MANGKOKOLUM!

In a passing conversation in Masbate, years back, I was told that a head of cattle-- fetched a live-weight price of P30,000 then-- is allocated a hectare of pasture to graze on as that area replenishes its growth of grass every 40 days or so. Minimum hectarage that Masbate cattle raisers have is 100 hectares for raising beef livestock.   The numbers had the weight of a rock conked on my head-- a hectare per cattle each worth P30K, chewing cud for 18 hours a day to gain semblance of weight. The pastures I've been taken to a hundred or so kilometers beyond Masbate city limits were a howling expanse of cogon. Cogon, whose blades are nearly entirely cellulose, or that which goes into cellophane wrappers for candies and cigarettes, or cellulose tape.   Cogon, infused in the proverbial "ningas-cogon" attitude of Filipinos for starting every endeavor like a house on fire, then, dying quickly into ashes.   So, I wondered aloud why it hasn't occurred to the provincial agricult...

  The local arm of a global environment watch group cites the top three corporations it has tabbed as culprits in the mounting plastic garbage woes that bedevil the Philippines and the world at large. Yeah, statistics show the Philippines hogs the third spot in the world's worst nations in mindless scattering of plastic waste-- plastic that takes over 100 years to biodegrade, but they don't rot at all.   Citations were awarded to (1) manufacturer of cornmeal-based snacks and non-carbonated drinks; (2,3) manufacturers of personal hygiene and beauty care products retailed cheap to consumers in plastic sachets.   Watchdog insists that these outfits ought to retrieve-- nationwide, if you please-- those empty plastic packaging and sachets that end-users and consumers have strewn about the nation's every inch of landscape. If natural historian Dr. Loren Eiseley could sneak a word edgewise, he'd likely just repeat himself: "Man is an expression of his landscape."   A...

  NOT one of the frat brods in a nearby huddle ever had an inkling what young Jemil did for over eight hours any given day. All they knew was that comely coeds hang out with him, basking in adulation, maybe, adoration of the lanky guy whose presence teased their nether parts. In mindless rage, a dozen or so of those brods rushed at Jemil with intent to give him a thorough body overhaul. Kith and kin of the aggrieved dozen were roaring bloody murder at the police station after the scuffle, cadging a bewildered desk officer to throw the malefactor into the calaboose. Jemil's father let out a polite taunt, explaining that no sane court would even indict the young man for inflicting grave injuries-- unless he drove a bulldozer, a fork lift, or steamroller and tore chunks of skin and flesh off the bodies of awe-struck fratmen. The attackers pounced on an unlikely victim, and emerged with worrisome problems that may take more than dermatology or surgery to patch up. It took years of forg...

 Into a bowl dinner was poured, a watery potage of rice, lambent like a wash of stars, sweetened with wee chunks of dark panutsa (raw sugar); maybe, made sweeter as the doting father teased out for his children the familiar strains of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ followed by an array of kundimanditties from a beat-up piano hugging a corner of the abode that lazed by the bank of Pasig River. One of those children who subsisted on such humble fare after World War II turned into one of the nation’s captains of industry. His business pursuits, pundits would quip, ‘ran from erection to resurrection’ or a chain of swank motels and memorial parks. And he still wants his father’s piano in which shreds of his soul, by his own admission, swill like lugaw he had learned to love. Plain lugaw was what a 90-year-old business mogul—of $12 billion estimated net worth—shared for breakfast with a portly newspaper honcho; the latter groaned in disbelief, appetite honed by hoped-for lavish food far...

Bago po simulan ang ating atungal Tiyakin po lamang ang ating pagitan-- Isang kilometro, social distancing lang Upang makaiwas sa Cupit-19 daw! Tiyakin pong suot ang trapal sa mukha Nang kapal ng mukha hindi mahalata-- Tayo ay aawit ng pasyon ng madla Mambulahaw tayo, tumaghoy nang kusa... Siguruhin na ring Alfonso Pilato Pang-Hudas ng kamay at sikmura ninyo Nang mahimasmasan sa pag-awit nito At pagtampalasan sa sinumang Kristo. H'wag nang magbibilang kung ilang negosyo At kung ilang milyon, wala nang trabaho. Kung kayo'y magutom, pati pamilya n'yo... Magtiis, magsisi, sulong sa Kalbaryo! Kung trilyo-trilyones na pirasong pilak Pambili umano ng bakunang lunas-- Utang ina niyang tayo magbabayad Fund gimmick po iyan ng mga Satanas... Alta-presyong Mahal, aawit-awitin Upang pandarambong ay hindi mapansin At hindi maungkat fund-gimmick pa mandin Na pang-ayuda daw sa bayang siniil. Sa trilyo-trilyones, h'wag na pong magtaka Kung saan napunta kung kanginong bulsa... Taumbayan...

Moths to the light, flies to the filth. That somehow explains divine hardwiring done on passionless choices of insects, as bees and butterflies are drawn to flowers to gorge on nectar sweet or why locust swarms descend upon foliage greens for their feeding frenzy; to fatten their bodies, convert chlorophyll and fiber into protein that would make 'em excellent comestible for the likes of a St. John the Baptist who survived desert aridity for years with locust as staple fare and source of needful nutrients. Choices of bipeds hereabouts are tougher to reckon, say, Pornhub reports that Filipinos are tops in the world for spending the most time on the site while global environment monitoring teams are saying that Philippines ranks third worldwide in efforts to choke the land and the seas with plastic waste-- no guestimates on numbers for any analyst to gauge, like, it took 16 million of those bipeds to hoist to the highest office of the land a raving sewage-spewing psychopath. Of a 110-...

KAHIT hindi pa man kasagsagan ng mahal na mga araw, umaalingawngaw sa maraming pamayanan ang samut-saring alulong, ngalngal, at atungal ng mga nagbabasa yata ng Pasyong Mahal-- kapansanan daw 'yon, ayon sa mga dalubhasa. Amusia, katunog ng amnesia, na inilalapat sa mga bumubusina habang nakasupalpal ang mikropono sa bunganga. Those who howl their lungs loud out off-key, those who don't have the strength to carry a tune but still do so. Bukod sa sanlinggong pagdalit sa Mahal na Pasyon-- parang Canto Gregoriano na sinahugan ng rhythm and poetry ni Craig David ang dating nito sa pandinig-- sa kakatwa't kababalaghan yata napako ang pansin ng aking kamusmusan. Do'n sa mga tinatawag na "magagaling na lalaki". Na ang tahasang katuturan ay lalaki na may taglay na galing. Dupil, agimat, o anting-anting. Viernes Santo ang itinakdang araw ng pagsubok sa kapangyarihan ng kanilang mga taglay.  Maraming pagkakataon na nasaksihan ang bisa ng tinatawag na San Miguel Arkanghel...

  Several sayote rootstock-- from Alfonso, Cavite where my third child was married in a garden wedding rite-- were planted in a muddy quagmire where pours water used for washing food ingredients, clothes, dishes, what have you. Planting site is a farm lot of a brother-in-law next to my one-hectare spread devoted to rare and endangered tree species. Like swine getting ensconced in hog heaven, the sayote seedlings I planted myself thrived in that pigsty ground (even farm bumpkins in that farming area are averse to wading in cesspools or doing a bit of tickling the ground with a hoe, but I'm not); so sayote began shooting off a mesh of green foliage, flowers, and fruits after a time. My jaunts to an agro-forestry research facility in Puguis, Benguet had me acquainted to what sayote needs for robust growth and fecund fruition. Sneeze at the myopic notion that it takes an entire village to raise a child-- those sayote babies I raised myself. And it just took the entire nearby village to...

IMBUED with the herd mentality of vermin held rapt by a piper tune to march into the sea, the populace-- without as much as a protest or protestation-- accepted their rueful fate under house arrest. 'Twas bruited about as measure to check the spread of a viral trend. Never mind if so-called curse, oops, cure is worse than disease. And so, the stewards of community health went the whole hog to make sure a vulnerable populace kept themselves secured in their homes-- they've given themselves the status as frontliners. As to which or what front they were lining, we didn't have an inkling. Methinks panty liners are more to my liking. Neither did our health stewards have an inkling that imposing a garrison state was  the equivalent of low-intensity conflict or hamleting to throttle movement of people. It just didn't occur to 'em that they inflicting mayhem and murder on the nation's economy and people's livelihood.  Ay, there used to be over 30 tricycles plying ro...