TO THE CABA ACTIVIST WRITER

"...no more ruins to tread this mid-noon of our separate lives." from "Today Arrives the News About the Fall of Doloroso Dans," prize-winning poem by Peter La. Julian

You must have reached a point where nothing matters anymore. Not even the blogger's pleas for you to stay in the group until the issues are resolved and we shall be one and indivisible again.

The enormity of the oppression committed by a member whose moral-intellectual orientation has been the subject of unsavory conversations must have been too much to bear. The blogger understands. You can't take it anymore.

Speaking of "you can't take it anymore, " does it also apply to the blogger. I was coming out of a noisy computer shop yesterday, when suddenly, I was seized by something--was it inertia or ennui?

Not even the comforts of home in Oscariz could banish the strange emotion and the mind-set.

And then the blogger remembered the "encounter" where the oppressor heaped expletives against him. You know that we did not hit back but treated the incident as an activity of a mad man in hell.

But there was a postscript of what happened in Laoag, my hometown, my pride. That was during the 5th International Iluko Literary Conference at the Mariano Marcos State University.  The Fil-Am Australian Lady met the adversary in private in one of the rooms of the university.

Days later, the blogger learned that the Lady gave money the tormentor in the amount of at least P1,500. We are not faulting her for her generosity. After all, she is kind and generous to people, especially member of Timpuyog dagiti  Mannurat iti Iluko iti Filipinas.

But there are moral interpretations of acts. In this case, was the oppressor rewarded for verbally abusing the blogger, who is the adviser of Timpuyog dagiti Mannurat iti Iluko iti Filipinas? Was it alright for a senior TMI writer to go outside, as the foul-mouthed writer did, the boundary of decency and fair play?

The best thing that should have been done under the circumstances was for the parties to talk among themselves and solved the problem right then and there.  

The blogger with the late Kerima Polotan, one of the Philippines best essayists during her time

PALMA DEAD,THE BODY RESTS IN ' APARTMENT' AT THE OVERCROWDED AND DIRTY LAOAG ROMAN CATHOLIC CEMETERY

Palma was not buried in this rich people's memorial park near the century's old RC Cemetery

     The blogger's nephew, Palmarin, 63, died three weeks ago. He had been performing his duties for his wife with Stage 4 cancer--washing her clothes, cooking for her, etc.  he had just cooked rice for lunch. It was a hot, windless day in a place near the classy Maharlika Memorial Park near the Padsan River. He decided to take a bath outside their little bungalow, using pump water. It was past ten in the morning. Suddenly, while pouring water on his frail body, he felt something and tried to stand but failed. He shouted for assistance from his brother and a sister nearby. He collapsed in their arms, and they took him to the hospital. On the way, one of the siblings noticed he was frothing in the mouth--what look like dirty thing were coming out of his mouth. In the hospital, he fell into deep sleep, snoring noisily. He died past two in the afternoon on the same day. 

     Palma's relatives will pay the RC P300 per year for his body' use of the more than  roughly 3,000 "apartments". If they can not pay for the rent for the past  five years, the RC will have to rent the apartment for another tenant. Inside the cemetery are grave plots which are rented higher.

     The blogger was doing his mathematics. For the 3,000 apartments, the RC has an annual income of P90,000. For the plots estimated to be roughly 2,000 and rented at say, P1,000 a year the annual income for the church is P200,000. Or almost P300,000 annual income.
     It is assumed that there is no caretaker of the cemetery, or if there are, maybe one or two? What's their monthly salary?  The RC has much money to hire people to clean the place on a daily basis and respect the dead.
 

DID HE REALLY KILL THE VICE-MAYOR?

The person that Roger Farinas was alluding to in his radio advertisement was the incumbent Laoag City Mayor. Did he really kill the vice-mayor during an altercation in his turf (hotel or was it in his own bar?) in the presence of the city police chief and a certain Melvin de la Cuesta, a journalist. Did he really pull the trigger that snuffed out the life of the young Chinese-Ilokano politician? Only the chief of police and the journalist know, and maybe his wife she is pitting against a so-called relative.

GREYHOUND BUS TO NEW YORK

Patricia, second sibling of Michelle and Ferdinand, was born in a Baltimore hospital. We saw the new-born baby the next day. Our nephew, a nurse in New York, called, inviting us to their place in New Jersey. Ferdinand saw us off at the Baltimore terminal of Greyhound. We left for NY before lunch, made a stopover in Deleware past 12PM and arrived at destination in the evening. While waiting for Carol and Rollie, we entered an Indian bookstore near the subway, perused books and magazines and purchased the best-selling " The Secret" by Australian writer Ronda Byrne. 

ISABELA BUSINESSMAN DROWNED IN MAGAT RIVER

A massive search and rescue operations has been launched for Isabela businessman Angelo Petines, 40, who drowned yesterday in a river in San Juan, Potia, Ifugao. Petines, son of Linda Petines, president of the San Mateo Rural Bank in San Mateo, Isabela were with three companions, hunting for papas (wild ducks) in the river, a tributary of the Magat River, according to Susan Gagarin, SMRB employee. She was quoting one of the companions of Angelo, saying that the businessman, in full hunting gear, boots and all, was crossing the swollen river when the accident happen. The river is one of several creeks and rivers that pour water to the Magat Hydroelectric Plant in Aguinaldo, Ramon, Isabela.

Magat HIgh Dam

IN THE TIME OF THE HOLOCAUST

The blogger as actor in a drama presentation of the Grim Reaper in elementary grades

for Laarni Julian Suela Comabig and the Mangyan Maiden

(after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

go to another country where the moon
     is a meandering river
the sun a flight of birds in a sky of utmost blue
it is a season when papayas are in bloom
but the tree is a barren woman in the spring
     of her life--gone are the stars in her eyes
it's a season of harvest but the farmer is rueing--
     his carabao has long crossed the divide.

an old man is walking on the beach
     strewn with ashes and dead fish.
it is sunset, but the voices of urchins are muffled
and death is alive in the silence where once
     stood the great forest and mansions of rocks.

go to another country where the sun rises
in the west and th moon weeps
                                           at sunrise.

and we? we shall search the ruined cathedrals
comb the mountain city that perished in cries
      and flames
and finding none, we shall descend into the canyons
     of memories.

PHILIPPINE MAYOR AND FAMILY GET LION'S SHARE OF TOWN'S ANNUAL BUDGET

     This mayor and his gang want to assume their respective posts again by running in the May 13, 2013 polls. His political rival said that the town executive gets a monthly compensation of P53,000 while his wife, whom he appointed as his executive assistant, receives P26,000 a month practically doing nothing in her office. A son and a daughter receives P16, 000 each in monthly salaries.
 The incumbent mayor also owns expensive houses in the villages and in the poblacion, allegedly constructed out of the town's coffers and using the town's employees and facilities like trucks making deliveries of gravel and sands.