On the year of my birth Carlos P. Garcia had just assumed the presidency after Ramon Magsaysay was killed in a plane crash on Mount Manunggal in Cebu. The National Anthem is now sung in Tagalog. It was just a year ago when the Surian ng Wikang Pambansa, upon the urgings of Magsaysay, rendered the Spanish lyrics of Filipinas/La Marcha Nacional Filipina, into Tagalog and replaced Land of the Morning as our national anthem. Some of us may still remember that it was Julian Felipe who composed the music La Marcha Nacional Filipina in 1898, and that a year later Jose Palma wrote the poem Filipinas as lyrics for Felipe’s marching song. In 1920 Palma’s lyrics in Spanish was translated to English by Camilo Osias and A.M. Lane, the duo presumably doing their best to match the translated lyrics with the meter and cadence of Felipe’s march. Old timers would probably agree with me that the Surian’s translation is closer to Palma’s original than Land of the Morning, but what gets my goat is the word silanganan. Now, I don’t claim I know my Tagalog that well (-- just as I don’t claim to know my English that well either, or the Spanish language for that matter), but I don’t believe that silanganan is an accepted usage or variation of the Tagalog word silangan (which means East, or the dated Orient, in English). Well, I guess everybody had deadlines even the geniuses at the Surian so they probably thought it was all right to add an extra syllable to force fit the lyric with the melody much like singers add a yeah or a moan to their song.
In November of the same year, Garcia will win in the general elections and will get a full term as president. Valentin de los Santos ran for president, too; he lost; ten years later, Santos, as Supremo of the Lapiang Malaya, will lead an uprising against Marcos.
It was also the year when wooden rings were sold commercially in stores after their success as an exercise tool in Australian schools. Toymakers Richard P. Knerr and Arthur K. Melvin of Wham-O caught wind of the idea and started selling plastic hoops in the United States (These two also marketed the slingshot, which was originally invented to shoot pieces of meat into the air, as a training device for falcons). Here in the Philippines, the hoops came out as Hula-Hoops; made from rattan vines wrapped with plastic bands.
This year the Soviet Union also launched the Sputnik-- the world’s first man-made satellite. The Russians launched Sputnik from the Baikanor Space Centre in the Republic of Kazakhstan (-- a country later made famous by an abrasive British actor in the film Borat). Sputnik was 58cm in diameter; weighed 83.6 kilograms, and orbited the Earth in 96 minutes and 12 seconds. Here in the Philippines, Sputnik was adopted as a name by a criminal/prison gang whose members have Visayan roots.
I’m getting old. Frankly, I don’t care. Adding up more years to my age would only make it official… that I’m old. I suspect I was born with an old soul. A soul that carried remnants of memories of its past life and infecting mine with that of its own. My salt and pepper hair now has more salt than pepper and seems to start further up my forehead-- a forehead that had feigned a receding hairline long before that line actually moved up. My eyebrows now have more errant hair making it bushier and had accented the arch giving my face a stern somewhat snobbish almost devilish look. Generally, my whole face is drooping and converging on my chin. My ears that seemed to have stopped growing when I was probably nine now looked too small for my head especially with the added bulk of sagging face muscles. My eyes had bulged out more than before and betray how much time I actually spend reading in poor light. Under the eyes are permanent eye bags that seem to be in direct competition with my bulging eyes. Eyeglasses are still perched on the ridge of my nose-- with the distinctive downward nibble of flesh at the tip which gives me a vague hawkish profile.
When I was a young boy, an aunt took me for a drive to Cavite. "We're going to see a Shaman" she said. She said she'll ask the Shaman's help to get back money embezzled from her. The Shaman was at the dining table on the kitchen. He was a wiry old man and looked more like a sabunggero than a medicine man. He smelt of coconut oil. In the middle of the kitchen is a well with water that changes color each time a bucket was scooped from it-- I wasn't impressed, Dada could do it with just a drop of food coloring. There were a number of people lined up to see the old man. Most had brought a bottle with them and would ask for a cup of the colored water before they leave.
After my aunt's turn, we got up to leave. But, the old man waved for me to sit down with him on the dining table. The old man whipped up a big sheet of manila paper whereupon he wrote and drew symbols. I warned me about women when I grow up, but I don't remember what about women I should be careful about. He also warned me about riding jeepneys. He said he'll give me a good oracion to utter just before I get into a fist fight. The old man wrote several oraciones that he said I should utter in case I find myself in any of the circumstances he warned me about. Then he rolled up the brown paper and handed it to me. Then, as I stood up, he whispered to me my age when I would die.
From that day on I became obsessed with my death. I began to have a recurring dream that when I go, it’s going to be on a cool afternoon. I’ll be waking up from a catnap on a wooden bed. There will be a big calendar on the left wall. Beyond the foot of the bed there would be a big window that would let in the cool breeze. A slight drizzle would have just eased up and the breeze will be flavored with the smell of freshly cut grass. White light shines through the doorway on the right. Then I would close my eyes.
