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Over at Barrio Siete, the claim is that when you create a blog you should resist the urge of using the letter “V.”  Now I have no problems at all with the good people of the Barrio – I am, after all, a reader – but I just realized how much fun I can have creating a blog entry chock-full of words that start with the letter “V.”  Not that I’m trying to strike the ire of Reyna Elena, but I think it will make a fairly good practice session to populate one entry with words that begin with the letter V.  It’s fun to play with words and form.

I just thought it would be so much fun… even if this entry wouldn’t make sense in the end.  Lulz. 

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Okay, the big news – slow news day, after all – was that Manny Pangilinan apparently read from a plagiarized speech in front of the graduating class of the Ateneo.  Having nothing better to do, I tried to revise as much as I can from MVP’s speech – that apparently took weeks to prepare – in about an hour of outlining and typing.

Here goes nothing!  BTW: this is all just for the sake of practice.  I mean no harm, and I don’t intend to do harm, revising – or attempting to revise – Mr. Pangilinan’s speech.  Some bits and pieces thrown in, though.

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Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat.  I want to thank Father Benjamin Nebres and the Ateneo community for the honor of this doctorate.  My congratulations also go to our Law School, for having 7 out of the 11-10 topnotchers in the recent Bar exams!

Father Nebres, Father Magadia, trustees, faculty and staff, parents and siblings, graduates of 2010, many congratulations. Thank you so much for this gift of fellowship with the sesquicentennial class. You’ve earned your diploma from a great learning institution, and you have every right to be proud. I have wracked my mind and heart with what I should say today.  It took me around an hour to ask someone to write this speech for me – and an hour for him to write about it – as I told him the story of my own graduation day 44 years ago.

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Ito ang nakita ko sa Intramuros.  Ang rebulto ng dating hari ng Espanya – si Señor Felipe II – at ang mag-inang nagpapahinga sa lilim nito.  Hindi sa duyan, hindi sa kama, at hindi sa upuan, kundi sa karton na inilatag lamang sa plaza.  Hindi sila humingi ng abuloy o limos sa amin; kuntento na lamang sila na may lugar na pwede silang magpahinga, sa isang lugar na malayo sa mainit na sinag ng araw sa Maynila.

Napaisip ako kung bakit dito sila nagbakasakaling magpahinga.  Tahimik ang Maynila sa Linggo; walang trapik, walang tao.  Kung gusto nila ng lilim, maaari naman siguro sa lilim ng mga puno o di kaya’y sa pintuan ng mga bangko.  Kung gusto nila ng limos, maaari silang humingi ng abuloy sa mga tao sa mga kapihan at kainan.  Siguro, gaya ng marami dito sa Maynila, pagod lang sila.  Pagod siguro ang ale sa kakabenta ng kendi at sigarilyo, o pagdidilihensya sa mga motorista.  Ngunit bakit dito?  Bakit pa sa paanan ng hari ng isang kaharian na, minsan sa kasaysayan, naging amo ng ating bansa?

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On one cold evening
As another year passes
Here’s to the future.

Twenty-o-nine sucked
The next year should be better;
If not, vendetta.

I sometimes wonder if I ever did make good on the promise I made to you some years back: I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.  Back then, I dreamed of that day when I’ll hold your hand when we walk that aisle, and the preacher proclaims us husband and wife.  That will never happen, now that the man in my dream isn’t me.  You’ve just been engaged, I heard.  Letting you go long ago, I guess, has come full circle.

I’m sure he’s everything I was supposed to be, or you expected me to be, but owing to my stubbornness, I wasn’t.  I never did become your perfect guy, even if you were the 100% perfect girl for me.  We met at the same crossroads every now and then, and somehow there was always those feelings of highs and lows.  “What could have been?”  “What if it were us?”  It never really happened.  It was just my dream, perhaps even yours.  I guess right now, I guess we were never meant for each other after all.

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Err… I am unusually bored.

Almost every living room, office, or study table in the Philippines has a print of the “Desiderata.”  I never understood why, but prints and posters of Max Ehrmann’s famous points are almost always found along family calendars, faux-Japanese paper scrolls of “Footprints in the Sand,” and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The problem with poetry, as some critics point out, is that people cannot connect with it; that it’s solely the domain of the learned, the educated, and those who are (or consider themselves as) inclined to the literary.  To me, it’s a simple issue of language.  The meaning of a poem can be comprehended easily if it is written in a form that people can understand.

To kill off boredom, I’m going to translate/transcribe this poem in sticky caps.

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