It all started with a report, the contents of which are rather boring and philo-ish for a happy, bouncy blog like mine. In a nutshell, our duty [or burden] for the day was to argue on the role of human laws in preserving morality in a community. That minus the context, the definition of terms and all the drama was the supposed to be the whole of our two hours.

And then after the reporters were finished reading, I asked something about the credibility of our lawmakers in assessing external moral influences to their constituents. It was that simple.

Until our professor started interpreting my question towards a scale that gobbled up things such as imposition of standards of decency and morality in a universal scale. Err.

Blablabla. There and there. All of us started blabbering about stuffs. The economics majors said something about marketing responsibility, the philo majors summoned Kant and everybody else in tombstones, and then the dying psych major in me uttered things like prejudice and associations.

Then, the most exciting sub-topic ever: What are the delineations of our laws in terms of the public or private sphere? How can the law hold true and be authoritative in highly private matters?

Which, in a greater level of specificity, translates to this: What can you say about the Metro Manila ordinance banning men who are half-naked in 'public places'? Is it right to go up to the extent that they are put to jail for 24 to 36 hours?

Somebody said in a public sphere, everyone has their own business, and so nobody can tell you to get a life and get a freaking t-shirt.

Somebody said it's something about our culture, challenge the ordinance, challenge the culture.

I said it's about prejudice, an ordinance rooted on prejudice and premature associations, that half-naked men equate to murderers and hoodlums for the prejudiced mind.

Somebody said I was exaggerating. It wasn't prejudice, it was 'negative association'.

I was kinda blown away by the euphemism and challenged his usage of the terms.

And then ate political science major, in all her bubbly persona, spoke: [this is not verbatim, just the gist, as I filtered it]

Half-naked men in public places should be banned. Why? Because the fact that they dress like that in a public domain is so offensive. Given that I have this certain level of tolerance on things like this, I might be offended, and so, it is just right to ban such offensive way of dressing.

Okay, ate. You're offended. And then I said:

But we have to ask, why should we even be offended? And why say that such offense on our part would reach to the extent that we allow these men to be punished and go to jail just because of being half-naked? Does being half-naked in public places pose any direct immediate harm to us so much so that we actually have to jail these half-naked men? How can you be offended then, what do you even mean by 'offensive'?

And then ate said:

Offensive..kumbaga..panget yung katawan niya..eh di ma-ooffend ka..

And that she said with an obvious attempt at breaking all the tension.


Everybody laughed. I was nearly gasping for air.


Translating that: Kung panget yung katawan at half-naked siya sa harap ko, then by all means, ikulong niyo siya!

Even Sir Valero laughed [I think], and fifteen minutes before that, he mimicked the pose of an FHM girl just to point out his thoughts on pornography, you know, with the outstretched arm, protruding chest and the horny face.

What a memorable day.

The Sunken Garden Essays


Part I: Thursday, Eternal Corn Cobs


There is this artificial jolt in the sight of corn cobs, drenched in fluid of an odd stain of orange, swirling in careless stirs and flipping about in every bouncy step.


Today, the corn cobs are practically the whole of my day. The snippets of time and the seconds that had passed, in a moment I never did foresee, had found their way in the memory of this cup full of corn cobs and orange whatchamacallit. Though I won't admit it, the fluid that had bathed these once rigid pellets are that of cheese, even if I protest that surely nothing as pleasurable as my idea of cheese would make my throat revolt in such prickling irritation. And after much spontaneous mechanisms of opening my mouth, moving my arm about and gyrating my tongue in zest, the cup is now empty, the corn cobs are far into its own mini-history and what is now left is this pool of murky fluid, pale through the translucent material, which I refuse to call cheese, or that which tastes like cheese.

Here is a cup, in front of me, resting upon a clutter of rotting leaves, remnants of trees that had died away,of bundles of earthly fibers and everything else, basically, resting upon an unremarkable small clutter of this earth. But moments ago, it was more than a memory, it was something so promisingly concrete, something I could grasp or fondle about and press against a whole building block of this puzzle we call 'our reality'. Now it's a memory, in my own memory.


I wonder if the people I had passed by, in my ecstatic task of walking to the Sunken Garden in empty strides, in meaningless gushes of breath, as I held the cup of corn cobs, had even noticed those tiny things now long gone. I wonder if they share my memory of this. Apparently in this universe indulged so much with its momentary awes and in its pretensions of 'a present', my corn cobs are nothing more than my 'claim of a history'.


I claim the existence of were-corn cobs, or the whole silent clump of it, perhaps because in fleeting seconds, it made me think that this noon was worth living for. But the meaning has now led to somewhere else, perhaps obscured by my engrossed absorption of a 'now', a 'now' where my corn cobs, my corn cobs of gustatory delight, are but memories.


Now I see a dragonfly, and I wonder how the world looks at it.

i nearly died yesterday.

sleep was heavy, and so instead of my preconceived image of me in UP by 6:30 am, i got up by 6:45, rushed in bathing, ran all the way to trinoma to ride the UP jeep and arrived tremendously [and relatively late] at 7:30 in that hot-as-hell summer morning.

the day before i arrived at a much later time, thanks to me and my stalking tendencies on a competitive DSL line. but as luck would have it, and since apparently, the universe is trying its best to like me, i easily snagged a slot in my much prayed for creative writing 10 class. it only took about 10 minutes of me wasting my life in a line of people, people desperately trying to adjust their existence in a discriminating, unaccommodating, overassuming educational system. and so while they wait in pursed lips and hopeful hearts, i look at them and question why they would not even scorn the system, revolt against the repressive ideologies that make us do this, this waiting in line thing under the hot sun, or within closed cramped spaces of cheap concrete and aged hallways. but since i am one with them in haggardly defining what would become of our lives as shaped by this university, i tried my best to hold on to my patience, thanks to my hearty conversations in bicol with a former school mate who dreams of a life in law school and to me and my efforts of teaching a Korean political science student to pronounce my name while telling her it's not really as ethnic as she thinks.

and after that thursday, much has happened, in this saga called enrollment, of UP students braving the searingly hot asphalt in cheap rubber or overrated havaianas. it was odd to look at a summer day with people going about with their lives, as if there was nothing so hot and punitive soaring above them, in flares of pain and in glares of deadly warmth.

the friday story was about me and my wishes for a decent physical education class. a class where i could have my mind turned off without me being bothered by the semi-death of my neurons while my muscles, nerves and my desire for a swimmer body get their fulfillment in surges of salty sweat and burnt skin. but before my body gratification, i opted to tickle my dormant sense of reason and chose to kill and revolt for a nice, satisfying philosophy class. and the result was three hours of locking myself up in the faculty center, enduring the blandness of the pale yellow paint, the faceless shoes, of dusty chuck taylors passing by as i breathed, semi-lying on the hallways. i never thought that philosophy classes could be done and all inside cramped rooms outside of my beloved palma hall. i stared in aghast as sir valero entered this pseudo-decent space and talked to 15 or so students about philosophical problems and the utilization of dialectics in solving dilemmas in ethics. and to top it all, i wasn't even in his class, there i was, begging for a slot, as i stood speechless with a head band tucked all the way against my sweat-laden hair. i looked at him and his passionate talk on the beauty of philosophical reasoning, and then i would switch glances towards that girl who fondled her phone all throughout, that guy who was scribbling something on a sheet, that lady swirling her manicured fingers on her bleached, ugly hair. and i told myself: i should have gotten their fucking slots.
and so after that i did get in his class. and he said something about moving to another room where everyone can breathe decently. and then i walked away, so much swallowed by this system, a system that laughs at tired limbs and disheartened souls walking around hallways like they were even cared for. but no.

before my attempts at an inclusion in an animate philosophy class, i braved through modern technological pretensions just to get myself enrolled. i never used an ATM, and it felt so much awkward when, in a sunshiny April morning, you are soaked in healthy morning sunlight as you avoid the glare while keying in your ATM pin code. then the machine would cough out and rough sounds go about, the morning's solemnity would be nudged by bills slipping through tiny slits in easy sways. but you know you won't be fooled by the convenience of it all. the morning was way, way better.

when they said UP was smart, they never really referred to the physical education department.

before i thought it was just me and my obstinate prejudices against things i innately abhorred. but now i realize nothing really was wrong about me. it's just PE. i want lawn tennis so i could run within court lines and hit balls while my arm muscles would twitch in violent mini-spasms and afterwards i could get arms as big as those of ubiquitous print ad models. but nobody every told me i need to collide head on with the muddy logic of a PE instructor. and so i thought that the physical hell of the enrollment process was hell enough, there i was falling deeper into the pits of mental nullity, inside the physical education faculty room.and yes, as sad as it may seem, there would be no perfect summer class for me. all i could ever get, [and all i did] were my creative writing classes at nine and me running like mad for my philosophy 120 class right after. no more PE to complement summer's heat generators. it would just be me and my brain, and this neat UP community fried in mad [but beautiful] waves of hell.

first off, the 'go for the palanca' plea isn't working at all. days have passed and all i ever did during this boring summer vacation were net lazying, wholesome daydreaming and reassessing what i have been doing for the last 17 years of my life, which, of course, is kinda haggard. thank you very much.


nothing much bothers me lately, except of course, that damned, effing CRS made by satan's spawns! imagine me, patiently enlisting in 9 or so subjects, choosing the most arduous PE's i could, dreaming of a happy, jumpy philo class for the summer. and all i get is ZERO enlisted unit. go to hell you scums of earth CRS people, get a more productive, more people-loving career! i take that back. [smiley] of course i LOOOVE crs. they make me happy.


i have my grades now up in CRS. and they were as how i expected them to be. except my grrrrruesome math. i was expecting something two notches higher. math profs are really not the holy types. i still need my grades for art studies 2 and south east asia 30 to see if i can still gun for that 1.29 GWA. this is just soooo sad. i can't believe this is all because of math! i could have gotten flat ones for evrrrrrything. ugh. bitter. but still, it could have been worse.


happy summer everyone.


i am so bored i want the summer classes to start right NOW.