Handumanan (Remembrance)

Handumanan

I have been searching for you all along. This restlessness and those vain attempts to satisfy it were but manifestations of my searching. I've searched for you in the mountains, in Mozart's great opus, in many a woman's caress and among the carousing of the Friday Boys at Arlie's place. But you were gone.

Some years back, I found myself running away from you. I was afraid to admit what I then perceived as a weakness. I dared asking you when I was already cornered: Who are by the way? Why am I so grateful that you're alive and well? Why do I kept on praying to God that you may have the best life can offer? Why can't I touch you and defile you? Why do I care so much about you?

I do now have the answer to those questionings. I have one singular answer to all of them. But I reckon it is already late to tell what it is. Much of my life has already been spent in frantic searching only to find that the day is almost done. So for the sake of those good old times spent together, let me offer this poem in remembrance of our one of a kind friendship.

Boracay in My Mind

There have been efforts on the part of my colleagues of holding trainings/seminars right in the island of Boracay. The regional league even managed of having catered the delegates to an "eco-tour" there after our hectic three-day National Executive Meeting cum seminar in Roxas City last March. I could not fault them for their resolved. It is open season in Boracay and typically since it had been "declared" as the national tourist destination, all roads lead to that sugar-fine white beach. All roads, except mine.

I used to love beachcombing along the 2-point-something km beach front from Manoc-manoc to Yapak. That was when one seldom sees alien structures along its shoreline. Yonder, as the sun sets, one would only see a few fishermen's sailboats afloat in silence before the reddening horizon. It was a time when bats dominated its sky at dusk leaving one filled with wonder as she/he reclined quietly on its immaculate sand. The quiet of the day was broken only by the shrill cries of the cricket, the howling of monkeys and the hooting of some night birds.

As I while the time, my host would light my hut with a fisherman's lamp, set it up on the bamboo beam as she readied my mosquito net over my banig (mat). Behind the hut, the host's husband prepared his catch of the day and grilled it on a coconut charcoal. From my backpack, I produced a lapad of Tanduay and the two of us feasted on his fresh catch--a grilled spotted scat, still steaming with fats, seducing me innocently with its whiff and richness.

Responsible Parenting Movement and Natural Family Planning Program in Balete

Responsible Parenting Movement and Natural Family Planning Program in Balete - Balete, Banwa Ko

Maeocong, Chieftain of the Jae-o No More

There was a time when the early settlers by the Jal-o regarded the river with a sense of foreboding. While it served as the main thoroughfare, their public baths and laundry pond, the river held many mysteries kept hidden among its lush mangroves and adjoining swamps and tributaries. Rumors and reports of actual sightings of monstrous amphibians wading its waters had been told in every household. The authorities had warned the villagers to stay out of the water especially at nighttime.

Of those crocodiles, Maeocong was regarded as the dominant bull--the king of the Jae-o. He was long as a boroto (local banca) and heavier than an adult carabao. It was said that he was more deadly if paired with his favorite mate, Pingan Nonay. Together, they wreck terror along the Anao and Bag-ot swamps.

For a time, the settlers tolerated their fear. They lived their lives by the Jal-o with that ominous awareness that they were not the masters of the river. But such fears had hounded them even in their dreams. Then came the news that a prominent couples from the poblacion was attacked by the dreaded creatures while on their way home from Batang. "Si Alo Feliciano hay ilo eot a! Si Alo Feliciano hay ilo eot a!" (Carlos Feliciano is now orphan!) came the report.

Alo Feliciano was the eldest son of Mariano and Maria Bebing Feliciano, Capitan of the poblacion of the newly established pueblo of Balete (the 33rd in the Provincia de Capiz). His father was tasked to collect taxes from among the landowners (leaseholders) and remit the same to the authorities in Batang once in a month. The Jal-o was the most convenient route as horseback riding through the Cabugao trail was punishing. The occasion was grabbed as opportunity by his mother to buy household provisions which were seldom sold in Balete. On their way home as their baroto passed along the Anao swamps, a couple of crocodiles attacked their wooden craft. That fateful incident had caused their lives.

Yet, it made the villagers confront their fear and take the bull by its horn--in this case--to take Maeocong and Pingan Nonay by their tails. The death of their Capitan and his wife had awaken in the Baleten-ons their innate courage to do something. Organizing themselves into teams, they hunt down the notorious couples right in their abode, cut down their heads and displayed it for weeks in front of the public market. "Bukon eon it hari si Maeocong sa Jae-o! Bukon eon it siga ro buaya sa Balete!"(Maeocong is no longer chieftain of the Jal-o! The crocodile is no longer the Lord of Balete!) , thus proclaimed by the Baleten-ons.

A Dream of Rafting Along the Jal-o

I saw myself by the Jal-o River-or was it the Jal-o? I was into a tribal village where the people that populated the area were skeletal. I wondered what became of them for they seemed lifeless. I sensed though that they're all alive and that something evil ruled over them. So sensing the danger, I fled from their place and continued with my rafting into another place.

As I reached my destination, the milieu presented itself as familiar. The place was abandoned for quite a long time. As I surveyed it though, a feeling of déjà vu came into my consciousness. I seemed to recall that I'd been there. Tried as I must, I couldn't figure out when and how.

I was awaken by some noise when I was almost grasping that sense of familiarity.

Mourning (From my Journal of September 2009)

A candle is burning in our makeshift altar. It overshadows a tiny bottle--a remnant of some injectible meds. Behind the bottle and the candle is a dead clock mounted on a replica of a Stradivarius violin. A religious person though would not consider it an altar. For one thing, no religious icon or image could be seen within its vicinity. For another, nobody is seen praying before it since it was set up by Mae this morning; no priest has blessed it and no god has taken noticed of it.

But it is an altar. It serves its purpose. It gives me focus. The sights of the burning flame dancing up and about stabs my heart and holds my feet from rushing about . That tiny bottle before the altar which the candle is lighting encapsulates my child. So it is through it that I sent up my sighs, offered my weeping heart and hurting spirit to my God and my Friend.

My child, it died even before it sees the earth's beauty. It was forced out of its mother's womb because it was already lifeless. The doctor offered no explanation but she speculated that its growth was stunted by some factors. I blame the rabbit; I'm blaming Mylah for being so careless--but I did not dare verbalize about the last. I know it won't do good.

But I'm sulking. How come that people has double standards when it comes to dealing with the unborn? My child might not have been born, but it had life the moment it was conceived. It was besouled and carried the attributes of an image of God. It was special and unique. And it died without my knowing it whether it was a boy or a girl. I missed the chance of holding its hands, of watching over it late at night; of washing its diapers and gloves; of naming it and offering it before the altar of the Most High. Would it be like its sisters? All "ongas" and "okrays"? What could its gimmicks be? Would it turned out "makulit" and "ingenious" like AV and "inventive" like Nanang? Or maybe as self-conscious as Vida. Perhaps...