Alex Maskara's BARRIO TALES


River of San Nicolas



There are no images more wonderful for me to remember than the images I saw as a child. What I saw in my town as a kid was enough to make a poet out of me. I saw trumpeting fish and flowering water-lilies in the river that is running in San Nicolas. I remember the river again, reminding me how small I am. I will be indebted to it for my memory and the beauty of my remembrance. Beside it, I remember the golden rice fields and quiet buffaloes tended by kids like me.

Beside the river, I learned how to plant rice.

I learned how to catch frogs.

I learned how to fish mudfish and catfish.

I learned how to play on haystacks.

And there too I heard the greatest valedictory address from our local high-school. It was delivered by Kaloy, the son of Temyong and Gunding. It is worth recording here because this speech has been my inspiration in writing and thinking.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Teachers, Classmates, Neighbors, Friends:

I am delivering this speech because I am the valedictorian in this senior class of year nineteen seventy three, in this honorable High School Institute. Being valedictorian means I have the best grade in class. Does that mean I am the smartest?

Never. Never. Never and more Never!

I am Kaloy. I have no brain bigger than yours. No imagination wilder than yours. No physique more special than yours.

My only difference is - I probably have more questions than you. And that’s the only thing that matters on earth. Life is so immeasurable there will always be something to ask about.

I have so many questions, searching for their answers made me appear smarter than most. I bet if you measure my IQ I have probably the lowest. Yet, my questions will keep me going beyond this high school, beyond this town, beyond this country, beyond this globe, beyond this universe. If you ask me, the saddest thinker in this town is one who thinks only about himself. And there are so many of them.

(Kaloy suddenly produces a newspaper)

Look at this reading material - look at how it thinks! The front page talks about what this politician did as it has been front paging the same politician’s acts since its founding. Turn its page and look at its commentaries - all of them generalities. Same lines, all about politics. Now look at how their generalities are determined! No facts, data, studies to back them up at all. One article would say we’re the poorest town on earth, the next article says we’re better off than the rest of our neighboring towns. Then, a lot of showbiz talks. Classifieds. Oh they try to write something about science somewhere, but there is no point reading fictional science.

(Kaloy brings out a book)

Look at this book! I don’t understand a word in it. It is an academic book about the elite using the language of most difficult English. Who the hell in this barrio would buy and read this book except the one who wrote it?

(Now the audience is really interested in Kaloy’s valedictory address. Why, even the runny noses of the kids seem to dry up temporarily.)

This is the problem with our town: we have this intense love for the language of English. And why are we so enamored by English? It is because we are intimidated by it. We are so afraid of English that we consider anyone who seem to have mastery over it as smart. We are so afraid of English we would take any generalization written by someone we think has a good command of it as a fact. We are so scared of English that Webster’s dictionary is the book we immediately open to assist us in reading a letter, or an English article, or a novel or a poem. Do not argue with me on this! In this town, we all believe the Dictionary is a holy book just like the Bible. We would be spending our time outdoing each other in the use of English if we can help it. Worst of all, we have delegated our thinking to people like journalists and fiction writers and worse, politicians because we think they know English better than us. Is it any wonder we’re going nowhere?

So now, I speak in English but I speak it as a tool to convey, not my object to convey. It is my tool to tell you what is in my heart, not to show you how good I use it. English isn’t something that will intimidate me I don’t give a shit if I use the worst grammar. But I would be scared if I tell you a generalization that is not backed up by truth. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to listen to my message from now on, not to my English command.

If I were meant to be a poet and fiction writer I would immerse myself into my subjective feelings embracing the beauty and the perfection of everything my soul could see. But I would not stop there.

I may enjoy sharing with you how I view things. But it is also my responsibility to describe them things to you for what they truly are. To illustrate my point, I’d say we all have a thousand and one ways to view the river of San Nicolas - for someone, it is a source of inspiration; for another, a source of beauty; for yet another, a source of livelihood; and for a real good somebody, a material for a long epic or novel. But pray tell, who would measure the river of San Nicolas for its width and length and volume? Who would go into its vastness to measure the bounds of its east and west and south and north? Who would swim in its flow to determine the creatures inhabiting it? Who would bring its water under the microscope and determine its molecular structure or its chemistry? Who would study its history and who would predict its future? Who would fly up in the air to know how it works? And who would engineer it to maximize its use for us? Who would spend his lifetime to study the science of the river of San Nicolas?

I do.

In college I’d like to become a scientist. I’d like to become an editor of a scientific journal. I’d like to write about the things in this town for what they truly are, because God reveals Himself in things He created. People who dismiss the reality of things are dismissing the reality of God.

That’s perhaps the reason why I don’t agree with our books and other reading materials. They tell us only different viewpoints, not realities. Tell me how you gather facts, don’t use high English words, just tell me bare facts. Tell me what’s wrong in this town and tell me how you arrive at your generalizations. A writer of sweeping generalizations based on his gut feelings do not have a space in any newspaper, unless his/her kind belong to the National Enquirer - and you know the kind of garbage-readers THAT newspaper produces. Too many opinion writers in a town is a sign of lazy writers, if not irresponsibility.

A town of good sense must have a lot of scientists who study the state of town affairs everyday, analyzing, testing, re-testing, repeating, re-checking everything. A person who, because he has a mastery of English language, would claim the town is bad and stops there is not only arrogant but is no different from an empty sardines can. I’d like more newspaper columns from real professionals, with real fields of expertise. I’d like scientific books not academic books. How hard is it really to consider a profession in technology and science in our town? How hard is it to compensate our scientists? How hard is it to encourage scientific inquiries and researches in this town? How hard is it to produce reading materials that tell us about the reality of this town? How long shall we be subjected everyday by these noisy politicians and lawyers and journalists of fiction and imagination who believe they alone can do the thinking for us?

I am sick of this endless, fact-less, opinionated, rumor-loving, reality-bashing, political-dividing, poor-apathetic, image-conscious, keeping-up-appearances, elite-worshipping, science-phobic, showbiz-enamored town. I am tired of it. I am tried of it. But a scientist would never be intimidated by this - this is another cancer that must be surgically excised. And that, my dear friends, begins with me. I will study hard. I will educate myself. I will re-educate myself.

Education is the key.

Kaloy has never finished college because of extreme poverty. He never became a science journal editor either because my town don’t believe in and publish such rubbish. Beside the River of San Nicolas, Kaloy has spent his lifetime watching the river. And the last time I visited, I saw him walking in the middle of the night with a lamp. Kaloy then climbed in his banca. I saw him pull out his notebook and write. I can’t wait to read what he has found and written so far about the River of San Nicolas. I can’t wait.

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