Baha

Tinatantya kung hanggang saan ang abot ng tubig

Itutupi ang pantalon

Magpapaa

Kahit gaanong kalalim ang baha

Ay kaya nating suungin

Basta’t hawak-hawak lamang ang isa’t-isa



Bakit ngayong wala na ang ulan

at tuyo na rin ang mga kalsada

doon ka pa bumitaw?

MRT

Ihahatid sa ibaba ng istasyon sa Quezon Avenue

Magpapaalam sa isa’t-isa baon ang mga binitiwang pangako

Ilang araw lamang naman ang lilipas,

Ilang karo ng tren lamang naman ang pagdadadaan

Titiisin ang sari-saring amoy ng mga taong malalayo din ang lakbayin,

Makikipagsiksikan, makikipag-agawan,

Hindi iindahin ang trenta minutos na byahe papuntang baclaran,

Bababa na may ngiti sa mga labi.

Ang buhay daw parang byahe sa tren: mabilis, may takdang destinasyon.



Inihatid sa ibaba ng istasyon sa Quezon Avenue

Nagpapaalam sa isa’t-isa sa kahulihulihang pagkakataon

Ilang araw, ilang buwan na naman ang lilipas,

Ilang karo ng tren na naman ang pagdadadaan

Magtitiis sa sari-saring amoy ng mga taong pagod at malalayo din ang lakbayin,

Makikipagsiksikan, makikipag-agawan,

Hindi mamamalayan ang trenta minutos na byahe papuntang baclaran.

Glow

She never liked the sea. The vast expanse of water frightens her and she often wondered what it would feel like to drown there and never be found again.

This was the reason she wasn’t too eager to join Leah and their friends on a weekend trip to the beach after Leah had announced to the group that she has already reserved a cottage at a beach resort in La Union.

Sometimes Leah can be so bossy and it annoyed her no end, even if she happens to be her best friend. She never even bothered to ask for her opinion, only assumed she would be there with her. Not that Leah had trouble getting the approval of the others though, they were all excited to go—even Jeff.

So why was she so bothered about a little weekend getaway anyway? She should be excited. Jeff would be there. He would be there with her. He would tell her again what he told her last week, about how he was growing to like her in a funny, unexplainable way. She had looked at him and wondered if it was all just another joke to him. She didn’t say anything and just laughed off his remark. She didn’t know how else to react and had never been good at gauging people’s sincerity. Fortunately or unfortunately, Jeff didn’t bring up the subject again afterwards. And for almost a week now, she had gone over her head many times what he had really meant and if he really was sincere about it.

The sea made her nervous but she had to get some fresh air, as Leah and the others were again into one of their drunken reveries. Her friends were getting too loud, too noisy. She felt as if she was literally being smothered by the smoke and the noise inside the small, rented cottage.

The night was warm and the moon cast a magical glow over the place. She could hear laughter from where she had left them. Lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t realize how far she had gone and how much time she had spent walking.

The house was quiet when she got back. Bottles of beer were littered everywhere, and cigarette butts formed a grayish heap on the floor. Her friends were already asleep when she entered the room. She fumbled for the light and crept quietly over their wasted bodies. It was almost two in the morning. As soon as she laid her weary body down the soft mattress, sleep came without too much effort.

Sometime in the quiet stillness of the night, a stirring woke her up. A few of her friends had gone outside, probably to smoke again. Looking out the window, she could make out two familiar figures in the shore clutched in what seemed to be a passionate embrace.

Suddenly, she wanted to go home. She went back to bed and counted the hours, the minutes until sunrise.

She would have to tell them she had to leave early for an emergency at work.

The night was warm and the moon bathed the island with a luminous, silvery glow.

She has never really liked the sea and she probably never would. The water scared her and she often wondered what it would feel like to drown there and never be found again.

Lessons From a Former NBSB

In highschool and college when most of my friends were starting to go out on dates with their first steady partners, I remember feeling very left out and pressured especially when labelled as an NBSB or someone who hasn't had a boyfriend since birth.

I was young and naive and thought relationships were something out of a Drew Barrymore movie or a Sweet Dreams novel for that matter, one that was filled with "kilig" moments, a special first kiss and the usual brief complications of LQs or lovers' quarrel. Hearing the stories of girl friends as they exchange notes on their love life made me familiar with the concept of "going steady" with someone, yet for a time its application was something that seemed quite alien to me.

I guess it was that same feeling of pressure and wanting to catch up with the rest of them that I snagged my first boyfriend. A week before college graduation and a day before the baccalaureate mass, my name was finally stricken off the list of NBSBs and was immediately initiated to a world I thought would at least resemble some of the scenes from my favorite romantic stories.

A Julia Roberts-Richard Gere starrer it wasn't, but it lasted close to five years.

In my first lesson as a relationship newbie, I realized that things are not what I had hoped it would be, real life is much more complicated than a movie. The sparks tend to wear off a bit more quickly and the real work begins even if after the "kilig" moments have gone and both of you still realized you would still want to be together. In my journey to this exciting, irrepressible period of my life, I've learned a lot and that includes going through and passing the utimate test which is heartbreak.

I have learned that experiencing your first heartbreak is not just a turning point in your life, it is also a graduation of sorts, an ending required for people to level-up to the next round which is probably more gruelling, more complicated but all the more exciting. It's a fact of life that all journeys have to end at some point. There is always a time for a stop-over, a break from a long, endless trip. During this brief respite, we need to get up, stretch our feet, and wait calmly for another bumpy ride that would most likely take us to another destination. It also allows to reflect on our past accomplishments as well as mistakes. It also gives us a few moments to review our iteneraries in life, where we've been and where we are presently heading. Sometimes though, it takes time for us to want to go out again, feeling it too risky, too soon, too tiring.

Is this so called trip even worth it? All the agonizing, sleepless moments when all you can ever think about is the why's and what-if's of life.

It all depends on how you bounce back from a temporary setback like losing what you once thought was the love of your life. For some people who thrive on action and can never be bothered with the dramatics, the sooner they bounce back, the better. But for a few hesitant and cynical people like me, it requires years of meditation before we let friends drag our feet back back outside the real world and allow ourselves the indignity of another potentially disastrous match-up.

I can say that I have come a long way from the NBSB I used to be and the person I am now. The lessons I have learned along the way have entitled me to move a few wobbly steps forward. Where I was once a newbie, I now consider myself more prepared. Where I was once so eager, I am now more cautious of my actions. And when someday I may find myself stumbling yet another time, I will know when to get up, brush the dirt off my knees and continue with my journey.

The Ballad of Cerge and Gloria

"I did not become President to be popular..." A defensive President GMA announced on her last SONA.

It would take a lot of courage for a President to admit that she is not very well liked among her people. Which makes me wonder if she could even sleep at night knowing how majority of the Filipinos dislike her. I pity her sometimes because I wouldn't want to live my life dodging insults and criticisms for breakfast or wake up in the morning to a barrage of hate messages and negative controversies knocking on my doorstep.

Of course, if I am to be the leader of the land, I would expect to be offered prayers and love when I am ill and not to be made fun of; and as a testament to my greatness, I would want monuments to be built in my honor when I'm gone, not effigies while I'm sill alive. Since I, too, am a mother to the nation, I would expect my flag draped casket to be driven in a flatbed truck strewn with flowers and not on a garbage truck as some of my detractors would say; I would long for the accolades even while celebrating at a glitzy New York restaurant with my most loyal of subjects.

But as much as I feel sorry for the President, I pity her Press Secretary more, who of course, faces the firing squad for her. If the venomous comments of the people are bullets, Mr. Remonde would have died long ago. If he did, it would have been in the line of duty as he would have done it to protect his boss.

It is, after all, his job. So we cannot blame the poor guy if he denies vehemently the accusations being hurled at the President. But we can always laugh at him later whenever he takes it all back and admits to the booboo. When news of the President's botched boob job first broke out, her press secretary dismissed the reports as nonsense, saying "Mrs Arroyo was not your regular sexy actress fixated with such cosmetic surgery" only to backtrack on his statement only a few hours later. Or we can spew expletives at him whenever he tries to find another lame excuse to defend her actions.

It's tough being an unpopular President, but it's even harder to work for one. Damage control is never easy especially if the damage is already way beyond your control. So huge is the flak Malacanang has been getting lately, poor Mr. Press Secretary has to always be on top of it, "shielding" Malacañang, defending the actions and transactions of his boss, to the derision and sometimes amusement of the entire nation. But as they say in the movies, "trabaho lang, walang personalan.."

Perhaps, Secretary Remonde can take it from John Lennon's cue when he described the challenges of being married to Yoko Ono: "Christ, you know it ain't easy, you know how hard it can be. The way things are going, they're gonna crucify me."

Secretary Remonde is the joker to PGMA's queen. He struggles to balance all excuses to defend his boss amid shouts of: "Off with his head!" by the people. Mr. Remonde has his hands full now as another wave of protests continue to rain down on Malacañang--the controversial National Artist selection, the dinner celebration at the ritzy Le Cirque Restaurant in New York City and now the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) report on the alleged manipulation of the SALN (Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Networth) of the President and the First Gentleman. We can only wish him luck, though.

After all, one cannot expect the President of the Philippines on a trip to New York to just eat at a hot dog stand.

Glass Wall

The first time I saw you, I felt nothing, there were no sparks, no magic, no feeling at all or maybe I was just distracted by your presence and was still overcome with grief over a painful incident just weeks before you arrived. I have watched many movies in my lifetime that I expected too much of our first meeting but It was not what I had imagined it would be. There was no sappy music in the background, no happy tears. Just me seeing you for the first time, a stranger whom I was supposed to have known for months.

There was a glass wall that separated us and holding you was impossible.

I have never seen someone so beautiful, you were sleeping peacefully unmindful of the turmoil of life outside the walls of the neo-natal unit.

I wondered right there and then of my ability to raise you, and care for you. Not with my condition, not with all the pent-up hurt and emotion towards the person who should have been there with me smiling, staring at you in wonder and dreaming about a future with us, his family.

Don’t be angry at me for that moment of weakness. I should have been elated at your presence, I should have glowed with pride at your coming, but I was confused, weary and disoriented. Please forgive me If the pain I have endured have somehow crossed over to you. Please forgive me if you have suffered with me and felt the chasm as much as I did.

Many people would remind me to give up the hurt for your sake, to spare you from whatever emptiness I was supposed to feel. But I could not do it. I could not stop myself from drowning in misery even as you were being pulled away from my womb, even as I looked at you for the first time. I was to miserable that I could not have protected you even if I tried. My heart was broken into a hundred different pieces and was not even sure it could be whole again.

I saw you open your eyes and looked at me. But it was already time and viewing hours were over. The blinds on the big glass wall were being drawn, separating us, making me wait for an eternity until they let me see you again.

It has been over a year since then. I am still hurting but not like before. It will still take a while to be one hundred percent free from feeling any hurt at all, but I’m getting there with a new love, new inspiration--You.

I marvelled at how you, the tiny creature who squirmed in my arms the first time I tried to hold her, have changed my life. I have come a long way from the hesitant, new mother I was when I first saw you.

It was not love at first sight for both of us. Perhaps, It was something else. Something more powerful than love and miracle put-together.

I look at you and your eyes are bright with wonder, your little hands tugging mine. I can hear your laughter as you ran around the room bursting with life and innocence. And I felt pride in the way you walk, joy in the way you smile, and love in the way no one else has ever made me feel.

pain reliever

tinatanggal mo daw ang sakit
sa loob lamang ng "15 minutes"
kung sana lahat na lang ng karamdaman
ay kaya mong gamutin

hindi lang sakit sa ulo, ngipin, at katawan
ang kaya mong tanggalin
pati na rin sakit sa pusong nawalan
pero patuloy na umaasang
mabuo ulit.

daydreamer

i should be heading home by now

instead of sitting here with you over bottles of beer

at this ungodly hour,

talking about random things

and what might have beens

of the past that have long been forgotten

of innocence that were lost

and friendships that were found again.

My books, unopened, unread, now beckon,

Dragging me back to reality.

Lawton

Sa Lawton
Ako nag-aabang,
naghihintay
ng bus pauwi

Dito sa Liwasan
kung saan mo ako
hinahatid dati

Kung saan
sing-laki
ng bus ng Saulog,

At sing-liwanag
ng araw
ang mga pangarap
natin

Ngayon, dito pa rin
sa Plaza
naghihintay, nag-aabang,
nangangarap kahit wala ka na

At uuwi na akong mag-isa.


Sa Lawton
kung saan
ang bawat patak ng ulan
ay sing-dami
ng mga pangakong iniwan mo.