Don't think about tomorrow - tape 2

I walked all the way from the GT Toyota Center at UP to Technohub just to kill time. Call it a deviation from the unpleasant to make sense of things. It's Friday after all, and I don't believe that there should be anything to be done on a Friday night, let alone anything that wants to get done.

I've been trying to loosen up, this week most frequently. Just trying to feel how things are like when they are not so cramped up within the tiny lobes of my brain, or when I could not feel the slightest tinge of fear run down my nerves anymore. Maybe then, things will not be so bad.

So UP.

I have this volume of Childcraft encyclopedias, which delighted me as a child. I never read them. At that time, I couldn't yet. I was drawn first to the pictures. I'm talking about 80's to early 90's Childcraft: definitely not new photos now, but not completely old either. I loved those photos. I still do. I especially loved pictures of houses in forests, countrysides, hills, and what people do in them. They're all so simple, yet whenever I look at them, I wanted so badly to be in those pictures - in that exact situation, at that exact time frame. It was magical to me.

This afternoon, UP and its expanse of land - the shadows of branches on red bricks, the rustle of leaves in tune with the cold whistle of the monsoon, the range of woods beyond every lamppost - all laid out those photos in front of me, displayed them within my reach as though they were real, alive. I was living in them.

The sun is setting.

I had wondered before how things would be had I been allowed to take the test in UP, and had I passed. I realize now that that doesn't matter. Fact is: I don't know, and I will never know because it never really was a dream. I could never really transform it into one, try as I might. I feel at ease knowing that this is the only perspective in which I shall see UP. Best that I not ruin the illusion that I have of it as I had destroyed my previous dreams.

I was there this afternoon, just walking, taking in the reality of being there, and yet never actually making it. I felt magnified by time, scooped up by its hand, cupped into a feeling of security. It's okay, it seemed to say. Everything will be all right.

I'm okay.

It got dark eventually. The lampposts could only give ample light for writing, but I wanted to stay. I just wanted to be there. It was exactly childhood, that simple and that real. That beautiful and breathtaking memory of childhood to which I could never serve justice. I want to return to it, to be coupled by the greenness of being a child. I'd live there forever, I swear to god, if I could. I'd give anything to have it back.

It would take me an hour to find my way out.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.

- Robert Frost

On Muay Thai

It is not just a sport. It is a test of courage. You have to be ready, especially after a lifetime of waiting. In fighting, you have to give it your best shot. You have to overcome your anxieties and look fear straight in the eye and just live the moment. It is a game of trust, in which one sets up the opponent to attack at the right moment. For five rounds, if he makes it, the fighter maintains this stance. He is tested based on his talents and the extent to which he carries himself in the ring as a fighter. There is no room for hesitation or sympathies. Even the underdog shall never stay down. Whether or not you intend to physically hurt your opponent, one has to come to terms with that, for that is the nature of the game.

If anything, it is brutal, even dangerous. Others will adamantly argue that it is nothing more than a human cockfight with bettors yelling from all sides of the arena, directing every step, calling out every move. There will be injuries – not the ones that can be treated at a moment's notice, but the really serious ones that could keep you shelved for months, the ones that are known to have claimed lives. The fighter shall not dwell on it while the match takes place. There is only do or die. When he is knocked down on cold cement, there is nothing to do but to get up just as quickly. After that, win or lose, when he looks back at that instant, he will see just how satisfyingly real it was and how good it felt to have done it all.

At the end of the day, it is all about proving oneself to the world, to the ones you love, and most importantly, to oneself. It is both excitement brewing within you throughout the fight, and adrenaline rushing out after. Anyone can try if they set their heart to it: those who feel that they have to prove something despite of dire prospects, those who feel as though they need it, those who need the money, and those who are just looking for the experience. A kid from the slums, a woman from the fields, and even an educated man from a completely different world had already proven so much in the time that they have invested in it.

Muay Thai then is not just a sport. It runs deeper than that. Only when you have managed to look past the costs and the risks and everything else in between, only when you have begun to understand just what it is that Muay Thai is about, when you have reflected on the deeper aspect of what the world knows as merely a sport, only then will you be prepared for the battle. Only then, will you be able to say that you were born a fighter.

MMFF: Pagpag: Siyam na Buhay

Ang ideya ng pamahiin bilang paksa ng pelikula ang isa sa mga rason kung bakit ko napiling panoorin ang Pagpag: Siyam na Buhay nitong nakaraang Metro Manila Film Festival. Ipinakita nitong nakasandig pa rin sa kulturang Pilipino ang makalumang paniniwala, at kung papaano ito nakaliligtaan ng kabataang Pilipino. Nakapanghihinayang lamang na bagaman Pagpag ang pamagat ng pelikula, hindi nabigyang-diin ang pamahiing ito. Gayon din ang sinapit ng iba pang pamahiin na ipinasok sa kuwento. Sa halip, ang istorya ng multo (Paulo Avelino) ang nangibabaw sa pelikula.

Kapanipaniwala ang pag-arte ng mga gumanap. Bagaman stock characters lamang sila ng karaniwang pelikulang nakatatakot, sinikap pa rin ng mga aktor na buhayin ang mga ito sa kuwento, gaya ni Janus del Prado na gumanap bilang lasenggerong Tiyo Dencio. Isiniksik niya rin ang katatawanan bilang paliban sa katatakutan.

Sa kabuuan, hindi gaanong nakatatakot ang pelikula. Agad na mahuhulaan kung anong magiging katapusan ng kuwento sapagkat maraming elemento ang istorya na napanood ko na sa ibang pelikulang nakatatakot. Halimbawa, ang isa-isang pagkamatay ng mga tauhan sa kuwento. Anglagay, hinintay lamang ng manonood na mamatay ang mga kaibigan nina Cedric (Daniel Padilla) at Leni (Kathryn Bernardo)upang matukoy kung magtatapos na ba ang pelikula. Gayunpaman, nakatutuwa pa ring malamang konektado ang pagkamatay ng mga tauhan sa pamahiing nilabag nila. Naging malikhain ang manonood sa pag-iisip ng mga paraan kung paano papatayin ang mga tauhan.

Gaya ng inaasahan, maganda ang direksiyon ng pelikula. Ang totoo niyan, si Frasco Mortiz ang isa pang rason kung bakit ko piniling panoorin ang Pagpag. Labis kong nagustuhan ang huling pelikula niyang napanood ko. Kaya naman, sa panonood ko ng Pagpag, higit akong umasa na magiging maganda rin ito. Ngunit, labis naman akong nasawi.

Para kay Inang

Inang
Huwag kayong matatakot na kayo ay mawawala.
Na kayo ay matanda na
Huwag kayong matatakot kapag hindi ninyo alam ang daan
Huwag kayong magkaila na magtanong
o mangamba sa mga panuto.
Ang inyong ngiti ang maliwanag na bitwin sa dulo ng madilim na eskinita
Ang tanging mukha sa mausok na jeep.
Nasa inyong kamay ang pahintulot na mahagkan ang susi sa pangarap ng bagong henerasyon.
Tadhana na ang magpahihiwatig ng kanyang tagumpay
pati kanyang pagkabigo
At kung sakaling mawaksi ang nauna at sadya ang huli,
Inang
Huwag kayong malulungkot.
Sapagkat, mayroong ulila na humahanap sa inyong ngiti
at nag-aalala sa inyong pagluwas
Sa biyaheng ang kasukdulan ay hindi ninyo matanaw.

Mangarap tayo, Inang.
Matayog ang lipad, malayo ang hangganan
Sabay tayo sa biyahe
Ikaw at ako
Pula, berde, ginto -
Maganda ang musikang naghihintay sa inyong pagdating.

On toil and soil: Pitong Sundang

There is something frightening about the way that we, as people, hold a piece of paper at high value. The thought of presenting a signature to prove ownership creates a black hole in our living. We can claim property to the land on which we were born; yet, we were raised to acknowledge ink on paper as power. The central idea posed in this chapter of our lives as a Filipino society, then, is the fact that power can absolutely change everything.

Pitong Sundang: mga Sayaw sa Lupa at Pakikibaka is an accurate depiction of the present situation of trade on Philippine soil. We have the farmer who contentedly toils his land in an effort to make ends meet in a competitive global market while looking towards better prospects for the family to which he returns. He wakes up to the sight of intruders determined to grab hold of his property and everything for which he has worked. And, they are bound to get it simply because they can. They patronize the farmer, feeding him a load of bull, until the farmer toils for them – people who barely know the labor. He soaks, chafes, and enslaves himself only to get nothing in return, to be cheated time and again. He is left with a land barren that there is barely anything left. His entire life – destroyed by snails, disfigured by locusts, and spoiled by rats – crushed by entities that are deemed untouchable because the piece of paper in their possession has created a force field around. Fight and be eaten; keep silent and get beaten anyway.

Whether we choose to look at it in that particular manner or dismiss it as another form, these illnesses have been present in our society for generations, almost like a mandatory heritage that deserved to be innate. Farmers and their family – little children – killed without any trace of reluctance; gunned down for demanding land reforms, protesting harsh labor conditions and unfair trade policies. They become a people tied at the waist, restrained by the very ones who were sworn to protect them at all costs. In our history, we have the Hacienda Luisita massacre to begin with. Who’s to say that the painfully slow bureaucracy is not here for a culmination of wealth? That the foreign countries do not seek imperialism? That the businessmen are not driven to climb a notch higher in the social hierarchy? And, if that is all so, then where are we as a people? What weapon does the meek and the poor have against the powerful?

This performance was an enchanting representation of all these issues; a wake-up call for the meek to rise as one, to reclaim the land that is truly ours. A thought that settled into me was the idea that the land, as well as the crops on which it breathes life, might as well be us, the Filipinos. It is always there to be stepped on, to dig, to read the headlines when the wind blows the hapless news, to be soaked with the blood that was shed from the hands of labor. The pests trample on it, yet it remains silent. We are caged animals: our captors anticipate our errors. Then they leap at us and rip us to tiny little shreds. And out of fear and false pretenses, we allow them because we have nothing with which to fight.

We are being called to fight: to go against the odds like the mighty heroes before us; those in the likes Andres Bonifacio, who fought his all to get this land on which we stand. Enough of the bureaucracy, the militia, foreign rulers, and negotiators. We could not let them take advantage of us anymore, or strike us, or thrust their hips unto ours. Enough submission and degradation. There is no doubt in my mind that we can always find ways to rise above errant dominion. If the answers lie on revolts, then so be it. For the price of unity and for the reclamation of what is truly ours, then so be it. It is okay to be obedient or to be good. But it is a different and a far nobler thing to do what is right. Only in this manner will we be able to contentedly plow our land again.

The light was summoning
songs from lyres and harps. You
like the mother bird
distant from her offsprings,
flew to its suctions. But
it popped veins; not nurtured.

Why fly with it, blue bird?

Four pages of thirties.
The first of the seventh.
When hands stretch up northbound.
Earthly smell, budless seeds
wrote the lines we wasted,
mummed. I never knew you.

What pretty thoughts lingered
on that cherubic smile
when eyes strained you lifted
to hear the light calling?
Enchanted by your name,
you flew towards the glare.

With fingers trembling you
sealed yourself in Paris
pumped across the drizzle
like a wildfire blazing.
Faster and hotter you
curled bigger and darker -

A balloon in your head
'Til the life it contained
Rebelled from its shackles
'Til the heart is a prune;
the love enclosed submerged
by the blunder of light.

Alas! thunder flooded
and rain boomed heavily.
Nostalgic bits spilling
onto the cold, hard gray.
All you are, all you were
Delivered to the throne.

Why had you flown away?
What from were you running?
To whom were you running?
All the lines that matter
remain like budless seeds
between the earthly smell.

The light has dimmed itself
since it called and up you
went instead. Inferior,
trembling like a thief caught,
flooding eternity
while you flapped towards it.

You kept the world hidden
from the smile we will not
forget. Now up you go,
Color all hopeless tears.
With harps and lyres, fly high
Like a blue eagle, fly high

Hindi ito tanong (Yolanda, Ice Age, extinction)

Alam mo ba na sa bawat 100, 000 taon, nagkakaroon ng ice age ang planetang ito. Na, sa susunod na 82, 000 taon, magkakaroon na naman ng panibago. Na, hindi habambuhay ang sangkatauhan. Na, natural na kababalaghan ang global warming. Na, pinabibilis natin ito. Na, tumataginting na pula ang Pilipinas kapag titignan natin sa hazard map. Na pangatlo ang Pilipinas sa mga bansang pinakamaaapektuhan ng climate change. Na isang dekada na mula nang matanaw ng siyensiya ang pait na kamakailan lamang sinapit ng Tacloban. Na animnalibo ang patay. Na wala tayong nagawa, at wala na tayong magagawa.

Hindi ito tanong. Hindi ito pagkaaliw. Ito ay pagtatangis at pangungulila para sa buhay na pinanghahawakan ko ngayon. Puta, ang lungkot.

Tanong: saan tayo lilipat.

at saan napupunta

ang tao

kapag patay na siya.