Poetry by Christian Jane Centina | December 21, 2008
I admit: I did it
not the witch.
I hate my suitor,
Who still lives in middle ages.
He doesn’t own a cellphone,
doesn’t know what a car is,
and doesn’t have an inkling
how to court a woman like me.
Everyday he rides on his horse
from his faraway palace up to my fortress
just to utter words of the same idea
all over again.
Continue reading A Modern Rapunzel
Sa bawat yapos
Ng lupa at yapak mo’y
Nais kong wasakin
Ang bintanang pinid sa
aking dibdib,
Ang idolong lumiliyab sa
busilak ng iyong tawa.
Handa akong malunod
Sa ningning at gulo ng
peryang
Dulot ng iyong mga mata.
Continue reading Barya
Nonfiction by Hannah Rae Villarba | December 14, 2008
My Father drowned in soup.
I was around four or five when my aunts and grandma taught me that. It was their way of explaining why, unlike other kids, I had no Papa. We would rehearse every once in a while among ourselves, or in front of my come-and-go seafarers for uncles, and I would be delighted to see them amused at how great I was at it.
In my young mind, I would often wonder how my Father drowned in soup. It was not as if I had not seen him at all. Maybe, at that age I had been with him twice or thrice, though I am not sure now. I would imagine my Papa with his big, chubby body, his arms flailing, and his entire head submerged in a bowl of chicken tinola he was having for lunch. What a sight!
Poetry by Karla Stefan Singson | December 14, 2008
How do you give birth to beautiful thoughts?
How do you pull the stars, the ocean, and the sunset
Towards a piece of paper?
How do you convince the angels to whisper and coach you?
Or the devils, to just sit and listen?
How do you tell the pen
To write something meaningful?
Something people will look for?
Something they will tell their friends about?
How do you generate colors from a black-inked pen?
How do you write with a smile in your voice?
How do you match the right words?
How do you summon the nicest punctuations?
How do you arrange everyday expressions
To form a symphony?
How do you liven up a dormant heart,
A dead emotion,
An indifferent soul?
How do you write a poem?
—-
Karla Stefan Singson is a 4th year Marketing student and the president of the debating club of the Ateneo de Davao University.
Poetry by Myan May Declaro | December 14, 2008
A canopy of dark clouds
hovers above the city
like an old newspaper
covering a dead body.
Another victim
of the Davao Death Squad.
It never fails.
I see other headlines of death,
a barangay official ambushed,
an innocent citizen stabbed to death
while falling in line
to buy two kilos of NFA rice.
Media men being harassed.
It never fails to rain
in the afternoon or at night
the way people never fail to fill
the city’s square,
men of different ages and from different classes,
men seeking the company of others.
And then when it rains I wonder,
Does the greasy man in black ever sleep?
Does he ever drink coffee?
Does he ever like the rain?
—-
Myan May G. Declaro hails from Surigao del Sur and is currently a senior BA English – Creative Writing student of UP Mindanao.
Nonfiction by Historical | December 14, 2008
As far possible the instruction should be given by English-speaking native teachers, but not necessarily in the English language. Unless the American teacher learns the native dialect, the native must learn English in order that through it he may acquire our ideas. In the imparting of these ideas to native children neither he (the teacher) nor they (the native children) should be hampered by requiring that the ideas should be conveyed through the medium of English.
Even among Filipino schools taught in English, the visitor must be impressed by the enormous waste of time in teaching children the essential things, a knowledge of which is needed by them at once. The native teacher has in several years’ course of training by American teachers, learned fairly well many American ideas, but has poorly learned the English language. Instead of immediately communicating the ideas to his pupils in a language common to both, he wastes years of their time and his in attempting to get ideas into their heads through a language which is foreign to both of them and in which he is not a competent instructor.
Nonfiction by Janice Joy Chiongson | December 7, 2008
Ang Babaye sa Salamin
Giasoy ni Elmer Oncada, Ateneo de Davao University
Gikan ni sa akong kaubanan sa una, kadtong wala pa ninghawa dinhi. Gikan siya og CR. Karon pagpanamin niya sa Del Rosario Building sa panlalaki na CR sa ground, nanudlay siya. Mga 9:30. Pagpanamin niya, atol pod to og kalag-kalag hinuon. Tingala siya naa may babaye na puti og buhok ug puti pod ang sanina. Kuyawan siya. Nanindog iyang mga balahibo. Paglingi niya sa likod, nawala man og kalit.
So unsay gibuhat niya? Dali-dali siyag suot sa iyang uniporme. Dagan siya, dagan. Tingala mi pag-abot dinhi. “Ngano naghangos-hangos man ka?”
“Buanga, bay. Nag-CR ko sa Del Rosario, naay babayeng nagpakita sa akoa, puti tanan.”
White lady ba to or unsa to siya. Taas daw kaayo og buhok. Gitan-aw siya sa samin.
Poetry by Gutierrez Mangansakan II | December 7, 2008
gimingaw na ko sa davao
sa baho sa durian,
sa kahumot sa barbikyu sa
delongtes,
sa kalami sa ice cold beer sa bakbak,
c5, taboan…
gimingaw na ko kang
marissa,
na nagsuroy og maruya kada
alas tres sa hapon –
gisum-ol na ko
sa potato chips,
“hastang parata!”
sa kagahi sa bagel
na gipalit sa bruegger’s.