If you can keep the opponent's nation intact, then your own nation will also be intact. So this is the best.
While giving the appearance of being far away, you step up your pace and get there before the opponent.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Some Stragegies in The Art of War of Sun Tzu
Appear where they cannot go, head for where they least expect you. To travel hundreds of miles without fatigue,
go over land where there are no people.
If you can keep the opponent's nation intact, then your own nation will also be intact. So this is the best.
While giving the appearance of being far away, you step up your pace and get there before the opponent.
If you can keep the opponent's nation intact, then your own nation will also be intact. So this is the best.
While giving the appearance of being far away, you step up your pace and get there before the opponent.
Monday, May 26, 2014
TI KABUSOR *
for Dr. Pedro Alupay of Riverside, CA, USA who said he shed tears when read this poem in the Bannawag, the Ilokano weekly magazine, during his young years in the Philippines.
Ti la ngamin kalapaw ti ngudo ti arapaap...
Um-umlek ti sangaili a nangilansa kenka
iti krus nga awan ti naganna.
Nangayed ti agsapa: kasano a rumkuas
ti ikkis, ti nakabutbuteng a dulluog, ti pait
ken saem ken asug
iti umir-irut a kawar ti aangsan?
Dimo matmatan ti pekka ti sarming
Kitaem ti sugat ken ti naliday a mata
Dakiwasem ti away ti kinaagtutubom
Rumimatrimat dagiti lugan ken silaw
Agkakadaeg dagiti sumilsilap a pasdek
ngem awanka sadiay
ganggannaetka kadagiti kalsada.
Adda met dagiti mariing a sennaay:
ti kampilan! ti kampilan!
awan ti bannuar!
awan ti malalaki iti puli!
Ti kabusor saan a ti kayumanggi
A magmagna pay laeng iti puraw a saka.
Matmatam manen ti umis-isem a rupa
iti nabuong a sarming:
a, mannaniwtayo amin!
*Nairaman iti expanded edition ti "Umay Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger"
Friday, May 23, 2014
EYES WIDE OPEN
All rights reserved
LEAVING
The visas are expiring
and a cream room waits for us
in Menefee.
Farewell to Oscariz
Again and the plants
in the yard
the guayabano we nursed
for her arthritis
will bloom next year.
"Wherever a man had lived, there is a story to be told."--Henry David Thoreau
LEAVING
The visas are expiring
and a cream room waits for us
in Menefee.
Again and the plants
in the yard
the guayabano we nursed
for her arthritis
will bloom next year.
"Wherever a man had lived, there is a story to be told."--Henry David Thoreau
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
The Magazine of Dreams
Memory is bound to cheat. But this is as fresh as tupig, the Ilokano rice cake, just out of the oven. The separation came last year when they made a collective decision in a place called Tribu Paraiso in Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines. Earlier, we walked away from them.
We dreamed of TJ as the best Ilokano-English magazine in the imagined country of Amianan. A publication for young and old writers in the language. We did not have the money but we had the vision and the spirit that would make it viable as a magazine, capable of paying its writers.
There were two professional writers in the team. They were trained for many years in the so-called vineyards of journalism and creative writing. They were the best in the staff: the blogger and Errol Abrew, the writer from Caba, La Union.
For at least five years, we sacrificed for the magazine and the organization--time, money, effort. Five years!
For more than 60 issues of the magazine, we gave our best--we were the greatest producers of articles in the magazine. The writer from Caba burned the midnight oil for this ambition--he was the biggest contributor of poems, short fiction, essays.
What went wrong?
They, the leader and the lay-out artist, the old writer knew what they did.
How could they remove their two biggest contributors, their best talents?
They knew what they did.
We could not understand why she, who proclaimed she was a good Christian, cursed us and wished us and Errol dead.
And their followers swallowed hook, line and sinker what they told them about us.
Estrella, the blogger told you everything.
Yet we try to understand.
We could have stumbled into a pit of snakes that walk upright.
Monday, May 19, 2014
THE LAST PINOY MASS MIGRATION TO HAWAII
Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 28, 2005
by Peter La. Julian
THE LASS MASS MIGRATION of Filipinos to Hawaii started in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur when 1,523 young male Ilokanos left Port Salomague aboard the SS Maunawili on Jan. 11, 1946.
They had been recruited to work in the sugar plantations in Kauai, one of islands in Hawaii, then a US territory.
The SS Maunawili returned the following month and left with another 1,526 Ilokanos recruited to work in other sugar plantations in other Hawaiian islands. The steamship made two more trips that year, taking with her 2,919 more workers.
Another ship, the SS Falcon, also docked at Port Salomague for the same purpose on May 21, 1946 and left with 106 people, including 264 women and 511 children.
FAMILIES NEXT
On June19 that year, it returned, this time for the families of the first batches of plantation workers--182 women and 404 children including a male adult.
That year, a total of 7,661 Ilokanos left the Ilocos to seek their fortune in Hawaii.
Among those who left here were Hermenegildo Barroga, then 17, of Bantay town, and Benjamin Jose, almost in his teens of Laoag City. Now retired and pushing into their 80s, they live comfortably in Kauai and Oahu, respectively.
Barroga, who lives in one of the upscale subdivisions in Honolulu, told the Inquirer in a visit in October 2002 that the "mass migration" could explain why there are many Ilokanos in Hawaii, outnumbering other Filipino immigrants there.
PETITION
A 2000 census showed that approximately 170,635 Filipinos are living in Hawaii, 20 percent of whom are Ilokanos. Ilokano is the lingua franca of Hawaii Filipinos, according to Barroga.
"Tinawingmi dagiti nabati a kameng ti familiami agraman dagiti kabagianmi (We petitioned other members of our families who were left behind including relatives)," Barroga, who served in the US Army during the Korean War, said.
He was able to bring his seven brothers and their families to Hawaii. They are now American citizens like him. A son is a Honolulu policeman, while a married daughter is with a US federal government agency.
In the case of Jose, he sent for his whole family--his wife, several children and relatives. A daughter, Naty, a former teacher in the Philippines, is married to a Nisei (US- born second generation Japanese). Jose and his wife live in a bungalow in Lihue.
'SAKADA'
Today, Barroga and Jose are among the few living sakada, originally referred to workers from Cebu, Negros, Iloilo and Capiz, who were also recruited as cheap labor in the plantations and arrived in the islands in 1909.
"In 1998, there were about 200 of us oldtimers who would gather for celebrations and other Ilokano functions," Barroga said. He did not know the exact number of those still living at the time of the interview.
Jose and Barroga could be considered, along with those who left Port Salomague and the Visayan sakada, as the first overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The First OFWs
But the honor as the first OFWs rightly belonged to 15 Ilokanos, led by members of the Gironella family of Candon, who arrived in Hawaii on the SS Doric on Dec. 20, 1906. They were the first recorded Ilokano pukankein (pukankeyn) or sugarcane plantation workers in Hawaii.
The 15 Ilokanos, along with Jose and Barroga and other living former sugarcane workers will be honored
during the celebration of the Filipino centennial in Hawaii, which started this month.
In an e-mail message, Amado Yoro, publicity officer of the Filipino Centennial Centennial Celebration Commission and a son of a sakada, said the yearlong celebration officially started on Dec. 10.
On Dec. 17, a sakada statue was unveiled at the old Ola'a plantation in Keeau, Big Island of Hawaii Grande, where the 15 Ilokanos first worked.
FAMILIES NEXT
On June19 that year, it returned, this time for the families of the first batches of plantation workers--182 women and 404 children including a male adult.
That year, a total of 7,661 Ilokanos left the Ilocos to seek their fortune in Hawaii.
Among those who left here were Hermenegildo Barroga, then 17, of Bantay town, and Benjamin Jose, almost in his teens of Laoag City. Now retired and pushing into their 80s, they live comfortably in Kauai and Oahu, respectively.
Barroga, who lives in one of the upscale subdivisions in Honolulu, told the Inquirer in a visit in October 2002 that the "mass migration" could explain why there are many Ilokanos in Hawaii, outnumbering other Filipino immigrants there.
PETITION
A 2000 census showed that approximately 170,635 Filipinos are living in Hawaii, 20 percent of whom are Ilokanos. Ilokano is the lingua franca of Hawaii Filipinos, according to Barroga.
"Tinawingmi dagiti nabati a kameng ti familiami agraman dagiti kabagianmi (We petitioned other members of our families who were left behind including relatives)," Barroga, who served in the US Army during the Korean War, said.
He was able to bring his seven brothers and their families to Hawaii. They are now American citizens like him. A son is a Honolulu policeman, while a married daughter is with a US federal government agency.
In the case of Jose, he sent for his whole family--his wife, several children and relatives. A daughter, Naty, a former teacher in the Philippines, is married to a Nisei (US- born second generation Japanese). Jose and his wife live in a bungalow in Lihue.
'SAKADA'
Today, Barroga and Jose are among the few living sakada, originally referred to workers from Cebu, Negros, Iloilo and Capiz, who were also recruited as cheap labor in the plantations and arrived in the islands in 1909.
"In 1998, there were about 200 of us oldtimers who would gather for celebrations and other Ilokano functions," Barroga said. He did not know the exact number of those still living at the time of the interview.
Jose and Barroga could be considered, along with those who left Port Salomague and the Visayan sakada, as the first overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The First OFWs
But the honor as the first OFWs rightly belonged to 15 Ilokanos, led by members of the Gironella family of Candon, who arrived in Hawaii on the SS Doric on Dec. 20, 1906. They were the first recorded Ilokano pukankein (pukankeyn) or sugarcane plantation workers in Hawaii.
The 15 Ilokanos, along with Jose and Barroga and other living former sugarcane workers will be honored
during the celebration of the Filipino centennial in Hawaii, which started this month.
In an e-mail message, Amado Yoro, publicity officer of the Filipino Centennial Centennial Celebration Commission and a son of a sakada, said the yearlong celebration officially started on Dec. 10.
On Dec. 17, a sakada statue was unveiled at the old Ola'a plantation in Keeau, Big Island of Hawaii Grande, where the 15 Ilokanos first worked.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
ILOKANO WRITER FIGHTS FOR LINGUISTIC JUSTICE
Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 14, 2014
by Frank Cimatu, Baguio City
AFER TELLING his story about how he wrote his English-Ilokano dictionary, you wouldn't ignore Aurelio Solver Agcaoili's pants anymore.
During his talk at the Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio City last week, Agcaoili known as "Agca" to his former students at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and " Lakay Ilyong" to his fans back in Ilocos Norte province, said whenever he recalled an Ilokano term while he was driving, he would call to his office phone at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and record the term.
But then Hawaii banned the use of mobile phones while driving and so Agcaoili had no recourse but to write on his pants. His denim pants didn't show the wear and tear of destressed pants, or maybe he was using wasahble ink.
"A writer should write on anything if only to arrest the onset of forgetting. For forgetting is the archenemy of writing and a writer," he said.
Agcaoili must have worn down a lot of pants because, so far, he has written five volumes of Ilokano dictionaries. In fact, he doesn't count by pages; he weighs them.
They are the "Contemporary Ilokano-English Dictionary," "Contemporary English-Ilokano Dictionary, " "Kontemporaneo a Dictionaryo nga Ingles-Ilokano-Ingles Edision a Pang-Estudiante," Abridged English-Ilokano Dictionary" and "Contemporary Ilokano-English Dictionary."
The English-Ilokano edition launched in January 2011, for example, has 18,000 entries in 959 pages. He also recently came up with another book on Ilokano orthography, which would raise the weight to 3.5 kg.
These are all available at the UHM where Agcaoili is associate professor and coordinator of the Ilokano Language and Literature Program. It is the only such program in the world offering a bachelor of arts degree in Ilokano, a minor, and a certificate. Nowhere in the whole of "Ilocoslovakia" can lay claim to such.
The program offers 25 courses on Ilokano, including Ilokano 101 (Begining Ilokano), Ilokano 107 (Ilokano for Health Sciences), Ilokano 315 (Ilokano Aural Comprehension), Ilokano 424 (Introduction to Ilokano for Interpreters), Ilokano 486(Ilokano for Social Media) and IP 699 (Var) or Directed Readings on Ilokano.
UHM has started teaching Ilokano in two major high schools in Hawaii.
Aurelio has also started the Nakem International Conference, the scholarly conference on the Ilokano language. The 8th Nakem International Conference was held in November last year in Honolulu with the theme, "The Center in the Margin: Accounting All Our Philippine and Other Marginalized Languages for Critical Education."
But Agcaoili is no mild- mannered scholar content on writing on his pants. From his UHM office, he had been waking up the Pacific Ring of Fire and setting linguistic earthquakes in the Philippines, particularly the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF).
He has started the online petition against the Saviour's Christian Academy in Laoag City after it expelled three students for speaking Ilokano on campus.
Early this year, he also joined the Joint National and International Committee for the Protection of the Ilokano language in protesting the move of the Department of Education in Ilocos Norte to adopt the Ortograpiyang Pambansa designed by the KWF. The committee said it was not consulted in the crafting of the new Ilokano orthography led by Dr. Joel Lopez.
"Each of our 180 languages is behaving differently," Agcaoili said. "Linguistic justice means being honest about their pluralism and multiplicity."
"The Lopez orthography also separates the pronoun or its derivative so you now write 'mangan ak' for 'I will eat,' instead of 'manganak,' which is the natural way of speaking," he said.
Not content on drawing on drawing the present in his quest for "linguistic justice," Agcaoili also said there was "conspiracy, connivance and collusion" in the declaration of Tagalog as the basis of the national language Filipino.
In his essay, "The Lies of the 1934-1935 Constitutional Convention," Agcaoili also said the country was hoodwinked into believing that the drafters called for Tagalog to be the basis of the national language.
He said he would convene a conference featuring the 40-plus languages in Northern Luzon to stop the standardization of the other languages according to Tagalog.
We should not standardize it (Ilokano). We should allow the repertoire to appear," he said.
But Agcaoili insisted that he has nothing against Tagalog writers or their language. His first book, "Dangadang," though Ilokano for "fervor," is a series of essays on the underground movement written in Tagalog. He has also written a lot of Tagalog poems, mostly to his students in UP Diliman.
by Frank Cimatu, Baguio City
AFER TELLING his story about how he wrote his English-Ilokano dictionary, you wouldn't ignore Aurelio Solver Agcaoili's pants anymore.
During his talk at the Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio City last week, Agcaoili known as "Agca" to his former students at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and " Lakay Ilyong" to his fans back in Ilocos Norte province, said whenever he recalled an Ilokano term while he was driving, he would call to his office phone at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and record the term.
But then Hawaii banned the use of mobile phones while driving and so Agcaoili had no recourse but to write on his pants. His denim pants didn't show the wear and tear of destressed pants, or maybe he was using wasahble ink.
"A writer should write on anything if only to arrest the onset of forgetting. For forgetting is the archenemy of writing and a writer," he said.
Agcaoili must have worn down a lot of pants because, so far, he has written five volumes of Ilokano dictionaries. In fact, he doesn't count by pages; he weighs them.
They are the "Contemporary Ilokano-English Dictionary," "Contemporary English-Ilokano Dictionary, " "Kontemporaneo a Dictionaryo nga Ingles-Ilokano-Ingles Edision a Pang-Estudiante," Abridged English-Ilokano Dictionary" and "Contemporary Ilokano-English Dictionary."
The English-Ilokano edition launched in January 2011, for example, has 18,000 entries in 959 pages. He also recently came up with another book on Ilokano orthography, which would raise the weight to 3.5 kg.
These are all available at the UHM where Agcaoili is associate professor and coordinator of the Ilokano Language and Literature Program. It is the only such program in the world offering a bachelor of arts degree in Ilokano, a minor, and a certificate. Nowhere in the whole of "Ilocoslovakia" can lay claim to such.
The program offers 25 courses on Ilokano, including Ilokano 101 (Begining Ilokano), Ilokano 107 (Ilokano for Health Sciences), Ilokano 315 (Ilokano Aural Comprehension), Ilokano 424 (Introduction to Ilokano for Interpreters), Ilokano 486(Ilokano for Social Media) and IP 699 (Var) or Directed Readings on Ilokano.
UHM has started teaching Ilokano in two major high schools in Hawaii.
Aurelio has also started the Nakem International Conference, the scholarly conference on the Ilokano language. The 8th Nakem International Conference was held in November last year in Honolulu with the theme, "The Center in the Margin: Accounting All Our Philippine and Other Marginalized Languages for Critical Education."
But Agcaoili is no mild- mannered scholar content on writing on his pants. From his UHM office, he had been waking up the Pacific Ring of Fire and setting linguistic earthquakes in the Philippines, particularly the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF).
He has started the online petition against the Saviour's Christian Academy in Laoag City after it expelled three students for speaking Ilokano on campus.
Early this year, he also joined the Joint National and International Committee for the Protection of the Ilokano language in protesting the move of the Department of Education in Ilocos Norte to adopt the Ortograpiyang Pambansa designed by the KWF. The committee said it was not consulted in the crafting of the new Ilokano orthography led by Dr. Joel Lopez.
"Each of our 180 languages is behaving differently," Agcaoili said. "Linguistic justice means being honest about their pluralism and multiplicity."
"The Lopez orthography also separates the pronoun or its derivative so you now write 'mangan ak' for 'I will eat,' instead of 'manganak,' which is the natural way of speaking," he said.
Not content on drawing on drawing the present in his quest for "linguistic justice," Agcaoili also said there was "conspiracy, connivance and collusion" in the declaration of Tagalog as the basis of the national language Filipino.
In his essay, "The Lies of the 1934-1935 Constitutional Convention," Agcaoili also said the country was hoodwinked into believing that the drafters called for Tagalog to be the basis of the national language.
He said he would convene a conference featuring the 40-plus languages in Northern Luzon to stop the standardization of the other languages according to Tagalog.
We should not standardize it (Ilokano). We should allow the repertoire to appear," he said.
But Agcaoili insisted that he has nothing against Tagalog writers or their language. His first book, "Dangadang," though Ilokano for "fervor," is a series of essays on the underground movement written in Tagalog. He has also written a lot of Tagalog poems, mostly to his students in UP Diliman.
 |
| The blogger and Dr. Agca during a meeting of Ilokano writers at the Mandarin restaurant in San Fernando City, La Union. |
A RECIPE FOR THE ILOKANO PINAKBET
ampalaya (paria, the small kind)
eggplant (tarong in the language)
okra
onions
sitaw (string beans)
tomatoes, quartered
ginger (laya)
garlic (bawang), macerated
bagoong na isda or bugguong
vinegar( sukang Ilokano)
hibe or shrimp cube
slices of pork or bagnet(sisiron in Laoag:)
water
Cut ampalaya and eggplants in 2" slices. Puncture eggplants with fork. Arrange vegetables in pot (preferably the earthenware made in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte). Put tomatoes and onions, garlic and ginger. Put bugguong, vinegar, hibe or shrimp slices, pork slices or pork/bagnet cube. Pour 1/2 cup of water. Cook over high flame. When boiling, lift pot from flame and toss highly to allow vegetables to cook evenly. Simmer over low flames until cooked.
Friday, May 16, 2014
THE ILOKANO DIASPORA
By PETER LA. JULIAN
All rights reserved
In one of his books, the late historian Teodoro Agoncillo explained the peripatetic trait of the Ilocanos thus: their land was too small and unproductive so thay have to look for greener pastures elsewhere.
The Ilocos narrow territory was bound as it did to produce and industrious, frugal people, Agoncillo added. Originally called Ylocos, it consisted of what is now known as Ilocos Norte and and Ilocos Sur.
La Union, one of the Ilocos provinces, was organized in 1840 out of several towns of Ilocos Sur, Mt. Province and Pangasinan.
But before they set forth on the cold regions of Alaska and Canada, the sugar plantations of Hawaii, the burning desert of the Middle East, Ilokanos first "colonized" non-Ilokano areas where ther were then big tracts of uncultivated lands: Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya
and even Nueva Ecija including Apayao (when it was still part of the old Mt. Province), Pangasinan, Zambales and Tarlac.
That was in the 1900s when waves after waves of Ilokanos left their homeland by foot, then via the kareton (carabao or cow-drawn wagons) or biray (small wooden boats) to the virgin lands east. Later in the 1950s, they would go further south--to Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao, and even Sulu and Basilan.
( It was said that the Ilokanos, along with the Ilongos and Cebuanos, opened the frontiers of Mindanao through their pioneers with the surnames Barbers, Pimentel, Floirendo, Datoc, Baga, Cerilles, Pichay.)
The Ilokano migration was economically-motivated--people looked for jobs and bigger tracts of land to cultivate, said Dr. Antonio Tamayao of the Cagayan State University in a study. He listed 13 Cagayan towns, which are predominantly Ilokano--Alcala, Lasam, St. Nino, Baggao, Sta. Ana, Allacapan, Ballesteros, Buguey, Claveria, Gattaran, Gonzaga, Sta. Teresita, and Sanchez Mira.
No other linguistic group sought land and spread across the country as relentlessly as the Ilokanos, according to Dr. Jaime Raras of the University of Northern Philippines.
And no other linguistic group in great numbers sought their fortune outside the country as the Ilokanos.40 As early as 1840, substantial numbers of Ilokano speakers have been employed in private homes, in the military and even in the White House, said Ana Marcelo, a fourth generation Ilokana of Sacramento, California.
Marcelo, whose ancestors came from Batac, Ilocos Norte, presented a study in a gathering of scholars in Batac City tracing the odyssey of an extended Ilokano family in California spanning eight decades. The pioneers may have departed but their personal legacy, Ilokano identity, and ties to their own tow survive today among their children and grandchildren in California, she said.
Marcelo, in he book, Agpamakanda: 150 years of Ilokanos in America's Restaurants, focused upon the US Mainland, where most of the Ilokano diaspora's story took place.
But a Hawaii-based Filipino author said that the most notable aspect of the history of the Ilokano diaspora is their settlement in Hawaii, where the first arrival in the early 1900s were hired sugarcane plantation workers. Ilokano migration continues until now as relatives these people petition those left behind in the Ilocos.
Today, there is an Ilokano subculture in the Aloha State, where 15 percent of the state's more than a million population
are Filipinos, 80 percent of whom are of Ilokano blood. In 2006, Hawaii honored the 15 hired hands by holding the Filipino Centennial Celebration.
Raras, a mannurat of Bannawag, the Ilokano weekly magazine, also made a study in Victoria, Oriental Mindoro, where there is a heavy concentration of Ilokanos posited the question: Did they bring with them their cultural practices?
Yes, they did, Raras said, and their "Ilokanoness" in their new-found land is still intact, taking into account such variables as kinship gathering, culinary arts, beliefs in the supernatural, recreation and other Ilokano values.
Raras' findings are similar in other areas where Ilokanos settled, whether in New Jersey or New York or even in Singapore or Paris or Rome although the dominant cultures therein continue to challenge and erode their cherished values and practices and norms.
In a paper, Dr. Noemi Rosal of the University of the Philippines, discussed the phenomenon of separation and return, a basic pattern of human behavior and as applied to Ilokanos. She averred that those who left home (the Ilocos) and never returned remain in their minds as exiles "in the place where they now live."
They may be exiles in their respective adopted countries, but the Ilokanos always come back to their roots, said a Tokyo-based Ilokana mentor, originally from Gabu, Laoag City in Ilocos Norte, teaching the Ilokano culture to young Japanese. And they, like other Filipinos always leave something behind, some money or in kind to help the old hometown, she said.
All rights reserved
In one of his books, the late historian Teodoro Agoncillo explained the peripatetic trait of the Ilocanos thus: their land was too small and unproductive so thay have to look for greener pastures elsewhere.
The Ilocos narrow territory was bound as it did to produce and industrious, frugal people, Agoncillo added. Originally called Ylocos, it consisted of what is now known as Ilocos Norte and and Ilocos Sur.
La Union, one of the Ilocos provinces, was organized in 1840 out of several towns of Ilocos Sur, Mt. Province and Pangasinan.
But before they set forth on the cold regions of Alaska and Canada, the sugar plantations of Hawaii, the burning desert of the Middle East, Ilokanos first "colonized" non-Ilokano areas where ther were then big tracts of uncultivated lands: Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya
and even Nueva Ecija including Apayao (when it was still part of the old Mt. Province), Pangasinan, Zambales and Tarlac.
That was in the 1900s when waves after waves of Ilokanos left their homeland by foot, then via the kareton (carabao or cow-drawn wagons) or biray (small wooden boats) to the virgin lands east. Later in the 1950s, they would go further south--to Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao, and even Sulu and Basilan.
( It was said that the Ilokanos, along with the Ilongos and Cebuanos, opened the frontiers of Mindanao through their pioneers with the surnames Barbers, Pimentel, Floirendo, Datoc, Baga, Cerilles, Pichay.)
The Ilokano migration was economically-motivated--people looked for jobs and bigger tracts of land to cultivate, said Dr. Antonio Tamayao of the Cagayan State University in a study. He listed 13 Cagayan towns, which are predominantly Ilokano--Alcala, Lasam, St. Nino, Baggao, Sta. Ana, Allacapan, Ballesteros, Buguey, Claveria, Gattaran, Gonzaga, Sta. Teresita, and Sanchez Mira.
No other linguistic group sought land and spread across the country as relentlessly as the Ilokanos, according to Dr. Jaime Raras of the University of Northern Philippines.
And no other linguistic group in great numbers sought their fortune outside the country as the Ilokanos.40 As early as 1840, substantial numbers of Ilokano speakers have been employed in private homes, in the military and even in the White House, said Ana Marcelo, a fourth generation Ilokana of Sacramento, California.
Marcelo, whose ancestors came from Batac, Ilocos Norte, presented a study in a gathering of scholars in Batac City tracing the odyssey of an extended Ilokano family in California spanning eight decades. The pioneers may have departed but their personal legacy, Ilokano identity, and ties to their own tow survive today among their children and grandchildren in California, she said.
Marcelo, in he book, Agpamakanda: 150 years of Ilokanos in America's Restaurants, focused upon the US Mainland, where most of the Ilokano diaspora's story took place.
But a Hawaii-based Filipino author said that the most notable aspect of the history of the Ilokano diaspora is their settlement in Hawaii, where the first arrival in the early 1900s were hired sugarcane plantation workers. Ilokano migration continues until now as relatives these people petition those left behind in the Ilocos.
 |
| The blogger with house guest, an Ilokano in the diaspora, Elmer Palacio Agcaoili of the University of the Visayas in Cebu |
are Filipinos, 80 percent of whom are of Ilokano blood. In 2006, Hawaii honored the 15 hired hands by holding the Filipino Centennial Celebration.
Raras, a mannurat of Bannawag, the Ilokano weekly magazine, also made a study in Victoria, Oriental Mindoro, where there is a heavy concentration of Ilokanos posited the question: Did they bring with them their cultural practices?
Yes, they did, Raras said, and their "Ilokanoness" in their new-found land is still intact, taking into account such variables as kinship gathering, culinary arts, beliefs in the supernatural, recreation and other Ilokano values.
Raras' findings are similar in other areas where Ilokanos settled, whether in New Jersey or New York or even in Singapore or Paris or Rome although the dominant cultures therein continue to challenge and erode their cherished values and practices and norms.
In a paper, Dr. Noemi Rosal of the University of the Philippines, discussed the phenomenon of separation and return, a basic pattern of human behavior and as applied to Ilokanos. She averred that those who left home (the Ilocos) and never returned remain in their minds as exiles "in the place where they now live."
They may be exiles in their respective adopted countries, but the Ilokanos always come back to their roots, said a Tokyo-based Ilokana mentor, originally from Gabu, Laoag City in Ilocos Norte, teaching the Ilokano culture to young Japanese. And they, like other Filipinos always leave something behind, some money or in kind to help the old hometown, she said.
Monday, May 5, 2014
PAGWANAWANAN
PETER LA. JULIAN
HOW TO FEEL GOOD ON A DAILY BASIS
It is Tuesday in Laoag City. Things to do to feel good throughout the 24-hour day:
1. Express gratitude to the Lord of All Things for every act that I do.
2. Greet every person with a smile--at least, those who look my way
3. Only good thoughts to dominate my mind
4. Give praise to all kind acts.
5. Donate some personal items to those who may need them.
6. Not to get angry to whatever criticisms thrown at me.
7. Keep smiling.
8. Think of the writer Norman Cousins who laughed everyday and was cured of the Big C.
9. Say Amen to the above.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
PAGWANAWANAN
A BLESSED DAY
It's a quiet Sunday morning in Sunshine city. The blogger, inside the cubicle in the ancestral home, hears two or more cocks crowing in the neighborhood welcoming the day. Or are they saying, it will be a hot but wonderful, creative and productive day?
The day starts right or start the day right: breath deeply a minute or two and express gratitude.
Thanks, Lord of all Things, bless the blogger, his wife with a walking cane now, bless our sons and their spouses, and keep them safe under your loving protection. Amen.
*** The ozone layer has been shattered, according to fellow Ilokano writer Ruperto Manuel, now vacationing in California. That's why it is hot all over the Philippines then? But the weather bureau says, it is the easterly winds that are causing the extreme hot temperature.
***
A certain Dr. Joel Lopez of the Department of Education in Ilocos Norte has come out with his invention of an Ilokano orthography that is allegedly being used in the grades in the province of Imee Marcos. We have not seen the "model" but a group of Ilokano writers has criticized it because it defies tradition, that is, it does not reflect the orthography in Bannawag and the Naimbag a Damag Biblia.
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| The Tobacco Monopoly Monument and Church Belltower in Laoag City |
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| Singappore High Rise Residential Buildings |
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| Christian Paul and John John Julian at Burnham Park in Baguio |
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| The blogger and wife at Singapore's Esplanade |
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