—What’s the news, Father?
—At twelve midnight, on August 30, the country will erupt in revolt. The Supremo’s men will move to take the powderhouse of San Juan. You must look for the Supremo now. Lights will go out in the Luneta at precisely midnight, to signal the men of Cavite across the Bay to take up arms. Find the Supremo, but don’t go by the roads: the Guardia Civil is on the lookout for foolish men like you.
—Bless me, Father.
—Move on. Go. Remember, my child: nothing exists without an observer.
502 A crossed out phrase blots the manuscript here: “my sacred belongings”? “my Sacred Heart”? Something sacred. (Trans. Note)
503 I.e., milk: a Spanish curse. Just as Filipinos might have a hundred variations on the word rice, Spaniards play infinitely on the nuances of the word milk, and who knows why Spaniards hate their mothers?! (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
504 Balangay (ancient Tagalog term for unit of community); Malamig (cool); Marikit (pretty); and GomBurZa (Gomez-Burgos-Zamora): all Katipunan passwords. In addition, a portrait of Rizal in a three-piece suit adorned Katipunan places of ritual. Shows you that no matter what they say of Rizal as American-era hero, it’s the katipuneros who made love, or hay, with Rizal! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
505 I enjoy those anti-American zarzuelas, don’t you? My golly, but why is he in the American era already? The Cry of Balintawak of the First Phase of the Revolution hasn’t even happened. Anyway, I want to say our ingenuity gives me pride, how we used the old colonist’s spectacle of song-dance-and-drama to meet our needs—especially since in the American era you could not raise the rebel flag, and so actors enfolded it in dancing vaudeville skirts. And then how Filipino flair indubitably improves the thrilling conventions of Spanish folk operetta! The pandanggo sa ilaw is the acme of Filipina dancing talent, don’t you think? Isputing! That’s grace under pressure for you—balancing candles on your head! Don’t care much about the fans; they’re Southern. But where’s the tinikling, delicate boogie with bamboo, the epitome of talent of Filipinos on tiptoe? And the dance of the ricebird, what a romp! However, planting rice is never fun—you can say that again! Whoa—why does that racist hymn occur amid this fine display? Oh stuff my ears with a kundiman, won’t you, and dress me in a patadiong and balintawak! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
506 This is the racist refrain from the racist “Soldiers’ Song” sung at least three years later by racist American GIs in the Philippine-American War, one of many racist wars in that racist country’s history, and who knows when those racists will ever stop. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
507 Calling a spade a spade, aren’t we, Estrella? PS: If you send me an email, please do not be offended by my automatic out-of-office reply: I’m re-reading. (Dr. Diwata Drake, e-mail, out-of-office reply)
508 Calling a bolo knife a bolo. The American war is out of place in this section, for after all Raymundo has yet to join the Supremo at Pugad Lawin; get mixed up with his old friend Santiago in Cavite; with the Magdiwang take the towns of Noveleta and Imus but not his native Kawit (taken by rival Magdalo, led by old friend Miong, whose band by rights he should have joined); live with horror through the Supremo’s murder by old friend Miong’s men; guide Miong’s men along the bat caves on the path to Biak-na-Bato; become a general with the remnants of the Katipunan for his spectacular ability to creep into all the recesses of Cavite’s caves, just like a bat; live in seclusion in Kawit until the Americans invade; join the millenarian colorum with his old prious friend Benigno; and lastly fall to the G.I.s, one of whom seems to have secretly provided paper in Bilibid jail for this story.
This song “Damn, Damn, Damn the Insurrectos” is the touchstone of tragedy in the Philippine-American war. Two hundred thousand Filipinos dead in the American war, and that’s just civilians, not soldiers. Aha—I get it. Raymundo’s going nuts in that American jail. I guess it’s true that he was victim of both Spaniards and Americans, and as he is being tortured by G.I.s he comforts himself with sugar plum visions of Filipino culture dancing in his head. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
509 Hold on, Estrella: I’m re-reading. I’ll get back to you on this when I’m—
PS: If you send me an email, please do not be offended by my automatic out-of-office reply: I’m re-reading. (Dr. Diwata Drake, e-mail, out-of-office reply)
510 This metaplasmic wit—cazadores (i.e., Spanish law enforcement figure; literally: hunters) sarcastically turned into sacadores (extortionists, but also implying plain akyat-bahay, petty thieves)—seems lifted from the Supremo Andres Bonifacio’s classic poem “The Cazadores,” through which his Tagalog’s elastic playfulness shines. Maybe Professor Estrella can expand? (Trans. Note)
511 “Seems,” Mimi C.? Ehem. I’m going through Entry Number— PS: If you send me an email, please do not be offended by my automatic out-of-office reply: I’m re-reading. (Dr. Diwata Drake, e-mail, out-of-office reply)
512 Gladly, Mimi C. The Tagalog poetry of the Katipunan Supremo, the Great Plebeian and Martyr Andres Bonifacio has a folkloric wit that mirrors the authentic voice of Filipinos. His was an idiomatic force, an unadorned candor that spoke directly to the ordinary man: “Mga kasadores dito ay padala/Sanhi daw sa gulo’y lilipulin nila/Ngunit hindi yaong kinikita/Kundi ang mang-umit ng manok at baka.” The pungent verb, mang-umit, is comically mocking—and untranslatable: it evokes the pettiness of Spanish cazadores’ banditry and grievous constancy of that larceny. Bonifacio understood that the war was as petty citizen revenge against petty officials as it was an august ideological
