According to IBM’s webpage on cybersecurity, social engineering attacks “manipulate people into sharing information that they shouldn’t share, downloading software that they shouldn’t download, visiting websites they shouldn’t visit, sending money to criminals or making other mistakes that compromise their personal or organizational security.”

In the recent hacking of a good friend of mine, Joel Salud, social engineering was used this way: His daughter was gravely ill and fighting for her life in a hospital intensive care unit when a hacker posing as a friend of his from church sent him a private message on Messenger offering to connect him to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) so he could get some financial assistance from the agency.

Exploiting human vulnerability
Joel had mentioned in his church’s group chat on the Messenger app linked to his Facebook account that his daughter was sick. He’d asked for prayers for her. One of Joel’s church friends in that chat had been hacked, and Joel did not see the chat post informing the group that that member of the group chat had had her Facebook and Messenger hacked until after he himself had gotten quished (scammed by a QR phishing scheme) and his Facebook profile and Messenger had been hacked.

Joel had posted on Facebook over the past few days about his daughter being rushed to the hospital, and her fight for her life, in a public posts asking for prayers for her. Many of his Facebook friends were following these posts and engaging with the posts, either with emoji reactions, or comments stating support and prayers, or both emojis and comments.

A separate private message from the Messenger account of Joel’s church friend who’d been hacked arrived in Joel’s Messenger inbox. That friend was asking him if he wanted help from DSWD for his daughter.

While Joel is not the kind of person to ever ask anyone for financial assistance, he was vulnerable because he was under the duress a parent experiences when a child is gravely ill, and when the medical emergency involves paying for expensive ICU confinement that could potentially wipe the family’s finances out. It is not in his character to ask for help, but he is also not the kind of person to say no to help that is offered, especially on behalf of his youngest child, who sorely needed all the help she could get.

“I should have known better,” Joel told me in a voice call. “We’ve covered things like this. But I fell for it.”

He fell for it because he was exhausted, under the extreme stress a parent whose child is seriously ill experiences, and he was vulnerable to this attack disguised as kindness. The hackers knew this, possibly from following Joel’s posts about his daughter’s hospitalization, and they picked the perfect moment to strike.

The hacker, posing as his friend from his church group, told him via Messenger that someone would call him, “and someone did call, identifying herself as Mia from the DSWD.”

According to Joel, this Mia put him through a process where they verified his identity over a video call, asked him to provide them with his information, including his mobile number and his GCash mobile personal identification number (MPIN). Joel also said he was asked to scan a QR code. That was how they were able to access his GCash account and move about P15,000.00 out of that e-wallet — money that was donated despite Joel’s reticence to ask for anything more than prayers — to help defray his daughter’s medical expenses.

These grifters used a combination of baiting, where the hacker lures his or her targets into giving up sensitive information or downloading malicious code by offering financial assistance, and quishing (QR code phishing), which uses QR codes to steal sensitive information from the target of the social engineering attack.

Hostile takeover
Next, the hackers took control of his Messenger and Facebook profile and began messaging his contacts. The messages followed at least two modes: First they would ask if the message recipient’s bank account had money, then request a GCash transfer that they would pay later, at five in the afternoon or six in the evening of the same day. The second method was to offer P7,500 in assistance from the DSWD, which leverages the recipient’s need for resources, or their greed.

The language used by the hacker/s in both modes used atrocious spelling and usage in Filipino, with run-on words. If you know Joel, you’d know this is not how he uses language. But if you’re busy with your own concerns and seeing these messages, especially the message requesting a GCash transfer, you might not think twice because you know what Joel and his family are going through.

This is where your natural instinct for kindness gets used against you: If you send money to the GCash account they’ve already hijacked, it will not show up in the GCash account transaction history. That money will get transferred to another GCash account or cashed out. Such tenderheartedness is leveraged by the hackers to extract money from the people they targeted using Joel’s Messenger app.

According to the website of Respicio & Co. law offices, this constitutes unauthorized access, which in Joel’s case resulted in the hacker/s obtaining his Facebook credentials, quite possibly through password-cracking, and entering those credentials to take control of Joel’s Facebook profile and his Messenger account.

“This occurs when a third party intercepts data as it is being transmitted, stored, or processed. In Facebook Messenger’s case, it could involve the unauthorized capture of messages or media files in transit,” according to Respicio & Co. “Once a cybercriminal gains access to a Facebook Messenger account, they may use it to impersonate the account holder — sending messages, requests for money, or malicious links to contacts. This can lead to financial or reputational harm.”

Both forms of harm were inflicted on Joel by the hackers who quished his information, stole the donations for his daughter, and took control of his Facebook profile and Messenger.

Another case, and strikingly similar parallels

Less than 24 hours after Joel was hacked, another friend, Manny Mogato, was also hacked. Joel and I have Manny as a mutual friend on Facebook. While I have not been able to talk to Manny to find out the details, the parallels are striking. Another mutual friend had posted that Manny’s Facebook profile had been hacked.

Under that short post about Manny being hacked, someone commented with a screencapped photo of her Messenger where a private message from Manny’s Messenger asked her, directly, if she wanted P7,500 from the DSWD.

Manny had just been discharged from the hospital after he underwent treatment for a severe bacterial infection in his colon. Both Joel and Manny have been openly religious in their Facebook posts over the years, with this religious tone to their writing even more evident during the crises they both posted about. This is something people instinctively trust, as they trust the sincerity of both of my friends.

Joel’s Facebook profile reaches 23,000 followers, besides his network of Facebook friends. Manny’s Facebook profile reaches 11,000 followers and a large network of Facebook friends. Their reach is immense — and this kind of reach and credibility is exactly what hackers want to tap.

How to protect yourself
In my call with Joel, I asked him to share his story so people would have actionable information with which to protect themselves from such hacking and grifting MOs, because the hackers who targeted Joel and Manny studied their Facebook posts and profiles before making their attacks.

According to IBM, “many users don’t know how to identify social engineering attacks. In a time when users frequently trade personal information for goods and services, they don’t realize that surrendering seemingly mundane information, such as a phone number or date of birth, can allow hackers to breach an account.”

Writing about Joel’s experience here, as well as what I could observe of the attack on Manny, provides some information on how these attacks are implemented. I am writing this because all of you have the right to access this information, and it is of public interest because everyone’s safety online is a matter of priority.

IBM recommends using “secure access control policies and technologies, including using two-factor authentication, adaptive authentication,” which uses a computer program or challenge a user has to pass in order to gain access to their account, and a zero trust or “never trust, always verify” policy.

If the message you get from someone you trust in your private messages does not sound like the person you do know, then do not trust that message, and do not engage with whoever who sent that message to you. That person posing as your friend is NOT your friend.

Check with the other people who know this friend, and whom you trust. If you can, check with multiple people who are your mutuals — especially people you know personally who also know the person whose account these messages are coming from.

One of the most visible red flags that someone’s private messaging app has been hacked is how the messages read. If those messages do not sound like your friend, then the person typing them is definitely NOT your friend.

The old Nigerian Prince scams were identifiable because of their hallmark poor use of language and punctuation that was consistent across most of the emails sent out by those scammers. This holds true with scammers who use private messaging accounts they’ve hijacked.

These scammers may even use scripts that are copy-pasted across their attempts to bilk the people they message using the accounts they’ve hacked.

When I received private messages from Joel’s messenger that did not sound like him at all (they were asking me if my bank account had money, then requesting that an unstated amount of money be transferred to his GCash, with atrocious run-on words), it took me a few seconds to process the dissonance between the messages I was reading and Joel’s usual “voice” when we’d chat — we chat in English, mostly, not in mangled Filipino. I also remembered that, in the decades that I’ve known Joel, he never asked me for money, not once. So I called his wife, Che Sarigumba, to check what was happening and if it was Joel who sent me those odd messages. It was Che who told me Joel had been hacked.

Some friends Joel and I have as mutual contacts on Facebook executed their own “zero trust” policy by voice-calling me, and messaging me, to ask if it was really Joel who was sending them these PMs asking if they had money in their bank accounts, asking for money for his daughter, or offering money from DSWD. I informed them that Joel’s account had been hacked, and passed on Joel’s request that they should not engage with the hacker’s messages. I also asked them to report Joel’s profile and Messenger chat posts as “hacked,” which was what I did when I learned he’d been hacked.

Share the information about the hacking of your friend’s social media account with the mutuals you have with this friend once you have confirmed that your friend’s account was hacked.

This heads up can help your mutual contacts act quickly to safeguard their social media accounts, and know better than to send money to a scamming hacker posing as their friend or connection on social media.

Secure your own online accounts by changing your passwords across your online life: email, socials, blogs, anything that uses your private information to authenticate your identity — including, and especially, the passwords to your e-wallets, banking apps, and your email accounts.

Turn on two-factor identification. It may be a bit more of a chore, but safety is more important than convenience in these types of situations— because the inconvenience hacking causes the people who are hacked is much more painful than the discomfort that two-factor identification brings.

Remember this: No e-wallet or bank will ask you for your passwords or mobile PINs over email, SMS, chats, video-calls, or voice calls.

The companies that offer e-wallet services and banks with online apps do not need those particular user data because they already have back-end access to all the accounts in their care.

No government offices will request these passwords or MPINs from you, either. They do not need this level of access to your bank accounts or e-wallets to deposit money in your account. Moreover, banks and e-wallets do NOT require the depositor/s to input the recipient account’s passwords or MPINs prior to making a deposit into those accounts.

If you get such a request from anyone, that is a red flag and a very clear signal that the people asking for these access data are not from those companies or banks. Do not give these persons the keys to your money, e-wallets, or bank accounts under any circumstances.

Report all attempts to obtain your e-wallet MPINs or bank account passwords, and any hacking attacks, to the Anti-Cybercrime Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP) by calling +63(02) 87230401 and the Cybercrime Division of the National Bureau (NBI) by calling +63(02) 85238231 to 38. You can also call the 1326 hotline of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

You can get further information for reporting scammers using GCash here, and you can find out more about how to report scammers using Maya here. You can also contact your bank by going to the branch where your account is housed, and report the attempts to access your account password directly to their staff.

Respicio & Co also has an explainer on online bank fraud and how to report and respond to it here.

Consider curating your posts on social media, and limiting access to posts that may contain sensitive information that hackers can use to track your activities. Social media platforms like Facebook have settings that can be adjusted per post, allowing you to select who in the open platform can see these posts, and who cannot. Better yet, keep sensitive information private.

You may think your chats on Messenger and other social media messaging apps are private, but they are not, despite the “end-to-end encryption” Messenger says it has right there on the chat info panel.

Nothing posted online is “unhackable.” There is no such thing as an “unhackable” program or device.

Treat your chats accordingly, and be mindful of the information you type into the chatbox because, yes, it is possible for someone other than the people in the chat to see what you type.

There are things that you can safely say in public, things you should only say within a small circle of trusted people face to face, and things you should just keep to yourself and offline. Which is why we have laws that protect our privacy — and why those laws have been amended to include our right to privacy in digital public spaces. This has been true since before social media, and it is much more vitally true now in this age of ubiquitous internet.

Finally, if you do find yourself in the extremely uncomfortable and inconvenient position of having been hacked or scammed — or both — do not blame yourself for the evil other people perpetrated on you.

These social engineering attacks are designed to make you question yourself and blame yourself if they succeed, because you beating yourself up buys the hackers time to hack some more. Do not give the criminals more than they already took from you. Protect your peace and address your more immediate concerns of securing what you still can and rebuilding your safety.

Immediately seek help from the authorities, family and friends you trust, and, where applicable, your bank or e-wallet operator. Warn the people who are connected to you that you’ve been attacked by cybercriminals so they can take the necessary measures to protect themselves.

Work on healing from the attack, because these attacks cause psychological and emotional harm as well as hurt your finances and your reputation.

#AtinIto #WPS #WestPhilippineSea

Marine Sgt. Junio del Mundo peered through his battered binoculars across the bow of the BRP Teresa Magbanua. The sea mist kicked up by the new Philippine Navy cutter stung his face as he stood there, stolidly watching as they drew closer to the wrecked hulk of the BRP Sierra Madre.

It’s just a regular supply drop, Jun, he told himself as he ran his scarred, darkly-tanned left hand through the black crewcut taming his otherwise tightly-curled hair and ran that hand down to his sharply angled jaw. His round black eyes squinted on the peering end of the binoculars, as if seeking something more than the seemingly serene sea before him, his generous mouth pursed into a thin line that brought out the cleft in
his chin. It’s not like you’re going to see combat. That thought aside, del Mundo’s right hand dropped from the binoculars to the hilt of the bolo at his side — force of habit for del Mundo, especially after his tenth deployment to Mindanao, where he’d chased down everything rebellious from New People’s Army fighters to suspected Daesh terrorists supposedly training in the wilds of the triple canopy jungles there.

For all that it could no longer ride the waves nor even fire its corroded guns, the Sierra Madre was still classed as a working warship of the Philippine Navy. Call it a tactical strategy, but that bucket of rusted bolts held together by spit, duct tape and various other ingenious materials found by the soldiers manning it was not given the happy fate of retirement. Rather it was there as pambalang-kanyon, cannon-fodder, a taunt of rust and peeling paint aimed at the Chinese military building on reefs just out of the Sierra Madre’s line of sight. You see, opening fire on a vessel still classed as an active warship is considered an act of war. Even if it is a sitting duck.

A loud splash along the starboard side of the cutter’s prow, then a quick series of splashes, caught the Marine’s attention. He leaned over the gunwale railing to get a closer look at what was splashing so close to the cutter. Sometimes dolphins swam alongside ships, providing the crew abovedecks with a lovely, wild show of aquabatics.

But, as quickly as the splashing caught del Mundo’s attention, it ceased. He
shrugged and walked back to the stairs that would lead him below. It was time to make sure the supplies they brought were ready to deploy.

The Teresa Magbanua slowed to a halt and the abovedecks crewmen were busy mooring her alongside the Sierra Madre. The supplies were moving now on dollies to the cargo bay’s offloading ramps. The Teresa Magbanua resupply run was at its halfway point and the ship would stay overnight to gather reports from the men on the Sierra Madre before returning to its home base at Sangley Point in Cavite.

It was del Mundo’s job to collate these reports and organize them for his
commanding officer. He’d done it before and knew that they did not vary except to say what little skirmishes there were with Chinese ‘fisherfolk’ transgressing their way into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Not that these reports would gain more than a flicker of attention at the higher command levels, really. No, it was the media that would have a field day with them.

Making the short, routine trip, del Mundo finally put the splashing he’d heard out of his mind. Eleven Marines and a dozen more sailors from the Philippine Navy were hauling ass to get the resupply underway and he didn’t have the luxury of lazing about abovedecks.

***

Jahariyasya raised a webbed hand to his comrades as the vessel of the Taga-
Lupa slowed to a stop. He made a firm fist over his head as he swam upright, the signal for all 20 siokoy warriors to halt and tread water.
“The Taga-Lupa are busy now. We have to make sure they stay where they are,” Jahariyasya said to his men in the sonorous language of their folk. “Ydolosiya,” he called out to one of the younger siokoy in the school with him, “bring the bag with the charges we got from the Diwatas to me.”

“This is risky, my prince,” one of the siokoy close to Jahariyasya said gravely. I know you want to stop the invaders from building more harmful structures out there in the Isles of Dispute, but you risk the lives of these Taga-Lupa.”

“And what are we to do, Heriadios, wait for the invaders to truly destroy our
waters and reefs? To keep making off with the turtles that are so few? To keep fishing with their trawlers and leave the Taga-Lupa we are bound to protect to starve as a result of that over-fishing? These Taga-Lupa in the heavy, metal boats are warriors and they have weapons. They can handle whatever happens after we begin to destroy the invaders’ ships and those things they build that suffocate the coral of our reefs.”

Heriadios bowed his scaly head, the sunlight refracting off it in small, scattered rainbows spinning around him. “I just want to remind you of your father’s command: That you do not put at risk more lives than you need to. It would be good for you to remember that. Those Taga-Lupa have children and mates who need them, too.”

Jahariyasya paused to consider Heriadios’ words, his body stretched beneath turbulent waves, refracted sunlight kissing a muscular, man-like body covered in scales, skimming the large dorsal fin that ran from his brow to his tailbone.

“Bathala himself gave the order to the king,” Jahariyasya said to Heriadios. “An order sent through the voice in the Deep Trench. When the SkyFather speaks, we listen and we obey or we are no more. Now, unless you want lightning to strike deep into the waters, I suggest you, shaman, do as we are bid.”

With that princely command, Jahariyasya floated to the head of their formation and began swimming with powerful strokes toward the place the Taga-Lupa called Panganiban Reef.

***

The resupply was ordinary, quotidian, boring. Del Mundo couldn’t help but wish for some excitement — never mind if that meant he would need to unsheathe his bolo.

Night had fallen and the Marines on the Teresa Magbanua began conversing with the Navy regulars as the cool salt air washed over the deck.
He could hear snippets of conversations here and there, again, mundane:
Soldiers betting on cards in a game of tong-its, the faint strumming of a guitar from down aft. Some soldier probably talking about his baby boy: “He’s starting young. We brought him for his well-baby checkup and he couldn’t take his eyes off the pretty nurse.” Chuckles and the sound of someone munching on crunchy food, possibly some of those nutrient-rich crackers they’d all been given for this trip.

Del Mundo stretched his tall, wiry frame to the heavens and held his arms out to his sides. A good Marine always, always stays alert and prepared, after all, no matter how calm the waters may seem. There was also that little tickle at the back of his neck that told him he would need to be awake and ready for battle, even as his dark eyes drank in the stunning vista of a sea calm as glass set against a midnight blue sky where the moon shone bright as the Philippine smile.

He took a whetstone from one of his combat pants’ pockets and settled down on an old three-legged stool, took a deep breath and unsheathed his bolo. All the better to hone the blade glinting in the bright moonlight. Del Mundo’s skillful hands took firm grasp of the machete’s mahogany hilt char-graven with the baybayin symbols for warrior (mandirigma) — the name he’d given it — and put the ceramic whetstone to the blade-edge.

***

The siokoy prince and his warriors worked silently beneath the slapping waves and stolid concrete and soil pilfered from the Philippines, with which the Chinese would grab Mischief Reef. The malignos began planting small, shiny discs of silver and chromite firmly into the crevices between the coral lacework at the base of the reef. On each disc, arcane symbols glowed with a cold light that illuminated the deep undersea umbra that shielded the white bones of the coral formations on which the discs were
placed.

The siokoy swam in a slow, deliberate downward spiral, going from just beneath the surface of the water down deeper and deeper until the water was dark as midnight, planting the charges as they went, all the way to the most ancient of the coral formations, to the very root of the reef that kissed the white and silver sand of the ocean bottom.

That done, the siokoy swam out to converge almost ten nautical miles away. Far enough to be safe when their charges went off, yet near enough for their keen, bright eyes to watch the unraveling begin.

One by one their heads broke the surface of the water and Jahariyasya scanned the horizon. He had the BRP Sierra Madre and the BRP Teresa Magbanua to his right.

The Chinese reclamation area, with its three airstrips and dock were right in front of him. The siokoy joined hands, with Heriadios treading water dead-center of the circle.

They began a low serial chant, their humming gaining strength and intensity as they called on SkyFather Bathala and EarthMother Poon to send sea god Aman Sinaya to their side.

Their chanting swelled, like the crashing of cyclone-lashed waves to the shore. It rose to a wordless, clangorous roar and, slowly, the charges planted in the coral underpinning all the structures built by the invaders expanded, gently pushing the live coral polyps out into the sea so the organisms could swim free of their self-built shells to populate another reef.

The siokoy ended their chant and gently called the coral polyps to their sides, scooping the organisms up for Aman Sinaya to claim upon his arrival. The polyps chittered their thanks to the siokoy, and danced on the waves as they awaited their maker.

As the Chinese personnel on Mischief Reef patrolled the artificial island they’d built, its foundations came apart like a demolition filmed in slow motion. A thin fissure glowed red with lava on the sea floor, belching modest puffs of ash and steam that began bubbling their way to the surface of the West Philippine Sea.

The airfields and docks upon the disputed reef rocked with gentle temblors that grew more and more intense with the passing minutes. Some soldiers posing for selfies in sweat-stained fatigues on the dock frowned and looked beneath their booted feet as they felt the jarring beneath them, but the quake paused and they resumed their jovial photobombing on territory the Filipinos called Panganiban Reef — a very fitting name, come to think of it, since, “panganib” is the Filipino word for “danger.”

Beneath the coral, the fissure widened into a truly frightening red mouth full of brimstone and fire, as if the EarthMother herself were opening the crevasse into a hungry maw. Lava began to simmer its way up, climbing the corals’ stony homes and hardening back into the igneous rock it truly is as it went.

***

Bakunawa the Great Serpent raised his sleepy, armor-scaled head from the sea floor as his master approached in swirls of sand and opened his eerie kelp-green eyes.

Aman Sinaya stood before Bakunawa, a smile on his thin, chiseled face. The sea-god’s arms were raised in greeting, a glint of eager battle-light shone from the god’s eyes, dark as the sea-depths themselves, and Aman Sinaya’s stormcloud hair swept out behind him, carried on the currents generated in his wake.

“Rise, old friend. It is time to give me a ride. The Taga-Lupa have need of us.”
Aman Sinaya’s thoughts echoed sharply in Bakunawa’s black head and he answered them with a feral grin.

“Good, Sea Lord, for I find that I hunger for flesh. I would feed on screams, for dreaming of slaughter has whetted my appetite these hundred years past. It is time to feast.”

“You will carry me to Ayungin Shoal before I unleash you on Panganiban Reef, my friend,” Aman Sinaya said with a wave of his hand in the general directions of both locations. “I must walk in a human body to complete the Sea’s Reckoning.”

Bakunawa inclined his great head and yawned widely, baring row after row of gleaming, deadly-sharp teeth as he lazily uncoiled his long, sinuous body. His hide of armored scales in shimmering silver and deepest black gave off a dull gleam in what little moonlight pierced the ink of the nighttime waters, limning the fine rainbow whorls interspersed with the metallic sheen of Bakunawa’s scales.

So arose the great serpent, his muscles rippling under his armored skin. The sea god was mounted behind his huge head, hands raised to the sky holding spear and shield aloft as they broke through the surface with barely a ripple and Bakunawa rose into the air: Blackest penumbra and finest silver against the darkling firmament.

“Shine upon us, Bulan, and share with us what you see,” Aman Sinaya intoned into the sky’s vastness as he looked straight above him to the pearlescent moon hung regally amid the cold sparkle of stars. “I know you hear me. Let us begin as we mean to proceed.”

***

The dinner bell had rung and the Teresa Magbanua mess hall was all abustle with sailors busy with their third square meal. The cook aparrently had a wry sense of humor, for on the menu were breaded ayungin fillets served with steamed rice, arosep salad with salted eggs and tomato and cold iced tea from a powder mix.

Del Mundo took his meal tray and ate quietly in a corner. He’d perused the
reports from the Sierra Madre and found nothing unusual other than one observation, a footnote amid the mess of “as usuals” and “situation normals.”

“Ocular inspection of Panganiban Reef and the illegal structures on it shows
possible flaws in construction: Sinkholes seem to have formed at 1400 this afternoon.

The uniformed personnel on the reclaimed areas of the reef seem to be making an orderly but hurried evacuation to the three ships moored at the dock.” Del Mundo kept turning that little afterthought tacked onto the latest report over in his head. Perhaps it was worth attempting a satphone call to HQ over? Perhaps not.

There went those prickles at his neck again, as rain began to patter on the metal deck of the Teresa Magbanua, the sound making the monsoon seem so much stronger than it really was.

Del Mundo slid a hand over the taut muscles at the nape of his neck and moved to his quarters, where he cleaned and checked his guns, prepared his spare ammunition clips and cleaned his big hunting knife for the nth time. If his instincts were driving him to lock, load and gear up, he sure as hell wasn’t going against them.

***

Bakunawa’s shadow cast a long stain on the starboard deck of the Teresa Magbanua and Aman Sinaya slipped quickly off the great serpent’s back to drop soundlessly on the cutter’s forecastle, just behind the radar array. He walked on quiet, bare feet into the ship’s interior, wending his silent way to the door of Del Mundo’s cabin.

The Marine was intent on his preparations as Aman Sinaya melted through the metal door to stand behind him, the sea god’s eyes a gray-black tempest that focused on the human uncurling from his crouch to place handfuls of munitions, and a two-way radio and earpiece onto a tightly-made bunk.

“Taga-Lupa,” the god addressed the Marine, his voice soft like a distant rumble of thunder and surf crashing on rock. “I have need of you.”

“Anak ng teteng! Who are you?” Del Mundo’s already tense muscles coiled even tighter as he pivoted, pulled himself into a compact weaver stance, he cocked the 9mm pistol he was holding against his trouser leg and aimed it at the center of Aman Sinaya’s barrel chest.

And the sea god laughed with the glint of warlust in his eye as he cocked a thick eyebrow at the Marine. “Do you really think shooting me will make me go away, Taga-Lupa? Put that down before you hurt someone who isn’t me.”

Del Mundo lowered and uncocked his pistol before sitting as calmly as he could on his bunk. He blinked several times before looking at Aman Sinaya again, taking in the froth of the sea-god’s hair wafting behind him from a tight ponytail, as if he were still in his underwater domain. The god stood a head taller than the already tall Marine (for del Mundo already topped “tall” at six feet, two inches), and his stature was imperious.

“Look, whoever, whatever you are, I really don’t appreciate people talking to me the way you do,” del Mundo tried to keep his voice civil, but couldn’t mask the anger shooting through it. His wide nostrils flared as if scenting the air for fear — something that was, quite sadly, lacking. “What need do you have for me if you can do things like walk through a locked metal door?”

“I have need of a mortal shell, for I, Aman Sinaya, cannot just walk into battle looking as I do,” Aman Sinaya answered, his chin raised so he looked down his hawkish nose at del Mundo. “Just so the fight is fair, I must battle as a human. Will you let me walk in you? Just for a while? I promise you this: You will have all the honor and glory that comes.”

“What honor and glory is that? You mean blood and gore, right?” Del Mundo’s voice was wry with sarcasm. “There is no glory in battle, just pain and death. Then you go home to find your politicians screwing you sideways and wasting what blood you’ve spent. And now here I am talking to you, a figment of my bored imagination.”

“So cynical, young man, tsk,” Aman Sinaya raised a languid hand and waved it in a circle around del Mundo’s face. “You don’t realize the pogi points you’ve got with us warrior gods, do you? Think you that we didn’t all watch over you even as you called for your Jesus Christ and Mama Mary? I’m no figment of your imagination. I am part of who you are. All you need to do is remember. I am in your genetic code, hardwired into your system. Just accept that and move on.”

Surprise flitted across the battle-hardened Marine’s face, flickered like lightning across his black coffee eyes. Deep in his gut, he heard the truth in Aman Sinaya’s words, in his unearthly voice, and nodded slowly, bowing his head as his soul recognized a primal memory from the beginning of time. This was, indeed, one of his gods.

“Oh, yes, Junio del Mundo, we’ve kept watch over you. We are the old gods, the ones your ancestors worshipped, the ones who promised long ago that the Taga-Lupa would have our protection in times of need, no matter what and come what may,” Aman Sinaya’s voice was serene as the night waters, its charm lapping at the shores of del Mundo’s reason as Aman Sinaya continued to speak. “I am the god of the sea and of battle. It is I who cleanses the blood from the dead and returns warriors’ bodies to their
beloved Inang Bayan. It is I who calls the storm to wreak vengeance on your enemies. Merge with me now and we will do just that. Obey me and you will be victorious.”

“Whatever.” Del Mundo rolled his eyes up to the ceiling of his cabin and stretched his arms out wide. “If you feel that I’ve got something you need, well, I live to serve.”

Anything was better than dying of boredom on this reconditioned, hand-me-down ship, he thought. “Very well. But first, hold onto these. And put this in your pack.”

“Mang Tomas hot and spicy lechon sauce? What the — ”

“Ah-ah-ah. Language, Marine. Watch it.”

With a sigh and an exasperated shake of the head, del Mundo put the bottle of liver sauce spiced with bird’s eye chilies into the large pocket of his combat uniform pants. “O — kay.” He laid Aman Sinaya’s ornate (and heavy!) coral and silver spear on the bunk and set its matching shield beside it.

“Now, let’s… how do you put it now? Rock and roll,” Aman Sinaya said with a fierce grin that deepened the dimples in his cheeks. “Close your eyes and let me in.”

***

Chaos began to spread slowly, but surely, through the ranks of the Chinese on Mischief Reef as sinkholes began to eat their artificial island like acid. The ground’s shaking grew more and more intense, with fewer and shorter durations of relative steadiness in between.

The seawater began to simmer and give off steam as the already dark water
blackened with roils of hot ash and spears of cooling igneous rock shooting several meters above the surface of the rising waves like a dragnet of sharp obsidian spines around the reclaimed inlet and the narrow opening to its harbor.

“Lai, lai!” The terse, urgent calls of commanders screaming from the prows of the three docked warships rang out like clarion calls in the darkness as sailors on the piers and decks scrambled to loosen the mooring ropes.

“Choo-lai!” The command to leave the shaky ground was issued by officers
herding their soldiers to the gangplanks and up to the huge seacraft bobbing like paper boats amid the sudden and violent squall that shrouded the reef in lashing rain and even harsher gales.

Agonized screams echoed in the background as several soldiers fell off the
gangways into a sea that boiled them alive before the screams died into terrible gurgles and hopeless whimpers. Those sounds, weak as they were, terrified the rest of the soldiers into clambering for whatever safety their ships offered.

Mooring lines were cut in desperation, to the outraged and terrified yells of the soldiers who didn’t make it to the gangplanks. The three ships pulled out and made for the harbor entrance amid the sudden eruptions of igneous rock bolting up from the depths of the sea.

***

Jahariyasya led the siokoy contingent to the ambush point a few nautical miles outside the man-made inlet, right along the safest exit route from Panganiban Reef. He motioned to his warriors and held up one slim silver disc, pointing at the two ships that made it out of the harbor before the entire man-made island sank amid the groaning of breaking coral and the sucking sounds made by riptide and deep whirlpools.

The last ship did not make it out: It was swallowed whole into the boiling waters before being impaled on a particularly large jag of igneous rock and suspended almost 40 feet above the pounding of storm surges.

The siokoy prince cast a grim eye at the scene of destruction before him and turned to signal his warriors forward. He pointed to the shaman, Heriadios, to begin chanting.

With the shaman’s voice rising to the sky and ringing across storm and sea, the disc in Jahariyasya’s hand began to glow and he and another siokoy bearing a similar device in hand swam hard for the escaping ships. The two siokoy caught up with their targets in minutes, their powerful, heavily
finned legs propelling them to preternaturally high speeds, like living torpedoes unimpeded by the drag of the roiling sea.

They slapped the discs to the ship rudders and swam swiftly away, curling their bodies and bracing for the impact of the discs’ eruptions of molten rock that jolted the Chinese vessels out of the sea for seconds that stretched out into forever before time resumed and the ships fell back to the furious sea.

Dead in the water, the Chinese ships were left squarely in Philippine territory, their imaginary nine-dash line within sight but out of reach. Automatic mayday signals went up and red alert clarions blared in a caterwauling crescendo that drowned out the screams of
panicking sailors whose last thoughts, perhaps, were whether they’d have to kiss their asses goodbye or not.

***

Aman Sinaya strode to the bridge of the Teresa Magbanua with purpose and supreme confidence, patting the pocket of del Mundo’s pants where the Mang Tomas bottle sat. Ah, this body is strong and its mind is keen. I have chosen well, the sea god thought to himself.

Enough of your preening, sea god. Just do what you have to and get me out of it in one piece, okay? Del Mundo’s voice rang inside his skull and Aman Sinaya had to hold back a chuckle.

Easy, Marine, we’ll do what we have to and you will be stronger and better than ever when this is through. The sea god spoke to del Mundo in a tone that conveyed his delight at the Marine’s irritation. You’re so much fun to tease.

Asshole.

Hardass.

Seaweed-breath.

Mortal.

The mental back-and-forthing came to an abrupt stop as the sea god and the Marine heard del Mundo’s commander snap out his name on a snarl.

“I’ve been waiting ten minutes for you to get here,” the commander’s voice was cold with anger. “Gaddemit, Marine.”

The god and his meat-suit saluted crisply. “Sir, I’m here now, sir. Orders?” The commander nodded, motioned for del Mundo to take a seat and turned to the officers and men crowded on the cramped space of the cutter’s bridge.

“There’s a mayday coming in from Panganiban Reef and we have the Phivolcs director on the satellite uplink,” the commander said. “It seems an uncharted undersea volcano has begun erupting beneath Panganiban Reef. Very violently.”

The commander went on to brief his men: The illegal runways and docks were destroyed in the eruption — or this was what the intelligence service had picked up from the unencrypted radio chatter emitted from the disputed reef.

“We have been ordered by HQ to render aid and offer rescue to the Chinese
vessels that made it out of the calamity zone. We are not to engage them in combat. I repeat, NOT to ENGAGE them in combat. Rescue and assistance only.”

“Aye, sir. Rescue and assistance only,” someone from behind del Mundo said.

***

Bakunawa swam in the hot waters of the artifical inlet, reveling in the heat and sulfur of the volcanic eruption beneath him. Here and there he snapped up a body, sometimes two, and crunched them between massive jaws.

Ah, yes, it is so nice to have parboiled Chinese dumplings for a midnight snack.

He smiled at that witty turn of phrase. Dragons need their calcium and their protein, after all. Oops, I’m going to need a toothpick later. Someone’s shin got stuck between my teeth. Damn.

The siokoy swam around the stilled ships, impatient to see action. Jahariyasya spread both of his webbed hands out above his head and brought them down in matching lateral arcs. Not yet.

Out of the darkness, the Teresa Magbanua’s shining white bow cleaved the
choppy waves, its halogen floodlamps lighting the sea and sky dead ahead.
“Ahoy, Chinese vessels, this is the BRP Teresa Magbanua,” the Philippine Navy commander’s voice rang across the distance between the ships over the loudspeaker. “Is there any assistance we can offer?”

Back and forth flew signals in morse code and verbally, over loudspeakers. The Chinese ship closest to the Teresa Magbanua was easily twice the cutter’s size, but the sailors who were doing the talking figured the Teresa Magbanua could, if just barely, tow the Chinese ships, one at a time, to relative safety off Ayungin Shoal.

The communications officers on both ships mediated a delicately balanced
agreement: There would be no firing on each other, just a friendly tow or two. Rescues for the ailing Chinese vessels’ passengers and crews would be done in batches.

The first tow and rescue was uneventful, and the Chinese soldiers decided to stay on their ship, as there wasn’t room enough on either the Teresa Magbanua or the nearby Sierra Madre to accommodate them all.

The second tow nearly broke the Teresa Magbanua’s engines, as a spear of
hardened lava had punctured the Chinese ship’s aft hull — a shallow puncture, true, not enough to sink the warship, but one that made towing that much more work amid the eerie groaning of ripping metal.

Then some dumb bubba on the second Chinese warship decided to aim its
foredeck guns at the Sierra Madre. Why that fool chose such a bad course of action, no one could say, as radio and loudspeaker chatter between the first Chinese warship and the Teresa Magbanua made it pretty clear that neither side in the ill-starred rescue attempt wanted to open hostilities.

The soldiers on the Sierra Madre made haste to get to land as they monitored the conversation between the Teresa Magbanua and the first Chinese ship.

One of the guns trained on the Sierra Madre fired, its aim true, a shot that
punched through the sitting-duck rust-bucket from port to starboard. Her soldiers would not abandon her. They rushed back up on deck and ran for the aft guns which they’d attempted to restore over their months of watch-and-wait. It was time to see if their efforts paid off.

“That is an act of war,” Teresa Magbanua’s commander said, his voice tight with controlled anger. “Cease firing on the Sierra Madre. It is an active warship of the Philippine Navy. I repeat, this is an act of war. Cease firing! We will defend the Sierra Madre if you don’t hold your fire.”

Well, the big warship that could didn’t hold its fire and shot another volley at the Sierra Madre’s radar and communications array — about the only part of that spit-and-rust structure that still worked well enough to justify its status as an active vessel of the Philippine Navy fleet.

The first warship lost its reluctance to fight and trained its fore and aft guns on the Teresa Magbanua, which was, quite naturally, preparing its own weapons to defend the Sierra Madre.

“This is war. Prepare to defend yourselves.” That was the final transmission out of the Teresa Magbanua as her guns went online. “You may be the bigger ships with bigger guns, but we’re Filipino and we don’t back down.”

Dancing gracefully on the waves in a martial choreography of tactics handed down from the vintas of old, the Teresa Magbanua protected the Sierra Madre with its mass and dodged what missiles it could, giving back even more viciously than it got.

The Philippine Navy may not have much in the way of ships, but the Filipino has been a sailor longer than he has been called Filipino. That came through loud and clear as the Teresa Magbanua took only superficial damage while dealing out punitive blows of her own.

Being stranded did not make the Sierra Madre helpless. It only made her sailors calculate their shots even more. This sitting duck was armed and dangerous in a manner all her own. After all, nobody can sink a ship already run aground.

***

The siokoy had been swimming alongside the Chinese ships as they were towed, in batches of ten — five on either side. All were eager to board ship and engage the enemy — for, in their panic and upset, these Chinese had opened fire on the Filipino ships that sought only to aid them. It was time to send them to the Skyworld for Bathala to judge.

Jahariyasya looked to his men and swam for the surface, his fins fully extended to catch what light they could, for that was their pre-agreed signal to begin battle.

Silently the siokoy swarmed aboard the Chinese ships, slashing at shocked and frightened soldiers with wicked black claws sharp as obsidian knives that they popped out of their hands and feet like cats.

Rallying their courage, the Chinese combatants let loose controlled bursts of fire at the siokoy from their assault rifles and impressively swift shots from semiautomatic pistols. Some of their bullets hit the attacking siokoy only on their shoulders or limbs, mostly because these creatures moved faster than the Chinese thought they could. And they kept on coming.

Jahariyasya pulled himself up on the deck of the hull-punctured warship just as a dark presence shimmered beside him. He turned to see a swarthy, tall Philippine Marine with a bolo in hand looking down at him.

“Ah, Prince Jahariyasya, welcome to the battle,” Aman Sinaya’s voice came out cool and clear, though the body he wore was that of a Taga-Lupa.

“Well met, Stormbringer,” Jahariyasya said with as much courtesy as he could. “It is good that you join us tonight as we return these enemies of the Taga-Lupa to the sea.”

“Have you seen Bakunawa, by any chance?” The query came out casual, as if
Aman Sinaya was just preparing to take a dip to ease the tropical heat.

“Not yet, my lord Aman Sinaya, but I am sure he’ll find you. He always does.”

With that, Jahariyasya responded to the guttural yelling behind him by making a swift turning long kick, followed by a forty-fiver to his opponent’s head. “Pardon me, sea god, that interruption was unintended.”

More Chinese came up on deck and opened fire on the siokoy prince and the sea god, who waved his hands and scattered the bullets tearing through the air in their direction as Jahariyasya dropped to the deck, rolled toward a cluster of soldiers and leapt out over the gunwale and into the sea bearing two of the unfortunate soldiers with him. It was, of course, only polite to leave some prey to Aman Sinaya.

“Carry on,” Aman Sinaya said with a laugh in his deep voice. “I guess I’m just
going to have to pull bolo and fight, too. At least until Bakunawa shows up. Blasted dragon.”

Plowing forward, bolo flashing in metallic elysee swirls, Aman Sinaya proceeded to make like a blender and pulse-liquefy the mortals foolishly holding their ground with guns that never hit their mark.

“Come here, my pretties. It’s time to die,” the sea god said in Mandarin. “I know your language, for long have I spoken and heard it. I will happily insult you thus until you are all dead and prepared as dragon feed.”

***

The Teresa Magbanua’s guns roared in righteous anger, raking both Chinese ships with her ire.

The Sierra Madre, punched full of holes as she was, was no slacker, either as her aft guns roared to life and shot at what targets she could reach, her economy of munitions precise and deadly. The guns on this most decrepit of active duty vessels may have looked dead, but, lo and behold, they could still fire with deadly intent.

“Surrender and we will spare you,” the Teresa Magbanua’s commander spoke over the ship to ship lines that remained open despite the hostilities. “We will stop firing if you do.”

An angry retort from the Chinese came over the lines, something the Filipinos interpreted as “hell, no, keep shooting.” So they did, until the Chinese guns fell silent.

When the smoke cleared, dawn was filtering through the haze of gunpowder and ash and the silence was broken only by the curt orders issued by the Filipino officers to initiate search and rescue of the Chinese who had, just hours before, engaged them in battle.

The siokoy saw that their jobs were done. They did, after all, fish the Filipinos who fell into the water out of it right quick and some of them who were still on the ships when the exchange of fire was underway pushed the Chinese guns off the mark as they discharged. It was time for Jahariyasya to return home to claim his promised mate and take over the Hiyas throne. It was time to form his council and spawn the next of his bloodline.

Floating on the surface of the water, Bakunawa met up with Aman Sinaya in Junio del Mundo’s clothing. “Hey, yo, amo. You brought my Mang Tomas?”

With a laugh and a snort, Aman Sinaya tossed the bottle of Mang Tomas over to the dragon.

“Thanks!” Bakunawa held a dead Chinese soldier up in one clawed hand and
breathed a gout of flame upon him, roasting him as surely as Filipinos roasted the best lechon in the world. Then Bakunawa uncapped the Mang Tomas sauce and daintily dripped half the bottle on his Chinese roast before opening his great maw and popping his treat in.

Bakunawa closed his eyes and chewed slowly, his craggy dragon face all
scrunched up in gustatory delight. “See, I like being on the Pinoy side for one simple reason: They know their condiments.”

***

Del Mundo sat bolt upright on his bunk, his pistol cocked and in his hand by force of habit. Mid-morning sun streamed in through the porthole of his cabin on the Teresa Magbanua and he felt the cramping of toes left in combat boots overnight.

He ran his hands over his chest and thighs to find that he’d not shucked his
uniform at all before falling asleep. He also found that his sheathed bolo was beneath his boot and that some of the rifle and pistol magazines he’d prepared had fallen to the floor beside his bunk.

Had he dreamed that battle with the Chinese? Was the possession of his body by Aman Sinaya just a figment of fantasy made up by his bored brain? Del Mundo rose from his bunk, splashed some water on his face in the cramped little en suite head and made his way to the ship’s bridge. Breakfast could wait.

He walked onto the bridge just as the ship’s commanding officer was on the
satphone, barking at what seemed to be a Phivolcs official on that line.
“What do you mean ‘Panganiban Reef no longer exists?’ Explain that to me in terms I can understand, sir,” the man’s voice was fraught with disbelief. “You can’t tell me that without elaborating on such a statement…”

Del Mundo looked toward the radar screen and did a double take: The blip that once was Panganiban Reef was not visible on the radar screen. At all.
The angry demands on the commander’s end of the line did nothing to make del Mundo feel any less strange, either, so he went aboveboard to peer over the gunwale with his binoculars to see what he could for himself.

There were two big holes a meter or so above the faint waterline mark on the Sierra Madre. More holes dotted the deck of the grounded warship. Del Mundo furrowed his brow slightly as the cold, salty wind ran like silk across his cheeks and jowls.

“Taga-Lupa, you did well last night. You have my congratulations. I didn’t know you were so good with your bolo.”

That voice, sonorous as a steady headwind filling a large spinnaker, filled his ears in much the same way. It was familiar, powerful and inhuman, but definitely warm and very welcome.

“Mr. Sea God, it’s you,” del Mundo said with a cocky smile that brought out the cleft in his chin. “So, was it real, or was it all a dream?”

“Well, Bakunawa has fed enough to sleep a decade or so, I think, and there is one less isle of dispute to worry about now,” Aman Sinaya said, fixing his charcoal eyes on del Mundo’s black ones. “To answer your question: Even dreams can be real. I think you can have peace for a few more years, since the last Chinese transmission to their command posts further out in the South China Sea tell the tragic tale of tectonic instability and vigorous volcanic activity in what was once Panganiban Reef.”

Del Mundo turned his binoculars and gazed out in the direction of Panganiban reef to see the tip of — was that a baby volcano? — sitting smack in the middle of what should have been the artificial island built by the Chinese to enforce their nine-dash line directive.

Instead, fireworks filled that part of the horizon, as the visible crater spewed pyroclastic ash and jetted red-orange streams of lava and rock ejecta several meters into the air.

“You’re welcome, Marine. You may close your mouth now.” Aman Sinaya said with a wink and a wide smile before he faded into the wind. “Take care of what we’ve helped you win, Taga-Lupa. Remember that we’re Filipino, too.”

I wrote my first book into my mid-30s, a cookbook, and my first novel a few years after that. I am very happy to annonce that I have marked another first: I am the editor of this little anthology of prose vignettes, poetry, and flash fiction titled “Memory and Freedom.” It is part of the San Anselmo Press Pamphlet Series, as Volume 1.

This is the first anthology I’ve ever edited and curated. This is a milestone that, while small in the face of global happenstances, is important to me as a person, an indicator of my growth as a writer and as an editor. This slim book — with its cover art by celebrated artist Celeste Lecaroz, and the trust put in me by San Anslemo Publishing Inc. executive publisher Marvin Aceron — marks a milestone that was not on my personal map of goals, but is a goal I am so happy to attain, this joy encompassing a most surprising depth and breadth I never thought I would feel.

Heartfelt editor thanks go out to Merlie Alunan, Giovanni A. Nilles, Gretchen Filart, Dong A. Delos Reyes, Sarge Lacuesta, Carla Mortel Baricaua, Tag Cavello, Josephine Rustomji, Juaniyo Arcellana and Annabelle Tan-Amor. Their work, which I proudly carry in this little book, is both powerful and beautiful. Our writers rock.

The trust these authors put in my hands along with their work is an honor I value greatly, and always will. This Volume 1 of the San Anselmo Pamphlet Series I and two other editors, Dulce Sanchez and Mike Doria, are incubating will be expanded with Volumes 2 and 3 edited by Dulce and Mike, respectively, in the coming weeks. Mag-aambag po kami sa ating yaman na panitikan.

Our little editorial team that can is all about opening opportunities for Filipino writers, be they revered veterans in the literary field or new voices. We will take this new platform and run with it. I am so excited to see where this road takes us.

My work across almost three decades has been anthologized. You’ll find my poetry and fiction scattered across several titles, here and overseas (oh, and online), and in a few broadsheets and magazines, too. I have published a cookbook, an erotic urban fantasy novel, and a collection of supernatural short stories that draw heavily on Filipino lore and mythology. I have the sequel to my novel ready to publish next year.

This lovely little tome, however, holds a special place in my heart. I am so in love with it, with its cover and its content. The layout had me rhapsoziding in the writing cave, serenading my cats, who all left the room, fortwith, chased off by my weaponized vocals.

So, to share my joy over this, I’ll spare you my singing. Let me share the introduction I’d written for “Memory and Freedom” here instead:

The bridges of memory and freedom, an introduction

For humans, memory and freedom are among the most precious of intangible things. In life, and in death, these two things hold the ultimate sway. This is the reason why we honor our beloved dead, why history (personal or global) matters to us, why Jose Rizal so sagely wrote that s/he who does not look back at the past will not reach their destination.

It is in our nature as humans to hold beloved stories, poems, prayers, songs, and tales of personal history. We are inspired by these writings and hand-me-down tales, and we all have our favorites that we carry with us and share. We are awed by the figures of myth and lore, and by our shared history as a people and as citizens of the world. These things are part of our DNA as homo sapiens sapiens. It is from memory that we derive our freedoms, define them, defend them, enjoy them, evolve with them.

The cache of freedom and memory is a treasure trove we hope to increase with the works we carry in this chapbook, hence its title. The lessons of the past must be learned so we can progress to our future in a timeline that goes back to the dawn of time and stretches before us to infinity. Thus does memory show us the paths to freedom, on every level from the personal to the global. These two abstract concepts, when given form (in this case, writing), are the keys to all our tomorrows.

Contrary to what people tend to believe, however, neither memory nor freedom are huge, abstract intangibles that are beyond human comprehension. These things are not larger than our hearts that constantly seek to uphold both on more minute, personal levels.

Contained in this chapbook are short but powerful reads: fiction, poetry, prose vignettes taken from life itself, as viewed through the lenses of the individuals who penned them. If we reach into our own milieu, we, too have our own caches of little stories, small poems, and beloved memories that form our lifelines and our pieces of evidence attesting to our existence, and our struggles. These amorphous things, which are no less important for their ethereal nature, are what give us identity, purpose, drive, and the strength to face each day we draw breath.

Memory and freedom give us the raw materials that we form in concrete ways every day, and it is the profound honor of our little editorial team that can to bring these small, but powerful, texts from our contributors’ pens to our readers in the hopes of providing means by which to connect people using words.

When someone reads work that resonates with them, the connection is made, and by virtue of these pieces of literature, the reader finds a connection that will never be broken. It is in the spirit of “hindi ka nag-iisa (you are not alone)” that we share Memory and Freedom with all of you.

May you find your safe space, a fresh set of delights, and meaningful pieces to relish at leisure in these pages. Mabuhay po ang mga manunulat na Pilipino. Mabuhay po ang bumabasa ng panitikan na sulat ng sariling atin.

Alma Anonas-Carpio
Editor

Now that the scorch marks on the kitchen wall and ceiling are gone after several decades of seeing them daily, I am breathing easier and feeling so very relieved.

I never realized just how much those scorch marks stressed me out. It may have been because I had to shove down my shock and distress over seeing smoke pouring out the windows and seeing the pots glowing red through the smoke so I would be able to speak sensibly to the people of the Makati fire department. You can panic and let the house burn, or keep your wits about you and get the fire station personnel to your house ASAP, but you cannot panic and still save whatever remains unburnt. I chose not to panic.

Mamaw, bless her, did her best to cook for her family. But if she forgot an ingredient that was meant to go into the nilaga or sinigang she was cooking and had to go to the community store to buy the missing ingredient, she would invariably wind up in a long and happy conversation with the storekeep. Until she’d completely forget what she was cooking and the liquid in the pot would dry up and the food solids would burn into angry charcoal embers and the pots literally glowed through the black smoke like ominous beacons.

While my mother was an excellent cook, she did not have a very good memory, or much focus for cooking. She was, however, one of the most gifted teachers I had the privilege of knowing. Heck, she got me to memorize the fire department’s number, learn how to keep my cool under (literal) fire, how to carry on with life as if one had not just been severely traumatized with the potential loss of one’s abode to fire, and how to recite the Lord’s Prayer really fast while using a rotary dial phone to call the firemen in. Thank goodness our little second-floor apartment in Makati Bliss is mostly concrete, so the fire was, mainly, localized to the kitchen. Thank goodness there was never an instance where the fire that raced up the kitchen wall to the ceiling detonated the LPG tank.

Over the years, I’d buried my horror under competence, and filed my distress under the label “it’s already over, so don’t cry over it.” I actually found tears running down my face while Kuya Buboy and Regan rolled water-based white primer paint over those scorch marks. In those moments, I simultaneously missed my mother and felt the remembered helplessness, rage, and panic all over again. I felt such love for my mother, who would always be horrified and remoseful over the mishap she’d inadvertently caused. I still miss the tight hugs and praise she gave me as both apology and reward for keeping my head, for not fighting with her over the fires, and for just getting the firefighters here without screaming and crying.

Yes, my mother tempered me with fire. Repeatedly, the way a master swordsmith tempers the finest blades.

Got a story out in a new anthology under the #MitolohiyaPH series of 8Letters, the very productive Philippines-based publisher that also carries my erotic novel of urban myth and lore, “How to Tame Your Tikbalang Without Even Trying.”

To say I am thrilled is an understatement. I am basking in the good karma I must have accrued as a literary editor, in my former life working for a newsweekly magazine.

Here’s the best part of the thrill I am currently enjoying: The title of the anthology was taken from the title of my short story that appears in the book. Oh, yes, yay me!

But, wait, that isn’t all: My bestie has a story in this anthology, and she had asked me to beta-read and proof-read it before she sent it in to 8Letters with her fingers and toes crossed. Welp, crossing your digits works, apparently. Or maybe it was the damned good story and the professional cleanup job… Who knows? It could have been all of the above.

Yeah, my squeal of joy over the cover reveal must have been audible cities away from my location. If you heard it, yup, that was me channeling Balky Bartokomous of that 1980s sitcom Perfect Strangers and doing the dance of joy.

If you would like to get a copy of the anthology’s gorgeous hardcover edition, which I highly recommend, you can get yours here: https://www.8lettersbooks.com/shop/fly-by-night-and-other-stories-mitolohiyaph-anthology-various-authors/?fbclid=IwAR1A5DKR-JgpKTHV3Bo4piC_9mN-reNDRVLc5p2ynr4VSBHPDOwc1LtRZkE

This is an editorial that was published in the Manila Standard on April 24, 1995, written by Amante Bigornia after a conversation between him, myself, and Cip Roxas in the newsroom in which Amang found out I was Gregorio Anonas Sr.’s granddaughter. Amang had covered Congress as one of his many beats, and he knew of my Lolo Goyo — and what he’d heard back on the beat was that my grandfather was an exemplary public servant. He decided to pen this editorial because “Filipinos need to be reminded that this caliber of public service, and this caliber of Filipino, is what we still sorely need today.” Amang’s words ring true to this day, 28 years later.

Amang, as was always his wont, did his own shoe-leather journalism by researching on my grandfather’s life and career, though I did share what documentation from my Lolo Goyo’s correspondences and writings I had. While our family knows Lolo Goyo handled 15 GOCCs, Amang’s research yielded documentation of his work in only 10 of those government-owned companies, and the pressures of the deadline curtailed his research. If I remember correctly, he only had four days to do that research, and Google as we know it didn’t yet exist.

Here is the text of the editorial, for ease of reading:

“Exactly 100 years ago today, Gregorio Anonas Sr. was born in Iba, Zambales. The fact probably does not mean anything to anybody except to a few senior citizens whose lives he touched or who heard or read of him in their youth.

“We take note of his centennial birth anniversary only for one reason. He represented a rare breed of public officials that should be emulated by the next generation of public servants, a tribe that is the antithesis of the present crop whose reputations leave a lot to be desired.

“It is said, perhaps too harshly and unfairly, that politicians and their proteges these days enter government service poor and exit as rich men. There are of course some exceptions to the rule, but they are quite rare and fast becoming extinct.

“In the days of Anonas, it was the reverse. They went in wealthy or at the very least with some money to spare, and left as paupers, at best comfortably well-off.

“Anonas was born of a family from the landed gentry of Zambales. It was not, however, as wealthy as the hacienderos of the time, but it was comfortable and exercised some influence over the people around them. It was also a religious family that prized education.

“Although brilliant (he topped the 1919 bar exams), Anonas’ career was not exceptionally spectacular. He accomplished a lot, but working under the shadows of such legendary figures like the fiery nationalist Manuel L. Quezon, the astute pol Sergio Osmeña and the great orator Manuel Roxas, Anonas’ achievements did not get the attention and praises they deserved.

“But his accomplishments were myriad and laid the basis for the economic growth of the country. These days, hardly anybody remembers them although they were milestones in the development of the nation.

“Anonas started out as a lawyer for the Bureau of Internal Revenue, rising to be chief of the legal division. Then he shifted to politics, getting himself elected in 1928 to the unicameral National Assembly.

“Politics was not his cup of tea and toward the end of his term in 1933, he became undersecretary for public instruction in the Department of Education. Still, he did not make waves, but in 1934 the then American governor general Frank Murphy named him the first Filipino general manager of the Manila Water District, the precursor of the present Metropolitan Manila Waterworks and Sewage System.

“As manager of the MWD, he built the Ipo Dam and the Balara filtration plant in Quezon City. This was the first of many “firsts” that studded his long career. In 1936, he became the general manager of the National Development Corporation where he set up the following government firms that are the landmarks of the country’s march into economic development:

“The National Power Corporation which put up the Caliraya hydro-electric power plant in Laguna; the National Textile Mills, the first integrated textile mills in the country; the Cebu Portland Cement Corp., at the time one of two existing cement factories; the National Food Products; the National Warehousing Corp. which set up the first warehouses in the Customs area in the Sourth Harbor; the Insular Sugar Refining Corp., one of two refineries at the time; and the Philippine National Lines, a shipping firm.

“While Anonas was running these institutions, he was receiving a monthly salary of P1,000. It was quite ample at the time, but with 10 children to support, it was not something to crow about. That was all he got and he was such a stickler to the law that he did not use a single sheet of office stationery for his personal communication purposes.

“We can imagine the money he would have made running 10 government corporations if he had lived under the circumstances prevailing today and behaved like some people we know who have become opulent. But when Gregorio Anonas died, he was buried at the North Cemetery in a lot donated by the government with a tombstone donated by the NDC employes.

“He did not, of course, die a pauper. But whatever he left to his children, none was more important than a reputation of unquestioned integrity and dedication to duty.

“Upon that legacy, his children, all 10 of them built exemplary careers of their own, mostly in the banking industry with his wife Concepcion, now 96, still overseeing them.”
~~~~~~~

I am posting this old editorial here as a reminder that this nation has always had good public officials — case in point, my grandfather Gregorio Anonas Sr. His brand of public service was uninterrupted by grandstanding or fame-seeking.

Indeed, he did not even seek to make a fortune. He had a country to build.
Rather, he saw just how much work was needed from government, and he gave his life over to working to meet the needs he could meet, often rising before dawn and sleeping close to midnight, and working on weekends to get the job done.

This is the measure of public service I was taught to hold our public officials to. Working in government was not my cup of tea, so I chose journalism and writing. Our family still does what it can to be good citizens, and to provide service to the people our patriarch so loved, wherever we may be, in whatever way we can.

So, yes, I can tell several “public servants” na wala sila sa lolo ko (they cannot hold a candle to my granddad).

Night deepens and I remember now one story my mother told me about her father, an opthalmic surgeon by specialization, a barrio doctor by choice.

“My father told me he got paid in chickens and eggs and with fruit and vegetables, but he didn’t regret going around the country’s barrios setting up clinics and treating the sick — and not just for eye complaints, since he was a GP and general surgeon before specializing in opthalmic surgery.”

He was a barrio doctor when World War II reached our shores and, when there wasn’t any clean water with which to wash his hands, my mother’s story goes, “he would douse his hands and arms with iodine, his upper body, too, if he had surgery to do that day.”

During the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, my Lolo Pepe had to treat one patient who had an anthrax infection and was at death’s door. He had no medicine left in his doctor’s bag. So he found a way to extract arsenic — yes, the poison — and to use that to treat his patient. The patient outlived him by almost six decades. Not having any ready medicines, he said after that, was no reason not to find a way to treat the patient.

Now, don’t go thinking my maternal grandfather was a saint. He wasn’t. He was also a sabungero and a babaero. About 18 women calling themselves “Mrs. Tan” were crying at his coffin, the family tale goes. This doctor was human and, despite his peccadilloes, he was a damn good doctor who, my mother said, was scathing of city doctors who couldn’t operate outside an operating room. He did, and he didn’t lose patients that way. He lost patients mostly to malnutrition and undiagnosed underlying conditions that weakened their bodies and made it that much harder for them to fight for survival, even with his help.

Many of the people whose lives he saved outlived him by decades. I even met one or two of these people as a reporter covering the health beat.

My grandfather did lose patients and, when death defeated his every effort — including his innovative use of our pharmacopeia and traditional herbal medicines where there were no drugstores, just plenty of medicinal plants in the wild — he would turn to pretty young barrio lasses for comfort.

My mother said she’d thrown that in her father’s face, his womanizing, when he came to see her and called her his masterpiece (she was made in what is now Ozamiz City).

His answer was gentle, she said, and very pained and raw: “When you have to look at your patient dead in your care, then you tell me what it takes to ease the pain. Tell me I am doing things wrong. If you aren’t going to fight with Death himself every blessed day and learn to live with losing to him, then don’t tell me what to do.”

My grandfather was a barrio doctor in a country where drugstores were for the fancy rich folk he’d been born to, not for the poor and underserved. Medical supplies in his service areas were nigh on impossible to get unless you ordered them specially from Manila. A lot of the time, he had to use regular sewing thread for his sutures, this man who topped the medical boards of Germany and Japan because his first attempt at passing the board in the Philippines resulted in a failing grade.

That same cussedness benefited Dr. Jose Tan’s patients among the poor and unserved when he was able to finally practice medicine, and he practiced medicine with barely any support or equipment.

I understand one of his small clinic huts is a hospital now. I don’t know what it is called or where it is, Mama wasn’t sure, either. That medical facility could very well be called into COVID-19 service if this pandemic gets worse.

My mother was hopeful I would be a doctor. My science grades and overall average grades across my mid-grade school to high school years would have made it easy for me to study medicine. But learning the theory and putting it into practical use are two very different things.

I don’t have my Lolo Pepe’s fortitude to take Death on and survive losing patients in the process. He saved more lives than he lost. I would lose my life if I lost a patient, I wouldn’t be able to cope.

These stories give me an insight into the situation our medical frontliners are going through right now: They are fighting increasingly difficult odds.

I am a barrio doctor’s granddaughter, and I grew up listening to my mother’s tales of the hardships in the poor rural areas, stories of how my grandfather would take his winnings from the sabungan (fighting cock pit) and spend them on his poorest patients. Stories of how he always set up a small apothecary wherever he moved, often building the structure with his own hands out of bamboo, so he could make medicines his patients could take. Tales of how horrified his wives would get when they learned he’d spent money from his own pocket to buy food for a patient, or that he’d given the payments in kind by other patients to him to his hungry patients without telling them first.

It takes a special heart and soul to be a doctor like my grandfather, a medic like our frontliners. My heart is not that tough.

I am saying a prayer for our health workers who are out there, working against unpromising odds. You are all so brave. Thank you for upholding your oaths of service. May Bathala bless you and keep you.

Sex is part of the story when I write erotica. There must always be context to it — not just titillation to sell the rest of the story, and not just as the bait on a hook. Sex is part of human life — we think about it, we have it (in whatever way we do), or we miss having it (if we no longer do), or we don’t miss having it, or we anticipate having it if we haven’t yet (or are frightend of it for the same reason). Or maybe we are preachy about it. Or maybe we aren’t preachy about it and would rather not talk or write about it. But that’s just it: Even in the denial, sex occupies space in our minds. For sure we are made through it: It takes sexual intercourse to ensure that the male and female gametes meet and create a zygote and, if the egg fertilization process goes well and that zygote finds a hospitable nest in the womb, a brand-new human.

But sex is not simply about reproduction. It is also about giving and taking. It is about pleasure, power, and very intimate and honest communication. It is mental and physical in its manifestations. At its best, sex is about connecting with another person on a level that is deeper than talking.

When I write erotica, I look at the contexts in which we see sex, experience it, have it as part of our lives. If the sex scene is not germane to the story, it doesn’t get written or, if written, gets removed by editor’s scalpel (usually mine, but my best friend and main editor may beat me to that, too).

So my first consideration is whether the sex scene is necessary to the story at hand — because you can write erotic pieces WITHOUT adding insert Tab A into Slot B, or even have your characters be physically naked and vulnerable. Not all erotica depicts graphic and wanton sexual acts. Interactions in public between fully-clothed characters who are exercising social distancing can be very erotic, too, so if I write a sex scene, it should be an organic part of the story, not merely a come-on. Or at least that is what I strive for.

Now, if a sex scene will push the story forward, provide deeper insights into the characters involved in those scenes, contribute to the context of the whole story, and give the audience (and me) satisfaction, then, yes, I will pen that sex scene. And I will do that with as much crafting care as I use when applying my pen to the rest of the story. Sex is not a bad thing to me, and it will get the same amount of respect and attention to detail.

I make use of the obvious — attraction or repuslion between the characters, their desires, the allure of the unspoken being played out in the scene, as well as the physicality of sex and sexual acts — to tell the story and give it some depth. If the story contains sexual magic as a component, for instance, then every nuance in a sex scene has to contribute to that. If the story calls for sex, I am more than happy to deliver it as well as I can.

Sexual gratification, or orgasm, is also not the finale, or the climax (yes, pun totally intended), of a sex scene as far as I’ve written those. It is part of the story, but not the end. In fact, I prefer to use that “explosive” moment as a continuity device. This is where I get to render the characters at their most human, and unguarded. This is where you see who they are after being stripped naked and worked over — pretty much the same way humans are after they have sex: Vulnerable, gasping for breath after a combination of cardio and aerobic exercise (that’s what sex usually is, if done right), mind blown, emotions still scattered, intellect momentarily scrambled. The characters get taken out of their neatly-done boxes and unleashed, and I like doing that with sex, as well as with other plot devices, like them enjoying a delicious meal, or in the aftermath of a bout of close-quarters battle.

There is just something very satisfying about seeing a character rendered this way, all tousled and rumpled and very, very human (no matter what they may be in the universe I write them into).

I also make use of the build-up, the word seduction of setting the scene up with foreshadowing, context clues, making the setting work toward that scene (and making changes to the text where needed), tweaking the dialogue so there is word-play as foreplay, as well as actual foreplay, in the paragraphs that lead into the sex scene. I maximize small things, like how a light touch on a cheek or a sweeping gaze leads to more intense interactions. Sex scenes, like dramatic or horror story scenes, depend on ever-tightening tension to work properly.

Some kinky sex practices have that merciless ratcheting of tension from the most innocent of situations to steadily intensifying sexual action that reaches the point of explosive climax, that’s how I like writing my sex scenes. So I use those practices as devices to turn the screws tighter (yes, I am still making puns, and why not?).

I also like providing “aftercare” in those sex scenes, just like kinky sex enthusiasts like providing aftercare for the people they have kinky sex with: I like making sure my characters’ post-coital thoughts, actions and experiences are just as well told, because these are as much a part of my stories as the bumping of uglies is.

Of all the types of scenes I’ve written into my fiction, the sex scene is the most difficult for me to write, even over melee combat or battle scenes. I must put aside my biases and preferences to do this — especially when I write about sex acts I don’t particularly want to engage in, or kinks that are not my kinks. I don’t write just what turns me on: I write what turns my characters on, because the story is less about me and more about them.

Human sexuality is a huge, complex font of possibilities, and, when I write about sex in my fiction pieces, I try to stay mindful of that. Whether we acknowledge it or not, sex is as much a part of our lives as everything else — and it can do as much good, and as much harm, as we decide it will.

Finally, I actively choose to write about consent as part of sexual activity — it doesn’t matter if Dude A is horny for Gal B to the point of madness: If Gal B says no, then no truly should mean no. If Dude C says he isn’t comfortable getting it down with Dude D without protection, protection should be used. when I contravene these things, I make sure to show just how wrong it is not to take no for what it is, and to show just what the consequences of not using protection are. Consent and safety are things we need to remind people about, constantly, and this is what I do my best to put into the erotica I write. Sex sells, and what better way than this to get some good sexually healthy messages out to whoever will read my erotica?

Let’s just wrap it up this way: Writing a sex scene takes the same amount of work, care in crafting, research, and meticulousness that writing other scenes in fiction do. That’s what I do when I write the sex scenes in my work: Research, use context, keep the action true to the characters, manipulate the setting to heighten the mood, increase the tension, and make sure the reader gets aftercare — and I revise the sex scenes as needed, until my own requirements of it are met to my satisfaction. Or at least I give it everything I’ve got.

Writing a novel is not easy, but it is satisfying. In my case, writing my first complete novel — the actual first novel stalled at chapter three in 1998, and I haven’t resumed writing that one yet — was done in whatever stitches of time I could find between my day job as an associate editor wearing five other hats in a magazine newsroom, caring for my bed-ridden husband after he suffered three strokes, working whatever extra jobs I could to meet household bills and hospital/medical expenses for my husband and college tuition for our twin daughters.

Almost a decade ago, I wrote “How to Tame Your Tikbalang Without Even Trying” under circumstances that were, mildly put, like playing a complex computer game on the nightmare difficulty setting while juggling knives bare-handed, and not being given the option to pause.

On the other hand, writing “How to Tame” gave me the breathing space I needed, the me-time that buttressed my strength. It took eight months of writing time, distributed across two or so years, to finish the first draft.

This novel was also my way of keeping my husband focused on recovery after he survived three successive strokes and several hospital-acquired infections, including pneumonia and from flesh-eating bacteria. I read each finished and edited chapter to him, discussed plot and characters and other novel-writing technicalities with him in Filipino sign language (which he was fluent in, even one-handed, and which I sucked at, but learned anyway) because the three strokes he’d survived left him with aphasia, or the inability to speak, as well as bedridden and very weak on the right side of his body.

While it was being written, “How to Tame” became a bridge for my Relly to re-learn how language works, since the aphasia was caused by the first stroke destroying the language center of his brain. Just four months before Relly died, he began re-learning how to speak, mimicking the words I would read aloud from the text of this novel. Two days before he died, Relly could say my name. This was after three years and a handful of months of working to restore his language skills — reading, writing, and speaking. Reading aloud from books, including mine, was part of my strategy for helping my husband reconfigure the part of the brain that processes music into a secondary language center, and it was working well enough. We were hoping for and working toward a full recovery for him, but that was not to be. In a sense, I’d been driven to complete this novel because my husband kept demanding more of the story.

If anything, I am glad he was still alive when I finished the novel, which I did just four months before he passed on. He was my first beta-reader, my first critic, and the man who had never lost faith in me. Relly also knew I based the character’s female main character, Tala, on him and Buhawi, Tala’s tikbalang dude, on myself — because Relly had to do the taming of Alma in real life. The rest of the book is fiction and urban fantasy, and not a confessional of what transpired between my husband and myself.

I published “How to Tame” over Amazon as an indie author a year after his death, and I am eternally grateful to the people who purchased it over that platform, then I put it up on Google Play Books a couple of years later. It’s no longer on either platform because Erographa, a small Germany-based imprint started up by Ms. Ioanna Arka, will be publishing “How to Tame” in Europe and the US soon.

Last year, a friend of mine, Renato Tranquilinio, introduced me to Ms. Cindy Wong of 8Letters Bookstore and Publishing at the Manila Book Fair, and I took the opportunity to pitch my novel to her. I’ve signed a contract with 8Letters for them to publish and distribute “How to Tame” here in the Philippines and wherever else Erographa is not distributing my novel.

Honestly, I hope that my Relly is looking down from heaven and cheering me on now that “How to Tame” has found homes with 8Letters Bookstore & Publishing, my Philippines-based publisher, and with Erographa, my Germany-based publisher. More than anything, this book is for him. It is also for my late mother, Remedios, who believed in me from birth, and taught me to love reading and writing — and who loved romances with happy endings.

Back to this very minute: Not three hours ago, 8Letters shared the pre-order link for “How to Tame” with me, and, a few days before that, told me the virtual launch for the book would take place very, very soon.

Gobsmacked, thrilled, wired, abso-fucking-lutely ecstatic aren’t ample enough modifiers for what it is like to be in my writing chair as I type this blog entry. I am fully-joyed, over every moon, still pinching myself to check the reality of this Alma-is-getting-her-novel-published situation. I have been driven to tears of full-metal jacket happiness, and have been experiencing giggling fits throughout the day over the last few days. So this is what it feels like. I was like this when I won my first and only Palanca award in my early 20s. My 50-year-old body, I have since discovered, can handle the same dervish-like euphoria.

If you’ve read this far, and would like to buy “How to Tame Your Tikbalang Without Even Trying,” you may mosey over to the 8Letters webpage where you can pre-order it: https://www.8lettersbooks.com/shop/how-to-tame-your-tikbalang-without-even-trying/

Thank you for your purchase. Please do note that this is erotic fiction, and it is best that you be 18 years or older — and please do not share this book with minors.

In a cab now,
We’re crossing
The bridge spanning
My river, in the city
That is yours
As much as mine.