(SPOT.ph) My last trip to Cebu was December 15, 2021—exactly one day before Typhoon Odette ravaged the island, along with most of the Visayas region, in its destructive wake. I had intended it to be a month-long period of rest, with time split between my mom’s side in Cebu City and my dad’s side in the municipality of Malabuyoc, four hours away from the city. Instead, it was an eight-day struggle to meet basic needs and keep your sanity intact. Cebu looked like a dystopian nightmare as everyone scrambled for water, signal, gasoline, and a safe place to rest. I managed to secure a trip back to Manila by December 23, spending Christmas and New Year in my apartment with my suitcase still half unpacked. The entire holiday season, I had the same feeling you get when you realize you might be on the wrong side of the train tracks. Is this the way home?
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My understanding of home has always been fragmented. I left Cebu with my immediate family when I was 12 years old. I continued to build a life in Manila, collecting friends, life lessons, and commute routes I can’t forget even if I tried. Even as my parents went their separate ways and my siblings decided to return to our Cebuano roots, I stayed in Manila for my career.
What it’s like to be Cebuano in Manila
Being on a different island, you can’t help but feel like an OFW in your own country, especially when you don’t have the luxury of visiting home as often as you’d like. So the rush I get when I realize someone is speaking in Cebuano tethers me back to my hometown. It’s always where I least expect it: shocked remarks from a coworker I’d known for years (“Sus, Bisaya man diay ka oy! Nahutdan na ko’g Tagalog! / You’re Bisaya! I’ve run out of Tagalog”); The things a fellow commuter mutters under their breath on an EDSA bus (“Gikapoy na jud ko / I really am so tired”); or even a dating app match I didn’t feel a spark with until I heard, “Gitugnaw ka?” (“Are you cold?”).
I hold onto familiar sentences like lifelines, grasping at anything that reminds me I still understand. That I haven’t lost touch. Even with my eyes closed, I can find my way back with words. Living alone is difficult enough; being on a completely different island and having to fend for yourself as a young adult makes the distance even more pronounced. The pandemic prevented me from coming home, but I’d jump on group video calls and did my best to stay in touch. I made the promise everyone was making back then—that I’d make up for the lost time when we could.
I’g kahuman aning tanan.
I was listening to “Ig Human,” a new song by Wonggoys, a fixture in Cebuano indie music when this line stopped me in my tracks. When you’re trilingual, your brain translates things before you even realize it.
When all this is over.
Who are the Wonggoys?
I had heard of Wonggoys from the aforementioned Tinder match—he insisted that I listen to “Wa'y 'Blema” (No Problem), arguably their most recognizable track, and I was endeared to the band instantly. The way they nonchalantly switch from English to Cebuano in the song reminded me of the way my siblings and I speak to one another. It depicts the relaxed ease of a multilingual household.
Wonggoys are a trio of brothers, Gabe, Bill, and Kyle Wong, who have been making music for over a decade, and you’d be hard-pressed to box their discography into one defining genre. From dream-pop to Bisrock (Bisaya rock) to soft acoustic and more, the boys focus on melodies and lyrical themes that feel right to them, so each song is like a product of the time and headspace it was created in. “Ig Human” is a track off their third (and purportedly final) studio album, Organic, which took two years to complete. Meaning its inception was at the height of the pandemic, back when we didn’t know how to plan for a future—or if we even had a future to look forward to. The boys jump from introspective to mundane to unhinged in a 10-track package. It’s a microcosm for the emotional rollercoaster of 2020 to 2022.
Last December 30, 2021, two weeks into the aftermath of Typhoon Odette, the Wonggoys announced that their newest song, “Queen” (track six on Organic) would be released a day later, on New Year’s Eve. At this point, over 80% of Cebu was still shrouded in darkness from the lack of power, and everyone was knee-deep in survival mode. “I love my Queen / It’s the city where I’m in,” the chorus soars, a reference to Cebu’s moniker as the Queen City of the South. “It’s the city where I live in / It’s my city ‘til the end.” As the island rose from the rubble and made its slow but steady journey towards recovery, “Queen” played like a reassuring love letter written from the perspective of Cebu’s inhabitants. In good times and in bad, this is my city.
What does it really mean to be home?
Whether I’m flying to Cebu or Manila, I catch myself saying I’m “going home.” Like a cautious but nurturing mother, Cebu raised me. Then I was handed over to Manila—who sharpened me like a knife as I gritted through life’s growing pains. In Cebu, I have my family, but in Manila, I found lifelong friends. There’s really no way to choose one or the other. All I can do is fly home and then back home again, code-switching each time, embracing two versions of myself that ultimately mirror one another. It’s just the same lost child, putting bits and pieces of her little life together.
The word “unprecedented” has been beaten to death in this global crisis, but I can’t think of a better word to describe the first quarter of 2022. As we inch closer to a normalcy unseen in years, I think to myself, Is all this really over? And if so, what now? But we’ve been through enough agonizing lockdowns to know one thing: we simply don’t have the capacity to officially declare this shared human experience as “over.” In many ways, it’s still happening. We’re still in its throes. But there are those who have come to terms with the chaos and made the most of these freer days. And as I prepare for yet another trip to the city that made me (just in time for Holy Week), I think of all the things the Wonggoys sang about in that beautiful imaginary scenario.
Dad-on tika sa pinakalami nga restaurant. Tanang dagat atong languyan. Ang dughang ga-huot, maluagan. (I’ll take you to the most delicious restaurant. We’ll swim in all the oceans. The tightness in your heart will go away.)
If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that we don’t know a good thing until it’s gone. For now, in this season of relative freedom, we allow ourselves these little pockets of joy.
Erratum: The first version of this article erroneously stated the Wonggoys' family name. This has been corrected.