Mabait: A Foothold in Life

By Paul Mathews

The lives of Cielo, a sex-worker, and Angie, a bureaucrat, briefly but antagonistically intersect in Manila. Several years later Angie seeks the help of Cielo, but neither are aware now of who the other is. They both come to realize that each has barely a foothold in life and that they both want the same things: family, love, respect, dignity. In their respective struggles to attain these, each girl recognizes the other as fundamentally mabait (good at heart). Just as we may judge a book by its cover, so too may we judge people we meet, in whatever circumstance. Mabait tells the story of how Cielo, a Pinay sex-worker, is maligned largely because of her “appearance”—what she does to survive. But the narration also tells of a righteous middle-class girl, Anghel, who, once having denigrated sex-workers, not only herself becomes one, but in a twist has to call on the help of those whom she had once despised. She discovers that being mabait as more central, perhaps because it is that both girls have only a foothold in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warrior Publishers
• Release date: Mar 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463458006

Paul Mathews

Dr. Paul Mathews is an anthropologist and sociologist who has worked on Philippine issues for 25 years, and also spent 2 years in Taiwan. He has written extensively about Philippine society and culture in such areas as health, gender relations and sexuality, values, and economic development. He is currently freelancing, following a Research Fellowship at the Australian National University. He is Secretary of the Philippine Studies Association of Australasia, and former Managing Editor of Pilipinas, A Journal of Philippine Studies.

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Mabait:

A Foothold in Life

Dr. Paul W. Mathews

Copyright 2019 Dr. Paul W. Mathews

Published in Australia by Warrior Publishers (Canberra) at Smashwords

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FICTION

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Cover design by Dr. Paul Mathews

Dear Boys,

Before you do the mounting you should know what the result is. It's time to forget the life of a young man and you have to practice to take care of the child. You should know you need to leave your vices and start pulling a bone. Before you exit, think about it first. You're good when you burn strength but you can't afford milk? When you get out of the juice don't flee. It should not be all lust, or fear when the woman's stomach became circle. You are very happy when you say I will go out but you won't be happy when you said your child will appear. Shouldn't be like that bro. You should learn to stand on your own feet, not when you're just good when your pet is standing erect. Make sure when her pregnancy test is positive you will never think of any negative. Don't trade your wife for friends and wine. You're an expert in the wine and chaser but you can't learn to change a diaper? Don't be like that. Before you get confused with your semen, make sure you're ready to have a own family. It doesn't mean two of your head, you'll make it hard. You must be the family you built to stand until the end and above all you have to be a good father. You haven't been a good child to your parents. Be a good parent for your child. Of course you be good also to that wife to happy and complete your family.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Glossary of Tagalog Terms

Foreword

Part 1

Chapter 1. Cielo: Born to be a Star

Chapter 2. A New Lease

Chapter 3. Sexteen

Chapter 4. Moving Out

Chapter 5. Joys & Tribulations

Chapter 6. Further Joy, Further Tribulation

Part 2

Chapter 7. Hunnies

Chapter 8. Puerto Galera

Part 3

Chapter 9. Vietnam

Chapter 10. Laguna & Balimbing

Chapter 11. Subic

Chapter 12. Cielo from Afar

Part 4

Chapter 13. Anghel Morales

Chapter 14. Akaba

Chapter 15. Farah

Chapter 16. Mr. Assad

Chapter 17. Mico

Chapter 18. Girl Talk

Chapter 19. A Vacation

Chapter 20. Like Father, Like Son

Chapter 21. A Family of One’s Own

Part 5

Chapter 22. Burgos Street: Memories & Futures

POST SCRIPT

About Warrior Publishers

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my friend-with-benefits for being my friend and sharing some of her life stories that form the basis of this narrative. Although much of it is fiction it nevertheless revolves about some true events and insights.

I can not actually thank Angie the Immigration Officer depicted herein; actually, I don’t know her name. What I can acknowledge is, ironically, how an unpleasant and undeserved incident contributed to the creation of an antagonist for this narrative, and enabled the construction of the similarities between her and the protagonist, Cielo.

Similarly, I thank the other characters in the Philippines who in their innocence show the similarities with Angie and Cielo, as well as dissimilarities, but nevertheless the similarity of their differences. They all suggest how most if not all are in their heart mabait and want the very same things that the others want and need, and in the pursuit of these most have a mere foothold in life.

Most of the characters, particularly those in Part 4, are composites of characters I have known in one way or another, as are some of the places, and any resemblance to any one or any place or name in reality is pure coincidence.

Thanks also go to Wenico (Jun Jun) Luarez and Emilio Medina, Michael (Miguel) Pertierra and his partner Lala Barriquio, all of whom directly or often indirectly, encouraged my continued writing that, hopefully, sheds some light on, and for, Filipinos in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Finally, I wish to thank Dr. Ashwin Kumar whom I have known since about 1998, and who has provided a good deal of scholarly engagement and encouragement that has led to my own positive self evaluation and the desire and capacity to speak out.

A concluding caveat: the casting of some people in this narrative as abusive exploiters is a literary strategy and in no way intends to cast aspersions on all people of a particular race, class, religion or gender.

Nor is it my intention to portray Filipinos, and especially Pinays, as unfit for culture, as uncaring, unthinking, uncouth, selfish, indolent, ignorant… Indeed, as Zarathustra spoke, "Wherefore they love not to hear words of contempt used of themselves. I will speak therefore to their pride." The narrative therefore portrays that, through being mabait, Pinays and Pinoys can be the antonyms of commonly viewed negative traits. Cielo and Anghel indeed epitomize the capacity of Pinays for resilience, camaraderie and inner goodness, and the strength of family.

Akaba is a fictitious place, as are many of the names and places noted for the Philippines, and the various characters portrayed here could well have been depicted as people from a different place.

Paul Mathews

January 2019

Glossary of Tagalog Terms

anak = (one’s) child

ay naku/naku = exclamation, as in ‘Oh My God’, ‘Oh my’, ‘Oh my gosh’, ‘Oh dear’.

ba = denotes a question

babaero = womanizer

baboy = pig/pork

bahala na = it’s up to God/fate

bakla = transgender or transvestite

balut = raw duck eggs

banca/pump boat = usually small wooden boat, with outriggers

baon = food (or money), or other provisions taken to school, work, or on a journey

barkada = a group of close friends

bata = child

bobo = stupid or silly

buko (pie) = coconut

chismis/tsismis = gossip

dalaga = an unmarried, usually older, woman; spinster

diba/dba = isn’t it (true), right (?)

dito = here

gagoo/gago = silly, stupid (lightheartedly)

gulay = vegetable/s

gwapo/a = good looking, beautiful

indio = native (majority) Filipino (during Spanish times)

ingat = take care, be careful

kasi = because

kerida/querida = mistress

kuripot = stingy

kusina = kitchen

kuya = (older) brother

lang/nalang = just, only, (now only, now just, already only)

lasing = drunk

lasingero/a = drunkard

lolo/lola = grand father/mother

lumbanog = local alcoholic drink made from coconuts

mabait = good (heart), kind heart, good person (inside). (pron. ma-ba-it)

mahal = expensive (also = love)

makapal = thick skinned, unabashed, brazen

makulit = annoying

malibog = (always) horny

manook/manuk = chicken

manyaki = horny, sexy, have/want a lot of sex

mayabang = pretentious

na = exclamation to add emphasis; now, already

naman = expression of gentle protest or denial; also; rather; really; too

pala = an interjection expressing sudden realization

pandasal = small, slightly sweet bread roll

pasalobong = gift from someone in a distant place, often overseas

patay = dead

pek-pek = slang term for vagina

pera = money

pilyo/a (nagtitrip) = cheeky, cheekily naughty, playing pranks, or kidding

probensyana = provencia/provincial/rural woman; rustic

pulutan = appetizer consumed when drinking (alcohol)

puta = wanton woman, prostitute (a very derogatory term)

sala = lounge room, (also lounge settee)

salamat = thank you

sa loob = inside (your heart)

sari-sari = small grocery store that sells many items usually in small quantities

sempre/siyempre = naturally, of course

sige/sige na = ok (bye, finish), or literally: ok, go ahead

sinigang = soup with usually pork or beef or seafood and vegetables

sip-sip = to charm, fawning, ingratiating

sumpong = moody, quiet tantrum

sus = gosh; exclamation of surprise or disapproval, abbreviation for Hesus/Jesus, a short version

of Susmaryosep: a contraction of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

takbo = to run off (without paying); to disappear

talaga = really, truly, seriously

tama = correct

tao = person (common ‘man’)

tapos = and then, afterwards?

tuba = alcoholic drink derived from coconuts

tubig = water

ukay-ukay = second hand (clothing) store

utang = debt

utang na loob = debt of gratitude

Uu/Oo = yes

yaya = babysitter/housemaid

TOP

FOREWORD

Just as we may judge a book by its cover, so too may we judge people we meet, in whatever circumstance. Mabait tells the story of how Cielo, a Pinay sex-worker, is maligned largely because of her cover, her appearance—what she does to survive. But the narration also tells of a righteous middle-class girl, Anghel, who, once having denigrated sex-workers, not only herself becomes one, but in a twist has to call on the help of those whom she had once despised. She discovers being mabait as more central, perhaps because it is that both girls have only a foothold in life.

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick, the poor, the outcast. But poverty, in money or character, is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. (Sarah Kendzior).

Don’t judge the girl on the cover of this book as you might the book.

TOP

Part 1

Chapter 1

Cielo: Born to be a Star

Four years after EDSA-1 of 1986 Cielo Marikit was born of poor parents, into a poor household of rural Basabasa, in the mountains, some distance from the town of Balimbing. But for the fact that she was born in the wrong place—and did not have blond hair—Cielo could have been destined to be another Marilyn Monroe.

As a child and young woman Cielo was one who enjoyed her solitude and was happy to play or work alone; she needed time and space to contemplate her ideas without the intrusion of other people's thoughts. Although not unsociable by any means, she was a girl who lived by her own ideas, dreams and methods, needing her space and privacy, which, when violated, could cause her irritation and quiet frustration.

It was at times a challenge for her to avoid shutting out the love of others who might allow her to experience the true joy of friendship and close companionship. But she associated her own peace with the unobtrusive privacy of her world, and so intimacy could be difficult because she guarded her inner world like a mother cat does her kittens. But this might well stand her in good stead in later life. As a young girl, and more so as a young woman, she preferred her privacy, holding her thoughts to her bosom, even though outwardly she was very public.

When her life was in balance, however, Cielo was both charming and attractive. She could be the life of a gathering, and enjoyed performing before an audience. She loved to display her wit and knowledge, which made her attractive to some, and envied by others. She was also quite adaptable, finding it easy to fit into most social situations, and she learnt to be wisely assertive.

While she was generous in social situations, sharing her attention and energy freely, she also was keenly aware of the need to ‘come off stage’ and return to the solitude of peace of her own making. But such privacy also at times caused a sense of isolation and loneliness; she was aware of an emptiness in her life, a part of her that yearned for company and close companionship that could be left unsatisfied, and she would become cynical and suspicious. She might even develop hidden, selfish motives, which people might sense and cause them discomfort around her. She had to guard against becoming too withdrawn or independent, thus shutting out the love of others.

She had to especially watch out for selfishness, thinking of herself as the center of the universe, the only person who really matters; social contact did not always give her a perspective on herself and on life. Rather, secretly, Cielo could at times feel jealous of the easy relationships formed by others, perceiving others as less inhibited than her, or more free to express themselves, or in some cases more compliant to the norms of her culture, and she could criticize herself for not being more gregarious, powerful, or capable of greater initiative or leadership. But as she grew older, this was to change.

Although she was a complex character, at core, sa loob, inside, she was always kind and caring, what they call mabait.

Cielo’s challenge in life, then, was to maintain her independence without feeling isolated or ineffectual. She had to hold fast to her unique view on the world and her dreams, of her own abilities and strength of personality, while at the same time being open to others and the knowledge and experience they had to offer.

Thus constituted, she grew up in a post-Marcos, supposedly democratic society in which authoritarianism was not even—or any longer—a memory, a world that only ostensibly provided opportunity; and thus she new nothing of political struggle—she observed and experienced only the elitist non-dictatorial although economically oligarchic oppression of the common tao. For her, and her family, her life was about money, survival, not politics, power, rights or righteousness. She didn’t need promises, even promises of opportunities; for the most part she, and her family and neighbours, needed money, now, and food on the table. Those taken care, she would make opportunities for her fantasies—so she dreamed.

In her little, parochial world, opportunity had not only to be taken advantage of, but opportunity had to be created, indeed forced, to provide real, tangible, almost immediate benefits—for ‘real’ opportunities existed only for those who already had advantage.

And thus it was that for 27 years Cielo learnt by necessity and by dint of daily circumstance to create and push opportunities for her self. Being a pretty girl, in the Philippines, this probably meant one likely path, more so than others.

There is no doubt she was a pretty baby, and quickly became a pretty girl, and then a beautiful young woman. She wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, but pretty, among a hundred or so other pretty and not so pretty girls when she first attended school in the mountains of Basabasa.

Nor was she exceptionally intelligent, but by age 6 she was smart, having learnt from those around her, her parents, especially her mom and her two older brothers, to scheme and sip-sip to get what she needed. Oddly enough, she didn’t often go sumpong, moody or sulky, if she didn’t get something, but reasoned in her child’s mind that she would eventually get it, if not now, then she would in the end—by which time its importance may well have diminished, but not forgotten. She was a child, a girl child, like so many others, her only assets being beautiful, cute, a girl, and hopefully a cute, beautiful, smart girl, smart enough to know her assets, growing up in the semi-rural Philippines.

Her father, who was still at that time in the 1990s sprightly although aged, owned land replete with coconut trees, tipolo (bread fruit) trees, banana trees, and basa trees, and other saleable vegetation. It was in fact from the plentiful basa tree that Basabasa derived its name. These various agricultural products were in big demand in nearby Manila—about 30km away as the crow flies—as well as among local inhabitants, and so could bring in a reasonable income.

Even in the early 1990s the area was still largely rural and rustic, despite the slow encroachment of Balimbing city, itself a former satellite town of Manila, expanding and encroaching upon this hilly region. Basabasa had, essentially, one road in, one road out, from and to Balimbing, and was still very much a laid back rural environ.

It was in this environment that Cielo grew up with her two brothers and her parents, learning to grow where she had been planted. Basabasa was a small barrio of about 500 souls, with a main road passing through it and a few streets, mostly unpaved, radiating off to form a grid pattern on either side, centering on the ubiquitous Spanish-styled square plaza. About a mile further on, to the north-east, past the cemetery, the road begins to rise and wind around the green hills, passing through a small sitio, Tuboran, of six or seven houses perched along the high side of the dirt road, overlooking the valley of fields and the town below. Thus it was in this sitio that Cielo’s father, Gregorio Marikit, and his family lived on several hectares of land, nestled into a small mountain which was lush with coconut and banana trees, and especially palaspas, and basa and tipolo trees.

Gregorio, one of only two siblings, was, at age 54, a small man, barely 5’2", wiry, with a boney face that set his eyes into deep sockets, and his hair, cut very short, looked more like a small toupee sitting atop his smallish head. He had wide feet and dark skin from walking and working outdoors much of his life in ragged clothing of trousers and shirt; and although he was usually quiet and serious, he was generally kindly and had a good sense of humour, especially when he had been drinking tuba, the local cheap liquor.

His wife, Edna, had given birth over the years to three children, each about 2 years between them. Edna was taller, and eight years younger than her husband. She came from outside Basabasa and its immediate area. She was born and grew up in the northern part of Loyola province, at that time a growing region on the fringe of Manila and in which her father was a taxi driver and her mother ran a small-scale grocery store (sari-sari).

She was a rather broad-bodied woman, with a large but flat face and a short broad nose. Her hair and dress both were non-descript, and she tended to intrude into what other people were doing and how she could take advantage of anything. She talked a lot, and although she was not amusing she would readily laugh loudly at the antics of others.

Although Edna encouraged Cielo in her performative antics, one suspects Cielo did not get her spirit and love of music and dancing from her mother, who was generally sullen, but from her father, who was somewhat pilyo, or nagtitrip—cheekily naughty, playing pranks, or kidding. And Cielo’s talent was enabled and developed by her watching trashy TV shows on their small black-and-white TV, listening to the radio, and occasionally visiting her friends who had CDs. She was naturally drawn to music, songs and performances, which she readily and easily imitated.

But Gregorio, her father, was a farmer, having inherited the land when his and his brother’s parents had passed away. His brother had gone off to the city, and rarely had much interaction with his kin in the mountains, nor was he interested in the land. Gregorio’s wife, Edna, was essentially a housewife, although she did at times dabble in some petty marketing of farm produce or whatever else might come her way. Neither of them had completed high school, but were making endeavours to send their two sons to school, who might then later help Cielo go to high school.

Their house, badly damaged over the years by successive typhoons, was of ‘stone’, that is, concrete hollow blocks at a base level, supporting a timber frame patched with plywood and nipa or bamboo slats. It had two smallish bedrooms with unfilled windows, a small sala and dining area combined, a small kitchen and adjacent bathroom and toilet, most with timber flooring or in places made with bamboo. The dwelling was capped by a rather leaky, rusty tin and nipa roof. Although it was high it did little to dissipate the summer heat.

Furniture was generally sparse, consisting for the most part of foam mattresses or sleeping mats on the floor for bedding, plastic containers for wardrobes, and a few bamboo chairs and similar small table in the sala, and a well worn wood-veneer table for a dining table, with equally unprepossessing seating of plastic chairs or wooden stools, but of functional value. Chickens and dogs seemed to abound in the surroundings and enter the house through an open door, while a sow and piglets snorted and rummaged nearby. Edna tried to grow some vegetables for home consumption, but not always with luck. The garden lacked systematic organization and attendance. The leaves often failed to look a lush green, but were, rather, pale, yellowish and wilted.

The children attended whatever public education was available, each trundling off to school on foot or, if able, by tricycle, at various times of the day amidst unsystematic ruckus. When possible each child was given some food, baon, or nothing; if lucky, perhaps 20 pesos to buy something. The two boys went to the local, small high school in Basabasa proper, while Cielo still attended the elementary school a little closer to home.

Cielo, along with 70 or so of her cohort, attended this local elementary school of timber walls and tin roof, that made the two classrooms unbearably hot. There was no air-conditioning, but several old-fashion fans mounted to the walls that, hopefully although not always, worked. These were rather dangerous contraptions of cast iron with sharp steel blades like a ship propeller and a wire mesh that one could easily put a hand through. So they had to be mounted high out of the children’s reach. Cielo often wondered what would happen if any one of the four fans became dislodged from their shaky mountings, held only by two large bolts. She fancied that children’s heads would be cut off and bodies dismembered. They seemed to be left over from the Japanese occupation, being an army-green under the flake and grime, and had only one speed: fast.

The school was just one building divided into two rooms, each with wooden floor boards that made it impossible to hear anything other than the clatter of shoed feet when the children marched in or out. Old wooden school desks, with the badly-scratched top flap opening, and dropping noisily, and equally bare and worn benches with no backing were the basic furniture. It was bland, colourless, except for some finger paintings and other student displays taped to the bare plywood walls.

The school building nestled at the foot of a small knoll that occasionally dislodged some stones, or in the wet season some mud. It had a small front court yard of dirt, or mud, depending on the weather, with, of course, wooden benches, where children could play and eat, if they ever brought their lunches with them. More often most of the kids would go home for a rather long lunch period, since the barrio was so small almost everyone lived within easy walking distance. The lengthy break gave the two female teachers, whom Cielo knew to be sisters and spinsters, dalaga, from an adjacent barrio, time to recoup from the monotonous repetitive task of ‘teaching’ their indolent pupils—70 wriggling, squirming, talking barbarians, and student teaching assistants who were brown half-savages, weak on discipline. The only way to manage these slug-like critters, thought the two ladies, was the way they understood and one to which they would respond much quicker—by a show of force. They were of the firm belief that the indio needed no mentor but the local friar or nun, and no companion but a karabo, since real learning only led to sin. Ignorance, therefore, was not only bliss, but also reproductive.

Thus much of the teaching was not about having students learn anything meaningful but merely memorizing and regurgitating ‘truths’ for ‘exams’, which every pupil passed as a matter of course. To school one went not to learn, that was an absurd idea. Classes were reduced to reciting lessons from memory, to reading a book—perhaps only forcibly bits of Rizal’s Noli—and, at most, to answering the occasional trivial question. The teachers sufficiently complied with their official duties, while the students bought their unnecessary books and note pads and pens at costs their parents could not easily afford; they ‘studied’, spending several years only to know nothing afterwards. No one was ever known how to take advantage of the lessons learned by memory with much effort and recital. Nothing had changed in a hundred years, since Rizal. But then, how would they ever know?—The students never read Rizal.

There was, true, no lack of a small daily sermon about humility, submissiveness, proper behaviour for girls, and respect for the religious and the law, and one’s family, and the endearment of many children. Odd that, so Cielo thought: if children were to be divined, if they were gifts from God, then why were they treated so shabbily? But at age 7 she said nothing.

One subject, officially compulsory but limited in adherence, was English, which they didn’t learn very well since the parochial teachers and community thought they wouldn’t need it, that girls especially would not get jobs in the mountains of Balimbing, and if they did it would be low paid manual work; and foreigners didn’t go to Balimbing, and even less Basabasa, so what was its use diba? It was expected that these students would do as their forebears: abide by government regulations to attend elementary school then junior high if they could afford to complete that, possibly get a job, somewhere nearby, get married, be the vessel for men’s pleasure and God’s gifts, usually many, and perpetuate what everyone knew.

Few escaped this perpetuity and impoverishment of body and mind; and of the few who did little was openly spoken, for it was common gossip muttered in whispers that such girls, at least, by some dint of good or bad luck went to work as maids or in bars in places too far from Balimbing to contemplate. But for the many, for the most part, like the thousands who had preceded them, they passed their class hours, their school days, but without schooling, had their intelligences darkened and blinded, their human dignity diminished, an unaccountable amount of time lost and labour wasted, their talents stolen.

Yet, can we say that those who made no attempt to break from this insidiousness allowed their spirits to be stolen? Cielo was still only a child, age seven, and may well become one of those girls about whom the barangay gossiped. Like her other 69 classmates, she attended elementary school for six useless years, as little as she could get away with due to boredom, lack of money, no school books, no uniform… But when she did go she liked to be the centre of attention which came to her through always dancing, singing, skylarking, and making excuses why she had to wear ‘pretty’ clothes rather than dull uniforms of skirts that almost reached her ankles.

School parades and festivities were her specialty. She would garner from family, friends, neighbours and elsewhere, who knows, a blouse and a skirt, mix and match, drape a scarf about her neck, don some light makeup, ‘borrow’ from older cousins, aunts, her mother, transgenders—oh she was not a tart, a dressed up doll, but did it herself with some friends, several of whom were bakla; she was an artist…an artista.

One year, on several afternoons nearing Easter, Cielo and some friends worked on the school porch fashioning a play about ancient Rome that the teacher had assigned. Cielo loved activities that had to do with performance. Her quick mind and vivid imagination made her an excellent participant in these activities. First, they practiced their parts, and then they made costumes. They tied old white sheets or red curtains over their clothes for togas, made wreaths from palaspas for their heads, and fashioned old banana tree limbs into swords. In between times Cielo would cajole one of the girls to bring a CD player, and with that she choreographed the music, supposedly regal or marching, but often something contemporary, Filipino, and hopefully a little solemn, at which she and the others would try, with as much pomp as they could imagine, to stomp around the courtyard as emperors, senators or soldiers. But in reality there was more chatter, laughter and swirling than solemnity and choreography, the former commonly reflected among the inept performances of Manila’s girlie-bars.

By the time she was twelve she had entered junior high school, for another grueling fruitless 4 years. She wasn’t always able to attend classes, as food for lunch was often scarce, and costs for ‘materials’ had increased; what money there was for any education prioritized her brothers. High school was essentially a higher level of boredom and futility.

Then one day, when she was twelve, showing some small breasts and sexuality, having some sense of her own self, physically, but also her self worth, a foreigner came to their sitio, and passed by the houses of Cielo and her neighbours that lined the mountain road leading out of the barrio into the foothills. He was youngish, perhaps thirty or a little younger. American, Kano, as they are often called, and quite handsome. He was alone, surprisingly, for Filipinos never go anywhere alone; so they all wondered…

It was a Saturday; there had been no school, so the kids of the sitio, that small cluster of perhaps 6 or 7 or by now maybe 10 houses, were, as customary, sitting about, bored, or the boys playing some game of basket-ball or marbles, all chattering…

It was nearing noon, almost lunch time, and the Kano came strolling by with a knapsack and a guitar slung over his back. He stopped, smiled, waved; the children as usual came running up in curiosity, chattering and asking questions in Tagalog, mostly. At most he could pick up from some of the older or more courageous kids, about a dozen in all, Hi Jo, what’s your name? said in a kind of melodious English.

Tom, he said, as he sat down on a roadside rock.

Where you go? one boy asked.

He pointed up the road: Walking up the mountain.

They looked at him with greater curiosity: why would a Kano spend his time going up that mountain?

Who you companion? one asked.

No one.

You have girlfriend? one of the older girls, perhaps 15 years old, asked, at which they all giggled.

No. Why? You want to be my girlfriend?

They all laughed even louder, as the girl withdrew from embarrassment, shyness as they call it, to the back of the growing crowd which had by now attracted a few adults.

Cielo stood amongst them, but her English was poor, not surprisingly given the poor education they had endured, so she just watched and listened.

The kids playfully teased the Kano, and he equally so, not fazed, then said, "I go. You have tubig ba?" showing a half empty bottle of water and wanting to replenish it.

"Dito," Cielo said, stepping forward, and leading him to a nearby stream that ran through the village. She knew it to be clean; it was where her household and others got their drinking water.

"Salamat, he said, as he filled his canteen and looked at her. You’re pretty."

Yes. Of course, she affirmed with shameless confidence. She was pleased that he had noticed her beauty. You play, pointing to the guitar he carried. It wasn’t a question, or a request, or directive. It was all three.

Sure.

They took the few steps backs to the thronging crowd, and he took off the guitar from his back and strung a few chords. Then he broke into a popular tune, and the silly young boys and girls begun to swing their bodies and tease each other. It was a Tagalog song, and Cielo knew the words, and begun to sway with it, breaking into words, but, elbowed and teased by her friends, breaking off, then rejoining, trying to keep her composure.

Ok, I have to go now, he said after finishing the one rendition.

Oh no, one more ! they all cried.

He relented and played another song, and Cielo stepped forward to show her dancing skills. They all laughed, not in denigration but merriment.

Tom eventually went on his way, up the mountain with a trail of kids badgering him for quite awhile, until he was left to the peace of the hills to explore his own thoughts.

But there was only one way back, and late in the afternoon the sun was quickly setting. He had stayed longer than he had planned, and on reaching the sitio there was the same bunch of kids still playing and chattering, still skylarking—there is not much else to do in a remote barrio.

He couldn’t pass through them without being accosted, without being outwardly friendly, exchanging barbs, and even sitting down for a moment to rest, for he had a long way to go back to Balimbing.

It was now after 5pm. He had left it until late.

Cielo’s father came out and chided him. He spoke reasonably good English, unsurprisingly, for he had learnt it when schools had funding and a more socially manipulative ideology of incorporating Filipinos into the American regime.

You stay here, tonight, he told Tom. Too far, it dark. No jeepney.

Cielo stood by, silently, quietly admiring difference. Oh no, it was not that she was attracted to Tom, to him, but to the idea there could be something different.

He did stay. He had some tinned food in his backpack, ham and sardines, with unopened crackers, which he gladly shared with his hosts, and contributed some money for Coke, which one of the children procured from a sari some distance away. The meal was by no means grand—pancit and rice—which his contribution helped extend in filling hungry stomachs.

The conversation naturally steered its way to what he was doing in the mountains, where he was from, if he was married, and so forth. The latter question brought on some mirth and glances toward Cielo, with hardly subtle innuendos he might be able to find a Filipina in this barrio, as he was still single. Cielo was a little embarrassed at what the implications were of what they might be suggesting; in any case, she was only twelve, running to thirteen.

His incursion into the mountains was because he was a construction engineer, and there had been some plans, about which he was vague, of building a road from Balimbing to the east, into the adjacent province, which was more barren than Loyola province, if that was at all possible. He had simply come to get a feel of the lay of the land; besides, he liked hiking and the quiet that the mountains might provide.

Night had steadfastly fallen, and there was little else to do but sit out the front with the family and neighbours, looking down upon the yellow lights of the barrio, imbibe of some tuba, diluted with much needed water for Tom, and to acquiesce to clamours that he play his guitar. Filipinos love music, and are most fond of the guitar. They also love to sway and gyrate, if not actually dance, and the novelty of having live music, a foreigner, and a pleasant night reverberated through everyone present.

The boys were enamored by the technical skills of the guitar player, while the girls and adults very much appreciated the music, itself….an expression of the heart. Cielo was no exception. Darkness and the obscurity it brings, and the cool invigorating air affected her as much as anyone else, who, as a free spirit, a yearning soul, responded to by parading her untrained feminine maneuverers in dance. And, for some of the songs she knew the words, so tried to give voice to the tunes, even if only in her own head.

It was a fun night, one Cielo had rarely experienced, but which stirred something, deep within her, that she yearned for. Not just fun itself, irresponsible fun and mischief, but the opportunity for freedom from all the constraints that her school years and the barrio had imposed. She could feel, but not yet able to articulate, that there was another world, another possibility, and she had to seek it out. Or create the possibility for its fulfillment.

Tom, thankfully for him, was given a foam mattress to sleep on, and a mosquito net. He slept soundly, thanks to the tuba, and feeling content and safe.

The next morning he had coffee only, and paid his parting salutations.

Cielo, without asking or openly offering, walked with him down to the town proper, past the cemetery, stopping a few minutes so she could show him where her lola and lolo were buried. They strolled, as if old friends, without touching or flirtation. She was not interested in that, nor he. But she was interested in learning more about the world outside Basabasa and further, outside Balimbing even, as if it had been laid before her as the end of the world. Manila was for her, at this age, a foreign place. Perhaps sordid, if she knew what that word meant or implied. They chatted occasionally in broken Taglish.

Where you now go? she asked.

Manila, he replied, simply, to keep things simple.

What you now do?

He didn’t know if that meant now, as in the present tense, or future present. I just report to my boss.

She didn’t understand what this meant, thinking he was a foreigner and an engineer, wasn’t he the boss?

What Manila like? she asked innocently, to redirect her thoughts, and from curiosity.

That was a big question, he thought, that he could only answer by saying it was big, very big, with many people, crowded, much traffic, noisy, dirty….

You have to see it… See it to believe it, he commented.

No one had ever planned or replanned Manila, he ruminated. It evolved like some mutant sick parasite, without any foresight, without any plan, each subdivision, of which there were many, carving out their own self interest, without co-ordination, with no altruism, a conglomeration of mayhem repeated as one crawled through clone-like slums, shanty-towns, congested roads without order or footpaths, one of the dirtiest, most congested, polluted, noisiest cities in the world. You had to see it to believe it. But how could he explain this mayhem to her? A road out of Manila to the east would only bring Manila’s mayhem to the almost pristine hills of Basabasa.

There have dance there? meaning places to dance and sing, performers, a little of which she had heard about in Balimbing.

Oh yes, he laughed, thinking of girlie-bars and karaoke cafes, but not so good.

You take me, she told him, as both directive and request.

Oh no, I can’t do that. You’re too young.

I not. I cook, wash, clean…

Sorry, no, maybe when I come back, he held out as a remote promise.

When you come back?

I’m not sure. Thank you for walking with me. Happily at this moment they had reached the jeepney stop. "This is the jeepney I get, diba?"

"Uu," meaning yes.

He clambered into the front, next to the driver. Here, he told her, handing her twenty pesos, "for being so pretty. Buy something nice, diba, for your self." He didn’t quite know why he gave her this token money, but thought it best to do so, just for appreciation of her walking with him, for her beauty, or perhaps he felt sorry for such a cute girl stuck out here in the wilderness, so she could have something for herself.

"Salamat," she replied and unhesitatingly took the money as the jeepney started up and rolled forward slowly. He was gone. He had made her realize that she was chosen over others, which conflicted with everything she had ever been socialized to be.

She walked back to the sitio, slowly, thinking. But she didn’t know what she was thinking—but always wishing for a little more of what had just been.

Cielo walked over a little wooden bridge and then up a path along side the creek toward her favourite spot under a small but old banana tree that leaned down the slope, allowing its broad leaves to touch the ground. She brushed aside the long hanging leaves of the tree and eased herself down onto a collection of old, fallen brown leaves that crackled under her slight weight. The verdant chamber was a place where she felt safe and solitude: she could no longer hear the chatter and antics of the village children at play on the road far below. With the green curtain surrounding her, she could lower her guard and allow her imagination to swell. Ever since she was a small child she would come to this hideaway, armed with stories from the people of the sitio about Balimbing and Manila—cities like London, Paris, New York were beyond her imagination, mere names on a map, and the notion of the globe simply not able to be conceptualized. The girls’ dresses in those near towns were modern and stylish, the colour of the finest flowers, she had heard it said. Their fabric was soft and as blue as cornflowers, with reds like Christmas blossoms, and yellows as brilliant as the flowers on lily pads.

The old banana tree above Cielo’s head stretched over her like a canopy, sheltering her from the blistering heat of midday. She examined the heavy, broad, pale-tan branches with their leafy foliage, and then looked down at the dappled sunlight at her feet. She felt cool and protected as if she were enfolded in the arms of a loving mother. She longed to stay, but was compelled by some corner of her imagination to move on.

The sandy black soil felt soft and warm beneath her feet. She walked a little farther up the path and paused by a small waterfall to watch the water trickle over a staircase of small boulders. A cool breeze moved her hair. Unsure whether this place would remain forever, she reached down and stroked the velvety moss on the rocks and let the cool water run through her fingers.

There was something tugging at her soul: somehow she had to experience a life. Perhaps she could dance or sing in Manila…. She seemed to be miserable as though she were an adult stuffed into a small skin, having all sorts of ideas and plans to enact but without any means to express them except for conveying them through performance, song and dance, and bearing her disgust with being in this position of frustration.

There was something inside her that was telling her she could experience something other than the boredom and drudgery of Basabasa. She suspected there was a world outside of Basabasa, and beyond; she didn’t know what, or where, or how, but there was something separate from this dreariness.

But it was to the boredom and drudgery, the monotony and sameness that she did return, following the routine of going to school and finding ways to amuse and entertain herself with some few friends who, like her, were similarly situated. Every day was about the same, essentially waiting for the next meal, the next day, which would bring her and others a step closer to maturity, and perhaps escape if not marriage and kids and perpetuity of sameness. But Fate can play its hand in unexpected ways…

The days and daze rolled by. She was in her first year at the local High School, nearing the end of the semester, barely thirteen, when, unhappily, her father suddenly passed away. It came on unexpectedly, quickly; some said it was a heart attack, others his liver or kidneys from drinking tuba, while some said it was his alcohol-soaked brain that had simply shut down. Whatever, the result was the same.

They had no kind of death or funeral insurance, very few do, but luckily Cielo’s elder brother had by now some meagre employment in Balimbing itself and was able to contribute, along with friends and kin, to a respectable wake of some three days in which there was as much solemnity as there was eating and drinking, contributed to, as was customary, by kin and friends who drifted in and away over the three days and nights.

Edna and Cielo were kept busy attending to the many mourners, who came not just from the local sitio, but also from Basabasa proper—for Gregorio was a friendly and popular man in the district—and some on Edna’s side of the family who travelled from her hometown in Loyola. Sadly, Gregorio’s brother could not be found and told of the misfortune.

Keeping busy helped allay the grief Edna and especially Cielo felt. She had been close to her father, sometimes just keeping him company as he worked among the mountain trees, she mostly just singing, swirling about, exploring, or sleeping on freshly-cut banana leaves. So it was not surprising that during the wake, when there was a break in her being needed, she would steal away to her favourite spot near the stream and imagine her dad’s spirit with her. Here, in her solitude, she could cry. She missed her dad, already.

The family had arranged a small, cheap casket, and carrying Gregorio down to the small Church, held a simple funeral service, followed by internment at the family plot. Gregorio’s grandparents had long ago claimed a family plot in the local cemetery at the foot of the hill, and as was custom he was buried atop his father, next to his mother.

But this calamity now left the Marikit household facing destitution. There was no one to carry on the work that Gregorio had done all those years: planting and tending the fruit trees, the harvesting, the marketing, the wheeling and dealing. The eldest boy, Juan, was working for cash, and had no interest or know-how in such agricultural activities, and the other was too young, at age fifteen. They owned the land, and the haphazard house they called home, and could sell it, but it was home, and to sell it was to betray the lineage. Perhaps they could tenant it, but it would be long times between any income. And there were expenses: food, of course, and school expenses. There were two at school.

Juan, the eldest son, in Balimbing, now 18, suggested they all move there and find some wage work, while renting out the land and house. Was there an alternative to this migration, as so many thousands before them, and currently, and more to come, undertook, as land became untenable and cities encroached?

As time wore on Cielo missed more and more school. Priority was given to her older brother—food, clothing, school materials. She was left at home much of the time, able to practice her skills in dressing up, singing, dancing, fantasizing, as her mother, with help from neighbours, tried to do what Gregorio had done, and with Cielo occasionally but always reluctantly helping.

But things were becoming more difficult, for Cielo’s mother was not young any longer, in her forties, and her knowledge and skills limited. Oh, she tried, and tried to learn, but it became a daunting task. She was not skilled to be a farmer, but to be a housewife, a mother, at best a petty commodity producer, a survivalist.

After about a year of this toil, with