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MALATE LITERARY FOLIO Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 Karapatang-ari © 2022 Ang Malate Literary Folio ang opisyal na publikasyon ng sining at panitikan ng Pamantasang De La Salle - Manila, sa ilalim ng awtoridad ng Student Media Office (SMO). Ang mga komento at mungkahi ay maaaring ipahatid sa: E-mail address: mlf@dlsu.edu.ph Website: Facebook:issuu.com/malatelitfoliofb.com/malateliteraryfolio Twitter: Instagram:@malatelitfolio@malatelitfolio 503-Media House, Bro. Connon Hall, De La Salle University-Manila, 2401 Taft Avenue, Malate, Manila. Nananatili sa indibidwal na may-akda o may-dibuho ang karapatang-ari ng bawat piyesang ipinalimbag dito. Hindi maaaring ipalathala muli o gamitin sa anumang paraan ang alin man sa mga nilalaman nang walang karampatang pahintulot ng may-akda o may-dibuho ANG TOMONG ITO AY HINDI IPINAGBIBILI. Mangyaring ipagbigay-alam sa mga patnugot ng Malate Literary Folio ang anumang paglabag ukol dito. Pinangunahan ni Elijah T. Barongan ang paglikha ng layout ng folio na ito, sa tulong nina Chloe Mariano at Maxine Lee. Ang pabalat ay pinamagatang “breaking out of my nature” — likha ni Elijah T. Barongan.
Young kid, it’s time for a new world. You hear violence and fists destroying everything; and with the serenity of the sound of paintbrush gliding through the canvas, keyboard tapping as you type these words, camera shutter blinking as it immortalizes light, courage finds you — and a million others — to restore humanity. This is our call to breakfree from this egg of a world.
LAUREN ANGELAEditor-in-chiefCHUA
the shape of its desired form. As it finds its way out, it would dread the darkness of its past. It surely takes guts to break even the most fragile barriers and smash the course shells of what we are conditioned to hold as normal and just. They hum in synchronized beats, like a choir knocking into your senses: “this is how it’s supposed to be.”
Yet here you are, with nothing but your braveheart — smashing this imaginary glass ceiling above your head. Crystals rain resembling diamonds of some sort. Soon after, you pile them up to reach for something grander. As you climb up, you come face to face with a rigged game controlled by century-old systems.
CrackINTRODUCTIONopenaneggandseetheyolktake
i
What Morpheus Meant Zaira Maxine Frayco may 22 b.t.
One Hundred Ninety-Two Kilometers of Grief Carlo Bautista
Saints Playing Convicts Carlo Bautista
Ang Karné ay Sadyáng Kinakain, Hija Gwenevie Q. Bayaua
1955364294263i ii
Paglalandas Lauren Angela Chua
tPiNilalamaNNtroduksyoNrosaula
When Everything Falls Into Place Riddle Alcantara
And Yours is the Pasture, Mine is the Body Andrei Fuentebella
i seek a clean slate Elijah T. Barongan
Leap of Youth Rizal Ezmin Katalbas
the passage of time Ana Gabriela Magno
a world on fire Elijah T. Barongan
Happy Enough Julianna Villarosa
rsiNiNgetrato 53355352 xiii 33188137
breaking out of my nature Elijah T. Barongan under Emmanuel Cabangon layered Emmanuel Cabangon
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Kwentong Ilog Addie Holgado
Golden Journey Keicee Vasquez
all you can do is watch Dana Beatrice Tan
defamiliarization
Stephanie Bianca Lim
Caitlyne Erika Cue
Spiritual Milk
Erin Marie Medina
In a Little Bubble
ackNowledgemeNt
Let It Flow
new transmissions
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Stephanie Bianca Lim
Francis Nathe Omaña
Light in the Dark
Chasing Fish
Elijah T. Barongan
Francis Nathe Omaña
mga Hurado sa
Poetry & tula
Maysa arabIt love asIs PHotograPHy
Ina abuan Mesandel arguelles
ika-37 Na dlsu aNNual awards for literature & ika-12 Na dlsu aNNual awards for Visual arts
JIMMy doMIngo reMar zaMora
dolores taylan davId MIChael san Juan
sHort story & maikliNg kweNto ClarIssa MIlItante Kate alyzon raMIl essay & saNaysay
v
digital art & traditioNal art
v
Ms. Franz louIse santos director
Ma. bea JoellIne d. MartInez tagaPamaHalaNg PatNugot
alexandra MonIque d. Manalo PaNgalawaNg PatNugot
heavenleIgh Faye C. luzara tagaPamaHala Ng eVeNts
MIguelle P. Cortez tagaPamaHala Ng Pagmamay-ari
dr. Mesandel arguelles Mr. vIJae alquIsola
Ms. Jeanne MarIe PhyllIs tan coordiNator
lauren angela C. Chua PuNoNg PatNugot
Ms. Ma. Manuela agdePPa secretary
FaIth lynnwel P. dela vega PatNugot Ng tula
elIJah MahrI t. barongan tagaPamaHala Ng marketiNg tagaPamaHala Ng layout
dana beatrICe s. tan PatNugot Ng siNiNg
eloIsa o. sIson tagaPamaHala Ng dokyumeNtasyoN
van rIen Jude esPIrItu Matthew raFael Florendo Kyle noel Ibarra benedICt lIM JaMIe sheKInah MaPa Chaunne Ira Masongsong querIx Keershyne rose reCalde Isabella tuason CIelo MarIe vICenCIo vInCe gerard vICtorIa therese dIane vIllanueva doMInIque bIanCa yaP
urIel anne t buManlag PatNugot Ng retrato
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PatNugutaN
mga seNyor Na mgaPatNugottagaPayo
saMantha KrIssel g. Kwan PatNugot Ng Prosa
studeNt media office
tula JolanI Carla Cartallaryelle
querIda ( g ) nathanIel aguIrre rayMund John sarMIento II sean xavIer nIeva
angela de Castro angelIto raPhael reyta e. M. M. eMManuel Cabangon gabrIelle PalMos MMJ.I.rayarIerIda
JaCquIlIne alagos FranCesCa therese baltasar Pablo MulawIn Casanova elIJah nIColas Ferrera adaIr nevan holgado Chloe JulIanne MarIano Ines MargarIta PadIlla bea so JulIanna andrea vIllarosa
retrato
Prosa
ClaIre MadIson Chua JulIah Faye delavega Moses oJera
marketiNg & eVeNts
Jan aIreen MagCalIng rIddle alCantara Mary John saquIlayan MaxIne C. lee raya MarIe sabandal trICIa ann n. salvaCIon
siNiNg
ChrIstIan PaCulanan rIgel ruel Portales JaCobe JoaquIn sevIlla PaulIne sharry tIu Joshua rICh valentInMegs
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K A S A P I
allIyah vanessa ProvIdoChava dereK Masalang guIon MarCIano JennIFer santos MarI saMantha bersaldo
athena nICole C. Cardenas danIela raCaza
mga Nagwagi sa ika-37 Na dlsu aNNual awards for literature & ika-12 Na dlsu aNNual awards for Visual arts tPoetryulaIN THE APRIL HEAT / I TALKED TO GOD / AND LOVED YOU 2nd Place - Mari Samantha M. Bersaldo The Politics of God and the Politics of Man 2nd Place - Rigel Ruel Portales Somewhere Between Nine O’clock and Forever 3rd Place - Caitlyne Erika Cue memoirs of ruinous century 3rd Place - Decar John Capadiso Smoke Signals 3rd Place - Chelsea Dominique Pongan Bukang-Liwayway Honorable Mention - Juliah Faye Dela Vega si juan at ang kanyang mga laruan Honorable Mention - Decar John Capadiso Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 viii
Malate
Literary Folio sHort story maikliNg kweNto essay Saints Playing Convicts 2nd Place - Carlo Bautista A Woman and Fate Walks into a Restaurant Honorable Mention - Diane Therese Huldong The Helikon Compendium Honorable Mention - Anthony Alexis Vellon How to Book A Flight to the Future 2nd Place - Justin Rainier Gimeno Silent Battles 3rd Place - Chanel Jordan Dollhouse of Novelties 3rd Place - Hans Gabriel Eron When Everything Falls Into Place 3rd Place - Maridelle Alcantara What Morpheus Meant 3rd Place - Zaira Maxine Frayco Upon receiving the final results and scores from our judges for this category, we have come to a conclusion that none of the submitted entries were able to reach the cut-off scores for the competition. ix
tdsaNaysayigitalartraditioNal art huwag feeling superior 3rd Place - Decar John Capadiso Bulag, Pipi, at Bingi 3rd Place - Chanel Jordan Happy Enough 1st Place - Julianna Andrea Villarosa An Inquisitor’s Guide to Supernatural 2nd Place - Renee Isabella Aguila Redemption 3rd Place - Renee Isabella Aguila Workout 3rd Place - Judd Reinier Flores Kwentong Ilog 3rd Place - Adair Nevan C. Holgado The Muse Off the Grid Honorable Mention - Jennie Villanueva Ilaw ng Tahanan Honorable Mention - Jamie Cristle T. Choi Pastel Days Honorable Mention - Francis Nathe A. Omaña Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 x
Malate Literary Folio PHotograPHy Spiritual Milk 3rd Place - Caitlyne Erika Cue Let It Flow Honorable Mention - Francis Nathe A. Omaña Light in the Dark Honorable Mention - Francis Nathe A. Omaña Unshaken Heart Honorable Mention - Francis Nathe A. Omaña Holy Abandonment Honorable Mention - Judd Reinier Flores Golden Journey Honorable Mention - Keicee B. Vasquez xi
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Elijah T. Barongan breaking out of my nature
TOMO XXXVIII BILANG 2
EMMANUEL CABANGON under
It shouldn’t come where I live but it does, and spring is supposed to be next. But the world plays for no one, so I wake up, and it’s freezing cold again. It’s unfair, really— because spring follows reality, but winter comes everyday, everyday. And only I feel its chill.
may 22
Winter shouldn’t come where I live but it does. It forgets my birthdays and skips the apologies. I say, “I can’t wait to eat,” but there’s no food left. It says, “your siblings were hungry.” So was FrostbiteI.
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crawls through my fingers before I’ve even turned the knob. I’d have cut my hand off if it didn’t already sting me numb.
It builds a path of snow in my bedroom, tears aparts what little life I’ve managed to grow in those four walls, and with its Jimmy Choo heel on my toes, it says, “I am here to stay.”
My siblings are still asleep, the house has barely woken up, and yet I’m shivering in my skin because winter comes when it wants to, and it comes to me only.
b.t.
JULIANNA VILLAROSA
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 3
Happy Enough
1st Place in Digital Art, 12th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts
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/ Mandirì ka sana / sa katawán kong nasisiràng pagpág / na hinatak at nilamon ng mga aso / sa eskinitang madilím / at mabulunan ka sana / sa paklá ng lamán kong / ilang araw na nabúbulók / Matikmán mo sana / ang asim ng laway ko / sa bawat halik ng aking bibíg na tinahíng sarado / at mapaso sana ang iyong binti / sa karayom / na nakabaon sa iyong bulsá / Leche / ang dalamhatì na itó / leche ang lagkit ng tingin mo / Ang aking luhá ay / maalat at matalím at gamól / at ang aking ngitngít / ay ang mahapding angháng / na gumagapang sa ila lim / ng aking balát / Gustó ko sana dilaan / kahit kauntî lang / ang tamís / ng iyóng / pagkákakilanlán / Bakâ sakalì lamang / malaman ko / kung saán / akó nagkamalî / saán / akó nagkulang / o sakali lamang / malaman mo / kung saán / nanggaling ang paít ng galít ko /
Ang Karné ay Sadyáng Kinakain, Hija
GWENEVIE Q. BAYAUA
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 5 digital art DANA BEATRICE TAN all you can do is watch digital art
EMMANUEL CABANGON
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layered
Pangasinan – Malasiqui, in particular – will introduce itself in the form of a place that has stopped wanting to decide between being agricultural or metropolitan. I once called it an identity crisis, this dissonance, but I grew to realize that this was this place’s charm. In Malasiqui, a cow pulls a cart of palay along the avenue, and beside them a Toyota Vios skids to a halt to give way to a passing tractor. Dirt roads intersect asphalt. Teenagers Instagram their Cinnamon-blended
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 9
To get to Malasiqui, Pangasinan, coming from Paco, Manila, one must first make their way through the suffocating overpasses and avenues of the Metro to gain access to the expressways that cut through the provinces of Northern Luzon. Along the way, Mount Arayat rises above the Kapampangan farmlands. Rice plantations where egrets perch on pilapils in Tarlac. Then an exit into Villasis. There, tarpaulins of Globe and Smart Deals flutter like banners above stalls that sell sausages and Durian and dried Bangus hanging off of hooks. Lastly, there will be a bridge that stretches over the Agno river. Upon crossing, the town of Malasiqui will spread out before you.
One Hundred Ninety-Two Kilometers of Grief
CARLO BAUTISTA
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However, when we think of pag-uwi, we think of it as a return to the familiar. It is perhaps the reason why I only got comfortable with saying “pag-uwi” in relation to Pangasinan after the fifth or sixth visit, when I had gotten used to some of the people and I could easily point out when we’ve reached certain landmarks along the road. And even then, I had never really felt like I had the right to use “pag-uwi” when referring to my visits. To me, saying “uuwi ako” constituted knowing that place like its map was tattooed on my palm. It meant
But I have to admit that my grandmother, my Nanay, surpassed my excitement when it came to our Pangasinan trips. Her suitcase would be the heaviest because she filled it with an entire drawer of clothes, her Viartril and Losartan and Simvastatin meds bundled together in a Mercury Drug plastic bag, a pile of face towels. It was because of her and my mother that I learned no longer to phrase our trips to Pangasinan as mere vacations. Rather, I had adopted the way they phrased it: “Onsempet tayo ed Pangasinan.” Uuwi tayo sa Pangasinan. Returning home.
Mocha inside an art deco coffee shop, while across the street a weary mechanic sits down in front of a bowl of Papaitan and a plate of rice in a makeshift karinderya. A three-story vacation home sits within a sugarcane plantation. A whiff of early morning dew is smothered by the smoke of a passing Solid North bus.
The first time my family decided I could come with them to Pangasinan was during the funeral of a granduncle I had never met before. I was eight. Pangasinan was just a place full of relatives I needed to be introduced to who would all claim that the first time they saw me was when I was three and had barely any recollection of anything. But, as a child, I could sift through the awkwardness of having to ask Mano po several times all because of the wonder that came with being somewhere I’ve never been to before. I was drawn to the crispness of the air. The drone of cicadas. The silence that descended at night. Pangasinan had this unassuming serenity I didn’t find in Manila.
Malate Literary Folio
But I was never like Nanay. It’s inevitable that, as I talk about Pangasinan, I talk about her. Her name was Rosenda, and people back in Barangay Don Pedro in Malasiqui called her Tiya Rosing. She only ever left Pangasinan twice. The first was in 1979, when she had to join her husband in Caloocan who, at that time, was working for the National Housing Corporation as a clerk. They sent my mother and uncle to an elementary school somewhere in Tala, Caloocan. Eventually, they had to return when Nanay needed to take care of her mother who had suffered a stroke. The second time was in 1995, when my mother broke the news that she was pregnant with my brother who would become Nanay’s first apo. The second time was permanent. She settled in Manila for the last twenty-six years of her life. She would see the birth of five more grandchildren, even the birth of a great grandchild. She would return to Pangasinan only on yearly visits to Bongar, another barangay in Malasiqui where her inlaws would take turns doting on my siblings, and it was only during that first trip of mine in 2011 that she would get to see Don Pedro again. By then, their old house had already collapsed after years of termite infestations, and the only things they could salvage from the ruins were old cutlery and decorative plates. Many relatives still lived there, but others had moved to another barangay called Apaya, just a few blocks away. For Nanay, it would be years of back-and-forth, Manila to Pangasinan and Manila again.
that whenever I speak, my tongue should easily slip into pronouncing the syncopation of its language’s syllables. I needed to be connected to the people, to barter and bet in the peryahan without having to ask what the Pangasinan translation was for five pesos. To say that I was going home, I had to belong. To rightfully claim that I was indeed going home to Pangasinan, I had to be like Nanay.
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Nanay’s story is reflective of the rest of my family’s. Her husband, my Lolo Domie, had to work overseas for a few years. A few of my uncles are seamen, stuck within the lower quarters of a ship sailing from Grenada to Alicante or from Thessaloniki to the Moluccas strait.
A cousin of mine was born in Madrid but now resides in Bongar. Two of them live in Canada, two little girls who reside in Toronto and Vancouver respectively. Some of my aunts are in Hong Kong and the United States.
I guess, knowing my family’s history, I’ve explored the prospects of leaving Paco as well despite the fact that I’ve lived here for all my life. I’ve seen the Paco Market get renovated over and over again, the parish of San Fernando evolved with new altars and new priests being installed. I’ve seen neighbors give birth, I’ve seen several pass away. But when I stepped into high school, and even more so when I stepped into the university setting, I pondered finding a home elsewhere in Metro Manila, even abroad. When I was in high school, I imagined myself renting out a dormitory somewhere near the university I’d eventually study in. I’ve been tempted (by delusions of grandeur because we certainly don’t have the money for it) to enter grad school somewhere in London, New York, Amsterdam, even Singapore. I’ve even discussed scholarship opportunities with my sister in these places.
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If that time comes, I’d probably feel what Nanay had felt that time she had to come and help my mother raise my older brother. I’d feel the pull of that magnet of necessity that had guided the rest of my family on their exodus from Pangasinan to other points in the country and the world. In those places, they had grown families of their own, with children like me whose knowledge of the Pangasinan language is fractured. Children whose knowledge of their roots doesn’t extend beyond the topsoil, beyond what little of the culture they can observe on their yearly getaways, beyond what they can accrue from the stories of their parents and grandparents. So many of our generation here in Imperial Manila are the ends to the journeys of our forefathers. Our parents and grandparents constantly recount how life in Manila was the only way they could rise out of poverty, how there were no opportunities in the provinces. Imperial Manila is, in many ways, the Philippine version of the American Dream, and I can’t help but think
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 13
we are the result of that dream. We are their legacy, the end of their exodus. And it’s rather amusing to think that, to quench our thirst to solidify a sense of identity, so many of us want to reconnect to the places our families wanted to escape from.
I’ve long tried connecting to my roots in ways I could, and a majority of it has always been through Nanay. I didn’t really treat her the best way an apo should treat a grandmother, and I admit that it’s something that weighs down on my conscience every now and then. But I think I tried my best to listen. I listened to her stories about Pangasinan, observed how Malasiqui always hung from her words. You could hear how vividly she remembers the way her friends and siblings would climb trees to pick out the ripest of the mangoes, how her parents would cut open a coconut with a cleaver and they’d feast on its meat with a bit of salt as a viand. She giggled whenever she told us of how there would be catfish in the ponds near her home, how the roads were unlit save for the moon that hung above them so they could play tagu-taguan before going to bed. She would smile and end her stories with how life in Manila is so much better, pomp and bustle and all. And yet when my sister would find old photographs to stash them into the family album, Nanay would trace the outlines of her younger face on them. She’d point to a past neighbor’s gate, or talk about the railway behind the home. And then, with a dip in her voice, she would say, “Pero ang alam ko, giniba na ‘yan.”
These stories were my only relics of what Pangasinan was before I came into the world, a bridge to the deepest parts of my roots. I guess I thought the further back in time I could travel with them, the more I could connect to who I was. The more that I could validate where I came from, and what my family had to endure. And perhaps, at the heart of it all, this was the only way I could connect with Nanay despite the age gap, despite the times I hurt her.
But to Nanay, these stories weren’t relics from an era she had never seen. These were memories. And to so many of us, memories are the most powerful threads we use to tie us back to the homes we left,
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I think this dissonance between remembering and knowing is where grief is sown.
I wonder now how it must’ve felt like for her to return to Pangasinan and yet have so much change to the point that much of what she knew about it is buried under what it is becoming. I wonder if she questioned how much more of it will change before she dies. I wonder if it felt like loss, having to return to what is so familiar, only to see that so much of that familiarity is interspersed with so much newness. How did it feel for Nanay to come and accept Manila as her home, when so much of her identity was rooted in Malasiqui? How do we reckon with the places we call home when our ideas and memories of them come in conflict with the changes they will inevitably face? How do we cope when we are faced with the fact that our memories will remain memories, and that returning to where they were formed doesn’t guarantee their revival?
or will eventually leave behind. After all, it is natural, human even, to cling to the familiar even when one has long departed from it. However, what we remember isn’t subject to the concreteness of the changes these places eventually undergo. Urbanization, political shifts, the lives and deaths of those we once knew – these don’t bow to our memories, to what we wish will remain. It’s why it’s so jarring for us when we’re returning to the hometowns we haven’t seen in years.
Nanay’s death was a quick turn of events. My sister had come up the stairs crying that morning of April 13, 2021, delivering the news that if the doctors didn’t succeed in reviving Nanay, it’s over. And when it was over, we spent a few hours in the hospital. I saw Nanay’s corpse, saw how she was delivered to the funeral parlor to be cremated. I saw the furnace in which her body was to be incinerated. My siblings and I got to pick out the urn her ashes would be put in. We had only a week to grieve before we interred her in the Sto. Domingo Columbarium in Quezon City.
But moreover, in the context of my identity, losing Nanay meant losing a tether that bound me to my Pangasinense heritage. I’ve started to forget the names of her siblings, the names of my great grandparents, because I no longer have her to ask. I wonder now how I’ll ever reunite with other De Guzman relatives now that we don’t have a common matriarch to visit, binding us in the relationship we had with her as her grandchildren. My mind swims in questions
I have to admit that, until now, I am confused about what to feel about Nanay and her death. It’s grief, of course, but it’s so much more nuanced. When I try to remember Nanay, I remember the good. I remember her kissing me on the forehead after my confinement in the hospital because of a near-fatal bout with Dengue. I remember the way she’d cook Tinola and how it still wouldn’t compare to the others I’ve tasted. I remember a video of her mistaking a small stuffed bear for a puppy. I remember the way she’d squeeze my fingers and call them fat sausages.
The grief I feel for Nanay, I think, is complicated precisely because of this discordance between what my memory makes me believe our relationship looked like, and what my knowledge makes me accept we really were. Somehow, my knowledge feels like an accuser, telling me I have no right to grieve because I was never the apo I needed to be. It accuses my memory of being a liar, of being the opium that makes me succumb to the delusion that there was ever any love between Nanay and I. It’s been something I’ve grappled with ever since she died a year ago.
But I know that I knew her differently when she was alive. I knew she constantly reminded me to drink my vitamins and that her repetitiveness irked me. She was quite loud and I could hear her snores from a room away, and that to me was irritating. There were more things about her that got on my nerves, some of which I’ll be omitting as an act of respect.
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 15
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And so this grief reaches its peak whenever I return to Pangasinan after Nanay passed. On the one-hundred and ninety-two kilometer stretch of the journey, there is this sting, knowing that I can no longer connect what I know about this province now to the memories of the people who once lived there. I can no longer ask Nanay how these places in Pangasinan came to be, and by extension, how who I am came to be. It feels like I can no longer ask her which of these places she loved the most. I can’t ask her any longer where her fondest memories were born, and therefore I can no longer ask where I can find her, even traces of who she is, now that she’s no longer here.
Within one of the dashboards of the courses I took, there was a discussion about locating the Filipino. It framed the Filipino nation as a crossroads of cultures, from Muslim Mindanao to the Cebuanos, the Pangasinense and Ilocanos, as well as the Indigenous groups who inhabit the stretch of the Cordilleras, and therefore, to build our shared identity based on commonalities between culture is close to futile. We are bound less by our shared traditions, and more by history and narrative. We are tied together by the stories of our past more than the distinctions between our cultures.
Perhaps, being born and raised here in Manila, I’ll never be fully Pangasinense. And maybe Nanay tried to be as Manileño as she could, but her Pangasinense spirit was stronger. It’s not for anyone to hold my disconnection between me and my heritage against me, because through Nanay and the people she loved, I’ve tried to connect to the people in Pangasinan, even if I could never fully immerse myself
I don’t know how I’ll definitely heal, and perhaps I never will. Maybe I’m not meant to. But I found comfort in my grief from the unlikeliest of places: one of my course introductions.
about Pangasinan in the past to the point of drowning, and though I still have my mother, there are some things she could not answer that Nanay could have.
in the traditions they keep. And though Nanay wasn’t born here in Paco, she’s remembered by the girl in the salon she liked sharing gossip with, by our neighbors whom she always gave a portion of our birthday handaans to. Beyond heritage and language and tradition, the memories we share – our stories – are what bind us to each other as Filipinos. They’re what bind me to Pangasinan’s past and what it is now. They will always be what binds me to Nanay.
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I think my family’s exodus won’t end with me. For quite some time, I’ve been resigned to the fact that one way or another, I’ll have to leave Paco behind. And that’s just the way it is, I believe. Our stories as Filipinos span years and decades as well as thousands of miles. If it is true that we inherit the stories given to us, Nanay gave her story’s past to me in order for me to understand where I am meant to take the rest of it. For the rest of my life, my grief will be something I have to hold, and maybe that’s not something meant to be my punishment. My grief, after all, is tied to the burden of having to carry on Nanay’s legacy, and if there is one thing her life has made clear to me, it’s that my cousins, my siblings and I are the greatest parts of it.
December will take me back to Pangasinan for Christmas. It will be the first Christmas in Pangasinan that I won’t spend with Nanay. But maybe I’ll try her favorite kakanin to understand why she loves it so much. When we enter Malasiqui, I’ll roll down the car windows, feel the wind whip against my cheeks. I’ll feel her in the trees that encircle the fields. I’ll tell her she’s finally back home.
ELIJAH T. BARONGAN i seek a clean slate
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We stood on a street corner where the entrance to our subdivision met the avenue. 2AM. Only a few tricycles and SUVs sped through the roads. Jude leaned against a lamp post, arms crossed. Black tank top, black jeans, denim jacket tied to his waist. He wore contacts instead of the prescription glasses the doctors told him to wear. Skin like polished bronze, callused fingers. A statue recarved by acid rain.
2nd Place in Short Story, 37th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature
“It’s not being a golden boy,” I said. “It’s called being sick of this country.”
CARLO
When I told Jude I was going to Singapore to pursue a Masters in Art History, he popped some nicorette into his mouth.
“It’s like you dedicate your life to being a golden boy,” he said. Then he spat the gum into a trash bin by a derelict bus stop. Up close, with the city’s neon caught on his face, he looked like he was radioactive. Made of cobalt and cesium and lead. A touch and he could melt muscle off bone.
SaintsBAUTISTAPlaying Convicts
“I’m saying you’d be too uptight, Raffy. Too busy protecting your reputation.” He scraped the heel of his shoe against the pavement. “That’s no fun.”
His smirk grew into a grin. “Let me teach you the art of selfcorruption, my friend,” he said, straightening his posture and adjusting his non-existent glasses in an exaggerated imitation of me. He spun to face the road, the Acacias that stood on an abandoned lot on the other side. He swung his hand before himself in an arc. “Our last hurrah before your eventual demise as one of the most boring museum curators I’ve ever known.”
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I tilted my head. “The hell do you mean?”
“You sound too much like my parents,” he said. He was so close to me I could smell the mingling of nicotine and cologne on his clothes. “I propose a deal.”
“Lay it down,” I said, removing the top button of my shirt as a relief from the humidity.
Jude stepped in front of me like a goon trying to size me up. His smirk ignited heat in the pit of my stomach. “Let’s leave our footprints around the city. Destroy stuff on Saturday,” he said.
“If being sick of the country meant pandering to your parents’ wishes to study abroad while having them take charge of your accommodations and tuition, then I wish I could be sick of this country.” He chuckled, gnawing on the insides of his cheeks. “Soon you’ll be too polished. I’d barely recognize you.”
“Polished? Am I a shoe?” I quipped.
“We’re twenty-somethings now, Jude. Fun for us just means not going bankrupt by the time we’re thirty.”
The only time I’ve ever been in trouble in school, I was accused of catcalling Ms. Policarpio even if I didn’t. She was one of the newer junior high teachers who sported a pixie cut and maroon lipstick while on campus, and a nose ring and fishnets when she was outside. I had known a few of the boys who would ogle at her in Filipino class, most of them the jocks from the school’s varsity. Hers was the only class they’d sit up front for.
“I’m not going to be boring,” I said. “Saturday. Where?”
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 21
Mr. Ignacio, the Guidance Counselor, had sat me on the dustmiteinfested couch of his office. Good thing I was wearing slacks. He said,
“Meet me in the warehouse near the university. Ten o’clock when it’s darkest. I’ll show you how I get away with being rotten.”
I had made friends with Jude despite – and probably because of – his notoriety. The way he’d go to school after just having a split lip stitched. The way he’d pick at the stitches where I’d eventually see the scars of cigarette burns on his hand. They say he was caught naked in the school parking lot with an ex-girlfriend. They say the principal wouldn’t have considered him a candidate for graduation had it not been for his parents being responsible for funding the school swimming pool’s renovations. There was something about his danger that reeled me in. The kind of wrong that wanted you to have another taste of its sweetness. Even when I had known it was the kind of sweetness that left your throat burning.
Others would’ve been thinking about saying no. They would’ve ditched. They would’ve been thinking about the ways the deal could be a snare we’d set up for ourselves. Had I been in my right mind, I would’ve been worried about going to jail, the bail that my family would have to give to get me out of a cell. I would’ve cringed at the thought of barrel-bodied Quezon City policemen with their rusting belt buckles trying to interrogate me.
But I saw the streaks of white across his desk. Remnants of a fine, white powder. He smiled. “No. But you can control what it wants.”
When I arrived at the warehouse, Jude was emptying a bottle of red spray paint on the coiling doors.
“You’re a growing boy and I understand that. But you have to keep these things in check.”
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“There are things you want to do that you shouldn’t, even if your body wants to do it.”
“I have an extra, don’t worry.” From a satchel lying beside him, he fished out a canister and tossed it to me. In the dimness, it was like he was his own light source. The air around him seemed to buzz as if he were made of high voltage wiring in lieu of flesh, like his spine was a circuit board and everything he touched would adopt his charge.
“How original,” I said after finally deciphering what he had written. Screw Imperialism.
I liked playing dumb. I liked portraying naivety. “What things?”
“Doesn’t have to be.” He stood, then tilted his head to examine his work of rebellion. Splotches of red stained his boots, specked the hem of his jeans. There was a glint of predation in his eyes. A vulture circling roadkill. “Rule number one of delinquency: learn first and start small. No use being so elaborate when you’re obviously going to suck at the execution.”
“Can we ever control our bodies?” I asked for the sake of asking. I imagined that he’d adjust his tie against the skin sagging on his neck. Put a strand of graying hair back to his pomade-caked scalped. He’ll go on a tirade of philosophies about how the mind must take dominance over our carnal urge. That you just have to think like the Buddha and your solar plexus will stop crackling like a furnace.
“I smoked a cigarette once,” I said. I could suddenly taste the way the smoke curled in my mouth, how it turned from sandpaper to charcoal to rivulets of melted ice down my gullet.
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 23
Jude chuckled when he noticed my eyes welling up with tears. “Golden boy can’t take the heat,” he said. “That’s enough. Spit that out. I can’t have you high when we’re at the police station.”
“Name the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
As soon as it was lit, there it was again, the taste of burnt paper. It swept over my tongue, seemed to flurry into my nostrils and throat until it dissipated into menthol. Then, gradually, a sensation like lead being injected into my joints. Like my limbs had turned to stone.
“Then let me have one.”
“Not bad enough. For you to call yourself rotten, you need to have done it more than once,” Jude said, plucking a pack of Marlboro Blue from his jacket pocket and lodging one of the sticks into his teeth. Then from his jeans, a lighter. He held the finger of fire to the end of the roll until embers started spilling. I remember the days when I called Jude a fire-breather. With every exhalation, remnants of dead flames spilled from his mouth. Ash and cinders and cigarette butts he’d crush with the heel of his boot. I had wondered what so much nicotine could taste in his mouth. I wondered if it numbed the way anesthesia did. Wondered if it made his nerves sear instead. The girls who had kissed Jude often told me that that’s what it felt like to have their lips against his. They relished the scorch in their bones. The inferno he ignited.
“The police station,” my voice shook. There was a tremor in my throat from the nicotine. “We’re going to turn ourselves in?”
“Here.” He tossed me the cigarette pack and lighter, and I gingerly placed one of the rolls in between my lips.
“Offensive,” I said. “You underestimate me.”
The police station we chose sat wedged between plywood shanties built by informal settlers. While the houses around it were dim, faint light sifted through the blinds of its windows. Peering through, we observed the few policemen on graveyard duty. One of them dozed off on the main desk. The other was watching an Eat Bulaga skit on his phone. A third stood with a bottle of Red Horse, staring dazed at the opposite wall.
The police station was just a few blocks away from the warehouse. Jude wanted one that was farther away, but when he saw that Commonwealth was deserted of cars he said he couldn’t be bothered to steal one of the motorcycles that stood parked outside a nearby 7/11. “Besides, I don’t want to shit on someone else’s day if they haven’t done anything to me.”
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We traversed the avenue, climbed one of the footbridges. Overhead, the cables of power lines helixed against each other’s lengths. The homeless slept huddled against each other on mattresses with holes in the padding, cardboard smelling of urine and sweat. Below, street lights striped the avenue with their glow, the arches of halos like ghosts resting on the freeway. Apartment complexes jutted from the pavement like gnarled limbs. In the fire escapes that zigzagged along their sides, night shifters and teenagers would be inhaling rugby. Pickpockets would be counting their loot. Stray cats would be rummaging through the garbage. We were in a jungle where smoke choked the air, where bodies subdued bodies.
“Mga inutil,” Jude said. “No wonder no one bothers to report snatchers.”“Quiet, you fuck.” I nudged his ribcage. He barely flinched. “If they catch us–”
“No, you bastard.” He pointed his chin to the can of spray paint I had. “I’m saying it’s your turn.”
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 25
Jude spun on his heel and walked to the periphery of the station. I studied his footfalls, featherweight and swift. It made sense that he was good at whatever it was that we were doing.
We stood facing the graffiti-covered back wall of the station. “Pulisya Berdugo” intersected a drawing of a penis. A pentagram with a cross in the middle. A smiley face with horns.
“And you did,” he said, crossing his arms. “You sure about this?”
“I thought we were going to do something… something else.” Something worse was what I really meant. Like I had construed Jude to be a war criminal, someone who has seen blood dribble along the blade of a dagger and not flinch. Like he’d dance at the sight of a corpse. I wondered, then, if I could ever do the same. If I could rip through someone’s carotids and feel a wash of euphoria at the sight of the“Webody.might,” he said. “But this first.”
“Leaving evidence.” Jude smirked at the image of my hand. At the ellipses of my finger pads. The crisscrossing lines on my hand. “Ballsy.”“You told me I could do whatever I wanted.”
“You.” Jude tapped one of the blank areas of the wall. “Do it.”
I shook the can and spritzed a dot on the wall to test it out. I didn’t write anything. Instead, I sprayed the rest of the paint onto my hand until my palms were gummed with red, then slapped the concrete in front of me. I pressed harder, feeling the ridges of the concrete, the edges digging into my skin. When I took it off, my handprint was left like a blood stain against the streaks of blacks and grays and whites.
“They’ll “They’vewhat?”killed people over less.” I said.
I had talked to him about it once. “Why me?” I asked.
“I feel like we’re about to die tonight,” I said. “If the police throw our bodies somewhere they can’t be found, I want this to be my gravesite.”“We’re not going to die tonight,” he said. He looked at the full moon cobwebbed by wisps of clouds. “We don’t deserve that.”
Before he was coined “class delinquent,” Jude was a caricature artist. Or at least I was the only one who knew. I remember him in lectures using the pages of his Araling Panlipunan notebook drawing the national heroes, giving them boxy jaws and stick-like bodies that made them look like bobbleheads. From the heroes, he started drawing teachers. He gave them grotesquely beaked noses, scribbled drool on the corners of their overly plump lips.
“You.” He wasn’t looking up from the paper. By then – I had counted – it was the fifth time he had drawn me. “You’re interesting.”
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I met Jude when we were both fifteen. Back then, I didn’t see him for the time bomb that he was. That was my mistake.
“What do you mean?”
He tilted his head, then drew the curve where my head met my neck. “Everyone knows you here. But they also don’t know you.” Then he squinted at me. “I’m trying to figure that out.”
Then he started drawing me, but I looked less like a caricature and more like how I thought he saw me. The mole at the corner of my right eyebrow. The minutely skewed glasses. The single dimple that punctured my left cheek.
The graffiti trick went by without incident. By then, I was bored. I had expected a fist fight of sorts. I had expected one of the policemen to draw out his gun, point it at our temples. Or shoot us right then and there. We’d be the talk of the town for a week because of the news and then word of us will dissipate. That’s how these things are supposed to Afterwards,happen.wetook
“Thehomage.kindof
mayor who thinks you can preserve a legacy by mounting a polished metal version of someone’s face somewhere children can see it,” he said. He walked away to the line of shrubs at the outskirts of the park and came back with a rock the size of a tennis ball. After a few breaths, Jude proceeded to bash the rock against the image again and again and again, leaving dents at the dictator’s temples, cheeks, and his neck. He grunted but kept his lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed, the kind of look he had when he was doing something unpleasant but it was something he was determined to do.
“What kind of mayor installs a Marcos image in the middle of a children’s playground?” I asked once we stood in front of it. The floor lights that were supposed to illuminate the dictator’s bronze face were cracked and flickering, making it look more like a horror attraction than an
a cab to one of the parks situated near New Manila. It was supposed to be where children can play on swings or run around, and the only sight of gore would be a child’s scraped knee. But after the news that police found a man’s dead body strung up on the monkey bars, parents took their children here less and less, and at nightfall it became a den of criminals. Ziplocks of crystal meth would be found nestled in the topiaries. Pickpockets would sell newly stolen phones to passers-by near the park’s gates. We even heard that underground fraternities from surrounding universities would conduct their hazing rituals here. At daylight, the only entities that frolicked in this space were the Kudzu vines that crept up the mini merry-go-rounds, curled around the neck of the Ferdinand Marcos statue. It sat low enough on its pedestal that the head was only a few inches above our foreheads.
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 27
When he stopped, he said, “If your ‘legacy’ can be dented by a rock carried by a raging twenty-something, then it’s not much of a legacy.”
At Jude’s command, I went on a frenzy. I bashed the stone against the statue’s hairline, against its eyes, added another crater to its forehead. I pretended it was a blade, that I was plunging it into a victim thrashing below me. A blow to the area where its eyebrows met created a crack that zigzagged from the bridge of the statue’s nose to its philtrum. And yet I kept on my assault. I did it because Jude told me to, and whatever Jude told me to do felt like they all made sense. There was a thirst in me, a ravenousness only he could understand, that I believed only he knew how to quench. I didn’t stop, not until my arm burned from exertion and sweat had pooled around my collar.
in a daze. My ears popped. I breathed the humidity in, allowed my lungs to feel like they were ingesting water because of the air’s Thethickness.want.
“You’re sick,” I whispered, wanting it to sound like a condemnation. But there was something about seeing Jude like this that made my skin flare. As much as rationality would have me believe I should be repulsed, he could make things dance around him because of his own palpable
“Yourgravity.turn,”
he said, handing me the rock. It was pointed like a blunt spearhead. I studied the statue again, imagined the way it would bleed had it been made of muscle and skin instead of alloy. Its skull would be cracked, some of its shards piercing the brain. A broken nose, an imploded jaw.
When I was finished, Jude slowly clapped his hands. “That’s rule number two of delinquency: You do things with intention.” He lazily pointed to the statue, grinning, the glint of his teeth making his mouth look like a paring knife. “The amount of damage you make depends on how much damage you want to make. That’s all there is to this. The Iwant.”nodded
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I needed to want this.
weeks for the bruise on my cheek to finally disappear.
Our last stop was a junkyard for spare car parts, and again we took a cab. The driver had given us glares of suspicion, especially at my hands. The rock had nicked some skin along my knuckles and palms. The paint had dried, stiffening it, holding it open. Jude had paid for both rides, and both times he justified the choice. “We may look suspicious,” he said. “Doesn’t mean we have to act like it. Tip: The more you act like you’re guiltless, people start questioning what they think of you.”
I told my parents I liked boys when I was fifteen, and they treated the revelation like a secret the family had to keep. They pointed to every girl I was friends with as a potential daughter-in-law, and all the while my only option was to fold and bend inwards, smile to their faces. Be considerate. Ductile to be shaped into the boy they wanted me to be.
It was my mother who saw it first. I pretended to sleep as she ran downstairs gagging. I heard her vomit in the restroom. She screamed, “Panginoon ko,” then my father’s name, “Paeng! Paeng!”. My papa had closed the browser a few moments after comforting my mama. He had flipped me on the bed to face him, made me sit up to listen to his scolding. “Is this what you want?” he asked me.
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 29
Until one night, I left the browser on my laptop open to reveal several lewd photos of men clad only in thongs. I was seventeen. I hadn’t known it then, but perhaps I wanted the thrill of being convicted. I wanted the chase, the interrogation. I had once been put on the altar of my parents’ wildest dreams. I wanted that to shatter.
I Itnodded.tookthree
“I present rule number three of delinquency: No hesitation.” He crossed his arms when he faced me. “One day you’ll break rule number one. Or you’ll do shit you hadn’t planned out and that you weren’t meaning to. But when you’re thrust into the situation, just go for it.”
But Jude didn’t lead me inside one of the Toyota Corollas. Instead, he led me to a train wagon set to be scrapped right at the perimeter fence. The iron wheels bit into the gravel. The rust turned to powder with the touch of our hands. Inside, rain-soaked padding on the seats were peppered with mice droppings, and where there weren’t feces the rats had their way chewing on the foam. Tall weeds needled through holes in the floor. Ivy crawled up the support beams, and the handlebars overhead were smelling of mildew, a lone cotton towel smelling of rancid sweat dangling off one hook.
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I watched Jude sleep in the backseat beside me, torso slumped, head lolled, the side of his neck exposed, revealing a triangular birthmark near his collarbone. Come August, we’d both be twenty three. We were born a week apart, as if we were chasing each other into this world. We were friends in the way that we were puzzles for each other to solve. He once couldn’t understand why I was so worried about the things I wrote on my CV, or if I should wear a beret instead of a scarf. I once couldn’t understand why he chewed gum in Physics, why he fist-bumped our security guards while he walked past teachers like they weren’t there.
When we arrived at the junkyard, we hoisted ourselves over the railing. By the end of the ordeal, my hands were bleeding, but I had to keep up with Jude. It was another one of those abandoned lots by the freeway filled with the corpses of automobiles. A row of convertibles, rusting, with their bumpers hanging off. A hearse with mud-blurred windows, removed of its tires. Tires stacked on top of each other. An aspin gnawed on a detached taillight, and with a “Shh’’ from Jude it stopped barking and went back to chewing.
“So,” he continued. “For the rest of the night, you take the lead. Tell me what you want.”
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I explored the rest of the cabin. The doors had already been torn off their hinges. A lone politician’s election tarpaulin patched a hole in one of the windows. “You made the rules?”
“I’ve never been arrested,” he said, spreading his arms outward. And then he shoved them into the pockets of his jeans. “And I don’t know. I just felt like you always listened to me.” Jude had told me once about when he told his parents he wanted to get into the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. But his older brother had moved to study in the States, and soon his parents were telling him they didn’t have any money to fund him. And so it felt right, that when he was robbed of the opportunity to create, he used his hands like a bulldozer. He would destroy. He would desecrate. No one could write the story of his fall from grace and contort the narrative to ruin him; he took the plunge himself. He could control where gravity took him.
“Yup,” he said. He swung around one of the vertical beams and pretended to tip his invisible hat. “Yours truly.”
I told Jude, “Can I kiss you?”
“So why should I listen to you?” It was something I liked doing, to probe until I got on his nerves. Every time I do it, it never works. I just did it to spite him, or because challenging him made it feel like I could get under his skin. That I could subdue him, somehow.
In two months, I’d be on a plane. The Quezon City lights will turn to a network of neurons from the altitude I’m in, and when we touch down, everything will turn to glass skyscrapers. Penthouses and city views. Neon hazes. The city will close in on me, and by then my mind would be a receptor of what the world screams I should be. It will tell me what I should want. And the fool that I am would believe the world. I needed to pounce while things were still clear.
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One day, after having purchased a set of tarot cards to display on my bedroom wall, I asked Jude what he thought the difference between angels and demons was.
“I don’t know. Angels listen to what God says. Demons listen to what they think is right.”
Then, “Whenever you’re ready.”
He smiled. He didn’t recoil, didn’t spit on my foot. I would’ve been surprised. But I wanted this. From the tips of my fingers to the marrow of my bones. I wanted to feel him.
“Reword it. Say it again,” he said. “You didn’t tell me what you want.”My mind screamed like speaker feedback. “I want to kiss you.”
He bowed in acknowledgment.
The kiss was quiet in the way voltage was. I could taste the cigarettes, the candy. I could feel thousands of pulsations on his neck as my hands wrung themselves through his hair and through his scalp and cupped his cheek. I felt muscle going taut, then relaxing as he exhaled. I felt the wrongness of it in the way his hand crept under my shirt and traced the dimples my spine created on my back. In the way I felt his lips trace the drying skin on my own. I felt the ground like it was falling beneath me. There, Singapore did not exist. There was only heat from our bodies. We would scald and burn each other alive.
Don’t hesitate.
RIZAL EZMIN KATALBAS Leap of Youth
35
ANA GABRIELA MAGNO the passage of time digital art
Katuparan ng gabi-gabing pag-usal ng dasal Ang kanyang pagdating na inakalang magmimintis.
Naglilihi sa tamis at asim ng mailap na prutas ng talinghaga, Makaraa’y isinusuka ang katas na mga salita sa pahina.
Nang sa gayon ay di na muling maunsiyami ang buhay Sa sinapupunan ng itinakda nilang maging ina.
NagpupumiglasPaglalandasnahumalik sa kobrekama Ang kaibigang buwanang dumadalaw.
Samantalang nagdurugo’y nagdadalantao pa rin Lalang ng espiritu ng pagkatha.
Kapag handa nang umiral ang likhang-sining niyang imortal, Saka iluluwal upang makipagsapalaran sa daigdig ng kabuluhan.
Malate
Ngunit batid niyang pulso’y di dapat mabuo Kung hindi nilulunggati ng puso.
Itong mga supling niyang persona ang siyang dagat At ang pusod nito ay tuwinang karugtong ng kanya.
Literary Folio
Dito, walang tiyak na bilang ng mga buwan Ang pagitan ng panganganak.
36
LAUREN ANGELA CHUA
Habang ipinagdiriwang ang hindi napatid na pagkadalaga, Ang mga nakapaligid ay taimtim na nananalangin
Sa kaibuturan ng kaluluwa ng musa, may landas na binabaklas; Nagpupumiglas itong hubad na bakas ng kanyang pag-alpas.
ELIJAH T. BARONGAN a world on fire
ELIJAH T. BARONGAN new transmissions
RIDDLE ALCANTARA
3rd Place in Essay, 37th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature
42 Malate Literary Folio
“The floor is now open for questions.”
When Everything Falls Into Place
I have this compulsive habit of counting whenever I find myself floating in an atmosphere of boredom. Not because I obsess over specific quantities, but because my mind has an out-of-body experience once it can’t handle the white noise voice of whoever is talking. My class was forced to go to a discussion with a guest speaker who went on trying to threaten us with the dangers of social media. My neck craned upward to observe if the ceiling tiles were worth tallying (or more worth my one hour and thirty minutes). I was tempted to sum up the squares above because their organized sequence was aesthetically pleasing. The crossword puzzle roof had boxes going down and coming from across - eight of them going vertical and twenty-six on the horizontal. Eight multiplied by twentysix is two hundred and eight. There are two hundred and eight tiles on the ceiling. There are two hundred and eight tiles on the ceiling. There are two hundred and eight tiles on the ceil
What I call my mother.
Since my entire head was taken over by the most beautiful box I had ever laid eyes on, I had no excuse to remove it ‘cause the world would see how my face was unworthy of being visible. Nonetheless, I had to figure out how to get back to Inay even with the absence of clear vision. I made the inner box’s lines serve as directions. My finger pointed at the left corner and I slid across the lines to reach the other edge. I did this repeatedly on each side and eventualy constructed a map out of the corrugated borders. When my finger went right, I went right. If left, I went left. I rotated and followed my tracing, then I went east. It wasn’t until later, after I bumped my head into a hook that hung seven garden hand shovels, when I realized that Inay had been looking for me in each aisle of the home depot store.
When did this tendency start, you may ask. To be honest, I would be lying if I said I knew where it came from. My penchant for having staring contests with flawlessly-measured surfaces, and spending time studying every detail on them, was a pastime I much rather chose than any other childhood activity. The first memory that comes up when I try to retrace my steps was set in a home depot store. I was eyeballing the boxes they used to package electric fans and coffee table parts to see who would blink first. Surprisingly, an employee went up to my six-year-old self and asked if I wanted one. Seeing that my mother was taking up her scheduled thirty minutes to inquire what best bidet to install for our new toilet, I took the opportunity to get free stuff. I held it and immediately felt my eyes sparkle. The box was smooth in texture and did not show any history of creasing; It had a smell similar to newly-opened books and fresh parchment. Its golden brown color and congruent sides drew me in, and, within a split second, it had found its way atop of my head. I don’t know why I did it in the first place, but all I knew was that the box was beautiful enough to replace my head and that I wanted to flaunt it to Inay1 .
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 43
1
She took off the box on my head and held me tightly as if I was a hot compress for her menstrual cramps. I was relieved to have found her, but as my eyes searched the floor for the box, I felt my throat clench and tears falling down from the corners of my eyes. The box I once knew to be beautiful had a hole drilled into it - ruining its form and integrity. When I pointed it out to Inay, she chastised me as I cried; Saying how my looks would get ruined if I kept sobbing.
2 Filipino for “child”.
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beautiful, anak2, but you’re fat.”
“You’reface.
Which is to say I wasn’t beautiful at all if I remained heavyweight (or at least that’s what I have engraved into my brain like some kind of writing set in stone). I camouflaged myself into the backgrounds of rooms by wearing more neutral tones. If I felt fancy, I would sport a striped shirt, a dotted blouse, or an extra extra large graphic tee. I wore tops that were at least a size larger to bury my bulging stomach and branching stretch marks for the world to not see. As I started to fill out spaces due to the miracles of puberty, I grew out of the old shirts I used to depend on. I needed a coping mechanism that allowed me to feel the same comfort I felt behind loose garments. And so, to compensate for lacking baggy apparel that could cover up my body,
Inay was the sole parent I had left after my father flew to America and never came back. Because of this, she became affixed on us, her children, and was nitpicky with our appearances. In my case, however, my fashion taste was not up to par with her standards. I changed every shirt she deemed “too simple”, every pair of jeans she thought I “wore too often”. I had no selection of cropped or skintight clothing because Inay didn’t want me and my sister walking around showing off our midriffs. She would also complain about how obviously clogged the blackheads on my nose were, saying how I should take more care of my
I collected a series of hats that could cover up my head and most of my face. That way, I would still be able to put out of sight the facets I disgusted:Wolfy,
A dalmatian animal hat with hat tassels that extended into arms that had pockets which helped to conceal the eczema on my
State Warriors cap I wore during school fair since it was eighth grade culture to like Stephen Curry, but white hair was not trending at that time;
The baker’s boy hat I bought out of borrowing money from Inay because it had a brim that could mask my uncontrollable pimples; and
Berets. Nine berets to be exact.
The circumference of a beret hat had the same feel as the congruence of a box. Although, the beret felt more comfortable to don as headwear. I learned about berets once I moved to Manila as an incoming eleventh grader and proceeded to learn about online shopping. The move also meant I would have to gain independence and say goodbye to the comforts of the home I had always known. I began by deciding when to use money to purchase clothes for myself, followed by listing down what I had to do for a specific week. One of my other practices for adulting was arranging my outfits a week ahead, slowly releasing my dependence on my mother’s grip. But, if I was feeling extra hideous on a particular day, I would top an outfit off with a beret and shield my face behind clear round shades. On days like that, I can still hear my mother’s voice in the back of my mind; Saying how my ugliness could have been cured if I just listened to her.
a siberian husky animal hat I wore to my third-grade Christmas party in an attempt to distract people from my ugly denim dress;
Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 3 45
Ahands;Golden
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night, after a long day of playing Tetris™, I would close my eyes and still see the ghost pieces haunting me as they placed on top of misplaced blocks with empty spaces for all the clear lines that could have been. A box on the side continuously showed the next few blocks. I hovered my right hand fingers above the arrow keys. Purple. Long right. Spacebar. Red. Right. Spacebar. OrangeSpacebar. YellowRightSpacebar.
I’d like to think of my mind as an organized mess. A puzzle with all the right pieces planted in all the wrong places, if you will. Despite that sounding like a paradox statement that would make Bertrand Russell proud, I knew this to be true when I was first introduced to the Facebook game, Tetris Friends™. I would borrow my siblings’ laptop just to go online and send an invite to my Facebook friends whom I would battle with to level up my Tetris™ rank. Sometimes, we would discuss our strategies once we met again at school. They would look at me with furrowed eyebrows, describing my tactics as “something different” or “a very unusual approach”. I soon discerned what they meant while I was going over my game plan through solo mode, and my brother saw how wasteful I was when it came to the square spaces I left blank. He pointed out the oddity of my thinking process and his remark has stuck with me ever since.
In the course of the quarantine, I found myself revisiting the aforementioned game. Since Tetris Friends™ was not available anymore, I ended up playing by myself most of the time through websites that offered single player Tetris™. I can still recall the way the game followed a specific pattern in sequencing the blocks. The first one that would appear was either going to be a red Cleveland Z block or green Rhode Island Z. Followed by an orange and blue Ricky, then a yellow Smashboy, and either a purple Teewee or light blue Hero to clear a line. I did this every single day throughout lockdown, and my family members would cross my path and asked how I still had the energy to keep playing. I wouldn’t answer, but I knew within myself why.Every
4 Filipino for tan-skinned.
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I look myself in the eye. I have one, two, three, four - five pimples and my hair had collected sebum due to yesterday being a no-wash day. I could see why my father wouldn’t stop holding my face the first time he saw me after nine years - I was only beautiful in the eyes of people who admired small details. Otherwise, for people who judged a book a tad bit too quickly, I was deemed conventionally unattractive.
On days where my mind is not constantly tempted to count or search for new sprouting moles, I observe my surroundings and distinguish intricate details. I often cross paths with surfaces that mirror my reflection. At times where I have nothing else to do but shake my leg furiously as I wait, I look a little longer. I notice the changes that have started to project onto my body: My hair is a caramel with streaks of honey mixed into it and my complexion is on the brink of being considered as mestiza3 and morena4. I look down on my hands and try to dig for the dirt accumulated under my nails. Suddenly, my attention shifts to the new, tiny moles that were not there when I was born. They are the seeds that have sprouted into the floor of my flesh. The same thing goes with the acne that has a growth spurt on my forehead. Underneath that, the eyelashes that always seem to have morning stars stuck between the spaces.
Green. UpUpSpacebar. Blue. OrangeGreenLight blueBlueRed-I wake up out of utter shock from the fact that the game is still vivid in my eyes. Even in my dreams, the shapes call me and ask when I’ll finally get to achieve a perfect clear all; The day I’ll finally get to put all the pieces together and see the beauty in their completeness. My mom was beside me, sleeping. I wanted to wake her up, hoping she would be able to calm me down after that nightmare. I opted to try going back to sleep.
I eventually realized why I was so drawn to everyday objects that were as mundane as myself. Boxes were perfectly-shaped and had the
3 Filipino for fair-skinned.
You will never see an oblong beret because berets are universally constructed to be circular. The beret hat is an additional piece that could bring life into an outfit while still being able to cover up a bad hair day or the growing pains of acne. I felt a drop in my stomach the first time I wore the hat to school in an attempt to distract people from my ugly shoes. How can an accessory, such as a measly hat, be more confident than its wearer? How is it able to become the life of the party even though it does not talk?
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I finally found a website where I can compete against other Tetris™ players. Seldom-times, it’s me versus six others. Other times, it’s me against forty-seven people. Most times, it’s me fighting for a place in the world. The blocks know this. They have seen me tirelessly rehearse my strategies and have laughed at the cries of my arrow keys. Every time I pound at the spacebar to quickly set them into their positions, I feel the voice chanting at the back of my mind and how it hopes that this would be the day I’ll finally put all the pieces together to pull off a perfect clear. OrangePurple. Blue. Green. Red. Light blueYellowYellowBlue - How can a game with building blocks become a basis for what I can never achieve? How is it, even if it has all those remaining blank spaces, that I allow it to threaten my pride?
pleasure of packing inventory into their carton material. The first time I treated the box as a hat, I felt warmth as it embraced my head. Honestly, jealousy was the first emotion that overwhelmed my body once I found comfort. How can an inanimate object, such as a box, be so perfect and welcoming at the same time?
My mother sits me down on our front porch to ask if I have a problem. She has observed how my habits of counting, digging for dirt under my nails, and discovering newly-grown moles have been excessive nowadays. I do not have the audacity to tell her how boring it is to be back at home and under her control again. I do not have the audacity to tell her how much it hurts me to see her face and see the same face I call revolting. I tell her that I do not have a problem. People just get busy and that’s why I have no time to look anybody in the eye anymore.
To my mother, it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. It is the fault of the standards society set before we were born. I do not have the audacity to tell you how much it hurts me to see your face and see the same face I call revolting. I have the audacity to call you beautiful, but I do not have the same guts to proclaim it to myself.
Sometimes, I wonder what the ghost pieces from Tetris™ say about me whenever I don’t play. Do they guess when I come back and think about how else they could plague my mind with blocks falling into place like a jigsaw puzzle with polygonal pieces? I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bothered by their threats. Yet, I would be lying if I said I was still intimidated. A puzzle game is only as good as its player, and, if I was the main player in this game, I had no reason to be intimidated by mere, lifeless Tetris™ blocks.
I thought about all these things as I stared at the black screen of my laptop for minutes, thinking about what else to watch and do. I then saw my reflection staring back at me - A rugged face with her
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I go back to those scenes where my eyes were more attentive to the particularities of a room corner or ceiling rather than the person speaking. I feel guilty for paying more attention to planes rather than people. Even if somebody in front of me tried their hardest not to make people fall asleep with their stories and lectures, I would lose myself in between the spaces of other surfaces. I apologize for my tendencies. I am working on it and truly trying to change for the better.
I think about all the berets I have abused and all the boxes I’ve put on my head without their consent. I want to say sorry for the beret hats that have tasted my sweat and have touched the pus of my pimples on their rims. To the boxes, I am sorry for mistreating you and not using you for your supposed purpose. I ask for forgiveness for only seeing a beautiful facade, but not digging deeper to find ways to take care of you.
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When everything falls into place, I will strive to find all the missing pieces I need to complete my whole picture. Hopefully, I will see how, even with broken pieces, I will become whole.
It takes a long while to be proud of yourself when you’ve spent years trying to kill the lights inside of you. I learned this the hard way when I remedied burning my throat with smoke and drowning myself in alcohol once I knew I was never going to be perfect. It wasn’t until when I got sick from an ear infection and Inay rushed to take care of me that I realized that I was worthy of love too even if I fell short on being faultless. I was jealous of congruence because I could never find it in myself to have the same quintessential measures as squares, circles, and polygons. Later on, I recognized how the cookie-cutter didn’t always have to be the model to base my self-worth around.
lips dry from not drinking enough water and her hair tied up into a messy bun. As my sister recorded harmonies from the other room and my brother strummed the guitar outside, my mind was brought back to reality and the screen picked up where it left off. The series I was binge-watching went on, but I couldn’t help but detect my face staring back at me every time there was a dark space in some scenes. After the episode had finished, I let the credits roll. The blackness of everything gave me more time to take it all in and, eventually, I smiled.
There are voices at the back of my mind that still echo my name. They complain about how they could have been stuck in the mind of somebody better. I am trying to ward them off by lessening my habits. I have put down the lit cigarettes and half-empty bottles. I do not count. I am trying to not lose myself anymore. I am trying. I am trying.
ERIN MARIE MEDINA defamiliarization
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KEICEE VASQUEZ
12th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts
Honorable Mention in Traditional Art,
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Golden Journey
Father calls: Come, breakfast is on the table. I pad to the smooth tiles of our patio, and on my porcelain plate is suman, wrapped in buri.
– Genesis 2:15
I bask with the dull blades of grass, the plumose leaves of Foxtail palms, the lean trunks of African talisay trees.
We delight in the singing of the mayas, cuckoos, swifts, and roosters, their chirrups and coos at the sight of morning.
Where there is soil, there is a coarseness to surfaces the skin grazes past.
1
ANDREI FUENTEBELLA
Yours is the Pasture, Mine is the Body
“Yahweh God took man and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and take care of it.”
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Where there is air, there is a delicacy to the balance between living things.
In our wetlands, there were schools of mackerel, crabs, tilapia and lukos— Food he loves so much, clean and novel.
After the parting of storm clouds, each green leaf glints: water, sunlight—and me! Ingredients of the earth.
He tells me he loves living by the waters. Our boot-shaped island is blessed with: bodies, bodies, bodies, from Guimaras Strait to Panay Gulf.
2
3
On Sundays, I go to Don Salvador Benedicto. The Pinewood Forest along the highway becomes all the more beautiful in the rain.
A crisp cleansing of the breaths of carbon monoxide, ammonia, ozone, and lead my lungs have inhaled in the lowlands.
I am a silent admirer, a silent recipient. Give thanks, Father always says, for the suba and plantation behind our fences.
Where there is water, there is an abundance of life forms, old as the Fertile Crescent.
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Where there is sky, there is a pinnacle no spire has ever yet reached.
4
The facade of our grand designs mirror the glowing skyline: red and orange construction cranes and twelve thousand men.
Negros will have its own canopy of green safety nets, steel beams, and concrete hundreds of meters in the air.
Isn’t it exciting? Father shows me his listings as we pass—Bacolod, Bais, Dumaguete, fine soil for scaffolding to grow: till, till, till.
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58 CAITLYNE ERIKA CUE Spiritual Milk 3rd Place in Photography, 12th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts
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FRANCIS NATHE OMAÑA Let It Flow
Honorable Mention in Photography, 12th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts
Honorable
FRANCIS NATHE OMAÑA
Light in the Dark Mention in
Photography, 12th DLSU Annual Awards
In the arms of Morpheus, I heard the dreams calling.
What Morpheus Meant
But what if I am not meant for it?
The first whispers of doubt would not appear until I was 10 years old. Until then, my spirit was free as the wind. My voice, clear and strong, would carry in the breeze. People could hear me cast my
ZAIRA MAXINE FRAYCO
It is meant to be mine.
3rd Place in Essay, 37th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature
It is meant for me.
I’m certain he crafted them himself in his cave of poppy seeds, molding what would be echoes that remain in my soul to this very day. Surely the gods meant to send these messages to me, otherwise they would not make it so strong that it is constantly lingering in the back of my mind. They told me that the life I have always dreamed of will become mine, so long as I covet it. And so for years I would repeat to myself:
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one again by reality. It felt as if the Fates had snipped the string of my life once more and forgot that there was a girl at its end, hanging on by a thread. At thirteen, I fell into an abyss. I was left to wander in Daedalus’ labyrinth, alone and afraid, with no light to guide me. There were no torches along the way. The walls of
In the beginning of the end of the first decade of my life, I felt a shift within me. Adulthood was nowhere near my naive being, but somehow I knew I was older. It was then that my aspirations changed. Reality began to set in– dreams of being a princess were dashed away. And in this array of prepubescent experiences and thoughts, I turned to words. Libraries became my home and books became my friends. In every piece of literature I found a piece of myself; of who I longed to be. I heard Morpheus calling me once more, telling me that I have discovered it yet again. Passion is alive! There is hope after all. At a mere ten years old I found love anew.
This would be my new dream– to read and to write and to create words for those like me.
It is meant to be mine.
For a while, the books kept me afloat. I gave everything I had within me to reach the top of the mountains and reach the heavens with what I wrote. But like rising from a long slumber, I had to wake up eventually.Iwasconfronted
wishes into the world. I wanted to become an ice-skater; to glide over frozen lakes and twirl beneath snowflakes. I longed to be a teacher–helping little hands to create new wonderful things. I yearned to be a princess! Royal and regal, with millions of townsfolk adoring my very presence. Ah such innocent desires I had! These memories bring me much joy when I look back at them and yet my mind always returns to the uncertainty of the future.
It is meant for me.
It is not meant for me.
Shadows will soon plunge my world into darkness. I will become another pawn of the world; a mortal for the gods to brush over. And once my reality completely crumbled around me, I realized that I am just one person. One person taking on all the burdens in my world. Not a hero, not a muse, not anything– because I was not meant for it. Questions will fill my mind until my entire being spills over;
What of me now? An empty shell of a being that was once full of life? Am I only the remains of the little girl whose dreams were once so big they reached the gods? Morpheus would be ashamed to know that the hopes he so delicately crafted for me have been banished in place of dull and dreary dreams.
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concrete were cold and unwelcoming. Stumbling along the way was a crucial mistake; it took days to try to even stand up again. How long I spent walking around that maze is a mystery to me. All I know is that when I found a way out, all that was left was the raggedy body of a doll that used to be who I was; n was no longer a child, not even a teenager, just a sad shadow of what used to be a girl with dreams. People tried to help me. They tried to reignite whatever was left within me, yet it was to no avail. Drifting in the labyrinth for so long left me with fractured bones and a barren soul.
It is not meant to be mine.
I was not meant for it.
Will I ever live the life I have always dreamed of? What must I do to be free from the shackles of uneasiness? Why do I struggle against a world I believed was meant to be mine?
Years later I would come across a boy. His colors were not dull like mine. He had not seen the true horrors of life just yet. His fingers would meet mine for the first time and–
This is meant for me.
A flash, a spark– a fleeting moment of hope. Color poured back into life. If the ichor of the gods ever coursed through a mortal’s veins, I imagine this is what it feels like. Suddenly, everything was clear again and just as quickly, the moment fades. Yet the sensation lingered. A small flame reignited within me from the split second I held his hand and I thought to myself: if I could grasp, if only for a moment, that feeling once again, perhaps the gods will shine upon me once more.
Perhaps if I knew Morpheus was watching, I would not have admitted that this was my new dream. He might have bragged about his power as the god of dreams; making another sleepy thought into reality. But this was it. This is what I have always wanted.
Not the boy. Not yet, anyway. No, it was the feeling he brought with him. The feeling of being alive. This is what the gods promised me in my dream, eons ago. They had whispered to my sleeping little soul that I would live the life I have always wanted, whether or not I knew what this meant. I realize now what Morpheus was trying to say. I knew that I wanted to be a princess, I knew that I wanted to write words but I also knew that I could not carry the weight of all these hopes with me. In my mind, the burning question was always: when you know you can’t bring all your dreams with you, which ones do you choose to
This is meant to be mine.
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Somehow I knew that I could remain still as long as he was by my side. As if the zephyrus breeze would no longer tip me over the edge, because he was here to keep me steady. He showed me his dreams, so strong and bright that they could almost stain my unexcited soul. And I found once again that feeling. The same flicker of desire I had when I wanted to be a princess, when I wanted to write books. He breathed life into me, like Zeus creating the mortals for the first time.
I still hope. At this moment, I am hopeful for what the future holds. I still dream. And these dreams keep me from stumbling into a vast ocean of darkness again. The boy stays by my side and helps me keep these dreams alive. And every night, when Morpheus lulls me to sleep again– when he forges new fantasies for me to draw in, I think to myself:
It is meant to be mine.
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leave behind? Morpheus did not want me to choose. I’m certain that he didn’t. No, I believe that Morpheus gave me all these dreams just to hold on to them. I would not be able to make all of them come true, but the feeling of being alive while wishing for them was the only thing that kept me going.
It is meant for me.
STEPHANIE BIANCA LIM Malate
Chasing Fish
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STEPHANIE BIANCA LIM In a Little Bubble
Malate Literary Folio expresses its sincere gratitude to the following people for their support and encouragement:
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Faculty advisers, Dr. Mesandel Arguelles and Mr. Vijae Alquisola; Student Media Office personnel, Ms. Franz Louise Santos, Ms. Jeanne Marie Phyllis Tan, Ms. Ma. Manuela Agdeppa, and the Student Media Office (SMO); Department of Literature, Bienvenido Santos Creative Writing Center (BSCWC), Office of Student Affairs, Health Services Office (Taft), DLSU Bookstore, Council of Student Organizations (CSO), Office of the Legal Counsel, Finance and Accounting Office, Security Office, and the Student Discipline Formation Office; Ang Pahayagang Plaridel, Archers Network, Green Giant FM, Green & White, The LaSallian, and the Student Media Council; 37th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature judges, Ms. Ina Abuan, Dr. Mesandel Arguelles, Ms. Clarissa Militante, Ms. Kate Ramil, Ms. Dolores Taylan and Mr. David Michael San Juan; and 12th Annual Awards for Visual Arts judges, Mr. Remar Zamora, Mr. Jimmy Domingo, Ms. Maysa Arabit and Ms. Love Asis; Malate Writers Workshop panelists, Ms. Christa De La Cruz, Mr. Paul Castillo, Ms. Rayji Salcedo and Ms. Sigrid Gayangos; Art and Photo Camp panelists, Ms. Dennese Victoria, Mr. Geloy Concepcion and Mr. Michael Rivero.
Most of all, Malate Literary Folio staffers and alumni who are all part of what it is today, and what awaits the organization in the future.
aCKnowledgeMent
SETYEMBRE 2022
