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The summer radio kid grows up

radio microphone

Much of our working hours were spent at the DZME radio station along Roosevelt Avenue in San Francisco del Monte district, where we maintained two block-time programs. This was mostly due to our good alliance work with the station owner and manager, Joey Luison. I remember we maintained a talk show around lunchtime, and another talk show just before midnight. We also gave extra time at the DZUP radio station, which was then housed in UP Diliman’s Palma Hall, and where I sometimes joined the MDP radio staff for its late-night radio program.

Tamad na burgis na ayaw gumawa,
Sa pawis ng iba’y nagpapasasa.
Pinalalamon ng manggagawa,
Hindi marunong mangahiya (Walang-hiya!)

Bandilang pula, iwagayway.
Bandilang pula, iwagayway.
Bandilang pula, iwagayway…
Ang mga anakpawis ay mabuhay!

It’s near midnight, and the sign above the radio booth door reads “ON AIR.” Imagine a small group of youthful men and women, including a lanky bespectacled 15-year-old boy. He is sporting shoulder-length hippie hair, an oversized Vietnam-era GI fatigue shirt, faded denims, and non-descript rubber sandals.

It’s his turn inside the booth, and he is playing a vinyl record of a protest song in Tagalog, Bandilang Pula, which is derived from PCI’s Bandierra Rossa. As the red-flag anthem wafts onto the airwaves, he is singing along with clenched fist punching the air in time with the marching beat.

Can you imagine how he got there? Continue reading “The summer radio kid grows up”

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The half-forgotten Aytas

Boxer codex Negritos
The Boxer Codex included illustrations of pre-colonial Filipinos, including the Negritos (Aetas) depicted here.

In the public mind nowadays, going ethnic has become hip. To wear your tribe’s gaudy colors and beads on gala occasions, or even for everyday work in provinces where ethnic diversity abounds, no longer elicits questioning stares. To declare one’s indigenous or minority roots is no longer as embarrassing as it was in earlier generations.

In fact it’s increasingly worn as a proud badge, on parade even in the halls of the United Nations in this Second International Decade of Indigenous Peoples.

Not so in the case of Aytas or Philippine Negritos. They are the half-forgotten minority among our national minorities, the most oppressed and down-trodden among our indigenous groups. Continue reading “The half-forgotten Aytas”