In the Library

In the library, the student
reads the dailies all the time
when he should be reading thick
hardbound books, reams of unbound
photocopies and scented paperbacks.

He better understands things
with headlines, pictures, quotation marks,
sidebars and captions—color, conversation, movement,
height, weight, breadth render flesh to abstractions
which are as vague as the next day,
blur like his significant other,
and seem the Sahara and Atlantic.

How come he prefers to devour the fish smell
of the cheaper pulp to the soft,
or hard covers which seem more edible
with some coffee-in the-table?

Inside the library, the student
each time finds a character immersed
in every day’s color, conversation,
movement, weight, breadth, depth.



October 2003

Horophorop

Susog sa “Meditations” ni Frances K. Ng

2000


Sa lindong kan mararambong na acacia,
Tinitiripon ta an mga simbolo
Kan mga nawara tang mga sadiri.

Sa lugar na ini kita trangkilo.

Sa limpoy, an mga lakad ta
Pasiring bako man sa pagsosolo-solo,
Bako man parayo sa pagsolo-solo,
haman na man kitang solo-solo.

Digdi iling tang nakikipagkawat an doros sa mga daon
Sa palibot niato, nadadangog ta an doros sa satong hinangos.

Nadudu’tan ta an kalayo kung kita nagkakapotan,
Dangan narerealizar ta an kalayo dai nakakapaso
kundi nakakatanyog.

Sa papel nakakapotan ta an init kan saldang,
Sa papel minadahilig an gabos tang katotoohan.

Kita man nanggad tubig, daing linderos, nagbabahod-bahod,
Nag-aantabay tibaad igwang sirang magpulag,
mabahod an doros na satong hinangos.

Nagi na man nanggad kitang mga Elemento.
Huna ninda kinorondenar na kita. Pero dai.

Sa pagtalbong kan mga pangaran ta sa daga na iyo man sana kita,
Nagigi na kitang mga amigo kan kadlagan kun saen kita sigeng rabas.

Bakon man peligroso an kalayo ta an tubig nagsisigbo.
Bakong bagyo an doros kun an kahoy pusog.
Bakong delikado an tubig kun an doros na nagpapahangos nanggad sato,
dawa sa madiklomon nang danaw.

Asin an daga iyo man giraray an inulnan ta,
Dawa ngani kita namundag na.

January 30, 2002

Ignorance and innocence

Sometime in the past, I happened to watch Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, a Palme d’Or winner in the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Based on the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Jefferson, Colorado, the film documents the facts, fictions, and similar realities in US high schools.

The camera panned out to the typical day in high school where ordinary and working students, high-class family members converge in an academic institution to study, play, work, or simply endure the day.

The film outraged my sense of normalcy and sanity when it showed how one student in the school entered the school and started killing students, teachers, staff and everyone else in the campus, as if he is in a Counterstrike game. Together with a classmate, the rebel student barraged the classrooms and school buildings with his high-powered firearm that he ordered through the internet and was delivered to his home when his parents went out to work.

The other students who are the main characters in the story would either survive or end up dead—depending on the circumstances they were in. In the end, the boy killed his own partner when he did not have anyone else to kill. In fact, the movie ended with the same boy cornering a boy and a girl who sneaked into the cafeteria’s kitchen to escape the terror, to no avail.

According to a source, the Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 at  Columbine High School , in Jefferson County, Colorado, near the cities of Denver and Littleton. Two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, carried out a shooting rampage, killing twelve fellow students and a teacher, as well as wounding twenty-four others, before committing suicide. It is considered to be the deadliest school shooting, and the second deadliest attack on a school in US History.

A website source cites that the massacre provoked intense public debate on gun control laws and the availability of assault weapons in the United States. “Much discussion also centered on the nature of high school cliques and bullying, as well as the role of violent movies and video games in American society. Several of the victims who were mistakenly believed to have been killed due to their religious beliefs became a source of inspiration to others, notably Christians, and led some to lament the decline of religion in public education and society in general.”

As a consequence, the shooting also resulted in an increased emphasis on school security, and a moral panic aimed at goth culture, heavy metal music, social pariahs, the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by teenagers, violent movies and  violent video games.”

This world of ours ever witnesses a culture of violence every single day. Watching the movie, though, has made me think how our simple acts of indifference and apathy creep into the souls of people around us; and how, in fact, such acts affect them to do something worse than how they perceived such indifference.

It has also sent me into securing materials that could otherwise promote love and cooperation among students in the school where I taught. Consciously I started using class-motivation materials which could instill a sense of teamwork, self-respect and love.

For one, I used Blessid Union of Souls’ “I Believe” to help seniors in their pronunciation exercises. It’s a second look at racism and how we can help trash such stale, prejudiced attitude. To discuss ballads with the juniors, I used Cesar Verdeflor’s “22 Años” and Noel Cabangon’s “Lea,” two modern folk ballads that highlight the lives of men and women in the Philippine context. I also shelved Roman Polanski’s Macbeth [1971] produced by Playboy Productions. I willingly did so because of its violent content—the decapitation of the king as he succumbed to the consequences of his own greed and vainglory.

On the other hand, I used Asin’s “Ikaw, Kayo, Tayo” in order to promote to the schoolpaper's staff members their social responsibility as future journalists who are critics of the present society. The song inspires in them they have to recognize their own roles in order to effect change in the society—which is I think—why we are teaching high school students in the first place.

More important, I contemplated using Noel Cabangon’s “Awit para sa mga Bata.” In that song, Noel Cabangon does make a staunch statement on having to destroy the barriers between youth of all classes in society. Social realities make it clear that people exist on social classes; they sometimes live their respective stratum in society, its respective needs and wants, its sense of values or the lack of them.

Today’s young people are the chances of this present generation to redeem itself from tyranny, moral degeneration, and the indifference of its constituents. They are indispensable aces in life’s poker game—so to speak—where players by the name of ignorance, gross lack of knowledge and immorality have everything destined for them.

Today’s youth are the opportunities in life that rather pass unnoticed because of the grownup’s shortsightedness and self-absorption. Such dismal realities are driven primarily by guilt for its past sinfulness and misguided militancy, efforts wrongly directed and motivations largely by angst and malice.

Let the children’s free will and intellect do much of the reckoning. Let their freedom allow them to be themselves—happy and free.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

The moral degeneration of today’s youth is determined by where—what environment, forces, influences, temperaments—they are situated, where they live. By and large, they just live the culture that imposes itself on them.

Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love.
 

What's in a Name?

Names are simply wonderful. Take the case of these three that follow.

MILENYO
As far as we could remember, typhoons in the past were named after women or their nicknames. In 1970, we were submerged by the evil Sining; in the 80s, we were left homeless by the stronger-than-man Anding, and in the 90s, we suffered from the ravaging Rosing just before Christmas. Towards the new millennium, these destructive typhoons still bore these names, until the time the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical & Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) started a new nomenclature of these sinister weather disturbances, naming them Jolina, Manny, Isko, or that of any icon or symbol we Filipinos are familiar with.

Somehow, they became household names because they sounded so familiar—though previously, the entire irony is that these violent natural calamities are so named virtually after our very own mothers, aunts, or grand matriarchs—the ones who otherwise nurture us through our lives. Such move to change the system of naming typhoons is a nice gesture to the gender-sensitive and family-loving race that we are.

Meanwhile, Milenyo, the typhoon that recently ravaged the country, was aptly named because of the destruction of some provinces in our country. The name itself is a heavy one, [millennium means a thousand years]. In reality, a thousand years may entail a lot of things for us Filipinos. In this long span of time, many uneventful things can happen—from the lives and livelihood lost in the countryside to the worsened state of the urban poor in our major cities.

The hard rain and persistent winds which we must have ignored the past days was, in fact, destructive that it claimed lives of other people. This may have not mattered to us not because we are oblivious to the lives of other people but simply because “we are not affected”—it is okay even if it rains forever outside our homes, as long as the water does not flood our kitchen. But the headlines read, “Milenyo pounds Panay,” or “Wicked Weather,” so Milenyo indeed was not just another typhoon—it put some of our provinces in the state of calamity. What a sad country.

On a lighter side, those who named the PAGASA must be credited for the “hope” and optimism that the acronym provides [despite the bad news it always brings to the public]. While it constantly heralds the sad state of our weather, it also brings hope by telling us we can do much to prepare for such calamities. Like the other calamities that struck us, what should Milenyo teach us, then?

In any millennium perhaps, past or forthcoming, we can gradually teach ourselves that such works of Nature are not our creation; neither are they God’s imperfect creations. Some consider them one of his designs to make us seek him, occasionally. In the midst of all these misfortunes, the always best thing to hope for is the Divine Providence. As he himself said, he will be with us, for sure, in any millennium.

FRANKLIN
As in Franklin Drilon, the ex-Senate president. As in Benjamin Franklin, the great American. Aye, there goes the rub—the name bearer is quite obsessed with self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps pressured by his name itself.

Drilon’s first name precedes him at least to him. His recent anxious political behavior must have been created by the pressure of the name “Franklin,” the American who was everyman—inventor, author, diplomat, everyone. I first heard this name in the late 80s, when Drilon was a member of the Cory cabinet or something. But through the years in public service, Drilon must have made bad and unfavorable choices in his career [sounds like the life of Rosanna Roces according to film critic Nestor Torre] that his name cannot just be plainly equated with his other namesakes [what other name could be more intimidating than the name of two American presidents]—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or FDR, the great American president, and of course, Benjamin Franklin, the “lightning guy” in our Science class.

All his life, this former Senate president must have long thought of reaching the top, disposed to live the lives of these two American greats. But what has priced ambition? Or more aptly, what have priced ambition? Loyalty, sincerity, integrity, consistency [roughly, they all mean the same thing]—yes, these might be the costs of misconstrued militancy, of the very high idealism gone haywire. “Frank”ly, some people say the road to greatness is paved, and that it is the road less traveled because not everyone is fit to traverse it.

GLORIA
This is the first name of the president of the Republic of the Philippines. Despite the country’s economic ups and downs, everyone thinks that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is just commendable for having survived all odds—from the attacks of the opposition to the challenges posed to the Philippine economy by its rotting politics. True to her name, “Gloria” spells a person’s triumph or victory overcoming odds, or tritely enough, making the ends meet, for her countrymen.

For one, “glory” means magnificence, or splendor, or brilliance. Whichever way, GMA does some justice and truth with her name. Despite what her too cynical detractors think, this country is doing just fine. Despite what other people say that we have gone to the dogs, this country is doing just fine. Perhaps thanks to the people who do not matter much to Gloria—the nongovernmental organizations, the Church, and to the very least, the local government altogether help the country proceed to somewhere definite.

Despite what the media do to either inform or misinform us about the real stuff Gloria and her men [armed, most of them are] are made of, we can do just little to alter such reality because they are there to make things happen for us, unless we take our part.

So we can just be sorry if we do not bask in the glory of this present administration because we hardly see its benefits to us. If all else fails in our part of the world—from our backyard to the public school toilets—we cannot do much but bear the brunt—be more self-sacrificing, work in silence until the time everything is indeed tolerable in our country so much so that we could exclaim, “To God be the glory!”

Names are indeed wonderful. In some senses, they mean what they are—and as we have seen, they sometimes are what they mean. Three names, three senses, three insights—they make sense to us because we can make them mean a number of things, according to our experiences, according to our lives.

One Night in Smallville

In a way, the youth is simply wasted on the young.

I found this out last weekend when my wife Dulce Maria and I celebrated her birthday Saturday night at the Smallville, the famous gimik joint catering to overworked and beer-hungry young professionals in this city.

We were on our way out of the Pirates Disco when two young men started a ruckus at the comfort room area. Just in time, we were right there when the altercation started. The security guard mediating them was thrown off, so that he let them loose, and they scampered toward the narrow hall where they surprised people going to the CR.

After causing commotion from the comfort room [we found out that they belonged to two different groups at the Shipwreck restaurant], the group retreated out of the dining area towards MO2, the other establishment where they were chased by the guards. Later, when we managed to transfer to the Annex, as unruffled as we could be, we just heard two shots fired.

I did not know what else happened there. I, for one, chose not to get involved by seeming to ignore the ruckus, though almost everyone [it is human instinct to be curious of anything that is out of ordinary] seemed interested to find out what it was.

Whatever it was, I did not bother to find out anymore as Dulce became nervous about the whole thing. I just waited for her to go out of the Annex’s CR and calm down. Later, I asked the guard if it was okay to proceed to go out of the open street exiting to the Diversion Road.

I should say we were lucky that all these happened when we were already on our way out after enjoying a groovy hour-or-so routine of the D’Exposure Band who performed bubbly covers of Diana King, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and other R&B queens. In fact, the ruckus occurred past midnight so that Dulce even conjured it did not happen on her birthday anymore.

Of course, what was most important was that we were safe. But I think we were saved from trouble because we chose to be so. Despite that people there seemed bothered by the fuss, all I thought then was that it was all child’s play, knowing that it stemmed from a rather immature act.

I could say the ones involved were too young to be young professionals. They were, in fact, students having a nightout. I could surmise they were students, college or maybe even high-school dropouts [at least, based primarily on their behavior]—whatever the case, they are members of an academic community where they are supposed to be taught manners—at the very least, self-control—simply translated—“keeping one’s cool.”

Sadly, businesses such as discos cannot at all control and even contain their clientele. The offenders [or more plainly riot-makers] were kids. They’re yet on their way to grow up. And because they “can’t hardly wait,” so to speak, they are there to make trouble because that is how they know they will matter, at least to their peers.

There is some truth when we pause to value the importance of respecting the elders [and what they say]. It is they who usually tell us to keep away from trouble [literally and figuratively]; they are also the ones who insist that we be obedient and kind—all these, in brief, kind of translates into—we have to “keep our cool.”

It's funny that we young people perhaps find such pieces of advice too folksy—baduy, makaluma, or even obsolete. In fact, though, they are rather conventional. By this we mean, they stick to conventions, or they are done according to the way things are usually done.

Doing something conventional means doing the proper way things are done because they make sense and because they simply save us from trouble. Indeed, the youth is wasted on the young; and the old, luckily, are old enough to know better.

Doyong

When I was younger, I would go to my uncle’s house to read old copies of Balalong and Bikol Banner, two city publications where my uncle worked as a serious journalist in the 1980s. Of course, these two papers folded up even before I could grow up—most probably because the politician financiers were ousted from “public service.”

Many times I would sneak into their house to read them, or simply look at my uncle’s article and photograph on the paper. The sight was interesting to me—someone was saying something and his face was there for the reader to see.

I would always want to see and [read] my uncle’s weekly columns. Some of them were prized possessions in their cabinet—piles of newspaper issues perhaps stored for posterity, until typhoons came and went and soaked them all to oblivion. I also heard [of] him as a news broadcaster hosting commentary programs on the local radio station. Later I just learned he stopped being a radio man.

Being the eldest son, Doyong, (the corrupted form of "Junior," or the more pejorative "Dayunyor"), my uncle would now and then publicly brandish his worth as a media person to us—his nephews and nieces—even his children—that principles are what he stood for, thus his work.

In my mother's family, he was the one who worked for the media. While my grandparents took pride in that, some folks—it seemed to me—just could not agree or were at all satisfied by the whole idea. Media work has always appealed to him that until now, I was told, he is still working for a political clan in Camarines Sur in most of their media or publication projects.

His love of words has been pervasive that in one of our clan reunions—sometime in 1985—her children [my cousins] staged a strike, hoisting placards protesting against “measures” enforced by Lolo Meling and Lola Eta [themselves the status quo owning the poultry and livestock that provided the grand family's livelihood]—perfectly mimicking the turbulent scenes apparent during the Marcos regime.

Just like any writer, my uncle has sincerely professed the love of words. He loves words, and fortunately he profits from it, not like other journalists and media persons who may have just been enslaved by it. My uncle has been a PR man most of his life—serving people in government positions. And as a journalist, he had many political connections. For a time, he even worked as vice-mayor in our town.

Just like a popular mediaman, he can easily ask projects from the governor or congressman of this clan—having been friends with them for so long now. And in one-time projects involving a large amount of money, his family is largely to benefit, his media practice is occasionally profitable that their lives suddenly change in an instant.

But like most journalists serving the interests of politicians, my uncle and his family would sometimes wallow in poverty—simply, that gross lack of means to sustain themselves. Many times he and his family went hungry because of such choice of profession.

But these were all before. Now, things have changed for him and his family as he has had his first set of grandchildren. His eldest daughter is making her own name in the provincial capitol; while all their children are three of their children are all settled. Things are simply looking up for my uncle and his family.

In the past, his love of words had long started a family and earned for it their means of sustenance—and truly, deprived them of better opportunities. Yet, until now perhaps—such love of words has not given him up. Or shall I say—he has not given up on what he has chosen to do all his life. 

How I Lived, and What I Lived For

In college I was approached by our neighbors to write letters to their foster parents under the PLAN International. Free of charge, I would write the letter for an American or German benefactor. After I had written the letter, the neighbor’s mother would send to our household food or anything 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 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. I also remember 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 shots in a basketball court, I was being groomed to becoming a student writer. Having good English skills, in fact, is a prized possession in school, in college and in the world.

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 a lot. English was one subject that I could not trade for any computer game—a leisurely activity which I could hardly afford.

There was no stopping me from reading books, or 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 former 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. 

Hitler

Meet Hitler, Uncle Badong’s black dog.

Was he a cousin? brother? son-in-law? Of Gandhi.

I am not sure now. [What I am just sure of is that my uncles in the libod have been an educated lot when it comes to the affairs of the world that they named the best friends of their households after the icons of their lives.]

Hitler seemed notorious to anyone who would have to go to Uncle Badong’s house for any instance—her daughter Donna’s birthday bash, Sandra’s first communion, or Zaldo’s baptism. While relishing an exceptional maja blanca prepared by Auntie Dothy, any visitor would be gripped by this subconscious fear that he might be bitten by an otherwise indifferent and apathetic Hitler, that would from time to time be leashed and unleashed by his masters because of the dog’s unpredictable fierceness. Or maybe it was just the fierceness perceived because of his name but which has not at all been proven.

Hitler’s blackness was one of elegance. His hair shimmered in the dark, much like the dog in Madonna’s Frozen video. But his notoriety is forgivable. He was the buddy of the maternal Gandhi, and among us cousins it was knowledge that some of the later offspring came from this couple. While Gandhi was famed as one that would sneak in Auntie Dotie’s toilet to eat the fragrant Safeguard soap, Hitler was the one that roamed baybay [shoreline] by himself. I think he must have fathered some generations of dogs in that other sitio along the San Miguel Bay.

But the dog proved to be kinder than his German namesake. Maybe it was all his master’s rage that he named him after the German madman.

In the Chapel

In the chapel, you were never prepared to act out your faith, perhaps in the grandest manner, along with the worshiping crowd. There was always this force that kept you from being calm or still while you knelt in one of the pews. You just hoped you could hear a voice, One that you have always badly wanted to hear, but has never spoken a word.

Chinese Proverbs

Write a book.

Plant a tree.

Sire a son.

--An Aki

Write a tree.

Sire a book.

Plant a son.

--Ama Nia

Plant a book.

Sire a tree.

Write a son.

--Lolo Hun Nia

Special Non-Working Holiday

Gusto mong mag-uli sa San Nicolas.

Pero harayo an lugar na natubragan mo.

Nuarin ka daw makaduman giraray

sa kamposanto? Makabisita saimong

parte daryo? Makahigda sa may kamalig

sa libod kan dakulang harong?

Sa nagima'tan mong duyan sa Ilawod?

Ano na daw an hitsura kan harong?

Kumusta na man daw sa Joel duman?

Darakula na siguro si mga tinubong mo.

Ano daw, napagaran si moroso sa daga?

Napapaihi ka. Napapaudo. Atyan

makarigos ka na lang, tibaad mawara

sana ining mga guniguni. Siguro init kan

lawas sana. Ngapit sa aga mayo na 'ni.