Speaking In Tongues

Basi wala man gid sing kaayuhan
dito sa balat ng lupa. Tibaad an 
tanan nga mga bagay sa kalibutan 
waay man sing kamanungdanan.

Human as you are, you doubt a lot of things, including the purpose of your existence or more particularly your happiness. You realize now that maybe life is futile. All efforts you have been making will not make sense in the future. You stop for a while and start asking—what if?

Baad dai mo man kinahanglan matultulan
an mga pulong sang kamatuoran, if at all.
Is it not that you must live the very words 
na inspired ni Bro & not just read about him?

In the past you read books and stuff so they could tell you how to live well, at least. But now every busyness you have occupied yourself with, all the times you have spent your life doing them do not just seem to add up. One day, you just started seeking some Truth in your own little truths. You see that hardly anything convinces you. So you further question—what if your truths may not all be true? What is better to do?

Kay you’d just tend to ask more questions 
re this Prince of Peace —the way, truth, life—
than just easily tag a photo of him.

It is your faith in Something that bothers you every night in your bed. Despite all the efforts to shelve it, questions whether it is worth it just don’t go away. It is not enough for you to simply believe. You do not really know what you’ve believed in for so long. You cannot just believe. You doubt and these doubts make your life difficult. 

Basi simpli sana man an boot silingon 
sang mga sugilanon sa ginatawag 
nga salvation history: An aton kaluwasan 
Daw nabal-an na man kahit noon pa 
ng sabi nila’y isang bula-an na poeta:
“Have Come, Am Here,” sabi niya.

It is the things you used to believe in that you don’t believe anymore. Your faith now is something you question. You ask of the time when you really believed.

You take the advice of those who came before you. They must have been faced the same question as you are and must have pondered their whole lives deciphering for some sensible answers. You consider someone who was haunted the same question, for one:

Okun basi sakto gid man si San Agustin—
“My soul is restless” kuno “until it rests 
in thee...” or something to that effect.

You seek to forget all these worries you have. To you they do not matter. “Live relaxed”—as an ad tells you, you just take things easy. You take courage to let things pass, and you seek not to doubt. You wonder if you can put all these doubts in a disposable bag, and wait for the garbage man to take them away. Reduce—simplify—reconsider?

Bakong sabi ta simpli man lang?
An hapot eu ni, in ur lyf, wer &
wen & how ds He take efkt?

Garo palan bulong, may taking effect; 
garo ordinance, may effect ti vi ty.

You wonder when you’ll stop rationalizing things. When you will know some things should be understood not with your head but with your heart. You ask why a strange phrase always sounds so cliché.

Bakong an sabi daa sana man simpli? Uni.
1 message received: “Wer na u? here na He.”

Tamis-Anghang

Maharang, Mahamis na Literatura sa Mga Tataramon na Bikol

(Sweets and Spices in the Languages of Bikol) 

Ni Paz Verdades Santos

De la Salle University Press, 2010

Kan nakaaging Hunyo 2010, piglagda kan De La Salle University (DLSU) Press an limang electronic books o e-books, sarong masasabing breakthrough kan Academic Publications Office kan nasabi nang unibersidad sa pangengenot ni Dr. Isagani R. Cruz, saro sa pinakamaurag na kritiko sa Pilipinas ngonyan.

Saro sa mga nasabing libro iyo an Maharang, Mahamis na Literatura sa Mga Tataramon na Bikol (Sweets and Spices in the Languages of Bikol) ni Paz Verdades Santos, profesora sa literatura kan nasambit nang unibersidad. 

Sa pagpangita sagkod pagtiripon ni Santos kan mga rawitdawit, osipon sagkod dula kan mga nag-agi na sagkod kontemporaryong parasurat sa Bikol, nagkatiripon niya an hamis sagkod an harang kan Bikolnon na sensibilidad, kan Bikolnon na orag. 

HARD TIMES

Mababasa an e-book na ini sa paagi na kan computer 

asin bako kan papel. Bako na siyang hard copy, 

hardened copy na an uso ngonyan, kawasa.

Pinirili ni Santos an mga obra susog sa kun ano an naitabang kan mga ini sa Bikol—an valor sa pagkanood kan mabasa sa mga ini, an saindang orihinal na Bikol na savor, sagkod an inaapod ni Santos na peculiar Bikol turn of phrase. 

Segun sa nasabi nang mga pansukol, an mga akda sa libro iyo an makakapanaysay kan maurag (best) sagkodmagayon (beautiful) sa literaturang Bikol.

Dai man nanggad gayod mapantayan an lista kan mga kaglagda sa librong ini. Kabali digdi iyo an obra ni Rudy Alano, sarong dating maestro kan literatura sa Ateneo de Naga na nagtabang magpauswag kan pagtukdo sagkod pag-adal kan vernacular literature sa nasabing institusyon. Kan kasagsagan kan dekada 70 sagkod 80, nagpasali si Alano nin dakul na dula sa Bikol sa Ateneo. Tuminalikod na sa kinaban si Alano ngonyan na taon. 

Kaayon sa libro an obra kan estudyante ni Alano na si Frank Peñones, Jr., na nagawadan nin CCP literary grant kan taon 1991. Segun ki Dr. Ma Lilia Realubit, sarong antiguhan nang scholar sa Bikol, kan dekada 1990s nakabulig an mga obra ni Peñones ta nganing mabuhay giraray an Bikolnon na pagsurat sa rehiyon.

Siring man an mga osipon ninda Ana Calixto sagkod Gloria Racelis na nalagda sa Bikolana sagkod Bicolandia kan mga dekada 1950s. Mga istoryang moral an “Dupyas” ni Calixto sagkod “An Doktor” ni Racelis, na minatukar man kan mga dichotomies na taga-bayan/taga-bukid, halimbawa na sana baga.

Tampok an mga obra ninda Abdon Balde, Jr.; Jason Chancoco; Kristian Cordero; Marne Kilates; Jaime Jesus Borlagdan; Victor Dennis Nierva; Judith Balares-Salamat; Marissa Reorizo Casillan; Gode Calleja sagkod Estelito Jacob, apwera na sana sa iba. 

Enot man digdi nalagda an “Handiong,” sarong full-length play na sinurat ninda Orfelina Tuy sagkod Fe Ico kan dekada 1970s bilang sarong project kan sinda nagtutukdo pa sa Naga Central School.

Nin huli ta an mga obra gibo kan manlaen laen na parasurat sa ronang Bikol, an namit kan lengwahe hali man sa kun saen saen na lugar sa Bicol. Dangan magayon sa librong ini iyo an pagbali kan mga English translations kan gabos na obrang Bikol, sarong dai matatawaran na oportunidad para maintindihan kan ibang Pilipino an henyo kan Bikolano.

Espesyal an libro kawasa mababasa sana ini sa paagi kan Amazon Kindle, sarong software sagkod hardware platformna disenyo kan Amazon.com. Electronic file sana an babakalon mo para mo mabasa an mga obrang ini. Saro ning pinakaenot sa istorya kan literaturang Bikol.

An libro iyo an obra maestra ni Maestra, si Dr. Paz Verdades Santos, na nagtatampok kan bunga kan research niya sa istorya sagkod glorya kan literaturang Bikol. May tolong dekada na man nagtutukdo si Santos sa Ateneo de Naga sagkod sa De la Salle University. Kan taon 2003, linagda niya an Hagkus: Twentieth-century Bikol Women Writers, sarong katipunan na nagtarakod-takod kan mga kagibuhan kan Bikolanang parasurat poon kan dekada 1900s sagkod ngonyan.

Asin man sa saiyang bagong obrang ini, pinirili ni Santos—bakong Bikolana alagad an pagkamoot sa Bikol mayo nin kasingdayupot—an mga tamang sangkap para manamitan ta sagkod kan iba an hamis (tamis) sagkod an harang (anghang) na iyo an Bikol. Mayong sinabi an Mang Tomas o UFC banana catsup, orog na papasiram-siramon kan mga obrang ini an dati nang manamit nang pagkakan sa piyestahan kan literaturang Pilipino.

Pagpangita, Hiligaynon, n. Paghanap, pagkalap

Antiguhan, Hiligaynon, n.  Master, expert, specialist.

Parents

Student Workshop Essay Revised 

Parents are the most wonderful persons in the world.

They help us in all aspects of our lives. They are always behind our backs. They comfort us when we are lonely. They also encourage us to go on whenever we fail.

They diligently persevere for our family. They make ends meet just to send us to school. They devote their time and effort—blood, sweat and tears—just for us to continue our studies. For them, education is the only wealth they can give us.

It is a big responsibility to be a parent. They have to bear the duties for a family. There are times when they cannot make ends meet. They find it difficult to fulfill our needs—they feel obliged to give us food and provide for us. But if they see that we also persevere in our studies, for them, it is enough. Because in the end they would want us to finish our studies.  Only by then can we be worthy of all their hard work.

Nothing more can inspire them more than the sight of us holding our hard-earned diplomas.

Parents are gifts from God. For one, there is no parent who could not accept us back to their homes after we have run away and realized we are wrong.

At times, though, we feel that parents are the best naggers in the world. Because they find faults in everything we do and tell us repeatedly about it without even asking us why. Perhaps it’s only normal because all of them would want the good for us.

Our very good advisers, our number-one supporters, parents are our inspiration who continually love us despite ourselves.

For all of these, we can just be thankful for what they do for us. All we could do, in turn, is to appreciate what they do to us. And the best we could also do is to love them. Doing so is more than paying back for all their hardships. 

In the end, our success would be their greatest achievement.

Some three

Jose Garcia Villa

We first meet him as the author of “The Coconut Poem,” a lyric brimming and overflowing with coconut milk and sexual juices whose testosterone-loaded innuendoes caused him his expulsion from the University of the Philippines. Enough said.

But what else could you make of JGV?  Never contented with the commonplaceness of the literary environment he was in, the self-proclaimed Doveglion [dove eagle lion] Jose Garcia Villa literally rose among the ranks of writers to his own ivory tower.

An arrogant literary critic who scathed other writers’ works more than cared for them, JGV gained the ire of other promising sensibilities, perhaps primarily Angela Manalang Gloria whose poetic works he greatly berated. No one cared for his poetry which others had declared no more than intellectual masturbations that made only him orgasmic [and him alone].

But when he started making sense to other people with his comma poetry and philosophy, no one bothered him in his ivory tower. Up there, the self-proclaimed prophet of poetry could have never been more alone.

Henry David Thoreau

When Henry David Thoreau wrote that he is perhaps most anxious when he is in the throngs of people, he did not really complain of agoraphobia nor did he publicly declare that he admires some of them in private. He merely harped on how man can attain wholeness through self-possession.

Living with Ralph Waldo Emerson could not have made him more social—only antisocial. A religious minister who himself fell out from the fold, Emerson’s influence on the young Thoreau helped create the masterpiece titled Walden, an insightful individualistic journal that highlighted how man can go back to his primal nature and still survive civilization.

But Thoreau’s Walden campout is not just an NSTP immersion; it is a return to man's spiritual nature in which  he can rethink his purpose not really by living alone away from the noise or far from the madding crowd—but by practicing simplicity which is man’s true nature.

Emily Dickinson

American recluse Emily Dickinson is one interesting soul who selected her own society, choosing few for many and simplicity for ornament. With her hyphenated—and her Caps and Lowercase intimations about flowers and things, life and death, morbidity and turgidity, she stood out through history as another genius of the language.

Emily Dickinson’s life seemed no more than that of Eleanor Rigby in Paul McCartney’s song—“Aaaaa look at all the lonely people”—and if she were alive today, she would have preferred less than 10 friends on her Facebook account. She would not really refuse a means of networking like FB or even multiply, as she sought to bond and correspond with people following too many deaths in her family.

But would you ever forgive Dickinson for being so selfish she relished her own poetry by herself? Her poetry was made so private by her that her genius was only discovered up on a roof after her death.

Villa, Dickinson and Thoreau must have attended only one school—the University of Solitary where the major graduate paper was an Individual vs. Society thesis. By insisting on individuality in their rhetoric and poetry, consciously or otherwise they defied an existing social order that rather imposed conformity monotony lethargy. All three graduated with highest honors.

Parents

(Revised Student Workshop Essay)

 

Parents are the most wonderful persons in the world.

 

They help us in all aspects of our lives. They are always behind our backs. They comfort us when we are lonely. They also encourage us to go on whenever we fail.

 

They diligently persevere for our family. They make ends meet just to send us to school. They devote their time and effort—blood, sweat and tears—just for us to continue our studies. For them, education is the only wealth they can give us.

 

 It is a big responsibility to be a parent. They have to bear the duties for a family. There are times when they cannot make ends meet. They find it difficult to fulfill our needs. They give us food and provide for us. But if they see that we also persevere in our studies, for them, it is enough. Because in the end they would want us to finish our studies.  Only by then can we be worthy of all their hard work.

 

 

Nothing more can inspire them more than the sight of us holding our hard-earned diplomas.

 

Parents are gifts from God. For one, there is no parent who could not accept us back to their homes after we have run away and realized we are wrong.

 

At times, though, we feel that parents are the best naggers in the world. Because they find faults in everything we do and tell us repeatedly about it without even asking us why. Perhaps it’s only normal because all of them would want the good for us.

 

Our very good advisers, our number-one supporters, parents are our inspiration who continually love us despite ourselves.

 

For all of these, we can just be thankful for what they do for us. All we could do, in turn, is to appreciate what they do to us. And the best we could also do is to love them. Doing so is more than paying back for all their hardships. 

 

In the end, our success would be their greatest achievement.

 

Parents

Parents (A student’s workshop essay)

1.      The person who is always behind your back is your parents.

2.      They are the one who provides your needs in all aspects of your life.

3.      The one that comforts you when you are in the midst of loneliness and failure.

4.      They are the diligent person in the family for they persevere the struggle in life.

5.      They make efforts in many ways to sent you to school.

6.      The griefs, the sweats and even the blood came out to their bodies just for you to be educated.

7.      Because for them, this is the only wealth they can give to you.

8.      As a parent, we all know that it is a bigger responsibility for them to carry a family on their own especially that there are sometimes an instances that they have no sources of living and that they need to engaged in such ways to have money for you to fulfill your needs.

9.      Yet, when they saw your diligence and perseverance in studying it is enough  for them that you are paying back all their hardworks.

10.  They could be inspire by you that you really wanted to earn a degree someday.

11.  Parents are unique creation of God.

12.  You could not ever saw a parents that could accept you back when you fall.

13.  Parents are sometimes the most nugger person in the family for everything you do they say all the things they wanted to say even those words that could hurt your feelings.

14.  But that’s our parents.

15.  Very common.

16.  An advicer, a number one supporter and inspiration and still love us whatever we did.

17.   Let us be thankful for what our parents can only do for us.

18.  Let us be contented and love them in return.

19.  Paying back their hardships through our success that would consider their greatest achievements in life.

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, for years, has been considered our contemporary national hero [primarily 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 keen sensitivity, perhaps squeamishness, 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?

Written in the context of the Filipino experience, the plight of Clarissa spells the struggle for survival in this country where individual’s hopes are shattered piece by piece—what with the crisis they face every single day, always seeking to make the ends meet, until they find some place definite until one day, like Clarissa, they arrive at their final destination some place else—anywhere but here.

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,] at the time, 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.