WIFE'S KNEECAP SURGERY

Woke up early in the morning and took a bath. Just hours away from wife Estelita kneecap surgery at the Redlands Community Hospital. Last night, she called friends and relatives of her scheduled operation. She called Simonie but she has not arrived from the Philippines, according to Fe at the end of the line. Now praying for the successful two-hour surgery scheduled at 10:00AM. Two days ago, Estelita, son Anib and me attended orientation of surgeries at the Joint and Spine Institute section of Redlands CH. Most of those to undergo surgeries are women, at different dates. The room was full.

November 25:
The surgery was performed by Dr. Peter Elsissy, son of Egyptian immigrants, a smiling young man, who prayed to the Father for the successful operation that would replace Estelita's kneecap with stainless steel. We had gone early to the Redlands Community Hospital along Terracina Blvd. in Redlands, at least an hour away from Menifee.

Anib and I left her at the room where he had been dressed for the operation complete with white cap. She would later  on be wheeled into the surgery room.  We went to the waiting room in the same floor and spent almost an hour after we had breakfast at the cafeteria at the basement. Dr. Elsissy entered the room before 10:00 AM and informed us that the surgery was done and that Estelita was doing fine.She would be taken to the recovery room at the fourth floor.

THAT NIGHT IN PARIS

129 dead, 352 injured
on Friday night, by ISIS terrorists
in gay Paris

Let us weep for them, let us weep for them, let us weep for them...

how does one not remember
the blind anger
spewing as live bullets
as searing fire
tearing apart the hearts
of the innocents?

****

how did the prophet Muhammad look?
is it a racial slur to display his photo or caricature?

sometime in a middle of a walk to Walgreens
i would ask myself: did i share anything to a girl
when i was a young man. if i did, where?

so many things in the old mind
each time i see young couple--with golden heads--
jogging on the other side of Newport road.

***
daydi daniw a kayatko a basaem

nagpukkawak a nangipasimudaag
iti kaaddak iti batogmo, iti balayyo, 
ngem naliday a nagsubli ti timekko,
awan arimekmek, napaumel
 dagiti kuriat,
makaalliaw ti ulimek ti rabii 
naglumen dagiti bituen iti tangatang.

the silence, breathing, was eerie, an enemy/umang-anges ti ulimek, kabusor 
and i walked away thinking of you,/ket immadayoak, pampanunotenka, 
the rose in your ear,/ti rosal iti lapayagmo,
my feet heavy,/ nabantot dagiti sakak
my heart drenched in sadness./ti pusok nadarugsoy iti liday

i wanted you to find a little time/kayatko a maaddaanka iti sangkausit a tiempo
to read my poetry--about you ascending./a mangbasa iti daniwko--sika a sumang sang-at
the padsan, a water jug on your head,/iti karayan padsan, nagsusuon iti sangmalabi a danum
a round red sun in the gabu sky/ti nalabaga nga init iti law-ang ti gabu
a breeze whipping a lock/maysa a nginabras ti buokmo
of your tender hair./lalailuen ti angin

FRAMING THE ISSUE OF "THE ALTERNATIVE TRUTH"

The 1986 Edsa Revolt in the Philippines was not our metamorphosis.

Yes, Edsa I did not achieve whatever it wanted to achieve. Led by the Roman Catholic Church, rebellious soldiers, political activists, senators, the bloodless revolution ousted the strongman Ferdinand Marcos and installed as president Cory Aquino, who was declared as "icon of democracy" even is she was not at the forefront when the martial law regime was toppled down.

That was more than thirty years ago.

Freedom and democracy did not usher in "new minds, new manners" that would have catapulted the so-called Pearl of the Orient Seas to greater heights and maintained its position as second to Japan in economic development. The aftermath merely preserved and expanded the oligarchies like that of the Aquino-Cojuangco business empire that martial law aimed to dismantle.

And the Edsa (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) political heroes like Fidel Ramos, Juan Ponce-Enrile, Gregorio Honasan have feet of clay. They enriched themselves while in office, Ramos as Philippine president, Enrile as senator, and Honasan, who led seven unsuccessful military coups against the Cory government, as member like Enrile of Congress which has been dubbed as the abode of the biggest criminal syndicate. (The lawmakers dipped their dirty fingers  on the state coffers, through a scheme involving their pork barrel funds.)

Meanwhile, misery, deprivation, widespread poverty stalk the land. The heroes watched and watched and amassed more wealth while political dynasties like the Binays, Singsons, Dys, Ortegas among more than 80, rear their ugly heads. Needless to say, they wallow in riches and live in mansions and gated subdivisions like Forbes Park, while a great number of Filipinos are homeless and eat once or twice a day.

(For a look-see, go to Manila and observe people who live under underpasses and bridges, the Royal City of Spanish Times, now ruled by the convicted economic plunderer Joseph Estrada who was ousted in an impeachment trial. He was supposed to have been banned from running in public office, but the law allowed him to gain power,  a reason Filipinos don't understand.)

During her time as president of the country Cory Aquino, the so-called icon of democracy, a false description on the Filipino minds by the Yellow Media, did nothing but bashing Ferdinand Marcos, an almost paranoid activity. Her watch was a monumental failure just like that of her son whose intellectual and moral orientation has been heavily criticized.

And what's the use of whipping and whipping a dead horse like Ferdinand Marcos? Or passing his sins to his son, Ferdinand, Jr., who is running for vice-president of his country in the 2016 May elections?

Begging for alms in Baguio City (top) and thatched roofs of houses in Cordon, Isabela.

The Other Luna: Theories of Memories

Ilokano writers  more than 40 years ago. 
Front row: Severino V. Pablo, 
Jean Alejandro (5th) and Peter La Julian
Standing: Joe Gonzales (in dark glasses)  of San Fernando, La Union 
and Pelagio Alcantara (in polo shirt) of Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur

Drying laundry at the Padsan in Laoag City

a red rose inlaid on her cheek,
she shudders at the sight of a lover
under a full moon.

it was a season when water lilies
were abloom
and the crickets sung sans end.
in the late afternoon
the other sonja, balancing a jug on her head,
climbed the bank of Padsan.
it was the last time he saw her,
a little girl in pigtails.
when she came back she was a woman
of intellect, her brains brimming
with theories of knowledge and memories,
a career secured in a university
in the mountain city.
and the boy? he followed her to the end
but he lost the way, his sad poems
etched in a corner somewhere in a garden
of sunflowers.
*****


the young woman in a corner of his mind

now i have you at last, the old man said to himself, delirious. i have you now, he heard himself whispering. 
she was lying naked on top of him on the bed, her young body pressed against him like rock and he could feel her fibulas and femurs, sacrum, breasts, her ribs. a, the fragrance of her searing flesh. she was kissing him with wet, delicious lips, opening her hot, strong legs to heaven. and he almost passed out in ecstasy and bliss.
bad, bad old boy.
***
view

this place is ugly
yet i can't see ugliness
in the presence of a goddess,
her hair flowing in the wind
her eyes sparkling like the far-away stars
in a night of dreams

AQUINO'S infantile COMMENTS ON THE MARCOSES

"Filipinos will never forgive the Marcoses," runs SBA yellow media refrain.

Ilokanos are also Filipinos.

Decades after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, Simeon Benigno Aquino III and his ilk are still stuck with the "Never Again" syndrome. This is a poisonous psychological baggage, divisive and fascistic, that follows the logic and discourses of what they have been hating all these years.

Simeon Benigno's mental aberration is a curse that has been preventing the country from moving forward.

No matter what other Ilokanos say to the contrary, there will always be an Ilokano insurrection against the Aquinos and their oligarchies that include oligarchy-controlled media outfits like the ABS-CBN television network and other media personalities and Marcos bashers.

It is Simeon Benigno III who owes Filipinos a lot of explanation:

1. Why did he allow the then suspended Philippine National Police Chief Alan Purisima to run the Mamasapano operation, where Muslim rebels and other Muslim groups in Maguindanao killed 44 PNP Special Forces? Why was he not held accountable for this fiasco?
2.  Why did his father, Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr., promised in 1983 to then Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir to drop the Philippine claim to Sabah in exchange for his support for the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos? That is, when the late senator himself would replace Marcos as President of the Philippines.*
3. Why did the father of Simeon Benigno III hobnob with the former caudillo of the Communist Party of the Philippines? This Red Pope of Philippine communists now leaving in style in some European country? 
4. Why did the 1987 Cory Aquino Constitution delete Sabah as part of Philippine territory?
5. Why is he tolerating Budget Secretary Butch Abad who mentored Janet Napoles, the mastermind the P10-B scam filch from lawmakers' pork barrel funds?
6. Why is Simeon Benigno III in a hurry for Congress to approve the Bangsamoro Basic Law that would give Muslims a big chunk of Philippine territory? The envisioned Moro substate would be ruled by Sharia law that is incompatible with Philippine laws.
7. Did he eat his boogers when he was a young boy? Was he not then a psychiatrist case?
8. Ad infinitum

*Read Inquirer article: "Ninoy Vowed to Drop Sabah Claim to get KL Support vs. Marcos"

Quote of the day: "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."-- Mahatma Gandhi

PILLAR OF ILOKANO LITERATURE DIES, 91

SANTA MARIA, ILOCOS SUR--Dr. Dedicacion Agatep-Reyes, the other half of the so-called Main Pillars of Ilokano Literature, died of a lingering illness last Saturday in her hometown of Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur.  She was 91.

Dr. Agatep-Reyes,  was the first President of the University of Northern Philippines based in Vigan City, which is celebrating this year its 50th anniversary. She was the widow of Dr. Godofredo S. Reyes, 13-time president of GUMIL-Filipinas, the national association of Ilokano writers, who died several years ago, also in Sta. Maria.

Dr. Cion, as she was popularly known, will be buried in the Catholic Cemetery in her hometown on October 30.

The Reyes couple used to host Ilokano writing seminars and conferences in their house in the coastal village of Suso here.

Ilokano literary luminary, Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who is currently in the country in connection with the Mother Language Education Program, in a statement,  said of Dr. Reyes:

"She is a pillar of Ilokano life, letters, language and academic life. As president of the University of Northern Philippines, she worked through the filth and mud, and nonetheless, made it sure that her province would have its share of the best in thought and professional training for its young. Today, the university ranks as one of the best in the country.

"Through Nana Cion and Dr. Godo Reyes, who was also Ilocos Sur governor and congressional representative, Ilokano writing had its heyday despite the challenges, opening their home and their Suso Beach Resort for those numberless gatherings where we had to talk about the lyricism of our sad, sad, sad Ilokano lives."

US-based journalist and creative writer, Peter La. Julian, in an e-mail message, said that the Reyes spouses left a wide void in Literatura Ilokana that would be hard to fill in the coming years. "They had always been supportive of Ilokano writing since the inception of seminars and conferences as activities for the improvement of the regional literature, " he said. (Guerrero Coloma)

The late Dr. Dedicacion Agatep- Reyes poses for posterity with Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili
 of the University of Hawaii during an Ilokano international literary conference
in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte in 2011.

TIME WASTED and THE UNDISCOVERED WORLD OF SENIORS

Just wasted time reading an article about Felix Manalo, the founder of Iglesia ni Cristo.

It was a well-written piece, a kind of "praise" article designed to promote an indigenous church whose leader was once a member of the old Philippine churches.

The writer did not go deep into his subject, relying mostly on second-hand information and what he saw from the outside--for example, the INC's magnificent and imposing houses of worship across the country including the Philippine Arena, billed as the world's biggest of its kind, which is an income-generating project.

INC followers and ministers believe that Felix was the last messenger of God, citing some verses of Isaiah in the Old Testament and the Apocalypse of the New Testament. This is questionable. This is a big lie.

A Filipino as the last messenger of God?  This is a desecration of the Holy Writ.

It appears that the writer swallowed Felix hook, line and sinker.

Anyway, he is not an investigative reporter who goes for the bloody facts about this church that is being at present wracked with corruption and that has illegally detained some members who bravely spoke about wrongdoings committed by ministers. Including high-ranking officials who have been accused of high living.

***

They have eyes that can't see the blue mountains and beyond where a flock of black birds in V formation disappeared in a sky of utmost blue.

A senior citizen's lament:

This is a world probably of no return, where voices of young children are seldom heard and silence is an eternal presence. Finally, you are aware that you are indeed old but it should not be a reason for sadness.

The best is yet to come, they say, and so we keep busy and look forward for the undiscovered gifts of an unexplored world.