NO REDEMPTION?

To gain their support, she gave sleek cars like Mitsubishi Pajeros to Roman Catholic bishops last year using Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office money for the poor?
No redemption for the Little Woman, the personification of evil (Romulo Neri's term), even if she danced with the supposed savers of souls, now unmasked as bribe takers and shameless solicitors like the Mindanao bishop who asked for an expensive car?

Mi amigo Pedro, the government under the watch of the emperadora has been described as the most corrupt in the country's history. As bad as Ferdinand Marcos, who during the martial law years, had the perceived enemies of the state either killed or "made to disappear" in lonely or mass graves?

Where is Jonas Burgos, the activist son of the Ilocano journalist Jose? Now six feet below the ground or just "disappeared" like the "desaparecidos" of Argentina. In a press conference, according to a leader of the military junta that brutally ruled that country, the desaparecidos were"neither dead nor alive; they disappeared." Actually, they--left-wing activists and political dissidents-- were kidnapped, drugged and dropped, still alive, out of aircrafts.

Or was Jonas killed by his military captors, his body put in a container that was cemented and then dropped into the sea like what some dirty Amianan politicians do to their political opponents?

KINDRED SOUL?

After falling prey to capitalist economics by selling ecclesiastical property, the High Priest of the Diocese of Laoag City was promoted (Utlegged, according to Herdy La. Yumul, one of the country's top 5 bloggers) by the Vatican to archbishop, succeeding the respected Diosdado Talamayan of the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao.

The Laoag City Diocese under the watch of Apo Sergio conducted a raffle draw the first prize of which, a Honda Civic, was won, of all people, by our kamannurat friend Fr. Danilo Laeda, (still the parish priest of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte?) whom he earlier appointed as vicar general.

What happened, Apo Sergio?


"The function of the writer is to act in such a way that nobody can be ignorant of the world and that nobody may say that he is innocent of what it is all about."--Jean-Paul-Sartre

7/43 SERANGOON AVE 2

ON THE GLASS TABLE

It waited in silence:

Dinner of jasmine rice, mixed veggie tempura,
fried Malaysian galunggung.

Cup of Japanese green tea sat in limbo like bored Palawan rock in Sentosa.
Without bidding adieu, the Mangyan maiden
Walked away, disappeared like smoke in cyber space.

AUTHORS OF PERFIDIA

A REFRAIN, LORENZO, A REFRAIN


A. Two years later, the serpent's
head came out
of the hole of a beach: the woman
had gone to bed with a young man
named Mark.

O, how she lies:
Here lies Eli, she lies.

B. They deleted names
In list of Bucaneg Awardees,
They who lied about the money
from Hawaii,
from the US Mainland
from Ilocos poverty
For a house of memory
In Suso, by the sea,
In the town called Sta. Maria
In the north country.

And the wrinkled widow,
Lamenting for her beloved Godofredo,
Bears witness:
What a mess,
What rottenness!




"Perfidia"

sung by Linda Ronstadt

"with a sad lament my dreams/are faded
like a broken melody, while the gods
of love look down and laugh, at what
romantic fools we mortals be.."

-courtesy Mayette Cantos,
FB, June 20, 2011

THE 5TH Day in Singapore

Arrived at the Changi International Airport aboard Cebu Pacific that left Clark at 12:20PM. It was almost four in the afternoon, June 6. We started the trip from Oscariz, Ramon, Isabela Sunday morning riding on Raul's Navarra with Jovy, his third eldest boy to Manila, where we checked in at a hotel owned by an Isabela resident. Most of the helpers there were Ilocos boys. The following morning, we motored to Clark and checked in at about 9 in the morning. We had two luggage, 2 hand-carried bags and laptop slung on my shoulders. Paid the travel tax-- P1, 260.00 each. Christoffer and Christian met us at Changi's Budget Terminal.
Started yesterday reading, "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor", the first major work of 1982 Nobel Prize winner in Literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez, published in book form in 1970. The book was borrowed by 10-year old Juan-Juan Julian from the Serangoon Public Library, located atop a mall in Serangoon, S$55 cents away from our resident via bus. Some of the books borrowed by Juan-Juan (no librarian here, it's all run by electronics): The Longest War by Peter L. Bergen, a book about the conflict between America and Al-Qaeda; Interlogue, studies on Singapore literature and a book of poetry by Robert L. Hass.
A gray day with occasional rains, we stayed mostly indoors, in the 8th floor of a 12-storey flat in Serangoon Ave. 2. It's quarter to two in the afternoon.