THE GRADUATION

Francisco Sionil Jose

Francisco Sionil Jose has been called a Philippine national treasure. Born on December 3, 1924 in Rosales, Philippines,
he was introduced to literature in public school and later at the University of Santo Tomas. While working as a journalist in
Manila, he moonlighted writing short stories and eventually novels. In the late fifties Jose founded the Philippine branch of
PEN, an international organization of poets, playwrights, and novelists. In 1965 he started his own publishing house
SOLIDARIDAD, and a year later he began publishing the remarkable Solidarity, a journal of current affairs, ideas, and arts,
still going strong today.
Jose wrote in English rather than in his national language Tagalog, or his native language Illocano. In 1962 he published his
first novel The Pretenders. Today his publications include twelve novels, seven books of short stories, a book of verse, and
five important books of essays. His works are available in 28 languages. He has been awarded numerous fellowships and
awards, most notable being the 1980 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication
Arts, the most prestigious award of its kind in Asia, and most recently, and the 2004 Pablo Neruda Centennial Award from
Chile.
In June of 2001, Jose was awarded the prestigious title of Philippine's National Artist for Literature in an official ceremony at
Malacaang.
In March 2002's issue of the Discovery magazine, Jose's book Ermita was rated as one of the top ten English-language
novels set in Southeast Asia, alongside Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," Graham Greene's "The Quiet American,"
James Clavell's "King Rat." and others.
 GRADUATION
by F. Sionil Jose

I always knew that someday after I finished high school, Id go to Manila and to college. I had looked ahead to the grand
adventure with eagerness but when it finally came, my leaving Rosales filled me with a nameless dread and a great,
swelling unhappiness that clogged my chest.
I couldnt be sure now. Maybe it was friendship, huge and granite-like, or just plain sympathy. I couldnt be sure
anymore; maybe I really fell in love when I was sixteen.
Her name was Teresita. She was a proud, stubborn girl with many fixed ideas and she even admonished me: Just
because you gave will be accepted.
It was until after sometime that I understootd what she meant and when she did, I honored her all the more. She
was sixteen, too, lovely like the banaba when its bloom.
I did not expect her to be angry with me when I bought her a dress for it wasnt really expensive. Besides, as the
daughter of one of Fathers tenants, she knew me very well, better perhaps than any of the people who lived in Carmay, the
young folks who always greeted me politely, doffed their straw hats then, close-mouthed, went their way.
I always had silver coins in my pockets but that March afternoon, after counting all of them and the stray pieces, too
that I had tucked away in my dresser I knew I needed more.
I approach Father. He was at his working table, writing on a ledger while behind him, one of the new servants stood
erect, swinging a palm leaf fan over Fathers head. I stood beside Father, watched his hand scrawl the figures on the ledger,
his wide brow and his shirt damp with sweat.
When he finally noticed me, I couldnt tell him what I wanted. He unbuttoned his shirt to his paunch. Well, what is
it?
Im going to take my classmates this afternoon to the restaurant, Father. I said. Father turned to the sheaf of
papers before him. Sure, he said. You can tell Bo King to take off what you and your friends can eat from his rent this
month.
I lingered uneasily, avoiding the servants eyes. Well, wont that do? Father asked. It was March and the high
school graduation was but a matter of days away. I also need a little money, Father. I said. I have to buy something.
Father nodded. He groped for his keys in his drawer the he opened the iron money box beside him and drew out a ten-peso
bill. He laid it on the table.
Im going to buy I tried to explain but with a wave of his hand, he dismissed me. He went back to his figures. It
was getting late. Sepa, our eldest maid, was getting the chickens to their coops. I hurried to the main road which was quite
deserted now except in the vicinity of the round cement embankment in front of the municipal building where loafers were
taking in the stale afternoon sun. The Chinese storekeepers who occupied Fathers buildings had lighted their lamps. From
the ancient artesian well at the rim of the town plaza, the water carriers and servant girls babbled while they waited for their
turn at the pump. Nearby, travelling merchants had unhitched their bullcarts after a whole day of travelling from town to town
and were cooking their supper on broad, blackened stones that littered the place. At Chan Hais \store there was a boy with
a stick of candy in his mouth, a couple of men drinking beer and smacking their lips portentously, and a woman haggling
over a can of sardines.
I went to the huge bales of cloth that slumped in one corner of the store, I picked out the silk, white cloth with glossy
printed flowers. I asked Chan Hai, who was perched on a stool smoking his long pipe, how much hed ask for the material I
had picker for a gown.
Chan Hai peered at me in surprise; Ten pesos he said.
With the package, I hurried to Camay. In the thickening dusk the leaves of the acacias folded and the solemn,
mellow chimes of the Angelus echoed to the flat, naked stretches of the town. The women who had been sweeping their
yards paused; children reluctantly hurried to their homes for now the town was draped with a dreamy stillness.
Teresita and her father lived by the creek in Carmay. The house was on a sandy lot which belonged to Father; it
was apart front the cluster of huts peculiar to the village. Its roof as it was with the other farmers homes, thatched and
disheveled, its walls were of battered buri leaves. It was washed away. Madre de cacao trees abounded in the vicinity but
offered scanty shade. Piles of burnt rubbish rose in little mounds in the yard and a disrupted line of ornamental San
Francisco fringed the graveled path led to the house.
Teresita was sampling the brothe of what she was cooking in the kitchen . There was a dampness in her brow and
a redness in her eyes.
What are you doing here at this hour? she confronted me. In the glow of the crackling stove fire, she looked
genuinely surprised.
I could tell her at once or show her what I had brought. I wanted to see you, I said, which was true. But its really
late and you have walk quite a long way back, she said. She laid down the ladle on the table and looked puzzled. She must
have noticed w\then what I was holding behind me.
I laid m package on the wooden table cluttered with tin plates and vegetables.
Its for you I said, My face burned like kindling wood. I hope you like it.
Here eyes still one me, she opened the package. When she saw what it was, she gave a tiny, muffled cry. She
shooked her head, wrapped it back then gave it to me. I cant, she said softly. It doesnt seem right for me to accept it.
But you need it and Im giving it to you. I said firmly, the burning in my face ease at last. Is there anything wrong
in giving one a gift?
And that was when she said, There are thing you just cant give away such as you are doing now..
I think it all started that evening when we were in the third year and Teresita recited a poem. It was during the graduation
exercise and she was the only Junior in the program. I cant remember distinctly what the piece was about except that it was
something that tugged my heart. She spoke of faith and love and as she did, clamminess gripped me, smothered me with a
feeling I never felt before. I recall her edged resonant voice cleaving the hushed evening. I was silently one with her. We
didnt go home immediately after the program for a dance in honor of the graduates followed. Miss Santillan, who was in
charge of the refreshments, asked me to wait for her so she would have company when shed go home. Teresita helped
serve the refreshments as usual. I sat on one of the school benches after I got tired of watching the dancers file in and out,
giggling. When most of them had eaten, Teresita asked permission from Miss Santillan to leave.
My father, Maam she said. He doesnt want me to stay out very late because of my cough. Besides, I have work
to go early tomorrow.
Going home alone? Miss Santillan asked.
Im not afraid, she said.
I stood up, strode past the table laden with a an assortment of trays and glasses. From the window, I saw the moon
dangling over the sprawling school buildings like a huge sieving basket and the world was us, pulsating and young.
Ill walk with you I said.
She protested at first but Miss Santillan said it was best I went along with her. After Miss Santillan had wrapped
some cakes for her, we descended the stone steps. The evening was clean and cool like a newly washed sheet. It engulfed
us and we didnt speak for some time.
I live very far, she reminded me later. She drew a shabby shawl over her thin wasted shoulders.
I know, Ive been there. I told her.
Youll be very tired
Ive walked longer distances. I can take Carmay in a run. I tried to impress her.
Im very sure of that, she said. You are strong. Once, I was washing in the river and you outraced the others.
I didnt see you, I said.
Of course, she said bitingly, You never notice the children of your tenants, except those who serve in your
house.
Her remark stunned me and I couldnt speak at once. That is not true. I said meekly. I go to Carmay often.
She must have realize that she had hurt me jfor when she spoke again, she sounde genuinely sorry. That was not
what I meant, she said. And I didnt say that to spite you.
 Again silence.
The moon drifted jout of the clouds and lighted up the dusty mud. It glimmered on parched fields and on the buri
palms that stood like hooded sentinels. Most of the houses we passed had a long brown out their kerosene lamps. Once in
a while, a dog stirred in its bed of dust and growled at us.
You wont be afraid going home alone? she made alight after a while.
There is a giang capri near the bridge which comes out when the moon is full, I said. Id like to see it. Ive never
seen a ghost.
When I die., she laughed. I'll appear before you. You'll be a good ghost and I wont be afraid, I said.
On we trudged. We talked more about ourselves, about the friends that we ought to have but didn't. We walked on
to where the row of homes receded and finally reached her house near the river that murmured as it cut a course over reeds
and shallows.
When we went up the house, her father was already asleep. In fact, he was snoring heavily. At the door, she bade
me good night and thanked me. Then slowly, she closed the door behind her.
So the eventful year passed, the rains fell, the fields became green and the banabas in the yard blossomed. The
land became soggy and the winds lashed at Rosales severely, bowling over score of flimsy huts that stood on lean bamboo
stilts. Our house didnt budged in the mightiest typhoon; with us, nothing changed. The harvest with it's usual bustle passed,
the tenants among whom was Teresita's father- filled our spacious store house with their crops. The drab, dry season with
it's choking dust settled oppressively and when march came, it was time for Teresita and I to graduate.
Throughout a whole, hot afternoon we rehearsed our part for the graduation program. We would march to the
platform to take our high school diplomas. When the sham was over, Teresita and I rested on the steps of the crude school
stage.
She nudged at me: I will not attend the graduation exercises. I can feign illness. I can say I had a fever or my
cough got worse - which is the truth anyway.
Why?
No one would miss me in the march if I don't come.
You are foolish, I said.
I can't have my picture, too, I suppose.
I don't believe you.
I can't come. I just can't, she repeated with finality.
She didn't have to say anything more. I understood, and that afternoon I asked money from father to buy a
graduation for Teresita.
And that same week, father ordered Teresita's father, who farmed a lot in the delta in Carmay, to vacate the place
as father had sold it. Teresita's father had to settle in the hills of Balungaow where there were small, vacant parcels, arable
patches in the otherwise rocky mountainside. There, he might literally scratch the Earth to eke out a living.
April, and a hot glaring sun filtered rudely through the dusty glass shatters and formed a dazzling puddle on the
floor where father lounged. The dogs that lolled in the shade of the acacia tree struck out their tongues and panted.
The smudges of grass in the plaza where a stubbly brown; the sky was cloudless and azure. From the kitchen
window, Sepa, the maid, asked me to come up the house. Father, she said, had something important to tell me.
He was at the balcony reading and fanning himself languidly. The question he asked stunned me, When do you
want to leave for the city?
For some time I couldn't speak; the summer vacation had just started and the college opening was two months
away.
It all depends upon you, Father.
You'll leave tomorrow then, he decided abruptly.
But, Father, I objected, June is still weeks away. College doesn't start till then.
 I know, Father said. But I want you to get well acquainted with your cousins there. You don't know much of each
other.
In the street, the heat waves rose up like little angry snakes, all swallowed up by the dust that fluffed high when a
passenger lumbered along. Father's arid voice: You will grow older. he hammered this notion into me. You will grow older
and realize how important is this thing that I'm doing. You will leave here many faces. You will outgrow boyish whims. In the
city, you'll meet new friends.
I did not speak.
The time will come when you will return to me-a man, Yes, father, I said as he, having spoken, went on with his
reading.
The dark came quickly ; the sun sunk behind the coconut grooves of Tomana and disappeared below the jagged
horizon. Before the twilight thickened, I left the house and journeyed into a world where the houses are decrepit, where the
urchins where clad most of the time in unkempt rags and when a stranger would stumble in their midst, they'd gape at him
with awe. Beyond the squat cluster of homes came the barking of dogs lying in the dust.
I went up the ladder and squeaked and when Teresita's father recognize me in the light of the flickering kerosene
lamp hanging from a rafter, a shadow of a scowl crept into his leathery face. When I said, Good evening, He retained his
sour mien. He returned my greeting, then he walked out and left us alone.
I'm leaving, I began. Teresita wiped the soap suds from her hands. She had just finished the dishes. I'll go to the
city tomorrow- to study, Father is sending me there.
She said nothing; she just looked at me. She walked to the half-open window that bared the benighted banks of the
river and the black fields.
We'd soon leave, too. she murmured, holding the window sill. Your father sold this place, you know.
I'm very sorry.
There's nothing to be sorry about.
Yes, there are. Many things, I said.
Won't you go to school anymore? I asked. She was silent again and didn't prod her for an answer.
What course are you going to take? she asked after a while.
I'm not yet very sure, I said. But maybe, I'll follow the advice you gave me.
Please do, she said. Please be a doctor. With conviction: You can do so much when you are one and you are
so good.
I didn't know what else to say.
Don't write to me when you are there, she said.
But I will.
I will do no good, she insisted. Besides, it will not be necessary. Thank you very much for coming to see me.
I have to, I said.
She followed me to the door. The floor creaked under my weight. She called my name as I stepped down the first
rung and I turned momentarily to catch one last glimpse of her young fragile face and on it, the smile, half born, half free.
Please don't write, she reiterated, wiping the soap suds on her hands with a piece of rag. It's useless, you know.
But I will, I said, and in my heart, I cried, I will!
I'd be much happier and so would father if you didn't, she pressed on.
And besides I wouldn't be able to answer to answer your letters. Stamps costs...
I'll send you... I checked myself quickly.
The smile on her face grew wan but, anyway she went down the flight and walked with me as far as the gate.
 The children who played raucously nearby stopped and ogled at us. And in the other houses, though it was very
dark. I knew the farmers and their wives watched me leave, knowing how it was going to be with us, how I would leave
Teresita and thus make father happy, how, I will forget everything: the orchids I gave her that now adorned her window and
which, I am sure, would someday wither, the books I lent her which she rapaciously read, the neat eager laughter that
welled from the depths of her. I would forget, too, how we hummed to the music of the towns brass band and walked one
sultry night from the high school to Carmay.

The night was vast and deep and the stars were hidden by clouds. In the darkness, I couldn't see the banabas
along the path, and the bright purple of their blooms.
 HOW MY BROTHER LEON BROUGHT HOME A WIFE
Manuel E. Arguilla

Manuel E. Arguilla (1911 1944) was born on June 17, 1911, an Ilocano writer in English, patriot, and martyr, from
Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union, who used the local color in his writings. Because he spent much of his childhood in the
province, his portrayal of Ilocano life is unsurpassed. He is the son of Crisanto Arguilla, a farmer, and Margarita Estabillo, a
potter. Their mediocre living was not a hindrance for Manuel to attain his dreams especially in literature. When an author
uses local colors in certain writings, he or she brings to life the language that appeals to the surrounding of a particular
place and time and uses the sights and sounds of a particular people. He is known for his widely anthologized short story
How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife, the main story in the collection How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife
and Other Short Stories which won first prize in the Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940. His stories "Midsummer" and
"Heat" was published in the United States by the Prairie Schooner. Most of Arguilla's stories depict scenes in Barrio
Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union where he was born. His bond with his birthplace, forged by his dealings with the peasant folk
of Ilocos, remained strong even after he moved to Manila where he studied at the University of the Philippines where he
finished BS Education in 1933 and where he became a member and later the president of the U.P. Writer's Club and editor
of the university's Literary Apprentice. He married Lydia Villanueva, another talented writer in English, and they lived in
Ermita, Manila. Here, F. Sionil Jos, another seminal Filipino writer in English, recalls often seeing him in the National
Library, which was then in the basement of what is now the National Museum. You couldn't miss him", Jose describes
Arguilla, "because he had this black patch on his cheek, a birthmark or an overgrown mole. He was writing then those
famous short stories and essays which I admired. He became a creative writing teacher at the University of Manila and
later worked at the Bureau of Public Welfare as managing editor of the bureau's publication Welfare Advocate until 1943.
He was later appointed to the Board of Censors. He secretly organized a guerrilla intelligence unit against the Japanese. In
October 1944, he was captured, tortured and executed by the Japanese army at Fort Santiago.
 How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife
(American Colonial Literature)
By Manuel E. Arguilla

She stepped down from the carretela of Ca Celin with a quick, delicate grace. She was lovely. She was tall. She looked up
to my brother with a smile, and her forehead was on a level with his mouth.

"You are Baldo," she said and placed her hand lightly on my shoulder. Her nails were long, but they were not painted. She
was fragrant like a morning when papayas are in bloom. And a small dimple appeared momently high on her right
cheek. "And this is Labang of whom I have heard so much." She held the wrist of one hand with the other and looked at
Labang, and Labang never stopped chewing his cud. He swallowed and brought up to his mouth more cud and the sound of
his insides was like a drum.

I laid a hand on Labang's massive neck and said to her: "You may scratch his forehead now."

She hesitated and I saw that her eyes were on the long, curving horns. But she came and touched Labang's forehead with
her long fingers, and Labang never stopped chewing his cud except that his big eyes half closed. And by and by she was
scratching his forehead very daintily.

My brother Leon put down the two trunks on the grassy side of the road. He paid Ca Celin twice the usual fare from the
station to the edge of Nagrebcan. Then he was standing beside us, and she turned to him eagerly. I watched Ca Celin,
where he stood in front of his horse, and he ran his fingers through its forelock and could not keep his eyes away from her.
"Maria---" my brother Leon said.

He did not say Maring. He did not say Mayang. I knew then that he had always called her Maria and that to us all she would
be Maria; and in my mind I said 'Maria' and it was a beautiful name.

"Yes, Noel."

Now where did she get that name? I pondered the matter quietly to myself, thinking Father might not like it. But it was only
the name of my brother Leon said backward and it sounded much better that way.

"There is Nagrebcan, Maria," my brother Leon said, gesturing widely toward the west.

She moved close to him and slipped her arm through his. And after a while she said quietly.

"You love Nagrebcan, don't you, Noel?"

Ca Celin drove away hi-yi-ing to his horse loudly. At the bend of the camino real where the big duhat tree grew, he rattled
the handle of his braided rattan whip against the spokes of the wheel.

We stood alone on the roadside.

The sun was in our eyes, for it was dipping into the bright sea. The sky was wide and deep and very blue above us: but
along the saw-tooth rim of the Katayaghan hills to the southwest flamed huge masses of clouds. Before us the fields swam
in a golden haze through which floated big purple and red and yellow bubbles when I looked at the sinking sun. Labang's
white coat, which I had wshed and brushed that morning with coconut husk, glistened like beaten cotton under the lamplight
and his horns appeared tipped with fire.

He faced the sun and from his mouth came a call so loud and vibrant that the earth seemed to tremble underfoot. And far
away in the middle of the field a cow lowed softly in answer.

"Hitch him to the cart, Baldo," my brother Leon said, laughing, and she laughed with him a big uncertainly, and I saw that he
had put his arm around her shoulders.
"Why does he make that sound?" she asked. "I have never heard the like of it."

"There is not another like it," my brother Leon said. "I have yet to hear another bull call like Labang. In all the world there is
no other bull like him."

She was smiling at him, and I stopped in the act of tying the sinta across Labang's neck to the opposite end of the yoke,
because her teeth were very white, her eyes were so full of laughter, and there was the small dimple high up on her right
cheek.

"If you continue to talk about him like that, either I shall fall in love with him or become greatly jealous."

My brother Leon laughed and she laughed and they looked at each other and it seemed to me there was a world of laughter
between them and in them.

I climbed into the cart over the wheel and Labang would have bolted, for he was always like that, but I kept a firm hold on
his rope. He was restless and would not stand still, so that my brother Leon had to say "Labang" several times. When he
was quiet again, my brother Leon lifted the trunks into the cart, placing the smaller on top.

She looked down once at her high-heeled shoes, then she gave her left hand to my brother Leon, placed a foot on the hub
of the wheel, and in one breath she had swung up into the cart. Oh, the fragrance of her. But Labang was fairly dancing with
impatience and it was all I could do to keep him from running away.

"Give me the rope, Baldo," my brother Leon said. "Maria, sit down on the hay and hold on to anything." Then he put a foot
on the left shaft and that instand labang leaped forward. My brother Leon laughed as he drew himself up to the top of the
side of the cart and made the slack of the rope hiss above the back of labang. The wind whistled against my cheeks and the
rattling of the wheels on the pebbly road echoed in my ears.

She sat up straight on the bottom of the cart, legs bent togther to one side, her skirts spread over them so that only the toes
and heels of her shoes were visible. her eyes were on my brother Leon's back; I saw the wind on her hair. When Labang
slowed down, my brother Leon handed to me the rope. I knelt on the straw inside the cart and pulled on the rope until
Labang was merely shuffling along, then I made him turn around.

"What is it you have forgotten now, Baldo?" my brother Leon said.

I did not say anything but tickled with my fingers the rump of Labang; and away we went---back to where I had unhitched
and waited for them. The sun had sunk and down from the wooded sides of the Katayaghan hills shadows were stealing
into the fields. High up overhead the sky burned with many slow fires.

When I sent Labang down the deep cut that would take us to the dry bed of the Waig which could be used as a path to our
place during the dry season, my brother Leon laid a hand on my shoulder and said sternly:

"Who told you to drive through the fields tonight?"

His hand was heavy on my shoulder, but I did not look at him or utter a word until we were on the rocky bottom of the Waig.

"Baldo, you fool, answer me before I lay the rope of Labang on you. Why do you follow the Wait instead of the camino real?"

His fingers bit into my shoulder.

"Father, he told me to follow the Waig tonight, Manong."

Swiftly, his hand fell away from my shoulder and he reached for the rope of Labang. Then my brother Leon laughed, and he
sat back, and laughing still, he said:

"And I suppose Father also told you to hitch Labang to the cart and meet us with him instead of with Castano and the
calesa."

Without waiting for me to answer, he turned to her and said, "Maria, why do you think Father should do that, now?" He
laughed and added, "Have you ever seen so many stars before?"

I looked back and they were sitting side by side, leaning against the trunks, hands clasped across knees. Seemingly, but a
man's height above the tops of the steep banks of the Wait, hung the stars. But in the deep gorge the shadows had fallen
heavily, and even the white of Labang's coat was merely a dim, grayish blur. Crickets chirped from their homes in the cracks
in the banks. The thick, unpleasant smell of dangla bushes and cooling sun-heated earth mingled with the clean, sharp
scent of arrais roots exposed to the night air and of the hay inside the cart.

"Look, Noel, yonder is our star!" Deep surprise and gladness were in her voice. Very low in the west, almost touching the
ragged edge of the bank, was the star, the biggest and brightest in the sky.

"I have been looking at it," my brother Leon said. "Do you remember how I would tell you that when you want to see stars
you must come to Nagrebcan?"

"Yes, Noel," she said. "Look at it," she murmured, half to herself. "It is so many times bigger and brighter than it was at
Ermita beach."

"The air here is clean, free of dust and smoke."

"So it is, Noel," she said, drawing a long breath.

"Making fun of me, Maria?"

She laughed then and they laughed together and she took my brother Leon's hand and put it against her face.

I stopped Labang, climbed down, and lighted the lantern that hung from the cart between the wheels.

"Good boy, Baldo," my brother Leon said as I climbed back into the cart, and my heart sant.

Now the shadows took fright and did not crowd so near. Clumps of andadasi and arrais flashed into view and quickly
disappeared as we passed by. Ahead, the elongated shadow of Labang bobbled up and down and swayed drunkenly from
side to side, for the lantern rocked jerkily with the cart.

"Have we far to go yet, Noel?" she asked.

"Ask Baldo," my brother Leon said, "we have been neglecting him."

"I am asking you, Baldo," she said.

Without looking back, I answered, picking my words slowly:

"Soon we will get out of the Wait and pass into the fields. After the fields is home---Manong."

"So near already."

I did not say anything more because I did not know what to make of the tone of her voice as she said her last words. All the
laughter seemed to have gone out of her. I waited for my brother Leon to say something, but he was not saying anything.
Suddenly he broke out into song and the song was 'Sky Sown with Stars'---the same that he and Father sang when we cut
hay in the fields at night before he went away to study. He must have taught her the song because she joined him, and her
voice flowed into his like a gentle stream meeting a stronger one. And each time the wheels encountered a big rock, her
voice would catch in her throat, but my brother Leon would sing on, until, laughing softly, she would join him again.

Then we were climbing out into the fields, and through the spokes of the wheels the light of the lantern mocked the
shadows. Labang quickened his steps. The jolting became more frequent and painful as we crossed the low dikes.

"But it is so very wide here," she said. The light of the stars broke and scattered the darkness so that one could see far on
every side, though indistinctly.
"You miss the houses, and the cars, and the people and the noise, don't you?" My brother Leon stopped singing.

"Yes, but in a different way. I am glad they are not here."

With difficulty I turned Labang to the left, for he wanted to go straight on. He was breathing hard, but I knew he was more
thirsty than tired. In a little while we drope up the grassy side onto the camino real.

"---you see," my brother Leon was explaining, "the camino real curves around the foot of the Katayaghan hills and passes
by our house. We drove through the fields because---but I'll be asking Father as soon as we get home."

"Noel," she said.

"Yes, Maria."

"I am afraid. He may not like me."

"Does that worry you still, Maria?" my brother Leon said. "From the way you talk, he might be an ogre, for all the world.
Except when his leg that was wounded in the Revolution is troubling him, Father is the mildest-tempered, gentlest man I
know."

We came to the house of Lacay Julian and I spoke to Labang loudly, but Moning did not come to the window, so I surmised
she must be eating with the rest of her family. And I thought of the food being made ready at home and my mouth watered.
We met the twins, Urong and Celin, and I said "Hoy!" calling them by name. And they shouted back and asked if my brother
Leon and his wife were with me. And my brother Leon shouted to them and then told me to make Labang run; their answers
were lost in the noise of the wheels.

I stopped labang on the road before our house and would have gotten down but my brother Leon took the rope and told me
to stay in the cart. He turned Labang into the open gate and we dashed into our yard. I thought we would crash into the
camachile tree, but my brother Leon reined in Labang in time. There was light downstairs in the kitchen, and Mother stood
in the doorway, and I could see her smiling shyly. My brother Leon was helping Maria over the wheel. The first words that
fell from his lips after he had kissed Mother's hand were:

"Father... where is he?"

"He is in his room upstairs," Mother said, her face becoming serious. "His leg is bothering him again."

I did not hear anything more because I had to go back to the cart to unhitch Labang. But I hardly tied him under the barn
when I heard Father calling me. I met my brother Leon going to bring up the trunks. As I passed through the kitchen, there
were Mother and my sister Aurelia and Maria and it seemed to me they were crying, all of them.

There was no light in Father's room. There was no movement. He sat in the big armchair by the western window, and a star
shone directly through it. He was smoking, but he removed the roll of tobacco from his mouth when he saw me. He laid it
carefully on the windowsill before speaking.

"Did you meet anybody on the way?" he asked.

"No, Father," I said. "Nobody passes through the Waig at night."

He reached for his roll of tobacco and hithced himself up in the chair.

"She is very beautiful, Father."

"Was she afraid of Labang?" My father had not raised his voice, but the room seemed to resound with it. And again I saw
her eyes on the long curving horns and the arm of my brother Leon around her shoulders.

"No, Father, she was not afraid."

"On the way---"

"She looked at the stars, Father. And Manong Leon sang."

"What did he sing?"

"---Sky Sown with Stars... She sang with him."

He was silent again. I could hear the low voices of Mother and my sister Aurelia downstairs. There was also the voice of my
brother Leon, and I thought that Father's voice must have been like it when Father was young. He had laid the roll of
tobacco on the windowsill once more. I watched the smoke waver faintly upward from the lighted end and vanish slowly into
the night outside.

The door opened and my brother Leon and Maria came in.

"Have you watered Labang?" Father spoke to me.

I told him that Labang was resting yet under the barn.

"It is time you watered him, my son," my father said.

I looked at Maria and she was lovely. She was tall. Beside my brother Leon, she was tall and very still. Then I went out, and
in the darkened hall the fragrance of her was like a morning when papayas are in bloom.

THE BLACK MONKEY & THE RETURN

Edith L. Tiempo

Edith L. Tiempo, poet, fictionist, teacher and literary critic is one of the finest Filipino writers in English whose works are
characterized by a remarkable fusion of style and substance, of craftsmanship and insight. She was born on 22 April 1919
in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. Her poems are intricate verbal transfigurations of significant experiences as revealed, in two
of her much anthologized pieces, "The Little Marmoset" and "Bonsai". As fictionist, Tiempo is as morally profound. Her
language has been marked as "descriptive but unburdened by scrupulous detailing." She is an influential tradition in
Philippine literature in English. Together with her late husband, Edilberto K. Tiempo, she founded and directed the Silliman
National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City, which has produced some of the country's best writers. Tiempo's published
works include the novel A Blade of Fern (1978), His Native Coast (1979), The Alien Corn (1992), One, Tilting Leaves (1995)
and The Builder (2003); the poetry collections, The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems (1966), and The Charmer's Box
and Other Poems (1993); and the short story collection Abide, Joshua, and Other Stories (1964).
 THE BLACK MONKEY
Edith L. Tiempo

Two weeks already she had stayed in the hunt on the precipice, alone except for the visits of her husband. Carlos came
regularly once a day and stayed three or four hours, but his visits seemed to her too short and far between. Sometimes,
after he had left and she thought she would be alone again, one or the other of the neighbors came up unexpectedly, and
right away those days became different, or she became different in a subtle but definite way. For the neighbors caused a
disturbed balance in her which was relieving and necessary. Sometimes it was one of the women, coming up with some
fruits, papayas, perhaps, or wild ink berries, or guavas. Sometimes the children, to grind her weeks supply of corn meal in
the cubbyhole downstairs. Their chirps and meaningless giggles broke the steady turn of the stone grinder, scraping to a
slow agitation the thoughts that had settled and almost hardened in the bottom of her mind. She would have liked it better if
these visits were longer, but they could not be; for the folks came to see her, yet she couldnt come to them, and she, a sick
woman, wasnt really with her when they sat there with her. The women were uneasy in the hut and she could say nothing
to the children, and it seemed it was only when the men came to see her when there was the presence of real people. Real
people, and she real with them.
As when old Emilio and Sergio left their carabaos standing in the clearing and crossed the river at low tide to climb solemnly
up the path on the precipice, their faces showing brown and leathery in the filtered sunlight of the forest as they approached
her door. Coming in and sitting on the floor of the eight-by-ten hut where she lay, looking at her and chewing tobacco,
clayey legs crossed easily, they brought about them the strange electric of living together, of showing one to another lustily
across the clearing, each driving his beast, of riding the bull cart into the timber to load dead trunks of firewood, of listening
in a screaming silence inside their huts at night to the sound of real or imagined shots or explosions, and mostly of another
kind of silence, the kid that bogged down between the furrows when the sun was hot and the soils stony and the breadth for
words lay tight and furry upon their tongues. They were slow of words even when at rest, rousing themselves to talk
numbingly and vaguely after long periods of chewing.
Thinking to interest her, their talk would be of the womens doings, soap-making and the salt project, and who made the
most coconut oil that week, whose dog has caught sucking eggs from whose poultry shed, show many lizards and monkeys
they trapped and killed in the corn fields and yards around the four houses. Listening to them was hearing a remote story
heard once before and strange enough now to be interesting again. But it was last two weeks locatable in her body, it was
true, but not so much a real pain as a deadness and heaviness everywhere, at once inside of her as well as outside.
When the far nasal bellowing of their carabaos came up across the river the men rose to go, and clumsy with sympathy they
stood at the doorstep spitting out many casual streaks of tobacco and betel as they stretched their leave by the last
remarks. Marina wished for her mind to go on following them down the cliff to the river across the clearing, to the group of
four huts on the knoll where the smoke spiraled blue glints and grey from charcoal pits, and the children chased scampering
monkeys back into forested slopes only a few feet away. But when the men turned around the path and disappeared they
were really gone, and she was really alone again.
From the pallet where she lay a few inches from the door all she could set were the tops of ipil trees arching over the damp
humus soil of the forest, and a very small section of the path leading from her hut downward along the edge of the precipice
to the river where it was a steep short drop of fifteen or twenty feet to the water. They used a ladder on the bushy side of the
cliff to climb up and don the path, let down and drawn up again, and no one from the outside the area could know of the
secret hut built so close to the guerilla headquarters. When the tide was low and then water drained toward the sea, the
river was shallow in some parts and the ladder could be reached by wading on a pebbly stretched to the base of the cliff. At
high tide an outrigger boat had to be rowed across. They were fortunate to have the hiding place, very useful to them
whenever they had to flee from their hut on the knoll below, every time a Japanese patrol was reported by the guerillas to be
prowling around the hills.
Two weeks ago, in the night, they had fled up to the forest again, thinking a patrol had penetrated. Marina remembered how
she and Flavia and Flavias daughter had groped their way up to the precipice behind their faster neighbors, how the whole
of that night the three of them had cowered in this dark hut while all around monkeys gibbered in the leaves, and pieces of
voices from the guerillas on the river pieced into the forest like thin splintered glass. And all the time the whispered talk of
their neighbors crouched in the crevices of the high rocks above them floated down like echoes of the whispers in her own
mind. Nobody knew the reason for the harm sounded by headquarters unto the next morning when Carlos and two other
guerillas paddled around the river from camp and had told everyone to come down from their precipice and return to the
huts; it was not enemy troops but the buys chasing after the Japanese prisoner who had escaped.
Following the notice of Carlos, old Emilio and others went back to the knoll the day after the alarm. She had stayed, through
two weeks now. Sick and paralyzed on one side, she had to stay where she was a liability to no one in case of danger. She
had to stay until the Japanese prisoner was caught, and if he had been able to slip across the channel to Cebu and a
Japanese invasion of this guerilla area was instigated, she would be safe in this hideout.
Listening closely for several nights, she had learned to distinguish the noises made by the monkey in the tree nearest her
door. She was sure the tree had only one tenant, a big one, because the sounds it made were unusually heavy and definite.
She would hear a precise rustle, just as if it shifted once in its sleep and was quiet again, or when the rustling and the grunts
were continuous for a while, she knew it was looking for a better perch and muttering at its discomfort. Sometimes there
were precipitate rubbing sounds and a thud and she concluded it accidentally slipped and landed on the ground. She
always heard it arrive late at night, long after the forest had settled down. Even now as she lay quietly, she knew the
invisible group of monkeys had begun to come, she knew from the coughing that started from far up to the slope, sound like
wind on the water, gradually coming downward.
She must have been asleep about four hours when she awoke uneasily, aware of movements under the hut. Blackness had
pushed into the room, heavily and moistly, sticky damp around her eyes, under her chin and down the back of her neck,
where it prickled like fine hair creeping on end. Her light had burned out. Something was fumbling at the door of the
compartment below the floor, where the supply of rice and corn was stored in tall bins. The door was pushed and rattled
cautiously, slow thuds of steps moved around the house. Whatever it was, it circled the hut once, twice and stop again to
jerk at the door. It sounded like a monkey, perhaps the monkey in the tree, trying to break in the door to the corn and rice. It
seemed to her it took care not to pass the stairs, retracing its steps to the side of the hut each time so she could not see it
through her open door. Hearing the sounds and seeing nothing, she could not see it through her open door. Hearing the
sounds and seeing nothing, she felt it imperative that she should see the intruder. She set her face to the long slit at the
base of the wall and the quick chilly wind came at her like a whisper suddenly flung into her face. Trees defined her line
vision, merged blots that seemed to possess life and feeling running through them like thin humming wires. The footsteps
had come from the unknown boundary and must have resolved back into it because she could not hear them anymore. She
was deciding the creature had gone away when she saw a stooping shape creep along the wall and turn back, slipping by
so quickly she could deceive herself into believing she imagined it. A short, stooping creature, its footsteps heavy and
regular and then unexpectedly running together as if the feet were fired and sore. She had suspected the monkey but didnt
feel sure, even seeing the quick shaped she didnt feel sure, until she heard the heavy steps turn toward the tree. Then she
could distinguish clearly the rubbing sounds as it hitched itself up the tree.
She had a great wish to be back below with the others. Now and then the wind blew momentary gaps through the leaves
and she saw fog from the river below, fog white and stingy, floating over the four huts on the knoll. Along about ten in the
morning the whole area below would be under the direct that of the sun. The knoll was a sort of islet made by the river
bending into the horseshoe shape; on this formation of the two inner banks they had made their clearing and built their huts.
On one outer bank the guerilla camp hid in thick grove of madre-de-cacao and undergrowth and on the other outer bank,
the other arm of the horseshoe, abruptly rose the steep precipice where the secret hut stood. The families asleep on the
knoll were themselves isolated, she thought; they were as on an island cut off by the water and mountain ranges
surrounding them; shut in with it, each one tossing his thought to the others, no one keeping it privately, no one really taking
a deliberate look at it in the secrecy of his own mind. In the hut by herself it seemed she must play it out, toss it back and
forth.
Threads of mist tangled under the trees. Light pricked through the suspended raindrops; the mind carried up the sound of
paddling from the river. In a little while him distinctly. Neena! Neena! Her name thus exploded through the air by his voice
came like a shock after hours of stealthy noises.
He took the three rungs of the steps in one stride and was beside her on the floor. Always he came in a flood of size and
motions and she couldnt see all of him at once. A smell of stale sun and hard walking clung to his clothes and stung into
her; it was the smell of many people and many places and the room felt even smaller with him in it. In a quick gesture that
had become a habit he touched the back of his hand on her forehead.
Good, he announced, no fever.
With Carlos presence, the room bulged with the sense of people and activity, pointing up with unbearable sharpness her
isolation, her fears, her helplessness.
I cant stay up here, she told him, not caring anymore whether he despised her cowardice. I must go down. There is
something here. You dont know whats happening. You dont know, or you wont take me stay.
He looked at her and then around the room as though her fear squatted there listening to them.
Its the monkey again.
Man or monkey or devil, I cant stay up here anymore.
Something must be done, he said, this cant go on.
Ill go down and be with the others.
He raised his head, saying wearily, I wish that were the best thing, Neena, God knows I wish it were. But you must go down
only when youre ready. These are critical days for all of us in this area. If something breaksthe Jap, you know, think what
will happen to you down there, with me at headquarters. Youve known of reprisals.
He looked at her and his sooty black eyes were like the bottom of a deep drained well. I wish I could be here at night. What
Im saying is this: its a job you must do by yourself, since nobody is allowed out of headquarters after dark. That monkey
must be shot or youre not safe here anymore.
You know I cant shoot.
We are continuing our lessons. You still remember, dont you?
It was long ago and it was not really in earnest.
He inspected the chambers of the rifle. You didnt need it then.
He put his life into her hands.
She lifted it and as its weight yielded coldly to her hands, she said suddenly, Im glad were doing this.
You remember how to use the sight?
Yes, and she could not help smiling a little. All the oclock you taught me.
Aim it and shoot.
She aimed at a scar on the trunk of the tree near the door, the monkeys tree. She pressed on the trigger. Nothing
happened. She pressed it again. It isnt loaded.
It is.
The trigger wont move. Somethings wrong.
He took it from her. Its locked, you forgot it as usual. He put it aside. Enough now, youll do. But you unlock first.
Remember, nothing can ever come out of a locked gun.
He left early in the afternoon, about two oclock.
Just before the sundown the monkey came. It swung along the trees along the edge of the precipice, then leaped down on
the path and wandered around near the hut. It must be very, very hungry, or it would not be so bold. It sidled forward all the
time eying her intently, inching toward the grain room below the stairs. As it suddenly rushed toward her all the anger of the
last two years of war seemed to unite into one necessity and she snatched up the gun, shouting and screaming, Get out!
Thief! Thief!
The monkey wavered. It did not understand the pointed gun she brandished and it came forward, softly, slowly, its feet
hardly making any sound on the ground. She aimed, and as it slipped past the stairs and was rounding the corner to the
grain room she fired again and once again, straight into its back.
The loud explosions resounded through the trees. The birds in the forest flew in confusion and their high excited chatter
floated down through the leaves. But she did not hear them the only reality was the twisting, grunting shape near the stairs
and after a minute it was quiet.
She couldnt help laughing a little, couldnt help feeling exhilarated. The black monkey was dead, it was dead, she had killed
it. Strangely, too, she was thinking of the escaped prisoner that she strangely feared him but was curious about him, and
that now she could think of him openly to herself. She could talk about him now, she thought. Shoe could talk of him to
Carlos and to anybody and not hide the sneaky figure of him with the other black terrors of her mind.
She realized that she was still holding the gun. This time, she thought, she had unlocked it. And with rueful certainty, she
knew she could do it again, tonight tomorrow, whenever it was necessary. The hatter of some monkeys came to her from a
far up in the forest. From that distance, it was vague, a lost sound; hearing it jarred across her little triumph, and she wished,
like someone lamenting a lost innocence, that she had never seen a gun
The Return
by Edith L. Tiempo

If the dead years could shake their skinny legs and run
As once he had circled this house in thirty counts,
He would go thru this door among these old friends and they would not shun
Him and the tales he would tell, tales that would bear more than the spare
Testimony of willed wit and his grey hairs
He would enter among them, the fatted meat about his mouth,
As he told of how he had lived on strange boats on strange waters
Of strategems with lean sly winds,
Of the times death went coughing like a sick man on the motors,
Their breaths would rise hot and pungent as the lemon rinds
In their cups and sniff at the odors
Of his past like dogs at dried bones behind a hedge,
And he would live in the whispers and locked heads.
Wheeling around and around and turning back was where he started:
The turn to the pasture, a swift streak under a boy's running;
The swing, up a few times and he had all the earth he wanted;
The tower trees, and not so tall as he had imagined;
The rocking chair on the porch, you pushed it and it started rocking,
Rocking, and abruptly stopped. He, too, stopped in the doorway, chagrined.
He would go among them but he would not tell, he could be smart,
He, an old man cracking bones of his embarrassment apart.
 THE BOY WHO BECAME A STONE
Tinguian

One day a little boy named Elonen sat out in the yard making a bird snare, and as he worked, a little bird called to him: "Tik-
tik-lo-den" (come and catch me).
"I am making a snare for you," said the boy; but the bird continued to call until the snare was finished.
Then Elonen ran and threw the snare over the bird and caught it, and he put it in a jar in his house while he went with the
other boys to swim.
While he was away, his grandmother grew hungry, so she ate the bird, and when Elonen returned and found that his bird
was gone, he was so sad that he wished he might go away and never come back. He went out into the forest and walked a
long distance, until finally he came to a big stone and said: "Stone, open your mouth and eat me." And the stone opened its
mouth and swallowed the boy.
When his grandmother missed the boy, she went out and looked everywhere, hoping to find him. Finally, she passed near
the stone and it cried out, "Here he is." Then the old woman tried to open the stone but she could not, so she called the
horses to come and help her. They came and kicked it, but it would not break. Then she called the carabao and they
hooked it, but they only broke their horns. She called the chickens, which pecked it, and the thunder, which shook it, but
nothing could open it, and she had to go home without the boy.
 Wedding Dance
By Amador Daguio

Amador T. Daguio is a Filipino writer and poet during pre-war Philippines. He published two books in his lifetime, and three
more posthumously. He is a Republic Cultural Heritage awardee for his works.
Amador Daguio was born in January 8, 1912 in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. His family moved to Lubuagan, Mountain Province
where his father was an officer in the Philippine Constabulary. He graduated with honors in 1924 at the Lubuagan
Elementary School as valedictorian. In elementary school, Daguio was already writing poems, according to his own account
he wrote a farewell verse on a chalkboard at least once for a departing teacher when he was in grade 6. For his high school
studies, he moved to Pasig to attend Rizal High School while residing with his uncle at Fort William McKinley.
Due to failing to meet academic requirements to qualify for a scholarship and poverty, Daguio was not able to study college
in the first semester of 1928. He worked as a houseboy, waiter, and caddy at Fort McKinley to earn his tuition and later
enrolled at the University of the Philippines on the second semester. He experienced financial difficulties in his studies until
an uncle from Honolulu, Hawaii who funded his tuition on his third year of study. Before his uncle's arrival, Daguio has
worked as a printer's devil in his college as well as a writer for the Philippine Collegian.
He was mentored in writing by Tom Inglis Moore, an Australian professor. In 1932, he graduated from UP as one of the top
ten honor graduates. After World War II, he went to Stanford University to study his masterals in English which he obtained
at 1952. And in 1954 he obtained his Law degree from Romualdez Law College in Leyte.
When Daguio was a third year high school student his poem "She Came to Me" got published in the July 11, 1926 edition of
the The Sunday Tribune.
After he graduated from UP, he returned to Lubuagan to teach at his former alma matter. He then taught at Zamboange
Normal School in 1938 where he met his wife Estela. During the Second World War, he was part of the resistance and
wrote poems. These poems were later published as his book Bataan Harvest.
He was the chief editor for the Philippine House of Representatives, as well as several other government offices. He also
taught at the University of the East, University of the Philippines, and Philippine Women's University for 26 years. He died in
1967 from liver cancer at the age of 55.
 Wedding Dance
By Amador Daguio
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the head high threshold. Clinging to the log, he
lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed
the cover back in place. After some moments during which he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.

"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."

The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who had
moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not know how long. There was a
sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.

But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the room; he knew
exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers, and blew into the stove. When
the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine on them, then full round logs as his arms. The room brightened.

"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he said was really
not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," he said, "as if--as if nothing had
happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with
strange moving shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.

"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men will see you
dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier than you were with
me."

"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."

He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want any other woman either. You know that, don't
you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"

She did not answer him.

"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.

"Yes, I know," she said weakly.

"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you."

"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.

"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He set some of the
burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited
too long. We should have another chance before it is too late for both of us."

This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket more snugly around
herself.

"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my
prayers."

"Yes, I know."

"You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace because I butchered one of
our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I wanted to have a child. But what could I
do?"
"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the crackles of the
flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.

Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in place. She tugged
at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight rattle. The gong of the
dancers clamorously called in her care through the walls.

Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then turned to
where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top jar and drank.
Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that evening.

"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to come, if you
don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never become
as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house
clean. You are one of the best wives in the
whole village."

"That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.

He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his hands and looked longingly
at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would he hold her face. The next day she would not be his anymore.
She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they
tugged softly at the split bamboo floor.

"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another house for
Madulimay."

"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will need help in the
planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice."

"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You know I did it for
you. You helped me to make it for the two of us."

"I have no use for any field," she said.

He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time.

"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder where you are, and Madulimay
will not feel good. Go back to the dance."

"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The gangsas are playing."

"You know that I cannot."

"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life is not worth living
without a child. The man had mocked me behind my back. You know that."

"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay."

She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.

She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of their new life, the day he
took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the trail which they
had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross. The waters boiled in her mind in forms of white and jade and
roaring silver; the waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from somewhere on the tops of
the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step on---a slip would have meant
death.
They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to the other side of the
mountain.

She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of lightness in his
way of saying things which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud she had been of his humor. The
muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked
at his body the carved out of the mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and legs flowed
down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that she had lost him.

She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did everything to have a
child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at my body. Then it was full of promise. It
could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am
useless. I must die."

"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast quivered against his own;
she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in cascades of gleaming
darkness.

"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll have no other
man."

"Then you'll always be fruitless."

"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."

"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do not want my
name to live on in our tribe."

She was silent.

"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of the mountains;
nobody will come after me."

"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't want you to fail."

"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe."

The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.

"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-whispered.

"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said they come from up North, from the slant-eyed
people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."

"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have nothing to give."

She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are
looking for you at the dance!"

"I am not in hurry."

"The elders will scold you. You had better go."

"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."

"It is all right with me."

He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.

"I know," she said.

He went to the door.

"Awiyao!"

He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to leave. She had
been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life, in the work in the field, in the
planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in the communing with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself
that made man wish for the laughter and speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law
demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless--but he loved
Lumnay. It was like taking away of his life to leave her like this.

"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the farthest
corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his spear points, her betel nut
box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had been given to him by his grandmother to give to
Lumnay on the beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She
suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as if she would never let him go.

"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried her face in his neck.

The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried out into the night.

Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck her face; the
moonlight spilled itself on the whole village.

She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew that all the
houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the best dancer of the
village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping
for grains on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way she stretched her
hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance at her own
wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor of another
whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her husband a child.

"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right," she said.

Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them
it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to
denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely
would relent. Was not their love as strong as the
river?

She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole place; a great
bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her. She was near at last.
She could see the dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women
decked in feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to the
flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming brightness of the
bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach?
She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks which spread
and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She did not
have the courage to break into the wedding feast.

Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing of beans which
Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She followed the trail above the village.
When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream water was very
cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the
mountain.

When Lumnay reached the clearing, she could see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the village,
where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness, echoing from
mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far to her, to speak to her in the language of
unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their gratitude for her
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.

Lumnay thought of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel
logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with water. He
had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell.
After that it did not take him long to decide to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token on his desire to
marry her.

The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean plants. Lumnay
looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she was lost among them.

A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding the bean flowers,
soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue, blooming
whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would
go on.

Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.
 May Day Eve
By Nick Joaquin
Nick Joaquin, byname of Nicomedes Joaquin (born May 4, 1917, Paco, Manila, Phil.died April 29, 2004, San Juan, Phil.),
Filipino novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and biographer whose works present the diverse heritage of the Filipino people.

Joaquin was awarded a scholarship to the Dominican monastery in Hong Kong after publication of his essay La Naval de
Manila (1943), a description of Manilas fabled resistance to 17th-century Dutch invaders. After World War II he traveled to
the United States, Mexico, and Spain, later serving as a cultural representative of the Philippines to Taiwan, Cuba, and
China.

Starting as a proofreader for the Philippines Free Press, Joaquin rose to contributing editor and essayist under the nom de
plume Quijano de Manila (Manila Old-Timer). He was well known as a historian of the brief Golden Age of Spain in the
Philippines, as a writer of short stories suffused with folk Roman Catholicism, as a playwright, and as a novelist.

The novel The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961) examines his countrys various heritages. A Portrait of the Artist as
Filipino (1966), a celebrated play, attempts to reconcile historical events with dynamic change. The Aquinos of Tarlac: An
Essay on History as Three Generations (1983) presents a biography of Benigno Aquino, the assassinated presidential
candidate. The action of the novel Cave and Shadows (1983) occurs in the period of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos.
Joaquins other works include the short-story collections Tropical Gothic (1972) and Stories for Groovy Kids (1979), the play
Tropical Baroque (1979), and the collections of poetry The Ballad of the Five Battles (1981) and Collected Verse (1987).
Joaquins later works are mostly nonfiction, including Manila, My Manila: A History for the Young (1990), The D.M. Guevara
Story (1993), and Mr. F.E.U., the Culture Hero That Was Nicanor Reyes (1995).
 May Day Eve

By Nick Joaquin

The old people had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten oclock but it was almost midnight before the carriages came
filing up the departing guests, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedrooms, the young
men gathering around to wish them a good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moaning, proclaiming
themselves disconsolate but straightway going off to finish the punch and the brandy though they were quite drunk already
and simply bursting with wild spirits, merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from
Europe; the ball had been in their honor; and they had waltzed and polka-ed and bragged and swaggered and flirted all
night and where in no mood to sleep yet--no, caramba, not on this moist tropic eve! not on this mystic May eve! --with the
night still young and so seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth---and serenade the neighbors! cried one;
and swim in the Pasid! cried another; and gather fireflies! cried a thirdwhereupon there arose a great clamor for coats and
capes, for hats and canes, and they were a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage rattled away upon the
cobbles while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tile roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wile
sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled,
whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable childhood
fragrances or ripe guavas to the young men trooping so uproariously down the street that the girls who were desiring
upstairs in the bedrooms catered screaming to the windows, crowded giggling at the windows, but were soon sighing
amorously over those young men bawling below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their proud
flashing eyes, and their elegant mustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love,
and began crying to one another how carefree were men but how awful to be a girl and what a horrid, horrid world it was, till
old Anastasia plucked them off by the ear or the pigtail and chases them off to bed---while from up the street came the
clackety-clack of the watchmans boots on the cobble and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll
of his great voice booming through the night, "Guardia serno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o.

And it was May again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, she said--for
it was a night of divination, and night of lovers, and those who cared might peer into a mirror and would there behold the
face of whoever it was they were fated to marry, said the old Anastasia as she hobble about picking up the piled crinolines
and folding up shawls and raking slippers in corner while the girls climbing into four great poster-beds that overwhelmed the
room began shrieking with terror, scrambling over each other and imploring the old woman not to frighten them.

"Enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!"

"Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!"

"She is not a witch, she is a maga. She is a maga. She was born of Christmas Eve!"

"St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr."

"Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?"

"No, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!"

"Let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell me."
"You may learn in a mirror if you are not afraid."

"I am not afraid, I will go," cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.

"Girls, girls---we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all. Agueda, lie down! And you
Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and go away!""Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!"

"And I will not lie down!" cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. "Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do."

"Tell her! Tell her!" chimed the other girls.

The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl. "You must take a
candle," she instructed, "and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up
to the mirror and close your eyes and shy:

Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of
the man you will marry." A silence. Then: "And hat if all does not go right?" asked Agueda. "Ah, then the Lord have mercy
on you!" "Why." "Because you may see--the Devil!"

The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering. "But what nonsense!" cried Agueda. "This is the year 1847. There
are no devil anymore!" Nevertheless she had turned pale. "But where could I go, hugh? Yes, I know! Down to the sala. It
has that big mirror and no one is there now." "No, Agueda, no! It is a mortal sin! You will see the devil!" "I do not care! I am
not afraid! I will go!" "Oh, you wicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!" "If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will call my mother." "And
if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the convent last March. Come, old woman---give me that candle. I go." "Oh
girls---give me that candle, I go."

But Agueda had already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across the hall; her feet bare and her dark hair falling down
her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering in one hand while with the
other she pulled up her white gown from her ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed
her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirling couples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers.
But, oh, it was a dark den, a weird cavern for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls.
She crossed herself and stepped inside.

The mirror hung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold frame carved into leaves and flowers and mysterious
curlicues. She saw herself approaching fearfully in it: a small while ghost that the darkness bodied forth---but not willingly,
not completely, for her eyes and hair were so dark that the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask that floated
forward; a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the white cloud of her gown. But when she stood before
the mirror she lifted the candle level with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.

She closed her eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had finished such a terror took hold of her that she felt
unable to move, unable to open her eyes and thought she would stand there forever, enchanted. But she heard a step
behind her, and a smothered giggle, and instantly opened her eyes.

"And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?" But Dona Agueda had forgotten the little girl on her lap: she was staring
pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seeing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room
and the same mirror out the face she now saw in it was an old face---a hard, bitter, vengeful face, framed in graying hair,
and so sadly altered, so sadly different from that other face like a white mask, that fresh young face like a pure mask than
she had brought before this mirror one wild May Day midnight years and years ago.... "But what was it Mama? Oh please
go on! What did you see?" Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but her face did not soften though her eyes filled with
tears. "I saw the devil." she said bitterly. The child blanched. "The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh..." "Yes, my love. I opened my
eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder, was the face of the devil." "Oh, my poor little Mama! And
were you very frightened?" "You can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when their
mothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass- or you may see
something frightful some day." "But the devil, Mama---what did he look like?" "Well, let me see... he has curly hair and a
scar on his cheek---" "Like the scar of Papa?" "Well, yes. But this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa is a
scar of honor. Or so he says." "Go on about the devil." "Well, he had mustaches." "Like those of Papa?" "Oh, no. Those of
your Papa are dirty and graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant--oh, how
elegant!" "And did he speak to you, Mama?" "Yes Yes, he spoke to me," said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying
head; she wept.

"Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one," he had said, smiling at her in the mirror and stepping back to give
her a low mocking bow. She had whirled around and glared at him and he had burst into laughter. "But I remember you!" he
cried. "You are Agueda, whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and I danced a waltz with
you but you would not give me the polka." "Let me pass," she muttered fiercely, for he was barring the way. "But I want to
dance the polka with you, fair one," he said. So they stood before the mirror; their panting breath the only sound in the dark
room; the candle shining between them and flinging their shadows to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept
home very drunk to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake and ready for
anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet. "Let me pass!" she cried again, in a voice of fury, but
he grasped her by the wrist. "No," he smiled. "Not until we have danced." "Go to the devil!" "What a temper has my
serrana!" "I am not your serrana!" "Whose, then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you
treat me, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies." "And why not?" she demanded, jerking her wrist away and
flashing her teeth in his face. "Oh, how I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back
elegant lords and we poor girls are too tame to please you. We have no grace like the Parisiennes, we have no fire like the
Sevillians, and we have no salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious men!" "Come,
come---how do you know about us?"

"I was not admiring myself, sir!" "You were admiring the moon perhaps?" "Oh!" she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle
dropped from her hand and she covered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in
darkness, and young Badoy was conscience-stricken. "Oh, do not cry, little one!" Oh, please forgive me! Please do not cry!
But what a brute I am! I was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said." He groped and found her hand and
touched it to his lips. She shuddered in her white gown. "Let me go," she moaned, and tugged feebly. "No. Say you forgive
me first. Say you forgive me, Agueda." But instead she pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it - bit so sharply in the knuckles
that he cried with pain and lashed cut with his other hand--lashed out and hit the air, for she was gone, she had fled, and he
heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his bleeding fingers. Cruel thoughts raced through his
head: he would go and tell his mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house--or he would go himself to the
girls room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly face! But at the same time he was thinking that they were all
going to Antipolo in the morning and was already planning how he would maneuver himself into the same boat with her. Oh,
he would have his revenge, he would make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this, he thought greedily, licking
his bleeding knuckles. But---Judas! He remembered her bare shoulders: gold in her candlelight and delicately furred. He
saw the mobile insolence of her neck, and her taut breasts steady in the fluid gown. Son of a Turk, but she was quite
enchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she had of it!

"... No lack of salt in the chrism At the moment of thy baptism!" He sang aloud in the dark room and suddenly realized that
he had fallen madly in love with her. He ached intensely to see her again---at once! ---to touch her hands and her hair; to
hear her harsh voice. He ran to the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a
blow. It was May, it was summer, and he was young---young! ---and deliriously in love. Such a happiness welled up within
him that the tears spurted from his eyes. But he did not forgive her--no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his
revenge, he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a night it had been! "I will never forge this night! he
thought aloud in an awed voice, standing by the window in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the wind in his hair and
his bleeding knuckles pressed to his mouth.
But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May time passes; summer lends; the storms break over the rot-tipe
orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind
becomes too crowded, too confused: dust gathers in it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the
memory perished...and there came a time when Don Badoy Montiya walked home through a May Day midnight without
remembering, without even caring to remember; being merely concerned in feeling his way across the street with his cane;
his eyes having grown quite dim and his legs uncertain--for he was old; he was over sixty; he was a very stopped and
shivered old man with white hair and mustaches coming home from a secret meeting of conspirators; his mind still
resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart still exultant as he picked his way up the steps to the front door and
inside into the slumbering darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his way down the hall,
chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood ran cold-- for he had seen a face in the mirror there---
a ghostly candlelight face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had been there before
though it was a full minutes before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual moment and
so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a
gay young buck again, lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he s stepped in the
doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called out...and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night go
jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and
came running.

"Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me. Don Badoy had turned very pale. "So it was you, you young bandit! And what is all
this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?" "Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..." "Yes, you are the
great Seor only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Seor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you
maga wish you were someone else, Sir!" "It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife."

"Wife? What wife?" "Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in a mirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror
show to me her whose lover I will be.

Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the
boy between his knees. "Now, put your cane down the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already,
hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But so you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play
them are in danger of seeing horrors?"

"Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead."

"Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you, she will torture you, she will eat

your heart and drink your blood!"

"Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore."

"Oh-ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.

"You? Where?

"Right in this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful voice had turned savage.
"When, Grandpa?"

"Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I was feeling very sick that night and
merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror
what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but...but..."

"The witch?"

"Exactly!"

"And then she bewitch you, Grandpa!"

"She bewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my blood." said the old man bitterly.

"Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very horrible?

"Horrible? God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair
was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have known---I
should have known even then---the dark and fatal creature she was!"

A silence. Then: "What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa," whispered the boy.

"What makes you slay that, hey?"

"Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this
mirror. Was it of the scare that Grandma died?"

Don Badoy started. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished---the poor Agueda; that they
were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the
earth---from the trap of a May night; from the snare of summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a
mere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out with her cruel tongue; her
eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing--- nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---
nothing! was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.

And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had
sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes
that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval
shadows of the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles,
while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky
with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and
whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the bowed old man
sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his
mouth---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchmans boots on the cobbles, and the clang-clang of his
lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his voice booming through the night:
"Guardia sereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"
Jose Garcia Villa aka Doveglion. Born in Singalong, Manila on 5 Aug 1908. National Artist in Literature. He is the son of
Simeon Villa, Emilio Aguinaldos physician, and Guia Garcia. He graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) High
School and enrolled at at the UP College of Medicine in 1925. Villa first tried painting, but then turned into writing after
reading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. His poetry first gained fameor notorietyin 1929, when he was
suspended for one year by the UP administration for the publication of Man Song. His penmame Doveglion (derived from
Dove, Eagle, Lion) is based on the characters he derived from himself. These animals were also explored by another poet
in Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa.
Villa never finished his medical studies. In 1930 he won the Philippines Free Press literary contest for Mir-i-nisa and used
the prize money to go to the United States. He enrolled at the University of New Mexico and graduated with a Bachelor of
Arts degree and pursued post-graduate work at Columbia University. He taught poetry for a while at the City College of New
York, 1964- 1973. He also worked in the Philippine Mission to the U.N., 1954- 1963, and became the vice consul in 1965.
After he retired in 1973, he continued to teach professionals in his Greenwich Village residence.
Villa started out as a fictionist, with Footnote to Youth and Mir-I-nisa. In 1932, Untitled Story appeared in anthology by
Edward J. OBrien, who culled from different publications his annual Best American Short Stories and Best British Short
Stories. The following year, Footnote to Youth, a collection of Villas stories, was published by Charles Scribners Sons.
Some of the pieces here were later included in Selected Stories, 1962, published in the Philippines by Antonio Florentino.
His first collection of poetry, Have Come, Am Here, 1942, was published in the US and received critical acclaim. Volume
Two, 1949, another collection of poetry, was nominated for the Bollingen prize that year, but the award went to Wallace
Stevens. In these two volumes, the poet introduced his poetic innovations: the comma poems and reversed consonance.
Villa explained that the commas are an integral and essential part of the medium: regulating the poems verbal density and
time movement, enabling each word to attain a fuller tonal value and the line movement to become more measured On
reversed consonance, which is a new method of rhyming,.. never been used in the history of English poetry, Villa said. the
last sounded consonants of the last syllable, or the last principle consonants of a word, are reversed for the corresponding
rime. Near would therefore rime with run, rain, green, or reign.
Three other collections of Villas poems are: Selected Poems and New, 1958, which gathers his works between 1937 and
1957 and selections from two earlier volumes, Poems 55, 1962, published in the Philippines by Alberto Florentino;
and Appasionata: Poems in Praise of Love, 1979, a collection of his collection of his finest love poems.
Villa made one of his significant contributions to Philippine fiction as a critic. From 1927 to 1941, he made a selection of the
best Philippine short stories in English as published in various periodicals in the country. Called his Roll of Honor these
yearly selections initially appeared in the Philippines Herald, then in the Philippines Free press, and eventually in the
Graphic. Inclusion in the list was deemed an honor and a recognition that one had arrived in Philippine literature.
His critical works include The Best Poems of 1931; Fifteen Literary Landmarks, 1932, published in the Philippine Free
Press; and the anthologies Twenty- Five Best Stories of 1928, 1929, The Doveglion Book of Philippine Poetry by Jose
Garcia Villa, 1993, edited by Hilario S. Francia. He is also remembered for his part in the Villa-Lopez controversy which
polarized Filipino writers into the art for arts sake camp and the art for social utility camp. He was for art as the end in
itself, while S.P. Lopez took the opposite view.
Villa received the American academy of arts and Letters Poetry Award, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Guggenheim,
Bollingen, and Rockefeller fellowships for poetry. In the Philippines, he received honorable in the Commonwealth Literary
Awards, 1940; first prize, UP Golden Jubilee Literary Contest, 1958; an honorary doctorate of literature, Far Eastern
University, 1959; Rizal Pro Patria Award, 1961; Republic Cultural Heritage Award for poetry and short story, 1962; and an
honorary doctorate in literary form the UP, 1973.
On 12 June 1973, Villa was named National Artist in Literature.
Villa died on February 5, 1997, at the age of 88.
Footnote to Youth
by Jose Garcia Villa

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about Teang when he got
home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but
he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong
finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His father was silent hard-working
farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong's grandmother.
I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him.

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms
emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to
Dodong's foot and crawled calmly over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did
not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more.

Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with
dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of
grass before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests.

Dodong started homeward, thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was
seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on his upper lip already was dark--these meant he was no longer a boy.
He was growing into a man--he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low
in statue. Thinking himself a man grown, Dodong felt he could do anything.

He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He
lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild you dreams of
himself and Teang. Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How
desirable she was to him. She made him dream even during the day.

Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This field
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then he
marched obliquely to a creek.

Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red kundiman shorts, on the grass. The he went into the
water, wet his body over, and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The
bath made him feel cool.

It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted and the low unvarnished square
table was set for supper. His parents and he sat down on the floor around the table to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish,
rice, bananas, and caked sugar.

Dodong ate fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and when one held them they felt more
fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece
and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his parents.

Dodong's mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to wash them. She walked with
slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He wished as he
looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework alone.

His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him again, Dodong knew. Dodong had told him
often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but
Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist;
he would not be any bolder than his father.
Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what he had to say, and over
which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt
relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble light into the window, graying the
still black temples of his father. His father looked old now.

"I am going to marry Teang," Dodong said.

His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The silence became intense and cruel, and Dodong
wished his father would suck that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became angry because his
father kept looking at him without uttering anything.

"I will marry Teang," Dodong repeated. "I will marry Teang."

His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat.

"I asked her last night to marry me and she said...yes. I want your permission. I... want... it...." There was impatient clamor in
his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles
one by one, and the little sounds it made broke dully the night stillness.

"Must you marry, Dodong?"

Dodong resented his father's questions; his father himself had married. Dodong made a quick impassioned easy in his mind
about selfishness, but later he got confused.

"You are very young, Dodong."

"I'm... seventeen."

"That's very young to get married at."

"I... I want to marry...Teang's a good girl."

"Tell your mother," his father said.

"You tell her, tatay."

"Dodong, you tell your inay."

"You tell her."

"All right, Dodong."

"You will let me marry Teang?"

"Son, if that is your wish... of course..." There was a strange helpless light in his father's eyes. Dodong did not read it, so
absorbed was he in himself.

Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father. For a while he even felt sorry for
him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind to dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream....

-------------------------------------------

Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his camiseta was damp. He was still as a tree and his
thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to get out of it
without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts
with severe tyranny. Afraid also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his blood. He
did not want her to scream like that, he seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth
was really painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry.

In a few moments he would be a father. "Father, father," he whispered the word with awe, with strangeness. He was young,
he realized now, contradicting himself of nine months comfortable... "Your son," people would soon be telling him. "Your
son, Dodong."

Dodong felt tired standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close together. He looked at his callused toes.
Suppose he had ten children... What made him think that? What was the matter with him? God!

He heard his mother's voice from the house:

"Come up, Dodong. It is over."

Suddenly he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was ashamed to his mother of his youthful
paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he had taken something no properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust
dirt off his kundiman shorts.

"Dodong," his mother called again. "Dodong."

He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother.

"It is a boy," his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a

moment for him. His parents' eyes seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp.

He wanted to hide from them, to run away.

"Dodong, you come up. You come up," his mother said.

Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun.

"Dodong. Dodong."

"I'll... come up."

Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded
mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He
felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back
to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him.

His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently.

"Son," his father said.

And his mother: "Dodong..."

How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong.

"Teang?" Dodong said.

"She's sleeping. But you go on..."

His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife, asleep on the papag with her black hair soft
around her face. He did not want her to look that pale.

Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips, but again that feeling of
embarrassment came over him and before his parents he did not want to be demonstrative.

The hilot was wrapping the child, Dodong heard it cry. The thin voice pierced him queerly. He could not control the swelling
of happiness in him.

You give him to me. You give him to me," Dodong said.
-------------------------------------------

Blas was not Dodong's only child. Many more children came. For six successive years a new child came along. Dodong did
not want any more children, but they came. It seemed the coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with
himself sometimes.

Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin now, even if she was young.
There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she
had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even
Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years, and that was why she
had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after her marriage to Dodong, but he was
childless until now. She wondered if she had married Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not, either. That
was a better lot. But she loved Dodong...

Dodong whom life had made ugly.

One night, as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He stood in the moonlight, tired and querulous. He
wanted to ask questions and somebody to answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things.

One of them was why life did not fulfill all of Youth's dreams. Why it must be so. Why one was forsaken... after Love.

Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so to make youth Youth. Youth
must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned to the house humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a
little wisdom but was denied it.

When Blas was eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at night and Teang and the other
children were asleep. Dodong heard Blas's steps, for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas undress in the dark
and lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did not
sleep. Blas said he could not sleep.

"You better go to sleep. It is late," Dodong said.

Blas raised himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice.

Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep.

"Itay ...," Blas called softly.

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.

"I am going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight."

Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving.

"Itay, you think it over."

Dodong lay silent.

"I love Tona and... I want her."

Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard, where everything was still and quiet.
The moonlight was cold and white.

"You want to marry Tona," Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very young. The life that would follow
marriage would be hard...

"Yes."

"Must you marry?"

Blas's voice stilled with resentment. "I will marry Tona."

Dodong kept silent, hurt.

"You have objections, Itay?" Blas asked acridly.

"Son... n-none..." (But truly, God, I don't want Blas to marry yet... not yet. I don't want Blas to marry yet....)

But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph... now. Love must triumph... now. Afterwards... it will be
life.

As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong... and then Life.

Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for him.
 Ale-aleng Namamayong & Kung Mamili Ang Dalaga
Julian Cruz Balmaceda

Julian Cruz Balmaceda (sometimes spelled as Balmaseda) was a Filipino poet, essayist, playwright, novelist, journalist
and linguist. He made several works written in Tagalog, English and Spanish languages.

Early Life

Balmaceda was born on Orion, Bataan, Philippines. He attended Colegio de San Juan de Letran for college. Two years
later, he finished law on Escuela de Derecho (School of Law) under the same college. When he was fourteen, his first
written play entitled Sugat ng Puso (Broken Heart). His major play, Ang Piso ni Anita (Anita's One Peso Coin) won first
place in a play writing contest sponsored by the Bureau of Posts. The play is all about thriftiness and was composed of
three stages.

Ale-aleng Namamayong
Ale-aleng namamayong! Ale-aleng naglalakad!
Sumilong ka pong sandali at ang ulay lumalakas,
Halika po muna rini sa ilalim ng tayakad
At nang ikaw po ay hindi maligo sa hindi oras;
Ang alampay mo poy baka maging lamping walang tigas,
At ang kulot na buhok mo, kung mabasay mauunat.
Ale-aleng namamayong! Ale-aleng nagdaraan!
Magpahinga ka po muna at malakas pa ang ulan,
Saka ka na po magtuloy sa layon mong parurunan
Kung ang ulan ay tumilat matuyo na ang lansangan. . .
Kung sakaling gabihin kay akin ka pong sasamahan
At tuloy ihahatid ko saan man ang inyong bahay.
Ale-aleng namamayong! Kung ikaw po ay mabas
Ay tutulas pati pulbos na pahid sa iyong mukha,
Ang baro mong bagong pinsay sapilitang manglalatat
Ang puntas ng kamison mo ay sa putik magsasawa. . .
At pati ng butitos mo, ang kintab ay mawawala
Pag naglunoy na sa agos ng tubig na parang baha.
O, magandang Aleng Kuwan! Ale-aleng namamayong!
Kung ikaw ay nagpipilit na sa lakad ay magtuloy,
Baga man at sa lansangan ang tubig ay lampas-sakong,
Isukob mo sana akot sa payong mo ay isilong. . .
Pag ako ang kasama mo, ulanin ka mang maghapon
Huwag ka lamang mabasa, ako na ang maglulunoy.
 Kung Mamili Ang Dalaga

Nang may labinlimang Disyembre pa lamang

ang dalagang aking naging kaibiga'y
ganito ang laging kanyang bulay-bulay
"Pagka't ang ganda ko'y di pangkaraniwan
ay pipili ako ng isang liligaw na
bata, makisig, mabait, mayaman."

Nang dumalawampung taon ang dalaga

at ang pinipili'y di pa rin makita'y
ganito ang kanyang nagunita tila:
"Hindi kailangan kundi man pustura
o kaya ay hindi sagana sa k'walta
kung bata't mabait ay maaari na."

Nang magdalawampu't lima at hindi rin

yata sumisigid ang isda sa pai'y
ganito ang kanyang parating dasalin:
"Ang gulang? Hindi ko aalumanahin,
may kabaitan lang na maituturing
kahit matanda na'y puede na sa akin."

At nang tumatlumpu't ni sinoman wari'y

wala nang mabuyong sa kanya'y gumiri
tahas na sinabing wa(ang pagkabali:
"Ngayon kahit sino'y walang tangi-tangi
huwag lang di mayrong sa aki'y bumati."
 Akoy Tunay na Pangahas

Rommel N. Angara (born 20 August 1980) is a Filipino poet. His poems saw print in Pambata, a magazine for Filipino
children; Sipag Pinoy, a publication of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE); and Liwayway, the oldest existing
Tagalog weekly magazine in the Philippines.

Personal life
He was born in the town of Baler in the Philippine province of Aurora. He is the youngest of the sons of Rodolfo R. Angara,
Sr. of Baler, Aurora and Milagros D. Nazareno of Goa, Camarines Sur.

During his childhood through early adolescence, he witnessed his fathers occasional violence toward his mother, who
eventually fled their house. During his childhood through early adulthood, he also witnessed the formers occasional
drunkenness and regular smoking.

As a young adult, he worked as a clerk, tutor, and houseboy.

In late December 2015, he was diagnosed with Mnire's disease.

Education
He graduated as high school valedictorian in 1997 and as a commended college student in 2013 with a Bachelor of
Secondary Education (BSEd) degree from Mount Carmel College of Baler (MCCB), the oldest Catholic mission school in the
province of Aurora.

Writing career
A member of a broken family in his early adolescence, he turned to poetry writing for consolation. His first published poem
was the childrens poem Why Do They Cut Me, Lord? which appeared in Pambata in 1998. He wrote some poems for
Sipag Pinoy from 2000 to 2002. He also wrote a few poems for Liwayway between 2011 and 2012. Among the poems he
wrote for Liwayway was the sonnet "En Su Incansable Labor" ("On Her Tireless Work") included in the National Library of
the Philippines (NLP) catalog in 2012.

Dapit-hapon. Sa 'king dampang
nakatayo sa may bukid
naro'n kami ni Minerva, mutyang
aking nilalangit.
Habang ako'y nahihimlay, galak
siyang umaawit.
Sa malambing na tinig n'ya'y
mayro'n siyang pahiwatig.
Si Minerva'y mabait kong kaibigan,
kasintahan.
Kababaang-loob niya ang sa aki'y
nakapukaw.
Akong giliw, irog niya'y labinlimang
taong gulang,
samantalang ang edad n'ya'y
labintatlong taon lamang.
Tanong sa 'kin ng liyag ko: "Wala
kang nagugunita?
Ngayo'y ating ikalawang
an'bersaryo, 'di mo tanda?
'Di ba't ngayon yaong petsang
tayo'y lugod na sumumpang
iingatan hanggang wakas ang
pagsuyong naipunla?
"Virgil, sa 'ki'y magtapat ka: ano
ngayon ang gusto mo?
Anong handog-pagmamahal ang
nais mong ibigay ko?
O, anuman ang 'yong hiling
tutupdin ko para sa 'yo!
Mahal kita, bago pa man likhain
N'ya yaring mundo."
Sa tinuran ni Minerva mariin kong
itinugon:
"Kung talagang mahal mo 'ko, ihain
mo sa 'kin ngayon
ang 'yong puri, ang 'yong dangal.
O, darating ang panahong
baka iba ang umangkin sa 'yong
gandang sumisibol!"
"Ngunit, Virgil," tutol niya, "bakit
aking ihahandog
ang angkin kong puri, dangal?"
Ako'y agad na napoot.
"O Minerva, kung talagang pag-ibig
mo'y tapat, taos,
ang ligayang pithaya ko'y di mo
dapat ipagdamot!"
Ako'y Tunay na Pangahas!
Rommel N. Angara
Lumuha s'ya. "O, kung gayon ang 'Talikdan mo ang aral ko; tiyak,
tangi mong inaasam," ika'y magsisisi,
siya'y saglit na tumigil, "pa'no kita pagkat ako'y ginaya mo akong
tatanggihan?" tuso sa pagkasi.
Buhok niya'y hinawi ko. Sabik ko Yurakan mo ang turo kong ukol sa
s'yang hinalikan, 'yong 'kabubuti;
niyakap kong buong higpit, ngunit 'di ba't parang walang amang sa
di s'ya gumagalaw. 'yo'y kusang kumandili?'
Ang labi n'yang tila rubi'y siniil ko Ganap akong natauhan. Ang luha
niyong halik. ko'y lumagaslas.
Marubdob kong hinalikan ang "Utos sa 'kin ng ama ko'y bakit
pisngi n'ya, baba, leeg. aking nilalabag?"
Ang labi ko'y nang idampi sa Pagbaling ko kay Minerva "O,
mabango niyang dibdib, patawad, aking liyag!
ako'y biglang natigilan dahil sa Maling-mali ang asal ko! Ako'y
aking namasid. tunay na pangahas!"
Sa may dibdib ni Minerva napansin
ko'y munting pilat.
Pilat yaong hugis-puso. Ano't ako'y
nabagabag?
Naisip ko ang ama kong sa
libinga'y namanatag,
ang ama kong turo sa 'kin, 'Hindi
laro ang paglingap.'
Tuloy aking naala'la yaong aking
kamusmusan,
noong aking kapiling pa ang ama
kong mapagmahal.
Minsan, sa 'ki'y winika n'ya: 'Anak,
hindi magtatagal,
iibig ka, sisinta ka, kahit ika'y
walang muwang.
'Tandaan mo, hijo, anak: ang
pagsuyong mapagmata
pilat itong hugis-puso. Anong
pangit nitong marka!
Akong hamak na ama mo'y
mapanyurak sa pagsinta.
Bata pa 'ko, nagalaw ko'y isang
mutya: ang 'yong ina!
'Mayro'n akong pakiusap. Anak,
ako'y sumasamo:
sa sandaling umibig ka'y suriin mo
ang 'yong puso.
Ang 'yong mutya'y h'wag na h'wag
mong ibubulid sa siphayo.
Igalang mo ang puri n'ya. Dangal
n'ya'y h'wag igugupo.
The True Decalogue
 Apolinario Mabini

Apolinario Mabini y Maranan (July 23, 1864 - May 13, 1903) was a Filipino revolutionary leader, educator, lawyer, and
statesman who served first as a legal and constitutional adviser to the Revolutionary Government, and then as the first
Prime Minister of the Philippines upon the establishment of the First Philippine Republic.
Two of his works, El Verdadero Decalogo (The True Decalogue, June 24, 1898), and Programa Constitucional dela
Republica Filipina (The Constitutional Program of the Philippine Republic, 1898) became instrumental in the drafting of what
would eventually be known as the Malolos Constitution.
Mabini performed all his revolutionary and governmental activities despite having lost the use of both his legs to Polio
shortly before the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
Mabini's role in Philippine history saw him confronting first Spanish Colonial Rule in the opening days of the Philippine
Revolution, and then American colonial rule in the days of the PhilippineAmerican War. The latter saw Mabini captured and
exiled to Guam by American colonial authorities, allowed to return only two months before his eventual death in May, 1903.
 THE TRUE DECALOGUE
by Apolinario Mabini

First. Thou shalt love God and thy honor above all things: God as the fountain of all truth, of all justice and of all activity; and
thy honor, the only power which will oblige thee to be faithful, just and industrious.
Second. Thou shalt worship God in the form which thy conscience may deem most righteous and worthy: for in thy
conscience, which condemns thy evil deeds and praises thy good ones, speaks thy God.
Third. Thou shalt cultivate the special gifts which God has granted thee, working and studying according to thy ability, never
leaving the path of righteousness and justice, in order to attain thy own perfection, by means whereof thou shalt contribute
to the progress of humanity; thus; thou shalt fulfill the mission to which God has appointed thee in this life and by so doing,
thou shalt be honored, and being honored, thou shalt glorify thy God.
Fourth. Thou shalt love thy country after God and thy honor and more than thyself: for she is the only Paradise which God
has given thee in this life, the only patrimony of thy race, the only inheritance of thy ancestors and the only hope of thy
posterity; because of her, thou hast life, love and interests, happiness, honor and God.
Fifth. Thou shalt strive for the happiness of thy country before thy own, making of her the kingdom of reason, of justice and
of labor: for if she be happy, thou, together with thy family, shalt likewise be happy.
Sixth. Thou shalt strive for the independence of thy country: for only thou canst have any real interest in her advancement
and exaltation, because her independence constitutes thy own liberty; her advancement, thy perfection; and her exaltation,
thy own glory and immortality.
Seventh. Thou shalt not recognize in thy country the authority of any person who has not been elected by thee and thy
countrymen; for authority emanates from God, and as God speaks in the conscience of every man, the person designated
and proclaimed by the conscience of a whole people is the only one who can use true authority.
Eighth. Thou shalt strive for a Republic and never for a monarchy in thy country: for the latter exalts one or several families
and founds a dynasty; the former makes a people noble and worthy through reason, great through liberty, and prosperous
and brilliant through labor.
Ninth. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: for God has imposed upon him, as well as upon thee, the obligation to help
thee and not to do unto thee what he would not have thee do unto him; but if thy neighbor, failing in this sacred duty,
attempt against thy life, thy liberty and thy interests, then thou shalt destroy and annihilate him for the supreme law of self-
preservation prevails.
Tenth. Thou shalt consider thy countryman more than thy neighbor; thou shalt see him thy friend, thy brother or at least thy
comrade, with whom thou art bound by one fate, by the same joys and sorrows and by common aspirations and interests.
Therefore, as long as national frontiers subsist, raised and maintained by the selfishness of race and of family, with thy
countryman alone shalt thou unite in a perfect solidarity of purpose and interest, in order to have force, not only to resist the
common enemy but also to attain all the aims of human life.
 Ang Mga Dwende
Kwentong bayan mula sa Bicol

Malalim na ang gabi at abalang-abala pa sa pananahi ang dalawang magkapatid na babae. Tinatahi nila ang mga kamisa at
saya nila, na isusuot nila para sa isang misa kinaumagahan. Ibinilin ng kanilang ina na siguruhing nakasara ang pinto at
mga bintana ng kanilang bahay, kundi ay papasok ang duwende, na bumibisita sa kanila tuwing hatinggabi. Upang
malaman ng kaniyang mga anak kung ano ang duwende, ikinuwento niya ito:
Katulad lang ng mga ordinaryong tao ang mga duwende. Tuso silang mga nilalang,
ngunit matulungin din. Ilan sa mga kapilyuhang ginagawa nila ay ang pagsira sa mga
muwebles at mga larawan, pagbasag sa mga salamin, baso, plato, at tasa. Kung hindi
sila makahanap ng mga bagay na sisirain o babasagin, kinukurot nila ang mga pisngi,
braso, at katawan ng mga tulog na babae, upang maging mabigat ang pakiramdam nila
pagkagising. Kung hindi kinaasaran ng mga duwende ang mga nakatira sa bahay na
madalas nilang bisitahin, nagpapakita sila ng kabaitan sa mga ito. Sinasabing dinadalhan
nila ang mga kaibigan nila ng mga masasarap na pagkain at ipinagtatanggol sila mula
sa mga masasamang nilalang. Maraming tao tuloy ang sabik ngunit balisang makakilala
ng duwende. Itinuturing nila ang mga nilalang na nagtataglay ng kakaibang karunungan
dahil sinasabing alam na alam nila ang mga lihim at ikinikilos ng mga tao. Ngunit kung
sakaling ang mga naging kaibigan ng duwende ay biglang nagsabi ng anumang masama
o nagbalak ng masama sa kanila, kahit pa hindi sila marinig ng mga duwende, ay
parurusahan sila at hindi na muling babalikan.
Ang duwendeng binabanggit ko rito ay madalas sa bahay namin habang ang nanay
ko, o ang lola ninyo, ay buhay pa. Parati niyang sinasabi sa aming isara ang pinto at
mga bintana bago kami matulog. Isang gabi, nang nagtatahi rin kami ng kapatid ko ng
kamisa at saya, nakalimutan naming isara ang mga bintana at pinto. Ilang segundo bago
maghatinggabi, naroon ang isang maliit na nilalang na nakatayo sa aming pinto. Maliit
siya, kasinliit lamang ng isang dalawang taong gulang na bata; pula ang kaniyang mukha;
mayroon siyang mahabang bigote at maputing kulot na buhok. Maigsi ang mga braso
niyang balingkinitan, ngunit malaki ang mga kamay niya--malaki para sa kaniyang braso.
Nang marinig ng mga dalaga ang kuwento ng kanilang ina, natakot sila. Nang
maghatinggabi, narinig nila ang mga tunog: takla, takla, takla. Gawa ito ng duwende.
Takot na takot ang dalawa. Lumingon ang panganay, at nakita niya ang duwende na
pumapasok sa pinto. At katulad ng inaasahan, tumakbo at tumalon siya papasok ng
bahay, papunta sa mga dalaga. Dahil doon, nasipa niya ang isang gasera, na nagpaliyab
sa mga kamisa at saya.
Mula noon, naging maingat na ang magkapatid at ang buong bayan ng Legaspi sa
duwende. Isinasara na nila ang kanilang mga pinto at mga bintana bago sila matulog sa
gabi.
 Asuang Steals Fire from Gugurang
Damiana L. Eugenio

Damiana L. Eugenio is a Filipino folklorist renowned for her scholarly anthologies of Philippine epics, folktales, myths and
proverbs. She was a professor, writer and researcher from the University of the Philippines and was responsible for
landmark publications on Philippine oral and epic literature. She received a bachelor's degree in education from UP, cum
laude. Her dissertation was on the awit and corrido of the Philippines. Eugenio continued her masteral studies in English
literature at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts and received her doctoral degree from the University of California in
Los Angeles, United States. She was designated professor emeritus of the UP Department of English and Comparative
Literature.
Eugenio has been honored with awards from the Manila Critics Circle, Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL), and
UP.
 Asuang Steals Fire from Gugurang
by Damiana L. Eugenio

Long ago when the world was still young the good and evil gods were not yet enemies as they are now. They were friends,
each living separately in a mountain (Bolod, Bicol). One report even said that they were brothers. Gugurang, the good god,
was living inside Mount Mayon, and Asuang, the evil one, inside Mount Malinao. As gods they had control of the welfare of
the people. But Gugurang was more powerful than Asuang who was merely a subordinate; the former was the chief deity
(cagurangnan) of the Bicols.
Now Gugurang was given full control over the people, who learned to look up to him for
Whenever the people
protection or for advancement. Whenever the people disobeyed his orders or wishes, he
disobeyed his orders or wishes,
would cause the pit of the Mayon Volcano to rumble terribly. The people in time took this
he would cause the pit of the
as a sign of warning, and accordingly, mended their foul ways. Or if their sins were
Mayon Volcano to rumble
beyond forgiveness Gugurang would make the volcano erupt to wipe out the sinners.
terribly. The people in time took
this as a sign of warning, and Gugurang then became the symbol of the good (an mga marhay) ready to punish the
accordingly, mended their foul bad (an mga maraot). When the people saw fire (calayo) flowing out of the crater of
ways. Mayon, they would grow afraid. They would then offer a sacrifice (atang) to him to
appease his wrath. The Baliana, priestess, officiated in the ceremony. Always when they
committed wrong, there would be loud moaning of the earth followed by an eruption of
fire and lava (abo).
Now, Asuang had no fire in his abode inside Mount Malinao (to the north of Albay). He wanted to be as powerful as
Gugurang, at least. If the people aroused his wrath, he wanted to subdue them by a fire or rumbling in Mount Malinao (this
was still whole then). He entreated Gugurang to give him some fire but Gugurang emphatically refused.
"How dare you ask for my fire! " Gugurang thundered. The earth trembled. "Don't you know that when the fire in my seat is
carried by hands such as yours the whole world will be set on fire?"
"But I will be very careful," replied Asuang.
"Be careful! I myself with all my power cannot handle it."
"But how can you threaten the people with it?"
"It is not my will that does it. It is someone else's that you or I do not know nor will ever know. But the rainy days are coming
and I need fire to make me warm in Mount Malinao."
"Why," answered Gugurang, "you have lived there for many years and this is the first time that you have asked me for it,
what will you use the fire for? Look at your people; they can live without it."
"Well, it is time for you to give them fire now."
"Give them fire!" burst Gugurang. The earth shook and the people were more afraid. But soon Gugurang quelled the
commotion. Asuang himself was frightened. He never saw him that way before.
"They are not fit to have it yet! They must make themselves worthy."
"Well, am I not worthy?"
"You! you lay god! Look at your ragged mountain and compare it to Mayon which is the most beautiful in the world."
Asuang argued with him for a long time but Gugurang would not budge an inch. Asuang Thus the good and the evil
suddenly discovered, which before he had not, that Gugurang was all-powerful. Asuang became enemies from that time
narrowed his eyes and smiled with sinister import. He decided to oppose him from now on. Motives were many to
on. prove that Asuang was
"You want to be the omnipotent power," Asuang cried. "But between us two there is not ambitious...He gathered around
much difference. Why must I live in a humble place like Mount Malinao while you sit here him evil counselors and evil
gloating over your power unlimited and unchecked?" spirits whom he sent to the
earth to turn the people to evil
"Stop!" The earth shivered as Gugurang stamped his feet on the ground. Asuang only ways.
smiled this time. That made Gugurang angry all the more. He struck out but before his
blow could land, Asuang had vanished already. Gugurang was greatly amazed at thisthe new power of Asuang in making
himself invisible.
Then from a short distance in the room came the voice of the evil one, "If I cannot get fire in good will, I will in badI will
steal it."
"Tryand before you can do that I will cut your mountain in twain."
"Then let there be war between us," countered Asuang. Thus the good and the evil became enemies from that time on.
Motives were many to prove that Asuang was ambitious. It could not be doubted that the power to rule intrigued him. He
determined to oppose every move of Gugurang. He gathered around him evil counselors and evil spirits whom he sent to
the earth to turn the people to evil ways. After that, there was much immorality, lawlessness and crime. Gugurang in no time
found out that it was Asuang who was causing all these things.
He sent pestilence to the barrios and for a moment the people turned to the omnipotent for protection. Gugurang asked
them for another atang or sacrifice and warned them to follow his commandments strictly or be exterminated by floods or
eruption. Against Asuang himself Gugurang was powerless to do anything. It seemed that in the twinkle of an eye Asuang
came to possess hidden powers hitherto denied him.
Gugurang particularly guarded his fire lest his enemy make good his threat of stealing it.
Gugurang on reaching Mount
He assigned his trusted helpers (catambang) to guard the symbol of his power. He was
Mayon returned the fire to its
afraid, besides, that if the fire were to go out of its confines the world would be consumed
place, and everything was
in a mighty conflagration.
bright again inside. Now before
doing anything else he set But in spite of the precaution taken, Asuang was able to enter and locate the guarded
about stopping the object, and with many guiles and wiles, he bribed the guards with gold (bolauan). The
conflagration. He bade the temptation (sogot) was too sweet to be denied. Hence Asuang obtained possession of
heavens (calangitan) to rain Gugurang's fire. Putting it inside a coconut shell he started with it.
continuously.
Gugurang in his throne suddenly noticed that everything around him turned black, and
that there were cries in the bowels of the volcano. But outside, the world was on fire.
Every barrio that Asuang passed caught fire. Asuang!" Gugurang cried. And with this he
flew into the air pursuing the thief. While terror reigned among the people who were powerless against the conflagration,
Gugurang and Asuang raced for supremacy. Gugurang must get the fire back, or else he would be left without any power at
all. All the air around grew hot but still they went madly on. Asuang was nearing his seat and if he could get there before
Gugurang, it would be lost for the good god would then be under the spell of the devil.
Asuang braced up for the last stride and just as he was about to descend Mount Malinao, Gugurang caught up with him,
snatched the fire in the coconut shell, and vanished with it. Asuang was greatly surprised. He could not make himself
invisible, as he would. Gugurang on reaching Mount Mayon returned the fire to its place, and everything was bright again
inside. Now before doing anything else he set about stopping the conflagration. He bade the heavens (calangitan) to rain
continuously. And there was rain. And the big fire was under control. The people at once offered atangs, because they were
convinced it was Gugurang who had caused the fire because of their wickedness.
Then Gugurang punished the guards by chaining them to the precipices. Then for his revenge on Asuanghe ordered
Lightning (Linti) and Thunder (Dalogdog) to strike hard against Mount Malinao that was defying him. Asuang attempted to
bribe Linti and Dalogdog. What is the use of your serving a master when you don't even receive any reward?" Asuang
asked. "Why don't you join me? Here you can have what you want. You can be your master."
Linti, quite taken, asked, "You mean what you said?" Sure," the wily Asuang answered. It is true we are driven like slaves,"
said the thunder.
At this Gugurang sent his thunderbolt. Boom! Crash! For several minutes the world sank and bobbed and sank again. All
the mountains creaked. Then a mighty crashing was made amid the din. Gugurang then ordered the lightning and the
thunder to stop. All was over in a few minutes.
Then the people noticed that what was once Mount Malinao was but half now. They thanked the omnipotent for destroying
the abode of the devil. (To this day one who sails the Tabaco Bay will still see that Mount Malinao seems to have been cut
while Mayon stands majestically unimpaired.)
The people for a time believed that Asuang was killed, but later his influence was doing havoc with the populace.
Incidentally, the people got fire, for the enterprising few kept some embers to keep themselves warm during the rain that
followed the conflagration.