Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ISSN 1908-8795
ICW STAFF
Advisers
Dr. Gémino H. Abad
Prof. Amelia Lapeña Bonifacio
Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera
Associates
Dean Virgilio S. Almario
Dr. Ma. Josephine Barrios (on leave)
Dr. Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr.
Prof. Ricardo De Ungria
Dr. Jose Neil Garcia
Dr. Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
Prof. Victor Emmanuel Carmelo D. Nadera Jr
Prof. Pedro Cruz Reyes
Dr. Lilia Quindoza Santiago (on leave)
Dr. Roland Tolentino
Prof. Rene O. Villanueva (on leave)
Resident Fellow
Mr. Charlson Ong
Contents
introduction
One Hundred Years of Leadership in Literature 7
fiction
Alwin Aguirre
Rayuma 15
Mayette Bayuga
Ang Heredero ng Tribo Hubad sa Isla Real 31
Catherine Bucu
Húli 48
Douglas Candano
An Epistle and Testimony from June 13, 1604 63
Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio
Minsan sa Binondo 97
Charlson Ong
Banyaga: A Song of War 124
Socorro Villanueva
Foggy Makes Me Sad 140
poetry
Raymond de Borja
Conversion 161
Epiphany 162
Tell Me, Where Is the Soul 164
The Limits of Archaeology 165
Incompleteness (Gödel) 166
Uncertainty Principle 168
4 l i k haan
Mikael de Lara Co
Leaves 170
Job 170
Formula 172
Story 173
Family Life 174
Beatific Visions 175
A House 177
Joel Toledo
Attachments 188
Ruin 189
Save as Draft 189
Softness 190
Surfacing 191
photo essay
Vim Nadera
Ang AGA 192
drama
Rene O. Villanueva
White Love 200
Co ntents 5
essays
Gémino H. Abad
Fernando M. Maramág, Poet and Critic 221
Exie Abola
Pilgrim of the Healing Hand 243
interview
Bienvenido Lumbrera 277
introduction
7
8 l i k haan
no longstanding record to break. institutional resources to undertake
Philippine literature has been much training and publications projects.
too involved with language, class, and Silliman, Far Eastern University, and
more recently with gender to find Mindanao State University-Iligan In-
time for campus intramurals; if it has stitute of Technology, among others,
any competition to worry about, it is have likewise provided a nurturing
John Grisham, Danielle Steele, and atmosphere to creative writers.
Harry Potter, who all compete for the
same barely disposable peso. And although no contemporary
campus-based writers’ organization
But academia has also undoubtedly has yet managed to achieve the cohe-
had much to do with the survival sion and the cachet of the UP Writers
and growth of creative writing in the Club established by Jose Garcia Villa,
Philippines over the past century— F. B. Icasiano and 11 other under-
particularly these past four or five graduates in 1927 or the lifelong ca-
decades, when martial law crippled maraderie of the the “Veronicans” of
literary publishing (and much of the the 1930s, the “Ravens” of the 1950s,
critical spirit that animated it) in the and the “Caracoans” of the Philippine
1970s and shunted creative writing to Literary Arts Council of the 1980s,
the universities, where it continued such organizations—most notably UP
to flourish, albeit without much of an Quill—have continued to emerge and
audience. to nurture new talent.
Two major factors accounted for the UP has had a long tradition of excel-
growth of campus writing in postwar lence in creative writing in English,
Philippines: the initiation of national producing and sheltering a formi-
writers’ workshops by UP and Silli- dable roster that included—just to
man in the early 1960s, followed by name a few of those now depart-
many other university-based work- ed—Jose Garcia Villa, Paz Marquez
shops in the 1990s, and the institution Benitez, Angela Manalang-Gloria,
and popularity of degree programs in Arturo Rotor, Francisco Arcellana,
creative writing, culminating in the NVM Gonzalez, Bienvenido Santos,
offering of a full range of programs Manuel Arguilla, Estrella Alfon, Ri-
from the bachelor’s to the master’s caredo Demetillo, Manuel Viray, and
and PhD programs at UP. Creative S.V. Epistola. With English rising as
writing centers—such as UP’s Insti- the language of the elite just before
tute of Creative Writing, and similar and after the War (as it is today, with
centers in La Salle and ust—were a vengeance), and with UP as the
also established to provide university- university of the country’s intellec-
based writers with a more formal tual if not its economic elite, English
sense of community and with the
I n tro ductio n 9
flourished in the fertile soil of Padre with itself and where critical inquiry
Faura and Diliman. has been elevated to a fine art, UP has
not and could not have imposed re-
Writing in Tagalog/Filipino—then strictions on thought and expression,
considered déclassé and practiced in providing a safe haven for dissident
UP only by such hardy pioneers as artists even under martial law.
Teodoro Agoncillo (before he shifted
to history) and his wife, the short-sto- Today UP continues to be the Philip-
ry writer Anacleta Villacorta—found pines’ main champion and domain of
refuge in the downtown universities, creative writing, through the icw and
there to be forged by explosive talents its programs, the National Summer
of another sensibility, and not until Writers Workshop, the CW degree
the nationalist surge of the 1960s programs (and, in Filipino, the
would UP prove more welcoming certificate as well) of the College of
and encouraging to the writer in Arts and Letters, the literary publica-
Filipino. That crop—quite a few of tions of the UP Press, as well as the
them converts from English—would sheer number of its faculty members
include Ricky Lee, Lilia Quindoza, and students who have distinguished
Fanny Garcia, Delfin Tolentino, themselves in various local and in-
Heber Bartolome, Rosario Torres-Yu, ternational awards and competitions.
Edgar Maranan, Aida Santos, Her- Several National Artists for Litera-
mie Beltran, and Romulo Sandoval. ture—Carlos P. Romulo, Francisco
Arcellana, NVM Gonzalez, Virgilio
But even as it would do much to Almario, and Bienvenido Lum-
define the Philippine literary canon of bera—have been associated with UP,
the 20th century—and later, through as have standouts such as icw (or then
critical theory, to its debunking—the Creative Writing Center) directors
University of the Philippines has been Alejandrino Hufana, Amelia Lapeña
different from its academic peers, Bonifacio, Gemino Abad, Cristina
different in its toleration—nay, its Pantoja Hidalgo, and V. E. Carmelo
worship—of the freethinker, the Nadera, and former College of Arts
iconoclast, the revolutionary. Be- and Letters Dean Rogelio Sicat. (For
holden to neither priest nor politician, the full roster of current icw associ-
UP has encouraged and protected ates, please see the staff box.)
an atmosphere of experimentation,
debate, and resistance that, perhaps For several years from the late 1990s
more than any other single factor, has onward, the icw published an annual
accounted for the plenitude and vari- Likhaan series of the best published
ety of literary creations to have come work in the Philippines in several
out of it. As an institution that has genres: fiction, poetry, drama, and
never quite been in total agreement criticism. The realities and challenges
10 l i k haan
of literary publishing for a chroni- or genres of literature—but perhaps
cally small readership soon rendered because of the relative novelty of the
that activity terribly uneconomical. genre or more likely the inexactness
Besides, these works had already of the parameters we gave—we’ll do
been published, and UP was merely better as we learn—we received no
compiling its chosen selections of submissions in this area.)
representative works.
To ensure the highest quality of
And thus Likhaan: The Journal of submitted material, the icw associ-
Contemporary Philippine Literature ates voted for a refereed publication,
was conceived, to invite and to show- with referees chosen from the most
case the best of new and unpublished accomplished and respected writers,
Philippine writing in English and critics, and academics from within
Filipino. It is a journal of Philip- and without UP. These referees
pine—and not just university—writ- worked “blind,” with all entries
ing; by this we mean creative writing submitted to them anonymously. By
of any kind that has some vital con- internal agreement, no icw associate
nection to Filipino life and Filipino submitting an entry served as a ref-
concerns, no matter who writes the eree in any category; neither did the
piece or where it is written. It will be editors. For its part, the UP Diliman
launched as an annual, although— administration committed resources
once a certain standard has been that would reward accepted work at
set and a readership developed—a the highest rates, and has pledged to
semestral or quarterly journal should sustain support for the journal over
be possible in the future. the next several years.
Rayuma
i
15
16 fi cti o n
Magandang ideya. Ito ang pauso ng Winter Smile Subdivision sa Mariki-
na. Upang mapagtakpan ang pangamba ng mga prospective buyer sa
fault line1 na tutuhugin na tila isaw ang mga bahay sa bagong subdibi-
syon, nagpapabagsak ng snow tuwing panahon ng kapaskuhan sa pama-
magitan ng microclimactic control.2 Kagat naman ang mga tao. Kahit pa
lumaki ang gastos dahil sa installation ng insulation na glass o cellulose
fiber upang kumutan ang buong bahay at mapanatili ang kaaya-ayang
temperatura sa loob, dagdag pa siyempre ang airconditioning system na
kakailanganin, at ang nakagigimbal na electric bill kada buwan. Sino
naman ang makatatanggi sa slogang IF YOU LIVED HERE, THEN
YOU’LL BE HOME BY NOW IN A WINTER WONDER SMILE,
malalaking titik sa ilalim ng mga nakapanginginig-lamang ngiti sa mga
mukhang (plastik) naglalarawan ng isang buong pamilyang tila nagmula
pa sa Antarctica. Si nanay (nakaputing fur coat at asul na mata), si tatay
(naka-ski mask, trench coat at makapal na bigote), si kuya (nakaakbay
3 a.Sa huling taya ng NSO, sampung subdibisyon na sa Metro Manila at lima ang
itinatayo pa sa labas ng Maynila sa Luzon. Sa nalalapit na panahon ay magkakaroon na
rin sa Cebu at Davao (ayon sa isang korporasyon) ang may ganitong atraksiyon (para sa
kompletong listahan, tingnan ang www.e-CensusNow.com.ph).
b. Ang Micro-climated Habitat kung tawagin ng marketing ng naturang mga real
estate corporation ay tila nagiging matagumpay na estratehiya sa paghikayat sa mga po-
tensiyal na kliyente na nagnanais nang magkaroon ng sariling bahay, lalo pa’t kung ito
ay nasa rent-to-own scheme kung saan 20 taon na babayaran sa PAG-IBIG ang isang 30
square meter na unit sa halagang P250,000.00/mo. (www.totalrealestatenow.com.ph)
18 fi cti o n
Nagsusumiksik na sa kanyang pandinig ang karoling ng mga tao.
Ang mga batang tuwang-tuwang magkakakatok sa bahay-bahay ng bu-
ong komunidad na nakasuot ng makakapal na panlamig, bonet, scarf at
guwantes. Malalaman mong may matatanda pa silang kasama sa bahay
kung may saliw ng kalansing ng tamburing tansan ang kanilang pagtili.
Biglang papalahaw ang mga ito ng mga awiting pamasko—binibirit ang
bawat tono ng mga nanginginig na tinig na ang vibrato ay mula sa pan-
gangatal ng mga babang nagyeyelo na sa lamig. Tuwang-tuwa pa rin na-
man. Lalo ang mga magulang habang sumusunod ang mga labi sa mga
titik ng mga awiting di na nagbago. Pumapalakpak nang walang tunog.
Manginig-nginig na ngingiti. Nanlalaki ang mga mata. Mapapahatsing.
Masakit sa tainga. Lalong masakit sa tuhod. Di naman tumatalab
ang kahit na anong gamot. Di rin mapagaling ng kahit na sinong dok-
tor. Nangako naman si Sonny na dadalhin siya nito sa espesyalista sa
Amerika kapag nakaluwag-luwag sa trabaho.
Amerika. Noon gustung-gusto niyang marating. Gustung-gusto
naman ng lahat. Ito ang pinakamataas na pangarap ng lahat ng tao
sa kanilang maliit na bayan ng Maybunga sa Quezon.4 Ay, Imo, anak,
bayan, ang naturang pinuno raw ay itinuring pang fertility god ng mga sumunod na
henerasyon. Ayon naman sa iba pang sabi-sabi, pinuntirya raw ng mga mananakop ang
naturang pinuno dahilan sa di sila makapaniwalang may native na may ari-ariang mas
malaki pa kaysa sa kanilang mapuputlang…May katotohanan man o wala ang mga
kuwento, kakatwang ang nakatirik na monumento ng lokal na bayani ay kilala bilang
Pagoda ni Gat Bunga. www.maybungalgu.gov.ph
20 fi cti o n
nagmamatigas na ang tuhod. Ni wala na nga siyang makausap kundi si
Manong Willy dahil kakaunti na rin ang matatanda sa kanilang lugar.
Dalawang buwan na ang nakararaan nang huli silang magkakuwen-
tuhan na buhay pa ang tubong-Pangasinan. Noong nakaraang buwan
naman, huli niya itong kinausap bago bawiin ng lupa. May ibinulong pa
siya sa tainga nito, kahit pa nasa likod na ito ng salamin ng ataol—hindi
kita malilimutan. Sa likod ng isip niya’y tila isang malamyos na tinig mula
sa unang panahon ang tumawid.
Tulad niya kay Willy, hindi rin naman siya nalilimutan ng mga
anak. Hindi tulad ng marami na ring nabibilang sa bagong henerasyong
tila galit sa pagtanda at sa anumang nagpapaalala sa natural na baitang
na ito ng siklo ng buhay-mundo. Kaya nga’t umaalis, nililisan ang ti-
nubuang lugar, ang kinagisnang magulang, ang kinalakhang kaligiran.
Takot sa pagtambad ng katotohanang ang pagtanda ay bahagi ng buhay.
Di maiiwasang antas ng pagkanilalang. Natutuhan niya ito sa namayapa
nang kakuwentuhan.
Di niya malilimutan ang mga salita nitong kaibigan. �������������
Noong nabubu-
hay pa ay panay ang lektyur. Sa kanya ngang pakiwari’y tila siya na la-
mang ang napagbubuhusan ng kaibigan ng mga tira-tirang elemento ng
pagka-propesor nito sa kolehiyo. Laging sinasabing ang lipunan daw ay
malupit sa matatanda. Na ang panahon daw ay katunggali ng pagkaka-
roon ng edad. Na ang kahahantungan ng buhay ng isang tao ay ang kata-
pusang nilikha mismo ng tao sa kanyang pagdating sa antas na iyon ng
buhay. Na ang pagiging matanda ay tila hindi natural na pag-unlad ng
isang nilalang, kundi isang kasalanan. Mas malupit, parusa sa kasalanan.
Ano nga raw ba naman ang silbi ng matatanda sa kasalukuyan? Mga
paalala lamang na ang isang tao ay may pinagmulan. Na ang isang tao
ay may babalik-balikang kasaysayan ng kanyang buhay. Na sa tuwing
magsisentimyento ang tao, may lilingunin siyang nagdaang maaaring
makapagpaliwanag kung nasaan siya ngayon. Kung nalalaman nga lang
ag uirre i Rayuma 21
raw ba ng mga tulad nilang may edad ang lakas na ibinibigay nila sa
kasalukuyang henerasyon, maaari silang mag-alsa upang mas mapaal-
wan naman ang kanilang kalagayan. At ito ang pinakabumaon sa kan-
yang isipan, na galit raw ang kasalukuyang henerasyon sa matatanda.
Sapagkat ito ang paalala sa kanila na anuman ang kanilang gawin, wala
silang ibang pupuntahan kundi pagtanda rin. Na katapusan. Na kawa-
lan. Iyan, diin ni Manong Willy na ang pagkakapinta sa kanyang isip ay
may matalim na mata, pinid na mga labi, nanginginig na lawlaw na balat
sa mukha, ang balik sa kanila ng panahon. Pilit niya pang inaalala kung si-
nundan nga ba ito ng kulog at kidlat nang hapong iyon isang Huwebes.
Ngunit hindi siya lubusang mapaniwala ng kaibigan kahit noon
pa man. Ano pa nga ba ang kanyang hahanapin? Di man niya kapiling
ang kanyang pamilya ay batid naman niya sa kanyang puso na mahal
na mahal siya ng mga ito. Ang isa’y laging may tawag, lalo kung kaa
rawan niya. Pinakaabangan niya ito, siyempre, maliban pa sa regalo na
ipahahatid mismo sa kanyang pintuan—mga paalala na siya’y lagi pa
ring naaalala. Ang isa’y laging may padalang mga larawan kasama ang
mga kaibigang nagkakasayahan, ipinakikilala pa isa-isa ang mga mukha
sa bawat kuha. At si Sonny, regular namang dumadalaw. May mga bit-
bit pang kung ano-ano, madalas ay thermal pants para di malamigan
ang kanyang mga kasukasuan at maiwasan ang rayuma. Di naman nai-
iwasan ang pagtanda. Ay, ang kanyang tuhod.
Kahapon lamang ay nagpasabi si Sonny. Sa videofon na padala rin
ng bunso. Lumabas ang mukha ng isang babaeng maigsi ang buhok at
maliliit ang mata. Dadalaw raw ang bunso mula America kinabukasan.
Dadaan sa kanya matapos ang isang pulong sa Maynila. May pagkandirit
sa kanyang dibdib pagkarinig sa balita.
Aminin man niya o hindi, paborito niya si Sonny, ang bunsong
anak. Di mabura-bura sa kanyang isipan noong bata pa ito at laging may
bitbit na kung ano-ano para sa kanya galing lamang sa kung saan-saan.
22 fi cti o n
Kung galing eskuwela, may bitbit na makulay, halos di-maunawaang
drowing sa papel na may guhit na asul at pula. Kung galing laro, may bit-
bit na maliliit na bulaklak-talahib o bato na sa mga salita ng paslit ay mga
regalo. Kung galing sa pasyal, may dalang tirang sopdrink sa plastik na
baso, nakatupi ang straw upang hindi raw marumihan kung ibibigay na
sa kanyang tatay. Gumuguhit ang malawak na ngiti sa kanyang kulubot
na mukha sa tuwing napapadaan sa isipan na dala-dala pa rin ni Sonny
ang pagkamaaalalahanin kahit sa pagtanda. Ito ba ang sinasabi ni Willy
na sumpa ng katandaan, pagmamalaki niya sa sarili. Eto nga’t tumawag
na naman ang bunso. Hindi nga lamang ulit siya mismo ang tumambad
sa monitor kundi ang sekretarya, maigsing buhok, maliliit na mata, good
afternoon, Mr. Cardena will be there at 4, thank you. Tulad din kahapon,
bigla na lamang nawala sa screen. Ni di man lamang nagpaalam. Tres
minutos matapos ang alas-tres. Eksakto. Kung alas-kuwatro, maluwag
pa siya nang higit sa tatlumpung minuto.
Dalawampung minuto kasi ang ginugugol niya sa paglalakad mula
sofa hanggang pintuan. Ika-ika. Marupok na paglalakad. Tatlumpung
minuto higit pa ang nalalabing oras upang ito’y kanyang paghandaan.
Iniisip niya na baka naging malaki ang epekto kay Willy ng napa-
nood nilang dokumentaryo ukol sa matatanda5 sa Golden Acres. Gaano
katagal na nga ba ang institusyon na ito? Sintanda ng matatandang pa-
tuloy na tumatanda sa matanda pa sa matandang matandang bahay-am-
31
32 fi cti o n
lege ang ibang lakad niya, pero mas madalas sariling pagliliwaliw. Nag-
ing guide niya sa pagsuot sa kung saan-saang sulok ang lahat na yatang
klaseng tao—katutubo, ermitanyo, tambay, pati cafgu. Minsan, marat-
ing lang ang isang lugar na mahirap puntahan, sumama siya sa medical
mission. Kahit kontra-partido, sumali siya sa caravan ng isang politiko
isang campaign period masuyod lang ang kahabaan ng Sur. Napag-
sawaan niya ang isang sikat na talon bago ito naging panturista. Nauri
niya ang mga antigong tapayan ng isang kuweba bago pa dalhin ang mga
iyon sa museo sa Maynila.
“8:00 pa po ang pumpboat, Sir,” humihitit ng sigarilyong sabi ng
bangkero, habang nangunguyakoy sa pagkakaupo.
“Akala ko 6:00,” kunotnoong tanong ni Lolo, sabay pakisindi.
“Isa na lang po ang biyahe ngayon, wala na iyong 6:00.”
“Bakit?”
“Magtatatlong-araw na po di ba, bumiyahe tapos di na nakabalik.”
“Haaa?” nalaglag ang sigarilyo ni Lolo. Napasalampak siya sa tabi
ng bangkero.
Narinig na ni Lolo ang tungkol sa hiwaga ng isla kaya gusto
niya itong puntahan. Pero di siya handa sa pinakahuling balitang ito.
Kadarating kasi niya nang nakaraang araw galing Maynila, kung saan
nainterview siya at na-deny sa US Embassy. Ayaw niyang makipag-usap
kahit na kanino. Di niya sinabi sa mga kaibigan niyang pauwi na siya.
Nagmukmok siya pagkagaling sa airport. Nang maghahatinggabi’t di
pa makatulog, bigla niyang naisipang totohanin ang noon pa ipinangako
sa sariling pagpunta sa isla. At least pag nagkuwento siya sa mga kaibi-
gan, hindi ang tungkol sa kanyang visa ang uukilkilin kundi ang tung-
kol sa isla.
“Ilan ang sakay? Ano’ng nangyari?”
“Si Mang Natuy lang ho, ‘yong bangkero. Susunduin lang sana
iyong mga German na nag-overnight doon.”
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 33
“Hinanap ba? Nakita ba ang katawan?”
Nangingilabot si Lolo habang nagtatanong. Alam na niya ang sagot.
Kapiraso man ng pumpboat at ng bangkero di nahanap. Nawalang pa-
rang bula. Nawalang kasama ng bula. Luma na ang ganoong kuwento
sa isla.
Sakay ng isang private plane ang isang congressman at dalawang
kaibigan papunta sa isla ilang taon na ang nakararaan. (Oo, may airstrip
sa isla. Ipinagawa ito ng heredero ng isang business empire na nanirahan
doon.) Ang sabi ng mga nakakita, malapit na malapit na sa isla ang pri-
vate plane nina congressman. Minuto na lang daw at lalapag na ito. Pero
bigla itong bumulusok at tuluy-tuloy pumailalim na parang hinigop ng
dagat. Frontpage sa lahat ng mga pahayagan ang balita. Sikat si con-
gressman, na inaasahang tatakbo bilang senador. Galing ito sa pamily-
ang yumaman sa pagmimina. Anak naman ng mga tycoon ng logging at
quarrying ang mga kasama. Lahat sila certified yuppies.
Kataka-takang sa lapit na iyon sa pampang, wala ni katiting na ba-
hagi ng private plane ang nahagilap. Umupa pa ng mga barkong may
sonar equipment daw na kayang ma-detect ang nasa kaila-ilaliman ng
dagat. Pero kalabisan nang umasa pang makasalba ng kahit kapiraso
ng suot na Armani ni congressman para sa memorial niya. Pati na ang
mga beterano ng muro ami fishing sa Tubbataha Reef noong di pa ito
protected area, nakihanap. Wala. Ang kumalat na sabi-sabi, buong-bu-
ong kinuha ng diwata ng isla sina congressman. Mahilig daw talaga ang
diwata sa spoiled rich boys.
Walang takot si Lolo sa diwata ng isla. Unang-una, hindi siya
spoiled. Lalo namang di siya rich. At hindi siya boy, ‘no, Lolo na nga ang
tawag sa kanya.
Iba naman ang paraan ng pagkuha sa herederong nagpagawa ng
airstrip. Eksakto kay congressman at sa mga kasama nito ang profile ng
una. Macho guapito ang tawag sa kanya noong panahon niya. Base sa ku-
34 fi cti o n
wento, tumira sa isla ang heredero dahil nabigyan ito ng financial grant
ng isang funding organization sa Europa. As expected sa mga tunay daw
na de buena familia, sa pinakamahusay na unibersidad sa Europa nag-
aral ang heredero. Nang mahasa ang utak, naibenta nito ang ideya ng
isang tribo sa Palawan na di pa naaabot ng sibilisasyon.
Hindi nakatala sa kasaysayan ang tribo noon. Ni wala itong pa
ngalan dahil wala namang tawag sa sarili bilang isang grupo. Iilan
lang ang mga ito, di nga umaabot sa isandaan; nabubuhay sa batas ng
kalikasan at sa mga panuntunang nakaayon sa gusto ng sinasambang
Manlilikha. Walang kamalay-malay sa pagdating at pag-alis ng Kastila,
Amerikano at Hapon, nananatiling pangangaso ang pangunahin nitong
ikinabubuhay.
Pangangaso ang naglapit ng heredero sa tribo. Binatilyo pa lang ay
sumasama na ito sa hunting expeditions ng kanyang abuelo sa iba’t ibang
bundok ng Pilipinas. Pero ang naging pinakapaborito nito sa lahat ay
ang private hunting ground sa Palawan ng isang family friend. Hindi
kasi tamaraw, pilandok, baboyramo at iba pang hayop na likas sa bansa
ang mapagsasamantalahan doon para patunayan ang pagkalalaki, kundi
giraffe, zebra, at iba pang hayop na imported galing sa Africa.
Hindi sinasadya ng herederong mapahiwalay sa mga kasama nang
araw na iyon. Parang may humila daw sa mga paa nito papunta sa isang
kubling bahagi. Agad nitong ikinasa ang baril nang makarinig ng mga
kaluskos sa likod ng madawag na mga pakpak-lawin. Mabuti na lang
bago nakapagpaputok ay nasino nito ang isang taong nagsusumiksik
doon. Hubad ito, nanginginig sa takot, at ungol, paswit at imbay ng ka-
tawan ang tanging lengguwahe. Kung paano nitong naikuwento kung
sino ito, saan galing, paanong napadpad sa private hunting ground na
iyon, etsetera… ay bahagi na ng kasaysayan ng tribo. Katumbas ang ka-
saysayang iyon ng limpak-limpak na perang napasakamay ng heredero
sa ngalan ng sibilisasyon.
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 35
Sa Isla Real nakatira ang tribo, kaya biglang naging sikat ang isla,
na sa totoo lang dati ay ni walang pangalan. Bininyagan ito ng heredero,
kagaya ng pagbibinyag nito sa tribo. Itinala sa kasaysayan ang Tribo Hu-
bad ng Isla Real.
Di kagaya ng ibang tribong humahabi ng isususot o nagtutuhog ng
mga butgay, siit, at iba pang bagay-bagay para gawing pantabo’t pala-
muti sa katawan, ang Tribo Hubad ay walang sabit na kahit na ano.
Patakaran nilang hindi dapat balutan, tusukin, sugatan, o gawan ng ano
pa mang di likas ang katawan.
Buong tiwalang tinanggap ng mga katutubo ang heredero dahil
ginawa nito ang simula noon ay naging pamantayan na ng pakikiisa sa
mga ito, hubo’t hubad na pakikisama. Dahil doon kaya ibinukas sa he-
redero ang napakaraming hiwaga ng tribo, na siya palang dahilan kaya
ito nakaligtas sa lahat ng uri ng pananakop. Ang mga nasabing hiwaga
ay kaugnay ng mga hiwaga ng isla.
Ang pamantayang iyon naman ang naging dahilan kung bakit di
magkalakas-loob si Lolo na pumunta sa isla. Kasi nga naman, di puwe-
deng kung nandoon na ang isang self-proclaimed scholar na tulad niya,
di pa niya dadalawin ang tribo. Sa matagal na panaho’y di niya mau-
bos maisip, sus Ginoo, talagang feeling niya di kaya ng powers niya, na
mamuhay nang hubo’t hubad. Paano niyang pag-aaralan ang kultura’t
kalinangan kung asiwa siya dahil tumatalbog-talbog ang kanyang mga
batog.
Sa mga pahayagan sa Europa unang lumabas ang balita tungkol
sa tribo. Nang makarating ito sa Pilipinas, samutsari ang naging reak-
siyon. May napanganga sa pagkamangha. Meron ding nagkibit-balikat.
Pero ang higit na nakararami ay humanga sa heredero, itinuring itong
bayani’t kabalyero, hinirang na diyos-diyosan. Ito na ang bagong Lam-
ang, Palaisgen, Bernardo Carpio… Ang ilang umidolo dito’y isinali pa
36 fi cti o n
ang mga larawan nitong ginupit sa diyaryo sa kanilang scrapbook nina
Tirso Cruz III at Edgar Mortiz.
Ang islang dating hindi kilala ay pinagnasaang dayuhin ng mara
ming tao. Pero hindi lahat ng nagtangkang pumunta ay nakarating,
dahil sa mga di-kapani-paniwalang hadlang at kakaibang pangyayari.
Hanggang magkaroon ng mga bulung-bulungan tungkol sa heredero
at sa tribo. Ang sabi’y gusto nang angkinin ng heredero ang isla, at da-
hil marami itong pera, kayang manipulahin ang dagat, langit, ulap at
hangin, para walang kahit anong sasakyang makarating. Iyon daw ang
dahilan kung bakit maraming pumpboat na di makadaong sa isla. Di
daw makalapit ang mga iyon dahil may mga mekanismong ikinabit sa
pampang. Ganoon din daw ang ginagawa sa mga eroplano, hinaharang
ng makapal na ulap o malakas na ulan, kaya naliligaw.
At hindi lang iyan. Halos lahat daw ng mga babae sa tribo ay na-
katalik na ng heredero. Walang konsepto ng pag-aasawa at pagbubuo
ng pamilya ang tribo; walang lolo’t lola, ama’t ina, asawa’t anak, at iba
pa. Bawat batang ipapanganak ay anak ng tribo; bawat lalaki sa pag-
babago ng boses at tindig ay itinuturing na binata ng tribo; bawat babae
sa pagdaloy ng unang regla ay nagiging dalaga ng tribo. Nagpasasa ang
heredero sa kalakarang iyon.
Makalipas ang halos kalahating dekada, isang organisasyon ng mga
intelektuwal galing sa iba’t ibang bansa (anthropologists, historians, pro-
fessors, scientists, at iba pa) ang nagtagumpay na marating ang isla at
makipamuhay sa tribo. Matapos iyon ay agad silang naglabas ng pahay-
ag, na inilathala sa lahat ng diyaryo sa lahat ng panig ng mundo. “The
Great Hoax” at “Deception of the Century” ang itinawag nila sa proyek-
to. Marami silang inilatag na puntos para patunayan ang konklusyon.
Pero ang natatak sa isip ng mga Filipino ay ang tungkol sa napakakinis
na kutis ng mga nasabing katutubo. Kahit na kinuskos na ng dagta at
ugat ay halatang flawless ang buong katawan ng mga ito. “Very well-
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 37
tanned overstaying tourists” ang isa sa mga ginamit na paglalarawan sa
mga ito.
Naging usap-usapan ang heredero, kung paano nitong binaboy ang
isla, kasama ang mga binayaran para magkunwaring katutubo. Bakit
naman daw nga kasi pinagtiwalaan ang heredero, na antimanong galing
sa salinlahi ng mga suwapang. Ang sandamakmak na baho ng buong
angkan nito ay pinagkakalkal. Di nga ba’t kaya ubod ito ng yaman at
maraming pag-aari sa buong kapuluan ay dahil kinamkam ng mga
ninuno nito ang lupain ng mga katutubong Filipino gamit ang enco-
mienda. Ang isang ninunong barumbado sa Espanya, na nagkunwaring
fraile nang pumunta sa bansa, ay nagpasasa naman sa mga kababaihan.
At magpahanggang sa kasalukuyan, namumutakti sa tonta at estupida
ang lengguwahe ng mga tiyahi’t kapatid nitong señora at señorita kapag
kausap ang mga katulong sa bahay. Ang herederong dating ka-level na
ng mga bayani sa epiko at singkisig na ni Fernando Poe, Jr., ay naging
manyak, bandido, siraulo.
Hanggang magsawa ang mga tsismoso’t tsismosa. Ang inisip ng
marami, dahil bistado na, umalis na ang heredero at mga kasama at di
na babalik pa. Pero hindi nawala ang interes ng mga tao sa isla. Naging
bukambibig ng mga nakarating doon ang white sands, wild orchids, red
rocks at kung ano-ano pang likasyaman. Ke camping o seminar man
ay doon gustong gawin ng mga opisina, mga organisasyon at iba pang
grupo. Ang kataka-taka, sa sangkatutak na nagplano, wala pa sa sam-
pung grupo ang natuloy. Kung ano-anong problema sa schedule at mga
aberya ang humarang sa kanila.
Isang grupo ng mga opisyal ng lgus at POs galing sa iba’t ibang
panig ng Palawan ang nagpilit makarating isang tag-araw. Kalma ang
dagat; arkilado ang mga pumpboats; pinaghandaan ang pagpunta sa isla.
Pero wala ni isang nakarating sa grupong naghati sa tatlo. Ang ipinagpa-
pasalamat na lang nila, walang napahamak sa kanila.
38 fi cti o n
Kuwento ng mga sakay ng pumpboat na unang bumalik, kita na
nila ang isla. Sa tantiya, mga labinlimang minuto na lang popondo na sila.
Pero mag-iisang oras na di pa nila ito maabot. Parang hindi nagbabago
ang layo nito. Ang pakiramdam ng mga bangkero, parang gumagalaw
ang isla, parang may gumagaod dito palayo. Kaya hindi nila ito kayang
habulin kahit de motor pa sila. Hanggang magsimulang mahilo at mag-
suka ang mga babae, at ang isa dito’y magmakaawang huwag na silang
tumuloy.
Nag-iiyakan ang mga sakay ng pumpboat na ikalawang bumalik sa
fort, pati na ang kanilang mga bangkero. Nagulat daw sila nang biglang
bumulaga sa harap nila ang isla. Halos nakadikit na sila sa baybayin nito!
Napansin nilang parang nakaangat ito sa dagat, nakalutang sa ere…
Pero iglap lang iyon, dahil noon di’y pinaghahampas sila ng mga alon.
Wala na ang isla pagmulat nila. At di na nila alam kung nasaan sila. Sa
tindi ng wasiwas ng mga alon, pakiramdam nila nasa open sea na sila.
Ayaw gumana ng compass. Panay static ang naririnig sa kanilang radio.
Naglabasan ang mga rosaryo at agua bendita, pati healing oils. Alas dos
ng hapon ng araw na iyon sila nakabalik, humigit-kumulang tatlong
oras mula nang maligaw sa gitna ng dagat.
Pero ang naging sentro ng balita ay ang nangyari sa ikatlong grupo.
Dahil di sila makontak, napagdesisyunang ipasundo na sila. Maayos na
nakarating sa isla at nakabalik sa fort ang mga sumundo, pero ni anino
nila di namataan. Inalerto ang Coast Guard. Gabi na, wala pang linaw
kung anong nangyari. Di pa panahon ng cellphone noon at mahirap
pang kumontak sa landline, kaya maghahatinggabi na nang makahinga
ang mga kaanak ng grupo. Noon lang nakapanawagan ang grupo sa
isang istasyon ng radyo. Simple lang ang kanilang kuwento. Malapit na
malapit na sila sa isla nang dumilim, kumulog, kumidlat at bumuhos ang
napakalakas na ulan. Kasunod noo’y pinaghahampas sila ng gahigan-
teng mga alon. Tinantiya nila ang pampang at nagdesisyong lumundag
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 39
na at lumangoy kaysa tumaob pa sila’t mawalan ng balanse. Kompleto
naman silang nakarating sa pampang, pero laking gulat nila nang mala-
man sa mga taong nadatnan doon na nasa Visayas sila.
“Sir, Sir, sasakay pa ba kayo?”
“Ha?!” naalimpungatan si Lolo sa pagyugyog ng bangkero sa kan-
yang balikat.
“Oo, bakit? Aalis na ba?”
“Kayo na lang hinihintay, Sir.”
Pinunasan ni Lolo ang mga namuong muta, di makapaniwalang
nakatulog siya sa pagkakasalampak. Puno na nga ang pumpboat. Ni isa
wala siyang kilala sa mga sakay. May dalawang foreigners na obviously
ay mga turista. Ang iba pang sakay, ewan niya kung ano ang pakay sa
isla.
“All aboard!” sigaw ng balahibuing foreigner, sabay tungga sa
dalang bote ng beer.
“Cheers!” sagot ng ilan sa mga pasahero, kasabay ng pag-andar ng
motor ng bangka.
Ayaw ni Lolo ng mga ganoong eksena. Para bang premonisyong
may haharaping pagsubok ang biyahe nila.
“Isla Real, here we come!” dumagundong ang boses ng isa pang
foreigner.
Matitinding hampas ng mga alon ang naging sagot sa foreigner.
Napakapit kay Lolo ang isang babaeng parang nauupos ang mga tuhod
sa paggewang ng pumpboat. Nanginig ang buong katawan ni Lolo nang
tingnan ito, dahil isang naaagnas na mukha ang humarap sa kanya.
“Gaano katagal ang biyahe?” buti na lang at may nagtanong sa
bangkero kaya nahimasmasan si Lolo.
“Mga isa’t kalahati hanggang dalawang oras, Mam,” sagot ng
bangkero.
40 fi cti o n
Iniwasan ni Lolong tingnan ang babaeng agnas. Pero ewan kung
bakit parang pilit itong humaharap sa kanya. At bakit parang siya lang
ang nakakakita sa lagay nito. Sa pagkakaalam niya, wala naman siyang
third eye. Di tuloy niya maiwasang isipin ang ilan pang narinig tungkol
sa isla.
Isang matandang Griyego daw ang tumira sa isla. Binusisi nito ang
flora and fauna at palihim na naghukay sa ilang lugar. Noong una ay
lagi itong mag-isa, may dalang mga mapa at kung ano-anong epektos.
Pero paglipas ng ilang buwan, nagsimula itong makitalamitam—sa
mga turista, bangkero, bantay-isla—para lang maikuwento kung ano
ang natuklasan. Ang sabi nito, bahagi ng matagal nang hinahanap na
lungsod ng Atlantis ang isla. Marami daw siyang nakalap na patunay,
gaya ng mga nahukay niyang buto ng toro. Ang mga torong iyon daw
ay inialay sa altar ni Poseidon. Kapansin-pansin din ang mga mapupu-
lang bato. At lalong di daw maipagkakamali ang ilang tanda na may
mga estrukturang gumuho sa ilang bahagi ng isla. Tugma daw ang mga
ebidensiyang ito sa isinulat ni Plato tungkol sa lungsod. Nasira ang ulo
ng Griyego sa sobrang pag-iisip, deklarasyon ng marami sa mga nakau-
sap nito.
Pero hindi tinawag na siraulo ang isang Italyanong scientist-philan-
thropist na matagal nang pabalik-balik sa Palawan. Kilala ito ng lahat
at naging panauhing pandangal na sa pagtitipon ng mga local club at
student organization. Sinabi nitong base sa masusi niyang pananaliksik,
ang isla at ang buong kapaligiran nito ay bahagi ng Bermuda Triangle.
Siksik-liglig sa impormasyon ang teorya ng scientist-philanthropist
kung paanong nagkaugnay ang Atlantic Ocean at ang China Sea, etse-
tera. Pero ang interesante lang kay Biring, na suki ni Lolo ng daing na
bararawan sa palengke, ay ang ideyang hinihigop ng isla at ng karagatan
sa palibot nito, ang ano mang mapalapit sa kanila. Ganoon din si Mimo
ng Oplan Linis, na katsika ni Lolo tuwing nagwawalis sa harap ng in-
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 41
uupahan niyang apartment. Pero may tanong ito, “Bakit mayroong mga
naliligtas sa paghigop? Bakit pinipili ang hihigupin?” May sagot naman
ang ilang kampo, gaya ng mga diehard environmentalist na nagsasa-
bing ang hinihigop lang ay ang may maitim na balak sa likasyaman ng
isla. Meron daw kasing mga tipong ecotourism kuno ang sadya pero ang
totoo’y pasimpleng ocular na kung puwedeng magtayo ng resort o mag-
quarry o magmina sa isla. Pero mas klaro kay Mimo ang matagal nang
sinasabi ng matatanda tungkol sa diwata ng isla, na walang kiyemeng
tunay na namimili ng kukunin, base sa gandang lalaki. Ang ibig daw
sabihin, babae ang diwata.
Ang diwata ng isla… ang sabi, pag nagustuhan ka nito, pag pinili
kang kunin, bago ka pa man makarating, magpaparamdam na ito…
magpapakita… sa iba’t ibang mukha… sa maraming, maraming
mukha…
“Totoo bang may diwata ang Isla Real?”
Nakagat ni Lolo ang kanyang dila. Buong akala niya siya ang nag-
tanong dahil iyon ang hustong nasa isip niya nang sandaling iyon, pero
sa iba nakatingin ang bangkero nang sumagot ito. Doon din nakamata
ang lahat ng iba pang sakay ng pumpboat, pati mga foreigner. Nakatayo
ang babae sa prowa, nakaharap sa kanilang lahat, habang pinaglalaruan
ng hangin ang maluwag na blusa at mahabang buhok. Halos hindi na
ito nakilala ni Lolo, dahil kaisa na ng bughaw na bughaw na langit, ng
liwanag ng araw, ng bahagya nang kumislot na mga alon… hindi na
nauupos ang mga tuhod, hindi na agnas ang mukha.
“May diwata…,” hindi naituloy ng bangkero ang sasabihin.
“Aaaaahhh!” Napasigaw silang lahat.
Akala ni Lolo, tuluyan na silang babangga. Bigla na lang kasi’y nasa
harap na sila ng naglalakihang mga batong malapader sa gitna ng dagat.
Mabuti na lang mahusay ang bangkero. Nagkatinginan sila ng ilan sa
42 fi cti o n
mga kasama. Pakiramdam ni Lolo, iisa sila ng iniisip. Totoo pala ang
sinasabing mga pader na batong iyon….
Ilang taon pagkatapos madeklarang hoax ang proyekto at mawala
ang heredero sa balita, isang mangingisda ang nagsabing nakita niya ito
nang minsang mapadako siya sa malapader na mga bato habang nama-
malakaya. Inaakyat daw ng heredero ang pader, parang nanghuhuli ng
balinsasayaw na pinapasok ang mga malakuwebang lagusan, kinakatok
ang bawat sulok. May ilang nagsabing hinahanap daw nito ang daan
pabalik sa tribo sa isla. Ang pader na iyon daw kasi ang nagsisilbing pro-
teksiyon ng isla. Pero mas marami ang hindi naniwala. Baka nakaabot
daw sa Coron ang mangingisda at turistang nagti-trekking papuntang
Lake Cayangan ang nakita nito. O baka naman daw nasa El Nido na ito.
Ang ilang nakarating na sa isla ay nagsabing wala namang indikasyong
may pader na batong nakapaligid dito. At ang mga nakakaalam na-
man ng karagatan sa paligid ng Palawan, ipinagpilitang walang mala-
pader na mga bato sa buong kalawakan nitong tugma sa kuwento ng
mangingisda.
Sinilip ni Lolo ang pader, nagbakasakaling matanaw ang heredero.
Pero maiitim na bato lang ang nakita niya.
“Ayy, bakit ganun, bakit may dugo?” nagsisigaw ang isa sa mga
babaeng kasama nila.
May bahagi ang pader na pula ang mga bato. Kapag hinahampas ng
alon, nagkukulay-dugo ang tubig na umaagos dito.
“Reflection lang ho,” di napigilan ni Lolong sagutin ang babae. Pero
siya ma’y nanghilakbot sa kulay-dugong tubig.
“Totoo nga! Totoo nga! Hindi na tayo uuwing buhay!” niyugyog ng
babae ang balikat ng kasama.
“Mam, huwag kayong matakot. Wala pong mangyayari sa atin,”
sagot nito, sabay antanda.
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 43
“Tama sila, dapat nakinig tayo! Ito na nga ang pinto ng impiyerno!”
nagmumuwestra kasabay ng pagsasalita ang babae, iginuguhit ang hugis
ng krus sa hangin.
Noon naintindihan ni Lolo ang gusto nitong sabihin. May isang
grupong dumating noon, sabi’y mga psychic. Nilibot nila ang iba’t ibang
lugar sa Palawan, nanirahan sa ilang bayan, pero sa isla nagtagal. Mai
ngay magdiskusyon ang grupo tungkol sa kanilang mga pinag-aaralan sa
kung saan-saang pampublikong lugar. Maraming nakarinig sa deklara-
syon nilang ang isla ay isa sa mga pinto papuntang impiyerno. Ito ang
kaliwang balikat ng krus na itinatakda ng Punta Diablo sa Bahile, El
Limbo sa Buenavista, at Siete Pecados sa Coron. Binabantayan daw ito ni
Samael, isa sa mga pinakamakapangyarihang anghel, na na-contact nila
thru telepathy. Naging matunog ang ideya, naging table topic mula sa
mga hotel hanggang sa mga chaolongan sa Puerto Princesa. Kaya sa ser-
mon ng pari sa Immaculate Conception Cathedral isang araw ng Linggo,
nangaral ito tungkol sa mga demonyo, kung paanong manggulo ng isip
ang mga ito. Balewala ang lahat kay Lolo dahil personally ay hindi siya
bilib sa mga madadakdak na tao. Paniwala niya, ang totoong mahusay
ay nagpapakatahimik, di ipinangangalandakan kung ano ang alam nila
at kung sino ang nakausap nila, si Lucifer man o si Dios Ama.
“Diyos ko, ipag-adya Niyo po kami!” tili ng babae.
“Malapit na ho tayo,” kalmadong sabi ng bangkero. “Ayun na ho
ang isla o.”
Isla Real.
Di sapat na sabihing namangha, o nabighani, o napamaang si Lolo.
Dahil para sa kanya, namatay siya nang sandaling matitigan ang isla.
Tumigil sa pagtibok ang kanyang puso’t pulso, napugto ang kanyang
hininga, di dumaloy ang kanyang dugo, natuyot ang kanyang utak,
nagkabali-bali ang kanyang tadyang….
44 fi cti o n
Nang makahuma siya, nagkakanya-kanyang lakad na ang mga
kasama. Ang babaeng nagsaagnas na lang ang naiwan sa dalampasigan,
parang hinihintay siya. Pero sa puntong iyon, wala na siyang pakialam
sa kahit na ano, o kahit na kanino. Iniwan niyang lahat ng nabalitaan at
narinig tungkol sa isla—sabisabi, ideya, tsismis, teorya, patotoo, panana-
liksik, pag-aaral, danas ng iba, at kung anu-ano pa—para tunay itong
makilala.
Hinubad niya ang pares ng sandalyas. De-kalibreng foot spa ang
puting-puting buhangin. Di niya napansing banayad na binubura ng
mga alon ang bawat yapak na iniiwan…. Nasipat kaagad niya ang ideal
na puntahan. Isang bahagi ito ng islang natural ang pagkakasalansan
ng mga bato at napapayungan ng iba’t ibang puno. Sa malayo’y mukha
itong altar. Doon siya magmi-meditate. Doon niya ihihinga ang lahat ng
sama ng kanyang loob. Iyon ang totoong sadya niya sa isla, ang mapag-
isa sa sinapupunan ng kalikasan at kausapin nang tapat ang sarili.
Mabigat na ang buhat niyang backpack. Mainit na ang kanyang
talampakan. Nakailang liko na siya, pero nananatiling malayo ang al-
tar. Nagpalinga-linga siya, wala nang ibang tao, ewan kung nasaan
na ang mga kasabay sa pumpboat. Ibinaba niya ang backpack, kinapa
ang cellphone sa bulsa, at parang wala sa sariling humakbang nang
humakbang.
Nang bumalik ang huwisyo ni Lolo, di na niya matandaan kung
saan nailapag ang backpack. Bagong charge ang kanyang cellphone,
pero low batt ito. Di niya alam kung bakit patay ang kanyang relong
kailan lang pinalitan ang baterya. Madilim ang paligid; di matanaw ang
altar. At mainit, napakainit, bagnas na siya ng pawis. Hinubad niya ang
kanyang long-sleeved shirt para pahiran ang pawis sa noo, leeg at dibdib.
Pero namamaybay ang init sa kanyang mga hita, sa tuhod, sa bukong-bu-
kong. Sunod niyang hinubad ang pantalong maong at iginala ang tingin
sa paligid sa paghahanap ng mapagsasabitan nito. Kaya pala madilim ay
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 45
dahil sa nagsalimbayang mga dahon ng dao at baleteng nakayungyong
sa natural na salansan ng mga bato… sa…
Nasa gitna na ng altar si Lolo!
Nauupos ang mga tuhod na napaluhod siya, di makapaniwala. Ayaw
niyang mag-isip, alam niyang di niya makakayang arukin kung paano
siyang nakarating doon. At di na niya makaya ang nararamdamang init,
parang sasabog ang kanyang mga lamanloob. Uhaw na uhaw siya pero
ubos na ang baong mineral water. Noon niya naulinigan ang malakas,
kakaibang lagaslas ng tubig… hinuha niya, nasa kabila ng altar.
Bantulot siyang humakbang palapit sa naririnig, nangunyapit sa
mga baging na nagsalabid sa dakong ulunan. Tuyo na ang kanyang lala-
munan. Nanginginig ang kanyang mga tuhod. Isa, dalawa… ahhh…
napalugmok siya sa paanan ng gahiganteng altar.
Nag-iisa siya sa sinapupunan ng kalikasan. Tahimik maliban sa
mga huni’t lawiswis. Pagkakataon na niyang ibulalas ang mga binitbit
niyang hinanakit sa mundo. Pero ewan niya kung bakit magaan ang
kanyang pakiramdam, ni kaunting sama ng loob sa buhay wala na si-
yang mahugot sa sarili.
Kasabay ng buntunghininga’y nakita niya kung saan nanggagaling
ang malakas na lagaslas… natatakpan ng nagsalimbayang ugat dahon
tangkay baging damo at kung anu-ano pang halamang ilang ang isang
talon.
Umaagos ang tubig ng talon… namamalisbis… dumadaloy… Naa-
limpungatan si Lolo, hinabol ng tingin kung saan naglalagos ang tubig.
Noon niya nahinuhang hindi likod lang ng altar ang nasasakupan ng
talon. Lumalagaslas ang tubig sa buong paligid dahil napagigitnaan siya
ng talong natatabingan ng mayayabong na halaman. At habang patuloy
na umaagos ang tubig, di siya nababasa sa kanyang kinalulugmukan da-
hil nasa paanan siya ng altar, nakatuntong sa ilang bahagdan ng salansan
ng mga bato.
46 fi cti o n
Kahit walang batayan, alam niyang nasa pinakasentro siya ng isla.
Ito ang puso ng Isla Real! At hindi siya nag-iisa, mga kulang-kulang
dalawandaan sila. Galing sa iba’t ibang kubling bahagi, naglabasan ang
mga tao, nagpadausdos sa tubig… nagtampisaw sa agos… nakipagpalig-
sahan sa mga alon…
Kung sa pumpboat napansin niyang wala siyang kasabay na kakilala,
dito naman pamilyar ang ilang mukha. Napalunok si Lolo sa pagsipat sa
lahat. Tipong matagal nang nagpapasasa sa isla ang mga ito kaya walang
kiyeme nang ipinaglalantaran ang kanilang hubo’t hubad na very well
tanned bodies. Pero nataranta siya nang mapansing siya man ay ganoon
din, dahil sa kung paanong paraan ay hindi na niya suot ang kanyang
brief. Hiyang-hiyang hahagilapin sana niya iyon nang makitang papala-
pit sa kanya ang isang matikas na lalaki. Sigurado siyang kilala niya ito,
di lang maisip kung saan nakasama.
“Emiliano Ricafrente!” iniabot nito ang kamay sa kanya, sabay yu-
kod na mala-caballero. “Maligayang pagdating sa Isla Real!”
Napalugmok uli ang babangon sanang si Lolo nang masiguro kung
sino ang kaharap. Ang heredero! Wala siyang panahong mamangha,
dahil sa isang iglap, nakapalibot na sa kanya ang buong Tribo Hubad.
Nanumbalik ang lakas niya. Tinungga niya ang sabaw ng inalok na
buko ng isang katutubo. Noon niya napansin ang tatlong lalaking di na-
kisalamuha sa kanila, tahimik na nakamasid lang mula sa kinauupuang
malalaking bato.
“Natatandaan mo pa ba sila?”
“Si Congressman!” palatak ni Lolo.
Marami pang ibang nagsidating. Lahat ng mga deklaradong
nawawala dahil sa pagpunta sa isla nakausap ni Lolo, pati ang bang-
kerong si Mang Natuy. Iba’t iba ang dahilan nila kung bakit pinili nilang
huwag nang umuwi.
b ay uga i A n g Hered ero ng Tri b o Hub ad s a Is l a R e a l 47
Nagpalakpakan ang lahat nang dumating ang isang matandang la
laking may mahaba’t maputing balbas, buhat sa kanyang likod ang isang
buhay na toro. Inilagak nito ang toro sa harap ng altar, kung saan ito
sumingasing bago nagpatirapa.
“Alay natin ang toro kay Poseidon, pasasalamat sa iyong pagdating
sa Atlantis!” sabi ng lalaki kay Lolo.
Nagsalimbayan ang tugtog ng agong, biyulin, trumpeta at iba pang
instrumento. Nagpasikat din ang musikong bumbong. Habang tumi-
tikwas ang paa sa balse, di naiwasan ni Lolong maalala ang kinaasarang
mga psychic na nagsabing pinto ng impiyerno ang isla.
Impiyerno o langit?
Sa Tribo Hubad ng Isla Real, walang kahit anong klasipikasyon.
Walang lalaki’t babae, bata’t matanda, malakas-mahina, mayama’t ma-
hirap, tama’t mali, mabuti’t masama; walang lahi’t salinlahi, matalino’t
mangmang, tunay at peke, pangit at pogi; walang buhay at patay….
Walang langit at impiyerno.
Magdamag. Maghapon. Hindi na alam ni Lolo ang takbo ng oras.
“Ano’ng ikukuwento mo tungkol sa Isla Real?”
Tinitigan ni Lolo ang nagtanong. Mismong sa harap niya’y nag-
babago ang itsura nito, nagiging tuod, tao, halamang-ugat, bato…. Ngu-
miti siya. Mabuti na lang walang nakaaalam tungkol sa pagpunta niya
sa isla. Pag nagkita sila ng kanyang mga kaibigan, pababayaan niyang
usisain nila kung ano ang nangyari sa lakad niya sa Maynila. Ibubulalas
niya kung paano siyang pumila nang halos maghapon para lang ma-
deny sa U.S. Embassy.
At kung sa mga darating na araw ay may magtanong kung alam
niya ang tungkol sa isla, o kung narating na niya ito, o kung totoo ang
Tribo Hubad, iiling lang siya. Napakarami nang naikuwento tungkol sa
Isla Real. Sapat na ang mga kuwentong iyon.
C AT H E R I N E B U C U
Húli
i
48
bucu i H uli 49
ang electrical network ng hydrofloat. Maliit lang ang mga ito kapag
maliwanag pa sa labas.
“Maganda palang tingnan ang mga ilaw na ‘to,” sabi ni Jaime. Hu-
minto siya at lumapit sa isa sa mga gel light. Hahawakan niya sana ito,
nang biglang lumaki ang mga ilaw. Humakbang siya patalikod. Napan-
sin niyang hindi na rin pantay ang sahig ng cabin area. Gumagalaw na
ang sahig at patay-sindi ang mga ilaw. Humawak siya kay Ivy.
Hindi naman binitawan ni Ivy ang asawa. Hinila niya ito papunta
sa kabilang pader at saka pinindot ang emergency communicator, na na-
kadirekta sa captain’s deck. Bago pa niya ibuka ang bibig, bumalik na sa
dating laki ang mga ilaw. Tumigil na rin ang pagyanig ng hydrofloat.
“Anong nangyari—bakit—ang gel lights—pati sahig!” tanong
agad ng asawa niya, habang humahangos. “Kapitan, sumagot ka!”
Pinindot ni Ivy ang button ng e-comm. “Huminahon ka, Jaime.”
Muli niyang pinindot ang button at sinabing, “Pasensya na po kayo, ka
pitan. Ano po bang nangyari?”
“Pasensya na rin po, ma’am, sir at hindi kami nakapagwarning
kaagad. May good news po,” sabi ng kapitan.
“Ano namang maganda dun e—” naputol na tanong ni Jaime
“Kapitan, tama ba ang narinig namin, good news?”
“Opo, ma’am. Ang naranasan po nating pagyanig kanina ay dulot
ng water vibrations na galing sa isang malaking butanding.”
“Narinig mo ‘yun, Jaime? Butanding! Mukhang mapapaaga ang
sabak mo.”
“Malapit na ba ‘yun, kapitan?”
“Malayo pa po, sir, pero sa ganung kalakas na impact, siguradong
malaki ‘yun.”
“Okay. Sa susunod mag-announce naman kayo ‘pag may darating
na pagyanig.”
50 fi cti o n
“Opo, sir. Pasensya na po ulit. May kararating lang pong mensahe
mula sa food crew. Handa na raw po ang almusal ninyo sa sundeck.”
“Maraming salamat ulit sa balita, kapitan”
“Wala pong anuman, ma’am.”
63
64 fi cti o n
Minsan sa Binondo
i
1 Tag-ulan
97
98 fi cti o n
Takbuhan kami nang walang kasawa-sawa. Humihiga sa baha sa
bangketa, paikot-ikot, patihaya at padapa, kunwaring lumalangoy sa
malalim na karagatan, lumulusong sa matataas na alon na walang pa-
tid ang pagsipot at paghaplos sa aming maliliit at halos hubad na mga
katawan.
Titigil bigla ang bunsong si Greg at haharap kay Maneng. “Bakit
ka parang papel?”
“Oo nga,” sabat naman ni Mina. “Isa ka sigurong paper boy!”
“I am only a paper boy,” paawit na sabi ni Maneng habang nakataas
ang kanyang mga kamay at mukha. “Sailing over, sailing over…”
“Sailing over a mouselem tree,” awit naman naming lahat.
At nagtawanan kami nang nagtawanan habang umiikot sa bu-
mubuhos na tubig ulan.
“Hoy, tingnan niyo,” sabi ni Mila. “Mga sundalong nagmamartsa!”
“Oo nga, “sambit naman ni Odette, “at nakahelmet pa!”
Itinuturo ni Kuya Pepe, “Ayan may mga ripleng dala!”
Sinasampal namin ang tubig habang umaawit:
“Kaliwa’t kanan, papadyak-padyak
De-medyas nga wasak-wasak
Papadyak, papadyak, papadyak!”
Sa kabila ng kalye, natatanaw namin ang aming bahay na asul, may-
roong apat na pirasong malalapad na kahoy, tigdalawa ang bawat pinto
para mahinto ang pagpasok ng tubig baha doon. Bago kami naglalaro
sa ulan, tumulong kami sa pag-akyat ng paninda sa ikalawang palapag
kung saan tuyo at ligtas sa baha.
Sigaw naming magkakapatid habang nagtatampisaw sa baha:
“Sige ulan, sige bagyo!”
“Ulan, ulan pantay kawayan!”
“Bagyo, bagyo, pantay kabayo!”
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 99
Si Inay naman ay alam naming nasa kuwarto ng mga santo, dasal
nang dasal na huminto na sana ang ulan.
“Naku, kawawa naman si Inay,” sabi ni Maneng, “e talagang maha-
bang ulan ang ‘sang ito.”
“’Sang linggo!” sabi ni Greg.
“’Sang buwan!” sabi ni Mina.
“’Sang taon,” sabi ni Leah.
“Dalawa na kaya?” alok ni Mila.
“E kung sampu!” sigaw ni Odette.
“Hanggang di maubos ang tubig sa ulap, di titigil ang ulan!” sabi
ni Kuya Pepe.
“Lahat balik sa Hinulugang Taktak!” sigaw ni Mila habang
tumatakbo.
“At doon maligo tayo,” awit naman naming magkakapatid na bini-
birahan ng pagtakbo tungo sa ilalim ng basag na alulod. Nagsasayaw,
umiikot kaming lahat, itinaas ni Leah ang kaniyang maliliit na daliri at
waring may kahalong pagkamangha ay nagsabi, “Hoy, tingnan ninyo,
kulubot na ang mga daliri ko!”
“Akin din!” sigaw ni Kuya Pepe.
“Akin din!” sigaw ni Maneng.
“Akin din!” sigaw ni Odette.
“Akin din!” sabi ni Mila
“Akin din!” sigaw ni Mina.
“Akin din,” sigaw ni Greg.
At lahat ng mga kulubot na mga daliri ay nakataas sa ulan, patawa-
ng minamasdan naming lahat, tawanan at hiyawan, “Hoy, matanda,
matandang beho na tayo!”
“Lalo na ako,” sabi ni Maneng, “maputlang matanda!”
“Oo nga,” sigaw ng lahat. “Maputlang matanda! Maputlang
matanda!”
100 fi cti o n
Kawawang matanda! Kawawang matanda!”
Hindi kikibo si Maneng. Hihiwalay, malungkot na di mawari, tila
yata nagtatampo. Kaya paiikutan naming lahat at yayakapin ito. Pahila-
hila kaming lahat hanggang makarating sa ilalim ng malakas na bagsak
ng tubig na tumatalbog sa aming mga ulo. Patuloy ang ulan, ang nangi
ngibabaw na bayo ng malalaking patak sa yero, ang pasabog ng tubig
ulan mula sa basag na alulod. Patuloy ang pagsayaw naming pito, ma-
sayang-masaya sa ilalim ng ulan.
O, paminsan-minsan ganitong kalakas ang bagsak ng tubig mula sa
langit sa panahon ng tag-ulan!
2 Ang Bahay na Asul, 738 Kalye Benavidez
KULAY ASUL ang aming bahay, asul na may mga guhit na puti sa
mga sulok at paharang ng kahoy. Dalawang palapag ito, may dalawang
malapad na bintana sa harap at malalapad ding mga bintana sa tagiliran,
tigdalawa rin. Kung baga, kapag binuksan mo ang mga ito, pati ang
mga barandilya sa ilalim ng bintana ay lagus-lagusan ang ihip ng hangin.
Kaya kahit tag-init, malamig ang bahay lalo na kapag gabi.
Dito kami lumaking lahat sa bahay na asul. Siyam kami, sampu
kung kabilang iyong unang sanggol pa lamang. Siyam kami kung umpi-
sa ang bilang kay Ate Pat. Tapos sina Ditse Luz, Kuya Pepe, Maneng,
Odette, Mila, Leah, Mina at Greg. Dapat sigurong isama sa bilang sina
Tia Bet, Tia Nard at Tio Ser, dahil bago pa lamang sila nagbibinata at
nagdadalaga nang sumama sila sa Maynila, sa paglipat ni Itay at Inay
dito. Tutal naulila na sila sa kanilang mga magulang at mukhang mas
may pag-asa silang umunlad sa Maynila kaysa magpaiwan sa Bulacan.
Ang tulugan ay nasa ikalawang palapag. Para marating mo ito ay
aakyat ka sa isang maluwag at makinis na kahoy na hagdan na may dala-
wang bola sa umpisa ng tanganan nito. Dito kami madalas magpadulas
para mabilis makarating sa ibaba. Huwag matakot at salo ng bola ang
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 101
puwit mo. Ang una mong makikita pag-akyat ay isang bronseng kan-
delabra sa kisame at malalapad at makintab na sahig na kung gabi ay
natatakpan ng mga banig, unan at mga kulambo. Kapag maglalatag ng
mga banig (ang mababangong banig), at nagkakabit ng kulambo, ang
mga iyon ay para sa amin at sa mga kamag-anak na nakikitulog habang
nag-aaral o dumadalaw sa Maynila. Itinatabi ang mga kasangkapan
doon sa may bintana, ‘yong dalawang silyon, sofa, mga silya, maliliit na
mesang panggilid at iba pa na lahat ay yari sa narra at sulihiya.
“Pupunta ba kayo sa Maynila? Doon kay Tiyong Gorio at Tiyang
Pacita kayo magpunta. Malaki ang bahay, mabait at bukas palad. Mag-
dala lang ng ‘sang sakong bigas, manok at gulay, bastante na.”
Kaya parang dormitoryo ang salas at sa gabi, sa komedor, pagkalig-
pit ng mga pinggan at iba pang kasangkapan, puno ang mesang kainan
ng mga nag-aaral. Puwera kaming mga bata doon at pinatutulog nang
maaga. Pero mula kina Kuya Pepe, Ditse Luz, Ate Pat na noon ay nasa
high school na, at lahat ng magpipinsan, talagang walang imikan, panay
basa at sulat. Isang gabi nga biglang sumigaw ang aming pinsan na ku-
mukuha ng kursong parmasya. Nagdidilim daw ang kanyang paningin,
umiiyak at nabubulag daw siya. Kinabukasan pa naman ang unang ba-
hagi ng kanilang eksamen sa Board.
Pinahiga ni Inay at sinabihang magpahinga muna dahil sobra na
sa pagod. Kinabukasan nagising siyang malinaw na muli ang paningin.
Mabuti ‘ika ninyo ay pumasa siya sa eksamen.
Ang sabi ni Itay, sakit ng biglang nerbiyos daw iyon.
Dalawa sa kanila ay nag-aaral ng pagkadentista, si Costeng na anak
ni Tio Teban, nakababatang kapatid ni Itay. Magkasama sila ng Tio Ser
na noon ay malapit nang matapos ng pag-aaral. Sila iyong mga nagda-
dala ng mga bungo sa bahay upang pag-aralan ang mga ngipin at ang
dinadaanan ng mga ugat tungo sa ngipin. Madalas nakikisali si Kuya
Pepe, kaya siguro nahiligan niya ang pagdodoktor naman. Mayroong
102 fi cti o n
nag-aabogado, mayroong nagtititser at kung ano-ano pang kurso. Sina
Tia Bet, bagamat valedictorian nang nagtapos sa Bulacan, ay hindi nag-
patuloy sa pag-aaral. Siya ang aming pangalawang ina at titser na su-
masalo ng mga gawain sa eskuwelahan, pati pagbuburda sa HE (home
economics) ng mga punda at night gown, kapag nakakatulog at hindi
matapos ang mga iyon.
Sa ikalawang palapag ay may isang kuwarto na puno ng mga estatwa
ng mga santong nasa kanya-kanyang verina. Sa gitna ng isang mahabang
altar ay ang krusipiho ng isang ebanong Kristo na napapaligiran ng mga
sinag na ginto. Sa magkabila nito ay dalawang ginintuang paso na may
debuhong asul at may lamang mga bulaklak, dahon at prutas at naka-
verina din. Kung ano-anong santo ang nasa altar tulad ni San Antonio de
Padua na may kargang bata, si San Jose na may akay na bata, mga birhen
na ubod nang gaganda ang maliliit at maputlang mga mukha at malilit
na kamay at nabibihisan ng magagandang kasuotang pelus at brokada
na pinatigas ng maraming burdang pilak at gintong sinulid na may sa-
bog na mga de-kolor na bato at maliliit na perlas. Ang kinatatakutan
naming lahat ay ang Ecce Homo, duguang mukha na napapaligiran ng
kulot at mapula-pulang buhok, na sinaksakan ng isang koronang tinik
na may dugo na dumaloy sa noo. Hanggang sa balikat lang ang Ecce
Homo at dito ay may nakabuhol na isang pirasong madugo ring lubid.
Parang sinusundan ka ng kristal na mata kahit saang parte ng kuwarto
ka naroroon. Sa gitna ng mga santo ay mahimbing na natutulog si Lola
Pelang sa kanyang malaking kama. Ang kama ay may apat na posteng
talian ng kulambo kung saan may nakaukit na parang paikot na sawa sa
mamahaling posteng kahoy na kamagong.
Bago siya matulog, kami ang tagapatay ng mga kandila sa altar.
Minsan, habang hawak-hawak kamay kami na papasok doon, biglang
may katok mula sa ilalim ng altar. Hiwa-hiwalay kaming nagtakbuhan
papalabas ng bahay.
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 103
Namumula ang mukha ni Tio Ser sa katatawa, hawak pa ang isang
walis na may mahabang tangkay.
Noong nag-espiritista si Lola Pelang, ipinamigay lahat ng maga-
gandang santo sa kanyang mga kamag-anak at ang iniwan lamang ay
ang ebanong Kristo at dalawang magkaternong paso na may bulaklak
at prutas, pawang naka-verina rin. Pati mga alahas ay ipinamigay rin
dahil handa na raw siyang mamuhay nang simple, sang-ayon sa mga
kagalang-galang at matapat na kautusan ng bago niyang relihiyon.
Si Lola Pelang ang may-ari ng bahay na asul na isinalin niya sa kan-
yang pamangkin—sa aming Itay—na noon ay bago pa lamang kasal at
naghahanap ng matitirhan sa Maynila. Kasama niya ang kanyang kabi-
yak na nalagasan ng unang anak na sanggol. Si Inay, na sampung taon
ang bata kay Itay, ay panay daw ang iyak. Naisip ni Itay na ilayo siya
para magkaroon sila ng katahimikan at tuwiran sanang makalimutan
ang “napakagandang anghel” na tinatangisan gabi-gabi.
Sa ibaba ng bahay na asul ay isang tindahang itinayo nina Lola
Pelang at Lolo Nano. Mahusay sa negosyo ang mag-asawa at naging
kilala ang kanilang tindahan sa bahay na asul. Ang tindahan ay isinalin
din ni Lola Pelang kay Itay. Wala silang anak. Ang napagkasunduan ay
aalagaan ni Itay si Lola hanggang sa huling sandali ng kanyang buhay.
Nang maisalin sa kanila ay ipinaayos ni Itay ang bahay na asul. Sa
unang palapag ay nagpalagay siya ng lugar ng kainan dahil marami-
rami rin lang kumakain doon, mula almusal.
Una, dahil doon nanggagaling ang pagkain, ipinagawa ni Itay ang
kusina. Pagpasok sa gawing kaliwa ay may dalawang maliit na silid,
isang banyo at isang kasilyas. Pagkatapos, ay may lababong hugasan ng
mga pinggan at iba pang mga kagamitan. Isang mahaba at makitid na
mesa ang ipinapako sa pader, nakapako dito ang kasinghabang bangko.
Dito sa mesang ito ang tadtaran ng karne, linisan ng isda, hiwaan ng
gulay at pagrorolyo sa asin o paminta o arina, atsuete, toyo o patis na may
104 fi cti o n
pinigang kalamansi at ng kung ano-ano pa man para maging malasa ito.
Dito rin kami nag-aaral sa hapon at dito nagbabasa ng Mahal na Pasyon
si Tia Nard tuwing Semana Santa. Sa kabila ay nagpakorte si Itay ng
malaking sementong mesa na may apat na kalan, nakasilong sa isang
malaking embudong tsiminiya na humihigop ng usok at uling pataas at
palabas ng bahay. Ang ilalim ng mga kalan ay lalagyan ng panggatong.
Sa kabilang dulo, na natatakpan ng isang pader, ang labahan at sam-
payan dahil walang bubong at mainit ang sikat ng araw. Dito may ilang
tanim na halaman sa mga pasong nakasabit sa pader. Doon naglagay ng
isang kulungan ng baboy si Tia Nard. Siya ang pumipili at bumibili ng
biik at kanya itong pinalalaki, pinatataba at pinagkakakitaan.
Tama naman dahil maraming natitira sa mga plato na isinasalin
niya sa kainan at hinahaluan ng darak para daw matibay ang katawan
ng biik habang lumalaki ito. Kapag malaki na ay may suki si Tia Nard
na dumarating para timbangin at bayaran ito por kilo. Gusto nila ang
alagang baboy ni Tia Nard dahil daw siksik ang laman at walang mas
yadong taba at maputi pa sa singkamas sa linis nito. Pagkabayad, ni-
yayaya kaming manood ng sine at kumain sa isang restawrang Intsik
kung saan may mami na kumukulo ang sabaw at siopaw na galing sa
umaasong tinggalang yero.
3 Si Lola Pelang
MAGANDA pa rin si Lola Pelang, kahit matanda na siya, diretso ang
tindig at nababakas ang ganda ng kanyang mukha. Pusturyosa siya, la
ging nakaternong mamahalin at maraming alahas na suot pati sa paligid
ng kanyang pusod, sa magkahalong itim at puting buhok niya na naka-
pusod ay natutusukan ng gintong suklay at may pasabog na maliliit na
bulaklak na may mga kukuti-kutitap na brilyantitos sa dulo ng aguhil
yang pilak.
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 105
Noong buhay pa si Lolo Nano, magkatapat silang naglalaro ng
domino o baraha sa isang mesang marmol na bilog at natatakpan ng
de-gantsilyong sapin. Sa pagkain nila umpisa sa almusal, gamit nila ang
magagandang pinggan at kubyertos na pilak at mga basong mamahalin
at kung hapunan ay mga kopa ng mapulang alak. May pagka-fastidyoso
silang mag-asawa, laging may ulam na litson at mainit na sabaw ng tino-
lang manok.
Nang mamatay si Lolo Nano, isang atake sa puso (na siguro raw
nababalot ng taba ng litson ang puso noon), nag-iisa na lang si Lola
Pelang sa mesang bilog. Kung minsan tinatawag niya kami. Alam ni-
yang sumisilip kami kaya’t inaalok niya kami ng masasarap na ulam.
Kung minsan tinatawag kaming lahat para maglaro ng baraha o
bingo. Agad kaming dumarating at, doon sa mesang kainan, pumapali
gid ng upo. Ang lahat ay masaya dahil hinahati ni Lola Pelang ang mata
tamis at may langgam na lansones mula sa isang kaing o ilang kilong
kastanyas na ginagawang pantaya. Biro mo, puwedeng kainin ang mga
iyon habang naglalaro—magtira lang siyempre ng pantaya. Masaya ang
lahat habang isinisigaw ang mga numero at taya. At si Lola Pelang na-
man ay nakakalimutan ang lungkot ng paghihiwalay nila ni Lolo Nano.
Madalas sinasabi niya na hinihintay daw siya ni Lolo Nano na nakita
niya tila sa isang panaginip. Nakabantay daw sa tabi ng isang mataas na
pader na bakal na maputing-maputi. Doon daw matiyagang hinihintay
siya kaya siya ay naghahanda sa pagpunta doon, sa malayong lupain ng
isang bagong umaga.
Ngunit hindi nagtagal ay naengganyo si Lola Pelang na sumapi sa
samahan ng mga espiritista. Una, kasi ay dumalo siya sa isang sesyon na
puwede raw makausap ang kanyang mahal na kabiyak. Doon ay inutu-
san siyang sumapi ni Lolo Nano para pirmi silang magkausap. Sa gayon
nagkaroon siya ng mga gawain bukod sa maupo sa harap ng mesang
bilog at kadalasan ay naglalaro ng solitaryo. May mga araw na umaga
106 fi cti o n
pa lang ay umaalis na siya, sakay ng isang kalesa ng naging suki niyang
kutserong si Mang Pedro. Paminsan-minsan, isinasama niya si Mila o
Leah para may umakay sa kanya pero kadalasan ay siyang mag-isa lang.
Magiliw naman daw na siya ay inaalalayan ng mga miyembro doon.
Nagtatrabaho si Lola Pelang sa sentro, sumusulat ng mga koresponde sa
mga nais sumapi at sa mga dating miyembro at bukod pa roon ay nagli-
linis siya ng paligid ng hardin na pinupuno ng magagandang halaman,
kasangkapan at iba-ibang kulay na bombilya.
Minsan nga ay inutusan niyang bumili ng limampung silyang bati-
bot si Itay para daw madagdagan ang upuan sa sentro dahil dumadami
ang mga miyembro. Agad-agad namang bumili si Itay at pinapintahan
pa nga ng kulay dilaw dahil iyon daw ang opisyal na kulay ng sentro.
Inihatid ni Itay, lulan ng isang trak, at binantayan niya habang hinihilera
ang mga ito sa kanilang silid-pulungan. Ito daw ay isa sa mga kahilingan
ni Lolo Nano. Anuman ang hinihiling ni Lolo Nano sa isa sa kanilang
usapan ay agad tinutupad ni Lola Pelang, tulad ng pagpapamigay ng
mga santo na hindi na raw kailangan.
Minsan kinausap ni Lola Pelang si Itay. Ang pinakahuling bilin daw
ni Lolo Nano sa pinuno ng mga espiritista na ibigay ang nakadepositong
pera sa bangko. May isang libo daw na mahigit pa kung kukuwentahin
pati tubo ng naipon nila ni Lolo Nano. Medyo nag-atubili si Itay dahil
napakalaking halaga nito at mauubos ang kanilang naipon sa bangko.
Ngunit matigas si Lola Pelang, ibinigay ang kanyang libro de bangko at
kanyang pirma na nagbibigay ng awtoridad kay Itay. Mas may siguridad
daw kaysa sa bangko ang kanilang kooperatiba ng mga espiritista at pu-
wede naman daw kunin kailan man kailanganin.
Bagama’t labag sa kanyang kalooban, ginawa ni Itay ang utos ni
Lola Pelang. Ngunit nang magkasakit ito at hindi na makapunta sa sen-
tro, inutusan niya si Itay na kunin ang kanyang pera. Ilang balik man ni
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 107
Itay, wala siyang napala. Sabi ni Lola ay magpasensiya at siguro hinihin-
tay ang tamang panahon para hindi maputol ang tubo nito.
“Makikita mo,” wika niya, “isang araw ay gugulatin tayo ng mis-
mong pinuno at dala ang pera.”
“Sana nga po, Tiyang,” sabi ni Itay, “Magkatutuo po sana ang sabi
ninyo.”
“Siempre naman magkakatutuo, hindi ba buo ang tiwala ko sa
kanya?”
Ngunit matagal ding naratay si Lola Pelang. Sinuman na may
dalang pera ay hindi dumating, ni anino nga ay wala. Patuloy ang pag-
gastos ni Itay sa kanyang mga gamot at pagdalaw ng doktor. Ngunit
patuloy ang paghina ni Lola, parang hukab na ang mga pisngi niya at
malalalim ang mga mata. Parang may hinihintay pa siya.
“Pabayaan ninyo na lang, Tiyang,” sabi ni Itay sabay haplos sa mga
payat na kamay nito. “Kaya ko pa naman sagutin ang mga pangangaila
ngan po ninyo.”
Isang umaga, lumapit si Inay at tinakpan niya ng pinagtagpi-tagpi
niyang kumot si Lola, “Ito ang kumot mo, Tiyang, palitan natin itong
manipis, makapal ito para hindi ka maginaw.”
“Aba, mahal ito, a” sabi ni Lola kasabay ng bahagyang ngiti, “sabi
ko na ibabalik din iyong pera para mabili mo ang mga kailangan ko.”
Habang hinahagod ang likod ni Lola Pelang, sabi ni Inay, “Magpa-
hinga kayo, Tiyang, at huwag mag-intindi ng anuman. Nandito kaming
lahat.”
“Salamat, Pacita, sabihin mo kay Gorio, matutulog na ako,” sabi ni
Lola na may dumaloy na luha mula sa mata bago iyon ipikit.
At ang mga salitang yon ay ang huling sinabi niya. Sa bahay ding
asul pumanaw si Lola Pelang, ligtas sa ginaw ng isang makapal na ku-
mot na pinagtagpi-tagpi ni Inay. Sa gitna siya ng kuwarto kung saan ang
natitira ay ang ebanong Kristo na napapaligiran ng gintong rayos at na-
108 fi cti o n
tatakpan ng verina. Sa magkabila ay dalawang ginintuang pasong nag
lalaman ng mga bulaklak na gawa sa maninipis ng telang seda at prutas
na gawa sa babasaging kristal na pinintahan ng iba’t ibang kulay. Hindi
malalanta, hindi mabubulok, talagang parang tunay. May mga kandila
sa bronseng kandelabra. Nasa gitna pa rin ng elegansiya si Lola Pelang
tulad noong buhay pa si Lolo Nano. May takip pa rin ng de-gantsilyong
sapin ang bilog na mesang marmol at ang bintana ay nasasabitan ng lace
na kurtina.
Dapat daw ay mariwasa si Lola kung hindi niya ipinagkatiwala ang
kanilang naipon ni Lolo Nano sa pinuno ng samahan, ang sabi ni Itay.
Hanggang sa huli ay inalagaan nina Itay at Inay nang buong pagmama-
hal si Lola Pelang na nagbigay hindi lamang tirahan kundi pati hanap-
buhay nila.
Nang araw na mukhang hindi na gigising si Lola Pelang, nagtapat
si Kuya Pepe ng isang malinaw na salamin sa kanyang ilong. Nang hin-
di nanlabo ito at nanatiling malinaw ang salamin, at saka niya sinabing
talagang lumisan na si Lola, iniwan na kami ng matanda.
Lahat ay pumila upang makapagmano sa kahuli-hulihang pagka-
kataon kay Lola Pelang at isa-isa ring lumuhod sa paligid ng kama nito.
Sa pamumuno ni Inay ay sinimulan namin ang dasal ng rosaryo bilang
pagsabay sa paghahatid ng kaluluwa ng isang pumanaw sa unang bahagi
patungo sa liwanag hanggang marating niya ang lupaing may bagong
umaga.
Nagpunta na raw doon si Lola Pelang. Hayun at buong pananabik
na sinusugod ang landas sa tabi ng mataas na pader na maputing bakal
kung saan naroroon sa dulo at matiyagang naghihintay ang mahal ni-
yang kabiyak, si Lolo Nano.
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 109
6 Si Maneng
MABILIS lumipas ang tag-ulan at malapit na ang Pasko nang bigla na
lamang nagkasakit si Maneng. Parang biglang nanghina at walang ga-
nang kumain. Si Dr. Guerrero, ang doktor ng pamilya, ay ipinatawag ni
Itay isang araw ng Sabado. Kapag pumupunta iyon sa aming bahay ay
doon na nanananghali dahil gusto raw niyang makasalo ang mga maga-
ganang (matatakaw) kumain ng gulay at isda. Masaya ang kuwentuhan
sa harap ng hapag na puno ng mga plato at kubyertos at mga bandehado
ng ulam at kanin.
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 117
Matapos kumain ay nagtungo sina Dr. Guerrero, Itay at Inay sa
kama ni Maneng doon sa dulo ng salas. Medyo matagal ding kinausap
ni Dr. Guerrero ang aming mga magulang, waring biglang tumahimik
ang buong bahay. Lalo pa nga at luhaan si Inay at mukhang maputla si
Itay nang lumabas sila.
“Kailangang ma-x-ray siya, Mang Gorio,” sabi ni Dr. Guerrero.
Iyon at ilan pang mga test para masiguro nating tama ang diagnosis
ko.”
“Kailan kami pupunta sa ospital?” tanong ni Itay.
“Sa lalong madaling panahon,” sabi ni Dr. Guerrero. “Sa Lunes,
kung maaari.”
“Kung maaari sana sa hapon, dahil sa umaga, papasok ako sa opi-
sina para makapagpaalam.”
“Ihahanda ko ang lahat, Mang Gorio,” sabi ni Dr. Guerrero sa may
pintuan, “at hihintayin ko kayo.”
Inihatid nila si doktor sa kanyang itim na Ford at bago tuluyang
pumasok ito ay inabutan ng sobre ni Inay kasabay ang, “Maraming sala
mat po, Dr. Guerrero.”
Tinapik ni Dr. Guerrero si Inay sa balikat. “Malalaman natin, Aling
Paz, kung ano ang talagang sakit niya.”
Mga ilang araw matapos madala si Maneng sa ospital, naging kata
kataka ang pagbabago ng aming mga magulang. Naging lalong masuyo
sila kay Maneng. Maging sina Ditse Luz at si Ate Patring. At maging
sina Tio Sergio at Tia Bet at Tia Nard.
Ano ba’t lahat na yata ng magustuhan ni Maneng ay binibili para
sa kanya.
“E, wala pa namang Pasko,” ang puna ng bunsong si Greg.
“Oo nga,” sabat ni Mila, “tayo nga e naghihintay ng Pasko bago
maibili ng laruan.”
“At saka, pipili ka lang ng isa,” sabi naman ni Odette.
118 fi cti o n
“Iyong talagang gusto mo,” sabi ni Leah.
“At iyong hindi masyadong mahal,” sabi ni Mina.
“Kayo naman, e mabuti nga marami tayong laruan ngayon,” sabi
ni Kuya Pepe.
“Oo nga ano,” sabi ni Odette,” biro mo noong minsan ang gusto
niya ay iyong tiket ng bus at iyong clipper baga na pambutas ng tiket.”
“Ngayon lahat tayo e pasahero sa kanyang kama at si Maneng pa
ang driver at kundoktor na tagabutas ng tiket,” sabi ni Leah.
Nagtawanan kaming lahat.
“Noong minsan naman ang gusto niya ay trumpo na de bomba at
maganda ang tugtog habang umiikot,” sabi ni Kuya Pepe.
“Kaya lang,” sabi Mina,” kailangang pumila ka para mo malaro
iyon.”
“Pila lang ba? E, kailangang magbayad ka,” sabi ni Leah.
“Hindi bale na,” sabi ni Odette, “sa kanya din naman galing iyong
perang peke.”
At nagtawanan na naman kaming lahat.
Isang araw ng Linggo, sa may bandang hapon, dumating si Padre
Islao mula sa simbahan ng Quiapo, may dalang mahabang kahon na may
matingkad na barnes. Malaking pasasalamat nina Itay at Inay at sinama-
han ito agad kay Maneng.
Nagsunuran kaming lahat. Lahat ay gustong malaman kung ano
ang laman ng kahon. Inayos ni Itay ang isang silya sa tabi ng kama ni
Maneng. Naupo dito si Padre Islao at pinatong ang kahon sa kanyang
kandungan.
Lahat kami ay buong pananabik na naghintay habang kinukuha ng
pari ang isang bungkos ng mga susi sa bulsa ng kanyang abito. Pumili ng
isa doon at saka pinasok sa susian ng kahon.
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 119
“Aha!” sambit naming lahat na may pagkamangha nang malitaw
ang pula at makintab na pelus na nakapalibot sa isang kamay at braso
at humalimuyak ang bango.
“Naku po,” sabi ni Leah, “ang lalaki ng mga ugat, parang buhay
talaga!”
Sabi ni Inay, “Mga anak, ‘yan ang kamay ng mapagmilagrong
Poong Nazareno ng simbahan ng Quiapo.”
“Inay,” tanong ni Greg na pabulong, “e bakit po maitim?”
“Patay na ang Diyos,” sabi ni Inay, “magsiluhod kayo at
tumahimik.”
Iniangat ni Padre Islao mula sa kahon ang putol na kamay at braso
at pinahalikan ito kay Maneng. At ito rin ay iniligid sa kanyang ulo at
buong katawan hanggang paa nang may tatlong beses.
Mapula ang mga mata ni Inay at waring nais maiyak.
“Kung maaari po ay lahat kami,” sabi ni Itay.
Nagkrus si Inay at yumuko. Inilapit sa kanyang noo ang mabangong
kamay at braso, at ibinaba para mahalikan ito. Mula sa pinakabunsong
si Greg at sa panganay na si Ate Patring, sa Tio Ser, Tia Bet at Tia Nard
at sa Itay ay iniligid ang milagrosong braso at kamay na mahal na Poong
Nazareno.
“O Mahal na Poon, kaawaan ninyo kami,” dasal ni Inay, habang
pinapahiran ang mga luhaang mata.
“O, kaawaan mo po sana,” ambag naming lahat, magkasaklob ang
aming mga palad.
“O, mahal na Santo Hesus,” sabi ni Itay, “pakipakinggan mo po
kami.”
“O, pakipakinggan ninyo po sana,” sambit naming lahat.
Nang matapos ay hinandugan ni Tia Bet ng isang tasang kape at
isang ensaymada na malugod namang kinain nito. Samantalang si Itay
120 fi cti o n
ay tumawag ng isang karitela. Bago sumakay ang Pari, inabutan ni Inay
ng isang sobre, “Maraming salamat po, Padre Islao,” ang sabi niya.
“Nawa ay pagmilagrohan ang inyong pamilya,” sabi ni Padre Islao,
habang humahalik kaming lahat sa kamay nito.
“Nawa ay magbibig-anghel po kayo,” wika ni Tio Ser na halos
mapapaiyak.
“Kamuntik ko nang nakalimutan,” sabi ng Pari at inilabas ang isang
maliit na bote mula sa kanyang bulsa. “Diyos Santo,” wika niya habang
winiwisik ang tubig mula sa bote.
“Teka po, ang aking anak!” wika ni Inay.
Bumalik ang Pari sa loob upang basbasan si Maneng.
“Naku, malaking utang na loob namin sa inyo,” sabi ni Itay.
“Talagang marami pong pinagmimilagrohan ito,” dagdag pa ni
Padre Islao bago tuluyang umakyat sa karitela. Mahina ang padyak ng
kabayo at papalayo na ang karitela ngunit nakatayo pa rin kami at tina-
tanaw yon.
“Mahirap makumbida yan,” sabi ni Tio Ser na siyang nagpunta sa
simbahan ng Quiapo.
“Mabuti at nahikayat mo,” ang sabi ni Itay habang pumapasok ng
bahay.
“Naawa sa ating maysakit,” ang sagot ni Tio Ser.
Mula noon, sa umagang hindi pa man sumisikat ang araw ay di-
nadala nina Tio Ser, Kuya Pepe at Itay si Maneng sa bahay ng matadero.
Doon sa ungol ng mga kinakatay na baka ay sumasahod sila ng isang
tasang dugo mula sa saksak na sugat nito sa leeg.
Tahimik lang si Maneng habang hinahagod ni Itay ang kanyang
likod. Iniinom niya ang dugo na mainit-init pa nang walang tutol. Na-
niniwala siya sa sabi ni Itay na iyon ay makadadagdag at magpapapula
sa kanyang dugo at magpapabilis ng kanyang paggaling.
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 121
Kung minsan daw ay parang masusuka si Maneng sa kanyang pag-
inom ng dugo.
Ngunit nakangiti pa rin siya na ang mga ngipin ay mapula-mapula
sa dugo.
“Kaunting tiyaga lang, aking anak,” ang sinasabi daw ni Itay at
aabutin ang isang sigarilyong sinindihan ni Tio Ser.
“Ito, humithit ka, anak.” At aabutin iyon ni Maneng na nakangiti
pa rin. Sa kanyang paglagay nito sa bibig ay mamumula ito sa dugo.
Magpapataas ang usok sa paligid ng kanyang ulo habang tahimik siyang
humihithit sa patayan ng mga hayop na iyon, sa liwanag ng ilang mala
laking bombilyang medyo pinalabo ng maraming agiw at alikabok.
Kaya daw natutong manigarilyo ang aming kapatid nang bata pa
lang siya. Labingdalawang taon lamang.
Matagal din siya humithit, para daw mawala ang lasa ng lansa ng
sariwang dugo. Ay, ang kawawang Maneng. Bakit kaya siya dinapuan
ng ganoong sakit?
Sana ay gumaling siya sa tulong ng dasal naming lahat.
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mahal na puso ni Hesus!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O Santa Maria, Santang Ina ng
Diyos.”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O Santang Birhen ng mga Birhen!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Miguel, pinuno ng mga
arkanghel!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O kayong lahat na mga anghel at
arkanghel!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O orden ng mga banal na espiritu!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Huwan Bautista!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O kayong lahat na mga santo!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga patriyarka at propeta!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Pedro!”
122 fi cti o n
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Pablo!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Huwan!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga apostol at ebanghelista!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Esteban!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Lorenzo!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga martir!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Gregorio!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Ambrosio!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Agustin!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O San Geronimo!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga banal na obispo at kumpisor!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga banal na doktor ng Simbahan!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga banal na pare at lebita!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga banal na monghe at
ermitanyo!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O Santa Magdalena!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O Santa Barbara!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga banal na birhen at mga balo!”
“Sana tulungan mo po siya, O mga santo ng Diyos!”
“Maging maawain Kayo, iligtas mo po siya, O Panginoon!”
“Maging maawain Kayo, pakapakinggan po ninyo kami, O
Panginoon!”
Kay taimtim ng dasal namin mula sa kaibuturan ng aming mga
puso. Subalit hindi nangyari iyon sapagkat noong malapit na ang kapis
tahan sa Binondo, nuong mga araw na masaya ang langit sa Binondo sa
dami ng mga makukulay na banderitas, si Maneng ay tahimik na nag-
sara ng kanyang mga mata upang hindi na muling idilat ang mga iyon.
Noong una akala namin ay natutulog lamang si Maneng. Nagsi-
paligid kami sa kanyang kama at naghihintay na tumawag siya upang
maglaro. Tahimik siya, maging ang kanyang paghinga ay waring nawa-
l ap eña- bo nifac io i Mi nsan sa Bi nond o 123
la ang tunog. At ang kanyang mainit na kamay ay para na lang biglang
nakalupaypay, parang ibong nakahimlay sa ibabaw ng kanyang kumot.
“O tignan n’yo,” ani Mila, na nakahawak pa sa isang kamay ni
Maneng, “parang lumalamig ang kanyang kamay.”
“O nga,” sabi ni Odette, “e, bakit ganon, sa kanyang ulunan may
parang tumataas na usok!”
Tahimik kaming lahat na nagmamasid doon hanggang nagsalita si
Tio Ser. “Nakakawala na ang kanyang espiritu, kasama siguro ng sumu-
sundo sa kanya, si Tiyang Pelang.”
Para sa pamilya, ang mamamatay ay di dapat matakot. Hinding-
hindi maliligaw sa paghahanap ng liwanag dahil siguradong may maghi-
hintay o susundo.
“Sige magsipila kayo,” sabi ni Itay, “Para makahalik sa kanyang
noo.”
Nagsipila kaming lahat, nasa una ang bunsong si Greg at sa huli-
han ay sina Tio Ser, Tia Bet at Tia Nard. At isa-isa kaming humalik sa
mainit-init pa niyang noo. Luhaan ang aming mga mata ngunit ni isa
man sa amin ay walang humagulgol, matahimik na pag-iyak lamang.
Binayaan naming dumaloy ang luha sa pisngi at di man lamang naisip
na pahiran ang mga iyon.
Matapos noon ang sabi ni Leah, bago kami magsimula ng pagda-
rasal ng rosaryo, “Para lamang pagpatak ng ulan, di ba? Naaalala ninyo,
noong tag-ulan?”
CHARLSON ONG
NOTE: Banyaga: A Song of War follows the lives of three Chinese boys who
meet on a boat from Xiamen to Manila during the 1920s. They grow up to
be patriarchs of Chinese-Filipino clans. The novel looks at nearly a hundred
years of Philippine history from the Commonwealth period to the ‘post-Edsa’
years from the point of view of the lannang or Philippine Chinese. These two
early chapters concern the brothers Ah Puy and Ah Kaw who were brought
to Manila by a Chinese woman who bought and sold Chinese children to the
lannang. In the past, Chinese families bought children for prestige or as extra
hands to help out in the family enterprise.
124
o ng i Ba n yaga: A Song of War 125
the fat woman waved down a horse cart and haggled with the driver
over the fare, Ah Kaw pulled at his brother’s shirt and turned to look
at a man wearing a brown suit and round hat like that of a farmer but
shinier. He looked like a soldier and Ah Kaw remembered what Lim
Sian Beng told them about reporting the fat woman to the authorities.
Ah Puy knew what Ah Kaw meant. He also saw that there were many
alleyways through which they could run and hide from the fat woman
who could certainly not outrun them. Ah Puy thought that if he kicked
the fat woman hard on the shin and pushed her to the ground, it would
take a while for her to recover, by which time he and his brother could be
well lost among the huanna. His blood raced and his heart pounded. One
strong kick and they’d be free forever! But the fear of being lost among
strangers in a strange land overcame Ah Puy and he allowed himself and
his brother to be taken to a gray concrete house with window grills on a
street where he could see other lannang.
“I have brought the boys here at much expense and great peril, Lao
Lay and Big Sister So Bee. I hope they serve you well,” Ah Puy heard
the fat woman say to a thin lannang in a blue shirt and a woman who
reminded the boy of his own late mother, and he wanted to cry.
“Come here!” the woman said. The fat woman pushed the two
brothers toward the couple who did not seem too happy with what they
saw. The woman looked Ah Puy over and nodded, she turned to the
smaller boy and frowned. She pried open Ah Kaw’s mouth and inspected
his teeth with her fingers, pulled down his eyelids and stared into the
boy’s eyes. “The bigger one is all right, the small one we’ll send to the
province to help my cousin with his duck embryos.”
“No!” Ah Puy shouted, “We stay together.”
The fat woman slapped the boy hard: “How dare you disrespect
your mistress!”
126 fi cti o n
“I will kill you, you fat bitch!” Ah Puy heard his heart scream but
his tongue was stone. “He belongs to us now!” the man said as he came
over to the boy, “we will teach him how to behave.”
“He belongs to whoever pays me for my trouble.”
“Here,” the man said, handing the fat woman a brown paper which
she received with much joy. “You are quite generous, Lao Lay, a man
of true benevolence. I would not have agreed to this matter if I was not
certain of your kindness as well as that of Big Sister.”
“How dare you call me sister?” the other woman whispered under
her breath but only said: “Our business with you is concluded, Ah Lui,
we do not expect to hear from you again.”
“Come now, Big Sister, why so harsh? Who knows but destiny has
a way of bringing people back together….”
“Go,” the man said and that was the last Ah Puy thought he would
see of the fat woman Ah Lui and his gut ached.
The couple brought the boys before the ancestral altar and instruct-
ed them to light joss sticks and kowtow before the portrait of a lannang
wearing pigtails and white cheongsam and a woman in olive chi pao.
“Pay respect to the ancestors,” the woman said. But as the boys knelt
down the man said: “No, not the small one.”
Ah Puy felt he should protest once again but the thought that his
younger brother would be spared the shame of kowtowing before anoth-
er’s ancestral shrine warmed the older boy’s heart. The woman placed
the joss sticks in Ah Puy’s hands and told him to bow. “Our distinguished
father, So Teak Kian, mother Ku Siew Kim, here before you is our un-
worthy son, and your descendant, Sio Hio Tiam. He will fulfill the obli-
gations that our own Hio Ping was unable to fulfill due to his untimely
passing. Accept him into the clan, grant him wisdom, keep him safe from
all dangers that he may not meet with the same fate as our unfortunate
Hio Ping who has gone to serve you in the other world,” the woman
o ng i Ba n yaga: A Song of War 127
prayed in the name of Ah Puy who was aghast that he had been sold to
another clan, another name, far from his own. His innards shook and his
bones cried out for redress even as he saw Ah Kaw looking confused.
“He is Ong Tian Puy, I am Ong Tian Siong we are from Si-siya!
This is not our clan! You are not our parents, let us go!” the younger
child shouted.
“Silence!” the man said as he moved to drag the boy away. Ah Puy
stood up to protect his brother but the man turned to him with a look
that struck fear in the boy’s heart for the first time. “Kneel! How dare
you stand up? Kneel!”
Ah Puy stood his ground though he felt nothing beneath his knees
save air. He locked eyes with the man, he saw Ah Kaw crying and he
blamed himself for not escaping with his brother when they could. He
would have stabbed himself with his father’s sword had he managed to
bring it along with him or else struck out at the man before him.
“Come, come,” the woman whispered, laying her hand on Ah Puy’s
shoulder, “kneel my son, kneel, your brother will be all right, we will
take care of him.”
“I don’t want him sent away.”
“He wont be sent away,” the woman said as she looked to the man
who let go of the smaller boy.
Ah Puy knelt once more to pay respects to his new ancestors. As
he spoke his new name: So Hio Tiam—Tiam, ‘replacement’ for the one
recently deceased—he felt a lightness suffuse him, he seemed happy
for a blessed moment until shame overcame him with a vengeance. Ah
Puy looked to his brother who was crying and wished that they’d both
jumped into the sea that morning when the adults came at them on the
deck of the ship and swum back to Xiamen. But he remembered again
that he couldn’t swim and vowed to learn how and to teach his brother.
128 fi cti o n
So Pin Lay and So So Bee ran a candle making factory twice the
length of the Ongs’ paddy field in Si-siya during their time of plenty. It
was a house of stone and wood which was once a huanna church. The
couple employed four huanna workers who melted the used wax that
huanna kids brought in pails to the factory every morning to sell to So
Lay. So Lay taught Ah Puy—whom the couple now called Ah Tiam—
how to weigh and measure old wax. He showed his new son how to
haggle with the huanna kids.
“This is a country flooded with candle wax—churches, temples,
mausoleums, processions—used candle everywhere. We don’t pay more
than five centavos a kilo,” So Lay told the boy he called Ah Tiam. The
boy kept silent but decided that once So Lay left the buying of old wax to
him, he, Ah Puy would pay more for them and would urge the kids to
bring their merchandise to the half-breed Anselmo Yaptingco who paid
eight centavos a kilo. The thought brought a smile to the boy’s face. He
watched the workers take the used wax to a vat of burning liquid. As
they threw the balls of cold wax into the vat, melted wax flowed down
a gutter into a closed tank. Once a week, the white man Morrison and
his huanna assistant came with drums of beeswax, which Ah Puy knew
of back in Si-siya, and paraffin, which he had never seen before. The
workers poured the stuff into the closed tank and mixed them with the
melted wax. The new wax was then brought to the large candle-making
machine that was unlike anything Ah Puy had seen back home. This was
a land of steel and machines, he decided, just like “Old Gold Mountain.”
The wax was poured down metal tubes suspended across another set
of tubes. When So Lay pulled a lever the tubes dipped and moved and
churned along with the spool of wick at the bottom of the contraption.
After some minutes, the tubes rose again and coughed up hundreds of
candles—thin fat, thin, short, long—white, for the newly dead; yellow,
for those at the end of their mourning period; red, for the long dead
o ng i Ba n yaga: A Song of War 129
or seemingly deathless. Three hundred sticks at a time, So Lay proudly
declared to the boy he called Ah Tiam. It was the most advanced candle
making equipment this side of the earth, the man said. He’d bought it
from Americans who sent the machine from a place called Boston where
everything froze during winter and tallow turned itself into candles so
no one had use for such machines. In any case, the Americans had electric
bulbs for all occasions, even for the dead, and no longer needed candles.
The boy remembered the one winter of his boyhood when the river be-
came hard as rock and the neighbor’s infant daughter froze along with
the fish and the earth and he suddenly feared for his life.
“Progress,” the man said, “machines, electricity, running water, au-
tomobiles! If I’d stayed in the old country I’d still be carrying night soil
for the landlord’s women! And these fools, these old heads, always pin-
ing for the old country, they make me sick. There is only death in the old
country. Endless dying! See how fortunate you are, Ah Tiam, to have a
new life!”
“Yes,” the boy said in his heart, though he remained quite, as always,
in front of the man, “how fortunate to have a new life, a new name.”
“We used to roll candles by hand, boy, three sticks an hour, sweating like
pigs, your mother and I and the huanna help. You don’t get that kind
of help anymore these days, son. The huanna today, spoilt rotten by the
Americans. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, to be a taxman, a mayor, sit
on his ass!”
The boy remembered the pigs his other father used to raise, the ones
they took to the provincial capitol to sell and pay for their grandmother’s
funeral and he became said once more. He began to understand then how
happiness was like this slippery fish that swam up and down the river of
memory, sometimes back across the channels of a past life, sometimes in
present waters, always in sight but never to be caught, never slain.
130 fi cti o n
Despite the machine, So Lay still worked the candles. He did all
the carving, scripting, gold dusting and embossing—Christian saints for
the candles sold to the huanna, dragons and Chinese characters for the
candles bought by the lannang for the living and the dead. “Can you read
and write?” he asked the boy. “Some.” “You will go to school and learn to
write our language as well as that of the huanna. Some things you must
do by yourself.”
When the boy now called Ah Tiam saw his once-brother, Ah Kaw,
hunched over the hardwood table rolling lengths of wax, along with the
huanna children who sold them—one centavo a candle—to poor church-
goers, he tasted blood in his mouth. “What is my brother doing there?”
he asked the man. “He must learn a trade. He must learn to work for his
keep. Machines serve only those who own them,” the man replied. “And
he is no longer your brother.”
“Come here,” the man called out to Ah Kaw. “This is your young
master, So Hio Tiam, you will address him properly from now on,
understand?”
The boy nodded, not looking at the one he once called Big Brother
Ah Puy. “Say it,” the man demanded. “Young master, Hio Tiam,” the
smaller boy mumbled, “How may I serve you?”
The bigger boy heard in his mind’s ear the one voice of his many
ancients: “What are you, Ong Tian Puy? Why have you sold your name
and your brother to slavery that you may feast at another’s table?”
“It wasn’t me!” the bigger boy wanted to shout, “I did not ask for
any of this. I am only a boy! I have no strength to take on the world. I
only want my brother and I to live!” But he merely looked at the ground
beneath his brother’s feet and imagined himself eating the dust. Mean-
while, the man So Pin Lay felt something akin to contentment descend
upon him. He looked at all that stood before him and discerned a bright
o ng i Ba n yaga: A Song of War 131
future ahead. After all the pain and loss, things were finally falling into
place; the world had at last decided to do right by him. He puffed on
his foreign cigarette and tried desperately not to smile and squander his
good cheer. “Progress,” he whispered, “progress.”
140
v i llanueva i Foggy Mak es Me Sad 141
“Joaquin Gonzales, Lola,” Louise said. “And this is his house,” she
added, patting her father on the arm. Her besotted father craned his
neck toward her for a kiss.
“And which of my daughters do you want to marry?”
“Neither,” said Jack, not missing a beat.
Mama had liked Jack from the start even if he is older than me ten
years. I met him on a plane when I was management trainee at prc-Uni-
lever. On the LA-Manila via Honolulu. I had settled into my aisle seat,
already reading Mabuhay, when he came on, last to board. I straightened
up and tucked my toes under the seat to make room for him. When we
were dating a while, we teased each other about this first meeting. “You
did light up when you saw me. You liked me at first sight,” he said.
“That smile was sarcastic. It was saying ‘Who do you think you are,
holding up the flight?’”
“Somewhere over the Pacific it occurred to me I might marry you,”
was how he began when he proposed, and I burst out laughing. Then
I said, “Me, too. In fact, I read your card in the toilet to check if you
were really VP at Citibank.” Mama used to say I shouldn’t joke with
him too much I might turn him off. But Jack is constant. Faithful like
my father.
Tomorrow we ride a plane to Baguio to attend the 80th birthday
party of Pacita Martinez, who is like family to us. Her son Fonsy is plan-
ning the formal event, and he said it is going to be “really big, lots of old
familiar faces.” Perhaps excitement over this is what causes my mother’s
fit in the garden. She is now whacking the santans with a fly swatter and
the florets fly out of their clusters, like sparks. “These are ugly.”
“Maaaa, it’s too hot out there. Come on in and have iced tea while
we wait for Coylee.”
Louise comes to the lanai with a bundle of clothes and a large pair
of scissors. She is cutting sleeves off her shirts, legs off her pants. She is
142 fi cti o n
eight. She leaves in the next weekend to summer with her cousins in Ta-
cloban (my husband’s people) by the sea, and is putting together a beach
wardrobe. I tell her to get her grandmother out of the sun first “and don’t
just yell at her, I already did that.”
“I don’t yell at her, Mom.”
Which is true. Louise is a dear. She is now leading Mama back in,
holding her hand. They walk as if they are brides with long trains behind
them: that old Salazar elegance that somehow rubbed off on everyone
but me. But I got sense of humor—joie de vivre—from the Romeros,
which is a good bargain.
Mama downs a glass of iced tea and sits. Louise whispers to me,
“She called me Tini. She thinks I’m you.”
My sister Coylee arrives, looking fresh in a sleeveless blouse and
loose trousers. All-linen. All-white. All poise. She visits my mother on
Saturdays, and if Ma is up to it, they go out for a manicure or sit at Star-
bucks where, I tease Coylee, she lets Mama talk to her chocolate drink
while she reads.
“I made you pasta and bread with balsamic dip,” she says to my
mother and kisses her on both cheeks.
“Why?” says my mother.
“Why?” Coylee repeats, annoyed. She and my mother have always
had a close but testy relationship, though Coylee is clearly Mama’s favor-
ite. They seem to understand each other best, yet leave them alone for a
while and they are at each other’s throats.
Louise squeaks when Coylee hugs her too tightly. Coylee had prayed
for a daughter until her house was crawling with boys. Five of them.
“Don’t suffocate her,” my mother says.
“Bad mood,” I say, when Coylee raises her eyebrows at me. “You
should have seen her earlier—throwing a fit in the garden. Too excited
about Baguio, I think.”
v i llanueva i Foggy Mak es Me Sad 143
“Oh my Lord, Baguio,” Coylee says with a sigh. “Are you going
to Ba-guio with them, Loo-weez?” she talks to Louise as if Louise was
two.
“Neow,” Louise apes her. She has made a hair band from scraps of
fabric and is now tying it around her grandmother’s head. “We were just
there New Year. I’m taa-yerd of going to Baguio all the time.”
“I don’t blame you. Your mom’s a fool for Baguio,” says Coylee.
“Baguio is heavy traffic and smog and horses that smell, no?”
“You didn’t see the grandeur of the old days, Louise, when Baguio
air was so clean, it was crisp in your nose,” I say. “Tell her about the old
days, Coylee. How it was.”
“Oh, it was baaad, Louise,” she says, laughing. “The baddest, bor-
ingest, saddest…foggiest—” Louise makes a face as Coylee speaks, pre-
tending Coylee is making her cry.
“Foggy makes me sad,” Mama says to nobody in particular.
COYLEE IS NOT going to the party. She said the Bantay Bata, for
which she volunteers a huge lot of time and money, is staging a big fund-
raiser on the night of Tita Pacita’s birthday, though I doubt that is true.
I had expected her to decline the invitation anyway because for some
reason, she had not gone back to Baguio all these years and I didn’t think
this party could make her.
“Because she’s a rotten killjoy,” I tell Louise when she asks why
Coylee is not coming.
“Oh-my-lord, the things you say!”
She’s that kind of woman: caught in her own time warp and says O
my lord and okidokey like it’s 1964. I tell her, “What are you, then?”
v i llanueva i Foggy Mak es Me Sad 149
“I have important things to do. I’m not a party animal like some
people,” she says, a bit too sharply, I notice, but I let that pass because I
have known from childhood that getting into a fight with Coylee is like
slapping myself in the face, twice. She’s like a Sicilian Mafioso that way—
won’t let you get away with anything. She’s difficult. In the years after
we moved back to Manila in ‘76 she was unbearable. When my parents
refused to give her driving lessons at 15, she holed up in her room until,
after midnight, when all in the house was asleep, she drove Papa’s Cama-
ro onto Mama’s garden and into the concrete fence. I expected my father
to explode then, but he was calm. The next I knew, Coylee was seeing
Dr. Carandang “to help her,” said my mother, “deal with adolescence.”
Coylee is now past 40 and marriage and motherhood have softened her
at the edges, but still. “ I’m not an idle matron of leisure like your mom,
sweetie,” she tells Louise.
“Idol matron of what?” Louise asks.
Mama speaks before anyone could correct Louise. “Tini does noth-
ing but walk with her Papa.” Mama is lost in time again, back to our ear-
liest days in Baguio when our furniture hadn’t arrived from Manila and
all we had were the beds and the dining set we bought from Americans
at John Hay. Papa came home to a pall of quiet and he tried to stir the air
with cheer. “I’m ho-ome,” he would holler, and hearing it from wherever
I was in the compound, I came running home like Super Animation, a
dopey smile plastered on my face. But then my mother and sister would
hole themselves up in the bedroom just as he arrived, leaving the two of us
alone and bewildered in the empty sala. When it rained, he lit the fireplace
and pored over blueprints quietly. I did all sorts of tricks—dance, sing,
recite poems, burn myself accidentally in the fireplace—to get his atten-
tion. But clear days were good, because then we went out for long walks.
We hiked up Lower Session, past the Pines Hotel, then we sat on a bench
in Burnham, watched the boats until it got dark.
150 fi cti o n
Just once, I got him to ride a boat with me. The sky was overcast—
that must have been November—and the air smelled of rain and boiled
peanuts in the empty park. I was sitting across from him as he rowed,
and the gathering mist blurred the park behind him until all there was,
it seemed to me, was his face and the stark red of his parka. I imagined
we were alone at sea. The owl and the pussycat. In a beautiful pea-green
boat. They took some honey and pl-lenty of money. But there was some-
thing about the way he rowed, the way his eyes clung to the water below
that made me ask, “Are we sad, Papa?” He jerked his head as if I woke
him up from sleep, and our boat rocked a little. Just then a big cloud full
of cold rain went down on Burnham, on the lake, on us. “Oh no, race to
the shorehaha!” “Hahahahurry, Papahaha!” The rain wet the tip of my
nape above my jacket collar and crawled down my back like a worm.
“Your mom was a daddy’s girl,” Coylee says.
“Nye, nye, daddy’s girl,” my daughter says, teasing me the way I
always tease her, and I stand up and curtsy.
“We always asked you to come, Coyl, you and Ma, but you always
said no,” I say.
“Did you ever meet with anyone? On any of your walks?” Coylee
asked.
“No. We just walked by ourselves. Sat at the park. Why?”
“Tini didn’t see,” Mama tells me.
“What? Didn’t see what?”
“That we were unhappy. Misery,” Coylee says it like it was some-
one’s name.
“What do you mean, I didn’t see? How could I miss it? Just a little
more and Misery would come alive and be a third sister,” I say, making
Louise laugh. When Louise laughs I am reminded of the sound of spoons
tapping the sides of crystal goblets at weddings.
v i llanueva i Foggy Mak es Me Sad 151
Coylee walks over to where my mother is sitting and massages her
shoulders. “It will be good for you to go to Tita Pacita’s party, Ma. She was
awfully nice to you, remember? How she taught you how to cook all those
yummy español things? And remember, she and her amigas took you to
John Hay, play bingo Saturday nights?
“Churros con rhubarb jam,” Mama says.
“That’s right, Ma! You and Tita Pacita invented that. Oh my, I had
forgotten how that tastes,” Coylee says, and I remind her it was bad.
“What’s rhubarb, Tita Coylee?”
IT’S TRUE WHAT Coylee says about Tita Pacita having been good
to—and for—my mother. She got Mama out of her depression by get-
ting her to garden and by bringing her upstairs to her kitchen for paella
lessons and girl-gossip.
But Coylee! She was hopeless. The only time she perked up was
on our last months in Baguio, when she fell in puppy love with Tito
Miling.
One afternoon, this man about my father’s age parked his car on the
road above our terrace and whistled at us girls playing drop-the-hand-
kerchief. The whole outfit intrigued me—black beret, a silky shirt that
hugged his body somewhat and leather jacket that hung on his shoulders
like a cape. The Martinezes all screamed. Tito Miling! He looked to me
important, maybe famous, so I rushed into the house to get my parents
and ran back out to ogle some more. He was taking out golf clubs and
suitcases from the trunk of the car, and I urged Dad to help him out,
but he said, “Who is that?” Then Tito Otto came and they slapped each
other’s backs over and over. We all stood there thrilled as they gingerly
walked down the steps with the load. Nancy had moved away by then,
and Tito Miling—he was Otto Martinez’s younger brother—took over
152 fi cti o n
the basement. He kissed our hands, Mama and Coylee and me. Buenas
señoritas.
He was new in the city, but he claimed to be a professional tourist—
“Been on adventures around the world,” he said. Around the world?
Arrround? When he spoke he always sounded like a barker at a circus,
and behaved as if Baguio were just that. He took us everywhere that
summer—our last in Baguio. We went to Trinidad Valley to pick straw-
berries; to Sto. Tomas peak, where we screamed in terror of the deep
ravines inches from the tires of our rented jeep. He got us passes to the
still-restricted Camp John Hay where we bought peach pie and apple pie
at the bakery some mornings. We hiked all the way to Mines View and
back, walking in the woods where we could, gathering pinecones. We
trailed Tito Miling like a pack of scouts. He whistled at those of us who
putted well at mini-golf, but hounded the bad shots. What golf score are
you aiming for—200? Coylee was always close by him, sometimes hang-
ing on to the hem of his jacket. We ate french fries and ice cream at the
Pines Hotel, pancit and Coke at the Star Café, played ten-pin bowling at
Mile-hi. “Let’s have tea at Nineteenth Tee!” we shouted at his instigation.
When it got muggy out, we stayed indoors. At home he wore a dark silk
robe over pajamas and smoked a pipe like in the movies.
Once, in a brownout, we played Scrabble with him and Mama,
with just the raging fire in the fireplace for light. He connected the word
“scarab” to my baby and I cried foul. “No Spanish words!” No,no,no
hija. That got him to talk about his trip to Egypt, about the pyramids, the
pharaohs and sacred beetles and sphinxes and curses and magic. It was as
if Tutankhamen himself was right there before us. Even Mama was mes-
merized. I watched the flames dance in the black of her eyes as she stared
up at Tito Miling with her mouth slightly parted. His voice was like ex-
otic music in the hush, broken now and again by the spit and crackle of
pine—and the hard breathing of Roxanne who was asthmatic.
v i llanueva i Foggy Mak es Me Sad 153
Tita Pacita and my Ma were taking turns feeding Tito Miling by that
time. “Women should cook, for how else will they earn their pleasures
from the men?” he said. Tito Otto and Papa and Tita Pacita laughed out
loud while Mama covered her face. We didn’t understand half the things
he said then, but it was our sense that he was smart. Man of the world.
He was gracious to us when he came to dinner. He always brought
token gifts “for the cook and her cookies”: a quart of whipped cream
from John Hay, a pack of sunflower seeds, all sorts of little things, even a
bottle of Prell shampoo. Once, he gave my mother a silver pendant in the
shape of a conch shell that he said he found on the roadside. Some eve-
nings, he and Tito Otto would call out to my dad from upstairs—Oye,
Tony Romero! they’d yell—and they would drink Black Label. In the
early mornings, Tito Miling walked in the terrace, whistling in the fog.
Baguio was more beautiful then, and colder, surely, with more pine
and bigger, brighter flowers. Blue hydrangeas were our favorite: tiny
flowerets sprinkled with blue powder, conjoined in clusters big as plates.
My mother grew them in the sloping terraces that were our garden. “Oh,
I can only look and admire, hija. If I stepped on those terraces, the world
will crumble under my hips,” said Tita Pacita, guffawing like mad. I like
her so. I never fail to pay her a visit whenever I am up in the city. On my
wedding she was principal sponsor, and I reserved four banquet tables
for the Martinezes at the reception, some of whom flew in from abroad
to attend. Tito Otto had died of a heart attack just a few months before
the big earthquake.
“AMAZING, HUH,” Coylee says. Mama’s grief had lifted like a veil
after she’d soothed her and was cheerful when she ate her pasta at lunch.
As if nothing happened. Coylee herself took her to the bedroom for her
afternoon nap, and she rejoins me at the dining table after our plates have
been taken away untouched. Her eyes have shed their sharpness; her skin
is no longer flushed.
“You just have to ride with her delusions. Sympathy does it,” she
says. “Be in her ‘present,’ whatever it is she’s imagining.”
“No, Coyl. No way you can take that back now. No,” I say, and I
don’t like the sound of my voice.
“Well, I guess,” she says after a while. “But don’t be sorry for her.
She got back at him. They’re square. Remember that clown, Miling?”
I nod.
“I saw them kissing—he and Ma—down the back where we hang
the laundry. I looked and I looked again. They were kissing. Didn’t even
notice me. I felt my knees literally buckle, I tell you, as I ran back up the
steps.”
160 fi cti o n
“God, the things you saw,” I say, and I’m really sounding funny
now. Something with my voice.
“The horror of it was, I was in love with that son of a bitch,” she
says.
“I know.”
What am I sounding like?
“And so when no one was looking, I got Mama’s trowel and hacked
at her flowers. Hydrangeas, dahlias, lilies, pitimini—I killed them all.”
I saw that ravaged garden. Roxanne and I figured it was a pack of
dogs did it. “Did you tell her you saw?” I sound like a pussycat. The Owl
and the Pussycat.
“Nah,” she says. “I told Pa.”
Coylee and I are quiet for a long, long time—we do things like sigh,
shake our heads, bite our lips—chuckle, even—but there are no words
between us even when Jack comes in from his golf game. He attempts
small talk, but he gets nothing. He excuses himself and looks for Louise.
I twiddle my fingers as I watch him: his graying hair, his tanned skin, his
bright red shirt. Red like a parka. On a boat. In the rain.
i R AY M O N D D E B O R J A
Conversion
161
162 p o etry
250 feet, 76.2 meters, 4 seconds.
In his next life he becomes a bird.
Epiphany
part immunity.
Next time, it will be more difficult to cry.
Incompleteness (Gödel)
where words can rest beside the broken china, a chicken running
headless,
a neon lamp flickering its last.
b orja i 167
A memory is kept as fragments, dry patches of land
you wish he’d been washed to.
It’s easy, really, all options weighed, the past articulated into a
statement,
choose B. this statement is false
But someone raises his hand and it’s the end of it.
Leaves
Job
170
co i 171
and for suffering, and both have ends,
and beginnings: In the beginning was the word,
Formula
Story
And to think that: stories
are the startled children of forgetting
and what is it with the color of rain?
Picture of a dwarf, leaves, the light-heavy
apparitions that hold their warm fingers to our throats
and say, “Open, open. The borders of morning
fade with waking.” This waking, this hungering, open,
friend, hold me, I only want a moment to touch
me the way wet asphalt touches the soles
174 p o etry
of a rag-clad man’s feet, his string of many cans dragging
across a dead-end street, open, tell me a story:
once there was a leaf and a dwarf sat on it
and the sun shone on its face as it would on an apple. Once
a thief stole the morning and buried it in a grave marked
with no name, only dates, and now there are ghosts
that walk under the eaves of a building inside which
a man in a charcoal-gray suit signs your birth certificate
with a pen dipped in rainwater, Open, he says,
Open, this is the first day of your forgetfulness. Child,
one day you will tell a story. Inside the grave
where the thief buried the morning, you will find
a tongue. It is yours. Let no man take it from you
again. And to think that once you had no name.
And to think of stories.
Family Life
My wife is leaving.
No, that isn’t true—what woman would want to leave
Later she will wash her hands and read today’s mail. Bills,
and a letter from her mother. She never answers,
only calls her once a week to tell her how the kids are.
Beatific Visions
1.
One morning along EDSA
I saw God climb a hundred-foot billboard
and preach his sermon atop Mt. Sharon Cuneta.
176 p o etry
The bus driver put on the brakes
and made the sign of the cross.
The multitudes strained to listen
but he was just too high up
for them to hear. I was thinking, Oh, God,
come down, get this over with.
2.
That night I walked you home,
God was a bum sitting on a sidewalk,
asking for a cigarette.
We walked over and I gave him one
and lit it for him.
After he took his first drag,
he said, Thank you,
and asked you to smile.
When you did, I swear,
right there, I worshipped him.
3.
At two in the morning
I ordered a burger from God,
and he asked me what I’d like with it.
I said, How about a beer,
and when he said he’d spot me one,
I thought he was joking.
I wanted to believe in him.
Two minutes later it was heaven:
there I was, in a stainless steel
co i 177
Burger Machine under the LRT,
sharing a bottle of beer with God.
A House
Iluminado
Nagsasalikop sa rurok
nitong pook na walang kirot
na iluluhog sa pedestal na
ang kinang ay di bumubulag.
179
180 p o etry
Pamamaybay
Glaukoma
na maglahong tuluyan
ang mga tinginan.
Marahil sa dilim,
mukha mo’y wala nang kulimlim.
Pagdating Sa Dulo
Laging bugtong
ang mga salita ko ngayon.
Dito ay pilit
itinatago’t kinakanlong
ang paglaki ng bilbil,
pag-urong ng libog
at singasing ng kahapon.
Sa mga palaisipan ikinukumpisal
ang mga kasalanang takasan man
ay muli at muling kinalulugdan.
Nakapapagod
ang buhay ng tumandang
walang pinagkatandaan.
Sa Estasyon
o susunod sa paglalakbay.
Marahil ganito ang pagkakataon:
Maglalaan ng pahirap
bago matuklasan ng lahat
ng kabuluhan o kabulukan,
ng katiyakan o alinlangan.
“H”
Wala sa hinagap
na ang iyong hagahas,
hagarang hinga,
at mga hagawhaw
m ontes eña i 185
ay mga hagkis
na hinahagkan
ang aking pandinig.
Hagdan-hagdang hagibas
na humahagibis sa akin.
Bawat hagip sa puso’y sakit;
bawat hagok mo’y hagod
at ako’y walang magawa.
Di na mahagilap
ang iyong hagikhik;
ang nahahaguhap
ay iyong hagulhol.
Lumisan na
ang iyong hagutok
Hagurin ka man,
harangan ang himutok,
wala nang paglalagyan
ang iyong halakhak.
Pamamahay
i JOEL TOLEDO
Attachments
Save as Draft
Softness
those sharp membranes that held light. They will come alive
any moment, or soon enough. The seasons that continue to split
their bodies will let the new selves out. There is no other way:
t oledo i 191
one by one, we are called home. Now my father sits, watching trees.
He is nodding vaguely, slow now to my presence, saying something
that makes no sense. Tell me again, son, he says. Tell me again.
Surfacing
192
na dera i A n g AGA 193
Instrumental ito sa pagpapakilala at pag- gram na itinanghal na pinakamahusay na
papalaganap ng Modernismo sa lite raturang kuwento noong 1931 (ayon kay Clodualdo del
Tagalog—bukod sa kanyang mga mak- Mundo Sr.) at ang kanyang antolohiyang Mga
abagong tula na mababasa sa kanyang kali- Kuwentong Ginto (1936), Ang Maikling
punang Ako ang Daigdig at Iba Pang Tula Kathang Tagalog (1954), at Maikling Katha
(1955), Piniling mga Tula ni AGA (1965), at ng 20 Pangunahing Awtor (1957) katulong
dalawang edisyon ng Tanagabadilla (1964 sina del Mundo Sr., Federico Sebastian,
at 1965). A.D.G. Mariano, at Ponciano B.P. Pineda.
Bukod sa tula, nakapaglathala rin siya ng Sinubukan din niyang magsulat ng dula
dalawang nobelang Sing-ganda ng Buhay at ang kanilang dulang may isang-yugto na
(1947) at kasama si Elpidio P. Kapulong, Daloy ng Buhay ni Kapulong ay nagwagi ng
Pagkamulat ni Magdalena (1958), na gantimpalang Palanca noong 1957.
naging kontrobersiyal dahil sa detalyadong Nakalulungkot na ang kalidad ng
paglalarawan ng pakikipagtalik at sa paghula panulat ni Abadilla ay hindi gaanong
sa pananakop ng komunismo sa Pilipinas. napagpupugayan.
Isa siya sa mga nagbigay-halaga sa mai- Ang pagsusuri sa mga akda niya ay
kling kuwento sa pamamagitan ng kanyang matagal nang kailangang gawin sa dahilang
pagsusulat at pangongolekta ng mga maikling ngayon, higit kailan pa man, ang kanyang
kuwento para ilibro. pilosopiya ng sarili ay napapanahon.
Patunay rito ang kanyang Telephone- Sa kasalukuyang pinaghaharian ng
Dahil bingi si AGA, kailangan pang ilapit nito ang tainga sa bibig ni Brigido Batungbakal
Nakaupo si AGA (ikalawa mula sa kanan) at ang mga kasapi ng Kapisanang Panitikan
na dera i A n g AGA 199
Memorial Awards for Literature, at naging dahil sa kanser sa dibdib at natuto siyang
“Pangunahing Makata ng 1957” para sa kan- lumuha.
yang Ako Ang Daigdig At Iba Pang Tula ng Doon siya naglabas-pasok sa ospital si
Surian ng Wikang Pambansa noong 2 Abril. AGA dahil sa alta-presyon.
Inilathala ang kanyang ikalawang no- Noong 12 Hunyo 1966, ginawaran si AGA
belang Pagkamulat ni Magdalena kasama ng Cultural Heritage Award.
si Kapulong noong sumunod na taon. Pagkaraan ng isang taon, ipinasok muli
Saksi ang bagong dekadang ito sa si AGA sa Veterans Memorial Hospital at
kanyang pakikipagniig sa mga batang pagkalabas niya ay sinulat niya ang tulang
makata nang magturo ng panitikan si AGA sa Awit 32067 noong Marso.
University of the East at nakilala niya ang mga Natapos ang “Isang Pagsusuri at Pagbibi-
kabataang manunulat sa The Dawn tulad gay-Halaga sa ‘Ako Ang Daigdig at iba pang
nina Virgilio S. Almario, Lamberto E. Antonio, Tula’ mula sa Piniling Tula ni Alejandro G.
at Rogelio G. Mangahas. Abadilla” ni Macario C. Agawin noong 1968.
Taong 1964, inilathala ang unang edisyon Taong 1969, nagdiwang ng kanyang
ng Tanagabadilla. kaarawan kasama sina Almario, Antonio,
Noon din niya kinupkop si Bayani de at Mangahas na kanyang ikinapuyat kaya
Leon, dating editor ng The Varsitarian, dahil ipinasok muli sa ospital noong Abril.
naglayas matapos hindi papagtapusin sa UST Napag-alamang may kanser si AGA.
noong 1963 kung kailan din naging kaibigan Bandang 9:30 n.u. ng 26 Agosto, nama-
ng mga makatang rebelde ng Ateneo de Ma- tay si AGA sa piling ng anak na si Ningning.
nila University, Manuel L. Quezon University, at Lumabas ang balita hinggil sa kanyang
Unibersidad ng Pilipinas. kamatayan sa Taliba.
Inilathala niya noon ang magasing Tatlong tesis pa ang nagawa ukol sa
Panitikan. kanyang paghihimagsik: Ang Pilosopiyang
Sa kabilang banda, noon din ipinasok si Ako sa mga Tula ni Alejandro G. Abadilla ni
AGA sa ospital dahil sa ulcer at tuberculosis Sis. Donatilla Cruz (1972), Ang Modernismo
noong 26 Oktubre. sa Panulaang Tagalog (1900-1974) (1974)
Ano at ano man, nakuha pa niyang ni Virgilio S. Almario, at Ang Paghihimagsik
mailimbag ang kanyang Piniling Mga Tula ni ni Alejandro G. Abadilla Sa Tradisyon ng
AGA, ang ikalawang edisyon ng Tanagaba- Panulaang Tagalog (1977) ni Valerio L.
dilla; at ang Mga Piling Sanaysay. Nofuente.
Mabuti naman at kinilala bilang “Out- Magpahanggang ngayon ni wala sa
standing Author in Filipino” ng United Poets mga ito ang nailimbag para mabasa ng mas
Laureate noong Nobyembre. nakararami, lalo na ng mga kabataan.
Kaya lamang, tila may kapalit ang lahat: Kahit pa ipinagdiwang ang ika-100
namatay ang kanyang asawang si Tinang anibersaryo ng kanyang kapanganakan.
i
RENE O. VILLANUEVA
WHITE LOVE
Samutsaring Tala at Gunita sa Simula ng Kolonisasyon
ng Estados Unidos sa Pilipinas
Sanyugtong Drama-Dokumentaryo
MGA TAUHAN
Dean Worcester Secretary of the Interior
Teodoro Kalaw Patnugot ng El Renacimiento
Mateo Filipinong alalay ni Dean Worcester
Sen. Albert Beveridge
Pres. William Mckinley
Mrs. Worcester Maybahay ni Dean Worcester
Koro Dalawang babae at isang lalaki
Kabataang Filipino Dalawang lalaki at isang babae
200
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 201
Scene 1: Loving the Philippines and Filipinos
koro
White Love.
worcester
The Beginning of America’s Love affair with the Philippines.
kalaw
Ako si Teodoro Kalaw, isang peryodista. Naging editor ng pahaya-
gang El Renacimiento. Maikukuwento ko ang kasaysayan ni Dean C.
Worcester, bilang ilustrasyon ng pagmamahal ng Estados Unidos sa
Pilipinas.
Para gawin iyon, hayaan ninyong bigkasin ko ang isinulat kong
editorial na pinamagatang “Aves de Rapiña,” alay sa Amerika, mga opi-
syal at negosyanteng Amerikano sa mga unang dekada ng Amerika sa
Pilipinas.
202 drama
kalaw
Ang editoryal ng El Renacimiento ang nagtulak kay Dean C. Worces-
ter noong 1908 na maghabla para patunayang hindi siya ang tinutukoy
ng artikulong pinamagatang “Aves de Rapiña” o “Birds of Prey.” Isasalin
ko para sa inyo sa Ingles ang editoryal.
(Bubuklatin at babasahin ang diyaryo.)
‘En la extensión del globo, unos han nacido para comer y devorar,
otros para ser comidos y devorados. ‘El águila, simbolizando libertad y
fuerza, es el ave que ha encontrado más adeptos. Y los hombres, colectiva
é individualmente, han querido copiar é imitar al ave más rapaz, para
triunfar en el saqueo de sus semejantes.
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 203
koro
Sa ibabaw ng mundo, ang ilan ay ipinanganak upang kumain at
manila, samantalang ang iba naman ay upang kainin at silain. Ang agila,
na sumasagisag sa kalayaan at lakas ang siyang pinakamaraming taga-
hanga. At ang mga tao, sa lansakan man o sa isahan, ay nagmimithing
pumaris at gumagad dito sa pinakaganid sa lahat ng ibon upang mag-
tagumpay sa pagnanakaw sa kanyang kapwa.
worcester
I’ve been in these islands twice as a member of a zoological expedi-
tion. First in 1887. I was only 21 then. The second trip was in 1890. I first
came to these islands to investigate its birds and animals. Many years
later, while serving as Secretary of the Interior, my enemies vilified me as
“a bird of prey.” They likened me to an eagle, a vulture, and an owl.
But I will make them pay; and it will surely cost them a lot.
Lalabas si mateo.
worcester
Our search took us to places never seen before by any American.
We collected over 300 specimens of Philippine birds, 53 of which were
deemed new to science. One of them, a species of red and orange Philip-
pine parakeet, was named after me. Loricus philipinensis worcesteri. It still
survives in Bohol and Leyte to this day.
kalaw
‘Hay hombres que, además de ser águilas, reunen en sí las caracter-
ísticas del buitre, del buho y del vampiro.
koro
Ngunit may isang nilalang na bukod sa katulad ng agila ay may
mga katangian din ng buwitre, ng kuwago, at ng bampiro.
senator
We are a conquering race! We must obey our blood and occupy
new markets, and, if necessary, new lands. American factories are mak-
ing more than the American people can use. American soil is produc-
ing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us: the
trade of the world must and shall be ours… American law, American
order, American civilization and the American flag will plant themselves
on shores hitherto bloody and benighted but by those agencies of God
henceforth to be made beautiful and bright…
Palakpakan ng koro.
senator
In the Pacific is the field of our earliest operations. There, Spain has
an island empire. In the Pacific, the United States has a powerful squad-
ron. The Philippines is logically our first target!
worcester
Spain could have done more for the resources of these islands, ex-
cept for their lack of interest in capitalization, lack of roads and rail-
roads. Think of the wonderful fertility of its soil, the immense wealth
of its forest products and the presence of valuable and extensive mineral
deposits.
mckinley
In the beginning, after Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay, US policy on
the Philippines was vague. Before the Battle of Manila Bay, I could not
tell where the darned islands were within two thousand miles. My belief
was: While we are conducting a war, and until its conclusion, we must
keep all we get… when the war is over, we must keep what we want.
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 207
worcester
My first hand knowledge of the islands proved profitable. My book,
The Philippine Islands and Its People Present, was widely and enthusiasti-
cally reviewed.
worcester
I was soon acknowledged as an authority on these hitherto unknown
lands and peoples of which we have just been put in control. The Presi-
dent called me to the White House to consult with me on these savages
and barbarians. These big children who must be treated like little ones!
worcester
What is our policy on these islands, Mr. President? What is our
policy for the Visayas group of islands? Do we have a separate policy for
the Christianized areas in Luzon?
mckinley
(Sa manonood)
At first, I did not know what to do with the Philippines. But the
Philippines cannot be left to the Filipinos, because they were unfit for
self-government! One night, I fell on my knees and asked God for guid-
ance. And God told me, “Take them!” There was nothing to do but take
them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Chris-
tianize them as our fellowmen… I told our map maker to put the Philip-
208 drama
pines in the map of the United States and there they are… and will stay
while I am President.
worcester
In 1899, President McKinley appointed me to the Philippine
Commission.
worcester
For more than 20 years after that meeting with President McKinley, I
filled the public role of American expert in these islands. I was recognized
and respected authority on these childlike, indolent, intellectually inferior
and morally retarded savages.
kalaw
‘Subiendo á las montañas de Benguet para clasificar y medir crá-
neos de igorrotes Y estudiarlos y civilizarlos y sorprender al vuelo, con
ojo de ave de rapiña, dónde se encuentran los grandes yacimientos del
oro, la presa oculta entre los montes solitarios, para apropiárselos después
gracias a facilidades legales hechas y deshechas al antojo, pero siempre
en beneficio propio. Autorizando á despecho de leyes y ordenanzas una
matanza illegal de ganado enfermo, para sacar beneficio de la carne in-
fecta y podrida que él mismo estaba obligado á condenar en virtud de su
posición official.
koro
Umaakyat siya sa mga bundok ng Benguet upang diumano ay uriin
at sukatin ang mga bungo ng mga Igorot, pag-aralan at sibilisahin ang
mga Igorot. Ngunit habang ginagawa niya ito ay minamanmanan din ng
matatalas na mga matang tulad ng sa ibong mandaragit kung saan naka-
lagay ang mga deposito ng ginto. Subalit ang tunay na mandaragit ay na-
katago sa ilang na bahagi ng mga bundok at pagkatapos ay kakamkamin
niya ang mga ginto para sa kanyang sarili, salamat sa mga kaluwagan
ng batas na maaaring tuwirin o likuin para sa kanyang kapakanan. Sa
kabila ng mga batas at ordinansa ay pinahihintulutan niya ang labag-sa-
batas na pagkatay ng patay nang baka upang pagkakitaan ang maysakit
at nabubulok na karne na dapat na ipagbawal niya sa bisa ng kanyang
opisyal na kalungkutan.
210 drama
Sa screen: Worcester’s Chart of Racial Hierarchy in the Philippines;
nasa p. 90 of Exemplar of Americanism.
worcester
I believe human beings could be arranged hierarchically, accord-
ing to the evolutionary stages they had reached. And that evolution was
mental; that is moral and emotional, as well as physical…
worcester
These primitive tribes—or, more properly, modern savages—were
residual evidence of a state of savagery through which Europeans and
Americans have long since passed. The inhabitants of these islands
belong to three sharply different races: the Negritos, the Indonesians
and the Malays. The Negritos, a virtually subhuman race, numbering
about 25 thousand out of an estimated population of eight million, are
doomed. They are incapable of any considerable degree of civilization or
advancement…
Christian Filipinos descended from the Malays. They are consid-
ered pillars of Philippine society. They are proud and aggressive. But
despite their education and wealth, they are not capable of self-govern-
ment; and could not be trusted to look after the welfare of their non-
Christian brothers.
But instead of returning our love, Filipino insurgents seem intent on
making war. But traditional American social and political values could
change all that! Because civilization is about civilizing love and the love
of civilization.
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 211
Sa screen: photos of casualties of Filipino-American war.
kalaw
Presentándose en todas las ocasiones con el ceño fruncido del sabio
que consume su vida en los misterios del laboratorio de ciencia, cuando
toda su labor científica se reduce á desecar insectos é importar huevas
de peces como sí los peces de este país fueran menos nutritivos y menos
ricos, de tal modo que valiera la pena de sustituirlos con especies venidas
de otros climas.
koro
Sa lahat ng pagkakataon ay ipinamamalas niya ang pangungunot
ng noo ng isang siyentipiko na nag-uukol ng buhay sa paglutas sa mga
misteryo ng agham sa laboratoryo; sa katunayan, ang tanging gawaing
siyentipiko na kanyang naisagawa ay ang pagbiyak ng mga insekto at
ang pag-aangkat ng itlog ng isda na para bang ang isda sa ating bansa ay
walang kalasa-lasa at sustansiya kaya’t kinakailangang palitan ng mga
nagmumula sa ibang bansa.
worcester
Why these hostilities? What do these Filipinos want?
mckinley
Why are they attacking US forces? By resisting the United States,
these Filipinos are being unreasonable!
worcester
They are big children who must be treated like little ones!
212 drama
mckinley
As with errant children, they need to be disciplined. With firmness,
if need be, but without severity so far as may be possible. Is that under-
stood Sec. Worcester?
worcester
Yes, Mr. President.
The .45 pistol was designed for use against the Muslims in the
South.
“I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill
and burn, the better you will please me.” – Gen. J. Smith, 1901.
“The Americans have yet to learn that something more than brute
force is required to make these ‘barbarians’ against their will become part
of the American people.” — Richard Sheridan.
worcester
I ordered the burning of the Farola district in the mouth of the Pasig
River. Houses were burned; especially those unsanitary native dwellings,
the nipa huts; and infected persons were detained in quarantine camps,
and separated, forcibly if needed, from their relatives. People were not
annowed to consult their quack healers. There was great resistance
among the poor, uneducated, superstitious native whom we wanted to
protect and save from the dreadful disease.
Sa screen: By 1904, typhoons and the rains washed the rivers of the
already expended cholera germs; and people had gained immunity.
worcester
Despite tenacious resistance and an intense vilification campaign
against me, and my policies, American sanitation and medicine tri-
umphed against cholera.
214 drama
mrs. worcester
This morning, being less than three hours from our destination, we
did not have to make a very early start but got up comfortably at five o’clock
and were off at half past six after a most satisfying breakfast of eggs, potato
balls, rice, beef stew, chicken and coffee. (Kay worcester.) You’ve done a
wonderful job civilizing the indios!
kalaw
‘Tales son las características del hombre que es á la vez águila que
sorprende y devora, buitre que se solaza en las carnes muertas y putrefac-
tas, buho que aparenta una omnisciencia petulante y vampiro que chupa
en silencio la sangre de la victima hasta dejarle exangue.
koro
Ito ang mga katangian ng taong ito na isa ring agila, na nanggugu-
lat muna bago manila, isang buwitreng nagpapakabusog sa mga patay
at nabubulok na karne, isang kuwago na nagkukunwaring may walang
hanggang karunungan, isang bampirong tahimik na sinisipsip ang dugo
ng kanyang biktima hanggang sa maubos iyon.
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 215
Babalik si mateo, iaabot ang kopya ng Renacimiento kay worcester.
Mauupo si worcester, katabi ni mrs. worcester. Babasahin nila ang di-
yaryo. Papasok ding kasunod ni mateo ang ilang natives; aayusin nila ang
mesa na magiging breakfast table; may tablecloth at spray of flowers sa gitna.
Papasok si kalaw, magtatalumpati.
Magsasalita nang sabay sina worcester at kalaw.
kalaw
Estas ayes de rapiña son las que triunfan. Su vuelo y su dirección
jamás se ven detenidos.
worcester
It is these birds of prey who triumph. Their flight and aim are never
thwarted!
worcester
Why do they hate us so much?
worcester
I shall put this particularly mischievous newspaper out of business!
kalaw
Nagsampa ng demanda ng libelo si Worcester laban sa El Re-
nacimiento dahil sa editorial na Aves de Rapiña o Birds of Prey. Nanalo
si Worcester. Ginawaran siya ng Court of First Instance ng Maynila ng
60 libong piso. Sinintensiyahan ng anim na buwang pagkabilanggo ang
216 drama
publisher at editor-in-chief, saka inutusang magbayad ng danyos na
dalawa at tatlong libong piso. Napilitang ibenta ang pahayagan para
mabayaran si Worcester. Nagsara ang pahayagan.
mrs. worcester
Can we make plans for Michigan now?
worcester
But I’m not done here yet, Nona. You know this kind of work
never really gets done.
mrs. worcester
But nothing ever gets really done in this place, dear. Especially, if
you’re the one doing the job. You’re such a hard-headed perfectionist!
worcester
But it’s not just a job.
mrs. worcester
Yes, yes, I know. I just thought after your government service, it
would be lovely if we can watch the sunrise in Michigan together! You’re
a private citizen now, Mr. Worcester!
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 217
worcester
Surely, you don’t want me to just waste everything I learned about
these islands. There are many business opportunities for us in this place.
I did not labor so hard only to retire and watch the sunrise!
mrs. worcester
Oh no! I understand, dear. I suppose I have to settle for sunsets at
the Bay. Don’t worry about me; I’m going to write Mom a letter. …
(Magsusulat) This morning…
mrs. worcester
Dear Mom, there is no danger of starving on this islands… It seemed
like perfect luxury. We had delicious soup for luncheon, stewed chicken
and dumplings, roast beef, potatoes, peas, and two kinds of pies. In the
afternoon, we had hot doughnuts, and tea… for dinner a chocolate layer
cake, besides all the rest of the good things.
Papasok si kalaw.
kalaw
Unos participan del botín y del saqueo. Otros son tan débiles para
levanter la voz de protesta. Y otros mueren en la desconsoladora destruc-
ción de sus propias energies é intereses. Y entonces surge, terrorífica, la
leyenda inmortal: MANE, TECEL, PHARES.
218 drama
koro
May ilang nakikinabang sa mga nadambong, ngunit ang iba ay
walang sapat na lakas na isatinig ang kanilang pagtutol, samantalang
ang iba naman ay namamatay sa pagkalupig ng kanilang lakas at interes.
Gayunman, sa dakong huli ay lilitaw rin, na may nakatatakot na kati-
yakan, ang walang kamatayang babala: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.
mrs. worcester
On the evening of May 1, 1924, his kind and loving heart begun to
trouble him. Death came the following afternoon. The doctors claimed
Dean C. Worcester died of chronic endocarditic and phlebitis.
kalaw
Dean C. Worcester also died wealthy and unapologetic. (Lalabas.)
mateo
In 1924, my friend, our White Apo, who was almost a father to me
passed away. Shortly before he died, he gave me this anting-anting. (Ipa-
pakita ang anting-anting mula sa bulsa.) I said no, but he insisted. I wanted
to refuse the anting-anting because he had already given me a talisman
a long time ago, when he accepted me as a friend, loved me as his own
son, and taught me everything I knew. He even taught me the poem he
loves so much…
v i llanueva i Wh i te Love 219
“The White Man’s Burden”
Dean C. Worcester
(1866-1924)
220 drama
Member, First and Second Philippine Commission;
Former Secretary of the Interior
wa kas
i
GÉMINO H. ABAD
Fernando M. Maramág,
Poet and Critic
The Man
While Salazar by 1909 was turning out verses during his hard and lonely
wanderings; while another wanderer, Concepcion, had by 1915 found
in “free verse” a possibility for self-expression23; Maramág was by 1910
already proficient in the English poetic idiom of the time. He embod-
ies in his poetic production the form and substance of Filipino verse in
English from 1905 well into the ‘30s. “Lost Friendship”24 in 1910 was, as
its sub-title says, “An Exercise in Eighteenth Century Meter.” This was
the same exacting if to lesser poets intimidating path through the English
body poetic that Angela C. Manalang-Gloria, Virgilio F. Floresca, and
other second-generation poets honed their poetic skill by. Freedom in
poetry, no less than in politics, was better achieved through such labor
and discipline, one reason being that the agon or contest with words,
with their meaningfulness through their historical usage, compels the
poet to criticize their gaps by the terms or vernacula25 of the poet’s own
self-identity in his own historical and cultural scene. Of course, the Eng-
lish or American poetic tradition is essentially bourgeois, a poetry of the
educated classes. But education, except perhaps in the totalitarian state,
is a two-edged sword: as propaganda, it serves the interest of the ruling
ideology and in-forms its clientele into its subjects; as criticism, it can ex-
amine that ideology, and even subvert its most hidden assumptions (its
very way of seeing and doing things), and so transform it across varying
discourses.
“Sonnet,”26 composed when Maramág was 18, is purely Wordswor-
thian in metrical form and in Romantic solitude and Nature-worship.
The great and obvious difference between these two poems lies in
“the manner of writing” and its “magnificences”: the poetic idiom and
the spirit and burden of its subject. In either poem, form and content are
one: by form, I mean the verbal composite we call “poem” as fashioned
by a particular usage of language; by content, I mean the subject-matter
228 essay s
which governed the creative process of fashioning. Form is the matter of
art, content the matter of interpretation.
In interpretation, I assume that in the lyric poem someone is speak-
ing, and speech is action. Someone’s action is as it were the “lyric plot”,
and such action (what one thinks, feels, and does), as fashioned by the
poem’s language, is the poem’s form or soul. To say it another way, that
action, as simulated by the poem’s words, constitutes the poem’s essential
subject-matter (an event or experience as imagined by the poet) by which
one is moved, and so governs all its parts or elements. In Maramág’s son-
net, we imagine someone giving counsel to a grieving person to seek
solace from “sweet communion” with Nature in “woodland fanes”; like-
wise, Bautista’s poem conjures up a speaker who recalls an incident where
the woods seem to impart “a secret wisdom” that, though inscrutable,
conveys to the speaker (with his companion, Rosemarie) a sense, not only
that our seeming perspicacity and self-importance are belied, but also
that “we are helpless while we are loved,” so that, in our discomfiture,
“we laughed as best we could.” In both poems, the speaker’s thought is of
course the content of his action: in one, his imaginary address, giving ad-
vice; in the other, his narrative account, a memory or recollection. While
it is often easy enough to articulate the content of a poem’s thought as it
progresses, it isn’t as easy in interpretation to convey a sense of one’s grasp
of the lyric speaker’s feeling or attitude; precisely, that is what the poem’s
diction (a particular usage of language) seeks to impart. We could say
that in Maramág, the speaker’s disposition is solemn, earnest and rever-
ent; in Bautista, the stance is sober yet lighthearted and teasing, skeptical
yet accepting.
We might comment briefly on Maramág’s diction that bears the spirit
and burden of the lyric speaker’s action. “Woodland fanes” elicits a mild
surprise when conjoined, though late, with “profane”; but with “temples
in the fields,” “lovely blossoms,” “sweet communion,” “tender sympa-
thy,” “Nature’s breast”, etc.—indeed, not single words or expressions but
all the usual accoutrements of Romantic poetry—Maramág imports an
English grove. Yet rightly so, during his time: the sonnet is no grove for
anitos. Needless to say, the poem draws also from the poet’s Christian
upbringing (“the apostles old,” “resignéd heart,” etc.). Maramág’s son-
net does succeed, though for readers to-day, on tired borrowed ground
abad i F er n ando Maramág, P oet and Cri t i c 229
where it appears somewhat precious and predictable (“the trees, like
the apostles old, / In solemn silence sacred thoughts impart,” etc.). In
short, while Maramág’s diction is, on the whole, borrowed, Bautista’s is
his own: not simply contemporary usage of English, which makes it ap-
pear natural and almost colloquial to us to-day, but his own refashioning
of it, as when he says, “We intruded in its private feeling / And had no
password to protect our lie.” Consequently, Maramag’s insight or counsel
appears to be a given verity but Bautista’s, fully earned through a credible
experience.
I should stress that I am reading and evaluating in 2006 a poem in
1911 when our writers were still imbibing the English poetic tradition
of their time; the imitation of poetic models was unavoidable, it was,
as Maramág himself recognized, a necessary “apprenticeship.” But, to
repeat, their tillage of the English lea cleared the ground for later poets
like Cirilo F. Bautista.
Like all his contemporaries who studied in the American school
system, Maramág was a Romantic in both his subject and “manner of
writing,” and a Victorian rather closer to Arnold than Hazlitt in his mor-
al sentiment and criticism. He speaks of “many categories of the lyric”
according to subject, such as “lyrics on patriotism,” “lyrics…expressing
intellectual curiosity,” “verses on the home and fireside,” songs on “the
pleasures and pathos of love [set] against pastoral surroundings,” and
“songs on nature as a temple of beauty and on nature as an understand-
ing kindred spirit to the human spirit.” Of these, the great poem for
Maramág is the poem of ideas “where the so-called intellectual curiosity
dominates [the poet’s] theme.”28
Maramág wrote on Sympathy (mark how often, from poem to
poem, “roses” and “nectar” appear: these words I have italicized)—
The North Wind weeps, and still the tears it sheds
To opening rose-buds bring their nectar sweet,
…
On Love, of course—
And a moral fable, too, on Dalisay (a proud tree that vainly seeks
Praise from the forest throng) and Pasion (a treacherous epiphyte of a
vine)—
In a very short time (1910 to 1915), the poet exhausted his Romantic
themes and their poetic idiom. It could not be otherwise for Maramág
and his contemporaries. In that alien geography of the soul, “All lose
their beauty, and no joy impart.”36 Maramág the poet was a true subject,
and in nectar and roses lay submerged all his own predicates:
He says of Guerrero’s patriotic verse that “At times, as the singer of the
revolution, he becomes argumentative and declamatory. That is always
fatal to great poetry, because his discourse becomes debate rather than ‘a
thing of beauty without name’.”42 It is in those “lyrics expressing intel-
lectual curiosity” that Guerrero truly becomes a poet: “his lines wander
from artifice to art.”43 Patriotic verse may still rise to art “only when a dis-
criminating mind gives [it] a telling interpretation [so] that its influence
becomes ennobling.” The standard, then, is chiefly moral: good patriotic
works have “less of misunderstanding and more of toleration, less of self-
ishness and more of philanthropy.” Understandably, Maramág wrote no
patriotic verse. A young scholar then at American U.P., wide-read and
tolerant, Maramág was enamored with “proud Olympia” and her demo-
cratic ideals. His reading and education had, as we observed earlier, “in-
formed” him (or formed him within) into a true colonial subject so that
the Anglo-American Romantic mind and sensibility also “in-form” his
verses, and the American democratic ideology, his editorials.
As to ‘undue haste at publication,”
For Maramág was possessed of a fine critical intelligence and a high mor-
al sensibility, and his verse production had true poetic quality despite
their Romantic fetters, he dramatizes more than any poet of the first two
decades (say, 1905 to 1924) the writer’s most basic problem. Any language
is a tool, a medium, but the medium itself is already the matter and sly
master of the message that it makes possible. Only the poet (here a figure
for all writers) masters language from within itself because he subverts or
transforms the realities it would create and so impose as to make it seem
no other are possible. The poet too is mastered by his language, but in
236 essay s
play they are equally matched. One bespeaks the other. If then the writer
at the outset is already enthralled with his medium, just as though its
words were innocent vassals to his own thought and feeling, the struggle
to shape the language anew to his own creative will is already quite fa-
tally undermined. The agon or contest with one’s chosen medium is nec-
essary, whether the language is foreign or indigenous; indeed, with one’s
native tongue, the struggle in every act of writing may without omen fall
short of the requisite discipline of imagination because the innocence or
fidelity of the medium has simply been assumed; whereas, with an ad-
opted language, the coming to grips with words and words is often more
self-conscious and keen because the gaps amongst thoughts and feelings
endorsed by the native and alien vacabula are foregrounded in every act
of writing. When the struggle fails, it gives painful notice; but when it
succeeds, there takes place a trans-lation into new discourse – that is, the
poet ferries across58 the essential void of words (for they are no longer for-
eign or vernacular) thoughts and feelings for which the language is the
poem itself. The new discourse is a fundamental criticism that refutes
or enriches the way of looking which its original medium propagates. It
must still needs have its roots there – be it a native idiom or an alien tra-
dition – but its fruits, ripened by the poet’s own response to his time and
milieu, are not predicated upon previous fertilities of the word.
Endnotes
1 The Filipino Students’ Magazine, April 1905 (first issue): 14-15.
2 Salazar was born in 1889 in San Roque, Cavite. He left for America in 1915 as a
mess boy on the transport Thomas—the same transport that brought the first American
schoolteachers to the Philippines. He worked in the salmon canneries in Alaska and
later joined The Sacramento Union in California where he rose from reporter to copy-
reader to feature writer. He succumbed to pneumonia in 1919. “The biography of Juan
F. Salazar,” says Maramág, “is the history of the beginning of Filipino English literature
… of the triumph of [the Filipino’s literary effort against the criticism] that English is too
exotic to reflect the native mood, the mannerism, the idiosyncracies of the Filipino mind.”
(Maramág on “Juan F. Salazar” in The Philippine National Weekly, 25 Jan 1919, as quoted
in Lourdes Villaluna de Castro, “Fernando M. Maramág: Man of Letters and Journalist,”
unpublished M.A. thesis, U.P., 1968; henceforth, de Castro: 197.)
3 Neither Concepcion nor Villa appears in Dato’s Filipino Poetry (Manila: J.S.
Agustin and Sons, 1924). The short-lived quarterly College Folio was published by stu-
dents in U.P. Concepcion had two poetry collections: Azucena, 1925, and Bamboo Flute,
abad i F er n ando Maramág, P oet and Cri t i c 237
1932. In the 1920s, Villa’s interest lay in painting and the short story. It was not until the
lyric sequence, “Man-Songs” (1929) and “Poems for an Unhumble One” (1933) that Villa
turned to poetry under the influence of e. e. cummings in America where Villa had exiled
himself in 1929. (See our biographical sketch of Villa in Man of Earth, 1989: 411-414; also,
Villa’s “A ‘Composition’” in The Literary Apprentice, 1953: 61.)
4 Theresa Arzaga Montelibano, “A Critical Study of Filipino Poetry in English”
(unpublished M.A. thesis, U.P., 1940): 53.
5 All biographical data culled from de Castro’s M.A. thesis. According to Ileana
Maramág, the poet’s daughter, the young Fernando was taught religion and reading by
an older cousin, Petra Claravall. (Ileana, “Sentimental Work,” in Nita Berthelsen et al.,
eds., An Anthology of Manila Newspaperwomen’s Club, 1959: 4). Young Fernando’s first
schoolma’am, Mrs. Edith Waggenblas, admired his quick intelligence.
6 According to Filemon Poblador, this library contained such works as those of
Rizal, Guerrero, and Cecilio Apostol; del Pilar, Lopez Jaena, Recto and Batikuling; Cer-
vantes, Lope de Vega, Blasco Ybañez, Manresa, and Morga. (Poblador, “F. Maramág,”
The Manila Times, 23 Oct 1955: 13)
7 de Castro: 14-15.
8 “To a Youth,” unpublished poem, dated Feb 1912; in de Castro’s anthology of
Maramág’s poems (part of her M.A. thesis): 183-184.
9 “A Farewell,” unpublished poem, dated Jan 1911; de Castro: 175-176.
10 The Rising Philippines was “the first weekly periodical to be put out exclusively
by Filipinos educated in the American school system.” It was edited by Mauro Mendez
and later, when it became a monthly, by Maramág. “After three years of a rather stormy
existence,” says Carson Taylor, “burdened with good articles and numerous debts, it
passed to the Great Beyond.” (Sylvia Mendez Ventura, Mauro Mendez: From Journalism
to Diplomacy [University of the Philippines, 1978]: 9)
11 The Philippines Herald, so baptized by Quezon, “was founded in 1920 by a group
of wealthy Quezon followers … to help the Senate President counteract the anti-Filipino
slant in the foreign-owned press.” Its first editor was Conrado Benitez. “Politically, [it]
opposed the supercilious policies of Governor-General Leonard Wood.” Maramág wrote
its feature articles. The editorials were in English and translated into Spanish.
Financially distressed because American businessmen withdrew their support, the
Herald was “received” by Alejandro Roces, Sr. Then it was bought outright by Vicente
Madrigal to save it for Quezon. Carlos P. Romulo, whose friendship with Quezon had
cooled, moved to the Roces camp to launch, on April Fools’ Day 1925, The Manila Tri-
bune. “Added to the Tagalog Taliba and the Spanish-language La Vanguardia, … the
Tribune completed the T-V-T chain of powerful Roces papers.” The Tribune staff were all
ex-Herald boys – Romulo, its first editor; Maramág, associate editor; Mauro Mendez, city
editor; and the principal staff members, among whom were Francisco G. Tonogbanua,
Ceferino Montejo, Jose P. Bautista (later, editor of the post-World War II Manila Times),
and Anacleto Benavides (later, editor of the post-War Manila Chronicle). (Ventura, Mauro
Mendez: 10-12)
12 Tom Inglis Moore, as quoted by de Castro: 15-16. Moore, an Australian, to-
gether with George Pope Shannon, an American, joined the U.P. Department of English
in1927. Together they “were responsible for the new tone and spirit in Philippine letters
238 essay s
at the time.” (Alberto S. Florentino, Midcentury Guide to Philippine Literature in English
[Manila: Filipiniana Publishers, 1963]: 14)
Carson Taylor also thought highly of Maramág as “possibly the foremost Filipino
literary man in English.” (As quoted by de Castro: 16) Taylor was at one time the pub-
lisher of the Manila Daily Bulletin. (Ventura, Mauro Mendez: 9)
13 Other than the aspiring writer’s usual adulation of established literary reputa-
tions, there also appears in Reyes’s essay a self-portrait of the young Filipino as writer
– quite unlike the brash, democratic American young man and the insolent campus writ-
ers of later days.
14 Earlier in the same essay, Reyes recalls “how, from the same eminence, - per-
haps, across the same desk – Mr. Carlos P. Romulo, then the editor of the TRIBUNE,
had frowned coldly at me when I came to ask permission from his secretary to read
the framed copy of Arthur Brisbane’s article, HOW TO BE A BETTER REPORTER,
which he kept in his office. I had supposed Mr. Maramág to be more forbidding …”
15 The whole essay is in Argonaut [a U.S.T. monthly], 15 Nov 1934: 9-11.
16 de Castro: 17.
17 Quoted from Maramág’s poem, “A Farewell” (cited earlier).
18 Carlos P. Romulo’s tribute to Maramág, “The Gleam – A Funeral Oration,”
The Manila Tribune, 27 Oct 1936: 16.
19 Manuel L. Quezon’s tribute, “President takes lead in honoring departed editor
of Tribune,” The Manila Tribune, 24 Oct 1936: 14.
20 The 1935 Quill, ed. Narciso G. Reyes: 16-17. It is remarkable how a very
early poem by Maramág, “Sonnet on a Remembered Voice,” bespeaks “This Foolish
Nostalgia”:
Lost poetry where candid mem’ry clings,
Soul of remembrance painful to declare,
Bride to the heart when care was still not there,
Its silence tells but the sad end of things.
Oh whither has that voice gone, …
What charms can bid its urn ethereal bare,
Reveal to me those soft sweet murmurings
I search in vain, in an imagined grove
…
I find no semblance of the voice I love,
Hear not the concourse of its wondrous streams.
This unpublished sonnet, dated 12 May 1912, is in de Castro: 185; unfortunately, its
text there does not seem to be a very accurate copy of the original: “wither,” for example,
is obviously “whither.”
21 Ventura’s phrase in Mauro Mendez: 3.
22 Quezon’s tribute, cited earlier.
23 His flute was bamboo, but it had at times its songs – “his own notes,” he says,
“feeble as yet.” In contrast with Carlos Bulosan, his chief motive remained purely per-
abad i F er n ando Maramág, P oet and Cri t i c 239
sonal: “to express himself in words” and thereby find his own authentic selfhood in ili-na,
that is, his hometown. (Concepcion’s “Foreword” to Azucena)
24 The College Folio (henceforth CF), Dec 1910: 89.
25 Vernacula has useful implications. The Latin vernacula, from verna, “a slave
born and raised in his master’s house,” implies our colonial bondage; but “vernacular”
also refers to both a country’s native idiom and, as opposed to literary, the popular vo-
cabula (stock of words and expressions) or local dialects which best show regional differ-
ences in thought and feeling, in ways of looking and doing. By literary, I mean a cultivated
usage of one’s language, whether it is wrought from one’s own vernacular or from an
adopted language to fashion that art-object we call a “literary work” (short story or poem
or play).
26 CF, Aug 1911: 12; also in Dato: 20, and Makata 6: Early Poets (1909-1942), ed.
Alberto S. Florentino (Manila: National Book Store, 1973): 4.
27 Bautista, The Cave and Other Poems (Baguio: Ato Bookshop, 1968): 57; Weekly
Nation, 25 Mar 1968: 29; Pamana 5, Jun 1972: 44. Also in Abad, A Native Clearing (Uni-
versity of the Philippines, 1993): 451-452.
28 Maramág on “Guerrero, Poet and Patriot,” Leader, March 1933, as quoted in
full in de Castro: 210-212.
29 “Sonnet on Sympathy,” CF, Oct 1911: 45; Dato: 21.
30 “To Melancholy,” unpublished, Apr 1912; de Castro: 186; Abad and Manlapaz,
Man of Earth (Ateneo de Manila, 1989): 33.
31 “To the South Wind,” CF, Apr 1912: 163; Dato: 24-25. It is the only poem by
Maramág in Pablo Laslo, ed.-trans., English-German Anthology of Filipino Poets (Manila:
Libreria Manila Filatelica, 1934): 44, 46, as though to relegate Maramág in 1934 to a dis-
tant Romantic past. Also in Makata 6: 59-60.
32 “The Rural Maid,” CF, Oct 1912: 69; Dato: 27-28.
33 “Love’s First Adieu,” Dato: 39-40, from The Independent, 1 May 1915; also in
Richard V. Croghan, S.J., The Development of Philippine Literature in English (Since 1900)
(Q.C.: Phoenix Publishing House, 1975): 18, but Croghan mistook it for “The Rural
Maid,” and its last three stanzas were lopped off.
34 “The Dreamer’s Heritage,” CF, Nov 1912: 117; Dato: 31-32.
35 ”The Dalisay and the Pasion,” CF, Feb 1911: 152-153; Dato: 13-15.
36 Quoted from Maramág’s “Lost Friendship.”
37 Ibid. A postcolonial eisegesis of Maramág’s Dalisay and Pasion, though on the
“per-verse” side, might take Dalisay as a figure of the early Filipino poet in the English
lea:
The botanical imagery, which we find in other poets from Concepcion to Rigor,
gives us perhaps some warrant for a poetic substitution to a less obvious moral burden,
and so serves conveniently our postcolonial eisegesis. Pasion, “back-boneless” [sic] yet
lethal vine, is La Belle Dame sans Merci, the witching vine of that “imperial tongue”
English by which the poet is deceived and strangled:
EXIE ABOLA
ON APRIL 19, the bus for Lucena pulls out of the jac Liner station in
Cubao at 5:30 a.m. just as Magandang Umaga, Bayan, an early-morning
show, begins. (Is there a provincial bus without an onboard TV and vcr
these days?). The show features chatter among smiling hosts and their
self-righteous pandering to populists. The outrage du jour: higher oil
prices. Oil companies are scolded in stentorian voices. Hopes of a quick
journey dissipate as the barely filled bus crawls along the length of edsa
picking up passengers. At six we make it to South Superhighway. The
morning show over, the conductor puts on a movie. It is a James Bond
movie: For Your Eyes Only. I must have watched it as a child. It features
Lynn Holly Johnson (I remember the name), star of Ice Castles, whose
treacly theme I used to play on the piano. Watching it now I am guiltily
amused to see how cheesy it is.
The air-conditioner is awfully cold, and the vents can’t be shut.
Good thing Hilda has brought a shawl. We grin and bear it. The sun
begins to rise on our left. Bordering the highway are the ubiquitous bill-
boards, their clear-smiled models in satisfied poses, consumer bliss pre-
sented as wildly erotic.
After more than three hours in the bus trying not to freeze, we ar-
rive in Lucena. We get off at the “crossing” and board a jeep going to the
bayan. We ask the driver how to get to the munisipyo. At a corner, the
driver turns to us and tells us to walk two blocks to the right. We disem-
bark and spot a McDonald’s on the opposite side of the street. The idea
of clean toilets and a greasy breakfast wins us over. Looking just like any
abo l a i Pilgri m of th e Heal i ng Hand 245
of its ilk in the metropolis, the McDonald’s is a guilty comfort, the thing
you hoped to leave behind—didn’t I sneer when I saw the golden arches
at the Petron on the highway?—yet are glad to see.
At 9:30 a.m. and breakfast over, we walk the two blocks to City
Hall. It is a smallish official-looking building, trying to look important
in the space it occupies, like a short overdressed man. When Hilda asks
him where the Register of Deeds is, the man at the Information desk
raises his left arm and points vaguely into the air, and says that the titles of
Lucena properties are in the “Annex.” Then he raises his right arm and
points in another direction; those of Lucban and other towns are in the
kapitolyo. We will need to go to both. Another man tells us which jeep to
take to the Annex. A jeep just to go to an “annex”? By jeep, the curiously
named structure is ten minutes away. (I am reminded of the bir office on
Quezon Avenue; one climbs to the second floor, then to the next, which
is not the third floor but the “mezzanine,” then on to what should be the
fourth floor, but which is only the third.)
Another curiosity is that the City Hall Annex (the words are embla-
zoned on its façade) is much larger than the City Hall, an afterthought
that dwarfs the original. The lot sprawls, the building is L-shaped, low,
and long. We find the register. Like fastfood restaurants, government
offices can be counted on to look the same from place to place. We enter
a rectangular room, the pale green of the walls fading. A long string of
Christmas lights is still tacked to the cornice that circumscribes the large
room. Uninterested people sit at desks simulating busyness, their faces
closed to the world. “It’s a government office,” Hilda says, after stand-
ing a few moments at the front counter, “no one will come to you.” She
goes past it and approaches a desk at which a gray-haired woman with
glasses sits.
The only young person, and the only one who seems to care to make
a positive impression, is a large dark man in an orange button-down
shirt. He goes up to me and asks “Kayo?” I point to Hilda and say, “Meron
na.” He nods, sits near the counter, and takes luscious bites out of a ma-
copa. A vendor comes in. (How many vendors go around a government
office in the course of a day?) He hawks children’s clothes and small
towels. He stops by the desk of a stoop-shouldered man with glasses low
246 essay s
on his nose who makes loud excuses about his nephews and nieces being
too old already, he doesn’t know their sizes anymore.
There is some agitation between Hilda and the woman. She comes
over, papers in hand. The woman won’t accept them. “This is frustrat-
ing!” she whispers fiercely. “They won’t accept the papers piecemeal.
They want everything already. Ayaw nila nang tingi-tingi.” Just our luck
that this is one of the few places in the country where the tingi system is
unacceptable. We take a moment to consider. We have been up since 3
a.m., traveled for nearly four hours, walked around on a hot morning,
and have just been told that we will not get what we came all the way
here for. Hilda refuses to leave empty-handed and returns to the woman.
She asks for a complete list of requirements and writes them on a brown
envelope.
Another vendor comes in, not ten minutes after the first, with a tray
of food in knotted plastic bags. She hands out the orders to the people in
the room, encouraging them to eat while the food is hot. We leave and
take a jeep to the kapitolyo.
HILDA’S MOTHER died in 1993, her father in 1996, the year we got
married. Together they owned properties in Quezon City, Lucena, Luc-
ban, and elsewhere in Quezon province. These would be passed on to
four children. Their two elder brothers abroad, one in Chicago, the other
in Toronto, Hilda and her younger sister put off the work needed to
settle the estate (the idea of a 35% estate tax was daunting; the calcu-
lations we would make every so often always produced an obligation
running into the millions). When Vivian left for the US, the task was
left to Hilda. Three years ago she engaged the services of a law firm and
finally got to it. There was plenty to do: finding land titles (who owned
what, exactly?); digging up documents in drawers, in dusty boxes and
envelopes; meeting the lawyers; waiting and following up and waiting;
dealing with a bir examiner who sat on his hands; frantically borrowing
money from relatives abroad to meet the deadline of a tax amnesty; driv-
ing around the city picking up checks, cashing them, and carrying bags
of money in the car under the passenger seat (it was the first time I had
actually seen one million pesos); filing the papers at a bank on the last
abo l a i Pilgri m of th e Heal i ng Hand 247
day of the amnesty; paying legal fees; and more waiting and following
up and waiting.
The extra-judicial settlement of estate was done, filed with the bir,
and finally approved. Now the lawyers were having the land titles trans-
ferred to the children. Hilda already had the spas of her siblings, grant-
ing her the power to sell a few of the properties as soon as the titles were
ready.
While the lawyers prioritized the titles of the properties in Quezon
City, Hilda and I decided on this trip to Lucena and Lucban hoping to
speed things up. Much of the farmland in Catanauan, Quezon, had been
taken by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, and the modest
compensation waited for its claimants at the Land Bank in Los Baños.
Armed with the settlement, she would file it at the register, get a receiv-
ing copy, then go to the Land Bank with it and the spas of her siblings.
We hoped to come back with a check. We would then use the money to
pay the bank that was about to auction off my father’s house.
It was her decision, made a week earlier when my family had held
another of our occasional meetings to discuss the latest problem and rack
our brains for a solution, to go to Quezon. She had already filed for a
three-day leave in her office because we had hoped to go to a beach, but
we cancelled the trip. She had not cancelled her leave, and the vacant
days combined with the money anxiety pushed the thought into her
mind. By going to Quezon Hilda and I hoped to move two narratives
forward with one act, to swell the stories of two families to a high point
with the same plot device.
AS I MOVE from sleep into that half-awake middle state, I hear a loud
crash coming from the garage. I stand and rush to the window, then out
the back door. Two cabinets attached to the garage wall have fallen. I
look closer. The wood had rotted inside thanks to moisture, and com-
bined with too heavy a load and the passage of time, it finally gave. Hilda
comes upon the scene—she has been asleep upstairs—and sighs, “The
house is falling apart.” It is something she has said before.
Hooked onto a narrative thread, pushed along by the machinations
of plot and action, the reader joins characters as they move toward an
inexorable end and find—justice? fulfillment? insight? redemption?
futility?—an ending that satisfies, that is surprising but inevitable, that
illuminates the world, that perhaps even stirs the soul.
Standing in front of the mess I grasp at straws. I do not know what
it means that the cabinet has fallen just as we got back from our trip. I am
not sure if it means more than it does. This is not a story, and I suppose
there is no finding any larger culprit than damp, rotten wood and over-
burdened shelves. Inside me I am asking for an answer, for some message
I haven’t found, but pilgrim as I am to the healing hand of fiction, I know
my god has no power in this realm. And since the object of my quest is
unattained (not the money in the bank, but respect, affection, a return to
the past when I did not know what I do now, when my responsibilities
were a child’s), at this moment I have no use for the deliverance promised
by fictional narrative.
Hilda, Nani (our housemaid), and I spend the rest of the afternoon
on the concrete floor of the garage, among splinters of wood, shards
of shattered glass, junk encrusted with rust and grime, plastic garbage
abo l a i Pilgri m of th e Heal i ng Hand 255
bags. The remaining daylight goes out, and no deeply felt emotions are
purged or cleansed, no insight into the human condition gained, no bur-
dens eased, no judgments averted. There is only the mild oppression of
an open-ended conclusion, the resignation that things will probably go
on much as they already have. One senses the presence of what Camus
called “the benign indifference of the universe,” and therefore there is
only one thing to do, and that is to endure.
i
Haibun: Panimulang
Pagpapakilala at Pagpapalaya
sa Panulaang Filipino
In the 1950s the so-called Beats turned to the form along with
other explorations of Eastern culture, such as Gary Snyder’s
diaries or Jack Kerouac’s fiction. Since then and with an ini-
tial focus on travel writing, beginning with a haibun on Paris
in 1964 by the Canadian writer Jack Cain, there has been a
flurry of international haibun activity, including book-length
travel journals, novel trilogies, neo-classic approaches, ex-
pressionistic experiments, and the like. (poetrylives.com/Sim-
plyHaiku/SHv2n6/features/Bruce_Ross_feature.html)
Ang Haibun
Mga Posibilidad
black clouds—
the New York skyline
forever changed
wail of sirens—
geese fly past
the smoke and fire
clouds of smoke
eclipse the sky—
a flock of geese
— Kathy Lippard Cobb, USA
The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years
that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away
their lives on boats or who grow old leading horses are for-
ever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels
take them, many of the men of old died on the road, and I too
ag uila i Hai b un: Pani mul ang P agpap a ki l a l a 265
for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud
drifting with the wind, to ceaseless thoughts of roaming…
Seasons of War
Pagbabalik
Balag ng gulay
Gabing baak ang buwan
May alitaptap
Alaalang nagliyab
Kahit panandalian
“Bagong” Anyo
At umatake si Almario:
Panimulang Hakbang
(Bugtong)
Cacabaac na niyog,
Magdamag inilipot
(Noceda at San Lucar. Vocabulario de la lengua tagala. p. 163)
BIENVENIDO
LUMBERA
i
Likhaan: Tell us about your family.
Lumbera: I was an orphan. My father died when I was one year
old. I was told that he was good at playing baseball. My mother was a
seamstress. My family belonged to the lower middle class. I had an older
sister who was a schoolteacher.
When and how did your interest in literature begin? And why were you
writing in English then?
As a child in Barrio Balagbag, Lipa, I listened avidly to my aunt as
she read chapters of novels serialized in Liwayway. But when I got to the
277
278
i Bie n ve ni d o Lumb era i n tervi278
ew
Did you major in literature at UST, and were you already writing poetry
then?
No. I took up journalism, which had a creative writing component.
Wilfrido Nolledo was my contemporary. So were Jesus Dimapilis, Oph-
elia Alcantara, and Lilia Amansec. I wrote fiction. My idea of the writer
was someone who wrote stories. My first story got published in the The
Sunday Chronicle Magazine courtesy of my teacher Manuel Viray.
lish while my Indian and European classmates were writing in their own
languages? Why was I writing in English when I couldn’t even claim
it is my native language? So I began writing in Tagalog. There were
many Filipinos in Indiana but there were no literature majors. I wrote
many Tagalog poems but I had no audience. I was able to put together
a slim volume of poems. It was about alienation, homesickness—free
verse. When I revised them, unexplainably some regularity appeared in
the prosody. Rhyming emerged. In the Philippines, these got published
in Alejandro G. Abadilla’s literary magazine Panitikan. He and I under-
stood each other. He lived in Sta. Cruz. I talked to him about modern
Tagalog poetry. He got interested in my writings because they were not
like the ones he attacked in his essays.
What is the best and the worst you can say about Philippine literature?
Philippine literature is the Filipinos’ attempt to come to terms with
their history and culture. The worst is that Philippine literature is hand-
icapped by the fact there are a very few readers that have access to it
mainly because of lack of education and poverty. Thus the production
of Filipino writers generally tends to move away from the concerns of
fellow Filipinos who cannot read, or cannot afford to get into the habit
of reading.
So you agree with Petronilo Daroy who said Filipino readers do not take
their writers seriously?
Yes. What the writers write about have nothing to do with the lives
of the majority of Filipinos. The writers’ concerns are usually personal,
or the concerns of their immediate circle.
When the Marcos regime detained you, did you think you were near
death?
Yes, that’s how I felt when I tried to run away from my captors. I
had knocked on a door which opened quickly, and somebody grabbed
my hand. I withdrew my hand and started running. I was hoping they
would shoot me and kill me so they would not catch me alive and tor-
ture me for information. That did not happen. I realized when I was
inside the car taking me to the military camp that the weakest moment
of a political prisoner is the moment immediately after capture. All is
lost, gone. If they forced me to talk at that time, I would have spat out
everything. But in prison, I met people who had been tortured yet clung
to their ideals. I was happy in detention. So when I was released, I felt
cheated. I was being removed from a society I enjoyed being in, and put
back into a world where again you had to struggle to live. At the time,
in display windows, the use of live human models who pretended to be
mannequins was all the rage. I was hurt looking at those people. I was
vulnerable to weeping over such situations.
When was the last time you cried over something close to your
convictions?
Only last week, I wept over Monico Atienza. He is an activist who
went through everything. He was tortured, ambushed, and left by his
wife and family. Such sacrifices of one person in the name of political
belief. He is a model to many.
286 i n tervi ew
Did the experience of detention affect your writing?
It firmed up my convictions. I realized I was not alone, that there
were others who had gone through much more than me, and therefore
people needed my support as an individual.
How has your life changed since you became a National Artist?
Well, I get invited more often to open workshops, to give opening
remarks in conferences. This has been the more immediate effect of the
title on my life.
Of all things you’ve written, what have you been happiest with, and why?
And since you work as a teacher, critic, translator, film scholar, and playwright,
which genre do you find most exciting?
My work for the theater. There is an immediate feedback from the
audience. In poetry, you can hardly tell how your audience has been af-
fected by what you have written.
Do you ever discuss with her what you write before you write it?
Hardly.
Mayette Bayuga has won Palanca awards for her short stories, and
in 2002 she published her collection Virgintarian at Iba Pang Akda with
the UP Press. Growing up on fairy tales and Dr. Seuss, she began writ-
ing at a very young age, and herself has become a favorite writer of many
young readers.
289
290 co n tri bu to rs
Catherine S. Bucu is a student of Malikhaing Pagsulat at UP Dili-
man, moving there from UP Los Baños to study with Jun Cruz Reyes.
Her story here was a result, she says, of watching the Discovery Channel
and Star Wars.