SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

A Reader for

21st CENTURY LITERATURE

FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD

S.Y. 2020-2021

Compiled by the Department of English and Literature

College of Arts and Sciences, Siliman University
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I
ONE
Introduction to Literature: Probing Usefulness to the Heart and to the Community
What’s the Use of Reading? Literature and Empathy (TEDx Talks) / Beth Ann Fennelly
Return to Community / Macario Tiu ………………………………………………………………………………… 1

TWO
Literary Elements and Genres; Interpretive Strategies
Bonsai / Edith Tiempo ………………………….…………………………………………………………………….. 4
The Story of an Hour / Kate Chopin ………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Wedding Dance / Amador Daguio ………………………………………………………….……………….…...…. 7

THREE
Literature as a Mirror to History and Society
Separated Worlds / Nguyen Phan Que Mai………………………………………………………………………. 12
When the barbarians arrive / Alvin Pang …………………………………………………………………………. 13

FOUR
Building Fantasy Worlds and Weaving Fantasy and Realism
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings / Gabriel García Márquez……………………………………………… 14

FIVE
Literature and Matters of the Heart
Balaki Ko Day Samtang Gasakay Ta’g Habal-Habal / Adonis Durado .……...….……………….……………. 17
Sonnet 116 / William Shakespeare ….…………………………………………………………………………….. 18
Love after Love / Derek Walcott ……………………………………………………………...………….………… 19
1 Corinthians 13 / St. Paul (Saul of Tarsus) ……..….….………………………………………………………… 20

SIX
Philippine Literary History
Philippine Literature / Rosario Cruz Lucero ……..….….………………………………………………………… 21
from the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art (2nd edition), 2018

PART II

Understanding and Analyzing Philippine Literature: Group Presentations

The Mats / Francisco Arcellana ………………………….……………………………………………………..….... 1
The Virgin / Kerima Polotan-Tuvera .…………………….………………………………………………………….. 3
The World is an Apple / Alberto Florentino .…………….……………………………………..…..….….…..…..... 7
Psalms / Alana Leilani Narciso ………………………….…………………………………………..…...…..……. 14
The Sugilanon of Epefania’s Heartbreak / Ian Rosales Casocot …..……………….….…..……………..….... 18
Flip Gothic / Cecilia Manguerra Brainard ……………...……………………….….…..…………….….…….….. 26
The White Horse of Alih / Emigdio Alvarez Enriquez …………………………..….…………………………….. 32
Geyluv / Honorio Bartolome de Dios* ………………….……………………………………………....…....……. 33

*Optional text for other instructors

 1

Return to Community
Macario Tiu
(Translation of a paper in Cebuano read at the Philippine PEN Annual Conference, Dumaguete City,
November 30-December 1, 2001. Panel Theme: "Writing as Liberative Art.")

The most important lesson I've learned from Lumad poetics is that there is no gap between the storyteller
or poet and the audience. Not only because both storyteller/poet and audience are meeting face-to-face, but also
because, more importantly, they use the same language, their own language, which contains the entire body of
their culture, beliefs, traditions, myths and legends, and history as a community, as a people.
Therefore they understand each other perfectly. Both the storyteller or poet and audience share a common
worldview. They are one community. And the purpose of literary arts is clear: it is to serve the community. All
myths, epics, legends, songs, tales and other artistic creations help establish the community and unify the
community.
The storyteller or poet uses symbols, images and allusions that are all familiar to the community. What is
strange she makes familiar, indigenizing and vernacularizing the foreign. For the Lumad storyteller or poet is
interested in being understood, not in being difficult. I call this communitization or familiarization. In metaphor-
making the poet compares one thing to another thing that is also familiar to the community. Thus something new
is created but is nonetheless familiar to the community.
But this is not unique to Lumad poetics or to so-called primitive poetics. This is actually true to all
dominant, powerful, majority, and modern poetics.
Of course, there are modern writers and poets who could not probably be understood by their own
communities. At one time it became fashionable for some writers or poets to write with their fellow writers in
mind. And they tried to show they were smart by sprinkling their writings not only with unfamiliar allusions, but
outright foreign words and phrases. The result is that they are not understood by the majority members of their
community. But I think these writers remain the exception rather than the rule. Most writers, even if they do a lot
of experimentation, want to be easily understood rather than to be difficult. They want to communicate with their
community and serve the community.
Central to the issue is the use of language. When a Lumad tells her story, she talks in a Lumad language.
When an Englishwoman tells her story, she talks in English. So does the French, so does the Japanese. They are
very clear about their respective communities. And that is what has struck me. The so-called backward Lumad
and the very sophisticated French have one thing in common: they use their own languages.
But for most of us Filipinos, language remains a thorny, divisive issue.
Who is your community? This is a very important question because I think that if you are sure about your
answer you will know the direction of your literary life.
Who is my community? Who among you understand me as I am talking now? You are my community.
The fragmented nature of our gathering merely reflects what I call the vertical social splits in our society.
These are geosocial faults defined along ethnokinship lines and specific homelands. We are a country with many
communities. Big communities, small communities. The Ilocano. The Tagalog. The Manobo. For as long as we do
not understand each other, then we belong to different communities.
It so happened the Spaniards stumbled upon these islands and forged us into one administrative colonial
unit without regard for the big and petty jealousies and rivalries among the various communities. When the
Americans took over, they strengthened the colonial structure under which we today live as one country. The
Americans are physically gone, but can we say we are completely decolonized?
 2

Because we are not one people—we cannot understand each other—our political and cultural leaders have
been forcing the colonial languages on us supposedly to unify us. Ultimately English predominated because it was
made the medium of instruction in the colonial educational system, a colonial policy that continues to be followed
today and remains unchallenged, or if challenged, has not been overthrown.
I suggest the continuous use of English has produced negative results, the most tragic of which is the
creation of another community divorced from any other native community. I call this the horizontal split in our
society, worsening the fragmentation of our society.
The intention of our leaders was to transform all of us into a community of English speakers thoroughly
versed in Western modes of thinking. We adopted a foreign worldview wholesale, delighting in the use of alien
symbols and images. We effaced our own identity, we even punished ourselves for speaking our own language,
violently separating homelife and schoollife. Made to be ashamed of our own language, we became ashamed of
our own selves, of our worldview. Many of us want to be Americans, British, even Japanese. Not Cebuanos, not
Ilocanos, not Manobos. Not even Filipinos.
After 100 years that a foreign worldview and language have predominated in our country, we find that not
all of us have been so thoroughly transformed. The community imagined by our leaders has turned out to be an
anomaly. Only a tiny fraction of the population has been transformed, constituting a new community of English-
speaking, English-writing elite.
It is a new community totally divorced from the original communities.
I call this the horizontal social split in our society because the educated English-speaking and English-
writing elite cannot communicate anymore with their own respective communities.
The educated elite are dominant and influential but are nonetheless fragile because they are few. They
have no base. They have no body. The have no mass. And because they come from different original communities
they cannot unite, or if they can unite, the unity is weak, riven as they are by unresolved ethnokinship jealousies
and rivalries, big and small.
In the meantime, the original communities that they have left behind are lost in limbo too. They have the
worldview, they have the culture, they have body and mass, they have the wisdom of the race—but there are no
leaders to tap into their wisdom and propel them forward.
We have a head with no body. And we have a body with no head.
That is why we are preyed upon by more powerful alien ethnokinship groups who impose their own
language and worldview on us.
Who control us. Who exploit us.
That is why we are a weak country governed by a weak state.
Within this context, the challenge for the educated elite, and particularly for the literary elite, is to return
to community. To their respective communities. I suggest that returning to community is the first liberative act
that the literary elite in the country must do. Liberate themselves, ourselves, from foreign worldview and language
and return to community wordview and language.
This is difficult to do. Specially as we are so used to English. Chinua Achebe who also problematized the
use of language has been forced to use English. His justication is "the unassailable logic of its convenience."
But if we continue to be seduced by this convenience, what will happen to our own communities? To our
country? Will it not perpetuate the situation of the elite having a head but no body, and our masa, having the body
but no head?
It is high time we wrote stories, poems, novels, dramas directed to our own communities. It is high time
we wrote in our own respective languages. The audiences in our communities are in the millions. Let us reach
them. Let us link up with them because they are our roots.
Only then can writing be a truly liberative art shared and understood by the entire community.
 3

Let us join the head and the body of our community. Let us reimagine a new community by restoring
community. Let us first solve the horizontal split. After this let us solve the vertical splits based on respect for and
celebration of our different Philippine worldviews and languages.
Let us learn from the Lumads and the powerful modern storytellers and poets who use their own
worldviews and languages.
–
 4

Bonsai
Edith Tiempo
(Cebuano Trans. by Macrio Tiu) | Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

Editor’s Note: Last September 21, 2011, the Davao Writers Guild and the UP Mindanao Literary Society held a tribute to
National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo, who passed away on August 21, 2011. Writers gave tribute through
reminiscences and readings of Tiempo’s poems. UP Mindanao creative writing students gave dance and musical offerings to
honor her memory and legacy. Davao writer and scholar Macario Tiu read his Cebuano translation of Tiempo’s best-loved
poem, “Bonsai.”

Bonsai Bonsai
by Edith Tiempo (Gihubad ni Macario D. Tiu)

All that I love Ang tanan kong gimahal

I fold over once Akong pil-on makausa
And once again Ug pil-on pag-usab
And keep in a box Ug itago sa usa ka kahon
Or a slit in a hollow post O sa lungag sa usa ka poste
Or in my shoe. O sa akong sapatos.

All that I love? Ang tanan kong gimahal?

Why, yes, but for the moment Bitaw, para sa karon
And for all time, both. Ug sa kahangtoran, kanang duha.
Something that folds and keeps easy, Usa ka butang nga sayon pil-on ug
Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie, Sayon tipigon,
A roto picture of a queen, Sulat sa anak o mabulokong
A blue Indian shawl, even korbata ni Papa,
A money bill. Usa ka karaang retrato sa batan-ong rayna,
Usa ka dakong panyo sa Bombay,
It’s utter sublimation, Bisan gani kuwartang papel.
A feat, this heart’s control
Moment to moment Kadakong himaya
To scale all love down Usa ka kadaogan, kining gahom sa
To a cupped hand’s size. kasingkasing
Sa matag takna
Till seashells are broken pieces Nga pagamyon ang tanang gugma
From God’s own bright teeth, Ngadto sa usa ka kumkom,
And life and love are real
Things you can run and Hangtod ang mga sigay maoy mga
Breathless hand over Buak nga tipaka sa sinaw nga ngipon sa Ginuo,
To the merest child. Ug ang kinabuhi ug gugma maoy
Tinuod nga mga butang nga imong
Idagan ug maghangak kang itunol
Ngadto sa usa ka bata.
 5

The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as
gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.
Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when
intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had
only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less
careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its
significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had
spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by
a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new
spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The
notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in
the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one
above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob
came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But
now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky.
It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know;
it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the
sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was
approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white
slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted
lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had
followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed
and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception
enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind,
tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But
she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And
she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be
no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to
impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a
crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
 6

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the
unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the
strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission.
"Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For
heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open
window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of
days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had
thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her
eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together
they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-
stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did
not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to
screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.
–
 7

Wedding Dance
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."
 8

"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.
 9

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.
 10

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-axe 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 hurried 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.
 11

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.
–
 12

Separated Worlds
Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Graves of unknown soldiers whiten the sky.

Children looking for their father’s graves
whiten the earth;
rain tatters down on both of them.

Children who haven’t known their father’s faces,

fathers who live the lives of wandering souls,
their shouts to each other buried deep in their chests,
yet through more than thirty years,
the shouts stay alive.

Tonight I hear their footsteps

coming from two separated worlds;
the hurried, trembling footsteps
finding each other in the dark,
the footsteps sucked dry of blood,
lost through millions of miles
lost through thousands of centuries.

With each footstep I place in my country,

how many bodies of wandering souls will I step on?
How many oceans of tears
of those who haven’t yet found the graves of their fathers?

–
 13

When the barbarians arrive

Alvin Pang

lay out the dead, but do not mourn them overmuch.

a mild sentimentality is proper. nostalgia will be expected on demand.

cremate: conserve land, regret no secrets. prepare ashes for those with cameras.

hide your best furniture. tear down monuments. first to go are statues with arms outstretched in victory, and then
anything with lions.

it is safer to consort with loss, to know the ground yet suggest no mysteries.

purport illiteracy.

have at hand servants good with numbers. err in their favour between schemes.

keep all receipts out of sight. as soon as is proper, embrace their laws and decline all credit for your own.

confound their historians. give up the wrong recipe for ketupat, for otak.

lay claim to the tongue of roots, the provenance of trees. when the chiku blooms, tell them it is linden. when
linden, tell them it is ginko.

recommend laxatives as love potions. attribute pain to the passage of hard feelings. there will be a surge

of interest in soothsaying. do not tell them how it will end, or when. progress, while difficult, is always being
made.

on no account acknowledge what your folktales imply.

never deal in the dark unless you can see the whites of their eyes. when they speak of god

bow your head to veil piety, shame, laughter, or indifference.

dress your children like their long-dead elders. marry your daughters to them.

soon you will attend the same funerals.

–
 14

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Gabriel García Márquez (Translated by Gregory Rabassa)

On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his
drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they
thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing
and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and
rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing
away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard.
He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of
his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.
Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the
sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with a mute stupor. He
was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his
mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have
had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so
long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar.
Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor’s voice. That
was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely
castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew
everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.
“He’s an angel,” she told them. “He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old
that the rain knocked him down.”
On the following day everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo’s house.
Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of
a celestial conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon
from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff’s club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked
him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. In the middle of the night, when the rain stopped, Pelayo and
Elisenda were still killing crabs. A short time afterward the child woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat.
Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days
and leave him to his fate on the high seas. But when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn,
they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest
reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a
circus animal.
Father Gonzaga arrived before seven o’clock, alarmed at the strange news. By that time onlookers less
frivolous than those at dawn had already arrived and they were making all kinds of conjectures concerning the
captive’s future. The simplest among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner
mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries
hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who could take charge
of the universe. But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter. Standing by the
wire, he reviewed his catechism in an instant and asked them to open the door so that he could take a close look at
that pitiful man who looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens. He was lying in the
corner drying his open wings in the sunlight among the fruit peels and breakfast leftovers that the early risers had
thrown him. Alien to the impertinences of the world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something
in his dialect when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in Latin. The parish
priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know
how to greet His ministers. Then he noticed that seen close up he was much too human: he had an unbearable
smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been
 15

mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels. Then he came
out of the chicken coop and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He
reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary. He
argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane,
they were even less so in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a letter to his bishop so that
the latter would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final
verdict from the highest courts.
His prudence fell on sterile hearts. The news of the captive angel spread with such rapidity that after a few
hours the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and they had to call in troops with fixed bayonets to disperse
the mob that was about to knock the house down. Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much
marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission to see the angel.
The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the
crowd several times, but no one paid any attention to him because his wings were not those of an angel but, rather,
those of a sidereal bat. The most unfortunate invalids on earth came in search of health: a poor woman who since
childhood has been counting her heartbeats and had run out of numbers; a Portuguese man who couldn’t sleep
because the noise of the stars disturbed him; a sleepwalker who got up at night to undo the things he had done
while awake; and many others with less serious ailments. In the midst of that shipwreck disorder that made the
earth tremble, Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms
with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon.
The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act. He spent his time trying to get comfortable
in his borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed
along the wire. At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise
neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal
lunches that the pentinents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or
because he was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to
be patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him, searching for the stellar parasites that
proliferated in his wings, and the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most
merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they
succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been
motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic
language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of
chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world. Although many thought that
his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the
majority understood that his passivity was not that of a hero taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose.
Father Gonzaga held back the crowd’s frivolity with formulas of maidservant inspiration while awaiting
the arrival of a final judgment on the nature of the captive. But the mail from Rome showed no sense of urgency.
They spent their time finding out if the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any connection with Aramaic, how
many times he could fit on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn’t just a Norwegian with wings. Those meager
letters might have come and gone until the end of time if a providential event had not put and end to the priest’s
tribulations.
It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, there arrived in the town
the traveling show of the woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents. The
admission to see her was not only less than the admission to see the angel, but people were permitted to ask her all
manner of questions about her absurd state and to examine her up and down so that no one would ever doubt the
truth of her horror. She was a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden. What was
most heartrending, however, was not her outlandish shape but the sincere affliction with which she recounted the
details of her misfortune. While still practically a child she had sneaked out of her parents’ house to go to a dance,
and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without permission, a fearful
thunderclap rent the sky in two and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a
spider. Her only nourishment came from the meatballs that charitable souls chose to toss into her mouth. A
 16

spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even
trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals. Besides, the few miracles attributed to the
angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn’t recover his sight but grew three new teeth,
or the paralytic who didn’t get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers.
Those consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the angel’s reputation when
the woman who had been changed into a spider finally crushed him completely. That was how Father Gonzaga
was cured forever of his insomnia and Pelayo’s courtyard went back to being as empty as during the time it had
rained for three days and crabs walked through the bedrooms.
The owners of the house had no reason to lament. With the money they saved they built a two-story
mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn’t get in during the winter, and with iron
bars on the windows so that angels wouldn’t get in. Pelayo also set up a rabbit warren close to town and gave up
his job as a bailiff for good, and Elisenda bought some satin pumps with high heels and many dresses of iridescent
silk, the kind worn on Sunday by the most desirable women in those times. The chicken coop was the only thing
that didn’t receive any attention. If they washed it down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh inside it every so
often, it was not in homage to the angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a
ghost and was turning the new house into an old one. At first, when the child learned to walk, they were careful
that he not get too close to the chicken coop. But then they began to lose their fears and got used to the smell, and
before they child got his second teeth he’d gone inside the chicken coop to play, where the wires were falling
apart. The angel was no less standoffish with him than with the other mortals, but he tolerated the most ingenious
infamies with the patience of a dog who had no illusions. They both came down with the chicken pox at the same
time. The doctor who took care of the child couldn’t resist the temptation to listen to the angel’s heart, and he
found so much whistling in the heart and so many sounds in his kidneys that it seemed impossible for him to be
alive. What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely
human organism that he couldn’t understand why other men didn’t have them too.
When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had caused the collapse of the
chicken coop. The angel went dragging himself about here and there like a stray dying man. They would drive
him out of the bedroom with a broom and a moment later find him in the kitchen. He seemed to be in so many
places at the same time that they grew to think that he’d be duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all
through the house, and the exasperated and unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of
angels. He could scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about bumping into
posts. All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended
him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at night,
and was delirious with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian. That was one of the few times they became
alarmed, for they thought he was going to die and not even the wise neighbor woman had been able to tell them
what to do with dead angels.
And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first sunny days. He
remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at
the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow,
which looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must have known the reason for those
changes, for he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he
sometimes sang under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch when a
wind that seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she went to the window and caught the
angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable
patch and he was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and
couldn’t get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude. Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and
for him, when she watched him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping
of a senile vulture. She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on
watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life
but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.
–
 17

Balaki Ko ‘Day Samtang Gasakay Ta’g Habal-Habal

Adonis Durado

Balaki ko ‘day
Samtang gasakay tag habalhabal.
Idat-ol ug samot
Kanang imong dughan
Nganhi sa akong bukobuko
Aron mas mabatyag ko
Ang hinagubtob
Sa imong kasingkasing.
Sa mga libaong nga atong malabyan,
Gaksa ko paghugot
Sama sa lastikong
Mipugong sa imong buhok.
Ug sa kainit sa imong ginhawa
Gitika kining akong dunggan.
Ang mga balili unya
Nga nanghalok sa akong batiis
Isipon tang kaugalingong mga dila.
Dayon samtang nagkatulin
Kining atong dagan,
Mamiyong tag manghangad
Ngadto sa kawanangan
Aron sugaton ang taligsik
Sa uwan, dahon, ug bulak.

–
 18

Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

–
 19

Love After Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come

when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

–
 20

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV)
St. Paul / Saul of Tarsus

13 1
If I speak in the tongues [a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a
clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a
3
faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give
[b]
over my body to hardship that I may boast , but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled;
where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when
completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
11
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I
put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:
a. 1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages
b. 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames

–
 21

Philippine Literature
Rosario Cruz Lucero
from the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art (2nd edition), 2018

[to be scanned and integrated in the final reader]

–
TEXTS FOR GROUP PRESENTATIONS
 1

The Mats
Francisco Arcellana

For my family, Papa’s homecoming from his many inspection trips around the Philippines was always an
occasion to remember. But there was one homecoming—from a trip to the south—that turned out to be more
memorable than any of the others.
Papa was an engineer. He inspected new telegraph lines for the government. He had written from Lopez,
Tayabas:
I have just met a marvelous matweaver – a real artist – and I shall have a surprise for you. I
asked him to weave a sleeping mat for every one of the family. I can hardly wait to show them to
you.
After a few days Papa wrote again:
I am taking the Bicol Express tomorrow. I have the mats with me, and they are beautiful. I hope to
be home to join you for dinner.
Mama read Papa’s letter aloud during the noon meal. Talk about the mats flared up like wildfire.
“I like the feel of mats,” said my brother Antonio. “I like the smell of new mats.”
“Oh, but these mats are different,” said Susanna, my younger sister. “They have our names woven into
them. There is a different color for each of us.”
A mat was not something new to us. There was already one such mat in the house. It was one we seldom
use, a mat older than any of us.
This mat had been given to Mama by her mother when Mama and Papa were married. It had been with
them ever since. It was used on their wedding night and afterwards only on special occasions. It was a very
beautiful mat. It had green leaf borders and gigantic red roses woven onto it. In the middle it said:
Emilia y Jaime
Recuerdo
The mat did not ever seem to grow old. To Mama it was always as new as it had been on her wedding
night. The folds and creases always looked new and fresh. The smell was always the smell of a new mat.
Watching it was an endless joy.
Mama always kept that mat in her trunk. When any of us got sick, the mat was brought out and the sick
child made to sleep on it. Every one of us had at some time in our life slept on it. There had been sickness in our
family. And there had been deaths….
That evening Papa arrived. He had brought home a lot of fruit from the fruit-growing provinces he had
passed in his travels. We sampled pineapple, lanzones, chico, atis, santol, watermelon, guayabano, and avocado.
He had also brought home a jar of preserved sweets.
Dinner seemed to last forever. Although we tried not to show it, we could hardly wait to see the mats.
Finally, after a long time over his cigar, Papa rose from his chair and crossed the room. He went to the
corner where his luggage was piled. From the heap he pulled out a large bundle. Taking it under his arm, he
walked to the middle of the room where the light was brightest. He dropped the bundle to the floor. Bending over
and balancing himself on his toes, he pulled at the cord that bound it. It was strong. It would not break. It would
not give way. Finally, Alfonso, my youngest brother, appeared at Papa’s side with a pair of scissors.
Papa took the scissors. One swift movement, snip!, and the bundle was loose!
Papa turned to Mama and smiled. “These are the mats, Miling,” he said.
 2

He picked up the topmost mat in the bundle.

“This is yours, Miling.” Mama stepped forward to the light, wiping her still moist hands against the folds
of her apron. Shyly, she unfolded the mat without a word.
We all gathered around the spread mat.
It was a beautiful mat. There was a name in the very center of it: Emilia. Interwoven into the large, green
letters where flowers—cadena de amor.
“It’s beautiful, Jaime.” Mama whispered, and she could not say any more.
“And this, I know, is my own,” said Papa of the next mat in the bundle. His mat was simple and the only
colors on it were purple and cold.
“And this, for you, Marcelina.”
I had always thought my name was too long. Now I was glad to see that my whole name was spelled out
on the mat, even if the letters were small. Beneath my name was a lyre, done in three colors. Papa knew I loved
music and played the piano. I was delighted with my new mat.
“And this is for you, Jose.” Jose is my oldest brother. He wanted to become a doctor.
“This is yours, Antonio.”
“And this, yours, Juan.”
“And this is yours, Jesus.”
One by one my brothers and sisters stepped forward to receive their mats. Mat after mat was unfolded. On
each mat was a symbol that meant something special to each of us.
At last everyone was shown their mats. The air was filled with excited talk.
“You are not to use the mats until you go the university,” Papa said.
“But, Jaime,” Mama said, wonderingly, “there are some more mats left in the bundle.”
“Yes there are three more mats to unfold. They are for the others who are not here…” Papa’s voice grew
soft and his eyes looked far away.
“I said I would bring home a sleeping mat for every one of the family. And so I did,” Papa said. Then his
eyes fell on each of us. “Do you think I’d forgotten them? Do you think I had forgotten them? Do you think I
could forget them?
“This is for you, Josefina!
“And this, for you, Victoria!
“And this, for you, Concepcion!”
Papa’s face was filled with a long-bewildered sorrow.
Then I understood. The mats were for my three sisters, who died when they were still very young.
After a long while, Papa broke the silence. “We must not ever forget them,” he said softly. “They may be
dead but they are never really gone. They are here, among us, always in our hearts.”
The remaining mats were unfolded in silence. The colors were not bright but dull. I remember that the
names of the dead among us did not glow or shine as did the other living names.
–
 3

The Virgin
Kerima Polotan-Tuvera

He went to where Miss Mijares sat, a tall, big man, walking with an economy of movement, graceful and
light, a man who knew his body and used it well. He sat in the low chair worn decrepit by countless other
interviewers and laid all ten fingerprints carefully on the edge of her desk. She pushed a sheet towards him,
rolling a pencil along with it. While he read the question and wrote down his answers, she glanced at her watch
and saw that it was ten. "I shall be coming back quickly," she said, speaking distinctly in the dialect (you were
never sure about these people on their first visit, if they could speak English, or even write at all, the poor were
always proud and to use the dialect with them was an act of charity), "you will wait for me."
As she walked to the cafeteria, Miss Mijares thought how she could easily have said, Please wait for me,
or will you wait for me? But years of working for the placement section had dulled the edges of her instinct for
courtesy. She spoke now peremtorily, with an abruptness she knew annoyed the people about her.
When she talked with the jobless across her desk, asking them the damning questions that completed their
humiliation, watching pale tongues run over dry lips, dirt crusted handkerchiefs flutter in trembling hands, she
was filled with an impatience she could not understand. Sign here, she had said thousands of times, pushing the
familiar form across, her finger held to a line, feeling the impatience grow at sight of the man or woman tracing a
wavering "X" or laying the impress of a thumb. Invariably, Miss Mijares would turn away to touch the delicate
edge of the handkerchief she wore on her breast.
Where she sat alone at one of the cafeteria tables, Miss Mijares did not look 34. She was slight, almost
bony, but she had learned early how to dress herself to achieve an illusion of hips and bosom. She liked poufs and
shirrings and little girlish pastel colors. On her bodice, astride or lengthwise, there sat an inevitable row of thick
camouflaging ruffles that made her look almost as though she had a bosom, if she bent her shoulders slightly and
inconspicuously drew her neckline open to puff some air into her bodice.
Her brow was smooth and clear and she was always pushing off it the hair she kept in tight curls at night.
She had thin cheeks, small and angular, falling down to what would have been a nondescript, receding chin, but
Nature's hand had erred and given her a jaw instead. When displeased, she had a lippy, almost sensual pout,
surprising on such a small face.
So while not exactly an ugly woman, she was no beauty. She teetered precariously on the border line to
which belonged countless others who you found, if they were not working at some job, in the kitchen of some
married sister's house shushing a brood of devilish little nephews.
And yet Miss Mijares did think of love. Secret, short-lived thoughts flitted through her mind in the
jeepneys she took to work when a man pressed down beside her and through her dress she felt the curve of his
thigh; when she held a baby in her arms, a married friend's baby or a relative's, holding in her hands the tiny,
pulsing body, what thoughts did she not think, her eyes straying against her will to the bedroom door and then to
her friend's laughing, talking face, to think: how did it look now, spread upon a pillow, unmasked of the little
wayward coquetries, how went the lines about the mouth and beneath the eyes: (did they close? did they open?) in
the one final, fatal coquetry of all? to finally, miserably bury her face in the baby's hair. And in the movies, to sink
into a seat as into an embrace, in the darkness with a hundred shadowy figures about her and high on the screen, a
man kissing a woman's mouth while her own fingers stole unconsciously to her unbruised lips.
When she was younger, there had been other things to do—college to finish, a niece to put through
school, a mother to care for.
She had gone through all these with singular patience, for it had seemed to her that love stood behind her,
biding her time, a quiet hand upon her shoulder (I wait. Do not despair) so that if she wished she had but to turn
from her mother's bed to see the man and all her timid, pure dreams would burst into glory. But it had taken her
parent many years to die. Towards the end, it had become a thankless chore, kneading her mother's loose flesh,
 4

hour after hour, struggling to awaken the cold, sluggish blood in her drying body. In the end, she had died—her
toothless, thin-haired, flabby-fleshed mother—and Miss Mijares had pushed against the bed in grief and also in
gratitude. But neither love nor glory stood behind her, only the empty shadows, and nine years gone, nine years.
In the room for her unburied dead, she had held up her hands to the light, noting the thick, durable fingers,
thinking in a mixture of shame and bitterness and guilt that they had never touched a man.
When she returned to the bleak replacement office, the man stood by a window, his back to her, half-
bending over something he held in his hands. "Here," she said, approaching, "have you signed this?"
"Yes," he replied, facing her.
In his hands, he held her paperweight, an old gift from long ago, a heavy wooden block on which stood,
as though poised for flight, an undistinguished, badly done bird. It had come apart recently. The screws beneath
the block had loosened so that lately it had stood upon her desk with one wing tilted unevenly, a miniature eagle
or swallow? felled by time before it could spread its wings. She had laughed and laughed that day it had fallen on
her desk, plop! "What happened? What happened?" they had asked her, beginning to laugh, and she had said,
caught between amusement and sharp despair, "Some one shot it," and she had laughed and laughed till faces
turned and eyebrows rose and she told herself, whoa, get a hold, a hold, a hold!
He had turned it and with a penknife tightened the screws and dusted it. In this man's hands, cupped like
that, it looked suddenly like a dove.
She took it away from him and put it down on her table. Then she picked up his paper and read it.
He was a high school graduate. He was also a carpenter.
He was not starved, like the rest. His clothes, though old, were pressed and she could see the cuffs of his
shirt buttoned and wrapped about big, strong wrists.
"I heard about this place," he said, "from a friend you got a job at the pier." Seated, he towered over her,
"I'm not starving yet," he said with a quick smile. "I still got some money from that last job, but my team broke up
after that and you got too many jobs if you're working alone. You know carpentering," he continued, "you can't
finish a job quickly enough if you got to do the planing and sawing and nailing all by your lone self. You got to be
on a team."
Perhaps he was not meaning to be impolite? But for a jobseeker, Miss Mijares thought, he talked too
much and without call. He was bursting all over with an obtruding insolence that at once disarmed and annoyed
her.
So then she drew a slip and wrote his name on it. "Since you are not starving yet," she said, speaking in
English now, wanting to put him in his place, "you will not mind working in our woodcraft section, three times a
week at two-fifty to four a day, depending on your skill and the foreman's discretion, for two or three months after
which there might be a call from outside we may hold for you."
"Thank you," he said.
He came on the odd days, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday.
She was often down at the shanty that housed their bureau's woodcraft, talking with Ato, his foreman,
going over with him the list of old hands due for release. They hired their men on a rotation basis and three
months was the longest one could stay.
"The new one there, hey," Ato said once. "We're breaking him in proper." And he looked across several
shirted backs to where he stopped, planing what was to become the side of a bookcase.
How much was he going to get? Miss Mijares asked Ato on Wednesday. "Three," the old man said,
chewing away on a cud. She looked at the list in her hands, quickly running a pencil down. "But he's filling a
four-peso vacancy," she said. "Come now," surprised that she should wheedle so, "give him the extra peso." "Only
a half," the stubborn foreman shook his head, "three-fifty."
"Ato says I have you to thank," he said, stopping Miss Mijares along a pathway in the compound.
 5

It was noon, that unhappy hour of the day when she was oldest, tiredest, when it seemed the sun put forth
cruel fingers to search out the signs of age on her thin, pinched face. The crow's feet showed unmistakably
beneath her eyes and she smiled widely to cover them up and aquinting a little, said, "Only a half-peso—Ato
would have given it to you eventually."
"Yes, but you spoke for me," he said, his big body heaving before her. "Thank you, though I don't need it
as badly as the rest, for to look at me, you would knew I have no wife—yet."
She looked at him sharply, feeling the malice in his voice. "I'd do it for any one," she said and turned
away, angry and also ashamed, as though he had found out suddenly that the ruffles on her dress rested on a flat
chest.
The following week, something happened to her: she lost her way home.
Miss Mijares was quite sure she had boarded the right jeepneys but the driver, hoping to beat traffic, had
detoured down a side alley, and then seeing he was low on gas, he took still another shortcut to a filling station.
After that, he rode through alien country.
The houses were low and dark, the people shadowy, and even the driver, who earlier had been an amiable,
talkative fellow, now loomed like a sinister stranger over the wheel. Through it all, she sat tightly, feeling oddly
that she had dreamed of this, that some night not very long ago, she had taken a ride in her sleep and lost her way.
Again and again, in that dream, she had changed direction, losing her way each time, for something huge and
bewildering stood blocking the old, familiar road home.
But that evening, she was lost only for a while. The driver stopped at a corner that looked like a little
known part of the boulevard she passed each day and she alighted and stood on a street island, the passing
headlights playing on her, a tired, shaken woman, the ruffles on her skirt crumpled, the hemline of her skirt awry.
The new hand was absent for a week. Miss Mijares waited on that Tuesday he first failed to report for
some word from him sent to Ato and then to her. That was regulation. Briefly though they were held, the bureau
jobs were not ones to take chances with. When a man was absent and he sent no word, it upset the system. In the
absence of a definite notice, someone else who needed a job badly was kept away from it.
"I went to the province, ma'am," he said, on his return.
"You could have sent someone to tell us," she said.
"It was an emergency, ma'am," he said. "My son died."
"How so?"
A slow bitter anger began to form inside her. "But you said you were not married!"
"No, ma'am," he said gesturing.
"Are you married?" she asked loudly.
"No, ma'am."
"But you have—you had a son!" she said.
"I am not married to his mother," he said, grinning stupidly, and for the first time she noticed his two front
teeth were set widely apart. A flush had climbed to his face, suffusing it, and two large throbbing veins crawled
along his temples.
She looked away, sick all at once.
"You should told us everything," she said and she put forth hands to restrain her anger but it slipped away
she stood shaking despite herself.
"I did not think," he said.
"Your lives are our business here," she shouted.
 6

It rained that afternoon in one of the city's fierce, unexpected thunder-storms. Without warning, it seemed
to shine outside Miss Mijares' window a gray, unhappy look.
It was past six when Miss Mijares, ventured outside the office. Night had come swiftly and from the dark
sky the thick, black, rainy curtain continued to fall. She stood on the curb, telling herself she must not lose her
way tonight. When she flagged a jeepney and got in, somebody jumped in after her. She looked up into the
carpenter's faintly smiling eyes. She nodded her head once in recognition and then turned away.
The cold tight fear of the old dream was upon her. Before she had time to think, the driver had swerved
his vehicle and swung into a side street. Perhaps it was a different alley this time. But it wound itself in the same
tortuous manner as before, now by the banks of overflowing esteros, again behind faintly familiar buildings. She
bent her tiny, distraught face, conjuring in her heart the lonely safety of the street island she had stood on for an
hour that night of her confusion.
"Only this far, folks," the driver spoke, stopping his vehicle. "Main street's a block straight ahead."
"But it's raining," someone protested.
"Sorry. But if I got into a traffic, I won't come out of it in a year. Sorry."
One by one the passengers got off, walking swiftly, disappearing in the night.
Miss Mijares stepped down to a sidewalk in front of a boarded store. The wind had begun again and she
could hear it whipping in the eaves above her head. "Ma'am," the man's voice sounded at her shoulders, "I am
sorry if you thought I lied."
She gestured, bestowing pardon.
Up and down the empty, rain-beaten street she looked. It was as though all at once everyone else had died
and they were alone in the world, in the dark.
In her secret heart, Miss Mijares' young dreams fluttered faintly to life, seeming monstrous in the rain,
near this man—seeming monstrous but sweet and overwhelming. I must get away, she thought wildly, but he had
moved and brushed against her, and where his touch had fallen, her flesh leaped, and she recalled how his hands
had looked that first day, lain tenderly on the edge of her desk and about the wooden bird (that had looked like a
moving, shining dove) and she turned to him with her ruffles wet and wilted, in the dark she turned to him.
–
 7

The World is an Apple

Alberto Florentino

Characters: Mario | Gloria | Pablo

Time: Late afternoon
Scene: A small and poor home behind a portion of the Intramuros walls. There are two wooden boxes on either
side of the doorway. At left is an Acacia tree with a wooden bench under it.
Mario enters from the street at the left. He is in his late twenties, dressed in old and worn out and with hair that
seems to have been uncut for weeks. He puts his lunch bag on the bench, sits down, removes his shoes and puts
them beside his lunch bag.

Gloria: (calls from inside) Mario! (no answer) Mario, is that you?
Mario: Yes.
(Gloria, a small woman of Mario's age, with long hair and a thin body, comes out wiping her hands on her dress.)
Gloria: I'm glad you're home early.
Mario: How is Tita? (Without waiting for an answer, he enters the dwelling.)
Gloria: (crosses to bench) Don't wake her up, Mario. She's tired; she's been crying all day.
Mario: (reappears and crosses to bench and sits on one end) Has she been eating well?
Gloria: She wouldn't eat even a mouthful of lugao. I'll buy her some biscuits. Maybe she'll eat them. (She slips
her fingers into his breast pocket.) I'll take some money—
Mario: (rises, annoyed) Gloria! Wait a minute!
Gloria: (surprised) Hey, what's the matter? Why are you suddenly so touchy?
Mario: Who wouldn't be? I'm talking to you about the child and you bother me by searching my pockets! I wish
you'd think more of our daughter!
Gloria: (crosses to center) My God! Wasn't I think of her? Why do you think I need some money? To buy me a
pretty dress? Or see a movie?
Mario: Lower your voice. You'll wake the child up.
Gloria: (low, but intense) All I want is a little money to buy her something to eat! She hasn't eaten anything all
day! That's why I was “bothering” you!
Mario: (apologetic) I'm sorry, Gloria…(Grips her arm and turns away.)
Gloria: It's all right, Mario. Now, may I have some of the money?
Mario: (turns to her) Money? I…I don't have any, not right now.
Gloria: Today is payday, Mario.
Mario: Yes, but—
Gloria: But what? Where's your pay for the week?
Mario: I don't have it.
Gloria: What? I waited for you the whole day and you tell me—
 8

Mario: (angry) —that I have nothing! Nothing! What do you want me to do, steal?
Gloria: I'm not asking you to do a thing like that! All I want to know is what you did with your pay.
Mario: (sits on the bench) Nothing is left of it.
Gloria: What happened?
Mario: Oh, I had a few drinks with my friends. Before I knew it, I had spent every centavo of it.
Gloria: (eying him closely) Mario, do you think you can make a fool of me? Haven't I seen you drunk before,
crawling home like a wounded snake and smelling of alcohol like a hospital? You don't smell or look drunk.
Mario: All right, so I didn't go drinking.
Gloria: But your pay, what happened to it?
Mario: It's better if you don't know, Gloria.
Gloria: Look, Mario, I'm your wife. I have the right to half of everything you get. If I can't have my share, I have
the right to know at least where it went!
Mario: All right (rises). I spent it all on another woman.
Gloria: Another woman? I don't believe it. I know you wouldn't do such a thing.
Mario: I didn't know you had so much faith in me.
Gloria: No, Mario! What I mean is, you wouldn't spend all your money when you know your daughter may need
some of it. You love her too much to do that.
(Mario sits down and buries his head in his hands. Gloria crosses to him and lays a hand on his shoulder.)
Gloria: What's wrong, Mario?
Mario: (turns his face away) Nothing, Gloria, nothing.
Gloria: (sits beside him) I know something is wrong, Mario. I can feel it. Tell me what it is.
Mario: (stares at the ground) Gloria, I've lost my job.
Gloria: (rises, surprised) Oh, no!
Mario: (looks up at her) It's true, Gloria.
Gloria: What about your pay for the whole week?
Mario: I lost my job a week ago.
Gloria: And you never told me!
Mario: I thought I could get another without worrying you.
Gloria: Did you think you could get another job so quickly? It took you five months to get that one.
Mario: It won't take me so long to get another.
Gloria: But how did you lose it?
Mario: (rises and turns away) What's the use of talking about it? That won't bring it back.
Gloria: (suddenly, in an agonized voice) Mario!
Mario: (turns around) Yes?
Gloria: Have your sinful fingers gotten you into trouble again?
Mario: Now, now, Gloria! Don't try to accuse me, as they did!
Gloria: What did they accuse you of?
 9

Mario: Just what you meant to say. Pilfering, they call it.
Gloria: What else would you call it? What, according to them, did you steal?
Mario: (low) It was nothing much, really nothing at all.
Gloria: What was it?
Mario: It was an…an apple.
Gloria: An apple! You mean—
Mario: An apple! Don't you know what an apple is?
Gloria: You mean, you took one apple?
Mario: Yes, and they kicked me out for it. For taking one, single apple, not a dozen, not a crate.
Gloria: That's what you get for not stopping to think before you do something.
Mario: (sits down) Could I have guessed they would do that for one apple, when there were millions of them? We
were taking them to the warehouse. I saw one roll out of a broken crate. It was that big. (demonstrates) It looked
so delicious. Suddenly I found myself putting it in my lunch bag.
Gloria: That's the trouble with you. When you think of your own stomach, you think of nothing else.
Mario: (rises) I was not thinking of myself!
Gloria: Who were you thinking of, me? Did I ever ask you to bring home apples? I am not as crazy as that.
Mario: I was thinking of our child.
Gloria: Tita? Why? Did she ever ask for apples?
Mario: Yes, she did. Do you remember that day I took her out for a walk? On our way home we passed a grocery
store that sold “Delicious” apples at seventy centavos each. She wanted one apple but I could not buy it for her. I
did not have seventy centavos. I felt terrible. I bought her one of those green apples sold on the sidewalk, but she
threw it away. She said they were not “real” apples. Then she cried. So, when I saw that apple roll out of the
broken crate, I thought that Tita would love to have it.
Gloria: You should have tried to bring home pandesal, rice, or milk and not those “Delicious” apples. We're not
rich. We can live without apples.
Mario: Why? Did God create apple trees to bear fruit for the rich alone? Didn't He create the whole world for
everyone? That's why I tried to bring the apple home for Tita. When we brought her into this world, we promised
her everything. She has the right to have everything in life.
Gloria: So, for just an apple, you lost a job you need so much?
Mario: I wouldn't mind losing a thousand jobs for an apple for my daughter!
Gloria: Where is the apple you valued so much? It is here? (crosses to the bench to get the lunch bag)
Mario: No, it isn't here. They kept it as evidence. (sits down)
Gloria: See? You lost your job trying to steal an apple and you also lost the apple!
(Gloria puts away the shoes and the lunch bag. She sits on the steps and remains silent for a time.)
Gloria: (rises) Stealing an apple—that's too small a reason to kick a poor man out of work. You should ask them
to give you a second chance Mario.
Mario: They won't do that.
Gloria: Why not?
Mario: (rises) Can't you see they had been waiting for me to make a slip like that? They've wanted to throw me
out for any reason so they can bring in their own men.
 10

Gloria: You should complain—

Mario: Suppose I did? What would they do? They would dig up my police record.
Gloria: (crosses to him) But Mario, that was so long ago! Why would they dig that up?
Mario: They'll do anything to keep me out! (Holds her by the arm.) But don't worry, I'll find another job. It isn't
really so hard to look for a job nowadays. (From this point he avoids her eyes.) You know, I've been job-hunting
for a week now, and I think I have found a good job.
Gloria: There you go lying again.
Mario: Believe me! I'm not lying this time.
Gloria: (crosses to center) You're always lying; I can't tell when you're telling the truth.
Mario: In fact, I'll see someone tonight who knows of a company that needs a night watchman.
Gloria: (holds his arm) Are you only trying to make me feel better, Mario?
Mario: No, Gloria.
Gloria: Honest?
Mario: (avoids her eyes) Honest! (sits down)
Gloria: (sighs happily, looks up) I knew God wouldn't let us down. I'll pray tonight and ask Him to let you have
that job. (Looks at Mario.) But, Mario, would it mean that you'd have to stay out all night?
Mario: That would be all right. I can always sleep during the day.
Gloria: (brushes against him like a cat) What I mean is it will be different when you aren't by my side at night.
(Walks away from him.) Oh, but I think I'll get used to it. (Crosses to center, turns around.) Why don't you go see
this man right now? Anyway you don't have anything to do tonight. Don't you think it's wise to see him as early as
you can?
Mario: (after a pause) Yes, I think I'll do that.
(Gloria crosses to the steps to get his shoes, followed by Mario.)
Gloria: (hands him his shoes) Here Mario, put these on and go. I'll stay up and wait for you. (Sits on the steps and
watches him.)
Mario: (putting on the shoes) No, Gloria, you must not wait for me. I may be back quite late.
Gloria: All right, but I doubt if I sleep a wink until you return. (Gloria comes up to him after he finishes and tries
to hug him but he pushes her away. Suddenly confused, he sits on the steps. Gloria sits beside him and holds his
hands.)
Gloria: Mother was wrong about you. You know, before we got married, she used to tell me,“Gloria, you'll
commit the greatest mistake of your life if you marry that good-for-nothing loafer! You can't make him any
straighter than you could a crooked wire with your bare hands.” Oh, I wish she were alive now, she would have
seen how much you've changed! (She sees someone behind the tree; Pablo. He has been watching them for a time.
He is older than Mario, evil-looking, and well dressed.)
Pablo: (sarcastic) Hmmm…How romantic!
Mario: (rises) Pablo!
(Suddenly weakened, Mario starts to fidget. There is an uncomfortable silence as Gloria rises and walks to center,
her eyes burning with hate. Pablo lights a cigarette, never taking his eyes off her.)
Pablo: You're not glad to see me, are you ? (Puts a foot on the bench.)
Gloria: (angry) What are you doing here? What do you want?
Pablo: S-a-a-y…is that the way to receive a friend who has come to visit?
 11

Gloria: We don't care for your visits!

Pablo: You haven't changed a bit, Gloria, not a bit.
Gloria: Neither have you, I can see!
Pablo: You're still that same woman who cursed me to hell because I happened to be Mario's friend, even long
before you met him. Time has not made you any kinder to me. You still hate me, don't you?
Gloria: Yes! And I'll not stop hating you, not until you stay away from us!
Pablo: Am I not staying away from you?
Gloria: Then why are you here?
Pablo: God! Can't I come to see you now and then to see if life has been kind to you?
Gloria: (scornfully) We were doing well until you showed up!
Pablo: Your daughter…she was that high when I last saw her…. How is she?
Gloria: (quickly) She's all right!
Pablo: Oh, I thought she had not been very well.
Gloria: (suspicious) How did you know? (To Mario.) Did you tell him?
Mario: (stammering) I…no…how could I? I haven't seen him in a long, long time (sits down) until now of
course.
Pablo: What is she sick with?
Gloria: We don't know.
Pablo: Don't you think you should take her to a doctor? (Puts his foot down and pulls out his wallet.) Here, I'll
loan you a few pesos. It may help your daughter get well.
Gloria: (scornfully) We need it all right but, no thank you!
Pablo: Why don't you take it?
Gloria: Paying you back will only mean seeing your face again.
Pablo: Well, if you hate to see my face so much, you don't have to pay me back. Take it as a gift.
Gloria: The more I should refuse it!
Pablo: All right, if that's how you want it. (Sits down and plays with the wallet.)
Gloria: Mario has stopped depending on you since the day I took him away from your bad influence!
Pablo: Haven't you realized yet that it was a terrible mistake—taking him away from me?
Gloria: I have no regrets.
Pablo: How about Mario? Has he no regrets, either?
Gloria: He has none.
Pablo: How can you be so sure? When he and I were pals we could go to first-class, air-conditioned movie houses
every other day. I'll bet all the money I have here now (showing his wallet) that he has not been to one since you
“liberated” him from me. And that was almost four years ago.
Gloria: One cannot expect too much from honest money, and we don't.
Pablo: (rises and walks about) What is honest money? Does it look better than dishonest money? Does it buy
more? And honesty? What is it? Dressing like that? Staying in this dungeon you call a house? Is that what you so
beautifully call honesty?
 12

Mario: (rises) Pablo…

Pablo: (mockingly) See what happened to your daughter? That is what honesty has done to her. And how can
honesty help her now? She's not sick and she needs no medicine. You know that. You know very well what she
needs: good food! She's undernourished, isn't she?
Mario: Pablo!
Gloria: I know you have come to lead him back to you dishonest ways, but you can't. He won't listen to you now!
We have gone this far and we can go on living without your help!
Pablo: (sarcastic) You call this living? This, Gloria, is what you call dying, dying slowly…minute by minute.
(laughs)
Mario: (crosses to him and shakes him) Pablo, stop it! (Pablo stops.) You shouldn't have come.
Pablo: (brushes him off) I got tired of waiting for you!
Gloria: So you have been seeing each other! I was afraid so!
Pablo: He came to the house yesterday—
Mario: Pablo, don't—
Pablo: (ignoring Mario) —he said he would be back this noon. But he didn't show up. I came because I was
afraid his conscience was bothering him.
Mario: Pablo, I told you she should not know!
Pablo: It's all right, Mario, you'd better tell her everything. She's bound to know later. Tell her what you told me:
that you don't believe any more in the way she wanted you to live. Tell her. (Mario turns his back on them.)
Gloria: (crosses to Mario) Mario! Is this what you meant by another job! Oh, Mario! You promised me you were
through with him. You said you'd go straight and never go back to that kind of life.
Mario: (turns around and holds her arm, stammering) Gloria, you…you must try to understand…. I tried long and
hard, but I could not get us out of this kind of life.
Gloria: (crosses to center and shouts at Pablo) You're to blame for this, you son-of-the-Devil! You've come to him
when you know he's down—
Pablo: He came to me first!
Gloria: —when you know he'll cling to anything and do anything! Even return to the life he hates! (Crosses to
him and strikes him.) Get out of our sight! Get out!
Pablo: (easily wards off her fists) All right, all right…I'll leave just as soon as Mario is ready to go.
Gloria: He's not going with you! (Crosses to center.)
Pablo: Is that so? Why don't you ask him? (Sits on the bench, grinning.)
Gloria: (shouts) I said he's not going!
Pablo: (points to Mario) Go on, ask him.
Gloria: (turns to Mario) You're not going with him, are you Mario? Tell that crook you're not going with him
anywhere! Tell him to leave us and never come back! Tell him to go, please Mario, please!
Mario: (holds her arm) Gloria…I…
Gloria: Mario, I know he has talked to you and tried to poison your mind again, but don't go with him. This is
still the better way of life. If things have not been turning out well, you must know that God is not letting us
down. He is only trying us.
Mario: (holds her) Gloria…I…
 13

Gloria: (pulls away from him) You're going! I can see that you want to go with him! Ohhhh…(cries) you'll leave
me here again wondering whether you'll be…shot in the heart or sent to jail!
Pablo: (behind the tree) Don't worry about him, Gloria, he's safe with me. He won't come anywhere near jail. I've
got connections.
Gloria: (rushes madly at him and claws his face) You hideous beast! You—get out!
Mario: (pulls her away) You stay there, Pablo. I'll be with you in a minute.
(Leads her to the steps.)
(Pablo fixes his clothes, cursing)
Mario: (firmly) Gloria. I'm going with him.
Gloria: Don't, Mario, don't!
Mario: You can't make me stop now, I've been thinking about this since last week.
Gloria: Mario…(holds fast to him)
Mario: (loosens her hold) You take care of yourself and our child and I'll take care of myself. Don't wait up for
me. (Mario walks away with Pablo. Gloria stares dumbly at them, then shouts.)
Gloria: Mario!
(She covers her face with her dress and cries into it. The daughter, from inside, joins her in crying as the curtain
falls.)

–
 14

Psalms
Alana Leilani Cabrera-Narciso

I never understood what happened to my father that night. Nor did my brothers and I talk about it. We
remembered how our aunts, a few months later, would go ballistic whenever we went near the clothesline or that
abandoned house where electrical wires played possum. Susmaryosep! You kids get away from there! Then, we'd
be reminded of how our Father looked that terrible night.
My father was not really superstitious, but he had a reverence for his faith, a reverence so profound one
might even call it superstition. He found it blasphemous to use God's name when one cursed or to make Bible
jokes. At best, we'd get a severe reprimand from him; at worst, he'd give us a whip of his belt. My older brother
got the latter when he proudly asked us why Jesus, on the cross, asked God the Father to forgive them for they
know not what they do. Why? we asked. When he revealed the answer, father overhearing us, went livid.
Blasphemous child! Busongon gyud ka! He was outraged at the punchline that it was Joseph of Arimathea who,
having offered to carry the cross for awhile, ended up getting crucified instead of Christ. My brother suffered ten
blows from Father's belt. After that, when we exchanged Bible jokes, it was in secret and filled with fear.
We understood that if we did something sacrilegious, something bad would happen to us. So we took care
not to blaspheme (if we could help it) and to revere our faith and everything it stood for as something essentially
connected to our lives.
When his kids were not yet in college and life was easier, Father indulged in the luxury of a post graduate
course, enrolling at a university in the city. On Saturdays before going to his class, Father would wake us up at
five thirty, always frighteningly on the dot, for morning devotion. He would never force us to get up though; he
had less conspicuous ways of making us join family devotions. He and Mother would sing church hymns for a
full thirty minutes. By then, we would have been woken by their throaty rendition of Morning Has Broken.
On some days, I would pretend to sleep, waiting until there was only a few minutes left for the clock to
strike six before getting up. "Turn to Jesus, turn to Jesus. He waits …" Most days, however, I would get up as
soon as I heard my father's voice, low and guttural, prodded by my guilt and my childhood fear of being stricken
because of my irreverent pretense and for making God wait.
After breakfast, Father would be gone for the entire day, and we would be left to our own devices. TV
wasn't attractive; our own TV, a fourteen-inch Panasonic squat box with two antenna rods, offered only two
channels. When the soap opera about a miserable young girl facing frightening adult tribulations got too
depressing and the other channel showed only cockfights, we turned to the fields.
We were fascinated with catching dragonflies. My brothers said they looked like helicopters. I disagreed,
but my eldest brother said that an eight-year-olds' knowledge of dragonflies was limited. I was willing to accept
this as a fact, especially since when dragonflies were rare, I knew we would play with something more
fascinating. We fashioned guns from small bamboo stalks, about one foot in length. The trigger was a small
bamboo stick attached to a handle, thin enough to slide through the hole in the stalk. Those days, we'd keep our
test papers, so we could wet them, squeeze out the water and pinch a small piece to fit into the bamboo gun. Soon
enough, we'd be shooting each other with moist paper bullets.
Sometimes these games threatened our childhood happiness. One Saturday afternoon when Father came
home, Mother felt playful. She grabbed one of our bamboo guns and shot at him. I don't think she had intended to
shoot him right in the face, but the paper bullet landed on father's wide forehead, dirty water trickling down his
nose. We saw how his eyes turned a darker shade. Without saying a word, he went to our rooms and snatched all
our bamboo guns and headed to the kitchen. On his way, he stopped mid-track and, with sacerdotal sternness,
extended his hand to Mother. Meekly, she placed the offending gun in his hand. The following day, we saw it with
the others, in pieces, in the garbage.
 15

At night, Father would make us read Psalm 23. Then he would find out who among us had read the
fastest. I always won.
"Read."
"I am reading."
"No, you're eating the words. That is good, but you have to chew them before you swallow." Like others,
Father believed that men did not live by bread alone. When we read the Bible or recited verses, the premise was
that we were consuming the word of God. But we also had to fully understand it—chew, then swallow.
Later, he would find out who had memorised the most Bible verses. When the prize was enticing—like a
promised ten-peso addition to my allowance every day for five days—I'd make sure to memorise two verses every
night, albeit very short ones. And at times, when read in isolation, they turned out to be very cryptic, like John
11:35—Jesus wept. Was it John or Matthew? I wouldn't find out why Jesus wept until I was in college.
Father never explained the verses that we recited in front of him and Mother. He just presumed that we'd
find the meaning in our hearts. Nobody had the audacity to confront him about such a presumption, and we never
asked for an explanation; we just wanted to go back to watching Ninja Turtles.
I was in grade one when I first understood the concept of God as a shepherd. I hadn't known what a
shepherd was until our Sunday school teacher showed us a picture of David tending sheep and lambs. "David was
a shepherd boy who fought the giant Goliath," said middle-aged, bespectacled Miss Luz who had the sweetest
voice and who turned the violent story into something heroically romantic. (I often wondered why she never got
married; she could have easily crooned her husband into submitting to everything she wanted.) Shepherd, Miss
Luz would point at the picture with a polished fingernail. The closest association I had with a shepherd was a
goatherd on a field my brothers and I often frequented in our games. But the goatherds I saw were so unlike the
shepherds pictured in our Biblical storybooks. Storybook shepherds looked young yet strangely wise, with their
turbans, long white robes and shawl-like coats.
Nonetheless, I knew that a shepherd, like a goatherd, was someone who looked after sheep. By deduction,
I likened myself and my family to lambs, knowing that God looked after his lambs, or even goats for that matter.
It was in this syntax that I sublimated God and the Bible into my little world. It worked quite well, and like the
child that I was, I was content with the knowledge that I'd harnessed. The Lord is my shepherd started to make
sense.
Around the time his course was about to end, Father came home one Saturday and told Mother about a
joke his professor had told them. It punned on a very familiar phrase in the Bible, "only begotten son," by
syllabicating the second word into two syllables, the first of which was to be pronounced as "big." Of course, the
remaining syllable, "otten," pronounced with characteristically Cebuano vowel enunciation, punned with the
native word for the male organ. My father was smiling, but his eyes weren't.
"Goodness! Irreverent brute!" Mother looked amused. Then she added, "What did you do?"
"What do you mean? What did you expect me to do?" Father asked, his voice getting louder. I did not
understand the rest of what he said, but by the time he was finished, he was furious.
"I mean, how did the class react?" Mother asked calmly.
For a moment, Father was speechless. He looked embarrassed by his outburst and my mother's placidity.
"They laughed." Then he added, almost in a whisper, "I laughed with them."
His face went white when he saw me. For a moment, he looked like he was going to get sick. "Tita wants
to trim my hair. Scissors, I'm looking for them."
"But you just had a trim last week, Lana." Mother knowingly gave my pixie cut a cursory glance.
"I want another one," I said, hurriedly thinking of an explanation for my presence and unintended
eavesdropping. "Now."
 16

When I left, I thought of the word Father had said. It was an ugly word, one of those that was forbidden in
the house. Grown-ups said it was vulgar and lewd. To use it on God was unimaginably offensive! And Father
hadn't done anything. Instead he'd laughed with the offender thus he'd offended too, making the devil happy.
Divine justice was swift and exacting; this I'd gathered from Sunday school. I was scared for my father.
That afternoon, while we were forced to take a nap, Father got electrocuted on a "dead wire" my aunts
used as a clothesline for the laundry. Nobody had minded where the wire came from; nobody had bothered to ask
if it was live. It had been there when we arrived, and we had just presumed it was "dead" because it came from the
abandoned house adjacent our own. But that afternoon, we found out we were wrong. He was adjusting the
clothesline, cutting and knotting it, when all of a sudden, we heard his bellow, like cow in a field.
From my window upstairs, I saw how Father shook with intensity. His bare chest and shoulders heaved
furiously, as he struggled to free himself. In my eyes, he was no longer formidable; he was as helpless as a child.
Mother rushed downstairs calling for him repeatedly, my brothers tagging behind. I wanted to follow, but I
couldn't peel my eyes away from the scene. Father's eyes dilated and went almost entirely white. His head limped
to the side. I tried to call to him, but my lips seemed to be sealed.
Later, I was told that it was my aunt who, pulling my father's hair at the crown, saved him. The doctor,
who happened to be my grandfather's close friend, said in between sighs that "it's a good thing you're robust or
else …" He left the rest of the thought unspoken. "It's a good thing as well that Lanie and the kids were not at the
deep well," Father added weakly. On Saturday mornings, Mother would help my aunts do the laundry at the deep
well a few metres from our house, while we joined in, playing with the suds or simply getting everyone else wet.
The clothesline hung only a few feet from where we did the laundry.
We did not have Bible readings and recitations after the accident, at least for quite a while. Psalm 23 was
dormant, and I had forgotten some lines from the verses I'd memorised. Out of habit, at night, I would say Psalm
23 while lying in bed looking at the sky. From the bamboo slatted window, the sky looked like a field of little
diamonds, sometimes glittering here and there. Often, the sky was dark, and I would forget which came first:
leads me beside the still waters or makes me lie down in green pastures. Somehow, I'd always manage to say the
first few verses, even if not in sequence, but I'd stop when I got to the fourth. I would feel the hair on my arms
standing on end—Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I always felt an awful gloom and
anticipation in that line; its cadence strangely hypnotic. Then I would sleep, disturbed. The following day, I'd
wake up regretful for not having said the next line: I will fear no evil for thou art with me.
It had been almost a month since the accident, and Father was remained unwell. He was unable to spend
time with us in the evening, and Mother had to teach during the day and take care of all us, Father included. Our
aunts cooked, did the laundry and kept house. They'd prepare us food before we ran off to school, and Father
would be left at home. Our neighbours often wondered if he would ever go back to work. But I knew Father was
still sick. I would hear him at night groaning and shaking, delirious but never uttering a word.
One night, I heard Father speak. I don't know. Maybe. I knew it wasn't Mom he was talking to for I did
not hear her answer. Then I heard him say Papang, the same term he'd used to address my grandfather who had
passed away several years earlier. When one is young, it is difficult to make sense of things, because of ignorance
or sheer innocence or mere forgetting.
The excitement of summer vacation soon made me forget what I'd heard. My brothers and I laid out our
itinerary for the long break. First, we would hunt for good spiders, and then we'd build rooms in matchboxes for
their houses. My brothers suggested we look for spiders at night in the fields where the weeds grew tallest. We'd
bring flashlights or little torches, knowing spiders from the tall weeds were usually the bravest of the lot.
Then we'd make big colourful kites like the ones we'd seen two summers ago on the school grounds
during the competition organised by that milk company with a smiling bear logo. At night, our eldest brother
would draw his envisioned kite on a piece of paper, and my younger brother and I would study it in fascination.
Then we'd throw in a few ideas about how big it would be or what colours would go well together—both to
conceal our excitement and to mark the kite as our own.
 17

It was during one of these nights, when Mother was out, that Father came running to us from the kitchen.
He was in a frenzy, talking in a voice higher than the one he used when cross with us. At first, we thought he was
angry at one of our aunts. But the terror in his eyes belied what was really happening. I looked in the direction he
was looking. Nobody was there. Then he ran back to the kitchen as if to stop somebody from getting to us. His
arms were spread wide, then entangled, as if wrestling with an invisible being. He was shouting the whole time.
"Panulay! You demon! Be gone!" His face contorted hideously. We could see how saliva swished from his mouth
as he bared his teeth. His eyes looked different, like the eyes of a beast we had imagined claiming us when we'd
done something evil.
Then he was down on one knee, struggling to get up. It seemed that there was a force bearing down on
him, and for a moment, it looked as if he was about to face defeat. My brothers and I squeezed next to each other,
terrorised by what we were witnessing. We were scared even to breathe. Father growled, and with all his might,
pushed the invisible enemy away until he regained his footing. I remember seeing his lower lip trembling
uncontrollably. But I also remember seeing him press his lips together and curl his fists.
"Get away from my children," Father said quietly but with a firmness that surprised me. He gathered us
slowly and hugged all three of us. I felt tremors running through his body and then course through our own. Then
he started humming one of the songs he used to sing early in the morning. Sometimes his voice faltered; other
times, nothing came out but air. Gently, he swayed with the tune—forwards and backwards—and we swayed, too.
When I looked at my father, there was a quietness in his eyes, the same look he had when highlighting Bible
passages with our used crayons. He looked peaceful all of a sudden. We stayed like that for awhile—father
hugging us afraid to let go; my brothers growing squeamish but still dazed by what had just happened; me finding
myself wanting to cry but unable to.
Later that night, when Mother came home, we did not talk about what had happened. We were afraid to
say anything, and even if we had mustered the courage to say something, we could not have explained what had
occurred. We just wanted to forget.
Mother read us to sleep that night. The last time I remembered being read to sleep was when I was in
kindergarten. Stories of a little orphan girl becoming a queen or of a feast created from five loaves of bread and
two fishes had made me imagine I was an orphan myself and would become powerful and special. Or I would
imagine that if I prayed enough, big fried chicken slices and sundaes would suddenly appear. Perhaps we were
now a little old for such stories because mother read us Psalm 23 instead. Years of reading to seven-year-old
pupils had made her a good storyteller. I liked the way she let the soft round vowels flow. He restores my soul.
The rhythm evoked ease, the peace of green fields, and suddenly I felt sleepy though I had pretended to fall asleep
much earlier. Mother kissed my forehead.
That night in bed, I cried so hard. I thought of what I had seen and tried to understand what it was. I got
nothing but a sense of foreboding and the hairs on my arms standing on end. Then I became angry—that evil
clothesline and that ugly word Father had learnt from his teacher! I was angry at the teacher and how he had made
Father laugh at his joke and made God angry. I thought of how the electrocution had changed him and how he
now looked. He was no longer my father. What if God would summon him to heaven to explain, and he would
never return to us? What if it was God's angel that Father had wrestled but he hadn't recognised it because he
had laughed at that joke!? What if God would find him guilty and give him to the devil?! I started to panic and a
felt a terrible despair come over me. I thought that no matter how many Bible verses I recited, Father would never
be the same again. But I was also so tired that my mind simply obeyed my body and made me sleep soundly and
dream of shepherds looking after their sheep on green fields.
Early the next morning, I heard my father singing for the first time since the accident. It was a peaceful
song. I did not open my eyes; I simply floated with the melody. I listened for a little while, then I drifted back to
sleep loving the sound of the song on my father's quivering voice. The clothesline was forgotten, the ugly word
buried. I knew then that my father had come back to us. God had forgiven him.
–
 18

The Sugilanon of Epefania’s Heartbreak

Ian Rosales Casocot

“All of history–and all stories–eventually collide.

That is how the Great Laon creates new worlds.”
—From an old script written on bamboo, found in Ilog, Negros Island

In the old days, when the last of the encantosand diwatas had yet to abandon our everyday realm–
banished first by an invasion of Spanish cafres and duendes, and then by the sheer forgetfulness of a people too
fascinated by the pomp and gilded guilt of Christian ritual–there lived a girl named Epefania. She was rather
plain-looking but she was capable of the most romantic dreams.
Such was the occupation of her fabled life. There are many versions (some would say chapters) of her tale
which incredibly spans centuries, all of them differing greatly in detail and circumstances, but all sharing the same
tendency to dramatize her embroidered stories of love found, and eventually, love lost.
In one ancient story, she was the young woman who chided away the sun and the moon and the stars
toward the quiet safety of faraway firmaments, where they were not deafened by her endless tales of woe and
heartbreak. The world then was a place of mist: the clouds hung low to the ground, and the sun, moon, and stars
were all within easy reach–their heat scorching the earth that, in most days, people took to caves and underground
crevices to hide from the deathly oppression of the heavenly bodies. Epefania, who had only her heartbreaks to
talk about, eventually ran out of willing ears to share her romantic commiserations: in the end, she only had the
sun, moon, and stars to turn to for company—until they, too, flew away from her tales, to the dark reaches above,
where they found the quiet humming of the cosmos a more suitable residence.
In another story, she was an obscure village nuisance whom most ancient storytellers believed to be an
insignificant twit serving no gravity to the epic narrative she figured in; they subsequently purged her name from
their regular accounting of the tale, and replaced with the passable mythology of a father-figure. But the earliest
surviving strands of the same story spoke of Epefania as the woman whose suffocating love finally drove the
Manobo hero Baybayan away into adventure around the world, seven times, where he prospered in his long
journey by singing old stories from his ancient land to the peoples of Bharat, the Middle Kingdom of Ch’in,
Oyashima, Ur, Egypt, Nubia, Hellas, Vinland, and Mesoamerica. In his travels, Baybayan sang of Lam-ang who
was swallowed by the giant fish berkahan, which became the Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale. He sang of
the kidnapping of the sea maiden Humitau by Lord Aponi-to-lau, a depraved act which unleashed the wrath of the
sea god Tau-mari-u who proceeded to let loose a great deluge on all the land, which also became the story of
Noah and the Great Flood. He sang of the virgin birthing of gigantic heroes, which became the Babylonian story
of Semiramis and her son Nimrod.
Back in the rugged mountains of Bukidnon, Epefania sang of her love for Baybayan, until she became
like the dusk and disappeared into a mango tree.
Somebody once pointed it out to me that if you think hard about these early stories, a young woman and
her unwanted heartbreak stories thus created a livable universe out of heavenly chaos; and also spurred the
creation of world literature by sending adrift, and armed with old stories, an unwilling participant in her dreams
for romance. Heartbreak, it can be said, is the precursor to creation.
In this particular story, which I first heard in Negros as a latter-day sugilanon from tipsy men made
loquacious by tuba (a drink for sturdy men) and eager to share their gift of drunken hyperbole, Epefania falls in
love with the handsomest boy in town—and almost destroyed the universe.
When the sugilanon begins, she was growing up in Old Tolong, a town in the southern end of the island
of Buglas (which would latter be renamed Negros by the conquistadores). The house she lived in was at the very
heart of the small town. It was a modest, wooden box on stilts, though it had germelina planks cobbled together in
 19

haphazard fashion to make a singular staircase that rose from the powdery dust of the ground to a small landing
on one side of the house. Inside the house, everything else was spartan, and rotting: the small bedrooms—
partitions, really, separated from each other by cloth–had the musty air of old wood and termites, and the kitchen
sink beside the apog—the table of hardened ash that was the repository of all their cooking–threatened to give
way from the years of concentrated and constant wetness.
Epefania was born in this house many years earlier to Bebang, who never once screamed, or changed
expression, when she delivered the child one night without the usual aid of the mananambal, and with only the
nervous ministration of Old Woman Intan, Epefania’s maternal grandmother. Old Woman Intan had hurriedly
readied swaddling clothes, a jar of hot water, and a kuling, a cutting instrument with diabolic metal swirls used in
the ritual of cutting a newborn’s umbilical cord.
It was also here, some years later, that Bebang, had been “spirited away”—according to the storytellers—
by the encanto who lived in the big mango tree which shadowed the old house. Bebang had been a beautiful
woman, chinky-eyed and fair, with long, dark, sinuous hair. She had gone to feed the chickens one late afternoon,
and though it was a breezeless day, the tree had swooned and stooped towards the young woman. And then she
was gone, leaving only her bakya on the ground.
Old Woman Intan was bereft. She cursed all encantosfor their romantic whimsies, and stared with sad
eyes at the young Epefania who stood mute before her, absorbing the strange turning of the days. Intan was
already a widow in the waning years of life, and Bebang was her only daughter. She looked at Epefania, and
thought, What happens to you when I am gone? Who can take care of you?
Some storytellers insist that this point in the narrative marked the first time magic touched Epefania—and
one particular version tells of the young girl feeling something surging and growing at the back of her head. Was
it an echo? Was it a whisper? Then she realized she was hearing her grandmother’s thoughts. She turned to the old
woman, and with a firmness that belied her young years (because it didn’t seem fitting for one so young), said: “I
can take care of myself, grandmother. And if need be, there will always be love to watch over me.”
In the story, Epefania was only ten when the encanto had taken her mother. It was her first taste of what
abandonment felt like–like bitter gourd left to rot in the hot sun. It unleashed in her a craving for affection so great
that it turned her eyes a deeper black, and full of concentrated want. Epefania needed to grasp and hoard whatever
caught her fancy. To let go of anything would leave her tasting abandonment yet again.
The small family of the old woman and the young girl managed to survive. They kept mostly to
themselves making and selling baye-baye, a local cake delicacy made of sticky rice and coconut pounded to a
textured firmness which tasted like honeydew. Their baye-baye was popular in Old Tolong, and kept them from
becoming beggars. The secret of Intan’s baye-baye, according to some storytellers, was the dollop of tuba added
to the mix before grinding rice and coconut into a paste.
It was part of Epefania’s daily chores to buy the tumbler of oil to light the lamps in their old, dilapidated
house in the poblacion. At the end of each day, Old Woman Intan would sit in her wobbly chair beside the open
window, the view of nearby banana stalks obscuring the slowly setting sun. And when she felt that the afternoon
sun had from the way the shadows fell on the banana leaves, she would call Epefania to her side, hand her three
silver coins, and say, “Paning, here are three silver fronds. Hurry up before Tiyay closes, or else we will not have
light tonight.” And Epefania would walk to Tiyay’s tiny shop around the next bend, not too far away from the old
house.
And during one such errand, something happened that was to change her life forever.
Night always came quickly in Old Tolong, like iron drawn by a magnet. Some storytellers said that the
town contained a mysterious force that pulled in everything: the cool air from the top of Cuernos de Negros that
eased the unbearable humidity of the endless summers; the friendly winds that kept at bay the threat of the
torrential monsoons called the walo-walo(rains that lasted eight days or double that); the puffy clouds that
shielded the town from the sheer weight of the sun which threatened to shrivel the food crops to rotting yellow,
and the soil to patches of hard cracked earth; and the moon that kept the waves in check, and prevented them from
 20

eating up in bits and pieces the town’s sandy beach. The endless exertions of these friendly elements, of course,
rendered the town quite habitable.
One day, Epefania went on her regular errand to Tiyay’s store. But the middle-aged woman was not there.
In fact, the store was closed. And guarding the door to Tiyay’s small house was a youth of breathtaking beauty: a
tall young man with taut muscles that rippled with every movement of his lean frame. His face, while manly and
angular, was not harsh or rough; and his skin, though exquisitely tanned, was not coarsened by too much sun, like
the boys Epefania knew. There was an innocence to him that struck the young girl with a power that she could not
name. It was a force that bordered on the carnal. And for the first time she sensed a tingling in her armpits, in her
breasts, in the delta between her legs. She did not realize that, at fifteen, she was ripe as a seasoned mango, ready
to be plucked.
For a moment, Epefania could not speak. When she dared to open her mouth, her own voice sounded
disembodied. “I need to buy oil from Tiyay,” she mumbled.
“Nanay Tiyay is not here,” the young man said. “She has gone to the next town to consult the rooster that
people say can foretell the future.”
“But it is almost night-time, and I need my oil,” she insisted.
“What is your name?”
She was surprised by the question, and suddenly felt shy. “My name? My name is Epefania.”
When he did not say anything else, she thought to ask him something, to gain time while she took in the
whole sight of him. “Who are you? I have never seen you around here before.”
“I am Tiyay’s son. I’ve been away for a while, on a journey through the seven kingdoms of the world.
People call me Bangbangin.”
“That’s a strange name for a boy.”
“No more strange than Epefania,” he smiled.
She felt her face turning beet red. “I still need my oil,” she said finally. “My grandmother has given me
three silver coins so I may fill this small flask. Look, here they are,” and she opened her palms.
The boy hesitated, but when he looked at Epefania’s eyes, he was startled by the deep, unfathomable want
in them, and knew it could not be refused. “My… my mother…,” he stammered, “will be sure to reprimand me–
but all right, I’ll open her store. Just this once. I certainly do not want you or your grandmother to pass the night
in the cloak of darkness.”
“Daghang salamat,” she said, thanking him, and offered him her flask.
Epefania gazed mutely at the young man while he opened the store. She took in the tallness of him, the
beads of sweat around his nape, the tension of the muscles in the small of his back. When Bangbangin took the
flask from her hands, he could not tell that they were trembling. But when his flesh touched hers, the very air that
surrounded them quivered.
The people of Old Tolong would mark that night as the first and only time they would see a (sudden)
manifestation of northern lights in the darkening tropical skies: the alien aurora borealis snaked through the night
clouds in translucent green and red, and wavered briefly through the atmosphere above the town, descending soon
into the trees near Tiyay’s house, disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared.
But neither Bangbangin nor Epefania noticed anything out of the ordinary. He simply filled the flask with
a generous helping of oil, and she took it back, offering the boy the three coins, which he in turn refused. Then she
hurried down the road back to her house. Before she disappeared in the shadows of the next bend, she looked
back at the boy, and knew that her heart wanted him.
Of course, some townspeople took the strange quivering light in the sky as a thing of immense beauty,
and went out of their houses to marvel and gaze. Others took it as an omen for coming disaster. Sometimes it pays
to be a pessimist. For the light did presage disaster.
 21

***
That night, Epefania stood over her grandmother who was sleeping in her wobbly chair beside the
window. When the young girl closed the windows the old woman awoke with a start. She saw Epefania’s face and
was troubled. There was something there, spreading from the darkness of her eyes that did not bode well. “Are
you all right, hija?” she asked.
“I have found what my heart wants,” Epefania replied simply.
“Is it a boy?”
“It is my future.”
Epefania said nothing more and went to fill every lamp with her oil. Soon the house was bright with a
strange orange glow. The lamplight lasted through the night, and into the morning. When dawn came, Old Woman
Intan woke up to extinguish the lamps, but found that no matter how much she tried, and no matter how much air
she blew from her lungs, the flames would not die. She quickly evoked Laon’s name, and went to see her
granddaughter. Epefania was asleep on her bed, but on her face, instead of the innocence of slumber, there was the
bright determination of one who was willing captive to the uncertain promises of the heart.
That day, when Epefania walked to Tiyay’s house on her daily errand, she found Tiyay herself, and not
the beautiful young man. For the briefest moment, Epefania’s heart sank. But soon, she was filled with a resolve
she herself did not recognize. “Manang Tiyay, where is your son?”
“Bangbangin is helping his father till the soil for the planting season. How is your lola? Have you come
to get your three silver coins’ worth of oil?”
“Yes,” Epefania said, “but I have also come to tell your son that my heart beats only for him.”
Tiyay did not know whether to laugh or to get angry at such a pronouncement. Curiosity kept her rooted
to the spot. She recognized the plea behind the girl’s abruptness and frankness. The announcement–plain and
simply declared without even a hint of trepidation–sounded ridiculous but truthful. And coming from the mouth of
such a young girl! How old was she? Perhaps only fourteen harvests? Perhaps not even that? The young should
not be allowed to speak with such forcefulness, and especially about matters of the heart! Tiyay thought. What
does a young girl know of the heart’s secret wants? Does she know that Love had a sinister twin, which is
Heartbreak? Only the wisdom of the years could prepare one for the gravity that love demanded, or the grimness
that heartbreak caused.
“You shouldn’t say such things,” Tiyay finally said.
“But I speak the truth.”
“Nonsense. Go to sleep, and perhaps you will wake from this foolishness.”
“I don’t understand. I only know that I love your son.”
Tiyay took Epefania’s flask, and quickly filled it. “Here’s your oil, Paning. Now, go home.”
Epefania had not gone two meters when she turned around and looked back at Tiyay. “I love your son,”
she repeated. “And I will have him.”
“Go home, before I take this broom, and spank you,” Tiyay said. “Nothing will come of this. Not until
Cuernos de Negros stops sending its cool air over Tolong. Not until the winds cease to chase away the walo-walo.
Not until the clouds disappear. Not until someone steals the moonlight from the night. The world has to stop
spinning before I grant your foolish romantic wish!”
And Epefania replied, “I shall come back, when I have persuaded the world to stop spinning.”
When she went home that night, the orange light still burned.
***
 22

Early the next morning, Epefania said goodbye to Old Woman Intan and set out to the nearby mountains
on foot. It was a journey of only half a day because Old Tolong was nestled in a narrow strip that connected, or
divided, the sea and the mountain ranges of Cuernos de Negros. She did not feel tired, not even when the
thickness of the jungle pricked and scraped her skin, nor when the stones were replaced by monstrous boulders,
and her feet and knees stained the earth with blood. The cool breeze from the mountain tops made the going
bearable, and while she sometimes stumbled, she only had to stand up, regain her footing, breathe in the
freshness, and feel her body quickening with new resolve. She had prepared simply for the trip, taking only a jar
of water, a small bar of the thickest baye-baye wrapped in banana leaves, and a sturdy branch–no, a big twig–from
the mango tree that had swallowed her mother.
Epefania trudged on until she felt the noon sun high above her, casting short shadows everywhere. When
the air soon became thin, she knew she was nearing the foot of the mountains. She slowed her pace. Then she
poked gently at the soil here and there, until she found a spot that was a perfect amalgam of clay and stone. There,
she began digging with her twig. And as she dug, she sang:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Kan Laon, nga imong dunggon ang akong pagbati.
Ingna ang bukid nga dili na sya mohuyop ug hangin.
(From where I am, my heart sheds profuse tears:
I implore Kan Laon, god of the mountain, to hear my plea,
And tell the mountains not to send the cooling breeze.)

There was a sigh from the hole in the ground, and in her thoughts she heard the mountains grumbling and
shifting in the distance. She knew that she had done what she came to do, and began to set out for home.
But the trip was different this time. The mountain breeze no longer blew. In its place there was a creeping,
heavy humidity. Everything seemed steep in sweat: trees, blades of grass, soil, insects, birds, animals… Soon,
Epefania, too, felt parched. Just when she felt that she was about to pass out she realized she was finally home.
Old Tolong sweated all day long. Soon the reports came: some old people and small animals were dying.
“There is no breeze anywhere,” someone remarked. “Nonsense,” somebody else said, “Cuernos de Negros has
always sent us a cooling breeze. This will soon pass.”
But it did not.
Epefania wearily set out for Tiyay’s house where the old woman glowered at her while feverishly fanning
herself. And yet, no matter how much Tiyay tried, nothing came of her exertions. There was no cooling air, even
from the fan.
Epefania said to Tiyay, “I have done what you told me I must accomplish to calm my heart. Cuernos de
Negros no longer breathes. And I love your son.”
But Tiyay only glowered some more. Then she got up in a huff, and threw away her useless fan, which
joined a heap of other fans on the ground. Epefania turned to go home, where the orange light burned even
brighter.
***
The next day, she woke up early, and said goodbye to Old Woman Intan. “Don’t do anything more,
Paning,” her grandmother said. “We can barely breathe. Don’t bend too much to the will of an unreasonable
heart.”
But the young girl did not reply. She only knew that there was a chasm in her heart that needed filling,
and that fulfillment came with a name. She set out for the nearby seas, bringing with her another jar of water and
another packet of baye-baye to sustain her on the short journey, as well as a small bag of mango leaves she had
taken from the yard, which she had grounded into the finest powder.
She was tired when she arrived at the shore because Old Tolong was still sweltering and no matter how
much she drank from her small jar of water, the humidity clung to her body, and dried her throat. When she
 23

reached the nearest beach, the sound of the lapping sea waves against the stretch of sand was hypnotic. They
seemed to echo the strange beating of her heart.
Epefania opened the packet that contained the powdered leaves, and felt their coarseness on the thin skin
of her palms. She stared into the horizon for a few moments, and when she felt the time was right, she cupped
them, brought her fists close to her face, and then she began to sing softly into the cavern of her hands:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Tau-mari-u, nga imong dunggon ang akong pagbati.
Ingna ang mga hangin sa tibuok kalibutan nga dili na sila mohunong sa ulan.
(From where I am, my heart shreds profuse tears:
I implore Tau-mari-u, god of the sea, to hear my plea,
And tell the winds from all around never to stop sending the rain.)

Then she flung the ground leaves into the air.

There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere–certainly not wind. The sky seemed to compress itself into an
indescribable denseness, and suddenly there were torrents pouring everywhere. It seemed like a malignant rain
that fell in sheets, in cataracts. But the waters did not rise. Nor was there any wind, only driving rain. Everything
in Old Tolong was drenched. And still the heat and humidity clung like a curse.
The townfolk were unprepared for the strange behavior of the world around them. “It’s Laon!” they
shouted. “We must have insulted the old mountain god with our devotion to the white man’s saints!” And so, each
one knelt in the direction of the northern volcano where the old mountain god slept, paying no heed to the girl
passing by. If they had seen Epefania, they would have wondered about the strong, fearful aura tinged with red
that sprang from her face. She was on her way back to Tiyay’s house, and never thought once over her skin
crinkling in the unbearable combination of wetness and humidity.
The old woman was waiting for her. Still she did not speak. But now in her face was a kind of confusion.
Epefania said, “Cuernos de Negros no longer breathes, and the walo-walo has come. I love your son.”
Tiyay did not say anything. She got up in a huff, and went into her house. Epefania turned to go home,
where the orange light burned even brighter.
***
The rain had not stopped the next morning when Epefania woke up. Her grandmother was nowhere to be
seen. Epefania went about her task with grimmer determination. She went to the mango tree and dug into the wet
soil, and managed to grab a handful of the tree’s roots, soft tendrils still sticking out from the pulpy mass. This
time, she did not have to go anywhere far. In a nearby nook–carved out from a gigantic rock that stood beside the
old house–she found a dry spot where she could do her magic plea.
Epefania laid the roots on the dry ground shielded from the rain by some rocks and waited for the
moisture in them to dry up. This took hours. When Epefania felt the time was right, she took two stones from the
ground, and with just one smash, she created sparks that flew from the point of contact between the stones to the
heap of roots. Suddenly there was a blaze, and the roots turned black in the consuming flame. Soon all that was
left were embers. When the fire died down, the remaining embers let out a thick cloud of smoke. It drifted slowly
upward, and wrapped itself around Epefania like an embrace. Epefania closed her eyes, and began to sing:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Lang-an sang Kadalayapan, nga imong dunggon ang akong pagbati.
Ingna ang mga panganod nga dili na sila mohunong sa kakusog sa adlaw.
(From where I am, my heart sheds profuse tears:
I implore Lang-an of Kadalayapan, goddess of the sky, to hear my plea,
And tell the clouds never to veil the heat of the sun.)
 24

A long, preternatural shriek pierced the air. The rain suddenly seemed to buckle and pour from all
directions. There was chaos all around. And in the midst of the rain, there was dazzling light. As the brightness
intensified, the rain sputtered and hissed. It beat down in a rage.
Epefania remembered other days of sunlight and rain, but those days were gentle, the sun mellow in the
sprinkle of soft rain. This time, there was only fury. The sun began to drop its weight on Old Tolong with such
immensity that before one drop of rain could touch the ground it would fizzle into nothingness, evaporated by the
ground’s heat, so the earth stayed parched and cracked. And even more incredibly, the air remained humid. The
people of Old Tolong were not just bewildered but truly fearful. It was as if the heavens and the earth had gone
mad, as if natural law and reason had given up. There was just this wild, utterly abandoned dance.
On the third day, the crops finally failed. The people had borne with some stoicism the deluge of the
previous day, but with the earth suddenly empty of moisture, the farms of Old Tolong quickly became deserts,
while only inches above, the monsoon fell hard yet never quite touched the ground to quench the overwhelming
thirst of Tolong’s soil.
Tiyay was waiting for Epefania when she came, and still she did not speak. But now her face was
shadowed by fear. “You do not know what you are doing, little girl,” Tiyay finally spoke. It was barely a whisper.
The girl stood there, weak but resolute. “Cuernos de Negros no longer breathes, the walo-walohas come, and the
sun has allowed itself to rage. I love your son.”
Tiyay did not reply. She got up, and entered her house. Epefania turned to go home, where the orange
light burned even brighter.
***
Old Tolong was quiet when the fourth day came. The humidity had not abated, the rains had not stopped,
and the sun shone brightly even at night. It chased the moon all night along, and finally, exhausted, the moon hid
behind Cuernos de Negros.
Epefania had started her task early. She did not sleep. Her grandmother had yet to reappear, and she was
beginning to worry. Still, she knew what she had to do–or else her own heart would overwhelm her.
She had taken note of the sun chasing the moon all night along, and had gotten up from her bed,
proceeded to the mango tree that was now slowly withering, and plucked the remaining fruit sticking out from its
shriveled branches. All the rest had yellowed out of season and had fallen, rotten, to the ground. Epefania took the
fruit, laid it on a clay plate, and left it where it absorbed into its yellowing fibers the beams of the racing moon.
When morning came, the moon had settled into its hiding place and the sun still glowered balefully in the
sky (growing more blinding by the hour). Epefania walked sluggishly towards the spot she had left the mango
fruit, and saw that it was ready. She waited for nightfall. The eighteenth hour of the day finally came, and while
there was no trace of twilight because of the stubborn sun, she knew it was time. In the west, she saw the moon
peeking out from behind Cuernos de Negros–uncertain whether it should rise, and become prey once more to the
ravenous sun. When the first moonbeam peeped out from behind the mountains, Epefania took the mango fruit,
and sang her song as she slowly peeled it:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Mayari, nga imong dunggon ang akong pagbati.
Ingna ang bulan nga matulog, para makabakon ang dagat.
(From where I am, my heart sheds profuse tears:
I implore Mayari, goddess of the moon, to hear my plea,
And tell the moon to sleep so the sea may rise.)

She began eating the flesh of the mango, the succulent juice slaking her thirst. She ate until all that was
left of the fruit was the bony seed, shaped like the crescent of the moon.
That night, the moon died. Behind the mountains, the moon just faded away like a dejected lover, its
beams weakening until there was nothing there except a trace of its face. In the distance, where the waves were
lapping at the shores of Old Tolong, people could hear the roar of the deep moving closer to the land.
 25

The people of Old Tolong, frightened and wearied by the unnatural tumult, slowly made their way to
higher ground, wary of the encroaching sea. Though they no longer had faith in Laon, they must have harbored
some sliver of hope, since they were patiently walking to the mountains, though the soles of their feet burned in
the heat of what remained of the desert ground, and their skin was peeling from the lashing rain, and their throats
grew dryer and dryer. They walked, and Epefania walked with them. But soon she left them and took the familiar
path leading to Tiyay’s house.
This time, Tiyay was waiting for her outside of her house, her store in shambles, her husband and a
daughter ghostly shadows of their former selves. A few feet away stood her son Bangbangin, looking tired and
weary, though still strikingly beautiful despite the overwhelming disasters engulfing the world. “Take him!” Tiyay
said in a dull, harsh, defeated voice.
Epefania looked at Bangbangin, and her heart trembled so hard that she feared for her life. The boy
looked at her, utter confusion on his face. He spoke plainly, wearily.
“But I don’t feel anything for you,” Bangbangin said.
Something caught in Epefania’s throat when she heard Bangbangin’s words. Then she began to cry.
“I feel nothing for you,” the young man said once more.
But he had moved slowly towards where Epefania stood, and when he reached her, he found himself
embracing the young girl, who went into his arms as to a refuge she could never have.
In a softer voice which seemed to contain all the world’s lassitude, he whispered to her, “I feel nothing for
you, Epefania. And that is sad.”
He felt the girl shudder against his chest. And then she was very still. And everything within her was
finally stilled.
First, the sea receded and the land was whole again, and the moon grew bright once more, slowly, like a
gentle flutter of new feathers. Then, the sun began to set, and as the heat gradually waned, the rain which had
been unable to touch the ground finally fell, and covered every inch of the cracking soil. There was a deafening
sizzle when water touched what had been blistering earth, and the thick steam that rose from everywhere quickly
ascended to the heavens and filled the skies as newborn clouds. Then at last the rain stopped, and the winds
returned, blowing away the tempests from Old Tolong to the faraway corners of the world. When the last of the
howling winds had swept past, only the breeze from the top of Cuernos de Negros remained. And the people
slowly trickled back home. And for the first time in days, they finally settled into truest sleep. They had survived
the universe edging towards collapse.
Bangbangin looked down at the woman in his embrace, but Epefania was no longer there. All what was
left was a mango in the palm of his hand, yellow and ripe and pungent with some indescribable need.
Out of the shadows came the figure of an old woman. It was Intan, grown much older, her hair completely
white, and her skin gnarled like the bark of a withered mango tree. “Eat it, boy,” she told Bangbangin, “eat it, and
then plant the seed. Epefania would have wished it so.”
And so the boy ate the flesh of the mango fruit, and felt its tender sweetness snaking through every inch
of him, spreading like contraband love through his body to become an aching in his nipples, and a surging
cocksureness in his crotch. He ate, and he swallowed, and he slurped the juice that now covered his hands.
And after he had surrendered to the final fullness of the magical fruit, he sank to the ground, and began
digging with his hands in the wet soil. When he had dug deep enough, he gently laid the mango seed inside, and
slowly covered it with earth. Then he sat back, and to his own surprise, began to weep. His tears fell to the ground
and watered the seed in its cocoon of earth. And Bangbangin knew, deep in his heart, that someday it would grow
into a majestic tree.
Somewhere in Old Tolong, an orange light brightened one last time…before it finally vanished in a wisp
of smoke.
–
 26

Flip Gothic
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Dear Mama,
Thank you for agreeing to have Mindy. Jun and I just don’t know what to do with her. I’m afraid if we don’t
intervene, matters will get worse. Mia, her Japanese American friend, had to be sent to a drug rehab place. You’d
met her when you were here; she’s the tiny girl who got into piercing; she had a nose ring, a belly ring—pand
something in her tongue. Her parents are distraught; they don’t know what they’ve done, if they’re to blame for
Mia’s problem. I talked to Mia’s Mom yesterday and Mia’s doing all right; she’s writing angry poetry but is
getting over the drug thing, thank God.
There’s so much anger in these kids, I can’t figure it out. They have everything—all the toys, clothes, computer
games and whatever else they’ve wanted. I didn’t have half the things these kids have; and Jun and I had to start
from scratch in this country—you know that. That studio we had near the hospital was really tiny and I had to do
secretarial work while Jun completed his residency. Everything we own - this house, our cars, our vacation house
in Connecticut—we’ve had to slave for. I don’t understand it; these kids have everything served to them in a silver
platter and they’re angry.
We’re sure Mindy’s not into drugs—she may have tried marijuana, but not the really bad stuff. We’re worried
though that she might eventually experiment with that sort of thing. If she continues running around with these
kids, it’s bound to happen. What made us decide to send her there was this business of not going to school.
Despite everything, Mindy had always been a good student, but this school year, things went haywire. This was
what alerted us, actually, when the principal told us she hadn’t been to school for two weeks. We thought the
worst but it turned out she and her friends had been hanging out at Barnes and Noble. It’s just a bookstore; it’s not
a bad place, but obviously she should have gone to school. We had to do something. Sending her to the
Philippines was all I could think of.
She’ll be arriving Ubec on Wednesday, 10:45 a.m. on PAL Flight 101. Ma, don’t be shocked, but her hair is
purple. Jun has been trying to convince her to dye her hair black, for your sake at least, but Mindy doesn’t even
listen. Jun has had a particularly difficult time dealing with the situation. It’s not easy for him to watch his
daughter "go down the drain," as he calls it. He feels he has failed not only as a father but as a doctor.
It’s true that it’s become impossible to reason with Mindy, but I’ve told him to let the hair go, to pick his battles so
to speak. But he gets terribly frustrated. He can’t stand the purple hair; he can’t stand the black lipstick—yes, she
uses black lipstick—and the black clothes and boots and metal. I’ve explained to him that it’s just a fad. Gothic,
they call it. I personally think it looks dreadful. I can’t stand the spikes around her neck; but there are more
important things, like school or her health. She’s just gotten over not-eating. That was another thing her friends
got into - not eating. Why eat dead cows, Mindy would say. She was into tofu and other strange looking things.
For months, she wasn’t eating and had gotten very thin, we finally had to bring her to a doctor (very humbling for
Jun). The doctor suggested a therapist. One hundred seventy-five dollars an hour. She had several sessions then
Mindy got bored and started eating once again. She’s back to her usual weight, but well, the hair and clothing
might scare you, so I’m writing ahead of time to prepare you.
Thanks once again Ma, for everything, and I hope and pray that she doesn’t give you the kind of trouble she’s
been giving us.
Your daughter,
Nelia

*
 27

Dear Nelia,
She had blue hair, not purple. Arminda explained that she had gone out with her friends and found blue dye—
obviously you were unaware of this. She brought several boxes of the dye, including bottles of peroxide. Can you
just imagine—peroxide—what if the bottles broke in her suitcase? Apparently, she has to remove color from her
hair before dying it blue. The whole process sounds terribly violent on the hair, but I didn’t say anything; I didn’t
want to start off on the wrong foot.
Arminda arrived an hour late—PAL, you know how that airline is. She was not wearing boots; she had left them
in New York, she explained, and was wearing white platform shoes instead. It’s an understatement to say that
operations at Ubec Airport came to a halt when people caught sight of her. People around here like to say Ubec is
now so cosmopolitan, with our five-star hotels, our discos and our share of Japanese tourists, but it will always
retain its provincial qualities. When I saw Arminda—blue hair, black clothes, sling bag, platform shoes—I was
not sure Ubec is ready for Arminda. I had to remind myself that I survived World War Two and therefore will
survive Arminda.
Indeed she is rebellious. It does no good to tell her what to do; in fact she goes out of her way to do exactly the
opposite of what you say. I have placed her in your old room and have stopped entering the room because the
disorder is too much for me to take. Clothes all over the bed and dresser chair, and scattered all over the floor as
well. One cannot walk a straight line in that room. There was also the business of blue dye all over the bathroom.
The maid Ising spent one whole afternoon scrubbing the tiles with muriatic acid to remove the stains.
Her language is foul, her behaviour appalling. I will not pretend that it’s been easy having Arminda here. I try to
give her a lot of leeway because she is just fifteen and doesn’t know any better, but having her here has been
purgatory.
Frankly, Nelia, I blame you and Jun for all this. If she had been trained properly, if she had been taught right or
wrong from the beginning, she would not be this incorrigible brat. Forgive me, but I don’t know what else to call
this willful, mouthy, and arrogant child. I have repeatedly called your attention: I have warned you that that child
will bring you to your knees if you don’t discipline her. But all I heard from you and Jun was: Ma, don’t be old-
fashioned; this is the American way. Here now is the result of your American experiment. My words have proved
prophetic, have they not? There is some poetic justice in all this: your daughter has finally shown you the pain
parents endure, as I have endured on account of you. I am still trying to figure out why you left for America when
you had a good life here. You parroted all the cliches about America—freedom, equality, human rights,
opportunities—well, obviously you have learned that cliches are just that.
I am not enjoying rubbing it in and pray she can still be saved. And I also pray that you and Jun can alter your
ways. You two have become too American for your own good. This has contributed to the problem. You have
spoiled her. You yourself admit you have given her everything. Every material thing perhaps, but not a good sense
of herself. It is clear this child is terribly insecure, that she does not like herself. Coloring her hair, this outrageous
get-up—she is simply hiding behind all these.
Another thing, you do not even keep an altar in your home; and even though you go to church when I visit you in
New York, I am well aware that you do not always go to Mass on Sundays. Despite all your wealth your family
does not have a solid foundation, so there you are. But let us drop the matter for the moment. After all, you and
Jun are paying for your mistakes, and I can only hope that it is not too late.
Let me resume my report on Arminda.
Arminda has been so disagreeable, the kids of Ricardo dislike her intensely. I had hoped they would all get along
and that therefore Arminda could spend time with her cousins. I am old, and my interests and hers are very
different. Miriam and Oscar are close to her in age. Unfortunately things didn’t work out. In her New York accent
Arminda called her cousins backward and ignorant, and therefore they boycotted her. She has only me and the
servants who barely speak English. She does not really talk to me but does extend standard cordialities: good
morning, Lola, good evening, Lola, at least you have taught her that much.
She is restless; she does not know what to do with herself. She roams around the house and yard. She likes
helping the gardener build bonfires in the afternoon; of course her playing with fire makes me nervous so we keep
 28

a close eye on her. There is just no telling what will enter her mind. In the evening, she watches television. She is
constantly flipping the channels, from Marimar to CNN, my head spins when I watch TV with her. The maids say
she reads and writes when she is in her bedroom. I have suggested that she write you and Jun but she says she will
never talk nor write to you.
Obviously, she cannot hang around here forever. I’ve visited schools around here so she can go to school soon.
She will not do at St. Catherine’s. The nuns there are as strict today as they had been half a century ago. Ricardo
suggests enrolling her in American School. Your brother says American School is more liberal, less traditional;
perhaps Arminda will not be so different there.
Oh, another thing, she insists on being called Arminda, not Mindy. She said she has always hated that name; that
it reminds her of some dumb television show "Mork and Mindy."
I will let you know how her schooling goes.
Love and kisses,
Mama
*
Dear Nelia,
Arminda is not in school. I had enrolled her at American School, but the night before she was supposed to go
school, she shaved off her head—the whole thing except for the blue bangs. Even the liberal Americans will not
have her. She hated school in New York and will never go to school again, she insists.
I was very angry but have decided not to force her. At any rate, there is no school in Ubec that will take her. The
Christmas holidays are almost here, then there’s the Sinulog festival; nothing much will be happening in school
any way. I have told her that she must spend a few hours reading in our library; your father had many history
books and there’s the entire collection of the Encyclopedia Brittanica besides. For once she agreed to something.
Frankly I feel she is unhappy about having shaved her head. She has been wearing that black fedora hat of hers
with the veil in front. When she is not in the library, she sulks in her bedroom. I have raised six children and have
eleven grandchildren; I know better than to give her attention.
Mama

P.S. I forgot to mention that it had entered her head to dye the hair of my Santo Nino. Since you were an infant,
that poor statue has been standing at the landing of our stairs, unmolested; we offer it flowers, we light candles in
front of it; we take it out for the Sinolug parade; the artist Policarpio Lozada carved it from hard yakal wood,
which is now impossible to find, and here your daughter comes along and colors its hair bright blue. It looks
ridiculous, Nelia—the Child Jesus in red robes with blue hair. When she saw how upset I was, she offered to dye
the hair black, but I told her to leave it that way as a reminder to all of what she has done.
I am saying the novena to the Santo Nino, patron of lost causes, for your daughter.
*
Dear Nelia,
I don’t know if the Santo Nino had something to do with it, but she has discovered the animals. I have three pigs,
one enormous black female and two small males that I’ve earmarked for Christmas lechon. She releases the small
ones from their pen in the morning and chases them around. Sometimes I catch her talking to them. The runt, the
pink one with freckles down his back, cocks his head to one side and stares at Arminda, as if he is listening. She
gets the water hose and hoses them down. The piglets root about and roll around the mud near the water tank, then
afterwards, they march back to their pen.
She also plays with my two hens. Abraham had given these to me several months ago, but one day, they started
laying eggs and I could not kill them. The chickens run around scot-free and they never learned to lay eggs in a
regular place. I’d tried to make nests for them near the garage, but they prefer the many nooks and crannies
 29

around the yard. Arminda hunts for the eggs daily. She says the hen that lays brown eggs favors the place under
the star apple tree, whereas the hen that lays white eggs lays under the grapefruit tree. She asked the cook to teach
her how to prepare the eggs properly so Arminda now knows how to fry eggs, scramble them and make omelettes.
This morning, she made me a cheese omelette and she arranged it on the plate with parsley garnish to make it
look pretty. She was quite delighted at her creation.
She is really still just a child. I cannot help wondering if your lifestyle there has forced her to grow up too quickly.
Your way of life is horrible; when I am there my blood pressure rises from all that hurly-burly. Life does not have
to be such a rat race. One ought to "smell the flowers"—as your kitchen poster says.
Love and kisses,
Mama
*
Dear Nelia,
We did not have lechon for Christmas. I had seen it coming. Christmas Eve, when the man I contracted to
slaughter and roast the pigs arrived, Arminda begged me not to have the pigs killed. She was in tears. She said she
would grow out her hair once again; she promised to behave—anything to save the pigs. Like Solomon I weighed
the matter: Christmas meal versus the pigs. I could see that the pigs meant a lot to her, that in fact, the pigs are
partly responsible for her more mellow behaviour. In the end I decided to save the pigs. For the first time since her
arrival, Arminda kissed me on the cheeks.
She was actually charming to her cousins. We joined them for midnight Mass at Redemptorist church, then later
we gathered at home for the Noche Buena meal. Even without the lechon, there was plenty of food. It’s always
that way every year, even when you were small, too many rellenos and embotidos; and Ricardo always makes his
turkey with that wonderful stuffing. The desserts are another whole story: sans rival, tocino del cielo, meringue,
mango chiffon cake, maja blanca, all the way to the humble sab-a bananas rolled in white sugar.
I don’t know if it was a joke but Miriam and Oscar gave her a black wig. Arminda removed her hat, tried on the
wig and kept it on the whole night. I was surprised to see that she looks a lot like you.
Arminda gave everyone poems written in calligraphy on parchment paper. I do not know what mine means but it
says:
I fled from you
A world away
I turn and
Find you
All around me.

As usual, she wore black, but this time it was a dress sewn by Vering. It had a nice flowing skirt, and instead of a
zipper, the dress had black ribbons that criss-crossed and tied into a ribbon. She wore black net stockings and
black chunky shoes. She continues to wear black lipstick but we have become used to it. Actually we have
become used to Arminda and her drama; and I believe she is getting used to us.
I hope your Christmas has been as lovely as ours.
Love and kisses,
Mama
*
Dear Nelia,
Arminda wanted to know more about the Sinulog festival. People are getting ready for the Sinulog and the
Christmas decorations have given way to the banners with the image of the Child Jesus. I explained that even
before Christian days, Ubecans have always celebrated during harvest time. When Christianity was introduced,
 30

the statue of the Child Jesus, called the Santo Nino, became the focal point of the festivities. People dance to
honor the Child Jesus. In parades, people dance to the beat of drums. Some people blacken their faces and they
wear costumes and dance through the streets of Ubec. People do get drunk and it can get wild sometimes, so one
must know where to go; I told her this because I could see her eyes sparkling with interest.
We visited the Child Jesus at the Santo Nino Church. I could not help myself—I pointed out to her that this
original statue does not have blue hair. Embarrassed, she looked down at her shoes and mumbled that she had
offered to dye my statue’s hair black. I explained that if we dye the statue’s hair from blue to black to God-knows-
what-other-color, it will lose all its hair. She apologized once again for having touched my statue. She said this
sincerely and I decided to let the matter go.
I related stories instead about the Santo Nino: how the Child roams the streets at night; how the Child gives gifts
of food to His friends. And I told Arminda of how you were born with beri-beri and how I danced to the Child
Jesus so that you would be saved.
The last item fascinated her.
"What is beri-beri, Lola?" she asked.
"A disease caused by a lack of Vitamin B," I said.
"What happened to my Mom?"
"She was born near the tail-end of the war, and I had not eat properly when I carried her. Your mother had edema
and nervous disorder. Her eyes were rolled up; she was dying."
"I didn’t know my Mom almost died."
"I prayed to the Santo Nino for her life."
"She never told me she was sick when she was a baby."
"Perhaps she did and you didn’t listen."
She furrowed her brows and thought for a while before asking, "How did you pray?"
"I danced my prayer."
"Show me," Arminda said.
And so outside the Santo Nino Church, we held candles in our hands and we shuffled our dance to the Child
Jesus. It was mid-day and quite hot and sweat rolled down our faces as we swayed to the right, then to the left.
People gathered to watch us. I am usually shy about this matters, but this time I did not mind. Both of us were
laughing when we finished.
She also wanted to see the old Spanish fort, so we drove to Fort San Pedro and later we stopped by the kiosk with
Ferdinand Magellan’s cross. This got her interested and she scoured the library for information on Philippine
history. She was pumping me full of questions; then this morning, she expressed interest in going back to school.
After the Sinulog, I will meet with the principal of the American School.
I think, Nelia, that Arminda’s problem has been basically a question of identity. I know Jun has talked to Arminda,
telling her she has Filipino blood but that she’s an American citizen. I am not sure that is enough for that child. At
the hospital where he works, Jun is treated like a god; he is a doctor and is not subjected to the "looks" and the
questions: where do you come from? Or worse—what are you? He doesn’t feel the discrimination, not as much as
Arminda may, in your American world.
These past months, she has immersed herself in our world—granted it is not her world because one day she will
return to America - but in the meantime, she has a better understanding of what it means to be Filipino. It is
important for one to know where one comes from, in order to know where one is headed.
Love and kisses,
Mama
 31

*
Dear Mom and Dad,
I need six packages of blue dye and three bottles of peroxide. If you call Mia, she can tell you where to buy them.
Tell Mia, I’m glad she’s well and that I wish she were here with me. She’d like this place; it’s cool. Tito Ric has
brought us to the beaches here, and he’s promised to take us to the rice terraces this summer. He said the place is
very old, and there are mummies there, and there are fireflies at night. He also said some of the people there,
especially the older ones, have tattoos on their bodies. (He’s already told me I can’t have a tattoo, so you don’t
have to worry.) I can’t wait for the summer.
Last week we had the Sinulog. It wasn’t as fancy as the Rose Parade nor the Mardi Gras, but there were numerous
parades all over the city. Day and night for a week you could hear the drums beating. People from other towns
came to the city and many of them slept along the sidewalks. The city was crammed with people, celebrating and
eating and dancing. I went around with Miriam and Oscar. They were such dorks before, but they’re not that bad
any more.
For the main parade, we wore costumes—Lola lent Miriam and me some of her old sayas; Oscar blackened his
face and wore a huge feathered hat. The three of us had blue hair. People stopped us in the streets to ask about our
hair. They fingered our hair and wondered how we turned it blue. We just laughed. We did not tell them we used
dye from New York. It was like a secret—our secret.
But I’ve ran out and need more. Be sure and send it; but don’t rush because the school does not allow blue hair.
I’ll have to wait until summer vacation before I can dye my hair blue again.
Love,
Arminda
–
 32

The White Horse of Alih

Emigdio Alvarez Enriquez

The story happened on July 4th in a city with a parade of people. It was a happy day for everybody
because they are celebrating the big American Holiday. Among the crowd was Alih, a Moro who was then looking
for his brother, Omar. That day was intended for them to fulfill their plan. Their plan is to kill these people.
So Alih waited for his brother, he went out of the crown and sat under the Balete tree. While he was
sitting and looking at the parade, he remembered his past, his childhood and his growing years where he met the
women whom he wished and longed for and he remembered his mission. That is—to kill the people. But people
can’t notice them as Moros because they were in disguise.
When he saw a man riding a horse and controlling the crowd, he remembered how much he longed for a
horse for himself. He recalled when his brother punished him because he spent his earnings just to ride in a merry
—go—round. He wanted to ride on a wooden horse because he saw the girl whom he liked most and her name
was Lucy. Lucy was the girl who lived in the reservation area where the Americans live. Moros were not allowed
to enter that vicinity. But because he needs to go to school, he cross the river and reached the reservation area.
There he saw the first girl he liked. Though, they were not given the chance to see and talk to each other since
then.
When he grew up, Omar told him about how the American soldiers killed their father without any reason.
Their father was known and respected in their village. With these, Omar taught him to be brave and be able to
fight against these people because he believes that only by killing could they wash away their shame. He taught
him words to live by and beliefs to be respected and attained.
As he grew into a mature individual, he met another woman named Fermina. Fermina was a beautiful bar
maid with a mole near her mouth. He likes her so much but the woman doesn’t like him because of his
impertinent manner towards her. He was put to jail for six months because of what he did.
Remembering all of these from his past, he thought of what Omar said about the promise of their prophet
to those who are faithful to him. That is to have a white horse ride to heaven and as many hours as the number of
infidel heads he could lay before Allah. But when he thought of what their Imam said that white horse, as a
reward for killing is an reference conjured by fanatics in their attempt to give reason to their behavior. The
prophet never taught them about that because he was man of peace.
So back to reality, he continued searching for Omar into the crowd. Soon he saw a float with a girl whom
he thought of as Fermina. He went near the float and assisted the girl to go down to the ground. As he was about
to hold her completely, Omar came but to his surprise, he was drunk and tipsy! All along, he realized that Omar
had been drinking tuba. He knew that Omar was afraid to kill that is why he drink tuba first before he go to the
town.
Omar shouted and leap to the street, and then he gets his fatal blade from his pants.
The crowd screamed. Fear and panic seized everyone. Everyone is running and escaping from Omar, even
fermina jumped into the ground and run away but she got stocked from a bamboo frame of the float because of
her long flowing robe that hooked on the edge of the bamboo frame. She tried to set her free but she saw Omar
coming to her swinging his blade. Fermina screamed and screamed because of fear.
The screams struck Alih because he saw that Fermina the girl he was love is in danger and get his blade
from his leg immediately and then he leaped to his brother Omar and hit its back by his sharp blade repeatedly.
Omar died.
The town spoke out about the strange tragedy for many days after. But nobody had known Alih, and
nobody could figure out why he turned against his brother.
–
 33

Geyluv*
Honoro Bartolome de Dios

‘Yun lang at hindi na siya nagsalita pang muli. Pigil-pigil ng umid niyang dila ang reaksyon ko sa
kanyang sinabi.
I love you, Mike. Nagpaulit-ulit ang mga kataga sa aking diwa. Walang pagkukunwari, ngunit dama ang
pait sa bawat salita. Natunaw na ang yelo sa baso ng serbesa, lumamig na ang sisig, namaalam na ang singer, pero
wala pa ring umiimik sa aming dalawa.
Mag-aalas-tres na, uwi na tayo.
Miss, bill namin.
Hanggang sa marating namin ang apartment n’ya. Wala pa ring imikan. Kaya ako na ang nauna.
Tuloy ba ang lakad natin bukas sa Baguio, Benjie?
Oo, alas-kwatro ng hapon, sa Dagupan Terminal. Good night. Ingat ka.
Are you okay, Benjie?
Wala ni imik.
Are you sure you don’t want me to stay tonight?
Don’t worry, Mike. Okey lang ako.
Okey. Good night. I’ll call you up later.
Usaman nanamin iyon kapag naghihiwalay sa daan. Kung sino man ang huling umuwi, kailangang
tumawag pagdating para matiyak na safe itong nakarating sa bahay.
*
That was two years ago. Pero mga ateeee, bumigay na naman ako sa hiyaw ng aking puso. Di na ako
nakapagsalita pagkatapos kong banggitin sa kanyang “I love you, Mike.” At ang balak ko talaga, habang panahon
ko na siyang di kausapin, after that trying-hard-to-be-romantic evening. Diyos ko, ano ba naman ang aasahan ko
kay Mike ano?
Noong una kaming magkita sa media party, di ko naman siya pinansin. Oo, guwapo si Mike at macho ang
puwit, pero di ko talaga siya type. Kalabit nga ng kalabit sa akin itong si Joana. Kung napansin ko raw ang
guwapong nakatayo doon sa isang sulok. Magpakilala raw kami. Magpatulong daw kami sa media projection ng
aming mga services. I-invite raw namin sa office. Panay ang projection ng luka-luka. Pagtaasan ko nga ng kilay
ang hitad! Sabi ko sa kanya, wala akong panahon at kung gusto niyang maglandi nung gabing iyon, siya na lang.
Talaga naman pong makaraan ang tatlong masalimuot na love-hate relationship na tinalo pa yata ang love story
nina Janice de Belen at Nora Aunor, sinarhan ko na ang puso ko sa mga lalaki. Sa mga babae? Matagal nang
nakasara. May kandado pa!
Aba, at mas guwapo pala sa malapitan ang Mike na ito. At ang boses! Natulig talaga nang husto ang
nagbibingi-bingihan kong puso. And after that meeting, one week agad kaming magkasama sa Zambales. Of
course, siya ang nagprisinta. di ako. At noon na nagsimula ang problema ko.
Imbyerna na ako noon kay Joana, noong magpunta kami sa Zambales para sa interview nitong si Mike.
Aba, pumapel nang pumapel ang bruha. Daig pa ang “Probe Team” sa pagtatanong ng kung anu-ano rito kay
Mike. At ang Mike naman, napaka-accomodating, sagot nang sagot. Pagdating naman sa Pampanga, bigla nga
akong nag-ayang tumigil para mag-soft drink. Kailangan ko na kasing manigarilyo nang mga oras na iyon. Tense
na ako.
 34

Gasgas na sa akin ang puna ng mga amiga kong baklita na ilusyon ko lang ang paghahanap ng
meaningful relationship. Sabi ko naman, tumanda man akong isang ilusyunadang bakla, maghihintay pa rin ako sa
pagdating ng isang meaningful relationship sa aking buhay. Naniniwala yata akong pinagpala din ng Diyos ang
mga bakla!
*
Mataray itong si Benjie, mataray na bakla, ‘ika nga. Pero mabait. Habang lumalalim ang aming pagiging
magkakilala, lalo ko namang naiintindihan kung bakit siya mataray.
Well, if you don’t respect me as a person dahil bakla ako, mag-isa ka. I don’t care. ‘Yun ang usual defense
niya ‘pag may nanlalait sa kanyang macho.
I’ve been betrayed before, and I won’t let anybody else do the same thing to me, again. Ever!
Ang taray, ano po? Pero hanggang ganyan lang naman ang taray nitong si Benjie. Para bang babala niya
sa sarili. Lalo na pag nai-involve siya sa isang lalaki. Natatakot na kasi siyang magamit, ang gamiting ng ibang
tao ang kanyang kabaklaan para sa sarili nilang kapakanan. May negative reactions agad siya ‘pag nagiging
malapit at sweet sa kanya ang mga lalaki.
At halata ang galit niya sa mga taong nate-take advantage sa mga taong vulnerable. Tulad noong
nakikinig siya sa interview ko sa namamahala ng evacuation center sa isang eskuwelahan sa Zambales.
Naikuwento kasi nito ang tungkol sa asawa ng isang government official na ayaw sumunod sa regulasyong ng
center sa pamamahagi ng relief good upang maiwasan ang gulo sa pagitan ng mga “kulot” at “unat na pawang
mga biktima ng pagsabog ng Pinatubo. Simple lang naman ang regulasyon: kailangang maayos ang pila ng mga
kinatawan ng bawat pamilya upang kumuha ng relief goods. Ang gusto naman daw mangyari ng babaeng iyon,
tatayo siya sa stage ng eskuwelahan at mula doon ay ipamamahagi niya ang mga relief goods, kung kanino man
niya maiabot. Alam na raw ng mga namamahala ng center ang gustong mangyari ng babae: ang makunan siya ng
litrato at video habang kunwa’y pinagkakaguluhan ng mga biktima—unat man o kulot. Nasunod ang gusto nung
babae, ngunit ang mga unat lamang ang nagkagulo sa kanyang dalang relief goods. Ayon sa namamahala ng
center, nasanay na raw kasi ang mga kulot sa organisadong pagkuha ng mga relief goods. Pero nagreklamo rin sila
nung bandang huli kung bakit hindi sila nakatanggap ng tulong. Iiling-iling na kinuha ni Benjie ang pangalan ng
babaeng iyon.
Irereport mo?
Hindi.
Susulatan mo?
Hindi.
Ano’ng gagawin mo?
Ipakukulam ko. Ang putang inang iyon. Anong akala niya sa sarili niya, Diyos? Isula mo iyon, ha. Para
malaman ng lahat na hindi lahat ng nagbibigay ng tulong ay nais talagang tumulong.
Takot din siyang makipagrelasyon. At ‘di rin siya nanlalalaki, ‘yun bang namimik-ap kung saan-saan.
Bukod sa takot itong si Benjie na magkaroon ng sakit at mabugbog, di rin niya gustong arrangement ang money
for love. Gusto niya, ture love at meaningful relationship.
‘Yun din naman ang hanap ko. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m straight, okay?
Si Carmi ang pinakahuling naging syota ko. Sabi nila maganda. Sabagay, maganda naman talaga itong si
carmi. Sexy pa. Ewan ko nga lang dito kay Carmi kung bakit laging nagseselos sa akin. Hanggang ngayon, di pa
rin niya maintindihan ang nature ng trabaho ko, e dalawang taon na kaming magsyota. Kung mag-demand sa
akin, para bang gugunawin ng Diyos ang mundo kinabukasan. E, para sa’kin, di rin ito ang ibig sabihin ng
meaningful relationship. Ayoko nang binabantayan ang lahat ng kilos ko. Ayoko ng laging ini-interrogate. Ayaw
ko ng pinamimili ako between my career at babae. Para sa akin, pareho itong bahagi ng future ko.
 35

Last year, inisplitan ako ni Carmi. Di na raw niya ma-take. Gusto raw muna niyang mag-isip-isip tungkol
sa aming relasyon. Gusto raw niyang magkaanak sa akon, pero di niya tiyak kung gusto niya akong pakasalan.
Naguluhan din ako. Parang gusto kong ayaw ko. Mahal ko si Carmi, and I’m sure of that. Pero kung tungkol sa
pagpapakasal, out of the question ang usaping ‘yun. Una, di kayang buhayin ng sweldo ko an gpagbuo ng isang
pamilya. Pangalawa, di ko alam kung an gpagpapakasal nga ay solusyon para matigil na ang pagdedemand sa
akin ni Carmi. At pangatlo, di rin sigurado itong si Carmi sa gusto niyang gawin. Pumayag ako.
Almost one year din akong walang syota. Isinubsob ko ang sarili sa trabaho. Pero, from time to time,
nagkikita kami ni Carmi para magkumustahan. Well, every time na nagkikita kami ni Carmi para
magkumustahan, bigla ko siyang mamimi-miss, kung kailan kaharap ko na. Siguro’y dala ng lungkot o ng libog.
Kung anumang dahilan ng magka-miss ko sa kanya ay di ko tiyak. Pinipigilan ko na lang ang sariling ipadama sa
kanya ang nararamdaman ko, dahil sa tingin ko’y mas naging masaya siya mula nang isplitan niya ako.
Nakakahiya naman yatang ako pa ang unang umamin na gusto ko ulit siyang balikan, e siya itong nakipag-break
sa akin.
Naipakilala ko si Camrmi kay Benjie sa mga dates na iyon. At naikuwento ko na rin noon kay Benjie ang
tungkol sa nakaraan namin ni Carmi.
Carmi, this is Benjie. Benjie, this is Carmi.
Hi.
Hello.
*
Daaay. Maganda ang Carmi. Mas maganda at mas sexy kaysa kay Carmi Martin. Pinaghalong Nanette
Medved at Dawn Zulueta ang beauty ng bruha. Ano? At bakit naman ako mai-insecure, ‘no? May sariling ganda
yata itong ditse mo. At isa pa, wa ko feel makipag-compete sa babae. Alam ko namang may naibibigay ang babae
sa lalaki na di ko kaya. Pero manay. Mayroon din akong kayang ibigay sa lalaki na di kayang ibigan ng babae.
Kaya patas lang.. kung may labanan mang magaganap. Pero maganda talaga ang bruha. Bagay na bagay sila ni
Mike. Nagtataka nga ako kung bakit pa niya pinalampas itong si Mike, e ang kulang nal ang sa kanila ay isang
fans club at buo na ang kanilang love team. Nanghihinayang talaga ako sa kanilang dalawa. They’re such a
beautiful couple. Na-imagin ko agad ang kanilang mgagiging mga anak. The heirs to the thrones of Hilda Koronel
and Amalia Funetes o kaya’y ni Christopher de Leon at Richard Gomez. Noong una, medyo naaalangan ako kay
Carmi. Para kasing nu’ng makita ko silang dalawa, ang pakiramdam ko, kalabisan na ako sa lunch date na
pinagsaluhan namin. Di naman feeling of insecurity dahil ang gusto ko lang, makausap sila ng tanghaling iyon at
baka sakaling maayos na ang kanilang relationship. Tingin ko naman dito kay Carmi, ganoon din. Parang may
laging nakaharang na kutsilyo sa kanyang bibig ‘pag nagtatanong siya sa akin o kay Mike. Di kaya siya na-
insecure sa beauty ko? Tingin n’yo?
*
Naging magkaibigan na nga kami ni Benjie. Kahit tapos na ang ginagawa kong article tungkol sa kanilang
project, madalas pa rin kaming magkita. Nag-iinuman kami, nanonood ng sine, o kaya’y simpleng kain lang sa
labas o pagbili ng tape sa record bar. Marami naman akong naging kaibigang lalaki, pero iba na ang naging
pagkakaibigan namin ni Benjie. Noong una’y naalangan nga ako. Aba, e baka ‘ka ko mapaghinalaan din akong
bakla kung isang bakla ang lagi kong kasama. Sabagay, di naman kaagad mahahalatang bakla nga itong si Benjie.
Loveable naman si Benjie. Kahit may katarayan, mabait naman. Okey, okey, aaminin ko. Sa kanya ko
uanang naranasang magkaroon ng lakas ng loob na ihinga ang lahat ng nararamdaman ko. ‘Yun bang pouring out
of emotions na walang kakaba-kabang sabihan kang bakla o mahina. At pagkaraan ay ang gaan-gaan ng
pakiramdam mo. Sa barkada kasi, parang di nabibigyan ng pansin ‘yang mga emotions-emotions. Nakakasawa na
rin ang competition. Pataasan ng ihi, patibayan ng sikmura sa mga problema sa buhay, patigasan ng titi. Kapag
nag-iinuman kami (at dito lang kami madalas magkasama-sama ng barkada), babae at trabaho ang pulutan namin.
Sino ang minakamahusay na mambola ng babae, sino sa mga waitress sa katapat na beerhouse ng opisina ang
nadala na sa motel, sino ang pinakahuling sumuka nu’ng nakaraang inuman? Well, paminsan-minsan, napag-
uusapan ang tungkol sa mga problemang emosyonal, pero lagi at lagi lang nagpapaka-objective ang barkada.
 36

Kanya-kanyang pagsusuri ng problema at paghaharap ng immediate solutions bago pa man pagpakalunod sa

emotions. Kaya hindi ako sanay na nagsasabi kung ano ang nararamdaman ko. Ang tumbok agad, ano ang
problema at ano ang solusyon. Pero ‘yun nga, iba pala kapag nasusuri mo rin pati ang mga reactions mo sa isang
problema, basta nase-share mo lang kung bakit ka masaya, kung bakit ka malungkot. Kay Benjie ko nga lang
nasasabi nang buong-buo ang mga bagay na gusto kong gawin, ang mga frustrations ko, ang mga libog ko.
Mahusay makinig itong si Benjie. Naipapakita niya sa akin ang mga bagay na di binibigyan ng pansin. Tulad ng
pakikipagrelasyon ko kay Carmi. May karapatan naman daw mag-demand si Carmi sa akin dahil siya ang
kalahating bahagi ng relasyon. Bada daw kasi di ko pa nalalampasan ang nangyari sa akin nang iwan na lamang
ako basta-basta nu’ng una kong syota kaya di ko mabigay ang lahat ng pagmamahal ko kay Carmi. Di lamang
daw ako ang lagin iintindihin. Unawain ko rin daw si Carmi.
*
Di ba totoo naman? Na baka mahal pa rin niya talaga si Carmi? Kahit ba mag-iisang taon na silang break,
nagkikita pa rin naman sila paminsan-minsan. Ni hindi pa nga siya nakikipag-relasyon sa ibang babae after
Carmi. Ito ngang si Joana, panay na ang dikit sa kanya ‘pag dinadaanan ako ni Mike sa office, di pa rin niya
pansin. Sabagay, di naman talaga niya matitipuhan si Joana. Not after Carmi.
So, noong una, sabi ko, wala namang masama kung magiging magkaibigan kami. Nasa akin na ang
problema kapag nahumaling na naman ako sa lalaki. Madalas kaming lumabas, lalo na after office hours at during
weekends. Manonood ng sine, kakain, iimbitahan ko siya sa apartment for beer o kapag may niluto akong
espesyal na ulam o kaya’y nag-prepare ako ng salad. Kapag umuwi ako sa Los Baños para umuwi sa amin,
sumasama siya minsan. Na-meet na nga niya ang mother ko. Nagpapalitan rin kami ng tapes at siya ang nagtuturo
sa akin ng mga bagong labas na computer programs.
So, okey lang. Pero unti-unti, di na lang tapes at salad o computer programs ang pinagsasaluhan namin.
Aba, may kadramahan din sa buhay itong si Mike. Ang dami pa raw niyang gustong gawin sa buhay na parang di
niya kayang tuparin. Gusto raw niyang makapagsulat ng libro, gusto daw niyang mag-aral muli, gusto raw niyang
mag-abroad. Kung bakit daw kasi di pa niya matapus-tapos ang kanyang M.A. thesis para makakuha siya ng
scholarship? Kung kuntento na raw ba ako sa buhay ko? Ang lahat ng iyon ay kayang-kaya kong sagutin para
kahit papaano ay ma-challenge siya na gawin niya kung ano ‘yung gusto niya at kaya niyang gawin. Maliban na
lang sa isang tanong na unti-unti ko nang kinatatakutang sagutin nang totoo: kung mahal pa raw kaya niya ni
Carmi?
*
Madalas akong malasing na siya ang kasama, pero ni minsan, di niya ako “ginalaw” (to use the term).
May mga pagkakataong tinutukso ko siya, pero di siya bumibigay. Tinanong ko nga siya minsan:
Don’t you find me attractive, Benjie?
At bakit?
Wala.
Wala rin naman akong lakas ng loob na sabihin sa kanya kung bakit. Baka siya masaktan, maka ‘di niya
maintindihan, baka lumayo siya sa akin. Ayaw kong lumayo sa akin si Benjie.
Di rin naman perpekto itong si Benjie. Pero di ko rin alam kung ituturing kong kahinaan ang naganap sa
amin minsan. Kung kasalanan man iyon, dapat ay sisihin din ako.
Nagkasunod-sunod ang disappointments ko. Di ko matapus-tapos ‘yung article na ginagawa ko tungkol sa
open-pit mining sa Baguio dahil nagkasakit ako ng tatnlong araw at naiwan ako ng grupong pumunta sa site para
mag-research. Na-virus ‘yung diskette ko ng sangkaterbang raw data ang naka-store. Nasigawan ako nu’ung
office secretary na pinagbintangan kong nagdala ng virus sa aming mga computers. Na-biktima ng akyat-bahay
‘yung kapatid kong taga-Ermita. At tinawagan ako ni Carmi, nagpaalam dahil pupunta na raw siya ng States.
Ang dami kong nainom noon sa apartment ni Benjie. Nang nakahiga na kami, yumakap ako sa kanya,
mahigpit. Bulong ako ng bulong sa kanyang tulungan niya ako. Kung ano ang gagawin ko. Pakiramdam ko kasi,
 37

wala na akong silbi. Ni ang sarili kong mga relasyon ay di ko maayos. Alam kong nabigla si Benjie sa pagyakap
ko sa kanya. Kahit nga ako’y nabigla sa bigla kong pagyakap sa kanya. Pero parang sa pagyakap ko kay Benjie ay
nakadama ako ng konting pahinga, ng konting kagaanan ng loob. Matagal bago niya ako sinuklian ng yakap. Na
nang ginawa niya’y lalong nagpagaan sa pakiramdam ko. At ang natatandaan ko, hinalikan niya ako sa labi bago
ako tuluyang makatulog.
Ako ang hindi makatingin sa kanya nang diretso kinabukasan.
Sorry.
For what?
Kagabi, tinukso kita uli.
Nagpatukso naman ako, e.
Pero wala namang malisya sa akin iyon.
‘Wag na nating pag-usapan.
Nakatulog ka ba?
Hindi.
Bakit?
Binantayan kita.
Bakit?
Iyak ka ng iyak.
Oo nga. Para akong bakla.
Di porke bakla, iyakin.
Sorry.
Mag-almusal ka na. Di ka ba papasok?
Hindi muna. Labas na lang tayo.
Marami akong gagawin sa office. Di ako pwede.
Pwedeng dito na lang muna ako sa bahay mo?
Sure. Mamayang gabi na lang tayo lumabas.
Sige. Ikaw ang bahala.
Inaamin ko ulit. Kakaibang closeness ang nadama ko kay Benjie mula nung gabing iyon. Noong una’y
idini-deny ko pa sa sarili ko. Pero sa loob-loob ko, bakit ko idi-deny? Anong masama kung maging close ako sa
isang bakla? Kaibigan ko si Benjie, and it doesn’t matter kung anong klaseng tao siya. Sigurado naman ako sa
sexuality ko. ‘Yun ngang mga kasama ko sa trabaho, okey lang sa kanila nang malaman nilang bakla pala si
Benjie. Di sila makapaniwalang bakla si Benjie at may kaibigan akong bakla. E, super-macho ang mga iyon. Ingat
lang daw ako. Na ano? Baka raw mahawa ako. Never, sabi ko pa. Hanggang kaibigan lang.
*
Sinasabi ko na nga ba, walang patutunguhang maganda ang pagka-kaibigan namin nitong si Mike. Ayoko,
ayoko, ayokong ma-in love. Di ko pa kayang masaktan muli. Ayokong sisihin niya ako sa bandang huli. Baka
mawala ang respeto niya sa akin. Baka masira ang magandang pagkakaibigan namin. Pero, Mike, di ako
perpektong tao. May damdamin ako, may libog ako, marunong din akong umibig at masaktan. Ang drama, ateeee.
Pero ang mga ito ang gusto kong sabihin sa kanya nang gabing iyon. Gusto ko siyang tilian at sabihing: tigilan mo
ako, kung gusto mo pang magkita tayo kinabukasan! Naloka talaga ako nang bigla na lang isyang yumakap sa
akin. E, ano naman ang gagawin ko, ano? Lungkot na lungkot na nga ‘yung tao, alangan namang ipagtabuyan ko
 38

pa. At para ano? Para lang manatili akong malinis sa kanyang paningin? Para lang mapatunayan sa kanyang ako
ang baklang ipagduldulan man sa lalaking nasa kalagayang katulad niya, sa gitna ng madili na kuwartong kaming
dalawa lang ang laman, ay di lang yakap at halik ang gusto kong isukli sa kanya nang gabing iyon. At di rin
kahalayan. Gusto ko siyang mahalin. Gusto kong ipadama ang nararamdaman ko para sa kanya. Isang gabi lang
iyon. Marami pang gabi ang naghihintay sa amin. At di ako bato para di matukso. Higit sa lahat, bakla ako.
Take it easy, Benjie.
How can I take it easy, Mike, biglang-bigla ang pagkamatay ni Nanay. Ni hindi ko alam ngayon kung
magsu-survive ako ng wala siya.
Kaya mo, matatag ka naman.
Not without Nanay. Napaka-dependent ko sa kanya. Alam mo ‘yan.
Nandito naman ako, Benjie.
Napatingin ako kay Mike. Oh, my hero! Sana nga’y totoo ang sinasabi mo. Sana nga’y nandito ka pa rin
five or ten years after. Kahit di ko na iniinda ang pagkawala ng nanay. Sana nga’y nandiyan ka pa rin even after
one year. Ewan ko lang, Mike. Di ko alam kung alam mo nga ang sinasabi mo.
Pampadagdag talaga sa mga dalahin kong ito si Mike. Sa halip na isipin ko na lang kung paano mabuhay
nang wala ang nanay ko, iisipin ko pa ngayon kung paano mabuhay ng wala siya. Okay, okay, I admit it. Mahal ko
nga si Mike. Pero sa sarili ko lang inaamin ito. Hanggang doon lang. Di ko kayang sabihin sa kanya nang harap-
harapan. He’s not gay. Imposibleng mahalin din niya ako ng tulad ng pagmamahal ko sa kanya. Kaibigan ang
turing niya sa akin. At alam ko na kung ano ang isasagot niya sa akin kapag ipinagtapat ko sa kanyang higit pa sa
kaibigan ang pagmamahal ko sa kanya ngayon: that we are better off as friends. Masakit iyon, daaay. Masakit ang
ma-reject. Lalo na’t nag-umpisa kayo bilang magkaibigan. Nasawi ka na sa pag-ibig, guilty ka pa dahil you have
just betrayed a dear friend and destroyed a beautiful friendship.
Naalala ko ang nanay. Di niya inabutan ang lalaking mamahalin ko at makakasama sa buhay. Sana raw ay
matagpuan ko na “siya” agad, bago man lang siya mamatay. Noong una niyang makilala si Mike, tinanong niya
ako kung si Mike na raw ba? Ang sagot ko’y hindi ko alam.
*
Nandito lang naman ako. Tumingin sa akin si Benjie. Napatingin rin ako sa kanya. Siguro’y kapwa kami
nabigla sa sinabi ko. Nandito naman ako. Ano bang ibig sabihin nito? Well, nandito ako as your friend. I’ll take
care of you. Di kita pababayaan. Ganyan ako sa kaibigan, Benjie. Pero sa sarili ko lang nasabi ang mga ito. Buong
magdamag nag-iiyak si Benjie sa kuwarto nang gabing iyon bago ilibing ang nanay niya. Hinayaan ko siyang
yumakap sa akin. Hinayaan ko siyang pagsusuntukin ang dibdib ko. Yakap, suntok, iyak. Hanggang sa makatulog
sa dibdib ko. Noon ako naiyak.
Tahimik pa rin si Benjie hanggang sa matapos ang seminar na dinaluhan niya sa Baguio. Habang sakay ng
bus pauwi, noon lamang siya nagsalita.
Sorry sa mga sinabi ko kagabi sa bar, Mike.
Sabi ko na’t ‘yun pa rin ang iniisip mo.
Bakit, di mo ba naiisip ang ibig sabihin nu’ng mga sinabi ko sa’yo?
Iniisip ko rin. So what’s wrong with that?
What’s wrong? Mike, umaasa ako sa imposible.
Di masamang umasa.
Kung may aasahan. At alam ko namang wala.
But don’t you think that we are better off as friends?
(Sabi ko na. Sabi ko na!) But I’ve gone beyond my limits.
 39

Alam mo naman ang ibig kong sabihin.

So what do you expect from me?
*
Ano ba talaga ang gustong palabasin nitong si Mike? Ni hindi nagalit. Di rin naman nagko-confirm na
mahal din niya ako. Ay naku daaay, imbyerna na ako, ha! Ayoko ng mga guessing game na ganito. Pero mukhang
masaya siya sa mga nangyayari sa buhay niya lately. Open pa rin siya sa akin at mukhang wala namang itinatago.
Wala naman siyang resentment nang sabihin niya sa aking umalis na sa Pilipinas si Carmi.
Pero ako na naman ang naipit sa sitwasyon. Kung pagdedesisyunin ko siya, baka di ko makaya. Pero
dalawa lang naman ang maaari niyang isagot: oo, mahal din niya ako bilang lover. Ang problema na lang ay kung
matatanggap kong hanggang sa pagiging magkaibigan na lang talaga ang relasyon namin.
Ayain ko kaya siyang maki-share sa aking apartment? ‘Pag pumayag siya, di magkakaroon ako—at kami
—ng pagkakataong palalimin ang aming relasyon. ‘Pag tumanggi siya, bahala na. Sanay na naman akong nag-
iisa.
Tiningnan ko sandali si Mike at pagkaraan ay muli kong ibinaling sa may bintana ang aking tingin.
Mabilis ang takbo ng bus sa North Diversion Road. Mayamaya lang ay nasa Maynila na kami. Sana, bago kami
makarating ng Maynila, masabi ko na sa kanya ang balak ko. Ano kaya ang isasagot ni Mike? But, does it matter?
*
Hindi na siya uli nagsalita. Pero, habang nagbibiyahe kami ay marami na uli akong naikuwento sa kanya.
Nai-enroll ko na uli ‘yung MA thesis ko at papasok na uli ako this semester. Tinanong ko siya kung pwede niya
akong tulungan sa research dahil ‘yung thesis ko rin ang balak kong pag-umpisahan ng isinusulat kong libro.
Ikinuwento ko ring umalis na si Carmi at kasama ako sa mga naghatid. Tumawag nga rin daw sa kanya at ibinigay
ang address sa States para daw sulatan niya. tinanong ko kung susulatan niya. Kung may time raw siya.
Inaya niya akong umuwi ng Los Baños para dalawin ang puntod ng nanay niya. Sabi ko’y sure this
coming weekend.
‘Yung tungkol doon sa sinabi niya sa akin noong isang gabi, pinag-iisipan ko naman talaga nang malalim.
Di ako na-offend pero di rin naman ako sure kung gusto ko nga ulit marinig sa kanyang mahal niya ako. Natatakot
akong magbigay ng anumang reaksyon sa kanya. baka mai-misinterpret niya ako. Ayokong mag-away kami dahil
sa nararamdaman niya sa akit at nararamdaman ko sa kanya. One thing is sure, though. Ayokong mawala si Benjie
sa akin. Napakahalaga niya sa akin para mawala.
Ang balak ko’y ganito: tatanungin ko siya kung puwede akong maki-share sa kanyang apartment. ‘Pag
pumayag siya, di mas mapag-aaralan ko talaga ang gusto ko—at namin—na mangyari sa aming relasyon. Kung
gusto ko siyang makasama nang matagalan. Kung mahal ko rin siya. Kapag hindi, we’ll still be friends.
Mabilis ang takbo ng bus sa North Diversion Road. Nakatingin sa labas ng bintana si Benjie. Alam kong
nahihirapan siya. Kinuha ko ang palad niya at pinisil ko ito. Kung bakla rin ako? Hindi ako sigurado. But, does it
matter?
–