Close Encounter with the Di Karaniwang Tao

This picture was taken at a sharing of research results that was conducted by Joey Ayala with the CBCRM Learning Center (www.cbcrmlearning.org). The research was about the music and songs of fishing communities. That's me in white shirt, second row, 1st from the left. Joey is 5th from left, back row, in vertically striped shirt.

I came all the way from Cabanatuan City to join this event. I thought he would sing songs from the research but then, I had to think again. I understand that some songs will be part of an album but not very soon because as Joey said, he hasn't harness the energies from the research yet.

I was the first visitor to arrive at the venue. The sharing was to be held at 4:00 pm. I came an hour earlier. A group was setting-up the stage, which was the covered patio of the Center in Maaralin St. As I arrived, I went straight into the office to chat with my former colleagues. I used to work in this office until early 2004. A few minutes later, I went out to watch the group. As I stared into the backdrop, I noticed a guy in a white muscle shirt (or was it a tshirt with torn sleeves, I can no longer remember) across from where I stand. I thought he was just one of the guys doing the systems check. He smiled at me, I smiled back to acknowledge him and then it hit me! O my God, it's HIM! It's Joey Ayala! My smile froze then turned into a grin before finally saying "Hi!". I was dumbfounded! I didn't know what else to say. Good thing some photos from the field were flashed into a projector screen. I turned to watch the slideshow but my mind was somewhere else.

My mind was racing as I silently stood near him. I thought, I should have brought my Magkabilaan casette tape. That was vintage. It was the very first cassette tape I ever bought in my whole life. I decided to buy a copy at the Shopping Center because its songs have been playing in mind the entire summer of 1990. Thanks to friends from UP Baguio who cross-registered to Diliman bringing with them their guitars, kubing ( a bamboo mouth/jaw harp from Mindanao), pasiking (a backpack made of rattan) and Ginebra San Miguel gin -culture. Among the songs they played then was "Walang Hanggang Paalam" which, according to them, was the national anthem of activist lovers. They also played "Tatang", "Padayon", "Ilog", etc. More songs were played from another album, "Panganay ng Umaga", "Walang Ibang Sadya", "Bankerohan", "Usok", etc. I never found a copy of this other (and was it earlier) album but because of one whole summer of listening to them singers and musicians, I got to memorize the songs just the same.

Ala-Humanities class

Joey played some of the villagers' compositions and preliminary interviews. It was like listening to a local radio station. Since most of the research areas were done in Visayas and Mindanao, the singer-composers spoke in the vernacular.

The sharing was a test in listening skills. It brought back memories from my college humanities class where I learned to discriminate different music and beats. It was there where I learned to appreciated the ethnic, Chinese and Austrian/ German sounds and go beyond Casey Casem's Top 40. I also learned that my name (and everyone else's)has a song of its own. Even those of us (and I know we're a lot) who can't carry a tune. It's simple, each alphabet has a corresponding number (i,e A:1, B:2, C:3, so on, until Z:26th) and then each number has a corresponding note: do-re-mi. So if you transform the letters of your name to numbers and transform these numbers to do-re-mi, you can start hitting the piano keys, and voila, you've got your very own song. Try it and find out if you're in tune or what.