Four Students 4

FOUR STUDENTS

Four
There was once Mapang-Api in Maliwalu
Who wanted to be powerful, by making his people powerless,
Superior, by humiliating his subjects into submission
Strong, by weakening his people's soul.
So his men killed and lamed and blinded
And tortured and pillaged and robbed
Until he was the only one Strong
In a country he made Poor
"Come to me," he announced.
"I am the only one who can rescue You, Poor."
Do you think Mapang-Api of Maliwalu
That We the Poor are part of a menu,
A simple vocabulary you can mix and match
That will smile with a gift of rice and a sardines can?
Please...I beg you...in the name of God
Do not use us for your own convenience.


At the Banqueruan bus terminal, Sonny stood quietly in line, waiting for the next ride to Maliwalu City. Around him, the morning buzzed with life—the smell of dried fish mingling with the metallic scent of old hardware from the Chinese stalls that lined the plaza. These stalls sold everything: bolts, slippers, soy sauce, sacks of rice, meat wrapped in newspaper, fish packed in crushed ice. This was the heartbeat of Banqueruan’s business district, where daily life blended survival with habit.

A small park sat at the edge of the plaza—a patch of dust and tired benches, shaded by balete trees that had listened to countless stories. Sonny had spent many uneventful childhood afternoons here, sitting in the shade and listening to tales of those who had left for Maliwalu. Those men and women came back dressed differently, speaking with fast tongues and carrying the aura of cities. They spoke of the ones who made it big in Maliwalu. Of jobs won, loves lost, and the high cost of everything. For the people of Banqueruan, the park was more than a resting spot—it was a ceremonial threshold. A gateway. A place where dreams left barefoot and returned, often scarred.

Then came the commotion.

The Victory Liner rolled in like a dragon breaking stillness. The patient line that had formed since dawn dissolved into chaos. Groups broke into individuals; individuals into instincts. Friends who once chatted in friendly tones pushed and elbowed each other like strangers. Some climbed through windows. Others clawed their way to the door. Names faded, courtesy died, and a jungle mentality took over. Everyone was chasing a seat. Everyone was chasing a future. In that moment, everyone was equal—equally desperate.

By the time Sonny arrived in Maliwalu, he was breathless and disoriented. The city swallowed him whole. Buildings stretched high and wide, consuming every inch of land. The streets overflowed with faces—none familiar, none pausing. It was as if ants had taken over a vast colony. The city throbbed.

This was not Banqueruan. This was Maliwalu.

Go on, Sonny told himself. This is where dreams begin.
His legs resisted at first, uncertain, whispering the temptation to go back. But he pushed forward.
This is Maliwalu. What did you expect?

His first steps led him to the city terminal, aptly named Simula, directly facing the towering City Hall like a monument to bureaucracy and ambition. To its left loomed Maliwalu University, a palace of knowledge that seemed more intimidating than inviting. The buildings around him stood like giants. He felt small—very small. Looking up at the sky, he imagined the clouds drifting above Banqueruan. But no. He must not think of Banqueruan now. Not of its quiet, not of Lola Sabel’s careful warnings.

He took a jeepney marked **Gitna**, heading deeper into the city. The jeep groaned through the chaos of Pasakalye, skirting the old Matandang Unibersidad—tall, grim, and magnificent. Past it sprawled the slums. Children ran naked along blackened canals. Mothers breastfed their babies on cardboard mats. Beggars tugged at sleeves with outstretched hands. Just a few feet away, sleek cars glistened behind guarded gates. Armed security patrolled the glimmering malls. Glamour and decay sat side by side in Maliwalu, unconcerned by each other’s presence.

In time, Sonny would become part of it all. By day, he would roam the streets in wonder and fear; by night, be seduced by the neon glow of sleepless entertainment. He would learn the anatomy of the city: **Mayaman**, where the rich insulated themselves with glass and steel, and **Mahirap**, where life was raw and unforgiving. In Mayaman, he'd learn the language of department stores and imported colognes. In Mahirap, he'd memorize the names of corner stalls and alleyways, learn to avoid knife fights and quick cons. But that was still ahead.

Today was his first step into discovery.

As Mod wandered somewhere else on his own first day, Sonny was at Paskalye Street, frozen before a taxi, trying to figure out how to open the door.

"Jaime, how do you open this?" he asked the bored teenager beside him—his first acquaintance in Maliwalu University. Jaime barely hid a smirk.

“You’re serious?” Jaime chuckled. *This guy’s pure promdi,* he thought.

Sonny shifted uncomfortably, unsure what to do with his hands. He had never ridden a taxi before. Not once. Thanks to Lola Sabel.

“Kalampagin mo!” Jaime barked. "Beat it."

So Sonny did. Literally. He slapped the door.

“It won’t open!” he panicked, mortified by the situation and terrified of his companion’s judgment. The taxi driver, chuckling, reached across and popped the lock. “There you go,” he said.

Jaime rolled his eyes. “How’d you even pass the college entrance exam?”

Sonny followed him, wounded but still curious. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve got to be alert, man,” Jaime said, already walking ahead. “In this city, if you’re not alert and sophisticated, you’re prey. The police, the cons, the rich kids—they’ll all eat you alive.”

Sonny stood frozen again, the word *sophisticated* ringing oddly in his ears. He remembered what Lola Sabel used to say: “A stupid man dies with eyes wide open and mouth agape—surprised even by death itself.”

What exactly was expected of him in Maliwalu?

**Another Refrain:**

Sonny, what else but to learn the difference—between **Mahirap** and **Mayaman**—and to know where you stand. This is the 1980s. Intelligence here isn’t about IQ—it’s about *sociability*. If you’re clueless about fashion, clueless about culture, if you can’t play the game, you’re *baduy*. Even if you’re a genius.

You want to blend in? Know the difference between a Rolls Royce and a Mustang. Between McDonald’s and Wendy’s. Between Araneta Coliseum and Ultra. Between Gary V and Martin Nievera. If all you know is Apple, Banana, Carabao, start asking around—quickly.

Want to increase your standing? Rub shoulders with anyone connected to Dasma, White Plains, Forbes. Even a domestic helper counts. Breathe their air. Tell stories—drop names. “I once dropped off my friend’s uncle’s cousin-in-law at Dasma.” Remember: it’s not the coffee he didn’t offer. It’s the *location* that matters.

Learn the trademarks: Levi’s, Dior, Nike, Polo, Adidas. Practice saying “dammit” with flair. Say “ay gosh,” “ow shit,” and sprinkle in some “Que horror.” Mimic Manila’s elite. Master the cadence.

Blazers today? Wear them. Denim jackets tomorrow? Buy them. Stretch pants? Stretch, baby. Sophistication isn’t hard—if you can afford it.

Eat out at Barrio Fiesta, Kamayan, or Music Museum. Catch a ballet, not a zarzuela. Say you’ve watched Lisa Macuja do *Dalagang Bukid*, not Atang dela Rama.

**These are the rules if you want to belong to Maliwalu.**

Sonny didn’t know what to think as he stepped onto the gleaming floors of Maliwalu University. The sharp *tok-tok* of his metal-heeled shoes echoed in the corridor—shoes once owned by his late grandfather. His bell-bottom pants waved like a flag—proud, clueless, and wonderfully out of place.

As he passed crowds wearing Nike, CK, Jag, and Levi’s, he was met with stares and stifled laughter. Still, he walked on. This was his first day in the university.

And he was here to stay.
2025-04-13 13:38:58
4students

Four Students 3

Mod's character is a constant source of amusement, a peculiar blend of imagination and solitude. He is an inveterate daydreamer, a master at weaving his own reality. His isolation has not only taught him to create his own world but also allowed him to inhabit it fully. He talks to himself, slipping effortlessly into different roles. If he wishes to converse with the Pope, he does not need an audience; he simply assumes the Pope's role. Alone in his room, he gazes into the mirror, raises his hand in solemn blessing, then closes his eyes, makes the sign of the cross, and feels divinely consecrated. If music drifts through the air, his imagination transforms him into a dancer; if he watches a sports event, he becomes the champion; if he loses himself in a movie, he is the undisputed hero. Sometimes, he stands up just to announce to himself, "I am standing now." Then he walks, declaring, "I am walking now." In his mind, he is always engaged in vibrant conversations—an orator in his own silent, self-constructed world.

On this particular morning, as on many others, Mod leads the water buffalo to the damp grasslands for feeding. This is Cuenca—a town so quiet and unremarkable that it barely registers on the map, except during the Lenten season when pilgrims flock to climb Mount Makulot for the annual reenactment of Calvary. In Cuenca, celebrations are not centered around Christmas or New Year's Eve; instead, the town awakens during Holy Week, particularly on Good Friday. It is then that shops reopen, roads are swept clean, and mountain trails are revived for the penitents. On this day, barefooted devotees line up with flickering candles, whispering prayers that seem to have been withheld all year, waiting for this sacred moment. Children are hushed by elders, their laughter stifled so as not to disturb the solemn procession of faith. In this atmosphere of quiet reverence, Mod nurtured a deep appreciation for silence, preferring the company of books over idle chatter. When he longed for conversation, he created it himself—out in the open field, where his only audience was the vast, whispering expanse of nature.

His mind is an ever-churning repository of questions—questions for which he readily supplies his own answers: Why do eels burrow? Because they are too shy to face the world, embarrassed by their ugliness.

Why do fish have fins? Because they cannot walk.

He was born in 1966, an event his mother often recounted with vivid detail. It was a bitterly cold December morning when Cuenca witnessed its first major flash flood from the torrential monsoon rains. His father, braving the harsh downpour with a kerosene lamp in one hand, waded through the rising waters to fetch Apung Ingga, the revered midwife of the barrio. As the rain lashed down, his father found himself contemplating the unusual confluence of events—his son's imminent birth and the town’s first great flood. Was it an omen? A sign of something extraordinary?

It was five o’clock in the morning when Mod entered the world. Before leaving his laboring wife in the care of their other children, his father cracked open ten coconuts, pouring the liquid into a pitcher—an age-old remedy believed to ease childbirth. His wife drank it while waiting for Apung Ingga’s arrival. By the time the midwife finally stepped into the house, the baby had already begun his journey into the world. So eager was he to be born that he could not wait for assistance. But it was his first cries that perplexed his father the most. Unlike the uniform wails of newborns, Mod’s cries emerged in shifting tones, unpredictable and varied.

"This boy," his father mused with delight, "knows how to modulate his voice. Perhaps I am blessed with a future singer."

Apung Ingga, however, listened with an experienced ear, tilting her head as if weighing the significance of the infant's cry. "Hush, Saturnino," she said, dismissing the father’s musings. With the certainty of someone who had delivered countless children, she added, "A child who cries like that is not just crying—he is choosing his voice. He is a child unsure of what pitch to use in this world." Her words carried a quiet authority, and as if sealing fate itself, she wrapped the baby in flour sack sheets and laid him gently beside his mother.

"It’s a boy," she announced. "A very confused boy."

As Mod grew, his parents adhered to Apung Ingga’s judgment, believing that the best way to resolve his confusion was to leave him alone. His mother harbored secret anxieties, unable to shake off the thought that her son’s birth coincided with Cuenca’s first major flood—an event that became an annual occurrence due to deforestation. He was the only child in their town whose first cries were not singular or monotonous. His uniqueness seemed undeniable. His mother often thought, someday, he would accomplish something extraordinary. And whatever that would be, he would not wait to do it.

Life, however, was not kind. Mod’s childhood was marked by hardship, the weight of survival pressing upon his small shoulders. He labored alongside his parents—helping at home, toiling in the rice fields, working in public fishponds. He learned early on that survival was earned through sweat and perseverance. When typhoons destroyed their crops, he contributed to the family’s survival in whatever way he could. As the eldest of three siblings, responsibility was thrust upon him. During difficult times, he learned to sell whatever he could—scrap metal, old bundles, meat, peanuts, ice candies—anything that could turn a small profit. He borrowed money for small businesses, sometimes at steep interest rates, and learned the bitter sting of public humiliation when he failed to pay on time. He endured the silent judgment of classmates who came from wealthier families, the children of the very people who lent money to his parents. Slowly, he grew more reserved, his shyness becoming a shield against a world that often felt too cruel.

Yet, in solitude, Mod found solace. Left alone, he cultivated his own world. Books became his most cherished companions. Whatever he could get his hands on—borrowed novels, discarded textbooks, bargain-bin finds—he devoured them all. He did not merely read; he engaged in conversations with books as if they were living beings. When a story felt incomplete, he rewrote its ending. When a character’s fate seemed unjust, he imagined an alternative path. He extended dialogues, debated with protagonists, and reimagined worlds. His literary companions went beyond books. In time, he conversed with trees, scolded birds, reprimanded fish for being too slippery, and even berated fences for obstructing his way.

His imagination, boundless and uncontainable, earned him a peculiar kind of respect in town. He dreamed of Princeton through Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, envisioned the fall of Bastille as the destruction of Lipa’s great church through Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. For the first time in his life, he seriously considered the distinction between the rich and the poor and how comforting it is to belong to the latter. Other authors such as Ayn Rand, Bronte, Elliot, H. James, Bocaccio and Cervantes were read not so much for their profound value but for their availability. The Bible was a favorite. He loved strong characters like Roark and Amory Blaine and felt deep sympathy for sufferers like Christ and Catherine Sloper. His life mingled with these foreigners and with powerful imagination he resurrected them in such a way they lived next door. These personalities were made into daily companions that he could visualize Hank Rearden planting rice and Danny Taggart washing clothes.

He longed for a college education, but he found solace in knowing that great minds—Hugo, Poe—had never needed Manila to write masterpieces. He convinced himself that the rice paddies and fishponds of Cuenca were enough. Enough to inspire. Enough to create. Enough to fuel a dream larger than himself.

Ah, Mod’s masterpiece! It would be grand—an international sensation akin to Tagore’s works. The Pulitzer, the Nobel—they would beckon him to America and Europe. But then, Rand whispered in his ear, warning against the trappings of fame. Fountainhead redefined his ambition. Who, he now asked himself, who will judge my masterpiece? Art, he concluded, is expression, not a commodity. Great art is valued not by immediate recognition, but by the depth of its impact over time.
2025-02-05 09:44:22
4students