Period

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: Period
Creator: Robles, Frank A.
Language: English
Year: 1959
Rights
Fulltext: S/irtt Siwes (REMEMBER. When I saw the dead body of Miguel, bent, bloody, and mangled, lying in the dirt on the asphalted Misericordia Street not far from his house, where he came out running and fell in the evening under the moonlight, I said to myself in a dry whisper: “This is a useless thing...” and to Miguel: “You really didn’t have to do this...” Yes, I remember that now, when September appears dry and old and dull before my eyes, with the warm wind blowing the arid dust from the roofs and Misericordia Street almost bare. A few days before he killed himself, Miguel asked me to go to his house, if I could. I went to his place at night. I was renting an apartment room on Misericordia Street, just a few steps from his house. I knew he was a lonely man; his wife he said had deserted him for a very odd reason; he would like to have somebody to talk with: he smiled wearily and asked me, with a coy invitation in his eyes. I said yes. Yes, I was lonely, too. “I thought you would not come',” he said when he opened the door and saw me, “Please come in.” Again he managed to smile, to show humor on his saturnine face, angular and brown complexioned. “I seldom break my promise,” I answered pertly, “Not if I can help it.” We sat in the rattan chairs in the reception room of the house, facing each other across a squat table with a decorative glass flower vase atop, where a bright red rose stood erect, and we started conversing. A robust brown dog approached me, sniffing my smell. “Browny! Come here!” Miguel made a castanet-like sound with his fingers. The dog gracefully wig-wagged its body with animal delight and went to his side. Miguel brushed the dog on the head with his palm, and the dog seemed pleased. “This is my only companion in the house, since Celia left,” he said smilingly, stroking the dog with his hand. “When I leave in the morning, I just lock it up inside. Quite a reliable guard.” “Celia? Ah, yes, you told me about her already.” I thought it was foolish for me to have made You see, I that remark at all. It would hurt naturally. “Yes, you’re right. Celia is my wife, I told you that. Or was. Past tense,” he said with a dry laughter. “It’s a beautiful name, isn’t it? Yes, it’s beautiful. Beautiful. ..” his voice slendered slowly into silence. “I guess it will be better if we talk of something else,” I suggested. “It’s all right. I assure you, you don’t have to worry about me. I always take things as they are, as facts, get what I mean.” Miguel tried to sound objective and impersonal, perhaps to impress upon me the belief that he was unbreakable and brave. “I guess so,” I replied. “Anyway it’s all over,” he went on saying in a detached manner. “I loved her very much, but Celia could not be satisfied with just being loved. She craved for big things which I could not give her. Maybe because she was still young really. I don’t know where she is now.” He leaned backward and waited for me to say something. I thought it wise not to commit myself to anything which I might regret afterwards. I could sense how serious the matter was, what harm it could inflict on the man, and I would rather not have a share in it, the responsibility that it imposed. I merely looked at the red rose. “Celia was very fond of flowers, this flower,” he said, watching me, “That’s why I always get one every morning and place it there. It makes the illusion that my wife is still here. Sometimes when I am lonely I just look at this and I remember things about Celia. Our dates. The love letters I wrote her. It’s fun, you know.” He stopped and stood up. He said he would get us something to drink. He asked me what I would like to have and I said whatever there was. He walked into the kitchen with his brown dog following him. Shortly, he came back with two glasses of cold orange juice on a wooden tray which he sat down on the squat table. “Help yourself,” he said. “You like music?” “Sure,” I said. Somewhere in the reception room I saw a phonograph, Miguel turned it on and a melancholy jazz sounded from the machine. Miguel settled back in his chair and started sipping the cold orange juice from his glass. 1 like the music with its iambic rhythm and I listened to it quietly. Somehow I could perceive a shadow of sadness as I sat there looking at Miguel, his stout brown dog looking meaninglessly up toward him, the music and the machine. (Continued on page 21) Pa g e 16 THE CAROLINIAN Pictorials PERIOD (Continued from page 16) “I find this phonograph a very useful thing to have around,” Miguel remarked, glancing at the machine sideward. “Just think of it. I switch it on and there goes Sinatra singing.” He laughed dryly and senselessly. “I bought this phonograph for Celia. I would not have bought it, but that girl insisted. We had a sort of a quarrel and I had to buy this finally. Women have their way of persuading you. Imagine your wife whimpering around, my God!” He sighed, and his eyes glistened; he levelled them at me and lowered them again. I left at ten o’clock in the evening and went home, thanking him for the pleasurable reception I had in his house. I assured him I would come as often as I could, and he said he would be glad of that. We shook hands and I left. I was still thinking of Miguel, the brown dog, the flower and the machine as I lay in my bed in the darkness. For it was altogether tragic: a lonely man seeking happiness in a brown dog, a phonograph, and a red rose, and missing completely what he sought. When I went to his house again, he asked me to do something for him. “I’m going to die soon,” he said flatly, matter-of-factly, “and I would like to ask you a big favor.” It gave me a gentle shock. “That’s foolishness,” I tried to quip jovially. “Why, you have enough flesh on you to knock out a horse!” Miguel smiled. “No. It’s true. You know when you’ve had it, when you’re done for good. So I would like you to do something for me.” I thought it was some joke. “Well, then say it,” I said. “You see, I am all alone in this world. Got no relative. Got nobody to look after me when I die.” He was grave. “I thought I would ask you to handle my funeral, if you’re not too busy to do it. I’ll leave some money that should cover all the expenses. Is that all right with you?” I could not answer at once. “Are you going to do it for me?” he repeated. “Of course I will,” I replied. “But you’re not really going to die?” “I am. That’s why I’m asking you this.” (Continued on page 29) fade TO REALISM Junne Canizares (second from left) and B. C. Cabanatan (extreme right), as shown with friends after "slumming". I FOUND OUT that there's a whole lot more to photography than posing the camera and clicking the shutter when I went shooting slum pictures with fast-leaming photo-artist Ben Cabanatan. Before we entered the dirty district, I had this in mind: Go about the place, and seek in the comers thereof, if you find things peculiar, take them. Anyway, I had already drafted my text in anticipation. But, shucks, kid! Ben proved me wrong. No, it was not as simple as that. While I was dishing up a yam on our supposed objects and was being peppy, Ben was silent and seemed passing through pressure. I soon realized that all he was trying to do was to take a picture that in itself would communicate an emotion, a thought, or an observation; he took so many medium close-ups of an old woman as if she was Sandra Dee; he breathed life into the disordered walling of a "barong-barong." We wanted true realism, but not the exaggerated and overwrought and egregious kind most photographers occupy themselves with; we did not like to make the slum-people appear happier or sadder than they actually are; we did not desire to portray them as the most contented nor as the miserablest. We roamed around surprising children at their play, and men at their work. A husky man confronted us and asked us a tirade of questions. I stayed at Ben's side ready to protect, if something happened to his Voigtlander. We took a double of a man standing, and the ungrateful fellow chased us around the block. But we also had friendly talks with many people there; they even confided to us their hardships, as if we were some visiting arm wavers or politicians. The pictures you have seen (Pictorial Section) reveal Ben's selectivity of mind and eye. They convey movement as well as rigidity. Some of them are vividly self-explanatory; they tell you about neediness, the innocent felicity of children, the melancholy of an old woman, the resoluteness of a working man, etc. Some of them look motionless, expressionless; but it doesn't mean that they do not have life or power. Don't we, living beings, sometimes feel flat; don't we sometimes mistake life for mere existence? These photographs push Ben to the threshold of photo-joumalism; they may not be faultless, but they spell a good start. I shall not endeavor to interpret them; for, I think, they possess both the “thought'' and the “feel". The “thought" can be transcribed by language, but not the “feel". Readers: if you have eyes, see; if you have hearts, feel. «» SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1959 Pa g e 21 publication. At present Beyer has turned more and more to archaeology, and to him goes the credit of discovery of the existence of a Stone Age in the Philippines. His main work is entitled Philippine and East Asian Archaeology, and its Relation to the Origin of the Pacific Island Population. Probably the most outstanding field worked in cultural anthropology and linguistics is Fr. Morice Vanoverbergh, C.I.C.M. His studies on the Negritos, and of the Lepanto-Igorot or Kakanay are well known, and have served to give more information regarding these primitive brothers of ours. Still another missionary explorer of the Scheut missionaries, Fr. Francis Lambrecht did extensive field work among the Mayayaw, a sub-group of the Ifugao. Another priest scholar, Fr. Alfonso Claerhoudt is an authority on the language of the Benguet Igorots; Fr. Leon Lindemans is collecting oral lore of the Ifugaos. Still another outstanding field worker among the peoples of Mt. Province was the late It. F. Barton. However, due to the misforImportance of the Study PHILIPPINE CULTURE by DR. MARCELINO N. MACEDA tunes of war most of the manuscripts have disappeared. Another American, Conklin, did recently extensive field work among the Mangyans of southern Mindoro. Robert Fox of the National Museum has shown us a new approach to the further research on the cultures of some of the natives of the Philippines, namely the ethnobotanical approach. He wrote a monograph, a very excellent one, on the material culture of the Pinatubo Negritos of Zambales. A very indispensable work, even for our pharmacy students, is the comprehensive work of Eduardo Quisumbing entitled Medicinal Plants of the Philippines. Timoteo Oracion of Silliman University is doing research work on the Islands of Negros. He has already published his results in the Silliman Journal on the Nagahats, a pagan tribe in southwest Negros. Fr. Rahmann, who is now in Fribourg University, and this writer as his assistant conducted studies among the Negritos of the southern Philippines and folkloristic studies at the same time before the former left for Europe, Fr. Lynch, S.J., is specializing in research on the Tagalog and Bicol regions. And also to be credited with the gathering of materials of our primitive tribes are some of the Americans who were assigned to work in the ethnological division of the defunct Bureau of Science; viz. Reed, Jones, Worcester, et al. It should be noted that their materials arc still good for comparative studies. A great need for new monographs of our ethnical groups today exists. Philippine Folklore is a highly promising field. There is much effort being exerted but they are much scattered. The collection made by Dean S. Fansler of “Filipino Popular Tales” contains only a minor part of the material gathered by him. Armando Malay and his daughter frequently publish Filipino folk customs in a local magazine. In prehistory and archaeology, XV. C. Solheiin II has joined Beyer in this work and consequently has published several papers in the Journal of E.A. Studies. Fox and his assistant have also gone into this field, having reported several excavation expeditions. In the field of scientific linguistics Cecilio Lopez, of the UP, is working on a "Comparative Phil. Syntax”, a project supported by a Guggenheim grant. There are also other linguistical studies pursued by him. An American, Frank Blake, is cooperating with Prof. Lopez in studying accents in Tagalog. Another Filipino, Arsenio Manuel, wrote a book on Chinese Elements in the Tagalog Language. Furthermore, systematic linguistic field work is being conducted by the Sumner Institute of Linguistics in the Philippines which is an organization of Oklahoma and Dakota; its director is Richard Pittman. They issue grammars and vocabularies of languages they have studied. They have already published several works concerning their activities in Notes on the Dialectic Geography of the Philippines; An Intensive Language Course, etc. These are some of the few people who are engaged in the study of Filipino culture; worth noticing is the fact that there are very few Filipino names involved in such a great task of studying our own culture. This is a challenge to our youth and us intellectuals. There are institutions which also conduct studies in Philippine culture, viz., the University of Manila, which edits Journal of E.A. Studies; the University of Chicago which has a Philippine Studies Program; Silliman University, and some other schools in Manila. Last but not least is our own university, where a further cultural anthropological study program is envisaged, and perhaps a scientific magazine for publication of the latest results of work done by members of its faculty. After having duly exposed the conditions regarding cultural research work of our own culture I hope that we accept it as a challenge. As natives we have advantages in the matters of language and understanding the mentality of the people under which we may be working. Of course we would not be blind to the fact that research work can also be done in cooperation with foreign scholars, for then better research results would be forthcoming. The sifting of what is still Filipino from the mess of foreign cultural elements is a job which we the younger generation still have to accomplish. Then and only then will we be able to understand our ownselves instead of staying under the illusion that we are either Hispanized or Americanized, for in spite of the superficial trappings many of us wear, underneath these trappings still lurks the Filipino heritage. J PERIOD (Continued from page 21) “Of course I will,” I replied. “But you’re not really going to die?” “I am. That’s why I’m asking you this.” “But you’re not sick. How come you’re going to die. By accident, you mean?” “No, not by accident. You see it’s like this. There are many ways of dying. By disease. By accident. Then a man can kill himself. I mean, a man can choose not to live anymore, and he is free to end his life.” He fell into a lethargic silence. I was looking at the red rose as I listened to him. 1 was rather confused, because I could see clearly the implication of his words. “You’re not going to do such a thing, are you?” Miguel looked at me. "Of course I won’t”, he muttered. “I’ll get us something to drink.” Like the night before, we sat there listening to melancholy jazz from the phonograph. It was the last time I saw him. For as he had said, he died. I was on my way to his house when I saw him lying on the asphalt road, dead under the pale moonlight. I knew he had thought of it all. I could hear the phonograph playing. I saw the brown dog sniffing at the fallen man and whining mournfully in the darkness. I remember that when I saw it I said it was a useless thing and Miguel did not have to do it. I still believe that life is worth living... Oh, yes, there is a love letter I will write this day... J The CCAA (Cant'd from p. 32) baskets while the Maestros were limited to four! The longest lead came at 107-61, 4'46", to go for the final half. At about this time, USC started applying the brakes and let the Maestros catch up for a final 111-71, one of the season’s highest scoring sprees. Victory number 2 for the Warriors! The INTRAMURALS (Continued from page 32) Despite the yeoman work of the "Mutt and Jeff" team. Martinez who scored 31 pts. and Lucas who tallied 16 pts, the Artsmen found themselves at the short end of the bargain at the final whistle. The Barristers, suffering from elephantiasis of the ego, lost to the underrated Business-Finance combine 40-36 for the last game before the mid-term exams. After leading by as much as ten points in the first half, and still holding on to their lead in the lower half, they were overtaken by the Businessmen in the last closing minutes. Businessmen Capahi and Rodrigues noticing the break given them by the "lawyers" made short work of the seemingly insurmountable lead put up by the Barristers' first stringers for a well-deserved victory. Half-time score was 18-9 for the Barristers. TEAM STANDING* W L Law..................................... 5-1 Accounting ....................... 3-1 CAS .................................... 3-2 Business-Finance ............. 2-2 Arts ................................... 1-3 Sciences ............................. 1-3 CEM .................................... 1-4 ♦As of September 12. SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1959 Pa g e 29