Aida F. Santos

[thepoetslizard]

Aida F. Santos
Author Bio

Aida F. Santos has published four anthologies of poems and has been included in the National Encyclopedia of Artists and Writers, published by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), 1992-93, reissued in 1997. She has been a Writing Fellow of the University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center, 1996-1997; and during her university days was a participant to the U.P. Writers' Summer Workshop, 1971 and thereafter a member of the UP Writers Club.

She has won prizes in the poetry division of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, 1998 and 1987; in the Annual Literary Awards of The Philippine Free Press in 1998; and in the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Gawad Gantimpala in 1988. Aida has also served as a member of the Board of Judges for the CCP Awards for Television (1995), the Palanca Awards for Literature, Pilipino Essay Division (1989) and the Pilipino Poetry Division (1992); and of the GAPAS Award, a national literary award for peasant and advocates , of the GAPAS Foundation (1990-1994).

Aida has taught for several years in the Women’s Studies MA program at St. Scholastica’s College. She is one of the pioneers in the development of feminism and the women’s movement in the country and co-founded several women’s organizations. She
has written extensively on women’s issues and other social concerns; she also wrote scripts for video productions. She has written over 100 essays, opinion columns, feature articles and poems, many of which have been published and anthologized locally and internationally.

She continues to volunteer for grassroots organizations and works professionally as a gender and development consultant.





"Sa Kabataang Kababaihang Naglalakbay sa Daan ng Feminismo"


Magsisimula tayo sa tuwirang pagtukoy
sa mga kamatayan at kawalang pag-asa.
Dito, sisimulan nating punan ang mga
puwang ng katahimikan sa pagitan natin. Sapagkat
sa pagitan ng tila di mababagong pagkakaiba --
sa uri, sa pulitika, sa araw-araw na paninirang-puri
natin sa isa’t isa , upang hindi natin panatilihin
ang pagkakaiba at pagnanasa na malayo sa atin
-- narito ang katotohanan ng ating pagkakakawing.

-- mula sa The Bridge Called My Back[/b]


sisimulan nating mahalin ang isa’t isa
kung sisimulan nating pag-ugnayin ang iyong pagsasakapangyarihan at ang pagkawala ng aking kapangyarihan, tayo’y magkapatid kung makikilala at mahahaplos natin ang ating mga sakit tulad ng paghaplos natin sa sinag ng buwan kahit na ito’y napakalayo at tila di mangyayari, kung tayo’y tatangis sapagkat may isang babaeng lumuluha, kung ating mayayakap ang nagdurusang kabaro kahit pa nadarama natin ang sarili nating mga sugat, kung tayo habang natutuyo ang ating mga luha ay hahalakhak sa paglisan ng ating mga pasanin, kung tatapusin natin ang ating pagkaumid kahit na mahirap hagilapin ang mga katagang maglalarawan sa lumalawak na lungkot sa pagkawala ng mga pag-ibig at mga pag-asa, kung maipipinta natin ang paglubog ng araw sa ating mga puso habang sinasalubong natin ang pagsikat ng bagong araw na sumisilang sa durungawan ng ating mga buhay, kung makikita natin ang mga buhay ng pangungulila at pagtanda at pag-iisa bilang sarili nating mga buhay, kung madarama natin ang bawat araw ng bawat isa na tila katapusan na ng daigdig dahil ang kamatayan ay naririyan lamang sa atin paanan at naghahanap ng mga katawan bilang simulain para sa pagbabago at muling-pagsilang at para sa kinabukasan, kung maaangkin natin ang kulubot nang mukha ng ating mga kapatid na ngayo’y nagbubungkal sa kanilang mga huling taon ng buhay at makita sa kanila ang ating sariling kulubot na mukha, kung sa pagkaumid ng ating mga tinig maiiwan ang mainit na haplos ng ating pagiging tao at pagkamatapat tulad ng pangalawang balat tulad ng pangalawang tinig sa ating utak tulad ng isang awit tulad ng isang himig na di nawawaglit sa ating alaala , kung tayo’y magdadapit-balat alam nating ang haplos na yaon ay may mga mata sumisilab kahit na sa pinakapusikit nating mga gabi, kung tayo sa ating pag-usbong at paghahanap ng bagong mga langit maaalala natin ang kababaihang nauna na sa atin sa kamatayan o kawalan ng pag-asa, kung maaangkin natin ang bawat buhay ng bawat isa sa atin kung tayo’y magiging totoong tao at kababaihan kung makikita natin ang anino sa likod ng mga ngiti o luha at maaangkin natin ang kanilang kaligayahan kung tayo’y magiging totoong tao at kababaihan

sisimulan nating mahalin ang isa’t isa



Translation by the Author:

"To the Young Women Walking the Path of Feminism"

We begin by speaking directly
to the deaths and disappointments.
Here we begin to fill in the spaces
of silence between us. For it is between
these seemingly irreconcilable lines --
the class lines, the politically correct lines,
the daily lines we run down to each other
to keep difference and desire at a distance
-- that the truth of our connection lies.

-- from This Bridge Called My Back


we begin to love each other
when we begin to make the connection between your empowerment and my disempowerment, we are sisters when we recognize and touch each other’s pains like touching the glow of the moon when it seems so distant and impossible, when we cry because another woman cries, when we hold a grieving sister even when we feel the depths of our own wounding, when we laugh as the tears dry laughing with the going of sorrows, when we break our silences even when it is difficult to find the words that will describe the growing grief of loves lost and lost hopes, when we can paint the sunset in our hearts as we welcome the new day rising through the windows of our own lives, when we see the lives of loneliness and aging and aloneness as our own lives, when we catch each other’s day as if it’s the end of the world for mortality lies at our feet seeking deaths as its agenda for change and rebirth and the future, when we look at the wrinkling faces of our sisters now toiling the soil of their last years and we see our own faces etch in all the wrinkles that we now claim our own, when in the silencing of our voices the human touch of warmth and candor remain like second skin like second voices in our heads like a song like a tune that does not leave our memory, when we touch and we know that the touch has grown eyes that flicker even in the darkest of our nights, when we as we grow and seek new skies, remember those that have gone ahead whether in death or disappointment, when we can claim that each sister’s life is ours too when we become truly human and women, when we can see the shadow behind the smiles or the tears and the joys maybe ours too, when we become human and women

we begin to love each other

Translated by Aida F. Santos

First published in The Manila Chronicle; reprinted in” Spaces: Earthbound, Skybound” by the Institute of Women’s Studies, St. Scholastica’s College, Manila Philippines,2000, pp.71-72; this poem is part of the collection entitled “Rhapsody” which won third prize in the Don Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature 1998, English Poetry Division.


*

"Corregidor Tales"

The Laterals

In a lateral queue
we move stealthily,
shadows against history,
through lateral tunnels
bored through mountains
by prisoners who mangled their feet,
possibly died of diseases
or a broken heart,
maybe simply of exhaustion:
for a moment they were
heroes rather than thieves
and murderers -- but no one
has put a marker anywhere:
only the mountains
bore their fingerprints
axes, picks and shovels,
their voices forever snared
in the earth’s subterranean,
-- penetrated, broken.
Laterals were refuge
for the violators of peace,
and for the warmakers, sanctuaries.

A lateral begins and ends
with another one
parallel, perpendicular,
that goes into another
and another: this is a journey
of descent to ascent, and back again
it never ends it seems.

I can get lost here,
to memorize those years
and listen to the voices
trapped in these mountains.
But I am afraid.

I can get lost here, and find
the meaning of life
and the paradoxes we live
and through which we lie.

This used to be
a thousand bed hospital
the guide’s voice echoes,
sending shadows of death
dancing beyond our human eyes.
Here, one toilet for everyone.
A joke: was kidney trouble
a major illness?

Smile left me, laughter
has been frozen
in my throat
when I entered the laterals.

I am touching history
male and foreign.
Colonialists, to me
friends, to my forebears.
I come here to seek
what my foremothers did
or my sisters, perhaps blonde
and blue-eyed, suffered for.

We see our present
according to our needs
history make and unmake.

Corregidor
was never in my mind
until now.





The Cannons

In this island of terror
cannons sit silently, like dinosaurs
of a past: visitors climb
for souvenir shots,
I watch, the mind has a way
of etching pictures
still life, fadeless photographs.

There are echoes everywhere
the bombings then are still here
in our lives: muted by the
unseen enemies.
Our lives remain at war
with ourselves, the human
spirit shackled by the
patriarchal calls to peace
by launching wars.

Corregidor
was never in my mind
until now.




The Escape Tunnel

Here and there:
wild grass, bush plants
talahib, the cogon of recollections
struggling against el nino
brown earth, grey walls
tunnels of despair
and wars -- were there loves
hidden in the crevices
of the mountains?

Slowly, like soldiers retreating
or attacking, we duckwalked
the secret cave, stone roof
pushing the body into a half
walk, a half abeyance.
The body is pushed into the
openings: feeble light from
a flashlight, leading the way,
and in between the pack
of us, two more flash.

I tasted the grey walls
carbonlike, so this is death:
acetylene torches
flamed this secret tunnel
the conquerors became the haunted
before, they hounded --
little men from the east
announcing prosperity for the region,
enemies then, tourists now.
I grazed my foot, descending
into a slope.

Bullets here abound
If you have clear eyes
the guide suggests: why
take away the horrors
from this place into our pockets?

McArthur was more than six feet
the guide’s voice bellows
creeping through the dark.
Light breeze flutters through
a crack in the cave: a dot
of light somewhere,
eyes straining we seek
the starlike brightness
out of this tunnel
into ourselves, finding
peace amidst the ruins
of wars.

Corregidor
was never in my mind
until now.




The ER

This was the emergency room
locked and guarded
the female nurses had to be safe
to revive the ailing and meet the dead.
Ironies: the ER was not simply
to administer first aid
or comfort those whose death
was certain.
I hear in my head:
the comfort women’s wailing
held against the cement wall.

Lola Rosa in my heart:
on weekends there can be
as many as fifty
and not even a second
to wash in between.

Like a dam, willed into
a certain flow
my rage traveled
through my sinews.
See, the guide points out,
four u-shaped metal bars
captured in the grey cement.
Oohs and aahs, the visitors gaped.
I held my breath
instances like these I need to learn
the serenity that prayers bring.

Corregidor
was never in my mind
until now.


-------------
Note: Lola Rosa Henson, the first comfort woman to come out and tell her story.


First published in Mirror Weekly, June 1, 1998; reprinted in Making the Harm Visible: Global Sexual Exploitation of women and Girls, Speaking Out and Providing Services, edited by Donna M. Hughes and Claire Roche (Rhode Island: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, February 1999); also in “Spaces: Earthbound, Skybound” by the Institute of Women’s Studies, St. Scholastica’s College, Manila Philippines, 2000, pp.71-72; this poem is part of the collection entitled “Rhapsody” which won third prize in the Don Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature 1998, English Poetry Division.


*

"Anticipatory Grief"
for Adul de Leon


I flipped through the thin folder
of lovepoems, the gentler part of my being,
we laughed at our power to lust, despite love
as we bravely showed that which bears pain
in our sides, like pockets of our clothes,
familiar emotions: hidden
like this conversation.

I opened my wounded heart to you
your tears flowed, I could feel
pain transfigured into this body
before me, shaking with her pillows,
and all I could do was embrace you
sister, friend, comrade.

We hugged each other
your tears were warm, mine cold.
Pain, oh the pain of lives
that tiptoed around the doors of opportunities,
but we are no budding flowers --
I brought you a bunch
and some fruits, edible, like this conversation
between women. We made a pact:
we will move on
not like shadows in the past, we shall live
with faith that your life is not
wasted, even as your soft flesh rots.

If death will claim us
ravage the intestines of our being
the organs of our lives
let it do so with grace:
I do not wish to see you, reedlike,
bones are all that you are.
I want to remember your
beautiful eyes, black pond
of memories, the flashing
excitement of theatre
that was your life.

So, now, I stay away from your
sticklike walk, plastic tubes
hanging out, unsightly lifelines.
But each hour of each day
your image slowly gets developed in my head
a-shaping in an anticipatory grief.



"Hinihintay na Panglaw"
para kay Adul de Leon


1
Mabilis kong binuksan ang manipis na polder
ng mga tula ng pag-ibig, higit na maamong bahagi ko
tinawanan natin ang kapangyarihang magnasa
kahit pa nga tayo’y umiibig
habang buong giting na inilantad natin ang bahaging may sakit
sa tagiliran, parang bulsa ng ating damit:
kilalang mga damdamin, nakatago
tulad ng pag-uusap na ito.

Inilantad ko sa iyo ang sugatang puso
dumausdos ang iyong mga luha, naramdaman ko
ang sakit na bumago sa katawang
nasa aking harap, nangatal kasabay ng kanyang mga unan,
at wala akong magawa kundi ang yakapin ka
kapatid, kaibigan, kasama.

2
Mahigpit tayong nagyakap,
mainit ang iyong luha, ang aki’y malamig.
Sakit, o anong sakit ng buhay
na tumingkayad sa pintuan ng mga pagkatataon,
ngunit hindi na tayo mga bulaklak na namumukadkad --
dinalhan kita ng isang tungkos nito
at ilang prutas, matamis, tulad ng pag-uusap na ito
sa pagitan ng kababaihan. Sumumpa tayong
hindi papayag na maging anino lamang
ng nakaraan, hahayo tayong
may pananampalatayang ang iyong buhay
ay hindi nasayang, kahit pa nga nabubulok ang iyong malambot na laman.

3
Kung aangkinin tayo ng kamatayan
sirain ang bituka ng ating katauhan
ang mga bahagi ng ating buhay
sana’y maganap ito nang may lamyos:
ayaw kitang makitang singnipis ng talahib
tulad ngayon, pulos buto ang natira sa iyo.
Ibig kong alalahanin
ang iyong magagandang mata, itimang tubig
ng mga alaala, may kinang
simbuyo ng tanghalan
na siya mong kasaysayan.
Kaya ngayon, lumalayo ako
mula sa malatingting na lakad, mga plastik na tubong
nakabitin mula sa iyo, pangit na pantawid-buhay.

Ngunit, bawat oras ng bawat araw
unti-unting nabubuo ang iyong larawan sa aking utak
naghuhugis sa hinihintay na panglaw.


Translated by Aida F. Santos


Published in Pana-panahon: Isang Tanong, Isang Sagot at Iba pang Tula, an anthology ed. by Aida F. Santos, published by Akdang-Bayan, Quezon City, 2005, pp. 39-40.[/font]