Blancaflor, Darriella I.

BSTM - 2A

Sa Tabi ng Dagat by Ildefonso Santos

Falling in love perhaps bring us one of nature’s greatest feeling. Just seeing our beloved
someone is enough to make our hearts race, our knees weak and our face blush. We feel that kilig every
time we see them. One touch from them and then, we know what’s next. Most films and books try to
convince us that we can feel this way forever but this intense feeling has an expiration date for literally
everyone. But at this point, it seems a bit redundant to blame romantic books or movies for setting this
lofty expectation. This ‘falling in love’ stage will slowly fade away and sooner or later, it is bound to
happen. The poem of Sa Tabi ng Dagat tells us bitter truth about our culture that focuses solely on just
romantic love, that ‘infatuation’ love doesn’t last a lifetime. It tells us a reminder to never fall in love
with your impression of a person about that person but rather fall in love with true and real.

The story opened with the boy describing the girl while he watched how she slowly come down
to him. According to the boy, she has this ‘binalat-sibuyas’ feet which described her sensitive, like
porcelain, skin and ‘sakong wari’y rosas’ which means she has pinkish feet like a rose. The admiration of
the boy to the girl is evident and we now have this vision that the boy is very much attracted to the
physical features of the girl and her good amount of innocence. In real life, we are indeed attracted to
beautiful people and most importantly, the aura they give. It is an evolutionary trait, we see someone
and we are immediately attracted to them and in our mind, we perceive them as capable mate. In the
latter part of the poem, it was revealed that they made love and bonded together from dawn to dusk by
the sea shore. When it’s time to go home, he told us that the girl, who was once had a flawless skin, has
now a sun burnt skin and feet full of gashes. The boy had this realization that his love is slowly fading
away after seeing the appearance of the girl. Completely neglecting the joy and happiness he felt all day.
See that’s the sad truth about falling in love. We don’t see reality, we only see people as we want them
to be, not as what they are. The poem showed us that sometimes, love fades and ends when our idea of
a person turned out to be false.

The character of the boy gave us a clear representation of what infatuation love is. The boy is
happy just seeing the girl all flawless and innocent. But the boy was not aware that the girl is human too.
She can lose all that beauty and the vibe but her heart will remain the same. When the boy realized that
after seeing the girl with burnt skin, all tired after spending all day with him by the sea shore, his love
slowly fades, we could clearly see here the difference of lust and love. Love can be misinterpreted here
as lust rather than love. To some, love is a passionate and exciting feeling that a person share and lust is
what everyone comes to feel when it comes to love, though it is a feeling that is mistakenly believed as
love. We also see this point in the phrase, ‘doon ay may tahong talaba’t halaan na kabigha-bighani’. The
term tahong, talaba and halaan is a phallic symbol for female private parts. For me this supported my
idea that the boy does not truly love the girl but rather, he was just lusting over her. After he’s had his
fun, he became repulsive and then realized that his love and excitement is fading away. When a person
lusts, one would believe that it is in fact, true love but in reality, it is an ideal image of being in love.
 The poem talks about falling in love and falling out of love. Everyone goes through this stage,
even the most adorable and perfect couples we see in real life. The poem does not end in a happy
ending but it does tell us something, probably one tough pill to swallow, but the truth is that even the
strongest and most bonded relationship needs to be nurtured. We can spend a few years with a person
but it can easily be destroyed if one person doesn’t meet the expectation of the other anymore. Just like
in the poem, they shared the experience all day but the boy was disappointed after seeing the girl’s
appearance when they were going home. See that’s why he fell in love with the girl in the first place,
because of her beauty. With that gone, his love faded. It’s true that it is very alarming when you realize
that the passion is gone, the rush is gone, and your partner no longer make your heart race. At the end
of the day, it is still the same person that made our life worth living. This poem by Ildefonso Santos tells
us that we should use this opportunity to see your partner for who they really are and decide if you
really made the right choice.

We love our imagination more than anything in this world and we often believe it is completely
true. Meanwhile forgetting to acknowledge the truth about life. This is what the poem Sa Tabi ng Dagat
tells us, the feeling of excitement and kilig will eventually fade away and all of a sudden, those habits
that you so sweetly adored become your stress. As wise men says, rather than cribbing for what you
don’t have, start appreciating what you have. If we decide that our partner is still the person we want
after the excitement ends, the passion will continue to grow and we are on our way to true love.