Early Death

a poem by Roger B Rueda

You are the parched fields surrendered to fire,
the entwined trundles
of all that you've thought - gone
to flare. Warmth bleeding
from the desperate melody
still thriving inside your body,
its longing
still beating in waves above you,
as if the blue was holding
your last breath.
And hope is missing
somewhere looking
through the smoulder
thinking what a waste it is
to miss this,
to send it all back
into the earth-cindered,
with all of the wrath
we were scared stiff
to touch, to see
where it once was fold
after fold of anticipation,
with roughness
and countenance
like sallow grain,
and never leaving, - never growing old.

Invitee

a poem by Roger  B Rueda

I am fantasising of a flat just like this one
but finer and opener to the saplings,
nighter than day and greater
than midday, and you,
visiting, knocking to climb on,
hoping for iced tea or Earl Grey
from Coffeebreak
or whatever it is you like.
For each nightfall is a long drink
in a short goblet.
A drink of black water, such a rush
and fall of lonesome no form
can hold it.
And if it isn’t night yet,
though I seem to
recall that it is, then it is not for everyone.
Did you get my invite? It is not
for every man jack.
Please come to my flat
lit by leaf light. It’s like a hardcover with sunny
leaves filled with herds and dells
and copses
and overlooked by Faunus, that seductive lover
in whom the fish is also cooked.
A hardcover that
took too long to read but minutes to unread -
that is -
to forget.
Outlandish are the sheets
thus. Nothing but the hope of company.
I made too much pie in expectation. I was
hoping to sit down with you in a tree house
in a negligée in a real way.
Did you get
my invite? Inscribed hastily,
before leaf blinked out,
before the idea effusively formed.
An inkling like a storm cloud
that does not spill
or arrive but moves soundlessly
in a direction.
Like an obscure hardcover
in a long lifecycle with a nebulous
faith in a wood house with an open door.

Sight Unseen

a poem by Roger B Rueda

My cat in her second kittenhood
excitedly licks
the floor for titbits
that are not there,
the drive to live
pushes her focussed physique
from stove to sink to slab.
She is trying to taste
the vague being
from the flooring
as she slumps from space
to space
before her warped limbs
give out.
I pick her up
so she is able to subsist,
unconscious, as the life trickles
out of her bemused body
that I fondle
every night
and the first thing at cockcrow.

Face

a poem by Roger B Rueda

It’s hard being whacked, your face afire
and enflamed, the sky a grey falling.
Bucketing your way through life
there is the discolouration, avocado and pink
with childhood aches, everyone
lashing and receding, all the swings
landing square on the maxilla. And it is
like smokes, white,
beautiful -
human ire and seeing the world
as a famished child, a crack-addicted
mother, yellow-eyed, skull-faced
before the looking glass and everything
there in the blame. And ooh to be
justified in our mirrored selves,
everyone trying to claim virtue
up their sleeves,
gods telling us
to obey the rules, and we cannot do it,
until the final spank comes and we
in all our mortal fragility strike back -
Until then, we may think the saw
a caw, an anecdote, a despair, a welcome
rug for the world’s malice.
And only then can one see the work,
the labour of the hands
the only true revenge.
A small peace like sky and star or moon.
It sounds so artless,
until the world is so deep,
a triggered lightning rod
through the depth.
All the hurt in life culminating
in the explosion
of our aloneness. My own fist
sore from the swing.  What a reeking bore -
this fascination with mirrors.
And there my face
a sceptical mirth.
The consideration a gauntlet,
a sparring loop, and tolerance,
is not something
easy for the colonised.
It’s like counting
stars after being hit hard.
The enormity
of our smallness a drizzle.
And ooh, to forgive
and forget is too challenging, but it is needed.
Otherwise, this pale bony cheek
is faded further
into the insignificance of indignation.
So, the world is unfair, and there isn’t
a man who has not felt the definitive sting
of this. Death coming.
Mangoes, unpicked
fallen on the dry grass, rot.
This is the
story of loss. It is a thoughtful tale of living.
Who can tell the inconsequential shades
of unstated fury?
Everywhere quivering
with grudging eyelashes, pouty lips,
hands on hips -
everyone wanting the world
to give them something
back for their travail, and it never comes -
life is suffering and suffering life,
only the relief,
the resolution, the return.
Beauty.
Everything retrievable
and death’s mantle
always white like clouds.
Here is my round
face world; it is well-nourished,
and my battle-lust
with this mirror begins again, but at best,
for once, I see, it is but an image.
There is nothing there,
personality
an imitation, a slack lilt
of idyllic tune,
travelling into the vacuity all about.
Here is a poem, for the lost angers,
the unrecompensed,
those who walk bearing the whinges
of vengeance, a sucker’s sunhat for the making.

Askals

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Two askals are mating outside my window
in the lavender lantanas
and the rain.
It's 6 AM, the clouds
falling down in the side garden,
dark as drizzly dusk.
They have a smooth brown coat, his face
behind and above her face,
a conjoined image. His claws
clutch her backend.
She yelps. He bears down.
He'll keep her where he's caught her
between the umbrella tree
and the green bamboo fence
until it's done.
I am drawn to them
as to something sacred.
I put Bugoy Drilon’s
‘Nang Dahil sa Pag-ibig’
on the CD player
and begin keeping in shape. They have
keen ears,
but I have vanished in their perseverance.
One last sharp scream from her
and I see him moseying
towards the bougainvillea
pruned and thorny
against the back hedge.
She is nowhere to be seen.
The lavender lantanas
have just begun
to blossom sending a sweet scent out
through all the greens of the neighbourhood.

Words

a poem by Roger B Rueda

For he could not verbalise the words
they turned into water,
trees,
constellations;
and when he did not
verbalise them
they came to be a picket
onto the prominences;
for the light is
always
and the way
that twilights come about.

7.30 AM Downtown

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Suspended like vanes flung
at a verge,
uncalled-for,
friable
with a splendour
that standstills,
sparrows soar
on black wings
refined and cultured
to a silent
shine, shrill
shadows stuck to a samey sky.

The Other Night

a poem by Roger B Rueda

On the side, my mate lighted
a candle.
Fireflies balled
beside the fire,
pricking the black
about us.
From each end
of the shrubbery,
crickets whirred the warm,
slick air.
I thought of those who have
loved me,
gone like summer drupes
plumped from leaves;
their shadows
followed me
into the house. Now,
by the moon, a fading star.

In Our Mountain

a poem by Roger B Rueda
for Jimmy

Never did I know then that there is
a pink mountain,
an avatar-like one,
and that this life of ours is like
going climbing.
Do we own this mountain?
Who made this mountain,
I always ask.
Here I love to trudge
through pink grasses,
and trees. You,  too.
Others stay
at the foot
and hide behind some trees.
A wicked witch as if
put a curse
on them: they’ve turned
banana-like, or
mysterious fruits.
Some come back from their trudge
and, as if by magic,
they become doll hunters
in another mountain.
We don’t have a doll
and it’s our dream.
So, we wave our magic wand
and pink money appears.
It usually works
like a charm with the hunters:
funny, we are hunters of the hunters.
We have crowns
of foreskins. They’re like
feathers in our cap.
The red carpet
was rolled out
for my crowning years
before your crowning,
even though you
were dead for a shorter time
than me.
Your necklace of bananas
is long, but
mine is longer,
it stretches
across the horizon.
You’re a glutton
for bananas.
Me, too, but not
for the pink ones.
They are like Mystique
in X-Men.
It’s as if my drink
was laced with a deadly poison.

On Looking At the Artwork

an essay by Roger B Rueda

For me, art is relative. It means what is good to one doesn’t mean it is good to another person. What is pleasing to one is not pleasing to another. It is a creation of beautiful or thought-provoking work. So, deference is much needed, or, else, reliance on our artists and reflexion of one’s incapability to judge well. For one, our artists have a lot to say, yet our nous misses the mark in recognising the intricacy of what we must see or appreciate, because not everyone is an artist.

For me, an artwork is produced through creative activity such as the one displayed in the CCP.  It can draw our imaginings to create new accepted wisdom which can raise us above to appreciating the imperceptible and realising our extant ephemerality and what is more than it. It offers us chance to experience what others have found and delighted in or agonised or dreaded, for it has a message to tell. It is not measured by any religious body or concerned with religious or spiritual matters. For one, I don’t think that an artist is a radical or is subtly malevolent. He is sane and his art is more than what we think is rational; it is equivocal and not coarse, I think.

An artwork, I always accept as true, does not adhere strictly and concisely to the basic meaning of a medium. It is not simple in an unimaginative way that sticks solely to the facts. It is for people who are free from prejudice and amenable to new ideas and not for those who have or show a limited and often bigoted or fanatical outlook. It is for people who are able to appreciate the beauty and worth of something.

I think if we look at the contentious artwork by Mideo Cruz we can sense that it has a message, honest, essential awareness interconnected. How some intellectual sloths react on it is a test of how superficial many a Filipino in our time. They are no longer insightful, but so unseeing of what is beyond their circumstances or what they should be as a human beings or what they are away from this power which bashes to bend them the way they are and dictates their way of thinking.

This is a society where many a resident eludes to think about the things beyond what is here. Obviously, they tend to focus on the bodily, which to me is so paradoxical.

Who know art well, by the way, the artists themselves or the censors or the ignoramus? What do they know about art? What books or philosophies or how many of them have they read so that they can assess an opus flawlessly well? This is an incursion of one’s independence now because some groups of people in the society truly believe that they are what the truth is and all things are in the wrong just the way they want to perceive anything in this country. They denounce anyone as evil and immoral, sensing how unsettling and revolutionary these new ideas could be.

I loathe seeing people who pretend to be honourable, but the truth is they have superficial grasp of what they censure and seemingly they just want to uphold frivolity in this society, like them, frankly. They want to endorse mediocrity and conformity because this is what they can do. They want to preserve their prestige, as those who are virtuous and just, but paradoxically they are the nastiest and wickedest sometimes, if everyone goes out of the box and see it from the outside. Their masterworks are real run-through of what people cannot see in the CCP, but the ones despised by God. They are dissemblers who go to church, yet they treat their workers like slaves, because they have not learned how to be human, even vicariously. They are the people who cannot even share what they have to the poor. They are the people who speak bad words or who want people to esteem them as pious. They are the people who are only concerned about their reputation, so they find a good chance to evaluate an artwork as heretical without really bearing in mind that the artist must have spent a lot of time and sacrificed to come up with something germane or something which has a message for our people to incite what the artist believes all through a time when everything emerges and its connexions to one another are relatively amusing or hazardous sometimes. Thus, a well-adjusted insight is essential. For instance, to some parochial people, images of a Mickey Mouse and of a Christ the King seem very inappropriate. Recognisably, human society will reach a turning point in continuing explosions of unexpected diversity. Our concepts of what is known will continually change, so will art.

The penis image on a cross or the Christ as Mickey Mouse means a lot of things. It could be a juxtaposition of how people adulate sex and it seems that most people these days have substitute God for sex. It means that nowadays God seems to have lost its inevitability and many of these things found in Mr Cruz’s artwork have great part in today’s contemporary society. It could be viewed, too, as an assortment of things modern people cannot live without and that they amass what they think are indispensable without flouting another. It is all-inclusive, I think. For one, each person must be free to behave as he or she sees fit. Our society must provide flexibility and a relativistic presence of culpability as our political and religious leaders often leave followers with no sense of eventual purpose and no prospect for eternal hope. More and more of Filipinos are becoming electro-shamans and modern alchemists, and this is what the artwork wants to bring. Why is it considered as irreligious? I love God and the Jesus Christ, but I have found the artwork very ingenious rather than profane.

The artwork is for mature audience and how the people have reacted violently to it indicates how silly or senseless they are. The parallels between the culture of the religion and that of modern things these days are inescapable, I believe. It hypothesises an Alice-in-Wonderland universe in which everything is changing. It is a pictographic rundown of all possibilities, actuated for the purpose of foresight by juxtaposition and reciprocated influence. It is tells us that we can change and mutate and keep improving. The idea possibly is to keep ‘trading up’ to a ‘better’ philosophy-theology.

The artwork prompts us that this generation has been disenchanted by the religions, politics, and commercialisations in this country. The threat of overpopulation, AIDS and the refutation of RH Bill, religious fundamentalisms that fanatically scream animosity and narrow-mindedness, and uncomprehending disregard of reproductive health rights must cultivate a strong scepticism about solutions the government initiates or overlooks to disentangle and this is reflected in the artwork, which is so wonderful and striking, and perhaps honest or critical. It is not sexually explicit and intended to cause sexual arousal.

The artwork communicates a message that we live in a universe made up of a small number of elements-particles-bits which cluster together in valid, transitory conformations. It can also be viewed as how the Jesus Christ competes with other icons, in terms of admiration, shamanism, or idolisation. Unquestionably, it is sad to know that ethical relativity is still the mortal sin of religious fundamentalists.

In our time, we need to form a sensibility of individual course plotting, that is, distinctiveness. For one, the basic idea must be self-responsibility, as we just can't depend on anyone else to resolve our teething troubles, even on the church which keeps meddling in authority, legislations, and the behaviour of private lives. In view of that, people should not just look at things the way our civilisation goes into a certain mechanism. This can lead us to come to be exasperated or lost. Only from the state of free selfhood can any truly compassionate signals be sent to others. We must have our own way of thinking, heading to a favourable stimulus on societies or a nation of brilliance. We should remember that not all Filipinos are Catholics, Christians, Moslems, or artists. Thus, high opinion is essential, and reproaching any artwork as blasphemous is just a judgement and not a point, art subjective and having no periphery. Every artist is special, every art is special. We should approach all artworks from many angles.

'Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry' Available Soon

Well, a lot of trees were blown down in the recent storms. All the poets, however, in Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry seemed to be busy producing poems at the moment even though the wind was beginning to pick up. The threat of being killed or injured failed to deter them from writing, and it is also of interest to see the poets who have endured, and those who have not, over the past years.

This snapshot of a year under the storm of our poetic voice constitutes the works by 150 poets. My poem 'Carabaohood' is part of this anthology. I hope you'll bury yourselves in it. For one, most of you envisage yourselves to be something you are not, but you are always who you really are, and not who you have envisaged yourselves to be.  The thinking mind is not the self.  If you are envisaging something then you are thinking.  

The anthology not only to present the work of our poets in English, but offer translations of work in Filipino, Cebuano, and other languages.  

At its best, Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry can alert one to lessons that must be learned only in this country, I'm sure, as the poems here are a snapshot of the tastes and values of the poets.

With such luminaries as Gémino H Abad, Jose Wendell P Capili, Jose Y Dalisay, Jr, Ricardo M de Ungria, Simeon Dumdum, Jr, Eric Gamalinda, J Neil Garcia, Jose F Lacaba, Jun Cruz Reyes, and Ramón C Sunico, readers are sure to find some of their favourite poets amongst these pages. More importantly, most readers will see many names they have not known but are not likely to forget.

Many of the anthologies include the same authors, but each editor approaches them with a different critical lens. Well, the editors, Joel M Toledo and Khavn De La Cruz, have drawn up a list of poets for the book.

1 Anne Carly Abad: December 18, 2008
2 Diego José Abad: The Unfaithful Men
3 Gémino H Abad: That Space of Writing
4 Anina G Abola: In Place of Emotion
5 Jose Marte Abueg: I, Pontius
6 Ericson Acosta: Ika-anim na Sundang: Gabud [Sixth Knife: Whetstone]
7 Arbeen Acuña: eraserase002
8 Jim Pascual Agustin: Sea Fireflies Of Mindoro
9 Arnold O Aldaba: Fruit of Knowledge
10 Kislap Alitaptap: Wala Na Sa Quiapo Ang Nazareno [The Nazarene is not in Quiapo]
11 Rio Alma: Seaman
12 Jovsky Almero: Train Dodge
13 Tofi Alonte: Shoes
14 Donato Mejia Alvarez: Apat Na Larawan Mula sa Tagaytay Ridge [A Short Quartet from Tagaytay Ridge]
15 Panch Alvarez: Pointing According To Heraldina
16 Angelo B Ancheta: Bir-it, Jan-ny!
17 Mark Angeles: F/LIGHT
18 Rebecca T Añonuevo: Anumang Leksiyon [Whatever Abides]
19 Roberto T Añonuevo: Dalawampung Minuto [Twenty Minutes]
20 Teo T Antonio: Sa Dulo Ng Malay [At the Edge of Waking]
21 Lystra Aranal: Hands Down
22 Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles: Eros
23 Cesar Ruiz Aquino: Three Variations
24 AM Azada: The Lion
25 Mads Bajarias: Entropy & The Shrike
26 Desiree L Balota: manoy
27 Romulo P Baquiran, Jr.: Labarinto [Labyrinthe]
28 Joi Barrios: Mga Tala Sa Isang Pagpatay [Notes On A Political Execution]
29 Melissa Villa-Real Basmayor: Futura
30 Ariel Dim. Borlongan: Eksena sa Susunod na Siglo [Scenario for the Next Century]
31 Dave Buenviaje: Because Pandesal is never the same in another country
32 Regine Cabato: Touch Me Not
33 Jose Wendell P Capili: Carnivalesque
34 Ronan B Capinding: Pagdidilig
35 Ronaldo Carcamo: Ha-ha-ha
36 F Jordan Carnice: Stones
37 Lito Casaje: Tsunami Blues
38 Ian Rosales Casocot: The Smallness of the Everyday
39 Marella Castro: Hinatak Sa Kahulugan [A Catch of the Infinite Pull]
40 Jose Jason L Chancoco: Barber Shop Brainstorming
41 Ayrie Ching: Learning Curve
42 Frank Cimatu: The Yoyo Routine
43 Mikael de Lara Co: Kundiman
44  Kristian Sendon Cordero: Stabat Mater
45 Michael M Coroza: Magnanakaw [Thief]
46 Keith Cortez: The Current
47 Lope Cui, Jr.: Multiple Choice
48 Dakila Cutab: P’wera Contra
49 Jose Y Dalisay, Jr: Bound For Saudi
50 Ramon Damasing: On the Feminine
51 Carlomar Daoana: Brutalism
52 Mes De Guzman: Ang Katiwala [The Caretaker]
53 Ainne Frances dela Cruz: Speed
54 Christa I De La Cruz: After Impeng Negro
55 Khavn De La Cruz: ang dalawa ang puso [the twice-hearted]
56 Noelle Leslie dela Cruz: Absence Muse
57 Nikki De Los Santos: aporia
58 Karl R De Mesa: Preparations For History
59 Iñigo de Paula: Paramdam
60 Ricardo M de Ungria: The Ambivalence of Staying A Tree
61 Lourd Ernest H De Veyra: Supremacy of the Text
62 Noel del Prado: Rebolusyon [Revolution]
63 A Despi: Social Blowtorching Transcends Scab Worship
64 Glenn Diaz: Definition Of respite
65 Lav Diaz: In Memoriam
66 Alain Russ Dimzon: Tinkling
67  Jan Brandon Dollente: The What
68 Jacob Walse-Dominguez: folding boxes
69 Simeon Dumdum Jr.: The Last Rain of Summer
70 Marjorie Evasco: In Baclayon, Reading Levertov's for Those Whom the Gods Love Less
71 Israfel Fagela: Siberia
72 Bendix M Fernandez: english lyrics to a japanese seduction
73 Bonki Fojas-Almirante: Erotica
74 Luis H Francia: Smooch King
75 Marc Escalona Gaba: Blinds
76 Eric Gamalinda: Hydrazine
77 J Neil Garcia: Coda
78 German Villanueva Gervacio: Procorpio’s Night
79 Lolito Go: What Else
80 Eva B. Gubat: Blind Date
81 Ramil Digal Gulle: bullet.X.press
82 Asterio Enrico Gutierrez: Death Poem Exercise 64
83 Luisa A Igloria: What I Don’t Tell My Children about My Hometown
84 Neal Imperial: Tandang Sora
85 Marne L Kilates: Morion
86 Phillip Yerro Kimpo: How the Americans Liberated Northern Luzon, 1945
87 Jeanilyn Kwan: The Revolution Will Be Printed, Not Televised
88 Jose F Lacaba: Tagubilin At Habilin [Will and Testament]
89 Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta: Tampuhan
90 Marra PL. Lanot: Ina [Mother]
91 Christine V. Lao: What Ol’ Injun told the carnies
92 Gian Lao: Here, at your grave
93 Elaine Lazaro: O
94 John Francis C Losaria: NPA mula sa Tatlong Daang Salita at Dalawang Pulgadang Pagitan [from Three Hundred Words and Two Inches in Between]
95 Bienvenido Lumbera: Kartolinang Ibon [Craft-Paper Bird]
96 Soleil Erika Manzano: Ganoon dumating ang balita— [How the news broke—]
97 Carlo Angelo V Marcelo: A Better Good Morning
98 Edgar B Maranan: The life and times of a seditious poet
99 Luchie Maranan: Estranged
100 Pia Montalban: Saleslady
101 V.E. Carmelo D. Nadera Jr.: Balimbing
102 Joanna Nicolas-Na: On the Way to Market
103 Homer B Novicio: Dark Birds in Winged Chapel
104 Emil Os: hyperlink
105 Voltaire Q Oyzon: Mag-aabroad inin akon mga buhok [My hairs will travel abroad]
106 Doms Pagliawan: Philippine Eagle
107 Don Pagusara: Alibangbang sa Ulan [Butterflies in the Rain]
108 R. Torres Pandan: Ars Poetica, As Actually Practiced
109 Ned Parfan: Disturbances
110 Allan Justo Pastrana: The Soul of The Town
111 Carlos M Piocos III: Prehistoria
112 Axel Pinpin: Nang Salakayin Mo Ang Aking Pananahimik [The Night You Assaulted My Deep Silence]
113 Zosimo Quibilan, Jr: Vers.
114 Jun Cruz Reyes: Bunso [Lastborn]
115 Fidel Rillo: Sa Ganang Akin Po Naman Ay Ito Lamang Ang Ipinamamanhik [Thus Do I Humbly Express Myself]
116 Virgilio A Rivas: Eternal Juju Recurrence
117 Deedle Rodriguez-Tomlinson: Euston Road on an Autumn Afternoon
118 Patrick Rosal: Despedida Ardiente
119 Darylle Rubino: Today After Time Immemorial
120 Roger B Rueda: Carabaohood
121 Jose Leonardo A Sabilano: SpaMusic
122 Joseph de Luna Saguid: Correspondent
123 Joel Pablo Salud: Meandering
124 Edgar Calabia Samar: Vocabulario
125 Rafael Antonio C. San Diego: Poem About Nothing
126 Benilda Santos: Púgot [Beheaded]
127 Oscar Tantoco Serquiña, Jr.: Massacre
128 Tanya Sevilla-Simon: Balikbayan Box
129 Danny Castillones Sillada: Yang Pagtagád Kang Alyana [Waiting For Alyana]
130 Bebang W Siy: Ang Bisita [The Visitor]
131 Bert Sulat Jr: I Love Poetry
132 Ramón C Sunico: How to Enjoy a Concert: Mula sa Concert Notes ng Francisco Santiago Hall ng PCI Bank [From the concert notes of Francisco Santiago Hall of PCI Bank (now defunct)]
133 Christian Tablazon: Blueprint
134 Alyza Taguilaso: Leviathan
135 J.I.E. Teodoro: Banal na Buntis [Pregnant, Holy]
136 Andrea B Teran: Weight without gravity
137 Enrico C Torralba: Para Sa Fountain Sa Harap Ng Post-Office Building [For The Fountain In Front Of The Post Office]
138 Ricky Torre: An Appointment, And Variation On Federico Alcuaz (or Monologue as Portraiture)
139 Denver Ejem Torres: where my Barbie was safe, lest, if it came out in the open
140 Charles Bonoan Tuvilla: Sa Panahon [On Seasons]
141 Roberto Ofanda Umil: Ang Tiwalag [The Defected]
142 RM Urquico: The Blues
143 Czeriza Shennille Valencia: Every dawn you dig your own grave
144 Eric Tinsay Valles: Independence Day in Hong Lim Park
145 Joel Vega: Nimbus
146 Eliza Victoria: Crime Scenes
147 Santiago Villafania: Rekindled
148 Michael Carlo C Villas: Vestibular
149 Arlene J Yandug: I think therefore I Ant
150 Alfred A Yuson: The Ten Most Memorable Moments with D. Thus Far, & Why I Can’t Let Her Go

As readers, you may discover the importance and individuality inherent in an editor’s penchants and aversions. 

Book Design: Piya Constantino
Cover Art: W Don Flores
'Reported Incidents, 9/27/09 to 9/29/09 2'
Acrylic on canvas
24 in. x 32 in.
2009

The 4th MOV International Film, Music, and Literature Festival
1-6 September 2011
The Podium, Ayala Musem, & UP Film Centre
*Zero Degrees of Separation*

www.movfest.org

Book Launch: 2 September 2011
                      Ayala Museum, Makati City
                      6 PM

Gays

a poem by Roger B Rueda 

When you spent the day gadding about
a lot of places and mostly
enjoying yourselves,
boys  bullied you, all of twelve
or fifteen,
into doing something
you didn't want to do,
you’d go back home, crying
or going into a sulk
just like a real girl!
Your mother used to tell you
it wasn't manly
for little boys  to cry.
You were shy
and hid behind some trees.
You seemed so very meek
and mild.
You were not smart enough
to understand life.
You'd got a phobia
about being teased
about how you walked
along the road and how you
spoke to them.
When you had a crush on one
of the boys at school,
you’d hide your eyes
behind your sunglasses.
At university,
you flexed your muscles
so that everyone
could admire them.
You’d go out to lunch
with your girlfriend.
You couldn't keep your hands
off each other,
You never stop kissing
and cuddling.
You’d hold her hand
when you cross the road.
All of twenty,
you two tied the knot.
Now, to some who were born
yesterday, it's
a complete mystery
why you are growing
like cultivated mushrooms.
Never did they know
that you have mutated into forms
that are resistant
to their piercing questions.
You are held up to ridicule,
but you lay yourselves
open to criticism
with such unashamedly
extreme views,
you have a hard-headed
approach to it.
When boys see you,
they don’t get quite a shock.
You are increasingly
commonplace.
They wink at you
as you turn your back.
They are out on the pull sometimes.
They have a small drinks party
sometimes for you.
They lean over
and whisper ‘I love you’
in your ear.
Then when they go abroad,
they faithfully call
you every week
and give you
a laptop or iPhone when they go home.

On Bullying from China over Spratly

an essay by Roger B Rueda

China is like a dinosaur and the Philippines, a canine, but I don’t think that the former is really that strong. I believe that how China behaves with small countries is purely psychological. Power countries always have their weak points, too. If this country is firm, they will draw back when they see our teeth. If this country draws back, they will forge ahead. Bullying the weak and being concessive to the firm has always been China’s strategy.

The Albay governor, Joey Salceda, stood firm in his call. ‘National honour has no price tag. I love the Philippines and am ready to defend its territory,’ he said. Yes, I think the public has a right to suppose truthful actions from politicians. Of all politicians, only the Albay governor was valiant enough to face what might be result if ever the Philippines boycotts China’s products (made by bootleggers). They fill the void of our having lack of expensive tools and gadgets, that at least we have, though they are so cheap. And that can't make Filipinos wet behind the ears in terms of all manner of high-tech gadgetry.

Anyway, the bullying has started earlier this year, for instance, on 2 March when the Philippine military directed two military aeroplanes to round the sea and air space near Reed Banks, a long time Philippine-occupied area in the West Philippines Sea. The Philippines took the action in response to the behaviour of two Chinese patrol boats which beleaguered a Philippine ship searching for oil, as said by Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban, Philippine military commander.

A Philippine OV-10 aircraft and an Islander light patrol aircraft were organised after the incident was reported, Sablan averred. The Chinese boats appeared set to butt the Philippine vessel on two cases before turning away, a military official said. No warning shots were fired and the ships later left, officials said. A Philippine navy patrol vessel was sent to secure oil exploration activities at the Reed Bank, and the Chinese Embassy would not immediately respond to Philippine requests for a clarification.

The implication of this occurrence is that it shows that China means to emphasise its claims to sovereignty of the West Philippines Sea to the shores of the Philippines.

China’s act is compared to a hostile man who comes to the orchard of his  neighbour to break up trees and pick up fruitlets and then asks for trouble to turn that orchard into the orchard of battle. We don’t discount that China had prepared in terms of public opinion before making the incident. It is also likely that China deliberately did it to misinform the possibility that it has reached compromise with other countries to isolate the Philippines. We need to keep a close watch on the situation and the ensuing moves of the related parties to know it.

Essentially, other countries make decisions based on their interests. The Philippines cannot pin the blame on them.

The Philippines cannot expect from the outsiders. We have to put our faith in ourselves. If we are firm, they will retreat. If we retreat, they will march forward. That is the rule of relationships. We need to recognise that China is big but it is not really strong. Strong countries are weak, too. Besides, China wants to establish a good reputation in the world these days. For one, it knows that reputation is known to be a ubiquitous, spontaneous, and highly efficient mechanism of social control in natural societies.

I think that the Philippines should move hurriedly to re-examine the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and get this issue over with. I believe that the Philippines has all the honourable ground over the claim considering its closeness to Palawan. Likewise, it's also within its jurisdictional exclusive economic zone and there's no way for other country to claim the entirety of the Spratly islands. Besides, the Philippines only claims what we think is ours and not the whole thing.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea undoubtedly states that the Reed Banks are within the Philippine exclusive economic zone. So, we shouldn’t be apprehensive because we are on the right side of the dispute.

The country’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity are supreme and indisputable. All watchwords and policies for any two-pronged relations are irregular, which are valid for certain times, not eternal. Nobody has the right to bargain their country’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.

All at once, the Philippines needs to endorse exchange and negotiation with China on friendly relations between the two countries. I believe that the 1.3 billion Chinese are welcoming people who want to have good relations with the Philippines. I also believe that most of Chinese leaders have benevolence with the Philippines. This act is only the policy of some Chinese leaders who keep an eye on the expansion policy.

We need to enlighten the Chinese people about their government’s act. Chinese are provided with untruthful news about the West Philippines Sea. We have to wake them up and when they know the truth, I believe that they will have indispensible and rigorous actions.

The Philippines can also and has to inform international organisations where it is a member, as well as the UN, about China’s interference to call for international support. The Philippines also needs to fortify its armed forces and endorse a sea economy to dissuade anyone who intends to encroach upon the Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We have to make social unity and people’s truth. That’s the decisive strength to protect our country. And then President Aquino must have mystique and shamanism. Along with the Filipinos, our president, as international face of our country, must have a major bearing on the standing of this country.

He should be influential and never be a marionette of any strong country. He should remember that China being the world's third largest economy and being nouveau riche, is striving to be a responsible nation and that instead of bullying small and weak countries as some world powers have done, China is trying to be willing to do whatever it can to help other countries with their problems and promote world peace. Observably, its government have even proposed the concept of a harmonious world. One very apparent is that, in the past decade, they have sent more than 1,500 intermediaries on United Nations' missions. Thus, he should have attended the awarding of the Nobel Prize ceremonies despite China's call. For one, his decision is an irony to the ideals which his parents fought for.  It is unbecoming of the son of democracy icon to snub the recognition of Chinese dissident who fought for human rights and democracy in China.

We should remember that China has its national pride, too. By being firm, it’s showing our stance that we don’t tolerate any big country to bully us into doing something we don't want to do. What’s the use of international laws, if these are not imposed? Or, the government must take the advice of Jose de Venecia, former speaker of the House. That is, there must be an equitable sharing amongst the claimant countries in terms of the natural resources  they can find from Spratly. (But, of course, the Reed Banks belong to the Philippines.)

Bad things will always come about to us when we do nothing about it. But if we do, any bullying country can be free from committing gaffes against its neighbours.

Two Pictures

a poem by Roger B Rueda

for Angelice

I.
A dark boy about all of four with round face
and straight and long hair
is wearing a loincloth
of pounded bark,
his teeth glistening at the flash
of the camera,
a petal of red hibiscus
behind his left ear,
cups of Korean noodles
on the bench.

II.
A Korean girl about all of five,
two dark girls wearing a coil
of woven coconut husks
about their hips and flanking
her on the bench, one of them
hugging her puppy tightly
to her chest, is
gently caressing its ear
as her mother
is photographing the Chocolate Hills.

Professor C

a poem by Roger B Rueda

like Lauren Weisberger’s Miranda
in The Devil Wears Prada
was standing
by the sordid street
near the hospital, waiting
for her pork barbecue,
her face stoic when
she saw me from the corner
of her eye, Andrea Sachs
on my mind (and I hoped
on hers, too).
Making her salivate, plumes
of smoke
billowed from the broiler
once in a while.
Ugly as sin, the young woman,
the kind that she’d pour
scorn on,
cooking really well
but rather messy
sat down and began
fanning the dying
embers of the fire.
When it vanished, the devil
inhaled deeply,
swallowing hard.
She seemed to hurry
into telling the woman
it was well-done already.
Her barbecue and the trisikad
drivers’ smelled
slightly sweet and peppery
with too much annatto.
She was watching
the world go by,
and me, standing near,
finely: her avatar
wearing Prada
in my brain vanished
in a puff of smoke all of a sudden.

On Our Foods

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Recently, at least 200 people, mostly children, were taken to hospitals after suffering from food poisoning at a birthday party for a boy all of two, in Bulacan. Two children died from food poisoning at a school in Tuguegarao City. Two more children died while undergoing treatment in hospital. Forty-one pupils mostly all of five to seven and three teachers were treated in hospital, having eaten the noodles cooked by a teacher and sold at the school canteen. The teacher had put three spoons of ingredient she believed to be iodised salt while preparing the noodles. The ingredient turned out to be oxalic, an element in bleaching solutions. Too, roughly 400 teachers suffered from food poisoning in Batangas. The teachers from a conference were served adobo believed to be the cause of the poisoning, by a catering service.

Is food poisoning inevitable? Why does it happen every so often these days? Why is it so, that a lot of Filipinos are surprisingly ignorant about their food? Is the reason for this that the people have little knowledge of food safety? Or, perhaps, they don't check their food ingredients for wholesomeness before they start? The use-by-date, they don't know that the  look and the smell are excellent indicators that the item has not spoiled? They thaw foods at room temperature? Perhaps, they don't keep dirty preparation activities well away from clean or cooked food? Perhaps, they share utensils, plates, and chopping boards between dirty operations and clean cooked food? In between handling raw and cooked foods, perhaps, they don't wash utensils such as tongs, knives, and chopping boards with hot soapy water? Or, perhaps, they don't make sure that utensils and equipment are always clean? Don't they wash hands thoroughly before preparation, after going to the toilet, and after handling pets and raw food?

Who should be expected to shoulder all the blame for this problem? I'm afraid our government have rather neglected their roles in ensuring that all the foods we eat are safe. And I don’t want to believe that our authorities are lazy and unreliable.

For one, some products are dishonestly retailed in the market. Some don’t have proper labels or have erroneous tags. Well, for me, labelling is an important practice in the food processing chain and should not be disregarded.  Understandably, the label is the first point of contact between a shopper and the manufacturer. With a proper label, we categorise one product from another and also we can make a decision over which product to buy. The label is then the most important promotion tool for a product. It should be striking while at the same time being instructive. A dirty, disorganised, disorderly label will not help to sell a product, but this must not be true to an ignorant Filipino, or even to an educated one.  That is because most of us trust our government that whatever is sold at well-known supermarket they are safe to use. See, had the oxalic had a proper label, it could have not been used by the teacher.

This problem on labelling products was shown on GMA’s Imbestigador, the most famous TV programme in the Philippines for its courage and reliability. Some products were confiscated by the police to prevent them from selling them, but that was very marginal. In consequence, nonetheless, I can say that this problem in the Philippines is widespread, affecting all of us. But we seem blind to this problem. Our government agency has not ever done a national survey looking at the cleanliness of restaurants or factories, until now.

By the way, have you looked at labels lately? You might be shocked to see the government agency approved unnecessary additives such as aspartame, monosodium glutamate (MSG), artificial colourings and flavourings, yeast, yeast extract, cottonseed oil, canola oil, and the list goes on and on! Perhaps, you have not noticed it because your understanding of or information about it is limited. Or, I don't know, you must be very busy or unquestioning.

MSG, astonishingly, paves the way to Alzheimer's disease. It does permanent brain damage!  Haven't you ever speculated why a lot of children today can't learn in school, and why they have so many learning and behavioural problems today? This is why it is hidden under other terms, so we the public, won’t know what we are unsuspectingly putting into our body! Beware, MSG is present in some lunch meats, hotdogs, bacon, sausage, and flavoured boxed foods.

Why we can't even buy a stick of gum or a tin of soup without these poisons added to it!  All processed foods, cake mixes, crackers, bread, and even pet foods are overloaded with these poisonous killers!  Aspartame causes brain dysfunction. Aeroplane pilots have been known to have brain seizures while flying, after drinking a can of diet soda!

Cottonseed oil and canola oil, we seem like blissfully ignorant about this, are not meant for human consumption. They're low-cost, that’s why a lot of businesses use them even with their being unsafe. They can cause stroke or heart attacks, as both oils cause the blood to become a sticky substance. That's like gumming up your car engine with cement, as opposed to good, clean oil. But of course adverts deceive us into thinking they are health-giving even though they are poisoning us subtly.

It's no secret anymore that our government have used their citizens as experimental guinea pigs for many, many years, and still do.

It is virtually impossible to go to the food shops today and find any food pure without some additives added.

Try to find some children today that know what true foods and their real taste are. You can't.  They had all been, as if, programmed from young on, and that includes the young mothers of today, who think a ‘meal’ is running to Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich, PizzaHut, McDonald's, Wendy’s, KFC, or Burger King.

These are not only unwholesome 'foods' but dangerous as well!  Look at all the heart attacks that are now happening to the young people: my workfellow’s friend dropped dead at work!  Teens’ blood pressure today is that of octogenarians! It's all due to our diet of fast foods. No one knows what a homemade dinner is anymore!  No one cooks anymore!  And if they do, they use artificial ingredients such as tamarind, onion, garlic, chicken, or beef granules. Then, my grandmother would use natural vinegar, but this vinegar is not available at local shops anymore even in places in which a lot of coconut trees grow abundantly. So, what choice do we have? Certainly, the vinegar made of acetic acid is the only one we can have these days. I hope that tests of the vinegar won't show that it has a high level of toxicity.

Even preserved vegetables are ‘flavour enhanced’ and nothing can change those ‘programmed’ taste buds, once they're formed. It begins with baby foods, and that unsocial thirst-quencher called 'soda.' That junk can kill us, I’ve realised!  If you could only see what it does to your intestines, you'd never touch this toxic again!

But what can we expect? These new young parents today are a product of government foods and chemicals. That's why we must call them (yourselves/ourselves) ‘The Chemical Generation.’ They might not be keen on eating or drinking food without artificial colouring, which has been linked to hyperactivity.  So, many brands offer fun coloured food, which is toxic to the body. This is found in many juices, fruit chews, fruit bars, children’s cereals, and snacks. Haven’t you noticed this?

‘We think fast food is equivalent to pornography, nutritionally speaking,’ said Steve Elbert.

Anyway, do you still trust the government's BFAD with your life? Lately, it has scrutinised some imported Taiwanese sports drinks, fruit juices, and soft drinks that Taipei said may contain unwarranted amounts of DEHP, colourless viscous liquid soluble in oil, but not in water, possessing good plasticising properties. Taiwan issued a major recall of products, including more than 460,000 bottles of sports drinks and fruit juice, over doubts they contained the chemical widely used in manufacturing vinyl merchandises. Taipei warned Manila that DEHP could have been dishonestly added to food products that were exported to the Philippines.

It means that there could be other foodstuffs in the market, which are unsafe to put away. Is the organisation rife with bribery and corruption, too? Why were these products allowed to enter the Philippines market? Does BFAD follow very strict guidelines on the inspection of these products? Well, evidently….

A probe by Philippine food-quality authority must be implemented strictly to find out whether products such as meat, baby milk powder, rice, flour, biscuits, seafood, soy sauce, and sweets are contaminated by the likes of industrial oils, acid, cancer-causing chemicals and other hazardous ingredients. They must be as good as their word. We all know that regulations are in place but the enforcements are pretty nonexistence.

Once, the former health secretary Esperanza Cabral ordered that the English warning 'no therapeutic claims' be changed to the Filipino 'hindi ito gamot.' We, the public, have a right to expect truthful statements and opinions from politicians. Dr Cabral did an admirable job in telling every Filipino that some products are potentially dangerous.

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny, said Thomas Jefferson.

I hope that in our community we can have an occasion at which people that have great knowledge of food poisoning (and foods) will meet in order to discuss this problem.

‘No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes,’ said Paulo Coelho, one of my favourite novelists. But I think a lot of companies have got no conscience at all about selling us unhealthy foods. For me, the bottom line of everything is takings – money, don’t you think? This simply shows how important corporate welfare to our government and the corporations themselves is.

In another country, certain pomegranate juice products deceived consumers with dishonest labels and ingredients as revealed by a new consumer guide. I think this is in the cards, to happen in this country, too. Or, possibly, has been happening already.

I think it’s high time this country had consumer health advocates, food safety leaders, and serious food politics. Let’s not wait that diseases caused by the food we eat, in this country will reach epidemic proportions. Following the food poisoning cases and the news of our sick friends or neighbours, we Filipinos need to be extra cautious and sensible.

Rizal

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Guns firing, he vacillates, turns halfway
around, falls
down towards the back, and lies
on the ground facing the sun.
Silence.
Then, say, you, orderlies, had felt
his cold stiff,
raised it, full
as pillar, onto the gurney,
tried to close
the mouth, closed the eyes, drew
the arms to the sides
as if it was he,
would you be as before?
Would your lives take
a turn, for the better,
for the worse? Wouldn’t you
have phantasms,
outlandish
cares, feebleness, despair?
Would you like
your living? Would
your friends look
not the same, your family?
Even passing,
wouldn’t it seem different to you –
a home, a sod, where he
had been ahead of you or
slept beneath
a hundred
and fifteen years ago,  
and you would catch
yourselves
standing, in the small hours,
in the front door
to a room,
eavesdropping on a man panting,
just a usual man  panting.
Perhaps, if you’d buried yourselves in him.

Exhibit: Care

a poem by Roger B Rueda

A veranda overlooking the street,
between two balusters,
in a distance,
a paunchy man is walking
down the street,
a boy about
all of four
behind him,
a golden leaf tree to the right
just coming into leaf
and being more prominent
visually.
He appears to be
his son, you said,
your eyes directed
at them,
trying to find something
about them,
the man holding
something very blurred.
The boy must be
hungry, you added,
your face pressed
against the railings, I mean
the frame.
How about the tree?
I asked.
Tree? What tree?
Where? I don’t know,
you said.
The blackness
of the other balusters
surrounds the careful
circumstances
of the photograph.
She was slowly
sipping at her coffee
when they were caught
on camera,
you said, casting an eye over me.

On Travelling

an essay by Roger B Rueda

We travel for a lot of reasons, evidently: itchy feet, the love of a culture, the desire to leave it all behind, the need to forget, or the need to see new people.

St Augustine once averred ‘The world is a book, and he who doesn't travel reads only one page.’ That’s because most of us get so caught between commutes and supermarket runs. We forget how to take breaths and smell roses or lantanas or temple flowers or crowsfoot grass. But on the street, every instant represents a new beginning. No day is as before. We can't plan out what will happen because nothing is carved on a stone. No commutes, no errands, no scheduled meetings, just us and our caprice. Everything is so different that months begin to feel like years.

Anyway, where should we travel these days and what places should we avoid? Well, let’s go just about any which place we want. For one, if we’re disposed to put up with some uneasiness and able to be flexible with our whereabouts, the recompenses of travel in troubled places are vast. Such travel can show us the downright senselessness of much human conflict and the inspiring ways people manage to live their lives.

We need to travel to appreciate life in the world and realise how others express their humanity. Rough travel can be, well, coarse, and at times the lessons learned come only on second thought, but they are lessons worth learning, at this time and at some point.

Recognisably, we travel, largely, to mislay ourselves or to discover ourselves. We travel to uncover our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our mass media will cover. We travel to take along what little we can, in our ignorance and understanding, to those parts of the earth whose treasures are dispersed and isolated in its own way. Regina Nadelson, a writer, said that most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage.

When we travel, strikingly, we leave all our philosophies and faiths at home, seeing everything we think we know in a different light, and from a warped perspective.

We travel, then, in part just to stir our satisfactions by seeing all the ethical and radical insistences, the pivotal catches, that we by the skin of our teeth ever have to face at home. Travel is the best way we have of freeing the humanity of places, and saving them from construct and philosophy.

In the course, we also get saved from construct ourselves, and come to see how much we can bring to the places we break in our journey, and how much we can become a carrier  in transporting from side to side what every place needs. We can always take pinasugbo or pancit Molo to Baguio, and bring Igorot woodcarvings or Ifugao baskets back to Iloilo.

But more tellingly, we hand on ideals and beliefs and news to the places we go, and in many places, we come to be mobile audio-visual monitors and breathing broadsheets, the only networks that can take people out of the bowdlerised limits of their birthplaces. In out-of-the-way or hard-up places, we are the eyes and ears of the people we bump into, their only connection with the world outside and, every so often, the closest, fairly factually, they will ever come to Charice or Kris or Boy or Angel or Phil or Manny or Marian. Not the least of the dares of travel, for that reason, is learning how to embrace, and carry across, thoughts with sensitivity.

In consequence, travel turns us about in dualistic ways coincidentally: it shows us the marvels and values and matters that we might ordinarily close our eyes to, but it besides, and more openly, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might if not grow tarnished. For in travelling to a truly distant place, we inescapably travel to humours and states of mind and unknown innermost paths that we’d otherwise seldom have reason to visit.

We travel, then, in search of self-worth and facelessness, and, undeniably, in finding the one, we catch the other.  We make a night of it, follow whim, and find ourselves as wide open as when we are besotted with someone. We live without a past or future, for a moment at best, and are ourselves for the taking and open to interpretation. We even may become ambiguous, to others, at first, and on occasion to ourselves.

Travelling is a style to reverse time, to an insignificant magnitude, and make a day last a year, and travelling is an easy way of surrounding ourselves, as in early years, with what we cannot recognise.

Travel allows for adjustment. The fresh, the exhilarating, the different, and the adventure, it’s all there when we travel. Our days no longer are verbalised by business hours but by the changing breezes of our own sentiment. We all want something different from our routine, something to dare us. People thrive on diversity. It is hardwired into our nuts. Nobody comes about and is thankful for parking herself eight hours in a workspace. All we point out is breaking free from it. Breaking the ramparts down and going somewhere diverse.

In our seat on a bus or L300 van we could be in a compulsory state of tranquillity, and moving already, there would be no need for momentum, but we’re not there so far, so we’re some degree of to the activities on the way: reading, thinking, looking out the window, and these are the kinds of things we would like time to do more of. Stationary, yet there’s the exciting edge of eagerness, the opportunity that comes with arriving somewhere new.

The changing landscape outside our window more often than not provides a lot to muse, the immense expanses, the cheerful, surprising colours of towns or the far-reaching view of highlands. Places to pass through can offer a surprising rich sojourn, a way to capture the real thrill of travelling and perhaps have some startling thoughts or happenstances, like they used to.

‘A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving’ said Lao Tzu. OK, have just the sense, will travel.

Hometown

a poem by Roger B Rueda

We are you. We are your voice.
You are the history
of our presence
and before.
You cuddle us living
there now,
and the voice
of our verses.
We are as much a fragment
of the scenery
as the earth we stand on.
We find an enchantment
in being alive
in the here and now.
You are the cradle
of our shared sense
and sustenance -
images, metaphors,
and the wretched delusion
beyond legend. 
We have faith in 
some newfangled ways.
They must be found,
in the real image,
a conversion
of your antiquity.
Renewing
the mortal relation
to you rests upon
the ink slingers,
your sons
or daughters,
or us, or anyone, taking to the spur.

Barotac Nuevo

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Not being in you, I am for I know
where I was,
you being here in me.
I know
I’ve lost myself in you,
turning myself
inside out,
the single-mindedness
of knowing who you are
the bounds
of vagueness, my poems
with cosmic magnitudes
containing
everything outside them,
including me.
I don’t  want
to be by myself,
loneliness is the disquiet
compelling me
to be
with an other or
with otherness,
to vanish into another,
to feel for.
I want to find myself
in you.
You are what you are
to me
as things that
have happened in you
and with me
are remembered
to my purpose
as you resonate my reality.

On K-12 Education

an essay by Roger B Rueda

K-12 doesn’t seem to make perfect sense to me. It seems like a good idea now, but in practice it will be a disaster. I can't see how K-12 is going to work in practice.

I think the Department of Education has to make an effort to keep its teachers conscientious and loyal workers to the Filipino people. But I’m certain that it’ll take it decades to make this problem solved like a dream. For one, as I observed then, a lot of teachers I know had demonstrated almost unbelievable incompetence in their teaching, despite the eligibility rules.

They would go home early or would be absent for a week, making their students wait for ages. Regrettably, this has become the way of life, especially the general beliefs, of most students and such a practice is unobjectionable to them. So, most of their time is spent doing virtually worthless activities or killing themselves writing down the same thing from the textbook. This stupidity is beyond belief sometimes, though. So, how come the Department of Education says K-12 is to decongest and enhance the basic education curriculum?

Some teachers would ask students to help them to clean out the classrooms or spend the whole afternoon hoeing the vegetable patches or weeding them. They would gossip and gossip instead of getting on with some work. One by one they would narrate the sequence of events which led up to what they had become then or how their love life started. I think this technique made learning fun, imperceptibly, because it was most generous of them to give students good grades, at a guess. They were so lazy and unreliable. Thus, I see what they had been doing then as a sell-out or deceitfulness. They’ve got no conscience at all about making their students do nothing or learn nothing at all.

Some teachers would require students do a class project on something useless.

Schools are meant to guide the young to the best information, the wisdom of the ages as well as the best insights of our best thinkers, but it seems schools have become havens of dishonesty and of corrupting the young minds. I think our politics is partly to blame for this. Most teachers got their job on their mayor’s (or representative’s) recommendation. So, the hirings and firings of teachers have become increasingly politicised. Anyway, I don’t want to upset myself by thinking about what might have been.

The Department of Education should invest in good textbooks fairly, I think, and not in those below the satisfactory standard or were only in print to give way to sleaze. For one, good textbooks and good lectures remain an indispensible method of organising what the society has learned into synthesised pieces which make learning efficient, appealing, and sometimes clarifying.

So they say, given the rapid change and the intricacy of information sources facing citizens of the next century, our students must be capable of making their own meanings even when confronted by complexity, vagueness, and info-glut. But how, when they have got plenty of time before they need to know everything taught at school, as their time is always unconditionally useless as their learning seems like superficial or spurious?

The textbook and the lecture have a firm grip on many classrooms. But it seems that no school has started to turn its attention to first-rate textbooks and it’s unprepared to provide classrooms with admirable teachers. I think best textbooks are those made overseas, or by university presses. How can we hold a textbook with a lot of typographical errors in the highest regard? Giving students pedestrian textbooks is a crime, I think. It is greediness. Government officials who have done this have no perceptible vision for this country, but to subsist or make use of their positions to take advantage of the poor Filipino students. Oh, what a shame. I found them rather shallow and depraved.

When I saw the textbooks used by Filipino students, I was disappointed to notice that these textbooks do not compact and synthesise immense bodies of knowledge, simplify and condense the story, organise and translate complex disciplines, and provide teachers and students with a clear path. They do not take students on a quick tour of subject matter which, by all accounts, could easily occupy a lifetime. And most of these textbooks are so out-of-date by this time. Filipino students should be aware that any economy in the world now is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, creating new jobs based on the raw material of ideas and technical innovation.

Observably, most teachers don’t transform the events into terms which arouse the interest of 9 year-olds or 15 year-olds. Something cold and old could become hot and lively if these teachers breathed life into the material. But, sad to say, most teachers in the Philippines don’t bring artistry and fireworks to the classroom. They can’t light fires.

Most of them don’t do a great deal of extra reading and research into the topic before their students, either. They don’t synthesise, summarise and report the best parts. They are not able to translate what might otherwise seem foreign, confusing, monotonous, or overly nonfigurative into a half hour of explanation and illumination.

They can’t build bridges which take their students to the other side.

So, isn’t it that K-12 would just make parents and students struggle under their heavy burden? How about if this will achieve absolutely nothing, and it’ll just be a complete waste of time? For one I'm having doubts about the ability of the Department of Education to do its job. The Department of Education should rather maximise the existing levels of elementary and high school education as I think the majority of what is learned at school these days is not meaningful. Thus, students will retain some of the knowledge for a short while to pass the numerous quizzes and tests they will be faced with that relate to the books but it will be discarded afterwards. Our schools fail to teach anything of pragmatic value and usually just pertain to the programme. This is not about K-12, right? For me, this is about quality education which leads to an excellent student education, this is about creating a foundation of teaching methods that works, and this is about not leaving any child not understanding what was taught.

For me, quality, and not quantity, is at the heart of education and what takes place in classrooms and other learning environments is basically essential to the future well-being of children, young people, and adults. A quality education is one that satisfies basic learning needs and deepens the lives of learners and their overall experience of living. Thus, the Department of Education should access and make available to all, the latest approaches and strategies to make teaching and learning effective, helping transform individuals to become sustainable.

The Department of Education will prove ineffective in delivering K-12, if it won’t fix the Philippines educational system first. Our problem is not about adding two more years. Our problem is not about the Philippines being the only remaining country in Asia with a 10-year basic education programme. It is about a growing need for world-class education. It is more about the pragmatic approach to problems than about an idealistic one. It is teaching and learning in some depth.

Family

a poem by Roger B Rueda

As if she, full of the joys of spring,
was a wool blanket,
or perhaps,
a patadyong, a wrap around
with a floral ethnic design:
no one can see you,
and it seems
they forget
what you have been keeping
under wraps, the batik designs
capturing the minds
of those who seem to have
turned a blind eye, or
those who don’t
know shit from Shinola.
Then much more when
it comes cuddling up to her,
a sitting duck,
and you looking happy
as a sandboy,
beside them.
You three were as if
one happy family,
your smiles
perfect and completely
impenetrable, your
photographer having
a dab hand at it.
Your photographs in magazines,
people see the best,
forget the rest.
No family, your name
would be mud,
you think, but
your being the real you
is nine times out of ten,
people reexamining the world
through a new lens.
Won’t you be dead on your feet?

Surnames

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Historically, surnames, the name that you share with other members of your family, have played an important, fascinating role in society, providing instant cues to a person's background and social standing.

In ancient times when communities were small and all members of a village, clan, or tribe knew each other, a surname was unneeded for identification, but often used to trace lineage. In societies where leadership was transmissible, being able to prove a pure connection to the king or chief was crucial.

Here are some names I have studied in detail in order to discover new information on or reach a new understanding of them:

Abanco means an opening or a device that allows fresh air to come into a closed space.
Abellar means a bee-hive.
Acebedo means a plantation of holly-trees.
Acelar means to accelerate, to hasten, to hurry, to forward, to expedite.
Alobin means striped bass.
Alojado means guest, lodger.
Alvarez means son of Alvaro.
Aguilar, Aguilera, & Aguirre mean a person who came from Aguilas in Spain.
Alejandria means protector of mankind.
Amase means to press something, especially a mixture for making bread, firmly and repeatedly with the hands and fingers. 
Aquino means the layer which develops from the ovary wall around the seed of a plant after it is fertilised and forms the skin and flesh of the fruit.
Arca means a large strong box, usually made of wood, which is used for storing valuable goods or possessions or for moving possessions from one place to another.
Baito means facecloth (= a small cloth used to wash the body, especially the face and hands).
Baliao means a native of Baliao in Taiwan.
Bandada means flock of birds.
Barrido means the act of sweeping.
Bayanban means the appearance of someone or something, especially when intended to deceive.
Bayogos means having a long face.
Bayona means a person from Bayonne in France. 
Bayoneta means bayonet, knife attached to the muzzle of a rifle.
Bedaño means damage, hurt, injury, prejudice, harm, mischief, maim, nuisance, loss, hindrance.
Bedia means a long heavy spear (= long sharp weapon) fixed to a rope, used for killing whales.
Belandres means acorn.
Belaca-ol means a person beaten with a strap.
Belga means Belgian.
Belgira means master of tour.
Belicena means a person from Belize in Central America.
Bernardo means Bernardine monk or nun.
Biboso means attractively energetic and enthusiastic.
Biñas means a piece of land on which vines (plants which produce grapes) are grown.
Boglosa means lobster of a large size.
Bordon means repetition of words in a discourse.
Botavara means a small boom or pole which crosses the sail of a boat in a diagonal direction, boat-hook.
Braga means diaper.
Braza means a measure of six feet.
Cabrera  means goatherd or bad-tempered.
Cajelo means cashier or boxmaker.
Caligdong means  a person who does not usually talk about or make her own abilities and achievements obvious.
Catalan means a language in Cataluña in Spain.
Catedrilla means small or poor professor’s chair or in some universities, the less important professorship.
Chavez means keys.
Corneja means the part of a horse's leg at the back, just above the foot, where longer hair grows.
Coyoca means to try to persuade a politician, the government or an official group that a particular thing should or should not happen, or that a law should be changed.
Defensor means defending or protecting.
DeJulian means of Julius Caesar.
Delgado means a crippled or deformed person or a thin person. It originated in the Mountains of Santander.
DeLlana means of a trowel.
Deloso means of the bear.
Demavibas means a person who thinks and acts in an independent way, often behaving differently from the expected or usual way.
Depaloma means of the dove.
Deriada means of freshet, overflow, flood.
Dichoso means happy, fortunate, prosperous, successful, lucky.
Ecita means a place where a particular group of people often go or meet, by arrangement or habit.
Entredicho means something officially forbidden (= not allowed), or an order forbidding something.
Espinosa means spiny, thorny, arduous, dangerous, bony.
Estrada means causeway, paved road; turnpike road.
Fabillano means the soft grey or black powder that is left after a substance, especially tobacco, coal or wood, has burnt.
Fernandez means son of Fernando. Fernando being a given name means journey or venture.
Formacion means the act of forming or generating,  the manner in which something is formed, form, shape, figure, array of troops, twisted cord of silk, gold, silver, etc., used by embroiderers, training or education.
Fuentes means fountain, fount, a spring of water.
Garcia means descendant or son of Garcia (the Spanish form of Gerald). It means like a fox.
Garin means guardian.
Gomez is a popular surname which means man.
Gongob means pompous.
Gonzalez means son of Gonzalo.
Grapa means staple; clip, fastener or kind of mangy ulcers in the joints of horses.
Gregori means neck cloth.
Guanzon means an open road, a bay.
Gulmatico means soldier's herb.
Gutierrez means son of Gutierre (son of Walter). Gutierre is a given name which means he who rules.
Guzman means descendant of Guzmán (good man), a lord or nobleman, or a cadet or noble who served in the military.
Hidalgo means noble.
Jabonete means bar of soap.
Jaspe means jasper, a precious stone.
Javellana means the nut of the hazel tree which has a hard brown shell.
Javier means bright, splendid, or new house.
Jimenez means son of Jimeno, a given name which means gracious hearkening.
Ladrido means barking or howling of a dog, vociferation, outcry; calumny; incitement.
Lacuesta means slope.
Lagradante means a stairway with teeth.
Laplana means a person from Laponia in Sweden.
Lee means the side of hill, wall, etc. that provides shelter from the wind.
Libo-on means consisting of parts that are positioned together closely or in a tidy way, using very little space.
Lopez means son of Lope. Lope comes from the Spanish form of Lupus, a Latin name meaning wolf. The Lopes variation of this surname often originates from Portugal.
Lozada means a path with a hard surface on one or both sides of a road, that people walk on.
Lustria means bright, brilliant, lustrous, shining, glossy, golden.
Mabilog means shaped like a circle.
Magbanua  means a person who lives in the particular small area which you are talking about.
Maravillosa means wonderful, marvellous, monstrous, astonishing, admirable, miraculous; strange.
Marin means sea.
Mejorada means causing something to get better.
Mendoza means a person who came from Mendoza (cold or high mountains).
Montano means mountainous.
Nalangan means damaged, no longer able to work.
Oren means a person from Orense in Spain.
Ortiz is a popular patronymic surname meaning son ofOrton or Orta.
Osayda means valour.
Pagapos means to put manacles around a person's legs or arms.
Palencia means want of security, uncertainty, mistake.
Paler means a person who makes or sells shovels.
Palisada means a strong fence made out of wooden or iron poles that is used to protect people or a place from being attacked.
Palomo means male dove or pigeon.
Panes means corn or grain in the field.
Parpa means blinking or flickering.
Peñaflorida means stone full of flowers.
Perez means son of Petros.
Piosca means mixture of vinegar and water.
Posadas means inns, guest houses.
Quilla means keel, the long piece of wood or steel along the bottom of a boat that forms part of its structure and helps to keep the boat balanced in the water.
Quino means cinchona-tree.
Ramirez means son of Ramon (wise protector).
Ramos means branches or offshoots, olive branch, or palms or palm branches, from Domingo dos Ramos, a Catholic feast day known as Sunday of the Palms or Palm Sunday.
Remoto means remote, distant, far off; foreign, alien; unlike.
Rizal means ricial, growing again: applied to the aftercrop of corn, cut green for the feed of cattle.
Robles means oak tree.
Rodriguez means son of Rodrigo. The given name Rodrigo means famous power.
Rueda means a wheel, a crown, a round slice of eatables, or short sunfish.
Salarda means to feed salt to.
Salazar means a person who came from Salazar (manor house).
Sales means salts.
Salud means health.
Sarabia means rabies,rage, fury.
Sargado means a strong cloth made from wool which is used especially to make jackets and coats.
Sarrosa means incrusted, covered with sediment.
Sarroza means ground covered with brambles and bushes.
Sazon means ripeness.
Silva means a miscellany.
Solis means a musician who performs a solo.
Solivio means the act of rising or raising a little.
Soto means grove, swamp.
Tabaosares means wild rice.
Toledo means a song bird.
Treñas means scarf, sash, garland of flowery, prison, jail, burnt silver.
Tupas means satiety, repletion or the act of pressing close.
Tupaz means topaz, a precious stone.
Valdez means son of Baldo (prince, fame). Baldo is a shortened form of Baltazar, one of the three magi.
Vasquez means a shepherd, one who tended sheep.