145 Roughly—Yes, you. You will betray me. The Spanish solecisms here [e.g., tu mi engañar] indicate knowledge of Chabacano, Cavite dialect mixing Spanish, Mexican, and Tagalog in Babel-like mash. Variants of this language include Ermita-Chabacano (now extinct); Ternate-Chabacano (born of Mexican escapees from the galleon trade); Cavite City-Chabacano; and Zamboanga-Chabacano, which mixes pidgin Ilonggo, Cebuano, and other Visayan languages with even more pidgin Spanish, resulting in a not-so-pidgin headache. (Trans. Note)
146 Chabacano: mixed languages brought over by Spanish-galleon delinquents from the New World around the seventeenth century. But what’s the point of bringing up all the differences, Mimi C.? All were just infestations, espasol germs of español! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
147 Well, true, but these men were also laborers, sailors, and servants whose wandering lives and dependent dreams are also ours. (Trans. Note)
148 Oh, yeah, how I wish for myself that traveler’s life, the vagabond freedom of ancient boat-sailing. But I am tied to a hospital cot, with only a sliver of Panalaron Bay on the horizon, meager portion of my ambition—my malady undiagnosed, my dreams unbowed. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
149 Young Raymundo is well trained in his father’s art—melodrama. He casts Miong [Emilio Aguinaldo] as Christ-figure rather than betrayer. This is ironic since it is Miong, in 1897, who betrays the Plebeian Christ, a.k.a. the Supremo Andres Bonifacio!! Idoy’s challenge, “Die, oh Moor,” is a rash prophecy of Miong’s future infidelity. Bastard! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
150 Your forays, Estrella, into irrelevant, wasteful dudgeon fray my patience. Your invalid state is sad. Please take your medication. (Dr. Diwata Drake, Milwaukee, WI)
151 Irrelevant? Wasteful? I speak of the death of the Supremo, the plebeian hero of the Katipunan—not of the bourgeois Rizal, heroic as he is, or of this—this—blind dramatizing bat of an aesthete—dramatist—this Raymundo—and you call me irrelevant? Utak-mestiza! Mongrel brain! Just because I lie here in a dead-end sanatorium, you think you can silence—! Putragis! Bulag! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
152 Yawa nga de puquis! (Dr. Diwata Drake, Chicago, Illinois)
153 Oh no you don’t! Crucify her! God Knows Hudas Is You! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
154 The original states: Oh dios, Bat-hala mio. No midigo esa palab—. (Trans. Note)
155 The original states: Putragis [expletive, variation on puta, i.e., a not so good woman]! Bulag [taunt on his blindness]! (Trans. Note)
156 More likely, Visayan variant of Chabacano. It is not a kind of fruit. (Trans. Note)
157 Fancy play-acting here. Lifted bodily from medieval romances popular especially among old Spanish priests, who had to approve the plays and thus shaped the archipelago’s dramatic tastes. We can trace current drama, e.g., noontime serials and telenovelas, to the tastes of those robust, barely educated Basque and Catalan and Castilian priests long ago who lorded over the leisure hours of the colonies. It is the single Spanish legacy we can be grateful for! I especially love the current imports from Venezuela and Korea, though I must say I also keep in delicate wrappings my old Betamax tapes of that classic serial drama—Marimar! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
Entry #12
LETANIA DE NUESTRA SEÑORA158 159
De Senor Padre Butete160
Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. Christe, audi nos. Christe, exaudi nos. Pater de coelis Deus. Miserere nobis. Fili Redemptor mundi Deus. Miserere nobis. Spiritus Sancte Deus. Miserere nobis. Sancta Trinitas unus Deus. Miserere nobis.
Sancta María. (Holy Ship of Christopher Columbus!)161 162 163
Sancta Dei Genitrix. (Holy Genitals!)
Sancta Virgo Virginum. (Holy Redundancies!)
Mater Christi.
Mater Divinae gratiae.
Mater Purissima. (Holy Cats!)
Mater Inviolata. (Mother in a Can?)
Mater Intemerata. (Mother Most Tameme!)
Mater Immaculata.
Mater Amabilis. (Mother Most Speedy!)
Mater Admirabilis. (Mother Even Speedier!)
Virgo Prudentissima. (Holy Bank!)
Virgo Veneranda. (Mother of Venereal Balconies!)
Virgo Fidelis. (Virgin of Dogs!)
Speculum Justitiae. (Specolorum!)
Sedes Sapientiae. (Seder of Knowledge!)
Causa nostrae lactitiae. (What??!!)
Vas Spirituale. (Spirit of Vesicles!)
Vas Honorabile. (Honorary Vesicle!)
Vas Insigne devotionis. (Why the Hell This Chain of Vesicles?!)
Rosa Mystica. (Porn Star Name!)
Turris Davidica. (David the Circumcised?)
Turris Eburnea. (After-Effect of Circumcision?)
Domus Aurea. (House of Aureoles!)
Foederis Arca. (Pubic Arch!)
Janua Coeli. (Freakish Coil!)
Stella Matutina. (Star of Comedians!)
Salus Infirmorum. (Hospital Bed!)
Refugium Peccatorum. (Icebox!)
Consolatrix Affictorum. (Queen of Pain!)
Regina Patriarcharum. (Queen of Chauvinists!)
Regina Propletarum. (Queen of Gobbledygook!)
Regina Apostolorum.
Regina Martyrum. (Queen of Sado-Masochists!)
Regina Confessorum. (Queen of Tabloids!)
Regina Virginum. (Queen of Virgins!)
Regina Sanctorum omnium. (Whatever!)
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi . . .
Ora pro nobis!
R: Amen. (Finally!)
158 “Litany of Our Lady.” I did not bother translating the Latin passages. In rough pencil, Raymundo injected indecipherable phrases (noted in parentheses) into his Latin exercises. I could only glean their possibilities. (Trans. Note)
159 Correct, Mimi C: no need to bother translating dead words! As part of the miseducation of Filipinos, Latin was the coin of shallow learning. Instead of teaching modern Spanish, the priests preferred obscure Latin. The more rote and useless, the better! Catholic jargon = soup for the Filipino soul. This section is a portion of the Doctrina Cristiana, or mumbo-jumbo of the faithful. I give the grade of sobresaliente (excellent!) to Raymundo’s efforts of translation. How well I remember my own time in Mrs. Cruzada’s religion class, writing down every single cardinal virtue and capital sin, with corresponding definitions in polysyllabic vocabulary (noting however that ignorance was no sin while knowledge was no virtue in religion class; but anyhow with fortitude I practiced my penmanship). In the meantime Mrs. Cruzada ate ice candy and asked to bite into our chocolate American snacks if we had any. This, I noted, was gluttony, gula, but I gave her my imported M&Ms anyway, out of charity, caritas. In the end, my religion grades under Mrs. Cruzada were sobresaliente! (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
160 The renowned author of the Doctrina Cristiana was Reverend Father Gaspar Astete. Butete means puffer fish. Hahaha. Good one! Bravo, Raymundo! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
161 The random translations that dominate this “prayer” are signs perhaps of a feverish cholera epidemic going on at the time [1883], though the text offers no explicit comment on his illness. Raymundo again fell victim to this disease nine years later [1892] when cholera struck him in Manila. (Trans. Note)
162 Jokes are a sign of the unconscious. What lies here in this
