For the whole month of February each year, Baguio is on fever pitch celebrating Panagbenga. They cap off the event with a flower float parade at the end of the month. Lowest recorded temperatures this year were at 7 degrees.

On weekends, the prices of fresh strawberries shoot up from P42.00 to P110.00 per kilo and all de luxe and regular bus rides are booked solid so it’s wiser to buy two-way tickets.

I got away with literal steals of PhP 25.00/per bunch of Statis (purple ones are cheaper than yellows for some reason but I like the purple one’s better anyway); 6 kinds of coffee (Kalinga, Benguet, Sagada, Vanilla, Arabica and Hazel Nut) on average of P55.00 per 1/4 kilo from the Public Market at the bottom of Session Road.  Civet Coffee was a P1,000.00 for a small bottle so I passed up on that. I also got pine needle pot bottom table protectors (3 pieces for P50.00); woven table cloths (6 for P100.00); kitchen hand-towels (P25.00@) and a cotton woven hammock (P150.00).

Bargaining is easy when you go brisk-walking to market at 8 am and as the first customer, you get buena mano (literally “good hand”; first buyer discount for good luck sales the rest of the day) prices.  Including the strawberries, it all fit in a little straw sack I stashed on the spacious legroom of the deluxe bus ride on the way down. Sadly, the jams, local wines and vinegars were not in my list as they come in glass bottles that would be too heavy to lug around.

Of course, my son had to go on pony rides along the safe trails of Camp John Hay at an astronomical PhP 250.00 for every 30 minute ride capped off with a pine-branch bonfire before we set out trading ghost stories on the way to our host’s home to dine on fresh oyster mushrooms and watercress. Off-season, the pony rides go for less than half that amount but the pony boys are nice to little kids and my son comes out a natural on horseback.

We are now snuggled up again in our little nook with air-conditioning on at 20 degrees. At 5:45 am each morning the alarm rings a little sweeter for mama with the prospect of a happy brew of coffee blended differently each time.  I’ve distributed little containers of coffee, muscovado and strawberries to my family and hung the Statis bunches upside down for a week to arrange them in glass carafes for floral arrangements that will stay for the next year.  The week’s hanging gravitates the water from the stems to the straw-like flowers and these retain their color for the next year afterward.

The walks we took up and down the winding roads of Baguio were thoroughly invigorating. And we are charged up for school and work till the next long vacation swings around in March–Holy Week.

My son apparently discovered the joys of hot water bathing in Baguio and took one before school the first morning we were home. Hopefully, one less item from the Nag-list. I’m thinking of hanging the hammock in front of the TV so he develops napping in the afternoons after school instead of heading straight for internet gaming.  As a baby he had a double action rattan hammock crib hung from the roof with a long strip of bamboo that allowed for bouncing as well as swinging.  I used to tie the end of a rope to my toe in the bed beneath to rock him to sleep.  The result being that he now enjoys long trips by napping as soon as the vehicle starts moving and, like I said, is a natural on horseback.

The weekend getaways in this country are awesome.  The minute you come back you just settle down and plan for the next one.  Hhhhmmm ….where to go on Holy Week…

I LOVE WIKIPEDIA. And now Wiktionary, to find a peculiar word “artefact”.

The Wikimedia foundation describes its Wiktionary project thus:

Wiktionary (a portmanteau of the words wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. Unlike standard dictionaries, it is written collaboratively by volunteers, dubbed “Wiktionarians”, using wiki software, allowing articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the website.

Like its sister project Wikipedia, Wiktionary is run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Because Wiktionary is not limited by print space considerations, most of Wiktionary’s language editions provide definitions and translations of words from many languages, and some editions offer additional information typically found in thesauri and lexicons. Additionally, the English Wiktionary includes Wikisaurus, a category that serves as a thesaurus, including lists of slang words, and the Simple English Wiktionary, compiled using the Basic English subset of the English language.

There’s another web-based project I stumbled upon called the “History of Commons”..not as presentable as Wikimedia’s 2 sister projects but the concept is still the same, that is, for anyone and everyone who has knowledge of a contributory fact, to write or indeed re-write, history.

A theme is proposed online, such as for example, “events leading to the invasion of Iraq”, and everyone jumps in with a contributory fact. Imagine that ..from your State Senator down to a restaurant waiter who served at a particular dinner and got an obscenely huge “tip” so to speak, may, theoretically, pitch in to write and/or re-write, as the case may be, a history which belongs to all.

We here in Asia, particularly the Philippines, which has been described as “Not quite Asian; Not quite European”, rely on much more accurate mechanisms for our history lessons.  Hailing from time immemorial oral traditions, we rely on the grapevine for our history.  Yes … gossip or rumor-mongering which was once criminalized by Presidential Decree under the Marcos Regime.   It spreads like wildfire given our penchant for “communication”, ie, “keeping in touch”; where a junk collector pushing his cart on the street is patiently evaded by waxed shiny SUVs and mothers ferrying their children to school (”Ma, don’t honk on him, he has to make a living too y’know.”), can have two cellphones operating two simcards to avail of those free unlimited calls sales gimmicks.  And what about that Facebook that always makes the evening news whether its a political survey or a strange gimmick where women post the color of their underwear and where we each have a thousand friends and follow one another on Twitter and such.

A balikbayan friend came over with eyes half-shut and ready to cringe at the misery she thought was waiting right after typhoon Ondoy..she was pleasantly surprised that everything was back to normal. Thus, “Keeping in touch” seems to work here for all manner of exigencies.

But before our seams burst with the sheer speed and the absolutely democratizing access to information (and to each other properly dubbed as “sharing”by Facebook), I’d like a breather via close up on “artefacts”, defined by Wiktionary as:

Etymology

From Latin ars (“art”) + factum (“something made”) (neuter inflection of the past participle of facere (“do, make”)).

Noun

artifact (plural artifacts)

An object made or shaped by human hand.

(archaeology) An object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.

There are several other usages of the word but what concerns us here are the oldest definitions of Artefact (Oxford dictionary prefers the spelling “artifact” but the Australians prefer “artefact”).

If we go by the first definition, a house and everything in it, may be an Artefact if the house was built within the last two centuries when Filipino and European artisans produced everything by hand from the floor-planks to the furniture to the glass-blown crystal goblets to bone china to capiz windows to wrought-iron balustrades to claypots to crocheted tablecloths to handmade abaca slippers and the woven pinya (pineapple fiber) for the baro’t saya and barong tagalog.

Also, the said artefact may not necessarily be an archeological find, it may be just slowly withering in the heat and weathering the monsoon in some provincial location where no one pays it a second glance being located in the dim recesses of a huge lot instead of the townhouses that have been built over some of them which have spilled onto the sidewalks to accommodate garages for the waxed SUVs.

Filipinos being avid communication gadget fanatics are really just upgrading their communication skills to keep in touch with family and their huge clan, not to mention childhood, college and business friends. (Oh yes, and what about those charismatic communities with their “Singles for Christ”, “Couples for Christ”, etc,etc and those political FB pages where you can switch your poll vote for candidates with a click and give the campaigners a headache till the May polls!)

Filipinos will easily invest on an i-pad and a macbook but would shudder at even suggesting that grandma sell the lot and move into a low maintenance condo unit.

The result being that there are many ancestral homes that have been miraculously kept whole albeit standing on very spindly, termite-eaten posts. There are a million such artefacts in this country waiting for the Padrones de Los Artes to come to their rescue.

And the good news is that its been done with the doing having been beautifully documented in a coffee table book edited by Llita Logarta and Renan S. Prado, Book Designed by Orland S. Punzalan and Editorial Directed by Peter George Z. Mayshle.  The book is called “Tahanan, A House Reborn” which tells the delightful tale of the Bale Sim, ancestral house built by self-made equivalent of today’s Taipan, Roman Santos, whose lineage is re-told thus:

In 1762, at the dawn of the brief British occupation, Simon de Anda retreated from Manila to Bacolor, Pampanga, where as self-proclaimed governor-general of the islands, he established the country’s capital.  His guerilla government arrested the British campaign to the north and drove the redcoats out of Manila in two years.  For this, the King of Spain honored Bacolor with a coat of arms bearing the royal motto, Non Plus Utlra.

De Anda owed this victory, in part, to a Chinese merchant, Antonio Tuason, who organized, and was named colonel of, the Battallion of the Royal Prince, composed of 1,500 Chinese mestizos. For his loyalty, in 1775, the King exempted him and his progeny from paying tribute for two generations.  Eight years later, the King elevated them to the hidalguia or Spanish nobility and decorated them with a coat of arms.

While Antonio returned to Manila, where he was awarded large tracts of prime land, Gregorio, a younger, undecorated, and less known brother, elected to remain in Bacolor to engage in agriculture.  Gregorio took for his wife a local, Maria Pamintuan, with whom he had two daughters, Escolastica and Maria Juana.

Moro pirates, entering through Guagua and Bacolor, kidnapped Escolastica at the tender age of six.  They held her hostage in Mindanao and restored her to her parents only after eight long years, when her father paid a considerable ransom.

Around 1800, a Rodriguez family from Bataan migrated to Bacolor.  they figured among Bacolor’s more prominent families, producing three generations of capitanes naturales: Francisco in 1830, Olegario in 1842 to 1853, and Felix from 1891 to 1892.  Olegario, apart from tending to his own farmlands, oversaw those of the Tuason family.  In the process, he won Escolastica’s affection and hand.  The couple had four daughters Prisca Ines, Matea, Juan and Marta.

Apung Luga (Olegario) and Impung Culasa (Escolastica) lived prosperously.  It is said that the lands inherited by Impung Culasa yielded 2,000 piculs of sugar and 1,000 sacks of rice yearly.  They resided in a stately bahay na bato, which in the 19th century was the first structure in Bacolor to convert from roof tiles to corrugated iron, for which it gained the distinction Bale Sim (meaning house with iron roof in Pampango.).

Apung Luga arranged for his daughter Marta to marry Josef Sioco, a walthy and industrious landowner and trader.  So frugal was Josef that he was known as Joseng Daga (Jose the Mouse) for he was wont to stashing, like a mouse. Alas, he was already in his 70’s! To Apung Luga’s dismay, Marta refused to marry the “Japanese” gentleman.  And so to save the family from shame, Marta’s sister, Matea agreed to marry Josef.  In so doing she also secured a comfortable life for her progeny.

Marta married Hilarion de Santos y Ochoa, of Tondo, Manila.  They resided in Barrio Capalangan, Apalit, Pampanga and begot four children:  Rafaela, Maria, Roman and Felisa.

Roman, the third and only son, was born on August 9, 1880 in Apalit. There also did he spend his childhood.  As a youth Roman would occasionally brave the strong current of the Rio Grande de Pampanga and swim across it.  He also had happy childhood memories of Bacolor.  Having a liking for animals, a trait he kept into his advanced years, he habitually marked the number of eggs the chickens laid each day on a secret slate –the underside of the dining table in Bale Sim.  Several decades later, he would be delighted to rediscover the scribbles during a visit to the annual Rodriguez pabasa. (Tahanan, at pp.25-26.)

Roman eloped with Juliana Andres, a second cousin, in 1899 and they begat seven children: Augusto, Lourdes, carmen, Federico, Horacio, Alicia and Virgilio.  The Bale Sim and everything in it was bequeathed to Alicia who obstinately hung on to it till the year 2000 when her children persuaded her to agree to full restoration and relocation from its site in Navotas to the hills of Antipolo.

After two years, the Bale Sim now sits in the hills of Antipolo; its gleaming floor-planks now coated with polyurethane in lieu of beeswax and it no longer quakes as when large trucks rolled by it in Navotas. From its windows, this view:

Beyond the trees are the towers of Makati and a sliver of shimmering blue-gray that is Manila Bay.  On a clear day, you can just make out Cavite highlands to Maragondon’s “Sleeping Lady”, the mountains of Bataan, and the tip of Mt. Arayat on the Central Plain.  Turning South you see the lush green of forest and orchards and a sheet of water, Laguna de Bay, and the Mountains Makiling and Banahaw.  A soft breeze blows from the Northeast, from further up the blue Sierra Madre, stirring the trees that clothe the green hills and valleys. (Tahanan, Foreword.)

This story badly needs to be retold again and again and for other historical monuments of the Philippines

Another restoration, this time not by grateful heirs but by two truly philanthropic Padrones de Los Artes will be documented in this blog, if the fates allow it.  It will hopefully enrich academic courses on Heritage Art Restoration and encourage a generation of young gadget buffs to look elsewhere and hopefully this way, for their highs.

I woke up late the morning of February 3. It was one of those cold mornings when sleep was deep as nights were longer than days and dreaming was vivid. So my son missed schoolbus.. (sigh) confessions of a single parent. In the car, I explained to my son that I had a fantastic dream of his great grandmother set in the mountains of the sky a la avatar but with a bonus Chinese theme that showed me details in jade-work.  So I snored through the alarm and its several snoozes; fascinated as I was with my own dream sequences.

Some parents will frown but I see no harm in being honest with your child.  I don’t believe in projecting a supermom image to kids who see a lot of what adults do as perplexing enough as it is.

So he asked “But what about nightmares, Mom?” and I advised that the next time he got a nightmare all he had to do was “switch channels” by waking himself up a little and willing a better dream to come visit him. Two mornings after, he wakes up with a smile and reports that he tried it and it worked!  Next stop towards lucid dreaming — beginner’s meditation or maybe a dream log?

Anyway, he missed schoolbus so I drove him to Cathedral school and went to mass at the nice little chapel.  I was pleasantly surprised when after mass, people lined up for a blessing with two candles crossed over the throat and resting on both shoulders while the Bishop invoked the intercession of St. Blaise for healing from all manner of illnesses.

I really like Cathedral school for my son.  They recently announced their new vision and mission was to mold “servant leaders” providing not just academic foundation but moral fiber for servant leadership.  So I agreed when he asked for some books on saints.

Wikipedia reports the legend of St. Blaise by E.H. Vollet, in the Grande Encyclopedia as follows:

Blaise had studied philosophy in his youth, was a doctor in Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth and exercised his art with miraculous ability, good-will, and piety. When the bishop of the city died, he was chosen to succeed him, with the acclamation of all the people. His holiness was manifest through many miracles: from all around, people came to him to find cures for their spirit and their body; even wild animals came in herds to receive his blessing. In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebastia at the order of the emperor Licinius to kill the Christians, arrested the bishop. As he was being led to prison, a mother set her only son, choking to death of a fish-bone, at his feet, and the child was cured straight away. Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs (used for wool gathering), and beheaded him.

Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria’s feast day was the day before, on February 2.  It commemorates the Presentation at the Temple of the Child Jesus.  Under Mosaic Law, a woman must purify herself for forty days after giving birth, and, at the end of her purification, should present herself to the priest at the temple with the child and offer either white doves or a lamb holocaust as a sacrifice (Leviticus 12:6-7). Since Christmas was celebrated by the Roman Church on December 25th (even if the actual birth could not have happened on such date if we go by the biblical account), then the fortieth day fell on February 2.

That date is also the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, when various ancient Celtic celebrations commemorate the annual beginnings of the agricultural season.  This year’s first full moon was reportedly the brightest moon bathing our little balcony with shimmering moonlight just a few days before.

Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria is popularly known as “La Morenita” for the dark skin on a miraculous wooden statue that was washed ashore during pre- Castillan conquest, on the island of Tenerife of the Spanish Canary Islands.

A wooden statue of the Virgin Mary bearing a child in one arm and a green candle in the other was discovered in 1392 on the beach of Chimisay and found by two Guanche (indigenous peoples of the Island) goatherds.  One tried to throw a stone at the statue, but his arm became paralyzed; the other tried to stab the statue with a knife but ended up stabbing himself.

Tenerife was, at that time, divided into 9 kingdoms with 9 “mencey” kings who each rose to power either by autocracy or by election under customary law.  The statue was taken by the mencey Acaymo to the cave of Chinguaro. The Guanches believed it was an apparition of the mother of the gods, Chaxiraxi bearing her son Chijoraji.

Later, it was recognized by Antón, a Guanche who had been enslaved and converted to Christianity by the Castilians, as the Virgin Mary, upon his return to Tenerife. He told the mencey of his conversion and the statue was thus venerated by the Guanches, who transferred the statue to the cave of Achbinico (also known as San Blas or St. Blaise).

Then the statue was stolen and taken away to the far island of Lanzarote. It was returned after the statue reputedly caused various catastrophes to occur on Lanzarote.

From 1730 to 1736 (for 2,053 days), Lanzarote was hit by a series of volcanic eruptions, creating 32 new volcanoes in a stretch of 18 km. Lava covered a quarter of the island’s surface, including the most fertile soils and eleven villages. One hundred smaller volcanoes were located in the area called Montañas del Fuego. In 1768, drought affected the island and winter rains did not fall. Much of the population was forced to emigrate to Cuba and the Americas.

Wikipedia does not state exactly when the statue was brought back to Tenerife.  Only that it was also eventually lost from Tenerife when the sea reclaimed it in a tidal wave in 1826.  A Basilica was built in front of the Achbinico cave and a bejeweled copy of the statue now sits in the Basilica.  Pilgrims regularly flock the two holy caves of Chinguaro and Achbinico where Guanche aboriginals were baptized into Christianity after conquest.

Who should be any wiser to say that it cannot have been that, in dreams, the Guanches had divinated the Virgin Mother and venerated her as Chaxiraxi and the Baby Jesus as Chijoraji? And so the Guanches converted and eventually embraced Christianity, because they were already believers.

February 2 (and August 15) are also celebrated as fiesta days in the town of Candelaria, Quezon closer to home here in Las Islas Filipinas, another conquest of Spain Per Mariam Ad Jesum.  A long procession from Church and back to it for the blessing of candles celebrates the feast of La Virgen de la Candelaria.

Down the ages from Earthmother and the Guanches’ worship of Chaxilaxi to La Morenita; Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria to the fiesta at Candelaria, Quezon to Saint Blaise’ Blessing of the Throat, here’s to avatar dreams of mothers snuggled with their young sons on Candlemas at dawn on the first week of February, 2010.

It tells of the first of their ancestors who engaged in epic battles to elevate themselves through endurance and virtue and without cursing their creator, to the sixth and highest level of heaven after which they were rewarded with their own land here on earth.  Even today, the Menuvu claim they co-exist with the spirit world — their ancestors in their ancestral land; which land is to them — heaven on earth.

In a old house built with not a single nail and using for beams, the lauan, a tree which towers on a single trunk like an extremely tall light-post and once flourished in Bukidnon before the loggers of the Martial Law years clear cut their forests, I was lulled to sleep along with about twenty families huddled together in the dim gaslight, to the hypnotic chanting of the Matigsalug ne Menuvu version of the Ulehingen.

Their version adds new verses to include the heroic exploits of their Supreme Datu who declared a rebellion and won from Marcos, the Dictator, limited governance rights over the place where their tribal government sits — Sinuda.  From Sinuda in the 60s, the Matigsalug has now expanded their ancestral domain to cover 500,000 hectares for which one consolidated Title has been issued to them under Republic Act No. 8371.

Now at her ripe old age of 80, Lingka sits in the council of elders which unites the leadership of eleven Menuvu clans of Central Mindanao, an assertion of their right to self-governance recognized under Philippine Laws (Republic Act No. 8371) (1997) and more recently the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (2007).  Like the Matigsalug, they also want ancestral domain title in a race to assert their birthrights before the ore miners come to ravish the land and pollute its rivers and streams.

She yearns to hear those raconteurs sing the epic again as no one else can.  Decades of political and economic marginalization has left her people with two generations either embarrassed by culture or whose enthusiasm for such things as this epic has waned. It would be good to teach the very young children how to chant again; but the old raconteurs/raconteuses have all passed away and she needs that tape recording Ms. Wrigglesworth made in the 50s.  Peace, land, self-governance and proud progeny — their life as a tribe depends on these.

The SIL started its work with indigenous peoples of the Philippines in 1953.  Interestingly, the Philippines was its first overseas attempt at its linguistic program.  This program involved learning the local languages, assisting with language development through translation dictionaries and translating the bible and other texts to the local language and then making these available to the host government and eventually the academic world.

An airstrip was usually established in SIL target communities in the hinterlands and young menuvu children would dream of one day piloting such aircraft as it made routine flights bearing SIL workers such as Hazel Wrigglesworth and Lingka to and from far off places in search of old raconteurs.

In short, the SIL was recording oral traditions which have been handed down from generation to generation through the ages since time immemorial.

A google of SIL would yield this information from its website:

SIL developed similar language-based programs in other parts of the world, beginning in the Philippines in 1953, spreading from there to other parts of the Pacific and Asia, to Africa in 1962 and to parts of Europe in 1974. SIL is now involved in language development in over 50 countries.

SIL works alongside ethnolinguistic peoples whose voices are often not heard, by facilitating language development through research, training and advocacy. SIL is committed to ongoing training to further develop competency within those communities. SIL provides consultant help to develop the capacity of community educators and national program designers to create effective multilingual education programs.

In 1934 when SIL was formed, linguists estimated that there were about 1,000 unwritten languages in the world. As language researchers continued their investigation, many more languages were documented. Now it is known that there are nearly 7,000 languages spoken today. The conclusions of this ongoing research have been published in an SIL reference work called the Ethnologue: Languages of the World. A new edition of this catalog of languages is published every four years. The sixteenth edition, published in 2009, lists 6,909 languages.

In its 75-year history, SIL has worked with over 2,550 languages. Currently there are about 2,000 SIL language development programs in progress. The SIL Bibliography contains over 35,000 references to books, journal articles, book chapters, dissertations and other academic papers about languages and cultures authored or edited by SIL International staff or published by SIL. In addition to a body of literature in many lesser-known languages, numerous portions of Scripture have been translated.

So I wrote the SIL a letter and they agreed to meet with us.  I assumed that the meeting would begin a process for turnover of the recordings, if these have been digitized since or preserved in some way by the SIL.  But the SIL has not moved since that last meeting … more than 10 years ago.

More recently the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was voted into law by 143 nations at the UN on September 13, 2007 with 4 voting against it (USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) and 11 abstaining.  Those in favor included the Philippines, so there is another legal basis to assert this right to have access to documentation of this valuable Epic.

The SIL having operated worldwide with indigenous peoples for 60 years can be likened to the last scene of Indiana Jones where the ark of the covenant is lost in a huge hangar full of crates that were the loot and bounty from the world war.  So here is to say to SIL.. the time for taking is done, the Peoples want to work on their cultures for themselves and their progeny.

We have a pilot, pre-school, home-school project for Menuvu children of the Pulangi River scheduled for launching within the year and an introduction to Ulehingan would be good cornerstone for the curriculum. (So fork it over already, SIL. The UN is on their side.)

]]> http://feastasia.com/3/arts-culture/the-summer-institute-of-linguistics-recording-of-the-menuvu-epic-the-ulehingan/feed/ http://feastasia.com/3/uncategorized/blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart/ http://feastasia.com/3/uncategorized/blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:44:01 +0000 3 http://feastasia.com/3/?p=1783 Every marriage goes through rocky periods sure.  Dunno if it’s just me but a lot of marriages of my age bracket (late forties) have permanently splintered on rocky reefs.  The kids must feel like they’re drowning and if they haven’t been taught to float yet must quickly learn to cope and heal.

My Christmas shopping at the recycled book counters yielded George Wiegel’s “Witness to Hope-the Biography of Pope John Paul II 1920-2005″ (at PhP 270.00).

It was a joy to go through the well documented life of one truly inspiring man who wrestled philosophically with the problems of the age (human sexual relations, among many others), and emphatically having won the wrestling match, bequeathed us with such spiritually reviving gifts that I felt genuinely orphaned half-way through the thousand page tome.

…In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is laying out the moral implications of living a life of beatitude — a life that includes “purity of heart” — and says “You have heard it said “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say unto you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5.27-28).  It has seemed for centuries, a very difficult, even impossibly high, standard.  …..

x   x    x                                 x    x    x                                  x   x    x

…. Lust, the Pope suggests, is the opposite of true attraction.  True attraction desires the other’s good through the gift of myself; lust desires my own transitory pleasure through the use (even the abuse) of the other.  The woman at whom a man gazes lustfully is an object, not a person, and sex is reduced to a utilitarian means to satisfy a “need”.  This “adultery of the heart” can even take place within marriage–not because the object of a man’s lust is not his wife, but because the lustful look turns a wife into an object and shatters the communion of persons.

x   x    x                                 x    x    x                                  x   x    x

The Christian sexual ethic, John Paul taught, redeemed sexuality from the trap of lust.  Far from prohibiting eros, the Christian ethic liberates eros for a “full and mature spontaneity” in which the “perennial attraction” of the sexes finds its fulfillment in mutual self-giving and mutual affirmation of the dignity of each partner. The “new ethic” of the Sermon on the Mount and Christ’s teaching about the beatitude of the “pure heart” is an ethic of “the redemption of the body” a rediscovery in history of the truth of self-giving as the truth of the human condition “from the beginning”.

This ethic did not do away with desire. Rather, it sought to channel our desires “from the heart”, so that the desires were fulfilled as they should be –in the communion of persons which is the image of God. (at pp. 338-339)

photo from Wikipedia

Now when will I hear a sermon in church as thought-provoking as this?  When will John Paul’s legacy enter into mainstream chats among women who continue to flounder in the seas of shattered self-esteem, betrayal, self-pity and self-loathing?  When will that filthy word “romance” be disrobed and exposed so that young men and women know precisely what it is they should be looking for in a life’s partner?

When will all our Adams wisen up and say to us Eves: “You don’t pull me by my cojones woman; I see your power but I also see how you can drag all of humanity down depending on how you use it. I take equal responsibility for my power of procreation too.”

When will there be true communion instead of a mass of people huddled in fear listening to uninspired sermons in a vague mystic haze of hopefulness?

The author, George Weigel, another man unafraid to state his well-founded analyses was called to dinner at the Vatican and specificaly charged by John Paul to write his biography with full license to be unafraid..writes:

John Paul’s Theology of the Body is emphatically not made for the age of the twenty-second sound-bite, or for a media environment in which every idea must be labeled “liberal” or “conservative”.  It may also be the case that John Paul II’s theology of the body will only be seriously engaged when John Paul, lightning rod of controversy, is gone from the historical stage.  These 130 catechetical addresses, taken together, constitute a kind of theological time bomb set to go off, with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millenium of the Church. (p. 343.)

The sooner the Church takes up on this challenge the good Pope left us with..the better. I’m through with all this bull-shitting between men and women.  Happy New Year All!!

The Menuvu and Mehindanew neighboring tribes and my little non-government organization wish to thank the Spanish Embassy for helping fulfill a dream of not just literacy but reclaimed dignity which peculiarly is termed as “vansa” in the Menuvu language whereas in Tagalog “bansa” means “nation”.  Maybe if we explore the linguistic roots we’ll find shared ancestry between Tagalog and Menuvu too and revisit this when we all sail upriver at the Pulangi next year.

When I blogged the excerpts from the entry project proposal, it was for posterity in case we didn’t get selected but I guess they know a good project when they read one.

Don Jose Hornero and Don Jesus Molina asked if they can sail upriver to see it happen..I guess the Department of National Defense (DND) will have to accompany us after they sign a FREEZONE agreement with the peoples of both sides of the Pulangi.

The children of pre-school ages who will be selected for the pilot project have surely suffered from evacuation during the last breakdown of peace negotiations between the government and the MILF. The best rehabilitation they can go through is culturally appropriate homeschool in a site protected from violence.

Happy Human Rights Day All.

The Ampatuan Massacre has brought to the fore the violence that always seethes just below the surface of Mindanao.  It comes at a time when Peace Talks are scheduled to re-open for the Nth time in Mindanao and does not bode well.

But Mindanao is much, much more than this and it shouldn’t turn people away.  It is a beautiful place that holds many fond memories of the last time I ventured deep into its hinterlands in search of tribes who have survived and still work to overcome economic and political marginalization and discrimination.

It is time to give it another try.

The following is the entry proposal submitted to the KaSaMa, the 5 Embassy-UNDP-Eurocom conglomerate in search for innovative human rights initiatives in the Philippines which I blogged about in October.  Whether it wins or not, I post excerpts of it here for posterity.

START-UP PROJECT FOR DEP-ED ACCREDITED, CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE, PRE-SCHOOL HOME-SCHOOL CURICULUM FOR INDIGENOUS CHILDREN OF THE MENUVÙ & MEHINDANEW (CENTRAL MINDANAO); A Project Proposal submitted for funding to KaSaMa

This submission proposes for funding a start-up project for pre-school home-school education among 80 selected children of the Menuvù & Islamized Mehindanew tribes of the Pulangi River, Cotabato, Central Mindanao.  The start up project will begin what is envisioned as a seven-year program for curriculum review and implementation to enable several batches of community scholars to graduate elementary school.

As far as the proponent and its partner Indigenous Peoples organizations are aware, there are no equivalent projects among other indigenous peoples in the country.

The concentration of indigenous peoples organizations have so far remained focused on advocacy issues affecting the environment (mining, illegal logging, corporate plantations, etc.) and ancestral domain titling applications. The closest program is for college scholarship education utilizing a ladderized curriculum for Indigenous Peoples offered at the University of Southern Mindanao in Kabacan, North Cotabato and the “Pamulaan” college scholarship offered by the University of Southern Philippines in Katalunan Grande, Davao City.

The assertion of the right to ancestral land and self-governance take the form of Certificates of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADT) issued by the Philippine government thru its implementing agency the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) organized under the legal mandate of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act or Republic Act N°. 8371.

The Derepa te Erumanen ne Menuvu, one of the partner Peoples Organization is pursuing a unified CADT claim over an estimated 400,000 hectares stretching from Cotabato to Bukidnon and are now authorized by the NCIP to undertake a ground survey.

The Islamized Mehindanew of the Pulangi River, on the other hand, have agreed to allow this project to be located in a 2,000 hectare area called the Kamanga area adjacent to a Mehindanew/Moro/Muslim community across the Pulangi River. Both Menuvu and Mehindanew have agreed to secure this area and keep it free from crossfire in the event MILF-GRP talks break down and hostilities erupt.  This area was traditionally part of the Menuvu domain but it was abandoned during the Ilaga-Blackshirts war during early Martial law.

This culturally appropriate educational pilot project for very young children is perceived as a fundamental element in the struggle for reclamation of tribal/clan collective dignity or “vansá” and for the inter-generational sustainability of their struggle to assert their collective rights amid political and economic marginalization.  It is also envisioned as a peace effort between Islamized and Un-Islamized Indigenous Tribes for them to discover their common ancestry/heritage through interaction between elders, mothers, fathers, teacher-professionals and children.

The great distances between public school facilities and the dwellings of the indigenous tribes, the discrimination built into the mainstream’s curriculum, the costs of tuition and school books as well as the discrimination suffered by the children on a day to day basis are prohibitive factors that result in many families opting for illiteracy.  On the one hand, this high illiteracy level has protected them from being thoroughly integrated into the mainstream consciousness resulting in the loss of indigenous identity.  On the other, it has prevented them from contributing to the development of their ancestral domains leaving them vulnerable to outside incursions leading to dispossession/evacuation.

This proposal’s objectives are: i. to facilitate community elders’ review and revision of existing DepEd-accredited homeschool program/s; ii. To allow a core-group of literate mothers and/or other family members preferably DepEd Teachers who hail from the Menuvu & Mehindanew tribes to guide 80 pre-school age students through courses contained in government-accredited modules that are programmed into desktop computers which call for periodic exams supervised by the Department of Education (DepEd); iii. to produce 5 digitized modules for 1. ART/ART HISTORY; 2. MUSIC/MUSIC HISTORY; 3. PHYSICAL EDUCATION/INDIGENOUS GAMES; 4. FUNDAMENTALS OF MATH; 5. ALPHABET & WORD READING & HANDWRITING in MENUVU & MEHINDANEW;ENGLISH & TAGALOG; iv. to have the project site declared a FREE-ZONE and to have it secured by the partner POs to prevent it from being used as evacuation site or to free it from violence in the event RP-GRP negotiations break down in a tripartite agreement with the Department of national Defense (DND).

Indigenous Peoples Children’s Rights especially in times of armed conflict are protected under Republic Act No. 9344 to wit: “The administration of the juvenile justice and welfare system shall take into consideration the cultural and religious perspectives of the Filipino people, particularly the indigenous people and the Muslims, consistent with the protection of the rights of children belonging to these communities.”  The Philippines is also signatory to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the UN Convention against Racial Discrimination. Lastly, the Philippines has acceded to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The next objectives are no longer covered by this proposal due to time and money constraints but the long-term objectives must be stated here to make sense of the entire thrust of this pilot project, thus:  v. To obtain government awarded scholastic achievement for 80 children of pre-school ages (ages 4-6) vi.  To review curriculum for grade 1 in preparation for the second cycle of the program and to secure the funding support to sustain the start-up program into a full-blown program to enable curriculum review and implementation up to grade 6 for eventual replication of the process in other indigenous tribes.

A thorough review of the homeschool curriculum by the elders of the two tribes given technical support by the DepEd teachers is necessary to screen, adapt and supplement the content to reflect core values of the tribe.

The result of the review will be a new curriculum which shall be then presented to the Department of Education (DepEd), properly endorsed by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), so that accreditation may be secured. For the Pilot Project, only Kindergarten and  Prep curricula/course contents will be subject of review and reformulation.

The Pilot Program will then be launched by organizing a homeschool teachers group composed of at least 8 literate community-based relatives of the 80 Menuvu and Mehindanew children who will be chosen as first pilot batch of scholars.  The revised curriculum will hopefully be taught in 8-10 months and success will be gauged by the percentage of passing grades in DepEd’s supervised periodic examinations as well as the oral examination administered by the elders on core values.

While the pilot project is ongoing, preparations for curriculum review for grade 1 will be undertaken by the elders review committee so that there will be continuity in the education of the 80 community scholars. The pilot program community will be continuously assisted by the proponent until self-reliant.

Within the next six years, the revised curriculum for elementary level will be ready for other clans/tribes to avail of.  Consultancy/teacher’s training services will be thereafter offered by the beneficiaries of this project.  Teachers from other clans/tribes will be invited for on-the-job-training to facilitate the earliest replication of the program in their areas.  The concerned clan/tribe shall shoulder the costs of the OJT of their trainee teacher.

Objectives:

In the long-term, the value of this pilot program will be to make culturally appropriate education within reach of all indigenous peoples in the country inculcating the core values of respect for mother earth, peaceful co-existence with other peoples, protection of ancestral domain, embracing tribe-specific culture, customary laws and indigenous knowledge; and over-all inculcation of self-worth and pride in one’s indigenous roots.  Imbibed at the earliest stage of development, these core values will be determinative of intergenerational survival of the tribe.  Self-reliance in the area of education is also invaluable for sustainability of ancestral domain management.

In the immediate term, it is envisioned that the participation of the elders and women in the process of curriculum review and program implementation, will be empowering as they are given the opportunity of integrating core values into the teaching modules and take personal responsibility for the education of the very young.  Culturally appropriate education of these children will also inspire hope and fire up collective activity as the tribe takes responsibility for their survival grounded upon the rediscovered leadership capability of tribal elders and womenfolk as repositories of indigenous culture, tradition, customary law and indigenous knowledge.

In the next year of implementation, the proponent and its partner community hopes to produce 80 children who can read and write in English and Tagalog; count and do basic math computations and be familiar with basic scientific principles but whose lessons in civics and society and core value formation are culturally appropriate.

The curricula is initially envisioned to contain 1. Art and Art History meaning basketry/weaving/metal crafts/painting, etc. 2. Music & Poetry and History of Music/Poetry; 3. English/Tagalog/Mehindanew/Menuvu Alphabet reading & writing letters/words 4. Basic Arithmetic 5. Phys Ed–Sports & Games of the Menuvu and Mehindanew.  One subject per day of the week. Saturdays will be dedicated to guiding the mothers/relatives in charge of the scholar to share progress/problems/feedback on the child’s response to & development based on the implemented curricula.

The first year of this project will only cost PhP 1M, roughly USD 21,000.00.   With such modest funding, we intend to keep it sustainable.

More importantly, its impact in terms of contributing to the peace effort and intergenerational survival of the peoples who are the “cradle” of Philippine civilization — is incalculable.

KaSaMa - Karapatan sa Malikhaing Paraan

How do we effectively protect and defend human rights? We have been involved in countless human rights trainings, conferences,education sessions, and mass actions yet human rights violations continue to exist. With the increasing complexities and challenges of our times, ingenious ways to uphold people’s rights must come to the fore.  We must infuse fresh ideas and cutting edge strategies to solve pressing human rights problems.

This was the realization of international development agencies, embassies, and funding institutions working on human rights issues in the Philippines.  During one of the regular coordination meetings ealy this year, development partners saw the need to promote and support new approaches to human rights issues.  The suggestion was to pool funds for this purpose. And that was how KaSaMa-Karapatan sa Malikhaing Paraan - was born.

KaSaMa is an attempt to foster bold ideas and encourage innovation, risk-taking and determination in addressing perennial human rights concerns……The Australian, British, Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spanish Embassies, the European Commission, the Asia Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme have joined efforts to organize this pilot round of KaSaMa and have pledged resources to fund selected innovative proposals. (excerpt taken from the Flyer distributed during the launch.)

Last day for submission of proposals is on November 16, 2009 but awardees can defer the 1 yr implementation to AFTER THE 2010 ELECTIONS (this was clarified during the open forum in the launch held at the Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman on 13 October ‘09).  Fax, email and/or courier proposals to KaSaMa Secretariat, Asia Foundation, 36 Lapu-Lapu Avenue, Magallanes Village, Makati City 1232; Fax # (02) 853-0474; telephone# (02) 8511466 & 851-1477; email: lianramos@asiafound.org   Application guidelines and forms can be downloaded from www.kasama-ph.com

Criteria for Selecting Winning Innovative Proposals are: 40% Innovation/Creativity; 35% Potential Impact/Added Value; Organizational Capacity (15%); Cost Effectiveness (10%) this last meaning best possible results for the amount of money budgeted.

Funding may reach maximum of 1MPhP. Administrative costs cannot exceed 20% of the proposed budget. A mid-term and end of term report will be required. Main Activities, Outputs, Potential Outcomes/Impacts, Indicators of Success, Baseline Data, Means of Verification, Potential Risks/Risk Management, Project Monitoring are some of the data that must be included in the proposals to be submitted.

Philippine Commission on Human Rights Chairperson Atty. Leila De Lima; Atty. Carol Mercado-Gorgonia of the Asia Foundation and Ms. Tatine G. Faylona, Senior Political and Cultural Affairs Officer of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands..responded to questions during the Open Forum of the Launch of the KaSaMa.

Chairperson De Lima delivering the keynote address waxed poetic in quoting JFK and Shakespeare to encourage innovation in the field of human rights protection.  Joey Ayala sang the national anthem but warned everyone to remain seated and maintain their usual respectful demeanor to emphasize that his version of the anthem is just that…an artistic rendition: “ang magmahal” (in lieu of “ang mamatay” which means “to love” instead of “to be martyred“..) “nang dahil sa ‘yo” which means “because of you” referring to the Motherland...).

Three points: Good legal advice is always priceless. We sure as hell don’t need another dead hero. And the more innovative initiatives–the better.

Whether I win with my proposal or not,  I feel grateful to the UNDP, EuroCom, the five Embassies and the Asia Foundation for the pooled resources and this encouraging effort.

I wonder if, when plotted on a chart, how a comparison of the INK’s rate of increase in terms of churches built worldwide during the 40 year term of Ka Erdy…would fare compared to the lifetime’s work of John Paul II when a notable increase in Catholic converts was documented in South Africa.

Comparison will also inevitably be made with the Muslim Faith which will be marked by the nation on Eid Al Fit’r September 21…for another long weekend.  This weekend economics of our President (like it or not, she is our president and how we treat her reflects on all of us) is very popular with the working class who are in dire need of de-compressing their lifestyles from making ends meet, keeping their children well-educated, keeping in touch with family and friends, etc. etc.

President Arroyo is currently in boiling hot water for her son Mickey’s monstrous faux pas on prime time discussing their family wealth plotted on a chart from the day he was voted into office.

A faux pas (pronounced /ˌfoʊˈpɑː/, plural: faux pas /ˌfoʊˈpɑː(z)) is, according to wikipedia “a violation of accepted social rules (for example, standard customs or etiquette rules).  Faux pas vary widely from culture to culture, and what is considered good manners in one culture can be considered a faux pas in another. The term comes originally from the french and literally means “false step”.

Peaceful co-existence between divergent faiths require only GENUINE MUTUAL RESPECT.  A violation of ACCEPTED SOCIAL RULES, which vary from culture to culture, is FAUX PAS.  When Mickey smiles as if he got the cream and was given a nice pat in the head for it…there was CULTURAL OUTRAGE but the death of Ka Erdy Manalo gives the nation a pause to reflect deeply on life at the time of great loss or, as in the case of other cultures…to mark a passage to the afterlife; as is the proper function of all death rituals.

These are what we did two years ago..learn to read in 100 easy lessons; and today’s rainy afternoon artwork to prepare for tomorrow’s papier mâché painting (Can’t wait for it to dry, Ma…).

Mikey’s interview reflects what we all, like it or not, are teaching our children.

A Filipina named Nicole (she will fade fast in history by such nameless designation) was vilified as having betrayed the cause of feminists by recanting on her testimony in a successfully prosecuted rape case on appeal setting free the American serviceman Daniel Smith; found guilty of date raping her.  She never set herself up as a hero, only the local feminists did.  And if they did, then they only have themselves to blame.

And then there was this woman named Cory who was consumed by love of country and then by cancer in whose funeral procession was celebrated  as hero and saint with such an outpouring of love and gratitude by the same teeming masses of her countrymen that came out to defend her as icon of their lost democracy.  Like Nicole, on no occasion did she ever set herself up as a hero either. Although she defended herself from lies in a libel case against those who mocked her femininity by accusing her of hiding under her bed at coup d’etat.  One of the coup plotters, Col. Rex Robles of the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabayan or the rightist military RAM, wept without shame before world TV at her passing declaring that she eventually taught even him and the RAM a lesson..only more violence would be wrought by a violent ascent to power.  In the coming 2010 elections, imprisoned Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV will be heading a campaign and they are currently registering members of the MAGDALO party. Unlike Nicole, Corazon Aquino’s place in history is secure.

Ironically and by all accounts, she perceived herself no more than a housewife in charge of a big brood of children while her husband suffered political persecution and detention.  Called to the halls of power after Ninoy Aquino’s assassination (like JFK, it remains unsolved), she realistically saw herself as a creature of convergent circumstances upon whom greatness was thrust at a crucial crossroads in the struggle against a dictator.  She was equal to the task only because she clung to her faith and believed this was her calling– to serve.  The convergence of faith, hers and the Filipino masses’, with the extremely volatile political circumstance of that time resulted in the miracle that was the bloodless revolution.

In her funeral wake, the son and daughters of the dictator came to pay their respects and were received by Cory’s children without rancor. I imagine that instruments of a miracle behave in just such a fashion, that is .. after the evil of the dictatorship itself has been overcome the men and women caught in its web are just as easily welcomed back to the fold of community to hopefully learn the true meaning of power.

Women are, above all, human.  Each will rise or fall in the occasions that present themselves as challenges to their humanity.  What properly gives them cause to rally behind a movement of feminism is the male dominance that has repressed femininity through the ages as a natural repository of the “unscientific/intuitive”; “emotional/compassionate”; the “untamed/natural” as opposed to the “cultivated/industrial/rational/scientific” etc. etc.

In Eco-feminism, however, I find balance and the more rational perspective.

Betty Roszak, in an article “Spirit of the Goddess” found in the Compilation Book “Ecopsychology” (Sierra Book Club, 1995) wrote:

Until every man accepts and expresses what has been called “the feminine” in his nature, and every woman is allowed to express what has been called “the masculine” in hers, we must be wary of setting ourselves apart as women in some new version of the noble savage, who bears all wisdom and will redress the wrongs and injustices of the world.

In the Philippines the line between masculine and feminine are not drawn as opposing lines.  Here it is a thin socially defined line.  If a man is effeminate this is socially acceptable unless he is a sexual degenerate and commits perversions which behavior the Catholic Church, in any case, condemns both in men and women alike.  If a woman excels, therefore, she is as easily lauded as a her male counterpart.

Here, the “takusa” short for “takot sa asawa” literally “afraid of wife”, is not only a good thing; it’s a social virtue.  The Civil Code recognizes the husband as the legal administrator of the conjugal partnership of gains but in most households, the wife controls the purse by tradition and by natural inclination.

Among the mountain tribes/indigenous peoples a man marries and migrates to the tribe of the woman.  Genealogies are traced along matriarchal and ancestral land origins lines. In short, matriarchy was and continues to be rampant in the Islands. Leadership, by tradition, is also thrust upon a person by acclamation of his clan or tribe.   It is never sought and all efforts at actively seeking power are socially repressed as vainglory.

Roszak’s astute goal definition for Eco-feminism therefore is highly endorsed here:

What we seek is wholeness and the creation of a new kind of knowing that cultivates rationality, self-confidence, intellect and power alongside nurturing, healing, compassionate, intuitive components of personality. Both ecofeminism and ecopsychology want to break free of the bonds of patriarchal inheritance, to become grounded in a new reality, aware of the sacred nature of each person and each being on Earth.  There is no Goddess in the sky; we are all the Goddess.  Our saints and heroines are not dead; they live within us and, like the phoenix, are renewed each day.

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corazon_Aquino_1986.jpg. Photo in public domain.)

I look at this picture and I see the woman who let go of all fear to let in great faith and compassion. It doesn’t make me feel proud I’m a woman. Rather, it makes me hopeful that women and men might re-discover their boundless humanity to set the standards necessary to walking the corridors of power in this beautiful country.

When people began to pray novenas for her recovery I thought … “you ask too much of the woman” and I envied her for the joy she must’ve found at the end of her most illuminating and I dare say, illuminated life.