Alumni Homecoming

Susog ki David Ray

Abaana! Ano man daw ta nakabali ako

sa grupo kan mga polongóng iniho—

mayo nang giniribo ngonyan na banggi

kundi mag-irinuman tapos magharambugan—

túgbo digdi, túgbo duman, garo man daa

ngonyan lang naman nagkanuruparan.

Mayo na nin ibang pig-iristoryahan

kundi an saindang nagkágirinibuhan

na aráram kan gabos na man, mga lugar

na nagkádurumanan, mga chicks nindang

nagkátsaransingan—mga nagkágirinibuhan

nindang inda kun anong kamanungdánan.

Igwang nagharáli sa lugar mi pagkatápos

kaidto; tapos ngonyan pagkauruli, huna mo

sainda kun sáirisay na man daang Polano.

Pagkatápos kang tînuhon, mákua man daá

nin serbesa sa lamesa tapos dai ka kakauláyon—

garo dai kamo nagkáibahan nin pirang taon.

Yaon sana sa táid mo, mayong girong.

Ukon kauláyon ka na, masabi siya: dai ka

man giráray palán nag-iinom. Nin huli ta

kaáabot niya pa man saná, dai niya áram

na nakapirá ka na antes mag-sinárom.

Iyo ka man ngaya giráray: dai man nag-iinom,

mayo pa nin agom.  An ibang mga beer belly-hon

huna mo kun sáirisay na iriigwáhon, mga parainom!

Dai man daw an mga empatsádo nindang tulak

an iyong pinag-iimon kan saindang mga agom?

Yaon si Sulpicio, si Crisanto dangan si Claveron.

Padarakuláan nin tulak, pagarabátan nin buy-on.

Ngonyan, garo pa lugod sinda binabayadan

ubuson an pirang kahon kan serbesang dinunaran

kan mga kaklase pang nakabase sa Taiwan.

Kaya na sana man gayod an iba samo

amay nagkagaradán, nagkángaranáan

sa rarâráan sa kada taon na urulian.

Siring sa dati, mayong sistema ining tiripon  

apwera sa limang kahang baseyong

pwede na naman iarapon.

Mauli na akong amay—babayaaan ko

sindang agit-agitan naman magtiripon

sa bagong sumsuman na inorderan pa

sa luwas kan eskwelahan—inasal na hito

sagkod an pinaluto pang dinuguan.

Maagi an mga aldaw siring kan dati,

ma-check ako nin FB sa sakong Galaxy 3;

sa status message sa Group mi, dai ko

mangalas kun igwa na naman R.I.P. 

Ki Protacio, Gadan Sa Edad Na 38

Garo man nanggad ribo-ribong dagom an duros ngonyan na banggi—siring sa ginhalâ niya saimo kaidto. Tinuturusok kan kada panas an pusikit mong kublit; kinikiriblit ka; pinapasalingoy na paminsaron mo idtong mga aldaw na dai kamo nagpopondo kangingisi. Kawasa ika an saiyang pirming binabangít—sa kapikunan na naturalisa mo, ika man biyóng naiingít; minangiriil sa sinasabi tungod sa imo kan bâbâ niyang matabil. An pagkamoot abaanang kapeligroso. Tibaad igwa kamong namate sa kada saro poon kadto—kung kaya an puso mo nawaran nin diskanso. Siya man nagparalagaw, nagparatrabaho; kadakuldakul inasikaso; garong an iniisip nindo pirmi kun pâno makapalagyo. Mayo na siya ngonyan; sa mga kabukidan kan Kabikolan, igwang kung anong kapaladan an saiyang napadumanan; sarong aldaw sa Juban, kaiba kan saiyang mga kasama, siya ginadan kan saiyang mga kalaban. Mayo na siya. An parasuba sa buhay mo nagtaliwan na; mayo nang maolog-olog kan saimong ngaran; mayo nang malapaskan saimong mga kanigoan; mayo nang malangkaba kan saimong kamahalan. Bwelta ka na naman sa pangabuhi na tibaad igwang kamanungdanan. 

Sinurublian sa Hiligaynon 

ginhalâ, sinabi

paminsaron, pag-iisip

naiingít, nababalde

bâbâ, nguso

makapalagyo, makadulag

nagtaliwan, nagadan

Trees

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,

To stay in one’s own place;

To stand for the constant presence of process

And always to seem the same;

To be steady as a rock and always trembling,

Having the hard appearance of death

With the soft, fluent nature of growth,

One’s Being deceptively armored,

One’s Becoming deceptively vulnerable,

To be so tough, and take the light so well,

Freely providing forbidden knowledge

Of so many things about heaven and earth

For which we should otherwise have no word—

 

Poems or people are rarely so lovely,

And even when they have great qualities

They tend to tell you rather than exemplify

What they believe themselves to be about,

While from the moving silence of trees,

Whether in storm or calm, in leaf and naked,

Night or day, we draw conclusions of our own,

Sustaining and unnoticed as our breath,

And perilous also—though there has never been

A critical tree—about the nature of things.

 

Howard Nemerov [1920-1991]

Mirrors and Windows, 1958

Speak To Us of Teaching

As a high school freshman in Ateneo de Naga back in 1988, I would relish looking at my test papers whenever examination papers were returned. 

Today is a different story. In my classes, my students would usually dread examinations, frown at their tests, scowl at the thought of their projects, and even cringe at the thought of a new lesson. The dissimilarity between the two eras is disconcerting. But teaching students these days brings in insights that reflect the tendencies and inclinations of the youth today and their possible future. 

Maybe what they say is true—it’s teacher factor, teacher factor. It’s how the teacher approaches the students with the subject matter. As far as teachers are concerned, they have been trying varied methodologies to approach the situation more eclectically to cater to the diversity of today’s students. 

The students today are not really as diverse as we think they are—they even come from the same lot—kids with very short attention spans who belong to the “remote-control or YouTube generation. They simply want the same thing—they would want to relax during class hours, relish doing nothing in the class during literature classes—etc. Simply because the media must have taught them that everything is attainable at the click of the remote control. 

Someone put it more aptly when he claimed that we cannot always point the finger at the school if there’s something wrong with the students—rather we must check society or the real world and all it has—because what’s wrong in our society makes everything wrong in education. The media and other social external influences have since defined the individual learner.

Because students come to classrooms from their own families, orientations and influences, the manner in which they behave in their classrooms point to the way they are bred and reared in their families. The levels of the education then and now are far from each other. Today’s schools may just be way far different from what schools were before.

True enough. Schools are the second homes—yet it is not the entire breeding ground of character. If homes are more powerful influences to the youth, what does the school have as its ace? The school just takes on where the family [or the sense of it] leaves. 

Nowadays when we hear elderly people whine and tell us, “Times have really changed. It was not like this in our time, blah… blah… [or something to that effect]” maybe they’re just making sense.

When you are a teacher, most probably, you are a more blessed worker. Despite the meager salary, now and then whined upon in bureaucratic circles and other work entities, your efforts as a teacher are usually paid off [or extremely otherwise shortchanged] the same day you put them forth. In the classroom, you are disposed to see how students display varied reactions about a certain topic. Their sparkling eyes will glow whenever they get a point clarified and learned. One of the joys of teaching is in being able to find for yourself how a student learns on his own and not through your own means.

Moreover, Aristotle said because we are what we repeatedly do—thus excellence is an act of habit. It is the habits that the teacher seeks to impart that matters most to the learner. It is in the way the teacher conducts himself or herself in front of the learning environment that will stick to the mind of the student who, impressionable as he is, will simply copy what he finds desirable or beneficial from his teacher.

Teaching traditions and lifestyles have already changed. Some teachers can get away with being Miss Tapia to their students. Others are becoming more open to democratic and eclectic ways of making the pupils and students learn. They attend seminars and numerous group dynamics to learn much about the styles that suit today’s learners—from their talents to their eccentricities. Therefore, a teacher is a continually challenged worker. He determines his own growth because he is at his own pacing as a learner.

Sadly, however, despite the monstrously large statistics of new teachers each year, the teaching profession may be an obsolete career—with the unceasing demand and supply for call center agents and domestic helpers. The latter jobs prove to be more lucrative and financially helpful. In fact, some teachers abandon teaching to be domestic helpers abroad just to support their families sensibly while they shell in foreign currencies for the government. 

One thing is clear, though. Teaching may not at all be far behind because in each child born to the world, someone out there will just have to make him see about life’s stark realities.

First published. 2006

Delusions of Grandeur

Bantaak an init kan saldang sa Avenue, kaya hali sa luwas mainiton nagdadaradalagan ka palaog sa Ateneo. Patuyatoy ka sa Xavier Chapel. Malipot-lipot sa laog kan Chapel. Nahayahayan ka. Tuminindog ka sana sa gilid, harani sa pinto.

 

Nahiling mo an dakulang missal nakahulid sa entrada sa taid kan benditadong tubig sa may confessionario. Igwang ibang mga nagpaparangadie. Natrangkilo ka yaon nahihiling mo an dakulang Krusipiho nakasa’bit sa altar sa puro.

 

Diyos ko, dai Mo man po ‘ko pababayaan. Ta’wi man po ako nin kusog nin boot, linaw nin isip—sa gabos kong gigibohon sa ngonyan. Ama Niamo.

 

Pagluwas mo sa kapilya, nataka ka. Yaon an istatwa ni San Francisco Javier, sa gilid kan pinto palaog sa Wooden Building nakatungkahal kapot an krusipiho. Igwang nagsisirisilyab sa saiyang lalawgon, igwang garo nagsisirisirilyab sa saiyang lawas. Bagá na riboribong liwanag an naghahale sa saiyang hawak.

 

Daing untok na garo riniritrato an Santo kan kadakuldakul na cameraman sa luwas kan Four Pillars. Ano daw yan? Tibaad nagmimilagro an Santo (saimo), saboot mo. Sabi mo nagtataong-galang gayod an Santo sa Ginoo. Nagkiling ka sa luwas, tibaad kun saen hali an mga nagriritrato.

 

Nagbagting nang ala una.  Mapoon na an Practical Arts ki Mrs. Dayan.  Lakaw na, sige na. gwang garo nagsunson saimo.

 

Palaog ka sa klase, dai ka napapanultol. Nagmilagro gayod sako si San Francisco, saboot mo. Magayon palan digdi sa Ateneo. An mga milagro ordinaryo.

 

 

 NA(GKA)SALA NIN MAKURI SA HUNA HUNA

An garo riboribong liwanag na nagsisirisirilyab hali sa salming kan mga salakyan na minaralaog sa Ateneo, sagkod mga tricycle na nagdadaralhog nin mga pasahero sa may trangkahan kan eskwelahan. Huna mo sagkod na sana an pagtaong-galang kan tawo sa Santo. Huna mo nagmimilagro saimo an Santo. Huna mo an milagro ordinaryo.

Liwanag asin Diklom Susog Ki Rudy Alano

Sa banggi an kadaihan nin ribok

minapatarom sa bagting nin oras

kan simong pagturog.

An simong daing pundong pagngalas

sa kadikloman nin langit minapasabong

na ika palan matakton

pag an dating mararambong

na liwanag nin mga bituon

natatambunan nin mahibog na ambon.         

          Kagurangnan kong Diyos! Pumondo ka

na nganing kahihiling sa diklom.

Pabayae an saimong aldaw

maging ribayan nin saldang asin uran

ugma asin kulog sa simong kalamnan

verso asin pangadyi nin saimong kalag.

Baka igwa diyan nin anghel sa kadikloman

na nagtao nin kasimbagan paramientras

na ika nakaluhod, takot na minatubod.

Ngonyan an simong puso buminilang logod--

mga tiket, mga sinurat, mga ritrato,

mga subang nginisihan, mga kinantang lahos

miski ngani mga serbesang nainom--mamate lang

kun ano man yan senyal nin Diyos.

Na sa kadikloman an Diyos. Sa buhay.

Pero hilinga--an langit minaliwanag giraray

pag minahulog an uran, ini minasalak

sa daing-pundong hinangos nin dagat; an burak

minahalat sa saldang asin an saldang minataong buhay

sa daga asin sa tubo nin kakahoyan

asin an banggi minagayon pag simong nakakaptan

an nagbabados na tulak kan simong namomotan

na padagos minahangos sa kasulok-suloki

kan saimong kalag.

                         Asin duman sa dai ta aram

na istaran may sarong anghel sa kadikloman na dai

makatubod sa nadadangog niyang daing-pundong

bagting nin simong puso.

"Sabihi Daw Ko, Padi Kun Ano Man Ning Sinasabi Tang Buhay"

ni Rudy Alano. 

Sinusog hali sa Haliya: Anthology of Bikol Poets and Poems 

ni Ma. Lilia F. Realubit, NCCA, mayong petsa.

The View from Mt. Mayon

Certain dimensions are altered

by chance height or

deliberate distance.

On this slope at 25 hundred feet

rivers and roads,

hills and houses

Shrink. Even the sea is changed,

becomes a kitchen plate of blue—

so empty, so new.

And this proud breast-mountain

turns into a fulcrum

for the universe—

Brings us to the company of stars:

beyond its graveled

bouldered peak,

We hear the arguments of suns,

the briefs of planets,

judgments of galaxies.

We hear the relevance of men questioned:

our politics and terrors,

our many gods and treasures

into awesome absurdities reduced.

Luis Cabalquinto

The Literary Apprentice 47:2, November 1974, 74.

Flowers from The Rubble

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:03:00 06/02/2009

I’ve always liked the image of flowers from the rubble, enough to have made it the title of my first book, a collection of early columns. I first saw it in a poem by a Vietnamese about Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War. It wasn’t flowers he mentioned though, if I recall right, it was tufts of grass shooting out. From the rubble that Vietnam had been turned into by its invaders, he wrote, the Vietnamese spirit would push out like tufts of grass, stubbornly, courageously, transcendently. Like life pushing out from the thorny thicket of death. Or words to that effect.

Whether it’s tufts of grass or flowers or the first sprouts of greenery climbing out of the black pit, it’s a great image for the assertiveness of life. It’s a great image for the resilience of a people. It’s a great image for the indomitability of the human spirit.

That was the phrase that kept buzzing through my head while in Puerto Princesa the other weekend. What pushed the image through the rubble in my brain (courtesy of a night spent toasting to the wonders of the place) was the sudden realization that underneath the rubble our unelected rulers have turned this country into, a desolate place where vultures perch on top of the wreckage and ruin, tufts of grass or flowers or the first sprouts of greenery are pushing out. Determinedly, vigorously, courageously. It did help that the place bristled with lushness and greenery to sprout that image. But it did help even more that the place throbbed with life, or pulsed with the spirit of a community renewed.

I thought: We do not lack for places like this in the country. Specifically, we do not lack for towns or cities or provinces which, having leaders with character and vision to lead them, are offering a decent life for their inhabitants and hope for the rest of the populace. They are testaments to the resilience of the race, to the capacity of the people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Naga City is one of them. My favorite image of Jesse Robredo is still that of being knee-deep in mud, shoveling the putrid mass out of the front yard of a church. A super storm had driven deep into Naga City many years ago and ravaged it, the floodwaters tearing down into the city and rising to alarming levels before subsiding. It had left mud spills across the city, and Robredo, awake at the crack of one very gray dawn, had gone out in shorts and, armed with a shovel, had been first to start clearing up the mess. He was soon joined by other people in the effort. Example has a way of compelling more than all the exhortations in the world.

Pampanga and Isabela are two others. At the height of the recall campaign against Ed Panlilio, his detractors complained bitterly about his inefficiency or ineptness, proof of it apparently being his refusal to put the provincial revenue, which had grown startlingly overnight, in the hands of officials other than those in his trusted group. Money that presumably would have gone to improving Pampanga. Well, why on earth should he? Why on earth should he put the money in the hands of people who were responsible in the first place for revenues not growing, or indeed decreasing, during their bosses’ watch?

I leave Panlilio and Grace Padaca to flaunt their record in public service, though it is one of the supreme ironies of life (which is why evil often thrives) that the deserving are not wont to parade their virtues, they have better things to do. From where I stand, however, curbing corruption, which both have done magnificently in their turfs, is an epic achievement in and of itself. Particularly in times when thievery is extolled and honesty disparaged, that shines brilliantly like a beacon in a storm-tossed sea.

There were/are as well Olongapo then under Richard Gordon (some insist he was a better executive officer than legislator), Marikina under Bayani Fernando (he lost his soul when he gained Metro Manila), and Makati under Jojo Binay (the favorite mayor of senior citizens). I refuse to include Davao City because of the extrajudicial killings there. That smacks of official policy.

But I am especially impressed by Puerto Princesa because it combines these merits or pluses. It has curbed corruption, City Hall running without much red tape. It has restored peace and order—it has one of the lowest, if not the lowest, crime rates in the country, tourists never having to fear toting their expensive cameras and cell phones in public and it has done this without resorting to torturing or “salvaging” suspects. It has done this the old-fashioned way, which is by making law enforcement modern.

More than this, it has brought progress without sacrificing the future to the present. It has done so in a completely self-sustaining way, something the other model cities and provinces may not always boast of. Call Edward Hagedorn what you will, but you’ve got to admire his unshakeable resolve to protect the environment. Or what is bad news to Malacañang and its cronies, his unswerving commitment to not allow mining and logging in his turf. Puerto Princesa is pushing out of the wilderness without destroying the wilderness.

These are flowers from the rubble. This is the resilience of a people amid war—you look at the debris and rubble around us and you’ll know we are in the midst of war, as real and devastating as the Vietnam War. A war waged by the government against its own people. Maybe these flowers are the Obama we’ve been looking for, maybe these leaders are the Obama we’ve been waiting for. Certainly they have shown that there are no limits to how far we can go with honesty and courage, with vision and political will.

Question is: How do we propagate their kind? How do we make them the true leaders of the nation?

Ateneo English Majors, 1990s

Classical Name
Guild of English Majors (GEMS)

Renaissance Name
Dagubdub (see Xavier Olin)

Literary Kingdom
Ateneo de Naga
Naga City

Literary Period
1992 onwards

Precursors
Rodolfo F. Alano
Paz Verdades Santos

Prime Movers
Xavier L. Olin
Maria Epifania B. Borja
Jennifer L. Jacinto

Members
AB English
AB Literature
BSE English
The Pillars
Non-English Majors

Keywords
Laughter
Literature
Love
Life

Link

I, Rooney

When I was a high school senior in Ateneo de Naga, I found it hard listening to Fr. Michael Rooney, the new adviser of the Sanctuary Society of the Sacred Heart (SSSH), a group of acolytes who served in the Mass and performed apostolates. That year, Father Rooney replaced Fr. Johnny Sanz who was then assigned in Bukidnon.

Father Rooney spoke Filipino with a twang that sounded so awkward, one which he tried so hard to enunciate. Always appearing eager to learn to speak the language, the priest would greet us “Magandang umaga” or “Kumusta kayo?” with an inflection that was only his.

Though soft-spoken, his Tagalog rather sounded ridiculous to me that I would just be distracted by the way he spoke and not understand what he would say.

Even the way he’d call my name every time I met him in the hallways made me feel uncomfortable.

Whenever I heard him say Mass in the Xavier Chapel, I could not help but while away my time, thinking other thoughts because I could hardly make out what the priest was saying.

But I found it interesting because the speaker himself did not seem to match the words he was speaking. Fr. Michael Rooney looked Caucasian but spoke Filipino—it was just incongruous.

The priest always sounded funny to me.

Yet, everything the priest did was anything but funny. In the brief company I shared with him as a member of the altar boys, I always found him amiable, and cheerful. Towering just like Father Phelan, Father Rooney hovered over us, students, someway like a coach, unfailing to smile and always rooting for us in whatever we would do, always there to make us aspire.

But why did he have to speak Filipino? I suppose Father Rooney spoke Tagalog, or even Bikol because he had to, if only to relate with everyone in Ateneo, the community he had been assigned to serve.

Like that of any other Jesuit seeking to lay down his life for his friend, his should have been the most difficult tradeoff. Perhaps Fr. Rooney’s calling which is hinged on selflessness and vulnerability to ridicule just required that he sound ridiculous (or otherwise interesting), if only to make people listen to what he had to say.

I suppose when Fr. Rooney became a Jesuit, he also knew that he should learn the language of the people with whom he will be called to serve. So he sought to learn it himself, not even thinking of how ridiculous he would sound.

I admire him for his constant eagerness to learn our own mother tongue, Filipino, inasmuch as I feel guilty of not using it myself.

Language was not one to prevent him from doing what he ought to do.  For in the fifteen years he had served in the community, through his unfailing efforts for the Ateneo, of which I just heard or learned from others, I can only surmise he surely got his message across.

Surmise—that’s the word. I can only surmise all these because as soon as I entered Ateneo college, Fr. Rooney had already become an obscure figure to me.

I just saw him in one of the pictures taken during my mother’s wake in Tinambac, Camarines Sur sometime in 1996. In the picture, he was seated in one of the pews. He was carrying an umbrella. It rained hard on my mother’s funeral. Fr. Rooney looked so forlorn—looking like he’s almost crying. Or as if he’s listening hard to one of the eulogies being given for my mother—one of which I myself gave in behalf of my brothers and sisters. Later, I would know that a bus-load of members of Ateneo community came to the Bagacay cemetery for our mother’s last rites.

I remember some of my classmates who were in the funeral but I hardly knew Fr. Rooney was there. I was surprised to see him in one of the pictures. During those days in college, being into a number of other things, I would not just be one to pay much attention.

I felt awkward when Mr. Gerry Brizuela, my fellow acolyte in those days, asked me for this tribute. Nothing is more ironic here than not being able to say anything much about the man of the hour.

I hardly knew the man, if at all.

It makes me want to cry, knowing I have not understood what he really said. Because in the rare instances he talked to me, or appeared trying hard to talk to me, I was hardly listening.

To Michael Rooney, S. J.

Ateneo Serrado

            Serrado an Ateneo pag-abot mo. Mayong tawo. An guardia sa tarangkahan dai mo bisto. Mabisita ka sa sarong pading dai nag-uli pag bakasyon. Pero mayo daa siya. Pero pinadagos ka.

             Hali sa guardhouse nahiling mo an Four Pillars may bago nang pintura. Nagduwaduwa kang maglaog ta garo dai mo aram kun Ateneo man nanggad an linaogan mo. Pininturahan ni nin kolor na garo man lang bagong shopping mall sa Centro. Nagimatan mo na kayang kupas an pintura kan Four Pillars kaya nataka ka kan nahiling mo.

            Saboot mo tapos na man nanggad an mga aldaw kun kansuarin sa façade kan eskwelahan na ini, nagparasad-pasad an magagayon na coed na pencil-cut an mga palda—yaon ka duman sa hagyanan kairiba si Emil, Bong sagkod Gerry, iniiriskoran pa nindo an magagayon na nag-aaragi.

            Nagsalingoy ka sa wala. Mayo na an soccer field kun saen kamo nagkaramang sa carabao grass ta may nagpasaway na parehong kadete sa Delta Platoon. An Xavier Hall na dati wooden building pa kaidto na dati man na SIO (Social Integration Office) saro nang konkretong edipisyo. Dai mo na mahiling an Pillars Office kun saen mo pigmakinilya sa bukbukon nang Olympia an enot mong love letter ki Jenny. Huli ta bago, dai mo na ni nabisto.
 
            Nagsalingoy ka sa tuo. Mayo na an mahiwas na grounds kun saen kamo naggiribo nin Belen para ilaban sa Pintakasi. Sa may batibot na ito nabisto mo si Lani, kaklase mo sa Sociology ki Nong Fernandez. Tapos na an Pintakasi kaidto pero dai mo pa nalingawan si mahamison na huyom kan Miss Irigang ini. Totoo man nanggad an cultural myth na pinag-adalan nindo sa subject na ito. Dai pa natapos an semester kadto naprobaran mo na tulos kun ta’no ta an Iriga pamoso sa mga aswang—pirang banggi kang dinuno kan sarong kagayunan na Lani an pangaran. Haen na man daw siya ngonyan?

            Naglakaw-lakaw ka. Nagsara-salingoy.

            Haen na an gym? A, natahuban na palan kan Xavier Hall Building na bago. Dai mo na tulos nahiling an Blue Knight sa letrang A na enot mong nahiling kan nagpila ka para mag-exam sa First Year High School beinte anyos na an nakakaagi. Pagbalik mo pag-ralaogan, ogmahon kang maray kan mabasa mo na an ngaran mo sa lista kan LG 12.

            Mayo ka pang kabisto kaidto kaya pagtingag mo sa façade kan building, nahiling mo an Blue Knight na nakasakay sa kabayo. Hiya! Maski sa kabayo saboot mo masakay ka makauli lang tulos sa Bagacay—iiistorya mo ki Mama mo an marahay-rahay na bareta ito.

            Tinahuban na palan kan Xavier Hall Building na bago. Dai mo na mahiling si Blue Knight na tiningag mo kaidto.

            Mayo na an dating Ateneo de Naga. Sarong aldaw pagbisita mo, dai mo na ‘ni naabutan. Marayo na sinda. Mayo ka nang mabisto digdi. Dai ka na madagos sa laog. Tibaad ka kaya maanayo. Malakaw ka na lang pabalik sa Avenue.

            “Tapos na ang maliligayang araw,” sabi ninda ngani kaiyan. Tibaad an Golden Age kan Ateneo de Naga nakaagi man nanggad na. An Four Pillars Lucky Fortune Hotel an pintura.

            Maraot man nanggad daw na magsangli nin itsura an Ateneo—na an Ateneo magbago?

            Bako daw an Ateneo bako man sanang sarong edipisyo? Bako daw an sinasabing Ateneo ika mismo—an tawong naglaog sa antigong edipisyong ini? Tibaad ika man nanggad an makaluma— habong magsangli, habong magbago.

            Dai man daw an ngaran mo—Ateneo Serrado?

Times and the Man

To the left of the chapel fronting the registrar’s
I am warmly greeted by the bust of the late
school president, his head up in royal stance,
one that commanded, in his life, not necessarily
respect, but rather generosity of spirit
so that everyone in my community heard
“to serve Bikol and country” as a tall order,
as towering as the Four Pillars
beyond which much I have done.

 
Bronze perhaps, the bust’s broad shoulders
remind me of one prominent, imposing
civility, who considered diplomacy a byword,
exactness a crime, rapport a virtue,
the verities even I need now
that the man is long gone.

To Raul J. Bonoan, S.J. [1935-1999]