Morning in Nagrebcan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Si Malakas at si Maganda (The Strong and Beautiful)

This is a very popular folk tale in the country and has varied details in different provinces all over the Philipines. Nevertheless, i would like to share the essence of the story to all those who want to read and go back to the stories of our yesteryears.
This story was made by ancient filipinos in order to explain the mystery of the origin of humankind. According to this folk tale, there was nothing in the world but the sea, the sky, a piece of land, a bamboo tree, and a bird. The bird was on the bamboo and heard sounds in a couple of bamboo trees so it tried to break the bamboo trees through its beak. After sometime, the bamboo trees broke and a man and a woman came out. The man was called Malakas, and the woman, Maganda. They then started a family and produced children who filled the archipelago.
The name Malakas and Maganda also denote a deeper meaning and truth about Filipino culture. Filipinos consider women to be maganda or beautiful,sweet, and soft; while men as malakas or strong and sturdy human being to whom the family can depend on at all times especially in times of trouble and disasters in life...

THE BOY WHO BECAME A STONE

Tinguian

One day a little boy named Elonen sat out in the yard making a bird snare, and as he worked, a little bird called to him: "Tik-tik-lo-den" (come and catch me).
"I am making a snare for you," said the boy; but the bird continued to call until the snare was finished.
Then Elonen ran and threw the snare over the bird and caught it, and he put it in a jar in his house while he went with the other boys to swim.
While he was away, his grandmother grew hungry, so she ate the bird, and when Elonen returned and found that his bird was gone, he was so sad that he wished he might go away and never come back. He went out into the forest and walked a long distance, until finally he came to a big stone and said: "Stone, open your mouth and eat me." And the stone opened its mouth and swallowed the boy.
When his grandmother missed the boy, she went out and looked everywhere, hoping to find him. Finally she passed near the stone and it cried out, "Here he is." Then the old woman tried to open the stone but she could not, so she called the horses to come and help her. They came and kicked it, but it would not break. Then she called the carabao and they hooked it, but they only broke their horns. She called the chickens, which pecked it, and the thunder, which shook it, but nothing could open it, and she had to go home without the boy.

ZITA
by Arturo B. Rotor

TURONG brought him from Pauambang in his small sailboat, for the coastwise steamer did not stop at any little island of broken cliffs and coconut palms. It was almost midday; they had been standing in that white glare where the tiniest pebble and fluted conch had become points of light, piercing-bright--the municipal president, the parish priest, Don Eliodoro who owned almost all the coconuts, the herb doctor, the village character. Their mild surprise over when he spoke in their native dialect, they looked at him more closely and his easy manner did not deceive them. His head was uncovered and he had a way of bringing the back of his hand to his brow or mouth; they read behind that too, it was not a gesture of protection. "An exile has come to Anayat… and he is so young, so young." So young and lonely and sufficient unto himself. There was no mistaking the stamp of a strong decision on that brow, the brow of those who have to be cold and haughty, those shoulders stooped slightly, less from the burden that they bore than from a carefully cultivated air of unconcern; no common school-teacher could dress so carelessly and not appear shoddy.
They had prepared a room for him in Don Eliodoro's house so that he would not have to walk far to school every morning, but he gave nothing more than a glance at the big stone building with its Spanish azotea, its arched doorways, its flagged courtyard. He chose instead Turong's home, a shaky hut near the sea. Was the sea rough and dangerous at times? He did not mind it. Was the place far from the church and the schoolhouse? The walk would do him good. Would he not feel lonely with nobody but an illiterate fisherman for a companion? He was used to living alone. And they let him do as he wanted, for the old men knew that it was not so much the nearness of the sea that he desired as its silence so that he might tell it secrets he could not tell anyone else.
They thought of nobody but him; they talked about him in the barber shop, in the cockpit, in the sari-sari store, the way he walked, the way he looked at you, his unruly hair. They dressed him in purple and linen, in myth and mystery, put him astride a black stallion, at the wheel of a blue automobile. Mr. Reteche? Mr. Reteche! The name suggested the fantasy and the glitter of a place and people they never would see; he was the scion of a powerful family, a poet and artist, a prince.
That night, Don Eliodoro had the story from his daughter of his first day in the classroom; she perched wide-eyed, low-voiced, short of breath on the arm of his chair.
"He strode into the room, very tall and serious and polite, stood in front of us and looked at us all over and yet did not seem to see us.
" 'Good morning, teacher,' we said timidly.
"He bowed as if we were his equals. He asked for the fist of our names and as he read off each one we looked at him long. When he came to my name, Father, the most surprising thing happened. He started pronouncing it and then he stopped as if he had forgotten something and just stared and stared at the paper in his hand. I heard my name repeated three times through his half-closed lips, 'Zita. Zita. Zita.'
" 'Yes sir, I am Zita.'
"He looked at me uncomprehendingly, inarticulate, and it seemed to me, Father, it actually seemed that he was begging me to tell him that that was not my name, that I was deceiving him. He looked so miserable and sick I felt like sinking down or running away.
" 'Zita is not your name; it is just a pet name, no?'
" 'My father has always called me that, sir.'
" 'It can't be; maybe it is Pacita or Luisa or--'
"His voice was scarcely above a whisper, Father, and all the while he looked at me begging, begging. I shook my head determinedly. My answer must have angered him. He must have thought I was very hard-headed, for he said, 'A thousand miles, Mother of Mercy… it is not possible.' He kept on looking at me; he was hurt perhaps that he should have such a stubborn pupil. But I am not really so, Father?"
"Yes, you are, my dear. But you must try to please him, he is a gentleman; he comes from the city. I was thinking… Private lessons, perhaps, if he won't ask too much." Don Eliodoro had his dreams and she was his only daughter.
Turong had his own story to tell in the barber shop that night, a story as vividly etched as the lone coconut palm in front of the shop that shot up straight into the darkness of the night, as vaguely disturbing as the secrets that the sea whispered into the night.
"He did not sleep a wink, I am sure of it. When I came from the market the stars were already out and I saw that he had not touched the food I had prepared. I asked him to eat and he said he was not hungry. He sat by the window that faces the sea and just looked out hour after hour. I woke up three times during the night and saw that he had not so much as changed his position. I thought once that he was asleep and came near, but he motioned me away. When I awoke at dawn to prepare the nets, he was still there."
"Maybe he wants to go home already." They looked up with concern.
"He is sick. You remember Father Fernando? He had a way of looking like that, into space, seeing nobody, just before he died."
Every month there was a letter that came for him, sometimes two or three; large, blue envelopes with a gold design in the upper left hand comer, and addressed in broad, angular, sweeping handwriting. One time Turong brought one of them to him in the classroom. The students were busy writing a composition on a subject that he had given them, "The Things That I Love Most." Carelessly he had opened the letter, carelessly read it, and carelessly tossed it aside. Zita was all aflutter when the students handed in their work for he had promised that he would read aloud the best. He went over the pile two times, and once again, absently, a deep frown on his brow, as if he were displeased with their work. Then he stopped and picked up one. Her heart sank when she saw that it was not hers, she hardly heard him reading:
"I did not know any better. Moths are not supposed to know; they only come to the light. And the light looked so inviting, there was no resisting it. Moths are not supposed to know, one does not even know one is a moth until one's wings are burned."
It was incomprehensible, no beginning, no end. It did not have unity, coherence, emphasis. Why did he choose that one? What did he see in it? And she had worked so hard, she had wanted to please, she had written about the flowers that she loved most. Who could have written what he had read aloud? She did not know that any of her classmates could write so, use such words, sentences, use a blue paper to write her lessons on.
But then there was little in Mr. Reteche that the young people there could understand. Even his words were so difficult, just like those dark and dismaying things that they came across in their readers, which took them hour after hour in the dictionary. She had learned like a good student to pick out the words she did not recognize, writing them down as she heard them, but it was a thankless task. She had a whole notebook filled now, two columns to each page:

esurient          greedy.
Amaranth          a flower that never fades.
peacock           a large bird with lovely gold and 
                  green feathers.
Mirash 

The last word was not in the dictionary.
And what did such things as original sin, selfishness, insatiable, actress of a thousand faces mean, and who were Sirse, Lorelay, other names she could not find anywhere? She meant to ask him someday, someday when his eyes were kinder.
He never went to church, but then, that always went with learning and education, did it not? One night Bue saw him coming out of the dim doorway. He watched again and the following night he saw him again. They would not believe it, they must see it with their own eyes and so they came. He did not go in every night, but he could be seen at the most unusual hours, sometimes at dusk, sometimes at dawn, once when it was storming and the lightning etched ragged paths from heaven to earth. Sometimes he stayed for a few minutes, sometimes he came twice or thrice in one evening. They reported it to Father Cesareo but it seemed that he already knew. "Let a peaceful man alone in his prayers." The answer had surprised them.
The sky hangs over Anayat, in the middle of the Anayat Sea, like an inverted wineglass, a glass whose wine had been spilled, a purple wine of which Anayat was the last precious drop. For that is Anayat in the crepuscule, purple and mellow, sparkling and warm and effulgent when there is a moon, cool and heady and sensuous when there is no moon.
One may drink of it and forget what lies beyond a thousand miles, beyond a thousand years; one may sip it at the top of a jagged cliff, nearer peace, nearer God, where one can see the ocean dashing against the rocks in eternal frustration, more moving, more terrible than man's; or touch it to his lips in the lush shadows of the dama de noche, its blossoms iridescent like a thousand fireflies, its bouquet the fragrance of flowers that know no fading.
Zita sat by her open window, half asleep, half dreaming. Francisco B. Reteche; what a name! What could his nickname be. Paking, Frank, Pa… The night lay silent and expectant, a fairy princess waiting for the whispered words of a lover. She was not a bit sleepy; already she had counted three stars that had fallen to earth, one almost directly into that bush of dama de noche at their garden gate, where it had lighted the lamps of a thousand fireflies. He was not so forbidding now, he spoke less frequently to himself, more frequently to her; his eyes were still unseeing, but now they rested on her. She loved to remember those moments she had caught him looking when he thought she did not know. The knowledge came keenly, bitingly, like the sea breeze at dawn, like the prick of the rose's thorn, or--yes, like the purple liquid that her father gave the visitors during pintakasi which made them red and noisy. She had stolen a few drops one day, because she wanted to know, to taste, and that little sip had made her head whirl.
Suddenly she stiffened; a shadow had emerged from the shrubs and had been lost in the other shadows. Her pulses raced, she strained forward. Was she dreaming? Who was it? A lost soul, an unvoiced thought, the shadow of a shadow, the prince from his tryst with the fairy princess? What were the words that he whispered to her?
They who have been young once say that only youth can make youth forget itself; that life is a river bed; the water passes over it, sometimes it encounters obstacles and cannot go on, sometimes it flows unencumbered with a song in every bubble and ripple, but always it goes forward. When its way is obstructed it burrows deeply or swerves aside and leaves its impression, and whether the impress will be shallow and transient, or deep and searing, only God determines. The people remembered the day when he went up Don Eliodoro's house, the light of a great decision in his eyes, and finally accepted the father's request that he teach his daughter "to be a lady."
"We are going to the city soon, after the next harvest perhaps; I want her not to feel like a 'provinciana' when we get there."
They remembered the time when his walks by the seashore became less solitary, for now of afternoons, he would draw the whole crowd of village boys from their game of leapfrog or patintero and bring them with him. And they would go home hours after sunset with the wonderful things that Mr. Reteche had told them, why the sea is green, the sky blue, what one who is strong and fearless might find at that exact place where the sky meets the sea. They would be flushed and happy and bright-eyed, for he could stand on his head longer than any of them, catch more crabs, send a pebble skimming over the breast of Anayat Bay farthest.
Turong still remembered those ominous, terrifying nights when he had got up cold and trembling to listen to the aching groan of the bamboo floor, as somebody in the other room restlessly paced to and fro. And his pupils still remember those mornings he received their flowers, the camia which had fainted away at her own fragrance, the kampupot, with the night dew still trembling in its heart; receive them with a smile and forget the lessons of the day and tell them all about those princesses and fairies who dwelt in flowers; why the dama de noche must have the darkness of the night to bring out its fragrance; how the petals of the ylang-ylang, crushed and soaked in some liquid, would one day touch the lips of some wondrous creature in some faraway land whose eyes were blue and hair golden.

Those were days of surprises for Zita. Box after box came in Turong's sailboat and each time they contained things that took the words from her lips. Silk as sheer and perishable as gossamer, or heavy and shiny and tinted like the sunset sky; slippers with bright stones which twinkled with the least movement of her feet; a necklace of green, flat, polished stone, whose feel against her throat sent a curious choking sensation there; perfume that she must touch her lips with. If only there would always be such things in Turong's sailboat, and none of those horrid blue envelopes that he always brought. And yet--the Virgin have pity on her selfish soul--suppose one day Turong brought not only those letters but the writer as well? She shuddered, not because she feared it but because she knew it would be.
"Why are these dresses so tight fitting?" Her father wanted to know.
"In society, women use clothes to reveal, not to hide." Was that a sneer or a smile in his eyes? The gown showed her arms and shoulders and she had never known how round and fair they were, how they could express so many things.
"Why do these dresses have such bright colors?"
"Because the peacock has bright feathers."
"They paint their lips…"
"So that they can smile when they do not want to."
"And their eyelashes are long."
"To hide deception."
He was not pleased like her father; she saw it, he had turned his face toward the window. And as she came nearer, swaying like a lily atop its stalk she heard the harsh, muttered words:
"One would think she'd feel shy or uncomfortable, but no… oh no… not a bit… all alike… comes naturally."
There were books to read; pictures, names to learn; lessons in everything; how to polish the nails, how to use a fan, even how to walk. How did these days come, how did they go? What does one do when one is so happy, so breathless? Sometimes they were a memory, sometimes a dream.
"Look, Zita, a society girl does not smile so openly; her eyes don't seek one's so--that reveals your true feelings."
"But if I am glad and happy and I want to show it?"
"Don't. If you must show it by smiling, let your eyes be mocking; if you would invite with your eyes, repulse with your lips."
That was a memory.
She was in a great drawing room whose floor was so polished it reflected the myriad red and green and blue fights above, the arches of flowers and ribbons and streamers. All the great names of the capital were there, stately ladies in wonderful gowns who walked so, waved their fans so, who said one thing with their eyes and another with their lips. And she was among them and every young and good-looking man wanted to dance with her. They were all so clever and charming but she answered: "Please, I am tired." For beyond them she had seen him alone, he whose eyes were dark and brooding and disapproving and she was waiting for him to take her.
That was a dream. Sometimes though, she could not tell so easily which was the dream and which the memory.
If only those letters would not bother him now, he might be happy and at peace. True he never answered them, but every time Turong brought him one, he would still become thoughtful and distracted. Like that time he was teaching her a dance, a Spanish dance, he said, and had told her to dress accordingly. Her heavy hair hung in a big, carelessly tied knot that always threatened to come loose but never did; its dark, deep shadows showing off in startling vividness how red a rose can be, how like velvet its petals. Her earrings--two circlets of precious stones, red like the pigeon's blood--almost touched her shoulders. The heavy Spanish shawl gave her the most trouble--she had nothing to help her but some pictures and magazines--she could not put it on just as she wanted. Like this, it revealed her shoulder too much; that way, it hampered the free movement of the legs. But she had done her best; for hours she had stood before her mirror and for hours it had told her that she was beautiful, that red lips and tragic eyes were becoming to her.
She'd never forget that look on his face when she came out. It was not surprise, joy, admiration. It was as if he saw somebody there whom he was expecting, for whom he had waited, prayed.
"Zita!" It was a cry of recognition.
She blushed even under her rouge when he took her in his arms and taught her to step this way, glide so, turn about; she looked half questioningly at her father for disapproval, but she saw that there was nothing there but admiration too. Mr. Reteche seemed so serious and so intent that she should learn quickly; but he did not deceive her, for once she happened to lean close and she felt how wildly his heart was beating. It frightened her and she drew away, but when she saw how unconcerned he seemed, as if he did not even know that she was in his arms, she smiled knowingly and drew close again. Dreamily she closed her eyes and dimly wondered if his were shut too, whether he was thinking the same thoughts, breathing the same prayer.
Turong came up and after his respectful "Good evening" he handed an envelope to the school teacher. It was large and blue and had a gold design in one comer; the handwriting was broad, angular, sweeping.
"Thank you, Turong." His voice was drawling, heavy, the voice of one who has just awakened. With one movement he tore the unopened envelope slowly, unconsciously, it seemed to her, to pieces.
"I thought I had forgotten," he murmured dully.
That changed the whole evening. His eyes lost their sparkle, his gaze wandered from time to time. Something powerful and dark had come between them, something which shut out the light, brought in a chill. The tears came to her eyes for she felt utterly powerless. When her sight cleared she saw that he was sitting down and trying to piece the letter together.
"Why do you tear up a letter if you must put it together again?" rebelliously.
He looked at her kindly. "Someday, Zita, you will do it too, and then you will understand."
One day Turong came from Pauambang and this time he brought a stranger. They knew at once that he came from where the teacher came--his clothes, his features, his politeness--and that he had come for the teacher. This one did not speak their dialect, and as he was led through the dusty, crooked streets, he kept forever wiping his face, gazing at the wobbly, thatched huts and muttering short, vehement phrases to himself. Zita heard his knock before Mr. Reteche did and she knew what he had come for. She must have been as pale as her teacher, as shaken, as rebellious. And yet the stranger was so cordial; there was nothing but gladness in his greeting, gladness at meeting an old friend. How strong he was; even at that moment he did not forget himself, but turned to his class and dismissed them for the day.
The door was thick and she did not dare lean against the jamb too much, so sometimes their voices floated away before they reached her.
"…like children… making yourselves… so unhappy."
"…happiness? Her idea of happiness…"
Mr. Reteche's voice was more low-pitched, hoarse, so that it didn't carry at all. She shuddered as he laughed, it was that way when he first came.
"She's been… did not mean… understand."
"…learning to forget…"
There were periods when they both became excited and talked fast and hard; she heard somebody's restless pacing, somebody sitting down heavily.
"I never realized what she meant to me until I began trying to seek from others what she would not give me."
She knew what was coming now, knew it before the stranger asked the question:
"Tomorrow?"
She fled; she could not wait for the answer.
He did not sleep that night, she knew he did not, she told herself fiercely. And it was not only his preparations that kept him awake, she knew it, she knew it. With the first flicker of light she ran to her mirror. She must not show her feeling, it was not in good form, she must manage somehow. If her lips quivered, her eyes must smile, if in her eyes there were tears… She heard her father go out, but she did not go; although she knew his purpose, she had more important things to do. Little boys came up to the house and she wiped away their tears and told them that he was coming back, coming back, soon, soon.
The minutes flew, she was almost done now; her lips were red and her eyebrows penciled; the crimson shawl thrown over her shoulders just right. Everything must be like that day he had first seen her in a Spanish dress. Still he did not come, he must be bidding farewell now to Father Cesareo; now he was in Doña Ramona's house; now he was shaking the barber's hand. He would soon be through and come to her house. She glanced at the mirror and decided that her lips were not red enough; she put on more color. The rose in her hair had too long a stem; she tried to trim it with her fingers and a thorn dug deeply into her flesh.
Who knows? Perhaps they would soon meet again in the city; she wondered if she could not wheedle her father into going earlier. But she must know now what were the words he had wanted to whisper that night under the dama de noche, what he had wanted to say that day he held her in his arms; other things, questions whose answers she knew. She smiled. How well she knew them!
The big house was silent as death; the little village seemed deserted, everybody had gone to the seashore. Again she looked at the mirror. She was too pale, she must put on more rouge. She tried to keep from counting the minutes, the seconds, from getting up and pacing. But she was getting chilly and she must do it to keep warm.
The steps creaked. She bit her lips to stifle a wild cry there. The door opened.
"Turong!"
"Mr. Reteche bade me give you this. He said you would understand."
In one bound she had reached the open window. But dimly, for the sun was too bright, or was her sight failing?--she saw a blur of white moving out to sea, then disappearing behind a point of land so that she could no longer follow it; and then, clearly against a horizon suddenly drawn out of perspective, "Mr. Reteche," tall, lean, brooding, looking at her with eyes that told her somebody had hurt him. It was like that when he first came, and now he was gone. The tears came freely now. What matter, what matter? There was nobody to see and criticize her breeding. They came down unchecked and when she tried to brush them off with her hand, the color came away too from her cheeks, leaving them bloodless, cold. Sometimes they got into her mouth and they tasted bitter.
Her hands worked convulsively; there was a sound of tearing paper, once, twice. She became suddenly aware of what she had done when she looked at the pieces, wet and brightly stained with uneven streaks of red. Slowly, painfully, she tried to put the pieces together and as she did so a sob escaped deep from her breast--a great understanding had come to her.

Another work of Jose viLLa

 Footnote to Youth  bY: Jose Garcia Villa

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This field
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Must you marry, Dodong?"

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

"You are very young, Dodong."

"I'm... seventeen."

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

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

"Tell your mother," his father said.

"You tell her, tatay."

"Dodong, you tell your inay."

"You tell her."

"All right, Dodong."

"You will let me marry Teang?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

He heard his mother's voice from the house:

"Come up, Dodong. It is over."

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

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

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

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

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

He wanted to hide from them, to run away.

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

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

"Dodong. Dodong."

"I'll... come up."

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

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

"Son," his father said.

And his mother: "Dodong..."

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

"Teang?" Dodong said.

"She's sleeping. But you go on..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dodong whom life had made ugly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep.

"Itay ...," Blas called softly.

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.

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

Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving.

"Itay, you think it over."

Dodong lay silent.

"I love Tona and... I want her."

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

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

"Yes."

"Must you marry?"

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

Dodong kept silent, hurt.

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

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

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

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

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

COLONIZATION OF LITERATURE

Literature is a written art where expressions and feelings can express. It  was a big part of our life and history includes literature where different things and event happened. Colonization of Literature also happened. There are such different types of Literature such as folk songs, poetry, poems, epics and other more. Filipino folksongs are said to be gay and frivolous, conveying the lighter and more graceful emotions. Many of the Filipino songs give evidence of an interest in various aspects of the natural environment. In poetry, Filipino poetry in Spanish is the product of only a century and four decades. Compared with the long period of Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines that is truly a brief existence. Important writings during the first decade of American occupation were largely confined to Spanish and Tagalog, then the languages of the capital. English as medium of expression was used significantly only after it was sufficiently learned by our people.

            The contemporary period in the Philippine Literature witnessed the emergency of the multilingual writer. History has made this literary phenomenon possible. Spain left a cultural heritage, religion-inspired, warm and colorful. American’s almost half a century democratic rule made significant marks on the creative arts, especially literature and the fine arts. The Spanish musical drama of three acts, the zarzuela, which was introduced here during the waning years of the Spanish regime for its purely entertainment values, became a patent vehicle of Filipino nationalism when it assumed local form and idiom. Writers imbued with natinalist sentiment gained more freedom of expression under the American rule. However, limitations were set up by the law on libel and sedition: so that dramatist wrote plays with disguised themes, particularly the Revolution of 1896 and the Philippine-American war, with the intent of convincing the people of the injustice that came with colonization. The first contemporary poets were also authors of fiction and zarzuelas. Products of earlier decades the verse was greatly influenced by Spanish and Latin poetry, and in a measure, by the assertive English and American poems. The American school system brought with it the benefactions of western culture. Tagalog poetry, then Spanish in measure and in poetic devices, underwent a structural change and with years, showed American influence.

            Literature in its new mentality, educating youth today demands a change in principle and methods in the same way that science and industry have sought new by-paths in their developments. We expect to educate the youth of our day with the body of truths and knowledge possessed by our leaders under social conditons which were not only difgferent from, but diametrically opposed to, those that obtain at present. There is a sophism in believing that we of the Philippines are a separate group, that we can with impunity preserve the ideas and and habits which constituted our old mentality, and at the same time, attain progress along with our nations in the light of that mentality long withdrawn from the rest of the world. Unless we consider ourselves as a race superior to the rest of the world. Instead of confining our knowledge to local conditions, we should open our windows and see the world without the fundamental value of knowledge lies in furnishing universal knowledge. We should study not only our present and past, but also the present and past of the world. The future of Filipino Literature was in the University educators who at times, have expressed lofty educational sentiments and concepts are many like Francisco Dalupan, Gregorio Y. Zara and others. Their college prose is further enriched with the appearance of scholarly writings of several professors, gifted with literary felicity and love for truth. Their individual works help clarify the true role played by some outstanding Filipinos in Philippine History and ideas. And above all, their writings plead for dynamic education.  

        

SINO ANG TUNAY NA BALIW BY: BASIL VALDEZ

Ang natutuwang baliw, yaman ay pinagyabang
Dahil ari niya raw, ang araw pati ang buwan
May isang sa yaman ay, salapi ang hinihigan
Ngunit ang gintong baul, panay kasalanan ang laman

Sinasambit ng baliw, awit na walang laman
Ulo mo'y maiiling, tatawagin mong hangal
May isang hindi baliw, iba ang awit na alam
Buong araw kung magdasal, sinungaling rin naman

Sinong dakila? Sino ang tunay na baliw?
Sinong mapalad? Sinong tumatawag ng habag?
Yaong bang sinilang, na ang pag-iisip di lubos?
O husto ang isip, Ngunit sa pag-ibig ay kapos

Ang kanyang tanging suot, ay sira-sirang damit
Na nakikiramay sa isip niyang punit-punit
May binata ang gayak, panay diamante at hiyas
Ngunit oras maghubad, kulay ahas ang balat

Sinong dakila? Sino ang tunay na baliw?
Sinong mapalad? Sinong tumatawag ng habag?
Yaong bang sinilang, na ang pag-iisip hindi lubos?
O husto ang isip, Ngunit sa pag-ibig ay kapos

Sa kanyang kilos at galaw, tayo ay naaaliw
Sa ating mga mata, isa lamang siyang baliw
Ngunit, kung tayo ay, hahatulang sabay
Sa mata ng Maykapal, siya'y higit na banal

Sinong dakila? Sino ang tunay na baliw?
Sinong mapalad? Sinong tumatawag ng habag?
Yaong bang sinilang, na ang pag-iisip di lubos?
O husto ang isip

Kaya't sino, sino, sino, sino nga
Sino nga ba, Sino Sino ba,
Sino nga ba ang tunay na baliw?