THE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNAL

1 ISSUE 2 / LOSTISSUE 2 / LOST

THE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNALTHE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNAL



The Maginhawa Street Journalan art and literary e-magazine

ISSUE No. 2 Lost MAY 2021

TEXT JONEL ABELLANOSA • MADS BAJARIAS • ROBERT JA BASILIO JR. • JAY BAUTISTA • RUBEN D. CANLAS JR. • LU-ANN FUENTES-BAJARIAS • MICHAEL VINCENT GADDI • AVA VIVIAN GONZALES • CYRIL WENDY MAAÑO • MIKA PALILEO PHOTOS MIKA PALILEO (page 5) • MADS BAJARIAS (pages 3, 8, 23-28) • MICHAEL VINCENT GADDI (page 28, source image) ARTWORKS LAWRENCE CERVANTES AND ART CUBE GALLERY (pages 14-15, 18-20) • MADS BAJARIAS (pages 11, 29, 32)ON THE COVER “Melancholy” (detail) by LAWRENCE CERVANTES DESIGN MADS BAJARIAS

EDITORIAL BOARD MADS BAJARIAS • ROBERT JA BASILIO JR. • JAY BAUTISTA • LU-ANN FUENTES-BAJARIAS • ALCUIN PAPAMAGAZINE DESIGNER MADS BAJARIASSOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER LU-ANN FUENTES-BAJARIASWEBSITE MANAGER ROBERT JA BASILIO JR.

TMSJ was founded in March 2021 by Robert JA Basilio Jr., Mads Bajarias, Jay Bautista, Lu-Ann Fuentes-Bajarias, Alcuin Papa

Opinions expressed or implied in articles, photographs, or works of art that appear in these pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of the editorial board, supporters, and other contributors of TMSJ. The materials here are the property of their creators, and should not be used without their consent.

Our website was made possible by a donation from Arvin Reyes, a friend of the magazine.

We are on Facebook and Instagram @TheMaginhawaStreetJournalVisit our website at www.maginhawajournal.comE-mail us at [email protected]



We Can’t Help But Be Lost

by Lu-Ann Fuentes-Bajariasrumblings from planet earth



LU-ANN FUENTES-BAJARIAS

It’s OK to feel lost. We are always losing our way, misplacing things, parting ways.

Some are hard-wired on the side of glass half-full. I tend to gloss over botches and breakdowns, imagining the blocked path to be protection from future disasters, likely missing the lesson here and there.

Some have a sharper sense of loss than others. From my husband, I hear: “Take a picture. That may never happen again.” He says that equally about trees in rare bloom, and housecats looking at us funny.

There are moments that we would savor more if we only knew there were the last of those goodies. Our exhilaration in 2015 over spotting the elusive Chinese Francolin calling at dusk is now listed on an avian field guide as the last Philippine record. Bouldering in 2018 with an uncle through a waterfall trail turned out to be our final shared adventure with him. And as the country hit a quarantine anniversary in 2021, we realized we have altered the way we process (masked) faces for communication, searching for the smile and emotion in the eyes behind shields.

Then there are the losses that are unwittingly self-fashioned. “I’ve become a recluse,” I said, startling myself, to a friend, who got us out of the house because we were nearest to the establishment whose manager agreed to turn over an owlet for release in the wild. Compulsions and stakes for stepping out are the same as staying home: life and death.

Meanwhile, virtual presenteeism has snuck in and taken residence. Logging in for work, education, entertainment, birthdays, and memorials—this is real life, efforts to connect preserved in screenshots. As routines and boundaries blend, our time-markers are set adrift.

We physically distance and hyper-connect. We cognitive-overload and fragment our attention. No wonder we are disoriented. Yet we shove down sadness because we think: we are lucky to be alive. We don’t like to face what we’ve given up because we think: others lost more.

We suspect not properly grieving is turning us inside out, toggling ourselves up the spectrum of our inner neuroticism, which sees the world as threatening and stressful. But then again if there ever was a time when our fears are founded, it is now, and embracing that lost feeling stirs up the evolutionary fight in us to keep going even (and especially) when the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t getting any bigger.



I spent nearly a decade wishing my mother was still alive, thinking how amazing it would have been if she came along with me on my travels, hoping there was someone I could turn to for life advice, and generally envying anyone who never had the misfortune of being unmothered.

I spent the last year feeling grateful my mother did not live to see what the world had turned to.

If there was anyone who embodied joie de vivre, it was my mother. She was the kind of person who could make friends with anyone, who never felt held down by the complications of adulthood, and by some miracle, always stepped out into the world without anyone knowing she carried a broken heart.

My mother lost her battle to ovarian cancer less than two years after being diagnosed. I still remember that long day clearly—what was supposed to be a two-hour operation to remove myomas turned into four, then six, then eight… only to be told the doctors had to perform emergency surgery on her when they discovered cancerous cells had spread from her ovaries to her intestines.

The Continuum of Grief

by Mika Palileocatharsis


THE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNALTHE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNALI became too familiar with the bright lights and antiseptic smells of hospitals after that. Hospital

visits were long hours of waiting for her to complete chemotherapy sessions, which I filled with silent prayers until I could no longer find additional words to emphasize to the Lord to not take her away.

Eventually the cancer cells spread to her lungs. I remember the kind doctor gently telling me to just make sure she was comfortable—an instruction to make whatever limited time she has left to be as bearable as possible.

I knew then that I needed to start letting go.

After a year and a half of bargaining with whichever gods listened to me, I began to understand that life was slowly fading from my mother. I understood this when I bathed her with a washcloth, her body reduced to skin and bone. I understood this when her eyes sparkled upon being served steak, only to lose their shine when she said she could hardly taste anything.

But mostly I understood this when I saw her labored breathing, how one lung was not enough to sustain even the tiniest of bodies.

When my mother passed away in her sleep, just as she had hoped for, I realized that no matter how much I thought I was letting go, I knew that I was still stubbornly hoping for a miracle.

Grief is a messy process. It had been an anchor, holding me in place, holding me to everything my mother once owned. It had been all the storms inside me, the tears that never seemed to end, and the anger that was pounding inside.

Now it feels like a wave, making me feel untethered to everything I’ve known and making me want to be as far away from where I am now.

My mother was too fragile for the world I know now.

I could not even begin to imagine what it must be like to feel so limited when hospitals feel closer to death chambers, to be denied the process of farewell and letting go. To find it so difficult to breathe.

On some days, grief feels like deep breaths. A reminder of everything I’m grasping for. And a reminder of everything I no longer have.

The author is staying afloat, somehow. MIKA PALILEO



Papa paid for my lessons with the only ladyWho ever slapped my hand with a ruler:I wasn’t supposed to play the piece that fast, My hands so small I had to catch up, turningChords into arpeggios, false impression of speed.She should have heard how I improvised.She was so strict I played the “Für Elise” like myFingers were birds flying to her thick glasses. Perhaps when drunk papa saw me a pianist,Melody engraver who might halt passersby,Listeners keeping their hearts in brocaded boxes.Then my training stopped when he stoppedLeaving the house when his sobriety stopped.He had to sell it or we would stop schooling,My brother and I, we would starve. The truckThat took it lumbered like a groggy box, the spaceIt left in our house I still keep in my heart.

by Jonel Abellanosapoem

“Piano” is from Abellanosa’s fourth collection of poems, Songs From My Mind’s Tree (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2018). He has produced eight poetry collections.

Piano



by Ava Vivian Gonzalespersonal history + recipe

How I Lost My Appetite for Meat



At the core of any story is a poetic paradox—bereft of details, a story can seem untrue, yet too many, and the narrative drowns in conceit and expectation. Perhaps the trick then, is to tell a story that reverberates by making one’s singular story plural. Mine is one such cautionary tale, a story of something going horribly wrong when least expected. Twelve years ago, the antibiotics prescribed for a mass under my chin, along with the colonization of

Enterococcus cloacae dismissed as a common urinary tract infection, led to a rare autoimmune disorder.

E. cloacae is one of eighteen enterococci strains that occur naturally in the human stomach

tasked with digesting meat. In someone with a weak immune system, E. cloacae spills over from the intestine, gestates in the urinary tract, and starts a colony in the heart’s inner lining, feeding on it until the person dies. Fifteen percent of endocarditis mortalities result from such infections. Since bacteria store and share genetic information whenever they reproduce, E. cloacae has the ability to become resistant to antibiotics. A change in just one gene is enough to result in offspring that can fend off the antibiotics used against its parents, enabling it to evolve and thrive. This is one reason antibiotics stop working and why Enterococcus infections often recur in the same patient.

After nearly half a year of emergency rooms, waiting for laboratory test results, and

prescriptions for more sets of antibiotics, steroids, and antihistamines, I felt that whatever was going to happen next, however painful, would have a familiar quality. I signed a waiver absolving all my attending physicians when I refused an antibiotic that could only be administered intravenously. The next thing I did was to go home to my parent’s house on the slopes of Mount Makiling to die.

An acceptance of death had thawed my fear of it. I decided to speak to the 100,000 colonies

of Enterococcus species and 50,000 colonies of E. cloacae that laboratory results showed were present in each milliliter of my urine.

“Even if I can’t see you, I know you are there. Doctors have tried everything but you’ve made them all look like fools. I’m tired of all this. You win. Since digesting animal protein is what you’re really good at, maybe you can just help me digest my last meal in peace. If lola was still alive, she’d cook her special chicharon adobo to make me feel better. Hey, wait, I just thought of something. Do you think if I avoided meat you could reduce your number enough to keep me alive?”

During this moment of realization, I felt symptoms that my doctors later told me were similar to what a heart attack feels like—all at once I experienced the shortening and shallowing of my breath, my pulse quickened, and anything I looked at seemed illuminated.

AVA VIVIAN GONZALES



Aling Ava’s All Vegetable Adobo

Ingredients (adjust the ratio based on which vegetables you like eating and what you have in your pantry):

½ head of native garlic10-12 pieces of whole shiitake mushrooms (either fresh or dried) 2-3 medium-sized potatoes, quartered 1-2 medium-sized kamote, quartered 1-2 eggplants, cut in half, lengthwise 3-4 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes, cut in strips 1-2 pieces of unsweetened chocoloate tableya (optional)

Seasonings (amount will vary depending on what you prefer):

vegetable oil (one that is coconut-based and produced locally would be excellent)non-iodized soy sauceblack pepper bay/laurel leafnaturally fermented coco vinegarsesame seeds (the black ones are great if you can find them)

Instructions (keep a low flame, don’t burn the garlic, and remember to add the vinegar last):

Under a low flame, sauté the native garlic and shiitake mushrooms in oil. If using dried mushrooms, they will have to be soaked in water prior to cooking. Next add the potato, kamote, and eggplant. These may be pre-fried or baked to release the sweetness in the vegetables. Then add the soy sauce, black pepper, bay leaf, and sun-dried tomatoes. Cover the mixture and let it simmer. Once the kamote is tender, add the vinegar. Wait a minute or two before you mix everything, then uncover the lid and season according to your taste. Sprinkle with sesame seeds right before serving alongside unpolished rice. For a twist, you may put unsweetened chocolate tableya prior to adding soy sauce and vinegar, just make sure to stir it in evenly so that it melts. Adding a few drops of water along with the tableya will prevent it from burning.

The author is a freelance writer with a PhD in Applied Cosmic Anthropology.

AVA VIVIAN GONZALES

If someone had asked me in 2009 what I imagined myself to be 12 years into the future, of all the infinite things I could have possibly answered, becoming an herbivore would not have been one of them.



The Package Not Delivered Took the Route Not Taken

by Robert JA Basilio Jr.land of the lost



ROBERT JA BASILIO JR.

Granta magazines are my weakness.

Next to peace of mind, good government, and my share of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) funds (which I didn’t receive), Granta magazines are the only thing I want more of in this life.

For the past 18 years I have managed to amass 110 issues including a special edition about our country (Granta 18: The Snap Revolution | James Fenton in the Philippines) and what appear to be the U.S. and U.K. editions of Granta 25: Murder. Their difference? One carries a piece not found in the other: Rian Malan’s “Murderer in the Family.”

How did I happen to come by that discrepancy? There was a point in my life when I bought every Granta issue that I saw regardless of whether I already had a copy of it or not and I happened to have stumbled upon a lot. I then gave away the one that was in a poorer physical condition, unless it was bought elsewhere or was a gift from someone else.

In short, I closely examined every Granta issue I got which explained how I decided to keep two issues of Murder.

A week before last year’s lockdown, I got talked into attending a small, private photoshoot of plants in an old house.

I got more than a free lunch out of it.

At the front yard was an abandoned desk in the drawer of which, upon closer examination, contained not one, but two old Granta issues (Granta 25 and Granta 34: Death of a Harvard Man).

Who would have thought, etc., etc., and all that, right? Here was good, old luck in all its plain glory and I was its unwitting and perhaps even unworthy recipient. (Take that, SAP funds.) I went up to the person in charge of the old house and asked him right off: Could I buy these books?



“Keep them all,” he said—the best three words in the English language that I have ever heard in my life so far that wasn’t “Social Amelioration Program.”

Immediately, I posted my discovery on social media.

A pretty acquaintance then sent me a direct message, asking me whether she could have them.

Of course, I replied.

Who was I to refuse a chance to show off my good taste and, for that matter, my generosity (especially since I already have copies of both)?

I arranged to have her pick it up at a branch of a courier service nearest her office.

We all know what happened next.

The lockdown took effect, prompting the closure of that branch for months. The package of books I sent got rerouted and delivered to another outlet where she could pick it up. But she wasn’t able to do so. At that time, she was trapped outside Manila and was hesitant about coming back so soon.

Thanks to the confusion over community quarantine classifications—enhanced, modified, iodized, or fortified with Vitamin C—the books lay unclaimed for months.

When I followed it up, a representative of the courier service told me on the phone it was already destroyed. It was company policy for abandoned goods, she explained.

I then hung up, left with the impression that that package not delivered was—and this might be a stretch—collateral damage in the government’s tepid, disorganized coronavirus response.

But then again, that’s another story, probably best told over a few rounds of beer, which I’m going to buy, once I get my share of SAP funds.

ROBERT JA BASILIO JR.



text by Jay Bautistaimages care of Lawrence Cervantes and Art Cube Gallery

art review

Lawrence Cervantes, “The Fruits” (detail)oil on canvas

In the Beginning, Again

For his solo exhibition, Reset at the Art Cube Gallery, Lawrence Cervantes begins at the end. His narrative journey continues—from where he left off in Take Over (at Eskinita Art Gallery, early 2021).

Starting in Origins (at Ysobel Art Gallery, 2020), Cervantes has shown an ethereal visual style that tells of a world sliding toward apocalypse. Continuing in Take Over is



JAY BAUTISTA

Lawrence Cervantes, “The Tree” (detail)oil on canvas



JAY BAUTISTA

his preoccupation with biomorphic shapes and eerie atmosphere—where Nature is the dominating force, leaving humans in a miserable muddle caused by their own greed and selfishness.

Cervantes’s works are somber in tone and loaded with melancholic imagery—reflective of the months of the pandemic when Cervantes worked on them. In the exhibit’s six new works, Cervantes was guided by the adage that humans can be the most effective agents of their own demise—we are just part of a bigger mechanism that oscillates between extinguishing and replenishing itself.

In Reset, Cervantes aims to show the strange beauty of the quagmire humanity finds itself in, an enveloping and claustrophobic eeriness. If Origins focused on the evolving cycles of life, Take Over showed scenarios of Nature turning against humans. Origins was at the beginning of a creation whose plot was reversed in Take Over, with human forms being engulfed and absorbed by a lush and omnipresent vegetation. This mindscape guides Cervantes’s brushstrokes in Reset.

“Free” is the initial salvo in Reset. In it, a figure sits on top of a heap of other bodies, which are succumbing to an all-conquering vegetation. The figure holds in its hand a nest-like object made of tightly wound vines, from inside of which birds fly off. Perhaps Cervantes is pointing to an eventual regeneration of the world, once a sort of re-balancing has occurred.

Cervantes envisions a long and arduous time for regeneration—maybe many lifetimes or even generations. With “Beginning After The End,” the exhibit’s centerpiece, Cervantes illustrates how Nature could start to reclaim the world upon humanity’s transformation. Amid the sprouting of new life forms, Cervantes imagines a beacon-like light.

With a pure heart and an overflowing goodness, humanity, perhaps in an altered form, will thrive again. In “Sources of Life,” Cervantes is perhaps hopeful that man would realize that greed and hatred do not belong in the new, altered world.

“The Tree” shows Cervantes’s vision of humanity’s regeneration. As we are reborn into our new shapes, other life forms will also come into being, and together form a new order of things. “The Fruits” is this hope realized, of a human-plant hybrid, ushering perhaps a more harmonious relationship between earth and man.



JAY BAUTISTA

The brilliance of Cervantes is how he evokes a mood or an ambience that transports the viewer to his vision of a world reborn. His next series is highly anticipated. From there we will know how the story will proceed. As of now, Cervantes wants you to enjoy what is being presented; he still does not know how it will end.

In every series he does, he locates himself in the narrative. In Reset he sees himself in “Melancholy”—in a pensive mood.

Trust the process that Reset is part of, the process of life renewing itself.

Animated by AnimeUnlike traditional cartoons primarily aimed at children, anime is embraced by

a fandom of adult viewers, hooked by its intensity, complex storylines, and non-formulaic endings.

Growing up in Bulacan, Cervantes was heavily influenced by anime and manga, so that as a kid he had wanted to be an animator himself. Using ballpen and paper, he created his own comic tales, inspired by the likes of Dragonball Z and Ghost Fighter.

A deeply spiritual person, Cervantes also initially drew religious figures and illustrated portraits, and makes sketches up to today. The months under government-mandated community quarantine, however, has driven him to paint directly on canvas.

In Reset, Cervantes has internalized the convulsive changes to his world. Hagonoy, Bulacan, used to be vast expanses of fields where farming sustained the local residents. For the longest time, Hagonoy maintained its rural identity. But now, travel time from Hagonoy to Manila can get him stuck in a two-hour traffic jam. By the time he arrives at his destination, he might be too tired to go back.

Cervantes’s narrative continues, and in Reset a more mature and serious realism emerges.



Lawrence Cervantes, “Beginning After The End”oil on canvas

JAY BAUTISTA



Lawrence Cervantes, “Melancholy”oil on canvas

JAY BAUTISTA



JAY BAUTISTA

Lawrence Cervantes, “Free”oil on canvas



Bunganga’y banga ng kamanyang.Akala mo’y sinapupunan, ‘yun pala’y libingan. Ang humalik sa labi’y dudulas sa kamatayan.

Walang babala ng panganib ang kariktan.Walang saplot na tinik ang malambot na sanga. Walang ngiping nakakubli sa lambong ng labi.Walang alingawngaw ng sigaw sa bibig na nakaawang.

Tahimik ang bitag at naghihintay lamangtulad ng langgam na piping lumulutangsa loob ng pitsel-pitselan. Unti-unting natutunaw, hinihintay ang napipintong pagkagunaw.

Noong umaga lamang ay gumagapang, pauwi ng punso nang pumundo ng pakay upang sumimsim ng kaunting hayahaysa kopitang kumikislap sa hamog.

Noong isang gabi nama’y alitaptap ang nabihag nang humimpil sa talulot ang pagod na pakpak. Ngunit dumausdos din sa karimla’t kasawian. Naupos ang ningas sa laway ng pitsel-pitselan.

Marami pang kulisap na maliligaw, maaakit, mapapatda, madudulassa lawang kamandag. Walang pahimakas na makakatakas. Sa loob ng pitsel-pitselan

waring tutuldok ang buhay na nahulog, nalasog, nilamon, marugtungan lamang ang buhay ng sikmurang gutom.

ni Cyril Wendy Maaño2 tula

Pitsel-pitselan



Yakap ang daigdig mula rurok ng kabundukan hanggang kaibuturan ng karagatan. Walang nililimot. Katawa’y pinaghati-hati, walang pag-iimbot,berde’t buhay, nagbibigay-buhay sa sansinukob.

Nakabalabal sa yamang-lupa, sinisimsimang alimuom ng takipsilim at hamog ng liwayway. Kinukumutan ang nanginginig na katawanng puno sa ilang. Nakalatag na alpombra sa lihimna hardin ng kabundukan. Malambot na pelussa mga tipak na bato ng lumang simbahan. Nakikinig sa salaysay ng dingdingsa gusaling abandonado. Pinamahayan man ng agiw at multong anino, nakaantabay sa talampakanng puntod ng yumao.

Katawa’y pagkain at kanlungan ng yamang-dagat—maliliit na bulate’t madikit na salabay,bukas-sarang tulya’t perlas na kipkip ng talaba, matintang pusit at makislot na galamay ng pugita, sampu ng isdang paborito ng barakuda.Minsa’y sumasabit sa lambat ng mangingisda’t hinahain sa hapag. Kumakatas sa bawat kagatang dagat sa lato. ‘Pagkat walang nililimot ang lumot, maging luhang maalat ng along kumakaway, nananaghoy, namamaalam sa hangganang baybay.

Winisikan man ng suka’t isinumpang pesteng aleng nadulas at namaga ang pigi,mga piraso ng sarili’y mabubuhay na magmulisa mamasa-masang putik ng linang. Mamumukadkad maging sa nalasong pampang. ‘Pagkat hawak niya ang daigdig sa duyang umiinog. Tahimik man ang oyayi’y walang alabok na nililimot. Kapara noong unang-una,ngayon, at magpakailanman. Magpasawalang-hanggan.

Lumot

CYRIL WENDY MAAÑO

Ang may-akda ay makahiyang naligaw sa dahong pahina.



by Mads Bajariasdept. of disorientation

“Are You Sure This is the Right Way?”

ot all those who wander are lost,” goes the oft-quoted line by J.R.R. Tolkien about Aragorn, the rightful king of Gondor. The reality of it, and Tolkien tacitly acknowledges it, is that a majority of wanderers, at some point, do get disoriented, lose their bearings, get lost.“N



MADS BAJARIAS

“Are you sure this is the right way?” How many times have we asked this question? The pitch of our voice jumping up a notch, the throat constricting, sweat beading on the forehead, eyes darting side to side, searching for a comforting sign, any sign, to re-orient ourself to the path. We pause, look around, confer with fellow travelers (real or imagined), reverse, backtrack, while making a mental note of the unusual-looking tree to our left or right. But then, wait, haven’t we passed by this same tree before? A knot tightens in the gut.

If we are lucky, this initial panic stage goes away, replaced by something that’s akin to the feeling of smooth flow. “Thrilling liberation” is the phrase used by Jon Coleman, an environmental historian who has written about the highs and lows of disorientation. We experience a giddy sense of excitement, of possibilities. We feel unfettered. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that a man who “does not love solitude” will “not love freedom.” Schopenhauer had a lot of things to say about loneliness and solitude. I doubt, however, if Schopenhauer was ever lost in a remote mountain trail under a darkening sky, with no drinking water and a flashlight with a loose bulb.



On the flipside of this euphoric state is the clammy realization of being in “a situation.” A “situation” that, if not addressed, could become “an emergency,” which could descend into “a shitstorm,” where we have to drink our own urine, or worse. Coleman’s phrase for this is “disastrous isolation.”

Getting lost is part of the human condition. At certain points in our lives, in the clutches of boredom, we yearn to be lost. To lose ourselves in a piece of music. To lose our minds over someone special. We have been getting lost since our ancestors, perhaps driven by wild shifts in the weather, wandered out of Africa about 90,000 years ago and explored the rest of the planet. During their long, dangerous, and arduous treks, to what is now Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, some of them, during a moment of consternation and exhaustion, would have turned to their fellow hominids and asked, “Hey, buddy, I don’t mean to be rude, but are you sure this is the right way?”

MADS BAJARIAS



MADS BAJARIAS



MADS BAJARIAS



MADS BAJARIAS



A Mostly Forgotten Legal Skirmish Concerning National Self-Respect

By Michael Vincent Gadditerritorial claims dept.



MICHAEL VINCENT GADDI

Sovereignty is said to be the soul of a nation, since it pertains to a state’s supreme power to govern itself. Yet, our government seems lukewarm about the sovereignty that resides in our tangible territorial claims against China in the West Philippine Sea.

Aside from territorial claims, one way a nation exercises the supreme power of governing itself is in the intangible exercise of criminal jurisdiction, and is exemplified in a case handled by my late grandfather, Judge Ceferino S. Gaddi.

Being a Court of First Instance (CFI) judge stationed in Angeles City, Pampanga in the 1960s meant Judge Gaddi had to work within the auspices of the 1947 Mutual Bases Agreement (MBA) forged between the Philippines and the United States of America.

When it came to exercising jurisdiction in trying criminal cases, the MBA established what one might call “mini American sovereigns on Philippine soil,” since the MBA limited the jurisdiction of Philippine courts to “offenses committed outside the bases by any member of the armed forces of the United States.”

Seven years before I was born, my grandfather decided a case that would cement his reputation as an uncompromising judge who always stood his ground.

On September 5, 1968, three U.S. Air Force sergeants—Sgt. Roland McDaniel, Sgt. Bernard Williams, and Sgt. Hiawatha Lane—abducted a 23-year-old nightclub waitress named Pelagia Malquisto. All three U.S. servicemen were stationed at the Clark Airbase in Angeles. Several newspaper reports state that sergeants McDaniel, Williams, and Lane forcibly dragged waitress Malquisto into their car, brought her to a house in Angeles where they stayed, which was located outside the air base, and there the three men attempted to rape her. When Malquisto escaped, she filed criminal charges for abduction and attempted rape against the three U.S. servicemen.

Having criminal charges filed against them, the three sergeants were put on “administrative hold” pursuant to the MBA. This meant they were held under the custody of their commanding officer at Clark Airbase and must appear in court when ordered.


THE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNALTHE MAGINHAWA STREET JOURNALHowever, in November 1969, after being indicted for the crimes charged, Sgt.

Bernard Williams managed to have himself reassigned to North Dakota.

Not wanting to be unduly wrested of jurisdiction to try Sgt. Williams, Judge Gaddi filed contempt charges against Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Hodges, Chief of the International Law Section of the United States Air Force, and Colonel Averill Holman, Commander of the Clark Airbase, for failure to produce Sgt. Williams to appear at trial.

Reports state that when a sheriff from Judge Gaddi’s court attempted to serve the warrant for Col. Holman’s arrest, the Clark Airbase legal office, acting on instructions form the U.S. government, said that the contempt case against Col. Holman was already “under discussion” between the U.S. and Philippine governments.

The U.S. government also said that the reassignment of Sgt. Williams was an “administrative mistake” and that there were already attempts to order his return to the Philippines to stand trial. Thus, Judge Gaddi suspended trial pending the return of Sgt. Williams to the Philippines.

By this time, Judge Gaddi had gained notoriety for his judicial exploits.

He earned the ire of then Secretary of Justice Vicente Abad Santos, who was his administrative superior at that time when CFI judges were under the supervision of the Department of Justice. Local newspapers reported that the Justice Secretary had reprimanded Judge Gaddi by telling him, “I am your boss,” to which Judge Gaddi replied, “You are not my boss, my boss is my conscience.”

In 1971, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a decision that Sgt. Williams must be extradited to the Philippines to face trial by Philippine courts.

Upon the return of Sgt. Williams to the Philippines, Judge Gaddi proceeded with the trial of the three U.S. servicemen, and rendered his decision on March 1, 1972, convicting all three accused of the crimes of abduction and attempted rape.

My grandfather’s decision to convict three U.S. Air Force sergeants was born out of the knowledge that without self-respect, there can be no genuine sovereignty.

No government can afford to be lukewarm when it comes to safeguarding the soul of its nation. For without sovereignty, a country’s seas, lands, and people cease to exist.

The author is a lawyer by profession and a musician by persuasion.

MICHAEL VINCENT GADDI



This is what I remember. An airplane breaks in two and the survivors get washed up on opposite ends of an unnamed island, creating factions among the survivors. The first season is about the people in Faction One coping with the crash. Towards the end of the season, we learn of Faction Two, which sets up much of the conflict in succeeding seasons. Then of course there’s

also the mysterious island to contend with, including unseen monsters, science laboratories in secret silos, and various references to philosophy. Much time is spent on character flashbacks. The show’s character names allude to literature and philosophy, like Sawyer (guy with a southern U.S. accent) and Hobbes (box factory guy). What hooked the fans was the persistent air of mystery, especially the back stories of characters, including the siblings—a brother and a sister of which the only thing I remember is that the sister ended up being Liam Neeson’s daughter in Taken; a woman who ended up playing Belle in Disney’s Once Upon a Time series; and Evangeline Lilly who became The Wasp, and I think is related to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical empire; there’s also the guy who played Mercutio in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet but whose character name eludes me now. I remember he had a son who got chased by the unseen monster (by the way, show runner J.J. Abrams loves unseen, unknown monsters that hint only at their evil—like the “Rabbit’s Foot” in Mission: Impossible III and the giant creature in Cloverfield). Sawyer himself ended up in a cameo of a Mission Impossible movie directed by Abrams. The name of the main character eludes me, but I remember he played a serial killer in a movie based on the bestselling detective Alex Cross series. There were recurring symbols, special numbers, and secret science projects that hinted at secret failed experiments resulting in the island’s weirdness. At one point, the plane’s flight number became a topic, along with the seat numbers of some characters, which, when combined, formed the flight number itself—or something like that. Much of these mysteries remained unresolved and by the third season, I was frustrated. I relegated the series to the file named “Niloloko lang tayo ng writers” and looked for better things to do.

by Ruben D. Canlas Jr.[indistinct chatter]

*TMSJ asked Ruben D. Canlas Jr., who used to review movies and TV shows as a side hustle, to write what he remembers about the series Lost, which ended its run 11 years ago. The caveat was he must rely solely on memory; no Googling allowed.

Lost: A Memory*



by Mads Bajariasdoggerel

Thrasybulus, the Old Tyrant of Miletus, Gives a Lesson

Thrasybulus tells the new Corinthian ruler:Stamp out the high-minded ones, Periander.The terror of existence is us. We stalk wascally wabbits with our blunderbuss.

The wheat that stick out get squared away. Squaring away’s our go-to gameplay. Asymmetry’s where the stymied are buried,their pockets picked, their beef curried.

The polis should be as peaceful as a boneyard.I’ve never been to rhubarb. Toss me some of that Hawaiian pizza. I am the Alpha and the piña colada.

Don’t just stand there, be the man behind the curtain. A curtain requires no introduction.Hoist them by their own leopard, Jean-Luc Picard. McClane’s taped a turnip to his back in Die Hard.

For generations tyrants plundered Corinth.The Milesian wheat fields are neat and silent. Ritual de lo Habitual is by Jane’s Addiction. A nation of cowed people needs no prison.

Old despots teach new despots their tricks;the good, snookered, shit bricks.

(2021)



ISSUE 1 / TRAUMAS

ISSUE 2 / LOST

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