Sino ang baliw? - Basil Valdez

Freddie Aguilar -- Bulag, Pipi at Bingi

Another Work of Jose villa

Footnote To Youth

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong's grandmother. 

I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him. 

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong's foot and crawled calmly over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more. 

Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of grass before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests. 

Dodong started homeward, thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on his upper lip already was dark--these meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a man--he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low in statue. Thinking himself a man grown, Dodong felt he could do anything. 

He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild you dreams of himself and Teang. Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She made him dream even during the day. 

Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This field 

work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek. 

Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red kundiman shorts, on the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over, and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool. 

It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted and the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. His parents and he sat down on the floor around the table to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish, rice, bananas, and caked sugar. 

Dodong ate fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his parents. 

Dodong's mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to wash them. She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework alone. 

His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him again, Dodong knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than his father. 

Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what he had to say, and over which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble light into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His father looked old now. 

"I am going to marry Teang," Dodong said.

His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The silence became intense and cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering anything. 

"I will marry Teang," Dodong repeated. "I will marry Teang." 

His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat. 

"I asked her last night to marry me and she said...yes. I want your permission. I... want... it...." There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and the little sounds it made broke dully the night stillness. 

"Must you marry, Dodong?" 

Dodong resented his father's questions; his father himself had married. Dodong made a quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but later he got confused. 

"You are very young, Dodong." 

"I'm... seventeen." 

"That's very young to get married at." 

"I... I want to marry...Teang's a good girl." 

"Tell your mother," his father said. 

"You tell her, tatay." 

"Dodong, you tell your inay." 

"You tell her." 

"All right, Dodong." 

"You will let me marry Teang?"

"Son, if that is your wish... of course..." There was a strange helpless light in his father's eyes. Dodong did not read it, so absorbed was he in himself. 

Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father. For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind to dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream.... 

-------------------------------------------

Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his camiseta was damp. He was still as a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts with severe tyranny. Afraid also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that, he seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry. 

In a few moments he would be a father. "Father, father," he whispered the word with awe, with strangeness. He was young, he realized now, contradicting himself of nine months comfortable... "Your son," people would soon be telling him. "Your son, Dodong." 

Dodong felt tired standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close together. He looked at his callused toes. Suppose he had ten children... What made him think that? What was the matter with him? God!

He heard his mother's voice from the house:

"Come up, Dodong. It is over." 

Suddenly he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he had taken something no properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust dirt off his kundiman shorts.

"Dodong," his mother called again. "Dodong." 

He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother. 

"It is a boy," his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up. 

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him. His parents' eyes seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp. 

He wanted to hide from them, to run away. 

"Dodong, you come up. You come up," he mother said. 

Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun. 

"Dodong. Dodong." 

"I'll... come up." 

Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him. 

His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently. 

"Son," his father said. 

And his mother: "Dodong..." 

How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong. 

"Teang?" Dodong said. 

"She's sleeping. But you go on..." 

His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife, asleep on the papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to look that pale.

Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips, but again that feeling of embarrassment came over him and before his parents he did not want to be demonstrative. 

The hilot was wrapping the child, Dodong heard it cry. The thin voice pierced him queerly. He could not control the swelling of happiness in him. 

“You give him to me. You give him to me," Dodong said.

-------------------------------------------

Blas was not Dodong's only child. Many more children came. For six successive years a new child came along. Dodong did not want any more children, but they came. It seemed the coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes.

Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin now, even if she was young. There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years, and that was why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after her marriage to Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered if she had married Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not, either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong... 

Dodong whom life had made ugly. 

One night, as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He stood in the moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and somebody to answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things. 

One of them was why life did not fulfill all of Youth's dreams. Why it must be so. Why one was forsaken... after Love. 

Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so to make youth Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned to the house humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a little wisdom but was denied it. 

When Blas was eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at night and Teang and the other children were asleep. Dodong heard Blas's steps, for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did not sleep. Blas said he could not sleep. 

"You better go to sleep. It is late," Dodong said. 

Blas raised himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice. 

Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep. 

"Itay ...," Blas called softly. 

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was. 

"I am going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight." 

Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving. 

"Itay, you think it over." 

Dodong lay silent. 

"I love Tona and... I want her." 

Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard, where everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white. 

"You want to marry Tona," Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard... 

"Yes." 

"Must you marry?" 

Blas's voice stilled with resentment. "I will marry Tona." 

Dodong kept silent, hurt. 

"You have objections, Itay?" Blas asked acridly. 

"Son... n-none..." (But truly, God, I don't want Blas to marry yet... not yet. I don't want Blas to marry yet....) 

But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph... now. Love must triumph... now. Afterwards... it will be life. 

As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong... and then Life. 

Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for him.

 http://matikas0805.multiply.com/journal/item/65

The Boy Who Became Stone

Tinguian

One day a little boy named Elonen sat out in the yard making a bird snare, and as he worked, a little bird called to him: "Tik-tik-lo-den" (come and catch me).

"I am making a snare for you," said the boy; but the bird continued to call until the snare was finished.

Then Elonen ran and threw the snare over the bird and caught it, and he put it in a jar in his house while he went with the other boys to swim.

While he was away, his grandmother grew hungry, so she ate the bird, and when Elonen returned and found that his bird was gone, he was so sad that he wished he might go away and never come back. He went out into the forest and walked a long distance, until finally he came to a big stone and said: "Stone, open your mouth and eat me." And the stone opened its mouth and swallowed the boy.

When his grandmother missed the boy, she went out and looked everywhere, hoping to find him. Finally she passed near the stone and it cried out, "Here he is." Then the old woman tried to open the stone but she could not, so she called the horses to come and help her. They came and kicked it, but it would not break. Then she called the carabao and they hooked it, but they only broke their horns. She called the chickens, which pecked it, and the thunder, which shook it, but nothing could open it, and she had to go home without the boy.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/pft/pft21.htm

.Morning in Nagrebcan.

It was sunrise at Nagrebcan. The fine, bluish mist, low over the tobacco fields, was lifting and thinning moment by moment. A ragged strip of mist, pulled away by the morning breeze, had caught on the clumps of bamboo along the banks of the stream that flowed to one side of the barrio. Before long the sun would top the Katayaghan hills, but as yet no people were around. In the grey shadow of the hills, the barrio was gradually awaking. Roosters crowed and strutted on the ground while hens hesitated on theri perches among the branches of the camanchile trees. Stray goats nibbled the weeds on the sides of the road, and the bull carabaos tugged restively against their stakes.

                In the early mornig the puppies lay curled up together between their mother’s paws under the ladder of the house. Four puupies were all white like the mother. They had pink noses and pink eyelids and pink mouths. The skin between their toes and on the inside of their large, limp ears was pink. They had short sleek hair, for the mother licked them often. The fifth puppy lay across the mother’s neck. On the puppy’s back was a big black spot like a saddle. The tips of its ears were black and so was a pitch of hair on its chest.

                The opening of the sawali door, its uneven bottom dragging noisily against the bamboo flooring, aroused the mother dog and she got up and stretched and shook herself, scattering dust and loose white hair. A rank doggy smell rose in the cool morning air. She took a quick leap forward, clearing the puppies which had begun to whine about her, wanting to suckle. She trotted away and disappeared beyond the house of a neighbor.

                The puppies sat back on their rumps, whining. After a little while they lay down and went back to sleep, the black-spotted puppy on top.

                Baldo stood at the treshold and rubbed his sleep-heavy eyes with his fists. He must have been about ten yeras old, small for his age, but compactly built, and he stood straight on his bony legs. He wore one of his father’s discarded cotton undershirts.

                The boy descended the ladder, leaning heavily on the single bamboo railing that served as a banister. He sat on the lowest step of the ladder, yawning and rubbing his eyes one after the other. Bending down, he reached between his legs for the blak-spotted puppy. He held it to him, stroking its soft, warm body. He blew on its nose. The puppy stuck out a small red tongue,lapping the air. It whined eagerly. Baldo laughed—a low gurgle.

                He rubbed his face against that of the dog. He said softly. “My puppy. My puppy.” He said it many times. The puppy licked his ears, his cheeks. When it licked his mouth. Baldo straightened up, raised the puppy on a level with his eyes. “You are a foolish puppy” he said, laughing. “Foolish, foolish, foolish,” he said, rolling the puppy on his lap so that it howled.

                The four other  puppies awoke and came scrambling about Baldo’s legs. He put down the black-spotted puppy and ran to the narrow foot bridge of women split-bamboo spanning the roadside ditch. When it rained, water from the roadway flowed under the makeshift bridge, but it had not rained for a long time and the ground was dry and sandy. Baldo sat on the bridge, digging his bare feet into the sand, feeling the cool particles escaping between his toes. He whistled, a toneless whistle with a curious trilling to it produced by placing the tongue against the lower teeth and then curving it up and down. The whistle excited the puppies, they ran to the boy as fast theri unsteady legs could carry them, barking choppy little barks.

                Nana Elang, the mother of Baldo, now appeared in the doorway with a handful of rice straw. She called Baldo and told him to get some live coals from their neighbor.

                “Get two or three burning coals and bring them home on the rice straw”, she said. “Do not wave the straw in the wind. If you do, it will catch fire before you get home.” She watched him run toward KA Ikao’s house where already smoke was rising through the nipa roofing into the misty air. One or two empty carromatas dawn by sleepy litte ponies rattled along the pebbly street, bound for the railroad station.

                Nana Elang must have been thirty, but she looked at least fifty. She was a thin, wispy woman, with bony hands and arms. She had scanty,straight, graying hair which she gathered behind her head in a small,tight knot. It made her look thinner than ever. Her cheekbones seemed on the point of bursting through the dry, yellowish brown skin. Above a gray-checkered skirt, she wore a single wide-sleeved cotton blouse that ended below her flat breats. Sometimes when she stooped or reached up for anything,a glimpse of the flesh at her waist showed in a dark, purplish band where the skirt had been tired so often.

                She turned from the doorway into the small, untidy kitchen. She washed the rice and put it in a pot which she placed on the cold stove. She made ready the other pot for the mess of vegetables and dried fish. When Baldo came back with the rice straw and burning coals, she told him to start a fire in the stove, while she cut the ampalaya tendrils and sliced the eggplants. Ehen the fire finally flamed inside the clay stove, Baldo’s eyes were smarting from the smoke of the rice straw.

                ‘There is the fire, mother.” He said. “Is father awake already?”

                Nana Elang shook her head. Baldo went out slowly on tiptoe.

                There were already many people going out. Several  fishermen wearing coffee-colored shirts and trousers and hats made from the shell of  white pumpkins passed by. The smoke of their home made cigars floated behind them like shreds of the morning mist. Women carrying big empty baskets were going to the tobacco fields. They walked fast, talking among themselves. Each woman had gathered the loose folds of her skirt in front, and twisting the end two or three times, passed it between her legs, pulling it up at the back, and slipping it inside her waist. The women seemed to be wearing trousers that reached only to their knees and flared at the thighs.

                Day was quickly growing older. The east flamed redly and Baldo called to his mother, “Look, mother, God also cooks his breakfast.”

                He want to play with the puppies. He sat on the bridges and took them on his lap one by one. He searched for fleas which he crushed between his thumbnails. You, puppy.” He murmured soflty. When he held the balck-spotted puppy he said, “My puppy. My puppy.”

                Ambo, his seven year old brother, awoke crying. Nana Elang could be heard patiently calling him to the kitchen. Later he came down with a ripe banana in his hand. Ambo was almost as tall as his older brother and he had stout husky legs. Baldo often called him the son of of an Igorot. The home-made cotton shirt he wore was variously stained. The pocket was torn, and it flopped down. He ate the banana without peeling it.

Maynila, Pagkagat ng Dilim

Bakit itinuturing na isa sa mga pinagpipitagang pelikula ni Direktor Ishmael Bernal ang Manila By Night (Regal Films, Inc.)? Ating balikan ang pelikulang umani ng papuri mula sa mga kritiko noong taong 1980. Kilala si Bernal sa paggawa ng mga pelikulang puno ng iba't-ibang pangunahing tauhan. Tahasang isinaad sa pelikula ang suliraning pang lipunan sa kalakhang Maynila. Mula sa isang simpleng tinedyer (William Martinez) na anak ng dating putang nagbagong buhay (Charito Solis) hanggang sa isang tomboy na drug pusher (Cherie Gil), may bulag na masahista (Rio Locsin), nariyan din ang taxi driver (Orestes Ojeda), ang kabit niyang nagkukunwaring nars (Alma Moreno), mayroon ring probinsyanang waitress (Lorna Tolentino) at ang baklang couturier (Bernardo Bernardo) na bumubuhay sa kanyang pamilya. Iba't-ibang buhay ng mga taong pinagbuklod ng isang malaking siyudad. Tinalakay ng pelikula ang problema sa droga, prostitusyon, relihiyon at kahirapan na magpasahanggang ngayon ay mga suliraning hinahanapan pa rin natin ng solusyon. Maraming nagkumpara ng Manila By Night sa obra ni Direktor Lino Brocka ang Maynila Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag. Kung saan nagkulang ang pelikula ni Brocka ito naman ang landas na tinahak ng obra ni Bernal. Hindi lamang nito ipinakita ang lumalalang situwasyon ng kahirapan sa Maynila sa halip ay hinarap nito ang ibang mga isyung hindi tinalakay sa pelikula ni Brocka. Sa aspetong ito mababanaag ang malaking pagkakaiba ng dalawang pelikula. Kung panonoorin sa ngayon ang Manila By Night masasabing may kalumaan na ang tema nito, di tulad ng unang ipinalabas ang pelikula sa mga sinehan. Matatandaang kinatay ito ng Board Of Censors sa utos na rin ng Unang Ginang na si Imelda Marcos dahil taliwas ito sa imahe ng Maynilang ipinagkakapuri ng administrasyong Marcos. Halos lahat ng linya sa pelikulang sinabi ang katagang Maynila ay pinutol. Pati na rin ang mga maseselang eksena sa pelikula ay iniklian o kaya ay tuluyang ginunting ng opresibong sensura. Hinarang din ng gobyerno ang dapat sanang pagpapalabas ng Manila By Night sa Berlin Film Festival.

Makaraan ang dalawampu't anim na taon mula ng ipalabas ang Manila By Night ay masasabing halos walang binago ang panahon kung susuriin natin ang mga suliraning pang lipunan ng Pilipinas. Nariyan pa rin ang problema sa mga ipinagbabawal na gamot, ang prostitusyon at kahirapan. Sino ba talaga ang dapat sisishin sa lahat ng mga ito? Ang pamahalaan ba? Tayong mga mamayan? Hanggang ngayon wala pang sagot sa mga tanong na ito. Nararapat nating pasalamatan ang mga direktor na tulad ni Ishmael Bernal na sa pamamagitan ng paggawa ng mga obrang tulad ng Manila By Night, isang pelikulang nagmulat sa ating kaisipan sa suliranin ng bansang Pilipinas.

http://sari-saringsinengpinoy.blogspot.com/2006/04/pagkagat-ng-dilim-manila-by-night.html

Ambon, Ulan, Baha (Frank Rivera)

AMBON ULAN BAHA” is a two-hour ethno-rock modern zarzuela that showcases twenty original musical scores inspired by kundiman, balitaw, ethnic and modern musical trends with choreography based on ethnic, folk/traditional and creative dances.

An original production of the celebrated Mindanao State University –Sining Kambayoka ( founded by Theater Artist Frank G. Rivera ) in 1978, “ Ambom…” was remounted by Teatro Metropolitano through NCCA Grant in 1992, also at the helm of Rivera.

This long –time running musicale which predicted the Ormoc tragedy in 1991, highlights environmental concerns and focuses on the preservation of Philippine forests. It also deals heavily on Filipino values, the importance of education, religion, family and youth. It also carries relevant commentaries on socio-economic and political issues of the times. It aims to educate its audiences especially the youth about issues of urgent and national importance.

To – date, ARNAI’s “ Ambon, Ulan, Baha” has been sponsored by several organizations and institutions and has seen more than 500 performances.

The zarzuela’s success in depicting the Filipino lives after almost three decades after it was first staged, proved its timelessness and its relevance to the evolutions of Philippine Theater.

Its music, inspired by folk/traditional songs like balitaw and kundiman, formerly considered provincial “ bakya “ , and unsophisticated as compared to “mainstream” of legitimate theater, proved to be good venue for improvisation and fusion, thus exploring and experimenting for new forms.

Its dances: a fusion of folk/traditional, modern and creative movements showcase creative interpretation of the play’s songs and scene.


http://musicalplayphilippines.blogspot.com/2008/07/musical-play-ambon-ulan-baha.html