Witching Hour

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I care for lolling
Next to a name
As he saws wood,
To hear
His wary gasp
Twirl to an uninhibited pulse,
Like a rogation,
To sense his upper trunk
Blow out and distend
Like an unspoken troth
Of brio, to snoop
So keenly
To his throb,
Pounding
Like an olden berceuse,
And then leisurely,
To take in your clock
Is pounding too,
Carefully first,
But shortly flouting,
Into an enticing efflux,
Like the quiet dithering
Of a colossal bird’s pinion,
Yet as serene as the aubade.

Dogs the City Over

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Dogs, for our body and psyche, are enjoyable, pleasant, or interesting: they fire up our happiness and peace of mind. But look about, anyplace, drifting dogs are out of their owners’ residences. Thus, their muck is everyplace, reeking on the corner! They're a terrible nuisance!

Having dogs at home has this reason to a lot of us, dogs, principally to persons who are living alone, give security. The barking of a dog helps to keep unwelcome visitors away and puts off the coming up of feelings of lonesomeness and seclusion.

Dogs replace the contact to other human beings, but people do not become out-of-the-way but rather remain fascinated and full of zip and thus also are ready to establish contact to other people and to stay in contact with them.

Most senior citizens I meet give a lot of details that their dogs give them the feeling of being useful, of being able to look after somebody, of not being alone and isolated; their dogs help them overlook themselves and their problems and live their free time in a meaningful and interesting way. All this urging is of immense value for their reaching the later stages of their lives.

Dogs, to these older people, help to fight against droopiness and lack of concern. Having their dogs beside, they start to get interested once more to a greater degree in events in their neighbourhood and in their surroundings.

But it seems only a few of Ilonggos really love their dogs—and only those elderly folks. A lot of Ilonggos principally those slum-grown never think about their dogs. Hence, dogs scatter about, famished and dirty.

I know dogs have great roles in everyone’s life, they help to get over sad events by representing for instance a living role model to a dead person or by becoming a new point for fondness, they foil or cut forgetfulness or panic by communicating the sense of time and by maintaining a pace of the day—but I presume adopting dogs in our cities must be given a parameter. Mutt or rare breed, our city government must compel people who want to own dogs an agreement paper and to be liable if something bad happens to their pets.

People should be oriented of many things they can have for having pet dogs. And not everyone can own a dog. So that it will not come to pass that this city has to euthanise our canine population sometime as it is growing radically over the years.

For my part, having our dogs at home I am pushed to physical bustle. Be it by playing with them, cultivating cleanliness, or going on a stroll with them—or when we have them nosh. My dogs keep me amused, make me laugh, recover my moral. So I hope we should love our dogs and let’s end all rough treatment that our dogs go through from our horrific hands.

My Palate is a Purple Pomme du Lait

a poem by Roger B Rueda

My palate is a purple pomme du lait
It takes the weight off my feet profound and muted
Beating like a dream you can grasp in your hand
Silky-smooth, balmy, and murmuring
Gaze infinitely enough and you can glimpse
My cruor is strewn with trusses of Olea europaea
And Pogostemon cablin
And the untainted onyx aqua
And if you stare even more fiercely
When the lambency hits me on the nose—
I am utterly lucent
And shorn of all that is physical and able to be enclosed
For that instant
Even if you can't snare me
I can snare you
In nothing flat I am whole nine yards and hard
My impulse now obscure
By now the musing is only snippets of noise
Pecking my lobes and cincturing my skull

Hayseed

a poem by Roger B Rueda

His stairs crackle on the paved thoroughfare,
Pattering remarks on the eager range.
A scuff of sun slid like a yellow dog in the breach,
Illuming the charm of his hues.
He went down on his knees before the flurry of fresh godly
Downpour ascending from the entrails of the terrain,
Corralled sacrament from the stein of his holds,
And vanished at the rear of the assemblage of fiery spire.
I took notice of him again as the steppe blistering verge
Swung in the reaped gluten, his stifling heat.

Plasticscape

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Wherever one turns his/her eyes, he/she sees prismatic plastics of variegated brands and materiel used. Anyway, they are all plastic and not pompons. Accordingly, while crossing on the Forbes Bridge or Jalandoni Bridge or any Iloilo bridge, we can right away mouths off that those floating drecks are plastics, which have been used in almost everything, and they are not typic components of the water.

I myself am a “plastic” person, too, I drink coffee with a plastic cup, I eat with a plastic plate and sometimes with a plastic spoon and fork, and most of my utensils at home are made of plastics.

Anywise, what are plastics? Well, they are polymers which are just very long chains of atoms which repeat over and over again. By the way, that’s the chemist’s thing when it comes to its knotty brown study, not ours.

Well, the development of plastics according to my review has come from the use of natural materials (e.g., bubble gum, shellac varnish) to the use of artificially modified innate materials (e.g., natural rubber, nitrocellulose, collagen) and finally to wholly synthetic molecules [e.g., epoxy, poly (vinyl chloride), polyethylene].

Ever since the development of plastics earlier this blue moon, they have become trendy stuff used in a wide array of ways. These days, plastics are used to make, or wrap around, many of the items we buy or use. We use plastics when we shop and they are complimentary. Actually, their cost has been toted up to the cost of what we buy. Our malls and grocerterias are staking us to plastic bags. Perhaps, this period has to be called Plastic Age.

The botheration comes when we no longer want these items and how we dispose of them, mainly the off the cuff plastic material used in wrapping or packaging. Plastics are used because they are easy and cheap to make and they can last a long time. Sorry to say, these same useful qualities can make plastic a huge pollution problem. The cheapness means plastic gets discarded with no trouble and its long life means it survives in the environment for long periods where it can do great damage. Because plastic does not go moldy, and requires high energy ultra-violet light to break down, the amount of plastic waste in our seas is bit by bit increasing.

The plastic waste found on beaches near our city tends to start off from use on land, such as packaging material used to wrap around other goods. On in the sticks provincial beaches the rubbish tends to have come from ships, such as fishing gears used in the fishing business. This plastic can affect marine wildlife in two key ways: by enmeshing living things and by being scoffed.

The plastic pollution is serious and requires extra pondering. Instantaneous action is essential more than how we are busy studying grammar or mathematics or fashion.

Cutback of the quantity of plastic used in packaging which is by and large immediately thrown away must be done. Re-use of plastics should be pushed (by businessmen). Plastic wrapping and bags should carry a warning label stating the dangers of plastic pollution, and shoppers should be encouraged to use their own bags, or recycled paper bags.

When you go to concourses in the city proper or in La Paz or Mandurriao, you must buy products with less plastic packaging and tell store persons why you are doing so. You should use your own bags or recycled paper bags though you wouldn’t look rakish. You must support recycling schemes and promote support for one in your local area.

Malls which are really concerned with this problem must grubstake the environment to eco-friendly bags without any conditions like buying this and that—which is specious! Of course, they are robber barons, no wonder!

Fishermen throughout this conurbation and province should not throw away waste line, net, or plastic waste, this causes vast suffering and many deaths. Practice and promote correct disposal of plastics in your home and at the beach. Always remember that garbage spawns garbage. Never dispose of plastics in the sewage system.

At the beach you dispose of plastics and other garbage in the cans provided. If these facilities are laughable, speak with the local authority responsible and lodge a plaint. Take your garbage back home with you if there are no containers on the beach. Pick up any plastic litter you may see on the beach or in rock pools in the surrounding area in which you are sitting or walking. Encourage kids to do similarly.

In the street never throw plastic or other trash out of the jeepney or drop it on the roadway or in the drain or in our plazas. Set an example to others and encourage them to help.

My last word on plastics is that they are not themselves a problem. They are useful and popular materials which can be produced with pretty little damage to the environment. The problem is the disproportionate use of plastics in uncommon uses together with sloppy discarding.

Watercolouring the Light

a poem by Roger B Rueda

You take a seat,
your boscage held onto
in finger deadened by
algor, and gaze
at the twilight heavens as it were
it might prorogue its cruxes
with a whimper
evocative
of storm petrel
in the radiance
of early sunrise
and fly down
to take you
to paradise on
sparkler-caked
aileron.
You stare at the light
bop on the pond.
Sightless to the swarms
going by, you grip
to the outlandish ease
that comes with the macrocosms,
gazing at as small hours
lean on the weary
horizon like a welcoming
inebriate.
As he
gyrates in the disorganised
expanse, accepted
highlights come into view
on his awning,
and he thinks
he knows the feelings
of the sun as it
descends.

Call for Submissions: Philippines Ripe Literary Magazine

Philippines Ripe Literary Magazine has set out on an undertaking to offer the most engaging reading practice for literature in the country. Featuring fresh literary pieces from Filipino writers, the magazine will be presented in a fascinating format that prides itself on revolutionary design, graphic, and shooting. The magazine will offer its community of dedicated readers the most preferred venue for Philippine writers to share their work.

It is a magazine with an audacious visualisation for reading and amusement—one that holds on to its value over time and is never behind the times. Unswerving to distinction, Philippines Ripe Literary Magazine aims to refurbish itself and outline the future of reading pursuit for its readers.

Submission Guidelines

Philippines Ripe Literary Magazine publishes short fiction, poetry, essays, drama, book reviews, paintings, photographs, and digital art from a Filipino. Writers/artists at all stages of their careers are invited to apply; however, we can only publish a very small fraction of the material we receive. If you are interested in submitting your work for consideration, please refer to the guidelines below.

WHEN:

Philippines Ripe Literary Magazine is published once yearly (in December). There is no formal reading period and work may be submitted at any time during the year.

WHERE:

Submissions should be addressed to

Ripe Literary Magazine
c/o Roger B Rueda
The Castle Hotel
192 Bonifacio Drive
5000 Iloilo City,

or you may send your submission via email at inkslinger215@live.com. Please include your full name and mailing address in the email and attach your submission as a Microsoft Word document.

HOW:

For submissions by mail, please include a cover letter citing recent publications, relevant degrees and awards, and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Manuscripts must be paginated and clearly labeled with the author’s name on every page. Please limit your submission to no more than five poems, two short plays, or 7,000 words of prose, and do not submit more than twice in one year. If you would like us to consider work in more than one genre, please send each piece in a separate envelope with a separate cover letter.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, so long as we are notified of the work’s acceptance elsewhere. Do not send the only copy of your work, as we do not accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. We try to respond within six months.

BOOK REVIEWS:

Please note that we do not accept unsolicited book reviews. If you are interested in reviewing for Philippines Ripe Literary Magazine, please write to the editor, enclosing two or more recent clips.

OUR EDITORIAL PHILOSOPHY:

We are excited most by poems that defamiliarise the well-known, poems that are taut and elegant in their unfolding, yet not overwrought or overtly inventive. A plain style can be as compelling as one that reaches for transcendent utterance, while poems that delve into underexplored areas or risk saying the unsayable also capture our attention. We like poems that exhibit rich moments of figuration, poems that are conscious of rhythm and meaning, and poems that make claims on our lives or enact historical, social, literary, and spiritual awareness, while remaining grounded in the multiple facets of our lives. For fiction: What are we looking for? The threshold for us is pretty basic: does this story make us want to keep reading it? Beyond that it’s really case by case. In general, we’ll go for something raw and strong over something polished and less strong, something strange over something familiar.

EDITING:

We assume that most pieces require some editing to fit the style and format of the magazine. Please check your manuscripts carefully before submitting. We use British English spelling for all words i.e. labour, neighbour, travelling etc. Please use metric measurements wherever possible.

PAYMENT:

Payment for poems ranges from $15 to $30. All other pieces will be negotiated separately. One copy of the magazine in which your article appears will accompany payment.

We look forward to discussing your ideas and receiving your submissions.



N.B. The editor strives to respond promptly to every submission. Notification of acceptance, acceptance subject to revision, or rejection will normally be made no later than 5 November. Please be aware that, at times, one or more of our editors are out of town and some delay, in such circumstances, should be anticipated. If you have not received a response within 3 days, enquire directly of the editor as to the status of your submission. Many thanks.

Resurgence

a poem by Roger B Rueda

The extremity
has rounded
across the steps,
and earthed its lime
into fine-grained rock
and upcoming spell.
It cringes
while midsummer does
under a ballooning blur.
As foliage falls
down, I pit
my carpus into rock,
pat the scratch,
and set.
I whet my pegs
against the blare
created
in the skeleton
of the rainy days—
whose ricochet teems
in small rock,
whose pitch cords
through falling extremity,
whose shape endures
the snivel of midnight's labour.
A flagging spirit pulls
my tone of voice
under the solid sprinkle to live
in the gasp of kernels,
to lie in the source
of fresh skeleton, novel lime.
My snuffle will intone the labour
of terror's lucid flow.
My looming cry
will put off this
once bowl-shaped skeleton.

Patriotism

an essay by Roger B Rueda

In Mark Twain's “Notebook,” [Patriotism] ...is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a longline of successive “owners” who each in turn, as “patriots” with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of “robbers” who came to steal it and did —and became swelling-hearted patriots in their turn.

Today, let me dip into this lexeme. It is, of course, too familiar a word but it is so far down that we need to take a look at it many times to grab hold of it well into our dream boxes.

Patriotism, based on the Random House Dictionary, is devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty. Well, it has radial pith to other people and it has probity I suppose.

You might wonder why I am pitching into patriotism now. What have I pigged out? Definitely, I just want to usher you to the other loins of patriotism.

A great anti-patriot Gustave Hervé justly calls patriotism a superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than religion. The superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

In “More Maxims of Mark” by Johnson in 1927 patriot is defined there as the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about. This is quite farcical but on ice.

In “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty ,” Emma Goldman says that thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time.

Then she levels out further that the people are urged to be patriotic ... by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.

Goldman admonishes that conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. [...] Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

Culled from her paper—Goldman yaks in her luscious disquisition that Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons,” Bertrand Russell thought. This is true nowadays. Many go west because of some very daft whyfor. They heft things inexorably or never at all.

Perhaps, Senaca is right when he said “Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.” Possibly!?

Lin Yutang, however, has a piquant two cents worth of patriotism: “What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” What do you think?

Subjectively as a moral sentiment, patriotism has no benefits. It can only egg on exclusivity or illegitimate druthers for one's fellow citizens over other human beings. Like all forms of love, it can blind you to faults. These problems are cold sober. After all, some forms of patriotism identify a particular nation with exclusiveness and the unfair treatment of foreign countries.

Kids are taught in every country to be patriot about their land of their birth. I think, to many people this is scalded and this is a horrific thing.

Patriotism is what leads to over puffed up egos and opinions about one's realm. And these kids with over overblown opinions about their own countries think theirs are best and will “superbly” fight for and die for their patria. But who cares if, for instance, he/she dies on the theater of war.

He/she is nondescript and he/she is forgotten and the country can live up to its mammoth priggishness for a bit longer before it needs another war to bear out it's so good.

Patriotism is what revs enmities and conflicts. It's synonymic with hubris and over-inflated ego of one's country and is grody.

Someday there will be a world without purlieus because we are starting to be ultramodern and all-embracing recreants. Hence, think about the loins you have seen with a frog chaser.

The Dazzlingly Delightful and Lush Ladlad

an essay by Roger B Rueda

The Ladlad series is one of my best liked books. The books, for one, were the most visible ones during my formative years as a writer. They have made me sensitive of my orientation and understand myself. Ladlad 1 and 2 and other gay paperbacks were bought for me by my father at SM Fairview, it had not come to his knowledge though, the money I bought for the books was his very last money in his wallet. But since he did not know what I was going to pay it for, he gave his two crisp Php 1000 notes. Perhaps, he thought that I was going to buy reference books I would need come June. I went back to Iloilo City excitedly that summer of 1997, having a thought that I would not borrow my roommate’s copy of Ladlad 1 anymore. Then certainly when I arrived in Iloilo City, I was the first to have a copy of Ladlad 2, its pretty crimson cover was completely fresh and intelligently designed. I covered each of them with a sheet of plastic and took care of them so that they wouldn't be soiled or wet or crumple easily. A lot of my friends borrowed my books, especially the two books of Ladlad, and didn't bother to return them. They seemed to have forgotten to return what they got from me despite their making a promise of giving them back after a week or two. I can't imagine that their Ladlad copies were dishonestly obtained. Then they just disappeared. I don't know how it was possible for people to disappear without trace.

Having stopped hoping that my two friends would send my books back, I decided to buy new Ladlad copies. Well, since there were only newsprint copies of Ladlad 1 and 2, I did not have a choice but to get the ones in cheap, low quality paper. Actually, the reason that I was able to buy the books was that a friend of mine gave me a new, hardback edition of Harry Potter. But since I have read it already—I went to National Book Store in SM City-Iloilo the next day and had the hardback changed to Ladlad and other gay titles. Apparently, it  made me stop borrowing my friend's Ladlad, I needed them then to delight in the interesting articles by my favorite writers of gay books.

Of course, the series, I believe,  is a must-have to any gay Filipino writer.

Anyway, perused by me and a lot of my friends, straights and gays, several times, the Ladlad series explores the emotional life of gays in a heterosexual world; they are brilliant expositions on the gay experience. For gay readers, the enjoyment of Ladlad can be simply in seeing their lives—too often disregarded—reflected back at them on the pages of the series.

The two earlier series made me dream of becoming a writer, too. My early influences were the best contemporary writers in the country: Danton, J. Neil, Ronald Baytan, Ralph Semino Galan, and Felino Garcia. Reading them, I found out how beautiful their minds were and how imaginative they were, I had really to endeavor hard to be like them: artistic, vocal, confident, intelligent, perceptive, and fascinating. Their poems and short stories or even their essays are classics of Philippine gay literature that every Filipino gay must read and find delight in.

By living outside what are considered gender norms because of the experiences I have gotten from the Ladlad books, I now am  more open to seeing across boundaries of sexual category and gain admittance to a less dualistic attitude on the nature of life. Because of Ladlad, I am far more attuned to the needs of a fast evolving society in which quickness and nimble thinking are in demand and traditional religions are beleaguered with internal conflicts, exposing inherent contradictions between organized religious conviction and the true nature of God. Thus, I am more positive of myself as a human being and as a child of God.

Eventually Ladlad made me buy Bulletin with Panorama attached to it, Free Press, and Graphic every week and Star every Sunday and Monday. I needed to follow these writers who wrote/write for these papers.

Having spent a pleasant time reading and savoring the works of the Ladlad writers, I have become a published writer, too, in some national papers and the Mantala, an NCCA anthology edited by Leoncio Deriada whose wonder is still enjoyed by me. And I have gotten into the habit of reading since then. Now I am completely crazy about Cirilo Bautista and his Breaking Signs—and Butch Dalisay, too, elsewhere after reading his Oldtimer, the best story I've ever read. I like Krip Yuson’s column, too. I have become aware of other writers, even if they are not gays. (I really love reading Merlie Alunan, I consider her the best poet of my time.)

Moreover, I began to attend writers' workshops. There I met Vicente Groyon III and Jaime An Lim. Well, recently because of the Ladlad, I have, in a way that is not obvious, published my grammar book for my university/foreign students. And since the germ of Ladlad’s influence has mutated, I now have an assemblage of English-Hiligaynon/Hiligaynon-English vocabulary in order to help students in the West Visayas in their translation work. Benefits from reading good books are often indirect, as I've realised suddenly.

In Ladlad 3, I like the rewriting of Alice in Wonderland into a poem, the gay children’s story, and the account of a beauty salon employee who is part of the underground movement. The book also contains legends, allowing the downbeat elements that traditional society and religion have placed on homosexual identity to be transformed and given a lift.

A lot of gays have suffered from the typecast that homosexuality is a terrible blight and source of sorrow and suffering, but because of the brilliant writers of peculiar sexual orientation and discovered their sexuality can also give them great elation, talent, success, and love. So, I really hold the three Ladlad books in the highest regard.

The Ladlad series showcases the many shapes and faces of being gay. And what I am now, an ESL teacher, author, and writer, is because of the Ladlad books that made me see the real persona and individual in me.

Mission Road

a poem by Roger B Rueda

in a neighbourhood full of tenderfeet
slouches a road with cars manoeuvred
down the part of its glossed-over one direction.
it is a road at which hounds bay out cautions and
indigent grimalkins summon dismayed entreaties
for fare and warmth—where nearby residents
recognise each other by eyes, not compellation,
and people overhead pitch so viciously that our
own cots tremble and we strut ourselves in
entrances, where wheels sprint their lopsided
itineraries to get us to our meeds and nuisance.
you can't glimpse the centre from here, but you
can attend to the gentle drone of last
passage on the edge towards the crown.

X

a poem by Roger B Rueda

on a cay some essential
natures in maillot screw up

their eyes to the waterfront
to shake down for taste.

they goad each other.
their bodies reel on pediments.

all the way through the ordeal
of their time and quirk

of fate prey them on
in silly laughs that hum

from essence as emaciated
as antique vellum and as foible.

Black

a poem by Roger B Rueda

athwart the rock-strewn mat of sour paspalum field the sudden,
lilac undulation of salihid mountain ascends with its paunch-like
crest reaching up the wine-coloured vault trouncing the setting
aubade that walks off with a look through these olden touches, like
a little issue trying to grab hold of her last glance of her flop before
the lights are cast out. below the furrowed tip, a lone Mangifera
caesia gets to its feet watching the mistiness chase towards and
    past
her like murin. the peeble, the sour paspalum, and the
    Pithecolobium
dulce take on new colours, like a colourful clade of gecko, as if to
    mingle
with a new set. as the aubade keeps on to set in the rear of the lined
extremities, the bouquet of the field come together and mount,
like the odour of a pronounced and charily arranged goulash.

Poetry

a poem by Roger B Rueda

1.
mine is a sea.
don’t just look at it with a jaundiced eye.
move down under it or through it:
become its fish anytime
so long as you have your gills
through which you breathe.

in its seabed, mine has trees taken off
from manabu fukushima’s lemon tree.
no, just being almost: trees in mine
work like a charm, maybe.

are you coming to mine with me?
but mine is fairly harmless.
it is a friendly little sea.
move down under it or through it, alone.
everyone is invited.

2.
you can forget whereabouts of mine
anytime: it is just its avatar—

all my poetry is on the memory of my soul:
i have learned my important lessons before.

A Visit

a short story by Roger B Rueda

While in a college in town I lived at the dormitory. It was so lonesome a place that I had time to write my poetry. Early in the morning I would open our room window and look beyond the school wall to the sugarcane field. I found solace with the scenery: it seemed I had been lying on sea-like waving blades of sugarcane.

When boredom struck me, I would go to the canteen in a nearby building. While sipping coffee one afternoon I noticed an announcement. Dakaldakal, a college publication, was now accepting applicants to fill the editorial staff.

I went back to the dormitory and asked a roommate for a copy of Dakaldakal. Inside our room we opened the cabinet in which he had stuck some back issues of all sorts of magazines and journals. In between compilations, I read. Anthony Losaria was the editor in chief. He had been a fellow at a writer’s workshop I had been to.

In the middle of the night while I was trying to sleep I groped for my poetry notebook. I remembered how Anthony Losaria, skinny and longhaired, had critiqued my work in that same notebook.

It was one o’clock in the morning when I slept. I lay on a bed scattered with papers. When I woke up at eight the small of my back ached due to discomfort and the disorder of my bed. Anthony was on my mind. And I tried to recall his appearance.

As a transfer second-year student, I made a try for Dakaldakal. Unnoti­ceably, I was in front of the Administration building. I went up the stairs. The office was very quiet. I knocked, then pushed the door open.

“–Applicant?” a student asked. “Come in.”
“Should I personally hand this application to the adviser?”
“What’s your course?” he looked at me. He was Anthony.
“Fisheries–where’s the adviser?”
“Just sit here. She’s a visitor as yet.”
“Are you Anthony Losaria?” I asked him. He was no longer skinny and long-haired. He looked handsomer than before.
“Do you know me?” he asked me while trying to recall my face. “Francis!”

I sat and we talked. At his table the newly released copies of the delayed summer issue of Dakaldakal were sorted out for distribution, he told me. I borrowed one and read the editorial. Near to end I paused and went to the adviser’s cubicle as her visitor pulled the door open, on his way out.

After a month of waiting I read my name in an announcement on Dakaldakal’s bulletin board. Immediately I proceeded to the office and we had a meeting the following day. The adviser informed us of our respective position and assignment. The folio would have to be due for publication by next month.

Anthony Losaria was the editor in chief. The nine of us were members of the editorial staff. When Anthony asked us about the theme of the folio, I suggested feminism. Anthony hinted about politics and impoverishment. Others’ suggestions were gays, sex, religion and Filipino language.

After considering the importance of every topic the group decided to come up with a folio focused on gay writing, for there had been no attempts on this before. Anthony objected to work on this topic but he had to, as the editor in chief.

I was chosen issue editor. I rejected the position for I had to learn more writing. I had walls in my writing which I had not passed through yet. But the adviser trusted me. Perhaps I was challenged by their expectations as I willingly accepted the editorship.

In my room, I read a lot–my resort to invite the Muse– for there were no ideas coming to my mind. Suddenly I remembered Anthony’s suggestion to buy a copy of Ladlad, an anthology of Philippine gay writing from the National Bookstore. Anthony was a wide reader and that was the reason he could write and talk about anything–from vegetables to basketball.

Last year he too had been chosen editor in chief. He was tall, fair-skinned, and handsome. He did not look scholarly but was like a matinee idol.

I liked Anthony’s company. When we were together, he enjoyed talking about literature. No other things. Sometimes he would visit me at the dormitory and invite me for booze at Tiko’s Bar and Restaurant. He would carry a rough draft of an unfinished short story. However, never did he show it to me. He had had a bad experience of showing his work to a friend. His work had been blue-penciled for the friend had thought it was a mere draft.

Tiko’s Bar and Restaurant was just a tricycle ride away. It was made of nipa and bamboo. The moon was lucid through the window screen and we were like shadows. The dama de noches were in bloom. I often went to Tiko’s. I liked its garden of exotic plants and flowers: the purple cogon and petunia. There were plenty of bromeliads by the pathway. I also liked the tables and chairs made of beach-combed wood.

I was a little bit drunk. I told Anthony it was time to go home. He ordered another bottle. He was a bit of a boozer. Nevertheless, he wrote finer pieces when he drank.

“I hate gays. But you, Francis Belgira, are different from them,” he told me.
“Perhaps because we are both writers,” I replied.
“Do you think so?” he looked at the ceiling.
“Why? Is there another reason–?” I looked him straight in the eye. There was silence between us for a moment.
“No,” he muttered. A waiter brought his order.“ –That is the last,” he looked at the beer bottle being served.
“Help me, Francis. I have a problem,” he wiped the mouth of the bottle clean with his hand. I knew he wanted to divert my question.

He had deep problems. Only he knew how to handle them. One time I had read his poem in Home Life. It was about a martyr mother. In Panorama–about a father who left home. He never told me his problems but I knew.

He laughed like crazy. I was surprised by his actuation. I didn’t know how to react.

“Excuse me, Anthony.” I told him. “Are you crazy?”
“No.”
“Why did you laugh like that?”
“I’m just happy.”
“Happy? Laughing like that for you is an -- expression of being happy? Oh, C’mon.”
“I’m sorry. By the way did you receive my poetry submission?”
“Yes,” I answered. But I didn’t tell him I hadn’t read it yet.

In my mind I was composing poetry. My mind was out of Tiko’s for the moment. I liked the moon and the celestial diamonds. Then the dama de noches–it seemed–had been gracing us both at Tiko’s. Only the two of us were left drinking when I glanced around.

“Just write and write,” he advised me.
“Do you think I will write for long?” I asked him, to know how he considered me as a member of Dakaldakal.
“ I believe so. I read your poems in a literary anthology,” he told me. No wonder he had read me; he was a bookworm.
“This is the last,” he took the bottle from the waiter.
“How many last bottles are those? I need to go now,” I glanced at my watch. “The matron of the dormitory is strict. You know that. You told me you had stayed at the dormitory before,” I reminded him.

He listened to me. He stood up and signaled the waiter for our bill.

“Thank you. You’re a friend,” he whispered to me but I didn’t bother to ask what a friend meant to him.
“Where will you go from here? To your boardinghouse?” I asked him.
“Okay,” he stood up and I followed. “We’ll hire a tricycle.”
When we left the nipa house I signaled the driver to start the tricycle.
“I’ll drop you at the dormitory. I’m sure your matron will be angry with you. Did you ask permission from her? You can sleep with me in my boardinghouse.” He was worried for me.
“Don’t worry. Eddie, my roommate knows about this,” I assured him.
Our room was brightly lit still. It was very quiet that evening.
“See you tomorrow,” I told him in a low tone. I felt lonely when I alighted from the tricycle.
“Okay, take care.”

Dakaldakal didn’t call a meeting for weeks. I didn’t see Anthony on campus. Usually from the gate I could casually see him sitting on the bench under the talisay trees. A neighbor of Anthony informed me that he had caught dengue fever. He was home in Lambunao.

I made up my mind to go to Lambunao and was absent from school in the afternoon. I arrived at Anthony’s house without his knowing. He was recuperating. At the living room he was fastening an empty bottle of Tanduay and a spoon to a cracked plate. I was amazed by his art. As I sat on the sofa thinking over what he was doing I began to appreciate his work and like him. He offered me banana cake he had baked by himself and a can of Pepsi.

I stayed for the night. I slept in Anthony’s room. It was air-conditioned. But his books were scattered on the floor. The old computer was beside his bed and there was an organ in a corner. I saw a roach while I was sipping a cup of native coffee his mother had prepared. I pretended I hadn’t seen the insect. I was sitting on the books on the floor.

“Why don’t you change your computer? Yours is very obsolete,” I suggested, while smelling the strong aroma of kape barako.
“I like my computer. It is lucky for me. I have won prizes in poetry with it.”
“You have many books here.” I changed the topic.

I picked up a book in science. Anthony collected all kinds of books. In my case I collected books on limited topics. Only literature.

“I collect the books of Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Carlos Williams,” he told me while I was crawling for the scattered books.
I never said anything.
“I also collect the books of John Updike,” he continued.
“I have Rabbit, at Rest but it’s part of my collection.”
“Really! I would have the complete set if you sell it to me.”
“It’s my collection. But for the sake of our friendship I will barter it to you with your book here.”
“Which one? Ah, the book of Ricardo de Ungria. I acquired it from the UP National Writers Workshop.”
“You have a copy of Ladlad here. Can I borrow this? I’ll bring you Rabbit, at Rest in school.”
“I’ll swap that with you and de Ungria’s A Passionate Patience.”

I was supposed to sleep in another room; however, I decided to sleep in Anthony’s. His mother brought me bedding and I spread it on the floors. I placed the books under his bed.

Anthony was an insomniac. The whole night long we conversed about literature. I told him to sleep but it was very difficult to dominate him–even his mother could not. His father, a doctor had left them when they had been young. His mother, who was also a doctor, was a martyr. She had stopped her work to tend her family. Her children were drug addicts. Anthony too had been rehabilitated before. He had been a medical student in a university but was kicked out. Now, he was an English major, my friend, and our editor in chief. And I was no longer shocked by his unusual reaction to certain things under normal conditions.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked him.
“No. I don’t like girls,” he replied.
“You stole my line,” I smiled gamely.
“I just want to write.”
“Write?”
“Writing is my girlfriend.”
“Why–couldn’t you write when you have one?” I frankly asked him.
“I’m weird, Francis. I am afraid a girl will not understand me. There are times, you know that I want to be lonely. And girls are jealous,” he reasoned out.
“How about a gayfriend. Someone who will understand you–like a girlfriend.” I asked him. I felt pity perhaps. Or I didn’t know. It seemed I was falling in love with Anthony. Or his art.
“I hate gays.”
“Which means you hate me?” I looked at him.
“No, you’re different.” Then he paused. “Yes. I hate you, Francis. Are you really a poet?” he asked me bleakly.
“I can’t understand you.” I stood up. “Is there something you hate in my being a poet? I can’t understand you, Anthony.”

When Anthony woke up in the morning, I had already taken a bath. I went back immediately to the college. And on the bus it lingered on my mind that Anthony was homophobic. He went with me and I was a friend to him because I didn’t wear a dress and makeup. I was decent looking.

He was mysterious and my feelings toward him were inexplicable. Did I feel pity, love, hate, lust, obsession, what?

At the office, one morning when I opened the lower compartment of our steel cabinet, there were brown envelopes addressed to me. I never got to read them when I received them from a staff member. So many submissions flooded my table.

Anthony’s voice reverberated on my mind, “ Are you really a poet?” I opened one of the envelopes. I read:

“A Visit

Visit me in my room/
If ever you have time./
My room is dark/
And we can/
Play hide-/
And-seek./
Or you can turn on/
The light and I/
Will bring you to my/

World.

Then you’d/
Sculpt me into David/
As if you were/

Michelangelo.

–Anthony Losaria”

It was Anthony’s submission. I had been so busy that I hadn’t been able to read it.

After a month, I went to his boardinghouse. The house was airy. A poet like me could perhaps write volumes of poetry there. It seemed the Muse was always there. So much that Anthony was very prolific.

He was in the balcony. He looked serious.

“Anthony,” I called out to him. He opened the gate. “Are you alone here?” I asked him. I was curious whether he had other companions in the house. It was far from other houses in the village and it was difficult to ask for help in case of emergency.

He opened the main door, “The other room is occupied by my two friends. They are from Bacolod,” then he looked back at me smiling. He took the key from his pocket. “Just stay here. I will change my shirt.”

I sat on the sofa and skimmed through some magazines and books scattered on the table.

“Can I get inside your room?” I asked him curiously.
“Just stay there.”
“I know. But I want to see your room.”

There was silence for a moment. I didn’t assert my intention. I continued reading.

“ Where did you buy Amina, Among Angels by Merlie M. Alunan? UP Press?”
“ Come in here,” he shouted.
“ Is it okay with you?” I asked him.

I went to the room slowly. I grasped the doorknob then twisted it open. The room was dark. As I entered he turned on the dim lamp. I found him. He was lying in bed. I didn’t know what came into his mind. Naked he invited me to sculpt his torso as though I were an artist.

He looked so naïve and I felt such a thrill while I was doing my masterpiece. I touched his dimple tenderly.

“I love you, Frans,” he whispered and started to sculpt me, too. We were Michelangelos. Also Davids.

When I rode the tricycle on my way to the dormitory I could not reconcile my experience with Anthony. It was a real visit.

By the room window overlooking the sugarcane field I put my pen to paper, this time for fiction. The Muse had been swaying together with the blades of sugarcane over there and my submission for Dakaldakal folio was almost done.



'A Visit' first saw print in The Sunday Times magazine on 22 June 2003.

Raincolours

a poem by Roger B Rueda

icterine, harlequin, gamboge,
folly, sallow, drab, mustard
umbrellas are roused
from their slumber
when it comes
down in buckets.
winds flounce yellow, ginger, olive leaves.

when volley falls frivolously
umbrellas are put down the lid
and laid beside the gate.
wet black, fallow, pasty shoes,
byzantine, razzmatazz, fandango,
capri, urobilin, xanadu, aurometalsaurus
rubber slippers, wet bole, bistre,
magnolia soxs are on the floorboards.

a bow of colours stretch
all over the wild blue yonder.

Emotion

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Is like a guitar
And memory seems to have fingers
Plucking the strings,
Creating an enigmatic energy:

Lips stretch like a meniscus moon
Or a cradle oscillating us
To a dreamland—

Or the heart waxes fiery like Kanlaon,
Blazing up impalpably
Nether.

Playmate

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I wish to see you till the cows come home.
I don't stand for line and white curls even if I
know you will grow up fully-fledged in my arms.
I mean the feelers of tots, desquamated crèche laps—
to know the charming kindliness of nippers' lungful of air,
the question mark of budding bag of bones. What we
could have gone in with, the codes of abecedarian play,
sniggering through vapours of bond and shale powder, I
feel like clambering into your crust every night, sense
your pocks as my delicate timepiece as in a while,
together, we evolve, fervour putting up. I want to know
you till the cows come home, feel your disquieting
vigour as my own when we crossed the threshold
of this terrene alongside, soaked in the balmy love
of our forbearer’s innermost. I want to put my feelers
on your lips, the squash of your new ivories touching
my special little one skin, the slash of crimson lips aching
in the same radiance. I want to discern you ceaselessly
cradle each other from soft newborn curls through the young
rigidity and back to the silky-smooth drift of old time,
to believe you till the cows come home.

Health Is in Nature

by Roger B Rueda

Nature helps you cure your illness in natural way.

Have you heard of Kozo Enzyme? Well, it is a blend of food enzyme derived from pineapple, carica papaya, grapes, apple, and sugarcane extract that contains a rich source of enzymes which are needed for digestion, absorption, proper function, repair, and maintenance of our whole body (organs, tissues, cells). By supplying the needed enzymes, you normalise the function of all your vital organs, producing an energetic, vibrant life which is less susceptible to infection, diseases such as colds, coughs, and allergies like asthma, runny nose, watery eyes, which are due to certain sensitivities.

Kozo could also serve as preventive measure against diseases like cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, tuberculosis, rheumatism, arthritis, and otherwise. So, this supplement is good for you.

Each bottle contains 500 ml and can last for more than five years. Dr Kamekawa suggest that a patient take at least two table spoons of the enzyme twice a day. It is highly recommended by doctors. This product is now being exported to Taiwan and Japan.

All materials used for this drink are produced here in the Philippines.

'Filipinos are very intelligent. The Philippines is very good in terms of knowledge, school, and education. I just feel sad that after graduation, Filipinos leave for abroad to earn more and have a better life. ‘Sayang,’ they should have support from the government, so they do not have to leave. All the good students leave for abroad. It’s a waste. I encourage them to study more about enzymes. Enzymes have great potential to protect us from sickness and lessen our visit to the hospitals. They are young, they have more time to study enzymes further and develop them because they have so much potential. The resources are already here and available. The Philippines is very rich in natural resources. Study the microorganism, and help develop the Philippines economy,' cited Dr Tetsuo Kamekawa.

For more information or if you'd like to place an order for this supplement, ring 09068541933. Your health is in nature. Protect yourself from sickness now. This must be what you are looking for.

Out the Window

a poem by Roger B Rueda

in a schematised
sign of the heavens,
which is resplendent
with figures of divinities
turning my woe,
i plop shingles
amidst my dactyls.

in this daily dozen
i find a relief
for cricks as little
as that bold,
shivered-pinioned
cicada resting,
sneaking on the tilt
of a palm leaf.

Have for Jute Mallow Soup

by Roger B Rueda

This morning I had jute mallow soup for breakfast.

Oh well, if this vegetarian dish weren't recognisable to you, you might think that I made a silly mistake. Don't think I'm going insane. This green soup is a usual Iloilo dish called jute mallow soup. It's so appetising. It is good for our stomach and it has improved my health: I don't feel sluggish and run-down anymore these days.

The quality of this soup is something that must be got through if you're going to have it, since it has a very yukky feel that I love.  It's an earthy flavour. The flavour of jute mallow soup matches agreeably with cloves of garlic, crushed, and is brought out with julienned green papaya and chopped okra. It also tastes good with horseradish tree leaves. Green peppers,too, are ideal for it.

This dish can also be made with fresh or dried shrimp or dried anchovy, but my favourite way to have it is with a Maggi seasoning. I want to go vegetarian sometimes.

It seems to go best with fried or smoked mackerel or milkfish and steamed rice. With it, eating jute mallow soup has a profound complex strong and enjoyable flavour.

Jute leaves, which are lanceolate and serrate and are used fresh and dried, are sold in bunches. It is a good source of fibre. To prepare for this stew, pick the leaves off the stems and roughly cut them. If they're chopped thinly, they will become chewy, so stay with the rough chop. You will need about four bunches to make enough to serve three or four.They go limp like spinach. Put the chopped leaves to one side.

In Iloilo City, jute mallow soup is often sold at eateries nearby universities and schools. Downtown, you can have it at Patapsi across the Hall of Justice. The food here is modestly ready.There is one, too, in Jaro. It is across Petron petrol station. I saw it one time at Mr Cow. You can't have it at malls, I haven't seen one. Or, although it is still dark to see properly outside, you can wake up early at 5 and have a listen to vegetable peddlers going past your house and shouting their crops from the bottom of the street. Ask them if they have jutes or have one of them fix you up with jutes every week.

The Manyfruit Primrosewillow

a poem by Roger B Rueda

in dykes
has been growing enough leaves
all year round even during summer,
children, fathers, and mothers
stepping on or pulling it out
as they hurry to work or home,
all finding no use for it,
only grannies pinch
its leaves for their mung bean
porridge with shrimp
in pink curved body.
Only the tongues
have memory for it,
only the children going with grannies
know again its fresh bice appearance.
It's all strange to those who have never been
grannies' big babies, but it has been
an acquired taste to them,
and there they remember it, not as
an edible in dykes but a flavour
at the dining table when they go home
to the middle of nowhere
when school holidays start.

A Leap in the Dark

a short story by Roger B Rueda

Rowena, my coworker, went to bed early and slept like a log. I took in I was the last person stirring, apart from the hosts, Rowena's maiden aunts, so I prepared to go. They noticed that I was staring at them, so they gave me a couple of sofa cushions and insisted that I crash in the spare room, if I could find any floor space.

I'd got to consider the distance of San Miguel, a town on the outskirts of Iloilo City. Taking a taxi from there to my house had a slim chance—besides, it was far too dangerous.

I got up and weaved my way through the debris from the house party. The hosts showed me the way and bid me goodnight. As I climbed the stairs, the light dimmed until I was feeling my way along the walls.

I stepped over bodies asleep on the landing. I nearly toppled over twice, my balance compromised by holding the bulky sofa cushions. I felt my way to the spare room door, and groped around in vain for a light switch.

Giving up, I swept my foot along the floor, trying to find an empty space in the pitch blackness. But there were people sleeping here too, and no space for sofa cushions.

My thigh brushed against something—a bed. I abandoned the sofa cushions at the foot of someone in a sleeping bag, whose drunken lack of consciousness was deep enough that he or she failed to notice.

I felt along the width of the bed. When my hands hit nothing, I became bolder and felt further up. To my surprise, the bed seemed empty.

I climbed aboard, running my tongue over my unclear teeth and regretting that I would not brush them tonight. As soon as I became horizontal, my head gently throbbed as if I had been awake so long my hangover was already kicking in.

I lay full length on one side of the bed and stripped down to my boxers in the dark. I ditched my clothes next to me on the bed and felt around for a pillow.

"Yes!"

"Oh! I'm sorry," I whispered to the boy that had shrieked when I put my hand on some bare part of his skin. He had been curled up in one small corner of the bed. "I didn't know you were there!"

"I wasn't," he laughed nervously.

I carefully reached out into the dark to find my clothes. "I'll find a space on the floor."

"Don't be so outlandish," he sighed groggily, stretching out so that an arm and a leg pinned me back to the bed. "This is a big bed. We can share it."

***
He rolled away from me. It crossed my mind that he had perhaps just pushed my clothes off the bed onto some unsuspecting drunkard sleeping on the floor.

"I do move around a lot though," he said. "Pardon me if I disturb you." He jumbled up somewhere in the dark.

"I'll be fine, I'm a deep sleeper."

"Pity. I'm a restive."

There was a moment of silence. I felt certain that we were the last two people awake for miles. He squirmed, brushing my thigh.

"What's your name?"

He told me and I forgot it instantly. I remember it as JP, but that's a guess. I know my memory of the night is faulty because I can almost recall how he looked, but I never saw him.

He didn't ask me my name. He asked me what I did for a living.

"I work for the government," I answered.

"What do you really want to do?"

"Well, I want to be a writer. One day. But that's not going to make me a living, at least not yet. So I have to do a job."

***
"You know what you want to do. That's amazing."

"Yes. Although sometimes I feel like I'm deluding myself. If I want to write I should be writing."

"I know how you feel," he confided, shifting again. I could hear from his voice that he was facing me directly now. "I'm living a dead-end life."

"What do you mean?"

"I have no idea what I want to do. So I'm doing a menial job because it's easy. I'm just killing time until…" He paused.

"Until what?"

"Exactly. Until what. It's depressing."

I felt a wave of drunkenness wash over me. My eyes saw dancing patterns in the black. "How old are you?" I asked.

"Eighteen."

"So you're of legal age already. You're only able to make your own decisions about your life."He sighed.

"Do whatever you want."

"I don't know what I want. There are too many options; it's bewildering. Meanwhile, I'm coasting along the path of least resistance. I don't want anything badly enough to pour my heart and soul into it—I admire people that do."

"Ah, the curse of freedom," I countered with mild disdain.

"Precisely. We have too much freedom. It's a sickness. A hundred years ago, we would have been allocated a job for life, and a partner for life. And our decisions would be dictated by a firm moral code in the form of religion. And ambition was defined merely as rising above those modest expectations."

"I see what you mean," I admitted. "When there's only one path, there's one way to succeed and one way to fail. And now we have a million ways to fail. But we also have so many more ways to succeed."
"Success is impossible when everyone has such freedom, because there's always someone out there doing it better than you. When conformity was the rule, success was easy.

***
I jumped as he reached over and tickled me. I laughed, trying to stay quiet, and reflexively slapped his arms away. It was a thrill, flirting with this stranger in the dark.

He dived for my midriff again with tickling fingers and I took his wrists and pushed them back towards him. I brushed against his torso and snapped my hands away.

"What are you wearing?" I asked.

"Just briefs," he replied.

"Sorry I touched you."

"Don't worry, it was my fault."

"Are you going to sleep like that?"

"Oh, no. I'm an insomniac, I told you. I probably won't sleep at all."

He was much closer now, I could feel it. I could smell his skin. I self-consciously moved my arm so that it was touching him, but only barely. Probably his leg. I tried to make it seem casual, as if it was the result of inadvertent restlessness in the dark, but I left it there, feeling his warmth.

"I just want to be different, you know, inimitable," he murmured, more gently than before.

"Everyone's unique."

"That's the problem."

I felt tired, and I let his words wash over me. A couple of times I thought I had responded, but then realized I hadn't, and I had to make a real effort to lift the conscious part of my brain into speech.

But then I felt his hand touching me, searching. I became wide awake again. I shrank away as his hand wandered dangerously close to my groin. I would be embarrassed if he touched me there, especially at that moment.

The silence became as complete as the darkness as his wandering hand persisted, and found me. My breathing deepened as he massaged me beneath my boxer shorts. I closed my eyes and visualized his there.

Without stopping, he took my hand and placed it on his. With all my other senses stifled, I quivered with the pleasure of his touch, his texture.

Then I heard his gentle breathing become irregular, and I remembered that we were not alone in this room. Yet we were each more alone than ever.

He retreated for a tantalizing moment and I heard the telltale sound of his briefs being slipped off. There was movement on the bed, and suddenly I was aware that he was invisibly straddling me.

***
He pulled down my boxer shorts and put his inside me. Warm and yielding, I enveloped him. Neither of us moved at first, just savoring the sensation.

Softly, he rocked. I put my hands on his sides, feeling taut stomach muscles, and he came. I gasped as the rhythmic gripping pulled me over the edge and orgasm rippled through him, and into mine.

Then it was as if he disappeared, as if he disengaged and left without me noticing. The bed felt empty. I must have fallen asleep.

I awoke feeling tired, as if I had not slept but been out cold. Any hangover I deserved had passed. Thick curtains had been pulled aside and the sun shone through the windows.

There were still some party guests sleeping haphazardly on the floor, but I was alone on the bed. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, hesitant to face the world, remembering JP. Then I got up.

There was more floor space now; some guests had gone. I found a bathroom and splashed water on my face. I borrowed a toothbrush and cleaned my mouth out.

I dared to venture back into the bedroom to look for my clothes. As I cast my eyes about the room I looked for faces that might be his.

Once dressed, I followed the smell of cooking breakfast downstairs and found the hosts with a smattering of guests. My recall of names and faces is unreliable at best, but when alcohol is thrown into the mix I don't even bother trying.

I made small talk and ate fried boneless milkfish and rice flavored with fragrant screw pine and took my coffee white with Cofeemate. My eyes absorbed every face in the room and I tried to guess. None of them gave me any signal. No naughty secrets were coaxed into mischievous smiles on account of my eye contact.

But he wouldn't have known who I was. He never saw me, and I never told him my name. I wasn't even sure of his. I didn't know how to breach it in conversation—it would be embarrassing if I asked after JP and it turned out he was there.

The guests must have thought I was suffering from some kind of unreasonable worry, my eyes flicking back and forth between them, weighing each of them each up in turn as if I suspected them of pouncing.

I thought I'd look for his name on Facebook.

***
The breakfast they made was sheer ambrosia. As it settled in my stomach, I let go. It was purer as a secret as the details of it remained cloaked in mystery. Then I bid all Rowena's maiden aunts a fond goodbye.

Deciding on the Best School for Your Child

by Roger B Rueda

You, as parents, require awareness, insistence, and vigour to make informed choices about your children’s education. It is essential to understand the education system unmistakably, over and above the choices to be had before making the final decision. By gathering information, researching, and evaluating your choices, you will be better equipped to look into the rich different types of schools available.

WHAT ARE YOUR OPTIONS?

You may decide on for private education which can vary from an elite, traditional perspective, a church based philosophy or, perhaps, a system such as Montessori to alternative schools.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT SCHOOL

You all want to offer your children the best opportunities that are on hand, but it pays to remember that whatever school we choose, or however limited our options are by finances, handiness or neighbourhood, the greatest influence on the final result will be the home and family. If the cost of an elite education includes harshly stressed parents who are run off their feet trying to earn enough to cover school fees, your little one is in all probability going to feel too stressed himself/herself to do good to.

Begin shopping for schools long before your child is due to start school. You can find out about schools and what they offer by contacting individual schools and asking for a catalogue or manual. You can also get a feel for schools by talking to teachers and families. Try to find out why they feel the way they do.

Be discerning about community opinion. School’s reputations change slowly, so a popular school may be trading off a reputation gained years ago which may or may not be still justified. Another school may be doing everything right but still be suffering from a preceding 'bad name.'

When you have confined your options, make a prior arrangement to stopover and talk to the right person at the school. This may be the registrar or a designated teacher. On the other hand, before you take up your time and the school’s think about what you want from a school before you ask what a school has to put forward.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Before checking out individual schools, it’s important to decisively consider your child’s needs on top of your own expectations and values. If you find it hard to be objective about your own child, talking to preschool teachers might help you make your mind up what sort of school setting your child would act in response to best.

You may have a definite preference for large or small schools, or the same or a similar school to the one you attended. Other factors such as religion, discipline or diversity may be a key factor in your decision.

The school environment will have a substantial influence on your child, so it is reasonable to expect the values promoted to at least approximate your own. Values don’t just mean moral and religious values. They can also refer to a range of social issues, or even something as mundane as the nutrition available at the school canteen. If it’s important to you, it’s not mundane.

There are also sensible aspects to consider. How much participation do you want in school related activities? Some schools suppose a high level of parent involvement, others less. What about location and the nearness of public transport? Is car pooling a preference? Is childcare a worry? After school care is being offered by an increasing number of state and private schools. Many private schools also offer long daycare for preschoolers. If you have other younger children, this may be a reasonable option.

Pile up a checklist of features which are important to you and your child. Then think about the questions you need to ask to gain the information you need. You may want to include: The School’s aims and philosophies. A school needs to have a clear sense of purpose and should have its aims documented. Ask for a copy of the school charter.

HOW DOES IT MATCH YOUR EXPECTATIONS?

Is there a commitment to educate each student completely?
If you are attracted to a particular schooling system, ask how this is interpreted by the school and applied to everyday activities. At any school – public, private, religious or alternative – the staff and their united commitment to a philosophy will make a difference to the school environment.
What values are implied?
Are they based on particular religious beliefs
Ask how the school works to achieve its aims.


Individual care. Is there a commitment to assess and cater for the individual needs of each student? How is this achieved? How does the school cater for students needing remedial assistance? How does it satisfy the needs of the talented child?

Discipline and behaviour. Are school rules clearly specified and communicated to children and parents alike? Ask for a copy of the school’s discipline policy. How does it deject inappropriate behaviour and underpin good behaviour?

Class sizes and structure. What are the ceiling class sizes? Does this differ with the subject? On what basis are the students grouped within classes?

The other students. These make up the community your child will become part of. Do they come from a narrow or broad range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds?

Physical facilities. What facilities are available for specialised subjects such as music, computing, art, science and technology studies? What musical instruments are available to students and are there extra charges involved? How modern are the materials in the library and what are library access policies? How much playground space is there and how is it used? What sporting facilities are accessible?

Teachers. Are the teachers the kind of role models you want for your child? On the whole, do teacher-student relationships seem comfortable and relaxed? What is the staff turnover rate? Do the teachers use up extra time with students in such activities as sports coaching? Do they seem to have high expectations of themselves and their students?

Extra-curricular activities. What activities are available to students outside the normal curriculum? What clubs are there? Is there a program of camps and school trips? Are they compulsory and what costs are involved?

Homework. How much and what kind is expected at the various year levels?

Parent participation. In what ways are parents involved in making decisions about school policies? Is there a parent involvement? What does it do? What kind of parental association does the school look ahead to? Are parents invited to take part in classroom activities?

Costs. Some other private schools have fees that amount to thousands of pesos annually. Government schools do not charge fees as such, but most do require a lot of projects. In both private and government schools, ask about the extra charges involved, such as musical instrument instruction and hire, camps and excursions, uniforms and sports uniforms, sporting equipment. And, if you are considering elite private education, you may need to budget for almost double the fees, especially in the senior years, to cater for the extras such as overseas excursions.

Admissions policy. On what basis are students selected? Is there a waiting list? A number of private schools offer preschool classes. To guarantee entry, your child may need to commence at kindergarten level.

Uniforms. Is there a school uniform? Is it necessary for all year levels? Is there a sports uniform? Is there a uniform recycling system?

Documentation. Are all policies in writing and available to parents? Are there course outlines, a school prospectus, annual reports, regular newsletters? How does the school communicate with parents?

INVOLVE YOUR CHILD

Above all, include your child in the decision making process. Listen to any concerns children express and acknowledge their feelings. Then, when you have chosen a school and enrolled your child, celebrate together to give a positive start to the new direction to both your lives.

GOOD SCHOOL CHECKLIST

Do the children and the teachers seem contented?
Is there a fair, comprehensive curriculum?
Are the children learning how to learn?
Is there real warmth between pupils and teachers?
Is there a sense of purpose, challenge, and achievement?
Does the school cater for children’s individual differences?
What specialist staff – librarian, physical education, music, art, computer teachers – does the school have?
How are parents involved in the school?
Are the school grounds neat and safe? Is playground equipment satisfactory and well maintained?
Do classrooms offer an inviting environment? Is there a sense of beauty and order? Is children’s work displayed with pride?

TOP 10 PRIVATE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN ILOILO CITY*

1. The Great International School
2. Filipino American School Town
3. Solomon Integrated School de Iloilo
4. New Generation Christian Academy
5. Hope Baptist Academy
6. Assumption Iloilo
7.Harverter International Christian Academy/Kings Way Baptist Academy
8. Children's Integrated School of Alta Tierra
9. Iloilo Scholastic Academy
10. Colegio de las Hijas de Jesus

TOP 10 HIGH SCHOOLS IN ILOILO CITY*

1. SPED-Integrated School for Exceptional Children
2. University of the Philippines
3. Philippine Science High School
4. Iloilo Scholastic Academy
5. Hope Baptist Academy
6. West Visayas State University
7. The Great International School
8. Assumption Iloilo
9. PAREF Westbridge School
10. Ateneo de Iloilo

*based on the latest NAT result from DepEd