.
This morning I realized that taking a tricycle can make a big difference. I chose to ride a tricycle and not walk and that saved my time, effort and energy so that, minutes ago, I already started pounding these keys to write this lament, thus, [this] discourse.
I just realize I am a subject of the urban culture that rather compels people to buy cars so transportation and mobility are a bit easier for them.
Now I also realize I cannot just cater to the demands of such culture. Not right now, at least. I understand I cannot do much to change such culture as I know I am even the object of generosity of the ruling class [my scholarship tells me I am a recipient of their being able to provide for others].
I ride along. There is nothing for me to do. According to literary theorists preoccupied by their presuppositions on the experiencing self, or the subject, I am only a subject.
In fact, I have many subjectivities. I am also a graduate student at the Ateneo de Manila University, an academic institution run by Jesuits that, in more ways than one, have always allowed all kinds of human beings to thrive and live—the dominant ruling class whose names are carved in its buildings, the struggling middle-class who compose the Ph.D. faculty members, and the white-collar workers belonging to either the canteen cooperatives, the maintenance personnel employed by their respective agencies, or the job-hire construction workers hammering at the scaffolds being built for the new social science hall named after a Chinese benefactor. Such culture where I am right now just allows people to live. Yes, live.
That is the essence of life. To live. The purpose of me [read: I] as another subject.
Every single day I get opportunities to study and learn new concepts from reading at the library, attending campus lectures, or sitting in my teachers’ classes. And here I am learning and getting to read many things about my presently being a subject of different social structures—from the traffic rules in Katipunan Avenue to the undergraduate class schedules to the terms of use of computers in the Rizal Library.
My graduate studies are not in vain. While a graduate degree will help me land a university slot in teaching or related work, there is much to savor as I finish it. One of the payoffs is being able to realize and understand some terms in my studies that parallel or reflect the things in my present circumstances.
Class mobility, a phrase I caught from sitting in my professor’s undergraduate class—figures in the Marxist reading of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The Marxist train of thought reads that Jane Eyre’s marriage to a wealthy man rather helps her attain class mobility.
The then orphan girl who struggled her way through the social ranks to become a governess and worked her way up the social ladder is sadly just appropriated by her marriage to the dominant ruling class. Class mobility, vulgarly translated or appropriated, refers to people’s ability to further on with how to go about their lives in a society that is both patriarchal and ruled by the dominant class.
There is much truth when I realize that literary theorists—classic or modern, recognized or unacknowledged, mainstream or recalcitrant—have really something to say whenever they claim that to study literature as it relates to social structures is to help define life itself.
I feel relieved at the end of this lament because bit by bit my ideas are being put into paper. Thoughts become my words, and they become truths, at least my truths. I feel justified and lucky because I am learning beyond what books say or what I understand in books—or maybe I am just learning what the books indeed say—I am living a life that goes beyond what can be taught.
Whatever gets you through the day
OURS is now a world of things. Everything around us now is commodified, meaning—produced or made, sold, bought, and consumed. Every single day, we consume—we eat [food], we use things, we burn up [the life of just about] anything, everything. In fact, we consume too much—for there is no satisfying our desire to acquire, to fill ourselves with everything until we tell ourselves we want more.
In particular, the mall culture rules us these days.
Who can resist the itch of malling and shopping when midnight sales and bargains come almost every week? Backed up by television and newspaper, these business strategies do not only deplete our ATM funds; they all the more intensify our desire to constantly acquire. Consumerism—our chronic tendency to have and have more—will be Shelf Life’s concern. Shelf life, per se, is any commodity’s life in a shelf, or how long it lasts—its potency or durability as a product. Compared to a person’s life, one product’s shelf life is an individual life span, or lifetime. Or life’s purpose, if we may.
In every shelf is a life—from a life, about a life, for a life. From every shelf—say, a CD rack in AstroWorld, a bookshelf inside a mall’s bookstore, or a ledge of Taiwan-pirated stuff exposed in J. M. Basa Street, we will take something and talk about it because it primarily concerns us. We [need to] talk about them because we know it is our life. It says much about who we are, what we want, how we want them, why we want such things, and perhaps what we live for. True.
Nowadays, what we live for may, in fact, depend on what we have. And, therefore, what we also don’t. To the extent of spreading ourselves thin, we have required so much of ourselves that our gauges for success or worse, happiness and contentment are mountains of things which we have to acquire and possess and burn up and use up, until it is time for us to have another one and another one and another one and more and more and more and more.
It’s ridiculous that even one newspaper ad reads—“It’s your watch that tells most about who you are.” Taking it quite literally, though, this is not true—you are not your watch. It’s a pity that you depend on a mere wristwatch to say much of yourself. It’s a pity that it is a thing that might just sum you up. Truth is—you use the watch for a purpose, not to tell you essentially who you are. Even then, you are worth more than your watch. Among other things, you’re a human person with a soul; your watch is not.
It’s hilarious how consumerist propaganda can persuade us to think this way about our lives; funny how this sensible persuasion has so pervaded our modern life. We now perceive that everything that is of value is on the shelf and so we should buy them; otherwise, we cease to live—as if not being able to buy them lessens our value.
“Shelf Life” takes on the task of making us think otherwise. We will go out there in the mall, in the flea markets, every stall we can find. We will look for the things we usually look for. To satisfy ourselves. We will browse and read books. We will read ads. We will fit clothes. We will also watch movies and read product labels. We might study just about anything we find on the shelf. And those are what we will read and choose to consider.
In any merchandise we will take out from all types of shelves—books, CDs, DVDs, shoes, store products, anything, or everything—we will benefit from them much more than by just consuming or using them. For one, we might see these things are simply our means to get to where we want to go, or we ought to be. We [just have to] use things, so we as human beings survive, and prosper, and as one friend puts it, “elevate.”
“Shelf Life” will make us see we can use things beyond their normal end. It will make us see we can desire to acquire other things, those things beyond the usual purpose of the tangible things we normally acquire.
The Fashion of Christ
Just when most sources of biblical inspiration seem to dissipate your exhausted soul—with audio-visual materials repeating themselves on television or the papers, one entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica can shed much light, or brand new outlook on your Christian life, as perhaps when you first read Og Mandino’s "The Christ Commission."
Published in the Britannica’s 7th edition under “Jesus” in the years between 1830 and 1842, and penned by Rev. David Welsh, professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Edinburgh, the attribute to the Savior is a simply fitting description for the doubtful or [even] the individual who has yet to discern his faith.
Reading this on with an open mind can render the much-needed source for introspection and insight.
“The character of Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, presents to us the only example, anywhere to be found, of the perfection of humanity; and the contemplation of it has ever been considered by his followers as one of the most edifying and delightful exercises of piety.”
What is Christ’s way? What is Christ’s way? To be a Christian demands greatly and much from anyone. It asks him to scrape off his very self—usually brimming with ill wills and selfish motivations. To be Christ-like is to deny the self which, usually, hardly sees the issues and needs of others. To follow Christ and his example is to encounter much difficulty because the situation is uncalled for by the self which usually abhors suffering and pain.
But a Christian life is the most enlightening because only after going through all these pains that one realizes—yes, always, later—that one glorious, redeeming moment is worth all the hurts it entails.
“A constant regard to the will of God, and a delight in doing it, form the distinguishing features of his character.”
In the ways that people live, Jesus Christ and all his lofty examples clearly stand in their way. Ironically, the One who gave life to mankind seems to be the antagonist in any man’s life who has considered himself the protagonist, the very essence of his existence.
But the ways of Jesus Christ make us revert to God’s entire purpose for all our lives. If we have been running away for so long finding our life purpose, Jesus presents to us the “alternative”—which was, in fact, human life’s original purpose. It is just so tragic that regarding God’s will in our lives entails much sacrifices and tradeoffs. God’s ways indeed are certainly not our ways.
“With this was connected the absence of all sordid, or selfish, or ambitious aims, and an enlarged and enlightened philanthropy.”
Denying oneself and seeking to first understand, rather than seeking to be understood. Simple as that. Or is it?
“There is perhaps nothing more remarkable in the life of Jesus than the apparently inconsistent qualities which are blended together in one harmonious whole.”
To imitate Christ is an intimidating task. It is to make ends meet. It is to be certain in the field of uncertainties. It asks one to make a choice in the midst of too much uncertainties and anxieties. It is to crack one’s brain because it is disoriented by the world which only teaches him to consider himself. To be a good Christian is to be virtuous when everyone is corrupt.
We see in him the most unbending constancy united with the great tenderness of feeling—hatred of sin, and compassion for the offender—a heart superior to all the allurements of pleasure, with a condescending indulgence for the innocent relaxations of life—a mind of universal philanthropy, alive to all the domestic charities—views that extended to the whole human race, and a generous compliance with national and individual peculiarities.”
With all these qualities, what more can a schizophrenic ask for? But we may ask how Jesus did it. What was the style of Christ? Jesus lived a life of struggles and strife. Let us consider that he realized he needed God to make his way through.
In the passages, Christ was always said to be offering all his pains to the Father. In fact, hours before he was arrested, he was in great pain, trying to at least bargain with the Father, to let the chalice, the Cross, pass. But all he needed was the trust in God, that the Father’s will, not his be done. The style of Christ was not entirely his—then. his was with the Father.
“It is difficult to conceive that the portraiture presented to us in the sacred history can be contemplated without benefit; but the chief benefit will be lost if it is forgotten that he whose life was the model of every virtue laid down that life for the sins of the world.”
While we have time—either in our youth or whenever this time finds us—to be able to ponder some truths about our existence and essence makes much for what we ought to be. The fashion of Christ goes beyond his passions, or even his Passion—which was only the culmination, the highlight of a well-worn life well lived.
Published in the Britannica’s 7th edition under “Jesus” in the years between 1830 and 1842, and penned by Rev. David Welsh, professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Edinburgh, the attribute to the Savior is a simply fitting description for the doubtful or [even] the individual who has yet to discern his faith.
Reading this on with an open mind can render the much-needed source for introspection and insight.
“The character of Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, presents to us the only example, anywhere to be found, of the perfection of humanity; and the contemplation of it has ever been considered by his followers as one of the most edifying and delightful exercises of piety.”
What is Christ’s way? What is Christ’s way? To be a Christian demands greatly and much from anyone. It asks him to scrape off his very self—usually brimming with ill wills and selfish motivations. To be Christ-like is to deny the self which, usually, hardly sees the issues and needs of others. To follow Christ and his example is to encounter much difficulty because the situation is uncalled for by the self which usually abhors suffering and pain.
But a Christian life is the most enlightening because only after going through all these pains that one realizes—yes, always, later—that one glorious, redeeming moment is worth all the hurts it entails.
“A constant regard to the will of God, and a delight in doing it, form the distinguishing features of his character.”
In the ways that people live, Jesus Christ and all his lofty examples clearly stand in their way. Ironically, the One who gave life to mankind seems to be the antagonist in any man’s life who has considered himself the protagonist, the very essence of his existence.
But the ways of Jesus Christ make us revert to God’s entire purpose for all our lives. If we have been running away for so long finding our life purpose, Jesus presents to us the “alternative”—which was, in fact, human life’s original purpose. It is just so tragic that regarding God’s will in our lives entails much sacrifices and tradeoffs. God’s ways indeed are certainly not our ways.
“With this was connected the absence of all sordid, or selfish, or ambitious aims, and an enlarged and enlightened philanthropy.”
Denying oneself and seeking to first understand, rather than seeking to be understood. Simple as that. Or is it?
“There is perhaps nothing more remarkable in the life of Jesus than the apparently inconsistent qualities which are blended together in one harmonious whole.”
To imitate Christ is an intimidating task. It is to make ends meet. It is to be certain in the field of uncertainties. It asks one to make a choice in the midst of too much uncertainties and anxieties. It is to crack one’s brain because it is disoriented by the world which only teaches him to consider himself. To be a good Christian is to be virtuous when everyone is corrupt.
We see in him the most unbending constancy united with the great tenderness of feeling—hatred of sin, and compassion for the offender—a heart superior to all the allurements of pleasure, with a condescending indulgence for the innocent relaxations of life—a mind of universal philanthropy, alive to all the domestic charities—views that extended to the whole human race, and a generous compliance with national and individual peculiarities.”
With all these qualities, what more can a schizophrenic ask for? But we may ask how Jesus did it. What was the style of Christ? Jesus lived a life of struggles and strife. Let us consider that he realized he needed God to make his way through.
In the passages, Christ was always said to be offering all his pains to the Father. In fact, hours before he was arrested, he was in great pain, trying to at least bargain with the Father, to let the chalice, the Cross, pass. But all he needed was the trust in God, that the Father’s will, not his be done. The style of Christ was not entirely his—then. his was with the Father.
“It is difficult to conceive that the portraiture presented to us in the sacred history can be contemplated without benefit; but the chief benefit will be lost if it is forgotten that he whose life was the model of every virtue laid down that life for the sins of the world.”
While we have time—either in our youth or whenever this time finds us—to be able to ponder some truths about our existence and essence makes much for what we ought to be. The fashion of Christ goes beyond his passions, or even his Passion—which was only the culmination, the highlight of a well-worn life well lived.
Finding Hero
Brats and Other Failures, Scholars and Success Stories
We cannot remain silent anymore. We do not wish to contain this discontent to any further extent. It would be sheer hypocrisy and outright uselessness on our part, or on the sensibility of those teachers and other constituents in this community who commit their time and effort to help produce a genuine scholar, one student whom we do not consider ideal—but rather one real, attainable person.
There is a pervasive culture of spoiled brats in our school today. Everyday we see scholars—students of the Philippine Science High School Diliman Campus—going in and out of our high school, baring their persons in disgraceful degrees of being unruly, undisciplined, gang-like, virtually becoming a bunch of hooligans. These people have to be told something, at least something.
The solid waste management campaign we recently initiated during the Do Day has the most visible proof of apathy and lack of concern—erosion if not a disgusting absence of values—among our students. The students’ recommendation that there be one janitor in charge for every floor to clean their classrooms only presents a depressing scenario for us, teachers—does it now mean that students cannot deliver the simple task of segregating or at least throwing their trash sensibly to where they belong? What a scholar-ly modest proposal!
In the boys’ main dormitory, most if not all students are hardly disciplined—they read Sunday papers and leave all pages scattered and crumpled. Maybe they expect their maids to put their litter properly. Unfortunately they have to be told they are not in their homes—they have to be reminded they are dormers. Or maybe they have to be told about an axiom that says live and let live.
Oftentimes dormers bang the office telephone and the phone in the booths. They dribble basketball even during nighttime inside their rooms, in the corridors, and the lobby. Most of the time they watch television in an unreasonably loud volume. They leave electric fans switched on after they used them. They slam the doors of their rooms every time—every time, any time.
They are hardly grateful for any help offered them on their fast food orders or laundries by a teacher or staff desk volunteer. After eating their stuffs, they scatter styros everywhere—ground floor benches, water dispensers, stairs, everywhere.
Some of them scamper around the halls minutes before midnight—even when some of their roommates are already asleep. They make noise and all noise in the dead of night. They scatter their trash and leftover food like there is no tomorrow. The janitors—who have come and gone one after the other—constantly lamented the waste perennially scattered everywhere in the comfort rooms and the halls.
Many times in the cafeteria we encounter students interrupting the queue to get their orders ahead of those who are persistently falling in line. In this instance, a cafeteria staff would be kind enough to accommodate these singits while the rightful people are kept waiting. This is chiefly unforgivable. The basic rule of falling in line and waiting for one’s turn is as elementary as a kindergarten policy. Students who hardly see others in front of their noses just need to be told to go back to kindergarten. We pity these students if ever they do this inconsiderate act with a queue of cafeteria-goers who compose Bin Laden’s lot or Bush’s army. We do not know where they might find themselves once they get to face their fellow brats.
In classrooms, students are said to haggle everything with the teacher—from lessons to grades. They always negotiate to do other stuffs aside from the ones the teacher has designed or agreed with them to do. Even though it is too unreasonable, they would insist on doing what they want. What? It seems that they want to believe they know better than the teacher because the teacher always ought to “take off from where students are coming from.” We do not think the teacher is just there to be among their clique—intelligent or otherwise. In other words, a little bit of respect for the teacher—at least the fact that the teacher is older than them—should send them to think they need to first listen to a teacher before they negotiate anything, regardless of their predicament. If they need no instruction or directions, then, they must be told they must have come to the wrong place.
In spite of their brilliant ideas, which we recognize, acknowledge and applaud—they have no right to be arrogant about their knowledge. Such attitude only validates the fact that they do not really know enough. Failure then looms for these persons who see their teachers as inferior to them because in their own senses, they know they are better. This is too sad.
In this teacher writer’s three classes, many students failed in the first quarter. These failing students hardly complied with most class requirements necessary to pull up their grades. In language arts and journalism classes, we cannot help but wonder why most students would not turn in critical papers for evaluation—classic reviews, poems, homework, group or quad output. Despite countless extensions of deadline, some students would not turn in anything. They could not simply seem to care. Maybe we have extended the deadline more than enough that they lost interest in the subject matter—because they were stolen the thrill or pressure with which they can finish an impressive work. But we cannot just accept such excuse. A sensible student can always do better than staying mediocre the rest of his student life.
We recognize that all these apparent attitudes—the students’ value system—have to be redirected and led into something which everyone can admire or at least hope for. We cannot be so sadder than now, given such attitudes affecting our sensibility. Something has to be done—something has to be done. And we will, we will.
If we do not, we would simply spoil students and make them all brats, who will later mutate into successful monsters in any civilization where they can choose to thrive. Suffice it so say, anywhere they go, brats will never succeed—unless we accept that ours is a world ruled by brats. Yes, indeed Bush and other brats are ruling the world now. But we believe further that the world will not end in him or Bin Laden or Saddam or other brats who made news and money out of some childish folly or some foolish childhood.
As far as our brats are concerned, their gross lack of any values—technically, virtues—poses a challenge to all of us around here who still believe that basic and traditional values can prove true all through.
Our students—scholars, as we aptly call them—need to be told to grow up. They cannot remain pampered in all wrongly defines senses of the word “nurture.” We cannot just give them the fattest fish all the time. We will be forever condemned if we realize one day we would have not taught them how to fish by which they can survive all their way through. We would have been useless. This would be utter futility.
On the contrary, we see traces of an admirable scholar in some students. In their presence we see a glint of hope that all our efforts here—present, past, future—appreciated, underrated, or uncompensated—will never go to waste.
There is an apparent culture of admirable scholars pervading the school today. Everyday we see scholars—students of the Philippine Science High School Diliman Campus—going in and out of our high school, baring their persons in commendable degrees—a well-mannered, dutiful, cultured lot, whose real persons and stories need to be emulated. Or to the very least, appreciated. At least appreciated.
An inspiration we can obtain from the presence of students who are otherwise courteous, basically tactful, reasonably straightforward, and not necessarily quiet or submissive. In this environment inhabited by hooligans and grade hagglers, we can find a dormer who still secures gate pass duly from the dorm manager when he goes to the church on weekends or worship days. We also have a devoted student who keeps his word about submitting his late paper on Friday. Or what a delight it would be to meet a young junior who greets you one unholy afternoon with a forthright smile and a warm “Hi, Sir!” By these students we cannot just help but be dumbfounded. And inspired.
We see streaks of hope in a student who gives way to a teacher when he passes by their clique. We most admire one who asks to be given a task not only because he knows he will be graded for it but because he or she is convinced that there is something to learn from it. How about a student who offers a teacher to carry their notebooks to and from their classrooms? Or an anonymous someone—barely a class officer—who willingly borrows the eraser from the teacher and cleans the writing on the board?
We salute these scholars.
These basic, admirable values are redundantly the essentials. Sadly, however, some of our students referred in the first part of this lamentation are not through getting to know any elemental thing about these or any aspect of genuine learning, which can prepare them for life.
All the same we remain optimistic that we have hope in some others who do otherwise; who are otherwise. So we move on to looking beyond what is obvious here and now.
Frankly we believe it is not so hard to find a hero, an odd man out. Daily we launch a search for a martyr who does not conform with a culture that is tolerant of the vices of a child, the whims of Peter Pan or the caprices of a Dennis the Menace.
He or she is one growing person who is willing to live and live well in good manner. One who will succeed and whose name will be worth every frame in a world’s nameless, priceless, unadvertised, and insignificant hall of fame—because he or she will be one etched in a teacher’s heart—one who will inspire the teacher enough until his or her retirement. It will not be so difficult to stumble on admirable persons who can make sense of what we have been doing the most of our lives. The search for these persons has always been on going.
If the failures referred here cannot be molded anymore, there will be some out there whose young lives can shed light to others—some who can be the genuine scholars.
For sure, there will be some.
We cannot remain silent anymore. We do not wish to contain this discontent to any further extent. It would be sheer hypocrisy and outright uselessness on our part, or on the sensibility of those teachers and other constituents in this community who commit their time and effort to help produce a genuine scholar, one student whom we do not consider ideal—but rather one real, attainable person.
There is a pervasive culture of spoiled brats in our school today. Everyday we see scholars—students of the Philippine Science High School Diliman Campus—going in and out of our high school, baring their persons in disgraceful degrees of being unruly, undisciplined, gang-like, virtually becoming a bunch of hooligans. These people have to be told something, at least something.
The solid waste management campaign we recently initiated during the Do Day has the most visible proof of apathy and lack of concern—erosion if not a disgusting absence of values—among our students. The students’ recommendation that there be one janitor in charge for every floor to clean their classrooms only presents a depressing scenario for us, teachers—does it now mean that students cannot deliver the simple task of segregating or at least throwing their trash sensibly to where they belong? What a scholar-ly modest proposal!
In the boys’ main dormitory, most if not all students are hardly disciplined—they read Sunday papers and leave all pages scattered and crumpled. Maybe they expect their maids to put their litter properly. Unfortunately they have to be told they are not in their homes—they have to be reminded they are dormers. Or maybe they have to be told about an axiom that says live and let live.
Oftentimes dormers bang the office telephone and the phone in the booths. They dribble basketball even during nighttime inside their rooms, in the corridors, and the lobby. Most of the time they watch television in an unreasonably loud volume. They leave electric fans switched on after they used them. They slam the doors of their rooms every time—every time, any time.
They are hardly grateful for any help offered them on their fast food orders or laundries by a teacher or staff desk volunteer. After eating their stuffs, they scatter styros everywhere—ground floor benches, water dispensers, stairs, everywhere.
Some of them scamper around the halls minutes before midnight—even when some of their roommates are already asleep. They make noise and all noise in the dead of night. They scatter their trash and leftover food like there is no tomorrow. The janitors—who have come and gone one after the other—constantly lamented the waste perennially scattered everywhere in the comfort rooms and the halls.
Many times in the cafeteria we encounter students interrupting the queue to get their orders ahead of those who are persistently falling in line. In this instance, a cafeteria staff would be kind enough to accommodate these singits while the rightful people are kept waiting. This is chiefly unforgivable. The basic rule of falling in line and waiting for one’s turn is as elementary as a kindergarten policy. Students who hardly see others in front of their noses just need to be told to go back to kindergarten. We pity these students if ever they do this inconsiderate act with a queue of cafeteria-goers who compose Bin Laden’s lot or Bush’s army. We do not know where they might find themselves once they get to face their fellow brats.
In classrooms, students are said to haggle everything with the teacher—from lessons to grades. They always negotiate to do other stuffs aside from the ones the teacher has designed or agreed with them to do. Even though it is too unreasonable, they would insist on doing what they want. What? It seems that they want to believe they know better than the teacher because the teacher always ought to “take off from where students are coming from.” We do not think the teacher is just there to be among their clique—intelligent or otherwise. In other words, a little bit of respect for the teacher—at least the fact that the teacher is older than them—should send them to think they need to first listen to a teacher before they negotiate anything, regardless of their predicament. If they need no instruction or directions, then, they must be told they must have come to the wrong place.
In spite of their brilliant ideas, which we recognize, acknowledge and applaud—they have no right to be arrogant about their knowledge. Such attitude only validates the fact that they do not really know enough. Failure then looms for these persons who see their teachers as inferior to them because in their own senses, they know they are better. This is too sad.
In this teacher writer’s three classes, many students failed in the first quarter. These failing students hardly complied with most class requirements necessary to pull up their grades. In language arts and journalism classes, we cannot help but wonder why most students would not turn in critical papers for evaluation—classic reviews, poems, homework, group or quad output. Despite countless extensions of deadline, some students would not turn in anything. They could not simply seem to care. Maybe we have extended the deadline more than enough that they lost interest in the subject matter—because they were stolen the thrill or pressure with which they can finish an impressive work. But we cannot just accept such excuse. A sensible student can always do better than staying mediocre the rest of his student life.
We recognize that all these apparent attitudes—the students’ value system—have to be redirected and led into something which everyone can admire or at least hope for. We cannot be so sadder than now, given such attitudes affecting our sensibility. Something has to be done—something has to be done. And we will, we will.
If we do not, we would simply spoil students and make them all brats, who will later mutate into successful monsters in any civilization where they can choose to thrive. Suffice it so say, anywhere they go, brats will never succeed—unless we accept that ours is a world ruled by brats. Yes, indeed Bush and other brats are ruling the world now. But we believe further that the world will not end in him or Bin Laden or Saddam or other brats who made news and money out of some childish folly or some foolish childhood.
As far as our brats are concerned, their gross lack of any values—technically, virtues—poses a challenge to all of us around here who still believe that basic and traditional values can prove true all through.
Our students—scholars, as we aptly call them—need to be told to grow up. They cannot remain pampered in all wrongly defines senses of the word “nurture.” We cannot just give them the fattest fish all the time. We will be forever condemned if we realize one day we would have not taught them how to fish by which they can survive all their way through. We would have been useless. This would be utter futility.
On the contrary, we see traces of an admirable scholar in some students. In their presence we see a glint of hope that all our efforts here—present, past, future—appreciated, underrated, or uncompensated—will never go to waste.
There is an apparent culture of admirable scholars pervading the school today. Everyday we see scholars—students of the Philippine Science High School Diliman Campus—going in and out of our high school, baring their persons in commendable degrees—a well-mannered, dutiful, cultured lot, whose real persons and stories need to be emulated. Or to the very least, appreciated. At least appreciated.
An inspiration we can obtain from the presence of students who are otherwise courteous, basically tactful, reasonably straightforward, and not necessarily quiet or submissive. In this environment inhabited by hooligans and grade hagglers, we can find a dormer who still secures gate pass duly from the dorm manager when he goes to the church on weekends or worship days. We also have a devoted student who keeps his word about submitting his late paper on Friday. Or what a delight it would be to meet a young junior who greets you one unholy afternoon with a forthright smile and a warm “Hi, Sir!” By these students we cannot just help but be dumbfounded. And inspired.
We see streaks of hope in a student who gives way to a teacher when he passes by their clique. We most admire one who asks to be given a task not only because he knows he will be graded for it but because he or she is convinced that there is something to learn from it. How about a student who offers a teacher to carry their notebooks to and from their classrooms? Or an anonymous someone—barely a class officer—who willingly borrows the eraser from the teacher and cleans the writing on the board?
We salute these scholars.
These basic, admirable values are redundantly the essentials. Sadly, however, some of our students referred in the first part of this lamentation are not through getting to know any elemental thing about these or any aspect of genuine learning, which can prepare them for life.
All the same we remain optimistic that we have hope in some others who do otherwise; who are otherwise. So we move on to looking beyond what is obvious here and now.
Frankly we believe it is not so hard to find a hero, an odd man out. Daily we launch a search for a martyr who does not conform with a culture that is tolerant of the vices of a child, the whims of Peter Pan or the caprices of a Dennis the Menace.
He or she is one growing person who is willing to live and live well in good manner. One who will succeed and whose name will be worth every frame in a world’s nameless, priceless, unadvertised, and insignificant hall of fame—because he or she will be one etched in a teacher’s heart—one who will inspire the teacher enough until his or her retirement. It will not be so difficult to stumble on admirable persons who can make sense of what we have been doing the most of our lives. The search for these persons has always been on going.
If the failures referred here cannot be molded anymore, there will be some out there whose young lives can shed light to others—some who can be the genuine scholars.
For sure, there will be some.
Contemplating Cruz Contemporary
In the heyday of Philippine Panorama’s fiction prize some ten years ago, Isidoro Cruz’s “Chalk Dust” won first prize for 1996.
A short story originally submitted to the Iligan National Writers Workshop the year prior to its win, “Chalk Dust” must have won the coveted national literary prize for its sensitivity to the individual plight of the overseas Filipino worker who, in recent years, has been considered our contemporary national hero, because of the dollars they scrape and scrimp for one of the lamest economies around the world.
Cruz’s “Chalk Dust” weaves a piece in the life of Clarissa, a former teacher back in the Philippines who went to work as a domestic helper in Singapore. After her contract failed because her original employers backed out, Clarissa eventually worked for the Tangs, a couple with two boys—and with whom the story virtually takes an unforgettable turn.
The situation of the protagonist comes in handy—one morning Clarissa is leaving the Tangs. Apart from a cheap card that she gives to Clarissa, Mrs. Nancy Tang has only few words to say to her as she starts for the airport.
The rest of the story unfolds quite symbolically through flashback, a narrative device that best renders a regretful tone—the one portrayed by the protagonist herself. Right away, we get to ask why Clarissa is leaving the Tangs. What must be the reason why she stops employment?
We answer this question by taking the trip with Clarissa as she journeys home. As memories flash back and forth—we are bit by bit drawn into her sad story. We learn that Clarissa was a former teacher back in her country. We also learn that her father is totally outrageously against her working abroad as a domestic helper, lamenting that they had labored much to help her through college, but not just to end up “scrubbing somebody else’s bathroom.”
We then know that Clarissa left teaching because she did not like it, and it didn’t really pay. We also learn that Clarissa could not really stomach her students’ behavior. That is why she must have left the country to seek the virtual “greener pastures,” whatever that means to her. Because the previous employers whom she applied for backed out, we get to know that Clarissa had to make do with what is in front of her nose—she had to work for a couple with two kids.
Through her sensitivity, we also learn that her employers’ residence is a stifling enclosure, squeezed in a rising metropolis, a busy city where probably progress dissipates the very energies of people, and where the only thing you are given to eat is noodles.
In the midst of this cloistered, monotonous life [which she finds too irksome even exasperating], Clarissa does not at all realize that at any rate she lives in a home that instead rises from the stifling smog and pollution which can kill her.
Eventually, Clarissa realizes her work is not much different from her classroom work. Yes, she may have fewer kids to attend to—just the two sons of her employers, but she is rather convinced they are not much different from her students whom she despised back home.
In the airport, Clarissa meets Trining, a fellow domestic helper. Unlike Clarissa, Trining is a “full-fledged” maid, who must have worked for a number of employers already—so much so that she has been going abroad back and forth, seeking to earn a living for relatives back home who rather only tell her what to bring home next time, and perhaps shying away from the neighbor’s prying eyes or gossip about her work abroad.
And unlike Trining, Clarissa cannot talk as much because hers is a different story—she is not happy from where she came. She’s not excited about going home to family with bags full of pasalubong.
Along the way, after all that was said and done, Clarissa vacillates between what has beens and what ifs. Inasmuch as she does not want to return home, she is doing so right now. She is even catching her trip on time.
What has she gone wrong? When asked about her whereabouts, she also wonders why is she going back to the place where she once despised because she did not like it—everything, what she was doing, what she was, what she was not doing, etc.—there. Was it something she did?
“I’ll tell her! I’ll tell her.!”—Clarissa cannot forget the boy’s face. When the mischievous elder son Jimmy saw Clarissa eating her favorite noodle soup, he started teasing her, soliciting the attention of his younger brother Sam, and told him they’d be playing cooking. Jimmy took condiments from the countertop and sprinkled sorts of other condiments on to Clarissa’s soup.
Even when Clarissa tried to stop Jimmy, the boy did not listen to her until he completely spilled what Clarissa was eating. When Clarissa flared up and then physically reprimanded the boy, the situation only got complicated—the boy spat at her, and on impulse, she slapped him until he cried and kicked her away. When the boy cried and threatened to tell his mother, Clarissa equally threatened that she’d burn the whole place should he squeal.
Interestingly, we do not learn whether the boy ever did tell his parents about it. The slightest hint we learn is that Clarissa must have grown tired of her wards’ misdemeanor which, to some, might have been unobjectionable—if one is well oriented enough to work there for the sake of money to send home, or if one is totally disposed to earn money in a foreign country.
In all, she must have only relived the days when she was a teacher, perennially irritated by the slight, mischievous ways by her students, and taking all these things personally. After all, how else can she take all of these, without her being a person?
At least, her employers are quite civil enough to just let her go—no questions asked. Whether the boy squealed to his parents, she can only assume. She cannot demand as to ask them how come she has to go. On the ways with which they rear their children, her gracious employers must have learned a number of lessons in the past—so maids like Clarissa cannot do as much.
The story’s title “Chalk Dust” forges the clearest image for the whole story, as it spells the dichotomy between the good and bad elements of the protagonist’s experience.
She is going home now because the Tangs simply fired her for her misbehavior. Funny that it was her who most probably misbehaved. Once she must have thought she cannot be a teacher. But now she thought she cannot also be a helper—inasmuch as she must have hated the chalk dust, it is also easy for her dust off any irritating situation she finds herself in. Shouldn’t she realize that a teacher is also a helper? Or has she ever realized that?
Of course, the story ends as the journey ends. She has arrived home, but what still pesters her is how that boy made fun of her picture, and made her see it when he put it on her pillow.
Clarissa’s plane landed already, but her disgust about the whole thing has not yet subsided—truly, she must have been home now, but is she at all unscathed?
In the bigger picture, “Chalk Dust” was hewn just as when the country would witness the tragic fate of Flor Contemplacion, a domestic helper charged of murder of the child of her employers. For months, Flor Contemplacion dominated the country’s headlines, as it was not just the case of one Filipina maid working in a foreign country.
It was rather the Filipinos’ global repute—the sheer dignity that people have come to associate with the “dignity of a Filipino” which reads much like our national pride.
Despite the intervention pursued by the Ramos government who was rather concerned with globalization [read: the fast-rising export of domestic helpers,] Contemplacion still was hanged in the Changgi prison. The most that we succeeded in doing was to immortalize her story via Nora Aunor, whose performance raked more profits for film and media moguls.
A short story originally submitted to the Iligan National Writers Workshop the year prior to its win, “Chalk Dust” must have won the coveted national literary prize for its sensitivity to the individual plight of the overseas Filipino worker who, in recent years, has been considered our contemporary national hero, because of the dollars they scrape and scrimp for one of the lamest economies around the world.
Cruz’s “Chalk Dust” weaves a piece in the life of Clarissa, a former teacher back in the Philippines who went to work as a domestic helper in Singapore. After her contract failed because her original employers backed out, Clarissa eventually worked for the Tangs, a couple with two boys—and with whom the story virtually takes an unforgettable turn.
The situation of the protagonist comes in handy—one morning Clarissa is leaving the Tangs. Apart from a cheap card that she gives to Clarissa, Mrs. Nancy Tang has only few words to say to her as she starts for the airport.
The rest of the story unfolds quite symbolically through flashback, a narrative device that best renders a regretful tone—the one portrayed by the protagonist herself. Right away, we get to ask why Clarissa is leaving the Tangs. What must be the reason why she stops employment?
We answer this question by taking the trip with Clarissa as she journeys home. As memories flash back and forth—we are bit by bit drawn into her sad story. We learn that Clarissa was a former teacher back in her country. We also learn that her father is totally outrageously against her working abroad as a domestic helper, lamenting that they had labored much to help her through college, but not just to end up “scrubbing somebody else’s bathroom.”
We then know that Clarissa left teaching because she did not like it, and it didn’t really pay. We also learn that Clarissa could not really stomach her students’ behavior. That is why she must have left the country to seek the virtual “greener pastures,” whatever that means to her. Because the previous employers whom she applied for backed out, we get to know that Clarissa had to make do with what is in front of her nose—she had to work for a couple with two kids.
Through her sensitivity, we also learn that her employers’ residence is a stifling enclosure, squeezed in a rising metropolis, a busy city where probably progress dissipates the very energies of people, and where the only thing you are given to eat is noodles.
In the midst of this cloistered, monotonous life [which she finds too irksome even exasperating], Clarissa does not at all realize that at any rate she lives in a home that instead rises from the stifling smog and pollution which can kill her.
Eventually, Clarissa realizes her work is not much different from her classroom work. Yes, she may have fewer kids to attend to—just the two sons of her employers, but she is rather convinced they are not much different from her students whom she despised back home.
In the airport, Clarissa meets Trining, a fellow domestic helper. Unlike Clarissa, Trining is a “full-fledged” maid, who must have worked for a number of employers already—so much so that she has been going abroad back and forth, seeking to earn a living for relatives back home who rather only tell her what to bring home next time, and perhaps shying away from the neighbor’s prying eyes or gossip about her work abroad.
And unlike Trining, Clarissa cannot talk as much because hers is a different story—she is not happy from where she came. She’s not excited about going home to family with bags full of pasalubong.
Along the way, after all that was said and done, Clarissa vacillates between what has beens and what ifs. Inasmuch as she does not want to return home, she is doing so right now. She is even catching her trip on time.
What has she gone wrong? When asked about her whereabouts, she also wonders why is she going back to the place where she once despised because she did not like it—everything, what she was doing, what she was, what she was not doing, etc.—there. Was it something she did?
“I’ll tell her! I’ll tell her.!”—Clarissa cannot forget the boy’s face. When the mischievous elder son Jimmy saw Clarissa eating her favorite noodle soup, he started teasing her, soliciting the attention of his younger brother Sam, and told him they’d be playing cooking. Jimmy took condiments from the countertop and sprinkled sorts of other condiments on to Clarissa’s soup.
Even when Clarissa tried to stop Jimmy, the boy did not listen to her until he completely spilled what Clarissa was eating. When Clarissa flared up and then physically reprimanded the boy, the situation only got complicated—the boy spat at her, and on impulse, she slapped him until he cried and kicked her away. When the boy cried and threatened to tell his mother, Clarissa equally threatened that she’d burn the whole place should he squeal.
Interestingly, we do not learn whether the boy ever did tell his parents about it. The slightest hint we learn is that Clarissa must have grown tired of her wards’ misdemeanor which, to some, might have been unobjectionable—if one is well oriented enough to work there for the sake of money to send home, or if one is totally disposed to earn money in a foreign country.
In all, she must have only relived the days when she was a teacher, perennially irritated by the slight, mischievous ways by her students, and taking all these things personally. After all, how else can she take all of these, without her being a person?
At least, her employers are quite civil enough to just let her go—no questions asked. Whether the boy squealed to his parents, she can only assume. She cannot demand as to ask them how come she has to go. On the ways with which they rear their children, her gracious employers must have learned a number of lessons in the past—so maids like Clarissa cannot do as much.
The story’s title “Chalk Dust” forges the clearest image for the whole story, as it spells the dichotomy between the good and bad elements of the protagonist’s experience.
She is going home now because the Tangs simply fired her for her misbehavior. Funny that it was her who most probably misbehaved. Once she must have thought she cannot be a teacher. But now she thought she cannot also be a helper—inasmuch as she must have hated the chalk dust, it is also easy for her dust off any irritating situation she finds herself in. Shouldn’t she realize that a teacher is also a helper? Or has she ever realized that?
Of course, the story ends as the journey ends. She has arrived home, but what still pesters her is how that boy made fun of her picture, and made her see it when he put it on her pillow.
Clarissa’s plane landed already, but her disgust about the whole thing has not yet subsided—truly, she must have been home now, but is she at all unscathed?
In the bigger picture, “Chalk Dust” was hewn just as when the country would witness the tragic fate of Flor Contemplacion, a domestic helper charged of murder of the child of her employers. For months, Flor Contemplacion dominated the country’s headlines, as it was not just the case of one Filipina maid working in a foreign country.
It was rather the Filipinos’ global repute—the sheer dignity that people have come to associate with the “dignity of a Filipino” which reads much like our national pride.
Despite the intervention pursued by the Ramos government who was rather concerned with globalization [read: the fast-rising export of domestic helpers,] Contemplacion still was hanged in the Changgi prison. The most that we succeeded in doing was to immortalize her story via Nora Aunor, whose performance raked more profits for film and media moguls.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Facebook Poetry
May 6 Friend Requests ka pero saro sana
man an bisto mo sainda: si Noel Blancaflor.
Saiirisay man 'ni? May Sally Diaz, may Stanley Po.
Saiirisay man 'ni? Add mo daa as Friend?
Mayo ning Add as Non-Friend? As Acquaintance?
Dai man daw na an ngaran mo kapangaran mo?
Nag sign-up ka kaidto ta sabi kan amiga mo
ma-Reply siya saimo. Pero perang bulan ka nang
member since April 2009 pa, mayo man siya baga.
Naka-Thumbnail an mga Friends mo Recently Added
pero dai man nagi-reply sa comment mo. Dai mo aram
kong nababasa an pira nang pangungumusta mo. Inutil!
You like this. You sagkod si Polana sagkod si Polano like this.
Ano ta "Comment. Like. Delete." sana? Mayo nin Dislike?
Ay, uni ho, mga quiz-quiz na maski ano na sana.
Anong kanta ka ni Britney Spears? Who cares?
What time will you die? Paligsok man ni ýo.
Igwang Which Sexual Position Are You? Buray ni Ina niya!
Kulang na lang Anong Gamit ni Barack Obama
sa White House an Garo Ika? Stapler.
Kadakul-dakul Causes an inaagdang ayunan mo--
ta'no mayo kang mauyunan? May Plant A Tree,
Donate a Book, Adopt a Child. Ta'no mayo nin
Sire a book, plant a child, write a tree?
Hadaw mayo nin Sue a Government Official
o baad mas magayon: Meet God in Person?
Pirming Mafia Wars an pinsan mong si Ardo--
si Saddam Hussein an nahihiling mo sa logo.
Haros gabos sa Friends List mo nagkakawat
nin harong-harong, kagrugaring nin mga baka,
manok, tuka-rig, gadya, kurasmag na marayo man.
Farmville na pahingurag na lintian.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ugayong ni Uryol
Pirang taon ta kang pinaistar sa harong ko.
Tinata’wan pa nin balon kun natitikapo.
Kun kamong magturugang mayong kinakarakan
Dinuhulan kamong sud-an hali sa sakong karihan.
Kulang na lang nganing hurungitan ko kamo.
Sako baga an dalagan mo pag mayo an ina nindo.
Ano man an pinakakan saimo kan ilusyon mo?
Lingaw ka nang ika an matuang aki kan tugang ko?
Saimo sinda maasa, Noy, gabos sa pamilya nindo.
Dai man daw linumay ka kan babaying ito?
Dai na pati kamo nasupog sa itsura nindo.
Nakaabra-siete daa, parasad-pasad sa kanto.
Dai ka pa baga tapos, Noy, dai mo girumdon?
Tapos ngonyan, daog mo pa an may agom.
Ako baga an nagparatustos sa pagpaadal saimo.
Tapos naaraman ko nang nagsasaro na kamo?
Lintian! Badong, dai mo ko pagprobaran,
‘Baad an kasaruan mo sakong makasturan.
An utang na boot, Noy, dai puwedeng bayadan.
Pero kun kamo kan babaying ito an magkadagusan
Sisingilon ta ka nanggad kan saimong mga utang.
Maglikay ka, Noy, ‘baad an ina mo an mautsan.
QatarSis
Nagbuwelta na si Manay hali sa Doha.
Dai daa klaro kun ano an trabaho niya.
An nakaagi, garong pirang bulan pa sana
Pero nagbareta siya samo; mapuli na siya.
Kadtong huring apod, yaon siya sa pabrika.
Gibuhan daa nin tela; harani sa may siyudad.
Sarong hapon, basang na lang nag-apod siya.
Nagpaparahibi; ta’ samuya pu’ngaw na daa.
Pigparaanggotan siya ni Papa pag-abot;
Inutangan pa kaya an kwartang napugrot.
Paghatod mi sa Manila iyo an pinanggastos;
Tapos ngonyan, mayo lamang daang pulos.
Dai pa ngani tulos siya kadto nakalarga;
Sinangra mi muna an sarong ektaryang oma.
Sambulan siyang naghalat sa pinsan mi sa Naga.
Astang napagaran an placement sa ahensya.
Kaya binabasol siya ni Mama ara-aldaw
Sinesermonan siya antes magpamahaw.
Kaya daa siya nagpuli ta pirming hinihidaw
An ilusyon niyang pulis na taga-Pasacao.
Sahot ni Manay, masakiton duman an trabaho.
Pirmi sindang tinatabuga kan saindang amo.
Minsan ngani daa dai makakakan sa tiempo.
Digdi na lang daa maski hababa an suweldo.
Pero sarong aga, kinaulay siya ni Papa
Garong ki Manay napu’ngaw na man siya.
Maray daa nganing yaon digdi an matua
Para may mag-ataman sa saindang duwa.
Pero dawa nagpupungot, nagsugo si Mama;
Mag-obra daa tulos siya para makaagwanta.
Maray pa daang magbalik siya sa Naga;
Ta kaipuhan nin kahera sa tindahan ni Nora.
Hinghing sako ni Manay, pabor siyang sun’don
Sugo ni Mamang sa Naga na mamuhon.
Puwedeng maghilingan sinda kan saiyang ilusyon
Basta dai ko daa siya ki Nanay isusumbong.
Sabi pa ni Manay, ako an puwede sa abroad
Ta an trabaho, maski ano, kaya kong maagod.
An kontrata daa dire-diretso, kun ako mahigos.
Kun pamilya matitios, igwa nanggad panustos.
Pag sa Qatar daa, madali lang magkuang visa.
Pero dapat andam ako kun ako na an malarga.
Dapat basog ako nin memorya kan pamilya;
Sa hadok kan ilusyon dapat ‘gurong mapurga.
Dai daa klaro kun ano an trabaho niya.
An nakaagi, garong pirang bulan pa sana
Pero nagbareta siya samo; mapuli na siya.
Kadtong huring apod, yaon siya sa pabrika.
Gibuhan daa nin tela; harani sa may siyudad.
Sarong hapon, basang na lang nag-apod siya.
Nagpaparahibi; ta’ samuya pu’ngaw na daa.
Pigparaanggotan siya ni Papa pag-abot;
Inutangan pa kaya an kwartang napugrot.
Paghatod mi sa Manila iyo an pinanggastos;
Tapos ngonyan, mayo lamang daang pulos.
Dai pa ngani tulos siya kadto nakalarga;
Sinangra mi muna an sarong ektaryang oma.
Sambulan siyang naghalat sa pinsan mi sa Naga.
Astang napagaran an placement sa ahensya.
Kaya binabasol siya ni Mama ara-aldaw
Sinesermonan siya antes magpamahaw.
Kaya daa siya nagpuli ta pirming hinihidaw
An ilusyon niyang pulis na taga-Pasacao.
Sahot ni Manay, masakiton duman an trabaho.
Pirmi sindang tinatabuga kan saindang amo.
Minsan ngani daa dai makakakan sa tiempo.
Digdi na lang daa maski hababa an suweldo.
Pero sarong aga, kinaulay siya ni Papa
Garong ki Manay napu’ngaw na man siya.
Maray daa nganing yaon digdi an matua
Para may mag-ataman sa saindang duwa.
Pero dawa nagpupungot, nagsugo si Mama;
Mag-obra daa tulos siya para makaagwanta.
Maray pa daang magbalik siya sa Naga;
Ta kaipuhan nin kahera sa tindahan ni Nora.
Hinghing sako ni Manay, pabor siyang sun’don
Sugo ni Mamang sa Naga na mamuhon.
Puwedeng maghilingan sinda kan saiyang ilusyon
Basta dai ko daa siya ki Nanay isusumbong.
Sabi pa ni Manay, ako an puwede sa abroad
Ta an trabaho, maski ano, kaya kong maagod.
An kontrata daa dire-diretso, kun ako mahigos.
Kun pamilya matitios, igwa nanggad panustos.
Pag sa Qatar daa, madali lang magkuang visa.
Pero dapat andam ako kun ako na an malarga.
Dapat basog ako nin memorya kan pamilya;
Sa hadok kan ilusyon dapat ‘gurong mapurga.
May Sarong Harong
na dai nahaman yaon naitugdok
sa gilid kan tinampo. Hali sa kinatu-
tukawan mo, tiso an pagkatugdok
kan mga harigi. Mahibog sagkod
purusog an lanob. Mga bintana
najalousiehan na. Kun hilingon
mo sa luwas pwerte an tamanyo.
Tapos an atop pininturahan pula.
Pero hali sa kinatutukawan mo,
garo kabrot an sagurong sa wala.
An lanob sa kusina dai napalitada.
An kinatutugdukan dinuduruot na.
Mahibugon an mga ba’gangan
sa prantera. Gugon sagkod balagon
nagkaranap na. An puon kan kawayan
sa may gilid kan harong nakapukan.
yaon ka sa balyong kan salming
na bintana kan Philtrancong nakaparada,
ara-atyan, an awto malarga na.
sa gilid kan tinampo. Hali sa kinatu-
tukawan mo, tiso an pagkatugdok
kan mga harigi. Mahibog sagkod
purusog an lanob. Mga bintana
najalousiehan na. Kun hilingon
mo sa luwas pwerte an tamanyo.
Tapos an atop pininturahan pula.
Pero hali sa kinatutukawan mo,
garo kabrot an sagurong sa wala.
An lanob sa kusina dai napalitada.
An kinatutugdukan dinuduruot na.
Mahibugon an mga ba’gangan
sa prantera. Gugon sagkod balagon
nagkaranap na. An puon kan kawayan
sa may gilid kan harong nakapukan.
yaon ka sa balyong kan salming
na bintana kan Philtrancong nakaparada,
ara-atyan, an awto malarga na.
Indulgencia
Ne, sabihan daw sako
kun gurano kamuraway
An makidurog sa lalaking
garo daing pinagkakautangan;
Bakong an kaglalang kundi
an sadiri niya an nahihiling
sa altar, dangan ika minaluhod
sa saiyang garo nangangadie.
Ano man daw an nginangayo-
ngayo mo saiya? Sa ritwal
na imbuwelto kamong duwa,
ano an saindong indulgencia?
Ukay Ukay
Pirang aldaw matapos mag-agi an bagyong Frank sa Iloilo, igwang nabareta na sa kasagsagan kan bagyo, manlaen-laen daang ataman na hayop an nakaburutas; tapos an iba nagkagaradan. Sa Janiuay, may mga orig na nagkaralamos ta nagkaruluom sinda sa mga tangkal; sa Maasin, igwang mga baka saka damulag na dai nakaralangoy pag-rarom kan baha kaya nagkaralamos man. Igwa man daang nagkaburuhay—sa Guimbal, may mga ayam na nagralangoy-langoy; sa ibang banwa, may mga kanding na nagkaaratong man lang. Pero sa may parte kan Jaro, igwa daang ibang mga hayop na bisan yaon lang sa tugsaran kan saindang kagsadiri, nakaburutas pa man giraray sa saindang gakod, tapos sagkod ngonyan, nawawara pa.
Magagayon pang maray an mga badong ini.
Mas bara’go pa an mga pantalon na ‘ni kaysa sa
mga nagkatarawad ko kadto sa ukay-ukay sa Leganes.
‘Puon nang magrasyon an mga ka-barangay ko sa Jaro.
Kaya sabi sako ni Father, mawalat na lang muna ‘ko
digdi sa parokya. Ilain ko na daa an mga donasyon
na ipapanagtag mi sa mga taga-Janiuay sa aga.
Kun relief an sasabihon, nangangaipo man kaming maray.
Maaati na mga bado mi; kaipuhan mi man nin masusulot.
Haros marugba ngani an harong mi pag-agi kan baha.
Irigo gayod ‘ning mga T-shirt saka short ki Christian.
Pwerte ‘ning blusang blue. Puwede ‘ni ki Shiela Mae.
haloy na si tinuga’ ko sainda; pero dai ‘ko nakakabakal.
Maray-rahay, ultimong an mga kurtina, magagayon pa.
Kadakul-dakul man pati si ibinabang donasyon hali
sa sarong Starex ‘subago. Garo duwang karton pati ‘ni
kaya pilian ko lang an saro; kaipuhan ko man ‘ni sa harong.
An Tawong Naanayo
Pagkagios kan lalaking naanáyo,
susukulon niya an lanob gamit an sarong samod;
dangan maparakanta siya sa Sagrado Corazon.
Malakaw siya pa-baybayon pag-abot
kan sinarom. Pag-agi sa may kamposanto,
masasabat niya sarong kabaong; pinuprusisyon.
Malaog siya sa simbahan, pauli pa sana
an mga gurang; sa luludhan na garaba’ saiya
may masunson, “Nag-abot ngonyan si Mamo’.
Dapat nagpabendisyon ka saiya.” Hihiribunan
siya kan mga kanturang tapos nang mag-nobena.
Hihirilingon siya; sasabihan, “Dai ka pa baga
Noy, omay. Haen na man si Lucio?” Ipapalamag
ninda an pinsan niyang sa tangá pa naglahod. Maiba
sana siya pag ‘gakod na sa hikot an kamot niya.
Sa harong, dai siya mapamanggi kan sira.
Papainumon siya ninda nin dahon na gina’ga’,
sinalakan nin suka, haloy na tinalbong sa daga.
Pero dawa ipasantigwar siya ki Nana Guling
o ipahilot pa pirang beses ki Tiyang Onding,
an lalaking naanáyo dai na mabubulong.
Pag banggi, dai tulos siya makakaturog.
Atyan na matanga’ sa bintana siya masaprang
Ara-atyan pa, an bulan aawitan niya na.
Makaturog man, pero uum-omon siya;
Mangingiturog siya ki Mamo, kaiba an mga kantura
sindang gabos naghuhuruba sa may kapilya.
susukulon niya an lanob gamit an sarong samod;
dangan maparakanta siya sa Sagrado Corazon.
Malakaw siya pa-baybayon pag-abot
kan sinarom. Pag-agi sa may kamposanto,
masasabat niya sarong kabaong; pinuprusisyon.
Malaog siya sa simbahan, pauli pa sana
an mga gurang; sa luludhan na garaba’ saiya
may masunson, “Nag-abot ngonyan si Mamo’.
Dapat nagpabendisyon ka saiya.” Hihiribunan
siya kan mga kanturang tapos nang mag-nobena.
Hihirilingon siya; sasabihan, “Dai ka pa baga
Noy, omay. Haen na man si Lucio?” Ipapalamag
ninda an pinsan niyang sa tangá pa naglahod. Maiba
sana siya pag ‘gakod na sa hikot an kamot niya.
Sa harong, dai siya mapamanggi kan sira.
Papainumon siya ninda nin dahon na gina’ga’,
sinalakan nin suka, haloy na tinalbong sa daga.
Pero dawa ipasantigwar siya ki Nana Guling
o ipahilot pa pirang beses ki Tiyang Onding,
an lalaking naanáyo dai na mabubulong.
Pag banggi, dai tulos siya makakaturog.
Atyan na matanga’ sa bintana siya masaprang
Ara-atyan pa, an bulan aawitan niya na.
Makaturog man, pero uum-omon siya;
Mangingiturog siya ki Mamo, kaiba an mga kantura
sindang gabos naghuhuruba sa may kapilya.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Ukay Ukay
Pirang aldaw matapos mag-agi an bagyong Frank sa Iloilo, igwang nabareta na sa kasagsagan kan bagyo, manlaen-laen daang ataman na hayop an nakaburutas; tapos an iba nagkagaradan. Sa Janiuay, may mga orig na nagkaralamos ta nagkaruluom sinda sa mga tangkal; sa Maasin, igwang mga baka saka damulag na dai nakaralangoy pag-rarom kan baha kaya nagkaralamos man. Igwa man daang nagkaburuhay—sa Guimbal, may mga ayam na nagralangoy-langoy; sa ibang banwa, may mga kanding na nagkaaratong man lang. Pero sa may parte kan Jaro, igwa daang ibang mga hayop na bisan yaon lang sa tugsaran kan saindang kagsadiri, nakaburutas pa man giraray sa saindang gakod, tapos sagkod ngonyan, nawawara pa.
Magagayon pang maray an mga badong ini.
Mas bara’go pa an mga pantalon na ‘ni kaysa sa
mga nagkatarawad ko kadto sa ukay-ukay sa Leganes.
‘Puon nang magrasyon an mga ka-barangay ko sa Jaro.
Kaya sabi sako ni Father, mawalat na lang muna ‘ko
digdi sa parokya. Ilain ko na daa an mga donasyon
na ipapanagtag mi sa mga taga-Janiuay sa aga.
Kun relief an sasabihon, nangangaipo man kaming maray.
Maaati na mga bado mi; kaipuhan mi man nin masusulot.
Haros marugba ngani an harong mi pag-agi kan baha.
Irigo gayod ‘ning mga T-shirt saka short ki Christian.
Pwerte ‘ning blusang blue. Puwede ‘ni ki Shiela Mae.
haloy na si tinuga’ ko sainda; pero dai ‘ko nakakabakal.
Maray-rahay, ultimong an mga kurtina, magagayon pa.
Kadakul-dakul man pati si ibinabang donasyon hali
sa sarong Starex ‘subago. Garo duwang karton pati ‘ni
kaya pilian ko lang an saro; kaipuhan ko man ‘ni sa harong.
Magagayon pang maray an mga badong ini.
Mas bara’go pa an mga pantalon na ‘ni kaysa sa
mga nagkatarawad ko kadto sa ukay-ukay sa Leganes.
‘Puon nang magrasyon an mga ka-barangay ko sa Jaro.
Kaya sabi sako ni Father, mawalat na lang muna ‘ko
digdi sa parokya. Ilain ko na daa an mga donasyon
na ipapanagtag mi sa mga taga-Janiuay sa aga.
Kun relief an sasabihon, nangangaipo man kaming maray.
Maaati na mga bado mi; kaipuhan mi man nin masusulot.
Haros marugba ngani an harong mi pag-agi kan baha.
Irigo gayod ‘ning mga T-shirt saka short ki Christian.
Pwerte ‘ning blusang blue. Puwede ‘ni ki Shiela Mae.
haloy na si tinuga’ ko sainda; pero dai ‘ko nakakabakal.
Maray-rahay, ultimong an mga kurtina, magagayon pa.
Kadakul-dakul man pati si ibinabang donasyon hali
sa sarong Starex ‘subago. Garo duwang karton pati ‘ni
kaya pilian ko lang an saro; kaipuhan ko man ‘ni sa harong.
Ugayong ni Uryol
Pirang taon ta kang pinaistar sa harong ko.
Tinata’wan ka pa nin balon kun natitikapo.
Kun kamong magturugang mayong kinakarakan
Dinuhulan kamong sud-an hali sa sakong karihan.
Kulang na lang nganing hurungitan ko kamo.
Sako baga an dalagan mo pag mayo an ina nindo.
Ano man an pinakakan saimo kan ilusyon mo?
Lingaw ka nang ika an matuang aki kan tugang ko?
Saimo sinda maasa, Noy, gabos sa pamilya nindo.
Dai man daw linumay ka kan babaying ito?
Dai na pati kamo nasupog sa itsura nindo.
Nakaabra-siete daa, parasad-pasad sa kanto.
Dai ka pa baga tapos, Noy, dai mo girumdon?
Tapos ngonyan, daog mo pa an may agom.
Ako baga an nagparatustos sa pagpaadal saimo.
Tapos naaraman ko nang nagsasaro na kamo?
Lintian! Badong, dai mo ko pagprobaran,
‘Baad an kasaruan mo sakong makasturan.
An utang na boot, Noy, dai puwedeng bayadan.
Pero kun kamo kan babaying ito an magkadagusan
Sisingilon ta ka nanggad kan saimong mga utang.
Maglikay ka, Noy, ‘baad an ina mo an mautsan.
Tinata’wan ka pa nin balon kun natitikapo.
Kun kamong magturugang mayong kinakarakan
Dinuhulan kamong sud-an hali sa sakong karihan.
Kulang na lang nganing hurungitan ko kamo.
Sako baga an dalagan mo pag mayo an ina nindo.
Ano man an pinakakan saimo kan ilusyon mo?
Lingaw ka nang ika an matuang aki kan tugang ko?
Saimo sinda maasa, Noy, gabos sa pamilya nindo.
Dai man daw linumay ka kan babaying ito?
Dai na pati kamo nasupog sa itsura nindo.
Nakaabra-siete daa, parasad-pasad sa kanto.
Dai ka pa baga tapos, Noy, dai mo girumdon?
Tapos ngonyan, daog mo pa an may agom.
Ako baga an nagparatustos sa pagpaadal saimo.
Tapos naaraman ko nang nagsasaro na kamo?
Lintian! Badong, dai mo ko pagprobaran,
‘Baad an kasaruan mo sakong makasturan.
An utang na boot, Noy, dai puwedeng bayadan.
Pero kun kamo kan babaying ito an magkadagusan
Sisingilon ta ka nanggad kan saimong mga utang.
Maglikay ka, Noy, ‘baad an ina mo an mautsan.
Dayabitis
Dai ka baya muyang pagsabihan kun ano
An puwede mong kakanon na pangudto?
Sabi kan doktor, dapat mi nang bilangon
An pagkakan mo ngonyan ta marugion
Nang entiro an mga lugad mo sa bitis.
Linutuan ka na ngani nin dikit na dilis;
Sinahog ko sa alugbati para masiram.
Tilawi muna an saimong pangudtuhan.
Maski para-pano, igwang namit ‘yan, ay.
Pero habo mo na bagang magpasaway.
Mapabakal ka pa nin kaldereta sa plaza;
Dai mo ngani aram kun ano an berdura.
Sige, ‘Tay, an bitis mo, dayaon mo na sana.
An nagdadakulang lugad, sige, parakraka.
Inutil nang maray na ika pagiromdomon
An tabletang ini kaipuhan mo nang inumon.
Mapaumay saimo an mapait na kakanon.
Mamuya ka daw na an bitis mo lagadion?
An puwede mong kakanon na pangudto?
Sabi kan doktor, dapat mi nang bilangon
An pagkakan mo ngonyan ta marugion
Nang entiro an mga lugad mo sa bitis.
Linutuan ka na ngani nin dikit na dilis;
Sinahog ko sa alugbati para masiram.
Tilawi muna an saimong pangudtuhan.
Maski para-pano, igwang namit ‘yan, ay.
Pero habo mo na bagang magpasaway.
Mapabakal ka pa nin kaldereta sa plaza;
Dai mo ngani aram kun ano an berdura.
Sige, ‘Tay, an bitis mo, dayaon mo na sana.
An nagdadakulang lugad, sige, parakraka.
Inutil nang maray na ika pagiromdomon
An tabletang ini kaipuhan mo nang inumon.
Mapaumay saimo an mapait na kakanon.
Mamuya ka daw na an bitis mo lagadion?
Bagacay, 1981
Kinalot na ninda kun sain nakalubong si Papa.
Sugo kaya kan mga tiyuon ko, pagsaruon
na lang daa sinda ni Nanay sa bagong pantyung.
Mas maray daa ‘ni para saindang duwa
saka daa sa gabos na aking nagkawaralat ninda.
Pinaluway-luway ko lang sa T’yo Doro sa pagkalot.
Nakua mi an mga restus. Humo na an kabaong.
Ralapa an barong sagkod an pantalon.
Paghaloy-haloy, may nakakua kan singsing niya.
Kinitkit ko an nadukot nang maray na daga.
Kiniskis ko ‘ni sa bado ko para malinigan.
Nagkintab an mital pero bako man bulawan.
Garong may nakasurat sa laog kan singsing.
May nababasa akong nakaukit na pangaran.
Dai ko aram may ibang apod si Papa ki Mama
Tama daw an pantyung na sinabing kaluton?
Sugo kaya kan mga tiyuon ko, pagsaruon
na lang daa sinda ni Nanay sa bagong pantyung.
Mas maray daa ‘ni para saindang duwa
saka daa sa gabos na aking nagkawaralat ninda.
Pinaluway-luway ko lang sa T’yo Doro sa pagkalot.
Nakua mi an mga restus. Humo na an kabaong.
Ralapa an barong sagkod an pantalon.
Paghaloy-haloy, may nakakua kan singsing niya.
Kinitkit ko an nadukot nang maray na daga.
Kiniskis ko ‘ni sa bado ko para malinigan.
Nagkintab an mital pero bako man bulawan.
Garong may nakasurat sa laog kan singsing.
May nababasa akong nakaukit na pangaran.
Dai ko aram may ibang apod si Papa ki Mama
Tama daw an pantyung na sinabing kaluton?
May Sarong Harong
na dai nahaman yaon naitugdok
sa gilid kan oma. Hali sa kinatu-
tukawan mo, tiso an pagkatugdok
kan mga harigi. Mahibog sagkod
purusog an lanob. Mga bintana
najalousiehan na. Kun hilingon
mo sa luwas pwerte an tamanyo.
Tapos an atop pininturahan pula.
Pero hali sa kinatutukawan mo,
garo kabrot an sagurong sa wala.
An lanob sa kusina dai napalitada.
An kinatutugdukan dinuduruot na.
Mahibugon an mga ba’gangan
sa prantera. Gugon sagkod balagon
nagkaranap na. An puon kan kawayan
sa may gilid kan harong nakapukan.
Yaon ka sa balyong kan salming
na bintana kan Philtrancong nakaparada,
ara-atyan, an awto mo malarga na.
sa gilid kan oma. Hali sa kinatu-
tukawan mo, tiso an pagkatugdok
kan mga harigi. Mahibog sagkod
purusog an lanob. Mga bintana
najalousiehan na. Kun hilingon
mo sa luwas pwerte an tamanyo.
Tapos an atop pininturahan pula.
Pero hali sa kinatutukawan mo,
garo kabrot an sagurong sa wala.
An lanob sa kusina dai napalitada.
An kinatutugdukan dinuduruot na.
Mahibugon an mga ba’gangan
sa prantera. Gugon sagkod balagon
nagkaranap na. An puon kan kawayan
sa may gilid kan harong nakapukan.
Yaon ka sa balyong kan salming
na bintana kan Philtrancong nakaparada,
ara-atyan, an awto mo malarga na.
Ni Isay Na Poncio Felato
Ne, sabihan daw sako
kun gurano kamuraway
An makidurog sa lalaking
garo daing pinagkakautangan;
Bakong an kaglalang kundi
an sadiri niya an nahihiling
sa altar, dangan ika minaluhod
sa saiyang garo nangangadie.
Ano man daw an nginangayo-
ngayo mo saiya? Sa ritwal
na imbuwelto kamong duwa,
ano an saindong indulgencia?
kun gurano kamuraway
An makidurog sa lalaking
garo daing pinagkakautangan;
Bakong an kaglalang kundi
an sadiri niya an nahihiling
sa altar, dangan ika minaluhod
sa saiyang garo nangangadie.
Ano man daw an nginangayo-
ngayo mo saiya? Sa ritwal
na imbuwelto kamong duwa,
ano an saindong indulgencia?
An Tawong Naanáyo
Pagkagios kan lalaking naanáyo,
susukulon niya an lanob gamit an sarong samod;
dangan maparakanta siya sa Sagrado Corazon.
Malakaw siya pa-baybayon pag-abot
kan sinarom. Pag-agi sa may kamposanto,
masasabat niya sarong kabaong; pinuprusisyon.
Malaog siya sa simbahan, pauli pa sana
an mga gurang; sa luludhan na garaba’ saiya
may masunson, “Nag-abot ngonyan si Mamo’.
Dapat nagpabendisyon ka saiya.” Hihiribunan
siya kan mga kanturang tapos nang mag-nobena.
Hihirilingon siya; sasabihan, “Dai ka pa baga
Noy, omay. Haen na man si Lucio?” Ipapalamag
ninda an pinsan niyang sa tangá pa naglahod. Maiba
sana siya pag ‘gakod na sa hikot an kamot niya.
Sa harong, dai siya mapamanggi kan sira.
Papainumon siya ninda nin dahon na gina’ga’,
sinalakan nin suka, haloy na tinalbong sa daga.
Pero dawa ipasantigwar siya ki Nana Guling
o ipahilot pa pirang beses ki Tiyang Onding,
an lalaking naanáyo dai na mabubulong.
Pag banggi, dai tulos siya makakaturog.
Atyan na matanga’ sa bintana siya masaprang
Ara-atyan pa, an bulan aawitan niya na.
Makaturog man, pero uum-omon siya;
Mangingiturog siya ki Mamo, kaiba an mga kantura
sindang gabos naghuhuruba sa may kapilya.
susukulon niya an lanob gamit an sarong samod;
dangan maparakanta siya sa Sagrado Corazon.
Malakaw siya pa-baybayon pag-abot
kan sinarom. Pag-agi sa may kamposanto,
masasabat niya sarong kabaong; pinuprusisyon.
Malaog siya sa simbahan, pauli pa sana
an mga gurang; sa luludhan na garaba’ saiya
may masunson, “Nag-abot ngonyan si Mamo’.
Dapat nagpabendisyon ka saiya.” Hihiribunan
siya kan mga kanturang tapos nang mag-nobena.
Hihirilingon siya; sasabihan, “Dai ka pa baga
Noy, omay. Haen na man si Lucio?” Ipapalamag
ninda an pinsan niyang sa tangá pa naglahod. Maiba
sana siya pag ‘gakod na sa hikot an kamot niya.
Sa harong, dai siya mapamanggi kan sira.
Papainumon siya ninda nin dahon na gina’ga’,
sinalakan nin suka, haloy na tinalbong sa daga.
Pero dawa ipasantigwar siya ki Nana Guling
o ipahilot pa pirang beses ki Tiyang Onding,
an lalaking naanáyo dai na mabubulong.
Pag banggi, dai tulos siya makakaturog.
Atyan na matanga’ sa bintana siya masaprang
Ara-atyan pa, an bulan aawitan niya na.
Makaturog man, pero uum-omon siya;
Mangingiturog siya ki Mamo, kaiba an mga kantura
sindang gabos naghuhuruba sa may kapilya.
Harong-harong
Kakakanon niya pa kuta an bahaw na bangus,
Na binakal niya sa carenderia pag-duty
kansubanggi pero tinataranga na.
Kan pinarong niya ini, mapa’nuson na.
Apodon niya daw an agom para magluto nin panira?
Dai gayod ta aram niya na an sasabihon kaini—
Ika daw maglaba maghapon!
‘Hapoton niya daw kun anong gustong kakanon
tibaad pu’ngot lang an isimbag saiya.
Magsala—baad ngonyan inabutan pa.
Tama man daw sabihan niya na an agom:
Mag-urulian na kita nin kandila?
Garo habo niya pa man.
Sa planta na lang siya makakan.
Dai na siya puwedeng magpalta.
Otro semana na an singil sa arkila.
Maray pa kaidto pag naghaharong-harong sinda ni Nora,
grabe an gama-gama niyang maka-uli man daa
sa saindang payag-payag sa likod kan bubon
ta may naluto nang pamanggihan an agom-agom niya.
Tapos siya may dara man daang
kuwara-kwartang itatao niya ki Nora
ta panggastos sa harong, pambakal
bagas-bagas na mga pisog kan ipil-ipil;
sira na mga dahon-dahon sa may gilid kan kali.
May pambakal pa nin lana-lanang pinuga sa gumamela
ipinapabakal na Lala sa balyong harong-harong.
Makakan-kakan man daa sindang sabay
kan linutong mga dahon sagkod kahoy.
Siya mapahiran-hiran kaupod an babaying kakawat.
Pag sinarom, aapodon na si Nora kan tugang niya.
Siya man mapuli na sa harong ninda.
Pag arog ka’yan, aram niyang harabuan na.
Na binakal niya sa carenderia pag-duty
kansubanggi pero tinataranga na.
Kan pinarong niya ini, mapa’nuson na.
Apodon niya daw an agom para magluto nin panira?
Dai gayod ta aram niya na an sasabihon kaini—
Ika daw maglaba maghapon!
‘Hapoton niya daw kun anong gustong kakanon
tibaad pu’ngot lang an isimbag saiya.
Magsala—baad ngonyan inabutan pa.
Tama man daw sabihan niya na an agom:
Mag-urulian na kita nin kandila?
Garo habo niya pa man.
Sa planta na lang siya makakan.
Dai na siya puwedeng magpalta.
Otro semana na an singil sa arkila.
Maray pa kaidto pag naghaharong-harong sinda ni Nora,
grabe an gama-gama niyang maka-uli man daa
sa saindang payag-payag sa likod kan bubon
ta may naluto nang pamanggihan an agom-agom niya.
Tapos siya may dara man daang
kuwara-kwartang itatao niya ki Nora
ta panggastos sa harong, pambakal
bagas-bagas na mga pisog kan ipil-ipil;
sira na mga dahon-dahon sa may gilid kan kali.
May pambakal pa nin lana-lanang pinuga sa gumamela
ipinapabakal na Lala sa balyong harong-harong.
Makakan-kakan man daa sindang sabay
kan linutong mga dahon sagkod kahoy.
Siya mapahiran-hiran kaupod an babaying kakawat.
Pag sinarom, aapodon na si Nora kan tugang niya.
Siya man mapuli na sa harong ninda.
Pag arog ka’yan, aram niyang harabuan na.
Sa Talipapa sa Felix Plazo
Luminagapak
an kutsilyo
sa pigi kan
karneng orig.
Nagdudurugo
pa, kinilo niya na
na ara-atyan gigi-
bohon kong liempo.
An tindero
garo soltero.
Kulas an ngaran
siguro
mga
diseotso.
an kutsilyo
sa pigi kan
karneng orig.
Nagdudurugo
pa, kinilo niya na
na ara-atyan gigi-
bohon kong liempo.
An tindero
garo soltero.
Kulas an ngaran
siguro
mga
diseotso.
QatarSis
Nagbuwelta na si Manay hali sa Doha.
Dai daa klaro kun ano an trabaho niya.
An nakaagi, garong pirang bulan pa sana
Pero nagbareta siya samo; mapuli na siya.
Kadtong huring apod, yaon siya sa pabrika.
Gibuhan daa nin tela; harani sa may siyudad.
Sarong hapon, basang na lang nag-apod siya.
Nagpaparahibi; ta’ samuya pu’ngaw na daa.
Pigparaanggotan siya ni Papa pag-abot;
Inutangan pa kaya an kwartang napugrot.
Paghatod mi sa Manila iyo an pinanggastos;
Tapos ngonyan, mayo lamang daang pulos.
Dai pa ngani tulos siya kadto nakalarga;
Sinangra mi muna an sarong ektaryang oma.
Sambulan siyang naghalat sa pinsan mi sa Naga.
Astang napagaran an placement sa ahensya.
Kaya binabasol siya ni Mama ara-aldaw
Sinesermonan siya antes magpamahaw.
Kaya daa siya nagpuli ta pirming hinihidaw
An ilusyon niyang pulis na taga-Pasacao.
Sahot ni Manay, masakiton duman an trabaho.
Pirmi sindang tinatabuga kan saindang amo.
Minsan ngani daa dai makakakan sa tiempo.
Digdi na lang daa maski hababa an suweldo.
Pero sarong aga, kinaulay siya ni Papa
Garong ki Manay napu’ngaw na man siya.
Maray daa nganing yaon digdi an matua
Para may mag-ataman sa saindang duwa.
Pero dawa nagpupungot, nagsugo si Mama;
Mag-obra daa tulos siya para makaagwanta.
Maray pa daang magbalik siya sa Naga;
Ta kaipuhan nin kahera sa tindahan ni Nora.
Hinghing sako ni Manay, pabor siyang sun’don
Sugo ni Mamang sa Naga na mamuhon.
Puwedeng maghilingan sinda kan saiyang ilusyon
Basta dai ko daa siya ki Nanay isusumbong.
Sabi pa ni Manay, ako an puwede sa abroad
Ta an trabaho, maski ano, kaya kong maagod.
An kontrata daa dire-diretso, kun ako mahigos.
Kun pamilya matitios, igwa nanggad panustos.
Pag sa Qatar daa, madali lang magkuang visa.
Pero dapat andam ako kun ako na an malarga.
Dapat basog ako nin memorya kan pamilya;
Sa hadok kan ilusyon dapat ‘gurong mapurga.
Dai daa klaro kun ano an trabaho niya.
An nakaagi, garong pirang bulan pa sana
Pero nagbareta siya samo; mapuli na siya.
Kadtong huring apod, yaon siya sa pabrika.
Gibuhan daa nin tela; harani sa may siyudad.
Sarong hapon, basang na lang nag-apod siya.
Nagpaparahibi; ta’ samuya pu’ngaw na daa.
Pigparaanggotan siya ni Papa pag-abot;
Inutangan pa kaya an kwartang napugrot.
Paghatod mi sa Manila iyo an pinanggastos;
Tapos ngonyan, mayo lamang daang pulos.
Dai pa ngani tulos siya kadto nakalarga;
Sinangra mi muna an sarong ektaryang oma.
Sambulan siyang naghalat sa pinsan mi sa Naga.
Astang napagaran an placement sa ahensya.
Kaya binabasol siya ni Mama ara-aldaw
Sinesermonan siya antes magpamahaw.
Kaya daa siya nagpuli ta pirming hinihidaw
An ilusyon niyang pulis na taga-Pasacao.
Sahot ni Manay, masakiton duman an trabaho.
Pirmi sindang tinatabuga kan saindang amo.
Minsan ngani daa dai makakakan sa tiempo.
Digdi na lang daa maski hababa an suweldo.
Pero sarong aga, kinaulay siya ni Papa
Garong ki Manay napu’ngaw na man siya.
Maray daa nganing yaon digdi an matua
Para may mag-ataman sa saindang duwa.
Pero dawa nagpupungot, nagsugo si Mama;
Mag-obra daa tulos siya para makaagwanta.
Maray pa daang magbalik siya sa Naga;
Ta kaipuhan nin kahera sa tindahan ni Nora.
Hinghing sako ni Manay, pabor siyang sun’don
Sugo ni Mamang sa Naga na mamuhon.
Puwedeng maghilingan sinda kan saiyang ilusyon
Basta dai ko daa siya ki Nanay isusumbong.
Sabi pa ni Manay, ako an puwede sa abroad
Ta an trabaho, maski ano, kaya kong maagod.
An kontrata daa dire-diretso, kun ako mahigos.
Kun pamilya matitios, igwa nanggad panustos.
Pag sa Qatar daa, madali lang magkuang visa.
Pero dapat andam ako kun ako na an malarga.
Dapat basog ako nin memorya kan pamilya;
Sa hadok kan ilusyon dapat ‘gurong mapurga.
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