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.