Fasten your seatbelts

As long-time Penman readers know, I’m all for the greater use of Filipino in our national life, even at the cost of a little discomfort. We need a national language aside from English, and it’s way too late to push the clock back and start from scratch. But it doesn’t help Filipino – and Filipinos – to foist Filipino at its clunkiest and most formal on a hapless public that, like it or not, is much more familiar with plain English in most cases, whether they belong to the mousse or the mustasa crowd.

The last time I was at the Centennial airport, I heard this announcement over the PA system, spoken as earnestly as you please, lacking only in that one quality all effective notices require: Clarity. "Mangyari lamang na tumungo kayo sa Lagusan Lima upang lumulan sa inyong sasakyang panghimpapawid."

What the – who writes these things? Why not say "Tumuloy na po kayo sa Gate 5 upang sumakay sa inyong eroplano"? And what about that "sinturong pangkaligtasan" business? Just fasten your seatbelts, please!

What took me to the airport was another trip to Davao, where the University of the Philippines, in case you didn’t know, has its Mindanao campus, serving a long-felt need in the region for a university focused on such priority and innovative programs as biosystems engineering and agribusiness.

UP Mindanao is still a fairly new institution, having been founded only in 1995, but it can count on the energy of its leadership and the goodwill of Mindanao-based UP alumni from all its campuses. Those alumni include such stalwarts as alumni association president and lawyer Pete Morales – who, along with his gracious wife Sonia, can outsing most professionals anytime (I asked for and received a CD of their recorded songs as a souvenir) – and businessmen John Gaisano and Angie Angliongto (and let me not forget my old classmate and Penman reader Amy Cosca). Many thanks for the help and hospitality of all these good people, who have pledged to help us build an adequate library for the place, among other initiatives.

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Moving on to other worthwhile causes: On behalf of Dionisio Ulep and his wife and children, I’d like to make what I fervently hope will be the last appeal I’ll need to broadcast in support of this fine Filipino family. Dionisio, you’ll remember, is a former driver whose kidneys failed him, and who now desperately needs a transplant to live.

His wife Florita worked as a domestic helper in Hong Kong but had to come home to help Dionisio and their children, who had to stop schooling. (Florita, you must know, is one of these Mother Earth-types who thinks nothing of doing cooking and carpentry at the same time, and who hasn’t lost her humor and her faith throughout this ordeal.) We were able to get the eldest child, a bright, book-loving 18-year-old by the name of Mariel, a job as a crew member for a fast food chain.

Thanks to the generosity and the patience of many donors who responded to my earlier appeals, Dionisio has been able to survive long enough for a forthcoming transplant. He’s now 13th in line at the National Kidney Institute; at their present rate, he could have his operation by next month.

The best news of all is that, after a series of very expensive but necessary tests for tissue compatibility, Dionisio has found his ideal donor – in none other than Mariel, who is only too happy and willing to give up a kidney for her dad. The bad news is that all these tests have left the Uleps (not to mention Beng and me, but never mind that) flat broke, and Dionisio still has to undergo regular dialysis – at P8,000 a pop – to stay alive until his number is called, hopefully sooner than later.

The Uleps are living on a roller-coaster: When there’s money for dialysis, they weep for joy; when there’s none, they just weep, and pray. Unless a surgeon steps up to the plate and offers to do the surgery tomorrow, the painfully ironic possibility remains that Dionisio Ulep could still die – and that all this will have been for naught – on the very brink of another chance at life. Even with an operation, the Uleps will still need help with hospital bills and the incidental costs of recuperation.

When friends ask Beng and me why we’ve taken up this cause – we don’t think of ourselves as do-gooders, and don’t even work with NGOs, preferring to make direct contributions to art and education – we can only say that the Uleps have come to represent for us what’s gone wrong with this society – all the awful things that happen to honest and hardworking people – and that helping them out represents what can still go right. If they can’t be saved, who can?

Sad to say, we’re all tapped out and so are many friends on whom we’ve leaned these past many months. One very gracious and capable friend gave P100,000 for the tests and some dialysis, but it’s all even he can afford. Senators and various agencies have helped, as have anonymous angels like "Joan" and many others. We’re almost there – perhaps you can spare a little change, even a few hundred pesos. Beng is selling some of her refreshingly peaceful watercolors for this last push. If you can help, please deposit any amount directly to the BPI savings account of Florita Ulep, No. 0375-1338-22, or text me at 0917-5300951 if you have any questions, and may all good karma be with you.

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On the other side of altruism, and not to be unpleasant or unkind, I have to post a few reminders once again for the benefit of some readers who keep writing me to ask favors of one sort or another – usually for my comments on their stories or poems, or for help with securing grants and scholarships.

I’d really like to help, but I simply, really can’t find the time to read unsolicited manuscripts and to comment on them. On top of my administrative duties, I teach a graduate fiction class of 12 people, which is more than a handful. Teaching writing is more than tossing out a few platitudes or comments here and there, of which I do enough; it’s working with students to see what each one of them wants to do and is capable of doing. In other words, it’s individualized instruction, which I can sustain, right now, only in school. If you want to study with me, please enroll in UP, even as a non-degree student.

As for writing scholarships and grants, I can give you some leads (I’ll do a full-fledged piece on it sometime soon), but I’m not in a position to give out any of these myself. I can write letters of recommendation only for people I truly know and whose writing I think highly of; please don’t expect me to lie on your behalf, no matter how strongly you want to get to Harvard or Cambridge. And if you ever get a letter of recommendation from me, trust that I’ve said the best I honestly could of you and for you; don’t demand more, and don’t demand to see the letter – or else ask somebody else. I have better things to do, but don’t mind helping someone else along if and when I can, remembering the many kindnesses of my own mentors, who have included such fine persons as economist Gerry Sicat and writer Johnny Gatbonton.

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Speaking of something writers can do for themselves, you can join the 2003 Zoetrope Short Fiction Contest and win yourself $1,000 for first prize, $500 for second prize, and $250 for third prize. That doesn’t sound like much, even by local standards, but maybe you should check out what Zoetrope is (www.zoetrope.com) before turning up your nose. The spirit behind this site is none other than Francis Ford Coppola, who has been known to tap bright new writers who emerge on the website for scripting projects.

The 2003 contest will be judged by A.M. Homes – if you’ve never heard of her, look her up; she writes some of the most powerful new fiction out there. Winners and seven honorable mentions will be announced at the website on Dec. 1, 2003, and in the Spring 2004 issue of Zoetrope: All-Story. You should mail your entries to the Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest, 916 Kearny St., San Francisco, CA 94133, USA.

The contest accepts all genres of literary fiction, but, according to the sponsors, "entries must be unpublished; 5,000 words or less; postmarked by Oct.1, 2003; clearly marked ‘Short Fiction Contest’ on both the story and the outside of the envelope; accompanied by a $15 entry fee per story (make checks payable to AZX Publications). Please include name and address on first page or cover letter only. We welcome multiple entries ($15/story) and entries from outside the US; please send entry fee in US currency or money order. While we cannot return manuscripts, we will forward a list of the winning stories to all entrants who include an SASE. Entrants retain rights to their stories."

In the 2002 Short Fiction Contest, judges Jane Smiley and Thomas Keneally honored the following stories: "Stalin Dreaming," Ann Harleman (first prize); "Counting," Anya Achtenberg (second prize); "The Miracle Worker," Sefi Atta (third prize). Honorable mentions included "The Loss of Calcium," Tom Cerasulo; "Blue Horses," Kathleen Dalton; "When Praying to a Saint, Include Something Up Her Alley," May Hall; "Blood Diamonds," Susan Irvine; "The Slough," Charleen Logan; "Girlfriend in the Lights," Jason Skipper; and "The Sunshine Club," David Veronese.

If you think we Pinoy writers don’t stand much of a chance in these international competitions, think again. A former student of mine, fictionist and editor Lakambini Sitoy, is leaving soon to assume the David TK Wong Fellowship at the University of East Anglia in the UK, and another former student, fictionist and journalist Mia Gonzalez, has just returned from a Hawthornden fellowship in Scotland. If you have the talent and the drive, you can make it out there – with or without my help.

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Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com.