Compilation of the Philippine Literature

Ezekiel Thomas D. Cruz

August 16, 2019
Section time: 6:10 pm to 7:40 pm
Submitted to Dr. Nerissa M. Revilla
REGION-1
Map of the Region-1

Map of the area

short biography

Leona Florentino (April 19, 1849-October 4, 1884) was a Filipino poet in

the Spanish and Ilocano languages. She is considered as the "mother of Philippine women's
literature" and the "bridge from oral to literary tradition".
Born to a wealthy and prominent family in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Florentino began to write her first
verses in Ilocano at a young age. Despite her potential, she was not allowed to receive a
university education because of her gender. Florentino was instead tutored by her mother, and
then a series of private teachers. An educated Ilocano priest taught her advanced Spanish and
encouraged her to develop her voice in poetry.
Florentino married a politician named Elias de los Reyes at the age of 14. They had five children
together. Their son Isabelo de los Reyes later became a Filipino writer, activist and senator. Due
to the feminist nature of her writings, Florentino was shunned by her husband and son; she lived
alone in exile and separately from her family. She died at the age of 35.
Leona Florentino was a Filipino poet in the Spanish and Ilocano languages. She is considered as
the "mother of Philippine women's literature" and the "bridge from oral to literary tradition".

Born to a wealthy and prominent family in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Florentino began to write her first
verses in Ilocano at a young age. Despite her potential, she was not allowed to receive a
university education because of her gender. Florentino was instead tutored by her mother, and
then a series of private teachers. An educated Ilocano priest taught her advanced Spanish and
encouraged her to develop her voice in poetry. Due to the feminist nature of her writings,
Florentino was shunned by her.
Nalpay na namnama
by Leona Florentino (Ilocano Version)
Atoy ngatan ti ayat a kunada.
Aldaw rabii pampanunuten ka.
Summangpet ka, lubong ko nga natalna.
Ket biag gummulon sa dinakita ka.

Ditoy dalan ko no sikan ti magna,

Sirsirpatangkan nga awan labas na.
Matmatak imnas mo awan kapada na,
Diak ngarud mapukaw ti pinagduadua,

Pinagduadua no sika ket agmaymaysa

Wen no ti pusom addan nakaala.
Toy manong mo, piman nga agsagaba
No awan kanton, malpay tay namnama.

Namnama ta ti pusom iyawat mo;

Ta ti diro ni ayat danggayantanto;
Ta ti rabii sika kumat’ raniag ko,
Kas naslag a bulan sadiay ngato.

Dayta pintas mo a dardaripdepek.

Tungal rabii no innak iredep
Agtalnan toy nakem kentoy utek,
Ta sikan ti kaduak diay tagtaginep.
No nairedep, sam-it nannanamek.
Nagragsak ta a dua diay tagtaginep.
Ngem no makariing, pa-it balbalunek
Ta nalpas manen diay dardaripdepek.

Ket gapu ti nalaus nga ayat ko

Pinamuspusak inyapan ka diay ungto
Ta adaddiay ti maysa nga kayo
Inukit ko nagan mo nga sinanpuso.

Adu a tawenen ti nabilangko.

Dumteng manen nalammiis a tiempo
Awan man lang asi nga mauray ko,
Ta ti ibagbagam puro sentimiento.
Nu tay sika kenyak makagura,
Yeb-ebkas toy pusok ket sika latta.
Nalabit ti ayat ket kastoy ngata;
Pintas mo umunay a liwliwa.

Amin a pinagdungngo impakitak.

Sipupudnuak ta diak pay naglibak
Nagbabaan toy gasat no siak ti agayat
Ta apay madinak man lang maayat.

Gasat nadanunen ti pannakapaay,

Sinaom a dinak a mauray.
Naut-ot launay ti inka impaay.
Naupay a ayat, kas sabong a nalaylay.

Gayagayek a ipalpalawag
Sika ti kayat ko a pagtungpalk
Ngem makitak met a sibabatad,
Ni pay ken liday ti kalak-amak.

Ket aniakad payso ti ur-urayek?

Malaksid a ni rigat ti lak-amek!
Gapu piman ti ayat ko ken pateg,
Ta madim pay rinekna ken dinengngeg.

Yantangay siak ket linipatnakon,

Liday ti yas-asog toy barungkonko.
Nuray agsagabaak nga agnanayon,
Nalpay a namnama aklunekon.
Blasted Hopes (Nalpay A Namnama)
English Version

What gladness and what joy

are endowed to one who is loved
for truly there is one to share
all his sufferings and his pain.

My fate is dim, my stars so low

perhaps nothing to it can compare,
for truly I do not doubt
for presently I suffer so.

For even I did love,

the beauty whom I desired
never do I fully realize
that I am worthy of her.

Shall I curse the hour

when first I saw the light of day
would it not have been better a thousand times
I had died when I was born.

Would I want to explain

but my tongue remains powerless
for now do I clearly see
to be spurned is my lot.

But would it be my greatest joy

to know that it is you I love,
for to you do I vow and a promise I make
it’s you alone for whom I would lay my life.
short biography

Amador Daguio was born on January 8, 1912 in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. His family moved to
Lubuagan, Mountain Province, where his father was an officer in the Philippine Constabulary.

He graduated with honors in 1924 at the Lubuagan Elementary School as valedictorian. Daguio
was already writing poems in elementary school, according to his own account. He wrote a
farewell verse on a chalkboard at least once for a departing teacher when he was in grade 6. For
his high school studies, he moved to Pasig to attend Rizal High School while residing with his
uncle at Fort William McKinley.
Daguio was too poor to afford his college tuition and did not enroll in the first semester of 1928.
He also failed to qualify for a scholarship. He worked as a houseboy, waiter, and caddy at Fort
McKinley to earn his tuition and later enrolled at the University of the Philippines on the second
semester. He experienced financial difficulties in his studies until an uncle from Honolulu,
Hawaii funded his tuition on his third year of study. Before his uncle's arrival, Daguio has
worked as a printer's devil in his college as well as a writer for the Philippine Collegian.

He was mentored in writing by Tom Inglis Moore, an Australian professor. In 1932, he

graduated from UP as one of the top ten honor graduates. After World War II, he went
to Stanford University to study his masterals in English which he obtained at 1952. And in 1954
he obtained his Law degree from Romualdez Law College in Leyte.
Wedding Dance
By Amador Daguio
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the headhigh
threshold. Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the
narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After
some moments during which he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.

"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."

The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like muffled roars of falling
waters. The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing
the gangsas for she did not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no
sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.

But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the
middle of the room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he stirred the
covered smoldering embers, and blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put
pieces of pine on them, then full round logs as his arms. The room brightened.

"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him,
because what he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir.
"You should join the dancers," he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the
woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with
strange moving shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.

"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One
of the men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but
that, with him, you will be luckier than you were with me."

"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."

He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want any other woman
either. You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"

She did not answer him.

"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.

"Yes, I know," she said weakly.

"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband
to you."

"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.

"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against
you." He set some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven
harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have another chance
before it is too late for both of us."

This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the
blanket more snugly around herself.

"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have
sacrificed many chickens in my prayers."

"Yes, I know."

"You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace
because I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan,
because, like you, I wanted to have a child. But what could I do?"

"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose
through the crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.

Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo
flooring in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went
up and came down with a slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care
through the walls.

Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and
sturdy face, then turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a
coconut cup and dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain
creek early that evening.

"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not
forcing you to come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that
Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as
strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean.
You are one of the best wives in the
whole village."

"That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him lovingly. She almost
seemed to smile.
He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his
hands and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would he hold
her face. The next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let
go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at
the split bamboo floor.

"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish.
I will build another house for Madulimay."

"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They
will need help in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice."

"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage," he
said. "You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us."

"I have no use for any field," she said.

He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time.

"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder
where you are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance."

"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The gangsas are playing."

"You know that I cannot."

"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You
know that life is not worth living without a child. The man have mocked me behind my back.
You know that."

"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay."

She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.

She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of
their new life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other
side of the mountain, the trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they
had to cross. The waters boiled in her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the
waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far away now
from somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses
of rocks they had to step on---a slip would have meant death.
They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to
the other side of the mountain.

She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and strong, and kind. He had
a sense of lightness in his way of saying things which often made her and the village people
laugh. How proud she had been of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and
compact in their hold upon his skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body the
carved out of the mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving;
his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that she had lost him.

She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried.
"I did everything to have a child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she
cried. "Look at my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the
fields; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I
must die."

"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked naked
breast quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right
shoulder; her hair flowed down in cascades of gleaming darkness.

"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but
you. I'll have no other man."

"Then you'll always be fruitless."

"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."

"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a
child. You do not want my name to live on in our tribe."

She was silent.

"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have
carved out of the mountains; nobody will come after me."

"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--
no, I don't want you to fail."

"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will
vanish from the life of our tribe."
The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.

"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-whispered.

"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said they come from
up North, from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth
twenty fields."

"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you
and have nothing to give."

She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao!
Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!"

"I am not in hurry."

"The elders will scold you. You had better go."

"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."

"It is all right with me."

He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.

"I know," she said.

He went to the door.

"Awiyao!"

He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was in agony. It
pained him to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a
child? What was it in life, in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of
the night, in the communing with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made
man wish for the laughter and speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the
unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him?
And if he was fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away of his life to leave her like
this.

"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He turned back and
walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly
possession---his battle-ax and his spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from
the darkness the beads which had been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on
the beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the
firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as if she would never let him go.

"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried her face in his
neck.

The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried out into the night.

Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The
moonlight struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole village.

She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other
houses. She knew that all the houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she
was absent. And yet was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most
lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains
on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy
the way she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she
danced? How long ago did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted,
who once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that
perhaps she could give her
husband a child.

"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is
not right," she said.

Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village,
to the elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from
her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take
another woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not
their love as strong as the
river?

She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over
the whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored more loudly now, and it
seemed they were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The
man leaped lightly with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast
garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart
warmed to the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to
run. But the gleaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her
approach?
She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in
countless sparks which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze
reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the
wedding feast.

Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new
clearing of beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She
followed the trail above the village.

When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the
stream water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows
among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain.

When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the
edge of the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still
rich in their sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her;
they seemed to call far to her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the
pull of their gratitude for her
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.

Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy
carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day
as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and
rest; and she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it
did not take him long to decide to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token on
his desire to marry her.

The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of
the bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now
surrounded her, and she was lost among them.

A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it matter? She would be
holding the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into
them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes.
The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.

Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.
REGION-2
Map of the Region-2

Map of the area

short biography

Edith Tiempo
Edith L. Tiempo, poet, fictionist, teacher and literary critic was one of the finest Filipino writers
in English whose works are characterized by a remarkable fusion of style and substance, of
craftsmanship and insight. She was born on April 22, 1919 in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya.
Bonsai by Edith Tiempo
By T. on March 31, 2010May 24, 2010
View All Posts
All that I love were with me tonight. Well, maybe not all, because that would mean the
world. But it was enough. And it was a moment I can relive for always. Do you know the
feeling of being swept away? Of just losing yourself completely, just for a moment, or for
all time, or both? That’s how it was. And it was the perfect way to end my birthday month,
and it was just fitting, to be standing in that room, filled with strangers and friends, of
people I’ll never see again and music that will be with me forever.
So, here, a poem for celebrating:
Bonsai
Edith Tiempo
All that I love
I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe.
All that I love?
Why, yes, but for the moment-
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a queen,
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.
It’s utter sublimation,
A feat, this heart’s control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand’s size
Till seashells are broken pieces
From God’s own bright teeth,
And life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child.
Nu Nunuk Du Tukun

Catalina Hontomin
Nu nunuk du tukun, minuhung as kadisi na;
Ichapungpung diya am yaken u nilawngan na.
Kapaytalamaran ava su avang di idaud
Ta miyan du inayebngan na, ta miyan du inayebngan na.
Nu itanis ko na un an didiwen ko
Ta nu taaw aya u suminbang diyaken.
Nu maliliyak a pahung as maheheyet a riyes
U minahey niya diyaken.
Translation: The Nunuk On The Hill
The Nunuk on the hill shot forth new leaves and twigs;
Then suddenly all its branches fell, and I under it.
On what is left I cannot watch boats on the sea,
For I stand on the side away from the sea.
I weep in my grief;
It was the sea that made me an orphan
The sad news came to me in the roar of the breakers,
From the voice of the mighty sea currents.
Life is a Three Ring Circus
Life is a Three Ring Circus
By: Jose A. Quirino

About a dozen years ago, I got my first job as a drumbeater for a German-Italian circus. I had
cubbed for two or three obscure provincial newspapers, had finally become a real McCoy of a
reporter for a more stable paper in the big city, and I was swoony with a glamour of the
journalistic life. I bought a hat just so I could wear it on the back of my head. People followed
me for blocks to see if the hat would fall off.

I also learned to smoke cigars with one side of the mouth but never learned to talk from the other
unoccupied side. The tone would have been wrong anyway; nature had given me a falsetto voice.
I began on the police beat but did entertainment features on the side, mostly interviews with
starlets who were as wet behind the ears as I was.

Those movie items were what dumped me into the publicity route. One day this promoter with a
stable starlets most of whom I had done, interview-wise, asked me out to lunch. I thought it was
just a thank you lunch but it turned out that the fellow was branching out. He was importing a
European circus. And he wanted me – me! – to do the publicity work. I told him I knew nothing
of pro work but he said if I could write, I could drumbeat.

He named a fee. It sounded like a fortune to me in those days. But my heart was pure. I told him
I’d have to consult my editor first and find out if this was honest.

My editor, a tearful souse, wept over me; I think he was mourning his lost innocence. But he did
give it to me straight: where legitimate news ended and sly propaganda began. If I could walk the
brink without falling off, he didn’t see why I shouldn’t accept the pro job. As I said, my heart
was pure and I had the strength of ten. I had not the least doubt I could toe the perilous line
between being a newsman and being a propagandist.

The sideline looked dull at first. The promoter dumped a load of publicity material on me and
told me to cull out a few items from them. It was mostly a rewrite job. I just changed the
adjectives and put the verb in future tense. But I must have done a good job because most of the
papers I sent the items to, published them.

The promoter wasn’t satisfied. He wanted more specific writeups, especially on the stars of the
shadow. The top down was supposed to be a very famous one and he wanted me to do a lush job
on that clown. I sifted through the publicity material but more or less knew how I was going to
do the clown. I was young then, remember, and had the stereotyped notion of clowns as being
very gloomy, even tragic creatures, when not before the footlights.

How many movies had I seen about clowns laughing while their heart broke. So I did this
writeup that I entitled “The Grin is Only Painted On.” A real tear-jerker. Everybody ate it up. I
and the clown became names in people’s mouth. It was my first small taste of fame.

Then the circus arrived and I met the clown in person. I could have died of shame. This was my
first lesson in the difference between literature and life, between the cliché and the reality. The
clown was not the kind I had read about in books or watched in the movies. In street clothes he
was just an ordinary man, very relaxed and easygoing, eventempered, rather indolent. It needed
only a few minutes with him to se he wasn’t the moody type or a prima donna . he was a great
clown all right, as I found out at rehearsal, but he didn’t call it art, what he did, it was just his line
of work, a craft passed on to him by his father and grandfather, and if they had been carpenters
he would have been as cheerfully a carpenter too.

Gorgio his name was. He didn’t used his surname. He was a north Italian but the family had
moved up from some dreary village to a swanky suburb of Milan. The first time we were
together he spent the first ten minutes showing off photos of his villa in Milan, the two cars he
owned and his family.

The wife was a fat peasant but he told me she ordered her clothes from Rome. His five children
were all in classy schools in Switzerland. In the winter he took his family to Southern Spain. He
was pushing 50 then and was thinking of retiring. He boasted he had saved enough money to
retire in style. Milan was nice but too cold. He was thinking of buying a place in Capri. His
family had been in the circus for generations but no circus for his children; the tradition was to
end with him; no grease-paint for his sons. They would be professionals, businessmen, solid
citizens.

My heart sank lower and lower as I listened to Gorgio. It wasn’t merely the embarrassment of
having painted a wrong picture of him, in a writeup that had caused so much splash it demanded
a follow-up. There was also the problem of how to make this old square interesting.

Again I beg you to remember that I was young. It just didn’t occur to me that the reality might be
a hell lot more interesting than the accepted cliché. I never got the bright idea of shattering a
superstition, of coming up with a piece that said: Look, you’ve got a wrong slant on clowns.
They’re not all gloomy. Here’s one who laughs because he’s happy, not because his heart is
breaking. I had set ideas about life. Everything followed a pattern. Newsmen were tough on the
outside, prostitutes had hearts of gold, movie stars were discovered in rags, and journalism was a
glamorous profession. Clowns had to follow the pattern set for them too.

I asked Gorgio if he had read what I had written about him. He said he never read his notices. He
didn’t say that to hurt me, he was just telling the truth. He had good English but if he read at all
he read in Italian. I told him about having drawn a picture of him a hamlet of a clown.

He laughed and made me face, then shrugged. Yes, so many had written so about him, as being
melancholy, moody, morose. The world had a certain picture of clowns that it didn’t know was
spurious. So he never contradicted those writeups about him. I had no cause to worry. He would
not contradict me either. He would go along with the game if such publicity would draw crowds
to see him. I could say anything.

Now, what could you do to a guy like that?

Gorgio kept his word.

In his first general conference with the press he wore black, spoke in curt monosyllables,
scowled at cameras went into a tantrum, then broke down and said the gentlemen of the press
were to forgive him, he had so much on his mind, emotional troubles, affairs of the heart.
The follow-up piece I did on him pulled out whatever steps were left. I hinted at a series of tragic
live affairs. Now, in the middle age, he had fallen in love with a young girl who was merely
playing with him. Every time he rolled into the ring to play the clown, he was doing it to punish
himself for playing the clown in real life, for allowing his heart to be kicked, punched, buffeted,
and tripped by a little hard-hearted wench. All Manila crowded to the circus to see this clown
who was so funny because he was so pitiful. I look to drinking.

Gorgio was a hit, and so was the circus. It had been contracted for a mouth, was held over for
two weeks, then got contracted to appear in Cebu and Davao. About two or three days before the
troupe left for the for the South the promoter paid me off – the stipulated fee plus a bonus. He
said I had done a terrific job. Next time he imported a show I was to be its drumbeater again. I
told him he could give the job to somebody else: this was my first and last try as pro.

I had to resist an urge to give away to charity the money I had earned. I was very much the
idealist in those days and I felt I had been “false to my public”!

The promoter must have talked to Gorgio about how I felt because the day before the troupe left
Gorgio invited me out to dinner. We went to the European restaurant on Isaac Peral and Gorgio
showed his cosmopolitanism by ordering a rare meal, each course with the proper wine. Since
there were only the two of us I was rather puzzled by all the attention. Over the demitasse and
the brandy Gorgio opened up.

He said he could understand my feeling so upset for having “invented” a story, but everyone in
show business was used to that sort of thing. In time I would learn to take it in stride and not be
so scrupulous.

“You must learn,” he said, “to separate your professional life from your other lives, or you’ll
never be
able to live for yourself. You will have a very narrow world.
“Look at me,” he continued, “My life is a three ring circus. In one ring I am Gorgio the famous
clown. In another ring I am the father of a highly respected family with an elegant villa in Milan.
And the third ring I am myself alone, in person. This person that’s me like good food, likes to
drink, like pretty girls, likes to live it up. He can be very wild but he is wild only on his own
time. He is never allowed to mess up the work of Gorgio the clown or to disturb the reputation of
that respectable father of the family in Milan. I live, therefore, three different lives that are more
or less independent of each other. And because I can keep them separate, each in its own ring, I
enjoy a much larger world than I would if I were merely entirely engrossed in being a circus star
or the head of a family.

“You must learn to do the same, boy. Right now you are merely the newspaperman. You have
allowed your profession to absorb your entire life. That is bad. In my business we would rate you
as just a one-ring circus. The big stars are in the three ring circus. That is what you must aspire
for. It is good to be serious about your vocation but bad to be nothing else except what you do.
You must right away start setting up two other rings in the circus of your life.”

I have put down as much as I can remember of what Gorgio said that night, and I remember them
so well because they made such an impression on me. In every man’s life there’s one particular
moment when the right advice hits home – and that night was the moment of orientation for me.

That very next day I told my editor I was getting tired of the police beat. I had an idea for a series
of articles on life in the provinces. Would he take a chance on me and send me as a roving
reporter all over the country for two or three months? I must have spoken forcefully because an
editorial conference soon after decided it might not be bad to have a series on provincial life.
And I was tapped to do the series. It wasn’t the series I was after but the enlarging of my
horizons. I was taking Gorgio’s advice, I was setting up a second ring in my circus. I was in
quest of experience.

I left for the Batanes a week later and it was there I read, in a day-old paper, of Gorgio’s accident
in Davao. One part of his act has him parodying a tight rope walker. The rope is supposed to
break and spill him to the floor. That night in Davao, the rope has broken as usual but Gorgio
had landed on an iron bar the strongman had left in the ring. Gorgio had bruised his back against
the bar. He had stood up right away and gone on with the act but was absent from the show the
next day.

When I came back to Manila about two months later, I called up my friend the promoter for
news about Gorgio. The circus had long left the country; as far as the promoter knew, Gorgio
was all right. He had been absent only one night during his tour and had arrived in Manila
looking fit. I told the promoter I had changed my mind; if he imported another show I was ready
to be his drumbeater. He put me to work on a coming ice revue at once.

All this was a dozen years ago. Early this year I was approached by some fly-by-night company
that wanted me to publicize a circus. They felt rather apologetic for approaching me; this circus
they were importing was only a small one-ring circus, but that was why they needed me.

Maybe I could do wonders even for such a minor show.

I was busy a lot of big deals, but for some reason I was interested in this chickenfeed of a
proposition. After all, as I told myself, I had started in the pro business as a drumbeater for a
circus. So I told the promoters to send me the materials and I would see what I could do with
them.

Among the publicity stuff they sent me was the usual writeup on the top clown, somebody called
Peppo was most probably a healthy, wealthy member of the bourgeoisie back in his country and
owned a villa and two cars. I said he was most probably the head of a respectable family, sent his
children to the best schools, and had a fat, comfortable wife. This piece of mine also created
quite a sensation. My blasé line had the right hook for the public temper. The mood is indigo.

I was in Hong Kong when the little circs arrived, and when I came back to Manila it was just
ending its run. I heard it was a rather dreary show. Well, what could you expect from a one-ring
circus? I went to catch it on its last night.
When the clowns came in, one of them seemed familiar. But I told myself it was impossible. I
couldn’t possibly have seen the fellow before. He was a very drip of a clown; I could sense he
was old – you can’t tell with all the paint on. And I sensed something else – he was suffering and
that his two companions were deliberately, maliciously making him suffer.

There was intent, there was enjoyment in the way they tripped him and whacked him and jumped
on him and kick him. He had two companions, both obviously young, a boy and a girl. And I
began to be horrified with what they are doing to that poor old clown; I could sense he was old –
you can’t tell with all that paint on. And I sensed

Toward the end of the act, the boy and the girl give poor Peppo a whack with a board that sent
him sprawling to the sawdust. The audience roared as he strove to rise but couldn’t, falling down
on his face after such effort to push himself up. I leaned forward in my chair. Were those real
tears in the clown’s eyes?

I felt positive he was weeping from pain. The audience guffawed when the boy and the girl
jumped on his back, then picked him up by the shoulders and dragged him out of the ring.

I jumped from my seat and hurried backstage. I asked the way to Peppo’s dressing room. He was
alone in the room when I entered. He was lying on a cot. I introduced myself. The eyes that were
dead under the paint flickered for a moment. He sat up with effort and leaned toward me.

“We have met before,” he said.

I asked him who he was and he rose and got a towel and began wiping away the paint from his
face. Then he took off his wig and turned around to show me his face.

It was Gorgio, Gorgio grown very old.

He told me what had happened to him. After that accident in Davao he had begun to feel a pain
in the back. The pain grew so bad he had to leave the circus he was with and undergo an
operation. It was the first of a series of operations that had completely exhausted all his savings.
The villa in Milan had to be sold, his children had to migrate to America. His wife died. He had
to beg for circus jobs. But managers were reluctant to hire him now, he could not move as
nimbly as before, every moment was pain.

I was aghast. I told him how shocked I was by the way his companions tormented him in the
ring. Why did he allow that girl and that boy to treat him as roughly if the least movement was
painful to him?

“The girl is my wife,” he said.

I did not know where to look.

“And the boy is her lover,” he went on in his dull voice. “I know she’s unfaithful. I know they
enjoy making me suffer. But I can’t do anything. I can’t leave her. She’s all my life now, all my
world.”

I reminded him about what he had told me long ago”: that life should be a three-ring circus.
Nothing should absorb your life by itself.
He made a horrible grimace.

“That was another man talking.” He said. “All I want now is a one-ring circus, however small,
however cheap. But its hard to get even that now.”

And suddenly he began to cry. I was embarrassed. I rose to go, wanting only to leave him alone
in his misery. I had twice been wrong about this man. When I opened the door, a news
photographer I knew was standing outside. I deliberately blocked his way, not wanting the
photographer to see the man sitting on the cot weeping.
But Gorgio had heard us and was asking who it was.
“Somebody wants to take your picture, I called out over my shoulder, still blocking the door
way.
“Let him in,” said Gorgio.
The photographer stepped in andi said goodbye.
“Smile,” I heard the photographer say as I walked out. I glanced back. The clown was laughing.

The Great Flood

Tinggian

The Tinggians, a group of pagan people inhabiting the interior hills of Abra, have their own story
of the Great Deluge.
The tragic began with the abduction of Humitau, a sea-maiden guard of Tau-mari-u, lord of the
sea; by Aponi-tolau.
One day, Aponi-tolau, god-hero of the Tinggians went down to the lowlands. He wandered
aimlessly through the plains until he reached the seashore. The calm blue sea, massive and yet
helpless beneath the morning sun which flooded it with golden light, fascinated the young man.
And unable to resist the beauty of the dancing wavelets, he made a rattan raft and rowed
seaward.
On and on he rowed until he came to the edge of the world. There, in a place where the sea and
the sky meet, Aponi-tolau saw a towering rock, home of Tau-mari-u, lord of the sea. It was
guarded by nine beautiful daughters of the seaweeds. The radiance of the ocean light reflecting
silver and gold upon the greenish hair of the nine guards as they played around the palace gates,
chasing one another in gay laughter, attracted the mountain lord.
Gathering his courage, the Tinggian warrior went nearer the palace gates. However, when he
inquired what place it was, the maiden guards laughed at him and lured him further inside the
palace walls. This made Aponi-tolau very angry. Taking his magic hook, he lashed at the
unsuspecting maidens.
The hook hit the youngest and the most beautiful among them, Humitau. The young diwata gave
a loud and piercing scream and struggled desperately to free herself from Aponi-tolau’s grip but
the magic oil which the mountain lord had placed at the tip of his hooked weakened her blood
and soon she was helpless.
A wild uproar followed as the guards screamed and fled the gates. Aponi-tolau hurriedly picked
up the unconscious body of the sea-maiden, loaded it on his rattan raft and rowed shoreward.
Shortly after the Tinggian hero had left the bauwi (native hunt) gates, Tau-Mari-u went out of his
abode to see what the commotion was all about. But he was too late.
In his rage, Tau-mari-u summoned the waves and the tunas of the sea and ordered them to bring
back the intruder. The waves lashed at the raft of the mountain warrior and the tunas pushed it
back.
Alarmed, Aponi-tolau cried out to his mother, Lang-an of Kadalayapan, mistress of the wind and
rain, for help. The great godess heard her son’s plea and immediately sent down strong winds to
pull Aponi-tolau ashore. Despite the fury of the waves and efforts of the tunas, the Tinggian
warrior was able to reach the shore unharmed.
But Tau-mari-u was furious. He immediately called a meeting of the gods and demigods of the
seas and the oceans, who agreed to punish the dwellers of the land for what Aponi-tolau had
done.
From the sky, Lang-an knew the plan. She immediately called for the north wind and sent him to
warn her son of the impending flood, she instructed the mountain lord to go to the highest peak
of the Cordillera mountains for safety. Obediently, Aponi-tolau took the members of his
household to the mountain top and waited. The flood came. From this bauwi Aponi-tolau saw
mighty waves sweeping across the plains, filling the valleys and destroying the crops and
working animals of the inhabitants. Higher and higher went the water until it covered the
mountain top but for the few square meters where Aponi-tolau and his household took shelter.
Frightened, Humitau gave a desperate cry. She knew that she no longer swim or live in the water
after having tasted the mountain food which her husband had given her. The charm removed her
sea powers. She implored Tau-mari-u to save her.
Despite his anger, the water lord took pity upon his favorite Humitau. So he called back the
water and the waves. But he promised that henceforth he would sink men’s boats and drown
passengers until Aponi-tolau’s crime would be appeased. When the water subsided, Aponi-tolau
and his wife went down to the low lands and from them came the people of the world.