fighting back

I was at the National Bookstore branch in SM City Davao at around two in the afternoon last Monday when I received a text message from my friend Ally in Cotabato.

“Are you following the news?”

“What news?” I managed to text as I was paying the cashier.

“There’s a hostage taking in Shariff Aguak.”

I rushed to Coffee Dream, a café right in front of the bookstore, ordered a tall Café Americano and opened my laptop. I logged on to Inquirer.net and a developing news on the “hostage taking” incident was the breaking story. Two hours later, I would learn from cousins the sad news: Relatives from the Mangudadatu clan, mostly women, together with two lawyers and several journalists were massacred in the vicinity of Shariff Aguak and Ampatuan towns in Maguindanao. My father called me to confirm the news. By early evening, the news had made it to the BBC news page. Several international news website would soon report on the gruesome murders. 

I sat in front of the television that evening, channel surfing all the news programs, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of the brutal incident that day. Words could not fully express my emotions. Amid the silence, I prayed to the Almighty for strength and better judgment. 

In the succeeding days, 57 bodies were retrieved in the hills of Ampatuan bearing evidence of beastly acts. The world, especially the families and relatives of the victims, are grappling to come to terms with this tragic incident and the loss of loved ones. But it is going to be a long and hard process. A process that entails bringing the perpetuators of the crime to justice. A process that the world will and must carefully and vigilantly watch. 

The massacre was (allegedly) perpetuated by Andal Ampatuan Jr., a scion and, reportedly, the favorite son of an equally brute man, Andal Sr., three-time governor of Maguindanao. By Friday morning, Andal Jr. – a member of the ruling Lakas Kampi CMD coalition until his ouster Wednesday night from the party, together with his father and brother, ARMM Governor Zaldy— surrendered to authorities but asserts that he is innocent. Many fear that the surrender, brokered by Mindanao Affairs Secretary Jesus Dureza, was done to quell the rising tide of emotions. After all, there is little material evidence that links Andal Jr. to the crime – and whatever evidence there is can be easily dismissed through legal technicalities especially if one can afford lawyers whose services command six digit figures (report has it that Atty. Siegfried Fortun has been hired for the defense). 

Various organizations and individuals have called for calm and sobriety. But I believe it is equally important to call for vigilance on the issue as well. A vigilance that will serve as a beacon of hope and light in these dark days.

The Ampatuans’ ouster from the ruling party came after party members threatened to jump from an already sinking ship. As they scramble for self-preservation, the party executive committee reached the decision without the benefit of a due process. Lakas Kampi seems to be in a hurry to distance itself from the massacre and the Ampatuans’, a political dynasty whose ascent to power, was mainly because of its ties with Malacanang. By ousting the Ampatuans from the party, there is a growing public perception of guilt in the part of the Ampatuans. But can Lakas Kampi risk losing the Ampatuans who delivered the votes to GMA during the contested 2004 presidential elections? 

One can only speculate the extent of the conversation Sec. Dureza had with the Ampatuans. While administration presidential bet was so vocal in his condemnation of the crime, the Palace cannot however risk cuttings its ties with the Ampatuans.

The lack of solid material evidence for multiple murders against Andal Jr. threatens the case. For lack of sufficient evidence, the Department of Justice may junk the case. Without criminal liability, Lakas Kampi may opt to welcome them back. And everything goes back to square one. As political analyst Ramon Casiple put it in a news interview, it is also a question of political will [whether or not GMA and her party can sacrifice a valuable ally].

It is natural that emotions are reaching feverish high at this time, but in the days ahead, it is also incumbent upon us, and those who seek justice and the truth, to think clearly about our next steps. 

When I posted a status message on my Facebook account last Monday night condemning the atrocity, somebody commented that this is how things are. “But what can we do? They have the ‘power’. We are under an empire.”

Another friend countered, “that's why some people are able to get away with what they do, most of us would think that we are helpless. They are there and they continue to do the things that they do because we simply do not want to take action. After the helplessness, what?”

It is, therefore, imperative now to accumulate as much evidence as possible this case stands a chance, and that Andal Jr. and his cohorts can be tried, and hopefully, convicted in court. We cannot let the killers get away with their crimes, as they have done so easily in the past.

So far everything is circumstantial, according to my lawyer friends. Something that I could not help but agree with. Being an avid fan of legal television shows like Damages and Ally McBeal, and forensic science series like CSI and Criminal Minds, I know that it is an uphill battle ahead.  

Enrol me. I miss going to school!

bare knuckle

Brava Theater presents
BARE KNUCKLE
A warrior’s greatest untapped power may reside in his surrender.
written and performed by Anthem Salgado
directed by Evren Odcikin

November 21 – December 3, 2009
Brava Theater, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tix: 415.641.7657, www.brava.org

coming home

I have vague recollections of the last time I was home. When I say “home” I’m not referring to the two-bedroom bungalow in Davao that my partner Mogley and I and our five cats inhabit, but the place where I spent my childhood, in the rural town of Pagalungan, Maguindanao. A few months ago I attended the funeral of an aunt on my father’s side in the neighboring town of Pikit, and upon returning to Davao I made a quick stopover to check my mother’s house. The house, built in the 1980s and not ancient for anyone’s standards, is a catastrophe waiting for the right timing. Termites have chomped on pretty much of the timber; the columns and beams have been reduced to the tensile strength of Styrofoam. The house is highly combustible, with yellowed textbooks and magazines and old clothes and furniture sitting quietly around the house. A ban should be imposed on matches, flints, lighters, magnifying lenses, and everything that can start fire. The structure is so fragile that a wolf can huff and puff and blow it apart in five seconds. When you’re inside the house a single inhalation of the musty air is enough to induce violent bronchial spasms. 

My parents have been planning a major renovation for years, but none of their children have any intention of becoming its permanent resident. Not even in the near future. It’s only on rare occasions –when I’m fed up with the complications of city living— that I entertain the thought of returning home. Life cannot be simpler. I can wake up at early in the morning, have a cup of Pamugon’s thick coffee, walk around the poblacion and watch people go about their daily routine, perhaps drop in at a cousin’s house to exchange news and gossip, and inhale a whiff of the sweet-scented frangipani on my way back to the house to read a book or write. I can grow vegetables and herbs in the backyard. I can collect fresh chicken eggs each morning, even pick dozens of ripe tamarind that fall on the ground almost every day. Fruit trees are everywhere. Freshly extracted juice from the guyabano or balimbing can keep the heat at bay, and don’t forget the smelly but yummy durian for dessert. For afternoon treats, plantains can be turned into greasy plil, deep fried balls made from mashed banana and tapioca, or sangkurat, the Maguindanaon version of minatamis na saging. Tenants can deliver a sack of rice from the farm, and, since I’m not much of a rice eater, the rice can last until the next harvest season. However, I would always snap out of this dreamy state in a sort of “What were you thinking?” way. As I look back, the last time I spent a night in Pagalungan was nowhere near idyllic.

“Soldiers entered the interior barangays last night,” our housekeeper told me. The town is highly militarized. Government troops slip in and out, and, with the presence of Moro rebels –with camps everywhere, after all, the town sits on the Liguasan Marsh— there’s always a possibility that war can erupt anytime. 

Bandits find sanctuary here. When I was growing up cattle rustling was their game. Now they rob gasoline stations in neighboring towns and run here for cover. Politicians and warlords, too, have their private armies. 

Like the rest of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, development comes at turtle pace. The only functional government infrastructure are the long stretch of national highway and the municipal government building, which was built during my mother’s term as mayor in the 1980s. Credit should be given to NGOs and donor agencies for constructing boat landings, warehouses, solar dryers, school buildings, and community centers. The local government is incapable of providing basic social services. Who do we blame? The Internal Revenue Allotment is already insufficient to support a decent lifestyle for the wives of our local leaders. My mother once commented that, “The next town collects taxes better. Why can’t do we it here?” She was referring to a small town –still in its infancy— which was carved out of Pagalungan only a few years ago. 

“Who do we collect taxes from?” I threw back a question to my mother. Almost all the income earners –my family included— have left town many years ago. They’ve built houses and started families in cities, and sent their children to the best private schools they can afford. “There are only three reasons people still come back. One, they’re employed in the town’s public schools or the municipio. They still have properties here, and there are other family members around.” For several residents, poverty has forced them to seek gainful employment in foreign lands, mostly working as domestic helpers. The unfinished cement houses that dot the town are the fruits of OFW remittances. The people left behind are those who do not have the luxury of a second choice – farmers who continue to till the earth without assurance of a bountiful harvest (or in case war erupts, the opportunity to gather their produce), felons evading the law, and war refugees in a perpetual game of patintero with war and destiny. 

On most nights the town is covered in total darkness. You can’t depend on the electric cooperative for their services because, generally, the residents do not pay their dues, and illegal connections overwhelm electric lines. Halogen lamps in the national highway have long been put out of use. Hoodlums made them their convenient target during shooting practice.

I still have vague recollections of the last time I was “home.” But in rare moments that I stray into my hometown by some force of circumstance, I always find time to take photographs of the red house where I spent my childhood.

a bibliophile's confession

One Saturday morning I caught my eight-year-old niece Zaheeda completely immersed in a bookmaking project. She took out a few sheets of bond paper from her art class envelope, folded them in half, and started making illustrations with crayons and color pencils. I sneaked closer to see what she was up to, but upon sensing my unwelcome presence –my shadow obstructed the stream of sunlight from the window—she covered her drawing and the opening line to her story. I walked away and left her with her business. I envied her in a way. When I was her age, I never endeavored on a book of my own. I drew paper dolls or my interpretation of the cartoon classics Voltes V and Flying House. Once in a while I devised a mock stethoscope by tying small whatchamacallits to a red plastic headband for a game of “doctor-doctor.”

Twenty-five years later, I would amass real books and the only thing that still reminds me that I wanted to be a doctor is a copy of MIMS Philippines, which I use as reference to understand the action of medicines that are prescribed to a sick family member.

I live in a house full of books. A handful of which I obtained from my mother’s library –survivors of a termite holocaust that now sit safely on my dark wood bookshelves— together with books that I purchased through the years, or given to me by friends and past lovers. As my collection increased, I ran out of bookshelves to hold them. I had to buy those Do-It-Yourself racks because I could customize them to shapes and sizes that can fit in available spaces. But in time books spilled to different parts of the house. I use a 338-page manual on exposition as a doorstop. The smooth cover of National Geographic works perfectly as a mouse-pad. A stack of large hardbound books serves as an extra bedside table. There’s always a book in the toilet, the inspirational soup kind, to jumpstart my day. The casualties of my cat’s urine spraying are stacked outside the house, relegated as garden reading companion. Tired of weeding my carrot bed, I would rest in the shed for a while and read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

A few years ago I imposed a moratorium on book buying, but National Bookstore slashed down their prices during its sixty-fifth anniversary. There were books for as low as 50 pesos. I tried to avoid the bookstore for a few days, but on the third day I chanced upon an Oscar Wilde quote. Faced with the to-buy-or-not-to-buy question, it was an epiphany. A bibliophile is a moron if he doesn’t yield to the temptation of a book sale. The next day I went to the bookstore at 10am, spent a good two hours rummaging through piles of books, and brought home eight hardbound copies and five paperbacks.

I treat books with tender loving care. Covering paperbacks with plastic is a ceremony of almost religious significance that I take seriously. I dust my books every now and then. I inspect them for silverfish and termite. A few months ago I discovered an adult silverfish in one of my books. I shrieked with such horror passersby would have thought I witnessed a baby being hurled from the Empire State Building.

Books serve as markers –geographical and historical— of journeys that I’ve embarked on. Under my signature the date and place of acquisition, as well as some trivial notes are recorded on the title page. Salman Rushdie’s Step Across the Line was purchased in Kuala Lumpur on 12/21/04, after falling in a pool outside the pink mosque at Putrajaya. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran were bought at Borders in a ‘Buy One Take One Free’ sale in Washington DC, during the summer of ’05.

I’m extremely territorial and overprotective of my books. I’m tempted to put a sticker sign in the house that reads ‘NO BORROWING OF BOOKS ALLOWED.’ It’s for a good reason. Some of my books that I lent friends and cousins in the past were never returned. Others had been victims of ‘nth degree borrowing.’ A friend would borrow a book, and he would lend it to another friend who happened to have a cousin who had scoured all stores within a thirty-mile radius for a copy of the book, and so on. Now, when my friends insist on borrowing a book I tell that they are welcome as readers-in-residence in my house. I will prepare a reading space for them. I will even cook meals for them until they finish the book. In an impending catastrophe my books, at least the ones that I classified as ‘IMPORTANT’, are to be evacuated first, along with my cats, computers, and old photographs.

Books occupy physical space. There’s little of it left in my house I can’t stretch my arms anymore without knocking something off its place. More important books fill one’s spiritual void. They provide a retreat from the banality of everyday life, a temporary cocoon where one can be transported to other universes and realities that are totally different from one’s own. Many friendships are borne out of books, engendered by common predilection for an author, genre, or literary sensibility, bringing them to a shared geography of the imagination that seems incomprehensible to those who do not share the same passion.

It would seem strange to see people camping out of a bookstore in the middle of winter just to get a copy of the newest edition of the Harry Potter series. For fans, though, it would make perfect sense. The same would be true for writers and bibliophiles who gathered at Shambaugh House in Iowa City one fall evening to pay tribute to David Foster Wallace who killed himself in his home in California. They lit candles, read fragments from Infinite Jest and the author’s other works, and cry on each other’s shoulders. No one among them has met Wallace –well, maybe one— but they echo the issues that the author explored in his writings: the existential distance that alienates people from one another.

Books can bridge time and space. In the future I will learn to let go of them, bequeathing my precious collection to a public library or a member of my family. My niece Zaheeda perhaps. One day she might inherit the joy, wonder, and fulfillment that I’ve found every time I turned a page.

halal, anyone?

the name my father gave me

I AM MY FATHER’S SON.

Make no mistake about it. There’s an overwhelming body of evidence to corroborate this claim. His name appears as ‘FATHER’ on my birth certificate. He read me stories when I was a child, sent me to good schools, got called to the principal’s office when on rare instances I strayed into the terrain of impertinence. He attended my graduation, clothed and fed me until a few years ago. We tower in a crowd, sport goatees, develop itch during winter conditions, and are predisposed to diabetes. Due to advances in the field of genetics, a laboratory can verify that we are of the same gene pool. And to erase any doubts of his paternity, he did the ultimate thing by giving me his own name— Gutierrez. Henceforth I became The Second, his Mini-Me.

By what motivation he decided to give me his name I did not bother to find out anymore. Whether it was out of pure vanity, a testament to his virility, or the simple pleasure of siring a child that inspired him to give me exactly the name that his father gave him –the namesake of the first Filipino governor of Cotabato— is of no consequence to me now.

“It sounds like a family name…” is a comment often repeated, causing me a slight discomfort, my eyeballs to roll, and, because of the gift of storytelling that I also inherited from my father, an occasion to spin my own tale of the provenance of this unusual name. I will narrate the fabricated story to anyone –at the school registrar, airport, embassy, bank, hospital, and lately in an interfaith dialogue seminar— who care enough to lend me their ears for a minute or two.

My story goes something like, “During the Second World War, my grandfather had a good friend, Captain Gutierrez. One day they raided a Japanese military detachment, and in the course of the fighting Captain Gutierrez sustained a gunshot right through his heart. My grandfather mourned the loss of his friend. When his first son was born, he named him Gutierrez, in honor of a friendship. My father gave the name to me when I was born, so that we may not forget that once a Muslim and Christian became the best of friends. A reminder in this age when differences can sometimes get in the way of potential friendships.”

I have repeatedly told this story and, at one point, accepted this lie as truth. For what is the business of naming but the invention of illusion. One of our neighbors in Cotabato was named Maximo – an extremely masculine name that conjures images of the contravida in Filipino movies who perennially wear a black leather jacket despite the tropical heat and a tacky ponytail. As it turned out, Maximo was the gayest person that I have known in my childhood. Except for the first Adonis that I met in life who was really handsome, everybody I know seems to possess the opposite attributes that their names represent. My classmate Mussolini was one of the most diplomatic people on earth. My cousin Melody could hardly carry a tune. Iskandar Julkarnain, another cousin who was named after a Maguindanao sultan in the nineteenth century, lead a life of boozing and drug addiction.

The business of naming a child is a matter that should not be taken lightly. Names endure time, outliving their owners. Great men and women are remembered for their deeds, the same way thieves, mass murderers, dictators, and rapists continue to bring horror to the living. Mahatma Gandhi’s “Be The Change” remains an inspiration today. The memory of Adolf Hitler never fails to send shivers to the spine.

A name defines the Self. It sums up what and who we are. And since it’s the duty of parents to give names to their children, we leave it to their wisdom and foresight to exercise their right of taxonomy. We may never fully grasp why boys end up with girly names like Jennifer, Abigail, or Jocelyn; perhaps their parents expected a daughter. Ten years from now children will wonder why they are called Marimar, Zaido or Luna Mystika, and, expecting some profound explanations, they will get disappointed upon learning that their names are a product of Nanay’s couch potato habits.

The variety of Maguindanaon names is a subject of great interest. Some of my ancestors were named after nature. Ubal, monkey; Tapudi, grasshopper; or Umbos, bud. Again, the wisdom behind these names may never be fully revealed. Was it planting season when the child was born? Or was it the intention of the parent to allude to the happy-go-lucky attitude or destructive tendency of a grasshopper? Others had names that were vivid and descriptive. Latog, erection; Masebud, fat; or Balikwat, turned upside down. Parenthood is something the Maguindanaon wears proudly; hence, people are called the parent-of-the-name-of-their-firstborn. My parents are addressed as Ama-ni-Teng and Ina-ni-Teng. With the growing Muslim consciousness, children are now given names that declare their faith – Abdullah, servant of God; Khadija, the first wife of the Prophet; or Amir, commander. Some names are never mentioned out of deep respect. For instance my ancestor Datu Ali of Kudarangan is always referred to as Nasabil, or The Martyred. Disapproving of American colonial authority, he was killed in an ambush in 1905.

At age twenty I thought of changing my name into something indigenous along the native-American way of personality description. A law had been passed making it possible for people to legally change their names, like in the case of Kidlat Tahimik who used to be Eric de Guia. However, I was afraid that it would be misconstrued as being disrespectful of my father. So I settled for a second name –Redsun, or Pulang Araw. It perfectly suited my personality. I can be impatient and prone to making fits. I used it for the first time when I registered for a French language class. My teachers called me Soleil Rouge. I was proud of my invention. I thought that if I continued using this name people would begin to be inured to it. It was going to be the rebirth of a new me, but the name game did not last long. Writing a twenty-two-letter name on documents was already a Pilates workout for my left hand muscles. Adding six more letters would literally push it to the edge of the page.

Looking back, my decision to have a name change was borne out of the cargo of living in my father’s shadow. I was my father’s son only when I accomplished something that my old man could be proud of. In high school, winning quiz bee after another, people would say, “You inherited your father’s smarts. He must surely be proud of you.” But when I started softening like frozen marshmallow in a roasting pit, the same people advised me, “Toughen up. You do not want to be an embarrassment to your father.”

I am proud to be my father’s son. I share his name –a legacy that I have learned to live with responsibly— but we are two very different persons. Our personalities are a study in contrast. My father is realistic, purposeful, cool headed, tactful, decisive, and frugal. I am spontaneous, inclined to take a chance on almost anything, impulsive, vacillating, and extravagant. While I bask in the glory of my father’s illustrious name, I would like to have the power to mold my own being, like a clay in a potter’s wheel in the ultimate act of creation, being shaped and reshaped in the process, unmindful of the slight mistakes until it’s time for me to revel in the glow of the kiln.