A COLD, WINDY DAY

A 99 cent China-made bonnet on the head, a knitted-sweater topped by a black leather jacket--these are no match against a cold, wind blowing since this morning. It has knocked down the red lounging chair in the yard and blew away the potted plant and pulled the plant out, earth and all.

The so-called Santa Ana winds blow from the desert gusting at 35 mph. It is still blowing in the late afternoon, and may be blowing through the night.

A breakfast of a malukong of oatmeal mixed with peanuts, red grapes and dried raisins.

A wildfire has burned about 1,000 acres of grasses in Ventura, along the shore and there were forced evacuations, according to a CNN television report. Five hundred firefighters are battling the blaze that could gobble more areas because of the high wind.

We kept mostly indoors the greater part of the morning. Taking a morning bath has been postponed twice, thrice. No literary narrative worth putting into words. No creative juices and it is already a few minutes to lunch time.

Quotes of the day from Jeff Koons, artist in the Los Angeles area:

"As soon as you accept yourself, you can start to have transcendence. What's menacing is not to exercise your freedom."

'NOCHE BUENA' IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Friday, Christmas Day, early riser, about 4:00 in the morning. Last night's "Noche Buena" celebration with a meal consisting of the typical Filipino food: of lechon (roasted pig, but only head with an apple at the mouth), brown rice, pancit canton, pinapaitan, maja blanca, rice cake, dinardaraan, iced tea, etc. The boys finished off half-consumed bottles of lady's drink like Margarita, moscato, left from a previous celebration.

We were only six partaking off the huge meal: Dianne, the Julian boys--Jeric, Junjun- Whitney, the Vietnamese girl friend of JJ, Estelita and Peter, that's me. Anib worked in the night shift in a hospital in Hemet. Filipino-Vietnamese Leo, a friend of the Julian boys,  arrived half an hour later.

We put on red-white Christmas caps and a Nikon timer camera took our pictures.
We left then in the sala, these young kids who have a lot of life before them. A horror feature movie was playing on the wide television screen close to the wall.

They were animated as we went upstairs to sleep.

It will be a long night for them.

****
The rich of the brown Philippine earth did not amass their mind-boggling wealth through hard work. They did not inherit their lands, their mansions, their flashy cars and other amenities that differentiate them from the majority poor people, some of who eat once or twice a day. They are political businessmen, an easy job by just dipping their fingers on the people's cookie jar.

Some filch from international donations to victims of disastrous typhoons like Yolanda that flattened as it did, with enormous destruction and death, the Visayan provinces of Samar and Leyte and Negros including Palawan.

(The nerve of Dinky Soliman who allowed sacks of donated rice to rote in some warehouses and buried them.)

What do they know about the integrity of the soul, these denizens that inhabit Christian Philippines?  

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL HOOLIGANS

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and. Sen.Mar Roxas, two of several candidates  in the country's presidential race, have been exchanging brickbats, even if the campaign period has yet to begin in 2016. Dirty Harry has challenged the senator to a gunfight. This son who bears a great name has previously dared Dirty Harry to a boxing bout.

Duterte is supposed to be a lawyer while Roxas, a scion of old wealth, was a graduate in business at an American school.

They are behaving like school bullies who run roughshod over their hapless classmates.
Behave like global leaders, the former Philippine president Fidel Ramos said by way of advise.

Bad-mouthing rivals and muck-raking are signature brands of Philippine politics that has remained mired by exponents of low-level political campaigns and practices.

In the slap-sticks type of politics, limited talents and mediocrity are not impediments to run and win public office. The great unwashed that comprise the great majority of voters and the political imbeciles have one thing in common  with respect to these traits. So the latter ascend the thrones and stay there with nothing to do but wait for the standard operating procedure that brings in the dirty money.

***
The Inquirer writer US-based Boying Pimentel has taken the cue by writing an article on presidential assassins from President Manuel Roxas to President Ferdinand Marcos. But Pimentel dwelt lengthily about the latter about FM's record as "killer" of many people during the martial law years.

What is at issue here is the number of persons personally killed by Dirty Harry during his reign as Davao City executive. It is not the number of criminals that he caused to be eliminated through his Death Squad.

In the same manner with  Marcos, it is not the number of persons he allegedly caused to be killed via the apparatus of martial law. (In a cacique type of society where the oligarchs reign supreme, there is a need for reforms and that is what Marcos did. And the so-called democracy advocates had to stand against him and the tension had to result in confrontation and death.)

If  Marcos indeed personally killed Julio Nalundasan, the political rival of his father Mariano, it was only the person he murdered on record.

THE LAST VERBAL JOUST

     She was fading away in the shadows in the distance, the red Gabu sun enveloping her.
     She had come to my place at the bank of the Padsan. We wanted to clear things out. But it was not a productive encounter. 
     And she went away, leaving words that needed no response from a young man who suddenly grew old.
     "You have to grasp this," she said, a hint of the anger she was trying to control, her brown eyes blazing.
     "You have to grasp this," she repeated, pronouncing and grating every word in a slow cadence.
     "What? Have I not understood you? You are impossible You are a brat, a very selfish brat."
     Her smile was naughty, if not sarcastic.
     "You said you love to read the poems of Pablo Neruda, and you have just read one."
     "And did you say yesterday you can recite from memory 'I can write the saddest poem?'

     "Forget it," she said.
     A breeze rustled the leaves of the nearby balete tree.
     "You said you love music, the best music of that classical Italian composer--what's his name?"
     I was remembering a time in university days in Diliman. She was sitting on a chair at the lobby of the Liberal Arts building.
     Her voice was cool and deliberate:
    "If you love poetry, if you love music, how could you be so rude? How could you be a barbarian, an animal?"

     The footprints on the white sands were clear, following a straight path.

Grandchild Margarita Denise Julian

Quote of the day:

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. --Soren Kierkegaard

THE COUPLE IN THE CALIFORNIA SHOOTING MASSACRE

The young couple had left their 6-month old baby with the grandparents in their apartment in Redlands, a prosperous community east of the Los Angeles area.

They arrived aboard a rented SUV at the Inland Regional Center a few miles away from their residence. With assault-type rifles and wearing black vests, they entered the room where a celebration was going on, and sprayed bullets and suddenly, there were screams, cries of pain, moaning. It was an eternity and when it was over, 14 people lay dead and 17 injured. There was smell of gunpowder in the air in the room that was earlier filled with joy and laughter.

The man, 28, was in the room earlier and had joined in the celebration--he worked as an environmental specialist at the center-- but he left for unknown reason. Was he repelled by the merrymaking of his colleagues? What was going on in his mind as he went out the door?

Why did Syed leave? What was going on in his mind?  When he came back minutes later, he was with his wife and in tandem with Tashfeen, 27, went on a shooting rampage.

What went on in the minds of the husband and wife as they pulled the triggers of their weapons of mass destruction? What were they thinking as they saw the people fell one after the other, spilling their precious blood all over the floor?

Were they mad and insane? Were their minds diseased? What triggered them to do the act that lasted probably for a few minutes? A few deadly moments that leave one in pain, sad, angry, dumbfounded.

Was the killing ideologically motivated? Psychologically driven? Was there a workplace issue? A religious dispute that had to be resolved by violence and fear?

What went on in their separate minds as they lay dying in the SUV, their young bodies riddled with bullets fired by the lawmen who engaged the wife in a firefight as he drove away in the car chase that ended in tragedy for them?

What went wrong with the young, educated, good-looking Asian couple? They were living the American dream in a wealthy neighborhood.

No Filipino casualty was reported in the carnage. The victims included an Iranian who fled his country because of religious persecution, a female Vietnamese and other nationalities that had become US citizens and embraced the American way of life. *Facts culled from California newspaper reports, radio and television broadcasts/

WIFE'S KNEECAP SURGERY

Woke up early in the morning and took a bath. Just hours away from wife Estelita kneecap surgery at the Redlands Community Hospital. Last night, she called friends and relatives of her scheduled operation. She called Simonie but she has not arrived from the Philippines, according to Fe at the end of the line. Now praying for the successful two-hour surgery scheduled at 10:00AM. Two days ago, Estelita, son Anib and me attended orientation of surgeries at the Joint and Spine Institute section of Redlands CH. Most of those to undergo surgeries are women, at different dates. The room was full.

November 25:
The surgery was performed by Dr. Peter Elsissy, son of Egyptian immigrants, a smiling young man, who prayed to the Father for the successful operation that would replace Estelita's kneecap with stainless steel. We had gone early to the Redlands Community Hospital along Terracina Blvd. in Redlands, at least an hour away from Menifee.

Anib and I left her at the room where he had been dressed for the operation complete with white cap. She would later  on be wheeled into the surgery room.  We went to the waiting room in the same floor and spent almost an hour after we had breakfast at the cafeteria at the basement. Dr. Elsissy entered the room before 10:00 AM and informed us that the surgery was done and that Estelita was doing fine.She would be taken to the recovery room at the fourth floor.

THAT NIGHT IN PARIS

129 dead, 352 injured
on Friday night, by ISIS terrorists
in gay Paris

Let us weep for them, let us weep for them, let us weep for them...

how does one not remember
the blind anger
spewing as live bullets
as searing fire
tearing apart the hearts
of the innocents?

****

how did the prophet Muhammad look?
is it a racial slur to display his photo or caricature?

sometime in a middle of a walk to Walgreens
i would ask myself: did i share anything to a girl
when i was a young man. if i did, where?

so many things in the old mind
each time i see young couple--with golden heads--
jogging on the other side of Newport road.

***
daydi daniw a kayatko a basaem

nagpukkawak a nangipasimudaag
iti kaaddak iti batogmo, iti balayyo, 
ngem naliday a nagsubli ti timekko,
awan arimekmek, napaumel
 dagiti kuriat,
makaalliaw ti ulimek ti rabii 
naglumen dagiti bituen iti tangatang.

the silence, breathing, was eerie, an enemy/umang-anges ti ulimek, kabusor 
and i walked away thinking of you,/ket immadayoak, pampanunotenka, 
the rose in your ear,/ti rosal iti lapayagmo,
my feet heavy,/ nabantot dagiti sakak
my heart drenched in sadness./ti pusok nadarugsoy iti liday

i wanted you to find a little time/kayatko a maaddaanka iti sangkausit a tiempo
to read my poetry--about you ascending./a mangbasa iti daniwko--sika a sumang sang-at
the padsan, a water jug on your head,/iti karayan padsan, nagsusuon iti sangmalabi a danum
a round red sun in the gabu sky/ti nalabaga nga init iti law-ang ti gabu
a breeze whipping a lock/maysa a nginabras ti buokmo
of your tender hair./lalailuen ti angin

FRAMING THE ISSUE OF "THE ALTERNATIVE TRUTH"

The 1986 Edsa Revolt in the Philippines was not our metamorphosis.

Yes, Edsa I did not achieve whatever it wanted to achieve. Led by the Roman Catholic Church, rebellious soldiers, political activists, senators, the bloodless revolution ousted the strongman Ferdinand Marcos and installed as president Cory Aquino, who was declared as "icon of democracy" even is she was not at the forefront when the martial law regime was toppled down.

That was more than thirty years ago.

Freedom and democracy did not usher in "new minds, new manners" that would have catapulted the so-called Pearl of the Orient Seas to greater heights and maintained its position as second to Japan in economic development. The aftermath merely preserved and expanded the oligarchies like that of the Aquino-Cojuangco business empire that martial law aimed to dismantle.

And the Edsa (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) political heroes like Fidel Ramos, Juan Ponce-Enrile, Gregorio Honasan have feet of clay. They enriched themselves while in office, Ramos as Philippine president, Enrile as senator, and Honasan, who led seven unsuccessful military coups against the Cory government, as member like Enrile of Congress which has been dubbed as the abode of the biggest criminal syndicate. (The lawmakers dipped their dirty fingers  on the state coffers, through a scheme involving their pork barrel funds.)

Meanwhile, misery, deprivation, widespread poverty stalk the land. The heroes watched and watched and amassed more wealth while political dynasties like the Binays, Singsons, Dys, Ortegas among more than 80, rear their ugly heads. Needless to say, they wallow in riches and live in mansions and gated subdivisions like Forbes Park, while a great number of Filipinos are homeless and eat once or twice a day.

(For a look-see, go to Manila and observe people who live under underpasses and bridges, the Royal City of Spanish Times, now ruled by the convicted economic plunderer Joseph Estrada who was ousted in an impeachment trial. He was supposed to have been banned from running in public office, but the law allowed him to gain power,  a reason Filipinos don't understand.)

During her time as president of the country Cory Aquino, the so-called icon of democracy, a false description on the Filipino minds by the Yellow Media, did nothing but bashing Ferdinand Marcos, an almost paranoid activity. Her watch was a monumental failure just like that of her son whose intellectual and moral orientation has been heavily criticized.

And what's the use of whipping and whipping a dead horse like Ferdinand Marcos? Or passing his sins to his son, Ferdinand, Jr., who is running for vice-president of his country in the 2016 May elections?

Begging for alms in Baguio City (top) and thatched roofs of houses in Cordon, Isabela.

The Other Luna: Theories of Memories

Ilokano writers  more than 40 years ago. 
Front row: Severino V. Pablo, 
Jean Alejandro (5th) and Peter La Julian
Standing: Joe Gonzales (in dark glasses)  of San Fernando, La Union 
and Pelagio Alcantara (in polo shirt) of Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur

Drying laundry at the Padsan in Laoag City

a red rose inlaid on her cheek,
she shudders at the sight of a lover
under a full moon.

it was a season when water lilies
were abloom
and the crickets sung sans end.
in the late afternoon
the other sonja, balancing a jug on her head,
climbed the bank of Padsan.
it was the last time he saw her,
a little girl in pigtails.
when she came back she was a woman
of intellect, her brains brimming
with theories of knowledge and memories,
a career secured in a university
in the mountain city.
and the boy? he followed her to the end
but he lost the way, his sad poems
etched in a corner somewhere in a garden
of sunflowers.
*****


the young woman in a corner of his mind

now i have you at last, the old man said to himself, delirious. i have you now, he heard himself whispering. 
she was lying naked on top of him on the bed, her young body pressed against him like rock and he could feel her fibulas and femurs, sacrum, breasts, her ribs. a, the fragrance of her searing flesh. she was kissing him with wet, delicious lips, opening her hot, strong legs to heaven. and he almost passed out in ecstasy and bliss.
bad, bad old boy.
***
view

this place is ugly
yet i can't see ugliness
in the presence of a goddess,
her hair flowing in the wind
her eyes sparkling like the far-away stars
in a night of dreams

AQUINO'S infantile COMMENTS ON THE MARCOSES

"Filipinos will never forgive the Marcoses," runs SBA yellow media refrain.

Ilokanos are also Filipinos.

Decades after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, Simeon Benigno Aquino III and his ilk are still stuck with the "Never Again" syndrome. This is a poisonous psychological baggage, divisive and fascistic, that follows the logic and discourses of what they have been hating all these years.

Simeon Benigno's mental aberration is a curse that has been preventing the country from moving forward.

No matter what other Ilokanos say to the contrary, there will always be an Ilokano insurrection against the Aquinos and their oligarchies that include oligarchy-controlled media outfits like the ABS-CBN television network and other media personalities and Marcos bashers.

It is Simeon Benigno III who owes Filipinos a lot of explanation:

1. Why did he allow the then suspended Philippine National Police Chief Alan Purisima to run the Mamasapano operation, where Muslim rebels and other Muslim groups in Maguindanao killed 44 PNP Special Forces? Why was he not held accountable for this fiasco?
2.  Why did his father, Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr., promised in 1983 to then Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir to drop the Philippine claim to Sabah in exchange for his support for the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos? That is, when the late senator himself would replace Marcos as President of the Philippines.*
3. Why did the father of Simeon Benigno III hobnob with the former caudillo of the Communist Party of the Philippines? This Red Pope of Philippine communists now leaving in style in some European country? 
4. Why did the 1987 Cory Aquino Constitution delete Sabah as part of Philippine territory?
5. Why is he tolerating Budget Secretary Butch Abad who mentored Janet Napoles, the mastermind the P10-B scam filch from lawmakers' pork barrel funds?
6. Why is Simeon Benigno III in a hurry for Congress to approve the Bangsamoro Basic Law that would give Muslims a big chunk of Philippine territory? The envisioned Moro substate would be ruled by Sharia law that is incompatible with Philippine laws.
7. Did he eat his boogers when he was a young boy? Was he not then a psychiatrist case?
8. Ad infinitum

*Read Inquirer article: "Ninoy Vowed to Drop Sabah Claim to get KL Support vs. Marcos"

Quote of the day: "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."-- Mahatma Gandhi

PILLAR OF ILOKANO LITERATURE DIES, 91

SANTA MARIA, ILOCOS SUR--Dr. Dedicacion Agatep-Reyes, the other half of the so-called Main Pillars of Ilokano Literature, died of a lingering illness last Saturday in her hometown of Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur.  She was 91.

Dr. Agatep-Reyes,  was the first President of the University of Northern Philippines based in Vigan City, which is celebrating this year its 50th anniversary. She was the widow of Dr. Godofredo S. Reyes, 13-time president of GUMIL-Filipinas, the national association of Ilokano writers, who died several years ago, also in Sta. Maria.

Dr. Cion, as she was popularly known, will be buried in the Catholic Cemetery in her hometown on October 30.

The Reyes couple used to host Ilokano writing seminars and conferences in their house in the coastal village of Suso here.

Ilokano literary luminary, Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who is currently in the country in connection with the Mother Language Education Program, in a statement,  said of Dr. Reyes:

"She is a pillar of Ilokano life, letters, language and academic life. As president of the University of Northern Philippines, she worked through the filth and mud, and nonetheless, made it sure that her province would have its share of the best in thought and professional training for its young. Today, the university ranks as one of the best in the country.

"Through Nana Cion and Dr. Godo Reyes, who was also Ilocos Sur governor and congressional representative, Ilokano writing had its heyday despite the challenges, opening their home and their Suso Beach Resort for those numberless gatherings where we had to talk about the lyricism of our sad, sad, sad Ilokano lives."

US-based journalist and creative writer, Peter La. Julian, in an e-mail message, said that the Reyes spouses left a wide void in Literatura Ilokana that would be hard to fill in the coming years. "They had always been supportive of Ilokano writing since the inception of seminars and conferences as activities for the improvement of the regional literature, " he said. (Guerrero Coloma)

The late Dr. Dedicacion Agatep- Reyes poses for posterity with Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili
 of the University of Hawaii during an Ilokano international literary conference
in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte in 2011.

TIME WASTED and THE UNDISCOVERED WORLD OF SENIORS

Just wasted time reading an article about Felix Manalo, the founder of Iglesia ni Cristo.

It was a well-written piece, a kind of "praise" article designed to promote an indigenous church whose leader was once a member of the old Philippine churches.

The writer did not go deep into his subject, relying mostly on second-hand information and what he saw from the outside--for example, the INC's magnificent and imposing houses of worship across the country including the Philippine Arena, billed as the world's biggest of its kind, which is an income-generating project.

INC followers and ministers believe that Felix was the last messenger of God, citing some verses of Isaiah in the Old Testament and the Apocalypse of the New Testament. This is questionable. This is a big lie.

A Filipino as the last messenger of God?  This is a desecration of the Holy Writ.

It appears that the writer swallowed Felix hook, line and sinker.

Anyway, he is not an investigative reporter who goes for the bloody facts about this church that is being at present wracked with corruption and that has illegally detained some members who bravely spoke about wrongdoings committed by ministers. Including high-ranking officials who have been accused of high living.

***

They have eyes that can't see the blue mountains and beyond where a flock of black birds in V formation disappeared in a sky of utmost blue.

A senior citizen's lament:

This is a world probably of no return, where voices of young children are seldom heard and silence is an eternal presence. Finally, you are aware that you are indeed old but it should not be a reason for sadness.

The best is yet to come, they say, and so we keep busy and look forward for the undiscovered gifts of an unexplored world.
  

SCUTTLE FB ACCOUNT?

Reply to Apo Crispin Dannug, Jr. to his reaction in Facebook:

After 43 years, we are still stuck in the "never again" syndrome of martial law that we judge as wholly evil. Is there a man that is entirely evil? This is a poisonous mental baggage, divisive and fascistic even as it follows the logic and discourse of what we have been hating all these years as we look back in anger--an undercurrent that consumes us, that we refuse to confront, that has blinded us to look and move forward.

****
Facebook account. Knocking it out of sight today. Maybe forever. Let them rage, let them raise hell to kingdom come, let them, let them proclaim their righteousness. But have they noticed that their minds ceased to exist? They have become what they hate--dictators to the max.

ITI PANNAKAITAL-O NI NICK DE SADUT

Nagasatka, lakay.
Panawen ita ti uleg
Kasinsin ti kuton
Dagiti kalapati
Ken rumkuas ti bagio
Ken allawig.

Anian a pintas, daeg
Iti tapaw dagiti bantay.

Anian a gunggona
Ti sangatersia nga agawa:
Maysa a kontrata
Agingga nga aggargarawka
Iti rabaw ti daga.
(Dida la ketdi apiten a masapa
Ti Chivas Regal ken Larkmo.)

Rebbengna a maidayaw
Ni bossmo:
Inimdenganna ti kantam
Ken dagiti sagut
Ni kasimpungalam.
Nagdissoda iti nalukneng
A paset daytoy a parsua
A ti isipna ababaw
A kas iti bubon-kastila.
Iti mabiit bumagunton
Ti palasio ti darepdepmo
Ket makisalipton
Ti stereo ken telebisionmo
Kadagiti riaw ken ariwawa
Dagiti dungrit nga ubbing
Iti nakayanakam a kalsada.
(Ania ngata ti sumaruno
Nga aramiden ti tao
Kalpasan ti idadanonna
Iti lubong ket makitana
Dagiti kinawaengna?
Agsurat iti pakasaritaan
ti biagna, iti libro a tapoken
Iti maysa a suli ti bassit
a biblioteka?)

Nagasatka, lakay
Panawen ita ti uleg
Kasinsin ti billit ti bato
Bumtak dagiti bulkano
Ket maipasngay dagiti nalungpo
A maladaga a naikari
Nga umuli kadagiti tronoda.

THE BANALITY OF GRACE POE AND CHIZ ECUDERO

     Release us from the chains of mediocrity and banality of Ms. Grace Poe and Sen. Chiz Escudero who want to lead Las Islas de Los Ladrones, whose dysfunctional culture has elected into powerful public offices denizens like clowns, criminals, womanizers.

     Poe and Escudero, motivated by surveys, have gone on the campaign trail--this activity is only legally permitted in 2016. They are telling gullible Filipinos they would be doing things to improve their lives--this is also the promise of the other presidential tandems that include Vice-President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Gregorio Honasan.

     This was also the promise of Fidel Ramos, Gloria Macapagal and the convicted economic plunderer Joseph "Erap" Estrada who boasted of having seven wives and building each a house of their own.

     Such promise will always be broken. When the past presidents came to power, they led in the corruption and the ransacking of the national treasury. They created more political dynasties whose insatiable lust for power and wealth defies reason and control.

     Such has been done and will always be done.

     Yet, is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Is there hope in Miriam Santiago and Bongbong Marcos, both of whom, along with the late Sen. Joker Arroyo, did not vote for the ouster of Chief Justice Renato Corona in a rigged impeachment trial?

    Now come Poe and Escudero, behaving like second rate actors adored by a nation of dumb oxen, with their sterile, obsolete and corrupt minds. They are making noises, trivializing the campaign, as if it is easy to be president and vice-president, respectively. 

    These are supposed to be exalted positions.  Believe it or not, here we are again, in a country where such contested seats of power are just domains of popularity and beauty pageants.  As if Poe is running for mayor in some obscure Philippine town, and Escudero, as chief executive in an urban area.

    Here they are insulting our collective minds.

    There are no debates, no platforms to speak of?

TIME IN THE TERRITORY OF NIGHT

for Sonja

So many books to read:
Colorless Tsukuro Tazaki and His Years
of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami;
The People in the Trees;
Into The Wild; Les Miserables by Victor Hugo;
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee;
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels;
Life of Pi (winner of the Man Booker Prize)
by Yann Martel;
Bhagavad Gita As It Is;
Pranic Healing; Writ of Execution;
It is All About Islam by Glenn Beck;
Recuerdo/Memento by Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili;
Puraw a Balitok;  The He(a)rd Mentality
by Herdy La. Yumul; among others.

But time is always in the territory
of night and the dawns are saddled
with memories.
The morning waits even as the sun's splendor
passes by like silence prancing
before a storm.

 "Men of small intelligence worship the demigod, and their fruits are limited and temporary. Those who worship the demigods go to the planets of the demigods, but My devotees ultimately reach my Supreme planet."--Bhagavad Gita as It Is, page 314

THE FIRST FILIPINO RECIPIENT OF THE U.S.CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR

BY PETER LA. JULIAN

(last of two parts)

SAN FERNANDO CITY, LA UNION--Records show that Jose Balinton Nisperos, a private of the then 34th Company, Philippine Scouts, U.S. Army, received the U.S. Congress Medal of Honor in a military ceremony at the Luneta on February 3, 1913. Maj. Gen. Franklin Bell, the commanding General of the Philippine Division, U.S. Army presented him the medal.
   
Raul R. Ingles wrote about the even in an issue of the Manila Times the following day, February 4. Citing sources, Ingles recounted the battle with Yakan outlaws at Lapurap Island in Basilan, in which Nisperos participated and for which the Ilokano soldier was cited for gallantry in action. His account:

"After having his left arm shot above the elbow, Nisperos had dug the stump of his (left) arm into the ground and continued firing his rifle with one arm (right), saving his small party from complete annihilation and preventing the mutilation of the bodies of his fallen comrades."

Primitivo C. Milan, writing in the Sunday Times magazine that came off the press sometime in 1958, said that Nisperos was listed along with American winners of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor in the "Medal of Honor", a publication of the U.S. Army. He claimed in the article that a copy of the publication was then available on file in the office of the Army Attache in the American Embassy in Manila.

Undoubtedly, Milan, a captain of the Philippines' armed forces, based his article on the "Medal of Honor" magazine--supposedly published in South America--and interviews with Nisperos's surviving relatives in San Fernando.

In the first part of this article, we raised the question: Was Nisperos the first Filipino to receive, as he did, the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor?

In an article that appeared in the defunct Ilocos Times dated Nov. 25, 1977, the late San Fernando Mayor Antonio T. Ferraren was quoted as contradicting a news item in one of the Manila dailies that a certain Capt. Jose Calugas of Cebu, a veteran of World War 11, was the first Filipino to win the U. S. Congressional Medal of Honor.

Dr. Gilbert Perez, chief of the vocation education division of the bureau of public schools also disputed the claims of the national daily. He had met with Nisperos' widow Potenciana in the eaarly part of 1952, and promised to look into the case regarding the latter's survivor's pension.

Romeo J. Arceo, also of the Manila Times, said that Dr. Perez lamented the fact that the United States Veterans Administration did not inform him (Perez) what action Washington had taken almost six years after he presented USVA the case of the Nisperos widow.

At any rate, Calugas, who was a special guest of the Philippine government during cermonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Fall of Bataan in March 1952, acknowledged to the press at that time that there were two other Filipino recipients of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor.

Milan, writing in the Philippine Free Press issue of Oct. 17, 1957, mentioned the names of the Filipino recipients--Nisperos, as the first recipient of the award, followed by a certain Telesforo Trinidad who was with the U.S. Navy (1915) and Calugas, then a sergeant with the U.S. who fought in Bataan in 1942.

Will justice be given to Nisperos as the first Filipino to win the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor? Will justice be given to his widow Potenciana, who died penniless years ago, with respect to her survivor's pension claims? (We met the widow sometime in the late 1990's in their house in San Fernando when we interviewed her in the late 1990's for an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Vic Alhambra, Jr. , then PDI photographer, took a photo of Potenciana, which was published in the Inquirer accompanying said article.)

"THE LITANIES OF OUR HOPE AND DESPAIR"

     A million thanks, Estela Bisquera Guerrero, for reading and liking some of the lines of the protest poetry, "The Litanies of Our Hope and Despair". 

     The poem was one of the five that I submitted to Prof. Junley Lorenzana Lazaga of the University of the Philippines Baguio for his Ilokano Project-- an anthology of Ilokano poems written from 2000 to 20015. I submitted at least 5 poems, three of which are parallel texts (Ilokano with English translations.)

Here are the lines that interested Estela, a mannurat who writes for Bannawag, the Ilokano weekly magazine printed in the Philippines. This appeared on my timeline in my FB account:

  "Ania ngamin ti kinapudno?/ What then is truth?
 Ti kinapudno iti imatang dagiti politiko?/Truth in the eyes of politicians?
 Ti kinapudno iti amiris dagiti tattao?/Truth as analyzed by the people?
 Wenno ti pudno a kinapudno?/Or the truth that is truly true?
 Salakniban kadi iti bassawang-retorika ti politika/Shall we defend it from the pompous political rhetoric
 A manglenglengnges iti ina a daga?/That is choking the motherland?"

HAS THE PHILIPPINES GOTTEN ANY BETTER AFTER 1986?

     Has my beloved country, the Philippines, gotten any better after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986?

     Do landlords, their kind, and their factotums still dominate Congress? Or have they morphed into political dynasties that rob with impunity the state coffers?

     Where have gone  the Edsa "heroes" and their ideals, "their new minds, new manners that, in pursuit of the sun, shall burn the night with liquid fire of high ambition?"

MY BEST-KEPT SECRET:

I love Yaya,
I love Alden,
I love Wally.

Narabaw laeng ti eellekan, Nababa laeng a paglinglingayan, low class, udong, mimmintok, tanga, langgong, awanan namnama a naipisok iti duduogan a kannawidan.

Our "it" in the teleserye narrative is not in the slapstick. "It" is somewhere, and taken as a whole--even outside of it. Deconstruct the semi-extemporaneous discourse in today's episode.

Hey, this Joey de Leon has just cut off my adulation of Yaya and ended my viewing of the noontime show. With his comment based on the box-office potential of the successful "Heneral Luna" film. If Yaya and Alden starred in the  film, it would have been an instant hit, according to Joey, who along with Vic Sotto and Richie D'Horsey (God bless his soul) gang raped Pepsi Paloma sometime in 1982. The trio escaped punishment when Tito Sotto, brother of Vic, was able to convince the bomba star to drop the rape charges against the trio.

?

PARNGED

Adayo-nga-asideg dagiti bituen
Adda ti pukkaw ti kullaaw
Nga umadayo iti karasakas
A rumkuas iti rimmuong
     dagiti adu a tawen.

Dara a saan ket a ling-et ti tumrem
     iti agmatuon.
Ngem magnatayo latta...pagna a pagna
    nga awan turongenna.

Adda met no maminsan ti init

     kadagiti aringgawis.

Anansata, kankanayon nga agbiroktayo
    iti lusotan iti kabakiran.
Kankanayon a sipaparngedtayo
     iti igid ti sibilisasion.

WHAT SONG DO WE SING NOW, PATRIOTS?

"All Of Me," theme song of the teleserye of the same title

A recollection, a sad narrative

in an island, the sea, the blue mountain

almost a dirge, a life that was ebbing

away in the arms of the lover, a sad, dying smile 

caught in memory

crumbling in the hollow of his hands

A beggar plies her trade in Baguio, Philippines

MARTIAL LAW AS AN ABERRATION

You are still abhorring martial law, but you let in wolves and other raiders of the national patrimony.

What song do we sing now, patriots of freedom? 

The oligarchies led by the Cojuangco-Aquino business empire created this socio-economic-political structure, a kind of modern-day slavery morass where millions of Filipinos wallow in misery and poverty and suffer useless deaths, at least in the cases, and there are several, of those who eat poisonous garbage bread. 

And homeless people are everywhere, especially in Manila, the loyal city of dreams, where the convicted economic plunderer Joseph Estrada reigns supreme, repeating his misdeeds again.

Yes, we gained freedom to swing your arms even where our stupid heads begin.

Indeed, martial law was an aberration, but after 1986 we have not learned anything from it because your hate and anger against the Marcoses did not go away, blinding you to the opportunities that would have made this country a model for economic  development in this part of the world.  

MORAL IMPERATIVES AND THE GODS OF SMALL THINGS

     ON THE "RIGHTEOUS" CRITICS:

     They use a set of moral imperatives to condemn others for what they call their unforgivable acts, while they are stony silent on the misdeeds committed by their gods of small things, who violated the ethical rules of their own exclusive cultural domain.

WHY THERE IS MISERY AND WIDESPREAD POVERTY IN THE PHILIPPINES

            AFTER THE FALL OF FERDINAND MARCOS IN 1986

"We will never attain full democracy until we eliminate these political dynasties for a true democracy cannot be a monopoly of a few but should be in the hands of the many."--Reynato S. Puno, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

Another cold, bloody facts from the ex-Chief Justice:

"The Philippine economy is served by 36 commercial banks but only four families control more than 60 percent of the P7-trillion resource of the entire commercial banking industry. Only ten families own 60 percent of the P10-trillion combined capitalization of 300 business companies in the country. Such a business environment fosters a 'state of despotism'that aims to preserve the monopoly of the few, thus following a theory of government of the few and for the few. The present electoral system becomes vulnerable to force and fraud from political leaders who seek power by establishing political dynasties. We cannot live a full democracy with this kind of system where governments have failed to put a stop to political dynasties. Such a system 'relentlessly amasses resources' from the people's coffers to benefit only members of the family and loyal political allies."

The Political Model of Jejomar Binay

Such is the case of Vice-President Jejomar Binay who has been lord and master of Makati, the richest city in the Philippines, since 1986. He was supposed to have been a poor human rights lawyer during the martial law regime. In the company of Senators Benigno Aquino, Jr.and Heherson Alvarez ; Butch Aquino and others who were in the forefront in the fight against the dictatorship. 

Binay has amassed enormous wealth. He and his wife, his son and daughters form the Binay political dynasty. Jejomar, his wife Elenita and their son Junjun (he was suspended for graft and corruption) sat as mayor of Makati one after the other without interruption. Daughter Abigail represents Makati in the Lower House while daughter Nancy is a senator.

FM's martial law aimed to dismantle these oligarchies that grew like mushrooms after his fall. Needless to say, Edsa cut this aim and nipped the reforms, and the so-called bloodless revolution inaugurated instead the era of political dynasties led by Binay.

In the interim, the Aquino-Cojuangco business empire expanded and multiplied a million times and put a mentally-deficient heir as president in Las Islas de los Ladrones.

Punieta, the assassinated Ilokano Gen. Antonio Luna would have said of this arrangement, a kind of modern-day slavery, where more than 50 million Filipinos wallow in misery and poverty, and suffer useless deaths like those who eat poisonous garbage bread.  

PAGAMMUAN, RABIIN

                                                          Yet the ear distinctly tell

                                                            in the jangling,

                                                            and the dangling,

                                                   how the danger sinks and swells

                                                   by the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells--

                                                              of the bells--

                                                              of the bells, bells, bells, bells--

                                                                      bells, bells, bells--

                                                    in the clamor and the clanging of the bells.

                                                                               Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bells"

Fishing boats in Currimao, Ilocos Norte, Philippines

BANGA, CLAY POTS, SOLD IN THE MARKETPLACE IN LAOAG CITY, PHILIPPINES

                                                                         

Nalawa ti kuarto
ita a bigat
kas iti kauneg ti sugatmo
iti sagumbi
dagiti maulit-ulit a lagip:

Ayanmo idi awan pay
dagiti buong a botelia ti serbesa
ken kuppit a latlata iti taaw?
Idi rabii, impatayab ti ballailaw
a pagtokaran daydi kantam
idinto a nagallangogan iti naasuk
a paginuman ti katkatawa, gargarakgak
ken dagiti gumpo dagiti immawer
a tawen.

Kastoy koma ti napasamak--
saan, saan--kasdiay koma ketdi.

Ti init nga agkarkaradap itay
     iti desarming a tawa
immulin kadagiti atep:

Mulinaw nga imuko ti isasarungkar manen,
natadem a kas iti iking ti agsapa.
Ti kanito kenka ket nagango a bulbulong
iti nadagaang nga aldaw.

Masapul nga umkis dagiti sallapingaw
iti baet dagiti adu nga arimpadek
iti entablado a naggargarawan dagiti agbibiag
iti sarita.

Malagipmo ti kinasingpet ti agtutubo
iti daan nga ili, ket pagammuan, rabiin.

THE CHIEF NEGOTIATOR MUST BE LYING

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MERCY IN BARBARISM

There is mercy in barbarism, according to Abu Bakir Naji, the Muslim terrorists' leading intellectual and moral adviser.

And analyze the following as it appears in the Quran (Sura 5:33):

"The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off on the opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter."

The Islamic punishment could be the reason why violent Muslims in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front finished off the 44 Special Forces of the Philippine National Forces in Mamasapano. The cops had gone to the place, supposedly controlled by MILF, to arrest a certain Marwan who was reportedly involved in the Bali bombing that killed more than 200, mostly Australian tourists.

Read Glenn Beck's "It Is About Islam" that may be available at any outlet of the National Bookstore in the Philippines.

*****
The things including hate and anger that the blogger now carries have a total weight of almost nothing. Shortly, I will  start picking up pieces, the best that I could find, including one or two which may be diamond from the garbage of memory.

Rizal street in front of the provincial capitol
 of Ilocos Norte in Laoag City, Philippines

"Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object outside themselves and their personal happiness."--Leo Tolstoy

"Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works."--Virginia Woolf

"Write to save yourself," Athos said, "and someday you'll write because you've been saved."-- from a chapter in Anne Michaels novel, "Fugitive Pieces"

ON THE SHORT STORY

"A good short story is a story which is not too long and which gives the reader the feeling he has undergone a memorable experience."--Martha Foley

"I want stories in which the author shows frank concern, not self-protective, 'sensible' detachment."--John Gardner

"The best short stories contain novels. Either they are densely plotted, with each line an insight, or they distill emotions that could only easily have spread on for pages, chapters."--Louise Erdrich