article 18 in my column : ARE BAHAY KUBO & LERON LERON SINTA DEAD ???

I belong to a generation of grade schoolers who sang Bahay Kubo, Kahit Munti every morning in the classroom. This song was right up there with our National Anthem and our Panatang Makabayan. Without missing a beat , singing Bahay Kubo usually segued into Leron , leron sinta, puno ng papaya, dala-dala’y buslo, sisidlan ng bunga, pagdating sa dulo, nabali ang sanga, etc,etc,etc. If you know the rest of the lyrics, then take a bow, because us who do know the words are getting scarcer and scarcer.

It’s not that we’re a dying breed. It’s just that our native Filipino songs are dying a slow, painful death. Which inevitably leaves large, gaping holes in our oral tradition.

This thought disturbs me a lot.

Maybe it’s because these songs are just NOT sang in school anymore. Or hardly, rarely, if ever . I can understand that somehow the Amy, Suzie and Tessie of my childhood has evolved and morphed into a new version that features Nanay, Tatay , gusto kong tinapay, but somehow, the Filipino songs of my childhood are slipping into obscurity.

But then, I only got a heads up on the various changes in our grade school education when my own kid started school.

And the changes, they’ve been aplenty.

For one, I had to explain to a director-friend that the Filipino alphabet is no longer just composed of A, B, K, D , E ,G , H ,I, L , M, N, NG, O, P , R, S , T , U , W , Y.

And I only found out when my son started Gr. One. Before his classes started, I flipped the pages of his school books idly, more for curiosity than for enlightenment. My eyes popped open when I opened his Filipino textbook . Right there on the earliest pages was the new Filipino alphabet. And it includes C, F, J, N, X, Z. ( Am not sure if the Spanish hache is part, too). I was living under a rock all those years, and you can imagine how major a revelation that was to me. Of course, any grade school parent with a kid ahead of my own son would have known already this new alphabet. But 6 years ago I was still oblivious of the fact, and I can imagine that I wasn’t alone. After all, it took me to enlighten my director friend who has no kids in school.

Sadly, my memories of Don’t you go, don’t you go to far Zamboanga are also fading. So with Magtanim hindi biro, maghapong nakayuko, di ka man makatayo, di ka man makaupo.

And though I have wracked my brains for minutes, I cannot for the life of it recall the rest of this song. Manunugtug ay nangagpasimula, at nangagsayaw na ang mga mutya…
When I sang it to my son, he said, it’s beautiful mom, but where’s the rest of it?

Of course I am sure that somewhere in the Internet, or in one of the dusty bookshelves of the National Library is an ancient book that might contain all these songs. And CDs featuring these native songs recorded by the Madrigal Singers or some other stalwart in Filipino music might already have preserved them for posterity. Gladly , I will buy such a CD to help my own son learn the songs of my childhood, so that he too can one day sing it, hopefully to his own children.

For these songs to stay alive, we Filipinos must keep singing them. We must never forget these songs ( once we start forgetting, what else are we bound to forget ? our names? Our families ? Where we belong ?)

But there’s hope yet. After visiting his lola a few days ago, my son came home humming a little ditty that I faintly recognized. The more he hummed, and sang in some places, the more I knew it, until it dawned on me that he was singing, one day, hum hum hum hum… I saw, nakakita, one bird, isang ibon, hum hum, , lumilipad.

I laughed out loud! You actually know that , I asked him. Lola taught me , he said, as he proceeded to enthusiastically sing the whole song for my benefit.

One day, isang araw, I saw, nakakita, one bird, isang ibon, flying , lumilipad, I shot, binaril ko, I cooked, niluto ko, I ate, kinain ko, I sh_t, tin_e, ko!

The last line , for the benefit of those who are not in the loop--- simply mean that that poor dead bird became toilet humor, literally. In short, poop.

I almost died laughing.

Not the most politically correct song in the world, by today’s standards. Imagine how environmentalists would raise a howl at the line I shot, binaril ko---we just don’t shoot birds anymore, these are totally enlightened times! I had to tell my son that. Yet he insisted on singing the song again, even as he reassured me that mom, it’s only a song, I am not about to pick up my air rifle and start shooting tita Dodi’s lovebirds.

Of course I will have to correct my son. It is not only just a song. This one, and the others I grew up singing , wove the fabric of my identity as a Filipino. It not only got into my hair and my ears and my mind and my system, it made me Filipino. Nobody else but a Filipino would get the humor in this song, nobody else would be as amused at our penchant for translating our Filipino lyrics into English, or our penchant for rhyming even without reason, but a kapwa Filipino. Nobody would be able to recognize that there is such a word as leron, even if we can’t use the word in scrabble, or in any other sentence but leron, leron sinta, or even if the word doesn’t figure in any crossword puzzle right now--- not in our English speaking broadsheets and dailies anyway.

Nobody else but us Filipinos would be able to sing our hearts out to the words, sitaw , bataw, patane! Or feel a sudden rush of affection for the words Paa, tuhod, balikat, ulo, paa, tuhod , balikat, ulo. And only a Filipino will feel a catch in the throat , or feel his syes start to water, as the swell of pride and oneness in his chest overwhelms him at the sound of … Ibon mang may layang lumipad….

It’s our oral tradition. It should not only be set on type, recorded on tape or carved in stone, but also etched in our souls.

I intend to tell my son all these. As soon as he stops singing.

I cooked, kinain ko, I ate, kinain ko, I sh_t, tina_ ko !!!!

BOOTS MA.GARCIA – SISON IS A WIFE, MOTHER, DAUGHTER, SISTER, SOCCER GROUPIE , ADVERTISING CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND A PRETTY-GOOD BILLIARDS PLAYER, MORE ON SOME DAYS THAN OTHERS. IT WAS HER SON WHO THOUGHT OF HER COLUMN’S NAME. COMMENTS WELCOME. TEXT 09205355053.