Ped Xing: Not Just Personal
Pedestrian poetry as a social commentary

“…Pedestrian crossings are witnesses to all sorts of people meeting, avoiding, chasing, and waiting for each other... (where) poets usually hear about their poems being read by people they will never get to meet. They may be able to relate to these and will nurture these verses as a part of their lives.”

By Jesus Baltazar 
Contributed to Bulatlat.com

Last Jan. 30, the Ateneo de Manila University’s Filipino-language student publication Matanglawin and its Literary Society commemorated the 34th anniversary of the First Quarter Storm with a forum on protest poetry followed by a poetry reading.

While the forum and poetry reading were going on, Ateneo students were selling books published by their university’s Office of Research and Publications, among them books by leading protest poet Eman Lacaba, an Atenean who was killed in Davao as a revolutionary guerrilla in 1976.

Members of the loose poets’ group Kilometer 64 “tied up” with them and sold copies of their chapbook entitled “Ped Xing” which was “launched” that same day.

Who is Ped Xing?

The chapbook takes its title from the Ped Xing signs along Taft Avenue in Manila, where many of Kilometer 64’s members are based (its “founders” are students of the Philippine Christian University). The Ped Xing signs indicate areas where pedestrians cross, although they are also said to be the abbreviation of a Filipino-Chinese businessman’s name.

But why Ped Xing? In his preface, Kilometer 64 “founder” Rustum Casia says: “I realize that pedestrian crossings are witnesses to all sorts of people meeting, avoiding, chasing, and waiting for each other... Pedestrian crossings are becoming wider and wider...in the sense that you almost can no longer recognize who you run into on the streets. You may not know that you had just run into your crush, boyfriends or girlfriends, arch-enemy, classmate.”

Casia points out that just as we usually run into people we may not recognize on the streets, “poets usually hear about their poems being read by people they will never get to meet. They may be able to relate to these and will nurture these verses as parts of their lives.”

“Usually,” he adds, “we write poems intended for ourselves, personal poems based on our experiences. We will let our relatives, crushes, boyfriends or girlfriends, arch-enemies, classmates and others read them. They would appreciate these and let others read them. Until one day, you may meet on pedestrian crossings people who may have read your poems but do not know it was you who wrote them.”

However, for many of the poets who contributed to the chapbook, the personal is not just the personal. A good number of the poems here are actually personal takes by the poets on burning social issues. Which is hardly surprising, since many of them met in various activities of cause-oriented groups. (The “founders,” for instance, are organizers of the Anak ng Bayan Youth Party.)

The poets who submitted political or socially-oriented poems have varying ways of tackling social issues.

Holistic

Perhaps the poems in this collection which most holistically reflect the national situation are “Republika” by Joshua de Luna and “Alay sa Inang Dilubyo” by Armando Sinaglahi.

“Dito/Basurang winawalis ang mahihina—/Manggagawa, organisador/Ng maralita sa bundok at parang,” De Luna thus begins his poem. He then elaborates, and proceeds to denounce the perpetrators of these atrocities: “Bangag na ang mga tuko/Sa Malakanyang at Kongreso./They do not see they are evil./They do not hear they are evil./They do not speak of their evil.”

De Luna then gives us images of injustice from today’s news as well as the streets: “Ito ang bayang nabubuhay sa iniksyon,/Sa pawis ng tumutulay sa iskapolding sa Edsa,/Sa ihi ng dolyar ng caregiver sa Canada,/Sa luha ng batang Mangyan na pinaslang ang ina,/Sa dugo ng mga binansagang durugista,/Bandido, terorista.” After which he warns the guardians of the status quo of an impending revolt by the people.

People’s revolt is also the stuff of Eurish Tolentino’s “Patay na si Elay,” about a slain young revolutionary, and Usman Abdurajak Sali’s “Ngunit Buhay pa si Elias,” his answer to Tolentino’s poem about Elay (chapbook entries are posted on Kilometer 64’s e-group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kilometer64/), in which he reminds the guardians of the status quo that the flames of revolution will endure so long as injustice thrives.

Sinaglahi begins with a litany of people’s woes: “Tubig, langis, kuryente, sahod./Ay, anong bigat na pasakit!” In the following lines he makes an indirect reference to U.S. imperialism, described by the Establishment as a “close friend” of the Filipino people: “Nagkulang na kaming lahat sa tulog,/Ginawa pang alipin ng kaibigan mong matalik.”

“Alay sa Inang Dilubyo” is largely a denunciation of the present government led by one whom Sinaglahi describes as “Ina ng mga dilubyo, utol ng impakto,” who serves only foreign interests: “Oratoryo mo’y salapi ng banyagang bastardo.”

Particulars

Other poets tackle particular social concerns. Casia in his “Tumanggi ang Inang Mailagay sa Bodybag ang Anak Niya, Kakalungin na Lang Daw Niya” and Alexander Martin Remollino in his “Sa Inyong mga Ulo” both tackle apathy to society’s plight.

Casia tells the tale of a mother mourning the death of her son in a typhoon tragedy while in Manila: “Sa isang pamantasang kulay-langit/ang pasukan at labasan,/nagdiriwang ang mga paang/patungo sa Robinson. “Alas dose. Cut ang klase. Walang pasok.”

Remollino, meanwhile, tells “moralists” not to ridicule the prostituted, symbolized by the Biblical Mary Magdalene in his poem, as by their indifference to the larger social issues they have a part in perpetuating a society where the right to live with dignity is not respected, a society which inevitably spawns the likes of Magdalene: “Kayo ng lipunang ito/ang mga magulang ni Magdalena.”

Ayesha Osop tells of peasants’ dreams in “Lupa ay Buhay,” while in “Munting Apoy” she pays tribute to the four Anak ng Bayan activists murdered last year in Maco, Compostela Valley.

Liwayway Rosales, “Amsoniac,” and Josiah Echano all talk of love amidst struggle.

“In Praise of Martyrs”

The chapbook’s final portion is a section dedicated to underground revolutionary Mayang Algarme, who was killed in Zamboanga in 1999. It contains a short biographical note on Mayang, written by De Luna, and a few of her poems.

The tribute to Mayang Algarme is actually the first “shot” of a section dedicated to revolutionary martyrs, which will be coming out in future chapbooks by Kilometer 64.

Entitled “In Praise of Martyrs,” the section takes its title from a poem by Jose Maria Sison bearing the same title.

Copies

Kilometer 64 sells the 108-page Ped Xing for P30 per copy. The authors invite those interested to visit their e-group for details. Bulatlat.com

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