I, Rooney

To Michael Rooney, S. J.

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. 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.

Doyong

When I was younger, I would go to my uncle’s house to read old copies of Balalong and Bikol Banner, two city publications where my uncle worked as a serious journalist in the 1980s. Of course, these two papers folded up even before I could grow up—most probably because the politician financiers were ousted from “public service.”

Many times I would sneak into their house to read them, or simply look at my uncle’s article and
photograph on the paper. Such sight was simply interesting to me—someone is saying something and his face is there for the reader to see.

I would always want to see and [read] my uncle’s weekly columns. Some of them were prized possessions in their cabinet—piles of newspaper issues perhaps stored for posterity, until typhoons came and went and soaked them all to oblivion.

Being the eldest son, Doyong, (the corrupted form of "Junior," or the more pejorative "Dayunyor"), my uncle would now and then publicly brandish any of his media projects to us—his nephews and nieces—even his children—that principles are what he stood for; thus,
his work.

In my mother’s brood, he was the one who worked for the media. While my grandparents took pride in that, some folks—it seemed to me—just could not agree or were at all satisfied by the whole idea. Media workhas always appealed to him that until now, I was told, he is still working for a political clan in Camarines Sur, helping them in most of their media projects.

His love of words has been pervasive that in one of our clan reunions—sometime in 1985—her children [my cousins] staged a strike, hoisting placards protesting against “measures” enforced by Lolo Meling and Lola Eta [themselves the status quo owning the poultry and livestock that provided the grand family's livelihood]—perfectly mimicking the turbulent scenes apparent during the Marcos regime.

Just like any writer, my uncle has sincerely professed the love of words. He loves words, and fortunately he profits from it, not like other journalists and media persons who may have just been enslaved by it. My uncle has been a PR man most of his life—serving people in government positions. And as a journalist, he had many political connections. For a time, he even worked as vice-mayor in our town.

Just like a popular mediaman, he can easily ask projects from the governor or congressman of this clan—having been friends with them for so long now. And in one-time projects involving a large amount of money, his family is largely to benefit, his media practice is occasionally profitable that their lives would suddenly change in an instant.

But like most journalists serving the interests of politicians, my uncle and his family would sometimes wallow in poverty—simply, that gross lack of means to sustain themselves. Many times he and his family went hungry perhaps owing to such choice of profession.

But these were all before. Now, things have changed for him and his family as he has had his first set of grandchildren. One of his daughters is now based in Saudi Arabia as a medical worker; while her first two daughters are engaged in information technology and similar professions. Things are simply looking up for my uncle and his family.

In the past, his love of words had long started a family and earned for it their means of sustenance—and truly, deprived them of better opportunities. Yet, until now perhaps—such love of words has not given him up. Or shall I say—he has not given up on what he has chosen to do all his life.

All for the love of words.

Salvation

I cringe at the sight of the Scourging at the Pillar in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. Whenever I watch it on DVD, I skip that part where Jim Caviezel’s bloodied body is flogged heavily like an animal, his skin ripped apart by the Roman soldiers. I fast-forward to the part where Abenader, Pilate's chief guard, scolds the soldiers for having almost killed Jesus. The first time I saw it on a wide-screen sometime in 2004, I tossed and turned and could not look, almost wanting to leave my seat, but could not.

Scandal

Back in the eighties, whenever my aunt’s movie (ware)house (they used their copra bodega for Betamax showing) showed bold movies, the owners would announce it would be exclusive screening and then send all the children out. Not once did I ever peek into any of these shows. One time, before we were sent out, their neighbors and friends were excited after they were told they would watch Kiri. But before I and kids my age were ushered out and the door was finally shut and bolted, I already saw something.

I hardly made out anything from it, though. I thought I hardly saw anything at all.

Not Just Another Dog Story

While they say dog is man’s best friend, I then say man is dog’s worst friend.

Take the case of Gundina, our pet dog who mothered a brood of other canines that witnessed tragic events in our poor household in the late 80s. 

One bleak day, when Mother found out that she was bitten by a mad dog in the barrio, she immediately requested our equally mad uncle to shoot the dog using his old shotgun. Mother had simply decided that she wouldn’t be able to recover. 

I remember that day when they cornered her in our backyard one morning after she was out in the streets for days. I heard its final cry and it told me something. Gundina, I learned, never wished to be mad, I thought. She was not just a dog. I mean she was a special one.

She had been Mother’s companion through the years—from the time Mother started to labor single-handedly for her six growing children, after being widowed too early to the time Mother was still laboring much to bring us, her children further, and further forward.

This dog always accompanied Mother when she went to teach grade-six pupils in the barrio school. She would not fail to go with Mother when she went to school, or she would be by her feet beneath the narra desk where she would type away countless souvenir programs for the Cursillo classes held in her father Emiliano’s house, who was himself a great educator.

Gundina witnessed numerous batches of grade-school graduates whom her Master had taught through the years. I always wonder—but she exuded one serenity of such simple creature—and perhaps composure in all instances. I wonder how the animal learned such sense of self-possession after having spent so much time attending to her Master’s teaching work inside a grade-six classroom.

Gundina had grace when she walked, almost like a cat as she sauntered with her Master along the street. The panorama was just impressive—Master and Friend coming together from the day’s laborious schoolwork, strolling towards the sunset, walking almost in cadence—the dog becoming the grace that her Master had, and the Master affecting her pet with such a flourish. The tandem was just one of a kind.

Or I do not know of anyone whom she had bitten—strangers, friends, us, or whoever. If all canine victims filed a blotter case before the Office of Human Affairs Against Canines—I am sure—I would not find Gundina in the record. She was a kind dog. I hardly remember when our family acquired her—all I knew was that there was a dog in our household named Gundina, and she was a gentle ordinary-breed dog with some hazy spots on her off-white hair.

But this one fine day nothing about her was unclear anymore—we were left with no option. When we found out she had been stray for long—and then mad, I felt badly sad. After everything that was shared, such togetherness would have to end—from the unholy and empty afternoons in the classroom to the rabuz sessions in the barangay—Mother could only give her the needed coup de grace to end her “insanity”. And maybe to do justice to her loyalty all those years.

Naturally, Mother could not at all afford to bring her good friend to some sort of a veterinarian or something. No one ever knew of one in the barrio I suppose. In those days in that small place, mad dogs just ended up as one thing—either good or bad pulutan.

How could Gundina’s matter of-life-and-death ever enter her Master’s mind when her four sons in the bigger city were finding it difficult to survive their high school? With a miserable income, Gundina’s Master could hardly provide for her children.

She just had other things she needed to do. She must have thought Gundina’s loyalty could extend to her not being made a priority. Well, the canine’s wails while being gunned down by the furious hunter (and his equally war-freak sidekicks) just vanished. Then it was over.

II.

Then there was Gandhi, a towering figure in our grandparents’ libod (backyard), a sprawling estate that we call with fondness for this is where my mother’s clan had shared many of life’s joys and struggles. Since my high school days, Gandhi has bred generations of good dogs—some of them even helped her breed more all for the service of their owners, Lolo Meling and Lola Eta.

All her offspring have gone through life’s harsh realities—they survived extreme hunger during typhoons or due to the neglect or apathy of their owners and their servants, or are given to the visitors of the old couple—to name of few, Gandhi’s puppies were usually given to rectors, benefactors, and supporters of Cursillos de Cristiandad, who frequented the libod—perhaps owing to my Lolo Meling’s unquestionable commitment to the Catholic movement.

Some of them were also handed to Lola’s relatives everywhere around the globe, and others were disposed to Gandhi knows where else. Others were also given to the friends of their children, or acquaintances of the Grand Dame who usually treated all visitors—aside from select relatives—in full regalia, or cousins who came back to see their relatives after a long while in the city or somewhere else.

Despite having had offspring with her own puppies, Gandhi has remained in my grandparents’ household. She must have seen countless batches of her offspring come and go, live and die. But she has remained as Gandhi, the same dog I knew from the time I entered Ateneo de Naga, the Jesuit high school until the time I needed to get out of it to get some fresh air, er, some real life.

One afternoon in October coming home from a week of facilitating pathetic college classes, I visited the libod to help a cousin clean the poultry houses for the new batch of 45-days chickens in my Lola Eta’s dwindling business. My grandmother was so annoyed when she found out that Gandhi and her new set of offspring had been staying in a poultry house. The brooders smelled horrible. Gandhi must have delivered and bred her new offspring inside the only remaining poultry house. In the middle of hard rain, my grandmother cursed the dogs to no end, and told us to shoo the animals away from the fowls’ cages.

Before we could clean the cages, my cousin Cris had to hurl boiling water at them and we almost scalded her new offspring who howled and scampered in the rain to look for shelter.

Gandhi’s instinctual need for reproduction (has she needed to perpetuate something with her seemingly endless generation of canines?] had not at all merited her Master’s compassion, despite her long years of service. Had Gandhi belonged to government service she would have been awarded a loyalty plaque for years of service and of course—provision of dog power—er, dog personnel that in more ways than one—through the years—certainly accommodated her Master’s sensibility.

But that one afternoon in October disproved this much. And it must have told her many things. How about the security Gandhi and Co. provided their Masters? Despite the countless times that Gandhi and her offspring were driven away from our grandmother’s rickety household, the canine together with her offspring, came back to household. Scalded, bruised, and scathed, they came back. This matriarch had displayed much more sensitivity, as it were.

III.

There were also Kagata (“Bite it!”) and Dasmagi (“Run to it!”), puppies of Gandhi’s with an unknown partner, belonged to my youngest uncle’s household. Their names just showed my uncle’s fondness for grim humor. I feared these two creatures when I’d visit Cabanbanan to help my Auntie Delia harvest some corn at the back of their modest house.

These two dogs heavily guarded Auntie Delia’s house at the time when my young cousin Aldrin was just a toddler, who crawled up the kayo tree while his mother was not looking after him.

I never knew what happened to these dogs but I am sure the fierce creatures were not able to do anything when Auntie Delia filed for annulment or called it quits many times with her husband after he went back from overseas work with a new “wife,” and a few children, too. Like dogs, I think reality simply bites and when it does, it does so very badly.

Hot Summer

Perhaps summer is the best time to curl up on a good book, eat a mouth-watering halo-halo, frolic with friends in the mall, or just be a couch potato the whole day. These activities people would do to get away from the scorching heat, to cool themselves away from the discomforts of the roasting climate. Perhaps going to the beach is one thing that most families anticipate, to get together and do one thing at the same time, bond and get away from the cares of the day.

Yet, some thirty summers ago, one promising poet perhaps fresh from the Tiempos’ Dumaguete workshop, rendered a picture of how one picnic can be one opportunity for something more than frolic and picnic.

In “The Picnic” by Luis Cabalquinto, a Bikolano writer now based in New York, the persona does more than observe the sights and sounds in a beach, say Siquijor.

The first touch of bare feet to sand
Makes of us reborn children
We drop invisible weights
and smile like a seashell.
Our limbs are light as the wind.
Our heads clean as clouds.
Loneliness is the vague land
on the far horizon.

Published in the Manila Review in August 1976, “The Picnic” features a persona who observes more than what he sees on the beach.

For the persona, the beach getaway is an opportunity to not only refresh the body, but to rejuvenate the soul. The cool respite from the heat takes him and his companions away from the hustle and bustle, from all the car[e]s of the day, so to speak:

We are all good people on the beach:
We are quick with our movements
to help
one another—
With the baskets, with the towels,
and our lunch.

We retrieve a smooth pebble
For a stranger’s two-year-old daughter
Against an advancing wave.

The persona sees the people’s good dispositions, of those who have gone to the beach to relax. He sees that people who go to the beach must really be there “for the keeps.” They are certainly there to make fun and have fun just because they are [fun]! They are good people; they are kind ones; or, they become what they don’t seem to be:

We give freely: our gestures generous,
large
as the mothering sea.
We eye each other’s bodies in the spirit
of a free-love commune:
We are ready to sleep with other men
Or secretly lend our wives.

In the poem, the beach becomes an open space, like an open mind that can be polluted anytime. In the preceding stanza, the persona slowly delivers the poem’s tension. In the recesses of the persona’s mind, he ponders duplicity, he contemplates infidelity.

As in any other beach, which must be brimming of picnickers, the beachgoer is indeed thrown open [literally] to hundreds of possibilities, being given more choices than what he can contain. For one, his mind can go freely as to accommodate delicious cravings [for freethinkers] or go overboard as to contemplate acts as sleeping with his own kind [for moralists]. Here, the beach affords the beachgoer chances to sin. The persona can entertain such thoughts as flirting with anyone, or trading off one’s filiations, if any.

Perhaps the 1970s—the period in which this piece was written—was some substantial years after the liberation of ideas, philosophies and lifestyles in the West from within college campuses and beyond. In this poem, Cabalquinto echoes a freethinking sensibility; through his craft he becomes the herald about treacheries [and also truths].

Very well, Camarines Sur-born Cabalquinto sees issues beyond sights; he rather sees metaphors in trivial objects or situations. In a rather fun-seeking rendezvous, the poem’s persona gets to speak out more nasty intentions; the poet [literally] flings open the realities of the “fling.” Flirtations among men and [even] between them have never been as antiquated as in this poem written some three decades ago.

The persona, of course, may just shrink in comparison when—he comes to know some three decades later—what he chooses to do is not something to be wary of—it is not anymore something frowned upon. Times have changed, radically. Had the poem’s persona been alive now, he may not have to hide his affection for anyone whom he desires in one island beach. There will be no more need for corals or shells to speak for what is rather forbidden:

But—
We are not wholly people on the beach:
Back in our houses, back in our cities—
We live on other rules,
follow
different
tides.

Even as we leave on the last jeep
to town—
Our grip grows strongly
over a gold cowrie
We picked off a coral.
We slip it into a pocket quickly,
Away from our neighbor’s
greed
and eye.

Leaving Normal

Just before you bring the last box
of your things to the taxi waiting
outside, make sure the glass-table
they lent you is wiped clean, spotless
like your head free of yesterday’s
they-ask-you-answer conversations
with the committee. No words will be
said, not a word will have to seek
their approval. Dust off the last shelf
and don’t you go and forget the books,
scissors and things you lent them.
Empty your basket, too, of all trash
so the other bins filled to the brim
next to their tables utter nothing,
with their unfeeling mouths,
as you now head toward the door.
The driver’s sounding his horn by the gate
so just run past the guard you warmly
greeted, coming in this morning;
refuse his hand to carry your stuff
but remember friendship, for good.
Seated in the car now, take comfort
in the cushioned couch, wiping off
the dust collected on your palms.

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

Scandal

Back in the eighties, whenever my aunt’s movie (ware)house—they used their copra bodega for Betamax showing—showed bold movies, the owners would announce it would be exclusive screening and then send all the children out. Not once did I ever peek into any of these shows.

One time, before we were sent out, their neighbors and friends were excited after they were told they would watch Kiri. But before they ushered my cousins and me out, and finally shut and bolted the door, I saw something.

I hardly made out anything from it, though. I thought I hardly saw anything at all.

Hot summer

Musings on Luis Cabalquinto's "The Picnic"
April 2006

Summer is the best time to curl up on a good book, eat a mouth-watering halo-halo, frolic with friends in the mall, or just be a couch potato the whole day. These activities people would do to get away from the scorching heat, to cool themselves away from the discomforts of the roasting climate.
 
Going to the beach is one thing that most families anticipate, to get together and do one thing at the same time, bond and get away from the cares of the day.
 

(Postcard was a gift from Janet Lyn "Selena" Go-Alano back in 1997 in Ateneo de Naga)

Yet, some thirty summers ago, one promising poet perhaps fresh from the Tiempos’ Dumaguete workshop, rendered a picture of how one picnic can be one opportunity for something more than frolic and picnic.
 
In “The Picnic” by Luis Cabalquinto, a Bikolano writer based in New York, the persona does more than observe the sights and sounds in a beach, perhaps like Boracay.
 
The first touch of bare feet to sand
Makes of us reborn children
We drop invisible weights
                        and smile like a seashell.
Our limbs are light as the wind.
Our heads clean as clouds.
Loneliness is the vague land
on the far horizon.
 
Published in the Manila Review in August 1976, “The Picnic” features a persona who observes more than what he sees on the beach.
 
For the persona, the beach getaway is an opportunity to not only refresh the body, but to rejuvenate the soul. The cool respite from the heat takes him and his companions away from the hustle and bustle, from all the car[e]s of the day, so to speak:
 
We are all good people on the beach:
We are quick with our movements
                        to help
                        one another—
With the baskets, with the towels,
                        and our lunch.
We retrieve a smooth pebble
For a stranger’s two-year-old daughter
Against an advancing wave.
 
The persona sees the people’s good dispositions, of those who have gone to the beach to relax. He sees that people who go to the beach must really be there “for the keeps.” They are certainly there to make fun and have fun just because they are [fun]! They are good people; they are kind ones; or, they become what they don’t seem to be:
 
We give freely: our gestures generous,
                        large
                        as the mothering sea.
We eye each other’s bodies in the spirit
                        of a free-love commune:
We are ready to sleep with other men
Or secretly lend our wives.
 
The beach is an open space, like an open mind that can be polluted anytime. In the preceding stanza, the persona slowly delivers the poem’s tension. In the recesses of the persona’s mind, he ponders duplicity, he contemplates infidelity.
 
As in any other beach, which must be brimming of picnickers, the beachgoer is indeed thrown open [literally] to hundreds of possibilities, being given more choices than what he can contain. For one, his mind can go freely as to accommodate delicious cravings or [for freethinkers] or go overboard as to contemplate unspeakable acts as sleeping with his own kind [for moralists].
 
The beach affords the beachgoer chances to sin. The persona can entertain such thoughts as flirting with anyone, or trading off one’s filiations, if any.

Perhaps the 1970s—the period in which this piece was written—was some substantial years after the liberation of ideas, philosophies and lifestyles in the West from within college campuses and beyond. In this poem, Cabalquinto echoes a freethinking sensibility; through his craft he becomes the herald about treacheries [and also truths].
 
Very well, Cabalquinto who hails from Magarao, Camarines Sur, sees issues beyond sights; he rather sees metaphors in trivial objects or situations.
 
In a rather fun-seeking rendezvous, the poem’s persona gets to speak out more nasty intentions; the poet [literally] flings open the realities of the “fling.” Flirtations among men and [even] between them have never been antiquated as in this poem written some three decades ago.
 
“The Picnic” persona, of course, may just shrink in comparison when—he comes to know some three decades later—what he chooses to do is not something to be wary of—it is not anymore something frowned upon.
 
Times have changed, radically.
 
Had the poem’s persona been alive now, he may not have to hide his affection for anyone whom he desires in one island beach. There will be no more need for corals or shells to speak for what is rather forbidden:
 
 
But—
We are not wholly people on the beach:
Back in our houses, back in our cities—
We live on other rules,
                        follow
                        different
                        tides.
Even as we leave on the last jeep
                        to town—
Our grip grows strongly
                        over a gold cowrie
We picked off a coral.
We slip it into a pocket quickly,
Away from our neighbor’s
                        greed
                        and eye.

Recently, a local daily here ran a story on gay prostitutes being barred from Boracay due to their violations on some regulations in the island. The burgeoning business of gay prostitution says only one thing. The business is boiling [high] because the demand for it heats it all up. These facts are clear, however. Most if not all foreigners or even local tourists who go there are not [only] after the beach. They are after the experience from being clients of a healthy and thriving flesh trade—oh well—legitimized by the rest of the world. 

In the hot summer, spirits have already been scalded and scorched by the fires of hell so as to be intense about anyone’s sexual preference. Now, duplicity is not anymore duplicity. For if in the past, duplicity lurked in the realm of the uncertain, today, duplicity is the certainty.

N.M.

http://ninomanaog.blogspot.com/