MyBInaryWorld

[This is one of my papers in CW10 under Prof. Celeste Flores-Coscolluela]

The Bahay na bato, or so that’s what my cousins and I call it, is not really a house but an old two-door apartment a couple of blocks away from our house. My cousins and I used to gaze over its timeworn façade as we walk pass it on our way home from school and talk about how its doors and windows resemble a face. We usually end up our chatter in a takutan, with each of us scrambling to get home so as not to be left behind. We never really entered the house because of fear that if we go inside we would be ‘eaten’ by it and we wouldn’t be able to get out. But that was seven years ago, back when I was just ten years old. So the moment I knew that we are going to have another artist date activity in my cw10 class, the first place that came to my mind was the Bahay na bato, an ethereal monument in our subdivision.


 I swallowed hard as I face the gargantuan portal of the apartment, and passing through it seemed like an eternity to my almost shaking body. But I’m turning eighteen this end of the month, and I’m taking this activity as an initiation to my ‘coming of age’. So in a moment, I was inside. The interior was the tale haunted houses are made of: old wooden drawers with broken mirrors, an antique wooden chair with a broken foot, and a half open drawer lying on its side. The ambience of the house is somewhat bizarre; it’s as if someone is watching you from behind. Despite that eerie feeling, I still managed to gather up my courage to go up the second floor and take a peek to what I presume to be the bedroom. The wooden boards of the stairs creaked as I step onto each one with great care because it was a little brittle, as if complaining from the pressure of my each step. The second floor is a disaster. The cement on the walls is flaking, with its crevices teeming with spiders in their sinister gray cobwebs. Huge chunks of concrete rest on the wooden floor like caskets in a wake. What gave me the creeps really is the altar on the far edge of the room near the broken window. It is the only furniture there in the second floor, and on top of it is a broken figurine of what seemed to me like the Madonna. The creeps suddenly got to me so I went down to explore the part of the apartment where the kitchen is and I discovered a backdoor that leads to the backyard. I was about to go there when I saw a door that seemed to be that of the bathroom on my side. It’s closed with a padlock but you can actually peep inside because it has a hole, big enough for a fist to fit. From afar I see the tiles from inside and as I drew nearer and nearer, my heart beating faster and faster, I saw something move from the corner of my eyes! I frantically ran outside, trying my best not to trip or scream. Outside, I tried to gaze inside on what I probably saw. As I tried to gain my composure back, I gave the apartment one last look. And in one of the broken windows, the one where the altar is sat a black cat staring at me, as if telling me through its gaze to never return again.  If it’s just a product of my imagination, I don’t know. But from now on, I’m not going back to that apartment ever again. Ever.

July 24, 2006/Jæsoriano

[The essay was published in 2005 by the Manila BUlletin in the Breaking SIlence section. Although I saw it in the main lib, I don't possess a hardcopy though]


RP leadership crisis ends. Oil price slips down to P1 per liter. Peso equals dollar, 1:1. Sounds like a sweet dream eh? Well, given the predicament our country is in now, these headlines may very well be a far-fetched product of an imaginative mind of a dreamy homo sapien.


It was six thirty in the morning and I was sitting in our couch at home, sipping a little from my coffee mug and opened my ever-reliable boob tube for something to watch. I flipped through channel after channel, scanning for a program that could satisfy my thirst for something that could be worth my while when something tagged as a ‘breaking news’ caught my attention from a local news cable channel. Congress kills impeachment complaint. A pause. What’s so breaking about that? It was clear that the impeachment complaint was meant to die even from the time it has been filed in the congress given the kind of dirty political system we have. I wondered why they even bothered to label it breaking news when all it broke were the hearts of those pro-impeachment congressmen and their supporters. And so, watching that particular piece of history unfold, a realization hit me. Don’t you think it is funny how a very serious matter like our political crisis can bring us a really good kind of entertainment? Let me elaborate on this…


Let us start from the root cause of all of this pandemonium: The Gloria gate tapes. It is supposed to be a wiretapped conversation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with Comelec Commissioner Virgillo Garcillano that proves how they manipulated the May 2004’s election to the president’s favor. Come to think of it, the name of the tape itself is very entertaining in the sense that it was very lame and poorly thought of. It’s obvious that the name ‘Gloria gate’ was derived from the water gate scandal of then US President Richard Nixon that led to his resignation from presidency. Whoever the hell named it like that ought to jump off the nearest building for giving such a ridiculous name. We can only guess that whoever this idiot is, he or she hopes that President Arroyo will suffer the same fate that Former President Nixon had. And just like a person, the tape even had a nickname ‘Hello Garci”. (Was Commissioner Garcillano somewhat related to sexy actress Gwen Garci? Hmm..) I salute our politicians in their composure as they talk about something that sounds like “Hello kitty” in national television and radio.


So then, the tapes were released, outlawed its playing, and so on and so forth. I said ‘the tapes’ not only because it took about three cd’s to record the whole conversation (talk about telebabad! Hehe…) but because as we know, many versions of the tape arose from the issue. There was the ‘original’ and the ‘adulterated’ tapes of Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye, the edited version with matching narration by Attorney Allan Paguia, not to forget the ‘Mother of all tapes’ by former NBI Chief Samuel Ong, and a million more as everyone who happens to have a copy of it claims it as their own version. (By the way, there are even pirated versions sold somewhere in the dark corners of manila for a measly five peso…) Then, the drama came. After a long and deafening silence of President Arroyo, she eventually admitted being the voice on the tape on television as she immortalized the phrase “I am sorry” and brought the term ‘lapse in judgment’ into fame. And not to be outshined, Susan Roces-Poe, widow of the late Fernando Poe Jr. held her own Press Conference in response to the president’s sorry with the equally best selling “Hindi ko matatanggap and iyong sorry” and that “Not once but twice” statement. It’s like a scene right out of a Sharon Cuneta movie, isn’t it?


And when the tape finally ventured into the Congress, they argued about the million peso question on to play or not to play the tape. Stupid morons. They looked like clowns as they debate the hell out of each other on whether to play it or not while thousands have already heard it, being played in various universities and even making it into a ringtone to the tone of 50 cent’s “in the club”. Poor 50 cent, this just proves that almost anything can be used as a means for political propaganda here in our country…


After that, we finally saw some action when the so-called Hyatt 10 left the president’s cabinet and supported the call for President Arroyo’s resignation. It was another case of a hilarious name for a pretty serious matter. At first, you would think that they are a new batch of superheroes in the tradition of Voltes-V, Power rangers and the Justice league but they turned out to be politicians lead by Former DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman (as we can assume from her media appearances to speak for the group) with her distinctly colored hair strip. Is she starting a fashion trend? Maybe one day we could hear people talking about the “Dinky strip” they just got from a trip to the parlor. Isn’t it a great legacy for Ma’am Dinky?


With the ever popularity of the Gloria gate tapes, we could not help but find people trying to ride in it’s popularity and steal a piece of the limelight for themselves. And I’m not talking about Ilocos Sur Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson and his X-tapes. Okay, maybe I am. The x-tapes supposedly contain o chitchat of Erap and some other military official. (Oh, what did Erap ever do to him? The guy’s in house arrest if I’m not mistaken for crying out loud.) The bottom line is that it did not click with the people. Maybe it’s because the name given to it is not catchy enough. Maybe it’s because of the corny caricatures on it. Maybe the people are just too tired of Chavit Singson. Nobody knows.


And let us not forget President Arroyo’s very entertaining State of the Nation Address (I personally consider it a blockbuster). The SONA has been witness to the symbolic war raised by the pro and anti impeachment solons using calamansi plants, peach roses and IM button pins (I wondered what those IM button pins on the pro-impeachment congressmen’s chest meant until Congresswoman Imee Marcos explained that it means impeach-that is the letters IM set in a peach background. How creative, isn’t it?). The Drilon-De Venecia yin and yang sort of actions highlighted it, with Drilon not even offering a single clap to President Arroyo as opposed to De Venecia whose ears almost seemed to applause in support for the president (no pun intended).


So an impeachment complaint finally got to the congress where a new sort of drama unfolded before us. The walkout of the pro-impeachment congressmen was underscored by the theatrics of shouting and tossing away documents. Poor Congress janitor, that meant extra work for him. But these actions did not prevent the anti-impeachment congressmen to kill the impeachment, as the news in the local cable news channel says.


As I continued to flip through the channels of our television, I another realization hit me. (Damn with these realizations!) Up to now, the drama is still unfolding. As amusing as it may appear, we cannot escape the fact that we are still in a very crisis. But we can’t just sit around and feel sorry for our poor country. It helps to have a little optimism; to sometimes look at the lighter, even funny side of some things that otherwise would put our morale down. Nothing will happen if we just sit there pointing blame to anyone available when we can be helping out to be a part of the solution and not the problem. As the kilos-bayan commercial said “His honor. Her honor. Their honor. Whatever happened to our honor?” Let’s help establish our seemingly lost honor back. And as that famous commercial also says, “We have a moral crisis. And this calls for a moral revolution”. It is time to check on our values now and do a change for the better. Let us start with ourselves, shall we?


RP leadership crisis ends. Oil price slips down to P1 per liter. Peso equals dollar, 1:1. Sounds like a sweet dream eh? But I believe that it is possible to achieve these. If we just stick to a common goal towards our country’s well being, have unity and put on an optimistic eye for things, I’m sure we will succeed.

september 12, 2005/jæsoriano

a deafening silence…
as i look upon the blank tv…
teasing, mocking…
the sun’s rays shine over me…
like golden cobwebs they tread…
from the jalousie to the wooden floor…
the birds chirping a melancholic tune…
but all i hear is silence…
the house seems barren and deserted…
the cold breeze embraces me…
turning my gaze unto the window…
loneliness…
solitude…
despair…
the sun’s rays begin to fade…
as the day bids goodbye…
soon stars will fill the sky…
while darkness envelopes the room…
and all that’s left is…
a deafening silence…

april 1, 2006/jæsoriano

standing before a mirror…
gazing at the reflection formed…
a knife in hand…
blood flowing on wrist…
masks…
lies…
unable to see the truth…
a crucifix on the altar…
illuminated by candlelight…
a shattered heart…
a broken soul…
kneeling before it…
gripping the rosary…
praying…
until it broke…
bead by bead it tumbled down…
scattering on the matted floor…
just as my life withers away…
dream by dream it fades…
the crimson river continued to flow…
until nothing’s left…
the crickets sing their elegy…
a requiem for a shattered soul…

april 1, 2006/ jæsoriano

lying on my bed alone…
the room dimly-lit…
the soft purr of the electric fan…
flapping papers on the desk…
all sounds like song to my ears…
the pictures on the headboard…
faces i no longer recognize…
staring at me in grievance…
with dreary eyes i can’t see…
the curtains wave at me from the window… talking with invisible mouths…
a language familiar yet incomprehensible…
the chime by the corner danced…
to the tune of a song no one hears…
the ceiling starts to fall suddenly…
the walls slowly closing in…
all sounds have died out…
the light gradually fades…
as the day gives in to the night…

april 3, 2006/jæsoriano

sitting on the edge of the bed…
staring blindly on the wall…
beads of sweat forming on my forehead…
i stared at you near the door…
your body such a tempting tease…
as i’m having second thoughts about it…
unsure if what’s gonna happen…
is really what i want…
slowly you approached me…
every step seemed like eternity…
our lips locking on ech other…
hands tangled in the rain of your hair…
kissing…
caressing…
then you gently pushed me to bed…
love, morality, acceptance…
all swirling in my head…
as i wander in a world of sinful desires…
and cravings of the flesh…
while i lose myself in paranoia…
you thrust in me eagerly…
skin to skin we slide on each other…
as you mix pain with unimaginable pleasure…
as i drown in an ocean of pure lust…
and love…
with every docile push you impale me…
giving me a part of your self…
picking up the pieces of my shattered heart…
and bringing light to my shadowed soul…

april 10, 2006/jæsoriano