ORAGONX: THE NEW BIKOL REPUBLIK

While our professor was midway demonstrating how to present a conference paper, the ground suddenly started shaking and the glass windows rattling. We were stunned for a moment until somebody said, earthquake. That was the signal each one of my classmates started ducking under the slim tables. I think I was the last one who did the same. Looking back, I thought it was so natural for them; but for me, who comes from a different context and obviously had not absorbed much those reminders on what to do in times of an earthquake as to make them part of my own make up and system, my delayed reaction was well, perhaps a manifestation of my own lack of disaster preparedness consciousness. I still remember in July 16, 1990; yes, that Big One which hit Baguio and Cabanatuan City. I was about to go out of the SM Cubao then when the glass windows of the mall started trembling. The guard’s immediate reaction was to close the door but I remember some of us shouted at him with the question: ano ba gusto mo bang makulong tayo dito sa loob. The guard was the first one to have sped out of the mall.
I remember that guard because in a way his reaction was also similar to mine own yesterday. I thought his , was less of an abandonment but a very natural human fear and strong primeval act of self-preservation. Which is not always a guarantee for it, though. That is why I remember all those disaster preparedness plugs I used to read in my own radio program which perhaps I did not take to heart myself. And that explains why while my classmates were already under the table, I was sizing up the walls whether they will fall down on us. I was also remembering the escape door. I’m certain fear also gripped me. I was aware that seismologists were awaiting an earthquake along the Hamilton Fault which is within the Bay Area and which shakes every 140 years and it was supposed to have been at the end of last month. So I remember mumbling a prayer.
The quake lasted about 30 seconds and because we had our laptops, we immediately knew that the epicenter was only 7 miles from downtown San Jose and that it was a 5.6 intensity, and coming from or near the Calaveras Fault. No major damages. The buildings were still up. No deaths. No injuries. That was not yet the Big One.
Thank God.

What made us laugh after we gained our composure though was the timing of the quake. My professor’s conference paper was on Robinson Jeffers’ poetry which is noted for what a critic called “geologic sublimity”, its concern for a forgotten past when the earth’s current geography was still being formed by earthquakes and the movement of tectonic plates. Think of images of the Mauna Loa spewing lava into the sea and you’ll get the metaphor in his poems. Its so primal which really makes the “sublime” a very dangerous place. We thought Jeffers was around just as he had written in Tor House (”My ghost you needn’t look for; it is probably/Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind/With the mad wings and the day moon.”); and which we were reading at that time. Somebody snapped: a “geologic special effects.” What a way to remember early la dia para los muertos. Happy Halloween!

Last night, my wife had the best sleep in weeks in her life. When we had our usual evening chat, she was so in a hurry to go to sleep she lost in the week-long campaign for the recent barangay election. She lost that one too, i.e. her bid for barangay captain in our village, not because she sleeps a lot but because her opponent won. As simple as that. We do not have excuses. I was helping run her campaign, at least the strategic part, long distance. She is in the Philippines, I am in California. Yet, that is not the reason for her debacle (because it was a very negligible margin that could have been easily gained earlier during the campaign). It is the delicate balancing act called Philippine local politics. Earlier on, some had advised her to resort to the one G of Philippine politics, that is buy votes. We did not buy that because not only we do not have the money, and even if we do, we wouldn’t have done it just the same, for the simple reason that my wife was running on a hope and a belief that our voters have values beyond the pensive Ninoy Aquino, which my moles reported did circulate during the campaign. She believes in respecting the integrity of the voters and their capacity to chose their leaders freely without undue pecuniary influence as a political exercise of their rights. As it turned out, some voters voted under the influence. She thinks she will be in the wrong start by starting with the wrong footing; and she stood pat on that. Some had also advised her to ask the help of politicians. We did not also follow that, knowing not only the non-partisans nature of the barangay election but also the vested interests of politicians. Some said, “ay dugay ka naman bay sa politika.” Yes, in the sense of her running as a candidate. But we know for long the low depths where Philippine politics had sunk in, so we thought of lighting our own candle.

Because she had a good night sleep, we feel she still won and that is reason enough for celebration and thanksgiving she said she will do the following morning. Is she coming back with this kind of valuable voters. Oh, she believes in the ninja rule that defeat one day only gives her another day to come back. Hmm. I thought I heard Schwarzenegger there. But really, it may be Sisyphusian to roll a rock over again a hill which is the seeming hopeless kind of our political culture we have; but we should, on the other hand, have faith each in our selves and in our people that one day, we can go over the hill in triumph against the hopelessness and helplessness in our midst by standing up and doing something about what we believe in. Everything passes, St. Theresa of Avila said. So, even Muhammed Ali did not escape this thing called Alzheimer’s disease.

So, next time you think there is no end to these sad, sad state of affairs in our country. Don’t just wait for time to do its work. Let’s do something about our times, instead. Even if you lose some sleep.

Former president Joseph Estrada’s assertion that he may “have committed mistakes” in his public career but “corruption is not one of them”, is an example of what American author Charles Baxter calls the concept of “deniability,” or the political culture of finger-pointing.”

The idea, which he discussed in his book on writing fiction, Burning Down The House, creates what he termed a “dysfunctional narrative.”

“One of the signs of a dysfunctional narrative” he wrote, “is that we cannot leave it behind, and we cannot put it to rest, because it does not, finally give us the explanation we need to enclose it…Instead of achieving closure, the story spreads over the landscape like a stain as we struggle to find a source of responsibility.”

In other words, the buck doesn’t stop anywhere. No one takes responsibility for mistakes made and the public is left to conjecture who erred.

This is where our country’s story is in now. Like Baxter, I also long for the delineation of characters where we can clearly see the division between the “despicable and the admirable,” a distinction now obliterated by the Arroyo administration.

Fortunately, we see who wears its own abominable mask.

(AND WHAT IS MAPAGPAKUMBABA)

This is my delayed reaction to the post in Ugat on streamers hanging just about anywhere in the city proper, which the insightful blogger rightly sees as posing dangers to the life and limbs of motorists. I just hope our elected city council representatives know blogging themselves so they can see the correctness of the view of the ugat blogger. His is the kind of people’s participation that we sorely need in the city, one which observes and constructively comment on his observation by offering solutions and alternatives. Criticism, done constructively, is after all healthy. His post started from a question of a friend, who asked upon observing the predominance of these eyesores, mostly within the vicinity of the city park as well as the main thoroughfares at the centro - do we lack self-esteem as a people as manifested by these streamers? The friend’s concern is also expressed in his observation that even a school’s 30% passing record in certain examinations are bandied about through these streamers? Indeed, that is in fact below par. Our blogger, however, ever the devil’s advocate, argued that it may also be our people’s putting a higher premium or value on education for which parents even sell their carabaos or long-kept heirloom just to send their children to college. Besides, our blogger said, it is also promotion or advertisement for the school.

It was a good and well-reasoned out exchange and indeed, it is time that the members of the city council heed his recommendation. Allocate only certain areas for these streamers and billboards. They are not only vehicular hazards (which is the reason the DPWH has banned them), they are also contributing to urban blight. Current trends in urban planning now consider the city as a breathing organism, free of these vestiges of commercialism (and even politicking, remember those streamers greeting the observance of the anniversary of this church or birthday of its founder), by liberally incorporating natural elements in planning and zoning, to come up with so-called green cities. Perhaps, Iriga can start going in this direction. One possible place for these streamers and billboards perhaps is at the city terminal, which can give it additional source of revenues. And perhaps too, we should now get rid of billboards on projects of this and that politician. It’s politically incorrect, considering that it is the people’s money which are being spent on these projects and so credit should first and foremost go to the taxpayers and not the politician. In movie parlance, that’s nagnananakaw ng credit. But we know the reason why, its free advertisement for the next election.

But back to the streamer. I don’t agree with the blogger’s friend’s assessment that the streamers are indicative of our people’s low self-esteem. If there is a Bikolnon to whom the word oragon is so apt, it is the Irigueno. We give it in fact a new stress with our quaint schwa sound to the o in the word. And where did the words malang-patak and maablada come from? Nabuenos also call us malang usbog. This is not to say that other Bikolnon are not themselves oragon. We just give the word a louder meaning. Just observe when we Iriguenos gather among ourselves. We sound like Paul Williams singing “You and Me Against The World.”

What I think though of these streamers is that they are manifestations of our own distorted and misguided sense of excellence and honor. This is actually what I have in mind when I wrote Ciudad sa Parada in my first poetry collection, Ragang Rinaranga (Naga City: Agnus Press, 2006). Having sat in the Sumagang Selection Committee for several years, I have seen how these distortions manifested themselves, although for the peace of mind of those who may be guilty (you know who you are); I will not cite specifics here. Suffice to say that some think that excellence is being able to pull one over the other; or that honor is something that has to be announced with a brass band. Excellence for me is less of outdoing others but more of outdoing and overcoming one’s limitation. As for honor, the honorable man does not delight in being called honorable. It is for me the Biblical guest who sits at the end of the table, but eventually is called by the host to sit instead at what we call the presidential table. In short, being honorable is also being mapagpakumbaba or humble, one of the main character we are promoting in our City Character Program. To go down or bumaba means leveling with one another so one can understand and communicate, to be in the same ground. Nakatungtong sa raga. So, as we are wont to ask while waiting at the elevator lobby, “bababa ba?” Are we ready to go down and level off with our own people? This simply means not looking at the ordinary Irigueno as a mendicant case, that is only awaiting for one’s generosity. Pagpapakumbaba is first of all, recognizing one’s common humanity and bond with other people and respecting their own human dignity. In other words, if you are a government employee you do not let a taxpayer wait for you till you finish your make up or your coffee. Or if you are a candidate for an elective post, you do not buy their votes because you recognize their right to choose their representative. Pagpapakumbaba is learning the lesson from our staple food - rice, which when unripe is upright; but when full and golden, it bows to the earth from whence it grew, in a gesture of gratitude and remembrance. Most often, when people get to be somebody, they start talking, “suway sa awak”. They become a manananggal. I’m sure this is not the reason why for sometime Iriguenos had been called aswang.