Category: Nonfiction

The Pilgrim

Nonfiction by | November 8, 2009

beggars circle tables
dogs circle carrion
the lover circles
his own heart
-Rumi

1.

One occasion in my childhood changed my life forever. It was the arrival of a Sony Trinitron television in our home. Being the latest technology of that period, it was a departure from the electronic appliances that resembled pieces of furniture.

It was the last years of the Marcos era. In those days, television broadcasts in the province started at four o’clock in the afternoon with Batibot, followed by a back-to-back Christian cartoons, Super Book and Flying House. Music videos aired just before the evening news.

Coming home from school one afternoon, I switched on the television and saw a blonde girl with a headband and ridiculously large plastic earrings. She toyed with boys under a street sign, mouthing lyrics I barely understood. Soon I memorized the chorus of the song – Borderline — and eagerly anticipated the music video every afternoon. The singer, I learned, was Madonna.

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When Pigs Run Freely On The Streets Of Mintal

Nonfiction by | September 13, 2009

Until a few years ago, the only “living” pigs I ever saw in Manila were the ones that were shown cutely prancing around on TV or on the big screen. Of course, there were also pictures and illustrations of smiling or gamboling boars and piglets on print; but somehow it was not quite the same. Occasionally though, I would get a glimpse of a truck crammed with pigs on some busy thoroughfare. Their squeals would lightly pervade the closed environs of our family car. I would always notice people outside covering their noses and grimacing, as if they were suddenly plunged into an invisible but inescapable miasma.

I would watch in fascination at the packed mass of moving bodies, often saddened by the thought that that was the last time the pigs would ever experience rides again. My parents had blithely told me once that they (the pigs I mean, not my parents) would be headed for slaughter when I asked them about it. My eyes would follow the truck until the vehicle made a sudden turn to a street where our car would not go. Pretty soon the truck and animals were nothing more than another indistinguishable speck on the choked up, traffic-jammed streets of Manila.

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Martial Memories

Nonfiction by | August 16, 2009

Now that the Cory Fever is sweeping the country pandemically, memories of the horrid Martial Law years invade my consciousness.

It was declared soon after my return from a Kyoto Conference on American Literature and my flying over the whole Russian continent without seeing any city or village en route to England, Paris, Greece, Italy, and Thailand. I was Humanities Division Chairman at the Ateneo de Davao University and was Moderator of the ATENEWS, the college paper. The year before, I had discovered a brilliant freshman—Evella Bontia who out-stripped the upperclassmen in my search for ATENEWS editor. A staffmember was a quiet girl with the surname Mahipus. In my literature class, a senior—Tiny de la Paz—was expected to receive summa cum laude honors.

What greater shock it was when the ATENEWS office was raided because of an article entitled “Portrait of the Atenean as Activist.” Ms. Mahipus and Mr. de la Paz were incarcerated at the PC barracks. Evella Bontia escaped to the hills and later was reported killed in an encounter with military forces. What a loss!

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Rising Above Ourselves

Nonfiction by | August 16, 2009

There will come a time in our lives that we have to make a big decision—a decision whose consequences we are uncertain of. It is not easy to make such a decision, so we’ve got to really admire those who have mustered a mammoth of courage and made that decision.

History is strewn with great men and women who bravely made a big decision even if that meant putting their lives and other people’s lives at grave risk. On a wintry day in December 1776, George Washington decided to cross the Delaware River. The supplies and provisions of Washington’s Continental Army were fast running out. The soldiers were hungry and destitute. Some of them were sick; others were dying. And many more would die, including their fight for independence, unless they crossed the Delaware River into the garrison of the Hessians where stores of food, clothing, blankets, and munitions, run aplenty. On Christmas Day, Washington and his men embarked on a bold move that would, historians say, alter the course of the revolution the Americans waged against the British Empire. They successfully crossed the river, swiftly defeated their enemies, and resuscitated the revolution.

Corazon Aquino, “Cory” to many, made hers when her husband, the former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was killed. The feisty senator was among those who were imprisoned when former president Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. Ninoy spent many years in prison, but was soon allowed by Marcos to go abroad for a heart operation. There, the Aquinos experienced a glint of peace. But Ninoy was a man who always wanted to be on the battlefields. Though he lived comfortably abroad, away from the claws of the dictatorship, he decided to come home. And he came home, only to be killed.

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Coffee and Friends

Nonfiction by | August 9, 2009

Most of us equate coffee with age and long nights that never end; some of us place it at par with romance and falling rain, or hot sultry nights and youth, or balmy days and long forgotten echoes of old remembered loves and footsteps that ring no more, or cold afternoons and chocolate rice porridge before our old television sets and their endless reruns of movies long archived. Whatever strikes our fancy, goes; coffee on hand, it seems, is here to stay.

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Planted, Uprooted, and Transient Boarder in This Soil

Nonfiction by | August 9, 2009

I look around and see that there is a lot to be done—laundry in a basket, books sprawled all over the floor, clothes hanging haphazardly from fixtures, my bag puking papers all over my shoes, slippers and sandals, my bed a mess—and I have just woken up from my sleep, that which I did not truly enjoy. I had a dream—and it was of a home, which felt so familiar and artificially sweet. But it was odd and not at all refreshing. It was awkward and still and dull. It cannot be called a dream, but that’s what people call mental images in succession, so it’ll have to be called that. And this dream was a dream that ended up all mine.

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HH: A Different Ride

Nonfiction by | August 2, 2009

Your sweat pours down your back as the temperature rises. The heat is killing you. You press yourself hard on the body trapped between your thighs, making sure that you are fixed on it. You try to stay focused but you forget everything along the way. Your grip becomes tighter; you don’t want to lose the moment. And just like anything done in haste, the whole act is over before you know it.

This is how it is to ride a motorcycle under the battering heat of the sun. Wind is the only relief as it touches you. The ride’s rhythm makes you wonder what awaits you. Is it a pending collision, a machine defect, a dried-up-river road, or an attempt of the motorcycle driver to make advances on you? In this case, wonder is an understatement because people at times become frantic and even terrified. To fall from the motorcycle is unfortunate, or worse, tragic. Just like what the old folks keep on telling us, riding a motorcycle is like putting one foot in the grave. Continue reading HH: A Different Ride

Kronika ng Isang Biyaherong Pinoy

Nonfiction by | July 19, 2009

Kung luho mang maituturing ang pagbibiyahe, maluwag sa dibdib kong aaminin na ito ang isang bagay na kailanma’y hinding-hindi ko maaaring ipagkakait sa aking sarili.

Nag-umpisa akong maglakbay sa iba’t-ibang bahagi ng mundo nang ako’y mangibangbayan. Ngunit hindi ang mga lugar na binisita ko ang pagtutuunan ko ng pansin sa sanaysay na ito. Kundi ang mga panggugulo at panlalait na tagpong aking naranasan bilang isang biyaherong Pinoy. Lalung-lalo na ang nakapapagod na proseso sa pag-aplay ng visa. At ang pagharap sa mga kinatawan ng imigrasyon sa tuwing papasok pa lamang ako o di kaya’y papalabas na ng isang bansa.

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