Year 2004-2005

Barrio Tale: Reality
Now you see the face of my barrio, it is Sitio Crossing in Lubao. It is a place I still call home. It is my address in the Philippines. It is where I was born. It is where I grew up. It is where I learned to listen and talk and think and communicate. It has a face - the reason it is called Crossing is because it used to be a railroad crossing. We all lived in 'homes along the riles' until the railroad vanished and the location became a typical barrio. Nowadays it's just another place occupied by a mixture of locals and migrants and squatters and yeah, much bigger population.

And I both love and hate it everytime I go home. I love it because I meet the old faces I used to know. And I hate it because there are now new faces I do not know.

And it preplexes me too as I picture it now: how the innocent kids I used know get their names published in newpapers as shabu drug addicts - it surprises me because I remember them kids always crying, naked, barefooted, impoverished like I was, always young kids.

And reality slaps my face.

I realize yeah, it has been many many years since I left. They too grew old, got families and partook in the vices and crimes of the world.

And the face of my barrio is becoming real. I am opening my window to witness them kids now old, lined on the street, being arrested and investigated. They no longer cared about the shame their arrests have brought to their families. Who think of honor and integrity now in a barrio blown to pieces by poverty?

But I am not one who would defend a drug user, it is good they are arrested now before they turn Lubao into a Medellin cartel.

But I don't want to think how bad the barrio turned out to be, I am still here and I ain't bad at all. There are many of us who ain't bad at all.

So I continue my stories the way my mother told her stories. Full of drama and color and romance. One night she told us her children about the spinster Apung Rosang.

She said the reason Apung Rosang became a spinster was because during the War, her fiancee Apung Bining got killed by the Japanese. My mother said,

"Just the thought of her standing by the road waiting for the soldiers of Death March to pass by...she was weeping calling for Apung Bining. Oh you must see her young tormented beautiful face, covered with black lace of sorrow, hidden from the brutal Japanese, whispering in tears Bining...Bining..." And my mother would wipe away tears rolling down her face.

While in the backyard my father is cursing, "You better stop that lie of a story you're telling your children, you liar of a whore," he says to my mother. In a rough voice he adds, "Apung Rosang is a spinster because she is ugly. No man in the barrio would court her. And Apung Bining is still alive hiding from her, I too would choose to die in the Death March if she were the last living woman on earth."

And my parents would fight over their opposing versions of Apung Rosang the spinster story.



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Cops raid drug den in Lubao, Pampanga

Pampanga police on Monday swooped down on a suspected drug den in Lubao town, where five people were arrested while allegedly taking the banned substances, DZMM reported.

Supt. Edwin Mangaliman, Lubao police chief, identified the owner of the house as Romeo Luis, 40 and a resident of sitio Crossing, Sto. Tomas, Lubao.

Cops confiscated sachets of methamphetamine crystals (shabu) and marijuana from Luis and the four others.

The other suspects were identified as Elmer Ocampo, 35, Asia Mikaela Simon, 19, Angelito Abril, 26, and Elena Makatulo, 33, all residents of sitio Quezon in Sta. Cruz, Lubao.

An investigation into the incident is underway, police said.

--radio DZMM, taken from www.abs-cbnnews.com 3/7/2005--



This is the exact place I am talking about. I recognize the names of at least two of the young men arrested. They were just innocent boys, young kids when I left the Philippines. I can not believe how they turned into these. I know their parents and brothers and sisters. I rarely hear about my sitio Crossing Sto.Tomas in the news, but here it is. My barrio and the ones I knew are totally dead.