English Majors '13 Class History

How do we, on gaudy pictures of the past/ write words of the moment? Stuck in their midst, how do paint ourselves?
-Leung Ping-Kwan, Postcards of Old Hong Kong


It is difficult Leung Ping-Kwan, especially if there is a crowd of English majors listening or even only pretending to listen to you. It is difficult, especially if you do not know yourself what you are trying to paint. It is difficult, especially because it defies a single connecting frame, even by means of the language we all love.

If our story would be written at all, it would have to be written as a novel, for the main reason that it wouldn’t fit in a short story. It’s because our stories are different stories in themselves, but are only understandable as part of the whole.

Aileen.  Aira. Alvin. Carmie. Darcy. Earl. Janelle.  Jerry. Jessa Li. Jill. Jovit. Karen. Lyka. Martin. Ricah. Ronmar. Roseanne. Sheina. Shella. Sheryl. Teresa. Valerie. Zyrel. Different names, different stories. Yet, somehow, they mean the same.

In the not too distant past, it hasn’t always been like this. Yes, Miguel Syjuco, I believe that there are things that need to finally be said. I have to say them aloud, in front of you, especially in front of the people I talk about. A thing named is a thing conquered.

I believe our stories haven’t met until last semester. Until then, we were just a bunch of egos. Now, we’re just a bunch.

Yes, we were a bunch of egos, frankly speaking. There are BSED students and then there are BEEDBSED students. On our first class in Intro to Linguistics with Ma’am De la Cruz, we were seated at opposite sides of the room, chromosomes in the anaphase stage of cell division, eager to separate to form another independent cell. Perhaps this was one of the reasons some of us left. We couldn’t hold them together.

In the second semester of our second year, things were looking up a bit. We had to work together for Dora’s World Adventure to be a success. Somehow, we made it, but the rift is still there. Volatile tempers during practice didn’t help to smooth things over completely. Two more people left the group.

Third year was a coming of age year. It was the most difficult year so far, and because it was difficult, we had to seek help from forces outside of ourselves. We had to go to the others. And this meant seeking help from the people we once mocked precisely because of their diligence. Our batch of BEEDBSED people liked to be lazy until the last possible moment, to be spontaneous when the moment comes. We believed in the moment of creation, devoid of the artifice of habit and practice. We did things in the spur of the moment. Of course there were regrets gnawing at the back of our minds, regrets of not having done as we would have done it had we prepared, but we were always satisfied that we were still able to deliver, even in the nick of time.

But creating a lesson plan isn’t all about the moment of creation. Delivering the lesson is not all about being spontaneous. A good part of it is about being sufficiently prepared so that you can be efficiently spontaneous when the time comes. A good part of it is discipline.

That’s what the BEEDBSED people lacked. And we learned discipline not so much through our teachers who always pushed us to do more, to do better, but through our own BSED classmates, silent and plodding as the ants saving for the rainy weather.

Suddenly, we found ourselves clutching one another’s hand for support. We found ourselves huddled together, with stacks of lesson plan drafts in the table. We found ourselves studying together for major examinations that were so bloody they always left us in need of blood transfusion. Suddenly, we were one team working for one goal: to stay together, to stay alive.

It wasn’t more manifested than last semester, when we worked again for the Wicked, together this time, in the real sense of the word. Somehow, you begin to enjoy the company of one who has been with you through the times your IQ was falling, your nose was bleeding, and your pocket slowly being emptied of its meagre amount of funds. You enjoy the company of one who, all things considered, are on your side of the coin, struggling against expectations. But mostly, you enjoy the company of a friend who, as different as your stories are, is much more valuable because of that. Because we were different, we had so much to share.

But perhaps at some point, we enjoyed one another’s company so much there was nothing else we liked to do except talk and talk, and listen sometimes. Attitudes were part of what we shared, and this attitude we called laziness. The lazy bone spread through us, and our enthusiasm for learning waned a bit.

But now we’re back on track. We’ve achieved the balance of keeping friendships, and maintaining grades. Because we know we’re near the finish line, and potholes abound the nearer we get to it. But with teachers who remind us at opportune moments, and friends to help us along the way, we can get to it, together.

To our teachers, we do not mention you not so much because you haven’t figured that much in our lives but because the mere fact that we are still in the program, and are here with you today should speak for itself. We’d like to believe we are a testament to your capacities as merciful human beings, helping us fledglings to take flight.

To the other majors, this is the story of the your (dare I say it?) ates and kuyas. This is our story. But this may be yours too. This is a story of passive-aggressive persons who like to seethe silently than speak. A story of unfought battles of temper, a story of probably the most colourful batch of English majors, a story of egos overcoming themselves. This is a story of humans being humans, faulty, yet never beyond improvement and repair.

This is the story of Aileen.  Aira. Alvin. Carmie. Darcy. Earl. Janelle.  Jerry. Jessa Li. Jill. Jovit. Karen. Lyka. Martin. Ricah. Ronmar. Roseanne. Sheina. Shella. Sheryl. Teresa. Valerie. Zyrel. Different names, different stories. Yet, somehow, they mean the same.

*delivered during the Acquaintance Party, August 1, 2012

Weathering the Water

Weathering the Water

           

            I haven’t been able to go home lately. It is now two months since I last saw my hometown, two whole months of weekends spent lazing around the boarding house rather than gossiping with my cousins at the kitchen table. Then it was because it’s tiring to travel home for four hours on a Saturday and then come back to the city on a lazy Sunday. Now, it’s because of habagat, and the rains it brings.

            Habagat is a word always at the tip of the tongue to us who live near the sea. More than anyone, we live our lives around the weather, always subject to the fickleness of the sea. This may also be the reason we are still people of the sea, because the sea often hinders other people from coming to us, hence minimal tourism, minimal progress. But progress makes for another story.

            I’ve always liked water, especially in the form of rain and the occasional torrent. It is true that rain prevented people to go outdoors and fulfill their work. But we have always found ways to push outdoor activities indoors. And instead of the sweaty shirts, we had countless trips to the comfort room.

            Rainy days usually meant no classes for us. Mahulos it blackboard (the blackboard is wet, we would jokingly say). In most cases, the blackboard or the chalkboard is really wet, thereby preventing the teacher from delivering her lesson well. The next logical thing to do would be to get wet in the rain and play until Mother beckons us to come home.

            Ironically though, my sisters and I would always wake up early in stormy weather. Our body clocks seemed to be especially tuned to the five o-clock weather forecast that would decide our fates for the day. And when Ka Ernie declared Signal No. 2, our play-oriented selves would rejoice with the selfishly happy thought of classes being suspended for the day. We would then climb back to bed not to sleep, but to exchange Johnny Johnny stories, each one more improbable than the previous. Later, we would rejoice some more because Mother allowed us not to take a bath. The weather was so cold it was okay not to. To us kids, this was heaven.

            Later, when our childish energies have quieted down, we’d settle in our comfortable banig, protected by our pillows and blankets from the gusty wind outside. We didn’t have windows before; what we had were only slats of dos por uno wood made to look like bars in a prison cell, except it didn’t feel like prison at all. At night, we covered these ‘windows’ with luna, and when the wind blew a little, the wooden stoppers would bounce lightly against one of the wooden slats, creating a rhythm of their own. When the wind blew as it did on a stormy night, the luna would billow accordingly, like Marilyn Monroe’s skirt being blown gracefully by the wind. In the best of times, this was like being lulled to sleep in a hammock, the rhythmic tap-tapping of the wooden stoppers on the wooden slats serving as the ends of the pendulum, the billowing luna representing the arc in between. Combined with a persistent rain however, it was enough to make us hush and listen to the wind whistling stronger than usual. And with the slapping of the waves on the rocks in our sea wall as the background, this, to us, was the sound of fear.

            And we have enough reason to, as anybody who lives near the sea knows. The sundering sea was only literally seven steps from our house, and should it choose to rise higher than usual, especially during the storm, we knew what would happen. One stormy night when I was only eight or nine years old, the typhoon was so strong we were forced to evacuate to my aunt’s house a few steps away from our own, but far enough from the sea spray. We spent the night in utter darkness because the wind was so strong candlelight wasn’t possible. Surrounded by cold cement walls and even colder cement floors, we slept, hoping the wind would ease even a little the next day. Overnight, the wind and rain combined to make our town look like the sunken city of Atlantis rising from the depths of the sea floor; when the sun came up the next morning, life would return to normal, after picking up the fallen coconuts in the yard.

            Habagat usually comes when it’s the fiesta month of July in our town. During this month, the sea would look so pale it was almost white, and as my mother would say, ‘nababalikad it mga balud’. It was our way of life, that’s why we’ve gotten used to it. The mention of typhoon is not so fearsome anymore. And besides, we never ran out of things to do.

            That was just for a night however, because typhoons are usually fast-moving weather beasts that would move on to the next town overnight. But the unnamed storm that rampaged Manila, causing a death toll of 60 as of August 10 was not an overnight thing. I can only imagine my former school mates in high school running out of their ingenuity for the several days and nights they were stranded in their apartments. Floods are no unusual occurrences in Manila, but still, it isn’t a thing to get used to, it’s nothing to think about especially if it isn’t there. Sure, the Manileños have prepared for a rainy day that would flood the streets, but the half-submerged capital a few days later was far from their minds.

But even in this disaster, the worst flood since 2009 according to experts, even city people like the Manileños learn how to live like people in the sea. And Filipino ingenuity rises to the occasion.

We are a nation that has been censured precisely because of our flair in imitation, very good impersonators and imitators that we are. But I say, in the worst of times, when we are finally stripped of our telephone, television, and internet lines, when we have nowhere to turn to but ourselves for originality, that’s when the Filipino inventiveness shows. Filipinos found a way to turn the much-debated RH Bill into something useful. Condoms were used to keep their gadgets dry. Household items like were used to ferry people in the flooded villages. One team of the Philippine Coast Guard used Styrofoam, slippers, nets and bamboo sticks to carry a 19-year-old Malabon resident who was injured. In this water world, anything that floats -- pails, plastic tubs, even banana trunks – became something to hold on to to survive. Smuggled goods are also being endorsed as donations to the flood victims. And amidst the growing number of videos and photos showing the extent of the disaster, UST photographer Paul Quiambao found beauty and strength in chaos.

Even in a submerged world, 2.44 million affected residents and all other people who have lived through a stormy night, there will always be a reason to smile, be it because of our congenital habit to smile whenever a camera happens to be around. But more than the presence of cameras, I believe we still smile because standing in your own two feet in a submerged world is reason enough. And looking for something to do, exchanging absurd stories, or smiling is never more appropriate than during these times; it keeps our teeth from chattering with fear.

            Ernest Hemingway writes, “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” This is exactly why we smile; not because we are callous enough not to have known fear, but because we have been there, but we weren’t discouraged. And because we know the places where we are broken, we reinforce them the next time.

            The inevitability of water has caused some of the most dangerous natural disasters like the hurricanes, tsunamis, and tidal waves. When a deluge comes, possessions are destroyed and lives are ruined, leaving us to our own wits. But it is in this time when we are when we are stripped of our adornments, we bare our own selves, bare but still alive.

Serial Self #1

Serial Self #1

            There’s this poem by Denise Levertov: There’s in my mind a woman/ of innocence, unadorned but// Fair-featured, and smelling of/ apples or grass. She wears// a utopian smock or shift, her hair/ is light brown and smooth, and she// is kind and very clean without/ ostentation—/ But she has/ no imagination./ And there’s a/ turbulent moon-ridden girl// or old woman, or both,/ dressed in opals and rags, feathers// and torn taffeta,/ who knows strange songs –// but she is not kind.//

            The woman that I have in mind is one modeled on a certain song. This woman has a face that is a map of the world. She fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white. She walks in a silver pool of light. She makes you calm. She holds you captivated in her palm. But she likes to leave you hanging on her word.

            This woman’s day begins at ten in the morning, when she comes out of the salon. She wears silk as smoothly as if it was her own skin. In fact, she doesn’t wear silk; she is silk herself, on heels. This woman then goes to a party of the organization where she is a member. She knows that she is a full hour and thirty minutes late, but this word doesn’t exist in her vocabulary unless it is preceded by an adverb. To her, she is late, but fashionably so, and this is the most normal thing in the world if you’re going to a party.

            She believes in graceful entrances and exits. There is something graceful and spontaneous in the way she innocently stands for a moment at the door, looking at the roomful of people, as though she’s naively horrified that the show has started without her. However, this is completely belied by her studied walk which doesn’t remind of you of silk at all.

            This woman strides over to her table in maximum confidence and capability. Silk is her subtle armor, a smoothness to win over people. And she does win over people. Although her walk is studiedly innocent, possibly even subtly predatory, there is nothing calculated in her talk. She laughs with others sincerely, and even exerts effort to bring the outsiders in to her circle of conversation. She is in her element in this; she exchanges wit and humor like she’s done it all her life.

            But there is heart in her too. When she takes the podium to talk about the people in front of her, she drops her predatory subtleness. In this trembling second, she is fragile. Open to sniper shots that will probably come from everywhere in her audience, she takes the risk. The perfect picture of herself is the confident woman in silk and heels, poised at the podium, pausing for a tender moment before speaking, pausing for a moment to calm her fears that are throbbing.

            When she takes her seat with a shy smile, what matters more to her is not the applause of the others but the sincere hug of the friends she talked about. In another tender moment, she will almost reveal herself by crying. But the moment passes. The clear smoke in her eyes remains.

            The rest of the party will happen inside the frames of a digital camera, her eyes uniformly staring, as if defiant, at the transparent lens. In a different time, this look would be offensively piercing, provocative of anger; as it is now, this is her stare, piercing, but ultimately makes her herself. In a different time, this stare would have intimidated others; as it is now, this lures boys who think they’re men.

According to the song, this woman that I have in mind has got the power to be, the power to give, the power to see. That’s why the singer suddenly sees that this woman is what she wants to be. She doesn’t have these things however. I do.

At the end of the day, when this woman that I have in mind comes home to a rented room she shares with three other college girls, when she washes the oil off her face, this woman becomes me. This woman that I have in mind is only me in a different package, which makes everything that is me acceptable.

            The difference is that I created her. I gave her her subtlety, her silky smoothness, but her soul is my own. And at the end of a day of getting acquainted with others, she will be reduced to silk.

            And I, I will get a rest from minding this woman, and will go back to myself. Me with what they say is my intimidating stare. The me that has the power to be create my own serial selves, to give of myself, to see what is worth seeing.

            This is the me I want to be.

           

           

           

A Toast, to the Friendships that See Us Through

A Toast, to the Friendships that See Us Through

            I was browsing Facebook looking for something interesting when I happened to view this two-year-old birthday message to my friend.

            Here it goes:

            I always long for a friend. I am always searching for my best friend, that I can talk with till dawn, that I can share my plans and ambitions in life with…but I haven't found her yet. Or maybe I have. I just didn't think that she was it.

            I was already in my junior year in high school when I really got to know her. Back then, I thought she was just another snobbish, brainy, rich girl from the city, who wouldn't want anything to do with me if given the chance. She did seem haughty and high and mighty and I also thought she had a right to be so, being the best of their batch. But to my surprise, we instantly clicked.

            I got teamed up with three senior students from our school for an upcoming interschool contest on general information, and she was included in the team. I must have felt awful then, when I knew that I was the only junior student there. But they didn't let me feel that way for long. The afternoon that we were told to gather newspapers for the past month and read them, they reached out to me, and I felt better. Even at that time, she was already special.
Walking with my teammates to our coach's house with our arms loaded with newspapers, she talked to me, and it was no ordinary conversation. I really thought she was very assertive, asking me right then and there about my almost non-existent love life. What a way to start a friendship!
            To my amazement, I replied, and I didn't even think that she was invading my personal space, in just a matter of minutes. I found myself telling her even more than she asked for, the things she would have asked further, but was hesitant to do so. And I felt comfortable. I guess real friendship starts there, when you must have blurted out everything you never wanted anyone to know, and yet you still feel comfortable.

            And so, several months later, we were good friends. We had already shared a few snacks, about 2 championships, and countless hours on the phone, and by then, there was little that we didn't know of each other's lives. I felt less lonely. Suddenly, there was this girl (who was also small like me) who understood what I felt, who took pains to make me feel better, and most important of all, who was with me when I needed her. She was like the big sister I never had, and we would exchange messages on the phone late into the night, we would talk about anything we wanted to talk about; we would get in touch however busy our schedules might be. I was growing up, and I had the perfect guide to see me through.

            I was in third year then, the busiest year so far, and the year I went from being a child to a teenager. I had so many distractions, I had my Geometry, Statistics, Chemistry and Trigonometry all in one year, my now-starting-to-rage hormones I had to restrain; I had also joined the Cadet Officers Training Corps where she was the adjutant. And above all that, I had a friendship to keep. I could keep up with my Math, I could repress whatever hormones I had to, but the idea of being an applicant to cadet posts one of them she incidentally held and being friends at the same time, was something I couldn't cope with. I wasn't able to adjust very well, and our friendship somewhat declined. There was even a point when I had almost given up, and that was no fault of hers. Maybe, I thought, this was one of the friendships that, like summer romances, are gone in a flash, and are only meant to be remembered for what they once meant. Then the training ended, and our friendship went on, although it was a teeny bit different this time.

            I was already in my final year in high school, and she was starting in college. Along with the pressure of academic studies was the conscious effort to keep in touch, and it was no small feat. Being school mates and friends with different schedules was hard, but being friends in spite of the hundreds, or maybe thousands of nautical miles separating you was harder, especially that she was now in college, and I'm still in high school. We were both adjusting, and it was difficult. There was almost no one I could share my life with, turn to for comfort, except a small notebook I call a diary who couldn't even talk to me. My big sister was now a grownup; she was now moving on to greater heights, exploring unchartered territories -- and the little sister is somewhat left behind. We were both busy with our lives and we had to move on. We had to grow up for we couldn't do otherwise. 

            But the rare moments we could chat and keep up were really precious ones. When I was growing up and slowly making the transition from childhood to adolescence, she was like the lodestar, the guiding principle and philosophy of my life, and the model I wished I would be like when I grow up too. She was like the big sister who was also your best friend when you were growing up, the way she would tell you that you put a little bit too much powder on your face, the way she would giggle and share your butterflies in the stomach whenever your crush gets near, and the hours you spent late into the night talking and laughing and giggling for no reason at all.

            And among the many distractions of growing up, I realized true friendship is the greatest gift of all. In a period where you have all the time in the world and things seem to be clamoring for your attention all at once, real friendship is like an avenue of hope, a stronghold of faith, a bastion of your ideals to uplift you when you’re let down. In a world where fake friends parade around you and real ones go unrecognized, genuine friendship brings real comfort and assurance. While your erstwhile crush may not appear to notice you, they do, and the world will still keep on turning. Because they're the first persons you turn to, when it seems like everything goes wrong. Friends are the ones you remember when you wake up in the middle of the night and you need someone to talk to, someone to let you know that even though you are sitting on your bed and missing a few important persons several miles away from you, you are not alone -- and you will be just fine. And even if they get annoying and disturbingly honest at times, you know you can trust them to be frank with you, to tell you the things you ought to know.

            They can't fix your life, they can't solve all your problems, they can't stop every tear from falling, but when they're there, you feel normal, you feel okay. You laugh, you cry, you experience being overjoyed and super upset as well -- things that make life so exciting, and thrilling, and worth living. With them, you're just you, and that's all right.
I'm sixteen now, three years and several ideas and experiences ahead of the thirteen year old that I was when our friendship started, and in some ways I have grown up. Our friendship is now reduced to just a snack shared every semester, if we can, and a few messages on the phone every now and then, but it doesn't matter. In any case, friends don't have to prove anything to anybody, much less to each other. We will still be friends, despite the distance, no matter what happens. And after all…

            I always believe in the magic of friendship.

            Funny how, two years later, the last statement still rings true. So let’s toast, my friend, to the friendships that see us through!

Six Buddies and A Loner

Six Buddies and A Loner

A good friend asked me what I felt about having to say goodbye again, and again, and again, and yet again. The Koreans who came to visit us for the 12^th Globalization Training Program were about to leave for home, and he was asking what I felt about their leaving. Not surprisingly, I told him I have gotten used to it. Six buddies provide you much time for practice.

If I try to explain why I said that so unfeelingly, if I try to tell what my buddies meant to me, he would probably cringe at so cold a revelation. Probably I had seen too many of these Koreans up close and realized how perfect they were, and indirectly, how imperfect I am. Probably I was on an overdose of too many things Korean that I was so bitter I wasn’t one of them.

This wasn’t the issue really, although that guess might have something in it. To me, the Koreans are unlike what they are shown to be in television. They are not always sassy, they are not always cute, and they are not always so friendly. Just like we Filipinos aren’t so generous and hospitable at all times.

One batch of Koreans I knew were all so stingy that on outings and downtown jaunts, the buddies would go on KKB (kanya-kanyang bayad). Some Koreans, especially the women, have surprisingly strong grips that come in handy when they want to pull a prank on you, e.g., by throwing you out to the sea. There are Korean women who smoke like they do nothing else besides. There are Koreans who are frustrated by their linguistic inability so that they dare not talk when they’re around you, yet chat all the time with the other Koreans.

There are, of course, Koreans and Koreans. Some weren’t so nice, but some were. All of my Korean buddies were nice to me.

There was Michelle and Rachel. Michelle was the more talkative one of the two, since she knew more English than Rachel did. In our conversations, Michelle would often act as the translator between us and Rachel, because Rachel couldn’t talk English passably well. At the end of two weeks, I had a stash of Korean beauty products, a 1000 won bill, and our picture taken in Polaroid. Rachel, who was the least close to me, cried when we were at the airport for sendoff.

There was Jane, the one I was closest to, and the buddy I had the most complex relationship with. We spent more time together than all the time I spent with my other buddies combined. In every interaction session at night, we would always go to a different place just to talk, while the other buddies went out in groups. We spent so much time in coffee shops talking about ourselves. She was what I would really call ‘unnie’ or ‘sister’ in Korean. I had a Korean fan for keepsake, and lots of pictures together. She cried when they were about to leave.

Next come Rosa and Sophia. Sophia was the more linguistically adept of the two but Rosa also took the time to talk to me. I wasn’t available for much talking though because I was also busy with preparations for our JS Prom. They said not to worry because they knew I was busy. After two weeks, I had two free CDs of Super Junior. They didn’t cry when they were about to leave.

Last comes Merry, my ever enthusiastic buddy. She was dubbed the enthusiastic learner, always curious to learn something more, but also always up and about, and often acting like a little kid in the mall. She was the darling of all the Filipino buddies; not surprisingly, we weren’t so close. I had to share her with the others. This time, when they left, I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

You probably notice I’m so inhibited with my descriptions. I only give you five to six sentences of simple narrative statements in exchange of two weeks of interaction with these buddies. If someone asked me why at any other time except now, I would rationalize, just as I did to my good friend, that this was because two weeks was so short a time to get up close and personal. Two short weeks that were composed of only a maximum of three hours interaction per day except on weekends was too short to feel much grief on saying goodbye.

But I don’t want to rationalize. Once and for all, I want to tell myself to look straight and realize the real reason I could possible get used to saying goodbye. I don’t believe that two weeks is too short; I’ve seen people fall in love in four days. I don’t really believe in language barriers, because languages and nationalities don’t matter to people with kindred souls. And I don’t believe in excuses.

I tell you now, I just wasn’t up for it. Just as Jane’s Korean best friend Scarlett asked me why I don’t speak much, or why I wasn’t very much expressive unlike the other Filipino buddies. She said Jane just doesn’t tell me, but she would like me to be more expressive, more open to talking, in short, more someone else than myself. At the back of her head, she was probably asking what on earth was wrong with me.

It wasn’t exactly that I couldn’t talk with these people. Rather, I talked, but not too deeply. It occurred to me that I just had nothing to tell, or ask them. Slum book talk means little to someone who’s craving for deeper involvement, deeper connections.

Ironically though, I didn’t initiate a deeper connection. For people like me, this is a temperament problem. We want deeper connections, but we fail to make the first move, because someone always has to peel us back a layer at a time. But deeper connections don’t always mean honest answers to questions. Sometimes, they mean honest questions to people we find interesting, honest questions that more often than not reveal directly what we would most want to know about someone, and indirectly, what we are. Because you wouldn’t ask someone how much does he receive at the end of the month if you’re not a money person yourself.

These questions are what I most fear to ask, because they would tell about who I am. It’s not that I don’t really want people to know, it’s just that, speaking, or in my case, asking questions, is, to use a friend’s metaphor, a pouring out of the soul. And that’s what I didn’t do with my Korean buddies. That’s why I got used to saying goodbye.

In as far as the modes of communication go, writing is also similar to speaking, since it is a productive skill. And in as much as I was telling you that to me, speaking is a pouring out of the soul, writing is also the same. That’s why this article took so long to complete—because it’s a temperament problem; because it’s ironic that people who clam up on the inside would want to write so freely on a blank page.

But I’m tired of pauses, and excuses. This article is in defiance of silence.

Remembering Kevin

Remembering Kevin

            It’s official. From now on, July 13 will be recognized as a National Day of Remembrance in honor of our Comedy King Dolphy.

            PNoy signed Proclamation No. 433 last Thursday “in recognition of how the nation deeply feels the passing of Dolphy”. “…every milestone that Dolphy marked in a career that spanned decades, raised the standards of the entertainment industry, and strengthened our cultural identity, giving innumerable aspirants an example to look up to.” Aquino also said that the most important thing about the King of Comedy was how he made people laugh: “This was the greatest gift he gave the Filipino people, and this is the kindness that he will always be remembered for: Dolphy was relentless in reminding us all to always open ourselves to joy.”

            A day dedicated to fun because Dolphy is one of the reasons it is more fun in the Philippines. A tribute to a Comedy King. That’s what it is.

            As for me, I can’t rightly talk of Mang Dolphy and his career as Comedy King. I wasn’t there when John en Marsha ruled the television (although later I was around when it was revived to John en Shirley, also featuring Maricel Soriano as his daughter, Shirley). I wasn’t in front of the television or the big screen for most of his career. I wasn’t an aspiring comedian who was with him on the set of every television show, staring in awe at his flawless antics. All I can talk about is Mang Kevin Cosme, because I was there, glued to my seat, watching his life unfold in Home Along da Riles.

            That flawless complaining line, “Keeviiinnn!!!” delivered by Tita Azon (or Nova Villa) never failed to make me laugh. Just hearing that, I would watch in anticipation how the scene would unfold, and see if Mang Kevin makes me laugh one more time. I tell you, he never failed to do so.

            Younger generations may not see what it is about Mang Kevin that made us laugh. Certainly, the comedians of their generation make us laugh so hard we cry too. The current brand of humor itself is very different. Corny, that’s what most of them would say of Mang Kevin. Yes, Mang Kevin’s jokes are corny, when taken out of context. Presented as a one-liner, it would hardly make ripples on the pond, unlike the pick-up lines. But this particular corniness is what is so lovable about Mang Kevin. You can tell that this would hardly be a joke when delivered by any other actor, but with him, this corny line would go on to become something that made us laugh.

            Maybe because I’m a Filipino, and I can relate very well to our own brand of corniness, so I can laugh at his jokes. But this is precisely why he is so good, because his comedy is very Filipino, and Filipino values are deeply rooted in it. For instance, Mang Kevin’s principle, if I remember rightly, was as long as the family is together, they can weather any kind of hardship. Basta magkakasama. Going back to Dely Atay-atayan’s “Magsumikap ka”, happiness is possible when you strive honestly in work, and your family is complete. Mang Kevin personifies the Filipino rejection of the rich life in favor of a rich family life. In the face of obvious hardships to make ends meet for a large family (and at the same time provide for some of his children’s gimmicks), he cracks a funny line, and the several minutes or so that he makes us laugh would turn everything okay. Yes, the problem will still be there, but we now found a way to laugh at it, and that makes it not so bad.

            With Dolphy’s passing, he has certainly left a wide gap in Philippine comedy. And that wide gap embodied wholesome Philippine humor. He didn’t have to laugh at anyone to make us laugh. That’s what makes me sad about his death. He seemed to carry wholesome Philippine humor with him, to the grave.

            All is not lost however. There are millions of Filipinos that are fortunate to have seen Dolphy at his best. There are millions of Filipinos who will remember him forever as the King of Comedy. There are millions of Filipinos who once knew how it is to laugh cleanly; to laugh because it is better than crying, to laugh so hard it makes us cry. And I’m sure glad I’m one of them.

            I hope we never lose that laughin’ feelin’, the wholesome way, as Mang Kevin taught us.

My Habal-Habal Ride

My Habal-habal Ride

            If the auburn sun was peeking through the mountains and I was riding on the back of a motorcycle, my long mane obeying the whims of the wind, and in front of me was a mysteriously appealing stranger who was to take me far away and live happily ever after, I would have been very thrilled, and happy, as they say in fairy tale movies.

            As it was, the cloudy sky was hiding the sun, and though I was riding on the back of a motorcycle with a stranger in front of me, I was having a bad hair day with my short hair rebelliously blowing in the wind, and the stranger was far from appealing, mysterious though he was. Moreover, he wasn’t going to take me far away and live happily ever after (not that I would have agreed either). He was going to take my friend and me back to the city where we should have been had we stayed in our homes.

            My adventure ride began with a sudden impulse to go to Rafael’s Farm in Babatngon and see for myself what really was there because I also had to write something about the place. I grabbed my friend to go with me, hopped on the van at 3 p.m., and went on to the second best adventure I had so far (the other one was incidentally in Babatngon too, when I went around Kanaway Island on foot).

            I was very confident about going to the farm and garden restaurant then because the ‘dispatcher’ assured us that there were still plenty of vans going back to the city. So we decided to just enjoy the scenic and relaxing view of Rafael’s Farm, take some pictures, and of course, try their bestseller: classic baby back ribs. My impulsive ride wasn’t in vain because we were in for a treat: Rafael’s Farm reminded me of the haciendas we only see in telenovelas, albeit smaller in size. It had a good landscape, courtesy of the owner Mr. Rene Tampi himself, and also had rustic huts true to the Waray spirit, and even a tree house. It was so good a place to relax away from the city, surrounded by plants and trees that really sway in the wind. Plus, their baby back ribs tasted like clouds, so tender and succulent they were that my friend and I were really able to consume all of it (and the meal was good for three persons).

            So we quite forgot about the time. It was already about five in the afternoon when we seriously thought of heading back. By then the sun went to hide behind the clouds, which also gave us a sense of foreboding. So we headed back to the road. We had been waiting for a full thirty minutes or so and still there was no van come to take us back. Our misery was further was further heightened by the fact that the guests who went to Rafael’s Farm were also starting to file out of it, but they had their very own ‘service’: they had their cars, their pajeros, their vans, and we were standing on the side of the road looking like tramps in trousers. Also, jeepneys were already passing by; but they were all going to Babatngon, none it seemed, wanted to go back to the city one last time. And just then, like a knight in shining armor, our habal-habal driver arrived.

            I don’t know by what fortunate winds our habal-habal driver arrived, but I sure am glad he did. Stopping at our spot on his motorcycle, his bag placed in front of him, he casually offered to take us as far as Peerless Village for a P20 fare. Without hesitation, we jumped aboard, for we instinctively knew he was our last chance at going back to the city.

            For the next thirty minutes or so of slowly riding on his motorcycle, I was beset by contradictory feelings. I was initially thrilled because that was my first time to ride the habal-habal and because I really loved the feel of the wind on my face, traveling like that. I didn’t believe my incredible luck that day to be going back to the city riding on a habal-habal, the vehicle sent us by the gods. I was literally smiling from ear to ear because whenever I traveled, I would always try to get the window seat, the seat nearest the open air, where I was free to look at all the greenery as we roared past. The habal-habal ride provided me that first experience, and until now, for me, nothing beats the thrill of riding on a motorcycle with the wind on all sides of you.

            But of course, ten minutes into the adventure ride, seeing (or imagining) people staring at us, I began to feel a little nervous (but not that much; I like to think happy thoughts). Worst-case scenarios were already sliding inside my head as if on cue: what if, he was not really the knight in shining armor we liked to think he was? What if, on some lonely stretch of the road, he suddenly stopped and showed his true colors as the serial killer we haven’t heard about but was prowling in the open? What if we never reached home safely? These were certainly valid fears that I harbored, and I’m sure my friend had them too.

            But luck and God did not leave us that day, so I’m still here to tell the tale. Since then, I’ve learned, and confirmed my belief, in the goodness of humanity (as trite as that phrase may seem). That stranger saw through us, that we needed help, and he willingly gave us a hand. Sgt. Garcia, as I later learned from him when I asked him out of curiosity, was just on his way to the Tacloban Doctors’ Hospital for his evening shift as security guard. His daughter, he told us, was in UP on a scholarship. He wasn’t really a full-fledged habal-habal driver; he only went into it as a sideline.

            Given these things, I do have full reason to give thanks. To the habal-habal driver/security guard whom we only know by the name of Sgt. Garcia, to the unknown man that I unknowingly bump into the street, to the moonstruck woman in the acacia tree outside our university, to all the people who make my world very strange, and very livable at the same time.

            In the words of Terry Pratchett, ‘The city’s full of people who you just see around.’ Indeed, it is. But sometimes, one of these people just happens to help you, and your life will forever be enriched by it.

           

At the Xerox Center

At the Xerox Center

            Stonemasons would tell you that masonry is older than carpentry: it goes back way before Bible time: the pyramids of Egypt, and so on. I have nothing to tell you on that score. Xerox machines reproduce documents so that people won’t have the burden of copying anymore; that’s as far as I know. I wouldn’t know the history; all I know is that I know how to operate the machine.  

            With Xerox machines, I copy just about any document or image that you want to have copied. I can enlarge your photos and reproduce them, or work with transparencies; I can even do colored photocopying. I pretty well work by myself too. It doesn’t take more than two hands to operate the machine. Most of the time though, when ist’s siesta time and most people are either busy at work or busy sleeping, I abandon my post and go over to the other Xerox girls. We would chat about our latest intrigues, or just stare at the TV and try to guess what would happen next.

If I would describe my day, I’d say I see a lot of different people, but I see a lot more bundles of papers that I photocopy. That’s all. But a good Xerox machine does make my day. It doesn’t work as hard as a bad one, and yet it reproduces good results. It knows what to do when I press the button, and does it smoothly, so that the reproduced copy will be just as good as the original. It has to be well oiled and well-stocked with ink. The bond papers have to be carefully sifted before you begin making the copy so that they will not go in groups and thus waste precious paper.

The Xerox machine is above us Xerox girls. It has a certain amount of gratitude attached to it. For example, the Xerox machine helps our students answer their exams, however indirectly. That’s why the students are thankful for it. I’d like to think it’s us, Xerox girls, who do this job. After all, the Xerox machine doesn’t reproduce copies by itself; someone’s got to man the engines, and it’s we who do that.

            I don’t think we Xerox girls feel much when it comes to labor, though. It’s not that we’re not affected by labor issues; it’s that no one ever seems to talk about us. There are unions for PUV drivers, for factory workers, for almost any kind of worker, except us. The main thing is that they all get non-working holidays, but still, somebody’s got to have your documents copied by the machine, even on Labor Day.

That is not even the main event yet. The toughest job I do is when the exams are near in the nearby school; that’s when we usually do our most demanding work. Students would flock the center more than ever, some of them irate and all of them clamoring for attention. We would extend our work time till twelve or even one in the morning, on the busiest days. One time, this particular young lady wanted to have her documents photocopied first, it appeared she was in a great hurry, but the other customer got there first, and he wouldn’t give in either. So she went off to another copy center, more irritated than ever.

When people have jobs, they usually throw themselves into it, like that job really defines your goal in life, and you really, really want to make good. You feel that you are doing something for the greater good of humanity, that the philosophy of your life is carried out in your job. People like that young lady destroy any such illusions in my work. Even if you work real hard and learn real fast, it doesn’t take four years to know how to photocopy. Everybody knows that.

A job like mine isn’t big enough, for me, for anyone. A job like mine, if you really put your soul to it, would remain elusive. Even if you wanted to make something more out of reproducing documents, you would simply refuse to concentrate your life energy into holding the bond papers in place so that no ink, bond paper, or effort, would be wasted. Sometimes I find myself actually reading the pages I photocopy, marrying the page, letting my mind wander along the promises of the words. That’s because my mind is divorced from my job, except as a source of income, which is really just about the purpose of getting this job. It’s hard to get excited holding bond papers and restocking ink to the machines all day.

Yes, I daydream. I fantasize about winning the lottery, or getting to WilTime and going home richer. I think of putting up a business and having someone else work on the job, with me just hopping from one branch to another like my employer. Really living the good life, if you know what I mean. When I hear a college kid say, ‘I’m tired. I don’t want to study anymore’, I don’t believe him. It’s hard to believe when you see the kid getting gadgets and getting pampered just to study.

Granted, there were choices I could have made. But a non-existent college education doesn’t give you that many choices. So you take on whatever job there is, in whatever terms there are. And you let life stain you. It’s either the pink stain college girls like to call nail polish, or the red stain you get on your white shirt when the ketchup accidentally spilled, or the yellow stain you get when you chew too much tobacco. Mine’s black. It’s the black ink stain on your fingers, if you get exposed long enough that water won’t be able to erase it anymore.

I can’t seem to think of anyone who would follow my footsteps. After all, mine is not a recognized profession. And most working people I know would want to rest on Labor Day. My job doesn’t guarantee that. It’s just something to do while biding the time, some job to work on, some minimum salary that you receive before you get your break in the labor ladder.

The writer punches ideas into paper, the publisher compiles them into books, the saleslady sells them to you. Me? I’m just the Xerox girl, and I don’t have much to offer except the ability to give you information that’s bought at a much cheaper price than the books. I just copy your notes for you, so that you have more time doing other things.

(This is based on an interview with Lina Sosing at Rhonlee Xerox Center.)

Finding My Bearings

Finding My Bearings

            When I was little, intelligence used to be measured by how well a child can speak English at an early age. Neighborhood moms, especially those who were teachers, used to teach their little kids to introduce themselves in English or count from one to ten, all for the benefit of the visitors’ entertainment and the familial pride it brought. Mastering the first ten positive integers and the introduction phrase usually meant that the child was intelligent, and seemed to ensure his success in the future.

            Because of this, my generation of children also didn’t grow up in the kitchen as I imagine the previous generation did. The advent of television in our backwoods neighborhood pushed us out of the kitchen table into the sofa. We were lured by the television shows and were thus robbed of the pleasures of everyday gossip whispered by our yayas to each other. We preferred the sofa to the kitchen stool because that’s where we could learn more English, more foreignness.

Even our outdoor plays were colored by the things we saw in television. We wanted so much to be like the characters we loved on TV; we wanted to eat the same food they ate, to go to the places they went to, to experience the things they did, to look the way they did – we wanted to be them. I, for one, would memorize their dialogues and re-enact the scenes with my sisters in the language of the television: either in English, or in Filipino (as in the Tagalized version of some cartoons), but certainly not in our very own language, Waray. I wanted spaghetti, I wanted to see beautiful places outside my hometown, I wanted my life to be patterned according to how theirs turned out, I wanted to be whiter and to speak English better, because that was how good people were judged.

Looking back, I realize I was disoriented as a child. Filipino-speaking characters in Western sceneries do that to you. I would drift in between languages whenever I didn’t know the equivalent term in a certain tongue. I would have drifted to places too, had my mother not drummed the value of identity into me. I’m a Waraynon, and I’m a Filipino; I know that much. There’s just one thing I lack: the language mastery to prove it.

There are thousands like me, suffering from this same disorientation, although some of them may have not realized it yet. A theory in linguistics says that the idiom of a people, the way they use language, reflects not only the most fundamental views they hold of themselves and the world but their very conception of reality. I, and others like me, have been using a different language most of the time, and there is no doubt that this affects how I view things. I am a Filipino, a Waraynon, looking from the outside, barred by a wall I didn’t intentionally create.

MTBMLE presents an opportunity for us to break down that wall. It gives us a chance to confront our reality through our own eyes. Our teachers expect our students to read, when really they cannot. Our students are experts at parroting dialogues and memorizing words, but come short in reasoning and analytical skills. We are the ones who know are own tongue, yet we do not study it, we do not write in the language. These are the things that we are facing, and it’s a long way ahead.

But thanks to the people who work so hard and so well at what they do, we are now seeing tangible results. Just recently, researchers, experts, educators, and students gathered in a second colloquium on the Waray language to discuss the recent developments in our region. We have now launched the new orthography of the Waray language. We have identified the 500 most common words in the language based on a 123,000-word corpus. We are already distinguishing our grammatical categories. We are conducting researches regarding the use of mother tongue in the field. We are working on a text readability instrument that will help standardize and produce our instructional materials. We have come this far, and we shall make it, given more time, especially now when we have our own people willing to help. What we need are funds.

The success of this program provides us great opportunities, not only in the classroom. Relearning a native language gives us a chance to understand ourselves better, but it doesn’t necessarily mean an abandonment of the other languages we have learned. It’s about going back first to who you are, so you can understand where you stand in the scheme of things. It’s about building a solid core, so that when you learn other languages and other cultures, you will not be confused. It’s about understanding yourself better, so you can understand others better too.

Intelligence or success, I’ve realized, is not measured by how well one speaks the global lingua franca. As our university president, Dr. Evelyn C. Cruzada, in her welcome speech during the colloquium, said, “As if kun nagwi-Winaray kita, diri kita makakadto ha Amerika.” As if we won’t be able to go to America if we speak Waray. Gone are the days when, “The mother-tongue was relegated to the kitchen—it was a debased currency which was legal tender only for the exchanges one had with the servant, the dhobi, the rickshaw-wallah and the vegetable hawker,” as Varinda Tarzie Vittachi writes. Today, the mother tongue will be elevated to the classroom, where our children will be taught to read, write, and even speak in the native language, because it is the only way they can do well in other areas too.

Frantz Fanon said, “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.” With the help of recent developments introduced during the colloquium, we Waraynons are taking on our world, our culture now. I grew up disoriented as a child; with the help of my mother tongue, I hope to find my bearings.