UMAYKA MANEN, GANGGANNAET/

COME AGAIN, STRANGER

                                                               

An Anthology of Ilokano and English Poems

by PETER LA. JULIAN

l

Critical  Introduction byDr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili

University of Hawaii at Manoa 

THE IDEOLOGY OF HEAVEN VS. THE IDEOLOGY OF HELL

In an essay in his Facebook account, Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, an Ilokano writer and professor of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, mentioned the ideology of heaven and the suicide bomber.

Dr. Agcaoili did not elaborate on the concept of the ideology of heaven and whether the suicide bomber has an ideology. Some readers came forward with the idea of hell, perhaps, in contrast to heaven, as a reward for people's deeds in their earthly lives. As regards the suicide bomber, a reader was wondering what's going on in the mind  of the suicide bomber as he does what he is tasked to do.

We are no ideologue, but we shall simplify the complex issues by asking simple questions, thus:

What and where is heaven?
What and where is hell?
What is the ideology of a suicide bomber?

As far as I know as Bible translator, heaven and hell are Christian concepts. That's where sinful people go after they die. Jews, Muslims and other faiths have their own versions of heaven and hell.

The suicide bomber is a phenomenon created by followers of Islam like Osama bin Laden. It is practically a weapon of mass destruction. Against the West. Against infidels. A recruit or a volunteer would be strapped with explosives concealed in a vest. After saying his vows or whatever is the ceremony, he goes to a specific target, and detonates the device, killing or maiming as many people as possible. The usual targets are mosques and churches and any house of worship.

Bin Laden was killed two or three years ago by American Navy Seals in his hideout in Abottabad in Pakistan. But his idea lives on and suicide bombers have killed thousands of people, mostly in the Islamic countries of Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Heaven is supposed to the the dwelling place of the Deity or God. From his throne, he judges the people and decides where they should go in the afterlife. If they did good, obeying His commandments in their earthly lives, Peter will give them the key and they will be with Him, needless to say, in heaven or Paradise. For those who transgressed His laws, they will be thrown in that hell of fire and sulfur and suffer forever.

This is the concept of God, at least among the ancient Israelites of the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible that also contains the five books of the Torah of the present-day Jews.

As a Bible translator, we learned about the tetragramaton from an American, a certain Dr. Noel D. Osborn, who was our coordinator in the Ilokano Bible Project in Baguio City in the 1970s. This is a four-letter Greek word, theonym, transliterated into Latin as YHWH, a holy name that was too sacred to be pronounced or articulated that the ancient Jews made substitutions that included "Adonai" (The Lord) and "The Blessed One."

We don't know whether Allah resides in heaven, honestly. It must be a different God. In our readings, the ancestors of those who are Muslims by faith now, worshiped deities and one of them was called Allah. Their version of Paradise or Heaven can be gleaned by the phenomenon of the suicide bombers. Although they become body parts as they are killed in their attack, they are assured their place in Paradise as their reward as martyrs to the cause of Islam. They will be met by seven virgins in their eternal abode.(In one incident recently,  a suicide bomber worked his way through a crowded marketplace in Baghdad and detonated his explosives, killing an estimated 74 people.)

From these beliefs in God, sprung the opposing religions of Christianity and Islam in mostly the desert lands of the so-called Holy Land.

And comes the eternal question: is religion good or evil? Is it stoking the horrible wars now raging in the countries of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon?

Heaven must be somewhere. Anyway,  did it exist on earth in Biblical times? Was it Eden? Or was it in a beautiful garden East of Eden? In the original holy lands that include Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Israel. there are place names here that existed in Biblical times. In Iraq, there is a province there called Nineveh mentioned in the sacred writing; and there is Palmyra, too, the ruins--temple, buildings and other artifacts- of which have been reduced to ashes by ISIS.

Heaven as a metaphor for good and pleasant place does exist. Or there is such a thing as a heavenly place or heavenly feeling.  Or something close to heaven where there is peace and contentment, love, charity and understanding. where there are no suicide bombers. Hawaii? Japan? Singapore?  Or somewhere in a corner of the Philippines, an island, perhaps? Is there a Shang-rila where there are no problems, where one is forever young?

Heaven is in the mind. You can live amidst the chaos, even in Manila's squatter areas or cardboard dwellings under the overpass. Heaven on earth does exist. Even in the troubled Middle East where the Caliph has established residence in Mosul and rule his people with heavy hands. And according to the strict sharia law that imposes punishment such as beheading, killing even innocent women and children, cutting of female genitals.

And hell? In a domed area in the sky above the heavens? Fly an airplane to go there?

Hell is everywhere on earth. Hell is where Eden was. That is, it begins there and it is growing in size, now a one big hell created by the followers of a totalitarian barbaric ideology.

The Kingdom of Heaven. Versus the Hell of Sulfur and Fire--the eternal threat to wipe out Mankind and the many gods. Bloody political horses are now riding high in the wide scorching desert where were born the Christ and the Anti-Christ and the Prophet.

Fight the murderous, brutal ideological forces? There is a choice. Fight or let pass the chaos and mayhem, the killing and the burning. But for Christians, there should not be another choice, but fight to the End Times. They, too, like the Jews and other non-Muslims are marked for annihilation--this is in the Qur'an, the sacred book of the barbarians.

ANA AND SIMEON

My cousin Ana, 89, who lives with her husband Simeon, 92, in a senior's home along Avalon avenue in Carson City has been undergoing dialysis for the past three months or so. Thrice a week, the hospital vehicle would come, in the morning, and take her to the facility for this procedure that would leave her weak and tired. She usually sleeps after the hospital personnel take her home.
Manong Simeon is the one preparing her wife's meal. Sometimes, their daughter Malou, who lives with her family on Treyton street, also in Carson would come during the week and do the cooking for her parents. Malou, 62, a nurse, works in a hospital in the city where a Filipino from Bacnotan, La Union became mayor but was removed from office because of corruption.

In the morning of July 19, Manong Simeon, doing her ritual of the day, collapsed at the bathroom of their apartment. Manang Ana, bedridden, heard the thud at the bathroom which is opposite her room and,  alarmed and had to forced herself out of bed, called 911; she also phoned Malou, informing her about what had happened to her father. The 911 vehicle arrived and Manong was rushed to the Harbor UCLA Medical in the city. He underwent several surgeries--his big intestines were removed-- and stayed several weeks at the hospital's ICU department.

Manong Simeon was supposed to die that night but his determination to live was too strong he got his wish. Their sons and daughters, from Canada and New Jersey including the Philippines--Susan, Edwin, Rolly, and Nora-- arrived in Carson expecting the worst for their father. But Manong Simeon lived on, and was later transferred to the ward section of the hospital.

We went to Carson to visit the couple and stayed in the city for ten days. Malou and Nora came to fetched us in Menifee.

The ICU is located at the third floor of Harbor UCLA Medical Center, a 6-story structure. From the parking lot which is usually full of cars and Nora had to drive around for a space to park, we would walked to the first floor, undergo a security check and ride an elevator to the third floor. We would line up for a visitor's card at a table manned by uniformed guards--blacks, Latinos, and one time an Egyptian-- who would take our names and other relevant information in our IDs. Only two people are allowed inside the ICU and one of us would stay in a room, a holding area.  Inside the room, there is a sign at the wall that says in two languages: Room of Bereavement/Cuarto de Condoleci. It is here where  guests, mostly Latinos, wait for their turn to visit relatives and acquaintances confined at the hospital's ICU and wards.

THE ILOKANO MALE

Mental change can take a lot of time, or as little as an hour, according to sports psychologist Jarrod Spencer. He explains that when we "hate" something, it is because we are threatened by it--physically, socially or emotionally--and there is likely some trauma tied to it. 

"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, from "The Hour Has Come, "a war poem


The following is a point of view based on facts on the ground.

There is in the male Ilokano psyche a kind of brinkmanship that prompts him to do and enforce what he believes is right and proper no matter what happens. He might die for this kind of faith but for him "surrender " is a non- word, not in his vocabulary or dictionary. A kind of machismo or a code of honor that the Ilokano male says what he means and means what he says and he can say it mean under certain circumstances.

This characterizes the so-called Ilokano "malalaki" who easily takes umbrage on a negative comment against his manhood. The prefix "ma" indicates a virile, macho man ("lalaki") who never runs away from a fight.

Anyway, there is a danger zone in confrontation and the Ilokano male is not unaware of it.

Ilokanos belong to an ethno-linguistic group, mostly found in Northern Philippines. There is also a great number of Ilokanos in Mindanao, even in Basilan and Sulu where they cleared the land for agricultural purposes.

Ilokanos have also immigrated to Hawaii and other islands, where they worked in the sugar and pineapple plantations. Ilokano is the lingua-franca of Filipinos in Hawaii 

Now estimated to number at least 10-million including those in the diaspora, Ilokanos are known for their frugality and for being hard workers. The blogger is an Ilokano who was born and raised in that narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea in northwestern Philippines.

Ilokano kalapaw (hut) made of bamboo and Ilokano furniture (below)

RAMBLING THOUGHTS

Part of the so-called Hundred Islands in Alaminos, Pangasinan
 (Photo of a painting in a Filipino exhibit in Singapore)

One of the rivers in Northern Cagayan

Pathway in a garden of the home of the son's blogger  in San Mateo, Isabela 

      This social asphyxia will continue to be a nightmare for Filipinos for as long as their dysfunctional culture reigns supreme and criminals, intellectual-moral imbeciles like the incumbent president, even womanizers like the convicted economic plunderer, are elected to powerful public offices.

***

   Speak your mind, speak your truth, according to your ethics and mean it, but don't say it mean.

***

Are your words and your life as lived separate? Are they not supposed to be couple living together in the eternity of marriage that knows no fear in a world gone mad with hate?

***

Reminder: We speak (and write) Ilokano the way it should be spoken as language in Ilocoslovakia. The expatriate may have the theory of the language but not the practice as gleaned by what he writes. We also have the theory, based on the practice.

***

Not living his name?

Jejomar Binay is the Vice-President of the Philippines. His parents, from Northern Isabela, where he was born, might have been religious persons and, no doubt, belonged to the Roman Catholic Church.They named him Jejomar, from the first letters of Jesus, Joseph and Maria.

Binay was a poor human rights lawyer during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. When Marcos was dislodged from power during the bloodless Edsa (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) Revolution, and Cory Aquino was installed at Club Filipino as President, Jejomar Binay was appointed by her as Officer-in-Charge of Makati. That was in 1986. Since then, he held on to power without interruption in the country's richest city, establishing a political dynasty consisting of his wife, his son, and two daughters. His son, Junjun, like his wife Elenita, was elected mayor of Makati until he was replaced last month by his vice-mayor, a member of the political party of the incumbent president. The elder Binay's daughter, Nancy, was number five ( 5) in the last senatorial election while another daughter, Abigal, represents the city as member of the Lower House of Congress.

  VP Binay has been asked by a committee in the Senate to explain his enormous wealth. But he refused. Will his non-appearance expose his deformity as a political demagogue?

Lately, the Vice-President who has declared his intention to run for president in 2016, has been touring the country and distributing rosaries with the letter B painted on them. He has been criticized for this act, a desecration of the sacred symbol of Christianity. Corollary,

     1. Is he buying votes with the rosary?

     2. Is he buying his own version of Paradise with the rosary?

     3. Can one buy Eden by desecrating the rosary?

 

PAGWANAWANAN

If you believe in the power of love, there must be no room for hate in your heart.--Peter La. Julian

"Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it."--Rene Descartes

"To commit the least possible sin is the law for man.
To live entirely without sin is the dream of an angel.
Everything in this earth is subject to sin. Sin is like gravity."--from the mouth of a bishop in Les Miserables, the 1463-page Victor Hugo's monumental novel, which the blogger is struggling to read.

With his newly-acquired doctorate degree, the Ilokano writer Rod Rodriquez of Candon City, Philippines has joined the ranks of Ilokano teachers--Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dr. Alegria Tan-Visaya of the Mariano Marcos State University, Dr. Jean Duldulao. Dr. Jaime Raras, Dr. Sonja Chan, among others-- in the intellectual Olympus of academe.

Rodriguez, who writes in the language of at least 8 million people, is also a mural painter and lecturer in journalism..

***

They are riding again like mad. And the convicted economic plunderer is making noises, proclaiming, boasting he would run for  the topmost position if the perceived thief of all thieves withdraws from the race.

Yes, even dead horses of our apocalypse are exhaling and inhaling and snorting and resurrecting to life, ready to stand on their feet.

And lo and behold! They are neighing and prancing, ready to gallop away, away to the cemeteries of living and dead voters, the great unwashed who make presidents of criminals and womanizers in Last Islas de los Ladrones.

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION?

Breaking Away and Spilling the Rottenness?

Five years of an unholy alliance. Five years of sleeping with his enemies. Five years of keeping the dark secrets of an inept presidency.

But the dissonance of the country's second highest official,  Jejomar ( from the initial letters of Jesus, Joseph, Maria) Binay,  is always surfacing even if the Palace and detractors did not pry open the lid of his Pandora's box.

The political opposition in the Philippines is no longer without a leader, an analyst said, referring to the person--Binay-- who has been accused of unexplained wealth and other anomalies.

Is he a credible leader who can speak for us whose combined "voices are as weak as Padsan and the dying rivers"? Should he not, first and foremost, explain his alleged enormous riches?

He was then a poor human rights lawyer during the time of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. He came into power after the Edsa Revolution, having been appointed s Officer-in-Charge of Makati, the country's richest city. And the rest is history--an economic empire that boggles the imagination.

Too late to become the hero of the poor and the downtrodden?

Nevertheless, he may yet become the top honcho in the palace by the dirty and highly-polluted Pasig river.

In the dysfunctional Filipino culture, men of honor and integrity and high ideals, do not become President of Las Islas de Los Ladrones. The voters, the great unwashed, elect into powerful public offices men of ill-repute and criminals like the convicted economic plunderer.

THE TRINITY OF CHANGE A FAILURE?

"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Re Dr. Agca's essay on fraternities at the state university in Diliman

If  his beloved University of the Philippines is a failure as member in the trinity of change--the school, the family, the church, not necessarily in that order--do the rest follow the domino effect?  If this is so, will it explain the widespread poverty and lawmakers as the biggest thieves of state funds?

They say that the country is no longer the sick man of Asia. Does this claim match reality on the ground? Can one explain the squalor and beggary in Manila, which is supposed to be a model in development in Las Islas de los Ladrones?

And what about this dysfunctional Filipino culture where criminals are voted into powerful offices? Like the convicted economic plunderer they call "Erap." Where dynasties rule with impunity. Like the Binays--father, son, wife, daughters-- and amass mind-boggling wealth.

TRINITY OF EVIL

Quotes of the Day:

"Light your candle before night overtakes you."--Greek saying.

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."--Friedrich Nietzche

The Bangsamoro Basic Law is a concoction of the trinity of evil: President Aquino; the governmennt panel composed of the University of the Philippines professor Coronel- Ferrer and Secretary Teresita Deles; and Mohaqher Iqbal and his murderous MILF. The law will give a big chunk of Philippine territory to the Muslim rebels in a part of Mindanao, where Christians, lumads and other ethno-linguistic groups have lived for centuries, and comprise the majority of the population. Billions of pesos will also be alloted to the sub-state for its annual expenditures.

Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. and other legislators have questioned the Constitutionality of BBL, at least in some provisions, and vowed to make changes to conform to Philippine laws. For all the tirades against the son of the dictator, the senator makes sense with respect to a law that would give a beachhead to Muslim terrorists now stoking the fire that is burning the lands of Islam He has shown he is at par with the best minds in the Upper Chamber.

Congress, controlled by The Big Boss, is again noisy -- make changes in the Constitution to accommodate the BBL?

FASCISTS AND ILOKANO FASCISM

   Philippine national artist Virgilio Almario has reportedly developed orthographies of the country's different ethno-linguistic tribes that include Ilokanos. Almario is a Tagalog writer who once tampered with a Malacanang document but he got away with the misdeed.

     He is supported by a certain Joel Lopez, a high education official in the province of Ilocos Norte. He is a non-writer and can not write one single Ilokano sentence, according to a universal/prescribed orthography. He has also developed his own Ilokano orthography that is now being used in the public schools in Ilocos Norte. The Ilokano orthography is used in widely-read publications in the Ilocos.

     For imposing their respective versions of  orthography, Almario and Lopez have been criticized by writer's group like Gumil Filipinas, the national association of writers. The duo has been thrown  various derogatory names and been branded fascists.

     We understand the megalomaniac Almario and his deluded acolyte Lopez. Their outside behavior is just a reflection of their respective mind-set.

      This is also the case in the Ilokano writing community, where fascism is endemic. Needless to say, there are Hitlers like the editor who has banned writers in the pages of the magazine because the latter made snide remarks against his close relative,  who allegedly mismanaged the funds for a planned house of mannurat.
   

     

    

Aurora Park in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, Northern Philippines

FIGHTING OUR UMBRA

To friend Sonja and grandchild Denise:

Remember our subversive nature.

The battle is always within: To rescue ourselves from our own umbra and be whole and glowing again albeit impermanence.

Impermanence. As in nothing is permanent, as the body that will eventually weaken and die. In the interim, our dark side may be a shade but it will break out like a prisoner in isolation and destroy us in the blink of an eye.

So where do we go from here? To earth, to dust that will be carried away and scattered by the wind that goes on and on and on?

Marga Denise De los Santos  Julian 

"Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy. " --Eckhart Tolle, in "The Power of Now"

The Girl Coming Out Of Padsan River

     She was a wisp of a girl, no more than 12 years of age. She was coming out of the river, a water jug on her head. Seconds later, she was making the ascent on the river bank, balancing  with her small brown hands the vessel containing sweet drinking water. When she walked the flat ground, the street where I lived, I caught her smile but her eyes essayed a long narrative of sadness. They were poor like us, with no source of water except the river.

***
     "The patient has to start by treating his illness not as a disaster, an occasion for depression or panic, but as a narrative, a story. Stories are antibodies against illness and pain."  ---Anatole Broyard

Notes To Josefino Zabala, Ex-future Nationalist Writer*

*the whole poem is included in the blogger's anthology of English-Ilokano poems, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger"




1.

Aristocratic fingers
Neither walk the yellow pages
     Of history.
Nor do they feel the pulse
Of the now-barren country
Whose impatient offsprings
Have gone away, lost
.....
,,,,
---
And the longing knows no end:
Who will miss the cool hills
     Of Sagada and Samoki?

2.

,,,,
Pinned against our cheek.

3.

The last stanza consists of 19 lines
,,,,
...
Tat end with:

By the tongues of fire-throwers
     And the politicians

THE SOCIALLY-SUPERIOR ANIMAL

"Ti kadagsenan a krimen ket isu ti panagulimek."--Carlos Fuentes


Reminder to the architect who unwittingly slips into the domain of wasps and bees and got stung and bruised and bloodied. Not because the insects were angry but because he entered their territoy:

"When two creatures meet, the one that is able to intimidate his opponent is recognized as socially superior, so that a social decision does not always depend on a fight; an encounter in some circumstances may be enough. "--Hediger.

Also a friendly reminder to onion-skinned native writers.

Note to the Madrid-based Ilokano writer Delia Caguioa Guran--she has an anthology of Ilokano poetry-- who commented on FB something like a word of praise for the blogger's poem, "Dagiti Litania ti Namnama ken Pannakapaaymi/ The Litany of our Hopes and Frustrations":

Why are they afraid to confront the issue of the unfinished house? Apay a kasda la ampo a sumgar iti uray la nga no madakamat wenno maipasagid (terminoda daytoy) daytoy a parikut?

The image of the organization has been tarnished because of the patta that still stands today by the sea (from a certain vantage point, that part looks like Waikiki Beach in Honolulu). A reminder of the "corruption and cheating" allegedly committed by some writers, according to JB, also a writer and architect of the failed project.

Apay nga arsagidda  a maibutaktak daytoy maipagarup a saan a nasayaat nga aramid? Idi 2005, impakaammo toy numo  iti dua a bangolan a mannurat ti maipapan iti di natuloy a balay.  In fact one of them, PB, wrote to the then president of the organization, a lawyer, about this perceived anomaly but it appears that his letter was ignored. (By the board that was supposed to tackle the issue which the writer PB termed "dugol?")

Touche!

A RAINY SUNDAY

A rainy Sunday. Watered the grafted lemon trees yesterday.

The blogger and his grandchild in Singapore. His father, an ECE, works in a multinational company in the sixth wealthiest nation in the planet.

Two of the blogger's collection given as gifts to two Ilokano writers in the Philippines.

Winchester, CA

 .

'NO TO INTOLERANCE! NO TO MINDLESS TERRORISTS!
HAIL, AMERICA. GOD BLESS AMERICA.