Berdugo ng Nang

“Go lang ng go,” sabi ng patalastas ng Globe na pinagbibidahan nina Vice Ganda at Sarah Geronimo. “Magbayad ng maaga ng di maabala,” sabi ng mga sticker sa dyip ng kung anu-anong produkto. “Pulis, binoga ng manghuling namboso,” sabi ng balita – na imbento ko lang naman, pero maraming ganyan sa midya.

Ang problema sa lahat ng ito, ang “ng,” dapat “nang.”

Ayon kay Virgilio S. Almario, konserbatibong manunulat pero maraming alam sa wika, sa libro niyang Filipino ng mga Filipino [1993], may limang gamit ang “nang” at ang iba pa ay “ng” na:

(1) Kasingkahulugan ng “noong.” Halimbawa: Nang si Hudas ay madulas, tatlong balbas ang nalagas.
(2) Kasingkahulugan ng “upang” at “para.” Halimbawa: Sinampiga ko nga at nang matauhan.
(3) Pinagsamang “na” at “ng.” Halimbawa: Sobra nang pahirap sa mata ang pangulo.
(4) Nagsasabi ng paraan o sukat. Halimbawa: At natulog nang mahimbing ang pangulo na parang kaunti lang ang walang bahay ngayong gabi.
(5) Bilang pang-angkop sa inuulit na salita. Halimbawa: Nag-Facebook nang nag-Facebook ang nakatalaga.

Hindi. Hindi ako purista, Tagalista (na kailangang pag-ibahin sa tagalista) o iba pang “-ista” na laging ipinupukol sa mga nangangaral tungkol sa wastong paggamit ng wikang Filipino. Ista-mbay, pwede pa ako. (Pasintabi kay Epifanio G. Matute.)

Hindi nga ako mahigpit sa paggamit ng “rin” at “din” depende kung katinig o patinig ang dulo ng salitang sinusundan. Ni hindi ko nga alam kung patinig o katinig ba ang tawag sa mga titik na “a, e, i, o, u.” Sa debateng “puwersa” bersus “pwersa,” “intelektuwal” bersus “intelektwal,” “diyugdiyugan” at “dyugdyugan,” doon naman ako sa ikalawa.

Nangangamba lang ako sa pagkawala ng mahahalaga at magagamit pang salitang Filipino tulad ng “nang” sa ating nakasulat na wika, salamat na rin sa walang-ingat na paggamit ng mga responsable sa mga krimen sa itaas: ang mga kumpanyang nagpapalaganap o nangsusulasok ng mga patalastas at ang midya. Huwag nang sabihin pa ang mga salitang may tiyak na kahulugan na nawawala kahit sa wikang pasalita.

May nagsasabing sa wikang Filipino, “Kung anong bigkas, siyang sulat.” May nagsasabi ring “Ang wika ng isang bayan ay kung ano ang ginagamit.” Sa pangkalahatan, sang-ayon naman ako sa mga pahayag na ito. Pero hindi ito dahilan para kalimutan ang tiyak na gamit ng mga salita, kahit pa luma na – at hindi pa nga luma ang “nang.”

Sa kasalukuyan nga, sabi ng progresibong intelektwal na si E. San Juan, Jr., dumadaan pa ang wikang Filipino sa “intelektwalisasyon,” sa proseso ng pagpapayaman dito para mas magamit sa mga talastasang intelektwal. Kung mawawala, sa pagsusulat man o pagsasalita, ang mga mga salitang may tiyak na pakahulugan, sa kung ano mang dahilan, magiging mas dahop ang ating wika.

(Syempre, mahalaga ang papel ng kilusang makabayan sa nagaganap na intelektwalisasyong ito. Kapag nakarinig ka sa kalye o sa araw-araw ng “malalim” at tuluy-tuloy na Filipino na pumapaksa sa pulitika at ekonomiya, mas malamang kaysa hindi na nasa piling ka ng aktibista. Dapat kang lumapit, ngumiti, magpakilala at magparekrut na.)

Pero babalansehin ko rin ang sarili ko. Ang pangunahing problema sa usapin ng nakasulat na wika sa bansa – “sa usapin,” paboritong prase ng mga aktibista – ay ang kawalan ng marami nating kababayan ng kakayahang magsulat at magbasa, at ang kawalan ng nakararami nating kababayan ng masiglang pagsusulat at pagbabasa.

Hindi kaya imbes na makatulong sa kanilang magbasa at magsulat ay nakakasikil pa ang ganitong paghihigpit sa mga alituntunin? Hindi kaya patunay rin ng elitismo ang ganitong pagdudumildil ng wastong ispeling sa kanila?

Iba naman ang pamantayan para sa kanila, para sa mga maralitang manggagawa at magsasaka. Tagumpay na walang pasubali na, halimbawa, ang matutong magsulat ang mga magsasakang natuto na lang magbasa dahil sa pagtuturo ng mga nakikipamuhay na aktibista. Kapag sinukat mo pa ang mga maralitang ito sa pamantayan ng mga may mataas na pinag-aralan, para mo nang sinabing ang huli na lang ang magsulat.

Kaya iba, syempre pa, ang pamantayan para sa mga nakapag-aral – hindi pa nga sa mismong mga gumagawa ng mga patalastas ng mga korporasyon at nagsusulat ng mga balita sa midya, kundi ang mga matataas ang posisyon at ang pinag-aralan sa mga korporasyon at midya. Sila ang dapat sisihin sa ganitong paggamit ng wika na nagpapadahop sa ating wika. Pati yaman ng wikang Filipino, hindi nila pinapatawad.

Mahaba na ito. Nagsimula lang sa “nang,” ang dami nang nasabi.

30 Hunyo 2011

Galing ulit kay Juan Genoves ang mga larawan sa itaas.

Sa isang banda, tama si Fredric Jameson, pero sa kabilang banda, hindi ba talagang hinog na noon ang Rusya para sa rebolusyon? Malupit ang banat na ito sa pulitika ni Bono, lead singer ng U2.

Parang maganda ang librong ito ng yumaong pilosopong si Gillian Rose. Wow. Parang maganda ang pelikulang ito tungkol sa kasaysayan ng Tsina.

Gelacio Guillermo on Eugene Gloria’s Poem

“Please disseminate Gelacio’s complaint,” said the e-mail message. The thought of posting the “complaint” in this blog didn’t initially cross my mind, thinking that Gelacio Guillermo – activist poet, writer, cultural worker and critic – can wage his battles all by himself. He can, of course, though I realized that it would be an honor to help Guillermo and have his essay posted here.

The name “Gelacio Guillermo” – along with “Edel Garcellano,” “Domingo Castro de Guzman,” “Petronilo Bn. Daroy,” and “Alice Guillermo” – first made a mark in my juvenile radar, as it were, when I was reading the book The Alfredo E. Litiatco Lectures of Isagani R. Cruz, edited by Jonathan Y. Bayot. I was studying literary theory at that time, and Cruz had a taxonomy of books of sorts at the end of his book: “Post-Istrukturalismo,” “Istrukturalismo” et cetera.

When I saw all of Virgilio S. Almario’s books on literary criticism – most of which I have read earlier, thanks to a nationalist critic’s essay praising Almario to high heavens – under the heading “Makabagong Marxismo,” I knew I was reading a piece of crap. Almario, who started out as an activist poet but became a cultural functionary of the Marcos regime and a formalist critic, could not possibly be a neo-Marxist literary critic. Anti-Marxist, puwede pa.

I decided to read most of the authors whom Cruz chose to subsume under the label “Makalumang Marxismo”: Guillermo and the others enumerated above. What can I say? Thanks to Cruz, I was able to read the sharpest essays on progressive-revolutionary literature and art in the country.

Here’s Guillermo’s “complaint” against a poem written by US-based Eugene Gloria:

Dear Eugene,

I came to read your poem “To Gellacio Guillermo in Iowa City.” (Literary Review, 22 March 2000) only this month when a poet-friend e-mailed me a copy. Despite the mis-spelling proceeding from mispronunciation of foreign names so typical among North Americans, I thought I was being referred to in the poem and would like to take issue with you on the question of the poet’s responsibility when he takes on the life history of a dead or living person as subject for creative work.

The trajectory of the poem runs along this line: ‘Gellacio’ goes to the “mountains” >> ‘Gellacio’ “renounce[s] the revolution” >> ‘Gellacio’ sweats it out under the “Iowa sun” (as a field hand?) >> ‘Gellacio’ as manservant to a devout wealthy matron.

For a poem this short, the time span is indeed long, extending down to the present (note the change in tenses). Only two facts about Gelacio need concern us here: first, he was a U.P. working student from 1957 to 1964, for an AB degree in English; and second, he was handed a fellowship (he did not apply) at the International Writing Program in Iowa University from October 1970 to April 1971 and returned to the Philippines to resume teaching at the U.P. He kept to his post up to September 21, 1972, when he decided to quit upon the declaration of martial law by Marcos.

Given these lackluster facts, the speaking persona insinuates that as a student I went to the “mountains,” meaning that I had joined the CPP-NPA forces in the guerrilla fronts. Now, in the early sixties, this idea did not yet exist, and when it did during the late sixties onward, there was enough movement work to keep me in Manila, at the same time trying to help my family survive the most difficult years of martial rule. In short, I was not our dear Emman Lacaba.

As to renouncing the revolution, nothing could be more preposterous, although for some former revolutionaries who did/do renounce it, this betrayal can be rewarding (they are given government posts, for one) or dangerous especially to those who engage in counter-insurgency activities. Gelacio during his activist years may not have been an efficient movement worker or may have caused problems to his collectives, but he had never, nor will he ever, renounce something which he holds to be the best that is happening in our country today. Without this revolution the Filipino people have nothing to live, work and fight for to transform society. This is the dream (as Lenin uses the word) for a new people’s history.

No, Gelacio did not dream “of corn and the language of Iowa.” My country has enough corn (have you tried Cornix from Vigan?) and enough of the English language (or a species of the world’s scores of englishes) for bureaucrats to pen anti-people executive orders and for OFWs, the regime’s main export of warm bodies and source of revenue to keep the economy afloat, to follow orders from their bosses. If I had dreamt of a foreign country or city, it was Paris for too much reading (in English!) of the Symbolist poets of the 19th century in the poetry class of Virgie Moreno who turned us all into poseurs this side of the Pasig River. Yes, I’d been to the Louvre. Did you know that Arthur Rimbaud was a propagandist of the Paris Commune?

(Image from chinahistoryforum.com.)

The reference to the indigenous groups herded like cattle at the St. Louis exhibition during the early years of American colonization of the Philippines betrays the continuing fascination of Americans for the exotic, and worse, their nonchalance regarding the fate of peoples subjected to imperialist policies of their government. Gelacio is clear enough about his anti-imperialist stand in his poetry to have evoked such jaded comparison. The “brindled skin” has a far earlier provenance: the black slaves during those centuries of slave trading were assessed, like livestock in the market, according to their animal strength and the gloss of their leather. “Brindled” originates from the late ME “brended,” a variety of “branded.” Vestiges of racist arrogance of the West die hard.

The speaking persona says she reads ‘Gellacio’ “in English.” If she were indeed ‘Gellacio’s’ classmate and that was a long time ago, she can now try reading Gelacio in Filipino because that is the true language of a Filipino poet.

‘Gellacio’/Gelacio can never be her or anybody’s manservant.

And, yes, there is no truth to what this illegitimate President Gloria here said earlier this month in Hong Kong, that the Filipino people are “the most pro-American people, more pro-American than the Americans themselves.” That’s what she is, a Bush bitch.

You’re American. Speak for us in a true way.

The point in all this belaboring is, what drove you to write a poem like this, a direct address/statemental verse that’s neither fish nor fowl? That speaking persona (I am named; why isn’t she?) turns an actually existing person (see poeziecentrum) into a creature of her sacerdotal, manorial, white supremacist fancies. You and I hardly know each other although it’s now so easy to google/yahoo through the Internet to find out how we are faring in our respective literary endeavors. I did ask my son to access entries under your name from his computer since I don’t have one myself, nor do I maintain an e-mail address. I occasionally use any of the computers in the house like a typewriter mainly for encoding purposes. If you care to reply, you may use aliceguillermo@yahoo.com

My best wishes to you and Karen.

Gelacio Guillermo

23 April 2008

————————–

To Gellacio Guillermo in Iowa City
(Literary Review, Spring, 2000 by Eugene Gloria)

My window is serenaded by crickets.
I try to sleep through the sawing
of their cellos’ sad music.
Forgive me, I want none of it.
You were in the mountains when my father’s soldiers
strolled into our classroom to escort me out
of the campus. The army had infiltrated
our cause to pluck from our ranks their own.

You left before my father retired as a full colonel,
before the nuns knelt in front of the dictator’s tanks
before the Maneros and the Alsa Masa
scooped out and ate the brains of the dissident priest.

And when you renounced the revolution
and dreamed of corn and the language of Iowa,
I came back to the Church, and then left again.
Found true rebellion in marrying
a man who spoke Hebrew and wanted to take me
to Tel Aviv. Gellacio,
I am reading you in English.
Your brindled skin is sweating Iowa sun,

your hair in a tight chignon,
you, barefoot and G-stringed like the Manobo
prince in St. Louis one hundred years ago.
I want the Church to beg me back,

long for the faint tinkle of the hand bell
before the Elevation,
the monstrance gold as unhusked grain
drying on the asphalt road.

I want to believe that sentences
can hold bread in baskets, and multiply.
Let the salvaged, naked as drowned cattle,
find their way to my house.

Ring the bell and call them in, Gellacio.
Anything but this music,
all silence and this nothing music.

16 Mayo 2008