Misnomers

Passing Molo plaza, you see a billboard bearing the city officials’ names and flaunting a title given by a national entity that Iloilo is one of the “highly urbanized cities” across the country. Upon reading this claim, which rather only looks like a political poster of the officials simply because their names are spelled bigger than the citation itself, you begin to wonder.

You wonder whether the phrase isn’t too lofty a statement, especially because only a week ago, you were trapped inside the mall because the city’s main thoroughfares were flooded after only a few minutes of heavy rain. You wonder whether this speaks truth about a city whose streets reek of garbage and God-knows-what because of its clogged sewers.

Highly urbanized. Who said so? Shouldn’t the people from Iloilo themselves claim this? You wonder whether the phrase rather refers to the increased number of fast food outlets, BPO centers or BDO banks mushrooming every week everywhere. Seriously the phrase is given wrongly if it were to mean a progressive city. Your city cannot claim progress just because many establishments mushroom in and crowd the city and clog its sewers every single day. The clogged city sewers which could hardly be seen by an ordinary city dweller on an ordinary day only prove this claim very wrong.

You think twice, then. Maybe highly urbanized really means: Ati families lining the sidewalks or taong grasa living in the footbridges downtown because the city’s DSWD cannot offer them alternatives. Or perhaps highly urbanized means a new outlet of Andok’s or Mang Inasal whose daily garbage in front of their food tables smells like fart and rotting chickens.

Going further down the city on a Mohon Terminal-Villa jeepney, you try to seek some logic. Ah, yes, perhaps. Iloilo City is highly urbanized because recently it launched the new flyovers.

Passing the John B. Lacson maritime school, you wonder why your jeepney does not pass over the flyover. You wonder why you do not fly over. You are running late for an appointment because the jeepney is inching its way to get to the General Luna-Diversion Road intersection.

You assume the driver does not have to pass the flyover if he were to save for his family’s Passover. Why should he pass there when it obviously does not have any passengers for him to pick up? So now you are left only to look at the flyover, the towering structure above you where not so many cars and jeepneys pass.

So you go with the flow, joining a procession of cars slowing down into one direction, squeezing into whatever spaces are left by the blockade rendered by the flyover.

You think it is laughable that this small city has to build flyovers. Funny, everyone in their seats is rushing to get to their destination, while the flyover, which ought to facilitate traffic, is unmoving. It’s just too s[t]olid to care.

No, flyover; maybe it is an apt term for the structure. Because below it, your mind now wanders; that it wants to “fly over” the reality that you’re running late to meet visitors from the national office in a city hostel.

But progress? No, flyovers do not mean progress. The structures rather block the progress for the people of the city. It delays students from their classes; it delays workers from their offices. The big structures that block wider passageways physically rob people of their spaces. Traffic congestion can never be removed by blocking the street itself with a prominent structure that rises and descends in less than 500 meters or so.

Aren’t flyovers supposed to redirect traffic in order to avoid bottlenecks and traffic glitches? But here you are, an ordinary city dweller, eternally trapped below the flyover. You realize that the structure is a farce for the city’s progress, because it does not bring you anywhere when you need it. It only delays you from going where you need to go.

Your mind has really just flown over. Your car has been unmoving for a long time. You think of explaining why you were late to meet your visitors. No wonder you now scram to alight from the jeepney at General Luna because your visitors from the national office must have been through eating their hotel breakfast and perhaps could not wait on you anymore. So you run, still bent on meeting them on time. At the hotel’s entrance, the big sign of the room rates again scream at you: “Economy P750.”

Economy, P750. Can this be another name applied in error? Perhaps the term applies to what ordinary Ilonggos can afford. Or does it mean to say it’s the reflection of the city’s economy? You ask again whether an ordinary Ilonggo can afford this economy. You wonder whether he or she can ever afford the city’s economy. Or are the city hotels only made for tourists like your visitors from the national office who could afford them because the travel papers you have arranged say they are on official business?

You now meet your visitors in earnest, complete with pleasantries and stuff. And after your cups of coffee which were paid for by your government agency’s office, you engage your visitors in a conversation about your good performance with your clients in the past quarter. You try to sound like you helped ordinary people a lot in their business which provides livelihood to many more.

You claim to them that these people have been helped by your intervention, but you can hardly cite the facts and figures that can attest to it. Have they been helped by what you did? How come they still depend on you on matters that concern their businesses? How come they would still ask for your lobbying to pay for their booth rental in the recent mall exhibit that they wanted to join?

When you report matters to the visitors from your national office, you speak as if you were able to help many marginalized and underprivileged people in your detail. You sound as if you have always improved people’s lives or helped them progress, so that these national people who think they know better could help you as if they were messiahs sent to save the people in Iloilo from a sorry situation.

Funny you don't wonder if you a blabbering misnomer yourself.

Sweets and spices

Sang nagligad nga June 2010, ginlagda sang De La Salle University (DLSU) Press an limang e-books o electronic books, isa ka pioneering initiative sang DLSU Academic Publications Office sa pangunguna ni Dr. Isagani R. Cruz, ang premyado nga kritiko sa pungsod Pilipinas.

Isa sa lima nga libro amo ang Maharang, Mahamis na Literatura sa Mga Tataramon na Bikol (Sweets and Spices in the Languages of Bikol) ni Paz Verdades Santos, literature professor sang amo man nga unibersidad. 

Matahum ang unod sang Maharang, Mahamis na Literatura sa Tataramon na Bikol ni Santos kay tiniripon niya ang madamu nga mga obrang literatura sang mga kontemporaryo kag mga antiguhan nga Bikolanong awtor.

 

The book offers something sweet and something spicy, as it were, that speak much of the Bikol sensibility. Maharang, Mahamis features the creative works of past and contemporary Bikol poets, fictionists and playwrights. The pieces of poetry, fiction and drama were chosen based on the individual text’s contribution to Bikol literary history, its literacy value, the peculiar Bikol turn of phrase and the distinctive Bikol identity, or as Santos herself perceived it. 

Centered on the said criteria, the book surveys representative works that could constitute Santos’s appropriation of the concept of maurag (best) and magayon (beautiful) in Bikol literature.

 

The roster of authors in this collection is indispensable. It includes, among others, the poetry of Rudy Alano who passed away in August this year. Alano, erstwhile professor of literature at the Ateneo de Naga  helped usher in the teaching and appreciation of the vernacular literature in the said school. Alano also produced plays in Bikol in the same institution. 

The book also includes the work of Alano’s student Frank Peñones Jr., who was awarded the CCP literary grant in 1991, and whose work Bikol scholar Ma Lilia Realubit considered to have sounded “the clarion call” to revive the Bikol writing in the 1990s.

It also features the short stories of Ana Calixto and Gloria Racelis who published in the Bikolana magazine in the 1950s. Calixto’s “Dupyas” and Racelis’s “An Doktor,” for one, read as moral tales in the post-war era even as they tackle taga-bayan/taga-bukid dichotomies.

 

Also featured are the works of the bemedaled Abdon Balde, Jr.; the prolific Jason Chancoco, whose book of Bikol poetry critique Pagsasatabuanan came out last year; the indefatigable poet Kristian Cordero who has been making waves here and there; and the Manila-based Bikol poet Marne Kilates from Daraga, Albay. It also features Gode Calleja, publisher of the Canada-based poetry folio Burak; and Estelito Jacob, former president of Kabulig, an aggregate of Bikol literati. 

 

The book also published for the first time Orfelina Tuy and Fe Ico’s “Handiong,” a full-length play written in the 1970s as a school project when they were teachers at Naga Central School.

What is noteworthy in this collection is the inclusion of English translations of the published Bikol texts, an opportunity for Bikolano and non-Bikolano readers alike to appreciate the region's literary genius.

 

And because the e-book can be purchased and perhaps only read through Amazon Kindle, a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com that renders and displays e-books and other digital media, this unprecedented publication effort is an indispensable opportunity to get acquainted with the Bikol genius in today’s times.

 

The book is virtually what we can call the life’s work of Paz Verdades Santos, featuring the products of her research in Bikol literary history and sensibility. Santos spent three decades teaching literature in Ateneo de Naga and De la Salle University. In 2003, she published Hagkus: Twentieth -century Bikol Women Writers, which profiles the evolution of the Bikolana writer from the 1900s to the present.

 

In her work, Santos, who is herself not a Bikolana, but whose passion for Bikol is perhaps unprecedented, has featured the sweets (matamis) and the spices (makahang) rendered by the creative juices of past and contemporary Bikol writers which, indeed,  altogether lend additional flavor to the feast of Philippine literature.

Desire to acquire

Ours is now a world of things.

Everything around us these days is commodified, (meaning: produced or made, sold, bought, and consumed.) Every single day, we consume—we eat, we use things, we burn up anything, everything. In fact, we consume too much. While we are overwhelmed with too many things, there is  yet no satisfying our desire to acquire, to fill ourselves with everything until we tell ourselves we still want more.

In simpler terms, we could say that the mall culture rules our sensibilities these days. In this one-stop business establishment, we people  are over-empowered to conquer our lack of everything. The presence of almost everything inside a convenient edifice affords us the luxury we did not have before.

The mall culture has gradually and successfully ingrained in us that we can always desire to acquire. And that we can always acquire more than what we need. Who can resist the itch of malling and shopping when midnight sales and bargains come almost every week? Backed up by television and newspaper, these business strategies do not only deplete our ATM funds; they intensify our desire to constantly acquire.

Consumerism has become our chronic tendency to have and have more.

Madeline Levine, an American psychologist, writes, "Beginning in the 1990s, the most frequent reason given for attending college had changed to making a lot of money, outranking reasons such as becoming an authority in a field or helping others in difficulty. This correlates with the rise of materialism, specifically the technological aspect: the increasing prevalence of compact disc players, digital media, personal computers, and cellular telephones. Levine criticized what she saw as “a shift away from values of community, spirituality, and integrity, and toward competition, materialism and disconnection.”

While Levine's study only involved the American community, the same can be said in this country. Nowadays, what we live for may, in fact, depend on what we have. To the extent of spreading ourselves thin, we have required so much of ourselves  and we have acquired so much for ourselves, that our gauges for success or worse, happiness and contentment are mountains of things which we have to acquire and possess and burn up and use up, until it is time for us to have another one and another one and another one and more and more and more and more.

It is ridiculous, for instance, that even one newspaper ad reads—“It’s your watch that tells most about who you are.” If we take it literally, though, this is not true—you are not your watch. It’s a pity that you depend on a mere wristwatch to say much of yourself. It’s a pity that it is a thing that might just sum you up. Truth is—you use the watch for a purpose, not to tell you essentially who you are. Even then, you are worth more than your watch. Among other things, you’re a human person with a soul; your watch is not. In this sense, it is hilarious how consumerist propaganda can persuade us to think this way about our lives; funny how this sensible persuasion has so pervaded our modern life.

We now perceive that everything that is of value is on the shelf and so we should buy them; otherwise, we cease to live—as if not being able to buy them lessens our value.  We go out in the mall, in the flea markets, every stall we can find, we look for the things we usually look for to satisfy ourselves.

As we browse and read books, read ads, fit clothes, read product labels or watch movies, we seem to devour anything we find on the shelf. And in any merchandise we take out from all types of shelves—books, CDs, DVDs, shoes, store products, anything, or everything—we always seek to benefit from them.

Yet, isn't it better to see these things simply as our means to get to where we want to go, or we ought to be. Do we really [just have to] use things, so we as human beings survive, and prosper, and as one friend puts it, “elevate”?

We hardly wonder what can make us see that we can use things beyond their normal end. We hardly consider what can make us see that we can desire to acquire other things, those things beyond the usual purpose of the tangible things we normally acquire. We hardly bother what else can convince us that we are worth more than our new pair of pants or imported watch.

At the end of the day, isn't it good to ask what we are here for, and not how much more we can acquire further? While we are here.

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.

Extension work

You have been doing extension work for quite a while. 

As time passes, you see the difficulty of researchers and extension workers in expressing themselves and taking pride in their output, which some of them even fondly call their labor of love. 

Consider the regional symposium you are now tasked to cover.  You listen to the researcher who sounds awkward presenting the project on the production of this crop. During the panel evaluation, you pity her because the evaluator loudly scores points off the study because it lacks the right methodology. The national crops expert tells in her face that the study being reported presents only commonsensical information that needs neither explanation nor further study. You realize from among the crowd she turns out to just fill in to report for the said study. She virtually “extended” her services for her absentee fellow researcher.

While the other researchers may be articulate in the technology they must have studied, er, mastered in all their 20 years or something of government service, you find it revolting that they do not sound good in their English. They sound funny speaking in their borrowed language. In the presentations conferences and contests, what you will appreciate are those who are well versed in their studies as they are fluent in speaking the technical terms in English.

You wonder whether there have been efforts through the years in the academic world to allow for researches to be written in the Filipinos’ native language, if the purpose is to advance the technologies and not how the English-speaking world understands or wants to receive them.

Why does the presenter who is fluent in English impress you more? The mussel community researcher sounds fishy to you because he has this twang, an accent probably spoken in one northern town of this province.

Sadly, because you were taught English this way and not that way, you yourself are isolated from what you see and hear. The Filipino tongue that makes the most correct English inflections sound more pleasing and seem to merit your attention. You rather notice the researcher who could not fully express his efs and vees. To you he sounds less persuasive. His wrong enunciations distract you that you don’t want to reconsider what he has to say while he is being aided by his PowerPoint slides.

Further in the presentation sessions, you notice the presenter on biogas digester did not use parallel structures in his objectives. You wonder if he cares about these at all. He even sounds like a military general who cannot distinguish his e’s from his i’s. He reminds you of the military chief over the television who munches English as if it were peanuts.

You ask when you can start to admire.

Here, you realize that everyone presenting the study for scrutiny might as well have the heart to extend to what other people have to say about their labors of love; extend further to see whether they are valid judgments so they can improve the study. Extend further to understand, if the said judgments are rather prejudiced and therefore should only be ignored.

This presenter on site-specific nutrient management very well understands her figures as she reports her rice research. Asking her questions now, the panel evaluator sounds like she speaks the same language. It seems she is going to win because they sound alike when they begin the discussion. Perhaps she will win the top prize in this summit because the presenter’s words slide into your ears and your sensibility.  Other extension workers seem to mince words. But she doesn’t. Does this study prove to have more social impact than those presented by less articulate ones? While there are criteria set for all this research business, you start to wonder who deserves the prize.

An Dakulang Natad

Suddenly, last summer

Iyo Po, Isinisikwal Ko

Enchanted in Iligan

Thinkers and Theorists

Mother and Child

An Samong Kakanon sa Aroaldaw

Bikoliana

O My Boracay

Ibalong Gallery

The Predictables

Rating:	★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

Do not watch Sylvester Stallone’s "The Expendables."

The film features perhaps all the biggest action stars who came and went in your lifetime: Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwazenegger (most probably in cameo roles); British Jason Statham, Asian Jet Li, Russian Dolph Lundgren, American wrestler Steve Austin, et.al., but it hugely, hugely fails to deliver the right punches.

Putting too many action stars in one movie is the stupidest thing to do because each of them is a master(piece) in his own right that he needs ample airtime to deliver sensible action entertainment, and because the action star is no less than himself.

It is a sorry movie with a highly worn-out storyline. Like any action flick, the film’s main characters are called to mission to save the world before the day ends. So what else can we expect?

Here it is as if Sly’s character Barney Ross leads a band of "elite mercenaries" [read: tambay or jobless bystanders] named The Expendables sporting in their Harley-Davidsons a Guns&Roses logo, but who were only made to appear they just needed money from working in the movie and in the story in the movie. It’s funny the actors’ characters’ themselves belabor the issue of paychecks for quite a while in the film.

Stallone then contracts Bruce Willis’s Mr. Church to give him and his men a project, very much like a regional research proposal in dire need of funding from the national office. Barney Ross's rival, Schwazenegger’s character Trench, refuses any involvement as he goes out of the church with Stallone saying maybe he wants to be president. Cameo.

The men then go to the island of Vilena where Eric Roberts' Monroe terrorizes and blackmails a despotic general ruling a Latin-American village a la Castro. The once-idyllic Vilena is where the action starts and ends.

End of story.

While the movie is hackneyed it doesn’t offer anything new but a reworking of cassava (read: staple) roles, it also rendered interesting insights on the action stars themselves. Hahaha.

First, the movie made Stallone’s face look like a great waxwork that one more Vicky Belo job would make his face legendary as Michael Jackson [and his face]. Second, Willis and Schwazenegger’s less than two-minute exposure will not win them any Oscars like Judy Dench’s Queen Elizabeth did in "Shakespeare in Love" as it does not do anything to save the movie. At best, they’re reduced to phantoms and additional utility workers in the movie’s line-item budget. In the Philippine film glossary, they will surely be top-billed as "with the special participation of." Such waste of talent, or more aptly, such wasted talents.

It is as if Stallone only assembled the stars in one barangay meeting so as to make the sensible Mickey Rourke a tattoo beautician tinkering with paints and needles in the Expendables’ talyer [a neighborhood machine shop], waste the precious time of Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren to stage an awfully funny mismatch. Another one: it also made Steve Austin’s brawny physique dumber than dumb as the worst alalay [sidekick] for the aging Eric Roberts.

Saving grace? Here it is. While the Asian success named Jet Li is given a limited role he virtually wasted his time waiting for action to happen, and it did not, and while his shortness is berated in the entire script, he used it to his advantage when he fights the gigantic Dolph Lundgren in a restaging of the David and Goliath story. Wuhuhu. More interestingly enough, his character’s constant desire to earn more money so he could provide for his family saves [and very well speaks for] this Asian sensibility.

On the whole, watching this movie is like buying fresh oranges from the sidewalk vendor. The fruit looks too tangy as it is very, very orange. But when you then remove the fresh-looking rind, the rind covers a dried-up membrane inside.

Nowadays, imported movies are like imported fruits. It’s the same experience. These days, it’s only appearances [that are made to] matter. [You don’t even know where the ponkan fruit came from. Reading further information on these cheap imports, you may learn that the fruit is a genetically modified treat stuffed with all chemicals needed to grow it.] Substance is secondary, relegated to the side. You are conned however you’d like to see it.

Watching the movie in the mall is worth more than a hundred pesos, but its real value should even be cheaper than a 20-peso DVD which you can perhaps haggle in the Delgado sidewalk.

Not only that it is not worth your money, it will also make you puke in the movie house because of the dizzying action scenes which are virtually a hodgepodge of computer generated images (CGIs). Here you cannot ignore the gore just because it reminds you of Counterstrike matches your nephew loves to play some six years ago. But you would not see real (meaning: simulated) action in the movie.

You will be forced to watch, but you will not be entertained. Because movies today are only computer generated stuff, you need not fret to catch its last run in the next three days. Better watch your son kill his character’s enemies with finesse and genius in DotA (Defense of the Ancients) on your PC at home. That, for sure, is a real-time live action at best.

Misnomers

Passing Molo plaza, you see a billboard bearing the city officials’ names and faces and flaunting a title given by a national entity that Iloilo is one of the “highly urbanized cities” across the country. Upon reading this claim, which rather only looks like a political poster of the officials simply because their names are spelled bigger than the citation itself, you begin to wonder.

You wonder whether the phrase isn’t too lofty a statement, especially because only a week ago, you were trapped inside the mall because the city’s main thoroughfares were flooded after only a few minutes of heavy rain. You wonder whether this speaks truth about a city whose streets reek of garbage and God-knows-what because of its clogged sewers.

Highly urbanized. Who said so? Shouldn’t the people from Iloilo themselves claim this? You wonder whether the phrase rather refers to the increased number of fast food outlets, BPO centers or BDO banks mushrooming every week everywhere. Seriously the phrase is given wrongly if it were to mean a progressive city. Your city cannot claim progress just because many establishments mushroom in and crowd the city and clog its sewers every single day. The clogged city sewers underground which could hardly be seen by an ordinary city dweller on an ordinary day only prove this claim very wrong.

You think twice, then. Maybe highly urbanized really means: Ati families lining the sidewalks or taong grasa living in the footbridges downtown because the city’s DSWD cannot offer them alternatives. Or perhaps highly urbanized means a new outlet of Andok’s or Mang Inasal whose daily garbage in front of their food tables smells like fart and rotting chickens.

Going further down the city on a Mohon Terminal-Villa jeepney, you try to seek some logic. Ah, yes, perhaps. Iloilo City is highly urbanized because recently it launched the new flyovers.

Passing the John B. Lacson maritime school, you wonder why your jeepney does not pass over the flyover. You wonder why you do not fly over. You are running late for an appointment because the jeepney is inching its way to get to the General Luna-Diversion Road intersection.

You assume the driver does not have to pass the flyover if he were to save for his family’s Passover. Why should he pass there when it obviously does not have any passengers for him to pick up? So now you are left only to look at the flyover, the towering structure above you where not so many cars and jeepneys pass.

So you go with the flow, joining a procession of cars slowing down into one direction, squeezing into whatever spaces are left by the blockade rendered by the flyover.

You think it is laughable that this small city has to build flyovers. Funny, everyone in their seats is rushing to get to their destination, while the flyover, which ought to facilitate traffic, is unmoving. It’s just too s[t]olid to care.

No, flyover; maybe it is an apt term for the structure.  Because below it, your mind now wanders; that it wants to “fly over” the reality that you’re running late to meet visitors from the national office in a city hostel.

But progress? No, flyovers do not mean progress. The structures rather block the progress for the people of the city. It delays students from their classes; it delays workers from their offices. The big structures that block wider passageways physically rob people of their spaces. Traffic congestion can never be removed by blocking the street itself with a prominent structure that rises and descends in less than 500 meters or so.

Aren’t flyovers supposed to redirect traffic in order to avoid bottlenecks and traffic glitches? But here you are, an ordinary city dweller, eternally trapped below the flyover. You realize that the structure is a farce for the city’s progress, because it does not bring you anywhere when you need it. It only delays you from going where you need to go.

Your mind has really just flown over. Your car has been unmoving for a long time. You think of explaining why you were late to meet your visitors. No wonder you now scram to alight from the jeepney at General Luna because your visitors from the national office must have been through eating their hotel breakfast and perhaps could not wait on you anymore. So you run, still bent on meeting them on time. At the hotel’s entrance, the big sign of the room rates again scream at you: “Economy P750.”

Economy, P750. Can this be another name applied in error? Perhaps the term applies to what ordinary Ilonggos can afford. Or does it mean to say it’s the reflection of the city’s economy? You ask again whether an ordinary Ilonggo can afford this economy. You wonder whether he or she can ever afford the city’s economy. Or are the city hotels only made for tourists like your visitors from the national office who could afford them because the travel papers you have arranged say they are on official business?

You now meet your visitors in earnest, complete with pleasantries and stuff. And after your cups of coffee which were paid for by your government agency’s office, you engage your visitors in a conversation about your good performance with your clients in the past quarter. You try to sound like you helped ordinary people a lot in their business which provides livelihood to many more.

You claim to them that these people have been helped by your intervention, but you can hardly cite the facts and figures that can attest to it. Have they been helped by what you did? How come they still depend on you on matters that concern their businesses? How come they would still ask for your lobbying to pay for their booth rental in the recent mall exhibit that they wanted to join?

When you report matters to the visitors from your national office, you speak as if you were able to help many marginalized and underprivileged people in your detail. You sound as if you have always improved people’s lives or helped them progress, so that these national people who think they know better could help you as if  they were messiahs sent to save the people in Iloilo from a sorry situation.

You don't wonder if you are a blabbering misnomer yourself.

Sunday's Best

Pagsimba mo nin aga sa kapilya, dakul an nagkumpisal. Sa enot na Domingo, hininguha guro nindang mainaan an kasa’lan. Dai ka nakalikay sa sermon kan pading uro-utro kan sinasabi manongod sa mga tawong pigpaparabaralik-balikan an dating kasa’lan. Kaipuhan mo gayod arugon an babaying parakasalang nagbuybuy sagkod nahingawan pagkatapos na mayo ni sarong nagdaklag saiya ta nganing maghusga.

Hali sa kapilya, nagdiretso ka sa dagat bago mag-uli. Maati, dakulon nin pa’lit pero dakul na kaakian an nagkakararigos. Magayon gayod malinigan an saimong hawak kan tubig na maaskad. Dai na sana lugod, saboot mo. Sa harong nindo pag-abot mo igwang nag-uurumpukan sa may kubo. 

Igwa nang nag-alok magtagay alagad mayo ka saindang tini’no. Sa laog ka kan harong nindo dire-diretso. An tambayan kan kuta' na katiri'nuhan dudulagan mo. Saboot mo igwa ka nin sarong aldaw para magsaklit maski kadikit.

Hunio 1, Huwebes

Nagtatakig an dahon

kan lubi-lubi. Garo idtong

tipuson sa bangging bulanon.

Pagbolos kan uran, ini nagin

algodon sa tubig na sinaghom

kan sinarom, daing kasing-itom.

Kan maghuyop an amihan, nahulog, 

narakdag, sarong kalag kagian.

Nagsaod Si Kulas Sarong Aldaw

Masiramon si tinao mo sako

kan sarong aldaw.

Pirang aldaw na’kong naghahanap

sa saod’kun bakong maalsumon

ta rulumbod pa, ralanog,

o rumo nang marhay, minsan

an iba inuurulod pa’daing data.

Marhay ta nata’wan mo ako

kan haloy ko nang hinahanap.

Kiisay pa daw digdi an may marhay na klase?

May aram ka?

O, ta iyo daw, maray man, Ne

ta’yaon na saimo

an kaipuhan kong makua.

Mabuwelta na sana ako

digdi sa payag-payag mo

sa talipapa, tibaad sa otro aga.

Sige Ne, ta’ tawad na baga pating marhay ini;

d’yata sabi mo buena-mano man ako

sa duwang kilong balimbing na ini

na lala’sayon kan nangingidam

kong agom.

Puwede niya man baga ining 

idutdot sa asin, ano?

Once There Was A Love

Kan ako sadit pa, pitong taon o labi pa,
Natood nang magtukad sa bukid sa pamitisan kan Isarog
Para magkua nin omlong, pala’pa’, mga sungong panggatong
Kaibahan si Manoy na an sundang nasasarong,
Minsan poon alas dos hasta maghapon.
Sa bukid nungka maguguton dawa mahapunan
Huli ta an kakanon makukua saen man:
Mga bayawas na hinog, an iba inuulod,
Kurumbot na hubal, minsan daeng laog,
Santol na Bangkok, sinasakat sa may ba’bul
Manggang maalsom, dae maabot kun tinutukdol.
Abang ogma kan panahon, sa itaas kan bulod madoroson.
Hiling an banwa asin dagat na mahiwason.
Dakul akong naoosipon pag-uli sa harong na magayon,
Lalo na ki Neneng maogmahon
Kaibahan ko paglabar pag abot kan sinarom.
Malipoton na tubig hale sa bobon na hararom
Nakakahale nin hibo kan amor seco saka gogon.
Kun maghaloy magbuntog, an tubig ma-libog;
Parehong mahahadit ta baad mahagupit-
Kaskas an kutipas pasiring kan kusina
Para madulagan an gihoy ni Mama.
Pero kun an gubing baging bolos na
Ta kinua hale sa mga bagong laba
Si Mama mayo nang masabi pa-apuwera
Apodon an gabos para mag-orasyon
Sa altar kan Sagrado Corazon na minsan milagrohon.
Dangan kayan an pagmate ko garo nakarigosan
Dawa baga naglabar lang;
An kaogmahan yaon lang
Kaiba an magurang asin mga tugang.

Some Questions

Pa'no ka makakasurat nin tulang matatarom?
Pa'no ka makakagibo nin bersong manana'gom?
Dai ka man basang na sanang matukaw sa gilid,
maparatais kan pansurat mo, dangan tadok sa papel
na mumwestrahon mo an gayon kan si babaying
nakataid mo sa Cathedral kan Domingo.
 
An tamang tataramon minaarabot; manlaen-laen 

na tataramon: manatok, maragamo, mangilo, mabata
minsan saro-saro, minsan surunod-sunod,
nag-iirinotan, rinibong damulag nagtatarandayag,
an uran naghahagawak sa mapa kan saimong payo.

An gayon kan expression tuyong minadulok
bagaman nagpapahiling kan sadiri, o naghahalat sana
sa atubang mo; babaying sa banggi minasaprang 

na sana sa braso mo para durogon mo, dai lamang 

naghahalat kan diskarte mo, dai ka tata'wan panahon 

na mag-isip, tulos tataranyogon an kaintirohan mo.
An pinakamarhay kaiyan, sabi kan iba diyan,
maghalat ka sana, ta maabot an sinasabi ninda,
pero an pandiurag na istorya maabot man nanggad
maski dai mo halaton, dawa daing antisipasyon.

Sabuot mo, matunganga ka na sana sa diklom?
Magparapanhikap ka nin mga layug-layog astang ika 

makaturog? Dai man daw kaipuhan magpaimbung ka 

kan payo sa ulunan nganing igwa kang mahilumluman?

Sabadong Aga sa McDo Katips

Nawawalat sa dila ko 
an hamis kan Sundae McDip.

A, iyo, huminiling ka na sako,

O, ano? Sige, turuhok lang;

kun mababasog ka baga ka’yan.

Mayo akong magigibo.

Hiling sana ta baad lamang

mawalat an memorya

kan maimbong mong paghiling

sa gilid kan wala kong mata.

Ngonyan ka man lang nanggad

huminiling sako, o kansubago pa?

An lipot kan Nestle Lemonade Pomelo

naggigira sa halanuhan ko,

Nahiling mo na’yan!

An matamis mong turuhok maaaliwalas 
sa lalawgon; an maimbong na presensya;

nagpapalibog, napapatindog sa natuturog,

nagpapala’tog, (an tultol nagiging bulabog).

Sige, hinihiling mo pa man nanggad ako

tinuturuhukan, hinuhubaan, ano man 
nanggad an magiginibo ko?

Garong mayo man gayo. Inom lang kita, 
kakan lang. Kakan, sapa, kakan, kakan, sapa.

O, nuarin ka pa mahiling giraray sako,

pagtungkahal ko tibaad dai ka na nakahiling:

A, iyo pa, hilinga daw yan; 
nakaturuhok ka pa sako,

alagad lagbas an hiling mo,

lagbas sa lanob, lagbas sa salming.

Hiling na; hiling pa. Mayong 
problema iyan sako.

Basta baga pagkatapos kong

mag-inom sa basong kamabaw an yelo,

mababasog ka na pag nagbuhat 
na ako sa tukawan. Maduman na’ko.

Kalinturádo

Maimbúng na maráy an tamóng na tinitípig ko

Sa kátre ming mag-agóm ngonyán na ága.

Garó itóng bángging piglábaran akó ni Nánay

Pagkatápos kong mágparabátad háli pagkáwat.

O itóng bángging pigbányusan niya si Dódoy

Tápos pinainóm siya nin gina’gang lákad-búlan.

Pag sunód na bánggi, pigparakúgos niya akó

Pagkatápos siyang págparakastahan ni Tátay.

Dai dáa kayá pigmamarángno an mgá áki nindá

Kayá gabós dáa kamí kinákaralintúra na saná.

Kalinturádo an mgá lúhang duminalíhig háli

Sa pisngí niya na nágtururó sa laláwgón ko.

Mayo man nanggad naginibo si Nanay

Para ako maumayan, para ako marahay.

Sa kátre ming mag-agóm atyán na bánggi,

Pagpaparalamudáon niya na namán akó.

Dai namán ako dudurugon kan agóm ko.

Garó daa kayá ‘ko pírming may hílang.

Bagacay, 1942

Susog sa Obra ni Clemente Manaog

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

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

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

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

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

Bisto Mo Ko, Ne? Ako Si Kulas

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Ako si Kulas,
idtong nanuparan mo kadto sa patubas.
Pagkahiling mong ito sako sa may luwas,
kadakuldakul na ayam sa daghan ko kuminurutipas.

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Ako ‘ni, si Kulas.
Nagkarigos ako sa salog, inihugas langkawas.
Pag sinarom sa bintana mo ika an nagbukas,
inawitan ta ka kaiba kan sakong kuwerdas.

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Si Kulas, abaana ‘yan.
Sarong banggi pigparakamros mo ko sa daghan.
Nagdagitab an ulunan sa liwanag kan bulan;
gusto ta kang magpondo pero habo mo man.

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Si Kulas baga ako.
Siisay itong kaakbay mo kansubago?
Saen mo nabisto ining Poncio Pilato?
Ta’no kinakabit ka kan maski kun sin-o?

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Ako baga ‘ni, si Kulas.
Ining Polanong winalat mo sana sa luwas,
gabos sa palibot ko kan uran binabagunas;
hilnga, rungas sa daghan ko asta ngonyan la’bas.

Brownout Blues

Mayo nang kuryente dai pa ngani alas-otso.
Dai niya lugod naplantsa si isusûlot mo;
Nagparagpadag ka na sana sa tinampo;
Pasiring sa trabaho rulukot lalawgon mo.

Pag udto an kuryente nagawarâ-warâ.
An Game 4 sa TV kan opisina napondong bigla;
Wala-tuo, taas-baba sige kang parapanlamudâ;
Raway mo sa Casureco mas maharang pa sa ladâ.
 
Naghapon mayong nag-andar na electric fan.
Nagbungkaras ka lugod sa init, sa alungaang,
Patuyatoy ka na sa mga migo mo sa luwasan;
Mga bote na ang kapot sa tungod kan tindahan.
 
Banggi na palsok pa an ilaw sa saindong sala.
Si Nene mo may darang esperma hali sa kusina;
Nahiling mo si umboy nagtuturog na sa kuna;
Dai ka na makahalat magladop sa kama.

Brownout Blues

Mayo nang kuryente dai pa ngani alas-otso.
Dai niya lugod naplantsa si isusûlot mo;
Nagparagpadag ka na sana sa tinampo;
Pasiring sa trabaho rulukot lalawgon mo.

Pag udto an kuryente nagawarâ-warâ.
An Game 4 sa TV kan opisina napondong bigla;
Wala-tuo, taas-baba sige kang parapanlamudâ;
Raway mo sa Casureco mas maharang pa sa ladâ.
 
Naghapon mayong nag-andar na electric fan.
Nagbungkaras ka lugod sa init, sa alungaang,
Patuyatoy ka na sa mga migo mo sa luwasan;
Mga bote na ang kapot sa tungod kan tindahan.
 
Banggi na palsok pa an ilaw sa saindong sala.
Si Nene mo may darang esperma hali sa kusina;
Nahiling mo si umboy nagtuturog na sa kuna;
Dai ka na makahalat magladop sa kama.

Bisto Mo Ko, Ne? Ako Si Kulas.

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Ako si Kulas, 
idtong nanuparan mo kadto sa patubas. 
Pagkahiling mong ito sako sa may luwas, 
kadakuldakul na ayam sa daghan ko kuminurutipas. 

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Ako ‘ni, si Kulas. 
Nagkarigos ako sa salog, inihugas langkawas. 
Pag sinarom sa bintana mo ika an nagbukas,
inawitan ta ka kaiba kan sakong kuwerdas.

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Si Kulas, abaana ‘yan.
Sarong banggi pigparakamros mo ko sa daghan. 
Nagdagitab an ulunan sa liwanag kan bulan; 
gusto ta kang magpondo pero habo mo man.

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Si Kulas baga ako. 
Siisay itong kaakbay mo kansubago? 
Saen mo nabisto ining Poncio Pilato? 
Ta’no kinakabit ka kan maski kun sin-o?

Bisto mo ko, Ne? Ako baga ‘ni, si Kulas. 
Ining Polanong winalat mo sana sa luwas, 
gabos sa palibot ko kan uran binabagunas; 
hilnga, rungas sa daghan ko asta ngonyan la’bas.

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.