I grew up spotting Papa’s back in the middle of the paddy as if he was diving into a sea of green. As the green canopies swayed back and forth in the wind, the surface appeared like a massive force of waves. There he was wearing his diving suit: worn-out pants and long sleeves over a tattered t-shirt. But he was no ordinary diver. He ruled this sea with his not so extraordinary trident, a rusty sickle used to despise the enemies by hand.
Rice plants need water, light, nutrients, and space to grow, so do their enemies. Weeds are plants that grow out of place. Some species are found in the rice fields, where they are undesirable or not wanted. They compete with the crops, often benefiting from the same environment.
Papa would apply herbicide to the surface after planting. But this wouldn’t suppress all weeds from emerging. Some would grow among the palay. Some would grow faster, becoming more challenging to pull out of the ground. Papa had to “reap” them with a sickle carefully so he wouldn’t kill the desired plants.
I grew up knowing Papa as a hardworking man despite his toughness as a father. His commanding eyes held a storm that came down as words when you didn’t hear his order or failed to do exactly what he told you.
How many sprouts of palay didn’t make it because of my negligence? You had one job, Papa spoke in Ilocano, inspecting the spots some bull-headed chickens dug out. “Basibasem,” he said, meaning I must hurt the culprit with stones. I tried my best to follow his orders even if his words suggested murdering feathered creatures for dinner.
Just how many play times did I miss to feed the carabao? Papa once sat me on its back while he controlled the rope through its nose and my breathing with his eyes. Courage fled Pompeii which was my chest. I feared his anger would erupt and doom the naive in me. I had one recourse: to jump. But I didn’t.
I grew up tilling my spot in Papa’s heart. I rather interpreted his unspoken love as every grain of rice on my plate. It might be tiny, but it was just as vital as the other grains that made up one spoonful in my stomach. His love must have been as big as the spoken kind, one that fed us and propelled us until we could forge our path.
I grew up witnessing my older siblings leaving our childhood home to seek greener seas across blue waters. We were told that the farm wasn’t an ideal place for our dreams. Here, some hopes would die early like some weeds inhibited with herbicide. Here, we were unwanted to thrive like the weeds Papa removed or reaped by hand. Here, farmers desired education for their children so they would one day use it to defy the invisible pests lurking around. Truth be told, only a few can earn it. Some cannot while still holding a sickle by necessity. A rare few will pursue both by choice.
I’m the third of four. I could have been next in line to my father. But Papa believed we must not go through the same conditions over again. He wanted his children to thrive—just not here. Perhaps his love for me was tough growing up, knowing the only way was to be pulled out of the ground.
Mama did everything as well. She helped Papa tend the crops. She sold vegetables she carried on her head across the streets. She kept pigs to generate income. She cooked meals for the farmers. She protected us from Papa when he was drunk and angry at the world which was unfair to him. She raised us with her very hands as if we were the first seeds nursed by her green thumb.
I can say the farm also raised me. It was where I first learned to swim (walk), made mistakes, felt the scars on my Filipino skin. The summer soil that scorched my feet was also the paddy that yielded our crops for our survival. The land that Papa plowed, weeded, and cultivated was also the classroom that taught me farmers weren’t lazy to deserve their hardships and cracked feet.
That sea of green also holds a sea of memories. I remember my father working tirelessly with his sickle, the tangerine sky descending on the weedy rice field while Mama cooked for us inabraw. Then I remember one typhoon that flooded the same field overnight, drowning the rice grains and with them the hope of paying the debts due, to fund the next planting season.
It’s only fair when the laws of the land can make us thrive on a farm without generational wealth. But it’s easier said than done, if the price of palay still plunges down, if the enemies still benefit from the struggles of the poor, if the farmlands are still battlegrounds and killing fields for the displaced, the landless, the marginalized, those who have been out of place.
I cannot speak for all. Perhaps I can picture Papa and Mama eating dinner at the table, hoping the kids they raised on—with—the farm will come home where they can finally thrive. Together.
Mark Christopher Viuda, 26, works in Quezon City. He originally hails from Tarlac and says, “Lumaki po ako sa farm.”