Davao's San Pedro Cathedral

Among the first structures that the early missionaries put up in this place when the (Christian) settlers first arrived in the late 1840s and pushed the heroic Datu Bago deep in the hinterlands of Waan and beyond. The shape of this Cathedral used to puzzle me until recently, when I finally decided it is shaped like a boat. When you happen to stand right at the gate of Camp Domingo Leonor police barracks just across the street, you could almost say, only the masts are missing!
By posting it here I don't mean to glorify the spirit of conquest that this Cathedral may stand for (if only to be blunt and honest about it) but only to reflect on that time of the past that hasn't gone away.As if to straighten out the rough edges of history, some groups who want to make their message clear love to bomb this Cathedral during Davao's most turbulent times, so, until now, as I drop by to light a candle sometimes, I can't help looking around just to see if it's not one of those days again. In the good ol' days of the early 90s, Sunstar reporter Charles Maxey used to love to recount to me how Digong , as what the media like to call Davao city mayor Rodrigo Duterte, had made a 60 year-old man accused of raping his 10 year old granddaughter to walk down San Pedro street to the Cathedral on his knees. I did not see it. I was still with Sunstar Cebu at that time but for Charles, it was a great spectacle that seemed to speak something about him and his people.

Dark Clouds over Davao Gulf

Can you blame me if this is how the New Year looks to me? After all, the Siberian winds are here, blanketing our days with the cold and damp. Gray clouds and rain-soaked streets dominate the landscape. But did it ever cross our mind that this kind of weather is rather late in coming? This is supposed to come in December but in our most recent December, the heat was terrible. Environmentalists have been pinning the blame on global warming but for some of us, it was more than that. It was a killer weather and it was hardly the Christmas we imagined, at least, for some of us. Those who were afflicted by that overwhelming sadness that tend to visit the poor and the oppressed during the happiest part of the year have succumbed to disease and die. I did not manage to die, though. I merely drifted in and out of consciousness while happy Christmas came and went away. In the afternoon of December 25, I was lucky enough to awaken to see eight messages on my phone, one of them from the most beloved Mandaya Moore, but then, it was too late for a Merry Christmas!
Amidst the dark clouds, however, the New Year promises new hope. First, it was the day when five year old Sean finally got well. For refusing to take food for days, he looked gaunt and tired as we reluctantly strained our ears to listen to the proverbial ringing of another year. Karl finally turned 14, despite our absence. Now, as we try to catch up on reading assignments, re-discover a crazy mixture of Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and Sesame street characters, we begin to nurse a fledgling new hope for the year. Maybe, the grasses will continue to grow afterall.

Thank You, Firedog!

For opening us to a hundred ways of seeing this part
of the Davao Bankerohan river.

The Horse Talks Back!

Suddenly, the road behind me and the road before me has become life itself and I have turned into a horse. I am a beast living at the mercy of your whip, which dictates upon me which way I should go up and down the cliff, left or right, without much choice because I am a beast. You thought you’re free to put all your lousy burdens upon my back, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for you to do. You don’t even stop to think of how much you’ve been depriving me of my nature, when you profit from all my work.
You want to tame the beast in me when my bestiality has always been the best thing in me. All I want is to run wild in the fields, feel the breeze upon my mane, and give back to nature what nature has given me but your whip and your reins are now preventing me. Don’t talk to me about being grateful to High Heavens for creating my beautiful mane when I don’t even own my own body. My whole body is for sale and you’ve been selling me so many times ever since I became a horse. You’ve been selling my labor up and down the cliff to people who can’t even scale a simple cliff with their own feet. For they got money, of course.
My market value, you measure, by how fast I can go over that cliff and back again, by how much load I can carry, by how many other young horses I can bring to the world, by how soon my hooves can bring a lazy man to his home, by how much my little body can take all the burdens and toil and abuses imaginable. All for a piece of paper that I can’t even chew and swallow! Sometimes, just to make more money, you even come up with such an outrageous concept as improving my pedigree!
Sometimes, of course, you loosen your hold of the reins just enough to let me go up this difficult cliff unhampered. But most of the time, I can’t even take a rest in this beautiful landscape to grab something to eat. There are times when I look at my hooves and think how powerful they are compared to your delicate frame. Why did I ever allow you to push and order me around? You, who can’t even give one decent kick to kill a beast, what quirk of fate had put you where you are now to lord me over? And how stupid can I get to allow you to?

Lessons from the Bagobo Horseman

PART THREE

How did a horse get a full grasp of the mathematical formula of gravitation? Or, was it born with an innate understanding of the principles of levity? Yet, as it moves its rider to higher grounds, the horse musters all its strength and speed as if the universal mind has stamped upon its body the intelligence to understand and defy gravity. There’s only the rider and the horse on the way up the cliff. No other world exists; not even the landscape, which at that height, can be so fatally captivating! But a moment’s inattention can prove too dangerous. The rider has to time all her movements with the horse, has to become one with the horse in mind and body. She has to let go of all controls and trust everything to the horse, which at that moment becomes an embodiment of wisdom; allowing her a glimpse of the eternal mystery of life and death in a flash of a second.

Lessons from the Bagobo Horseman

PART TWO

STRICTLY NOT FOR SALE:
Horse’s Mane
Made in Heaven, Guaranteed.

As a girl, I grew up on a horse’s back with father’s voice echoing in my ears, warning me never to loosen my hold of the reins, or else the horse will doze off to sleep and stumble on the next pothole. I had set aside father’s warning only once and sure enough, the ancient family horse that we used to love many, many years ago really dozed off to sleep and would have stumbled on a muddy hole if I hadn’t seized the reins on time and awoke it from lethargy. I still keep hearing father’s voice every time I was on horseback but the Bagobo horseman’s horse was no ordinary horse, a four-year-old female beast, never been touched, never been kissed by another horse and endearingly called “Inday” by its master. “You have to let go of the reins now,” Berto, the horseman, says while we were going down a steep incline and the horse’s body unevenly fell and swayed with the sloping ground.
“You mean, really let go??!” I asked, shocked and doubtful.
With what almost felt like wild panic, I surveyed the steep road full of rocks and mud stretching down before us. What if the horse will trip?
I reluctantly let go of the reins, of course. If I can’t trust this beast, just for once, to take me down this very difficult road, I don’t know whom I can trust anymore. My friends have left me—they took the other side of the cliff on foot---and I can’t even trust my knees! On our way to Tudaya, my knees crumbled and lost their strength after we scaled down that deeper ravine at the other side.
But then, was I amazed! The horse just breezed through all those muddy potholes and sharp-angled slabs of stones without tripping---not even once!
The horse is also used to taking orders from its master at our back, as if by remote control. I only found this out when, anxious at how painful the hard rocks must be for the poor beast, I grabbed the reins for a moment and tried to steer the horse away from the rocky track to a soft, grassy patch.
When we almost succeeded at this attempt, I heard the angry grunts of the horseman at our back. “Huh! What kind of beast are you,” the horseman yelled. “There’s a road up ahead and you refuse to take it?! Such a stupid horse! Why go another way?! Go back! Go back!”
Oh, if only the poor beast could talk! I did not tell the horseman that I had caused the trouble!

APPROACHING the foaming waters at the bottom of the ravine and the other side of the cliff looming before us, the horseman talked to me again for another set of instructions. “When we’re going up the hill, clutch at this,” he says fingering the horse’s rich, untrammeled mane, “This is made precisely for the purpose.”
Doubtfully, I looked at the beast’s mane and considered what the horseman said. Then, I tried to pull my hair, just to see if it doesn’t hurt. But of course, it hurts! Wincing at the horseman’s cruelty, I resolved to be gentle with the horse. But as we started our ascent and the horse gathered momentum for the climb, I never had any other choice but to grab thick clumps of its mane to keep myself from falling. At first, I did it with one hand (for my other hand was holding a hat) but when the horse started trotting over the huge slabs of stones, I threw away the hat to clutch at the horse’s mane with both hands. Boy-oh-boy, how I hang on desperately for dear life! How I thanked God's Great Heavens at that moment for having the wisdom and the foresight to create the horse’s mane long before I needed it!
The moment after that was probably the most difficult and the most dangerous part of the climb but it also brought instant illumination to my muddled mind. I felt as if the universe compressed all the wisdom worth knowing in a lifetime and delivered it to me on the horse’s back. (TO BE CONTINUED)

Lessons from a Bagobo Horseman

PART ONE

Just a few hours ago, I learned that during life's most precarious moment, no one is coming to your aid. Except for the advise of a wise horseman, you're on your own. Alone.
I was on horseback for the first time in years, looking down a deep ravine where foaming rapids takes its course more than a hundred feet or so below. The road we were about to negotiate was full of slippery granite stones and muddy craters formed by hooves of horses that have been treading this route before. The only other way out of Tudaya---a hinterland sitio of Santa Cruz town barangay of Sibulan where the Bagobo-Tagabawas live, was through a kilometer climb of another (and deeper) ravine at the other side, a route that was bad for uninitiated knees like mine.
So, I looked down again upon the promise of the road below me, a panorama so beautiful it can make you cry, but my eyes instead took in the image of the cliff precariously hanging near its slippery edge.
"Will I ever get out of here alive?" I asked myself but as I did so, the horse had sunk its left hoof in a soft bed of mud, lurching its body forward so suddenly that it briefly threw me out of balance. I shrieked.
"Hold on! Hold on--and don't ever jump!" said the horseman behind me, with a stiff authority of a scoutmaster. "Jumping off a horseback is a dangerous thing!"
He is a Bagobo-Tagabawa, but his Bisaya is good enough. He is such a small man, one could easily mistake him for a child, but his eight year old son is walking along beside him and so does his 10 year old daughter while he carries my backpack to allow me to concentrate. He said my load is much lighter than the 12 kilos he used to carry for Mt. Apo mountaineers."Always remember," he said, as the horse reaches the grassy spaces in between the boulders, "When negotiating with steep roads like this one, carry your body opposite the slope's direction. That will keep the balance. Then, if the horse makes sudden movement, just hold on, everything will turn out right. Unless the horse's body already lies crumpled on the ground, don't jump. Jumping off the horse back while the horse is negotiating a difficult trail is dangerous."
"Allow the horse freedom to make decisions. The beast is familiar with the trail and knows what to do better than you do. Keep the rein just to keep it from jumping off the cliff but reining it in most of the time, will limit its freedom of movement, hence, impedes its progress. (TO BE CONTINUED)

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.

Speak, Memory!

My memory is no longer playing tricks on me these days because maybe it has deserted me. I got to the Butuan bus terminal late in the morning yesterday, thinking only of getting the fastest bus home. I placed my backpack on my lap, not on the overhead compartment as most people would have done; perhaps, a sign that I didn't trust my memory that much anymore. I took my seat and left my memory (or what was left of it) spinning the images of the past weeks: mostly of how the yellowish lightbulb of a late night bus from Malalag cast shadows on the tired, bent bodies of farm workers going home from work or how the reddish light inside the jeepney fell on the faces of women trying to find humor out of what happened to them that exhausting day selling sackloads of durian in the market; and how---when I arrived in Gingoog late one night, a grumpy tricycle driver broke into a grin when I told him I was about to die (with exhaustion)!
There were still three people on the Cagayan-bound Bachelor's bus when I arrived at the terminal late in the morning yesterday. When the bus was about full I happened to look around and got a sneaky feeling that something was wrong. Why was I on a bus for Cagayan de Oro when I knew I was supposed to be going home? It took a long while for me to figure out where my home actually was. When I did, I got off the bus very fast only to be told that the aircon bus for Davao city has just left.
Oh, memory, my memory, why has thou forsaken me???

The End of the Game

7:41 tonight marks the end of my lonely running marathon that tested my will and (psychological) stamina. With all these girls in the next cubicles chatting with baldheaded, toothless white foreigners on their computer screen, I'm going crazy! I got to get home and ask Eve to open that Absolut vodka bottle gathering dust on her bar counter. What a pity!

Sean and the Butternut

Let's take a break

...because there are certain things I can't simply let go.

This Spanish Pueblo

So that nobody will know I'm still in Gingoog, right inside an internet cafe, seized by panic while wrestling with sheets of papers I don't understand, feeling the guillotine of an unforgiving deadline on my neck and the sword of Damocles right over my head, I'll try to pretend that it's the middle of October once again and I'm having a nice little chat with jepoi and the androgynous mandaya moore in one of those dreamy beaches on the island garden city of Samal. There, where the nights are hot and and full of possibilities, one can easily drowse inside those seaside cavanas, wake up with a full bladder only to find out that the rest room is a kilometer away! The place is simply enchanting. One can easily conjure a thousand and one debaucheries happening in open air in just one night while no one is watching! But Gingoog is another story. A former Spanish pueblo in between the bigger cities of Cagayan de Oro and Butuan, this coastal town has turned itself into a bustling little city today, where one can enjoy a dip in its clear blue sea and get connected with the world wide web in one of its internet cafes nearby!

Chema's by the Sea

Pictures on the Wall

It's about dusk and it's raining hard outside the Inquirer office. Inside, I keep glancing at the pictures on the wall as I open this computer. A bond-sized black and white picture of a man wearing a white hospital gown, his face scrunched in pain, his hands pressed onto each other very hard across his chest, as if to absorb what he might have been feeling at the moment. Several hands can be seen near his head and shoulders pulling the white sheets apparently used to carry him. Commander Robot, the caption says. "Galib Andang grimaces in pain as he is carried from a military plane in Villamor Air Base for treatment of his gunshot wounds."
Next to this picture is another bond-sized black and white picture placed perpendicular to the first one. This other picture shows women carrying placards that read, "Palayain ang mga detinidong pulitical na Moro," "Free all Moro political prisoners." The caption says : A Muslim rally in front of DOJ building in Padre Faura as they demand for the investigation of Muslims fall guys during the government's crackdown on terrorists. The pictures are already dated. The shots were taken on December 8, 2003, apparently months before the dreaded Abu Sayyaf leader was killed in what was widely speculated as a prison massacre. I don't know why I keep staring at the picture.

This is for Dasia

...because a picture speaks more than a thousand words!

In Search of my Mother's Garden

Nowadays, I rarely get the chance to talk to my mother, who never ever felt and will never feel at ease with the wildness of my nature. But late in July, I stole the chance to be with her only to stumble upon her garden where everything---from wildflowers to wild ideas---grew in profusion. My mother never had an inkling of the amount of wildness growing in her garden. I found eavesdropping bougainvillas, the secrets of love, fortune, and numerous sensuous delights thriving everywhere.

The Face of Love

A Gen X-er's link to the next generation! My link.

Sinful Secrets!

I was walking along the seedy parts of Uyanguren last Sunday when suddenly I was drawn by an aroma I couldn't resist. After a couple of vain attempts, I finally managed to track down the culprit: inside a thorn-covered shell that the vendor opened up for me to reveal these sinfully delicious secrets!
A dear friend Janis, who just flew in from Manila, had something to say about durian, which fortunately she tasted for the first time last Sunday: It's a fruit that doesn't know any subtlety, doesn't pretend and doesn't hide anything. It tastes and smells as it should.Its taste is strong and heady, like spice. It lends itself out in the open without pretensions, without shame. It dares exposed itself to the world and because of this, it is simply, deliciously scandalous in both its smell and taste!

Synchronicity

But it's not serendipity but synchronicity, as the venerable Butch Dalisay pointed out here.