Subangdaku: A Microessay


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This microessay was submitted as an entry to the Dr. Leoncio P. Deriada Prize for Literature, an internal contest for fellows at the 17th San Agustin Writers Workshop, held from May 2 to 4, 2019, at Iloilo City, where it was awarded first prize for creative nonfiction in English.

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Most people know Subangdaku simply as Mandaue’s border barangay with Cebu City. The main highway cuts through it, both sides layered by bakeries, banks, small businesses, BPO offices, and most prominently the BIR building, where our office is. From the sidewalks on which we wait for a ride home late in the afternoon, jut electric posts painted in bright, basic colors with their respective Cebuano terms: pula for red, dalag for yellow, lunhaw for green, asul for blue. The flyover on the north end is painted in just as eye-catching a manner, but dust from the traffic that streams through the highway daily has since covered the green and yellow flowery motifs in a patina of gray and brown. On the south end lies the river (choked by concrete and garbage) that inspired the barangay’s name—the river whose presence we are reminded of come June, when the water swells, concealing the highway and the sidewalks. The traffic stalls. Packed jeeps trudge through the slop. And one workday for us lasts longer, or leads into another.

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