Sunset in San Luis

First of all, a re-minder: Writ-ers’ Night will be held this Friday, Dec. 11, at Balay Kalinaw in UP Diliman, starting at 5 p.m. and ending at 10 p.m. See you all there!

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A few weeks ago, I joined a group of fellow administrators and professors from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of the Philippines-Diliman on a weekend sortie to San Luis, Batangas. Our new dean, Art Studies professor Elena Mirano, thought that it would be a good idea to get her assistants and department chairs together, out of town, to map out the college’s directions for the next few years — and it was. We meet often enough in school and could have done this exercise in the office, but the new environment refreshed our minds and spurred new ideas (and besides, it cost us just the gas, because Dr. Mirano’s family owned the compound we stayed in for free).

I must say I’d never heard of San Luis before, although I’ve been to Batangas often enough — at least, to the usual tourist and business destinations. I looked it up on a map, and there it was, facing Balayan Bay, right next to Taal. We took the long route that passed through Sto. Tomas, Cuenca, and Alitagtag — under the shadow of Mt. Maculot and zipping past one lomi stand after another (note to self: must go back there one of these days to find out what Batangas lomi is all about).

There seemed to be nothing too special about San Luis itself, but the ocean view from our beachfront quarters was, as always, a pleasant relief. I’ve often remarked how strongly the sea shapes Filipino lives (and, more darkly, also takes them with impunity) and yet how little the sea has figured in our literary imagination. Perhaps it’s a reflection of how city-bound and housebound we’ve become.

(My most powerful dreams have been of the sea. In one of them, I skim, gull-like, over transparent blue-green waters, and meet up on the horizon with a pair of angel’s wings rising out of the waves against the orange sky. In another, I travel to a far shore where I enter a hut or a shack, and a woman opens her cupped palms to present me with a gift of seashells. More often I dream of dark, rolling waves, and I am standing right next to them, but I am not afraid, seemingly, strangely, prepared to be overcome and claimed by them.)

So we went to San Luis for work, but it was hard not to think of the panorama changing and unfolding at my back, even as I stared at the PowerPoint presentations and tried very hard to focus on enrollment figures and such. Finally I could resist no more, and snuck out — for just five minutes, I promised myself — to catch the sea at sunset, another of those deathlessly romantic images we Pinoys just can’t seem to get enough of, and have memorialized in Mabini art as well as in less pedestrian poetry (Carlos Angeles’s Landscape II, for example: “Sun the knifed horizon bleeds the sky / Spilling a peacock stain upon the sands….”)

My truancy was well rewarded. As I hurried to the waterfront, the sun was quickly slipping behind a finger of land on the other side of the bay, throwing up spasms of vermilion and purple. I took out my camera and fired off a flurry of shots to record the moment (and add to hundreds of other seascapes and sunsets in my iPhoto folder). I remembered that when my father died, I looked up at the sky, and somehow felt comforted by its suggestion of infinity. I’m not a particularly religious person, and there was no reason to think that spirits — if they exist — should go skyward instead of, say, underground; but horizons ground the sky, especially at sunset, and reassure us that something lies beyond the edge of eyesight.

That evening, I had some beer with two fellow professors (of Spanish, both — department chair Wystan de la Peña, and “Señor” Teodoro Maranan), who indulged all my questions about a beautiful language I wished I had studied more seriously as an undergraduate — something difficult to do when we are all hot under the collar over such issues as feudalism and neocolonialism. They regaled me with stories about their days in Madrid as grad students, and patiently explained the difference between, say, Mexican and Madrileño Spanish, not to mention South American. We discovered that we were one in our adulation of Spanish and Latin music, although I had the disadvantage of not understanding most of the lyrics I was mumbling and in all likelihood massacring.

Early the next morning, as the sun arose from the other side of Batangas, I turned my laptop on, clicked on iTunes, and began playing one of my favorite songs, which I happen to have in eight versions. Someone came up with thick native chocolate and biko as a pre-breakfast treat. That, and “Sabor a Mi” by the Mexican Luis Miguel. Some days, things just come perfectly together.

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On our way back, we decided to spend some time in nearby Taal, to see the old houses, visit the Basilica, and buy some pasalubongs at the public market. All three proved to be absolute must-do’s when you come to this part of Batangas.

The Leon Apacible house (now also a museum and library administered by the National Historical Institute) is a charming repository of 19th century and later Art-Deco furniture and design. Jose Rizal, Mariano Ponce, and other figures of the Revolution used to meet here; Leon Apacible was Gen. Malvar’s right-hand man. It’s open most hours and visits are free, although donations, of course, are welcome.

The Taal Basilica de San Martin de Tours was first built in 1775 and rebuilt in 1878 after an earthquake. Here, P20 will get you a trio of votive candles that you can light up at a side altar to pray and to wish on.

Finally — after satisfying mind and spirit — a stop at the market, just a stone’s throw away from the basilica, yielded us some treasures for the palate: a kilo or two of tapa and longaniza, balls of chocolate, and bags of Batangas coffee.

I love the acacia groves of Diliman, but now and then I wouldn’t mind running to Batangas for another meeting.

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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at w.penmanila.net” www.penmanila.net.