SAGPON: BARRIO OF WRITERS BY BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS

SAGPON: BARRIO OF WRITERS

By Bienvenido N. Santos

I found this article in the files of the late Dr. Celedonio G. Aguilar through the kindness of his son, my kumpadre, Orville Aguilar. This was written by Bienvenido N. Santos and published in the May 8, 1957 issue of the Kislap-graphic magazine. This is refreshing.

Believe it or not, but an obscure barrio
in Bicol has more writers per square mile
than any comparable hamlet in the Republic—
of letters.  Bellweather Santos here  condescends
to sing their praises.

Sagpon is a small barrio of Daraga town in Albay. As the name indicates it is an extension of the town proper. Within its boundaries or in the suburbs are located the Albay Normal School, with its training department, and the Albay High School, with a campus considered the most beautiful in the country. Between the two schools is the President Quirino Stadium, where the insterscholastic meet was held the year before the destructive typhoon Trix. On the other side of the main highway are the Regan Barracks, the Provincial Hospital and about half a dozen new cottages for the hospital staff. Back of these buildings the trains run to and from Manila and Legazpi, the capital of the province. There is also a private school named United Institute, which is run by Protestants. A big majority of the school population are children from Catholic families in and around Sagpon.

QUAINT LANDMARKS

Beyond the bridge, towards Daraga, is the beautiful house of a former ambassador who comes home to Sagpon every now and then to talk to his flowers. That is what he says, this dignified old man with a poet’s heart, he comes back to Sagpon to talk to his flowers.

There is a swimming pool name Hi ‘n’ Lo on the other side of the bridge opposite the ambassador’s mansion, which has water all the time unlike the big swimming pool in the President Quirino Stadium, which has been empty and dry since the Liberals went out of power. The tiles are cracked. It cost the province ten thousand pesos to build the swimming pool. Once or twice, particularly around summertime, the principal of the Albay Normal School, who had charge of the swimming pool, made attempts to fill it with water, but the venture proved a failure. Maybe the water cost too much. At any rate, it was too much trouble for the principal who was a very busy man. His school is fast becoming a laboratory school of sorts that includes in its concept of education the community around it, which is Sagpon. National and regional workshops and seminars are held here annually, sometimes twice a year. The program of activities usually includes an entertainment number put up by the two puroks that comprise the barrio of Sagpon.


WELCOME SPEECH

The other day the barrio lieutenant, a former schoolteacher, whose sons are now colonels, majors, and captains in the Philippine Army, asked me to give a welcome speech in behalf of the community. The audience was the typical conglomeration of dignitaries that attend national workshops in education, American and Filipino delegates from UNESCO and the UP, Ph. D.’s in psychology and education, doctors in visual aids, and the highest officials of the Bureau of Public Schools, including the director who later delivered a valedictory, and his successor who delivered something else. All of them managed to come by plane in spite of the thick overcast on the afternoon of their arrival. They were met at the airport by the prettiest teachers in the division of Albay. These good-looking girls pinned corsages on the lapels of the visiting educators.

Well, before such an intellectual crowd, the barrio lieutenant thought that perhaps, if only for my unusual dimensions and equally extraordinary pretensions, I might make a good front, especially if I was given enough time to prepare a welcome address. That was my part in the contribution of the community. The two puroks had contributed money and prepared merienda. There was to be salabat and rice cakes, and, for the Americans, cookies and sandwiches.

It was raining hard that afternoon we were scheduled to give our program. The workshop was running well into its second day of conscientious deliberations on off-campus teaching. The delegates had come from all parts of the Philippines where there were normal schools. But in spite of the rain, the inhabitants of Sagpon managed to come, riding in buses that took them into the school compound for double the regular fare. Those living behind the creek on the other side of the happy valley, walked in the mud. They dried their feet clean before entering the hall, called a gymnasium, where the consultants, delegates, and observers were assembled. The barrio folk took the back seat and kept quiet while a woman’s voice droned over the microphone: “. . . from 8:00 to 9:30, meetings of area one and two; from  9:30 to 11:00, a progress report from all area chairmen; from 11:00 o’clock . . .” her voice disappeared in shattering pellets of rain on the gymnasium’s roof.

WHICH VIRTUES, STATISTICS?

But we of the barrio of Sagpon, who were sponsoring the program, were more concerned about the salabat that was so long in coming. It had been brewed in one of the houses nearby, but it had not yet arrived. The cakes were already cold, and the flies had finally pinpointed the area where the sandwiches lay under a Manila paper. Some of the participants, the dancers and the musicians, had not yet arrived. The barrio lieutenant sat solemn and neat-looking in his new barong, pretending to listen to the voice droning out a heavy schedule for the next day, but I knew he was thinking of what to say. He was listed on the program as the master of ceremonies.

I was thinking of my own part, what I was going to say in my welcome address. Of course, I would say, welcome, welcome, all of you to the barrio of Sagpon. I have no key to offer you because . . . well, because you don’t need a key to open our doors. They are always open, especially for visitors like you. Of course, you know that you are welcome. Haven’t we braved the rain to be here to perform for you? We do this all the time. I think it is called community education. That is, when visitors of importance like you come around, one of the teachers, our adviser, runs to our barrio lieutenant and tells him to prepare a program, eats and dances, and music, and maybe speech or two in English, look for somebody in the purok who can talk English. . . so you see, we are here, talking to you in English.

CELEDONIO G. AGUILAR, Ed.D

We have brewed salabat for you, the likes of it you don’t find even in Malacañang. And we have cakes and sandwiches, and we’ll show you our native dance, the pantomina, and sing songs for you. Our string band, the Sagpon Rondalla, is here to play you native music, especially the well-known Bicol song, Sarong Bangui, which means, One Night, I’m sure, one lovely night, not like this evening of rain and strong winds . . . . You have been very tired.

Now, you relax and watch us perform . . . . Yes, yes, this barong is made of pineapple fiber; and these wooden clogs, we call bakia, even our best writers in English call them bakia. We have a song called, Ang Bakia Mo, Neneng. It means, your wooden clogs, Neneng. Neneng could mean darling, feminine darling, not masculine darling. Bakia is an important word in our dialect. It is an interesting sample in semasiology. Even wise educators like you use it. You refer to the bakia crowd. That’s us, who are welcoming you. There is also a fraternity of husbands known as bakia. . .they are henpecked, we call them bakia, or under the saya. Saya means skirt, in a manner of speaking, that is. That’s a joke. A joke. We have jokes. We laugh and feel good and call our place a happy valley. Today we are happy because we can entertain you. We do it all the time. Community education. Integration.  It is no trouble at all. But we wish you could visit us in our homes, and even if you have to stoop when you get through our doors, you will find welcome in our shamefaced attitude towards your visit, shamefaced because we have no glittering things to welcome you with . . . but you are welcome. Then perhaps you might learn how people like us live when we are not dancing the pantomina or getting integrated in community education. . .

RODRIGO E. SALAZAR, M.D.
(He was college professor in Biology
and Zoology)

But I did not say any of these things. In fact, I only remembered to say welcome near the end when I ran out of statistics on Sagpon, its population, number of voters, our industries, or what we live by, our petty problems, and the advantages of community education. But I think, nobody paid attention, so even if I said all those things I should have said, nobody would have listened because everybody was eating, and I wanted to get down the stage and eat also. The salabat was hot and good. The rice cakes were warmed over and the sandwiches were filling. Besides, these were tired men and women who had been through a tight schedule. They were impatient to return to their quarters and rest.

So perhaps it did not matter even if I did not say any of these things I should have said. I am sorry about that. But there was something else I could have included in the statistics, but I did not want to alarm the audience at the seeming presumption of the statement I wanted to make. I did not want those people to think that I was phony even if I looked like one. Besides, my wife said some of them were friends in the UP, so I thought I was going to impress them with an array of statistics and try to sound wise. But I was a fool, or, worse, a coward, who did not have the guts to say the most vital, if most incredible thing, of all the pertinent things there is to say about Sagpon. It should have been worth all the trouble of walking in the rain and delivering a welcome address to a group of lovely people, enjoying a merienda.

MORE WRITERS/SQ. M.

And this is what I should have included as part of the statistics: The barrio of Sagpon has more writers to the square meter than any other barrio in the Philippines. Now that sounds like a lot of bragging, but it is true. And those are not just ordinary writers. Especially if you ask them. Now show me another barrio that can stand the test, by the square meter of the native soil, or by the classification, barrio. You have towns with many writers, especially university towns where practically everybody in the English department is a writer. But not barrios. Not small-town puroks with big-time names. That is the source of our pride, and I should have included that in my welcome speech, but nobody would have believed me. Besides, as I said, nobody was listening. The salabat was good.

SALVADOR ESPINAS

Sagpon and its outlining suburbs take pride in these writers: Vicente Rivera Jr., who has won several prizes in the short story, has had a novel serialized in a women’s magazine, and who threatens to win this year’s Palanca award in the short story; Hermel A. Nuyda, one time also another short story prize winner; his younger brother Glenn A. Nuyda, short story writer who roams the wilds of Sagpon whenever he finds time, catching real, live, nonsymbolic butterflies; Vic O. Ballesfin, short story writer and regular feature writer for a Manila magazine and other Manila papers; Othello O. Ballesfin, his younger brother, who writes poems for a literary national magazine; Valdemar Olaguer whose published poetry both here and abroad has elicited comment and wonderment; Celedonio Aguilar whose poems have appeared in several metropolitan magazines; Salvador Espinas, whose works appeared in the Philippine Magazine, and whose are known to all teachers in the Philippines who read the educational magazines;  Bonifacio Alcala who writes for national periodicals; Alfredo Belen who started as a frequent prize winner in the old Graphic magazine, his stories later appearing in other national magazines; Jose Ravalo, of whose stories was  once featured in the Sunday Times Magazines; Rodrigo E. Salazar, an M.D., whose published poems will soon appear in book form; and one or two others, one a lady of unusual charm and humility to who even an anonymous by-line is a shining name in bold type.

OTHELLO O. BALLESFIN

HOUSES REMAIN

A few of these writers have left Sagpon, but their houses still stand, except the Nuydas’, whose house went down during the typhoon Trix. Valdemar Olaguer has a volume of verse ready for publication. Meanwhile he has taken unto himself a wife and now teaches in Camalig.

Daily, Othello O. Ballesfin, who practically lives in the post office, waits for word from the god of young and old poets, Oscar Zuñiga. Vic O. Ballesfin has joined the Knights of Columbus. The last time I saw him he was taking a picture of the Bishop of Legazpi. Bonifacio Alcala works in Iriga, I am told. Jose Ravalo teaches in the normal school. Salvador Espinas and Alfredo Belen have been working together for years now on textbooks in Bicol, the latter having published, at his own expense, Bicol songs and folk tales. Celedonio Aguilar is not only a writer, but also an underwriter.

The other Saturday, while a tropical depression hung over Albay without budging for hours, these writers met at lunch. After the luncheon, they found themselves with a president and other officers, but they still have no name for their group. But more important, they have already lined up a book of poems by four poets among them, tentatively called Sagpon Quartette. These are poems by Celedonio Aguilar, Othello O. Ballesfin, Salvador Espinas, and Rodrigo E. Salazar. I have been asked to write the introduction. As a matter of fact, I thought this was going to be my introduction, but Sagpon kept getting integrated into the picture. But I am going to introduce them, anyway, because they are Sagpon’s, their genius and their industry, truly a part of this community.

POETS

The poetry of Aguilar and O. Ballesfin has a familiar ring, but once in a while, they say what they themselves want to say and say it well, as when Aguilar broods over

        “. . . a twilight lover, homeward
        Remember; moonlight and
             music
        On cool statements.”

or when he asks:

       “When else O love can you take me
        By the hand beneath the moonlight?”

or when Ballesfin complains in superb poetic diction:

       “I stand here silently now while all the blasts
       Of pulpit winds shatter about my empty hands
       The fashion of my art can half design
       All windows in heave . . .”

       “Heaven has no wall, beloved,
        Tall as your indifference . . .”

       “Beloved, some day you, too, will know
       Why the heart loves on even as it cries
       Enough, enough.”

Salvador Espinas writes in the manner of Robert Frost and Maximo Ramos, but occasionally, and this is when he is really good, he writes in the manner Salvador Espinas, who lives in the mountains, who farms a little farm, who has lived a hard life, and has known a great deal of want, but who still knows beauty when beauty comes along. He writes:

       “I have crossed many rivers
        Wide and rough,
        Braved many a tempest
        Over atrocious rocks
        But conquest is ever far;
        At dusk
        Now vicious rivers rise
        Wider and rougher.”

The doctor-poet Rodrigo Rodrigo E. Salazar, who also teaches biology shows this too well in these lines:

        “I feel an embryo of desire
         Bursting the seams of my integuments
         With cotyledons of fire,
         Aching to blush in red habiliments
         Of love . . .

         “Only you can quench my parched hypocotyls
          And bid my plumules rise as stem and leaves
         Of flame-tree lush atop a desolate hill.”

The next project of these Sagpon poets is another book of poems by Valdemar Olaguer. Meanwhile they are still looking around for the money to pay for publication expenses. They are optimistic.

Now it is a new year again. An election year. The main road in Sagpon is being widened. The workers are busy even in the rain. It has  been raining all of last month. Now the sun is shining again. In Sagpon when the sun shines, the palay is laid out to dry on cemented areas and mats, even along the highway. And the plane from Manila comes on time, and there are papers to read. The barrio lieutenant sits in his store and reads all day, smiling now and then at customers to whom he would unburden memories, say, of a little boy named Doming who walked to his store barefoot in the rain long ago. Of course, Doming is now the country’s budget commissioner, Sagpon’s loss to greatness which is also its claim to fame. Then there is Zeus Salazar who graduated from the UP summa cum laude. There is the little house where he lived. That is his father waiting for a bus for Sorsogon, showing Sagpon folks the latest letter from Sorbonne, where his son is a UP scholar. Memories. Stuff for dreamers and writers, like the ones who feel they must write as though they have just themselves talked to God the other night, right here in Sagpon, in the depth of the winter solstice. #