DID THE COMEDIAN RAPE DENIECE CORNEJO?

     No such rape could have taken place, according to the lawyer of the comedian Vong Navarro. She cited the CCTV camera that recorded the coming of Vhong Navarro to the condo unit of his alleged victim.
     There was rape, according to Lawyer Howard Calleja, counsel of the victim, citing the circumstances involving Vhong and Deniece Cornejo.
     Charges of serious physical injuries and illegal detention against Cornejo and Cedric Lee could get the goat of the two and several others that include an allaged martial arts artist. 
    This is also the case between the lawyers, their arguments and their logical reasoning.

Quote of the day: "Happier thoughts lead to essentially a happier biochemistry. A happier, healthy body. Negative thoughts and stress have been shown to seriously degrade the body and the functioning of the brain, because it's our thoughts and emotions that are continously re-assembling, re-organizing, re-creating our body."--Dr. John Hagelin

ORTHOGRAPHY STIRS CONTROVERSY

ILOKANO ORTHOGRAPHY STIRS CONTROVERSY

BY PETER LA. JULIAN

        LAOAG CITY--An Ilokano orthography or how to spell words in the language, which is being used by school children in Ilocos Norte, has raised a storm of protest from Ilokano academicians, scholars, writers, teachers and other stakeholders.
     The said orthography is said to have been crafted by the education department of Ilocos Norte in accordance to the Ortograpiang Pambansa or national orthography designed by the Komisyon nga Wikang Filipino for the country's various languages now being used as mediums of instruction under the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education program.
     In a statement, the Joint National and International Committee for the Protection of the Ilokano Language, said that the KWF-endorsed Ilokano orthography and the spelling proposal violated the implementing guidelines of the MTB-MLE with respect to the role of "stakeholder participation" in the drawing up of the orthography.
     The JNICPIL is composed of various groups and organizations of academicians, scholars and writers based in the Philippines and abroad.
     The organizational stakeholders include Nakem Conferences Philippines, Guild Of Ilokano Writers Philippines, Guild Of Ilokano Writers America including the Chavacano Ethnolinguist Group.
     Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, coordinator of the Ilokano program in the University of Hawaii at Manoa, claimed that JNICPIL was never consulted in the drawing up of the Ilokano orthography, the proposals and guidelines of which were contained in an 8-page booklet circulated among teachers in Ilocos Norte.
     Dr. Agcaoili, author of Ilokano books and Ilokano-English dictionaries, claimed that scholars who read the booklet said that it "is not productive, or will not fulfill its role as better alternative to existing Ilokano orthography, with its overly popular form and not being able to articulate a more intellectualized discourse needed in knowledge productio.
     The JNICPIL Statement urged the KWF to make public the process involved in coming out with the KWF-endorsed Ilokano Orthography that has been patterned after the Tagalog Orthography.
     The idea of making all Philippine languages conform to the orthography of one dominant language is an outdated practice, reminiscent of language planning done by fascit governments in the past, according to the Statement.
     According to the booklet, the letter F has been replaced by the letter P in the spelling of ordinary Ilokano words and the pronoun or its derivative has been separated and stands alone in sentences (example, makasurat ak instead of makasuratak as used in Bannawag, the Iluko weekly magazine, and other Ilokano journals and newspapers.)
    Earlier, Dr. Agcaoili said that his Timpuyog dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano Global Hawaii, the Hawaii-based writers guild, protested, "but all we got is a lame letter from the Department of Education, saying that the KWF Ilokano Orthgraphy went through a consultation process."
     The booklet was authored by a certain Joel Bagain Lopez, an official of the Deped in Ilocos Norte
     Dr. Agcaoili did not say what groups or government agency were involved in the consultation process
but the MTB-MLE guidelines specifically name agencies like the Department of Labor and Employment, public and private schools teacher organizations, national student organizations, among others.
     The signatories of the Statement are all stakeholders of the Ilokano language, according to Dr. Agcaoili, and  "we wish to participate in all aspects of htis MTB-MLE and not to be used as pawns at the service of some narrow views or agenda."
    A copy of the Statement was personally given to Dr. Virgilio Almario, KWF chair, during a literary seminar at the Dep-ed auditorium in Laoag last Saturday by Prof. Herdy La Yumul of the Mariano Marcos State University.
     During the open forum, Almario said that KWF was not endorsing the Ilokano Orthography and that the issue should be resolved by Lopez and the stakeholders, according to Yumul.
     In attendance was Lopez who told Yumul, one of the country's top bloggers, and other participants that he was only following  Deped order, and that he was willing to sit down and discuss the matter with stakeholders of the Ilokano language.


   
   
   
   

     The Philippines hosts several languages--eight major ones and several others--and with speakers having different articulation of letters of the alphabet, is it possible to have a national orthography? We doubt the practicality of having one but the department of education is said to have devised a way to write words in various languages. How did they do it?
     We have not seen the memorandum to the effect regarding Ilokano orthography based on the suggestions of some members of an Ilokano writers organization. This has raised a howl among writers, especially those in Nakem Conference, saying the imposition of the IO is a kind of linguistic injustice.  

FIRST ILOKANO CARDINAL

   

     From the lead paragraph of the first page of the country's most prestigious newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer, where the blogger was a correspondent:

     KIDAPAWAN CITY--The chant "Habemus cardinalem" (We have a cardinal) reverberated around the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) congregation and across the country on Sunday night as news spread that Cotabato Archibishop Orlando B. Quevedo had been appointed by Pope Francis to the College of Cardinals.

     And the blogger says with pride in the language in which the new prince of the Church was born,  "Addaantayo iti Ilokano a Cardinal" (We have an Ilokano Cardinal).
     Indeed, the soon to be installed Cardinal comes from the hardy race of Ilokanos who inhabit the narrow piece of coastal land in Northwestern Luzon, but now are found all over the country and the world especially in Hawaii and the US Mainland. 
     Archbishop Quevedo was born in Laoag City in 1939 but his family moved to Marbel, Cotabato in Mindanao in 1947. He was an altar boy and sold the weekly paper, Mindanao Cross, which celebrated its 65 year anniversary last year. He studied at the San Jose Seminary in Quezon City, was ordained priest in 1964 and became prelate of Kidapawan in 1980.
     He went on to become bishop of his adopted province of Cotabato and archbishop of Vigan City- based Nueva Segovia whose territory include the three Ilocos provinces and the Cordillera Administrative Region.
     Hail to the first Ilokano Cardinal! 

GOODBYE, DON NARCISO

 

   The blogger never met the old men when he was alive. He was supposed to have been living in the Waipahu area, Hawaii, where residents are mostly Ilokanos. He was living with her daughter Elsie's family who is married to my nephew Gerry. My wife and I were in Hawaii at that time  and we visited Elsie, a nurse, and Gerry, vice- president of a care home association in Hawaii, at their well-appointed home. The old man had left for the Philippines months earlier.
     Elsie's father, 88, died several days ago in his native San Nicolas home in Northern Philippines and the couple arrived last Monday for the wake and the burial of Don Narciso this coming Saturday.  The blogger attended the wake of the old man two days ago. It was from Gerry that I learned about Don Narciso who established the famous Mamaclay Metal Works that had several branches in Ilocos Norte. It was a profitable business, according to Gerry, and the Mamaclay family was one of the richest in the town at that time, he added. 
     The old men and his wife had five children, all professionals. Elsie's younger brother, a brilliant physician, one of the best in the profession, is the president of the Ilocos Norte Medical Society. 
     He who had a full successful life will be buried in San Nicolas. His body will be kept in a pantheon in a high-priced memorial park in the town.

     Update: Gerry and Elsie are going to the Philippines in September 2014 to attend the death anniversary of Don Narciso

RUBY TUASON EXPOSES THE COUNTRY'S HOODLUMS

 
   There is hope after all in Las Islas de Los Ladrones with the Lady coming forward and exposing those guys comprising the country's biggest syndicate.
    Add to this another whistle-blower Dennis Cunanan who told media the three senators called him at his office to "expedite" the use of their pork barrel, which would then be release to a fake NGO of the alleged scam queen Janet Napoles.
    But the blogger does not focus on the story.
In fact, this is only an attachment, nay a postscript/prescript

to what has already been written: The Country's Hoodlums and Don Juan Tenorios.

      Don Juan Tenorios are scattered all over Las Islas de Los Ladrones in the name of lawmakers--senators and congressmen. They have all the money to seduce the so-called weaker sex, building mansions for mistresses, creating bank accounts for them and their illegitimate children.
    One Don Juan Tenorio, whose senator son has been accused of pocketing millions of pesos from kickbacks through the use of his presidential development assistance fund, is said to have sired more than 80 children from many women some of whom were Las  Islas de Los Ladrones beauties and actresses.
      Womanizing, of course, is not the monopoly of these politicians who have a way of dipping their fingers on the state cookie jars. (Now you know why the country is called Las Islas de Los Ladrones?)
     This business of keeping women not their wives is also present among  writers. Needless to say, these are not starving writers as most of this kind are in a country, where the population apparently has no interest in reading books or in the arts. 
   The president of a provincial chapter of the organization claimed that the leader is "that way" with one female staffer of their magazine and that the wife (of Don Juan Tenorio) sensed something wrong and asked the chapter president for the phone number of the girl who is also married and is the kept woman of another man. 
     

     The other officer, according to another member, has also given a bank account to his alleged girl friend in the organization. The lucky girl has P300,000 at her disposal?  Come again, Heramylinda? What? Did you see the pass book?
     How do you describe these acts of Don Juans who are supposed to be models of good behavior because they are writers?  
         

ST.MATTHEW REMINDER ON SUNDAY FOR CHRISTIANS INCLUDING ILOKANO WRITERS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Matthew 6: 22-23

    "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness."
     This is the official Ilokano version of the Philippine Catholic church as translated by the blogger, a mannurat, when he, given the imprimatur by the Batanes Bishop Mario Baltazar, became  member of a 7-man ecumenical group that translated the whole Bible in Baguio City:

Mateo 6:22-23

     "Ti mata ti pannakasilaw ti bagi; no nasalun-at ti matam, nalawag ti entero a bagim. Ngem no saan a nasalun-at ti matam, nasipnget ti entero a bagim. Isut' gapuna a no nakudrep ti silawmo, anian a kinasipnget!

Of course, this is not the Scripture reading in the December 5, 2014 Catholic Mass in the Philippines.

   

PHILIPPINE POVERTY: THE MIND OF A BISHOP OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

      
     "Poverty is our destiny."
     Thus says a Facebook commentator, reacting to the following statement by Bishop Gilbert Garcera of the Diocese of Daet, Camarines Sur: 
     "The overpopulation that breeds poverty was not a problem because poverty itself was not a problem."
     "Poverty even brought people "closer" to God and was instrumental in realizing God's plan for Filipinos to take care of other nationalities by inducing migration and working abroad."
     Should not the Pope scold this Philippine bishop for this kind of thinking. It is as if he is "encouraging" poverty in this country in a period called the Asian Century where all nations in this part are expected to enjoy prosperity. 
     Filipinos going abroad to "take care of other nationalities"? He is referring, of course, of Filipina domestic helpers, who are maltreated, raped in Saudi, Kuwait and other Middleast countries, and sometimes come home to the Philippines in coffins.
     Skewed priestly logic. Justifying failures of the structures of change that include the Church with its princes and other ecclesiastical potentates living in style, while a great number of Filipinos, mired in poverty, eat once or twice a day.