Barrio Stories and Other Tales

Barrio

Gabun



I am sitting in my little corner now, dreaming pinoy; I am trying to remember the many stories I heard spoken in my town; stories from the people of the soil, the poor Pinoys; my relatives would neither read nor understand what I am writing, though they were the ones who told these stories; it doesn't matter, I'm writing these because I want to cherish the many lessons I learned from them.

My grandfather, in his senility would come to me every now and then to ask who I was; I'd say "I am your grandson Apu".

He'd ask in surprise, "Am I that old? Where are we?"

He's lost again, he could not find his way back home; I 'd say, "Apu, look at the acacia tree."

I knew that upon seeing the acacia tree at the intersection of our town's Crossing Road and National Highway, he'd remember everything.

"It's that damn kapre again. He's playing tricks with my brain", and he'd walk close to the acacia tree which had the widest trunk among all the trees in our town; he then would turn his shirt inside-out, a way to outsmart the kapre, he believed - Apu died without seeing his son, my uncle Ising, who died before him; Apu had never forgiven himself for what he did to my uncle Ising; when uncle Ising was young, he was found to be gay and Apu threw him out of the window; my uncle Ising never showed his face in town again, until forty years later when he returned dying of tuberculosis and heart condition; nobody told Apu about the death of uncle Ising, for fear Apu might mourn till death( which was what exactly happened). You know how small towns are, secrets get known no matter how hard you try to suppress them. Upon learning of uncle Ising's death, Apu simply chose to die himself -" I'd like to see Ising in the other world," he confided to my mother - "and there I'd make him forgive me."

Uncle Ising's forty years was not long compared to Apu's brother Simo who reappeared in town after sixty years. I did not even know Apu had a brother named Simo. Simo was almost eighty-one years old when he returned.

Simo was the one who told the story I am about to share with you....

One day he saw me desperately cultivating a garden; I was intent in building a plot for my pechay vegetables. I was sweaty but I barely lifted the soil with my hoe.

Simo said, child, do you know what you're doing?

I am building a vegetable plot.

I can see that. But what made you build it?

All I knew at that time was I had this intense desire to make things grow, like, watching a seed emerge from the soil to produce a big leafy pechay. I was fascinated by growing things. I was not able to say these to Simo though, I did not have enough language to express myself.

Simo picked up soil in his hand, a brown, freshly baked-by-worms soil. He sniffed it for the longest time. "This soil", he said, "I want you to remember this soil for the rest of your life."

What he said afterwards would get stuck to my brain until this day - "We are children of soil, we will always be attached to this soil. This soil will call us, will summon us, will build us, will destroy us, will make us walk away from it, will make us return to it. Look at it child, smell it, every little thing in this is made up of you and me and the rest of our history."

And Simo went on telling the story of Pedro Lingo.

"There was Pedro Lingo who lived the most successful life in this side of town many many years ago, I was a kid then, the Kastilas were still around. He was the son of native farmers whose farmers' poverty did not stop him from progressing into one of the most handsome, intelligent, ambitious men from here. He became highly educated through hard work and perseverance. He became a gobernadorcillo-general - the first native gobernadorcillo-general of this country. By being poor yet reaching the highest position in the land, he defied the status quo of this nation: and for that, he was resented by all - first by the elite, because they could not consider a native provinciano be upgraded to their level, how can he, who ate with bare hands food on banana leaves, share the same table with us?; his fellow poor farmers distrusted and resented him for his success, and when they saw him mingling with the elite, the more they abhorred and forsook him; Pedro Lingo became the saddest Pinoy provinciano; almost every night, he cried.

But he was an idealist.

"Pedro Lingo above all, was a son of the soil. He was once got tempted to play the games of the elite of this country. To be diverted from idealism was so easy in this country, where politicians consider lawmaking as a game among semi-kings and semi-queens. The House of Law was a private playground - what passed around weren't great debates and discussions and investigations and laws geared to uplift the well-being of this nation, what passed around was an interplay of he said - she said - they said accusations and innuendos, and offense-defense politics; the whole land was just subjected to a long soap opera without a beginning and ending, while the people kept dying each day, no food, no health, no jobs, no hope for the future...all they had were politicians being paid in the millions to say, "I didn't do it!" How pathetic can a nation get? How low can a nation stoop?

"Pedro Lingo one day stood in front of these politicians and told them - I am here my friends to tell you that there are 70,000,000 people in the land. There are twenty-four lawmakers who must represent them. Each lawmaker is the voice of 2,916,666 persons, and if forty percent of them live below poverty line, 1,166,666 of those eat only once a day. I wonder if you have thought how a child who eats only once a day feels. I wonder if you know how a father who lost a job today feels, now faced by the prospect of feeding his family with nothing in his pocket. I wonder if you have inquired the contents of the heart of a penniless mother trying to heal her child by a soothing voice and gentle massage because she can't afford to buy medicine. I will not be able to sleep at night if I were you! Every minute that you spend doing nothing for your constituents make you an accessory to murder. For every child that dies, for every family that gets hungry, for every mother that builds another coffin because you did not treat his or her plight with a sense of urgency has an accusing finger pointing at you. The soil is splitting open crying to you. The soil is recording what you do, the soil will never forgive you if you fail the people created out of the soil's bowel.

"Forgive me for criticizing you but as much as it is important that you must have no dirt in your hands as you steer this nation, it is likewise prudent to keep your digging of each others' dirt secondary to the needs of this nation and people. Proving your cleanliness can wait, what can't wait is the needs of our people. Do not embroil yourselves in this game, in this isolated playground, it is tempting to see only each other's dirt in an isolated playground like this but, please look out of the windows and you'd see millions asking for your sense of urgency. And to those who are accused - a clean person just lets everything out in the air, there is no need to spend so much lawmaking time defending, counter-attacking, explaining. A lot of money is wasted on that. And a lot of money is wasted too in digging. I hope what you dig will be worth more than what you spent digging. There had been so many months already since you converged in this lawmaking House and I cannot see anything for the people of the soil that came out of you. My impression is that you converged in this playground as leaders only to become like children playing hide and seek. That is my impression. And I hope I am wrong. And that is the impression of the many people around the world.

"I will be here waiting and watching, I don't care about you and your little games. I care about the people like the ones I left in my town who until this day cannot find means to improve their situations. I don't care about your money or your claim to fame or your beauty or your intelligence or your self-control, even your religion. I came out of the soil to protect the soil and everything out of the soil. I just want to come back to my town one day and see my soil smiling back at me. That is the greatest triumph for me, to have the soil take me back with a happy face."

And Simo led me to the cemetery which was behind our house. "See," he pointed to me a grave's lot with the name Pedro Lingo, "here is the man of the soil."

Simo said that Pedro Lingo completed his term but stopped pursuing politics afterwards. The reason for this was because the rulers of the land hated him. His platform was meant to reduce their wealth and to share that wealth to the poor. They called him a Rebel. A Tulisan.

The soil called him back and he became a farmer. The soil told him not to divert his attention from the very reason why he was born.

"When he died one summer," Simo said, "it rained. In this town, it never rains in summer. And when the soil was dug to lay him down, the soil bled like a wounded skin. At his burial, the rivers were suddenly filled with fish jumping out of the water, the flowers bloomed even when it was not season to bloom.

"You see, this is our soil. It is no different from you and me because we came from it, fed by it, will return to it. And only the soil will remember..."

About Simo.....

After his death, I learned he was already announced dead after world war two's death march, on their way to Tarlac, he jumped off the cliff - he'd rather die embracing the soil than being executed by soldiers. He survived but for sixty years he did not know who he was, he did not remember.

Alex Maskara

Barrio Tales