(2020) Heights Vol. 67, Seniors Folio

heights seniors folio 2020 Karapatang-ari 2020 Ang heights ay ang opisyal na pampanitikang at pangsining na publikasyon at organisasyon ng Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila.

Reserbado ang karapatang-ari sa mga awtor ng mga akda ng isyung ito. Hindi maaaring ilathala, ipakopya, o ipamudmod sa anumang anyo ang mga akda nang walang pahintulot ng mga may-akda.

Hindi maaaring ibenta sa kahit anong paraan at pagkakataon ang kopyang ito.

Maaaring makipag-ugnayan sa: heights, Publications Room, mvp 202 Ateneo de Manila University p.o. Box 154, 1099 Manila, Philippines Tel. no. (632) 8426-6001 loc. 5448 heights - ateneo.com facebook.com/HeightsAteneo Twitter: @HeightsAteneo Instagram: @heightsateneo Malikhaing Direksyon at Dibuho ng Pabalat: Juan Carlos I. Luna Paglalapat: Jana Codera, Patricia Grace Fermin, Giulia Lopez, at Juan Carlos I. Luna Mga Litrato: Benjie Bernal at Juan Carlos I. Luna Inilimbag sa mvb Verdigris

Seniors Folio isang antolohiya ng panitikan at sining ng seniors 2020

Mga Nilalaman Bianca Alva 2

Bertud ng putik 4 Cat Aquino 6

Grief Lessons 8 Benjie Bernal 22

Notes on Catching Light 24

Exposures in Isolation (series) 40

Figures Amidst Their Environments (series) Danielle Cabahug 54

Boundaries of Care 56 Falling Into La Crema’s Labyrinth, and Finding

Myself In Poblacion 70 Aisha Causing

I used to go here every day (series)

Raphael Philip M. Chua

78

86

Two Thousand Days of Isolation

Bernice Claire D. Dacara

96

98

Matira ang Matibay

80

88

44

Justine Daquioag

Once the Party’s Over

138 140

Christine Dy

Brugge, Belgium

142 144

Iago B. Guballa 146

The Aluminum Manifesto Juan Carlos I. Luna

Youth (series)

152 154

Dorothy Claire G. Parungao

148

158

Kung Kailan Ang Pagpapalaya ay Pagtitimpla ng Tsaa 160 Kung Paano (Hindi) Bigkasin ang Diyos 161

Kathleen Quema

Old Habits

Pleading Innocent

164 166 174

Aisha Rallonza

To Keep Safe

186 188

Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis 206

Mula Kina Cain at Abel 208

Panimula Batch 2020, nagsimula ang paglalakbay natin sa OrSem 2016: Sibol, kasabay ng unang paghihikayat sa atin ng Ateneo na hayaan ang sariling umusbong. Matapos ang mga hamon at tagumpay na nagtulak sa ating makilala at hubugin ang tunay nating pagkatao, hindi maipagkakaila ang pagyabong natin. Pumasok tayo sa pamantasan na puno ng mga pangarap at lalabas tayong nangangarap pa rin, ngunit handa nang makamit ang mga ito hindi lamang para sa sarili kundi pati na rin sa ikauunlad ng mga kapwa nating Pilipino.

Sa pamantasan at bansa naman, naging saksi rin tayo sa ilang mga pagsubok at pagwagi na nagpatatag sa atin bilang isang komunidad at bayan. Ilan sa mga ito ang pagbukas ng AretĂŠ, pagtanggal ng CHED sa Filipino at Panitikan bilang rekisito sa kolehiyo, paglunsad ng TALAB, pagsabog ng bulkang Taal, pagbuo ng Commission on Mental Health at LS Gender Hub, pagsara sa ABS-CBN, at ang paglaganap ng COVID-19. Iba-iba man ang pinanggalinggan ng mga kaganapang ito, iisa lamang ang kanilang paalala, na maging malay tayo sa mga suliranin ng lipunan at gamitin ang kaalaman natin upang makatulong sa iba.

Sinasalamin nito ang ninais gawin ng heights ngayong taon. Sa ika-67 niyang taon, sinubukan ng punong patnugutan na palawakin ang mga pamamaraang ginagamit ng organisasyon upang makipagugnayan sa lipunan at ang pabago-bago nitong mga konteksto.

Bunga ng pagpapalawak na ito ang mga nakilalang mga likha at mayakda ng heights na nagpaigting sa kakayahan ng sining at panitikan na magpamulat sa tao at magsilbing tugon sa mga suliraning panlipunan.

Ngunit sa new normal na sumalubong sa atin, higit pa sa pagpapalawak ng mga pamamaraan ang kailangan. Ngayon, tahasang pagbabago sa kaugalian at pamamalakad ng mga pambansang institusyon ang panawagan. Malaki ang papel ng sining at panitikan dito, dahil bukod pa sa kakayahan nitong magpahayag

vi ¡ Panimula

at magpamulat, kaya rin nitong harayain ang panibagong mundo.

Kaya nitong magmungkahi at magsilbing gabay sa mga nararapat na pamamaraan ng pakikipagkapwa at pakikisalamuha sa daigdig.

Kaakibat nito ang kakayahan nating isabuhay at itaguyod ang mga pagpapalagay na ito, nang makabuo tayo ng mundo na iba sa mayroon tayo ngayon; isang mundo na tunay na payapa, makatarungan, at makatao.

Kaya sa kabila ng kawalang kasiguruhan ng hinaharap, huwag panghinaan ng loob, Batch 2020. Nasa atin ang kapangyarihang likhain ang panibagong mundo na ito. Tayo ang lunas at pag-asa. Patuloy lang nating panghawakan at ibahagi sa iba ang pinakaunang pamana sa atin ng Ateneo: ang paanyayang sumibol. Nang balang araw, magiging sanhi rin tayo ng pagsibol ng lipunan, bayan, at mundo.

Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis associate editor

Lorenzo Miguel S. Reyes managing editor for finance June 2020

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ vii

Mga Akda

Bianca Alva ab literature (english) “Ang pagmamataas ay hindi kasalungat ng kahihiyan kundi ang pinagmulan nito. Ang tunay na pagpapakumbaba ang natatanging panlunas sa hiya.”

—Tiyo Iroh, Avatar: Ang Huling El Bender Alva is a literature major interested in ecofeminist and spatial studies, particularly maritime space because the sea is pretty cool, thus sea breezes. Get it. Haha. She also makes really bad jokes sometimes.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 2

3 · Bianca Alva

Bertud ng putik Bakit hindi natin mawari na ang lotus ay napapagod rin?

Sa bawat pagsagupa sa hamon, walang palugit ang alon.

Ang tanging kasabwat ang sarili.

Higit pa sa alamat, ang kanyang pananatili ay isang pag-aalsa.

Sa pag-agos ng baha, sa pagkislot sa bawat pagbangon, walang kupas ang dilag ng lotus na hugis-aguhon kung lumago: katotohanan ang kaibuturan, katuwiran ang tunay na hilaga.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 4

Cat Aquino ab literature (english), bfa creative writing To Max, for the bildungsroman. To Dr. Jocelyn Martin, Sir Max Pulan, Ma’am Gabriela Lee, RayVi Sunico, Tita Christine Lao, Sir Exie Abola, Sir Nico Canoy, Sir Vincenz Serrano, Fr. Ziselsberger, and the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 heights Editorial Board for their invaluable guidance. To “ker”—Viv, Sean, Chy, Ethan, and Jedd—for the biannual dinners. To Marga, Kevin, Danny, AB Lit 2021, and every friend for the joy and patience they’ve brought. To mama, dada, Kyle, Thea, Lola Linda, and Ninang Shirley, for their love. To Tita Honey Carandang and Tita Bless, for showing the way out. To Gab, for every tiny animal and shitty meme. Cai, for her tolerance. Ari, for being the landfill. E217—Meg, Geri, Mikki, and Caila—for Poblacion; synced body clocks; forgotten assignments, spontaneous dances, deliveries, meals, and trips; and—ultimately— sisterhood. And J, for all his patience. For four years and counting.

The following story is indebted and dedicated to the Quimpo family’s Subversive Lives and every life lost to the Marcos dictatorship. May we never forget. Never again.

You can read the rest of Cat’s work at: cataquino.carrd.co

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 6

7 · Cat Aquino

Grief Lessons i learned grief slowly, but surely.

One of my first lessons came on a Wednesday in 1978, the sixth year of Ferdinand Marcos’s Martial Law. Back then, Pasay’s streets hadn’t yet choked on car smoke and garbage. The only papers young men would peddle were from The Philippine Daily Express and other government-approved companies. I entered the family mart on Sikatuna Street, grateful for the dry air conditioning and ready to buy napkins for Marie’s upcoming period, cereal for Edgar, rubber gloves to replace the pair Jaime broke, ingredients for my husband Jose’s favorite adobong manok, and the cheapest rice for everyone.

The grocery was empty except for the tired kuya ready to collapse behind the counter, and myself. I traced lines through the floor with my shopping cart, picking up whatever the rusting centavos Jose gave me could foot—until my hand reached for the little box of red Jell-O sitting on the second shelf on Aisle 5. Tina’s Jell-O. I saw Tina, aged seven, with hair curled Shirley Temple-style, bobbing up and down while she tugged at my fraying skirt, begging, “Mama, please?”, as if she’d never left me and never grown old. I saw myself, younger and carrying Jaime in my heavy belly, conceding to her bungi smile, fishing the spare 1 peso bill hidden in my bra, buying that bright box every month and boiling it into gulaman for the last few years, with my children tiptoed over the kitchen counter, wideeyed at the alchemy of sugar and rare imported gelatin.

I put the Jell-O back in its place, hand shaking from the tremors age had begun to grant me. When was the last time I’d bought one?

I swallowed the ache in my throat before it could reach my mouth.

When I blinked, Tina was no longer there. Just as she had been for five years.

One of my first lessons was this: there are no words for a death that is not a death.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 8

* Tina often joked about her death in the months leading up to her disappearance, musing about how she wanted to be buried at the Heroes’ Cemetery in Manila. I slapped her the first time she did so.

She’d arrived home covered in dirt and stray blood spatters and brain that weren’t hers. She was at one of the Diliman Commune’s rallies, where students had erected barricades from tables, chairs, benches, and scrap metal. Her eyes were streaked with tears from the gas explosions the police let loose on her fellow Kabataang Makabayan activists and their red banners. I picked the splinters from her hair and tried not to raise my voice, tried not to remember how I’d seen Tina on the television just a few hours earlier, Molotov cocktail in hand. She didn’t say a word the whole hour I scolded her—she simply walked upstairs and locked her room. I found her sleeping with her mouth open and Struggle for National Democracy by Jose Maria Sison under her bed the next morning.

Tina was what Jose and I called a “difficult child”. Even my pregnancy with her was difficult. Conceived while I was a colegiala of Music at St. Scholastica, Tina was in my belly for eight painful months, only to born prematurely in the first home Jose and I owned: a cramped apartment in Manila, on a hard mattress. I named her “Cristina”, because it was Christmas Eve. Once my mother, my midwife, placed her in my arm and we locked eyes for the first time, I knew I would love her all my life.

Tina’s childhood was one of scraped knees and tantrums. She was always falling, whether it was from the makopa tree that grew in the yard of our new home, the brick townhouse in Pasay bought with Jose’s San Miguel Brewery job as a clerk, or with her grades at the public grade school we took her to. The fall from the makopa tree had her bedridden for a month and me silent with rage, so she took to reading the books I’d grown up with but forgotten in my age: Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters. She preferred talking and reading to eating. We fought constantly—I attacked by shoving spoons into her mouth and she retali9 · Cat Aquino

ated by chewing slowly or spitting the mush out.

I tried to teach my children “austerity” the way my mother did before me, when the war whipped fear into everyone and I learned how to ration my few centavos to last a week and how to dig holes in the ground to hide from men, Japanese and American alike. Jose’s job was a stable one, but we knew that without the peacetime the Americans gave us before the war, money was unpredictable—the prices of oil, rice, and fish shot higher and higher with every year. Tina, Marie, Edgar, and Jaime had egg sandwiches for breakfast almost every day, and whenever they complained, I reminded them that mediocre food was a small price to pay for the four bedroom townhouse on Second Street. Besides, there were always people on the street with nothing to eat. My children needed to be grateful for God’s blessings.

We fell into the long silences and uncomfortable attempts at conversation the older Tina got. She always somehow assumed that I knew more or less than I did and wouldn’t believe me when I said otherwise. Dining table discussions morphed into displays of intellect, for Tina would come home bursting with newfound knowledge about class warfare, economics, gender, and everything under the sun, only to prove to her younger siblings how much more she knew than me, the Music major mother who dropped out of college to give birth to her. I told her that she was smart. Too smart.

It seemed only natural that Tina would find herself in the University of the Philippines, studying chemistry the way Jose did before her.

She learned to mix reds with blacks to paint floats for the annual Lantern Parade and learned the language of freedom, quickly acquiring a vocabulary for the burgeoning activist movement through big words like “ideology”, “nationalism”, and “anti-fascism”. Why she chose to prioritize revolution over scholarship, I will never know. All those wasted hours driving her to school everyday, only to have her discard them for the rush of anarchy. I think she thought it was romantic, joining her red-blooded friends and playing Katipunero in the university’s green fields. Curfews and shouting matches couldn’t prevent her from learning how to scale walls and sneak out in the middle of the night, so Jose and I made her promise: no secrets. Never go out heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 10

alone. Then, she could do as she pleased.

In the time that would eventually be called the “First Quarter Storm”, Tina told me of how she and her Kabataang Makabayan and school publication friends threw stones and wrote angry placards at Ferdinand Marcos’s legislative building. She came home yelling, “Second term, ’nay! Second term. That bastard.” I half-expected Jose to raise his voice, but was surprised to see him shake his head in silent agreement. From 1970 to 1972, Jose and I kept the radio on at full blast at all times, listening for Tina’s raspy voice shouting rallying cries and straining to hear where the Kabataang Makabayan were protesting so that we could drive out to pick Tina up, before the tear gas hit.

Marcos’s second term confused even Jaime, my youngest, who, in the days leading up to the declaration of Martial Law, wondered if Marcos would be president forever. “Is he like a king, mommy?” he asked. I didn’t know what to say. I instead let Tina explain the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and totalitarianism in toddler-like terms, in a surprisingly calm tone.

The night of September 23, 1972 seemed to answer Jaime’s question. All televisions in Manila were tuned into the same sight of Marcos in black-and-white, pointing into the camera to calmly say: “I am utilizing the proclamation of martial law for one purpose alone: to save the Republic and form society.”

Classes in schools were suspended immediately after. All of Manila seemed to hold its breath. Even my children, who usually rejoiced when classes were called off because of typhoons and floods, hushed each other whenever Marcos’s or a high-ranking official’s voice would break through the radio static, nervously anticipating the government’s next move. Universities and high schools began to blacklist and dismiss students who were deemed “subversive”. Tina took to writing letters and locking herself up in her room. Whenever I visited to remind her to brush her teeth, brush her hair and shower, Tina remained bent over her desk with newspaper clippings and torn magazines strewn around her, nodding without so much as a glance.

This continued for a long time. When Tina finally emerged, she 11 · Cat Aquino

was wearing all black and holding her letter of resignation from U.P. Marie, Edgar, and Jaime were fast asleep on their beds.

“Sigurado ka ba?” Jose asked. Tina was only a few months away from graduating. I sensed the shock in his voice. All those years of tuition wasted. I held Jose’s hand and felt his anger when he clenched my fingers.

Tina nodded. She explained that she knew of the houses the military had begun to raid, and the families tortured and beaten for raising subversives like her. “For us,” she explained.

I embraced Tina tight. I could feel her ribs and the bones in her limbs. And then we let her go.

How could I have missed what was so clearly there to be felt?

People say that mothers have their own magical intuition to scry their children’s future, and that mothers can feel their children’s pain as if it were their own magnified. This wasn’t true for me. I felt nothing the night Tina left home.

So began Tina’s double life. She hid in Tambakan, a slum area near Tondo with a maze of houses and streets so intricate Marcos’s secret police were sure to lose their way. Marie and I visited thrice, bringing canned goods and clean water to keep Tina and her comrades fed and healthy. I begged her to spend more time at home, but she refused.

“Mama, the people’s war can’t be fought without the people,” she said.

I savored and dreaded the days she returned home for dinner, disguised under cover of night. She would invite friends like Diego, Noelle, Butch, and Joanna to eat food I could have saved for Edgar and Jaime’s baon, and discussions would turn into debates that could only be stopped by the sound of Jose’s fists slamming the table. Tina always left with a hug, and said, “If I’m not back after five days, start looking for me.” She was always in a hurry.

Sometimes it felt like we held our breath all throughout the months before Tina’s disappearance. As if we were dreading and anticipating that something would happen. * heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 12

We did not notice that Tina was gone until the night of April 20, 1973, as we dined in the cramped family room. I’d cooked a feast and set a table for six, with Jose at the kabisera and our children huddled around plates, only to be interrupted by Marie asking through a mouthful of fat tilapia, “Ma, nasaan si Tina?”

All eyes locked on me as I slopped a bowl of rice onto Jaime’s plate.

I replied without skipping a beat that she was probably at the commune working on a rally statement or at the Tambakan soup kitchen, but Marie shook her head. Marie explained that Tina wasn’t in Tambakan when she visited, and neither were Diego, Noelle, or Butch.

There was no one to give the basket of bread to. When she’d visited earlier that fateful morning, she found the shanties burned to crisps and smoldering with ashes. Marie added that it had been six days since Tina’s last dinner.

We rushed to the Pasay police station to report her missing. Before I could stop myself, I told them, nawala ko yung anak ko instead of nawala yung anak ko.

With every question answered, it became clear that the police did not care. “Ah,” the clerk said, almost uncaringly when I told them Tina had been a U.P. student. “Aktibista pala.”

Jose and I tried to describe Tina as best as we could, from birthmarks to moles and scars—anything that could distinguish her body from others. I later learned that this was a big mistake. Families who’d lost young ones pointed out that giving the police Tina’s information could now grant the military information on how to bruise or mutilate Tina, should she be found.

Even then it was hard to remember how Tina looked beyond the photographs she left behind, for she had cut her hair short to escape being pulled by the hair at student demonstrations and had received scars from near escapes with soldiers.

The police never got back to us, but the military arrived. Jose and I awoke one morning to find men in camouflage patrolling the townhomes we lived in. We were not allowed to enter or exit our own street without flashing an ID or submitting to an inspection, complete with 13 · Cat Aquino

frisking. We were like prisoners in our own home.

Marie kept her ears peeled for rumors as she navigated through U.P. as a moderate Mass Communications student. News about other young activists began to color our search for Tina, so we developed a routine. Check every ravine and river a mangled body on the news. Visit morgues to check the corpses before the medical students slice them open. Alternate between radio stations for Marcos or his men announcing the dead or those branded fugitives and the secret Communist channel that spoke in Morse Code, crying for help or reading the names of the missing, who would eventually be known as desaparesidos. * I tried to teach my remaining children how to cope with Tina’s disappearance without first learning how to do so myself. “She’ll come back,” I said, holding them close whenever we prayed the rosary at night and devoted novenas to St. Jude, the patron saint of the lost.

“God will take care of her. Even if she doesn’t come back—she’s safe in God’s hands.” I would knock on wooden furniture if I so much as thought of the word death. Jaime filled his notebooks with chicken scratch crayon drawings of Tina in the mountains, triumphantly holding the Philippine flag in her hand and smiling ear to ear. Edgar wouldn’t stop asking questions all the way until he grew out of his talkative phase, and Marie, in all her newly appointed eldest child power, would patiently explain how slow investigative processes in the Philippines were, and distract him with comic books that escaped Marcos’s censorship laws.

Jose helped the children process what happened to Tina and encouraged Jaime’s tall tales of his hero sister in the forests, fighting for justice. “They need to hope,” he said. Still, he would end every night for the first few months of her disappearance by locking our bedroom door shut, crawling into my arms, and alternating between crying and praying. I would not sleep until he’d rubbed the tears from his face and looked like my strong, calm husband again. I could not sleep, for heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 14

I was the only one he could freely talk about Tina to. He expressed so many regrets—for not accepting her activism, for being too harsh on her—but I never interrupted him. My husband never cried during our decades-long marriage unless it was about Tina, and as his wife, it was my job to make sure he was always listened to, always cared for.

The months turned into years, and Marie, Edgar, and Jaime grew up. Jose and I imparted upon them dictums we wish we could repeat to Tina: never sleep over at friends’ houses; never be out past the family’s 7 PM dinnertime; and never, ever, go anywhere without telling us. The years became a chorus of opo mama, Jose and the children running to catch the morning jeep, and their noisy returns home.

I dreaded the silences my family left me at home with, and filled them with the static of Caritas Manila’s radio station and endlessly cleaning—taking things from their places and putting them back or elsewhere. * Another lesson: memory doesn’t work like I thought it did.

I began to lose things in the years after Tina’s disappearance. It started with my purse which I discovered under my bed, surrounded by dust. Then came the electricity bill, which I never found—I had to take a long jeepney ride to the nearest Meralco. A cookbook, a powder compact, and eventually, Tina’s birth certificate.

“Alma, just retrace your steps,” said my elder sister Norma, who’d driven all the way down from Ilocos to help Jose and I manage Tina’s wake. “There’s this thing called the 18-inch rule. My husband says most missing things are within a two feet radius from where we last saw them.”

I wanted to ask, what about a missing daughter? But I didn’t.

Memories began to assault me without warning. How I walked Tina to grade school every morning despite her desperate pleas for me not to. How Tina would grit her teeth after getting scolded for coming home late in the afternoons. How we read her first book together, her fat finger tracing the large letters with wonder and awe.

15 · Cat Aquino

Jose and I grew distant. He was not used to this sudden inattention: the forgotten dishes in the sink, how I stopped ironing his suits and laying them out on his bed before work every day. He continued to search for Tina in her old haunts regardless of police surveillance, making rounds at different prisons into the metropolis in search of any girl who might have resembled our Tina.

Prayer began to feel like a chore. Every novena felt irrational, selfish. I knew there was no praying for her to show up on our doorstep unscathed, but I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. After all, if God were good, wouldn’t He listen? Why wouldn’t He? Why had He let this happen in the first place?

I imagine spitting on every soldier and policeman I see. I cannot stop picturing headlines announcing the deaths of activists replaced with Tina’s name. Nor can I stop remembering Ferdinand Marcos’s crackling voice, as if it were his words that ripped my daughter from my body once again, and not some cruel fault of fate, or some inaction of mine. * I did not realize that Tina and I shared the same outline until her wake in U.P.’s Palma Hall Annex, two years after her disappearance.

Because there was no body, all Jose and I could prop up on the altar were pink carnations (her favorite) and her high school graduation photo. Her bright eyes, framed by curly hair and sharp bones, stared back at me from the black-and-white frame. Her smile was small, as if guilty of some misjudgment. We had the same face. The same slouch.

I heard Marie crying into Jose’s shoulder. Little Jaime held my hand as it trembled. I wiped away his tears while trying to hide mine.

The white wooden coffin meant nothing to me—not even as it was lowered into the soft ground while Fr. Tan said the rites a week after visitors came, gave their condolences, and shuffled away to avoid the gazes of the military men stationed to watch for possible subversive meetings. The ensaymadas and chicken sandwiches I bought had to be given away to avoid them from spoiling. Only one of Tina’s activheights Seniors Folio 2020 · 16

ist friends, Joanna, stayed for longer than ten minutes. She whispered that everyone else in the barkada had been taken too, or gone underground.

I willed myself to imagine that Tina was still there, watching me from afar. I kept my eyes trained on her photo, steadying my memory of her in my mind, but the longer I looked the more she began to blur at the edges into soft shapes and lines. I no longer knew if the Tina I knew was two, twelve, or twenty-one and alive and well, listening for me from some hidden sanctuary in the mountains. * I try not to imagine Tina laying in a cold, cramped cell. Try not to imagine the guards entering it and doing God knows what.

Did she cry for help? Did it happen in the Diliman Commune, or at the house of a friend I was never introduced to? I like to imagine my daughter bravely fighting men in blue off, using her chemistry knowhow to make bombs from soda pop bottles and leftover firecrackers, like the papers said some activists did. Still, I continue to ask: how many of Tina’s friends did they take? Did anyone see her go or try to help? How could a movement claim to be revolutionary but rip people away from their families and loved ones? Where were the commanders and comrades when Tina and the other three went missing? Why fight at all?

I may have caught a glimpse why in the EDSA Revolution of 1986: a three-day blur of prayers, masses, sweaty hands holding on to each other for dear life, songs of freedom and justice, flowers, and rallying cries. I watched Jaime and Edgar block a tank with their fellow classmates from Ateneo, and I helped Jose and Maria feed soup to those who couldn’t stand up. I felt my chest soar when I sang every note of Bayan Ko, with thousands of others. Young men and women would chant and cheer, and for a moment I thought I felt what Tina might’ve felt all those years ago—the rush of hope. If only but for a little while.

17 · Cat Aquino

* November 30, 1992 was a Monday.

It was raining the kind of rain people call a sunshower, when tikbalangs are said to marry in secret. A supposed day of celebration.

A flimsy umbrella shaded Jose and me from the rain as we stood in a crowd on a grassy field, awaiting the unveiling of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City. By this time, Marie and Edgar had left for the United States with their own families, while Jaime was busy studying Chemical Engineering in U.P. Diliman.

A hushed applause fell over the park when the Wall of Remembrance was finally unveiled. The slab of black granite towered over us all, solemn and silent, a tombstone for sixty-six martyred during Marcos’s Martial Law. Tina’s name was among the fallen: Benigno Aquino, Macliing Dulag, Liliosa Hilao, Emman Lacaba, and so many more that I wish were already familiar to me.

Jose and I stayed long after the ceremonies ended and the others drove or commuted away. The rain stopped. I stepped close enough to the Wall for my face to be the same size as the golden font emblazoned on it, and ran my fingers through the line written: rividad, cristina g. I think to myself, what a consolation.

We prayed the rosary together and out loud to combat the quiet.

Neither of us looked at each other. The initial pang in my chest slowly faded, and turned into a stone that rested at the bottom of my stomach. Almost twenty years had passed. I have come to understand the inevitability of death, with the passing of my mother and father and Jose’s recently diagnosed lung cancer. But I still struggle to speak her name and envision her body rotting somewhere I can’t be. She continues to fade from memory. I continue to dread getting farther away from the time when my daughter was still present. * I have learned to wear my grief like a coat. I rest it on the back of my chair during family meals and gatherings, but hold it in my arms heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 18

afterwards because I cannot bear to leave it behind. Other times it is a second skin that clings to me. It stays on when I get up every morning to do our laundry. I still do the groceries. I still remember to renew documents and pay bills, and to take Jose to the hospital for weekly checkups.

Once in a while, I sit or pace alone in Tina’s room. I take stock of it: her unmade bed, her yellowing books, the cold wooden floor, her rusting cassette player, and her broken electric fan. Her pillows no longer smell like her—wet grass and lemon. Her school Mary Jane shoes are where she left them: haphazardly leaning on the darkening wall. I don’t pray, or remember. I wait until I am ready to breathe, slowly. I listen for her in the silence.

19 · Cat Aquino

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 20

Benjie Bernal bfa creative writing, minor in philosophy Benjie is graduating with a degree in creative writing and a minor in philosophy. Benjie writes essays to unpack experiences. In one essay he dreams of writing, he wants to illustrate how his fixation over memory was partially a result of listening to too much Taylor Swift.

He dreams of a great many memories to unpack, he likes the idea of entire life chapters being distilled in a few decisive words. But he also takes photos because he believes words can only capture so little.

He remembers coming into college the last thing he expected was to come out an artist.

He would like to express his gratitude for the support provided by his friends, for the clarity criticism caused, and for the virtue exemplified by his professors. Despite his final semester of college being painfully cut short, he is thankful for the abundance of memories he gets to keep.

His latest photos can be found on Instagram (@berniebenjie).

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 22

23 · Benjie Bernal

Notes on Catching Light i placed my camera, a small black Fujifilm reminiscent of SLR style film cameras, on the table before me. It had nearly been a year since I first set my eyes on it behind a plane of glass in Megamall. Mom stood beside me while my eyes longed for it. The camera had dials on top that had a confusing array of numbers that my friends found themselves puzzled by when I handed it to them. “Oh, just press this button right here.”

I had bought the small toy-looking contraption after filling both my Youtube and Instagram feed with street photographers. For over a year, I was mesmerized by how they made art by just going out to shoot on the street. There was a simplicity in the process that allured me; of making use of lines and patterns found in objects and organizing them in the frame. Their use of composition instilled a keen sense of geometry and order in the seeming chaos of settings like cities. It fascinated me enough to spend an inordinate amount of time watching vlogs of photographers who went out to the streets to take pictures.

The long strap that came with the camera I replaced with a blue paracord bracelet that tied itself tightly around my wrist. Having had it for more than a year, I’ve documented events, shot hundreds of people’s profile pictures for the promotion of my organizations’ events, and went out to the city to shoot. The array of dials used to control specific aspects of the image I seem to have grasped, the operation of the lens, of opening and closing the iris, controlling the depth of field, I held similar confidence in. The dial beside the button that fired the shutter controlled shutter speed, controlled how long the shutter was to be left open for the sensor to collect light, controlled whether motion is depicted as blurred or made sharp, but all this jargon ultimately controlled one thing: exposure, or how much light comes in. Too much and it blows out the image, showing nothing but white, too little and it underexposes, shrouding everything in heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 24

shadows. In the days of film balancing these settings to nail exposure seemed an achievement in itself. But modern cameras can help do the balance for you, and over time these settings fade away, and the effort in balancing exposure becomes irrelevant. The camera becomes a mere tool. The tool was beside the point of photography.

In the classroom where I sat and where I just placed my camera in front of me was a formation of trapezoid-shaped tables that made an enclosed formation. Sitting around were a mix of students, some of them were friends, the rest were a mix of digital illustrators, photographers, animators, and traditional artists. Each one of the fellows sat beside one of the mentors, established artists that were invited to be panelists for the artist’s workshop hosted by the school’s artistic publication. At the side of the room sat volunteers that live-tweeted the event and managed the projector. We had just finished lunch and we were about to go through the pages of the booklet and discuss the pieces of the next fellow, me.

“This is Benjie, he’s going to tell us about his background first before we delve into his photos,” said JL, my mentor, who sat at my right. He asked the projector operator if we could flash the pictures.

“Which one?” asked the person on the laptop.

“The picture of Benjie, with his face,” retorted JL, sarcastic. The room burst out laughing.

I tried to ease myself.

JL was a moreno, more than six feet tall, and rocked black slim-fit jeans and white sneakers. He sat tall and built compared to the rest of the table, he grew a beard that was reminiscent of Chris Hemsworth’s, and wore a pair of aviator-style glasses. He worked as a photographer for CNN Life and had been a graduate of the university four years prior.

Yesterday, when I first showed JL the best parts of my gallery of pictures in Lightroom, I found it surprising that he said he was impressed. It rang in my mind as the first time a mentor commented on my work and I felt it as a genuine effort to validate. The collection of snaps made apparent my ability to use the camera, sure. Compositions were pretty, the subjects that I depicted were rather people 25 · Benjie Bernal

in environments. I had thought that it showed rather clearly that I wanted to be creative in my photography; making use of lines, shadows, and silhouettes. For a moment, I felt relief knowing my mentor liked my work, that my workshop wasn’t going to end up being a roast. Out of nowhere, however, JL asked. “Na-heartbroken ka na ba?” I was puzzled. I imagined Taylor Swift and how heartbreaks motivated her songwriting being perhaps what motivated JL’s question, as if the logic applied to photography as it did to pop music. I asked him what he meant. “Oh, but I won’t spoil.” I thought he was referring to reserving offering his thoughts about my work until my critique session.

The next day, he was scheduled to conduct a lecture for the workshop. It was about finding one’s artistic intent. During it, he made the analogy that one has to have their heart broken. It initially still didn’t make sense. In my notes, I have several quotes from his presentation that I remember frantically jotting down. Arrows point from the heartbreak quote to more things he said: “find purpose in pain and frustration” and “the grit comes from living.” It sounded cliche at first, but I recall deciding to write it down because I recognized something in the maxims that I didn’t think I quite fully understood yet. But only now, three weeks after the workshop in a Starbucks in Pasay, alone, I turn the pages of my notebook to the notes from that day, with this essay already half-written, does his heartbreak analogy truly start making sense. * The person who gave me my first camera was my cousin, Joiz, who worked in Spain as a waiter. She and her family, which included her brother and parents, had visited the country for vacation a little over two years ago. At the start of our out-of-town escapade, I was enthusiastic to borrow the Canon 700D she owned. Its strap eternally hung around my shoulder during our trip to Vigan and Pagudpud.

On every noteworthy landmark of the places we passed or patches of land that overlooked views, my family scrambled into formation heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 26

and smiled for the camera. They always managed to conjure up an unfaltering joy and an enthusiasm to take pictures at every length of the way, and I could never quite reciprocate always wanting to be part. They were different. They’ve all been raised in the province, they had different senses of humor, and talked about different things.

Memories they shared, people they knew, things I was hardly able to relate with. Family could be sometimes othering like this, not that I blamed them. I had a sense of reluctance in participating in these trips, in extensive periods of time, because of these glaring differences. But in retrospect, the reluctance and frustration just stemmed from the inevitability of being envious of the liveliness they felt during these escapades.

“Digital photography, endless and inexpensive, has made us all archivists,” Casey Cap writes in an essay where she uses photographs in place of a notebook to remember things. She writes how photos, for her, are better ways of remembering events. I try to think of photography’s purpose in the same light when I’m on road trips with family. I take a landscape shot here and there, the signage of a restaurant we visited, or a picture of my mom’s unguarded posture as she walks along the beach. They are reminders of the things depicted in them in a moment in time, as photographs have been since its invention. I find, however, that my family doesn’t use photography as a means of remembering sentimental memories as their primary purpose. They’re always constantly looking for a place to pose next to for a post on Facebook. A post that is an implicit flex to their friends, as if saying: yes, we are here right now, and we are having a good time.

Every time I raised my camera towards my mom, she would immediately react. She refused to show a face other than her whiteteethed, trademark smile. When she does this, the reason I lifted the camera in the first place—which is to capture something unartificial— is nulled, and I put it back down. It felt like the camera was a tool not for remembering, but for showing.

I didn’t have a problem with using photography as a means to indulge my own or someone else's vanity. What better way to do that other than share a photo in social media. But the frequency 27 · Benjie Bernal

that they do it is what I find disturbing. There lies a saying that all photographs are all lies. This stems from the fact that all photos are inherently influenced by the intent of the photographer who could choose what to show or what not to show. The frequent family photo ops just made things stray further from the truth for me. All the effort was in manufacturing smiles meant to look good and impress and not, perhaps, to record genuine, banal and honest moments.

During vacations, doing so just wasted time and focus that could have perhaps been used to enjoy longer things like the cool, fresh winds away from a city, or the hypnotic sound of the waves. They were often still immersed in the images they made of the places in their screens rather than the actual places in front of them. I wondered why we concerned ourselves with the same things that filled our conscience enough already in the daily. * As Joiz and her family returned to Spain she decided to leave the camera here with me seeing that I was so keen on using it. I applied for several documentation committees for organizations in university, and became my friends’ photographer when we went to the beaches of Batangas and the forestry hills of Zambales. Relationships were established through the viewfinder.

It was in the early morning of December last year when I went to my first class in the dreary hours of the morning and left the classroom without realizing I had left my black shoulder-sling bag. In it was the camera. It was gone by the time I returned to the classroom. I went to the only place I could think of to seek help: the school’s freedom wall on Facebook. The anonymous post outlined what I felt: black bag, a camera with an expensive lens, left in a classroom one early morning, and I didn’t have anything else. I asked the group chats that I was part of to share the post, hoping the taker would see and return it. Eightyseven shares and having scrutinized the CCTV footage of that day, the security director, as I sat in his office, told me that we had run out of options. I thanked him for the help. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 28

In the months that succeeded, I would still periodically return to the lost and found window at the school’s office of student services, asking the clerk the same question, hoping someone had returned it.

And for the months that followed, I didn’t have a camera. It wasn’t like a camera was as functional or sensible to have as something like a car or a refrigerator to want to buy another one. But there was something about getting into the practice of the art, and then losing the capacity to practice it completely that feels obtrusive. I explained to friends that I was saving money for a camera but when they asked me why I seemed so desperate I couldn’t come up with a response that wasn’t along the lines of it being just a consumerist want. It was more than that.

It may have been a tool to take pictures but it granted a license to go out into the world and be entitled to look at things differently. Finding a want to shoot an object or a scene wasn’t just for the sake of wanting to keep a memento of it. The three by two aspect ratio of a frame had more than just a capacity to instill in it a part of reality, it instilled order. Objects are trapped and viewers are forced to look at the things that are exclusively there and be forced to look at how objects in it relate to one another. I trained my mind intending to frame. Losing the camera meant losing the proper capacity to organize, to impose frames unto reality. Phrasing it that way brings out the violence in the act. Sontag talks about this inherent violence in the act of taking photos a lot—of pointing in the direction of someone and pressing a trigger. Hearing a click instead of bang.

For months I didn’t take profile pictures of people to promote org projects, nor went around events as a licensed wallflower that went around the floor like a fly. Beyond just being in that role was having people notice you when they realize your glance is towards them, even more so when they realize that the camera is pointed at them.

Some immediately tense up, some completely forget how to act naturally with the knowledge that they’re being examined. Some are just unnaturally good at being themselves, which is to say beautiful.

Taking photographs is a unique discipline compared to other arts in terms of where it’s practiced. Painters dwell in their studios, 29 · Benjie Bernal

writers sit in front of a keyboard, both are in isolation. But I’d argue that photographers, even in the most public of settings, are kind of isolated in themselves. Their eyes are onto the viewfinder, immersing themselves in the scene. They deploy not colors onto a canvas but organize how light falls into the sensor, and therefore the frame.

They are organizers, and the frame to an untrained eye is constantly in disarray. This organization is everything.

There is violence implicit in the act of shooting photos. Sontag says to photograph is to appropriate subjects and put one’s self in a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge—and therefore, power. I realize having the capacity to take pictures of people therefore means making them go through the terrifying ordeal of being seen, and therefore, of being known. In my experience, this power materializes as a sense of confidence I could feel. Though, the relationship a person has in interacting with a photographer who’s interested in making you known is a complex one. People can shy away, commit to confidence in self-portrayal or be somewhere in between.

Timing is definitely a tool in that regard. It sometimes can be a means to let people steer closer towards a feeling of trust. That, or you can keep your distance, avoid establishing a relationship with the subject in the first place, use a long lens. But photographers acknowledged that shooting better photos often meant getting closer.

I had confidence in taking photos of social events because everyone had, at the back of their minds, a certain awareness that they could be seen. I liked that I could still have a noticeable presence despite being a fly in the wall. Phrased that way, the power of having a camera is made tangible, less abstract, and even to a certain extent cruel. But I made an identity for myself upon having this confidence.

Of the photographer whose paradigm was being invested to organize a visual narrative of moments unfolding, and naturally also making people look good.

The camera gave me a sense of belongingness in places where I wouldn't have. I was hardly in pictures, of being physically in the frame but I knew I was behind it. Just that knowledge came with it heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 30

the comfort of being included. And being included was, in my mind, peace.

Losing the camera felt like confronting a kind of chaos. * The first picture that we were about to discuss in the workshop I took when I worked as a cleric in a travel magazine. The novelty of working in Amorsolo Street in Makati just a few blocks from San Lorenzo Village was being surrounded by the office buildings of the Central Business District. The scenery drove me to bring my camera to work every day. Nearby was Makati Avenue and along it led to the bars of Poblacion where neon lights filled the streets with color.

During the morning, I took an Angkas along EDSA from Mandaluyong to the office to avoid the traffic that gridlocked EDSA until Ayala Avenue. The light in the morning was often softer than its equivalent in the afternoon, the atmosphere devoid still of the summer heat. I would get off from the motorcycle, drop off my bag and things in my desk first, and then walk to the Family Mart a block away to get breakfast. Along the way, I took pictures of people. An expression, people going all out in their outfits, interesting sights to see. I would take these shyly from the hip, composing through the camera’s folding LCD screen as I was then still afraid of putting the viewfinder to my eye and giving people the impression that I was invading their privacy. Attracting attention wasn’t the goal. The violence in taking a picture floats to the surface when people feel they’re being attacked with the camera. But there was something about capturing expression in the street, of being in the role of the documentary photographer with pictures one day hopefully being appreciated as depicting an area and its people from a particular time. History is often depicted with generalizing statements but photos present it as specific. Particular people, doing particular things during particular days. I would, however, not keep any of the photos I took during these walks.

Hot summer afternoons slowly turned into afternoon showers in 31 · Benjie Bernal

the latter weeks of my internship as the monsoons of July began and I would discover the wonder that is Makati covered in rain. People pulled out their umbrellas, light reflected off the pavement with a particular glimmer. Makati was worn when it was wet like New York depicted in old black and white photographs. It was during this time where I felt the most joy pulling on my camera on the way home because the environment was made special. The first picture in the booklet presented to the workshop was a picture I took on the sidewalks of Ayala Avenue. Water had covered the tiles unique to the pavement there and made reflections of the skyscrapers and the people who walked above it. I had found a spot where the skyscrapers cast their reflections—forming in between them a gap that was a reflection of the sky. I waited for someone to walk in between the reflections of the buildings. Click.

Baroque era paintings, I recall, was originally how I was introduced to the idea of composition and light. Caravaggio, Vermeer, and Rembrandt painted with the notion that the scenes they depicted needed to present an illusion of real life. The characteristics of leaving the textures of brushes in the way Van Gogh or Monet would eventually deploy centuries later was something that, as much as possible, they tried to conceal. Photorealism was the name of the game. The realism they were able to mimic was due in part by their depiction of light. How it hit a subject, for example, a face, and on the other side of it, the light would fade, turning into a shadow. I am moderately colorblind and I can’t imagine the tediousness of having to mix paint and make gradients to mimic that illusion in a canvas.

Photographs did it in a blink.

While editing a portrait of mine in Lightroom, when I touched a slide enough for me to see a change in the color of my blue jacket, but not enough to realize that I turned the blues into... “Purple Man” commented on a friend of mine. “Wait, what?” Then did I realize not to mess around colors in post. Nor did I have the confidence of trusting how colors coalesced in a photo. If colors distracted the eye even in the slightest in a photo, I didn’t hesitate. I turned it monochromatic. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 32

One of the earliest and most famous documentary photographers was Henri Cartier-Bresson’s. In his photos, Bresson was one of the first who had a sense of deliberateness in placing objects in particular parts of the frame. His photographs had a painting-like sense of geometry and order. These compositions were often just in the street, hence he pioneered the genre of street photography. One of his most famous pictures depicts a visibly shocked the Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, standing above a platform outside his home, announcing Gandhi’s death in front of a crowd of people.

Another picture that didn’t have any real historical significance and yet remains to be famous today was a picture of a bicyclist going past an alley in France. He fills the frame with the railing of stairs that spiraled down the road. But lines from the staircase that spirals serve a purpose, almost being a sort of guide, a guide that sensuously points the viewers’ eyes to the bicyclist. Many photographers since have taken influence from his style of incorporating a sense of geometry and harmony in regular scenes on the street.

Jilson Tiu, a photojournalist I admired on Instagram, sat two seats away from where I sat in the workshop. He liked my pictures. Jilson took photos of subjects out in the streets of Manila. His feed featured children playing in the rain, silhouettes against the headlights of cars crossing a highway in the rain, vendors seeking shelter under an umbrella during a sun shower. His editing was vibrant, it depicted Manila with a warm sense of optimism.

Many other street photographers I imitated the style of had similar attention towards geometry and order as Cartier-Bresson. Most were based in Europe and whose pictures often depicted scenes in the street, the distinct shapes made by the architecture of European cities forming lines, patterns. The strength of geometry that their environment was able to bring to a picture, however, couldn’t be replicated in my environment. As I had strived to achieve the same effect of order in my photos, Jilson instead generated interest in his photos by portraying subjects amidst the imperfect, cluttered environment of Manila. He embraced the environment, and with it made a style of his own. I, on the other hand, tried to exclude this 33 · Benjie Bernal

clutter of Manila. Perhaps I thought I could make a Europe out of Manila. * It was a few days after the workshop when I read Berger. In his essay “Understanding a Photograph,” he explains that a photograph is a decision that the photographer has made, that this is worth seeing. Berger talks about how photography cannot enter the fine arts because composition in a photograph cannot be interpreted in the same way as the composition of a painting. A good photograph is a well-composed one, sure, but he says the true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives not how it plays with form—of how things are organized in the frame—but how it plays with time.

Berger isn’t saying that composition is worthless in communicating meaning, however, he’s arguing that the essence of photos can only be derived from the content that it’s depicting.

I googled Abraham Lincoln upon remembering that I saw a photo of him in an old encyclopedia set I had. His most famous one depicts him two years before his assassination, during the middle of the American Civil War. Had Lincoln lived twenty years earlier, we would likely know his face from an artist’s depiction like we do with America’s founding fathers, alas we see a representation of the actual light that had bounced off his actual face.

Similarly, there are photographs of Manila during the American period before its destruction during World War II that I encountered floating around Facebook. The photos depicted a Manila devoid of traffic, people dressed in Americana, and streets devoid of the clutter. It depicted freshly paved streets and architecture reminiscent of Europe, a Manila that I find hard to imagine. A Manila that, compared to now, seems almost mythological. Berger writes that a photograph, whilst recording what has been seen, always and by its nature refers to what is not seen. The thing unseen is time.

If this was entirely the case of judging photographs then my efforts of going out in the streets in the hopes of finding just interesting heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 34

scenes and compositions went contrary to Berger’s definition of what photography was. Which was to say, in a sense, useless.

The two photojournalists in the room, being JL and Jilson, wondered where I was in my photos. Not in the literal see-my-facein-the-frame sense, rather they questioned how these photos told a story in a perspective that was distinctly mine. I told them the truth; I didn’t have a purpose to tell a story when I went out to the streets, camera in hand. I was a commuter who wanted to take pictures of my commute and that was as far as my story went.

At its simplest, the message of a photograph decoded, Berger says, is “I have decided that this is worth recording.” I look at Lincoln’s portrait. There was a number of photographs taken of Lincoln readily available in Wikipedia, but his most famous one stands out because of a liberty the photographer made. Most photos of Lincoln and of people in general around this era captured them sitting in a chair, looking off to the distance. Often they shot portraits of the person’s whole body, or from their waist up. Alexander Garner, the photographer, decided to step closer, and told Lincoln to stare straight into the lens. The result is a tighter image and the viewer has more focus on the characteristics of Lincoln’s face. We see Lincoln’s penetrating gaze, the wrinkles that stress across his face, and the individual hairs that make up his thick, bushy beard. I imagined they were eyes of someone who was able to view the world in a completely different time, eyes that led a nation, eyes that, in one fateful night in a theatre, shut itself forever.

Photography’s value may emanate from its capacity to communicate the things it depicts. Photos may be just light and time as Berger says. But I question whether perhaps a picture can tell things about the person behind the lens other than just yes, he chose to capture it. Tell something about them perhaps in the same light as the subject he’s depicting. Can viewers examine the photographer in the same clarity as to the subjects he depicts?

One of the panelists in the workshop brought up the notion that my outputs may perhaps be akin in being the products of visual exercises, and perhaps not a genuine effort of telling a story. Taken 35 · Benjie Bernal

that way, my photos could have just been taken as a series that told of a student trying to study light. Of a student whose use of photography to go out, shoot, and make art was therapeutic. Perhaps they were right.

I wondered how I could show myself in pictures. The question baffled me in more than just a practical sense. The way they posed the question made it as if having a reason to why one takes photos is a prerequisite to having an identity. I didn’t have a story, but I denied the implication that there wasn’t a deeper reason in why I took photos the way I did, why I brought my camera everywhere I went.

At the time, I wanted to make a career out of those inclinations and it was something I brought up with JL in our workshop consultation.

I was unsure how the skills I had and the characteristics of the work I exhibited I could use to perhaps be used to pursue a career. I asked how he landed his career. He said he was lucky.

I write this in my seniority of being a college student and being posed that having an identity was a necessity, the idea of having the power to lay a predetermined path for my future still scares me.

Pictures may be light and time, but the future was not something I could frame and bring order to. Getting a camera may have brought me a sense of order and yet the want to take pictures brings about another obstacle that the camera could not settle the disorganization of. There was no future to organize. Its light has not yet been emitted.

The future is still shrouded in darkness.

There is, I admit, certainly some form of vanity in the act of photographing that drives the photographer to reason that a moment is worth capturing. There is a want. And in the act, if done right, gratification is instantaneous. It was this high that brings my family joy after every click on their phone. It is this high that brought my mind order. What direction this wanting will lead me towards I remain, however, unsure of. * Recently, my relatives from Spain and the province went to Boracay heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 36

along with me and my mom. They even brought my seventy-sevenyear-old grandmother along with us to island-hop. On the boat ride where we met rough seas and light drizzles, I held on to my camera.

I was at the bow, pointing back at them with the intent to document smiles the smiles they shed during a time they seldom spent complete as a family. They laughed as they found themselves enjoying the wind in their hairs and saltwater splashing onto their faces. Afterward, they asked for the photos thinking I was able to capture them at their prettiest and most photogenic. I couldn’t. But I like to think that the trip solidified that I enjoyed being around family as long I was in the role of a documenter.

In my Lightroom library, I deployed a method of organizing photos by putting a rating on them by clicking through the numbers of my keyboard. The score was a sort of note that says: keep this.

Things that didn’t have a score I deleted.

When I showed JL my photo library, the pictures of family and friends I had rated with a two or three remained hidden, confined by the search filter I used alongside the scores that I had given the pictures prior to the workshop. The scores indicated they were lower.

I browse through the pictures of the trip and realize they had more value than what I originally thought they had.

My aunt and uncle were sitting together across the aisle I was seated. My aunt was looking particularly stressed. It was both their first time in a plane.

My mother had her head peeking out of a van when we were on our way to our hotel. She was wearing a dark pair of imitation RayBan Aviators and is in her mid-forties, white-skinned and glowing in the sunlight. On her forehead, amidst her maintained youthful glow, a few wrinkles made their way across. This is not her only picture. In the portfolio I gave the workshop, she is absent, but in my library, she is a subject that keeps persisting because she is an ever-present subject in my life.

Deciding which photographs to keep or discard is difficult, always a careful task. A misinterpretation correlates to losing a moment to the oblivion that is the steady march of time. But pressing the shutter, 37 ¡ Benjie Bernal

like choosing to hold on to a memory because of sentimentality, makes the march seem more bearable.

I browse my photo library and remind myself to keep my camera with me in my bag constantly in the last few days of college. I keep it because I want to have a few memories that I could hold, memories that other people can hold with me. I had a photoshoot with the other seniors of my org recently. There, I pointed my camera, unostentatiously, and took photos of scenes that seemed to represent a time already fleeting.

The photos I took were mostly of people: friends who are constantly growing and changing, amidst an environment they are about to grow out of. They are smiles who seem irrelevant given how many they show in a day, but seem more important to capture especially in these last few sentimental days of a chapter. It’s the idea that certain memories, those we manage to keep, could perhaps represent our outlook on entire chapters of our lives that makes the effort of keeping much more worthwhile.

JL perhaps asked me whether I ever had a heartbreak to bring up the possibility of whether I could posit an underlying purpose to my art. Like Taylor Swift writing songs about heartbreak not just as a means of revenge or expression, but as a means of coping, a means of moving forward.

I browse some more and I come across photos of friends in a bar in Katipunan from a few months earlier. They are gathered around the table, and there are scattered towers of cocktails and a few bottles of beer and Smirnoff. I remember the day as I open the metadata and timestamps indicate they were taken at noon. Amidst the faces of friends lies the unguarded smile of a former crush. I broke my own heart through no fault of hers. But rather just because I couldn’t imagine us being together in the same picture.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 38

39 · Benjie Bernal

Exposures in Isolation (Series) 1. Digital Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 40

Exposures in Isolation (Series) 2. Digital Photography.

41 ¡ Benjie Bernal

Exposures in Isolation (Series) 3. Digital Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 42

Exposures in Isolation (Series) 4. Digital Photography.

43 ¡ Benjie Bernal

Pavement glints - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 1. Digital Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 44

Parasailing silhouettes - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 2. Digital Photography.

45 ¡ Benjie Bernal

Sunrise walks - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 3. Digital Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 46

Underpass shadows - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 4. Digital Photography.

47 ¡ Benjie Bernal

Mall walks - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 5. Digital Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 48

Evening runs - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 6. Digital Photography.

49 ¡ Benjie Bernal

Dusk deliveries - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 7. Digital Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 50

Idle glances - Figures Amidst Their Environments (Series) 8. Digital Photography.

51 ¡ Benjie Bernal

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 52

Danielle Cabahug bs communications technology management, minor in creative writing Danie came into the Ateneo driven, and oftentimes blinded by ambition. She graduates with a major in Communications Technology Management and a minor in Creative Writing; two headspaces that have bled into her work along the way—the former having taught her to count, and the latter having taught her to sit still enough to think about the things that did. In her senior year, she served as Associate English Editor for heights, was a fellow for non-fiction in the 25th Ateneo heights Writers Workshop, and was conferred a Loyola Schools Award for the Arts in non-fiction.

She would like to fill the space with thanks—to Sir Martin Villanueva and Ma’am Nica Bengzon for indulging her questions, and for the boundless kindness. To her sisters at heart, Celina, Sophia, Ysa, Chelsea, the friends and allies of the Women’s Village Residency, the “KKK”, heights, AMP, and all of the friends inbetween. To Mike, whose unwavering support has kept her going all this time, and to Marissa, for the only essay she’s ever considered finished writing.

She will always be writing and re-writing her thesis.

More of her work can be found at daniellecabahug.journoportfolio.com

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 54

55 ¡ Danielle Cabahug

Boundaries of Care the memory of my first kindergarten morning is made up of a mix of feelings I didn’t have names for at the time. I held my mom’s hand tight, begrudgingly taking tiny steps into the gates of the converted bungalow that was Beginner’s Circle.

“This is your new school, Dan,” mom said, pulling my hand tighter as I began to resist, my white patent sandals straining against the concrete.

“I don’t wanna go, ma,” I said, tears stinging my eyes, somehow knowing she wouldn’t be coming inside with me, not knowing what would be behind the red door.

“Yaya Emily will be with you, I’ll see you later, okay?” she said as I clung to her leg, clutching at her dress, and breaking into a full-on temper tantrum. It was the day I first heard the term “separation anxiety”—a distress I didn’t think I’d ever see past my preschool days.

There was a gap between my mother and I, that I was then determined to keep closed. * “So Dan, your mom says you’re always out,” began ninang Betty, getting into the driver’s seat. Her sedan’s new car smell was cut by the familiar scent of cigarette smoke as I hitched a ride with her to the mall. She picked me up from the house on Houston street where we lived with my lola, my mother’s mother, only 3.5 kilometers from where Beginner’s Circle was. It had been over ten years since my kindergarten days.

“I mean I go out. I don’t think it would be normal for people my age not to,” I told her in all my sixteen-year-old glory, guarded, despite ninang Betty being easier to talk to than my own mother.

“Why do you ask?” I inquired, certain the conversation was warranted by either one of two things: my mother having ranted to heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 56

her sister about the latest thing her ‘rebellious teenage daughter’s done,’ or my mother not having said anything about me at all. Either was equally alarming, the former quickly becoming old news.

“Well, she did say, kausapin mo nga ‘yang inaanak ‘mo. I don’t know what’s going on with her anymore.” We stopped at a red light.

“You should talk to your mom more,” she said, with two hands on the wheel, perhaps fulfilling a sense of duty as the words spilled out.

“The last time I tried, she pulled the ‘kababae ‘mong tao’ speech, and ended with ‘what would lola think if she found out?’ It’s not like she actually wants to talk. She even said, ‘pareho kayong tabas ng ninang mo!’” We both laughed, and the light turned green.

The part of mom’s mothering I’d become familiar with was the poking and prodding, an incessant need to take account of friends’ names, and places I was. From my mother I’d picked up the difference between listening to understand, and listening to be able to conjure up a sermon. As daughter I took comfort in the quiet spaces of the things I was allowed to keep private, and was bent on doing so. * The home is built on hours and hours of unpaid labor, all in the name of household chores. In many parts of the world, homes are held together mostly by women, with chores that range from cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and home repairs.

Their invisible labor, invaluable. The case was the same for our own household, and the stringency by which the household chores were to be done was an area where lola and mom saw eye-to-eye, like most things. We’d moved into lola’s house on Houston at the advent of hard times, after my grandfather died, leaving lola with her sole longtime househelper. Lola was the matriarch to a family of four children, my mother being the eldest girl. Mom took after lola the most, in more ways than one: in her looks, temperament and her tendency to nitpick. There was always something out of place for her to notice— anything from a pancake left on the stove to brown a little too long, or the unsightly way the epoxy jutted out from two pieces of furniture.

57 · Danielle Cabahug

It went without saying, nothing got by mom.

For the most part, the memories I have of lola in the Houston house remain bathed in light: apple pie crusts made with a special recycled glass bottle for a rolling pin, a note lodged down its neck: Lola mama’s rolling pin, DO NOT THROW, clippings of the latest worrisome thing on the news gingerly cut out and saved for her grandchildren, frequent reminders to pray. I recall that signs of idleness seemed to offend her the most, especially when it came to chores that could be done for others, “you serve your papa,” she’d say come merienda time, and after, “he’s about to wash the dishes, unahan mo na”. Care for her, was synonymous to servitude. Oftentimes, she’d turn her attention to home repairs. A wall she decided she wanted torn down for more space, or part of the roof that needed to be patched became topics of conversation between lola and my father who worked as a contractor.

I thought her to be the primary foreman of the house.

There were things lola needed or wanted that mom simply understood, even before lola said it. Lola was as dependent on mom, as mom was on her. They were almost always on the same wavelength, and when they weren’t, mom always found ways to appease her own mother. There was no doubt that lola’s eldest girl was the good daughter, the favorite daughter through and through, but to what lengths can we stretch ourselves to ensure the label sticks? * Unlike the many families whose mealtime rituals took place at dinner, mine had them over breakfast—and the breakfast spread is mom’s specialty. On the weekends that I would be home from university, as the early morning sun streamed into the dining room, mom would sit with me at the table before lola finished breakfast in bed and came out for a morning walk. And just as I was about to start preparing for the coming week in what I would consider ‘quiet time’, she began the routine small talk.

“How’s school?” she asked.

“It’s fine. Just lots of work.” heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 58

“Are you more occupied by schoolwork or orgwork?” she tried again. I settled for “both.”

Her forehead creased, and seeing concern color the rest of her face, I followed up, “but I enjoy it, so it’s fine.”

“Do you still get to cook in the condo?” she continued. I sighed almost audibly.

“Sometimes. Mostly for breakfast. I just don’t have the time anymore,” I replied.

The same set of questions warranted the same set of answers, week after week. And so it went, her reaching, me receding further into distant silence in a conversation that usually spanned the matter of minutes between when the toaster rang done, or the tawilis turned crisp. The cornerstones of her mothering never changed. Making sure good food was on the table and the house was clean ranked highest on a list that scarcely accomodated the possibility of any other need that came up, especially when it came at odds with her capacity to care for lola. She sat across from me then, in her matching sleepwear, and her toaster minute was up.

By all standards, my mother has been a good daughter. The manner of her mothering, to me however, seemingly missed the mark. I wanted my mother to want to understand why things were, and to have my back. Instead, there was much criticism and an insistence on her way of being. It was clear that I was unlike mom, who was like her own mother. This is to say, I wanted my mother to be different, but don’t we all? * After the commute from home from QC one weekend, I set my bag down on a divan and went straight for my room. Mom came in then to ask if I’d eaten, and brought a plate of turon into the room.

She set the plate down and sat by the bed where I lay in fetal position.

“What happened?” she asked, gently stroking my back.

Silence.

It was the first day after a break-up, the previous night filled with 59 · Danielle Cabahug

a heated back and forth between me and my then boyfriend, who had decided for one reason or another that he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. And I couldn’t do a thing about it.

“You know you can talk to me, Dan,” she urged, “what’s wrong?”

Thinking myself wise for handling it on my own, I said nothing, dubious at what seemed to be an overt display of affection. I had grown to become skeptical of this affection when it had always been scrimped on, so sorely lacking over the years.

Where the bounds of mom’s care for her mother seemed to stretch indefinitely, for her only daughter, they spanned not even the last 200 meter distance between the exit from our subdivision to the nearest UV Express terminal I’d walk to on the commute back to QC. She would drive me halfway, just before it became inconvenient, and never the whole way through. It was not something I would forget in the moment.

I wonder what it feels like, to be so close, but separate. To be right at the border, begging to be let in, knowing that you’d be denied entry into private territory. Steeped in silence, I wonder whether realization had set in for my mother then, that the period in which her only child perhaps needed her the most had lapsed, and that she spent it being a good daughter instead. * My grandmother was 89 the day she fell. I was in my sophomore year of university. It was the day I first truly learned what the word “helpless” meant, her having held onto my arm as we walked from the mall to the parking lot, mom having gone ahead so she could meet us halfway with the car. Lola hated the idea of walkers, still strong enough to walk without being dependent on one and ended up dragging them with her when she walked. She opted to cling to my arm.

And then the vertigo hit. She didn’t make a sound, grabbing onto me as she silently stumbled sideward, and then backward. Next thing I knew her back was on the concrete. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 60

“Kuya, tulong lang po, itayo lang po natin si lola,” I croaked out to a passerby. The sense of urgency to get her up equally as strong as the desire not to pull or break anything in her already fragile body. Mom arrived, and the three of us helped her into the car. I found out on the same day that it wasn’t the first time she’d fallen.

That was when it began: the latter portion of my mother’s married life lived for lola. Driving lola to every doctor’s appointment, medicine and grocery runs, lab tests and everything in between found their place at the top of mom’s litany of daily chores. The laugh lines on her face had found permanent creases on her forehead to match.

Lola’s caregiver earned her place as mom’s new best friend, bonded both over proximity and the shared exercise of tending to lola’s needs.

The caregiver had thus forth become known as “girl,” or “sis,” a step up from previously being just “Greta.” They became closer than my mother and I ever were.

I’d surmised two things from the years of their camaraderie. One: that the language of care transcended familial ties, and two, that it was a language most women were inherently fluent in. * The past few years have had some iteration of “How’s lola?” as the opening line to my routine conversations with my mother while I was away in university. I’d learned to get creative, peppering in questions on what lola would have wanted me to bring her to eat, what the latest lab test results were, and whether lola was feeling better to get mom talking. It was, in actuality, a feeble attempt at speaking her and Greta’s language, my attempts at entry into what I considered “the caregiving club.” For mom, all other concerns became secondary. I stood witness to her unravelling as she stood by her mother in decline, and did everything to slow it. It was acceptance that I had become secondary too, and what I thought to be an exercise in empathy.

Lola’s presence had never been imposing, but it may as well have been so, always walking on eggshells when she was around, and being acutely aware of the intricacies that caring for her meant on a daily 61 · Danielle Cabahug

basis. The matriarch’s children had, for the most part been away, all but one remaining in the country tasked with her care. Sometimes I’d look at them both, side by side, and think that they were the same person. Beyond the uncanny resemblance that only a mother and daughter shared, the way the skin beneath my mother’s eyes began to sag from the months of sleepless nights, and the noticeable weight loss made it as if they were growing old together, now, more than ever. Their life-forces seemed to be tied to one another, and perhaps they were.

It’s been months since lola died, but it feels like she’d been gone for a lot longer. I need to take care of mama had always been the flight response to a battle my mother had perhaps long been fighting over the decade that we’d lived in lola’s house. The same tension between the dependence of needing to have your mother around in any capacity, and wanting a life that meant the actual equivalent of living—without her. * The strands that keep a Filipino family together are all tightly knit in the name of filial piety.

Those strands extend and stretch into old age in the form of family caregiving, an unspoken expectation that has families caring for their elderly as if they’d taken the marriage vows “’til death do us part.” We poke fun at those who put their elderly relatives in homes for the aged, both because a failure to rise to the expectation brought with it a cultural sense of shame, and because there are scarcely any decent local state-facilities or institutions in place for elderly care.

The rise of more advanced medical technology has done its part in elongating people’s lives, tacking on an extra ten or twenty years than they would have had half a century ago. They have, at the same time propelled us into an era where prolonged illness and drawn-out death are characteristic of our final years of life—what author Nell Lake calls, the age of “long decline and slow loss.” To be “old” in this era, is to celebrate your ninetieth or even hundredth birthday most heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 62

likely frail or sick, and dependent on family.

Somehow, I think lola knew this. And she wanted none of it, having been at her husband’s side through two strokes and having overseen his meals through a feeding tube before he finally succumbed.

When lola started to get sicker, she asked not to be hooked up to any extraordinary contraptions or ventilators, opting to go peacefully over fighting it out in sterile hospital rooms. Wanting to be around for everyone had been important to her, but when the means by which keeping her alive meant the bare minimum of living, not being a burden was her paramount concern. I have no doubt that honoring her decision was the more loving choice. * I arrived at the house one afternoon when Greta opened the front door, still with us after lola’s passing. She hurried me in as I locked the gate behind me.

“Dan, alam mo ba, may nahulog na senior sa may hump doon sa unahan ng kalye natin.

Naalala ko si lola,” she said.

“Ha? Saan? Wala naman akong nakita ah,” I replied, confused at the urgency of her tone.

“Hindi, kanina pa. Yung palaging naglalakad na caregiver sa kanto, apat yung dala niyang matatanda, ‘tas may biglang sumigaw,” she reported.

On the corner of our enclave of a subdivision stood a bungalow turned-assisted living facility for senior citizens. It was one we’d crossed off the list immediately when considering our options for homecare facilities when lola started to need more intensive care than we were equipped to provide.

“Anong nangyari?” I asked.

“Ayun, di niya ata namalayang may hump pala sa paghakbang niya, e’di sumemplang, ‘tas nagkasugat pa, kawawa naman.”

“Lumabas kami ni Susan para tulungang itayo yung matanda, pati nga si Neria lumabas eh,” she added, referring to the neighbor’s househelp in which she’d found a friend, before she became glued to lola at the 63 · Danielle Cabahug

hip.

“Tinanong ko, ‘bakit naman kasi iisa lang siya at apat yung kasama niyang senior na dependent na’,” Greta recounted, in a situation that seemed to hit a little too close to home. There had apparently been only two caregivers available that day, one of them assigned as the facility’s in-house caregiver, leaving the other caregiver the task of bringing the seniors out for their afternoon walk.

We’d gotten lucky with Greta, who’d not only stayed with lola until the end, but never faltered in her care, even when lola’s own children were away. It was the kind of “self-sacrificing” caregiving that all but translated into martyrdom, and which no amount of money could buy. I knew many elderly Filipinos and their families didn’t have the same set of options, and that made us all the more lucky. And, after spending the better part of 3 years keeping someone else’s mother alive, Greta had to go home and make sure she did the same for hers too. * The narrative of elder caregiving is one that has not changed, save for the longer period which caregiving now spans. Caregivers, primarily children or family slowly take over errands for their elderly relatives, handling the elder’s finances, and driving them to where they need to be. Their needs gradually escalate, requiring help with basic needs such as things like bathing and toileting, in addition to feeding. Elders may eventually become bedridden. At some point, the mental and emotional cost of caregiving becomes incommensurate, and family caregivers need all the help they can get. What usually follows is a family member taking to caregiving full-time, or for those who can afford it, hiring specialized or trained caregivers. I’d always known we were more fortunate than most, but mom held out on seeking help elsewhere until she seemed to be in absolute agony.

Caregivers were professionals, after all, whose hours came with a hefty price tag. When the task of lola’s care became unmanageable for mom, she and her siblings agreed to contact an agency. Lola was heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 64

stubborn at first, insisting that she didn’t need a caregiver, and found ways to dispel them before their contract was up. Her complaints included one caregiver who spent too much time on her phone. She accused the other of eating her favorite Chinese sausage. We’d gone through two caregivers before we’d gotten lucky with Greta.

Rarely did it occur to me that caregivers sign-up to eventually see people through to their deaths. Perhaps, it isn’t exactly the first thing on the job description, but the manner of their caregiving adjusts to fit the circumstance. Greta at some point doubled as lola’s personal chef, cooking lola’s multiple meals within the day. She’d sleep when lola would, knowing she needed to be awake when lola was conscious, and had gotten sick herself, spending early mornings at the hospital with lola for over a month. What occurred to me then was that caregivers, in any form, were people on the frontlines of suffering, who fought the invisible enemy with compassion.

At the funeral home where lola was cremated, my mom’s Opus Dei best friend tita Faith said to me, “it is a privilege that your mom was able to take care of your lola.” The sentiment deeply disturbed me, I was mind boggled as to how any act that entailed so much mental and emotional strain could ever be called a ‘privilege.’ I wondered what tita Faith knew of this ‘privilege,’ if her small frame ever had to hold her own mother up as she scrubbed her clean, or run to replace a bedpan in the middle of the night the way I knew mom did. I knew tita Faith’s mother had always been padded with caregivers 24/7. I like to think she meant well. When medical care becomes ineffective, and one can only hope for a peaceful end, it is a privilege to have someone help make it just so. To have Greta by mom’s side, wading the waters of grief in the aftermath was, as well, a privilege in its own right. * It was the day after Greta left when I realized my attempts at selfsufficiency as a way to lighten my mother’s burden was no longer the kind of support she needed to survive. I watched her frantically look for replacement househelp, making arrangements for one’s arrival to 65 · Danielle Cabahug

coincide with the previous one’s departure, ensuring she wouldn’t be home alone. Mom was looking for someone specific: young, capable all-around, preferably without a dependent husband or children, but most of all, “yung magtatagal, ‘di agad-agad aalis,” she’d say. In her, I saw myself from years ago; a scared little kindergarten girl, shoes straining against the concrete, but instead, saying “I don’t want you to go, ma.”

Everyone grieves differently, resorting to whatever coping mechanism they can find to dull the pain. The full weight of grief bore down on mom and her siblings after the fact of lola’s passing.

For tita Maita, it was maxing out the allowable work leaves to close the ocean-wide gap between her and her mother for a parting goodbye. In response to her grief, ninang Betty turned herself into a pillar of reliability, taking over flower arrangements, catering and the highlight reel for the funeral service. Tito Butch dealt with it by not dealing with it at all, choosing to remember lola for how she was in her prime, rather than see what little of that version of herself was left in lola’s last days. For mom, it was holding onto Greta as the last link to lola, even if it meant trying to find comfort in a routine whose centerpiece was no longer, as if Greta leaving would confirm lola’s loss with a finality.

In the comfort of her siblings, I knew she would manage too. * Gratefulness as a concept and quality is universal, but its expression within Filipino culture is another thing altogether. While gratitude isn’t unique to Filipinos, what marks its so-called, “Filipino-ness” is the departure it takes from the common understanding of the term “gratitude.” Here, we call it utang na loob, one of those expressions that has no exact translation in the English language, despite our attempts at articulating it. The literal translation takes the two major parts, utang, or “debt,” and loob, or “inside” in combination to articulate a sense of “interior,” or “invisible” debt. This literal translation is reductive. Loob, refers less to the person’s interior, heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 66

biological make-up, but pertains to their being as a whole, in the sense of kalooban, his personhood, what researcher Francis Dancel calls one’s soul or “will.” Utang na loob is one of those expressions whose nuanced layers of meaning I’ve gradually peeled to an understanding over time. Expression: utang na loob, translation: “debt of goodwill,” definition: to give a part of oneself.

Within Filipino parent and child relationships there’s always a sense of utang na loob, an eternal gratitude for the parent’s lifegiving and the task of their children’s upbringing. This was the unspoken utang na loob that existed between mom and lola, and mom and I. One incurred utang na loob after some goodwill had been done to them, but the debt didn’t concern itself with specifics; it wasn’t anything you could pay back in kind. What came with decoding the expression was, problematic or not, the recognition that mom owed lola, and I owed mom, all the while knowing the debt’s repayment wasn’t something we could count the cost for. It was something we would have to pay forward with life. And so they say, ang utang na loob, hindi binabayaran, ngunit tinatanaw. Indebtedness, repaid via pagtanaw, is a recognition and willingness to repay goodwill with your own acts of goodwill.

The paradox of utang na loob is its being both a debt that knows no cost, and because of this, often knows an unlimited cost. Utang na loob meant the debt repaid by an uncle flying home from San Francisco, commuting through Manila rush hour traffic and eventually running to the funeral home on foot to be present every day of the service.

It meant finding a way to cram ten cousins in a meager Mitsubishi Adventure to get from Pampanga to Paranaque. Utang na loob meant sweating bullets, reading the mass prayers of the faithful and responsorial psalm to a crowd of Opus Dei when I hadn’t gone to mass in over five years. For mom, dad, and I, utang na loob meant all of our lives lived for lola, when the distance created by mom’s siblings leaving to live their own lives, left lola’s eldest daughter and her family to fill in the gaps.

For all these quiet calculations, this is what I know: there are some debts one can never repay in full, but can attempt to. And that with every attempt, there is weight, and there is value.

67 · Danielle Cabahug

* There is a detached quality to the language that surrounds the things one leaves behind after their death. When “heirs” becomes the word for their children, and the deceased’s belongings are accounted for as “estate,” there seems to be no room for sentiment. And yet, something can be said of what we leave behind, entrust and pass on.

That what we’ve kept can be bequeathed and willed to another is telling of tenderness. To make plans to leave something for another is, in itself, an act of care. Just as a mother knows her children, lola sure knew hers, and plan she did.

It came as a surprise to everyone, when, in her last days, she made no mention of who would get what, after always having joked about it when she started to get sicker. Little did they know that she’d made her arrangements two years prior. That there was “estate” left for lola’s “heirs,” registered to me as mere codewords for a more palpable sort of privilege I’d become acquainted with after lola’s death. On a piece of yellow pad paper, she scribbled down her thanks to each one of her children, and detailed her intentions. “While I am still of sound mind,” she began, making her case for shares of the estate such that everyone came to an understanding. Most detailed of lola’s requests concerned what was to be mom’s share, what I thought to be an expression of her own form for utang na loob, but this time, to her daughter. The extent of lola’s care made material. After the letter was sealed, lola’s instructions to Greta were clear: she was to give the letter to mom, only to be opened after lola’s passing and when her children were together. Two years later, that’s exactly what happened.

Over the years we’d taken care of lola, I’d found myself in a space that defined what the roles of ‘daughter’ and ‘mother’ entailed, and necessitated an understanding that the roles weren’t mutually exclusive, however much I believed they were, earlier on. As daughter, knowing mom was doing the best she could for her own mother, and somehow as mother, making sure mom could function in the tight spaces that she’d been moving in, even if care meant just being there heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 68

when she asked for help, and knowing when to offer it when she didn’t. “I hope that you will see this through,” lola wrote at the end of the yellow pad sheet, addressing two of her children specifically.

There was weight in the act of facing death head-on, and using the sanity you had left to make sure everyone was taken care of, even after you were gone. Generations apart, lola had found her own way of taking care of mom, and ultimately us all, even just for a last time. * The family got together on what would have been lola’s ninetysecond birthday, two months after her passing. Lola’s favorite sticky sesame-covered buchi and hopia from Mandarin Palace found their place at the family celebration. On the bus ride home to Paranaque, I looked at mom’s image from an archived Instagram story of last year’s grandparents day, a fleece blanket wrapped around her as she cozied up on the couch. I noticed how she was slowly turning into her mother, and I wondered how long it would be until I did too. Mom still bursts into tears from time to time at a tight hug, and still says goodbye to lola—lying now in a marble urn in what used to be her room— every time she leaves the house. But she is untethered. Her boundaries are down, and I’m finding new ways to catch up to her, to meet her in the space where she is.

I’ll spend the rest of my time letting whatever grows within that space take shape as I try to close the gap.

69 · Danielle Cabahug

Falling Into La Crema’s Labyrinth, and Finding Myself In Poblacion Glowing bright red in the corner of a recently opened bar in Poblacion is a spiral of katol burnt a quarter of the way through. The place is still half under renovation, the bar a picture of the old Filipino bungalow that it likely was before Poblacion’s gentrification, complete with a set of solihiya chairs in the anteroom. I’d been here once before. The bungalow was called The Workshop, one of over 50 gig venues or “pocket stages” peppered around Makati’s central business district.

The stages serve as home, if only for a night, to different music performances and gigs of the annual Fete de La Musique. Every year, one evening in June, live performances simultaneously take over the city’s bars, and music productions hole up in gig venues watching their independent bands and artists play original songs. People take to the streets to listen to what’s local. Door charges are unheard of. Signature sounds are given a name in the form of obscure and eccentric music genre labels like vaporwave and math rock. There are the stages, the drinking, the conversation, and then there’s the music.

I was never a musician. But throughout elementary I prided myself in my carefully curated playlists, doing the due diligence of pirating off of the now-defunct Limewire and Frostwire applications, and making online playlists for streaming on 8tracks. In high school, I never missed a single battle of the bands during our school fair, sitting with friends while playing pseudo-contest judge as we discussed the quality of the performances and a watered down version of the politics of the popularity contest as a whole. In junior year, I skipped out on the school fair, choosing to take a free day and head to the outskirts of the city, up to Tagaytay where we would sip coffee in a new Starbucks on Calamba road. We blasted our own select sounds in the parked car overlooking Taal Lake. I came back only for the evening battle of the bands show.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 70

My self-proclaimed status as a non-musician came to a head in my senior year of high school, where I found myself fronting two bands.

I’d taken a cue from compliments in a few music classes and one too many drunken karaoke nights. We didn’t make it to finals, but it didn’t matter. I was more interested in being as close to the music as I could be, my carefree spirit undercut by a deep desire to navigate my way into the proverbial “scene.” This role in the scene was later clarified in a college music organization, where I headed a team of creatives that didn’t make the music, but made up every bit of its production on the fringes—gig photography, videography, the music writing and even its critique.

Tonight The Workshop was host to exactly that—the production that was the “extra funky” stage. The crowd however, is hardly the bell-bottom jean clad, platform-heeled hippies of the seventies music scene. In their place stands a mixed crowd of yuppies, hipsters in their early 30s, and teenagers with colored hair and crop-tops. A sign guides us into what looks to be the old bungalow’s living room. A few inches from the audience, the next band sets up, tuning their guitars, adjusting a snare drum, and taking swigs from amber San Miguel bottles in nothing but their underwear—five tall, lanky, sweaty boys setting up to perform in nothing but their skivvies.

A Spanish-looking frontman introduces the band as La Crema, and they launch into a high-powered song with the trademark clean riffs of a Fender Stratocaster cutting across the room. There’s a free flowing energy to their music, and I stand in the crowd, briefly amused at the performativity of it all—the band’s outfit choices, or lack thereof, and the near-dilapidated bungalow of a venue that stands packed with people. A friend points to the now half-burnt coil of katol, whispering, “I like the vibe of this place, they have incense,” before disappearing into the crowd. The ambiance is the epitome of kitsch. Somehow this makes it work, and everyone eats it up. I had a strong feeling the The Workshop was going to be a Poblacion mainstay.

This area of Makati is perhaps most known for two things: midget boxing and P. Burgos street—two Poblacion fixtures that intersect on 71 · Danielle Cabahug

the corner where Kalayaan Avenue meets the ironically named street of the Makati red-light district. As one of Makati’s first settlements, what was once known as a sleepy residential town has been, for the past decade, no stranger to rapid gentrification. It’s turned, almost overnight, into the “new Malate” at the hands of a few creative entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of low residential rent for their commercial spaces. In Poblacion, zoning regulations rule in favor of a 55-45 residential to commercial structure split. There lies the loophole: residents being allowed businesses, with the sole condition that they aren’t major commercial establishments. And suddenly it all clicks. Hence the mushrooming of mom-and-pop shops, the appeal of “art” and “indie” hostels, and the popularity of bars that are straight up half-renovated bungalows.

The neighborhood’s ascent is tactical; business booming for early Poblacion establishments, inviting more business owners to set up shop and eventually make enough noise to get attention from bigger investors to back and take over the business. Along the same streets that house pulsing bars like Pura Vida, Agimat, The Workshop and Dulo, Poblacion’s population of about 25,000 residents contend with the traffic jams and noise pollution that over 4,000 party goers bring over. Almost every other weekend, I’d joined the latter statistic, trying to reconcile my desire to be as close to the music with the fading frisson brought about by late nights and early morning Chinese noodles on Makati Avenue. It is every bit about the music as it is the places that I’d tried to find music in—that I’d find myself in.

In 2014, Fete de La Musique led me to a popular mall’s rooftop bar with four other friends to the “indie stage.” It was in this stage that I decided to make my attendance to Fete a yearly thing. We’d then crossed the street into a back alley, followed the crowd and crammed ourselves into the little gig venue that the organizers called the “obscure” stage. There was a magic to the gritty backstreets that lent them an air of authenticity. Years later I saw it for what it was.

We tell ourselves the Poblacion scene is hip, it’s cool and it’s different, just as we lose ourselves in its labyrinthian streets, where neon lights run out and turn into suburban street lamps, asphalt roads give way heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 72

to potholes and you ask yourself, what gives?

Listening to La Crema is a case study in getting lost—thinking you know where you’re headed, and then suddenly realizing you’re in uncharted territory all in the same six minutes. It is an exercise in grounding yourself and gathering your bearings, when the music all but holds you in a trance. La Crema has made a career out of having fun, and they do more than just turn up the volume. The performance is methodic madness, the crowd squeezing through the space and apologizing their way into a comfortable spot straining to see the band, next to strangers. Vibrations cut through The Workshop’s wooden panel floorboards. I let myself move with the crowd, navigating my way to an unassuming corner of the room, and settle for a sole glimpse of the bassist.

Veterans on the scene, the band members themselves are a group of genre-benders: members of their own bands, bringing in psychedelic rock, blues influences, and jazz fusion layered with guitar licks and peppered with percussion. I met drummer Alex Price a few days after his birthday, through a friend who managed a rock bar where they used to play. Percussionist Migui and I rode the same school bus to and from our high school, living only a village apart.

They both play together in another band with guitarist Gabe, whose frontman hailed from my high school. Giro fronts his own band, and an online magazine tells Lucas’ tale: a Costa Rican native landing himself in the archipelago with nothing but a thousand pesos and some fourteen liters of Costa Rican liquor and salsa on him, or so they say. Somehow, we found ourselves in the middle of gentrified Poblacion—La Crema, jamming out a few feet away from the crowd in their own little bubble, and us, a mass of sweaty bodies moving against each other in an eclectic pulse.

We’d been in and out of the different stages, weaving through the streets before we found ourselves in line to enter Pura Vida, a bar adjacent to the street The Workshop was on. It housed the Mount Zion Stage, and bore the unmistakable red, green, and yellow colors of the Rastafarian flag. A playful mix of ska and reggae boomed from speakers set up on the balcony, while purple-pink lights lit up Don 73 · Danielle Cabahug

Pedro at street-level. The building was a confused mix of bars that didn’t quite fit, mirroring the dolled-up partygoers standing across it at a fishball cart, poking at the fried finger foods for a drunken midnight snack.

When people talk about gentrification, they talk both about “displacement” and “improvement” almost in the same sentence.

It’s either postive or negative depending on who you’re speaking to.

A talk I attended on cartography and the politics of space was given by a speaker who’d grown up in Poblacion all his life. In the talk, he shared with us photos of what used to be residential Poblacion.

“This is a photo of what used to stand in what is currently Polilya.” he said, an old, cement-gray, two-story structure flashed on screen, a full laundrywire hanging from the second floor. An electric meter showing signs of life. I think about the look on the attendees’ faces that day as I wait in line for Pura Vida, atop the well-known Polilya. I think about their inability to reconcile the image of a domestic space with the Poblacion nightlife that they knew, that this information would be trivia rather than an acknowledged reality. I think about how that feels like intrusion. I belong to the generation that will remember Poblacion in its transition state, halfway between residential and commercial, and definitely approaching the latter.

I’m not trying to play didact. What I am interested in is the relationship between people and places, in what counts as home, and who has the right to take a home for their own. I am interested in the amount of people it takes to make a place a home, only for a weekend, before investors buy actual residents out of their own homes for a profit. Before the rent or land valuation is driven up so high that leaving what you know to be home becomes the better option. If my desire to be as close to the music as I could be, and what I understood of the experience of getting lost in it could be made palpable, if it tasted and felt the same as looking at a place you’d known your whole life, watching it change around you, and finding your bearings once more.

Stepping out into the evening on weekends like this brings me heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 74

back down to the ground. The breeze provides reprieve from the hotbox that is Pura Vida for a breather, if only to move onto the next. To get to Dulo, my friends and I walked the length of P. Burgos toward Kalayaan Avenue, past the midget-boxing ring, and turned into the unassuming eskinita that was P. Guanzon. The line-up for Fete’s pocket stages were almost as hard as contraband to find, so I considered ourselves lucky when we did. When I found out La Crema was performing second to last in the End Stage, I decided we’d struck gold. Squeezing in immediately in between sets meant creating a counterflow that would have us stuck in the back, so we settled for staying outside a bit longer, waiting with the part of the crowd that took hits from their juuls and vapes, and blew flavored e-cigarette juice into the night air. A Safe Spaces promo with a fishbowl full of free condoms beside us at the entrance was, unsurprisingly emptied out.

We’d come full circle watching La Crema play, only this time, the boys were all clad in dresses rather than commando. Giro looks to Alex, who sets the stage, counting down as he slaps his sticks before the band, a human metronome of sorts. Lucas and Gabe are having a good night, as if they hadn’t been playing back-to-back shows and running all around the Poblacion stages to do so. You can tell by the way they’re riffing off of each other during the set, inebriated, dazed, almost in sync. It’s a completely different set than they were playing earlier in the evening. During one of the songs in their set, Lucas picks a fallen artwork off the floor, clumsily throwing it in the air before it gets set aside. There’s the thin veil of spectacle that serves as a boundary, a seductive invitation into labyrinths of listening to La Crema’s music: one without a beginning nor an end, only punctuated by the audience’s clamor for a encore.

I walk down the dimly-lit eskinita of P. Guanzon that intersects the main street on the corner at the end of the night, taking everything in.

One foot in front of the other, more intentfully now, until I get into a Grab out of the labyrinth, towards home.

75 · Danielle Cabahug

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 76

Aisha Causing ab communication Aisha Causing is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Metro Manila who specializes in cinematography, editing, and portrait photography. Her work deals with themes of childhood, feminism, and the female gaze.

Uh...however, she does not specialize in speaking about herself so she took to her friends to continue this paragraph: Aisha lives out her life as if it were a moving image. She absorbs the world through what she sees, may it be images, scenes, people, or issues. Driven by visuals, Aisha thrives in capturing the rich emotion, tension, and color of the world. She finds beauty even in the simplest of things and always wishes to frame them in distinctly feminine ways.

And remember ladies, “femininity” is whatever you want it to be.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 78

79 · Aisha Causing

I used to go here every day (Series) 1. Film Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 80

I used to go here every day (Series) 2. Film Photography.

81 ¡ Aisha Causing

I used to go here every day (Series) 3. Film Photography.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 82

I used to go here every day (Series) 4. Film Photography.

83 ¡ Aisha Causing

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 84

Raphael Philip M. Chua bs management engineering The last time Rafa Chua wrote a short story, it was to win a bet with his merit English professor that resulted in his final grade being upgraded to an A. Now, an entire college experience later, he is proud to present his second (and final) piece of college literature.

Though he is better known for his booming voice, Rafa would also like to think that he can put words to paper. Whether you are reading his story now in a virtual or print format, it is safe to say that he has come a long way from his first collection of works, which saw its first (and only) print run at a Xerox machine.

This work is dedicated to mom, dad, Abby, Annika, Miguel, RayVi, and Fisherman Steve, who all played a crucial role (knowing or not) in its creation.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 86

87 · Raphael Philip M.Chua

Two Thousand Days of Isolation “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, his unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden.”

— Viktor Frankl once, there was a remote village, nestled high up on a rocky hill. The hill was once a mighty mountain, but it had been humbled by years of wind and water. Now, somber-looking birds nested on its wind-carved cliffs, and a babbling stream ran around the hill’s base.

Spiny plants with medicinal properties grew in the fertile soil next to the stream, and all manner of mud-colored fish swam through its clear waters. On the very top of the hill, there was a dwelling cast entirely from concrete, and in that dwelling, there lived an old leper.

Before the disease had marked him, he had been a beloved poet and tutor, and every child born in the village had, at one point, sat crosslegged on the cool floor of his home and listened to him read the great words of the masters. But the good villagers knew that disease was a sure sign of the god’s disfavor, and no one dared approach the concrete dwelling out of fear of angering them. It was not that they had anything against the old leper. In fact, most of them loved and admired him greatly. However, no amount of human love and admiration could ever redeem a man who was scorned by the gods.

Thus, the good and well-meaning people of the village decided to leave the old leper to survive on his own. The strongest men in the village gathered together, took apart the simple wooden cottages they called home, and rebuilt them at the base of the hill, on the opposite side of the babbling stream. As an afterthought, a simple bridge was constructed back across the waters, though no one had the intention of ever crossing it. *

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 88

Life in the village went on, and in time, the old leper was largely forgotten. Sometimes, while milling about the market, or throwing out the bathwater, his former students would catch a glimpse of the grey house on the hill, and feel a tinge of guilt. In moments like these, they would fill their minds with soothing and convenient thoughts.

“He has lived a good and long life, and will be richly rewarded for his suffering in the next.” “It is the will of the gods. He has done no wrong we know of, but perhaps he has harbored a grave and horrible secret all these years. Perhaps this secret is what has rotted him from the inside, like an insect-eaten fruit hidden within its own skin.” Then, absolved of their guilt, they would go on with their menial tasks, or stop to catch up on the latest gossip.

This entire time, the concrete dwelling stood as quiet as the grave, and the old leper was nowhere to be seen. Some theorized that he had accepted his fate, and planned to live out the rest of his days in shame and solitude. Others entertained the grim thought that he had quietly passed away. No one had the heart to check for themselves. * Seven months after the village had forsaken him, the old leper finally showed himself. He had stepped out from his dwelling on a sweltering summer afternoon, and was standing in the shadow of an ancient willow with leaves grown thick and unruly from neglect. A group of washerwomen taking a break after a hard day’s work were the first to notice the leper, bathed in the golden color of the setting sun. Soon, others who were making their way home from work or to one of so many bars, found themselves slowing down and gazing upwards in surprise at the man who was, against all odds, still alive.

Staring at the sky with their mouths agape, they had the vacant expression of hooked fish.

Looking down at the audience he had gathered, the leper took a deep breath of precious outside air, then spoke out in a clear and resonating tone that echoed through every empty home in the village.

With the frail man hidden in shadow, it sounded like the disembodied 89 · Raphael Philip M.Chua

voice of a god.

For seven months now, I have strayed from the waking world I apologize, my brothers and sisters For taking my leave with such haste Without a word, perhaps you worried for me And I thank you for your concern I have spent my days in deep meditation And made contact with the architects of this world Who shaped us all from primal clay They are ready to unravel the great mysteries of the universe But they humbly request that I take a few moments more To prepare my mind for these truths Thus, I beg for your patience, brothers and sisters Two thousand days more I will endure in isolation Before I can share with you the truth of this world Then I will return, bearing the fruits of my labor And shower these blessings that I have gathered Upon all in my beloved village.

Finishing this statement, the old man promptly sealed himself within his dwelling, leaving the villager’s questions stranded on their lips. In the days that followed, the village was consumed with frenzied speculation. Had the old man’s mind been taken by the disease, subjecting them all to the ravings of a madman? Had the bold proclamation been nothing but his latest writing, inspired by months of being locked away? Or, most terribly, had the man they had been so eager to abandon truly been promised wisdom from the gods?

Thinking about this possibility filled the villagers with dread—If the gods saw the old man as worthy of their blessings, what did they think of those who had left him behind? Had their mercy been tested, and found lacking? Moreover, what did the old man mean when he heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 90

promised to share the fruits of his labor? Was it genuine benevolence, or a veiled warning of retribution?

These questions circled the village like a thick, suffocating fog, ever-present in the villager’s minds as they went about their daily duties, ate supper with their families, and tried to fall asleep at night.

It was an incurable itch; manifesting itself in every misthreaded needle, burnt supper, and missed shot in the woods. Most infuriating for the villagers is that they could do nothing but wait for the answer.

They were well-built men and women used to working with their hands, and it was natural law that the harder they worked towards something, the sooner it would come to them. Waiting for something and not knowing whether it was a blight or a boon left them helpless, aimless, and utterly restless. Mere months into the waiting, upright men and women were moved to drink, the local police force was consumed by a pointless investigation that would have been better handled by the clergy, and children skipped school to meet in secret, spinning fantastical tales about what would happen the day the old prophet came down from the hill. The problem became so great that a well-respected minister was moved to address it in his nighty service.

With the entire village gathered in the grassy lot outside his chapel, he delivered a lengthy and scalding sermon, which could neatly be summarized in its last two sentences: “This is another test from the gods, a final chance to redeem ourselves and our village. We must wait patiently for the promised day to come, and perhaps in the waiting itself, true wisdom will be found.”

Scarcely understanding his words, the villagers nonetheless nodded agreeably and vowed not to interrupt the old prophet’s meditation. While they were not normally religious folk, the minister had given a clear purpose to the dreadful task of waiting, and that meant it was now something they could bear. *

91 · Raphael Philip M.Chua

On the one-thousand-and-second day of isolation, the vow was broken.

Rising in the early hours of the morning, before the fishermen had even begun placing bait in their traps, the minister’s son found himself trudging across the rickety bridge with a leaden club in hand.

Reaching the top of the hill, he came face-to-face with the sealed door of the old prophet’s residence, rusted shut after years of disuse.

Raising the club above his head, he brought the old door down with a mighty thunk, knocking it off its hinges. The resulting racket woke up several people in the village, who went door-to-door, rousing their neighbors, until a large crowd had gathered before the old man’s dwelling. * The curious villagers now crowded around the open doorway, dutifully scolding the boy for breaking the vow they had made together, but secretly grateful that someone else had finally done the deed. Stepping inside, they found the room completely bare, and whispers began to circulate that the old man had attained enlightenment much faster than expected, and that the gods were so impressed that they raised him, body and soul, to the heavens above.

Others guessed that the old man’s disease had become so virulent that it turned his entire body to dust, which was then scattered by a passing breeze. A third person was about to share his own theory relating to the local mudfish when he was abruptly cut off by a sharp cry from a darkened corner of the room, where a washerwoman lay slumped before a tattered straw mat.

Lying on the mat was the old man’s corpse. The cool alpine air had preserved his body perfectly, and he looked as if he had just laid down for a long afternoon nap with a satisfied smile on his lips. Despite his appearance, it was evident from the state of the old man’s dwelling that he had been dead for a very long time.

Realizing their folly, the villagers cried out in unison, their voices echoing in the small, dark space. Outside, the first rays of dawn spilled heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 92

over the hill, casting a tall shadow over the village that resembled a proud and mighty mountain.

93 ¡ Raphael Philip M.Chua

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 94

Bernice Claire D. Dacara bfa creative writing Bernice is a fourth year Creative Writing student tracking in Drama in the Ateneo de Manila University. She was a fellow in the 15th Virgin Labfest Writing Fellowship Program and in the 25th Ateneo heights Writers Workshop. Her play titled ‘Matira ang Matibay’ was chosen to be part of The Virgin Labfest 2020 Lockdown Edition and The Virgin Labfest 16 as part of the Staged Readings. Her love for theater is mostly practiced in the Ateneo ENTABLADO, a socio-political theater organization, where she currently acts as the Deputy for Performances under Theatrical Concerns and frequents as the Documentations and Publications head for various productions. Her knowledge in playwriting is greatly attributed to Glenn Sevilla Mas, who has mentored her during her stay in the Ateneo.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 96

97 ¡ Bernice Claire D. Dacara

Matira ang Matibay mga tauhan vito andrada – 20. Plebo/Fourth Class. Laging tuwid ang likod pero mas relaks ang pustura. erik de la vega – 20. Plebo/Fourth Class. Laging tuwid ang likod.

Siya ay laging naka-chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in.

tagpuan Sa kwarto ng dalawang kadete sa PMA. May dalawang kama at dalawang aparador sa likod nito. Maayos ang lahat ng gamit ng mga plebo. oras Marso, alas tres ng umaga.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 98

ang dula Umaga ng recognition day ng mga plebo.

Tahimik sa kanilang kwarto. Makikitang tulog si ERIK sa kanyang kama. Si VITO naman ay nakaupo sa gilid ng kanyang kama, nakatunganga. Hihinga siya nang malalim at tatayo. Maglalakad ito pabalik-balik sa gitna ng dalawang kama, pagkatapos ay uupo muli.

Ilalabas ni VITO ang isang dog tag at itataas sa ilaw para basahin ang nakaukit dito. Pagkatapos ng ilang sandali ay itatago niya ito.

Tahimik na nag-iisip si VITO. Pagkatapos ng ilang sandali ay hihiga ito.

Hindi siya mapakali kaya’t paulit-ulit niyang kinakatok ang gilid ng kama gamit ang kanyang daliri.

Sisilipin niya kung gising pa ang kanyang kaibigan. vito

[Pabulong] Erik.

Patuloy na kakatukin ang kama. vito

Psst...Bok.

Bibilis ang pagkatok nito. erik

Huh?

Mapapaupo si ERIK, gulat na gulat. Itataas ang kanyang kamay upang sumaludo. erik

B-bakit po, sir?

Makikita na takot na takot ito at halos nanginginig. Pagkatapos ng 99 ¡ Bernice Claire D. Dacara

ilang sandali makikita niyang si VITO lang pala ang tumatawag sa kanya. erik

Bok?

Kakalma. Kukunin niya ang kanyang unan at ibabato kay VITO. vito

Huy, kalma. Ako lang ‘to.

Ibabato pabalik ang unan. erik

Ano ba ‘yan, bok.

Hihinga nang malalim at tititigan si VITO. erik

‘Di pa reveille, matulog ka na lang muna.

vito

Bok, ‘di kasi ako makatulog.

Hihiga ulit si ERIK. erik

Bok, sorry pero pagod na pagod talaga ako.

Subukan mo na lang din matulog. Recognition day na natin mamaya.

Saglit. Tatahimik si VITO pero magsisimula ulit ang kanyang pagkatok sa kama. erik

Tangina naman, bok.

Titigil si VITO sa pagkatok. vito

Sorry.

Mapapaupo si VITO. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 100

vito

Tangina, bok. ‘Di talaga ako makatulog.

erik

Bakit naman?

Tititigan ni VITO si ERIK. vito

Anong bakit?

Hihinga nang malalim si ERIK. Mahabang katahimikan. Uupo si ERIK at titignan niya si VITO. erik

Si Mico ba?

vito

Oo.

erik

Bok—

vito

Paano ba kayo nakakatulog pagkatapos ng nangyari?

erik

O, kalma ka lang.

vito

Puta naman.

erik

Ano, bok? Sa tingin mo ba ikaw lang ang nahihirapan matulog?

Saglit. Magtitinginan ang dalawa. vito

Hindi talaga ako mapakali. ‘Pag sinusubukan kong matulog, lagi ko lang naaalala kung paano siya namatay.

Mahabang katahimikan. erik

Ako rin minsan.

101 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

vito

E ngayon?

erik

Sinusubukan kong hindi isipin.

vito

Paano mo nagagawa?

erik

Ewan ko. Nung una, ‘di rin ako makatulog. ‘Yun lang din ang naiisip ko. Sinusubukan kong mag-isip ng ibang bagay ‘pag nangyayari ‘yun.

vito

Tulad ng?

erik

Tulad ng ano… ng recognition day.

vito

Sinubukan ko na ring isipin ‘yan.

erik

‘Di gumana?

Iiling si VITO. Saglit. Mapapaisip si ERIK. erik

E… Inisip mo na ba ‘yung pakiramdam kapag suot na natin ang uniporme natin? ‘Yung makikipagkamayan na sa atin ‘yung upperclassmen? ‘Yung pakiramdam na kilala na talaga tayo bilang tunay na kadete?

vito

Syempre… Sinubukan kong isipin lahat ng ‘yan pero ‘di talaga gumagana.

erik

E ‘yung pagkatapos ng ceremony tapos hahanapin na tayo ng mga magulang natin? Kapag tatayo na tayo sa harap ng kama natin habang hinahanap nila tayo?

vito

Paano kung ang tagal-tagal na nating nakatayo dun sa harap nila pero hindi pa rin nila ako makilala? Pare-pareho yung gupit nating lahat tapos lahat din tayo umitim. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 102

Pagsamahin mo tayong lahat na naka-uniporme pa, baka hindi na nila ako makilala pa. erik

Siguradong maiinip tayo. Pero maya-maya makikita na rin nila tayo.

vito

Paano kung ‘di na talaga nila tayo makilala?

Saglit. vito

E grabe na kaya ‘yung pinayat ko tapos ang itim-itim na rin ng kutis ko.

erik

Kalbo pa!

Magtitinginan ang dalawa at matatawa. vito

[Habang tumatawa] Kalbo pa.

erik

Makikilala rin nila tayo, bok.

Saglit. vito

Sigurado ka?

Saglit. erik

E ‘di kung hindi, kindatan mo na lang!

Matatawa muli. Saglit. erik

Tapos ‘pag nakita na nila tayo, yayakapin nila tayo na parang ‘di tayo nagkita ng ilang taon kahit anim na buwan pa lang naman. Kunwari ‘di mo na-miss, ganun. Lalo ka na! Sus, ang taas-taas pa naman ng pride mo.

103 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

Matatawa si ERIK. Ngingisi si VITO habang nagkukwento ang kaibigan. erik

Tapos ayun na! Sasama na tayo sa kanila. Ang saya nun o. Isang buong araw kasama ‘yung pamilya. Para bang nagbakasyon lang. Syempre may kasama tayong isang upperclassman, medyo awkward sa simula pero balewala rin kasi kasama naman natin ang pamilya natin. Si mama sigurado magluluto ng napakaraming adobo. Ikaw, ano ba ang laging niluluto ng pamilya mo ‘pag may handa?

vito

Adobo rin. O kaya pakbet. O kaya pansit.

erik

Pancit canton lang?

vito

Bihon kasi.

Matatawa ang dalawa. erik

Sa tingin ko talaga pakakainin ako nang sobra-sobra ng nanay ko mamaya. Pagbalik ko sa kampo, wala na ang muscles ko. Taba na lang ang matitira.

Biglang mawawala ang ngiti ni VITO. erik

Huy. Anyare?

vito

Wala. Ayoko lang isipin.

erik

Ang alin?

vito

‘Yung pagbalik sa kampo.

erik

Bakit? heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 104

vito

Wala. Back to normal. Ganun pa rin.

erik

‘Di ah. Recognized na tayo nun. Third class na tayo. O, ‘di ba? Ang ganda pakinggan.

vito

Ayaw ko na lang isipin.

erik

Bakit naman?

vito

Kasi kahit recognized naman na tayo, ganito pa rin ang lahat. Patay pa rin si Mico tapos may hazing pa rin.

erik

Mag-iiba na rin sa kampo. Siguradong mas mahigpit na ‘yung mga officer sa hazing dahil pinag-uusapan na ‘yan sa balita.

vito

Paano mo nalaman?

erik

Narinig ko lang sa mga officer. Marami raw media pati pulis na dumating.

vito

Paano mo nalaman na mas mahigpit na sila sa hazing?

erik

Siguro naman, ‘no? Papalitan na rin daw ang commanding officer natin. Magkakaroon na raw ng medical check-up.

Tsaka ganun naman lagi, ‘di ba? Pag nakatutok ang media laging ginagawan ng paraan.

vito

Ah… so ‘di ‘yan sigurado?

erik

Hindi. Pero at least may ginagawa sila para matulungan tayo.

vito

‘Di rin naman makakatulong ‘yung medical check-up 105 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

kung ospital lang sa kampo ang gagawa nito.

Saglit. erik

Malay mo naman, ‘di ba?

Saglit. Hihiga si VITO at sisimulan ulit ‘yung pagkatok sa gilid ng kama. erik

Uy, nag-iisip ka na naman ng kung ano-ano diyan.

Patuloy ang pagkatok. erik

Bok.

vito

Sinusubukan kong isipin ‘yung mga sinabi mo.

Saglit. vito

‘Yung recognition day, ‘yung pamilya ko. Pero ‘yun nga.

Sa huli, babalik lang din tayo dito tapos patuloy pa rin ang paghihirap. Walang katapusan na paghihirap.

Magtitinginan ang dalawa. Saglit. erik

Ang lalim mo masyadong mag-isip, bok. Kaya ‘di ka nakakatulog e.

vito

O e ‘di iba na lang.

Mahabang katahimikan. Biglang ngingiti si VITO. vito

Bok, naaalala mo ba nung initiation rites natin? Nung nilapitan pa tayo ng nanay ni Mico na alagaan siya kasi isa siya sa pinakapayat sa mga nag-apply? heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 106

Mapapaisip si ERIK at pagkatapos ng ilang sandali ay matatawa rin. erik

Gago, ang dami-dami niyang dalang chichirya. Kawawa nga nung pinatanggal sa bag.

vito

Naawa kaya ako sa nanay niya nun. Halatang pinabili talaga ‘yun ni Mico eh.

erik

Saktong bobo talaga ‘yun si Mico.

Matatawa ang dalawa. erik

Pero halatang alagang-alaga siya ‘no? Mama’s boy ba.

Grabe nga ang iyak ng nanay niya nung pinaalis na siya e.

vito

Naawa rin kaya ako sa nanay niya nun.

erik

Pero si Mico din, nung in-assign na sa bunk bed at naiwan kasama nina Mendoza at Del Rosario, hagulgol din si gago.

Matatawa ang dalawa pero tatahimik muli pagkatapos ng ilang sandali. vito

Naaawa ako sa pamilya niya, bok. Kung sa akin nangyari ‘yun sigurado akong mababaliw sina Mama’t Papa.

Nakakaawa talaga, lalo na ‘yung nanay niya. Buong buhay niya inalay niya sa pag-aalaga ng kaisa-isa niyang anak, tapos ngayon kahit ‘yun nawala sa kanya.

Saglit. erik

Kung sa akin nangyari ‘yun magwawala si mama.

107 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

Saglit. vito

Parehas nga pala kayong only child.

Tatango si ERIK. erik

Ako nga, magkasugat lang ako nung bata, grabe na magalala si Mama e. Tapos nung napilayan pa ako nung second year high school, halos mahimatay si Mama sa pag-aalala.

Pinagalitan nga lang ako nang sobra-sobra nun, bwiset.

Saglit. erik

E ‘yung mawalan talaga ng anak? Siguradong nakakabaliw.

Mahabang katahimikan. erik

Pupunta kaya sila mamaya?

vito

Sino?

erik

Pamilya ni Mico.

vito

Ewan ko. Baka oo, baka hindi.

erik

Bakit naman hindi?

vito

Kung ikaw ba, nawalan ng anak, pupunta ka ba sa graduation niya? Sa lugar kung saan siya pinatay?

erik

Ayaw man lang ba nila makita ulit ‘yung kwarto ni Mico? O kunin ‘yung mga gamit niya?

vito

Ewan ko. Baka sa pagpunta nila, maalala lang nila ‘yung pagpatay sa anak nila. Tsaka halos wala rin namang heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 108

sariling gamit si Mico e. Maliban dito.

Itataas ni VITO ang dog tag ni Mico. Magugulat si ERIK. erik

Huy. Ba’t nasa ‘yo ‘yan?

vito

Nasa labas ng kwarto niya ‘yung bag niya. Kinuha ko lang.

erik

Bakit mo kinuha?

vito

Gusto kong ibigay sa nanay niya.

erik

Sabi mo ‘di siya pupunta sa recognition.

vito

Sabi ko, ‘di ako sigurado. Kung pupunta siya, e ‘di ibibigay ko. Kung hindi… basta maghahanap na lang ako ng paraan.

erik

Pag nakita ‘yan ng upperclassmen o kahit nung pulis, baka pagsuspetsahan ka pa.

vito

Pagsuspetsahan ng ano?

erik

Baka ituro ka ng upperclassmen sa pulis.

vito

Na ako ‘yung pumatay?

erik

Oo.

vito

Kagaguhan. Inosente ako. Pakita ko pa mga pasa ko e.

erik

Bok, kung hawak-hawak mo ang gamit ni Mico, malamang mapapaisip ‘yung mga pulis na may kinalaman ka sa nangyari sa kanya. Itago mo ‘yan.

109 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

vito

Oo na. Itatago ko na.

erik

Tsaka bakit mo ba ‘yan kinuha, ha? Ba’t di mo na lang pinabayaang ibigay nila sa mama niya ang mga gamit niya?

vito

‘Di naman nila ibibigay ‘yung mga personal na kagamitan niya. Itatapon lang nila. O susunugin. Para walang ebidensya, ‘di ba?

erik

Ano namang mahahanap nila sa dog tag? Mas masama ngang hawak-hawak mo ‘yan e.

vito

May dumaan na officers kanina tapos narinig ko na itatapon o susunugin daw lahat ng personal na kagamitan niya. Gusto ko lang naman na may maiwan pa para sa nanay niya.

Titingin si VITO kay ERIK. Matatawa ito sa galit at lungkot.

Itataas ang dog tag at titignan nang maigi, pagkatapos ay babasahin ang nakaukit dito. vito

September 18, 1999. 19 lang siya, bok. 19. ‘Yung ibang 19 years old nag-aaral lang sa kolehiyo. Puma-party. E siya?

19 pa lang siya pinatay na siya. ‘Di nila siya tinrato bilang 19 year old na bata. Hindi nga nila siya tinrato bilang tao e.

Ang bata-bata pa. Kaedad lang natin siya.

Titignan ulit ni VITO ‘yung dog tag at itatago sa bulsa. vito

Ang hirap, bok.

Saglit. vito

Bigla-bigla ko na lang siya naaalala. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 110

Mapapatingin si ERIK. vito

Tuwing kumakain tayo sa mess hall, naaalala ko nung bwisit na bwisit siya kasi kapiranggot lang ‘yung ulam natin.

Saglit. vito

O kapag dumadaan naman ako sa kwarto niya, naaalala ko ‘yung mga beses na inggit na inggit ako kasi siya lagi ‘yung pinupuri ng mga ka-batch natin dahil sobrang ayos ng gamit niya. Sipag pa mag-aral.

erik

Oo nga. Ang aga niya magising para lang ayusin ‘yung kwarto niya. Minsan sumisilip nga ako sa labas para tignan kung sino na ‘yung gising tapos siya ‘yung lagi kong nakikita.

Saglit. vito

Tapos biglang isang araw pinagtripan na siya ng upperclassmen.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Nananahimik lang siya, bok… Hin— hindi ‘yun ‘yung nararapat sa kanya.

Saglit. Mapapaisip si VITO.

vito

Tangina. Hindi ko talaga maintindihan kung bakit nila ‘yun ginagawa.

111 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

erik

‘Yung hazing?

Tatango si VITO. vito

Paulit-ulit kong iniisip, bok. Ano bang nakukuha nila sa pagbugbog sa atin? Ano… Sadista lang ba sila? O pinilit lang ba sila? Kasi ako, bok, hindi ko kayang gawin ‘yun.

Mas gusto ko pang umalis dito kaysa manakit.

Titingin si VITO kay ERIK. erik

Matagal na ‘tong bahagi ng kultura dito sa atin e… ‘Di ba dahil dito nagiging disiplinado tayo?

vito

Disiplina? Kapalit ng ano? Buhay?

erik

Hindi ba’t ito ‘yung dahilan kung bakit sumusunod tayong mga nasa mas mababang ranggo sa mga nakakataas sa atin?

vito

Isa pa ‘yang mga ranggong ‘yan. Kabobohan lang din. Kaya nagkakaroon ng hazing dahil nabibigyan ang mga putanginang ‘yon ng kapangyarihan tapos aabusuhin nila.

erik

Importante kaya ‘yung mga ranggo. Kahit naman sa labas may ranggo, laging may mas nakakataas sa atin. Natututo tayong rumespeto sa kanila.

vito

Sa totoo lang, bok, nirerespeto mo ba sina Ocampo at Calderon? Pagkatapos ka bugbugin dahil nahulog ka pagkatapos ng kalahating oras ng jump squats?

Saglit.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 112

vito

‘Pag nakakasalubong mo sila sa mess hall, sumasaludo ka ba dahil mataas tingin mo sa kanila? Sumusunod ka ba sa utos nila dahil idol mo sila?

Saglit. vito

Puta, mga sadista ‘yang si Ocampo at Calderon. Pati na rin lahat ng mga kaibigan nila. Paano mo rerespetuhin ‘yun?

Sandaling katahimikan. erik

E hindi ba’t bago tayo maging mabuting lider, kailangan nating matutong maglingkod at sumunod? Tulad ni Heneral Peńa! ‘Di ba ang galing na niya ngayon?

Siguradong pinagdaanan niya rin ‘to dati. Tignan mo siya, mapagkumbaba. ‘Di ba lagi niyang tinatanong ‘yung mga kadete kung anong mga problema na nararanasan nila?

‘Pag heneral ka na, paano mo pamumunuan ang mga tao kung hindi mo pa naranasang sumunod?

vito

E ano, natutugunan ba niya mga problema natin?

Saglit. vito

At hindi natin kailangan na mabugbog pa para lang makinig sa mga utos nila ‘no. Kung bastos tayo, e ‘di pagsabihan. Bigyan nila tayo ng demerit. Sige, bawasan ng sweldo.

Saglit. vito

Hindi ‘yung bubugbugin mo.

Saglit.

113 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

vito

O ikaw, bok. Disiplinado ka naman. Ang aga-aga mo ngang magising lagi, kahit ‘di pa reveille. Laging sumusunod sa utos ng upperclassmen. Tuwid ‘yung likod tuwing kumakain.

erik

Binubugbog din naman ako e.

Saglit. Magtitinginan ang dalawa. vito

‘Di naman ‘yun ‘yung dahilan kung bakit ka disiplinado e.

erik

Sa fourth year nilalakasan ‘yung loob natin. ‘Di ba nga sinabi nila na hindi talaga magiging madali ang unang taon natin dito? Mga civilian lang naman tayo dati, walang order ang buhay. ‘Di nga ba gusto nating maging mga heneral? Pangarap mo rin ‘to, ‘di ba?

Tatango si VITO. erik

Buong buhay ko pinangarap na maging heneral kasi may kapangyarihan siyang tumulong. Ginusto ko ring maging kadete para ipakita sa sarili ko na kaya ko ngang abutin ‘yung pangarap na ‘yun.

Saglit. erik

Kung gusto kong akyatin ang ranggo at abutin ‘yung pangarap na ‘yun, e ito ‘yung hirap na kailangan kong pagdaanan. Kasama sa pagiging heneral ang pagkakaroon ng matatag na loob. Kakailanganing gumawa ng mahihirap na desisyon. Maraming haharapin na paghihirap. Dapat ikaw ang pinakamalakas dahil sa ‘yo nakatingin ang mga mas mababang ranggo, pati na rin ang mga kababayan natin.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 114

Saglit. Magtitinginan ang dalawa. erik

Hindi pwedeng mahina ang loob. Hindi tayo pwedeng magkamali. Hindi natin pwedeng biguin ang mga tao.

Mahabang katahimikan.

Pupunta si ERIK sa gilid ng kanyang kama at kukunin ang kanyang sapatos na halatang makintab na. Pakikintabin niya ito. vito

Oo, gusto ko maging heneral. At takot din ako magkamali.

Saglit. Titigil si ERIK pero nakatingin pa rin ito sa kanyang sapatos. vito

Pero ayokong maging bahagi ng institusyon na pinapairal ang ganitong kagaguhan.

Nakatingin lamang si ERIK sa kanyang sapatos. Pagkatapos ay babalik ito sa pagpapakintab pero mas madiin niya nang ginagawa ito. vito

Anong ginagawa mo?

erik

Pinakikintab ang sapatos ko.

vito

Ginawa mo na ‘yan kagabi. Ayan o.

Ituturo ang isa pang sapatos. vito

Ang kintab pa nung isa.

erik

‘Di na ako makatulog. Ito na lang ang gagawin ko.

Uupo si VITO. Nakatalikod si ERIK sa kanya. Mahabang katahimikan.

115 ¡ Bernice Claire D. Dacara

vito

Tama ka naman. Kailangan natin maging matatag ‘pag naging officers tayo. Kailangan akyatin ‘yung mga ranggo.

Kailangan pagdaanan ang lahat ng ‘to.

Saglit. Pupunta si VITO sa kama ni ERIK at uupo. Nakatingin na siya kay ERIK. vito

Pero ‘yung hazing? Kabulukan ‘yan ng sistema natin dito e.

Kung dito pa lang, tinuturuan na tayo na kailangan natin bugbugin mga kasama natin para tumino, e ‘di ano? Tayo rin magiging tulad nila.

Saglit. vito

‘Yun ba ‘yung klaseng heneral na gusto mong maging?

Saglit. erik

Hindi.

Saglit. Ibababa ni ERIK ang makintab niyang mga sapatos. Tititigan ng dalawa ang mga ‘to.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Bok, pangatlong taon ko na sa accountancy nung napagdesisyunan kong mag-apply sa PMA. Nung sinabi ko kina mama’t papa ‘yung plano ko, tumawa lang sila.

‘Di sila naniwala na makakapasa ako. Bakit? Kahit kailan naman hindi ako nagpakita ng interes dito. Puro honors ako dati sa school. Sigurado kung nanatili ako dun magiging cum laude pa ako.

Ngingisi.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 116

vito

Pero wala eh. Pumunta ‘yung mga officer dun sa campus.

Suot-suot pa nila ‘yung mga uniform nila. Grabe, ang astig-astig kaya nila tignan.

erik

Ganun din sa amin. Nakakatakot sila tignan. Pero oo nga, ang angas nila lalo na nung naka-uniporme.

vito

O, ‘di ba?

Saglit. vito

Sabi nila magbubukas daw ng aplikasyon para maging kadete ng PMA. Libreng tuition, may allowance kada buwan, tapos magiging heneral pa. Siguradong may ranggo ‘pag nagtapos. Tapos naisip ko rin na may kakayahan pang ayusin ‘yung sistema dito. Tatanggalin ko ‘yung hazing, tuturuan ko ‘yung upperclassmen kung paano gawin ang duties nila nang maayos. O, ‘di ba? Ang ganda isipin.

Saglit. vito

Nung sinabi ko kina Mama’t Papa na nakapasa ako galit na galit sila. Sabi ni mama baka kung mapaano lang daw ako.

Si papa naman nainis kasi iniisip ko daw na walang pera ‘yung pamilya para paaralin kami. ‘Yung kamag-anak daw namin, nag-apply din daw dito pero hindi kinaya. Bakit?

E, bulok daw ang sistema dito. Laging may kasalanan tayong mga nasa mababang ranggo. Kahit wala raw siyang ginagawa, pinagti-tripan daw siya. Tapos malala pa raw, alam daw ng mga officers na nangyayari ‘to pero wala naman silang ginagawa. Magiging sunod-sunuran lang daw. Pero ‘di ako nakinig. ‘Di ako naniwala. Inisip ko sa sarili ko na ipapakita ko sa kanila na mali sila. Na may mararating ako dito. Na may magagawa ako tungkol dito.

117 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

Pero sa nangyari ngayon? Tama nga sila Mama. erik

Hindi, bok. Pwede mo pang ipakita sa mga magulang mo na hindi ganito ‘yung normal na nangyayari dito. Na maayos-ayos naman ‘yung sistema natin.

vito

Maayos nga ba talaga?

erik

Na sa huli, nagiging successful ‘yung mga nagtapos dito.

Saglit. erik

Tulad ni Romualdez! ‘Di ba nagtapos ‘yun ng Aeuronautical Science? Kinuha siyang aircraft mechanic tapos unang suweldo niya 35,000! O si Ortega. Bano daw ‘yun sa klase ‘di ba? Pero nung nagtapos kinuhang operations head dun sa may Las Piñas. Narinig ko pa na 70,000 suweldo kada buwan. O ano?

Saglit. erik

Sigurado ‘pag nagtapos tayong dalawa at naging lieutenant, magiging proud sa atin ang mga magulang natin. ‘Di ba, bok? ‘Yun naman ‘yung plano e. Tuloy pa rin ‘yun.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

‘Di na ako sigurado sa planong ‘to.

erik

Ha? Anong pinagsasabi mo?

vito

E kung maulit lang ‘to, ha? Tapos tayo ang isusunod? ‘Yung pagiging heneral? ‘Di ko na ‘yun maiisip!

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 118

erik

‘Di mo naman kailangang isipin ‘yan e. Rare case lang ‘yung pagkapatay ni Mico.

vito

Wag mong sasabihin na rare case lang si Mico. Kaibigan natin ‘yun! Kasama natin sa training, sa klase, sa pagkain.

Hindi lang siya isang putang-inang kaso ng pagpatay.

Saglit. vito

At hindi ito ‘yung unang beses na may namatay. At… at kung may hazing pa rin pagkatapos nito, siguradong hindi si Mico ang huling biktima.

erik

Pero totoo naman e. Oo, may nangyari nang ganito dati pero halos lahat ng dumadaan sa hazing nagtatapos din.

vito

Sinasabi mo bang minalas lang si Mico?

erik

Sinasabi ko na naging mahina siya.

vito

Mahina?

erik

Oo. Mahina. ‘Di ba sa unang taon natin dito tinitignan nila kung gaano tayo kalakas? Kung kakayanin natin ang trabaho pagkatapos?

vito

Oo.

erik

Dati nang ganito dito. Wala talagang lugar dito ang mga mahihina.

vito

Tangina mo. Naririnig mo ba ang sarili mo?

erik

Isipin mo. ‘Yung training natin na pinatakbo tayo sa buong kampo kasi ang daming late nung umagang ‘yun.

119 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

Iyak-iyak siya nung gabi kasi pagod na pagod daw siya. ‘Di ba niya alam na mas mahirap pa ang pagdadaanan natin kaysa doon? vito

Naninibago lang siya nun.

erik

E nung ginulo nila Ocampo ‘yung kama niya habang naliligo siya tapos nakita ng upperclass at binigyan ng demerit? ‘Di ba pumunta rin siya sa kwarto natin pagkatapos? Umiiyak. Magku-quit na raw siya.

vito

E gago naman talaga si Ocampo e.

erik

Pero ‘pag nangyari, anong gagawin? Iiyak? Magku-quit?

Magku-quit ka dahil lang sa demerit?

vito

Sino ba ang hindi panghihinaan ng loob nun?

erik

Tayo.

Sandaling katahimikan. vito

Iba-iba ang mga tao, bok. Dahil lang nagpapakita siya ng emosyon, hindi ibig sabihin na mahina siya.

erik

Hindi ‘yan pwede dito.

vito

Ipokrito ka rin pala, bok.

erik

Ano?

vito

May emosyon lang, mahina na?

erik

Mahina talaga siya.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 120

vito

E, ikaw?

erik

Iba ‘yun.

vito

Anong iba doon? ‘Di ba lampa-lampa ka lang dati? Ang bilis-bilis mo ring mapagod sa mga training natin dati a?

erik

Ano naman?

vito

Gago, iyakin ka rin kaya? Pagkatapos ng initiation rites, umiyak ka rin e.

erik

Gago, ‘di kaya!

vito

Anong hindi? Papasok na dapat ako sa kwarto pero may narinig akong umiiyak. Naghintay muna ako saglit bago pumasok. Kumatok pa nga ako e.

Saglit. vito

Tapos nung pumasok ako, kita kong magang-maga mga mata mo.

Saglit. vito

Tapos nung unang beses tayong tinawag nina Ocampo sa kwarto nila ta‘s pinakain ka ng panis na pagkain, bumalik ka sa kwarto nating nagsusuka tapos uumiiyak ‘di ba?

Saglit. vito

Sabi-sabi ka pa na hindi ka pa handa sa ganitong pamumuhay. Naiintindihan ko naman. Strikto dito. Konti lang pinapakain. May itinakdang oras para sa lahat ng gawain. Dadagdag pa ‘yung pagpapahirap sa atin ni 121 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

putanginang Ocampo. erik

Ano bang gusto mong sabihin, ha?

vito

Na inggit ka kay Mico. Ayaw mo nang maging iyakin. Ayaw mo na maging lampa-lampa kasi nahihiya kang maging mahina.

erik

Hindi ako nainggit kay Mico.

vito

Nainggit ka kasi hindi kinailangan ni Mico na magpanggap na malakas siya. Hindi nahiya si Mico na maging mahina.

Hindi siya tulad mo na takot na takot magpakita ng emosyon.

Saglit. vito

Inggit ka kasi pumasok ka sa kampo para ipakita na hindi ka mahina, para maging mas malakas at mas matatag.

Pero may nagbago ba? Ikaw pa rin ‘yung parehas na Erik na pumasok sa kampo. Naiinis ka kasi ‘di mo pa rin matanggap ang sarili mo. Si Mico, mahina man, tanggap ang sarili niya. E ikaw, bok?

erik

E putangina patay na siya, ‘di ba? At least ako nandito pa rin.

Magugulat si VITO. Dadakutin ni VITO ang t-shirt ni ERIK at mapapatayo ito. Tatangkaing suntukin ni VITO si ERIK pero itutulak siya palayo. Magtititigan ang dalawa. erik

Ano? Bubugbugin mo rin ako? Sige! Ituloy mo!

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 122

vito

Gago ka, Erik. Tangina mo, hindi kasalanan ni Mico ‘yun.

erik

Wala akong sinabing kasalanan niya ‘yun.

vito

Hindi masama ang maging mahina at hindi rin ‘yun ‘yung dahilan kung bakit siya namatay.

erik

Siya ‘yung pinakapinag-initan kasi iyakin siya, ‘di ba?

vito

Namatay siya kasi sadista ‘yung mga putanginang upperclassmen!

Mapapansin ni ERIK na nalagyan niya ng shoe polish ‘yung t-shirt ni VITO. Kukuha siya ng t-shirt galing sa kanyang gamit at ibabato kay VITO. erik

Magpalit ka.

Ngayon pa lang mapapansin ni VITO ‘yung mga itim-itim sa t-shirt niya. Tatayo ito at bubuksan ang pinto ng aparador kung saan may nakadikit na salamin. Tatanggalin niya ang kanyang t-shirt at makikita ang kanyang mga pasa. Pagmamasdan ito saglit. Saka magbibihis muli. erik

Mahapdi ba?

vito

Akala ko ba binubugbog ka rin?

erik

Hindi ganyan kalala.

Saglit. vito

Oo. Bagong pasa e.

Titignan ni ERIK si VITO at titingin palayo. Mahabang katahimikan.

123 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

Uupo si VITO sa kanyang kama. vito

Alam mo, bok, ‘yung naging kasalanan lang naman ni Mico sa lahat ng ‘to ay naniwala siya sa sistema natin dito.

Saglit. vito

Dapat ‘di na lang siya nagsumbong.

erik

Hindi naman niya alam.

vito

Syempre. Parehas kasi kayong dalawa.

erik

Ha?

vito

Naniniwala kayo na kaya kayong bigyan ng hustisya dito.

Saglit. vito

Nagkulang ako, bok.

erik

Anong nagkulang? Anong pinagsasabi mo? Uy, bok, umayos ka nga diyan.

vito

Wala akong ginawa nung nakita ko ‘yung mga pasa niya.

erik

Pasa lang naman ‘yun. Lahat tayo meron niyan.

vito

Hindi. Wala ka kasi nun.

erik

Kailan ‘to?

vito

Basta wala ka nun. Kumuha ka ata ng pagkain sa mess hall nun. Basta wala ka tapos tumakas din si Mico papunta sa heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 124

kwarto natin. erik

Matagal na ba ‘yan?

vito

Hindi. ‘Yung linggo bago siya namatay.

erik

Anong sinabi?

vito

Sinabi niya na nararamdaman niya raw na siya ‘yung pinakapinapahirapan ng upperclassmen. Tapos…

Saglit. erik

Bok?

Saglit. Didiin ang paghawak niya sa pinagbihisang t-shirt.

Mahihirapang magsalita. vito

Ang dami-daming pasa.

Saglit. vito

Nangingitim. Tapos namamaga. Dito.

Iuturo ang tiyan. vito

Dito.

Ituturo ang dibdib. vito

Tsaka dito.

Ituturo ang hita. Saglit. vito

Sumuka siya sa tabi ng kama ko. Nainis pa ako kasi lilinisin 125 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

ko pa ‘yun, e baka may dumaan pang upperclassmen.

Sinabi ko maghintay siya, baka mawala. O humingi siya ng gamot sa ospital, basta ‘wag siyang magsumbong.

Titignan si ERIK. vito

Nalaman ko na lang sa balita na blood clot na pala ‘yun.

Malay ko ba, ‘di ba? Paano ko naman malalaman ‘yun?

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Tapos pinatawag tayo sa kwarto ni Mico kasi nagsumbong daw siya.

erik

Bok, tama na.

vito

Galit pa ako nun e. Akala ko dinamay tayo. Pero ‘yun pala, kinukuryenta na nila ang ari niya. Tapos nung—

erik

‘Di mo kasalanan ‘yun.

vito

Pero—

erik

‘Di mo nga kasalanan. Kahit ako, ‘di pumayag e! Sino bang may gustong makipagpalit sa kanya? Pwede maging makasarili minsan, bok.

vito

Pero kung nakipagpalit lang ako, e ‘di hindi na siya kinuryente. Hindi pa sana siya patay ngayon. Sana nakapagpahinga pa siya. Sana nadala pa natin siya sa ospital.

Saglit. vito

Pero wala ring iimik, ‘di ba? heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 126

Saglit. vito

Lahat tayo mga duwag, bok. Lahat, nagkulang. Lahat, nagkamali.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Bok, kailangang makulong sila.

erik

Makukulong ‘yan. Kita naman sa autopsy e. Matibay na ebidensya na ‘yun.

vito

Kulang pa ‘yun.

erik

Kulang pa ‘yung ebidensya?

vito

Oo. Panay upperclassmen lang naman ang tinatanong nila. Malamang walang magsasalita sa kanila.

erik

E, bok, nakakatakot naman kasing magsalita.

vito

Namatay si Mico, Erik.

Matitigilan ang dalawa. Katahimikan. Titignan ni ERIK si VITO. erik

Alam ko. Nakita ko.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Nakita natin siyang mamatay, bok.

Magtitinginan ang dalawa. Hihinga nang malalim at mahihirapan bigla magsalita si VITO.

127 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

vito

Nung nakahiga siya sa sahig at dinidikit ‘yung mukha niya sa pader para malamigan.

Saglit. vito

Putangina…

Saglit. vito

Hirap na hirap siyang huminga. Katawan niya, halos hindi na gumagalaw.

Saglit. vito

At ‘yung mata niya.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Tayo ‘yun, bok.

Saglit. vito

Kung tayo ‘yung piniling pagtripan nila Ocampo, tayo dapat ‘yung nakahiga sa sahig.

Titignan ni VITO si ERIK. vito

At pwede pa maging tayo ‘yun.

erik

Hindi ‘yan mangyayari.

Iiling si VITO. vito

Sa huli, plebo lang din naman tayo e.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 128

Magtititigan ang dalawa. Mahabang katahimikan. Patlang. vito

May responsibilidad tayo sa kanya. Minaltrato nila siya.

erik

Ano pa bang magagawa natin? Wala na nga siya, ‘di ba?

vito

Pwedeng tayo na lang ‘yung magsalita. Magbigay tayo ng testimony.

Saglit. vito

Bok, kung gagawin natin ‘to, matutulungan natin si Mico at ‘yung pamilya niya. Matutulungan din natin ang mga sarili natin.

Magtitinginan ang dalawa. vito

Gusto mong wala nang mapahamak pa, ‘di ba?

erik

Oo.

vito

O, ‘yan na ‘yung solusyon.

Aayusin ni ERIK ang kanyang mga sapatos at ibabalik sa tamang pwesto.

Mahabang katahimikan. erik

Hindi ko alam.

vito

Bahala ka na, bok. Basta ako, magsasalita ako. ‘Di ko siya natulungan dati. Ito na lang kaya kong gawin.

Tatayo si VITO at kukunin ang kanyang bag. Tatanggalin niya ang lahat ng kanyang gamit sa aparador at susubukang ipagkasya sa 129 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

bag. erik

Aalis ka?

Tahimik si VITO at magpapatuloy sa pag-eempake. erik

Bok.

Nagmamadaling mag-empake. Sa taranta ay hindi mapagkasyakasya ang kanyang gamit sa bag. Pupunta si ERIK sa harap ni VITO. erik

Huy, Vito!

vito

Bok, kung hindi ako magsasalita, kinampihan ko na rin ‘yung mga mamamatay-tao.

erik

At ako?

Saglit. Hindi makatingin si VITO. erik

Kung ‘di ako magsasalita?

Saglit. vito

Ganun na rin.

Mahabang katahimikan. Babalik sa kama si ERIK at uupo. erik

Ayaw ko lang naman matulad kay Mico.

Titingin si VITO. erik

Sinabi mo naman na, ‘di ba? Mahina ako. Lampa-lampa.

Iyakin din. Tulad niya.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 130

Mapapatigil sa pag-eempake si VITO at titignan si ERIK. erik

Sige, sabihin mo nang makasarili ako. Na duwag ako. Pero bawal ba ‘yun, bok?

Saglit. erik

Ayaw ko lang matulad sa akin ‘yung nangyari sa kanya.

Ayokong makita nila ‘yung mga kahinaan ko.

Saglit. erik

Kaya kung sa hazing ko mapapakita na malakas ako, kung ang pananatili ko dito sa kampo at pagiging bahagi ng bulok na sistema ‘yung solusyon para manatiling buhay ako, e ‘di ‘yun ‘yung gagawin ko.

Mahabang katahimikan. vito

Sumama ka na lang sa akin. Tatakas na lang tayo.

erik

‘Di ka na babalik?

vito

Delikado na dito, bok. Maraming tao dito si Ocampo. ‘Pag nagsalita ako, todas na ako.

erik

Babantayan ka naman ng pulis e. Witness ka.

vito

Hindi ako naniniwala diyan.

erik

Aalis ka nang ganun-ganun lang?

vito

Gusto kong mabuhay, bok.

erik

Huy. Ilang buwan mo tiniis ‘yung paghihirap tapos ‘pag 131 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

recognition day na, saka ka aalis? vito

Dati ko pa dapat ‘to ginawa.

erik

Bok.

Hahawakan ni ERIK ang mga balikat ni VITO. Tititigan niya si VITO. erik

Pinag-iinitan ang PMA ngayon. Siguro naman hindi tayo pahihirapan masyado.

vito

Siguro! Siguro ngayon ligtas ako. Pero makakalimot din ‘yung mga tao. Pagkatapos ng ilang buwan, wala ring mangyayari. Babalik sa dati. Kahit mabigyan natin ng hustisya si Mico, magkakaroon pa rin ng hazing.

erik

Pero malakas ka. May paninindigan ka. May dahilan kung bakit ka sumali dito.

vito

Hindi ko na kayang panindigan ‘yun.

erik

Aalis ka na lang?

vito

Oo. At kung gusto mo ring makalabas dito na may dignidad, sasama ka sa akin.

Mahabang katahimikan. Kukunin ni VITO ang bag ni ERIK. Sisimulan niyang i-empake ‘yung mga gamit galing sa aparador nito. erik

Hindi ko kayang gawin ‘yun, bok.

vito

Huwag kang bobo.

erik

Pangarap ko ‘to e, bok. Gusto kong ipakita na kaya ko ‘to.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 132

vito

Marami ka pang pwedeng gawin maliban dito.

erik

Ginusto ko ‘to e.

Titignan ni VITO si ERIK. vito

‘Yung hazing? Paano kung ikaw na ‘yung pinag-iinitan?

Iiling si ERIK at ngingiti. erik

Kakayanin ko ‘to. Ako pa. Astig ng bestpren mo e.

Titigil si VITO sa pag-eempake ng gamit ni ERIK at ibabalik ito sa kanyang aparador. erik

Sigurado ka nang aalis ka?

Hihinga nang malalim si VITO. vito

Desidido na ako.

Tatango si ERIK. Saglit. Papanoorin ni ERIK si VITO mag-empake.

Pagkatapos ng ilang sandali ay tutulungan na niya ‘to. Hindi magtitinginan ang dalawa. erik

Kailan ka aalis?

vito

Hindi ko pa alam. Kung nandyan mamaya ang mga magulang ni Mico, kakausapin ko na sila.

erik

Kung wala?

vito

Ewan ko. Maghahanap ako ng pulis, o ng officer, o ng ewan ko.

133 · Bernice Claire D. Dacara

erik

Tapos?

vito

Sasabihin ko lahat.

erik

Tapos aalis ka na?

Mahabang katahimikan. Tatango si VITO. vito

Tapos aalis na ako.

Mahabang katahimikan. Kukunin ni VITO ang dog tag sa kanyang bulsa. Lalapitan niya si ERIK at ilalagay ang dog tag sa palad nito. vito

Bok, ibigay mo ‘to sa nanay niya. Ha? Siguraduhin mong makukuha niya ‘to.

Saglit. Titignan ni ERIK ang dog tag sa kanyang palad tapos titignan niya si VITO. Isasara niya ang kanyang palad at hihinga nang malalim. Tatango si ERIK. Yayakapin ni ERIK si VITO. Mahabang katahimikan. erik

Saan ka pupunta?

vito

Hindi ko pa alam.

erik

Huwag ka munang uuwi sa inyo. Hahanapin ka nila doon.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 134

Pagkatapos ng dalawa mag-empake ay babalik sila sa kanilang kama at uupo.

Tutunog ang reveille. wakas

135 ¡ Bernice Claire D. Dacara

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 136

Justine Daquioag bfa information design “I press you to the pages of my heart.”

— Want You In My Room, Carly Rae Jepsen To Juancho, for being my friend from the first and (unexpectedly) last day of college. To Sandy, Martina, Ryan, Diana, Jamz and the rest of EB1819 for going through hell and back with me. To Zoe, my back to back karambulan. To Sophia and Sarmie, the only Tauruses I’ll stay out late for. To Arnold and Zi, keep being the twins Astro Poets warned them about. To JBarbs and Bri, thank you for the laughs and the crops. To Ninna, Marco, Dianne, Bee, and Oey, it was an honor to be the hypeman. To the DZGN staffers, you can create anything and everything. To the freshie staffers, I am so glad I got to know you. Who knows what would’ve happened if we had more time! Keep the pub buzzing. To my fellow seniors, it was still pretty good, wasn’t it? To everyone whom I had the pleasure of knowing throughout these four years. To heights, for giving me all the friends, opportunities, and the introduction to Carly Rae Jepsen.

(Photo taken by Nicole Latinazo)

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 138

139 · Justine Daquioag

Once the Party's Over. Digital Painting.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 140

Christine Dy bfa information design Christine Dy is a graphic designer and multidisciplinary artist. She creates visual identities, makes packaging designs, paints, draws, and illustrates. She currently pursues her own illustration practice to explore how culture affects food and architecture around the world. In many ways, this helps keep her wanderlust in check and reminisce her days traveling.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 142

143 · Christine Dy

Brugge, Belgium. Digital Illustration.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 144

Iago B. Guballa bfa creative writing, ab communication “We are of the tribe that asks questions! And we ask them to the bitter end, until no tiniest chance of hope remains to be strangled by our hands! We’re of the tribe that hates your filthy hope! Your docile, precious hope, hope, your hope!”

—Antigone, Antigone by Jean Anouilh

Iago Guballa will be shantaying in the Ateneo for another year to complete one major and one minor degree in a demimonde of unhinged individuals & semi-solicited criticism known as the Fine Arts. His time as a COM Major will be remembered via multiple contradictory anecdotes rendering him as either an anarchist with a depraved lack of regard for groupmates, deadlines, and an implicit campus fashion code, or a one-man thinktank hellbent on living outside the grasp of campus office politics and the coercive romance of a Christian upbringing. Primarily writing in the mode of Drama, The Aluminum Manifesto is a rare non-disappointment among Iago’s several forays into other genres, namely poetry. Regarding the first four years of his college experience, Iago believes Fleabag’s Claire said it best when she snarled, “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY MISCARRIAGE! It’s mine.”

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 146

147 · Iago B. Guballa

The Aluminum Manifesto We are reducible things We are reducible; things constructed to wear value in the ores on our skins. indistinguishable, aside pistons and gauges where the means of being are; which we function endless without heterogenous, we are made bare in every moment: operating, narrating how we burn our power away, inviting repair where our gears scald standard, we fit as built, of the right configuration to be worthy of the defining imperative —renew. exsanguinate bullets into cells into lives uniform, we are thrice the process of lesser living things. you set yourself expendable, run denying corrosions gauges see blindly. reproducible, we consume heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 148

as we cycle cold, no clocks to compute how we are the aftertaste of gasoline in engines long rusted machinal, we are ironclad. we total this manifest; then intend. we resume.

149 ¡ Iago B. Guballa

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 150

Juan Carlos I. Luna bfa information design

max justine tasha ada gab cara hannah sasha fran marie lance

jana val ven pgf justin mj giu kwan alex paul sarmie

zi bri luigi danman jude jbarbs nina clio keith luis sandy

sophia ninna rich martina jayvee ryan chris kfc

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 152

153 · Juan Carlos I. Luna

Youth (Series) 1. Marker on Paper.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 154

Youth (Series) 2. Marker on Paper.

155 ¡ Juan Carlos I. Luna

Youth (Series) 3. Marker on Paper.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 156

Dorothy Claire G. Parungao bs chemistry with materials science and engineering Naging fellow si Dor para sa Tula sa ika-23 na Ateneo heights Writers Workshop, at nailathala ang mga akda niya sa heights.

Naging patnugot din siya ng Bagwisang Filipino sa taong 20182019. Para sa kanyang mga tula, ginawaran siya ng Loyola Schools Awards for the Arts for Poetry.

Sa bawat sandali, nagtatangka sina Mina at Percival. Patuloy na hinahabi nina Eli, Mac, Venice, at Michael ang apat na taon sa bawat pagkakataon. Minamahal ni Francis pati ang mga maliliit na bagay.

Pinapalalim pa nina Sarmie at Mika ang kahulugan ng empatiya.

Sina Cyd, G, Iggy, at Bern ay naghahanap ng mga bagong paraan ng pagkahulog. Kay Reina nagsimula ang lahat. Laging nakikinig sina Martina, Bee, at Oey. Nananatili si Ives. EB 2018-2019.

Bagwisan 2018-2020. EB 2019-2020. Ika-23 at ika-25 na AHWW. heights. Beanne, Dants, Elly, at Kath. Sir Christian. Sir Jet, Sir Derain, at DokJe. Sir Oca. Mga guro sa MSE, pakikibaka, teolohiya, pagpapakatao, Filipino, pilosopiya, pag-iingat, pag-aalaga. Mga nakasama sa pagitan.

Gustong isipin ni Dor na nagsimula siya sa huling taon. Hanggang ngayon, sinusubukan niya pa ring maging dahan-dahan—walanghanggang pasasalamat sa pakikipagtagpo. May espasyo pa para sa pag-asa at pag-ibig.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 158

159 · Dorothy Claire G. Parungao

Kung Kailan Ang Pagpapalaya ay Pagtitimpla ng Tsaa (Sana ito ang puwang kung saan ipagtutupi kita ng papel na tagak pero—sa ngayon, pasintabi muna kay Faye Cura.)

Sa mga tanghaling mainit, kapag tumitingala, hinihintay kong may mahulog na pagkaing mana.

Kadalasan, mayroon lamang alikabok.

Ganito ang pagpapalaya: titipunin ang lahat ng dahon ng poot sa isang kaldero, at ibababad sa tubig. Pakukuluan hanggang purong katas na lamang ang maiiwan. Ibubuhos sa tasa.

Tatakpan. Paglilipasan ng panahon hanggang ang ilusyon ng pagpupurga ay magiging ginhawa na.

Siguro, sa susunod na buksan, sa susunod na tasa, sa susunod na tanghali, mayroon na lamang pagpapatawad.

Tila mga dahong bumubuo ng isang mukha, tila basĂĄng lupa, tila alimuom ng unang ulan.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 160

ap

s g ka

sa

in nag

ihi agh

tp ip a

ing akil iM lik n

is Ra

dib

ayo de M gua ng A lian gha atan sa k sa pagbibigay ng dalanghita kay Sto. NiĂąo

sa

ng

g

alan ikb mg at gta sa p

in

iS

s gla a pa

ga

sa

ka l

da

ya

kap il

sa

par a sa

lam

St o.

N in o

ing

unt

ng ng m

ili

gg

pa

lam bin

aglu

kso

g

ng p agk it sa

n ua

uk

a sa

iset

kam

n ke

g en

d ng

al am am tp

a ba

bali

a agb

ba

g pa

sa p

at

gub

sa pag-ugoy ng hangin sa rosaryong nakasabit

sa p ag sa i i san g di b

in

pa gk

da

ti gi ta t pa gn

n i M ar ia

r lta sa a

161 ¡ Dorothy Claire G. Parungao um

sa pagtatawanan ni Kristo at ni Naruto sa gilid ng jip

sa p

ana

ga in l u

h

is

aw ng w ga gn il n

u Yo ng

Alinsunod kay Mary Szybist

sa m

sa

agp

ang sa l alan an alab naw n sa p

p eU M e

Kung Paano (Hindi) Bigkasin ang Diyos

ang

us ng p itim

sa unang paghinga ni Lalaki at Babae

tub ig

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 162

Kathleen Quema bfa creative writing Her favorite word is iridescent.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 164

165 · Kathleen Quema

Old Habits I’ll admit: I sit in the tub too long. I sit in the tub, watching my hands and waiting for wrinkles. I sit in the tub, watching my hands, my fingers, my long nails, as they pick at the glimmers of my scales until the water gets a little murky, until it goes the palest of pink. I like to think that beneath them are a pair of legs. It’s my own little game I play: For every memory I despise, I pick off a scale. They’re tiny enough to flow down the drain, barely the size of a fingertip.

I’ll admit: When I was four, I didn’t understand. My mother would slip me into the tub, the water just a little too hot against my glimmering scales. She’d scrub my skin down with soap and a soft cloth, but for my tail it was always a hard sponge. It would scrape and sting, and I would cry, but no scales ever fell. They only grew brighter.

I would splash her now and then, thinking perhaps it was a game.

Perhaps she wanted to play. She only ever held me down and scraped harder.

After an eternity, she’d pick me up, place me on the counter, where my legs returned, and in many ways, so did she. She’d hold me close while I wailed, my damp staining her t-shirt and jeans, and when she let me go, she dried me gently and dressed me in stockings or jeans or anything to hide my legs. I would waddle out of the bathroom and look for Father. I don’t remember finding him.

These days, Chris comes to get me when I’ve been in the tub too long. He always knocks softly on the door and swings it open with the tiniest of creaks. He hasn’t replaced the lock since the incident last year. I wonder sometimes if he ever will. He sees the water, and I see his sorrow. The way his broad shoulders slump, the way the new wrinkles by his eyes and mouth deepen as he frowns, the way he scratches the back of his thick head of hair. I’m making him old, I say.

He smiles, a chuckle through his nostrils. He kneels down, and asks if I want to get out yet. I shake my head, and he leaves on his gangly legs.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 166

He leaves because I tell him to. I like to think he wishes I wouldn’t.

I’ll admit: When I was ten, I liked the feeling of scalding water against my scales. I would sit on the lip of the tub, to keep the water from reaching my delicate skin. My scales would gleam green and blue and iridescent, bouncing fractured light beneath the splashes from the running tap. The water felt cleansing. It didn’t burn; it didn’t tarnish. It only purified. At some point, I would dip my pinky in, to test. If the water had cooled enough, I’d sink into it with a sigh.

None of the other girls had my scales. I’d seen when they swam in the pool for the class I wasn’t allowed to take. Their stumpy little legs stayed. They’d been utterly graceless. I flopped my tail in the bathwater, wondering what it would be like to swim outside the tub.

Steam was rising in the room, hazing my vision.

I’d inhale it gladly into my dry lungs, my ever-parched throat finding in the damp air some relief from its constant state of sickness.

I hardly speak most days to spare others the sound of my own scarred flesh scraping against itself. Most of the girls liked to say that I was voiceless.

They never realized how true the tease became. It was true enough back then, hiding in the corners of the classroom hoping not to be noticed, curling up under the tables as crumpled balls of paper were tossed beneath chairs, the teacher ordering me out and back to the class. I didn’t like to listen to her. I liked to read, and most days reading didn’t need an adult to listen to.

She had fangs, our teacher, Miss Alaric, though no one else noticed. She had fangs and stayed away from windows. I don’t know why I didn’t like to listen to her. She smiled sweet, loved to talk about plants we ought to grow in our gardens someday. She fussed when I said I couldn’t join the swimming. “What do you mean?” she asked back then, aghast, I would say, horrified. She would ask again and again if I wanted to go in the water when the rest of the class was in the showers cleaning up. Said she wouldn’t tell a soul. I would always shake my head, no. It wasn’t worth it. Mother would be angry and I didn’t like her angry. When I told mother about Miss Alaric’s fangs,

she had me transfer schools.

My mother would find me in the tub at some point. Or rather, she’d find the door locked, bang on it ‘til she had to break the hinges, release all my steam into the hallway. Once or twice, she’d burn her arm reaching into the tub to yank out the stopper from the drain.

A few years later, I name my first indoor moth orchid after Miss Alaric. It dies shortly after.

I’ll admit: I was fourteen when I found out razors against my scales could chip them away and leave something almost like skin underneath.

I’d made a friend. His name was Marco. He was bright and brilliant and liked to read, or so he’d said—two years older and utterly enchanting.Most of the other girls in my class were head over heels for him. He winked at me once, fresh off the court everyone claimed he could fly over. I thought he must be the most handsome boy there was in a tank-top and basketball shorts. His shoulders glimmered when he jumped, just a bit. Now and then, peeking between his shoulder blades, I could see the iridescence.

His smile was nearly always all teeth—perfect white teeth maybe a little too big for his mouth. “You’re a mer, ain’t you?” he asked. I stared. He nodded to my bare legs in my baggy shorts. “Only mers have glimmers like that.” He could see. How many could see? I liked to see them, but I knew mother couldn’t or she’d have tried to scrape them off out of the water as well.

“Right shame,” Marco continued. “You’re a pretty one.” He winked again. “But you know the saying: Mers to bed but never to wed. You lot have a habit of rolling and running, don’t you?”

Mother didn’t demand answers for the blood on the bathroom floor that day. I’d flushed the scales down the toilet. She began to learn to leave me be, and I learned the game on my own. It left less of a mess for her, washing away my sins in pink water. I didn’t like to wear shorts anymore after that.

These days, Chris comes back twice more with the same question: Do I want to get out yet? The third time, he doesn’t ask.

I’ll admit: I met the love of my life when I was eighteen. He heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 168

didn’t have fangs or wings. He didn’t shimmer, didn’t jump high. He couldn’t tell what I was. But he smiled nicely even after we fought, and called me sweet names when I’d spent the night crying. He told me I was beautiful and for the first time I believed him.

I loved to spend hours talking about his life, even if sometimes he’d ask about mine and I had to rasp out a reply. His favorite color was green, he read too much nonfiction, absolutely adored the horizon, and hated the ocean, which suited me fine. He studied in a college so near mine we could go out for lunch dates every week. Had a laundry list of bad habits about as long as my own with enough sense to admit what they were.

He brought me to see his mum a month or so in. I brought him to see mine after he popped the big question. By twenty, we were married.

I’ll admit: We might have been a bit too young. Chris found me in the bathroom on our honeymoon sitting on a closed toilet, drunkenly cursing at the scars on my legs and the few specks of growing scales I was trying to dig out while they were still damp. I don’t know what kind of shock he must have been in. He never did tell me. But, he held my hands to stop them from picking, and I woke up the next morning with my fingers still entwined in his.

We argued for a bit about what to do. I’ll be the first to admit I usually win our fights. He must have felt some form of pity at some point, hearing my voice growing hoarser and hoarser, devolving from language and into gurgle.But this time he wouldn’t let up, insisted it was for my good.

We visit therapist after therapist, one introductory session each, until we finally find her. She is the most stunning woman I have ever laid my eyes on. Smooth dark skin, crinkled black hair, the most golden of golden brown eyes. Most notably, I see the pointed tips by her ears. Her gaze sweeps over me, over my fidgeting fingers and my covered-up legs, into my eyes that had been clearly staring just left or right of her sculpted face.

She asks us to take a seat.

I see her for four years, telling my stories in broken sentences that 169 · Kathleen Quema

scrape against both our ears. For four years, she tells me to go to the sea. For four years, I refuse to listen. I still don’t listen.

It’s been more than a decade since then. To get me out of the tub, Chris slips the ring off his finger and kneels down. He loops his arm around me. He lifts. I flop a little in protest, splashing him with the pink water. Sometimes, I cry. He sits me down on the closed toilet seat and dries my hair with a towel like one would with a toddler.

I’ll admit: I was much better at twenty-four. At twenty-four, Chis loved to splash at me while we sat together in the bath.I’d hide in the bubbles, eyes crinkled, watching his smiling face. My tail still sports spots of grey skin where the scales refused to grow back. But, as I raise it to retaliate, it catches the bright white light and is, once more, iridescent.

At twenty-seven, we were expecting. She was going to be a girl.

She was going to be beautiful. I would sit in the hot bath for hours, running our water bill through the roof with not a peep of complaint from Chris. When he’d arrive home, he’d come and see me, run his hand on my belly and feel her wriggle inside. She never kicked.

Mother visited once, congratulated us, let all the steam out of the bathroom. She sat on the covered toilet and chatted with me about what to eat, what not to eat. What to expect. How to deal with the nausea. We were almost normal. Chris asked her to leave when she gave us a pack of baby-sized leggings as a reunion gift. I was too happy to care. I might have even promised to see her after the birth.

I’ll admit: At twenty-seven, I bought a pack of razors. Chris removed the lock from the bathroom door.

At present, he dries my tail with a little more care. Most of the water slides off on its own, over the glimmering bumps and lines of my scales, down to the pair of delicate fins carpeting the cold tiled floor.

The soft fabric of the towel takes care of the rest. The dim bathroom light gives my tail a glow more than a sparkle, marred by the spots of tarnish near where my hands would rest. Chris places his hand on the ugly scabs and missing pieces sometimes, keeping it there until the scales recede entirely, until all that’s left is soft, wounded surface flesh. He helps me up onto my dry legs. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 170

Now and then, he asks how I am. Now and then, I reply.

We pick our rings from by the sink on the way out.

I’ll admit when I turn forty that my scales won’t grow back anymore. I’ll begin to notice it slowly, as the empty spaces by my hands become bigger and bigger. The glimmering begins to fade.

Iridescent stops being the word I use to describe what I’ve fought so hard to lose. It feels like I’ve won. It feels like I’ve lost.

I’ll admit when I turn fifty that all that will be left are scars. I pick at flesh now and then just to see the water turn pink. It calms me. My voice will have given out. Chris keeps trying to talk to me. I ignore him to scratch at my scabs.

I’ll admit when I turn sixty I’ll lose Chris. He’ll slip. Break his head open trying to lift me out of the tub. No one will pick me up again. I don’t even try.

I’ll admit: I am what the sailors feared in the bygone century. My eyes have never seen the sea. I live in an apartment on the twentysixth floor of a busy building along a busy street, where smoke rises to choke my lungs, where I grew up. I live with the only man who loves me. I’m thirty years old. I’ve lost a daughter. I’ve lost myself.

I pick at my scales with my bare hands, my nails mere nubs on my fingers because Chris doesn’t want me to hurt myself anymore. I sit and feel the hot water on my vulnerable skin, on the gaps between my scales. I feel myself soaking in memories I don’t want anymore— painful realities I’d rather not face.

I feel another scale loosen, attaching to it, for the hundredth time, the smell of the hospital, the disinfectant, the sight I catch of her lifeless body in the doctor’s hands. I attach to another the whispers, the horrified staring at her barely-formed tail snaking down, limp and useless and dead.

I attach nightmares of Chris’s legs failing under our combined weight, erase the sight of blood dripping down by his empty eyes. I pry away the thought of my mother’s hands scratching at my tail until it finally gave her a scale to toss aside and an opening to begin prying more loose. I shut my eyes, inhale the steam, and scrape away every tear I remember shedding, every envious glance at the girls in the 171 · Kathleen Quema

pool, every hint at misery. It’s a fruitless endeavor that serves only to color my bathwater, but it’s a measure my idle hands are used to taking to calm me.

Then Chris comes, and with him a new tradition. He sits by me, holds my hands—gentle but firm. He tells me he loves me, he asks me how I am, what I remember. I don’t talk to him. But, he tells me how he is. He tells me what he remembers. His voice is soft and reassuring, and I enjoy it.

When it comes time to get out, I raise my arms so he can lift me up. As he does, he promises: He’ll take me somewhere tomorrow, somewhere beautiful, somewhere I’d love. He dries me off, turning to pull the plug from the drain. I watch the pinkish water swirl. It spins, lazily at first, then all too fast. The mini cyclone is glittering with my scales, my memories, shimmering under the light, disappearing down into the dark.

I’ll admit I’m thirty-five now. Every Saturday afternoon, Chris and I drive to the beach three hours away from the city. It’s always dark when we arrive. The sky is aglow, the stars emerged and ignorant of the pollution of the lights people leave open on their balconies. The sea slaps the sand and drags grains into its swell. The salt in the air tickles my throat. My mouth waters. I slip into the cold, dark embrace of the waves.

He’d told me, the first time, that if I wanted I could stay. I’d felt the sea flow through my nose, into my lungs. I thought it would burn.

That was what I’d heard the girls at swimming class say—that water burned. But, instead, it soothed, calmed. It slipped over my skin, my scales, over my shoulders it split to allow my body to snake through, unhindered, faster than I’d ever been on land. My eyes added further salt to the ocean as they opened and I saw the corals unending, the tiny, darting forms of many-colored fish, the scuttling crabs on the sea floor so very close to the surface.

When I rose again, I saw him waiting, his eyes fixed, numb, on all he could see—the darkness. He was a mere blot against the white sand, a tiny man alone on the shore. Something inside me pulled towards the open water and I, not for the first time, felt the fear of my heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 172

own weakness and instinct.

I’ll admit, I didn’t think it would be so easy to overcome.

I swam back to him. Dragged myself out of the water, my fingers digging into the wet sand. I splashed, hard, on the shore, impatient for my tail to turn to legs. He heard me, looked at me, saw me. My tail split, my feet returned, and I ran. We collided almost violently.

My arms wrapped around him, holding him so tight I almost feared breaking him. I cried into his shoulder, thanking him with every intake of my breath, with a voice that was finally mine, that didn’t scream at me when I use it.

In his embrace I admitted, nowhere else could ever truly be home.

173 · Kathleen Quema

Pleading Innocent Allow me, dear creature, to brush your locks of silver, which so finely frame your face, so unlike any common mare I see in the palace stables, like silk to the touch, a delight in which I tangle myself entirely, as the pines dig through me where we sit on the cold forest floor, as the howls of the hounds, of the hunt, echo closer, and closer I pull to you, laying my own forehead on the spiralling bone that pierces yours, begging.

For your forgiveness, I feel, you have already given, though God knows I am undeserving.

My sister was culled seven years ago, and seven years ago we feasted like kings. I remember when she returned, eyes hollow, with a sack of gold on her belt and the stains of mud and grass and blood on her skirt. It had been her favourite skirt, dyed blue with woad leaves.

She burned it that night in the fireplace. Two nights later, she cast herself into a pyre in the woods. My father would not speak of her, but he would eat at the table her gold bought us. The village would not speak of her, but they would drink from the well purified by the horn she pressed into the elder’s hands.

The horn was caked with blood, dried and chipped in places to reveal a pearlish white ivory, spiralling like a witch’s wand. I was at the ceremony when she presented it, me and the whole town. The elder took it with both hands, bowing her thanks. My sister only stared—blank, empty. Around me, there were cheers, rejoicing. I saw someone’s mother, someone’s wife, clutching her child close and quietly shushing him when he joined the cheers. Other girls, girls her age, would not cheer, would not smile. They watched and knew it could have been them.

No one knows how our waterways were poisoned. It’s the same throughout the kingdom. One sip from an uncleansed well or river or heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 174

brook will sear through the veins of any man, woman, or child, young or old, fat or slim, built or scrawny. Long ago, it was all a guessing game—finding the places where animals drank, watching for birds that sipped from a bucket left on a well’s lip, seeing if it fell dead on the cold cobble of the square. All anyone knew was that during mornings, sometimes, the water was clean. More often, it was not.

I hadn’t been born during these days. I’d heard of it from my mother. She would tell us of the weeks spent forcing water into rats’ mouths in the centre of the town, watching them writhe and die.

She’d tell us of the long lines to the well on the days when they didn’t.

It was nightmare after nightmare, a living purgatory of thirst. It took them years to find a purifier.

That was when the hunts were organised, when the women were taken to lure the creatures to their demise. That was when bloody horns became the staple in each village. Dipped into wells every evening, they made the waters clean again. The people were happy. At the very least, we were told we should be.

The women chosen to go always returned different. "They were damaged," some liked to say. I heard people whispering by the village well one time too many. Whispers of guilt, of accusation, of pity, all while they drew from the very water my sister’s blood had cleansed.

I don’t remember her name being spoken in our house after her sacrifice. At times, I don’t remember her name at all. There was something filthy about killing what amounted to innocence. But they had to, needed to, that’s what everyone said.

At ten winters old, I, and every girl I knew, despised the hunt. We tried to go without the water from the well like the little fools we were, returning with our tails between our legs after only an evening of dry mouths and parched throats. Thirst is a powerful thing. Need pushes guilt aside so easily and replaces it with hypocrisy. Well water is sweet to the tongue and a good salve for a crying conscience.

When my name was called, I couldn’t fault those who sighed in relief. I knew their grateful stares, their applause. I’d given them myself from year to year. They cheer, but I knew the whispers on their lips that would come once the hunt was finished. I thought to myself, 175 · Kathleen Quema

wondered, if I could live with those words behind my back. I think I can. I think I will.

The knights come with the drawing of the lots. Clad in shining steel that they don’t need, with hounds padding at their horses’ heels, they prance into the square like self-proclaimed heroes to further cheers of the people. They carry spears tipped with cold black iron and I wince at the sight of them. They smile at me—smiles my sister told me seven years ago not to trust.It was the only thing she told me after her return.

But I smile back because I must, because my father told me to, because such is tradition. My stomach churns, but this is what is required of me. I squirm in my spot in the middle of the square because this is what it means to be chosen.

That night, I visit her grave. I kneel, clear the weeds that have crawled up the headstone. To have been the family chosen by fate twice in a row now was lauded as an honour—a very well-paying honour. I’ve heard my father speak of moving to a new house, maybe closer to the town square, maybe nearer the well.

Is this how she felt? Disgusted, wrathful? What right had fate to decide our shame? I run my fingers over the inscription of her name.

These days I know the place of her grave better than I know what’s written on it. I whisper a prayer under my breath for her and for forgiveness. God knows I have no choice.

The next morning comes too quickly and they take me from the house. I stand in a red skirt, my best one, half to hide the blood to come, half to keep from wearing the colour she wore. They wait for me at our doorstep, chattering amicably as though it were any other day. My father tells me he’s proud of me. I tell him all he will have in this world are himself and his filthy gold. I leave his house for good.

One of the knights hoists me onto another’s steed, seated between him and the horse’s head. I smell the stink of sweat meeting the tang of metal, the horse dung that must eternally stick beneath their boots.

I tense as his arms lock on either side of me, his hands gripping the reins. It takes all of trained instinct to keep where I am and not bolt for her grave then and there. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 176

They bring me to a forest far away. Farther, I’m told, than any had gone before. It was some form of boast and yet some form of concern.

The creatures were fleeing our hands. Fewer and fewer of the known safe wells and rivers were remaining so. Many of the forests were beginning to grow quiet. These were the things they spoke of between one another by the campfire on our journey, when they thought me asleep in my tent. The long, arduous journey felt like an eternity, and yet it melted away once I heard them.

Their lively twittering swept in on the winds long before we arrived—avian voices, serenading one another through the branches of the trees in the far-off wood. It had been too long since I’d heard birdsong. As we were slowly swallowed by rich green, my ears were treated to the sounds of scurrying between the leaves, rustles in the undergrowth. I saw nothing alive pass my vision, and yet I felt life grow with every treacherous step we took. The trees were so much taller in this forest than the ones back home. Their leaves stretched towards the sky as though they were grabbing at the very sun. Their roots were massive, tangled at their bases and snaking over the grounds. I had no doubt that beneath the soil they ran deep and strong. The dogs that followed us were restless, whining at their masters’ heels until we arrived at the glade.

The trees here grew thick around the empty grass field, the crystal clear river snaking through, pebbles on the riverbed glimmering under the sunlight. Never had I seen such a shade of emerald green.

Reeds on the riverbank bent in the rushing wind. I held my breath.

It was beautiful.

The soldier grabbed me by my waist, depositing me, unceremoniously, at the very edge of where the trees ended. They were going to hunt, he said, something about deer, he said, something about waiting a long time. I wasn’t listening.

They left me, alone, and I made my way to the centre of the glade.

Picking over the grass, careful not to step on anything that might have rested within. I recalled my mother’s stories of what she called butterflies. I remember her saying they liked the flowers, and so many here dotted the little expanse of land. These were tiny yellow and 177 · Kathleen Quema

purple blooms I recognized as the models for the trinkets that now sold at high prices in the shops in the village.

But all my thoughts of blooms and butterflies were lost in the face of the river. I’d never seen such crystal waters. The very bottom was clear straight through. There were things in it that moved—small, silver things that glittered in the afternoon sun Against the current, I could see them wriggling back and forth, around one another in strange dances that looked to be spirals.I think mother called them fish.

I hovered my hand over the surface of the water, letting the tips of my fingers brush against the bubbling current. It was cool to the touch, rippling over my skin in tiny waves. I scoop the liquid in my palms, hesitate a moment as I hold it up to my lips. My eyes dart to the dancing fish and I decide, if I were to die here, I would die happy.

Allow me to allay any fears you might have. But first, yes, you may, as you wish, brush my locks away from my face. I would prefer it. I have no hands. I know my place, by your side, and it is all I truly crave, come hounds or bloodshed, you are in need of me and I forgive easily what you have done for your own pelt, heaven knows you need no forgiveness, not for that. I see what they have done to you, what they will do, I can smell your fear on your breath as you hold me to your chest. I know what you risk and leave behind in the village you called home. I ask you only to live. That is enough.

I have lived longer than most. I have lived through the beginning and had thoughts of living until the end. If not for her, perhaps I would have. I remember the first of us we found, lying, still and cold, in the middle of one of our glades. I remember the scent of blood that heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 178

washed over the forest. I remember the mare, on her side, torn into as though ripped through by the teeth of the beast we bested without trouble. I remember learning fear that day—fear and fury and sorrow.

We had done nothing. The plague in the waters was the serpents’ doing, not ours. Their poison dripping into the very lifeblood of the earth was precisely what we were here for. Could her kind not be patient? We dipped our horns in their waters once a moon cycle.

Could they not be content?

We are drawn to the innocent, our rules state so. We must be drawn to them, for they are what we, as guardians, were made to protect. But we were not made to die. And so, we fled. We left their glades to be swallowed in silence and their water to the impurity. They followed us, cutting down our numbers in greedy haste. Seven years, seven years is all the repose we are allowed to grow foals that take decades to raise. We were few made fewer and fewer still and they, in their insolence, only grow, needing bloodshed, death.

And yet as cruel fate would have it, we cannot turn away from their kind.

They place them before us so young, so fragile, so terrified. They know what will follow, as we do. We were not made to die, neither of us, and yet here we are. She is, as most of them are, transfixed. The glade is alive, unlike, I’m sure, the so-called forests she has near her pastures. She walks to the stream, hesitates, her hands in its water.

One who knows not our protection kneels down to drink.

Many creatures before her have done the same, but none will after. She gulps the sweet water down as though she’d lived through drought. This one is tiny, about a colt’s size. Her body shakes as she drinks. I fear for a moment that she’ll fall. I fear for a moment that I might let her.

But, we are guardians. I step out, unnoticed. It takes a muzzle to her shoulder for her to move away from the water. Well, less move, more stumble. She stumbled from the water. Her pelt is red, a fitting colour for the day. I kneel down before her.

Her eyes stare into mine. I’ve been told this is what they do. Her eyes stare, and her hand moves up. Why must they choose such 179 · Kathleen Quema

frail creatures for the task of bait? They with their spears and their cutthroat hounds, they who are so very eager to kill, why put their kin before my horn?

Her hand runs through my mane and I surrender my head to her lap. I remember the last female who’d found her way into my old glade. Not so long ago, give or take three hundred years. She was much like this one—tiny, with a soothing touch and a lovely voice. She used to come sing for me before she was shipped off with a merchant as another one of his goods.

For those who call themselves guardians, we fail too many times to count.

I feel tears drip on my pelt. Glancing up again, I see her eyes turning red from the salt in her gaze. I did not expect her to beg, but she does. Something about deserving. Something about hands. I’m not sure she can hear me; I don’t think they truly can. I nuzzle her cheek, drying her tears with my mane.

This is not her fault. I know what they do to them when we do not come. All of us know what they do. They know we are guardians.

They try to force us out with screams and pleas and the smell of blood. I snort angrily and she startles. They will not take her from me.

They cannot have her. I lay the side of my horn against her cheek. She freezes, quiet and unmoving, and I hear them.

Panting, heaving, barking, biting, growling, no creature alive knows to challenge us except those trained by man. They dart through the underbrush, sleek and agile and all too fast. They howl and circle, teeth barred, whispering warnings under their breath. Something about making it quick. Something about bones. From one of them, something very like an apology.

She tries to hide, but her arms around my neck tell me she is also trying to protect. I see them coming through the trees, brought on the hooves of what some might have once considered our brethren.

They’re bulkier, larger, and there are too many. I see the iron-tipped spears. I see their twisted faces. I hear their orders, whether to hound or maiden I do not know. I only know she screams at them, her arms tightening around me. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 180

Go, I try to tell her. Go, please. I pull away, but she is as stubborn as all other men. One of the hounds lunges, catching her skirt in its teeth.

I hear the snap of bone unhinging where she kicks its jaw. I buck the next one that tries to grab her ankle. My horn pierces through fur and flesh and gut when the next goes for her face.

I feel the warm red stain my horn, my pelt. It drips between my eyes and between my nostrils. The stench of stomach bile mixes with the tang of blood and I flick my head to throw the limp body away from me. I can feel the liquid dripping down my face, hear it splatter against the green grass. I can hear it already—the silence settling as the animals leave. They know now, they’ve known for a long time.

When man comes, you run, and you don’t look back.

I can hear them laughing, low, ugly. The men circle, the tips of their spears brushing my mane, hooking her skirt. Their faces twist and they say things I wish I didn’t understand. Her fingers on my mane are trembling, blood caking in her nails. I see in her something like horror—a realisation that does not cause fear, but fury, building up, filling her with rage and bloodlust. I snap at them and so does she.

The words she spews are nowhere near as pretty as the songs.

There once lived a woman, very pretty, caught herself a pony on a rope. The woman said to her husband dead, dear I’m off to mope. And so she frolicked, nice and sweet, ‘til the pony trampled on her feet, and so goes the tale of the young miss, frail, a beauty with no brains to keep.

In society, there must be those who think of duty. What are they to say of us if we leave without the horn? Simple. They would call us murderers. Hundreds would die of a parched throat, gasping for water. Even more would die drinking what they know to be forbidden.

It’s a lose-lose situation. Our job is to make sure humanity loses less.

181 · Kathleen Quema

Don’t you think we tried? We tried to bring one of the beasts back alive to bless the wells. Their horns only work so long detached from their skulls. The stupid thing snapped its own horn in its attempts to escape. We kept it longer and it lost its shine, even longer and it refused to eat. The horn never grew back and it died, alone in its misery.

What we do is mercy. Quick, simple. What’s a few minutes of agony to an eternal being? We learned long ago to tip our spears with mercury. It kills them fast. Keeps the men from squirming and claiming they can hear it talk. The beasts are tricky that way. More than a few good men have been gutted when trying to do the creatures the mercy of a snapped neck. The things are savage, heartless.

Our tales tell us they’re supposed to be guardians. What sort of guardians allow their people to go thirsty? At some point, we needed to do their duty for them. The girls understand; it’s what they’re there for. Fate understands. It put them there. They curse and spit and scream but they return to cheers for their bravery. Their families are laden with gold. They have their compensation. For riches and fame, who wouldn’t be willing to suffer a little?

Many of them, as it turns out, though few as much as this one.

This one’s feistier than the rest. Her beast emerged quickly. No muss, no fuss. After that, I thought things would be a little less messy. It’s an old one, large—almost as big as a regular horse. I’d seen many a brilliant white; this one was silver and speckled.

Its eyes, the way it looked into my soul. I’d grown used to the beasts’ gazes, but this one’s. This one’s was ancient. Beyond ancient, it felt like staring into creation itself. I don’t know how the lads continued spiralling around it, pestering it, but they did. They’re good men.

The dogs howled. The girl wouldn’t let the beast go. We’d had that happen more than a few times. Something comes over them, I swear.

It’s like they’re protecting their own. Must be some form of glamor.

They cry and they beg for mercy or they fight and they curse, whether nobleman’s daughter or woodcutter’s niece, I’d never seen one go quiet when it came to the kill.

It was time to stop playing. I snap and the circling, the baiting heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 182

hounds, the jeers, cease. The spears go down. In, then out, one after the other, on all sides, we strike at the creature. Our horses know this dance, it’s why they still live. One of our spears cuts its haunch, the other catches its cheek, I take a stab at its belly. The girl howls at us, trying, desperately, to put herself between the iron and its grey flesh.

Now was the time they would usually scream more, cry more, try to stand in the way, and this one, unsurprisingly, did. She was more ragged than I’d ever seen them, doused with the blood of our hounds, good hounds, and the beast, her blouse splattered as red as her skirts.

She still had some fight left. I loathed this part.

I told her to step aside, warned her not to interfere. She spat at me. Something about fate, something about not having the right.

They never do listen after the beast speaks to them. Such weak-willed creatures. I tell her I have every right to do what we needed to survive.

I lean down, grab her by her crimson-soaked shoulder, and pushed her aside.

The beast was breathing heavily, heaving more like it. On its knees, its tongue lolling out like a mutt. Some of its skin hung, cut and nearly quartered by its sides. It looked at me as though I were the devil incarnate, as though I was everything wrong with the world when I wasn’t. I knew that. I think, deep down, it knew it too.

It knew, it must have known, that it was their own fault for abandoning us. They were no guardians. Some, we knew, turned their back suffering even blatantly before their eyes. For themselves.

For their lives. Never mind the human cost. They only looked out for their own. This was payment for their negligence, a sort of vengeance for their failure. Whatever had happened to the water, it had not been of our world, it had been of theirs. They were supposed to protect us.

Now we protect ourselves.

It could have ended there. The beast could have gone peacefully, could have slipped into the afterlife knowing it had saved another village for another seven years, but no. I raise my arm to strike, and the woman lunges at me. I feel her weight unbalancing me, dragging me down with her. She topples me from my steed, screaming profanities.

I twist, grab her arms, pin her down. My hand whips across her 183 · Kathleen Quema

face to keep her quiet. The glorified horse doesn’t like that at all. It screams at me, not neighs, not nickers. Screams. Pushes its weight forward, slamming me to the ground. It holds itself over her by its front legs, hindquarters limp and useless, shielding her smaller form with its own. It screams again, daring me to come closer.

I stare into the centuries that hide behind its clouding eyes. Its frazzled mane frames its maddened face, its legs are shaking from the effort it takes not to crush the woman it’s trying to protect. I know what the men mean by hearing them speak. It’s a sudden slam of fact, a simple order, a quick bark, not vocalized, but demanded by gaze, by stare, by blatant snap. It tells me to leave. It tells me to go, while I can, while it still has the patience for me.

I tell it no.

One of the men runs them both through. No pomp, no ceremony, none of this enchantment bullshit. The creature gives one last shudder, and I see eternity fade a moment after the woman does. The once-graceful body falls on hers.

They lie together, a mangle of blood and flesh. This has happened before too. Once or twice. It was uncommon, but ultimately not unheard of. The families would need to be compensated further for their sacrifice. I nod for the men to take the horn, pick myself up to the sickening snap of the creature’s bone. He hands it to me—the blood prize wet with altogether too much red. No pomp. No ceremony.

We leave the bodies together in the silent glade.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 184

Aisha Rallonza bfa creative writing Aisha loves to crack jokes and make people laugh, so naturally, they decided to start writing nonfiction, the least funny of the literary genres. Their work has been featured in Blue Indie Komiks (Akit: A Zine on Sexuality, Kamusta Ka: A Self Care Zine, Mekeni Makiramdam) and and heights (heights Vol. 65, No. 2). They were accepted into Ateneo ArtsWork Workshop 2014 and the Ateneo heights Writers Workshop 2019. They won a Loyola School Arts Award for Nonfiction in 2020. When not writing things that will get accepted into folios or workshops or awards, Aisha is writing standup comedy routines they will never perform or copious amounts of fanfiction they will never show to people they know in real life.

Aisha would now like to use up the remaining lines of this bionote for a grocery list of thank yous to the following: their family, their professors (Aisha owes maybe seven percent of their soul to Sir Martin in particular), the Literary Arts Room in Arete, the soda vending machine at Kostka, Jenny, Meg, Luis, Kathleen, and Pilar.

They would never have gotten to where they are right now without you all. Thank you. Hope to share more laughs with you guys in the future.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 186

187 · Aisha Rallonza

To Keep Safe Here’s something about birdwatching nobody tells you: You probably won’t see much. Birds are fickle creatures, and while they have their behavioral patterns, they also have wings. Any time they want to leave, all they have to do is spread their wings and catch the wind. They’re there for one moment and gone the next. This I learned a few months ago on a nature walk organized by the Ateneo Wild, a group that catalogs and posts online pictures of the wildlife of my university. The facilitators gave us all binoculars, and they were the professional kind, waterproof and heavy and with good lenses that could focus a great distance away. Even with those, when we looked upon the first species of bird we found, a Brown Shrike, it flitted from one branch to the other. By the time I got my binoculars focused on the right branch, I heard the groans of disappointment from the other participants as the shrike flew away, out of sight.

We saw fifteen different species that day. From swiflets to Blacknaped Orioles to a split second glance of a Collared Kingfisher. That was more kinds of birds I’d seen in a month, and I was glad, but inside of me, there was disappointment too.

When I went home, I looked at my shelf. There, in a jar along with a packet of silica gel, was Darling. Darling is the preserved body of a Eurasian Tree Sparrow, scientific name Passer montanus, or more commonly known as the maya bird. It was sold to me for twenty pesos by a grade school student at my old school who had found it on campus. On its head, the skin was eaten away by ants or other insects, perfectly showing its pristine skull, completely intact, two large holes right above the beak where the eyes would’ve been. The rest of its body, locked in rigor mortis, is intact as well. Its legs are permanently clenched against its empty chest, its wings perpetually half spread, its feathers, the primaries, the secondaries, the pinions, and the rest of the downy feathers stay in place on the sun-dried, leathery skin that remains uneaten. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 188

Darling had been with me for almost seven years, a permanent fixture on my shelf. I picked up the jar to marvel at its stillness.

Darling would never move again, and this settled the anxious rustle of feathers deep in my chest. I looked at it because I knew it was dead.

I looked at it because I wanted to make sure it was dead. I looked at it because I knew I would always be able to. * The most popular term for the practice of preserving dead animals is taxidermy. The word “taxidermy” comes from Greek roots. Taxis means “to order” and derma means “skin,” coming together to literally mean “to order skin.” This is apt because the process of taxidermy involves removing the skin, preserving it, and then stuffing it around a cast of the animal’s general shape before stitching the animal back together again.1 However, taxidermy is specific in the sense that it only includes animals that are preserved, stuffed, and mounted on some fixture for display. Dead animals can be preserved in other ways, like through dehydration via desiccant (mummification) or through letting it decay and collecting the bones (scavenging). The word “preserve” comes from Latin roots. Prae which means “before” and servare which means “to keep safe.”2 Any form of preservation involves processes that substantially delay the animal or its parts from decaying into material nothingness.3 As morbid as the practice may sound, it’s not taboo. The history of taxidermy in particular can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians who embalmed the pets, from dogs to cats to birds, of Egyptian royalty to be buried along with them in their tombs. All around the world, animals were killed and skinned, their pelts used for clothing or protection from the elements. Dead animal preservation in the 1 To order a body means to open it up and replace everything inside. To order a body is to eviscerate it. To order a body is to change it.

2 To preserve the dead seems paradoxical, then, because they can’t be kept safe.

Not anymore. Not from death.

3 When is a body no longer a body? When are bones no longer bones?

189 · Aisha Rallonza

Philippines seems to mostly be a recent phenomenon, focused on curating animal bodies for museums for exhibition, a glimpse into nature absent in the cities. Dead animal preservation might be heavily influenced by the past, but it is by no means stuck there. In today’s time, the practice flourishes. Online, the popular term used for the collection of dead animals is “vulture culture.” You’ll find discussion threads, online groups, and tight knit communities of dead animal enthusiasts. I myself am part of one of these groups, a huge online chat with over 300 people from all around the globe. People in this chat talk about animal preservation tips, animal mounts they had bought at auctions, new specimens they have acquired. People take pictures of bleached and washed animal skulls, snakes frozen in a coil and kept in a jar, painted corpses of bugs. One of the most striking pictures I’d seen from this chat were images of a horse’s skinned head, its pelt completely removed, sinew and muscle exposed to the air, to the viewer.

It was a spectacle. Most dead animal preservation is. The difference between dead animal preservation and burying a body of a rat you found rotting in the corner of your home is that the latter is taken away, never to be seen again, while the former is purposefully, specifically altered to be looked at. Dead animal preservation is the conscious decision to stop the natural progression from the moment of death to the supposed inevitability of decomposition, or perhaps otherness, indistinguishable from what it used to be. Dead animal preservation is the act of eternalizing the body at the moment of death, a frozen moment that may as well look alive. Dead animal preservation isn’t done to be locked away in a room forever, it is done to be looked at. Animals that are preserved and taxidermied are often displayed, be it in the cases of natural museums, the walls of a hunter’s home, the shelves of a researcher. If one is going to go to the effort to consciously put a stop to a natural process, this product must be looked at.4 4 There is something about the eye that legitimizes an object. As if something isn’t real until somebody sees it. Is an object an object if there is no subject?

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 190

The most pressing question to all of this: Why? Why do we stop the process? Why must we look at the product? Why do people engage in dead animal preservation and taxidermy if it is such a gory, bloody, painstaking process? In her book The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing, Rachel Poliquin isolates eight types of taxidermy with different intentions; “...hunting trophies, natural history specimens, wonders of nature (albino, two-headed, etc.), extinct species, preserved pets, fraudulent creatures, anthropomorphic taxidermy (toads on swings), and animal parts used in fashion and household décor.” More interestingly, she poses a thesis that encapsulates the entire field of taxidermy and, in my opinion, the realm of dead animal preservation as well. She writes, “I argue that all taxidermy is deeply marked by human longing.”

When I think about longing, the first thing I’m frustrated by is how abstract it is. Longing, without definition, feels like grasping at fog. Anne Carson, in her book Eros the Bittersweet, gives the fog of longing a shape. She plots the components of desire, of Eros, onto a triangle. On one point is the lover connected by a line to the point that is the beloved, but between them is another point, holding them at arm’s length away from each other, and that point is whatever it is standing in the way of the lover and the beloved. This model, makes clearer what longing is about. There is a subject, there is an object, and there is a distance and something creating that distance.

Longing is wanting to bridge the distance, but once the distance is over, longing is no more. Longing is the duration of apartness, of wanting to be together. There is beauty in this longing, as Carson writes in the rest of her book, discussing Eros’ presence in everything from poetry to the literal construction of the ancient Greek alphabet.

Carson writes, “To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.”

The act of preserving a dead animal is this moment where we have yet to arrive, and thus we long to arrive. As a general way to understand this, let us plot out the most basic elements of a preserved animal onto the triangular model. In the role of the lover is the person, the taxidermist, the one preserving the animal. In the role of the beloved 191 · Aisha Rallonza

would be the animal, at first glance, but I posit that the true beloved is the reality of control. It isn’t about the animal being portrayed as alive, it’s about the power of being able to make that happen. It’s about taming death. The thing keeping these two apart is the reality of death, the fact that it cannot be tamed. Here, it becomes apparent the failure of longing in the practice of preserving a dead animal.

If longing is the glee of running but not yet arriving, preserving a dead animal is running knowing you will never truly reach your destination. Death cannot be undone. Death cannot be controlled.

The distance seems unbridgeable.5

And yet, I feel more satisfied looking at a dead body than I do

5 Have you ever wanted something you couldn’t have so that you could be sure of its failure? Have you ever wanted that safety?

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 192

looking at a momentary flutter of wings from a branch to the sky through the lenses of a pair of binoculars. The body of a dead animal, then, must fulfill something. It must give something to the longing nipping at its heels. * “I can hear the Kingfisher,” said one of the facilitators for the nature walk. The group and I were standing in the middle of the road behind the sports complex of the university. This road was bracketed by plant life; a cluster of bamboo groaning in the wind, the rustle of the leaves of a mahogany, the faint buzzing hum of bugs flitting from the underbrush to the nearby canal. The group and I had our eyes pointed towards the canopies, trying to follow the loud, rhythmic screeches. We had seen a glimpse of the Collared Kingfisher earlier, but just its blur of bright blue in the sky of grey. “You can hear it, right?

But you can’t see it,” the facilitator said.

“They seem really secretive,” I told her. What I didn’t tell her was that while I’ve never seen one alive, I have seen one dead.

A month ago, my friend David drove to my house and gave me a Collared Kingfisher. A Todiramphus chloris collaris. His cat had apparently killed it and left it in his house. He gave it to me in a shoe box, and the first thing that caught my attention was the smell of fresh poultry; meat that was dead but not yet rotting. This meant that the bird had died only recently, just in the past few days, and was perfect for preservation. The second thing that caught my attention was the ants. Big, bulky black looking ones that don’t usually bite but looked intimidating nonetheless. They crawled in and out of the bird’s body like little guards.

After putting on rubber gloves and a face mask, I painstackingly picked the ants away one by one, until the only thing in the bird’s body were its own viscera.7 I held the dead body in my hands and its head 6 I named this one Toby. This specimen was male, something apparent by the bright blue of his feathers. Females have a more greenish hue to their plumage .

7 It was black. It oozed. Half of me wanted to cut it open and look at what exactly killed it, but the other half wanted to never look at whatever wounds it had ever again.

193 · Aisha Rallonza

lolled to the side, its wings splayed out across my fingers. Rigor mortis had yet to set in, so its body was still soft and malleable. I pinched the edge of its wings between my fingers and pulled, fanning out all of the flight feathers in perfect condition.

I placed the body in a container filled with equal parts baking soda and table salt. The mixture would act as a desiccant to absorb moisture from the bird’s body until it was dry and essentially mummified. This process would take one month of letting the body sit in the mixture, undisturbed.

As I was mixing the baking soda and salt, it occurred to me how easy it was. Not in the sense that preserving dead animals wasn't hard work, but in the sense that this is all it took to make something last for as close to forever as humans could conceptualize. A mixture of substances. A hollowed out body. A careful set of hands. Death could not be reversed, but it could be prolonged. We can’t keep the life, but we can keep the body.

The body and its parts sat in the storage of my home for one month and a few days ago, I opened the container. I began to chip away the chunks of baking soda and salt, and the more I uncovered the body, the more I noticed the smell. Gone was the smell of poultry, replaced instead with the stale smell of rot already passed. It wasn’t strong, the baking soda is a deodorizer, but it was present. It was the smell of death passed. When I had finally gotten all the baking soda and salt off, all that was left was the body caked in powder. With a soft brush, I dusted away the mixture from its tail feathers, and underneath the white was a stark, vibrant blue.

I held it in my hands, and it did not bend. Its body was no longer pliant. It was completely stiff and mummified, and it would stay this way for as long as I would take care of it.

I prepared another container of baking soda and salt8 to put the body in when I felt a twinge of hesitation. I liked looking at the body and I didn’t want to cover it up again. More than anything, I wanted 8 The body was already mummified but I decided to desiccate it for one more month to get rid of the smell for good. My parents would allow me to have dead things in the house, but not if those dead things smelled like actively decaying flesh.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 194

to display it and look at it like I could look at Darling. I wanted my shelf to be crowded with specimens of dead animals, be it their bones, their mummified bodies, their taxidermied and stuffed skins. * Last April 30 to May 4, 2019, the World Taxidermy Championships were held in Springfield, Missouri in the United States. This competition isone of the most prestigious showcases of taxidermy all over the world, with taxidermists flying in from different countries to battle it out against each other. “To be a good taxidermist,” said Lowell Shapley from the Masters Division, Birds. “You have to be able to take something that is dead, is gone, and bring it back to life.”

The website for the World Taxidermy Championship feels like it’s still stuck in 2007. A simple design with the text in Times New Roman and a few sparse links for information on the 2019 WTC. There is one link that leads to the winners of the 2017 WTC, and the first name that shows up is Carolyn Brak-Dolny. She won five awards in total that year, but the most popular piece was the Red Panda recreation that won Best In Show.

There aren’t pictures of every single mount, and the only picture of Brak-Dolny’s Red Panda I could find is an incredibly small and compressed image on an article I can’t zoom in on. The Red Panda stands on a branch with its mouth open in a friendly and keen smile.

It saddens me that I can't find more detailed pictures. In traditional taxidermy, the details really say it all. In a video done by the New York Times on the WTC, there is a segment about judging. The judges walk around a mount and stroke its fur, shine a light in the animal’s eyes, even smell the mounts to account for the musk the animal may have. Traditional taxidermy is all about representing the animal at its most natural state, trying to recreate how this animal would look and behave in the wild. One of the judges in the video, looking at a mount of two coyote pups play fighting, had peered into one of the coyote’s open mouths. “He's certainly creating a sort of attitude here,” said the

195 · Aisha Rallonza

judge. “When they open up the mouth, they also open up for more critiques.”

In Carson’s triangular model of desire, the culmination of the longing, the center of the triangle, is the animal at its most natural state, as if it were alive. The control, then, lies in how good the mount is. How much power one has over creating something so close to real life, you can pretend the animal is still alive. That is traditional taxidermy. Getting as close to life as possible.

However, taxidermy is a broad field, and there are people going in different directions with their dead animals. Rogue taxidermists, is the term for those who are straying away from the traditional form of taxidermy. In contemporary times, this is becoming more popular, but it found its roots in the Victorian Era, in tents of circuses and in tanks at sideshows. Walter Potter, one of the most known taxidermists of the Victorian era, created taxidermied tableus of animals in human settings doing human acts. In one piece, he has several kittens sitting around the table drinking from cups at a tea party. This reminds me of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's Dogs Playing Poker, a series of painting portraying anthropomorphized dogs engaging in various human activities like gambling, smoking, dancing, testifying in court. Whimsical, otherworldly, and almost magical.

Following in Potter’s footsteps of the unnatural are places like Brooklyn Taxidermy, headed by Amber Makyut and other taxidermists on staff. They have done pieces like mice dressed up in death metal attire, a mounted head of a jackalope (a rabbit with the horns of a deer), and an ermine dressed as a nun. One of their most eye catching pieces is of a coyote with the feathers and wings of a peacock laid flat against its back, flaring out like an avian coat for the canine model.

Further down the scale of rogue taxidermy is Polly Morgan, who brings conceptual art and taxidermy together. Looking through her website, I was most drawn to her works involving birds. Her most striking work with birds is entitled Myocardial Infarction, done in 2013.

Myocardial refers to the tissue of the heart and infarction means

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 196

tissue death due to lack of blood supply. The work showcases six lovebirds, two Grey-headed Lovebirds, one Peach-Faced Lovebird, and two Lilian’s Lovebirds, all crowding around a replica of a human heart. Their wings are spread and joyous as they feast on the heart’s tissue, two of the birds ripping it apart with its beak, two with their talons sinking into the muscle, one perched in the background trying to fit viscera into its mouth, and the last one, the easiest one to miss, with its head fully in the gore of the heart. Lovebirds in the wild are herbivores. Lovebirds in this piece are monstrous.

In a documentary, Morgan says “I think taxidermy has, for a long time, been about the display of the animal and that's it really, and everything else has been secondary to that. So the taxidermist would create little worlds in cases where they mimic the natural environment of the animal and I’ve never sought to do that in my work at all. The animals have been used more to convey an idea or an an atmosphere....[M]y modus operandi has never been just to show the animal as it is in life.” There is a fascination in looking at an image that cannot happen. It evokes not the emotion of seeing the animal as it lived, but something new and unique. In the spectacle of animals acting as humans, animals as chimeras, animals as heart eating monsters, the distance between reality and unreality is juxtaposed, exposed, and put together. In these pieces, the culmination is not the animal at its most natural, but the animal as other and unreal.

Control here is playing god, creating something else from something that was.

When I look at traditional taxidermy, I think about how humans are so desperate to immortalize nature. When I look at rogue taxidermy, I think about how humans are so desperate to create something new, no matter the medium. I see the appeal of both, and I can’t say I have a preference. Both of them speak to me in the sense that we want something, and that want pushes us into movement. *

197 · Aisha Rallonza

I’ve always wanted to try taxidermy. The only dead animal preservation I has done had been mummification through desiccant.

I researched online about what animal would be best for a taxidermy beginner, and I was disappointed to see that the animal was not birds, but instead mice. Birds have more complicated joints to skin around and the way their feathers attached to the skin is delicate. Mice, however, had a simple body shape to skin, a small body, and were relatively easy to ethically purchase dead through the form of feeder mice for snakes at pet stores. I watched quite a lot of videos on how to properly skin a rat, and as the days passed, I started to fantasize about mounts I could create. A mouse sitting down on a branch I have on my shelf. A rat somehow spliced with the wings of a bird. I’ve even dreamed of rats, since then.9 I wanted to make something, and I wanted to show people.

I started to purchase all the materials I’d need. Scalpels, surgical gloves, my own cache of baking soda, stuffing, wires, pliers, and more. Finally, once I had everything, I commuted to a pet store in Quezon City that sold feeder mice. These were small mice, around the size of my index finger. They were raised in captivity, killed painlessly using carbon dioxide, then frozen and packaged. The pack I bought contained ten dead mice of different colors in a small ziplock bag. I went home that day, frozen mice in my bag, vibrating with excitement.

When I arrived home, I immediately got to work. I picked a brown mouse, and remembered everything I had learned from videos and tutorials and books. Find the mouse’s spinal cord and make a shallow incision along it. From there, peel the skin back, use the scalpel to cut through the connective tissue tying the skin to the organs. I worked slowly, delicately. I have a muscle disorder that makes me prone to hand tremors, but as I slowly peeled the mouse’s skin off, my hands were completely steady, as if my body understood that what I was doing was special and that failure was not an option. There comes a 9 Split second, blurry images of rats crawling around my dreamscape. They’d be alive at first, but then they would go still, and I could hold them in my hands and shape them to my will.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 198

point in the skinning process where nearly the entire skin is inside out, all the innards loose into the air. It’s at this point I realize just how much one learns about the body, in the process of skinning an animal. I knew where to cut to cleanly sever the ankle bone, I knew where to hold my scalpel carefully, for a wrong move would pop open the organs and lead to intestines and viscera bursting out, I knew where to pull at the skin hard, I knew where to be gentle. The most striking point of this process was when I got all of the skin off. Forty minutes prior, I held a body in my hands but now, there was only the skin that kept everything inside.10 I washed the skin, dried it, and cured it with baking soda before filling the skin with stuffing. Once the body had the appropriate shape, I sewed together the incision at the mouse’s back, and just like that, I had created my first taxidermied piece. The mouse was missing eyes, for I didn’t have the correct beads. Its mouth was a gaping maw opening to stuffing, because I wasn’t able to get the teeth intact. It was a messy approximation of what taxidermy is meant to be, but it was something I created with my own hands. I cannot control a mouse, but I was able to control its body. To transform it into something according to my whims.

The word “elegy” comes from the Greek term elegeia which means “to lament.”11 The elegy refers to literature of solemn and serious reflection for the dead. Here, there is also a transformation. The death of being transformed into words that mourn its loss. Aldo Leopold wrote an elegy for the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon in 1947 entitled On a Monument to the Pigeon. He transforms the extinction of a species into three pages of remembering its existence.

Leopold writes, “To love what was is a new thing under the sun, 10 “I feel weird,” Misha, my younger sister said. She had watched me do the skinning. Later, when I asked her what she meant by weird, she said “It wasn’t bloody. I was expecting it to be bloody.” It would have been bloody, had I not been careful, but skinning is actually very clean. Not a drop of blood spilled. Just what is inside become out, what is outside all that’s left.

11 The word “lament” itself is interesting. It comes from the Old French word lamenter and the Latin word lamentari, both referring to “wailing, moaning, and weeping.” We open our mouths, our minds, and grief comes pouring out, not in exhalation, but in sound. Much like how taxidermy is meant to be seen, lamentation is meant to be heard.

199 · Aisha Rallonza

unknown to most people and to all pigeons,” but I can’t help myself from disagreeing. Ever since things began to shift from is to was, we have known to mourn them one way or another. The huntsman cannot shoot a dead bird twice over, a predator cannot kill its prey again, the reality of death opens up for the reality of knowing that it can never be undone.

People do as people usually do; we look at a limit and decide to see how far we can push it into following our whims. We make elegies, we skin and stuff bodies, we bury birds in desiccants. We want to give our longing a shape to manipulate, to bring us closer to control.

We transform the dead into something we can hold, and we teach our hands to be steady. To hold the dead body of a mouse is to hold something that was conquered by death. To hold the stuffed skin of a mouse is to hold something that was conquered by you. * I had well and truly gotten into the hobby of taxidermy. This inevitably led me to wonder if there were local taxidermists I could talk to. A local taxidermy scene I could learn about. I started to research. I started to ask around. In searching for a local taxidermy scene, I asked as many people as I could. Art professors, Biology professors, classmates who owned snakes. I tried to join a Facebook group for Filipino taxidermists but my request was never approved. I messaged a taxidermist service in Tandang Sora and the message has been left on read for an amount of time that leads me to believe it will no longer be replied to. I met dead end after dead end.

“You’re really getting into this essay,” my friend Luis told me after I told him I wanted to physically go to the taxidermy service in Tandang Sora.

“It’s not all for the essay,” I said. “I’m really just interested in this.

I need to know more.”

"Need” was the word I used. “Desperate” is the word that comes to mind when I think about my drive to learn all I could about taxidermy and dead animal preservation. The part of my mind that shies away heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 200

from unapologetic enthusiasm thinks this must be embarrassing, to want something this much, but upon further analysis, I think the better word is vulnerable. How vulnerable it feels, to want something this much. It feels like being flayed open. It feels like being looked at for everybody to see. * One of the birds I was most excited to see on the nature walk was the Peregrine Falcon. My girlfriend had mentioned them in a letter she gave to me, about how they’ve been reliably migrating to nest on campus year after year, and I wanted to see them with her on the walk together. The Ateneo Wild has posted pictures of the falcons, noting that they roost in the communication towers behind the Manila Observatory. Students weren’t allowed to go to the Manila Observatory because it technically isn’t a part of the university, but thanks to this nature walk, we had a permit to be on the grounds.

The Peregrine Falcon is one of my favorite birds. It is around the size of a crow with the wingspan of 29 to 47 inches, making it the biggest bird of prey on campus. Their feathers, their back, back of the wings, and top of the head range from black to grey, but it’s their underside which is most stunning. From the chest to the inside of their wings and tail feathers, there are patterns of black or dark brown barring interspersed with white. To see one flying would be like seeing a bullet of stripes hurtling from the sky. And hurtle from the sky they do. The Peregrine Falcon hunts by flying high up into the sky before diving down with its wings tucked. In this moment, the Peregrine Falcon is the fastest animal on the planet, reaching speeds as high as over 320 kilometers per hour. 12 The Peregrine Falcon’s scientific name is Falco peregrinus. The word “peregrine” means wanderer, foreigner, or pilgrim. It’s a fitting name for them, especially the ones on campus. The Peregrines on campus 12 It always bothered me when people called the cheetah the fastest animal on the planet. It was the fastest land mammal, yes, but its speed of 120 kilometers per hour is nothing compared to the Peregrine Falcon. However, it is much easier to be fast when surrendering to gravity and wind. It’s easier to fall than it is to run.

201 · Aisha Rallonza

are migrants, and I tried to research where they were coming from, but there were no distinct locations. All I know is that, each year, they come from the north. They come from away.

The nature walk group and I walked to a large patch of land behind the Manila Observatory. There, a flat expanse of green spread out until it was bracketed by trees right where the Marikina fault line would suddenly drop down into the valley. In the middle of the field, standing like monoliths, were the communication towers. In them, there was nothing but metal.

My girlfriend asked one of the facilitators about the Peregrines.

“They usually come here starting October,” said the facilitator, eyes squinting against the sky. “You can tell, because around this area, you’ll see the carcasses of the dead pigeons they hunt.”

My girlfriend looked to me and smiled at my reaction of pure and utter glee. I decided in that moment that I would have to secure a permit to come back to the fields behind the Manila Observatory to collect those carcasses.

On that day, there were no carcasses. There were also no Peregrines.

The sky was empty save for the Swiflets racing through the air and the flutter of bats beginning to wake up and take to the sky. I imagined how a Peregrine would look, cutting through the air in its signature dive, and I felt longing. Eros. The beloved was the wanderer, the lover was me, and the distance was the distance the falcon had yet to cross before roosting here for their migration. But I didn’t just want to see the Peregrine for a split second. I wanted to see them for as long as I could.

I wanted to see them fly. But I also wanted to see them still. If I couldn’t see those, I was happy to settle for scavenging at the severed wings beneath their roosts. It’s a desperate need, the need I have to see the Peregrines or even just to take the wings of their discarded prey.

There is something about dead animal preservation that is implicit in settling. In saying “this must be good enough.” The word “desperate” comes from the word sperare,13 which means “to have hope” with "de-" 13 How close is sperare from servare? Hope and protection seem connected. There is hope in protection, in staying safe. There is protection in hope, kept away from despair. The phrase “spare me,” seems to encapsulate this. Do not hurt me. Keep me and my hope safe.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 202

to signify its lack. Desperation, then, comes from the wanting of something hopeless. Isn’t this what wanting control is all about?

I want dead birds in a jar never to fly away. I want to taxidermy a rat to have wings, yet have it perched on a branch I have on my shelf.

I want these animals, forever unmoving, so that I can look at them.

On the triangle, I sit on my point as the lover and reach out for the beloved, for the control of death. In the center of the triangle, I try to cobble together bodies that submit to my control, bodies I can keep forever. I want the culmination of my reaching for control to result in bodies that I can keep forever, moments in time that will never pass.

That result is something always out of my reach. No matter how close I can get to control, the bridging I imagine will always be illusory.

Between me and taming death is the fact that this is impossible.

My interest in dead animal preservation and taxidermy is an admission of desire, but also the failure of it. The staunch perseverance in the face of that failure. I look at the dead on my shelf and they look back knowing that I am petulantly, childishly grasping for an eternity I tell them they represent.

The obsession with forever is something that manifests itself in dead animals, but is symptomatic of a larger desire. A desire for something death can’t touch. A desire for something death is kept safe from. A desire for a way to be safe from it. If I can create a forever in a bird, that is one less step I have to take to create forever for something larger. But death is larger than anything ever will be. It is more vast than any other truth. It is constant.

And yet, there is a dead sparrow on my shelf, a dead kingfisher in the storage, two dead rats in a jar. Patiently, they wait for me, because I have told them I control them. Patiently, they wait to play their parts.

203 ¡ Aisha Rallonza

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 204

Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis bfa creative writing, ab literature (english) Nagsusulat ako dahil ako’y buhay.

Salamat kina Sir Glenn Mas, Dok Jerry Respeto, Sir Jethro Tenorio, Pat Valera, sa ENTA, heights, at Ateneo na silang nagturo sa akin nito. Ginawa niyo akong lubos pang mapagmatyag, makatao, at mapagmahal. Sa aking mga kaibigan at pamilya, salamat. Dahil at para sa inyo ang lahat ng ito.

Buntong hininga. Aalis nang nakangiti si MIKA. Hindi pa ito ang huli niyang akda.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 206

207 ¡ Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

Mula Kina Cain at Abel mga tauhan ato – 56, mahaba ang buhok, hindi nag-aahit. eddie – 54, may saklay dahil sa isang paa, matipuno, malinis ang gupit at estilo ng pananamit. binata – 14, mukhang malakas na batang musmos. bata – 12, patpatin, batang musmos din. tagpuan Sa isang lamesa at bangkó sa isang plaza. Sa palibot ng lamesa at bangkó, mga nakakalat na dyaryo sa sahig, may lumang radyo naman sa isang tabi. oras Alas sais ng umaga

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 208

Nakatayo sa gilid ng entablado si ATO. Sa tabi niya ang BATA at BINATA, pinagmamasdan siya. Lilibutin ni ATO ang entablado at sabay na pagmamasdan ang mga dyaryo, paminsan, pupulutin at susubuking basahin ito, tila may nais tandaan, o kalimutan? ato

Enero, Pebrero, Marso, Abril, Mayo, Hunyo, Hulyo, Agosto, Setymebre, Nobyembre, Disyembre...

binata

Oktubre.

ato

Sino ka ba?

binata

Ikaw. Ikaw, bahala.

Lilibot muli si ATO. ato

Enero, Pebrero, Marso, Abril, Mayo, Hunyo, Hulyo, Agosto, Setymebre, Nobyembre, Disyembre. Sa isa.

Labing-isa.

bata

Oktubre.

ato

Anong ginagawa mo rito?

bata

Sabi mo e.

Luluhod si ATO sa may bangkĂł, magsa-sign of the cross. ato

Ama, patawarin mo kami, sapagkat hindi namin nalalaman ang aming ginagawa.

Titingin si ATO sa BATA. ato

Bakit nandito pa rin siya?

209 ¡ Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

binata

“[...] Dahil sa likas nilang kaalaman, ang mga ito'y nagiging Kautusan na para sa kanila bagama't wala silang Kautusan. Pinapatunayan din ito ng kanilang budhi, na sa kanila'y manunumbat at magtatanggol.” Ano ang sinasabi ng iyong konsensya?

ato

Na patawarin kami, hindi namin alam ang mga nagawa— ginagawa namin. Patawarin kami, patawarin kami.

binata

Sigurado ka?

Lilibot muli si ATO. ato

... Agosto, Setyembre, Nobyembre, Disyembre. Sa isang taon, labing-isang buwan.

Matatawa ang BATA. bata

Oktubre! Setyembre, Oktubre, Nobyembre, Disyembre.

Sa isang taon, labing-dalawang buwan.

ato

Setyembre, Nobye—

bata

Oktubre! Sa isa. Labing-dalawa. Sa isang taon noong 2015, isa kada buwan. Labing-dalawa—

Pagmamasdan ni ATO ang BATA. ato

Setyembre... Oktubre... 2015... Sa isang taon, labing-isa?

Labing-isa ang— ang—

binata

Sigurado ka?

Mapapatigil si ATO, titingnan niya ang lamesa at bangkó sa gitna ng entablado. Maya-maya, lalapitan niya ito. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 210

binata

Ayo-ayo. Dito lang kami.

Lilibutin ng BATA at BINATA ang isang bahagi ng entablado.

Papasok si EDDIE, may dalang saklay, sigarilyo, at dyaryo. Uupo siya sa bangkó at magbabasa. Pagmamasdan ni ATO si EDDIE, nag-iisip.

Sa kabilang bahagi ng entablado, kakausapin ng BINATA ang BATA. binata

Ang astig talaga ng memorya mo.

bata

Akala ko rin astig siya Kuya. Di man.

binata

Astig kaya!

bata

Hindi ko makakalimutan nung naay libreng patuli sa ‘tin.

Pebrero 1969. Sakto! Kakatapos ko lang.

Tatayo ang BATA at hahatakin ang suot na shorts palayo sa kanyang ari, mukhang bagong tuli lang. binata

Sorry na.

bata

Murag pambabae tili nimo! Malayo ka pa nga sa pila tinatakbuhan mo na nanay mo.

Tatayo ang BINATA at aarteng may tinatakbuhan. Mababangga niya ang BATA na bagong tuli. bata

Pisting yawa! Sa sobrang lakas ng memorya ko, naaalala ko pa ‘yung sakit ng tite ko. Astig ba ‘yun?

binata

Ayos lang ‘yun, dun tayo unang nagkakilala e.

bata

E ‘yung nakausap ko na sa wakas ang crush naho sa Grade 1? Setyembre 1968. Sabi ko “Ang linis ng mukha mo!”

211 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

binata

Sweet naman!

bata

‘Di ko makakalimutan sagot niya sa ‘kin. “May kulangot ka sa ilong,” sabay abot ng tisyu.

Pagtatawanan ng BINATA ang BATA. binata

Ayaw mo ‘yun, natatandaan mo buong buhay mo?

Saglit. Kukunin ng BATA ang radyo sa tabi niya, hahawakan at tititigan. bata

Agosto 1979. Labindalawang taong gulang ako nung nilusob ng NPA ang bahay namin sa bandang Mt. Apo National Park. Kinailangan daw nila ng mga baril.

“Sabi ng papa ko, huwag niyo galawin ang pamilya ko.

Kung kailangan niyo ng baril ko, ibibigay ko. Hindi ako lalaban. Siyempre noon, malakas ang NPA. Kaya ako ang nagbigay. Kinuha ko sa taas ang baril tapos binigay ko sa mga NPA. Pagkatapos, iyong tatay ko, hinawakan ng apat na tao, pinutulan ng ulo sa harapan ko. Lumalakad pa nga sa bakuran namin iyong katawan, walang ulo. Pagkatapos tinusok sa kahoy, ginanyan sa lupa, binandera ang ulo ng tatay ko”

Iaakyat ng BATA ang radyo sa taas ng kanyang ulo. Katahimikan.

Lalapit ang BINATA, kukunin ang radyo mula sa BATA at pauupuin niya ito. binata

Kaya ba dito mo kami dinala?

Tatango ang BATA. bata

Hindi nagtatapon ng dyaryo si papa. Naiipon pero ‘di heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 212

naman binabasa. Sabi ko, “’Di ba kaya nga may radyo ka, papa?” “Pamunas din ‘yan sa sahig”, sabi niya. Pero tuwing bumibisita ka sa amin, ginagamit mo para turuan akong magbasa. Salamat, Kuya.

Ngingiti ang dalawa, kukuha ng dyaryo ang BINATA at akmang tuturuan muling magbasa ang BATA. Aalis sila sa entablado.

Lalapitan ni ATO si EDDIE. ato

Ang tanda mo na, Eddie.

eddie

Pisting yawa. Ikaw usab, Kuya Ato. Kailangan mo nang mag-tina ng buhok.

ato

‘Di bale nang maputi ang buhok, at least marunong magbasa — ng balita sa selpon.

Ngingisi si EDDIE. eddie

Kanus-a pa ka naghuwat?

ato

Saglit lang. Alas sais y medya ng umaga, punto, bibili ka ng dyaryo at mauupo ka riyan. Kaso, hindi ka mahilig magbasa, Eddie.

eddie

Pisti, ‘di porket hanggang Grade 1 lang ako— Hambuga!

Kuya, malay mo nakahiligan ko na.

Ngingiti lang si ATO. ato

Anong ginagawa mo rito Eddie?

eddie

Nagbabasa.

Saglit.

213 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

eddie

Hinihintay ka. Ikaw?

ato

May babalikan lang.

Tatayo si EDDIE, mahuhulog ang saklay. Susubukan itong saluhin ni ATO ngunit maingay itong babagsak sa sahig. ato

Sorry.

eddie

Matibay ni.

Itatabi ni EDDIE ang saklay. Pagmamasdan ni ATO ang lampang paa ni EDDIE. eddie

Aw, kini? Way kaso, Kuya, tan-awa!

Sasayaw nang kaunti si EDDIE, igagalaw ang paa hangga’t nakakaya.

Pipigilan ni ATO si EDDIE. eddie

Way kaso lagi!

Pauupuin ni ATO si EDDIE. eddie

Kay mubalik na ka!

ato

Eddie—

eddie

Mubalik na ang Lambada Boys!

Tatakbo papasok ng entablado ang BATA, kunwari’y nakasakay sa motorsiklo. bata

Vroom! Vroom! Bálik na kuno!

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 214

Susunod ang BINATA. Uupo siya sa sahig. Uupo naman ang BATA sa may radyo, pinaglalaruan ito. binata

Ang tagal ko nang hindi naririnig ang pangalang ‘yan.

ato

Teka Eddie—

eddie

Pito ra ta noon, Kuya! Si Kris Lanay, ug mga rebel returnees.

ato

Sumasama pa rin sila?

eddie

Oo! Mula pito, halos tatlong daan na ta ngayon!

Sasabat ang BINATA, si ATO lang ang makaririnig sa kanya. binata

Limang daang miyembro na!

ato

Mabilis talagang manghatak itong si Kris.

binata

Hindi si Kris, dahil sa ‘yo. Ang galing mo kasing manguto e.

Gagayahin ng BATA si ATO. bata

“Kapag sumama kayo sa amin, may libreng motorsiklo, walang lisensya!”

eddie

Pisti, ‘yung bayad nating isang daang libo noon, kung paghatian ngayon, ‘nay! Magpulis na lamang ko!

ato

Umalis ka na sa force?

eddie

Full-time ba, magpulis na lamang kog full-time.

215 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

Saglit. eddie

Pero ‘di na problema ngayon, way kaso ang hatian sa daan-daang miyembro, kay pisti, milyon-milyon man ang bayad!

ato

‘Yun nga sana ang gusto kong balikan, Eddie.

Titingin ang BATA sa BINATA, nagtataka. bata

Ang alin?

eddie

Ang kwarta? Way kaso, Kuya, naa tay bag-ong target, dead or alive kuno. Three milyon! Tulungan na gani ta, Kuya!

ato

Ang pera ko, Eddie, binabalikan ko na.

binata

Nasaan ba kasi?

eddie

Imo lagi ang kwarta! Aralin lang natin ang op.

ato

Ang akin, Eddie. ‘Yung binaon ko sa ilalim ng punong iyon.

Sesenyas si ATO sa isang bahagi ng entablado. binata

Sigurado ka ba?

ato

Alam kong nilipat mo.

Lalapit ng kaunti ang BATA kay ATO. bata

Sigurado ka ba?

Mapapatingin si ATO sa BATA. heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 216

ato

Alam kong nilipat—alam kong—

eddie

Alam mo bang hinahanap ka na Kuya? Pisti, mahigit dalawampung taon na ‘yung iskwad! Kilala ka nila, kahibaw silang sigurista ka, na may tinatabi ka pa.

Sesenyas si EDDIE ng “pera” sa kanyang kamay. Lalapit ang BINATA kay ATO. binata

Iyong binaon mo lang ang naitabi mo sa pagmamadali mo.

ato

Nahukay nila lahat?

Saglit na katahimikan. Hahawakan ni EDDIE ang balikat ni ATO. eddie

Dili. Gitago ko.

Buntong-hininga. Titingin ang BINATA sa BATA. binata

Totoo ba?

Magkikibit-balikat ang BATA. ato

Salamat, Eddie.

eddie

Way kaso!

ato

Nasaan—

eddie

Way kaso pud ang kwarta nimo dahil sa mga bag-ong target. Nahinumdom ka sa pinakauna? Si Tancio?

217 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

Titingnan ng BINATA ang mga nakakalat na dyaryo, tutulungan siya ng BATA ato

‘Yung drug lord.

eddie

Limang araw na ensayo lang! Pisti, ang galing mo.

Natin! ‘Di ko rin inakalang magkakasundo kami ng mga returnees.

Unang makakahanap ang BINATA ng dyaryo. binata

“Raid sa bahay ni Tancio. Katulong, patay.”

ato

Wala tayong nakuhang shabu noon.

eddie

Pero natakot ang buang! Nanahimik pagkatapos. Pisti, ikaw nakaisip nun, ‘di ba? ‘Yung- ‘Yung mag-iwan tayo ng papel—

Sabay magsasalita si ATO at ang BINATA. binata

Siya nga, ikaw nga.

eddie

Sino ba —

ato

Hindi, hindi ako ‘yun.

Sabay magsasalita si EDDIE at ang BINATA. binata

Ikaw!

eddie

ato

(Sa BINATA) Tumahimik ka!

Ikaw! Ikaw pa nagsulat!

“Davao Dea—”

Tatakbo paalis ng entablado ang BINATA at BATA. Magugulat si EDDIE.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 218

ato

(Kay EDDIE) Sorry.

Saglit. ato

Hindi ko na buhay ‘yan.

eddie

Ang sabi mo—

ato

Pera lang ang gusto kong balikan.

eddie

Pahinga ra, ‘yun ang sabi mo.

ato

‘Yun ang gagawin ko.

eddie

Pastilan, hindi ka pa tapos? Unom na buwan na! Kuya...

ato

Patawarin mo ako, Eddie.

eddie

Ngano?

ato

Saan mo tinago ang pera?

eddie

Asa ka moadto?

ato

Hindi ko pa sigurado.

eddie

Wa kay plano? Imposible. Anim na buwan kang nawala.

ato

Wala.

eddie

Mobiya ka. Ngano, Kuya?

Papasok ang BATA sa entablado, susundan siya ng BINATA. bata

Mobiya ka?

219 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

ato

Sumama ka sa akin, Eddie. Ikaw rin, binalikan din kita.

eddie

Mobiya ka sa iskwad.

ato

Mali ang squad, Eddie, mali tayo.

eddie

Lumalaban ra ta, Kuya.

Ang BATA naman ang maghahanap ng dyaryo, papanoorin lang siya ng BINATA. Ipapakita ng BATA sa BINATA ang nahanap na dyaryo. ato

Sa maling paraan.

eddie

Yawa, unsa’y ibang paraan kung mapatay ta! Sila ang pasimuno. Lumalaban ra ta. Tan-awa sa San Pedro.

Magbabasa ang BINATA. binata

“Dalawang granada, itinapon at sumabog sa loob ng San Pedro Cathedral. Labimpito patay. Isang daan at limampu’t pito, sugatan. Unang pagpapasabog matapos ang Batas Militar ngayong Enero 1981.”

eddie

Pisting yawang mga Muslim. Pagkatapos ng una, ‘di pa nakuntento, nagpasabog ulit, sa San Pedro na pud.

Tulo (mag-aakyat ng tatlong daliri) nga granada habang homily ni Padre Dublan. Unom (mag-aakyat ng anim na daliri) nga patay.

binata

“Walong oras makalipas ang pagsabog sa San Pedro, mga Kristyanong Militante, pinagsususpetsahang pinasabog ang Bangkerohan Mosque.”

ato

Nakapatay din tayo.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 220

binata

“Walang nasaktan.”

Mapapatingin si ATO sa BINATA, nagtataka. eddie

Lumalaban ra ta. Unya, daghan pa ang nagpapasalamat, si Tatay—

ato

Bayad ‘yun, Eddie, hindi pasasalamat.

eddie

Dalawang daang libo! Atay, kung dili na pasasalamat, pasalamat ra gyud ko! Thank you, Tatay!

ato

Hinaan mo ang boses mo.

eddie

Ngano? Daghan ang atong mga amigo. Ang iba, natatakot.

Alam mo ‘to. “May takot dahil may gustong itago.”

bata

Ikaw ang nagsabi niyan!

eddie

May tinatago ka ba?

ato

Ikaw ang may tinatago sa akin, Eddie.

Buntong-hininga mula kay EDDIE. eddie

Gitago ko ang kwarta nimo, kay dili sá ko gusto nga mahanap ka níla.

Saglit. eddie

Pero tama ang iskwad Kuya, dahil way silbi ang sistema, tayo nalang ang magtanggol sa mga tao.

Mahabang katahimikan.

221 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

eddie

Si Llenes, nakahinumdom ka?

Maghahanap ng dyaryo ang BINATA pero kabisado na ng BATA ang headline. bata

“Cebu teen with skinned face was raped, autopsy shows”

eddie

Grabe nga kasuko nimo, kahit ako, muntik mo nang mapatay. Gibilin nimo ang baril. Kamao lang, yawa!

Pang! Pang! Pang!

Sinusuntok ni EDDIE ang hangin. Mahahanap ng BINATA ang dyaryo at babasahin ito. Magbubukas si EDDIE ng sigarilyo at magyoyosi. binata

“Albayadle said that Llenes killed Silawan by stabbing her multiple times with scissors. He added Llenes skinned the teen’s face to avoid anyone identifying the victim who was found in a vacant lot on March 11.”

eddie

Ayaw mong tumigil.

ato

Pero tumigil din ako.

Tatango si EDDIE at aalukin ng yosi si ATO. Tatanggapin ni ATO. Mananahimik ang dalawa. Iiling naman ang BINATA at lalapitan si ATO. binata

Pero binalikan mo pa ang bangkay ni Llenes.

Nagprisintang ikaw ang maglilinis. Ayaw mong makita ka ni Eddie ng ganun.

Hihiga ang BATA sa sahig.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 222

binata

Bibiyakin muna ang tiyan para lumabas ang laman.

Tatalian ng halo-block ang katawan. Saka ihahagis sa dagat.

Habang nagsasalita, pinapakita niya ang aksyon gamit ang katawan ng BATA. Pagkatapos, itutulak ito palayo. Matutuwa ang BATA, babangon, at lalapitan si ATO. bata

Ayaw mong tumigil.

eddie

Kuya...

ato

Tumigil din ako.

Tatango si EDDIE. Matatawa ang BATA at tatapikin ang BINATA. bata

Hindi ka tumigil!

Maghahabulan ang BATA at BINATA palabas ng entablado. eddie

Oo Kuya, pero—

ato

Hindi na ako iyon.

eddie

Unom na buwan ra? Matapos ang mahigit dalawampung taon sa iskwad? Kung nagbago ka, pisti, bisan kahinawong nako si Christopher de Leon!

ato

Sa una oo, akala ko marangal ang ginagawa natin, pero sa huli, kahit mga kaaway lang nila, pinapatira na sa atin.

Utusan lang tayo, Eddie.

eddie

‘Di ka ganahang musunod? Mangulo ka! Balik ka sa ato, magpakitang-gilas na pud, ug ikaw na gyud ang mamuno.

223 ¡ Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

ato

Alam mong hindi iyan ang gusto ko.

eddie

Unsa man diay?! Asa ka moadto? Wa kay kwarta, wa kay pamilya, ako ra’y imong pamilya.

ato

May nakaalitan lang ‘tong anak ni Tatay pinabaril na sa atin. Broad daylight, Eddie. Pati ‘yung nakasagutan niya sa isang pila sa gas station, pinaligpit din.

eddie

Sa Deca Homes ‘yung una. Sa Marfori Heights naman pinatapon ‘yung katawan ng pangalawa.

ato

Naaalala mo pa?

eddie

Malakas ang memorya ko.

ato

E si Jun Puras Pala?

Babalik ang BATA at BINATA sa entablado at sasaludo kay ATO. bata at binata

Yes Sir!

Tatango at nakangiting ituturo ni EDDIE ang kanyang utak. eddie

Operational badyet: tatlong daan at limampung libo.

Pasasalamat: pisti, tatlong milyon! Dalawang beses nakatakas pero pagkikita sa tongits lang pala ang katapat ng buang.

Babantayan ng BATA ang radyo at pipindutin ito. Sa tabi niya, ang BINATA. Tutugtog ang “The Voice and Fear of JUN PALA” mula sa Youtube. Magyo-yosi muli si EDDIE.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 224

v.o.

“[...] para magkita ta asang lugar. Pero way pagkanaay a? Usa ka sipyat, i-dismantle ang imong 45 a? Usa ka sipyat nimo, tadtad imong lawas bala. Pero, kami pud di mokumpyansa. Basin, sumangil ra mo ug surrender.”

Hihina ang tunog upang masabayan ng BATA ang boses, ngunit hindi ito mawawala. Ibang wika ang maririnig sa radyo ngunit ingles ang sa BATA. bata

“There’s a map here, presented to this letter-writer, Hernan Sawata, Siboli... The map also shows where the military are in the area. The Alsa Masa is born. You’re very unfortunate, baby. Hm? Just to pray to your a- to your Russian god because you don’t have god [...]”

eddie

Dahil mahina ko dinhi (ituturo ang mata), dinhi maayo ko (ituturo ang tainga).

ato

Pero nauunawaan mo ba ang mga narinig mo?

Hihithit ng yosi si EDDIE. Mag-aalok siya at tatanggapin ito ni ATO. Tahimik silang magyoyosi. bata

“Maayong gabii kay Father Edwin, you’re hopeless. It seems you won’t stop giving lectures to those activist priests at the seminary. Doctor Il, Clara Kam, Dolores Sal, Nelia Sab, Angelo Glo, Ciano Basar, leaonardo ka, barok, Ariel-Anna, musta mo diha? I, Jun Pala, have your names on the list here. You are now under surveillance.

binata

“What does that mean? What will happen to them?”

225 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

bata

“What will happen to them? I don’t know what will happen to them because they are sympathizers. We just warned them not to support the NPA. If they support them, it’s up to the Tad-Tad to tad-tad them.”

Katahimikan. Akmang tatadtarin ng BATA ang BINATA. Magtatawanan ang dalawa habang hinahatak ng BATA ang katawan ng BINATA palabas ng entablado. ato

Hindi ka ba nababahala? Pumapatay tayo—

eddie

—ng mga mamamatay tao.

ato

“Murder Capital of the Philippines.” ‘Yun ang tawag nila dito noon.

eddie

Hinayaan ra man níla.

ato

Kahit iyong si Cory, inendorso ang Ala Masa. Parepareho lang sila. Tayo.

eddie

Mula twenty thousand hanggang milyon-milyong pabuya Kuya. Sa lagay ng buhay natin bago ang lahat ng ‘to, himalang ‘di tayo namatay sa gutom.

Saglit. eddie

Ug unsay atong mahitabo?

Papatayin ni EDDIE ang sigarilyo niya. Susunod si ATO. ato

Sumama ka sa akin. Hindi ka pa ba napapagod?

Titingin si ATO sa paa ni EDDIE.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 226

eddie

Yawa Kuya, ‘di rin ako makakalayo.

ato

May plano ako.

Matatawa si EDDIE. eddie

Nahibal-an ko. Imposibleng wa kay plano. Unsa man diay?

ato

Sasama ka ba sa akin? Wala akong milyon, pero alam ko kung saan tayo makakahanap ng katahimikan.

Kasiyahan. Masaya ka dito?

Mahabang katahimikan. eddie

Naunsa man ka Kuya?

Hihingi ng sigarilyo si ATO at sisimulang magyosi muli. ato

‘Yung op kay Mr. Patasaja. Siya raw ang mastermind ng pag-kidnap kay Mrs. Abaca, asawa ng kaibigan ni Tatay.

eddie

Magkaiba tayo ng assignments noon, pero ingon ka, success ang op.

Tatango si ATO. Babalik ang BINATA. binata

Success ang op?

Iiling ang BINATA at kukuha muli ng dyaryo. binata

“Pamilya Patasaja, inambush ang sasakyan.”

227 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

ato

Pagkaharang namin sa kotse niya, kasama pala buong pamilya: labimpitong taong gulang na manugang niya, asawa niyang buntis, katulong, isang boy-boy niya, at apat na taong gulang na anak niya.

Hihithit ng yosi si ATO. binata

“Pagkaharang sa sasakyan, nilipat ang misis sa likod at pinagitnaan ng dalawang iskwad members. Mula Gen San, minaneho ang kotse patungong Saranggani hanggang Davao.”

ato

Ako ang nagmaneho. Tumigil kami sa isang quarry.

Pinasok si Patasaja sa quarry at sa isang kubo naman iniligay ‘yung asawa’t anak nila. ‘Yung iba, pinuntahan si Tatay, hiningi ang confirmation niya. Kami, naiwang nag-aabang.

Magtutunog-static ang radyo, papasok ang BATA at tatabihan ito. v.o.

“Sige, limpyo lang.”

bata

Erase daw lahat!

ato

Pagbalik nila sa quarry, may baon pa silang pancit at tinapay. Sige raw, basta’t malinis lang. Unang beses kong sinubukang umayaw sa kanila.

Hihithit muli siya ng yosi. Pagmamasdan niya ang BATA at BINATA. binata

(Sa Bata) “Isa lang ang target natin, bakit masama itong buntis, masama itong anak na 4 year old, masama itong matanda, at masama itong katulong na lalaki at babae?

Iwanan ko nalang ang bata sa terminal ng Butuan.”

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 228

eddie

Anong ginawa mo Kuya?

bata

“Paglaki ng batang iyan, makikilala pa rin niya ang mga mukha natin, at hindi na natin siya makikilala. At baka ito, gagawa ito ng pagganti dahil inubos natin ang buong pamilya niya.”

eddie

Kuya...

binata

“Anim na miyembro ng Pamilya Patasaja, patay.”

eddie

Kuya.

Ibabalik ni ATO ang pansin kay EDDIE. eddie

Pagkatapos, anong ginawa mo?

ato

Wala. Success ang op.

eddie

Dugay na ná nahitabo. Nganong ngayon ra?

ato

Simula nang napanood kong panoorin ng batang iyon ang pagpaslang sa mga magulang niya, gabi-gabi akong binabangungot nina Cecillo at Fernando.

Akmang nananaksak ang BINATA. Pinanonood lamang siya ng BATA. eddie

Yawa Kuya, durugista ang mga kapatid mo. Inaabuso ka nila. Hindi mo sila pamilya. Ako ang tunay nga igsoon nimo.

Tatango si ATO. ato

Simula noong op kay Patasaja, paulit-ulit na rin sa utak ko ang unang pagkakataong gumanti ako sa mga kapatid ko.

229 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

Magyoyosi siya muli. Hindi pa rin tumigil sa pananaksak ang BINATA. bata

Tama na Kuya Ato, patay na sila. Hinihintay na nila ang text mo.

Pipigilan ng BATA ang BINATA. Babagsak ang BINATA sa sahig, nakatulala. Yayapakin siya ng BATA. ato

Buti na lang nandun ka, kundi baka sarili ko na ang sunod kong nasaktan.

Tatahimik lang si ATO. eddie

Pinagsisisihan mo ba iyon?

ato

Marami akong pinagsisisihan, Eddie, pero hindi ko pinagsisihan ang mga natulong ko sa ‘yo noon.

eddie

Mahirap din ang malakas ang memorya...

Saglit. eddie

Tungod nimo, nang pinasok mo ako sa iskwad, nakaganti ako. Nakahanap ako ng mga katulong gumanti.

Tinulungan mo akong gumanti para kay papa, Kuya.

Pisti, higit pa sa pasasalamat ni Tatay ang pasasalamat ko sa ’yo.

ato

Gusto kitang tulungan ulit. Tulungang magbago.

Mahabang katahimikan. Hahaplusin ni EDDIE ang lampa niyang paa.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 230

eddie

Kaya pala.

ato

Patawarin mo ako, Eddie.

Kakalas sa yakap ng BATA ang BINATA, mapapansin niya ang dyaryo sa kanyang tabi. binata

“Shoot-out sa Tagum, ilang patay at sugatan. Oktubre 2015.”

Mag-aaya ng laro ng tayá ang BATA. Maglalaro ang BINATA at BATA ng baril-barilan. ato

Hindi ko ginusto ‘yan para sa 'yo. Sadyang hindi ko na kinayang pumatay. Kahit... Kahit na...

Pagmamasdan ni ATO ang saklay. Magyo-yosi naman si EDDIE. bata

Wala na akong bala! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Iilag kunwari ang BATA at biglang magtataas ng mga kamay.

Sisigaw siya sa BINATA. bata

Siya Kuya! Barilin mo siya! Kundi—BANG!

Tatamaan sa binti ang BATA at mahuhulog. Tulala lang ang BINATA at saka tatakbo palabas ng entablado. bata

Kuya Ato!

Uungol ang BATA sa tabi. Ngingiti si EDDIE. eddie

Way kaso, Kuya. Tapos na. Kung gusto mo akong tulungan ulit, halika na.

231 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

Akmang tatayo si EDDIE. Hindi gagalaw si ATO. Katahimikan. eddie

Pisti Kuya, anong binabalak mo?

ato

Anong binabalak mo?

Saglit. eddie

Tulungan mo ako sa bag-ong target. Upat nga milyon.

Tutulungan kitang makaalis.

Mahabang katahimikan. ato

Sino ang target?

Magtititigan lamang ang dalawa. Yuyuko si EDDIE. Tatango si ATO. eddie

Yawa Kuya, hinahanap ka nila. Dead or alive, Kuya.

ato

Bakit ikaw ang pinadala nila?

eddie

Nagprisinta ko, Kuya! Gusto kitang ibalik ng buhay. Sige na ba.

ato

Bibiguin mo ako, Eddie?

eddie

Pisting yawa ka, hindi kita trinatraydor! ‘Di tulad ng pagtra-traydor sa 'yo ng konsensya mo.

ato

Wala bang boses na bumabagabag sa 'yo, Eddie?

heights Seniors Folio 2020 ¡ 232

eddie

Wala. Dahil way silbi ang sistema, tayo ang tagapagtanggol. Lumalaban ra ta. Lumalaban ra ko, Ato.

ato

At dahil diyan, gustuhin ko mang magbago, maaaring mas makasalanan pa rin ako sa 'yo.

eddie

Unsa?

ato

Nagtago ako sa isang simbahan ng anim na buwan, sa isang maliit at masikip na silid. Walang kailaw-ilaw.

Matatawa lang si EDDIE. ato

Ang sabi ni Padre, responsibilidad ng tao ang sundin ang kanyang konsensya. Mali man ang sinasabi nito sa 'yo, responsibilidad mong sundin ito.

eddie

Pisting yawa, wala akong pakialam diyan, Ato.

ato

Kahit walang duda sa pagka-imoral ng mga ginagawa mo, dahil sinusunod mo lang ang konsensya mo, ang Diyos lang ang makasasabi kung tunay kang makasalanan.

eddie

Motuo ka man sa Diyos o hindi, hindi mababago ang kalagayan ng mundo. Uli na lamang ka, Ato.

ato

Wala na akong balak bumalik, Eddie.

eddie

Anong balak mong gawin?

Mahabang katahimikan. ato

Aamin ako. Lalapit ako sa pulis.

233 ¡ Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

eddie

Pisting yawa, nabuang na lagi ka! Ni kahit nga sa atin na pinagkakatiwalaan ni Tatay, pili ang mga pulis na ipinapakilala sa ’tin bilang kakampi.

Saglit. ato

Sa media. Ang tao na lang ang humusga.

eddie

Buang ka! Hindi mo ba alam na tatakbo siyang Presidente?

Baka si Tatay mismo ang tumapos sa ‘yo.

ato

Ano?

eddie

Bilib ang lahat sa kanya. Pisti, ‘di na malayong manalo ‘yun. At wala kang patunay, Ato.

Mahabang katahimikan. ato

Saan mo tinago, Eddie?

eddie

Ngano, bibili ka ng ebidensya? Bibilhin mo kami?

Saglit. eddie

Ano talaga ang kailangan mo?

Mahabang katahimikan. eddie

Ganun-ganun ra? Wala ka nang tiwala sa akin?

Saglit. ato

Pera—

eddie

Mangmang ako pero hindi tanga! heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 234

Akmang aabutin ni EDDIE ang likod ng kanyang pantalon. Mas mabilis si ATO. Sa ilalim ng lamesa ay tinututukan niya ng baril si EDDIE. Nanonood ang BATA. eddie

Alam kong kasama ng perang binaon mo, mga dokumento. Mga ebidensya. Akala mo maloloko mo ko porket hindi ako marunong magbasa? Pisting yawa ka, Ato!

ato

Patawad, Eddie, hindi ako sigurado kung hahayaan mo ako pagkatapos ang...

Titingin si ATO sa saklay. Matatawa lang si EDDIE. eddie

Ingon ko, “Way kaso, Ato.” ‘Di ba?

Tatango si ATO. Dahan-dahang itatago ni ATO ang baril at ilalagay ang kanyang mga kamay sa lamesa. ato

Wala akong balak na saktan ka, nag-iingat lang. Hayaan mo na ako, Ed. O ‘di kaya sumama ka sa 'kin.

eddie

Sana nagsabi ka na lang ng totoo.

Mabilis ang pangyayari, aabutin ni EDDIE ang kanyang baril.

Magdidilim ang entablado sa putok ng baril. Iilaw na muli ang entablado. Makikitang nakahandusay si EDDIE sa sahig. Si ATO, may hawak na baril na nakatutok kay EDDIE. Sa tabi ni EDDIE, isang folder na may mga nakaipit na papel. Papasok muli ang BINATA mula sa kabilang bahagi ng entablado. binata

Ano ang sinasabi ng iyong konsensya?

Titingnan ni ATO si EDDIE.

235 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

ato

Na patawarin kami, hindi namin alam ang mga nagawa—

Mabibitawan niya ang baril. ato

Ginagawa namin. Patawarin kami, patawarin kami.

binata

Sigurado ka?

ato

Hindi... Hindi...

Lilibutin ni ATO ang entablado. Babangon si EDDIE at ang BATA. Susundan siya ng mga ito. binata

Hindi.

Kaharap ni ATO ang BINATA. ato

Hindi?

binata

Málay ko.

ato

Málay ko?

Saglit. ato

Málay ako.

Tatango ang BINATA. Uulitin ni ATO kay EDDIE at sa BINATA. ato

Málay ako!

Magkikibit-balikat ang BATA. bata

Málay ko.

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 236

eddie

Málay ko ba.

ato

Mali tayo!

eddie

Tama tayo!

bata

Lumalaban ra ta, Kuya Ato.

binata

Málay ba nila?

ato

Responsibilidad ng tao ang sundin ang kanyang konsensya. Mali man ito, responsibilidad nila...

Saglit. ato

Kaya gustuhin ko mang magbago, maaaring mas makasalanan pa rin ako sa kanila.

Luluhod si ATO at magdadasal sa bangko. ato

Ama, patawarin mo sila, sapagkat hindi nila nalalaman ang kanilang ginagawa. Higit sa lahat ako, dahil maláy ako sa aking mga nagawa.

binata

Walang kapatawaran. Ngunit hindi tayo ang tunay na makasasabi.

Katahimikan. ato

Agosto, Setyembre, Oktubre... labindalawang buwan.

Saglit.

237 · Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis

Sa

isang

taon,

ato

Oktubre... 2015... Labindalawa... Labindalawa ang pinatay ko—

binata

Ayo-ayo. Dito lang ako.

eddie

Dito lang kami.

bata

Baka makalimot ka na naman.

Maya-maya, paglalaruan ng BATA ang radyo at pipindutin ito.

Tutugtog ang “Ex-Davao Policeman Tags Duterte in Death Squad, Member. v.o.

“Panawagan ko sa aking mga kasamahan, hindi po solusyon ang pagpatay, managot po tayo sa batas ng tao at ng Diyos. Uusigin tayo ng konsesnya natin hanggang sa angkan natin kung dalhin natin ito sa libingan natin.

Mapatay man ako o papatayin ako, kontento na ako na nagawa ko ang promise ko sa Diyos na magsagawa ng isang public confession. Sana po, darating ang panahon na magkaron ng pambansang pulisan na totoo pong may dangal, makadiyos, makabayan at makatao. Na totoo pong ang kanyang sinumpaan tungkulin, to serve and protect para sa ikabubuti ng nakararami. Hindi po to serve and collect [...] Ako po si Arturo Bariket Lascanas, 56 years old. Isa pong retiradong pulis na miyembro ng Davao City Police Office [...] God bless po sa bansa natin at sa pambansang kapulisan.”

Hihina ang V.O. kasabay ng pagkawala ng ilaw sa entablado. telon

heights Seniors Folio 2020 · 238

Loyola Schools Awards for the Arts 2020 Creative Writing: Fiction Catherine Lianza A. Aquino, bfa creative writing and ab literature (english) Creative Writing: Nonfiction Danielle Michelle B. Cabahug, bs communications technology management and minor in creative writing Aisha Kalina V. Rallonza, bfa creative writing Hannah Mikaela S. TiĂąga, bfa creative writing Creative Writing: Poetry Martina M. Herras, ab literature (english) Emmanuel B. Lacadin, bs environmental science Ana Martina R. Nevada, bfa creative writing Dorothy Claire G. Parungao, bs chemistry with materials science engineering Screen Arts: Directing Hikaru H. Murakami, ab communication Screen Arts: Cinematography and Editing Miko Santino D. Reyes, bs communications technology management Screen Arts: Sound Design Raphael Ervin R. Villanueva, bs management information systems

Theater Arts: Performance Alyssa Jamille D. Binay, bfa theatre arts Alexa Mikheila Prats, ab interdisciplinary studies Quiel Andrew I. Quiwa, bs electronics engineering John Bernard G. Sanchez, bs biology Theater Arts: Directing Maria Teresa Gabriela J. Oppen, bfa theatre arts Visual Arts: Graphic Design Zoe C. De Ocampo, bfa information design Anastasha R. Magallona, bfa information design Maria Victoria Ciara L. Padilla, bfa information design Andrea Augustine R. Pavia, bfa information design Lennon C. Villanueva, bfa information design Visual Arts: Illustration Cid I. Gonzales, bfa information design Maxine Victoria B. Marquez, bfa information design Maria Patricia D. Mediarito, bfa information design Hannah Cristina E. Reyes, bfa information design Visual Arts: Photography Marian L. Cabauatan, bs management Paolo Rafael R. Yaptinchay, ab chinese studies Izza Joyce D. Zamoranos, bs management of applied chemistry

Dance: Performance Mikaela G. Quiambao, ab management economics Maria Andrea H. Tagaban, bs communications technology management Ma. Winnalee E. Young, bs psychology Music: Performance Javier Luis G. Pimentel, bs communications technology management Angela Esther G. Reyes, bs psychology

The members of the Awards for the Arts Committee: Mark Joseph T. Calano, Ph.D. (Chair) Alexis Augusto L. Abola Christian Jil R. Benitez Sarah Delphine C. Buencamino Carlomar A. Daoana Miguel Francisco B. De La Cruz Allan Alberto N. Derain, Ph.D. Alberto L. Dimarucut Karen Fatima R. Francisco Maria Victoria T. Herrera Joi Marie Angelica M. Indias Skilty C. Labastilla Melissa Vera M. Maramara Glenn S. Mas Allan J. Pastrana Marla Inez Angela Z. Ponce De Leon, Ph.D. Jerry C. Respeto, Ph.D. Pauline M. Saltarin Aaron R. Vicencio Martin V. Villanueva Alvin B. Yapan, Ph.D.

Pasasalamat Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin, SJ at ang Office of the President Dr. Maria Luz C. Vilches at ang Office of the Vice President for the Loyola Schools Dr. Leland Joseph R. Dela Cruz at ang Office of the Associate Dean for Student Formation Dr. Josefina D. HofileĂąa at ang Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Jonathan Chua at ang Office of the Dean, School of Humanities Dr. Priscilla Angela T. Cruz at ang English Department G. Martin V. Villanueva at ang Department of Fine Arts Dr. Gary C. Devilles at ang Kagawaran ng Filipino Dr. Allan Alberto N. Derain at ang Ateneo Institute of the Literary Arts and Practices (ailap) G. Ralph Jacinto A. Quiblat at ang Office of Student Activities Bb. Marie Joy R. Salita at ang Office of the Associate Dean for the Student and Administrative Services Gng. Liberty P. Santos at ang Central Accounting Office G. Regidor B. Macaraig at ang Purchasing Office Dr. Vernon R. Totanes at ang Rizal Library Bb. Carina C. Samaniego at ang University Archives Bb. Ma. Victoria T. Herrera at ang Ateneo Art Gallery Dr. Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo at ang AretĂŠ Ang MVP Maintenance at ang mga Security Personnel Dr. Vincenz Serrano at ang Kritika Kultura Teach for the Philippines (tfp) at Concepcion Elementary School (ces) Bb. Thea Soriano at ang The GUIDON Bb. Caila Noche at ang Matanglawin Ang Sanggunian ng mga Paaralang Loyola ng Ateneo de Manila, at ang Council of Organizations of the Ateneo - Manila

At sa lahat ng bumubuhay sa panitikan at sining sa komunidad ng Pamantasan ng Ateneo de Manila sa pamamagitan ng patuloy na pagbabahagi ng kanilang mga akda at patuloy na pagsuporta sa mga proyekto ng heights

Patnugutan Punong Patnugot Patricia Clarice A. Sarmiento [ab lit (eng) 2021] Katuwang na Patnugot Mikaela Adrianne C. Regis [bfa cw, ab lit (eng) 2021] Patnugot para sa mga Panlabas na Gawain

Brianna Louise M. Cayetano [ab com 2021]

Tagapangasiwang Patnugot para sa Komunikasyon

Katuwang sa Pananalapi

Zianne Alyssa Agustin [bfa id 2021] Lorenzo Miguel S. Reyes [bs mis 2020]

Patnugot sa Sining Jude Angelo S. Buendia [ab ds 2021] Katuwang na Patnugot sa Sining

Zofia Lyne R. Agama [ab lit (eng) 2021]

Patnugot sa Disenyo Juan Carlos I. Luna [bfa id 2020] Katuwang na Patnugot sa Disenyo Jana Ysabel V. Codera [ab com 2022] Patnugot sa Ingles Madeleine Ashley P. Sy [ab ec-h 2021] Katuwang na Patnugot sa Ingles

Danielle Michelle B. Cabahug [bs ctm 2020]

Patnugot sa Filipino Alyssa Gewell A. Llorin [bs aps-mse 2022] Katuwang na Patnugot sa Filipino Ignacio C. Bunag [bs hs 2022] Tagapangasiwa ng Produksyon

Justin Nicholas C. Barbara [bs mis 2021]

Katuwang na Tagapangasiwa ng Produksyon

Justine Psyche B. Villanueva [ab com 2022]

Patnugot ng Heights Online Aletha Zaire T. Payawal [ab ds 2022] Katuwang na Patnugot sa Heights Online Arnold Manuel G. Rillorta [ab ds 2022]

Punong Tagapamagitan at Tagapamagitan sa Ingles Martin V. Villanueva Tagapamagitan sa Filipino

Christian Jil R. Benitez

Tagapamagitan sa Sining

Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan

Tagapamagitan sa Disenyo

Tanya Lea Francesca M. Mallillin

Tagapamagitan sa Produksyon

Micah Marie F. Naadat

Tagapamagitan sa Heights Online Regine Miren D. Cabato

Mga Kasapi Sining

Lucas Abaya, Benjie Bernal, Kevin Castro, Aisha Causing, Enrico Cruz, Pilar Gonzalez, Andrea Isaac, Fernando Miguel Lofranco, Aquirine Ong, Regina Anica Rivas, Rachel Maxine Tan, Clare Bianca Tantoco, Adrian Lance Teng, Justine Valdez, Katherine Sophia Wong, Charles Yuchioco

Disenyo

Chino Acero, Karl Eli Alconis, Justine Bello, Piper Berbano, Valerie Cobankiat, Justine Daquioag, Carmen Dolina, Patricia Grace Fermin, Pilar Gonzalez, Giulia Lopez, Maxine Marquez, Anya Nellas, Casey del Rosario, MJ Sison, Justin Dhaniel Tan, Trisha Tan, Mia Tupas

Ingles

Ma. Arianne Aleta, Cat Aquino, Sofia Ysabel I. Bernedo, Beatris Cabana, Sean Carballo, Lexie Nichole, Ariana Gabrielle S. Domingo, Stanley Guevarra, Nathan Lim, Keisha Mercado, Marty R. Nevada, Caila Noche, Andrea Posadas, Trisha Anne K. Reyes, Lyle Surtida, Adrian Lance Teng, Justine Psyche B. Villanueva, Nigel Yu

Bagwisan

Anj Cayabyab, Bernice Dacara, Rouella Danao, Bern de Belen, Brylle Fajardo, Martina Herras, Iva Magsalin, Jerome Maiquez, Cyd Mangubat, Dor Parungao, Bill Perez, Fide Ramos, Nina Romero, Lars Salamante, Nico Santana, Lulay Santiago

Produksyon Julia Abella, Jeff Andawi, Paul Anonuevo, Justine Borja, Nicole Brofas,

Giane Butalid, Louise Dimalanta, Cesar Fabro, Alexis Ferreras,

Mariana Gardoce, Sofia Guanzon, Angelika Portia Lapidario,

Robert Kwan Laurel, Camille De Luna, Bianca Mallari,

Daniel Manguerra, Aisha Said, Gianna Sibal, Melanie Mae Silverio, Charles Yuchioco Heights Online

Ticia Almazan, Zoe Andin, Julia Carpio, Rocio Castillo, Jarred Irwin Chiang, Enrico Cruz, Isabella Darang, Miguell Emerson Enriquez, Hazel Lam, Andrea Mikaela Llanes, Hana Severina Matociños, Ezri Mitra, Maiko Aira Ng, Tamia F. Reodica, Joaquin Santos, Gianna Sibal, Andrea Tibayan, Simone Yatco, Iya Zafra