Category: Nonfiction

Bulalakaw

Nonfiction by | June 30, 2013

Sa gamay pa ko, kanunay ko makakitag bulalakaw nga kalit lang mosutoy gikan sa kawanangan padulong ambot asa sa kalibotan. Diha pa mi nagpuyo sa Quezon Boulevard, sa may Salmonan banda. Katunggan pa ang maong lugar kaniadto, daghang bakhaw ug waterlili, gurami ug puyo, hasta tangkig. Sa gabii kalingawan namong mga bata nga magdulag biros, tigso, ug tubig-tubig. Tingali tungod kay kanunay ko naa sa gawas sa balay sa gabii mao nga kanunay sab ko makakitag bulalakaw. Apan naa koy mahinumdoman nga usa ka dako ug siga kaayo nga bulalakaw nga mihiwa sa kangitngit ibabaw sa Isla sa Samal. Nakahinumdom ko niini kay morag duol kaayo ang bulalakaw ug dugay napalong ang iyang pagdilaab. Nakahinumdom ko nga mihunong sa pagdula ug gitutokan ang paglupad niini hangtod nga nahanaw.

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Imagination and the Making of a Nation, Part 2

Nonfiction by | June 23, 2013

Keynote speech delivered on the occasion of the Ateneo de Davao Writers Workshop 2013 held last May 27

My Facebook shows a photo of the well-known critic, Isagani Cruz, home from an European sally. He writes, “Geneva might be the cleanest city in the world…Soon I will return to the Gates of Hell, but dirty or corrupt though it may be, Metro Manila is home sweet home.” It’s almost the same way I feel about every place where I have set up a bed and a kitchen, home in its plainest sense–it may not be much of anything in comparison with the magazine-sleek, full-colour portrayals of the homes of the rich and famous. Home to me is three-dimensional, solid and sensual, populous and visceral. It is the house where I live, the cluttered room, the dirty kitchen, the straggling garden, the people I love, those who might dislike my smell or the sound of my speech, the heat, the cold, the mud. If you transport me to another, better place, this sense of home will follow me like the smell of frying buladin the morning, like the muscular memory of the language I grew up with, like the tireless eyes of my mother watching us all from her grave in Ormoc’s hillside graveyard. No matter where I would be in the world I know I belong here even if by chance I will never return here for the rest of my life.

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Imagination and the Making of a Nation, Part 1

Nonfiction by | June 16, 2013

Keynote speech delivered on the occasion of the Ateneo de Davao Writers Workshop 2013 held last May 27.

We have just completed a major political exercise, the mid-term elections of 2013, which left in its wake varied effects upon the countryside, conflicting memories for us to deal with, many dilemmas, lessons and realizations to ponder, and prospects and speculations about our future as a nation. This election has not been as loud and strident as elections past. It did not leave us mountains of trash–literally–to put away as in earlier elections, when thousands of brigades had to be mustered nationwide to rip off the posters and markings from walls, electrical posts, even trunks of trees in every barangay and even along the highways.

This election left a bad taste in my mouth because for the first time I had a close encounter with the vote-buying syndrome. Our day helper is a nice cheerful garrulous lady in her mid-forties, who lives near our little subdivision in Tacloban City. In my family the helper sits and eats with us. So for the duration of the election season dinnertime conversations were instructive on how our neighbors were gearing up for the election. My house help told us how much she expected to “earn” from each candidate, from mayor down to councillor. She did not give a thought about the senators–there were no pickings to be had there, she observed dismissively.

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No Dowry, No Cry

Nonfiction by | May 27, 2013

When we first met, R didn’t believe for a second that I was a Muslim; I had this skimpy dress on that merely flattened out whatever curves remained in my ectomorphic body. I didn’t have a veil on and spoke without any accent.  My peculiar name was the single, albeit tenuous thread to my glorious heritage, frequently inspiring automatic cross references to Abu Sayyaf, Camp Abubakar, and Abubakar Janjalani (we are not related, by the way). For a while, this knowledge immobilized him from taking any drastic and immediate action. But skimpy dresses proved to be too difficult to resist, and almost in no time, R was sitting on my parents’ living room sofa, asking for my hand in marriage, sweat beads rolling down his gently-sloped nose.

“You have to excuse my daughter for her strange behavior,” my father glowered at me. “She grew up here in Manila.”

And my father regaled R with stories about how he’s unlike any Muslim father you’ll ever meet, having studied both the Bible and the Koran, having many Catholic friends, having lived in Manila for so long, and having a decadent urbanite like me for a daughter. He said, back in Sulu, a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim was downright unthinkable. “Our weddings are huge; some last for days.  And there are dowries to be made.”
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Five Deadly Sins

Nonfiction by | April 29, 2013

The act of praying or the sambahayang is one of the famous rituals of Muslims. Muslims must perform the sambahayang at least five times a day. I perform the sambahayang, but not five times a day. I do it five times a month when I have the time, or at least once every three months. It’s not that I don’t like to do it. I just don’t have the time. At nineteen, I feel that I have too many things to attend to. I have schoolwork, friends, and boy problems to deal with. Everything can be overwhelming, and sadly, performing the sambahayang is one of the things that I readily sacrifice to attend to other things I consider more important.

Whenever people ask me why I do not practice sambahayang, I always tell them that I don’t have the time. It seems that when it is time to pray, all of a sudden I remember that I have other things to do. Sometimes, I tell myself that I have to go to school or I have assignments to do or I have somewhere else to go. I know that all of these are mere excuses but I don’t really care. They can get me out of the task of praying and that makes me happy. I don’t know if my parents could tell that I am just lying, but I am hoping that they would not ask further. My Mommy always told me that time should never get in the way of my practicing Muslim obligations. It is in performing prayers like the sambahayang that I should find myself with Allah. I could find time or make time for prayer if I wanted to. In fact, I can probably pray more than five times a day if I wanted to. I often wonder how my Mommy would react if she found out. I always wish that she wouldn’t because I know that if she did, she would be disappointed. I don’t want to disappoint my mother because I don’t want to feel guilty. I hate feeling guilty. It eats me up from the inside.

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Iboto si Trapo

Nonfiction by | April 7, 2013

Ako si Trapo Ko. Gwapito III.

Kumakanditado bilang gobernador ng Probinsya Gwapito del Sur, anak ng dating Congressman. Dating Mayor rin ng aming munisipyo, matapos mapalitan ng aking nakakatandang kapatid. Tumigil lang ako saglit sa politika dahil nagkastroke ako, pero sa awa ng Diyos pinagaling niya ako. Alam niyang kailangan ko pang maglingkod sa masa, at ngayon nagkalakas ng loob akong kumandidato dahil sa tiwala na binigay sa akin ng mga tao.

Noong nakaraang taon, nagpaparamdam na ako (wag kang maiingay ha?) sa gilid ng mga kalye. Naglalagay ng mga tarpaulin na bumabati ng “Happy Graduation” sa mga nagtatapos, “Maligayang Pasko” naman noong Disyembre. Katabi nga ng mga tarpaulin ko ang mukha din ng asawa ni Senador Villar. Napapakinggan din ako sa lahat ng estasyon ng radyo sa probinsya. Sabi nila premature campaign ang ginagawa ko pero wala namang masama sa bumabati at sa nagpaparamdam. Bakit, may nakakaalam ba? Wala naman akong nilalabag na batas ng COMELEC. Masaya na ako na kahit sa ganyang mga paraan lamang ay mapasaya ko ang mga tao sa pamamagitan ng pagbati sa kanila.

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My High School-College Friendship Frustration

Nonfiction by | March 31, 2013

It’s that time again: that time when I try my best to just close my eyes and drift off into the emptiness of oblivion. Somehow, I cannot manage it. The days now seem to pass by much quicker than I want them to. My time in high school is about to end and honestly, I don’t know what to feel anymore.

When I’m at school, I am overwhelmed by my emotions and I feel like screaming all the time. I’m like a volcano, brimming with molten lava, just waiting to explode.

I often get lonely in my confusion. I then try to think of college and the new life that awaits me there. I have built up this illusion that my life would be better once I get there. I’ll have freedom, independence, and girls. But I cannot escape the fact that my high school friends are not going to be there with me.

They keep on saying that they will visit me but I have my doubts. And I know it will not be the same as before.

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The Power of A Smile

Nonfiction by | March 24, 2013

I was going round and round Iligan City on endless errands and I was dead tired. I was already oblivious to my surroundings, and even to the repugnant smell of the market place I normally complained about. All I wanted at that time was to go home and rest. The jeepney I was riding in was caught in traffic when this beggar hopped on board. He wiped our shoes with a dirty piece of rag. Afterwards, he waited for someone to spare him some coins, or leftover food, or anything that would be freely given. Nobody moved. Nobody even looked at him directly. I only peered at him from the corner of my eyes. I have this self-imposed rule of never giving money to beggars. I gave them food if I had some, but I carried nothing that day. The beggar waited for a long while then went away disgruntled.

This scenario was not new to me. I had seen this repeated many times. When I lived in Metro Manila for almost six years, I experienced worse episodes than this. The beggars in the street of the metropolis made me feel either disillusioned with the rampant poverty in the country, or ashamed that I could not do more for those who needed help. In both cases though, I always felt thankful that I was not the one begging for alms on the streets.

However, this particular mendicant here in Iligan brought back memories of a chance encounter with an altogether different sort of street urchin.

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