Pogi or not, you are welcome to come!  There will a book signing for ‘Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me’, my first collection of humor essays, on November 22 (Saturday) 5pm at Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street, Taguig.  I will be reading excerpts from the book and also some excerpts from my upcoming collection, “I Do or I Die!”  We will also be selling limited edition “My Yaya thinks I’m Pogi” and “My Yaya thinks I’m Seksi” t-shirts.

(Originally published on November 12, 2008 in the Philippine Star)

Who says true love is hard to come by?  All you need is some olive oil, some acrylic yarn and an oversized Hello Kitty doll.  

Over the undas (All Saints’ Day), I learned that the thousands of words I have spewed out in this column have just been pure drivel.  All that muckety muck about learning pick up lines and reading body language and buying gayumas (love charms) outside of Baclaran church are just as effective on the opposite sex as filing impeachment charges is against the President. Why dab yourself with expensive cologne or don your China-made Rolex or flash your surgically-enhanced pwet just to catch the attention of that woman you have been obsessing over when all you needed to do was mosey on over to your neighborhood sari-sari store for some eye of newt and toe of frog? 

If there is one thing that I learned from Tony Perez’s book Mga Panibagong Kulam sa Pag-Ibig (The New Spells for Love), it is that the government does not have a monopoly in making magic.  This book is the royal straight flush in the poker game of love, where you can stack all the cards in your favor. After you have mastered this book, all you No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSB) can finally forego the use of your one-armed bandit.

However, what do we really know about kulam that we except for preconceived notions tht we have learned from Bible-thumping conservatives, from our yayas and from movies starring Judy Ann Santos?    What exactly is a kulam and how does it work?  According to Tony Perez, a kulam is simply a creative form of prayer using ingredients. And when you brew together the right amount of ingredients, it’s the equivalent of sending a text message to the ‘higher ups’ asking them to be your tulay (bridge) to spell-bounded love.    

But if this explanation doesn’t satisfy you, then maybe some geometry will: Imagine yourself as a dot.  Now imagine the woman, whether existent or blown up, as the other dot.  Imagine that there is a dotted line connecting both of you.   Imagine that to turn that dotted line into a straight line, you need to perform a kulam.  Now imagine that kulam is like bidding for a government contract.      

There are many spirits, diwatas (fairies), dwendes (dwarves), kapres and congressmen, who have their own agendas, and they may either want to help (tagahatid) or hinder (tagaharang) your kulam from reaching your intended victim, este, beloved.  Imagine your kulam passes through several of these go-betweens who give you the run around, so much so that you have no choice but to overprice the newt eyes and frog toes, without any assurance that the kulam will reach the target, este, woman in the first place. If karma is on your side, your kulam will reach her faster than tsismis on the Buzz.  But if karma would like to stick a hot poker up your pwet, your kulam will reach her slower than oil price rollbacks of multinational oil companies.  But take comfort in the fact that when the kulam reaches your woman, whether it takes five minutes or fifty years, you will have definitely smitten the woman of your dreams. Or you may have smitten a manananggal. 

The kulams that Tony Perez advocates are relatively easy to perform and, thankfully, none of these spells require the drawing of pig’s blood, dancing naked while beating your chest (much to my dismay) or sacrificing a virgin or two.  These would have been particularly daunting tasks, especially if we had to look for virgins.  And, if I may digress my three female readers, there is an interesting factoid about virgins:  There is a misconception that for spells to be potent, they must be performed by people who have not yet field-tested their potency. In other words, spells must be performed by certified virgins (which would make the purchase of the kulam book by DOMs an exercise in futility).  The only thing that that needs to remain chaste for a spell, Tony Perez clarifies, are the ingredients – which means they should not be used for any other purpose except for the spell, whether that purpose is hygienic or otherwise.  But even if these spells required virgins, my NGSB readers would have had no problem with that.    

For most of these kulams, there is a basic five-step process which must be strictly adhered to unless you plan to grow an extra nipple:       

1. Kasangkapan (ingredients).  The most exotic ingredient here might probably be isaw (chicken entrails), only because it is good pulutan (appetizer) while preparing the love spells.  Otherwise, the ingredients for most of these spells are fairly innocuous and can be found in most households, hardware stores and wet markets.  Among these ingredients are vigil candles, candle holders, matches, potpourri bowls, heart shaped nighlights, hair brushes, lipstick cases, hand mirrors, cologne, forks, knives, a chopping block, a pair of tongs, fresh kalamansi, coconuts, biscuit boxes, empty mayonnaise bottles, a pair of scissors, wax crayons, modeling clay, plastic canisters, your passport photo, a domino set, a pair of dice, towel, a pair of tsinelas (slippers), assorted bathrooms sundries and, the most important ingredient, toilet paper (most NGSBs know what to do with the toilet paper).  After gathering all these ingredients, you aren’t quite sure on the onset if you will perform a spell, go on a romantic date, bake some pastries, attend an art class, or take a shower. 

Second, most of these ingredients for the kulams must be monochromatic. Because love spells are nothing if not fashionable.  Therefore, try to gather red apples, red roses, red ink ballpens, red envelopes, red straps, red stamp pads, red soap boxes, red balloons, red birthday candles, rose-colored glasses, red piggy banks, red sugar, the esoteric bagol ng limang sentimos (made from red copper, which supposedly makes the spells more efficacious), and finally, the most mahiwaga (mysterious) of them all, the rose-colored post-it notes (Really).  

And lastly, you are advised to scrub the ingredients with salt, especially if these ingredients have not yet been used for magical, alchemical or world domination purposes.  The salt scrub also leaves these ingredients well-exfoliated and with a nice afterglow.

1. Ang Pagtatalaga ng mga Kasangkapan (Dedication of the ingredients). Before you conduct the kulam, the ingredients are dedicated to magic by bathing them under the light of (preferably) the third full moon for three hours.  As the exfoliated ingredients get a nice moonlit tan, you can choose to bask in the moonlight as well. According to the book, it is untrue that bathing underneath the moonlight will drive you to lunacy. But if you do notice yourself developing a very sharp overbite, or body hair where it doesn’t belong, or are seized by the desire to dine on human viscera, it is best that you go back into the house, lock yourself in your room and then shoot yourself with a silver bullet.  After you conduct the dedication, there is no need for a repeat performance when you cast future kulams.     
2. Pagkokonsagra sa Magica ng mga Kasankapan (Consecration of the ingredients to magic). Every time you conduct a kulam, you need to consecrate the ingredients.  You can consecrate the ingredients by dabbing extra-virgin olive oil on your right thumb and index finger then proceed to smear it all over the ingredients.  Please do not eat the ingredients.  If you are clueless as to where you can find extra-virgin coconut oil, do not fret, just look for a patch of ugly olives (That joke was sponsored by Gary Lising).  If you want quicker results for your kulam, you may want to try using motor oil.  
3. Ritwal (Ritual).  After being bathed, color-coordinated, exfoliated, and moisturized, the ingredients are now ready for their close up.  The ritual is the actual step-by-step spell-casting process, which may or may not involve some blowing of the ingredients. Let us not get into that discussion without having a couple of drinks. 

The spells in the book do not appear in any particular order. In fact, the book recommends you to do a bit of self-diagnosis: there are a grocery list of spells that you can choose from, based on the level of your desperation, hopelessness and medication.  There are very helpful spells that are great for self-medication (i.e. First-Aid for Love), for gardening (i.e. Zen Garden of Love) and for building a strong investment portfolio (i.e. Piggy Bank of Love).

Several of these spells will also help cement your friendships with the “higher ups” who will escort (tagahatid) your message of love to the intended casualty, este, woman.  These “higher ups” include the moon goddess, the earth, wind and fire elementals (when they are not on tour) and diwatang kalachuchis (frangifani (yes, that’s kalachuchi in English) fairies), who can be found on flowering trees.  Although I do hear from reliable sources that you can also meet a lot of diwatang kalachuchis in select bars around the metropolis.

Aside from those “higher ups”, you will also be making barkadas with fruit seeds, Barbie and Ken dolls and “power” cats (between Garfield and Hello Kitty, choose the one with better merchandising material) whom you can help make palakas (peddle their influence) on our behalf to the “higher ups”.  In case you do not have a direct internet connection to love, then there are other alternative forms of communication that you can use – such as the whistle of love, the paper boat of love, the Valentine’s day card of love, or the potentially trademark-infringing starbox of love (really).

If you already know whom you wish to enslave, este, enrapture in the folds of your love handles but are unable to get through to her because of court orders, then there are some love spells which will require you to be more stealthy than police generals returning from an international conference. You can scavenge for personal items that you have, ehem, obtained from her -her picture (clue to NGSBs: you can download their picture from Facebook mwahahahaha), cigarette butts she has thrown away, chewing gum she has spat on your face, buttons from her shirt (remember, the buttons must be acquired through legally defensible means) and the temporary restraining order she filed against you – and store them in a special box which will have the magical effect of bringing her close to you. But also remember that this box can also be presented as evidence in court.

Meanwhile, if you still do not know whom you wish to eventually procreate with, there are other spells that allow you to see the face of your future paramour in the melted remains of birthday candles (which are, of course, red).  And, finally, there are spells that require to make biyak (split open) some mani (peanuts). Let’s not get into that one without a couple of more drinks.

1. Orasyon (Oration). You must recite the oration with ooompha loooompha if you want it to be picked up by the ether and broadcast to the “higher ups”.  I know it might feel rather awkward at first, but just think of an oration like a potential pop or novelty song.   

Imagine Christian Bautista crooning these lines to make a woman want to exercise her biological imperative with you:  

“Ito, ang Pag-ibig, (This love)

Magbubuklod sa ating dalawa (Which binds us)

Magpakailanman (Forevermore).”

Or Jay-R humming this potential chart-topping hit to make the woman as hopelessly irrational as you:

“Ako, (fill in name of NGSB here) (I)

Ang iyong palad (I am your fortune),

Ang iyong tadhana (I am your fate),

Ang iyong katarungan (I am your equity),

Ang iyong biyaya (I am your blessing),

Magpakailanman (Forevermore).

Or, my favorite, the oration to the power pussycat:

“Pusa, pusa (Little cat, little cat)

Ikaw ay magkusa (It’s all up to you)

Huwag mong ipaubaya (Don’t leave things to fate)

Na ako ay lumuha (Or else I’ll go boohoo).”

I can hear Willie Revillame singing it in my head right now. Or Phoebe from Friends.  

By time you’ve labored through every spell outlined in the book, you will be excreting so much love from your pores that Cupid will have to look for another line of work.  However, the kulam book does have a disclaimer: the same way that our prayers are not always answered, kulams are not always guaranteed to work.

When this happens, there is no need to curse the heavens, grab that consecrated knife and turn yourself into a eunuch just yet. Find a way to keep yourself entertained.  After all, since most of the ingredients were household items, you can always recycle them. With all that art material you bought, you can always make a sculpture out of paper-mache.  With all the olive oil you bought, you will never be in need of salad dressing.  And with all the dolls that you bought, you can always find other NGSBs that you can play with. 

If there is absolutely nobody who will give love to you voluntarily, then you can always try casting the love spells again. If worse comes to worse, you can always give love to yourself.      

Mga Panibagong Kulam sa Pag-Ibig by Anvil Publishing is available at National Bookstore and Fully Booked.