dead star DEAD STARS by Paz Marquez Benitez Dead Stars Photo courtesy of NASA THROUGH the open window the air-steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick-tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy puttering away among the rose pots. "Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?" "I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month." Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting." "She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away. "How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. "Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?" "In love? With whom?" "With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of," she said with good-natured contempt. "What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that--" Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be. Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it," someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza. Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate. "What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought. "I supposed long-engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament--or of affection--on the part of either, or both." Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. "That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping youth--" Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother's perfect physical repose--almost indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by her father's figurative language. "A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man. Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo Salazar's appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain. He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom. The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to the house on the hill, whose wide, open porches he could glimpse through the heat-shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard. Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to him save that it was the Martinez house, rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant nothing to him; he did not even know her name; but now-- One evening he had gone "neighboring" with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favor with the Judge. This particular evening however, he had allowed himself to be persuaded. "A little mental relaxation now and then is beneficial," the old man had said. "Besides, a judge's good will, you know;" the rest of the thought--"is worth a rising young lawyer's trouble"--Don Julian conveyed through a shrug and a smile that derided his own worldly wisdom. A young woman had met them at the door. It was evident from the excitement of the Judge's children that she was a recent and very welcome arrival. In the characteristic Filipino way formal introductions had been omitted--the judge limiting himself to a casual "Ah, ya se conocen?"--with the consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del Valle throughout the evening. He was puzzled that she should smile with evident delight every time he addressed her thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she was not the Judge's sister, as he had supposed, but his sister-in-law, and that her name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather austere name, he thought. Still, the young lady should have corrected him. As it was, he was greatly embarrassed, and felt that he should explain. To his apology, she replied, "That is nothing, Each time I was about to correct you, but I remembered a similar experience I had once before." "Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved. "A man named Manalang--I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth time or so, the young man rose from his seat and said suddenly, 'Pardon me, but my name is Manalang, Manalang.' You know, I never forgave him!" He laughed with her. "The best thing to do under the circumstances, I have found out," she pursued, "is to pretend not to hear, and to let the other person find out his mistake without help." "As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I--" "I was thinking of Mr. Manalang." Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, the Judge, were absorbed in a game of chess. The young man had tired of playing appreciative spectator and desultory conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had gone off to chat in the vine-covered porch. The lone piano in the neighborhood alternately tinkled and banged away as the player's moods altered. He listened, and wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could sing; she had such a charming speaking voice. He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the Judge's wife, although Doña Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump, with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modeled hips--a pretty woman with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips, but she was much darker, of a smooth rich brown with underlying tones of crimson which heightened the impression she gave of abounding vitality. On Sunday mornings after mass, father and son would go crunching up the gravel road to the house on the hill. The Judge's wife invariably offered them beer, which Don Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a half hour or so, the chessboard would be brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in the low hammock and he in a rocking chair and the hours--warm, quiet March hours--sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it was evident that she liked his company; yet what feeling there was between them was so undisturbed that it seemed a matter of course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask him indirectly about those visits did some uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl next door. Esperanza had wanted to know if he went straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly realized that for several Sundays now he had not waited for Esperanza to come out of the church as he had been wont to do. He had been eager to go "neighboring." He answered that he went home to work. And, because he was not habitually untruthful, added, "Sometimes I go with Papa to Judge del Valle's." She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies. She was a believer in the regenerative virtue of institutions, in their power to regulate feeling as well as conduct. If a man were married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if he were engaged, he could not possibly love another woman. That half-lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on. It was so easy to forget up there, away from the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he standing close to her, the shadows around, enfolding. "Up here I find--something--" He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity, laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?" "No; youth--its spirit--" "Are you so old?" "And heart's desire." Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man? "Down there," he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad, too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery." "Down there" beyond the ancient tamarinds lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an errant breeze strayed in from somewhere, bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices in a dream. "Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so brief--" "Not in some," quickly. "Not in you." "You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery." "I could study you all my life and still not find it." "So long?" "I should like to." Those six weeks were now so swift--seeming in the memory, yet had they been so deep in the living, so charged with compelling power and sweetness. Because neither the past nor the future had relevance or meaning, he lived only the present, day by day, lived it intensely, with such a willful shutting out of fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.

dead star    DEAD STARS     by Paz Marquez Benitez      Dead Stars     Photo courtesy of NASA     THROUGH the open window the air-steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick-tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy puttering away among the rose pots.  "Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"  "I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month."  Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting."  "She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away.  "How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. "Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?"  "In love? With whom?"  "With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of," she said with good-natured contempt. "What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that--"  Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be.  Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it," someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza.  Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.  "What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.  "I supposed long-engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament--or of affection--on the part of either, or both." Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. "That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping youth--"  Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother's perfect physical repose--almost indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by her father's figurative language.  "A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man.  Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo Salazar's appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.  He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.  The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to the house on the hill, whose wide, open porches he could glimpse through the heat-shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard.  Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to him save that it was the Martinez house, rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant nothing to him; he did not even know her name; but now--  One evening he had gone "neighboring" with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favor with the Judge. This particular evening however, he had allowed himself to be persuaded. "A little mental relaxation now and then is beneficial," the old man had said. "Besides, a judge's good will, you know;" the rest of the thought--"is worth a rising young lawyer's trouble"--Don Julian conveyed through a shrug and a smile that derided his own worldly wisdom.  A young woman had met them at the door. It was evident from the excitement of the Judge's children that she was a recent and very welcome arrival. In the characteristic Filipino way formal introductions had been omitted--the judge limiting himself to a casual "Ah, ya se conocen?"--with the consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del Valle throughout the evening.  He was puzzled that she should smile with evident delight every time he addressed her thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she was not the Judge's sister, as he had supposed, but his sister-in-law, and that her name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather austere name, he thought. Still, the young lady should have corrected him. As it was, he was greatly embarrassed, and felt that he should explain.  To his apology, she replied, "That is nothing, Each time I was about to correct you, but I remembered a similar experience I had once before."  "Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved.  "A man named Manalang--I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth time or so, the young man rose from his seat and said suddenly, 'Pardon me, but my name is Manalang, Manalang.' You know, I never forgave him!"  He laughed with her.  "The best thing to do under the circumstances, I have found out," she pursued, "is to pretend not to hear, and to let the other person find out his mistake without help."  "As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I--"  "I was thinking of Mr. Manalang."  Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, the Judge, were absorbed in a game of chess. The young man had tired of playing appreciative spectator and desultory conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had gone off to chat in the vine-covered porch. The lone piano in the neighborhood alternately tinkled and banged away as the player's moods altered. He listened, and wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could sing; she had such a charming speaking voice.  He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the Judge's wife, although Doña Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump, with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modeled hips--a pretty woman with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips, but she was much darker, of a smooth rich brown with underlying tones of crimson which heightened the impression she gave of abounding vitality.  On Sunday mornings after mass, father and son would go crunching up the gravel road to the house on the hill. The Judge's wife invariably offered them beer, which Don Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a half hour or so, the chessboard would be brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in the low hammock and he in a rocking chair and the hours--warm, quiet March hours--sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it was evident that she liked his company; yet what feeling there was between them was so undisturbed that it seemed a matter of course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask him indirectly about those visits did some uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl next door.  Esperanza had wanted to know if he went straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly realized that for several Sundays now he had not waited for Esperanza to come out of the church as he had been wont to do. He had been eager to go "neighboring."  He answered that he went home to work. And, because he was not habitually untruthful, added, "Sometimes I go with Papa to Judge del Valle's."  She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies. She was a believer in the regenerative virtue of institutions, in their power to regulate feeling as well as conduct. If a man were married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if he were engaged, he could not possibly love another woman.  That half-lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on.  It was so easy to forget up there, away from the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he standing close to her, the shadows around, enfolding.  "Up here I find--something--"  He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity, laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?"  "No; youth--its spirit--"  "Are you so old?"  "And heart's desire."  Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man?  "Down there," he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad, too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery."  "Down there" beyond the ancient tamarinds lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an errant breeze strayed in from somewhere, bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices in a dream.  "Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so brief--"  "Not in some," quickly. "Not in you."  "You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery."  "I could study you all my life and still not find it."  "So long?"  "I should like to."  Those six weeks were now so swift--seeming in the memory, yet had they been so deep in the living, so charged with compelling power and sweetness. Because neither the past nor the future had relevance or meaning, he lived only the present, day by day, lived it intensely, with such a willful shutting out of fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.

May bagyo ma't may rilim* Nicanor G. Tiongson Marahil ay manhid lamang ang hindi nakadarama ng krisis na bumabatbat sa lipunang Pilipino ngayon. Lumalao'y sumasama, ika nga, wala pa ring katatagan o pagkakaisa ang bansa. Mula noong 1986, nakaapat na administrasyon na ang bansa ngunit patuloy pa ring binabagbag ang gobyerno ng nagtutunggaliang ideolohiya mula kanan hanggang kaliwa. Naghahari pa rin ang mga pulitikong wala nang inisip kundi magpatambok ng bulsa habang isinusulong ang kanilang ambisyong pampulitika. Salamat sa panahon ng Diktadura, naging institusyon na ang lagayan sa mga opisina ng pamahalaan - pambansa man o pambayan. Maraming huwes ang nabibili at maraming opisyales na naatasang maglinis sa gobyerno ang nagbabantay-salakay sa sinesekwester. Dinudukot pa rin at sina-salvage ng ilang militar ang mga taong nagtatanggol sa mga karapatang pantao. Isinisigaw ng mga diyaryo araw-araw ang mga pagkidnap, pag-ambus, asasinasyon at pagbomba. At kung nakapanlulumo ang pulitika ay lalo pa ang ekonomiya. Hangin pa rin sa tiyan ang pinagmamalaking kaunlaran at kabuhayan. Anuman ang sabihin ng diyaryo, di na mapigil ang pagtaas ng gasolina at bilihin, habang bumababa ang halaga ng piso at ang kalidad ng ating binibili. Kahit tapos sa kolehiyo ay nahihirapang humanap ng trabaho, at makahanap man ay wala rin namang napapala sa naturingan-pang suweldo. Nagdadagsaan ang libo-libong Pilipino sa Gitnang Silangan, Europa at Asya para maging "construction worker" at katulong o para maglako ng aliw. Nitong nakaraang digmaan sa Iraq, may mga manggagawang Pilipinong mas gusto pang ipagbakasakali ang kanilang buhay sa gitna ng bombahan kaysa mamatay nang dilat ang mata sa sariling bayan. May ilang yumayaman sa walang-habas na pagputol ng ating mga puno, samantalang ang maraming magsasaka'y nasisiraan ng ani dahil walang tubig para sa irigasyon. May ilang kumakabig ng milyun-milyong piso para sa pag-eeksport ng mga nahuhuli sa ating karagatan, kung kaya't tayo ang nauubusan ng yamang-dagat. Napakadali sa mga iilan ang magpalobo ng tiyan, samantalang ang karamihang kumakapit sa patalim para mabuhay ay humpak pa rin ang pisngi at pag-asa. Naglipana ang pulubi at baliw, at marami ang nakatira sa ilalim ng tulay o sa bundok ng basura. Wala rin namang pinagkaiba ang serbisyong panlipunan. Kailangang mamitig ang binti o makipagbuno ang karaniwang empleyado para makasakay. Maya't maya ay walang ilaw, madalas ay walang tubig. Nakatutulig ang ingay sa lansangan man o subdibisyon, at halos di ka makahinga sa usok ng mga sasakyan at alikabok ng daan. Dumami ang mandurukot at holdaper na nanloloob sa daan, bahay at sasakyan. Marami sa mga kabataan ay nalululong sa droga at pumapatay nang walang awa, ngunit di naman masugpo ang droga dahil protektado ng matataas na militar. Walang pasubali ang paggagad ng mga kabataan sa kulturang dayuhan na napupulot sa mga pelikula at programa sa radyo at telebisyon na angkat mula sa Kanluran. Sa halip na ilapit ang estudyante sa kanyang lipunan, pinalalawak pa ng edukasyong Kanluranin ang guwang sa pagitan ng mag-aaral at ng kababayang dapat niyang unawain at paglingkuran. Maraming intelektuwal na makabayan ang sumusulat at nagsasalita sa wikang Ingles na di masakyan at di ginagamit ng masang Pilipino. Sa kabutihang-palad, marami na ngayong mga mulat at sensitibong mamamayan na nagmamalasakit sa bayan, ngunit kahit ang mga ito'y natitigilan o nahihintakutan sa laki, lawak at lalim ng problema ng bansa. Ano nga naman ang magagawa tungkol sa utang na bilyon-bilyong dolyar, sa korapsiyon sa gobyerno at terorismo, ng isang Grade IV titser sa isang mahirap na eskwelahan sa Ormoc o isang nanay na alipin ng lampin at kaldero, o akawntant kaya na tatlong kahig isang tuka, o isang bagong gradweyt ng KAL sa UP? Tila wala nga kung patuloy nating iisipin na ang mga problemang ito ay suliraning likha lamang ng sistema o gawa ng mga taong traydor sa bayan, mga suliraning hindi naman natin kinasasangkutan at maaaring kasangkutan. Sa ganitong pananaw, talaga ngang walang magagawa ang karaniwang mamamayang walang posisyon o kapangyarihan kundi magsawalang-kibo na lamang, mangibang bayan -- o magpatiwakal. Ngunit tila hindi ganoon ang katotohanan. Aminin man natin o hindi, ang anumang krisis ng bayan ay mauugat sa mga mamamayan. Sapagkat ang pamahalaan at kabuhayan ng isang bansa ay gusaling sintibay o sinrupok lamang ng mga indibidwal na mamamayang siyang tunay na bato, buhangin at bakal ng mga gusaling ito. Kaya naman, hindi sapat na puntiryahin natin si gayo't ganitong opisyal ng gobyerno na korap o inkompetent, at isisi ang taas ng bilihin sa mga mamumuhunang nagsasamantala, pagkat hindi rin naman magkakagayon ang mga taong ito kung ayaw natin. Walang magsasamantala, kung walang magpapasamantala. Malinaw, kung gayon, na ang dapat pagtuunan ng pansin ay ang dimensiyong personal at kultural ng ating mga suliraning panlipunan, sa partikular ang sistema ng paghahalaga o system of values at ang pananaw na laganap sa ating kultura, na sa ganang ami'y siyang pangunahing hadlang sa pagkakaroon ng tunay na pagkakaisa, kaunlaran at kapayapaan. Marami ang dayagnosis na binibigay ang mga sosyologo at sikologo, pero anim na kaisipan ang maituturo bilang pinakanegatibong mentalidad nating mga Pilipino sa kasalukuyan: (1) ang kaisipang "Kami-kami"; (2) ang kaisipang "Tayo-tayo"; (3) ang kaisipang "Kumapit sa Malakas"; (4) ang ang kaisipang "Puwede na 'Yan"; (5) ang kaisipang "Kwela ang Bongga"; at (6) ang kaisipang "Istetsayd Yata Yon." Suriin ang Sarili Ayon sa kaisipang "Kami-kami" ang unang dapat pahalagahan ng isang tao ay ang interes ng kanyang pamilya o kamag-anakan. Maganda kunsabagay ang pagpapahalagang ito, pagkat ang pagtataguyod at katapatan sa ating ina, ama, mga kapatid ay kapuri-puring katangian ng mga Pilipino. Sa karamihan sa atin, pamilya ang ating takbuhan sa anumang krisis sa buhay -- kapag tayo'y nagkakasakit, nagigipit sa pera, o nakikipag-away sa asawa. Pamilya ang ating sandalang mas matibay kaysa anupamang bangko o simbahan. At ito'y di katakataka, pagkat totoong hangal ang umasa sa gobyernong walang malasakit sa taumbayan. Sa kasamaang-palad, madalas na ang interes ng pamilya at sarili na lamang ang nagiging gabay ng ating mga gagawin kung kaya't wala na halos keber ang Pilipino sa kapakanan ng kanyang kapwa. Marami ang nakapupuna na ang Pilipino ay napakalinis sa kanyang pamamahay. Pero oras na siya'y lumabas sa kanyang bakuran ay naroong magkalat siya sa lansangan ng balat ng saging o balot ng kendi o bote ng sopdrink. Maingat siya sa pagtatapon ng layak sa basurahan sa loob ng kanyang bakuran, pero itatambak naman niya nang walang pakundangan ang basurang iyon sa kanal, estero o ilog o sa tabi ng bakod ng kanyang kapitbahay. Ito rin ang mentalidad na nagbubunsod sa ating "isahan" ang di natin kamag-anak -- sa pagdaraya ng timbangan, sa pagsingit sa linya sa sasakyan, klinika o groseri, at sa pag-uunahang makalusot sa mga interseksiyon. Bunga rin ng mentalidad na ito ang isip-alimango na ayaw magpalamang sa "ibang tao". Kilalang-kilala ang maraming Pilipino sa pagiging mainggitin at sinisiraan nila at hinahatak pababa ang sinumang makita nilang umaakyat sa buhay o propesyon. Tsismis at paninirang-puri ang sandata ng ayaw malamangan. At dahil pinakamahalaga ang pamilya, gagawin ng isang ina o ama ang lahat para maibigay sa anak ang inaakala nilang pinakamahusay na damit, edukasyon, gamit. Nariyang "lakarin" ang anak para mapasok sa isang paaralan kahit na malinaw sa entrans eksam na hindi kaya ng bata na mag-aral sa gayong eskwelahan. Nariyang pagtakpan o kunsitihin ang bunsong nambugbog ng isang basta nakursunadahan. Sabihin pa bang salot sa lipunan ang ganitong mentalidad. Ang kawalan ng pakialam sa kapwa ang dahilan kung bakit nakakalbo ang ating mga bundok at tuluyan nang nawawalan ng tubig ang ating mga dam at palayan; kung bakit nagkakabuhol-buhol ang trapik, nagbabara ang mga kanal at namamatay ang mga ilog; kung bakit nagagawa ng mga opisyal ng gobyerno ang pangungurakot sa kaban ng bayan; at kung bakit nagiging opisyal sa gobyerno ang mangungurakot. Ito ang dahilan kung bakit nakapagkamal ng kapangyarihan at kayamanan ang diktador at kauri niya at kanyang mga galamay. Ang kaisipang "Tayo-tayo" ay kamag-anak ng kaisipang "Kami-kami", pero ang binibigyang halaga nito ay ang rehiyonalismo, o ang pagkiling sa mga taong galing sa baryo o bayang ating tinubuan o sa rehiyong ating kinalakhan. Dahil sa kaisipang ito, agad nating pinagkakatiwalaan ang isang tao dahil pareho tayong Ilocano o Cebuano. Hindi masama ang magpahalaga sa kapakanan o kalinangan ng ating bayang tinubuan. Sa katunayan, ang kasaysayan ng bansa ay maraming halimbawa ng kabutihang maaaring ibunga ng ganitong uri ng patriotismo. Kung hindi sa katutubong relihiyon ng Bohol ay hindi sana nahikayat ni Tamblot na mag-alsa noong 1622 ang mga taumbayan laban sa mabigat na buwis na ipinataw ng mga Kastila. Pagmamahal din sa kanyang bayan sa Panay ang naging dahilan ng pag-aaklas ni Tapar noong 1663. Ngunit ang makitid na pagmamahal ding ito sa iba't ibang lugar na ating pinanggalingan ang pinagsamantalahan ng kolonisador. Natuwa ang mga Kastila sa ating walang-katapusang pag-iiringan. Lumakas sila sa ating pagbabangayan. Sa Samar, ang pag-aalsa ni Sumuroy noong 1649 ay pinasugpo sa mga Lutao ng Zamboanga. Sa Bohol, ang rebelyon ni Tamblot ay pinuksa ng mga Pampango at Cebuano. Kaya naman noong 1890, sinabi ni Rizal na isa sa mga pangunahing dahilan kung bakit walang kaunlaran sa Pilipinas ay ang kawalan ng mga katutubo ng kamalayang maaaring magbuklod sa kanila sa iba pang mga katutubong inaapi rin ng Espanya. Mula noong panahon ni Rizal hanggang ngayon ay tila lumala pang lalo ang rehiyonalismo, at umabot ito sa sukdulan sa panahon ng Batas Militar nang gamitin ng diktadura ang Ilocanismo para mapanghawakan nito ang Hukbong Sandatahan ng Pilipinas. Sabihin pa bang sa panahon natin ngayong hinihiklas ng nagtutunggaliang mga interes ang bayan, hindi maisasagawa ang rehabilitasyong pampulitika at pang-ekonomiya kung di magtutulungan ang iba't ibang rehiyon at grupong etnolingguwistiko ng bansa. Sa panahon natin, ang rehiyonalismo ay isa nang anakronismo. Ayon sa kaisipang "Kumapit sa Malakas", ang kailangang hanapin ng tao para mabuhay ay ang taong makakapitan niya sa kanyang mga pangangailangan. Kung tutuusi'y madaling maunawaan kung bakit umusbong ang ganitong kaisipan. Bago pa man dumating ang mga Kastila'y umaasa na tayo sa pinakamalakas na datu sa tribo. Sa panahon ng Kastila, at dahil sa bulok na pamamahala ng mga ito, nakita natin na wala namang mangyayari sa ating mga hinaing kung ang aasahan din lamang ay ang katuwiran o sarili at tapat na pagpupunyagi. Natuto tayong lumapit sa malakas. At kung wala tayong kilalang malakas na tao ay humahanap tayo ng kamag-anak o kakilala ng kamag-anak na maaaring may kilalang kakindatan naman ng taong malakas. At kung may kaaway tayo na malakas, humahanap din tayo ng kasukat na suklob nito para mapangalagaan ang ating interes. Sa gayon, nabuo ang napakasalimuot na sistema ng palakasan sa ating lipunan. Dahil dito, di tayo magkandatuto sa pagkakabit ng kung anu-anong titulo na "panghimas" sa mga taong malakas o may koneksiyon -- si gobernor, konsehal, atorni, o doktor, o si dating gobernor, sekretaryo, etc. Dahil dito, tinanggap na ng lipunan na ang Pilipino ay dapat maging awtoritaryan, at nabuo na rin sa isip ng marami sa ating mga pinuno na tama lamang na gamitin niya ang kanyang posisyon para mapaunlakan ang kahilingan ng mga kumakapit sa kanya, at karapat-dapat lamang na ibigay ng mga ito ang anumang hilingin niya -- gamot man ito o lason para sa bansa. Dahil dito, naghahalal tayo ng mga opisyal sa gobyerno, hindi dahil sa kanilang talino o kabutihang-loob o katapatan sa bayan kundi dahil may maaasahan tayo sa kanya o malalapitan natin siya kung mayroon tayong personal na suliranin. Magugulat pa ba tayo kung umabuso ang ating mga opisyal, samantalang tayo mismo ang kumukunsinti sa kanila at nag-uudyok na maglabis sa tungkulin. Ayon sa kaisipang "Puwede na 'Yan," hindi na kailangang paghirapan pa ng tao ang pagpapabuti sa kaniyang ginagawa o ang pagpapahusay o pagpapakinis sa kanyang trabaho -- maging ito'y sa eskwelahan o opisina, sa gobyerno man o pribadong sektor. "Maski paps" o maski papaano na lang ay pwede na -- tutal hindi naman nagreresitesyon palagi, tutal di naman mapapansin ng amo ko sa opisina, tutal mababa naman ang suweldo ko, tutal maliit naman ang pagbibilhan ko nito. Dahil sa pananaw na ito, pinalulusot na natin ang mga term paper na binubuo ng pinagtagpi-tagping sipi na kinopya nang walang atribusyon mula sa internet at sa iba't ibang libro, o pinapasa na lamang ang disertasyong ang kalidad ay mababa pa sa undergrad. Dahil sa pananaw na ito, naglaho na ang rikit ng mga takang kalabaw at dalaga na pinintahan ng buong tiyaga, ingat at pagmamahal at nawala na ring tuluyan ang mabubusising disenyo at samutsaring kulay ng dyipni at kariton ng sorbetes. Naparam ang pagmamalasakit sa kahusayan at kariktan, at namayani ang tinatawag nating kultura ng karaniwan at kahit-paano-na-lang o ang "culture of mediocrity." Madali kung sa madaling maintindihan kung bakit palasak ang ganitong aktitud sa Pilipino, dahil kalimita'y hindi sapat ang kompensasyong natatanggap niya sa kanyang trabaho. Pero madali rin namang maunawaan kung gaano kapanganib ang ganitong pananaw para sa bayan. Paano kung ito ang maging pananaw ng lahat ng Pilipino mula sa pinakamababa hanggang pinakamataas? Paano kung sabihin ng titser na puwede na kahit padaskul-daskol ang kanyang pagtuturo dahil iyon lang naman ang katumbas ng sahod niya? Paano kung sabihin ng doktor na hindi na lang niya pagbubutihin ang operasyon sa bato dahil taga-charity ward lang naman ang inoopera? Paano kung sabihin ng huwes na hindi na lang niya pag-aaralan ang kaso ng isang masaker dahil wala namang mapapakinabang sa pamilyang magsasaka ng mga namasaker? Alam nating lahat kung gaano kahalaga ang karampatang gantimpala para mabigyan ng tamang inisyatiba ang tao para magtrabaho nang mahusay. Pero kung hihintayin pa nating tumaas ang sahod nating lahat bago natin paghusayin ang ating gawain ay bababa na nang husto ang kalidad ng pag-iisip, pag-uugali, at pangangatawan ng Pilipino, ang batas at kaayusan, ang mga produkto at serbisyo. Babagsak na rin ang ating kabuhayan, pamahalaan at pangkalahatang lipunan. Sa kaisipang "Kwela ang Bongga," ang mahalaga ay ang nakikita ng tao sa labas, ang golpe-de-gulat, ang sosyal. Dahil sa kaisipang ito, pinahahalagahan natin ang mga usong pantalon, baro, sapatos, handbag; ang modang buhok, ang magandang mukha, ang bagong sasakyan. Nagtitilian ang ating mga kabanata sa mga cute na mga teen-age idols sa TV kahit na ang karamihan dito'y dalawa ang kaliwang paa at ang boses ay pambanyo lamang. Ang hinahanap na aliwan ng karamihan ay mga pantasya sa komiks at magasin, ang drama sa radyo at bakbakan sa pelikula. Ang nwes sa TV ay naging entertainment na. Nagkukumahog tayong umuwi sa gabi para malaman kung magkakabati na muli sina Yuri at Kat, kung ano ang gagawin ni Boris matapos sabihin sa kanya ni Morgana na pakakasalan ni Dimitri si Lorea. Nagkakandabaon tayo sa utang at nagsasangla pa ng ari-arian para makapaghanda ng napakaraming ulam at makapag-ayos ng bahay kung pista ng baryo o binyag, debut, bertdey, kasal ng ating mga anak. Naniniwala tayo na mabait ang isang tao dahil marunong magmano o mamupo sa matanda, na makamasa ang isang Presidente dahil may pabahay siya sa "mahihrap," na kaibigan ang Amerikano dahil sila ang nag-"liberate" sa atin, na may kalayaan ang bansa dahil may selebrasyon naman tuwing a dose ng Hunyo. Sabihin pa bang napakabigat ng implikasyon ng ganitong kababawan ng pag-iisip sa ating lipunan. Dahil sa pakitang-tao ay napipilitan tayong magwaldas ng hindi naman natin kaya. Dahil ang pananaw natin ay hanggang damit o balat na lamang, hindi nating masilip ang ginto sa loob ng isang tao at superpisyal ang tingin natin sa mga pangyayari at kaligiran. Naghahalal tayo ng tao sa gobyerno dahil paborito natin siyang artista o simpatiko siya o dahil tila mabait naman siya pagkat "inaabutan" tayo kapag siya'y nangangampanya noon. Nararahuyo tayo noon sa rebeldeng militar dahil maganda siyang lalaki at matsong-matso ang dating. Kahit na napakalaki ng ginawang pinsala sa bansa ng kanyang mga kudeta ay inihalal pa rin natin siya bilang senador. Ayon sa kaisipang "Isteytsayd Yata Yon," ang kanluranin ay superyor sa katutubo, ang maputi ay mas maganda kaysa kayumanggi, ang Amerikano ay mas mahusay sa Pilipino. Ang kaisipang kolonyal ay nag-uugat sa panahon ng Kastila nang tayo'y bininyagang "Indio" at nilibak bilang urong at pangit na lahi, mga isip-bata na kung may buntot lamang ay maaari nang maglambitin sa puno. Lumala pa ang kaisipang ito sa ilalim ng mga Amerikano nang bumaha sa bansa ang kulturang Amerikanisado, na nagsasabing di tayo sibilisado kung hindi tayo marunong mag-Ingles, hindi natin kilala si Shakespeare at T.S. Eliot, hindi tayo marunong mag-Amerikana o bestido, hindi tayo kalahi ng mga Elizabeth Taylor at Gwyneth Paltrow, at wala tayong bunggalow, kotse, radyo, telebisyon at washing machine. Maliwanag na namamayagpag pa rin ang kaisipang kolonyal ngayon. Ang mga artistang Pilipinong kinalolokohan natin ay ang mga tisoy at tisay. Gayon din ang mga itinatanghal nating beauty queen. Ang hinahanap natin ay Levis na galing sa Amerika (kahit hindi ito sukat sa katawan ng Pilipino) at hindi gawa sa Batangas o sa Bangkok lamang. Ang airwaves ay pinaghaharian ng American top hits, samantalang sa telebisyon ay seryeng de-lata ng Kano at Mehikano ang kinahuhumalingan o ginagaya natin. Sa media at edukasyon ay patuloy ang pag-iral ng Ingles, na isa sa pangunahing dahilan kung bakit hindi maabot ng masang Pilipino ang mga artikulong mapanuri at kritikal. Ingles din ang nagpapanatili sa guwang sa pagitan ng naghahari at pinaghaharian. Sa larangan ng pulitika, ang kaisipang kolonyal ang dahilan kung bakit nagpapatumpik-tumpik noon ang marami tungkol sa pagpapaalis ng mga base militar, at kung bakit ang presidente ng Pilipinas ay natataranta sa pagsuporta sa US sa Iraq War. Daan-daang taon na ang kaisipang ito sa ating bayan at ito ang isa sa mga pangunahing balakid sa ating pagiging tunay na bansang malaya. Wumawagayway nga sa mga tagdan ng mga paaralan at opisina ng gobyerno ang ating bandila pero nakatanghod pa rin tayo sa isang higit na malakas na bansa na ang interes na pinaglilingkuran ay hindi naman ang kapakanan ng Sambayanang Pilipino. Ang Sakit ng Kalingkingan Malubha nga kung sa malubha ang kanser ng lipunan ngayon. Ngunit kailangan pa bang masangkot sa mga suliraning ito? Bakit di na lang tayo manahimik? Sa ayaw natin o sa gusto, ang ating kasalukuyan at hinaharap, ang ating mga buhay at hanapbuhay, at pati na ang ating mga pangarap para sa ating sarili, pamilya at angkan--ang lahat ng ito ay apektado ng nangyayari at mangyayari sa ating lipunan. Ang ating kinabukasan ay nakakawing sa kinabukasan ng bansa. Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan. Pero ano ang ating magagawa para makatulong sa pagbabanyuhay ng ating lipunan? Una, iwaksi ang kaisipang "Kami-Kami" at isaalang-alang na kapwa rin natin ang hindi natin kamag-anak. Buhayin ang tunay na pakikipagkapwa-tao, isang matandang pagpapahalaga ng mga Pilipino, na nakabatay sa paggalang sa karapatan ng iba. Alisin ang kaisipang "isahan" at puksain ang isip alimango at inggitan sa bahay, eskwelahan o pamahalaan. Mahalin ang mga kapatid, anak, at kamag-anak pero huwag magpadala sa bulag na pagmamahal na kumukunsunti sa masamang gawain. Ituro sa anak ang paggalang sa kapwa-tao, pagkat ang lapastangan ay lalapastanganin rin. Matuwa, huwag mainggit sa tagumpay ng iba, at magpursigi para magtagumpay din sa mabuting gawain. Pangalawa, paunlarin natin ang mga rehiyon ngunit wakasan na ang rehiyonalismo. Kailangang malinang ang likas na yaman at kultura ng ating mga baryo, bayan at lalawigan, pero isanib at ipailalim natin ang mga ito sa kapakanan ng buong sangkapuluan. Naniniwala kami sa desentralisasyon ng pamahalaan, pagkat ito marahil ang makapagrerenda sa mga abuso ng lokal na opisyal. Ito rin ang makapagbibigay ng insentibo sa mga lalawigan para mapabilis ang pagpapaunlad ng kanilang kabuhayang masyadong natali sa gobyerno sentral sa Maynila sa napakatagal nang panahon. Sa larangan ng kultura, pasiglahin natin ang mga sining na rehiyonal sa Cebuano, Iloko, Ilongo, Waray, Bikol at iba pang wika, sa mga grupong minoridad, sapagkat ang mga ito ang magiging buto at laman ng kulturang pambansa. Gayunman, ang paglinang sa yaman ng mga rehiyon ay hindi dapat magdulo sa rehiyonalismo. Kailangang ituon natin ang ating mga pananaw di lamang sa interes ng ating rehiyon kundi sa kapakanan ng buong bansa. Kaugnay nito, dapat igalang natin ang iilang mga simbolo ng ating bansa tulad ng awit na pambansa, at huwag sansalain ang paglaganap at paglakas ng iisang lingua franca na magsisilbing tulay na mag-uugnay sa iba't ibang rehiyon at interes ng sangkapuluan. Pangatlo, buwagin ang sistema ng palakasan. Ito ang isa sa mga masasamang kaugalian nating mga Pilipino. Higit pa rito, huwag nating ihalal ang opisyal na gumagamit ng sistemang ito, at huwag tayong laging umasa na lamang sa taong malalapitan o makakapitan. Sa halip nito, magbuo tayo ng ibang uri ng lakas, iyong lakas na nanggagaling hindi sa itaas o sa sentro, kundi sa ibaba, sa pakikiisa sa kapwa, sa pag-oorganisa, sa paggawa ng hakbang bilang nagkakaisang pangkat na hindi maaaring balewalain ng mga nasa poder. Tandaan natin na kaya naghari ang diktadura noon ay dahil na rin sa ating pagpapabaya at sa ating pagkunsinti sa taong "malakas." Pero tandaan din natin na napabagsak lamang ang diktador nang magkaisa ang taumbayan at nang magsanib ang iba't ibang sektor at uri sa EDSA noong 1986. Huwag umasa kay Malakas, sa sinumang malakas. Bumuo ng sarili nating kapangyarihan ng nagkakaisang mamamayan. Sa gayo'y masasawata natin ang pangungurakot ng nasa poder, ang pananakot ng sandatahan, ang pagyurak sa karapatang pantao. Pang-apat, saan man tayo naroroon, sinupin at pakinisin natin ang ating gawain. Sa bahay ay maging mabuting ina, ama, anak. Sa paaralan ay maging mahusay na guro, estudyante at mananaliksik. Sa pamahalaan ay maging malinis at epektibong senador, konggresista, gobernador, meyor, konsehal, sekretaryo. Sa propesyon ay maging mahusay na arkitekto, doktor, abugado, inhinyero, karpintero, latero, kantero, elektrisyan. Sa larangan ng sining ay maging mahusay na pintor, iskultor, musikero, aktor, direktor, dibuhista, manunulat, TV host, radio commentator. Huwag magpadala sa awa-sa-sarili dahil sa liit ng kikitain. Gawin natin ang ating trabaho hindi ayon sa ating kikitain kundi ayon sa pamantayang itinakda natin para sa ating sarili. Tandaan na ang taong may mataas na pamantayan para sa kanyang gawain ay taong may galang sa sarili, at ang gayong tao ay hindi papayag sa padaskul-daskol na trabaho ng sinuman -- maging siya'y pangulo ng bansa, o meyor ng isang maliit na bayan, sekretaryo ng edukasyon o guro ng isang paaralang elementarya. Ang pagsunod sa mataas na pamantayan ay magdudulo sa propesyunalisasyon, at ang propesyunalisasyon ang isa sa mga batayan ng tunay at epektibong demokrasya. Sa kasalukuyan, ang akademya na lamang marahil, partikular ang UP, ang isa sa natitirang institusyon na naninindigan pa rin para sa mataas na pamantayan ng pagtuturo at ng pananaliksik, para sa excellence o kagalingan. Kung kaya naman napakalaki ng responsibilidad ng ating mga guro at estudyante na, kahit ano pa man ang gawin ng mga hunghang na pulitiko sa ating badyet, ay hindi natin ikokompromiso o ipapariwara ang ating integridad. Singkahulugan ng integridad na iyan ang masusi at matiyagang pananaliksik, ang maayos at matalisik na pagtuturo, ang matiyagang paggabay sa lahat ng antas ng mga mag-aaral, at higit sa lahat, ang walang-puknat at walang-sawang pagsusumikap. Tulad ng laging siansabi ng isa sa ginagalang kong guro sa UP, si Prop. Teodoro Agoncillo, "there is no such thing as genius. Genius is 95 percent perspiration and 5 percent inspiration." Panlima, linangin ang pag-iisip na kritikal. Huwag padala sa sinabi lamang ng awtoridad o matanda. Huwag tayong masilaw sa pakitang-tao o magandang mukha o biste. Huwag basta marahuyo sa mga panga-pangako, lalo na ng mga pulitiko. Ang paglinang sa kaisipang kritikal ay kailangang magsimula sa bahay, sa pagpapalaki ng anak. Nakagawian na ng maraming magulang ang maging mumunting diktador sa kanilang pamamahay. "Ang bata ay di dapat sumagot kundi sumunod lamang." Totoo ito lalo na kung di sapat ang pag-iisip at kaalaman ng bata. Pero kung ang bata ay nagsisimula nang magtanong, sana naman ay hayaan itong gumamit ng sariling katuwiran. Huwag sansalain ang kanyang sinasabi dahil lamang sa siya'y bata, pagkat alam natin na maaaring tama ang sinasabi ng bata. Gayundin, sa mga paarala'y dapat nang iwaksi ang tinatawag na "banking method" -- yaong pagtuturo na dinidikta lamang ng titser ang lahat ng datos na puspusan namang itinatala ng estudyante sa kanyang notbuk, at pagkaraa'y kakabisahin o igagawa ng kodigo at pagkatapos ay ibabalik nang buong-buo at di pinag-isipan sa guro para makakuha ng mataas na grado. Lumaki tayong lahat sa pagiging kabisote pero hindi tao o mamamayan ang ibubunga ng ganitong sistema kundi loro o asong turo. Higit pa kaysa pagbibigay ng datos sa bata, ang matayog at tunay na layunin ng edukasyon ay turuang magsuri at mag-analisa ang bata para malaman niya kung paano haharapin ang lipunang kanyang kinabibilangan. Maaaring hindi niya matandaan sa kanyang pagtatapos kung anu-ano ang mga taon ng paghihimagsik ni Dagohoy o Tamblot, pero kung naiintindihan niya kung bakit nag-alsa ang mga ito laban sa Kastila ay malaki nang tubo sa puhunang pagod ng sinumang guro. Pang-anim, hunusin na ang kaisipang maka-banyaga at itaguyod ang kamalayang Pilipino. Dapat gumawa ng kongkretong hakbang ang ating pamahalaan para ilimita ang pagpasok ng banyagang pelikula, programa sa telebisyon at mga awitin sa radyo, at paramihin ang mga pelikula, palabas sa telebisyon at mga awiting gawa ng Pilipino para maprotektahan ang ating mga artista. Dapat ipagbawal ang mga patalastas na gumagamit ng modelong puti at ipinangangalandakan ang "stateside quality". Sa kabilang banda, dapat na isakatuparan ang Pilipinisasyon ng buong sistema ng edukasyon, dapat ituro sa mga bata ang kasaysayan at kulturang Pilipino sa punto-de-bista ng katutubong Pilipino, dapat gamitin ang Filipino at mga katutubong wika bilang wika ng pagsulat at pakikipagtalastasan. Gayundin, alamin natin ang mga produktong Pilipino na may mataas na uri at ating bilhin ang mga ito para mabuhay at yumabong ang kapital na Pilipino. Higit sa lahat, puksain natin ang ugat ng kaisipang banyaga--ang kaisipang nangmamata sa lahi at kulturang Pinoy. Tulad nina Doña Victorina at Doña Consolacion, ang ating pagsamba sa kulturang Kanluranin ay kaakibat ng ating paghamak sa katutubo nating kalinangan. Ito ang pinanggalingan ng "Pinoy-bashing" na nagsasabing ang Pinoy nga raw ay likas na mababa ang uri at panlasa, korap at walang prinsipyo, makasarili at walang malasakit sa bayan. Dagdag pa nila, "the Filipino is eminently negotiable." Malinaw na rasista ang ganitong mga pang-uuyam at rasista din ang mga Pilipinong naniniwala sa ganitong akusasyon. Pagkat ano nga ba ang kinalaman sa lahi ng mga katangiang ito? Kung may Pilipinong mababaw ang kaligayahan, meron din namang malalim ang pag-iisip at pag-unawa (tulad ng mga nasa harap ko ngayon, sana). Kung may Pilipinong mukhang pera, may Pilipinong walang katapat na presyo. Kung mayroong masyadong makasarili, mayroon din namang handang mamatay dahil sa makabayang prinsipyo. Tulad ng rasismo sa alin pa mang dako ng daigdig, ang anti-Pilipinismo ay konseptong ampaw. Kung wala sa lahi, nasaan nga kaya ang problema? Sa aming palagay, ang suliranin ng marami sa ating Pilipino ay, aminin man natin o hindi, nasa hindi natin pagtanggap sa realidad ng ating pagiging Pilipino. Sa kaibuturan ng ating budhi ay rasista ang marami sa atin at lumalabas ito kapag nagkakaroon tayo ng pagkakataong makaalpas sa ating pagiging Pilipino. Narito ang isang halimbawa. Nang kasalukuyang nagtuturo ako sa UC Berkeley noong taong 2001, nagkahuntahan kami ng isang sophomore na second-generation Filipino-American (pinanganak na siya sa States pero ang magulang niya ay immigrants). Anya, gustong-gusto raw niyang matutuhan ang kulturang Pilipino at lalo na ang wikang Pilipino, pero kinagalitan siya ng kanyang magulang nang malamang nag-enrol siya sa Tagalog. Sabi raw ng ina niya, "You are wasting your time. Why do you want to learn Tagalog? The point is to speak English without an accent." Ang mahalaga, ayon sa ina, ay maging bahagi ng American mainstream ang kanyang anak at mangyayari ito kapag hindi na napupuna, pagkat nabura na, ang pagiging Pilipino niya. Pero ang ironiya ng sitwasyon ay ito: hindi kailanman lubusang matatanggap ng mga puting Amerikano ang ganitong Pilipino (gaano man kahusay ang kanyang Ingles), hindi lamang dahil ang kulay at hitsura niya ay hindi puti kundi lalo't higit, dahil ni hindi niya matanggap ang kanyang sarili bilang Pilipino. At iyan nga marahil ang una nating dapat gawin -- ang tumungo sa harap ng salamin at buong taimtim na kilatisin ang kulay ng ating balat at ang tabas ng ating mga mata, ilong, bibig at tenga, at tuklasin/tiyakin sa ating mga sarili na tayo nga ay lahing Pilipino. Pangalawa, at mas mahalaga, unawain natin na ang ating pagiging Pilipino ay hindi aksidente ng kasaysayan, kundi manapa'y tadhana ng sansinukob. Ito'y tinakda sa atin tulad ng ating magulang at mga kapatid, kamag-anakan at kaibigan, eskwela, kamag-aral at guro, at iginawad sa atin ng kalikasan, tulad ng ating mga talento marami man o kaunti, ng ating normal o may kapansanan na pangangatawan, ng mga kondisyong kinapapalooban natin ngayon sa ibig man natin o hindi. Sa katagang sabi, may dahilan ang ating pagiging Pilipino sa panahon at lunang ito, at bahagi ng ating buhay ay dapat iukol sa pagtuklas ng misyong kaakibat ng pagiging Pilipino natin. Hangga't hindi natin ito hinaharap nang buong kamalayan, hindi tayo mapapakali at mabuway ang ating magiging buhay. Subalit sa sandaling yakapin natin ang ating identidad, lalago at mamumukadkad ang ating lahi at hahalimuyak sa buong sansinukob ang henyo ng ating pagkaPilipino. Totoong malubha ang sakit ng bayan ngayon at mahaba pa ang ating lalakbayin para makarating sa minimithing kaunlaran ng bayan. Pero kung tayo'y patuloy na magpupunyagi at magsisimula ng pagbabago ng ating mga sarili, sa ating pamamahay, opisina, o paaralan, tayo at ang iba pa nating kapanalig ang makalilikha ng isang bagong Pilipinas. Bilang pangwakas, nais kong anyayahan kayong lahat -- mga minamahal kong estudyante, at kasamang mga guro, mga ginagalang na panauhin, at kaibigang ginigiliw, bigkasin po natin nang sabay-sabay, bilang panata sa ating Inang Bayan ang sinaunang tulang nilimbag noong 1605, na nilapatan ko ng bagong pangwakas na taludtod

may day eve

May Day Eve

By Nick Joaquin

The old people had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten o’clock but it was almost midnight before the carriages came filing up the departing guests, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedrooms, the young men gathering around to wish them a good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moaning, proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straightway going off to finish the punch and the brandy though they were quite drunk already and simply bursting with wild spirits, merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from Europe; the ball had been in their honor; and they had waltzed and polka-ed and bragged and swaggered and flirted all night and where in no mood to sleep yet--no, caramba, not on this moist tropic eve! not on this mystic May eve! --with the night still young and so seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth---and serenade the neighbors! cried one; and swim in the Pasid! cried another; and gather fireflies! cried a third—whereupon there arose a great clamor for coats and capes, for hats and canes, and they were a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage rattled away upon the cobbles while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tile roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wile sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable childhood fragrances or ripe guavas to the young men trooping so uproariously down the street that the girls who were desiring upstairs in the bedrooms catered screaming to the windows, crowded giggling at the windows, but were soon sighing amorously over those young men bawling below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their proud flashing eyes, and their elegant mustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love, and began crying to one another how carefree were men but how awful to be a girl and what a horrid, horrid world it was, till old Anastasia plucked them off by the ear or the pigtail and chases them off to bed---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobble and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his great voice booming through the night, "Guardia serno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o.

And it was May again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, she said--for it was a night of divination, and night of lovers, and those who cared might peer into a mirror and would there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry, said the old Anastasia as she hobble about picking up the piled crinolines and folding up shawls and raking slippers in corner while the girls climbing into four great poster-beds that overwhelmed the room began shrieking with terror, scrambling over each other and imploring the old woman not to frighten them.

"Enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!"

"Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!"

"She is not a witch, she is a maga. She is a maga. She was born of Christmas Eve!"

"St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr."

"Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?"

"No, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!"

"Let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell me."

"You may learn in a mirror if you are not afraid."

"I am not afraid, I will go," cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.

"Girls, girls---we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all. Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and go away!""Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!"

"And I will not lie down!" cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. "Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do."

"Tell her! Tell her!" chimed the other girls.

The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl. "You must take a candle," she instructed, "and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror and close your eyes and shy:

Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry." A silence. Then: "And hat if all does not go right?" asked Agueda. "Ah, then the Lord have mercy on you!" "Why." "Because you may see--the Devil!"

The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering. "But what nonsense!" cried Agueda. "This is the year 1847. There are no devil anymore!" Nevertheless she had turned pale. "But where could I go, hugh? Yes, I know! Down to the sala. It has that big mirror and no one is there now." "No, Agueda, no! It is a mortal sin! You will see the devil!" "I do not care! I am not afraid! I will go!" "Oh, you wicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!" "If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will call my mother." "And if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the convent last March. Come, old woman---give me that candle. I go." "Oh girls---give me that candle, I go."

But Agueda had already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across the hall; her feet bare and her dark hair falling down her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering in one hand while with the other she pulled up her white gown from her ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirling couples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers. But, oh, it was a dark den, a weird cavern for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls. She crossed herself and stepped inside.

The mirror hung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold frame carved into leaves and flowers and mysterious curlicues. She saw herself approaching fearfully in it: a small while ghost that the darkness bodied forth---but not willingly, not completely, for her eyes and hair were so dark that the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask that floated forward; a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the white cloud of her gown. But when she stood before the mirror she lifted the candle level with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.

She closed her eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had finished such a terror took hold of her that she felt unable to move, unable to open her eyes and thought she would stand there forever, enchanted. But she heard a step behind her, and a smothered giggle, and instantly opened her eyes.

"And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?" But Dona Agueda had forgotten the little girl on her lap: she was staring pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seeing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room and the same mirror out the face she now saw in it was an old face---a hard, bitter, vengeful face, framed in graying hair, and so sadly altered, so sadly different from that other face like a white mask, that fresh young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror one wild May Day midnight years and years ago.... "But what was it Mama? Oh please go on! What did you see?" Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but her face did not soften though her eyes filled with tears. "I saw the devil." she said bitterly. The child blanched. "The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh..." "Yes, my love. I opened my eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder, was the face of the devil." "Oh, my poor little Mama! And were you very frightened?" "You can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when their mothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass- or you may see something frightful some day." "But the devil, Mama---what did he look like?" "Well, let me see... he has curly hair and a scar on his cheek---" "Like the scar of Papa?" "Well, yes. But this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa is a scar of honor. Or so he says." "Go on about the devil." "Well, he had mustaches." "Like those of Papa?" "Oh, no. Those of your Papa are dirty and graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant--oh, how elegant!" "And did he speak to you, Mama?" "Yes… Yes, he spoke to me," said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying head; she wept.

"Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one," he had said, smiling at her in the mirror and stepping back to give her a low mocking bow. She had whirled around and glared at him and he had burst into laughter. "But I remember you!" he cried. "You are Agueda, whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and I danced a waltz with you but you would not give me the polka." "Let me pass," she muttered fiercely, for he was barring the way. "But I want to dance the polka with you, fair one," he said. So they stood before the mirror; their panting breath the only sound in the dark room; the candle shining between them and flinging their shadows to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept home very drunk to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet. "Let me pass!" she cried again, in a voice of fury, but he grasped her by the wrist. "No," he smiled. "Not until we have danced." "Go to the devil!" "What a temper has my serrana!" "I am not your serrana!" "Whose, then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you treat me, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies." "And why not?" she demanded, jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face. "Oh, how I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back elegant lords and we poor girls are too tame to please you. We have no grace like the Parisiennes, we have no fire like the Sevillians, and we have no salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious men!" "Come, come---how do you know about us?"

"I was not admiring myself, sir!" "You were admiring the moon perhaps?" "Oh!" she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle dropped from her hand and she covered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in darkness, and young Badoy was conscience-stricken. "Oh, do not cry, little one!" Oh, please forgive me! Please do not cry! But what a brute I am! I was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said." He groped and found her hand and touched it to his lips. She shuddered in her white gown. "Let me go," she moaned, and tugged feebly. "No. Say you forgive me first. Say you forgive me, Agueda." But instead she pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it - bit so sharply in the knuckles that he cried with pain and lashed cut with his other hand--lashed out and hit the air, for she was gone, she had fled, and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his bleeding fingers. Cruel thoughts raced through his head: he would go and tell his mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house--or he would go himself to the girl’s room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly face! But at the same time he was thinking that they were all going to Antipolo in the morning and was already planning how he would maneuver himself into the same boat with her. Oh, he would have his revenge, he would make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this, he thought greedily, licking his bleeding knuckles. But---Judas! He remembered her bare shoulders: gold in her candlelight and delicately furred. He saw the mobile insolence of her neck, and her taut breasts steady in the fluid gown. Son of a Turk, but she was quite enchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she had of it!

"... No lack of salt in the chrism At the moment of thy baptism!" He sang aloud in the dark room and suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with her. He ached intensely to see her again---at once! ---to touch her hands and her hair; to hear her harsh voice. He ran to the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a blow. It was May, it was summer, and he was young---young! ---and deliriously in love. Such a happiness welled up within him that the tears spurted from his eyes. But he did not forgive her--no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his revenge, he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a night it had been! "I will never forge this night! he thought aloud in an awed voice, standing by the window in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the wind in his hair and his bleeding knuckles pressed to his mouth.

But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May time passes; summer lends; the storms break over the rot-tipe orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded, too confused: dust gathers in it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the memory perished...and there came a time when Don Badoy Montiya walked home through a May Day midnight without remembering, without even caring to remember; being merely concerned in feeling his way across the street with his cane; his eyes having grown quite dim and his legs uncertain--for he was old; he was over sixty; he was a very stopped and shivered old man with white hair and mustaches coming home from a secret meeting of conspirators; his mind still resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart still exultant as he picked his way up the steps to the front door and inside into the slumbering darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his way down the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood ran cold-- for he had seen a face in the mirror there---a ghostly candlelight face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had been there before though it was a full minutes before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a gay young buck again, lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he s stepped in the doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called out...and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night go jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.

"Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me. Don Badoy had turned very pale. "So it was you, you young bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?" "Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..." "Yes, you are the great Señor only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Señor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you maga wish you were someone else, Sir!" "It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife."

"Wife? What wife?" "Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in a mirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror show to me her whose lover I will be.

Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the boy between his knees. "Now, put your cane down the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already, hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But so you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play them are in danger of seeing horrors?"

"Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead."

"Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you, she will torture you, she will eat

your heart and drink your blood!"

"Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore."

"Oh-ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.

"You? Where?

"Right in this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful voice had turned savage.

"When, Grandpa?"

"Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I was feeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but...but..."

"The witch?"

"Exactly!"

"And then she bewitch you, Grandpa!"

"She bewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my blood." said the old man bitterly.

"Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very horrible?

"Horrible? God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have known---I should have known even then---the dark and fatal creature she was!"

A silence. Then: "What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa," whispered the boy.

"What makes you slay that, hey?"

"Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this mirror. Was it of the scare that Grandma died?"

Don Badoy started. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished---the poor Agueda; that they were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the earth---from the trap of a May night; from the snare of summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a mere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out with her cruel tongue; her eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing--- nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---nothing! was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.

And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his voice booming through the night:

"Guardia sereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"

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new yorker in tondo

New Yorker In Tondo Script

NEW YORKER IN TONDO

By : Marcelino Agana

"New Yorker in Tondo" is a classic Filipino Play by Marcelino Agana, Jr. It is a satire written in the 50's. It is a story about a girl named Kikay who goes to New York and fell in love with it. She acquires all the New Yorkish things - style, looks, language and manners. These things are very obvious when she arrives in the Philippines specifically in Tondo.

Aling Atang, mother of Kikay, has been carried away by her daughters way of living. She tries to converse with everybody in broken English.

Tony, childhood sweetheart of Kikay, decides to visit and catch things up with her friend. He is a simple guy who got secretly engaged with their other childhood friend, Nena.

Nena is a tomboyish type of girl. On her visit in Kikay's house, she finds her friend different and weird. She gets irritated and even imitates Kikay's ways.

Totoy, the Tondo "canto boy" is their other friend who is funny and has a secret love for Nenan which has only been revealded when the two females

isang dipang langit

ISANG DIPANG LANGIT
Amado V. Hernandez

 

 

Akoy ipiniit ng linsil na langi        

                hangad palibhasang diwa koy pilitin,

katawang marupo, aniya’y pagsuko,

                damdami’y supil na;t maihiin ay supil

 

Ikinulong ako sa kutang malupit;

                bato bakal punlo, balasik ng bantay:

lubos na tiwalag sa buong daigdig

                at inaring kahit buhay man ay patay

 

Sa munting dungawan, tanging abot-malas

                ay sandipang langit na puno ng luha ,

maramot na birang ng pusong may sugat

                watawat ng aking pagkapariwara.

 

Sintalim ng kidlat ang mata ng tanod,

                sa pintong may susi’y walang makalapit

sigaw ng bilanggo sa katabing muog,

                anaki’y atungal ng hayop sa yungib.

 

Ang maghapo’y tila isang tanikala

                na kalakaladkad ng paanang madugo,

ang buong magdamag ay kulambong luksa

                ng kabaong waring lungga ng bilanggo.

 

Kung minsa’y magdaan ang payak na yabag,

                kawil ng kadena ang kumakalanding;

sa maputlang araw saglit ibibilad,

                sanlibong aninong inilwa ng dilim.

 

Kung minsan, ang gabi’y biglang magulantang

                sa hudyat--may takas!--at asod ng punlo;

kung minsa’y tumangis ang limang batingaw,

                sa bitayang muog, may naghihingalo

 

At ito ang tanging daigdig ko ngayon--

                bilangguang mandi’y libingan ng buhay;

sampu, dalawampu, at lahat ng taon

                ng buong buhay ko’y dito mapipigtal. 

 

Nguni’t yaring diwa’y walang takot-hirap

                at batitis pa rin itong aking puso:

piita’y bahagi ng pakikilamas,

                mapiit ay tanda ng hindi pagsuko.

 

Ang tao’t Bathala ay di natutulog 

                at di habang araw ang api ay api,

tanang paniniil ay may pagtutuos,

                habang may Bastilya’y may bayang gaganti.

 

At bukas, diyan din, aking matatanaw

                sa sandipang langit na wala nang luha,

sisikat ang gintong araw ng tagumpay . . .

                layang sasalubong ako sa paglaya!

 

Bartolina ng Muntinlupa 

Abril 22, 1952

 Bulatlat.com

how the angels built lake lanao

How the Angels Built Lake Lanao

Long ago there was no lake in Lanao.  On the place where it is now situated, there flourished a mighty sultanate called Mantapoli.  During the reign of Sultan Abdara Radawi, the greater grandfather of Radia Indarapatra (mythological hero of the Lanao Muslims), this realm expanded by military conquests and by dynastic marriages so that in time its fame spread far and wide.

The population of Mantapoli was numerous and fast increasing.  At that time the world was divided into two regions: Sebangan (East) and Sedpan (West).   The mighty sultanate of Mantapoli belonged to Sebangan.  Because this sultanate rapidly increased in power and population as well, the equilibrium between Sebangan and Sedpan was broken.

This dis-equilibrium soon came to the attention of Archangel Diabarail (Gabriel to the Christians).  Like a flash of sunlight, Diabarail flew to the Eighth heaven and told Allah, "My Lord, why have you permitted the unbalance of the earth?   Because of the power of Mantapoli, Sebangan is now larger than Sedpan."

"Why, Diabarail," replied the Sohara (Voice of Allah), "what is wrong with that?"

"My Lord, Mantapoli has a vast population countless as the particles of dust.  If we will allow this sultanate to remain in Sebangan, I fear that the world would turn upside down, since Sebangan is heavier than Sedpan."

"Your words show great wisdom, Diabarail," commented the Sohara.

"What must we do, my Lord, to avert the impending catastrophe?"

To this query, the Sohara replied, "Go right away to the Seven-Regions-Beneath-the-Earth and to the Seven-Regions-in-the-Sky and gather all the angels.  I will cause a barahana (solar eclipse) and in the darkness let the angels remove Mantapoli and transfer it to the center of the earth."

Upon receiving the mandate of Allah, Archangel Diabarail, traveling faster than lightning, rallied the millions of angels from the Seven-Regions-Beneath-the-Earth and the Seven-Regions-in-the-Sky.  With this formidable army, he presented himself to Allah, saying, "My Lord, we are ready to obey Your command."

The Sohara spoke, "Go to Sebangan, and lift the land of Mantapoli."

Diabarail, leading his army of angels, flew to the east.  In the twinkle of an eye, the sun vanished and a terrible darkness as black as the blackest velvet shrouded the universe.  The angels sped faster than arrows.  They swooped on Mantapoli, lifting it with great care and carried it (including its people, houses, crops and animals) through the air as if it were a carpet.  They brought it down at the center of the earth, in accordance with the command of Allah.  The very spot vacated by the sultanate of Mantapoli became a huge basin of deep, blue water-the present Lanao Lake.

The waters coming from the deep bowels of the earth rose higher and higher.  Archangel Diabarail, seeing the rising tides immediately returned to the Eighth Heaven and reported to Allah, "My Lord, the earth is now balanced.  But the place where we removed Mantapoli is becoming an ocean.  The waters are rising fast, and unless an outlet for them can be found, I fear that they might inundate Sebangan and drown all Your people."

In response, the Sohara said, "You are right, Diabarail.  Go out, then, and summon the Four Winds of the World: Angin Taupan, Angin Besar, Angin Darat, and Angin Sarsar.  Tell them to blow and make an outlet for the overflowing waters."

Obeying the Master's command, the faithful messenger summoned the Four Winds.  "By the Will of Allah," he told them, "blow your best, and make an outlet for the rising waters of the new lake."

The four winds of the world blew, and a turbulence swept the whole eastern half of the earth.  The surging waters rolled swiftly towards the shores of Tilok Bay to the southeastern direction.  But the towering ranges impeded their onrush.   The Four Winds blew, hurling the waves against the rocky slopes but in vain; no outlet could be cut through the mountain barrier.

Changing direction, this time eastward, the Four Winds blew harder driving the raging waters towards the shores of Sugud Bay (situated east of Dansalan, now Marawi City).  Once again, the attempt to create an outlet failed because the bay was too far from the sea.

For the third time, the Four Winds changed direction and blew their hardest.  The waves, plunging with ferocity, rolled towards Marawi.  Day and night, the Winds blew as the waters lashed against the shoreline of Marawi.  This time the attempt succeeded.  An outlet now called Agus River was made, and through the outlet, that water of Lake Lanao poured out to the sea, thereby saving Sebangan from a deluge.

It came to past that there was a high cliff at the outlet, and over the cliff the waters cascaded in majestic volume.  Thus, arose the beautiful falls which, aeons later, was named Maria Cristina, after a famous queen of Spain.