Another Dulag tragedy: In memory of Cathleen and James

James and Cathleen

Another Dulag tragedy:

In memory of Cathleen and James

By J. Colima Bajado

History tells us that Dulag is one of the first mission stations established in our region, together with Carigara on July 16, 1595, by the Vice Provincial of the Jesuits Fr. Antonio Sedeňo.

History tells us also how Dulag was devastated in return of liberation from the Japanese colonizers in 1944. Dulag is actually where Gen. Douglas McArthur shored first in Leyte, not in Palo. However, when MacArthur saw the sheer devastation- “like a funeral dirge that saw thousands of dead, dying or wounded… from the terrible firepower of the guns and artillery of American gunships and war planes” (noted by the historian Emil Justimbaste)- he preferred to land somewhere else, whence the shores of Palo.

The reason why many were killed in Dulag during the Liberation is due to miscommunication. McArthur tapped Lt. Col. Frank Rawolle and Lt. Cmdr. Charles Parsons to tell the people to evacuate due to impending attacks. Rawolle and Parson relayed it to Ruperto Kangleon, the leader of the guerillas in Leyte, but the latter failed to relay the message of evacuation because he was not in good terms with the guerilla leader of Dulag, Bonifacio Kempis. This, history tells us.

Before August of 2011 ended, a dreadful news blow the press and media, and the EV as a whole. Teen lovers Cayetano James F. Baoy and Cathleen Gamba were robbed and killed in Brgy. San Rafael, Dulag, Leyte. Baoy is a 3rd year high school student in Leyte Colleges. The latter, who is only 13 years old, was raped before murdered.

The three suspects (actually offenders because they admitted the crime), with age bracket from 19 to 22, are now in jail. They were under the spirit of liquor, whom admittedly drank tuba before the incident. Their intention primarily is to rob the young lovers, but turned out to more than robbery.

Discounting these murderers, who is/are to be blame? The lovers? The parents of the lovers? The parents of the murderers? The tuba gatherer? The tuba seller? Or is it the community as a whole?

The people of Dulag already knew the personality of the suspects who are noted scalawags. Incidents of robbery-hold up are attributed to these three, but nobody reported this to the authorities. In effect, this three developed a big head, full of air, with the belief that they are the rapscallions of Dulag, worthy to be feared. From simple looting activities to claiming life.

This effort of course is communal. Collective action is necessary in order to circumvent these instances. It was a miscommunication. Should have the community had identified this three as hooligans, the people, including the lovers would have been vigilant. Who is to blame? That is beside the point. We can easily point and pick the murderers. Since they are criminals, they must face the dealing of our justice system. But the germane question is, what did we learn?

I cannot blame the lovers, whose age, their juices of entanglement is outpouring. Out of confidence, they thought they can have their romantic appointment or date just elsewhere. I cannot completely comprehend, or maybe I just don’t want to, how these two innocent people suffer from malevolent arms of the society they thought was friendly.

Theirs are just two lives compare to the thousands during the Liberation days, but is nevertheless as essential. Should we have only had learned the lesson of our history, James and Kathleen are still walking hand in hand in the streets of Dulag, and eventually have their own family. But these are all gone, for they paid the consequence of the community that still ensnared in a box of ignorance. The people failed to tap the shoulders of their fellow citizen for warning, as Kangleon failed to relay the message of evacuation that claimed thousands of lives of his countrymen. We must upkeep the welfare not only of our personal, but the communal. The rest is history.

The real treasure of a place, are the people. History cannot refute this.

James and Cathleen, requiescat in pace.

###

Published in Gahum Weekly

Vol. 2. # 21

Celebrating the Language Month (2)

Celebrating the Language Month (2)

J. Colima Bajado

I was a Waray first, before I become a Tagalog, and English. That is, if I really became the last two. I bet my parents were trying to teach me how to properly enunciate Na-Nay and Ta-tay and were very proud every time I say it correctly by accident, as a toddler. My parents’ efforts were put in vain when I went to school. I was taught by my meticulous (sometimes frustrating) English teachers to say mada (mother) and fada (father). Also in school, I was taught to say marjærin (margarine).

            In addition, maybe because of the stiff Waray tongue, I always have this hard time in pronouncing English words correctly. I cannot forget the moment when I was defending my research paper back in college. Because my professor cannot find an off beam in my paper, he slayed my pronunciation instead. “Mr. Bajado, it is to determine (pronounced as di túrmin), not deter-men!” I repeated the word, but unfortunately, I again said it in the latter pronunciation.

We are sorry products of our inappropriate educational system, which is a further creation of our colonized minds. We always think that English is superior, and the imposed Tagalog language for that matter.  We forget and sometimes ashamed to use our mother tongues- Waray, Akeanon, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, etc.- the lingua franca of the drivers, janitors, farmers and the commoners. After the American regimen, Tagalog has been legalized as a national language and baptized as thus so called “Filipino”.

However, it has already been proven that this so called “Filipino” is nothing less than a colonizer of his own kind. As a response to the outcry of policy restructuring, Mother Tongue Based- Multi Lingual Education (MTB-MLE) has been passed. Some, especially people form Manila, say that MTB-MLE is a silly design because mathematical and scientific terminologies have no equivalent in some local languages. Partly it is true. But we need not to change these terms as it is a requirement in an absolute discipline. However, in the case of Waray, even our natives have already utilized their own arithmetic and scientific expressions and terms.

When the Spaniards footed in our islands, we already have our manner of counting. We have one to ten. Gatos for a hundred. Yukot for a thousand. Dumalam for millions. And we even have Buraburaan for a number impossible to count, perhaps trillions.

Besides, we have already an existing lexis for the shape of the moon. Gimata for New Moon. Kaudto for First Quarter.  Kadayaw for Full Moon, and Dudlumon for Last Quarter. They already have identified a considerable assortment of our flora and fauna. We also have our different directions of the wind: Kanawayan, Timog, Amihan and Habagat.

Waray has been my primary language. At home, we care less about the syntax, grammar, and other linguistic considerations because we understood what we were saying.  English will and cannot catch the nuances and expressions that is peculiar to our tastes. I can attest that some may be successful in their attempts to find the equivalent in English of the following words, but I am sure that those words will not suffice the cultural sense and taste of a speaker in Waray.  Consider these words: Maharathat, madagaang , masapara , nagtitilwaka, naghihimaruydoy.

I am also and still waiting for the day that during the celebration of the language month, the activities will be a Siday recital competition or Esmayling competition instead of the Balagtasan. And I hope in quiz bees, answers will be matters or peoples that have something to do with our heritage, culture and identity as Waraynons.

I will not be proud if you find grammatical, syntactical, psychological, political, lyrical, galonical, errors in this very article. But I will not be ashamed too, for it is a conclusive evidence that all those efforts in school (i.e. fines and other lucrative money-generating-business of the teacher), are all otiose in order to pursue English, and this so called “Filipino” for that matter, too.

As a final point, in relation to the celebration of the language month, I want to share these words of my literary mom and unwavering literary mentor, UP Professor Emeritus and multi-Palanca Award winning poet Merlie Alunan: “Our advocates have thought of all the ways to save our mother languages—legal and conventional, or radical and revolutionary. We may add to all their wise thoughts and recommendations the creative way: Tell our stories in the old tongue. Let them be told, or written in the languages we learned at the knees. Teach the young to dream, to speak, to sing in the language of the mother. Let the stories and the poems be in everyone’s tongue, the songs in everyone’s throat. Give them to every man, woman and child in every village of the beautiful islands of the Visayas. Thus will our languages live!”

Matinuhaon nga pagsalin-urog han aton Pinulongan!

[ Esmayling: A traditional discourse-in-verse of the Warays 

Video produced by CACO Calbayog. Copyright belongs to the producer.]

Published in Gahum Weekly, Vol 2, No. 19

Celebrating the Language Month (1)

Celebrating the Language Month (1)

J. Colima Bajado

It is noticeable today that the younger generations are becoming more ignorant to the meaning of simple Waray words. Some do not even know the equivalent term in our language, of several nouns and adjectives. Worst, some parents would require the nannies of their children to talk to them in English. Ouch! Yuck! Gosh! Expressions that could have been well said as Aduy! Bagra! Hiyay!

I will take this opportunity, which long I have awaited, to talk about a sort of appreciation lecture of our language- Bisaya, Binisaya, Waray, Waray-Waray, Samareňo-Leyteňo- whichever you call it.

Scholars tagged the Jesuit father Ignacio Alcina as the gran defensor of the Bisayans by granting veneration, or at least a simple admiration on our language. He called the natives “my beloved Bisayans.” He translated Latin prayers, novenas and observances to our language. He also wrote a thesaurus of at least 20,000 words. He was a Spanish friar!

He defended that our language, which is popularly known today as Waray, is better than any language in the country that time- even better than Tagalog. Fr. Alcina furtherly explicate that our forms of poetry were excellent to the point of outshining the Tagalog, Spanish and other European linguistic mien. It took him 30 years to finally be au fait with the basics of our different forms of literature. But today, do we even care about it?

Some take it “baduy” to listen or read a siday. With this snooty attitude towards our surviving literature, it is not surprising that very few of us know that haya, ambahan, bical, balac, siday and awit once existed, much less in knowing their literary physiognomy.

In expounding Fr. Alcina’s proposition that our language is rich, he took an example on the richness on the terms that we use to the word “lavar” (wash), where our term paglaba is rooted (pagbunak is more appropriate word than paglaba). He noted the specificity of our use of the word “lavar” because in Spanish (and English too) they just say, wash your feet, wash your face, wash your hands, etc.

For example, instead of saying wash your mouth, we say pagpalimugmog, which specifically refer to gargling. Pagpusa to wash the feet. Paghiram-os in washing our face. To wash one’s hands we say paghunaw. To wash one’s privates, pag usaw. That’s why we never fail to remind our girlfriends in asking, “inusaw ka na?”

As mentioned, we say pagbunak to wash our clothes. But more specifically, we say pagtalimsaw in rinsing the clothes. Pagtalimsaw may also refer to rinsing with fresh water after bathing in salty water. We say pagdanggas in washing open wounds.  

I can say more words like pagparigo, pagtuyab-as, pagwasiwas, pagnawnaw, pagpunas. The dialectological wealth of our language convinced Fr. Alcina that indeed, the language of his “beloved Bisayans” is superior. Furthermore, people speak metaphorically even in ordinary conversations, how much more with the different poetic forms? It makes, for him, our language more remarkable.

If it is the case then, why is it today that some of us cannot speak our language, unless otherwise the situation demands us to speak in English? When I was about to board the plane at the Tacloban airport, bound for Manila last week, I was next in line to a lady who was talking with somebody in her cell phone. “Mom, I put the key at the study table in my room,” with a foreign twang. Suddenly she added, “hagi Mama, didto lagi hit lamesa!” Now with an authentic Waray accent.

I smirked. I remembered the Palanca Hall of Famer Dr. Leoncio Deriada’s idea that pain and anger is distinct to ones culture. He had this funny, yet factual suggestion in order to determine the roots of your seatmate- pinch her. If she says Aray! She is Tag-ala. If she says Aguy! She is a Sebuana. If she says Aduy! Surely, she is a Waray. But if she says ouch! Pinch her some more, for she is pretending to be American.

Should’ve had I wrote this article in Waray, it would be more interesting. But since inevitable circumstances compelled me to write this in English, pardon the paradox and irony. An Diyos an  magbalos!

Published in Gahum Weekly

Vol 2, No. 18

Fiesta today: (A)political Parade

Fiesta today: (A)political Parade
J. Colima Bajado


There must be something wrong with us.

Tacloban, the eastern Visayas capital, celebrated its fiesta last week, June 30. When I heard that the Pintados-Kasadyaan festival parade was blocked by Tacloban's TOMECO and other city personnel, I was not surprised. In superficial, it is Sangyaw versus Pintados-Kasadyaan festivals. But straightforwardly, it is a politically-driven agenda.

I am not apathetic to the ongoing political squabble between the provincial government of Leyte and the HUC government of Tacloban. But I will put that matter to one side. My emphasis here will be the celebration of fiesta. Theoretically, fiesta is a religious endeavor, thus, apolitical. But in the case of Tacloban, it shows otherwise. There must be really something wrong with us.

Fiesta is a thanksgiving celebration in honor to the patron saint of the town for all its intercessory marvels. The celebration of fiestas in eastern Visayas can be traced back to the introduction of Christianity by the Spanish conquistadores in the 1500s.

The early Visayans unreservedly embraced this celebration for this is not uncommon to their pag-anito (offering) to their deities. This celebration is much closely related to the type of pag-anito called pagtigma, or literally means “to congregate” or “to gather”. The person who summons the villagers to the pagtigma, by shouting in top of tall trees, is called “parayawyaw”. The celebration revolves on the thanksgiving and asking favors to their gods. Regardless of its animistic nature, it was purely religious.

At present, fiestas are more colorful with overture activities, such as the festival of festivals- the Kasadyaan in the case of Leyte. In the Visayan capitals, Cebu is noted for its Sinulog, Kalibo for Ati-Atihan, and Ilo-ilo for Dinagyang. All these three festivals are well established and rooted to their respective cultures.

What about the Pintados-Kasadyaan and Sangyaw festivals? Some of us are informed (but unfortunately many of us are not) that Pintados festival is based on the “painted” men and women, as the Spaniards describe our natives. And Kasadyaan, they say, is a Visayan term for “merriment” and “jollity”. Furthermore, “Sangyaw” means “to herald a news”. How are these festivals rooted to our cultural history?

Pintados entails to the tattooed natives. Tattooing is actually not peculiar to our region. It is in fact practiced all over the different regions of the country. Jesuit Father Ignacio Alcina wrote in 1600s that almost every Bisayan has a painted body as early as twenty years old, except the women, who paint a portion of their hands only. Bur generally, tattooing is a presentation of one’s “nobility, achievements or heroic feats”. But how do we see this in the Pintados festival of Tacloban? Does is coincide with the cultural roots of our region? Pintados by the way is a Spanish term. Pagpatik is a more appropriate word.

I cannot find the word “kasadyaan” in any Waray dictionary, and probably from my ignorance, I thought this word might be derived from the Tagalog “sadya”, or perhaps, from a Sebuano lexicon. And from my imperfect mastery of our language, I only know “kalipayan” and “kamaribhong” as words that will suffice the word merriment. While “sangyaw”, as far as I know means “to proclaim”. Then, to proclaim what?

More than that, we should couple these supposed culture-rooted undertakings with a “religious” spirit, for fiesta is primarily a church celebration. This is a time for prayer and thanksgiving for all the bounties we received. This is not a time for pageantry of politicians- our first problem. Secondly, we are all ignorant of our own culture, much less of its essence. We all want to attend the pagtigma, but everyone also wants to become the “parayawyaw”. Namamarayaw!

Our culture is the strongest foundation of our identity. Why is it that Pintados, or Kasadyaan, or the Sangyaw cannot compete with the prominence of Sinulog, Ati-atihan and Dinagyang? Because of its shallow cultural foundations, plus, its shallow religious substance. Again, I will not be surprised if in the future, another festival will be birthed. Another Petilla or Romualdez festival of festivals. ###

(Published in Gahum Weekly)

The “Buayas” of Palawan and Leyte-Samar

The “Buayas” of Palawan and Leyte-Samar
J. Colima Bajado
I can say that I had traversed the whole Philippine archipelago, that is the three main islands, Luzon-Visayas-Mindanao, in my early 20’s. For different reasons, from writing stuff to a straightforward leisure, I have had been to the Ilocos’ tipmost Pagudpod, shoot in all the Visayan Islands, and wander the land of promise, Mindanao. Last week, I was privileged to visit Palawan- unwinding, supposedly.

The first and remarkable destination I took during my dayfirst of the weeklong stay was the Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center- more of a crocodile farm, in Puerto Princesa City. I was taken aback to eye the displayed skeleton of the biggest-live-crocodile caught in the country, in the early 90s. Ignacio Francisco Alcina’s Historia de las e indios de Bisayas…1668 suddenly hit me talking about the crocodiles, yes, buayas, that were then unrestrainedly breathing in Loom river in Borongan, Catubig river, Pambujan, and all over the Samar and Leyte regions. This means, crocs in our region are then prevalent.

Going back to Tacloban, as rampant as the buayas are the drivers and/or porters waiting for their “prey” out/inside the Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport. It has been a recurring experience from my previous (local) travels in the region that our drivers (even tricycle drivers), overcharge itinerants, especially most when they noticed ones ignorance to the existing fares of the place.

Neither defamation nor slander is intended, it has been a poignant observation that there are some of us who cannot help, really, but to ride on the coat tails of our trippers, worst, even fellow Warays. Upon claiming my two suitcases from the baggage carousel of the DZR Airport, a porter, most willingly, asked me if I need assistance. “Ta hala, kay nararambingan ak,” I replied. What a showcase of munificence a fellow Waray can offer, I uttered to myself. It was my first time to accept porter assistance.

He helped me bring my suitcases and also got me a city-proper-bound taxi. When my baggages were already set in the taxi, he was now asking me 500 pesos. Anu!? I exclaimed. I thought I heard it wrong. But yes, it was 500 pesos. I can’t believe he was asking me 500 pesos for a two medium sized suitcases! He did not even carry it, for the bags were reeled. I did, as frugal as I am, not pay him the said amount. I gave him 250 pesos instead. Fair enough, I believe.

I thought the misery ended there.

But after I got off from the taxi, the driver was asking 400 pesos for the fare. “Mapadismayo!” I exclaimed again, now coupled with a long sigh. “Mano, diri na gad la ako nakausa sakay hin taxi pakanhi”, I added. I handed him 250 pesos, the usual amount I give for fare from the airport to my place, just in the city. The moment I entered my room, I turn on the fan to cool off, unwind again(!), both my physical and spiritual faculties.

I will be making various travels in the future, certainly. And I hope I will just encounter the literal caymans, crocs, alligators and its kind like that in Palawan. I have the courage to face them. I am more anxious of meeting by any chance, this thick-skinned buayas, skin thicker that of a rhinoceros, and mouth wide-opened, ready to devour their prey.

And yes, I am in a way dismayed of our contemporary buayas in the region. Because in the 1660’s, Fr. Ignacio Alcina made a noteworthy observation that: “Y es que ningun caiman que es natural del rio, o laguna, donde esta el pueblo, hace mal a indio alguno de el.” Or as translated by Fathers Kobak and Gutierrez, “It is that of no crocodile, which is a native of the river or lake where the town is, will harm any native belonging to it.”

I would rather have those crocs of before, than these crooks of today.###

(Published in Gahum Weekly, Vol 2, No. 15)