Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts

Friday, May 23, 2014

Songs of Ourselves

Words and Music through Love and Life
Part 4 of Series

Besides my other brothers, Mentz has influenced my penchant for music, even as he has wonderfully sung and danced his way through love and life. 

Though he was not much of a child performer himself, he later has taken to the family program stage like a natural, class act as he has done to presiding matters for (the rest of) our family.

Years ago, I called him to be the Speaker of the House—i.e. our household—because he has hosted and also literally presided our family (gatherings) since 1996. One with a quiet and unassuming disposition, Mentz has always taken to the microphone as if it’s public performance.

Through the years, Mentz has been trained to become a very good public performer. At the Ateneo high school, he led the Citizens Army Training (CAT) Unit’s Alpha Company, a well-respected group finely chosen to parade to give glory to Ina (Our Lady of Peñafrancia) in September in Naga City.

Then in college, Mentz did not only win a Rotary-sponsored oratorical contest; he also served as junior representative in the college student council. And before graduating in 1994, he won a graduate scholarship at the University of the Philippines where he would later obtain his graduate degree. And because he went to Manila all ahead of us, I always thought he has been exposed to the world way before his time.  

In the late 80s and early 90s when he was making the transition from being a high school achiever to a college heartthrob at the Ateneo, Mentz played Kenny Rogers and Tom Jones on Manoy’s cassette tape. Sweet sister Nene and I would always joke at how he covered a singer's song better than the singer himself.

In those days, he deftly worded the first lines of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” as he cleverly impersonated the speaker in “The Gambler”—sounding more Kenny Rogers than the bearded country singer himself: "on a warm summer's evenin, on a train bound for nowhere..." For us, his siblings, no one did it better than Mentz. Not even Kenny Rogers.

Perhaps because I listened to him passionately crooning away Tom Jones’ “Without Love” that I also heard the lyrics of that song after the overnight vigil of the Knights of the Altar inside Room 311 of Santos Hall. I thought I was dreaming but it was in fact Mentz’s tape playing on my classmate Alfredo Asence’s cassette player. Truth be told, I could not do away with the passionate singing that I had carted away Mentz’s tape for that one sleepover in the Ateneo campus.

In 1995, Mentz brought Enya’s “The Celts” and Nina Simone’s collection to our new household in Mayon Avenue. He bought these tapes to fill in the new Sony component secured from Mama’s retirement funds. Most songs of these women sounded morbid but I loved them. Because I so much liked the voice that came and went in Enya’s “Boadicea,” I played it the whole day on my Walkman (which Mentz kindly lent to me) while writing my thesis on F. Sionil Jose’s Rosales saga.  

In early January of 1996, Mother would pass away.

When I played Nina Simone’s “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” one night during mother’s wake, one of my brothers asked me to turn it off. Perhaps it was too much for him to take. That black woman’s voice was too much to bear. But away from people, listening to these women’s songs did not only help me finish my paper; it also helped me grieve. 

Among others, Mentz adored Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” Because this was the time before Google could give all the lyrics of all songs in the world, Mentz knew the words to the song by listening to cousin Maida’s tape many times through the day. While every piece in the collection is a gem, “Homeless” struck a chord in me that years later, I would use it to motivate my high school juniors to learn about African culture and literature. Talk of how the South African Joseph Shabalala's soulful voice struck a (spinal) chord in both of us.

Years later, when we were all working in Manila, I heard him singing Annie Lennox’s “Why” and miming Jaya singing “Laging Naroon Ka.” At the time, I could only surmise that he was humming away his true love and affection which he found with his beloved Amelia, a barangay captain’s daughter whom he married in 2001.

With my sister Nene, the household of Mentz and Amy in Barangay San Vicente in Diliman would become our refuge in the big city. Though Nene and I worked and lived separately from them, it was where we gathered in the evening as a family. Even as Mentz and Amy gradually built their own family, their growing household has become our own family. Through years, it has not only become the fulcrum of our solidarity; it has also become the core of our own sensibility.

Many times, I would be told how Amy and Mentz would go gaga over live musical performances by their favourite local and foreign singers. Once they told me how they enjoyed the concert of Michael Bolton, whom the couple both loved. I would later learn that Amy had a very good collection of Bolton’s albums from “Soul Provider” to the greatest hits collection. I wouldn’t wonder about it even as I have always liked the white man’s soulful rendition of Roy Orbison’s “A Love So Beautiful” since the first time I heard it. (But I think I wouldn’t trade off the Roy Orbison original.)

Years have gone by fast, and three children have come as blessings to Mentz and Amy. Once I heard him singing with his firstborn Ymanuel Clemence singing Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open,” indeed their anthem to themselves. Yman, now a graduating high school senior, has likewise taken to performing arts as a guitarist and an avid singer of alternative rock and pop. Mentz’s firstborn is one soul conceived by his father’s love for lyrics and heartfelt melodies and his mother’s love for Michael Bolton and a host of many other soulful sensibilities.

With Yman, and now Yzaak and Yzabelle, their vivo grade-schoolers (like the rest of today’s youth who can hardly wait to grow up) singing the words of Daft Punk and Pharell Williams from the viral downloads on YouTube, this tradition of song and sense and soul is subtly being passed on, with each of us now and then singing our own ways through joy, through love and through life.


Thursday, October 03, 2013

No Country for Old Men

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Capiz headed by Mr. Wil Arceño recently dismissed the forthcoming Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections as needless if not unnecessary, deeming it a futile exercise primarily because it is not the youth themselves who call the shots, but other members of the barangay or the community.

Comelec’s dismissal was revealed even as it also announced that the barangay elections will proceed along with the youth polls in October this year.

How important is the Sangguniang Kabataan? We randomly surveyed members of the voting youth—and what we got was a mixture of opinions. While one said that “Wala man gid obra sa SK (Wala naman talagang trabaho sa SK),” saying that it only exists during basketball games or pa-Liga sa Barangay, another quipped, “Depende man na sa barangay (It depends on the barangay),” adding that what is important is that the voice of the youth is duly represented in the barangay council.

While we now find ourselves contemplating the same dilemma, one barangay captain randomly relayed to us how this issue remains debatable. He said that there is nothing wrong with the senior members of the council interfering with the matters of the youth. Besides, they who ought to be the future leaders need to be taught or mentored on governance and everything it requires. This presupposes that the elected youth are naïve in matters of governance or say, implementing projects for their fellow youth constituents or even the bigger community. 

But it is a different matter altogether when funds reportedly appropriated for youth projects in the barangay are not accordingly given or shelled out for their purposes. Across the country, stories are told about how senior members of the barangay council or even the parents of the elected youth appropriate projects and funds for purposes other than the development of the youth. As such, the SK that prevails is still SK—only that it means Sangguniang Kamagulangan (Council of the Elders) or Sangguniang Katingulangan (Council of the Elderly).

As per the Local Government Code of 1991, the 10 percent of General Fund of the Barangay earmarked for SK “shall be spent to initiate programs designed to enhance the social political, economic, cultural, intellectual, moral, spiritual and physical development of the members.” The SK chairperson also serves as ex-officio member of the barangay council and is entitled to a barangay councilor’s honorarium.

The presence of Sangguniang Kabataan is the privilege given for the youth. Therefore, the best thing that the members of the non-youth in the barangay council can do is to let them speak out their concerns, without being dictated by anyone. Parents and the senior members of the barangay can only do so much as to provide for the youth and their well-being—perhaps extend to them pieces of advice on matters of how to improve themselves, but the SK privilege is not in any way reserved for them. Never should the senior members of the community speak or assert anything in their behalf.

My Leader, the Hero; or A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

One time in the 1980s, a helicopter flew over our small barangay. I went out to join other kids in the neighborhood. The sight was glorious—we saw things falling down from the sky. Perhaps it was the first time such kind of aircraft flew over our neighborhood. 

We the kids were so amazed. We ran around like crazy picking them up as more of them flew down from the chopper. We thought they were money bills. 

They were flyers and pocket calendars belonging to a candidate whom I now only remember as Ballecer. He was running against another candidate named Bubby Dacer (the PR man) for assemblyman in the third district of our province. 

Bubby Dacer’s posters, along with those of his opponents, were plastered everywhere in our barangay, especially on the wide walls of the koprasan of the Bercasios, a warehouse near the marketplace we called Triangle where we bought our goods from rice to fish to plastic balloons to halo-halo. 

The faces of these politicians would be hard for me to forget. Time and again, I would see their faces on those posters pasted on the walls of the koprasan where I usually passed to run house errands. Because these posters were never defaced, it was time—months and years—that eventually wore them away. 

I also heard their jingles over DZGE and DWLV, then prominent radio stations based in Naga City. Young as I was, I also sang (along with) them.

During elections, my mother headed the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) in our grade school. From the sample ballots, I saw and learned to memorize senators’ names who would later be prominent—names like Mamintal Tamano, Santanina Rasul, Ramon Mitra, Teofisto Guingona, Macapanton Abas and Leticia Ramos-Shahani, among others. 

I clipped and mounted their pictures, and also copied their faces on my notebook. Some of these materials I even placed as covers for my school stuffs. 

When Corazon Aquino became president, I copied her image from a poster which was distributed to all the classrooms. For this, I used Cray-pas for a portrait of her which I drew on one of the back pages of my notebook. It was a smiling woman wearing big eyeglasses. 

I emphasized the wrinkles from her nose to the mouth when she smiled. I used orange for her face and black for her hair and yellow for the dress. I was amazed at my creation. I used so much pastel on the portrait of the new president perhaps because it was my first time to use such kind of art material. I rather saw that portrait as that of my mother.

Back then our classrooms had high ceilings—the old Marcos type, I later learned. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was placed on our front wall facing the class—and was flanked by two posters that read—“Knowledge is power” and “Read today, lead tomorrow.” 

The picture of the new president was mounted on one of the corners of the Grade 6 classroom. She was placed along with Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio, in such a way that we looked up to them. 

In high school, we were also told to memorize the names of government officials—from our local officials to the cabinet secretaries of then ministries (during Ferdinand Marcos’s regime) and now departments (in Cory Aquino’s new government).

Through time, I got lost in the long list of names of senators and politicians and cabinet officials whose names were changed more often—because they were either sacked or revamped or simply resigned. I came to know more about them, or rather, about them more.

From the news, I later learned of their projects and their programs. Then I was also told of their corrupt practices—of the problems they were now giving to the public. I would also learn the words graft, corruption. Bribery. And plunder. Through the years, I have lost track of who is doing which and what. Who is more credible than whom? Who is more believable? One day, I just didn’t know how to believe in what they’re saying anymore. Or what they’re doing.

One day, I just stopped believing in them. I found there are other better things to do than believe and what they’re saying. Or doing.  One time, I just started to believe that like most children’s tales, politicians and yes, their identities and their sensibilities—such as their faces mounted for everyone to see—are only for children.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Nothing Writes So Much As Blood

Nothing writes so much as blood.
The rest are mere strangers.
—corrupted from Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp, 1994

Dear Mother

Some twelve years ago, when I was working for Plan International Bicol, gathering information from the NGO’s beneficiaries-respondents in the upland barangays surrounding Mount Isarog and the Bicol National Park, I kept a notebook where I wrote the following verse for my mother Emma, who passed away in January 1996.

In that job, I kept a journal wherever I went—perhaps to relive the days with my mother whom I dearly lost during her life [I hardly had time for her when she was sick because my editorship in the college paper ate up my schedule] and tearfully loved after her death [after college graduation, there was not much to do aside from job-hunting and freelancing with media entities around Naga City]. And there was not much reason to hunt for jobs at all because there would be no one to offer my first salary.

The original scribbles below were written on a yellow pad paper.

The Sea House
For Emma, who loved so much
1996


Tomorrow 
I will build a house
by the forest near the sea
where
six palm trees 
will become 
brave bystanders by day—
and 
warm candles by night.


Pride from a Published Poem
After so many versions and revisions, a national magazine then edited by the National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin—published a longer submission (see below) before the end of the year. The publication of my poem in Philippine Graphic Weekly thrilled me to no end. I felt too lucky to have my [too personal a] sentiment printed in a national publication.

It even seemed like the tribute to my mother was more heightened. For one, she would have loved to see my work printed on a national paper. Sad to say, though, it is my contemplation on her death that would give [her or me] such pride.



The Sea House
Philippine Graphic Weekly, November 1996

I hate to leave really.
But I should go home tonight.

Tomorrow I will build a house 
by the forest near the sea 
where I alone 
can hear my silence.

For it, I gathered six palm trees
stronger than me, to become
the pillars, firm foundations
of my tranquil days to come
which I will not anymore hear.

I know the trees are good 
for they survived many typhoons in the past
which uprooted many others
and which made others bend,
and die.

I hope they become bright lamps
along the black road
where I will pass through 
when I go home tonight.

I hope they’d be there
and that they would recognize me.
And if they don’t, it wouldn’t matter.
I would not want any trees other than them.
For I know they are very good.

But tonight, please 
let them be 
my warm candles.

And when I’m home 
I will be certain:
Tomorrow, I will have built a house
in the forest near the sea where
Every palm tree can hear his silence. 

And the others can listen.


A Reader’s Response
Finding the poem in one of my diskette files when I applied for work in Quezon City and Manila, my brother Mente—perhaps to while away his time in SRTC [his workplace then where I typed hundreds of my resumes] in Kalayaan Avenue back in 1997—must have liked it so much that consequently, he translated it in Bikol, rendering a rather old, archaic Bikol version.

An Harong Sa May Dagat
(Para qui Emma, na sobrang namoot)
1997

Magabat an boot co na maghale,
Alagad caipuhan co na mag-uli 
Ngonyan na banggui.

Sa aga, matugdoc aco nin harong 
Sa cadlagan harani sa dagat,
Cun sain aco na sana an macacadangog 
Can sacuyang catranquiluhan.

Sa palibot caini, matanom aco 
Nin anom na poon nin niyog 
Na mas masarig sa saco, 
Na magiging manga harigi—
Manga pusog na pundasyon 
Can manga matuninong cong aldaw
Na dae co naman madadangog.

Ma’wot co na sinda magserbing 
Maliwanag na ilaw sa dalan
Sa macangirhat na diclom, 
Cun sain aco ma-agui 
Sa sacuyang pag-uli 
Ngonyan na banggui.

Ma’wot co man na yaon sinda duman 
Asin na aco mamidbid ninda. 
Alagad cun sinda malingaw saco, 
Dae na bale. Dae nungca aco mahanap 
Nin caribay ninda, nin huli ta aram co 
Na sinda manga marhay.

Alagad sa atyan na banggui, 
Hahagadon co na sinda
Magserbing manga maiimbong 
Na candela cataid co.

Asin cun aco naca-uli na
Sigurado aco na sa aga
Naca-guibo aco nin harong 
Sa cadlagan harani sa dagat
Cun sain aco na sana 
An macacadangog 
Can sacuyang catranquiluhan.
Asin an iba macacadangog.


My Brother, My Reader, My Writer 
Perhaps having the spirit of the classicists who dearly loved the classical age before them, for one, reinventing an old manuscript to serve their own purposes, Mente made an English version based on his English translation.

Perhaps wanting to relive for himself the memory of our dear mother who was rather fonder of him [than the rest of us], Mente turned in his own masterpiece based on the published poem. Notice how the versification has radically changed—from irregular free verses to a series of couplets—and ending with a one-liner which is supposed to be the poem’s closure.

In the process, the version he rendered would become totally his original work. Comparing his piece with the original published piece, I see that the new work now brims with new meanings and warrants a different, if not disparate interpretation.

The House by The Sea
(For Emma, who Loved So Much)
1997

I leave with a heavy heart 
But I need to go home tonight.

Tomorrow, I’ll build a house by the sea,
Where only I will hear my tranquility.

Around it I’ll plant six coconut trees
Which are stronger than I am.

Trees that will become the stable foundation 
of my quiet days, which I will no longer hear.

Undoubtedly, these coconut trees are of the best quality
Because they have overcome a lot of storm, that uprooted the others.

I want them to light the way through horrible darkness,
Where I will pass when I go home tonight.

I like them to be there and for them to know me
But never mind if they’ve forgotten me.

Nobody can replace them 
Because I know they are good.

But tonight I’ll ask them to be like candles,
Warm, beside me.

And when I am home
I will have surely built a house by the sea 
Where only I will hear my tranquility.

And others will hear it, too.


A Promise to Write (A Poem)
After having undergone a number of literary workshops, I realize that images, symbols and metaphors [if any if at all] I used in the first draft are confusing and too overwhelming—giving it a puzzling dramatic situation. Now, I realize that the poem published in the past and wholly appreciated by my dear brother—with my sister perhaps, my sole readers at the time—carried double and mixed metaphors which rendered the piece fragmented, incoherent and totally not a good poem at all.

And perhaps because it was dedicated to my dear mother, I never subjected this piece to any workshop which granted me fellowships. I submitted other pieces, and not this one, perhaps because I considered the work too sacred to be “desecrated”—or more aptly slaughtered by the write people.

The images in the poem were drawn mostly from emotion, not reason. There was not even a clear use of figurative language or tropes such as metaphor or irony, a fact that would be abhorred by the American New Critics (who espoused that everything that we need to know about the poem should already be in the poem itself—and to the very least, never in the author’s intention, never in my sincerest wish to dedicate it to my mother.


Thursday, January 26, 2012

Sarong Bánggi



Kan sarong bánggi, pinunasan akó
ni Tátay tapos sinabihan, dai daa
‘ko magparabatad o mágparakáwat
maski sain.Piglabaran niya man
si Dódoy; tapos pinainóm kami
kan gina’ga niyang lákad-búlan.

Itong sunod na bánggi, 
matanga na nag-abot si Nánay.
Nagimata kami kan nagriribok; 
nag-iiriwal sinda ni Tátay.
Dai kaya dáa pigmamarángno 
an mgá áki nindá. Kayá dáa 
kamí kinákaralintúra na saná.

Baad mayong gibohon si Nanay 
para kami marahay. Sa aga, 
baad matanga na naman siya 
mag-uli hali sa madyongan. 

Baad apudon na naman ako 
ni Tatay sa papag, tapos kuguson, 
tapos hadukan, tapos babawan. 
Kun maghibi ako, baad kásturan 
naman ako ni Tátay. Baad sa aga, 
garó na naman ako may hílang.





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. A...