Morning in Nagrebcan (Manuel E. Arguilla)

It was sunrise at Nagrebcan. The fine, bluish mist, low over the tobacco fields, was lifting and thinning moment by moment. A ragged strip of mist, pulled away by the morning breeze, had caught on the c umps of bamboo along the banks of the stream that flowed to one side of the barrio. Before long the sun would top the Katayaghan hills, but as yet no people were around. In the grey shadow of the hills, the barrio was gradually awaking. Roosters crowed and strutted on the ground while hens hesitated on their perches among the branches of the camanchile trees. Stray goats nibbled· the weeds on the sides of the road, and the bull carabaos tugged restively against their stakes. In the early morning the puppies lay curled up together between their mother’s paws under the ladder of the house. Four puppies were all white like the mother. They had pink noses and pink eyelids and pink mouths. The skin between their toes and on the inside of their large, limp ears was pink.

Legend of Hundred Islands

Centuries ago before the coming of the Spaniards to the Philippines, there was a brave rajah who ruled over the people of Alaminos, Rajah Masubeg. He had several hundred warriors to guard his kingdom, led by his son Dam Mabiskeg. The little kingdom enjoyed peace and prosperity, unmolested by its neighbors.

But one day, a report came that an invading force was coming from across the sea. The rajah called a council of war among his chieftains. It was decided to meet the enemy at sea. They must not be allowed to land. One hundred of the bravest warriors was summoned. They were placed in ten large bancas, armed to the teeth. Datu Mabiskeg, in the lead banca, commanded the task force.

The Visitation of the Gods (Gilda Cordero-Fernando)

The letter announcing the visitation (a yearly descent upon the school by the superintendent, the district supervisors and the division supervisors for "purposes of inspection and evaluation") had been delivered in the morning by a sleepy janitor to the principal. The party was, the attached circular revealed a hurried glance, now at Pagkabuhay, would be in Mapili by lunchtime, and barring typhoons, floods, volcanic eruptions and other acts of God, would be upon Pugad Lawin by afternoon.

Consequently, after the first period, all the morning classes were dismissed. The Home Economics building, where the fourteen visiting school officials were to be housed, became the hub of a general cleaning. Long-handled brooms ravished the homes of peaceful spiders from cross beams and transoms, the capiz of the windows were scrubbed to an eggshell whiteness, and the floors became mirrors after assiduous bouts with husk and candlewax. Open wood boxes of Coronaslar gas were scattered within convenient reach of the carved sofa, the Vienna chairs and the stag-horn hat rack.

Magnificence (Estrella D. Alfon)

There was nothing to fear, for the man was always so gentle, so

kind. At night when the little girl and her brother were bathed in the light

of the big shaded bulb that hung over the big study table in the

downstairs hall, the man would knock gently on the door, and come in. he

would stand for a while just beyond the pool of light, his feet in the circle

of illumination, the rest of him in shadow. The little girl and her brother

would look up at him where they sat at the big table, their eyes bright in

the bright light, and watch him come fully into the light, but his voice soft,

his manner slow. He would smell very faintly of sweat and pomade, but

the children didn’t mind although they did notice, for they waited for him

every evening as they sat at their lessons like this. He’d throw his visored

cap on the table, and it would fall down with a soft plop, then he’d nod his

head to say one was right, or shake it to say one was wrong.

Footnote to Youth (Jose Garcia Villa)

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong's grandmother.

I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him.

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong's foot and crawled calmly over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more.

College Uneducation (Jorge Bocobo)

I wish to speak on “College Uneducation.” Is it possible that our college education may “uneducate” rather than educate? I answer “Yes.” It is a paradox but nonetheless the truth—the grim, unmerciful truth. We all believe in higher education; else we should not be in the University. At the same time, college education—like all other human devices for human betterment—may build or destroy, lead, or mislead.

My ten years’ humble service in the University of the Philippines has afforded me an opportunity to watch the current of ideals and practices of our student body. In some aspects of higher education, most of our students have measured up to their high responsibilities. But in other features—alas, vital ones!—the thoughts and actions of many of them tend to stunt the mind, dry up the heart, and quench the soul. These students are being uneducated in college. I shall briefly discuss three ways in which many of our students are getting college uneducation, for which they pay tuition fees and make unnumbered sacrifices.

Book Worship

In the first place, there is the all but delirious worship of the printed page. “What does the book say?” is, by all odds, the most important question in the student’s mind whenever he is faced with any problem calling for his own reasoning. By the same token, may students feel a sort of frenzy for facts till these become as huge as the mountains and the mind is crushed under them. Those students think of nothing but how to accumulate data; hence, their capacity for clear and powerful thinking is paralyzed. How pathetic to hear them argue and discuss! Because they lack the native vitality of unhampered reason, their discourse smacks of cant and sophistry rather than of healthy reasoning and straight thinking.

It is thus that many of our students surrender their individuality to the textbook and lose their birthright—which is to think for themselves. And when they attempt to form their own judgment, they become pedantic. Unless a student develops the habit of independent and sound reasoning, his college education is a solemn sham.

Compare these hair-splitting college students with Juan de la Cruz in the barrios. Now, Juan de la Cruz has read very little: no undigested mass of learning dulls the edge of his inborn logic, his mind is free from the overwhelming, stultifying weight of unassimilated book knowledge. How penetrating his perception, how unerring his judgment, how solid his common sense! He contemptuously refers to the learned sophists, thus: ”Lumabis ang karunungan mo,” which means, “Your learning is too much.”

Professional Philistinism

The second manner of college uneducation that I want to speak of is this: most students make professional efficiency the be-all and end-all of college education. They have set their hearts upon becoming highly trained lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, and agriculturists. I shall not stop to inquire into the question of how much blame should be laid at the door of the faculties of the University for this pernicious drift toward undue and excessive specialization. That such a tendency exists is undeniable, but we never pause to count, the cost! We are all of one mind: I believe that college education is nothing unless it widens a man’s vision, broadens his sympathies, and leads him to higher thinking and deep feeling. Yet how can we expect a; this result from a state of affairs which reduces a law student to a code, a prospective doctor to a prescription, and a would-be engineer to a mathematical formula? How many students in our professional colleges are doing any systematic reading in literature? May we not, indeed, seriously ask whether this fetish of specialization does not smother the inspiring sense of beauty and the ennobling love of finer things that our students have it in them to unfold into full-blown magnificence.

The Jading Dullness of Modern Life

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,””says Keats. But we know that beauty us a matter of taste; and, unless we develop in us a proper appreciation of what is beautiful and sublime, everything around us is tedious and commonplace. We rise early and go out into, but our spirit is responsive to the hopeful quietude and the dew-chastened sweetness of dawn. At night we behold the myriad stars, but they are just so many bright specks—their soft fires do not soothe our troubled hearts, and we do not experience that awesome, soul stirring fascination of the immense ties of God’s universe. We are bathed in the silver sheen of the moon and yet feel not the beatitude of the moment. We gaze upon a vista of high mountains, but their silent strength has no appeal for us. We read some undying verses; still, their vibrant cadence does not thrill us, and their transcendent though is to us like a vision that vanishes. We look at a masterpiece of the chisel with its eternal gracefulness of lines and properties, yet to us it is no more than a mere human likeness. Tell me, is such a life worth coming to college for? Yet, my friends, the overspecialization which many students pursue with zeal and devotion is bound to result in such an unfeeling, dry-as-dust existence.

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I may say in passing that the education of the older generation is in this respect far superior to ours. Our older countrymen say, with reason, that the new education does not lawfully cultivate the heart as the old education did.

Misguided Zeal

Lastly, this selfsame rage for highly specialized training, with a view to distinguished professional success, beclouds our vision of the broader perspectives of life. Our philosophy of life is in danger of becoming narrow and mean because we are habituated to think almost wholly in terms of material wellbeing. Of course we must be practical. We cannot adequately answer this tremendous question unless we thoughtfully develop a proper sense of values and thus learn to separate the dross from the gold, the chaff from the grain of life. The time to do this task is not after but before college graduation; for, when all is said and done, the sum and substance of higher education is the individual formulation of what life is for, with special training in some advanced line of human learning in order that such a life formula may be executed with the utmost effectiveness. But how can we lay down the terms of our philosophy of life if every one of our thoughts is absorbed by the daily assignment, the outside reading, and the laboratory experiment, and when we continuously devour lectures and notes?

“Uneducated” Juan de la Cruz as Teacher

Here, again, many of our students should sit at the feet of meagrely educated Juan de la Cruz and learn wisdom. Ah! He is often called ignorant, but he is the wisest of the wise, for he has unravelled the mysteries of life. His is the happiness of the man who knows the whys of human existence. Unassuming Juan de la Cruz cherishes no “Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself.” His simple and hardy virtues put to shame the studied and complex rules of conduct of highly educated men and women. In adversity, his stoicism is beyond encomium. His love of home, so guilelessly faithful, is the firm foundation of our social structure. And his patriotism has been tested and found true. Can our students learn from Juan de la Cruz, or does their college education unfit them to become his pupils?

In conclusion, I shall say that I have observed among many of our students certain alarming signs of college uneducation, and some of these are: (1) lack of independent judgment as well as love of pedantry, because of the worship of the printed page and the feverish accumulation of undigested data;

(2) the deadening of the delicate sense of the beautiful and the sublime, on account of overspecialization; and (3) neglect of the formulation of a sound philosophy of life as a result of excessive emphasis on professional training.

The Chieftest Mourner (Aida Rivera-Ford)

He was my uncle because he married my aunt (even if he had not come to her these past ten years), so when the papers brought the news of his death, I felt that some part of me had died, too.I was boarding then at a big girls' college in Manila and I remember quite vividly that a few other girls were gathered about the lobby of our school, looking very straight and proper since it was seven in the morning and the starch in our long-sleeved uniform had not yet given way. I tried to be brave while I read that my uncle had actually been "the last of a distinct school of Philippine poets." I was still being brave all the way down the lengthy eulogies, until I got to the line which said that he was "the sweetest lyre that ever throbbed with Malayan chords." Something caught at my throat and I let out one sob--the rest merely followed. When the girls hurried over to me to see what had happened, I could only point to the item on the front page with my uncle's picture taken when he was still handsome. Everybody suddenly spoke in a low voice and Ning, who worshipped me, said that I shouldn't be so unhappy because my uncle was now with the other great poets in heaven--at which I really howled in earnest because my uncle had not only deserted poor Aunt Sophia but had also been living with another woman these many years and, most horrible of all, he had probably died in her embrace!Perhaps I received an undue amount of commiseration for the death of the delinquent husband of my aunt, but it wasn't my fault because I never really lied about anything; only, nobody thought to ask me just how close an uncle he was. It wasn't my doing either when, some months after his demise, my poem entitled The Rose Was Not So Fair O Alma Mater was captioned "by the niece of the late beloved Filipino Poet." And that having been printed, I couldn't possibly refuse when I was asked to write on My Uncle--The Poetry of His Life. The article, as printed, covered only his boyhood and early manhood because our adviser cut out everything that happened after he was married. She said that the last half of his life was not exactly poetic, although I still maintain that in his vices, as in his poetry, he followed closely the pattern of the great poets he admired.My aunt used to relate that he was an extremely considerate man--when he was sober, and on those occasions he always tried to make up for his past sins. She said that he had never meant to marry, knowing the kind of husband he would make, but that her beauty drove him out of his right mind. My aunt always forgave him but one day she had more than she could bear, and when he was really drunk, she tied him to a chair with a strong rope to teach him a lesson. She never saw him drunk again, for as soon as he was able to, he walked out the door and never came back.I was very little at that time, but I remembered that shortly after he went away, my aunt put me in a car and sent me to his hotel with a letter from her. Uncle ushered me into his room very formally and while I looked all around the place, he prepared a special kind of lemonade for the two of us. I was sorry he poured it out into wee glasses because it was unlike any lemonade I had ever tasted. While I sipped solemnly at my glass, he inquired after my aunt. To my surprise, I found myself answering with alacrity. I was happy to report all details of my aunt's health, including the number of crabs she ate for lunch and the amazing fact that she was getting fatter and fatter without the benefit of Scott's Emulsion or Ovaltine at all. Uncle smiled his beautiful somber smile and drew some poems from his desk. He scribbled a dedication on them and instructed me to give them to my aunt. I made much show of putting the empty glass down but Uncle was dense to the hint. At the door, however, he told me that I could have some lemonade every time I came to visit him. Aunt Sophia was so pleased with the poems that she kissed me. And then all of a sudden she looked at me queerly and made a most peculiar request of me. She asked me to say ha-ha, and when I said ha-ha, she took me to the sink and began to wash the inside of my mouth with soap and water while calling upon a dozen of the saints to witness the act. I never got a taste of Uncle's lemonade.It began to be a habit with Aunt Sophia to drop in for a periodic recital of woe to which Mama was a sympathetic audience. The topic of the conversation was always the latest low on Uncle's state of misery. It gave Aunt Sophia profound satisfaction to relay the report of friends on the number of creases on Uncle's shirt or the appalling decrease in his weight. To her, the fact that Uncle was getting thinner proved conclusively that he was suffering as a result of the separation. It looked as if Uncle would not be able to hold much longer, the way he was reported to be thinner each time, because Uncle didn't have much weight to start with. The paradox of the situation, however, was that Aunt Sophia was now crowding Mama off the sofa and yet she wasn't looking very happy either.When I was about eleven, there began to be a difference. Everytime I cam into the room when Mama and Aunt Sophia were holding conference, the talk would suddenly be switched to Spanish. It was about this time that I took an interest in the Spanish taught in school. It was also at this time that Aunt Sophia exclaimed over my industry at the piano--which stood a short distance from the sofa. At first I couldn't gather much except that Uncle was not any more the main topic. It was a woman by the name of Esa--or so I thought she was called. Later I began to appreciate the subtlety of the Spanish la mujer esa.And so I learned about the woman. She was young, accomplished, a woman of means. (A surprising number of connotations were attached to these terms.) Aunt Sophia, being a loyal wife, grieved that Uncle should have been ensnared by such a woman, thinking not so much of herself but of his career. Knowing him so well, she was positive that he was unhappier than ever, for that horrid woman never allowed him to have his own way; she even denied him those little drinks which he took merely to aid him into poetic composition. Because the woman brazenly followed Uncle everywhere, calling herself his wife, a confusing situation ensued.

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When people mentioned Uncle's wife, there was no way of knowing whether they referred to my aunt or to the woman. After a while a system was worked out by the mutual friends of the different parties. No. 1 came to stand for Aunt Sophia and No. 2 for the woman.I hadn't seen Uncle since the episode of the lemonade, but one day in school all the girls were asked to come down to the lecture room--Uncle was to read some of his poems! Up in my room, I stopped to fasten a pink ribbon to my hair thinking the while how I would play my role to perfection--for the dear niece was to be presented to the uncle she had not seen for so long. My musings were interrupted, however, when a girl came up and excitedly bubbled that she had seen my uncle--and my aunt, who was surprisingly young and so very modern!I couldn't go down after all; I was indisposed.Complicated as the situation was when Uncle was alive, it became more so when he died. I was puzzling over who was to be the official widow at his funeral when word came that I was to keep Aunt Sophia company at the little chapel where the service would be held. I concluded with relief that No. 2 had decamped.The morning wasn't far gone when I arrived at the chapel and there were only a few people present. Aunt Sophia was sitting in one of the front pews at the right section of the chapel. She had on a black and white print which managed to display its full yardage over the seat. Across the aisle from her was a very slight woman in her early thirties who was dressed in a dramatic black outfit with a heavy veil coming up to her forehead. Something about her made me suddenly aware that Aunt Sophia's bag looked paunchy and worn at the corners. I wanted to ask my aunt who she was but after embracing me when I arrived, she kept her eyes stolidly fixed before her. I directed my gaze in the same direction. At the front was the president's immense wreath leaning heavily backward, like that personage himself; and a pace behind, as though in deference to it, were other wreaths arranged according to the rank and prominence of the people who had sent them. I suppose protocol had something to do with it.I tiptoed over to the muse before Uncle as he lay in the dignity of death, the faintest trace of his somber smile still on his face. My eyes fell upon a cluster of white flowers placed at the foot of the casket. It was ingeniously fashioned in the shape of a dove and it bore the inscription "From the Loyal One." I looked at Aunt Sophia and didn't see anything dove-like about her. I looked at the slight woman in black and knew of a sudden that she was the woman. A young man, obviously a brother or a nephew, was bending over her solicitously. I took no notice of him even though he had elegant manners, a mischievous cowlick, wistful eyes, a Dennis Morgan chin, and a pin which testified that he belonged to what we girls called our "brother college." I showed him that he absolutely did not exist for me, especially when I caught him looking in our direction.I always feel guilty of sacrilege everytime I think of it, but there was something grimly ludicrous about my uncle’s funeral. There were two women, each taking possession of her portion of the chapel just as though stakes had been laid, seemingly unmindful of each other, yet revealing by this studied disregard that each was very much aware of the other. As though to give balance to the scene, the young man stood his full height near the woman to offset the collective bulk of Aunt Sophia and myself, although I was merely a disproportionate shadow behind her.The friends of the poet began to come. They paused a long time at the door, surveying the scene before they marched self-consciously towards the casket. Another pause there, and then they wrenched themselves from the spot and moved--no, slithered--either towards my aunt or towards the woman. The choice must have been difficult when they knew both. The women almost invariably came to talk to my aunt whereas most of the men turned to the woman at the left. I recognized some important Malacañang men and some writers from seeing their pictures in the papers. Later in the morning a horde of black-clad women, the sisters and cousins of the poet, swept into the chapel and came directly to where my aunt sat. They had the same deep eye-sockets and hollow cheek-bones which had lent a sensitive expression to the poet's face but which on them suggested t.b. The air became dense with the sickly-sweet smell of many flowers clashing and I went over to get my breath of air. As I glanced back I had a crazy surrealist impression of mouths opening and closing into Aunt Sophia's ear, and eyes darting toward the woman at the left. Uncle's clan certainly made short work of my aunt for when I returned, she was sobbing. As though to comfort her, one of the women said, in a whisper which I heard from the door, that the president himself was expected to come in the afternoon.Toward lunchtime, it became obvious that neither my aunt nor the woman wished to leave ahead of the other. I could appreciate my aunt's delicadeza in this matter but then got hungry and therefore grew resourceful: I called a taxi and told her it was at the door with the meter on. Aunt Sophia's unwillingness lasted as long as forty centavos.We made up for leaving ahead of the woman by getting back to the chapel early. For a long time she did not come and when Uncle's kinswomen arrived, I thought their faces showed a little disappointment at finding the left side of the chapel empty. Aunt Sophia, on the other hand, looked relieved. But at about three, the woman arrived and I perceived at once that there was a difference in her appearance. She wore the same black dress but her thick hair was now carefully swept into a regal coil; her skin glowing; her eyes, which had been striking enough, looked even larger. The eyebrows of the women around me started working and finally, the scrawniest of the poet's relations whispered to the others and slowly, together, they closed in on the woman.I went over to sit with my aunt who was gazing not so steadily at nothing in particular.At first the women spoke in whispers, and then the voices rose a trifle. Still, everybody was polite. There was more talking back and forth, and suddenly the conversation wasn't polite any more. The only good thing about it was that now I could hear everything distinctly."So you want to put me in a corner, do you? You think perhaps you can bully me out of here?" the woman said."Shh! Please don't create a scene," the poet's sisters said, going one pitch higher."It's you who are creating a scene. Didn't you come here purposely to start one?""We're only trying to make you see reason.... If you think of the dead at all...""Let's see who has the reason. I understand that you want me to leave, isn't it? Now that he is dead and cannot speak for me you think I should quietly hide in a corner?" The woman's voice was now pitched up for the benefit of the whole chapel. "Let me ask you. During the war when the poet was hard up do you suppose I deserted him? Whose jewels do you think we sold when he did not make money... When he was ill, who was it who stayed at his side... Who took care of him during all those months... and who peddled his books and poems to the publishers so that he could pay for the hospital and doctor's bills? Did any of you come to him then? Let me ask you that! Now that he is dead you want me to leave his side so that you and that vieja can have the honors and have your picture taken with the president. That's what you want, isn't it--to pose with the president....""Por Dios! Make her stop it--somebody stop her mouth!" cried Aunt Sophia, her eyes going up to heaven."Now you listen, you scandalous woman," one of the clan said, taking it up for Aunt Sophia. "We don't care for the honors--we don't want it for ourselves. But we want the poet to be honored in death... to have a decent and respectable funeral without scandal... and the least you can do is to leave him in peace as he lies there....""Yes," the scrawny one said. "You've created enough scandal for him in life--that's why we couldn't go to him when he was sick... because you were there, you--you shameless bitch."The woman's face went livid with shock and rage. She stood wordless while her young protector, his eyes blazing, came between her and the poet's kinswomen. Her face began to twitch. And then the sobs came. Big noisy sobs that shook her body and spilled the tears down her carefully made-up face. Fitfully, desperately, she tugged at her eyes and nose with her widow's veil. The young man took hold of her shoulders gently to lead her away, but she shook free; and in a few quick steps she was there before the casket, looking down upon that infinitely sad smile on Uncle's face. It may have been a second that she stood there, but it seemed like a long time."All right," she blurted, turning about. "All right. You can have him--all that's left of him!"At that moment before she fled, I saw what I had waited to see. The mascara had indeed run down her cheeks. But somehow it wasn't funny at all.

Dark (Delfin Fresnosa)

A woman and her son sat by the window looking upon the darkening road. Every now and then the woman would turn to the boy anxiously, trying tor read the expression of his eyes. The boy, sickly looking, with dark and sensitive features, seeming to note her gaze, would avert his face and shield it with his hand. She felt a great wordless pity for him, and a sense of her helplessness gave her keen anguish. He knew of her love for him and sensed her hurt like a sharp stabbing pain.

Men and women passed by on the road in front of the house, some coming from the fields carrying bundles or farm implements. Most of them walked slowly, tired after the day's work but glad of the cool wind and the coming night. They talked and laughed as they went by.

Farther down the road children were at play, shouting and kicking an empty tin can about. Occasionally they had to stop their game to let some carabao cart or automobile pass.

"Dis you see that car that just went by, full of people?" the woman asked her son.

"Yes." He said. "They must have come from an excursion."

"Yes, they were all talking and laughing. The people on the road shouted and laughed back at them."

Sometimes a man or a woman stopped a while in front of the house to exchange greetings with the woman at the window. The boy listened to his mother and to the voices of her friends. Some of them asked how he was, and he replied in a courteous voice that he was all right.

"Leon," suddenly said the mother. "Look at that boy with the monkey . He has monkey on hi shoulder. The monkey is jumping up and down."

"Yes," he said, laughing a little as if amused at the sight. "The boy is carrying a monkey."

He was again aware of his mother looking at him, trying to find his eyes, and again he turned his face away.

The boy with the monkey, and his father, a farmer, were now passing by the house. The monkey was a tame one and was crying out sharply and chattering.

"Can you see him, Leon?" asked the mother. "Can you see him? Can you see him a little?" The mother's voice was eager and urgent. There was desperateness in it. The boy knew that her lips were soundlessly forming the word she wanted him to say.

"Yes," he said softly.

The mother was suddenly deliriously happy. She crushed the boy's head against her bosom. Snatches of incoherent talk came from her lips. She wanted to shout to the people on the road that her boy could see again. Tears stream down her face and wetted the boy's head.

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Her husband had not come yet. Where was he now? When would he come come so that she could tell him? He would be very glad. They would laugh and cry together in their gladness. She was almost choking with joy and she pressed the boy's frail form to her.

He was crying too, softly, silently, and then convulsively. How sharply he now regretted that "YES" that he had almost unconsciously given her, that word that he had felt almost wrung out of him.

Almost every afternoon when the sun was setting, he and his mother would sit at the window. She had become sad and a little embittered. But a few weeks before, a stranger had come to their town who people said was a healer. They had brought the boy to him. At night when she and her husband thought the boy asleep, they would talk about him and the sight that had become affected and then he had finally entirely lost. After the visit to the healer, they had taken some hope again.

The mother notice the boy was weeping. "What is the matter, Leon? Tell me why you are crying so hard," she said anxiously. But he could not tell her and went on sobbing.

"Look at those boys on the road," she said, as if to banish a renewed but unspoken fear." It won't be long now before you are playing with them again." She bade him look out of the window, gently holding his chin up with a finger. He could not hide his face from her any more as she looked first at him ad then at the boys in the road.

The boys had suddenly stopped playing and were huddled together in a group. Some passerby stopped, peering curiously at something the boys had picked up.

"what happened, mother?" said the boy.

"I don't know," said the mother. But the people were going on their way again and the boys were left to themselves. Again their voices were raised.

"It was a swallow," the mother said. "It was flying and hit the telephone wires. It fell to the ground and the boys found it."

"A bird," said the boy. "A swallow."

They sat silent now waiting for the father to come home. The mother was still excited, still impatiently awaiting her husband to tell him the reason for her happiness.

Finally she said: "There is your father coming down the road." The boy heard him at the gate.

"Hello, son!" he cried, but he slowed his steps and for sometime tarried in the yard.

The boy listened anxiously for his footsteps and agitatedly turned to face the door. The stood up watching him. There was complete silence in the house.

Then the boy, extending his two arms and widely smiling, cried "Hello, Father!" But the smile froze on his lips. The woman turned to the window, and seeing her husband still in the yard, burst into a sob.

The Legend of the Magat River

A long time ago, there lived in Bayombong a tall, handsome man called Magat. He was young and strong, and fast as a hunter and sure in his spear shot. He could run as fast as a deer and strong as he was, he could down a bull with ease. He was strong-willed and obstinate but he was also kind and gentle. Except for a few who envied him his prowess, everybody in the village loved and respected him. Magat loved outdoor life, and roamed in the forest surrounding the struggling settlement.

One day, fired by adventure he wandered farther than usual. Soon night came. Being far from home, he kindled a fire in his crude, primitive way. he lay beside the fire and fell asleep.

Early the next morning, he pursued his solitary way. Finally he came upon the largest stream he had ever seen. He stopped and crawled noisily to the bank of the river near the fall. Upon parting the tall grasses he beheld a lovely sight just across the stream-beneath the shade of the outspreading branches of the big balete tree was a very beautiful maiden. She was bathing and was nude from the waist up. She was the most beautiful woman Magat had ever seen and he fell in love with her at first sight.

From where he was hiding, Magat's attention was attracted by a silent movement on a spreading branch; Magat saw a great python, coiled around the branch, which was ready to attack the beautiful woman. He jumped backward. The noise he made drew the attention of the maiden, who, turning around, saw him poise a spear. She mistook his attitude for hostility and ducked under water. Just as the python sprang, the spear flew from Magat's hand. The snake was struck right through the eyes and brain.

The next moment, Magat was in the water and carried the beautiful Maiden ashore. She struggled a little but did not scream, as she modestly tried to cover her body with her long dark hair.

Magat pointed to the writhing python. Upon seeing it, she screamed instinctively and drew close to Magat, who put a protecting arm around her lovely shoulders. Gratitude and admiration were all over her pretty face.

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Magat picked up his broken spear and went back to the young woman. They wandered about in the forest. Under the spell of nature, Magat asked the woman to be his wife; the woman, after making Magat promise in the name of the great Kabunian not to see her at noon, consented.

He brought her home and made a cozy room for her. Everything went well and happily for a while. But the passing days, his curiosity mounted more and more and at last, it grew out of bounds.

One noon, he broke his promise and broke into his wife's seclusion. In his wife's bed of soft leaves and grasses he beheld a sight that chilled his heart. A great crocodile was lying on his wife's bed. Believing that his wife had met a horrible death, he rushed to the kitchen, fetched an ugly weapon and returned to his wife's room. He raised his weapon to kill the crocodile when suddenly he saw his wife on the bed instead of the crocodile. His wife was dying.

"you broke your promise. I can no longer be happy nor live any longer. I must die." his wife sobbed. Slowly life ebbed from her. On her beautiful skin, scales appeared, as she turned into a crocodile before his very eyes. That was his punishment for having broken his promise made in the name of Kabunian.

Sadly, Magat buried the dead crocodile in his front yard. worn out by grief for his lack of fidelity to his word and over the death of his lovely wife, he drowned himself and his miseries in the same stream grew into the mighty troublesome Magat river.

Death by Herminio M. Beltran

We are

Leaves of Life's tree --

And death is the wind that shakes

The branches gently 'till its leaves

All fall.

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Youth (Maximo D. Ramos)

These have known the tingling freshness
Of the coming forth from God;
The sweetness of mother's breast
The ringing sinewiness of growth,
The feel of the loved one's cheek, the song
Of April suns and showers...

And these will know
The quiet dimming down of age
And the silent wonder
of going back
to God.

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Picture Show ( Guillermo Castillo)

By God's divine will,

I waken sitting in the dark

with my attention set

upon a Screen before me

while God behind me in His closet

with His intricate machines

projects a Moving Picture Show

a masterpiece which we call - LIFE

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Sa Aking mga Kababata (Dr. Jose Rizal)

Kapagka ang baya'y sadyang umiibig
sa kanyang salitang kaloob ng langit,
sanglang kalayaan nasa ring malapit,
katulad ng ibong nasa himpapawid.

Pagka't ang salita'y isang kahatulan
sa bayan, sa nayo't mga kaharian,
at ang isang tao'y katulad, kabagay
ng alinmang likha noong kalayaan.

Ang hindi magmahal sa kanyang salita'y
mahigit sa hayop at malansang isda,
kaya ang marapat ay pagyamaning kusa
na tulad sa inang tunay na pinagpala.

Ang wikang Tagalog tulad din sa Latin,
sa Ingles, Kastila't sa salitang anghel,
sapagka't ang Poong maalam tumingin
ang Siyang naggawad, nagbigay sa atin.

Ang salita natin huwad din sa iba
na may alfabeto at sariling letra,
na kaya nawala'y dinatnan ng sigwa
ang lunday sa lawa noong dakong una

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The Story of the Unfinished Bridge

At Balatoc, which is part of the municipality of Lubuagan, and the province of Kalinga-Apayao, is one of the oldest barrios. This barrio is situated at the foot of a high mountain where there is located a huge rock. The people who dwell there are the Tinguians from Abra, the the Isnegs from Apayao, and some people from Dananao which is part of the district of Tinglayan. Some people in this barrio made caves at the foot of a huge stone as their houses in times past and even now.

In this barrio there was a beautiful woman. Her name was Ipogao. One day, a man whom none of the inhabitants knew, appeared. He went to Ipogao and said, "Ipogao, I am God (Kabunyan), from a distant place. I come to see you because I want to marry you." Ipogao answered, "I would like to marry you if you truly like me."

After this conversation was finished, Ipogao led God to her house which was very small. The house of Ipogao to which they went was very far from where the real barrio was situated. After many days had passed, God thought of a good thing that he would do. He went and wandered around the farms to look for some good work that he would do. When he looked down on Pasil, he decided to make a bridge across to the other side for the people to pass when they go to the opposite side to work for their supplies.

So then, God returned to their house to tell Ipogao what he wanted to do. He instructed her, "You, Ipogao, tomorrow I'll start out to go and work. Don't worry if I'll not be here or if no one will come to me. I don't need anything to eat. It will be just up to me, and I'll come here if I get hungry." When he had finished giving his instructions he started out to go to his work.

After many days had passed by, Ipogao longed for her husband. So then, she cooked rice to take to her husband. When she was almost at Pasil, she heard what sounded like a machine. So then, she silently drew near. When she had drawn near and spied what was making the noise, she saw God working. She carefully watched and was frightened to see flame of fire coming out from the navel of God. He was pointing the flame at the bridge that he was making.

Ipogao was frightened and so went silently away. As she was going away from the scene, a small piece of cooked rice fell and she made footprints at God's resting place.

When it was evening, God was tired so he went to rest at his resting place. As he was resting he saw some cooked rice and a person's footprint on the ground. He said, "There was a person who came here to my resting place. He plainly saw me working. I want no one to see me working until I am finished with the work that I'm doing." After he'd finished what he was saying to himself, he went to their house to go and ask his wife who'd seen him. He arrived at their house and saw his wife worrying. He conversed with her, "Ipogao, who went to that place where I am working and dropped some cooked rice and whose footprint is it that is at my resting place?"

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Ipogao told the truth, "I'm the one who went. I was coming to bring your food. I was only worrying because you had not been here for many many days." God answered, telling Ipogao, "You were and saw me working and interrupted me; you didn't listen to what I told you, so that thing I was working on will not be finished. I thought I would make a bridge for the benefit of the people here." God then returned to the bridge. When he arrived, he cut it into four pieces. One-fourth was left connected to the big stone. The part left measured about 4-1/2 meters. The other cut parts fell into the river. When God had finished destroying the bridge, he returned to their house and instructed Ipogao, "I am repenting, Ipogao, for I thought that I would come to marry you so that I would do something for your benefit. Being therefore interrupted, I will leave you and these people here." So the next day, God was no longer there.

When God had already gone away, Ipogao led the people to what he had worked. The people were surprised when they saw a part of the bridge that was left suspended and connected to the rock. While the people were carefully gazing at the bridge, they reprimanded Ipogao, "You should not have come and interrupted him until he was finished. Why ever did you come when he had instructed you?" When Ipogao answered, sh said, "It's just that in my mind I thought he was a person like us." After the people had seen that bridge they believed that God was that one who had come. There is a part of the bridge left there even now.

The Sun, The Moon and the Stars (Moro - Isulan Version)

Many many years ago, there was daylight throughout the years. There was no night because the Sun and the Moon were always together. The Moon was the wife of the Sun and the two lived happily with their children for many thousands of years.

But one day, the Sun told the Moon that he was going out for a walk. He requested her to cook some gabi leaves for him to eat after his walk.

"The pot must be filled with cooked gabi by the time I arrive home," he said.

"The leaves will shrink as they cook, so you cannot expect the pot to be full," replied the Moon.

"The pot must be filled when I arrive home," insisted the Sun, "or something terrible will happen." Then he left the worried Moon.

The Moon was very sad, but she was a very good wife. She went out to her vegetable garden to gather some gabi leaves. When she was cooking the vegetable, she found out that the longer she cooked it, the less bulky it became. She tried cooking again and again to see if she could get the pot filled to the brim.

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When the Sun came home, he immediately asked the Moon for the pot of gabi. When he saw that the pot was not full, he became very angry, and scolded the moon severely. The couple quarreled for a long time.

At last the Sun said, "Here after, we shall be separated. I want you to go your own way."

"What will happen to our children?" the moon asked. "Who will take care of them?"

"I will not take care of them," thundered the Sun.

"But if I take them along with me, they will surely suffer from cold," replied the Moon.

"And they will suffer the heat if they stay with me," the Sun said.

The Moon would not take the children along with her. This enraged the Sun. He took the bolo, killed the children, and chopped them to pieces. He took small pieces of the children's flesh from the floor and threw them outside the window of their house saying, "You shall go with them, and look after them in darkness."

Every piece of the flesh of the dead children of the Sun and the Moon turned into a star. The Moon went away from the Sun, and with her were the stars. To this day, we see the Moon and the Stars together at night and because of the quarrel of the Sun and the Moon, we now have day and night.