Creative Nonfiction

On “Te, tabangi ko bi”

Yezabelle F. Quinapondan July 26, 2024

“Te, tabangi ko bi,” is a phrase that echoes frequently through my household. It’s a magical phrase, you see, consisting of words that transfix me into giving my utmost attention to these calls several times throughout the day. It’s like a signal I’m forever conditioned to adhere to. Whenever I hear those shrill voices on the other side of my door, I—as if on cue—drop whatever it is that I’m doing to respond, even if it might break the ‘flow’ I built up in writing a school essay, or even if it might force me to break away from my sappy and corny teenage romcoms.

As the eldest and only daughter, I like to play a little game whenever those calls beckon me to be summoned out of my teenage hobbit hole of solitude. Before I open the door to leave my room, I always try to guess who out of the four other members of my family needs my help this time around. Would it be Ralph, who could be struggling to differentiate between verb tenses? Is it Dad, who could probably be worried that he accidentally deleted another app on his phone (although he probably didn’t)? Or maybe it would be Michael for once, asking me what new anime I think he should start now or imploring for algebra answers. Although it could be just Mom again, whose requests are much easier to narrow down; hers are either taking down the hanging or asking for my opinion on a new dress she’s been eyeing on Facebook Marketplace—there is no in-between.

My daily life is a constant mantra of these requests, which naturally conditioned my flexibility to be able to do one thing in one minute and another in the next. This conditioned ability of mine can be seen in my school life as I switch my notebook for my laptop, proceed from focusing on my work to helping my friends with theirs, and topic-shift from discussing research papers to “Huy, gimingaw nako niya!” It is the reason why I can’t ever seem to sit still, why my hands are always itching to be doing something, and why I feel as if there is something wrong with the world if there isn’t anything for me to fulfill or some role to fill in.

And yet as I sift through the days of fulfilling my mom’s need for outfit validation to satisfying my brother’s algebra inquiries, I wonder where my requests fall in place. They certainly do not fall onto the irresolute shoulders of my younger brothers, but they do not seem to reach my parents’ minds either, constantly caught up in bills and work. Between being told to “Enjoy being young, Ate,” and expectations because “dako na ka, be a good role model for your brothers,” I have no idea where I stand and which of the contradicting roles I am to fulfill. And so in my flexibility to do so much at one time accumulated over the years, I do the one thing I am conditioned to do: lay aside my requests and fulfill both roles.

Let me tell you, being the eldest daughter is not for the weak. Eldest daughters in Filipino families are fated to grapple with not only being the eldest but also the gender stereotypes of Filipino culture that demand to be followed. Imagine the workload of a father, the role as an emotional pillar of the household of a mother, and the needs of a child waiting to be fulfilled, all thrust upon the eldest daughter without so much prior notice. 

It is an impossible balance; the tipped weight of the scale branded to the eldest daughter’s birth is one that is never asked for but is expected to be maintained. She is expected to be a provider and giver, yet the fact that she is in need of her own provider as well is so easily shrugged off and clouded by the anticipations placed upon her by not just Filipino society, but also the very people who have subjected her to this label in the first place. 

Parents, being the ones who have burned this label onto us, naturally preach that eldest daughters ought to have utang na loob to their family: to carry on the responsibilities of their familial and gender roles and be indebted to the sacrifices they made; yet is it more so a debt than a cry of interdependence? Is it a proclamation to subject their daughters to the role of a perpetual barrier, the first to bear the brunt of their parents’ joys, sorrows, and frustrations? Or a decree to leave them to a place between child and caretaker, with both ends having no receiving point? An existence that goes hand-in-hand with constantly fulfilling roles and the needs of the family is the fate destined for their daughter, and she will come to find that she does not exist separately without them.

It is a peculiar thing, being a breadwinner and provider when in a Filipino family it is ideally the eldest males who fill this role. Eldest males have a one-track goal of being the breadwinner and spearhead of the family set out for them. The pressures of this prerequisite goal are determined, singular in focus, and straightforward in its expectations; it is a period, a simple sentence for them. A one-way track and a predetermined path of struggles define their being a breadwinner in their family. For the eldest daughter, however, being a breadwinner means taking detours, with multiple stops in her path. Not to discount the struggles and challenges of an eldest firstborn, but an eldest daughter’s goals simply lie not only in being a provider, but also as a nurturer, a pillar, and an exemplar that goes beyond traditional gender roles. Her track is not so one-way—it is a comma, a run-on sentence.

She embodies all of these roles yet falls short in the eyes of society and perhaps within her own family, simply because doesn’t fit the mold of being a male breadwinner or a parent herself. She is a silent force and a strong presence, one that challenges the status quo; yet it is that same presence that ultimately and paradoxically bounds her to be overshadowed by utang na loob and the traditional norms of who should hold the reins. 

Once the universal female rage that accompanies this realization comes to pass, maybe she will find that she can never define her identity on her own, bound to all the others she is obliged to take on. Maybe she will find that though she may not be recognized for it, she will always be a father and a mother before she is a child. Perhaps, she will find that she is defined by all the things she is yet also by all the things that she is not.

And so the eldest daughter will forever tip-toe her way around the many duties bestowed upon her at birth, taking on the mask of many roles at the cost of her identity. Her debt to be a constant pillar for her family strips her away of any right to make a name for herself as it shackles her for life, a reminder of what she can’t afford to be. Yes, her roles as the first daughter, the Ate, and the second mother and father will solidify her place and identity forever in the minds of her family—but never as a woman of her own. 

See, the thing about eldest daughters that sets us apart is that we were brought up to become “a good sibling”, yet were never really taught how. We never had an Ate or a Kuya to look up to for reference or even so much as an instruction manual growing up; we had to be that reference. We had to be the instruction manual. It is a privilege we yearn for that our younger siblings might groan and grumble about, yet it is one we are so in need of to satisfy the perpetual and redundant orders given to us. 

“Te, be a good Ate to your brothers when I’m not around, ha? I’m sure you can do it,” my mother tells me at least once a month. “Yes Ma, sure,” I would reply… but how? It appalls me that she automatically thinks I can do it; sometimes she has more confidence in me than I do. When that phrase or any of the sort is uttered, it reminds me of how I wish I had been taught these things and so much more by my mom, not to be obliged to teach myself how to be a mother instead. But what is a woman to do when the one asking this of me is living as a woman for the first time too? 

In turn, since mothers are the only example we have, it is in her image that the eldest daughter inevitably becomes copies of her; the eldest daughter naturally becomes a second mom. She defines herself not as a daughter but draw her identity from her mother. Only, her identity becomes so intertwined with the only figure she can emulate, that the line between being a daughter and a mother becomes increasingly blurred. Sooner or later, she will define herself according to her mother’s rage and sorrow and is directly subjected to it as the firstborn. It is a curse to become the very person who subjugated you into becoming someone they couldn’t and to become an extension of the one who was meant to be your front-line barrier from the world’s hurts, only to turn on you and thrust that role onto you instead. 

And so when I look at my brothers, I see the child I could have been where I wouldn’t have turned out to be the result of a woman’s first time raising a child. I see my mother’s regret in not having been able to do the things she does for them now for me when I was their age. I see the hurt of having a hand in raising them myself, a role I filled in when my mother couldn’t. I see all these things and realize that my own mother has demanded me to untangle the ropes of motherhood by myself for children who never knew my womb. 

But I could never be mad at her, because perhaps my mother also looks toward the maternal energy her eldest daughter emulates to seek solace and understanding. Perhaps she levitated towards that strength that was borne out of her rage, the same one that the eldest daughter becomes subjugated to. Because of course, who could understand a mom more than the second mom of the family? Who better than a daughter who can sympathize with someone whom she is fated to inevitably become? My mother, after all, was once a daughter like me. Maybe this paradoxical relationship also emphasizes the significance of utang na loob in Filipino culture, to bring justice to a woman’s identity given up to become a mother for us eldest daughters to mimic and survive in this world. 

Perhaps it is our existence that stands as our utang na loob, a debt ingrained with the understanding that we are indebted not only to a woman’s dreams that die with our birth, but as integral players in a mother’s pursuit of redemption.

And by extension, perhaps the family’s concept of utang na loob and cry for interdependence doesn’t come from a place of fulfilling debt and absolute reliance, but rather from a place of yearning to be understood and seen amid the pressures of the traditional Filipino definition of family values and dynamics. Maybe a family’s frustration comes from the hurt people in it, the eldest daughter just happening to be suffering the brunt of it all by birthright. After all, the eldest daughter is not alone in navigating the complexities of the family, it can just be seen that she is fated to take over the helm in times when the parents cannot. Now I know that each one of us are just subject to these traditional norms, and we all go through the same journey in navigating them.

Needless to say, even through a muddled identity, there is a special resilience that only the eldest daughter can build. It is a resilience forged amid conflicting roles, societal expectations, and literal identity crises that can only be brought upon by being both a daughter and mother at the same time. This ability to be able to be so flexible in adhering to demands shows a unique strength. An ability I now realize is a part of me, nurtured in between my family’s ridiculous requests. Because what is the use of this resilience, if not to be strong enough to lay aside my needs and sacrifice my identity for the ones who benefit from it the most when it is stripped away from me? 

The eldest daughter and her jumbled identities are instrumental in the family, and I now realize that she is not just a mere product of familial roles and obligations. The reliance that her family puts on her is something only she can be trusted with, and it is how she carries herself knowing this that defines her, not the brand marked upon her by birthright.

I will choose not to let these roles confine me, and use them as an opportunity to fulfill. Fulfill what my parents couldn’t and fulfill things only I can, because who else on this earth can simultaneously be a parent and a child at the same time? I will embrace my identity, no matter how muddled or disorganized it can be, because that is what I have taught myself to do. An identity for identity’s sake be damned, I will define myself by how I will navigate the complexities of my existence, breaking traditional gender roles and all.

The “Te, tabangi ko please,” requests will never cease to echo throughout our house and in my mind, and that’s okay. Maybe my muddled identity as the eldest daughter can take a new shape in the form of resilience, to be defined not by the confines of my birth, but by what can be accomplished in the opportunity of fulfilling my roles.

It seems that I’ll have to keep playing my little guessing game at my door. I could be wrong, and it’d be both Ralph and Michael who will be screaming for answers at the same time, once I deal with that, I’ll turn my attention to my dad lingering in the background with his phone. Then maybe I’ll take down the hanging without my mom asking and give her a hug—if her womanhood is anything like the two thousand words I just typed out, then that woman deserves tenfold all the hugs I have to offer; maybe that’ll give me a reason to emerge from my hobbit hole from time to time. As I go about tomorrow, next week, and the next few years fulfilling these requests for my family, I will always remember that my worth extends beyond the roles I fulfill and the expectations placed upon me. I am not defined solely by the responsibilities I shoulder, but by the love, compassion, and resilience that I bring to my family. My existence is not a burden to be borne, but a gift to be cherished. 

Concealer

Mikaela Angela C. Menchavez July 26, 2024

My dad died five months ago on November 7th. Ever since his passing, I loved wearing makeup. 

My mom would wake me up at 5:30 AM every day for school, but that was never enough time for me to fix my appearance. We had to leave by 6:15 AM if I wanted to arrive at school on time. Nonetheless, I always did my makeup in the passenger seat of Mom’s car; the car’s vanity mirror made it more convenient to do so. Because of this routine, I didn’t mind red traffic lights anymore either; they gave me ample time to touch up on sensitive areas, such as my eyelashes and waterline, which would otherwise be dangerous to style while being in a moving vehicle.

During those prolonged moments of red traffic lights which started at 199 seconds, my mother, without fail, would always breathe a heavy sigh while shifting the gear lever to park before tilting her head towards her right shoulder, towards me. 

“Ka-arte naman lang sa akong anak oi…” She comments in that baby voice she uses whenever she wants to make “parayg” with the people she dotes on. As her only child, I’ve grown accustomed to such antics, even if it was a bit embarrassing sometimes.

“Ni-mature naman nuon ka nga ga-makeup ka, ‘nak. Ganahan ko nga baby lang unta ka permi…” She adds, and I would never overlook that subtle crack in her voice — a telling of a certain longing for something that could never be. 

My mother grew up in poverty. 

She was the second child of five, and the eldest daughter to an alcoholic father and a beaten mother. From a young age, when she scarcely had anything, Mom knew she couldn’t be wasteful. She was the first in her family to graduate college. After which, she took every job she could manage to support her parents and her siblings. 

My mother never took money or time for granted, she couldn’t afford to. She remained frugal even after she met my father, who, after conceiving me, insisted that she devoted her entire being to motherhood and housekeeping. In return, he would provide for her and her family with anything they needed. 

Even with my mom’s disciplined thriftiness, I am dreadfully aware that it pains her to live with the truth that there are people in her life that she can not save. At the age of 35, she lost a younger brother, and in the same year, she lost a mother at 36 years old. Time’s limited mercy allowed her a few years to nurse scars that would never truly heal, before crushing her twice over when she would lose both her youngest brother and husband in the same year when she was 47 years old. 

Now, I sit in the passenger seat of my almost-48-year-old mother’s car, while she utters trivial remarks. But I can tell from how her voice threatens to falter, and how her irises shift, that her words were anything but nonsensical musings. 

“Hon–” And there goes that Freudian slip that has escaped my mother’s tongue so often since my dad’s passing. “Honey” was the name my parents once called each other, now a name my mother mistakenly calls me whenever the silence in the air that would hang over our heads became too dense to handle. 

This oversight is most frequent when we’re in the car, and I am coating my face with a skin tint, poised where my dad once sat during his frequent car rides to routine check-ups and sudden emergency room visits. I would even argue that more than half of his remaining months were spent on this gray cushioned chair.

It was the dead of night on August 29th when I knew that my dad’s days were numbered. 

I remember waking up to the sound of my mother speaking with someone, my father’s co-worker I would soon come to find out, on the phone. She was holding back her sobs, albeit failing to contain them. 

“Ganahan nako moanha ron pero… Pero akong anak man gud naa pamay klase ugma… Ako sa ni siyang ihatud igka buntag…” I remember her struggling to form coherent sentences with her stuffed nose. 

In the morning, Mom would gently explain to me how my dad was rushed to the hospital last night, and that she needed to be with him as soon as possible. 

My father worked as a mining engineer, a high-ranking one in the company he worked for, at Cavite. My mom and I visited him during that summer of the same year. Already then, he was visibly ill. There was a lump that grew on the side of his cheek – the left or the right or both, I honestly can not accurately remember now. For a time it swoll on one, and then the other, and at the worst point, it was on both sides. 

A few days of our summer vacation in Manila were spent going to the hospital for check-ups, but the doctors never determined what was causing the lump to swell. However, it was clear to Mom and I that his condition was the byproduct of decades of smoking and recklessness. 

An intellectual air surrounded my father wherever he went, but it was always polluted with cigarette smoke. Over the years, doctors and family members, especially my mother, would beg him to quit smoking. My father would comply, for a time, but then he would always return to that red and white packet that contained one-way tickets to lung cancer. 

Looking back at it now, my mom begged my dad for a lot of things. 

That summer, when we were to return to Cebu by the end of June, Mom begged him to come home with us. Stubborn as he always was, my dad refused. My heart weighed heavier the morning of the 29th, not only because of my dad’s concerning condition, but also knowing that my mom would somehow find a way to convince herself that dad’s hospitalization was her fault, that this wouldn’t have happened had she been more insistent for him to come home back in June.

That humid morning, my mom drove me to school in a panicked rush.

“‘Nak, si uncle Nonoy lang ang mukuha nimo sa school this afternoon, ha?” My mom explained, almost out of breath, while we were waiting for the red light to turn green. 

“Siya ug ang ate Annie nimo usa ang mobantay nimo mintras naa pako with dad, okay?” She added, and all I could do to reply was nod. Uncle Nonoy was her eldest brother and ate Annie was his live-in partner. I wasn’t particularly close with either of them.

That afternoon, instead of my mother’s polished gray car coming to pick me up from the school parking lot, I was greeted by my uncle in the waiting area. 

We smiled at each other, awkwardly, and we took a taxi. I had a headache the entire drive home since the car air freshener in the taxi was too putrid for my liking.

When we got home, I spent a portion of the night in my room with a rumbling stomach. It was well beyond dinner time already, yet I had not been called down to eat. Eventually, though, my uncle knocked on my bedroom door, and I almost tripped on my way to answer it. 

“Val, okay na ba ni?” My uncle asked while holding two plates: one containing a pile of broccoli, and the other containing chicken wings, which I knew from first glance were going to be dry. I didn’t eat rice meals during the evenings, my mom must’ve told them that already. I mustered up a smile again, carefully taking those plates before shutting the door.

Starving as I was, I shoveled a spoonful of broccoli into my mouth, only to find that they were completely stone cold. I doubted they were even cooked. I resisted the urge to throw up on the spot. The chicken wings weren’t any better either, since they were as dry as they looked. Even though my body rejected the food they gave me, I couldn’t complain, it would be ungrateful — my mother didn’t raise me like that, so I ate everything regardless. 

Still, after disposing of the empty plates in the sink, I immediately ran up to the bathroom to regurgitate what I had just consumed. And for the rest of the evening, while enduring an unfilled stomach, I cried myself to sleep.

For the remainder of my mother’s absence, neither uncle Nonoy nor ate Annie ever sat with me while I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

I always held the inkling that they never genuinely cared for me. Deep down, I knew the reason they looked after me was because they expected my mom to compensate them with cash and hand-me-down clothes for their son. This routine was so normalized within our family now. I could hardly judge them or act surprised.

It was on the afternoon of September 3rd, just a week before my 18th birthday when my mom came home. This time, she brought Dad with her, and I greeted them both with a hug. 

Dad was discharged from the hospital after a couple days of treatment, and he was allowed to come home with Mom to Cebu. Mom would later confide in me about how she, once again, had to beg my father to come home with her, as even in his precarious condition, he was hesitant to leave his demanding workload in Cavite.

Still, my father was not free of his hospital visits for regular check-ups and further medical tests.

During the afternoons when my mom would come to pick me up from school, she would show me the results from dad’s medical screenings, all of which contained complex jargon and terminologies that I knew I wasn’t even pronouncing properly. Yet, one thing was apparent to both Mom and me. 

“Katung lump ni dad, ‘nak? Most likely tumor daw kuno ‘to according sa results…”

We wouldn’t know for sure so soon, though. Even the day of my 18th birthday came quicker than the results of my dad’s medical tests. 

From a young age, I was always reminded by my titas and ninangs that a girl’s 18th birthday is supposed to be the most important celebration she will ever have, just below getting married to the love of her life. I never wanted such gallant parties, though. I would never be able to withstand the horror that was a hundred-something people packed into one compact space.

Even though my birthday fell on a school day, we opted for online classes due to an expected storm, which never came. It was a sunny day, as opposed to the predictions. So, I spent my 18th birthday at home, with a so-so birthday lunch we ordered from a so-so restaurant. The entire time, Dad and I had to endure Mom’s comments about how depressing my birthday was due to his current condition.

“Pagpaka-ayo na ug dali, hon. Nangadto na unta ta sa Japan karun kung wala pa lang ka maingon-ana…”

A few days after my 18th birthday, the results of Dad’s extensive medical tests finally came back. My mom relayed them to me while I was refilling a water bottle.

“Lung cancer jud daw ang sakit sa imong daddy, ‘nak…”

She murmured and my breath got caught in my throat. I couldn’t say I was surprised, but to hear it confirmed felt illusory, and it took me a while to fully process what my mom had just announced. So there I stood, speechless, while almost spilling the water bottle I was refilling.

“Stage four,” she added, observing my countenance and knowing that that was what I wanted to ask. “Stage four lung cancer, ‘nak.” Mom reiterated.

She didn’t even realize the weight of her words. I had to explain to her that stage four was the most advanced stage of cancer – something she wasn’t aware of until I made it known to her. At that moment, it was as if I had diagnosed my father and had condemned him to death in front of my mom.

When I tried asking Mom for Dad’s life expectancy, she was quick to shake her head. 

“Your dad is a fighter, maayo rana siya.” She would insist, and I wouldn’t know what to reply. I told her to “be ready”, and she could only grimace. I didn’t explain further. I couldn’t tell her that all of the time she spent nursing Dad, cooking and feeding him, organizing his medication, massaging him whenever he felt pain in his body, and regularly driving to the hospital, were all meaningless in the end if the outcome was fixed — inevitable. I couldn’t invalidate my mother’s inexhaustible, almost pious, love for her husband.

Instead, I half-jokingly asked when Dad would go bald. I wasn’t aware at the time that he wouldn’t live long enough to ever be.

In the weeks that followed, my dad would start radiation therapy.

For a process that was supposed to heal him, my dad looked the worst he had ever been since his diagnosis. His hair became thinner and his skin turned into an unsettling yellowish color. He was also even more fatigued, spending most of his days confined to his and mom’s shared bed. During this time, he also suffered some complications to his spine. It started to twist in a bizarre way, which affected the placement of his jaw, the lower half of it jarringly tilted to the left side of his face.

My father was frequently rushed to the emergency room because he had difficulty breathing. Because of this, my mom was often late to pick me up from school. It wasn’t rare for me to wait outside of the school gates at almost 7 o’clock in the evenings for my mom to fetch me, as my dad wouldn’t allow me to commute home, even though I knew how to. Being fetched late slowed me down when it came to my schoolwork, adding more to the stress that was already piling up.

When my dad was only a few appointments away from finishing his radiation therapy, he spent most of his time confined in a hospital on Osmeña Boulevard.

The hospital was just a few minutes’ drive away from Guadalupe where my research group and I were gathering data for our study. The weather was erratic that day. It would rain for a few minutes, only for the sun to scorch our skin soon after, and then after a few hours, it would rain again. That annoying cycle persisted for the entire day. 

My group mates and I were covered in both rain and sweat when we finally finished our research work.

“Mmy mana mi diri padung nko uli mag commute rko.” I messaged my mom as soon as I boarded the jeepney, feeling as though my entire body was going to collapse as soon as I sat down.

“Pahapiton ka ni daddy nimo diri sa hospital nak pwede nak? Duol raman ka namo sundon lang nato c daddy nak kay na miss pud ka niya nak.” My mom’s messages filled my screen, and my body got twice as heavy. 

By that point, I couldn’t even remember the last time I saw my dad. I wanted to see him, but I knew that my body was longing to reunite with my bed again. I also didn’t want to visit my dad while I was in such an irritable mood having spent the entire day talking with people and exhausting my social stamina. 

“Mobisita rko ni dad pero dle lng sa karun ky i need rest also papahuwaya sako mmy pls.” I typed and sent without much thought, too weary to even sugarcoat how much I wanted to pass out. 

“Cge okay amping ha. Na okay ra c dad nak amping ha. I love you.” My mom replied shortly, causing me to release a dense sigh of relief, but also with a tinge of guilt.

“Okay mmy thank you. I love you too.”

At that time, I thought that I would have another opportunity to visit my dad. I would have willingly walked, through storm or sunshine, all the way from Guadalupe to Osmeña Boulevard, even if it meant getting lost within the streets or further draining my feet, had I known that a week later I would lose my father.

I still remember the numbers that hung above my mother’s message: 11/7/23, 3:46 PM.

“Nak c uncle nonoy nimo ang mokuha nimo sa school nak kay c daddy nak nipahuway na wala na c daddy nak luoya ni daddy nimo nak oi.”

I was with three of my friends in the school’s waiting area when I was informed of my father’s passing. The sound of my friends’ bickering was drowned out by the sharp static that pierced my eardrums as I read and reread my mother’s message projected on my phone screen. Even now, I still remember how hard it was to breathe or think or move. How would you have reacted if the weight of the sky fell on your bones?

“Guys… My dad died.” I announced, just so I could confirm if this was reality or a nightmare. 

The three of them went silent as they stared at me, their eyes looking as if a part of the sky had fallen on their bodies as well. In almost perfect unison, they muttered an apology. One of my friends offered to go somewhere quieter, perhaps wanting to give me a place to cry or scream or pull at my hair, but I didn’t want to do any of that — I had yet to accept that I was living in a reality where my father was no longer breathing. 

The four of us sat in silence for a long while, my friends unsure of how to comfort me, and I unsure of what to reply to my mom.  I knew that she was probably crying. I could visualize her from where I sat frozen — her bloodshot eyes overflowing with tears, her entire face flushed, and her hair disheveled. And when the jingle from the ice cream vendor’s cart outside the school gates paused for a moment, I could even make out my mother’s whimpers and incoherent ramblings, the same ones I heard months prior when her younger brother passed.

“Okay rka dira mmy? moanha nlng kaha ko.” I typed and sent it. I didn’t even know where she was, if she was still at the hospital or processing the funeral fees. But above all, I wanted to be by her side more than anything. We needed each other, we’re all we’ve got left now.

A few minutes pass and my uncle arrives to come pick me up. He doesn’t take me to where Mom is, despite my protests, but instead takes me home. Uncle Nonoy leaves soon after to take care of another errand, leaving me alone to wallow in even more silence. 

A message from my friend shone through the darkness that enveloped my room: “Stay strong for us Valerie.” And that was the first time that I cried for my dead father — bearing the reality as heavy as the entire sky that fell on me.

The wake would be held at a memorial chapel which was a thirty-minute drive away from our home. 

I never would have known that the next time I saw my father, he would be encased in an ivory-clad box, surrounded by propped-up flowers with sashes that read “Condolences” and “In loving memory of”. When I peered over to look at him, a sigh filled with regret and longing left my lips. 

I’ve heard the saying “When you die of cancer, the cancer dies too, so it’s not a loss, it’s a draw.” But as my father lay motionless, he didn’t look at peace or aggravated, he looked confused. Even with his eyes permanently closed, he probably couldn’t recognize his daughter; it had been so long since he last saw her.

Admittedly, it felt like I was spitting on my dad’s coffin every time I had to excuse myself and leave early after every mass. 

My excuses seemed so irrelevant. “I have a dance routine to practice for PE,” “I have to finish an essay that’s due tomorrow,” and “I have to memorize my lines for a school play,” all sounded ridiculous when the voice at the back of my mind screamed at me, “So what? Your father just died!”

But I always left early anyway, and I even missed a day of the wake because of a dance practice. Even when I knew that the immediate death of a family member was a valid reason to be excused from school activities, I still couldn’t miss a second of school — my identity as a student starved of academic validation completely overshadowed my being a grieving daughter.

My father was buried on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Danao, the city where I grew up. 

My mind refuses to recall much of that day, but I remember wearing white, and like a coward, I tried so desperately not to sob, especially when they were lowering my father’s casket six feet underground, and my mom’s distressed wails rang the loudest out of everybody’s. But I closed my eyes and bit my lip.

The car ride home to Talisay with my mom was mostly spent in silence.

Upon arriving home, I immediately locked myself in my room. I hugged my knees to my chest, then buried my head into my pillows. I wept until it was a struggle to even keep my eyes open. I screamed until I almost lost my voice. In this space, for the first time, where no one else’s grievances existed but my own, I could be vulnerable.

“Dad… I’m sorry for everything… I miss you… I love you… Lisura ani oi… Unsaon man nako ni?” I mourned until I fell asleep.

On Monday morning, I went to school with eyes so swollen that they looked twice as small as they already were. My seatmate greeted me with “Are you okay?” I gulped, I nodded, I lied.

The first week following my father’s burial, I became more easily distracted than usual. 

While forced to sit through a boring lesson, I found myself scrolling through an online shopping site looking for cheap thrills. A makeup set worth 450 pesos, which I’ve been seeing advertisements for a while now, caught my attention, and my seatmate’s as well.

“I think you should get it. Even for that low of a price, it’s safe, and good quality too!” She beamed, and so I took her advice, added the item to my cart, and pressed “check out.”

It only took a few days for the makeup kit to arrive. 

I painted my face with the products as soon as I opened the parcel, not without doubting the step-by-step instructions I found online after a quick search. After around ten minutes of putting on the makeup, with much hesitation, I decided to examine my appearance on the big mirror in the bathroom.

When I was greeted by the reflection, I could hardly understand what I was looking at. For once, the bags that hung under my eyes from countless nights of muffled cries ceased from existence. And no more were my cheeks that became fuller or the pimples that stubbornly sprouted on the bridge of my nose.

The reflection embodied that of an entirely different person — a daughter who hadn’t lost her father.

Admittedly, and perhaps one of my greatest faults, I had rarely verbalized my suffering for Dad’s passing. How could I when my mother was already drowning in her own grief? What kind of foul, selfish creature would I be to add more agony to her own? 

There was also the question of if I even deserved to grieve for my father in the first place, having done nothing for him. I never took part in nursing him, never went to the hospital to see him, and I didn’t even remain for the entirety of his wake. I never acted like his daughter, so I assumed that I didn’t have the right to mourn and behave like I was.

For my supposed indifference, my mother named me “strong”. Strong for apparently accepting my father’s fate and moving on so easily. But if she paid as much attention to my deteriorating appearance as she did to my silence whenever the topic of Dad came up, she would know that that was far from the truth.

I examined the reflection again. It still looks unrecognizable, but underneath the layers, I am aware that it’s still me in all my unsightliness. 

Maybe if I attended family gatherings wearing this mask, the “Liwata jud sa imong amahan oi!” comments would finally be silenced, and maybe then I could live with myself knowing that the dead man’s face that I displayed died with him, along with a part of me that I c0uld never take back no matter how much I covered up my loss.

But perhaps over time, makeup would be something that I could hide behind until it felt as comfortable as donning my skin. So I stood there, smiling at my facade, as a singular tear trickled down my cheek, erasing my foundation and leaving a noticeable trail from where it came. 

“Oh well, it is cheap makeup.” I shrugged and wiped the tear away.

Nevertheless, I eventually shifted to higher-quality makeup products. I figured my skin deserved better treatment. So now I sat in my mother’s car with a makeup bag filled with so many products that it was difficult to zip it close. 

I glanced away from the car’s vanity mirror, fixing my eyes on the red traffic light that indicated there were only 21 seconds left until it turned green again. I return my gaze to the mirror, and from my peripheral vision, I notice my mom’s grimace as she watches me put on my concealer — under and on the sides of my eyes, and on the bridge of my nose.

 “‘Nak, mobisita diay ko ni dad karun.” She announces, and I remember that it’s a Monday. She always visits his grave on Mondays. 

My mom reaches for her purse, which she always carries with her. After opening it, she pulls out a matte rouge lipstick. After unscrewing the lipstick’s cap and gently twisting its base to release the contents, she applies the lipstick to her lips.

Then, just as the traffic light turns green, she tilts her head towards her right shoulder, towards me, and smiles.

Brief Notes on Jaya Jacobo’s Arasahas

Thomas Leonard Shaw July 26, 2024

I have always been fascinated with poetry that traverses the terrains of the physical, natural world, and attendant to the world of experience, of the spirit. I enjoy poetry that casts enchantment, not just necessarily from allusions to magic, specters, or other figurations of mystical otherness, but through the very experiential energies of a persona grappling with a world at once familiar but also made strange, navigating a philosophy and poetics of a self in flight, tender but strong, intimately engrossed with its own knowing and unknowing. Jaya’s Arasahas inscribes visions of life that constellates a universe of intimate understanding and linguistic entanglement.

The way I have approached the collection is through an act of “slow” reading. This method eschews the urge to finish the task of interpretation as soon as possible, cognizant of the collection’s steady mapping out of a verse world premised on both Jacobo’s rich sense of place and shaped by her understanding of mobility as a fulcrum through which the poetic image bares  either the quiet and restorative or the confident and disruptive powers of language. In “Mosqueiro,” the persona begins with a declaration “Ito pala’t ito nan ga/ang dulo ng mundo” followed by observations of the quotidian entangled with the meteorological, of the many natural forces that weave the persona’s, and thus the reader’s, relationship to the world around us. This offers a space of performance for the recurring spirit in the collection, of the endless struggle to not only understand the worlds of our vision, but of the insight that all-knowing is secondary to the affective capacities of poetic knowledge and spiritual encounter. In “Stony Brook Souvenir,” the poet masterfully demonstrates that this sense of worldliness is not limited to locale, but cognizant of the transnational mobilities of her memory and verse, an illumination of the ability to transcend the physical borders through the evocation of places as diverse as the Appalachians, Long Island, Philadelphia, and the personae at the heart of each encounter.

In Jaya Jacobo’s “Paloma,” the image of the observing persona and the pigeons in the park articulates a poetic discourse contingent on movement and the figuration of a desire that plays out the intimate and varied dimensions of worldliness, spirituality, and the recollecting self. Suspended in this poetic scene, a fluid dance between wanting in the world and wanting the world, is a narrative logic that clarifies the poet’s own personal histories. Jaya reveals a masterful ability to strike deeply and carefully into vulnerability while never neglecting the world of and around the poet. Her writing and rewriting of the inner and outer dimensions of experience is made possible by a language carefully nimble, purposefully creative, skillfully guided and yet pliant to her performance of (and reflection on) enchantment. The flying pigeons, to my mind’s eye, represents an aspect of Jaya’s work, of a being in flight, an ascension made possible by language, while always in view of both the mystery of what lies ahead and the perpetual embrace of memory from behind.

If I had to describe my love of this collection, I first must point out the coupling of vulnerability and bravery, that each of these poems signify moments in the poet’s life vulnerable and open to the joys, the sorrows, and the uncertainties of a writer always grounded by place but always imaginative, always aspiring flight in language. Each poem is a testament to a sense of craft born out of a natural ability to poeticize, sharpened by the years and the worlds of Jaya Jacobo’s life. I am made more excited for her future traversals, her continued journeys in a life I have always admired, and for her courage to keep moving forward while always looking back in gratitude. This is a tour de force, and I am eternally grateful for Jaya Jacobo’s poetry and her steady poetic presence.

On Politics over Kutsinta

Iana Bautista July 26, 2024

for Kuya Kutsinta

Every Sunday after mass at my Protestant church, a kuya would shout unto church-comers to buy his kutsinta, sold in a white, translucent bucket he carried on his back. When asked about his recipe, he would smile and laugh and cross a hand over his heart; it was made with love, he said, and that was all we needed to know. Regardless of that mystery, these yellow, gelatinous cups of joy soon became the highlight of my Sunday mornings after church. Even more so with the coconut shavings that came in a little plastic baggie, something I would rarely eat unless with kutsinta. I loved them more than whenever we’d go on cross-country drives in Daanbantayan or Busay, in a white MUX my mother got from work. They were small and came at 5 pieces for 20 pesos, a price I was more than happy with. 

With this, I would look for him as the recessional played on the organ and the people shuffled out of the chapel— I called him Kuya Kutsinta, and he was a comfort as he flashed his bright smile, fishing out 2 packs of the kutsinta I so loved. I would trade my sole 50-peso bill for this happiness, which seemed so worth it as soon as my teeth sunk into each cup-shaped goodie. Of course, I would inflate the plastic baggies full of coconut shavings with my breath and toss the kutsinta in them, just as Kuya taught me. You would get an even distribution of coconut shavings per kutsinta, he explained once. 

In that comfortable, upper-middle-class life, I was an 8th-grade student at one of the more prestigious schools in Cebu, where my batchmates were would-be heirs and heiresses to big companies, or related to showbiz or prominent political figures. The school took advantage of this fact and turned canteen prices up— I was 8th grade, and my allowance was 50 pesos, which seemed so small compared to the 1000-peso baon my classmates would have. My mother patted me on the back and said to me, “sige, i-promote tika to 60 pesos inig grade 9 nimo,” a time that never came because of the pandemic. Yet, I was so happy because this meant I would get to buy 3 packs of kutsinta every Sunday, but I digress. 

I was never one to complain about this small injustice: I came to school with a packed lunch that beat all the other stalls at school in terms of how delicious they were. A sign that my parents were never too busy, I learned, as my classmates would compare my warmth-filled food to the sad, cold, 90-peso steamed rice they would get from the canteen. I had snacks, and juice sometimes, packaged with a note from my mom or dad telling me to study hard. 

That was precisely what I did. I was consistently on the honor’s list, and I was a member of the school’s debate team, an experience I would be eternally grateful for as it opened

my eyes to the reality of this world— our world, I would reminisce as I watched bibingka sellers calling out to me from the safety of tinted windows. 

The first morning Kuya Kutsinta wasn’t at his regular post was a somber one. I had saved up 80 pesos, after reasoning with my mom that I needed money to buy cartolina and manila paper for a school project (a simple white lie. My groupmates and I decided to amot money for it, and we bought it at 5 pesos times 5 groupmates in the school bookstore; I did not need the 50 pesos she had given me on top of my 50-peso allowance.) Instead, as I rushed past my church’s white, rusted metal gates, I could not see Kuya Kutsinta and his white, translucent bucket of golden kutsinta. Instead, I saw his kauban, selling pichi-pichi. My mother took one look at my face, disappointed, and decided that we would instead be going into Catmon to buy bibingka. 

There’s a store right there, our suki— a small, sooty metal roof with those RC cola signages that read “Riza’s Bibingka” in all caps. Ate Riza, a girl two years my senior, would hand over her bibingka to us on the other side of the road personally, never failing to remember that my mom and dad hated the paig ones, and this attention to detail was what made my mom and dad come back every time. She would always give us 2 bags of pakapin bibingka for our patronage, and that temporarily took Kuya Kutsinta and his disappearance off my mind. 

After Ate Riza handed her bibingka to us and crossed the road back, my mother commented about how hardworking she was at her age. “Salig ramong duha ha,” she would tell me and my sister in a chastising tone, “‘di na mo kinanglan magbaligya parehas ni Ate Riza ninyo.” 

My 8th-grade self, ashamed at how well off I was compared to some other people, would sink deeper into the black leather car seat, convinced that other people would do anything to be where I was in life right now— comfortable, sitting in the airconditioned backseat of my mom’s car. Some people didn’t have air conditioning or cars, much less the idea of comfort. 

I glanced at Ate Riza’s retreating form and thought that perhaps if Ate Riza were in my place, I would be the one forced to holler at passing cars, amidst the smoke of bibingka ovens and tambutso, a thought that made me recoil in fear. I did not know my mother tongue well enough to survive on the streets. Safe to say that nagkompyansa ko— I was complacent about where I’d end up because of my peers who would spend their 1000-peso allowance in one day because they were “bored.” This was the mindset that I had grown up in (and grown out of), that my parents were doing all they could to protect me from the shattering fall of reality once I graduated and moved out— that life would

be easy because the properties my parents were investing in would become mine as soon as I hit 18, and with them, their passive income too. I would not need to work, much less work hard. 

This mindset was thrown out the window as I matured, with exposure to debate motions taken from real-life issues: drug abuse, government corruption, the death penalty, and more. With this somewhat leftist rationalization, all the other kids began to realize this and the ones who didn’t (or did too late) were branded as rich kids who were disconnected from the world, a term that stung their egos despite being the objective truth. The sad part was that even if you were on the “right” side, it was deemed enough to hit like and share on Instagram posts to “spread awareness,” or post a black square on Facebook during the height of the BLM movement. Their efforts of educating people on Twitter never proved anything more than a means to stroke their own politically correct egos, to prove that they were better. 

Empathy was easy, they reasoned. And for some time, I believed that was enough for me. That social justice could be attained with just the right amount of likes, hearts, and care reacts. Yet, where does awareness end and action begin? 

One time, we tackled extrajudicial killings in Social Studies. I went home a different person and tried to bring about my enlightenment to the dinner table when my father simply scoffed as I recounted the statistics to him; about how most of the time, these people were innocent bystanders in the current administration’s War on Drugs. My father laughed as I told him that these were human rights abuses, and told me, “sos, kanang “human rights-human rights” nila? Rason rana nila. Maygani naay gibuhat si Duterte ani.” 

It never made sense to me then, much more now. It felt similar to when a classmate once said that “the poor stay poor because they’re lazy,” and I was able to shut him up by talking about systemic oppression and how so few people make it out of the poverty line. However, this wasn’t exactly the same: disagreeing with my father would mean rounds of debate until he got defensive and shut down the topic. And disagreeing with his ideas meant disagreeing with who he was as a person, apparently, which was how he liked to frame it. I think he disliked who I became after I joined debate, someone who loved to question his doctrines for the fun of it. So for the sake of father-daughter niceties, I hid my newfound courage from him, and it became another skeleton in my closet. 

It was like this for the gays, and every other political issue we fought each other over and then glossed over. I heard his reasoning every day when I looked at the mirror and

saw my reflection: “gay people don’t deserve rights,” he reasoned over meatloaf that one time. “When they come out as gay, they shouldn’t expect the same things as kitang mga tarong— ” he motioned to the both of us. “We are normal. We are fine. They are the freaks.” And my dad goes on and on about friends who “straightened” themselves out over time. “It’s the hormones; love cannot be real between two people of the same gender,” he’ll say, and that was it. I smiled and nodded, hopeful that I was the image of filial piety and understanding as I swallowed back the tears that were forming in my eyes. 

Ever since that moment, I have loathed the taste of meatloaf as it only brings back the memory of that conversation and a newfound sense of lost; when I was younger, my dad loved to say that he was proud of who I was and who I could become. I wonder what he would do if he found out I was bisexual. With this, the already-existent fissure between us widened; I loved my father and only wanted to make him proud. Happy with me, and who I was. I have lived a double life ever since. Who was it that said home is the first place we learn to run away from? 

My mother was quiet until my father excused himself from the table. Then, with eyes shining, she reached for my hand across me and told me that I reminded her of her father, who was outspoken about political issues like this and never backed down from opposition, even as his life was threatened. As my mother is from rural Mindanao, I chalked this up to them not having much of a choice but to be brave— how else were things going to get better if they weren’t? But my mother has stories about election season in her hometown, and how big, scary men would knock at their humble home with guns. 

How this meant that every time elections rolled around, she would be transported to a relative’s house so these big, scary men would not learn of her existence, a potential trading chip in their game of politics. They would intimidate my lolo into voting for people he didn’t agree with, and my lola would hide behind him and beg him to just agree for the sake of their safety. And because my lolo loved his wife, he would. But secretly, he would rally for change. Change that waned as soon as my lolo left his post in their local government to retire into a peaceful life until his death. 

In comparison, my dad was from Ilocos Norte, who lived most of his life under a Marcos fanatic, or my paternal lolo. There is a joke that runs in the family, that all my lolo can talk about is how good the Marcoses were in managing the country. We find that path of his well-traveled, and it sneaks up on you in the most mundane of conversations. Talk to him about Martial Law and he will run on reasons— “the rebels,” he’ll say, having convinced me once, “the rebels deserved to die. They were disturbing the peace.” While

playing with the adobo on my plate as I heard my dad humming in the sink, I realized that my dad must’ve adopted his father’s own views because they were the only ones that made sense to him. When they put Duterte in office, they were both happy because according to them, “the Philippines needed discipline.” 

My dad had nothing but the highest praise for Duterte, who ruled over the country with a heavy iron fist. His ratings plummeted, and he would reason out that it was because of the dilawans, the people who believed in the ideologies of “communists” like Mar Roxas and Leni. I would then ask my father why, if Duterte was such a good president, that Ate Riza still sold her bibingka by the side of the road, instead of going to school. And for this, he had no response. And so did all the other people I asked about Martial Law when I asked about what happened to the poor, to the marginalized. My lolo did not understand that due to his privilege, he experienced a side of Martial Law that no one else did: the “comfortable” side. 

I never really considered myself “woke” or remotely “political”— it felt like a dirty word, derogatory to an extent, and had a performative aspect that I hated. Being “woke” meant sharing posts on your Instagram stories, while there were real people out there who were dying for some corrupt politician’s cause. Philippine officials say that around 6,200 people died during anti-drug operations since their onset in Duterte’s administration. Then we have people like Kian delos Santos, Chad Booc, Carl Arnaiz, and Reynaldo de Guzman; people who make you think, “that could’ve been me.” They were the ones villainized and turned into a societal scapegoat when the real problem came from those who were in positions of power for their own self-gain, and those who stood idly by. 

For Ate Riza, I imagined a reality where I did not wake up at 4 am sharp for school in a dark, air-conditioned room. I imagined waking up in a cold sweat, the Philippine air flaunting its trademarked hot and sticky quality. The sun is yet to peek from the horizon as I rise and tie my hair back to start with preparing the first batch of bibingka. My parents will have already been up for some time, and they invite me to join them. The fragrant smell of galapong— fermented, ground, sticky rice— and how it will stick to every pore of my skin like a brand of the working class I cannot get rid of. 

I imagine how desolate it must be to work the way she has, for her mother to see how hard she will work and how so much of it will be for naught when poverty is as much as a disease as it is inherited, like a generational curse. When Ate Riza is the custodian for her generation, she’ll see generations after her outstretched forever, working as hard as she is only to reach minimum wage like a glass ceiling they cannot break.

Kuya Kutsinta died in a drug raid. I found out a few Sundays after. I was numb until the later hours of the evening. There was no need to imagine desolation when it was right here; when there was so little I could do to bring him back and the memories we shared. Even though I never knew his real name, I hope that his memory was not desecrated and made into a statistic when to many people, he was so much more: a father, a son, a husband. My 8th-grade self wondered how this could’ve happened when he was such a jovial person, so willing to sell his kutsinta for a family he had back home. 4 years later, will it be so unfounded to hope that his family sees this and finds peace? That to other people, he didn’t die a drug-user, but a person. A Kuya. 

Perhaps the police made a mistake, and mistook his bags of grated coconut for shabu? Was there even any sort of process for him? Was Kuya Kutsinta able to defend himself in the safety of a court, or was his life stolen from him in a halfhearted attempt to eradicate drugs in the Philippines? Did it matter if he was innocent when he was dead? Dead like all those who were like him, people on the streets looking to make an honest living? 

The Sunday we found out he died in a drug raid, the car sat in a pensive kind of silence until my dad spoke up. That it was good that he was gone, for the sake of the kids who used to love him and buy his wares. He even joked that perhaps Kuya had gone so far as to put some amount of drugs into his kutsinta, which was the reason we kept coming back for it. I remembered Kuya, and my inquisitive questions: how he crossed a hand over his heart and said they were made with love. 

Visceral

Gershom Mabaquiao October 10, 2023

Recently, I discovered a poem entitled “Aswang” by Barbara Jane Reyes. Readings of the poem relate it to the subversive nature of powerful women. But the moment I chanced upon it, it reminded me of what I first learned about aswangs in my Philippine History class years ago, especially in the lines which read: “I am the bad daughter, the freedom fighter, the shaper of death masks.”

Reyes’ aswang never stayed the same way. She became “the snake, the crone,” or “the grunting black pig” or “your inverted mirror.” She shifted not to what the other person would deem desirable, but in the very creatures which would frighten them.

By the end of the poem, she dared the reader to “burn me with your seed and salt / Upend me, bend my body, cleave me beyond function. Blame me.” It was a powerful statement. Prodding the accuser to do the very thing they do best– inflict violence against those who challenge what they view as attractive, as normal, and as good. Read More