Fact or Fiction

Dear Mouse, Nagbakasyon ako noon sa malayong bayan sa Bicol. Hometown noong isa kong opit mate. Nakapanungaw ako sa bintana na nag-iimagine kong paano ba ang hinaharana sa probins, nang biglang may sigawan. Takbo, takbo, naghuhuramentado na naman. Hindi naman Muslim ang mga tao doon pero nakita ko ang isang lalaking hubad maliban sa suot na boxer. May hawak itong gulok at hinahabol ang lahat nang makita.Ngeee. Wala bang pulis? Wala siguro. Kung si Darna lang ako sana ay tumalon na ako sa bintana at binigyan ko siya ng magkakasunod na suntok (ala Fernando Poe) saka ala Matrix akong tatalon pabalik pasamano ng bintana. Wooh. Pero naunahan ako ng matandang lalaking walang takot na lumapit doon sa nagwawalang lasing. Marka demonyo siguro ang nainom. Piningot nito ang isang tenga noong lasing habang nagtutungayaw…sa salitang Bicol. “Pag uminom ning tuba, sa tulak ilalaag bako sa payo. Ang nag-iihi sa pader saka sa poste, ayam. Tatay pala niya. Translation: When you drink tuba(native wine from coconut) put it in your stomach not in your head. Only dogs urinate on walls and posts. I also remember that in one of our retreats in Laguna, we decided to visit the Palace in the Sky.(This was a relic of the Marcos Administration built on top of a mountain). Erap was a still a VP and Ramos was the President. Halfway, I decided to drop from the group negotiating the road uphill going to the palace. My friends bid me goodbye and promised me that they were going to take pics for me. As I traced my way back down the foot of the mountain, a shuttle bus breezed by and stopped. The driver offered me a lift going up. Kapalaran nga naman, I did not hesitate to say yes. We passed by my friends who were puffing as they walked uphill. Hehehe di nila ako nakita. As the other passengers of the shuttle bus got off to go the direction of the palace, I bided my time to wait for my companions. I overheard this conversation: Man 1: Noh pare, kumusta ang pagdadrive. Balita ko driver ka doon sa kasal ni Presidente? Man2: Oo. Pare. Malaki nga ang ibinigay. Mabait pa si Pers Lady Ming. Pinakain muna kami bago ang mga bisita. Baka raw pag nagdatingan na makalimutan kami, Man 3 : Suwerte ka pare, noon yong dating Pers Lady, ni hindi man lang kami matapunan ng buto pag dinadrive naming yong mga bisita niya. Man1: Pero pare, ako kalian man di magdadrive sa ating bise presidente. Man2: sino pare, si Erap Man1: Oo, pare, pag nalalasing yan, tatawagin ka at iihi sa binti mo. Marami pa sanang kuwento pero dumating na ang mga grupo ko. Gulat kung paano ako nakarating na una sa kanila. Sabi ko lumipad ako. Hehehe So if the story about Poe’s peeing on Cabaluna is not an urban legend or a black propaganda from the camp of his political rivals, I should like to add this to the admonition of the father to the son… Aso lang ang umiihi sa pader , sa puno at sa binti ng mga taong hindi makalaban dahil sa takot. Maglipon tells the story, now the stuff of urban legend, about a confrontation between Poe and Franklin Cabaluna, at that time an acerbic but widely read movie columnist. The legend goes that, unhappy with Cabaluna's repeated dissing of his person and movie persona, Poe approached Cabaluna at a showbiz party, beat him up and then peed on him. The reality, as recounted by Cabaluna himself, is that Poe merely took him on a typical drinking peregrination, all the while mouthing off on how Cabaluna had hurt people mentioned in his columns. From time to time while in an open-air beer garden, Poe would stop in his exhortations, approach a tree and pee on it. Which maybe explains the part on his being peed on by Poe, Cabaluna said. But the beating part is also based at least on a nugget of truth. Rushing to his "idol's" defense, a stuntman lackey of Poe's walked up to Cabaluna one day and beat him so badly that the writer had to stay in the hospital for a few days. If show business is rife with gossip, malice and black propaganda, politics is even dirtier and can descend to even lower depths of sleaze. Will Foe be able to handle the potshots and criticisms, the sly innuendo, black operations of political handlers? Can he pee in public these days without this turning into a campaign issue? The CA t