Argao's Old Belfry

What did awardwinning writer Ninotchka Rosca say about belfries in her most recent book, "Sugar and Salt," which had Tandang Sora, her heroine, "giving away tidbits of Philippine women's history as 'gifts' to her family and relatives before dying?"
Tandang Sora talked of the Spanish friars trying to convince the natives they called indios, referring to us, instead of the group of people that we actually call bombays, to "build belfries to guard men's bodies and cathedrals to guard men's souls."
The belfries were supposed to "warn the people against pirates and the cathedrals, to warn people against sin." I found Ninotchka's "Sugar and Salt" inside the National Bookstore at Davao city's Gmall after some weekend staring at old cathedrals and belfries in Cebu and remembering how, in the year 2000, I had dragged seven year old Karl from Silliman university elementary school to the old cathedral in Dumaguete and together, we clambered up the belfry to stare at its huge bell.
I remember how my little boy stared at the old bell, with his mouth open, as I marveled at the date etched on one of the walls. Then, when I was about to move further up, I caught sight of abandoned souls sleeping on the dusty floor.
I did not climb the belltower in Argao on the few moments that I managed to escape the city in July to spend some moments there. I did not have the seven-year-old-turned-14, nor his younger brother, to drag along with me.
So, I watched the tower from a distance, noting how the sun struck and cast shadows on its stone walls. Except for one or two devotees who came to light candles, the whole place often looked deserted the few times I was around.

Kadayawan sa Dabaw!

Reminders

Every step of the way, everything that I see reminds me of my boys. A friend talking of her 14-year-old daughter makes me long for my own 14-year-old Karl, living in a topsy-turvy room with another boy and his guitar, 500 hundred kilometers away from me. Just thinking of him talking to people I don't even know makes me feel very uneasy. The chocolate cake that Che and I just tasted reminds me of Sean, 6. So are the sight of apples along the sidewalks, the pistacchios and cashews on the store windows, the smell of towels, the sight of children, teachers and the fact that I am not doing the groceries anymore.
I don't look up when I hear fathers comparing notes about their kids, even if I hear from them the echoes of what JA used to say: "This boy would never come to me when his mother is around. I don't know what she has that I don't have," says one father. At times, I catch an officemate saying she would rather hang herself the moment she could no longer live with her kids.
But I have killed myself long ago. Every time I turn that corner near The Venue on my way to the Gmall, I long to open my heart to strangers, to show how deep it is bleeding. But a heart is not something you could "unbutton" in the middle of the street, so, I keep on plodding, while everything inside me, disintegrates. I am now a living dead.

No Exit

"Do people ever sleep there?" the taxi driver asked, pointing to the boxlike structure where I came from. "That building has always been alive until morning," he observed.
"The newspaper never sleeps," I said, explaining. At that hour, the production people were  still about to take their turn printing tomorrow's newspaper. The editors--I work as a copy editor, so, me included-- had just closed and approved the pages.  They had to see to it that they were there when they the page closed to ensure that everything that came out passed under editorial scrutiny.
"But people need sleep," he said. "Who goes there in the morning?"
"After the production people finish printing," I continued, "The newsboys come in at dawn to get the papers and deliver them to the newsstands. Sometimes, they also deliver the papers right at the subscribers' doorsteps. At eight, the business and advertising people come. So, are other office workers, like the editorial assistants, in the newsroom. The day desk editors also come in to see to it that reporters pursue the latest news stories for the day. In the afternoon and towards the evening, the reporters start trickling in to write their stories. Then, afterwards, it's editing time all over again."
It was already half past 12 in the morning when I talked to the taxi driver on my way home. Late in the morning, I went to the laundromat and watched the washing machine, and then, the dryer, spin. "The newspaper is one huge machine," I couldn't help mumbling.
The man running the laundromat who kept asking where I worked, looked up.
"Well, I work for a huge machine that never stops churning," I said, and marveled at the irony of my words. I thought, "I don't think I could ever serve a machine, no matter how big."
Then, I started dreaming of going to a far flung place where no machine could ever reach me. Instead, I conjured images of the remote mountains of Mindanao, where the machines were more deadly. People getting killed by another type of machines---the machine guns--right in the places where they lived.
With the Human Security Act, policies that cater to the World Bank and the global capitalist system, debt servicing, the deregulation of everything, privatization even of health services and more, even governments can be deadly killer machines.
Societies, civilisation  are machines that demand subjection from everyone within reach. Even the groups fighting for change have to invent their own "machine." 
Probably, in this life, there's no escaping from the rule of the machine. But isn't it terribly sad?

Death in the Newsroom

"It's a masculine newsroom," I confessed to Anton at the rooftop canteen, delighting upon the fact that I was able to point out the cause of the "strangeness" I've been feeling about the place. Anton crossed his eyes in disbelief. He was quick to retort. "Whaaat?!" he said. "There are more women in that newsroom!"
"That doesn't necessarily follow." How could I explain, how could I picture a female newsroom to someone, who has never seen, never experienced, and perhaps, could never believe it can exist? "Journalism, itself, is a masculine profession," I said. Most often, when they're not very careful, unsuspecting women who venture into the profession are often trained or are forced to think like men. Anton opened his mouth and said, again, "Whaaaa?!"
There might already be some headway made by some women somewhere, but right here and now, in this country, in this world where I live in, the institutionalized mainstream press is still pathetically masculine, made for the purpose of perpetrating the rule of the patriarchal culture, or, to serve the male-controlled commerce and industries.
The closest image I have of female-ness is Amy, in one of those meetings, when she fleets from one subject to another, turning the discussion into a crazy patchwork of life and anecdotes. You can feel right there and then, that each story that gets inserted is a living thing that has a potential to grow. So that the meeting can turn into a crazy whirl that can easily spin and confuse an average male, obsessed with rule and order. Yet, I've always felt richer and fuller after those meetings, because of the glimpses of life they offered. They allowed your imagination to run wild and your creativity to grow untrammeled. Don't talk about imagination in a masculine newsroom. Men are afraid of wild women and of minds allowed to roam free. Women spell trouble for men. In the Middle Ages, they labeled these women as witches and burned them at the stake so that inside the newsrooms of today, women would no longer know what innate power and magic they've got. They could no longer recognize who they are.

My Changing Landscape

My landscape has been changing so fast the last few days. First, I remember taking a snapshot of davaotoday at the two-story YMCA building in Davao at the back of The Venue. Now, as I climb up the Cebu Daily News' rooftop canteen to eat, I can't believe I'm being greeted by the sight of cranes and containers being loaded at the Maersk container port! Last night, I climbed up here at six o'clock and I actually saw all those lighted cranes at work! What would Ja say if he'd find out I'm closely living close to Maersk?! He has been in love with Maersk for a long time. He has been in love with all container ports for that matter. Cargo boats and cranes and container vans litter his adult dreams. His love has been so deadly and fatal that it has driven us out of our rented house in Matina! Maersk, of course, had delivered his shipment of bananas to Vladivostok! But sometimes, luck is in short supply. Sometimes, the yellow corn from Bulgaria also get stranded in the Black Sea on their way to Vietnam. So, we are cast homeless. Now, I can't believe I'm actually staring at the pile of Maersk containers at the port! Sighing and turning around, I see on the opposite end, far off Nivel Hills, where Marco Polo Plaza beckons! This is a totally different landscape!

Trying Out

In the last 10 days, I've been trying a hand on some editing works inside the newsroom of Cebu Daily News. The work stretches from the three o'clock story conference---when the editors decide on the headlines and stories of the day and give page assignments---to deep hours in the night when the editors finally put the paper to bed. On the first days I was here, I was bowling with laughter from the police stories assigned to me because they were---tragic, comic and absurd! They were also the toughest works to edit. After the first days (urrhm, nights), I discovered the benefits of coffee but I fought the urge to draw out a stick of cigarette. My cigarette memories are still with Nico, outside the gate of PDI Mindanao bureau where we can watch the Bachelor buses from Butuan passing us by; or with Dasia, whose ashtrays bear the marks of nicotine abuse while we allow our minds to roam. Inside the newsroom, I can't probably allow my mind to roam. I have to fix an eye on the copies and make sure that they stay there. There's not enough time to explore the depth and breadth of things. You have to deliver the finished product before the first rays of the next day.
Over the weekend, I handled a page on a heritage building along Osmena Boulevard. I liked doing it because I wanted to get inside that building--a museum---and take a look inside. Cebu is teeming with those centuries-old Cathedrals and colonial Churches that are remnants of our past. I have the urge to go out and stare at them in the afternoons to summon all the ghosts and understand my future. But what can I do? I'm inside the newsroom!

Waters at Santa Ana Wharf

Life Behind Bars

This is how it looks when the sun is about to set at the Davao Penal Colony and you happen to look up from where you're seated outside the security gate talking to a broadcaster behind bars for libel. Your eyes momentarily leave the face of the person you're talking to and the absorbed faces of your companions to roam around and wonder what lie beyond the shadows.
On Easter Sunday, when the Communist New People's Army (NPA) led by Kumander Parago raided the Davao Penal Colony's armory without firing a single shot, jailed Davao broadcaster Lex Adonis was already inside to serve his four and a half year sentence in jail. He was brought there from the Maa city jail two weeks before. At the Penal Colony, he said he would surely meet the shadowy characters he had attacked on air. But his father, who visited him on the eve of the raid, had said it was much, much safer for him to be there than anywhere else. The day after the NPA raid, the whole area was crawling with journalists feasting on the breaking story of the day, not knowing that one of them was already behind those bars, unable to break that story.

Another journalist is nabbed for libel

Jeez, I can't believe it. Jofelle is simply too beautiful to spend time in jail! This is unbelievable!

You Must Remember this!

Now that detained junior officer Antonio Trillanes finally made it to the Senate, it's time to look again into the Greenbase Expose and find out more truths about the twin Davao bombing in 2003.

Breaking Taboos

I arrived at the davaotoday office one day to find a stranger in our midst. I thought, who is this guy staring at Gra's computer monitor?? For all I can see from the door was a clean shaven head and a back of someone wearing a shirt, someone I initially thought was a he. Until she turned around and I saw that it was Chi. Why a sweet, young girl suddenly decides to shave her hair like that--must be for a very good reason. I tried hard to hide my surprise. But how can I stifle my excitement?? For a young woman to shed herself of that crown of hair that people used to define her gender is no mean, ordinary feat! It was an act of defiance! It was crossing to the other side of taboo!
For doing the "unspeakable," she had crossed the line that constricted her, the line that used to define her as girl/woman and all the restrictions that come along with it. By breaking taboo, she has crossed the line to the other side where the rules no longer apply and any attempt at definition is no longer possible. She's now in a place where taboo has suddenly lost its grip and power! It's no wonder, then, that everybody who has any inkling of this big triumph gravitates towards her---and for me, Chi has turned into some sort of a heroine that day!

Voice from the Killing Fields

Fr. Albert Alejo (who preferred to call himself "Paring Bert") said he wrote this poem in 1987 at the height of the alsa masa movement against the NPAs which earned Davao the reputation as the country's "killing fields." Now, amidst the extra-judicial killings happening in the country and in Davao particularly, I often catch people saying that all these killings have been bequeathed to us by the history of bloody killings that characterized Davao in the past. This poem has been originally posted in the Filipino Jesuit literary blog and posted here with the permission from the author.


Sanayan Lang Ang Pagpatay
(Para sa sektor nating pumapatay ng tao)

ni Paring Bert Alejo, SJ

Pagpatay ng tao? Sanayan lang 'yan pare.
Parang sa butiki. Sa una siyempre
Ikaw'y nangingimi.
Hindi mo masikmurang
Tiradurin o hampasing tulad ng ipis o lamok
Pagkat para bang lagi 'yang nakadapo
Sa noo ng santo sa altar
At tila may tinig na nagsasabing
Bawal bawal bawal 'yang pumatay.
Subalit tulad lang ng maraming bagay
Ang pagpatay ay natututuhan din kung magtitiyaga
Kang makinig sa may higit na karanasan.
Nakuha ko sa tiyuhin ko kung paanong balibagin ng tsinelas
O pilantikin ng lampin ang nakatitig na butiki sa aming kisame
At kapag nalaglag na't nagkikikisay sa sahig
Ay agad ipitin nang hindi makapuslit
Habang dahan-dahang tinitipon ang buong bigat
Sa isang paang nakatingkayad: sabay bagsak.

Magandang pagsasanay ito sapagkat
Hindi mo nakikita, naririnig lamang na lumalangutngot
Ang buo't bungo ng lintik na butiking hindi na makahalutiktik.
(kung sa bagay, kilabot din 'yan sa mga gamu-gamo.)
Nang magtagal-tagal ay naging malikhain na rin
Ang aking mga kamay sa pagdukit ng mata,
Pagbleyd ng paa, pagpisa ng itlog sa loob ng tiyan
Hanggang mamilipit 'yang parang nasa ibabaw ng baga.
O kung panahon ng Pasko't maraming paputok
Maingat kong sinusubuan 'yan ng rebentador
Upang sa pagsabog ay magpaalaman ang nguso at buntot.
(Ang hindi ko lamang maintindihan ay kung bakit
Patuloy pa rin 'yang nadaragdagan.)

Kaya't ang pagpatay ay nakasasawa rin kung minsan.
Mabuti na lamang at nakaluluwag ng loob
Ang pinto at bintanang kahit hindi mo sinasadya
At may paraan ng pagpuksa ng buhay.
Ganyang lang talaga ang pagpatay:
Kung hindi ako ay iba naman ang babanat;
Kung hindi ngayon ay sa iba namang oras.
Subalit ang higit na nagbibigay sa akin ng lakas ng loob
Ay ang malalim nating pagsasamahan:
Habang ako'y pumapatay, kayo nama'y nanonood.

My Borrowed Workplaces

To honor all borrowed workplaces in my increasingly nomadic life.

Madwoman on the Streets

I'm about to become a full-fledged street bum. I'm about to be cast out of the house and my boys are no longer with me. The other night under the crescent moon, I was hungrily gobbling chunks of barbecue on my table when a street child approached me, said he badly wanted some food. I said, "Are you sure?" I can't forget another boy begging alms with a blind man in Maramag, Bukidnon several days before this. He turned down my offer of food because he wanted money. The people who saw me offering my food to the boy scolded me for being so stupid. "They don't need food, Miss, they need cold cash. Begging is a business enterprise." But the child the other night said he was sure he wanted food. He was very hungry, he said. So, I said, "Stay there, don't move." As if he was going to run if I ordered some food. The man at the next table eyed the street child with loathing and cast one hard look at me. "Who is this crazy woman now to tolerate this form of mendicancy?" The jeepney driver the other day said to give in to beggars was the height of stupidity. He called it soft-heartedness. So, I never smiled as the child and I gobbled our barbecues across each other. I tried hard to look tough. I glared at the boy and I glared at the man at the next table. I didn't even notice that the boy had finished eating---and went away to look for water and came back to thank me before he ran away---because I was still so busy glaring at everyone, trying my best to look very, very tough!

Goodbye, Home

“You won’t be able to bear it,” JA warned as he was about to leave.
“Just turn everything on,” he said, his eyes on the television set. “The silence would be overwhelming, it would be unbearable." He cast a worried glance at me before he looked around the place that had housed us and the boys all through these years.
Then, as if to comfort me, he turned on the television set. I felt the familiar surge of irritation as the unwelcome noise filled the room. I rushed to turn it off. “I’m not afraid of silence,” I said. “I will love it here.”
For a brief moment, I saw in his eyes a kind of admission. He was someone who has never been very comfortable with silence in the first place. "I have always been afraid of silence," he admitted for the first time.
As he picked up his bags and turned to leave, the past came to me in a flash. How I hid the radio inside the cupboard because I could no longer bear its noise. How he always kept it turned on, even when no one was around. "Is that your way of driving away the thieves or the spirits?" I used to ask, incredulous, because I felt I was the one being driven away by the noise. Why would anyone turn on the radio when he didn't even care to listen to it in the first place? I used to ask. How could anyone be so afraid of silence, he had to fill the room with noise?
How I threatened to crush the television set, enraged at how I could no longer have a good conversation with anyone in the house without sharing its attention.
Now that I'm alone, I will welcome the silence that will engulf me as I go home. This is the home that had kept my small family intact in the last six years. Now that my small family is breaking apart, this is my way of expressing my gratitude to the house that had been more than a roof over our heads over those years. It's also my way of saying goodbye. I won't begrudge the house its silence.

Stop Making Fools of Mothers!

I can't believe it! I wake up to a totally different world today. On the pages of the newspapers are images of mothers and daughters hugging each other as if motherhood is the greatest miracle to ever happen in the world! Everyone is singing praises to mothers! Everybody is treating their moms to a spa or to a parlor or a makeover (as if to erase the traces of abuse and neglect evident on her ageing face!), or bringing her to a fancy restaurant for dinner (as if this can make up for her being a slave for the rest of her life!) It's sickening!
I can't believe how they hype and promote the myth of perfect, sweet motherhood, and condescendingly pat mothers on their backs to make up for the kind of maltreatment mothers suffer for the rest of their lives. If the world is really sincere in trying to honor mothers, instead of making mother's day just one great marketing campaign, the world will not leave the task of mothering to the mothers alone! Society has a greater task of taking care of the children, now seen roaming the streets rummaging for garbage, pushed away from school just because they are poor! If the world is really sincere, what has it done to this mother? Will it listen to this mother's plea?

Sean loves Martial Law!

EXCERPT FROM AN OLD JOURNAL
I found this while rummaging through my old files the other night.
September 21, 2006---On the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the picture of the deposed President Marcos who declared Martial Law 34 years ago appeared side by side with the news of Martial Law just being declared in Thailand after a bloodless coup that unseated the Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra only a few days ago. What kind of coincidence it was that Martial Law was declared in Thailand on the day we remembered with horror its anniversary in our country? But what coincidence, indeed! We’ve been living so close to this monster for decades that sometimes, we almost forget it continues to exist in our midst! Or, have we successfully deluded ourselves into thinking we are free until it sticks its ugly head out again to kill us? We gasped as we stared in horror at the picture of the Thai army on the streets of Bangkok’s Dusit area.
“I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed, catching my breath as I held up the picture on the front page to J.A., who for the first time in my life finally agreed with me and was nodding his head rather glumly.
“But that is my favorite!” said five-year old Sean, tiptoeing just to get a glimpse of the picture that caused my agitation. I did not mind him, at first, for I was still reeling from the unexpected (at least, for me) turn of events. I stood up and brought the newspaper to my room to read every line of it but Sean followed me there, pointing at the picture, saying, “But I like it! It’s my favorite!” He was pointing at the picture of Bangkok. I was puzzled.
“But it’s bad to be under Martial Law, Sean," I said, gesturing a gag on my mouth. "Under Martial Law, we can’t talk anymore.”
“But I love Martial Law,” he insisted.
I went back to the kitchen again and then back to my room, and back to the kitchen, until I finally sat down at the table to sip coffee with J.A., who started his long reminiscences about where he was when Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972. But before he can finish his third sentence—when he was telling me how, as the one who used to handle public relations of a multinational firm, he arrived at the airport with all those Japanese visitors in tow to let them take their return flight to Tokyo and found all those soldiers in camouflage telling him there’s no longer any flight that day---Sean barged in again and J.A. had to stop in mid-sentence.
“Do we have Martial Law here in Davao, Ma?” I shook my head.
“Martial Law is bad, Sean,” J.A. said, turning to his son. “There will be lots of people on the streets with guns. They’ll point a gun at you and you can’t do anything about it. Don’t ever wish for it.”
Sean looked at us, hurt. “But I love Martial Law, di ba, Ma?! Martial Law is sweet!” he declared, fiercely. “I’ve tasted Martial Law! It’s soft and comes in different colors! I love the smaller Martial Law better than the big ones. I know because somebody from davaotoday gave it to me. Let’s buy Martial Law, Ma! Maybe, they’re selling it in the mall.”
J.A. and I looked at each other before the light of understanding finally dawned upon my confused mind. “AAAh!” I whispered, “You mean, marshmallows?!”

How to explain Martial Law to a kid who loves Marshmallows

After our momentary confusion about the meaning of sounds, I finally heard Sean explaining to Nina Valerie, the girl next door, the difference between Marshmallows and Martial Law.

“Marshmallows are good but Martial Law is bad.”
“Marshmallows are sweet but Martial Law is bitter.”
"Marshmallows are soft but Martial Law is hard.”
“Marshmallows are full of colors but Martial Law is dark.”
“Marshmallows are smooth but Martial Law is rough.”
“Marshmallows are love and pleasure, Martial Law is hate and pain.”

Sunset at Magsaysay Park

"Sanayan lang ang pagpatay," Paring Bert wrote.