Musings on holy weeks past

Black Saturday, 23 April 2011


As a child living in a rural area during the early 80s, I have witnessed and even partook on some of the old customs practiced by people in a Catholic country like the Philippines when the Holy Week arrived.

Before transferring to the housing compound in an aquaculture research facility where my parents worked, our family stayed in the center of a small town in a small municipality populated by die-hard Catholics and a small congregation of Seventh Day Adventists. It was a town where everyone knew each other, and was predominantly composed of old folks well over the age of 50. In our neighborhood alone there were a total of more than five people my parents addressed as either 'Tay' or 'Lola', titles of respect for elders.

Our elderly landlady was an Adventist who owned an impressive gallery of illustrated children's biblical books I enjoyed browsing and reenacting to everyone's amusement (Especially the David and Goliath duel. I tried fashioning a makeshift slingshot that ended up shooting a large rock straight into the Adventist church's glass window next door). At least in these books, a clear demarcation of good and evil existed and illustrated clearly enough for a 5 or 6 year old to understand, simply by looking.

Sitting on the wall of the Adventist Church, early 80s

Somehow all that Biblical reference balanced whatever fears I had about the reality of supernatural evil that I also found in great abundance in my father's equally vast comic book collection (I was five. Imagination runs rampant at that age.) that featured creatures you won't find in any issues of Kerygma or Bible Weekly anytime soon. Jesus Christ was up there with Knight Rider, Luke Skywalker, and The Incredible Hulk as the defender of truth, justice and the safety of your very soul before being relegated regrettably, many many years after, more as an expression of exasperation.

That knowledge somehow made me one of the most devout Catholics during that time, complete with prayers before meals as well as bedtime. And when Holy Week arrived, I also observed the proper protocols. That meant no boisterous noise from activities like outdoor playing, loud music/TV, and abstinence on eating meat. I even opted for not actually taking a bath on good Friday but my mother, an academician that leaned towards liberal thinking forbade it. All these activities because the elderly told me that Christ is dead at this time: and that the forces of darkness are at full power because of this.

Talk about absent security. I spent the next few years always armed to the teeth with a crucifix, wooden stake, cloves of garlic and salt during Good Friday and Black Saturday. A little dose of paranoia never hurt anyone. 

All of that information I had gathered from either our house maid, my father's stories on what his terror of a grandmother forced upon him and his siblings during the Lenten season, and the people on the streets I asked as to why several people were being paraded on the road torturing themselves by flailing their backs with a nasty barbed object that produced tiny rivulets of blood every time it hit bare flesh. 

It was a surreal experience. Shirtless men with covered faces and bloody backs; I think it was the face covers that actually did it: a hood totally covering the entire face and makeshift crowns made out of assorted leaves and branches that were no doubt inspired by Christ's thorn-version he wore all the way to Golgotha.

Flagellants in the Philippines, uncredited photo

And it was always a big deal. People were actually lining up along the road, waiting for the penitents to pass by, and some of them were actually carrying huge crosses where they'll be crucified, no doubt. God knows what kind of sins these people were so desperate of purging from their system that they believed they needed to resort to extreme acts like this. But who am I to question a Judeo-Christian tradition that existed thousands of years, anyway. To each his own method of appeasing the soul. 


Now that I'm an elderly cranky old man I am highly dubious of these people's motivations in doing what they do. Somehow I suspect it's not too far off from some Christian fundamentalists' suck up stance toward salvation ("Do you love God?! I have accepted Christ! I am saved! I am loved! Hello Julia!"). Yeah, nice try in accepting the savior only to smirk at hell-bound sinners who does not share your sentiments. Nice display of tolerance and compassion.


The brutal penitents, in the meantime, are probably shady characters with too much religious conditioning on the brutal God of the Old Testament that demanded equal suffering to crimes committed against his fellow man. Not that everyone who does that is actually some homicidal maniac or a thieving pederast but one has to wonder about the motivation behind such agonizing self-mutilation. 


One thing about them though, is that they actually put a lot of conviction to the term 'penance'. Not a lot of people with that kind of intense single-minded determination nowadays.

D-7 Siganid St.

Moving day

The House, Summer 1986

It was an awesome sight. After a few years living in a dark (subterranean as my uncle put it) residence in town, this large and bright looking house surrounded by vast rice fields, right next to a a kindergarten school I just graduated from, and vegetation looks just about right for me. I remembered the crates and cartons being unloaded and the smell of the new residence. The white tiles on the floor, faucets in every corner, electric sockets in every corner, and best of all, two bathrooms with a toilet bowl equipped with a flushing mechanism, and a shower. The smell of Albatross long disintegrated still lingering in the dry and empty bathrooms. And a bathroom mirror as well. From where we used to live, igib, tabo't timba was a way of life.

The bedrooms were equally impressive. To a boy used to a single bedroom with walls made out of plywood so thin you can practically use it as a substitute for paper when you ran out of materials to draw with, a real bedroom was overwhelming. Even the maid's quarters look pristine comapred to the one we've had before. There was a Jesus Christ poster left hanging in one of the cabinets. And a faint smell of rugby, and a little dust. And those circular flourescent lights I only get to see at the medical unit---I always associate them with Dr Garay---and all the lights in the house were exactly like those. Fascinating.

I went outside to check out the terrain. Lots of grass and plants. Perfect for my grasshopper catch and torture hobby. Ant-lions under the bedroom windows as well. I went to check the nearby chico tree for the large variety of ants called 'pala' in the local dialect. Check. I caught one and fed an ant lion larva with the biggest crater. Then I noticed the dogs on the other side of the bamboo fence. A lot of them. In varying breeds as well. One mean-looking mongrel with about the same height as I did eyed me the way a lion probably eyes a gazelle. Good thing I hated dogs. I had to stay out of that one's radius if I want to survive the rest of my stay in this new neighborhood.

I went to the street in front of the house. It was not paved like the ones we have passed going here. I didn't care. I went to the direction of the huge water tank in the west, still mindful of the dogs. A small cute looking white-furred member of the pack managed to squeeze through one of the openings and accompanied me in my walk. for some reason I liked this one more than I ever loved dogs and welcomed the company. I passed by a house in my right, just behind the kindergarten building. It was empty, but there was a native monkey tied by its neck above a tamarind tree. It was screeching at me. Probably remembered me when I threw rocks at it with my classmates in Kinder 1&2. Had it been able to speak I'm sure it would make a Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant proud with the kind of pep talk it would probably give me. The house on the left was inhabited. I saw a mocha-colored VW Beetle parked in a more sophisticated looking garage. 

I reached the end of the road and stood there gaping at the wide open space I did not experience when I lived in the center of the small town. Me, Kit and Jute would have a blast with those Ninja and Tarzan moves we discussed before.

The dog wandered somewhere and I realized i still needed to unpack my comic book collection. Going back, I deduced my father had already unpacked some of his own things as well. 

I can already hear Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" this far from the house.

RIP NIN : Enter Trent Reznor

A few minutes that felt like hours after Pupil finished their set I had this sudden panic attack that perhaps Trent Reznor and Co. had bailed out of the entire proceedings without so much as a "fuck off" to their fans who waited for NIN to come to the Philippines with probably more enthusiasm than the second coming of the almighty himself. The thing about rock stars (Reznor wouild cringe at this description) is that their unpredictability is also what makes their music so compelling in the first place. I'm a big fan but i doubt if I'll be able to forgive him had he pulled that kind of stunt. I mean 1k isn't something I can pick anytime from a tree after all. Even the hairy bearded guy who sat in front of us (me, my wife, and my sister-in law) who gave the impressioin of a calm composed individual shattered all preconceived notions when he yelled "TAMA NA YANG ILAW!!! GO NAAAA!!!!" So much for first impressions. I just reminded myself how big a perfectionist Reznor is. From the countless interviews I've read about the guy, they never fail to highlight the man's obsession about meticulousness. That Reznor never fails to accomplish something once he puts his mind into it. One interview with a former employer when was still a handyman for a recording studio put it more simply: "When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great." So I just waited for the strobe lights to be tweaked a little more. Better safe than sorry.

Then the lights dimmed and the crowd gave a collective howl of anticipation; and just as the strobe lights behind the stage blared at full blast along with the first bars of "Somewhat Damaged", the dark lord of industrial marched toward the mic and grabbed it with both hands like he was gonna strangle it, and loomed toward the lucky audience members in front with the more expensive tickets. He may have aged, but the vitriol in his performance has all the menace and swagger of a rock behemoth that gives contemporary moron 'rock' stars half his age a run for their money as far as performing with brass balls and musical innovation is concerned.

We were seated in upper box b, so the view wasn't that spectacular. Good thing they were selling those handy cardboard binoculars for only P50 a piece so we got to see the band a little more clearly. Reznor's look nowadays is a far cry from the long-haired and lanky alternative-era doomsayer who popularized songs about self-destruction, unsavory sexual practices and suicide; even penning one of the most recognizable choruses in pop culture history courtesy of "Closer", off 1994's The Downward Spiral. That song, incidentally, may also be NIN's most popular as well. I assume it is, because when the opening beats for that song came on, the audience just went crazy. The man who performed last Wednesday was buffed and sporting a close cropped hair and looking every bit like a man in his mid-40s might look. If you didn't know the guy you'd probably assume he's the band manager instead of the singer. But when he screamed "Too fucked up to care anymore!!!", you'd agree that no manager in this planet can do that with as much conviction as he did.

What followed was a set that was simultaneously loud, brutal but soft, and even gentle and pristine in some parts. The stun-volume favorites were there: Gave Up, March Of The Pigs, Wish and Head Like A Hole. But in my opinion the most arresting bits were the less-than famous ambient/instrumental tracks taken off the little known 1999 release The Fragile. Notably the ocean-filled imagery of La Mer. That was certainly enough to give everyone pause, specially first-timers who probably thought thrashing and abrasive music are only things the band knew how to do. And the lighting that Mr Morose was complaining about earlier added to the atmosphere of every song (I think he came around it at the end; he was utterly stunned.). It had the same loud-soft dynamics that the band continously hammered the audience with. They even performed covers of David Bowie and Joy Division. With the latter also featured in the OST of The Crow way back in '94. They ended the set with 'Hurt'. A perfect epilogue to a historic tour that I'm sure won't happen again. In that regard all who watched it were very lucky.

NIN belongs to my generation, and I am proud because of it.

Pink ribbon scars, that never forget

Summer 1993, in dreams…

It's always around April, mid-afternoon, somewhere around 4 or 5. The time of the day when everything's in golden hues and the landscape is colored brown filled with occasional patches of green and the royal blue sky is clear and slowly giving in to dusk’s red light. The streets are filled with young mothers, nannies and little kids, engaged in their own animated games and conversations. Among them is your sister who just started her academic life as a kindergarten student, playing with her friends Mandie and Honey. 


You’re inside the house listening all day to the radio. Enjoying alternative tunes and feeling like a real sophisticated adult for appreciating something that’s supposed to be an ‘alternative’ to the ‘stupid’ posturing of pop, not knowing it’s the same movement perpetuated by the very same entities who gave you the pop music you abhor with passion. 


You wander outside and go west towards the direction of the huge water tank, and the breeze is cool and dusty and smells of dried grass, hay, an unknown but familiar sweet-smelling blossom, and the slightest hint of dried cow dung. 


Walking past the Ematas and the Eusebios, you find yourself at the end of the cement road in the middle of a large field that used to have been rice paddies up until the late 80s but are now just barren soil used to grow assorted crops like squash, watermelons and a wide variety of weeds. 


You take a deep breath as you stare at the setting sun just beyond the huge tank looming in the opposite side. 


A sense of tranquility flows over you and a feeling of relief that you survived the first year of high school with just a few bumps and bruises. You go over your game plan for the next school year to show everyone how serious you really are with studying. And you're filled with intense pride at the thought of what you can accomplish in the coming years while in school. 


Until your little sister suddenly yells from afar to break you out of an almost drunken stupor; ordered no doubt by your mother to have you summoned for a little housework. You sigh and use your walking stick to poke a paleolithic-looking creature resting in the crevice of a large cement drainage. It won't budge. 


You glance at the receding rays of the sun one last time and head home.

A long time ago...in a geek convention far far away

I consider myself a true Star Wars fan.

Although I'm not a total dweeb who flaunts his geekdom by flooding the house with anything from C-3PO and R2-D2 lunchboxes to those uber-expensive 'realistic' lightsaber toys and whine and moan at what George Lucas did to my beloved series by butchering what was left of it. Nor will you find me in forums arguing with other hardcore fans as to why Jar-Jar Binks's presence in Episode 1 isn't all that putrid; or why Han Solo, and not Boba Fett, is the coolest character to have come out of that universe. I look at it the way I look at other films I admire. Just a movie, and not a blueprint on how to live your own life. I'm constantly amazed at the passion some fans show every time I come across anything on the net that is remotely attached to the series. You'd even read arguments that give an impression that if the two debaters see each other in person, they'll go after each other's throats with extreme prejudice. Fascinating really, considering what they're arguing about to the point of threatening old testament-style wrath to each other is only the figment of one man's imagination. 

A typical scholarly debate on a certain topic:

JediMasterKen: COUNT DOOKU CAN'T BEAT DARTH MAUL EVEN IF HE MASTERED MAKASHI (FORM II) TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE. MAUL HAS MORE EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER SITH MARTIAL ARTS LIKE JAR-KAI. NOT TO MENTION HE'S ALSO YOUNGER AND MORE AGGRESSIVE.

Darth Bored: I DISAGREE. MAKASHI REQUIRES INTENSE CONCENTRATION AND FOCUSED ATTUNEMENT TO THE FORCE. NOT TO MENTION HE WAS ALREADY A FORMIDABLE JEDI LIGHTSABER DUELIST BEFORE HE WAS EVEN A SITH LORD. DARTH SIDIOUS DID NOT EVEN BOTHER TO TEACH HIM ADVANCED LIGHTSABER TECHNIQUES BECAUSE HE ALREADY KNEW TYRANUS(DOOKU) WAS ONE OF THE UNIVERSE'S BEST SWORDSMAN. HE WAS SO GOOD HE DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO RELY ON THE FORCE WHEN HE ENGAGED IN LIGHTSABER COMBAT. REMEMBER MAUL LOST TO AN APPRENTICE (OBI-WAN).

I don't think I need to show where this conversation leads to. Arguments like these can be compared to a religious or political debate. It's an argument with no end. Nobody wants to back down. And when all logic, fact, and reason fails, everyone resorts to personal attacks.

But what really amazes me about it is where the hell did these people get that kind of information? Fanficition maybe, but to speak about it like it was as real as describing how the flushing mechanism in the toilet bowl works is a bit unnerving. I'm sure it wasn't discussed in the movie, and I was also pretty sure that Maul could kick Dooku's ass based from what I saw, but upon seeing the other guy's very enlightening exposition, I was impressed. 

Do people like these really take the movie THAT seriously? Although you'd also hear these kind of heated arguments from LOTR or D&D fans, it is not as attention-grabbing because you know the so-called facts they throw at each other were taken from books and novels. What separates Star Wars though, is that it was a movie before some materials of it were adapted in book form (most are children's storybooks and novelization of the series), and that the movies didn't even cover half of what the two geniuses above are arguing about.

I have complaints about the movies myself--especially Lucas's take on pumping a vat full of steroids in the original trilogy (IV-VI) and dubbed them "Special Editions". Not only were the "upgraded" scenes useless, but totally looked artificial and only alienated scores of fans and myself from the original feel and nostalgia of the classics. What made the original movies classics were their imperfection. Other than that, the newer installments were not bad. 

The problem with movies like these is that every fan feels like he can do a better job than the people who created it. Some people felt like they died just because the author/director did not take the film the way they wanted it to go. Take it a little more higher in the obsessive scale and you'd have a person not unlike the Stephen King villain in 'Misery'. It's either that, or the 40-Year Old Virgin.

The Vermillion Skull Grinned

"...but what about the butterflies...?" --U.P.


"...but what about the snakes...?" --T.L.


*Debate between two professors over the issue of clearing the thick vegetation at the back of their dorm. (UP, Miag-ao)


I heard my former professor back in college is now a resident of the very famous institution in the western part of Mandaluyong. No less than my sister confirmed this as she also belongs to the same college as I did--as well as the professor. I guess fate really does catch up with all of us sooner or later.

I heard a lot of horror stories about Ms. Panama (not her real name) when I was still a freshman; about how she conducted lectures that would make the March Hare and The Mad Hatter proud and her natural predisposition for terrorizing unfortunate students who offended her sensibilities. The way she conducted her classes was based on her template that all students on the quest for knowledge should work hard for it. Ergo, you do all the research that you think is vital for this course: If you're taking English I (basic communication skills), then find any books that's related to the subject, then create a --in her own words--"well organized compilation" of what you learned and submit it at the end of the semester. Bibliographic entries/list of no less than 50 books from the library was required during the first week to see if the students knew what they were looking for. I submitted 50 titles of rock albums just to submit something (using the library at UPV was like killing people for the cause of preserving life). i.e: Corgan, William Jr.,Basic Communication. (1993), Smashing Pumpkins Press. See if she can see that.

The way I saw it, however, was that it was an elaborate excuse not to perform actual lectures every meeting so she could indulge in her sadistic hobby of persecuting students she didn't like. She did check the attendance and asked questions related to the subject every now and then, but not to gauge how much her students (subjects, actually) knew, but to humiliate anyone unfortunate enough to be called who doesn't possess any strand of wit or sophistication to answer in kind. Most of whom were gays, the token promdis (country bumpkins) and token kikays (sassy women). She had no tolerance for homosexuals (gays, lesbians, bis) but I found what really made her furious beyond belief were the kikays. One girl she found wearing makeup in class got a taste of the teacher from hell reputation when she was told to wipe all the colors off her face. Natural beauty, she said, needs no artificiality to conceal it. The promdis, she admonishes without mercy but does it in a seemingly helpful way. Mild sarcasm comes to mind, if there is such a term. 


I remember one time she called a timid-looking girl who was obviously not from any city--she looked panicky and nervous everytime, one suspects she's mumbling every prayer just to be ignored by everyone especially her professor. This time, however, the Gods turned a deaf ear. Everything, from her footwear to the way she tied her hair weren't spared. This, the prof did in a "nice way". Simon Cowell from American Idol seemed polite and considerate in comparison.

Ms. Panama belongs to the old-world conservative thinking I'd like to associate with the movie Pleasantville where everyone was expected to behave a certain way to give the viewers a semblance of a normal and happy life. Either that or the uptight and humorless aristocratic Victorian-era highbrow pompousness one can always see in caricatures (i.e. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) from all sorts of pop culture references. The total lack of tolerance for others who do not fit into the mold of how anyone is supposed to behave and act jumped at me when I was her student.


Back then I already sensed something was slightly off-kilter. It was just a matter of time when the rigidity becomes too much for everything to break.