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!

Carried Away

Sometime in 1992, when I made a total mess of myself, I half-expected, even fervently wished, my family would bail me out from a monster called Fax Elorde. Of course, you could never expect such a thing so, I suffered the agony in silence. Mirisi. I did not say that to myself, though. I was still too young to understand I was in a real big trouble for life. I put up a brave face, invented stories, pretended everything was all right although Fax Elorde was a total asshole, so stuffy, so full of himself, so full of hot air. It’s only much, much later when his son would describe him as “just a practical guy, totally devoid of talent” that I enjoyed a hearty laugh; but at that time, I particularly wished I had a rich Uncle to kick him out the door, turn him upside down, cover his whole body with catshit, tell him to go to hell and get lost forever. I toiled from eight o’clock until midnight and walked the deserted street home, tense, anxious, worried and always went to bed totally exhausted.

Riverwaters

Bal'wanan

Lancelot By the River

Pa asked, "Why do you nurse such stupid dream of following a river? Of tracing where it came from, and then, following its path as it snakes around mountains, through ridges and ravines and meanders when it reaches the plains before it joins another river it meets along the way and form a bigger, stronger, and perhaps, noisier river, crisscrossing wide flat lands, sometimes, losing direction, forgetting its journey as it spreads itself too thin in some landscape and then, gathering momentum as it reaches some purposeful ravines that rushes onward towards the sea? Following rivers!" Pa exclaimed, "Isn't that a useless enterprise?"

Jomgao's Salog

In Jomgao, people call the river “salog,” (sa-log), pronouncing saaa with a drawl before dropping fast the “log.” Saaaaalog, not salog, the Visayan word for floor, which you pronounce by dropping the two syllables very fast, one after the other. As a five-year-old arriving in my mother’s hometown for the first time, I was met by the sight of an enchanting white rock, partly covered by clinging green vines, hovering over the river. An older boy cousin, excited over our arrival, pointed to me the river, told me it was the saaaaa—log. But I was enchanted by the white limestone rock hovering over it. I had never seen anything like it. It was a rock the color of old cathedrals. Its sheer beauty stuck to my mind, populated my dreams. Salog, for me was not the river but that white limestone rock hovering over it, a sight so enchanting, I could never, never get over it. So, every time I go home to Jomgao and get lost on my way to the Aunts, I’d ask people where the salog was, hoping to recover my bearing. They would point the river—any river—to me. But no—I meant the salog, the real salog, that part of the river in Jomgao, where an enchanting white promontory hovered above, where I imagined Mangao and his wife Maria Cacao discreetly passing by on a stormy night, aboard an obscurely small boat full of chocolate bars.

Memories of Kampung Ensika

Did anyone ever remember me in Sarawak? Did anyone ever think of me once in a while in the Iban Kampung of Ensika, where I once braved crossing the mighty Sadong Jaya river and another smaller river filled with crocodiles, to fall in love with a community of people, whose women so jolly and so warm, had guarded me against the terrible consequences of the tuak (pronounced tua) handed to me by their men. "Not too much, that's enough," I hear them whisper to each other in their own language, a language I could not understand, as the indigenous sweet wine was being poured into the glass. Their hands in a protective gesture, the look of genuine concern on their faces, those Malaysian women were enough to make me feel so safe and warm. In contrast, a woman in a Christian household back in Kuching, wanted me to drown under her tuak, offering me glass after glass of it, I had a hard time refusing her. A tuak is a gesture of hospitality among the Ibans, refusing it was supposed to be considered rude; but remembering the Iban community whose women had protected me, I took the courage to refuse. Now, I still think of those women, their brown faces smiling at me, saying things I don't understand, eternally amused by whatever I do in their village. Where could they be now? What could they be doing in the kampung, so far away from the city, accessible only by boat during high tide? I may have forgotten their names, which were so strange and very difficult to pronounce, but I could not possibly forget their faces. Good memories of them I carry with me whereever I go.

Sunset at the Kuching Waterfront

Yes, that’s the Harbor View Hotel, when the sun’s last rays strike its rectangular shape before finally setting in the west to rest. I used to watch the sunset here, while the crowd of people saunter into the waterfront, taking advantage of the evening breeze. I would be thinking of home, as I watch the light hit that side of the building, giving it a radiant glow before slowly fading away, and then, dying, dying in the onset of night. My heart would ache for Karl and Sean as strollers, teenagers and twenty-somethings pour into the waterfront, walking on the brick pathways under the trees. I'd stay for a while, listening to their laughter, before walking around the street corner, where the Anglican Guest House, rises from a slopy, elevated ground, almost like the image of Christ after the resurrection. Curiously, the compound sits opposite the quaint Tua Pek Kong temple, whose smokes coming from numerous incense rise up to the heavens at all hours of the day. I almost forgot the name of the guesthouse where I used to stay but here suddenly it pops up again--St. Thomas! Thanks, I remember you, St. Thomas Guesthouse, once my home inside the Anglican church compound just a few paces away from the waterfront. Once home for girls of a century-ago who studied there under the tutelage of the nuns. What happened to them afterwards? I remember climbing up the wooden stairway, my feet making creaking sounds at their every step. I could still see the shiny, wooden flooring, and the quaint smell of old sweat, body heat and old cigarettes. Ignoring the Caucasian backpackers, I would continue walking the dim interior of the bare living room and walk straight to my room. They still used this stick, skeletal old-fashioned keys which I had trouble inserting into the keyhole. I can still see the common baths and how it smelled of freshly-opened soap. Why is it that sometimes, in my memory, I sense that I was not alone in that room? That somehow, Sean or Karl, or even Ja were actually with me? Why didn’t I ever get the sense that I was alone? But I was alone in that room. I did not have a companion except for my thoughts and my cellphone. I would smell the dry odor of ancient cigarettes that refused to leave the linen no matter how many times those linens must have been washed. It was the Chinese professor in a university in Kajang, north of KL who told me about the place: very cheap, over a century year old wooden guesthouse full of ghosts from the previous century, rooms so tiny and homely, with sheets that smelled of old cigarettes. Surely, it would be within your budget. In the morning, I used to wake up to the strange calls of an Asian fowl, that resemble the chanting of monks somewhere in Bangkok.

Monument of Grief

January 14, 2013, the 40th day after the onslaught of the killer typhoon Pablo, a wall was unveiled in the old barangay site of Andap, New Bataan, bearing the name of those who died and those who went missing and were never found. Rampaging waters from the mountains reached a volume so high that it created a new river course, shortly after it passed the intersection of the Mayo and Mamada rivers, descending upon the whole barangay of Andap, washing away everything along the way.

River Crossing in Barangay Baugo

Sometime in December 2012, I arrived in this part of barangay Baugo (pronounced by people there as Baw-go), Baganga town's boundary barangay adjacent to Caraga.

The River Talks

I spent the early morning along the banks of Lipadas River--no, not really that early because I was tempted to take a sip of coffee and I also got lost along the way. But once I was there alone with my point-and-shoot, trying to compose the image in the frame, I heard the river talked and gurgled; yes, it talked to me. It tried to attract my attention, it told me the stories of its long, tumbling journey from the mountains and how it arrived there, and what it found. I couldn't completely understand what it was saying because I have not studied yet the language of rivers; yet, I knew the river wanted me to stay, it was lonely, it wanted company, someone to talk to about all the shocking and disturbing things that it found along its banks. And for a while, I was tempted to stay. I was thinking that, maybe, if I stayed long enough, I would completely understand the language of the river, I would come to know what it was trying to say, I would be able to follow what it gurgled. Yet, I also knew that if I stayed long enough, I would change. I would metamorphose into something else, totally unrecognizable in my own transformation, even to myself. Then, I would find myself one day speaking the language of rivers.

Now, Back to Work!

B'la is a fictional place that doesn't exist only in the imagination. It exists in the minds of people who once lived or have always been living there even if they're no longer there physically.

Chair overlooking the Chao Phraya River

When things are falling apart, all you have to do is lurk in the shadows...