PRINSESA OLAYRA

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In reply to our reader’s request to write about Princess Olayra, here is the story from the files in our Antique fairyland  folder:
    Long ago, in Barangay  Carit-an in the Municipality of Patnongon, Antique lived a man named Akoy and his wife Mengay.  Near their house was a big bubog tree.  It was believed that the tree was enchanted for beneath it was a palace where fairies lived. 
    In the enchanted palace lived the fairy king and queen who ruled the realm.  Fairies have kingdoms of their own.  They can mingle with humans and may choose not to be visible to us.  They possess powers that humans do not have.  However, they are said to envy ordinary mortals because fairies do not have souls.  When they die, they could not aspire for a second life.  The reason why they want to marry ordinary people is that they want their children to have souls.
    The fairy king and queen who lived beneath the bubog tree wanted their children to someday marry an ordinary mortal.  And so when the queen got pregnant, they wanted the best in every aspects of their child.  In the choice of a name, the royal couple gathered their friends in fairyland for some suggestions and decided on the name “Olayra.”
    At about the same time that the fairy king and queen was expecting a child, so were Akoy and Mengay.  The mortal child was named Natalie; the royal baby was named Olayra.
    One day, Mengay took baby Natalie in her arms to have a stroll on the beach.  Suddenly, a big wave struck them which made her let go of her child.  Natalie was nowhere to be found.  And Mengay grieved.
     At the fairyland kingdom, the couple now wanted to bring their child to the mortal world.  They wrapped the baby in a diaper with the name “Olayra” and had her placed under the big bubog tree.  When Akoy and Mengay woke up that morning, they heard a baby crying.  They hurried down to find the baby girl.
     Akoy and Mengay took care of the baby as if she were their own child.  Every now and then, the king and queen would visit Olayra without being seen by the human couple.  They gave the child everything she needed without the knowledge of Akoy and Mengay.  Sometimes they would take the child to their kingdom. 
    When Olayra was of school age, she was sent to Patnongon, Antique to attend classes in the elementary grades.  She went to school with Celina.  The latter was also a child of fairies.  It was she who suggested the name “Olayra” to the royal couple when the queen was still pregnant.  When they were in college, Celina and Olayra were sent to the Central Philippine University in Iloilo to take up college courses.  The king and queen even gifted their daughter with a ship made of gold on which to ride whenever she is on a cruise to other kingdoms. Up to this time, Akoy and Mengay had no idea that their adopted daughter was a fairy.  Olayra grew up to be a beautiful lady.  Her foster parents loved her so much.  She had many suitors, but all were rejected. 
    Olayra’s love interest was a foreigner named Fitzgerald, a young man of Italian parentage who was fond of going places for adventure.  He had a luxurious yacht to take him on a cruise with his friends.  One day a storm broke his yacht to pieces.  All of his friends were thrown into the raging ocean and got drowned.  Fitzgerald was the only survivor.  He was found near the bubog tree.  A couple found him and nursed him back to health.  One day, while Fitzgerald was sitting near the beach, he met Olayra.  More meetings followed that soon he fell in love with the young lady.
    Olayra came to be noticed by the community.  People wondered and began to ask who she really was.  They remembered Natalie.  Unknown to Akoy and Mengay, Natalie was found by a couple in a beach where the big wave took her.  The couple found the name “Natalie” embroidered in the diaper which wrapped around her.  They asked:  If Natalie was Mengay’s daughter, then who is Olayra? Hushed talks and gossips about her origin hounded her.   
    The fairy princess also fell in love with Fitzgerald and they set a date for their wedding.  The ceremony took place in Patnongon.  Soon after, Fitzgerald found out that his wife was not the daughter of Akoy and Mengay.  He confronted her about who she really was and where she really came from.  Olayra merely ignored him and because of this he grew so impatient that he slapped her.  When her real parents knew about the incident, they got so angry.  One day, Fitzgerald could no longer be found.  A search was made but to no avail.  Only the king, the queen, and Olayra knew what really happened.
    Olayra finally revealed to her foster parents who and what she really was.   She told them that her real parents wanted her to live with them in their kingdom.  As for Natalie, Akoy and Mengay finally got to know where the big wave took her.  They brought her home from the people who adopted her.
    Olayra and Natalie must have lived happily ever after.
(Our research tells us that the Story of Olayra was written by Russel O. Tordesillas.  It was serialized in a local radio station.  Tordesillas is a respected writer and is known as the grand old man of Kinaray-a literature.)

MESSALINA

When we were children we associated the Romans with centurions, chariots, and gladiators.  In high school, we learned that Law and Engineering were their contributions to civilization.  We came to know that Rome also contributed orgies and sex in high places. Indeed, the grandeur… that was Rome.
The now familiar name Messalina was also the name of the wife of an emperor in ancient Rome. She was best known for challenging—and defeating—a notorious prostitute to a sex competition. 
Valeria Messalina was the wife of Emperor Claudius who ruled Rome in the 1st Century AD.  History sources portray Messalina as scheming, avaricious, and a nymphomaniac.  She participated much in politics and used sex to strengthen her power and control over politicians.  She maintained a brothel and organized orgies participated by men and women in high places.
One account of her tells that the moment she hears her husband snores, she will then slip out of their royal bed wearing a hooded night gown and go straight to her brothel.  She then places herself in one of the cubicles to offer her body to customers of the night.  The story goes that Messalina absorbs all the jug-jug with gusto and continues her trade into dawn long after all the other girls have already been done and have gone home.  She ends the night by slipping back to Emperor Claudius’ side in their royal bed.
The most widely reported tale about Messalina was her challenge to a prostitute named Scylla to an all-night sex competition.  Each of them was to take as many lovers in one single sex act.  Whoever took the more number of lovers will win the contest.  Scylla gave up when each of them had taken 25 lovers, but Messalina saw no reason to stop copulating and went on well into the morning.  It was told that she stopped only because of exhaustion  but she was never satisfied.
Here are some lines dedicated to Messalina’ exploits by a Roman writer Juvenal translated in English:

Then consider the God's rivals, hear what Claudius
had to put up with. The minute she heard him snoring
his wife - that whore-empress - who¬ dared to prefer the mattress
of a stews to her couch in the Palace, called for her hooded
night-cloak and hastened forth, with a single attendant.
Then, her black hair hidden under an ash-blonde wig,
she'd make straight for her brothel, with its stale, warm coverlets,
and her empty reserved cell. Here, naked, with gilded
nipples, she plied her trade, under the name of 'The Wolf-Girl',
parading the belly that once housed a prince of the blood.
She would greet each client sweetly, demand cash payment,
and absorb all their battering - without ever getting up.
Too soon the brothel-keeper dismissed his girls:
she stayed right till the end, always last to go,
then trailed away sadly, still | with burning, rigid vulva,
exhausted by men, yet a long way from satisfied,
cheeks grimed with lamp-smoke, filthy, carrying home
to her Imperial couch the stink of the whorehouse.

One Act of Kindness

It was a rush hour on a Friday afternoon. I received a message on my mobile phone that the information I had been dying to know for days had already been emailed to me. I cannot wait to be home so my son and I dropped by the nearest computer café in front of the West Visayas State University.

We must have stayed there for over an hour because when we decided to leave it was already dark. My son wanted to take something hot before we finally go home so we walked to the refreshment parlor about 50 meters from the café.

There were little pools of water on the sidewalk so there must have been a drizzle of sort while we were inside. We have not walked farther when we saw a group of high school boys from the university clustered around something as they cheered. There was excitement in the air that my son held me back to walk behind him. However, we have to move aside as another group of teen-age boys from the Iloilo National High School ran past us. Still inching our way forward, curious about it, we heard one of the university boys cheer, “Strong! Sipa!(kick!)” We thought it was a rumble of some gangs but on closer look, it was not.

Amidst them was a badjao, a beggar lying on the pavement. I can’t tell if he fainted or if he was asleep but I saw one lean boy kick his left arm and it went flying from the pavement to his torso. Two of the three boys from the national high school reached the circle ahead of the others and one tried to talk to them to stop. They stopped… but they left in a noisy, jovial mood.

When they left, one of the boys felt for the pulse of the badjao and nodded to his companions. Two of them lifted him and moved him near the wall where the pavement was dry while the last to arrive placed a plastic bag with pan-de-sal beside him.

My son clicked his tongue at their brusqueness but I said a little prayer blessing the kind boys. Really, it doesn’t matter much where you are stationed in life, what matters is how big your heart is towards the small people around. Whatever happened to those university boys to have acted that condemnable way was something I cannot imagine; but, whatever drove those other boys to help that beggar made them very commendable.

Indeed, heartless acts make a person so small that they do not deserve to be given attention whereas little acts of kindness bring in more blessings to a soul.

‘Detector’

“Ginatawag ang igtalupangud sang tanan nga nagahupot sang armas nga nagalupok nga wala sang lisensiya nga inyo ini iga surrender sa pinakamalapit nga police o constabulary headquarters.  Ang indi magpati sang amu nga mandu pagasilutan sang KAMATAYON!”
These radio plugs were repeatedly broadcast in all stations from September – December 1972 when Martial Law was declared.  The plug did not stop at the kamatayon. There followed a presentation of how the military was able to know where rifles, pistols, grenades, and pugakhangs were kept—no matter where you put it.
Against this background was born the urban myth that the military and the police had a modern gun detector capable of finding out where guns are kept.  The detector is said to look like a miniature radar station complete with an odd-looking dish antenna as big as a labador.  All the operator has to do is to focus the antenna towards the direction where the firearm is suspected to be hidden.
The detector works by emitting a signal which bounces back as it reaches the suspected object.  The signal is then processed inside the box where the signals from a firearm can be distinguished from the signal of any other metal object. The signal from the device can penetrate through solid obstructions like concrete, stones, rocks, soils, and coconut leaves. Once identification is made, the detector emits a distinct beeping sound and presto … a suspect is caught!
Many believed this urban fairy tale as true.  The most telling proof of this is the several tons of surrendered firearms then stockpiled at the grounds of what is now Camp Delgado.  The myth, however, just dwelt on the capabilities of the gun detector.  It did not touch on what happened to the BARs, the M2 carbines, and the Thompson submachine guns that were surrendered. The post Marcos joke goes: The tamawo kept the high-powered ones except the pugakhangs.

Poetry

(The Language of the Soul Expressed)

The most moving poem conveys of joys and feelings of grief profound; the most sublime tells of values and heroism; the most ridiculous needs yet to be found…
Poems cover as much as anything there is in life as it speaks of happiness and humor; pains and pathos in sufferings; wonders and discoveries; death and birth; creation and destruction… even dreams and realities. Some meanings are obvious in the words but often

KURBA

At Brgy. BOLONG in the municipality of Santa Barbara, Iloilo is a curved segment of the railroad tracks which residents call the kurba or curve.

Here’s the popular version on why the tracks were so constructed:

During the construction of the Iloilo-Capiz railroad in the 1900’s, an enchanted Salay tree happened to stand in the way where the tracks were to be constructed.  Workmen refused to cut the tree and did not even go near it.  It came to a point when the construction engineers had to decide on what to do with the obstruction.  They went to the site and as they neared the tree, a strange old man appeared and told them not to violate his “kingdom.”

The engineers could not do otherwise but offered to compensate the impending disturbance and told the man that the railroad company was willing to pay a large amount just to have the construction pushed through. In retort, the strange man told them that he was not in need of money as he had enough of it—enough even to buy the whole of America itself! 

And so the enchanted tree was spared.  The railroad tracks were constructed some distance from it.  Instead of the usual straight line, the railway company made a curved one.

With the demise of the Panay Railways, the official version of how the kurba came about may never be known.

Poloy

In either of his hands was a missing finger which his enemies said was the result of an accident during World War II.  He had nine instead of ten.  His detractors said that a Garand rifle he was carrying went off because he was carrying it as if it were a walking cane.  It blew one of his fingers off.  But it gained him an entitlement to a veteran’s pension for the rest of his life.

Sometime in the 1970’s at around 8:00 in the evening, he came knocking at a relative’s house in Santa Barbara.  He had bruises on his face and other parts of his body.  He had walked cross country all the way from Alimodian because he was so afraid that the Mayor will again maul or even kill him.  He was trembling in fear.

Upon opening the gate, his relative was so surprised by what he saw.  About 25 years ago, this guy was a feared man.  He was a gun-carrying member of an armed group that presented themselves as gerilyeros in the war against the Japanese.  Instead of fighting the enemy, this group went around commandeering properties, animals, bull carts, and valuables from kababayans for their own personal benefit.  Not contented with that—it was said that they took women too.  That is what many people said about Poloy.

On Sundays, Poloy would go to the cockfights.  Yes, there were cockfights even when there was war!  He would bet on his favored cock signaling with his two hands.  If he won, it is expected that the losing bettor would pay him ten pesos.  But if he lost, expect him to only pay nine pesos.  Why?  Because he will insist that the other bettor look closely at his hand and count carefully his fingers—for he will immediately learn that he has just nine of it.  Waay pagturuka kon pira tudlo ko hay.  (You don’t look to see how many fingers I have.)

If Poloy wins, he makes sure that he gets the ten pesos.  He says: Intiendido du da nga pulo pusta ko hay tanan nga tudlo ubos ko bayaw! (That is supposed to be understood as ten pesos because I had all my fingers raised!)  If the losing bettor fails to pay him his ten pesos, he gets threatened with the ever available Garand rifle that Poloy always carried. 

Now, here is this character—so afraid, trembling, and smelling like a prisoner.  He had been beaten black and blue.  Seeking refuge for the night, he was let in and he was served supper.  His relative’s house was near the main road so that the noise of passing vehicles could be heard.  This made Poloy very uneasy and he would tiptoe to the nearest window and steal a look at the gate whenever he heard a stopping vehicle.  He needed to see if there is somebody entering to get him.

Life had come full circle for Poloy that night.  No, I wouldn’t dare to mention his full name, where he now lives, or the name of his relative where he took refuge.  I am just sharing this story for the reader to have a glimpse of what the pre-martial law elections were.  The bruises that he had were not for what he did during the last war.  It was the result of his supporting the candidate the Mayor was running against.  Go ask your fathers or grandfathers about the 1969 elections.  If they say its bloodier then than now, believe them.