Exaggerations

Sa puro nin muro

Nagliwanag an altar

Asin sa samong atubang

Nagtindog an Pading Halangkaw

Binasa an Ebanghelio kan Aldaw:

“Sa ulo ng mga nagbabagang balita.

This Bikol poem titled “Ritwal” written by Bikol poet Frank Peñones, Jr. presents our disappointment from watching news TV nowadays.

At the tip of one’s fingertips, the screen lights up when he presses the machine’s button.  Then before the TV audience, the “high priest” stands and declares the reading of the “gospel of the day”: he starts reading the news.

Comparing news to the Daily Gospel spells the effectiveness of Peñones’s poem, perfectly mocking the reality how we the audience treat television with deference. But just as the audience considers news as gospel truth, Peñones’s reduces television to a ritualistic and routine endeavor, with both hosts and audience transformed into automatons.

And when the media high priest declares that what he has is “nagbabagang balita” (scorching hot news), the “ritual” is further reduced to exaggeration. It’s card-stacking and plain propaganda at its best.

It is tragic how television nowadays becomes the site of exaggerations of the real thing—and not as sensible avenue for critical thinking by the audience.

In particular, there is much pretense in how TV news anchors in this country convey information to the public.

Consider Mike Enriquez and Noli de Castro. These two—whom others now call institutions—tend to sensationalize every piece of information that their production team has prepared in the very manner they express it to the public.

First, Enriquez wins awards for his broadcasting style. I do not know why. But Mike Enriquez’s newscasting is pure exaggeration. He speaks so rapidly to the extent that it is only he who understands what he is saying. In a sense, you are rather only entertained—and not sensibly informed— by his presence.

In his every single appearance on news television, he seems to be eating his own words—but honestly, he sounds like a character in a comedy movie who rather mocks newscasting. More honestly now, he reminds me of Steve Carrell’s character in the Jim Carrey movie Bruce Almighty.

Enriquez should go back to his speech classes so he might as well observe slashes and double slashes when reading something. He needs to pause; and stop. So he can best be understood.

For his part, Noli de Castro has always sounded inflated all these years. In the poem stated earlier, Peñones is referring to Noli De Castro whose “Magandang Gabi, Bayan” augured well for the Filipino audience. And, well, as a consequence of his public identity, he became the country’s vice-president.

De Castro’s loud, imposing voice reading the country’s daily news gets our attention only because he reads the news with some kind of wild energy, making any serious item sound so utterly tragic and even a rather simple piece of information sounds very serious.

While it is good that he should project some verve, the right energy in reading out the information to the public, doing so in a pretentiously serious manner (as if it’s in critical condition) does not help the viewer much in sifting information for their own purpose.

The same thing is true in the case of other national newscasters including Ted Failon, Mel Tiangco and Korina Sanchez. What are they rushing for, anyway? Did the TV moguls ask them to read five or more news articles in 2 minutes or even less, so as to accommodate more advertisements in between their newscast? Okay.

When read by these newsmen, the daily news becomes so nerve-racking and tense. And upsetting. They may be tasked to heighten the public’s sense or awareness on social issues, but what they really do is to seem to always shock the audience even when the kind of information being relayed is otherwise lighthearted or even trivial.

Arnold Clavio, Vicky Morales, Paolo Bediones and others on primetime news TV can benefit from listening to how their forerunners really sound so ridiculous. They should not wait for the time that they themselves would be reading news at the rate of 1,000 words per minute only to rake ratings [when their time comes to be the leading news anchors]. But if they also do, by then they will have begun an era in which speed, not sensible information—is the mere yardstick of newscasting.

Can't they look to how news anchors over BBC, CNN or Australian TV appear poker-faced and sound composed even when reporting major news stories to the rest of the world? To these journalists, it is clear that their purpose is to simply convey information to the public without much sentiment so as to allow the audience to feel the thing—or sift the issue from the information—themselves. We can only admire how field reporters from across the world feeding news into big networks appear totally unruffled despite being situated in battlefields or calamity-stricken areas. 

Back in our country, with the way these news anchors race past each other—pataasan ng boses, making news and events appear that they matter even when they really don’t, it appears that TV networks only rally against each other to rake ratings for themselves.

The terms “News and Public Affairs” suck because all the networks care about is profit—each second on airtime is profit. It’s still the economics at the end of the day.

Democracy: Philippine Style

When subjected to social criticism, Philippine democracy seems to be more ideal than real because of the economic gap between the few who are rich and the many who are poor. When viewed from the social, economic and historical perspectives, it is apparently less than acceptable.

We Filipinos believe that our government must have a positive impact on our lives. For example, the poor believe that one of the roles of a democratic government is to alleviate their living conditions, but if ever change is presently taking place, it is going on at a snail’s pace, hence its impact cannot be felt, if at all.

Today, we have politicians who are self-motivated, but who are also private interest-motivated; they serve their own interest at the expense of others, most often the exploited poor in the rural areas. This is where the need for change is truly felt. The search for the honest committed public servant is on, but is he around in Philippine politics?

Sitio Baybay, Barangay Santiago,
Barotac Viejo, Iloilo
April 2006

Today more than ever, we need a government that shall uphold a true and Filipino-oriented democracy. To some extent, the Philippine conditions depicted in the mass media do not portray the real picture. This might be so because the pictures created are products of perceptions rather than scientific investigations and research. In these forms of mass media, the pulse of the masses is not felt. The disparity between perception and reality is reflected in the alienation of the few who go by opinion as contrasted with the many who go by experience. Why not go down to the level of the majority—the rural and deprived areas where disenchantment and discontent about many things are strongest?

Despite the many shortcomings of Philippine politics, we are still a nation, united and strong against inequity and injustice.

The masses have no need for politics but what they need is an answer to their grievances and frustrations. Does the Philippine democracy we have now give freedom to every citizen? Or is it rather what they call political culture? One that gives central and crucial role to the politician.

While it is fashionable to call politics as a disease in our national life, we must face the fact a majority of the people depend on the government for their well-being. The political culture, therefore, must permit and encourage the use of political figures for a decent purpose. For one, accessibility is the measure of political success. Politicians must perceive accurately the welfare of their constituents and try to serve them well.

But in most cases, politicians regard the idea of democracy as personalized and individualistic instead of populist. Right now, it is the minority who are concentrated in the middle class who favor the political culture. Politics has been institutionalized to promote their personal and economic interest  rather than the welfare of the majority. Unless a change takes place, politics will remain the world of the few who are able to manipulate everything in their favor.

Portions adapted from Eleuterio G. Bernardo’s “Democracy: Philippine Style,” Panay State Polytechnic College Faculty Forum 1 (2): 4, 10. Mambusao, Capiz: Panay State Polytechnic College, 1989.

Memory, all alone in the moonlight

Leoncio P. Deriada, People on Guerrero Street
Seguiban Printers and Publishing House, 2004
Manila Critics Circle's Juan S. Laya Prize for Best Novel, 2004


LEONCIO P. DERIADA’S People on Guerrero Street, the author’s first novel insistently profuse with memory, illustrates that the literary author is predominantly a diarist—one who chronicles his own life and its realities.


Here, the narrator “I” essays in 55 chapter-episodes his experiences with the people of Guerrero Street in the 1950s Davao City. Set in Davao City’s Guerrero Street during the school year 1953–1954 when the author was a junior in Davao City High School, People on Guerrero Street tells a good lot of realities in Davao City at the time.


The narrator’s sensibility appears to be that of a grownup man, cautious and wary of life’s harsh nature and sarcastic and cynical about life’s funny nature.


Reminiscent of J. D. Salinger’s Houden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, his Deriada’s “I” speaks very cynical against the harsh modern world but promises more hope for himself when after the death of his brother’s brother-in-law Pepe, he realizes he needs to go on—when he sees that the new year beckons for him better and brighter possibilities.


While he displays utter disgust for the usual, inane, unruly or ridiculous behavior of people in his neighborhood, the events happening around him affords for us the culture itself, the society that ridicules and supports him. The narrator “I” makes clear that he yanks away superstition and fake religiosity, as much as he abhors his rivals for his crush.


Through vivid recollection of things past and present—“I” expresses his utter fondness for a male figure, perhaps being with no father figure in the household he is sharing with his brother. Hewing a verbose reportage of events, faces, things, and realities, the novel unfolds before the reader as it unfolds to the eyes and ears of the narrator “I.”


He is also subject to the “immorality” of some other characters—Carna and Luchi, with whom he is oriented to the lascivious characters and tendencies of a woman—while still being able to hold Terry as his chalice, his prized possession.


Yet, Deriada’s piece is more than about teenage puppy love; rather it illustrates a young man’s initiation into the harsh realities of the world, which he is soon facing as an adult. Pepe’s death is the persona’s first encounter with tragedy, virtually the first step in toughening the persona as he faces figurative and real deaths in the immediate future.


In the novel, the treatment of things that happened in the past is equally lengthy—as if the entire purpose of the narrator is to remember everything, and when he does he becomes an anti-character, one whose existence in the novel is questioned because of his very sensibility which sounds like the author’s himself.


Lush with his memorable past, Deriada’s autobiographical tract declares that the author’s memory is worth the beauty rendered in literature. They mirror a beautiful life, something that is full of anticipations, as the “I” narrator’s prospects at the end of People on Guerrero Street.


Here and there awarded for his fiction and outstanding work in other literary genres, Deriada says that many characters in the novel are real people just as many are pure inventions or merely transplanted from other times and other neighborhoods. Regardless of which is real or fictional, he says, these characters all belong to the realities insofar demanded by the novel.


By simple remembering, Deriada employs his memory in including facts into the “fiction.” Maybe, he says he has what is called the photographic memory. “Until now, I have a very clear picture of past incidents in my life, from childhood to the most recent, and Deriada says, “I was born in 1938 but I can remember incidents when I was three. I remember practically everything that happened to my family from the first day of the War [World War I] to the last days of the Japanese in 1945.”


Deriada has perhaps one of the clearest memories—an exceptional ability to remember the past and recollect facts in order to portray significant characters that exist for a purpose. The narrator “I” even remembers words when he encounters images and events which he is narrating. He swings from the present back to the past when some characters remind him of certain things in the past.


Of the book’s creative style, Deriada says the blurring of the boundaries between fact and fiction is [also] necessary in writing an autobiographical or historical novel. The writing must be good if the boundaries between the real and the invented are blurred. A less skilled writer would not be capable of doing so.


Deriada considers that the biographical novelist has to tamper with reality for the sake of fictional reality. He says his remembering of the past was sweeping and holistic, while the parts he needed for the novel he had to choose carefully. At some point, he recognized the need to be factual, and in some instances, he needed to fabricate.


While the girding or the main structure of the novel is factual, inventing or “fabricating” was necessary only when the real past needed the unity demanded of fiction. This fabrication entails tampering with the temporal succession of events, transplanting characters and incidents from other times and neighborhoods and the outright inventing of characters and incidents.


For instance, Deriada recalls fondly, “the big theater production on the college grounds of the Ateneo de Davao was not in 1953 but in 1954. It was in celebration of the International Marian Year,” and even says, “Certainly, Purico’s famous amateur singing derby was called Tawag ng Tanghalan, not Tinig ng Tanghalan.”


Deriada’s freedom to play around with his facts in order to back up his literary purpose—aided him to turn in some durable portraits of people, places, and events,” which can’t be done if it were pure facts alone. Through this, Deriada immortalized his friends, classmates and even loved ones in his works of art.


Deriada shares the sentiment that the “past is distorted,” primarily because it is given existence by memory. “Reality does not have the discipline of fiction. So the writer has to tamper with reality” for them to create his craft.


Of his work, Deriada says he has virtually written his life—with some “beautiful, little lies.”

Life with America

The music of Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley of the folk group America has affected my sensibility all these years. Playing my copy of their greatest hits has not failed to amaze me and for life, I think, it won’t.

Inspector Mills

The unnamed cricket in this song has been my and Nene’s friend ever since. In the ‘80s, I and Nene had great time listening to such sound when Manoy Awel played the song to lull us to sleep because Mama would arrive later in the night because she still worked in her father’s house that hosted Cursillo classes, a three-day Christian renewal made famous to most Catholics through her father’s and his family’s efforts. What else was there to say? We couldn’t ask for more. It was just fine even if Mother was not there when we slept. We were lulled to sleep in my dear brother’s bed. Though I never saw the cricket in my dreams, I had something else that made me just sleep on it. The cruel nights without Mother were with one tender brother, Manoy Awel.

Special Girl

One particular Jenny would come to mind whenever I played this ballad during my board work as disc jockey in FBN’s DWEB-FM back in 1996. Once I knew one special girl. And I must have played this song many times for her—without her knowing it— without her knowing anything at all. What did I do? As if I could ever tell her anything when we worked together for the English department’s pathetic newsletter. Or that something mattered more than the verses which I’d hand to her after Rudy Alano’s class. In fact, nothing special happened in that lazy afternoon while Enya’s Shepherd Moons played in the DevCom laboratory. How could she ever know?

I Need You

I never liked this song. I never wanted to listen to it; I always skipped this cut. The funeral tempo makes me paler. It embarrasses me to no end. “Like the flower needs the rain... you know I need you.” As the song goes on though, in times when I could not help but not skip a shuffle setup, things start to make sense. The second voice sounds clearer and it’s the one I’d hear. The voice spells my detached involvement in the dismal situation presented by the singer. And the litany of “I” needing “you” simply fades senselessly. After engaging me to listen to one heart’s song, it drops me nowhere. This song is the ugliest in the album.

Sand Man

Since the day my college buddy Arnold Pie sang its lyrics—“Ain’t it foggy outside…” then the mention of the “beer” in the song—which must have reminded him of something in his young drinking life, I became curious about the song. But the slow introduction hasn’t appealed to me much; my illogical prejudice against anything unfamiliar because it’s something Western did not at all help me appreciate the song. One day after we found out ourselves that we’re working again in the same corporate complex in Pasig, I realized we have yet to have these unconsummated “bottley” and bubbly sessions—for some issues in the past that were never addressed, the time when we badly needed each other’s company but never did because we could not. Either we had no time or did have much of it.

You Can Do Magic

When cousins Shiela and Achie mastered the steps and strutted and danced with verve and grace in one of our reunions to the tune of this song, I was amazed by such a spectacle. They even knew the lyrics. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and “when the rain is beating upon the window pane and when the night [it] gets so cold and when I can’t sleep, again you come to me, I hold you tight [and] the rain disappears; who would believe it? With a word, you dry my tear… You can do magic… You can have anything that you desire…” The show of my cousins just went on, and it’s still going. Now, the London-based Achie, an overseas nurse, just cannot help but do magic with her work; all her toil and diligence are simply paying off. Her generous earnings now can indeed help her have anything that she and her folks desire—new car, new house in the city, and hundreds of euro-pean possibilities for her siblings.

Right Before Your Eyes

My cousin Jokoy—who has adored anything Western from Vanilla Ice to HBO to Michael J. Fox to Sean Connery—knows the lyrics by heart, or at least the “revolving doors” part. We used to listen to it in Bong’s room in Naga, which he then acquired when his Ania Bong went to Manila. Of course, the Life pictures of Rudolph Valentino flashed in my mind, and Greta Garbo stared at me like there’s no tomorrow—a haunting photograph of one celebrity whom I hardly met. I scowl at the thought that I could hardly relate to them. I have yet to live a diamond life like them to simply live. Though no other memory follows, “do- do-do-do-do makes much sense. And emotion? Er.

A Horse With No Name

Effortlessly, I imagine the Assembly Hall of my Ateneo High School, where I picture the city, the sea, and the horse finding itself after being freed by the person who rode him. The original radio version—and not the live version—renders more sensibility. I also sing along this one of the longest codas to date—la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la” “After nine days, I let the horse run free ‘cause the desert has turned to sea.” There were plants and birds and rocks and things…” and many other things. I have yet to see these hundreds of things which I have long thought as an overachiever in high school. I have yet to free my own horse, though my deserts have long become oceans of uncertainties.

Never Be Lonely

This is my recent favorite—my pirated anthology is a rare find because it has this cut. When I was younger, this was hardly played over the local FM radio stations. My cousins who had the LP because their father was an avid fan would know better. “Got you by my side, I’d never be lonely; got you by my side, I’d never be afraid.” Never be lonely tells me that I am. I even once sang along accidentally, “Got you by my side, I’d rather be afraid.” This after realizing many times how relationship with someone makes you feel more alone than being literally alone. The song is a futile attempt to avoid being sucked into an emotional vacuum.

Tin Man

The impressive introduction plus the cool mumbling of brilliant lyrics prods this genius composition. Of course, I hardly knew the lyrics especially—tropic of Sir Galahad, soap sud green light bubbles, oh, oh… Oz never did nothing to the tin man”—“ but the tempo, the music is enough for me to like it. And adore anything that went with it, including all subconscious memory it reminds me. The bubbly keyboards at the last part— plus the na na na na na simply define how life is beautiful. Yes. It’s amazing how ignorance [of the lyrics, of artist’s realities] makes you know too much [of your own, which are more essential things].

Sometimes Lovers

“Sometimes there are teardrops across your face; sometimes there are rainbows in the same place… I don’t which way to turn.” “Lovers hiding in the covers of innocence and pain. No love, no pity in this town.” Of course, Jokoy always festered me with this relationship with Anna, one that mattered to him more because he did not like her for me. Or he preferred other girls for me. This sad song is sadder because I just cannot seem to relate to it because a certain Maria cannot just be it. After hurling the worst and best curses and cusswords in the world which tore both our hearts because they were swords that lashed out at our souls, nothing just seemed to matter more but ourselves apart, not ourselves together. The bridge—hold on tight… oh, oh, oh—makes everything more intense—“I will lay beside you till the night is gone…” when? When? When? Sometimes, indeed the song makes you think of many other things, such as not being able to forgive yourself for anything you’ve done. And you just stop loving. You stop caring for anything. Something just dies. Something just happens abruptly as the final beat of the drum.

Daisy Jane

The plane is leaving. My Dulce Maria knows the setting so well. The lyrics she even braved to articulate to me and relished with me because she liked the song so well. And I think they were accurate, every time she’d leave me in this sordid city for her cozy Iloilo home. “Does she really love me I think she does. Like the stars above me, I know because...” There’s not much to say on these, because she’d left me many times in the airport. “But the clouds are clear and I think we’re over the storm…” And I just gave in many times that I have gotten used to I see her off every time she did. One time I did not. I did not choose to. I had reasons and I did something else after that. “Daisy I think I’m sane. And I guess you’re ready to play.” I did something that indeed made her leave. Since then, she has always left me every time.

Don’t Cross The River

Yes, I can hear the river; it’s burbling; and I can’t help but row on it. “There’s a little girl out lying on her own, she’s got a broken heart.” “She knows and plays it smart.” The drums and the guitars are the water streaming down the gorge so fast—in cadence with my heart—racing past something like a void, racing past a cracked rock serving no definite purpose comes any tide— high or low. I have always raced with something— perhaps a memory all the time. But never the present reality. The past always has a way to catch up with me. And I am always sinking, but I keep on singing, “don’t cross the river if you cant swim the tide…”

Ventura Highway

The road that one man traveled was paved and the day before him was too long—the sun stood long hours. The freeway was a winding road, a blind curve. Later that day he was killed around the bend. It was a wrong turn. He never came back. Where did he have to go? After all the numerous places I traveled and chose to travel, I have yet to see this one highway. After all those persons I have been given chances to meet, I have yet to find someone important who will have to make me see. Whatever happened to the father whom I never had, the one who would have rather told me that I can “change my name,” or the one with whom I can share some “alligator lizards in the air”? I have yet to meet him. One fine, long day.

Lonely People

The guitar introduction thrills me to no end. The low vocals—“this is for all the lonely people, thinking that life has passed them by”—never allowed me to know why I was literally lonely in those days after my mother died. I desperately listened to it in the afternoons when I was jobless and desperately seeking any work that would pay—after my scholarship’s graduation stipend were depleted, spent for mailing my essays and poems to Manila-based magazines, that never even saw much publication. Writing never did pay, and that time I hardly knew that it didn’t or that it could. “This is for all the single people, thinking that love has left them dry.” Yeah. What could be more heart-wrenching than being ignored by one Anna who could hardly care about how I chaliced her. Nothing follows. The guitars, keyboard, and the dismal vocals just had to fade. Please.

Muskrat Love, etc.

Unimaginable characters which could have just existed in my mind—never a reality—thus the vague memory. Does the character look like Stuart Little? Ben? Why is Sam skinny? Is Susie fat? Does it matter if she is? For one, I can’t care much. I can hardly relate. My other favorites “Stereo,” and “The Border” are not in my disc while “Jody” “Only In Your Heart,” “Sister Golden Hair,” “Woman Tonight,” and “You, Girl” have yet to present my own realities to me, if any.

An Mga Taga Bagacay Kun Semana Santa

Sa mga huring aldaw kan Marso, maimbong na an paros hali sa bukid kan Buyo—minahugpa ‘ni sa mahiwason na natad kan eskuwelahan abot sa may parada, asta magsabat ini kan maaringasang duros hali sa baybayon kan San Miguel Bay sa may parte nang kamposanto.

Sa panahon na ini, duros an makapagsasabi kun ano an mga disposisyon kan mga tawo sa Bagacay—kadaklan sainda mahayahay, an nagkapira trangkilo sagkod maboboot, pero an iba man maiinit an pamayo ta kulang—o minsan sobra—sa karigos.

Kun ika tubong Bagacay, pirming malinaw saimo an mga pangyayari sa palibot kan sadit na barangay na ini—an kasiribotan, an kariribukan, o maski ano pa man—aram-aram mo na an mga likaw kan bituka kan mga ordinaryong ka-barangay.

Mabibisto mo an kakaibang parong kan duros, mamamati mo an aringasa sa tinampo ta bantaak an saldang. Mabibisto mo man an korte kan niisay man maski na ngani nagdadangadang pa sana siya sa tinampo. An amyo kan tunay na buhay mahihiling sagkod maiintidihan mo sa lambang istoryang ini.

An aking daraga sa kataid na harong na nagpasuweldo sa Manila maduang taon na man bago nakauli giraray—mapution na an kublit pag-abot ta an tubig sa Nawasa halangkaw an chlorine content—nom! Dai na lugod nabisto kan kaklaseng nagdalaw sa harong ninda. Sa Martes ang balik ko sa Kuba-o. Mabait naman ang mga amo ko—pinapasine nga ako pag Sabado, kasama ko ang kanilang matuang babae. Sa Let the Love Begin nakita ko si Richard Gutierrez saka baga si Angel Locsin, pangit man pala siya sa personal. Nom! Nagtatagalog na! Pag sinisuwerte [o minamalas] ka man nanggad talaga!

An mag-inang parasimba nakaatindir pa kan pagbasbas kan mga palmas. An mag-irinang hali pa sa Cut 12 [basa: kat dose] mapasiring sa kapilya sa boundary pa kan Iraya para duman mapo’nan an entirong pagpangadie sa mga santo. Linakad kan mag-irina an mainiton na tinampo hali sa harong ninda antos duman sa malipot na baybay harani sa kapilya. Nag-uurunganga pa si mga ibang aking kairiba ta pigguguruyod man na yan kan relihiyosang ina. Bara’go pa man an mga bado ta iyo man an ginaramit kan mga eskwela durante kan closing sa eskwelahan—alagad muru’singon na an mga aki

An mga aki kan mga mayaman na pamilya sa may pantalan nag-uruli man. Tulong awto an dara pero dai pa nanggad kumpleto ta si tugang na abroader dai nakahabol sa biahe haling airport. An dakulang pagtiripon kan pamilya madadagos ta madadagos nanggad maski na ngani hururi an ibang miembros kan pamilya. Hain na daw si mga makuapo na nag-ayon sa mga ralaban sa UNC; o si sarong pinsan niya man nanggana sa arog kaining contest sa Colegio. Haraen yan! Padirigdiha lamang daw ta mag-iristorya kan saindang mga maoogmang nagkagirinibo. Ay, iyo, hay, magayonon an trophy sa UNC. May kwarta man ni, ano? Hahahahaha! Iyo man po. Thanks very much and I love you all and gabos ini po saindo, Lola!

Igwang bayaw na nag-uli hali sa siyudad—an agom na iyo an tugang kan pinsan may darang ba’gong omboy na primerong pakadalaw sa mga apuon. Napoon pa sana man an duwa sa pagpapamilya kaya padalaw dalaw pa sa mga magurang kan esposa. Cute-on baga si baby, hay? Sain mo ni Manay pinangidam? Cute-on. Bebe, bebe… O Rosalyn, nuarin na an bunyag ki Nonoy? Imbitari man daw nindo kami, puwede man pating magtubong si Dorcas! Saen na ngani si apartment nindo, Glen? Sa Calauag baga, bakong iyo? Itukdo mo ki Lino tanganing aram niya pagduman. Iyo po, Ma.

Igwang mag-ilusyon na dai makatios na dai magkahirilingan ta si urulayan sa Katangyanan dai nagkadaragos ta pinugulan si daraga kan inang may hilang.

Maski an sarong tiyo-on na igwa pang kulog boot sa mga sadiri niyang tawo ta dai sinda dai nagkairintidihan sa kontratang pinag-urulayan, magkakaigwa pa siya nin panahon para tapuson an ika 14ng altar na portrait kan Mesias—na nagpapahiling kan pagdara kan bangkay ni Mesias sa lubungan ni Joseph kan Arimatea. An mga materyales na ginamit para sa abaanang magagayon niyang obra maestra dinonaran pa man hali sa simbahan kun sain siya lektor. An taon-taon niyang panata napapadagos nin huli sa huyo kan saiyang boot, sa pagpangadie niyang daing ontok, nagngangayong dai man lugod pabayaan nin Kagurangnan an saiyang pamilya na ngonyan nagdadakula na ta an saindang maboot na manugang-agom kan mahigos niyang matua—maaki na kan saindang panduwa. Siisay pa man daw an mas masuwerte sa mga tawong ini?

Nagsisiribot an sarong pamilya sa Banat ta iyo an toka ninda sa prusisyon sa Via Crucis, maharanda ta mapa-basa—mapatarakod nin kuryente sa mga harong na igwang mga linya nin Casureco, para dayuhon an pabas[og]. Aaaaaaa, si Eba natentaran kan demonyong halas kaya kinakan niya si prutas kan poon na ipinagbawal ni Bathala. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, kaya an gabos na tawo nagkasa-la-la-la. Daraha na daw digdi mga salabat sa nagbabarasa-kansubago pa iyan! Aaaaaaa….

Sarong gurangan na kantorang taga Iraya, na agom kan sarong mahigos na Cursillista—sinubol si mga aki niyang daraga para magkanta sa Via Crucis magpoon sa kapilya antos sa Calle Maribok dangan pabuwelta—alagad atakado an pamayo ta dai magkakurua kun haraen na an mga daraga. Haraen na sa Imelda? Si Belinda? Pasugui na daw ta si mga aki duman, iwaralat mu’na digdi. Ta diputang agom yan ni Belinda! Nagpaparainum na naman sa may ka–Tampawak? Ta kun ako pa an mapauli diyan sa bayaw mo, titibtiban ko talaga man nanggad yan! Mayo na sana man maginibo pakakatong-its, mainom! Susmaryosep! Noy, paulia na ngani si Manoy mo!

Sarong parasira pagkatapos niyang magpangke—mala ta nakadakul sinda kan bayaw niya kansubanggi—sa may tanga’ sagkod sa rarom sa may parteng Caaluan sagkod Tinambac—nagdesider na mag-pasan kan krus sa Via Crucis. An solterong ini haloy na man nagsisigay-sigay sa aki ni Balisu’su’. Pero korontra baga an sadiri niyang tawo ta diyata gusto man nindang makahanap nin trabaho ini sa Cavite. Dai man ngani nag-anom na bulan baga—nagbuwelta ngani ta garo nagkairiyo na man sagkod an maputi-putting aking daraga ni Balisu’su’. Ano man baya an nahiling mo diyan Polin sa aki ni Tsang Sining? Bados na gayod si Joralyn?

Ciudad Iloilo

Abril 2009