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.
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Eh di Howl! (after Ginsberg)

Poetry by | January 1, 2017

I.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Internet memes, historical revisionist Youtube clips, dragging themselves through the darkest, amnesiac streets of remembering, Marcos apologist hipsters and bloggers burning to ashes the miserable memories of Martial Law,

who bared their image-driven brains to froth for the good-looking grandson who was London-educated but undeniably unknowledgeable about undervoting,

who Facebook-floated across virtual Wi-Fi waters and stayed on top Twitter trends, contemplating the alleged cheating in the vice-presidential race in order to pave and force the way of the unapologetic son to Malacañang,

who unwittingly sent their souls to Hell for promoting the banality of evil and saw Mephistophelian angels promising the hero’s burial and ascension of the wax-and-plastic-and-formaldehyde-long-rotten patriarch, but didn’t see the irony,

who passed through illumined universities yet spent more time in status-symbol coffee shops, discussing fashion styles and sheers, crop tops and jogger pants, ending up inadequately informed or misinformed or uninformed about the naked and obscene terrors of the autocratic rule and the detritus thereof,
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Masahe sa City Plaza

Fiction by | January 1, 2017

“Maygale naabtan pa ko nimo diri, Mam,” matod sa akong suki nga masahista. Iyahang bus-ok nga mga bukton mihulma sa iyang nipis nga puting sando. Milingkod ko sa gamayng plastik na lingkoranan ug gibutang ko sa kilid ang akong napalit nga karne ug utan, apil ang akong naukay nga mga blaws. “Ulahi najud tika na kustomer mam. Sayo man gud mi ugma sa Marawi.” Gipatong nako ang akong mga tiil sa iyang paa.

“Mag unsa mo didto dong?”

“Didto mi mobotar mam,” matod niya dungan sa pagbubo sa uwil sa iyang mga kamot.

“Ha? Didto diay ka narehistro?” Iyahang gisugdag masahe ang akong mga bagtak nga mihawoy sa pagtindog og dugay sa ukayan.

“O, pero sila ra ang garehistro sa amo mam. Igo ra ming nagpirma sa form na ilang gihatag, tapos sila ray nagpadala dadto sa Marawi.”
Nahimatikdan ko ang iyang nawong nga nabaknot, ang singot gatulo naingog duga sa iyang mala-Adonis nga nawong.
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Panahon ang Lumay

Poetry by | December 25, 2016

Usahay ugtas
ang atoang kaagi
sa kahiubos

mga pasangil
sa pakyas nga pasaad
lugda mipisil

sa kadugay sa
oras, gaduhaduha
kun mupadayon

ang gugma nato
ma wahig ug pagbati
mawad-ag awog

apan kani ra
akoang maingon sa
imo pangga, ko

Kung igarapon
ang tui-g nga miagi
sama sa lana

mahimo kining
ang pinakakusgan sa
tanang gayuma.

Glorypearl Dy is a filmmaker based in Davao City. She was a fellow at the 2011 Davao Writers Workshop.

Where He Left

Poetry by | December 25, 2016

The room smelled like the pomade
Grandpa put on his hair
the moment
he got out of the shower.
The vines he used to trim
in the mornings
had crawled
to the grills on the windows
from the rusty gate
where he stood by
as he watched
me and my cousins
play hide-and-seek
along Almond Drive
on Sunday afternoons.
Mama was cleaning out
his medicine box
when I realized
all the containers
had not been emptied out.
Uncle carried
the plump luggage
to the top of the closet
filled with naked hangers.
Grandma could not seem to fold
the blanket on his bed
the way he used to do it-
corner to corner, edge to edge.
Tony Orlando started squeaking
when the CD player played
“Tie A Yellow Ribbon,”
but Grandma listened
and danced with the air
in the same way
she danced with Grandpa
at the wedding reception
of their golden anniversary.
I hold this scarf
that he wrapped himself in
as he sat on his wheelchair
one windy afternoon
when we drove him
to the beach.
Nobody dared to sit
on the rocking chair
in the balcony
where he used to nap
during sunny days
that reminded him, he said,
of the Panglao beaches
where he used to play
when he was young.
But now he’s rested
somewhere peaceful,
where I could no longer
massage his feet
as he rocked himself to sleep.

Marie Crestie Joie Contrata is a Creative Writing student from the University of the Philippines Mindanao.

On Meranaw, Mindanawon Writing

Nonfiction by | December 25, 2016

Bismillah. Assalaamu ‘alaykum.

My name is Diandra-Ditma Macarambon. I am a Mindanawon. I write. Or, at least, I try to. And, that makes me a Mindanawon writer. But, really, what is the Mindanawon writer? Or who is the Mindanawon writer?

I was raised in the Islamic City of Marawi; I spent most of my adult years there as well. Marawi is a place distinct from any other place. It’s very different from its nearest neighbor, Iligan City. I remember my father saying that, from any other city in the Philippines, when one reaches Marawi, it is as though one has reached a different country or even a different planet, he joked. Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I know that he was right. Marawi is a special place and it has definitely shaped me into the person that I am today.

Marawi, obviously, is part of Muslim Mindanao (or the part of Mindanao whose population is generally Muslim) and this fact has really influenced me in so many ways. Of course, we all know that one embodies the culture in which s/he is raised. I am no different. I am not just a Mindanawon, I am not just a Muslim Filipino, I am a Meranaw. And, my being a Meranaw differentiates me from others. Not in a special or superior way, no, but in terms of traditions and practices. I belong to a family that sticks to and honors the traditional ways of the Meranaw. In everything that I do, I am this way. And, of course, even in writing, I am a Meranaw.

Now, being a Meranaw writer and accepting that I, we, as Meranaws, are different from others, does that mean that I write differently, too? Are my works limited to the Meranaw experience? But, then, a question comes to mind, is the Meranaw experience really that unique? Say, compared to the Mindanawon experience as a whole?
Continue reading On Meranaw, Mindanawon Writing

Didto sa Route 8

Poetry by | December 11, 2016

Ang bus
parahon, palabyon
sakaan, kanaugan
lingkuran, tindogan
piyongan, kamathan
sukaan, pangugmohan
tabian, hiloman
motulin, moliko
makaligis, mabanggaan
molarga, moabot
sa terminal , sa terminal.

Jann Dainver “Deejay” Maravilla is an AB-English graduate of MSU-IIT. He is now a visiting lecturer at Jose Rizal Memorial State University-Main Campus, Dapitan City. He has recently been selected as a fellow to the 2016 Davao Writers Wokshop.