THE MOVIES OF LOLA THEATER

to belong to the "a" crowd means to watch movies at lola theater.

all the literati of legazpi, the pretty girls, the well-heeled and those they say of fine breeding all troop to lola to watch the latest flicks. there they congregate to be seen.

fully air-conditioned, the fees are higher than those of rex and madrid. the newest released movies from mgm, warner brothers, and james bond films are only shown at the theater. no tagalog films nor second-rate movie.

there, i would always see her, not on a date but as one who knows she would be there. of course, the feeling was mutual. the movies sometimes bind us or at other times explain love's intricacies and moods.

the only thing one must first avoid is to be seen with another, though only by coincidence and chance. a jealous woman knows no explanation.

lola is a love story forever unfolded in my memories.

now, i only watch dvd's.

"GRANDSTANDING"

near old ahs was our famous grandstand.

ours were experiences of grandstanding. some settle their differences behind it where blackeyes and torn shirts were memories. others hone their peeping tom skills. many others share test questions and answers in clandestine "radio" broadcasts.

seldom have we used it for its real purpose. of course, we never needed exercise, diets, aerobics nor calisthenics. poverty has made us trim and fit.

over there, i have lost dreams of being a basketball player or a long distance runner. but up there on the bleachers i can see beyond ahs and the hills of quimantong. there is freedom in dreams and goes beyond what we are. even if they are impossible.

now, i have gone beyond ahs and traversed those hills.

but the grandstand is gone.

and with it are memories.

THE CLASSROOMS OF AHS

tell me.

how can one learn from rickety and worn out chairs, chalk-smeared blackboards, broken jalousie windows, and creaking floors of old ahs? they defied the principles of education and educational psychology taught in normal schools. like all government schools, they decried of old age and neglect, yet proud of the many who passed by its portals.

but this is much better than the pre-fabricated marcos-type classrooms we had when were first year. when it rained, they drowned our lessons and attention.

at least ours was cooler, and if ever we sweated, it was not because of the heat but due to the difficult physics and pilipino exams. but here, the chairs and the walls boasted of hieroglypics written by ancients unknown. the wiser of us, called those on the chairs, "codigos" and those on the walls, "love notes".

we were summoned to and from classes by a defused world war II vintage american bomb now being used as the bell. for whom the bell tolled i exactly never knew.

but this enclave had shaped us. here, rizal inspired us, experienced love like shakespeare, suffered despair like edgar allan poe. here, minds were formed, talents were honed, and ambitions were cloned. here, we longed to be free.

i was consoled by a slogan written on the walls of the trade school near our home. it said, "the roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet". surely, they did not mean camotes or cassava.

fittingly, i look back, great men are made of these.

even from rickety and worn-out chairs.

A TERRA COTA OF DREAMS

i never wanted to be a soldier.

that's why in high school, i chose to be a sergeant only in the cadet corps. after checking the attendance, i stayed in the shade while they drilled. better that way. i never wanted strategies and tactics to be confined to formations and phalanxes but to blossom in spontaneous combustions.

it too, had its advantages. during fiestas, where the school cadet corps joined the parades, we (eugene and i) after checking the attendance, were now scot-free to roam around in civilian clothes while our classmates toiled and sweated it out in the afternoon sun marching.

but there were those of us who liked soldiering: roberto catubig, the roderos twins, nelson ludovice and other in the lower sections. i know rogelio would not like such a career but he was our corps commander.

but deep in my heart i knew that military training instilled discipline in us. leadership craves for it while success presupposes it. what with the top echelon of the cadet corps being composed of the intelligentia of the fourth year.

true to form, some of us became generals; others were tested in the battlefields of mindanao and the hinterlands. others now sit in swivel chairs in some airconditioned offices.

now, they have become the leaders of our batch.

in a situation where there are others who need us, we need little sparks of initiatives and direction from them to see us through.

or, are they just terra cota warriors recently unearthed?

THE WHISPER OF THE AGOHO TREES

there is always sadness in the whisper of the agoho trees be it in october or april in old albay high school.

i always hear them sigh as the wind passes by. perhaps, they had been a witness to many loves lost. or many dreams broken and unfulfilled.

promises and dreams were made under its shade, but many times fell like cones and needlepines; successes charted and planned yet continued to flounder on the shoals.

perhaps, the birds on its branches have travelled far and brought back tidings of failures and forebodings: of those of us who wallow in poverty and misery, those who still hug the coastlines in fear and temerity, those of us who hid in shame and oblivion, and those of us who have triumphed and have forgotten others along the way.

in the fourth year, in our class prophecy, i was written to be the boy most likely to succeed.

by society's standards, yes. but my definition of it goes beyond. i can only claim it, when i am able to share it with my batchmates.

or when i can see the agoho trees sigh with contentment.

1971

it was a year of living dangerously.

it excited the young, steeled the hearts of the brave, and wrought havoc and fear in the hearts of the old.

change was in the air, being fashioned in the streets and barricades. in the open, one sniffs at the fresh breath of freedom amidst the acrid taste of cordite from m-16s. sometimes, molotov lit the streets, often times flash and strobe lights in search of protesters and fugitives.

we were torn between our studies and protest rallies, between our classrooms and the streets. but the wiser of us chose to pore over our books while keeping the fire of freedom within our hearts. there will be time, we told ourselves, and it is never too late to be a hero.

we promised ourselves never to be dead heroes, because the dead never tell their tales. but we never dishonor those of us and of our confreres who fell along the way before the break of dawn. comrades like luisa and rebecca.

by the way, until now, we still await the breaking of dawn.

THE BOYS OF IV-I

we were a rare breed.

borne out of two traditions, the laboratory school and the pilot school there were differences among us. the former spoke the bicol of old albay, the latter daragueno. we were a little sophisticated, reserved and proud of our heritage, the other was outgoing, straight-forward and down-to-earth.

but, there ends our differences.

we excelled in academics without exception. in fact, our boys belonged to the top five of the class. no matter what we do after class (parties, drinking sprees, etc.) we were up the next day ready for the rigors of our studies.

it seem to be an unwritten code among us that we never courted our girl schoolmates even if they were the prettiest among all the fourth-year batch. there might be a few exception, but we chose to annul our manhood beyond the borders of our institution. this is not a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but perhaps the thought of the grass being greener on the other pasture.

in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer, for goodness or mischief we were united. talk about suspension of classes and you find half of the IV-I boys in a nearby theater watching "bomba" films for the fun of it. we were never perverts, but we were undergoing the rites of passage to adulthood.

we had grown salty and daring as graduation was near. our mentors were secretly proud that we have grown out of their hands to become independent, responsible and conscious of our destinies and goals.

at the advent of the summer of '71, we were taking divergent paths.

but we knew that, we the boys of IV-I, one day our paths would cross and converge.

MY LABORATORY SCHOOL

it has given me the best education i have, my laboratory school.

we were introduced early to books. by the time i was in grade three, i was devouring fairy tales and raiding the library of miss duka for the tales of robin hood and of king arthur and the knights of the round table. slowly but surely, i was becoming interested in classics.

once a week, we listen to radio broadcasts from radio australia. they were, as it were our introduction to mass media learning. then, there were already the semblaces of multi-media instructional materials we enjoyed.

our girl schoolmates were much taller than us and seem more emotionally mature. while they indulged in their crushes, we played baseball under the sweltering heat of the noon day sun. afterwards, we filed in silently in our afternoon class under the withering stare of our critic teacher in grade five.

we had our weekly play fest. we produced, directed and acted out our parts in those plays. the girls were better than us. they can easily shed tears while we played the parts of cowboys and indians. sometimes, even bandits and terrorists. it was the showcase of the best in us, even if we were only kids.

the english campaigns taught us straight conversational english. we did have student patrols nabbing classmates who speak in the vernacular. it was tough but it was good.

christmas was memorable. agoho christmas trees inside our classrooms; home-made christmas cards to be given to parents; exchange gifts; the traditional school christmas program that signal the end of classes and the burdensome take home essay exams - "how i spent my christmas vacation".

my laboratory school taught me that learning could be both demanding yet fun.

truly, they were the montessoris and learning centers of yesteryears.