Beholder of the Crescent

Writing did not come to me with ease. I grew into it with weight. The kind of weight that presses on the chest when stories stay unspoken for too long. I was raised in a world where memory lived in voices not with books. Stories were not said but they were carried. They moved quietly from one generation to the next, shaped by care, fear, and love. I learned early that words mattered, if they were chosen carefully. Not everything could be said aloud. Not everything was safe to name. 

Outside our homes, our stories were told differently. In the wider narratives of the Philippines, our voices were often treated as an afterthought. When we appeared, it was usually through conflict. Through violence. Through fear. We were framed as danger before we were seen as human. In newspapers and classrooms, we were shaped into weapons. Guns are always loaded. Bullets already imagined in flight. Our names became warnings. Our faith became suspicion. This way of seeing us did not only torment our image. It narrowed understanding. It taught others to see steel where there were hearts, to expect explosions where there were prayers. 

For a long time, I lived with that silence quietly. I felt the injustice in existence before I could explain it. I learned how to endure being misread. Then there came a moment when language revealed its full force to me. I realized that words could wound as deeply as bullets. A sentence could justify violence. A label could erase generations. A headline could turn an entire people into targets. At the same time, I realized something else. Words could also interrupt harm. They could restore dignity. They could slow the spread of hatred. That understanding stayed with me. It moved me toward writing not as ambition, but as responsibility.

I began writing when it felt like silence was betrayal. I did not want our stories to disappear beneath louder voices that spoke without care. I wanted to put them where they deserved, not on the margins but at the center of human understanding. Writing was the way to speak back, in a lot of ways against narrations that reduced us. Each sentence felt like reclaiming space that had been taken. I wrote because I knew that if we did not tell our own stories others would continue to tell them for us often with harm.

I remember the moment I told my family that I will be studying creative writing. Their faces were full of doubt. They said that there is no future in writing and it could not lead me to a good life. My family said that it is not a future that is certain. At first, I felt the weight of their fear and disappointment pressing on me. I realized later that they were not against my dreams but against the hardships that I might face. Even so, I could not let the words of my family silence the voice within me, the voice that tells words holds truth, can hold back dignity, and can hold the memory of my people. Choosing writing feels risky but it also feels necessary. It was the only way I could honor the stories that lived in my family, in my community, and in our history

There were nights that I can still remember during which I kept on listening to the stories of my father about the past until sleep took me. He spoke of places we could not go to, prayers we were not allowed to sing aloud, of loss and survival. I wrote these memories down, clumsily at first, but with care. I wrote because no one else would. I wrote because forgetting seemed to be a treachery. With each line, I was performing a small act of remembrance, a way of keeping our history going even if the world chose not to acknowledge it.

I learned that the land holds memory, even when people forget. The river remembers those who crossed it, the trees remember the footsteps of children who ran through fields now gone, and the wind carries the rhythm of bayok passed down quietly. When I write, I let the land speak to me. I do not claim its voice. I only listen and write what it allows me to hear. This opened my eyes to the fact that stories do exist not only in words but also in places, people's care, and the silence around us.

Writing has also taught me the value of small truthful moments. I noticed how a neighbor’s laugh could hold resistance, how my mother’s careful cooking was a form of persistence, how my uncle’s patience with his ricefield reflected hope. These were not grand stories but they carried weight. I began to see that every gesture and every daily act speaks the story of a people. My job as a writer is to pay attention, to honor those details, and to hold them up to the pages without fear.

Over time, when I encountered writers who honored lived experiences and I felt led instead of being taught. Chinua Achebe opened my eyes that writing could bear the burden of a people’s history and still be clear and kind. He proved that the art of storytelling is not only about portraying happenings but also about restoring the dignity of people, providing an avenue for the lives that are too often misrepresented.

A deeper clarity came when I got to read Bangsamoro, A Nation Under Endless Tyranny by Salah Jubair. Before that moment, my understanding of the Bangsamoro struggle was just broken pieces. Community pain that is remembered without full context. History felt present but unfinished. Jubair’s book gave that history a firm shape. It traced injustice across time and named it without hesitation. Through that work, I fully understood the aspiration of the Bangsamoro not as rebellion, but as a long and patient pursuit of dignity, self determination, and justice. That reading changed how I approached writing. I could no longer rely on emotion alone. I had to be careful with facts. I had to be precise with language. I had to be brave enough to tell the truth without softening it.

My revised creative works grow from that awareness. It stands on the belief that Bangsamoro narratives do not belong to the margins of literature or history. They belong at the center. Our experiences of loss, faith, resistance, and hope are not side stories. But they are human stories. When the nation’s narratives treat us as an afterthought, they fail to see the full truth of this country and the lives within it. 

Each piece in this collection began with attention. In our creative writing workshops, Professor Jhoanna Lynn Cruz often reminded us to slow down and look closely. Her guidance toward Observation, Interpretation, and Evaluation became a quiet guide rather than a rigid rule. Observation taught me to see before judging. To describe what was present without rushing toward meaning. I learned to trust small details.

Interpretation allowed me to ask what these details carried beneath the surface. What they revealed about personal experiences. Evaluation pushed me to ask whether the piece honored its subject. Whether the language was fair. Whether the writing is clarified or distorted. This process shaped both my drafting and my revisions, sharpening my awareness without overwhelming the work.

For the food essay, I began with scenes. I wrote moments as they appeared in memory, grounded in place and sensation. Revision meant cutting explanations and trusting images. One dominant principle guiding this process was restraint. I learned that emotion becomes stronger when it is not forced. When I revised it, I removed lines that told the reader what to feel. I allowed the moment itself to speak.

When I revised my fiction, I realized that the real danger of the story was not the river or Buntu but how fear is used to hide human violence. My early draft relied too heavily on the supernatural and the metaphor began to overpower the truth of the experience. Through revision, I pulled back and allowed the river to exist as both memory and witness rather than spectacle. I paid close attention to pacing, especially the shift from Amir’s childhood fear to the moment he witnesses the woman’s death. I cut lines that overexplained symbolism and trusted the reader to arrive at the realization alongside Amir. I also revised the dialogue to reflect how elders actually speak. Silence became essential, moments where Amir does nothing, says nothing, and carries the weight alone were left intentionally sparse. This approach allowed the story to hold its weight without forcing emotion, letting the horror emerge not from myth but from the truth that the real monsters were human and protected by communal silence.

When revising our airplane skit, we focused on clarity, rhythm, and intention guided closely by the suggestions of our professor. The first draft we created were humorous but unorganized and they relied heavily on punchlines with hardly any structure. It was suggested that we should focus on timing and that every character should be given a distinct role in the plot. We, as a group, tried out these modifications vocally and listened to which phrases worked and which ones required cutting or sharpening. Repeated or unclear conversation was removed and the placement of the jokes was rearranged to create a natural rhythm instead of relying on chaos. The feedback-driven, collaborative process, alongside our professor’s guidance allowed the skit to become more cohesive, intentional, and truthful while still being humorous in a manner that people can relate to.

We wrote the Letter from Mark as a group. We began with a concept and wrote the letter as we spoke, adding our lines as we thought about what Mark would feel. We worked together side by side, listening to each other as we decided what made sense. It is made in the moment with all of us involved. Writing it that way taught me how much a story can grow when more than one person helps shape it and how working as a group can bring out honesty and feeling that one voice alone might miss.

Poetry demanded attention to sound and breath. We revised it by reading aloud, and listening for imbalance. We removed words that existed only for beauty. We kept those that carried necessity. We avoided metaphors that softened violence or turned suffering into decoration. We wanted language that stood firm beside truth.

Across all genres, revision centered voice. I always asked who was speaking and who was being spoken for. If a piece leaned too heavily on my own perspective, I revised to allow communal memory to emerge. This often meant rewriting entire sections. Revision became an act of listening again not just to the work, but to the people it represented.

Structure mattered deeply. I examined pacing, repetition, and silence. I allowed pauses where silence carried meaning. These choices reflected Bangsamoro storytelling traditions where what is unsaid often speaks louder than what is spoken.

I know that writing alone cannot remove the centuries of injustice. But it can refuse erasure. It can challenge narratives that treat Bangsamoro existence as disposable. My works are revised with care and intention. They carry my growth as a writer and my commitment to centering Bangsamoro humanity. Every phrase is shaped by listening. Every revision is an act of respect.

I am aware that my work exists within a long struggle for self determination. Writing alone does not liberate a people but it can refuse erasure. It can insist on presence. It can remind readers that we are not shadows at the edge of the page. That we are central to the story of this land.

I write because words can wound, but they can also heal. I write because our stories deserve space. I write because the center must be reclaimed. I write as one who beholds the crescent and understands what it asks of me.