1.) People of Consequence by Ines Taccad Cammayo Camus and his wife secretly prided themselves in being, of all the residents in their barrio, the only ones who had really known and lived with people of consequence. When he was a young man, Camus had been the houseboy of a German haciendero. The German who was a bachelor had often told Camus that his punishments were for his own good because he must learn to shed his indolent and clumsy ways if he ever hoped to amount to anything. Unfortunately, before he could learn more from his stern master, his father wrote to say that he must come home right away because his bethrothed was waiting. The German had mouthed unintelligible, guttural curses which Camus listened to with mixed feelings of shame and pleasure because it meant that he was wanted after all, but in the end, the German sent him off with a de hilo cerrada suit, a heavy pair of boots capacious enough to let him wiggle his gnarled toes in, and two months extra pay which came handy fox the wedding celebrations. That was twenty years ago, shortly before the war, and although Camus had all the intentions to see the German off when he left for his country, the expense and the effort turned out to him, at the last minute, discouraging. In the meantime, Camus and his wife were themselves becoming people of consequence. They now owned the best house in the barrio which, with other lakeside villages, lay at the base of a high chit which the people called Munting Azul because a perpetual haze clung to its summit. To reach the summit, one must climb the step and circuitous steps that many years ago, time men, Camus among them, had hacked out of the thick underbrush that covered the entire face of the cliff, and then cemented in places where the down-rushing water in rainy seasons was wont to wash away. One could also leave the village by crossing the lake westward. The upward climb was the quicker route but was difficult for the old and the weak. Once the embankment was reached, Munting Azul leveled off into fields, and three kilometers away was the town of Cuenco. The town was bypass by the National highway but jeepney and a couple of minibuses shuttled to and from the larger towns, including Capitolyo, on the descent. Cuenco was the only large town which Camus really knew although he had been to the Capitolyo occasionally. When he lived with the German, they resided in what was called the White House in the middle of the vast, treeless hacienda rimmed by forests across the lake. Meding, his wife, had, in her own adolescence, lived in the Capitolyo for almost four years as servant of the Mayor’s family. It was there that she learned the hard-driving manners of townsfolk. It constantly amazed him how she could make idle time yield profit, and even more astonishing, how, having made profit, she held on to it. Camus, a hard worker, was at his fishing long before the dawn, and later in the day, mending his nets on the pier he had built from his hut. It was his father’s life he had learned, and after he came from the German’s household he saw no cause and no way to change. The first thing that Meding did was to barter over his vehement objections the one male carabao he owned for a puny female. When it began to yield milk, she gathered it to make into a white curd which she molded into banana leaf containers or boiled into sweet candy. Not one frasco found its way to their table. Every Sunday she would climb the steep ascent to sell her white cheese and milk sticks in Cuenco. She gathered the occasional coconuts and mangoes from the trees behind their house and sold them, together with the harvest of fish Camus hauled in every day. She was so undemanding, she never had to sell at a loss or to mortgage his catch, and the hard – dealing middleman who came with his tempting offers bypassed their house with great aloofness. Meding even opened a postal saving account and once in a while she showed him figures. As the sum increased he felt he knew her less and less. Long before she began the feverish phase of acquiring possessions, when they sat down to their frugal meal he felt that, perhaps they could afford something more appetizing. A look of Meding’s face bent over her plate, contented in determined self-denial would silence him. She astounded him most by buying crochet thread and needles. In the mornings, keeping by herself from the village women, she sat at the window of the little hut, thrusting away at her hook and thread, making beautiful patterns of lace that he believed, his heart bursting with pride, no other wife in all the lakeside barrios could make, let alone possess her infinite patience. To his unbelieving ears, she whispered that he wavy laces were so prized that housewives in the town willingly pail for them with sacks of rice. In time their neighbors ran to them for loans, and although she never charged usurious rate, Meding was as hard as stone when it came to collecting. If the borrower failed to pay or on time she demanded goods in payment. Her laconic and unsmiling manner defeated any jocose attempt at gaining time and even whining plea bought only the unfeeling retort that life was just as hard for her, and that always shamed them into passing for one better than their neighbors knew how Spartan was their life. The first change in the quiet girl he married came one night: lying, facing each other on the slatted floor of their bedroom in the hut which was now their kitchen, she spoke of her plans, spelled each dream so grimly as to leave no doubt in Camus’ mind that these were already real. Talk of a child had long since been avoided. Now she spoke of bringing in kiln-dried posts from Cuenco, a proposal wildly ostentious and impossible, considering the steep descent from town. She spoke of galvanized roofing, capiz windows and all the accoutrements of town houses, hardware, varnished walls, two big bedrooms, a sala so spacious it could accommodate their old hut, and carved narra furniture. When the house was finally finished – a reality of shining walls and costly gleaming windows – Camus went about apologizing for its size. “We really planned to have it much bigger, but my wife with her usual good sense wanted something more modest.” The house never wore a coat of paint, growing darker and rain-stained with every passing season. The bedroom was never occupied except when out-of-town officials came. It contained a monstrous, carved and highly varnished bed. Its snaky posts bore aloft a wooden balance that gave it unusual elegance. A three-panel mirrored aparador in the room was used by no one except guests; so, too, a washbowl inlaid with mother-of-pearl which gleamed against the mahogany shadows of the room. One day, Meding said, “The young men are going up to the Capitolyo next week. It would be a good time for you to go with them.” After a long pause, she added, “they invite you every year but you have gone only once. You could visit with the Superintendent this time.” At an earlier fiesta, when Camus at the inspector’s house, the official was already taken up with his other visitors. The señora did not know him. She must have also been distracted at the never-ending stream of visitors. With an absent-minded wave hand and murmured acknowledgement, she ordered someone to unburden him of his coop of chicken and made him feel at home. “Well, don’t just stand there!” an old crone had cackled at him. “Dress the chickens!” With that she thrust a halo into his hands. Camus was dismayed, but only for a few seconds. He spent the rest of the day cheerfully helping out in the backyard, very much needed and feeling useful as he stirred a huge carajay. He had caught a glimpse of the Inspector but the man was deep in conversation with some important-looking men. In a way, he was glad. He had stripped down to his shorts to save his Americana from stain. His only regret about that visit, however, was his not having been able to join in talk with the townsmen, When they came to his house, he never felt shy telling his favorite recollections of Señor Lehniann, the German master whom many of them had heard of but never seen, “lie was a man of few words and a great reader. There was this thick book which he always read but would never let me touch. Otherwise he was extremely generous with other things. Advice. His old clothes. Sometimes money.” As the years passed, his stories of intimacy with the German master grew, and there were times when he ventured saying that he was such the confidant of the aleman that they used to hold long conversations. The aleman had often said that he should aspire to go to Manila to study, and that, he would make good because he would then cultivate further the inclination and the attitude, that he acquired through exposure to better things. Time had a way of making resolutions fade, but the inclination remained, Camus would say, with a complacent shrug. A few years back, a frequent visitor, the Councilor for their area, offered him a caminero’s job on a section of the municipal road to Cuenco. Camus still remembered the four short weeks of that only employment with an emotion akin to righteousness. He received thirty pesos scrupulously kept their dirt hidden in their backyards. It was the grass and the weeds that continually threatened to overrun the road. Then someone told him that the same Councilor had placed someone else as a checker who had nothing to do but check on the camineros. With polite apologies to Meding and the baffled councilor, he left the job. In the yard of their neighbors house a group of young men began to gather. Laughter broke out often and once in a while, someone slapped a neighbor on the back. Camus could make out nothing; the whirr of the crickets seemed to drown out all their talk. He sat at the window picking with his nails, a veined and hairy leg drawn up on the bench to support his chin. In the dusk, the group looked conspiratorial. He looked long at Meding clearing the table. “You are right, I think,” he said half-asking. Meding shrugged her frail shoulders. She crossed the wobbly bamboo bridge that connected their house to the old hut. Camu followed her without a word, wondering what she would do. She led the way to the smaller of two rooms. “I have prepared your white suit,” she said. She knelt before the wooden trunk, took a black key from the ring which always hung at her waist and twisted it into the keyhole. The suit lay on top of all the old clothes, like a silent shock that it had been years since he wore it. The fragrance of its being kept in the trunk was wafted to him, redolent of an opulence he had never really enjoyed again after that morning of his wedding. Camus received it with some shyness. It was almost like a ritual and Camus was glad that the soft light hid his emotions. All their life, sentiment had had very little meaning perhaps because love had never figured in the courtship. Camus married Meding because his father and her father had agreed on the union. She had submitted impassively, although he had heard she was spirited girl. The vaunted spirit was to be known by him only through the regimen with which he had imposed on their lives. Sometimes when the barrenness of living engulfed him with a misery he could not understand, he felt that this was as it should be, life is hard, why should he complain, she was an ardent example of what hard work and frugality could bring. In this reveries, he began to believe in the gladsome fullness of his life as the German had said it could be. Camus held the coat before him. “It may no longer fit me,” he said. He felt that he had grown bigger, taller, more expansive in girth, so that when the coat slid easily over his shoulders and the pants hung loosely around his waist, consternation filled him. He realized that he had really, looked at himself for sometime. He turned and lifted the lantern from the hook and walked slowly into the bigger bedroom where the three-paneled aparador stood. The man in the mirror was someone he scarcely knew. He was stooped-shouldered, his chest caved in, and his silvery hair that stood erect in a close-cropped aguinaldo cut was sparse and revealed his shiny brown scalp. The face- taut and mask-like – shook him. He began to think that he would never be able to greet his hosts in the capitol like with that boisterous warmth they themselves greeted him when they mounted his stairs. Even if he had never intended to do so, he had long since he learned that humility pleased his visitors. So the suit did not really matter. All these years he thought he had really grown stout, lie was still strong at the nets. He could lift sacks of rice with ease. Heavy loads never shortened his breath. When his wife’s face appeared from the shadows in the mirror, he felt even more saddened. He wondered did she ever feel the need to look and live well, to experience heady well-being. Her lips drew back unsmiling, and as an answer to his thought, she spoke, her eyes betraying nothing: “You have not changed much. The years do riot tell on you.” Camus stared at his image like it were stricken adversary. He slowly unbuttoned the coat dropped the pants and handed them back to Meding. “Perhaps you had better put this back in the trunk.” He looked at his wife in the mirror and in a voice not his, he told her that he could not go. She listened to him indifferently; already in her mind, she was counting the chickens which she must catch, tie up and cage in stripped baskets. She knew how in the town every leaf of vegetables had its price and these would be her husband’s levy. She had watched him welcome those people with touching sincerity that somehow made the patronizing tones of his guests sound boorish. And she, too, had a acquiesced, having learned from dealing with merchants that sometimes yielding was only way of getting your due. The young men are starting early in the morning. We must be up before the first cock crows,” she said flatly, refusing to yield to the pleading in his eyes. The crowd of women converged on Camus the moment he alighted from the bus, screaming and tugging at his two chicken coops. Then as suddenly as a swarm of flies that have found another victim, they dispersed, he wing him with the empty containers and several smelly bills in his hands. Camus stared at the money, then quickly pocketed it. He walked towards the church, not minding the crowd, the hawking vendors who thrust bundles of cake at his face. Camus rubbed the back of his hand against his temples. Every step was taking him nearer to the Superintendent’s house and how could he go to him without the chicken’s of his throat was parched, the vendors thrust their wares at him again. Pinipig! Balut! Kropeck! Mais laga! Above the voices, in a tinkling bell now attracted him. He turned around, an ice cream vendor smiled at him: Ice cream, sir! Ice cream! They exchanged a look of understanding. He watched the vendor pat layers of multi-colored ice cream into the cone, yellow, violet, white. A final, careful pat of chocolate. He waved away the insistent hands and wares of the other peddlers. Slow he drew the money from his pocket, picked the bill most frayed and gave it to the vendor. As he licked the ice cream, savoring the taste, he stretched out his hand for the change. All was quiet in the plaza now, and suddenly he realized that he had almost twenty pesos to spend as he pleased. He squinted craftily about him, seeing for the first time the enticements of the shops, hearing for the first time the loud speakers talking to him alone. Yes, he must tell his wife how pleased the good lady had been, how truly line gentlemen and friend the Superintendent was. 2.)The Rural Maid By Fernando M. Maramag 1. Thy glance, sweet maid, when first we met, Had left a heart that aches for thee, I feel the pain of fond regret— Thy heart, perchance, is not for me. 2. We parted: though we met no more, My dreams are dreams of thee, fair maid; I think of thee, my thoughts implore The hours my lips on thine are laid. 3. Forgive these words that love impart, And pleading, bare the poet’s breast; And if a rose with thorns thou art, Yet on my breast that rose may rest. 4. I know not what to name thy charms, Thou art half human, half divine; And if I could hold thee in my arms, I know both heaven and earth were mine. 3.) ANG PAGPAPAALAM ni Leona Florentino O Mutya ng pag-ibig, ako’y dinggin Nasadlak sa hirap at dumaraing; O Puso, maanong amutan ng tingin, Ang kaawa-awa’y iyong pansinin. Tunay ngang kaawa-awa Itong inulila ng yumao Nguni gumagaang ang pakiramdam Pagkat alaala mo’y laging kaakbay. At bilang pamamaalam Sa iyong piling ako’y lilisan Pagkat nalasap ko ang tuwa at ligaya Na hindi mawawala sa aking alaala. Malungkot akong magpapaalam-- Adyos, Liyag, mabangong asucena; Sa aking masamyong dibdib itatago kita, Nang ang bango mo’y di na maglaho pa. Ngayo’y lagi nang kalong ng katahimikan At kasa-kasama ng mapait na lumbay Pagkat sa diwa ko’y umiibis ang kalungkutan Nagbibigay-wari ng kahabagan. Samahan ka ng Diyos, O punong-puno ng sigla Gayundin yaong sa pag-ibig nagnanasa, Samahan ka ng Diyos, ikaw na nagtatago ng pag-irog Ang puri mo’t dangal kailanma’y di madudurog. 4.) Frustrated wish Translated by pfof. Carolina Arceo So happy and trusted These people in love For their sorrow they have Somebody to share. My destiny that’s so lonely Am I alone with this? For I said I won’t think twice Because suffering I am now. If ever I fall in love to a lady There’s nothing I could see That I have my counterpart. Time I shall forget when I was born Better is a thousand years If at birth I was gone. I should have tried to explain But tounge-tide I was For I could clearly see That I won’t be lucky. And it really pleases me much That my love for you know So I swear and promise you That my life is just for you. 5.) PANAGPAKADA by Leona Florentino Timudem man! O Imnas ni ayat, ti un-unnoy toy seknan ni rigat; imatangam

1.) People of Consequence by Ines Taccad Cammayo Camus and his wife secretly prided themselves in being, of all the residents in their barrio, the only ones who had really known and lived with people of consequence. When he was a young man, Camus had been the houseboy of a German haciendero. The German who was a bachelor had often told Camus that his punishments were for his own good because he must learn to shed his indolent and clumsy ways if he ever hoped to amount to anything. Unfortunately, before he could learn more from his stern master, his father wrote to say that he must come home right away because his bethrothed was waiting. The German had mouthed unintelligible, guttural curses which Camus listened to with mixed feelings of shame and pleasure because it meant that he was wanted after all, but in the end, the German sent him off with a de hilo cerrada suit, a heavy pair of boots capacious enough to let him wiggle his gnarled toes in, and two months extra pay which came handy fox the wedding celebrations. That was twenty years ago, shortly before the war, and although Camus had all the intentions to see the German off when he left for his country, the expense and the effort turned out to him, at the last minute, discouraging. In the meantime, Camus and his wife were themselves becoming people of consequence. They now owned the best house in the barrio which, with other lakeside villages, lay at the base of a high chit which the people called Munting Azul because a perpetual haze clung to its summit. To reach the summit, one must climb the step and circuitous steps that many years ago, time men, Camus among them, had hacked out of the thick underbrush that covered the entire face of the cliff, and then cemented in places where the down-rushing water in rainy seasons was wont to wash away. One could also leave the village by crossing the lake westward. The upward climb was the quicker route but was difficult for the old and the weak. Once the embankment was reached, Munting Azul leveled off into fields, and three kilometers away was the town of Cuenco. The town was bypass by the National highway but jeepney and a couple of minibuses shuttled to and from the larger towns, including Capitolyo, on the descent. Cuenco was the only large town which Camus really knew although he had been to the Capitolyo occasionally. When he lived with the German, they resided in what was called the White House in the middle of the vast, treeless hacienda rimmed by forests across the lake. Meding, his wife, had, in her own adolescence, lived in the Capitolyo for almost four years as servant of the Mayor’s family. It was there that she learned the hard-driving manners of townsfolk. It constantly amazed him how she could make idle time yield profit, and even more astonishing, how, having made profit, she held on to it. Camus, a hard worker, was at his fishing long before the dawn, and later in the day, mending his nets on the pier he had built from his hut. It was his father’s life he had learned, and after he came from the German’s household he saw no cause and no way to change. The first thing that Meding did was to barter over his vehement objections the one male carabao he owned for a puny female. When it began to yield milk, she gathered it to make into a white curd which she molded into banana leaf containers or boiled into sweet candy. Not one frasco found its way to their table. Every Sunday she would climb the steep ascent to sell her white cheese and milk sticks in Cuenco. She gathered the occasional coconuts and mangoes from the trees behind their house and sold them, together with the harvest of fish Camus hauled in every day. She was so undemanding, she never had to sell at a loss or to mortgage his catch, and the hard – dealing middleman who came with his tempting offers bypassed their house with great aloofness. Meding even opened a postal saving account and once in a while she showed him figures. As the sum increased he felt he knew her less and less. Long before she began the feverish phase of acquiring possessions, when they sat down to their frugal meal he felt that, perhaps they could afford something more appetizing. A look of Meding’s face bent over her plate, contented in determined self-denial would silence him. She astounded him most by buying crochet thread and needles. In the mornings, keeping by herself from the village women, she sat at the window of the little hut, thrusting away at her hook and thread, making beautiful patterns of lace that he believed, his heart bursting with pride, no other wife in all the lakeside barrios could make, let alone possess her infinite patience. To his unbelieving ears, she whispered that he wavy laces were so prized that housewives in the town willingly pail for them with sacks of rice. In time their neighbors ran to them for loans, and although she never charged usurious rate, Meding was as hard as stone when it came to collecting. If the borrower failed to pay or on time she demanded goods in payment. Her laconic and unsmiling manner defeated any jocose attempt at gaining time and even whining plea bought only the unfeeling retort that life was just as hard for her, and that always shamed them into passing for one better than their neighbors knew how Spartan was their life. The first change in the quiet girl he married came one night: lying, facing each other on the slatted floor of their bedroom in the hut which was now their kitchen, she spoke of her plans, spelled each dream so grimly as to leave no doubt in Camus’ mind that these were already real. Talk of a child had long since been avoided. Now she spoke of bringing in kiln-dried posts from Cuenco, a proposal wildly ostentious and impossible, considering the steep descent from town. She spoke of galvanized roofing, capiz windows and all the accoutrements of town houses, hardware, varnished walls, two big bedrooms, a sala so spacious it could accommodate their old hut, and carved narra furniture. When the house was finally finished – a reality of shining walls and costly gleaming windows – Camus went about apologizing for its size. “We really planned to have it much bigger, but my wife with her usual good sense wanted something more modest.” The house never wore a coat of paint, growing darker and rain-stained with every passing season. The bedroom was never occupied except when out-of-town officials came. It contained a monstrous, carved and highly varnished bed. Its snaky posts bore aloft a wooden balance that gave it unusual elegance. A three-panel mirrored aparador in the room was used by no one except guests; so, too, a washbowl inlaid with mother-of-pearl which gleamed against the mahogany shadows of the room. One day, Meding said, “The young men are going up to the Capitolyo next week. It would be a good time for you to go with them.” After a long pause, she added, “they invite you every year but you have gone only once. You could visit with the Superintendent this time.” At an earlier fiesta, when Camus at the inspector’s house, the official was already taken up with his other visitors. The señora did not know him. She must have also been distracted at the never-ending stream of visitors. With an absent-minded wave hand and murmured acknowledgement, she ordered someone to unburden him of his coop of chicken and made him feel at home. “Well, don’t just stand there!” an old crone had cackled at him. “Dress the chickens!” With that she thrust a halo into his hands. Camus was dismayed, but only for a few seconds. He spent the rest of the day cheerfully helping out in the backyard, very much needed and feeling useful as he stirred a huge carajay. He had caught a glimpse of the Inspector but the man was deep in conversation with some important-looking men. In a way, he was glad. He had stripped down to his shorts to save his Americana from stain. His only regret about that visit, however, was his not having been able to join in talk with the townsmen, When they came to his house, he never felt shy telling his favorite recollections of Señor Lehniann, the German master whom many of them had heard of but never seen, “lie was a man of few words and a great reader. There was this thick book which he always read but would never let me touch. Otherwise he was extremely generous with other things. Advice. His old clothes. Sometimes money.” As the years passed, his stories of intimacy with the German master grew, and there were times when he ventured saying that he was such the confidant of the aleman that they used to hold long conversations. The aleman had often said that he should aspire to go to Manila to study, and that, he would make good because he would then cultivate further the inclination and the attitude, that he acquired through exposure to better things. Time had a way of making resolutions fade, but the inclination remained, Camus would say, with a complacent shrug. A few years back, a frequent visitor, the Councilor for their area, offered him a caminero’s job on a section of the municipal road to Cuenco. Camus still remembered the four short weeks of that only employment with an emotion akin to righteousness. He received thirty pesos scrupulously kept their dirt hidden in their backyards. It was the grass and the weeds that continually threatened to overrun the road. Then someone told him that the same Councilor had placed someone else as a checker who had nothing to do but check on the camineros. With polite apologies to Meding and the baffled councilor, he left the job. In the yard of their neighbors house a group of young men began to gather. Laughter broke out often and once in a while, someone slapped a neighbor on the back. Camus could make out nothing; the whirr of the crickets seemed to drown out all their talk. He sat at the window picking with his nails, a veined and hairy leg drawn up on the bench to support his chin. In the dusk, the group looked conspiratorial. He looked long at Meding clearing the table. “You are right, I think,” he said half-asking. Meding shrugged her frail shoulders. She crossed the wobbly bamboo bridge that connected their house to the old hut. Camu followed her without a word, wondering what she would do. She led the way to the smaller of two rooms. “I have prepared your white suit,” she said. She knelt before the wooden trunk, took a black key from the ring which always hung at her waist and twisted it into the keyhole. The suit lay on top of all the old clothes, like a silent shock that it had been years since he wore it. The fragrance of its being kept in the trunk was wafted to him, redolent of an opulence he had never really enjoyed again after that morning of his wedding. Camus received it with some shyness. It was almost like a ritual and Camus was glad that the soft light hid his emotions. All their life, sentiment had had very little meaning perhaps because love had never figured in the courtship. Camus married Meding because his father and her father had agreed on the union. She had submitted impassively, although he had heard she was spirited girl. The vaunted spirit was to be known by him only through the regimen with which he had imposed on their lives. Sometimes when the barrenness of living engulfed him with a misery he could not understand, he felt that this was as it should be, life is hard, why should he complain, she was an ardent example of what hard work and frugality could bring. In this reveries, he began to believe in the gladsome fullness of his life as the German had said it could be. Camus held the coat before him. “It may no longer fit me,” he said. He felt that he had grown bigger, taller, more expansive in girth, so that when the coat slid easily over his shoulders and the pants hung loosely around his waist, consternation filled him. He realized that he had really, looked at himself for sometime. He turned and lifted the lantern from the hook and walked slowly into the bigger bedroom where the three-paneled aparador stood. The man in the mirror was someone he scarcely knew. He was stooped-shouldered, his chest caved in, and his silvery hair that stood erect in a close-cropped aguinaldo cut was sparse and revealed his shiny brown scalp. The face- taut and mask-like – shook him. He began to think that he would never be able to greet his hosts in the capitol like with that boisterous warmth they themselves greeted him when they mounted his stairs. Even if he had never intended to do so, he had long since he learned that humility pleased his visitors. So the suit did not really matter. All these years he thought he had really grown stout, lie was still strong at the nets. He could lift sacks of rice with ease. Heavy loads never shortened his breath. When his wife’s face appeared from the shadows in the mirror, he felt even more saddened. He wondered did she ever feel the need to look and live well, to experience heady well-being. Her lips drew back unsmiling, and as an answer to his thought, she spoke, her eyes betraying nothing: “You have not changed much. The years do riot tell on you.” Camus stared at his image like it were stricken adversary. He slowly unbuttoned the coat dropped the pants and handed them back to Meding. “Perhaps you had better put this back in the trunk.” He looked at his wife in the mirror and in a voice not his, he told her that he could not go. She listened to him indifferently; already in her mind, she was counting the chickens which she must catch, tie up and cage in stripped baskets. She knew how in the town every leaf of vegetables had its price and these would be her husband’s levy. She had watched him welcome those people with touching sincerity that somehow made the patronizing tones of his guests sound boorish. And she, too, had a acquiesced, having learned from dealing with merchants that sometimes yielding was only way of getting your due. The young men are starting early in the morning. We must be up before the first cock crows,” she said flatly, refusing to yield to the pleading in his eyes. The crowd of women converged on Camus the moment he alighted from the bus, screaming and tugging at his two chicken coops. Then as suddenly as a swarm of flies that have found another victim, they dispersed, he wing him with the empty containers and several smelly bills in his hands. Camus stared at the money, then quickly pocketed it. He walked towards the church, not minding the crowd, the hawking vendors who thrust bundles of cake at his face. Camus rubbed the back of his hand against his temples. Every step was taking him nearer to the Superintendent’s house and how could he go to him without the chicken’s of his throat was parched, the vendors thrust their wares at him again. Pinipig! Balut! Kropeck! Mais laga! Above the voices, in a tinkling bell now attracted him. He turned around, an ice cream vendor smiled at him: Ice cream, sir! Ice cream! They exchanged a look of understanding. He watched the vendor pat layers of multi-colored ice cream into the cone, yellow, violet, white. A final, careful pat of chocolate. He waved away the insistent hands and wares of the other peddlers. Slow he drew the money from his pocket, picked the bill most frayed and gave it to the vendor. As he licked the ice cream, savoring the taste, he stretched out his hand for the change. All was quiet in the plaza now, and suddenly he realized that he had almost twenty pesos to spend as he pleased. He squinted craftily about him, seeing for the first time the enticements of the shops, hearing for the first time the loud speakers talking to him alone. Yes, he must tell his wife how pleased the good lady had been, how truly line gentlemen and friend the Superintendent was. 2.)The Rural Maid By Fernando M. Maramag 1. Thy glance, sweet maid, when first we met, Had left a heart that aches for thee, I feel the pain of fond regret— Thy heart, perchance, is not for me. 2. We parted: though we met no more, My dreams are dreams of thee, fair maid; I think of thee, my thoughts implore The hours my lips on thine are laid. 3. Forgive these words that love impart, And pleading, bare the poet’s breast; And if a rose with thorns thou art, Yet on my breast that rose may rest. 4. I know not what to name thy charms, Thou art half human, half divine; And if I could hold thee in my arms, I know both heaven and earth were mine. 3.) ANG PAGPAPAALAM ni Leona Florentino O Mutya ng pag-ibig, ako’y dinggin Nasadlak sa hirap at dumaraing; O Puso, maanong amutan ng tingin, Ang kaawa-awa’y iyong pansinin. Tunay ngang kaawa-awa Itong inulila ng yumao Nguni gumagaang ang pakiramdam Pagkat alaala mo’y laging kaakbay. At bilang pamamaalam Sa iyong piling ako’y lilisan Pagkat nalasap ko ang tuwa at ligaya Na hindi mawawala sa aking alaala. Malungkot akong magpapaalam-- Adyos, Liyag, mabangong asucena; Sa aking masamyong dibdib itatago kita, Nang ang bango mo’y di na maglaho pa. Ngayo’y lagi nang kalong ng katahimikan At kasa-kasama ng mapait na lumbay Pagkat sa diwa ko’y umiibis ang kalungkutan Nagbibigay-wari ng kahabagan. Samahan ka ng Diyos, O punong-puno ng sigla Gayundin yaong sa pag-ibig nagnanasa, Samahan ka ng Diyos, ikaw na nagtatago ng pag-irog Ang puri mo’t dangal kailanma’y di madudurog. 4.) Frustrated wish Translated by pfof. Carolina Arceo So happy and trusted These people in love For their sorrow they have Somebody to share. My destiny that’s so lonely Am I alone with this? For I said I won’t think twice Because suffering I am now. If ever I fall in love to a lady There’s nothing I could see That I have my counterpart. Time I shall forget when I was born Better is a thousand years If at birth I was gone. I should have tried to explain But tounge-tide I was For I could clearly see That I won’t be lucky. And it really pleases me much That my love for you know So I swear and promise you That my life is just for you. 5.) PANAGPAKADA by Leona Florentino Timudem man! O Imnas ni ayat, ti un-unnoy toy seknan ni rigat; imatangam

1.) People of Consequence 

by Ines Taccad Cammayo

Camus and his wife secretly prided themselves in being, of all the residents in their barrio, the only ones who had really known and lived with people of consequence.

When he was a young man, Camus had been the houseboy of a German haciendero. The German who was a bachelor had often told Camus that his punishments were for his own good because he must learn to shed his indolent and clumsy ways if he ever hoped to amount to anything. Unfortunately, before he could learn more from his stern master, his father wrote to say that he must come home right away because his bethrothed was waiting. The German had mouthed unintelligible, guttural curses which Camus listened to with mixed feelings of shame and pleasure because it meant that he was wanted after all, but in the end, the German sent him off with a de hilo cerrada suit, a heavy pair of boots capacious enough to let him wiggle his gnarled toes in, and two months extra pay which came handy fox the wedding celebrations. That was twenty years ago, shortly before the war, and although Camus had all the intentions to see the German off when he left for his country, the expense and the effort turned out to him, at the last minute, discouraging. In the meantime, Camus and his wife were themselves becoming people of consequence.

They now owned the best house in the barrio which, with other lakeside villages, lay at the base of a high chit which the people called Munting Azul because a perpetual haze clung to its summit. To reach the summit, one must climb the step and circuitous steps that many years ago, time men, Camus among them, had hacked out of the thick underbrush that covered the entire face of the cliff, and then cemented in places where the down-rushing water in rainy seasons was wont to wash away.

One could also leave the village by crossing the lake westward. The upward climb was the quicker route but was difficult for the old and the weak. Once the embankment was reached, Munting Azul leveled off into fields, and three kilometers away was the town of Cuenco.

The town was bypass by the National highway but jeepney and a couple of minibuses shuttled to and from the larger towns, including Capitolyo, on the descent. Cuenco was the only large town which Camus really knew although he had been to the Capitolyo occasionally. When he lived with the German, they resided in what was called the White House in the middle of the vast, treeless hacienda rimmed by forests across the lake.

Meding, his wife, had, in her own adolescence, lived in the Capitolyo for almost four years as servant of the Mayor’s family. It was there that she learned the hard-driving manners of townsfolk. It constantly amazed him how she could make idle time yield profit, and even more astonishing, how, having made profit, she held on to it. Camus, a hard worker, was at his fishing long before the dawn, and later in the day, mending his nets on the pier he had built from his hut. It was his father’s life he had learned, and after he came from the German’s household he saw no cause and no way to change.

The first thing that Meding did was to barter over his vehement objections the one male carabao he owned for a puny female. When it began to yield milk, she gathered it to make into a white curd which she molded into banana leaf containers or boiled into sweet candy. Not one frasco found its way to their table. Every Sunday she would climb the steep ascent to sell her white cheese and milk sticks in Cuenco.

She gathered the occasional coconuts and mangoes from the trees behind their house and sold them, together with the harvest of fish Camus hauled in every day. She was so undemanding, she never had to sell at a loss or to mortgage his catch, and the hard – dealing middleman who came with his tempting offers bypassed their house with great aloofness.

Meding even opened a postal saving account and once in a while she showed him figures. As the sum increased he felt he knew her less and less. Long before she began the feverish phase of acquiring possessions, when they sat down to their frugal meal he felt that, perhaps they could afford something more appetizing. A look of Meding’s face bent over her plate, contented in determined self-denial would silence him.

She astounded him most by buying crochet thread and needles. In the mornings, keeping by herself from the village women, she sat at the window of the little hut, thrusting away at her hook and thread, making beautiful patterns of lace that he believed, his heart bursting with pride, no other wife in all the lakeside barrios could make, let alone possess her infinite patience. To his unbelieving ears, she whispered that he wavy laces were so prized that housewives in the town willingly pail for them with sacks of rice.

In time their neighbors ran to them for loans, and although she never charged usurious rate, Meding was as hard as stone when it came to collecting. If the borrower failed to pay or on time she demanded goods in payment. Her laconic and unsmiling manner defeated any jocose attempt at gaining time and even whining plea bought only the unfeeling retort that life was just as hard for her, and that always shamed them into passing for one better than their neighbors knew how Spartan was their life.

The first change in the quiet girl he married came one night: lying, facing each other on the slatted floor of their bedroom in the hut which was now their kitchen, she spoke of her plans, spelled each dream so grimly as to leave no doubt in Camus’ mind that these were already real. Talk of a child had long since been avoided. Now she spoke of bringing in kiln-dried posts from Cuenco, a proposal wildly ostentious and impossible, considering the steep descent from town. She spoke of galvanized roofing, capiz windows and all the accoutrements of town houses, hardware, varnished walls, two big bedrooms, a sala so spacious it could accommodate their old hut, and carved narra furniture. When the house was finally finished – a reality of shining walls and costly gleaming windows – Camus went about apologizing for its size. “We really planned to have it much bigger, but my wife with her usual good sense wanted something more modest.”

The house never wore a coat of paint, growing darker and rain-stained with every passing season. The bedroom was never occupied except when out-of-town officials came. It contained a monstrous, carved and highly varnished bed. Its snaky posts bore aloft a wooden balance that gave it unusual elegance. A three-panel mirrored aparador in the room was used by no one except guests; so, too, a washbowl inlaid with mother-of-pearl which gleamed against the mahogany shadows of the room.

One day, Meding said, “The young men are going up to the Capitolyo next week. It would be a good time for you to go with them.” After a long pause, she added, “they invite you every year but you have gone only once. You could visit with the Superintendent this time.” At an earlier fiesta, when Camus at the inspector’s house, the official was already taken up with his other visitors. The señora did not know him. She must have also been distracted at the never-ending stream of visitors. With an absent-minded wave hand and murmured acknowledgement, she ordered someone to unburden him of his coop of chicken and made him feel at home. “Well, don’t just stand there!” an old crone had cackled at him. “Dress the chickens!” With that she thrust a halo into his hands. Camus was dismayed, but only for a few seconds. He spent the rest of the day cheerfully helping out in the backyard, very much needed and feeling useful as he stirred a huge carajay. He had caught a glimpse of the Inspector but the man was deep in conversation with some important-looking men. In a way, he was glad. He had stripped down to his shorts to save his Americana from stain.

His only regret about that visit, however, was his not having been able to join in talk with the townsmen, When they came to his house, he never felt shy telling his favorite recollections of Señor Lehniann, the German master whom many of them had heard of but never seen, “lie was a man of few words and a great reader. There was this thick book which he always read but would never let me touch. Otherwise he was extremely generous with other things. Advice. His old clothes. Sometimes money.”

As the years passed, his stories of intimacy with the German master grew, and there were times when he ventured saying that he was such the confidant of the aleman that they used to hold long conversations. The aleman had often said that he should aspire to go to Manila to study, and that, he would make good because he would then cultivate further the inclination and the attitude, that he acquired through exposure to better things. Time had a way of making resolutions fade, but the inclination remained, Camus would say, with a complacent shrug.

A few years back, a frequent visitor, the Councilor for their area, offered him a caminero’s job on a section of the municipal road to Cuenco. Camus still remembered the four short weeks of that only employment with an emotion akin to righteousness. He received thirty pesos scrupulously kept their dirt hidden in their backyards. It was the grass and the weeds that continually threatened to overrun the road. Then someone told him that the same Councilor had placed someone else as a checker who had nothing to do but check on the camineros. With polite apologies to Meding and the baffled councilor, he left the job.

In the yard of their neighbors house a group of young men began to gather. Laughter broke out often and once in a while, someone slapped a neighbor on the back. Camus could make out nothing; the whirr of the crickets seemed to drown out all their talk. He sat at the window picking with his nails, a veined and hairy leg drawn up on the bench to support his chin. In the dusk, the group looked conspiratorial.

He looked long at Meding clearing the table. “You are right, I think,” he said half-asking.

Meding shrugged her frail shoulders. She crossed the wobbly bamboo bridge that connected their house to the old hut. Camu followed her without a word, wondering what she would do.

She led the way to the smaller of two rooms. “I have prepared your white suit,” she said.

She knelt before the wooden trunk, took a black key from the ring which always hung at her waist and twisted it into the keyhole. The suit lay on top of all the old clothes, like a silent shock that it had been years since he wore it. The fragrance of its being kept in the trunk was wafted to him, redolent of an opulence he had never really enjoyed again after that morning of his wedding. Camus received it with some shyness. It was almost like a ritual and Camus was glad that the soft light hid his emotions.

All their life, sentiment had had very little meaning perhaps because love had never figured in the courtship. Camus married Meding because his father and her father had agreed on the union. She had submitted impassively, although he had heard she was spirited girl. The vaunted spirit was to be known by him only through the regimen with which he had imposed on their lives.

Sometimes when the barrenness of living engulfed him with a misery he could not understand, he felt that this was as it should be, life is hard, why should he complain, she was an ardent example of what hard work and frugality could bring. In this reveries, he began to believe in the gladsome fullness of his life as the German had said it could be. Camus held the coat before him. “It may no longer fit me,” he said.

He felt that he had grown bigger, taller, more expansive in girth, so that when the coat slid easily over his shoulders and the pants hung loosely around his waist, consternation filled him. He realized that he had really, looked at himself for sometime. He turned and lifted the lantern from the hook and walked slowly into the bigger bedroom where the three-paneled aparador stood.

The man in the mirror was someone he scarcely knew. He was stooped-shouldered, his chest caved in, and his silvery hair that stood erect in a close-cropped aguinaldo cut was sparse and revealed his shiny brown scalp.

The face- taut and mask-like – shook him. He began to think that he would never be able to greet his hosts in the capitol like with that boisterous warmth they themselves greeted him when they mounted his stairs. Even if he had never intended to do so, he had long since he learned that humility pleased his visitors.

So the suit did not really matter. All these years he thought he had really grown stout, lie was still strong at the nets. He could lift sacks of rice with ease. Heavy loads never shortened his breath. When his wife’s face appeared from the shadows in the mirror, he felt even more saddened. He wondered did she ever feel the need to look and live well, to experience heady well-being. Her lips drew back unsmiling, and as an answer to his thought, she spoke, her eyes betraying nothing: “You have not changed much. The years do riot tell on you.”

Camus stared at his image like it were stricken adversary. He slowly unbuttoned the coat dropped the pants and handed them back to Meding.

“Perhaps you had better put this back in the trunk.” He looked at his wife in the mirror and in a voice not his, he told her that he could not go.

She listened to him indifferently; already in her mind, she was counting the chickens which she must catch, tie up and cage in stripped baskets. She knew how in the town every leaf of vegetables had its price and these would be her husband’s levy. She had watched him welcome those people with touching sincerity that somehow made the patronizing tones of his guests sound boorish. And she, too, had a acquiesced, having learned from dealing with merchants that sometimes yielding was only way of getting your due.

The young men are starting early in the morning. We must be up before the first cock crows,” she said flatly, refusing to yield to the pleading in his eyes.

The crowd of women converged on Camus the moment he alighted from the bus, screaming and tugging at his two chicken coops. Then as suddenly as a swarm of flies that have found another victim, they dispersed, he wing him with the empty containers and several smelly bills in his hands.

Camus stared at the money, then quickly pocketed it. He walked towards the church, not minding the crowd, the hawking vendors who thrust bundles of cake at his face. Camus rubbed the back of his hand against his temples. Every step was taking him nearer to the Superintendent’s house and how could he go to him without the chicken’s of his throat was parched, the vendors thrust their wares at him again. Pinipig! Balut! Kropeck! Mais laga! Above the voices, in a tinkling bell now attracted him. He turned around, an ice cream vendor smiled at him: Ice cream, sir! Ice cream! They exchanged a look of understanding.

He watched the vendor pat layers of multi-colored ice cream into the cone, yellow, violet, white. A final, careful pat of chocolate. He waved away the insistent hands and wares of the other peddlers. Slow he drew the money from his pocket, picked the bill most frayed and gave it to the vendor. As he licked the ice cream, savoring the taste, he stretched out his hand for the change. All was quiet in the plaza now, and suddenly he realized that he had almost twenty pesos to spend as he pleased. He squinted craftily about him, seeing for the first time the enticements of the shops, hearing for the first time the loud speakers talking to him alone. Yes, he must tell his wife how pleased the good lady had been, how truly line gentlemen and friend the Superintendent was.

2.)The Rural Maid
By Fernando M. Maramag

1.
Thy glance, sweet maid, when first we met,
Had left a heart that aches for thee,
I feel the pain of fond regret—
Thy heart, perchance, is not for me.

2.
We parted: though we met no more,
My dreams are dreams of thee, fair maid;
I think of thee, my thoughts implore
The hours my lips on thine are laid.

3.
Forgive these words that love impart,
And pleading, bare the poet’s breast;
And if a rose with thorns thou art,
Yet on my breast that rose may rest.

4.
I know not what to name thy charms,
Thou art half human, half divine;
And if I could hold thee in my arms,
I know both heaven and earth were mine.

3.) ANG PAGPAPAALAM

ni Leona Florentino

O Mutya ng pag-ibig, ako’y dinggin
Nasadlak sa hirap at dumaraing;
O Puso, maanong amutan ng tingin,
Ang kaawa-awa’y iyong pansinin.  

Tunay ngang kaawa-awa
Itong inulila ng yumao
Nguni gumagaang ang pakiramdam
Pagkat alaala mo’y laging kaakbay.

At bilang pamamaalam
Sa iyong piling ako’y lilisan
Pagkat nalasap ko ang tuwa at ligaya
Na hindi mawawala sa aking alaala.  

Malungkot akong magpapaalam--
Adyos, Liyag, mabangong asucena;
Sa aking masamyong dibdib itatago kita,
Nang ang bango mo’y di na maglaho pa.

Ngayo’y lagi nang kalong ng katahimikan
At kasa-kasama ng mapait na lumbay
Pagkat sa diwa ko’y umiibis ang kalungkutan
Nagbibigay-wari ng kahabagan.  

Samahan ka ng Diyos, O punong-puno ng sigla
Gayundin yaong sa pag-ibig nagnanasa,
Samahan ka ng Diyos, ikaw na nagtatago ng pag-irog
Ang puri mo’t dangal kailanma’y di madudurog.

4.) Frustrated wish

Translated by pfof. Carolina Arceo

So happy and trusted

These people in love

For their sorrow they have

Somebody to share.

My destiny that’s so lonely

Am I alone with this?

For I said I won’t think twice

Because suffering I am now.

If ever I fall in love to a lady

There’s nothing I could see

That I have my counterpart.

Time I shall forget when I was born

Better is a thousand years

If at birth I was gone.

I should have tried to explain

But tounge-tide I was

For I could clearly see

That I won’t be lucky.

And it really pleases me much

That my love for you know

So I swear and promise you

That my life is just for you.

5.) PANAGPAKADA  

by Leona Florentino

Timudem man! O Imnas ni ayat,
ti un-unnoy toy seknan ni rigat;
imatangam, O puso ket imutektekannak
anusem a paliiwen toy daksanggasat.
Daksanggasat konak a ta maipusay
toy naldaang unay a bangkay;
ngem ni lagip dinto met bumalakday,
agnanayonto laeng a sitatarabay.
Kas panagpakada dagitoy nga innak baliksen,
ta toy bagik maipanaw kadagita taeng;
taeng ni ragsak, liwliwa nga innak lak-amen,
dinto met mapunas nga innak pampanunoten.
Silaladingit toy puso nga agpakada,
Adios laing, napusaksak nga asusena;
Iti sayamusom ti barukongko ipenpennaka,
tapno dinto maumag ti agdaplay a banglona.
Siaaddaakto laeng, ti taeng ni alinaay,
ta ditoy panunot salemseman ni tarumpingay;
tarabayennakto ni napait a liday,
ket isunto kaniak ti mangay-ay-ay.
Dios ti kumuyog, O napnuan sayaksak,
nga esmanto dagiti agay-ayat;
Dios ti kumuyog, salimetmetmo mangalasag,
ta tapno dayta sudim, taknengmo ti di marakrak.

2.)The Other Woman

 

Pedro Bukaneg

Si Pedro Bukaneg ay isang dakilang Pilipino mula sa lupain ng mga Samtoy (bandang Ilocos). Itinuturing siyang unang edukadong Ilokano, orador, musikero, leksikograpo at dalubwika. Siya ang itinuring na Ama ng Panitikang Ilokano

                                                  

                                                         BIAG Ni Lam-ang (Filipino Epic)

                                                  
                     


Sina Don Juan t Namongan ay taga Nalbuan, ngayon ay sakop ng La Union. May isa silang anak na lalaki. Ito'y si Lam-ang. Bago pa isilan si Lam-ang, ang ama nito ay pumunta na sa bundok upang parusahan ang isang pangkat ng mga Igorota na kalaban nila.
Nang isilang si Lam-ang, apat na hilot ang nagtulong-tulong. Ugali na nga mga Ilokano noong una na tumulong sa mga hilot kung manganganak ang maybahy nila ngunit dahil nga wala si Don Juan, mga kasambahay nila ang tumulong sa pagsilang ni Namongan.
Pagkasilang, nagsalita agad ang sanggol at siya ang humiling na "Lam-ang" ang ipangalan sa kaniya. Siya rin ang pumili ng magiging ninong niya sa binyag. Itinanong pa rin niya sa ina ang ama, kung saan naroron ito, na di pa niya nakikita simula pa sa kanyang pagkasilang. Sinabi na ina ang kinaroroonan ng ama.
Makaraan ang siyam na buwan, nainip na si Lam-ang sa di pagdating ng ama kaya't sinundan niya ito sa kabundukan. May dala siyang iba't- ibang sandata at mga antng-anting na makapag-bibigay-lakas sa kamiya at maaaring gawin siyang hindi makikita. Talagang pinaghandaan niya ang lakad na ito.
Sa kaniyang paglalakbay, inabot siya ng pagkahapo kaya't namahinga sandali. Naidlip siya at napangarap niyang ang pugot na ulo ng ama ay pinagpipistahan na ng mga Igorote. Galit na galit si Lam-ang s nabatid na sinapit ng ama kaya mabilis na nilakbay ang tirahan ng mga Igorote. Pinagpupuksa niya ang mga ito sa pamamagitan ng dalang mga sandata at anting-anting. Ang isa sy kaniyang pinahirapan lamang saka inalpasan upang siyang magbalita sa iba pang Igorote ng kaniyang tapang, lakas at talino. Umuwi si Lam-ang nang nasisiyahan dahil sa nipaghiganti niya an pagkamatay ng ama niya.
Nang siya'y magbalik sa Nalbuan, taglt ang tagumpay, pinaliguan siya ng ilang babaing kaibigan sa ilog ng Amburayan, dahil ito'y naging ugali na noon, na pagdating ng isang mandirigma, naliligo siya. Matapos na paliguan si Lam-ang, nanagmatay ang mga isda at iba pang bagay na may buhay na nakatira sa tubig dahil sa kapal ng libag at sama ng amoy na nahugasan sa katawan nito.
Sa kabutihan naman may isang dalagang balita sa kagandahan na nagngangalang Ines Kannoyan. Ito'y pinuntahan ng binatang si Lam-ang upang ligawan, kasama ang kaniyang putting tandang at abuhing aso. Isang masugid na manliligaw ni Ines ang nakasalubong nila, Si Sumarang, na kumutya kay Lam-ang, kaya't sila'y nag-away at dito'y muling nagwagi si Lam-ang.
Napakaraming nanliligaw ang nasa bakuran nina Ines kaya't gumawa sila ng paraan upang sila ay makatawag ng pansin. Ang tandang ay tumilaok at isang bahay ang nabuwal sa tabi. Si Ines ay dumungaw. Ang aso naman ang pinatahol niya at sa isang igalp, tumindig uli ang bahay na natumba. Nakita rin ng magulang ni Ines ang lahat ng iyon at siya'y ipinatawag niyon. Ang pag-ibig ni Lam-an kay Ines ay ipinahayag ng tandang. Sumagot ang mga magulang ng dalaga na sila'y payag na maging manugang si Lam-ang kun ito'y makapagbibigay ng boteng may dobleng halaga ng sariling ari-arian ng magulang ng dalaga.
Nang magbalik si Lam-ang sa Kalanutian, kasama si Namongan at mga kababayan, sila Ines ay ikinasal. Dala nila ang lahat ng kailangan para sa maringal na kasalan pati ang dote. Ang masayang pagdiriwang ay sinimulan s Kalanutian at tinapos sa Nalbuan, kung saan nanirahan ang mag-asawa pagkatapos ng kasal nila.
Isa parin s kaugalian sa Kailukuhan, na pagkatapos ng kasal, ang lalaki ay kinakalilangang sumisid s ilog upang humuli ng rarang (isda). Sinunod ni Lam-ang subalit siya ay sinamang palad na makagat t mapatay ng berkakan (isang urinng pating). Ang mga buto ni Lam-ang na nasa pusod ng dagat ay ipinasisid at pinatapon ni Donya Ines sa isang kalansay at tinakpan ng tela. Ang tandang ay tumilaok, ang aso ay kumahol at sa bisa ng engkanto, unti-unting kumilos ang mga buto.
Sa muling pagkabuhay ni Lam-ang, ang mag-asawa ay namuhay nang maligaya, maluwalhati at matiwasay sa piling ng alagang putting tandang at abuhing aso.

1.)THE OLD WOMAN OF THE CANDLES

by Kevin Piamonte

HOLY Thursday.

The house loomed over the street. Massive. Windows gaped open like mouths. So this would be summer for me. There were other houses nearby, but not as big and old as this one. As I stood outside the rusty iron gate, Doray came running out of the heavy wooden door. It was almost sundown.

"You're finally here. I've been waiting since morning." She kissed me on the cheek.

"The bus broke down," I sighed and gave her a hug.

She brought me inside the house. The basement was dark. A familiar scent filtered through my nose. I sneezed.

"It's old wood, remember?"

SHE had brought me to Ibajay, Aklan, a year ago for her Lola Conching's 90th birthday. We stayed for a couple of days.

Doray and I usually spend summer at beaches. She suggested that we spend this particular one in her Lola Conching's house. I declined at first, but couldn't bear the thought of going to the beach without her. So we made a deal. An hour's ride from Ibajay was a white sand beach.

"I promise." She held up her hand. "We'll go to Boracay after. You just have to see how they spend Holy Week in my Lola Conching's town."

"But I'm not even a practicing Catholic," I protested.

"Don't deny it Burt Macaraig," Doray pointed her accusing finger at me." Once I saw you lighting all the candles in church so that Rona would live."

Ask and you shall be given. I thought that was the doctrine of the Church. Rona died of abuse three years. ago. She was one of those deaf children we took care of in the Center. The twelve-year old girl was suddenly missing one day. When we finally found her in a cemetery, her body had been battered. She lingered in the hospital for two days. The pain was deeply etched on her face. Even her pleas for comfort had ceased to be human.

"All right, all right." I gave up. "We'll go to your Lola Conching's house first, purify our souls during Holy Week and burn them after in Boracay."

Doray and I have been the best of friends since college. We were drinking buddies. Everybody on campus thought we were a couple. In a way we were, since we were always together. After college we went on to do volunteer work for the deaf. We thought we would be serving the best of humanity. But the truth was we were both reluctant to get an eight-to-five job. We called that a straitjacket.

For some reason I wasn't able to make it on the day Doray and I were supposed to leave for Ibajay.

"You'd better follow, mister," she warned, her hand balled to a fist.

SAN Jose Street, Ibajay. Doray told me that on Holy Week the townspeople follow a certain tradition. Her Lola Conching owned a Santo Entierro, the dead Christ. It had been with the family for years. Every year, during Holy Week, they would bring out the statue and everybody would participate in the preparation. Some people would be in charge of dressing up the statue while others would take care of decorating the carriage that would carry it through the streets.

"What's so exciting about that?"

"It's a feast, Burt, a celebration."

I thought it was ridiculous celebrating death. There was something eerie about the whole idea.

"Lola Conching, do you remember Burt?" Doray asked as we got to the landing.

The old woman sat on a chair carefully lighting candles on the altar in front of her. Her lips reverently moved in silence and her gaze was strange as if she wasn't looking at any of the images in particular. It was this same sight that greeted me a year ago.

"The old woman of the candles," I whispered to Doray on our first visit.

"He's here to help in the activities for the Holy Week."

"It's good to see you again, Lola Conching."

"Did you have a good trip? Perhaps you need to rest."

The old woman stared at me. Her face looked tired. It sagged with wrinkles. But I could see there had been beauty there ages ago. The fine line of her brow softly curved to gray almond eyes. Her nose suggested not Spanish descent. Beside her was a wooden cane bedecked with shells intricately embedded, forming a floral design.

"Come." Doray led me through the living room. Carved lattice frames on walls complemented the chandelier made of brass and cut-glass.

"Where is the rest of the family?"

"They'll be here in the morning," Doray said as she opened the door to the bedroom.

I stepped inside.

"You'll sleep here." She indicated. "That's the washroom."

"And the other door to the right leads to your room," I recalled.

Lola Conching was blind. She suffered greatly at the hands of the Japanese. This I came to know last year. Lola Conching was a comfort woman. She had to give in so her parents could be saved. At first she resisted. Then the Japanese hit her on the head with a plank of wood. She became blind. Then she got pregnant.

Was it her story or was it for want of a grandmother that somehow had drawn me to her?

"I think I'll rest for a while," I said quietly.

"Yes, do," she replied as she opened the door to her room. "We'll have dinner later."

The room was replete with old wooden heads of saints. Some had no eyes, but they looked real. I shivered--a familiar feeling. In front of my bed was a cabinet with glass casing. It was empty. The whiff of camphor from the wooden heads made me dizzy and I fell asleep. Soundly.

I WOKE up to the sound of voices. A soft stream of morning light seeped through the gauze of the mosquito net. I hurriedly washed and dressed. Then I opened the door and stepped out of the room. There were people moving around, talking.

"Burt Macaraig?" An elderly woman looked at me knowingly.

"Yes. Burt, you've met Tiya Basyon," Doray began. "And Tiya Patring, Tiyo Lindo, my cousins Ted, Joey, Ina, Elena, Nicky and Damian."

"Well, I'm back." I didn't know what else to say.

"Let's have breakfast." She tugged at my arm. "Everybody has eaten."

The combination of dried fish, scrambled eggs and fried rice sprinkled with chopped onion leaves made me very hungry.

"Nobody here eats meat on Good Friday," Doray explained as we sat down. "It's the belief."

I was too hungry to mind whatever Doray was trying to say.

"I didn't bother to wake you up last night," she said between bites. "You were snoring and I took care not to wake you when I put up your mosquito net."

"I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow."

"Did Burt have a good sleep last night, Doray?" Lola Conching asked as she walked into the dining room.

She sat on the chair at the head of the table. It was uncanny how she could move with just a cane. She seemed to know every inch of space in her house.

"Good morning," I greeted her.

"Ah, there you are." Her head followed the sound of my voice. "Did you sleep well last night?" "Yes, I did."

"You should. You will be doing many things today."

After breakfast, we went downstairs. The light from the bulb coated the basement in amber. I sneezed. In a corner was the carriage. Black. It was lined with leaves of silver. On the carriage was a casing whose sides were made of glass. Angels with dark faces adorned each of the upper four corners. The carriage looked ominous, like a hearse. Tiyo Lindo and Tiya Patring came in.

"Boys, let's do this together." Tiyo Lindo went to the carriage and started pulling it out from the corner. All of us did our share. The wheels creaked.

"It needs oiling," Tiyo Lindo said.

We positioned the carriage under the bulb.

"Why don't we just open the door?" I suggested. "Then we can have light."

"No, don't," Tiya Patring said. "It's a tradition. Nobody should see the Santo Entierro until everything is done."

I helped polish the carriage, shining the leaves of silver lining. With agility Ted climbed the carriage and dusted the wooden top of the casing. Tiyo Lindo wiped the inside of the glass. No way would I go in there, I thought. It would be like going inside a coffin.

"We're ready with the Santo Entierro," one of the girls called out. They had been cleaning the body.

The dead Christ was laid out on a mat. My stomach tumbled over. I felt like I was looking at a corpse in a morgue.

"Are you all right?" Doray approached me. She had been arranging the flowers and leaves of palm.

"Look," I said quietly. "I don't know what this is all about, but I'm not at all comfortable."

"What is it?"

"The dead Christ. I just don't like it." I sneezed. "And this scent of old wood, it's driving my nose nuts."

She laughed.

"What is so funny?" I looked at her squarely.

"That's what you get for being a heretic." She brushed my face with the bouquet she held in her hands.

"Oh, stop that." I wiped my face. "I think I'd better go upstairs for a while and rest."

"Don't be so lazy. Lola Conching won't like that kind of attitude."

"Well, she's not my grandmother in the first place." I made my way up.

Lola Conching was sitting by the altar when I got to the top of the stairs. The subtlety of light coming from the candles caressed the features of her tired face.

"Are you done?"

I was startled.

"No, Lola Conching."

"Who are you?" Her voice was stern. "Ah, you're Burt."

"Yes, Lola Conching." I was relieved that she recognized me.

"What are you doing up here?" she curtly asked.

My throat went dry.

"I want to rest for a while. I'm feeling quite sick because of the smell of old wood."

"I light candles for the Santo Entierro because it is most precious to us. It is our indu1gencia," declared Lola Conching. "It protected us during the war. Doray's father was a baby then."

I sat down in front of the old woman.

"You mean the Santo Entierro has some kind of power?" My curiosity started to grow.

"Yes, it does." Lola Conching confirmed. "It protects us from the evil of Good Fridays. Aswang."

I almost snickered. But in her voice was the weight of her belief. Aswangs, witches were myths to my knowledge. They would fly at night using their huge bat-like wings. Their hands had claws for fingers, and their teeth were razor sharp. They would look ghoulish, eyes gleaming bright red. But at daytime they were beautiful.

My gaze was transfixed on the old woman's face. I searched for the delicate features that used to be there.

"They come out on the eve of the death of Christ." Her voice slightly quivered. Was it fright I heard? Or a threat?

I was getting edgy on my seat. Faith, belief, knowledge boiled up, blurring my mind.

"You'll see on Good Friday. When the moon rises, all windows are shut in houses except ours," she proudly declared. "Windows in this house are left wide open."

It dawned on me. The Santo Entierro was not the family's iindulgencia. It was hers--for all the fears she kept inside.

"I thought you went to sleep." Doray had come upstairs.

"No, I was talking to your Lola Conching," I stammered. Cold sweat dripped down my forehead.

"I told him stories about the Santo Entierro," the old woman said with an air of accomplishment.

"Let's go." I grabbed Doray's arm.

For the first time I felt afraid. Yet I could not understand why. I raced downstairs. Doray came after me.

"Wait," she called.

Everybody stared at me blankly when I got to the basement. I turned around and faced Doray. We almost bumped into each other.

"Can we go for a walk?" I panted.

We went to the plaza in front of the church. We were both quiet. I pondered why she brought me to this strange place. I felt she had done it on purpose. I never questioned events, phenomena. I always took them as though they were a natural order of the cosmos, like birth and death. True, I did light candles for Rona, but the girl died nonetheless. I felt humiliated. That menial task was my turning point. Never again did candles burn.

"This is where the procession ends," she said as we sat on a concrete bench. We were facing the church. "The procession goes around, through several streets and it ends here at about seven in the evening."

"Do you believe in your Lola Conching's stories about the Santo Entierro?"

Doray looked lost in thought. She groped for words.

"I don't have any answers, Burt. But this is what I can tell you." Her eyes brightened up. "What I saw was the crowd surging toward the Santo Entierro as it got to the door of the church. It was a mad scramble. Everybody wanted a piece of the Santo. They say its hair or any part of its clothing can be used as an amulet, a protection against evil spirits."

Another mythical explanation.

"I'm hungry." I stood up and we went back to the house.

Lunch was quick. Everybody was rushing to finish the morning's activity for the procession in the afternoon.

I went to sleep. In the first place, vacations were meant for naps. Besides I felt I had done my share already with the carriage.

"Burt." I heard Doray's voice through my slumber. "It's time to get ready."

"Hmmm," I protested. I was too tired to do anything.

"Wake up, sleepyhead." She sat on the bed. "You've been sleeping for hours. Come on." She gave me a gentle slap on my face.

"All right." I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed.

"Call me when you're ready." She stood up and went inside her room.

When Doray and I went downstairs, I gasped at the sight that greeted me. There was the Santo Entierro inside the glass casing of the carriage. Asleep. Its long golden brown hair was spread out like a fan. Its body covered with the richness of white and red velvet was adorned with beads of gold. The carriage was bedecked with sprays of palms and flowers, the ones used for funerals. Trinkets of lights illuminated the whole presentation. Death never had this brilliance.

"Well, we're ready," Tiya Patring said.

The boys--Ted, Joey, Nicky and Damian--opened the door and pulled the carriage out. A small crowd stood outside. They applauded as we made our way into the street behind the image. They made the sign of the cross and followed us. As we neared the church, I could see other carriages lined up, each one carrying a different image representing Lent. We were made to position somewhere at the end of the line. And the procession began. The band with scant composition of trumpets and drums lazily accompanied our strides. I snickered.

"Shhh," Doray warned.

When the sun came down, some people started handing out candles.

"Want to light one?" Doray slyly offered.

The procession went on for about two hours. People lined the streets. There were old people sitting on wheelchairs. Soon they would drown in the shadow of the evening. I thought of Lola Conching left alone in the house seeing the whole procession in her mind as she prayed for her soul. In her house candles burned like tired spirits.

When we neared the end of the procession, the carriages were brought inside the church.

"Let's go." Doray pulled me.

"Where?" I thought this would be the most awaited event of the day.

But her clutch slipped off my arm.

Then I saw a throng of people rushing towards us. Joey, Nicky and Damian struggled to pull the carriage to the entrance of the church. On top of the carriage were Tiyo Lindo and Ted brandishing wooden canes like warriors. Everyone was trying to get near the Santo Entierro. I was trapped. I couldn't get out from the sea of bodies. The wave threatened to crush me. I couldn't breathe. I was drowning. Some people had tears streaming down their faces, sobbing. Others screamed as Tiyo Lindo and Ted hit their hands with their wooden canes.

"The hair," someone shouted. "A strand of hair."

"No, don't!" I could no longer hear myself as I went down, pressed by the rush of wave.

Suddenly Tiyo Lindo and Ted were pulling me up. I slumped on the wooden top of the carriage, catching my breath. Below, the maddened faces of people receded as we entered the portals of the church.

We jumped off the carriage. Sweat pasted my shirt on to my skin. I felt we had gone through a siege. But the carriage was intact. The glass remained unbroken. The leaves of silver lining still glistened. Everything was in place. The rest of the boys, Joey, Nicky and Damian, volunteered to stay behind while we went home for dinner.

"You were lucky you didn't get crushed," said Ted.

I did not bother to say anything. I had not seen raw madness before.

"Is he all right?" Lola Conching asked me as we got to the top of the stairs.

"Burt," Doray came towards me. We need not say anything to each other. Tears were about to fall from my eyes.

"It's all right," I held her hands tight. "I'll be fine."

Later that evening we stayed in my room and drank whiskey.

"I'm sorry, Burt, I tried to get through." She recalled what happened earlier that evening.

We were silent for a while.

"It was so weird. They were scrambling. Those people were fanatics."

"The first time I saw it I thought I would go down on my knees." She smiled in disbelief.

Doray left at midnight to sleep in her room. I tossed in bed. I kept thinking about the mad rush of the crowd towards the Santo Entierro. What awesome power for one made of wood to draw the tide toward himself. My mind reeled. It was Black Saturday. The day of the dead Christ.

In the haze of alcohol, I got out of the room and cautiously made my way down the stairs and out of the house. I went out into the street and walked to the church. The moon had risen, big and bright. Its color oozed beyond its shape and bled the sky. The street was silent. As I neared the church, I heard its door open. It moaned. In the dimness of the surroundings I saw four men coming out of the church. They were carrying something wrapped in white sheets, like a dead man. It was the Santo Entierro! Oblivious of my presence, they struggled with its weight. Slowly I took several steps back. I turned around and cautiously walked back to the house. Then I saw that the windows of the other houses were shut. Tight. I remembered what Lola Conching said about the witches. I ran towards the house, racing against the pounding in my chest. Then I swiftly ascended the stairs. When I got to my room, I threw myself on the bed. At a surprising rate, I tucked the mosquito net in and closed my eyes. The Santo Entierro was stolen, the Santo Entierro was stolen! This I kept repeating to myself. I wanted to get up and tell Doray. But I was feeling too heady. I felt I was going to throw up. I closed my eyes and cascaded down into a labyrinth of darkness. Then I heard a flapping on wings. Wak, wak, wak. It flapped in the breeze blowing through my window. Wak, wak, wak. There it was again. I bolted up, charged with a current of electricity running through my veins. The mosquito net plunged down. I struggled against the mesh of its gauze. Then I saw the Santo Entierro! It stood inside the glass cabinet in front of my bed. I screamed. The shrillness shot through the stillness of San Jose Street.

"Burt," Doray rushed in. I screamed again. She peeled the mosquito net away. Then I felt her hands, her arms holding me close. I was drenched with sweat.

Someone knocked on the door.

I looked at the glass cabinet in front of my bed. It was empty.

"The Santo Entierro was stolen." I breathlessly whispered to Doray.

"The what?" She barely heard me.

"The Santo Entierro." I punctuated each word.

Doray stood up and opened the door. Lola Conching entered the room.

The Santo Entierro was stolen!" I cried. "It was stolen."

Lola Conching covered her face, fingers digging into her skin. Her breathing came in spasms. The rest of her kin stood behind her. I got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" Doray asked.

"To the church."

I grabbed Lola Conching and carried her in my arms as if she were a child. She weakly struggled against my strength.

"Leave her alone!" Doray cried. The rest of the family encircled us like the crowd that earlier surged towards the Santo Entierro.

"No!" I stared at them.

And we all marched down into the darkness of the street, all the way to the church. Lola Conching buried her face my chest. Her resistance was drowned in her sobbing.

The door of the church was open when we got there. Some people had left it open. We made our way through the carriages inside the shadow of the church's belly. Images loomed. Near the altar stood the black carriage with leaves of silver lining. I Set Lola Conching down on the floor She grappled with my feet, whimpering.

"Here." Tiya Patring offered me a candle. I took it.

"Light all the candles, Burt," Doray's voice quivered.

I numbly walked around the church and lit all the candles I could find. My hands shook. Lola Conching wailed Then I saw it. It was there. The Santo Entierro glistened inside the glass casing of its carriage.

"It's here, Lola Conching." My lips trembled. "The Santo Entierro is back!"

We all looked at Lola Conching, still slumped on the floor. She had stopped crying.

"Put out the candles," Lola Conching commanded.

Nobody moved. For a while everybody had stoned expressions on their faces.

"Put out the candles." This time her voice came undaunted.

One at a time her kin blew out the flames. Their somber faces were ghosts extinguished with the past. The Santo Entierro faded into darkness.

I sank to my knees with the last candle in my hands. Lola Conching rose. Layers of tormented skin peeled off her face that came to the light. I saw her real beauty. Immaculate, a flower whose petals would wither with a careless brush of fingers. I saw a girl of eighteen whose face was as fine and gentle as the hair of the wind. Then the features slowly changed with the diminishing flame. And between light and darkness was Rona's face completely devoid of pain.

The light of the candle in my hands flickered and died as Lola Conching's blind eyes gave way to tears that had welled through the years. In the darkness of the church I bowed my head as I convulsed with my own truths. Lola Conching held on to my arms as I held on to the candle. I could smell the pregnant whips of smoke rising from the faint orange glow of its wick.

Black Saturday. And now, Easter Sunday.

2.)The Other Woman

by Virgilio Samonte

It is almost a month since my uncle died. Nana Cecilia, his widow, has made up with my maiden aunt Cora, and now stays with her in San Nicolas. The suspicions -- for they proved to be mere suspicions after all -- she had entertained concerning Nana Cora and my late uncle, were dispelled at his death. I don't know the truth myself up to now. But I don't want to know. What matters now is that they are no longer young.

Loida, I learned some time ago, is gone from the old house in Laoag. She stayed there for some days after my uncle's burial, and no one could make her go away then. No one knows where she had gone. Anyway it does not matter. She does no t matter anymore.

As for the old house, it now stands bleak and empty, except for the thick, gathering shadows and the inevitable dust; the bats hanging from the tattered eaves like the black patches; the mice scampering freely within ; cockroaches and lizrds; and perhaps ghosts. The flower-laden cadena de amor, draped heavily on the rotting bamboo fence surrounding it, it is a huge funeral wreath around the deserted house.

The same sense of desolation seemed to enshroud the old house even then, about a month ago, when I arrived from the city. I had come ahead of my father after we received the wire from Nana Cecilia, saying that my uncle was seriously ill, and that she needed my father's assistance.

It was a cold grey dawn, and the clatter of the calesa as it left me, sounded loud and sharp in the yet deserted streets. the old house seemed to loom bigger than the others in the neighborhood, and it seemed to stand apart, squat and dark; light filtered through the closed or half opened windows of the other houses where early breakfast fires were already burning. The large, gnarled trunk of an acacia tree beside it, rose like a phantom, its foliage blotting out a portion of the sky overhead. i knocked for what it seemed a long time on the closed door, the sounds echoing hollowly within as though the house was a huge, empty shell before I heard muffled footsteps coming down the stairway. Light glimmered through the cracks of the door. The sliding bar was moved noisily and then the door opened slowly, grating on the scattered pebbles on the cement floor.

The face that appeared in the partly opened door startled me momentarily. Where the upper lip should have been was an inverted V-shape opening, framing a long and pointed yellow tooth. The lip cleft, with repulsively livid gums showing, went up in an angle to a flat nose; the rest of the face was flat as though it had been bashed in by repeated fists blows; and broad and square. Half-illuminated by the light of a candle on one side, it was hideous.

It was only Loida, the harelip. I had not known that she was still staying with my aunt Cecilia. Her black, beady eyes regarded me with anger and suspicion. I told her my name.

"Where is your father?" she asked in a strange nasal twang when she finally recognize me.

"He'll come tomorrow," I said. I gestured impatiently, wanting to get in. I was shivering under my thin jacket in the cold.

She opened the door wider and turned unspeaking, motioning me to follow, holding the candle above her to one side. The brick-walled first floor yawned emptily. There was only the smell of dust, and when we went up the stairs which faced the doorway, the banister left dusty smudges on my fingers after I'd touch it. The stairs creaked under our weight, a stale smell following the wake of the silent figure in front of me. It was almost as sold inside as it had been outside.

There was a smell and look of disuse all around.

There were no curtains in the closed windows no in the doorway leading to the sala, where the dark shapes of the few chairs and a table crouched in the darkness. They threw long, tapering shadows on a dust-coated floor when we went in. Shadows huddled close together in the corners where the light chased them. In the ceiling on one side, immediately above the room where I thought my aunt stayed a soft light as of another candle wavered, scaring out more shadows. The door to the room was closed, but in the silence the sound of harsh, difficult breathing came from it. Loida gave the room a brief, mute glance and went on.

I had expected one of my aunts to meet me, but there was no one in the sala. Asleep, I thought. Loida stopped before one of the rooms on the other side and opened it and entered. I followed her inside.

"Isn't this the room of Tata Manuel?" I asked. I recognized his four poster with the ornately-carved canopy. My words sounded loud and hollow in the quiet room.

"He stays with your Nana Ceiling there," she said, pointing to the dimly-lighted room.

I looked at her inquiringly. My aunt and my uncle had separate rooms, and Nana Cora stayed with my aunt Cecilia.

"She moved him there when he got worse," she said. She sounded indignant.

"Worse? Is he really very ill?"

She shook her head. "I do not know, but he has become very thin, and he coughs."

I had not known that she was devoted to my uncle. There were actually tears in her eyes.

"You should tell your Nana to leave him alone," she said fiercely.

"Why? I asked. Her sudden change of manner alarmed me.

"He is very sick and she sleeps with him."

"Oh, I thought -- but there's nothing wrong with that. He needs her care."

"Nothing wrong," she repeated bitterly. I could not understand her.

I thought she was going to say something more, but she changed her mind and turned her back on me abruptly and became silently. She seemed to bristle with suppressed anger. She went out after lighting another candle on the windowsill, then came back with some sheets and a fresh pillow. I watched her while in furious haste she worked with the sheets on the bed.

"Where's the room of Nan Cora now?" I asked after a while.

She did not answer immediately.

"Manang Cora stays in San Nicolas now," she said crossly, when she finished making the bed.

I was surprised. I wanted to ask her why, but she went out instantly, leaving me alone in the room. I felt piqued. Her footfalls receded rapidly as she went to some other part of the big house.

I was bothered by the absence of Nana Cora. My father had sent me ahead thinking that with Nana Cora in the house, Nana Cecilia would have no need of him immediately. I put on the light and lay down. Suddenly I felt very tired.

I woke up,having dozed off, feeling the presence of another person in the room. The room was already suffused with the full glow of the sun's ray through the shuttered windows. Nana Cecilia was standing in the doorway eyeing me coldly. I sat up immediately.

She had on a loose, printed housedress which looked stained and unwashed, stressing the thinness and narrowness of her shoulders; her veins appeared clear and blue under her transparent, wrinkled wrists and hands. Her graying hair was stringy, and tied carelessly with a piece of cloth of an uncertain color. She appeared slatternly and she smelled.

"Where is your father?" she demanded in a cranked voice. I could not face her directly for she stared at me with enormous, purple-ringed eyes.

"He'll come tomorrow, Nana," I said.

"I did not call you here. Why did your father not come?"

"He thought with Nana Cora here it would be alright."

She straightened as though I'd slapped her, and grew livid.

"Do not - do not mention that name in this house, understand?" she almost shouted at me, stepping forward.

I stood up, unable to comprehend. She advanced and we stood face to face finally, the redness in her cheeks drained away. She cocked her head suddenly in a listening attitude, as if she had heard something, and her eyes rolled wildly.

"Your uncle," she said frantically, half running to her room. I followed her but hesitated at the door. A dank smell reached me.

The low beds had been pushed together side to side. Beside the nearest bed my aunt knelt. On it the recumbent form of my uncle could be seen, covered up to his chest with blankets. Near the foot of his bed, two new tapers burned before an improvised altar. There was a bronze Christ nailed on a black cross and back of it was a large, glass-encased picture of the Blessed Virgin. On either side of the picture was a vase with cadena de amor flowers. There was also a glass of water covered with cloth. The windows were all closed. My aunt turned her head and motioned me to stand at the foot of the bed facing my uncle.

His eyes were sunken and staring and his bleak-like nose appeared too large in his ghastly thin face. His hands fluttered nervously on the blankets, his breathing was slow and discordant. He did not recognize me. In this house of shadows, he looked like another shadow. His appearance was a far cry from the lusty man that we had known him to be. He already had the ashen look of a corpse.

Healthy, he had possessed a vitality that was insatiable. Servant girls and a succession of mistresses alike were prey to his desires. My aunt had taken Loida in the house as a desperate measure, thinking that a harelip would repel him. The state of penury in which they existed was due to him for he was also a gambler; lands been mortgaged or sold to satisfy his lust and vice. Some had explained his philandering - my father though thought it was more a disease - by blaming my aunt for being barren. Nana Cecilia, however, seemed to have loved him all the more, and when he had insisted on their having separate bedrooms, having tired of her perhaps, she had acted hysterical about it; but he had his way. In her misery she had turned to Nana Cora, her younger sister, who had left the house in San Nicolas to keep her company.

I could not understand though why she had raged when I mentioned Nana Cora. I wondered again why Nana Cora was gone.

My aunt had taken hold of one of his hands and was kneading it, making soothing, baby-like sounds. The intimate, pitifully ardent look on her face made me feel uncomfortable. He started coughing weakly at first then more strongly, each racking cough bringing a look of anguish in his eyes, his thin frame shaking convulsively under the covers. My aunt looked at me with feverish eyes.

"Go out now!" she ordered with nervous urgency.

I backed out instantly in relief, holding my breath in the polluted air. Outside, the thought of Nana Cora came back to confuse me. She must have quarreled with Nana Cecilia, I thought, bu t why? Why?

At noon I was served alone by Loida. She had on a dress that looked well on her surprisingly firm, young body, and not the loose, ill-fitting native blouse and skirt that my aunt had usually imposed on her servants, as a precaution against my uncle's too discerning eyes. Her face was as ugly as ever, and she watched me eat with a proprietary air which I disliked. She did not act like a servant.

My aunt ate all her meals in the room.

"Why doesn't she go out now and then? It's bad her staying indoors like that for whole days," I said when she told me about it.

"Tell her! She stays there all the time afraid to leave him, and she drove away some women on the neighborhood when they came here to offer help. And she sleeps with him, sick as he is!" She sounded bitter again, and contemptuous.

"After all, he is her husband!" I snapped, incensed by her tone and by the unservant-like manner in which she referred to my aunt.

She muttered something and flounced out of the room. I was barely able to control my rage. I felt an irresistible desire to shout at her. I wondered why, if she disliked my aunt, she had not gone away. Besides, I was certain that my aunt could not afford to retain the services of a servant anymore.

Later, I talked to her again, about Nana Cora.

"Look, Loida," I said as easily as I could. "Tell me why Nana Cora went away, will you?"

She looked at me with a sulky expression, then said sullenly, " They quarreled."

"Quarreled? What about?"

I could have wrung her neck, the way she answered.

"Him!" she sneered.

In the afternoon, I took a calesa across the river to San Nicolas. I left the old house unobtrusively. A vague uneasiness grew steadily within me as I kept thinking about what Loida had said and its implication.

Nana Cora was puttering among the zinias and cucharitas, which lined the walk leading to the house, when I arrived. The house, though much smaller than the old one in Laoag, had a neat look about it, and the wire fence disclosed disclosed a well-trimmed row of violets. Behind the house I could see the top of the tamarind tree I used to climb, laden with brownish-green fruit.

She gave a start when she heard me call, dropping the trowel from her hand. I strode with the long steps to her side and touched on of her dirt-stained hands to my forehead. She started to cry suddenly. I could do nothing but hold her, feeling the sting of tears in my own eyes.

"Forgive me, hijo, I am so weak..." she said later.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner, Nana," I said.

I put my arm across her shoulders and we walked to the house. They were bony to my touch, and she looked so small and old in her dirt-soiled, faded dress, so defenseless, that I felt a surge of pity for her. I had wanted to ask her why she had left the old house, but I realized that I would only be hurting her by bringing the subject up.

"It is good to work, one forgets unpleasant things," she said, when I remarked that she should not work too hard. A sad, wistful look was in her eyes.

At first, she talked slowly, but gradually, she became less restrained, and we chatted reminiscently for some time. There was, however, an unmistakable sadness about her, and she was careful I thought with misgiving, not to mention Nana Cecilia and my uncle. I did mention them either, for her sake.

It was much later, when I decided to go, that she asked me about Nana Cecilia.

“How is your Nana Celing?” she asked hesitantly. I could not detect, however, any coldness, in her tone or in her mien; and when I lied that Nana Cecilia seemed in good health she brightened perceptibly.

She did not ask after my uncle though. When I looked after I’d taken my ride, she was still standing by the gate; in the distance she appeared frail and forlorn. An intense feeling of loathing for the sick man in the old house rushed over me.

The old church bell was ringing the Angelus when I reach the old house. Only the room where the sick man was staying lighted.

I met Loida coming from the kitchen with a glass of water at the head of the stairway. There was a scared look about her.

“Where have you been?” she asked, pausing before the sick man’s room.

“San Nicolas,” I said.

“She has been calling for you. The priest was here.”

“Is he dying?” I asked quickly. I felt no compassion whatsoever.

“No -No!” Her eyes widened and stared at me frenziedly.

The door to the room opened then. My aunt stood framed in the doorway, the light of a gas lamp streaming behind her. I felt, more than I saw, the glare of her eyes on me. Her hair was loose, and with the light at her back, seemed like outspread, thin wires, glinting.

“Where have you been, loco?” she inquired in a strident voice, and there was a panickyquality to it.

Loida walked noiselessly behind her to the room with the hasty steps.

“I went to San Nicolas!” I said.

“San Nicolas!” she repeated angrily. “Did you come here only to disappear when I needed you?”

“I thought you would need help from Nana Cora.”

“What? What did you say?”

I repeated what I said.

“You had no right to do that, understand? No right!” she shrieked.

In the growing dusk and in the gloomy stillness of the house, her voice was piercing. She shook with fury, her arms held by her sides with clenched hands, while she bent forward mouthing obscenities.

“All my life,” she continued, dropping her voice to a savage, tremulous whisper, “all my life, I have had to put up with whores. Your uncle is a weak man and I could do nothing to stop it. I could not tolerate it, understand! I will not have any whore in this house after him! He is all mine now! Understand! ALL MINE!”

Then I heard the scream behind her, and it came again and again, rising to high-pitched, eerie crescendo, then breaking and rising again, higher, eerier – filled with a deep and uncontrollable grief. The house seemed to jump alive with echoes of it. My aunt, arrested in her speech, flung herself madly into the room. I dashed right after her.

Loida was holding the inert form of the man who was my uncle in her arms, her split mouth opened grotesquely, screaming, while tears flowed down her face. The man’s eyes were open and sightless, his mouth hung agape.

“Bruja! Release him!” my aunt screamed at her. She tried to pull away the lifeless body from the wailing woman, but she could not. Then, fiercely, she struck her with successive, resounding slaps, crying insanely for her to release him.

While the lamplight shone in her upraised, gaping face, the nasal twang in her voice crazier than ever, saliva flying from her mouth, Loida shrilled back:

“No, No! I will not! He is mine, too! He loved me! He loved me!”

3.)Why are Filipinos so Poor?

In the ’50s and ’60s, the Philippines was the most envied country in Southeast Asia. What happened?

By F. Sionil Jose

What did South Korea look like after the Korean War in 1953? Battered, poor – but look at Korea now. In the Fifties, the traffic in Taipei was composed of bicycles and army trucks, the streets flanked by tile-roofed low buildings. Jakarta was a giant village and Kuala Lumpur a small village surrounded by jungle and rubber plantations. Bangkok was criss-crossed with canals, the tallest structure was the Wat Arun, the Temple of the Sun, and it dominated the city’s skyline. Ricefields all the way from Don Muang airport — then a huddle of galvanized iron-roofed bodegas, to the Victory monument.Visit these cities today and weep — for they are more beautiful, cleaner and prosperous than Manila. In the Fifties and Sixties we were the most envied country in Southeast Asia. Remember further that when Indonesia got its independence in 1949, it had only 114 university graduates compared with the hundreds of Ph.D.’s that were already in our universities. Why then were we left behind? The economic explanation is simple. We did not produce cheaper and better products.

The basic question really is why we did not modernize fast enough and thereby doomed our people to poverty. This is the harsh truth about us today. Just consider these: some 15 years ago a survey showed that half of all grade school pupils dropped out after grade 5 because they had no money to continue schooling.Thousands of young adults today are therefore unable to find jobs. Our natural resources have been ravaged and they are not renewable. Our tremendous population increase eats up all of our economic gains. There is hunger in this country now; our poorest eat only once a day.But this physical poverty is really not as serious as the greater poverty that afflicts us and this is the poverty of the spirit.

Why then are we poor? More than ten years ago, James Fallows, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, came to the Philippines and wrote about our damaged culture which, he asserted, impeded our development. Many disagreed with him but I do find a great deal of truth in his analysis.This is not to say that I blame our social and moral malaise on colonialism alone. But we did inherit from Spain a social system and an elite that, on purpose, exploited the masses. Then, too, in the Iberian peninsula, to work with one’s hands is frowned upon and we inherited that vice as well. Colonialism by foreigners may no longer be what it was, but we are now a colony of our own elite.

We are poor because we are poor — this is not a tautology. The culture of poverty is self-perpetuating. We are poor because our people are lazy. I pass by a slum area every morning – dozens of adults do nothing but idle, gossip and drink. We do not save. Look at the Japanese and how they save in spite of the fact that the interest given them by their banks is so little. They work very hard too.

We are great show-offs. Look at our women, how overdressed, over-coiffed they are, and Imelda epitomizes that extravagance. Look at our men, their manicured nails, their personal jewelry, their diamond rings. Yabang – that is what we are, and all that money expended on status symbols, on yabang. How much better if it were channeled into production.

We are poor because our nationalism is inward looking. Under its guise we protect inefficient industries and monopolies. We did not pursue agrarian reform like Japan and Taiwan. It is not so much the development of the rural sector, making it productive and a good market as well. Agrarian reform releases the energies of the landlords who, before the reform, merely waited for the harvest. They become entrepreneurs, the harbingers of change.

Our nationalist icons like Claro M. Recto and Lorenzo Tanada opposed agrarian reform, the single most important factor that would have altered the rural areas and lifted the peasant from poverty. Both of them were merely anti-American.

And finally, we are poor because we have lost our ethical moorings. We condone cronyism and corruption and we don’t ostracize or punish the crooks in our midst. Both cronyism and corruption are wasteful but we allow their practice because our loyalty is to family or friend, not to the larger good.

We can tackle our poverty in two very distinct ways. The first choice: a nationalist revolution, a continuation of the revolution in 1896. But even before we can use violence to change inequities in our society, we must first have a profound change in our way of thinking, in our culture. My regret about EDSA is that change would have been possible then with a minimum of bloodshed. In fact, a revolution may not be bloody at all if something like EDSA would present itself again. Or a dictator unlike Marcos.

The second is through education, perhaps a longer and more complex process. The only problem is that it may take so long and by the time conditions have changed, we may be back where we were, caught up with this tremendous population explosion which the Catholic Church exacerbates in its conformity with doctrinal purity.We are faced with a growing compulsion to violence, but even if the communists won, they will rule as badly because they will be hostage to the same obstructions in our culture, the barkada, the vaulting egos that sundered the revolution in 1896, the Huk revolt in 1949-53.

To repeat, neither education nor revolution can succeed if we do not internalize new attitudes, new ways of thinking. Let us go back to basics and remember those American slogans: A Ford in every garage. A chicken in every pot. Money is like fertilizer: to do any good it must be spread around.Some Filipinos, taunted wherever they are, are shamed to admit they are Filipinos. I have, myself, been embarrassed to explain, for instance, why Imelda, her children and the Marcos cronies are back, and in positions of power. Are there redeeming features in our country that we can be proud of? Of course, lots of them. When people say, for instance, that our corruption will never be banished, just remember that Arsenio Lacson as mayor of Manila and Ramon Magsaysay as president brought a clean government.We do not have the classical arts that brought Hinduism and Buddhism to continental and archipelagic Southeast Asia, but our artists have now ranged the world, showing what we have done with Western art forms, enriched with our own ethnic traditions. Our professionals, not just our domestics, are all over, showing how accomplished a people we are!

Look at our history. We are the first in Asia to rise against Western colonialism, the first to establish a republic. Recall the Battle of Tirad Pass and glory in the heroism of Gregorio del Pilar and the 48 Filipinos who died but stopped the Texas Rangers from capturing the president of that First Republic. Its equivalent in ancient history is the Battle of Thermopylae where the Spartans and their king Leonidas, died to a man, defending the pass against the invading Persians. Rizal — what nation on earth has produced a man like him? At 35, he was a novelist, a poet, an anthropologist, a sculptor, a medical doctor, a teacher and martyr.We are now 80 million and in another two decades we will pass the 100 million mark.

Eighty million — that is a mass market in any language, a mass market that should absorb our increased production in goods and services – a mass market which any entrepreneur can hope to exploit, like the proverbial oil for the lamps of China.
Japan was only 70 million when it had confidence enough and the wherewithal to challenge the United States and almost won. It is the same confidence that enabled Japan to flourish from the rubble of defeat in World War II.
I am not looking for a foreign power for us to challenge. But we have a real and insidious enemy that we must vanquish, and this enemy is worse than the intransigence of any foreign power. We are our own enemy. And we must have the courage, the will, to change ourselves.

4.)Biag ni Lam-Ang 

By:  Pedro Bukaneg 

Sina Don Juan t Namongan ay taga Nalbuan, ngayon ay sakop ng La Union. May isa silang anak na lalaki. Ito'y si Lam-ang. Bago pa isilan si Lam-ang, ang ama nito ay pumunta na sa bundok upang parusahan ang isang pangkat ng mga Igorota na kalaban nila.
Nang isilang si Lam-ang, apat na hilot ang nagtulong-tulong. Ugali na nga mga Ilokano noong una na tumulong sa mga hilot kung manganganak ang maybahy nila ngunit dahil nga wala si Don Juan, mga kasambahay nila ang tumulong sa pagsilang ni Namongan.
Pagkasilang, nagsalita agad ang sanggol at siya ang humiling na "Lam-ang" ang ipangalan sa kaniya. Siya rin ang pumili ng magiging ninong niya sa binyag. Itinanong pa rin niya sa ina ang ama, kung saan naroron ito, na di pa niya nakikita simula pa sa kanyang pagkasilang. Sinabi na ina ang kinaroroonan ng ama.
Makaraan ang siyam na buwan, nainip na si Lam-ang sa di pagdating ng ama kaya't sinundan niya ito sa kabundukan. May dala siyang iba't- ibang sandata at mga antng-anting na makapag-bibigay-lakas sa kamiya at maaaring gawin siyang hindi makikita. Talagang pinaghandaan niya ang lakad na ito.
Sa kaniyang paglalakbay, inabot siya ng pagkahapo kaya't namahinga sandali. Naidlip siya at napangarap niyang ang pugot na ulo ng ama ay pinagpipistahan na ng mga Igorote. Galit na galit si Lam-ang s nabatid na sinapit ng ama kaya mabilis na nilakbay ang tirahan ng mga Igorote. Pinagpupuksa niya ang mga ito sa pamamagitan ng dalang mga sandata at anting-anting. Ang isa sy kaniyang pinahirapan lamang saka inalpasan upang siyang magbalita sa iba pang Igorote ng kaniyang tapang, lakas at talino. Umuwi si Lam-ang nang nasisiyahan dahil sa nipaghiganti niya an pagkamatay ng ama niya.
Nang siya'y magbalik sa Nalbuan, taglt ang tagumpay, pinaliguan siya ng ilang babaing kaibigan sa ilog ng Amburayan, dahil ito'y naging ugali na noon, na pagdating ng isang mandirigma, naliligo siya. Matapos na paliguan si Lam-ang, nanagmatay ang mga isda at iba pang bagay na may buhay na nakatira sa tubig dahil sa kapal ng libag at sama ng amoy na nahugasan sa katawan nito.
Sa kabutihan naman may isang dalagang balita sa kagandahan na nagngangalang Ines Kannoyan. Ito'y pinuntahan ng binatang si Lam-ang upang ligawan, kasama ang kaniyang putting tandang at abuhing aso. Isang masugid na manliligaw ni Ines ang nakasalubong nila, Si Sumarang, na kumutya kay Lam-ang, kaya't sila'y nag-away at dito'y muling nagwagi si Lam-ang.
Napakaraming nanliligaw ang nasa bakuran nina Ines kaya't gumawa sila ng paraan upang sila ay makatawag ng pansin. Ang tandang ay tumilaok at isang bahay ang nabuwal sa tabi. Si Ines ay dumungaw. Ang aso naman ang pinatahol niya at sa isang igalp, tumindig uli ang bahay na natumba. Nakita rin ng magulang ni Ines ang lahat ng iyon at siya'y ipinatawag niyon. Ang pag-ibig ni Lam-an kay Ines ay ipinahayag ng tandang. Sumagot ang mga magulang ng dalaga na sila'y payag na maging manugang si Lam-ang kun ito'y makapagbibigay ng boteng may dobleng halaga ng sariling ari-arian ng magulang ng dalaga.
Nang magbalik si Lam-ang sa Kalanutian, kasama si Namongan at mga kababayan, sila Ines ay ikinasal. Dala nila ang lahat ng kailangan para sa maringal na kasalan pati ang dote. Ang masayang pagdiriwang ay sinimulan s Kalanutian at tinapos sa Nalbuan, kung saan nanirahan ang mag-asawa pagkatapos ng kasal nila.
Isa parin s kaugalian sa Kailukuhan, na pagkatapos ng kasal, ang lalaki ay kinakalilangang sumisid s ilog upang humuli ng rarang (isda). Sinunod ni Lam-ang subalit siya ay sinamang palad na makagat t mapatay ng berkakan (isang urinng pating). Ang mga buto ni Lam-ang na nasa pusod ng dagat ay ipinasisid at pinatapon ni Donya Ines sa isang kalansay at tinakpan ng tela. Ang tandang ay tumilaok, ang aso ay kumahol at sa bisa ng engkanto, unti-unting kumilos ang mga buto.
Sa muling pagkabuhay ni Lam-ang, ang mag-asawa ay namuhay nang maligaya, maluwalhati at matiwasay sa piling ng alagang putting tandang at abuhing aso.

5.)INK

by: Guillermo Castillo

Ink

bottled in glass prison

meaningless in itself

black and mute without a language

silent but strongly urged

to speak.

Ink

chance-impressed on white

inarticulate unintelligible chaotic

welcome on the bareness of white

but still foreign excommunicate.

But ink

pen-lifted pen-impressed

on black white paper

Will-ordered

Interprets intensifies clarifies

expresses

Life.