Hagbayon

And so I’m back from Manila after a
rigorous research schedule. I found out that our National Library pulls
out theses and dissertations submitted from 1989 earlier. They are now
listed simply for record purposes. Now I had to visit the FEU Library
for Azucena-Graco Uranza’s study of Bikol riddles from Sorsogon. I also
was able to study Susana Cabredo’s study of the tigsik in the Ateneo de
Manila Library.

I have to mention here that I had a positive impression on the staff
(even the guards) of Ateneo de Manila, particularly the Rizal Library.
Due to my stupor after finding out that some of the things I needed to
look up in the National Library have been pulled out, I left my ID in
there. Good thing that AdeMU people knew how to listen to explanations.
I found what I was looking for in no time (for free).

In FEU, there was much delay. I had to pay P40 along with other FEU
students (who were paying their tuition) and stand in line for more
than 30 minutes. But then again, it was quite considerate of them to
allow me do research in their library.

I want to take note how aesthetically endowed the FEU campus is,
green and gold harmonizing with art deco architecture. It was such a
feast to the eye. The school is still home for artists and writers.
They still have regular theater productions in their auditorium and an
active publishing outfit coming out regularly with journals, textbooks
and literary titles.

Above all, it was great to be back in Sampaloc, Manila. I went back
to the places where I used to stay. Sadly, most of them were no longer
there. Gastambide has morphed into a highly-urbanized area, and now it
looks like a street in Makati. I remember when I was there as a young
premed student. It was a very poetic place.

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She liked the word ‘ayoko!’ and it was
the first word she taught her baby daughter how to say. Janet Hope
Tauro-Batuigas always had the mind of a rebel. She had it in her even
before she learned how to speak. Thus her tormentors (siblings and
parents) had an early dash of advantage. They would dismiss her
infantile goobledygook as ‘pangungulit’. This was until she learned how
to say ‘ayoko’.

Later, Janet became an activist, as I came to know after consuming
the rest of her essay in Ani 31: The Love Issue. She grew up with words
it seemed. But mine is a different story.

When I was a small boy, I thought the president controlled
everything—the prices of commodities, fare, TV and radio programs, even
the weather. I thought Marcos dictated the day’s weather. If he liked
rain, there would be rain. If he liked sun, there would be sunlight. If
he liked winds, there would be storms.

Every now and then, his head would pop-out right in the middle of
John and Marsha, interrupting the show. Then he would talk. His voice
sounded cool and confident. Then choppers would fly atop of our heads.
He seemed to control all the soldiers too. When Lola would relate that
Marcos said more of them ‘soldados’ will come, they really would come
around the neighborhood.

I wanted to become like Marcos. So I gathered all my toy guns and
let my friends borrow them. Soon, I had an army of my own. My mother
hated it. My friends would mess up our place and we would all be sweaty
and powdered with dust after the wars. My Lola would say, “Tama sana
iton, arug kan a pag-iisip ka puwedeng magin leader.”

But then my Lola would also call me Hitler. I was cruel. I liked to
beat the daylights out of our ‘enemies’. I wanted to become like
Marcos, the man who controlled the weather. And Hitler sounded cool too.

Later, I heard Marcos got ousted. He was corrupt they said. My Lola,
being a loyalist, declared out of commission all our media appliances
for sometime. Cory Aquino will interrupt the programs with her nonsense
anyway, she would say.

And so I took interest in scanning my grandfather’s books. He was a
lieutenant during the Second World War. He had lots of reading
materials from war history books to Homer. I did not like the looks of
the man who did his hair and mustache like Charlie Chaplin.

It was painful to look at words, not being able to read nor
understand them. My mother hired a pretty coed, a consistent topnotcher
in her Education classes to act as my mentor. It was cool, she could
put up with my pranks. We played a lot and learned.

By this time Marcos had long been demystified in my eyes, even
Hitler. I read about the ironic death of mythical Achilles, and of
Alexander the Great’s premature passing. I read about Hitler burning
and Marcos dying of systemic lupus erythematosus.

Yes, politics can turn people into legends and mythological figures,
until humanity catches up on them, early or late. Even empires die, but
it is still the same fight. Alexander the Great of Macedon and Darius
of the great Persian Empire had fought over Babylon (Iraq) before. And
my friend George Bush is still interested to join in.

Truly, I knew it was not Erap who controlled the rain during the
EDSA II march. I was not wearing black but I was there. And I think
Janet was there too.

No, it is not true that the Cagsawa
Ruin is forever buried by mud into oblivion. It is not true that there
will be a tsunami so do not run for your life and start a stampede.

According to Jiggs Daza in his report to RMN-Naga, words about the
Cagsawa Ruin being erased from the face of the map is untrue. Right
now, it is in the middle of two raging waters, tucked safely in an
island. It is attracting people who came over from distant places to
check if it is still there. Yes, it is still an existing tourist spot
even after the news of its disappearance.

We have a hyperbolic temperament it seems, exaggerating matters for
the art of it. In fact some postcolonial critics would say that it is
for preservation of memory, a way to assert the self in the midde of
massive foreign domination. However, we must observe how hyperbolic the
Bikol language already is. We just do not say ‘tired’ or ‘pagal’, we
say ‘hakrang’ or ‘very tired’. We just don’t say ‘hungry’ or ‘alup’, we
say ‘gulpa’ or ‘very hungry.”

It is a linguistic device, a necessity brought about by its oral
nature. Bikol until now is rarely published. A big bulk of Bikol
literary arts is still chanted or recited/said. In this mode, there is
much reliance on the register, that is why it is presented in the nth
power. Perhaps colonial discourse has a hand on it, but I say that
language being the repository of history is telling us of who we are.

Apparently, power writing as literary aesthetics is no match to Bikol hyperbolics.

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I did not know what hit my apartment
until the girls room was all but a mess. The windows got broken when
our gutter was torn like paper by Rening’s angry winds. A few minutes
ago, I was relaxing in my room, reading and critiquing Alvin Yapan’s
essay on the Bikol Short-Story as a Site of Struggle. Never did I
consider that we would be the ones struggling in a little while. Yes,
it was stranger than fiction.

Now power is out and the internet rental is heaven. Some parts of
Albay are erased from the map, never to be seen again. Nature it seems,
is an erratic writer still reworking the names and places of its
geography.

But life is simpler without CASURECO’s meter running. People come
together in the streets, tell stories, sing songs. Once again we become
narrators and chanters, dancing in the shadows.