Kalayaan Literary Circle 22 Manga Road, corner Aurora Boulevard, 1109, Quezon City Kalayaan Literary Circle is a stdent organization of Kalayaan College. It preserves and advances the College’s tradition of academic integrity and of excellence in arts and culture. Published in the Philippines by Kalayaan Literary Circle, Quezon City. First published as Kalayaan Review 5, 2017. Copyright reverts to the respective authors and artists whose works apear in this issue. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval unit, or transferred in any form or by any means, without permision in writing of the copyright holder, or as expressly permitted by law. This publication is not for sale. Correspondence should be sent to the Secretary of the Kalayaan Literary Circle at the address above. Edited by Julio del Prado Beatrice Tulagan Vinch Santos Ram Hernandez Layout, cover design, and illustrations by Nicole Mijares Typeset in Bell MT and Book Antiqua
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Contents Prose Editor’s Notes What was Needed Customized Attachment 0 K Poetry Editor’s Notes Kundiman Distance Manila Passing By Ginisang Tuna Tuluyan at Tula Tala Mula sa Editor Seguridad Bagong Tagpi Pangalan Spotlight
02 05 09 11 26 29 30 31 33 34 37 38 39 40
Never Again: In Response to the Marcos Burial Editor’s Notes Org Statements Marcos is Not a Hero: KC Orgs Statement KUJ Statement KLC Statement Poetry Apotheosis, M. Blind Eye Tuluyan at Tula Pipi Alaala
42 43 44 44 46 48 49 51
List of Contributors
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Acknowledgments
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editor’s note Struggle is familiar to the writer. Writers spend a lot of their time struggling—effectively trying to build staircases that begin with their emotions and conditions, hopefully landing on a flight of beautifully constructed, clear-cut representations of what lies within them. And then from there they have to ensure they do not alienate—a piece must, somehow, share something: strike a chord. Leave the room with the familiar buzz of sympathetic resonance. Or so we’re told. There’s a lot that’s left to question—and if that doesn’t sound like a struggle altogether then I don’t really know what is, to be blunt. Personally I’ve been struggling: struggling to write something I like again (still hasn’t happened), struggling to better myself on multiple fronts (or maybe really I just mean academically); struggling just to get these editor’s notes together. It clicked just a little bit ago: three years down the line as prose editor for the Kalayaan Review and I realized that we have always been subject to trials of all sorts: perhaps it is just this year in particular that has felt especially difficult. I also had an especially difficult time choosing the final pieces, this year. I extend my thanks to everyone: those who made the final cut and
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those who I had to leave out of selection, for a multitude of reasons which any of you are always more than welcome to ask me about, I promise. Somehow, the remaining pieces are all about struggling—be it dealing with the internal or witnessing the external, there is a familiar thread woven into different fabrics, this time around. But somehow, we are always climbing. We are always on ladders; trying to find the roof, fix the shingles, keep the rain out. We are always hiking towards whichever zenith of whatever mountain, my favourite expression coming from the poet Ikkyu: “Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.” I am always thankful to be entrusted with the role of editor: the trust bestowed upon me means a lot, but it is ultimately all of the writers I remain eternally grateful for. May we struggle onward; until we shrug the struggle off and learn to make leaps and bounds, the kinds of strides we need to ensure we remain unbroken. I hope we all continue to climb our stairs, forever onward until we are gazing upon the bright moon. Julio del Prado Prose Editor, Kalayaan Review 2017 3
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What was Needed Nicole Mijares
I had many adventures deep in the middle of nowhere, Morong, Bataan. I could fill an entire storybook with these tales, but I believe we only have enough time for one today. It happened on one fine night, when the murmurs of the kakawate trees and the sighs of the ocean breeze were drowned out by the shouts and screams that filled the open space of our parents’ house. It was a night unlike any other yet normal all the same. It was on that night that I understood how Pooh felt when he got stuck in the entrance to Rabbit’s Howse. Eventually, I’d get how Rabbit felt as he huffed and stomped and sighed and tried to make Pooh’s massive butt seem like a normal part of his living room. But I guess that doesn’t matter. In the end, they managed to force Pooh out. He even went flying right out and he ended up stuck in a tree full of honey instead! That night though, I was Pooh, still stuck; kneeling on the patch of floor between the kitchen and the dining table, trying to ignore the huffing and stomping all around me. The cold floor was rubbing my knees raw and my hands were getting sweaty, but I kept digging through my clothes. It’d be a little sad leaving my Winnie the Pooh drawer behind, but I’d already whispered my goodbyes and his smiling face did seem happy for me to be leaving. I wished I could take it with me, but Mommy said to only take what we needed and I needed my Hundred Acre Wood storybook most of all. Overhead, something shiny flew across the room, from the far end of the dining table to Mommy and Daddy’s cabinets. I jumped at the thud as it hit, then a crash to the floor, followed by the smell of stale coffee topped off with roared words I’ve been told never to say. It’s not nice if kids say them, my teacher said once. I guessed only Mommy and Daddy could say them. ‘Cause they’re grown-ups. Oh, bother; I got thinking again. I kept my head down. I needed to find my favorite storybook. My legs were starting to get the pins and needles when Mommy yelled to hurry up and pack my clothes—any clothes—into the plastic bags on the floor. I pretended not to hear her and just stuffed my arms deeper into my drawer, feeling for hard corners under all the cloth. I didn’t have a lot of clothes here, not nearly as much as my sisters did, but right then I wished I had even less. I knew it was a good idea to leave most of my clothes behind at Lola’s. Mommy got mad at me, though, Prose: Creative Non-Fiction
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when she found out about that. She said I needed those clothes for when I go to kinder in Morong. But I knew I would need them for when I go back and have adventures in Pagsanjan again. One of my sisters started screeching on top of all the noise. It couldn’t have been Denise ‘cause she was under the dinner table, hugging the leg as if she needed to take it with her. Her face was puffing up like an overripe tomato; tears gushing out from the thin cuts of her eyes, but she wasn’t making a sound. No, the screeching was probably Iris since it was coming past the table, probably from the beds. She wanted to stay with Daddy, I thought I heard. Well, I couldn’t really blame her—she never really liked it much at Lola’s—but I just didn’t get it. Maybe it’s because Lola can be cranky most of the time, sometimes even crankier than Mommy. But Papa and Mama (that’s Tito Bong and Tita Reine to Iris and Denise) were okay most of the time. Though I guess, on the weekends, Papa can sometimes get just as scary as Daddy. Oh, but Ninong Ray had dogs! JT and Rover and Sugar. They were Rollwi—Rodtiler—Rodwhiters? Anyway, they were really big and really black and got rowdy sometimes so I’m not really allowed to go near them, but Ninong Ray said it wasn’t because they were angry at me. They were just really friendly and they really liked giving hugs and they might love me too much and hurt me. Anyway, they were nice dogs. They even got along with the stray cat named Daga that Ninong Ray takes care of even though he doesn’t have to. I already missed Pagsanjan. Lola’s house was bigger, and because she was the only one living there, I used to have most of the house for myself. We could have separate rooms for playing with toys and watching TV and playing house and reading storybooks. And then, when it’s time for lunch, Mama will knock and call out from the small window under Lola’s stairs and tell us to go to their house next door. And maybe we’ll even have lunch out back at Ninong Ray’s, sitting at the terrace and waiting for bangka to go pass by on the river below us and we would wave and say hi. Unlike the beach in Morong, I could go to the river by myself. We could have more, better adventures there. I didn’t get why Iris didn’t want to go. I wished we could have just hurried up and gone there already but I still hadn’t found my storybook and I needed it for bed time in Pagsanjan but all the yelling was beating up my head. I tried my hardest not to let all the noise distract me from my mission. I dug and dug and dug. My hands only stopped digging for my book when it got quiet and I started getting goose bumps and I heard Mommy sob and I heard the scritch scratch of Daddy’s lighter before smoke started filling up the entire house, then a gurgle before the smell of brandy started burning up my throat. It felt 6
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like that time I was with Mama and Papa on a bus, on our way to visit Mommy and Daddy, and I had too much itlog ng pugo and everything felt wavy and— The quiet broke. I don’t know what did it but again words-I’m-notallowed-to-say got shot across the room from both sides. For a second, Mommy looked like she was going to storm to where Daddy sat at the head of the dinner table. For a second, Daddy looked like he would stand up from his seat. Instead Mommy swooped down and grabbed something from under the table. Next thing I knew, she was coming after me. My arm felt like it was being torn off as I was whisked out of the house and thrown into the backseat of Mommy’s car. Denise and I sat there, rubbing our wrists, while Mommy filled up the trunk. There was a lot of thudding and huffing and stomping but it was the quiet noises that made me stop. Denise was sniffling and it confused me. Was it from the pain? This much wasn’t too bad, really. We’d both had way worse. I searched her face and the crinkle in her brow and the wobble in her lip only ended up confusing me even more. How could she be so sad—we were leaving for Pagsanjan, after all. When I asked her, whispering in case Mommy could hear us from outside the car, she said she didn’t want to leave but she didn’t want to be left behind either. That wasn’t much of an answer, so I just leaned in and whispered: When I lived at Lola’s, I got to watch all the TV I wanted until it was time for her telenovelas and sometimes, when I’m lucky, I can ask someone to read my storybooks for me. Not Lola though, ‘cause her eyes are bad. She’ll just tell you funny stories of when Ninong Ray, Mama, and Mommy were little. Or just make up her own stories or tell weird stories about why she chased Lolo out of the house and why they don’t talk anymore. One time she said it was because he stole her bakya but I don’t believe her. No, not Lola, but usually Ninong Ray says yes when I ask him to read me stories before bed though! I already taught myself how to read, of course! But, well, it’s different having someone else do it, like family. You can just snuggle up in the sheets and play pretend until you get sleepy. It’s... nice. Oh, I know! It’s dark, but maybe I can try reading my Hundred Acre Wood storybook to Denise. That’ll cheer her up—My favorite storybook. I left it behind. I tried to rub my face dry. I tried to be as quiet as I could, tried to muffle my own sobs as I shushed my sister’s. There was no need really, because Mommy was already in the car, drowning out all other sounds with the bad words. It’s okay, I thought as we drove out the gate, maybe Prose: Creative Non-Fiction
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we’d come back to visit Daddy and Iris and I could get my book then. I had other books at Lola’s and I knew I had one or two more Winnie the Pooh books there and maybe Ninong Ray could read one of them for me and maybe Denise would get to know what it’s like. Maybe Mommy would read us a story too. Then when we visit Daddy soon, maybe he’d read us my Hundred Acre Wood storybook. At the time, I could not have known that none of that would ever happen. I slept, clutching at those threadbare thoughts and wishes, as streetlights rushed past us overhead, the surrounding night sky deaf to our cries, our mother’s anger lulling us to sleep. I woke up the next morning disappointed, back in our old bed in our parents’ old house, back in our parents’ old strained silences and clipped words, back with the constant fear of the silence breaking. Back to playing pretend, like Rabbit as he tried to make the most out of being stuck in his house with Pooh blocking the way out. Mommy must have changed her mind. We must have turned around midway through leaving. I rushed out of bed and to my drawer looking for Hundred Acre Wood. In the end, I never did find it. I never found a tree full of honey either. In the end, we never did leave for good.
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Kalayaan Review 5
Customized Attachment Zandra Javier
Twenty-eight by forty-eight inches of trust and pride was sawed into a fine drafting table. I boasted—I boasted to myself. My classmates had a hard time looking for a cheap drafting table. Ama made me one—a big one made of good quality wood he’d sawed and planed himself. The drafting table was originally his. Ama used this drafting table when he was still in college. The only physical thing that was newly attached to it was the drawing board itself (because he wanted me to use a newer, larger one with enough space for other things to be put on top of it), and nylon string. As for the new, abstract things, there were plenty. My drafting table really was a lot bigger compared to those that could be bought from National Bookstore. It had more space than I needed. I could even put my dreams on it—I slept on it many times; such a huge pillow, not very comfortable, though. My drafting table was adjustable. By the right side of its foot was a rusty circular crank that could be turned clockwise and counterclockwise to adjust the board’s height and angle of inclination. The metal was stained by hardworking fingerprints from years ago. Rusted smooth and harmless; I thought, until I turned it towards every angle it could be adjusted to, and it was left only with the smudges of sleepless nights and silent sobs. It had a built-in ruler, supported by the strong nylon string. I just needed to slide the one-meter ruler up and down, up and down, up and down, just like my hopes, to guide me in drawing straight lines. I could never draw a straight line. I had that built-in ruler on my drafting table, yet the lines I drew kept on crossing the limited boundaries I was allowed to traverse. The ruler was always in good condition, after all the years it guided a father to his field; his daughter to eventually follow the same guide. A well-lighted lamp that could also be adjusted was fixed on the upper part of the drafting table. It helped me see the pencil marked measurements I needed to trace with ink, to make my mistakes more visible. The brightness of the lamp was so strong one could even trace dried up droplets of forced patience and false dedication on the exposed wood. Eventually, the lamp lost its light. The light bulb was replaced. And as time went by, its adjustable joints no longer worked. It kept its ample light on just one part of the table, and delayed me from putting more details on my plates. My guiding light needed to be replaced, and it was replaced with a lamp that was not adjustable. Prose: Fiction 9
The varnish of the board was not smooth enough as a direct base for drawing. I taped a clean cartolina on top of the board for a better drawing surface. It looked so neat, until its corners were scribbled with short prayers, bible verses, words of self-motivation, and secret curses. Soon the cartolina was no longer efficient as overlay. It needed a replacement. And I replaced it every time it became exhausted with my rants, and wrote on the new ones just the same: letters from me, to me. That drafting table Ama made for me accompanied me on restless nights and days. It held my plates. It held my tears – tears of joy and pride in finishing projects that received a lot of rebukes from the maker of my drafting table; tears of unexpressed objections from even starting the projects. It held extended patience and endurance I never thought I had. That drafting table was very compassionate. It heard the controlled strokes of sobs that performed duets with the screeching sounds the metal parts of technical pens made whenever they touched the ruler as they helped me create stressed straight lines, yet it never complained of hearing the same tunes over and over again. I hope it also heard my ‘thank you’ for our four-year union. The drafting table retired two years ago—no, it was I who retired. It was always in good condition. It never needed a replacement; a new companion, perhaps. Our companionship ended in silence. Dusted in the guilt of failing Ama’s dream for me, it sits not in a forgotten corner, but stands on its melancholic glory to greet me; always with its immobile straightness, whenever I enter home.
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Kalayaan Review 5
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Nicole Mijares Ate Robin was ten when she told me about how the world worked. We were seated on the balcony floor of our house in Gordon Heights, with our legs dangling off the edge. Below us, uneven rows of rooftops stretched out into the horizon, burnished metal reflecting the warm red light of the setting sun. The light had cast an amber glow on her unruly hair forced into lopsided pigtails. We were still in our uniforms, mostly. She opted out of her plaid skirt and lounged about in the shorts she always wore underneath. I had just mentioned that I learned about the different states of matter—solid, liquid, gas—in class that day when she said, “Those aren’t all of it, you know. There are a bunch of others too. There’s plasma and then there’s a boss Einstein something and a bunch of other stuff. I read that in a book in the science lab. I’ll show you next time.” “The teacher in the science lab is scary, though.” “Nah. He’s okay. A bit cold, I guess, but still okay,” she said, swinging her feet through the railing, into the air, and back again. “Hey, Gab, want to know something I haven’t seen in a book yet?” I nodded, gripping the metal bars in front of me. “You know how there’s air all around us but we can’t see it?” she whispered, “Well, that’s not all that’s there. Maybe it’s the boss things, I don’t know, but it’s there all around us and it’s the reason you sometimes feel really cold even when it’s really hot outside.” “Like when the PE teacher tells you in front of everyone to sit out of playing agawang sulok?” And the other boys do an exaggerated imitation of your wheezing fits, I didn’t need to say. “Exactly.” She nodded solemnly. “It’s also what causes you to feel all warm after getting a present even though it’s December.” “Wow. So that’s what it is.” “That’s not all,” she said as she turned to fully face me. “Sometimes it gets into your body and makes you feel either really cold or really warm even though you normally wouldn’t. Kind of like a fever but different.” I must have made a face because she mussed my hair. “Don’t worry. It’s usually harmless. See that guy walking over there?” she said, pointing at a man with a girl on his shoulders. “See how he’s bouncing and practically floating in the air? That’s because the stuff inside him is warmer and less dense, uhm…it means less compact. Anyway, he’s warmer and lighter inside than the stuff outside so he floats.” Prose: Fiction 11
“What happens if the boss stuff inside you gets more…dense?” “Then your body goes cold and you sink.” I was seven but I knew she was telling the truth. Now I know how wrong she was. I’m no expert but I’m fairly certain that Bose-Einstein condensate, a state of matter that approaches temperatures near absolute zero, has nothing to do with it. Yet she was right about almost everything else. I’ll have to ask her about it when I find her. I scratch off frost from my jaw, nails catching on stubble. I wrench my teeth apart, letting out a cloud of breath. My body crackles with every tiny movement I make. Above me, thin lines of late afternoon light force their way through the drawn curtains and creep against the walls and ceiling of my one-bedroom apartment. I roll on the couch and turn my head towards the coffee table. My searching hand slides against newspapers that I bought maybe a week ago, brushing over clippings of articles on missing persons, spilling stale coffee. Finally, my fingers close around a small cardboard box. It feels empty. It makes no sound when I shake it. I bring it up to my face, my eyes straining against the darkness to see what’s inside. It’s empty. I don’t have the energy to throw it across the room. I turn on the TV, out of habit. News anchors report the same thing ad nauseam. They talk in a rush of rattling words, vomiting out rehashed headlines. I change the channel every time they pause to take a breath. Philippines suffering from unprecedented cold, neighboring countries largely unaffected—Metro Manila, just a few degrees shy of snow formation, experts say—Philippines ill-prepared for record low temperatures, Malacañang admits—Thousands dead by hypothermia—Neighborhoods burnt to the ground, BFP warns against unsafe heating—Multiple reports of yet-unconnected disappearances baffle investigators—Temperature drops show no indication of stopping—Current meteorological findings inconclusive, PAG-ASA to conduct further analyses— Still nothing new. Experts from everywhere have been pulling together theory after theory, inconclusive data after inconclusive data, bullshit after bullshit, but still none of them even have an inkling of what’s going on. My sister would have known. She would have smiled lightly and said everything’s going to be okay. I snort at the thought. I lower the volume, willing my thoughts to ease with the gradual comfort of silence. There’s shouting coming from past the ceiling. A woman’s voice. Then the sound of crashing plates and a wailing child. I drag myself out of the couch and put on another coat. 12
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The cashier wordlessly hands me six packs of Lucky Strike. I exit the convenience store, where a young woman with matted hair sits by the entrance, her legs drawn up to her chin and covered with a sheet of tarpaulin. Her sun-browned skin looked dull in the cold. I drape my outermost coat around her shoulders; I have my cigarettes now, I’ll be fine. She doesn’t move and I step away. My eyes trace the rooftops along Esteban Abada Street as I slowly go past several crowded coffee and tea shops. I see a dark shadow shift on top of a two-story building. My heart hastens only to sink in disappointment as I realize it was just the top branches of a tree. Of course it wasn’t Ate Robin. With difficulty, I continue walking. The joints of my legs are frozen stiff. I can feel paper-thin cracks spreading inch by inch under my skin every time I put one foot in front of the other. Apart from my pallor and a few patches of frost that form on my skin when I stay still for too long, you wouldn’t know that anything was wrong just by looking at me. My body began freezing from the inside ten years ago. My arms and hands turned stiff and numb, fingers starting to darken at the tips. At first, it was just my back and shoulders that grew heavy, then the rest of me. My mind was also weighted, becoming slow and ponderous, easing out of whatever I was doing at the time. The entire process was slow enough that I didn’t notice until halfway through, after I graduated from college. It’s getting hard to breathe so I pause to light a cigarette. A sudden movement that I see from the corner of my eye tears my gaze downwards, where several vehicles are parked in front of a line of houses. A cat darts underneath a silver Accord. I notice a fat ginger cat nestled inside the front wheel well of an old Sonata and people seated inside. They’ll die if they stay for too long; one wrong move and they could kill. I leave behind the sound of engines humming softly and cats mewling in contentment. My breathing eases as smoke fills my mouth and burrows through the back of my throat. I hold it in my lungs, letting my body leech away its warmth. The smoke flows out as I open my lips to take another drag. Back inside my apartment building, the security guard greets me with a “Good afternoon, ser.” He’s staring pointedly at my hand, so I nod at him as I put out my cigarette and attempt a smile. I take the elevator to the 12th floor then the stairs to the rooftop. Thick dark clouds are obscuring the setting sun and a blanket of dense smog blurs the city below. A bloody streak of light splits the otherwise unbroken gray. Muted red light casts an eerie glow to the rows of chainProse: Fiction 13
link cages used for drying clothes. I light another cigarette and head to my usual spot by my cage, away from the glowering sun. In the middle of an aisle, there’s a large can of baby formula with its lid gone, surrounded by six empty beer cans strewn carelessly on the floor. Inside the milk can is a large handful of whitened coals glowering. I purse my lips around my cigarette, crouch down, and extend my palms towards the embers. “That’s mine,” says a voice from behind me. “But you’re welcome to share if you want. You look like you’re freezing.” The owner of the voice is a man in his early twenties, three or four years younger than me. His hair is cropped short and he’s wearing a dark green parka, naturally faded jeans, and ratty sneakers. He has several sheets of newspaper under his arm, a bag of coal hanging from his elbow, and three more cans of beer in his hands. His left cheek is swollen red. “You shouldn’t leave fires unattended.” I straighten up and shove my hands into my pockets. “Oh. Sorry. Guess I should have put the lid on,” he says. “I’m Danilo Santillan, but everyone calls me Nilo. Except my wife. She calls me asshole. I’m sure the whole building knows by now, but I live on the fifth floor.” He waits for me to say something. I take in a long drag of smoke and hold it in my mouth. He’s still staring, waiting for my response. I finally settle on, “You probably shouldn’t be up here drinking in this weather.” “Says the guy who went all the way to the rooftop for a smoke,” he says as he sits down by the heat, throwing pieces of newspaper and coal into the fire. I consider heading back down, but it’s too cold in my room. “Gabriel Hallare. Fourth floor.” Danilo moved to Manila a few years ago for university. He left behind his girlfriend of two years with a promise to keep in touch. After graduation, he decided that the job opportunities in the city were better and asked her to permanently move here with him. “It’s weird,” he says when he’s halfway through his eighth can. “We got along more when I was still a student and she was still back in Antique, and not just because we didn’t have time to fight. We used to actually sit down and talk. “Nowadays, she’ll only tell me about anything when I’ve pissed her off. I do something small or say something off-hand then she just flies off the handle. She’ll recite this list of all the wrongs I’ve done her—all of them stuff she’d never seemed to even care about before—and at the end of it I have no idea what she’s really mad about.” 14
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I nod; my mother could get like that sometimes. I wish I brought coffee. “Today,” he said with a tight-lipped smile, “I left a pair of scissors inside the bathroom and she couldn’t find them when she needed them. That drives her up the wall. So she goes off to catalog all the stuff I’ve misplaced. Somehow it ends up being about my job, how I’m not earning as much as she thinks I should. About how she had to sacrifice so much to stay with me all these years. About how I haven’t been paying as much attention as I did before. She’s yelling and breaking plates and chucking stuff at me so I do the sensible thing and try to get out of her way. And then she screams, Oh, so you’re walking out on me again? I just didn’t want to deal with all that when both of us were too angry to even have a decent conversation, you know? I told her that. You know what she says to me? You just don’t want to deal with this. Period. Hah. She’s the one who took the baby and left in a huff. She’s the one who ran away. Not me.” He tilts his head back, draining his beer before crushing the can underfoot. He moves to grab the last unopened can but stops, his hand frozen in midair. “I left our apartment while she was still yelling at me,” he says, his voice a hoarse whisper now. “I went for a walk around the neighborhood. To calm my nerves. When I came back, they were gone. Both of them. My blood just ran cold. I should’ve been angry, just like I was before I left. But I was just cold.” He stares at the dying embers for a long time. “Once, when I was little,” he says softly, as if to himself, “my uncle told me that there was something in the air that made you cold or made you warm. Not air or water vapor or anything like that. Something else. He said it’s also inside people. Said if you’re not careful you’d freeze up or float away. Or maybe even explode from the pressure. He looked like a bloated balloon so the thought of him rising into the air made me laugh.” Nilo looks up at me with his mouth forming a smile, but there’s no trace of amusement in his voice. “He got mad and smacked me upside the head. He was probably touched in the head. All our relatives definitely thought so.” “What happened to your uncle?” He stands up unsteadily. His feet keep rising a few inches off the ground then falling. I take one last drag from my cigarette before stubbing it out on the floor and putting the butt into my pocket ashtray. “You shouldn’t drink too much, you’ll freeze to death.”
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“Stop! You’ll fall,” I said as I lunged forward, arms outstretched, star apples slipping from my hands. “It’s okay, I won’t fall,” said Ate Robin with a light, playful laugh. “I’ll never fall. Even if I slip, I’m light so I’ll keep floating, gently, slowly down. I’ll follow a breeze, just like always.” “What if a gust of wind blows you away?” I asked, tightening my grip on her wrist. She put her hand on mine; it was as soft and warm as the smile on her lips when she said, “Then you’ll anchor me, won’t you? Just like always?” I released my grip and stepped away from the edge she continued to trace. I watch the morning light spread across my apartment ceiling in a familiar pattern. I get up at half past five and walk to work, eyes turned upwards and searching. My heavy fingers crash against the keyboard as I write letter after letter and fill up data sheet after data sheet. I sink into my couch a little after eight. I wake up my laptop and go through all my bookmarked sites. I scroll through lists of names and descriptions. I turn on the TV. I turn it off. I make coffee. At ten, I take two packs of cigarettes with me to the roof. “Hey, I brought sisig. Want some?” asks Nilo when he sees me. He has a cardboard take-out box lined with aluminum foil in one hand and another in a plastic bag by his feet. The rich, savory aroma of pork that’s been boiled, broiled, and grilled wafts towards me, envelopes me. I see bits of chopped liver, white onions, green pepper, chicharon, and crisp pork ears intersperse the mass of glistening meat. It’s good sisig and my stomach rumbles in agreement. My throat, however, constricts. I suppress the urge to retch. “No, thanks. I’m good,” I say. “I’ve got coffee.” His eyes never leave his food as he continues wolfing down bits of hacked-up pig in between gulps of beer. I sit down on the ground opposite him. He talks about his hometown through mouthfuls of food. I can only make out snatches of words through the sound of his chewing but I nod at him whenever he raises his eyes at the end of each garbled sentence. It’s been a week since his wife left. When he finishes his first box of sisig and after a long swig of beer, he looks at me squarely and starts to speak in somber tones. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” “Quite sure. Besides, you look like you’re still hungry.” 16
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He smiles at that and whips his attention back to meat. He coaxes the sisig laying over the double lining of foil out of the take-out box, carefully placing it on top of his little milk can furnace and over the red coals. He crimps the edges of the foil around the lip of the can to secure it in place. Soft hissing fills the air as pork fat drips onto the embers below. The smell makes my stomach lurch. He reaches for another can of beer. “It’s gotten warm. I guess I should’ve wrapped it in wet newspaper or something.” “Maybe you should have snorted up that first box quicker. Not that that’s possible.” “Maybe I should put it in my freezer for a bit,” he says, weighing the beer in his hand. He looks longingly at the warming meat in front of him. “Nah. Give it here.” “You’re finally going to drink? This one’s disgusting when warm.” I wrap my hands around his beer. I take a deep breath and exhale from my gut, directing the stream of air towards the bottom of the can. I do this five more times before handing it to him. “How the fuck did you do that?” he says as soon as his fingers touch the surface of the can. I shrug and I watch him pop open his third beer. I hated watching my breath frost up windows, and yet there I was, pointedly looking anywhere but inside our dad’s Civic. My left side pressed uncomfortably against the backseat door, several plastic bags filled to bursting with discounted clothes sat between me and Ate Robin. It was a couple of nights before she was supposed to leave for college. “I found some really cute skirts for you, sweetheart,” our mom told my sister from the front passenger seat. “They’re in that plastic bag beside you. Take a look.” I almost laughed at the scowl my sister gave to the bright pink bubble skirt she pulled out. When she peered into the bag, I knew exactly how much she loved the rest of its contents. “See them? Aren’t they cute?” Our mom was practically singing with glee now. I couldn’t stop myself from snorting. “Ma, I don’t think that’s her color,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. Her reflection glares at me from the rearview mirror. “Don’t be stupid. She loves it. Don’t you, dear?” “Yeah. Of course. Thanks, Ma,” said Ate Robin. She put on an easy smile even though mom couldn’t have seen it anyway. “So, where are we eating?” our dad asked as we exited the parking lot and pulled into Rizal Highway. Prose: Fiction 17
“There’s this really nice restaurant next to Spanish Gate that Grace won’t shut up about....” “Ate should choose since she’s the one who won’t be here for a while.” “Okay then!” said our dad a little too enthusiastically. He hated fine dining. “We’ll go to Little Caesars. It’s always been her favorite.” Ate Robin shot me a questioning look over the plastic bags. I don’t eat pizza but I shrugged, acquiescing to our dad’s choice. She hasn’t liked the pizza there since we were little. I won’t say anything if she doesn’t. I collapsed into bed as soon as we got home from Little Caesars. Later that night, I woke to the sound of my door creaking open. My ears strained against the deafening silence, listening for footsteps. There weren’t any, just the soft breaths of the wind. My hand, dangling at the edge of my bed, feels a familiar warmth. My sister’s hands wrapped tight around mine. They were trembling slightly, perhaps from the cold. She probably had another talk with our mom. I imagined hearing a muffled sob. Still, I feigned sleep. She whispered something into the darkness but her words were snatched away by the cool night breeze, her voice too soft to carry the weight of meaning. After what seemed like hours, her hands stopped trembling and the warmth on mine started to fade away. I drifted back into a fitful sleep. She was already gone when I woke up the next day. I receive the news on December 24. My parents have been trying to hold it off for as long as possible but today, Ate Robin is finally declared legally dead. I get the call before noon, from an unknown number. It was the family lawyer who laid it all out for me. He goes on and on, describing the process and the legal ramifications of declaring my sister dead. His words pass through my skull like the December chill. None of it changes anything. Not really. My insides feel leaden and my feet dig a little deeper into the ground. For a moment, I imagine giving into that feeling, falling; I head to the rooftop. Unfortunately, Nilo was there. “That first time we met,” says Nilo after several minutes of what I hope could pass as normal conversation. “When you were piss drunk?” “After I mentioned my uncle,” he continues, “you said something about an Ate Robin.” Today, he only has two cans of beer with him: both are now empty. “Did I?” “Yeah. When you were helping me back to my room, I think.” 18
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I have coffee. I take a sip. It’s bitter. I keep drinking. It’s warm and familiar. I can feel his eyes on me as he waits for me to speak. “You know how people are disappearing all over the country? I think I know why, because the same thing happened to my sister ten years ago.” He sits there, listening, never interrupting. I tell him about her— how she used to drag me all over the place and how I slowed her down. She loved rooftops and she would always take me up the ones she knew I could climb. She also loved going off by herself and disappearing for a couple of hours, sometimes more than a day. When I was younger, I would beg her to take me along. She would simply wipe the snot and tears from my face with the hem of her shirt and smile, shaking her head. I didn’t like it, but I had always accepted her little trips outside as normal because my parents never really made a fuss about it. When I asked, however, Ate said that our mom used to scream at her for hours whenever she would get home and that she had been the reason our dad had installed so many double cylinder deadbolts to the front door. Eventually, they gave up, made her carry a spare key, and bought her a phone. She would always go home safely anyway and she never brought trouble. So, when she disappeared again after her high school graduation, our parents weren’t worried. They only called the cops on the third day. I knew, even when I woke up to find her gone that first day, this time was different from all the others. This time she might not come back. Despite that, I did all that a school kid could do to find her. I worked my ass off in high school, trying to get into the same university she was supposed to go to. My parents didn’t think I could do it but I did, by the skin of my teeth. It was the first time I had ever worked that hard for something. For some reason I had this strong feeling that if I were to find her, it would be in Katipunan. That’s why I’m still living here. I can’t explain why or where that feeling comes from. I just know. For years, I would walk all over the city, looking up at buildings, wondering if she was stuck somewhere like a kite on a tree. I never found her. I take a drag from my cigarette and hold the smoke in for as long as I possible. I have no reason to mention the phone call. “Now my coffee’s cold,” I say as first light encroaches, mercilessly invading the darkened sky. The chain-link cages around us glimmer in the light. Nilo doesn’t say anything. He just pokes at coals that have long since died. Prose: Fiction 19
It’s been days since I last saw Nilo on the rooftop. It’s almost one in the morning and I’m deciding whether I should go back to my apartment when he finally comes without his usual bag of coal or his cans of beer. He looks as if he ran up the stairs to get to the roof. He doubles over and gasps out, in between breaths, “Gab! I need your help!” His cousin’s son has been burning up and losing weight, he explains when we get in the elevator. They’ve tried everything, from slack-jawed clinicians to head-scratching albularyo. His parents can only look on helplessly as he keeps getting worse. A few days ago, the kid started intermittently hovering a few inches over the bed. We arrive at an old house along Malolos Avenue. A man in his midforties; dressed in a large denim trucker jacket, is pacing outside the gate. “Nilo said you know what’s happening to him,” the man said, grasping my shoulders. “Please help my son. His name is Kevin and he’ll be turning twelve in February. Please. Help him.” Nilo and I follow him to a room at the very back of the house. Kevin is staying where it’s coldest, the father explains. They wanted to keep his temperature down as much as possible. The kid is on a bed at the center of the room, bags of melting ice beside him. His mother, Nilo’s cousin, is sitting on a chair beside the bed, brushing his hair back from his forehead with a damp cloth. The air conditioner is at full blast but she’s sweating. The temperature should drop a few minutes after I walk in. “Thank you for coming,” she says with a weak smile. There are bags under her eyes and tear stains on her cheeks. Nilo gives her a quick hug. “I’ll go get more ice,” says the father. He closes the door behind him. Kevin’s mother pushes the chair against the far wall and steps aside, giving us room to examine her son. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks but he looks otherwise normal. I gently lay my palm against his forehead. My skin tingles; he must be burning up. When I step aside, Nilo brushes the hair from Kevin’s eyes. His fingers are a bright pink when he pulls them back. He turns around to his cousin and me, saying, “I’ll go get us some coffee,” before shuffling out of the room. It takes a few minutes of silence before I realize that Nilo never properly introduced us but before I can amend that, she says, “Nilo said you know what’s happening to him?” “I wouldn’t say that exactly. Something very similar happened to someone I knew a long time ago. She’d float just like this, sometimes.” “What happened to her? Did she recover? Will my son be alright?” 20
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My fingers itch for a cigarette but I tamp down the urge. Her breath is only starting to get cloudy. I shouldn’t warm myself up just yet. “How long has he been having these symptoms?” I answer. “I…I’m not sure, but he never told me that anything was wrong. I’m sure he would have said something.” She squeezed the cloth in her hands before hastily wiping her son’s forehead. I ask if she’s heard anything unusual from his school. “He’s never been a very bright student. He gets distracted easily and forgets to do his homework sometimes, but that’s normal.” Her expression softens when she looks at her son. “He always had the brightest smile on his face. Never complaining. No one had anything bad to say about him, really. He’d light up any room he walked into.” “So no major problems at school?” “Oh no, none at all. He’s getting by just fine,” she says, shivering slightly at the last word. “What about at home?” “I don’t see how that’s relevant.” Nilo comes back with a mug in each hand. The mother, whom I later hear him calling Linda, welcomes the relief of coffee. I accept mine, with muttered thanks, and pretend to take a sip before setting it down on a nearby shelf. Linda and I settle into a lull as Nilo fills the room with stories from when Kevin was a small boy. For a moment, everything was okay. Linda relaxed a little, enough to even manage small bursts of quiet laughter. Kevin settled to hovering only a few centimeters off the bed. By the time my mug of coffee stops giving off steam, Nilo finally runs out of stories. He shivers, rubbing his hands together and shoving them in his pockets. The room should be cold enough by now. I consider stepping out for a quick smoke before I doze off completely, but my thoughts are torn away by a sharp gasp followed by a shout. “Gab! Come on, help me hold him down! What—” Nilo’s hands seem to slip through Kevin’s wrists. “Why? What’s happening? Kevin, sweetheart, please.” He’s blurring at the edges, becoming indistinct, immaterial almost. “Gab! Do something!” He should’ve cooled down. He shouldn’t be getting worse. I don’t understand. Ate Robin said— That’s because the stuff inside him is warmer and less dense, uhm…it means less compact. Anyway, he’s warmer and lighter inside than the stuff outside so he floats. I feel my insides harden as the realization hits me. Prose: Fiction 21
“No, wait, we need to warm up the room. I—” He hits the ceiling, dispersing in a cloud of bright mist, fading into the room’s dull artificial light. It was like he was never there. All that he left behind were crumpled sheets wet from spilled icewater and tears, a mother clutching at thin air and screaming for her baby, and a father that burst through the door at the commotion only to rush back out at the sight of the empty bed and his wife’s eyes. Nilo tries to console her but her cries only grow louder. There are shouts and thuds coming from outside the room. I shouldn’t be here. I move to leave but I sink to the floor, legs trembling. I shouldn’t have been here. I only made things worse. I remember the night before Ate Robin disappeared. I remember the warmth of her hand fading and I sink even deeper into the ground. It’s already daybreak when Nilo and I head back to our apartment building. We don’t speak the whole way, not even once. It’s only when the elevator stops at my floor that he breathes out, “See you tomorrow.” The metal doors close behind me before I can turn to respond. The following night, Nilo rings my doorbell and hands me an aluminum can. Coffee, it says in tiny letters under the brand label. It’s probably hot. “It’s thanks for yesterday,” he says. “I don’t even know why I called you. There was no way anyone could have done anything.” I murmur my thanks and let him in. “Come to think of it,” he says with a lopsided grin on his face, “Why do people say thank you after receiving thank you gifts? Shouldn’t they say you’re welcome?” I shove aside several piles of papers from the couch, trying to make room for him. They topple onto the floor, individual sheets flapping weakly in the wind rushing from the open window. “You’re welcome, then,” I say as I open the can. I take a sip; it tastes like mud. He pops open his bottle of beer then frowns. “What’s wrong?” I ask him. “Need me to cool it down for you?” “No. It’s fine.” He taps the fingers of his left hand against the metal, his ring clinking against it. “It’s just that. You know. It got me thinking. Yesterday….” “You should go see your wife and kid,” I say, my lips hovering over the rapidly cooling aluminum. A thin sheet of frost starts to cover what my breath touches. “She’d pommel me as soon as she catches sight of me. Did I tell you I used to have movie star looks before I met her?” he says, letting out 22
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a half-hearted chuckle. “Besides, she’d probably yell at me for wasting money I don’t have.” I take out all of the bills in my wallet and hold them out to him. He simply stares at my outstretched hand. “You need to see her. She wants to see you too, I’m sure of it. Talk to her.” While you still can, I stop myself from adding. “You can call your boss tomorrow morning. It’s the holidays. You should take a break and be with family.” “I can’t possibly take all this—” he says, pushing my hand away and almost spilling his beer in the process. “Don’t worry about it. Consider it as thanks for the coal and the conversation these last few weeks. And the canned coffee,” I say, swirling the remaining dregs. He makes a few more objections and I insist some more. Just when I almost have him convinced, he asks, “What will you do for money?” “Haven’t I already told you? I’m going back to Olongapo. Go get a job there—start over from scratch, I figured,” I said with a smile that would have made my sister proud. “I’ll go and work my ass off over there and in no time, 17k would be peanuts. Maybe you should move back to Antique, find yourself a mine and make a fortune on coal.” “Are you sure about this?” he asks. I force the bills into his hands. This time, he doesn’t put up a fight and simply wraps his fingers on the money, keeping the harsh winds from swiping them away. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back, for sure—” “There’s no need. Really. Peanuts, remember?” “Thank you.” “You forget, you should say ‘you’re welcome.’” He smoothes the bills and folds them carefully, before easing them into his breast pocket. We sit there in silence, nursing our drinks. “Although there is something….” I say after a while. “Can you give me the rest of your coal? It’s going to get much colder here, I imagine.” The day Ate Robin started high school, we climbed the roof. At the very back of the school complex, she made a grand gesture towards a tree. She approached it with deliberate slowness then jumped. The next second, she was running up the trunk, hands barely touching branches. I didn’t even have time to worry that she might slip and break her neck. She stuck her head out over the roof and called out, “Come on. It’s easy.” Prose: Fiction 23
I eyed the tree. Star apple: Chrysophyllum cainito, declared the board nailed to its bark. I couldn’t see any fruit. The trunk leaned towards the roof at what looked like a manageable incline and several branches extended from it at almost uniform intervals, as if that tree was designed specifically for climbing. “It’s just one story,” I muttered to myself. I started my ascent with a confidence I soon lost. After several minutes of slipping, hugging, and grasping at the caimito tree, I finally managed to clamber up to the roof. Bent over and clutching my heaving chest, I was met with a vast field of white framed by the dark green hues of the forests beyond. The light afternoon drizzle had clung to the surface of the roof, making it glisten. It was intensely bright and looking at it made the back of my eyes burn but I couldn’t look away. “It’s foam,” she said, waiting patiently for me to catch my breath. “Don’t worry—it’s alright to step on it. See?” she added as she stomped her foot down. The foam didn’t yield an inch. “The surface isn’t soft and you can walk on it. Come on.” I took a tentative step, testing the foam, slowly letting it accept my weight, but still afraid that it wouldn’t be able to support me, that it would give in, swallow me. It held and I took another step. “Why would anyone put foam on a roof, though?” I asked, scuffing my shoe against the white, leaving behind a light trail of brown mud. “For insulation. This white you see is a top coat,” she said, tapping at the roof with the toe of her right shoe, “It protects the foam but it also deflects some of the sun’s light and heat—or, well, it reflects it, really. Whatever isn’t reflected gets absorbed by the foam underneath.” “So, basically, it’s like a giant blanket that keeps you cool? Huh…. It kinda looks like snow.” I’d never seen snow. “But it’s warm,” she said. “Hey, don’t sit there! It’s wet, you’ll get dirty.” “Just a little bit damp. It’s alright.” She lay down, stretching her limbs out as far as they could reach before folding her arms neatly on her chest. Her permanently wind-swept hair fanned out around her head. She let out an openmouthed yawn. The green topped leaves of the caimito tree rustled in the wind. Under the shade of an overhanging branch, there was a school chair. I set that chair beside her and sat down. Now that my eyes have gotten used to the bright light reflected by the roof, I can see that it isn’t as white as I thought it was. It might have been, once, but right then it was yellowing in places that weren’t covered in a layer of gray dust. Thin cracks branched across the surface, like the 24
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delicate veins of dried leaves. It looked like it could shatter at any minute. I looked down at the metal legs of my chair, worried that they would stab through and leave irreparable wounds. “I heard you and mom…talking last night.” They were probably in the kitchen; I was supposed to be sleeping in my room upstairs. Ate Robin shifted, lying on her side, her back towards me. “Isn’t it hard?” I asked. “Nope,” she said, turning her head towards the sound of my voice, eyes still closed. “It’s as soft as a bed made out of clouds.” Both of us knew it wasn’t. Neither of us spoke for a long time. I don’t know how many days have passed. Most of me is either frozen solid or completely shattered. I curl up around a milk can filled with whitened coals. I see the metal touching my skin but I feel nothing. I remember Ate Robin, that day on the school rooftop, and warm snow. She was right after all, it isn’t hard. I think of finally seeing her smile and hearing her say everything will be okay, as I sink further and further where it’s colder and colder still, until everything is bathed in deep, dark stillness and even light stays frozen in midair.
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editor’s note After all, poetry is a savage calling. – Edel Garcellano And I ask the young here, Edel Garcellano breathed into a microphone, as if posing a secret challenge, or perhaps an admonition, for the fifty or so lucky enough to bear witness to a new poem in a lecture during the 7th Philippine International Literary Festival. How long would you toil in the violet hours of your young lives to serve the savage God? A hush predictably fell over the crowd—partly because Sir Edel’s manner of speaking has always been somewhere between a whisper and a murmur, partly because he has a reputation for critiquing the establishment and literary soirees such as the one he surprisingly he said yes to: a session called Letters to Young Poets. After the lecture, I managed to catch up with Sir Edel to ask for an autograph of all things. He was of course soon flanked by other students ecstatic over his surprise appearance so I was not able to extend the interaction. When I got home, I remembered I haven’t even seen what he wrote yet. I reached for my worn out copy of Knife’s Edge, now one word richer. In a hesitant script in fading ink, Sir Edel simply wrote “Hello.” There will always be young writers “toiling in their violet hours” and the ones whose poems are published in this issue of the Kalayaan Review are no exception. There is an earnest attempt in each piece to encapsulate burdens in all their gore and glory, all rooted from the poets giving way to being young, being hungry, and being reckless. As to how long these poets will continue to toil, we have no way of knowing—but I certainly wish them a lifetime of stories and a lifetime worthy of being storied. 26
I leave you now with another poem of Sir Edel Garcellano, aptly called Words. The word assumes a silence that is of course full of words that mean this & that & nothing more. Yes, everything seems to fall short of real conversation because words fail us. But we drown in the river of words as if the spoken is a lie, a betrayal of what we think we mean. There is no salvation in the saying of words – But what weapon do we use against that which oppresses & chokes? Silence overwhelms but we must keep on inventing the word that will smash the thick glass of air between us. The task is heroic. Poetry is a minor matter. Beatrice Adeline Tulagan Poetry Editor, Kalayaan Review 2017 27
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Kundiman Distance April Garcia
In the room with a cracked window, on the third floor of the ratty apartment, on the corner of two hells—EDSA and Monte De Piedad. I choke back our favourite Abelardo kundiman. We hold the same note octaves apart—the distance, embalmed in the tapestry of photocopied music sheets, is as grave as the humidity engulfing us. The unbearable 32-degree Celsius of late April cannot stop the dust and sweat from infecting the spaces of the piano—out of tune, like the spinning of the fan, accumulating dirt, rust, and our voices. We’re trapped in the spaces between its blades, as we reached for the spaces between its ribs.
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Manila
Niki Dela Cruz The city is old. Its concrete bones are caked with dust and disappointment. Its glass windows hide its age in reflections and LED advertisements. The city is old. Blaring horns from shiny, new cars made in Japan, Germany, and America are heard in chorus as they drown out the screams of decay. The city is old. There is nothing new about pedestrians crowding over fishball, isaw, and bopis, as they impatiently queue for the faulty MRT. The city is old. It wheezes and coughs every few heartbeats with the sound of a deteriorated, old man gripping his chest in writhing pain. The city is old. The city has had its share of bittersweet dishes but nothing worse than being served its own death on a silver spoon.
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Passing By Niki Dela Cruz
I look at the toddler standing barefoot under the MRT tracks, in his tattered clothes gazing out into the passing traffic of midday. I think about how he must not have eaten anything yet as he stares out with empty eyes, but as the traffic crawls along the length of EDSA. I forget about him. There is a couple on the bus who look twenty-something, looking at seating prices for a concert of a band I can’t read from off their phone screen. I think of the times I’ve missed out on live concerts, wild screaming, and blaring music, but as the two remain undecided on their preferred seats. I forget about them. An ordinary bus stops beside the window, and the stark contrast is reflected even in the passengers. Through the deeply tinted window I stare at the worn seats and worn-out riders. I think about the old Filipino films with bus explosion scenes, but as I spot the driver laugh about something with the passenger behind him. I forget about it. I reach Ayala in a record forty-five minutes, and I stretch out my arms as I get up from the leather-smelling bus; I inhale the comfort and luxury at the price of fifty-five pesos and wonder how often I could get to experience it. I think about all the previous discomforts I’ve had with public transportation and the reasons to dislike Metro Manila, but as I step off the bus with a clearer understanding of privilege. I forget about it.
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Ginisang Tuna Zinj Ludovica
I remember the dinners you’d make for us. Easy to cook dinners because your fingers hurt after long days of puttering in the house and you wouldn’t trust us to cook “kasi sayang sa gas.” Sardinas at misua. Maling. De lata. Daing at itlog na maalat na may kamatis. Lucky Me. Tinapa. Tuyo at malamig na sabaw ng tinola. Adobong kangkong. Giniling na may repolyo. The nights in Rizal are lazy unlike nights here, everything is different here. I miss the stars, catching frogs barehanded and trying to sing the song of the toads, the way grass would rub against my elbows when I walked the dogs, the fields that looked like a sea of grass when the wind blew, taming goats even if you told me not to because they would eat the malunggay and the scent of their shirt would trail into the house. You would always go outside after lunch, pretending to sweep the yard even though it was painfully obvious you’d sneak off to buy a coke. Then you’d wheedle me to skip school and stay with you instead to cook popcorn and watch movies and explain the plot so you’d understand what’s going on. I would hide the remote so you wouldn’t fast-forward it to the “fun parts”. You’d break the horror CDs in half and burn them because “kay Satanas galing to. Para wag pasukin ng masamang espiritu ang bahay.” We’d pray for forgiveness and you’d assure me how God forgave us “kasi sinira naman natin agad pagkatapos at din na natin uulitin” but I knew you’d still be seduced everytime by the sweaty DVD vendors at the palengke entrance, I knew you’d pick the goriest looking ones and hand them to me to read if the synopsis is any good. You taught me to use a little bit of sugar instead of MSG for the umami flavour. I’d eat every meal from the bowl I always ate from, the shallow cream one with hairline cracks and bubbles and irregularities. I could still see the glazed clay cup I’d drink from, a small brown one, the same cup I’d share with the dogs. I wish I brought my cup and bowl here. I made dinner tonight. I can almost hear you yelling at me for having the burner on too high and wasting gas. I cut garlic and onions the way you taught me, sauté them with the oil from the cans. I measure sugar, salt, 32
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and pepper by eye and it tastes exactly the way you’d make it. I breathe in the scent and try to tell myself I’m teary eyed because of the onions. Even though I’m finished cooking. Even though you taught me how to cut onions in a way that wouldn’t make me cry. I’m not crying because cooking tuna is the only way I could make you come back. A knife and chopping board being the line from me in the city to you in the province. I wonder if you threw my clothes away, if you broke my bowl and cup. That seemed like something you’d do, with a “kay satanas galing to. Para wag pasukin ng masamang espiritu ang bahay.” I worry if you still sneak off to buy Coke from the sari-sari store. I worry if you understand the movie plots and if there’s someone to explain for you.
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tala mula sa editor Unang beses kong mag-edit uli pagkatapos ng tatlong taong hindi pagsusulat. Hindi na rin ako gaanong nakakabasa ng fiction o kaya ng mga tula. Hindi dahil pinili—hindi naman ako ascetic—kundi dahil wala talagang oras. Aaminin ko, medyo malungkot na tatatlo lang ang mga piyesa sa Filipino. Pero ang mahalaga ay may nagsumite pa rin. May naglakasloob. Iyon kasi ang sa tingin ko ay isa sa mahalagang bagay sa pagsusulat: iyong maglakas-loob. Kaya sana magsulat pa rin sila, at magsulat ng maraming-marami. Dahil ang pagsusulat, hindi lang naman kuwestiyon
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ng karanasan, kundi ng pagbubuno sa nakagisnan, ng tunggalian. Taboo word yata ang pakikibaka dahil siguro nakagisnan na natin na ang panitikan ay dapat mabulaklak o kung ano pa. Mahalaga ang tunggalian kasi natututo tayong mas maging masinop at kritikal; kritikal hindi lang sa iba kung hindi sa sarili nating mga hinuha. Nariyan ang kapangyarihan ng panitikan: ang manabik, manggulo, at higit sa lahat ay magpa-isip. Pagbati sa lahat ng mga manunulat na naglakas-loob magsumite at pumunta sa mga workshop. Magsulat ng maraming-marami at lalong magbasa ng maraming-marami! Vinch Santos Filipino Editor, Kalayaan Review 2017 35
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Seguridad Zandra Javier
Tatlong araw na mula noong may nanloob dito sa bahay. Umuulan noon. Tuwing umaga, binabati ako ng mga mapuputik na bakas ng paa mula sa labas papunta sa kwarto ko. Ang lintik, ginawa pa yatang pahiran ang kumot ko. Maglilinis nanaman ako. Hindi naman siguro bumangon iyong magnanakaw mula sa bakuran ko para gumanti, ‘di ba? Ang lalim kaya ng pagkakahukay ko. Hay, matignan na nga lang ulit mamayang gabi bago ako matulog.
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Bagong Tagpi Zandra Javier
Pagtiyagaan mo na lang itong hinabing usok at alikabok Nang hindi ka masyadong ginawin sa lamig ng ating kapalaran; Ito na lamang ang aking balabal. At kung masanay ka man sa nagninisnis nang pag-asa mula sa iyong pagkakabaluktot sa ibabaw ng mga nalaglag na dahon at mga balat ng kendi, Nanaisin mo pa ring ariin ang balabal kong ito Na hindi mo gugustuhing bumalot pa ng sunod na henerasyon ng ating nawawalang pag-iral, ngunit Magbibigay ng dagdag na init sa bawat nipis ng sinulid kung ipaghehele mo na ang tanging kayamanan sa iyong dibdib.
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Pangalan Nicole Mijares
Ako po’y limang taong gulang nang inyong ibinigay sa’kin ang nagdaragsaang mga ngalan. Dalawang taon bago ko matandaan at dalawang taon pa bago maisa-ulo— Mga pangalang humubog sa aking pagkatao. Gago. Tarantado. Demonyo. Tanga. Bobo. Puro yabang. Anong pinagmamalaki mo. Walang pakundangan. Walang hiya. Ingrato. Nasa loob ang kulo mo. Putang ina mo. Bastardo. Impakto. Bakit ka ba nandito. Mabuti pa hindi ka na ipinanganak— kasalanan mo lahat ‘to. Opo. Pabigat. Tamad. Perhuwisyo. Walang kuwenta. Kasayangan ng espasyo. Tama po kayo. Bakit nga ba hindi matuto-tuto. Walang patutunguhan ang buhay ko. Putang ina ko. Bakit ganito. Bakit pa nga ba ‘ko nandito. Mabuti pa nga hindi na ipinanganak— kasalanan ko lahat ‘to. ‘Nay, ‘Tay, tama na po. Alam ko na. Pasensya, inabot ng sampung taon higit pa, pero ‘di na kailangang ipaalala. Sa wakas akin nang natutunan, naisa-puso, ang mga ngalang asintado— Mga pangalang bumugbog sa aking pagkatao.
Tula
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Spotlight Vinch Santos
“Good morning ma’am, sir Balik kayo uli, salamat.” Daraan ang madlang punung-puno ng saya At ako, para sa kanila Padala ko’y ngiti at ligaya Ang sarap panoorin ng kasayahan Habang pawalis-walis, papunas-punas Mga payaso, leon, nagsasayawan Pero bigla ko na lamang maaalala Sino ba kami sa mga mata nila? Sino ba kami? Tila mga aninong walang mukhang Dinadaan-daanan, kinakalimutan Walang mukha, walang kwenta Sisihin pa sa kalagayan Sino ba kami? Kami ang maraming hindi nakikita Araw-araw ang kayod Pagkaliit-liit ang sahod Alas diyes kung umuwi, hanep ang pagod Sino ba kami? Sila, ang dali-daling makilala Katawan at mukha ang puhunan Limpak-limpak ang bayaran Sino nga naman kami, kumpara sa kanila? Sino ba kami? Kilala niyo naman kami At iisa lang naman ang gusto namin Na sana, kahit saglit, Spotlight sa kanila’y mawaglit Sana kahit ngayon lang Spotlight kami’y masinagan 40
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In Response to the Marcos Burial
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tala mula sa editor Pagkat walang nakakatakas sa multo ng kasaysayan. Ang mga akdang ito ay multo. Multo ng mga akdang ito. Ang mga akdang ito ay kasaysayan. Kasaysayan ng mga akdang ito. Multo ng kasaysayan. Ram Hernandez Editor, Never Again: In Response to the Marcos Burial 42
MARCOS IS NOT A HERO The name of Kalayaan College has its roots in the Katipunan. Kalayaan means freedom and independence, and as an institution, Kalayaan College stands for education, for freedom and independence. Kalayaan College stands for enlightenment to free ourselves and the rest of society from the shackles of ignorance and intolerance. Kalayaan College stands for truth. It is therefore in accordance with our philosophy as students of Kalayaan College to stand on the right side of history; history of the common people. Former President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law from 1972 to 1981, and 70,000 Filipinos were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed under this proclamation. Students and student-activists, such as Liliosa Hilao and Luis “Boyet” Mijares, were among those people. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Marcos’ burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani is unjust, as it invalidates the struggle of the Filipinos victimized by Martial Law and of the Filipinos who dared to and still continue to fight against injustice. We, Students of Kalayaan College, stand with over 100,000 Filipinos and their families who were victimized by Martial Law. We do not support the Supreme Court’s ruling on Marcos’ burial. We do not condone historical revisionism because it goes against the very principles on which our College is founded. We cannot move on without accountability, which starts with our acknowledgement of our own history and truth. The Truth will set you free. Kalayaan College Student Organizations Psychological Association of Kalayaan College (PAKC) Kalayaan Literary Circle (KLC) MultiMedia Organization of Kalayaan College (MMOrg) Kalayaan Law Society (KLS) Kalayaan Union of Journalists (KUJ) Kalayaan Music Organization (KAMO) Kalayaan Management Association (KAMA)
Never Again: Org Statements
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KUJ Statement
Kalayaan Union of Journalists Kami sa Kalayaan Union of Journalists ay tumututol sa paglibing sa dating pangulong Ferdinand Marcos sa Libingan ng mga Bayani. Ang paglibing sa isang diktador sa Libingan ng mga Bayani ay manipestasyon ng tatlong usapin sa kasalukuyan: 1) paglapastangan sa kasaysayan ng mamamayang Pilipino; 2) ang paglimot sa mga mga martir ng Batas Militar tulad ni Lorena Barros, Lean Alejandro, at iba pang mga mamamahayag at manunulat na napaslang dahil mas pinili nilang ipahayag ang katotohanan sa panahon ng diktadurya ni Marcos; at 3) ang pagkakaroon ng “historical revisionism” lalo na sa panahon ng “social media”. Tutulan natin ang pagbubura at pagbabago sa ating kasaysayan! Tutulan natin ang paglapastangan sa kamalayang Pilipino! Labanan ang “historical revisionism”! Anton Largoza-Maza KUJ President, 18 November 2016
KLC Statement
Kalayaan Literary Circle We, at the Kalayaan Literary Circle, do not condone the Supreme Court’s decision to bury our history and to give Ferdinand Marcos the title of hero. Kalayaan Literary Circle recognizes that Marcos is NOT a hero and will never be. We are gathered here in solidarity to make sure our voices will pierce through the thick air of amnesia and historical revisionism. There are fascist apologists, those whose consciousness are still asleep, telling the youth to move on; that we don’t deserve to have a voice in this because we weren’t born to experience and witness the supposed “greatness” of a period where torture, suffering, and death were the norm for those who made the “mistake” invoking their right to freedom of thought and speech. We may have not been born during the Martial Law, but we choose not to act deaf to the truth. We choose to remember that it wasn’t Marcos who built infrastructures in the country. We choose to remember the working class whose hands were tainted with cement and blisters as they made towers rise from the ground. 44
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We choose to remember the collective memory of those who fought to liberate the country for the sake of our generation.We choose to remember and to stand with Liliosa Hilao, Archimedes Trajano, Luis “Boyet” Mijares, Noel Cerrudo Tierra, Edgar “Edjop” Jopson, Antonio “Tonyhil” Hilario, Lorena Barros.We choose to remember Emmanuel Lacaba and other writers who weren’t afraid to take their literary voice to the streets and fight to free the country from the chains of fascism. We choose to remember how names were transformed into invisible numbers that the dictator denied to have made. As young writers we will use our words as weapons against historical revisionism, against those who ignore the history of struggle, and against those who believe that Marcos is a hero. The true heroes of the Philippines are those who have spilled their blood and sweat for their labor. Those who marched the streets where tanks rest. They have known the dangers of fighting for liberation, but they have also known that “[a]wakened, [t]he masses are Messiah”. The history of our archipelago is not dictated by the Supreme Court; it is not dictated by the elite; the history lies with the ordinary people and we will not let Marcos bury the stories of the masses.We will make sure that he is being haunted in the afterlife as the fight for truth echoes in the air of our country. Marcos Hitler Diktator Tuta April Garcia KLC President, 18 November 2016
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Apotheosis, M. LJ Z. Galvez i. The only clouds He could see across sky-high palace walls, through the window, from His throne were of dust—smoke that danced upwards off exhaust and tobacco pipes alike. This kingdom of decades-old rubble and ashes from battle, of faces risen from grease pits. This was His kingdom, in repair, rising. He longed for ascendancy—to bypass mortality. What indeed was mortality but a construct rife with limitation? ii. He and His She were Malakas and Maganda—gifts of the Divine, legends of a new world woven seamlessly into mythology by His own hand. God had spoken to Him in a dream, giving His divine mandate—justice and justification of the highest order. But that was never the voice of God, was it? It was His. He was the only God. iii. If you lie enough, if you steal enough, if you hurt enough, you can transcend morality. His empire was faultless, gilded in only the purest of gold, melted from the coffers of an entire nation. Hisworld glittered enough to blind Him—to fault and accountability.
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Or perhaps he wasn’t blind. Perhaps He did see the blood dripping down the knees of a crawling nation. Perhaps He did hear both dissent and pleas brought beneath his window, and left there. Perhaps the stench of the rotting flesh of the Disappeared never left His nostrils. Perhaps the icy feeling of gold where His buttocks rested was simply irresistible. Perhaps the taste of all the blood He spilled remained in His mouth, even after the day He died. Perhaps He just never cared. Perhaps knowing He, His Royal Family, and His Loyal Subjects would live eternally in comfort, even excess, was enough. Because true godhood was infallibility. iv. Decades even later, The Present. A kingdom of rust and tarnish weeps. It is caught in a stalemate in the battle for its rotting heart. Because the truth of this narrative and the universal value of truth itself was somehow lost in translation—decades of it from the people who stood only to benefit from their own twisted version of events, the narrative wherein every monument to Him is untouched by the grime that covers everything else. But He was no Hero. He was no God. he was just a man. he was just a man who stole and killed with no remorse. he was just a man masquerading as a god. And all he left behind was a broken kingdom, perpetually begging for scraps at the knees of false gods, licking the ground to survive. Never Again: Poetry
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Blind Eye Colleen Garcia
Across the blinding and terrifying veracity there is no escape for you and me today marks another death— in the arms of many Many who have never forgotten the memories of the unforgotten past Hoping that this is just a nightmare— that it wouldn’t last. But one cannot close their eyes to escape the depths of darkness no matter how one tries the soul of the enemy is never dead, though it died. It lives still though one cannot see within veils of invisibility in the hearts of his family that kept a blind eye to reality One should not forget history for history shows us what we should and should not bury. Is this man really worthy of being buried in “Libingan ng mga Bayani”?
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Pipi
Hazel Luna Dinig ko ang mga huni ng ibon sa tuwing aaahon ang araw sa silangang bahagi ng aking silid. Ang mga dahong pasulyap-sulyap sa aking bintana at paunti-unting dumadapo sa lapag ng aking tahanan; habang ang paligid ay nababalot ng maliwanag na sinag.At katahimikan. Huminga ako nang malalim, kinolekta ang matamis na simoy ng hangin at kinamot ang gilid ng aking utak; nakakubli roon ang mga alaalang nagsisilbing alila na tila ba walang tahanang nagnanais kumupkop. Inihimbing ko ang aking mga mata at ibinunyag nito sa akin ang kanyang sarili; nakahubad at puno ng galos, ang nakapulupot nitong mga kamay at nakasaradong bibig, ang naglalagas nitong buhok at kupas na pagkatao, ang mga matang papungay-pungay mula sa pagod ng pagaantay. Nagpakita ang mga imahen,isang lumang rolyong negatib; laman nito ay mga litrato ng pulburang nananatili sa palad ng mga lalaking pilit ipinasok ang bunganga ng baril sa pagitan ng dalawang hita ng isang batang babae, ang himig ng nagsisiawit na mga kababaihang nakabalot ng puti at ang mga nakasaradong kalyeng tila ba’y inabandona na. Hindi ko inakalang sisibol pa ang panahon mula sa hudyat ng apokaliptiko. Ang hapon ay sumapit, at ang ulap ay nagtago at ang kalangitan ay nagdilim, dahan-dahang pumatak ang ulan dala-dala ay maligamgam na asul at malungkot na tugtog. Ilang hakbang mula sa aking hapagkainan ay ang papel na naglalaman ng mukha ni boyet na nakatitig at nakangiting habang buhay makukulong sa maliit na kahong espasyo sa dyaryo at ang hanay ng mga nakaimprentang pangalang nagsisiksikan sa obituwaryo. Ang radyo sa tabi nito ay minsang nag-anunsiyo ng pagkakaisa upang magtipon sa isang malawak na kalyeng nabalot ng dugo at katawang walang-malay-hinalay. At sa tuktok ay isang litrato ng aking pamilyang ngayo’y naglaho. Naglalakbay kasama nina boyet, lily, maria, archimedes, hilda, at trinidad. Parang mga plakang gasgas, mga tinig na wagas ang pag-alon; isang bangkang palaboy-laboy sa gitna ng kalaliman, ang huling upos ng isang sigarilyo at nagsasayawang apoy sa pampang ng isla. Kasabay nito ang mga tanong na nambubulabog: paano ko nga ba haharapin ang balita sa telebisyon at desisyong walang pagbabagong pumapatay sa dikta ng kinabukasan? Iminulat ko ang aking mata at pinigilan ko ang sariling hipuin pa ang aking memorya. Never Again: Tuluyan
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Ang buwan ay muling nagliwanag at pinayungan ang kadiliman, nanumbalik ako sa aking kama at tinakluban ko ang aking katawan ng malambot at makinis na kumot, maganda ang panahon at kalmado ang paligid, ako ay nakipagusap sa kaitaas-taasan, at hinele ng mundong salat at minangmang.
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Alaala
Ram Hernandez Iba-iba ang mukha ng alaala Mayroong manipis, mayroong makapal Mayroong mapurol, mayroong matalas Kaya madalas marinig sa mga matatanda: “Kung nabubuhay pa si (sabihin ang pangalan ng yumao) ay ganito ang sasabihin niya sa ‘yo” Iniiwan natin kasama ng hangin Ang paraan ng ating pag-iisip. Ang hibla, ang hilatsa at gusot ng ating lohika Kaya walang nakakalimot. Maliban na lamang kung kawangis na ng pag-iisip na ito ang lahat ng lohika ng mga natira
Never Again: Tula
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Contributors Niki Dela Cruz still romanticizes everything, and wishes poetry would love her back the way she does. LJ Z. Galvez is A GayTM. He is not a conservative. April Garcia likes Jollibee and hentai. Colleen Garcia is a romantic and a pragmatist trapped in one. She tries her best not to hoard cookies (but fails). Ram Hernandez. Aktibista. Guro. Zandra Javier is that weird daydreamer who wrote when asked to draw, and drew when asked to write. One time while daydreaming about a fictional character, someone thought she was in love. Anton Largoza-Maza is a cat on a synthesizer in space, and Chairman Meow. Si Zinj Ludovica ay qus2 n4ng mmty if not for Squishy, cats, memes, aesthetic basura, fried chicken, ey b0ss, titi-train porn, at mga malasang inuman. Hazel Luna is a temperate shrub bearing longing in spring, and round, hard-shelled, edible heart in autumn. Nicole Mijares has been stuck in a time loop for nearly a decade (or perhaps all her life). She’s scared she’ll crumble into dust when the loop ends. Vinch Santos is trying to finish his Master’s degree. Emphasis on trying.
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Acknowledgments The Kalayaan Literary Circle would like to thank the Kalayaan College Administration, Board of Directors, Faculty, and Staff for their continuing support of the Kalayaan Review. We would also like to extend our sincerest gratitude to the following: Dr. Jose V. Abueva Dr. Virginia S. Cariño Dr. Ma. Oliva Z. Domingo Prof. Josefina M. Albores Prof. Cynthia D. Gealogo Prof. Maybelle Koch-Guzman Prof. Jomar Cuartero Angela Natividad
