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heights vol. 61 no. 1 Copyright 2013 heights is the official literary and artistic publication and organization of the Ateneo de Manila University. Copyright reverts to the respective authors and a rtists whose works appear in this issue. No part of this book may be r eprinted 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 Creative Direction, Layout, and Jacket Illustration 1: Sun and Moon by Eugene Tuazon Photography and Divider Tattoos by Meagan Ong Jacket Illustration 2: Anchor by Sean Bautista Jacket Illustration 3: Skull by Alex Malto Modeling by Troy Ong and Cheska Mallillin Typeset in mvb Verdigris
Contents Nicko Reginio Caluya 3 Local Express 7 Shinsaibashi - suji 8 Ligaw na Salin 19 Mga Usa ng Todaiji 43 Takayama Allan Popa 4 Minsan 6 Dulang May Isang Yugto 18 Ang Mga Retirado Aidan Manglinong 5 Hawla Marc Lopez 9 Sa Iyong Naghahanap sa Nawawalang Kaharian ng Atlantis 68 Hymns of the Mountains, Dreams of the Stars Jeivi Nicdao 11 Clytemnestra at Agamemnon Ica Divinagracia 12 Personal Ad Manjo Perez 13 Sumpa ‘yan ng Sampayan Kristian Cordero 14 Lóbo sa Loob Abner E. Dormiendo 17 Kapagdaka 20 Father’s House Pia Posadas 21 Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman
Gian Lao 29 Daytime 32 December 21, 2012: A Report Keisha Kibanoff 34 Searchlight Catherina Dario 35 Flowers in the Crypt Regine Cabato 40 The Skeleton of a Tree Luis Wilfrido Atienza 41 Elephants Joanna Krystle Mungcal 42 Spaces Stephanie Shi 44 Reconciliation Stefani Tran 52 Devotional Mikael de Lara Co 53 The River, Remembered 54 A Sentiment About Color 56 Canopy 58 Tendrils Laurel Fantauzzo 60 Under My Invisible Umbrella
Art Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan 80 Objective History 93 Saul Search Lester James V. Miranda 81 We are no different Lorenzo Torres Narciso 82 [Untitled] Trisha Katipunan 83 Hermit House Robert de Angelo Bolinas 84 Space Exploration// Dimensional Analysis series: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 100 Exploration series: 2-1 / 2-2 / 2-4 Christine Mae Sta. Maria 88 Tainted Nikki Vocalan 89 Dog Bites and Bee Stings 92 Sculpture
Manuel Iñigo A. Angulo 90 A Study of Flowers 99 Tectonics Micah Barker 91 [Untitled] Matthew Darrell C. Lee 94 Prominence 95 Providence Adrian Begonia 96 Sumayaw Din Ako Krysten Alarice Tan 97 “Ours” Nicole L. Castañeda 98 Turnabout Meagan Ong 102 A Study in Folding
Editorial It is a common effect of anniversary celebrations to incite moments of self-reflexivity. After the lx Anniversary held last year, during which heights celebrated 60 years of literary and artistic excellence, a new dawn is given a chance to rise. It is not so much a clean slate but a turning of the next page in the rich story the publication has written. For the past few decades, it has been the direction of heights to explore and expand the possibilities of its scope. From the projects it established like the annual workshops for both writers and artists and the Kuwentong Pambata Book Grant to the variety of themed folios that arose during the late 1990s and early 2000s, heights has allowed itself to be open to change, further achieving the goal of keeping literature and art alive in the community. But there is one thing that has been stagnant and is continually causing controversy, albeit silently and subtly, to the immediate people the publication addresses, and this is the existence of the heights aesthetic. The heights aesthetic is said to have a checklist of what is meant to be good literature: a clear dramatic situation, the organic unity of images in the work, and a fully articulated philosophical undertone shown through paradox or irony. This kind of formula persists in the way submitted works are deliberated by the staffs in heights; if a work has accomplished all three of these points, it is then sure to be published. The framework has long formed the foundation of heights’ tradition of literary excellence. The formalist tradition of heights was needed for an understanding of the work regardless of the cultural and historical background of both the reader and the writer. Formalism has its merits; however, in the past years, heights has been conscious of works that cannot be appreciated by the formalist approach, yet are read through this framework nonetheless. This is where the problem comes in. For viii
people who now produce works that deviate from the norm—clearly, works that are experimental—there is an obvious gap. The recent editorials have talked about the rise of technology and its implications on art and the printed word. The problem of maintaining the formalist framework is that society has evolved to be more interconnected, and the movement of ideas and culture is at lightning speed. Today, writers are exposed to works that come from different contexts, leading to the plurality and reinterpretation of ideas and concepts. This kind of exploration gives rise to literary creations that break the bounds of formalism—and even the bounds of genre itself. There are more people now who bring about works that consciously react against these formalist limitations, writers of the Ateneo community included. A shift has been happening. It is high time that heights acknowledges it. It starts with going back to the core of what heights really is: As a publication, heights seeks to uphold the literary and artistic excellence of and for the Ateneo community. Through its published materials, heights aims to embody the best Atenean literature and art, and provide a platform for Atenean writers and artists to showcase their work. As an organization, heights seeks to foster a deep appreciation of Filipino literature and art. Through its various projects, heights aims to highlight the relevance of literature and art within the Ateneo community.
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This is the vision and mission statement defined by the current editorial board. There is an emphasis on the Ateneo community here—its primary viewership and the body responsible for helping create and receiving the very essence of heights. With this awareness of both the publication’s purpose and the continually changing environment, it would be a disservice to be so passive. This is a challenge to the publication. After 60 years, will heights continue to blindly uphold the tradition of formalism, or open itself to new and experimental projects? Of course, the answer is clear. The notion of the heights aesthetic—the concept that has held the publication in an ivory tower so far away from its readers—must allow itself to open up. heights does not wish to disregard formalism. It is merely expanding its aesthetic by accepting other ways of reading to ride the ever-changing movement of literature; the publication has ignored it for far too long. The publication acknowledges that it should break away from this set of established norms because it is accountable to its community of readers and writers. Certainly, it is a big challenge. The intimacy of language and all other elements in a work can be felt, should it be approached with openness and not with a checklist of things to look for. A good work transcends formal qualities that can be reduced to convention. As one can see in this folio, most of the pieces show the elements of a formal work at play. There is poetry in Filipino that exhibits translations of the unfamiliar, whether of foreign countries, of borrowed form, or of overlooked experiences. “Sa Iyong Naghahanap sa Nawawalang Kaharian ng Atlantis” by Marc Lopez offers a display of passion in the midst of impermanence. Nicko Reginio Caluya’s poems transform glimpses of art, scenes, and experiences of Japan, including (mis)translations of haikus by great Japanese poets, into elegant Filipino. Alongside these works is Jeivi Nicdao’s appropriation of surrealist technique in “Clytemnestra at Agamemnon,” which bears no mark of struggle from appropriating French Aurélien Dauguet’s echo poetry. x
Finally, “Reconciliation� by Stephanie Shi is valued precisely for its irreplaceable experience in reading. Given this, heights only wishes to call for an understanding that literature is not just a form of communication, but also an art form to be enjoyed. What the publication is more concerned with is upholding good literature of and for the Ateneo community. This can be accomplished through the desire to grow from the tradition, identity, and, indeed, the heights aesthetic. Audrey Mae Ferriol September 2013
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nicko reginio caluya
Local Express Bagtasin sa kasalungat na linya ang nakaraang lungsod at tanawin ang anumang hinaharap sa kanya, nilakbay na rin ng ibang tingin. Pag - uwi, matutuklasan lang niya ang payo dati, ngayon aralin: “Manamit ng kimono sa Kyoto; sa Osaka mabusog at malango.”
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allan popa
Minsan Tumatabas sa katahimikan ang hugong ng mga makina. Lalabas ka ng iyong tahanan para tiyakin na nasa labas ito ng iyong isipan. Mapapatda ka sa akmang pagtingala sa hindi mabilang na parasyut na isa-isang namumukadkad sa ere. Bakit ka uurong, tatalikod at tatakbo upang likumin sa iyong mga bisig ang mga mahal sa buhay o mga bagay na kahalili ng pagmamahal sa buhay kung ito na marahil ang huling pagkakataong makatatanaw ka ng kariktan na kasinlawak ng kalangitan? Sadyang nakamamangha ang kayang likhain ng tao. Kariktang pira - piraso at panandaliang masusulyapan mula rito sa mga mata ng tulad mong tumingala rin minsan sa iisang perpektong sandali na may buong pananampalataya; Kariktang masusulyapan at ikadudurog ng buong - puso.
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aidan manglinong
Hawla Kumakalampag ka sa rehas na iyong iniukit sa aking kalamnan, isang sining sa pagkapatda. Gumuguhit muli ang iyong daliri ng mga santo sa kawang. Nagiging madali ang pagbitaw, minsan nang naging madali ang paghihintay. Inabang ang pagbitaw kung saan nabubuo ang iyong kariktan. Bawat pagpiglas, isang sayaw. Pinapanood ang mga aninong namamanhik sa dingding, kinukumutan ang iyong pusong nakasandal sa aking mga bisig, bumubulong ng hinagpis. Sinta, dinggin. Saan nanggaling ang lamig at ako’y nasasamid?
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allan popa
Dulang May Isang Yugto Ang Pastor: dala ang mabuting balita na malapit nang magunaw ang mundo;
Ang Manggagawa:
Ang Ina:
mula sa welgang walang marating na kasunduan; may kargang sanggol sa paglikom ng pamasahe pauwi sa sinilangang bayan.
Tangan - tangan ang kani - kanilang sisidlan, lulan ang mga tauhan ng isang bus na naglalakbay lagpas sa huling hantungan dinidinig sa alaala ang kalansing ng limos na ibinigay mo minsan, dahilan upang mapagpatuloy sa walang humpay na paghahanap ng kani-kaniyang katarungan, mga salita: Pastor, Manggagawa, Ina na lumulutang lagpas sa anumang batayan, palayo sa mundong matagal nang nagunaw.
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nicko reginio caluya
Shinsaibashi - suji Nasa iisang linya ang pamilihan ng bawat produktong magkakabilang, at sa linyang ito, uso ang iisang wika: sa nagsasanga - sangang sampayan ng mundo, pinagtatagpi-tagpi at pinagtatagpo - tagpo ang sining ng pang-aakit at pagbabalatkayo, binabagtas ng daan - daang taong nawawalan ng panahon upang makisabay sa mga katulad niyang ayaw maging katulad ng kanyang katabi, at higit silang umiindayog mula sa isa’t isa kaysa sa tahimik na alon ng karatig na ilog, at sa tuwing mararating na ang kaduluduluhan, mahuhuli na rin ng dating at hindi na maibabalik ang dating suot, ang maling sukli, at ang pagod na binuno sa mga bagay na natatastas, napupunit, nalulukot, at sa linyang ito, lahat naluluma.
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nicko reginio caluya
Ligaw na Salin Basho
matandang lawa... palaka’y lumulundag sa tunog - tubig
Buson
simoy ng gabi... basang hita ng bughaw na kandangaok
Issa isang dalagang nagdadala sa dagim— dalampasigan Shiki
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sa pagsasagwan papalabas ng hamog dagat kay lawak
marc lopez
Sa Iyong Naghahanap sa Nawawalang Kaharian ng Atlantis Mababakas sa mga alon ang iyong kapalaran. Sinasabi sa isang teorya na nagmula ka sa kalawakan ng karagatan. Isang mahabang proseso ng pagbibigkis. Mga atomong nagsasa -molekula. Libo -libong taon ng paguugnay ugnay hanggang sa mabuo ang isang organismo, at maisulat ang kanyang unang paggalaw. Pumapatungo ang lahat sa nakatakdang pag - ahon, ang dakilang pagtupad sa inatas. Isang pagbebendisyon sa lupa na malalapatan, sa unang pagkakataon, ng bakas ng iyong pagtapak. Magsisilbi itong kanlungan hanggang sa puntong dadalhin ka muli ng iyong mga paa patungo rito sa pampang. Gayundin, ang mga pagguho. Darating ang puntong dudulog ka ngunit walang makaririnig, at magtitilad -tilad ang iyong mga pagsusumamo sa oras na ibuga mo na ang huling hininga. Alam kong naguguluhan ka at nais mong magnilay kaya pinipili mo itong pag -iisa. Halika. Papawiin ko ang iyong mga lunggati. Huwag mangamba. Kung sa pagpapatihulog, di na kakailanganin pang intayin ang pagsaklolo ng iyong mga anghel. Ni walang kailangang sumalo. Hayaan mong ang aking mga galamay ang gumabay sa iyo sa banayad na banayad na pagdausdos. Sandali lamang ito. Ngunit hindi ko maipapangako na magiging madali ang lahat. Maghahabol ka sa iyong hininga at habang palalim nang palalim ang binabagtas, madarama mo rin ang padiin nang padiin na bigat na maniniksik sa iyong mga tainga. Matapos ang ilang saglit, hindi ka na makaririnig. Unti - unti ring maglalaho ang liwanag. Mawawalan ka ng paningin. Ngunit di na
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kakailanganin pa ang lahat ng ito. Ganoon talaga. Sa mga naghahanap, kailangang may iwanan upang makausad. Sa pagtapak lamang sa kailaliman magkakaroon ng saysay ang lahat. Walang - wala ang pagpapakasakit na ito. Mamanahin mo ang yamang nilimot, kadakilaan na tulad mo ay minsang tumindig sa ibabaw ng lupa at sa puntong ito ay nakahanap ng puwang dito sa panibagong daigdig. Ito ang kaganapan, at ito akong nang - aanyaya, sa bawat paghampas ng alon sa dalampasigan. Nakaabang ako sa iyong pagbabalik.
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jeivi nicdao
Clytemnestra at Agamemnon May isinabit ka sa aking tainga, hikaw na brilyanteng lilom ng dugo’t ugat. Nakaharang sa ating mga katawan ang kasaysayang pinulaan ni Atenas at ng ating mga bathala. Mali bang umasa sa digmaan kung dalawang puso ang siyang ligaya at tusong kamatayan nitong birheng bukung - bukong? Mali bang magngalit kung ang kaluluwa ko’y mortal at dilag na naipit sa inyong duguang sandata? Nakapiling mo ako sa mga talulot at tinik ng unibersong ito, at isinulat natin ang kasukdulan ng pag - ibig at dasal. Hindi parangal ni Aprodita ang mga labi mong nakasasakal. Nang ibinaon ko sa iyo ang espada, doon ko lamang nalaman.
Ikaw ang laan sa gaya kong ilag; iling at angal ng laman.
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ica divinagracia
Personal Ad (Sa lokal na diyaryo) Hanap: Lalaking mahilig sa mga tula At may mahabang pasensya Para sa babaeng nakakakita Ng mga duwende at diwata.
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manjo perez
Sumpa ‘yan ng Sampayan Kapansin-pansing nakalambitin ang iyong bagong pulang polo katabi ng mga kapwa nagpapaaraw na pink na sando at salawal Hindi ba’t ikaw ang nagturo sa ‘kin na dapat ihiwalay ang mga de - kolor sa mga puti?
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kristian cordero
Lóbo sa Loob * I. Sinunggaban ng lóbo ang hari. Ibinaon ng hayop ang kanyang pangil at kuko— abot-buto, at kinain ang puso ng kanyang bihag. Gumawa ng bitag ang mga kawal at nahuli ang salarin, pinakain ito ng palaso at pagkatapos sinunog. Mula sa apoy, lumabas ang kanilang hari. II. Naghuhukay ang lóbo sa parang. Hindi siya maaaring magkamali. Dito. Nakita niyang inilibing ng pastol ang patay na alaga. Patuloy na lumalalim ang hukay at bumubula-bula ang kanyang laway. Pumapasok sa kanyang sentido ang amoy ng nabubulok na kordero. Ngunit wala itong makita kahit isang hibla ng buhok: parang bombang sumabog ang kanyang magkakasunod na ungol. III. May lóbo sa loob ng tabernakulo. Sabi ng diyakono kung kayâ nabitiwan niya ang mga konsagradong hostiya. Dahil sa natapon ang katawan ng Diyos, at sa sinabing pambihirang bisyon, lumigwak ang ilang haka-haka tungkol sa ministro: ‘Malamang sinasapian ng yawa ang kapatid natin.’ ‘Nasa lahi na raw.’ ‘May kapatid itong nagpatiwakal sa dagat at naglakad daw minsang hubo’t hubad ang nanay sa poblasyon.’ * Ikatlong Gantimpala, Tula, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards para sa Panitikan
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‘Palibhasa taga-isla iyan.’ Pampalubag-loob ang ginawa ng kura para ipaliwanag ang nakitang lóbo diumano ng kanyang diyakano. Narito ang katalogo ng mga banal: ‘Dinidilaan ng mga aso ang ketong ni Lazaro.’ ‘May nakabuntot na asong may dalang tinapay ang kay San Roque.’ Asong may tala sa noo at may daso ang kasama ni Santo Domingo.’ ‘Sa lóbo ang mukha ng dragon na kinakatay ni San Gregorio.’ ‘May napaamong lóbo si San Francisco at ang mga lóbong ito ay ang angkang pinagmulan ng mga aso. Sagradong lóbo kung gayon ang nagpapakita sa parokya.’ ‘Hindi kayâ naguguluhan ka lang at kailangan mong magpahinga.’ Ang payo ng obispo. Tugon ng diyakano: ‘Paano ko maipagkakamali iyon, Mahal na Reberensya? Hindi ba’t makatuwiran lamang na naroroon ang isang lóbo sa loob ng tabernakulo dahil nandoon rin ang mga pinakamaamong tupa, ang kordero ng diyos na mag-aalis ng mga kasalanan sa mundo? Kayâ kailangan nating agarang iligtas ang buong kawan.’ At saka niya ipinakita ang ilang durog na hostiya na dinukot niya mula sa loob kanyang bulsa. IV. Nakaupo ako noon sa likod ng pulang traysikel papuntang Plaza Rizal nang biglang magkabuhol-buhol ang daloy ng mga sasakyan dahil sa paradang dumaan na may mga kasamang hayop na mascot, parang abuhing lobo. Namimigay pa ng mga lobong may imprenta ng mukha ng isang pilantropong tiyak na tatakbo.
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Napamura ako sa loob ko. Nang mapansin kong huminto ang kulay berdeng sasakyan ng Provincial Jail sa mismong tapat ko. Sa loob nito, may tatlong bilanggo ang nag-uusisa rin sa nangyaring paghinto. Malamang mula sila sa Tinambac at ililipat na sa Tinangis. Napatingin ang isa sa akin. Gumanti ako ng tingin. Kumurap kami nang sabay. Ilang minuto pa, umarangkada na ang mga sa sasakyan. Sa loob-loob ko, ipinagkaloob sa aking makita ang itim na sarimaw ni Rilke.
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abner e. dormiendo
Kapagdaka Binubulabog Ng aking presensya Ang lawa ngayong umaga. Ganito ako magparamdam Sa mga hindi nakakaramdam: Pagsayad ng paa sa lupa Daliri sa pinakamakinis na batong Tatagpo sa aking mga mata At kapagdaka Ang paghagis nito Sa payapang mukha ng lawa— Ang tahimik niyang kilapsaw Na hudyat ng paglubog. Panatag ang aking loob Na babalik ang lahat Sa katahimikan.
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allan popa
Ang Mga Retirado Ang nakaraan kanilang sandalan. Iisa ang anggulo ng pagkahilis ng mga butakang nakahanay sa kahabaan ng baybayin. Natuos; napag - ipunan; nasiguro ang mga katawan nakamuwestra sa pagharap sa dagat.
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nicko reginio caluya
Mga Usa ng Todaiji Sa kasagsagan ng taglagas hindi lang sanga ang nalalaglag. Natutuhan namin ito pagtanda, tulad ng halaga ng paggalang sa anumang inihahain ng palad o hinuhulog sa daan. Yumuko sa pagsang - ayon at pagpulot ng mga biskwit na paghahatian ng labinlima o higit pa, nagbabakasakaling mahulog din ang loob nila at magbigay pa. Sa ganitong paraan, mananatili ang aming bansag na pambansang kayamanang inaalagaan at ginagalang. Hile - hilera ang mga karatula sa bawat kalsada: naiintindihan nila ang ibig sabihin ng dati naming anino. Hindi nila gusto ang mabundol ng mga sasakyan. Subalit hindi na nila alintana ang wika sa likod ng aming mga mata, nagbabakasakaling pagtitig mababakas nila ang nawawala sa simula: sa kasagsagan ng taglagas hindi lang sanga ang nalalaglag.
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abner e. dormiendo
Father’s House The 90 - year - old clock shattered when father stormed out of the house and knocked down everything that got in his way. Mother cried as the sound of breaking glass filled the house looming with silence for some time now. It was unfortunate. That clock was the only thing working in this household.
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pia posadas
Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman It was the year 2000, the dawn of a new era. The big question wasn’t “How will you change the world?” or “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” It was “Who do you like better, Britney or Christina?” You never needed to mention their last names, they were like Cher, Prince or Madonna — you just knew. In my first-grade class, the answer to this question could make or break friendships. Battle lines were drawn over these eight words; endless debates raged over their singing, their dancing, their outfits, their hairstyles, their love lives. In case you’ve been living on Pluto for the past decade, Britney Spears is one of the most iconic and best - selling female artists in the world. I was a loyal supporter of Team Britney. Years later, I would argue that although Christina Aguilera undoubtedly had the superior singing voice, Britney Spears had more theatricality and stage presence. Back then, I didn’t care about such nonsense. I was just obsessed with the song “...Baby One More Time”; there she was in her music video, in her flirty high school uniform and braided pigtails, confidently sauntering and strutting down the hallways. Would I be as fearless as her, I wondered, when I entered high school? Her music isn’t particularly profound, but even when I entered high school and thought that I had outgrown her, I sometimes felt that her music could speak to me. It was never the sensual single “Toxic” or the aggressive anthem “Womanizer” that I could relate to but rather the vulnerable yet upbeat “Overprotected” where she sings about being tired of, well, feeling overprotected. (Subtlety is not one of Britney Spears’ strong suits.) Being an only child and having an overprotective mother means that she used to make sure I had a yaya at all times when I went to the mall with friends and that she used to follow me during school field trips just to make sure I was “doing okay.” It isn’t that I feel the need to drink and party or live away from
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home; I just want to know that I can, should I ever want to. As Britney croons, “I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am.” From appearances alone, we are more different than we are alike. She is an all - American blonde; I am a Spanish - Chinese Filipino brunette. She briefly dated Justin Timberlake; I briefly dated a pillow of Orlando Bloom as Legolas from The Lord of the Rings. She has seven chart - topping albums with fans from all around the world; I sing out of tune, even when I am just in the shower. Although I have since broadened my musical tastes, I have always kept an eye on her career (and her juicy personal life) and an ear on her latest hits. I am proud to be a child of the ’90s — I had the time of my life growing up surrounded by Nickelodeon cartoons and dreamy boy bands. What I did not realize until much later on was that as I was growing up, Britney was too. * Aside from being a proud child of the ’90s, I am also proud to be a city girl who was born and raised in Metro Manila. The first few years of my life were uneventful. I preferred the company of storybooks to Barbie dolls and I spent many a quiet afternoon helping out at the small parlor my mother owned a few blocks away from our modest townhouse in San Antonio Village. “Helping out” simply meant I would arrange the bottles of nail polish by different shades of red and make disproportionate cotton balls out of rolls of cotton while my mother attended to the customers. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to grow up the way Britney Spears did. While she may have been born in the rural area of Kentwood, Louisiana, her childhood was anything but dull. At three, she began taking dance and voice lessons and dominating local talent shows. At five, she made her stage debut by belting out “What Child Is This?” at her kindergarten graduation. At eight, she auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club and moved to New York so that she could study at the Professional Performing Arts School. She was a prodigy. And me? I was drawing stick figures at three and playing Ice 22
Ice Water at five. The highest praise I had earned by the age of eight can be found on a tiny certificate I received upon my kindergarten graduation declaring that I was “wise beyond my years.” Aside from discovering the magic of “...Baby One More Time,” the first of Britney’s many chart-topping hits, grade one was also the first time I ever experienced being bullied. My seatmates, Cara and Bea, had found out that the name of the male guard stationed at Gate 6 was Romeo. It was completely logical for them to get it into their heads that he was looking for a Juliet, who, for reasons I still cannot fathom to this very day, had to be me. Every recess time, they would try to persuade me, sometimes even by physically dragging me, to visit him and give him a peck on the cheek. The very idea of it revolted me. The only people I could kiss that way were my parents! This went on for about a month, a lifetime for a seven year old. At the canteen one lunchtime, Cara conspiratorially whispered to me that if I bought her and Bea barbeque for lunch, they would drop the whole thing. A way out, at long last! I instantly and ecstatically agreed. The next day, they were at it again. Cara had lied — as Britney declares in her follow up single, “Oops, I did it again!” I tried to hide what was happening from my parents because I didn’t want them to overreact and lose Cara and Bea’s “friendship” but one day, I accidentally let it slip. They made sure that my class adviser properly chastised my seatmates. Looking back now, I wish I could have stood up for myself but I trusted them and I wanted them to like me. I wonder what Britney would have said had she been there. Would she have told me to stop being so naïve? Or would she have told me to surprise them and beat them at their own game? She has, after all, mastered turning people’s expectations upside down. Audiences had her pegged as an innocent schoolgirl, albeit a little raunchier, but jaws dropped when she performed at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards wearing a sequined flesh - colored body suit. In his review of Britney’s music, Guy Blackman argues that she “maintained her high currency in the world’s most fickle industry for years, while most aspiring starlets are lucky to manage months.” Performing “I’m a Slave 4 U” with a caged tiger and a 23
python, kissing Madonna in front of millions of viewers at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, acting as a stripper for her “Gimme More” video, posing nude for the cover of Harper’s Bazaar — Britney pushed boundaries and became more and more provocative as the years went by, to the point that groups like the American Family Association (AFA) condemned her as being immoral and accused her of corrupting young minds. Yes, I was scandalized by my idol’s overt sexuality but my feelings did nothing to diminish her success. She was unstoppable, taking over the music scene with her youthful charm and dynamic dance moves. Her risks paid off. She wasn’t just another teen pop idol, she had transformed into an icon. She was going to do her own thing and everyone else just had to deal with it. This kind of reckless courage was one I admired from a young age, one I admittedly have yet to emulate. * Slowly but surely, I established myself as “the smart girl who can help you with your homework.” There were many times I could have used Britney’s nerve to avoid being a doormat (“Pia, can I borrow your homework?,” “Pia, can I photocopy your notes?”) but in an all-girls school, the pressure to feel accepted and needed by my peers proved to be stronger than my desire to keep my notebooks to myself. I wasn’t particularly active in extracurricular activities (read: no talents) but I was happy with my grades, I was happy with my big barkada and most importantly, my parents were happy with me. They were especially happy when I graduated as valedictorian of my grade school batch. Much like what Britney must have thought at the height of her career, everything was going swimmingly. * “Pia, we don’t know how to break this to you but... we don’t want to hang out with you anymore.” Social disaster struck on the first day of sophomore year. My barkada looked everywhere but at me 24
when they frostily informed me that they no longer wanted me to eat lunch with them. I had become clingy. I didn’t know how to respect their space, it was “weird.” I wasn’t the person they had befriended in grade school. The icing on top of the cake was when they left the classroom carrying the birthday gifts I had bought for them over the summer. They couldn’t hang out with me but they could take my gifts? To say that my self-esteem had been shattered would be the understatement of the century. This time, however, neither my parents nor my class adviser could do anything about it. This was my burden to carry and mine alone. I cried for days on end, especially when I accidentally caught old reruns of Friends on TV. I tore up old photographs into teeny tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. I wrote motivational quotes on post-its and stuck them to my bookshelf in an attempt to raise my spirits. I questioned every word I had spoken and everything I had done in the last three years — what had been the trigger? I blanched at the thought of lunch at school because that would mean I would eat alone and in high school, it was just unbearable. I thought I could feel people staring at me as I walked down the corridors. Perhaps it was all in my head, but anyone who has been caught in the throes of a nightmare knows that it still feels real. At least I had the convenience of having someone to blame. Britney did not. While it is unfortunate that the injury she sustained from a music video shoot has since hampered her dancing, she only has herself to blame for the rest of her disastrous personal escapades. It all went downhill from the moment she married and separated from her childhood friend, Jason Alexander, in the space of 55 hours in Las Vegas. Later that year, she married her former backup dancer, Kevin Federline. Nathan Rabin of The AV Club describes him as a “... Caucasia - cornrows enthusiast, self - professed former drug - dealer, current full-time stoner ... an insidious human parasite…” So no, not the best husband material. She filed for divorce, went to rehab, left rehab, shaved her head, was photographed stepping out of a car without underwear, lost custody of her sons, was briefly hospitalized at a psychiatric ward, attacked a car with an umbrella, was involved 25
in several hit-and-run accidents, went back to rehab then left rehab again. (Not necessarily in that order.) Every single mistake was captured by the relentless paparazzi and broadcast by the 24 - hour news cycle; much like a train wreck, people were horrified by what they saw but found it impossible to turn away. * It took a long time for me to gain my confidence back and to shake off the feeling of “what if” hovering over me, that one day I would say the wrong thing and the next day, my friends would wake up and realize they were better off without me. Still, I can wholeheartedly say that the whole situation was a blessing in disguise because had that not happened, I would not have found the friends I have now who I know are just as weird and just as clingy as me. These ten girls made my last three years of high school so memorable — cramming research papers for English class, surprising each other with birthday cakes and balloons, talking for hours on end in a bunk bed in our Tagaytay retreat house, singing songs from Les Misérables and Rent at the top of our lungs, riding the Rio Grande Rapids at Enchanted Kingdom over and over again until we felt we were drenched enough. As I became less and less self - conscious, I became more active in extra - curricular activities. I joined the school paper, I was assigned to be a committee head for junior prom and senior ball and I became the editor-in-chief of my batch’s yearbook. With every day that passed, my memory of that terrible first day of school dissolved as I felt more and more fulfilled in what I was doing. As for the indomitable Britney Jean Spears, she is working on her comeback too. While some critics have expressed their doubts about her being fully recovered from her troubles, many agree that her star will continue to shine despite these setbacks. Her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale, was released last March and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Britney received the MTV Video Vanguard Award or the Lifetime Achievement Award, given to musicians for their 26
outstanding contribution to the MTV culture. Her Femme Fatale Tour opened to positive reviews and even in her personal life, Britney is making a comeback of sorts as well. Last December, she revealed to the media that she is engaged to Jason Trawick, her boyfriend and former manager. MTV blogger James Montgomery admits that, “she inspires in ways I do not understand, she survives in ways I cannot comprehend, and she endures. She has outlasted almost every one of her contemporaries, she has become a measuring stick and a cautionary tale and an icon.” Whatever you might say about her flaws, you cannot deny that she captures your attention. What is the secret to her 12 - year career? I believe it is the fact that she is incredibly human. While her songs are often quite vapid, the defiant “Piece of Me” was surprisingly insightful as it gave us a glimpse of the person beneath all the glamour. As Guy Blackman says, “It’s Spears’ first public response to the hysteria surrounding her, and works wonderfully to personalise her experience, making it clear that there is a real woman under all the layers of scrutiny.” I have witnessed her meteoric rise to stardom, her shocking fall from grace and her gradual return to sanity. We’ve all made mistakes, albeit at not so grand a scale, and she is a character we can certainly relate to. People might claim to hate her or find her passé as opposed to the likes of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift or Nicki Minaj but she is not an artist we will easily forget. * If there was anything I took away from what my former barkada said when they confronted me, it was “You weren’t the person we befriended in grade school.” I took it as a criticism back then but I’ve come to realize that honestly, how many of us are still exactly the way we were when we were in grade school? More importantly, would we even want to be? Personally, I’d like to think I’ve become more outgoing and laid-back. Change is constant and while we usually take it to mean something negative, we forget it can mean a change for the better. Certainly, the heavily Auto -Tuned Britney I hear now on the 27
dance - pop hit “Till The World Ends” isn’t the Britney I grew up with back in the day; she has grown older and hopefully, wiser. While the unfortunate events of my first-grade and sophomore year are behind me, I cannot say that they are completely so. There are still some habits I am unable to shake off, such as being hesitant to tell people I miss them because I’m afraid they will think I’m clingy and constantly apologizing for things that aren’t really my fault for fear of accidentally offending someone. (I’ve even apologized for apologizing too much.) Similarly, Britney’s catastrophic errors in judgment still haunt her. She is not yet in complete control of her life — her father, James Spears, is still her court - appointed conservator and has been making all the legal and financial decisions on her behalf since 2008. In a clip from Britney’s ill - fated reality TV show with her exhusband, Britney & Kevin: Chaotic, she looks straight into the camera and proclaims, “I feel like I’ve been missing out on life.” It is a feeling I often get, whenever I take a break from my busy schedule and really mull over my life. Now that I’ve turned eighteen, I’ve had a debut, learned how to drive and even drank a wee bit of alcohol. Still, I can’t help but feel like there must be more to life. When I push myself to do well in school and sacrifice more entertaining endeavors, I wonder what the point of all my effort is. In the video, it seems as if it is a realization that has just dawned on Britney. (Kevin insists that it is because of “all the partying.”) Neither of us are where we want to be yet but I have faith that we’ll figure it out somehow; perhaps underneath all her fame and riches, we aren’t so different after all.
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gian lao
Daytime These days sunlight is an ally, I think of what I forget: the clouds of smoke amid city buildings. The dust lifted into the air. And the voice of that toddler with no last words, though you know she was about to say something that meant “Please.” What does death do to our sunny days but make them feel as if there’s more aliveness to go around? All I know is when I die, I want it to rain. I want friends on my Facebook saying “I love you.” Even the ones I didn’t love. I want them to say that my last poem was sadder than my death; and I want the music of a thunderstorm conducted by the Lord himself. But I know I am just a descendant of boatmen, whose great uncle could have died of a toe infection.
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Meaning: I’m not getting any of this. I don’t know if there’s advice left for me, but at least I’m done sitting in the negotiating room with Death. He’s given me X days and the promise of a new name and all I wonder now is: Is breathing bad for you? Do sighs kill? Is laughter an acceleration of life or a prolonging? I learned a lesson when my friend got shot. It was with the first girl I kissed after getting the phone call. I knew I deserved it. Not the death. The kiss. Live long enough and you know that sad can’t be the opposite of happy. It’s about getting them in the same room and making sense of the sentences that don’t go together: It is sunny outside; and a sailor prays he can make it to coast. Some gulls terrorize the harbor; and most terrorists enjoy good vodka. The smoke exits the factory chimney; and a child is eating ice cream in cold weather. 30
And then they blindside you. The truly difficult. Thomas is dead and I am in love; and no one in this earth is tallying the days left; no one composing the song they will remember us by; the poem that can tell you everything is as it should be: There is no great migration of birds. It is doomsday only for a few thousand of us. And we cannot yet count the people rowing boats in a lake with their children, laughing this very moment.
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gian lao
December 21, 2012: A Report Once, I believed the Mayans. An adolescent in his pajamas, dozing off to the Discovery Channel, past bedtime. At the age, precisely, when bedtimes were past their own bedtimes, and they were all sailing into that old horizon like the best of our unremembered dreams. That was the first I saw, too, of the country of desire — how there are places that can be close and far, both at once. A never - ending park that succeeds a never - ending sea. My greatest question was an old one: Will we get there before the End? Will I love? Will I hold a girl’s neck and kiss her and like it? Blessed, I feel, to be wrong. Where I stand now is not the brink of the discovery of love. I have lived in that city. Battled with its coin laundries. Passed out in its train cars. That city and its war of urban life has sunk. I’ve prayed
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at the grave of old loves that vaguely smell like that dog we all grew up with who we couldn’t pet one last time before they entered that cold room. Look, the evening is sweeping the sky to make room for morning. What comes next is coming next. Here we all are. Loveless and newly young. Entire histories of galaxies unfolding above us. The world, repeating that trick it mastered only yesterday. Spinning.
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  keisha kibanoff
Searchlight after Walter de la Mare
Slowly, silently, now the moon prowls a quiet night. As vine cradles root, her skin hums with attention: here are rivers almost touching grasslands farther than the eye can see, the rest are imagined. There is only the moon now dipping slowly into a hush, silently closing her eyes.
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catherina dario
Flowers in the Crypt The woman in the photos was not there when Lolo died. She was not there when they wrapped up his body and wheeled him to the morgue, nor was she at his wake when each of us bent to kiss his cold, pallid forehead. On the day the oven lit up, I expected her to burst through the door, press her face against the glass divider and weep while Lolo turned into ash. But the funeral went by along with the rosaries and novenas, plates of puto and pandesal; the ornate flower arrangements embellished with long, silk ribbons that read: O U R D E E PE S T C O N D O L E N C ES TO T H E GA RC I A FAMILY. I waited for her; I imagined her wearing the silver cocktail dress that we found under Lolo’s bed. I remembered how Lola whipped out her scissors and cut it until it was nothing more but a pile of shredded satin. I did not know about Remedios — that was her name, I found out soon after — because Lolo hid her very well. She was invisible during our beach trips, when he would prop me on his shoulders and carry me along the shore. He would tell me all his stories about his hometown, his adventures in the war, my beautiful Lola and how much he loved her. He told me neither of the house in Antipolo and the cousins I’ve never met, and when I learned them through the cigarettes and coffee my mother and her sisters meditated over I felt Remedios creep up on me like a ghost. I did not know if Lolo really loved us, and I was not sure if he really knew how. There was a moment, sixty years ago, in his home in Bataan. My mother told me that my great grandma stood at the top of the stairs, hurling at her husband a heavy, leather suitcase. Lolo sat on the carpet below, listening to her scream that she did not love him and she never did. Out his father went and in came another. Lolo’s mother had been making love to his gangly piano teacher for years and it took only the departure of his father to finally conceive the three stepsiblings 35
that Lolo eventually grew up with. The next time he saw his father, he was dressed in a black suit and standing over a bullet-laden corpse. He was twelve years old with half a dozen more siblings pressed against another woman’s breast. He said that the woman didn’t even know of him; he never expected her to. He left for the war. The year the Japanese broke into his house and took two of his half-sisters was the same year he found himself outside their military camp, telling the soldiers that he knew how to cook rice and polish shoes. For nearly three years he starched uniforms and poured sake, almost collapsing under the deafening siren of the air raids that jolted him awake at night. When the war was over, he went back home to his mother’s house. By that time his piano teacher had died of lupus and she sat alone on the wicker chair, scarcely lifting her head as she told him: “Oh, Exequiel. Buhay ka pala.” He could not forget those words; how his mother’s vacant eyes looked past his broad, stocky shoulders and the moustache that grazed his upper lip. He did not know her at all, and after she had sold their piano the only sound in their house was the tapping of her fingernails against her tocador. When Lolo left for university, she sat on the bench and watched the bus whisk him away. He did not say goodbye. It was in Manila where Lolo started smoking; selling handwritten poems off to friends and classmates who wanted to please their lovers. He was driftwood — taking in all sorts of odd jobs to pay for the series of apartments that he rented. The only way to finish his studies was to wake up at dawn and open the gates of the university every morning, and he was relentless at it. He became a journalist, a businessman; a husband. He married Lola two months after he published an article about the most beautiful girl on campus: Narcisa Cortez, 18 years old. 5'1, curly hair, high cheekbones. Cebuana. I had often thought that it was their abrupt, passionate romance that led their marriage to ruin. Lola sold her mother’s jewellery in order to pay for the wedding, and until Lolo landed a steady job in the newspaper did they move out of his sister’s house. 36
He worked nights chasing after politicians, inspecting car accidents; searching for tapeworms in eateries. He came home to a wife too young and too eager to bear a man with his ambition. She had pools to swim in and cigarettes to smoke; she could not wait for the phone to ring and Lolo’s Mustang to appear in the garage. It was almost inevitable that Remedios would come along. I never met the woman, but all I know is that she had long, white legs and copper hair at the time Lolo hired her to work in his office. I do not know if she was his secretary or another journalist — Lola never told me and my mother could not bring herself to. But as the Polaroid showed, she was tireless on the dance floor and she loved drinking champagne. She was not as beautiful as Lola, but Lolo took her to Japan and Switzerland; bought her gowns and diamonds. He took their children to the beach, and he also propped them on his shoulders as they walked along the shore. For years, I harboured a coagulated bitterness inside me. My mother told me of the moment her car came to a halt at the traffic light and found herself staring at Lolo’s Mustang humming right next to her. In the backseat was a girl wearing a school uniform, about ten years younger than she was. That evening, when Lolo sat me on his lap and read to me his copy of Don Quixote, his words seemed to muck out of his throat. I could not listen; could not look at him. How could I love somebody who did not know how to love? I was 11 years old when he got a stroke. The phone call at two in the morning informed us that Lolo had collapsed in his apartment and suffered multiple seizures. The CT scan showed that his brain had several distensions and swelled up his skull like a balloon. I did not shed the lightest tear, not even after he slipped into a coma. When the drugs had seeped in and he finally opened his eyes, he was no longer Lolo. He was a vegetable. He lived for two more years. After months in Medical City, we transferred him back to his apartment in Makati. My mother converted his bedroom into a hospital ward, and soon the curtains smelled like antiseptic and the drone of the lifeline monitor filled our ears. I hated visiting him and I fabricated stories so that I wouldn’t 37
have to go: piles of homework, a migraine, “Sorry, I think I have practice for the school play.” I grew numb to the weeping of my family. Lolo was a shell, and so was I. On his last days, Lolo nursed a fever and a bout of pneumonia. Lola had decorated his room with statues of the Sto. Niño and novena cards of the saints. The incessant prodding of my mother drove me to visit him, and while a priest prayed over the live corpse that was Lolo, I sat in the cold, leatherette couch at the back of the room. My sister beckoned me to come closer and hold Lolo’s hand; watch his hollow eyes blink at me while I murmured a prayer under my breath. “Lord, bless this loving man,” I heard the priest say. The knot in my throat tightened. On April 19, 2008, I held Lolo for the last time. I remember standing above his pale, stiff cadaver as the man wiped his face with an acrid-smelling ointment. My mother insisted that the morgue was too heavy for a young girl like me, but I insisted on going. I wanted to know what it was like to look at a dead person enveloped inside a cold casket. I expected Lolo to open his eyes, sit up, stretch his arms and say “That was a good nap!” while ambling out of the coffin with a glow on his face. It was a scary, bizarre idea and when I touched the icy coldness of his skin, I could not believe that I wanted it to happen. My family told me to give him a eulogy. I declined. After watching Lola break down during the wake, I was afraid that the same thing would happen to me. I listened to my titos and titas recite speeches, quote poetry or movies that Lolo liked. Friends of his would come up to the podium and repeat themselves with: “Exequiel was a remarkable man” over and over again. I went home with the words generous and loving glued to my brain. My chest tightened as I thought about them. The post-funeral events kept my family busy. Distant relatives would appear out of nowhere, carrying baskets of wine or fruit and sending in cards that read: We offer our deepest comforts. So many people came to the house to comfort my heartsick Lola, and I could not count the number of masses we attended; how many candles we lit; how many friends that told me that my Lolo was in a 38
better place. I wondered if Lolo really went to heaven. When I saw the flowers hanging on the knob of his crypt, I knew that he did. I was alone when I saw it. There hung a humble bouquet of baby’s breath that was so small and plain that it disappeared behind the extravagant flower arrangements that spelled out Lolo’s name. What drew me to it was the small card attached to the thin ribbon that held the flowers together. There were names written on it — the names of Lolo’s other children. Below theirs was Remedios’ signature. Remedios — the woman who did not come to Lolo’s funeral, the woman whom he had four children with, the woman Lolo loved. In that moment, I could see Remedios pacing restlessly by her phone, waiting for somebody to call the moment Lolo got his stroke. I could imagine her hysterical in the arms of her children, begging to see him as his brain engorged its memories away. And I could imagine her sneaking timidly into the crypt; attaching the flowers to the knob and slipping away before anybody could see her. Remedios mourned alone. I could have pulled out the flowers, torn them up like her cocktail dress and her letters and her pictures. But I could only think of Lolo, how he carried his other children the way he carried me as I balanced gingerly on his shoulders when he walked me down the shore. How he pointed out the horizon, teased me for being scared, and said “You can try to swim so far and never touch the sun,” — I realized that it was not because Lolo did not know how to love, but it was because he loved too much. I left the flowers there, retreating back to the pew as my family lit more candles and prayed. I thought of his father walking out the door, the Japanese soldiers tugging at his sisters’ hair; his nonchalant mother smoking on the porch. It was then when I stood up, joined my family and prayed.
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regine cabato
The Skeleton of a Tree The bones beneath your trunk are only as fragile as your bark, a wrinkled skin that will not be smooth again. Two eyeless holes stare from below a branch — a scar where white blood must have flowed. You retreated, faceless soldier camouflaged into the forest. The war left you hollow to become ruins for owls. Many names are carved here, tattoos and epitaphs for memories but nowhere on this wall is a name that is yours. The rings we cannot count until you let us will give away your age: How many wives have you had? How many storms have you withstood? How many more will you be able to? Your leaves are lizards in grip and color. In autumn they leave in a flurry, tumbling downstairs, blushing from too much Thanksgiving wine. Their veins resemble the skeletons of trees. Where will we bury them if they are already on the ground? (Your fruit is succulent meat. Inside the fruit, a seed. Inside the seed, a tree.)
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luis wilfrido atienza
Elephants The elephants parade, leaving round tracks in the sand. I wait for her to wash away. The others say it takes a long time for everything to be said. They try to preserve her and hope the waves will be slow. The elephants parade into the water. Only I notice the mess. I can see how quickly the salt takes pieces of her. They say it’s just the sand. A dress, a pair of earrings, skin, and bones I’ve only seen pictures of. In deeper water the elephants crush corals drink with their trunks and trumpet, one after the other. Mist showering on sand thickens into fog. The others stare right through it. The notes won’t stop until we all believe she is gone.
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  joanna krystle mungcal
Spaces the brain has synapses. you would think that an organ like this would be as faultless as your head, now tilted upwards as if searching for the burnt stars, the planets in habitual rotation and insects: similarly seeking comfort and sleep in the heat of a head full of spaces. synapses: again, the spaces between nodes upon nodes of nerves battling to send the message across. once, you mentioned that compliments directed towards the head are much better. the head is taken as a whole. head as a system of constellations of moths and supernovas and planets. the brain has gaps. tightly-woven tissues have tiny fissures to function as the passageways of communicating with other such gaps. the brain communicates: just as the moth yearns to be in the light, supernovas collide with other like entities, planets orbit, rotate and make the sun their center; the massive collection of tissues pump blood through nerves in between spaces of the brain full of empty rooms.
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nicko reginio caluya
Takayama Silence: common song of tilled fields, unlit houses — tower red lights blink
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 stephanie shi
Reconciliation Here is the table, the linen crisp, the body broken. The contents:
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In the beginning was the Word. It was He and He was it. Beginning from His lips to her skin that veiled flesh that bound bone. There was light and she was light like Him clothed in white. In every gait every whisper between laced fingers that cupped a candle her words drifted and carried her body this anchor that had placed her on earth and marked her mortal. The Word made flesh made words of her. How psalms echoed through the walls that blended with the dome that housed the host transfigured and broken and given to friends and taken.
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She was favored and He was with her, blessed as she was among women for her purity and obedience. Silence. She wished it as she stood her ground not knowing how to respond only waiting for instruction the simple words Fear not meaning Do. They expect her to approach the man and speak to him. There is nothing to gather. The narrative gone. Aside. Her fingers run through beads as she waits her turn. The wooden chair occupied. One woman after another. Each turns her head to him. Her voice rests on the curves of his ears. Chests rise and fall in the telling. Or the not. The pressure on the selves — a memory: White dress to feel immaculate like the Virgin whose images she had knelt before fell from her slender frame like water — she washed herself after the first time, the water cold on her skin and sharp against the wound still bleeding making her wince and driving her body away from the water that swirled down the drain pulling in dirt but leaving hers alone with her — a pool around her feet. Her black locks covering her flat chest, swept. The rosy nipple supplanted by his mouth and then a body over hers over her and it pressed and pushed her so that what had been in motion was kept in motion before the cross on the wall. Her mouth agape without words to speak without voice. Signs of life included breaths, deep breaths swallowed by the pounding of flesh against flesh. How her fingers crumpled the sheets and dug through the fibers. Her thoughts telling her to stop this but this felt good to her body that thought it thought and knew on its own without having been taught how to touch and be touched and to smile upon being held. The woman now either says too little or too much. Face either glazed by water or hardened like stone. He absolves her with the sign of the cross. His hands steady though wrinkled and spotted. She rises. A sharp turn. Skirt brushes the floor, hits the foot of the chair. She begins to walk. Stillness unmoving. Her body white then black then white again as she passes by walls and windows. The glare seeping through her clothes revealing her contour. White undergarments on a body like the night. 46
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She stands. Her knees tremble from the weight of the words yet unspoken but will be. Soon. Perhaps a scolding a hundred times over. Times the number of walls. She tries to follow the script. Rehearses her lines Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was — My sins since my last confession are — She puts her hands together as she was taught. By the chest. Together in the middle. As was taught. Sincerity found in delivery. Follow directions: Tremble beside the man. Look the part. Speak. Do not speak up. She will be forgiven. If. If and only if. Delivered. She walks by the windows. Her steps light like patter of little rain. Light like little ripples surrendering to the wind. The color of dampness. Variations in shade imperceptible without light. That glare. Unnecessary to meet his eyes. They will know. His eyes. Seethrough fabric. Wrapping around her limbs as she walks. Body beheld and remembered. No stopping it. Scenes unfold again. And again the clothes trickle down her skin now dappled in sweat. Restraint and activity. In here. Last confession forgotten, penance undone. Spaces not left empty. He knows the weight. This is not silence. She is not silent. She does not speak but stares and waits. No one notices her glassy eyes her parted lips. The air drying her lips. Now bleeding. The drowning within. Forced. Empty, she took in too much. Took to following the Divine. Or how to be. How they said it would be. She purses her lips bites the lower lip much swelling and bleeding from within. Her words from within. Her body her flesh. Forgive me she wants to say. Forgive. 48
I comma Write your full name. comma who piously array the altar and the tabernacle comma must never forget that I myself carry God within me by the grace dwelling in my soul period This divine presence makes not only of my soul comma but also of my body comma a holy temple period I will not lose my piety and sense of shame like cultured women have period I am aware of my duty period I must repudiate exaggerations of fashion comma which spring from the corruption of those who invent them and then of the world period I am not ignorant and I never should be comma because ignorance can explain the deplorable popularity of fashions so contrary to modesty comma which should be the most beautiful adornment of the Christian woman period I realize what I am doing comma so I don’t go so far as to enter the church indecently clad comma to appear before those who are the natural and authorized teachers period Conscience and grace do not destroy nature semicolon they perfect it period They place in the soul a sense which renders it vigilant against the dangers threatening purity period This is especially a characteristic of the young Christian girl period I embody it period Before I put on a dress comma I must ask myself what Jesus Christ would think of it period I can be modern comma cultured comma sporting comma full of grace without giving in to all the vulgarities on an unhealthy fashion period I preserve a complexion that knows no artifice like the soul it reflects comma a countenance always reserved period My action comma in service of the Church comma is battling against the dangers of immorality period My weapons will be my word comma my example comma my courtesy and behavior period The Church does not intend to paint the sad picture comma only too familiar comma of the exaggerations I perceive about myself period The Church desires to bring to mind once more the Christian principles which in these mat49
ters must enlighten my decisions comma guide my steps and conduct comma and inspire and sustain my way of the spirit period The good of my soul must take precedence over that of my body and to the good of my body I must prefer the good of the soul of my neighbor period If some Christian women could only suspect the temptations and falls they cause in others with modes of dress and familiarity in behavior Faster. which they unthinkingly consider as of no importance comma they would be shocked by the responsibility which is theirs period I am aware of my responsibility now more than ever therefore I will not let myself slip from the perfection and transcendence for which I am period I deliberately put myself at the service of the spiritual ends period Write me three copies. Sign it.
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Instead of repeating the phrases she traces letters and symbols. On the page. Her finger twitching lightly scratching. The characters to mean arguments versus them versus self. How they are unseen and unheard because of her front the necessary front. But they are there. Simplified. The proof on her fingertip brushing against the text. As if to erase it. Her finger is on it assuming her dominance. To bend the words in her defense: tilde I tilde I tilde I
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stefani tran
Devotional They raise their hands, begin to unravel the tango knitted into their skeletons. Quicker than springtime. More breathless than air. Deeply thrumming with ancient fears, squirming with older need. Making the slow crawl over leaf, over wing, over spine over mouth. This, this is holy — chirrups sliding down throats, the dew - bubble eyes filming over like scummy ponds, high keening strings taut enough for a sliver of blood. Theirs the sweetest sound — these emerald - shelled loves, their animal hearts.
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mikael de lara co
The River, Remembered * What strangeness it was to fear stone inside the belly of a river. To live and speak about slippage, the jaggedness whitening beneath the rapids, tearing at his soles. Damp gravel on the banks and the phalanx of acacias behind it; chipped bark devouring sunlight as rust would. Devouring spray and rainshower. An entire city named after a river, and claimed by it, once in a while. How can water so shallow ebb so forcefully that one is reminded of the hidden mortal pith that is held in abeyance by beauty? That the mossless cheek of a boulder, the one facing the sun, is at once held taut by its opposite and untethered by it, that vision is only made possible through the inadequacies of light? He almost died, although he thinks little of it now. “Not almost died,” he would say, “But yes I remember fearing that I would. Howling like some animal. And I remember a voice, afloat, buoying me,” then the primacy of the ground beneath. The singular shadow that many leaves cast. Then placidness, arriving.
* from Pastoral and Other Poems 1st Place, Poetry, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
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mikael de lara co
A Sentiment About Color * Window opens then suddenly green is not mere color but movement, the vastness behind a row of adolescent trees present as wind. As if things were less than real before the arrival of texture. I recognized it, my half-formed reflection on glass, on the drive home from Nueva Ecija when crossing the bridge I strained to count the carabaos lazing by the river, almost dry. If it is true, as Young said, that the highest accomplishment of the imagination is empathy, then perhaps it is because we are sometimes too modest to impose our intimacies on another, too suspicious of tenderness. The other night there was talk about overtures, how its faint throb resonates even in the recitatives. How the struggle when looking at Vermeer’s The Guitar Player begins as the flecks of aging oil insist on themselves, that there is a moment when the eyes vanish, and the mouth, when the dust-glazed surface of things begins to dull the sweet arpeggios, and the young girl navigating the patient eddies of grace sinks in the canvas. “In newer poems the original gets neglected; instead, an abundance of layer.” That was * from Pastoral and Other Poems 1st Place, Poetry, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
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Toledo in a poem that begins, “Grows in wilderness, orchid and a sentiment about color.� Harlequin, malachite, jade. There were flowers by the road. A woman hanging blankets with gentle, whorled hands. It was not even noon.
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mikael de lara co
Canopy * There is a surplus of fire with which all things transact, a hiddenness called forth by the visible. As in the afternoons that lazed behind the thick tarnished windows of my childhood, my grandmother lifting the lid off a pot of boiling broth. The smoke that lengthened her pumice-gray hair before she turned to me and motioned with the laddle, grinned to articulate all the acid she was able to wring from a bruise of tamarinds. An entire history she inhabited and that I will never know. I walked along the old farm and noticed the sunrays lining my path, their steady, defiant aim bursting through the canopy as if to say, The problem with the world is that it lacks the patience of light. I was looking for a long-enough stick to prod free a fruit the size of two fists, thinking of how every trembling sweetness vanishes when plucked, remembering the woman I will never love. Her small ankles. The words she taught me in some mountain language, and the way * from Pastoral and Other Poems 1st Place, Poetry, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
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the tongue curls away from memory, is cured of longing. How far away from summer it felt, our cold, parallel sadnesses. There was a lake somewhere. Tall branches. An abundance of leaves.
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mikael de lara co
Tendrils * Summer so ruthless the children kicked the ball once down the field, placed their palms on their knees, then waited for someone else to kick it back. Watched it from a distance as if it were the carcass of some small animal. This was in Sultan Kudarat, after the old man who said, This is where I buried my father, this land is mine. And here, my brother, here, my son, there, my rifle when the tanks staggered in and I had to say I am a farmer, that is all I am. You wondered how come there are always enough blankets to wrap the bodies in, always white and ready before the third day, see, there is a form of empathy so cruel only poetry can handle it. When your friend told you about the twins you wanted to ask him whether he saw the clots being rinsed off their unripe bodies, did he flinch, and later could he name their ghosts. You must have failed. And still you want to believe that there is nothing more beautiful than earnestness, that a human throat can create a sound so luminous * from Pastoral and Other Poems 1st Place, Poetry, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
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it could engulf even the most private of sorrows, that there is, perhaps, hopefully in everyone, a secret pith where grief comes from, or terror, that there are tendrils that can wring communion from the hunger that shadows our silences, go, ask him. Ask your friend now, Did you see their hands? The twins, tell me you saw their hands.
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l aurel fantauzzo
Under My Invisible Umbrella * I accepted the man’s service without question, as if he had been standing at the doorway of the Olongapo office building waiting only for me. As if I knew he would head into the downpour, open his umbrella, hold the tenuous shelter of it over my head, and walk at my pace, getting wet himself. I accepted his work without a “Salamat po.” I was second to worst in my class of Filipino American would-be Tagalog speakers that July, and, in 2007, at age 23, I was still too embarrassed to try. As I waited for the rest of my Fil-Am classmates, my Tagalog teacher Susan Quimpo approached me, holding her own umbrella. “Did you notice that he held the umbrella only for you?” she murmured. Then—as people of the Philippines are inclined to do, when a situation seems too absurd in its wrongness to repair—she laughed. My classmates and I sounded the same: Fil-Ams managing our emotional confusion with loud inside jokes about our two months together in Manila. But they were brown and they were damp. I was pale and I was dry. The man was not holding the umbrella above me. He was holding the umbrella above my whiteness. He was holding it like a flag for everything he assumed my whiteness represented: my wealth, my station in life—higher than his—and my deserving extra service. This worship of whiteness is not a phenomenon unique to the Philippines. But that day in Olongapo, I felt a surge of shame. Of course, whether I felt guilty or not, I was still dry. *
* 2nd Place, Essay, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
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Before moving to the Philippines, I had no idea how closely my class would be identified with my face. In America, my face had been merely diverting, a prompt for racial guessing-games that always made me shudder. “Mexican! Polish! Sephardic!” “You kinda look Spanish and Oriental at the same time. What is that?” Or my face had been an inspiration for the saying of strange, murky compliments that made me shudder more. “I wish I had your nice, smooth, Asian skin.” “You’re so lucky your nose isn’t too—well, you know.” In Manila, my ambiguous whiteness was no longer ambiguous. It was simply whiteness. Thanks to my face, and the strength of the dollars I had, I was top one-percenting for the first time in my life. I lived, overtly, the troubling inventory Peggy McIntosh outlines in “White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack:” Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen. Perhaps, in Manila, I lived a variation of McIntosh’s theme: Moving Under The Invisible Umbrella. Last August, I spent only forty pesos at an upscale café in Greenbelt mall to wait out a cloudburst. I used the café’s Wi-Fi for hours, while servers impatiently thrust menus at more-melanined customers who had dared sit for too long.
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I wandered onto a fenced-in, exclusive university campus for the sole reason that it was a nice walk, and I wanted to be there. The guard smiled and tipped his hat to me. He did not require me to sign his security book. In a live, crowded theater, I crossed a restricted area to use the much less crowded staff restroom. Four guards said nothing. As I slowly learned my motherland’s arithmetic of identity— repeated in countries once brutalized by white rulers around the world—I realized what members of the service sector assumed of me: English speaker + pale face + black hair = A foreigner. Or a mestiza. She looks like the rulers—Spanish, or American. She and her family must have some authority—perhaps political authority. She merits extra courtesy. As I spent more time in the Philippines in the late 2000s, developing my understanding of the society my mother left in 1979, I tried to reconcile what I saw with the reality I came from. My mother was the second-to-youngest child of seven. The last home she shared with her family was a small apartment that flooded regularly. She was a scholar at Ateneo de Manila University, always explained to me as the Harvard of the Philippines. Her classmates’ easy, entitled affluence depressed her. We lived in a wealthy California suburb because my mother was always conscious of the necessity to perform wealth. And we ate bread from the Wonderbread surplus store. We never, ever threw away expired meat. But the education my parents guaranteed me, in a wealthier country that once controlled the Philippines garnered me grants and scholarships—advantages of travel that few middle-to-lower-class scholars in the Philippines will ever see. My favorite karinderya serves scrambled eggs and rice for twenty pesos. My presence amuses and annoys the guards and drivers who were never granted scholarships to study me in my birth country. As my Tagalog improved, I began to understand their objections. Didn’t I have a more sosyal place to eat as a foreigner? What was I playing at, treading into their space?
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* I occasionally see my relatives in Tandang Sora, a long but narrow street with many working-class neighborhoods. My cousins often think about strategies to become Overseas Filipino Workers. It isn’t their first choice to leave. But they have no other escape from the criminally small wages given them. Last summer they were developing their own small karinderya. I always consider their position against mine. It is an uneasy comparison. Had my mother not been a scholar—had her own, elder sister not married an American, and petitioned for her to join them in California—had my mother not found my father, a U.S. Naval officer who made her laugh—I too might be starting a karinderya, finding strategies to go abroad. Whenever I visit Tandang Sora, I always bring dessert—a box of donuts, or a bag of cookies, or ice cream. My cousins always feed me: sopas, afritada, fried chicken, tilapia stuffed with garlic and tomatoes, which they know to be my favorite. They joke about my Italian side when spaghetti is on the table. They feed me well. * Of course, none of the economic struggles that once haunted my family approach the reality of the kalesa driver, who winces when he tells me about his wages, as he plies the avenues of Malate. He is allowed to take home only twenty pesos of each 100-peso ride. The rest he owes to the owner of his kalesa. It’s perfectly legal. He does not say the rest, but I can perceive it: he can go to no one for fair wages. Or my cab driver who dozes off at a stoplight—who apologizes when I nudge him—since it’s the twenty-third hour of his twenty-four-hour shift. How often will he get the chance to sheepishly say, “Extra charge, ma’am,” for a cross-Quezon City ride? Or the server who looks at me in terror when we realize she brought the wrong order. Who will stop her boss from automatically deducting the two hundred pesos from her own small paycheck? Who 63
can she look to, besides me, and the narrative of wealth my pale face projects, to momentarily assist her with a generous tip? When I find shrewd charges added to my bills, I argue as briefly as my Tagalog-in-progress will allow. My Filipino friends say I should argue, for the principle of it. The workers are likely being dramatic, performing their desperation. My friends say they get cheated too as Filipinas. In the end I call the overcharges my “dayuhan tax.” My foreigner tariff. The extra cost I owe for the postcolonial privileges of my face. As long as the population remains economically stranded, I suspect my American whiteness continues to be a kind of cheating in the modern Philippines. * Besides the dayuhan tax I joke about, there are other subtler, more personal taxes intrinsic to my pallid appearance. No one in the Philippines will ever immediately believe I am Filipina, no matter how strongly and how affectionately I choose the country. My Tagalog will take years to reach everyday, pun-level proficiency. My mother chose not to teach me and my two younger brothers Tagalog, for fear that our Italian American father would feel excluded. My brothers feel no connection at all to her home country. I alone return regularly. Sometimes, expats of Western countries who hear my California accent and see my pale face assume they’ve found a friendly audience for their Philippines frustrations. I’ll hear their complaints coming—Corruption! Traffic! Terrible customer service!—and I will say, stiffly, “My mother was from here.” Sometimes it gives the expats pause. Sometimes it doesn’t. I do not know when I will deserve to say, “I am from here.” My language difficulties and my face still prevent me access to that statement. But I often hear that I am lucky. I may not belong to a ruling family, but I look and sound like I do. On some days I don’t know what to do with all this, when I leave the room I rent in Quezon City. On some weekends I grow 64
so tired and confused, I don’t leave. I stay in and watch the subtitles on the local music video channel, Myx, to try and gain a little more Tagalog. I harbor dreams of using my white mestiza privilege to become a VJ, until I hear how fast and natural the VJs’ Tagalog is. I catch a commercial for a whitening soap. I see a soap opera ad with an actress in the indigenous equivalent of blackface. I watch a cell phone commercial pandering to the longings of Overseas Filipino Workers. None of it is terribly surprising. All of it makes a certain kind of sense. I turn the television off. * One night, a new friend invites me to a party in Forbes Park. I know the neighborhood’s name as code, the way I know certain last names as code: upper-est class, highest security, a servant for each family member, etc. A private gate guards the house. It reminds me of the palatial, forbidding, buttery mansions I used to pass on drives through Malibu in Southern California with an ex-girlfriend who knew where celebrities lived. The young man hosting the party here in Forbes Park is connected, in a way I don’t immediately grasp, to a political family. Inside the house, a fog machine distorts the regal dark. A DJ’s bass line shakes my skeleton. A man dressed like a pirate urges us to drink. Small, oval-shaped rainbows glow intensely at a slick, temporary bar. Servers call me “Ma’am!” and gesture toward the rainbows. I realize they’re drinks. I pick one up. It illuminates my hand. My rainbow shot is very, very sweet. Outside, serious-faced cooks grill hamburgers. I grew up knowing never to spurn free food, so I stand in line for one. I watch more and more young Manileños arrive. They are, I realize, all part of the ruling classes somehow, or they have befriended members of the ruling classes. Many of them—though not all—are as white as I am, or more white. I see a mechanical bull. 65
“What?” a Filipina friend mocks me later, when I describe the bull and the bass line and the sweet rainbow and the Malibu-celebritystyle house and the free burger that was really very delicious. “Were you just judging it the whole time?” I flinch. But I fail to explain to her that the same thought occurred to me at the party, too. Why, I argued to myself, should I judge this? Why should I worry about my complicity in racial hierarchies and class hierarchies and family entrenchments that were constructed long before I ever arrived in my motherland? Why not imagine, for just one night, that I am part of a powerful family? Why not just laugh? So I drink another rainbow. I get photographed. I exchange business cards. I memorize new names. I watch the whipping hair of socialites who ride the now-bucking bull. In the small hours of the night, I feel glad I am able to enjoy myself. When I finally exit the gate, I am surprised to find another, more muted party—party in the most utilitarian sense of the word. These are the drivers and bodyguards, waiting for the members of the Philippine elite inside. They smoke and murmur to each other and check their cell phones. Their own families are waiting for them at homes far from Forbes Park. I have no easy explanation for my feelings about this moment. The workers would not welcome, and do not deserve, my pity. But as I move mere footsteps from the company of the sovereigns to the company of their servants, I feel the uncertainty and shame that blur so often in me here. In the Philippines, I can get past the gate. For a chance at the social mobility I perform effortlessly, many Filipinos, waiting forever, unprotected, outside barred mansions, will leave. They will hope for work in a place—Europe, or my birth country—that helped create and enforce the intractable inequity forcing their displacement today. When I cease imagining the difference of those lives—when I choose dismissal over compassion and self-examination and criticism, to make my own path in the country feel less unnatural than it is— 66
Perhaps that’s when it will be time for me to leave the Philippines. Or perhaps that’s when I will finally be able to say I am from the Philippines. I don’t really know which. How do I make space in myself for everyone on both sides of the gate? Protected and unprotected? * I have a troubled relationship with umbrellas. They are daily necessities in Manila, where the weather can alter by the hour with the intensity of an erratic god. But I always lose umbrellas. Or I break them. It always surprises me when umbrellas break. I never expect them to be as fragile as they are. Once, when the wind blew the trees horizontal in the business district of Ortigas, I paused in the lobby of an office tower, drenched. More and more passersby, each of their umbrellas brutalized and useless, joined me. The guards let us all stay. Most of us were waiting to walk to the MRT train. Over the next hour, we watched power lines whip and taxis forge defiantly forward and rain slash into the streets’ now-surging floodwaters. We were all, for a brief moment, equally halted, equally soaked. Then one guard noticed me. “Taxi, ma’am?” he asked. “Taxi?” He smiled, offering to go out into the rain for me. I smiled back, and told him no.
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marc lopez
Hymns of the Mountains, Dreams of the Stars * How the pound sign became revolutionized into the powerful symbol it is today is perhaps one of the most intriguing and fascinating turning points in history. From a mere telephone key beside zero to the now popular hashtag, this metamorphosis has given birth to a tagging device, so powerful that it has imparted a sense of dynamicity to the different ideas shared on the cyberspace. The hashtag, with its speed and flexibility, has truly transformed the whole social networking scene. It stands as a symbol with a promise of mobility, giving an empowered voice to each of today’s netizens (internet citizens). Give it a couple of seconds and it will take you to a world of varied opinions and interpretations, may it be about pressing social issues, the latest gadgets, or even the freshest celebrity scoops. And maybe, for this reason, the hashtag continues to attract more and more users each day. This is, by far, getting the public pulse at its best. We are fans of speed, and so, these days, it might be hard to negotiate a significant place in our lives for literature, minus all the romance and idealism. Truth be told: technology continues to move the world. Numbers, codes and formulas have managed to take over the helm of development, across fields such as banking, construction and business. This then pretty much clarifies how the word information in the “Information Age” really means. At a time wherein everything is geared towards practicality, demanding precision and technicalities, the magic of words, something that rests on being loose and ambiguous, might find it hard to assert its significance in the buzzling metro. While everyone else duels with the
* 1st Place, Kabataan Essay, 2013 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
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24-hour restrictions of a day, ensuring that every second is allotted to something productive (whatever that means), reading seems to reject the idea of immediacy. The slouch, the lying-down position, the complacency that there would still be enough time for everything else—these things lead to how reading becomes a luxurious expenditure of time in this era of the instant. As I look back, there is a mix of regret and shame in admitting that I used to subscribe to this very mechanical lifestyle. Although I grew up primarily surrounded by books, I wasn’t really into reading for the longest time. Not that I hated it. Probably, I was just among those who didn’t have the time, or perhaps didn’t see the need, to dive into pages of blocks of information. The basic mindset that time was that everything is now just a Google search away, and if we are really in need of stories, the TV is there to offer a visual narration that is far easier to absorb. But it came to a point wherein it felt like I was missing out a lot. There was a big loss in such passivity. It came to me as if I’ve been drifting away from my own way of thinking, slowly becoming less of myself and more of a walking Sparknotes. It was very limiting, I must say. It was in the latter part of my senior year in high school when I’ve decided undertake the uncertain journey with words—to commit myself to the act of reading, starting with the then famous Hunger Games trilogy. As I grappled with more stories and began to connect with a new-found love, poetry, I was filled with distinct and flavorful experiences alien to my skin. It became clear to me that these were certainly the things I was missing out. I’ve since believed that literature has this immense power that, if harnessed, is capable of renewing our world altogether.
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As I entered the very diverse world of college, I realized the importance of widening one’s point of view, a value that has been much reiterated in my classes. I will always remember how my Lit 13 professor would frequently remind us to “suspend our disbelief � as we discussed stories under magic realism. By letting us explore different places and timeframes, literature offers the chance of seeing the world from different perspectives. I strongly believe that the only way for us to be able to truly understand the value of things and appreciate diversity is by going outside the confines of our selves, especially at this particular period in our history wherein we are confronted with issues that are rather divisive. We are in great need of open-mindedness. The reading experience imparts to us that specific value of setting aside our biases and preconceptions in dealing with our realities, therefore highlighting a rule of thumb: the world is much larger than what lies in our familiarity. Literature stands as a repository of values necessary to become effective members of society. It is not only through the insights and endless realizations we gain from the texts we come across. The very act of reading, I believe, necessitates a great deal of discipline. By demanding our full concentration, reading never fails to inculcate in us the value of perseverance, that is, dedicating our whole selves to whatever it is that we want to accomplish. Reading also expands the way we think and perceive. It molds us into outsidethe-box thinkers who can offer creative and innovative solutions to the different problems that beset the nation. More importantly, literature imparts an invaluable culture of depth. It becomes our tool as we strive to uncover the hidden meanings that lie beyond surface, as well as in our attempt to establish our connections to the greater mysteries of this world. It becomes our companion as we deal with the complexities of life: faith, love, and friendships, among other things. By allowing us to delve into a wide range of sensibilities and ideas, reading a work, both a filling and a breaking experience, ultimately leaves an enduring impact in our lives. There must be something in writing, the production of literature, that it has withstood the test of time, from the clay tablets 70
to the book and now, in its modern form, the electronic book. A motivating force must have compelled the first writer to lock down an idea on surface. That could have been the very day he realized, perhaps while looking at the vastness of the seas or the skies, the need to preserve and capture the many valuable things in this world, to share and to partake with his environment, to make sense of his existence, and to aspire to reach higher peaks. As someone who has loved the craft way before the idea of a dream job came to mind, I cannot think of a force that is more powerful than the desire to be a part of something greater. Literature forms people who are engaged with society, people who assume active roles. It is the kind of stimulus that moves a singular existence to paths that could ignite changes. By showing to us the power of imagination and by making us whole, literature inspires a contribution to the greater world outside the self, creating visionaries—dreamers who could craft their own destinies and engulf others with their flames as they move towards these destinies. This I know: whenever history speaks of heroes and leaders, it can’t help but speak of readers and writers as well. We have Jose Rizal who, as a 12-year-old kid, enjoyed reading The Count of Monte Cristo. We have Andres Bonifacio who, in order to compensate for his lack of formal schooling, spent sleepless nights reading books like Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. The ideologies they championed, due to which we regard them as the fathers of our nation, certainly did not just come out of the vacuum. These are ideas conceived perhaps centuries before their time—thoughts so electrifying that they, at one point, had to be contained and written down. I do believe that meeting these works contributed to the formation of their heroic consciousness. I would like to believe that literature still has a significant place in this era of the hashtag. It speaks the same language of coming out. As it condenses the beauty of this world, as it gathers all the big ideas produced by generations of thinkers, literature brings our worldview to another level—ready to discuss, ready to take part. This is the power of the written word. Literature serves as an avenue to come into terms with 71
ourselves as a nation. It forms the backbone of our national identity, chronicling our successes and our failures. It makes us deeply-rooted to our past, in-touch with our present and linked to the uncertain terrains of the future. As we try to address the problems posed by globalization, literature is there to fasten our fragmentations. After all, reading disregards our differences; it rests on our oneness, as people who wish to understand ourselves and the world better. We may call it a luxury, but given its inherent value, why can’t we spoil ourselves every now and then with the opportunity to truly grow as persons? From there, the possibilities are endless. This is our time to navigate our nation into the right direction. As we sail towards national development, our greatest contribution is nothing else other than ourselves. By investing our time on literature, we form ourselves into citizens equipped with the necessary experiences, attitudes and outlooks, and, in turn, capable of offering something to the nation and to the larger world. It may seem very ideal, but I have great belief that the returns of this investment is beyond measure. It might not be the exact answer to our problems, but I am sure that it is the catalyst to change. There are still a lot of books left for me to read, but I know that my relatively limited encounter with the world of literature has inspired me to become the best Filipino that I can be. I will stand by the fact that it has transformed me ‌ in so many ways. Amidst the glorification of the fast-paced, literature invites us to take it slow, to spend a portion of our time immersing ourselves into the world. It remains there to remind us of the things we have overlooked in pursuing the goal of a globalized world, like the hymns of the mountains and the dreams of the stars, essences which have been obstructed by the views of our own skyscrapers. I would like to believe that they are just there, cradled by the bookends, waiting for us to be ready to carry them with our own hands ‌ to be ready to make wonders. The stars are conspiring. Soon, the sun will bleed through the daybreak sky. We will be trending, one book at a time. 72
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Art Editorial When asked to define what art is, often the answer of many is “selfexpression.” This is true, of course. The visual arts have long been used as a medium through which hopes, thoughts, and reactions manifest. This collection of works is no different. Through the next few pages we will be immersed once again in the products of the artist’s mind and the discourse it has with the artist’s hands and craft. It has been said that there is no longer an existing original idea or concept. What then makes a piece of art special? It is a product of a process of creation. It is this process, this personal, intellectual, and continuous grappling with ideas that gives strength to each piece. Creation is just as significant as that which is created. Objective History involves the collection and the visual reinterpretation of these snippets of history as images through the artist’s acrylics. Sumayaw Din Ako portrays the end product of the process of distortion and reinterpretation of the familiar image of a tree. The two series, Exploration and Space Exploration// Dimensional Analysis, involve the abstractions that are possible through photography. “Ours” uses both an extensive control of the medium and an understanding of the more serendipitous aspects of ink, in an attempt of the artist to address environmental concerns through her own stylistics. This folio collection also presents two studies, which by their nature are an exploration of different processes. A Study in Folding explores film photography and projection, and the dynamism the two offer in tandem. On the other hand, A Study of Flowers is a study of the portrayal of forms, and the implications the form carries. Why should there be experimentation? Why should the creative process undergo examination, and the process of improvement? Why should we try something new? We are not a stagnant people, or rather, we should not be stagnant. Complacency 77
and the comfort it brings is something we should constantly be aware of. Explorations come about not because of new ideas, but because old ideas are being reinterpreted and presented in a new way. Such reinterpretations happen not instantly, but gradually. There is a culture of immediacy and expectancy that has become prominent within our generation. We get what we ask for easily, and we have gotten used to this (technology has made it so) and what has become neglected is the in-between: the process through which the source, the inspiration, the “muse” becomes one’s own. We talk of “personal pieces,” the esoteric, but what makes it personal? Death, happiness— these are ideas that do not belong to one individual. Artists put themselves into their pieces through their creative process. We then see that the creation of art is not only a process, but also a beholding of it. In order to push boundaries and create individual styles, there is a familiarization with what has already been done. Each time we view those pieces, there is a chance for something new to come to mind. Conventions are learned, then conventions can be broken. Should we be compelled to create, let’s not be afraid to experiment. Play around. Have a process of your own. Explore. Manuel Iñigo A. Angulo September 2013
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Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan. Objective History. Acrylic. 48 x 36 in.
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Lester James V. Miranda. We are no different. Digital Photography.
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Lorenzo Torres Narciso. Mixed Media.
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Trisha Katipunan. Hermit House. Ink on Parchment Paper.
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Robert de Angelo Bolinas. Space Exploration// Dimensional Analysis 1. Digital Photography Series.
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Space Exploration// Dimensional Analysis 2.
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Space Exploration// Dimensional Analysis 3.
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Space Exploration// Dimensional Analysis 4.
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Christine Mae Sta. Maria. Tainted. Digital.
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Nikki Vocalan. Dog Bites and Bee Stings. Watercolor and Gouache.
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Manuel I単igo A. Angulo. A Study of Flowers. Mixed Media.
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Micah Barker. Dry Watercolor Pencils.
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Nikki Vocalan. Sculpture. Watercolor.
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Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan. Saul Search. Acrylic. 36 x 36 in.
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Matthew Darrell C. Lee. Prominence. Digital Photography.
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Providence. Digital Photography.
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Adrian Begonia. Sumayaw Din Ako. Photomanipulation.
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Krysten Alarice Tan. “Ours”. Watercolor and Ink.
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Nicole L. Casta単eda. Turnabout. Digital.
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Manuel I単igo A. Angulo. Tectonics. Mixed Media.
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Robert de Angelo Bolinas. Exploration 2-1 / 2-2 / 2-4. Photomanipulation Series.
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Meagan Ong. A Study in Folding. Film Photography.
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Manuel Iñigo A. Angulo (2 AB Communication) Manuel is a communication student on his second year, who has been moonlighting as an art management major on mwfs, and is on a break from his year-long relationship with Burger Steaks and Peach Mango Pies. He is still waiting for a cool hunter to find him. To bravery and trust: not only his, but yours as well. Thank you. Luis Wilfrido Atienza (3 BS Biology) If I’ve ever bothered you to ask for help with writing things, you’re awesome. If you’re reading this, this one’s for you. You rock. If an otter can dunk a basketball, the sky really is the limit. Micah Barker (4 BS Chemistry with Materials Science and Engineering) When I conceptualize an artwork, my first and most favorite inspiration is always the innocence of children. I want my works to be able to express the same sweetness and naïveté, and to capture an image of a world through the perspective of the child. This is why I like fantastic art, especially when it gives the audience an unusual way to look at ordinary things. The way such art affects me is by reminding me of how beautiful and amazing the world really is, which is usually ignored because I’m always so busy. I want to improve as an artist so that my work can open the audience’s eyes to the world we once used to admire as children. Thank you, Dad, for always reminding me that I’m never too old. Thank you, friends, for always being an accepting and encouraging audience. Thank you, kitty, for being the most accepting and encouraging.
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Adrian Begonia (4 BS Chemistry with Materials Science and Engineering) Adrian is fond of making the familiar unfamiliar. He would like to thank the tree in front of the National Engineering Center in upd for modeling in this work. He would also like to thank chicken and other friends for their never - ending support. =^_^= theothersideoftown.tumblr.com. Follow him and he’ll follow you. :> Robert de Angelo Bolinas (Chemistry Department, MS Chemistry – Straight) “Romeo changed his mind.” —Aris Regine Cabato (2 AB Communication) “I go to seek a great perhaps.” —Francois Rabelais Regine Cabato is a communication major currently pursuing a minor in creative writing. Her poetry has also been published in Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry and the Philippines Free Press. She hails from Zamboanga City. She thrives on the thrill of not knowing. Nicko Reginio Caluya (BS Computer Science, Specialization in Interactive Multimedia and Games 2013) “I’ve been up in the air, is this the end I feel? Up in the air, chasing a dream so real.” —30 Seconds to Mars, “Up In The Air” Halata namang unang beses niyang nakaalis ng bansa. Pagpasensyahan na ninyo kung ito ang parati kong bukambibig. Nagpapasalamat si Nicko sa mga sumusunod:
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1. Kay Dr. Didith Rodrigo at ang Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences. Bago pa ang paglalakbay patungong bansang Hapon, una akong nakasakay ng eroplano patungong Davao tatlong araw bago ang aking kaarawan. Maraming salamat sa paniniwala sa akin at sa aking kakayahan, kahit ngayong taon lang ako lubusang nagparamdam. Maraming salamat din sa pagkakataong mapagsama-sama ang trabaho, bakasyon, at pangarap. Matagal nang buo at masaya ang 2013 ko. 2. Sa Nara Institute of Science and Technology, sa mga Filipino sa naist (lalo na kay Marc Ericson Santos), at sa mga mag - aaral ng Kato - ken/Interactive Media Design Laboratory. Dahil sa inyo, higit kong naintindihan ang realidad at ang walang - hanggang posibilidad na dagdagan at baguhin ito ng agham. Salamat din kay Jayzon Ty, na sa totoo lang, higit na magaling sa akin sa programming at Nihonggo; hindi ako siguro nakaikot masyado kung wala akong kasama. 3. Sa Transcosmos Philippines, Inc. dahil pinagbigyan pa rin akong makapasok kahit dalawang buwang huli. Salamat sa mga katrabaho dahil sulit ang mahaba - habang commute papunta at pauwi ng opisina. Masayang gumising sa umaga dahil gagawa na naman ako ng ikaliligaya ko at ikalilibang ng iba. 4. Sa ilan pang maliliit na detalye: sa dost, sa aleng nagbenta sa akin ng mga kahoy na kuwago, sa Skype, sa mga prefecture na napuntahan ko (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Kobe) sa icoca, sa napakabilis na Internet at maaliwalas na kuwarto at tanawin sa bintana ng Sentan Guest House. 5. Sa Fall Out Boy, bagaman hindi ko napanood ang concert nila rito sa Maynila, naging soundtrack ko ang Save Rock and Roll habang buo pa ang playlist nito sa SoundCloud mula Abril hanggang Mayo. Pati na rin siguro kina Skrillex at Lady Gaga.
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Kasama ang mga tulang nasa isyung ito sa #kaizen, proyektong sinimulan ko noong Abril. Upang mabasa ang patuloy na binubuong koleksyon, sundan ito sa fireflights.wordpress.com/kaizen. Nicole L. Castañeda (3 BFA Information Design) Ancora Imparo Mikael de Lara Co (BS Environmental Sciences 2003) Mikael de Lara Co’s first book of poetry, What Passes for Answers, was recently published by the AdMU Press. He was also co-translator of Edgar Calabia Samar’s Eight Muses of the Fall (Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog), which was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Award and published by Anvil. He grew up in Sta. Cruz, Manila, while spending summers in Nueva Ecija. He works in government, and lives in Pasig City with his wife. Kristian Cordero (MA Literature–Filipino 2012) Kasalukuyang nagtuturo sa Ateneo de Naga University. Inilabas kamakailan ang dalawang koleksyon niya ng mga tula sa Bikol at Filipino: Canticos: Apat na Boses (ust Publishing House, 2013) at Labi (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2013). Nakatakdang ilathala rin ang kanyang aklat ng mga maikling kuwento, Kulto ni Santiago (University of the Philippines Press). Catherina Dario (2 BFA Creative Writing) Cathy is an English staffer of heights. Her work has been published in the heights lx Folio (sy 2012 – 2013) and Reader’s Digest (April 2013). All her love goes out to bfa cw 2016, Writerskill and soh Sanggu, her three other loves in Ateneo that have made her the happiest since freshman year. Both pieces are dedicated to her beloved family.
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Ica Divinagracia (2 AB Psychology) Hello kay 1nessa Nadeshna, 2atrina Isabel, 4oshua Eric Romulo, 5uleini Vivien, 6ilana Kim, 7icah Janela, 8oseller, 9fren Adrian, 10ristopher, 11an Christopher, 12ynariz, sa Block y 2016, Block h3 2017, m03some 2013, kay Papa, Mama, Noynoy, Paco, atbp. Para kay #3. Abner Dormiendo (4 AB Philosophy) “I told you that I was a roadway of potholes, not safe to cross. You said nothing, showed up in my driveway wearing roller - skates.” —Miles Walser, A Sonnet of Invented Memories Abner wishes everyday is an Arrested Development marathon. All the while he’s still waiting for his novel to actualize. But in the meantime, poems will suffice. Sa lahat ng nagroller - skate sa mapanganib na kalsada ng buhay ko. Ingat. lagimlim.wordpress.com Laurel Fantauzzo (Fine Arts Program) “Under My Invisible Umbrella” first appeared in the second issue of The Manila Review, March 2013. Trisha Katipunan (4 AB Psychology) Trisha Katipunan is a Psychology student at Ateneo de Manila University. Visual artist, film photographer, writer. She currently finished working on a low - budget, independent short film as production designer, and has recently concluded “karibok,” a group art exhibit with local artists based in Manila. Hello. Keisha Kibanoff (4 BS Psychology) Keisha is a small mermaid who must have forgotten how to swim. She finds rhythm in three things: music, poetry, and the rate at which her mother will use three smileys in a row. It’s like clockwork. 111
Gian Lao (BS Management, major in Communications Technology Management 2010) Gian Lao posts some of his poems at giancantdance.wordpress.com Matthew Darrell C. Lee (BS Management, major in Communications Technology Management 2013) Currently in between college and a job. Really enjoying the weather here. (73/140) Marc Lopez (2 BS/M Applied Mathematics Major in Mathematical Finance) Marc wishes to thank the following: amf people (especially Block x2), ams, my roommates, dorm friends, and high school friends. To my professors and teachers, thank you for everything. Sa nanay ko na naging huwaran ng lubos na pagmamahal sa sining, maraming salamat rin po. Sa heights na nagbigay-daan sa lahat ng ito. Maraming salamat sa napakaraming pagkakataong binuksan mo (mula pa noong ahww) upang mas lalo ko pang mapalalim ang pagmamahal ko sa panitikan at pagsusulat. To inspirations, old and new, thank you. To borrow a prayer, “For all that has been, thank you. For all that will be, yes.�
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Aidan Manglinong (4 BFA Creative Writing) Obligatory quote patungkol sa paglikha: “To fight feels, we created feels.” Pasasalamat sa mga sponsor: Sa iba’t ibang nakatrabaho ngayong unang siyam na buwan ng taon at nanatiling dahilan para ayusin ang buhay: Writerskill cb 13-14, heights Bagwisan, Block e, /fit/, etc. Sa Niceghuls, mga bagong kaibigan na nagbigay saya’t buhay sa summer sem, at nananatiling liwanag sa gitna ng stress. At kay Crom, kung kanino lulan ang bago kong motto sa buhay: “Trane insain or remane the saim.” Para kay Conan at Bêlit. Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan (Fine Arts Program, BFA Information Design 2013) To Kat, who has proven to be an insightful, energetic, and articulate nighttime companion; To my fa 101 students, whose valuable attention and surprising insights have sustained me throughout the otherwise harrowing weekdays of adulthood; To Anna and the rest of Ateneo entablado who have trusted me with their project and accepted me like one of their own; and To my friends, old and new, who have kept me afloat during these trying times, here’s to hoping that we will always choose the people, places, things, and experiences that make us feel most alive. To Atlas xiii of the ever - changing night sky.
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Lester James V. Miranda (3 BS Electronics and Communications Engineering) “You are what you love / Not who loves you / In a world full of the word yes / I’m here to scream” —Fall Out Boy, “Save Rock and Roll” feat. Elton John Thank you, Mom and Dad, for all your support! Love you! and thanks to Reena who’s still laughing at my previous bio - note last year. (K dot) Hello there Block u2! twentyframes.tumblr.com Joanna Krystle Mungcal (4 BFA Creative Writing) Munkii is fond of synaptic gaps and other such spaces. She thanks her family for their love and unending support. She also thanks her life - changing friends, Kat R., Pao, Aidan, Chise, and Block e 2014, for giving her more reasons to write. For Soc, constellations, gaps and all. Lorenzo Torres Narciso (1 BS Psychology) Lorenzo Torres Narciso would like to get to know you ~ for the friends I’ve already met Jeivi Nicdao (2 AB Psychology) “This is what you get when you write poems. / A heart that treats love like horse races, / betting on whoever will get you / the most metaphors.” —Clementine von Radics Thanks for letting me know about the echoes. To you, I owe the skeleton of this. To our unicorn goddess: let us sing a duet soon, please. Help me catch a bit of your time-transcending grace. And to you whose hugs changed my worldview: thanks for having a coke 114
with me. Warmth isn’t so horrid, after all. A paragraph of gratitude to the three of you for tipping the balance of the universe. (At least, my universe.) To my professors in Filipino: Let it be known that my spelling remains atrocious. But I owe you more than just this poem for a lot more than just grammar lessons. Maraming salamat po sa lahat! Meagan Ong (5 BFA Information Design) Meggie is learning, always learning. Manjo Perez (BS Management 2003) Manjo (Amando Jose Perez) was born in 1982 Sta. Maria, Bulacan. He studied b.s. Business Management at Ateneo de Manila University. He is married and currently based in Dubai, uae for almost a decade but promises to return home this coming December. As a former editor - in - chief of Parola (bi - monthly newsletter of Singles for Christ, Dubai with a readership of over 400 members), he has yet to pursue for publication until this year. He cites Lourd de Veyra and Emily Dickinson as his strongest influences. Manjo hopes to contribute to the treasury of Filipino literature and inspire the youth to cultivate appreciation and national pride for Filipino - written poetry. Allan Popa (Kagawaran ng Filipino) Allan Popa is the author of seven collections of poetry, the most recent being Basta (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009). He has received the Philippines Free Press Literary Award and the Manila Critics Circle National Book Award. He earned his mfa in Writing at Washington University in Saint Louis, where he won the Norma Lowry Prize and the Academy of American Poets Graduate Prize. He received fellowships to the New York State Writers Institute at Skidmore College from 2006-2011. He teaches at the Filipino Department of Ateneo de Manila University. His new book of poems titled Laan is due out from De La Salle University Press. He is one of the founding members of High Chair. 115
Pia Posadas (3 BS Management, major in Communications Technology Management) Pia is currently a features writer for The Guidon who is ready to extol the virtues of Cougar Town to anyone at the drop of a hat. As embarrassed as she is to admit this, she traces the beginning of her writing career to Harry Potter and Supernatural fanfiction; she is nonetheless excited to see how far this love affair with words will take her. Christine Mae Sta. Maria (3 BFA Creative Writing) Matt is a girl with a boy’s name. Stephanie Shi (4 BFA Creative Writing) Stephanie Shi is a senior creative writing major at the Ateneo de Manila University. She was a fellow for essay at the 18th Ateneo heights Writers Workshop. Her work has been published in heights, of which she is currently the managing editor for communications. “Reconciliation” is part of her thesis - in - progress. Krysten Alarice Tan (2 BFA Information Design) A sparkly shojo, sometimes mahou, who is very curious and would love to keep on exploring. Let’s just go! Thanks to my family, my crazy e1 block, my m02ruefriends, and that cool cat who helped me figure some art stuff out.
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Stefani Tran (3 BFA Creative Writing) “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” —G.K. Chesterton Stef Tran is a creative writing junior, and loves her course even though she isn’t really sure what genres are. She was a fellow for English poetry at the 13th iyas National Writers’ Workshop, and her work has been published in Transit and heights. She once owned a fighting fish named Jackie Chan. This one’s for a.g., who is entirely to blame. Nikki Vocalan (2 AB Psychology) The ultimate strain is to get the ink dance in the way the mind wants it to dance. Let the lead of pens, and ink put into reality whatever amount of dreams that are held in the virtual space of our brain. I hope, constantly, that I’m doing this well.
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Acknowledgments Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin, sj and the Office of the President Mr. Rodolfo P. Ang and the Office of the Vice President for the Loyola Schools Mr. Rene S. San Andres and the Office of the Associate Dean for Student Affairs Mr. Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz and the Office of the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Ma. Luz C. Vilches and the Office of the Dean, School of Humanities Mr. Danilo M. Reyes and the English Department Dr. Jerry C. Respeto and the Fine Arts Program Dr. Alvin B. Yapan at ang Kagawaran ng Filipino Mr. Allan Popa and the Ateneo Institute of the Literary Arts and Practices (ailap) Mr. Christopher F. Castillo and the Office of Student Activities Ms. Marie Joy R. Salita and the Office of Administrative Services Ms. Liberty Santos and the Central Accounting Office Mr. Regidor Macaraig and the Purchasing Office Dr. Vernon R. Totanes and the Rizal Library Ms. Carina C. Samaniego and the University Archives Ms. Yael A. Buencamino and the Ateneo Art Gallery The mvp Maintenance and Security Personnel The University Physical Plant Office Mr. Victor Rafael M. Agbayani and The Guidon Ms. Iman Tagudi単a and Matanglawin Mr. RJ Dimla and the soh Sanggunian The Sanggunian ng Mag-aaral ng Ateneo de Manila, and the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo And to those who have been keeping literature and art alive in the community by continuously submitting their works and supporting the endeavors of heights
Editorial Board Editor - in - Chief Audrey Mae Ferriol [ab eu 2014] Associate Editor Natasha Basul [bs com tech 2014] Managing Editor for Communications Stephanie Shi [bfa cw 2014] for Finance Melissa Yu [bs mgt 2014] Deputy for Finance Moli Muñoz [bs ch - acs 2015] Art Editor Ali Timonera [bs cs 2015] Associate Art Editor Manuel Iñigo A. Angulo [ab com 2016] Design Editor Eugene Tuazon [bfa id 2014] Associate Design Editor Cheska Mallillin [bfa id 2016] English Editor Joseph Ledesma [bfa cw 2015] Associate English Editor Bianca Sarte [ab eu 2016] Filipino Editor Ace Ancheta [ab lit (eng) 2014] Associate Filipino Editor Abner E. Dormiendo [ab ph 2014] Production Manager Cressa Zamora [ab ds 2015] Associate Production Manager Jonnel Inojosa [bs lm 2016] Web Editor Carissa Pobre [bfa cw 2016] Associate Web Editor Jam Pascual [bfa cw 2015]
Head Moderator and Moderator for Filipino Allan Alberto N. Derain Moderator for Art Yael A . Buencamino Moderator for English Martin Villanueva Moderator for Design Jose Fernando Go - oco Moderator for Production Enrique Jaime S. Soriano Moderator for Web Nicko Reginio Caluya
Staffers Art
Dyanne Abobo, Ariana Asuncion, Micah Barker, Katrina Barreiro, Adrian Begonia, Nicole Castañeda, Samantha Chiang, Jikka Defiño, Lasmyr Edullantes, Cathy Elago, Reg Geli, Corrine Angeli G. Golez, Selena Herrera, JJ Joson, Yannah Justiniani, Nichele Li, Marion Emmanuel P. Lopez, Moli Muñoz, David Nacar, Lorenzo Torres Narciso, Justyn Ng, Sara Nothdurft, Veronica Oliva, Mick Quito, Joel Recto, Nicole Soriano, Krysten Alarice Tan, Jen Venancio, Aaron Villaflores, Nikki Vocalan
Design
Anissa Aguila, Sean Bautista, John Lazir Caluya, Bianca Carandang, Angela Chua, Ida de Jesus, Kenzie Du, Bianca Espinosa, Patty Ferriol, Beatriz Ignacio, Alex Malto, Julian Occeña, Meagan Ong, Troy Ong, Tommi Principe, Krysten Alarice Tan
English
Rayne Aguilar, A. A. Aris Amor, Billy Atienza, Marco Bartolome, Tasha Basul, Christa Bucao, Regine Cabato, Isabela Cuerva, Catherina Dario, Azi de la Paz, Reg Geli, Jenina Ibañez, Leona Lao, Samuel Liquete, Mint Marquez, DC Mostrales, Jeivi Nicdao, Lara Pangilinan, Jam Pascual, Carissa Pobre, Andie Reyes, Stephanie Shi, Micheas Elijah Taguibulos, Catherine Tan, Ayana Tolentino, Josh Uyheng, Erika Villa - Ignacio, Pam Villar, Kazuki Yamada, Noelle Zarza
Filipino
Selina Ablaza, Chise Alcantara, Gwen Bañaria, Christian Jil Benitez, Pat Cendaña, Dustin Jan Cruz, Reia Dangeros, Alexander Dungca, Sha Hernandez, Jonnel Inojosa, Ariane Lim, Marc Lopez, Kimberly Lucerna, Francis Eldon Mabutin, Eileen Mae R. Manalaysay, Aidan Manglinong, LJ Miranda, Matthew Olivares, Marian Pacunana, Ray John Santiago, Jero Santos, Micheas Elijah Taguibulos, Roro Yap
Production
Sheena Amit, Kim Ang, Gwen Bañaria, Punky Canlas, Karis Corpus, Grace Cruz, Louise de Guzman, Alonso de Leon, Drama del Rosario, Momo Fernandez, Clouds Lunn, Micah Nadaat, Maia Nery, Ysa Ocliasa, Carissa Pobre, Beta Santos, Max Suarez
Web
A. A. Aris Amor, Sarah Arrojado, Billy Atienza, Nikki Blanco, Regine Cabato, Aleah Cunningham, Catherina Dario, Kenzie Du, Beatriz Ignacio, Clarice Ilustre, Leona Lao, Izo Lopez, LJ Miranda, Ysa Ocliasa, Michelle Parlan, Julianne Suazo, Jaclyn Teng, Kaye Toledo
4th ateneo heights artists workshop
august 17 – 18, 2013 Femar Garden Resort and Convention Center, Antipolo City
Panelists Reuel Aguila Wilford Almoro Peter Paul Blanco Celia Bonilla Benjie Cabangis Estan Cabigas Toym Imao Meneer Marcelo Tokwa Peñaflorida Claro Ramirez Fellows Manuel Iñigo A. Angulo [traditional (mixed media)] Beatrice Bisuña [digital] Caroline Leanne Carmona [digital & traditional] Lasmyr Edullantes [traditional (ink & painting)] Justine Joson [digital] Trisha Katipunan [traditional (ink & mixed media)] Jan Allister Omengan [traditional (painting)] Chi Punzalan [photography] Mark Santiago [traditional (graphite)] Krysten Alarice Tan [traditional (watercolor)] Workshop Director Ali Timonera
Workshop Deliberation Committee Ms. Nicole Maguyon Mr. John Alexis Balaguer Mr. Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan Workshop Committee Nikki Vocalan [assistant director & logistics head] Cathy Elago, Corrine Golez, Samuel Liquete, and Marion Lopez [logistics] Kim Ang [promotions] Izo Lopez and LJ Miranda [web & documentations] Finance Melissa Yu Design Cheska Mallillin Moderator Yael A. Buencamino
19th ateneo heights writers workshop
august 24 – 26, 2013 Femar Garden Resort and Convention Center, Antipolo City
Panelists Mark Anthony Cayanan Allan Alberto N. Derain Allan Popa Edgar Samar Vincenz Serrano Martin Villanueva Fellows Stella Acosta [poetry] Francis Alcantara [sanaysay] Christian Jil Benitez [tula] Dionne Co [poetry] Catherina Dario [fiction] AJ Elicaño [fiction] Ariane Lim [kuwento] Kimberly Lucerna [kuwento] Ray John Santiago [tula] Rodolfo Eduardo Santiago [fiction] Workshop Director Natasha Basul
Workshop Deliberation Committee english Ms. Tina del Rosario Mr. Gian Lao Mr. Cedric Tan filipino Bb. Rachel Marra G. Maki Lim Workshop Committee Jenina Iba単ez [assistant director & logistics head] Billy Atienza, Aidan Manglinong, Matt Olivares, Samuel Liquete, and Jonnel Inojosa [logistics & promotions] Carissa Pobre and Sarah Arrojado [web & documentations] Finance Melissa Yu Design Eugene Tuazon Moderator Allan Alberto N. Derain