A FAMILY AFFAIR

This was written two years ago, and it speaks of the relevance of the ongoing Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) on my family. And again for this year my family is planning to watch one movie from the festival entries. But with my three kids now, it will be a choice between a movie of my choice or one that caters specially to fun-seeking kids like them. If I were to choose now what movie to watch, I go for Iskul Bukol, because I have been a big fan of Tito, Vic and Joey and a regular viewer of Eat Bulaga since I was a kid. But as I have said, that would depend on the kids (they have the majority votes). Or perhaps we will skip the festival, not necessarily due to disagreement but due to lack of time or lack of budget. 
 

THROUGH the years, Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) has been part of my married life. My wife and I couldn't celebrate our wedding anniversary on December 30 without a movie date.
  
Because December is MMFF month, we always had a filmfest entry in our list and it has become our tradition to watch only one movie for the whole festival. And we just don't watch any film, we have to see to it that it would be the best among the entries. 

Most of our picks romped away with the Best Picture award or received good reviews among film critics. 

The most memorable of these films and what I would say is my personal choice as Best Film in recent years is Mark Meily's debut feature, Crying Ladies. 

I'm not a big fan of Sharon Cuneta who plays the female lead character named Stella Mate in the movie. Sharon does a fine job in eliciting our sympathy (and laughter) for Stella's never-ending woes and her many wacky attempts to solve them. And to think that she looks chubby or losyang in Crying Ladies, far from the more glamorous portrayals she had in most of her previous films. 

But after I watched Meily's film, I realized Sharon indeed deserves of her Megastar status. 

No, Crying Ladies is not only about Sharon. It's about the clever plot of a story cobbled with local color and the ordinariness of life, centered on an old Chinese practice of hiring professional criers to fool the gods into thinking the deceased would be sorely missed for his/her good deeds. The humorous, witty script by Meily himself put together the individual stories of the three criers played by Cuneta, Hilda Koronel and Angel Aquino and that of the deceased's son, played by Eric Quizon. The funny shrieking trio and the relatively subdued Quizon came out with winning performances, marked by their brisk rendition of their characters' desperation with humor and poignancy. 

It's a Filipino version, if not second best, to Forrest Gump, in terms of the cunning use of comic relief to temper the heavy stuff and the depiction of an affectionate yet satirical portrait of an ordinary life with interesting twists at the end of the story. This is the kind of script I wish I would have written.

A couple of scenes remain vivid in my mind up to these days, perhaps because of the movie's Pinoy-ness or comic effect. 

One shows Stella having a hearty McDo meal with her son, her exasperated ex-husband and his wife. Others show Stella's regular encounter with the balut vendor, her audition piece for an entertainer's job in Japan and her winning an international acting award as a videoke model-artist.
 And to think that my wife and I almost missed watching Crying Ladies! We were celebrating our seventh anniversary that year and our two boys --then aged five and three, wanted so much for the family to watch Bong Revilla's Captain Barbell. But I did not give up watching Crying Ladies for a fantasy movie about an over-exposed local superhero. So we hired my wife's niece to accompany my boys to watch the film of their choice, while my wife and I watched Crying Ladies. 

For the next years, I gave in to my kids' wishes. With kids in tow, our anniversary date has turned out to be a family affair.

(Published in The Philippine Star, March 2, 2008, under the title “Pinoy as it gets”.)

A BOXING FAN

I AM one of millions of Filipinos that up to this day relish every retelling of the victory of Manny Pacquiao in his much-vaunted fight with another boxing great Oscar de la Hoya early this month. It was a good fight, a very convincing TKO conquest by the Filipino punching machine. In my whole life of watching great fights in the ring, and those of Pacman’s latest exploits over other big-time Mexican sluggers, his last fight for me is one of the best one-sided fights of all time and it’s a good thing when you’re a Filipino and on the side of the victor.
  

I have been a boxing fan since my elementary days in Ilocos. And I thank my Apong Lakay (my maternal grandfather Angel Escobar Sr.) for this. That’s why even to this date when I think of amazing fights, or when I see people to their feet cheering with wild abandon for their warrior in the ring, I always think of my late Apong Lakay doing the same.

And if I make a list now of those special moments I spent with Apong Lakay, who died when I was a college freshman or years before Pacquiao entered professional boxing in 1995, it’s the ones we had together watching boxing, or even wrestling matches, on TV which seem to be the best for me. Maybe because I always enjoy watching physically competitive contests whether on TV screen or in the street. Or I should say I can only watch a boxing match on television and any TV show hours after that when Apong Lakay was then in command of a rich aunt’s black-and-white TV. He would know schedules of every live boxing match or some classic boxing matches on replays, as I would with schedules of my favorite action movies shown on TV. He would call any of my cousins (my aunt’s children), no matter what they were doing, to turn on the TV for him. Yes, during that time, our own TV was already sold by my father to a neighbor, and Apong Lakay’s house didn’t have one until his death. So the best venue then for a visual delight over a bakbakan (slugfest) would be in my rich aunt’s house.

Apong Lakay, who was good in arnis and mano-mano during his younger days, was so proud of our Filipino fighters, especially Flash Elorde and Pancho Villa. Perhaps he would feel the same, if not reserve the best now for Manny Pacquiao. He was also a big fan of Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali. And with those years when Apong Lakay was alive, I was able to watch Ali or Leonard fight with their respective opponents in classic matches. I also watched other outstanding boxers in the 80s who have become legends of the sports—Marvin Haggler, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, and Larry Holmes. Likewise I didn’t miss great fights of our local champs like Rolando Navarette, before his rape conviction in Hawaii, and Dodie Boy Peñalosa.

And now if Apong Lakay were alive today, he would have savored like his favorite steaming papaitan this latest fight of Manny Pacquiao. And I would have loved to have us exchange our own post-fight analysis, now that I have matured as a boxing fan through the years. But I could only imagine these things now.

MY TOP 15 BOOKS

WHENEVER I chanced upon blogs that tell about books that have changed people’s lives, books that are memorable to them for some reason, or books that are outstanding, based on eccentric and subjective standards, I always go over their articles and find out if some books that I have read and savored are on their top 10 or 20 lists.

And like most of the bloggers, I love books and started reading early in life but I don’t consider myself voracious enough to finish a book in one sitting nor a certified bookworm (and I don’t necessarily collect books). I just love to read, especially fiction or pocketbook novels; I fill my idle time, even during a bumpy jeepney ride, reading them.

The first novel I read was Howard Pease’s Thunderbolt House. It was a good material for adventure-loving and mystery-seeking youngsters. That started early my penchant for mystery and detective stories, leading me to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and mind-boggling crime stories of Agatha Christie, Ross McDonald, and some titles from the Hardy Boys series.

My appetite for books was reinforced by my father, a former high school teacher, when he would bring home books, a mix of modern romance and classic titles, or from Silas Marner to Mills & Boons to Harold Robbins bestsellers, which he borrowed either from the school library or from a co-teacher or one of his students. Father would read them during the night or on weekends, while I would wait for my turn to get hold of these books. And it helped also that I have an older brother, an English major, who read pocketbooks and discuss them with me. This stirred me to read more for the next discussion.

I was already a college freshman when I started logging every book that I finished, and I’ve been doing it ever since. My latest count, discounting nonfiction books and anthologies, is 126 novels in all. And it’s only now that I started thinking which of the novels in my list have a permanent impact on me in some small way.

Well, let’s stir the waters with my own top 15 list of novels that may have changed my life just a little bit. My list was arranged in the order when I read them. I’ve also added some commentary for the top ten books to explain why each one made the cut.

1. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
I was in high school and I didn’t know then who Steinbeck was when I read this novella. It was a story that explores the secrets of man’s nature, the darkest depths of evil, and it centered on a great pearl, the Pearl of the World, found by the main protagonist. One memorable part for me was the escape of Kino, his wife and his baby from trackers or those who want to grab the pearl from him, and the cat-and-mouse chase that lead the family to a cave in the mountains. But the baby was killed by the trackers, thinking it was a coyote. Kino’s journey with the pearl ends in tragedy. Realizing that the pearl is cursed and has destroyed his family, Kino and Juana throw the cursed pearl into the sea. Sayang!

2. Portrait of a Marriage by Pearl S. BuckThis is the first Pearl S. Buck story that I have read. As the title goes, it was a story that makes you feel good about marriage. I was in high school when I read this book, and that early I know then what I want in life, aside from a good career.

3. Silas Marner by George Eliot
Before I read the novel, my father had already narrated to me the whole story during a brownout in our barrio. It was a tale of familial love and loyalty, reward and punishment, and humble friendships, centered on this cataleptic guy who was accused of theft, and later excommunicated, but became rich and fully vindicated at the end of the story. And the morning after that informal English Lit session with my father, I got hold of the book, and thus began my propensity to classic novels.

4. The Good Earth by Pearl S. BuckI belong to a family of farmers. So when I read this novel, it made loud and clear to me the importance of owning big tracts of land, and the social status that come with it. The story begins on a farmer’s wedding day and follows the rise and fall of his fortunes. As the wealth of a rich family in a nearby town slowly declined due to frequent spending, and uncontrolled borrowing, the farmer, through sheer hard work and the skill of his wife, actually a slave he bought from the rich man’s house, slowly earned enough to buy land from the rich family. The wheel of fortune turned in favor of the farmer who at the passing of years, was able to accumulate more lands until he bought even the remaining estate of the rich family.

5. Exodus by Leon Uris
After reading the book, I fell in love with the history of the modern State of Israel, and admired how the Jews struggled and finally abled to gain their independence. It was more than a history book that taught me things I want to know about the Jews. Two of the memorable characters are Ari Ben Canaan, the Jewish army leader who ably hatched a plot to transport Jewish refugees from a British detention camp in Cyprus to Palestine; and Dov Landau, the quiet, introverted teenage boy who lost his entire family to the Holocaust, but survived the horrors of ghetto life in Warsaw and of concentration camp in Auschwitz, by becoming a master forger for the enemies to save himself.

6. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
I love this novel’s labyrinthine or detective-fiction plot, deep philosophical discussions, and the mysterious medieval setting (an Italian monastery). For the first time, I came to know about monks, and what they do in a monastery. I have yet to see its movie adaptation starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater.

 7. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
This is a wonderful story that gives me a ringside view of the workings of the Mafia “families.” But what stumped me early on is the emphasis on family honor, loyalty, and friendship by these families as they wallow in a life of crimes. The novel notably reveals how the family of an organized crime works, e.g. when you are downtrodden, or unfairly victimized, all you need do is approach one of the “families,” proclaim your devotion and friendship, then request a “favor,” and the don will surely grant it. But here’s the catch, you must be willing to return the favor whatever that is. But what strikes me most was the character of the Godfather (Don Vito Corleone); discounting his underworld persona, I aspired once to be like him—strong, powerful, and wise and most of all a good family man.

8. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 

Where love was, all was. This is a memorable line from the novel. It has become my guiding principle when I started committing myself to a serious relationship. It’s a good decision that I borrowed this from a classmate during college. I hadn’t read any of Charles Dickens’ books then. I wanted to read it, not only because it was highly recommended by my English professor, but also to satisfy my curiosity why it bears the same name as the world renowned magician. At first I was intimidated by its thickness, over 900 pages, but I enjoyed deeply, although it took me months to read it. Many stories were effortlessly woven from the main plot (David’s struggles in life) which beautifully connects with one another, all with interesting, colorful, funny, eccentric and outrageous characters, some having weird names like Micawbers, Traddles, Steerforth, and Uriah Heep. If you’ve never read Dickens before and you want to delve into his style, I would recommend you start with Copperfield.

9. Never Love a Stranger by Harold Robbins

The first Harold Robbin’s book that I have read was The Adventurers. It has very interesting plots and defined characters in this novel and it was like watching a movie or a TV series. But it is Robbin’s first novel Never Love a Stranger that I read later that ranked higher in my list. Maybe because I find the courageous and passionate story of the protagonist Francis “Frankie” Kane more interesting than Diogenes Alejandro Xenos (or Dax), the tragic revolutionary hero of The Adventurers. A few things stood out for me in Never Love a Stranger. One is the way Frank works his way up, from his meager beginnings as a Jewish orphan, choosing the wrong side of the law to make a name for himself. He has this innate and powerful drive to succeed, in spite of the harsh realities in his world, racism, and living in the fast lane in the New York’s gangland. The difficulty of fitting in with an antagonistic world and the corresponding price you must pay to make the grade is the sense you get after reading this book.

10. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

I found this small book in the library of the school in Ilocos where I taught for a year. I thought it’s about Buddha’s life, because Siddhartha is the former name of Gautama Buddha. The novel, soon I found out, only mirrors the inspiring life of Buddha but isn't a retelling of his exalted life. Hesse’s Siddhartha has his own quest for meaning. He is a young and brilliant Brahmin in ancient India who has everything but dissatisfied with life. Siddhartha, just like  St. Francis of Assisi , leaves the comfort of his place to seek more. Siddhartha lives as an ascetic, but after meeting the Buddha, he rejects that kind of life, and ends up becoming a simple ferryman on a river.  Of all things he met along the way, it is the river where he derives his real enlightenment. He thinks that the river is god. But what is most memorable is this line from the book: Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. A food for thought for a fresh graduate like me then, for that time I was on a crossroad, and I didn’t know which road to take, or where I will start to embark on a satisfying career. That “awakening” theme or the journey of self-discovery had big impression on my life after that year.

11.The Roots by Alex Haley
12. Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
13. The Firm by John Grisham
14.The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
15. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

And lurking under my top 15 are Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte; The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean; The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown; and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

SOME MEMORABLE APO SONGS

THE APO Hiking Society will always be one of my favorite Filipino artists.

I grew up listening to their pop hits. Their simple yet catching melodies were laden with romantic, and at times, funny lyrics—all distinctly Filipino in mood and outlook. I admire their chemistry, their friendship that spans more than three decades, their advocacy in promoting Original Pilipino Music (OPM), and their involvement in socio-political issues, with the song “American Junk,” and “Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo ” among others.

I have lots of favorite APO songs, but there are some that dwell in my memory box, because they form part of the soundtracks of my college days, particularly my four-year stay in a boarding house in Vigan more than a decade ago. And I have no one to blame for this but this APO-crazy co-tenant of mine, a scrawny engineering student, who loved to listen to his compilation of APO songs on his cassette player for almost every day in a span two or three semesters. Having owned the only cassette player with a booming speaker, he had the monopoly of sounds in the house.

The guy also played an unknown Leo Valdez’s album, a slow rock compilation, and some New Wave songs, but the APO songs stood out because he would play them with gusto when he was in a good mood. No one would raise hell over this one because the folksy APO music was rather the best alternative or a fitting middle ground between an overly sentimental Pinoy ballads (it was the era of April Boys and some copycats) and a barrage of slow rocks, punky songs or crossovers that dominated FM channels during that time.

The most memorable song for me, or perhaps, for most of my boardmates is “Pag-ibig.” There is a line in the song that some naughty boys (inspired, I’m sure, by a daily dose of APO songs) would love to use in teasing every female boarder who broke up with a bf: Hindi mo malimutan kung kailan mo natikman ang una mong halik, yakap na napakahigpit. And there were lots of break-ups during my stay there, and lots of teasing and warbling of the song in off-tune keys.

Next on the playlist is “Kaibigan” which has lyrics that the boys would use in their awkward attempt to comfort every guy who was spurned by a girl: Kaibigan tila yata matamlay ang iyong pakiramdam, at ang ulo mo sa kaiisip ay tila naguguluhan... They would use this also to accost those who sulk in a corner for varied reasons—a failing mark, a cancelled date, a delayed allowance, a quarrel with some rowdy boys in the house—either to offer some unsolicited advice or just to meddle in their affairs. And, there were lots of sulkings during my time.

Another one is “Paano,” with its catchy opening: Paano mo malalaman itong pag-ibig ko sa’yo, paano mo mararamdaman ang tibok ng puso ko. I had a secret crush—okay, it’s love at first sight—on a female boarder, and I couldn’t muster the nerve to tell her how I felt. She had one problematic relationship while I had a risky long-distance affair. But we remained very close friends, and every time I would hear this song, I wished I was singing it for her until the last line: ‘Wag ka nang mangangamba, pag-ibig ko’y ikaw, wala nang iba. But the naughty guys would rather intone the line to tease some pretty boarders, or to court them in jest.

“Kabilugan ng Buwan” is another memorable tune. The same boys would sing “Kapanahunan na naman ng paglalambingan...,” to josh a pair, a male and a female, visitors or boarders, caught in some moonlit nights chatting under the santol tree in front of the house. It was any pair’s bad luck to have pestering members of the male tribe in the boarding house whose sole weapon to ruin (or encourage) a diskarte, was a set of cheesy lines from APO.

There is also a serious theme song for everyone. “Awit ng Barkada” was then a good piece for guitar and beer sessions with the naughty boys. With some sort of a samahan in the boarding house, we can easily relate with the lyrics of the song. Boarders would leave the boarding house as a school year ended, but some would take their place for another set of barkadahan.

And the best thing about each APO song is its ability to transcend and connect one generation to the other. It’s no wonder then that when some of their popular songs were revived by today’s popular bands, they become instant hits even to the younger ones.

Take my 10-year-old son, for instance. He really likes Sugarfree’s “Batang-Bata Ka Pa” and Kamikazee’s “Doobidoo,” both from APO’s tribute album, and he can sing these and other songs in the album with gusto. In due time, I’m sure, these songs would also dwell in his own memory box. And I’d be the one to blame because he and his younger brother were around when for a time, I played the songs from the album almost every day in my playlist.

LEARN MORE ABOUT JOB

AMONG the characters in the Old Testament, I am most fascinated by the story of Job. I haven’t read the whole text in the bible, but thanks to some abridged and comic book stories (I had plenty of them when I was a child), magazine articles and lately, websites, I came to know this guy whose name is synonymous to utmost patience, and his endless series of unfortunate events.

Job can be summed up this way: Satan tells God that Job, his most upright servant, only loves the Lord because he has given him so much wealth. God wagers Satan that Job will remain faithful even in the face of unending series of misfortunes. He tells Satan to do his worst to Job but not to harm him fatally. So Satan inflict Job with the worst beating you could imagine on a man—he loses his entire estate and his children, he suffers very severely with sore boils, and his friends shun him. But Job withstands the onslaughts. In the end, because he endures and never wavers in his faith in the Lord, his wealth, health and even his family are all restored by God.

But while not reading the prose and poetry about Job in the bible, I was befuddled by some issues: Why He lets Satan afflict Job? Or are our troubles really the idea of Satan and that God only concurs with them? Up to what extent God allows us humans to suffer so as to test us?

It was only when I read the book Understanding Job by Lim Kou, that I was enlightened about the meaning of the book of Job. The book was given free by those Christians from M/V Doulos, the floating bookstore which was docked in the port of Manila last December. Because it was free, and sectarian, I can only surmise its preachy contents so I wasn’t tempted to sit down and read it at once. I only retrieved it from my bookshelf, just after I have cited the story of Job in one of my earlier blogs.

True to its title, I was able to understand Job, and my queries were answered, with these insights from the author:

• God allowed Satan put Job to the test because He knew that there was substance in Job’s life; there were genuine, good qualities within him. So God knew too well He had a winner in Job.
• God has dual aims in allowing Satan to test Job: First, it was because of His love for Job and concern for his ultimate well-being. Second, it was related to the establishment of His eternal kingdom.
• Job faltered to some degree during the trials in spite of his moral and spiritual stature. Our hero claimed that God had wronged him and that is tantamount to saying that God is unjust. Such misconception, misunderstanding and an idea affected his confidence in God.
• God in His speeches didn’t directly answer Job’s perplexing questions. How God responded to Job’s situation was very appropriate, meaningful and effective in the context. Like Job, we must learn to trust God fully and without wavering while going through difficult and perplexing situations in life.
• God was satisfied with Job, and with how he went through the ordeal. Job basically remained true to God. Though he faltered, he still loved the Lord and sought to honor God and to abide by His words. With that, Satan was greatly displeased, and he lost the wager.

Let us learn from the story of Job, not so much on God and Satan “conspiracy” but on how Job endures in the midst of misfortunes. This lesson is very useful for someone going through suffering or distress when his or her understanding can easily get twisted.

What most of us have suffered in life is generally far less severe compared to what Job went through. With the Book of Job, and with pastors and theologians who have painstakingly explained its meaning to us, we now have a much fuller revelation and understanding of who God is, the realities in the spiritual realm and how we should live with our lives to the fullest. So it is expected that we are now in a better position to respond well.

One downside of the book though is that it bears the imprints of a pastor who has a whole day to belabor his point. A more rigorous editing could have eliminated some of the repetitions.

But don't let this discourage you to read the book and understand more about Job and learn the proper postures to take amidst life’s trials and tribulations.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NAMES

“YOUR name is Neyo, Sir?” the pretty teller scanned my ID and gave me the eye. Getting my affirmative answer, she nodded and went back to my check, but only after she had a low-toned giggly chat with her seatmate in the counter. “As in Ne-yo the singer?”

Yes, she was referring to that famous namesake of mine, Ne-yo (officially it’s with a hyphen), a young African-American R&B singer and songwriter whose songs have been topping the Billboard charts. He had a successful concert at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City early this year.

Neyo is my legal name as it was written in my birth certificate, though I’m not really sure if it’s original. The hyphenated one’s real name is Shaffer Chimere Smith; he only came out with his showbiz name in 2004. Of course I won’t tell that to the bank tellers. So far, I haven’t met a person dead or living bearing that name. Neo would be close enough but the “Y” made mine different.

Having a unique or unusual first name or having the same name as that of a famous person (like in my case), would sometimes put you on the spot. When the name is original, imaginative and interestingly cool, it invites curiosity as to its origin. And when it has a weird sound and naughty meaning and overly outdated at least in this country (like Damasito or Telesforo), it elicits a giggle if not a lifetime amusement. And any unsual name can also put you in the limelight, and may bring you a spot in the list of world's unusual first names.

Some unusual first names come from name or word combinations, name reverse, modifications from common or outdated names or just plain inventions of fathers who want to be different (read: ego-tripping Dads who are unmindful of the feelings of their children to live with an uncommon, if not horrible, name). My name may be original, but it’s far from interesting or imaginative as Jejomar, Condoleezza, Ginebra Miguela, and Barack.

As part of an assigned essay in school, I asked my father where did he get my first name. He told me that he got it from the name of an African doctor but he couldn’t exacly remember who this guy was. Unconvinced, I theorized that it was originally a “Neo” but for easier pronunciation especially for us Ilocanos who would read that as “Ne-oh,” he might have inserted the Y.

Having such an unusual name has a good side though. New acquaintances will have an easy time recalling my name. I remember when I was in high school, a girl sought me out in our town many months after I met her in a region-wide seminar for campus writers. She was a delegate from a nearby province, and even though she didn’t exactly remember my face, my name stuck on her mind (at least she had one to remember me by). So when she visited our place for some business of her own, she came to meet me in our school.

When the movie The Matrix became popular, topbilled by Keanu Reeves who played the character Neo, my name gained an added appeal. (R&B’s Ne-yo got its name from Neo of the same movie.) Some people, after hearing my name for the first time, would like to confirm, “Neo as in the Matrix guy?” I would answer them: “No, it’s with a Y.” “Maytrix?” (The last one is a joke of course.)

I was already working when I tried for the first time to Google my name. I wanted to find out the identity of that African doctor, and maybe a namesake in some parts of the world. What came out were a “Neyo” as a surname and a “neyo” as a foreign word (I’m not sure if it’s South American or African), still it’s not a first name. I also encountered for the first time Clone Commander Neyo, one of the lesser known Star Wars characters. And yet he’s no living guy.

Two years ago I was stunned by a wayward email in my Yahoo mailbox. It came from an R&B-crazy American teener asking me if my email address belongs to Ne-yo! I replied to her email telling her who I really was, but the girl wasn't convinced. She sent me three more emails after that, pleading me to confirm to her my “un-identity” so that she could tell her friends about me. But I never sent her another reply after the first.

But one thing I hate for having an uncommon name is that people would tend to misspell it or give sound-alikes. When I was asked to give my name for an order slip, those who don’t listen very well, would just write Neo, Leo, Niyo or Nilo. But those who care for accuracy, I was forced to spell my name in front of them. Good enough, it’s only a four-letter name. (What more if my name is Mahershalalhashbaz!)

And did I say I’d never met a living person bearing my name? Well, if that includes anyone from my family, then I am mistaken. There’s really a living person who has exactly the same name as mine and it’s my own doing. He is Neyo Martin, the second of my three children. But I’m sure his name, when he grows up, will no longer so interestingly uncommon nor original as to put him on the spot.

But more than the spelling, etymology or history behind the name, what is important is to effect a good meaning to it. We must strive for an association that reflects our true worth as an individual.

A WADE TO REMEMBER

WHEN it rains and the wind is never weary, life, to borrow a line from Longfellow, is cold, and dark and dreary. But to most Metro Manila residents, life is made colder, darker and drearier by the perennial floods.

Last month, when typhoon Karen sideswiped the metropolis when it entered Northern Luzon in a whiplash, I cuddled safely at home in Marilao, Bulacan. And despite the dull and gloom, I had reasons to celebrate, one for getting a reprieve from my midterm exam that day, and two, for being spared from braving the floods in the sinewy streets of the metropolis all because of class and work suspension.

Fortunately, the subdivision where my family lives lies comfortably on an elevated part of a wide span of rolling hills and plateaus in southern part of the town, so we were not at all bothered by floods, unlike people in some areas in the province or in that seemingly cursed coastal or riversided cities in the Metro.

But my personal celebration was dampened by the news that my relatives in Narvacan, my hometown in Ilocos Sur, were severely affected by the typhoon. Vast tracts of ricelands were submerged in the flood, and even residential areas in the poblacion and along the highway that traversed our barangay were not spared. 

Only decades ago, floods were rare occurrences in barangay Nanguneg, even during heavy or prolonged squalls. I mean real big floods when the water level hit the waistline of an adult, or when valuable things had to be hauled off hurriedly to the second floor of our house.

Floods in the barrio are different from those in the city.

Though the degree of peril is higher in our place because our barangay is very near the storm-surge-prone coast of South China Sea, and bounded by two rivers on opposite sides, and that the lost of income due to damaged crops is so real before every farmer’s eyes and he would just look at the damage with the resilience and hopefulness of the Ilocanos.

But unlike the reeking Waterworld of Metro Manila, there are no floating garbage, no abusive tricycle or pedicab drivers or ubiquitous wooden plank-bridge made by street toughies or tambay for a fee, and no cursing at city officials and MMDA personnel for clogged esteros and open manholes.

Against a backdrop of a dull, dark gray of the sky, a flood in the barrio is a vista of unhurried life gone wet and awry—timeless, surreal, a poem, a nostalgia, a sigh. You have to experience it to say it can be anything but dreary!

There’s one memorable flood, some rare episode of nature’s wrath in our barangay then, and it happened on my 17th birthday! I remember that early morning in September when the waters started to rise up to knee level and before eight it rose until it submerged half of the first floor of our house. So immediately we emptied cabinets and moved their contents to the second floor, and so with the pots, plates and silverwares, and the dalikan (earthen stove) and that included the remaining firewood that we can salvage from the dirty kitchen.

Around us were boundless pool and whirlpools of mud and detritus, of drowned chickens, bloated piglets, banana stalks and pairless slippers. The second floor was turned into a jumble of soggy clothes, and school bags and shoes, stools and a bookshelf, and sooted pots and pans, and the dalikan, and stacks of plates and plastic cups, and bottles of bagoong, patis, and salt. A hen and its freezing brood joined us in the fray for space.

The lull before the next barrage of the storm came about during lunchtime. The waters had not subsided even an inch, and sporadic spits of rain in that time span shut us out from any outdoor activities.

We had our lunch on the wooden floor. My mother served a platter of hot rice, a bowl of sardinas which she sauteed with onion and tomato, and a plate of tuyo (dried dilis). And no one ever spoke about a celebration for my special day.

After a hurried meal, Father and Manong Ben played chess on a small bench by the window. Manong Romel and I cozied up in one of the two rooms upstairs and opened up each other’s unfinished pocketbooks. (Manong Milton, our eldest, was in Zamboanga that year.) My three younger sisters scrounged for a space in their noisy play and arguments over their toys and imaginations. Mother wouldn’t like to think our situation in a damp bed; she rather occupied herself with the dalikan, boiling the corn and the kapeng bigas, readying them to warm our stomach throughout the day.

Outside the house, I heard moos and bleats of farm animals wet and sullen under the trees along the elevated shoulder of the highway. Joining the fray were calls from fish vendors and intermittent roars of passing vehicles.

Around four in the afternoon, I saw from the window a chicken keeping itself afloat in the swirling waters in the farm near the house. It must have fallen from its perch in a guyabano tree near our house. It was alive, weak and ready to die any time soon. I jumped into the chilly flood waters, and waded hurriedly to catch the chicken. I brought it upstairs and Mother butchered it for the next meal. And before dusk, we dined together, or rather we feasted, on a steaming sapsapuriket (or dinuguang manok).

While the squall continued to rage outside, the whole family was safe and sound in our damp and muddled place, shrugging the flood off as another chapter of our life in the barrio or as an unusual background for my birthday celebration. And I went to sleep with a hearty burp.