Kidapawan City Short Stories

Six
Kidapawan
Short Stories
Karlo Antonio Galay David
A Compilation for Learners

Six Kidapawan Short Stories Karlo Antonio Galay David
© 2020
This collection was compiled strictly for educational purposes
All copyrights reserved to Karlo Antonio Galay David. None of these works may be reproduced for commercial
purposes without express permission from the author. Derivative works based on these works will only be allowed for
purely educational purposes and if the author is provided copies of the derived works.
Cover photo of downtown Kidapawan in 1967, courtesy of the Evangelista Family collection.
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Six
Kidapawan
Short Stories
A Compilation for Learners
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Table of Contents
Introduction ~ p. 4
Basic Information about the Stories ~ p.5
Basic Information about the Author ~ p.6
Kei by the Stream ~ p.8
Touch Move ~ p.16
Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit ~ p.30
Familiaris ~ p. 34
Lahadda ~ p. 70
What It Means to Choke in Silence ~ p. 94
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Introduction
Readers in Kidapawan should be reading fiction about Kidapawan.
As a fictionist whose family has lived in Kidapawan for five generations, I let this statement guide my literary
pursuit. The vast majority of my short stories, published or unpublished alike, are set in and introspect into
the realities of my hometown, this great city of springs, each one written with the people of Kidapawan in
mind as readers.
Gathered in this compilation are six such stories. They vary in length, subject matter, and even language
medium. And because they were written at various times within a period of over ten years, they also vary in
style and quality. The earliest of these stories, Kei by the Stream, was written in 2009, when I was still a student
(the version that appears here has been slightly corrected in several parts from the published version). The
latest, Lahadda, was written a full decade later, after some years of graduate studies in creative writing,
teaching, and research into Kidapawan history. Some have yet to be published, while one has seen print
internationally.
This compilation was made primarily for the use of students and teachers of literature. Information pertinent
to the stories that would be needed in such subjects as 21st Century Philippine Literature from the Regions in
Senior High School (Lit 12) are provided. Some personal information is also provided (as may be needed in
EN12Lit-Ib-22). But it is nevertheless also hoped that more casual readers, specially from Kidapawan, will
pick it up and enjoy it.
Trying my best not to be too authorial, I also provide guide questions to each story which I hope would lead
into deeper discussion of my works both following Lit 12’s Standards and Competencies and pursuing what I
hope would be a more real understanding and appreciation of Kidapawan and its realities. I formed these
questions not only as the author of the stories, but also as someone with years of experience teaching
literature on the tertiary level. Teachers, learners, and readers are free to use them as needed.
It is my hope that this compilation, made available online for free to all with a decent internet connection, will
make my works more accessible to those who need it, specially readers in Kidapawan.
There is no greater consummation of literature than for it to be read by the people for whom it was written.
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Basic Information about the Stories
Title of the Subject Matters Language Medium Setting Publication History

Story
Kei by the Magical Realism, English Singao, Apo Published in Dagmay, Literary
Stream Coming of Age, Sandawa Homes Journal of the Davao Writers
Folklore, Domestic Phase 2 Guild, 12 September 2010
Violence
Touch Move Kidapawan Politics, Kidapawan Poblacion, Published in The Cotabato
Autism Tagalog Magsaysay, Paco Literary Journal 2013
Blessed Are Experimental fiction, English Apo Sandawa Unpublished (available on
the Poor in Modernism, Sex Homes Phase 1, Wattpad for free)
Spirit Abuse, Inter-ethnic Saging, Makilala,
relations in Bartolaba
Mindanao, Moral
Relativism
Familiaris Pet Ownership, English (with New Bohol, Unpublished (available on
Kidapawan History, Kidapawan Linangkob, Wattpad for free)
Folklore Cebuano, Lanao
Kidapawan
Tagalog, and
Davao Tagalog
dialogue)
Lahadda Kidapawan History, English Pilot Central Short Story representing the
Social Realism, Moro Elementary Philippines in I Was Born to Be
history, Inter-ethnic School, Alim Yours: 2019 ASEAN Short Story
relations in Street, Sitio Anthology (Thai Ministry of
Mindanao, Palera i Perez Culture and the Writers
Mindanao Cuisines Association of Thailand),
translated to Thai
What It Kidapawan History, English NDKC (c. Published in Banaag Diwa,
Means to Sex Abuse in 1970s) Student Literary Folio of the
Choke in Schools Ateneo de Davao University
Silence 2015
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Basic Information about the Author
Name: Karlo Antonio Galay David
Place of Birth: Davao City
Hometown: Kidapawan City, North Cotabato ( Brgy Lanao)
Email address: karlo.antonio.david@gmail.com
Awards:
- 2014 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (2 nd Place, One Act Play in English)
- 2013 Nick Joaquin Literary Awards (2nd Place, Fiction)
Educational Background:
- Master of Arts in English with Concentration in Creative Writing, Silliman University (graduated
2015)
- Bachelor of Arts in English, Ateneo de Davao University (graduate 2012, cum laude)
- High School, Notre Dame of Kidapawan College (graduated 2008)
- Elementary, Notre Dame of Kidapawan College (graduated 2004)
Noted Publications:
- I Was Born to be Yours: 2019 ASEAN Anthology of Short Stories (Bangkok, Thailand, 2019)
- Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong, 2018)
- Manila Bulletin (2019)
- Business Mirror (2019)
- Kritika Kultura (Ateneo de Manila University, 2015)
- Tambara: Academic Journal of the Ateneo de Davao University (Davao City, 2015)
- Bisaya Magazine (Cebu City, 2013)
- The Silliman Journal (Dumaguete City, 2013)
Writers’ Workshop Fellowships :
- Silliman National Writers Workshop (Dumaguete City, 2012)

- Iyas Creative Writing Workshop (Bacolod City, 2012)
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The stories that appear in this collection are works of Settler fiction.
They are not intended to reflect the worldviews of the Lumad and Moro cultures
which they may depict.
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Kei By the Stream
I discovered that stream while wandering through the woods of Singao, just beyond our house, the last house
of Apo Sandawa Phase 2. As a little girl, the forest was my playground.
It was a small stream in a shady clearing, barely larger than my arms outstretched, just a few inches above my
ankle. In and along it were stones of different sizes. I would go there before going to school in the morning
and after coming home. I kept it clean by picking up and burying the dried leaves and rearranging the stones
that seem out of place.
No one else knew about it, and it became the secret center of my love for the forest. If I wasn’t in school or
at home doing chores, I was by its banks, where I read or just listened to the sound of the gushing water.
I was in early sixth grade, just twelve years old, when I first met him.
On a mild Saturday morning, when one of those fog spells that used to cast themselves upon Kidapawan was
floating about the sunless air, I went to the stream as I usually did at that time of day. I had with me a book
on Philippine mythology that a classmate had lent me.
To my surprise, someone was bathing in the stream when I arrived. The bather was a boy of around my age.
When I arrived, his back was turned away from me, but he faced towards me the moment he realized my
presence.
He was naked.
Quickly, I turned away and said sorry. With more excuses and apologies, I took my leave and left.
Even after I got home, I couldn’t get my mind off him. His skin, I remembered was pale and almost cloud-
like. His lips were thin and smooth, forming a passive frown. The expression on his face, framed by shoulder
length black hair was cold and otherworldly.
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I wondered who he was, and concluded that he must have been a son of some resident in Phase 2. But why
hadn’t I seen him before? Perhaps, I thought, he went to NDKC, so there was little chance I could have met
him…
I returned the next day. Because I was not able to clean the stream the day before, there were more leaves
than usual and one of the large stones on the other side was out of place.
After cleaning the banks, I returned to the stone I called my “sitting stone” and began reading the book I
brought with me.
While reading about the few accounts about the Olimugkat and the Gamowhamow, the couple spirits in
Monuvu folklore who guarded the waters, I first heard his voice.
“That’s an interesting book…”
I looked up behind me, and there he was, standing: the boy from the day before. This time, he was wearing a
white shirt.
“It is!” I replied. “It’s about the gods and goddesses of Philippine tribes.”
He sat beside me with his knees folded. Then, he looked at the book, at the page I had left open.
He said at length: “I heard that in these parts, if the spirit Olimugkat hears you approach and you do not
appease him, you will see no fish in the water.”
And with that, he fell silent and stared at the stream.
Instead of reading, I too stared at the stream with him. The stream had many riffles, and there were deep
areas that formed pools.
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“I’m Lily.” I said.
“Kei.” He replied without looking at me. And we returned to our silence.
We remained that way for some time. It was quiet and calm, with only the stream’s delicate humming
breaking the stillness.
When the sun began to set, I stood up and excused myself. Mamang must’ve finished cooking dinner. He
nodded and said farewell.
For the next few months, he would be there whenever I arrived. He would be by the stream, sitting on that
stone, sometimes with his knees folded, sometimes with his legs crossed. I would come and clean the stream,
and he would help me by digging the shallow pit in which I would bury the leaves and twigs.
I brought the book on mythology with me for several months, and I would read a story with him every time I
went there. Often, he knew more about the myths and legends than was written in the book, and he would
tell me what he knew.
A day after we finished the book, I went to the stream. When we finished cleaning, we resumed our usual seat
on the large stone, and for some time, we fell into our shared silence.
Then, right around midday, he spoke.
“Do you think there are fish in this stream?”
He shook his head.
“Or any living things in it?” I added.
“Do you see any?” he replied. I shook my head.
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“I prefer it that way.” And I resumed my stare at the stream.
“But the banks have been rich with the leaves we’ve been burying.” He said, still staring at me. “Don’t you
think it would be better if we let plants start growing? Flowers wouldn’t be too bad.”
I looked at him again and he smiled back at me…
And his smile stayed on my mind up until that night. As I lay in bed, I imagined him, his skin pale as clouds,
his hair dark as night and his expression cold as the stream yet warm as the morning sun that made it sparkle.
Then, with the sound of the stream in my mind’s ear, it hit me: Kei was a boy, and he was handsome.
The sound of the stream echoed throughout the grove, while in my mind, his beauty lingered. Then, all I
knew, as I went through that grove, was that I wanted to be wet, terribly craving to be wet. And as I walked, I
was very much pleased that ahead water flowed. Then the image of the stream became Kei, but the desire
remained: I was pleased that with him water flowed also, and that I wanted to be wet with that water.
Then, with a delightful splash, I was drenched. And with gentle hands, he picked me up from the stream
stone by stone, for I was made of different stones, and in the middle of the stream, he made me into a cairn,
and sturdily I dripped with his water.
Then, I was underground, and everything was dark. Slowly, I emerged from underground as a seedling
growing on the banks of his stream, the warm coldness of his water giving me life. I looked at him, trying to
find any other life that dared share and defile his warm coldness with me. But I saw no fish and no living
thing in him, and I was pleased.
When I woke up that morning, I knew that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. Blushing with the previous night’s
ecstasy, I went to the stream.
I was a bit worried when I saw a discarded piece of some junk food wrapper drifting inside one enclosed pool
when I arrived. I picked it up and put it aside, noting to myself that I would take it home to dispose of it.
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When I saw Kei, he was sitting yet again on the stone.
When I asked if someone came to the clearing, he nodded in response without looking away from the stream.
I noticed a dark patch beside his left eye.
“What happened to that!?” I asked in alarm. “Are you okay? Does it still hurt?”
“It’s okay.” He said.
Taking his word, I sat beside him and looked at the stream as well. But we did not speak much on that day.
In the following days, I saw the stream grow dirtier as nearby families began throwing garbage in it. At first
we tried cleaning it, but the garbage kept increasing until it became impossible.
Kei was suffering more and more. Every time I went to the stream, I saw him with more bruises. At first, he
just shrugged it off as he helped me clean away the garbage. But as the days passed his bruises increased and
he grew more quiet.
And it did not help that I was growing busy with graduation.
One day, I arrived and to my horror, a large pile of garbage had been dumped on one end of the stream. To
make it worse, the cairn across had been demolished.
Kei was still on the stone, staring at the now dirty water. But when I came near him, I realized that he was
crying.
“What happened? Did someone hurt you?”
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He nodded.
“Who did it!? Did your parents do it to you?”
He nodded again, and I felt a profound sense of hopelessness. His parents were hurting him: I could not do
anything about it.
I fell on my knees beside him as his tears continued to fall. All I could do was embrace him and feel sorry for
him…
Then, we had to part.
A teacher offered me a scholarship in Davao. Of course, Mamang and Papang were delighted.
But I wasn’t too happy. Studying in Davao meant I would leave my hometown…and Kei.
But I could not do anything. Mamang and Papang urged me to take the scholarship, and I had no choice but
to listen to them.
So not without a heavy heart, I bade Kei farewell.
When I arrived at the stream, it was worse than ever. The garbage had increased. The water had turned grey.
It smelled terrible. And there was no hope of putting back the cairn together.
I approached Kei to explain to him my departure, but he did not respond. I never heard his voice again.
I felt helpless as I walked away. In a way that he did not know, he had touched me, and yet I could do
nothing while he was being destroyed…
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I did not return to Kidapawan for four years. The breaks were either very busy with outside activities or the
family had gone to Davao, so there was no need to go home.
But upon my graduation from High School, I immediately returned home rushing towards the stream.
When I reached it, it had run dry. In its place was garbage. Some of the trees had even been felled to make
room for refuse. The stream that had once meandered in my childhood had now become a dumpsite for the
baranggay.
It had ceased from flowing, but the life and soul it had given me continues to live on. I was a little girl when I
found that stream, and I still was one when I first met Kei. But, as I spent more time with him by that stream,
I found myself growing up until I realized that I wasn’t a little girl anymore.
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Guide Questions
1. Who do you think was Kei? Why did he start showing bruises?
2. Observe how Kei’s bruises started appearing around the same time the stream started to get dirty.
Do you think there is a correlation?
3. What were the narrator’s feelings for Kei? When she dreamt about him, she said she ‘wanted to be
wet with his water,’ and when she woke up she says she ‘realized she wasn’t a girl anymore.’ What do
these statements mean?
4. Why was the narrator happy when she saw that there was no fish in the river in her dream?
5. Are women in Kidapawan open about their sexuality?
6. What do you think happened to Kei in the end?
7. Does domestic violence happen in Kidapawan? Talk about your experiences with it.
8. There are references to Monuvu folklore in the story, but it is not mentioned if the narrator is
Monuvu. Do you think the supernatural of one culture also happens to those from other cultures?
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Touch Move
Gina-twist ko ang Rubik’s Cube pagpasok ni Dad sa sala. Pag-upo niya sa harap ko kalalim ng buntong-
hininga niya, halos hangak na. Nakabarong siya na green na may arabesque na design sa gitna. Kakagaling
lang siguro sa korte. Nagpiko siya ng likod palapit sa akin, nakapatong ang mga siko sa mga tuhod, at
nakatago ang bibig sa mga kamay na nakalabid ang mga daliri.
May tatanungin siya.
“Len, ayos ka daw ng upo be.” Hindi ito yung iritable na tono niya, ito yung malumanay. Gibaba ko ang
mga paa ko mula sa sofa, pero hindi ko giwala ang tingin ko sa Rubik’s Cube. Gisimula ko siya solve.
Nagbalik siya sandal sa upuan niya.
“Problema talaga yang lolo mo . . .”
Gihagisan niya ng tingin ang malaking picture ni Lolo sa ibabaw ng bookshelf ko sa kabilang gilid ng sala.
Ito yung masamang tingin, makitid ang mata, pero nagalisik, ganito yan pag galit ang tingin.
Yan si Lolo ko. Jaime Saavedra, tatlong beses governor ng North Cotabato. Noong panahon ni Marcos
gitawag siyang strong man ng Cotabato kay halos lahat ng pulitiko dito sa amin hawak niya.
Strong talaga yan siya noon, kahit ako matakot. Noong buhay pa siya, six pa ako, gipakita ako sa kanya ni
Dad sa big house sa River Park. Matagal na yun masyado, twenty na gud ako ngayon. Sabi niya pagkakita
sa akin, ano man itong anak mo Jerry, abnormal.
Natapos ko na ang Rubik’s Cube. 6.32 seconds.
Nakangiti si Dad, nakatingin sa Rubik’s Cube. A, dapat ako magtanong ano problema niya.
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“Bakit, Dad, ano problema?” tanong ko pagyakap ko sa kanya. Gawain man gud yan ni Dad pag may
problema, i-distract niya ang sarili niya. Minsan kailangan mo ulit i-remind sa kanya na may dapat pa siya
atupagin. Joke minsan ni Mom na sa kanya ko siguro nakuha itong sakit ko.
“Tulungan mo ulit ako, Len, ha . . .”
Tango lang din ako.
Six years, three months, four days ko na ito ginagawa. Nung una ko ito gigawa kakamatay lang ni Tito Pat
habang nakaupo na mayor ng Kidapawan. July 14. Tatlong bala sa dibdib, dead on arrival sa Madonna
Hospital. Nagplano si Tito Jojo na gamitin ang timing para magtakbo. Pero mainit pa ang dugo ng mga
rubber baron kay sila ginadiin ni Vice Mayor Balajadia na nagpapatay kay Tito Pat.
Nakasalampak din sa harap ko noon si Dad, yang pagod ang mukha niya. Siya ang gusto gawing campaign
manager at legal adviser ni Tito Jojo. Naga-Rubik’s Cube lang din ako.
Sa desperasyon daw yun sabi niya sa amin ni Mom pagkatapos. Gikwento niya sa akin ang nangyari tapos
gitanong niya ano daw gawin ko kung ako tanungin.
Ang tao parang Lego, ang mga kalagayan nila parang Rubik’s Cube, o kahit anong puzzle. Mga piyesa na
maiba mo ang kalagayan pag alam mo anohin sila pagposisyon. Posisyon lang talaga, posisyon.
“Bakit nagpunta sa Paco si Tito Pat, Dad?” Gibaba ko na ang Rubik’s Cube.
“Gipakiusapan siya ni Balajadia na magpunta doon sa ribbon cutting ng golf course sa Balindog na gi-
commitan niya pero hindi niya mapuntahan kay may meeting siya bigla with an investor sa Davao.”
“Si Balajadia malamang ang nagpapatay kay Tito Pat.” Nakataas na ang mga paa ko sa sofa, pero sa gulat
niya hindi ako napagalitan. “Pero walang evidence,” dagdag ko. “At mahirap, malakas si Balajadia, hawak
niya ang masa.”
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“So . . . so ano suggestion mo gawin natin, Len?” Unang beses yun na pagkatiwalaan ako ni Dad
magdesisyon, na sinali niya ako sa trabaho ng pamilya.
“Konsehal muna si Tito Jojo. Kausapin niyo ang mga may gomahan, ipaalam niyo na hindi sila ang
ginapagbintangan niyo. Isali niyo ang ikaunlad ng mga gomahan sa platform ni Tito Jojo.”
One year tapos manalo ni Tito Jojo pagkakonsehal, nagbalik si Dad sa harap ko. Nagabasa ako noon
tungkol sa Tagasatzung ng Switzerland. April 19.
“Hindi mataas ang ratings ni Tito Jojo . . .” Ulit, nagapalabas lang siya ng steam. Pero problema, at
kailangan ko i-solve.
Maalala ko pa, gikuha ko ang Rubik’s Cube, at ang Rubik’s Cube naging Kidapawan. Up, side, down, left,
right, left, right, right, left, center, up, down. Tapos sa loob ng ten seconds, naayos ko ulit ang
Kidapawan.
“Dapat may gulo sa Kidapawan. Land grabbing dito, summary killings doon. Lahat dapat gawing
kasalanan ni Mayor Balajadia. Si Tito Jojo ang lone voice na kokontra.”
Yung liwanag ng mukha na sabi sa mga libro, nakita ko sa mukha ni Dad. Mga ilang buwan tapos nun
leading sa surveys si Tito Jojo. Gibilhan niya ako ng Megaminx galing Europe.
Kahirap pala ng Megaminx, pero nakatulong yun, kay nung gigawa ko siyang Kidapawan, nahulaan ko
ano sunod gawin ni Balajadia.
November 27.
“Tayo ang gipagbintangan ni Balajadia sa gulo sa Mua-an!” Taranta yun sabi ng mga libro, galit na parang
nawawala.
“Ano nangyari, Dad?
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“Gipa-negotiate ni Tito Pat mo noon si Councilor Sirolo sa mga Manobo sa Mua-an na ibenta ang bahagi
ng ancestral domain nila kay Nonoy Lu ng Regal Suites Hotels para gawing hot springs resort. Nagpayag
na sila, nabigay na ang titulo kay Lu, pero pagkamatay ni Sirolo nagbago ang isip nila. Pero kay
negosyante man itong mga Lu wala silang pakialam, gipa-fence ang lupa. Ganito man din nangyari noon
sa kuya nito ni Lu sa Boracay ba . . . Ayan ngayon, ginademonyo ni Balajadia ang project at ginasabi niya
na si Tito Jojo ang may pakana lahat kay kasosyo sila noon ni Lu.”
“Daan pa lagi ako ganito . . . Dad, ipaliwanag niyo sa radyo ang prinsipyo ng contracts. Magbayad kayo ng
abogado na hindi kilalang kaibigan ni Tito Jojo.”
“Oo, ginaisip namin yun.”
“Tapos ikaw din magsalita ka rin sa radyo.”
“Ha? Ano din sabihin ko?”
“Na proposal lang yun ni Tito Pat. Si Balajadia ang nagmadali para mabango ang partido nila ni Tito Pat.
Nagpakamatay si Sirolo dahil sa stress, ’di ba?”
“Oo.”
“Idiin mo si Balajadia, sabihin mo dahil gi-pressure niya yung tao na ilapastangan ang tribo niya,
nagpakamatay siya. Ikaw na bahala na hindi slanderous.”
Mula noon naging spokesperson na si Dad ng pamilya. Natamaan si Balajadia, kaya gitigil niya ang atake.
Napatahimik ang mga Manobo ni Tito Jojo sa ilang projects.
Ngayon ang sabi ng mga katulong sa kusina tagilid daw ang kampanya ni Tito Jojo pagka-mayor. Pero
hindi ko makita bakit giproblema ni Dad si Lolo.
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“Ano pala gigawa ni Lolo, Dad?”
Kalalim na buntong hininga.
“May anak na naman siya sa labas lumitaw.”
Pang-ilan na ito nangyari. Lahat, ang suggestion ko bayaran o iligpit. Anohin mo man ang Lego na hindi
magamit kung hindi iligpit, maapakan mo pa lang, kasakit.
“Bayaran pala o iligpit gaya ng iba, Dad?”
“Mahirap ito . . . galing States, may marriage certificate daw siya ng nanay niya at ng lolo mo. Vegas
wedding lang gud, pero bago pa sila kinasal ni lola mo. Bakit niya tanggapin ang bayad kung lahat makuha
niya! At kung ipaligpit natin, halata masyado . . .”
“Hmm . . .” Pang-Megaminx ito na problema. Gikuha ko.
Up, side, down, left, right, left, right, right, left, center, up, down.
“Mag-uwi daw dito, Dad?”
“Daw. Kaka-email lang sa akin! Kakasabi ko lang kay Tito Jojo, hindi din niya alam ano gawin, tanungin
daw kita”
“Sunduin niyo sa Davao.”
“Ha?”
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“Tapos pag andito, i-welcome niyo. Wag niyo bigyan ng bahay, ipatuloy niyo muna sa isang bahay
natin—wag siguro sa big house, may mga picture ni lola dun, sabi sa mga libro insensitive yun. Bigyan
niyo rin ng driver at kotse.” Gihigpitan ko ang hawak ko sa Megaminx. “Tapos pag masaya na siya, isali
niyo sa kampanya ni Tito Jojo . . .”
Kabilis naintindihan ni Dad. Giyakap niya ako, at naglabas siya, malamang para tawagan si Tito Jojo.
Gusto ko man sana talaga makatulong sa pamilya ko, pero anohin man, kahirap makipag-usap sa ibang
tao. Alam ko gud pano sila magkilos, alam ko ano ibig sabihin ng kilos nila, pero kahirap pa rin. Minsan
dalhin-dalhin ako ni Tito Jojo sa mga campaign niya, pero para lang may cute na abnormal kasama, pang-
appeal sa mga may awa, para hindi din masyado malayo tingnan ang mga Saavedra. Pero mas makatulong
pa sa mismong kampanya sina Carmina at Dinah, yung mga pinsan ko. Pasalamat ako na sa ganitong isip-
isip ko makatulong ako sa kanila konti.
Kung hindi mag-solve ng puzzle or maggawa ng Lego, buong araw ako naga-basa-basa, libro man,
dyaryo, o internet. Kasarap magbasa ng history, lingaw sundan ang mga nagyari noon at tingnan pano sila
nakaapekto sa ngayon. Naging kalingawan na din ni Mom na bilhan ako ng dyaryo araw-araw galing sa
simbahan, o kahit ano bang reading material galing sa mga constituent work niya kasama si Tita Salud,
asawa ni Tito Jojo. Naging akin na ang sala, na laging puno ng Lego, mga puzzle, at libro. Minsan
madaganan ko ng libro ang iPad ko.
Pagpasok mo ng bahay namin ang makita mo agad sa vestibule isang malaki masyadong Lego na winding
staircase inclined 40 degrees na may malapad na tuktok. Kadaming gipadala na Lego ni Tito Margot
galing Germany, kaya gigawa ko yan. Ang title niya Absolute Destiny Apocalypse.
Kalingaw mag-Lego, para silang mga tao. Pag-ibahin mo ang posisyon, maiba ang kalagayan nila. Ka-
lagay-an. Yan. Kung ipag-halo-halo mo sila, iposisyon mo, makagawa ka ng gusto mong buo.
Pamilya lang ang iba, ewan bakit. Mas maintindihan sila, pero mas mahirap sila iposisyon. Alam ko na pag
giiba ko sila masali ako, kaya matakot ako, tsaka lain ang pakiramdam kung gawin ko yun. Kawawa na
makalungkot na makainis, pero sa sarili ako mainis. Ewan ko ano tawag dito na pakiramdam.
Mga tatlong araw tapos nun, August 11, nagsimula ako gawa ng malaking butterfly na Lego. Makulay
yung bagong gipadala na Lego ni Tita Margot (2,586 pieces na lahat ng Lego ko), naisip ko i-contrast
yung mga kulay. Red-black-black-white-yellow-red ba, tapos naisipan ko din paglaruan yung angles at
21
pagposisyon sa kanila, 2×3’s para makagawa ng bilog, incremental forward lengthwise 2×4’s para
concave, o 2×2’s incremental sideways para simple curve. Tapos naghalo ang kulay at angles at naging
butterfly. Naisipan ko gawin, 4.6 feet siya kataas maging.
Nasa antenna na ako nang pumasok si Dad.
May kasama siyang lalaki na hindi ko pa nakita.
“This is Lenny, my son. He made that Lego staircase there. Len, bless ka kay Tito Brandon.”
Nagtango lang ako.
“Len, wag bastos.”
Gibitawan ko ang gihawakan ko na Lego at naglapit sa kanila. Nag-bless ako kay Tito Brandon.
“What’re you making?” Cartoon Network masyado ang accent niya. Nakangiti siya habang nakatingin sa
butterfly. “A butterfly! Wow!”
“Opo.” At nagbalik ako ng trabaho. Narinig ko siya nagbulong sa sarili niya ng “It’s amazing.” Tapos nun
gi-tour siya ni Dad sa bahay.
Kinabukasan nun, natapos ko na ang butterfly, nakadisplay na siya sa vestibule. Ang title niya Chaos
Dream Metamorphosis.
Nagbalik yung Tito Brandon. Nasa sofa ako, naga-Rubik’s Cube.
May dala siyang chessboard. Hindi ko naisipan mag-chess, kaya ewan bakit nagdala siya. Habang patapos
na ako sa ginagawa ko, nag-upo siya sa harap ko.
22
“Hey, Len. Heard hindi ka marunong mag-chess.” Bakikaw masyado pakinggan ang Tagalog niya.
Nagtango lang din ako.
“Want me to teach you?”
Bitaw din, bakit hindi ko naisipan mag-chess? Gibaba ko ang Rubik’s Cube at nagtango. Napansin ko na
bigla nagliwanag ang mukha niya.
Gituruan niya ako ng mga pangalan ng piece: pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen, king. Tapos ang mga
galaw nila at paano sila magkain. Tapos gituruan niya ako pano mag-arrange.
Gitanong ko kung may notation ba ang chess. Sabi niya oo, ang grid kay a to h parehong side (a sa kaliwa
ng puti) tapos 1 to 8 (8 kay rook ng itim). Ang galaw ganun, pawn a4, queen d6. Mas madali kung ganun,
maisip mo ang posisyon.
“I have to teach you an important rule though,” sabi niya bago kami magsimula ng laro. “It’s called touch
move. Once you touch a piece, you have to move it, provided it’s allowed.”
“Kahirap pala.”
“Yes, so you have to be responsible with what you do.”
Paglaro namin ako itim siya puti. Nahirapan ako sa touch move. Ayoko magkamali, makatakot, makainis.
Parang yung pakiramdam habang kausap ko yung ibang tao. Alam ko na pag magkamali ako sira ang
usapan namin.
Pawn niya e4, knight ko f6, bishop ko b5 tapos kain ng bishop niya ang bishop ko d7 . . . Kahirap pa
masanay sa notation.
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Lamang siya konti lang, pero makita sa mukha niya na lingaw siya masyado. Ako man din enjoy.
Isang galaw at na-checkmate niya ako.
“Wow, ang galing mo. I”ve been playing for decades, you just learned, but I barely beat you!”
“One more round po.” At nagtawa siya pagsabi ko nun.
“Game!”
Habang nagalaro kami ginakausap niya ako. Mahirap, kaya ginapaulit ko ang gisabi niya pagkatapos ko
mag-move. Katagalan nasanay na siya, kausapin niya lang ako pag siya na ang magkilos. Makainis din kay
sa tanong niya ako mag-focus, mawala ako sa laro.
“You have any friends, Len?”
“No po. They get bored with me.” At sa bawat sagot ko magtawa siya. Hindi ko alam bakit pero hindi
makahiya kung tawanan niya ako.
Nakailang round kami. Sa pangatlo nasanay na ako, at nanalo ako sa fourth round. Pero kahirap pa rin
niya talunin. Gibigay niya sa akin ang chessboard, at nagpasalamat ako (dapat baya magpasalamat pag may
ibigay sa iyo). Sabi niya magbalik daw siya bukas.
Tapos nun nag-practice ako. Madali na masyado magposisyon, pero mahirap ang touch move. Alam ko
talaga na maling galaw lang mali na ang posisyon. Madali lang mag-isip ng solusyon sa mali, pero parang
bawat piece kapamilya ko, kawawa kung makain siya, masakit isipin. Makatakot isipin na maling galaw ko
lang makain yung piece. Pero kailangan maggalaw . . .
“Oo, Kuya, handa na . . . Nasa Manongol na si Leon . . . Oo, sniper, galing sa Davao . . . Ikaw na
magpasunod sa kanya? Sige, sige . . . Sige, Kuya.”
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Gibaba ni Dad ang phone niya. Rinig ko siya sa garden sa labas. Pumasok siya ulit sa sala at umupo sa
harap ko: kita sa mukha niya ang kaba. Nakatingin ako sa gigawa kong chess game.
Naghinga siya ng malalim.
“Sige, ’nak, alis muna ako.” Tapos niya ako giyakap nag-alis na siya.
Hindi ko ma-solve ang gi-set up kong scenario. Gikuha ko ang Rubik’s Cube para makaisip. Up, side,
down, left, right, left, right, right, left, center, up, down.
Mga tanghali nang dumating si Tito Brandon. Kalaki ng ngiti niya pagkakita niya na nakabukas ang
chessboard.
“That looks tough,” sabi niya pagkakita niya sa bagong problem na gi-set up ko.
Pag-upo niya gi-solve ko ang problem.
“Woah!” Tumawa siya.
“Let’s play!” at gi-arrange namin ang pieces. Ako ulit ang itim.
Nakailang rounds kami. Ako lagi panalo, nahanas ko na ang notation, so madali na masyado
magposisyon.
Pero para din kasing abala siya, na wala sa laro ang isip niya. Siguro nasa usapan namin: habang nagalaro
kasi kung ano-ano mapag-usapan namin—history ba, mga current affairs, pagkain, kahit ano. Kaya
katagal namin matapos kada laro, maggalaw lang kami kung tapos na ang isang topic.
Makapagtaka. Hindi man siya pamilya, pero para na siyang naging pamilya pag kausap ko. Siguro kasi nasa
laro ang isip ko, at nasanay na ako sa kanya sa gitna ng kada galaw.
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“Hey, Len, can I tell you something? Wag ka maingay sa Dad mo ha?”
Tiningnan ko siya nang patanong. Panglima na naming laro.
“I really thought when I got here your Dad and relatives would all hate me. Anak ako sa labas, remember.
From all I heard from my mother about your grandma and uncles, I really thought you’d be out to get rid
of me.” Nagtawa siya. “I kinda feel bad for thinking that now. Sinundo pa talaga ako ng Dad mo sa
Davao! To think my email to him was so terse.”
Anak sa labas? Get rid of him? Sinundo sa Davao? Hala!
“But I’m so glad I have a loving family pala. I came here really to try to get what my father never gave
me, and while I was thinking about property and all that, I did get something—a cool pamangkin like
you.” Nagtawa siya. “Wala na akong family back in the States since my mom died and my wife and kids
left me. But now I have someone to play chess with.” At gigulo niya ang buhok ko. Makita ko na basa
kaunti ang mga mata niya.
Nag-ring ang phone niya.
“Hey, Jo . . . Yeah, I’m at Jerry’s. Estanyol, right? Haha . . . Really? Wow, I’m honored. Yeah sure, I’d
love to! It’s near here? So the driver knows the place? Okay . . . I have to tell you, I don’t have any
experience campaigning! Yeah okay, okay . . . See you . . .”
Hindi ito pwede. Tito Brandon? Campaigning?
“Sorry, Len, Tito Jojo wants me to join his campaign. It’s at Manungol, how do you pronounce that?”
Tawa. “Though I don’t think I’ll win this game either.” Tiningnan niya ang laro namin. Nagtayo siya.
“See you later, Len!”
26
At umalis siya.
Hindi ako nakagalaw. Plano ko ito. Kasalanan ko ito. Dapat ako gumalaw. Pero hindi ako makagalaw,
takot ako sa bigat ng galaw ko.
Gusto ko tumayo pero hindi ko kaya. Alam ko dapat ko siya tawagin, pigilan, babalaan. Pero hindi ko
kaya. Hindi ko kaya gawin ang dapat ko gawin.
Wala na, nakaalis na ang sasakyan niya.
Hindi ako makaisip ng maayos. Kagulo ng isip ko. Ano dapat ko gawin?
Hindi makatulong ang ingay ng mga katulong sa kusina. Maya-maya gi-on nila ang radyo: maingay na
crowd.
“Mga higala, ania na ang atong gipaabot, ang maoy angay himuong mayor sa Kidapawan, ang inyong Jojo
Saavedra!” Palakpakan at hiyawan.
Ganito yun lahat. Yung mga giligpit ko para masira ang pangalan ni Balajadia, yung mga anak sa labas ni
Lolo, ganito yun sila lahat . . .
Kagulo ng isip ko, kailangan ko mag-isip. Kailangan ko mag-isip.
Nagsalita si Tito Jojo. May ipakilala daw siya sa mga tao. Dahil nga daw masipag ang tatay nila (tawa ang
crowd) maya-maya may bagong kapatid sumusulpot. Itong isa galing States, at mahal na mahal daw nila
na kapatid. Paki-welcome daw ang kanyang Kuya Brandon.
Palakpakan at hiyawan—at may biglang tuldok ng tunog ng hangin na ginasipsip, at nahaluan ang
hiyawan ng sigawan. Gulo. Pati ang mga katulong sa kusina nagkagulo.
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Kasalanan ko. Plano ko ito. Sa kusina, nagsimula na salita ang mga katulong gaya ng giplano ko: sigurado,
pakana ito ni Mayor Balajadia.
Naganginig ang kamay kong gikuha ang Megaminx. Kaingay ng isip ko.
Up, side, down, left, right, left, right, right, left, center, up, down . . . pero ayaw maalis ng ngiti ni Tito
Brandon sa isip ko.
Nabasa na ng luha ang tiles ng Megaminx, sa dulas nabitawan ko.
28
Guide Questions
1. What do you think is Lenny’s mental health condition?

2. Have you had experiences with people with this condition? Do you think Kidapawan is a friendly city
for its citizens with such medical conditions?
3. The Saavedras are depicted in the story as a political dynasty. Who are the political dynasties in
Kidapawan and North Cotabato and how did they come to power?
4. Lenny’s plot for Tito Brandon involves exploiting the ‘sympathy vote.’ Would his plot work? How
do you think voters in Kidapawan choose their candidates during elections?
5. The story ends with Lenny discovering Tito Brandon’s humanity. What has its impact been on him
considering the dramatic situation? Discuss this vis-à-vis the Greek literary concept of Catharsis.
6. The language used in this short story is Kidapawan Tagalog. How do you think it is different from
standard Manila Tagalog, aka Filipino?
7. Read up on the debate over the national language policy. What do you think is the place of
Kidapawan’s Tagalog in the discourse of Filipino and the national language? Should people in
Kidapawan be proud of their languages?
29
Blessed are the poor in spirit
Manong Inting Padecio may just be a poor tricycle driver and he may have many faults, but he always did his
best to make up for them by being a good father and husband.
Just before he put his pants back on, he peed on his tricyle’s front, thinking of his son Janmark. Smart boy, he
thought. He’s graduating this March from Pilot, and he and his wife were able to save just enough to send
him to Central Mindanao Colleges for high school. As he began digging up a pit to bury the bago-bo boy’s
dead body, he felt a surge of excitement at the thought of seeing his son wearing a toga.
When the pit was deep enough to fit the dead body snugly, he kicked it in and covered it with soil. Then he
looked around: this area of Baranggay Saguing, bordering Kidapawan and Makilala, is wild, uncultivated and
deserted land, and save for the moon and his tricycle’s headlight, it was dark. There was not a soul around.
He saw the little bago-bo, probably around eight to ten years old, peeing on a car parked outside a house in
Sandawa Phase 2 when he was about to garage his tricycle for the day. Chastising the little urchin, he dragged
it by the ear in scolding to his tricycle and had planned to take it to DSWD. But when he reached Central
Warehouse, he suddenly felt the itch for it, and seeing the dark skinned boy scowling beside him he could see
that the little indigent was already starting puberty.
So he talked the boy into a deal: he won’t take it to DSWD if the kid agreed to come with him. Afraid of
authority, the boy agreed.
The boy cooperated at first. In the overgrowth some way away from the highway in Saguing it agreed to take
off its shorts and have its penis sucked (it wasn’t difficult to get boys this age up). The boy even came – the
kid already had pubes as curly as the hair on his indigent head, but it seemed like that was the first ejaculation.
But when he asked the little botini to suck him, the kid refused. So he broke the boy’s neck and, still being
hard himself, relieved himself with the dead body’s mouth and anus. He was careful to come outside though
so he can clean after himself. By the time someone finds the body all his traces would have decayed. As if
anyone would look for a little bago-bo.
30
‘Nong Inting was experienced enough to clean after himself. On his way back to downtown Kidapawan he
made a detour to Riverpark, where he found a dark corner to leave the shovel (he always left his shovel
somewhere far from the spot every time he did this).
On the way back home he started feeling guilty again. Whenever he enjoyed little pleasures like this – with a
few shots of Tanduay or, in spite of his wife hating the smell of it a few sticks of Fortune – he always felt bad
for enjoying something he didn’t think he deserved.
But a bit of good will always justify gratifications, he remembered his late father once telling him. When he
was alive, the man had been an unemployed drunkard whose frequent beating of his wife and effeminate son
had often disturbed their neighbourhood in Baranggay Perez, and yet as Nong Inting grew up he always
remembered his father around a circle of no less than five fellow tambays outside a sari-sari store laughing
over Kulafu.
The man really did nothing for a living (his mother did the laundry to support them), so he thought if the oaf
was allowed to enjoy some moment of gratification for himself, he, ‘nong Inting, who worked so hard for his
wife and son as a tricycle driver would deserve it even more.
But so he won’t feel too bad he thought he ought to do something a little extra. Yes, maybe a dog. Poor
Junmark always loved playing with the askals that their Ilocano neighbour Minyong was raising for adobo.
Tricycle driving in Kidapawan made very little, but maybe he can scrape some for one of those mongrel
puppies they sell in Mega.
When he arrived at their shabby little house in Bartolaba, he was surprised to see that the house lights were
still on. It was already nine in the evening, and he had texted his wife he will be having dinner out because he
had a passenger to Balindog (the other extreme end of the city from Saguing). He had expected his wife and
son to be asleep now. Jumark came out from the door when he heard the tricycle and greeted ‘nong Inting
with a mano. When he asked the boy why they were still awake the boy did not answer, but he noticed a faint
smile on his son’s face.
When he entered the house, the wife was watching television, but it was obvious both she and Junmark had
been waiting for him to get home.
The wife could not control herself. She told their son to tell him the news.
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Junmark seemed at first to struggle finding the words. But it did not take him long to blurt it out – Pa, he
said, his voice trembling. The Principal told me this afternoon. I will be graduating valedictorian.
Tears began welling in ‘nong Inting’s eyes as he hugged his son and muttered thanks to Lord Jesus for the
fortune and blessings they had received. For all his faults and shortcomings as a person, thought ‘nong Inting,
God can be so generous.
32
Guide Questions
1. Was Manong Inting Padecio a good man? Explain.

2. Why is Manong Inting able to do what he did?
3. How does the story complicate the concept of goodness and a ‘happy ending’?
4. Why do you think the story was given the title it has?
5. The narrator describes the boy who was raped and murdered as ‘a bago-bo’ and ‘botini.’ After
reading up on the term ‘Bagobo’ and the ethnocultural reality of Kidapawan, do you think the boy
really was a ‘bago-bo’?
6. The boy is treated in the story as if he were an object, with the pronoun ‘it’ being used instead of
‘him.’ How do you think does Manong Inting’s labelling of him as ‘bago-bo’ play into this
objectification?
7. Read up on the history of the word ‘botini.’ Discuss the inter-ethnic relations and discrimination
between the different ethnicities in Kidapawan. Discuss your own experience of discrimination and
racism in the town.
8. The story is a piece of Flash Fiction, much shorter than the other stories. What do you think is the
difference between Flash Fiction and other short stories?
33
Familiaris
‘…You, who are almost invisible,
chanced upon, vanishing
and sometimes reappearing perhaps
the same and not the same…’
- Rita Gadi, ‘Kidapawan in my Heart’
It was so easy to lose hope of ever finding Lulu here in the middle of Kidapawan’s barren plains.
The sheer otherness of the whole place was overwhelming. I could not recognize it anymore. I was traversing
New Bohol, this remote barrio at the edge of Kidapawan just to find an old dog – to find any bit of the life I
had once lived here in Kidapawan. But no hope could grow on these cracked rice fields, fields that I could
really no longer remember.
Tikboy asked to stop because he needed to pee, so I parked the Innova under an Acacia tree along the road.
We went down, and while Tikboy peed, I looked around.
We would pass by here on the way to Linangkob when it was fiesta there when I was young, to visit our
farmhand ‘Nong Ondo. It was often just me and Lolo (Mama did not want to be the subject of gossip, and
good luck trying to bring Lola and Tita Susan to the farm). I was still in fifth grade when I last found myself
in these parts of Kidapawan – I really could not recognize the place anymore. I had to bring Tikboy, helper in
Tita Susan’s house and ‘Nong Ondo’s neighbour in Linangkob. Without him I would not know the way.
A brown mongrel dog emerged from under the Nipa hut across the road. She was a lactating mother, and
tagging along behind her was a single puppy. As she walked, the puppy was trying to suckle. But before long
the puppy got bored of chasing its mother, and it started to cross the empty road.
I couldn’t help myself. I crossed the road and picked it up, worried it might get hurt from a passing vehicle.
When I got to the other side of the road, the mother dog began barking – I did not need to knock. A young
girl looked out from the window from inside the hut.
34
‘Day, inyong itoy,’ I showed her the puppy in my hands, ‘maligsan ni.’ The little girl went down to the
doorway to get the puppy back.
Before I gave it to her, I put my nose against its nose. The puppy licked me. I always thought the breath of
puppies smelled like mushrooms.
‘Unsay ngalan?’ I asked the girl.
‘Letty,’ she answered.
‘Ang itoy ba, lalaki man ni.’ Letty smiled in amusement.
‘Tweetie.’
‘Tweetie nga laki!’ and this time she laughed. I gave Tweetie back to her and said goodbye before I went back
to the car.
On the car as we drove on I trembled, yearning for Lulu. Oh what I would give to have her back.
We continued to cross New Bohol, past the endless rice fields. Kidapawan had always been dull like this:
empty plains of rice and corn, wilderness or overgrown rubber groves at the foot of Mt Apo, dusty roads
down Poblacion.
Dull and empty: it was so easy to invent memories here.
‘Unsay diay ‘tong iro imong gipangita kuya?’ Tikboy found the silence in the car awkward.
‘Aw, iro nako sa una, gipatago namo kila ‘Nong Ondo ‘tong nibalhin me’g Davao. Grade six pa ko ato.’ Tita
Susan had given Lulu away, but I chose to think she was just temporarily put under ‘Nong Ondo’s care.
35
‘Patay na siguro ‘to kuya uy..’
I didn’t answer. That stung.
But then, after a moment of silence, he spoke again. ‘Gipangita gyud nimo kuya ‘no...’ He had realized after
all.
‘Aw, o,’ I picked up the conversation again, ‘dugay na nako ‘to gusto kuhaon, karong ra gyud ko kalugar’
‘Ngano diay kuya?’
‘Ay karon ra ko kabalay, sa una man gud condo among gipuy-an.’
‘Kuan ba, ngano’ng kato gyu’ng iroa? Palit na lang diay mo’g bag-o.’
There were so many reasons why the question was difficult to answer. Do you really need to explain love?
And how would you explain it?
And even if there was a reason, why must we always have to invent another reason just to be understood...?
‘Dili ‘to basta basta’ng iroa uy......’ Bitaw, that’s true. Lulu was no ordinary dog for me. She was my dog.
‘Ngano diay, kuya?’
I stopped myself from sighing. I really had to explain after all.
36
I was saddened at Tikboy – at his generation, at my generation, at my mother’s generation, and all the
generations of worthless people who were born in this god-forsaken place.
But I had prepared myself for a situation like this already, I and Alana had prepared for this.
Why did I go all the way back to Kidapawan just to look for a dog who was probably dead by now?
For questions like that, the truth was worth nothing, because here in Kidapawan, love is worth nothing as a
reason.
‘Pero instead na magalit ka at mangaway,’ Alana told me, ‘turuan mo na lang sila.’
‘Pano ko man din sila turuan, be?’
‘You lie. If hindi nila maappreciate ang facts, mugna ka ng facts, para maintindihan nila ang truth...’
And so I tell Tikboy a story.
‘Kuyaw ‘tog family tree among mga iro sa una, panahon pa ‘to sa among mga ninuno, gipasagdaan lagi sa
akong mga anti, buanga. Katong akong iro – si Lulu – mao na lang siguro’y nabilin sa ilang kaliwat. Naa na’y
istorya ang kaliwat sa among mga iro, saysay ra pud sa akong lolo.’
Tikboy was curious. ‘Unsay istorya, kuya?’
And as we crossed the river and entered a coconut grove where Linangkob began (I didn’t remember that
either, there was a sign that said ‘Welcome to Brgy. Linangkob’), I told him the legend I told myself and made
myself believe when I was young...
In the middle of a coconut grove a long, long time ago, before the Spanish even came to Kidapawan, stood
the Torogan of my ancestor, Datu Linangkob. He was a powerful ruler, Datu Linangkob, the king of
37
Kidapawan, and he ruled as far as Pikit. He was a capable and kind ruler, and even the gods of the mountain
favoured him.
‘Nasaag si Datu Linangkob sa Mt Apo usa ka adlaw samtang nangita siya’g baboy ihalas sa kagubatan,’ I told
Tikboy. The kid was listening in rapt attention.
And indeed Datu Linangkob found himself lost amidst the woods. But in the middle of the tree trunks and
overgrown forest floor, a dog suddenly appeared.
The dog licked his hand, then barked at him while wagging its tail, before walking away. When he did not
move, the dog came back to him, licked his hand again and barked at him again. The datu understood: the
dog wanted him to follow.
After a few minutes of walking behind the dog (of whom at times he only saw the tail), Datu Linangkob
started hearing the sound of the river up ahead. In a while, he was standing with the Saguing River in front of
him (it was the only river in these parts). All he had to do was walk downstream, and he would be able to find
his way home.
But when he arrived at its banks he noticed that the dog had disappeared. He looked around, but the dog was
nowhere to be found.
He reached a considerable distance upstream looking for the dog. There, on top of a large boulder in the
middle of the river’s water, was a large piece of banana leaf spread out, and on top of it was a sleeping puppy.
‘Imposible makaabot didto sa bato ang iro, kay bisag tao maglisod og tabok sa tubig para makatungtong sa
maong batuha.’
‘Hala madyika!’
‘Asa ‘ta Boy?’
38
Tikboy had been so engrossed by the story he forgot to tell me to turn. I just laughed. We had to go back to
make the right turn.
‘Kuyawa ato kuya uy.’
‘Ay sugod pa lang na.’
‘Hala naa pa?’
‘Ay daghan pa, ganahan pa ka maminaw?’
‘O kuya uy!’
I laughed. ‘Gipadako pa ni Datu Linangkob ang itoy...’
And indeed, the Datu raised the puppy. She was a female, and he named her ‘Treleg,’ which in the native
tongue meant ‘help.’ Good, smart, and helpful, Treleg was a lovely dog, and whenever Datu Linangkob met
with other datus, or whenever he would go out to hunt, Treleg would be with him.
Treleg had puppies at the same time as Datu Linangkob’s wife had their first baby.
One day, the Datu was left at home to mind the Torogan and the baby, his wife had gone to the river to do
the laundry. While he looked out from the window, he saw a herd of wild boars in the forest at the edge of
the coconut grove. He itched to go hunting.
39
He looked at Treleg, who was on the sleeping mat with her four puppies and the baby sleeping in the malong.
He gave the dog a look, and the dog understood that she was to take care of the house and mind the baby
(that was how much the Datu trusted the dog). Datu Linangkob then took his bolo, and went out.
He was able to catch some boars some distance from the coconut grove, and he put his catch on his
shoulders and began walking to the Torogan.
When he came back he noticed that he had left the door ajar. He felt uneasy at this. He entered, and saw the
Torogan in a state of disarray – the pots were rolling on the floor, the firewood was all over the kitchen, the
bed sheets were on the living room.
And then suddenly, Treleg came out from the bedroom’s door and went towards Datu Linangkob, her tail
wagging.
Her snout was covered in blood, showing she had just killed something.
His baby, thought Datu Linangkob immediately. This dog had killed his baby.
He lost control of himself. He hacked the dog with the bolo he used to hunt the boars.
He hacked the dog, with nothing in his mind but sheer fury.
And then, just as the dog fell to the ground from the large gash on her shoulder, Datu Linangkob heard the
sound of a baby crying. He was shocked out of his rage, and he rushed towards the bedroom.
There, on the mat, was the baby, without a single scratch, cuddling the sleeping puppies. Beside them was the
dead body of a large snake, blood all over the mat and floor where its neck was crushed by what looked a
dog’s bite.
Datu Linangkob rushed out of the room, but it was too late. Treleg had died on the floor where she fell.
40
‘Gipatay niya ang banakon!?’ Tikboy was teary eyed.
‘Mao nang nagsaad si Datu Linangkob sa patay’ng lawas ni Treleg nga dili niya biyaan ang mga itoy niini, ug
ang mga itoy sab niini, dili sa iyang mga apo ug apo sa tuhod, samtang dili makab-ot sa kadagatan ang bundok
sa Apo.’.’
Tikboy was at a loss for words.
‘Kuyawa…’
I made that up. The word ‘linangkob’ was Cebuano (it wasn’t even the place’s original name, Linangkob used
to be called ‘Milakeg’), so there was no native named Datu Linangkob. The Torogan is a Meranaw building,
not Monuvu, and Kidapawan never had a ‘king’ because it had about a dozen small datu-led settlements in
precolonial times, and the Spanish never reached Kidapawan. I had heard that a dog would mysteriously
appear to help lost hikers in Mt Apo, but the legend I made up too.
I just read the story of a loyal dog when I was a kid, the tale of Gelert, a Welsh folktale, about the dog of
Llywelyn the Great. The Monuvu too was made up, ‘Treleg,’ I just spelled ‘Gelert’ backwards.
But when I was young I really believed it when I made it up – if you’re young you can believe any truth you
invent for yourself. Mama had told me one day not to look down on the natives because we too had native
blood. Tita Susan mocked her for it, saying that was probably why my father left Mama, because it was not
very flattering for a politician to have a savage for a mistress.
But I was never ashamed of it, because it made me daydream that I was the descendant of some datu, of royal
blood. I was in College, when I started reading up on the history of Kidapawan, when I learned that Lolo’s
mother was an Itneg, a settler from Cordillera who came to Kidapawan before World War II.
Of course, I am from Kidapawan, after all. Settlers like me have always invented truths to believe in. we have
to invent truths because we had no truths to take root on.
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And sometimes ,too, you need to invent truths to learn how to love.
‘Kaya may origin legends,’ Alana once told me. ‘Hindi para magpaliwanag ng facts, kundi para magturo ng
truths’ Statements like that were the reason why I fell in love with her.
But it was true, and it was effective. While he pointed the way to me, Tikboy was obviously pining for every
dog we would see on the road.
Though I did feel a bit bad about lying to him (this was something Alana and I did not foresee). So I decided
to add a bit of truth – real truth – to my story.
‘Dili lang kato ang history ato among mga iro,’ a began again, and again the boy grew curious.
‘Hala, unsa pa, kuya!’
‘Kuan, kabalo ko asa gikan ang pangalan sa M’lang..?’
I always yearned for Lulu, but before I met Alana in Ateneo I never thought much about Kidapawan. what
else would I remember of it, but the sour personalities of Lola and Tita Susan, and Lolo, who was beginning
to decay like his pre-War house (Tita Susan had it torn down after Lola died). I had friends in my school of
Boys, but they weren’t much of a memory.
It was Alana, who was from Davao, who made me see how much I did not know about my hometown, when
she told me about how she had read the story of M’lang.
‘Tamlang, Maguindanaon daw sa “kawayan,” pangalan sa sapa didto.’ I told Tikboy.
‘Ngano kawayan kuya?’
‘Tungod sa usa ka iro ni Datu Inong…’
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Datu Inong had a lot of dogs. He was one of the two powerful chieftains who ruled over what is today the
Municipality of M’lang.
One day the Datu went into the forests to hunt, bringing his host of dogs along. In the middle of the woods,
they reached a river, which flowed deep and strong.
Datu Inong was known for his strength and physical prowess, so the river was not a challenge to cross. He
dived into the water, and he began slowly wading through the river towards the other side. He had forgotten
that he had a whole group of dogs following him.
Because the water’s flow was very strong, the dogs stayed on the banks of the river, barking at him out of the
desire to follow but not daring to cross the water. Datu Inong looked at them from the other shore.
But to his shock, a dog jumped into the water – the smallest, scrawniest, and youngest of the whole group.
The dog – barely older than a puppy – tried to swim towards the other side at first, but he was too weak
against the current, and he was washed downstream. Datu Inong grew worried, and he followed the dog as
the poor thing drifted down the river.
Before he could jump into the water to get the dog though, the dog was caught in a thick clump of bamboos
downstream. Trembling from the cold water and the harrowing experience he had just been through, the
puppy struggle to go up the bamboo stalks. Slowly he crawled towards Datu Inong. The Datu hugged the
good boy and laughed while the shivering puppy wagged its tail and licked him.
‘Ug ginganlan niya og “Tamlang” ang sapa, nga nahimong “M’lang” ug mao po’y nahimong ngalan sa lugar.’
‘Hala mao diay?’ Tikboy looked really interested in the story.
‘Ug katong iro, nabuntisan ato ang usa sa mga itoy ni Datu Linangkob, ug mao po’y usa ka ninuno sa among
mga iro.’ That part I made up.
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‘Okkoyoy!’ It was nostalgic to hear the interjection – a Monuvu word that had somehow found its way into
Kidapawan’s Cebuano.
‘Kada naa da’y sikat nga iro sa una, ipa-kasta daw sa akong mga ninuno sa mga apo-apo ni Treleg,’ I was still
lying, and it still felt bad, but somehow I feel like I wasn’t entirely lying – that behind the Tikal was something
undeniable, that the wonder behind Lulu’s ancestry I was transmitting to Tikboy was genuine.
‘Naa pay uban nga sikat kuya? Makatuon lagi ta anig history.’
‘O naa pay tulo ka sikat nga ninuno ning among mga iro. Lahi lahi sila pero pare-pareha ilang mga istorya. Si
Mua-an, si Meohao, si Kisante, si Bulatukan, ug ang iro ni Apo Mampo Linog sa Amas.’
‘Iro diay nang Mua-an, Meohao, Kisante, ug Bulatukan!?’
‘O, ug kana silang tulo, pareha ra og istorya...’
And this story is in fact well known, the people in the places know this story too.
Once in the distance past there was a drought, and many people had died and were continuing to die because
there was no water to drink. To save his people, the Datu of the area searched the forest desperately for a
source of water, but all the rivers, streams, ponds, and springs had dried up.
‘Ang pangalan sa datu sa Mua-an kay Lumayon, sa Meohao kay Sumbayat, sa Kisante kay Lagingling, sa
Bulatukan kay Butuwan, sa Amas kay Mampo Linog …’
The Datu brought with him his faithful dog in his search for water. One day, when they reached a hillside, the
dog suddenly started digging. The Datu found this odd, and observed the dog, allowing it to keep doing what
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it was doing. To his shock, the soil that the dog was digging started becoming moist, then wet, and before
long water was gushing out of the hole the dog had made.
The water welled to become a pond, then a stream. The dog had finally found a source of drinking water for
the people, and the people were saved.
‘‘Gipangalan sa mga taga-Mua-an ilang baranggay sa iro, ug sa Meohao ug Bulatukan gipangalan sa mga tao
ang sapa nga nahimo sa iro, nga mao’y gigikanan sa pangalan sa “Old Bulatukan” ug “New Bulatukan” nga
mga baranggay sa Makilala. Ang baranggay Amas lang ang nalahi, gipangalan sa unang letra sa mga anak ni
Apo Mampo Linog.’
‘’Koyyoy! Tinuod na kuya?’
‘Adtui didtos Mua-an, ilang baranggay seal naay drawing sa iro.’
‘Kuyawa ana uy! Ug ninuno pod na silas inyong mga iro, kuya!?’
‘Alangan...’ it was also easier to lie if you don’t say much, but Tikboy clearly wanted to believe, there was little
need to say more.
In the long run this was a good thing, so this kid will know – and care – about Kidapawan. What was a lie or
two if it made people learn how to love?
But really, there really was something to it, it really was still possible...
‘Wishful thinking, love!’ Alana had said when I told her about it once.
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‘‘Yes pero possible! Kaganda sana!’
‘Bitaw tama din.’ She laughed, as we were drawing Lulu’s family tree. We had started the family tree after we
graduated, when we both found time from work (she was better at it because she was taking up a Master’s in
Anthropology).
When I was born, Cookies, Lulu’s mother, had already been there. Half ‘bisaya dog,’ half a fluffy black breed
(I only managed to find one picture of her, Alana said she looked like some kind of terrier), Lolo had her
mate with the black Shih Tzu of the Sabulaos there in Matalam street, but the puppy that came out, though
long furred too, was light brown.
Making the family tree was ridiculously difficult, and it had lots of holes and grey areas, but we were able to
trace ten generations down to Lulu, pieced together from what Lola, Tita Susan, Mama, Lolo’s sister Lola
Lidya, and Uncle Lando from M’lang (younger brother of Lolo Ranulfo, Lolo’s father)could remember. What
started out as a past time became an obsession – and it allowed me the consolation that, even if I find Lulu to
be gone, I could still find solace in holding one of her kin.
According to Uncle Lando, when he and his brothers arrived in Kidapawan from Pinamungahan, Cebu
before the War, they had only brought their possessions with them. We only have one picture left of Lolo
Ranulfo, one with him seated in front of the old house in New Pinamungahan (our sitio in baranggay Lanao),
with three of his children and his wife, who was carrying a baby (Lola Lidya).
Under his chair there was a dog.
Uncle Lando said the dog’s name was ‘Leleng.’ Alana said it was a Monuvu word, so I asked Uncle Lando if
we had anything to do with the Monuvu. He said Lolo Ranulfo had given three porcelain plates and four
golden rings to Datu Ingkal in exchange for land. To celebrate the transaction, both parties held a feast that
lasted for two days, and which involved food, games, and dancing. During the festivities even more exchange
of gifts occurred, and Datu Ingkal had given Lolo Ranulfo other things. He said he wasn’t sure, but Uncle
Lando said the dog was probably also a gift.
Yes, maybe there. Last time I heard, Ingkal might have been a nephew of Lumayon of Mua-an, so it was
really possible. I just laughed at how I was willing to keep my wishful thinking going.
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Uncle Lando said he remembered being given one of Leleng’s puppies (he was a young man at the time). He
said he will never forget because Leleng had given birth while they hid from the Japanese in M’lang during the
War. When he showed the puppy to Udtog Matalam, the governor named her ‘Victory,’ to pray for a triumph
against the Japanese (Matalam even played with it as they made their way back to New Pinamungahan). After
the War (when Uncle Lando went back to settle in M’lang), Victory got pregnant by the dog of a native
neighbour there (that could be a descendant of Datu Inong!).
Lola Lidya said she could only recall having two dogs, siblings named Mimi and Bossing, but she couldn’t
remember the mother’s name (Uncle Lando said those two were Victory’s siblings, Leleng’s puppies). Mimi
got pregnant with a neighbour’s dog, and they gave away all the puppies except for one girl, whose name she
forgot. But that girl puppy too got pregnant, and one of the puppies was a girl which had no tail, so they
named her Kibol.
Uncle Lando said when Lolo got married he asked for a male puppy from Uncle Lando (a grandson of
Victory), and paired him with a daughter of Kibol (nobody remembers the name – even Lola – but we have
pictures of both, which were displayed in the old house for as long as I can remember before it was
demolished).
It was really a shame I wasn’t able to ask Lolo anything anymore. I had so many questions to him. Why did
he have to ask for a grandpuppy of Victory? Mama said she was sure he would have known the names of all
our dogs, even perhaps were Leleng came from. He was a quiet man, Lolo (perhaps, with Lola’s mouth, he
learned to grow silent and disappear, as all good husbands did), but the quiet people are usually the ones who
know most. Him in particular, Lolo was a blue-blooded son of Kidapawan, a farmer but friends with Sibug
the father and mayor Angeles, he must have known so much about this place.
If only, in all the lessons our parents keep nagging at us, they taught us to actually ask questions.
But no, Mama’s generation did not like questions. Specially Tita Susan. When I tried to interview her, all she
could say was that when she first had memory they already had many dogs, and their favourite was a puppy
named ‘Snowflake,’ who was so named because she was white.
Mama, though, was different (though it might have been owing to what happened to us), as she was the most
cooperative with our tracing of Lulu’s family. When I told her I wanted to find Lulu she had found herself
crying – I had long forgiven her for moving us to Davao, but that was the first time she realized she had
something to apologize for.
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From what she could remember, Snowflake was a daughter of Baby, who was probably daughter of that
puppy of Kibol with the male dog Lolo had asked from Uncle Lando (the name of that male was something
like ‘Chester’ or ‘Charlie,’ she couldn’t remember exactly). She said Lola found the dogs too maot, so Lolo
looked for a cute dog to mate Baby with, and according to her, Snowflake’s father was something like a
poodle, from whom she got her white colour. She couldn’t remember much after that, but she recalled
Snowflake having a cute male puppy named Biscuit, and from there remembered that another puppy,
Bubbles, was the mother of Cookies.
The difficulty to remember was feigned – as someone who never left Kidapawan, Tita Susan only ever valued
history when it was gossip. When I asked her about Cookies and this Bubbles, Tita Susan gushed out
everything she had been itching to say: the father of Cookies was my father’s dog.
Aside from the occasional snide remark from Lola and Tita Susan, the topic that was my father had been a
taboo topic, even until today with Mama (I grew up trying to piece together the information Tita Susan and
Lola let slip when they tormented Mama). It was only when I interviewed Tita Susan about the dogs when
she told me who my father was.
She said he was a human rights lawyer from Davao who moved here during Martial Law to lawyer for the
Muslims driven out by the Ilaga. Young but married and with children. He and Mama met when Lola told
Mama, who was still in college, come home from Manila. They met while they were together in the
underground movement here in Kidapawan (Tita Susan said they first met in New Bohol, where Mama was
organizing a rally and my father was handling the case of those massacred by the NPA in 1984).
When Marcos and mayor Gana were removed from office, my father was among the acting municipal
councilors appointed by the Aquino government to be in mayor Respicio’s OIC government. But from then
on my mother had no more rallies under the Kidapawan Pine Trees to use as reason to meet my father, so
she used their being ‘dog friends’ as an excuse to visit him in his house. Tita Susan even implied I and
Cookies might have been conceived on the same day, when his wife was away and their children were in
school.
Tikboy made me turn right into a crossing that sloped upwards, and I felt a shudder down my spine – here,
finally, was a familiar corner.
Wooden houses that looked like they’ve been there when the Japanese came, Rambutan trees lushly canopied
but low growing (it was not fruit season), some with thick branches slung with duyan de ligid, goats tethered
to madre de cacao fences.
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The same and not the same, like a life abandoned for a long time, overgrown by the years, weeds taking root
on the walls of the past, the mortar cracked in corners.
And it became overwhelmingly clear to me that I was no longer of Kidapawan. Even the things that I know I
do not really know anymore.
Our house in the compound in Lanao, Tita Susan had maintained as a guest house, keeping it almost exactly
as we left it. But when I went there it felt like somebody else’s house now – because I had already become
somebody else. I was a different person from the me who lived there, who lived here in Kidapawan a lifetime
ago.
I tried to stop myself from crying.
It was noon, so we parked by a carinderia beside a small fish pond (I think I could remember this carinderia,
but I may just be making memories up again). When I went down the car, the children playing across the road
saw that my hair was long enough to cover my ears. ‘Bayot! Bayot!’
I sighed. No, for things like this, Kidapawan had not changed at all.
I had dinner last night in Tita Susan’s house (she wanted me to use our old house, but I had booked a room
in AJ already, so I agreed to dinner to make up for it). The way she treated me, it was as if we never left.
‘Kahaba na ng buhok mo ‘dong,’ ‘hindi pa rin kayo ginakasal nung babae mo? Ano na lang sabihin ng mga
tao,’ ‘Bakit ka nagpatol diyan sa Iglesia na Katoliko ka man,’ ‘Si Mama mo hindi pa rin nagaasawa? Sino man
din bitaw magtanggap sa naanakan...’It was that bile of a personality my grandmother had brought from
Bulacan, meddling too much. They could be just concerned about me or Mama of course, but do they know
how narrow their thinking is?
Alana and I considered moving here to Kidapawan, but now I could see that no, there was no life here.
Kidapawan is left behind, not returned to.
But here I am, still looking for Lulu.
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When we approached the carinderia, there were only three tables, and only one was occupied. Tikboy ordered
some paklay, while I ordered humba and fried tilapia (Kidapawan’s humba had always been delicious). We
both asked for some bulalo broth.
A dog approached us, and we both gave her bones.
While we ate I showed a picture of Lulu to Tikboy from my phone.
‘Kani si Lulu, gamay pa kong bata, akoy nagpaanak ani.’
‘Hala mao ba! Unsay nahitabo, ‘ya?’
Oh I will never forget that. I was just in kindergarten, watching television, when Cookies suddenly hid under
the sofa. I was curious so I took a peek. She was licking something on her behind, something pink. I was so
startled when what I thought was her sore butt started moving – it was a puppy (we had no idea she was
pregnant). The adults were all out on an errand so I was alone in the house. I helped Cookies give birth,
putting her on sheets and carefully guiding her as she chewed the umbilical cords off. When Mama and the
other adults came home, there were already ten puppies under the sofa.
That evening four puppies died. The next morning only three were alive. By that evening another one had
died.
Of the two left alive, one looked healthy, but the other really looked like it too would die. Its body was flatter
than normal, its belly wide, and it wasn’t moving much. I had grown tired of crying. I just caressed it while I
was still awake, dreading the morning.
When I woke up the next morning, the healthy-looking one had died. The one with the wide belly whom I
thought would die was Lulu.
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‘‘Sayo kaayo katuon og lakaw ituya’ I told Tikboy, ‘unya pagtuon, laagan kaayo’ I remember Lolo recycling an
old sock to make clothes for her, a wide belt of sorts to wrap around her waist, because when she would run
about, her belly would rub against the ground, and we were worried she would get sore.
‘Halos wala pa’y ngipon mutahol na sa bisita, unya inig duol makigdula man gihapon. Pero luoy ang iring ato!’’
Lolo’s dogs had always been really smart, and Lulu inherited the family’s tricks from Cookies. If you would
clap briskly, they would raise their ears on alert and bark – it was a warning for them that there were
intruders, or some cat or rat to chase.
But for her fierceness, Lulu was a very affectionate dog, though in the most special way only to me (I had
inherited affection from Cookies from Lolo, but Lulu was purely mine). When Lola slapped Mama in the face
after one argument, Lulu found me crying at the back of the house, and she licked my tears away (I have no
idea how she knew I had been crying).
‘Nganong naabot kay Angkol Ondo, kuya?’
‘Aw, kuan, dili na namo mabantayan sa Davao, gipabalik ni Mama sa Kidapawan...…’
I was in grade six when Mama decide to run away from home. I was in the internet café near Boys, MosCom,
when she suddenly arrived, on a van she had hired, bringing everything we owned. Lulu was also with her.
I was already in high school in Davao when I understood. She could not put up with Lola and ate Susan in
Lanao anyore, specially as my father’s widow was running for councillor. The attacks on her had grown
worse: even when she was in Manila going on rallies, they told her, she had been a bother, even more when
she got herself pregnant, she was a shame to the family, while she enjoyed herself it was they who worked to
put food on the table (it must have been really tiring to wait for ‘Nong Ondo bring the income of the farm in
Linangkob). Just the smallest increase in expenses, Lola would blame on Mama and her bastard (me). I was in
college when Mama told me she only brought Lulu with us to make me come with her.
In Davao we first stayed with Lola Lidya in her house in Marfori. She did not have a family, but was fond of
Mama. Lola Lidya loved having us over, but Mama did not want to impose – we did run away after all to
avoid imposing on other people. We only lived with her for two years. Mama worked in Watsons in SM (she
was a pharmacist), and while contributing to the expenses at Lola Lidya’s, she slowly began saving enough so
51
we could rent a boarding house (she’d be promoted, and earn enough to buy us a condo by the time I started
college).
When we moved, we could not bring Lulu with us. Lola Lidya was too old to take care of her. So Mama had
‘Nong Ondo come over and have her brought to Lanao. When Lolo died (the funeral was the last time Mama
went to Kidapawan), Lola had already sent Lulu to Linangkob.
Since she had been sent back to Kidapawan, Lulu never left my mind (I looked desperately for her during
Lolo’s wake). I loved that dog. She did not need to dig me springs for me to love her, she was my dog, half of
my soul was with her. She was all that remained of a past that had to be left behind, the living embodiment of
home, the known, the familiar – Canis lupus familiaris wasn’t just a scientific name for her.
But for the longest time I did not dare tell anyone. After all Mama had been through, I learned to keep my
complaints to myself.
I only ever really got to let it out to Alana.
She loved dogs that girl (‘Ang dog ang isa sa possible factors kung bakit nag-evolve ang Homo sapiens to
learn to love,’ she once said ). She had dropped out of Nursing in San Pedro and moved to Ateneo to take up
PolSci because she did not want to dissect dogs. She was the first to wonder where Lolo got Lulu and her ilk,
and that was when I started tracing Lulu’s family tree while I wasn’t busy with the office.
When we bought Lola Lidya’s Marfori house from Mama (Lola Lidya had left it to her), it was Alana who said
I should try and look for Lulu.
After Tikboy and I had finished eating, we set out again.
‘Wala’y itoy si Lulu kuya?’ Tikboy asked suddenly. How interested he was now.
‘Usa ra gyud kabuok…’
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Lulu got out of the house when I was in grade five, and she went missing for two months. After searching
desperately, I found her accidentally across the street one day when I was sent out to buy something from the
store there (I rarely go out of the house). A neighbour there, it turned out, had kept her. When I found her
she was already pregnant.
She only gave birth to one puppy (I midwifed her too), a female whom Mama named Hazel because of her
hazel brown eyes.
‘‘Nasamukan si Lola, gihatag niya kay Nong ‘Ondo tong naa na me sa Davao. Unya mga pila ka tuig human
ato nawala daw, nasaag sa kalasangan.’
I was surprised at the sadness with which Tikboy replied. ‘Sayanga kuya no…’
And I thought of all the work and effort I’d been through for this: tracing Lulu’s family tree (dealing with Tita
Susan’s annoyed response, going all the way there to M’lang to talk to Uncle Lando), closing the office just so
I could go here, and over a decade of kaguol weighing heavily in my chest.
Inis kahaan to minuvu

no ko-iling to kosili, oyya su
inis kohaan
od ngongaapan du pa riyon
to linow’t Agkuu
Alana once showed me this poem in Obo Monuvu. It could not ring truer than it did now – ‘the happiness of
man is like an eel, oyya su, the happiness of man – you need to fish for it there in Lake Agco.’
What if, when we got to ‘Nong Ondo, this would all just lead to nothing? That, after all I had been through, I
really did not have a living past to find here in Kidapawan anymore? Tikboy did not know really how sayang
it would be.
‘Nong Ondo had replaced our coconuts with bananas (Lolo had given to him this piece of land near his
house). They had built two newer but no less shabby ones beside it, but the old house was as old as I
remember it, coconut wood with a rusty tin roof, a small balcony and wooden windows, all unpainted, a wide
gap underneath as the whole thing stood on log-thick stilts – neglected, a victim of lack of funds and initiative
rather than kept as is for any sentimental purpose. But I’m thankful for the accident, seeing something so
familiar reassured me, knowing that at least here there was a place I still knew.
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As we approached, five dogs came out from under the house and barked at us. My heart raced fast – this
must be how Datu Inong felt, as he looked on anxiously at his puppy drifting down the Tamlang river.
I was surprised at how eagerly Tikboy opened the door and alighted the car.
‘Asa inyo dapit, ‘Boy?’
‘Didto sa unahan, kuya,’ and he pointed the house at the end of the terrible road, at the edge of the coconut
grove that began in front of ‘Nong Ondo’s house.
From the house, ‘Nong Ondo, his daughter Ate Yangyang, and several children and adult relatives came out
of the houses to greet us.
‘Nong Ondo was very old now, a bit hunched, and his hair, which was a solid black the last time I saw him,
was now almost entirely white. Ate Yangyang too was now a middle aged woman, wide and wearing a duster.
I could barely recognize her.
‘Hala ikaw yan Ading?’ Over Tita Susan’s children, ‘Nong Ondo was always more fond of me. ‘Ading,’ the
Ilocano term of endearment, was reserved for me alone.
‘Nong ‘Do, ‘Te Yang,’ I took ‘Nong Ondo’s hand to mano, and I shook ate Yangyang’s hand.
‘Dugaya na nimo wala kaanhi uy!’ said ate Yangyang, ‘Ali sulod!’
‘Kol, agi sa ko sa amo ha,’ Tikboy interrupted as he too took ‘Nong Ondo’s hand to mano. He excused
himself from me, and went off on a sprint to his house.
We entered ‘Nong Ondo’s house. So much had changed – graduation pictures of children who were babies
when I last saw them, wedding photos of ‘Nong Ondo’s sons and daughters who were younger than me,
statues of saints and one of Buddha with children scrambling all over him, all gathering dust but still very new
to my eyes – but it felt like not much had changed either, it was a wonder really. Was it the smell? It still
54
smelled the same, this house – homemade tobacco smoke with a bit of dust, mothballs, potato earth, and the
stale smell of sautéed onions.
I was introduced (as ‘si Angkol Lucas, pag-umangkon ni anti Susan’) to each of the grandchildren, the wives
and husbands of ‘Nong Ondo’s children, and the children who did not remember me.
‘Nag-tanghalian na kayo?’ ‘Nong Ondo asked while we sat on their sofa (he always spoke in Tagalog to the
family).
‘O ‘Nong, nagdaan lang kami ng karinderya.’ I handed to him the box with the watch inside, the watch I and
Alana bought in Cebu for him (an offering really, praying I’d find what I came here for).
‘Uy salamat ding! Pangsimba ko na to!’ I apologized to Ate Yangyang for not being able to bring anything to
anyone else. She just said okay as she set down the glasses of juice.
A bit of small talk. I asked if the church was far, he said it was just a chapel, a bit of a walk. Was I married (I
said we were still thinking about it). the road, I observed, was terrible, he agreed, the baranggay was not doing
anything.
‘Napadpad ka man dito?’ he asked affably, ‘Malayo pa ang fiesta, mag-ihaw na na naman tayo ng aso?’ And he
laughed.
A froze in dread. My goodness, I had forgotten. They were Ilocanos here.
Once when I and Lolo came here, they slaughtered a dog to cook – one of their pet askals – and they made
adobo out of him. I was in grade one then. I would not stop crying until we got home. Lolo and ‘Nong Ondo
would make fun of me about it since then (but thankfully they didn’t seem to have slaughtered another dog
after that).
I just laughed too, out of respect, but it was half-hearted.
‘Hindi adobo ‘nong – hindi sana. Pero o, aso lagi ang gipunta ko...’
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‘Nong Ondo fell silent as he listened to me explain. I explained myself, my hands cold with the cocktail of
worry, excitement, and embarrassment, my pulse racing, my heart beating so fast it felt like it had climbed up
my throat.
I reminded him that we had moved to Davao and brought Lulu along with us, that Mama was forced to give
her to Lanao, then there Lola had given her to him without telling me.
And then, finally, trying hard to stay calm, I told him. I wanted to have Lulu back. I asked him where she was.
Because when the dogs came out barking at us when we arrived, Lulu was not among them.
We stood up and walked outside, pacing around the front yard.
‘Yung Lulu man yung taas buhok na brown at kulot ang buntot no?’ asked ‘Nong Ondo, after a few moments
of silence remembering.
My chest tightened. She was not here. Lulu was not here anymore.
‘O ‘Nong,’ my hands were trembling when I took out my phone, showing him the picture.
‘Aw, yan lagi…’ he muttered, thinking, trying to recall perhaps what had happened.
‘Nandiyan pa siya ‘Nong..?’
‘Aw, wala na uy…’ it felt like he had more to say, but didn’t continue and fell in quiet thought again.
To hold back the tears, I stared at the dogs, who had approached me to smell me –as if to show to me,
mockingly, that Lulu was not among them.
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‘Hindi yun nagtagal,’ it was clear in his tone that he had remembered now, and that he was afraid to say what
he was saying. He seemed to have understood that until now, I’d still cry if dogs were concerned.
He explained what happened.
Lulu was a problem when they sent her here from Lanao – Lola had sent her here because the dog kept
crying at night, they were only able to put up with it for a year. When they brought her here they tied her up
to one of the log-thick stilts of the house. ‘Nong Ondo pointed at it, and realized that they had left the rope
still there after all these years.
Lulu, he said, would barely pay attention to anyone and anything, and even almost bit his grandchildren. She
had kept on staring at the direction of the highway, always as if waiting for someone. She only noticed those
around her when he brought her food. She had been like this when she was brought to Lanao too. And even
here, she continued to cry at night.
Then one day, they woke up to find that she was gone, all that was left was her severed rope. That was the
only time they noticed that she had been gnawing on it for months.
By noon a neighbour across the highway had come over, bringing her dead body. She had been run over by a
vehicle.
I walked towards the Innova, speechless, my back turned against ‘Nong Ondo and the house. It was useless,
he’d still see me take out my handkerchief from my pocket, and he’d still hear me – they’d all still hear me –as
I started crying anyway. I could hear him shooing his family back into the house to give me privacy.
‘Hindi ka gisabihan ni tita mo Susan, ‘ding?’ I just shook my head as I cried.
Lulu was gone. After all my hoping, it all came to nothing. She was gone. She was long gone, all this time. My
Lulu was gone.
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I looked at the place where they kept her tied up, and I imagined her here, bound and crying alone at night,
refusing to have other people touch her. What could have been on her mind? That I gave her away? No,
because she did not stop believing that I would come to get her, she knew that no matter how long it took I
would come to get her. From Lanao, from Linangkob, wherever the god-forsaken people of this god-
forsaken town sent her, she knew that I would come to get her. But soon she grew tired of waiting, and
because dogs are such precious things, she tried to come to me herself, like Datu Inong’s dog she tried to face
the insurmountable to find me.
And she died without me beside her. Without anyone beside her from the sound of ‘Nong Ondo’s story.
My Lulu died alone.
I could not hold it back. I cried it all out.
I untied the rope from the post, and I cried on it. I did not care if it was dirty and smelled like a decade’s
worth of earth, I cried on it. This was all that was left of Lulu.
‘Nong Ondo approached me – the boy who cried years ago at a slaughtered dog, who was still crying over a
dog so many years later in front of him. He rubbed my back in consolation.
‘Pasensya na ‘ding ha …’
Lulu was gone. She was really gone now.
‘Dali, doon yun namin gilibing sa likod …’
I stood up, lulled a bit into calmness, and was about to follow him when Tikboy came, carrying a dog (small
and short legged but elongated, with long, light brown fur and a pointy snout). The other dogs approached
him, and he wagged his tail – these dogs clearly knew each other.
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‘Among iro ‘ya, si Doni.’ My stories about Lulu had really worked on Tikboy, it was funny. I patted Doni,
and he licked my hand – he was a very affectionate dog. Tikboy put him down, and he proceeded to play with
‘Nong Ondo’s dogs.
‘Katong si Lulu kuya, naa pa?’
‘Patay na...’’
The sadness was evident in Tikboy’s face.
‘‘Ay sayanga...Wala daw siya’y mga anak, kuya?’
And suddenly the weight in my chest vanished, replaced by that cocktail of excitement and dread I felt before
I found out Lulu was dead. Okkoyoy, why didn’t I think of it sooner! Puppies! Maybe, just maybe, in the time
since she was sent back to Kidapawan…!
‘Nong Ondo shook his head.
‘Wala na talaga, hindi man gani yun malapitan ng ibang aso dito. Dun sa iyo, siya lang din isa.’
And my chest felt the weight of grief again, and I almost felt like crying again. It was as if Lulu had died all
over again. How stupid I was to hope – of course there would not have been not enough time for it either.
‘Nong Ondo asked me to come with him again to the back of the house. As I followed, holding Lulu’s rope
in hand, Tikboy and Doni followed us.
‘Diyan yun banda sa may okra,’ pointed ‘Nong Ondo. ‘Yang malaking bato, lagyan ko man yan ng bato pag
may mamatay na aso ilibing. Mabuti maalala ko pa, nine years na din baya. Yan siguro pinakamatanda na
libingan dito.’
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I approached the rock, and caressed it.‘Sorry talaga, Lu. Hindi na ako nakaabot...…’
I could not help but shed tears again. Tikboy and ‘Nong Ondo watched on silently.
I was startled when I suddenly felt a cold, wet nose against my arm. Doni had approached me – the dog could
tell I was crying. I patted him on the head, and before I knew it, he was on me, licking the tears off my face.
He was really a good boy. Tikboy tried to shoo him away, but I just laughed and told him it was okay.
‘Sa tapad ning lubong sa Mama ni Doni ‘kol ‘no?’ Tikboy asked ‘Nong Ondo, pointing at the rock beside
Lulu’s grave.
‘Ug mama sad ni Lala. Asa bitaw ‘tong iroa...’
‘Sa inyo pala ito galing si Doni, ‘Nong?’ Doni was lying down to get a belly rub from me.
‘O, dalawa yan sila magkapatid, yan saka yung si Lala, yan lang mabigay ko kay matapang yung isa. Sa inyo
man din galing nanay nun, ‘ding.’
I stood up in shock. ‘Ha!?’
‘O, yun bitaw’ng black at white na green ang mata, una yun dito bago si Lulu. Anong pangalan nun?’
‘Si Hazel!?’ My goodness, could this be true.
‘O Hazel! Yung nawala! Mga ilang buwan tapos nun mawala, nagbalik man din bigla, grabe kadumi, gikalbo
ko uy. Nakalimutan ko bitaw sabihin sa Lanao na nagbalik yun.’
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‘Namatay na din siya?’
‘O, bago lang ‘ding, nagtanda na yun dito. Nakailang anak din yun, ang iba namatay, ang iba gipamigay namin.
Iyak ang apo ko nun, mabait baya yun, ewan bakit matapang ang anak.’ ‘Nong Ondo bent down to peer under
the house. ‘Tua ra! Lala, ali, tuytuytuy! Laagan yung aso si Hazel, mga two years ago nawala na naman, tapos
pagbalik buntis na – yun na itong dalawang ito. Kiat bitaw masyado yun. Bitaw, yun lang din makalapit kay
Lulu noon.’
‘Anak ‘to ni Lulu si Hazel di ba kuya!?!?’ Tikboy asked eagerly.
‘Hala diay ka!?’ ‘Nong Ondo looked surprised. ‘Wala ko kabalo!’
‘Nong..!’ I started.
But I did not need to continue it. From under the house, he dragged out a dog – smelly, her long light brown
fur dirty with the dry earth under the house, her tail a curled mess, her snout small and round – and offered
her to me.
‘Gusto mo aso, ‘ding? Ito o, si Lala.’
She looked just like Lulu, but with hazel green eyes!
My hands grew cold. Beside me, Tikboy had let go of Doni.
The stories I invented and told Tikboy might as well have been true. Lulu might as well have been the
descendant of that dog Treleg I made up. She might as well have been descended from Mua-an, from
Bulatukan, from the dog of Apo Mampo Linog, from the dog of Datu Inong which jumped into the river.
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All the legends that were made up to explain this incomprehensible and overwhelming explosion of feeling in
my chest, this overflowing love that was so entirely primitive but which made this mundane and godforsaken
town such a wonderful, magical place. Oh they all might as well have been true.
‘Sigurado ka ‘Nong...!?’
I tried delicately to befriend Lala, who gingerly sniffed the hand I held out to her.
‘O, ako mismo nagpaanak niyan. Yung giupuan mo na sofa, dun yun sila gianak dalawa.’
And as ‘Nong Ondo said that, Lala licked my hand. A shiver went down my spine. My goodness.
I pulled Lala nearer to me, hugged her, and cried.
All those who love dogs will understand when your soul connects with that of a dog, but what usually takes
months and years happened in an instant. Lala suddenly jumped on me and became excited, started whining,
and began licking me in the face. This was our first time meeting each other, but it was like she had waited for
me for ten years.
‘Hala, hindi gud yan nagalapit sa ibang tao, kahit sa akin pahawak lang, hindi ganyan na lambing masyado...’
‘Nong Ondo only added to the magic of the moment.
Doni came near too and began joining the play (Lala growled at him, but soon returned to licking me). They
both licked my face, drying my tears away, their dog breaths warm as Lulu’s had been so many years ago…
Inside the house, we sat down again (Lala would not leave me anymore, the moment I sat down on the sofa
she climbed up and sat on my lap). We talked about what to do next.
‘Bilihin ko si Lala sa iyo nong, okay lang?’
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‘Ay sus wag na! Iyo yan ‘ding, sa inyo man galing ang mama at lola, bakit mo bilihin. Di man din yan nagalapit
sa mga bata dito.’
The other dogs tried to come near me, but when they came close Lala would bare her teeth and growl. I
scolded her lightly, and played with the other dogs. ‘Anong pangalan nito nila, Nong?’
He pointed them one by one, and as he said each one’s name they came near him. ‘si Manny, yan si Rosing, si
Kulas, si Kaloy, si Simeon. Bigay ng kapitbahay. Ay kinamet, se!’ three dogs had gone up the chairs and sat on
his lap.
I laughed. ‘Mga pangalan man ng governor!’
But yes, I liked the name ‘Lala.’
‘Sige ganito na lang ‘nong,’ I resumed, ‘Kuhain ko ito si Lala, pero isip bayad, ipaayos ko itong karsada niyo
dito.’
‘Ay huwag na uy!’
‘Ako na bahala, Engineer baya ako sa Davao. Pangalanan natin ng Lulu Street.’
‘Nong Ondo laughed. ‘Hala sige!’
‘Ipakuha ko din yung mga buto ni Lulu at Hazel. Balikan ko lang dala ng lalagyan.’
‘O, dalhin mo yung asawahin mo sa pyesta.’
‘Aw alangan! Pero mag iyak din yun pag ihawan mo ng aso ha.’
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‘Bakit ko man ito sila ihawin na mga baby ko man ito sila!’ and he picked up Rosing and hugged her. I
laughed, but I knew he was being serious behind the joke.
‘Magdala din ako ng dog food, mga tali, at kulungan para dito kila Manny. Ug sa inyo sad ‘Boy.’
‘Aw dili nimo kuhaon ni si Doni, kuya?’ there was relief in Tikboy’s tone.
‘‘Ngano man pud nako kuhaon na nga imoha na man na.’
‘Abi nakog kuhaon sad nimo kay apo man ning Lulu.’
‘Apo bitaw, pero imoha man na. Alagai ra gyud, ug imonitor ang mga anak ana. Tagaan tikag allowance pang-
alima ana.’
‘Salamat kaayo kuya!’
‘Pero ibilin sa na diri kay mubalik pa tag Lanao. Ay nong, yung ibang anak ni Hazel gani, maalala mo pa
kanino mo gipamigay?
‘O ‘ding, naalala ko pa man, mga pito pa yun sila, tatlong beses yun nanganak. Buhay pa lahat.’
‘Sige, ginadokumento ko man gud itong family tree nila, ipakilala mo ako sa pyesta, sabihan mo huwag
ihawin!’
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‘Nong Ondo laughed.
‘Dalhin ko na ‘to Lala ‘nong, okay lang?’
‘Wala mang problema ‘ding, pero madumi pa yan, di mo muna liguan?’
‘Aw ako na lang sa Davao, okay lang ito.’
‘Sige, okay lang masyado ‘ding. Bisita lang kayo dito.’
We stood up. I put down Lala to play one last time with the other dogs (the dogs played with her mostly).
‘Balikan ko lang si Lulu, ‘Nong.’
We went out, and I went to the back of the house again. I said goodbye to Lulu, and told her I’d be back to
get her.
On the Innova, Lala will be sitting beside me in the front. ‘Sa likod ka ‘Boy ha.’
But the moment I opened the front passenger seat’s door, Doni jumped up and sat on the seat, ready to
travel. We all laughed. Tikboy took him and carried him home.
‘Ato bitaw to isuroy usahay,’ I told Tikboy when he got back. ‘Dili lang sa Kidapawan, sa Davao sad.’
I carried Lala and put her on the passenger’s seat (she looked scared). Then we bid ‘Nong Ondo goodbye
before we set out.
‘Kuyawa gyud ning mga irua kuya ‘no’
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I patted Lala on the head with my free hand. ‘‘Lagi. Ampingi to’s Doni ha.’
‘Syempre kuya uy! Mapamana pa nako tos akong mga apo-apohan!’
I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked at him from the overhead mirror.
‘Nakagawas na kag Kidapawan, ‘Boy?’
‘Wala pa gyud kuya. Linangkob-Poblacion ra gyud.’
I nodded. ‘‘Dili unta nimo maagihan akong giagihan...’ I was half talking to myself.
‘Ambot ra pud, kuya,’ I was surprised at how heavily he said it. ‘Ana akong Mama ganahan na daw siya
mubalhin sa Poblacion.’
I never expected Tikboy to understand me this much. I like this kid...
I took a business card from the compartment (Lala licked my hand). ‘Igna ra ko kon kinahanglan nimo’g
tabang ha.’
‘Salamat kaayo kuya,’ he accepted the card.
It was clearly Lala’s first time to ride a car. She looked scared about it. I caressed her back and patted her so
she would calm down, and I drove slowly. I rolled her window down a bit so she could look out, but not low
enough that she could jump out. The car smelled like dog.
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My phone rang. It was Alana. I put it on loud speaker.
‘Hello love.’
‘How was it?’ No preamble, it was clear she had been worried too back in Davao.
‘Well, patay na si Lulu.’
Alana fell silent on the phone. I could hear her sniffing – she was crying.
‘I’m so sorry, baby…’
‘Yes, but kwento ko lang sa iyo pagbalik ko,’ While talking, I took a picture of Lala, who was looking at me. I
sent it to Alana.
‘Meet Lala. Hazel’s daughter, Lulu’s granddaughter.’
‘Oh my god! Di ba nawala si Hazel?’
‘Kwento ko pagbalik ko.’
‘Love I’m so happy!’ That was clear in her voice.
I was leaking today, my tears started falling again.
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‘‘Love, dalhin ko diyan si Lala ha. Simula tayo, ha. Ano yung nawala sa akin dito, rebuild ulit natin diyan, ha.
Am I making sense?’
‘Yes love. You are. Nagaantay lang dito sa Marfori ang kapiraso ng Kidapawan mo.’
‘Check out lang ako sa hotel tapos deretso na ako pa-Davao. Lala will need a warm bath.’
‘I’ll have it ready, ingat love.’
‘I love you.’
And we put the call down.
‘‘Uyab nimo kuya?’
‘Plano nako bag-o magpyesta sa Linangkob, dili na.’
‘Bulagan nimo!?’
‘Minyuon.’
Tikboy laughed at the joke.
When we entered Paco, Lala approached me, and she slept with her head on my lap while I drove, my shirt
wonderfully covered in fur.
She looked just like Lulu. But no, she looked different too. The same, yes, but also different.
(For my Bamboo, Leo, and the pets of NCCC Matina)
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Guide Questions
1. The Story begins with an epigraph – a short excerpt from another literary work by another writer,
quoted to set the tone of the work. How does this excerpt from Rita Gadi’s poem contribute to the
piece?
2. Do you think people can develop special relationships with their pets? Talk about your experience
with pets.
3. How far back can you trace your pets’ lineage? How does your family’s history of pet ownership run
parallel to your own family history?
4. The story also casually mentions many details in Kidapawan’s history. Identify them and find out
more about them.
5. What does it mean if happiness needs to be ‘fished in Lake Agco,’ as described in the Obo Monuvu
poem quoted?
6. Lucas is an illegitimate child. How do you think does Kidapawan society treat illegitimate children?
7. What do you think does Lucas’ relationship with Tikboy and with Manong Ondo say about inter-
class relations in Kidapawan?
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Lahadda
I.
“Subhanallah, we have suffered, and we have suffered in silence! Ay how little you all know, ‘dong,
how we have suffered for decades in silence.”
“In the days of the Americans, a zealot named Datu Ambang came to us and, in the name of Allah, called on
the people of the faith to jihad, to repel the white invaders. My grandfather was a young man in Malasila, and
he was among the hundred or so men who heeded the call of Datu Ambang. But on the appointed day of
their attack on the American constabulary, the white invaders shot my grandfather in the leg, and Ambang
and many other men fled, never to be found. My grandfather was interrogated, beheaded, and buried with the
carcass of pigs in an unmarked grave. They did not even report this to their officers, and they told my
grandmother, who had become a young widow with two children, to pretend he never existed.
“Ay ‘dong, they spilled my grandfather’s blood on this land, and much more blood has been spilled since. Ay
Kidapawan is soaked in our blood. We have suffered, Subhanallah, how we have suffered in silence!”
Kurt had struck up a conversation with the old man Hamza, who was among the many people in the Kanduli
– the Maguindanaon banquet – that the mayor of Kidapawan had thrown as a sign of appreciation for the
town’s Muslim community. An employee of the Tourism Office, Joseph, had joined in to eavesdrop.
Small talk of culture and food (and culinary information Kurt devoured as the old man gave it away with a
surprised eagerness) had led Kurt to saying it was time for Kidapawan to finally hear from its Moros. The old
man could not help it, and he had found himself starting the Tarsila of his people.
The convention hall, a rather large, air-conditioned room near the Kidapawan Pilot Elementary School, was
bustling with people young and old, many in traditional attire. Most of them were seated on the floor, which
was covered with many pieces of banig. The seated crowd formed orderly but lively rows, with one row up
near the front of the room where the mayor and officials from the Office of Muslim Affairs and the Tourism
Office were seated. Almost everyone was eating from plates, which they either held or placed on the floor.
The rows of seated people were centered around rows of Talam, brass food trays bedecked with a colourful
assortment of food. Because there were many Moro tribes in the town, the resulting banquet, which was not
catered but cooked by several Muslim families in Kidapawan, was mouth-wateringly eclectic. Amidst mounds
70
of plain white and yellow Kiyuning rice were bundles of Pastil, beef and chicken and tuna alike, piled in a
picturesque tower, and beef and chicken cooked the Maguindanaon way, either stewed as Sinina with spices
in coconut milk and soy sauce, or as Linigil in a creamy curry of chillies, turmeric, galangal, lemongrass, and
coconut milk (dishes usually part of the Kanduli). But there were also Tausug dishes like Piassak (the soft
beef liver crumbled in the creamy black curry of burnt coconut meat, spices, and coconut milk) and Kulma
(they had made the beef very tender, it was gorgeous with the smooth curry sauce of peanut butter and
spices).
Some Talams were dedicated to sweets, bundles of fragrant Tapay fermented rice wrapped in Alum leaf,
stacked like the Pastil towered over heaps of the Panganan (whose deep fried roasted corn dough bordered
between chewy and gooey), oily Panyalam pancakes made of rice flour and coconut milk and flavoured with
mango or langka pulp, slices of Kurt’s caked Dodol, and many other sweets that some were already beginning
to nibble on with cups of black coffee the Tourism Office staff were serving.
The food was of course why Kurt, a chef, was here. Although half Ilonggo and half Tagalog, he was
fascinated by the cuisines of Mindanao’s cultures, and he ran a restaurant in Davao (where he was now based)
that served the cuisines of Davao’s tribes. Although his family had been in Kidapawan for almost a hundred
years (their ancestral house was still standing in Saniel Cruz Subdivision), he knew almost nothing about his
hometown’s cuisine.
When the mayor, a family friend, invited him to the Kanduli, he took the opportunity and even offered to
prepare Dodol and wet Palapa (that famous spicy Meranaw condiment) for free.
To his excitement, he saw that the town’s small migrant Meranaw population also shared their food, with
several Talams containing Chicken Piaparan (the coconut shavings yellow with turmeric looked like gold
heaped on the chicken) and the Meranaw Randang, cooked with Sakurab and coconut milk until the beef was
soft enough to fall apart with a fork. There were also Talams dedicated to condiments, and beside the
shredded Maguindanaon Tinapayan (the aroma of fermented mudfish roasted in oil alone was enough to eat
with rice) and their dry Palapa of toasted coconut shavings pounded with bulad, there was a lot of the
Meranaw’s wet Palapa too. But there was never enough of anything (the Kanduli was open to the public for
free), and Kurt’s addition was more than welcome.
The sight of the wet Palapa excited him – in the long forgotten recesses of his childhood, he had his first taste
of it and of indigenous Mindanao food here in Kidapawan. When he was a child (barely six or seven), he
could remember eating at the house of Auntie Ridang, whose family of three had lived near their farm in the
upland baranggay of Perez. After playing in the woods of Perez with auntie Ridang’s son Salic during
occasional visits to the farm, Kurt would often have lunch of what he later learned was Meranaw food.
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It was a mystery how he got to taste Meranaw food in Perez, when the area was part of the territory of the
Obo Monuvu and had a largely Settler population. He could hardly even remember why his parents (now
deceased) stopped bringing him to the farm, which they had since sold.
As the old man Hamza entertained questions from the crowd that had now gathered around him (It was
evident the older Muslims never spoke of these things, and the younger ones were eager to know), Kurt
reached out to the Talam to taste the Palapa.
Spicy with the chillies and the ginger, the rich oniony taste of the Sakurab – Meranaw scallions – was
delicious. The Sakurab was from Marawi, the mother who prepared it said, she did not know if Sakurab was
grown anywhere nearer (where auntie Ridang got her supply was another mystery now!)
But this was not how Auntie Ridang made her Palapa. It had a different, slightly camphory flavour. He
suspected she did something to tweak it, but no matter how many times he experimented in the restaurant (he
tried cloves and mint), he could not get it.
Auntie Ridang, on top of being a great cook like that, had also been very nice and motherly to him, his
memories of Salic were limited but he remembered him to have been a fun companion, and Salic’s father
Angkol Tulong frequently joked with his richly accented Tagalog. He thus came today also hoping to find out
how they had been.
But for now, he must listen.
“Ay ‘dong,” continued Hamza, addressing Kurt again, “what happened to my grandfather was the rule and
not the exception – in the book of this town, of this land, of this country, we whom you Settlers call Muklo
have been reduced to a footnote, even glossed over, if not to a bloody blot you choose to ignore. But so
much of our suffering is waiting to be told, Subhanallah, if only you are willing to listen. See! Ay, see even this
food of ours is flavoured with the tarsila of our suffering! Oy, Abdul son of Abubakar Guiama, come here
and tell us the suffering of your family.”
The people around giggled at the old man’s florid language, and this served to only invite more people to
abandon their conversations and eavesdrop.
An elderly man who was younger than Hamza stood from his place and sat beside the old man.
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“What is it, bapa?” asked Abdul
“Your wife made this dry Palapa?” The old man reached out to the Talam of condiments and tasted a bit of
it.
“Yes bapa, she did.”
“This is not the Palapa of Pagalungan, ‘dong,” Hamza told Kurt, “but what the Kalagan in Sirawan call Tinu.
I know because it has mint, and I know that this is your mother’s recipe, Abdul, because she often gave me
some when she was alive, and she brought it with her when your family crossed the mountain during the
War.”
“You crossed the mountain, Angkol Abdul?” asked Joseph, beside whom Abdul had sat.
“I was still very little then, ‘seph” answered Abdul, “but oh, I remember how difficult it was! Though my
father was from Pagalungan, we had been living with my mother’s family in Davao when the War came. To
flee the Japanese, we had to walk to cross Mount Apo. I remember how we had to drag the large water jar
with us, it took us over a week. The jar is still there at our house in Lapu Lapu street, how heavy it was when
we carried it full of water, now we have faucets in the house.”
The crowd murmured excitedly at this trivia.
“Many of us whom you Settlers call Muklo are used to being driven away from our homes like that, ‘dong,”
said Hamza to Kurt, “Ay, how our people have suffered. But Mashallah this is Tinapayan, is it not?” He had
noticed what was beside the Tinu. “It is good Tinapayan! Who made it?”
“I brought it from Kabacan, old man,” replied a lady with a rather regal bearing, who stood up from her place
and came nearer to sit beside Abdul, who greeted her warmly. Joseph assisted her as she sat down.
“And don’t pretend diha that you did not notice me and thought of bringing me into your tarsila, I know you
already.” she said jokingly.
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“Tarhatah! Ay Hadja Tarhatah you are so grown now! I have not seen you for so long, almost a week!” and
the people around giggled. He could hear the younger Muslims behind him mutter she was the baranggay
captain of Patadon.
“We saw each other this morning, he lives next door to us,” said the woman to Kurt with her own giggle.
Kurt marvelled at how strong this community was – to be able to laugh like this while telling their Tarsila of
suffering.
“Ay, your grandfather Datu Patadon loved Tinapayan when he was still alive, did he not Tarhatah?”
continued Hamza, “He would always share some when he came back from Dulawan.”
“Hala, Patadon is a person!?” Kurt asked in surprise. He only knew it was the name of Kidapawan’s
westernmost baranggay.
“Yes and ay, ‘dong, was he a great person,” said Hamza. “Helped so many of us poor Muslims, he even paid
to send me to Central Mindanao Colleges, may Allah bless his soul. Inshallah and with his help I was able to
save enough and send my sons to study in Malaysia. But oh, Abdul son of Abubakar Guiama, if your
grandfather Hadji Ali Bagundang suffered crossing the mountain with his weak knees, Mashallah he was
lucky. Datu Patadon Tungao suffered more, much more. Speak, Tarhatah, tell your grandfather’s suffering!”
“It is too graphic, bapa, uy! I cannot bear to!”
“Then Bismillah I will say it, but first tell the young ones about him first.”
“Ay hala sige.” She said after Hamza gave her a look of encouragement.
“My grandfather,” she began, addressing what was now a small crowd, ‘datu Patadon Tungao, fought the
Japanese as part of Salipada Pendatun’s Bolo Batallion. Together with Kaka Abdul’s father Bapa Abubakar,
he fought under his in-law, Gumbay Piang. But the Japs caught him in Dulawan, and to learn what the
resistance was planning they tortured him. Oh how I used to cry whenever he told me all the details of it, you
tell it Bapa Hamza, it is too difficult.”
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“He had told me about it too, Subhanallah,” continued the old man as Tarahatah wiped tears from her eyes
from the handkerchief Joseph lent her. “They beat him up while he was hanged by his hands, demanding that
he admit to writing a letter they had intercepted from him. He refused to admit it even though he did write it.
They allowed him to hang like that for hours with a steel ballot box with an iron ball inside slung on his neck.
Then they set fire to his beard, Subhanallah, and he had to put out the fire with his tongue because his hands
were tied up. They burnt holes into his feet with lighted cigarettes. Then, Audhibillah, they pumped dirty
water into his mouth, then kicked his bloated stomach with spiked shoes, making him puke out blood with
the dirty water. Ay, Subhanallah, they then drove a bit of walis tingting stick into his penis.”
There was a collective cringe among the crowd as the old man gave a mournful sigh.
“Subhanallah, he had suffered thus in silence, as we all have. But he survived, the Americans liberated Manila
when the Japs brought him there, and he made his way back to Mindanao, where he founded the baranggay
named after him. Now you and Kidapawan, ‘dong, only know his name.”
Kurt was speechless as he listened (and by now even employees of other government offices and some local
journalists were listening in). But before he could even process it, Hamza spoke again, as if the old man had
not just recounted a particularly harrowing story.
“Ay Mashallah, Pastil! Dodong Jerick son of Buboy Paigalan, please give me some of that Pastil!” he asked a
young man seated near a Talam with Pastil. The crowd giggled as the boy, smiling, handed the old man a
Pastil.
“Ay, this is delicious with Tinapayan. But Alhamdullilah for Pastil, this has saved so many of our lives. Did
you bring some, too, Abdul, when the Ilaga came and drove you out of your home when Marcos declared
Martial Law?”
By now the crowd had gotten used to the florid way the old man spoke, and Abdul too understood it was his
prompt to tell this story.
“Yes bapa,” he answered. “Fortunately Ina thought of making some that morning. When news reached us by
afternoon, she rushed us to gather our things and to prepare to leave immediately. We ate the Pastil as dinner
on the truck we hitched on going to Davao that night. Many more Muslims in Kidapawan fled, either to
Davao or to Cotabato, over night. We hid in Davao among relatives in Sirawan for almost a year.”
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“And their house was burned!” Said Hamza.
“It was such a beautiful house, sir Kurt!” said Tarhatah to Kurt, apparently hearing who he was from some
Tourism Office staff. “What a waste lagi! Mercury Drug at the corner of Lapu Lapu now stands on where it
used to be. I used to go there when Babo Halima was still alive.”
“We were able to save some of the hardwood, it’s part of our house now.” Said Abdul.
“Ay Allah has pitied you, the PC burned our hut down when we fled!” said Hamza. “Boy Naviamos, a
Christian and may Allah bless him, had told us Martial Law had been declared, and he told us to hide deep
into the woods. If he had not, the PC would have used my children as target practice, ay the kindness of our
Settler neighbours and my wife’s Pastil kept us alive for days.”
“But Allah still pitied you, Bapa Hamza.”
“Ay Subhanallah yes, we were lucky!” And the old man began weeping. There was a murmur of curiosity as
he dried his tears.
“The Kamads and the Kadils, those poor relatives of Agao from Pagalungan! A dozen of them, gunned down
in Sitio Pagagao by PC and Ilaga alike just because they were Muslim. That poor twelve year old boy Ramon!
That poor old woman! And that was not the only case!”
The turn of the conversation had made the crowd feel slightly uneasy, but Kurt wanted to hear more – he
knew he had to hear more, and more had to be said.
“What-what else happened, tay?” He detected a hint of weeping in his own voice.
The old man looked at him, and it was as if the question urged him to go on and continue. No, his people
was no longer just a footnote.
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“Ay there were many more ‘dong, many more had been killed, all simply for being Muslim. Speak, you!” He
said to the crowd, “Those who have something to say, it is time to speak! The silence must end, it is time for
the tarsila to be passed on, speak! Who else here knows of the Muslim dead under Marcos!”
“Those women in Ciento Dos in Matalam, bapa.” Said a woman around Kurt’s age. Joseph made way for her
to sit closer.
“Ay, Inday Jazmin Labog, yes you would know, your grandfather buried them. Do you have the courage to
tell us what you know happened?”
“Yes bapa, they were members of the Bulodan family, teenagers passing by the Takulin river in baranggay
Manobuan. They were on their way home when a group of Ilaga men encountered them. Ama said they were
shot at sight, and the Ilaga sliced off the girls” breasts. I…” the woman hesitated, and started breaking into
tears, “I remember my grandfather crying in his room that night, my father explained to me why.” The
people around her, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, consoled her as she wept. Joseph gave her a glass of water.
Kurt was horrified. This all happened around the time Auntie Ridang had been so kind enough to feed her in
her own house, all while her own people were being slaughtered like this. And while his parents never told
him anything, a girl as young as he was at the time was being told that women’s breasts were being sliced off.
But before he could continue to take it in, Tarhatah spoke.
“There were many others, right bapa? The Mundas family in Amas whose son was trapped inside their house
while the PC burned it. The Kulanguan family gunned down in the Lanzones Reservation, the bloodbath in
Perez, where is Rawiyah Paidu to tell that story.”
“And poor Daniel Dalala!” the old man suddenly said with a loud voice, “Ay the poor man, forced to see his
infant child burned in front of him before he was gunned down in the Mateo river. Ay, Subhanallah we have
suffered! Ay, we must no longer suffer in silence!”
Hamza agitated himself too much. Two of his grandsons came near him to calm him down.
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Kurt turned to Joseph to ask him to get water for the old man, but he noticed that Joseph looked visibly pale.
His asking took Joseph out of his distraction, and he stood up and got a glass of water.
As the relatives bid Hamza to calm down, Kurt saw that the crowd was abuzz: smaller conversations had
formed, most centered around elderly people, all looking very sombre as they spoke animatedly. He could
hear snippets of the talk in what sounded like a combination of Tagalog, of Cebuano, and of languages he
speculated were Maguindanaon or Meranaw. From the little he understood he could gather that the elders
were telling those gathered, mostly younger people (Muslims and Settlers like), what they went through during
the War or during the troubles of the Christian-Moro conflict. He saw that among the young Muslims, local
government employees, and journalists, there were also the town’s many local artists – the young taking
ownership of their heritage by learning it, the authorities noting where to improve policy, the media to make
sure this was all widely known, and the local creatives who just discovered powerful human insight to work
into their art.
The Moros were finally talking, and Kidapawan was starting to listen.
Kurt was overwhelmed. There was so much he did not know, so much he and everyone should have known.
These people, so friendly and amicable, many of them dressed in such beautiful attire, have suffered so much
and the rest of the town had no idea.
But that bloodbath in Perez! What did Hadja Tarhatah mean by that! The family that was so kind to him
could have suffered this horrible atrocities, and here he was just thinking of getting a Palapa recipe!
Gingerly, he approached Hadja Tarhatah, who was eating his Dodol.
“Your Dodol is very delicious sir Kurt!” She was eating it with some Maja Blanca the Burgos family donated.
“Ay hala thank you ma’am.” He replied humbly. ‘diay ma’am, I was wondering what you meant when you
mentioned that bloodbath in Perez?”
And on hearing his question, some people began eavesdropping too. Among them, Kurt noticed, was Joseph.
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“I don’t know much about it baya,” said Tarhatah. “I think there were several incidents, but I remember only
one.
“What I heard was that a Muslim girl was riding a jeep to downtown, when a Settler man sat beside her. The
Muslim girl’s father found out and was furious, saying it was an insult to his daughter’s maratabat. But when
he confronted the Settler man, he refused to apologize. The Settler man left, he went and gathered the other
Settler men of the neighbourhood, and he told them they must kill the Muslims that night because if they
didn’t, the Muslims would kill them first.”
“Ay babo that is true!” Said one woman who was eavesdropping. “Ama was there! The girl’s father – I just
remember his name was Akhbar – also gathered the Muslim men in Perez. Akhbar said the exact same thing,
that if they do not kill the Settler men, the Settler men would kill them first. Ama did not join the fighting, he
just took us away to downtown.”
“Where there any women or children killed!?” Asked Kurt.
“Oh I heard only men died, but there were over a hundred, nobody knows how many, hacked to death – the
Settlers struck first. The men seemed to have sent their families away ahead.” said the woman.
“There was another incident there,” suddenly joined in old man Hamza, looking much calmer now. “The one
in Sitio Palera.”
“Ay yes bapa, I think I heard about that,” said Tarhatah, offering Hamza some Panganan as he sat beside her.
“What happened again?”
“Rawiyah Paidu Hashim’s relatives,” answered Hamza.
“Ay yes, right! It was a family, they lived near the farm of the Guinoos, or was it of the Pantorillas? Basta
there in Palera, the Ilaga came in the night and massacred them. I remember Rawiyah actually took that to
court, but nothing happened.”
Kurt gave a gasp of horror.
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“Tay, ma’am, do you know where I can find Rawiyah Hashim!?”
The old man and Tarhatah looked at one another in surprise, but when they saw the expression in Kurt’s
face, they understood.
“Her family lives in Alim Street,” answered Tarhatah, a motherly tone in her voice. “Just ask any store or
carinderia there where she lives, anybody will be able to point it.”
Kurt stood up, “thank you po.”
“Rahimakallah, ‘dong,” said Hamza in blessing, and Kurt nodded in gratitude.
Before he could walk out of the hall to head to his car, Joseph suddenly approached him.
“Sir, I know where Rawiyah Hashim lives. Let me take you there.”
Kurt was taken aback, but he gave his hand and introduced himself.
“I’m Kurt, sir,” he said, realizing he had not introduced himself to Joseph yet, “Kurt Guinoo. Let’s go.”
II
The old woman Iyang nibbled on the barbecued pan de leche absentmindedly as she watched the noon time
television show in her sala.
The house was empty, as her family (her niece Ishraidah’s family, for her children where both in Manila) had
all joined that event the Municipio had organized for Kidapawan’s Muslims.
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Of course she refused to go. She had no businesses taking part in some merriment like that.
By now, it had become habit, this frugality, this austerity, this isolation she had imposed on herself. But all
those years ago it started out as Tawba, as atonement for what had happened to the Galaws.
It was also an early noon like this, in 1971, when she was told what had happened to her sister’s family in the
farm. Iyang, with the help of her husband, filed a case against several men, but the case simply dragged on,
well after her husband died, before eventually being dismissed. In the end nobody was convicted, even she
now doubts if the men she had sued were behind it.
It was Tawba, both for causing it in the first place (she had asked her sister to move to Kidapawan from
Marawi with her family to occupy Iyang’s farm lot), and for not being able to bring them justice – punishment
for herself, to shun all luxury that she denied the Galaws.
But later it just continued as a matter of survival – she was widowed after her husband’s long and expensive
battle with cancer, and she had to send her children to school alone while spending for the costly case of the
Galaws, and when that ended in nothing, she discovered that while the case was pending, Atty Garaya, some
unscrupulous lawyer who had connections in the Bureau of Lands, had the farm lot the Galaws left vacant
titled in his name. That also took years and thousands in court, but at least she won that case and got back
her land. Throughout those years of hardship she needed to shun indulgence to survive.
Yes, even guilt, for guilt was an indulgence. She realized that the other day when Ishraidah was looking for a
mortar and pestle to use to cook Linigil for the Kanduli. Ishraidah had found the large, stone mortar of the
Galaws in a cupboard, but she could not find a pestle to use it with, so she ended up buying a new set.
The old stone mortar was one of the few things that survived from the fire when they burned the hut, the
only thing Iyang could save from the ashes when she arrived in the scene. Over the decades she had forgotten
that she had kept it in this old house, but the sight of it made her think in her idleness of the Galaws.
Yes, she renounced even the indulgence of guilt, all to survive and live the life of work that this Settler town
demanded. But Subhanallah, was that really Tawba? She had not done enough to atone for what had
happened.
But what more could she do than jut punishing herself like this?
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“Ayo..!”
Iyang was pulled out of her reverie when someone knocked on the front door. The young helper, Didit, went
to see who it was.
“Babo, someone named Kurt Guinoo daw,” said Didit as she returned to the sala, “looking for Rawiyah
Hashim daw, said he wanted to find “auntie Ridang”.”
Iyang dropped her empty barbecue stick in shock. Ay what is Allah planning! She hurried the maid to let the
visitors into the sala.
A few minutes later, Iyang returned to the sala with three cups of native coffee on a tray (the guests were kind
enough to bring some Panganan, Dodol, and Tapay). As she set the cups on the table, she regarded them.
The man named Kurt Guinoo, who was handsome and rather well dressed, looked somewhere in his early
thirties (but had to be near forty if he knew Ridang). He had a faint stubble and had a small, cross pendant
dangling from his choker.
The other guest, who introduced himself as Joseph Adang, looked slightly older and more sun-kissed, though
he had a much more pronounced nose, higher cheekbones, and beautifully brown eyes. He was wearing a
Tourism Office shirt, so she assumed he was an employee of the Municipio.
“How do you know Ridang?” The old woman asked as she sat down. They had not spoken since the visitors
entered the sala.
“I was a little boy when I met her family, po,” started Kurt politely. “We had a farm beside their house.”
“Ay you are Engineer Guinoo’s son!” said the old woman. “Call me auntie Iyang na lang, dong, I knew your
father, he was very nice, very friendly and helpful. He gave money to my father when my father ran for
Kapitan of Poblacion.” Knowing this man was a relative of a family friend put the old woman at ease, and
she was able to ask with more warmth. “What would you like to learn about the Galaws?”
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“Their family name was Galaw po pala?”
“Yes, my sister Ridang, full name Faridah Peidu Galaw, her husband Tumutulong Galaw, a Meranaw from
Marawi, and their son Salic.”
Kurt felt a bizarre cocktail of relief and dread when he heard this: relief that here, finally, was a lead about
auntie Ridang’s family, but dread knowing that what Bapa Hamza said was closer to the truth now. He
fought the dread and asked away hoping, as if one could simply hope the truth away.
“I was just hoping to know how they are, po? They were so kind to me when I was young.”
Iyang looked at him in bewilderment, then she looked at Joseph as if to confirm if this was not a joke (the
man’s sombre look told her it wasn’t).
“Subhanallah, you did not know!?”
It was too much! This young Settler, remembering Moro kindness from so long ago, was about to have his
heart broken by the truth. It was all too much, and the old woman broke down.
“What... what happened to them po?”
Ah that trembling voice, alert but so helpless, ay he had an inkling. Ay the poor young man, thought Iyang,
the poor, poor young man! She took a deep breath and, Bismillah, gathered the strength to perform the
terrible duty Allah had appointed for her
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III
“Imbibe the past, Oto, as I give it to you, as I myself imbibed it from the cup of our ancestors” wisdom. May the spirits not curse
me if I err in the manner I give it to you. Take the past with you Oto, yes because what has happened shaped what is and it will
shape what will be. And one day offer, too, the cup of our people’s wisdom to your descendants, yes because the past holds lessons
only those who will come after us will be able to understand. Listen, therefore, Oto, and imbibe the past as I give it to you.”
The voice of his elderly father Salomay Adang still echoed in his ears, many decades later, when the old man
told him this Itulan – this account of history – as they fled Perez to Balabag that fateful midnight.
“Oto, we the Monuvu have been witness for hundreds of harvests to the blood that drenches the past of the Allah worshippers. In
ancient times we have spilled their blood ourselves. When the great Guavung – the great drought – pushed them to take our
children to sell as slaves, we waged a pangayaw on them, and we killed many of them as they killed many of us. We fought in
Manobuan, as we fought in Gubatan. But the elders mediated, we gave them Pikit and they gave us hundreds of horses and
gongs, and we have since cut our enmities, yes because our sins had been severed with restitution. Since then our peoples have been
friends, at times even relatives as we marry one another’s women. There, of course, was Tambunawan and Mamalo, the brothers
who are our shared ancestors with them. We join the Allah worshippers in their triumphs and sufferings, yes because their blood
flows in us as ours flows in theirs, it has also been our blood which has been spilled.
“And we join them tonight in their suffering, Oto, as we have since the days of our ancestors.”
Then his father explained to him what he, Joseph, had just done. He was just seven.
“We turn left here sir,” he said to Kurt beside him on the car, his voice still choked from the crying. And as
he did, Kurt turned left, going further up a sloping road.
“Decades ago ma’am,” Joseph blurted out, half weeping, to Auntie Iyang, who was seated at the back seat, “I
said those exact same words to the Tagalog man leading the Ilaga on that exact same spot, holding the torch
up for them,” he stopped himself from crying again, for he had resolved to tell them everything, every small
detail of the atrocity he had been party to.
It was difficult, but somehow as he did so he felt unburdened. Guilt had weighed on Joseph’s heart for four
decades like a stolen gong on the back of a poor man’s horse.
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“There we have Marcos, the president of Manila, who is waging a pangayaw against the Allah worshippers, and he is not only
bringing in constabulary men, he is arming the common Christians here, and they have formed these horrible groups who call
themselves Ilaga, busow-worshippers who collect human ears. This is not how we used to do pangayaw, Oto, yes because the
pangayaw that the Americans taught the presidents in Manila involves trying to make people not involved in the fight kill your
enemy’s race – innocent people killing one another, it is abhorrent son. But today, you too have been part of it. The men you have
guided to the house of Tumutulong and Faridah Galaw have gone there to kill them, right now they are probably hacking them
to death, even the young boy. You have helped them kill our friends. Oto, you held the tinolesaa to give them light. We flee to
Balabag now, for we know the Ilaga and the PC will frame us, but we must never forget that you have helped kill our friends.”
He was just a little boy, but the old man told him exactly what had happened. Had this been part of his
father’s wisdom? It made him bear this guilt for decades, perhaps as an act of contrition. But it also made sure
he remembered everything clearly, clear enough for when he was called upon to tell the story.
“We used to live near here, “ he explained as they made their way further towards Perez. “That early evening
the men came at our house, asking for the directions towards Paidu’s property. I was just seven so I had no
idea where that was. But my father was an Obo Monuvu man with the most traditional upbringing, and he
was raised thinking that when someone came at your doorstep like that seeking help, honour dictated that you
help him. So he instructed me to guide them to the house of auntie Ridang, the kind Muslim woman who
became my mother’s friend, and to whom she had some time ago sent me to bring Lahadda.”
Kurt was too distraught to ask what Lahadda was.
“Your father did not suspect what was going to happen?”
“No, he could not have,” said Joseph. “The man who spoke to us did not bring any weapons with him, and
the Galaws were a very friendly family, it would never occur to anyone that people would try to hurt them.”
“Ay, Allah is still in this world,” said Iyang from the backseat, Mashallah for these two young people. “In
those days it was so easy for those who were not Muslim to see us as less than human. That Garaya wanted
my land, my sister’s family was in the way. Alhamdullilah, for you and dong Kurt are in this world, Joseph, to
have seen that we are still human.”
Kurt sniffled as he drove on, his face heavy from the crying in auntie Iyang’s house. He had not been to
Perez in decades, and he could hardly recognize it. he had a vague recollection of this road before it had been
cemented, as well as the rural wilderness that constantly threatened to engulf it, but no more than that.
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“It is good that we have you to guide us today,” he said to Joseph, has voice very nasal from the crying.
“Okkoyoy, sir Kurt, I had guided those men that night up this path, now I am still guiding!”
Auntie Iyang gave a giggle. “But this time, Joseph, you are doing the right guiding. For you are guiding us,
who come to remember them.”
Joseph took the old woman’s hand and cried on it again with remorse. Auntie Iyang rubbed his head to
console him.
They had reached the juncture with the sloping road to the left leading to the baranggay centre. Joseph told
them to continue forward, going further into the remote baranggay. Right, left, right, and left again, and the
road became more and more difficult. At some point the cement stopped, and the car struggled to surmount
the road as it became something like a dried stream bed.
Finally, Joseph bid them to stop near a small hut standing at the edge of a rubber grove.
“We go down here,” he said.
As they went down, a half-naked man came out from the hut to see who they were. The man saw Joseph, and
he smiled. As Joseph approached him, they started speaking in rapid but sophisticated language Kurt guessed
was Obo Monuvu. Kurt assisted auntie Iyang as she alighted from the back seat.
“Sir, my cousin, Herbert Umpan, ‘said Joseph to Kurt. “This was your farm,” he gestured up the rubber trees,
“your father sold it to his father.”
“Moppiyon mappun sir, your father was a very nice man,” said Herbert, “He insisted on selling it to a native.”
“Just call me Kurt, bay. This is auntie Rawiyah Hashim.”
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“Ay, I knew your father, ‘dong,” said Iyang, shaking Herbert’s hand, “I remember you as a little boy.” She
looked around, overcome with emotion. “Ay, it’s been so long, I have neglected my farm here!”
“It’s no surprise that you did, auntie,” said Kurt sombrely, “you were going through a lot. But come, let’s see
it.”
Kurt assisting the old woman, the group (including Herbert) trudged through the cover-crop of ferns and
grass Herbert kept ankle-deep under the rubber trees.
After some walking to the end of the rubber grove, they reached a small clearing, which started a slightly
downhill slope. Near the edge of the clearing was what looked like a plot enclosed by a mossy concrete
balustrade. Next to it was a coconut tree and another tree Kurt could not identify. At the foot of this latter
tree was a thick shrub that looked like lemongrass.
At this sight of this all Iyang gave a gasp of surprise.
“Oh it is so well kept!” she said tearfully, looking at Herbert, who just smiled but pointed at Joseph.
“I grew up seeing him and uncle Salomay maintaining this place.”
“Oh why did you not say, Joseph!” and forgetting Muslim decorum, the tearful old woman embraced Joseph,
who was also quietly crying.
“You have to forgive us, “ said Kurt jokingly to Herbert, wiping a tear, “we”ve been crying all day.”
“I think I’m getting teary eyed myself,” answered Herbert, “I grew up with stories of this from uncle
Salomay.”
“Oh this is so lovely,” said Iyang, looking around, “Back then,” she said to Kurt, “the grass around here
would reach the waist if Tumutulong was lazy.”
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“But I vaguely remember we loved it because I and Salic would catch spiders from the grass,” and the sudden
recollection stung him as he realized Salic was murdered here.
“There, where they are buried, that was where the house used to be,” said Iyang, pointing at the balustrade
enclosure. They walked slowly towards it.
“Subhanallah, it was horrible,” she started, the younger men all listening to her (even Herbert was teary eyed).
She steeled herself to be able to tell this story – Bismillah, she must tell it well.
“It was almost in the afternoon when I arrived, the person the Kapitan sent to tell me only arrived at noon.
Apparently, it was your foreman Carpong who first discovered what had happened. The bodies were here,”
she gestured near where they were standing. “Poor Ridang lifeless, with a huge gash on her face, young Salic –
just five years old! – his head was barely attached to his neck, and poor Tulong was all over the place, his face
so violently hacked he was unrecognizable. They had burnt the hut, and all that remained of it where the few
steel knives and cutlery and that large stone mortar. It was already afternoon when we arrived, and I was so
distraught at what had happened, so we only got to bury them by evening.”
Kurt felt the cry he was suppressing as a lump on his throat as he listened, looking around the place. Yes, he
could faintly recognize it. Down to the south end of the clearing, behind the grove of mangoes (what used to
be Lawaan trees), he remembered there was a brook there, where he and Salic would catch freshwater crabs.
As he felt the grief flow down to his fingers, he found himself thinking the odd thought that this place would
make a great park.
They came near the grave, and as Kurt reached out to touch the balustrade, he found himself talking.
“Hello again, auntie,” he said to Ridang. ‘sorry it took me so long to come back again.”
And this time, for a reason he could not understand but knew was more than out of grief, Kurt found himself
crying. The others behind him, too, were wiping tears from their eyes.
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“Hay,” Kurt took a deep breath, and half giggled at himself. He felt strangely refreshed. “I miss your Palapa
gud, auntie.” He told Ridang.
“Tumutulong was Meranaw,” said Iyang fondly. “Ridang learned how to make Meranaw Palapa from his
family. She would sometimes bring some to me when she went downtown – she thought me how to eat the
stuff.”
“Hala, do you happen to know her recipe, auntie!?”
“Oh it’s very easy. You just crush Sakurab – what in Maguindanaon we call “lansuma,” like a native dahon
sibuyas – with some ginger, garlic, chillies, salt, and seasoning then sautee it in some oil.”
“Yes but auntie Ridang’s tasted different! Did she do anything special to it?”
Iyang tried to recall, “Come to think of it, it did taste different from the other Palapa Ishraidah would bring
sometimes. Like, slightly cold to the mouth?”
“Yes, yes!” Kurt was very excited. ‘do you know what she did?”
“Ay no, I’m sorry, she never told me how she made it. I don’t even know where she got the Sakurab up
here!”
“From us, auntie,” said Joseph
“From you!?” Kurt did not miss the note of delight in Iyang’s surprise – it was the first time Joseph called her
“auntie” – even as he too was shocked at this.
“What do you mean bay?”
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And Joseph too was flustered at being referred to with such familiarity (although he noticed it and gave a
smile).
“Well, only at first it came from us. Later, she grew them herself.” He pointed towards the tree with the thick
shrub – he pointed at the shrub in particular.
“That’s Lahadda. My mother told me how auntie Ridang once came over to share some of the Muslim food
she cooked. And while she was at our house she noticed the Lahadda that had always been growing in our
backyard, and she told my mother her husband’s people called it Sakurab. My mother gave her some, and the
next day she came back bringing this spicy sauce made out of the stuff. My mother liked it, so she sent me to
bring some more Lahadda here so auntie Ridang could plant it.”
Kurt and Iyang walked briskly towards the tree. Kurt knelt on the ground to look at it. the leaves were long,
smooth, and he plucked one, it was hollow inside and had a an oniony fragrance.
From where he knelt he realized the plants growing beside the Lahadda looked like ginger, but when he
pulled them out, he not only saw a large colony of ginger, but also turmeric, and to his surprise, galangal –
this must have been the remains of her vegetable garden.
Then Kurt pulled out a bulb of the Lahadda – it was Sakurab!
“But what about the taste -” but before he could finish his sentence, he smelled the rich, clove-like fragrance
of the grainy, reddish soil on the bulb.
“It’s this smell!” He exclaimed. The others came near to smell the bulb.
“Ay this is Koringag!” said Joseph, and to Kurt’s and Iyang’s confusion, he and Herbert both looked at the
tree.
Herbert took a bit of the tree’s bark and smelled it. “It is!” he exclaimed.
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“Hala I never noticed,” muttered Joseph.
“What is Koringag?” asked Iyang. Kurt too was curious, but he was also frustrated – he read up on the
cuisine of Davao’s ethnic groups, but he knew nothing of Kidapawan’s. And what was frustrating was that
the name was vaguely familiar.
“This tree,” explained Joseph, handing bits of the bark to him and to Iyang - it was the sweet, camphor-like
smell that used to linger in the Galaws” house! “I remember in our training as Paniki Falls tour guides, the
PNOC forester said its scientific name is Cinnamonum. We use Koringag in our traditional cooking – the
bark, with the Lahadda and the leaf of the Tovukay torch ginger, that was what we used for flavouring our
meat dishes cooked in bamboo. The best with that is kosili, eel!”
“Auntie Ridang planted the Sakurab at the foot of the tree and mixed the soil with the bark to give it some of
the Koringag’s fragrance!” Kurt half talked to himself, “and she probably crushed a bit of Koringag, not
cloves, on the mortar and used the mortar as is without washing it…” Now he understood why auntie Ridang
was so excited on that day.
“Ay she did mention once, “ said auntie Iyang, also looking delighted at the reminiscence, “that she was very
happy with it. She said she wanted to make a business out of it. I only told her nobody would eat it here in
Kidapawan.”
And from there, Kurt had the idea!
“Ay auntie! But we can make that happen!” She looked at the plants. “We can make Palapa with these! This
sakurab, even this ginger that auntie Ridang planted, in the way she did, we can sell it in her memory! I already
sell the stuff in Davao, we can sell it there too, my fiancée will even help us!”
“Oh I would like to join, bay,” said Joseph, who seemed also excited. “I and Herbert can grow the Lahadda
and ginger for you!”
“I was about to say that! And auntie,” Kurt faced Iyang and assumed a serious look. “We will name the
Palapa after Auntie Ridang, and if you will let us, we will use the income of its sales to develop this place into
a memorial. Maybe a statue or a marker, perhaps more.”
91
“Ay Alhamdullilah, it is beautiful!” The old woman was teary eyed. “You can even use her old mortar! I will
give it to you!”
“Herbert,” said Kurt after gathering some Lahadda bulbs and some ginger, ‘do you mind if we use your
kitchen? I’d like to try making Palapa again. I’d like to cook an early dinner for all of us too, if you don’t
mind.”
“Ay that would be great! My wife will appreciate not having to cook!” And they laughed as they headed back
to Herbert’s hut…
Thud after rapid thud echoed from the hut and out into the woods of Perez. Kurt had crushed some
koringag bark on Hubert’s large wooden mortar and pestle. Then he took out the koringag, put in some
chopped lahadda bulbs, the ginger that grew near the lahadda, some garlic and chillies from Herbert’s kitchen,
and some salt before pounding it all with thud after rapid thud. When the pounded lamas had turned into a
fine pulp, he scooped them out and put it on the frying pan sizzling on the open fire with a bit of oil.
Immediately the mouth watering smell of Auntie Ridang’s Palapa filled the house, and Herbert’s young
daughter could not help but moan in delight, making everyone laugh.
Then, while the Palapa was cooking, Kurt sprinkled the crushed Koringag bark into the fire, filling the whole
house with the sweet, slightly mossy, camphor-like fragrance of memories – memories of Salic’s giggles, of
Angkol Tulong’s humour, and of Auntie Ridang’s motherly kindness as she watched over them, cooking her
family’s own recipe of love over the warmth that burns in the hearths of all people – this love that Kurt and
Iyang and Joseph all hoped would linger, like the perfume incensing from the open fire, like the sweetness,
spiciness, savouriness of this resurrected recipe they were cooking in Auntie Ridang’s memory, like the guilt
and gratitude and grief that always comes for those who choose to remember, never to be forgotten,
remaining ever real. Inaayun. Laayun. Makanunayon. Always.
(In memory of the members of the real Galaw Family, who were massacred by Ilaga elements in Sitio Palera, Brgy Perez,
Kidapawan City on 10 July, 1971, and of all Moro civilians who were senselessly killed in the Greater Kidapawan Area over
the decades)
92
Guide Questions
1. Read up on the Christian-Muslim conflict in Mindanao in the 1970s. Ask elders – both Christian and
Muslim – in your neighbourhood how they experienced it. How do people in Kidapawan suffer from
ethnic and religious discrimination?
2. Kurt formed an unlikely friendship with the Galaws in his youth, and the Galaws also made Obo
Monuvu friends in Perez. Are such friendships possible in Kidapawan? What does it say about
Kidapawan’s inter-ethnic and interreligious relations?
3. The story features many dishes from the traditional cuisines of the Moros. Which of these dishes
have you encountered in Kidapawan before? How do you think could we help the city’s Moro
population start making more of these dishes available in Kidapawan?
4. If you were to bring visitors from outside Kidapawan to the city, what local food would you be
sharing with them?
5. Almost all the historical atrocities mentioned in the story are based on true incidents, and all the
mentioned dishes are actual dishes from Moro cuisines. Have you encountered these histories and
delicacies in school and mass media? If no, why do you think have they been ignored?
6. The story is very optimistic and idealistic in its portrayal of culture and the good relations between
Kidapawan’s peoples. Is this portrayal realistic? If not, what effect does it have on you as reader to
know that this ideal is unlikely to be seen in reality?
93
What it Means to Choke in Silence
Benjamin Quitubod dried his tears as he emerged from the school clinic and took a deep breath, so deep it
was as if he were trying to breathe in all the courage he could fill his lungs with from the early evening air.
Courage - he needed every bit of it he could inhale.
The nauseating vapour of teenage sweat still lingered over the all-boys school’s campus. He strained to get
even if just a whiff of hope against it all.
Nurse Soly had confirmed with much scandal that he had it – he was even able to find out that the antibiotic
was out of stock in Davao. But he thought he needed to cry to convince her he didn’t mean to get it.
Thankfully she bought the story, and she acted all sympathetic and motherly in spite of her undeniable
indignation.
His parents would be coming over by six to meet with Brother Romley about his grades, he told her, and he
would be telling them today during that meeting.
He had little doubt, though, that thanks to the nurse by tomorrow all of Kidapawan would know. Oh, what a
problem child he was now.
The Notre Dame Boys campus was empty. It was beautiful when it was empty like this, when he had it all to
himself. Just a year ago he’d have abhorred this solitude, but since the abuse began, he felt like he couldn’t get
enough of it.
As he sat on a stone bench near the high school library, he thought how easily he cried in front of nurse Soly.
When you gave yourself the chance to let it out you can’t fully do it somehow, but when the situation
unexpectedly allowed it, all the stifled horror would just burst out. Grief has a tendency to be indecent like
that. Hopefully, later it would happen, too.
Through the cyclone fence that surrounded Boys he could see his parents alighting from the tricycle that had
just come up from Datu Ingkal street. He stood up as they entered the main gate. They must have taken their
time chatting with the people in the Municipio, they should have arrived half an hour ago.
94
It was probably a good thing they were making friends, he thought. They had moved here to Kidapawan
from faraway Libungan just a year ago, when his father landed a place in the accounting office in Kidapawan’s
Municipio. They were really still adjusting.
After only being able to send their two children to public school in Libungan, they were finally able to save
enough to send both to Kidapawan’s private high schools.
The daughter was performing well in Girls, but here was the son, failing three subjects on the first grading
period of his second year.
When he met them at the edge of the flag ceremony area, they curtly gave their hands for the mano.
No, he could never tell them about the abuse. It would be far too much a bother for them.
‘Is the principal waiting?’ his mother asked tersely.
‘Not yet, the registrar said the Brothers are still having a meeting in the Champagnat house.’
They walked towards the High School Administrative Building at a pace at once leisurely and funeral. His
parents looked around the campus: they were only ever here for enrolment.
The wooden Administrative Building, where all the High School offices were, loomed over the campus, old
as Kidapawan, the aging wood reminiscent of decaying coffins. It was fronted by a daised flag pole that,
flanked on both sides by two lush cypress trees, looked like a crudely cemented tomb.
When he first came to this school it was an exciting new world full of things for him to discover, with bits of
life pressed between the pages of every old book or tucked in every nara-floored corner.
Since the abuse began it started feeling like a place where he was sent to die a slow and miserable death.
95
They entered the building, passing by the large wooden doors and the list of honour students just outside the
assistant principal’s office. He could not help but flinch.
The registrar, ma’am Cora, met them as they entered, and she gave him a smile. Sympathy, of course she
knew he was failing.
He wanted to punch that kind condescending ignorant smile off her face, the same way he wanted to twist
Nurse Soly’s head off with a slap as she shook it in motherly tut-tut superiority.
After some empty pleasantries, ma’am Cora directed them into the principal’s office, and he felt a rush of
nausea and dread. He struggled to compose himself while they sat down inside the office, as Brother
Romley’s sickening cologne choked him.
The office was full of trophies, proof of student victories in different events for the past few years. At the
center was a solid wooden table, with a cushioned chair just behind. The gallery of trophies ended just below
the back of the table, where there was a bookshelf full of clear books and ring bound documents.
He knew this office well.
Too well.
Brother Romley had summoned him into this office for the first time when Benjamin was a first year. His
curiosity had been overwhelmed by dread at the prospect of punishment: that afternoon the Brother-principal
had suddenly asked him to come to his office after classes, and judging by the reaction of the other boys, he
thought he was in trouble. Oh how young he had been just a year ago.
It turned out the brother had just noticed that he still had not been making friends two months into his first
year (Boys was a small, intimate community).
He admitted to the sympathetic principal that he was too shy, most of the boys had known each other since
elementary, and it did not help that he preferred books over basketball.
96
Brother Romley looked as if this fascinated him. He asked Benjamin what books he read, and that was the
first of their long afternoon chats about books.
The principal was his first friend in high school.
‘What is this Brother Romley like?’ whispered his father to his mother.
‘Our neighbour auntie Fely – she has a son here – thinks he’s gay.’
Months ago he’d have been infuriated by this. It did not take him long to get wind of what they say many of
the Marist Brothers in Kidapawan have been engaging in since the time of the Americans: giving undue grade
incentives or exceptions from disciplinary action to boys they fancied, treating them out to meals,
scandalously even going out to drink with these minors. Nothing more was usually speculated, though if the
gossiper was feeling vindictive or nasty, so much more would be implied.
And some boys were rumoured to be among ‘Sister Romley’s boys,’ including some Arnold or some Doydoy
in the higher years. Of course Benjamin could not believe this. It became even more absurd when he
overheard some of them gossiping in the bathroom that he, Benjamin, was another Romley’s boy. As far as
he was concerned, the reticent young principal’s bookishness was just misunderstood for effeminacy.
Oh, how young he had been just a year ago.
‘Go on ahead, Cora,’ said the familiar silky voice from outside the office, ‘I’ll lock the doors after our
meeting.’ And he could hear the registrar excuse herself before heading home.
Brother Romley glided into the room with the stealth of despair. With the air of importance only an academic
administrator or a religious man could wear, he did not even throw Benjamin or his parents a glance, just a
casual apology for making them wait.
At the mere sight of him, Benjamin began doubting if he could do this. He trembled, as fear makes all victims
tremble and doubt the culpability of their molesters.
97
But he clenched his wrist where the syringe went, and he reminded himself that there was no turning back.
He had it already, and there was no turning back.
To calm himself he scrutinized Brother Romley, who was reading what looked like Benjamin’s records. The
young, bespectacled Marist brother, perpetually stooped with focus on what he was reading, often intimidated
people with his clause-perfect English and his cold, often snobbish demeanour. But Benjamin had known
him up close – far too up close.
He could only wonder how, in spite of all the terrible things this man had done to him, he could still see the
witty, intellectual, good humoured man with whom he had spent almost all the afternoons of his first year in
high school. In spite of the sickening things he was forced to do in this office, he could still remember the
warmth of conversations as they’d chat about books Brother would recommended and which Benjamin
would read in the spare time he had between classes.
While his peers played basketball and football, he talked to Brother well until past six in the evening – when
they were alone in campus together – about European history, botany, and literature.
‘Araling Panlipunan, Biology, English…’ Brother Romley muttered, and he fell silent again.
As he continued to go over the papers, he sat down, and began absentmindedly stroking the table with his
hand, leaving the room in silence. Benjamin’s parents were tense but couldn’t dare call the principal’s
attention from the importance of his paperwork. How comfortable the man was with silence, Benjamin
thought. Like some spider easily caressing the web that gagged and choke some unwitting soul that caught
themselves in it.
‘I really cannot understand why Ben is doing badly,’ the principal said (he knew the perfect timing to put the
Quitobod couple at ease).
‘We’re really quite sorry, brother…’ his mother answered differentially. This of course was what was at stake:
the Quitobods were newcomers to Kidapawan, Boys had been an institution in the town for almost thirty
years.
98
‘Oh but he’s usually very good in these topics, right Ben?’
Benjamin knew that tone. It was the tone that delicately balanced care and threat.
He knew that tone all too well. One afternoon near the end of Benjamin’s first year, he first heard that tone in
all its horror.
That afternoon the conversation strayed from the symbolism of trees to a rather different topic. About a
week earlier Brother had lent him a copy of some novel by Oscar Wilde. After some incoherent discussions
of its fascinations and possibilities, he gingerly looked out to see from his window that the six o clock campus
was empty, and he locked the office door.
With an almost hushed but feverish urgency he urged Benjamin to sit on the hard wood table. To the boy’s
paralyzing surprise, the Brother began touching him, whispering ‘there you go, very good…’ repeatedly into
his ear with that menacingly caressing purr. He held on to the hard wood as it transpired, the Brother
whispering ‘very good’ into his ear, a hand inside his pants in agitated delirium, until he climaxed.
‘We really don’t know where we went wrong with this boy…’ muttered the father almost apologetically. ‘Must
have fallen into some bad crowd…. His sister in Girls is running for honours, and here he is…’
‘But we should try to understand your son, Mr Quitobod.’ Oh how very progressive the principal sounded.
‘Young people usually go through so much at this age.
‘Will you tell us what’s wrong, Ben?’
A threat. At the sound of that sentence he felt he couldn’t bear it. He was clenching his wrist so tightly now
his hand was starting to grow numb.
Shame and expulsion in a sentence: it was that sentence which the Brother would use to choke him in silence.
With psychopathic dexterity, he would alternate between caressing whispers of ‘very good’ as he stroked or
sucked or penetrated the boy or force himself in the boy’s mouth, and this sentence, puffed out between
gritted teeth as he pulled the boy’s hair or choked him against the door after every instance. ‘Will you be
99
telling, Ben? Will you?’ and too horrified to even sob Benjamin could only nod. Then he’d tell the boy to
return the next afternoon, and it would happen all over again. This went on for months.
‘Ben, will you tell us what’s wrong?’ the Brother repeated.
You know fucking well what’s wrong you monster you stuffed your shit down my throat and I am too goddamn weak and
paralyzed to tell anyone about it to even tell anyone about anything for fuck’s sake and I can’t breathe choking in silence and I
can’t fucking trust the world and even my goddamn self because you made part of me think I was actually enjoying the sickening
shit you did to me –
Stop it. Benjamin composed himself by looking down the floor. No, he reminded himself. You did not come
here because he defeated you. No. You failed those subjects on purpose. And he lost weeks ago…
‘He doesn’t even look us in the eye, Brother…’ his mother screeched, and his father concurred with a
resigned nod. Oh, how terribly disappointed and ashamed his parents were of him now.
Just as he had planned it.
He looked up to look at Brother Romley in the face. The man had the same seductive condescension in his
eyes, that look that so chimerically merged the loving older-brother figure, the trustworthy but authoritative
man of faith, and the psychopath using God and academic freedom to choke resistance with silence.
But no, he will not back down. He had the upper hand.
He recalled the first time he tried to kill himself. He had stopped counting on the fifth time how many times
he tried to kill himself, but he cannot forget the first time. In desperation he drank fabric bleach while his
parents were away on a Municipio outing mayor Gana was sponsoring. He just ended up vomiting it out.
When they came back all his mother did was complain that the bleach had run out too fast.
The thought of the sheer indifference of his family choked him, and it was enough to achieve the desired
effect. He began sobbing.
100
He sobbed and he sobbed and he sobbed. This disquieted his parents, and when he noticed this, he rushed to
his mother’s arms. She accepted him with surprising tenderness.
‘Ma, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ He could see this was having an effect on her.
‘You were right, Pa,’ he wailed. ‘I fell into a bad crowd,’ he threw Brother Romley a look – and for the first
time the man looked unsettled. But he quickly gathered his composure, and threw back a bored look.
‘There, there…’ his father tried to console him.
‘I’ve done terrible things, Ma.’ Benjamin continued sobbing. At the corner of his tear-filled eye he saw that
Brother Romley wasn’t even paying attention anymore, taking long glances at some papers on his table.
‘Drink, smoke, I’ve been doing so many terrible things…’ perfect lies, of course. His mother gave a nurse
Soly-like shake of the head.
‘Pa, I’m sorry. Even women..!’
‘What do you mean!’ his father sounded indignant, but he could swear he could sense a hint of awe behind
that.
And he noticed that Brother Romley was once again paying nervous attention.
‘I’ve been using prostitutes, Pa.’ he sobbed. ‘I’ve been stealing from your wallet to have enough to pay for it.’
‘Santisima!’ his mother exclaimed. Brother Romley was ghostly pale.
‘And Ma, I’m so sorry. I’m really so so sorry…’
101
And as he said it, fully confident that his parents we’re too troubled to notice where his eyes were directed, he
stared at the troubled principal.
‘I just had Nurse Soly check me earlier. I had some pustules in my private parts for over a week now.
‘She says it’s syphilis.’
Brother Romley’s jaw was agape in horror. Of course he had touched the pustules, he had put them in his
mouth, mocking Benjamin for actually secretly wanting these afternoon horrors. Maybe, the principal taunted,
the boy liked it so much he was playing with himself too excessively as to cause blisters. Then he licked them
to make them sting.
‘What!? Son!’
‘I’m so sorry Pa!’
‘From a prostitute!?’
‘Yes Ma, I’m so sorry!’
It was true. When he gathered enough strength to decide he’d keep the silence and ram it back down Brother
Romley’s throat, the first thing he did was ask around – tricycle drivers, security guards, construction workers
– where to find prostitutes in Kidapawan. And when he found them he asked who among them had syphilis.
The street women mockingly pointed to a poor middle aged woman who lived under the Nuangan bridge
alone, nearly insane from her shame.
He then bought a disposable syringe, paid the poor woman fifty pesos for some of her blood, and injected it
into himself.
102
‘Can’t syphilis drive you insane, or blind!’
‘Yes pa…’
‘My goodness, my son!’ screeched his mother.
‘But it can be cured, ma,’ he looked at Brother Romley again. ‘Isn’t that right, brother?’
The horrified principal scrambled to compose himself. ‘Yes, yes… I think some antibiotic...’
‘Is it true brother!’ said his mother gratefully. ‘Oh thank goodness. But can we find that here in Kidapawan?’
‘Nurse Soly says it’s lucky Doctor Evangelista has it, Ma.’ said Benjamin. ‘She said she heard there’s been a
shortage in Mindanao: the hospitals in Davao have been out of stock for months now, and the supply in
GenSan is too low to share.’
‘Thank goodness!’ and his mother seemed far too relieved at her son’s safety to think about the scandal for
now. Besides, he thought, that fell into plan too: being promiscuous was respectable for a young man, even in
Catholic Kidapawan. His father will at least have something to joke about when drinking with friends.
‘I’m so sorry ma! I’ve been a bad son!’ he sobbed again, embracing his mother, who just patted his head with
resigned affection as he dried his tears.
And as he did so, he looked at Brother Romley. If he ever went to any hospital or clinic, he was far too well
known in the Cotabato area for word of it not to spread, and all the Marist Brothers in GenSan would know
if he went there. His only hope of a discreet treatment was Davao, but that had but cut off from him (what a
blessing that was). He can wait, but a principal has to follow a busy academic calendar, a sudden out of town
trip would be just as damaging as walking into Doctor Evangelista’s clinic with a syphilitic genital under his
cassock (with Nurse Soly making the topic hot in Kidapawan because of Bejamin, accurate speculations will
be all too easy!). But if he waited too long the virus would slowly rot him away.
103
Benjamin, with eyes glistening in assumed tears, looked as Brother Romley agonized in choking silence
between irredeemable shame for himself and the school or crippling invalidity, even death.
The brother saw him looking, and Benjamin smiled.
And that was all he needed to do to tell this defeated monster that this was what it was like, this was what it
meant to choke in silence.
104
Guide Questions
1. Do you know anyone who has experienced sex abuse? If you do and you know that they are still
suffering from it, report it to the City Social Welfare Office as soon as possible.
2. The issue of sex abuse of minors by people of religious orders is something that recently gained
world attention. Read up on this. Does Kidapawan have its own experience of such abuses?
3. A major factor of the church sex abuse scandals is the culture of covering up the atrocities. In the
story, it is even the principal, a person of authority, who does the abuse. How do you think do
schools and churches in Kidapawan respond to cases of sexual abuse of minors by teachers and
clerics?
4. In the story, Benjamin feels unable to discuss the abuse he is going through with his parents. How do
you think do parents in Kidapawan respond to the problems of their children?
5. At some point the story asserts that ‘being promiscuous was respectable for a young man, even in
Catholic Kidapawan.’ Do you think this is true today? How do you feel about this?
6. Do you think the story has a happy ending?
105

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Six

Karlo Antonio Galay David

A Compilation for Learners

Karlo Antonio Galay David

This collection was compiled strictly for educational purposes

Karlo Antonio Galay David

A Compilation for Learners

Basic Information about the Stories ~ p.5

Basic Information about the Author ~ p.6

Kei by the Stream ~ p.8

Touch Move ~ p.16

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit ~ p.30

What It Means to Choke in Silence ~ p. 94

Readers in Kidapawan should be reading fiction about Kidapawan.

Karlo Antonio Galay David

Basic Information about the Stories

Title of the Subject Matters Language Medium Setting Publication History

Basic Information about the Author

Name: Karlo Antonio Galay David

Place of Birth: Davao City

Hometown: Kidapawan City, North Cotabato ( Brgy Lanao)

Email address: karlo.antonio.david@gmail.com

Writers’ Workshop Fellowships :

- Silliman National Writers Workshop (Dumaguete City, 2012)

Kei By the Stream

“That’s an interesting book…”

And with that, he fell silent and stared at the stream.

“I’m Lily.” I said.

“Kei.” He replied without looking at me. And we returned to our silence.

Then, right around midday, he spoke.

“Do you think there are fish in this stream?”

He shook his head.

“Or any living things in it?” I added.

“Do you see any?” he replied. I shook my head.

“I prefer it that way.” And I resumed my stare at the stream.

I looked at him again and he smiled back at me…

When I saw Kei, he was sitting yet again on the stone.

I noticed a dark patch beside his left eye.

“It’s okay.” He said.

“What happened? Did someone hurt you?”

“Who did it!? Did your parents do it to you?”

Then, we had to part.

So not without a heavy heart, I bade Kei farewell.

May tatanungin siya.

Nagbalik siya sandal sa upuan niya.

“Problema talaga yang lolo mo . . .”

Natapos ko na ang Rubik’s Cube. 6.32 seconds.

“Tulungan mo ulit ako, Len, ha . . .”

Tango lang din ako.

“Ano nangyari, Dad?

“Oo, ginaisip namin yun.”

“Tapos ikaw din magsalita ka rin sa radyo.”

“Ha? Ano din sabihin ko?”

“Ano pala gigawa ni Lolo, Dad?”

Kalalim na buntong hininga.

“May anak na naman siya sa labas lumitaw.”

“Bayaran pala o iligpit gaya ng iba, Dad?”

“Hmm . . .” Pang-Megaminx ito na problema. Gikuha ko.

“Mag-uwi daw dito, Dad?”

“Sunduin niyo sa Davao.”

Nasa antenna na ako nang pumasok si Dad.

May kasama siyang lalaki na hindi ko pa nakita.

Nagtango lang ako.

“Len, wag bastos.”