SEMANA DAGITI AR-ARIA

 

Glass painting on a wall at the Church inside the
campus of La Salette University in Santiago City, Philippines

     On All Souls' Day, the blogger sees in his mind her sister Inocencia preparing rice cakes and putting them on a low table in the sala of the ancestral home, now a 3-storey structure along what used to be Jose Palma Street in Laoag City. 
     The cakes like linapet and patupat and niniogan made of diket or glutinous rice, are atang or offering for the souls of our departed: our parents, Dionisio and Rafaela, my brother Ciriaco, Manang Immang,  sister Helen, a teacher, who died and was buried in Padada, Davao del Sur; and five other siblings who either died when they were still kids or in their infancy, and whose names escape me now.
    Neighbors will come for the long prayer imploring the Almighty God to keep their souls (our departed) forever resting in His bosom. After the prayer, the guests will eat maybe pancit with cola and other soft drinks. The prayer group may take some of the rice cakes and bring them to their respective homes. 
     It's Fiesta dagiti Natay or undas, when the souls of the dead pay a visit to their ancestral home, linger for a while, then leave the house to go back to their kind of Lethe.

ATANG TI KARARUA

ILOKANO OFFERING FOR THE SOUL (DEAD)

     Do dead Ilokanos (their kararua or souls) come back nine days after leaving the world of the living and making their way to their kind of Lethe? Ilokanos believe in this concept and so they prepare food for  them as gesture for their brief return to the ancestral home. The food is in the form of linapet, patupat( rice cakes), baduya, and pop corn (busi) shaped like a small ball with the traditional molasses and thin fried slices of rice cake called pelais. The cakes are arranged on a table covered with white crocheted cloth and or white cloth embroidered  with sun and moon figures. After everything is ready and done, there is the long prayer for salvation and emancipation of the Ilokano souls.

     Of course, the cakes are eaten and distributed to participants and guests of the prayer vigil.

     Nota Bene: They say that the spirit (soul) is energy, deathless and indestructible. If the spirit did not immediately leave the body, a close friend of the dead man or woman can feel his or her presence; he could even hear his voice, calling him that he was going away from the world of the living. There are other worlds near us or about us. That spirit will go there until it eventually leaves for this world or lodges itself in the body of a woman or man.

A girl's watery grave: the story somewhere in Abel blog

NO YOUNG WRITER IN THE HORIZON?

 
      The organization was formed to develop writers in the language in the manner that the forerunner of the group,   carried its task and succeeded in the undertaking. Years earlier, when they were younger, the present bangolan, at least some of them, worked hard to earn the title as mannurat and succeeded without those literary seminar-workshops.
     Fast forward to the present, after five years or so, did the organization,  succeed in its mission?
     The blogger can not see a young Ilokano writer raised in the vineyard of creative writing. There maybe two or three who are emerging and holding a kind of tool of the profession. But except two, a professor of the University of the Philippines Baguio, and a teacher from the city of pines,  they are not being developed to become responsible and intelligent writers. Why? Because they are writing hate, dishonest literature, they are being dictated by unscrupulous individuals who give them money for their loyalty.
    (Of course, Junley Lazaga Lorenzana is a writer waiting to be discovered. He developed on his own. He was our first winner of the poetry contest. The other young writer, a teacher of Baguio City--that's what we assessed her from her poems--is also in the same situation. )

Laoag Roman Catholic Sinking Tower

The Gilbert Bridge over the Padsan River in Laoag City, Philippines

THE 'LOOKING GLASS' THEORY AND WHY LAWMAKERS ROB THE PEOPLE

The blogger and his apoko Juan- Juan in a Singapore mall

Dining out with our son's family at Lucky Plaza, where Filipinos converge
especially on Sundays, in Singapore

       A blast from the past.
     It was ironic that the reasons the convicted plunderer was ousted were the same reasons the critics were then presenting for the ouster of gloria in excelsis deo.
     Let us go into the "looking glass" theory as proposed by Charles S. Cooley so we can understand why men in power or any ordinary person behaves and thinks the way he or she does.
     The fundamental concept is this: A person will perceive himself as others see him or her. For these rascals, it is the other way around--they perceive themselves according to themselves. Here lie the roots of conflict. But they will not understand given their moral and intellectual bankruptcy.
     The "looking glass" theory is one aspect of socialization, a never ending process, which starts at birth until our dying day.
     It's here that the concept of right and wrong is learned, not inherited from our parents. Our physical, mental and social skills are acquired here even as human interaction continues as we move from one structure (or agent of socialization) to another.
     By age 25, it is assumed that through this process, we shall have permanently developed values and principles that would guide us through the labyrinths of life.
     Recommended reading for pseudo Ilokano writers who have been maligning the blogger.

CHECK FACTS BEFORE MAKING CONCLUSION

Part of Tribu Paraiso in Diadi, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines. 

The merelion statue is a ten-story structure,
where one can get a view of  Singapore and the surrounding islands. Photos by the blogger

     Subscription to the magazine was then P500.00 per year. The blogger was personally delivering copies of the magazine to Estrella Arellano, a school teacher in San Mateo, Isabela. She was not subscribing then but the blogger kept pestering her and so one day, she said he was taking a one-year subscription. But she did not pay immediately. 
     Each time the magazine was out, the blogger would make the trip from home in Oscariz, some 10 kilometers away by jeep or van. From the highway, I would get off and hire a tricycle to Estrella's school and after a brief chat with her, I would go home if I did not visit my son's family, the house of which is along the road to Bacarrena.
    That was the ritual until Estrella, who promised to write for the magazine when she retires from the service, paid her subscription. It was the same story with her P1,000.00 subscription. She only paid the amount last August. 
     The blogger also dropped by the San Mateo Municipal Library and gave the librarian copies of the magazine, hoping the municipal government would take out a subscription. The female librarian, a Domingcil, said the matter needed the approval of the Sangguniang Bayan. After several unsuccessful follow-ups, the blogger gave up. 
     Writing is truth-telling. If the young writer uses his mind, he could become a great writer. 
     Truth is a million times greater than lies. 

The Highest Teaching

     "The challenge of Zen is to meet each day, each moment with a clear mind and a clear spirit, so that the moment to moment union with existence seems the highest teaching." --from the Little Book of Zen, one of the books given to the writers iti ballasiw when we hosted a meeting in the house in Oscariz.

An article of faith involving life, according to the blogger:

     No hate, no recriminations, the ability to bounce back, to care for one who needs it, to go on squeezing every moment for the joy and pleasure for oneself and that of others.

TRUTH IS A MILLION TIMES STRONGER THAN LIES

The blogger  as a journalist in Singapore

     This writer was a member of a 7-man ecumenical group in the Philippines that translated the Bible into Ilokano. Technically speaking, it was translating the Scriptures  from the original languages of Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament.) The only layman in the group, the blogger was given the imprimatur to sit with the Ilokano "Naimbag a Damag" project committee by Bishop Mario Baltazar of Batanes. The project was under the aegis of the US-based United Bible Societies through the Manila-based Philippine Bible Society.
     I never knew how PBS knew about me as an Ilokano writer and how they located me (it was a woman who came with a letter inviting me to attend a seminar for translators in Baguio in November) in the house along Coromina street in Quiapo. 
     It was in the late 1970s and the other mannurat boarding at the house included Terry Tugade, Prescy Bermudez, Genaro Sumaoang, Benjamin Chua, Jaime Luzano, Lorenzo Tabin and his brother Herman.
     The translators' seminar, held at Westminster Hill along Bokawkan Road, was attended by priests, pastors and deaconesses of different religious denominations in Northern Luzon. We were observed closely for our intellectual and social abilities. The person may be intelligent and "wise" but can he or she work in a committee? 
     Finally, the selection of the Ilokano Bible committe was announced on the third day. They were: Fr. Godofredo Albano of the Roman Catholic Church, Pastor Gervacio Tovera, Jr. (Nazarene Church), Rev. Juan Marigza (United Church of Christ in the Philipines), Mrs. Patrocinia Tayaban (United Methodist Church), Pastor Anacleto G. Guerrero (UMC) and Peter La. Julian, Roman Catholic layman. 
     The recording secretary was Prof.Rosalind Rusgal Camat of St. Louis University, Baguio.
     Coordinator was Dr. Noel Osborn of UBS, and a native of Illinois, USA.
    I stayed in the translation project longer than my colleagues because I had to do the Iluko version of the Apocrypha.
    As a Bible translator, the blogger hobnobbed with archbishops, priests, nuns, pastors, deaconesses and other religious persons including Filipino and American linguistic experts, who trained us in linguistics, the dynamic equivalence kind of translation and gave crash courses in Hebrew and Greek. 
    The Ilokano New Testament was launched at then Baguio Colleges Foundation (now University of the Cordilleras)  in the early 1970s while the whole Biblia was launched at the St. Paul Cathedral in Vigan, Ilocos Sur in early 1980s. 
    It was a job that exposed me to Biblical truths, the world of antiquity, of prophets and kings and the ways of men. It was the most satisfying job in my whole life. 
     As a Bible translator, the blogger believes that truth shall make us free, that truth is stronger than lies. Yes, truth is much, much stronger than lies. 
     And so remain optimistic that the lies concocted against you will strike them back with the force of a million bombs.  

WRITERS' ETHICAL BOUNDARY

Juan Felipe Bautista Co Julian at a public library in Sengkang, Singapore. Photo by the blogger.

     If you are a writer in a democratic society, it is said that you can write anything under the sun or anything that catches your fancy. 
     This, of course, is conditioned by certain factors. For example, you can not write about people's dark secrets, a polician's girl friend who is not his wife, and other foibles without his or her consent or permission. Even with a cause, you may or you may not state that cause but it must be within the code. 
     Did you say that you have the mighty pen, and, therefore, you have the license to accuse anybody of committing acts that he or she has done without any proof? Think a million times.
     You must have in your possession documents and other irrefutable facts.
     Yes, there are ethical rules, there are

Art representation of the Ilokano dadapilan (sugar cane crusher)
 at Aurora plaza in Laoag City, Philippines 

principles of decency and fair play in the writing profession, especially in journalistic writing. You go beyond this boundary, and you are liable for damages in legal actions.

Quote of the week: "A story is not merely an image of life, but of life in motion- specifically, the presentation of individual characters moving through their particular experiences to some end that we may accept as meaningful." Robert Penn Warren 

RESPECT FOR OTHERS BEGINS WITH SELF

The world's second biggest casino in Singapore. Photo by the blogger

     This is a refrain for writers as truth-tellers: respect for the other person begins with respect for the self . That's a cardinal rule. If you don't respect yourself, how can you respect the other person who, in one case, is a fellow writer?

     If you are telling baseless lies against the other person, what does it make of you? You call yourself a writer?

     

The blogger at MRT Singapore

Bridge to Potia, Ifugao over the Magat River in Aguinaldo, Ramon, Isabela