Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Literature
Submitted by:
Joseph Emmanuel F. Tamayo
Submitted to:
Ma. Corazon T. Estoquia
The Biography of Francisco Balagtas
Francisco Balagtas y de la Cruz, also known as Francisco Baltazar, was
a prominent Filipino poet, and is widely considered as one of the greatest
Filipino literature laureate for his impact on Filipino literature. The famous
epic, Florante at Laura, is regarded as his defining work.
He wrote his poems in Tagalog, during an age when Filipino writing was
predominantly written in Spanish.
Kabanata 1 – Pasimula
Huseng Batute was born on November 22, 1896 in Santa Cruz, Manila
to Vicente de Jesús, the first health bureau director of the American
occupation government, and Susana Pangilinan of Pampanga. He was
christened José Cecilio de Jesús but he later dropped Cecilio and replaced it
with the Spanish name Corazón (heart) because he said it best described his
character.
On March 28, 1924, de Jesús and other leading Tagalog writers met at a
women's school in Tondo, Manila, under the auspices of Filipino educator
Rosa Sevilla, to discuss how to celebrate the birth anniversary of Tagalog
poet Francisco Balagtas on April 2. They decided to hold a traditional duplo,
or a dramatic debate in verse that was in its waning days in the 1920s. They
changed the format of the duplo and renamed it balagtasan in honor of
Balagtas.
There were three pairs of poets who participated in the first balagtasan
on April 6, 1924 at the defunct Instituto de Mujeres, founded by Sevilla, but
the audience was most impressed by de Jesús and another Filipino poet,
Florentino Collantes.
Bayan Ko
His family was ill-fated and he could not afford to study. However, by
his own efforts, he was able to learn Katon and Cartilla, Doctrina Christiana,
Philosophy, Canon law, and Theology.
One day when he was taking a bath on a river near their house, two
Jesuits passed by and asked him for the right way. Because of de la Cruz'
fondness of reading, he was able to understand their language, they were
Spaniards, and was able to communicate with them. The Spaniards were
amazed by his intelligence and his politeness that they were not able to go
to their destination, but instead they just talked with him more to get to
know him better. He was eight years old then.
Singsing ng Pag-ibig
Ngayon sa lahat ng ito’y ano ang sa mga ginawa nating paggugugol ang
nakikitang kaginhawahang ibinigay sa ating Bayan? Ano ang nakikita nating
pagtupad sa kanilang kapangakuan na siyang naging dahil ng ating
paggugugol! Wala kudi pawang kataksilan ang ganti sa ating mga pagpapala
at mga pagtupad sa kanilang ipinangakong tayo’y lalong gigisingin sa
kagalingan ay bagkus tayong binulag, inihawa tayo sa kanilang hamak na
asal, pinilt na sinira ang mahal at magandang ugali ng ating Bayan; iminulat
tayo sa isang maling pagsampalataya at isinadlak sa lubak ng kasamaan ang
kapurihan ng ating Bayan; at kung tayo’y mangahas humingi ng kahit
gabahid na lingap, ang nagiging kasagutan ay ang tayo’y itapon at ilayo sa
piling ng ating minamahal ng anak, aswa at matandang magulang. Ang
bawat isang himutok na pumulas sa ating dibdib ay itinuturing na isang
malaking pagkakasala at karakarakang nilalapatan ng sa hayop na
kabangisan.
Ngayon wala nang maituturing na kapanatagan sa ating pamamayan;
ngayon lagi nang gingambala ang ating katahimikan ng umaalingawngaw na
daing at pananambitan, buntong-hininga at hinagpis ng makapal na ulila,
bao’t mga magulang ng mga kababayang ipinanganyaya ng mga manlulupig
na Kastila; ngayon tayo’y nalulunod na sa nagbabahang luha ng Ina sa nakitil
na buhay ng anak, sa pananangis ng sanggol na pinangulila ng kalupitan na
ang bawat patak ay katulad ng isang kumukulong tinga, na sumasalang sa
mahapding sugat ng ating pusong nagdaramdam; ngayon lalo’t lalo tayong
nabibiliran ng tanikalang nakalalait sa bawat lalaking may iniingatang
kapurihan. Ano ang nararapat nating gawin? Ang araw ng katuwiran na
sumisikat sa Silanganan, ay malinaw na itinuturo sa ating mga matang
malaong nabulagan, ang landas na dapat nating tunguhin, ang liwanag
niya’y tanaw sa ting mga mata, ang kukong nag-akma ng kamatayang alay
sa atin ng mga ganid na asal. Itinuturo ng katuwiran, na wala tayong iba
pang maaantay kundi lalo’t lalong kaalipinan. Itinuturo ng katuwiran, lalo’t
lalong kaalipustaan at lalo’t lalong kaalipinan. Itinuturo ng katuwiran, na
huwag nating sayangin ang panahon sa pag-asa sa ipinangakong
kaginhawahan na hindi darating at hindi mangyayari. Itinuturo ng katuwiran
ang tayo’y umasa sa ating at huwag antayin sa iba ang ating kabuhayan.
Itinuturo na katuwiran ang tayo’y magkaisang-loob, magkaisang isip at akala
at nang tayo’y magkaisa na maihanap ng lunas ang naghaharing kasamaan
sa ating Bayan.
Naunsyaming Pag-asa
Pupos ng ligaya't katiwasayan Susubukan ko sanang magtapat
Silang may minamahal, Ngunit ako'y nauumid,
Dahil mayroon silang karamay Dahil maliwanag namang
Sa lahat ng hinaing sa buhay. Mabibigo lamang ako.
Ako'y nagmamahal
Sa isang sintas hiyas
Ngunit hindi ko matiyak
Kung ako'y karapatdapat.
Isabelo de los Reyes was born to Elias de los Reyes and Leona
Florentino in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. His mother, of Spanish and Filipina descent,
was recognized as the first woman poet of the Philippines. She wrote in both
Spanish and Ilocano.
In 1887, at the age of 23, de los Reyes won a silver medal at the
Exposición Filipina in Madrid for his Spanish-language book entitled El folk-
lore Filipino (Filipino Folklore). It was the same year that the Filipino writer
José Rizal published his first novel, Noli Me Tangere in Berlin. As a teenager,
de los Reyes had been intrigued by the growing interest in the "new science"
of el saber popular (folklore). Manila's Spanish newspaper La Oceania
Española asked readers to contribute articles on el folk-lore and offered
directions on how to collect material.
Two months later, de los Reyes set to work on the folklore of Ilocos,
Malabon, and Zambales, what he called El folk-lore Filipino. It became one of
the greatest passions of his life. By 1886, as the French were starting serious
study of folklore in relation to their own native traditions, de los Reyes at the
age of 22 was completing a manuscript for publication.
After his father died when Isabelo was 18, the young man had to earn
money to supplement an allowance from his mother. He pursued his passion
for writing, contributing articles to most of Manila's newspapers. In 1889 he
founded El Ilocano, said to be the first newspaper written solely in a
Philippine vernacular. It was short-lived but influential. He continued to write
and research extensively on Philippine history and culture, and was
nicknamed Don Belong.
As a journalist, de los Reyes almost faced the firing squad for attracting
the ire of Spanish authorities in highlighting Spanish church and
governmental abuses during the movement for independence. He criticized
the large haciendas of the friars while so many peasants were landless. In
January 1897 he was arrested and held in Bilibid Prison for his part in the
revolution. During this period, the writer José Rizal was among those
executed. A change in governors won de los Reyes a measure of leniency,
and in April, General Fernando Primo de Rivera ordered him deported to
Spain and imprisoned in Barcelona.
In 1898, de los Reyes was released and given a job in the Spanish
government, as Counselor of the Ministry of the Colonies, which he held until
1901. While in Madrid, he published articles critical of the United States
when they occupied the Philippines. He also published a biweekly
newspaper, Filipinas ante Europa, which had the editorial logo: Contra Norte-
America, no; contra el imperialismo, sí, hasta la muerte! It ran for 36 issues
between October 25, 1899 and June 10, 1901. After closing (probably due to
trouble with the authorities), it briefly reappeared as El Defensor de Filipinas,
which ran monthly from July 1 to October 1, 1901.
Don Belong was not only a journalist, as he did much religious writing
during his life, starting when he was first imprisoned. He helped to translate
the Bible into the Ilocano vernacular. He became one of the few convicts to
translate the Scriptures.
After returning, de los Reyes was jailed for inciting labor strikes against
American business firms. Influenced by anarchism and Marxism during his
imprisonment in Barcelona, in 1902 de los Reyes founded the first labor
union in the country, the Unión Obrera Democrática. He wanted to protect
Filipinos against what he perceived as the exploitation of labor by American
capitalist institutions. In the same year, he and other UNO members
launched the Philippine Independent Church, to create a national church
independent of the Pope and the Catholic Church. He chose his fellow Ilocano
compatriot, Gregorio Aglipay, as its first bishop.
In 1912 at the age of 48, de los Reyes was elected a councilor of the
City of Manila, and began his political career. Winning re-election, he served
as councilor until 1919.
Beginning his campaign for the senate in 1922, in 1923, de los Reyes
won a Senate seat in an election against Elpidio Quirino to represent the
Ilocos region.
After his term and the death of his third wife in childbirth, Don Belong
returned to private life in the 1920s. He dedicated the remainder of his life to
religious writings for the Aglipayan Church, in which he was made honorary
bishop. He wrote many sermons and other Christian literature, including
basic materials for the Aglipayan Church.
Excerpt from Ang Singsing ng Dalagang Marmol:
Kabanata 1
Nang aking matantô ang labis na paglilingkód n~g bayaning itó sa ating
Bayan, ay pinagsikapan kong siyá'y alagàan, bagamán walâ akóng pananalig
na siyá'y maáari pang mabúhay.
N~guni't aywan kun sa kabagsikan n~g bisà n~g tubig sa Sibul, ang
pinunong itó na Pusò ang pan~galan, isang araw ay idinilat ang m~ga matá
at nagsalitâ n~g ganitó:
At n~g masábi ang ganitó'y itinuro ang kanyáng singsing sa daliri at bago
nagpatuloy:
Hindi itinulóy n~g pinunò ang pagsasalitâ pagkâ't di napigilan ang kanyáng
luhà sa pagkáalala n~g m~ga kapaitang kanyáng linálasáp. Inalagatâ kong
siyá'y kusàng liban~gin at pasiglahin ang loób bago nagkunwa akóng
tumatawa:
--¿Anó ang sabi ninyó? Sa lagay, mayroón kayâng isáng babai man lamang
na dî balibát ang ulo at dî salawahan?
--Mayroón pô at dî ang lahát ay pawàng kirí ó manglilipad....
--Huwág na ninyóng ipabatíd pagkâ't iyá'y isusukal lamang n~g iyó pong
kalooban.
--Gayón, palá't batíd mo pô ang lahát n~g iyán, ¿bakit kayó napasilò?
--Sana n~gâ pô; n~guni't ang babai'y talagáng siyáng _demonio_ na ating
kaaway, at úpang huwág nating mákilala ang kaniláng kasukabán ay
ipinamámasid sa atin ang dati niláng mukhâ noóng silá'y isáng _angél_ pa, at
sakà nagsosoót n~g barò't sáya.
Si Pusò'y nán~gitî n~g márinig ang masayá kong birò at bago nagsalitâ:
Kay-pagkasawing-palad
Ng inianak sa hirap,
Ang bisig kung di iunat,
Di kumita ng pilak.
Sa umagang pagkagising
Lahat ay iisipin
Kung saan may patanim
May masarap na pagkain.
Sitsiritsit, Alibangbang
Sitsiritsit, alibangbang
Salaginto at salagubang
Ang babae sa lansangan
Kung gumiri'y parang tandang
“Parang tinatamad na ‘kong pumasok,” sabi ni Ambo. “Pasok ‘ko nang pasok,
e, ‘ala namang nangyayari.”
“Konting tiyaga.”
Gising na ang tatlo sa kanyang mga anak. Nilalaro ni Roma, otso anyos at
sumunod kay Sonia, ang bunso nilang mag-iisang taon. Kinikiliti ni Roma ang
sanggol, anaki’y gustong patawanin pero hindi tumatawa ang sanggol.
“Ta . . . Tata . . . Ta . . .”
Dali-dali niyang isinuot ang sulsihang pantalon at T-shirt. Mahaba ang T-shirt
at bahagyang natatakpan niyon ang sulsi sa likuran ng kanyang pantalon.
“Siguro nama’y di magtatagal ‘tong lagnat ko,” narinig niyang sabi ni Marta.
“Makakapaglaba na ‘ko uli.”
Matindi ang sikat ng araw at waring ibig tupukin niyon ang anit ni Ambo. May
isa’t kalahating kilometro ang layo ng opisina ng sangay na iyon ng
gobyernong pinaglilingkuran niya mula sa kalyeng tinitirhan nila at nilalakad
lamang ni Ambo ang distansyang iyon. Nilalakad sapagkat ang treinta
sentimos niyang ipamamasahe (kung mapalad siyang magkaroon ng
halagang iyon) ay malaking bagay ang magagawa sa kanila. Maibibili niya
ang halagang iyon ng diyes na tuyo, diyes na asukal, at ang diyes—hindi
singko lamang—ay maibibigay niya kay Nida.
Ngunit ngayo’y wala siyang ni isang kusing sa bulsa.
Pagbutihin mong pakiusap sa kanila. Naglalaro sa utak niya ang biling iyon ni
Marta. Nakadama siya ng sikad ng paghihimagsik sa dibdib. Bakit siya dapat
makiusap? Ang kinukuha naman niya’y suweldo niya, ang karapatang bayad
ng gobyerno sa paglilingkod niya. Ano ang dapat niyang ipakiusap?
“’Alang pondo ang gobyerno,” sabi ni Mr. Reyes. “Gaya ng siguro’y alam mo
na, malaking anomalya ang ginawa ng mga tao rito ng nakaraang
administration. Kelan nga lang, e, may natanggap kaming sirkular buhat sa
Malakanyang na nagsasabi na magbawas kami ng mga kaswal dito. Pero di
naman namin magagawa karaka. Malalakas na pulitiko rin ang me
rekomenda sa marami sa mga kaswal dito.”
“Tatlo na ho.”
“Milyon, mga pare ko, milyon,” sabi ni Sandoval at ibinaba niya ang
tinutunghayang dyaryo. “Ito na’ng pinakamarangyang handaang nabalitaan
ko. Imported ang pagkain, ang orchestra, ang mga entertainer. At ang mga
panauhin, mga pare ko, mga duke, prinsesa’t prinsipe at kung sinu-sino pang
kabilang sa dugong-bughaw.”
Bilang puno ng general services ay may sariling silid si Mr. Reyes. Air-
conditioned, de alpombra, at makabago ang interior decoration. Napasukan
na ni Ambo sa loob si Dory, ang sekretarya ni Mr. Reyes. Bata pa si Dory,
marahil labingwalo, ngunit taglay na ng mga mata nito ang lamlam, panglaw
ng isang babaeng ganap nang nakakakilala sa buhay. Hindi na lihim sa
opisina ang relasyon nito sa may asawang si Mr. Reyes.
Mainit ang ulo ni Mr. Reyes. A, siguro’y talunan na naman sa sugal. Bulong
nina Sandoval ay nagmamadyong, nagpopoker, nagkakarera si Mr. Reyes.
Nambubulyaw si Mr. Reyes, nagmumura kung mainit ang ulo. A, pero
kailangan niyang lapitan ito, makausap.
“O, anong kelangan mo?” Dama niya karaka ang suya sa boses nito.
“Mr. Reyes, me sakit ho’ng asawa ko’t nagugutom ang mga anak ko . . .”
“Ako ba’y talagang ginagalit mo, ha?”
“A, kabron kang talaga!” At sa pagkainis, muli nitong itinaas ang mga paa sa
mesa at itinuloy ang pagbabasa.
“Mr. Reyes . . .”
Hindi siya pinansin ni Mr. Reyes at unti-unti’y may namuong galit sa kanyang
dibdib, pero bago sumiklab iyo’y nagawa niyang pigilan ang sarili. A,
kailangang maging mahinahon siya. Babalikan na lamang niya si Mr. Reyes,
baka mayamaya lamang ay lipas na ang init ng ulo.
“Ta . . . Tata . . . Ta . . .”
Ta . . . Tata . . . Ta . . .
“Mga gago rin kayo!” sigaw niya at hinarap ang mga sasakyan, nanlilisik ang
mga mata.
Nasa loob si Mr. Reyes. Ayaw pirmahan ni Mr. Reyes ang voucher niya. Ayaw
ibigay ng gobyerno ang suweldo niya . . .
Pinid ang pintong iyon. Sumisigaw siya, labas ka d’yan! Labas d’yan!, ngunit
nanatiling nakasara ang pinto. Pinagtatadyakan niya ang dahon ng pinto,
pinukpok ng puluhan ng baril, subalit namalaging manhid ang pinto.
“Labas d’yan! Ayaw niyong pirmahan ang voucher ko! Ayaw n’yong ibigay
ang suweldo ko!”
Santos received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the
Philippines where he first studied creative writing under Paz Marquez
Benitez. In 1941, Santos was a government pensionado (scholar) to the
United States at the University of Illinois, Columbia University, and Harvard
University. During World War II, he served with the Philippine government in
exile under President Manuel L. Quezon in Washington, D.C., together with
the playwright Severino Montano and Philippine National Artist Jose Garcia
Villa.
When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on.
Gold and silver stars hung on pennants above silent windows of white and
brick-red cottages. In a backyard an old man burned leaves and twigs while a
gray-haired woman sat on the porch, her red hands quiet on her lap,
watching the smoke rising above the elms, both of them thinking the same
thought perhaps, about a tall, grinning boy with his blue eyes and flying hair,
who went out to war: where could he be now this month when leaves were
turning into gold and the fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind?
It was a cold night when I left my room at the hotel for a usual
speaking engagement. I walked but a little way. A heavy wind coming up
from Lake Michigan was icy on the face. If felt like winter straying early in the
northern woodlands. Under the lampposts the leaves shone like bronze. And
they rolled on the pavements like the ghost feet of a thousand autumns long
dead, long before the boys left for faraway lands without great icy winds and
promise of winter early in the air, lands without apple trees, the singing and
the gold!
It was the same night I met Celestino Fabia, "just a Filipino farmer" as
he called himself, who had a farm about thirty miles east of Kalamazoo.
"You came all that way on a night like this just to hear me talk?"
"I've seen no Filipino for so many years now," he answered quickly. "So
when I saw your name in the papers where it says you come from the Islands
and that you're going to talk, I come right away."
It was not hard talking about our own people. I knew them well and I
loved them. And they seemed so far away during those terrible years that I
must have spoken of them with a little fervor, a little nostalgia.
In the open forum that followed, the audience wanted to know whether
there was much difference between our women and the American women. I
tried to answer the question as best I could, saying, among other things, that
I did not know that much about American women, except that they looked
friendly, but differences or similarities in inner qualities such as naturally
belonged to the heart or to the mind, I could only speak about with
vagueness.
While I was trying to explain away the fact that it was not easy to make
comparisons, a man rose from the rear of the hall, wanting to say something.
In the distance, he looked slight and old and very brown. Even before he
spoke, I knew that he was, like me, a Filipino.
"I'm a Filipino," he began, loud and clear, in a voice that seemed used to
wide open spaces, "I'm just a Filipino farmer out in the country." He waved
his hand toward the door. "I left the Philippines more than twenty years ago
and have never been back. Never will perhaps. I want to find out, sir, are our
Filipino women the same like they were twenty years ago?"
As he sat down, the hall filled with voices, hushed and intrigued. I
weighed my answer carefully. I did not want to tell a lie yet I did not want to
say anything that would seem platitudinous, insincere. But more important
than these considerations, it seemed to me that moment as I looked towards
my countryman, I must give him an answer that would not make him so
unhappy. Surely, all these years, he must have held on to certain ideals,
certain beliefs, even illusions peculiar to the exile.
"First," I said as the voices gradually died down and every eye seemed
upon me, "First, tell me what our women were like twenty years ago."
The man stood to answer. "Yes," he said, "you're too young . . . Twenty
years ago our women were nice, they were modest, they wore their hair
long, they dressed proper and went for no monkey business. They were
natural, they went to church regular, and they were faithful." He had spoken
slowly, and now in what seemed like an afterthought, added, "It's the men
who ain't."
"Well," I began, "it will interest you to know that our women have
changed--but definitely! The change, however, has been on the outside only.
Inside, here," pointing to the heart, "they are the same as they were twenty
years ago. God-fearing, faithful, modest, and nice."
The man was visibly moved. "I'm very happy, sir," he said, in the
manner of one who, having stakes on the land, had found no cause to regret
one's sentimental investment.
After this, everything that was said and done in that hall that night
seemed like an anti-climax, and later, as we walked outside, he gave me his
name and told me of his farm thirty miles east of the city.
We had stopped at the main entrance to the hotel lobby. We had not
talked very much on the way. As a matter of fact, we were never alone.
Kindly American friends talked to us, asked us questions, said goodnight. So
now I asked him whether he cared to step into the lobby with me and talk.
"No, thank you," he said, "you are tired. And I don't want to stay out
too late."
Now he smiled, he truly smiled. All night I had been watching his face
and I wondered when he was going to smile.
"Of course," I said. "I'd love to meet your family." I was leaving
Kalamazoo for Muncie, Indiana, in two days. There was plenty of time.
"You will make my wife very happy," he said.
"Honest. She'll be very happy. Ruth is a country girl and hasn't met
many Filipinos. I mean Filipinos younger than I, cleaner looking. We're just
poor farmer folk, you know, and we don't get to town very often. Roger,
that's my boy, he goes to school in town. A bus takes him early in the
morning and he's back in the afternoon. He's nice boy."
"I bet he is," I agreed. "I've seen the children of some of the boys by
their American wives and the boys are tall, taller than their father, and very
good looking."
The next day he came, at about three in the afternoon. There was a
mild, ineffectual sun shining, and it was not too cold. He was wearing an old
brown tweed jacket and worsted trousers to match. His shoes were polished,
and although the green of his tie seemed faded, a colored shirt hardly
accentuated it. He looked younger than he appeared the night before now
that he was clean shaven and seemed ready to go to a party. He was
grinning as we met.
"Oh, Ruth can't believe it," he kept repeating as he led me to his car--a
nondescript thing in faded black that had known better days and many
hands. "I says to her, I'm bringing you a first class Filipino, and she says, aw,
go away, quit kidding, there's no such thing as first class Filipino. But Roger,
that's my boy, he believed me immediately. What's he like, daddy, he asks.
Oh, you will see, I says, he's first class. Like you daddy? No, no, I laugh at
him, your daddy ain't first class. Aw, but you are, daddy, he says. So you can
see what a nice boy he is, so innocent. Then Ruth starts griping about the
house, but the house is a mess, she says. True it's a mess, it's always a
mess, but you don't mind, do you? We're poor folks, you know.
"Yes, those are apple trees," he replied. "Do you like apples? I got lots
of 'em. I got an apple orchard, I'll show you."
All the beauty of the afternoon seemed in the distance, on the hills, in
the dull soft sky.
"Autumn's a lovely season. The trees are getting ready to die, and they
show their colors, proud-like."
It was a rugged road we were traveling and the car made so much
noise that I could not hear everything he said, but I understood him. He was
telling his story for the first time in many years. He was remembering his
own youth. He was thinking of home. In these odd moments there seemed
no cause for fear no cause at all, no pain. That would come later. In the night
perhaps. Or lonely on the farm under the apple trees.
In this old Visayan town, the streets are narrow and dirty and strewn
with coral shells. You have been there? You could not have missed our house,
it was the biggest in town, one of the oldest, ours was a big family. The
house stood right on the edge of the street. A door opened heavily and you
enter a dark hall leading to the stairs. There is the smell of chickens roosting
on the low-topped walls, there is the familiar sound they make and you grope
your way up a massive staircase, the bannisters smooth upon the trembling
hand. Such nights, they are no better than the days, windows are closed
against the sun; they close heavily.
Mother sits in her corner looking very white and sick. This was her
world, her domain. In all these years, I cannot remember the sound of her
voice. Father was different. He moved about. He shouted. He ranted. He lived
in the past and talked of honor as though it were the only thing.
I was born in that house. I grew up there into a pampered brat. I was
mean. One day I broke their hearts. I saw mother cry wordlessly as father
heaped his curses upon me and drove me out of the house, the gate closing
heavily after me. And my brothers and sisters took up my father's hate for
me and multiplied it numberless times in their own broken hearts. I was no
good.
But sometimes, you know, I miss that house, the roosting chickens on
the low-topped walls. I miss my brothers and sisters, Mother sitting in her
chair, looking like a pale ghost in a corner of the room. I would remember the
great live posts, massive tree trunks from the forests. Leafy plants grew on
the sides, buds pointing downwards, wilted and died before they could
become flowers. As they fell on the floor, father bent to pick them and throw
them out into the coral streets. His hands were strong. I have kissed these
hands . . . many times, many times.
Finally we rounded a deep curve and suddenly came upon a shanty, all
but ready to crumble in a heap on the ground, its plastered walls were rotting
away, the floor was hardly a foot from the ground. I thought of the cottages
of the poor colored folk in the south, the hovels of the poor everywhere in
the land. This one stood all by itself as though by common consent all the
folk that used to live here had decided to say away, despising it, ashamed of
it. Even the lovely season could not color it with beauty.
As we stepped inside and the door closed behind us, immediately I was
aware of the familiar scent of apples. The room was bare except for a few
ancient pieces of second-hand furniture. In the middle of the room stood a
stove to keep the family warm in winter. The walls were bare. Over the dining
table hung a lamp yet unlighted.
Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in and out of a rear
room that must have been the kitchen and soon the table was heavy with
food, fried chicken legs and rice, and green peas and corn on the ear. Even
as we ate, Ruth kept standing, and going to the kitchen for more food. Roger
ate like a little gentleman.
"Isn't he nice looking?" his father asked.
"I don't know who she is," Fabia hastened to say. "I picked that picture
many years ago in a room on La Salle street in Chicago. I have often
wondered who she is."
"The face wasn't a blur in the beginning?"
"Ah," I cried, picking out a ripe one. "I've been thinking where all the
scent of apples came from. The room is full of it."
"Every day," he explained, "I take some of them to town to sell to the
groceries. Prices have been low. I've been losing on the trips."
Then he showed me around the farm. It was twilight now and the apple
trees stood bare against a glowing western sky. In apple blossom time it
must be lovely here. But what about wintertime?
One day, according to Fabia, a few years ago, before Roger was born,
he had an attack of acute appendicitis. It was deep winter. The snow lay
heavy everywhere. Ruth was pregnant and none too well herself. At first she
did not know what to do. She bundled him in warm clothing and put him on a
cot near the stove. She shoveled the snow from their front door and
practically carried the suffering man on her shoulders, dragging him through
the newly made path towards the road where they waited for the U.S. Mail
car to pass. Meanwhile snowflakes poured all over them and she kept
rubbing the man's arms and legs as she herself nearly froze to death.
"Go back to the house, Ruth!" her husband cried, "you'll freeze to
death."
But she clung to him wordlessly. Even as she massaged his arms and
legs, her tears rolled down her cheeks. "I won't leave you," she repeated.
Finally the U.S. Mail car arrived. The mailman, who knew them well,
helped them board the car, and, without stopping on his usual route, took
the sick man and his wife direct to the nearest hospital.
Ruth stayed in the hospital with Fabia. She slept in a corridor outside
the patients' ward and in the day time helped in scrubbing the floor and
washing the dishes and cleaning the men's things. They didn't have enough
money and Ruth was willing to work like a slave.
"Ruth's a nice girl," said Fabia, "like our own Filipino women."
Before nightfall, he took me back to the hotel. Ruth and Roger stood at
the door holding hands and smiling at me. From inside the room of the
shanty, a low light flickered. I had a last glimpse of the apple trees in the
orchard under the darkened sky as Fabia backed up the car. And soon we
were on our way back to town. The dog had started barking. We could hear it
for some time, until finally, we could not hear it anymore, and all was
darkness around us, except where the headlamps revealed a stretch of road
leading somewhere.
Fabia did not talk this time. I didn't seem to have anything to say
myself. But when finally we came to the hotel and I got down, Fabia said,
"Well, I guess I won't be seeing you again."
It was dimly lighted in front of the hotel and I could hardly see Fabia's
face. Without getting off the car, he moved to where I had sat, and I saw him
extend his hand. I gripped it.
"Look," I said, not knowing why I said it, "one of these days, very soon,
I hope, I'll be going home. I could go to your town."
"No," he said softly, sounding very much defeated but brave, "Thanks
a lot. But, you see, nobody would remember me now."
Then he started the car, and as it moved away, he waved his hand.
"Goodbye," I said, waving back into the darkness. And suddenly the
night was cold like winter straying early in these northern woodlands.
I hurried inside. There was a train the next morning that left for Muncie,
Indiana, at a quarter after eight.
The Biography of Nick Joaquin
Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín was a Filipino writer, historian and
journalist, best known for his short stories and novels in the English
language. He also wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila. Joaquin was
conferred the rank and title of National Artist of the Philippines for Literature.
At age 17, Joaquín had his first piece published, in the literary section
of the pre-World War II Tribune, where he worked as a proofreader. It was
accepted by the writer and editor Serafín Lanot. After Joaquín won a
nationwide essay competition to honor La Naval de Manila, sponsored by the
Dominican Order, the University of Santo Tomas awarded him an honorary
Associate in Arts (A.A.). They also awarded him a scholarship to St. Albert's
Convent, the Dominican monastery in Hong Kong.
Joaquín died of cardiac arrest in the early morning of April 29, 2004, at
his home in San Juan, Metro Manila. He was then editor of Philippine Graphic
magazine where he worked with Juan P. Dayang, who was the magazine's
first publisher. Joaquin was also publisher of its sister publication, Mirror
Weekly, a women’s magazine. He also wrote the column (“Small Beer”) for
the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Isyu, an opinion tabloid.
The Moretas were spending St. John’s Day with the children’s
grandfather, whose feast it was. Doña Lupeng awoke feeling faint with the
heat, a sound of screaming in her ears. In the dining room the three boys,
already attired in their holiday suits, were at breakfast, and came crowding
around her, talking at once.
“Hush, hush, I implore you! Now look: your father has a headache, and
so have I. So be quiet this instant-or no one goes to Grandfather.”
Though it was only seven by the clock the house was already a
furnace, the windows dilating with the harsh light and the air already burning
with immense, intense fever of noon.
She found the children’s nurse working in the kitchen. “And why is it
you who are preparing breakfast? Where is Amada?” But without waiting for
an answer she went to the backdoor and opened it, and the screaming in her
ears became a wild screaming in the stables across the yard. “Oh, my God!”
she groaned and grasping her skirts, hurried across the yard.
In the stables Entoy, the driver, apparently deaf to the screams, was
hitching the pair of piebald ponies to the coach.
“Not the closed coach, Entoy! The open carriage!” shouted Doña
Lupeng as she came up.
“I know, but better to be dirty than to be boiled alive. And what ails
your wife, eh? Have you been beating her again?”
“Oh no, señora, I have not touched her.”
“I do not think so. But how do I know? You can go and see for yourself,
señora. She is up there.”
When Doña Lupeng entered the room, the big half-naked woman
sprawled across the bamboo bed stopped screaming. Doña Lupeng was
shocked.
“What is this, Amanda? Why are you still in bed at this hour? And in
such posture! Come, get up at once. You should be ashamed!”
But the woman on the bed merely stared. Her sweat-beaded brows
contracted, as if in an effort to understand. Then her face relaxed, her mouth
sagged open humorously and, rolling over on her back and spreading out her
big soft arms and legs, she began noiselessly quaking with laughter-the mute
mirth jerking in her throat; the moist pile of her flesh quivering like brown
jelly. Saliva dribbled from the corners of her mouth.
Doña Lupeng blushed, looking around helplessly; and seeing that Entoy
had followed and was leaning in the doorway, watching stolidly, she blushed
again. The room recked hotly of intimate odors. She averted her eyes from
the laughing woan on the bed, in whose nakedness she seemed to
participate that she was ashamed to look directly at the man in the doorway.
“But I forbade her to go! And I forbade you to let her go!”
“I could do nothing.”
“But man—“
“But, man—“
“It is true señora. The spirit is in her. She is the Tadtarin. She must do
as she pleases. Otherwise, the grain would not grow, the trees would bear no
fruit, the rivers would give no fish, and animals would die.”
“At such times she is not my wife: She is the wife of the river, she is the
wife of the crocodile, and she is the wife of the moon.”
==============================================
================================
“But how can they still believe such things?” demanded Doña Lupeng
of her husband as they drove in the open carriage through the pastoral
countryside that was the arrabal of Paco in the 1850’s.
Don Paeng, drowsily stroking his mustaches, his eyes closed against
the hot light, merely shrugged.
“And you should have seen Entoy,” continued his wife. “You know how
the brute treats her: she cannot say a word but he trashes her. But this
morning he stood as meek as lamb while she screamed and screamed. He
seemed actually in awe of her; do you know─actually afraid of her!”
“Oh, look, boys— here comes the St.John!” cried Doña Lupeng, and she
sprang up in the swaying carriage, propping one hand on her husband’s
shoulder while with the other she held up her silk parasol.
And “Here comes the men with their St. John!” cried voices up and
down the countryside. People in wet clothes dripping with well-water, ditch-
water and river-water came running across the hot woods and fields and
meadows, brandishing cans of water, wetting each other uproariously, and
shouting “San Juan! San Juan!” as they ran to meet the procession.
But Doña Lupeng, standing in the stopped carriage, looking very young
and elegant her white frock, under the twirling parasol, stared down on the
passing male horde with increasing annoyance. The insolent man-smell of
their bodies rose all about her─wave upon wave of it─enveloping her,
assaulting her senses, till she felt faint with it and pressed a handkerchief to
her nose. And as she glanced at her husband and saw with what a smug
smile he was watching the revellers, her annoyance deepened. When he
bade her sit down because all eyes were turned on her, she pretended not to
hear; stood up even straighter, as if to defy those rude creatures flaunting
their manhood in the sun.
And she wondered peevishly what the braggarts were being so cocky
about? For this arrogance, this pride, this bluff male health of theirs was (she
told herself) founded on the impregnable virtue of generations of good
women. The boobies were so sure of themselves because they had always
been sure of their wives. “All the sisters being virtuous, all the brothers are
brave,” thought Doña Lupeng, with a bitterness that rather surprised her.
Women had built it up: this poise of the male. Ah, and women could destroy
it, too! She recalled, vindictively, this morning’s scene at the stables: Amada
naked and screaming in bed while from the doorway her lord and master
looked on in meek silence. And was it not the mystery of a woman in her
flowers that had restored the tongue of that old Hebrew prophet?
“Look, Lupeng, they have all passed now,” Don Paeng was saying.”Do
you mean to stand all the way?”
She looked around in surprise and hastily sat down. The children
tittered, and the carriage started.
“Has the heat gone to your head, woman?” asked Don Paeng, smiling.
The children burst frankly into laughter.
Their mother coloured and hung her head. She was beginning to feel
ashamed of the thoughts that had filled her mind. They seemed improper—
almost obscene— and the discovery of such depths of wickedness in her
appalled her. She moved closer to her husband, to share the parasol with
him.
“A European education does not seem to have spoiled his taste for
country pleasures.”
“The poor boy. He will feel hurt. But truly, Paeng, I did not see him.”
==============================================
================================
This was the time when our young men were all going to Europe and
bringing back with them, not the Age of Victoria, but the Age of Byron. The
young Guido knew nothing of Darwin and evolution; he knew everything
about Napoleon and the Revolution. When Doña Lupeng expressed surprise
at his presence that morning in the St. John’s crowd, he laughed in her face.
“But I adore these old fiestas of ours! They are so romantic! Last night,
do you know, we walked all the way through the woods, I and some boys to
see the procession of the Tadtarin.”
It was weird. It made my flesh crawl. All those women in such a mystic
frenzy! And she who was the Tadtarin last night— she was a figure right out
of a flamenco!”
“She is beautiful.”
They were out in the buzzing orchard, among the ripe mangoes; Doña
Lupeng seated on the grass, her legs tucked beneath her, and the young
man sprawled flat on his belly, gazing up at her, his face moist with sweat.
The children were chasing dragonflies. The sun stood still in the west. The
long day refused to end. From the house came the sudden roaring laughter
of the men playing cards.
“Beautiful! Romantic! Adorable! Are those the only words you learned
in Europe?” cried Doña Lupeng, feeling very annoyed with this young man
whose eyes adored her one moment and mocked her at the next.
“Ah, I also learned to open my eyes over there— to see the holiness
and the mystery of what is vulgar.”
“And what is so holy and mysterious about— about the Tadtarin, for
instance?”
“I do not know. I can only feel it. And it frightens me. Those rituals
come to us from the earliest dawn of the world. And the dominant figure is
not the male but the female.”
“What has your St. John to do with them? Those women worship a
more ancient lord. Why, do you know that no man may join in those rites
unless he first puts on some article of women’s apparel and—“
“How sharp you are! Oh, I made such love to a toothless old hag there
that she pulled off her stocking for me. And I pulled it on, over my arm, like a
glove. How your husband would have despised me!”
“I think it is to remind us men that once upon a time you women were
supreme and we men were the slaves.”
“Oh, no. The queen came before the king, and the priestess before the
priest, and the moon before the sun.”
“The moon?”
“Why?”
“Because the tides of women, like the tides of the sea, are tides of the
moon. Because the first blood— But what is the matter, Lupe? Oh, have I
offended you?”
“I, afraid? And of whom? My dear boy, you still have your mother’s milk
in your mouth. I only wish you to remember that I am a married woman.”
“I remember that you are a woman, yes. A beautiful woman. And why
not? Did you turn into some dreadful monster when you married? Did you
stop being a woman? Did you stop, being beautiful? Then why should my
eyes not tell you what you are— just because you are married?”
“Ah, this is too much now!” cried Doña Lupeng, and she rose to her
feet.
“No more of your comedy, Guido! And besides— where have those
children gone to! I must go after them.”
As she lifed her skirts to walk away, the young man, propping up his
elbows, dragged himself forward on the ground and solemnly kissed the tips
of her shoes. She stared down in sudden horror, transfixed— and he felt her
violent shudder. She backed away slowly, still staring; then turned and fled
toward the house.
On the way home that evening Don Paeng noticed that his wife was in
a mood. They were alone in the carriage: the children were staying overnight
at their grandfather’s. The heat had not subsided. It was heat without
gradations: that knew no twilights and no dawns; that was still there, after
the sun had set; that would be there already, before the sun had risen.
She glanced at him coldly. “And was that all you felt, Paeng?
Embarrassed— as a man?”
He frowned and made a gesture of distaste. “Do you see? They have
the instincts, the style of the canalla! To kiss a woman’s feet, to follow her
like a dog, to adore her like a slave— “
But when they reached home she did not lie down but wandered
listlessly through the empty house. When Don Paeng, having bathed and
changed, came down from the bedroom, he found her in the dark parlour
seated at the harp and plucking out a tune, still in her white frock and shoes.
“How can you bear those hot clothes, Lupeng? And why the darkness?
Order someone to bring a light in here.”
She had risen and gone to the window. He approached and stood
behind her, grasped her elbows and, stooping, kissed the nape of her neck.
But she stood still, not responding, and he released her sulkily. She turned
around to face him.
“Listen, Paeng. I want to see it, too. The Tadtarin, I mean. I have not
seen it since I was a little girl. And tonight is the last night.”
“You must be crazy! Only low people go there. And I thought you had a
headache?” He was still sulking.
“But I want to go! My head aches worse in the house. For a favour,
Paeng.”
“I told you: No! Go and take those clothes off. But, woman, whatever
has got into you!” He strode off to the table, opened the box of cigars, took
one, banged the lid shut, bit off an end of the cigar, and glared about for a
light.
She was still standing by the window and her chin was up.
“Very well, if you do not want to come, do not come— but I am going.”
“I will go with Amada. Entoy can take us. You cannot forbid me, Paeng.
There is nothing wrong with it. I am not a child.”
But standing very straight in her white frock, her eyes shining in the
dark and her chin thrust up, she looked so young, so fragile, that his heart
was touched. He sighed, smiled ruefully, and shrugged his shoulders. “Yes,
the heat has touched you in the head, Lupeng. And since you are so set on it
— very well, let us go. Come, have the coach ordered!”
The cult of the Tadtarin is celebrated on three days: th feast of St. John
and the two preceding days. On the first night, a young girl heads the
procession; on the second, a mature woman; and on the third, a very old
woman who dies and comes to life again. In these processions, as in those of
Pakil and Obando, everyone dances.
Around the tiny plaza in front of the barrio chapel, quite a stream of
carriages was flowing leisurely. The Moretas were constantly being hailed
from the other vehicles. The plaza itself and the sidewalk were filled with
chattering, strolling, profusely sweating people. More people were crowded
on the balconies and windows of the houses. The moon had not yet risen; the
black night smoldered; in the windless sky the lightning’s abruptly branching
fire seemed the nerves of the tortures air made visible.
And “Here come the women with their St. John!” cried the people on
the sidewalks, surging forth on the street. The carriages halted and their
occupants descended. The plaza rang with the shouts of people and the
neighing of horses— and with another keener sound: a sound as sea-waves
steadily rolling nearer.
The crowd parted, and up the street came the prancing, screaming,
writhing women, their eyes wild, black shawls flying around their shoulders,
and their long hair streaming and covered with leaves and flowers. But the
Tadtarin, a small old woman with white hair, walked with calm dignity in the
midst of the female tumult, a wand in one hand, a bunch of seedlings in the
other. Behind her, a group of girls bore aloft a little black image of the Baptist
— a crude, primitive, grotesque image, its big-eyed head too big for its puny
naked torso, bobbing and swaying above the hysterical female horde and
looking at once so comical and so pathetic that Don Paeng watching his wife
n the sidewalk, was outraged. The image seemed to be crying for help, to be
struggling to escape— a St. John indeed in the hands of the Herodiads; a
doomed captive these witches were subjecting first to their derision; a gross
and brutal caricature of his sex.
Don Paeng flashed hotly: he felt that all those women had personally
insulted him. He turned to his wife, to take her away— but she was watching
greedily, taut and breathless, her head thrust forward and her eyes bulging,
the teeth bared in the slack mouth, and the sweat gleaming on her face. Don
Paeng was horrified. He grasped her arm— but then just a flash of lightning
blazed and the screaming women fell silent: the Tadtarin was about to die.
The old woman closed her eyes and bowed her head and sank slowly
to her knees. A pallet was brought and set on the ground and she was laid in
it and her face covered with a shroud. Her hands still clutched the wand and
the seedlings. The women drew away, leaving her in a cleared space. They
covered their heads with their black shawls and began wailing softly,
unhumanly— a hushed, animal keening.
Overhead the sky was brightening; silver light defined the rooftops.
When the moon rose and flooded with hot brilliance the moveless crowded
square, the black-shawled women stopped wailing and a girl approached
and unshrouded the Tadtarin, who opened her eyes and sat up, her face
lifted to the to the moonlight. She rose to her feet and extended the wand
and the seedlings and the women joined in a mighty shout. They pulled off
and waved their shawls and whirled and began dancing again—laughing and
dancing with such joyous exciting abandon that the people in the square and
on the sidewalks, and even those on the balconies, were soon laughing and
dancing, too. Girls broke away from their parents and wives from their
husbands to join in the orgy.
“Come, let us go now,” said Don Paeng to his wife. She was shaking
with fascination; tears trembled on her lashes; but she nodded meekly and
allowed herself to be led away. But suddenly she pulled free from his grasp,
darted off, ad ran into the crowd of dancing women.
She flung her hands to her hair and whirled and her hair came undone.
Then, planting her arms akimbo, she began to trip a nimble measure, an
instinctive folk-movement. She tossed her head back and her arched throat
bloomed whitely. Her eyes brimmed with moonlight, and her mouth with
laughter.
Don Paeng ran after her, shouting her name, but she laughed and
shook her head and darted deeper and into the dense maze of the
procession, which was moving again, towards the chapel. He followed her,
shouting; she eluded him, laughing— and through the thick of the female
horde they lost and found and lost each other again— she, dancing and he
pursuing— till, carried along by the tide, they were both swallowed up into
the hot, packed, turbalent darkness of the chapel. Inside poured the entire
procession, and Don Paeng, finding himself trapped tight among milling
female bodies, struggled with sudden panic to fight his way out. Angry voices
roses all about him in the stifling darkness.
“Ahah, it is a man!”
“Throw him out! Throw him out!” shrieked the voices, and Don Paeng
found himself surrounded by a swarm of gleaming eyes.
Terror possessed him and he struck out savagely with both fists, with
all his strength— but they closed in as savagely: solid walls of flesh that
crushed upon him and pinned his arms helpless, while unseen hands struck
and struck his face, and ravaged his hair and clothes, and clawed at his
flesh, as— kicked and buffeted, his eyes blind and his torn mouth salty with
blood— he was pushed down, down to his knees, and half-shoved, half-
dragged to the doorway and rolled out to the street. He picked himself up at
once and walked away with a dignity that forbade the crowd gathered
outside to laugh or to pity. Entoy came running to meet him.
“Just over there, sir. But you are wounded in the face!”
“No, these are only scratches. Go and get the señora. We are going
home.”
When she entered the coach and saw his bruised face and torn
clothing, she smiled coolly.
“What a sight you are, man! What have you done with yourself?” And
when he did not answer, “Why, have they pulled out his tongue too?” she
wondered aloud.
And when they were home and stood facing each other in the
bedroom, she was as still as light-hearted.
“What are you going to do, Rafael?”
“But why?”
“How I behaved tonight is what I am. If you call that lewd, then I was
always a lewd woman and whipping will not changed me — though you
whipped me till I died.”
His shoulders sagged and his face dulled. “If you can think that of me
—“
“Oh, how do I know what to think of you? I was sure I knew you as I
knew myself. But now you are as distant and strange to me as a female Turk
in Africa!”
“Then why not say it? It is true. And you want to say it, you want to say
it!”
“Because, either you must say it— or you must whip me,” she taunted.
Her eyes were upon him and the shameful fear that had unmanned
him in the dark chapel possessed him again. His legs had turned to water; it
was a monstrous agony to remain standing.
But she was waiting for him speak, forcing him to speak.
“No, I cannot whip you!” he confessed miserably.
“Then say it! Say it!” she cried, pounding her clenched her fists
together. “Why suffer and suffer? And in the end you would only submit.”
But he still struggled stubbornly, “Is it not enough that you have me
helpless? Is it not enough that I feel what you want me to feel?”
But she shook her head furiously. “Until you have said it to me, there
can be no peace between us.”
And he, in his dead voice: “That I adore you. That I adore you. That I
worship you. That the air you breath and the ground you tread is holy to me.
That I am your dog. Your slave…”
But it was still not enough. Her fists were still clenched, and she cried:
“Then come, crawl on the floor, and kiss my feet!”
She raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out a naked foot. He
lifted his dripping face and touched his bruised lips to her toes; lifted his
hands and grasped the white foot and kissed it savagely— kissed the step,
the sole, the frail ankle— while she bit her lips and clutched in pain at the
windowsill, her body distended and wracked by horrible shivers, her head
flung back and her loose hair streaming out the window— streaming fluid
and black in the white night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and the
dry air flamed into lightning and the pure heat burned with the immense
intense fever of noon.
New Yorker in Tondo by Marcelino Agana Jr.
Scene 1:
Mrs. M: Visitors, always visitors, nothing but visitors all day long. I'm
beginning to feel like a society matron.
Tony: Oh, no, no.. You look just wonderful. Aling Atang for a moment, I
thought you were Kikay.
Mrs. M: Oh, you are so palikero as ever, Tony. But come in. Here, sit down.
How is your mother?
Tony: Poor mother. She is homesick for Tondo. She wants to come back here
at once.
Mrs. M: Only 3 months!!! It's too long for a Tondo native to be away from
Tondo. My poor kumara. She must be bored out there.
Tony: Well, you know, we engineers are always on call. But as soon as I finish
the bridge in Bulacan, we'll be going here in Tondo.
Mrs. M: Yes, must bring her back as soon as possible. We miss her when we
play mahjong..
Mrs. M: I understand. Once a Tondo girl always a Tondo girl. I wonder if that's
fit my Kikay because after a year in America, she says she's not homesick at
all..
Tony: When did Kikay arrive Aling Atang?
Mrs. M: That girl only arrived last Monday and look what happened to me!
She dragged me to the parlor. My hair was cut, eyebrows shaved, nails
manicured. And when I'm going to the market, I used lipstick! All my kumara
are laughing. People think I'm a loose woman. Because of my age, but I can't
do anything because it's hard to argue with Kikay. And she insists that I
should look like an Americana ..
Mrs. M: Who?
Mrs. M: She says, in New York , people don't wake up until 12:00 noon.
Mrs. M: Besides, she's busy. Since she came home. Welcome parties here
and there. Visitors all day long. She's spinning like a top.
Tony: Well, will you tell her I called to welcome her. And kindly give her these
flowers.
Tony: I did want to see Kikay. But if she doesn't get up at 12 noon
Tony: Please don't bother Aling Atang. I can come back some other time.
Mrs. M: Wait right here. She'll simply be delighted to see her childhood
friend. The flowers are beautiful, how expensive they must be.
Mrs. M: Kikay says that it's more civilized to call me Mrs. Mendoza.
Tony: Huh!!
Tony: Francisca?
Mrs. M: Because in New York , she says that's the way they pronounce he
name, it sounds like "chi-chi" so Italian, be sure to call her Francesca and not
Kikay.
Mrs. M: Now, wait right here while I call Francesca.... AIE DIOSMIO!!!
Totoy: Tony!
Tony: Totoy!
Tony: You ask me that... and you look like a walking goldmine! How many
depots have you been looting, huh!!??
Totoy: Hey hey!! More slowly there.. It is you the police are looking for.
Totoy: Tony. I've been hearing the most frightful things about that girl.
Tony: So have I.
Totoy: Don't make me laugh! Why I knew that girl when she's still selling rice
cakes.. Puto kayo dyan!! Bili na kayo ng puto mga suki!!
Scene 3:
Nena: And Tony, too.. What's all this? A Canto Boy Reunion ?
Mrs. M: No, she's awake already. She's dressing. Good morning Nena and
Totoy.
Mrs. M: Well, Totoy? Nena? Why are you staring me like that?
Nena: How you used to pinch and pinch me Aling Atang, when I was a li'l girl.
Mrs. M: Because you were all naughty, especially you! Always sneaking into
our backyard for mangoes
Nena: Aling Atang, don't you prepare anything for us. We're not visitors
Mrs. M: It's only orange juice. I was preparing some for Kikay.
Tony: Use your head. Nena it's not easy breaking off his engagement with
Kikay
or with the girl for God sake!!
Tony: That was a year ago! Nena, you know how much I love you.
Nena: How could you ask me if you're still engage with Kikay!
Nena: Honest? Making me fall for you when you're in love and engaged with
Kikay!
Tony: I thought I didn't belong to Kikay anymore. It's only a secret
engagement anyway. I proposed to her before she left for America. But when
she stopped answering my letters, I considered myself a freeman again.
Tony: Yes..
Tony: Just give me a chance to explain to Kikay. Then we'll tell them.
Tony: Because you're here and also Totoy. I don't wanna jilt Kikay in front of
everybody.
Tony: No.. just give me a chance to be alone with Kikay for a moment..
Scene 4:
Mrs. M: Here comes Kikay, But she wants to call her Francesca.
Kikay: Oh hello darling people!! Nena my dear...... But how but you've
become.. and Tony, my little pal... how are you? And Totoy... my raishing! You
look goodness,, you look like a Tondo Super Production in Technicolor!! But
sit-downmumsy everybody and let me look at you.. Oh
Kikay: How many times I must tell you, never to serve fruit juices in water
glasses?
Kikay: Oh, poor li'l mumsy.. she is so clumsy noh? But never mind, don't
break your heart about it. Here sit down.
Kikay: Oh, don't forget my celery. I can't live without it. I' like a rabbit, munch
all day.
Mrs. M: Well, if you people will excuse me. Tony, remember me to your
mother.
Kikay: And remember, a little bloom on the lips, a little bloom on the cheeks.
Say mwah, mwah..
Mrs. M: Do I have to paint this old face of mine? Francesca, what am I going
to do with you?
Kikay: But how dreadfully you put it. Oh mumsy, what am I going to do with
you?
Totoy: Oh, the backyards of Tondo, the barong barongs of Mypaho, the streets
of Sibakong..
Scene 5:
Kikay: Apparently, out Totoy still has a most terrific crush on Nena. Do wake
up, Tony. What are you looking so miserable about?
Tony: Forget??
Kikay: That's the New York way, Tony. Forget, nothing must ever too serious;
nothing must drag on too long. Tonight, give all your heart, tomorrow, forget.
And when you meet again, smile, shake hands... just good sports..
Tony: When?
Kikay: When you and I got engaged. I've changed so much since then, Tony.
Kikay: To me, it seems a century. So much had happened to me. More can
happen to you in just one year in New York .
Tony: Listen, I don't want to talk about New York ... I want to talk about our
engagement.
Kikay: Tony, you got engaged to a girl named Kikay. Well, that girl doesn't
exist anymore. She's dead. The person you see before you is Francesca.
Don't you see, Tony, I'm a stranger to you. I hate to hurt you, but surely you
see that there can be no more talk of an engagement between us. Imagine, a
New York Girl, marrying a Tondo Boy!!! It's so insane!!
Kikay: Hush! Tony! Hush! Don't shout, don't lose your temper. It's so
uncivilized. People in New York don't lose their temper.
Tony: What do you want me to do? Smile, say thank you for slapping my
face?
Kikay: Yes, Tony. Be a sport, let's smile and shake hands, and be just friends,
huh?
Tony: If you weren't a woman, I'd I'd...
Scene 6:
Kikay: We were not quarrelling. Tony and I just decided to be good friends
and nothing more
Tony: Yes!
Kikay: Engaged!!
Tony: I did try to tell you Kikay, I was trying to tell you...
Nena: Well, he's not engaged to you anymore, you just said it yourself.
Tony: Now remember, Kikay... it's so uncivilized to lose one's temper, People
in New York don't lose their temper.
Kikay: I've never felt so humiliated in all my life!! You beast, I'll teach you!!
Kikay: And I tell you he's not!! He's engaged to me until I release him... and I
haven't release him yet.
Nena: You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You're just being a dog in the
manger!
Kikay: You keep out of this or I'll knock your head off!
Nena: Are you trying to defend her? You never defended me!
Tony: Hey!
Totoy: Don't you speak to me either! You have insulted the woman I love!
Tony: Congratulations!!!
Kikay: Don't you come near me, you,,, you Canto Boy..
Tony: Don't worry, I wouldn't touch you with my ten foot pole.
Tony: Just one year in New York and you forgot your old friends.
Kikay: Just one year that I'm in New York ... and what did you do? But when
we got engaged, you swore to be true, you promised to wait for me. And I
believe you!! Oh, you're a fickle, fickle..
Tony: What are you crying about? Be brave.....forget..... That's the New York
way.. Nothing must ever be too serious, nothing must ever drag on too long..
Tony: Well, I'm not! I'm glad I found out what kind of a person you are!
Kikay: Oh Tony, you're wrong, you're wrong! I'm not that kind of person at
all..
Kikay: Yes Tony, that was Francesca saying all that. But Francesca exist no
more, Tony, the girl standing before you now, is Kikay.
Tony: If I remember it right, I was right, I was engaged to a girl named Kikay.
Mrs. M: Frances....... Oh, Tony, are you still here? Francesca, don't be angry
but I couldn't find any celery..
Mrs. M: Hate celery? Why? You said, you couldn't live without it!
Tony: That was Francesca. Aling Atang and Francesca is dead. The girl
standing before you is Kikay!
Kikay: That tune! What memories it brings back! I first heard it in New York,
at Eddie Candon's..
Tony: uh-uh..
Kikay: Sorry darling. May I have this dance with you partner?
Lumbera was born in Lipa on April 11, 1932. He was barely a year old
when his father, Christian Lumbera (a Shooting Guard with a local basketball
team), fell from a fruit tree, broke his back, and died. Carmen Lumbera, his
mother, suffered from cancer and died a few years later. By the age of five
he was an orphan. He and his older sister were cared for by their paternal
grandmother, Eusebia Teru.
When the war ended, Lumbera and his grandmother returned to their
home in Lipa. Eusebia, however, soon succumbed to old age and he was
once again orphaned. For his new guardians, he was asked to choose
between his maiden aunts with whom his sister had stayed or Enrique and
Amanda Lumbera, his godparents. The latter had no children of their own
and Bienvenido, who was barely fourteen at the time, says he chose them
mainly because "they could send me to school."
Lumbera received his Litt.B. and M.A. degrees from the University of
Santo Tomas in 1950, and then his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from
Indiana University in 1968.