Sunset in B'la

B'la is a place where you grow up in order to escape. But once you've done your escaping, you long to go back to it over and over again until the longing for eternal return threatens to break your spirit. This was what I was telling Pa as I rummaged through the dusty remains of old books and letters, one day I arrived home in B'la.
B’la came from the word B’laans, who owned the place before the settlers arrived, I heard myself saying. B’laans, the indigenous peoples in Mindanao, who were already here before the Visayan settlers came in droves. The Visayans, whose tongue had trouble pronouncing B’la, turned it into Bala, loosening it and unwittingly losing something beautiful and important. "That's not true," Pa protested, "That's a lie!" he said, "This whole place was owned by the Bagobos, there were no B'laans here!" His voice was shaking, he had trouble breathing. After all, it was Pa who beat the rest of the settlers by arriving here when the whole place was still a lauaan forest. But I love the name B'la, and I want to create a myth; and B'la and the B'laans fit in well together in the world I want to create. "Calm down, Pa," I said, "Calm down, calm down. Let's listen to a story."

Aunt's Fantastic Tale

EXCERPT FROM A JOURNAL. November 7, 2007. Auntie Cora—Corazon Ignacio Lunas—arrived in this part of Mindanao I call B’la from Piddig (pronounced hard as Piddig), Ilocos Norte; a place about as far from Laoag city in Luzon as Bansalan is from Davao city here in Mindanao. (My Aunt wavered in her estimates here, quickly adding, as if to correct herself, “Maybe not Bansalan and Davao city, Day, but Bansalan and Santa Cruz town of Davao del Sur,” she said.) She was still five years old when she arrived in B’la after the war. Everything was still a forest. She went to school in Grade One, in the first public school set up in B’la among the settlers. The neighbors were just a kilometre away, she recalled. Her classmates were already big, she said, “They were already bayongbayong,” she smiled, referring to boys approaching manhood, “and ulitawo (young men).” When she reached Grade Three, she returned to Ilocos Norte and came back here at 22, to teach elementary school. Sometime in between, her father opened a kaingin in what is now known as Tagum city in Davao del Norte, the first settler to do so. Unfortunately, he was killed by a fallen tree, so, he was deprived of the fruits of his labor, my Aunt said. The images she painted to me about B’la at that time bordered on the fantastic: Vegetables like squash, ampalaya and alugbati, just growing by the roadsides, with nobody planting them. “They just grew wild abundantly in the forest,” my Aunt said. Everywhere in this part was still a forest, she said. Her Uncle Onor would set up a trap for deers and baboy ramo and when they heard an animal scream, they knew they had caught something. “What if they caught a man?” I asked, alarmed. My Aunt is an Ilocana. She and Ma, who came from Argao, Cebu, are not in any way related except that they spent their whole lives teaching children in B’la (the mythical place where I grew up) and married the cousins from Mambusao, Capiz (my father and my uncle). My Aunt never had the chance to go back to Ilocos Norte since she married and had children (that’s how a place like B’la could tie someone down), so, when my Aunt had a chance for a brief visit up north in 2000, she was already having trouble with the language. She told me she felt she had lost her Ilocano tongue. Almost. “I had to think first and construct my sentences before speaking,” my Aunt said. “The words no longer come out automatically to me like they used to.” She said that because there are different variations of Ilocanos spoken in the north, there are already some words she could no longer understand.

Feeling Screwed Up

Last night, I finished Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and cannot stop cursing Henry James, because I thought I did not really like a ghost story, no matter how gothic; but in between, I thought, is Henry James’ narrator insane?  (It was much, much later, when I learned about Henry James’ ambiguity, that I realized, it was Henry James’ writing working in my head) but hearing me, Ja asked, why don’t you ask Henry James? Stop complaining to us. But Henry James is dead, I said.  Oh, Ja said. Then, he added, and how is the language? He’s a 19^th century author, why would you like to read him? I said, I came to open the page while I was waiting for that guy in B’la, and realized I could not put it down. The guy—who was supposed to put on the grills in the upper windows—did not arrive and so, I continued reading.  I haven’t finished it when I needed to go back here so I took the book along with me despite my earlier promise never to bring new books to the new house, which is very small, and already too crammed with books.  But I can’t help it.  I needed to lose myself in a book to fight the deep uneasiness already bogging me, creating havoc to my nerves. At home, Pa kept saying, he used to have a classmate who used to have so many books, he was so stupid. Bobo. Dull. I told him I met so many people, Pa, who never went to school and yet were very brilliant, they had super-first-class minds. I was thinking of the lumads, who were clear-headed in their thinking. He did not reply.  I also met a lot of people who went to school and graduated and who were very stupid, they didn’t know how to use their minds. He said, I used to have a classmate who had so many books but was so dull (bobo).  I said, maybe, he never read his books? He said, how can he read them, there were so many? He said he never had any book, only a notebook, and yet, he was very smart.  Later, I realized, Pa must have been talking about me: was he thinking I have so many books and is so bobo? I was horrified.

I was getting anxious because I felt I was already being left behind by the election stories that were going very fast, I had trouble keeping up. And yet, while my world was slipping away, leaving me behind, I got so stuck in B’la, where Ma and Pa kept staring in space, as if nothing was happening to the world, and Pa would suddenly say, I need to go to town, I need to drink beer in town, and Ma would be frantic, running after him.  Watching them, I get so confused, disoriented. I could no longer understand what’s happening to me.  Oftentimes, I have grave doubts why I’m even spending time in B’la, especially when Ma and Pa are behaving like they never really needed me there, resenting my presence.  I’d asked Ja, are you sure, there really is any worth to what I am doing? They don’t seem to like me there. Why am I doing this? Why do I need to spend time in B’la when they keep saying to me they don’t even need me there? Why would I go there when I really badly need to earn an income here? Why do I need to sacrifice days-without-income watching them, only to be snapped at, and to be made to feel I was a total failure just because I love books and I hate to drink alcohol?

How I nearly lost all the important papers

Sometime in November--no, it was on November 2, to be exact; which was an All Souls Day--I went out of the house in B'la to Mrs. M. to follow up some documents on Pa's property while Eve was on her way back to Davao.  Eve dropped me off at M.'s house, along with all the documents, which were all very important, to talk to Mrs. M.; after which, Mrs. M. also handed me another set of documents, which were also very important, I had a hard time carrying them all in my arms. 
Mrs. M.'s house was shielded by shrubs of gumamela in a garden she made in her yard and the moment I went out of Mrs. M's gate--Mrs. M. was even so generous as to accompany me outside her gate and to hail a SkyLab for me, I thought it was still too early to go home.  It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the hot sun was beating down my cheeks, hotly and fervently, like a long lost lover and I asked the SkyLab to bring me to Bansalan. 

Earlier, upon saying goodbye, Ma'm M said I could hardly find a ride going home to B'la from there, though, I knew I could, if I would only give the Skylab driver the right price quotation; but for some reasons, I did not go straight home. 

But I only went to the public C-R when I got there. Yes, you're right, I merely went to the comfort room to see myself before a huge mirror, then, went off to board another SkyLab on my way home to B'la. 

It was only when I was already riding another SkyLab, and we were already passing by Mrs. M.'s place, that I noticed  I was no longer carrying anything in my arms; no folder, no documents, no nothing! Those were the moments you could never describe the color of my face. I was already moaning and mumbling incomprehensible syllables, when the driver and some passengers, figuring out what was going on, had dropped me off in an area where I could most likely take a ride back to Bansalan.  
Every step of the way along the provincial and national highway that day was fret with unearthly pleadings to God and to the dead. I asked my Pa to please, take care of those documents; to not let it fall in other people's hands (who might not need it anyway) and to return it to me.  I even promised many things to Pa.  I promised to keep my hands off the land he had worked for most of his life, though, I was not interested in it but for the story. 

Something happened to me along that road.  The SkyLab driver, a soft-spoken, gentle old man, did not know the anguish I was going through.  I tried to speak gently to him. I tried to suppress my panic. Those were probably the longest ride I ever endured in my life.  As soon as we reached the public mall, I literally jumped off the SkyLab, stopped breathing as I stepped into the public toilet, and saw--for all the goodness in the world, and all the Saints in Heaven--that the two folders entrusted to me, was just where I left them; a little disarrayed, maybe, someone must have looked through it and found nothing, but they were there. Intact. I promised to light a candle on All Souls Day. 

I went home very wet and tired.  There was a downpour on my way home but I managed to protect the documents with a set of plastic bags I bought from a sarisari store.  

Elegy to the Laua-an Forest

Near the boundary of the land, where my Pa has left his imprints in the last 50 years, stands a lone Bunwang tree, known for its softness (a liability in the world that is obsessed with hardwood, the unquenchable demand of which fuel the wholesale devastation of timber forests.)
“It’s the only tree that is left of the logging,” says Pa. “No one wants it because it’s soft.”
“It’s a big tree, with broad leaves,” he keeps saying, as if, until now, he is still amazed by its uselessness. “It’s not durable and it’s not good for furniture,” blurts out Ma, who thinks I merely want a nice bookstand for the books we carried home in a jutesack.
So, I stand there, too stunned to say a word, unsure whether to feel glad or sad, about the lone tree that is left standing because people couldn’t find any use for it.
When my father arrived in this part of Davao from his hometown in Capiz in one of the islands of the Visayas, the forest that would later turn into his copra farm in Upper B’la had been teeming with Laua-ans. Later, these magnificent trees that littered the land for hundreds of years were cut and fed to the sawmills by logging concessionaires who had stripped the land of trees for lumber.
“Over a hundred Laua-ans in every hectare of land,” Pa estimates. “Trunks as big as drums," he says, "Maybe, even bigger. So tall, you have to cut them down many times to make them easier to handle.”
I find it hard to grasp the tragedy that had befallen the forest.
Afterwards, when the land was stripped bare, settlers like my Pa began buying parcels after parcels of land from the Bagobos, and planted them with crops. This is ironic because the Bagobos, whose ancestral land covers much of the Mt. Apo areas that stretch from what is known today as Davao city's Toril district down to the boundaries of North Cotabato, never used to believe in that foreign concept called land ownership.
“They’d sell the land, then, move deeper into the forest,” says my Pa, who thought that the sale of the land was as real as the buy and sell of goods in the market. He bought one parcel from Ayok, Bagobo. He bought another parcel from another Bagobo named Bansalan, and so on.
Again, I was too stunned to say a word, as I try to grasp the complexity of what happened: the betrayal, even the sell-out, of some members of the tribe of their own ancestral beliefs just to extract a measly sum from the equally unsuspecting (albeit ignorant) settlers.
For according to the Bagobo’s worldview, the land is not for sale.
For a Bagobo wise man, it actually sounds stupid and hilarious for a man to claim ownership of a piece of land.
“How could you claim to own the land?” I remember an old Matigsalug Datu named Salumay, explain to me the worldview shared by most indigenous tribes in Mindanao.
"Long after you die, the land remains," said Datu Salumay, “So, how can you be in a position to own something that outlasts you for over a hundred years?”
He used to live in Davao’s Marilog district before he passed away a few years back. Now, I wonder if there are still enough Bagobos who still think like Datu Salumay.
For the coming in of settlers from the Visayas and Luzon had saturated the population of the Moros and the indigenous peoples of Mindanao and had brought about the dying of a totally different culture. Later, wholesale destruction of dipterocarp forests after the World War 2, coincided with the huge demand for lumber exports to Japan and other markets. At the time, the Parity Rights agreement between my country and the United States, had accorded equal rights to Americans and Filipinos in the exploitation of the Philippine forests and other natural resources.
Pa, who arrived in Upper B'la about a decade after the signing of the Parity Rights, gives me a vivid picture of how it was to live in the time of the logging.
“There were no chainsaws, then,” he says, as if to stress a point. “People used axe and the curtador.”
He leads me out of our house in B’la to show me what the curtador (cutter) looks like. As I stand there, trying to reconstruct the devastating event, I can feel my hair bristle, as I watch him draw out the instrument, bequeathed to him by the former cutters, that had once ravaged whole forests.
All that I wanted that morning was a pleasant conversation with my Pa. But I ended up hearing about the wholesale destruction of the land teeming with Guihos, Apitongs, Narras, Dao, Tugas, and other trees, the likes of which, I may not see anymore.

Pa's Story

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to bring Pa and Ma to the shrine of the Infant of Prague, which has always been my favorite place, an airy place full of greenery overlooking the city. The place has a personal significance to me because it was here where, when Sean was still a toddler, and I was oftentimes left without a house help at home, I would go up here with Sean to light candles. Candles, I know, have their religious significance--but for me, at that time, a candle was not only the light of my own darkness, it was also the balm to my frayed nerves. The simple act of lighting candles and watching them melt seemed to melt away all my troubles (until I go back to the house again)!
It was this secret pleasure that I wanted to share with Ma and Pa. We spent the Saturday afternoon strolling about, doing nothing, staring at the greenery. Pa, as usual, was his grumpy self. Shortly after we arrived, I asked if he was tired. "Ngano gina-treat ko nimo parang bata? Bag-o pa ko naabot diri (Why are you treating me like a child? I just arrived here)," he replied. We went to an adjoining property, where I pointed to him the coal dome of the coal-fired power plant near the sea. "That is Binugao, Pa," I said, because Binugao held a special place for my Pa. The place always figured in his stories about his arrival in Mindanao. But he said,  "Ambot, kung motuo ba ko nimo (I don't know if I should believe you)."
I told sister, who was left at home, we should just be patient with Pa because of what he endured since he was nine years old. Sister replied, "Kay imo jud diay nang gisukitsukit (So, you really dug it up?!)" and I felt I was stealing Pa's history, as if Pa's story is not my own story; and Pa's story is not our story. As if it was not a story about Mambusao, as if it was not a story about Capiz, as if it was not a story about Davao, as if it was not a story about Binugao, as if it was not a story about B'la, as if it was not a story about Upper B'la. As if it was not a story of our people, as if it was not a story of our country.

Thinking of the Cats

When I came home last month, I was glad that some cats still managed to survive without me, thanks to the care of T. I was glad to greet Muffin when she came home very late from where ever it was in the neighborhood she was roaming.  But it’s only now, when I’m back here in Makati, that I realized I never really had the chance to go nearer and talk to the cats. 

Muffin, like most of the cats at home, had gone feral, anyway, so it was not a good idea to cuddle her. The last time I cuddled Muffin, she bit my hands, thinking perhaps it was part of the play.  She wasn’t aware that I was not a cat. But looking back now, I could have at least talked to Muffin. I could have at least watched her beautiful eyes, which reminded me of the   eyes of a priest or a general, the bright yellow discs in the midst of a pitch black fur that earned her the moniker, Batman Cat.

Now, I'm missing her.  
My mind was preoccupied with everything on my short stay home.  It was full of Upper B’la and its depressing condition. 
I was also moping over the loss of Oreo, who failed to return home weeks before my arrival. Titing told me Oreo failed to return home a week before her sister-in-law poisoned Titing’s cat and the cats in the neighborhood. I’m wondering if Oreo happened to wander in their area, as cats often do, and had unwittingly eaten the poisoned food they had prepared.

Oreo was a good cat. Three days before Pope Francis arrived in Manila, some boys had left three kittens at the door of the Inquirer office in Davao. That afternoon, some “rugby boys” were rounded up by the police and I was sad because those might be the boys I caught feeding the kittens.  
Isn't it the height of cruelty for the police to round up the boys who had the heart to feed the cats? Some school girls from Kapitan Tomas eventually found the cats, and one fetched a carton box to bring them home during dismissal time, but minutes after she was off carrying the carton of cats, we saw an angry woman accompanying her, furiously asking her to put the kittens back to where she picked them up.  We saw them at our office door. The angry mother said her daughter cannot keep the cats because she had asthma, but I did not believe her.

Three days before Pope Francis talked about mercy and compassion, I carried the three noisy kittens in a jeepney and realized you can actually tell the character of people by the way they treat a cat.  A woman who sat beside me, I eventually learned, had thrown numerous kittens in rivers and across Samal Island. The young guy across my seat found the kitten yucky though he did not want to show it.  But a skinny, middle aged man, gently called the cats, Miiing, Miiing.

Among the three cats, the yellow one we later called HenriMatisse was the survivor, for he voraciously ate the giniling I bought from the store to feed them; then, the black one we later called Oreo, awoke from her carton slumber and joined the yellow one.  The one who did not take interest in food, and which I initially thought was dying, was the grey kitten we later called Eponine.

Eponine, who proved to be the most intelligent among the three, did not survive when he was hit by a slamming door during a Low Pressure Area (LPA) wind in February 2015.  HenriMatisse, the cutest and the most human among the three, I left alone in B’la at the height of Pa’s ailment in Davao.  I always get this image of him, sniffing Oreo inside the catbag, trying to help Oreo out. I should have put him inside the bag, too, but I realized he’s been surviving well in the village, and bringing him along might disrupt the good adjustment he was having in the place. So, I carried Oreo all the way back to Davao, where Oreo pissed on my pants when we reached R. Castillo. I never found HenriMatisse after that and I've been aching for a yellow cat with an L-shaped tail ever since, that cat who once glided the terrace of a neighbor, perked his ears when he saw me, and had bounded the whole neighborhood distance in three leaps when I called his name.

Ja described Oreo as a cat no one could ever love, except me.  In fact, it was because Oreo was that kind of cat that precisely drew her to me.  But Ja was only looking at the color of the cat, which was black, with irregular splotches of yellow in between.  The yellow spots above her eyes made Ja want to get his black pentel pen to cover the spots with black paint.  But Oreo, just like the other cats, is endowed with grace of movement and an elegance innate to all cats.  She was also full of cat wisdom and intelligence. She became pregnant months after the Pope’s visit and triggered a cat population explosion in our struggling household.  What was funny and amazing about Oreo was she never mind feeding three generations of kittens on her breast at the same time, even if her milk was already drying out. 

This simple tribute is not enough to describe such a great cat as Oreo.

Chanced Meeting?

That afternoon, I was a bit restless. I thought I needed to go to Upper to find out the next schedule for copra. I asked Ma if she wanted me to go, but Ma said, it’s getting dark, it’s not good to be out at this hour. I said I waited for the sun to cool to be able to go; and so, disregarding Ma and her fears, I walked out of the house all the way to the Crossing to wait for a ride.  I did not like the look of the motorcycles I met along the way. I did not like the look on their faces, those calculating look. So I texted him if he was in B’la. He said yes and asked if  I needed a ride. I said I was at the Crossing on my way to the Upper B’la and when I turned around, I heard a motorcycle engine revving up, and saw him emerged from under the trees. We were already a way off when I asked him where he’d been when I texted because it seemed he was just very close by. He said he had been up to your house. “His house?" I froze. "Is he here?” 
"Yes," he said. 
“Let’s go back, " I said.  
“Why?" he asked. "He is so busy, he’s got work to do.” 

“Let’s go back,” I said.

And so, he turned the motorcycle around so fast that before I knew it, we were already in your house, the motorcycle going right up to your front yard, what would your mother say? I did not know what to do. He stopped and pointed to you, “There, he is,” he said, saying your name. “That is him!” 
When I looked up, I saw several you’s at the same time, all seated there under the tree; and the eldest one, wearing a dark blue polo shirt, was looking at me, nodding, confused. Briefly I was able to say, “Just excuse us, we’re just passing by,” and then, we were gone, me, trying hard to hold on to the back of the motorcycle without touching his shoulders, and then, when we passed a hump, bumped upon his shoulders anyway.

We left you wearing a puzzled look on your face, watching me very closely; watching me and our friend sped away. 

The Story of Kialeg

Years ago, in the course of researching the town of Magsaysay for a Canadian-funded book project focused on Mindanao's five poorest towns, I came upon the story of Kialeg. He was a B'laan warrior-hero whose legendary exploits his people remembered well. I reveled at this discovery because I knew the old name of Magsaysay used to be Kialeg; and despite the government's attempt to replace the town's name with that of a Philippine president who died in a plane crash, people never stopped calling the place Kialeg. I thought that in a place like Magsaysay, the government may have imposed another history upon the people, but in the people's heart, Kialeg lives. I could no longer remember whether I heard about what Kialeg did for his people that his name continued to stick. But a river running its course somewhere in town was also named after him. In fact, some town officials who never knew anything about Kialeg, the B'laan hero, thought that the old town was named after a river. But I had a discovery when I visited Pa's farm in Upper B'la last Sunday: The creek, we previously thought as dead because it was often dry most months of the year; the creek that cuts across Pa's piece of land, is actually Kialeg on his way downtown! Nice meeting you, warrior hero!

Sunday in Upper B'la

The way I see it

The previous year, when Pa’s symptoms had petered down a bit and then, were gone for a while, I used to go home almost every week to see how he and Ma were coping. 
Pa would be too surly, and would harangue me with insults that reminded me of an unhappy childhood. Instead of being shaken, I’d take the chance to roam around the neighborhood with my camera, scouting for good pictures. It was the year of the drought, the strongest El Nino to have hit this part of Asia, and I would reach as far as the neighboring sitio of New Dumanjug and further up to the next barangay of Upper B’la to take photos of the grasses that had browned and turned to powder under the coconut trees.

One day, I came back after sundown to show him some of the photos. As I was doing it, I was bracing for what kind of insults and hurting words he would again hurl at me.

“Unsa na (What are those)?” he asked about one of my shots. “Lubi (Coconuts),” I said. “Nganong nagtuwad (Why are they upside down)?” he asked. “Because that’s the way I see them,” I said.

Then, as we scanned my other shots, he also saw another picture of coconuts against the blue sky. “Why are you shooting them?” he asked in Bisaya. “Because they’re beautiful,” I said. 
For him, who spent his whole life as a coconut farmer, the sight of coconuts must be as common as the calluses in his hands.
But at that moment, staring at my shots, he did not say anything.

His silence punctuated everything.

Missing Files

There's a full moon outside.  I went home, excited to open the new USB that Ja just mailed from Davao, thinking I'd finally find the missing journals that I thought would make my life complete.  But just as I suspected, Ja got it wrong again. I was looking for the 2015 and 2016 journals which have been missing in my collection of files which started back in 2008. So, I asked him to do the impossible thing of having my old USB cleaned by a technician.  It did not take very long for him to do that.  He soon texted me saying all my files, including my journals, were safe inside. I discovered, though, that all that the flash disk drive contained were useless files.  The drive only contained all my attempted projects for Adobe Premiere that would no longer open because their photos have been moved somewhere else. Suddenly, I  felt very tired. I opened my old photo files and found that even the photos can make a journal. This picture, for instance, says it was taken on March 7, 2016, a Monday; when I was alternating every two or three days going home to B'la to find out how Ma and Pa were doing.  It was the height of the drought but I couldn't sit down long enough to write.  I wanted to connect the drought happening in this part of the world with the melting of the glaciers somewhere in the Himalayas. That drought took rather long and I saw grass and vegetation begin to wilt.  But life, for me, was also speeding very fast.  The drought ended while I was inside the buses, or aboard a SkyLab on my way  to Bansalan and back.  The days moved even faster than a click of a camera shutter, a blink of an eyelid.  I mastered all kinds of public transport about this time. I also went to all kinds of strange places, saw all kinds of sadness and horror,  met lots of beautiful people, among them was the driver named Benny, who told me never to leave my Pa, no matter what. Did I follow what he said? I felt I did, though, I also felt I did not, and would sometimes feel bad about it.  But most of the time, I feel that I was right. 
I met lots of people who were kind and eager to help at times I least expected help. [I have to stop now because I'm having a sore throat that threatens to be a full-blown flu. I feel I need to rest. I think I'm sick.]

My Oregano survived!

Over the weekend, Ja was becoming restless and insisted that we went home to B'la to see the impact of the quake on the abandoned house. We saw cracks on the wall and decided it would no longer be safe if another strong quake struck. Water from the last rain had flooded the backyard and drowned most of the plants with mud but I was grateful that my Oregano under the care of Titing had survived!

Japanese Zero

As soon as we were back in Davao, I had asked Sean what he remembers about his Lolo; and he said, "That particular moment when we went home to B'la, and Dad and I were so crazy about airplanes, we were making airplanes made of cardboard, and suddenly, Lolo noticed what we were doing and said, Uy, eroplano man na sa Hapon!" For Sean and Ja used to make  Japanese Zero out of cardboard and scotch tape.  I remember holding one cardboard Zero when we left Nova Tierra a year after Pa's first attack; holding it up to Ja for I wanted to give it to one of the neighborhood kids, and Ja said, "Leave it alone with the garbage," and I remember feeling sorry both for the Zero and the neighborhood kid, who would be deprived of the joy of playing with an airplane replica, even if it was only made of cardboard, even if it played a cruel role in the war theater, I was only interested in it as a toy.
Yet, I remember, too, leaving a pot of wounded Oregano--its branch had been unwittingly cut off in the midst of our moving, and saw the aghast face of our next door neighbor when I left it to her to care for.  She never really loved plants, and never knew anything about Oregano, so, how can I expect her to appreciate the extraordinary mission of healing a wounded plant? It was only later when I realized my stupidity, for she actually  expected me to leave the healthy ones, and not what she considered a reject! So, to avoid further embarrassment, I followed Ja's order to leave the Japanese Zero to the garbage, instead of handing it out to Jamal, the Maguindanaoan boy who was our next door neighbor, because maybe, Jamal would not really love to have a  Japanese Zero made of cardboard.  (But still, I strongly suspect that he'd love it!)
Now, I'm warming to the fact that when Sean thinks of his grandfather, he remembers those times, he and his Dad were so crazy about airplanes, they were building Japanese Zero out of scotch tape and cardboard, and it was his Lolo who first took notice of what they were doing. Did they, at least, leave one Japanese Zero for him?  I wonder what Karl is thinking when he thinks of his Lolo, but as for me, I remember so many things, including an unfinished conversation when he was in pain and sleepless throughout the night.  I had a deluge of memories that needed to be sort out and taken down, one by one, never to be forgotten.

Sunrise Breaking

This picture, taken when sunrise was breaking beyond the veranda of our home in B'la outlining the leaves of the Song of India, makes me think of my Pa. 
At the height of his ailment - those long uncertain months after his first hospital stay when we deemed it good to let him stay in the city - I used to leave Davao City at dawn to go to Bansalan to oversee the weighing of copra.  I was so insecure about the whole proceeding because: first, I didn't even know how to read the weighing scales used by the Chinese merchants to weigh sacks and sacks of our produce, so, you can imagine how strained I was, standing there, pretending to understand, when all the while, I was feeling like an idiot (of course, this did not last long because Pamela Chua, a Tsinay from Binondo, whispered to me the secret code--okay, this part is purely isturyang hubog, see, I put it inside the parenthesis?!); second, there was no one in the family overseeing the workers in the farm, which actually meant, we are slowly, gradually but surely, losing control of things over there.  So, to calm my nerves, I used to leave Davao City too early, when everyone else was still snoring;  to see to it that I arrived at the house at dawn so that I had enough time to be at the farm at 6 am, when everybody least expected me.  This would allow some time for me to get to know the people and to observe what was going on in the farm (though, I hardly had two hours to do all these).  During those months, I had studied the proceedings of the farm and studied the people there just like the way I read my books.  [Of course, I eventually developed a grasp of the politics and economics of the place, developed a feel of whom to trust and whom to be wary, honed my skills to read people's hearts and people's intentions; but I admit that up to now, I still can't tell a coconut ready for harvest  from a buko or a banana!  Uh-okay, I can tell a banana, but to tell a mature coconut fruit ready for harvest from a buko continues to be a puzzle to my untrained eyes! To compensate for this, however, I knew someone I can trust who can tell the difference.] 
Once, I overshot my target hour of arrival in Bansalan and had left Davao City at 2 am, which was rather too early. I arrived home when it was still dark and drank the loneliness of the house. I went to the upper bedroom and saw Pa's things and shirts scattered in different places in our frantic search for things to bring that day we left for the hospital. I felt this searing pain as I saw the pillow where Pa's head used to lie, the old Bisaya magazines he used to thumb through and had left in the corner, still half-folded; the glass, still half-full of water, where he drank that night, before he was seized by the pain which made him say, "Dios ko, Dios ko, Gino-o," as he made the sign of the cross; which made me send a text message to my sisters, "It must really be painful because I've never ever heard him say, Dios ko, before;" which made my sisters, hundreds of kilometers away, race for home days after. 
Still, I can't forget the sight: his slippers which were scattered in different directions, the discarded clothes, the poor state of his old shoes, worn, weather-beaten, gathering dust in a cordizo;  and even the dusty nito basket hooked to a nail on the wall, where he kept his documents.   

Morning in Upper B'la

One living artifact in the village of B'la

On the way to a Rainforest

We went to what I called the secret rainforest in Upper B'la, where the land sloped abruptly down to the Balawanan river about 100 to 200 feet below. I can't be exact about its height. Actually, I can't even tell a foot from a banana, so, don't trust me when I say 200 feet, maybe, it's even higher. But the cliff always had this effect of making me feel breathless as a child, both for its sheer height and for the landscape it offers. It had the same effect on me now. When I was a child, I remember coming down here with my Pa, seeing the water falling by the steep slopes of the cliff, gushing like little waterfalls. I used to see gigantic bird's nest fern and other giant ferns as big as banana stalks thriving by the wayside. I remember the clear, rushing waters of the Balawanan, the pebbles the color of granite we used to play with. Now, the ferns were almost gone and the river was heavily silted, an island of rocks and debris had formed in the middle. But climbing down this place was such a great moment for me. The gigantic timber trees thriving near the rocky brook that ran its course through the ravines felt as solemn as a cathedral. I would love to come back here over and over again.

A village called B'la

People in the village are dying faster than I can talk to them. He told me his mother came from Bohol but he did not know where she met his father. When he began his story, he was living alone with his mother, because his wife was in Kuwait, and his sons and daughter preferred to go home to their grandmother on their mother’s side rather than to him. I asked, so, who cooks dinner? He said it was his mother. Do you eat together? He said they eat together sometimes, but at other times, they don’t.  I had wanted to see his mother, just to say, hi, if she can still remember the girl in the past, but even before her son could finish his story, she got sick, and while I was away, she died. I suspect that this village was a young village and the people who are dying now, were never really born here. They arrived here at the prime of their lives, settled here, raised a family, and now, they’re dying. I can’t remember where in the Visayas his father came from but he said they were among the earliest people to have settled here in this village when the whole area was still a forest. His father was already gone when he was telling the story.  Although the village is a farming village, theirs were not really a farming people in the real sense of the word, they owned a school supply store, at least; where we used to buy bond paper when we ran short in school. 
While we were talking, another woman about as old as his mother, and who owned the village's longest running rice mill, had lain in a coma and was being taken cared of by their eldest daughter.  She was asleep when she got a stroke, and according to the account of the househelp, her husband had first felt her hand stroking him but he just brushed it aside, until the morning, when he discovered what was wrong.  
Later, I happened to talk with the man, who used to ply the jeepneys that used to bring people and goods to town. He remembered the girl who used to take his jeepney back in highschool. He told me he was born in Iligan before settling here but his father came from Dumaguete City. He and his sibling recently found out that their father had left a beachfront property in Dumaguete City, which they wanted to sell. But someone, a relative or something, was occupying it, so, they were having such a hard time selling it. The man was a good man, they all are, in this village. But unlike my father, he was not a farming man. He'd rather own a store,  a truck, a jeepney, or any vehicle and ply it. Much later, I met another man about his age. He was born in Quiamba, Sultan Kudarat before he settled here, but his mother came from Minglanilla, Cebu and his father from Butuan. He said he had never been in Minglanilla all his life and he was already 73 years old. The man was well-read [[well, he knew the historical role of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the people power at Edsa and unlike most people in this village, he hated Martial Law!]] When he arrived in this village, there were still so many timber trees around.  There were Apitong, Guijo, Lauaan, Tugas, and others. "Was it the logging that wiped them out?" I asked. "No," he said. "People even burn them, when they get in the way of  corn growing!"  Even if Pa had farmed all his life and must have developed some affinity with the soil, I don't really have some romantic notion about his worldviews. I remember the indigenous varieties of mangoes, guava, pomelos, macopa naturally growing in our backyard, which he cut down to give way to the mahogany trees and the gmelinas. He preferred cash crops to fruits.
I saw where your Ma and Pa were buried as we passed by your area. I remember the last time we talked and felt the full impact of the drought.

Prayers by the roadside

It's Maundy Thursday, the start of the long Lenten break, which for someone working the kind of work that we do, would be the only long holiday open for us for the rest of the year.  That's why, everyone was so excited as we rushed out to help put to bed the newspaper copy last night. Everyone trying his best to keep his cool, to keep his/her mind in focus because the spirit was already rushing out the door, getting inside the elevator in a hurry to get out of the building fast to the life of untrammeled joy and freedom outside.
I merely stayed in my place. I was thinking if I had only bought that ticket, maybe, I would also be rushing home, too. Rushing to the airport to catch the plane to where the heart belongs. But I did not have such a ticket.  So, all I have is the long hours of reading and writing open for me for the long weekend.
When I reached our street, it was already 9 pm, and the vehicle I was riding could no longer get inside because the neighbors had already set up tents outside their homes--yes, tents along the roadsides, and I thought,  is this another vigil for another funeral?  But no. The tent was only for the gathering of people for the prayers to the Jesus of Nazarene,  the cross-carrying image of Christ. I was amazed by the people's observance of the Passion here. It also reminds me how, a year ago, back home in B'la, while Pa was struggling with his ailment, and I still languished in bed to recover from the previous night's late sleep, Ja tried to shake me awake because the procession was already passing by the house. He said the procession was an amazing sight, I should see it, I should at least photograph it. "I thought you wanted to be a real, hardnosed photographer? What kind of a photographer are you? You lie there sleeping while a beautiful event passes you by!" I got the mouthful from Ja while I flitted in and out of dreamland.
When I managed to get up, I only caught the tail of the procession at the end of the road, and I saw an open air altar by the roadside.  Ja shrugged.  But the sight of an open air altar amazed me because it reminded me of the pagan ways. It reminded me of some faraway Greek altars when the world was young. It also reminded me of
the Bagobo altar tambara. I loved that concept of an altar because it lays itself bare and open to the elements. Most of all, it opens itself up to the skies.