THE NATIONAL ARTIST BROUHAHA
BEHN CERVANTES
The highest honor given our deserving artists is the National Artist Award conceived over 2 decades ago by First Lady Imelda Marcos. This award was prestigious and highly-respected since cited artists were doubtlessly deserving of the national award. It is the ultimate honor this nation can bestow upon an artist for his/her body of work, his/her national and international recognition and cultural contributions to the enrichment of our people as well as for his/her integrity and peer respect.
Hardly was there a hint of politics at play as Madame Marcos was properly advised. There was obvious respect for artists and their sensibilities.
To prevent politics from having an undue hand in this particular award, a selection process as well as research committees were set up. In the beginning, it was merely Mrs. Marcos and her advisers who selected artists who were obvious cultural icons. With time, it became vital that an unbiased and selection process be set up.
At the start, the responsibility was given to the Cultural Center of Philippines Board of Trustees. However, in due time, the National Commission of Culture and the Arts was included since the agency is responsible for the pension and other financial benefits promised awardees.
As a member of the CCP Board, I saw inherent problems. To begin with, the NCCA has more voting members than the CCP Board. Congress and Senate representatives who chair Cultural committees also have ex officio seats.
Furthermore, National Artist Award Law allows the President of the Nation to add names other than those cited by the Selection Committee so we persuaded those close to the Palace to admonish the President NOT to include names that did not pass the selection process since past dagdag National Artists were received negatively by the artists’ community.
In fact, a Board member recommended that we attach asterisk to names of dagdag National Artists so that the public realizes that they did not undergo the proper selection process.
During the last selection of National Artists, I pleaded with a Palace official to convince the President not include a name undeserving of a National Artist Award. I recommended that instead the President bestow a Presidential Award since that was her prerogative but I would fight to the end the inclusion of a person undeserving a National Artist Award.
I would have expected Cecile Guidote Alvarez to do as much as the Cultural Adviser of President Gloria Arroyo. She was aware CCP Board feared the National Artists’ Award was seemingly going to the hands of politicians. If we didn’t watch it, the award would appear like mere political largesse.
So, imagine the shock when Ms. Alvarez was announced the National Artist for Theater when she had NOT even been nominated; did NOT go through the selection process she was a significant part of as the head of National Commission of Culture and the Arts.
As the President’s Cultural Adviser, she should have persuaded the President NOT to include her name if she were a true artist sensitive to the feelings of her fellow artists.
To top it all, she tolerated the inclusion of Carlo J. Caparas, a film director best known for gory, massacre films. Is he in the same class as Gerry de Leon, Lamberto Avellana, Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal or Eddie Romero? Can he artistically be talked of in the same breath as Manuel Conde?
Can Caparas claim he is to film what Amorosolo is to painting, Tolentino or Abueva to sculpture, San Pedro, Molina and Maceda to Philippine music? Is he at par with Garcia Villa, Dr. Lumbera, Virgilio Almario, Arturo Luz, Daisy H. Avellana, Leonor O. Goquinco or Andrea O. Veneracion? BenCab and Badong Bernal?
Has he made an artistically-prestigious film that compares to any of the classics of Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos or director Mike de Leon? There are also Laurice Guillen, Marilou Diaz Abaya or Celso Ad. Castillo. All have yet to be recognized.
To our shock, Dr. Ramon Santos chosen National Artist for Music was taken off the list after having been highly recommended by his peers for innovative talent, body of work, musical respect and creative integrity as a teacher and artist. What a slap on all our faces!
This dagdag bawas of the Palace insults all Filipino artists-- living and dead. It turns the National Artist Award into a political achievement rather than an artistic accomplishment. I am not only disappointed in the insensitive Presidential act. I am very angry at President Gloria M. Arroyo for this thoughtless slap on all Filipino artists.
I am dismayed at Cecile G. Alvarez’ gall for grabbing an award she does not deserve and most especially for ignoring the process of selection she was very much a part of. What is the word? Delicadeza?
I say “Boo.” You will go down in history with ignominy for dishonoring the National Artist Award! Theres The Rub
May araw din kayo
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:04:00 08/17/2009
Filed Under: Language, Food, Lifestyle & Leisure,Government, Inquirer Politics
Tatagalugin ko na nang makuha n’yo. Kahit na lingwaheng kanto lang ang alam kong Tagalog.
Tutal Buwan ng Wika naman ang Agosto. Baka sakali ’yung paboritong wika ni Balagtas ay makatulong sa pag-unawa n’yo dahil mukhang ’yung paboritong wika ni Shakespeare ay lampas sa IQ n’yo. Kung sa bagay, ang pinakamahirap gisingin ay ’yung nagtutulug-tulugan. Ang pinakamahirap padinggin ay ’yung nagbibingi-bingihan . Ang pinakamahirap paintindihin ay ’yung nagmamaangmaangan. Bueno, mahirap din paintindihin ’yung likas na tanga. Pero bahala na.
Sabi mo, Cerge Remonde, alangan naman pakanin ng hotdog ang amo mo. Bakit alangan? Hindi naman vegetarian ’yon. At public service nga ’yon, makakatulong dagdagan ng cholesterol at salitre ang dugong dumadaloy papuntang puso n’ya. Kung meron man s’yang dugo, kung meron man s’yang puso.
Bakit alangan? Malamang di ka nagbabasa ng balita, o di lang talaga nagbabasa, kung hindi ay nalaman mo ’yung ginawa ni Barack Obama at Joe Biden nitong nakaraang Mayo. Galing silang White House patungong Virginia nang magtakam sila pareho ng hamburger. Pina detour nila ang motorcade at tumuloy sa unang hamburgerang nakita nila. Ito ang Ray’s Hell Burger, isang maliit at independienteng hamburger joint.
Tumungo ang dalawa sa counter at sila mismo ang nag-order, hindi mga aides. Nagbayad sila ng cash na galing sa sariling bulsa at kagaya ng ibang customers ay pumila para sa turno nila.
Ito ay presidente at bise presidente ng pinakamakapangyarih ang bansa sa buong mundo. Kung sa bagay, ’yung amo n’yo ay hindi naman talaga presidente. Di lang makita ang pagkakaiba ni Garci kay God kaya nasabing “God put me here.” Pekeng presidente, pekeng asal presidente.
Sabi mo, Anthony Golez, maliit lang ang P1 million dinner kumpara sa bilyon-bilyong pisong dinala ng amo mo sa bansa.
Ay kayo lang naman ang nagsasabing may inambag ang amo n’yo na bilyong-bilyong piso sa kaban ng bayan. Ni anino noon wala kaming nakita. Ang nakita lang namin ay yung bilyon-bilyong piso—o borjer, ayon nga sa inyong dating kakosa na si Benjamin Abalos—na inaswang ng amo n’yo sa kaban ng bayan. Executive privilege daw ang hindi n’ya sagutin ito. Kailan pa naging pribilehiyo ng isang opisyal ang di managot sa taumbayan? Kailan pa naging pribilehiyo ng isang opisyal ang magnakaw?
Maliit lang pala ang P1 million, ay bakit hindi n’yo na lang ibigay sa nagugutom? O doon sa mga sundalo sa Mindanao? Tama si Archbishop Oscar Cruz. Isipin n’yo kung gaano karaming botas man lang ang mabibili ng P1 million at karagdagang P750,000 na nilamon ng amo n’yo at mga taga bitbit ng kanyang maleta sa isa pang restawran sa New York.
Maliit lang pala ang P1 million (at P750,000), bakit hindi n’yo na lang ibigay doon sa pamilya ng mga sundalong namatay sa Mindanao? Magkano ’yung gusto n’yong ibigay sa bawat isa? P20,000? Sa halagang iyan 50 sundalo na ang maaabuluyan n’yo sa $20,000. Pasalu-saludo pa ’yang amo n’yo sa mga namatay na kala mo ay talagang may malasakit. Bumenta na ’yang dramang ’yan. At pasabi-sabi pa ng “Annihilate the Abus!” Di ba noon pa n’ya ’yan pinangako? Mahilig lang talagang mangako ’yang amo n’yo.
Bukod pa d’yan, saan ba nanggaling ’yung limpak-limpak na salapi ng mga kongresista na pinansisindi nila ng tabako? Di ba sa amin din? Tanong n’yo muna kung ayos lang na i-blowout namin ng wine at caviar ang amo n’yo habang kami ay nagdidildil ng asin—’yung magaspang na klase ha, ’di yung iodized. Ang tindi n’yo, mga p’re.
At ikaw naman, Romulo Macalintal, tapang ng apog mo. Maiisip mo tuloy na sundin na lang ang mungkahi ni Dick the Butcher sa “Henry VI” ni Shakespeare: “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Pa ethics-ethics ka pa, pasalamat ka di nasunog ang bibig mo sa pagbigkas ng katagang ’yon.
Marami mang sugapa rin sa aming mga taga media, di naman kasing sugapa n’yo. At di naman kami sineswelduhan ng taumbayan. Wala naman kaming problemang sumakay sa PAL at kailangan pang bumili ng P1.2 billion jet. Anong sabi n’yo, kailangan ng amo n’yo sa pabyahe-byahe? E sino naman ang may sabing magbabyahe s’ya? Ngayon pang paalis na s’ya—malinaw na ayaw n’yang umalis. Bakit hindi na lang s’ya bumili ng Matchbox na eroplano? Kasya naman s’ya ro’n.
Lalo kayong nagpupumiglas, lalo lang kayong lumulubog sa kumunoy. Di n’yo malulusutan ang bulilyasong ginawa n’yo. Para n’yo na ring inagaw ang isinusubong kanin ng isang batang nagugutom. Tama si Obama at Biden: Sa panahon ng recession, kung saan nakalugmok ang mga Amerikano sa hirap, dapat makiramay ang mga pinuno sa taumbayan, di nagpapakapariwara. Sa panahon ng kagutuman, na matagal nang kalagayan ng Pinoy, at lalo pang tumindi sa paghagupit ng Typhoon Gloria, dapat siguro uminom na lang kayo ng insecticide. Gawin n’yo ’yan at mapapawi kaagad ang kagutuman ng bayan.
Sa bandang huli, buti na rin lang at ginawa n’yo ’yung magpasasa sa P1 million dinner habang lupaypay ang bayan sa kagutuman—di lang sa kawalan ng pagkain kundi sa iba pang bagay—at pagdadalamhati sa yumaong Ina ng Bayan. Binigyan n’yo ng mukha ang katakawan. Katakawang walang kabusugan. Mukhang di nakita ng masa sa usaping NBN, mukhang di nakikita ng masa sa usaping SAL. Mukhang nakita lang ng masa dito sa ginawa n’yong ito. Sa pagpapabondat sa New York habang naghihinagpis ang bayan.
At buti na rin lang mayroon tayong sariling wika. Di sapat ang Inggles para iparamdam sa inyo ang suklam na nararamdaman namin sa inyo. Di sapat ang Inggles para ipakita sa inyo ang pagkamuhi na nararamdaman namin sa inyo. Di maarok ng Inggles ang lalim ng poot na nararamdaman namin sa inyo.
Isinusuka na kayo ng taumbayan, mahirap man sumuka ang gutom.
May araw din kayo.  | SINTA! | Jun 24, '09 10:05 AM
for everyone |
|  | for the benefit of the Dulaang Sibol Foundation and the Kids Integrated Development through Schooling
brought to you by UP JMA Major Marketing Event 2009
See you guys!
You can also but tickets from me: 0917 8348325 |
TANAGA
Sa iba-ibang mutya,
Naglalaway na tuta.
Pagtanda ng binata,
Bilis pa rin masuya.
Sa aking paglalandi,
Hinanap ‘yong kiliti.
Napisil ko ba’y mali?
Bakit di ka ngumiti?
Kay lupit ng ‘yong biro!
Tila ayaw maglaho
Sa aking bahay-kubo
Ng nanuot mong baho.
Tamis pag unang kagat,
Kakaiba ang talab;
Nag-iiba ang sarap
Kahit ano’ng paglasap.
Hoy! Paru-parong pilay,
Bangon na sa paghimlay.
Pakpak mo’y iwagayway
Bago bukas mamatay.
DALIT
Paborito niyang puta:
Yaong sariwa’t dalaga,
At kelangan lang ng pera
Kaya’t papalag sa una.
Isang matandang lalaki
Ang nag-aabang ng dyipni,
Nang umipot kalapating
Nasa kawad ng koryente.
Ang buhay ng isang gagong
Ilang dekadang napreso,
Paglaya’y walang trabaho;
Pa’no nga ba magbabago?
Dahil puro na lang dakdak,
Tinulugan ko’ng palabas.
Nagising ako sa wakas
At sumabay sa palakpak.
Ako’y gagawa ng tulay
Papunta sa iyo, mahal.
Manalig ka at magdasal
Na sandali lang ang hintay.
AWIT
Ang anak ng donya’y nakatanikala’t
Di mahabul-habol ang ikatutuwa:
Di makapagsulat ng kwento o tula,
Hindi maitanan ang kaniyang mutya.
Ang pag-ibig bata pagpukpok sa pintig
Ay nakawawala ng diwa at bait!
Kung pakahulugan kilos na kay liit
Parang nasiraa’t labis kung makilig.
 | Tanaga | Jun 14, '09 9:39 PM
for everyone |
Hanggang ngayo'y hiwaga
Kung papaanong biglang
Di ka na nagsalita.
Pagsinta mo'y nawala.
| A NAME | May 9, '09 12:00 PM
for everyone |
The beginning of this essay is a title.
The title of this essay is
A NAME
So are the titles of every other essay, every piece of literature, or any piece of art.
“...it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to man. O be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
- William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Wrong Names and Names Wronged
I am a boy named after my half-sister.
Do not get my father mistaken. No, my sister did not die before I was born. I am not the infamous boy my father reared up to be a girl. I did not grow up to relive the beautiful fragment of the memory of my departed older sister, though I may actually be a boy who eventually grew up to be a girl.
Too bad, she isn’t dead. My half-sister is very alive. In fact, she joined a reality show on television and created a name for herself. Now I live in a bigger shadow as the second-rate namesake.
Guinevere, the queen in my father’s favorite novel, is the name of his first child. He had hoped that my stepmother’s second child would be a boy. With his eldest in mind, he had already fancied all of his children in names beginning with G, although only his three eldest children turned out to have names that start with G. That is after four of the five girls he has been with were impregnated, and after eight out of nine could-have-been offspring were born. I was the last and maybe the youngest G - for now.
I daresay only for now because my father never fails to surprise me. I was surprised, not so pleasantly, that our family had a new lastborn. I saw my name on the invitation to her second birthday party. I only knew that a sister of mine existed almost two years after she was born.
But New Year’s was more explosive. I discovered I had a sister who I never knew existed. She had her mom’s name – both first and last. She is now in high school. I hope she knows me, even just by name.
My father had thought of an Italian compound name for his first boy. They named my stepmother’s second daughter with that compound should-have-been first name’s first word. They compounded it with the Tagalog word for mother, to feminize the name, and emasculate it into a name more foreign than Italian but very much at home with the girl who loved dolls, fashion, and television. The adventure my dad and her mom took in choosing a name for her had been reflected in the many misadventures she explored in the future.
The baby boy arrived a daughter, a separation, and a pregnant illegitimate wife after. My mother was that illegitimate wife. That was her unofficial name in my father’s family and in the eyes of judgemental society.
I was that firstborn boy. Or so my mother thought for all those years before I entered college – before I came out to her.
To my father, my namesake outed me. Possessing the same name, we felt that we should keep each other’s secrets or, apparently, every secret except for my gender. When my father talked to me, I thought he would disown me for discontinuing the name he had made me an heir to. My half-sister told him that I did not want to father any child. I thought he would get mad at me for desecrating the family name which, when misspelled as it usually is, meant the father of all men.
I wouldn’t have been the first to massacre that name. My last name is misspelled in my university ID, and just about every other ID card I didn’t have the energy to correct my last name’s spelling in. Perhaps not just in IDs, but almost anywhere else by almost everyone else.
Misspelling the last letter of my name with an “M” makes it Biblical and gives it a meaning everyone in the Christian and even the Muslim world knows. So the popular spelling, or rather misspelling, of my name follows the version of the world’s number one bestselling book instead of the version in my birth certificate. Although even when properly spelled, my last name is still commonly mispronounced.
I used to be very keen with the distinction between these two versions. I would often sneer and then correct
my classmates or even my teachers every time they incorrectly pronounced or spelled my name. There was always a fuzzy feeling to protect my name from corruption especially because my last name was my father’s and my siblings’. It was my family name. And even though I hated my father for leaving us – though there were times I wanted to change my last name into my mother’s maiden – I had always found comfort in my last name. Having a last name I could own felt like having a family I could embrace, even if it did not feel the same in reality.
But at times I just let it pass. The wrong spelling or erroneous pronunciation did not really matter so much anymore. Maybe protecting a name, I was never taught how to love or never really received love from, gets tiring. I became friends with people who never knew my real name – they never figured how to spell it, even more pronounce it correctly. I wonder whether with the wrong name they still got to know the real me. What if something had been changed when they misspelled my name in their memory? Whenever they mispronounced my name, what if they actually talked to a different person, a different friend? Was the error in their knowledge of my name a malignancy, a mistake, in our friendship?
My mother was not able to shield me from the pain of the malignancies in her marriage. She was incapable of protecting herself. What more her children? Just as she was not able to shield me from borrowing a name from a father who was never really there. As she was not able to protect me from the name only my father had imagined for his primero hijo. An Italian name he had determined before his marriage was broken, before he even saw my mother for the first time in that Ginebra basketball game. That game where he asked for her name and phone number in a tissue paper delivered by the popcorn vendor. A napkin where he wrote the lyrics of a song which went “...it’s sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along” but years later discovering that Mama was not the right one either.
In many lists, I would find my first name not the right one as well. Not many people know the existence of compound names. It is another cause of misspells in my name, splitting my first name into two. Most of the time, it feels uneasy because I feel that the unique one-word spelling of my name makes me unique as well. It makes me special from all other derivatives of the same common name. It makes me own my name. It makes the name my own.
Even my second name is my dad’s – my second name is his father. They say I look like his father; that I look a lot like my name. I am the fifth to carry my grandfather’s name. At the end of my name is a Roman numeral suffix to boast this tradition. But I have decided to leave the duty of continuing the name and the so-called glory that comes with it to my cousins and their firstborn boys, who should be man enough to marry and have children.
The second word in my compound Italian name turned out to be my nickname at home and in the family. It was the only part of my name that did not resemble any of my other relatives’. In Grade one, though, my individuality was clinched. My classmate Sibal had the same name. I had to be rebaptized into my sister’s name.
This did not last for long either. Soon we grew up into boys who bullied and teased one another at every opportunity we were able to grab. Soon I was baptized In the name of every boy in school. Most of the time I enjoyed being called names because enjoying the experience meant I could join my peers in the favorite game of name calling. If I detested or I was offended by the funny and demeaning nicks I was given, I wouldn’t have the power to tease the other boys. Even though I hated every moment of being bullied, I never showed that I was affected. I never let them feel that I knew any better. Only Cry Baby and Sore Loser were supposed to feel bad. Only they had the chance to feel bad, and so only they felt bad. Real boys could only fight back because that was all they were allowed to do.
Even though I wasn’t a real boy anymore even then, I always tried to be one.
Sometimes, it bothered me because I felt like I was ridiculed and insulted. The truth is that it really felt bad even when I knew I was merely being teased with some of these monikers, yet I have learned to forgive. But what if I have learned to forgive too much? What if my constant pardon gave them the right to abuse my forgiveness? Or is there really ever such a point of forgiving too much?
It is perhaps Obet that was most forgiving of all the friends that I have baptized. The whole group started to call him Obet. For almost two years he had a very funny nickname until he got fed up and, in the most unconvincing manner, got mad at us. Weirdly, we started calling him “John” again. They never stopped teasing him. I never stopped calling him Obet in my mind. Maybe because John was the English translation of my Italian first nickname. It didn’t feel comfortable calling him by a name of the same meaning because I knew, even just from his face, that we meant different things to people. We meant differently to our friends.
Maybe because Obet was a perfect representation of his clumsiness, corniness, lack of charm, and being the butt of jokes. Obet was someone I could fool into doing the same silly act fifty times by praising him for that special talent. I told him only he could do it, knowing only he would do it. Obet was someone I can stare at blankly when he cracks out a punchline, then not mind my forced lack of reaction. The whole group can agree that the name Obet means a bucket of shit and he won’t mind. Or maybe we won’t mind him minding.
He represented Obet perfectly, and Obet represented him well. At times I would still call him Obet. He would pretend not to respond, to whistle and look in the air like he heard nothing, like he wasn’t called. He’ll finally reply when I blurt out the fake name John. But he obviously knows that he is Obet and that Obet is his.
Names of Mine
I am not sure if I can tell which my official nickname is, if there can ever be such a nickname I can call my own – officially my own. I go by a myriad of other nicknames, aliases, monikers, titles, pseudonyms – every single one of them with a distinct etymology, a history of sorts. Some say that baptism, in a way, is rebirth. Every story attached to each of my nicknames traces my origin, my roots. It is a retelling of my nativity at different points in my life.
I never understood why my yaya called me Tata nor did I ever understand what Tata meant. Maybe it was the first word I uttered. It could have been the Visayan translation of Tara! What she said whenever she wanted me to follow her. But I never wanted to believe that I was baptized a mere slang for calling upon, so it must have been a term of endearment for Visayans.
My yaya taught me how to eat with a spoon and a fork. She was the one laughing at me when I began to wear socks on my own. She taught me how to read, how to be respectful, how to be obedient. My yaya taught me the things my Mama wanted me to learn but didn’t have the time to teach.
She made our dinners, my assignments, and sometimes even my day. My yaya rubbed red chili peppers on my lips when I said a bad word. My yaya told me bedtime stories, gossip about the neighbors, and even the gossip about my parents. She watched me sleep and brought me to school. She gave me all the love my Mama didn’t have the time to show.
I will never accept being a mere slang word to her. Tata always reminds me of feeling what it is to be loved. Perhaps it just makes sense that I never understood what it really meant, just like love.
For most of my other nicknames, I knew the legend. A story of origin pretty much like being named after a half-sister.
There is a fat philosophy professor in the Ateneo named Eddie Boy. We did not really know much about him except for that adjectival phrase. Too, I am fat but maybe not so philosophical. My dream in life is to be a teacher also. And because I wasn’t that much of a boy, my friends started to call me Eddie Gurl. They spelled Gurl because I wasn’t that much of a girl either, although it is pronounced as if the vowel were the German ü. Whatever other similarities in our mannerisms, love for eating, and fondness for poetry, we only discovered from comparisons by Eddie Boy’s colleagues and former students after I was baptized.
That nickname had the variation of Eddie G. At the height of one presidential election campaign, my friends decided that Eddie G is also a variation Eddie Gil. It was an interesting comparison that they did with their silly high school logic.
I was just as corny as the nuisance candidate. My jokes were as witlessly useless as Eddie Gil. I wanted people to notice me so I’d run, not for the presidential elections, but around the football field with a long, long blue cloth behind me dancing in the wind flamboyantly. Everyone noticed me, though they did not mind me at all.
When they finished explaining and laughing at the same time, I knew they were wrong. They would tease me nonstop. They did not just notice me, they minded me.
I fondly remember everything with all the gory details in vivid resolution in my mind. The sentimental memories, the controversial gossips, even the trivial and the unimportant I memorize. My brilliant, witty gay friends then decided to call me Data. This was short for database – the storage of every moment. I became the file case they consulted when they wanted to retell the funny story of a friend who fell off the steps of a theater and left a dent on the well-trimmed grass. Only I will remember the moment my other gay friend remarked on the poor injured fellow, “Ang ganda ng lola mo! (This grandmother of yours is such a beauty!)” though I wasn’t even there.
It was a good nickname for me. I loved telling stories, and creating my own. So when I added my own details and created my own version of these stories that I remembered, it was aptly called Corrupted Data. Since then, I was subjected to the anti-virus scan by the recognition of their own memories. I enjoyed it when my errors went unnoticed. It meant that my storytelling had a power to confuse them, to change their very own memories, to make their memories what I wanted, to make their memories mine.
I have never been called Baby or Love except by my mother. But my mother can call me Baby or Love without choosing. For one of my friends, it was a choice. When she broke up with her boyfriend, she had to call him by his real nickname again, just as any other ex would have done. The change of name represented the change in the meaning, the purpose, of her ex in her life. Sometimes she calls me Baby or Love nonchalantly in Facebook, text messages, or even in person. She has not replaced him with me. Neither have I turned into a lesbian. It just shows how empty Baby and Love have become to her after that relationship. Maybe someone else will redefine those words for her and fill them with meaning again.
My brother calls me Kuya inconveniently. So do our helpers at home who are much older than I am. Our names at home cultivate the culture of forced respect. Incidentally, I am forced to call the helpers Ate as well. Oftentimes I feel that he calls me Kuya without meaning it; just like how I call our maids Ate not out of sincere respect but simply because it is an expected courtesy.
Does the calling of Kuya replace all the respect and love I wanted to receive from him? Or did I stop asking for respect and love because I knew I would always be Kuya to him? Maybe he never showed those emotions of affection because they were too unmanly for him.
I wonder whether my brother would have respected me just the same if I were not Kuya to him. We never really talked a lot since the day I stopped riding the bike around the village with him because he called me gay. Perhaps I would never, because I would never have asked.
Maybe I never showed those emotions because I haven’t forgiven him for calling me gay, which I actually am. Why did I even get mad for being called what I actually was? Maybe I wanted to live in lies then. Maybe it was difficult to go by different names, to live lives you actually were not just to escape from that name – gay. So that when gay eventually found me, it wounded me. Or maybe names are there to hide the person, not to expose him. Maybe I felt disrespected by my brother. Maybe I still feel that until now because I have not really healed from his name calling.
When my friends call me Ate Gi or Mama Gi, I feel tremendously cared for and loved. It is not a forced Kuya. However, it is also overwhelming. It is a task to be an Ate or a Mama to people who have voluntarily come to me and chose me to be an older sister or mother. In the end, can men give what these gentle yet strong women effortlessly and generously give? Can I love like a woman just because they gave me women’s titles? I have difficult shoes to fit into. Women’s shoes are abnormally high as the expectations on me as a friend are. But when you feel loved and cared for by people who are not even family – who do not even share the same name – who could resist giving back and reciprocating the love? That is what more than friends are for. Perhaps.
Online, I have lots of friends. Some of these friends are not really friends. I go by different names, disguises, a fake Self, a mere cyberspace version of me. I have a list of usernames on Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Google Mail, mIRC, Multiply, Tabulas, Live Journal, Blog Spot, Friendster, Facebook, et al. Sometimes I even have two, or even more, names in these social networks online. My friends in these networks go by different names as well. Our names represent our personality, wit, cuteness, creativity, emo-ness, class, character, etc. For chatrooms such as mIRC, our names become our looks from which people ultimately draw first impressions. We have become a generation of monikers, judging by the name.
Every faux-name is important to us. At the end of the day, however, only one name is really ours. Only one name is really mine. What is this name and where do I find it?
That name is in the beginning. Just as the beginning of this reflection, this very essay, is its title – a name as well. There is a struggle in trying to chronicle that Genesis. One must go and search for one’s Eden. At the heart of my Eden, I found my name lying beside original sin. I realize that I began my life in original sin, and I wash it in baptism with a name bestowed upon me like a Holy Spirit. I wonder whether there is a baptism without a name. Can one be baptized nameless? Are names just bestowed upon?
In the Bible, it said that God calls each of us by name. God called me by name. God makes holy, the silly childish game of name calling. When I respond to his call, how do I reply? Sometimes, I end up calling him just God or Yahweh or Jesus. When I was young and fatherless, I called Him Papa Jesus. I recall my moments of helplessness, even from family and friends, inside room I cried My Savior! When I feel really at home with God, I call Him Kuya Jess. But often in my purposeless youth, I ask for the Lord to direct me and tell me where to go.
I know some say His name is Allah, some Jehovah, El Shaddai, Zoroaster, or maybe even Zeus. But how do I really baptize Him that has baptized me? How do I give a name to Him whom Israelites do not even dare call by name? I find myself unanswered. In silence, though, I hear Him – whose name, which changes upon my every experience or need, does not really matter – calling me by my real name.
In crowds I often look around searching for the voice that called me. I often find myself looking stupid because I do not know the person calling my name. I was not called after all. It was a different person with the same name. Perhaps, it is only through God and only in silence – sometimes a quietness amidst the noise of a crowd even – that I can hear a name that is mine.
That silence is Eden, and at the heart of that garden is God calling me by my name – so special it is different from the others that may look or sound alike.
Unlike my mother who calls me and my brother Anak, God calls me by name. It is a rare occasion for people like me who go by many aliases and nicknames. Seldom do people call our Real Selves. I wonder whether our name is a forbidden fruit that it is an exotic taste for our ears.
We wait to be called in a graded recitation, in an awards ceremony, in a queue for an interview, in an arrest. We wait for God.
We wait to be called by name. To be called by name is an extraordinary experience in this generation of monikers. It is special.
What’s in a name?
I think old readings of what the lines of Shakespeare meant are mistaken when they proclaim to us that names are unimportant.
What’s in a name? In every name – in every word – is a world, a world of meaning. In every name is significance, importance. It contains purpose and value. Meanings tell us what to think of, what to do, what to feel. The name rose reminds me of sweet scents, yes. I put it close to my nose so I could cherish the fragrance. It tells me to feel love whenever I give it away. But roses also remind me of thorns, and make me cautious whenever I hold them. It makes me feel fear of getting hurt; or of pain when I bleed because of them.
What’s in a name? Inside every name is a person who wants to introduce himself. It is my name that I first utter at every first meeting. I am inside my name. Through my name I get out of my hiding place, yet through this same name I am imprisoned also.
Inside every name is a person. Without names we cannot see. We only create faceless figures in our heads just as we are intrigued by blind items. But the excitement of every blind item is not in namelessness. Sometimes, names make the stories more interesting because names tell us of more stories.
What’s in a name? Behind every name is a story. There is a name that tells the story of a boy named after his half-sister. A name can contain how bittersweet being raised by a single parent and a yaya is. There is a name that reminds one of all the urban legends they have written in the air of their high school. There are names that cover like bandage the wounds of every unhealed brother. There are names that tell us love stories romantic, platonic, or whatever. There are names that tell us stories and names that make more stories on their own, stories these very names would own.
In a name is a story. But which came first – the story or the name? The man or the name? And we return to another beginning, to a question of which was in the beginning. At the beginning of this essay is a name, yet this piece actually began untitled. Sometimes the title arrives before the piece. There are times it is otherwise. There is no formula in my experience.
But in my experience, my Italian compound name came before my elder sister was born. My surname had been there since God knows when. My name arrived before I did.
But wasn’t I a gossiper before I was called Data? Was I called Love by my mother because I am really a fruit of her love? Did I not care for my friends and love them steadfastly before they branded me Mama Gi? Have I lived up to my name?
What’s in a name? On top of every story is a name, a title to encapsulate in a couple of words, or sometimes just a word, an entire novel. On top of every grave is a name, below it a dash to encapsulate in that tiny line made of fool’s gold all the years spent, an entire life.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose tells us of blooming and by the same name tells us of wilting? That which when dried tells me the bitter story of death and not of sweet scents? That which when dried inside a book tells me the hopeful story of living memories?
What’s in a name? There is a meaning and a story that we place at the very core of each name. Then the name becomes the very meaning and the very story, just like in poetry or any other form of art. It is special because the name is not just the meaning, not just a label, but being itself, the being itself – whether living or not.
The name is a memory also by which we are able to think, by which we are able to remember; by which we are known, by which we are remembered.
I am my name. Other people can spell and pronounce names similarly as mine. But because my experience is unique, because my memories and memories of me are mine only – my name is mine, and mine only. And just like any other who has a name, who has honor and dignity, I will protect my name even if my name does not sound as sweet as a rose.
An Open Letter to my Nameless Generation
Ironically, our generation of monikers is nameless.
But I think it is a silly excuse for us to not create a name for ourselves because we claim to be too diverse, too free-spirited to be defined by a single name.
We have been defined by brands – names of products or of their designers – Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Ericsson, Rolex, Nike, Adidas, Topshop, Zara, Chanel, Mazda, Ford. We have united in materialism. Why can’t we strive to make a difference and push for change amidst our abundant resources? We have been defined by technology and modernization a million times faster than our parents could ever learn how to use their cellphones and computers that are upgraded without even our generation mastering the usage of one. Why can’t we push for the modernization of thought, instead of our backward and escapist methods? Why can’t we change our lives as fast as we change our lifestyle?
We say we are undefined because we want to express our real selves in the spirit of uniqueness. But how can our individualistic lives communicate amidst the noise of self-expression if we do not have a sense of community, a sense of brotherhood to want to listen? Why can’t we get out of the selfish creation of names for ourselves that will only fade in the pages, or maybe tarnish in the plaques, of corporate social mediocrity? We have been defined by continuous dissatisfaction of the endless hunger and desire: for more than mere existence; for more purpose than merely breathing, sleeping, and eating; for more usefulness than simply being alive. I am certain our generation will disgust merely inheriting from the previous generation – to simply be the chronological Y to follow X. Why don’t we define ourselves then, and give meaning to our existence on earth by creating a name for ourselves?
Unfortunately, we are successors of the Generation X. They were a generation full of promise but turned out to be very much like the people they hated. Following the failure of that promising generation named X fills me with fear as well. What if we become failures too? What if we lose ourselves along the way as well?
But living in fear forever is scarier. It is more fearsome a thought to stagnantly live because we are afraid of failure, of repeating that failure.
We need the courage to create a name for ourselves. We must rise above this namelessness, this uselessness, this meaninglessness. Only we can give meaning to this period in time.
I don’t want to be the forgotten generation of history. Nor do I want to be remembered as that gap in our history – that uneventful nameless lacuna. I am certain you do not as well. Without a name we are meaningless. Without a name there is no war we can fight because there is no honor to protect.
It is time to live up to a name. Names are not mere personal possessions. Families have protected and built upon, generation after generation, their precious names. Names are protected as communities as generations, just as we should build name for ourselves as the youth of today.
What I am certain of is that this name-building cannot be found inside office buildings, maybe not even in praying inside church buildings, or simply studying inside school buildings. Perhaps, this name-building can be found in nation-building, in dream-building. It is outside, in the real world and among the real people.
I want to insult you, ridicule you, embarrass you inasmuch as I want to revile and jeer at myself. I want to mock us. I want to humiliate our generation because it might only be in humbling ourselves that we are forced to move. But owning no name, will we even be slighted?
I dare this generation to establish a name. We either heed to this need now or we forever live in unrest and without peace – anonymous, unknown, unnoticed – unnamed. I am teasing you now. I have hopes that my words can bully you around, or even just prick your childish sensitivities and sensibilities, into playing our favourite game of name calling.
Hand in hand, we will spell our names and vandalize the pages of history.
by F Sionil Jose
Here we go again, some inconsequential columnist in Hong Kong takes a cheap shot at our unhappy country, calls us “a nation of servants” and immediately an uproar, and magma feelings of hurt are unleashed. Editorials, columnists, politicians are outraged — they demand apology as if one would really salve the bone-deep insult. It was the same sometime back when an English publisher defined “Filipina” as a housemaid. Such insults hurt profoundly but the pain fades quickly and soon after all that enraged outburst, we settle down to the same complacency, we continue sending more of our women abroad to be raped by Arabs, demeaned by Malaysians and Chinese, heckled by the Brits. What has our sense of outrage brought us?
Go to Hong Kong, to Singapore. Visit the Star Ferry environs in Hong Kong or Lucky Plaza, and Singapore’s Orchard St. And there, on Sundays you will see them, hundreds of Filipino domestics, yak-yaking, socializing on the sidewalk, having a pleasant respite from their work.
To the visitors, tourists and the natives, they are a piteous sight, illustrating so clearly and so well how this country has sank. As a Filipino, having witnessed such, I am utterly shamed. I do not blame our poor women for their sorry condition, for I know only too well their plight is the only way by which they can help their families at home and survive.
It is such a boring cliché now, but back to the not-so-distant past: Filipinas was the second richest country in the region, next only to Japan; our universities attracted students from all over Asia, and we had the best professionals, the most modern stores and hospitals.
And what was Hong Kong then? There were slums crawling up those hills on Victoria island, and slums all over Kowloon. Singapore as an English naval base was like old Binondo, with its small squalid shops and equally small houses.
But look at Singapore and Hong Kong now, then look at our country and people.
Sure, you can find in Makati magnificent mansions, the biggest luxury cars, the tony restaurants, skyscrapers. But elsewhere the ugly sprawl of slums, the very poor who now eat only once a day. We must ask ourselves that question, why we became “the hewers of wood and drawers of water” of the world. What happened to us, a very talented and heroic people with a revolutionary tradition?
Once we have answered this question, then we should no longer wonder why there is a continuing diaspora of our brightest people, of our women. It is then the time for us to be truly enraged — not at that Hong Kong columnist — but at the creators of this dismal miasma we call Filipinas. Do not kill the messenger who comes to us to tell the horrid truth about us. Ingest his message, then turn all that outrage, that vehemence, to the Filipinos who turned this beautiful country into the garbage dump of the region: the oligarchs, the Spanish mestizos, the Chinese Filipinos and the treasonous Indios who sent their money abroad instead of investing it here in industries to create jobs for our people. Then it is time for us to rail and condemn the crooked politicians who are the allies of these wretched rich who permitted the relentless hemorrhage of this nation’s capital.
Revolutionary tradition? Ask those rebels why, after 40 years, these leeches are still feasting on our blood! | | yehey! |
 VOTE GIAN ABRAHAN
VP FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS
GI'AN TALAGA EH!  VOTE GIAN ABRAHAN
VP FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS
GI'AN TALAGA EH! I have two big decisions to make. Fortunately, I am not going crazy over these crossroads. For now I am simply grateful for the many beautiful things that surround me - it's harder to choose between two great things. I've also been fiddling with my new camera. Feeling artsy na naman ako. I shall write something for March, I promise.  I found this poem hidden inside my happy box. It was written by my dear friend, Kim Buñag, back in fourth year high school for our class project in Filipino.
KREDO NG MASOKISTA
Masarap kamutin ang nanuot na sugat.
Masarap kaskasin ang lumang hapdi
Hanggang sa mamula't lumabas
Ang rimarim ng nana.
Masarap kamutin ang nanuot na sugat
Pagkatapos madapa at magasgasan
Habang tayo'y naglalaro
Ng tayaan.
Ako ang taya.
Masarap kamutin ang nanuot na sugat
Nang minsan kitang hinabol.
At nang akmang tatapikin
Ay wala ka na
At ang hapdi na lamang ng kalsadang mabato
At ang halimuyak mo
Ang nayakap ko.
Masarap kamutin ang nanuot na sugat.
Pero mamaya,
Hindi na.
(Buñag, 2006)
Perhaps among the most memorable pieces in my high school life. However young and raw the ending of this poem seems now, it never fails to pierce my heart when I spot it inside my happy box. Hoy Kim, magsulat ka pa nga!
PEACE is the cliché and quintessential joke on dumb beauty pageant contestants who have nothing else to say. As scholars of the people, for the people, we have much to speak about peace. We speak of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño who were abducted by the military. We speak of Chris Mendez the victim of hazing, and speak of the wars between the fraternities that practice such a tradition of violence. We speak of victims of robbery, sexual harassment, and holdups inside this academic institution. We speak of great divides between different organizations, political parties, and even the faculty inside this university. We mean much more than a stupid beauty queen answer. We can speak of much more. We must speak of peace much more.
No matter how trivial peace may seem.
Together let us stand, Undivided –on FRIDAY: FEB. 6, 2009WEAR WHITE& SIGN the PEACE PLEDGE WALL @ a Free Concert in Abelardo Hall, 6PM
Featuring Taken by Cars|Roots of Nature|Dalandan Soda|Picoy|Blue Boy Bites Back|
Finals of a Peace Song Writing Competition| and WEEWILLDOODLE
Peace pass.  Join us as we celebrate culture through art, music, and dining this February 1st. In partnership with the Kalinawa Art Foundation, this event will give you a glimpse into the lives of the Indigenous Peoples of the country through their artistry. There will be an unveiling of their works, together with the works of other premier artists of the country who have donated pieces for this cause, during the afternoon. These pieces will be auctioned off in the Still Life Gallery this coming Feb. 7-8 in Glorietta 3 for the benefit of the Indigenous Artists of the Kalinawa Art Foundation and our own beneficiary, the Kids Integrated Development through Schooling (KIDS.) So to those who wish their parents wouldn’t keep raising an eyebrow whenever you ask permission to go to a JMA event at 8pm in the evening only to come home 2am the next day, this is the perfect opportunity to let them realize that we’re about something more than partying ☺There are only limited seats available so hurry up and RSVP to this event. You can contact either Deirdre de Padua at 09189235025 or Kaiser Sy at 09228621989 to reserve a slot for you and your parents. See you there! Hundreds of stars appear only In this vast provincial night sky, But I feel lonely as barely Lit cramped alleys on the city, Dim as eve with skyscrapers' lights, Lost as avenues neon bright, As I sit alone through this lonely flight Away from your embrace so tight. I have stashed my one way ticket Secretly as I departed. I was chasing your heart not knowing where you were
Cause we were about to
Part when I fell for you
So I just followed your footprints and your north star
I was not sure I was getting any nearer So to the noise I listened Hoping I’d hear your heart beating But I got lost in roads and feelings, I surrendered
I don’t think we’ll grow any nearer We’ll just keep drifting apart We’ve gotten much older and wiser So now with all my heart
I bid farewell forever From a land far, far away I’ll bid farewell everyday forever Until I become okay
In dreams I caress your body I don’t get to touch I kiss your eyes that won’t see me ‘Cause it’s just fantasy torn by the sea That separates our love in old days I selfishly clutched
I don’t think we’ll grow any nearer We’ll just keep drifting apart We’ve gotten much older and wiser So now with all my heart
I bid farewell forever From a land far, far away I’ll bid farewell everyday forever Until I become okay
I bid farewell forever But I still hope that someday Though I bid farewell everyday forever You’ll come back to me and stay
(lyrics for a song by John Cas)
Not your usual
time of waking up
when you removed all
of your clothes and stuff
from the cabinet.
You kept on turning
because I might get
up – see you leaving
without permission.
but I just let you
pack memory on
memory. Off to
a place where I can
not go and follow
traces of your scent,
even your shadow.
I know you’ve wanted
to leave me alone,
stop loving me and
build another home.
You kissed my closed eyes,
ears awake when you
whispered sad goodbyes –
Paalam! A dieux!
In semi-darkness
I saw the shadow
of your lips caress
my unknown sorrow,
my eyes unopened:
tears have not fallen.
Why did you not tell
You’re bidding farewell?
I did not even
blink to see your face;
just a shape forming
on dusk’s light – a trace
of your body in
black and faint yellow
brightness revealing
lonely tomorrows.
Did you expect me
to dream in a sea
of gay memories
when all that I see
is my worst nightmare?
I am all alone.
Look at what you’ve done!
Now I live in fear
with eyes always closed,
facing the world blind,
always overdosed
to keep myself fine. I’m sure that at some point he’s asked himself: what if I were with him? Then he started thinking of me on his passenger seat, beside him in some movie house or on his bed. Maybe he just shrugged the ideas off too soon; forgetting to imagine the warmth of my touch or the sweetness of my kiss. Or maybe he skipped forward right into the scorch of my words in our last argument, or the pain of my bite the last time we made out, or the bitter aftertaste of our last goodbye. Maybe he just wanted someone boring – someone he would escape from so he could go wild drinking with me on weekends. I know it. I just know him too well.  | Guestbook | |
 | Friend, will miss you tomorrow! Mwah! |
 | Yeah i believe in her too GIAN! :)
I BELIEVE in INNA MORILLO because I know she is what ECON truly deserves. Being her friend, her orgmate and her classmate, Inna has undoubtedly exceeded every expectation people had of her. She brings in new insights and new perspectives in whatever she is doing. She has the ability to communicate and reach out to everyone, no matter how different the personalities are. Inna has a silent way of making grand things work. She may not be given credit for everything she's done, but she continues to do it anyway because of the passion and commitment she inately has.This coming elections, I BELIEVE that people should look beyond all the politics and see what is really important. In the long run, TRUE SERVICE will determine Econ's fate. With INNA, rest assured, The School of Economics will be better than it already is.
Maureen Joy E. Rabuco
UP Economics Society-External Affairs Chairperson
University of the Philippines, Diliman
III-BS Business Economics
|
 | Thank you so much Gian, I BELIEVE Econ deserves true leadership and SERVICE beyond politics and that is what I will deliver. |
 | PAN XENIA FRATERNITY | ADELFE ENU CREA SORORITY in cooperation with UP CURSOR | UP CIRCUIT invite you to  LOVERAGE 3: BREAK THE CURSE Friday the 13th of February 2009 UP DILIMAN SUNKEN GARDEN Featuring BAMBOO | URBANDUB | SUGARFREE | KJWAN | ITCHYWORMS GREYHOUNDZ | RAZORBACK | TYPECAST | MOONSTAR88 | SILENT SANCTUARY | KITCHIE NADAL | STONEFREE | CAMBIO | MAYONNAISE ZELLE | HILERA | VALLEY OF CHROME | GINILING FESTIVAL | CHUBIBO and many many more.... FOR TICKET RESERVATIONS PM ME OR TEXT 0917.2043.751 visit http://loverage3.multiply.com for more details |
 |
avill wrote on Jan 5, '09 kuya, asa mag pictures? :) |
 | oh thanks, pinky! i'm flattered by the repost. =) |
| happy new year tita bebong! |
 | I posted your work on my blog. I cited that it wasn't mine. LOL. Thanks. :) |
 |
j3ssa wrote on Nov 11, '08 i miss u :D
i have kwento. are u free to listen? |
 | Hello! Thanks for the case...that's sooooo thoughtful of you. Love it!!! MWAH!!! :D |
| I also had a blast last night. Hope to see you soon as well. Ingat din po Tita Bebs! |
| Hello Gian!!! Had a great time yesterday with you and Bj....see you again soon! Oh btw, after hearing you sing last night, love ko na ngayon to listen to "Just Once" :D Take care my dear! (",) |
| Hi Gian, thanks for adding me....hope to see you sometime soon. GBU! :D |
| |
Hey gian! Kamusta ka na? :) I saw your post and just thought of greeting you. I didn't see you at Bro. Cis' ordination, Babs and Miko went, but I hope you're doing well. God bless friend! 