By the Jal-o River

MY ELDEST daughter, Vita, made the sign of the cross prior to playing "Angry Bird" on a computer.  I reacted with a question: Hey, what do you mean by that? And she looked at me and smiled: Oh, it's nothing. Just a thought." Making the sign of a cross prior to starting off an activity is a culture thing (not only for Catholic Filipinos but also for some Latin Americans--just watch a boxing match between those two, Manny Pacquiao and Eric Morales for instance). For Baleten-on however, it is part of the morning ritual of taking a bath together with the incantation, " Pwera ubo, pwera sip-on, pwera eagnat, pwera sigbin, aswang! " (Save us from cough, save us from cold, save us from fever, save us from witches and demons!). It is at the head of the morning ritual of drivers as they start their day on the road, and make it again whenever they passed through a church. The devout commuters follow through with the ritual and non-Catholics wonder why in s

"Who is this Whitney Houston, Tatay?", Vida, my 9-year old daughter asked me one morning while I was watching the news on the TV screen. "She's a diva, the one who popularized songs like, "The Greatest Love of All" and "I Will Always Love You", my prompt reply. "Ah, does she own a pet?", came the follow up. I was puzzled where the conversation will lead us. My mind was searching the logic of her rejoinder. "I don't know. Why did you ask?", I answered sincerely. "Her eyes were always sad. She must have had been mourning the deaths of her pets." AV and her pet hen, Iyoy. Vida and Tat scouting the waterfall in our orchard. My kids love to have pets. Over the years, they have welcomed into their innocent lives the friendship of mice, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, lovebirds, ducks, fish... They in the process tolerated damaged toys and bitten flip flops, endured the presence of a few lice, animal d

In the company of the municipal officials and some punong barangays, I went to pay my last homage to the remains of Nay Lagring yesterday. Her bereaved sons, Fr. Reynold and Bongbong were there to receive us. In the course of our conversation, my bolano asked me some clarificatory questions about my recent post here concerning the destruction of Balete in February 9, 1901 (Coincidentally, Nay Lagring gave up her spirit of February 9, 2012). As I listened to him, it dawn on me that there is so much to research and write about to fill up the empty spaces in the storyline of our local history. I recalled that when I was starting with this ambitious task of ferreting out those lost memories of the Baleten-on people, I initially listed down some questions to guide me in this quest. Hereunder are some of those entries in that list: Why is that that the patron saint of Balete is an archangel (St. Rafael) when the rest of Aklan and Capiz are historical persons? How true are the claims

                  ( Here meet the young Frodo Baggins--er, Huck Finn. ) Tonight, I got the chance to refresh my memory of the film, " The Adventures of Huck Finn " (Walt Disney adventure film) on my TV screen--I've seen it in the wide screen sometimes in May of 1993 in SM Megamall. It is one of those attempts to cater to the later generation Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The search of freedom from the conventional society prevails where Huck and his negro friend Jim seek their own way of finding it in their "adventures." The context is the pre-civil war America. The air was parochial. Everywhere, the director (Stephen Sommers) managed to portray scenes of rivers  (Mississippi--not Jal-o, hehe) and swamps, reminiscent of the Twainian panorama. The search for that which is worth dying for fills the scenes with magic that eludes the understanding of the superficial and the conventional. Huck's passion for adventure would raised eyebrows yet it fills m

There is a curious entry about Balete in Elkanah Babcock's " A War History of the Sixth U.S. Infantry (Illustrated): from 1798 to 1903, with Rosters and Memorials of the Cuban and Philippine Campaigns ". Copyrighted in 1903 by the author herself, the 194 pages book is revised and edited by S.T. Fisk, Jr. and introduced by Rev. J.A. Randolph, all of the Sixth Infantry and published in 1093 by Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co. based in Kansas City, Missouri. On page 94, paragraph 4, she wrote that a seventy-two strong enlisted men of Company K left station on February 6, 1901 on a "reconnaissance to Balet and Jimeno". Then on 9th of February of that year, they destroyed the town of Balet (Balete) and in the same day had a skirmish with the insurgents on the road outside of the town.  One would wonder why they need to destroy the town of Balete and left Jimeno (Altavas) untouched. What did the Americans found out or encountered in Balete on that fateful day that

Be still and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10).  THERE is nothing in my mind today. Now, that is something to thank and think about. Empty mind. Not even lambs jumping over the fence. Lord, my heart is not proud nor haughty is my mind. In the quiet, I have stilled my soul. (Ps.  131:2)  Come all of you to a quiet place and rest awhile. (Mat. 6:31) Dreamless sleep. Deep. Restful. Untroubled. A cloud of unknowing.

                THERE IS SOMETHING in my mind that I wish not to be forgotten. What is it? Oh, nothing--that's what in my mind today that I want to remember.

Hypocritic morning. The sun smiles brightly and paints the sky azure, cloudless and promises the sunny day ahead. A quiet morning and the noisy birds are nowhere to be seen or heard. The traffic is slow, even occasional. The day seems to convey the rural setting of Balete--sleepy, peaceful, complacent, parochial, indolent. On a closer inspection however, one can notes the frown on some unnamed souls' somber faces. Thin smoke rises in some house betraying the busy morning of preparing the children to be sent to school in compliance of the 4Ps ( Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program ) mandatory attendance of their school-going age toddlers. The sun was late actually to witness the farmers descent from their nipa hut to inspect the flowering of their rice down the field. A flock of little egrets was busy helping out the hungry farmers in collecting irritating government-introduced  golden kooe (kohol). Bereft of signed documents they faithfully affirm the long established criti