Why Cesar why? Why did you have to sell your soul to the devil? I doubt if you have even a soul now. So you think the midget devil will look taller now in the eyes of the people just because you raised her blood-tainted hands?And do you think you still have that charm now?

Nag-agaw buhay na ang liwanag at dilim nang sindihan ni Bayan ang mga kandilang nakatirik sa paanan ng parke sa harap ng simbahan. Umuulan, subalit nanlaban ang mga ilaw. Lumiwanag. At maya-maya pa’y nagsipaglapit ang mga tao. Hindi sila kilala ni Bayan. At hindi rin nila kilala ang mga mukhang larawan na nakalapag sa hagdanang iniilawan ng mga kandila. Pero nagtatanong sila, nagtataka, “Sino at bakit, ano ba ang nangyari sa kanila?�

Mahirap magsindi ng kandila para sa mga taong, hindi mo tiyak kung sila pa bay buhay o patay na, pero nagsisindi pa rin sila. Hindi para kay Nelly. Hindi para kay Federico. Kundi, para sa mga sarili, upang kahit sa munting liwanag man lang, makita nilang may pag-asa, mahahanap pa rin nila ang kanilang hinahanap.

Isn't it so, that life
The struggle
Is a storm, one coming after the other?




-said J.M.A, on page 222, STR

karung panahona nga tinggutom, magsigeg sipok ang akong ulo. mubo akong pasensya ug sigeg mag-alingasa, manggawas ang mga problema, mga kaligutgut ug mga nakalimtan na untang kayugot.

wa koy kwarta. wa koy kwarta, dili para sa unsa. wa koy kwarta para ipalit lang man og noodles.kinsay dili makapameste aning kinabuhi. nganong wala koy kwarta? una, gamay ra gyud ang akong ginadawat kada bulan, wa siguro katunga sa minimum wage kada adlaw. nganong di man pud daw ko mangitag laing trabaho? ayaw na lang kog pangutan-a.  kay dili na solusyon nga mangita kog laing trabaho. mao to gamay gyud. basta automatic na, ingon aning mga adlawa, mga katapusan sa bulan, sa giingon pa, hapdus gyud akong kuto-kuto. nakahinumdum ko, nigasto man gud kog mga 600 pud, akong gipadevelop ang mga litrato sa igsoon nako nga gikasal tungod kay sa tan-aw nako, importante kaayo tong okasyona- murag highlight sa among kinabuhi ba. kabalo na ka, gamay ra kaayo to nga kalipay sa kinabuhing giupy-an sa pamilya nga tan-aw nako halos nabulit og kamiserable. mao nang akong huna-huna, nindot jud naay handumanan sa among kalipay, para bulahan, naa mi lantaw-lantawon ug usab, basun na lang kami makaingon nga, "sus no, naa man pud diay mi gamayng kalipay?" mao to siya akong tan-aw nga siguro kung wala nako to gastoa ang 600, basin sa pagkakarun, nakapalit-palit lang ko gamay og makaon. pero sa tinuod lang kapoy na kaayog kaon ug noodles ug sardinas ba. ingon aning mga higayona, nga murag gusto kong moundang aning tan-aw siguro sa uban, "dakong kabuang;mag-antos sa kinabuhing halos walay sweldo." pero sa gikaingon ko na, dili sulbad ang mogawas diri ug mangitag laing trabaho. mao tong,kung huna-hunaon, dili gyud nako dapat mahayon ang akong kaugalingon nganong gigasto nako tong P600. kumbaga,mura gud og budget sa pamilya. dapat unta naay budget kung naay magsakit-sakit sa pamilya. pareha ra pud na anang istoryaha, naa pud kay budget sa gamayng kalipay... hahaaay.

bisan unsaon gyud nko nag stretch akong ginadawat kada bulan, dili jud na siya kaigo. siguro kung naa koy kusina ug gamay pridyeder, basin moinat lang sya gamay. arang-arang tingali gamay.makaluto kog pagkaon, nga medyo malipay pud ta tungod kay dili lang man unya pirmi na lang kog kaon og delata. dayon siguro makaluto pud kog utan. hahaaay...

kinabuhing pobre.

While the few rich were doing this http://www.mindanaotimes.com.ph/story.php?id=14944 in Marco Polo, I was asleep beside my boyfriend who was burning with a high fever, in a rented room, at the first floor of a pre-war wood house.

I got up, lighted an incense and a candle while outside, I heard neigbors making noises with their pots and pans, and videoke singing of "Hasta Mañana" repeated many times over.

The question of "Who am I" remains a question to reckon after all these years. I guess, it is because people around one change, the things around one change. Old things die, new things born, life goes on and it is a constant search as to where one must find one's self in all things.

I've got things yet that should have been burned but are still trapped in the nook of my locker. The body passes away but memory remains. We choose what to remember and we choose what to forget. But there are just things that persist, and memories too that persist. What to remember and what to forget?  

2006 was such a year. I have had extreme joys and extreme sorrows. This year has taught me a lot of things. Life is life in itself. Who does not want to be always happy? But then, problems do come. Often, these are problems that are problems in itself because we never thought, not even in our wildest dreams that they would happen.

When problems come, I should always remember what my lola taught me, and of course, Marx – that every problem has a solution.

We have to give to life what belongs to life… and often, these are the things that happen, without us knowing right away, why they happened. It is when we reckon things that we understand, why it happened. And I guess, that's the beauty of living. You understand…

What 24-hours of Torment Can Do to A Life:

(Two women human rights workers bare their experience while in captivity by the military)

General Santos City --- Not a single bruise could be found on any part of the body of the two women staff of the non-government organization Disaster Response Center (DIRECT) as attested in a medical certificate when they were finally surfaced at a police station in Tulunan, North Cotabato, at about nine in the evening of November 5, twenty-four hours passed since they were declared missing.

But the two women who are just in their early twenties, Lorelie Naiz and Mary Bernadette Solitario, sat staring in the blank and could hardly talk at the police station where six men finally brought them there. One of the men who brought them to the police identified himself as George Reyes of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP).

The interview with Naiz and Solitario was conducted more than a week since the incident happened but even until such time, both could still almost not believe that they are free and that the ordeal they went through had long been over.

Lorelie said she used to be a lively and cheerful person. But after what happened, she finds herself to be in a seemingly constant state of somber mood.

Bernadette, for her part, would sometimes want retreat to a very far place, where she said, she may be able to hunker down all by herself.

Both dread dusk, as it is that time of the day when they are reminded of the onset of the night of torture they suffered in the hands of their captors.

They get nervous whenever they see tinted vehicles, they tremble at the sound of revs of a motorcycle engines, much as they see burly-looking men in military fatigue uniforms.

The two were abducted in the afternoon of November 4, 2006, on their way to Batang, a village in Tulunan, North Cotabato where they were to assist evacuating families, a day after an encounter between the military and the AFP had occurred near the area.

Batang is one of the four project areas of their partner NGO, Manila-based Citizens Disaster Response and Rehabilitation Center (CDRC), under the "Aid to the Uprooted People Programme-AUPP-Philippines" which is being supported by the European Union, Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines.

While DIRECT is based in General Santos City and Alabel town in Saranggani Province, among their project areas are located in Tulunan, North Cotabato (still part of Region XII), such as the one that Solitario and Naiz had intended to go to on that fateful day.

Those motorcycle-riding men

Naiz said eight men in civilian clothes, on board four motorcycles held them at about 3 pm in Bituan village, on their way to Batang.  When the men asked them to pull off the road, Naiz asked what they wanted because they were in a hurry to reach the place.

None of the men however, replied. Instead, they seemed to be ignoring her questions and pretended they were texting. Their motorcycles did not bear plate numbers.

For a moment, Naiz, said she wanted to console herself that Tulunan Mayor Nestor Taasan had anyway, already vouched for their safe entry to the area, having coordinated with him earlier.

But when she pressed further, one of the men yelled at her, "Paghilum. Pusilon hinoon tika run! (Shut up, or else, I will shoot you!")

Naiz, at that point, wasted no time. She managed to text a few words for the mayor telling that they were being held. She also sent the text message to her father.

Soon a maroon pick-up, with no plate number came. At that point, the things they brought with them, only handbags, were confiscated, including their cellphones, a camera and one used roll of film.

They were dragged into the vehicle. Inside were four burly-looking men, the driver, another man at the driver's seat and two men, on each side of the door. There was also a long firearm.

Naiz said she tried to speak to the men at first telling them that they are NGO workers and that the mayor had been waiting for them in Batang. But they wondered why the men inside the pick up just regarded them with the utter indifference, the same as how those motorcycle-riding men were ignoring their queries earlier.  

 When she pressed on, one of the men cut her by saying, "Relax lang! (Just relax)."

 Lorelie said, at the point, she hesitated anymore asking further questions afraid that she might just provoke them. Thus, began the terrifying silence as the vehicle that carried them moved along back wood dirt roads and on to long, empty highways of the town.

When they turned their back, they saw that the four motorcycles were following their vehicle all along, until they disappeared at a bend going to the direction of the 27th Infantry Battalion Military Detachment in New Panay village in Tulunan.

It was growing dark then as dusk came. Soon, they were on the road going to Makilala town in North Cotabato. They were brought to the Military Detachment of the 39th Infantry Battalion. They were blindfolded and interrogated in separate rooms.

Hearing Voices

To this day, the two women complained of having difficulty going to sleep. They said it's as if the voices on the night they were in the hands of their captors at the 39^th IB would keep on ringing in her ears, refusing to leave.

"NPA ka amina na lang gud! (You are an NPA. You must now admit it!)

"NGO worker ko. Unsa pa may gusto ninyo nga isulti nako?!" (I am an NGO worker. What should I tell you?!)

"Ah kanang inyong opisina prente lang na sa NDF!" (Your office is just a front of the NDF!"

"Among opisina, naa nay project sa area ilalum sa funding agency nga European Union." (Our office has a project in the area being funded by the European Union."

"Kanang European Union, communist country na!" (That European Union is a communist country!)

 

"Sayang ka Lor, gwapo ra ba imong lawas…" (What a waste? You have a beautiful body."

"Malooy mo, unsa may among sala?! (Take pity on us. What have we done?!)

"Kung pwede paulia na mi ninyo…! (Please, have pity, let us go...)" 

At first, Lorelie thought, she could still parry their questioning. But as night dragged on, the voices were still as strong as ever and the chuckles of the men lurking around her were as Lorelie puts it, just tormenting.

Methods of Terror

"I felt so already weary and bone-tired that I wished I had collapsed, or drowse off from exhaustion, the better to evade the incessant grilling that night. But my senses just refused to shut off," Lorelie recounted her ordeal.

"They also threatened to push me into a cliff, and pretended they had already finished digging out my grave. Then, they also took a picture of me her holding a signboard with a note that I am a "liaison of the New Peoples' Army," she recounted.

"I want to avenge them. Those men were brutes, ultimate jerks!" Naiz said, her voice already breaking.

Meanwhile, Bernadette, recalled of being led into an open shack by a cliff, blindfolded.

"There, they started asking me, my name, my age, where I studied, where my parents are and where they live. Then the question if I am an NPA, a communist. They even accused that I was bringing a hand grenade, and that my father is a bomb maker," she said.

Bernadette said, they asked the question many times and even threaten to tie her feet, her hands and her neck with a rope. They also rolled a paper and hit it on her head.

"At one point, I asked that I may be allowed to urinate. But the men would not go away, and so unable to hold it any longer, I tried groping my way a little farther. But the men were just around. I could even make out their laughter. I didn't realize that I was standing on a verge of a cliff and I thought that they were soon going to finish me off by pushing me down," she said.

"As night dragged on, there seemed to be no end to the questioning. And every time I fake falling off to sleep, they would tap me rudely so I may wake up and face up to their questioning again," Bernadette further recounted.

"Then they would tell me that Lorelie had already owned up to being an NPA and that it was my turn to admit.  Later, another voice would tell, "Humana ko pre. Ikaw na pud didto. (I'm done. It's your turn there.)," she continued.

But the ordeal did not stop with the mind games their captors played on the two the entire evening.

When morning came, they were forced to take some food. But Lorelie had been throwing off. Bernadette too could not eat out of exhaustion.

Both said they could hardly believe when they saw each other the next day. Somebody told them that they were going to be released. But then, Bernadette thought it seemed too good to be true anymore. They almost felt resigned to the worst.

But one of the men who came upon them mockingly told of how many had been looking for them already. Lorelie thought, it must be her cellphone which she heard kept ringing several times that night.

"Maybe they were going to salvage us. We just sat there, not talking at all. We were already very tired," Bernadette described how they were when both of them were put in the same maroon pick-up the next day.

But then, there were led again into another room where, for the first time, they said, they heard voices of women.

"For a while, it felt like a brief respite. But later, they turned out to be the same brutes!" Lorelie said as she recounted what these women, who first introduced themselves to be "their comrades" in Tagalog dialect, did," Lorelie said.

"They ordered us to strip off our clothes because they said, we might be hiding something. We were still in blindfolds. And we felt hands removing our bras, and pulling down our panties. And all the while, we were hearing men's chuckles from all around," Lorelie recounted.

Bernadette, realizing that she was menstruating, asked that she be allowed to change her undergarment.

"But, they forbade me. I was not even allowed to do this thing, on my own?! Helpless against them while those hands were removing my panty, was just degrading and humiliating!" Bernadette said.

Lorelie said, one man then came to them, and asked that they bear with them. "Pasensya lang jud mi. Naa lay trabaho. (Please bear with us. There is just work for us to do.)," were his words as Lorelie told. "Pasensyahe? Sa ilang gibuhat nga hapit man gani mi mangamatay? (Bear with them? With all that they have done to us? They even almost killed us!)," Lorelie said.

They were then told that they were going to be brought for medical-check up.

Outrage

The story of Lorelie and Bernadette, according to human rights groups in Region XII is another one added to the baffling symptoms of what have become of the present administration's policy nowadays, against what it perceives as its enemies.

Karapatan Region XII secretary general Shamrod Abdulaziz, Jr. sees this incident as part of the series of continuing human rights atrocities that the country now see under the 'All-Out War' measure taken by the Arroyo administration against 'insurgency.

The Arroyo government has declared an "All Out War," a supposed "endgame" strategy against the reds in June.

But after almost five months now since the announcement, the killings among political activists have continued. From the count of 684^th when a peasant activist from Misamis Oriental Tito Marata was shot dead a day after GMA made that declaration, the numbers of dead political activists now has reached 765^th, as of last Saturday's count.

Abdulaziz said this incident against the two CDRC staff volunteers is just among the "clear proofs that the Arroyo government is training its war, not against the armed, but against civilians, even those organizations who are supposed to be helping people who are victims of the abuses which are the AFP's own making, anyway."

 
Abdulaziz said that the perpetrators of the abuse against Naiz and Solitario are clearly elements of the Philippine Army contrary to the version they were circulating, that NPA men abducted the two.

The fact that that the eight motorcycle men who stopped Naiz and Solitario on their way to Batang village were seen heading towards the 27^th IB Military Detachment in New Panay, Tulunan, North Cotabato and the fact that they were brought to the 39^th IB Military Detachment in Makilala, North Cotabato and that Naiz and Solitario were turned over to the Tulunan Police Station by men, one of them identified himself as an ISAFP element were, according to Abdulazziz, glaring evidence of the military's culpability.

Abdulaziz pointed that Nais and Solitario were violently seized and detained by the military without any lawful basis and without any judicial authority to justify their violent capture.

"They were tortured, which is a blatant human rights abuse and one that is prohibited and not justifiable in any way, as a tactic, a method of securing any information especially by state armed forces of any country in the course of their work," he pointed.

"These military men did it not just because they were sadists per se, but because this is the policy now being carried out in the military against who it suspects as its enemy. This is proof that the Arroyo administration is now carrying out a policy of terror!" Abdulaziz said.

"What the AFP element did was clearly an act that is unlawful and highly immoral, and one that betrays any claim of legitimacy that the Arroyo government is trying to put on its 'All Out War' strategy. If at all, it has only unmasked further a stratagem that shows no sympathy at all for human rights and human dignity, truly, a mark of her fascist regime," he lashed.

Meanwhile, Gabriela spokesperson in General Santos City, Dr. Emely Lagare called what happened to Naiz and Solitario as "an incident that counts among the long list of record of state violence against the Arroyo administration as it violates human rights and as it forcibly insists on linking legal groups with the NPA."  Gabriela is a National Alliance of Women's Organization.

Lagare has condemned the 27^th and the 39^th IB and called them "instruments of violence against women."

"There may be no trace of physical violence on Ms. Nais and Ms. Solitario, but the effect of mental torture and sexual harassment that they experienced and tried fighting against in the whole time that they were in the hands of experts in psychological operations of the 27^th and 39^th IB are deep and lingering," Lagare said.

"So they could fully recover from the traumatic psychological experience, they have to attain justice," Lagare added.

Lagare challenged the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and other agencies of the government to investigate and file cases against the 27^th IB and 39^th IB.

Naiz and Solitario with the help of human rights advocates Karapatan and Gabriela, have filed the case with the Commission and Human Rights and the City Prosecution in General Santos last November 8.

At present, they are in custody of an organization which they deem not to disclose, for security reasons.###

 

 

A Woman’s Place is in the Struggle Daw

 

* Isang pagninilay-nilay pagkatapos napakinggan ang kantang “Maria” ng Sining Lila na nagsasabing:   Bayan darating din ang araw

Iluluwal mo ang bagong Maria

Ang Mariang hindi tatalikod sa ‘yo

Hanggang kamatayan....

 

Handa ka na ba Maria?

May tapang ka ba?

Isipin na ang bisig mong mapang-aruga

Ay hindi lang sanggol ang kayang madadala.

 

Handa ka na ba Maria?

Labanan ang mga kamay na nakapiring sa yong mga mata?

Burahin sa isipan ang boses ni ama

Na nagsasabi sa iyo na mahina ka.

 

Kung bakit hindi,

Samantalang,

Sa mga pagkakataong ito

Mulat ka na

Kitang-kita mo sa iyong mga mata

Kung ano ang nangyari kay Liza, Liliosa at Lorena

Ang mga walang pangalang mga inang

Naghahanap sa kanilang pinaslang na mga anak

Ang mga walang pangalang mga asawang

Naghahanap sa kanilang pinaslang na mga mahal

Maria, higit sa lahat

Mulat ka na

 

Subalit bakit animoy pilit ibinabahay pa rin ang mga gagamba sa aking mga mata?

Kung bakit ang sinasabing puwang ng kababaihan ay nasa pakikibaka ay hindi ko pa makita

Dahil mahirap pa pala talagang mag-astang mulat tungkol sa kababaihan

Lalo’t nasa katayuang hindi pa lubusang kilala

Paano kung sila ay lumaban.

###

*Revised November 2006

 

 

I had a very weird dream last night.  I slept at the office. I was alone and felt had to put a knife within my arm's reach. The lock system is not that secure yet. With a ripped out glass door, the office is left with a thin iron sheet whose bolt could give away, if one really intends to kick it open

Now the dream is that i am with my boyfriend inside a house and everyday a tiger, yes a real tiger, rams on the gate, as in rams the gate! This gets to happen if not daily, often once in two days that we have gone used to finding a way to ensure the tiger is dead everytime it rams itself into the gate.

What is so vivid about that dream is that we get to eat the meat of the tiger. And since a tiger is killed at a frequency of almost daily,so, do we also get to eat tiger meat in a day. What always flashes through my mind now is my face, dabbling with the meat, and complaining at the back of my head, "It's tiger meat again?"

I do not know what's currently playing in my psyche right now. I think i know it but i just don't know if this is a mix of everything going on in my head, and perhaps in my life.

Three days ago, i remember, i was so happy just thinking, that i see my life as pieces of laundry piled neatly.

this is not weird. i like it.

(:

There is no Martial Law. No such thing pronounced as Martial Law by a president since 34 years ago.

But the streamers paraded on the streets on this day are screaming so: Stop the Killings!; Free Ka Bel!Fight and Fail the Terrorism of the US-GMA Regime!

I went out on the streets today, rode a jeepney to the place where rallyists assembled. On the jeepney, it was like an ordinary day. People looked like they could not wait to get to their respective destinations - to the malls, to their dates, to their schools or their homes maybe.

But i was heading somewhere, where the crowd gathers. I wanted to feel too, if indeed there is Martial Law. Because I feel so safe on the jeepney, not angry nor wary that someone might be out to kill me. I was just afraid of bombings though.

Finally, when i got to Rizal Park where people converged, there maybe thousands of them, I looked at their faces. They looked so different than me. Their eyes were deep and angry.

I sat still, somewhere, refusing to remove my eyeglasses, fearful they would not see anything in my eyes. Only emptiness. I wanted just to sit there, in a place where not too many would get to see me, to savor the scene before me: people sitting on the ground, listening intently to every word uttered by a speaker onstage.

By this time, the ambient sound, is something like an angry castigation of a farmer on the military who he blamed to be behind the killing of a fellow, farmer, a member of the same organization he belongs to - Anakpawis (in english, it is translated as the toiling masses.)

Yes, they before me, they are the toiling masses. They are poor, far poor than I am.As i looked at them, questions started to run in my head: How many could have died in their villages? Can they sleep well at night? Can they tend their farms freely? Are they not afraid of anyone?Can they speak out their thoughts against people who they think caused their misery without fear?

Sitting there, and just looking at them, I wanted to know their fears. I wanted to find out if i have the same.

Late in the evening, i got to read the news. It says, President Arroyo joins other nations in calling for the "restoration of Democracy" in Thailand. Earlier, i got a text message from a friend who is in Thailand telling me that it has been a gentle coup so far and only the corrupt have been arrested. It must be a good thing to happen in Thailand! Indeed, it is, i guess. Having known from reading news that Thaksin have been accused of cheating in the elections and massive abuse of power and corruption, it was good that he was ousted. It would be another story though to find out about who ousted him and whether they are worthy to replace such a system, such a condition that Thaksin installed.

But be that as it may, the good thing is, Thaksin is out. What comes now is the thought that it is possible to oust a corrupt, and disliked President!

I don't really know so much about the general who led the coup in Thailand. Neither do i know so much also about revolutions, or its semblances, or if there's any sort of thing happening in Thailand. I will have to stop there. What i want to say is I am just glad that it is possible to oust a disliked President.

Here in the Philippines, "Rule of Law" and "Democracy" are the most abused term there is for a President whose deeds speak so otherwise.

Arroyo invoked institution of the "rule of law" when she declared State of National Emergency seven months ago. It led to the undue arrests of political leaders. She used  "Democracy" as a rallying cry to kill the communists. In effect, she has started a campaign that led to what people now see, and i seem to be also convinced as a  "state-commissioned" killings of countless activists slain for reasons of being suspected members of the communist movement - more than 700 of them dead now since GMA sat as President. State commissioned, i should say since most of the perpetrators have strings tied to military authorities based on what i read.

How many times have Gloria Arroyo docked under rule of law and democracy  to justify her policies that resulted to militarism and extinguishing not only the political dissenters, but essentially wiping out, and cowering into docility the entire opposition?

We are at a time when people think that no one can dare stand up against Gloria. She has well-placed her butchers in the military echelon who enjoy all the blessings as they romp about in their carnage of the innocent .

Now, how am i effected by all these? Am i at all, affected? I think i am insulted.I think i still have a healthy sense of democracy and i cannot afford to sit and continue riding jeepneys to a destination, away from where i think i can be alive and feeling something.

**i'm surprised that i wrote this when i was 25.
that was four years ago... wow!
i wonder how much could have changed now...

Tomatoes and Celery


We talked about power clitoris over breakfast table.

I like looking at how skillful your fingers are painstakingly skinning the squid. Offshore squid, you said. I prepared the celery. Use your finger. Its better to nip the celery with your bare fingers.

Thin slices of tomato. I delight at how you battle with the angry cooking oil protesting the landing of the bread crumbs on the skillet.

I don't like Malangs women. They have the same faces. But I love Pacunayens portrait of a woman. Her face caught by the artists brush so unaware yet, looking so knowing, knowing about herself. Unlike Malangs women, the aloneness of Pacunayens woman is a temptation to survey every curve and angle of her face; a temptation to wonder, just wonder how it is to be cast at by her eyes...

You have gone around every hotel asking for quotes in time for your man to arrive.

I have started marking the calendar checking the number of days before my next period sets in.

We smoked. We laughed. We talked of our men. Men have the privilege to be promiscuous. Not only that, they can bear as many children as possible even in old age.

I saw you at the hotel lobby. It has been a long time. I saw you at the grocery store two months ago at the grocery store. You were walking a somnabulist walk, carrying the basket. I dread crossing path with you.

I pressed your hand. We are two women. We commune.

We stole buttercups because we needed at least ten stems to fill our grills. I stole rocks for the bromeliad.

Take your pick. Pindakaka, Pakpak sa Lawin, Dama de Noche, the name of the rooms, the rooms are perfectly kept in the middle of the garden. You fret about how thin the walls are. We have prepared the rooms, but where are our men ?

The sun hardly showed herself up today. I never got to appreciate my cherry red lipstick until I saw you put it on your lips.

My ran stockings, black, dark brown, beige. I wonder why they keep on running down. There must be something about me when I use it, when I walk around.

I have already attacked the seatbed of the cockroaches. I have planted the celery, too in the yard near the vine which I had clung over the male papaya standing erect on our otherwise barren yard for almost two years now.

Its always good to go home early in the morning when all the people are just getting out for work. I slept over somebodys house last night to discuss the workplan for a project. The streets are quiet. The air is fresh and everyone in the jeepney seemed intent in their own thoughts - perhaps just wondering what the day holds for them.

Cheese, eggs, celery (make sure you get the long stalks, you said and made sure I got them), wheat bread, mushrooms - Ive taken them out of the grocery bag and have dutifully arranged them in the cupboards already. You insisted on coffee especially ground by the monks up in one of those mountains in Bukidnon.

Ive taken to wearing socks to bed. Our mornings are starting to be always rainy..

Were middle class... were middle age, Jonis singing over the radio. And Mrs. Millers' "Tiptoe through the Tulips always makes our day.

We have taken to posting our needs right on our very door, screaming to every man who dare set their foot through it. If only they start dissociating themselves with the thought, that hey, you are not about to be made prey... Come in, I am a prey as much as you are. We are potential preys of this predator screaming for salvation in a world that could have been otherwise as humdrum as the doormats we place on our doorsteps had it been devoid of love. Love! We wanted to fill the world with love... No matter how abstract and arbitrary the definitions we attach to our feelings may be, I could not really care less.... IM AFTER THE RUSH. In fact, Id kill for the rush...

wanted : A husband who hands me money for grocery every week;
who wouldnt mind if I go home very late at night or early dawn bringing another guy or a chick;
who wouldnt mind if I break plates and glasses or bang kettles and casseroles once in a while;
who wouldnt mind if I shout in the middle of the night
or muffle a cry under the pillow;
who wont get panic if I stare blankly into space,
or even laugh alone in the garden;
who will accept the fact that insanity is inherent in my genes;
who, despite knowing all these things,
still keeps me warm at night.


I am disconsolate in thinking of myself as a clay mold moving in a pretty even keel with no one, not a single soul willing to lay a hand on it and make sense of its being.

We have worked so much to make ourselves lonelier.

You ought to be lonely...

Sensible men who are not afraid of affection are getting thin on the ground. Meanwhile, a lot of women start getting assertive, unafraid to speak out their thoughts and are getting lonelier.

I have found my own brand of doughnuts. NUTTY MOCCA. Not to sweet. Not bland but NUtty..

Why just when I feel like washing clothes the rain would come playing on my rooftop? I need the sun, bright bright sun to dry my clothes, to make my labor not useless. Wet clothes stuck in the basin- they await the suns coming.

I need to wash my baguio blanket. Desperately need to wash. Its very cold these days. I havent gotten enough sleep because of the cold. I need the sun to come out to dry my blanket for warm nights that I have so long wished.

When you came you instituted a lot of household reforms. Number one, you bought a dish rack. Number two, you bought an oven toaster. Number three, you rearranged the furnitures bringing the dining table to the space which is supposed to be the living room. Number four, you threw away small things, old bottles, old candles, old paper wrappers stocked in the cupboard for ages. It was so far, good.

The vines in our yard have started crawling their way around. Some of the flowers you replanted are starting to take root on earth and hopefully live and blossom.

Adobo, Barbecue, Bistek Tagalog, Hot & Spicy, Sweet & Sour...Take your pick among the tuna in can I bought, I said and you can only exclaim, what a horrible, horrible life youre living! Sorry, thats the only thing I can afford. Besides, fish is so expensive these days... food manufactured, preserved, syntheticized, repacked come cheap than raw, fresh ones these days. But you said, all these in exchange for endangering your fertility!

But we agree about how beautiful the flowers on our table are! And every morning sipping our coffee manufactured by the monks up in one of the mountains of Bukidnon, we would sit around, linger and talk about the monks (who, we bet, are feeling chaste and virginal) and the men who have amused us.

You cook very good crumbled, er, scrambled egg. It takes a skill to roll an omellette while the onions, potatoes and bell pepper are spreading on the inside.

The screw connecting the handle of the heaters cover has become loose. Just a touch of your hands and voila, its fixed!

I admire your ingenuity, your domestic acumen.

One man, a man! has entered the house. Is he captive?

In love, its either, both win or both lose. There is no such thing as one winning and another one getting the other to lose. Otherwise it is not love.

I was gone only for three days and what did you do? You danced great on the dance floor three days ago, and he sure saw how your soul recklessly, unmindfully abandon the body, the self seen by the many. You have a beautiful spirit, I agree!

Hey! I got three two-feet long strands of hair on the floor while sweeping this morning. The hairs are tucked and labeled on the corkboard. For keeps, you know. I do not intend to museumize love. But remembering is all we ever have. Besides, a feel of a strand of hair right right from the flesh to aid memory with would not hurt.

I like your skirt. You look ravishing in those undertone polka dots that you failed to iron this morning because mornings after are always hard to bear. A brush of red on your cheek complements perfectly the sun that had just audaciously come out that morning. How early did he leave?

You chop the garlic, the onions, the bell pepper while I grate the cheese but this time, you asked me to cook the omellette. Establish the egg as a base before you put in the filling and carefully roll it, slowly. Oil is wildly springing from the skillet as I plunge the onions and tomatoes. They hit right through the surface of the calendar Ive marked to establish my 28-day cycle. Its a 28 day cycle! I am sure now. I was afraid it was my first time- to cook your kind of omelette. But then, I did it! The egg was perfect. The coffee was perfect. There are flowers and bananas, and lettuces on the table. French toast, although a little overdone but still good.

Breakfast was good, we all agree. We took part and drink to his glorious hair.

Last nyt, we had supper under the stars and the grass felt so good on our back.
LIFE IS SO GOOD!GOOD, GOOD, we declared!

Should we be guilty doing these while the world is desperately needing more happy people!

We can grow more tomatoes and celeries. The lawn is ours anyway and we can do whatever we want to do with it.

-end -