eat before you gaze

it's rare that my fascination finds a moreno object but this dusky-featured guy may be of interest to exoticists. just because he's eating does not mean that i'm suggesting he's for imperial consumption. by the way, i gathered that this one's named nico.:)

every man is an archipelago

After scouring for books to be given to my friends celebrating their respective birthdays, I chanced upon my long-unseen friend Donna, who became prettier than ever. We met her sister Novie and we all gathered at Roma’s house for a triple party for Jopay, Donna’s sister and the host. One more November celebrant, Santa, could not make it. If Rhoda weren’t in Hong Kong as well as other former co-teachers like Julie Ann who works in Bataan, Ate Jotabs who manages fruit stalls in Las Piñas, and Mylin and Celia who have since migrated in the Middle East, we would have been complete. It’s very rare that I get to see these much-treasured friends of mine—last we gathered was during the town fiesta of Jopay’s Nueva Ecija hometown where we traipsed the rustic scenery in search of green mangoes—so I could not afford to miss the opportunity to be with them even for a brief time. Why, it’s the fullness of the moment which we are after, so I intently listened to them as they updated me with what’s going on with everybody. Ruel (alone at the bottom) said he’s saving for me a copy of Ricky Lee’s novel for autograph signing, Roma (the bespectacled one behind me) and Jopay (the one wearing black bolero) are classmates in a Math subject in UP, Zenkit (the one in gray, whose husband Melvin is in yellow) is as ever-doting to my godchild Sam, Leah (the one between me and Zenkit) was praised by her boss for being the company’s most photogenic, Rhea (the one in red) prepares for her much-awaited betrothal to her fiancée Jun, Donna (partly hidden by Ruel’s hair) has just wrapped up her master’s, Riza (the one in blue) regaled us with her terrifying experience as a witness to a pickpocketing, Novie (the bespectacled one next to Jopay) remains in her boarding house after Donna transferred near EARIST, Lyn (the one in brown) continues to be as timid as a nun while Rachel (the one in extreme left) is on the family way. Hay, the delight of bonding with time-tested friends!
I hold precious this circle of friends as well as that comprised by pamilya kumarab-as, that by my high school classmates in Nueva Ecija, that by my schoolmates in UP, that by my former University Student Council colleagues, that by the pink sisters, that by my childhood friends in Tarlac, and that by my present colleagues. These friends have stayed with me through thick and thin, through hell and high water, showing me their care and affection and faith despite other people’s deception, envy, opportunism. Destiny brought them all to me to teach the lesson that the world need not be lived in isolation.

unransomed

Barely peering from the secluded Arayat,
the sun wearily surrenders
to the creeping night of Gapan,
letting my rampart be carpeted
in dead monochrome.
I witness my prancing spirit,
Wandering restlessly, searching
For your Narcissan beauty
To tranquilize this raving madness
Of an anxious moth in me,
Excited and persistent
To impress a kiss
In your rapturous flame.
Alas! In the rice paddies,
I chance upon you
Sitting unflinched,
Trifling with the entirety
of the world
in your young hands.
I go near you,
Open you inside out
And have found
Your unchanged heart,
Savoring pursuits
Of celebrity and crystal pleasures
While unfeeling of my existence.
Like a ready prey
To a ruthless sphinx,
I begin yielding
to the claws of death again,
bleeding more profusely than before,
eluding your puritan smile
that can’t be my salvation
anymore.

dangling with the stars

Every so often, the school serves as a location for television shoots because the Vice President’s spouse, the ever-bubbly Miss Lucille, is connected to a few networks (talk about formidable social capital!). In the past, GMA-7 starlets like Andrew Schwimmer and Felix Roco have visited and the more fearless of my English majors would interview them during breaks. This time, teen actresses from ABS-CBN 2 were around for a taping: Paw Diaz (in yellow) and Empress Schuck (in blue). With me are Miss Lucille, my colleague RR and the anak ng Dyosa. According to RR, "Hindi naman nagkakalayu-layo sa ganda."


Sorry to disappoint you but I did not appear as an extra because I have classes to attend to, plus I was told that no male stars were present, so what’s the point? I better prepare my acting prowess for the abattoir or factory or whatever scene with Juday when Ruel tags me along at the junior superstar’s Maalaala Mo Kaya Christmas special. I did see interesting looking boylets in tight-fitting shirts, supposedly extras, but I was more impressed with the smart-talking gay guy with the Comparative Literature major, supposedly a think-tank in the production. The anak ng Dyosa later told me he’ll give me the guy’s number and some excellent titles from him. Should any book turn out to be a collection of Neruda’s poems or of Arabic fictions in English translation, I will keep his number. I say that with a “Promise!” in Inday Badiday’s husky voice.

komiks presents...ben anderson

On my way to Contemporary British Literature class, I remembered the news that back in UP in his capacity as a Rizalian scholar is Benedict Anderson, the world-renowned author of the much-praised book on socially-constructed nationhood entitled Imagined Communities. I was among the jampacked crowd the last time he visited to talk about the obscure European literary references of the National Hero’s two great novels. The talk’s impressive revelation made me see Rizal the writer in a different light such that I was influenced into returning to listen to Dr. Preachy’s Cornell University colleague, who showed how El Filibusterismo responded to the temporal (read: premodern) way in which the 19th century Other was imagined by his modern colonizer. I was lucky to have the opportunity to be photographed along with him and my favorite Comparative Literature professor, but not lucky enough because, well, just look at the direction of Ben’s gaze. I felt like I’m an outsider in his imagined community, hahaha. By the way, if Carl is reading this, I’m giving you the chance to guess who took our picture. Whoever it is that you’re thinking, you could imagine him feeling like performing a lupasay in the midst of Bulwagang Recto when Dr. Legasto called him to act as a one-time photographer. Basta, laking Bear Brand siya.
Just outside the hall, in FC Gallery 1, there is a very interesting komiks exhibit of which I took snapshots for the world to marvel at the global-class talent of Pinoys like Mars Ravelo and Francisco Coching. Popular culture enthusiasts may want to check out this blog to see what else is in the offing for the komiks aficionados in the week-long Philippine Komiks Convention called Komikon 2008. And yes, gay icon Darna may be found there, with the classic issue showing young Narda’s transformation into the bodacious superheroine after swallowing her amulet. Lunukan pala ang labanan, ha…mga bading, ang bato!

sugat

Wala ako sa sarili,
Bumibigkas ng kung anong orasyon
Na hindi ko mawatasan,
Nagpruprusisyon
Patungo kung saan
Habang ibang tao’y sumasalunga
Binabagtas ang talunton na
Hahangga sa Main Gate
(Pauwi siguro sila sa kung saan mang lupalop).
Sa wakas ay nagkamalay ‘ata ako,
Nakapagtataka naman kasing
Bawat makasalubong ko’y
Ngumingiting may pangungutya,
Pinararatangan akong bulaan
Dahil hindi naman umano
Masanghayang tanawin
Ang lagoon
At banyaga raw sa kanila
Ang taludtod ng hamog
Na gumigiyagis sa luntiang damo.
Hindi ko sila pinansin;
Mapupunan pa ang kalahati
Ng salop,
Makakaya pa ng dibdib
Na pigilin ang pagbulwak
Ng rumaragasang damdamin.
Lamang,
Mentras akong nagtitimpi,
Lalong nag-uumulol ang
Kanilang naising ibagsak ako
Mula sa luwalhati ng
Pagsasatitik ng aking nadarama.
Sila ngayon ang wala sa sarili;
Ako naman ang lumuluha ng dugo.

my bangs or your head bangs

Nice haircut, Karlo. You can project better with that oh-so-fresh look. You prove to be more than just the head-turner that you are: you can make your admirers’ heads literally spin 180 degrees-wise. I have witnessed those entranced people, myself too, earnestly follow your path in CAS lobby till the necks abnormally whirl to their backs, imitating the ghost’s orbiting head in The Poltergeist. Your latest crown statement has eventually caused me to decide to sport a new hairdo myself (I don’t expect stirring a considerably sensible public to manifest a 180-degree-neck-rotation peculiarity, though).
However, when my classmates finally set their worried sights on my recently fashioned top, they play criminal investigators and put me under close interrogation, bombarding my pained ears with inquiries sufficient to drive me nuts. They ask me, “May nakatampuhan ka siguro, ano?”, “Are you unable to sleep the whole night through?”, “Gusto mo na bang matulad kay Samson?” etc. and the ultimate of all is that which can incite a loser beauty pageant contestant to seal permanently her prober’s tactless mouth: “ARE YOU FRUSTRATED?” to which I give an alarmed reply, “NO! NO! NO!”
I don’t promptly decode people’s purpose of associating new hairdo with frustration; must be the Biblical tradition of shearing one’s hair and throwing ashes in the air when tragedy strikes. I am by all aspect human, but it does not follow that when sulking in depression, I will eradicate anyone’s empty existence right before his wide-open eyes. I only demand for thinned scalp, period. I am devoid of negative psychological tendencies, suicidal whatsoever, so I will have my tress run through by scissors without the barber fearing that I will bang his head over and over against the shop’s walls after his session with me.
Speaking of barbers, how lucrative therefore their business will be if beyond one’s new look a repressed voice is crying, “I admit it: I’m frustrated to the nth power!” From time to time, the hairdresser’s stall will be flocked by thwarted beings wanting their fine hairs trimmed to fluctuating lengths depending on the degree of anguish, e.g., dropped a subject—an inch cut; flunked the course—three inches shorter; abandoned by love partner—totally shaved head; so on and so forth. And so before the economic necessity for more hairdressers’ salons blows up because of everyday snare and frustration incidents, I will be opening my own to strike it early at the competition level. What now, Karlo, an army cut?

lupasay over friendster

After what www.friendster.com claims to be a temporary maintenance, it’s back—but not without causing me some distress. Why not, when about 300 of my friends vanished from my list? Yes, not all my friends, relatives, classmates, schoolmates, teachers, students, former boylets and the like are internet-connected, much less Friendster-linked, but the few who are in my list are either so busy or so remote that the only way we keep in touch is through this social networking site. The ugly face of modernism is at it again: it cannot be fully relied on no matter what utopian promises it has created along with its birth.
I immediately informed my ex- that I disappeared from his list not because I deleted him from mine out of my ongoing romantic agony but because, theories have it, the website was infested by a mighty virus and a programmer hacked into the site. Someone from a popular gay social networking website advised that “Friendster has suffered a great damage…as a computer virus named h4xor-nytmare had infiltrated [its] database. It is best advised not to log in your accounts or add friends for the time being as the Friendster team is currently recovering the losses that were inflicted.” Ganun? Sige na nga.
I checked on Friendster and here’s what I found posted inconspicuously: “Your friends list may be inaccurately displayed. Please be assured your friends list will be accurate soon.” Ayun naman pala e. However, further search brought me to this somewhat funny advice in the site’s Frequently Asked Questions: “MY FRIENDS HAVE DISAPPEARED: We are aware of this issue and will have it fixed ASAP. Don't worry; your friends are not lost, they will return. We apologize for this inconvenience.” If my students will discover this, they will likely complain, “Pati ba naman sa Friendster, may diaspora?!?” This rivals in hilarity the note I read somewhere: “please verify that you are a human.” Some gays confessed to having 500 enlisted friends who were reduced to forty-four, seven or, worse, this: “Ba’t ganun? Isa na lang ‘yung friend ko sa Friendster. Ano’ng nangyari, Friendster team?”
Speaking of complaints, some bitches have the gall to scold some innocent gays firing questions about the Friendster brouhaha. People, not because you started the thread, you have the right to whip others into frenzy. If you don’t feel like answering their questions, shut up. Don’t contradict yourselves by claiming “I’m not tryin’ to be rude” or “no offense meant” and proceed to do just that: being rude and offensive. Don’t make them feel the stupid ass that you actually are. And please, check your grammar; a past participle follows the future tense “will be.” Lastly, be finesse in segueing into your hidden agenda of promoting and having prospects verify heaven-knows-what in your www.multiply.com account.
Friendster is one of only four URLs I regularly visit everytime I’m online, the others being my accounts at www.yahoomail.com, www.blogger.com (and the blogroll therein), and www.guys4men.com. With the inconveniences I always experience in Friendster such as unmanageable blogposts, adding difficulties, photo uploading hassles among others, I might just take the suggestions of friends to shift to Facebook or Myspace. Tama na ang lupasay; let’s go forth and multiply.com!

cadaver

I was a cadaver.
You came, gave me a heart,
Made a human out of me.
I became alive, breathing,
Full of emotions.
But soon enough,
Just when I started
Enjoying your gift,
You inflicted in me
A pain like a thousand deaths.
Who would have thought
That a creator like you
Could become the same person
To destroy?
How come you took back
My heart
And changed me into a cadaver again?

combating deschooling: on rustica carpio's "education and changing perspectives"

“Education and Changing Perspectives” by Rustica Carpio tackles the problems of contemporary education and the available solutions to these problems in order for education to prevent people from turning into what Ivan Illich terms as a “deschooling society.”
The main argument of the essay is that education has turned against itself because individuals concerned are guilty of “misdirecting and disorienting the course of education, of misleading the paths of educational institutions and the approaches and techniques of teaching.” The essay further asserts that the problems must be faced to cope up with the challenges of education’s changing perspectives.
The author substantiated her argument by saying that “hazardous beliefs and wrong practices” like repressing the intellectual growth of students and teachers in favor of tradition deviate education from the actual learning experience. Also, obsolete systems by administators and teachers like ancient policies and curricula stray the school as an institution. Finally, the mechanical manner in which students learn—students acquiring static theories instead of applying them—departs from the correct style of teaching. The author proceeds to suggest that education must be modernized as well as humanized.
Indeed, the author is agreeable for stating that a person’s education should not be neglected for fear of mediocrity. I say this because education brings about knowledge necessary to translate ideas into action and capable of opening social consciousness leading to wide-reaching change. I also agree that facing the problems is a hard challenge, but one that is rewarding once overcome.
Among the strengths of the essay is the author’s series of citations of various intellectuals, a proof that she herself is being educated by insightful ideas, in a manner suggesting that she applies what she preaches. This is a good way of encouraging students to research, an effective means of learning. On the other hand, among the essay’s weaknesses is the unfamiliar choice of vocabulary which may alienate younger readers and, therefore, defeat the purpose of getting across the message to a significant sector of her disciplinal topic. Just in the initial sentence, the term “replete with” appears when a simpler one like “full of” will do. The introductory paragraph goes on to mention words like “muddled,” “besmirched,” and “iniquitous.” The first page would manifest the words “inanities,” “social cleavages,” “cloister,” “elucidates,” “milieu,” “tenable” “palpable,” and “flux,” and this is not to include the remaining pages. It seems to suggest that the essay is itself somewhat guilty of disorienting learners.

yes, i am an asian!

The Philippines seems to be having a field day conquering Asia after Karla Paula Henry became the first Asian to be crowned as Miss Earth days ago and Ishmael Bernal’s Himala being recently voted online as CNN’s best Asian film of all time. Hours ago in Hong Kong, Miguel Syjuco’s debut novel Ilustrado won the second Man Asian Literary Prize, our continent’s answer to the prestigious Man Booker Prize in Britain. The novel, touted as “a fictional account of a young Filipino caught within a notorious scandal spanning over the Philippine history” and described by the judges as “possess[ing] formal ambition, linguistic inventiveness and sociopolitical insight in the most satisfying measure…[b]rilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed…ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour," had been earlier awarded the Grand Prize for the Novel in English by the Palanca. The novel of the boyish-looking Ateneo graduate now based in Montreal beat Sir Krip Yuson’s The Music Child, Indian writers (again!) Kavery Nambisan’s The Story that Must Not be Told and Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay and Chinese Yu Hua’s Brothers. Congratulations! I’m happy that Filipino authors like Chuck are putting the Philippines in the world literary map. Last year’s finalist from the Philippines, Sir Butch Dalisay’s Soledad’s Sister, is a good read—about two people whose lives get intertwined since the arrival of a coffin containing one of the 600 dead OFWs that come home annually. Too bad Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem beat it to the inaugural prize. Well, the literary spotlight’s on us this time. Hail to the Filipino writer!:)
To fellow blogger noir1, thanks for the compliment! Let me rephrase my reply to your comment “prolific”: writing’s a good therapy for the broken-hearted.

truth is, you just want to die

You wish it were just a bad dream from which you would eventually wake up. The photographs do not exist, old wounds have not reopened, farewell words remain unexpressed. Then again, destiny has a twisted way of mocking you, and your worst nightmares have already crawled out of your unconscious to slap you in the face. You can’t deny this happening; your world is about to experience apocalypse.
You try to save as much of yourself as you can by rewriting history. You delete numbers and stored messages, file pictures away, muffle theme songs, change wallpapers and screensavers, edit profiles. You prepare lessons, attend lectures, discuss ideologies and how these influence social conditions and stratify classes. However you vainly attempt to feign that the good things are here to stay, fact is, they are never bound to last.
While you learn your lesson the hard way, you also realize that your difficult times do not even matter in the wake of more difficult instances sprouting the world over. The US is back to its recession jitters after achieving a milestone in its political history. China executes market recalls of its life-threatening products. Global warming rapidly melts polar ice caps, soon flooding the low-lying terrains. Banks go bankrupt, workers get laid off, corruption worsens, hunger and illness rates sharpen from Latin America to Africa to Asia. Don’t even compare your personal tragedy with those of others; you have not been gang-raped, your shelter does not get demolished, you do not anguish over land-grabbing, ethnic displacement, police extortion, abused rights. You hurt and try to get over it all on your own, because life goes on no matter how you die a cruel death inside you.
When this side of the world sleeps, you stay awake. You think of him, wonder whether he loved you all these years, ask how your personal savior could ironically turn into your angel of death. In a few moments, you are reminded that your private destruction is not the end of this world, and he is sound asleep, his innocent beauty looming, his dreams quivering to life but without any more trace of you.

imagery

I am as good as blind
For faraway faces loom
Only when they arrive.
See what words have cost
These eyes, opening them
Only to close
In a while.
The riotous fireflowers atop the trees,
The glassed malls,
The aerial train hurtling past
Will in time escape the light.
But memory is an illuminating lover,
Bringing closer to my ears
The heartiness of your laughter
Warming in my touch
The lifepulse in your hand,
Educating me with
your Wired’s mild fragrance.
My future may not see you,
But other senses will conjure up your beauty
Just as well as the eyes do.

up bank heist: a postmortem

I earned enough from paper editing the previous week so that after my class, I headed straight to UP to pay for my tuition. Getting past the highway took me 15 minutes but the kilometric stretch from Old Balara to MWSS was agonizing in an hour-long traffic jam, so I grew anxious that the cashier would close just when it’s my turn in the queue to part with my money. My mind raced, scheming a hysterical scene in order for the tellers to accept my payment even past office hours. I left my krystal at home so I had no choice but to run in such a manner that would make Lydia de Vega and Elma Muros weep in frustration. Two minutes before the operations in the PNB wrapped up, I was all ready to treat myself to a twenty-peso (“twinkle” in gay parlance, according to Niño and Edwin) apple shake.
I was about to leave the fruit shake stall to buy isaw at Mang Larry’s when police sirens erupted in the air. Kibitzers started to speculate that the mobiles must be running after the holduppers of the bank. Which bank? Holduppers in UP? What are the UPD Police doing then? I could not trust hearsays, so I had to find for myself.
An online source revealed that hours before my arrival at UP, an armored van of the Philippine Veterans Bank branch located in Bahay ng Alumni was robbed, with the masked robbers peppering a teller and two security guards with bullets before fleeing with bags believed to contain money. This is the latest of the crimes I know of which have happened in the campus, the earlier ones including an Ikot jeep holdup in which a varsity, jumping out of the passenger seat in an effort to escape, smashed his head on the pavement and eventually died of hemorrhage. Another is the broad daylight holdup of a couple, the husband being stabbed dead. Hazing, rape, murder, all of these are disturbing, enough for the average person to want to have the campus tightly guarded by the police.
Here comes the problem: if the existing security force in UP would so much as get reinforcement from outside police, even perhaps the military, there is a great danger that the latter would just sow fear or, worse, human rights violations in the supposedly liberal academic community. Come to think: the outside society is actually peopled by the military and the police, and yet crimes are still perpetuated. The UPDP should just be strengthened instead of putting the state university at the mercy of repressive state apparatuses. I believe that the community values its freedom as much as it does its life.

kid brothers

The other day, while walking toward the school after taking my lunch, a bunch of street children came up to me, begging for loose change. All these boys looked no more than six years old, greased on their faces, their tattered clothes wet with sweat, phlegm and heaven knows what else. Something in their innocent look stirred a deep sadness within me, such that I found myself tagging them along as we crossed the road in the midst of flying jeepneys. I told them that instead of giving them alms, I would rather treat them to their first meal of the day (or, possibly, in days). Greatly overjoyed, they jumped in unison, as frogs would at the first drops of rain.
We went to a nearby food stop, where I ordered four solo meals of tapsilog. I thought that the combination of beef, fried rice and sunnyside up was not enough to make up for the meals they had skipped before, but the delight in their voices could not hide the pleasant surprise of being able to eat at last. I watched them as their tiny hands pushed the spoonful onto their mouths, chewing like famished goats, their wide eyes staring back at my face. The service crew filled the boys’ cups with icy water, which they gulped in between swallows of yolk-splattered rice. For a moment I feared that one of them would choke, throw up all he had eaten, or burst his full stomach. I encouraged them to take it easy, mapping their faces on my mind in order to write about them sometime soon.
And that sometime is now, when I try to unleash again from my memory the despairing looks of street kids who could have been my brothers, except that the accident of fate had drawn the line between my privilege and their lack of it. I could still hear their words—“Salamat!”—pronounced with sheer joy and sincerity as they left their seats grimy with their dirty bottoms. The tallest among them said they would have to cross the street again, and without so much as a breath they zigzagged their way through the traffic. When they reached the opposite lane, they let go of one another’s hand and, seeming choreographed, waved at me their soiled palms.

karlo sat beside you

“Ay, si Karlo!”, you succinctly blurt out, resembling a caller who heaves a sigh of relief upon eyeing the fragments “Local Call—Please Insert Coin” registered in the telephone booth at the Alumni. You start to behave restlessly as Karlo approaches your way, thereby you notice his cherry lips break into an adrenaline-pumping grin. You feel your little heart thumping like a resonating drum surface, sending an alert signal to your brain that you must edit whatever you tell him: “Hi, Karlo, Kumain ka na?” Not too fast. “O, Karlo, Kumusta ka ba?” Daring. “Pauwi ka yata, Karlo?” Detective-type. And you end up with nothing slipping from your looped tongue.
Next thing, you inspect yourself at the mirror in the SC comfort room (or shall I say discomfort room because of its usual untidiness and gift inconvenience?). You come face to face with your reflection, as if you act puzzled why you just can’t hire yourself as a cosmetics product model. Shifting your gloomy mood to a sprightly one, you breathe “Karlo…” complete with a big smile like that of the sinister Joker in the Batman series. Suddenly, you get astounded upon seeing Karlo’s image shaping from the foam of water spurting off the faucet. What, Karlo’s face?! This can’t be but, but it’s the handsome Karlo, no less!
You commence counting Karlo’s ivory teeth as you two sit side by side down the floor, he grinning widely. You point at his teeth one after another, reciting the immortal line “He loves me, he loves me not…” Just as you are finished, you realize that you last orate, “…he loves me not.” Disaster! In this perilous state, you weigh two schemes, both of which can toss your Lantern King between Scylla and Charybdis: loosen one of Karlo’s milky teeth or grow his wisdom tooth prematurely. No way, you assert, yet there is NO OTHER WAY. You poise yourself for one of the operations (good pun, isn’t it?) by gripping away one of Karlo’s left molars, that you may predict his honest feelings for you through his odd-numbered teeth. Then the Student Regent slams the CR (or DR) door open, and you regretfully advance the words “Goodbye, Karlo!” seeing his precious mirage slowly vanishing into thin air.
After witnessing Karlo disintegrate before your very eyes, you repeatedly punch the Regent’s swelling belly, rush an office resignation letter and fly to the market to order your hotdog substitute, Teriyaki.

matapos makawala

I went to the premiere of Joel Lamangan’s Walang Kawala, Director’s Cut in the UP Film Center with Pangga, anak ng Diyosa, Prinsesita ng Anak ng Diyosa and Gelli. Apart from seeing the place filled to bursting with gorgeous gay people, I chanced upon my good friends Ruel and Alfie. I was told recently by Ruel that Judy Ann will appear in the Christmas special of Maalaala Mo Kaya for which show he writes, so I badgered him into bringing me along to the taping so we could act as extras. I was already imagining that I’d have a confrontational scene with Juday inside a makeshift house or in the garbage dump or in the streets pockmarked with puddles of brackish water. Gelli insisted that first chance Maricel Soriano returns to MMK, he was willing to be an extra, too, even if it meant creeping along the mud and being made to shed a tear only with his left eye.
As for the film, it was a gay version of Maynila Sa Kuko ng Liwanag and had echoes of Macho Dancer. I was thinking that it would have been better if the plot largely relied on the forbidden love between two straight-identified men in their bucolic fishing village. It was ironic that the rural and city settings swapped pacing—the country setting were wrapped up in the first few minutes as opposed to the slower pacing in Manila. Meanwhile, the transfer to the urban location made the movie scream with commodification and objectification. The homoerotic scenes were, hmm, nakakabitin, hahaha. I recognized the gay bar as that managed by my friend Genesis; seeing the seductive macho dancers made me want to visit Planet Xanadu yet again. Emilio Garcia’s acting was terrific, Polo Ravales’ was good enough, Paolo Rivero’s should have been mined more, while Joseph Bitangcol’s and Althea Vega’s were deplorable. The film could have done away with Jean Garcia in playing the abusive cop’s wife’s character; she’s too fine to be a miscast. Anyway, sans everything, the love affair between Waldo and Joaquin was one that truly captures the gay experience: it goes against all the odds of the straight world. To quote Polo’s character: “Sasabog ang buong mundo kapag nalaman nila ang tungkol sa atin!”
Anyway, here are the photographs taken with the director and the night’s object of gay desire after his controversial frontal nudity, Marco Morales.

happy second anniversary, pangga!

Two years ago, our journey began…ooops, sounds like the ever too familiar “Ever After” by Bonnie Bailey (thanks for the homage, Carl!). But yes, it has been two years since I and Pangga became lovers. Who would have thought that the uneventful meeting to buy a Motorola phone would lead to this very special love, ha, Sarah Geronimo? As a tribute to this man who loves me for all my insanity, silliness and other such imperfections, I have written about statements straight from the horse’s, err, Pangga’s mouth, quotable for their hilarity that’s an essential element in our intimate relationship. Pangga, ILY, ikaw lang ‘yun, hitsura lang nina Piolo Pascual, Sam Milby at Richard Gutierrez.
1. “Answer all.”
Pangga’s translation of “Pakisagot lahat.” The need for space-saving in short message service has Pangga squeezing many questions in a single text, which case becomes a problem when his recipients answer only the last question. As a solution, he ends his text with that quotable reminder.
2. “Period lips.”
Pangga is fond of inserting emoticons like (-`.`-), (^-^) or (-.-) in his messages in order to convey his state of mind: feel-like-hugging in the first graphic, smiling boyishly in the second and sleep mode in the last. When I asked him to describe the last in verbal terms, he said, “period lips, hyphen eyes, parenthesis” complete with his lips reduced to a dot and his eyes to a pair of chink.
3. “Lupasay to the max.”
The campy scene of Luis Manzano in the movie Ang Cute ng Ina Mo gave Pangga the idea of describing his feeling of curling into a fetal position and throwing a fit when the stars contradict his way; for instance, in his repetitively unsuccessful registration in Globe Unlimited Text service.
4. “Eat muna bago play.”
While dining at KFC, I and Pangga overheard a mother telling her daughter to “eat muna bago play” in the fastfood’s playground area. Noticing the suggestiveness of the mother’s words, Pangga restated the same albeit in a seductive whisper.
5. “Cute pa naman, puti.”
This is in reference to African lion cubs whose mother abandoned them, a news report which Pangga told me about. Pangga is such a darling for supplying me with strange current events worldwide when I’m too busy to watch the evening newscast.
6. “Little Victory.”
Pangga uses this expression in the very rare times he wins his arguments or supplements information which may be hitherto unknown to me. While I argue that I am not competing against him, he claims that he feels insecure. My Pangga, tame your heart for you are the reason why I’m always a winner.
7. “Kinda kainis ang kambing!”
This came about when I asked Pangga of his personal assessment of the much-ballyhooed film Serbis wherein I appeared as, in yet another quotable by Pangga, an “international extra.” He insisted that instead of the sizzling scenes, the episode in which the whole cinema was distressed by the goat materializing from out of the blue was the one that’s gratuitous.
8. “Shhh! Mamaya na.”
During my 28th birthday, I agreed to meet Pangga in our unofficial meeting place in Megamall: the Booksale shop in the Lower Ground. Once there, I received contradictory messages from him like “Papunta na ako diyan,” “Nasa Cyberzone ako,” “Pababa na ako.” I tried calling him but his phone was out of reach. I grew ballistic more than anxious and when he informed me that he’s in a particular telecommunication shop swapping his mobile phone, I was silenced by his quote before I could even start my tirade.
9. “Tutungo ka lang kapag inaantok.”
Pardon the phallic overtone but this is Pangga’s advice when previous night’s deadlines are unforgiving and my sleeplessness defeats my willpower to stay awake during our movie dates.
10. “Plastikero!”
He accuses me of being insincere when I say, “Mas pogi ka naman kay Sam Milby/Piolo Pascual/Richard Gutierrez; bakit ba naging model ang mga ‘yun?” or when I assure him that it didn’t matter to me that these ex-flames are cum laude from UP-Diliman or that ex-boyfriend can pass for a matinee idol. ‘tsura lang nila. Hmp.
11. “Tabain naman ‘yun.”
Pangga always gets compliments that he resembles this or that male celebrity but when I reported to him that Niño said he looks like Geoff Eigenmann, he resented it, citing that the cute actor-host is in the brink of chubbiness. The term stuck and has become our expression every time a gym-going guy is in immediate view.
12. “Excited!”
One time when I and Pangga decided to sleep in a hotel, I tripped along the stairs, prompting him to exclaim the quote and the receptionist to let out her repressed giggles.
13. “Soulmates?Yakap!Gigil!Mwah!”
Whenever we coincidentally send messages to each other at the same time, Pangga would send the quoted words afterwards, in no particular order.
14. “Cute mo kasi blue eyes.”
Pangga consistently likes the color of my contact lenses, which are blue not because I harbor an illusion of looking like a Latina but because my friend Troy ran out of colorless pairs for delivery. Pangga goes on to tease me that my eyes are “blue sa umaga, brown sa gabi at red ‘pag puyat. Mwah.”
15. “Lab, nagkakapalit na tayo a. O nagkakapantay-pantay na tayo: nagiging beast and beast na.”
I always joke that Pangga and I represent the Beauty and the Beast, respectively. However, he gains weight lately, causing him to be flabby at the chin and at the belly while I amazingly get proposals from a gay website and from the bar I once accompanied Partyphile and Miss Ghana to. Whatever is happening, Pangga will always be my only one, for better or for worse appearance. Basta Pangga ha, let me enroll in a gym na.:)

pogi spotting during up enrollment

My first day of teaching for this semester ended at 3 PM so I had to rush from the obscure college going to the state university for my enrollment. Kuya George informed me that the enlistment started Monday, when I was just reading a Caribbean novel—Niño’s favorite subject: an exotic adventure involving endangered frogs—owing to the enervating bed weather. RR and Eric sent me off to a jeep in which Kenneth was actually on board. Since I noticed that the tattooed barker sitting next to the driver is ruggedly handsome, I jumped onto the front seat instead of joining Kenneth at the back passenger seats. The artworks in the barker’s skin failed to cloak the lovelier art form that is the barker’s masculine physique. Too bad that my phone could not shoot at a strategic angle; I would come on too strong if I so much as take pictures from the windshield.
The same thing happened inside the campus: I would come across stunning creatures from Palma Hall to the Faculty Center. Beauties from the schoolboy type to the gymbuff kind flourished from the Sunken Garden to the new CAL building to the English Department. Why was there a dramatic increase in pogi visibility in UP-Diliman? Easy: it’s enrollment; the rest of the sem, most of these charming geeks would be tucked away in the library or in their respective colleges, hidden among piles of books. Again, I must forego the chance of immortalizing them in the annals of cyberspace because my right hand carried my laptop while my left gripped my Form 5.
Before heading back to the Graduate Studies Office, I accompanied my classmate Grace in taking a quick merienda at the canteen. She said she’s teaching World Literature anew so I asked her choice of texts and the reason for such. Unlike my manner of choosing masterpieces by way of geography, hers is by mode of production, so the classical Greeks and the obviously Marxist writings are included. I revealed to her that I admire her for staying in UP despite the meager pay if only to teach future social agents. I soon became reminded of my brilliant friends like Canifer, Claudette, Melanie, and Carl who had to leave for Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, respectively, because the Philippines cannot offer wider economic viability that will make the home-based Filipinos think twice about joining the diaspora.
While waiting for my adviser, I got to chat with my favorite Comparative Literature professor, Dr. Preachy. I thanked her for the many things she had done for me, most especially for the lessons in literary theory, criticism and studies which I got to pass on to my own students. I told her too how many of my friends marveled at the way she makes a commanding presence in literary conferences. Smiling as ever, she informed me to use my entitlement to the Diliman Review because new studies by Dr. Jing and Dr. Pison were anthologized there. For a moment I thought she would break the good news that my own writing in her Feminist Perspectives class, a performative analysis of Danton Remoto’s essays, had already seen the light of day. Well, patience is a virtue.
The good news arrived at a latter time: my adviser consulted my checklist and disclosed that I only need one more seminar course and my language requirement before I could start writing my thesis. I got excited at the prospect of taking just one more subject and of learning Spanish prior to embarking on my postcolonial-queer intersections in Philippine Gay Literature in English. The Latina in me wanted to do a continuous cartwheel from the FC lobby to Philcoa, momentarily careless about pogi-spotting.

another peek from the rear window

the rear window proves to be a strategic site for gazing with these photos of another albeit less good-looking lad from the billiard hall. tank top kung tank top ang labanan!:)

down with masswork!

A hot day, isn’t it? The 2:00 PM sun teasingly blasts its infernal rays and all because it’s a rather scorching sensation you get under such a hellish circumstance, you prefer staying inside your room hanging around with your co-residents than strolling in the warm university outskirts during a very unholy hour. Nonetheless, you Karlo, struck by a bizarre enthusiasm to labor on the dorm’s “co-curricular activity,” pretty well consider rendering your monthly mass work that’s to reduce the bushy Golden Dorado to a mushroom-shaped bonsai. That so, you approach the person in-charge and, practically equipped like Rambo with your scythe, rake, broomstick and trash bin, you proceed to your cleaning assignment midway of your dorm and the bachelors’ pad.
Like paid-for slaves, you along with your fellow mass workers are being briskly commanded again by that human-assuming penguin and are all in the sheer conspiracy of drowning him in a lake of yellowed leaves, cut weeds and grafted twigs. You annoyingly hear the master monotonously yell, “Karlo, bunutin mo lahat na nasa sukal!”, “O, ikaw, Karlo, magdamo ka dito!”, “Walang Lantern King-Lantern King sa akin: itambak mo ito sa basurahan!” “Fine!” you furtively retort, rubbing away the penguin’s acid saliva that has spattered on your unblemished skin. “I don’t carry with me the sash that guarantees my title, okay? Wala rin naman akong suot na korona, a!” You murmur bitingly while picking the fallen Talisay trunk which you nearly hurl straight into the S.A.’s (Singular Adversary) definite direction.
Sweating copiously from the temple down to your chest, you quietly sweep the tattered grass area while oblivious of the gals intentionally strutting to and fro only to capture a picture or your boyishness. You don’t care anymore than just offer finishing touches to your toiled-for tidying designation, as your head begins aching severely by the moment your job is almost done. Before you can hold it, the nut-cracking pain has traveled all over your torso, so you automatically stop enacting an early penitensiya. You seize your garden ornaments then start back to your room, leaving the notorious guard cursing you for improperly dumping the dirt you collected.
When the penguin continues provoking you amid your rest, you fling him out of the door and immediately visit the Infirmary’s on-duty nurses to report your delirium, only to be handed two long expired Diatabs tablet.

on nicomachean ethics

In Nicomachean Ethics Book I, Chapter 1, Aristotle declared that “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.” In other words, the activities humans engage in are aimed at some end that is considered good. The inference that there is a single Good at which everything aims is valid because human activities are only means to the ultimate activity that is the highest human good. Said to be happiness, this idea of the highest end for all human behavior has the ethical advantage once accepted because humans will pursue happiness not as a means to an end but already as an end in itself. By seeking happiness for its own sake, humans will be guided by Ethics on how best to attain it.
According to Aristotle, eudamonia is a person’s goal in life and if the person pursues it correctly, he lives well because he behaves virtuously, or acts with virtues for motivation. As mentioned above, eudaimonia is sought for its own sake instead of as a means to an end. In Book I, Chapter 4, happiness is deemed the ultimate goal of a human life. This implies that it cannot be temporary, suggesting too that it takes a lifetime full of virtuous actions to be able to achieve happiness. There is no guarantee of attained happiness until one dies, as stated in Book I, Chapter 9, when others are able to assess whether that faded life ha been happy during its earthbound existence. This eudaimonia is complemented by good fortune because not all people, however virtuous, gain it—they are in fact denied it because good fortune delivers the goods needed albeit insufficiently for a happy life.
The study of Ethics, nonetheless, is not necessarily precise because many things depend on specific contexts. Hence, in Book I, Chapter 3 and Book II, Chapter 2, Aristotle stated that such interrogation is not precise, at best, since virtue is not a rational set of laws but a set of internal dispositions. Therefore, looking for “too much precision” becomes impossible given the lack of absolute laws of conduct to be followed confidently. As said, specific contexts change from situation to situation, so there are no fixed rules but only observed right conduct that resides between two extremes: excess and deficiency. This virtue residing in the middle of such extremes is a mean that changes from one person to another, so absolute rules do not exist regarding the happiness attained by a person who has the natural disposition to behave in a right manner.
Aristotle emphasized recurrently that ethical virtues are imbued through habit rather than by words. A person acquires them via good ethical teaching and once one has imbibed them, one is ready to appreciate the philosophical reflections. Hence, ethical lectures will only be wasted on the young, according to Book I, Chapter 3. It is easy for a non-virtuous man to look like he is otherwise, because he can readily pass for a virtuous one just by imitating the latter’s words somewhat sincerely, and he does believe he is capable of believing his words. The capability, nonetheless, is not as deep as a genuinely virtuous person’s. The youth may have heard words on ethical arguments compelling enough to believe in but not adequate to teach the underpinned principles. One’s soul cannot obtain the words only by listening and believing in them. One must inculcate the ethical words by recurrent actions only, through a continuous ethical learning.
Making a lot of money is not in itself the good life because that human activity is only a means to other ends like having the material capacity to buy things, being mobile and becoming influential. Hence, making money is not teleological, or end-directed. The ultimate human good is not fulfilled until the activity of making money uses yet another means to get to happiness. Besides, making money connotes success and fulfillment on the material level only, so people who become happy with it is just happy because they possess an imperfect look at the good life. A Perfect view of a good life states what a happy life is composed of, and people who find happiness at making money runs the danger of having virtue deficiency, leading to their detour from the true meaning of happiness.
The good life is necessarily the rational life because when one thinks of putting himself in the midst of the mean of two extremes instead of the deficiency or excess itself, one is reasoning that he cannot afford to be involved in the bad behavior of vice. Instead, he reasons that the only way is to be virtuous since this is what will bring him happiness, success and contentment. Reason means being prudent in placing oneself in one’s relative middle ground, aware of the instructions made on him about logos and practicing the same in the right manner in the right time in the presence of the right people in the right circumstances. An activity is rational when it is thought of prudently, with consciousness that one should not go toward either extreme for fear of falling into a vice. There is an awareness that the end goal should be happiness, which should not be used any more as a means to get somewhere else. Virtues are rational because they are mental dispositions regarding which actions right actions and emotions should be performed by one.
Book II, Chapter 6 states that virtue is “a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it.” The Greek original “arete” is close to the meaning of “excellence,” because they refer not only to one’s moral and intellectual virtues, but also to any other type of excellence. It is a natural disposition wherein one resides in a mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess, as stressed in Book II. Also, it is exclusive to humans who may excel in things that animals, plants and objects cannot. The virtues of thought (intellectual, wisdom, sophia, intelligence) and those of character (moral virtues) are acquired via indoctrination and over time through constant practice, in that order. While all humans have potentials of becoming morally virtuous at birth, the training to be virtuous rests on their behavior.
As already mentioned above, virtue is the mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess. It changes from one person to another, so it rests on one’s observation to check whether there is lack or much of a good thing. A person’s balanced state means his body temperature is neither too hot nor too cold. This perfectly analogizes ethics in that a character should not reach the extremes because equilibrium has everything right, from feelings to time to things to people to end to way. Also, the mean to be pursued must be relative to people. Because mean changes from person to person, it means there is a relative mean for everybody. Lastly, all virtues may be found in the middle of two vices. Hence, it represents the mean that mediates the two extremes of vices. If all these things are done in proper moderation, then a person lives a virtuous, happy life.
Modesty is the mean between meekness and arrogance. If one is humble by habit, one is found in the middle of being too meek that one is not prodded into participation and of being too arrogant that one gets to annoy everybody around. One should neither be too meek nor too arrogant, because these extremes will leave someone socially unacceptable. With moderation, one can be modest and win friends in effect because people will like one for being approachable, and for being conscious of what he knows and owns without necessarily flaunting these.
Pride is the right to claim what is due a person. It means having the correct disposition over honor and knowledge of what one is due. Pride is not a vice because its one extreme, humility, can turn false because it does not seem to want the honor due a person. The other extreme, vanity, causes a person to boast what one already has without waiting for others to heap on that person what is due him. Vice involves willing bad behavior, and since pride is far from turning into false humility or into boastfulness (being in the just state—the mean), it can only be a virtue whose practice is done in goodness.