Babae akong namumuhay na mag-isa
Hiwalay sa asawa
Matandang Dalaga
Kerida
Puta.
Ang aking pag-iisa’y
Batik na ituturing ng aking lipunan
Latay na pabaon ng nakaraan,
Pilat na taglay hanggang sa kasalukuyan. (more…)
Babae akong namumuhay na mag-isa
Hiwalay sa asawa
Matandang Dalaga
Kerida
Puta.
Ang aking pag-iisa’y
Batik na ituturing ng aking lipunan
Latay na pabaon ng nakaraan,
Pilat na taglay hanggang sa kasalukuyan. (more…)
Kuya Joseph. From Brgy. Burayan San Jose. Interviewed in early December 2013, less than a month after Typhoon Yolanda. He drove us around when we volunteered with Kusog Tacloban. His experience in his own words, just re-organized as this happened in various conversations. Will translate at some point, though will gladly let others do it. Because I still think there is no writing people’s stories that will do justice to their voices. Making it pretty is not just an injustice, it also effectively silences. (more…)
the show was missing an audience when we arrived. a huge tent had been set-up at the barangay hall’s basketball court, the monobloc chairs for a hundred arrived, but there was no audience. in Guiuan where our first shows were, our venues were filled to the rafters, many women arriving with their children who wouldn’t understand the show, and would be crushed in the crowd. it took one show to realize that unbeknownst to us, these women were required to watch the show as part of 4Ps — Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. it meant registering to watch the show would be equal to a cash dole-out of P500 pesos per child — which explained too why they had brought their children. they were proof of how many children each woman had. (more…)
when I was doing reliefph.com at the height of Yolanda / Haiyan last year, one indication I had that things were really bad was the number of phone calls and pleas for help that we received through the site. this was when there was a news blackout about the aftermath of the storm, and very little was getting through to Manila. relatives had started getting in touch with the site to tell us about the last time they had contact with family from Eastern Samar and Leyte, and what they found out before communication lines died. for Guiuan in particular, the news was grim, the first images were of communities by its shoreline had been reduced to ground zero, how Haiyan’s winds and the storm surge had practically taken whole barangays with it.
a year since, this is what I saw of Guiuan in October. it does not capture the anger that is here, and the pain. ruins do not say much. (more…)
“At a certain time of day, between the high heat of noon and the cool afternoon, the streets of Casay have a strange quietness — of a leaf arrested in its fall, or of a vacuum from which air and life have suddenly been drained — a quietness which seems to bide its time. Very infrequently, a car, a truck, or a cart may disturb the stillness, raising brown dust in its trail and sowing screeching echoes into the silence. But a minute after, the dust settles, the noise fades away, and it is quiet again. Even when the wind blows and rustles leaves, sways branches, scatters blossoms, it is still quiet. (more…)