Razul A. Ariz

Death is the opposite of life. Yet many people live as though already dead, while death itself remains what many fear the most. Often, it is avoided whenever it surfaces in conversation.

When death visits, it leaves pain, grief, sorrow, and scars that never truly disappear. They heal, yet continue swelling quietly within us, bound to be carried for the rest of our lives. Indeed, death is fearful, but perhaps it is also death that reminds humans what it means to be alive.

More than the death of the physical body, I see death everywhere—moving from place to place, slowly devouring the heart, hope, and dignity of people succumbing to their own demise. These deaths ripple outward and threaten the existence of the living.

As a child, I remember how I was always afraid when the news of certain deaths circulated in the community. In my memory, death indexes many signifiers:  the piercing scream of bakwè, birds of omen; the dead calm of trees under windless skies; the sepia reflection of kabamulawág during dusk; the herald of an undulated white pandala; the column of smoke from the bagaluganán; the mujawadah Qur’anic recitation of Abdulbasit echoing from afar; the chattering noises and cry of lamenting mourners; the sound of ripped unúng or sáput prepared for the máyat; the distant roar of chainsaws; funeral processions crossing the road; and graves dug six feet beneath the earth along with prayers from loveones packed into the crumpled mudballs, sealed with coconut slabs that would bury the story of a person into forgotten land.

Death visited me many times. The first time, it tormented me with unbearable pain. The second time, it numbed me so deeply that I could no longer cry or sympathize whenever I encountered it. Yet perhaps this is what I fear most—not death itself, but becoming numb and apathetic toward life.

That is not who I am—I am not numb nor apathetic. I was raised in a household that upholds justice, humility, and respect. Whatever sense of compassion I possess, I owe it to my parents.

I grew up in Palimbang, one of the coastal municipalities of Sultan Kudarat. Our place has witnessed bloodshed and historical violence firsthand. It carries the scars of injustices rooted in imperial Manila and in the long history of dispossession in Mindanao.

I came from a family of Ilocano-Magindanawn farmers, scarce in resources yet rich in wisdom and principle. My paternal lineage traces back to the government-sponsored intra-ethnic resettlement program in Mindanao during the post-colonial period. What pains me most is that these movements unfolded alongside the Massacre in Malisbong. Reading Fahmiya Dimakilang’s Dig Your Own Grave awakened me to the brutality inflicted upon our people. It helped me understand why many from our older generation carried commitments to liberation movements and why memory remains deeply political among Bangsamoro communities.

Back in 2019, there were attempts to weaponize writing and frame the massacre as a hoax, even at the expense of survivors’ testimonies. In 2022, history repeats itself, but this time it’s not the usual tragedy but a farce. Our people seem to have historical amnesia for accommodating the late dictator’s son and giving them a seat in national power along with the daughter of the former president, who administered the same state-sponsored impunity and allowed the cadaver of the brutal dictator to be laid on the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Witnesses say that the Tacbil masjid, where the Malisbong massacre took place, soaked in bloodbath even after they wiped it out many times every Friday over the years after the massacre. It seems like the blood of the victims was poetically calling for justice. If so, may those streams of blood flood and asphyxiate those who failed and continuously fail them with endless guilt.

It was then that I realized the importance of writing. That writing should always be political—and is never neutral. For indeed, writing can erase, distort, and silence. But writing can also resist forgetting. It can document truths that power wishes to bury.

Over time, I immersed myself in writing through reading books despite their inaccessibility in our community. Writing became my refuge. It made me feel safe, validated, and visible.

I don’t exactly remember when I first became drawn to writing. But one afternoon during Kindergarten, Ámà burst into laughter after seeing my notes. There, I had written “Abukantol,” a playful fusion of abukado and santol, simply to maximize the remaining space on my paper. He laughed not to mock me, but out of amusement. Perhaps, even then, he sensed something growing in me.

Growing up, Ínà and Ámà never failed to nurture our curiosity. In the absence of books, we had alingà. I loved listening to their stories. At night, they would tell us tales of fantasy, adventure, comedy, and ordinary life in exchange for massages to ease their exhaustion from farm work. Those stories shaped my imagination long before I encountered literature in classrooms.

Eventually, television arrived, and the practice of alingà slowly faded from our household and from my own memory until it faced its own kind of death too.

My writing journey formally began in high school. It was Ámà who taught me how to express my thoughts in writing. I experimented with poems, fascinated by rhythm, rhyme, and the playfulness of language. I even wrote acrostic stories heavily influenced by Wattymanian culture and high schooler idealism.

Deep inside, I knew I had the capacity to write, yet my impostor syndrome prevented me from claiming that label. In college, I once wrote an eco-poetry piece that received a backhanded compliment from a professor. A remark was made saying that the piece sounded familiar, as though it had already been written elsewhere. Much of the speculation came from the fact that I had mispronounced a word while reading it to them aloud. A word that I only learned from reading. I felt both flattered and wounded because I knew the piece was my own.

My relationship with writing changed further in college when we were tasked with composing poems using our first language. I wrote mine in Magindanawn, and after posting it online, it unexpectedly gained traction on social media.

Before this, I always placed the English language and Western literary culture on the highest pedestal. Whenever I wrote, everything became Anglicized—the characters, the settings, the worldview. If not Westernized, I often aligned my writing with Manila-centric sensibilities to comply with what I believed were literary standards.

My late professor helped me realize that writing in the local language was neither odd nor inferior. Through her, I encountered the works of writers in Mindanao and independent publications such as the Cotabato Literary Journal. I read the writings of Mubarak Tahir, Jude Ortega, Jade Mark Capiñanes, and other writers whose works carried the texture of our own realities.

The realization transformed the way I viewed literature—that it is not the West nor Manila that is the heart; it’s Mindanao, it’s the Bangsamoro community, it’s ours. I began unlearning the notion that the literature only becomes valuable when detached from locality. I started writing about the ordinary, the awkward, the funny, and the culturally intimate—the things often dismissed as “cringe” or insignificant.

After graduating from college, I experienced an existential crisis. I felt lost, drifting, and emotionally hollow, as though I had become one of the living-dead I once feared. During that time, I longed for the nights when Ínà and Ámà would gather us for bedtime alingà until we drifted into hypnagogia and yielded into a sound sleep. I longed for stories that once made the world feel less lonely. Only to wake up without remembering even a single alingà. Without them.

To recuperate, I turned to translation. I bridge foreign realities and tailor them to mine.

I translated poems by international writers whose works revolved around liberation, hope, longing, and personal struggle. Translating became more than a literary exercise; it became a way of reclaiming language and proving to myself that Magindanawn could carry universal human emotions.

One of the pieces I translated was Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird, rendered into Magindanawn as Nalugën a Papanuk. Beyond reflecting social inequalities, the poem also resonated deeply with our vanishing biodiversity and the condition of marginalized communities. I also translated Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken into Su Lalan a Di Tatap Bagukitan. This piece mirrors the uncertainties of pursuing writing in a society that often treats literature as impractical.

Most of my writing emerges from personal experience and observation. I write about grief, longing, language, memory, faith, liberation, and mundane realities of the Bangsamoro. I always try to ensure that the voice of Bangsamoro resonates in my works, not as an exotic image, but as a living and breathing reality.

Back in 2024, my piece Mapya pën Silan was published in the Bangsamoro Literary Review. The piece reflects my personal struggles and the collective realities of Bangsamoro Muslims in relation to their faith, doubt, and devotion. Through it, I tried to explore how belief becomes both a refuge and a struggle in the everyday lives of Bangsamoro communities.

Yet faith was not the only thing I found myself writing about. I once wrote Panganganún (“Yearning”) in Magindanawn—a recollection of grief and separation shaped by memory and distance. Writing in the language, however, also made me confront its fragility. Literature in Magindanawn remains scarce not only because of limited readership and interest, but also because of the lack of a unifying orthography and the complexity of its dialects. The language itself carries diverse textures: the schwa dominance of Tëw sa Biwang; the layered stresses of Tëw sa Suk; the singsong omission-contractions of Tëw sa Laya; the syllabic pronunciation of Tëw sa Ilud; and the lesser-explored accent of Tëw sa Kawánan. These differences reveal the richness of the language and the histories carried by its speakers. Yet they also reflect the long and complicated history of the language itself.

Magindanawn was once written in Kirim or Jawi before the colonial infiltration, documenting and standardizing the language from an etic perspective. Then, this gradually shifted toward Latin orthography. While these records preserved the fragments of the language, many of its sounds and textures could not be fully carried by the colonial alphabet. Perhaps this is why I feel compelled to gather those fragments and piece them into a mosaic so that the subaltern can finally speak.

In many ways, this complexity also encouraged me to pursue language documentation and mainstreaming through my advocacy page, Magindaknown. Through this initiative, I connected with fellow language advocates and researchers, including Mubarak Tahir, whose works inspired me to continue similar efforts within our own community.

Along the way, I began to realize that language is deeply tied to the environment and the everyday life of our people. Growing up in a far-flung community became a blessing in disguise. I immersed myself in the landscape rich in biodiversity, one that is embedded in our way of life, and made my childhood both colorful and meaningful.

Eventually, this led to the expansion of my language documentation efforts into Magindanawn biodiversity. I began by noticing how disconnected many young Magindanawn have become from the ecological world surrounding them. Many can no longer name endemic plants, coastal terrains, birds, or traditional environmental knowledge once embedded in our vocabulary and daily life. Some of these names now survive only through fragments of memory and language.

The kalyáwà (Ruffous hornbill), once known as the clock of the mountain, is no longer familiar to many today. It might be forgotten, but it is embedded in the Magindanawn language, evident in the onomatopoeic term “migkalyáwà,” which refers to a cacophonous or rowdy crowd, echoing the ways it once reverberated from the mountains.

And perhaps, this is another form of death.

I fear that one day, similar to the kalyáwà, the bakwè will no longer scream to warn us of impending death—of body, heart, hope, dignity, memory, or language—because they themselves have already disappeared before us.

That’s why I write.

I write to remember what is slowly vanishing. I write so that our stories, languages, memories, and ways of seeing the world may continue to live, even in a time that constantly teaches people how to forget.

Mirra-Edora Esmael

There was a house. And then there was a time.

In Barangay Simandagit. Along the stretched, cow-milk shoreline. By the turquoise, crystal-filmic seawater lapping contentedly fifteen meters from the road. House and time stood. Warm. Indifferent. Harrowing.

Before my father decided to move our home and warm it up with his kata-kata, that house already stood beside ours. It’s either green or blue, my memory cannot decide. Sometimes it’s a twin of our house, just bigger. Other times it’s green, charming, and poignant, but it’s always sun-showered. Its sea-weathered wall is always infested by reflections of the busy, fidgety sea.

The family who lived in that house is loud. I cannot remember if they were boisterous, or just passionate, or both. My memories are full of them calling each other and shouting, dictating what errands to run or how to do it.

“Amilli gih ka toyu! Meheh ma si Auntie Orang, daa ka ma lannang heh!” Buy soy sauce first! At Aunt Orang’s not at that Chinese!

“Ay heh?” What was that?

“Ma si Auntie Orang daa ma lannang! Pag-ubus nu, amilli labayin na boheh eh. Bay ni isihan na du!” At Aunt Orang’s not at the Chinese! After that, get the water. It’s already been filled!

Their voices would disturb and intrude every space of mundanity, along the tiny gaps of colorful laundry clips, across mixed scents of bang-bang, detergent, and salt-tanged breeze, or meandering along the length of sunrays during golden hours.

As a little girl I tried to avoid them. I didn’t make friends with any of the children, nor did I make eye contact, but I knew them.

I knew they had relatives from Sabah. Papa said they were originally from Malaysia.

I knew the intense, bespectacled chubby grandmother.

I also knew that one of her sons, Uncle Rosly, was a troublemaker. He has similar strides with Papa. The house would wobble lightly when they came or went. Uncle Rosly’s steps are firm even when he’s drunk. His arms always swayed with the determination of an anxious pendulum tongue.

He always left the house like he’s never coming back, and one night he never did. One night and three consecutive gunshots.

My memories always start with scents, bubbling up a bloated foam of laundry water, then popping once air sands its walls thin. That’s when the memory comes unbidden. Surging. This one, however, started with familiar beats—one, two, three, four, five—the pulse of a firework. One and two came right after the other. A pause. Then the last three came almost tumbling over themselves, urgent but cautious.

It was New Year’s Eve. The fireworks blew sparks to the black expanse the moon cannot comfort, letting the night heave and groan satisfyingly.

I was pretending to walk on a ramp like a model. My siblings were playing around me. Mama was in the kitchen. Mboh Hadja was watching us. Papa was somewhere around the house.

When the first series of gunshots was fired, we didn’t panic. It was probably just the fireworks. Then the shots became distinct. Rhythmic. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. It charged the air with the premonition of a jinn’s three-knock patterns my brother warned me about. The gun, or guns, fired more before Mboh Hadja shouted. She was the first to acknowledge the fear.

“Pa kobel kam! Pa kobel kam!” Take cover! Take cover!

We dropped to the maroon-varnished floor. Some of us looked at each other, confirming the fear as it curled comfortably around the eyes. Expanding. Bitter-stark.

I looked for Mama and Papa and searched their eyes too. I wanted to confirm how much of the fear I should welcome. I was scared, but should I cry? Should I let the fear scooch closer to my heart? And eat more of the firework residue sprinkled around it?

Here, the memory dwindles. I can’t remember what happened next, but Mama probably left the fish to sizzle. Papa must have run to us. His fear would have been so palpable I would have tasted it. I imagine him pulling us into a tight hug, his arms, big and strong but uncertain, shielding us from the bullets and what they meant.

Papa must have insisted on going outside and checking what was going on. Or maybe he called his friends from our Winnie-the-Pooh Motorola phone. And that would have been how we learned that the other party in the shooting was Uncle Rosly. Drunk, steps-firm, arms-swaying Uncle Rosly.

At some point we went back to lying face down on the floor; hands up, palms out. Just like how villains surrender at the end of every Cinema One movie. The police always arrive just after the starring defeats the boss, guns poised and cocked. Chk. Chk. Then men—puffy leather jackets, denim pants, and white face towels wrapped around foreheads—would spill out of the vans in a practiced tactical dismount. But that was Retrica Daydream-filtered Channel 9. In our barangay’s shooting, there weren’t any police who came to save us, nor did the firing stop for the next twenty-four hours.

We quickly learned that Uncle Rosly’s enemies were able to control the entrance of Simandagit, so no police could come.

My parents didn’t tell us, but they must have worried about the fact that one of the parties was our neighbor. That our houses, separated only by a few-meter gap, conveniently respected privacy but impressed kinship. I can almost imagine the people thinking, deducing: no other neighbors, no clustered roofs, just two houses, both Sinama, both big families—family friends.

We couldn’t possibly wait for the neighbor’s enemies to come knocking. So, in the middle of a chilly, shadow-choked night, I and my family marched hand in hand out of our barangay. Crickets whirred restlessly as I clutched Papa’s calloused forefinger. Hours before this I know I must have asked many questions. As though knowing more would help ease the threat carefully molding the lump on my throat. I imagine being reprimanded for asking too much. After that I must have focused on searching their eyes, ready to respond to any hint of fear and tension. I remember constantly looking up at Papa. My eyes kept asking what role I should assume, seeking permission to cry, to welcome the goosebumps writhing under my skin.

I was six or seven, petite and small. I hadn’t yet forged a physique that could hold and carry events, words, and meanings bigger than my frame. All three languages I spoke at the time were not yet mature. So, I depended so much on facial expressions. I couldn’t see my mother’s since she was holding our youngest. But I saw certainty clinging to the hem of her battik pajama like another confused and frightened child. My father’s face was grave. He didn’t have to say anything, but I understood. We all did. The idea of death created a shared intimacy among us.

I was six or seven, and I knew. Death. It wasn’t as far as the entrance.

After coming out of Simandagit, our family moved to Barangay New Housing. We stayed there for two or three years. During those times, the loud neighbors disappeared. Perhaps they went back to Sabah, Malaysia, who knows? Only their house, hollow and abandoned, was left. Its walls, as ever, remained infested by the wriggling sea reflections.

Stories of what happened to the loud family circled around until they found a sense of mundanity. It became one fragment of the Simandagit backdrop, a local legend. In reality, it was the first seed that stretched and coiled one end of infinity up in a continuum, morphing into a capsule. This mental archive was carefully woven by the community from every kissa or kata-kata about the house. Fluid. Ever-living. Tenacious.

Years melted. They folded into nostalgia and rolled along my tongue whenever Mama told me to practice singing on our karaoke. Although most times they hid on the soles of my feet, propelling me to make bigger steps. Until my own stride made the wooden bridge wobble.

Fear only settled inside me for a few days. As a child, when emotions come in swells, they exude out of my body like a fever breaking. After expelling the heat, it recoils and runs away from me, leaving my body flitting like a ghost. So, I shoved and delegated all of those to my parents. It was their role, not mine. Maybe that was how I was able to join my friends and play at Uncle Rosly’s house. By then, it was a make-believe market. The goods were glossy, sometimes pearlescent seashells. The money was crisp candy wrappers and flattened crown corks.

I was warned not to go there. They said only naughty children played in it.

The house, even as time moved, stood in the same timeframe and is seen from that same incident. It’s encased in the same December night, watching the same fireworks. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. No police, just guns, cocked—chk-chk—poised and pointed, but not fired. Target—house and time—frozen.

I didn’t heed the warning because I didn’t understand the danger, nor did I know where it could come from. So, I and my friends continued to play at the house. By then we called it our playhouse. Sometimes we would run around it playing pulismatik, apas-apas, and tapuk-tapuk. Other times we’d just go and see what fun games we could join. And in one of these particular times, the danger came from a neighborhood kuya.

I was playing yet another game the adults warned me not to ever engage in sugal-sugal or card games. We watched as a boy and kuya played against each other. There were cheers, teasing, and envy for the many cards they passed to and fro. At one point they ended and went to one of the empty rooms of the house. Kuya told us not to follow. We were so loud earlier that they couldn’t concentrate and spoiled their game. So, we didn’t.

Instead, I and my friends talked about the kurung dresses of the twins whose family recently moved. We also yapped about the Bollywood films we watched. Even sang their songs. We started dancing to them when, suddenly, the shouts came.

To this day I don’t know how to describe what I heard. The emotions can’t even decide what form to take. Plea. Anger. Fear. Desperation. They stacked on top of each other. Not tumbling over just swaying drunkenly, threatening to topple down. The wails were coated in all four at once but nastier, more sinister.

We all ran towards the voice. I knew we all got scared when we heard it. The voice was very familiar. The name he called and told to stop, we knew who it was. It wasn’t a long run, but I could have stumbled all the same, except I froze. Then, I looked down. There, on the floor, the boy thrashed. He kept trying to pull himself up. But on top of him was kuya—laughing, grinning, goofy kuya. They were both clothed. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew it was bad. Dirty. Pungent. Nauseating.

The boy looked at us. His eyes circled, frantically searching for help. Except he didn’t ask. He kept telling kuya to stop even as his eyes roamed around our faces. Those teary, blurry pair landed on mine. They lingered. They paused a few seconds too long for me to accept his emotions, to feel them doubling up—thickening—dissolving to a sticky, bubble-gum texture that seeped through my pores. My heart clenched as his emotions violated me until there was nothing of me to pour into. Was this how my parents felt when I gave them my fear? Did they also recoil from these gooey sensations?

Fortunately, my feet, where all the melted years took shelter, were unscathed. They were light, no stickiness. So, I ran. A few seconds later, I heard the others joining me. Some shrieked, while others thought it was yet another game.

I ran even when I knew I should have helped. Even as the wooden bridge wobbled threateningly. Or as the guilt became more palatable than all the other emotions weighing me down.

I ran and ran and ran.

The kids talked to other kids and parents. I envy them. How did they tell other people? What did they say? I can’t even describe the heftiness that sat and settled over my heart. So, I delegated the telling to my friends.

Mama was mad I was there when it happened, but she was angry for my safety. She wasn’t angry for the boy, or at the neighborhood kuya. Maybe Mama didn’t understand her emotions either. Was it also bigger than her? I don’t know. Sometimes I think Mama doesn’t care much about other people. But maybe because she also encountered an equally nasty tar-like experience, Mama ignored all of them. I imagine it’s easier to not see the whole story, and just see me.

Mama warned me though, not to go near or close to kuya just as every parent told their children.

What was odd, though, was how the incident closed fast. It wasn’t abrupt. There was no rigidity around the neighborhood. It was more like the people heard it and then mentioned other things in passing, ones that distracted them—the water breaks and typhoon that just passed. When everyone did circle back, the spotlight was on the playhouse.

They expressed how they’ve always known playing there was not a good idea. Some confirmed they’ve always been uncomfortable seeing kids merrily jumping and laughing about, disturbing the jinns residing in it. To me—nine-year-old, still petite but tall—I was scared of the playhouse more than whatever was inside it.

“Hangkan na subay kamu dih da magkadtu-kadtu pa bay yaun mga anak.” That’s why you shouldn’t frequently go to that house, children.

“Hoon.” Yes. “Asal na hadja san mataud kaginisan in mahinang duun bat dugaing pa in tagdapu nakawah bakas, dugaing pa in mga jinn nagbabay duun.” Such things will always happen there because there was the death of its owner, and there’re also the jinns living in it.

From then on, fewer kids played in the playhouse. There would be rare occasions, though. When the sea was ten feet high, wet footprints would loiter around. These were misplaced against the faded, varnished floor; the spots of green or blue paint that remained; and the wobbly kitchen space. These were the times when we would use its bridge as a diving ramp we jump from. Even parents would join in on the fun. During those times we forgot all the incidents. The playhouse became loud again.

Everyone participated, except the house. It remained glued in place by the poised gun, cocked but not fired. It stayed someplace where space and time do not evolve, locked in a temporal pocket. Suspended. There, at a once-upon-a-time capsule, the playhouse stands still.

Over time, the house seemingly became exhausted. It flaunted a kind of numbness from accepting all the stories told about it. Like that one gossip about a woman’s voice crying and calling for help one night. There were many versions of that story too, but one definite plot stayed—a woman and multiple men. “They were probably drunkards,” Mama announced, “for who could have done such monstrosities?” This story didn’t close fast. It spread like a disease. Everyone was eager to diagnose and offer their expertise.

Nobody knows how this new story started or ended. But everyone was sure the wailings were the same fireworks as that December—Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg.

Their sentiments fell on the woman, of course. But perhaps because nobody knew the true identity of the people involved, the blame was on the playhouse. What could they have expected from a house whose owners were criminals? It wasn’t jinxed, no. It was more cunning for that. The playhouse was alive. Its walls—sun-showered, sea-weathered—a convincing actor, hid all the ugliness very well.

In the following years, stories about it would sprout, more violent, more disgusting. But the playhouse remained silent, almost stubborn. It welcomed both tragedies from humans and nature. While it bravely persisted on the first, it succumbed to the latter.

Typhoons. It seems too much of a cliché that such a present consciousness should surrender to a natural disaster. As though even in its demise it must insist on being proud and petty. It cannot allow itself to fall under the weight of our feet. It wobbled and shook, but it never gave in. It accepted villainy, but it cannot stoop to the role of a victim. So, it accepted the fate of an antagonist. A graceful fall from the force of nature. A fitting end.

The playhouse and all its ghosts are memories I don’t like to dwell on. Not because they still haunt me, but because I have lost the meanings they exuded. I imagine these meanings as grains that kept getting moved from the door, to the kitchen, to the walls as Papa continued to fix where the typhoons claimed. Until each grain fell to the wriggling sea.

The emotions I hold for them now are just crumbs. They’re leftovers from people’s words and sentiments that somehow landed on me, infecting my consciousness and tainting its innocence.

Today this memory lives inside me, tucked to one corner but thriving in its own little capsule. It’s caged with all the unmediated meanings my young mind cannot comprehend. The memory only comes alive once in a while when tales of the nostalgic days of Barangay Simandagit are told. It always disturbs the peace and gentleness of our mundanity, because once upon a time—

There, is that once-upon-a-time.

Meizan Badrudin 

For the child who taught me that courage can live inside the smallest bodies.

There were 1,781 graduates that day.

I remember the figure vividly, my eyes locked on the number as our vehicle sat paralyzed in the gridlock outside the convention center. Two hours after the ceremony concluded, the streets remained hopelessly congested. Cars inched forward. Families leaned wearily against glass windows, while graduates adjusted the metallic weight of medals around their necks.

Somewhere in that sprawling standstill, someone was probably uploading a polished graduation portrait, pairing it with a caption like “Gradu-ATEd,” “1° hotter,” or “Spotify Student subscription just ended” before writing a few heartfelt lines about dreams finally manifesting into reality. Meanwhile, as names were being called one by one across the stage earlier that day, some people were probably scrolling through their phones already muting group chats, unfollowing old classmates, or deciding which relationships were worth carrying beyond graduation.

Blocked. Unfriended. Removed.

Graduations have always intrigued me in this paradoxical way: we stand on illuminated stages to celebrate beginnings, while in the shadows, we silently bring entire volumes of our lives to a close. Then again, some chapters have a habit of lingering long after we believe we’ve finished them.

I opened the small box of cake my family had bought for me and took a bite. Caramel Cheesecake. The kind Dadi always loved. For a brief moment, it felt as though she had somehow found her way into the moment. “Murag for dadi lagi ani?” I murmured to my mother. She offered a gentle smile. “Taday kan. Paborito inan ni dadi nengka.”

Allahu yarham. If my grandmother, my Dadi, had been there that afternoon, I think she would have been very, very proud. Nakwa den su kahanda. Nandito na tayo, Dadi.

I was still draped in my academic gown. Crumbs cascaded onto my lap, but nobody noticed, and nobody cared. Which was unusual. Under ordinary circumstances, even a single grain of rice falling onto the car floor would trigger an argument. But, that afternoon, nobody said a word. For once, there were no expectations left to discuss. It was an entirely mundane moment tucked inside what the world insists is one of the most monumental days of a person’s life.

When the traffic finally relented, we pulled over at Acacia.

“Magcelebrate diay ta?” I asked. The detour was completely impromptu. The original itinerary had been simple: attend the ceremony, return home, and sleep. But my parents insisted on a celebration. “Sige lang ka,” they told me. My father looked at me and said, “Mahal ka namin.”

There was no lavish banquet, no rented hall, and no extensive guest list. It was just the very people who had anchored me through a tempest of years that had nearly shattered me. “Mubarak, Kaka! Allahumma barik laha. You did well. Alhamdulillah, nakagraduate ka na.” These were the exact words they offered. Not a moment of wondering why my name was not called when the distinctions were announced.

Years ago, people might have asked. But somewhere in the grueling space between hospital admissions, insomniac nights, panic attacks, psychiatric evaluations, and desperate prayers whispered in the pre-dawn dark, our collective definition of success had quietly mutated.

I remember one of my hospital admissions particularly well. Even while lying in a hospital bed, my mind remained stubbornly occupied by examinations and the ever-present specter of Latin honors. My mother found the situation ridiculous. “Andito ka na nga sa hospital, ang isipin mo pa yung exam mo? Yung Latin honors mo?” she laughed. As though Latin honors were somehow connected to my IV line.

Na para bang mas importante pa ang grado kaysa sa buhay ko?

My parents had long ceased praying for medals. In truth, I suspect they secretly hoped those crushing expectations would vanish entirely. They no longer cared if I stood at the apex of my cohort; their only desire was that I remained alive long enough to walk across that stage. That afternoon, while I sat mourning everything I had lost, they sat celebrating everything I had survived. That is why my relationship with achievement has irrevocably shifted. I will not lie, I still harbor an admiration for accolades.

I mean, who doesn’t?

We applaud medals, distinctions, scholarships, and titles because they are the physical manifestations of sacrifice. Of hard work. Of sleepless nights. There is absolutely no shame in desiring them, just as there is no shame in grieving when they slip through our fingers. For some of us, the loss cuts even deeper. We spend so many years building an identity around achievement that success ceases to be something we do and quietly becomes who we are. We learn to introduce ourselves through grades and accomplishments. We become attached not only to the reward, but to the version of ourselves we believe those rewards confirm. And so when that identity fractures, the wound is rarely confined to a transcript. It feels personal. Almost physical. Like an injury to the self.

But the older I get, the more I find my mind wrestling with a different caliber of questions that no graduation program could ever hope to answer.

How many people breathed easier because you occupied this space? How many heavy burdens did your hands help lift?

As a Bangsamoro, I am frequently haunted by the question of what I have given back to my own people. In this region where poverty continues to affect a substantial portion of families, it is difficult to ignore how a person’s future can be shaped by the circumstances of their birth. As a daughter, I constantly interrogate whether I have adequately honored the sacrifices woven into my parents’ lives. As a future healthcare professional, I ask myself if I have genuinely learned to see the pulsing, fragile humanity behind the sterile diagnoses.

How many lives were made marginally better simply because Allah allowed your path to intersect with theirs?

This is the root of why I offer sadaqah whenever it is within my power. Sustenance for a wandering stray. A warm meal for someone who has forgotten what a full stomach feels like. A few pesos pressed into the hand of a sikad driver. It is maybe because every time I see these people, I remember my father.

My father was once a driver. At sa maraming paraan, siya ang naghatid sa akin sa kung saan ako ngayon.

Perhaps this is also why I spent years building things on my own. Sugar Cafe. Laba Boss laundry shops. MV Apartments. To others, they may look like ordinary businesses. To me, I see a possibility of handing them a life that is a little softer than the one they broke their backs to build for me. In many ways, they emerged from the same impulse that drives me to give back to lighten a burden that I once watched others carry.

That is why I have never been able to view achievement as something purely personal. Every accomplishment I celebrate is tethered to sacrifices that were never mine alone. Medals belong to dunya. My achievements are not mine to claim. They are provisions from Allah SWT. The Qur’an tells us, “Indeed, Allah is the Bestower of provision” (Qur’an 51:58). Whatever good I achieved was by His permission. Whatever I lost was by His wisdom.

I knew this. I believed this.

Yet belief does not always spare us from disappointment. Sometimes faith and grief occupy the same heart at the same time. I saw the hollow space where honors should have been. They saw the daughter they had been terrified of losing.

I remember sitting there in the silence of my own mind, acutely aware that everyone around me seemed vastly happier than I was. My family was overflowing with joy. And I would be lying if I said I was.

I was not.

Somewhere deep within my chest, a small, persistent voice kept hissing a single word. Such a quintessentially Filipino word. Such a profoundly dangerous word.

Sayang. Sayang.

I had started with such momentum. Twice a valedictorian. The child onto whom people projected grand expectations. The student who elicited approving nods from adults; the one whose trajectory felt securely mapped. And then, college happened.

There is a pervasive assumption that high-achieving students are fueled by a hunger for recognition. And maybe for some, that is true. It was not true for me. Or, at least, not entirely. The reality is that I did not claw my way to valedictorian for the applause. I did it because I desperately wanted options. I wanted scholarships. I wanted impenetrable doors to swing open. I wanted to alleviate the financial gravity bearing down on my parents. Above all else, I wanted the elusive comfort of security.

I am aware of my own limitations. I was never the type of student who could waltz into an exam hall and effortlessly secure the highest mark. I shared classrooms with peers who possessed a natural brilliance for test-taking.

I was not one of them.

What I had instead was discipline. While other people could rely on pure talent, I had to rely on showing up every single day. I forced myself to study harder, stayed in the library until it closed, and started prepping weeks before an exam. I did this not out of a belief in my own exceptionalism, but out of the knowledge that I simply could not afford to fail.

When I was named valedictorian in Junior and Senior High School, the overriding emotion was never triumph. It was a relief. The relief that I had done enough, that another pathway had cleared, that my parents would have one less anxiety to shoulder. That is precisely why missing out on Latin honors in college left such a unique, jagged wound.

It is painful. More painful than I expected.

My immediate thought was never, “What will society think?” It was, “What happens to me now?” What becomes of my meticulously laid plans? What becomes of medical school? What becomes of the vital opportunities I was so certain I needed? For a long stretch of time, terror drowned out all logic. But Allah has a way of reminding us that our provisions are not dispensed through a single door. Often, when one corridor goes dark, another illuminates in the very place we forgot to look.

I’m not going to list every single detail of how things fell apart in college. Some memories are better left buried, and reopening old wounds for an audience only guarantees they will bleed again. What I will confess is this: there were years when I was jolted awake at three in the morning, rushing to vomit due to anxiety. I was becoming such a frequent visitor at SPH and MDMRC that I half expected them to start offering a loyalty card.

Years when my parents commuted endlessly between Cotabato and Davao because their daughter could not stop shaking. Years when I sat shivering in psychiatric clinics. Years when I was tethered to diagnoses with names lengthy enough to dominate medical charts.

There were days when surrendering to death felt infinitely simpler than enduring life. I do not construct that sentence for theatrical effect. I state it because it is the truth. Some people survive the wrath of typhoons. Others survive the devastation of wars. Some of us must survive ourselves.

For four years, survival was my full-time occupation.

But nobody mints medals for surviving. Nobody broadcasts it over a PA system during commencement exercises. Nobody hands bouquets to the student whose sole triumph was managing to inhale and exhale for another day. But, there are thousands of us.

Legions of students sitting mutely in lecture halls carrying battles nobody else can see. Sons and daughters masquerading in normalcy. Young people dragging the dead weight of grief, panic, heartbreak, destitution, illness, and disappointment, all while submitting academic requirements a minute before midnight. Perhaps that is why graduation felt so utterly surreal. While the masses were busy celebrating the visible, I was paralyzed by the thought of the invisible.

I thought of the people confined to the last row.

The students who were forced to retake subjects. The students who wept silently in public restroom stalls. The students who watched their scholarships evaporate. The students who quietly dug graves for dreams they had never spoken aloud. Sometimes I wonder if society squanders too much breath exalting those at the pinnacle of the pyramid, leaving no air to listen to the gasping of those struggling at its base.

The top is easy to idolize. But the bottom is where humanity actually resides.

At the bottom are the fathers navigating tricycles in the freezing pre-dawn dark. The mothers who ignore their own hunger so their children can be full. The students enduring one or two-hour daily commutes. The patients lined up like ghosts in hospital corridors. The janitors scrubbing rooms they will never receive gratitude for cleaning. The security guards holding open doors for people who will never bother to learn their names. The vast majority of the world lives exactly there.

Not at the summit.

At the bottom.

Of course, the metaphor is imperfect. The last row is not always poor. The front row is not always privileged. Life is rarely that simple. Yet it would be dishonest to pretend that opportunity is distributed equally. In the Philippines, where a child’s future can still be influenced by their surname, address, school, family income, or access to healthcare, privilege remains one of the most powerful yet least acknowledged forces shaping success. Some students begin the race several meters ahead. Others begin it already exhausted. To recognize this is not to diminish hard work. Hard work matters. But so do stable homes, quality education, financial security, good health, supportive families, and the luxury of worrying about examinations instead of survival.

Privileges are not merely personal. They are political. A student with a private tutor and a student commuting four hours a day may sit in the same classroom, attend the same lecture, and take the same examination. Yet they are not taking the same journey. And perhaps that is why I keep returning to the last row because the people in the last row are often expected to work twice as hard just to be seen. And somewhere at the very bottom of that pyramid, I encountered a little girl named Zenara.

Zenara.

My first patient at CRMC.

Long before my name was called on stage, I was already thinking about her. I am not supposed to admit this as a healthcare professional, but I developed a soft spot for the child almost immediately. Some patients stay in your memory because of the diagnoses written on their charts. Others stay because of the people they are. Zenara belonged to the latter.

She had a smile that arrived before her words did. The kind that made hospital rooms feel less frightening than they actually were. I found myself looking forward to seeing her during rounds. And somehow, over time, she seemed to look forward to seeing me too.

“Bakit po Zenara ang pangalan niya, Ma’am? Ang ganda po ng pangalan niya.” I asked while preparing Zenara for a blood extraction. Before I could even reassure her, she had already calmly extended her arm as though it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Most children are frightened of needles. Zenara was not. That broke my heart. No child should ever become that familiar with pain.

“It means intelligent. Pinangalan siya ng lolo niya kasi nakakabasa na siya at the age of three.” Her mom said.

I remember smiling at that.

Zenara.

The name stayed with me long after the conversation ended. In fact, I once caught myself thinking that if Allah were ever to bless me with a daughter of my own one day, I would want to name her Zenara.

She was the other reason my graduation felt so heavy. For months, my mind had been tethered to a singular promise. It was not a vow made to my parents, nor to my professors, nor even to myself. It was a promise made to a child. She was one of the many fragile children occupying the pediatric ward carrying a diagnosis infinitely heavier than her tiny frame should have ever been forced to bear.

Leukemia.

It was a term I had dissected countless times in dense textbooks and clinical case presentations. But no volume of medical literature could have ever equipped me for the jarring reality of meeting a child who bore that word with a smile.

Children possess an uncanny ability to shrink illnesses down to size. Perhaps it is because they have not yet grasped the sheer cruelty of the world. Or perhaps it is because they retain a wisdom that adults have forfeited: the absolute mastery of living fiercely in the present tense.

I remember watching her beam. I remember absorbing her animated stories. I remember walking out of those swinging ward doors, crushed by the arbitrary unfairness of existence. But most vividly, I remember making a vow. I told her I would return after my graduation.

In my mind’s eye, I had visualized walking back into that hospital enveloped in my graduation regalia, carrying whatever gleaming medal or distinction I had earned from years of sacrifice. I didn’t want it to keep, to display on a mantle, or to flaunt on the internet. I wanted to drape it around her small neck. Even if only for a fleeting few seconds. Just long enough to capture a photograph. Long enough to hear her infectious laugh. Long enough to make her realize she was a protagonist in someone else’s story.

It was never actually about the recognition, not in the way people assume. That medal was intended to be an offering. A tangible symbol. A thank you.

Then graduation arrived.

There was no medal. No distinction. No special commendation. Just my name, dissolving into a sea of hundreds of other graduates. I would be a liar if I claimed it did not sting.

It did.

It hurt. For a long time, I kept replaying how close I actually was. It’s crazy how a single grade can completely rewrite your path.

Isang grado na lang.

By the devastation that years of unrelenting grit can be erased by a space next to your printed name. But grief is a peculiar, brilliant teacher of perspective. The longer I sat inside that disappointment, the more the realization crystallized: the promise was never actually about a piece of metal.

The promise was about returning. The promise was a silent oath refusing to mutate into the kind of healthcare provider who ceases to see the breathing human beings obscured behind the laboratory requests, the hospital ID numbers, and the clinical charts. But life has a way of reminding us that not every promise gets fulfilled in the way we imagine.

A few days after graduation, I returned to Cotabato. Part of me was excited. I had been thinking about Zenara for months. Through examinations, internships, graduation rehearsals, and the ceremony itself, I carried the thought that I would see her again soon.

I was late.

By the time I came back, Zenara had already passed away. I cried the whole night. Nobody prepares you for a sentence like that. One moment, a person occupies a corner of your future. Next, they exist only in your memory. I do not talk about it often. I still do not know how. For a long time, I thought the defining loss of my graduation would be the Latin honors I never received. I thought that was the wound I would carry into the years ahead. Then I learned that Zenara was gone.

Strange how grief rearranges priorities.

Decades from now, absolutely no one will remember if I graduated with honors. A vanishingly small number of people will recall my GPA. Even fewer will care about the distinctions I did or did not secure.

But I hope to Allah, I remember Zenara.

I hope I remember the children whose youth evaporated within the walls of hospital wards. I hope I remember the mothers contorted in sleep on rigid plastic chairs beside metal beds. I hope I remember the father standing in corners trying to figure out how to pay the next hospital bill. I hope I remember the patients who demonstrated that courage rarely resembles cinematic greatness. More often, courage looks like holding out your arm for yet another blood extraction.

Above everything, I hope I remember the purest reason I sought to enter medicine in the first place. Because somewhere in the wreckage and the healing, I discovered that true success is entirely unconcerned with what dangles around our necks. The world trains us to fixate on the stage. To stare into the blinding spotlight. To revere the individuals standing victoriously at the summit.

Yet, the most transformative lessons I have ever absorbed were taught by those who were never invited to stand on that stage to begin with. The child waiting patiently in the ward. The mother weeping in prayer beside the bed. The father emptying the final, crumpled bills from his wallet. The student who clawed their way out of a semester alive. The graduate whose ultimate achievement was simply surviving long enough to wear the toga.

For the majority of my life, I operated under the delusion that the goal was to reach the front row. To stand exactly where the world could witness you. To forge yourself into a creature worthy of standing ovations.

I know so much better now.

Humanity does not dwell in the spotlight. It dwells in the hospital corridors, the suffocating heat of crowded jeepneys, the cramped confines of small apartments, the agonizing stretches of sleepless nights, of unanswered prayers, and the acts of valor that will never be immortalized on a piece of paper.

It lives among the overlooked. The people waging invisible wars. The people exhausting their souls simply to survive. The people anchoring the absolute bottom of the pyramid. And perhaps, all this time, that was precisely where Allah had been urging me to look.

The last row.

Neshrin M. Macabago

“Good morning, Bolawan. You eat na.” As soon as I sat on the dining chair for breakfast, Naynay, our longtime helper, greeted me with a smile as she put rice on my empty plate. “Fried chicken?” she offered. I shook my head and pointed to the plate of fried eggs on the other side of the table. “I want one, please?” And before she even stretched her right hand to reach it, I asked her about Mamang and Papang.

“Madam went out… to the jewelry shop. Kanina pa,” trying to talk to me in her broken English, “and your Papang?” She then finally reached the plate of fried eggs and put one on mine. “Not yet home. Maybe next week.” Upset, I rolled my eyes, feeling sick of my parents’ absence every meal.

My family was well-known in our inged or province. My parents owned two businesses: jewelry and clothing line. We lived in a white and blue three-storey house with a high-walled compound, had 3 helpers and 2 drivers, and owned four cars – one each for my parents and my two older brothers, Kuya Ahmad and Kuya Arsad, and because I was still young at that time, I didn’t have one. People in our place spoke highly of us, even calling us “Bolawan a manga taw” or people with high status, or literally translated as “golden people.” Probably the reason they dubbed us that was because of my parents’ business – selling jewelries from Saudi. In fact, that’s actually where my parents got my nickname from – Bolawan or Golden. I am the youngest and the only daughter, and dare I say, I owned that name.

At home, we didn’t speak Meranaw at all, only my parents did when they talked to each other. My brothers and I spoke English regularly. Since kids, we were taught to speak it until it became our first language; Tagalog was our second because of our helpers. Other kids in our hometown didn’t really talk to us as they couldn’t speak the language anyway and were too intimidated by us.

Despite having almost everything, I could still feel lonely most of the time. Usually, I was alone in our house with our servants, while my parents were somewhere else. My brothers, though, had their own things too. Kuya Ahmad, the eldest, married Ate Saira, our third cousin in my mother’s side, and they were expecting a baby. Kuya Arsad, on the other hand, loved to brag his car and money off to his friends, living his best life. He could even go to clubs and rent girls as many as he wanted. While me, I could only go out if Ate Jaja, Naynay’s daughter and my personal yaya, chaperoned me – and that is if I had my father’s consent. Sometimes, I’d wish my life wasn’t that perfect so I could go out freely, just like my childhood friend, Bibi.

When we were kids, Bibi would tell me how she fancies everything about me and wishes to live a life like mine someday. And whenever she says that, a part of me fluttered as it reminded me of how fortunate I was. I always liked, though, how people get jealous of me, of us. Although my life and hers were entirely different, I still called her a friend. But most of the time, I treated her as my little servant. Bibi was free, kind, but mostly gullible. Whatever I tell her to do, she does it for me. But she could be deceiving too. She befriended me in exchange for my toys and snacks, yet I still made friends with her regardless, because she was the only kid who could understand and speak English a bit compared to her other dugyot friends. Little did she know, I only played with her whenever I got sick of Ate Jaja tailing me.

Another thing I secretly admired about Bibi, though, was her faith. She would always pray with her mother and siblings at home, and her father would be in the masjid. I tried to recall about a time I prayed with Mamang, but I couldn’t remember anything, except when it was in Eid. The truth is, I wasn’t sure if I could fully call myself a Muslim, for praying never occurred to me and I even barely wore kombong (hijab).

One time, Bibi invited me into their house, and the way her mother, Ante Edah, welcomed me with warmth, as though there was a celebrity who visited them, overwhelmed me. She even spoiled me with Bibi’s favorite snacks: toron and buko juice. Their generosity was quite impressive for people like them who had less, yet rich by heart. And it saddened me to think that while Bibi’s mother treated me that way, she never felt that from my mother. Mamang disliked people who weren’t like us, including Bibi’s family. Mga patay gutom (broke and starving) as she often described them. It even came to a point where she forbid me from playing with her, more so of going to their house. So I instead asked Papang to let Bibi come over our house, but Mamang heard it and didn’t approve it.

“You’re too golden for a girl like her. In fact, you shouldn’t be letting her touch you!” she said. I sensed despise in her voice when she uttered “her,” as if Bibi was dirt. I admit, it hurt me too because after all, she was a friend to me. But what can I do, then, if my mother said it so?

A week later, Mamang told me that she’d send me to Singapore to study there until I graduate college, and the good news delighted me and felt excited to move there and leave my childhood behind, even if it meant losing contact with Bibi.

Eleven years later, I finally came back to inged. But this time, not as the kind of Bolawan people always thought of me. Instead, I came back as a failure and disgrace to my family. When I was in my freshman year, Mamang sadly passed away. I returned home for her dowali (wake) and then went back to Singapore after the funeral to continue my studies. A year later, I was informed that Kuya Arsad mishandled all the money from our clothing line for his lavish lifestyle, until our business turned down, and Papang almost disowned him. Another year had passed; Kuya Ahmad contacted me through a video call and shared me the news about Papang’s wedding to his third cousin. And the moment I heard it, my heart skipped a beat, as if all the oxygen in my body failed to function. Slowly, rage consumed me. Kuya Ahmad didn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence, and I hung up. I banged my phone on my bedside table out of devastation. I couldn’t think of good thoughts at this point as I was already clouded by disgust and disappointment. So I thought of doing something that could possibly hurt them too. And the next thing they also heard about me: I dropped out of school, even though I was halfway finishing my studies. I took it as revenge against my father.

A few days later, I booked a flight back to Manila and stayed in our vacation house there and then decided to completely ruin my future. I wasted two years of my life clubbing and drinking, just like what Kuya Arsad always did. Ironically, I found pleasure in those forbidden acts and somehow felt some kind of freedom too. My whole life, I was the golden daughter, the favorite child. I kept it all together for my parents, until I no longer wanted to be perfect. I thought by doing those would hurt my father and regret his decision, as it turned out, I was the one who regretted every damn decision I made.

Fast forward, I met Khalid, the only person who accepted and truly loved me despite my impurity. I thought I’d found someone who could finally fix me. But instead our love brought more chaos. My family detested him because he was, unfortunately, nothing like us. If Mamang had been alive, I was certain she’d disown me.

Trash, slap soil, opportunist would be the words she’d spit on him and would definitely slap and thrash me. But nothing would change the fact that he and I had already happened. I already had his child inside me. When Papang learned about it, he wanted to kill us both for the shame we had caused. I knelt down before him, crying and begging him to forgive me. And thankfully, his love for me as his only daughter somehow prevailed. So he had no choice but to demand betang (dowry) and a wedding from Khalid’s family as soon as possible to make it up for our mistake.

And when the wedding finally convened, at one point, a slice of regret suddenly crept in. I was in the bride’s hiding room, waiting for my groom to knock on the door while guiltily thinking of running away after realizing I was actually going to marry the man that my younger self would possibly loathe if I hadn’t loved him. And if I did, that would cause more talks about the misfortune of my family. Gossips would always be the judge of it. “I need to fix the damage I caused,” that was the least thing I could say to coax myself.

The ceremony took place in Manila to keep it private, but it was far from my dream grand wedding. Although I got to wear expensive jewelries from our store, my white gown was nothing special. No huge, sparkling venue, just a small space that could only contained a few guests from my family and his. I knew in myself that I had no right to ask for a fancy wedding when it was me who sucked it all.

Three days after that ceremony, we decided to stay in my parents’ house in inged for good. I noticed that our beautiful three-storey house looked very old now. The paint, once shiny white and blue, had faded to ghostly yellow and eroded in parts, revealing the layered bricks beneath. The windows had cracks, as though the house turned haunted. No one lived there since Mamang passed, except for Ate Jaja, who stayed there with Kuya Nono, our houseboy, and lived together after Naynay passed months after my mother did. And since I had nowhere and no one to turn to this time, I decided to live there with my husband and them, hoping to start anew. But I still wondered, though: Did our neighbors know what really happened to me? Well, I bet gossips reached them too.

Inside my bedroom in the third floor, I peeked through my rusty window and looked for Bibi’s, my old friend, house. Their small, old wooden house used to be standing next to ours, and I noticed it wasn’t there anymore. What I instead saw was a white two-storey house with a huge glass window on its second floor now standing in the exact space of Bibi’s.

Then, the night came. At the dining table, eating dinner with my husband, I asked Ate Jaja about Bibi and whose unfamiliar house was that. And to my surprise, she replied, “Bahay nina Bibi yun, yung kalaro mo dati. (That’s Bibi’s house, your old friend.)” In disbelief, I forcefully swallowed the food inside my mouth. She also mentioned Bibi became an accountant after she graduated college and now married to a police official. But instead of feeling happy for my old friend’s success, a sudden ache settled in my heart, as if telling me she’d defeated me, and now I’m the loser. I mean, table always turns, as they say. Eleven years was indeed long. We were both twelve since we last saw each other. For sure, many things also happened to her between those years.

Khalid and I were lying in bed, talking about our future when drowse signaled, and I told him I was going to sleep, so he gently grabbed the blanket for me. Then I closed my eyes when out of nowhere, a thought of Bibi lingered. It’s like, her memory was haunting me. A kind of realization saying: While I was ruining my life, she was fixing hers. I could vividly remember the way she fancied me, but now I guess, I felt envious of what she’s become. I hate it because jealousy had never come over me before, not like this way. Some of the things I once had, she has them now. But the very two things I looked up about her since we were kids: her freedom and faith – I still don’t freaking have them both!

No complete freedom for a woman who brought ignominy to her entire family and no faith for someone like me who has already lost her hope.

I was called Bolawan by my parents because of our, my privileges – good-looking, rich, and soft-spoken. As it turned out, I was never as precious as jewelries. I could now relate myself to the ghostly yellow and cracks in our house – unclean and broken. I supposed, all this time, Bibi was the true bolawan, for she’s ever since pure and innocent. But more importantly, her dignity still belonged to her – something I could no longer possess back. I wondered, though, if she and I happened to run into each other, would she talk to me? Or look me in the eye, at least? Probably she would also despise me the way my mother did to her and her family. And for sure, even if our eyes meet once again, I don’t think my humiliation would allow me to face her now that I became a woman of ill repute.  

Gonaranao B. Musor

The stench, dirt, pollution, overcrowding, and the pickpockets -– people may immediately describe Quiapo as such. But Quiapo will always have many other meanings for me.

I am reminded of “Trip to Quiapo” by National Artist, Ricky Lee. A manual for scriptwriting, it has become my bible when I got accepted in Lee’s scriptwriting workshop after two attempts at applying. Held during the height of the pandemic in 2020 while I was based in Singapore, I was lucky enough that the workshop was conducted online.

I also remember watching as a child the film “Batang Quiapo” (Child of Quiapo) that starred another National Artist, Fernando Poe, Jr., and Maricel Soriano. I can still recall the song played during the opening credits: 

“Kami mga taga Quiapo sa gitna ng Kamaynilaan,
Ang buhay namin sa Quiapo ay di pwedeng pantayan…”
(“We are from Quiapo in the heart of Manila,
Our life in Quiapo cannot be compared…”)

I am a Batang Quiapo. I was born in Santa Ana, Manila and lived for a time at the Islamic Center, or simply called “Center” (pronounced with a typical Maranao accent as “sen-tehr”) in Quiapo. It was located along Carlos Palanca Street near the Ayala Bridge and adjacent to the SM Shoemart Headquarters Ruins.

*****

Known as the “Old Downtown of Manila,” Quiapo was reportedly named after the water cabbage known locally as kiyapo that grew abundantly in the Pasig River that borders the district. It is home to the Quiapo Church, where millions of Catholic Filipinos annually converge to attend the feast of the Black Nazarene. Quiapo can be considered a haven for bargain hunters brave enough to venture into its narrow and humid maze of alleyways. But what’s more fascinating are the fortune tellers, faith healers, and peddlers of herbals and amulets surrounding the church that create a seemingly perfect contradiction — paganism alongside the Catholic faith.

At the heart of Quiapo, beside the church, is a town square called Plaza Miranda. I’m sure people know Plaza Miranda more for its political rallies, the most tragic of which was the bombing that occurred on 21 August 1971 that killed nine and injured almost 100 civilians, than the person who gave it its name -– Jose Sandino y Miranda, the country’s secretary of the treasury from 1853 to 1863.

The busy Quezon Boulevard fronting the Quiapo Church seems to be a dividing line between two different faiths. Across the street lies the concentration of Muslim settlers. Just as the Catholics converge around the Quiapo Church, the Golden Mosque serves as the center of activity on the other side. The Golden Mosque, or the Masjid Al-Dahab, was built in the 1970’s supposedly as a showcase for the visit to the Philippines of the late Libyan Leader Muammar al-Gaddafi that never materialized.

*****

Pictures kept during our years in Quiapo and the stories told to me by my parents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives who were our neighbors provide a glimpse of our previous life there. My parents were just starting a family, with me as the newest member. Hence, living in Quiapo, although not the most suitable environment, was the only practical option then.

I have a hazy recollection of our house at the Center right beside the basketball court. My Mom, or it could have been my older sister, was holding me as she sat with other family members in front of our house while watching an ongoing game at the basketball court. My older sister, whom I fondly call Atekolay, would sometimes tell me how she would regularly wipe the snot from my nose. This would later become a pet peeve whenever she sees adults indifferent to the runny noses of their children.

Sepia-tinted memories of life in our simple house in Center include sharing it with my aunt Inamanae (older sister of my Mom), uncle Ama Manong (my aunt’s husband), and Ate Annie, who was my very first BFF, almost like my older sibling and not just a cousin. My innocent recollection also includes the addition of my younger sister Sandrea to our family.

By the time we left Center to settle in Las Pinas, I was already of preschool age and starting to have more vivid memories of life.

*****

Las Pinas was far different from Quiapo — more suitable for raising a family, cleaner, and definitely a lot safer. We transferred to Las Pinas at a time when one can still see the salt beds along Naga Road, Pulang Lupa upon entering from Diego Cera Avenue and past the cemetery, the tricycle terminal and public school. The salt beds, which were once the defining local industry, have long since gone and eaten up by modernization. In place of the salt beds are concrete structures to make way for increased demand for urban settlements.

Further along Naga Road were the talahiban fields that have now been developed into residential subdivisions catering to families wanting to lead the typical suburban life in the south of Manila. Our newfound family home was in Camella V, which was among the early subdivisions  established in the area.

*****

Despite living already in Las Pinas, my parents, especially my Dad, would always make time to visit Center every weekend to see relatives and other old friends. I guess for my Dad the orderly, more stable lifestyle in Las Pinas can never compare to the familiar chaos of Quiapo. I remember eagerly counting the minutes whenever we were in Quiapo. The only thing I enjoyed was staying at the house of my Mom’s younger sister and playing with my little cousins. My Dad, being the frustrated politician blessed with so much confidence and PR skills, would use these visits as an outlet and take his precious time much to my annoyance.

Imagine that it would take almost an hour or even more for us to finally reach the exit of Center from the nearby parking area as our car would repeatedly stop every time my Dad would see someone familiar and make small talk. This so-called small talk would not stop unless me or my younger sister would rudely interrupt them.

My Dad also loved eating at the halal restaurants near the Golden Mosque at Globo de Oro Street. The food, mostly Maranao dishes, are already prepared in advance and put inside a glass display for the diner to easily see upon entering the restaurant. Just like a typical carinderia, you just point at your preferred ulam — beef rendang (beef slow cooked and braised in coconut milk seasoned with palapa and muscovado sugar), piaparan a manok (chicken cooked in a coconut milk-based broth with herbs and spices), pisawawan a karne (beef in turmeric and coconut milk), aruwan (mudfish), etc. The waitress will then bring your order to your table served with 2 cups of rice.

Yes, not 1 cup or even half-rice but 2 cups. I also noticed the same whenever I eat out in Marawi -– they always assume that your order goes with two cups of rice. What would Senator Cynthia Villar say with her alleged disapproval of ‘unli’ rice?  I wouldn’t mind an extra cup, especially if I’m really hungry.

Back then, it was a struggle for my Dad to convince me to eat in those restaurants in Quiapo. Being a minority, it was not easy for my parents to inculcate in us a love for our indigenous culture and heritage as we were constantly being mainstreamed and homogenized by society. In the case of food, we were brought up to love McDonald’s and Jollibee but reject our palapa and rendang.

In 2003, I found myself working at the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) in Malacanang, which was a stone’s throw from Quiapo. Of course, through the years, as part of maturing, I learned to know more and appreciate my identity and heritage as a Muslim and Maranao, including our cuisine. But there was that one particular day -– it was lunchtime and I went to the PMS cafeteria to check out the food. Turned off by the mostly pork options, I suddenly had this craving for Maranao food and found myself riding the jeep going to the Golden Mosque.

I went to the same restaurant closest to the mosque. The same restaurant where my Dad used to take us, mostly against my will. Since I last ate in that restaurant, some things have changed -– there is now air-conditioning and newer tables, but still filled with people unmindful of the cramped space.

While enjoying my pisawawan a karne with my 2 cups of rice and a bottle of ice-cold Coke, I realized I have indeed come so far from that kid who hated eating in Quiapo.

*****

I grew up never feeling that close to my Dad. I was always a Mama’s boy and my Dad, for me, was either a dominant figure who implemented discipline and punishment or a generous provider who always made sure we had more than enough of what we needed. Don’t get me wrong as I loved my Dad dearly. I knew that the order and discipline he imposed while providing more than what we needed were his language of love.

Those times when we were walking around in the streets of Quiapo and I would hold his hand, he would immediately brush it away. I was a child wanting to feel secure through his father’s protective hand. He was a Dad wanting his son to be independent and brave at a young age.

My Dad was a man of contradictions. He wanted me to be independent, yet he always had a say on my every decision and action from what I could wear, how I should carry myself, to what dreams I could pursue. The angry outbursts and the spankings with his belt were tempered by the swiftness of his apology and regret at having hurt his son. Many years after that, I found myself saying to my 8 year old daughter how lucky she was that corporal punishment is no longer the norm. How tough is ‘tough love’ in this modern concept of parenting? I can’t really say.

*****

I came straight to the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) as soon as my plane landed in Manila. It was 2007, almost a year since I left for diplomatic posting in Cairo. I had to rush home to Manila to see my Dad who was hospitalized due to complications from diabetes. He was supposed to follow my Mom to visit me in Cairo, but eventually my Mom had to go back when we learned of my Dad’s deteriorating health.

I arrived at the hospital feeling relieved at seeing my Dad just the way he was when he sent me off at the airport last year, or so I thought -– in the pink of health and eager to go home. He asked me if I could stay the night until we check out tomorrow. I kissed the top of his head and told him I’ll be back first thing in the morning to pick him up. That was my last conversation with him.

I have never gone through EDSA as fast as that fateful night after we received the call from Atekolay who was looking after him at NKTI. EDSA, surprisingly, was as calm as the night as we sped through at breakneck speed. Never minding the danger, I can only focus on my Mom’s effort to hold it together. My Dad died peacefully in his sleep due to heart failure. I felt like I disappointed him when I declined to stay with him. My family claims until now that my Dad was only waiting for me to arrive back before he passed away.

My Dad’s body was taken to the Ma’had Manila and Islamic Center Mosque inside Center itself for the ceremonial washing, before it was wrapped in white cloth and then loaded on a plane to fly him to Mindanao so that he can be buried in his beloved hometown in Palao, Lanao del Sur before sunset, according to Islamic rites.

All roads lead to Quiapo. Quiapo was where he started building his family. Quiapo was the last place in Manila he was taken to before his final resting place in Lanao del Sur.

*****

My Dad was an enigma and I can only try to understand him through Quiapo. I am reminded of him in that basketball court inside Center, or in that area where our old house once stood. I feel my Dad whenever I eat in one of those halal restaurants, with every bite of the beef rendang and the turmeric soup that goes with every meal. The familiar dome of the Golden Mosque evokes memories of him praying there. Batang Quiapo, resurrected as a TV series courtesy of Coco Martin, will now be a constant reminder for me.

After my Dad died, he left a legacy that was difficult for me to live up to. He was both a stern and generous father; but to the many people and family he helped, he was a compassionate man. Yes, he was a frustrated politician, but he never needed a formal title to help people. Despite the many years that passed since his death, every familiar face I meet in Quiapo still always brings up their fond memories of my Dad.

*****

It’s been almost 17 years since my Dad passed. After he left us, many people were expecting my Mom to follow soon given her frail condition and having not experienced adult life without her husband. She was already married to my Dad while transitioning from teenager to adult. Nonetheless, God was merciful enough to give me 10 years to enjoy my mother’s company and take care of her. Just recently, my younger sister also passed away. I would have technically considered myself an orphan, if not for the presence of my own family now – a wife and a daughter.

After all these years, visiting Quiapo seems like a homecoming, even if it’s just a few hours away from my home in Las Pinas. In some aspects, it remains the same – the landmarks embedded in my childhood memories that will forever remind me of the Quiapo trips with my father. The Golden Mosque is still there, albeit with a few renovations, but still largely belying the association that something “golden” is expensive and even ostentatious.

Of course, the stench, dirt, pollution, overcrowding, and even the pickpockets will always be there.

But there are also those changes to Quiapo, even nuances I can easily discern given my ties to the place. It’s the same feeling I get whenever I go home to the Philippines from overseas posting. The changes, no matter how small, are initially disorienting, but you get over it as familiarity slowly takes over. Indeed, going to Quiapo is always a homecoming.     

The restaurant near the Golden mosque is still there, but I can no longer recognize it based on how I remember it. I’ve not gone inside to eat since the last time I did during my PMS days. Many other halal restaurants have sprouted around the area and we now go to a different, newer restaurant where I still get to enjoy my beef rendang and turmeric soup.

There are now a lot of Maranao entrepreneurs selling “Muslim-appropriate” clothes, including hijabs and modest apparel for women. Previously, it was pirated DVDs that were sold until they were eventually overtaken by technology as people moved on to streaming services.           

No matter how much we try to stay the same, we move on. Life goes on in Quiapo after Dad left, and we change. Nonetheless, even if the Quiapo in my memories with Dad may slowly fade, snippets will remain. Just buried, waiting to be unearthed and never really going away.

*****

I am still trying to understand what Quiapo meant to my Dad or who my Dad was through Quiapo. So far, I’ve realized that you can take us away from Quiapo, but you can never take Quiapo away from us. Amidst the homogenization and mainstreaming, we cannot deny what is in our very core. We long for something familiar when forced upon us something foreign and even something forbidden. We will always look for that familiarity that brings comfort. Perhaps, that was why I was suddenly craving for comfort food when left with no choice but haram (forbidden in Islam) options at the cafeteria. That was why my Dad kept coming back to Quiapo despite my protests.

Ricky Lee said in his book that there are many ways to get to Quiapo. You may take the direct route — from point A to point B. You may choose to have many stopovers or take a circuitous route before finally arriving in Quiapo. It doesn’t really matter how and when as long as you eventually reach your destination. I am still trying to reach the end of my journey to the real  Quiapo or maybe I just keep on coming back to Quiapo until I find out what I am really looking for.