Songs of Ourselves

If music is wine for the soul, I suppose I have had my satisfying share of this liquor of life, one that has sustained me all these years.

All this time I have savored the timeless ballads of Matt Monro and Carpenters, have drunk much rock of say, Queen and Juan de la Cruz Band, which I have grown to love, or sometimes sipped from the modern R&B and acoustic alchemy concocted by younger songwriters and singers like Ogie Alcasid  and Ne-yo. My favorites range from chanteuse Grace Nono to Paul Potts to Patsy Cline to Rico J. Puno, and the alternative Labuyo to Richard Clayderman.



Such sense of music has been influenced by people around me and people whom I grew up with—my mother, sister and brothers—my family, or better yet, our clan who sang and danced our way through life, now and then drinking from own cups.



I

How and why I have grown to like music—like every human being perhaps—I owe first to my mother, who must have adlibbed the best melodies only for me to sleep the cold nights of being left without a father. After my father’s demise, my mother’s melodies must have sounded more like elegies being sung by a widow who now as a single parent, had to fend for six growing children.

 


One evening, Mother told me a story of how she had to sing Victor Wood’s “Teenage Señorita” when she was being recruited for a sorority in college. I could only imagine she sang it in the corridors of Burns Hall where I first saw my very own teenage señorita Cecile Naldo, a bubbly DevCom major from Iriga who would sing the melodies of Celine Dion like an LP after our Biology class. The Celine Dion connection did not materialize much—just when my Cecilia’s singing of “If You Asked Me, Too” ended.


Mother loved Nat King Cole that whenever Manoy played “Stardust” and the rest of his collection nights after supper in Bagacay, the Banat household would be filled with her voice that sounded like it’s tiptoeing the corners of the house.


Her singing voice would delicately hit the right notes but contained “a certain sadness” that perhaps even Astrud Gilberto must have never known. Manoy recorded Cole’s collection on tapes—along with those of Carpenters and Pet Shop Boys—through our cousin Manoy Ynos’s stuff in Manila during his engineering board review in 1991.



One cool Sunday afternoon in 1993, Mother introduced me to Jerry Vale, when we were enjoying the coolness of the folding bed in our sala at siesta time. We listened to Vale’s “If You Go Away” being played on an AM radio program on the Sharp radio which Manoy bought upon her request.


She was perhaps singing away the moment thinking how to sustain in the following week her four sons studying in Naga—or perhaps she was humming away her gratitude that she was supporting only four students in the city. I and my sister stopped schooling that year.



Some seventeen years later, Mother’s swan song would be one graceful and heavenly melody, inspiring everyone in her last rites about how one single parent had weathered all odds through the years to make the best of all her six children.



II

In our brood of six, Manoy has biggest share of influence in each of us, younger siblings. While Ano and Alex also strutted their way to get our nerves equally break-dancing to the tunes of Michael Jackson and his local copycats towards the mid-1980s, Manoy’s influence in the rest of us has been indispensable.


Being the eldest, Manoy held the possession of the phonograph like the Two Stone Tablets, where the songs being played later became the sibling’s anthems. From the phonograph, everyone came to love Mother’s favorite trio the acoustic “Trio Los Panchos” whose pieces did not sound different from her aunt Lola Charing’s “La Tumba” number which she would sing during clan reunions. While Yoyoy Villame’s rpms would be played alternately with Baby Jane and Tarzan’s yellow plaka, it would be the “Santa Maria” chorus which would ring more in my memory. 

Yet, the phonograph music would last only until the time when there would be no way to fix it anymore after Manoy dropped it one day when he was retrieving or returning it from the cabinet which should have been out of our reach.

Everything else in the family’s long-playing collection had escaped my memory—I would be too young to even know how to operate the phonograph. We chanced to retrieve some of LP discs in the 90s after a long list of typhoons; I could only help my brother Ano in placing them on the walls as decoration. And they certainly looked classic there—like memories pasted on the wall for anyone’s immediate recollection.


Not long after, Manoy would be addicted to tapes that he would bring in a new recorded record of many artists in the eighties. The eighties was a prolific era--with almost anything for everyone.  On his  boombox and other sound gadgets, Manoy played Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, Heart, Sade, America and Tears for Fears, among a million others.


He recorded songs while they were played on FM stations on the radio. It was his way of doing things. It was his way of cheering the household up--he played music when he would cook our food--his perennial assignment at home was to cook our food. He played music on the radio anytime, everytime that Mother would usually tell him to lower down the volume.



III

Creativity or art has never escaped my second eldest brother Ano’s keen senses. In the eighties, Ano did not only have a record of break-dance tunes in their high school days in BCAT—he also made an unforgettably cool tape jacket which became a bestseller among the siblings. While Ano and Alex break-danced to their hearts’ content, we younger siblings could only look at them in amazement, later adopting their moves to our own sense of enjoyment and thrill—wherever and whenever we found avenues for it.


This time, our anthems were now being played over the Sanyo radio, the family phonograph’s successor. Mother must have acquired it through a loan presented by lending businessmen whose special offers lured a number of public school teachers in Bagacay.

Ano loved the popular music, collecting pinups from song hits of say, Gerard Joling and mounting them as frames in our sala, as if he were a familiar cousin of ours. Of course, he maintained a collection of his tapes perhaps apart from Manoy's growing collection of recorded stuffs and original albums.

 

 

IV

Then, there was a time in our lives when music would not ever be sung for a long time. Nothing demoralized us more than being poor that music must have been forgotten as pastime—as growing young adults, our needs were more of corporeal rather than spiritual—"survival," not "theatrical."


I believe when someone in a movie said that nothing impoverishes the spirit more than poverty itself. Who would not be crushed by the fact that there was not just enough to sustain ourselves? Mother’s income had never been enough so that each of us had to hum our own melodies to sing our way through our days.


But just like wine, music’s soothing properties worked wonders. While the rest of us must have found avenues to continue singing their lives, brother Alex’s quiet and restraint was music itself. In him, we would not find so much loud melodies or even singing—because such countenance solicited friendship in cousin Bong, Auntie Felia’s eldest son who played and paraded the music of the eighties like soul food. With Bong, Alex’s sense of music has been sharpened—finding their voice in the groovy and still danceable and angst-ridden mid-eighties.


Later, Alex's tight-lipped restraint significantly found its voice in the sociopath Kurt Cobain and icons of the grunge era, among others. This was the time when Bong studied medicine in Manila, while Alex pursued engineering in UNC. Nothing better could have captured his sense of isolation than the pieces of Metallica, Guns and Roses, Bon Jovi and other intimacies which he now shared with new found frat brother Nanding, our landlady’s son in Diaz Subdivision.



After 1996, reverting back to the jukebox pieces was necessary for Alex to mingle with the crowd of fellow boarders working in the busy economic zone in Laguna. After all, Michael Learns to Rock, Rockstar and Renz Verano, for instance, could certainly help bring him back to the old Bagacay, which he sorely missed.  Alex would romance rock ballads even after he has established his own family in Laguna.

An Mga Ribongribong Sa Bagacay

Kun banggi na, ginigirabohan ako pag nadangog ko na siyang nagpaparangisi. Nakatukaw siya sa may bintana nindang capiz, dangog dangog ko an boses hali sa kataid ming harong.

Siya si Buktot. Hababa, mataba, butog an tulak. Garong garadot, kaya gayod Buktot an apod saiya. Sabi ni Manoy daí daa ko magluwas ta kukuonon ako ni Buktot. Pag nag-agi na an Aurora pasiring sa Banát, gusto ko kutang mag-iba. Kadakul mga aking nag-iirinutan sa andas, nagkakarawat sindang mga karábang gíbo sa dasô, igwang mga hoben na marayong darang dasô tapos nagsusurûsúan sa likod. Si Manoy sagkod si Manay nakakairiba. Yaon kaya si Buktot sa may bintana. Natatakot na kong magluwas. Nawawalat ako.

Natatakot ako kadto pag mahiling ko na si Buktot. Harani an harong mi sainda. Huna ko nangkukua siya nin aki tapos tinatao niya sa mga mga tawong nagigiribo nin tulay tapos bubunu’on ninda tapos an dugo pighahalo sa semento para maging pusog an tulay.

Pag Domingo, nagsisimba si Buktot sa kapilya, mapution an bado, kaiba an ina niyang si Tiyang Birang. Pagkatapos magsimba mauli na sinda sa harong. Minsan kasurunod mi na Mama pauli. Pag hapon, naglulúon si Buktot. Pigsusurulô niya an mga alang na dahon kan star apple sagkod kun anong mga ragpa sa libod ninda.

Pero kadto pa ‘to. Kan ako nagdakula na, nakakasabay ko si Buktot magsakdo nin inuman sa bombahan kan mga Bañes. Pero daí ko siya nadadangog magtaram. Mayô siyang girong. Pirang beses akong nakiagi sa libod ninda para magsakdo nin inuman, pero daí niya ko inano. Daí man niya ko kinua.

Sabi ninda matalion daa kadto si Buktot. Siya, si Manuela Buban sagkod si Gemino na taga-Baybay magkakralase sa Bagacay Elementary School kadto. An sabi pa, sinda na daa gayod an golden batch kan eskwelahan. Tolóng matatálî an nagkagurubay sa samong eskwelahan, gabos daa naribong. Si Manuela Buban gadan na man. Tapos si Minô, nagsisirá, tapos nakaagom man.

Nasobrahan daang adal o bása si Buktot. Kaya gayod mayô siyang ibang makaulay kundi sadiri niya. Bakô lang palan dakula an tulak ni Buktot; dakula man an utak niya. Pero ano daw an namamati niya kun rinarayuan siya kan kadaklan na tawo? Tâno daw ta daí siyang girong? Bakô man siyang pula. Nagpaparangisi ngani kun banggi. Ano daw an naiisip niya kun rinarayuan siya ta’ aram na siya si Buktot? Tibaad gusto niya man makiulay pero mayong nagrarani saiya ta’ ribongribong ngani daa siya. Tibaad namomondo siya. O mas nabubuabua ta’ mayô nang nakikiulay saiya. Kun igwang madangog saiya, ano daw an gusto niyang sabihon? Haloy ko nang bistado si Buktot, pero daí ko talaga siya bisto.

Igwa man saro na an ngaran Tabulsot. Pa’nong daí ko siya mabibisto, para-rabas ako kadto pag ma-pyesta na sa Bagacay. Nagdudulag ‘ko sa harong mi pag marayo na sa Mama sagkod an mga tugang ko. Naghaharali man sinda. Si Mama yaon man ka Lola nagtatabang sa mga handa para sa mga bisita.

Pag bisperas, nahihiling ko si Tabulsot sa may Triangle kun sain gigibohon an Amateur Singing Contest. Para sa mga organizers kan taunan na contest, an ma-front act o minsan natao kan kulang na intermission number iyó si Tabulsot. Sa anuman na tiripon sa barangay, si Tabulsot an masasabing life of the party. Igwang mga beses na papaonrahan siya kan mga organizers, dangan aapudon siya kan emcee, “Ladies and Gentlemen, si Bulsoto Amante!”

Maurupakan na an mga aki sagkod mga hoben. Makanta na man si Tabulsot kan saiyang piyesang “Boulevard ng Pag-ibig” na nasa Top 20 kadto ni Alex Parpan sa DWNW. Urugmahon an mga tawo. Kun maboboot an mga organizers, dakul an makakanta ni Tabulsot, all in tattered outfits. Barâbâ an maong niyang pantalon, kurupas sa pirang bulan na daing karigos, an parong garong kargadong alungaang. Tapos kun paladon siya, tatâwanan siya nin consolation prize kan mga aki kan kapitan o minsan duduhulan nin kapidasong litson sa libod kan Irmano Mayor sa may Pantalan.

Sarong beses, pinahawan siya kan Lola ko sa libod ninda para pagkatapos tandanan. Natapos man gayod si paggabi niya pero kinakan niya si mga bungang atis sa poon na tanom kan gurang. Nagutom na gayod pagkatapos maggabi. Naanggot saiya kadto si Lola ta’ daí nagpaaram. Para sa Lola ko, kasâlan nang gayo an simpleng bagay. Tinandanan gayod komo “empleyado,” pero garo inanggotan muna. Pero tâno daw? Tibaad sa ibang tawo si Bulsoto sarong normal na tawong pwede man sanang tukduan nin Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC).

Nagbabarag-barag sana si Tabulsot sa Bagacay. Minsan ngani daa nagparalakaw hali sa Naga. Minsan man naagahan sa baylihan sa Kinalí. Pero igwang lain na istorya ki Tabulsot. Sa sarong pa-benefit dance sa Triangle, pigtugutan siyang magbayli sa laog bago magpoon an baraylihan kan hoben. Kan baraylihan na, pinaayon si Tabulsot sa saro sa mga table kan mga hoben. Pigparapairinom. Kan maburat na gayod, daí na makagurulapay. Naisip niya nang magpondo. Nagpaparasayasay paluwas sa baylihan. An mga kahobenan, pighurubaan siya. Pigparangirisihan kan mga nakahiriling na huba siya. Pagkatapos kadto, haloy kong daí na nahiling si Tabulsot. Tibaad dagos nang nahingawan siya. Tibaad bakô man siyang ribongribong. Tibaad nasupog man.

Yaon man si Roderick, na an bansag Kabakab. Kun igwang pinapabakal sako kadto sa tindahan sa saod, masasabatan ko si Roderick, sarong aking nagbabarag-barag sa tinampo. Nakapanturog pa, nagraralaway, mu’riton, nagpaparataram pero birilot. Taram sanang taram pero daí ko masabutan an tinataram niya. Bakô man siyang pula.

Durulag kaming mga aki kadto pag nagdadalagan na si Roderick, nagpaparapanhapag nin mga aki tapos mansusugót. Pero pag inanggotan kan gurang, nagpopondo. Pag hapon na, kun nagtuturubigan kami na Shiela sagkod na Michael sa tinampo sa may Triangle, sasabihan ako ni Manay aapodon niya daa si Roderick kun daí pa ko mapuli. Mahabo na lang logod ‘ko kaiyan. Habo kong mabadas ni Mama pag-abot sa harong.

Arog kan ibang mga aki, bibo si Roderick. Nahihiling ko siya kadto sa baylihan pag ma-pyesta na, sinasabayan an “You’re My Heart You’re My Soul” o “Ice, Ice, Baby” o kun ano man na disco kadto. Pigtutugutan siyang magbayli kan mga sponsor bago magporoon an baraylihan. Tapos pagal-pagal na siya kaiyan bago pa magsaraksakan an mga dayong taga-Tigman o Kinalí sa laog kan baylihan sa Triangle. Daí ko mangalas kun igwang sarong banggi nahiling ko giraray si Roderick sa baylihan sinasabayan an tugtog kan Black Eyed Peas sa bagong baylihan sa may pantalan. Pig-agda ako kan pinsan kong si Sandra saka kan mga ibang SK. Nagbarayli man kami, pero nag-uli lang kong amay. Nahiling ko si Roderick sa tinampo. Nagbabarag-barag.

Sa kapilya kun Domingo, pig-aarog niya an mga parasimba sa luhudan sa inotan, garo man daa nagpapangadyi kaiba kan saiyang mga magurang. Nagkikiling-kiling sa mga tawo, inaarog an ginigibo kan mga gurang. Nagluluhod, nagkakanta man daa. Minsan nagpipila sa pagkomunyon, pero daí pigtatâwan ni hostia ni Fr. Caceres. Nagbibisa si Roderick sa mga gurang, nagtataong-galang sa anuman na tiripon, lamay sa gadan, pa-novena ki Santa Maria, o miski prusisyon para ki San Antonio de Padua pag-pyesta.

Sa Flores de Mayo kan lolahon ko sa dakulang harong, amay pa yaon na siya sa atubang kan altar, igwang darang gumamela, santan o kanda—arog kan ibang aki. Pagkatapos kan rosaryo sagkod kantada, an tandan na galleta, tanggo, o sopas na maaskad bastante na sa aking arog niya.

Kun yaon siya sa baylihan kan bisperas, pagkaaga yaon man siya sa prusisyon para sa patron—minsan may darang kandila o minsan naiinot sa gabos na nag-puprusisyon, garo bagang siya an giya o marshall kan ritwal. Sa mga religious activities, mas perfect attendance gayod siya kaysa sa mga kairidad niya.

Nanûdan man sana ni Roderick an mga gawe-gawe kan mga taga-Bagacay. Natuod sana siya sa mga Katolikong ritwal kan mga gurang sa barangay. Sa tinampo niya gayod nakua an relihiyon. Pero sa tinampo niya man nakua an ugaling parasúgot, para-po’ngot, para-pasaway. Sinusugót siya kan konduktor ni Magan kun maagi siya sa pantalan, hinuhubaan kan mga hoben na parabasketbol hali sa Triangle, pig-iiwal kan mga aking habo siyang paayunon sa turubigan sa may tinampo. Aki baya, naaarog sana ni Roderick an kaanggotan sagkod an kanos kan saiyang kinaban. Sa komunidad man lang na iniidung-idungan kan saiyang halipot na pag-iisip nakukua niya an tibaad mas halipot na pag-iisip na.

Nakua niya gayod an bansag na Kabakab ta maulyas siya, nagpaparadalagan sa tinampo, nagpaparapanhapag nin aki. Nagpaparapansugót man. Pero garo husto man nanggad an bansag saiya. Tibaad kaipuhan niya man nanggad maging kabakab, sarong talapang na mahalnas sagkod maulyas, nganing makalukso siya parayo sa Bagacay, an mabatang lapok kun sain yaon siya.

Garong kaidad ko si Roderick—kuta na mag-aagomon na man siya ngonyan. Naggugurang an hawak niya pero daí naghihira an pag-iisip.

Halipot an pag-iisip. Ribongribong. Turikturik. Buabua. Kadakul an pwedeng tang iapod sainda. Pero ano baya an aram ta sainda? Sa mga agi-agi kan mga tawong ini, tama daw na apodon ta sindang “halipot an pag-iisip”? Tibaad ini sarong misnomer, daí nababagay sa mga arog ninda Buktot, Roderick saka ni Tabulsot. Kun bakong sinusugót o pigngingirisihan, dinudurulagan, kinakatakutan. Daí man daw na daí ta sinda iniintinding maray, kaya daí ta sinda naiintindihan? Daí man gayod halipot an pag-iisip ninda, bakô lang halaba an satong pasensya. An pag-intindi ta.

Masasabi ta daw an mga ribongribong iyó an batâ kan sarong komunidad? Bakô daw sinda man sana an nagsasabing nalalapa na gayod ini? Tibaad mas magayon kun itrato sindang tama kan mga tawong mas may pag-intindi? Kun daí, bakô daw kita na mas normal na tawo an mga buabua? Sa ibang komunidad daa—kan mga panahon sagkod ngonyan—an mga ribongribong pigkaralabos, rinuluom ta’ sa hiling kan gobyerno mayô sindang lugar sa publiko. Alagad sa Bagacay nagkairibahan sinda kan mga normal na tawo.

Pero an mga pusngak sa Bagacay na arog ko kaidto iyó man an nagdarakulang tarakot sa saindang mga persona. Sadit pa ko sinusugót na ’ko kan mga turikturik na daí man, kan mga ribongribong na bakô man, kan mga istoryang balu’bagi sana man. Mayô sindang pinagkaiba sa mga tawong lipod na maharapag sako kun banggi na pag sinugo pa ko ni Manoy magbakal nin bitsin sa saod para sa kinusido niyang abo.

Hinabon sa lumbod kong isip an posibilidad na an turikturik tibaad mas maboot sa normal na tawo. Nagdakula akong nabuabua man kakadalagan kadudulag parayo sainda. Kaipuhan pa daw na dinurulagan ko man nanggad sinda? Daí man daw na sa pagparadulag ko sainda kadto, ruminayo ako sa mga bagay na puwede ko gayod naintindihan sana?

Songs of Ourselves: Fragments

If music is wine for the soul, I suppose I have had my satisfying share of this liquor of life, one that has sustained me all these years.

All this time I have savored the timeless ballads of Matt Monro and Carpenters, have drunk much rock of say, Queen and Juan de la Cruz Band, which I have grown to love, or sometimes sipped from the modern R&B and acoustic alchemies concocted by younger songwriters and singers like Ogie Alcasid and Ne-yo. My favorites range from chanteuse Grace Nono to Paul Potts to Patsy Cline to Rico J. Puno, and the alternative Labuyo to Richard Clayderman.

Such sense of music has been influenced by people around me and people whom I grew up with—my mother, sister and brothers—my family, or better yet, our clan who sang and danced our way through life, now and then drinking from own cups.


I
How and why I have grown to like music—like every human being perhaps—I owe first to my mother, who must have adlibbed the best melodies only for me to sleep the cold nights of being left without a father. After my father’s demise, my mother’s melodies must have sounded more like elegies being sung by a widow who now as a single parent, had to fend for six growing children.

One evening, Mother told me a story of how she had to sing Victor Wood’s “Teenage Señorita” when she was being recruited for a sorority in college. I could only imagine she sang it in the corridors of Burns Hall where I first saw my very own teenage señorita Cecile Naldo, a bubbly DevCom major from Iriga who would sing the melodies of Celine Dion like an LP after our Biology class. The Celine Dion connection did not materialize much—just when my Cecilia’s singing of “If You Asked Me, Too” ended.

Mother loved Nat King Cole that whenever Manoy played “Stardust” and the rest of his collection nights after supper in Bagacay, the Banat household would be filled with her voice that sounded like it’s tiptoeing the corners of the house.

Her singing voice would delicately hit the right notes but contained “a certain sadness” that perhaps even Astrud Gilberto must have never known. Manoy recorded Cole’s collection on tapes—along with those of Carpenters and Pet Shop Boys—through our cousin Manoy Ynos’s stuff in Manila during his engineering board review in 1991.

One cool Sunday afternoon in 1993, Mother introduced me to Jerry Vale, when we were enjoying the coolness of the folding bed in our sala at siesta time. We listened to Vale’s “If You Go Away” being played on an AM radio program on the Sharp radio which Manoy bought upon her request. She was perhaps singing away the moment thinking how to sustain in the following week her four sons studying in Naga—or perhaps she was humming away her gratitude that she was supporting only four students in the city. I and my sister stopped schooling that year.

Some seventeen years later, Mother’s swan song would be one graceful and heavenly melody, inspiring everyone in her last rites about how one single parent had weathered all odds through the years to make the best of all her six children.

II
In our brood of six, Manoy has biggest share of influence in each of us, younger siblings. While Ano and Alex also strutted their way to get our nerves equally break-dancing to the tunes of Michael Jackson and his local copycats towards the mid-1980s, Manoy’s influence in the rest of us has been indispensable.

Being the eldest, Manoy held the possession of the phonograph like Two Stone Tablets, where the songs being played later became the sibling’s anthems. From the phonograph, everyone came to love Mother’s favorite trio the acoustic “Trio Los Panchos” whose pieces did not sound different from her aunt Lola Charing’s “La Tumba” number which she would sing during clan reunions. While Yoyoy Villame’s rpms would be played alternately with Baby Jane and Tarzan’s yellow plaka, it would be the “Santa Maria” chorus which would ring more in my memory.

Yet, the phonograph music would last only until the time when there would be no way to fix it anymore after Manoy dropped it one day when he was retrieving or returning it from the cabinet which should have been out of our reach.

Everything else in the family’s long-playing collection had escaped my memory—I would be too young to even know how to operate the phonograph. We chanced to retrieve some of LP discs in the 90s after a long list of typhoons; I could only help my brother Ano in placing them on the walls as decoration. And they certainly looked classic there—like memories pasted on the wall for anyone’s immediate recollection.

Not long after, Manoy would be addicted to tapes that he would bring in a new recorded record of many artists in the eighties. The eighties was a prolific era--with almost anything for everyone. On his boombox and other sound gadgets, Manoy played Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, Heart, Sade, America and Tears for Fears, among a million others.

He recorded songs while they were played on FM stations on the radio. It was his way of doing things. It was his way of cheering the household up--he played music when he would cook our food--his perennial assignment at home was to cook our food. He played music on the radio anytime, everytime that Mother would usually tell him to lower down the volume.

III
Meanwhile, creativity or art has never escaped my second eldest brother Ano’s keen senses. In the eighties, Ano did not only have a record of break-dance tunes in their high school days in BCAT—he also made an unforgettably cool tape jacket which became a bestseller among the siblings. While Ano and Alex break-danced to their hearts’ content, we younger siblings could only look at them in amazement, later adopting their moves to our own sense of enjoyment and thrill—wherever and whenever we found avenues for it.

This time, our anthems were now being played over the Sanyo radio, the family phonograph’s successor. Mother must have acquired it through a loan presented by lending businessmen whose special offers lured a number of public school teachers in Bagacay.

Ano loved the popular music, collecting pinups from song hits of say, Gerard Joling and mounting them as frames in our sala, as if he were a familiar cousin of ours. Of course, he maintained a collection of his tapes perhaps apart from Manoy's growing collection of recorded stuffs and original albums.

IV
Then, there was a time in our lives when music would not ever be sung for a long time. Nothing demoralized us more than being poor that music must have been forgotten as pastime—as growing young adults, our needs were more of corporeal rather than spiritual—"survival," not "theatrical."

I believe when someone in a movie said that nothing impoverishes the spirit more than poverty itself. Who would not be crushed by the fact that there was not just enough to sustain ourselves? Mother’s income had never been enough so that each of us had to hum our own melodies to sing our way through our days.

But just like wine, music’s soothing properties worked wonders. While the rest of us must have found avenues to continue singing their lives, brother Alex’s quiet and restraint was music itself. In him, we would not find so much loud melodies or even singing—because such countenance solicited friendship in cousin Bong, Auntie Felia’s eldest son who played and paraded the music of the eighties like soul food. With Bong, Alex’s sense of music has been sharpened—finding their voice in the groovy and still danceable and angst-ridden mid-eighties.

Later, Alex's tight-lipped restraint significantly found its voice in the sociopath Kurt Cobain and icons of the grunge era, among others. This was the time when Bong studied medicine in Manila, while Alex pursued engineering in UNC. Nothing better could have captured his sense of isolation than the pieces of Metallica, Guns and Roses, Bon Jovi and other intimacies which he now shared with new found frat brother Nanding, our landlady’s son in Diaz Subdivision.

After 1996, reverting back to the jukebox pieces was necessary for Alex to mingle with the crowd of fellow boarders working in the busy economic zone in Laguna. After all, Michael Learns to Rock, Rockstar and Renz Verano, for instance, could certainly help bring him back to the old Bagacay, which he sorely missed. Alex would romance rock ballads even after he has established his own family in Laguna.

Summer

Quiet, calm afternoons bring me back to my afternoons in our old house in Bagacay. To avoid the baking heat of the rooms, I often lay down on the canopy of our rooftop, safe under the eaves. There, I fell asleep until a cooler breeze from the backyard of the Absins, our neighbors who owned the house at the foot of the hill, woke me up. The late afternoon was the best time to linger, then someone from the house, Mother, brother, or sister, called me for an afternoon treat of linabunan na batag or gina’tan.

Flores de Mayo

Susog sa Obra Ni Clemente S. Manaog,
Mio Hermano Intimo
Agosto 2007


Bagacay, 1942

Kan si Rafael San Andres mga pitong taon pa sana, dahil naman gayod sa kahisdulan, igwang nakalaog na crayola sa saiyang dungo. Mga pirang aldaw an nag-agi, mala ta maski ano an gibohon kan ina niyang si Visitacion, dai nanggad mahali-hali an crayola sa dungo kan aki.

Kan bulan na iyan, Mayo, igwa nin pa-Flores si Visitacion sa saindang harong sa Iraya. Dawa na ngani gayod makulugon ang dungo, nin huli ta igwa baya nin tandan na sopas na tanggo saka galleta an mga  aki, nagbale sa Flores si Rafael.

Sa saday na harong ni Visitacion, an mga aki minadarara nin mga sampaguita, gumamela, dahlia, dahon nin cypres na ginurunting na saradit. Maparangadie muna an mga gurang mantang an mga aki nakaturukaw sa salog. Dangan maabot sa cantada an pagpangadie ninda sa Espaniol. Dangan maabot sa parte na an mga aki masarabwag kan mga dara nindang burak sa altar ni Inang Maria. Magkapirang beses masabwag an mga aki nin mga burak segun sa cantada.

Sa mga pagsabwag ni Rafael kan saiyang mga burak sa altar, basang na sanang tuminubrag hali sa dungo niya an crayola. Nagparaomaw si Visitacion asin daing untok na nagpasalamat sa nangyari. Nin huli man sa nangyari, nangayo-ngayo si Visitacion na gigibohon kan pamilya an Flores de Mayo sa masurunod pang taon bilang pasasalamat sa pagkahali kan crayola sa dungo ni Rafael.

Poon kaidto sagkod ngonyan, pinapadagos kan pamilya ni Visitacion San Andres an saiyang panata na dae mababakli ni isay man. Hasta ngonyan, tinutungkusan kan pamilya San Andres an pasasalamat kan saindang mga apoon, patunay na binibisto kan tawo an karahayan kan Mas Nakakaorog.

O, Clement, O, Loving, O

Remembering Clemente T Manaog [1910-1986]

Today I remember--some twenty years ago--my father's father who succumbed to a lingering illness he had had for a long time.

Some two decades ago today, our eldest brother Manoy Awel, along with Uncle Berto's eldest daughter Manay Gina, stood long hours for him in his deathbed.

Then, our entire family went to Iriga to pay our respects and last homage to the dead. Despite the warm company of our cousins and relatives, which must have overwhelmed the souls of our dear departed, I recall the sad mood--being left with no grandfather or father all together.

In more ways than one, Lolo Ente was our refuge. Mama frequently sought help from him especially in the most challenging days of solely bringing up her six children. Quite a feat for our mother, really. Clemente's son Manuel died in 1978, some eight or nine years before he himself left this world.

Clemente Taduran Manaog--born in 1910--said to belong to a lineage who pioneered clearing the land and "started civilization" in barangay Banao in Iriga City most probably even before it became a city--was a farmer whose simple and humble life lived with his equally magnanimous wife Rosario Monge Cepe, had not failed to inspire their seven children to strive hard and succeed in their chosen fields.

Clemente's two sons became members of the police and the military--Uncle Idong and Uncle Edmundo; four became public school teachers and servants--Auntie Cita and Adang Ninang, my Uncle Berto and my father Manuel; while his second eldest son Uncle Milo followed his own footsteps as a farmer.

I remember my grandfather's simple, dark but cozy room where he stayed in 128 Banao, Del Rosario, Iriga City. It was part of the ancestral house where the clan would gather and feast on exotic food prepared by the "iron chefs" of Banao. Such priceless moment is always something to go back to. Someday. Someday.

During vacation days, Lolo Ente would visit Bagacay from Iriga and bring us to the sea after visiting the tomb of my father. After prayers and rituals in my father's tomb, he would take us to swim in the beach near the cemetery, a familiar place I would later call The Sea House.

I remember how I was once thrown to the water along with my cousins, but I managed to swim up to where Lolo Ente was. The water looked dark and abysmal--it was blurred but warm. Young as I was, I was too afraid to swim that the experience had not been enough to make me learn to swim sensibly at all.

During his visits to Bagacay, Mentz, Nene and I would show Lolo Ente our good papers in grade school--from grade one until 1985 or at that time. He'd be so happy to look at them. In fact, he would really get our class papers graded "100%" or "Very Good" in exchange for a particular sum of money.

Although this would be enough to send us to Lola Mimay's store where we would buy balikutsa and Burly, it is interesting to know what he would do to these purchased products. Lolo Ente would use our papers, these precious proofs of our outstanding performance in school as his toilet paper.

Most of my Writing papers under Mrs. Cornelio must have ended up with Lolo Ente's moments catering to his call of nature. Very well earned, indeed. Interesting that our lives as "businessmen" already started when we were young.

I just want to stop writing here or else I would really want to cry. So long for a grandpa's life well lived with his orphaned grandchildren.

I can just wish I could retrieve Lolo Ente's last letter to mother written in two or three pages of tablet paper which he sent through Manoy Awel some twenty years ago.

If I can just recall it right, Lolo was very much saddened by our poor situation back in the Bagacay house--where his son's widow, our mother, the sole parent of six growing children, scrimped and scrammed just to make ends meet. Just to make ends meet.

But I suppose the same letter also came with a half sack of rice or so and other fruits or crops which were harvested from the old man's farm where he toiled with his own blood, sweat and tears for his grandchildren who were far away from him.

The old man must have missed them dearly as much as he must have badly missed his son Manuel, their father who was gone too soon, too early.

Clemente's son Manuel's college graduation picture, Mabini Colleges, Iriga City, 1965

But as they say, God's time is never our time. So I just repose and say--all things must have happened for sensible purposes--and everything happens right in God's own time. In his time.

May God bless your kind, loving and warmhearted soul, Lolo Ente.

Eternally.

Amen.

      

Cancion Kan Taga-Bagacay

I

Mga aki sa Bagacay kun dai nag-iiriskwela,
minsan nagkakarawat, o nagkakara-karanta

Kaibahan kan mga magurang ninda
Sa radyo maghapon dangog nin drama—
Mayo na gayod hahanapon pa ta gabos yaon na—

Presko an duros, nag-uuran sa may harong
Magurang, pinsan, kahoy, mga dahon

May ayam, may ikos, may orig sa tangkal
Pagkatapos kan lumlom, may init an saldang,

Pag bakasyon, may aurora, o pabayli,
Pag habagat o aya-ay, may pabiga', pasali.
 
Sa pamilya, magayon an iribanan,
Mayong turuklingan; nagkakairintindihan;

Nag-iirinuman—pag naburat, bagsak;
Pag dai nakabangon, kabaong.

Urutangan, siringilan, murulestyahan,
Minsan sirilyakan ta’ dai nagkakadarangugan

Pero maugma ta’ abang prangka
Mayo kitang masasabi ta’, basta.

An kalbo pugo man giraray;
An kawayan butong man giraray;

An mga aki mayong kalson man giraray.

An may buhok nabubulugan man; an nagtitinda nabebentahan;
An nalilipot naiimbongan; anuman na mainit nayeyelohan;
An naglalantuag nakakauli man; an may helang inaaswang.

An siisay man na gutom nagkakakan—
Kun bakong gina'gang karne, mahamis na ginatan;

Mirindalan pinakro, bulgur, sinuman;
Pulutan, kutsinta, kun ano na sana man.

 
II

Sa sugalan, mga gurang tiripon lalo na kun hapon,
May nagtitinda pang sitsaron; sa tindahan, mamon.

Sa binggohan, kadaragahan o may mga agóm urumpukan.
An mga aki sa magurang aba anang pakinabang—

 

Sa laog kan harong, o sa tindahan,
Linilibot an lahot hanggang sa simbahan.

An putong tinitinda uurutangon;
Mauli an aki sirisingko an gugom; Nom!
Bagas na pamanggihan mayong tutungudon.

An mga omboy makunswelo man
Nahulog sa hagyan, nabakros an laman;

Kun mayong tipdas, kinukumbulsyon,
Kun bakong lugadon, maniwangon;

Garo mga talapang; mga tulak darakulaon—
Urugmahon dawa gurutom.

Mga daraga kapot an komiks maghapon
Mga soltero pugapo, sugpo papabakalon,

An mga ama sa pantalan maghapon—
Baggage o labor sa lantsang pa-Siruma-hon,
Bani, Popoot, mga biyahe pag sinárom.

Pag-uli kun hingaw, problema yaon;
Kun burat, iiwalon an agom;
An masaway magurang o tugang kan agóm.

Pag nagkakurulugan, harabuan;
Malayas, mabuwelta; may nalingawan na kwarta,
An mga aki dara, et cetera.

III

Maestrang sa high school bakasyon na, dai pa nag-uli ta’ siya
Saka estudyanteng taga Iraya nagkairintindihan na;

Nagkairiyuhan, mayong napugulan; pag uban-uban, turuytuyan,
Burunuan, harandaan; mga abay paturuyatoy sa simbahan.

Pero dawa arog kaini, Marhay an buhay ninda digdi—
Nakangirit kadaklan sainda; sa saro, dai ka magsuba-suba
Ta’ pag napasala ka, nya! Pasensya!

Hali sa dagat an bahod dangog-dangog
An mga parasira biyong nag-aaranggot

Ta’ mayong pasayan; tikong an nadakop
Sa Mauban mauran; dakulaon an bahod.


An langit sa bukid abang lumlom
An bagyo yaon na daa sa Quezon

Tapuyas sana man daa,
Pero nagsasalimagyo na baga!

Pag nagbaha na, dai ka magluwas
Kun habong maingas o mabasa nin tapuyas;

Ta’ pag maanayo, masakit ipatawas;
Mahal; an presyo kan bulong makangalas.

Kun aya-ay na, an banggi malipot;
Mayong niisay man na naaanggot—

Paraoma, sungo an hakot; parasira, saklay an hikot;
Mga aking sinusurugo pag banggi, tarakot;
An tinampo mahalnas; sa harong mapulot.

An lugar na ini habong halian ta’ marhay an pagkakan
Maski ralabot an istaran nakakaraos man.

Basta butog an tulak an isip daing hugak
Mayong maraot ta’ dai ka maaanggot.


IV

Kun pista, urugma; o dawa Kwaresma
May salabat o galleta an nagpapabasa.

Mga ilaw kan poste pundido daa
Pero naglalaad kun aga, baterya
Pag banggi na nauubusan daa—

Kaya madiklom, malipot
Sa harong an agóm maimbong;
Daing kasing na’góm.

Sa pag-agi kan aldaw
Pu'on kan santol minarambong
Kaya sa harong madoot, madahon;
May hinilunuhan kun maation—
An sawa pag nadakop, asalon;
Pag tinuka’ ka, kinyentoson.

Magsalang basog, gutom;
Kun bakong mataba’, helangon;
Kun mayong agóm, poro’ngoton;
Kun daraga, nakaporma;
Kun daragang gurang man, nakasaya;
Kun mayong sambay, relihioso;
Nin huli ta Hermano, politiko.
 
Digdi samo sa Bagacay
Ordinaryo an buhay, simpleng maray—

Mayong gayong problema
Apuwera kwarta, kun tinitikapo na.

Daing kaartehan, mayong lilikayan
Mayong aalanganan, mayong aralanganan.

‘Tell Me Your Name, You’re Lovely, Please Tell Me Your Name’

Neil Romano. Donna Bella. John Paulo. Raphael Francis. Maita Cristina.

I wonder how my cousins and my own brother think—or feel—about their names. 

Each of them was given two beautiful names, but they would just be called   one name—either their first or their second name.

In fact, they have also been called other names. Neil Romano (born 1969) later became Neil. But affectionately, to us he has always been “Áno”, a diminutive of Románo.

 From Donna Bella (born 1973), they chose Donna. But then again, it has always been “Nang-nang”—with her younger siblings, too, being called Ding-ding, Kling-kling and Don-don, who have since called her “Manangnang”— most likely from “Manay Nang-nang”.

 Also, John Paulo (born 1978), named after the pope, became only Paulo—but fondly now, “Pau”.

 Raphael Francis (born 1980) became Francis. But fondly, too, he has always been “Pangkoy” to us.

 And Maita Cristina, born 1985, yes, on a Christmas Day, became simply Maita, cleverly drawn from that of our lola, Margarita.

Why is it that despite the two names given to people, there is always one active name that replaces them—most likely the one that their parents or their folks chose or still gave them?

 Of course, there’s a story behind each name—about how they were named but I’m sure there’s a juicier story of how they were also nicknamed—or how that single, active name came to be and has been used ever since.

 Did you notice that only in Mexican soap operas—and later Filipino telenovelas—can we hear two names being seamlessly, rather dutifully, used when they are addressed, as in: “Maria Mercedes”, or “Carlos Miguel” or “Julio Jose”?

“Mara Clara”. What did you say—“Maria Clara”?

 Of course, there are exceptions. Take the case of Von Carlo. Or Sarah Jane. Or Lyn Joy (Wow… I cannot think of a sweeter name than this.)

 But each of these two-name names is already too short to be cut further or even dropped. In fact—easily they can be turned into one: Jennylyn, Genalyn, Ednalyn. Julieanne. Maryanne. Carolyn. Carol Lyn?

 Or Larryboy. Or Dannyboy. Dinosaur (from Dino Sauro?).

 So is it for brevity, then? After all, I think that first names are tags (as in katawagan and therefore pagkakakilanlan) of persons, so does it really help that they are short, as in monosyllabic? The shorter or the faster the register, the better—is that it?

 Others are also given three first names or more, as in: Jose Francis Joshua.

 Allen Van Marie. Francis Allan Angelo.

 Maria Alessandra Margaret.

 Why? They are so named because their parents want to honor their folks—aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents by giving them a string of their names.

 In the case of some Jose Felicisimo Porfirio Diaz, a.k.a. Bobong, who was named from his uncle and great-grandfather, we could easily guess what happened here. The kilometric name just didn’t really sit well—probably pissed his other folks off, who then argued with his parents but luckily agreed and settled for a simpler one: Bobong!

 How about Jose Antonio Emilio Herminigildo? Sounds like two persons already. Takes a lot of effort.

 So why do parents name their children the way they do? How do they (come to) do it? Are they inspired by their personal heroes? Idols? The stars of their own lives?

 Personal heroes? I already said that. So, there.

 Parents name their children based on inspiration—to immortalize not only their origins, their parents but also their aspirations and ideals.

 Then again, some of them name their offspring to immortalize only themselves: Romeo Agor I, Romeo Agor II, Romeo Agor III, etc. Just like royalty.

 But seriously, I admire how people in the past were so beautifully named—by being given only one name:

 Emiliano. Why is this name so beautiful? It doesn’t evoke sadness. Neither does it invoke anything unattractive. It doesn’t mean a lot of things but itself.

 Margarita. Of course it means something based on its origin. But I choose to look past its etymology and just see it as it is.

 Why do these four-syllable names sound so beautiful? They’re not magical; they’re just beautiful to hear. They do not mean a lot of things but themselves.

 They’re just perfect.

Each of them has four syllables so that when you say them, they sound like two names already in modern parlance, each with two syllables.

 

So while some parents worry about giving their children two or three names or even more, I think that they overlook the beauty of giving their child one, single name. As in:

 

Ofelia.

Salvador. Edmundo.

Antonio.

Camilo. Alberto.

Rosita. Or Zenaida.

 Really here, simplicity is beauty.

 Hearing these names or reading them on the page, I seem to hear or feel the wish of the parents when they so name their child with just one name, as if to speak of their only wish for them in life.

 It’s like: one name, one wish—only goodness and nothing else:

 Flordeliza.

Dorotea.

Isabel.

Lydia.

Romana.

Teresita. Liduvina.

Imelda. Angelita.

Agaton.

Aurelia. Alma.

Gina. Amelita.

Belen. Delia.

Inocencio.

Mercedita. Zarina. Maida.

Carmelita. Belinda. Elisa.

 Emma.

 For me, giving them more than one name means something else altogether. “Maria Teresita” sounds overdone. “Luz Imelda” might work—sounds good—but not as plainly as just, “Imelda”. Then, honestly, “Roberto” or “Francisco” sounds better than “Francisco Roberto”. I don’t know why.

 I also wonder why a four- or five-syllable name sounds strong. Intact or solid. Strong-willed.

 Bersalina. Bienvenido. Aideliza. Plocerfina.

 And why do these names with three syllables sound so wonderful? Macário. Terésa.

 Wait, Tibúrcio. Dionísia. Glória.

 Ramón. Rosalía.

 Why does it sound like poetry? Soledád. Like beauty? Rafaél.

 How often, too, through names, have we looked to the heavens for inspiration—invoking not only blessing but guidance in our lives!

 Anunciacion, Visitacion, Encarnacion, Purificacion, Asuncion, Coronacion—all derived from the mysteries in the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 A Catholic boy may be named Resurreccion, obviously to invoke the Saviour’s triumph over death. Among many others, parents would choose it. For one, it sounds very much like Victor. Or Victorino. But Victorioso?

 And while others were named Dolores or Circumcision, why are there no women or men named Crucificcion? Obviously, because we do not want to dwell in the bad side of things.

 We do not want any association with the undesirable things like suffering or misery. Or death.

 On the contrary, naming your child Maria or Jose or Jesus—a very common practice—is more than reassuring; for you literally consecrate them back to the Creator, fully acknowledging Him as the only Source of all life.

 Manuel. Emmanuel.

 Manuelito. Manolito. Manolo. Variants of the same wish. Same aspiration. 

 Jose. Josue. Joselito. Joselino. Jocelyn. Joseline. Josephine. Josefa. Josette. It’s quite a different name, but the aim is the same.

 Mario. Marianne. Mary Ann. Mariano. Mariana. Marianita. Marion. Same invocation. Same prayer.

 Maria Emmanuelle.

Jose Maria Emmanuelle. Like Jejomar (Jesus, Jose, Maria or if you want, Jesus Joseph Mary.)

 Naming your child in this fashion is giving more than paying tribute to the Highest One. It is the noblest gesture you can make, the highest kind of praise you can give to God, as it were.

 And then—Rosario. Probably the holiest of all.

 Were Spanish names once highly favored because they are highly allegorical, connoting the good things life? As in—Paz (peace), Constancia (constancy), Esperanza (hope), Remedios (remedy) and Consuelo (consolation)?

 While boys were named Serafin or girls Serafina—after the archangels Miguel, Rafael and Gabriel became too common—I think no parent would name their child Querubin, probably fearing that he or she would be as childish as impressionable if not as vulnerable or as unfortunate. Probably there is—but that’s too uncommon.

 And if you name your children in your clan Dorcas, Jona, Joshua, Abner, Abel or Nathaniel—obviously you know your Bible well. It means you don’t just let it sit on the altar for ages. Clearly, you must have been inspired not just by the Good News, but the Old Testament. It’s just hard not to associate these names with people who lived in the past. Picking all these names simply reflects a religious sensibility.

 Well, naming your child Primitivo or Primitiva lacks knowledge on your part. The Spanish name must have been assigned by the colonizers to the natives out of disgust—without the latter knowing what it meant. How the given name had survived through the generations is simply puzzling.

 Well, the same fate will befall you if you choose Moderna, but why does Nova—also meaning “new”—sound more acceptable? Hmm. Is it because it’s now Italian?

 Why can’t we name our girls Jane Karen, or Joan Jennifer—five syllables. Obviously because each of these names is already solid or full by itself. But why does it work with Sheryl Lyn or Sarah Jane? Frank Daniel or Billy Joe? Or Kyla Marie? Lyn Joy (really, it’s just beautiful). I explained this already.

 While a co-worker back in Iloilo has well thought of naming their children Payapa, Sigasig and Biyaya, some literary sensibilities name their children really as a poet would title their poem, or as a novelist would call their magnum opus: Marilag. Makisig. Maningning.

 Lakambini. Awit. Diwa.

 Angela. Kerima. Priscilla. Mirava. Anya.

 Dulce Maria.

 But no writer in his “write” mind would name their beloved child Luksa or Dusa. Or Daluyong or Kutya or Dagsa.

 “Sofia” is a favorite—nobody would turn away or turn away from wisdom.

 Shakespeare. Ophelia. Cordelia. Miranda. Tibaldo. Mercusio. Very rare.

 Misteriosa? Well, some women are named Gloriosa. I know a Glorioso. But why not Misteriosa? Misterioso. Is it not stating the obvious?

 And unless she has gone crazy, no mother would pick Thanatos, Persephone or Hades from her memory of Greco-Roman history.

 Persephone has come to be Proserfina, or Plocerfina with a variant Plocerfida, still uncommon. Orfeo is a beautiful name for a boy—as it is sad. And Eurydice? You must be very morbid. Try Eunice—although later on, she will be called “Yunise” by the folks in your barangay.

 Naming her Venus or Aphrodite is fair enough. Just do not pair them for one person—or else.

 I know of a well-known family from the highlands whose children’s names are Athena, Socrates, and Archimedes. They hail from the upland Buyo, a sitio adjacent to our barangay Bagacay, where they must have not only witnessed but also created their own Mount Olympus. Amazing!

 I wonder why Nestor has even become very popular here locally, sounding even more Filipino when it is originally Greek. Homer is not, or Homar. But Omar? Omar is very common. Omar Shariff? Or Omar Khayyam?

 And why does Hermes sound so high-brow? Hermes Diaz. Hermes Rodriguez. Hermes Sto. Domingo. But why not Mercurio? The latter is an actual family name, not a given name.

 And why, too, are there more Socrates I know than Aristotle or Aristoteles? Certainly, I know nothing of Plato or Platon, except for an apellido.

 I know of some Teofilo. Or Diogenes. Theophanes (poetic one, here!).  But everybody must have not seen Aristophanes as a name in a list. Or Euripides or Anaxagoras. Or Pythagoras.

 One must be so careful with naming their child Hippocrates, the so-called father of medicine or Heraclitus, traced to be the father of history. These were two great names in worlds of the past, but here and now, a mistake in one syllable might create some quandary if not furor.

 I had a pen friend Minerva Cercado back in the 1990s. Hers is a beautiful name but I am afraid it does not sound good with all Filipino surnames. How about Minerva Diaz? Minerva Deserva? Minerva Seva? Minerva Raquitico? Minerva Ragrario. Hmm? Twists the tongue.

 There’s a guy named Delfin Delfin. And I am sure there must be Delfin Delfino. Based on the oracle of Delphi. (But why is Delfina pretentious?)

 If one were so steeped in Greek mythology, I wonder if she names her triplets or multiple births after The Furies, The Muses or the Fates.

 There’s one name I remember: Indira Daphne? Nicely paired. Wonderful. How snugly it puts together the Eastern and the Western sensibility. At least, it’s not Indira Gandhi—if she was so named by her parents (plus their surname), I wonder how she would measure up to that big name.

 Would you admire a father who’d name his child Psyche? Or would you say he’s out of his mind? Is he still sane if he adds Delia to it? As in Psyche Delia Magbanua?

 Maura. Chona. Lota. Why couldn’t I easily associate these names with anything pleasant—only something pleasurable? Ah, biases! Stereotypes.

 After all, names are just labels.

 That’s why some names are being picked so carefully—so as to reflect their parents’ sensibility. If it’s John Joshua, they are highly religious. Joshua Aaron, equally so.

 But nobody names their little girl Ruth Sara; it sounds redundant—both women were biblical and blessed. But put together, why does it not sound good?

 Peter Gerard? Acceptable. John Kevin? Pretentious.

 Kanye James Ywade? Are you out of your mind?

 Should we cry foul—how do we express concern about the names of children born through this pandemic? First name, Covid Bryant; surname, Santiago. Quarantina Fae Marie, surname de la Cruz. Shara Mae Plantita Diaz De Dios. Dios mio!

 The list goes on.

 Well, I know of a biology teacher who named his kids Xylem or Phloem, or something—and added to them a more common name. I think they’re still sane because at least, they didn’t go all the way naming them Stamen or Pistil or Chlorophyll. Or Stalk. Or Leaves or Photosynthesis. But obviously their Science teacher way, way back must have really made an impact on them.

 While Paraluman, Ligaya and Lualhati are popular native names for Filipinas, why don’t we have Filipino males named Lapulapu or Lakandula or Humabon? Clearly these are strong names! Is it the same as naming your boys Ares or Mars? What’s wrong with that?

 If it’s okay to be named Magtanggol, or Tagumpay or if you may, Galak—all positive names—why can’t we have Hamis, Sarap, or Siram or Lami when they sound just as appetizing as Candy, Sugar Mae or Dulcesima?

 Other parents are so enamored by popular girl names from television like Kendra, Kylie, Khloe—and all the Kardashians, but why aren’t they easily drawn to Georgia, Atalanta or Europa?

 Europa sounds so good for a girl’s name. Don’t you think? Asia? Wow! But why not Alemania or Venezuela? Or Antarctica? Or Australia?

 Africa.

 How about Filipinas? Why not Filipinas?

 Interestingly, a beautiful tall woman I met was named Luvizminda—and she is from Iloilo, yes, Western Visayas. Her parents clearly wanted to articulate the middle syllable “Visayas”, probably being Visayan themselves. It’s just original.

 I knew someone named Filipinas. Her parents were probably not content with Luzviminda as in Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao—counting each of the islands of our country.

 When they named her, were they rallying against regionalism, or lamenting the pointlessness of ethnicity? Were they protesting the divisiveness of their own people so they settled for the single, collective name of the archipelago?

 Did they really consecrate her to the country, the only Catholic nation in Asia—because it really means something to them? When she was born, did they wish for her to make it big, really succeed in life and lead the country more than Corazon Aquino—topple the patriarchy oligarchy tyranny (yes, in that order) and cure the ills of society?

 Maria Filipinas, is that you?

 Inang Bayan, let’s go!

Mapping My Literary Journey

“The struggle to be a writer does not end,” said panelist Angelo “Sarge” Lacuesta in one of our sessions during the Silliman Writers’ Workshop in Dumaguete in May 2009. Now a recognized Filipino fictionist in English, Lacuesta was then citing on how a creative writer must invest time, effort and yes, as clichés go, resources—sure, their lifetime—to be able to master the literary craft, or so that whatever he or she has written could at least make sense.

 

The statement stuck the moment I heard it, there and then admonishing me and making itself a tall order for me. So I responded by asking back that if writing does not really not end, I could at least throw an equally valid question: So, therefore has it ever begun at all? I could start clarifying the statement by first asking the wherever, whenever, however—or the circumstances—involved in its inception. 

 

In other words, I would like to begin today by answering the question taken from that sweeping statement—particularly, when does the struggle to write even begin in the first place? Or more clearly—when does a literary life ever begin?  

 

When did my literary life begin? Just when did my “whole affair” with literature begin?

 

Darakulaon mata niya namumulaag, garong kakakanon ka. Sa basug mo nanuparan pasiring ka sa eskwelahan. Kuminutipas kang pauli na maski dai pa lamo retira. Tuminago ka sa likod kan platera nindo, nagrurulungsi ka. Nasabatan mo itong asbô sa libro ni Mrs. Páya.—“Anayo II” , Facebook Post Dec. 25, 2014.#AraaldawMaanayo

 

Imaginative and young as I was, already I chose to make my own reality; and invented my own tawong lipod which I probably thought could tell others about. 

 

In mapping my own literary journey, I take many, many steps back to retrace where I came from—and as I do, I look to the many experiences and not only the various opportunities but also the many different sensibilities who took part, were part or helped shape these events.

 

For this piece, I will try to answer this question, but also know that when I do, I will be raising more questions than answering them.

 

FROM BAGACAY TO BAGUMBAYAN

Born the youngest of six to two under-compensated public schoolteachers in the 1980s, when Salary Grade (SG 11) was probably not yet assigned to a Teacher I, I began school when my mother was already a widow, working hard to make ends meet for her six growing children. 

 

Was I the perfect candidate to win the most coveted Little Boy Blue award? Being labeled achiever and typecast as bright slash loner slash weird slash “siisay lamang an amigo kaiyan,” was I being groomed to befriend books for life, as it were?

 

What else could this little fellow do? How else was an 11-year-old boy supposed to respond after being chosen by Grade 4-Yakal adviser Ella Mariscal to memorize and deliver a “A Child of Woe” declamation piece to represent our humble school in the bigger Tinambac schools?

 

What else could he do—being rehearsed even during regular classes and weekends—to internalize a clichéd character of a child beggar asking for alms in the busy city streets only to be run over by a car and become an amputee for the rest of his life? 

 

And what could be more heartrending than this piece ? Can you think of something else that will better teach the bitter truth about poverty to such young, emotionally vulnerable—too impressionable—sensibility?

 

Laughable. Yes, Virginia, you might even say that of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” monologue as it might just pale in comparison to my declamation piece—if we talk in terms of literally making “audience impact”. 

 

While “Hamlet” actors must make sense by vacillating between “To be or not to be” only because the audience know the lines by heart, I simply made my audience cry when I did cry.

 

I mean who wouldn’t be affected by a boy onstage, crying hard about his misfortune in tattered outfits? Almost every sentence in that overwrought declamation—piece of “tragic” proportions—required me to act out grief—which I did so accordingly generously, much to the satisfaction not just of my coach when I qualified for the District Meet, but also of the school district supervisor who was already counting their high marks in performance evaluations.

 

At a young age, this boy was already being taught the gravitas—correct diction and serious emotions delivered to the audience—in tattered and dungis and dugyot outfit—eventually winning the hearts of many a judge, bringing me to represent Tinambac district in San Miguel Bay Meet in 1987. Nom! Saen ka pa?

 

But more than anything, the “Woe” monologue could have had more impact only because I was speaking my own character. I come to think now: was it really acting—or was it simply acting out what I really was? 

 

Because my mother was struggling so hard for her children, so probably my teacher thought that her youngest son could best interpret the piece to evoke the sentiment being exaggerated and—in the words of Rosario Cruz-Lucero—overdone or “over-killed” in that weepy declamation piece. 

 

Interestingly, I have yet to know the name of whoever wrote that “woeful” attack on poverty. At the time, my coach considered it a cousin to the more popular “Vengeance Is Not Ours,” which was a staple piece and made rounds in the DECS (Department of Education, Culture and Sports) community.

 

As an essay writing contestant, too, I—sadly—was asked to memorize words from a previously written piece and just rewrite them using pencil (so I could easily erase any errors) during contests proper in Tinambac district or San Miguel Bay. I wonder why they called it essay-writing contest then—when I was just asked to rewrite a piece I memorized. It should have been called Essay Rewriting Contest.

 

Looking back to all these, I should say I had the good fortune of not only being given these opportunities but also having enjoyed them. To me, these early “literary” involvements, these engagements couldn’t just be ignored; for they served as cornerstones and milestones which directed me and cleared the ways for me to consequently pursue the road to literature. 

 

To me, these and other such exposures were simply the asbo which I saw on Mrs. Paya’s book and from which I couldn’t just be torn away.

 

            When I entered Ateneo de Naga in the late 1980s, fortunately through a scholarship, I was overwhelmed by the Ateneo’s English PowerHouse Department. By this I mean the privilege of being taught by this batch of teachers—whom I now call renaissance men and women inspired and nurtured by Fr. Raul Bonoan’s repackaging of Ateneo’s human resource which historically dramatically helped salvaged saved rescued the said institution from its near-closure. 

 

While my early (freshman) membership in the schoolpaper Blue and Gold afforded me opportunities to train and, if you may, intimate with the English language, fellow Knight of the Altar member Xavier Olin’s proactive editorship sparked in me the love of publication itself, especially when I was being tasked to write and make significant contributions for the paper.

 

Well, I loved Alejandro Roces’s “My Brother’s Peculiar Chicken” under Mrs. Bernadette Eduardo-Dayan. But who am I to forget Jesuit scholastic Rene Repole’s incisive phonetics classes? More than anything, they inspired me, too, not only to enunciate the keywords but really project the nostalgia in Horacio de la Costa’s classic essay oratorical piece “Jewels of the Pauper”.

 

Meanwhile, in my junior year with Mrs. Eden Maguigad, we did not only see real, familiar characters, who were not far different from ourselves—as the boy protagonist in N.V. M. Gonzalez’s “Bread of Salt” or the other one in James Joyce’s “Araby”; we also role-played Alberto Florentino’s The World Is An Apple” and metaphorically took a bite at poverty to its core.

 

Not to be left out are my Filipino subject teachers Delia Villanueva with whom we read and understood European culture from a Filipino author writing in antequarian Tagalog, namely: Francisco Balagtas “Florante at Laura” 

 

There is also Delia Volante under whom we dissected Inang Bayan’s literal and figurative maladies in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

 

Then, to have one Gregorio Abonal for an English or even Practical Arts teacher was legendary at the time in our campus. In his English and journalism classes, we did not only see ourselves as Stripes looking for our own Yellows after reading Trina Paulus’s “Hope for the Flowers”; we also relished and probably held our tears after reading Daniel Keyes’s “Flowers for Algernon”. 

 

Who was I to hold back my tears seeing how Charlie’s mental deterioration is reflected in her notes to Ms. Kinian, making the story probably the least clinical but the most poignant doctor-patient meeting ever written? The teacher’s love of the letters, such appreciation of the language culminated in our production of Roman scrolls based on William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. For me who was still growing up doing so much already with these opportunities, it’s simply difficult to just forget them. 

 

After all, someone said that whatever an individual did best and/or loved doing when he was 15, he would be probably be do(p)ing all his life. This has proven true to me. From the day I found copies of my uncle’s 1980s newspapers Balalong and Bikol Banner as a kid playing with my cousins in the second story of their house, I have always loved journalism. And when I became editor of the Blue and Gold in my senior year, producing an issue with the gang was the pinnacle of everything I probably did in high school.

 

What could be a more fitting practicum for all the years of training in the languages for the last three years but a stint at the school paper which allowed me to offer back my contribution to the community who taught me the love of the language but more importantly, the flavourful life lived with literature?

 

Indeed, newspapers overwhelm me ceaselessly—while some are produced to make profits, I relish how thousands of sensibilities are gathered in one page or publication by a more organized mind—which puts everything into place, so as to create a sensible whole, one that makes any reader more knowledgeable and wiser than he was before.

 

Besides the required weekly journal submission, which asked us to write observations, experiences and insights—now status updates or blog entries, as in a diary—Abonal’s English classes did more—how can I forget a class when it mixed your taste for New Wave music to building up your speech skills? What happens to you if you were allowed to act out the lyrics of Depeche Mode’s “People Are People” as in a speech, or dramatize a scene based from a gospel song, Basil Valdez’s “Lift Up Your Hands”? 

 

And what could be more flattering than being asked to reflect one Sunday and write a homily-like essay on the concept of the Holy Spirit but stand and deliver it in front of our all-teenage-boys “congregation”?  During these times, your classmates, including those who bullied you in one way or another, will be made to listen to you for one moment in their lives.

 

In all these, I did not remain a performer of other people’ art; I also did create my own work of art myself, just like what Dame Edith Tiempo said in that one summer of 2009—“the moment you look at a flower, you already own that flower.”

 

You wouldn’t just be able to forget it even as it prefigures what you predict yourself to be –standing in the pulpit persuading people to believe in what you have to day.  I mean nothing else was more empowering to me than that. The English classes, projects and exercises were my life, my lifeblood, if you may—because virtually, all these could answer the present-day coffee ad question: “Para kanino ka gumigising?” Yes, indeed, I could not wait for the classes to resume or projects to be unveiled, or activities to unfold. All these excited me.

 

FROM CAPILIHAN TO KATIPUNAN

The strong influence of Abonal and later, the De los Trinos (who made homes in Capilihan Street in Bgy. Calauag and where I personally submitted class projects or retrieved them) would sustain me enough until I attended Rudy Alano’s classes as a full-time Literature major in Ateneo de Naga college.

 

While college English was a requirement across the courses, this was also the time when I could chose what to learn—even as I could choose my courses and schedules and electives to suit my tastes.  

 

Inspired from my previous English teachers in high school, I continued journaling under Joy Bonafe-Capiral, who read my juvenilia, or my hormones-induced incantations and intimations on girl crushes from Nabua and Iriga. Most of these written works impressed them and eventually made my rom-com life possible. 

 

Along side, even in college, I still benefited from the literary fellowships I began with my high school teachers. Grace Dorotea Nobleza-Rubio lent me not only her Scribner’s first-edition Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea), a worn copy which I carried me through college but also—Conrado de Quiros’s Flowers from the Rubble, from which I witnessed the profound simplicity and the simple profundity of the essay.

 

Not to be left out is my younger Pillars associate and layout artist’s Karl Llorin’s predilection for Jessica Zafra when she rose to the literary firmament with her Twisted essays. On days at the college paper Pillars which I edited in my senior year, I led to publish proofs of how we, too, caught the Zafra fever in campus through versions of our own Twisted universes.

 

If there was a clincher of our sad, literary lives in Ateneo, it would be our Rudy Alano experience. The Bikolista sensibility in Alano afforded our batch the chance to interpret his Bikol adaptations of two Western classic plays—Shakespeare’s “An Pagkamoot ninda Romeo & Juliet” which the English and Literature majors staged in 1994 and Edmond Rostand’s classic Cyrano de Bergerac, now “Cyrano de Queborac” (after the Bagumbayan sitio) also showcased by the same group the following year. 

 

The Alano interlude will not be complete without the mention of the publication of “Bilog at Iba Pang Mga Tula, a Knight literary folio I edited which was a response to Miriam College’s seminal “Libog at Iba pang Mga Tula”. The latter similarly drew huge criticism at the Time when Jane Campion’s The Piano, an independent film displaying male and female nudity was censored and cut by the prudish Movies and Television Regulation and Classification Board (MTRCB) led by one Henrietta Mendez. 

 

More than anything, it was a privilege for me to be taught by what I call the DE LOS TRINO TRIO, namely: the husband-wife tandem of Vernon and Maria Liwayway, or the most indispensable Maa’m Y; and their younger brother Joeby in the Social Sciences department.

 

Vernon de los Trino’s speech class allowed me to mark American minor poet Edwin Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe” a weighty and heartfelt oral interpretation seeing Jean-Francois Millet’s realist classic “The Man with the Hoe”.

 

Liwayway de los Trino’s narration and expository writing techniques and Jose de Los Trino’s weekly Rizal essays afforded me the gravitas, to take seriously the essay form—how the essay form can glorify an idea and elaborate it using details freely and sometimes unabashedly. 

 

More writing opportunities became my points of directions, including Lourdes Huelgas’s Essay class which required me to react to an essay in the form of another essay; Danilo Gerona’s Philippine history class, which trained me to stick to facts and interpret history using concise language and of course, Ranilo Hermida’s weekly Philo essays which asked me to illustrate the ideas advanced by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine or Aquinas using my own experiences as examples. 

 

Moreover, my affiliation with my fellow Literature majors surely came with even firsthand literary awakenings. F. Sionil Jose’s green Tree novel was lent to me by my classmate-cum-almost-confidante Jennifer Jacinto while John Steinbeck’s The Pearl by Corazon Uvero at one time made rounds among us Literature majors. These two slim volumes on nostalgia and realism taught me that novels and novellas are enough to give us a perspective with which we can view reality meaningfully.

 

All these served as training ground to appreciate the essay and extend it in my personal letters to family members or even experimental pieces which found space in the Bikol Daily, a new paper I worked in 1996 right after college graduation.

 

FROM DERRIDA TO DERIADA

After graduating from Ateneo de Naga, I chose to pursue graduate studies in literature at the bigger Ateneo in Loyola Heights, a sprawling Jesuit commune in Katipunan, Quezon City. There, my Literature professors, Dr. Edna Manlapaz, Jonathan Chua, Danton Remoto and D.M. Reyes are my “shimmering” lights at this time, guiding me to steer clear of traps in literary studies where I may have otherwise fallen but at times mentoring me and inspiring me to read works of literature seriously. These teachers taught me to treat literature as a doctor does a patient with a scalpel—clinical and exacting, but most importantly, aware of the diagnosis from which I will benefit.

 

The poetry electives I enrolled in—Rofel Brion in 1999 and B.J. Patiño and Alfred Yuson in 2003—helped produce subsequent poems written in English in Bikol not only because the weekly meetings cum workshops required output but also because I was being taught that to write about the self is not the only way to write. In these expisures, I was taught about being a creative writer. In particular, Krip Yuson urged his students to depart from the “I” persona in writing our weekly poem submissions. He asked us to produce poems which are of consequence not just to ourselves but to the general reader.

 

In recent years, I enjoyed literary fellowships from schools and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. These experiences I cherish deep in my heart because while they probably made me see my inadequacies, they have also not really dissuaded me from writing.

 

Joining Iyas fellows in 2007 chase ghosts in the Administrative Building of the DLSU Bacolod, I had the privilege of achieving enlightenment through poet par excellence Marjorie Evasco. More than anything, Evasco told Rodrigo de la Peña and myself, fellow Iyas poet, to “attend to your art,” admonishing us to clearly “pay attention to the things I have chosen to invest time in,” another tall order which I have not taken seriously.

 

Then, attending Iligan Workshop in 2008, the words of Waray poet Victor Sugbo sounded more than flattery when he said that learned a poetic style from my poem submission “Anayo”, which also received a Special Prize for Poetry. It was more than a fortune to be mentored and guided by the likes of Rosario Cruz-Lucero, who zeroed in on the folk elements she found alluring in the same poem “Anayo”. The praises for the poem came with admonitions on how it pales or fails even as, they said, it could achieve more.

 

That summer some ten years ago, I had the good fortune of studying poetry and fiction with some of the most illustrious names in Philippine literature in English, including poets Gemino Abad and Alfred Yuson and the Visayan sensibility Rosario Cruz-Lucero.

 

Among others, our batch was one of the last to listen to Dame Edith Tiempo, the mother of a big number of contemporary literati writing today. Though already frail at the time, Ma’am Edith still generously accommodated us in her legendary home in and profusely admonished us on the indispensable symbiosis of form and content. The home of the Tiempos is legendary because it is where writers are born; or made. A bug number of prominent writers are alumni of the Silliman Writers Workshop, including not only our homegrown talents Rudy Alano and his wife Selena, Maryanne Moll or Jason Chancoco, but also, believe it or not—Leoncio Deriada and the New York-based Magarao poet Luis Cabalquinto.

 

I give credit to every bit of learning I had during when I at the Ateneo, absorbing copiously seriously whatever a member of then powerhouse English and Filipino departments would cook up for their students. 

 

FROM ATENEO TO ANAYO

Beginning with verses in my journals, I relished words through my experimentations—amateur, juvenilia, and so on. But later on, my lessons in literature afforded me models to emulate, words, to borrow, phrases to elaborate, and ideas to expound.

 

All of which found expression in my random notes and jottings, which later became poems that I submitted to magazines; and essays which I gave to friends and confidantes. 

 

I love the essay. In my current outputs of saysay, which fuses Bikol and Hiligaynon and even Bikol and English at times, I would like to embed personal writing with something else which I create. I am working hard to make the usual informal essay become a creative non-fiction; with the plethora of personal experiences which I have now penned as drafts, I believe they also can become materials for a poem or even a short story. 

 

I began writing rawitdawit or Bikol poetry in 1995 which were also published in the Knight literary folio. This formed part of our Vernacular literature exposure through the same Rudy Alano, who promoted Bikol along with Dr. Lilia Realubit of the pioneer Kabulig writers group in 1992.

 

Whatever words come out of my mouth today, whatever sensibility I have I owe to the men and women with whom I encountered the beauty of language and its evocations of truth, universal and temporal. Or to put it more awkwardly, “I am legion”—infamously said by Lucifer when asked who he was by an exorcist priest.

 

As American poetry father Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes,” through my works, I invoke the many sensibilities which have affected me, and indicate the plurality of the voices I myself engendered in my poems and essays. This was echoed by the seminal Tagalog modernist Alejandro Abadilla when he famously wrote, too, “Ako ang daigdig”, prefiguring for the next generation of poets the primacy of the individual. 

 

My own private pursuits of literature were equally beneficial to me as reader. The fact that I chose to read them indicates to me how I wanted to see and feel and experience literature and do something to me. All these literary involvements and pursuits only become meaningful not really because I will write about them—but they will all be ingrained in my memory. 

 

Whether I did them during one cozy summer vacation (when I read Sidney Sheldon’s Master of the Game because everyone else in our household was reading it) or assigned myself a Holy Week reading to observe the Lenten season (I devoured Og Mandino’s The Christ Commission from page to page, seeing Christ come alive in the yellowed pages lent to my brother by his classmate)—I chose to be affected by literature that’s why I read them. I wanted to enjoy and be entertained and so I did, and so I was. 

 

The otherwise public experiences—I played a gay character in Alano’s “Romeo & Juliet” and Clarissa Guadalupe’s “Tao, Tao Saan Patungo ang Basura Mo?” embedded in me their serious message, which I would remember long as I live.

 

Then there was a time when I was being published. I began to enjoy publication from individuals and institutions. Foremost, these were the fruits of my partnership with my benevolent teacher in college, Paz Verdades M. Santos, who has in countless ways encouraged me to pursue literature like a mother would sing to her son to pursue his own path—herself a Gawad Paz Marquez Benitez awardee for promoting Bikol literature. 

 

Madam Doods had seen me as a promising writer in college, checking my journals and urging me to write further and be published. She sent me people to send works to.

 

First published by the Canada-based Bikolista Gode Calleja from Albay, my epistolary poem “Surat sa Pinsan na Taga-Libmanan pagkatapos kan Bagyo” was picked up by Ma’am Doods Santos to represent one of the many voices and/or flavors in the watershed anthology “Mahamis, Maharang na Manlain lain na Literaturang Bikolnon or Sweeets and Spices. This feast in Bikol literature also first saw an e-publication or digital platform. 

 

While I have yet to know how personal writing like that qualifies easily as creative writing. The poem’s shines even as it reflects a marital drift or crumbling marriage 

 

The “Leoncio Deriada” of Home Life’s “Poetry Workshop with Tito Leo” is admittedly my literary father who gave birth to my earliest attempts at English poetry—worthy or publishable or otherwise. Still in college I sent Sir Leo my English poems, some of which he found publication-worthy. 

 

My contributions to this magazine would soon find print in St. Paul Publications’ In Time Passing, There are Things, Deriada’s edited collection of works by 100 poets published in the long-running poetry column. 

 

Considered the father of contemporary Western Visayan literature, Deriada’s landmark anthologies including Patubas have been instrumental in the birthing of poetic and literary sensibilities who have since sprung from anonymity to prominence in the national literary scene.

 

My early works also saw print in Carlos Arejola’ short-lived Makata literary journal while has was still based in Laguna. 

 

In 2004, my rawitdawit was first published online by Muse Apprentice Guild, and later published by E manial poetry. In Sa KAbila ng Ritmo

 

Oragon Republic.com and its subsequent folio, Salugsog sa Sulog also featured my rawitdawit titled “Ki Agom,” admittedly inspired by of T.S. Eliot’s dedicatory “To my Wife”, which I wrote as my own incantation to my wife in 2005/.

Published in 2012 by Salabay Press and Abkat group bannered by enterprising young poets led by Eduardo Uy, the Anayo chapbook reflects my poetic sensibility. 

 

Anayo is a tapestry that weaves together some 30 Bikol poems or rawitdawit representing a variety of voices or personas with their own sense of enchantment or acquired a kind of malady, a motley crew of disenfranchisement.

 

The whole irony of this publication is that I don’t even have a copy of it at the moment. The limited number of publications and its being out of print is pushing me for its republication of a bigger, more expanded version, to include newer pieces to date. I plan to reissue an Anayo Redux in 2020 from publisher who would even dare read its contribution to the conversation, as it were.

 

FROM ANAYO TO DAYUYU

Soon after graduation, I suffered from this dilemma of how to relate to my truer Bikol self, particularly after obtaining or seeming to have assumed an English-clad sensibility. Such vacillation or being torn between seeming to know something in English but knowing Bikol better by heart surfaced or was given full description in a Bikol essay I penned more than 20 years later, thus:

 

BAGAQAY, TINAMBAQ, QAMARINES SUR—Ano daw an matabô sa sarong English major, idtong nag-adal dangan naqapagtapos nin Bachelor of Arts uqon A.B. English sa Naga? Qun pagbuwelta niya sa sadiring banwa, dai niya na aram qun siisay an pwedeng maistorya. 

 

Sain niya na daw maipamugtaq an sadiri sa dating estada? Diin siya maqahanap nin tawong maqaistorya nga arog man niya? Dawa muya qaining mag-istar sa poblacion na dinaqulaan niya, mapilitan siyang magtiner na sana sa mas daqulang banwa.

 

Siya iyo idtong dai naqamove-on pagqabasa qan si “Araby” ni James Joyce sa qlase qadto ni Mrs. Habla: Grabe an hugop-hugop qan solteritong bida na igwang mabaqal para sa iya nga hinahangaan na daragita. Haloy niyang linangqaba dangan ginibong qalis na garong sa Santa Misa. Alagad, lintian. 

 

Pag-abot niya sa baligyaan, mayong lábot si tindera ta uto man duman naqiquhulnaqan sa gusto qaining qapareha. Nawaran lugod nin gana si idtong bida, sarong nagdadaqula pa sana. Pagqanuod pa sana nganing mamoot, sinampaling na tulos nin pagqaanggot. Mababasol mo daw siya qun magdaqula siyang angót? 

 

Siring qaining bida sa istorya, grabe an hugop-hugop niyang igwang maihiras sa iba an nanudan niya, may maqaututang-dila, maqaistorya, alagad mayo nin madangog maqaqaintindi saiya.

 

Sabihon pa saiya qan tugang niyang matua, “nag-E-english qa, Noy, digdi sa harong ta? Spoqening dollars qa na!” Dangan sa ila nga harong mangirisi sinda. Dai niya mabal-an qun maingít sainda o maoogma. 

 

Sa siring na qeha, siya idtong persona sa “Coming Home” ni Leoncio Deriada. Pagqauli qaining bida ta hali sa siyudad pag-esquwela, dai niya na baga maqaulay su mga magurang niya. Qawasa nag-iba na daa siya. Si dating mga amigo niya, dai niya na maqaistorya, diyata naqapag-adal na sa daqbanwa, halangqaw na daa an pinag-adalan niya. Garo palan “Laida Magtalas, Version Two Point O” ang peg qan satong bida. An saiyang inadalan nagi pa lugod na qaulangan. Daindáta.

 

Mayo siyang qinalain qi Pedro, a.k.a. Peter na iyo an bida sa “Letter to Pedro, U.S. Citizen, Also Called Pete” qan Cebuanong si Rene Estella Amper, na paboritong pang-midterm sa Intro to Philippine Lit qaidto sa Ateneo de Naga: Pagqahali sa abroad, nag-i-English na; an dating pangaran niyang Pedro, ngonyan “Pete” na.

 

Garo man sana idtong sabi qan iba sa mga Biqol na mga inistorya: nasa riles pa sana ngani daa, sa Pamplona, nag-Tatagalog na. Suba-suba qa ka’yan. An pagqálain sana qan bida ta sa ining mga istorya: dai siya naqapa-Ameriqa ta nganing mag-iba an dila niya. Imbis na mag-upod sa esqursyon qan mga dating qaesqwela, dai na sana daa qawasa taposon pa niya an napunan na poetry collection ni Anna Akhmatova. Ha?

 

Sarong aldaw naman, pagduruman qan mga tugang niya sa handaan qan mga pinsan ninda, mapawalat na sana daa ini sa harong ta ito palan, nagumon na sa Crossword Puzzle, gamit an bagong thesaurus na tinauhan pasalubong saiya qan tiyuon na nasa Toronto na.

 

Kaya maghapon, solo-solo ngonyan sa harong. Maqiqilaghanan siya qan iqos na nag-unas qan dai naluqduan na sira sa saindang qusina. Out of the blue, siniqa niya ini, binadag ini nin plato alagad dai tatamaaan, dangan masabi: “What the f… Get out! Out! Out! You’re not welcome here!!! Haaayop na ini!”

 

Si malutongon na muda niya sa mother tongue, na garo iyo man sana an iqinabuhay qaini, yaon na sana sa puro qan dila niya. Secondary language niya na sana palan an wika ng kanyang Inang Bayan. 

 

Nasa puro na sana ini; alagad dai niya malingaw-lingawan. Dai niya nang gayo mataratandaan alagad iyo an nahambal niya sa qaanggotan. Nasa puro sana qan dila niya. Pero dai niya maiquruquspa sa hugasan. 

 

In mapping my literary journey, I give tribute to all the men and women who kindly generously ushered me into the world of language and literature—the stories and their lessons—the myths and their meanings, and the sense and their sensibilities. 

 

In every poem I turn in, or work so hard finishing, in every closure I render to every poem, in all stories I helped unravel and even insights rendered in an essay, I invoke those who also devoted to seeking joy or enjoyment from them, or equally found truths and uncovered realities about being human.

 

In writing, I have been guided by some tenets which make sense to me everywhere I go, or wherever I find myself writing, or aching to write. 

 

Úsip ni Carl Sandburg, saróng Amerikánong saindá man saná pamóso, tolóng bágay daá an kaipúhan tangáning mahimô kan parasurát an saiyang obra-maestra, ukón dakulang-gibo: Énot an toil, ukón trabáho. Panduwá, solitude, ukón pagsoló-sólo. Dángan, prayer, ukón pangamúyo.

 

Toil. Kaipuhan mong magparasúrat saná tangáning ika makánood magsúrat. Iyo ni an imo nga trabaho. Magsúrat ka sa adlaw; magbása ka sa banggi; káyod-kabáyo, garí. Pwede mo man idungán: magsurat sagkod magbása barabanggi. O uruáldaw. Segun saimo, dipindi. Bastá mayo nin palusot sa trabáho nin pagsurat, hadí? Iní an importanti. Magparabása saná daá kita, ta ngáni man igwa kitang maipabasa, iyo pa an sábi.

 

Solitude. Dapat daá saímo pirming solo-solo? Dai man siguro. Tibáad gusto sanáng sabihon, igwá ka nin espásyo. O kutâ na, silencio. Ngáni na tibáad sa rárom kan bangging ini, magriliwánag na an ribo-ribong bitúon sa itaas kan saìmong harong, sa lindong kan langit na saìmong imahinásyon.

 

Prayer. Bako man gayod itong maaráng ka saná sa altar kawasâ naanáyo. Bakô man gayód dapat parasimba ka o relihiyóso. Ukón paralinig sa patio, o nagdakulang akolito. Dai man káso kun luminuwás ka sa semináryo o sa beateryo.

 

Kundi lang gayod, sa boót mo, bal-án mong bakô kang perpekto; kayâ ka nagpapang-amígo o nangangayo-ngáyo, bako man kaipuhan sa anito ukon sa rebulto. Bakô man dapat an ngaran mo sagrado, ukon apelyido Divino, kun saen-saen nagmimilagro; nagpaparasámba sa macho, o sa kalalawgon ni Piólo.

 

“Dayuyu”—it’s always the poet needs the pain. The poet vacillates because he has been trained in English but is also being admonished to produce in Bikol which was never taught to him in the first place. Nagdadayuyu kawasa naskukllgan an sarong sensibilidad. Naaapi an saro sa saiyang doble kara.

 

Just like the Bikol language (and of course Filipino) still being marginalized in academic institutions or being considered irrelevant in the age of K to 12, call centers and skilled workers, the writer is writhing in pain crying because he doesn’t know where to begin. He is taught one thing but also needs to advocate for another. 

 

Quo Vadis? Where Am I Going?

Ever since I could remember I have been writing—I had written so many things in the past, presently I am writing—I’ve done it not because I want to tell [you] something which I remember or already know. As far as I am concerned, I will continue to write—as long as I live—because I can hardly wait what it wants to tell me.