Poetry by Arman Neri | August 23, 2009
Batang bulingit, daw piso
Nagpaulan, nagpainit
Sip-on ug lapok nangumbabit
“Piso, Kol! Piso, Te!”
Sangpit sa batang bulingit
Aron tiyan masudlan og init
Balay ang karsada
Karton iyang kama
Tun-og gibukot niya
Mga ginikanan hain na
Ang inyong mga piso
Nanginahanglan og alima
Poetry by Prince Gerard Magdaleno | August 23, 2009
Ang ulan samok panagsa
Basaon ka, padagan-daganon ka,
Patago-tagoon ka.
Kon magbaktas ka sa yuta
Mahugaw-hugawan pa ka.
Pero ang ulan diay panagsa maghatag
Og maayong resulta
Pag ikaw manguyab tabon-tabonan dayon
Ang ulo sa dalaga
Para makabalo siya
Nga ga-care ka sa iya.
Panagsa pod kon ikaw ra usa
Makahinumdom ka sa moment ninyong duha.
Gakson ka, pakiligon ka, palipayon ka
Tungod sa katugnaw nga anaa.
Abi nako sa una samok ang ulan
Pero dili diay.
Ang ulan nagahatag pod diay
Og kalipay sa mga naghinigugmaay.
Nonfiction by Aida Rivera Ford | 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!
Nonfiction by Arvin Antonio Ortiz | 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.
Poetry by Krisini Nanini | August 16, 2009
(Para sa ating lumipas na pangulo na naging simbolo ng kababaihan, pag-ibig, katapangan at pag-asa)
tulad ng halik
ng unang sinag ng araw
sa mga matang
kay tagal na
nalugmok sa dilim
niyapos ng dilaw na laso
ang perlas ng silangan
at ikinumot ang pag-asa
Poetry by Vangie Dimla-Algabre | August 16, 2009
Tahimik at malamig ang umaga.
Walang humpay ang ulan
Sa iyong paglisan.
Puso nami’y nagluluksa,
Ngunit bakit ang orkidyang dilaw
Higit pang tumingkad?
Nonfiction by Riza Racho | 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.
Nonfiction by Kelly Conlon | 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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