Santo Nino Basilica before the Broken Belfry

Coins and Good Luck

Once, in one of our most precarious moments, Ja and I decided to take lunch at a carinderia whose food we deemed cheap, tasty and clean. I was about to take my seat when one of the five-peso coins I was holding sneakily fell out of my hands and silently crept into a corner. I heard its sound as it moved away. It was like a child complaining. It had some issues against me. So I began searching for it inside that busy carinderia, attracting the attention of the sales staffs. But the more I searched for it, the more it eluded me and the more that I needed it to court my luck. So, I did not give up. Instead, I relaxed and concentrated all my desire on finding it. Luckily enough, the coin appeared just when we were about to leave the place. It was just waiting for me to find it under the table.

Stranger

I can’t write because I’m bothered by a thought—a sad thought and a bad thought—and so, I spent the day re-reading Paul Theroux’s “The Stranger at the Palazzo D’Oro,” hoping to recover my focus. I was surprised because I already read the book before but I felt I was reading it for the first time. I remember nothing about the story except for its opening, where this young American student desired the life of a man he saw at a bar at an Italian Palazzo (a desire which had a way of coming true with the full impact of irony) and the scene where the narrator met the American student named Myra, on her way to Syracuse to see some paintings. But I felt strange because I used to recognize scenes I already read before but now, reading the book for the second time, I felt like I was plodding new territory. After I drifted off to sleep and awoke to finish the book, I read all my old New Yorker and did not move the whole day, so that when Ja and Sean arrived at dusk, seeing me sprawled on the floor with all the magazines, they asked why I was so depressed, I did not join them on the beach. Ja asked, too, if I wanted to sing again in a videoke but I said, no, I’d better stay home. “Are you really struck that hard, that you’re so devastated and depressed?” he asked. “Yes, of course,” I said and felt relieved. “I’m bleeding, can't you see?” I really had a hard time dealing with it. “Why can’t you just put it aside and have fun?” Ja asked again. I said, “Shhhhh.” Ja did not say a word. I kept telling myself I should not be sad. After all, Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. I prefer her to Haruki. I needed to face my demons. I found pleasure in hunting for all those photography books I have accumulated through the years now languishing in abandoned corners of my room.

Friends and Fever

Cold compress—on his forehead, his neck, his armpits, his body. “Your friend, he met me at the canteen,” I told him, “He told me about you and then, another one came from another room, three or four of them, said you had such a fever, another one said you never ate anything for lunch, you must have already been very weak; and then, there were so many more; you had a battalion of friends so concerned about you, how come you are so popular?” “Most of them are fakes!” he said, in between breaths, struggling to keep his eyes open, “You don’t even know some of them were bullying me. Plastic!" "But they seemed so concerned." "How come you don’t know a fake from the real?" he breathed and hissed. "They were only there for their curiosity. Just like Allied Bank, remember? The heist where there were so many dead and people came to see? They were there for almost the same purpose. They didn’t actually care about me! How come you can’t recognize a real friend from a fake?” I was stomped.

Maybe this is how they kill you

Please don’t send in anything that will crush me. I won’t be able to deal with it. I would die. I took the jeepney to Ecoland and went straight to the newsroom, bringing with me facts for stories. But I have trouble dealing with the facts of life. It’s a hard feeling. You feel the rock in your stomach. You feel the world come to a standstill. You keep seeing the faces of your boys: two pairs of lovely expectant eyes; wondering, waiting, you had to dig deep inside your soul for the last ounce of courage to tell them, wait a little while, son, it’s coming. But you know quite well it’s not. Nothing is coming. Not even Christ. Lesson learned: Never take documentation works anymore. It sounds easy but it’s not. It will take away your momentum to write; and it’s hard, janitorial work. I did it the past month and I haven’t gotten over it. They made me do it over and over again, so I had to set aside other jobs, I ended up not writing my stories, and now I face the prospect of not getting paid. It never happened to me before—to be made to repeat and rewrite over and over again—I feel dumb and stupid. I should not—should not do it again. I’m still reeling from shock. I can’t shake it off my system. I found myself watching, listening toBob, over and over again, until I was numb and dumb. But I went home drunk with all of Dylan’s philosophy and all of Dylan’s music. Maybe, this is how they kill you. I got to be prepared.

Game Over!

He used to say, the easiest to beat here at home is Dad; and the hardest to beat is Kuya Karl. I did not ask him what he thought about his Mother—is she easy to beat? I used to fake losing to him, closing my eyes or pretending to look the other way when his Bishop was about to capture my Queen. While waiting for his moves, stifling a yawn, I used to preoccupy myself with the characters on the chessboard. I used to say, “What are all your lazy pawns doing, leaving all your officers to do all the work? You better fire them.” Or, the "Bishops and Queen are so busy defending the King while all the pawns are sitting pretty." Sometimes, I’d say, “What’s that White Queen doing, flirting with my Black Bishop?” Then, I’d offer him some practical chessboard advice, “On the chessboard, as it is in Life, your best defense is offence. So, when you’re being attacked, don’t retreat. Relax, breathe deeply, and find an attack move to get out of the rut you are in.” But then, recently, I discovered I was straining myself more and more; and he is getting more and more pleasure toward the end games. This morning, I discovered I was no longer pretending to lose. I was checkmated twice by his Rook and Queen, working together to trap my King. The next time we will do it, I should target his Queen and Rook early in the game so that he will be crippled in the end game. Can he trap me with only two Bishops? I should target his Bishops, too. How about the Knight? Was that his Queen flirting with my Knight? Or, maybe, I should stop following all his Queen's salacious affairs and concentrate on the game, itself!

Reading Harper's

Harper’s threaten to dislodge The NewYorker as my favourite magazine. Drifting away from my usual course, I entered Victoria Plaza’s second floor Bookshop the other day and discovered an old Harper’s issue on its shelves, marked P20.00. When I opened the plastic-wrapped copy after I paid, the cover page immediately detached from its main body, and the pen scratches that I thought was only on its plastic cover, were actually scribbled on its cover, right on top of the caricature of William Finnegan’s title essay on the “Economics of Empire.” I threw the cashier a puzzled, and then, an accusatory look. The cashier pretended not to notice. Feeling very much cheated and duped, I was about to open my mouth to complain. But realizing that the cashier did not really valued or cared for what I valued, anyway, I decided to keep quiet.

At home, with the help of a scotch tape, scissors and all the love I could muster, I restored the old Harper’s back to its old glory and respectability. I still glanced with pain and grave irritation at the pen scribbling on its cover, but reading its pages, I began to delight on its highly-critical essays, which are ironic and iconoclastic at their best. But what I really appreciated were the artworks on its pages, announcing exhibits of certain artists on certain dates somewhere. I was particularly drawn by Keith Carter's art photo, “Conversation with an Owl,” and kept returning to it over and over again, marveling at the owl, a small object depicted in sharp focus, in contrast to the blurred figure of a man, crouching before it.

Soon, it will be semestral break!

Eons ago, five months ago

On March 24, 2013, I had a very difficult time navigating my life. My table, as usual, was in a state of disarray. I could hardly touch anything. I was bothered by my pile of books gathering dust on top of that table. They included the upturned copy of Mark Twain’s "Letters from the Earth," which I promised to return back to Sheilfa’s pile at the Inquirer; "Soldedad’s Sister," which I reread again after an (almost) violent argument with Tyrone, who was furious that Butch Dalisay wrote about some disillusioned activist in his earlier book “Killing Time in a Warm Place,” when there were lots of activists who were not disillusioned; D’s copies of Paulynn Sicam’s "Heart and Mind" and Newsbreak’s "The Seven Deadly Deals," to read while we’re finishing our book, "State of Fear" and D was about to deliver a son; Lexa Rosean’s "Tarot Power," which served as my amulet against bad energy and souring friendships; Sheilfa’s Willa Cather’s "The Pioneer," on top of Ninotchka Rosca’s "State of War" on top of Ann Perry’s "The Street" on top of "The Joy of Yoga," which Prateesh and me bought in a bookstore somewhere near the SM North Edsa’s in 2009, the year Prateesh told me her Ma loved yoga but she could never take to it; DM Tomas' "Alexander Solzhenitsyn," someone's "Media Law," and "Stop the Killings in the Philippines" at the bottom. They were all gathering dust because I can’t touch them yet; I was still in the midst of Doris Lessing's "Briefing for a Descent into Hell" and Thomas Hardy’s biography written by his wife Florence, but which, University of Kent professor Michael Irwin said Thomas Hardy must have written himself.

Reading Sheilfa's Granta During the Lenten Break

Heartbroken

I keep posting nonsense here because the trip that would have brought me to see dear old Prateesh in Penang, Malaysia, got canceled and it really, really, really broke my heart.

The Beasts I Love

Danger once opened my eyes to the beauty of the horse in the mountains of Tudaya. Its body moving with mathematical precision against the precarious ravines, as if it had an intimate understanding of gravity, the force of nature that took centuries for scientists to understand. Once, I also learned a lesson from the Bagobo horseman: "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, impeding its progress, hence, you should really give the beast some leeway to get to where you are going." I love horses. I should find more time to spend along with them.

Old Jolly Good Fellows

Well. The one doing the tally said our group is getting to be male and older. Except for one (me) who happened to earn a master’s in journalism (only because of a scholarship targeting poor, indigent journalists from the Third World), almost everyone had courses other than journalism: there was an accountant, a civil engineer, a business administration graduate, a marine biologist. Most dabbled with radio and the local newspapers; the oldest, 65, Tatay Charlie, covers the Cotabato, Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat area: fair, shiny white hair brushed off to one side, fairly elongated, slightly aquiline nose, fairly well-groomed and looking good despite the years, fond of wearing black, body hugging cotton shirt; the youngest, 26, could be Karlos, whom I have to nickname the wild, wild horse because he works for numerous media outlets at the same time, he’s still out in Vietnam, lugging his camera, just as he did when he waited on the path of the killer typhoon Pablo in December. So, he wasn’t around when the editors from Makati came. He couldn't make it to this bureau meeting, someone said, sayang, the food is flooding all over the place. But if you talk about age, Frinston looked much younger because he, Frinston, is smaller; shorter than average and thin, too, which was more noticeable because of his skinhead; one Manila editor asked, what have we got here, are you still in the elementary school, boy? Frins mumbled something, rolled his eyes. Some more bits of demographics: 13 men against three women. I wonder why women could not last in this kind of job? Cecille and Ayan used to be active for a while but they went somewhere else, to a much more financially-rewarding NGO work because this work could not make ends meet, they wanted more to be able to raise their children, have a decent life, a home and a car, maybe, a vacation in Europe, once in a while. Perhaps, they feel they don’t have time for ego-tripping. Which made me really feel very, very guilty for staying because—look at my boys, how are they, trying to survive in the mediocrity of their elementary years on their own because I don’t have enough money to pay for the private school tuition. And yet, what a delight to be with the group. Singing the Beegees' How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, all eyes on the lyrics of someone’s iphone: Dennis, the fair-looking guy holding the microphone, has become stouter, lumbering the past years; Rich, who came all the way from Iligan, slightly-stretched upper lip exuding an air of contentment; and Frinston, dancing to the tune, trying to catch up with the rhythm; while Mr. X, watched from a distance, listening, eyeing them. He’s a quiet, sober type of fellow and a disciplinarian, at that. Health-conscious, never smoke nor drink, he delights in his muscled arms and the strength and leanness of his body. He doesn’t overeat, unlike most of us; me, especially when I’m angry. I wondered if X already survived all the threats for his life. He narrowly escaped Ampatuan, I remember with a shudder. I don’t want to think about it, don’t want to mention it; no, not anymore. C, the tall guy wearing a cap, walking to and fro and around the singing trio, just arrived from Qatar, where he worked to earn more money than what he was getting as a correspondent. “It would suit you here, Day, because we’re writing fiction, here, it’s your genre, Day, creative writing, because there’s no freedom of the press here, so, we have to be creative,” he wrote to me, once, while still in Qatar. I was surprised to see him. When I arrived, he was already taking lunch, mumbling about his Indian editors and their Arab financiers; the Arabs, who got money, knew no English, so they leave everything to the Indians, who knew almost nothing about newspapering, but still felt in control because of their close friendship with the Arabs. “I don’t want to work with the Indians, Day, they think we, Filipinos, are their slaves.” I did not tell him I got dandruff and boils all over my body for thinking so hard for stories that will bring in the next pay.

The Mirror and Me

They don't mean to be rude, okay?

Maybe, nobody taught them manners here. One of them came up to me, asked if I had scheduled something for class that day because they have their exams for Media Law. “Exams?! I was surprised. “But this is our class meeting. Your Media Law exams fall on our class hours?” “No,” she corrected. “We’re having an exam tomorrow, that’s why we need to go home to study.” “Ahh,” I said, nodding. “So, we won’t be having class today so you can finally go home and study for your other class' exams?” Another one suddenly popped up on my Facebook to ask something about a systems analyst. I thought it had something to do with computers. She said something about journalists being systems analyst, and I said, haaah? So, I asked, “Is this an assignment for your other class?” “Yes, Ma’m. I was just a bit confused that’s why I decided to ask you, Ma’m.” "Why don't you discuss that with your teacher?" But worst of all, tonight. Shortly after I arrived in class, someone said, “Ma’m, we have to take shots of the candlelighting on the ground floor, it’s our assignment.” It was already 6 pm, the start of our Wednesday class hour. “We have to go down to the activity level and photograph the candlelighting, Ma’m,” one of them said. “What for?” I asked. “We have an assignment for our Journ class, Ma’m.” “So, you’re doing your assignment for the other class during my class?” I looked at their faces, and get the sense, they didn’t really mean to be rude or insulting. Not at all. It's just that, they merely didn't know, they were already being rude and insulting. Who can blame them if they still had to learn their manners?

Fascination with Mirrors

Still Dreaming of the Rainforest

Sunday in Upper B'la

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.