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enTABLAdo
02/4/09*
“all i really want to do in life is to sing and to teach and nothing more, and sadly, they cannot accept that”
“haha mine is way unacceptable, write. walk near the sea. kiss the man i love.”
here’s a basket, walk your way to mercado publiko. you see shirtless men, you see flies freely flying around hanging slices of beef and pork. you hear the way blood for dinuguan flows from the kabo to the plastic bag. Kasinggit Helman’s father is there. He’s been there and he’s been proud. now walk your way to a quiet home, popular for talented kids, where singers slept in abuy-abuys and dancers toddled to and fro. helman’s mother will definitely welcome you with the warmest smile.
a matador and a housewife. his parents.
a singer, a performer, a happy-shiny soul, a crying clown when the lights are off. singgit president.
his story brings back 1991, a tricycle driver wakes up his daughter. the daughter rubs slumber off her eys, takes a bath to the family poso, arrives in school to lead the Saint Paul School choir. and nobody knows she had to walk from sitio to town. and nobody knows she has been dreaming under the shade of bugnay as her lolo looks after the carabao, and her lolo teaches her how to deal with ropes. so she believes that ropes will never be a part of her life and death.
her story is that hanging bridge Helman crosses, where rocks down there look sharp. His voice has been a constant reminder that he is a gift. Winning singing contests and receiving talent fees made it easier for his family. His allowances were from those moments when the sealed envelopes would be opened and his name would echo. then applauses. then more applauses.
and he goes home with the deafening silence. being poor is not all about the money. it is about having to live up to expectations:
that because you are born talented, you have the power to make the biggest difference. iahon mo kami sa hirap. conversations with him is as happy as two clowns and a fat goose laying easter eggs. but one moment we stop laughing, we turn into the saddest people.
still, he is my favorite storyteller. he speaks in tongues of little fairy tales that dreamers like us long to hear. still, i and the world will not get tired of listening to his voice, the voice ripened by entablados and suppressed cries. still, the sound of his father’s tapalan and his mother’s ili ilis will be the music of his heart, no matter how hard it is to say “i dream” when the entire city is awake and everything falls apart like a sliced cinema.
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Previous Comments
I can feel that you really know your members Sis and you know I have noticed that you never are the kind nga makigclose lang sa iban kay may natulok ka. Titles do not matter to you, am I right? I admire Helman and you. Especially you sis I have never read you brag even if you know you are damn hot 
@lio: thanks fro the appreciation, L.
*very true. i forgot to include that.
*been at war with that. i lose some, win some. at the end of the day, it’s always great to go to sleep without having to swim on your vomit.
on second thought, we need it sometimes.
Posted by modernpatadyong at February 5, 2009, 1:16 pm@blu: para ano man nong nga masilaw ta da? hehe. pareho man lang ta tanan ga otot. if one thinks she’s hot, she does not need to announce it to the world 
this is a beautiful story. the words are melting in my mouth like how a braso de mercedez drowns into nothingness within me. that has always been the case with your verses. they are slow and mellow and always in a trance, yet intoxicating and wicked and delirious once taken down.
being poor, for me, is not only about having to live up to expectations. i’d rather being poor is about having to stab the expectations themselves and to live out a life without borders, a life without conformity. for being poor is not a hindrance, it is a leap to becoming the greatest man you could ever become.
Posted by lio loco at February 5, 2009, 7:39 am