Media's ideological bias

Our Media Law professor Mukund said this was not what he saw when he observed the press in the Philippines. Submitted as a paper in the Media Law class we took with the rest of the ACFJ fellows batch 2008 in the first semester of SY 2008-2009:

If media culture in the Philippines is plagued with ideological bias, it is not yet the “liberal left” bias that Marlin Maddoux talked about in the book chapter,” Free Press or Propaganda? How the Media Distort the Truth,” but more on what Noam Chomsky said about the corporate media’s hunger for profit that media oftentimes become an unwitting tool of those in power to “manufacture” the consent of the public.
In fact, one only has to watch five minutes of prime time TV in the Philippines and see how one gets bombarded by the conventional, subtly masochistic and sadly (some remnants of) colonial worldview.
The media oftentimes take the standpoint of powerful institutions (corporate, government and otherwise) and wittingly or unwittingly package this as unquestioned Truths.
That’s why, I consider it a good thing when liberal-left ideas, such as the concept of press freedom and media independence, creep into the consciousness of the mainstream press.
I say “creep in” because these liberal-left ideas have never been so “esconced” in the mainstream press despite the Philippines’ long tradition of press freedom.
The country’s tradition of press freedom that dated back to its struggle against its former colonizers over a century ago, only asserts and reasserts itself, depending on the political situation in the country.
For a long time, it has been considered a “given,” that the Philippine media is considered the “freest in Asia.” And yet, it has not been able to use this press freedom (coupled by advances in technology) to keep its citizens well-informed.
Most often, the media in the Philippines have become spokespersons and mouthpiece of those in power.
In between the country’s past, when it was not under the grip of a political turmoil that marked the time of the dictatorship of former President Marcos and now during the time of President Arroyo, the media as an institution was in a lull, driven by the ideology of market forces.
For instance, the left liberal idea of press freedom was very strong during the struggle against the dictatorship of Marcos in the 1970s and the 1980s, but rather weak during the market-oriented policies espoused by former President Ramos.
During the time of Ramos, the media (except for the few alternative presses) had carried the government’s standpoint hook, line and sinker on such policies as deregulation, privatization and the country’s supposed role and participation in the global free trade era.
There have never been in-depth reports coming from the mainstream media during the time of Ramos that challenged this government line. Except for those coming from few alternative presses, of course, most of the reports never questioned policies on deregulation, the privatization and even the country’s prospects in the liberalized trade era under the World Trade Organization (WTO).
It was a pity that the media at this time only mouthed what the government was saying. Yet, the impact of what was never discussed before is now staring us in the face.
For instance, the government’s classical WTO line during the time of Ramos was, the Philippines should only produce goods that the country has a ‘comparative advantage,” compared to other countries.
Both the country’s top industry players and government trade officials were saying that the country should only produce goods which local producers can produce fast and cheap and in better quality than those in other countries so that they can compete in the world market.
In other words, they were saying that the country should not bother producing goods which take much longer time--and more costly--to produce.
The Philippines would rather import those goods from other countries, which can produce them cheaper.
The country’s rice problem had sprung from this policy, which the media failed to check at the earliest stage of its inception.
Because of this policy of importing “cheap” rice, the government neglected its own agriculture. The country has become so dependent on other countries for the supply of this critical staple food, increasing the country’s vulnerability to price fluctuation in the world market and in the end, threatening the country’s food security.
This is an example how media’s bias for the powerful policy makers, trade and industry players has undermined its prime and important obligation of informing the public.
The Bill of Rights, Section 7 of the Philippine Constitution provides for the public’s right to know, by recognizing the “right of the people to information on matters of public concern.”
However, this provision in the Constitution is oftentimes set aside and forgotten in the day to day operations of the media. It’s only very rarely that citizens invoke this Constitutional provision to assert their right.
Government has also come up with policies and statutes that seek to block transparency of public records; like the Executive Order 464 that bar Cabinet and other government officials from testifying in Congress without the President’s consent.
Invoking national security issues, the government also came up with the Human Security Act, which also restricts media’s role in informing the public. Under this law, the media interviewing terrorist suspects can also be held liable and guilty of “acts of terrorism.”
At present, the Freedom for Information Act, which will require government offices to make available public documents in a matter of days, is still pending in Congress.
But the rise of institutions in the country fighting for press freedom, media independence and ethical practice, has ensured that the media become conscious of its role not only as watchdog, but also as an institution that can give voice to the voiceless in society.
Slowly, it has dawned upon most of the media practitioners to uphold their independence and police their ranks for abuses, rather than relegate this duty to some interest groups and powers-that-be who might subject the media to their own agenda.
In the Philippines, however, what has been denied from the people by the elitist Philippine media always finds expressions in political cartoons, which is the easiest and most accessible reading fare among the masses.
For instance, more people savor the biting humor of “Pugad Baboy” which expresses wry commentary about the political situation in the country in the most humorous way.
I don’t think that these political cartoons are “less biting” than those in other countries. They reflect Filipino humor and the country’s political situation that the masses can easily identify.
Despite of and amidst of the killing of journalists in the country, I can say that the political cartoons—dating from the time of Marcos to the Hello Garci tapes under Arroyo and onwards--are biting critiques of today’s Philippine society.
But it’s a different story altogether for television sitcoms.
In the Philippines, it’s very rare for television sitcoms to push the liberal left agenda. In fact, television sitcoms are still tainted with conventional, machosist bias and conservative standpoint.
The dominant network culture, as Noam Chomsky said, is market driven and is influenced by both corporate advertisers and top policy makers in government.
Despite its relative political freedom, though, the media in the Philippines do not, as a general rule, make outright fun of religious conservatives. As a rule, majority of media practitioners grew up and are still part of the predominant Catholic culture, hence, the subconscious reluctance to displease someone with so-called religious authority.
In fact, the marrying of corporate interest with that of the predominant conservative culture have their expression during Christmas season, when everything from soap operas to variety shows and public affairs programs tend to encourage buying spree for supposedly “gift giving” among the public, even amidst the increasing poverty and declining purchasing power of the Filipinos.
In this example, I understand what Maddoux was saying about the media using “repetition,” “selective reporting” and the “conscious dispensing with perspective” to promote the ideology of the market.

At a loss for words

To someone who inspired me enough to write this poem sequence--a set of poems that explore a single complication, like what's usually done in a novel, but this time, applied to poetry--as our untiring teacher-poet Allan Popa made us see; he who opened my eyes to paradox and ambiguity as we sat in the faculty conference room of the Filipino department on the third floor of ADMU's Horacio dela Costa building while outside the window, the leaves and gnarled branches of acacia filter the heat of summer. To my roommate Pratish, a natural poet who can recognize poetry by the sound of it even if it is in a foreign tongue she doesn't understand, to the people close and not so close to me who allow me to "see," to friends who have been tolerant of my long absences, disappearances and resurfacing, to the young writers of Matanglawin who sat in that class through thick and thin, while I - always at a loss for words in that "other" language they call Filipino but which is actually Tagalog - grappled with images and never let go.



SIMBAHANG BATO
(a poem sequence)


Gising

Inang nakaratay sa loob ng silid,
ama at tanong ng mga kapatid,
iniligpit sa isip
habang ika’y sumahimpapawid

Dito sa kabilang daigdig

Hinahanap mo si Kristo sa kasukalan ng Tondo
nang abutan ka ng Martial Law
at pilit iniligpit sa loob ng silid. Sa dilim ng curfew
naaaninaw mo ang mga anino
ng maraming inang gising na gising
sa iyong pagdating.

“Blood of Martyrs”

Matagal nang patay ang mga santo
ngunit ganoon pa rin kung patiwarik na ibitin
ang isang taong ayaw umamin

Isang timba ng tubig, naghihintay sa ibaba
naghihintay sa nahihintakutang mukha
doon ilulublob pansamantala
upang ilang saglit na mag-agaw-hininga.

Ngunit bago tuluyang lagutan ng hangin
hahayaang huminga sa pagkakabitin
hahayaang humingal ng iilang saglit
bago muling ilublob nang paulit-ulit
pabalikbalik ang halik sa tubig

hanggang wala nang maikumpisal—kundi tubig.

May Likha

Nakatagpo mo Siya sa pagitan
ng mga tula ng pagdurusa.

Nakatagpo mo Siya sa
pagitan
ng mga tula ng
pagdurusa.

Nakatagpo mo Siya
sa pagitan ng mga tula
ng pagdurusa.

Simbahang Bato

Sa loob ng simbahang bato
nakahilera ang mga santo
Naninigas sa pagkakaupo
ang nagmamanman sa may pinto
habang inuusal mo
ang banal na panalangin

Ayaw na yatang magising
ng pulubing nahihimbing

Damang dama mo ang mga mata
sa mga dinding na semento
Papaluhod na lumalakad
sa altar na ginto
ang kay raming may bagabag sa puso.

Pinagmasdan mo ang dugo
sa mga paang nakapako

unti-unting natutuyo.

Tinatawag

Kay rami nang patay sa liblib
na sitio ng New Panay
Patuloy silang tumatawag ng tulong,
kumakatok sa simbahan, nagtatanong.

Nasaan ang Diyos? Takot din ba siya
sa Cafgu? At di mo alam ang isasagot

Sa pinid na pinto at mga bintana
binubuklat mo ang aklat
pilit inunawa ang bawat salita
pilit inunawa kung bakit
ang Diyos ay biglang nawawala.

OB List

Mula nang mapabalita na kasama
ang iyong pangalan sa humahabang listahan

mga pangalang isa-isang buburahin
sa listahan hindi ka na mapalagay

Paano maninimbang sa pagitan
ng kanan at kaliwa ang aklat
ng magandang Balita?

Alagad

Balitang-balita ko pa
kung paano mo pinatakbo
ang luma mong Isuzu
sa gitna ng daang pa-Cotabato
nang mapansin ang mga motorsiklong
sumusunod sa iyo.

Ba’t mo pa kasi sinundan si Kristo
sa bako-bakong landas ng Columbio
upang dalawin ang mga musmos
sa mga dampang naghihikahos
sa mga bundok na pinupuyos ng takot at poot?

Kung naghintay ka lang
sa loob ng kumbento
upang pagpira-pirasuhin ang tinapay tuwing Linggo—

Di na sana sumabog ang matigas mong ulo.

Making Sense

Every morning, I yank myself out of bed trying to make sense of my crazy life in a room inside the dormitory near the juncture where Esteban Abada meets Katipunan in barangay Loyola Heights in Quezon city. Oftentimes, Pratish, my roommate from Nepal, would still be asleep as I grope my way to the bathroom to glance at my groggy face in the mirror. There, I could make out above the din of the tricycles the voice of the man calling out “atini yeow” “atini yeow!”
He was the dark man in a white shirt, calling out to students lining for a ride at the tricycle terminal outside the MiniStop. He was the man with the belly, Pratish pointed out. Pratish said he was so cute she wanted to bring him to Nepal as a souvenir.
It used to be so hot when we arrived here mid-April; so hot that we could actually feel the entire Metro Manila simmer, but then, the rain (and the floods) started to come leaving some remnants of mud in the otherwise clean brick pavement of the Ateneo.
Some time in between, typhoon Emong came and went out of Luzon while we were deep into a trance (in Fr. Bulatao’s hypnosis class) or we were having an agitated discussion of the phenomenon of the digital age with Cheryl, our professor in the new media culture. Or, was I inside the Filipino department faculty office on the third floor of Costa Hall building, where the poet Allan Popa (who reminds me of Nico) patiently opened our soul to the art of poetry?
Just the other night, Bryant asked me why I kept staying too long in the library. I didn’t tell him that the library, named after the Ateneo famous alumnus Jose Rizal, is one big Borgesian labyrinth. I didn’t tell Bry I discovered Apocrypha in one of the shelves and I got lost among the lives of saints--full of torture, gore and violence. Or, that I chanced upon this crumbly English translation of St. Augustine’s "Confessions," which I would have loved except for the outrageous things that St. Augustine said about women. I only told Wawan that when I made my way to the third floor of the general circulation section, I saw the new copy of J. Thomas Moore’s “Spinoza’s Ethics” so that I had to spend the next 30-minutes or so reading about the philosopher that had obsessed the leading Jewish character of Bernard Malamud’s “The Fixer.”
Wawan knew that Spinoza was a Portuguese whose Jewish parents escaped Spanish Inquisition in their country to live in exile to The Netherlands, where the Jews who escaped persecution ostracized Spinoza because of his wild ideas about God and religion. So, when Bryant asked why I’d been spending most of my time in the library, I told him I’d been researching for a difficult assignment on the “knowledge economy.” I didn’t tell him I found Fr. Albert Alejo’s “Sanayan lang ang Pagpatay” next to such titles as “Ang sarap Mabuhay” while looking for Lamberto Antonio’s “Hagkis ng Talahib.”
Inside the room I share with Pratish, I always look up at the big jalousie windows just above our bathroom mirror to see a row of windows in the upstairs room of the next house. It’s here where I see the first rays of sunlight but in the mornings of the M-W-Fs, there usually is no time left to think as we rush to the SS building (pronounce that as Soc Sci so that the tricycle driver would know where to drop you); we’d be huffing and puffing as we take the twisted stairway up to the third floor of the Department of Communication building for our “new media culture” class at the studio! Then, after the in-depth discussions on the digital age, we’d be so hungry for lunch at the cafeteria--just turn left past the Faura hall (the Rizal library to your right), where Yuri would eat bowlful of pancit Malabon (no pork please!) and fried chicken. Pratish would be looking for vegetables, as usual, and I’d be craving for eggs while Bryant would be talking about the competing freedoms—of the citizens and the state on the issue of freedom of expression and the so-called "national security." (I told him he talked like Luis Teodoro now and he nodded.) But then, as everybody finished her meal and was about to start another round of discussion, I’d leave for the building across the Rizal Library, where the white streamer marked “mula piedras platas hanggang payatas” in red hung near the wall entrance.
Later in the afternoon, Fr. Bulatao with his trademark stick he nicknamed as “tongkat ali” would walk inside the Psychology Lab on the ground floor of the SS Building; and will put the whole class in a trance. Bryant and me will struggle to get our spirits out of our body while Pratish would wonder what the hell is going on…

A Glimpse of my Thought...

Creative Writing

I don't know whether to feel offended or flattered (huh?!) when another Filipino journalist abroad told me last month, "Bay," he said, addressing me. "I think you're more suited to this job I'm doing here. This is creative writing, not journalism. There's no such thing as freedom of the press here."
I blushed and for a moment, felt a sudden surge of pity, shame, humiliation, pain. But then, I quickly recovered, thinking of the suffering of those who have left us and those who are left behind.

Life with Ja

“Tell me, Ja, do you know how to pray?” I asked Ja this afternoon while I was taking a break from writing.
“Why?!” he asked.
I shrugged. Then, I said, “Last night, I was in panic. I had to edit five chapters in one sitting and I had to finish a three-part story about rice and the global financial crisis. You were all asleep but even if you were awake, I was thinking no one could ever help me now. I was really in big trouble and I needed some help! I was on the verge of madness. I was afraid I might snap. I wanted to pray but I don’t know how to. Now, I realize, it pays to learn how to pray.” I paused. “So, I’m asking you now, Ja,” I said, looking up at him, “Do you know how to pray?”
For a moment, Ja looked at me, stunned. He just came home from a trip downtown and he still had that handkerchief wrapped around his shaven head and there was something in the way he peered down at me through his thick glasses.
“Yes, I know what you’ll do!” Ja said, suddenly excited. “I know you! I can imagine you praying to Buda!” He pronounced it as Buda, as in Bukidnon-Davao. “Yes, Buda! And all sorts of Gods! Of all shapes and sizes! Including Mickey Mouse!”
“Ja!” I said.

Letter from Jegenstorf

I just received a letter from Monika, together with some pictures. She said she took those pictures on the first day of the year! Her letter is for all her friends in Mindanao working for change. "It was a wonderful morning," Monika wrote, "With sunshine glimmering on a brand new snow cover! All the dirt, the evil, was covered under the bright new snow and peace was over the land! I made a walk through the woods and I was the first human being, stepping on this New Year morning through the snow. How much I would have taken you with me to admire this nature phenomenon.The first four pictures were made out from my kitchen. The next three pictures I took in the woods and the last two pictures were taken in the Wallis, up on the mountains on 1600 meters.
Lets hope that this absolutely clean nature on the first day of the year, will be a symbol of more justice and peace in this world!"
Yes, Monika.

Getting over God

I still meet Pratish on cyberspace. She told me something and asked me if I was shocked. “No,” I said. “I also fall in love—with God. Are you shocked?!”
It was my turn to ask.
“No,” she said. “But how does it feel?!”
“I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t think, I can’t work, I can’t write, I can’t do anything but stare in space.”
I don’t know why she called me Emily Dickinson. She wouldn’t explain why. I just feel this lump in my throat every time I think of God. It was a curse that I saw him one morning in December, so thin and fragile as he climbed down his Isuzu Elf, I wanted to protect him. I was even surprised by my feelings.
If I hadn’t seen God in that state, maybe, I wouldn’t care if I’ve seen a big mouse on my way home the other day, being doused by a hose of water in Karwasan ni Jullan (open 24 hours on corner Nova Tierra and Lanang highway) by teenagers who have never seen a mouse that big before.
The mouse was as big as a cat, something that a mouse should not be, because it could challenge a cat and win. People do not like that. That’s why the mouse easily attracted the kids’ attention. I was so mad at those teenagers because the mouse looked so innocent and so fragile, shivering and wet at 10 pm in the evening.
The tricycle driver noticed I was already growling in my seat but I did not have the courage to stand up to confront those youngsters about the mouse.
Maybe, they’d laugh at me. Maybe, they’d open the tank of a motorcycle and burn it and when I’d ask them why, they’d train their gun at me and fire at me and blow my head off and then, after I’ve fallen on the pavement, the leader would ask, “Is that all you do when you kill a Woman?” and so, they’ll step over my body, empty all their bullets onto me and scatter my brain on the pavement.
So, I tried to turn my back to those youths so that I could not see what they were doing to the mouse. A boy lifted a very big stone to crush it.
But then, I realized how could I just close my eyes if I see somebody doing that to an innocent mouse?
I don’t know why, but the mouse reminded me of God. I just read an account how a suspected gunman had once aimed his pistol at God while God was driving his Elf in the outskirts of Sultan Kudarat. It was just lucky that the gunman missed.
God has been receiving plenty of death threats, I was wondering what God could be doing at that hour in the evening, at that exact moment that I’ve seen the mouse; whether he was still up, reading his copy of Newsweek magazine or if he has lain down to bed, exhausted after a long day.
Does anyone ever talk to God before he sleeps? I wonder what kind of bed God sleeps on. Does he prefer a soft bed that would bounce back when he drops his weight—or something hard and unyielding, like wood, perhaps?!
But then, in my accursed state, I don’t have any way of knowing anything about God. I live in another world. Without God.

Christmas in Qatar

I just read what Chris V. Panganiban, one of the many Philippine Daily Inquirer Mindanao correspondents, wrote on my Facebook wall at 9:55pm of I don't know the day some months back.

"Bay, biya na ko dire sa atong yutang batoon karong Oct 15. Manimpalad ko sa Doha, Qatar isip reporter. Salagma man god nga nakuha ko sa among Briton nga managing editor nga si Rachel Morris aron himoon ko niya senior reporter sa The Peninsula.
Cge ayo, ayo mo dha tanan sa Inquirer. Padayon pakigbisog alang sa kawsa sa mga matarung nga journalists dire Pinas!"

I don't know how I came upon Chris' Facebook message in the midst of some editing works at davaotoday. But I was thinking about Chris because we ate durian, and sugbang panga, and rambutan, and lanzones, and alimango during Inquirer Mindanao's blow out party in May, when Grace kept asking me if I had plans to go out with her abroad, too, and I told Grace, no, sorry, I will stay here with my kids; and Grace said, "Even if you'll get paid P---,000 a month?" and then, my eyes popped up and my ears burst, and I said, "Okay, when?!" I was still in the midst of an assignment for media law, some sort of an essay about libel and freedom of expression versus freedom of religion but I stopped thinking for a while.
Then, later, I heard about Chris already in Qatar without ever seeing his message on my Facebook until now, when I'm in the midst of editing this story about Christmas in some OFWs home, thinking about my Christmas, which is no Christmas at all; and the fear and panic and butterflies in my stomach, and some inner voice telling me to seek some job--no, not a job really but something that could keep body and soul intact--and I thought again of Grace and our wild plans and then, I realized that I can't even buy a birthday gift for my son. I only wanted to ask Chris how is his Christmas in Qatar.

On the Road to Caraga

It may have happened 400 years ago but the stories how the Caraga church was built are still in the minds of the Mandaya people.
"They fell down trees from the forest," said Agusto Diano, a tribal leader in Pantuyan, "When five men could not carry the log, the Spaniards would flog them and then, reduced their number until only three men, out of fear and panic, or by miracle perhaps, could already carry the log previously too heavy for five men.
They would drop those logs in the waters of Caraga river to bring them to town. The Dutch missionary Peter Schreurs, in his book, "Angry Days in Mindanao," wrote that the Spaniards failed to conquer Mindanao, except for this part of the island, where they put up the church that used to serve as their outpost, overlooking the deep blue Pacific ocean.

Juvenal

Hey. Are you a Dr. Juvenal Urbino, the aristocrat in love with the Poetic Festival when all around him, people are dying in the bloody Civil War?!

Fil Am Books

Poet Luisa Igloria shows us the link to Bino Realuyo's fil-am book project.

Halohalo and a Broken Heart

“What shall we do?!” Prathibha asked when I chanced upon her online and read that Pooja was making a last minute request to allow us into the course.
“Have I let you try ‘halohalo’ when you were here?” I asked back.
“No,” she said.
“Halohalo,” I said, suppressing my guilt for neglecting her, “is a Tagalog word for ‘mixture.’ This Filipino delicacy is a mixture of a variety of sweetened fruits, beans, langka, jellies, lecheflan with crushed ice, topped by a scoop of ice cream, sprinkled with crunchy chips. It’s so sweet and creamy and crunchy all at the same time, you’d forget everything once you tasted it.”
“I wish I had that now,” she said. “The news has been so devastating to me.”
So, with a broken heart and a gnawing stomach, and a futile wish that Prateeh (in Kathmandu) were here, I set out to my favourite halohalo parlor, known in Davao as Mercorner, because it sits in a junction where Mt. Apo Road slants irregularly towards where it meets Quirino only to get lost and emerge at the other side as Duterte street. Merco’s homegrown icecream shops have been known for years in Davao, so that the moment I ordered it, the waiter broke into a smile, I almost thought he knew what was on my mind.
The halohalo that day - in Merco, they always come in tall glasses - was just as I expected it: the creamy smoothness of the ube ice cream contrasting with the rough crunchiness of the chips in my tongue. I almost gobbled up the whole scoop on top even before I can stir it with the mixtures at the bottom.
For this is what halohalo is all about: it had to be stirred and mixed together, so that, in the end, it will lack the steady and consistent smoothness of an ice cream. The roughness of crushed ice both shocks and delights the tongue, carrying with it a hint of flavour, a prelude to the variety of tastes and textures soon to follow.
With halohalo, every scoop is both a surprise and a new experience; at one moment, you ladle a fibrous piece of langka to taste its melting sweetness; and then, the next moment, a scoop of smooth jellies linger and titillate your tongue; and then, all of a sudden, you find beans, thick and starchy, crushing under your teeth; and so on.
Scoop after scoop, I savored those brief, delicious moments, drawing enough lessons from the beans and the jellies and enough sweetness to last a lifetime.
For halohalo has always been more than pleasure of the palate for me. I have sought it, time and again, when life starts to turn sour or bitter.
And that Friday afternoon, for both Prateeh and me, life indeed was soooooo bitter, I was only too glad for just a glass of sweetness!

I miss it again!

I got an email from the Asian Center for Journalism the previous week that Creative Writing, the course that I put on my list to take the following semester, was on a first come, first served basis; and that the professor would only take 10 students for it; and that I, and Prateeh of Nepal; and Yuri of Jakarta, and Pooja in Manila did not make it.
“I can’t believe it!” I said, because I felt I was among the first to express interest in it.
In fact, I was already interested in the course even before it was offered; because the course has been an unfinished business for me ever since I failed to come up with the collected works demanded for the creative writing thesis for that MA in English in Creative Writing I took at the Silliman University (SU) many years ago.
The pressure of the daily deadline, earning a living, raising a kid with asthma and finally looking for means to pay the boys’ tuition (including my inability to write a good enough short story?!) have prevented me from coming up with so-called body of works.
(How could I come up with a body of works, when I don’t even own my body in the first place?” I used to retort to friends who asked about it, referring to the role women are always forced to assume as mother, the nurturer and breadwinner at the same time).
That’s why, when the news first came out that they’re going to offer three units of creative writing as an elective for the MA Journalism Fellowship we’re currently taking at the ADMU, I was secretly dancing with joy.
"What am I going to do with a subject like THAT?" Seng Thong had asked from Ventiane. "It can't earn extra money in Laos!"
"But money can't buy everything you want in in life, Seng," I said, "Including love!"
"Why are you so crazy about THAT course?" he asked.
"Because it's my first love," I said. I did not say, journalism is just an alibi, an excuse.
But I was on the road when the emails came. It was obvious that everybody has beaten me to it. When they sent their list of courses, I was still on a Rural Transit bus bound for Dipolog, looking out to what I could make out of Kulambogan town of Lanao del Norte, wondering whether the Jamiatul cooperative of the Maranao women I knew years ago was still there; hearing some stories from the passenger who sat next to me, about what happened there at the height of the government and MILF fighting in August.
Or, perhaps, I was on the wharf sitting next to a police officer inspecting passenger baggage when darkness descended upon Mukas, Lanao del Norte; and I was in panic because I thought I was left behind by my bus, still stranded in Ozamis, on my way to Cagayan de Oro.
I never had the chance to log on to an internet café during that long and exhausting trip. Except perhaps, if I had succumbed to that temptation at the sight of that cozy internet café in Dapitan, just across the shop where they sell souvenir t shirts featuring the Rizal shrine and Dakak; but then, I fought off that impulse, and asked the tricycle, instead, to bring me to the Polo crossing, where buses bound for Cagayan de Oro pass by. I spent a straight 15 hours on the road from Dapitan to Davao, only to find out about the devastating news after I arrived!
Now that I can hear the halls of learning slamming its door shut on me again, I don’t know how to console myself because like the first time, I feel disoriented and confused; and suddenly, I realized, life has lost its meaning!

Three Men in my Life

It just strikes me more frequently these days that for how many years now, I’ve been living with three men in the house; three very different men at different stages of their lives; Ja, the more mature one if you happen to look at him, but who--and I only discovered this after years of violent disagreements and long periods of moping—is still very much the boy that lived on Malvar street many years ago, when Davao city was still a rustic town and he was a six year old on a carabao’s back in love with a 10 year old girl up on a camachiles tree; the girl whose black underwear he happened to see when he looked up in a mad rush of newly discovered feelings. Karl, the toddler who made life beautiful for me inside that two-story apartment on Tres de Abril in Cebu when I was still picking up the shattered pieces more than a decade ago, has grown up now to discover the world of men, the world with its own code of silence, a world where he does not allow me to enter supposedly because I, his mother, am a woman; a world where I secretly sneak into, every time he opens up to me to unravel the latest adventures of his teenage life; and Sean, the only one who loves me, no matter how bad I look, no matter how I misbehaved; in love with me like no other person in the world, past and present, but who is now discovering the curiosities of numbers: what twenty pesos can do that five pesos cannot; and what happens when he and his Dad join forces against me! These days, I’ve been reminding them more frequently that I’m supposed to be the only woman in the house; I should be treated like one: delicately, like how they’d treat a princess; or honoured, like how they’d treat a queen!
Instead, I feel quite the opposite. I’m the one who had to stop a difficult writing assignment midway to do an emergency washing for that uniform that Karl had to wear the following day but forgotten; I’m always the one pinned down to count Sean’s breathing every time he had attacks of asthma while Ja keep convincing me at my back that the child was getting better every minute; and then, after finally deciding (on my own) to rush him to the hospital, I had to take all the blame from the doctor, who scolded me for going there almost too late!
I grew up in a house without a man except for my father, who used to be distant, aloof and morose that God had given him three daughters (“Daughters!” as Topol exclaims, his eyes rolling up to the heavens in the movie version of that musicale “Fiddler in the Roof”) and no son! I have survived a girlhood longing for a company of men, never had a playmate except a dog named Janggo, but now that I have male company in abundance, I don’t feel any better at all!

DISCLAIMER (just in case the three men that I love might read this): the writer of this blog disclaims any ownership of this entry, which she claims to have been written by a madwoman while she was asleep or dreaming. The writer, in no uncertain term, claims that the culprit was an impostor who often visited her both in her sleep and wakefulness to mine her life of materials that can be turned into a piece of writing for the sole purpose of entertainment; with the stupid ambition of stealing the world’s attention away from the current meltdown in the US economy.

Communication

Something struck me about what Joey D. of Mindanao Times said after the press con as I was writing this.
“No, I don’t rely in the words of old folks,” he said.
“But aren't they wisdom nuggets?” I said. “Coming down through the ages?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I rely more on the wisdom of strangers, told to me in time of distress.”
“Huh?!”
“Did it ever happen to you? You were in the midst of something and then, out of the blue, you sit down in a jeepney and something that a man tells you seems to hit a cord somewhere deep within you, something that resonates with what is happening to you right at that moment.”
“How did you come to know of such things?” I asked, because it happened to me so many times.
“They always happen to me—and these are people who don’t know me. Isn’t that ironic? The people that you know always give you the wrong advice.”
I stared at him, nodding, knotting my brows.
“Because those are words from the Spirit,” he said, nodding, too.

Reading in Secret

Flipping through the pages of Salman Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence,” I was on my desk in our working room on the second floor of the apartment on Mapa street when the chimes played again, and I looked up at the yellow balloon that held them; which Ja attached to a cord from the ceiling.
“They’re trying to tell me something,” I thought. A subtle, almost imperceptible breeze from the huge picture window that framed the neighborhood of Mapa outside, tossed the balloon, causing it to turn and make the mysterious sound.
Moved by the playfulness of the wind, I think of Prathibha (simply Prateeh to me), and of those other chimes in Nepal; and my thoughts went back again to that two weeks in July, when we stayed together somewhere in Loyola Heights, a walking distance away from the university, in a room whose windows faced a high wall so that neither air nor light could come in. We only hear the sound of water when we awoke to a heavy rain early in the morning; and in Manila, it rained heavily in the middle of July; once, we had to come to class soaked in dirty brown water that flooded Katipunan Avenue (and I thought, it beat the hell out of the floodwaters in the hinterlands of Mindanao where the Matigsalogs live!), but scared of missing anything in Chay H.’s class, we merely left our clothes to dry as we tackled the ethical dilemmas of blogging, sponsorship, advertisements. We were on the second floor of the Ateneo de Manila’s old Bellarmine Hall. Unlike the other structures in the campus which were new, the building had a special meaning to Chay, our teacher--Chay, herself, pointed out--because it was still the one they used during her college days.
I had arrived at the airport late in the afternoon of a Friday, slightly out of my wits for leaving my boys in Davao, not knowing which part of Esteban Abada I was going, I had to stop the trolley and rip open my bag in the midst of the onrushing crowd at the passenger terminal, to rummage for that notebook where I wrote the number of the house where I was supposed to stay.
Seven. It was a house with a green gate, highly-fenced. A framed certificate on the wall said it was one of the accredited dormitories off campus. The taxi driver tracked it down very near where Esteban Abada met Katipunan in Loyola, where a flyover slowly made its ascent, across the 24 hour convenience store they call the Mini Stop, where Prateeh and I would sometimes drop by for a cup of instant noodles or a styro cup of coffee; and where, on the eve of my departure for home, I had spotted Jaybee smoking near the huddle of tricycles that parked outside the store.
From where we stayed, Prateeh and I would sometimes walk up to the campus gate, connected by a walk bridge somewhere near McDonald’s and Pizza Hut two or three blocs away. It was the walkbridge of my suffering, I told Prateeh, who laughed, because we were thinking of the 2,500 word assignment for Media Law that we had to send online only two hours away. But that was much, much later.
When I arrived at number seven, the woman who met me at the door said I had a Taiwanese woman for a roommate. I was still trying to figure this out because I was expecting to dorm with somebody from Nepal, when Prateeh came in, saying, she was no Taiwanese at all, although she admitted, shyly, she was a little bit fair for Nepalese standard, and we settled for such basic things as where to find food and water, where to find the nearest internet café and for Pratee, where to find the right currency. She kept talking about what it was like to be a journalist in Nepal, working for the Kantipur television, which was actively involved in a broad democratic movement that had forced the king of Nepal to resign.
I said, I was lucky to have Prathibha (she said I would never be able to pronounce her name correctly) for a roommate, first, because her simple joys consisted of a walk in the rain and poetry; she was easily scandalized by the sight of somebody (me) eating corned beef, because she never eat meat at all, a big problem when you’re in Manila, where it was very rare to find a store selling vegetarian food! But she said she loved the Philippines because it never cast her off like a stranger, something that she felt when she was in Europe. Here, everybody mistook her for a Filipina until she opens her mouth, because she speaks the English spoken by the Caucasian sisters, who trained her in Kathmandu and taught her the Hail Mary’s even if she’s a Buddhist.
I love her most for tolerating my infatuation for Salman Rushdie, whose book we found inside the bookstore, sinfully expensive, but which we bought and hid among my pile of dirty clothes to prevent Ja from discovering it when I’m home.
So, when I heard the chimes again in the other room of our Mapa apartment, I asked Ja if someone was playing with the yellow balloon. “It’s only the wind, Ma,” Ja called from the other room. So, I lay there, listening to the windbells, thinking of Prateeh, reading the book in secret, trying to figure out what the wind was trying to say.

Love Notes to Flo

In an airy, open space that served as our function area on Naong beach, just a tricycle ride from Dipolog bus terminal, while listening with horror to Thelma, the Subanen woman from Zamboanga del Norte, recount a motorcycle ride that sliced part of the sole of her right foot because she clipped both her feet on to the burning motorcycle engine when they were about to fall on a cliff, I saw you concealing yourself behind the post.
Someone pointed you out to me. He hides himself with the grace of an antler, I thought. Who could he be?!
Every time I moved, the antler moved gracefully, covering its track, tilting its face from behind a trunk of a dead tree.
From where I was, all I can see was a brown shirt and a backpack. I chased you down the corner to see a glimpse of your face. Finally, you gave in. You came to me asking for the girl we both lost more than 20 years ago.
What do I remember about that girl? A vague memory of her shy, awkward strides, her fears of offending somebody, or of what her friends might say! I can’t even remember her face.
I can remember the university gate where we camped in, the shards of broken glass near the door of the administration building after it was hit by water cannon, the cries of teachers, the squad of soldiers in camouflage and long firearms facing the picketline, the police and their truncheons, the bruises on our arms, the awareness that even an ounce of water, when shot in a trajectory, could also hurt and kill. I can still remember some godforsaken thing she used to wear, the stupid things she used to think, some moments inside the picket line with huge streamers marked “Imlan resign,” few stolen moments at someone else's backdoor grabbing a bite of skyflakes in the midst of a hunger strike, an old black typewriter where we used to type—what? I can’t even remember.
Everything has become a blur, except for the memory of your sweatshirt.
Why do you ask me about what happened to that girl? She might have died so many years ago. She might have been trapped inside the university wall, unable to get out. All I can say is I'm happy to be here--for I am the one who survived!

Is that Kurniawan?!

Yes, I can still remember correctly as we were going down the steps of that old ilustrado house on Calle Real and spotted this old well that reminded me of Maxine Hong Kingston's "No Name Woman," who killed herself by jumping into the family's drinking well. I briefly told Yuri about it before we posed for pictures and argued.
"That's my picture because that's my camera," Yuri said, grinning. "But Yuri," I said, grinning too. "That's also my picture because that's my idea!" "Okay, okay," Yuri said. "Just take my own photo alone, idea or not."
And so, we stood there--me, Prateeh, Yuri, a tiny drop of sun glinting on his nose. I thought we all looked like tadpoles.
But who's that other one? I can still remember Lilik, tinkering with Yuri's camera. But I could almost make out the face of Wawan!

On Campus

So, there. To spare myself nights of agony every time I misplace my flash disk, where this image of San Agustin Church is stored. To spare my partner Yuri of Jakarta's Antara News Agency whose camera I used, the trouble of rummaging through his files again just to retrieve one picture, this picture of an old Church somewhere on Calle Real, somewhere in the walled city of Intramuros, where the whole bunch of MA Journalism fellows went one Sunday in July, as a temporary reprieve from all the assignments and workloads we had on campus at the Asian Center for Journalism of the Ateneo de Manila University.