Category: Nonfiction

Hi Tech: Solutions or Problems?

Nonfiction by | May 3, 2010

One of my professors in masters’ education once said, “High tech solutions create high tech problems.” It was his remark while trying to fix the computerized multimedia projector that was having problem amidst our class. His statement struck me as remarkable, since, as a district Information and Communication Technology coordinator, I too have a wide background in computers. Just like my professor, I recognize how useful this new technology is in establishing effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity in this fast changing times. On the other hand, I usually encounter technical problems with the new technology, and we also have the same plea oftentimes. I enjoyed the benefit and comfort of using this technology while sometimes I felt the stress and anxiety it has caused me.

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His fatherly love

Nonfiction by | April 18, 2010

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When I was a child, I used to play with my friends after every class. We would play different games each day. But I only remember the game we play on Thursdays – the dakop-dakop. It was a predator searching for its prey type of game. My friends and I would play this high-energy game in the quadrangle of my grade school. I would scream, shout, and run as fast as I could so that the hungry predator would not catch me. When I am caught and become the “it,” I run faster to grasp my prey. Usually, everyone becomes a predator of the game before the first round ends.

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What it takes to be a man

Nonfiction by | April 18, 2010

I was six years old then when someone came knocking at our door around seven in the evening. I was asked to open it and so I did. After that, I saw myself standing in front of a huge man wearing a police uniform. That man was one of the people whom I feared the most, admired the most, and wanted to surpass the most – my father. He’s a huge, strict, man who had once killed a lot of people as a member of the army’s elite force – an example of this society’s idea of a real man.

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Maris and Jude

Nonfiction by | April 11, 2010

It is a Friday, 5 am, and Maris comes home after having pulled yet another all-nighter. She goes up to her room and sees her two children, Gabby, six, and Patrick, three, sleeping and oblivious to the creaking door as it opens. Maris enters and sits at one side of the bed watching her children. Her eyes linger on them for a moment, then fall on two travel bags that remind her of her flight to Tacloban City later that day. She glances at her watch, she realizes that she still has to go to work in three hours.

Coming home in the wee morning hours is normal for Maris — at least now it is. She works for two law firms, one in the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel and another with a consultancy for a business process outsourcing company. As the law firms don’t require her to be present daily, she also handles cases in her private practice. It is not the hours that measure the work that she does, it is the load of corporate cases she handles within those hours and after hours. Draining, but Maris does not let this get to her.

But this is not how it all used to be.

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Letters from Bengt, My Swedish Love

Nonfiction by | March 28, 2010

Fifty-two years after our last correspondence, at the age of 80, I discovered while delving into an old bureau a box of sepia-colored love letters—42 in all, with addresses from different parts of the world over a space of four years, 1955 to 1958, from Bengt Birgander, a very blond Swedish seaman whose fervent love for me was undeniable.

We had tried so desperately to get married after a shipboard romance on the freighter MS Mangalore where I was the only female on board carrying my Fordomatic car from New York through the Panama Canal to LA and across the Pacific to Manila—or a total of one month and a week.

In my soon to be published autobiography, I have a chapter on “My Super-blond Swedish Love” where I recount how I finally opened my cabin door to him but refused to give up my virginity. One of Bengt’s letters gives his views on that.

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The Kiram Building

Nonfiction by , | March 21, 2010

(Remembering The Lost Sultan’s Mansion)

The Mansion in Kidapawan designed and built by Sultan Omar Kiram II, locally known as the Kiram Building, was a testimony to the life and artistic merit of a great man of history. With its distinct Roman-Torogan design, it was arguably Kidapawan’s greatest link to its Mindanawon roots. Yet its destruction, and the Kidapaweño’s indifference to it, painfully reveals how unconcerned the people are for their heritage.

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They're All Over!

Nonfiction by | March 14, 2010

When I was a child growing up on Mt. Apo Street, there was a dark, turbaned man in brightly-colored trubenized togs, who came to call on our neighborhood every now and then. He peddled all sorts of goods, from woven mats to Matadujong – a strong-smelling eau de cologne.

At first, I thought he was a Muslim, but my mother corrected the misnomer. “He is an Indian.” The man spoke a curious blend of Filipino and English with a funny accent. I always wondered why he wore long sleeves. Later, I learned that he wore on his arms all the wristwatches he was selling.

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In Due Time

Nonfiction by | February 21, 2010

In finding a job in the Philippines, many feel that the palaksan system always prevails: it’s not what you know, but whom you know. But I have come to learn that sometimes, things can come in their own time. As Kuya Kim on TV says: “Ang buhay ay weather-weather lang.”

In the summer of 1997, I applied for a job at the Department of Education in Agusan del Norte. After the competitive exam, the interviews, and the teaching demonstration, I emerged sixth among the more than two hundred applicants from the entire province.

Three months later, I still didn’t get a position while those who ranked lower than me had already been assigned as substitutes in our own town, Nasipit. My co-applicant, a neighbor of mine, said knowingly: “Bisan unsa pa ka kataas sa ranking ba ug wala’y lakas, ‘la man jud.” No matter how high you rank in the exam, if you don’t know anyone, it will all come to naught.

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