Column Writing

            One of our distinguishing traits as Filipinos is our high regard to family ties. Many generations have passed but still our filial bond gets stronger. In different times and places, we find ways to establish and strengthen relationships. We make use of whatever technology could offer in order to bridge distance and space. The different means of communication are indeed helpful in bringing the lives of the Filipinos closer.

            Communication has progressed significantly through time. Sometimes, we identify the improvement of a certain time through the advancement of the technologies including the field of communication.  It is interesting to note that our communities are increasing their potentials through the modern technologies. What had been impossible before can now be achieved.

            I am lucky to have been born in a modern age where almost everything works in just a push of a button. Keeping in touch with my family and friends is easier now compared to the time when my parents were still in college.  In 1970s, when my parents pursued their studies in Cebu, the letter was the most common means of communication for the masa who cannot afford pay for expensive phone calls. My father once told me that he seldom kept in touch with his parents who were in Leyte during his college days. He asked for his monthly allowance through letters. Sometimes the money arrived late because the postal service was slow. On the other hand, my mother who was also studying in Cebu used the same way of communicating. When she wanted to make her letter arrive faster in Butuan City, she sent her letters through her friends in the shipping company.

            When emergency arises, the telegram was the cheapest way to send an express message. The telegram was the earlier version of the test messages that we have nowadays. The difference is that one has to go to a telegram center and relay the message to an attendant. The attendant is responsible in writing the message in short cut. The charge depends on the number of words in the message. The shorter the message is the cheaper is the payment. I remembered the time when my father received a telegram from Leyte informing him of the death of my grandmother. The message was: Uli Leyte. Nanay patay gahapon. -Tatay.  Sometimes telegram messages are funny to read but I realized that its modern counterpart, the text messages are funnier. Well, it shows that we Filipinos are creative in putting down words whether in a paper or in a cellphone screen.

            Another unique way of relaying urgent message with less cost is through the panawagan service in radio stations. This is very popular in provincial areas where there were no modern facilities yet. My maternal grandmother is fond of this. She always went to the local radio station and gave her message to the radio announcer. The disadvantage of this method is that, when the recipient of the message is not listening to radio during panawagan portion, he/she would surely miss the message.

             The telephone is the most convenient way of keeping in touch with someone, especially if there’s an emergency. In my Bislig, during the 1980s, only the rich could afford this necessity. Most of the people went to calling stations in order communicate. In the 1990s, these calling stations installed fax machines so their costumers can have another option.

            The advent of the internet in computers and cellular phones made way to a faster and more advanced way of communicating domestically and internationally. Most of us now prefer to send our messages through e-mail. People could now talk through on-line and voice chat. A web cam is an advantage because one can see the other person who he/she is communicating with on the computer monitor. I keep in touch with my friends in high school through Friendster.com and other e-groups. There are many websites in the internet that gives one linkages to friends, families, companies and other networks. Moreover, my parents could now track me anytime, anywhere through text or call using the cell phone. Nowadays, pen pals become text mates and chat mates. Friendship, family ties and other associations can now be managed with just a few clicks. Even marriage proposal now becomes instant.

            The impressive changes in the field of communication in some ways improved relationship. Distance is no longer a problem. We can now be connected with our loved ones as frequent and as fast as we could. Connecting Lives, a cellphone company uses this slogan promoting their communication gadgets. As time pass by, the tools of communication are getting more sophisticated. We can now have more options in keeping in touch with everyone around the world. These advancements, if used appropriately, could make the bond of relationships even stronger.

            Time can testify how much the Filipinos give much importance to a trait that is now slowly dying in other parts of the world. In different faces and in different means, we uphold the value of relationships, especially family relationships. We could only hope that as our world becomes more modern and complicated, this value will never change and would always be cherished by every Filipino.  

 Charisse Mae Ampo

"A Cinderella Story” somehow offered me a nice smile on my lips and a little smirk. But in the end it made me realize that I may be a teenage on-line, but Sam would definitely not the kind of Cinderella I wanted to be! Armela O. Gertos Movie Review

PROPS FOR II Rowena Rose M. Lee

Except for unimaginative title, II is a boss album that is very pop rock and very Savage-Garden-meets-Hootie-And-The-Blowfish. THE CALLING’S second album has a lot of bass downpour and is a percussion spanking collection of songs that range from social commentaries to the ol’ lovey-dovey tunes. It deserves to be played at full volume anywhere, even and especially if your septuagenarian grandmother is house visiting. II is a musical performance that robs anyone the volition to disengage from the head bobbing experience. Of course, THE CALLING isn’t complete without Alex Max Band’s rich but rough orgasm-inducing baritone.

The conception of II sees the departure of all but Alex Band and Aaron Kamin. 23-year-old Band and 27-year-old Aaron Kamin stress in a press release dated April 1, 2004 that II is a reference to the “band having two principals” (MTV News). This is in response to a lawsuit that former THE CALLING member Billy Mohler and Nate Wood filed last year.

Kamin’s musical genius is felt throughout the entire album. For II, he plays acoustic, lead and bass guitars. He plays the organ and the piano. He plays the percussions. He also mixes and pre-programs almost half of the songs in II. He even does a cameo in track 11 Your Hope. His speaking voice announces in the background “There’s so many things we just don’t know about,” and “I think we all know what its like to feel alone.”

II is also markedly different from the string and drum work on CAMINO PALMERO, THE CALLING’S first album (2001). II’s synthesizers and computer mix are liver thumping that moves consciously on the path of the (now disbanded) Australian-based band Savage Garden.

Last August, THE CALLING released its second single. 

Band croons amidst the plucking scales of the lead guitar, “So take my hand / don’t let me surrender / ‘cause maybe someday / in time / things will go my way.” The song carries as much angst as the next post-pubescent-but-not-yet-quite-into-adulthood song but Band’s low and jagged ranting is enough to make people think, “Hey yeah, this is my song.”

As with the first album, THE CALLING comments on the plight of the homeless in the States. One by One (track 1) however is less jaded than We're Forgiven (2001). One by One is more hopeful, preachy even, about how one person can make a difference in the world. This train of thought is echoed in the songs Believing (track 5) and Our Lives (track 2).

Apparently, such heartbreaking sentimental songs (like Wherever You Will Go, Could It Be Any Harder and Stigmatized ) are not to be included in II. The love songs in the new album in fact, bear whimsical themes and have feel-good touches as that of Chasing the Sun (track 4) and Dreaming in Red (track 10). Anything (track 6) is a love song that bests describes stalker obsession.

Darker songs like Your Hope, Somebody Out There (track 8) and If Only (track 7) are commendable less for their messages but more for their tempi. These songs go the way of Freshmen (Verve Pipe), Heaven (Live) and Let Her Cry (Hootie and the Blowfish). In extreme transmutation however, THE CALLING’S Surrender pretty much has the sentimentality of Backstreet Boy’s The Call.

II is for the aficionados of pop rock – the likes of Creed, Matchbox Twenty and Lifehouse. It is of course not as bone-jarring as Korn or Kid Rock but definitely a million times better than The Cardigans and Richard Ashcroft. At the very least, THE CALLING”S album can pull a body into a sway or into an air drumming session. But heck, it’s good enough to give grandma an orgasm or two.

-Charisse Mae T. Ampo

A short profile

He walks out of glass doors, combing the crowded atrium for his friends, his left hand clutching the strap of his Lego knapsack, his other hand scratching the back of his head. Every time he comes from class, he gives an impression of someone perpetually in awe, this unmistakable look of wonder and naïveté on his face. Yes, he looks like someone you immediately want to punch in the face. In is rubber sneakers, he walks as if he’s impersonating a penguin, or a giddy dodo bird resurrected from extinction, flashing his teeth at the people he passes by. But when he’s down, as what I have been told, he’ll maintain a stiff face for the rest of the day, the confident spoken English he’s known for will be gone—when in a bad mood, he tends to go monosyllabic.

“Are you okay,” asks a friend.

“Yeah,” he replies, failing to fake a smile.

“Why the face?”

“Hungry.”

“Want to eat at the canteen?”

“No.”

“I thought you were hungry.”

“Must go home.”

“Are you ill?”

“Just tired.”

Everyone who knows him believes he’s a smart person, these acquaintances conceding that his intellect is a cut above theirs. Two years ago when I first met him, I also thought that I was in the presence of someone smart. But that sort of dwindled when I saw him speak at the launching of the college literary journal; he introduced a latest addition to the Kombuyahan genus, a small troupe of guitarists that call themselves kwerdas. As it was the launching of a literary journal, I didn’t particularly expect them to play hair-raising pieces such as “More Than Words.” To make things more interesting…

“I believe that I have the fire in me,” the young string instrumentalist announced in a room full of hungry people.

“Sir Joey and I talked about the fire. And I believe in the fire.”

Someone in the audience cringed in his seat. It wasn’t me.

One probably perplexing thing about him: most of his friends are girls. Not just chair-hogging know-it-alls in the library, but pretty, terrific-smelling girls that a fratman would fantasize about. Some might call him lucky: he doesn’t even have to buy them lunch or treat them to a scary movie at SM. They flock around him, a congregation of attractive and preppy teenagers ready to bend over his will. Okay, maybe that was an awful hyperbole. Girls just like being around him, hang out with him, these Communication Arts sophomores popular for their nymphet allure in the campus. Their dashing little Humbert Humbert: him and his big puff of curly hair.

“Do these girls find him attractive?” I ask one of his female friends.

“Nah,” she answers, pouting her lips. “They just like to hang out. He has a good personality and girls like that in a guy.”

“But has he ever made a move on any of his girl friends?”

She chuckles. “Maybe. He used to make porma with one of them. And she didn’t like it.”

“He creeps her out?” I added.

“It’s just that they have issues, okay. They don’t talk with each other anymore.”

One of his friends once confessed that he is a troubled person. He likes staying in the dorm because home doesn’t seem to feel like one anymore. He kills time after classes, avoiding the trip back to his house. He busies himself with kwerdas, spends time with his loyal friends at the dried-up water fountain, talking about the profound and nonsense, whining about college while throwing stones at stray dogs. He strums his guitar for anyone that’s willing to listen, plays a thrilling game of chess with a relative stranger.

For a college guy, he is a quite a creep. He makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand whenever he grins at me on the path walk and say, “Greetings.”

When I see him, the first thing that comes to my find is fruitcake; he simply reminds me of one. Tart and spongy. Someone once referred to him as Sponge Bob, the famous Nickelodeon character. I frowned upon hearing this and later marveled at the appropriateness of the term. And then I discovered he actually liked being associated with a cartoon sponge. Now whenever we stumble into each other, I wait for him to transmogrify into a giant yellow sponge who sounded like he recently OD’d on Prozac.

The day I approached him, he wore a white Rebisco Cream Sandwich t-shirt that was too large for him, his thick, chunky hair protected by a khaki fisherman’s hat, an acoustic guitar strapped to his back.

“Do you still have class?”

He turned around and I notice a black pen clipped to his shirt’s collar. “Nope. Anything I can do?”

I was about to ask my first question when I got distracted by a yellowing pimple on his jaw.

What I admire about him is that no matter what happens, he ends up endearing. On Deviance Day a year ago, he showed up looking like Dhobie, wearing a brown towel ripped to shreds, his skin smeared with charcoal. No one laughed at him; he did look ridiculous but he held it with pride. He even grabbed the microphone that evening and declared to everyone that he felt so deviant he should win the title. He didn’t. But a girl who wore nothing but a cardboard box did.

What drove him to do it, to act so fearless in front of everyone you’d actually believe in him? No wonder his friends admire him. He could wear a boy scout t-shirt to school and not care. He could look like a hobo, sound like an alien invader from another dimension. He could act like a total freak and he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. In fact, he would gladly do that classic Sponge Bob impression, coax the show’s theme from his reliable guitar and walk away contented. So what’s the big secret? Between you and me, I think it’s “the fire.”

John Bengan

FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH THE GUY-I-DON'T-KNOW-HIS-NAME

(felt like forever!)

By Shiella A. Ildefonso

01-61271

Early Monday morning, I found myself sitting alone by the fountain at the Atrium. There were only more or less fifteen students who stayed at the fountain's area. From where I sat, fronting the entrance door to the Admin building, there were about ten students at my right and the rest were somewhere facing the IT office and to the stairs going to the library. The students in my right were looking at me, I could feel the eyes looking at me while I was sitting there as if I was lost or I was new in the place or something. Then I heard one asked the other, “upperclass na siya?”, and one guy answered him, “dili uy, diba ning-dagan man na siya ug councilor?”, and inside my head I want to answer “ngano mura ko ug first year?”. But I continued opening my black folder, looking whether my papers to be passed for my thesis were there. It was so funny when I had to pretend that as if I was not listening to their conversation, since after checking my folder, there was nothing else to do but to eavesdrop(and I then realized, I had to, for this article.) and besides, I was still gathering my strength to face my adviser.

“Hay, kapoya aning dug-on ko uy!” a girl said while adjusting her blue jogging pants as she stood in front of one of the guys. She was the only female in the group.

“Kapoy gyud na noh, bug-at siguro na imong ginasuk-suk sa imong panty?” a tall musculed-gay with a mustache, wearing his PE uniform, and by saying that he looked at me as I looked at him, shocked with his reaction.

“Gyud!” the girl said while holding the sides of her jogging pants like of a skirt.

And everybody laughed. I assumed they were Computer Science students. I knew one of them, Gian, who was a member of the Bayla Vinta. And they looked like they were from their PE class, since all of them were wearing their PE uniforms and were most probably they were resting by the fountain.

They were talking and talking and laughing of things the muscled-gay was talking. I couldn't remember his jokes but for sure all of them were green jokes. He was talking so fast like he was running after something. He was eating his words like supposedly saying "Asa mo nag-adto?", he would say " Asmo'g-to?" (Like, ha?) And he had many expressions almost every after sentence, like "haller", "galore”, “char lang!”. He also added word to the expression “charmus” with “charmus-ginamus-iring-gigakus!”. And his laughter was totally torturing me to death. His voice was so harsh that he tried to sound like of a sweet lady, like when he said “Ay, 'Day”. He sounded terrible. Not mentioning his mustache.

"Hoy! Naa na mo? Naka-himo na mo?" guy in red shirt and black shorts and rubber slippers interuppted while holding his backpack unto his chest.

"Wala pa intawon oi!" the girl in jogging pants said to her blocmates as they were looking at her with smiling faces.

"Bitaw oi, mabuang na ko ani! Hay! Kapoy na kaayo! Daghan kaayo ug assignment bah! Naglibog na ko kung unsa ang unahon! Mabuang na ko ani! Naka-study na mo?" the muscled-gay with a mustache spontaneously ranted as he stood in front of one guy who was wearing white shirt and maroon jogging pants. Only then I noticed that there was another guy who was lying on the pebble-cemented mouth of the fountain pool, where he was facing to the oblation. He was wearing yellow shirt and maong pants. He used some of his blocmates bag as his pillow and said, "Ah, kaya lagi na. Na-kaya gani sa atong mga upperclass."

And they were silent. I wondered why. Although my head bowed as I was as if texting someone, I felt that they were looking at me. Then, feeling superior, I looked at them, and found that they were indeed looking at me. Then I hurriedly grabbed my bag and my black folder and went inside the building. Pretending that it was as if it was time to go in the building.

Upon entering by the guard's table, I heard one commented, "Bitaw". I might not had see who said it but the voice was familiar. I know it was that muscled-gay with a mustache, I somehow got used with his voice, even for that fifteen-mintue stay at the fountain area. His voice was ringing in my ears like the way my crush called my name. But this time, he was not my crush and I don't even know his name.