Katas ng Pawis

Fiction by | February 26, 2017

Umiikot sa ilaw, nararamdaman nya ang init nito. Kumuha siya ng tubig at binuhos ito sa nagliliyab na apoy. Ang bato ay nanghina, napolbo, naging abo at usok sa sanlibutan.

Saksi ang kawayan. Malapista ang saya. Amoy pasko na ang kapaligiran. Sisig, ibang klaseng maanghang na pagkain na nanunuot sa aking lalamunan. Ang tinatagpi-tagping kahoy ay nagsisilbing upuan na bakat na bakat pa ang ugat nito. At sa saliw ng musika ay sabay-sabay na umiindayog ang mga dahon sa kawayan. Samantala ang haligi ay tayung-tayo sa kanyang kinalalagyan.

Ako ay nasisilaw sa liwanag na nanggagaling sa butas ng bintana. Tanaw ko ang liwanag na pumasok sa pagiwang-giwang na pintuan na gawa sa kawayan. Ang hangin ay maaring hindi galing sa langit o baka ito ay bunga lamang ng isang panaginip.

Gusto kong ibuhos ang aking galit sa awit at sayaw. Sa sinuman na kaya akong mahalin ay naaaninag ko ang walang pag-asa sa buhay. Ang lalaki ay hindi sigurado sa kanyang paa ganoon din ang babae.

Gusto kong takasan ang apoy, ang pagawaan ng kutsilyo, ang pagawaan ng uling. Kailangan ko rin ang tunay na pag-ibig. May karapatan ang sinuman mahalin at magmahal. Sadyang hindi lang pantay ang mundo.

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Mga Naiwang Tagpo at Tala sa Talaarawan Nitong Huling Dekada ng Kalungkutan

Poetry by | February 19, 2017

UNANG TAGPO:
Nakatira ako sa tuktok ng bundok
kung saan abot ng dalawang talampakan ko ang mga ulap.
Isang umaga, pagkagising, narinig ko ang himig ng mga tutubi
Na salit-salitang dumadapo sa mga nakatitig na bulaklak.
Hinuli ko ang pinakamatandang tutubi,
Pinitas ang mga pakpak nito, ikinulong sa palad, at iniuwi.
Marahan ko itong inilagay sa bilog na garapon,
At saka buong araw itong tinitigan at pinanood,
Habang ang kulay nito’y nagbabago-bago,
Berde, pula, asul, at ang ‘di maipintang kulay ng buwan
Tuwing makikipagsiping ito sa kasintahang bituin.
Iyon ang unang pagkakataong nakahuli ako ng tutubi,
At simula nang araw na iyon, lagi na akong dinadalaw ng kanilang lupon
Sa panaginip, nakikipag-usap at nagtatanong:
“Bakit nga ba napakaraming kalungkutan sa mundong ito?”
Kumurap ang kaliwa kong mata, kumurap din ang kanan niyang mata.
Isang pagkahaba-habang hikab ang ibinalik ko sa tutubi,
At saka malakas na malakas na pagtawa,
At ang tawang iyon ay para sa lahat ng hindi marunong tumawa.

Continue reading Mga Naiwang Tagpo at Tala sa Talaarawan Nitong Huling Dekada ng Kalungkutan

Cruel February

Fiction by | February 5, 2017

Today is the first day of February. But unlike the previous Februaries, this one is not merely the second month of the year having twenty-eight or, as in the case of leap years, twenty-nine days, this month might be daddy’s last.

The smell of newly applied paint could have lured me to stay longer. I like the house better now with its green walls and white ceiling. However, the stench of the canal continues to permeate the house. The living room, empty of appliances, creates a dull and muffled sound to my ears. When I suggested that either the radio or the television should be returned to the sala, I was told that a sick man does not really need much.

I went to visit daddy today. They finally resigned to put his bed in the living room. Hospitals are for those who could afford to postpone death. I would like to think that we can’t instead of we won’t.

He looks thinner now than he did when I last saw him. Strength abandoned him completely. Daddy cannot tuck his cigarette between his middle and forefinger anymore.

The problem of a human mind, I think, is the idea of free association.

We watched an action movie after dinner. Before the lead actor goes into battle against a major drug syndicate, Mama suddenly wailed. She claimed that the actor (his mestizo features, compact physique and arrogant stance) looks like daddy. I agree with the claimed similarities.

But there is a difference. Continue reading Cruel February

The Feast at Barangay Bagontapay

Nonfiction by | January 29, 2017

The news that someone had gotten into a motorcycle accident at Bagontapay Crossing, two kilometers away from our house, reached our neighborhood a few minutes after it happened. It was just after the second power outage that day. I was sitting in our terrace when Ante Doday, who lives across our house, walked toward our rusty pink gate and casually informed me about the accident. She is a wellspring of information in our area, spending most of her day sitting on a wooden bench attached to her small sari-sari store and talking to customers who dish out the stories.

Bagontapay Crossing, where the “roundball” or traffic circle is located, became an accident prone area after its construction. According to my father, who had worked in the road construction, the original road junction – three triangle islands – was safer because of its limited size and intricate course that slowed down the vehicles. It’s interesting how we, taga-Bagontapay and other nearby places, call the roundabout, “roundball.” I guess it is because of the circular concrete wall that looks like a big wishing well in the middle of the intersection. This also reminds me of how we call the sickle, “cycle,” because, again, maybe of the rotating movements of the hand when cutting long grass.

After hearing the news, I remained still in my seat, just waiting for my parents to come home from work. Because it happens all the time, news of the accident didn’t bother me. Unless, of course, I know the person involved or it happens in a very strange way like that time a husband was caught by his wife early in the morning in another woman’s house at the market. I was more worried about how I would spend the remaining one month of my long school break before I go back to Davao City for enrolment. In fact, I couldn’t wait to be a second year college student.
Continue reading The Feast at Barangay Bagontapay

hindi

Poetry by | January 22, 2017

hindi
ko alam kung ano
ang nasa pagitan natin
noong gabing iyon
habang ginagalugad
kung saan pahihimlayin
ang mga salita

o baka naman wala
talagang nasa pagitan
katulad ng nawalang paligid
habang naghahanap
ng mga signos
sa pagitan ng sulyap
at usap

dayap
sa sugat ng ngayon
at nakaraan
ang pamamaalam

may ngiting nais
sumulyap
sa mga mata ko
subalit sinaway ito
ng mga mata mo

kilala nila ako

kapag ganito
kakorni ang simula
trahedya ang wakas
ng hinahabing
tula at kuwento.

German V. Gervacio is a Palanca award-winning author who teaches at the Filipino Department of MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology. He is the incoming representative of Northern Mindanao in the National Committee on Literary Arts for 2017-2019.

Davao Writers Workshop 2016: Learning Once More

Nonfiction by | January 22, 2017

November 30, 2016 was a holiday commemorating Andres Bonifacio’s heroism as usual, but for me, it seemed as if I went to my first day of class in a bigger classroom. That was the day I took off my hat as a teacher and put on the uniform of a student again for five humbling days.

The Davao Writers Workshop (DWW) 2016 served as my fast-paced, short course in Creative Writing. Everything happened in a snap from the time I submitted my manuscript with high hopes (as if I were submitting my school requirements) until the time I received the acceptance e-mail. Reading “Congratulations” really took me to Cloud Nine, as if I had won a prize. In fact, they said I had won a “fellowship.” At that point I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but I told myself, This is it! I am ready to learn again.

Bringing along my backpack, I went to our “classroom,” The Big House: A Heritage Home in Juna Subdivision. When I finally met my “classmates” for that workshop, I realized they were fourteen diverse people coming from different parts of Mindanao.  Most of them were college students and two fellow teachers, Deejay Maravilla from Dapitan and Jet Paclar from Cagayan de Oro. Just like me, they also set aside their red pens and they were eager to learn from the pros. Despite our diversity of culture, age, and gender, it did not hinder me from relating to them and building rapport especially with my roommates, Krizza Udal and Emmylou Layog who were both senior college students. We were the only females in the group. It reminded me that learning and teaching is indeed a cycle–I may be a teacher by profession but during the workshop, we were all students.

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Caught in the Middle

Nonfiction by | January 15, 2017

Whenever we talk about Marcos in the family, I do not hear stories of disgust or condemnation especially from my mother and father. Because of this, I grew up neither hating nor loving Ferdinand Marcos.

My father had a firsthand experience of the war in Mindanao during Martial Law in the late 70s and early 80s. His family was one of the bakwit, evacuees who transferred from one place to another to avoid armed conflict. Their community in Kiamba, Sarangani Province (back then Sarangani had not yet been declared a separate province of South Cotabato) became one of the war zones in the SOCSKSARGEN region. Thousands of families were displaced and many young Muslims joined the fighting. Because he could not anymore tolerate the injustices they had experienced in the hands of the Ilaga, the Christian paramilitary group tasked to purge Mindanao of Muslims, my father enlisted in the Black Shirt movement. By joining the Muslim militia, he helped avenge his fellow Moro brothers and sisters who had been killed by the Ilaga and the military.

As my father shared this war story, I was waiting for him to blame Pres. Marcos for it. But he put more emphasis on the effects of intense militarization and the chaos it brought to their lives. I wondered what their leaders had indoctrinated in them that their view of the war seemed only on the surface.

This sentiment is similar to what I heard when we interviewed Moros who had been victims of Martial Law. The Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) assigned our group to make a documentary film on Moro issues. We visited various places in Mindanao to interview Moros and Lumad who experienced marginalization through land dispossession, historical injustices, and human rights violations. In one of our interviews, we visited Malisbong in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat, which was one of the greatly affected places during Martial Law, and talked to the survivors of what is known as the Malisbong massacre.

As the survivors recalled, soldiers and officers of the 15th and 19th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine military carried out search-and-destroy missions around the coastal villages in Palimbang. The thundering sound and explosion of bombs and cannons overwhelmed the community, destroying public and private properties.
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Armor (excerpt)

Fiction by | January 8, 2017

(Armor won 1st Prize in the Short Story for English category of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Literary Awards in 2013.)

The week Ronnie was planning to die, one of his neighbors paid him a visit. Ronnie had just come back from the seamstress, bringing home a newly mended sheath dress he would wear for the pageant, when Oliver showed up.

“The Death Squad,” Oliver said. “They’re after you.”

Ronnie considered what reactions were possible. He would back away from the Mylar-covered table where Oliver was nursing his coffee. He would warn him that he didn’t appreciate this kind of joke, not after bodies had been found in empty, grassy lots around Mintal. Instead, Ronnie soaked up his neighbor’s silence, leaned on the refrigerator and lit a cigarette.

Where was the Death Squad when he regularly handed out shabu to the crew of wiry boys who had hung out at his beauty salon? They were hired guns, the Death Squad, who used to go after drug pushers, but lately they’d been taking down street gang members, crystal meth users, petty thieves.
Continue reading Armor (excerpt)