(2020) AHWW 25 Zine

February 23–25, 2019 Balay Indang, Cavite

COMPILED BY Cat Aquino & Sophia Bonoan LAYOUT BY Diana F. David

heights

BUNGA: The 25th Ateneo heights Writers’ Workshop Culminating Zine Copyright 2020 heights is the official literary and artistic publication and organization of the

Ateneo de Manila University.

Copyright reverts to the respective authors and artists whose works appear in this issue. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.

This publication is not for sale.

Correspondence may be addressed to: heights, Publications Room, MVP 202 Ateneo de Manila University PO Box 154, 1099 Manila, Philippines Tel. no. (632) 426-6001 loc. 5448 heights-ateneo.org

Cover Illustrations by Maxine Marquez and Valerie Cobankiat Layout by Aitana Therese Nellas and Casey del Rosario Typeset in Freight Text and Akzidenz Grotesk Extended

25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP WORKSHOP DIRECTORS Mikaela Adrianne Regis Dorothy Claire Parungao

WORKSHOP CO-DIRECTORS Justin Barbara Jude Buendia Justine Valdez

PANELISTS

FELLOWS

Genevieve Asenjo Allan Derain Christian Benitez May Cardoso Michael Coroza Conchitina Cruz Timothy Dacanay Christine Lao Gabriela Lee Vincenz Serrano

Bernardine de Belen [TULA] Adrian Miguel Soriano [DULA] Richell Isaiah Flores [TULA] Renee Andrea Villegas [DRAMA] Anjanette Cayabyab [TULA] Jose Antonio Carballo [POETRY] Bernice Claire Dacara [DULA] James Andrew Reysio-Cruz [FICTION] Catherine Lianza Aquino [FICTION] Danielle Michelle Cabahug [NONFICTION]

WORKSHOP DELIBERATIONS COMMITTEE English Joshua Uyheng Gabrielle “Bee” Leung Carlo Flordeliza

Filipino Martina Herras Reina Krizel Adriano Jonnel Inojosa Jose Alfonso Ignacio “Oey” Mirabueno

WORKSHOP COMMITTEE Paul Stanlee Añonuevo, Alyssa Gewell Llorin, Cydney Maegan Mangubat [LOGISTICS & SUPPLIES] Ma. Arianne Aleta, Rocio Castillo, Isabella Darang, Benjie Bernal [DOCUMENTATIONS] Justin Barbara, Sola Fide Diloy Ramos [PROGRAMS] Valerie Cobankiat, Maxine Marquez [DESIGN - BRANDING] Casey del Rosario, Aitana Therese Nellas [DESIGN - MANUSCRIPT] Arnold Manuel Rillorta, Aletha Zaire Payawal, Simone Yatco, Gianna Sibal, Andrea Llanes, Justine Borja [ONLINE] Juan Carlos Luna, Jana Codera [DESIGN]

HEIGHTS ATENEO MODERATOR Martin V. Villanueva

TABLE OF CONTENTS Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano • 2 The love of form is the love of endings • Jose Antonio Carballo • 16 listahan ng mga Makasalanan ayon sa Makapangyarihan • Bernardine de Belen • 22 Pagtatae dulot ng Pag-asang Panis • Anjanette Cayabyab • 26 biyahe bago ang alas sais ng umaga • Richell Isaiah Flores • 28 Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas • 31 Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara • 46 Boundaries of Care • Danielle Michelle Cabahug • 66 Babaylan • Catherine Lianza Aquino • 78 Be Like the Ants • James Andrew Reysio-Cruz • 83

Adrian Miguel Soriano PAMBUNGAD NA SANAYSAY

N

asa huling taon na ako ng pag-aaral ng Creative Writing. Marami akong natutunan sa Ateneo. Maganda ito sapagkat noong kakasimula ko pa lang mag-aral dito, wala akong masyadong alam sa pagsusulat. Hindi nagtagal, at umabot ako sa mga klase ni Sir Martin at nina Sir Glenn Mas na kung saan natuto akong tumingin sa aking sarili tuwing nagsusulat ako. Lagi akong napapaisip tuwing nagsusulat kung ano ba ang gusto kong iparating sa mambabasa. Ano ba ang gusto kong pag-usapan? Sa ilang taon sa Ateneo, naintindihan ko na napakakaunti lamang ang naiintindihan ko sa sarili ko. Ukol sa aking pisikal na anyo, o ‘di kaya sa mga naranasan ko nung nasa high school pa ako. Kaya para sa akin, tuwing nagsusulat ako, nasa isipan ko palagi kung ano sa akin ang ‘di ko pa naiintindihan at gusto kong hanapin sa pagsusulat ng mga dula. Sa tingin ko bunga rin ito ng pagkalalaki ko. Pinamalas sa akin noong bata pa lamang ako, ang katangian ng lalaki bilang taong ‘di emosyonal. Dahil dito, mahirap sa akin ang paraan ng pagproseso ng maraming mga bagay, emosyon man o problemang pisikal. Unti-unti kong naiintindihan ang sarili ko kada gawa ng likhang sining.

Makikita ito sa “Ligawan sa Lupa”. Dito ko naisip ang sarili ko bilang taong hindi maganda ang tingin sa sariling pisikal na anyo. Naging usapin ito ng karakter ni Mikmik na hindi kaaya-aya ang anyo, at mas lalo na, hindi sanay sa mga bagong kapaligiran. Isang malaking problema noon ang kinakailangan naming maging cool. At kung ayaw mo, hindi magigiging maganda ang buhay mo hanggang sa katapusan ng high school.

Kadalasan, nagsusulat ako ng mga komedya. Naisip ko na marami sa mga kinahihiyaan ko sa sarili ko ay katatawanan lamang. Napagtatawanan ko ang mga ito, hindi dahil tinatalikuran ko ang isyu kundi dahil natututunan ko na huwag masyadong seryososhin ang sarili ko. Minsan, hindi naman importante yung mga bagay na kinakatakutan kong makikita ng iba sa akin.

Nagsusulat ako dahil masaya ito. Natutuwa ako sa mga karakter na nalilikha ko.

Natutuwa ako sa paggawa ng mga absurdong mga mundo tulad ng sa “Ligawan sa Lupa”.

At natutuwa ako sa mga walang kuwentang problema ng mga bata galing sa high school.

Nais ko pang humusay sa panunulat. Marami pa akong kailangan matutunan at nais kong masanay sa paggawa ng dulang trahedya. Maganda ang oportunidad na makasali sa mga palihan, upang mabigyan ako ng iba’t ibang pananaw sa panunulat.

2 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa Adrian Miguel Soriano

CHARACTERS MIKMIK ­– A shy young milkfish merman from Siquijor, who is very shy and only happens

upon Nia by chance. His fish parts are from the waist up.

NIA – An outgoing Manileña that wears her heart on her sleeve. She saves Mikmik from

drowning.

NIA’S PARENTS

– Very strict parents, hands-on with Nia. They dislike Mikmik not

because he’s half a fish but because he’s from the province.

PERSONS 1&2

– Rough-looking. Locals.

SETTING

A beachside in Larena, Siquijor. It is afternoon, the sun is glaring above. Mikmik is the sole person lying on the beach. He is wearing swimming trunks. He had just finished eating lunch and is ready to go back home.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 3

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano MIKMIK

Sarap humiga-higa pagkatapos kumain. ‘Di naman sobra, ‘di naman ‘onti, medyo, sakto lang.

He rolls from one side to the next.

MIKMIK

Ang sarap ng bulate! Ay, ‘di na ako makalakad. Busog na ako.

He rolls again, with his face facing the sand.

MIKMIK

Makatulog nga sandali! Parang ang bango, pero parang lumambot din ang pakiramdam ko. Teka lang, ako ata ‘to!

MIKMIK immediately runs just in front of the audience.

MIKMIK

Tuyong Bangus! Kapit lang teka. Ang sakit ng tiyan ko. Aray!

Yung paa ko, namumulikat. Namumulikat? Malulunod ako.

Malulunod ako! Jusko, gusto ko pang magkaroon ng jowa!

He continues struggling though he’s just standing in one place while flailing his arms. NIA is passing through.

NIA MIKMIK

Oh my God, is that a fish? Drowning?

Tulong, nalulunod ako!

NIA rushes in to save the merman.

NIA

Oh my god, ok I got you. I’ll pull you out papunta sa beach.

NIA points to the beach.

MIKMIK

Huwag doon!

NIA

Huh, why though?

MIKMIK

Basta! Haha… alalayan mo muna ako.

NIA What’s a-la-la-yan?

MIKMIK says under his breath MIKMIK

Shet paano na, nag-English.

NIA What?

4 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

MIKMIK

N-nothing! Ano, support mo muna ako.

NIA

Ok! But you know, you’re a fish right? So you could just swim. Normally.

MIKMIK

Normal? Oo, normal ako! Isda nga ako. Ay, teka. Oo nga ‘no.

Iba talaga ang mga conyo. Talino mo rin. Pero teka, paano mo ako naiintindihan?

NIA

Because you’re half a fish?

MIKMIK

Hindi, dahil hindi ako nag-English.

NIA

Oh I understand some of it, mostly just general words.

MIKMIK says under his breath.

MIKMIK

General words? Sino yun? Militar ang magulang niya?

NIA What?

MIKMIK

Wala! Paano ka ba napunta rito?

NIA

I’m actually taga-Manila, pero like lumabas kami for vacation.

MIKMIK

Tunog Maynila ka naman galing. Ilang araw kayo rito?

NIA

Mga four days lang naman. We’re going to go home soon. I have school pa.

MIKMIK

A, ganun ba. Sige alis na rin ako, hinahanap na ako nga magulang ko. O sige, bye!

MIKMIK turns around and starts walking away.

NIA

Wait! Actually, I don’t know how to go back sa Blue Marlin Resort.

MIKMIK

Sige samahan na kita. Mawala ka pa riyan.

NIA

Thanks ha. I’ll treat you for ice cream or something.

MIKMIK

Magkikita pa ba tayo?

NIA

Ikaw… if you want lang naman.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 5

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

MIKMIK

Sabi mo ‘yan!

The scene starts with MIKMIK alone upstage facing the audience. He speaks to himself. NIA is at stage right. Standing stationary. Setting is at the shore of the beach.

MIKMIK

Hindi ko makakalimutan ang tatlong araw na ito. Marami akong napakita kay Nia. Sa kada bagong mapakita ko, naaaliw siya, at sa bagong natututunan niya, lumalambot ang aking puso.

MIKMIK goes to the stationary NIA. NIA

Hey, race tayo until there!

MIKMIK

Sure ka ba? Baka mapahiya ka lang diyan.

NIA

Wow, the drowning fish is talking?

MIKMIK

Oo na, ako na ang nalunod! Sige laro tayo, pero ‘wag kang

umangal kapag natalo ka. Hanggang du’n lang tayo sa dulo at pabalik, okey?

NIA

Okay then! We’ll go at three. One…two…

NIA goes for a head start.

NIA Three!

MIKMIK

Anak ng– hay sige na! Tara!

He starts going after her.

MIKMIK

Paunahin ko muna ‘yan. Pa-enjoy ko muna ta’s unahan ko kapag malapit na matapos.

He then starts to get even with her.

MIKMIK

‘Eto na mapapatahimik ko na rin ‘tong conyo na ‘to. Teka lang… sumasakit tiyan ko. Jusko anong nakain ko? Lord.

MIKMIK slowly loses speed and NIA wins. NIA rises up from the water.

Oh my god, I actually won! I can’t believe it. Wow, how is that

even…Wait parang that’s too good to be true naman. Hey Mik,

NIA

6 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

you let me win ‘no? Mik, why are you so layo? You’re drowning again? Hay nako, wait lang. I’ll come and get you.

MIKMIK Huwag!

NIA What now?

NIA starts to go closer.

MIKMIK

Teka lang! Diyan ka lang muna. Ano bang nilagay mo sa niluto mo?

NIA

Well I put the worms lang with some seaweed.

MIKMIK

Kaya pala shet. ‘Di ako makagalaw. Sabi ni ma’, ‘wag masyado kumain niyan, ‘di kaya ng tiyan ko.

NIA

I’ll go to you na, ok?

NIA goes nearer.

MIKMIK

‘Wag nga! Please… parang awa mo na, ‘wag.

NIA

Fine, fine, I’ll go back na.

She turns around and walks toward the shore.

MIKMIK

Uy pero Nia, solid ‘yung laro natin. Galing mo lumangoy.

NIA

Better than you.

NIA stops and once again is stationary. MIKMIK goes back center stage. He starts talking to himself again.

MIKMIK

Medyo nakakahiya ‘yun, pero kahit sa mga ganung laro-laro namin sobrang saya ko na. Ngayon lang rin ako nakaramdam ng ganito. Normal lang ako. Paminsan-minsan lang din na sa buhay probinsiya ko itong makatikim ng ganitong pananabik. Lagi lang rin akong mag-isa kung ‘di ko kasama pamilya ko.

MIKMIK goes back to the stationary NIA. NIA

Hey, I know na what to do today.

MIKMIK

O, ano na namang gagawin natin?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 7

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

There’s this super solid sunset view in the beach right sa tabi natin.

NIA

MIKMIK

Pero may tao dun ‘di ba?

NIA So? MIKMIK

Teka lang, ‘di pa ako ready sa ganun. Takot akong lumabas sa parte na ‘to.

NIA Why naman?

Kasi nga may tao, kinakabahan ako. Minsan lang ako lumabas.

‘Tsaka, ang pangit kong pumorma. Tatawanan lang ako, ng mga tao.

MIKMIK

NIA

Wait, oh my god stop. Don’t worry, a-a-la-la-yan kita.

MIKMIK

Wow, aalalayan.

NIA

Hey anuba! I’m trying to be serious. I want to help you out talaga, your fear of being outside. You’re also missing out.

You’re so lapit, but you’ve never seen the view. Please, ‘onti na lang days ko with you, do it for me na lang.

MIKMIK

NIA

Dami mong sinabi. Oo na, punta na tayo.

Yes!

The scene shifts. The setting is still on the shore. There are now one or two people. MIKMIK is now wearing a collared shirt.

NIA

See, everything’s fine naman!

MIKMIK

Oo nga, pero okey na ata ako.

NIA

What do you mean?

MIKMIK

Balik na tayo! Okey na ‘yan, nakapunta na ako.

NIA

But we haven’t even seen the sunset.

MIKMIK

Feeling ko talaga, nakatingin ‘yung mga tao sa akin.

MIKMIK looks around.

8 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

MIKMIK

Kasi kinakabahan ako makita ng ibang tao. Nararamdaman ko ang tingin nila. Alam ko namang nakatingin sila sa tiyan ko. Kung hindi kasi ako langoy nang langoy, kumakain ako. ‘Yan tuloy, ang pangit ng katawan ko. Ikaw ba, nakakita ka na ba ng malapit sa beach nakatira pero ang chubby?

NIA

So you think people look at you because, you’re fat?

MIKMIK Oo. NIA MIKMIK

I think that’s normal naman!

So ayun nga, umalis na tayo!

NIA Why? MIKMIK

Kasi nga, nakatingin sila sa akin!

NIA

Look, I’ll guide you through, just hold my hand.

MIKMIK

Huh? Anong magagawa nun, makikita pa rin nila ang katawan ko?

NIA

Just trust me and let’s go na.

MIKMIK

Shet, anuna, alis na tayo!

NIA

You’re so kulit, sabi nang, let’s go!

The two other people on stage notice MIKMIK. They all face MIKMIK. MIKMIK

Okey lang ako. Okey lang ako. Okey lang ako.

MIKMIK stops walking. MIKMIK won’t budge.

MIKMIK

Nakatingin siya sa akin.

NIA What?

MIKMIK

Ayun, nakatingin siya sa akin. Para akong isda na nasa aquarium.

NIA

You’ve been in an aquarium?

MIKMIK

Parang si pareng Nemo lang nung bata siya.

NIA

Oh my God, Nemo is real?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 9

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

MIKMIK

Basta! Naktingin nga siya sa akin. Ang taba ko kasi!

NIA

Jesus Christ, they are looking at you…

PERSONS 1 and 2 intensely stare at MIKMIK. NIA

Oh God, what’s their problem?

PERSON 1

Pre naman. Tingnan mo ‘yan.

PERSON 2

Oo nga. Oo nga. Pota nakikita ko!

PERSON 1

Pre, paano ka napunta dito?

MIKMIK Ako? PERSON 2

Sino pa ba? Ikaw lang naiiba dito.

NIA

What’s wrong with him, ba? You keep on staring at him. That’s so rude.

PERSON 1

Papaanong hinde? Tingnan mo ‘yang kasama mo.

PERSON 2

Parang ikaw lang ‘di nakakakita eh. Landi niyo kasi!

PERSON 1

Oo nga, simula nang dumating kayo dito, ‘di ka na tumigil.

NIA

What are they talking about? Mik, what’s landian?

MIKMIK

Oh, that’s, ‘yung ano. Yes, haha. Putang-ina.

NIA

Are you ok? Have you forgotten how to speak like a regular human.

MIKMIK Hindi.

NIA

You’re like, getting hotter. Are you ok?

MIKMIK Salamat.

NIA

Not like that. So kadiri.

NIA puts her hand on MIKMIK’S forehead.

MIKMIK

Uy, ano ba?

10 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

NIA

Come here lang! Just let me see.

PERSON 1

Pota, nakalimutan na ata tayo nitong dalawa.

PERSON 2

Oo nga brad, may sariling mundo ‘to.

PERSON 1

Landi pa mag-jowa!

PERSON 2

Nasasayang screentime namin sa inyo uy! Magagalit si direk!

MIKMIK

Si direk?

PERSON 2

Basta, nagsasayang kayo ng oras!

NIA

What are they even talking about?

MIKMIK

Malay ko ba. Ang gulo nila.

PERSON 1

So ayun nga po! Nandito ka.

NIA

What’s this na naman ba? You think he’s fat ‘no?

PERSON 1

Anong mataba? Anong pinagsasabi mo? ‘Di mo ba nakikita?

MIKMIK

Ano! Anong problema niyo?

PERSON 2

Ang problema namin, swerte ‘yung babae na ‘yan!

PERSON 1

Oo nga, ang pogi-pogi mo, medyo nakakainggit lang! First time

namin makakita ng parang ikaw. Kaya lang, ‘di maayos t-shirt mo, brad!

PERSON 1 will fix MIKMIK’S shirt.

MIKMIK Huh? NIA I’m confused.

PERSON 1

O sige, enjoy na kayo sa sunset. Alis na kami!

MIKMIK

Ah sige, ingat.

MIKMIK talks to himself.

MIKMIK

Shet, anong nangyari?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 11

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

PERSONS 1 & 2 proceed to exit. They exit at stage right.

NIA

See, you didn’t need to overreact naman eh!

MIKMIK

Kasi kasama kita.

NIA

So it’s my fault?

MIKMIK

Hindi, pero syempre-

NIA Syempre?

MIKMIK

Syempre, ayokong makita tayong magkasama. Ganito lang kasi ako.

NIA

What’s your problem? You shouldn’t even think that.

MIKMIK

Ayoko naman kasi isipin nila na parang ako lang kaibigan mo.

NIA

You know, no matter where we are, you’ll still be my best friend.

MIKMIK

Oo nga, friends.

NIA

Anyways, I’m leaving naman tomorrow right? I want you to meet my parents?

MIKMIK

Pamilya mo?

NIA

Yup! I’m sure they’ll be proud I made a kaibigan na.

MIKMIK Sana.

It is noon. NIA’ PARENTS are at stage right. NIA and MIKMIK enter stage left.

NIA

Mom, Dad! Guys, here, I want you to meet my new friend.

MIKMIK

Magandang umaga po. Ako po si, Mikhail Nemoida Mikhin. Ako

po ‘yung kasama ni Nia nung huling tatlong araw. Nice to meet you po.

NIA’S MOM

So this is the kid you were out with the entire trip.

NIA

Yes, mama. He’s super nice and fun talaga.

MIKMIK Salamat.

12 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano NIA’S DAD

Don’t you see the problem with having friends like him?

What’s wrong with him? More importantly, you guys are being rude.

NIA

NIA’S MOM

Don’t you see? I mean look at his face.

MIKMIK Mukha ko?

NIA’S MOM

He’s obviously a local!

NIA’S DAD

Yes, and we can’t have that. It would look bad on us.

NIA’S MOM

Of course, what would our friends say? They’ll see na we’re lowly people.

NIA

Mom, Dad, you’re being rude!

NIA’S MOM

I mean look at him! Can you blame us? His shirt’s untucked and he smells like fish!

NIA

But mom–

NIA’S DAD

No buts anak, just listen na lang. In this type of place, you don’t even know how he’s been raised. Maybe he’s just playing nice.

NIA’S MOM

And he didn’t even make mano. Ay nako, he probably wasn’t taught manners by his mother–

MIKMIK Hoy! ‘Wag niyong idamay ‘yung nanay ko!

He proceeds to go closer to NIA’S PARENTS. MIKMIK Walang

ginawa nanay ko sa inyo para tignan niyo nang masama. At kayo lang naman ‘yung nakikita kong nakakahiya.

Ano ngayon kung taga-probinsiya ako? Mas marami tayong lahat problema kesa dun!

MIKMIK is now very close to NIA’S PARENTS. MIKMIK Tikman niyo ito!

MIKMIK strongly slaps NIA’S PARENTS across the face.

NIA

Oh my God! What did you do?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 13

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano MIKMIK Pakshet anong ginawa ko?

NIA

I’ve never even thought about standing up to them. That was…

MIKMIK Was? NIA

Amazing!

MIKMIK Huh? NIA’S PARENTS

Exactly!

NIA AND MIKMIK

What?

NIA’S MOM

Well you know, we’ve already seen you with Nia before, we just never bothered to talk with you. We saw you with the people yesterday and you seemed to handle them well.

NIA’S DAD

You look like you were a little bit too timid. We just wanted to see if you had a backbone.

NIA’S MOM

Of course any of Nia’s friends is ours. Pero we just wanted to

make sure na you could protect her. Though we know, she handles herself fine.

MIKMIK So wala kayong problema sa akin?

NIA’S PARENTS

Wala.

NIA’S MOM

Oh Nia, we have to leave soon na. Say goodbye to him na.

Mikmik it was nice meeting you. Nia, your father and I will go the shuttle.

NIA

Ok, mom.

NIA’S PARENTS exit stage right.

MIKMIK Aalis ka na.

NIA

Yup.

MIKMIK Mamimiss kita.

NIA

We can always call each other. And I’m sure we’ll come back.

MIKMIK Sana. ‘Wag mo akong kakalimutan.

14 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Ligawan sa Lupa • Adrian Miguel Soriano

NIA

Of course. Don’t drown ha?

MIKMIK Hanggang ngayon talaga?

Tatawa silang dalawa.

NIA

Bye-bye.

MIKMIK O sige, malalate ka na. Bye. NIA

Wait lang.

MIKMIK Ano?

NIA kisses him. Weird lights flash. Stage gets kinda foggy.

NIA

Oh my God, is this your prince charming moment?

Lights stop flashing revealing MIKMIK. NIA

Except you’re still a fish, na medyo pink?

MIKMIK Uy wow naging salmon, sosyal!

-END-

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 15

Jose Antonio Carballo INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

A

t around twelve years old, I began to write poems as a means for them to accompany the music I was listening to. I recall, for example, hearing “Yellow Submarine” and thinking about, although I didn’t know the term for it back then, its dramatic situation.

I wondered about escape, the “sea of green,” and why the submarine had to be yellow.

Within a poem, I sought answers to these questions, but more often than not, I was left with even more uncertainties, which only fueled my hunger to look deeper.

This is all to say that my earliest encounter with poetry was through sound. This commingling, which I credit to these early exercises, has greatly informed me both as a writer and a reader. I’m thinking of discovering the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Frank O’Hara and the linguistic indentations they notched in my head as I read their astonishing, generous work. Or how the poems of Nathaniel Mackey and Danez Smith send shockwaves through my spine; their work reminding me of the improvisatory quality of jazz, its exultation of rhythm and resourcefulness.

Over the years, I’ve come to see poetry as this act of play and inquiry, of interrogating the imagination to come up with something fresh and alive. This perspective, I’ve come to realize, forced me early on to think intertextually, to view poetry as a byproduct of connections between different artforms. Without this kind of engagement, I doubt I’d still be writing poetry today.

Lately I’ve been speculating how a poetry grounded on intertext can accommodate deeper concerns; one of these concerns, as depicted in “The love of form is the love of endings”, being grief: how one searches for voice, meaning, and most crucially form, while in the throes of grief. With this poem, my struggle was outlining a mind experiencing grief, frozen inside specific memories, while simultaneously brushing up against a bustling, external world.

It’s a complication I discussed with my panelist and guide Chingbee Cruz, whose wisdom continued to resound in my head as I rewrote the poem again and again. She advised me to think of poetry as something distinct from other genres like fiction and drama; to think, in this regard, of poetry’s capacity to articulate a thought process, an act so primal and urgent—with the question now being: how do you enact this urgency, how do you represent the mind’s intrusions?

I’m not kidding when I say revising this poem and combing through the material for it has been exhausting, excessive, and spiritually draining. But I’d also be lying if I didn’t mention the secret pleasures of carrying this poem within me like a talisman, returning to it, hoping it would clarify the unlit places of my mind.

At the end of the day, my wish for the poem is that it renders and gives voice to the search adequately, and that in some way returns the hope I got from writing it back into the world.

16 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

The love of form is the love of endings Jose Antonio Carballo I trace the flowers on your dress, those folded, yearning magentas, from an old photograph and tuck the drawing inside a notebook, which means I am learning to regard you with distance. In the photograph, you are between my brother and me; we are dressed as Batman and Robin for Halloween. The two of us walking and looking up to your smile, your improvised grace. Last night I thought of looking for the Robin costume in my closet, which is to say I still seek your consolation. I want to believe the flowers are roses. .

In Saint-Rémy de Provence, van Gogh is working on At Eternity’s Gate & wondering to himself: how, finally, do you express an idea through art?

He arrives at a man in a bombazine suit, corded in blue, & the man is inconsolable & his hands are pressed to his face & losing, van Gogh seems to be telling us, achieves a fluency in all this blue. .

Dreaming of the coast, I draw a circle. Repeated sandcircles drawn and redrawn in the same spot on the shore. Iho, a voice chimes from the oceanmouth. And it’s your voice I hear. Offering me ginger tea cut with lemongrass, you hold the cup with one hand and a pair of slippers with the other and tell me to drop the branch. To receive the warm cup. I notice that the redness of your hands have subsided. Hands once scored from antiseptic and bleach.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 17

The love of form is the love of endings • Jose Antonio Carballo

—but where is my Robin costume?—

.

And how many more poems are there to write about Lola in the beach, in the garden?

About her tilling the evergreen? With her hearty expectations? .

Narrative is the Elephant in the Room when most people discuss poetry (Frank Bidart) but what I mean to say is if I hadn’t woken up five minutes later than usual, hadn’t ignored your text, hadn’t stopped to check the weather, would you still be alive?

—Tell me no, tell me no.

Somebody please, tell me no— (Mitski) .

Iho, Yes, now I remember.

Ukay-ukay during those early years, 2006?

Do you remember?

Your mother and I gave it to a pregnant woman and her balding husband.

We were in tita’s garage and that summer you asked me what autobiography meant. Said you

18 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

The love of form is the love of endings • Jose Antonio Carballo

thought the word too long to make sense.

Oh. .

Suppose you could run off and accept the ocean’s mystery, that life is all dive and surface.

Your furious study all dive and surface. Now suppose you found yourself shrouded in garden moss, preempting unity with that which sinks deep into the earth. Is this what you dreamt of? Beneath sight, beneath voice. Is this where the Robin costume is now?

—Do blue flowers exist in nature?— .

Embodying incompleteness, I study the morning light, observing the sandcircle being fed back to the rip current.

There is no movement in this heat, not for long. .

A blue rose is a flower of the genus Rosa (family Rosaceae) that presents blue-to-violet pigmentation instead of the more common red, white, or yellow. Blue roses are often used to symbolize secret or unattainable love. However, because of genetic limitations, they do not exist in nature.

(Wikipedia) .

Approaching noon, what my grief conveys is the slow shifting of the mantle below my feet, like a conch shell

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 19

The love of form is the love of endings • Jose Antonio Carballo

cracking open, except when the waves break release fails to follow. .

What is containment, then, if not the will to constitute the harbor, if not a wish, a longing realized by the geometrist, if not Thales forgoing myth only to proclaim unity in water, if not the I do, I do of the aster, summer torch, gladioli, if not the siling labuyo rushed from its wildness to a bowl of tinola?

And if it so, can I move towards that? .

Iho, a bowl for you. Sit. Will you join us here?

Then I sat next to her, and received it, still steaming, and looked around at the goneness of roof, at the kitchen,

20 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

The love of form is the love of endings • Jose Antonio Carballo

at the family settling to dinner —Of course, Lola.

What else was there left to do?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 21

Bernardine de Belen PAMBUNGAD NA SANAYSAY

T

inatangka ko sa pagsulat ng tula ang talakayin o tingnan ang ilan sa mga isyung hinaharap ng bansa sa kasalukuyan. Naghalo ang mga bagong suliranin at ang mga dati nang lantad. Sinubukan kong isama sa tula ang patuloy na pandarahas sa mga dati nang inaapakan at pinatatahimik ng mga makapangyarihan gaya ng mga magsasaka at manggagawa, pati na mga mag-aaral. Idinagdag ko rin ang bagong tinitira ng kasalukuyang rehimen: ang mga di-umanong konektado sa droga – mapa-pusher o “adik”.

Litaw sa tula kong “listahan ng mga Makasalanan ayon sa Makapangyarihan” ang pagtatangkang ito na ipinta ang nangyayari sa ating bansa sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang administrasyon. Sinubukan kong gamitin ang kaisipan na ginagamit ng rehimen at ng mga taga-suporta nito bilang dahilan sa karahasang lumalaganap. Sa mga linya ring ginamit ko ang kanilang kaisipan. Sinubukan kong isingit ang ipinaglalaban ng mga kasama sa listahan upang tangkaing gumawa ng pagkalito. Sa pagkalitong ito ay maaaring mapaisip ang mambabasa na sumasang-ayon sa listahan at maaaring magduda sa mga kadahilanang palaging ginagamit upang dahasin ang mamamayan.

Hindi ko nais na magsalita para sa iba’t ibang sektor dahil naniniwala akong mayroon silang sariling boses at alam nila kung paano ito gamitin. Ngunit nais kong subukan, na sa pamamagitan ng pagsusulat ay mapalawig ang nakakaalam ng mga kuwentong ito. Ito na ang kuwentong bayan.

Sa tingin ko, kailangan nating makita ang katotohanan na patuloy ang mga karumaldumal na mga pangyayari sa ating bayan. Ang pagsusulat ko ay paraan din ng paggising at pagpapaalala, hindi lamang sa mga mambabasa, kundi sa aking sarili na malala ang mga kondisyong kasalukuyang bumabalot sa Pilipinas. Madali kasing ibaling ang ating pagtingin kapag mayroon tayong pribilehiyo. Takot akong mabulag dito. At panahon na upang mas marami pang tao ang mamulat at maaaring panimula rito ang sining at panitikan.

Pakiramdam ko, bukod sa lumalang sitwasyong politikal noong 2016 pagkaluklok sa kasalukuyang pangulo, malaking dahilan din ng politika ko at ng aking pagsusulat ang pag-idolo ko sa lolo kong manunulat at peryodista noong batas militar ng diktador na si Ferdinand Marcos. Kahit delikado, sinikap niyang maging tapat sa bayan at maglahad ng katotohanan.

Patuloy akong nagsusulat dahil hindi nauubos ang mga kuwentong dapat isapahina at naniniwala akong mahalagang bahagi ito ng pagsasakasaysayan ng kasalukuyang lipunan. Mapurol ang gunita kaya kailangan magsulat. Alam na nating lahat kung gaano ka-delikado ang makalimot. Mayroon ding digmaan sa tinta, salita at pahina. Hindi puwedeng basta sumuko. Hindi lang kuwento ang dala ng mga akda, dala rin nito ang pag-asa na magiging mas mabuti ang lahat.

22 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

listahan ng mga Makasalanan ayon sa Makapangyarihan Bernardine de Belen

1. magsasaka

pupunuin ang iyong mga pitak ng sariling dugo, gagawing pilapil ang iyong mga buto. tataniman ka ng armas at saka babarilin. ikaw ay tiwalag at rebelde at hindi marunong tumahimik bakit mo pa kasi kailangan ng sariling lupa, pati patubig at pataba? idadamay mo pa ang panghapag sa lamesa. kapag hindi ka tumigil, magagaya ka sa labing-apat sa negros na lumaban sa pulis at sundalo.

2. manggagawa

ang luha at pawis mo ang gasolina ng makinarya. pipigain ka para sa produkto pero bawal ang pagsuko at ang pagod at ang reklamo. ano naman kung sinabi ng Ama na tatapusin niya ang endo? promises are meant to be broken! bakit ka nandyan sa picket line?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 23

listahan ng mga Makasalanan ayon sa Makapangyarihan • Bernardine de Belen

bakit pa lumalaban para sa tamang sweldo o sa regular na trabaho? wala kang karapatan magreklamo. wala kang karapatan mag-ingay. wala kang karapatan kaya ikaw ay ikukulong at babatuhin at dadahasin sa pabrika o sa kalsada.

3. adik

hahalikan ang ulo mo ng bala gaya ng halik ng pagtataksil ni hudas kay hesus. at kakalansing sa bulsa ng kumalabit ng gatilyo ang pilak. oo, maling pumatay ng tao – pero nanlaban ka, pero halimaw ka. ‘yang ibang nakahandusay sa lansangan, mga bata at menor de edad, siguradong hindi ‘yan masunurin at malamang ay nagtutulak din! pati ‘yung tatlong taong gulang na natutulog lang sa bahay nang tirahin ng baril.

4. mag-aaral pipintahan kang pula, at tatawaging rebelde dahil hindi ba’t para sa inyo, pula ang oktubre? maghanda. papasukin ang lugar mo ng mamang naka-uniporme. wala kang alam, kundi ang pag-akyat

24 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

listahan ng mga Makasalanan ayon sa Makapangyarihan • Bernardine de Belen

sa bundok pagkagat ng dilim kaya’t bubusalan ang bibig mo gamit ang librong mula sa paaralan. reklamo nang reklamo at rally nang rally at sagot nang sagot! ano bang ambag mo?

5. ikaw

ikaw na naniwala sa Salita ng Ama, ikaw na hindi pinagdudahan ang listahan, ikaw na tumango habang nagbabasa. hindi demonyo ang mamamayan gaya ng sinasabi ng Ama. sumuko at magkumpisal. magbago at magbalik-loob sa Inang Bayan bago tuluyang maging impiyerno ang lupang tinatapakan.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 25

Anjanette Cayabyab PAMBUNGAD NA SANAYSAY

I

sa sa mga nakakatawang kantang madalas awitin ng lola ko noon ay ang “Tintirintin Masikën Martin”. Ang huling dalawang taludtod ng awit: Akatot si Rapido (Nautot si Rapido) Abantak si Laki Ambo (Tumilapon si Lolo Ambo)

ang naging inspirasyon ko upang sumulat ng nakakatawang tula tungkol sa pag-utot.

Ginanahan pa ako lalo noong nautot ang aking ama sabay sabi ng, “Pasensya, wala namang CR ang pag-utot eh,” dahil oo nga naman, wala pang kasilyas ng pag-utot.

Noong una’y desidido na akong sumulat ng nakakatawang tula tungkol sa pag-utot; kaya lang, biglang naging laman ng balita ang hinaing ng ating mga kababayan na halos wala nang makain sa kasagsagan ng CoViD-19 pandemic. Dahil dito naisip ko na gamitin rin ang ideya ng pagkain at paglamon sa aking tula. Sa unang draft, naging paksa ng aking tula ang pag-utot bilang sandatang hindi mapipigilan dahil wala naman siyang pwedeng kalagyan. Matapos ang ilang konsultasyon, nilingap kong mas pasidhiin ang damdamin ng tula kaya idinamay ko na rin ang pagtatae. Ito’y para ipakita ang matinding epekto sa tao kapag pinakain ng panis, bilang hindi lamang maingay na pag-utot kundi maging hindi mapigilang pagtatae rin. Mabaho man at nakadidiri ang tula, sana maamoy ito noong mga dapat makaamoy at magising ang kanilang diwa upang sa ganoon ay hindi sila tuluyang malamon ng kumunoy kung sakaling magtae nga ang mga walang pangalang pinapakain nila ng panis na pag-asa.

26 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Pagtatae dulot ng Pag-asang Panis Anjanette Cayabyab May sigwá sa sikmura ang mga walang pangalan na upang mapatahan, pipiliting hainan ng sinigang na pambababoy, malutong na pandudusta, at minatamis na kasinungalingan.

Tuloy, bago sumapit ang nagmamadaling araw tila tangke ang kanilang puwitan sa pagbuga ng nanggagalaiting hangin— tunog na nakabubulahaw sa ulirát nilang nahihimbing, malinggal na daing, at nakakikilabot na galit bilang mitya ng maluwat at nakatutulig nilang lunggating maghimagsik at ang armas nilang kakasangkapanin ay ang susunod na rumaragasang duming mapaningil ‘pag pinagsama’y malalim na kumunoy na sa mga nagpakain sa kanila ng pag-asang panis ay unti-unting lalamon.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 27

Richell Isaiah Flores PAMBUNGAD NA SANAYSAY

I

niwan ngunit hindi kinalimutan.

Habang ibang piyesa ang mababasa rito mula sa akdang binasa at inusisa noong palihan, ipinaloloob ng bagong akdang ito ang lahat ng aking mga natutuhan sa palihan, at sa pagsubok na balikang muli ang tulang “turbulence”. Samahan ninyo ako sa biyahe ng pagsilang ng tulang ito.

Hatinggabi, sinubukan kong irebisa ang turbulence. May naisulat naman, pero hirap na hirap ako. Parang hindi kumokonekta ang utak ko sa pahina. Parang hindi tama. Kaya kinabukasan, bago ako nagsimulang mag-edit ulit, sinubukan ko munang magsulat ng mga bagong tulang nakabatay sa mga komento noong palihan bilang pagsasanay na rin sa malayang porma at sa pagsulat ng mga imahen. Nagbunga ito ng apat na tulang ipinabasa at ipina-critique ko sa aking mentor at panelist na si G. Christian Benitez.

Masasabi kong naging highlight ng aming discussion ang paggamit ng colloquial na mga salita upang mabuo ang tono ng tula, isang practice na hindi ko pa gaanong nae-explore.

Naalala ko tuloy ang mga komento noon ni Bb. Genevieve Asenjo sa aking pagpili ng mga salita. Naroon pa rin ang pangangailangan sa mga kongkretong bagay at imahen, at sa pag-e-edit ko ng tulang inyong mababasa, sinubukan kong mailagay kahit kaunti lang ang mga bagay na mapanghahawakan. Marahil, kailangan ko munang bitawan at iwan ang bisa ng Tadhana, ng luha, ng sansinukoban, at ng mga kaisipang higit sa akin—ang mga konseptong siyang bumuo sa “turbulence”.

Isang linggo ang inabot ng aking writing at editing session. Matapos nito, sinubukan ko nang hawakang muli ang “turbulence”. Binago at dinagdag ang mga imahen at naglagay ng mga konkretong bagay, o kung hindi man, mga karanasang mararamdaman at maiintindihan. Nagbunga ito ng isang bagong tula. Naungkat ang ibang alaala.

Naisulat sa isang bagong porma. Ibang-iba sa mga binasa ng panel at fellows. Subalit, kailangan ko muna itong isantabi dahil kung itatabi ang lumang version ng turbulence sa biyahe bago ang alas sais ng umaga, masasabi kong mas maipakikita ko rito ang mga elementong kailangan ko munang hasain bago tunay na mabalikan at mabunong muli ang “turbulence”.

Kakabit ng malayang porma ang unti-unti kong paglaya bilang isang manunulat. Ang paglabas sa kumbensyong nakasanayan ko noong una at sa pagtapak sa bagong mundo ng mga salitang ninais kong marating simula pa lang ng palihan.

Bukod sa mga komento sa mga tulang ipinasa ko, bitbit ko sa mga susunod ko pang writing and editing sessions ang sensitivity sa images, line breaks, tone, language, and poetic distance. Gayundin ang napakaraming suggested readings na magpapalawak sa karanasan ng pagbasa at pagsulat ng tula. Pinatanto rin sa akin ng workshop na ito na minsan, sa pagsulat at pag-edit ng tula, you let the words simmer for a while, ferment even, hanggang sa maging natural ang pagbawas at pagdagdag ng mga salita hanggang sa matawag mo na ang sinulat mo na tula.

Lubos ang pasasalamat ko sa panel members at sa fellows sa kanilang constructive criticism pati na rin sa meaningful discussions on what it means to be a writer and a poet. Gayundin sa organizers ng AHWW25, maraming salamat sa opportunity na ito.

Mabuhay po kayong lahat!

28 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

biyahe bago ang alas sais ng umaga para sa manok na tumilaok at ni-record para maging alarm

Richell Isaiah Flores Sumakay sa isang tricycle, nakaparada doon sa pagitan ng

Lawson at KFC, sa harap ng

Ateneo,

at bumaba sa

Go

straight

sa

Baguio.

Session Road.

Don’t forget to observe.

On your left, may mag-jowang

naglalampungan.

On your right, may mag-asawang

nagbabangayan.

Choose your side.

Medyo mahaba ang

Session Road, enough time for you to reflect.

Pumunta ka naman dito para mag-soul-searching diba? Bueno, hanapin mo ang sarili mo sa gitna ng mga tiangge at ng mga bar.

Baka nasa isang shot

ng baril ang hinahanap mo, specialty ng bartender. Pamatay ang ngiti at remarkable ang pabango. In all fairness hindi siya pango at parang view ng shooting star sa Mt. Kiltepan ang twinkle ng mga mata nya. Kaya I recommend na pumunta ka rito, gabi, para maexperience ang night life at maghalo ang mga night lights at kapag dinerecho mo ang

lakad, makaabot ka sa

Hong Kong.

Kung gusto mo, ireenact mo ang movies ni Wong Kar-Wai,

I suggest Happy Together. Kahit yung parts lang na walang heartbreak. So, wag mong tanggihan kung may aakbay sa iyo. Kahit wala kang makitang mukha, okay lang yan.

Safe ka, I promise you. Nakalimutan mo kasing magdala ng jacket. Concerned lang sya for you.

So ride a cab, and just like in the movie, hayaang siyang sumandal sa balikat mo. Puwede ka namang ngumiti. Puwede ka ring mag-picture. Good luck na lang BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 29

biyahe bago ang alas sais ng umaga • Richell Isaiah Flores

kung makuha ng polaroid mo ang gusto mong makita. Mahaba

ang biyahe. Kaya take time to adore the neon lights, habang

nade-develop ang films at ang feels. Sabi nila nauubos na raw yang neon lights, pero masuwerte ka, nag-install ulit sila ng ganyan just for you.

Go

straight

to

mainland

hanggang makarating ka sa

Binondo.

Wag kalimutang magpaalam sa concerned citizen na dumantay sa iyo all the way through. Di mo makikita ang smile nya, pero masaya sya for you. Siguro di kasinggwapo nung bartender, pero hayaan mo na. Kung saksakin ka ng snatcher, wag kang magpanic. Welcome back to the Philippines. Pull the dagger and throw it away. Pagkatapos kumembot papuntang Carriedo,

then check kung bukas pa ang SM, tapos

kuha ng bagong damit. After, punta ka na sa

LRT. Tapos baba ka sa

Tanda ko, malapit dyan yung

Shinjuku Station.

Golden Gai,

with all the lights and sounds ng isang makipot na eskinita.

Friendly ang lahat, just choose the bar that fits your taste. Di ka pa naman lasing at di ka malalasing. Let it all out, in Japanese, of course. Halimbawa, イケメンな彼氏が欲しい～。 Tumingin ka sa katabi mong mukhang single, ngitian at sabihang, 月が綺麗だね。Tapos, lahat ng pagod ng byahe, isigaw mo, 休み たい。 この夢が変なだ。 じゃあ、 さようなら。Labas ka then takbo sa nearest Lawson, then look right, KFC.

You’re here again, with new clothes, and a new

language. At nandyan lang ang tricycle, just in case

you want to do it all over

(rev. 24 Abril 2020) (21 Abril 2020)

30 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

again.

Renee Andrea Villegas INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

E

ver since I was a child I’ve always enjoyed telling stories. While I started out trying to mimic the writers and stories that I’d come across most frequently—those found in fantasy stories or young adult novels—over the past couple of years I’ve started writing more about personal experiences or issues that are important to me. Issues such as sexual harassment, trauma, and cultural identity. All issues that are very important, and that can create divisive and supposedly immovable opinions. As a result of their contentious nature, I firmly believe that plays are one of the best ways to explore these topics.

In the process of putting up a play, a playwright has to collaborate with a variety of people such as directors, designers, performers, technical team members etc. to stage their script. In this collaboration, the material is discussed and dissected in order to achieve a unified vision for the piece. Naturally there will be moments of contention or disagreement as to how best serve the story, and by working through these disagreements, each person involved will have had to listen to the perspective opposing them so that they can come to some compromise. The end result is a production that has a unified vision, with each member having their own opinion and reaction to that vision and that material.

This show is then shown to an audience made up of individuals, where each individual will then take in the material and filter it according to their own beliefs and experiences.

Once the show is done, they will then be able to discuss the show with their fellow audience members, and see whether or not their opinions on the show are the same, further encouraging discussion. To me, this is one of the most unique strengths of theatre and plays: that a group of individuals can come together to witness a story, come away with different takeaways and discuss their opinions.

It is this perpetual cycle of discussion and discourse that I hope to create through writing stories and sharing them with others, so that we can hopefully learn to listen to one another— no matter who different their opinion is from ours—and become more compassionate, empathetic and loving people, and by extension a more compassionate, empathetic and loving world.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 31

Clearly Gray Renee Andrea Villegas LOCATION BEL’S living room. Evening. Sound of a running shower in the background.

ALEX is sitting on a couch, while Bel enters the stage. There’s food and drinks set up in the living room - just like any other girls night.

ALEX

How is she?

BEL

Better I think. She’s taking a shower.

ALEX

Makes sense. It’s a fairly common reaction.

BEL

Is it?

ALEX

Based on what I’ve read.

BEL

Oh. (beat) Have you read about this a lot?

Not really. I mean, I read the news. Sometimes I google stuff, but nothing extensive.

ALEX

BEL

How do you know what to trust though? It feels like there’s so much contradicting information about this stuff. I mean, don’t people have a variety of reactions to stuff like this? Like, not everyone comes in crying and shaking and stuff right?

That’s why you have to fact-check everything you read, and why

you have to listen really carefully when someone tells you what happened to them.

ALEX

(cautiously) Is that why you were asking Jess all those questions earlier?

BEL

ALEX

Hm?

BEL

When she came in and told us what happened. Is that why you started getting into the nitty gritty of it?

Partially. I mean, part of it was wanting to know what happened to her exactly, so that we can figure out if there was something she did or said or anything-

BEL

Wait, something that she did or said?

ALEX

32 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas ALEX

Yeah?

BEL

Like, if she invited him to do it?

ALEX

Well, not exactly-

BEL

Like it’s her fault?

ALEX

What?! No of course not!

BEL

Then what did you mean when you said “figure out if there was something she did or said”.

Beat.

ALEX

I warned her.

BEL

About what?

How easy it is for someone to keep pushing if you’ve said yes before.

ALEX

BEL

ALEX

just

What do you mean said yes before?

Said yes to physical things: hugging, embracing, kissing. All that stuff. Once you say yes the first time, it’s so easy for people to assume that you’ll say yes again.

So you think it’s her fault because she let him kiss her and hold her before?

BEL

ALEX

No, no, it’s not that.

BEL

Then what?

Look Bel, hear me out okay? It’s just that Jess is a very physically affectionate person. I mean she gave us both hugs goodbye the first day we met her, remember? Maybe she said yes to something else with him before, which made him think it’d be okay for him to try something else.

BEL

And you think that’s on her?

ALEX

ALEX

It’s more complicated than that Bel.

BEL

Try me.

ALEX

Alright. She said that he tried to kiss her right? Multiple times, even though she said no. He only stopped when she physically stood up and moved away from him right?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 33

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas

BEL

Yeah.

ALEX

Why’d he keep going even after she clearly said no?

BEL

Well he obviously didn’t care enough about her to listen to her.

ALEX

But why? Why wouldn’t he just listen to her? Why would he keep insisting and insisting to the point that she felt uncomfortable?

BEL

He probably didn’t realize how much of a shithead he was being.

But it just seems so weird, that all of a sudden out of nowhere

he would just continuously press her for a kiss, even if they’ve kissed before.

ALEX

BEL

So what’re you saying? That Jess was a tease?

ALEX

Maybe there were moments before when Jess didn’t say yes to a kiss right away but then he won her over so she kissed him You’ve seen how they can get all cutesy when they’re asking each other for kisses right?

BEL

Ugh unfortunately.

ALEX

Maybe he thought that it was the same as those other times.

BEL

But she said no. She clearly told him no this time.

ALEX

Obviously he didn’t believe her the first time.

BEL

And you think that’s her fault?

ALEX

No Bel, that’s not it.

BEL

So what is it, Alex?

ALEX

I think...it’s possible that there were moments in their relationship where Jess unknowingly let him have his way, which led to him believing that he could do things to her without her permission. Like trying to kiss her.

BEL

ALEX

BEL

And you think that it’s Jess’s fault that he decided to take advantage of her letting him do things?

It’s not her fault that he decided to take advantage of her, but maybe she’s wrong in letting him believe he could.

Why is it her fault that he’s an asshole who believed that he could do whatever he wanted to her?

34 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas ALEX

Because if she’d been firmer with her boundaries with smaller things, he wouldn’t have ever attempted something as big as kissing her.

She was probably fine with the other things they did

together - even kissing when she was in the mood. Whatever the

case, just because she let him kiss her before, the fact that she

said no this time should’ve been enough for him. He should’ve backed off.

BEL

ALEX

Yes but clearly he didn’t.

BEL

So? That’s on him, not on Jess.

ALEX

But Jess is the one who dictates her boundaries not him.

Maybe she hasn’t been firm with him throughout their relationship, so he got confused. And now that they’re living together, she’s gonna be around him so much more and she clearly cannot control him.

So you think he was just confused? That he literally had no idea

how uncomfortable she was and how much she didn’t want it?

BEL

ALEX

Do you honestly expect any man to instantly pick up on the cues a woman gives when she’s uncomfortable? (beat) We can’t control him, Bel. All we can do is help Jess figure out what she can do to protect herself.

So that’s it? We’re just gonna help her change to accommodate this asshole?

BEL

ALEX

It’s not about accommodating him-

BEL

Isn’t it? Why should she have to be the one to adjust to an asshole who clearly doesn’t respect her?

ALEX

Maybe that’s just what it has to be for now.

Beat.

BEL

Are you serious?

Look, this world is full of assholes, okay? As nice as it would be to

teach them right from wrong, we can’t sit around and wait until

they learn. There’s too much of a chance that we’ll get hurt while we wait.

ALEX

BEL

I can’t believe this.

ALEX

Can’t believe what?

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BEL

ALEX

I can’t believe you’d rather have her change the way she is, rather than just confront this asshole about it.

I’m not saying that she shouldn’t talk to him about it! Of course I think she should! I’m just saying that maybe she ought to look back at their relationship and see if there were ever any moments that she gave him a begrudging yes or was unclear about boundaries of any kind.

Why are you putting this all on her? Why is she the one responsible for everything? She was the one who was harassed, Alex.

ALEX

I know that, Bel. That’s why we should talk to her about it.

BEL

What do you mean?

BEL

You said it yourself, she was the one who was harassed, the one

whose consent was violated. If we help her look back on their

relationship and find other incidents where he wore her down,

she’ll know to never fall for that again. We’re helping to build her back up.

ALEX

BEL

By tearing her down and making her believe it’s all her fault.

ALEX

That’s not what I’m doing!

BEL

But that’s what it sounds like! Tone is part of your message too, Alex! How do you think Jess would feel if she heard all the things you said about her? How there were so many moments where she should’ve done something but she didn’t? How it’s her fault that he didn’t listen to her? How it’s because she was unclear and confusing that he did that to her? Can you imagine how horrible that would make her feel? It sounds like you’re blaming her!

I’m not trying to blame her! I’m trying to help her see that she has a responsibility.

ALEX

BEL

ALEX

Why would she have a responsibility? It’s not up to her whether or not she gets harassed.

It’s not up to her whether or not she gets harassed, but it is up to her to make sure that she is wary and alert when her boundaries are threatened. When shit like this happens, it’s important that we can be objective and help her realize the mistakes she made before this, so that she knows how to protect herself and be firmer with her boundaries in the future. You wanna talk about what Jess would think if she heard me talking? What do you think she’d say if she heard you talking about her?

36 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas BEL

What are you talking about?

You don’t think it was her fault. You clearly don’t think she could’ve done anything.

ALEX

BEL

Because she couldn’t have!

ALEX

No, Bel, she could have! Whether you know it or not, you can always say no to something. No matter what situation you’re in.

You can always say no, especially when she’s uncomfortable. We have to teach her that, remind her that she’s a person with agency.

BEL

ALEX

And you think the best way to do that is by pointing out all of her flaws in her relationship.

I never said it was gonna be fun. I just think that it’s something she needs to go through.

And you think she has to go through it right now? Right after she’s experienced this traumatic thing?

ALEX

Well, when else would you want her to do it?

BEL

Maybe tomorrow?! When she’s not so upset and fresh from the incident?

BEL

ALEX

But now is when she’ll be most alert and aware.

Really? Now more than ever you need to make sure that she’s

emotionally stable enough to talk about what happened and

re-evaluate her whole relationship. If she’s too emotional then

she won’t be able to think clearly, or did your research not tell you that?

BEL

Enter JESS. She’s fresh out of the shower, wearing new pajamas and drying her still wet hair.

JESS

Is everything okay you guys?

BEL

Yeah, yeah everything’s fine.

Are you sure? I could hear you guys talking pretty loudly from the room.

JESS

BEL

Oh, were we? I’m sorry.

JESS

No no, it’s okay. It was kinda nice. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone.

ALEX

How’re you feeling now?

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Better, I think. It was nice to take a shower and...I don’t know.

Feel clean I guess?

BEL

That’s good.

ALEX

You were never unclean, Jess.

JESS

Thanks Alex. (beat) Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about it.

ALEX

What do you mean?

JESS

I mean, it was such a small thing you know? Like, it feels weird to make such a big deal out of it.

BEL

It’s not a small thing, Jess.

ALEX

It may feel like a little thing but it isn’t. Small things like this lead to bigger problems if you don’t do anything about it.

JESS

But it was just a kiss, and I mean it’s not like we haven’t kissed before.

JESS

BEL

But that doesn’t change the fact that this time you said that you didn’t want to kiss him, but he still tried to.

Yeah but he didn’t actually kiss me. I moved away before he did.

JESS

ALEX

Which is a good thing, but it’s still wrong that he tried to kiss you.

JESS

Yeah, but it was just that one thing.

ALEX

Was it though?

JESS

What do you mean?

Was this the only time he’s ever tried to do something like that before?

ALEX

JESS

Yeah.

ALEX

You’re sure?

BEL

(warningly) Alex…

ALEX

Let her answer, Bel.

JESS

(beat) Well I mean, there’ve been times when we’ve joked around and had to ask more than once but it was always a joke, you know?

There was never anything serious behind it.

38 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas

She knows that, right Alex?

BEL

Of course I do, Jess. I’m just trying to figure out if there was

anything that happened beforehand that made him think this was okay.

ALEX

JESS

What do you mean?

BELL

Well, Alex and I were talking, and she thinks that there may have been some moments before where you gave into what he wanted.

Do you think it’s my fault?

JESS

It’s not so much that I think it’s your fault, but that maybe there were a few moments that you weren’t self-aware?

JESS

About what?

ALEX

About what you were doing, or the things you were saying yes to.

BEL

She’s not blaming you for not knowing. She would never do that.

ALEX

Bel’s right. I’m not. I’m just trying to help you see if there were any moments where you could’ve said no but didn’t.

ALEX

Beat.

I guess there have been some. Like there were times when he asked to hold hands or link arms and stuff, and I said no at first, but then he just kinda...wore me down I guess?

ALEX

I thought so.

JESS

Is that my fault?

BEL

No, you didn’t know. Jess, you shouldn’t have to always be on your guard in your relationship. You shouldn’t have to worry about feeling unsafe when you’re with your boyfriend. The problem is with him, not you.

JESS

It’s just that now you know that you can be more firm, so you should be.

ALEX

JESS

Thanks guys. I appreciate that.

ALEX

So what do you wanna do now?

JESS

Honestly? I wanna talk to him about it.

BEL

Are you gonna make him apologize?

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I don’t know. I don’t want things to get any worse, but I should right?

JESS

ALEX

I think that would be best.

BEL

Make him see that what he did was wrong and that he shouldn’t ever do it again.

Man, they weren’t wrong when they say that you learn a lot about a person when you live together.

BEL

Wait, you’re still gonna stay with him?

JESS

Well, yeah. I can’t just gonna move out. You know how impossible it is to live alone in this city. Especially as a fresh grad.

JESS

BEL

But he harassed you and made you feel unsafe. I mean, this happened in your own home.

I know, which is why I need to talk to him about it so that he’ll never do it again, like you said.

BEL

But how could you live with someone like that?

ALEX

Bel?

JESS

He pushed at one boundary, Bel, one that I wasn’t always firm on.

That doesn’t make him a terrible person.

JESS

ALEX

But that was a shitty thing for him to do, Jess. I mean, you told us that you said no to him multiple times.

I know and I did, but now I know that I have to talk to him about

it and figure things out together. I don’t see why I should just move out.

JESS

BEL

Because if you stay with him then that means that you’d be living with the guy who harassed you.

He’s still my boyfriend, Bel. Just because he did this one thing, it

doesn’t mean that he’s a terrible person or that I don’t love him anymore.

JESS

I think Bel’s just worried about your own safety. I mean, you said it yourself, this may have been the first time it’s been this bad, but this wasn’t the first time he’s tried to push back. It’ll be even harder for you to feel safe if you’re living with him because it means that you’ll be in close proximity with him for most of the day. It means that he’ll always be around you.

BEL

Do you honestly think he’ll change?

ALEX

40 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas

ALEX

Bel, what the hell is wrong with you?

Look, we all know how defensive men can be whenever they’re

called out on their shit! We’ve all heard shitty excuses about why

they can’t change or why it’s our fault or whatever. What makes him any different?

BEL

You’re acting like you’ve never met him before! Like you don’t know him at all.

BEL

Clearly I’m not the only one who doesn’t know him well enough.

ALEX

Bel, that’s enough.

JESS

What the fuck, Bel?

JESS

You can’t just go back to him and tell him that everything’s going to be alright.

BEL

That’s not what I’m going to do! I’m going to go to him, explain why what he did was wrong, and how we can set boundaries for our relationship so that it and our house can feel safe again.

BEL

But why is it on you to teach him?

JESS

Who else will? If I leave now, he won’t understand why I left. He’ll just think I’m some crazy bitch who left because things got a little intense one day. He won’t understand.

JESS

BEL

too.

It’s not like you’re the first person he’s ever dated, Jess. I’m sure that he’s dated other girls and chances are, he’s pushed them It’s just that they were able to get out.

But if none of them told him what he did wrong then how can you blame him?

JESS

He’s a grown-ass man, Jess. He should know by now what consent is.

BEL

JESS

Well, clearly he doesn’t! And no one’s bothered to teach him about how layered consent really is!

So? The internet exists doesn’t it? He should do his own damn research.

BEL

How’re you supposed to research something if you don’t even know what it is that you’re supposed to be researching?

ALEX

She has a point.

JESS

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Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas BEL

Oh shut up, Alex.

ALEX

No really, do you even remember when and how you learned about consent? How it’s not just related to sex, but that it’s something that should be present in everyday situations?

BEL

(beat) No.

ALEX

Neither do I. I only found out because I bothered to check, and I was only bothered to check because I’d heard too many opposing arguments about it.

JESS

It makes sense that he wouldn’t fully understand it, Bel.

BEL

And that just makes it okay for you?

JESS

No, but if it’s hard enough for us to understand it who actually hear arguments about it, how much more for him? He’s probably never had a detailed discussion on consent before. It’s not like boys are taught that shit growing up. We are. (beat) I may not be the first person he’s ever dated, but I may be one of the only people in his life who’s willing to help him be better. He made a mistake, Bel. Yes, it was a big mistake. It was one that made me feel unsafe, made me feel uneasy in ways that I couldn’t articulate why until I came to you. That doesn’t mean that’s all he is.

ALEX

He’s a complete monster through and through, Bel.

JESS

He’s still a person.

BEL

So?

So that means that he’s not all good or all bad. It means he’s

capable of doing great things as well as terrible things. Earlier

you said it wasn’t my fault, that the problem is with him. Why

shouldn’t I try and help him? Think about it. When we first

started dating, you guys didn’t have any suspicions about him

right? You both thought that he was a great guy, and we all got along.

JESS

BEL

Clearly I wasn’t paying enough attention.

JESS

Or maybe there are just gaps in his knowledge! You said it yourself, you didn’t even know how complex and nuanced asking for consent can be. You’re lucky that you had friends you could talk to about it, friends who saw the gaps in your own knowledge and were able to explain things to you. It’s just that I saw his first because I spend the most time with him.

BEL

And you think he’ll actually listen to you?

42 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas

Well, I’ll never know if I don’t try. How will he ever learn if his mistakes aren’t pointed out to him? I mean, how is anyone supposed to learn? You talk about wanting to change the world and wanting to make men see so many things they do are so fucked up? This is part of how do that, Bel. By talking to the guys in our lives who screw up, and helping them learn from their screw ups. We can’t just write them all off by saying that they’ll never get better. We have to believe that they can change.

BEL

I just don’t want you to get hurt okay?

JESS

Bel I won’t-

BEL

Just listen. Jess, you’ve always been that person that takes care of her friends, helping people through their tough times and low moments. Remember how you helped me through that time when I didn’t know whether or not I should continue going to college or take a semester off? You were there with me through every light night phone call, helping me weigh pros and cons about everything, and always telling me that you’d have my back no matter what I did. Do you remember that?

JESS

Yes I do.

JESS

And what about that time that Alex went through that really shitty

breakup with her boyfriend right before the summer of senior year?

BEL

ALEX

Thanks for bringing that up, Bel.

I’m serious! You were heartbroken and so confused. You had

no idea what your senior was going to look like anymore,

remember? Jess was with you through everything! Every time

you cried or screamed or wanted to through stuff against a wall.

She was there for you, no matter how tiring it was for her. Do you remember that?

BEL

ALEX

(quietly) I do.

BEL

Jess, there are too many assholes in this world. Assholes who will see that in you, and use it as an excuse to keep hurting you, trusting that you’ll always forgive them and always come back to them. (beat) I just don’t want to see you trapped in a situation where you really don’t have options.

JESS

ALEX

It’s not up to you to protect me, Bel. It’s not up to him either. I need to learn to protect myself. Alex is right.

Hold on, just because I think you need to learn how to protect yourself, that doesn’t mean I think you should do this alone, that

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Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas

you can save him or turn him into a better person. It’s not healthy.

BEL

It’s not safe. For either of you.

JESS

But I don’t want him to think that he’s defined by this one mistake.

ALEX

But you can’t risk yourself.

BEL

No single person can save another, Jess.

JESS

I guess you have a point.

BEL

Thank you.

So...what, do I do? How do I help him, without throwing myself into harms way?

JESS

Beat.

BEL

I don’t know.

ALEX

I don’t know either.

JESS

Me too.

BEL

So what do we do?

JESS

Well, do we have to figure it out right now?

ALEX

No. No, we don’t.

JESS

That’s good.

BEL

I’m sorry, Jess.

JESS

It’s okay, Bel. I get it.

BEL

You do?

JESS

I do.

BEL

I promise that I’ll be there for you no matter what.

So will I. We’ll figure it out together. We’ll try to help you as best as we can.

ALEX

JESS

Thanks guys.

ALEX

Can I hold your hand?

BEL

Can I hold your other one?

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Clearly Gray • Renee Andrea Villegas

JESS

Yes. Yes you can.

Alex and Bel each take one hand of Jess’ in their own. They all squeeze tight, looking at each other in this moment of solidarity.

ALEX

Jess? It’s not your fault.

BEL

And you do have options.

JESS

I believe you.

Lights out.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 45

Bernice Claire Dacara PAMBUNGAD NA SANAYSAY

N

agsimula akong magsulat dahil napamahal ako sa pakiramdam na danasin ang mga buhay ng iba’t ibang tao sa kanilang sariling mundo at ginusto ko ring ibahagi ‘yung pakiramdam na ‘yun sa iba. Patuloy akong nagsusulat dahil natutunan ko, na naglalakbay ako sa mundong apektado sa lahat ng bagay na iniikutan nito. Lahat ng bagay ay may ugnayan. Ngunit, walang kwento na parehong-pareho sa isa’t isa. Laging may pinagkaiba dahil lahat ng tao ay may sariling nilalakbayan. Nagsusulat ako ng dula dahil natututo akong umintindi ng tao. Natututunan ko ang mga kayang gawin ng tao para makamit ang gusto nila. Natututo rin ako sa sarili ko dahil sa bawat kwento na naisusulat ko, nag-iiwan ako ng sarili kong marka. Patuloy akong magsusulat ng dula dahil ito ang aking sariling protesta. Sa mga hindi naiintindihan o sa mga hindi pinapakinggan.

Ang “Puti” ay isang kwento ng libo-libong mga bata sa Pilipinas. Isa siyang pagsasaliksik ng mga hinaharap ng mga biktima. Biktima ng mga sarili nilang pamilya, biktima ng lipunan, biktima ng kawalan ng hustisya. Isa rin siyang pananaliksik sa mga bagay na kasama sa pagiging Pilipino tulad ng kung papaano naapektuhan ang ating buhay dahil sa ating mga kultura at sa mga bagay na ating binibigyang halaga, tulad ng pamilya. Hindi lamang isang silip sa realidad ang dulang ito. Isa rin itong hamon sa paghanap ng mga solusyon, sa loob at sa labas ng aking sarili o kaya sa aking mga mambabasa o manonood.

Sa puntong ito, nais ko lamang magsulat ng katotohanan. O kaya’t hanapin ito.

46 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti Bernice Claire Dacara

MGA TAUHAN LIEZEL ­– 15. Panganay.

LAYA – 11. Pangalawang anak.

TAGPUAN

Sa maliit na bahay ng pamilya Cordero. Sa kanan, may isang mahabang sopa. May dalawang kutson sa likod nito na nilalatag lamang pag matutulog na. Nasa kaliwa ang dining room. May isang parihabang mesa at apat na plastik na upuan. May isang kurtinang naghihiwalay sa dining room at living room. May isa pang kurtina na parisukat sa kanang bahagi ng living room na nagsisilbing banyo.

ORAS

Hapon.

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Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

ANG DULA

Papasok ang dalawang bata na dala-dala ang kanilang mabibigat na bag. Titingnan ni Liezel ang orasan, pagkatapos ay ibabagsak ang kanyang bag sa tabi ng sopa.

LAYA

Nagdadabog…

Titingnan ni Liezel nang masama ang kapatid.

LIEZEL

Tumahimik ka nga diyan. Ikaw kasi, kailangan pa ng kasama sa bahay. Ang spoiled mo masyado kay mama.

‘Di ako spoiled, ‘no! Ikaw nga, ‘di pinayagang umalis ng bahay.

Lakwatsera kasi.

LAYA

LIEZEL

Dapat kasi tinutulungan mo ako pag nagpapaalam ako.

Kung alam ko lang na mag-iingay ka lang sa bahay e ‘di sana sinabihan ko na si mama na payagan ka na.

LAYA

Saglit.

LIEZEL

LAYA

LIEZEL

Tsaka okay lang ‘yan. Gusto ko rin ng kasama ngayon. Male-late nga si papa, ‘di ba? ‘Yang school kasi na ‘yan.

O, ngayon galit ka naman sa school?

Lagi na lang kasing may nananakawan! Nale-late tuloy umuwi si papa. Kung mas mahigpit lang sila ate guard e ‘di walang mawawalan ng damit ‘di ba?

Ganun talaga. Ikaw, kaklase mo ‘yung nawalan ng damit hindi ka man lang naaawa.

LAYA

Sana hindi rin ako nakawan ng uniform. Lagot talaga ako kay mama.

48 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

Saglit.

Ba’t kasi may magnanakaw sa school? ‘Yan tuloy late napapauwi si papa.

Saglit.

LIEZEL

Talaga! Kaya ikaw ha, bantayan mo lagi damit mo baka ikaw na sunod na manakawan.

LAYA

Pero mayaman naman siya e. Bumili na lang siya ng bagong uniform. E ‘di tapos! Hindi ‘yung ipapahanap pa kay papa.

Hindi ba sila naaawa sa kanya? Siya na nga naglilinis ng school buong araw. Sana sa guard na lang pinahanap!

LIEZEL

Janitor si papa, malamang sa kanya mapupunta ‘yung ganung trabaho.

LAYA

LIEZEL LAYA

Gusto ko lang naman umuwi nang maaga si papa.

Sus. Kayang-kaya mo naman dito sa bahay.

‘Wag ka na nga bitter!

LIEZEL

‘Di ako bitter ‘no.

LAYA

Maglalakwatsa ka lang kasama si Dana e! Dito ka na lang muna ngayon. Bukas ka na umalis.

LIEZEL

Aalis talaga ako bukas. Tsaka ‘di naman ako maglalakwatsa, ‘no.

Mas klaro lang utak ko ‘pag wala ako sa bahay.

Magtitinginan ang magkapatid.

LAYA

LIEZEL

Ayan ka na naman, e. ‘Di mo na lang kami samahan ni papa.

Lagi naman kitang sinasabihang samahan mo na lang ako kina Dana pero ayaw mo naman.

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Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

LAYA

E anong gagawin ko doon? Kung ‘di naman kayo naglalakwatsa e nag-aaral kayo. ‘Di ka na lang sa bahay mag-aral.

Ano, papanoorin ko lang kayo? Ayoko nga! Boring!

LIEZEL Kaysa naman—

Tatahimik bigla si Liezel. Mapapaisip.

LAYA Ano? LIEZEL Ay, basta!

Saglit.

LAYA

Ikaw lang naman ‘yong alis nang alis. Kung dito ka na lang sa

bahay, magkasama sana tayong lahat. Mamaya iniisip na ni

mama’t papa na ayaw mo dito.

LIEZEL

May sinabi ba sila?

LAYA Wala naman.

Saglit. Mapapangiti si Laya.

Alam ko na!

LIEZEL Ano?

Magugulat si Liezel at kakabahan.

LAYA

Ate, pinupuntahan mo si Dana dahil nandun si Roldan, ano? Yie!

LIEZEL

E loko-loko ka rin, ano!

Susubukang hampasin ni Liezel ang braso ni Laya pero iiwas ito. Susubukan ulit ni Liezel. Mapapasigaw si Laya.

LAYA

Aray! Ate, biro lang kasi!

50 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

Tatawa ang magkapatid. Pagkaraan ng ilang sandali, tatahimik ang dalawa. Seseryoso bigla si Liezel.

LIEZEL

Okay ka lang naman sa bahay ‘di ba?

LAYA

Oo. Lalo na ‘pag hindi mo ako kinukulit.

Pipingutin ni Liezel ang tenga ng kapatid.

LIEZEL

Ikaw ‘yong makulit dito ano.

Tatayo si Liezel.

Hay. Magluluto na lang muna ako. Ano bang gusto mong kainin?

Ang aga pa. Maya ka na lang magluto. Lalamig lang ‘yong pagkain.

LIEZEL

Susubukan ko ulit magpaalam na pumunta kina Dana pag-uwi ni papa. O, ano nga gusto mo?

LAYA

LAYA

Ang kulit mo din, ‘te! Sinabi na nga ni mama na bawal e.

Titignan ni Liezel ang kapatid. Halatang inis na inis na ito.

Kahit ano na lang meron diyan. Ay ‘yong may sabaw sana!

Pupunta sa dining room si Liezel at titingin ng pagkain.

LIEZEL

Laya, may tira pa pa lang adobo kagabi. ‘Yun na lang, ha?

Sayang kasi.

LAYA

Sige.

LIEZEL

Huy, Laya. Mag-iingat ka lagi pag umaalis ako.

Matatawa si Laya.

Huy, anong tinatawanan mo diyan?

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 51

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

LAYA

Ate, masyado ka kasing seryoso lagi.

Pupunta sa banyo si Laya at magpapalit ng pambahay.

LIEZEL

Hoy! Maligo ka nga muna. Ang bantot nito.

Lalabas ng banyo si Laya hawak-hawak ang kanyang pinagbihisan at ilalagay ito sa ropero.

LAYA

LIEZEL

E! Nakakatamad. Nagpalit na ako e.

Ang tigas-tigas ng ulo mo, ‘no? Maligo ka bago umuwi si mama.

Kukunin ni Liezel ang pinagbihisan ni Laya at dadalhin ito sa banyo kung saan ibababad niya ito sa palanggana. Babalik ito sa dining room at maghahanda ng pagkain.

LAYA

LIEZEL LAYA

Gawin mo na assignment mo, Laya.

Maya na! Pagod pa ako e.

Tulungan mo na lang muna ako dito.

(magrereklamo) Ate!

LIEZEL Halika na.

Pupunta si Laya sa dining room at tatayo lamang.

Kunin mo na ‘yung mga plato doon.

Susundin ni Laya ang utos ni Liezel. Tahimik na mag-aayos ng lamesa ang dalawang bata.

LAYA

‘Yan tapos na.

LIEZEL

O, kain na.

52 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

Uupo si Laya at sisimulan nang kumain.

LAYA

Hindi ka ba kakain?

LIEZEL

Hindi na muna. Kina Dana na.

LAYA

Hindi ka naman papayagan.

Sandaling katahimikan. Sa gitna ng pagkain ay mapapatingin si Laya sa kanyang kapatid.

Ate. Kain na.

LIEZEL O? LAYA

Okey ka lang?

LIEZEL

Ha? A, oo.

LAYA

Kain ka na o.

Saglit. Matatauhan si Liezel at uupo sa harap ni Laya.

LIEZEL

LAYA

LIEZEL

Laya, ganito na lang. Aalis na muna ako tapos sabihin mo na lang kay papa na pinayagan ako ni mama.

Hay nako. ‘Yoko nga!

Sige na. Minsan lang o.

LAYA

Ayoko! Malalaman ni mama na nagsinungaling ako. Ako pa ‘yung papagalitan niyan.

LIEZEL LAYA

Libre na lang kita sa recess bukas. Sige na.

May baon naman ako.

LIEZEL Laya-

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 53

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara LAYA

Ate, ano ba! Ayokong madamay pa sa kalokohan mo.

Mabibigla si Liezel.

LIEZEL

Kalokohan? Anong kalokohann?

Pipingutin ni Liezel ang tenga ng kapatid.

LAYA

Kung makasabi na kalokohan ang ginagawa ko!

Aray!

Matatawa ang dalawa.

Ang tagal naman ni papa.

Saglit. Mapapatigil sa pagtawa si Liezel.

LIEZEL

May problema nga kasi ulit sa school.

Oo nga, pero kanina pa natapos ‘yung klase! Gaano ba katagal maghanap ng t-shirt pati shorts?

LAYA

Saglit. Titingin sa orasan si Liezel.

LIEZEL

‘Wag ka nang mag-alalala, pauwi na rin ‘yan.

Saglit.

Naghanap pa siya.

Matatawa mag-isa si Liezel.

LAYA

Ano?

LIEZEL

Ha? A, wala…

Saglit.

54 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

Laya?

LAYA

O?

LIEZEL LAYA

LIEZEL

LAYA

LIEZEL LAYA

Sige na? Sabihin mo na lang na pinayagan ako.

Hay nako, ate…

O sige, sabihin mo na lang na hindi mo alam kung pinayagan ako o hindi. Para ‘di ka rin papagalitan ni mama.

E! ‘Di ko talaga kaya.

Sige na! Kahit ngayon lang!

Sige.

LIEZEL Talaga?

Sabihin mo muna sa akin kung ba’t gusto mong pumunta kay Dana.

LAYA

LIEZEL May projectLAYA

Wala kaya!

LIEZEL LAYA

Mas marunong ka pa sa akin.

‘Yung totoo kasi! Ano ‘yun, araw-araw kayo may project?

Maiinis si Liezel.

LIEZEL

Minsan na nga lang humingi ng pabor.

Titingin ulit sa orasan si Liezel at tatayo.

Tapos ka na?

Kukunin ni Liezel ang pinagkainan at sisimulang mag-ayos ng mesa.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 55

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

LAYA

Ako na mag-aayos.

Sandaling katahimikan. Kukunin ni Laya ang plato kay Liezel pero hindi ito ibibigay.

Ate, ako na dito.

Saglit. Bibitawan ni Liezel ang plato.

LIEZEL

Ikaw na diyan.

Pupunta si Liezel sa banyo at magpapalit ng pambahay. Ibababad din ang sariling uniporme. Babalik siya sa dining room at maghuhugas ng pinggan.

LAYA

Ba’t ka galit?

LIEZEL

Hindi ako galit.

LAYA

Galit ka e.

Saglit.

‘Te? LIEZEL

Binabad ko na ‘yung damit mo sa banyo. Ikaw na lang ang bahalang magsampay nun mamaya.

LAYA ‘Te? LIEZEL Ano? LAYA

Ba’t ka galit?

LIEZEL

Hay nako, Laya.

Saglit.

Minsan na nga lang ako humingi ng pabor, ‘di mo pa

56 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

ako mapagbigyan.

LAYA

Bakit kasi gustong-gusto mong pumunta kay Dana?

Saglit.

Ate. Mahabang katahimikan.

Pag sinabi mo, tutulungan kita.

Mahabang katahimikan.

LIEZEL LAYA

Dahil komportable ako doon.

Bakit?

LIEZEL

Kasi wala lang..

LAYA

‘Wag na nga lang.

Ibababa ni Laya ang plato sa lababo at pupunta sa living room. Titingin muli si Liezel sa orasan. Mapapaisip saglit. Pagkatapos ay susundan si Laya.

LIEZEL LAYA

Ha?

LIEZEL LAYA

Kasi wala doon si papa.

‘Yun lang ‘yun. O, okay na?

Ha? Bakit?

LIEZEL

Wala. Basta ‘yun. Teka, ayusin ko lang gamit ko. Pauwi na ‘yun sigurado.

LAYA

Ate, anong meron kay papa?

LIEZEL

Wala. Tumigil ka na, Laya. Sinabi ko na sa ‘yo ‘yung kailangan

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Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

mong malaman.

LAYA

May ginawa ba siya?

Kukunin ni Liezel ang binabad na uniporme at isasampay.

LIEZEL

Isampay mo na rin damit mo. Dali na.

LAYA

Teka lang, ano ngang ginawa ni papa?

LIEZEL Bilis na.

LAYA

Grabe, ate. Wala na rin akong sasabihing sikreto sa ‘yo!

Saglit. Seryoso ang tingin ni Liezel kay Laya.

LIEZEL

Laya, lahat ng ‘di ko sinasabi sa‘yo ay para sa ikabubuti mo.

LAYA

Ano? Sabihin mo na kasi.

LIEZEL

‘Di ka ba nakikinig? Mas mabuti nang hindi mo alam. Ayaw ko na ‘tong pag-usapan.

Kukunin ni Liezel ang binabad na uniporme ni Laya at mamadaliing isasampay ito.

LAYA

Anong nangyari?

LIEZEL Wala nga.

LAYA

Ate, ano nga?

Saglit. Mag-iisip ang bata.

Hala, ate. Pinapalo ka ba ni papa? Kailan ka niya pinalo?

Masakit ba?

Saglit.

O sinuntok ka ba niya? Hinampas sa mukha? May binato ba

58 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

siya sa ‘yo?

Saglit.

LIEZEL

Tama na ‘yan.

Matagal ka na ba niyang pinapalo? Ate, sabihin mo na sa akin.

Sikreto lang natin ‘to. Pramis!

LAYA

LIEZEL

Sasakit lang ang ulo mo sa kakahula kaya pwede bang tumigil ka na lang?

Magtitinginan. Mahabang katahimikan.

LAYA

Nung nawalan ng trabaho si papa, nag-away din kayo nun. Pinalo ka ba niya nun? Hinampas sa mukha?

Saglit.

Tama ako, ‘no?

Kukunin ni Liezel ang kanyang bag at pupunta sa pinto ngunit haharangan ito ni Laya.

LIEZEL

Laya, usog. Sinabi ko na sa ‘yo. ‘Yun ‘yung usapan natin ‘di ba?

Sagutin mo muna ako ‘te. Ilang beses ka niyang pinapalo?

Malakas ba?

LAYA

LIEZEL Hindi. Usog.

LAYA

Anong hindi?

LIEZEL

Laya, itutulak talaga kita pag ‘di ka umusog diyan.

LAYA

Isusumbong kita kay papa.

Mapapatigil si Liezel. Susubukan ni Liezel na kumalma.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 59

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara LIEZEL

LAYA

Sinabi ko na sa ‘yo ‘yung rason, Laya. ‘Wag ka na nang makulit, gusto ko nang umalis.

Totoo nga? Hinahampas ka ni papa? Ate, baka naman nagawa lang niya ‘yun kasi galit siya? Baka— baka aksidente lang. Baka natamaan ka lang nang ‘di sinasadya!

Saglit.

Ate, mabait naman si papa e. Baka kasi ginagalit mo lang siya kaya ganun?

Saglit.

LIEZEL Hindi.

LAYA

Hindi ano? Hindi aksidente? Baka nga kasi may nagawa ka-

LIEZEL

(Mas malakas) Hindi.

LAYA Sige. Pero— LIEZEL

(Pabulong) Laya, hindi.

LAYA

Hindi ka niya pinapalo?

Mahabang katahimikan. Magtitinginan ang magkapatid. Hahawakan ni Liezel ang braso ni Laya at dadalhin ito sa tabi ng banyo kung saan nakalagay ang bag ng ama.

LAYA Ano?

Ituturo ni Liezel ang bag.

LIEZEL Buksan mo.

Dahan-dahang bubuksan ni Laya ang bag na punong-puno ng gamit. Babanggitin ni Laya ang pangalan ng bawat bagay na nilalabas niya sa bag.

60 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara LAYA

Toothbrush, pulbo, wallet, lampin, polo—

Maglalabas ng shorts at t-shirt na pambata.

Ate? Titignan ni Laya ang kapatid na nakatingin lamang sa sahig. Bubuksan ni Laya ang lahat ng zipper ng bag, babaliktarin ito at aalugin. Mahuhulog ang natitirang damit ng mga bata.

LIEZEL Laya, ‘wag!

Patuloy na hahalungkatin ang bag. Mahigpit na hahawakan ni Liezel ang galanggalangan ni Laya.

‘Wag mong guguluhin ‘yung gamit!

Itutulak ni Liezel ang kapatid at ibabagsak ni Laya ang walang laman na bag sa sahig. Parehas na tititigan ng dalawa ito.

LAYA

Ate, ano ‘to?

Kukunin ni Liezel ang mga damit sa sahig. Kukunin ni Laya ang unang t-shirt na nakita at titignan nang mabuti. May makikitang puti-puti sa damit ngunit hindi ito papansinin ng bata. Ipapakita ito kay Liezel.

Ate, ano ‘to?

Kukunin ang t-shirt sa kamay ng kapatid.

LIEZEL

Madumi ‘yan! ‘Wag mong hawakan ‘yan.

Aabutin ni Laya ang asul na shorts at puting t-shirt na may puti-puti rin.

LAYA

Uniform mo ba ‘to te?

Muling aagawin ang damit sa kapatid.

LIEZEL

Laya! Ano ba!

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Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

Titingnan ni Laya ang kapatid.

Hindi ‘yan sa akin.

LAYA

‘Di rin ‘to sa akin. Pang-grade 6 ‘to e. Tignan mo o, yellow ‘yung sleeves.

Magliligpit si Liezel ngunit mabibigla ito sa nahanap.

Shorts mo ‘yan ‘di ba, ‘te?

Saglit. Tatango ang kapatid.

Bakit ‘yan nasa bag ni papa?

Aabutin ni Laya ang shorts at hahalungkatin ito.

Yak! Bakit ang dumi? Ang daming mantsa.

Titingnan si Liezel.

Ate… Ano ‘to?

Matataranta ang bata. Papagpagin ang damit.

Ate! Ano ‘to? Glue ba ‘to? Parang ‘di naman…

Susubukang kuskusin ni Laya ang damit.

Ayaw matanggalIbabato ang shorts. Maiiyak.

Ate, si Papa ba…

Saglit.

‘Yung mga damit na nawawala sa school… Ito ba…

62 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

Saglit.

At ‘yung damit mo rin?

Tatango si Liezel.

Anong gagawin natin?

Sisimulang ayusin ni Liezel ang damit.

LIEZEL

Laya, ano ‘yong nasa pinakababa ng bag? Naaalala mo ba?

Ipipikit ang mga mata saglit tapos ibabalik ‘yung damit sa bag.

LAYA

Ate, ‘wag! Kadiri! Madumi ‘yan!

Hindi makikinig si Liezel.

Ate, anong ginagawa mo?

LIEZEL Anong laman nung sa may zipper? Damit din ba? O, o ‘yung pulbo?

LAYA Ate! LIEZEL

Laya, saan mo nakuha ‘yung wallet? Tulungan mo na ako dali!

Baka malaman ni papa na binuksan natin bag niya!

LAYA Tama na!

Aagawin ni Laya ang bag.

Anong gagawin natin?

LIEZEL Wala.

LAYA

Ipakita natin ‘to kay mama.

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Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara LIEZEL

Hindi. Akin na ‘yan.

LAYA

Alis na muna tayo habang wala si papa! Dalhin mo ‘yung bag.

Doon tayo kay Dana muna. Sabihin natin sa magulang niya tapos doon na rin natin hintayin si mama.

LIEZEL

Hindi! Baka kung ano pang sabihin mo. Laya, tabi ka na muna.

Ako na mag-aayos nito.

LAYA

Anong hindi? Bakit hindi? Hindi tayo magsusumbong?

Makikinig naman si mama!

LIEZEL

Tapos ano? Ipapapulis natin si papa? Tapos ano? Kakasuhan?

Mag-iisip si Liezel.

Saglit.

Saan tayo kukuha ng pera? Wala akong pera, ikaw meron ba?

LAYA

Kay mama! Nagtatrabaho naman si mama!

LIEZEL

Laya, call center agent si mama. Kakasimula lang niya sa trabaho. Hindi natin kayang magbayad para sa abogado.

LAYA

LIEZEL

Pwede nating isumbong doon sa mayayaman kong kaklase!

Hingi tayo ng tulong!

Tutulungan ba nila tayo? Paano pag nalaman lang ng lahat ng tao ‘to pero walang tutulong sa atin? Mawawalan lang si papa ng trabaho at lalo lang tayong maghihirap. ‘Di natin mababayaran ‘yung bahay, ‘yung pang-tuition sa school.

Konti lang sahod ni papa pero kung wala ‘yun kailangan nating tumigil sa pag-aaral. Kung ako lang titigil okey lang e pero lahat tayo madadamay dito. May discount na nga tayo sa school dahil doon siya nagtatrabaho e.

LAYA

Tumira na lang tayo kina Dana!

Lalapitan ni Liezel si Laya at yayakapin.

64 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Puti • Bernice Claire Dacara

LIEZEL LAYA

Laya, kahit gustuhin ko man, hindi pwede.

Bakit?

Susubukang labanan ni Laya ang kanyang yakap ngunit bibigay din.

LIEZEL

Laya.

Mahabang katahimikan. Titignan ni Liezel si Laya.

Dudumi ‘yung tingin nila sa akin.

LAYA

Bakit naman? Wala ka namang ginawa!

Saglit. Kakalma si Liezel at hihinga nang malalim.

LIEZEL

Pero alam ko e. Matagal ko nang alam. Anong iisipin ng tao?

Na pinabayaan ko lang?

Saglit. Iiling si Liezel.

Hindi. Walang magsasalita. Walang magsasabi. Hindi pa nating

pwedeng sabihin hangga’t hindi tayo sigurado na hindi tayo maaagrabyado sa huli.

LAYA

Sige na, ate!

LIEZEL Laya, magtiwala ka lang sa akin.

Mahabang katahimikan. Titignan ni Laya ang kanyang kapatid na hawak-hawak ang wallet ng tatay. Mukhang desperadong-desperado ito. Hihinga ito nang malalim.

LAYA

Sa pinakataas ng bag nakalagay ‘yung wallet.

Tatango si Liezel. Susubukang ibalik ng dalawang bata ang mga gamit ni Tonyo sa tamang pwesto. Magdidilim ang entablado.

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Danielle Michelle Cabahug INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

M

y work is about the spaces we take up and move in when we go about our daily lives, and the intimate spaces within our own personal relationships. My process involves continually being critical of contemporary Filipino culture, the digital space, and the discourse surrounding them. These are themes that I attempt to articulate in my works, anchoring them in my own reality and context. I am interested in the ethics of writing, the politics of rendering people, places, and spaces, subjective to your own experience. I write about things that bother me, that don’t quite sit right, and for which I would like to write myself to a better understanding.

“Boundaries of Care” picks at the seams of family, grief, and the intimacy of maternal relationships in the context of elderly care and family caregiving in the Philippines. It follows the persona’s inquiry into the nature of maternal relationships, cultural values, and the intricacies of care. The essay is a meditation on the boundaries set-up, crossed, and let down in the enterprise of caregiving.

“Boundaries of Care” is an ode to my mother—an open letter of sorts, and an exercise in empathy. It is an attempt at coming to a better understanding, to speak more truthfully about the memories of the past, in light of the present. This essay was written with thoughtful recollections and necessary meanderings to find my bearings, because I am constantly finding the spaces within my relationships changing, and because I wanted fill-in the gaps.

66 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Boundaries of Care Danielle Michelle Cabahug

The memory of my first kindergarten morning is made up of a mix of feelings I didn’t have names for at the time. I held my mom’s hand tight, begrudgingly taking tiny steps into the gates of the converted bungalow that was Beginner’s Circle.

“This is your new school, Dan,” mom said, pulling my hand tighter as I began to resist, my white patent sandals straining against the concrete.

“I don’t wanna go, ma,” I said, tears stinging my eyes, somehow knowing she wouldn’t be coming inside with me, not knowing what would be behind the red door.

“Yaya Emily will be with you, I’ll see you later, okay?” she said as I clung to her leg, clutching at her dress, and breaking into a full-on temper tantrum. It was the day I first heard the term “separation anxiety”—a distress I didn’t think I’d ever see past my preschool days.

There was a gap between my mother and I, that I was then determined to keep closed. *** “So Dan, your mom says you’re always out,” began ninang Betty, getting into the driver’s seat. Her sedan’s new car smell was cut by the familiar scent of cigarette smoke as I hitched a ride with her to the mall. She picked me up from the house on Houston street where we lived with my lola, my mother’s mother, only 3.5 kilometers from where Beginner’s Circle was. It had been over ten years since my kindergarten days.

“I mean I go out. I don’t think it would be normal for people my age not to,” I told her in all my sixteen-year-old glory, guarded, despite ninang Betty being easier to talk to than my own mother.

“Why do you ask?” I inquired, certain the conversation was warranted by either one of two things: my mother having ranted to her sister about the latest thing her ‘rebellious teenage daughter’s done,’ or my mother not having said anything about me at all. Either was equally alarming, the former quickly becoming old news.

“Well, she did say, kausapin mo nga ‘yang inaanak ‘mo. I don’t know what’s going on with her anymore.” We stopped at a red light.

BUNGA: AHWW 25 CULMINATING ZINE | 67

Boundaries of Care • Danielle Michelle Cabahug

“You should talk to your mom more,” she said, with two hands on the wheel, perhaps fulfilling a sense of duty as the words spilled out.

“The last time I tried, she pulled the ‘kababae ‘mong tao’ speech, and ended with ‘what would lola think if she found out?’ It’s not like she actually wants to talk. She even said, ‘pareho kayong tabas ng ninang mo!’” We both laughed, and the light turned green.

The part of mom’s mothering I’d become familiar with was the poking and prodding, an incessant need to take account of friends’ names, and places I was. From my mother I’d picked up the difference between listening to understand, and listening to be able to conjure up a sermon. As daughter I took comfort in the quiet spaces of the things I was allowed to keep private, and was bent on doing so. *** The home is built on hours and hours of unpaid labor, all in the name of household chores.

In many parts of the world, homes are held together mostly by women, with chores that range from cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and home repairs. Their invisible labor, invaluable. The case was the same for our own household, and the stringency by which the household chores were to be done was an area where lola and mom saw eyeto-eye, like most things. We’d moved into lola’s house on Houston at the advent of hard times, after my grandfather died, leaving lola with her sole long-time househelper. Lola was the matriarch to a family of four children, my mother being the eldest girl. Mom took after lola the most, in more ways than one: in her looks, temperament and her tendency to nitpick. There was always something out of place for her to notice—anything from a pancake left on the stove to brown a little too long, or the unsightly way the epoxy jutted out from two pieces of furniture. It went without saying, nothing got by mom.

For the most part, the memories I have of lola in the Houston house remain bathed in light: apple pie crusts made with a special recycled glass bottle for a rolling pin, a note lodged down its neck: Lola mama’s rolling pin, DO NOT THROW, clippings of the latest worrisome thing on the news gingerly cut out and saved for her grandchildren, frequent reminders to pray. I recall that signs of idleness seemed to offend her the most, especially when it came to chores that could be done for others, “you serve your papa,” she’d say come merienda time, and after, “he’s about to wash the dishes, unahan mo na”. Care for her, was synonymous to servitude. Oftentimes, she’d turn her attention to home repairs.

A wall she decided she wanted torn down for more space, or part of the roof that needed to be patched became topics of conversation between lola and my father who worked as a contractor. I thought her to be the primary foreman of the house.

68 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Boundaries of Care • Danielle Michelle Cabahug

There were things lola needed or wanted that mom simply understood, even before lola said it. Lola was as dependent on mom, as mom was on her. They were almost always on the same wavelength, and when they weren’t, mom always found ways to appease her own mother. There was no doubt that lola’s eldest girl was the good daughter, the favorite daughter through and through, but to what lengths can we stretch ourselves to ensure the label sticks? *** Unlike the many families whose mealtime rituals took place at dinner, mine had them over breakfast—and the breakfast spread is mom’s specialty. On the weekends that I would be home from university, as the early morning sun streamed into the dining room, mom would sit with me at the table before lola finished breakfast in bed and came out for a morning walk. And just as I was about to start preparing for the coming week in what I would consider ‘quiet time’, she began the routine small talk.

“How’s school?” she asked.

“It’s fine. Just lots of work.”

“Are you more occupied by schoolwork or orgwork?” she tried again. I settled for “both.”

Her forehead creased, and seeing concern color the rest of her face, I followed up, “but I enjoy it, so it’s fine.”

“Do you still get to cook in the condo?” she continued. I sighed almost audibly.

“Sometimes. Mostly for breakfast. I just don’t have the time anymore,” I replied.

The same set of questions warranted the same set of answers, week after week. And so it went, her reaching, me receding further into distant silence in a conversation that usually spanned the matter of minutes between when the toaster rang done, or the tawilis turned crisp. The cornerstones of her mothering never changed. Making sure good food was on the table and the house was clean ranked highest on a list that scarcely accomodated the possibility of any other need that came up, especially when it came at odds with her capacity to care for lola. She sat across from me then, in her matching sleepwear, and her toaster minute was up.

By all standards, my mother has been a good daughter. The manner of her mothering, to me however, seemingly missed the mark. I wanted my mother to want to understand why things were, and to have my back. Instead, there was much criticism and an insistence on her way of being. It was clear that I was unlike mom, who was like her own mother. This is to say, I wanted my mother to be different, but don’t we all?

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Boundaries of Care • Danielle Michelle Cabahug

*** After the commute from home from QC one weekend, I set my bag down on a divan and went straight for my room. Mom came in then to ask if I’d eaten, and brought a plate of turon into the room. She set the plate down and sat by the bed where I lay in fetal position.

“What happened?” she asked, gently stroking my back.

Silence.

It was the first day after a break-up, the previous night filled with a heated back and forth between me and my then boyfriend, who had decided for one reason or another that he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. And I couldn’t do a thing about it.

“You know you can talk to me, Dan,” she urged, “what’s wrong?”

Thinking myself wise for handling it on my own, I said nothing, dubious at what seemed to be an overt display of affection. I had grown to become skeptical of this affection when it had always been scrimped on, so sorely lacking over the years.

Where the bounds of mom’s care for her mother seemed to stretch indefinitely, for her only daughter, they spanned not even the last 200 meter distance between the exit from our subdivision to the nearest UV Express terminal I’d walk to on the commute back to QC. She would drive me halfway, just before it became inconvenient, and never the whole way through. It was not something I would forget in the moment.

I wonder what it feels like, to be so close, but separate. To be right at the border, begging to be let in, knowing that you’d be denied entry into private territory. Steeped in silence, I wonder whether realization had set in for my mother then, that the period in which her only child perhaps needed her the most had lapsed, and that she spent it being a good daughter instead. *** My grandmother was 89 the day she fell. I was in my sophomore year of university. It was the day I first truly learned what the word “helpless” meant, her having held onto my arm as we walked from the mall to the parking lot, mom having gone ahead so she could meet us halfway with the car. Lola hated the idea of walkers, still strong enough to walk without being dependent on one and ended up dragging them with her when she walked. She opted to cling to my arm.

And then the vertigo hit. She didn’t make a sound, grabbing onto me as she silently stumbled sideward, and then backward. Next thing I knew her back was on

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the concrete.

“Kuya, tulong lang po, itayo lang po natin si lola,” I croaked out to a passerby. The sense of urgency to get her up equally as strong as the desire not to pull or break anything in her already fragile body. Mom arrived, and the three of us helped her into the car. I found out on the same day that it wasn’t the first time she’d fallen.

That was when it began: the latter portion of my mother’s married life lived for lola. Driving lola to every doctor’s appointment, medicine and grocery runs, lab tests and everything in between found their place at the top of mom’s litany of daily chores. The laugh lines on her face had found permanent creases on her forehead to match. Lola’s caregiver earned her place as mom’s new best friend, bonded both over proximity and the shared exercise of tending to lola’s needs. The caregiver had thus forth become known as “girl,” or “sis,” a step up from previously being just “Greta.” They became closer than my mother and I ever were.

I’d surmised two things from the years of their camaraderie. One: that the language of care transcended familial ties, and two, that it was a language most women were inherently fluent in.

*** The past few years have had some iteration of “how’s lola?” as the opening line to my routine conversations with my mother while I was away in university. I’d learned to get creative, peppering in questions on what lola would have wanted me to bring her to eat, what the latest lab test results were, and whether lola was feeling better to get mom talking.

It was, in actuality, a feeble attempt at speaking her and Greta’s language, my attempts at entry into what I considered “the caregiving club.” For mom, all other concerns became secondary. I stood witness to her unravelling as she stood by her mother in decline, and did everything to slow it. It was acceptance that I had become secondary too, and what I thought to be an exercise in empathy.

Lola’s presence had never been imposing, but it may as well have been so, always walking on eggshells when she was around, and being acutely aware of the intricacies that caring for her meant on a daily basis. The matriarch’s children had, for the most part been away, all but one remaining in the country tasked with her care. Sometimes I’d look at them both, side by side, and think that they were the same person. Beyond the uncanny resemblance that only a mother and daughter shared, the way the skin beneath my mother’s eyes began to sag from the months of sleepless nights, and the noticeable weight loss made it as if they

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were growing old together, now, more than ever. Their life-forces seemed to be tied to one another, and perhaps they were.

It’s been months since lola died, but it feels like she’d been gone for a lot longer. I need to take care of mama had always been the flight response to a battle my mother had perhaps long been fighting over the decade that we’d lived in lola’s house. The same tension between the dependence of needing to have your mother around in any capacity, and wanting a life that meant the actual equivalent of living— without her. *** The strands that keep a Filipino family together are all tightly knit in the name of filial piety.

Those strands extend and stretch into old age in the form of family caregiving, an unspoken expectation that has families caring for their elderly as if they’d taken the marriage vows “’til death do us part.” We poke fun at those who put their elderly relatives in homes for the aged, both because a failure to rise to the expectation brought with it a cultural sense of shame, and because there are scarcely any decent local state-facilities or institutions in place for elderly care.

The rise of more advanced medical technology has done its part in elongating people’s lives, tacking on an extra ten or twenty years than they would have had half a century ago.

They have, at the same time propelled us into an era where prolonged illness and drawnout death are characteristic of our final years of life—what author Nell Lake calls, the age of “long decline and slow loss.” To be “old” in this era, is to celebrate your ninetieth or even hundredth birthday most likely frail or sick, and dependent on family.

Somehow, I think lola knew this. And she wanted none of it, having been at her husband’s side through two strokes and having overseen his meals through a feeding tube before he finally succumbed. When lola started to get sicker, she asked not to be hooked up to any extraordinary contraptions or ventilators, opting to go peacefully over fighting it out in sterile hospital rooms. Wanting to be around for everyone had been important to her, but when the means by which keeping her alive meant the bare minimum of living, not being a burden was her paramount concern. I have no doubt that honoring her decision was the more loving choice. ***

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I arrived at the house one afternoon when Greta opened the front door, still with us after lola’s passing. She hurried me in as I locked the gate behind me.

“Dan, alam mo ba, may nahulog na senior sa may hump doon sa unahan ng kalye natin.

Naalala ko si lola,” she said.

“Ha? Saan? Wala naman akong nakita ah,” I replied, confused at the urgency of her tone.

“Hindi, kanina pa. Yung palaging naglalakad na caregiver sa kanto, apat yung dala niyang matatanda, ‘tas may biglang sumigaw,” she reported.

On the corner of our enclave of a subdivision stood a bungalow turned-assisted living facility for senior citizens. It was one we’d crossed off the list immediately when considering our options for homecare facilities when lola started to need more intensive care than we were equipped to provide.

“Anong nangyari?” I asked.

“Ayun, di niya ata namalayang may hump pala sa paghakbang niya, e’di sumemplang, ‘tas nagkasugat pa, kawawa naman.”

“Lumabas kami ni Susan para tulungang itayo yung matanda, pati nga si Neria lumabas eh,” she added, referring to the neighbor’s househelp in which she’d found a friend, before she became glued to lola at the hip.

“Tinanong ko, ‘bakit naman kasi iisa lang siya at apat yung kasama niyang senior na dependent na’,” Greta recounted, in a situation that seemed to hit a little too close to home. There had apparently been only two caregivers available that day, one of them assigned as the facility’s in-house caregiver, leaving the other caregiver the task of bringing the seniors out for their afternoon walk.

We’d gotten lucky with Greta, who’d not only stayed with lola until the end, but never faltered in her care, even when lola’s own children were away. It was the kind of “selfsacrificing” caregiving that all but translated into martyrdom, and which no amount of money could buy. I knew many elderly Filipinos and their families didn’t have the same set of options, and that made us all the more lucky. And, after spending the better part of 3 years keeping someone else’s mother alive, Greta had to go home and make sure she did the same for hers too.

*** The narrative of elder caregiving is one that has not changed, save for the longer period

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which caregiving now spans. Caregivers, primarily children or family slowly take over errands for their elderly relatives, handling the elder’s finances, and driving them to where they need to be. Their needs gradually escalate, requiring help with basic needs such as things like bathing and toileting, in addition to feeding. Elders may eventually become bedridden. At some point, the mental and emotional cost of caregiving becomes incommensurate, and family caregivers need all the help they can get. What usually follows is a family member taking to caregiving full-time, or for those who can afford it, hiring specialized or trained caregivers. I’d always known we were more fortunate than most, but mom held out on seeking help elsewhere until she seemed to be in absolute agony. Caregivers were professionals, after all, whose hours came with a hefty pricetag.

When the task of lola’s care became unmanageable for mom, she and her siblings agreed to contact an agency. Lola was stubborn at first, insisting that she didn’t need a caregiver, and found ways to dispel them before their contract was up. Her complaints included one caregiver who spent too much time on her phone. She accused the other of eating her favorite Chinese sausage. We’d gone through two caregivers before we’d gotten lucky with Greta.

Rarely did it occur to me that caregivers sign-up to eventually see people through to their deaths. Perhaps, it isn’t exactly the first thing on the job description, but the manner of their caregiving adjusts to fit the circumstance. Greta at some point doubled as lola’s personal chef, cooking lola’s multiple meals within the day. She’d sleep when lola would, knowing she needed to be awake when lola was conscious, and had gotten sick herself, spending early mornings at the hospital with lola for over a month. What occurred to me then was that caregivers, in any form, were people on the frontlines of suffering, who fought the invisible enemy with compassion.

At the funeral home where lola was cremated, my mom’s Opus Dei best friend tita Faith said to me, “it is a privilege that your mom was able to take care of your lola.” The sentiment deeply disturbed me, I was mind boggled as to how any act that entailed so much mental and emotional strain could ever be called a ‘privilege.’ I wondered what tita Faith knew of this ‘privilege,’ if her small frame ever had to hold her own mother up as she scrubbed her clean, or run to replace a bedpan in the middle of the night the way I knew mom did. I knew tita Faith’s mother had always been padded with caregivers 24/7. I like to think she meant well. When medical care becomes ineffective, and one can only hope for a peaceful end, it is a privilege to have someone help make it just so. To have Greta by mom’s side, wading the waters of grief in the aftermath was, as well, a privilege in its own right. ***

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It was the day after Greta left when I realized my attempts at self-sufficiency as a way to lighten my mother’s burden was no longer the kind of support she needed to survive. I watched her frantically look for replacement househelp, making arrangements for one’s arrival to coincide with the previous one’s departure, ensuring she wouldn’t be home alone. Mom was looking for someone specific: young, capable all-around, preferably without a dependent husband or children, but most of all, “yung magtatagal, ‘di agad-agad aalis,” she’d say. In her, I saw myself from years ago; a scared little kindergarten girl, shoes straining against the concrete, but instead, saying “I don’t want you to go, ma.”

Everyone grieves differently, resorting to whatever coping mechanism they can find to dull the pain. The full weight of grief bore down on mom and her siblings after the fact of lola’s passing. For tita Maita, it was maxing out the allowable work leaves to close the ocean-wide gap between her and her mother for a parting goodbye. In response to her grief, ninang Betty turned herself into a pillar of reliability, taking over flower arrangements, catering and the highlight reel for the funeral service. Tito Butch dealt with it by not dealing with it at all, choosing to remember lola for how she was in her prime, rather than see what little of that version of herself was left in lola’s last days. For mom, it was holding onto Greta as the last link to lola, even if it meant trying to find comfort in a routine whose centerpiece was no longer, as if Greta leaving would confirm lola’s loss with a finality.

In the comfort of her siblings, I knew she would manage too. *** Gratefulness as a concept and quality is universal, but its expression within Filipino culture is another thing altogether. While gratitude isn’t unique to Filipinos, what marks its so-called, “Filipino-ness” is the departure it takes from the common understanding of the term “gratitude.” Here, we call it utang na loob, one of those expressions that has no exact translation in the English language, despite our attempts at articulating it. The literal translation takes the two major parts, utang, or “debt,” and loob, or “inside” in combination to articulate a sense of “interior,” or “invisible” debt. This literal translation is reductive. Loob, refers less to the person’s interior, biological make-up, but pertains to their being as a whole, in the sense of kalooban, his personhood, what researcher Francis Dancel calls one’s soul or “will.” Utang na loob is one of those expressions whose nuanced layers of meaning I’ve gradually peeled to an understanding over time. Expression: utang na loob, translation: “debt of goodwill,” definition: to give a part of oneself.

Within Filipino parent and child relationships there’s always a sense of utang na loob, an eternal gratitude for the parent’s lifegiving and the task of their children’s upbringing.

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This was the unspoken utang na loob that existed between mom and lola, and mom and I. One incurred utang na loob after some goodwill had been done to them, but the debt didn’t concern itself with specifics; it wasn’t anything you could pay back in kind. What came with decoding the expression was, problematic or not, the recognition that mom owed lola, and I owed mom, all the while knowing the debt’s repayment wasn’t something we could count the cost for. It was something we would have to pay forward with life. And so they say, ang utang na loob, hindi binabayaran, ngunit tinatanaw. Indebtedness, repaid via pagtanaw, is a recognition and willingness to repay goodwill with your own acts of goodwill.

The paradox of utang na loob is its being both a debt that knows no cost, and because of this, often knows an unlimited cost. Utang na loob meant the debt repaid by an uncle flying home from San Francisco, commuting through Manila rush hour traffic and eventually running to the funeral home on foot to be present every day of the service. It meant finding a way to cram ten cousins in a meager Mitsubishi Adventure to get from Pampanga to Paranaque. Utang na loob meant sweating bullets, reading the mass prayers of the faithful and responsorial psalm to a crowd of Opus Dei when I hadn’t gone to mass in over five years.

For mom, dad, and I, utang na loob meant all of our lives lived for lola, when the distance created by mom’s siblings leaving to live their own lives, left lola’s eldest daughter and her family to fill in the gaps.

For all these quiet calculations, this is what I know: there are some debts one can never repay in full, but can attempt to. And that with every attempt, there is weight, and there is value. *** There is a detached quality to the language that surrounds the things one leaves behind after their death. When “heirs” becomes the word for their children, and the deceased’s belongings are accounted for as “estate,” there seems to be no room for sentiment. And yet, something can be said of what we leave behind, entrust and pass on. That what we’ve kept can be bequeathed and willed to another is telling of tenderness. To make plans to leave something for another is, in itself, an act of care. Just as a mother knows her children, lola sure knew hers, and plan she did.

It came as a surprise to everyone, when, in her last days, she made no mention of who would get what, after always having joked about it when she started to get sicker. Little did they know that she’d made her arrangements two years prior. That there was “estate” left for lola’s “heirs,” registered to me as mere codewords for a more palpable sort of

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privilege I’d become acquainted with after lola’s death. On a piece of yellow pad paper, she scribbled down her thanks to each one of her children, and detailed her intentions. “While I am still of sound mind,” she began, making her case for shares of the estate such that everyone came to an understanding. Most detailed of lola’s requests concerned what was to be mom’s share, what I thought to be an expression of her own form for utang na loob, but this time, to her daughter. The extent of lola’s care made material. After the letter was sealed, lola’s instructions to Greta were clear: she was to give the letter to mom, only to be opened after lola’s passing and when her children were together. Two years later, that’s exactly what happened.

Over the years we’d taken care of lola, I’d found myself in a space that defined what the roles of ‘daughter’ and ‘mother’ entailed, and necessitated an understanding that the roles weren’t mutually exclusive, however much I believed they were, earlier on. As daughter, knowing mom was doing the best she could for her own mother, and somehow as mother, making sure mom could function in the tight spaces that she’d been moving in, even if care meant just being there when she asked for help, and knowing when to offer it when she didn’t. “I hope that you will see this through,” lola wrote at the end of the yellowpad sheet, addressing two of her children specifically. There was weight in the act of facing death head on, and using the sanity you had left to make sure everyone was taken care of, even after you were gone. Generations apart, lola had found her own way of taking care of mom, and ultimately us all, even just for a last time. *** The family got together on what would have been lola’s ninety-second birthday, two months after her passing. Lola’s favorite sticky sesame-covered buchi and hopia from Mandarin Palace found their place at the family celebration. On the bus ride home to Paranaque, I looked at mom’s image from an archived Instagram story of last year’s grandparents day, a fleece blanket wrapped around her as she cozied up on the couch. I noticed how she was slowly turning into her mother, and I wondered how long it would be until I did too. Mom still bursts into tears from time to time at a tight hug, and still says goodbye to lola—lying now in a marble urn in what used to be her room— every time she leaves the house. But she is untethered. Her boundaries are down, and I’m finding new ways to catch up to her, to meet her in the space where she is.

I’ll spend the rest of my time letting whatever grows within that space take shape as I try to close the gap.

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Catherine Lianza Aquino INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

B

abaylan is the final piece of a collection that I wrote in 2019 in partial fulfillment for my Fiction Workshop class and self-published for Komura’s all-women book fair. The collection, entitled Three Women, was inspired by the maiden, mother, and crone archetypes so common to mythology, folklore, and the stories we continue to tell today. I grounded these three archetypes in Spain’s colonization of the Philippines, in an effort to explore how the constraints of gender, class, and history might have moulded women’s experiences in a time documented by men in power. I wanted to witness the female experiences that history might have alluded to in passing or forgotten, by way of fiction and its ability to evoke empathy by immersing readers in the minds of others. All three stories also have magic and the supernatural at their very cores, attesting to how we Filipinos have long viewed reality as inextricable from the unexplained.

Babaylan in particular is very much in debt to Merlinda Bobis’s language and Rosario Cruz-Lucero’s La India, or the Island of the Disappeared and Feast and Famine: Stories of Negros, whose writings pay tribute to the rich cultures they grew up in (Bicolano and Hiligaynon respectively) by channeling indegenous consciousnesses. Babaylan’s plot was born when I stumbled upon a Dominican account of the Dominican Inquisition, in which: “the little idols that [priestesses] had kept hidden . . . were handed over to the Christian boys to drag about through the whole village, and at last they were burned.

By this means and by the punishment of a few old women . . . the idolatry of the whole region was brought to an end” (Aduarte, The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXXII). Many of these “idols” were thrown into “privies” for children to defecate on, and the women were publicly humiliated and abused. These images haunted me, as they implied so much about our nation’s dark past: how the Spanish turned our ancestors against each other, how gendered the conquest was, and how the tensions between young and old were exploited. Babaylan is my attempt to imagine how these might have played out long ago.

I was unfortunately unable to revise Babaylan to its ideal and final form due to the COVID-19 outbreak that began in March 2020 and deeply impacted the lives of creatives and workers everywhere, affecting our abilities to produce quality works and meet deadlines given the heavy climate of great uncertainty and fear. Still, it is my understanding that there is no real limit to when and how much written works can be revised—such is the point of the critiques and workshops like AHWW that form the backbone of our literary ecosystem and encourage us writers to improve with every new word we commit to a page. Babaylan is a work-in-progress that I hope to give justice to eventually. catherineaquino.tumblr.com

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Babaylan Catherine Lianza Aquino

Pepito Calag was the skinniest boy in Bago. No matter how hot the sun was or how damp the monsoon grounds were, he was always with the other neighborhood boys, running and stumbling across dirt roads and grassy plains. His mother, Maria Calag, would often bring him to Inday Siná’s hut on the edge of town to buy guava leaves and stew for the wounds, but she never availed of Inday Siná’s other services until one midsummer night.

Pepito Calag was brought inside Inday Siná’s hut prostrate on a stretcher. The hut, made of nipa and bamboo, groaned with the weight of the boys who’d helped Maria carry her boy to the outskirts of town, past the fences held together by strings with cowrie shells and animal bones, and into a single room adorned with garlands of herbs, wooden statues of anitos, and the smell of burning leaves. Inday Siná sat silent on her hammock as Maria tried to speak through tears. “It’s been three days,” she said.

Pepito was fast asleep. His arm dangled limp from the edge of the stretcher, and had it not been for the slow rise and fall of his chest, Inday Siná would’ve assumed him to be dead. Muta caked around the edges of his eyes. There were no bruises on his brown skin— nothing to indicate a blow from a mortal man or being.

Inday Siná ran her bony hands over Pepito’s skin, tracing the pathways of his pulse and syncing her breathing with his. She mentally ran through her list of usual suspects: was this possession by a loved dead one or a spirit of the forests? Did Pepito’s spirit choose to wander voluntarily, or did a plant extend its tendrils to poison him?

“Where has he been playing lately?” Inday Siná asked, lighting a fire to begin the healing.

Her guests could now see her wrinkled face, gnarled like an old tree. Despite his peaceful breathing, Pepito’s pulse seemed to be paused.

“Town,” mumbled Maria Calag.

“Where in town?” Inday Siná held a hot coal from the fire with her bare hands and pressed it to Pepito’s forehead. The boys gasped and Maria looked away, but Pepito did not stir.

“The church,” replied Tomas, Pepito’s brother and the largest boy in the group. Inday Siná had cured him many years ago, after he broke out with an unbearable itch for trampling on an anthill and incurring the wrath of a Duwende. “The priests have been warm and kind to us. They are giving free bread—” He stopped upon seeing Inday Siná’s frown.

Church! Inday Siná inhaled and exhaled. Tungkung Langit help me.

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She felt her muscles tense and her jaw slack. Murmurs escaped her mouth in ancient tongues no one in the room could recognize, all while she kept her hands above Pepito’s unmoving body. Her eyes rolled back into their sockets, and her dry white hair whipped around her, pushed by some unseen wind.

“A spirit, Maria,” Inday Siná said, shifting back to Bisaya. Her voice lowered by two tones. “A spirit. Oh, see here how it feeds off your son.” Blood trickled from the corner of his chapped lips. “It is male—I’ve never seen it before—this is not our Tungkung Langit, not our god, he is bigger than us, he is coming for us all—” Maria clutched Tomas’s hand. Everyone stared at the old woman’s now convulsing body looming over Pepito, still paralyzed with sleep.

Ay, a cruel god! Inday Siná began to chant invocations to the sky, desperately reaching for vials of oil and palm leaves to burn, grasping for whatever magic was still in her old bones, some sort of miracle, a sign from an ancestor beyond, anything to conquer the wisp that had overtaken little Pepito’s being, but the gods were angry and deaf. The fire was snuffed out by the wind, ending the ritual, and the old woman had no choice but to escort her guests out of her hut and hand them talismans against the unknown force, promising to see them tomorrow and kissing Pepito’s forehead for luck. When Maria Calag’s tears streamed from her eyes again, Inday Siná gave her a drink made of dalandan and blessed spring water for the soothing of her heart.

Yet by the time day broke, the sleeping sickness had already spread throughout the barangay. A pregnant woman close to her delivery, a man who’d fallen asleep while tilling the fields, and another man who’d collapsed in church were all carried to Inday Siná’s hut.

No herb or incantation worked their charms.

In her many years as a babaylan, learning from her grandmother and mother and healing the men and women of the barangay with flowers and prayers to the gods, Inday Siná had never seen anything like this. Sleep eluded her that night, and her bones creaked with the weight of tiredness and guilt. As she held her statues and talismans in her hands, have mercy became her mantra, an unending litany of adoration, remorse, and fear of the incoming unknown. *** As Inday Siná foraged for herbs and guidance in the forests of Negros, she wished she had the gift of foresight. Like the women before her, she was bestowed a single gift—healing.

Alas, she was one of the few babaylans left on the island. Those who were blessed with divination and communication with the dead were long gone. As a child, she had watched the old women and their anitos get dragged through the town plaza, their once-long hair shorn off and their ears missing. They were hung by their feet from the tallest tree in the

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valley before being set on fire. Her Lola Selya was one of them, charred into black ash.

Inday Siná couldn’t look away, even when the smell of burning flesh reached her nostrils.

Her mother Rosario cut her hair with a knife. “Always remember this, anak,” she said.

They could not be discovered. From then on, Inday Siná and her mother practiced their art in secret, living on the edge of the barangay and earning coins as washerwomen too. Still the men and women visited their hut in need of medicines and guidance. The night Inday Siná had her first flow of women’s blood, she dreamed of giants whose heads touched the sky and hands moulded clay. Tungkung Langit laid her on his open palm and to give her the language of trees, flowers, and human fluids.

But Inday Siná was now seven decades old, and like any other language, that of the greenery was ever changing. As the old woman walked through the forest, they whispered over one another, directing her this way and that. She had to close her eyes and meditate for a good few hours before the spirits of the forest murmured in both of her ears: agua de Dios.

Inday Siná bristled. Dios. The other god. It appeared that the anitos wanted her to take a vial of holy water from the nearby chapel—only that which came from a god could undo what was done by the god.

Inday Siná knew she had no choice. She had stepped inside churches before, as women who did not attend the mass for periods of time were often whipped in the plaza, but she had never dipped her fingers in their so called holy water, made so only when a man in robes said so. She went on her way.

The church of the Sto. Niño stood tall at the center of town, carved from limestone and adorned with stained glass. Inday Siná despised the decadence of the Christian faith. What kind of god needed such luxury? Were the trees and the seas not enough? She stepped inside, wrappingherpanuelotightaroundhertolooklikearespectabletownswoman.Thenewwalls echoed with the drone of a foreign tongue, and the wooden pews packed the parishioners in tight rows. They were too engrossed in their vespers to notice Inday Siná slip a bottle in the silver bowl of holy water and leave without so much as the sign of the cross. As Inday Siná walked away, more people streamed in from all directions of town, and she wondered what kind of a god this was, with a sway so powerful that the children of the island would leave the very beings that made them. Though sometimes she wondered if there was strength in numbers, and if she had been standing on the wrong side the whole time. *** When Inday Siná arrived back in her hut to wake the sleepers up, a small group of relatives and friends had gathered outside, with baskets of fish and fruits in their hands and some chickens for offerings to the anitos. Inday Siná knelt on her mat, oiled her palms

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with coconut oil, and began to massage them first, easing their bodies for the return of their spirits. She deduced that their souls had indeed traveled to the realm of the other god, seduced into sleepiness, the loss of free will.

Inday Siná’s hands blurred as she worked, quickly popping leaves into her own mouth to guide her travels. She would have to call upon the other god himself to bring these people back. There were five of them now, laid out on hammocks and breathing slowly. She leaned her head as closely to the pregnant woman’s chest, listening to hear every sound and exhalation that escaped her chest before pouring holy water on her forehead and chanting.

Her mind and vision went blank, and her voice changed once again, mimicking the loud and low tones of a Catholic priest—and without warning she found her lips mouthing for forgiveness from this new god, and images of wounded palms and crowns made of thorns flashed through her consciousness. She heard loud jeering and saw the burning tree once again, and before she could scream and sing her way out of the tunnel of apparitions, she saw the pregnant woman’s eyes open with shock.

“She’s alive!” someone called out. A man rushed in the hut to hold his wife in his arms, but Inday Siná felt the world spin and her eyesight blur once again. This new god was inevitable. She had never seen such a thing before. Something was coming and she could not know what it was. She repeated the ritual onto the other bodies, successful almost every time, save for Pepito Calag, whose breath left him as she tended to another young boy. Maria Calag watched and cried again, and Tomas watched Inday Siná with a heavy heart. *** The priests came not long after word of the miracle spread throughout the barangay. Thick gray clouds hung low in the sky when Inday Siná came home after a long day of scrubbing and washing and cleaning downtown. She knew something was wrong the second she smelled burning embers. She ran back to her hut as fast as her tired old limbs could carry her.

And there it was: a column of smoke rising from her hut. A crowd of men with torches and guns, Tomas Calag among them, his face shadowy in the firelight. A man in uniform seized Inday Siná by her arm, almost twisting it to the point of cracking, but she did not feel it. Instead, she felt her insides sing with pain as every talisman and anito and statue in her home deflected their own agony onto her skin. There were no faces in the flames to pray to, no one to hear the screams of a dying faith. She would always remember this.

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James Andrew Reysio-Cruz INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

W

hen I think of history, I think of ghosts. No matter how much time passes, it’s impossible not to feel the specter of our personal and communal pasts weighing heavy on each day. Even as I write this, our entire society has effectively been brought to its knees by COVID-19, all the cracks in our social order suddenly coming into painfully sharp light. These cracks did not come out of nowhere—they’ve accumulated from decades of systemic neglect and injustice. To examine how deeply bungled and inadequate our institutions’ responses have been to this health crisis is to stare the truth in the face: our society was built for the profit and power of the few, not for the welfare of all people. Even the wealthy can recognize this crisis, but indeed, to call COVID-19 an equalizer is misguided; now, as always, it is the poor and disenfranchised who are disproportionately hurt. The only difference now is that the tensions and contradictions that have always existed can take on uniquely grotesque, absurd forms: homeless people being arrested for not being at home, workers the government tolerated being kept in precarious positions now forced to stay home when a day without work could spell life or death.

Disasters like this will keep happening, and more and more of us will feel the consequences more clearly, if something doesn’t radically change. This is what fuels my writing: now more than ever, we must negotiate how we are forced to confront the complicated and dangerous ways our society’s past has bled into the present—so that we might hopefully be able to rectify past sins and work towards a better future. We need to expand our imaginations and challenge ourselves to empathize more deeply, to respond more bravely, to encompass more and more people in our understanding of what community must be, in order that all of us may live with each other in peace, dignity, and happiness.

I cannot pretend my stories are adequate responses in and of themselves—but they are, at the very least, the beginning of a response. The act of writing keeps me challenged to be involved, and keep me clinging to hope. A better world is possible the more time and energy we give towards seeing it, and for all its limitations, I hope my work can be of value to you in helping imagine that better world.

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A month before her eighteenth birthday, the haciendero decided to teach his daughter something about the ants. The haciendero usually took his dinner alone in his study late at night, but now they sat at the dining table together, and it was here he told his daughter to look at the little black form weaving a path on the long dining table set before them.

The haciendero gazed at it so intensely it made his daughter almost want to laugh, but she knew better and allowed it to fall back into her stomach. These moments were not unfamiliar to her; her father was a big man who carried his big-ness around with him, and every so often the weight of it seemed to press down on him and everything around him.

After a few moments, a small smile began to sneak onto his face, bulging eventually into an immensely satisfying grin. Even the smallest creatures can teach us something if we see them from afar enough distance. His pointer finger began tracing the path of the ant as it scurried around the plate, keeping just slightly behind. Ants are not afraid of work. Every moment of their lives is spent working, without a grumble, or complaint. They understand without words what they’re born for. The balcony adjacent to the dining table had its doors open, and the haciendero fixed his gaze there, beyond the long fields that made up their sugar plantation.

I wish our workers could do more to follow their example.

The ant was now on the haciendero’s plate, exploring the length and bulk of a piece of glistening lechon. In one slow, ponderous motion the haciendero picked it up between his fingertips and crushed it.

Wiping the remains off with a napkin, he chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound. In this way at least they can be alike—they forget their place and go where they’re not supposed to. He fixed another serious stare at his daughter as he lifted the same hand to stroke her cheek. But don’t be afraid. You and I—it’s our duty to remind them.

Sharp bursts of sound echoed suddenly from the fields. The haciendero’s daughter flinched, and her father’s face coiled into a tight mask of anger. A servant, one of the guards, rushed into the room and was at once at the haciendero’s side. He whispered something into his ear. The haciendero’s face relaxed, and he managed to smile again at his daughter.

You’ll understand soon enough.

The haciendero stood and walked off with the guard. Alone, the haciendero’s daughter noticed suddenly that there were more ants beginning to amass on the table, creeping towards the food in their silent union. She just watched, her skin prickling softly, the night outside painfully still once more.

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*** This was the heart of Tiempo Muerto, the dead season, where there was no sugarcane to harvest. For generations and generations it had stretched from April to September, but as the years past the people of Negros began to accept with a terrible certainty that one day it would simply never end. As the world grew warmer and warmer it gnawed all the more at the sugarcane fields, rendering vaster and vaster stretches of land dead all-year-round.

Everywhere people were losing their livelihoods, and everywhere people grew more and more desperate. Violence and unrest brimmed, constantly threatening to tip over, and people lived with their fists clenched.

This was the world where the haciendero’s daughter would enter into adulthood: fear and decay. But it wasn’t a new story for her. All her life, she’d grown up in the nebulous shadows of past greatness. Her family had been sugar barons for generations, amassing a fortune among the greatest of any family in Negros or the entire nation; she was bred on stories of the world’s finest orchestras being shipped in to play at the family’s parties, of the family matriarchs wearing enough jewelry to make the Queen of England seem a pallid imitation, of the magnificent parties bathed in golden light that took place in the ballroom of the family estate, a ballroom built precisely to mimic if not surpass the royalty of European fairy stories.

But times changed; sugar crisis after sugar crisis wreaking havoc on the bedrock of their family’s wealth, and now it was only the silence of past things that echoed in the great halls—the silence the haciendero’s daughter grew up in. Her mother had died in childbirth, and the haciendero was more of an overhanging presence than a father to her, from her earliest memories single-minded in his obsession to run the failing estate. He was, in his eyes, the avatar of all their ancestors, anointed to lead the family out of its troubles and back towards greatness (which often involved drinking himself unconscious in his study).

Though she was not allowed to ever leave the estate on her own, the haciendero’s daughter was largely left to her own devices.

But this did not free her from the weight of the legacy her father bore like a cross upon himself. He had promised her that upon her eighteenth birthday she would begin working alongside him in managing the estate, and that to mark her ascension into that sacred responsibility he would make sure her birthday party was as grand as the parties of old when all of the money and power in Negros gathered in their halls, something for fairy tales to recount in hushed wonder, a monument to the family’s endurance and its destined resurgence.

The thought of all this filled the haciendero’s daughter with dread. She’d lived her whole life conscious of that, just beyond the margins of her comfortable existence, there were

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things her father did for them that she couldn’t bring herself to dwell on. As the situation on the island grew worse, lying in her bed at night, she could hear the sounds of violence seem to grow ever closer to the estate—and those nights, she would think. Think of what she’d heard through whispers at school, think of what she’d seen on newspaper headlines and social media. Think of the all the armed men roaming the streets, and how many of them she would often find around her home, smiling at her. Always, the thoughts would finally turn to the gun her father had given her when she’d turned seventeen (There are bad people who want to hurt us, he’s said as if she was a small child), lying just underneath her bed—and always, guilt and shame she couldn’t fully articulate would flood through her.

It was like being strangled, the weight of all she had no vocabulary for. This intimate foreboding that everything she knew, everything she’d come from, and everything she was arriving at, could at any moment all come crashing down in ways she shivered to imagine.

She longed to find an escape.

Her schoolmates were of no help. They were mostly themselves the daughters of hacienderos and business men and technocrats, but if they shared her longings, they did nothing to betray it. Even with all the unrest and violence, life simply went on for them, and they were perfectly content with it. The only thing they were interested in discussing with the haciendero’s daughter was how excited they were for her debut. And so the haciendero’s daughter kept increasingly to herself, the days creeping slow, most of her time in school spent staring out the windows of her classroom, beyond the walls of the school to the teeming streets outside.

Then one day, the haciendero’s daughter decided she’d had enough. Something clicked in her, and she decided that she wanted to step out of everything, even if only for a little while.

She couldn’t hope to leave through the main gate without drawing attention—both the guards and her schoolmates stepping outside to buy from vendors would notice her walking off. Instead, during that day’s lunch break, she decided to slip out through one of the side exits that she knew was used by the janitors to take out trash; her path home winded around the school compound, and from her car window she’d seen them using it many times.

The haciendero’s daughter was never one to act on impulse before; if there was any trouble, she’d probably lose whatever grip she had on her sudden boldness. But still— it was enough to bring her, blood pounding in her ears, across the winding corridors of the school all the way to the side gate. To her relief, no one was there; the janitors would only be around later in the afternoon. Opening the gate, her hands sweaty and trembling slightly, she stepped out into the open.

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A breeze was blowing, so welcome in the seemingly never-ending heat. She had done it, and no one was there to catch her. She realized suddenly how tense her body was, and she let out a relieved sigh. She began crossing the street towards the bustling markets that surrounded the school, with no direction in mind but towards the ebb and flow of people coming and going.

This became a daily habit. She always moved quickly—not only was the lunch break only so long, but she realized from experience that if people stopped to look at her too long, she would be marked; in the eyes around her, she would see curiosity, fear, contempt. She didn’t know how to articulate it, but she felt instinctively the need to not settle, to keep in motion. And so she darted around, trying to take everything in, and for a few moments slip into simply being a part of things. Shake away the weight of her life like fine dust. That’s the most she hoped for from those streets until she met the sakada’s son.

One day, while roaming the market, a familiar smell lit up a smile on the haciendero’s daughter’s face. She followed the scent until it led her to what was little more than a placard and a mono-bloc table—but on proud display were cassava cakes dusted with coconut, her favorite. She was so happy that it took her a moment to notice the young man manning the stall. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than her, but the rich dark color of his skin betrayed someone who’d spent significant time working in the fields.

He had bright, intelligent eyes that pierced through her and left her suddenly flustered as she stood at the front of the stall.

He smiled. Would you like to buy a slice?

The cassava cakes were delicious, fragrant, and sweet, and the young man emanated a warm presence. If there was anywhere that she allowed herself to linger, it was here.

The young man was never one to pry—if he found anything particularly curious about the private school girl wandering about the streets during school hours, he was too polite, or too afraid, to verbalize it. The haciendero’s daughter, on her part, did little to encourage him. And so their conversation was often limited to greetings and goodbyes, offers of napkins to keep the cassava cake crumbs from spilling, terse comments on the heat of the day.

The haciendero’s daughter was just too afraid, in truth, worried that the young man’s kindness stood to dissipate at any moment should it be made any clearer to him the extent to which she didn’t belong there. As routine started to settle, however, the haciendero’s daughter began also to feel emboldened. Figuring to herself that it was as good a place to start as any, one day she asked him how his business started. It comes from my family’s patch, the young man said proudly. Then, in softer tones, he added: In the dead season, we all have to find ways to keep fed.

Sheltered as she was, the haciendero’s daughter understood his meaning. You’re a sakada? The expression on the young man’s face was difficult to read. Yes, me and my father

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together, up until this last season. The sakada’s son stopped, looked like he was debating continuing. He eventually did: I had to leave my work in the fields to help out some of my friends.

But now my father is sick, and I need to take care of my family. The haciendero’s daughter felt a sudden pang of guilt. Fumbling over it, she explained that she would soon be helping run her family’s hacienda. After the dead season is over, I could speak to my father for you—our fields might still need workers.

The young man’s face sunk immediately. After a long pause, he asked who her family was. She told him. *** The young man had changed the subject after the haciendero’s daughter’s response and had diverted any attempt to return to the subject until it was time for her to leave.

Ever since that conversation, the young man and his interactions with the haciendero’s daughter took on a different character. Where before he was always open smiles and warmth, he now seemed meek and reserved, and more than a little afraid whenever she stopped by his stall. It tore at the haciendero’s daughter’s heart to have her fears vindicated, but still, she continued coming, unsure of how she could find redemption in the young man’s eyes but unwilling to accept the loss of the safe space she’d found with him. Always she was greeted with painful silence, and the way the sakada’s son never looked at her directly.

Eventually, fed up, she found no recourse other than to confront him directly. She resolved that if she had already crossed over a line, there was only forward to still go.

I know my father has done wrong things, the haciendero’s daughter said, looking straight into the eyes of the sakada’s son. I’m not my father.

The sakada’s son’s face, caught by surprise, now settled into an unreadable mask of emotion. Do you really know the things your father’s done?

I know that he’s killed people, but—the haciendero’s daughter stopped. Yes, she realized with merciless clarity that ripped at her soul, my father’s killed people. All those nights, clutching her blanket and thinking of the gun below her bed, and she now realized this was it; this was the truth that she’d fought so hard to save herself from. But, but—no.

It was a truth that did not permit any but’s.

The haciendero’s daughter was breathing heavily. The sakada’s son, beginning to grow concerned, was made to stand in order to offer her a chair to sit on when she lifted a hand and shook her head.

My father has killed people. Each one of her sentences came out hard and strained. There are people who want him dead. There are people who want me dead. Is that right?

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The sakada’s son’s face was now full of pity. Yes. The haciendero’s daughter didn’t flinch. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then stared again directly into the eyes of the sakada’s son. Are you one of them?

The sakada’s son met her gaze full-on, as if searching for something. Finally, he said, Not you. I don’t want you dead.

The haciendero’s daughter began to cry. They stood like that for a long while, her sobbing quietly, the sakada’s son looking on. When she was finished he offered her a napkin to wipe away her tears. *** Things changed between them once more after that day, but this time, for the better.

The sakada’s son had always managed without much trying to be kind to her, but now, the haciendero’s daughter felt like when he looked at her he was truly seeing her. And it was the same with her towards him—after that conversation, she realized that the distance between them hadn’t necessarily been bridged, but now, they saw more clearly the person who was at the other end.

They talked about many things. The sakada’s son taught her what her father never shared with her himself: how he treated their workers, always demanding more work for less pay, constantly dangling their employment above their heads lest they ever complain.

How when the workers would try to unionize, someone was always discovered by the military or the police to be a communist, and someone would always die.

All this the haciendero’s daughter took in gratefully. Her heart was a mess of guilt, fear, and anger, but she was grateful. These conversations, the way she now found herself thinking about her father—for the first time in her life she felt like she was being allowed to chart a path beyond what her family’s legacy demanded of her. Where it would all lead her, she wasn’t yet sure. But she could tell there was always something more that the sakada’s son wanted to share with her—it was in the way a certain charge lingered on his face even after he’d finished speaking as if he was constantly weighing the merits of something.

And yet between all this talk, they simply enjoyed each other’s company. There was an ease to their companionship that was rare to both of their experiences; neither could have anticipated the connection they’d made with someone so different, and their friendship was all the more valuable to them as a result. And so whenever their forty minutes or so together was over and the haciendero’s daughter had to return to school, their goodbyes were strained by a sadness that was poorly concealed.

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One day, the sakada’s son bid the haciendero’s daughter take home a nicely wrapped package—a full cassava cake for a change, the sakada’s son smiled. She clutched it close to her as she made her way back to school.

When she woke up the next morning, it took her a few moments to realize that the black hole where her desk used to be was actually a massive, shifting army of ants. They’d covered the entire package of cassava cake, the desk, and the majority of the wall that the desk rested against. Her first reaction was shock, and she felt her gut beginning to lurch, but ultimately she just stood there—deeply curious at what she was seeing. She’d never seen so many ants in one place.

She was late to school for all the time she spent staring at them, but when the servants finally discovered her frozen in place in her room and had her ushered to the car while they called an exterminator, all she could think about was how odd it was to see so many ants.

How something so innocuous could, in the right numbers, be something so much more.

When she told the sakada’s son about it he laughed, chuckling tinged with an odd sadness. ***

The ants did not go away. They seemed to, at first—after the exterminator had made his visit order was restored to the bedroom of the haciendero’s daughter, at least until she opened her toilet bowl to find that it was clogged with another heaving dark mass of ants.

More exterminators (and a plumber) were called in, but whenever a room was cleared of ants, they would just as soon appear again in another room. As ever, the haciendero’s daughter rarely saw her father, but when she did see the haciendero he was prowling the hallways, coordinating the ever-increasing army of exterminators, throwing himself against walls and the floor to listen for the trace of ants.

It was not the most comfortable situation, but today, in particular, the haciendero’s daughter was anxious. For a long while, she’d been curious about the cassava patch of the sakada’s son; even before she had him to talk to, she knew that times were hard on the land. From her bedroom window, she’d watched what felt like dozens of fires run wild in the fields, smoke billowing on the horizon—each fire, it seemed, coming closer and closer to the estate. That the sakada’s son and his family had a healthy patch of their own seemed a small miracle, and so she often asked about it, but only to elusive answers.

Until finally, the sakada’s son asked her if she’d like to see it. That day she had been deeply upset, realizing that her eighteenth birthday party was only a week away—it was in the charged silence after this realization was verbalized that the sakada’s son brought up the idea. It was at once threatening and thrilling to the haciendero’s daughter. There was, of course, the problem with getting away long enough—a lunch break period would

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not be enough time. They decided eventually on a Saturday; by this point, the haciendero was hardly minding much after her, and she simply told her driver that there was a special event at school. The entire day was hers, and as soon as she was dropped off she slipped out the back and was soon in a tricycle with the sakada’s son, conscious of the heat of his shoulders pressed against hers.

Disembarking at the beginning of a dirt road, the haciendero’s daughter and the sakada’s son went on walking. They were surrounded on all sides by sugarcane, and in the hot, sticky air, the sweet scent turned almost acrid. She’d never been this close to sugarcane, she realized. But there was also something else that began to bother her, needling at her from the corner of her mind.

When finally they reached the cassava patch, she realized what it was. Through the sugarcane, far off in the distance, she could make out the heights of her family’s ancestral house. This was their land.

The sakada’s son smiled at her, nervous and uncertain. I wanted you to know. My family, my friends—they’re afraid of you, but I trust you. I want to show them they can trust you too. He looked her in the eyes. Pleading tugged at the edge of his voice. Your father isn’t using this part of the land. We’re just trying to survive. You understand, don’t you?

The haciendero’s daughter wasn’t sure what to say. Looking at the sakada’s son, the fear and vulnerability staining his face, she felt so powerful it made her sick.

There was a long pause, but finally, with tears in her eyes, she nodded. The light in the eyes of the sakada’s son pierced right through her. She took him into her arms, and they stayed like that for a long while.

It was dark by the time she returned home. When she realized that the sun was setting, she almost flew into a panic, but the sakada’s son was able to hail a tricycle for her. They rode together to the outer gates of the estate, and she felt a powerful thrill to have him so close to her home. She had made it past several confused servants and armed guards and almost made it to her room when she remembered her driver, still waiting for her at school. *** When her father confronted her later that evening, the scent of earth and sugarcane on her was a cloud of guilt. She was sitting on her bed, and the haciendero loomed over her, a quiet, sharp, flickering light in his eyes. What were you doing? He’d come from his study, and there was the acrid smell of alcohol on his breath. Do you know how many mongrels there are among the masses? The sort of monstrosities they’d love to do to you? My daughter, my precious daughter.

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*** The haciendero’s daughter said nothing. Waiting for their confrontation, she’d wanted nothing more than to be swallowed by the earth. But now, with her father before her, she realized that she was angry. Deeply, deeply angry.

She stood up. I’m not like you, father.

The haciendero’s face rang with puzzlement. What?

I’m not afraid of the masses. I’m not a murderer like you.

The haciendero slapped her, hard. She crumbled onto her bed, the world ringing wildly.

You’re so ungrateful. Now tell me—what. Were. You. Doing.

They stared hard at each other for a long moment. The haciendero’s eyes were embers growing redder and redder, but just when it seemed like a fire was about to ignite in them, the haciendero’s daughter felt an odd sensation on the skin of her leg, and both she and her father’s eyes darted to it.

It was an ant, small and alone, crawling down her body. They each watched it for a few moments, saying nothing. When it reached the floor and began making its way towards the door, the haciendero’s daughter looked once again into her father’s eyes and found only a cold dull light. It was then that her father began laughing: massive, heaving laughs that shook his entire body, and that had no humor in them whatsoever. He followed the ant outside the door, laughing his cold humorless laugh the whole time as he locked his daughter in her room, and continued to follow the strange path of the ant as it left the house and journeyed through the estate’s fields, all the way to a lonely cassava patch at the edges of the haciendero’s land.

When the haciendero’s daughter woke up the next morning to the sound of church bells, outside her window, somewhere far into the fields of her family’s estate, she could see smoke rising. She watched as the church bells rang.

*** Days passed, and the sakada’s son was nowhere to be found. Pain and fear ringing in her ears, the haciendero’s daughter had seen the reports of a group of sakadas being slain by the police after they’d burned their illegal cassava patch. They were, the police alleged, aiding subversives. They’d fought back and needed to be taken down.

She knew there was no hope to be found in confronting her father. The haciendero had spent the past days in a raging flurry of activity, taking it upon himself to coordinate preparations for his daughter’s debut, his daughter’s debut that would compel her to forgo her foolishness and take on her birthright.

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There was too much shame weighing the family down, he would bark at no one in particular, as he oversaw the servants polish the floors to a blinding sheen.

The ghosts of the family, he was convinced, were cursing him into oblivion; this he screamed at one of his assistants after he was informed that no orchestra would agree to be flown in from abroad on account of the mega-typhoons that covered most of the oceans with ever-increasing frequency.

And so the anger in the haciendero’s daughter was left to smolder, shards of glass pin-prickling her heart without ceasing. And all the while, the ants’ inexorable march continued—armies of exterminators had been called in, but they just kept on coming, such that on the eve of the great party all of the toilets were clogged, the ovens and stoves refused to turn on, and even the great stone walls had been broken through and infiltrated by overflowing colonies. Apart from the room of the haciendero’s daughter, there was only the ballroom that had still not been completely overrun.

It was on that night—the eve of the haciendero’s daughter’s eighteenth birthday—that they came. The haciendero’s daughter woke up in the middle of the night to her father’s shouting, an unmistakable sound that sent the entire estate shivering. She clung to her blanket, petrified, until the sound gave way to silence. Unsure of what else to do, she finally found herself reaching under her bed.

She knew her father had been sleeping in the ballroom, and so there she went, trying not to step on too many ants. One entire wall of the ballroom was a massive window that overlooked the sugarcane fields, and through it now moonlight poured onto the sakada’s son and a group of men, all of whom seemed like farmers themselves. Her father had been bound up and gagged by several of the larger intruders, and now he was squirming on the floor. The eyes of the sakada’s son and his men were full of clear hatred as they watched him.

The haciendero’s daughter was aware suddenly of the gun in her hands. The intruders hadn’t brought any of their own, only bolos. She was shaking when the sakada’s son finally noticed her and turned to face her. He looked at her the same way he had at the cassava patch, that afternoon that already felt like an eternity ago: he pleaded with her with eyes that said with the cruelest, most desolate clarity, that there was nothing else he could do.

The haciendero’s daughter began to weep. She realized she agreed with him, and she dropped the gun.

The sakada’s son turned away from her and nodded to the other men. They picked up great, hefty sacks, and positioned themselves around the still squirming haciendero. As other men pinned him down, the sakada’s son took his bolo and ripped the haciendero’s stomach straight open.

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The haciendero’s scream was so powerful that the gag did almost nothing to suppress the sound. Still, the men kept him pinned firmly in place, and the sakada’s son gave a signal to the men with the sacks. They began unloading their contents right into the gaping wound—rivers of sugar. Before the haciendero could even finish registering it the other men grabbed the gag out of his mouth and, gripping it open, began also to douse his face.

The haciendero couldn’t even scream, just hiss and cough at the sugar clogging his throat.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of the haciendero, whimpering and cursing and pleading. And then the room began to darken.

The ants were beginning to cover the great window. They came from every direction, huge masses of undulating black creeping silently, unstoppably, towards the haciendero.

In the fading moonlight, the haciendero’s daughter could see her father being covered from head-to-toe until finally, he was a great black blur. The men let go of him, and his great form thrashed and thrashed, sending billowing clouds of sugar flying into the air in his wake. Blackness, moonlight, and glittering sugar—these are what the haciendero’s daughter would remember the rest of her life, the last thing she saw before she felt herself collapsing, unable to breathe.

When she woke, the sakada’s son was with her. They were on a hill overlooking her family’s estate—it was ablaze, the smell of burning ants and sugar thick in the air. In the distance, as far and as wide as she could see, there were other fires too, all of the sugarcane plantations going up in flames, the sakada’s son explained. They’d had enough.

The haciendero’s daughter asked him what was going to happen next. The sakada’s son just looked at her, fear and hope tender in his eyes, and asked her what her name was.

94 | 25TH ATENEO HEIGHTS WRITERS’ WORKSHOP