Awake in the interregnum

Right now, Bayani S. Abadilla, “Ka Bay” to us, is being laid to rest at the North Cemetery. Instead of watching that heart-wrenching ceremony I opted to stay at the office and write this blog entry instead. Last night was his tribute–the small chapel at La Funeraria Paz couldn’t contain the people he touched in the 67 years of his life. (For a condensed, press release version of his life, click here).

I honestly felt very meek sharing to the crowd my personal reminiscence of him as an editor of Pinoy Weekly–the last work he did in his long years of service to the toiling masses. He had a glorious past. Not in the way other writers dream of–he didn’t chase awards (though he won some) and his first book of poems was published only in 2006–because he never, though he loved to write and excelled in the craft and the language, built himself as a writer. He built himself as a revolutionary, his personal glory thus subsumed, almost undetected: into radical ideas that germinated in the minds of who are now considered the nation’s best writers, into guerilla fronts flourishing in Cordillera, into written and translated text in sheafs of subversive materials that helped awaken minds during martial law, into the struggles of the teachers and personnel in keeping the Polytechnic University of the Philippines a bastion of activism, into the continued standing of informal settlers in his community in Manila, into a newspaper that aspires to make a dent in the over-all movement for social change.

It seems very trivial, that I remember him as someone who always insists on “strong” headlines and sentence formulations, as if every point you made, every word you wrote had to have the objective of creating that tempest of agitation he himself felt towards every aspect of injustice found aplenty in this society. It seems very small, that I remember him as someone who fretted deeply in debates over the content, form, and management of our paper, and drawing on his views and experiences, forwarded arguments that simultaneously tried to topple and include all others. It seems of little importance, that he was very humorous and warm, that he attempted to learn how to use the computer but kept reverting to his typewriter (not just a matter of technology, but metaphor–his fingers had to pound, every sentence had to raise a racket), that even as he suffered the excruciating pain of cancer he kept working and attending meetings, until finally, he could only come to the office for him to feel our presence, and for us to feel his.

He had bigger and more exciting accomplishments, as his comrades, students, colleagues, and friends last night attested, and the part of him that we in Pinoy Weekly knew was very small in relation to his totality. But that was the thing with Ka Bay–until the end he served without counting what he had already given, worked as if there was no self and no tomorrow, and deemed it the highest of achievements to educate and inspire the next generation of activists. Before he died, that was, very fortunately, the few of us. And his death will always remind me of how we must always treat our work.

He loved us intensely, like a second family, said his daughter Malaya, the one Ka Bay always said I reminded him of. She was the who spoke for the Abadillas. It was the typical story of the family of the hardcore 60’s activists–the movement tore them physically apart from their father and naturally, created sacrifices, hard feelings and ruptures. For the longest time, she never understood–why Ka Bay was constantly gone, why they lived in the squatters area, why his father turned down lucrative opportunities in life. Only time and social realities made her understand, and in her own way, turn this understanding into commitment. Rather than turn corporate, Malaya chose to work as a teacher. “Pinalaki kaming bato,” she said, her fragile frame and aura belying the internal strength that her story intimated.

I guess for many who heard that story that night, Ka Bay would seem overly-feudal, as a father na “pagmumurahin ka mula ulo hanggang paa.” Maybe he was. But really, you understand people best by their flaws–especially if these flaws are borne not out of selfishness or pride (for me, the most grievous of shortcomings)–but of great love, only that which have not been learned to express or show well.

At the foot of Ka Bay’s casket lay a wreath of red roses and yellow daisies that threw the hammer and sickle into relief. There it was, the symbol of the revolution which Ka Bay devoted his life to, the revolution that fashioned his passion, decency and simplicity. For many now-comfortable ex-comrades who were there that night, especially those in the tradition of praying for his soul that the deceased himself never once worried about (he would shout, “wala akong inagrabyado!” whenever his family, in those last days, would ask if he wanted a priest around), that revolution may seem as imperfect as Ka Bay’s life. But it was clear that it shone–alive, brilliant, continuously learning, and loved–all the better because of a long life lived in its name.

* * *

PARANGAL KAY KAY BAY

Ang pagpanaw ni Ka Bay ay nararapat lamang ipagdalamhati ng kilusan dahil nalagasan tayo ng isang kasamang tapat at masigasig sa paglilingkod sa sambayanan. Nakilala ko si Bayani nang binabalak pa lamang na organisahin ang PAKSA. Noon pa man ay kamamalasan na siya ng walang pasubaling pagtanggap sa layunin ng kilusan na tipunin ang mga kabataang manunulat upang maitaguyod ang panitikan para sa kaunlaran ng sambayanan. Tulad ng marami sa atin na sa panahon ng Unang Sigwa ay nahibuhan ng abenturismo, si Bayani ay nakahandang patunayan sa lahat na siya ay lantay na ”radical.” Noo’y handa niyang talikdan ang naging ambag ng kanyang amang Alejandro G. Abadilla sa pagpapaunlad ng panitikang Filipino. Noon kasi’y pinupuna ng mga radikal na kritiko ang mga tulang eksperimental ni AGA na inakalang ”reaksiyonaryo.” Sa kalaunan, natutuhan ng kilusan na ang paglalapat ng Marxistang pagsusuri sa akda ay dapat magsaalang-alang maraming salik na kinabibilangan ng kontekstong pangkasaysayan, estetika, tunguhing pampanitikan, at kapanahunan ng akda. Katibayan ng bukas na kamalayan ni Bayani na sa pamamagitan ng masusing pag-aaral sa treoryang Marxismo, natanggap niya ang panulaan ng kanyang ama at napahalagahan ito bilang ambag ni AGA sa kasaysayan ng panulaang Tagalog.

Ang naging pagkilos ni Bayani sa kilusan ay hindi limitado sa larangan ng sining at kultura. Naging organisador siya ng mga kabataang mahilig sa pagsusulat. Kahit sa panahong marami na siyang nararamdamang sakit sa katawan, matiyaga pa rin siyang umiikot at gumaganap ng mga gawaing naipapataw sa kanya. Ang kanyang pagsisikap na maitaguyod ang Pinoy Weekly nang siya ay dumaranas ng kakapusan at panghihina ay halimbawa ng walang pagkapagod na paglilingkod ng isang kasama na, tumawid na sa hangganan ng tungkulin at nagsilbing pampasigla sa lahat ng tumatanaw sa hinaharap na ganap na ang kalayaan at demokrasya para sa ating bayan.

~Bienvenido Lumbera
Consultant, Pinoy Weekly
Pambansang Alagad ng Sining sa Panitikan

I have one anecdote with Bayani. This was deep in the darkness of the Marcos regime. I was being taken to Baguio to meet with some friends who had gone underground. We passed through Dagupan, where my companions said they had to check with one person regarding security of passage. I was told not to forget to use a different name when introduced to the person. We stopped somewhere, the person came, ducked down to peer into the car and said, hay, ninotchka! It was Bayani.

~Ninotchka Rosca

There was something in the air, the lethargic calm seemed unreal yet ominous. The whole day of May 14, ’08 was uneventful – & he was perplexed why it was so. Until a text blipped the inevitable: Ka Bay had passed on to the light… It didn’t however come as a shock; he even perversely felt relieved that this son of a famous poet, Ka Bay himself a poet, would no longer suffer, a consolation that was knife twisting in the heart of his bereaved.

Once, Ka Bay asked me for some readings on Habermas, the while gifting me with a book on monopoly capitalism. He was keen on extending his intellectual range toward Western discourses, without losing his grip on local hermeneutics. He intimated he would be continuing his research on the Filipino identity, through a mix of history, anthropology & literature so as to penetrate the psyche of the Filipino working class.

But fate would be unkind. His friend of the same ideological zeal, Nic Atienza, would be struck down a year earlier – who would have thought he would follow suit?

I still could hear his giggly banter when once we shared a round of beer at a shack just behind the PUP wall along the Pasig river. His laugher would still echo in my ears.

He confessed, his face enveloped in an air of cool insouciance, that once he tried to touch a former companion for assistance to some progressive project & the subject of his anecdote would instead blurt out like any retiree amused at a juvenile prank: “You’re still at it?” (“Andiyan ka pa rin?”)

The guy has gained, among today’s campus cadres, a reputation of acceptable radicalism, even accidental heroism, during the Marcos kleptocracy.

Ka Bay simply grinned the incident away.

Yes, they did honor him with the publication of his poems. He preferred the cover to be illustrated with a clenched fist I thought was stereotypical – but the essence of his resistance was there. & summed up his life.

Today, I have some appointment to meet – the young people I’ll be sharing memories & tea with don’t know him. But he wrote for them in his vernacular texts: he had such optimistic faith in the possibility of the future.

~Edel Garcellano