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Poetry is Alive!

Nonfiction by Darylle Rubino | March 27, 2016

Program Description: Poetry flirts with many forms and adapts novel “publishing” routes just to get itself out there. Where can the audience for poetry find the Filipino poem today?

Poet, Gemino Abad once said in a writers workshop, I believe that was a panel discussion about a poem, “all literary works must move towards poetry. Poetry is the finest language.” Poetry, therefore, is not flirting with other genres, but it is poetry that is being flirted with. True, there are experimental works that adapt poetry into other forms; say a novel in verses, or on the extreme side, a series of example phrases & sentences lifted directly from the Anvil-Macquarie Dictionary of Philippine English for High School as in “Philippine English: A Novel” by Angelo Suarez, which is, as a whole, a poem. Yet works like these are not for the goal of “putting poetry out there” but for creativity itself. Poetry in the Philippines has already grown and has adapted a lot of forms, and I am just going to discuss one that is very much prevalent these days.

Well, there will always be that assumption that poetry is the least popular of all literary genres. Most of my friends would turn down a page when they see that the words are written in lines (or verse), even the ones who read more often than usual. Writers already understand that there is not much money to expect from publishing a collection of poems. One would then assume that it would need a lot of effort for poetry to get noticed. But that is already an old thought. On the other hand; poetry is the easiest to market or the easiest to deliver. Since the start of slam poetry or spoken word, Poetry had become a well-liked form of entertainment. It has even become a sport in some parts of the world.

Poetry Slam or spoken word poetry is a technique that utilizes wordplay and story-telling. The poems are written for the purpose of being performed in front of an immediate audience. The technique originated from the poetry of African-Americans in Harlem (Marc Smith, 1984, Chicago). It often includes collaboration and experimentation with other art forms such as music, theater, and dance. And so, the poet will have to exhibit a certain degree of acting as well as some appropriate dynamics in public speaking and body language. Surely, schools have exposed us to the more complicated poems, there are even poets whom poets only understand. It is for these experiences that some of us believe that poetry is hard to understand and hard to write. But let’s leave those to academics; spoken word brings poetry to the people for making it simpler and the art accessible. A great tool is relativity. Human beings are sad by default. What also made spoken word famous is the subject matter that they discuss. But let us leave that for later. I have a paragraph or two for that. Moving on…

“Finding” poetry hasn’t been a problem in major cities and other parts of the Philippines. Let’s say for example in Manila, spoken word events are E V E R Y W H E R E. Seriously, a spoken word event can be as popular as a gig for rock bands. Listening to someone talk about his or her past, about the wounds opened and re-opened is now a trend. The most famous in the North, is Word Anonymous. One is even becoming a TV Star, Juan Miguel Severo, has a spot in “On the Wings of Love.” Haha. I always thought poetry can never be a profession in the Philippines, and here’s this guy making money out of it. And last February, well-known spoken word artists/poets came to the Philippines and did a sold out show, Sarah Kaye and Phil Kaye. Yeah, artists or poets, go on tour now. Before, we hold poetry readings where some people go to, now poetry readings are sold out shows.

In Cebu, just for poetry reading events, or just literature itself, there are four organizations that keep the wheel going; Bathalad, WILA (Women in Literary Arts), Nomads, and Tinta (UP Cebu’s lit org). These organizations team up to come up with poetry reading. Hearing this being told to me by a friend, Jona Bering, it was in full zest, “Yes, Dar! The poetry scene is growing. Mostly college students, gender issues are frequent topics, and yeah, some are not that good yet, but we are getting there.” When I was in Dumaguete, they were like holding a poetry reading every week, or it was just so timely that there were several authors who launched their book that time.

In Cagayan de Oro, Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa CDO and Bathalad (Mindanao Chapter) are having poetry readings from time to time. If not Spoken Word, it is Improv. We see that there is a growing interest in Poetry in various parts of the country. Poetry readings are everywhere. I suppose that culture, be it famous or not, will never die.

And of course, here in Davao, we have a LitOrgy. Young Davao Writers, we can say is the unofficial, younger version of Davao Writers Guild. Well, it was for Davao Writers’ Guild’s several poetry reading events that LitOrgy was born. In general, it is a biannual poetry reading event that is now being rebranded as a spoken word event. Angely Chi, or as we address her, the Patron Saint of Davao Arts, said in an essay, “I am reminded that LitOrgy was not only supposed to be a “literary orgy” of the writing and the reading public, but also a coming together of people from different disciplines whose texts are not found in pages but in their bodies, in their songs, and in their images.”

Bragging aside, last August, the Young Davao Writers organized the seventh LitOrgy, called it “Seventh Seers,” which tickets got sold out in about 2 hours when the ticket reservations were open. Because we wanted each poetry reading event to be an intimate one, else the purpose of the whole thing would be defeated, we had to make the goers reserve their slots. There were still a lot of people who were asking for passes, so we organized a second show. And August 30 and 31 packed the Red Rooster Bar along MacArthur Highway with an attentive crowd who went there not only to listen but brought with them their own poems to read in the open mic. As they say, the orgy happens in the open mic. Poetry reading events usually has only less than ten readers of performers, and the rest of the night, which expands to about two to three hours until the bar closes, is allotted to the open mic. And it is wonderful to discover gems among the audiences. So parang scouting din yung open mic, so we can find fresh blood to join the next LitOrgy events. So if I will be asked if poetry is alive? Yes, poetry in general, very much.

There will always be critics to a technique. Even I myself have reservations. Spoken word poetry had been a good outlet of self-expression. If you check out videos online, the usual topics would be pain, unsuccessful relationship, gender issues; these are one of the reasons that I have grown tired of checking out youtube videos. Spoken word, I suppose, is a detouring from the Philippine Literary tradition due to the utilization of certain techniques. Say for example, sentimentality, purple patches, and cliché in order to capture their attention and also to be relatable. You know the word, “hugot”?” It might be annoying to some but it is what sells. The lines, “these hands wrote your name on pages/ after blank pages then colored it with the brightest fireworks/ of January first and February fourteenth” borders to the cliché but hey, this works for audience who are just there for the “feels.”

Here’s the catch, spoken word poetry might not be the most brilliant technique in poetry for majority of people who know better, but it opens the opportunity for other techniques. In Young Davao Writers’ events, LitOrgy, there are always open mics. Anything goes; all kinds of poets, all kinds of technique. And when some of the people in the crowd become interested enough, they will start to look for other sources, for the purpose of quenching the thirst for literature (that is also the reason why some events are not the frequent, so that people will hunger for it) and also if they try to write themselves. And so the cycle begins or continues.

Whenever there is a poetry reading, there is a small BLTX; the zine culture continues. Poetry books are not likely to be the ones displayed on the glass windows of NBS, Fully Booked, etc., and the ratio of poets getting published to the poets is too less to many. Most publishers, in the name of profits, will not really prioritize poetry over the more popular genre. There are no longer shelves for poetry books in leading bookstore; more often than usual, they are just mixed up with other Filipino Literary books; but poetry will always find a way to get out. One effective example of this is the zine culture; independent publishing by single individuals or by organizations, say for example, LitSoc, the academic organization for Creative Writing Students in UP Mindanao, compiles their works in a bundle of bond papers stapled to become a coffee table book and sells it during a proper event; a BLTX or a poetry reading where the organizers were kind enough to set up a table for “merch.” Yeah, I had a friend, who’s a great poet; he won an international award for poetry last year, compiled five of his poems in a bond paper, folded it in a fancy way, and then sold the collection for 30php. Clearly, it was not for the profits but to get read.

Although there are constraints put up by the market for Poetry books, authors will always find a way to put their works out there. In the internet age, everything is possible. One can just start a blog to broadcast his or her works to the public. It’s as easy as signing up for a wordpress account or other free hosting sites that provides you a subdomain, or if you have the money, buy a domain name, a webhosting account, set up the site, and voila, you’ll have your own corner in the internet where you can post your poems or other works. There are a lot of young people today who are trying to write however they can and post it in social media sites. So Filipino poetry, in this time and age, is literally everywhere since you can just access them anytime you need to. You can just read on, say for example, authors featured in various sites, panitikan.com, dagmay.com, and the rest. Or someone can do that for you by posting a copy of your poem or a link to your site, or to a site where it is available. Restricting yourself to be read in free mediums will always be your prerogative. Some prefer to keep their poems to themselves until they are ready to be in physical pages, some would resort to express themselves in the open world of the internet. Nonetheless, this is how poetry copes up with the times.

I have always been told that a good poem is one that works great on stage and looks good on the page. So therefore, a poet does not stop at spoken word. It is just a phase. The page is as wide as it can be for the many creative minds that we have in the country.

Darylle “Darsi” Rubino is a graduate of the Creative Writing program of the University of the Philippines Mindanao. This essay was first delivered in the 6th Philippine International Literary Festival on November 20–21, 2015 at Seda Abreeza, Davao City.

An Inescapable Pattern

Nonfiction by Julienne San Jose Batingal | March 13, 2016

“Mao lang man na iyang ginapalit,” Mama told Papa with a seemingly proud smile. “Mga libro.” I was already a teenager at that time when Papa asked why I had a lot of books. He did not know I loved—worshipped—books. What kind of father does not know his daughter’s hobbies? Well, I have a seafarer for a father.

He sounded like he was annoyed by the pile of books I had in my sister’s room. I had just bought more and that made him ask. Of course he would not know. He is basically a stranger, if you ask me. It would sound rude and it would surely hurt him but he is a stranger to me. As a seaman, he lives in a ship that travels around the world for nine months. That leaves him three months to spend with us at home.

I always remember the first time I met him. I was about four or five years old when we drove to the airport one day. Of course I did not know then that it was the airport or even what that place was for but I was with my mother and my sister. I remember holding Mama’s hand when a dark-skinned, tall, and buff man walked towards us. Mama enthusiastically asked “Sino yan?” The man wanted to give me a hug but I have always been afraid of strangers so I wailed and wanted to hide from him. It must have been embarrassing and painful for a father who was excited to meet his daughter for the first time after working overseas. I could have at least let him carry me or just stared at his face in wonder. Instead, I cried.

But he brought me chocolates and dolls. That was his bait. From then on, I learned the concept of wanting and needing a father. But my father always left. And I used to cry every time he did. Even at the age of seven, I wrote him a letter that asked him to work in the Philippines instead so our family would be always complete. I was willing to give up my toys and chocolates just to have him home.

Filipino TV shows and foreign movies told me that fathers should treat their kids like princes and princesses. I saw scenes where fathers carry their kids, tickle them, lift them up in the air and drop them just to catch them and hear them laugh. Fathers tuck their children in and they hush them when they cry. And when they grow up, fathers talk to them and they go home to more than one best friend. That was why I wanted my father to stay. I wanted what the books and the films showed to be real.

Since my mother was only one who took care of my elder sister for three years after they got married, the way she raised my sister was the same as how she raised me. We were guarded. I could only count the times when I was able to play at school after class because Mama always fetched me on time.

Most of the time, I stayed at home and I had no choice but to read. Well, I always spent time with my cousins who had a collection of Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley High books and they were my first influences. The books were my obsession when I was not allowed to play. Instead of running around and getting sweaty and having asthma attacks, I sat down and read books. I knew how to write letters even before I went to kindergarten so I learned how to read early. Books were suddenly the most amazing thing in my small world. I could see Nancy Drew and her friends collecting clues and catching suspects in every mystery and I wanted to be like her.

Soon enough, I started writing my own Nancy Drew mysteries. I spent long hours in front of our computer, just typing and imagining. I did not make sense then, most probably. But that was when I started writing. That was when I started keeping diaries and journals. Writing became a normal part of my life, just as normal as my father’s absence had been.

It must have sucked not being able to always hang out with friends because five o’clock in the afternoon was already too late not to be at home yet. But it was the only life I knew, my mother always complaining about me not leaving school immediately after class because our house is a bit far from the center of the city and getting home late is dangerous. We were Christians and she did not even allow me stay for Bible studies in high school.

I was not—and am still not—very good with talking to people. I gossip with them and talk about emotional stuff but I can write better rather than talk. I could understand things better when I used metaphors—“I was blue when my father left again for the nth time.” or “My father’s presence is a Band-Aid.” I could calm myself down with similes and hyperboles. I could make sense out of everything when I see them on the page.

My father’s absence probably had me always looking for something that I think is missing, something that writing could help me identify. When I was in high school, I was fond of writing sappy love stories. Even now, I still even prefer reading romantic books. Maybe because I do not know how it feels like to have a man with me every day? That is why I watch films that could give me an idea of how it is like. I write stories that could make me feel like I know how it is like.

I think it is because I know there is something missing in me that keeps me looking for it, making me purge everything in me until I know what I want to find. Maybe because I hate the way I was put into this kind of life. A father leaving every now and then, going “home” to a family he does not know. And he cannot even apologize because he will never run out of absences to apologize for. I hate having to pretend that it still saddens me when he leaves. He could wake me up at four o’clock in the morning to kiss me goodbye before his early flight and I could be half-awake and hear him leave and still feel indifferent. I hate having to pretend that I am excited to spend time with him when he comes home.

I hate pretending to be the daughter he wants me to be. I hate pretending that hanging out with friends until late night does not excite me or that reading books is still the only thing I love doing. I wear clothes that are not just a simple shirt and a pair of pants, I curse, I could spend the whole day just being inside my room, and I have opinions that are different from theirs. And he does not get that. I hate not knowing how it is like to have a father. I hate not knowing how to be a daughter. And I cannot apologize.

“I cannot do anything,” he said, sounding angry. “My voice is like this.”

He always sounds angry and I kind of hate him for that. He sounds like he is resenting me and that makes me scared of talking to him. I refused to eat dinner one night when my parents and I had a fight. The cellular network failed when I was out with my high school friends and I could not contact my mother to update her of my whereabouts. I went home to two angry parents who did not even ask for me to explain myself.

I had plans for the next day after that night. I was going to take my dog to the park with my boyfriend, and because of what happened, they did not allow me to go out. We ended up not talking to each other. When my mother saw me crying inside my room, I could not help but explain to them how unfair they were. She blamed me for their quarrel and I just sat there with my unheard words drowning my brain. She called my father and made him sit down and listen. And in every sentence I blurt out, my father begins his own as his defense. “You’re always angry,” I said. “You never listen.”

It was not my fault that I could not call them. I tried to tell them that but they had to wait to catch me crying inside my room before I could be asked to talk. And I hoped that my father, for once, would realize how scared I was of him.

“Sige,” he said. “If that’s what you think, I will never talk again. Everything I say is wrong.”

He stood up and walked out of the room. I never wanted to talk to him again.

So I write. I write like I can control things and people. I can write the kinds of lives I want my characters to live. I write like I am in control, like I have all the choices and I will never run out of them. I write to see different situations, to see that I am not stuck in my own. I write to meet people I cannot meet in real life. I write to keep myself grounded, to remind me of my reality and make me accept it.

I sometimes look at him and wonder. Reality failed to be like the movies and books. I do not have a man who scares boys who would break my heart or a man who scares boys who would ask me out. There is nothing but inevitable anger. It is like I was born with it. This is just a part of the pattern that I have been following for nineteen years.

His constant absence is a big part of my existence. At the age of nineteen, I have gotten used to being a college girl who is away from home most of the time. My circle of friends has become wider than ever and my principles have changed. Aside from reading books, I have grown to love other hobbies such as getting drunk and smoking. And I have lost old beliefs too, like my old obsession of worshipping God and believing in His miracles. I have come to the point when I have seen the other side of life. The life I promised myself before not to live because my family made me believe that it will not take me anywhere.

My father tries. He knocks on my door and greets me good morning like he used to. He talks during dinner like he knows the people in our lives. He tells us jokes like he knows what is funny or what is not for us. He listens like he knows what happened or what was happening. He tries to act like he knows how our lives work. He tries to be a father who knows his family. He tries to fit in. Like the way I try to make sense out of everything through writing. I try to find the words that fit, the words that could make the vague things clear. That is all we have left to do for now.

___

Julienne San Jose Batingal is a third year BA English (Creative Writing) student of the University of the Philippines Mindanao.

Runaway

Nonfiction by Sergei Reyes | February 28, 2016

Slowly, the knob turned followed by the click of the lock. On the fifth of November, a familiar voice shouted, “happy monthsary”, but in front of me was nothing but a wall. When I took a peek at who was on the other side, the first thing I saw was your red leather shoelace, and my reality dawned: my phone never rang and the fifth was never ours to celebrate.

It all started when we swapped messages while I was on a weekend trip with my friends. Nothing was ever completely realized until we went on a date a week later to validate what we felt for each other. After two days, we became a couple. It was the tenth of August.

Fast forward to a month after a slew of cloud nine’s: you affirmed your love to me with the admission of falling for someone else. It happened on your birthday, but the surprise was on me. Anything unexpected catches your attention and just like a boy given a present on Christmas day, I believed great things would still unfold. Truly great it was because immeasurable pain after another plagued the relationship.

Continue reading Runaway

Looking for Words

Nonfiction by Joanna Paula Cagape | February 21, 2016

Mother (noun) – Ina

Growing up amidst small hills was a gift —flipping pages of books and getting wrapped with orchestras of words each time. My mother told me once that she placed a souvenir of my first haircut inside an English- Tagalog dictionary, the sole book in the house three years before the world hit the millennium mark. A friend suggested that to her, so the baby would love books.

I remembered Papa in his school uniform, standing by the door. My brothers, Brandon and Patrick, ended their Pokemon card battle. The three of us raced toward him, placed his right hand on our foreheads one by one, and grabbed the bag of candies from his left hand.

“Let us eat first,” Mama said, gazing at us from the kitchen.

abide (verb) – umalinsunod

Mama enrolled me at Calinan Central Elementary School since she worked there as a teacher in Edukasyong Pantahanan at Pangkabuhayan and Musika, Sining at Edukasyong Pampalakas. The class adviser greeted us with her kindly smile. She placed a Manila paper on the blackboard and asked us to repeat after her, pointing the stick on the first word, “ab-ide”.

“Make sure you’re at the top of the class.” Papa was kind and patient, but he expected much from us in terms of our studies. Despite the hardships he faced , he was an honor student all his academic life in Surigao del Sur. During meals, he would narrate how they needed to wake up at three in the morning, do chores and prepare for school, otherwise they would be forced to kneel on the floor with outstretched arms. He also shared how fishing helped him with his studies until he became an educator. “You are provided with almost everything. All you have to do is to ask and study,” he would frequently tell us.

When the teacher posted the class ranking, I didn’t know what to say. I was second.

page (noun) – pahina

“I’m disappointed. Your mother told me. ” Papa said.

“I’m sorry. I did what I could. But Troy was proficient in all subjects. I kept struggling with Math.”

“But the school sent both of you to the Math contest, right?”

“They did, because they knew you were my father.”

“What’s not to understand?”

“I tried. I was second.”

“You could’ve just asked for my help.”

“You were busy. ”

“Why were you afraid to approach me?”

“I asked you once about a word problem Papa. You taught me how, but I wasn’t able to get it. You got angry.”

“What? You know… all that I did and said was for your own good. I hoped you will see that one day.”

Papa went out of the room. I cried. It wasn’t 65 or 75 but having the grade made me feel like I was falling from a cliff. The fog blurred my sight. The rocks pierced my back.

I opened the notebook and let fear and sadness scribble themselves. In writing, I never had to ace all tests.

sea (noun) – dagat

Summer arrived in a flash. I woke up at seven, drank milk, and walked toward the living room, avoiding to create a sound.

“Good morning Ate,” Patrick said, holding the remote control, eyes glued on the scene where Batman was chasing a thief. I wanted to watch fairytales. Should I exercise my power as the eldest child? I thought.

Brandon came out of the bedroom, grabbed the object from Patrick and raised it in the air. Patrick reached for it but he couldn’t, so he covered the television button instead.

“I want to watch Sineskwela, “ Brandon said.

“You too, stop. Brothers should not quarrel with each other. Give me that,” I said.

“But…”

“I’ll tell Mama and Papa about this.”

Brandon gave me the remote control. He went back to bed. The show ended, and Patrick decided to play basketball next.

I watched Grimm’s fairytales on television. The episode was based on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Little Mermaid. Sirenetta exchanged her voice for a pair of legs since she wanted to be with the prince whom she had rescued from a shipwreck. When the prince took her to the palace, she found out that he was already engaged. In her sorrow, she went to the shore, and there she heard her sisters’ voices, urging her to kill the prince with the dagger so she could return to her old self. However, love and pity conquered her. She ran and let herself be one with the sea once more. Fairies saw her and they carried her body as they flew to the skies.

Tears formed bubbles around. I wanted to give Sirenetta a happy ending she deserved. Writing gave me power to change and create, to make the impossible possible.

walk (verb) – maglakad

My parents enrolled me at Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School under the Engineering and Science Education Program (ESEP). I didn’t know of schools here in the city that offered Writing curriculums, so I obeyed my parents’ wishes. The first few weeks were fine, but learning science required the skill and precision in doing laboratory experiments, which I lacked.

“Class, I will divide you into five groups. You will present a chapter of Ibong Adarna,” the Filipino teacher said. That was the sweetest news I heard for the day. The teacher assigned the last chapters to us — the part where Don Juan chose Maria to be his wife and queen of Berbanya.

Writing helped me fare in the program.

candle (noun) – kandila

I was confined at Brokenshire Hospital, the only place with vacant rooms during the outbreak of dengue around July 2010. Every now and then, medical technologists would get blood samples. None of my fingers were spared.

“You were being prayed for. But you should also pray for yourself,” Papa said.

“But who could pray at this state?” I said in a low voice.

The next day, Mama left for home since my brother had a fever also. I was scheduled for a heart examination that afternoon. A medical technologist came into the room two hours earlier than he was supposed to.

“Her platelet count dropped to four and we need to get a blood sample right now.

We said our prayers. The schedule for blood transfusion was cancelled. People never had the ultimate control of their lives, I thought. No one knew when would death break in or knock on the door. I realized I had to make the most of every minute, and make the right choice.

rose (noun) – rosas

The classroom seat plan changed by the time I came back to school. I was transferred to the fifth row. Ian, a tall lean guy who I met last year in a spelling bee contest, greeted all of us at the back.

Antoine de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince was the next reading material for our English class. The teacher tasked us to read and perform a scene from the excerpt. Christine and Ann already had their partners, so I asked my seatmate Marie instead.

What is essential is invisible to the eye. I pondered on those words. This world needed peace, I thought.

“That was good,” Ian said. He was a literary writer from the school paper. The way he used mundane objects — the leaves, for instance as metaphors for his thoughts fascinated us.

Ian would share his poems to me every lunch break. That started the bond only the two of us had then.

detour (noun) – magditur

Classes in ESEP ended at six in the evening. Almost all jeepneys were filled with passengers. By the time I reached home, my family was already in their bedrooms.

“Are you all right?” Mama asked.

“We were thinking of transferring you to a nearer school.” Papa said.

gift (noun) – regalo

Adjusting to a new environment in Davao City Special National High School was not that difficult since I had known some of my classmates there from elementary.

I joined the school publication in Filipino, and worked as a News writer. It paved the way for more writing opportunities for me. My Filipino teacher sent me as the school’s representative for the University of the Philippines Mindanao Communicator’s Guild First Mindanao-wide On-The-Spot-Essay-Writing-Competition in Filipino.

The topic was about our stand on the government’s decision to pardon suspects of the Maguindanao massacre . I said in the essay that I was against it because it was unjust, and I showed how the youth could take part in this issue by raising awareness, for instance. Results came out after a couple of days. I received a medal and a cash prize. Being the champion made my parents happier, and proud of me once more. God willed it, I was certain.

face (verb)- harapin

“Take up Architecture.” Papa’s words made me think. I sketched a little but I still doubted whether I could do it. I feared contradicting him.

They enrolled me at the University of the Philippines Mindanao. From a distance, the building looked like an unfolded scroll. This was the start of my new journey — the road to the future.

Being in the Architecture program made me feel like I was a fish out of the water. Orthographic projections, for instance, tormented me. Analyzing how a three-dimensional object’s top, front and side view would look like in two-dimension was hard for me. The rest of my classmates were receiving A+s in their plates. My usual grades were B-s.

zone (noun)- sona

It was about seven in the evening when I came home. The T-square, triangles and tracing papers waited for me. I stared at the Bachelor’s pad plan for almost an hour. Perhaps I could add spaces like a bar or a library. I was crying inside. I lifted the technical pen and sketched a zoning diagram — similar to an outline of a piece.

Mama entered the room, bringing a cup of hot chocolate, biscuits, and storybooks. She placed these on the table by the bed. The warmth of her palm soothed my shoulders.

“You should rest.”

“I just have to finish this.”

“Okay then. Please read this in your free time and write additional questions. I will give this as an activity to my pupils.”

I left the tracing paper by itself. I picked up the book Why the Town Is Sleepy. Reading it reminded me who I was, what I could and could not do.

shift (noun) – turno

I gathered my courage and opened the door to my parent’s room. My chest was pounding. Mama was lying in bed, watching a television show.

“Mama, I have something to tell you. ”

“Yes?”

“Ma, you have seen the days when I am almost sleepless. I cannot draft fast and accurately at the same time. I want to shift.”

“You are already there. Your father would not want you to do that. Try to work faster, do not mind the pressure.”

“I can’t. I tried.”

“Did they fail you?”

“I did in Math. Almost in Drafting.”

“Why would you give up? All courses are difficult.”

“I know Ma and it seems harder for me because I lack the skills.”

“Did they kick you out?”

“No, Ma.”

“The expenses.”

“I cannot go on like this”

“What course are you planning to shift to?”

“Creative Writing.”

“I’ll tell your father about that.”

voice (noun) – boses

“Why?” Papa asked.

“I’m sorry Papa. I did what I could.”

“I’m sorry I did not ask you.”

“I’m sorry I did not tell you. I was afraid to go against you.”

He embraced me tight. I felt I was a young girl once again.

force (noun) – pwersa

I remembered making Newton’s cradle for our final project in Integrated Science in my first year in highschool. I asked Papa to buy me a piece of styrofoam and string. I picked up thin pieces of wood in the backyard and borrowed marbles from my brothers.

I attached the thread of the string on the hook at the top of the marble. Then, I glued it on the wooden horizontal bars, and placed it on the styrofoam. I pulled the first string and released it. The last ball was supposed to move but it did not. For several hours, I modified the length of the string and tried until the last ball swung, moving at least an inch. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Isaac Newton once said. The cradle taught me that one’s decisions lead to more of it, pulling and then releasing three balls meant that three balls would swing forward in return.

flow (verb) – dumaloy

Carlos Angeles’s “Gabu” was one of the literary works that struck me most. The poem depicted an image of a wave coming back to the sea as soon as it reached the shore. It reminded me of the moments when I had to return to where I came from, and to face, examine, and conquer the pains of the past, in order to find purpose in this life, and to move forward.

Joanna Paula M. Cagape majors in creative writing at the University of the Philippines Mindanao.

Asteroid B-329

Nonfiction by Nero Oleta Fulgar | February 13, 2016

“And I saw a most extraordinary small person,
who stood there examining me with great seriousness.”

When I was younger, I came upon a small book in one those huge plastic boxes my mother used for storage. It was when my mother called for a general cleaning of the house. In the morning we pulled all the boxes from under the sofas, moved the chairs aside for the sweeping, waxed the floor, then took a break after lunch. The rest of the afternoon was lazy; my mother retired to her room, as did my Ate, who was the only one of my siblings who was in the house that day. My father, my brother and my sister were out. I picked through the storage boxes, searching for nothing in particular, just anything that would pique my interest. And then I found the book. It was thin, small, with messy, child-like illustrations. There was what looked like a hat, a sheep, a rose, and more importantly, a boy, alone on a small rocky planet.

The book belonged to my Ate, who told me, when I asked about it, that it was something I wouldn’t understand at my age, that it was ‘philosophical’. It was the word that made me think twice upon reading it. Words like that were heavy—incomprehensible, and adult. I tried to take her advice. But eventually, I found myself immersed in the book, lying on the abaca chair in the sala, dust floating in the air, exposed, as the afternoon light poured in from the open jalousies.

“I admire you,” said the little prince, shrugging his shoulders slightly,
“but what is there in that to interest you so much?”

The first story I ever wrote was a fruit of an envious me. When I was ten years old, my seat mate in school wrote a story, about a gothic girl who started dating this rich, good-looking guy. The most vivid scene I remember was the first date, held in a romantic restaurant named Virgo.

It was not the story really that enticed me to start writing my own; it was because of the restaurants’ name, how it fit so well, how someone would make use of a zodiac sign’s classic name to match the seemingly sophisticated image of a restaurant.

I wanted to create my own Virgo, wanted to name something that would sound, and feel so accurate to what I would create. That night, I started writing my own story. It was romantic still, but fantastic, largely based on an online anime-role playing game my Ate and I were playing at that time. The first chapter was hot among my female classmates—they told me how kilig it was, how good, and their excited squeals and spasms inspired me to write more. And I did.

Meanwhile, this seat mate of mine started spreading rumors of how unoriginal I was for copying what she had started. I never asked her why. I merely ignored her, and avoided speaking with her, until one day she tried back-stabbing me with a purposefully elevated volume in the school gymnasium, for everyone, including me, to hear. When we marched back into the classroom, I slammed my P.E notebook down on my armchair, faced her and told her what a bitch she was. Everyone in the classroom stopped to watch the show. I cried, like I usually do when I’m uncontrollably angry, and spoke every word through a yell.

“KA-BITCH MO GUD TALAGA!”

She looked surprised with my outburst, and apologized to put the issue to rest and save her from my embarrassing fit.

“Lagi, lagi sorry na. Jeez.”

She put it an amused demeanor, however, like it was nothing, and she was above it all.

The next day, we were civil. We did not speak to each other as we used to. Soon the seating plan was rearranged, grade five was concluded, and the next year, we were sections apart.

My story did not survive as well. Soon I came upon a dead end; I could not think of anything else to add, to keep the momentum of romance going, so I stopped. My classmates soon forgot about it as well, and the story dissipated into memory.

III

“…I have serious reason to believe that the planet
from which the little prince came is the asteroid B-612.”

Our house was not that big; there were three rooms, two bedrooms and a joint kitchen and sala. It didn’t give much space for playing, really. But I was small, and thin. Every nook and cranny in the house—the underside of tables, inside closets, under chairs—was big enough for me. The old zipper-locked closet we had in our bedroom used be my secret base, when I pretended to be a robo-cop with laser guns. In the space our sala had to offer, I ran around, riding dragons, doing impromptu dialogues to my enemies before I blast them to death. I make a special effort, however, to keep in mind that people don’t always win to keep it realistic. So from time to time, I do a dramatic death, my imaginary allies mourning their friend, lost to the hands of Lady Death.

This behavior—my “hyperactivity” as my mother would put it, in addition to my frequent interaction with invisible friends—led my parents to think I had ADHD. My Ate, the eldest in the family, and my brother after her, never acted like I did. My little sister was the closest I had to an accomplice in delving into the imagination, although her main interest was on playing house, and barbie. She indulged my crazy ventures, and in return, I played with her and her barbie dolls. Our play was not entirely confined to her idea of playing doll, though—I stripped her dolls naked, made them do fighting stunts, pretending they were Charlie’s Angels.

This feminine play, and my flamboyant attitude as a child, did not make my father happy. Once, he tried scaring me into becoming a “man”, or at least to his idea of it. It happened one afternoon, when I was playing superheroes with my sister in the bedroom. Fists clenched and hands outstretched, we screamed their names at the top our lungs.

“SUPERMAN, SUPERMAN!”

“HAWKGIRL, HAWKGIRL!”

“BATMAN, BATMAN!”

We took our play to the sala, our voices resounding inside the house. The door to my parents’ bedroom eventually opened, and out came my father, wearing his classic wife-beater, and a pair of shorts. By that time, I had in my lips, the name of the most prominent hero in Philippine TV:

“DARNA, DARNA!”

I reverted to yelling “BATMAN,” at the sight of him but the attempt was too late. He took me by my shoulders, shook me and said, “ Wala akong anak na bakla! Magpalalaki ka kung ayaw mong palayasin kita!”

A decent, yet naïve person would ask, how could anyone say such thing to a child? And a smart, educated answer would be, in this country, how couldn’t they?

At least, despite the fact that my parents couldn’t relate to how my mind works, they never really made it a problem, and just accepted the fact I was different. This however they just can’t seem to take.

“You know—one loves the sunset, when one is so sad.”

I grew up scared. I had this fear in my head that just kept on growing and growing. By high school, my imagined universes stopped existing, at least, outside the house. If my parents could not understand, how could I expect any one else to?

Sophomore year, I was in transition. I conformed to the majority’s idea of a “grown up” little by little. Hair thick with styling wax, khakis customized to fit (no baggies allowed). I tried to find an identity that was acceptable, invisible, an identity that didn’t demand any attention, positive or negative. I needed to be in the background of things.

I knew I did a good job of it when one of my female acquaintances told me I was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. And in retrospect, I was. I make it a point to smile as much as possible, to act like I’m riding along high school on a rainbow unicorn. Laughing was my thing, everyone knew, and ironically, it was the only thing that felt real.

I remember my classmates threw jokes at me in turns, just to see how low my standards were for humor. He asked me, “Anong fish ang palaging dumidikit?”

The joke was not even finished yet, but I was already chuckling by myself. I shrugged, and he brought down the punchline:

“Eh di, fish pilit!”

I enjoyed that fleeting pleasure, and laughed myself to tears.

“Don’t linger like this. You have decided to go away. Now go!”
For she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower…

I stopped playing with my friends in school. That had to go, if I wanted to blend in. I stopped picking up thin branches from the field and waving them, yelling spells from Harry Potter. I stopped doing scavenger hunts looking for invisible monsters, and stopped chasing cats. Instead, I channeled all those imaginative energy into something else.

Pre-school years, I was awarded Best in Drawing. I remember what got me that award was a drawing of a boy with uneven arms, one thin, and the other as thick as a tree. It was an ugly drawing, but I didn’t know that. I came up that stage and received that paper medal with pride. That award led me to think I had talent—sketching, painting, and the like.

I based my future on that. I would become an artist of some kind, a painter, or a landscape architect, designing gardens and backyards (buildings were too dull—plants and flowers seemed more interesting; I even thought of becoming a botanist).

All those adventures I couldn’t act out, all the play I repressed, I put them all into paper. And by that, I mean sketching comics; a teenage boy living in a world where superhuman powers were normal, a world with witches distinguished by the animals they turn into, or just a re-imagination of Digimon, giving more emphasis on the characters I favored. The attempt lasted for a long while, but even after successfully finishing a whole scene, I was never really satisfied. They never really seemed alive to me, despite all those lines, and shadings. That, and there was also the fact that my sketches were not entirely great. I believed I was good because everyone else in high school seemed worse.

I kept working on it, telling myself that after two years, I would be so much better than I was. One day, I decided to put the pencil down and told myself, this is hopeless. From time to time, I would still sketch a scene I think is worth sketching–an imagined sunset view of an ocean, a thick old tree overlooking a quiet creek, or a desolate desert under a starry night sky–and for a moment, I would convince myself all over again that I could sketch. And I honestly could…just not stories.

Throughout high school, I attempted writing novels in unused notebooks. It was on my third year when I actually finished one, a story about a boy who died, and woke up in a morgue, only to find out that he was resurrected by a princess from an another dimension. I planned it to be the first installation to my trilogy, inspired by an anime called Kaibutso Oujo, or Princess Resurrection. But by college, I decided to discard the project—I realized, after all the seminars our professors urged us to attend, what I wrote was pretty much plagiarized.

But by then, I had already written several other short stories, and I made sure they were products out of my own head. Writing, I discovered thanks to that seat mate of mine, isn’t far from sketching. When I write, I still sketch, I still shade, and erase, only I don’t deal with lines and figures—I deal with words. The best thing about that is, I think, that when I write, I find mobility, that movement I never found in sketching. The images, the people I sketch using the medium of language, move in sync with the flow of the words I write. It was the perfect channel, the perfect manifestation of the child-like eccentricity everyone seemed so bothered of.

“When the little prince arrive on the Earth,
he was very surprised not to see other people.”

I cried often as a child, but never because of a book. I did not know books were capable of making readers cry when I found myself silently sobbing in the sala, sitting on the woven abaca seat that one afternoon. I was confused. How could a book make me feel so sad? I got my answer as I grew older, when books became my bread, and writing my goal.

Being alone is a constant upon living. Whether you are eccentric, or different. Whether you assimilate yourself into that odd concept of “growing up”, whether you are rich or poor, girl or boy, you will always be in your own planet, with your volcanoes and your own rose.

It was from that learning that I understood what writing really is. It is more than mere escapism. Wounded as we are, we tend to crawl under the protection of the literature, looking for solace, for signs that we aren’t alone in feeling lonely. From there we choose; do we hide behind the veiled truths of fantasy, as we fester in fear of confronting the demons that keep us from removing our masks? Or do we mend ourselves, use literature as armor and arms, instead of a bunker to hide behind?

I write because I am different, because I have a story to tell. But at the same time, I am different because I write. The two feed off each other like a snake eating its own tail. These things has set me apart from my family, my friends, preventing them to fully understand me, or even accept me. But at the same time, it is my redemption. One day I will write something that will move them the way the little prince’s story moved me. And one day, they will understand.

Nero Oleta Fulgar is taking up BA English (Creative Writing) at UP Mindanao.

Iligan: The City of Failing Waters

Nonfiction by John Oliver Ladaga | January 17, 2016

I was born and raised all my life in a city that promised springs and waterfalls but which existed alongside blackouts and power outages. I remember growing up to candle-lit dinners and going to bed early in their warm, incandescent glow (the candles, I mean). Sometimes the power would go out in the middle of the day. Sometimes it would go out in the middle of class, when the teacher would end up having to open the blinds, the windows, and the door, with everyone in the room ending up drenched in sweat by the end of the day. They would happen suddenly, especially when we were off-guard and have not done our “researching” on Encarta early enough (we did not have Internet until I was in high school). In their wake, the expensive electricity bills would come trailing. The sound of Mama’s plaintive sighs would reverberate through the house.

Daytimes were akin to spending eight hours in an oven with windows. The creaking sound of the long metal handle of the neighbor’s poso going up and down became an inevitable drudgery on the weekends. My hands would end up smelling like rust – pale, distant, and cold. Hauling water in containers to meet wasteful bathing habits rinsed and repeated until they became insufferable. At home, the faucets only start working at four or five in the morning and end at around six. For the first thirty minutes, the water must be left running because it smells like sewage. It eventually came to the point when we dug our own deep well at home.

Ironically, the name of the city itself comes from the term ilig, which means “to flow”. Two main rivers run between the city: Mandulog River farther to the north and Tubod River just south of the city proper. The two main river systems come from uphill streams in mountainous places like Tipanoy and Puga-an, thus exposing the city to Iligan Bay in a gray delta of buildings and roads. The towering structures built along the shoreline stifle and mix the incoming sea breeze with smoke from exhausts.

The city proper of Iligan is nothing to gawk at or marvel about. Quaint, square, practical buildings line the streets and main highways left and right, a lot of them being commercial buildings renting out space for offices, shops, and stores. There is hardly any elegance of design or any semblances of beauty – except for a few, almost all of them had been built with practicality and pragmatism in mind. Most of the buildings are gray, with their five or so stories towering over pedestrians with an antiquated feel. (Others with glaringly bright colors resemble Greek statues – better off dull gray and plain than any color at all, if you ask me.) Gibiyaan sila sa panahon – the times have left them, but they almost never fail to give a certain air that takes one ten or twenty years back into their heyday.

Shopping centers – not really “malls” – take precedence in the row of commercial buildings on almost every other street. UniCity and UniTop are both top examples of bright-hued establishments that, once you step inside and greet the cold blast of the air-conditioning, smell like dry, packaged air and plastic.

Beside them are the glaring appearances of newer commercial buildings that look more “modern” and “minimalist” compared to their older counterparts. Most of them look whitewashed, with slanting walls instead of ordinary straight ones and wide window panels, such as the new Desmark building along the main highway near Saint Michael’s Cathedral, or the new building of Crown Paper and Stationery along Aguinaldo Street facing the refurbished Jollibee branch.

Sometimes old buildings have to go to make way for new ones, but these rarely happen. Iligan is a kind of place where at one given moment you are at the heart of the city’s hustle and bustle, but turn a corner and suddenly you find yourself where the past meets the present. Here, shiny new Hondas drive by dilapidated buildings and wooden doors with faces of politicians from elections past stapled onto them, fluttering in the wind.

Iligan may be the product of industrialization, but it is a quiet city, even during festivals, with an alienating coldness to it. Even though the streets and highways often seem packed with people and vehicles – especially during rush hour – they rarely seem lively.

Much of the coastline is dotted with the presence of companies whose storage and/or processing structures and pipelines stand out and cast shadows over passing vehicles, such as Holcim Cement, or even the gargantuan storage drums of Shell along the highway to Suarez, just beside the vine-overtaken refinery of Global Steel Corporation. Yet despite this, many Iliganons are jobless, or have to seek employment elsewhere. Small wonder, then, that everyone always looks like he/she is in a hurry. Their footsteps are quick-paced, ranging from brisk walking to almost sprinting. They can be quite hot-tempered: the look on their eyes almost never fails to give away their insistence on being right when they are not. (Small wonder, then, that the roads congest every other week because of vehicular accidents.)

I never had the chance to give the city a first impression, mostly because I thought that everything I saw there was normal. If being a bit too quiet and quite unlively for a city of three hundred thousand people were normal, then I guess Iligan is so. The best microcosm for the whole city would be the refineries of Global Steel Corporation, which saw near-zero activity from 2005 onwards. The grove of trees seems to grow taller and taller. The gates are rusted shut. The pipelines and roofs sit there, unfazed as the heat gives way to rain and heat again. Vines have taken over the walls, and even the infirmary.

There are people still working there, even just for maintenance. Security guards sit in the shade of a dilapidated guard post. Janitors clean the worn-down hallways of a workspace that has not heard even the faintest of footsteps of any other employee. In the remaining office cubicles, the white-collar office workers still wait for someone to buy out the whole refinery, for the place to start again, to live and breathe again as it once did up to the late nineties. Iligan is a lot like this place: dormant, waiting for someone to take the reins, like a child growing older waiting for a father to come home.

When Global Steel no longer became profitable as an enterprise, many of its workers began looking for opportunities abroad. My father was one of them, having left for abroad for the first time when I was in high school. He came home for the third time last 2013, just as I was about to enter UP as an incoming freshman.

We are a normal family, if normal meant the distance between us family members has been steadily growing over the year; if normal meant the increasing number of times that we have been fighting and giving each other the cold shoulder. If normal meant that home is no longer home but an eerie juncture where the past meets the present. If normal meant that the past still mingles with the present, and we could still see it in little things, like the Internet router, or the various tools for home and car maintenance, or the cracks on the walls. We are normal.

So too is Iligan, if not for the past summers and Christmas breaks I had stayed there while I’ve been away for college, then perhaps it has been that way my whole life: a failing city.

John Oliver Ladaga is a 3^rd year BA English-Creative Writing student of the University of the Philippines Mindanao.

A Formula for Rising from the Nadir of the Times

Nonfiction by Aida Rivera Ford | January 17, 2016

(Editor’s Note: I received a hard copy of this piece from Tita Lacambra-Ayala, who had unearthed it from her files but we do not have the date when it was written. Still, I think Aida Ford’s message remains relevant to the present time.)

We live in absolutely horrendous times, and the only certainty we have is that when we think we have hit the very bottom—the nadir—we haven’t. The nadir is yet to be reached.

How do we rise above these trying times? The resiliency of Filipinos is best manifested by our ability to face the greatest shock with humor. But humor alone or escapism will not solve the situation. Is there really hope for us? What can I say to you? One super-qualification that I have is a panoramic perspective of the Pandora’s box: to live with the good and its disasters; its ideals and actualities; its moments of glory and its deep depression.

In youth, my generation had the experience of looking up to leaders like Quezon, Osmena, and Roxas; of being part of a system where the leaders made it possible for training of others to take over as leaders. I cannot say the same for the present system. Neither in bureaucracy nor in education.

My generation also had the experience of facing up to a World War with its patriotic fervor and its deprivation of freedom; with its high excitement in moments of risk and its fears and anxiety and tragedy of loss of property and loved ones. (I lost a brother in Capas and my father was in and out of the Kempeitai.) But through all this there was hope that we would regain the freedom that we so palpably missed—the freedom to express ourselves without fear of repression or disappearing without a gasp or trace into the night.

In retrospect, the war was a crucible that crystallized values. What were the things one cannot do without? What are the things worth risking life and property for?

Then we had the experience of rehabilitations. We took seriously the “Back to the Farm” movement advocated by Roxas and Osias. That’s how our family came to Davao. We plunged into abaca production and ramie, relying on government promises of a steady market. What the experience taught us was that we should not rely on whatever pet project the government advocates. What succeeded in post-war Davao was hard work and endurance; private enterprise and the Chinese concept of setting aside working capital, never drawing on it for clothes, cars, expensive houses. What was meant for farming or business was kept intact. Only then could we compete with the Chinese—by emulating the Chinese way of life.

The experience of studying abroad gave me added insights on the nature of my own identity. By contrast and through what we miss do we gauge the Filipino in us. There is also that stimulus and challenge to show one’s worth in the face of so much impersonality and competition. I had the exhilaration of winning a major prize in fiction from the University of Michigan.

Then after getting married I had the experience of a sojourn in Korea, a war-torn country split artificially into the Communist North and the supposedly Democratic South. Korea in 1958 was as depressing as its coal-blackened buildings and the suicidal look on the faces of the people due to tyranny and corruption in government. When I revisited Korea in 1978, twenty years after my sojourn there, I saw tremendous progress, unusual change from an individualistic, pushy way of life to one of order and organization; from corruption as a way of life to a disciplined society.

My experience in education—teaching at what was then the Mindanao Colleges, and then the Armed Forces School of the University of Maryland, the University of Mindanao, and the Ateneo de Davao University, and finally setting up the Learning Center of the Arts in 1980, now the Ford Academy of the Arts, Inc. I learned that teaching by example is still a very effective way in education. One can never inculcate a work ethic or a creative way of life by standing in the sidelines giving instructions. I learned that some enjoy working alone and some enjoy working in groups. But joy makes work light, whatever the obstructions are.

On that note, we enter the experience in Marcos’s time, of the Philippines being “martialized.” More and more, joy became an alien experience, but suddenly a new awesome phenomenon confronted us: the phenomenon of the parliament of the streets imposing its own discipline—a parliament of professionals and students and housewives and workers standing up for principle in peaceful manifestation of the worth of the human being. That was indeed beautiful.

Yet a time comes when man or woman must give expression to the very deep-seated desire for beauty and truth and justice—the old verities that have motivated the great arts of the world, from Neolithic man’s attempt to express movement, energy, and a moment in time in his cave-drawings of animals and men to the marvels of the monumental architecture of the Egyptians and the Mayans, to the glories of Greek architecture and sculpture, literature and philosophy to the Roman structures and the Gothic spires pointing straight up to heaven and then to the Renaissance focus on the person again—in our God-given magnificence. No amount of repression can really keep artists from expressing themselves, as in the work of Picasso, Goya, and Diego Rivera. I’m not saying that art should be revolutionary. Art for the most part can be enjoyed for itself. The design does not have to mean something. But whatever artists express in painting or sculpture or architecture or music or literature, they must be true to themselves.

What must we do to bring ourselves up from the nadir of the times?

First, we must face up to the problems of the times squarely, honestly, and with humor, if possible.

Second, we can learn from our mistakes and take a tip from countries or people who have sunk into deeper holes and resuscitated themselves.

Third, we must depend solely on ourselves and not depend on government assistance or initiative nor on outside loans. Old Filipino common sense tells us to borrow only what we can pay back; spend only what we can afford. If we see an opening out of the hold, let’s find a way to get everyone out without trampling on each other. Let us stop the cycle of corruption by beginning with ourselves.

Fourth, when faced with oppression, let us have the courage to take a stance, singly or in groups. Let us assert our humanity.

Last, when we reach the bottom, let us not lose hope. We trust that our built-in moral and spiritual values will sustain us for the hard climb up.

Aida Rivera Ford is a founding member of the Davao Writers Guild and president of the Ford Academy of the Arts, Inc. She celebrates her 87^th birthday on 22 January 2016.

For the people: How a Scientist Became an Activist

Nonfiction by Jade Monterverde Baylon, Joanna Paula Cagape, Michelle Andrea Asagra | January 10, 2016

Kim Gargar told us to wait outside for our interview. We wanted to ask him about his life, what got him into activism and why he had been thrown into prison. Prior to the meeting, we had also heard about Panalipdan Southern Mindanao and we were buzzing with the questions we would ask him. It was hard to believe such a famous person was just an ikot jeepney ride away, in UP Mindanao where he currently teaches Physics.

After a few moments, Kim Gargar came out of the CSM building. All of us made our way towards the huts by the little bridge where it was quiet enough to do the interview. We asked him immediately why he became an activist. He looked amused by the question and answered it with a question of his own. “What do you think activism is?” I gave him the most honest answer I could think of: a way of fighting oppression. He said my answer was right then told me about his activism’s roots.

Continue reading For the people: How a Scientist Became an Activist