discover how a photograph affects your emotion

I took this picture after walking through the streets of Davao City. This is a community found under the Generoso Bridge.

Well, this picture, I believe, has already painted a thousand words. My essay is all found in this frame. And the poetry too.

the man i don’t want to see for the third time

I don’t know his name. I don’t even care. But since I’m gifted with a functional brain, I could still remember his face even without the picture. But since I purposely took his picture without his knowledge, then perhaps I’m admitting that I’d better memorize his face, even in side view.

This is a vignette dedicated for this person with whom I felt a sense of contempt, and of disgust. This is the story.

I was riding the jeepney going home when this man happened to be the driver’s “kondoktor” (a driver’s noisy assistant who takes charge in collecting the fares of passengers and who prolongs our agony of waiting for more passengers by pushing them towards the vehicle – I was one of their many victims but that’s another story). In one of those stops wherein he called for passengers and led them to the vehicle, he tried insisting that the jeepney could still hold one more passenger before finally driving off. However, one of the passengers, a female, exclaimed and said to him, “It’s already too full for one more person. We can even barely move our butts here!” The passenger said this with an irritated voice. She was right anyway. This man still persisted but to no avail.

Finally as the jeepney rode on, this man showed his arrogance, grumbling out loud probably because he was pissed off by the female passenger who argued with him. He would roll his eyes away from that woman, or stare at her with a look of scorn and disgust. i could feel his hot ears burning in madness.

I was observing him, and right at that moment, I just wanted to kick him off from the doorway so that he’ll fall off the road and then get smashed by a speeding truck. He was on the verge of disrespect and it angered me that he reacted that way; he didn’t want ot be corrected.

The second time I saw him was when I and two of my classmates were riding a motorcycle. He was the driver. I’m glad nothing happened though but the memory of our first encounter came back to me and i felt that same disgust I had that day in the jeepney.

I just wish I won’t see him the third time.

remembering the teacher who cures insomnia

I have to admit this time and time again: blogging is very difficult. I blame this on my computer lesson teacher in high school. My goodness! You just have to listen to her voice to get your insomnia cured! I have to apologize for blaming her here, but it’s true. She deserves it. Well, I think showing her a dirty finger is just too much so I’m not going to do that. But I blame my ignorance to her.

Why?

She provoked me not to learn how to use the computer well. The way I remember our classes, she could not explain our lessons very well that I even had to crawl toward our valedictorian’s seat during our exam just to let her teach me how to answer the questions about Microsoft Excel and other programs I have now forgotten. Her teaching strategy did not excite me; it bored me to death that I did not realize I was already sleeping in her class. She is the perfect example of teachers that should re-take the teachers’ Board Exam and then undergo a one-on-one training on how to effectively teach computer classes inside an airconditioned classroom where high school students tend to fall asleep and dream. And another thing: she is struggling with her grammar. I’m sorry.

That’s why I’m way too behind with my peers when it comes to computers. I had developed this weird kind of fear a long time ago whenever I face the computer and then use the mouse and the keyboard. I remember being afraid of using the computer for fear of ruining the programs or worse, deleting them. So, besides Mathematics, cockroaches, snakes, spiders, drunkards, and gangsters on the streets, I was also afraid of computers. It’s really embarrassing.

Well, the good thing though is that I’m making up for my loss. I am actually starting to explore more about the newest programs and learning how to use them. It’s very difficult for me especially when I’m alone. The thing still scares me though. There’s still that fear I couldn’t name, couldn’t explain. It’s just there waiting to prance at me.

I’m writing this because I could not get the feeling off me that I’m such a loser in using this stuff. I wish I could just scream in front of that teacher’s face for one minute and then go.

a sweet, neglected moment in a crowded jeepney

Perhaps, the most interesting thing that could happen inside a jeepney, besides waiting for long hours during traffics, or wiping your glazing forehead, or fanning yourself with your hand and muttering curses under your breath, is when your legs get too close with another’s, and then realizing that all the legs you’re seeing are actually doing the same thing. And you can’t do anything about it.

It’s funny how I realized that just lately. Everyday, I ride the jeepney going to school and back home and it’s when heading home that I usually experience riding in a very crowded jeepney wherein even half of my butt sits while the other hangs helplessly until, if fortune does not come, I arrive at my destiny with my knees shaking and tired. Even legs, I realized, can tell a bit of who their owners are. There are some who prefer showing their smooth, bare legs while other choose to hide theirs. Others have huge ones; some, lean ones.

I think it’s the sweet part of riding jeepneys, even though some of them are too old already and run very slowly, or better, when their covers still shine under the sunlight and have cool surround-sound speakers attached inside. Even though it’s hard looking at this very minute, sentimental detail, I’m glad I’ve seen it anyway. At least I’d have the leisure of looking around different, colorful feet, then up to the varying sizes of legs, and all the way up to the different, blank faces of these strangers, and then mutter a simple thanks for the opportunity of appreciating one of life’s simple, irritating experiences inside crowded jeepneys. Yes, instead of finding myself swearing secretly in my head and hoping that I’ll soon arrive at my destiny.

the death of a language

Just very recently, I read Earl Shorris’ essay entitled The Last Word. There, he discussed about the condition of language in general, a condition that almost all of the world’s different, unique languages are facing: their doom to silence. In one part of that essay, he mentions the linguist Michael Krauss saying that as many as 3,000 languages, comprising half of all the words on earth, are doomed to silence in the next century.

Suddenly, I remembered Al Gore’s The Inconvenient Truth wherein he explained that in a few years to come, when global warming still rises to its peak, ice poles would then melt, increasing water level until it reaches the shores of big land masses, and afterwards covering them entirely in the face of the earth. Shorris’ essay is not about global warming, of course. But I see the same phenomenon in his discussion about the language and its fate after a few more years. Soon, these different languages would only be part of history, entirely covered in the face of the earth.

Of the languages what I mean is the different, indigenous languages of each region of each country in the world. Shorris even added further that of all the arts and sciences made by man, none equals a language, for only a language in its living entirety can describe a unique and irreplaceable world. Such statement is true. Language creates its own reality, as one of my professors had said. Language is a man-made tool used by humans wherein all the complexities of all cultures around the world came into being, no matter how distinct they may be. It is what we use to indicate a name for a specific thing, say a tree, or a flower, or a stone.

Shorriss’ central focus is the Yu’pik language spoken in the Yukon and Kuskokwim deltas in Alaska. He reported that the single most prominent feature is the television being set in the homes of the Yu’pik poor. Not that we should put all the blame on televisions for diminishing the value of a particular indigenous language. However, television is just one of the many products of globalization and Shorris pointed out that globalization homogenizes every nation, evry village, no matter how remote. Among the other products of it are movies, music, and the Internet. Unconsciously, the danger lies in every home.

What’s there to be afraid about, anyway? you may say. I was thinking about what Shorris said and what my profesor said. Being a Filipino, I could not easily shove off the idea that what the Yupiits are experiencing is similar to all the indigenous people in the Philippines. I am still talking of language here. I have to admit that my native language approximately ranks third in my standard of language proficiency, English being the topmost, and then Tagalog. He calls it The Hierarchy of Language, and pronounces hierarchy as ‘higher archy’. Suddenly, I was caught in a sudden realization: unknowingly, I have been starting to silence my own, native language.

The phenomenon is, in fact, very alarming. Seldom do I read literatures and other publications that devote into using my own language in my own place. It is only verbally alive. It is the English language that dominates the world today, and it is the same language that is required by all companies from every applicant, all schools from every student and teacher, all books from every subject. Slowly, there appears that impending fear of losing that unique, irreplaceable, fine texture of language, not just in my own country (Philippines) but for the whole world as well. Perhaps, Shorris is right when he said that to save languages, to provide some use, might require wars or nationalistic urges but it need not come to that point.

For now, I am sharing this for the mere purpose of awareness and a constant reminder at the same time of the condition of the languages that might seem inferior to English but, for the natives, surpasses the English language at all. Perhaps when my mind is made up and when I can gather more bases for my stand that I can share an original opinion that would be both informative and persuasive.

the problem with teachers who speak online jargons

During a class discussion about the value of creative writing as a tool through other arts forms such as the visual arts, music, and the performing arts, I was suddenly faced with a lot of terminologies I have never encountered yet in the course of my reading simple literature stuff. I have to admit that even though I belong in this different generation of web blogging and where the spirit of this age speakes the language of speed, I still have to comment on teachers adapting the language of the internet into the classrooms.

I’m afraid one of my teachers is like that, and the problem is that I could not understand what she is trying to say after all. Perhaps she only adores accounting on her experiences in blogging and all her frenzies to the class that she slowly overlooks the language she uses. I still have to understand though that the reason why she does that is because the course demands her that knowledge to be imparted to her students. However, the problem I see there is that the old way of teaching slowly diminishes into our view and we are suddenly faced with a different kind of knowledge that’s still beyond our capacity to learn, quickly. As for me, I still have to go inside an internet cafe just to get in touch with my e-mails, at least. And learning those new online jargons turns the experience not as a chance to widen my knowledge more and appreciate it, but creates another kind of paranoia and fear knowing that I still lack the sufficient knowledge in handling these programs.

What I’m simply trying to say here is that young teachers should not make it a means of imparting academic knowledge jargons usually found online. The prospect of using them is good though, but there are certain limits and teachers should be aware of that. Besides, these teachers may not know what’s playing in the minds of their students, whether they’ve understood them well, or not.

the ignorant decides to learn

I know the whole world already knows this fact and that I’d have to agree that I’m one of those few ignorant people who have started to step up into this huge ladder of world wide webbing, but I’d have to say this again for others and especially for myself: this online blogging, it’s prodigious!

In fact, while I am writing this first piece of opinion, my fingers are shaking. I remember one of my literature teachers saying blogging is not her type, and that she still prefers the conventional way of putting her thoughts into the paper rather than just typing them on the screen. At that moment, I totally agreed with her and I was convinced that I was swayed by her standpoint. She has that persuasive factor, you know. And as a budding writer, my idea about writing is really the actual writing of words into a paper and making use of the black and blue ink, and seeing too many erasures and circles on it. If I have to press more on its romantic side, I think it’s how I can see my own hand writing on the paper, or the smell of the ink, or the crumpling of its corners, or just the mere presence of the paper in my hands and the assurance that the words are there being kept safe that pulls me into liking the act of writing rather than just the idea of writing but is really typing.

Now that her class had been past for me, her standpoint is slowly becoming a blur in my memory. By looking around and actually sensing the way in which the whole world is shifting right now into something more and more intangible, I begin to have second thoughts about what she said. Besides, too many have already said there’s money in this kind of “online arena.”

That’s why my fingers are shaking. Slowly, I’m beginning to think of learning its know-hows.

uncle’s secret

After seeing his uncle Boyet forcing himself on Lydia at the back side of the bodega where his father used to pile all those metal scrapes and some plastic and glass bottles, he decided not to tell anyone what he saw that night. He knew why; he was afraid.

By now, Orlan had noticed the silent fear in Lydia’s eyes whenever uncle Boyet is in their house. He would notice too how queer Lydia and uncle Boyet would look at each other whenever their eyes met. Lydia’s eyes seemed to dance crazily, and those black circles would quiver in fright. As for uncle Boyet’s, he could only hiss the word “maniac” under his breath.

“Orlan.” It was his uncle Boyet.

“Uncle?” His heart skipped a bit after hearing his name being called by that familiar voice.

“What’s wrong with you?” his uncle asked after they were left alone in the kitchen that Sunday noon. Orlan’s family was having a small gathering of all close relatives of his father. Occasions like that had seemed ordinary now for his family.

“Me?” he paused for a while and forced a laugh. “No, uncle. Why did you ask?”

“You sure?”

This time, Orlan saw his uncle’s eyes piercing right through his. And he felt his ears burning.

Orlan tried to laugh coolly.

“Why uncle? You seem so worried about me.”

“Worried. You’re right, Orlan.” And he tapped his hand on his shoulder, and Orlan felt its weight.

“What do you mean, uncle?”

It took a few seconds before his uncle started to talk.

“I’ve been noticing you lately.” Orlan swallowed air on his throat.

“Like what?”

“You were looking rather strangely at me…and…” His uncle stopped for a while and looked at Orlan again. “…and at your sister.”

“Lydia?” Orlan tried to laugh but he knew it was of no use at the moment.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Orlan.”

This time, he could feel the loud thumping of his heartbeat and wished that he would blow himself up so that he could escape from answering his uncle’s question.

“Orlan.” His uncle’s voice sounded firm this time.

‘Promise Uncle, I’ll never tell anyone what I saw that night. I’ll never tell father. Please, uncle. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” He did not know why he was saying these to him. He was always scared at him, and he never wanted to taste his fury.

His uncle Boyet gave him a smile and touched his right shoulder.

“That’s my nephew. You’re like your father, eh,” he said, this time in a gentler voice. “Always obedient and never a bad boy.”

Orlan only nodded as he looked at his uncle walking away towards the door where his family was waiting outside for their usual lunch together.

last money

Mila clutched the money in her hand, tightly, as she walked the narrow street that led to a store nearby. She had planned to buy Biogesic, a tablet medicine for her son’s headache, and it made her frown even more. Not because her son had earlier complained of a headache, no. She would do anything for her son. But because she only had twenty pesos left.

She walked straight ahead since that narrow road led directly to Manang Gina’s store, just eight houses from hers. Mila lowered her head and thought how else to earn for a living. She was soon interrupted by Lena’s chitchat ahead and that gave her a temporary smile.

“Hoy, Mila come here,” Lena called. Mila saw that she had just ended a conversation with a younger lady and so she walked towards her.

“Did you hear of Romelyn getting pregnant?” Lena asked after the young lady had left.

“No. She did? With whom?” Mila asked, and she stood closer to Lena.

“Hay, to Bernard. That foolish rascal you have long hated!” she replied with a gentle slap on Mila’s left shoulder. “Di ba, you hated his attitude of plundering drivers at the high way when he should have made use of his big muscles and find work.”

“What? To that sluggard? Ay, I have always predicted that Romelyn—“ She quickly cut off her words and looked around to see if anyone was around, especially Romelyn. “—na igat.”

“Did you see her here just a few minutes ago?”

“Yes. So that was what you talked about?”

“Yes. Actually, I pity that girl sometimes. Hay Mila, that was harsh of you to say that. It’s not entirely her fault, you know.”

“Mare, she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if she didn’t open her legs for him. Na! She should have realized how hard it is to raise a child!”

“Uy, grabe sad.” Lena exclaimed and gently shoved Mila’s shoulder again. “Anyway, you’re right. It was her decision too, that’s why. It’s really hard raising a child. And to think that she’s only nineteen. Tsk tsk. Poor girl.”

“Of course.” Mila added with a firm tone. “Uy, I’ll just go to Gina’s store ha. I’ll have to buy Bogesic for junior. He was complaining about his headache.”

“O sige. I’ll also be preparing dinner inside. Meynard will be home soon from work.”

“Hay, I wish my husband’s going to find work too.” Mila breathed silently. “O sige. Thank you for that small chat.”

“Sige Mare.”

Mila walked further on until she reached the store. She loosened her grasp on the money and saw that it crumpled into a smaller piece of paper.

“Gin, Biogesic.” Mila said, and handed the last money she had for the day. In her mind, she thought of her son sick of headache and the last money she had. She was surprised herself when she thought she wished her husband was Meynard and not her useless husband who couldn’t find any job.

the cellar

That afternoon, it rained so hard that Bobby thought it wouldn’t stop. Plak. Plak. Plak. Plak. Plak. He could hear all of them and imagined them plummeting on the roof above him though he could see from his window that they really plummeted from the sky. But he thought rain falling on the roof and making sounds like Plak Plak Plak are grander than those fallen on the ground. And he was more interested in listening to the Plak Plak Plak hitting on the roof above his bedroom than imagining the sound it made as it hit on the ground because that would mean going outside the house and inching closer to the ground, ears nearer to the ground, in order to actually hear the sound it made. So he stayed tucked in his bed instead and watched the ceiling in case it gave way, and that was again part of his imagination from the rain pouring hard from the sky which made the Plak Plak Plak sound above his bedroom.

Suddenly, he changed his mind. He freed himself from the sheets that covered his body and walked towards the window. He looked outside and looked closer at the ground where the rain would hit last because he thought that some of the rain should have hit on branches, and leaves, and electric posts, and wires, and clotheslines, and clothes, and airplanes, and trucks, and cars, and steel bars, and cellars, anything higher than the ground. So, he concluded, the rain should hit the ground last.

He went out from his bedroom and headed outside. He did not have any slippers on and he did not mind. He liked the idea of feeling the floor with his bare feet. He felt it prepared him for a colder ground outside. He rolled the glass door in the entrance facing the big sofa and the back of the television. Finally, he was outside.

He trudged on the cemented floor until he reached that part where the concrete floor ended. He felt a sudden excitement from the idea of hearing the kind of sound the rain would create when hitting the ground. He lowered himself until his ears reached the blades of grass growing on the ground. He listened.

Darn! He could not hear anything from there. Instead, he heard the loud Plak Plak Plak of the rain hitting on the roof shading the entrance door. He listened harder. No. He could not hear anything at all except the loud Plak Plak Plak of the rain hitting the roofs.

“Bobby! Where the hell are you? Bob—“ His mother shrieked in horror when she saw her son drenched in the rain. “Bobby! Get back in here or else I will have to lock you up again in the cellar, you stupid son of Edgar Perez!”

Bobby obeyed and quickly sprang up to his feet and ran back inside the house where he would be given another hard smack on his butt and a night stay at the cellar for being a stupid eight-year-old son of his father.