JAPAN'S DISASTERS: THE KARMIC LAW?

ANDRES MIGUEL PASION


The wrath of nature an implementation of the Karmic Law?

We are humans and we grieve over those who perished in Japan's triple disasters: the 8.9 magnitude earthquate and the tsunami that killed, at the latest count, 20,000 people and its crippled nuclear plant--we can only surmise how long would that be when the first victims of radiation will be known.

But those who believe in mysticism, misteries if you will, and the karmic law and even the Biblical injunction about the wages of sins visiting the generations will attribute the country's misfortunes to the pre-ordained fate: Japan must pay the debts for its subjugation of people from Manchuria to Burma to Southeast Asian and the Philippines, where its brutal forces bayonetted children, burned and buried alive men and women, whom they also raped, in World War II and even before that global upheaval. All for the glory of Emperor Hirohito.

De-Activating the FB Account

So far the floods of suffocating email messages have stopped flowing since almost a week ago. Before, I was busy deleting unwanted stuffs, even tagged ones like videos which I could not play in the laptop, anyway, because of inadequate internet connections. Missed my cyber friends, but do you miss someone you have not seen in person ?

The name, the Mangyan maiden, is probably an exception. But she is saying I am fading away from her. That's what her girl-mind thinks. A choice. For me, once a friend always a friend--you can not "unfriend" anymore who you consider one of few sincere and honest friends you have. Walang iwanan. But that's her decision. Yet she can always come to me in Abel, or I, to her through the blog. Muchas gracias, amiga, para los comentos. The poet as number two in the hierarchy of VIPs? Overrating the person? Praise the Lord!

2011 PANAGBENGA FIESTA DAGITI SABSABONG

Teksto ni Isabel Miguel Pasion

Retrato ni Jonathan Vincent Co

SIUDAD TI BAGUIO--Awan duadua a daytoy ti kadakkelan a rambak a naidaton kadagiti sabsabong. Inaganam dagiti pusaksak ken sampaga, okey, sabsabong, a nausar kadagiti 24 a karosa: marapait, rosa, chrysanthemum, statis, baby's breath, anthurium, uong a kasla kadakkel dagiti ansisit. Pattapattaem no mano ti bilang dagiti nausar, saan laeng a kadagiti karosa no di pay dagiti dekorasion ti siudad dekorasion iti panagpaut ti pasken.

Petsa 26 ti Febrero 2011 idi maangay ti parade of floots a nangrugi iti ngatuen ti Session Road. Awan ti itiitan iti agsumbangir a paset ti kalsada.

Iti Kankana-ey a pagsasao dagiti tattao ti Mountain Province ken akin-amianan a paset ti Benguet, panagsantak, panagsampa, panagrusing wenno panagbusel ti kayat a sawen ti panagbenga. Idi 1995 a nainaw ti konsepto ti Panagbenga. Kasano nga agtalinaed pay laeng dagiti turista a kaaduanna nga agdadarisonda iti Kapaskuaan? Ket naipasngay daytoy a konsepto a nagbalin a natibker nga adigi ti industria ti turismo iti Filipinas. Iti daytoy naudi a panagrambak, aganay a 500, 000 ti dimmar-ay a tattao, lokal ken ganggannaet a turista.

Of Pseudo Journalists

Strutting like a wild peacock, a media
Acolyte and a bodyguard at his side
This fakir fakery walks the corridor
Thinking he was entering triumphantly
After his garbage paper made an " expose"
Of imagined venalities of the agency.
(What a pre-homo erectus specie
Irresponsible, no talent entity, parading
His low IQ and his idiocy!)

Suddenly, this slimy creature, masquerading
As a brave member of the Fourth Estate,
Ran down the stairs like a monkey terrified,

The tail between the legs, and sought refuge

In the arms of authority he has despised.

Cried he to the female cop, "They pointed

A gun at me there, they wanted me dead!"

The chief, descending from his sanctum,

Saw him from a distance and said, "It's him,

The quarry in Agoo. Agooyong."*

Indeed, this liar king met his adversary

In that cloudy afternoon in January.

But a convict always bears false testimony

He will remain the unreconstructed impostor

Whose mind is in his anus

Or to be fair and generous

Some brains are scattered in his pig eyes,

Some in his foul mouth forever swilling

His own urine laced with vomit green.

*Iloko pun on Agoo, a La Union town,

which means, "crazy or madman."

THE MILITARY HORSEMEN OF OUR APOCALYPSE

     "Those pointless equations, to which no solutions exists, are called absurdities." (Anagram in The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson). 
     In the country's military aristocracy, the equation involves billions of pesos, generals and their subordinates and their political protectors and loot sharers. Given our collective amnesia, there is no solution to the recovery of the money and the identities of the perpetrators may be classified as absurdities.

LIKE THE ROSE

All rights reserved

the anti-thesis of impermanence:

only the sea? the sky?

the name shall fade away

the facebook lover, too,

the name

a love-song on the lips

of a zsa-zsa padilla look-alike

wasting her last singing breath in a man's bar

in binondo

even the notes--our sorrows,

our pains, our anger--

in the blog

no argument, shue lien, no argument

but where they torch the truth-bearer

it is dangerous to be alive
and be true

to oneself.

The Journalist as Poet Reporting the Violence of our Times

Gamu is a town in the Mallig region in Isabela. It was, at one time, a killing field of criminal gangs and the kakadua, an Iloko euphemism for members of the New People's Army or dissident terrorists, a tag concocted by the military. The violence has ceased somewhat but it's ugly head is alive, ready to ride again as elsewhere in the country, particularly Mindanao. (Muslim Mindanao is a misnomer and should be removed from the books because it would seem that the area is populated exclusively by Muslims. In fact, Mindanao excluding Basilan and Sulu and the other islands is dominated by Christians who comprise 80 percent of the population.)

Are we a violent people? If what we do as reported in the print and broadcast media is a gauge, then we are. A misplaced stare or a song like Frank Sinatra's "My Way" sung off-key by a videoke enthusiast could trigger a killing. An argument between friends could also lead to a fatal duel. Nalakatayo nga agpungtot. Is it in the genes? What went wrong with the structures of the child's socialization process? Has the school failed in its moral goal? Did the church lose its credibility as moral agent because of the sexual misconduct of some of its priests? Has the family abdicated its role in child- rearing?

Or has the economic malaise affected the brains?

Going back to Muslims in Mindanao, who kidnap and behead Christians in Mindanao. Is Islam a violent religion? Why does it promote suicide bombing, as in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas in the Middleast and even London and Madrid? Because, the Koran says so, according to a British imam, who said that every verse in their version of the Bible can be used to justify killings, especially against the infidels or those who are outside their religion. But Jehovah is also a violent deity, always angry, always ordering the execution of sinners, at least in the Old Testament. And why are Buddhists, whose religion (?) is without a God but promulgating moral maxims like those written in tablets and received by Moses at Mount Sinai, generally peaceful persons?

In the following poem, Gamu is not merely a symbol for rural violence but also for urban hate and mayhem. (Warning: Rabii stands for something other than a time of day.) Taken from my anthology, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger " ,it was written ten years or so ago. But because of it's theme, it was as if it was composed yesterday, based on an event (elsewhere) the journalist reported in one of the local papers or radio stations.

Rabii Idiay Gamu

Nairteng man ti lidem-bengbeng
Umang-anges daytoy nga ulimek
Ket iti adayo a pulikkaaw-riaw
Yegna dagiti aligagaw.
Adu, kunada, dagiti ubbong
Ti dara dagiti karayan ti lua
A di ammo ti pagpatinggaanna.
Sipsiputan dagiti anniniwan
Dagiti aggargaraw iti kasipngetan
Ket dagiti darikmat ti kamalala
Dagiti agpagunggan.

Mamedmedan dagiti katawa
Umel-tuleng dagiti sarsarita
Uray ti angin a di makatalna
Agur-uray met iti agsapa.
Ti buteng linengngesna ida
Sinno ti agtured a mangsaranget
Iti bala ti kinadangkokda?
Sinno ti agtured a makikadua
Iti natugkelan iti padeppa?

(Kanayon nga agsawar ti patay
Uray iti aldaw, sumrek lattan
Iti ruangan, saan nga agdayaw.
Pumanaw nga awan aniamanna
Inton maibanagna ti panggepna.)

Ket napuskol daytoy a manto
A maakas laeng no agparintumengda
Inton ikkatenda ti sullat
Dagiti lapayagda inton ray-benda
Ti abbong dagiti matada
inton lapgisenda
Ti punit dagiti ngiwatda
Ket usarenda ti naglati a ngiwatda.




Translating a written work, especially a poem, that, is from language A (Iluko) ti language B (English) is always difficult. Something is always lost since no two languages coincide because of the cultural divide and other nuances. Even if we use, as we did with the above poem, the so-called dynamic process, where the message, not the form/structure of the language, is emphasized, there is always a "failure" in getting the exact message across.

Anyway, can the native get the true meaning of the poem? What is the solution to the mindless violence as suggested by the author ? Can the reader interpret the lines in plain language? Write us and we will gift you with the anthology, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger" from which the poem was lifted.