What is happening to me?

I was walking with Tu Nguyen Ngoc along San Pedro street last Friday when I told her we were about to pass by a good bookshop I have not visited for a long time. She said she wanted to go. So, walking past the security guards who poked into our bags as if we were hiding something, we entered one of the shops of Lachmi, a (pseudo)mall along San Pedro, and entered the lone bookshop whose titles on the shelves engrossed us as soon as we arrived: the first books that caught my eyes were on climate change and changes in the weather, before I strayed again and caught a glimpse of Sidonie Gabrielle Colette’s “Gigi,” a translation from French, of course. Tu and I were so absorbed with the books before us when suddenly, we felt one or two teenagers arriving, scattering some of the books in the bin. Then, just as suddenly, the whole place was already swarmed by noisy teenagers looking for something. Do you have a title by Shin-Shinwa, what’s his name, Shinwa Abebie? One of them asked the bookstore owner. “Chinua Achebe?” I asked, looking up from Donald Hall’s “Eagle Pond,” “Yes, yes, that’s it,” the girl said, turning to me, “Have you seen it, Ma’m?” “'The Man of the People,’ Mam?” “How about the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ma’m?” Another one asked, so, I replied, “I saw the Scarlet Letter, somewhere over there,” pointing to the shelves where a mix of classics, contemporary and even business and economics titles were displayed. “But I’m looking for "The House of Seven Gables, Ma’m.” “I haven’t seen the House of Seven Gables, so far,” I said. “What is it about, Ma’m?” she asked, as another one said, “I’m looking for ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ Ma’m, have you seen it?” “The novel by Victor Hugo?” I asked, wondering about whose translation, and if high school students were already made to tell the difference of one translation from another. “Yes, yes! By Victor Hugo, how come you knew, Ma’m?” “Are you a teacher, Ma’m?” “How come you knew all these things?” I was taken aback.

Required Reading

But before this, I still have some unpleasant things to do: Enter the university gate and find the way to the Library. Face up to what I failed to do 17 years ago. Chat. Go down to the ground floor, finding the way to the bookstore. Ask whatever questions needed asking. What are the latest books they have? Go back and find the way to the CR. It wouldn't be too far. Find out whatever it is you need to find out. Swallow the bitter pill. It couldn't kill. You simply needed to swallow something to cure the pain or the itchiness or the scalp problems. It won't last a minute, anyway, and it wouldn't be that bad. After that, the pain will be gone. It would work out fine, you'd be better for it, I promise. So, take it, take it, you, reluctant self! You'd be okay!

My Growing Book Pile

Remember Ampatuan

Just Plain Selfie

Life Moves On Very Fast

It's now the start of another semester but I can't yet return to ruminate about life in the university because I am simply assailed by quite a number of writing assignments and other things I need to do before the end of the year. After November came with the news of typhoon Yolanda, life simply moved on very fast I really had some trouble catching up. A day or two after Yolanda (international codename Haiyan), German journalist Martina Merten, who used to be my Health Journalism teacher at ADMU, emailed, asking for some news about the typhoon's impact in the Visayas because she said, they were only getting almost the "same kind of stories" in Germany. I wonder what she meant by the "same kind of stories" they were getting, and I never had the chance to ask her where in Germany was she reporting from. I merely provided her links to some coverage by journalists who actually covered the disaster because I was only here in Davao, and it took a long while before the stories from the typhoon's survivors came flowing in.

The Saddam of Sitio Calinogan

Over a hundred people hid under this Saddam truck at the height of Supertyphoon Pablo (international codename Bopha) in this hinterland sitio Calinogan, barangay Casosoon in Monkayo town of Compostela Valley after the typhoon made its landfall in Baganga, Davao Oriental. I did not believe it at first: over a hundred people squeezed themselves together under this truck? I asked again after they told me. “Yes,” said one or two women, while the men nodded. “There were whole families there, children, women, everyone! We can’t find any stronger structure around, the wind was very strong, threatening to blow away our houses. Some of us who were near the cliff, squeezed our bodies against the cliff wall so that we won’t get blown by the wind,” said the villagers who have lived in the area for so long but had never experienced being buffeted by a typhoon.

Pablo came upon this elevated sitio (how many thousand feet?) overlooking Nabunturan. The Dibabawuns live here for centuries. At five to six in the morning of December 4, 2012, they said, it was so dark (or white?), they could not see anything, they can only feel the very strong wind. I listened to their heart-breaking story of the storm: the houses that were blown away, the desperate search for food and water, the hand to mouth existence while they waited for their livelihood to recover. When I saw the devastation of Tacloban in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international codename Haiyan), I remember this community and their Saddam truck. How long can our people recover now that we are being buffeted by typhoons and other disasters, year after year?

Thank You, Reader!

I'm about to surpass the highest number of posts I've ever done in the history of this blog.

Remembering Doris Lessing

When I told them at the breakfast table the sad news that Doris Lessing has passed away, Sean suddenly looked up, asked me what it was that she wrote that he was familiar with? I started. “You? Familiar with Doris Lessing?” He said, yes, nodding his head. “She is very familiar, what was it that she wrote?” So, I thought: What was it that she wrote that a 12-year-old must have heard? She wrote The Golden Notebook, which I did not finish reading, so, it wasn't very likely that a 12-year-old could be familiar with it; or Martha Quest, which I kept hidden among my books at home; or, was it, The Grass is Singing? But it was a woman's story, how could a boy be familiar with it? Or was it Under my Skin? which was an autobiography? Or, some of the African Stories? No, I never shared anything about Africa with him, I could not understand Africa so well; besides, there were a lot of strange names that he might have found funny when the stories were quite serious. “The Grass is Singing?” I asked. “No,” he said, “Something you kept talking about. Something you never could stop talking.” Aaaaaaah, I said, finally remembering. “Briefing for a Descent into Hell!”

The Story of Kialeg

Years ago, in the course of researching the town of Magsaysay for a Canadian-funded book project focused on Mindanao's five poorest towns, I came upon the story of Kialeg. He was a B'laan warrior-hero whose legendary exploits his people remembered well. I reveled at this discovery because I knew the old name of Magsaysay used to be Kialeg; and despite the government's attempt to replace the town's name with that of a Philippine president who died in a plane crash, people never stopped calling the place Kialeg. I thought that in a place like Magsaysay, the government may have imposed another history upon the people, but in the people's heart, Kialeg lives. I could no longer remember whether I heard about what Kialeg did for his people that his name continued to stick. But a river running its course somewhere in town was also named after him. In fact, some town officials who never knew anything about Kialeg, the B'laan hero, thought that the old town was named after a river. But I had a discovery when I visited Pa's farm in Upper B'la last Sunday: The creek, we previously thought as dead because it was often dry most months of the year; the creek that cuts across Pa's piece of land, is actually Kialeg on his way downtown! Nice meeting you, warrior hero!

Carried Away

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

Riverwaters

Bal'wanan

Some personal resolves

I have told myself I should clean up my room now that the semester is over. But first, I have this resolution to make: I promise to read the newspaper editorial every day, all the columns and the day’s banner headline, no matter what. Though, I don’t know how to do this without glancing at the growing book pile on the floor, on the top shelves, on the table. I really have to clear everything up. I made this promise the other day, but two days later, I already broke it. I was yanked out of my workplace and my daily routine by an emergency in my hometown—my mother in the hospital, whose daughter would not miss a column of a newspaper when a mother is sick?

Lancelot By the River

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

Jomgao's Salog

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

Promises to be Broken

I promise to read the news first thing in the morning, I promise to read the editorials, the columns before everything else. I promise not to glance at the part of the room where my book pile is growing. I promise not to open the page of Van Gogh letters, where he described the scenes where he drew his paintings, I promise not to read nor open the pages of Hanif Kureishi nor of VS Naipaul nor Sheilfa's Flannery O'Connor. I promise to read NEWS only, nothing more. I promise to run everyday. I promise, I promise.

Semestral break, at last!

It's time for me to clear my desk of all the clutter, separate my reporter's notebooks from my journals; sort out the newspaper files, burn the documents I don't need, read the Granta, run, write and re-write my syllabus and come up with a whole new booklet; keep abreast with the breaking news, water the plants, mourn for the peppermint that died of neglect. Throw up.

Because my world is your world, too

I wrote my story on Maribojoc, Bohol in my mother's hospital bed. Nobody knew it. It was a very crammed ward, marked private, with only my mother and my father in it. I did it sitting on her bed, which was so small, I can hardly move my elbows. There was no electricity and no water when I arrived and it was very hot. My father sat forlornly on a bench across the bed."Were you pissed off, Pa, that your daughter took very long to arrive?" I asked, partly to strike a conversation and partly to ease my guilt. My father smiled. It took too long for me to come down because I could not extricate myself from my obligations. I was running out of cash and I knew how helpless I would be inside a hospital without cash. I was in panic as I interviewed people for my story, knowing that my mother was in the hospital, very sick. When the interviews were over, I brought the rest of my work to the hospital, trying very hard to summon all my energy to keep my mind in focus because the smell of dried sweat mingling with the smell of dust and medicine interfered. My sister arrived on a four o'clock bus from Butuan, asked me to meet her at the gate, but I was already fast asleep, I only read her message in the morning, when I awoke to find her talking to my mother, who was sick. I did not know how I finished my story. I sat there thinking about mothers and daughters and sisters and how they manage to survive.

Argao, my real hometown

The rest were merely places where I was born, and where I grew up, or places where I spent the elementary years or high school years, maybe, college years or graduate school years; places where I saw the man with the guitar and totally lost my voice, or places where I fell in love with Jorge Luis Borges, or places where I learned to eat pan de coco while reading the Neo-Classicists, or places where I broke my heart inside an ancient building full of lost, ignorant souls; places where I fell in love with newborns, all my own; places where I struggled to earn my keeps, places where I cried over some happy movies, thinking of the laundry; places where I saw the shadow of Henry the VIII, King of England; places where I talked to a Caucasian named Angela, who kept shaking her head because of the really shocking gap between the rich and the poor in the Philippines, unlike in Africa where, she said, the gap was not that big because they were all poor; places where I heard about the unbearable news of the four girls gobbled up by mud and couldn't forgive myself for hearing it, places where I fell in love with a priest, places where I fell in love with a general, or places where I fell in love with a rebel; places where I worked and places where I used to sing inside a locked room so that no one can hear me; places where I danced alone. But all of them were merely places I passed by on my way to my hometown, where the Aunt talks about the names of strangers whose bones are carefully laid neatly inside the crypt.