Category: Nonfiction

Saying Goodbye

Nonfiction by | July 18, 2010

I think I was the last person she saw before she went into coma. Her vitals dropped earlier that morning and so we gathered by her bedside at two in the morning. A few of her friends were there, family members, me and my sister, while she took deep heaves for elusive oxygen. Our pastor friend was there and by the looks of it, I could guess, he suffered a momentary distress as to what to pray for. What could we pray for? Plaster all the punctures in the heart? Revive the collapsed left lung? Scrape off all the cancer from the liver? In one miraculous swoop? I’m sure God could do all that, but I’m quite content that God was just there in the love of the people she spent her life with.

So the pastor, finally asked us: “What do you want to pray for?” Nobody answered. It was as if it was all too much to ask. But someone had to answer. “If she’s going, I pray she does so painlessly,” I replied. Almost everyone bowed their heads. Was that too rash? Heartless? Too fast?

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Remembrance of the Workshop Past

Nonfiction by | July 11, 2010

Almost two decades ago, writer Doreen Fernandez, a noted critic herself, pleaded that this country should have more critics. They do an important work in telling the readers which stories are good and which are not, which plays are worth watching and which are not, which books are worth buying and which are not.

Yet to us Filipinos whose sensibilities are not like the Americans’ it is hard to have critics around. We cannot withstand criticism nor have our work—the mere completion of which took us a long time to achieve—subjected to it. We take criticism, however constructive it may be, personally. We mistake criticism as an assault on our very being.

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I Really Just Want to Write

Nonfiction by | June 20, 2010

I’ve always said it: I just want to write. Some of my classmates in Creative Writing were born to become professors passing on their knowledge to the next generation of students, others were born to edit, to analyze other writers’ works, and to put together papers that become chapters of textbooks. I firmly believe that my niche in this world belongs to writing. And so I became a web content writer.

But the life of a web content writer is not as glamorous as it sounds. I can assure you, the pay is just as bad. On the other hand, I encounter situations my former classmates do not.

In my quest for a better paying job and in the misguided belief that I needed to step up my game, I accepted online editing work for a company based in the United Arab Emirates.

My new employer was the head of human resources of a drilling company. As to what the company was drilling, I could only venture guesses: oil? water? sewage? Sensitive documents never came my way, but what editing work that did kept me busy for days on end.

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149 Minutes

Nonfiction by | June 13, 2010

Nervous, I inserted my ballot into the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scanner) machine. I was nervous because the PCOS might reject my ballot like it did to the woman’s before me. She had to insert it six times before her ballot was counted. Less than a minute passed, and the words, “Congratulations! Your vote has been counted” appeared. I sighed. I was done.

What the COMELEC (Commission on Elections) said was really true. With the automated elections, the counting of the ballots would no longer take a long time, unlike the manual elections. But it’s too early to celebrate. Lest we forget, the searching of polling precincts, the lining up—all that, too, is part of the elections. And there are so many things that can be said of them. So many, in fact, that I don’t know where to begin.

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The Davao Writer's Workshop: Funnest Summer Ever

Nonfiction by | May 23, 2010

I decided to stop writing almost a year ago for certain personal reasons. But becoming a part of the workshop made me reevaluate things. The moment I stumbled on the announcement of DAGMAY (online page of the Davao Writers Guild) calling out for aspiring writers to submit pieces for the Davao Writer’s Workshop 2010, I got a jolt I couldn’t ignore. I felt I should give it a shot. What the hell, if they ignore me then it’s not for me; but if I get accepted—well, I’ll have to see where it goes.

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On Writing Before Typing

Nonfiction by | May 16, 2010

While my friends fret with their laptops to do their assignments, I calmly write down ideas from my mind. Somehow, even with the proliferation of computing machines, I still find myself sticking it out with pen and paper. There is courage and strength when I hold a pen in my hand and set out to conquer the clean, empty space of the paper. Not that I disdain the computer. In fact, my games of Plants vs. Zombies show my fondness for it. the computer helps me with a lot of things, like the submission of reports and assignments.  However, I enjoy contributing to the bin by writing my thoughts first before typing them.

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Tagum Fairy Tales

Nonfiction by | May 9, 2010


I will be the first to admit that as a kid, I never grew up reading fairy tales. The lives of Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood were never stored in my personal memory box. I have often wondered what my outlook would have been had I been initiated into these fairy stories early on.

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Success

Nonfiction by | May 3, 2010

How do we measure success? Each has her own answer to this basic question, and each is correct. It depends, I guess, on where one is coming from, or perhaps, where one is at the time the question came. Since is no right answer to this question, there is only the supposition of its accuracy, of its veracity. From whose perspective will the assessment of such accuracy come? I guess it will be from the perspective of one who had been there.

I measure my success not in terms of how much I have in the bank—for there is not a lot there, just a few measly pesos to tide me over till the next paycheck—nor even how long I have taught in the University. To do so, I think, is inutile, for then, I am but one of the many who have given their best to honor the age-old tradition of greater service for the glory of God. I am but one of the soldiers who march to the battlefront, swinging her gun to the rhythmic cadence of inspired heroism before the guns start to mow us down. I am one of the many who may still live the ideals of a world gone awry, tenaciously holding to what could have been so that this world could become a more habitable one for those who will come after us. So, what, then, is success for me?

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