ON WRITING AND READING

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation, They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life. They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We re given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping with the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed it over and over again. It is like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together at that ship."--Anne Lamott

****

Why invest time and energy to an activity that exposes you to unnecessary scrutiny?

           Their arguments against the burial of a dead man have become irrelevant. Are they applying the doctrine of half-truths? 

           These discourses are heartless expletives, routinely parroted by like-minded individuals and speak of the kind of persons that they are--unreconstructed human impostors enslaved by time-bounded psychological thinking of simpletons whose minds are in their anuses.

DUA A DANIW A DI NAIRAMAN ITI "UMAYKA MNEN, GANGGANNAET/COME AGAIN, STRANGER"

panaas

Umarubayan dagiti laglagip
iti kasaor ti malem-sardam
idiay Laoag, ditoy Menifee
iti batog ti kidem a langit:
karkarsanna idi ti kadaratan
iti baet ti saraisi ti paraupo
alaenna ti buyuboy, kil-awanna
sana takuen ti litnaw a yallatiw
iti agar-arimasa a malabi. idi kuan,
ballasiwenna ti karayan, ti imnas
a nagduanig, umis-isem ken nagsusuon iti
nasam-it a danum ni ayat--
daytoy ti kaudian nga am-ammangaw,
alimbasag ken tarimbangon
dagiti palimed ken naliday a dandaniw
a mariing kadagiti ulila a parbangon.

***
dagiti saning-i ti sierra*
(para ken ni grace padaca iti pannakapilina a gobernadora ti isabela)

siasino ngamin ti makalagip
kadagitoy a bambanti? dakami
laeng a lingka ti daga,
dakami a mangyarado iti bagbagimi
iti agmatuon idinto nga agkatkatawa
dagiti mangituray iti imeng
dagiti palasioda iti tangatang
idiay manila idiay baguio
idiay tagaytay idiay ballasiw-taaw.
siasino ti makalagip kadaydi a nasipnget a rabii
idiay angadanan ken san isidro
idi rinumekda dagiti sagrado
a pangngeddengmi?
(ay, dagiti natadem a kawwet
ti basingkawel pinisangpisangda dagiti balota
iti atiddog a basilio ti bilegda!)
kasapulan nga agkantakami
ngem uray iti bantay
saan a mabilang dagiti maligsay
a tarumpingay ket alimbasagenkami
iti adu a dissuor dagiti barukongmi.
nalpasen dagiti ublag ken tirtiris
ta nasarakanmi dagiti timekmi
ket sangsangkamaysakami a nangyebkas
iti luksaw ken pungtotmi
kadagiti rabngis iti kalinteganmi.
(Uray no dagiti sayukmo ti rikna
ibatadna met ti kawaw a kararua,)
Ita, mablinmi a panawan dagiti balaymi,
dagiti agdan iti sanggir dagiti kawayan.
dayyengenmi ngarud ngarud ti duayya ti namnama
ken awyaway
ket ti balligim isu met ti kantami.


*naipablaak iti Bannawag, aglinawas a magasin dagiti Ilokano

WHY WASTE PRECIOUS TIME AND RHETORIC WITH YESTERDAY?

     For Riza Hontiveros, the newly-elected Philippine senator, who allegedly distributed books in the public schools in an attempt to educate young Filipinos on martial law and the "evils" of Ferdinand Marcos. Hontiveros, a beneficiary of the Yellow Cult like  
Senator Leila de Lima, and her like-minded supporters have allowed anger and hate to stifle
their true nature as professional human beings.

          "You may give them your love but not
       your thoughts,
          For they have their own thoughts.
          You may house their bodies but not
       their souls,
          For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
       which you can not visit, not even
       in your dreams.
          You may strive to be like them, but seek
       not to make them like you.
          For life goes not backward nor tarries
       with yesterday."--Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet, published in 1923 


     Hontiveros agitating young Filipinos to hate Ferdinand Marcos is no more than Palestinian radicals teaching young generation of Palestinians to become terrorists. 

WHY NO ILOKANO WRITER WINS FIRST PRIZE IN THE PALANCA

At least for the past four years? Was it second or third prizes only?

From the horse's mouth, Apo Agca (Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa), one of the perennial judges of the contest:

"I don't think any of these entries deserves a first prize. A first prize indicates artistic capability, quality of the work, and a clarity of vision and insight.

"The language, generally, is not the best that I expected. It lacks creativity, restraint, elegance, and the capacity to suggest symbolic meaning.

"We must demand more from our Ilokano fictionists. What we have here is the same format we have seen since time immemorial, the same opera-like stories, the same age-old issues that could be solved by using the magic want or uttering abracadabra.

"We are suggesting to our writers, this: Hey, you shape up. We don't award you the first prize because you came in first in the ranking. We are awarding the first prize because that first prize meets all the criteria of a first prize, of the highest prize."

Addendum from the Lebanese spiritual writer Kahlil Gibran who wrote the masterpiece, The Prophet, published in 1923, that he considered his greatest achievement:

"I think I've never been without The Prophet since I fist conceived the book back in Mount Lebanon. It seems to have been a part of me...I kept the manuscript four years before I delivered it to my publisher because I wanted to be sure, I wanted to be sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer."

***
"Preach the gospel at all times; whenever it is possible use words."--St. Francis of Assisi

"We live forward but we understand backward." --Kierkegard

We, the Filipino People Report this Injustice and Inequality and Oppression

The Social Security System and Fat Salaries, Fat Bonuses of SSS Officials

How can Emilio Quiroz, Jr., SSS Chief Executive Officer, say as he did that it was moral for him to give P4-M bonus to himself and other high-ranking officials of the pension fund?

SSS pensioners receive as low as P2,000 per month while SSS Vice-presidents receive as high as P4-M each in monthly salaries. Actually, with their fat salaries and bonuses, SSS officials dissipate the pension fund by more than P100-million a month.

****
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."--Albert Camus

"The serious revolutionary, like the serious artist can't afford to lead a sentimental or self-deceiving life."-- Adrienne Rich

"Oh, to be alive in such an age when miracles are everywhere and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy of greater marvels yet to be."--Angel Morgan, author of "The Hour Has Come", a war poem and other poems.

"In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you."--Buddha

"In their own unique way, the Ilokanos are ramparts of the larger and evolving society. With their contributions, the seed of a larger community has been sown and is today beginning to grow and bear fruit."--from "Ladaoan", the Iloko and the Ilokanos"

Ilocos Norte Provincial Capitol in Laoag City, Philippines