Observer Editorial-June 2009

Fatherhood, Nation, and Emancipation

 

The nexus of fatherhood, nation, and emancipation is not obvious, we all agree.

 

If we looked harder and closer, however, we realize these things: that the Philippine nation has been fathered—and mothered too! —by the imagination to evolve a homeland that is free and emancipated from the clutches of oppression.

 

Even as we are reminded of June as the month of Philippine independence and the month reserved to celebrate the deeds of fathers around the world, we are bound to remember as well how the conception of emancipation involves nations and fathers.

 

For while nations are results of a political imagination to build a homeland of the brave and the free, nations carry with them as well the seed of contradictions, with that political imagination itself containing its own seed of destruction when the homeland is not for everyone but for a few.

 

Many nations—many nation-states—all over the world are still guilty of this thing.

 

While there is that public announcement that a homeland has been conceived as a ‘good place’—a ‘utopia’—not every conception has been coupled with practices that are intended to pursue the ends of the good place, which, in fine, also means the ‘good life’.

 

The solons of old talk of this as the common good.

 

The reality today is that this common good is not common as it is a common good for the few, indeed, an irony of ironies.

 

Many of the authors of all these forms of social injustices—the very reason for this absence of emancipatory practices—are themselves ‘fathers’ in the most literal meaning of the word.

 

Many of them are ‘fathers’ of nations, too.

 

Such contradictions are never more real when we look at nation-states with tyrannical leaders who claim that they are the most kind, most caring, and most sympathetic of the lot of fathers.

 

Such contradictions are never more real when we continue to be assaulted by domestic deaths because (a) men kill other men or (b) men kill their wives or lovers or intimate partners.

 

In this Day of Fathers, we can only hope for the best, our hopeful prayer our energy to go on believing that fathers ought not to forget their caring and nurturing side to build up families, people, communities, and homelands.

 

In this Day of Philippine Independence, we can only hope for the best for the Philippine homeland even as we continue to witness the rambunctious ambitions of fathers to turn the homeland into an Eden for the already cynical. 

Observer editorial, June 2009

 

 

 

Talaytayan MLE, Cultural Justice, and the Cause of the Philippine Nation

 

Talaytayan MLE, Cultural Justice, and the Cause of the Philippine Nation

 Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, PhD

 

On May 23, a new movement aimed to pursue the ends of Mother Language Education was born. This is Talaytayan MLE.

 

The movement makes use of two crucial concepts that have been left out in the framing of the philosophy of Philippine education: “talaytayan” or bridging and the return to mother language as crucial to the equipping of educatees with the fundamental life skills related to the world opened up by the competent and self-respecting use of one’s own language to combat illiteracy.

 

Of the many who are involved in the Talaytayan MLE, several individuals and cultural workers have lent their name to push for its founding.

 

In the initial meeting, there were six people who took part—with four of these having been involved in the MLE cause for some time: Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, former acting chair of the Commission on the Filipino Language; Prof. Ched Arzadon of the University of the Philippines College of Education; Prof. Arnold Molina Azurin, one of the foremost scholars on the Philippines and on the Amianan cultures; and this author. 

 

The basic idea in the Talaytayan MLE is the need to address the social inequities in Philippine education—inequities that are traceable to the privileging and entitlement of only two languages in the Philippines: Tagalog and English, with the other Philippines languages effectively ‘minoritized’ and totally marginalized.

 

The ‘minoritization’ of even the major languages is a result of the skewed cultural and educational policies of the Philippine government, with the brainwashing of educatees to make them believe that (a) their knowledge of Tagalog and English alone are sufficient to make them get by in life; and (b) their knowledge of their own non-English and non-Tagalog language and culture is not necessary in the formation of a national language and culture.

 

In the end, we have thus cultivated a certain consciousness among the young that provided a script for their automatic denigration of their languages and cultures.

 

With English and Tagalog having been accorded the status of being ‘prestigious’ languages and the other languages are practically useless, even the cultural workers who should—ought—to know better are doing exactly the opposite of what they are doing: they denigrate their own language and culture.

 

On the first list of cultural workers are teachers and writers and mass media professionals.

 

Many teachers have a hand in this continuing cultural inequity, what with their active role in the production and reproduction of consciousness that puts a premium on the issue of nation and nationalism on the basis of the centrist conception of nation and the parallel centrist conception of what constitutes Philippine nationalism.

 

Simply put, many teachers are the very authors of this ignorance and this incompetence to provide a critique to this vicious circle of cultural inequity, what with their hollow mental disposition about the virtues of cultural pluralism and diversity.

 

Many creative writers and mass media professionals are, involuntarily in cahoots with the system that reproduces the consciousness that has transformed us into believing that it is impossible to imagine a nation with many languages and cultures, that it is impossible to pursue the ends of nationalism that is based on diversity and cultural pluralism except via a monolithic understanding of a national language and an equally monolithic understanding of national culture.

 

Many creative writers and mass media professionals produce cultural texts in the two languages of national privilege and national entitlement.

 

The poverty of this form of nationalism—the reduction of the expression of Philippine nationalism into a dubious ‘national’ language—has never been exposed in the past, not until this ‘multilingual turn’, not until this ‘multilingualism and multiculturalism turn’ that formally began with the initiatives of various non-Tagalog language groups and the re-conceptualization by the Commission on the Filipino Language during the term of the office of then acting chair Nolasco of the role multilingualism and Philippine education.

 

The recognition of the role of Philippines languages in the pursuit of a just and fair nation and the recognition of the variety of Philippine culture and the role of the various cultures in socio-cultural and economic development has made this multilingual turn possible.

 

Some sectors of the Philippine government have realized that we can no longer pretend that the continuing decline in the achievement test of educatees is a result of non-language factors.

 

One simple truth in education is so simple we do not need useless college degrees to understand: that we understand the unknown via the known, that the movement of human knowledge is always from the familiar to the unfamiliar in that hopeful note that the unfamiliar, in the end, becomes familiar.

 

Translated in linguistic terms—with language the most effective universal medium for understanding—the known are those mediated by our first language, also known as our mother language.

 

The unknown, on the other hand, are those opened up by other domains of knowledge within the first or mother language and those forms of knowledge opened up by our access to another language.

 

Tagalog, with all its other names, is not the first or mother language of many peoples of the Philippines, this we must honestly accept.

 

The intent of Talaytayan MLE is to provide a support organization for all advocates of MLE, for all advocates of cultural equity, and for all advocates of an emancipatory form of education in the Philippines.

 

In the end, Talaytayan MLE is for cultural justice.    

Published in "Kallautang," FAO, June 2009

 

Pathologies of Ilokano Poetics 10

 

PATRIARCHY AND ILOKANO LITERATURE

 

One reality, ugly as it is, that Ilokano Literature must now begin to recognize is its deep roots in patriarchy.

 

Let’s do the definition game.

 

Ilokano Literature is that body of ‘lettere’ or letters whose written form can be traced back to the 1620/1621 account of the version of ‘kur-itan’, a form of a palimpsest, as found, for instance, in the Ilokano prayer “Amami.”

 

We know that this body of letters continues up to this day, with Bannawag and the radio as vehicles for its thriving and surviving.

 

We know that these popular media forms are limited, so limited we need to realize now that the extinction of the Ilokano language and literature is imminent, if we did not do something, if we just believed what the patriarchs are saying that our literature is here to stay.

 

We know that the country’s educational system, one of the main social institutions and cultural infrastructure that ought to assure us that we can keep our literature forever, is not there to support our effort to make it certain that Ilokano literature will be promoted and perpetuated.

 

This we know: that television, the most popular and most widespread of the pop cultural forms that is responsible for our collective dumbing down, does not even have sufficient respect for cultural pluralism and diversity in general, what with its skewed interest for profit and the fruits of the commerce of the language and culture of the center of power, essentially a Tagalog culture produced and reproduced in Manila.

 

This we know: that the educational system, run like a patriarchal institution, with its wrong assumptions about culture and pedagogy, such as its ignorant ramming into the throats of schoolchildren of its ignorant ‘bilingual’ education that favors only Tagalog and English as the tools for progress and development—we know that this educational system needs revamping and the policymakers need to be jolted from their insensitivities of the requisites of diversity as the only true expression of cultural and linguistic democracy in a multicultural and multilingual society like the Philippines. 

 

Given all these factors, we know for certain: that Ilokano literature, if not sustained, will go the route to extinction.

 

The symptoms are everywhere:

 

(a)   Teachers, whose salaries are being paid from our taxes, do not have the proper consciousness to even respect our literature, with their ignorance of their own literature and their discriminatory practices becoming the rule of the game in classroom instruction;

 

(b)  Students who do not know a whit what their Ilokano literature is all about, and knowing more about Harry Potter than them Padre Bucaneg and Leona Florentino Awardees and their works, if these awardees have something to show in the first place;

 

(c)   Ilokano writers of the patriarchal mode who do not know the relationship between what they do and the broader struggle to keep their literature and language not out of the classroom but inside the classroom for schoolchildren to have the courage and the boldness and the daring to say that their literature and language are as legitimate as another literature and language;

 

(d)  Ilokano writers whose claim to literature is the making permanent of trash talks in Internet sites and by coming up with unsubstantiated claims to embarrass others before the gawking public, some of whom do not also understand what the bigger causes are; and

 

(e)   The general population that do not even have the courage to own up their Ilokanoness, preferring instead to represent themselves as Tagalog or somebody else.

 

At the root of all these troubles, of course, is the continuing patriarchy in Ilokano literature.

 

It is that patriarchy in its production, with the male gaze the constant reference to what makes good Ilokano writing.

 

It is that patriarchy in its reception, with the male gaze the constant reference to the appreciation of life lessons (or their absence) we draw from various works.

 

Examples of these are replete in short stories about knights, in various forms, redeeming damsels in distress.

 

Examples too are those trash talks that now populate many message boards and c-boxes and some websites that do not know the connection between social responsibility and freedom of expression.

 

The trash talks are a form of patriarchy: they reveal the content of a patriarchal discourse that tells us, among others, that:

 

(a) Only the patriarchs have the right to speech, in their anonymity, in their chameleon power, in their double-triple guises, afraid as they are of the light, afraid as they are to be told that they are, indeed, the patriarchs whose sins have become our daily wages;

 

(b) The power to judge, convict, and execute are in their hands, and their power is absolute, and thus, they can judge, convict, and execute everyone they do not like in the Internet for EVERYONE to realize that them the patriarchs of Ilokano literature are the most powerful of the lot and that in their hands is the same power to say who are admitted into the enclaves of the patriarchy that is them in the first place, a patriarchy that is itself and old boys’ club, with one even suggesting that an awardee, too young to know what patriarchy is all about, should return his award; and

 

(c) This continuing publicity trial is the recourse of patriarchs of Ilokano literature to talk about their pretentious moral ascendancy and their right to exclude those whose view of things in Ilokano literature is not one for the senescent but one for a continuing, sustained struggle for and in the name of the Ilokano people.

 

There is one thing that we need not forget here: the younger generations of writers who have the capacity to do scholarly work for our literature, the younger writers who know the tools of literary history, who know what literary criticism is all about.

 

We sieve through the trash talks and we say: pity the patriarchs who know nothing but the motherhood phrases of Pharisees.

 

Let the hand washing of Pontius Pilate in Ilokano literature begin.

 

Bring out the Ilokano gimbal, the drum, and the rhythmic beats be dammed.  

 

This is the day of the patriarchs.

 

Let us bow our heads in perpetual ignorance and fanatic acclamation for in sum, Ilokano literature has become the enclave of ignorant patriarchs who have placed the law into their own clumsy, uncritical hands.     

 

 

A Poem of Sin at SM Marikina Starbucks

Today is another  

afternoon 

of my return after 

a long while.

The homeland is hot, 

blazing hot.

The weather is hell 

as in the heck

of our everyday 

stranger's life. 

The hot pandesal

at Pugon de Marikina 

is the size of roaches

shrinking to bite size, 

the price of wheat bread

no longer good 

for the exiled palate.

Now, I know this

even if in the emails

I read before flying back

I have been forewarned

of hunger in front 

of abundant Starbucks, 

with its swift and quick

offer of the good life,

cafe Americano

and the arabica of 

hallucinatory life

we live to the hilt

to anounce what drinks

are for the nation's gods

what drinks are that cost

the daily wage 

of those leading a life

that goes into Starbucks

to say hi to those pretending

to write poems but cannot figure

out what this free verse

of our miserable life 

is all about, this life

that has its prose

like metaphors of coffee

served via bottoms up.

This recession is killing me

kills my facile claim to poetry

and I need to kill back

to come alive from this heap

of murderous cups of coffee

tea or capitalist lies.

So there is no way 

to get even, I realize,

with these terrors of a return

except to keep running away 

from the couldron of a country

of our pains, pesos on recession

and faith in foreign food going wild.

So we run to where 

the air conditioned air is

this running dictating 

how much dwindling dinero

we need to survive

our rat's lives 

how much quivering cash 

we can dole out

to whoever is the capitalist 

that preys upon our not-so-sweet

of non-innocence 

a city we have lived

a city that has robbed us

of our decency has defined.

 

It is at the SM Starbucks

that this first sin comes alive:

brewed coffee tall and tangential

the cost of a day's work

for these young men and women

whose sin is they have names

as so far away from the city

far away from the palace

far away from where they make laws

far away from it all like mine. 

I get a glimpse 

of how is it to live

one pandering, 

pauperizing life.

For once, I am courage:

I make finalmente 

some Starbucks choices 

between a grande of sorrow

or a tall glass of bitter Marikina lives.

Brown Starbucks sugar 

or a choice of sugared honey 

to make me forget instantly  

that in the land yonder you flew out

we sell our soul to the highest bidder

even as our hopes for a better life

nosedives with 

our hope for an afterlife

with or without Starbucks.

Tall, sir, or grande 

or what lies, sir?

This American English-speaking 

crew of a college girl calls out

to my drunken desire. 

I have the laptop for security 

to keep me company while alone

to make me kill the hot hours

to wean me away 

from committing the first act

to a  suicide with all the notes

from committing to a promise 

for a profit-driven 

crack at a cosmic

charade of sliced cakes

for a queen whose devotion

to justice is for the democracy

of Starbucks coffee 

and our commercialized 

chatter of a malling mind.

The college girl of a crew

asks in afterthought:  

latte, with the fancy ice cream

with its fancy offer of a refreshing 

chill that lasts forever

after you have thrashed your first cup 

your hundreds gone to the waste bag?

I have no clue, 

I say. 

In Honolulu,

I run away from all

these hacks of Starbucks life.

In the cold mountain mornings

of my solitary exile's life,

I drink marunggay

soup with the vow

of a celibate cup

and saucer

and a plate that sing

with zing of fulflled loves.

I scan the smiles 

of middle class

men and women 

absorbed in the absences

of their strange loves, 

their fragile fingers 

on keyboards of mute laptops

with all the gesticulations

of grace and grandstanding menu

of upper middle class brew

of our sundered national class.

Here are the clues:

the poor like me 

ask what you like

the rich like them 

saunter in their long roads

to fulfill their elite desires

going extra wild.

Just add 15 pesos, sir, 

and you have it all, sir,

you will drink 

your green tea

with all its antioxidants

and all the glories of a wi-fi'd mind.

Delight, sir, delight

is what you get

in this ambient corner

of our Starbucks 

that gives you the fantasy

of a real love.

I say, bring 'em on.

I say, let me sin.

I say, let me be bourgeois

for this afternoon, just for once.

I think of the heat on my chest.

I think of the small war 

I have waged, have to let go.

I think of this poem 

I am going to write

its title in honor 

of the men and women

who pamper me 

with their coffee lies:

Starbucks for the rich

Starbucks for the moneyed

Starbucks for the sophisticated

Starbucks for the yuppie

Starbucks for the alternative 

to a city life. 

And so I let go.

I nod to let her 

ring the register

with my pesos gone, 

this currency

of our faked lives.

Some chocolate, 

in-house, sir,

dark, sir, 

creamy and 100 percent, 

its beans

from Aceh to save the lives

of Sumatrans.

I think of Aceh 

I think of Benguet

I think of Kalinga and Apayao

their beans that 

of my morning brew

that leads me out 

of Manila dreamland.

Two hundred sixty five pesos

is your bill, sir, 

and please, please

pay with your life. 

Let your soul, sir,

be intact, sir, 

so you can come, sir,

again and again, sir, 

so we can trick you, sir,

into believing, sir, 

that our lies, sir, 

are your truth, sir,

and your truth, sir, 

is also ours, sir.

I bring out the crisp bill

long hidden in the recesses 

of the Seiko wallet with all the luck

I bought for a lifetime of self-reward.

Luck has it that I have kept

the snake skin after

centuries of seeing the capitalists

come to life, resurrect forever

to haunt us alive.

A Solver Agcaoili

May 21/09/SM Marikina

 

Daniw ti Nagtalawataw

(Mairuknoy iti 2nd Grand Reunion ti Sinaitenians Association, Hawai`i Hilton, Honolulu, HI, Agosto 11, 2007. Agyamanak ken Dra. Estrella Pada Taong iti panangdawatna iti panagdaniwko.)


Datayo dagiti nagtalawataw iti ili, immadayo kadagiti saning-i
Ta adda makaigapu: agbiroktayo iti ugaw kadagiti bambanti

Ngem awan, kabsat, kailian, awan gasat kadagiti bituen
Awan man laeng bandos ni ayat ken naimbag a nakem

Uray ti langit, ay, patiem: awan panangngaasi ti lulem nga ulep
Awan ay-ay iti bulan, awan panangayilakikaka nagpanes nga angep

Ta iti ili a pinanawantayo, kastoy ti nasugpet a sarsarita
Basingkawel amin a pait panagsaksi dagiti nagabay nga agsapa:

Agragut ti bannawag iti pammigat nga agbalin a pangngaldaw
Ket pangngaldaw a naikari linabid dagitoy dagiti parparawpaw

Awan gasat kadagiti pinggan kas iti panagkalamri ti dalikan
Ket anghel de la guardia ti balikas isu ti kiraod iti pagbagasan

Siasinno koma ti di agbalaw, kas pagarigan, siasinno ti mayat?
Ti agkudaap a manglanglangan wenno ti manglangan ken ayat?

Baybay-amon ti maila a rugso iti sellang wenno atong iti pus-ong
Ken ubing a karayo dagiti ramay a no maidengngep bibig sabidong

Ta matalimudawka met laeng a mabisinan iti nangliway a pangrabii
Kas pannakapugsat anges no ti imnas nga ar-araken di mangngaasi

Isu nga isurodatayo dagiti pasamak iti dana ti panagbayanggudaw
Isu nga iti sirmatatayo ket amintayo, kakailian, napuruto nga ullaw

Ditoytayo a naisadsad, iti ballasiw dagiti amin a panaganikki
Taaw ti adda iti baet dagiti barukong ti pimmanaw ken imbati


A ngem ta nasaysayaat bassit ditoy: adda maibarday a bigat
Maibilag iti agsapa a dagiti darepdep mayarkos, maipakalatkat

Agkamkamattayo man kadagiti kanito, makilumlumba iti oras
Adda agas dagiti bannog a mangyaw-awan kadagiti pampanaas

Iti lasag man wenno iti panunot, iti nakem wenno iti barukong—
Ay, kastoytayo iti ballasiw dagiti lagip, duogantayo a dalluyon

Kadagiti danum tayo nga agtatapaw, sumurot iti agus
Makikinkinnarinio iti apres iti umuna ken maudi a layus

Gabattayo man a naisadsad wenno pul-oy nga immadayo
Wenno ubing a rabii ti amian nga iti pakasaritaan naikulbo

Numan pay, agbirbiroktayo met iti kaipapanan ti agnanayon
Datayo nga immadayo tapno agpapas nga agimas iti indayon

Ammotayo: saan a mamingga ti ili a pinanawan, saan a mauma
Agabel dagiti agpuerong a dadaulo iti sinasalamangka a padaya

Paulo dagitoy dagiti sarsarita di ugma nga idasarda iti agsapa
Pangsinam-itda iti bubussog dagiti riwriw a panagmalmalanga

Masaksiantay dagitoy—kas iti panagsubli dagiti uken a taul a taul
Kadagiti lugar ti poder a no mansuen ti agsao ket sangabaul

Ta piman aya a biag, ta piman aya nga ili a pinanawan
Dina ammon ti mangipinta iti bullalayaw a marismarisan

Uray kadagiti managlilipat itan a kapanagan ken aw-away
Kadagiti pul-oy nga umagibas sumuknor ti agkissiw a liway

Ta kastoy ti kaibatogan ti yaadayo ken panagsubli
A ti bungana ket ti daniw a makiinniliw iti imbati nga ili

Iti adayo, kunatayo, kas iti patigmaan, kas iti tulag a baro:
Ilalaen ti ili a kamposanto dagiti kadkadua, siudad dagiti anito

PATHOLOGIES OF ILOKANO POETICS-9

 

THE CHALLENGE ON THE SHOULDER OF GUMIL FILIPINAS LEADERSHIP

 

A Solver Agcaoili

 

Two things are clear in the brouhaha we call the ‘delusions of grandeur’ of one Pedro Bucaneg Awardee whose claims to literary glory are at best dubious. 

 

These are the two requirements for recognition by peers, to wit:

(a) a body of work, not some lousy writings here and there: a body of work that reveals or suggests to us the artistic vision of the writer, his philosophical insight on human life, and his unique interpretation of the intricate connection between human life and the aesthetics of human experience, and not some lousy commentary of a commentary of a commentary; and 

(b) an indubitable—and thus verifiable—contribution to the development of Ilokano literature, not contribution to its destruction by coming up with these power-tripping lousy open letters and equally lousy rejoinders to the rejoinders of lousy Ilokano writers whose claim to Ilokano literature is their ability to write endless chat messages that, at best, are all exercises in ad hominem and are examples of an illiterate addendum to other illiterate chat messages written by people whose courage is to sport a false name. Bring 'em on! 

 

On these two grounds, if we want to be real with how to address this brouhaha that we have allowed to pull us all down, I am calling for the reassessment and revaluation of ALL Pedro Bucaneg Awards and Leona Florentino Awards.

In that recall, we scrutinize the qualifications of all awardees, whether PBA or LFA. 

The scrutiny should be based on these two criteria and nothing else. 

In doing this, that flimsy minimum age requirement being insisted in a Pharisaical fashion by this Pedro Bucaneg Awardee who always wants to wash his hands like Pontius Pilate before the gathered crowds of unthinking citizens is not to be part of this futile exercise as it rewards age rather than achievement, is discriminatory and unjust, and is based on exclusion for exclusion's sake and not merit. 

 

The minimum age requirement—whatever is that—is one for the Dark Ages, medieval, mindless. 

The minimum age requirement is an exemplification of a patriarchal perspective on what constitutes good literature and good writing and good contribution to the development of Ilokano culture. 

Given the above premises, the claim of this presumptuous PBA awardee that age matters more than anything else is something that cannot be sustained and proven by the practice of GF of giving awards to writers during the last 41 years of the existence of this writers association. 

Historically, the minimum age requirement was never a requirement but the quality and merit of the work of the writer. 

  

The origins of that age requirement seems to be dubious.

If we review of the PBA awardees beginning 2000 based on the list in the 2009 Souvenir Program of the GUMIL Filipinas, the result yields one empirical fact: that a good number of those who have been awarded since 2000 are presumed to be not 60 when they received the PBA. 

There are examples of this fact even among LFA recipients. 

 

The insistence of 60 as a minimum age requirement can only tell us several things: 

(a) the ignorance of the organization of its own twin criteria of substantial body of work and substantive contribution to the development of Ilokano Literature; 

(b) the injustice of recognizing only those older people and yet leaving out the younger ones even if, as a matter of fact, some younger ones deserve the recognition more than the older ones;

 (c) the obsession of the organization to exclude those who have not yet reached the age of the patriarchs, them patriarchs whose posturing has nothing to do with the substance of their work and the merit of their contribution to Ilokano Literature but their feudal ability to ink up compadrazgo tie-ups with the rest of them patriarchs who still call the shot in the organization.

  

There have been organizational entitlements and privileges, and some of these have become built-in in the giving out of these awards, if we only want to be honest about this exercise that has surprised and terrorized us during the past years.

 

One pattern that is clear is that of a ‘multiple manufacture’ of awards in some years. 

 

I challenge those who have been involved in the giving of the awards to bring out the nomination forms and justification letters for all these awardees. 

To do the cleaning up, a special committee should be had.

This committee must be able to withstand the pressures of compadrazgo in Ilokano Literature.

The committee must no believe in hearsays.

The committee must not believe in the threats of one desperate PBA recipient who always threatens everyone with maligning.

The committee must believe in the primacy of solid, hard evidence that invariably leads us to mediocrity or greatness.

 

These are principles that I insisted when the TMI Global Awards Committee was being formed.

 

I insisted on hard evidence—I call them proofs of the ‘body of work’.

 

I never even dared mention age as a requirement that some terribly insecure PBA awardees insist as the conditio sine qua non to greatness in Ilokano Literature. 

 

The Katimpuyog Awards, in principle, maintains a more or less stable and permanent committee for the reason that is obvious: this committee must be true to its role of ferreting out the impostors and pretenders from the genuine ones who deserve recognition even if they do not have the proper springs to pull and more so because they do not have powerful patrons.  

 

Let us start with the basics: a body of work, for that is the intent and the spirit of this peer-recognition exercise.

 

A body of work must be defined in all cases as never here-and-there feature stories or lousy columns or some other forms of work of questionable literary merit.

 

A body of work, by its definition, is the collection of most if not all of the creative writings of an Ilokano who is nominated for recognition. 

 

In that collection, we must be able to see that the various works are meritorious and not some grandstanding claims of a work that won an award or two because, let us, admit it now, some members of the board of judges were people close to the writer, tied by compadrazgo alliances or some other ‘derivatives’ that have something to do with knowing each other on a first-name basis or by the virtue of ‘spiritual’ (read: drinking) alliances that is traced to some histories that the younger generations do not have any knowledge of.

 

In the assessing of the body of work of the potential awardee and those whose award will be recalled, the invisible power of the cabal of power holders should have to be made visible such that those who have any tie-ups, such as the compadre or the comadre, should honestly say so and decline to serve in the Awards committee.  

 

First off, the members of the committee should bring out the archival document/s that relate to the nomination of all awardees.

 

Second, the members of the committee should rely on these hard, solid evidences, and not what is in websites that cannot even afford to protect nor respect the basic human rights of people.

 

In an effort to flush out all these, we have to look into the circumstances, in particular, of how, in heaven’s name, Gladys Menor, who was called a ‘neophyte’ of a writer by Ely Raquel, was nominated by Ely Raquel, and then was awarded the Leona Florentino in 2005.

 

The big question here is this: If Gladys Menor was a neophyte, why did Ely Raquel, now the president of GUMIL Filipinas, nominate Gladys Menor?

 

A corollary question is this: When Gladys Menor received that award and which she constantly flaunts, was she 60 years old?

 

We have not heard of Gladys Menor before, and as a Bannawag reader when I was in the grades, I did not encounter any of her writings in the 70s neither in the 80s when many of those in the pantheon of the LFA awardees were writing like crazy--and excellently--during those years.

 

In Hawai’i, Menor flaunts this award every time she gets the chance.

 

Now, let us see, let us see, if she deserves that.

 

O, there is this Pedro Bucaneg Awardee who is a Johnny-come-lately and whose name recall is via the backdoor of stage acting and useless column writing with no literary durability and timelessness and universality.

 

I wonder if he calls that clumsy stage acting as Ilokano Literature too.

 

Let us be real now.

Our effort to call for a change in the way we conduct the affairs of GF is an ethical obligation. 

 

We cannot tolerate this Marcosian tactics of some PBA awardees whose mindsets are puerile, pedantic. 

 

Need we also look into the Marcosian roots of the GUMIL Filipinas that some other patriarchs claim as one clean narrative of our noblest wishes to perpetuate Ilokano Literature in its most provincial and most parochial and most patriarchal sense? 

 

We have cowered in fear for so long, we younger generations of writers.

 

We have only sat at the feet of some of these patriarchs who have somehow forgotten what justice and fairness and truth are. Some of them even have that unending capacity to malign those whom they do not like. 

 

Let me be very clear: not every writer of Ilokano Literature is a patriarch in the most evil sense of the word.

 

Some are decent and self-respecting. Many of them are, in fact. 

 

Some know and are sensitive to the demands of democracy and justice in our literary practices.

 

But sadly, some deserve to be encouraged to self-destruct for the future of Ilokano Literature. 

 

Honesty and transparency are all we want. 

PATHOLOGIES OF ILOKANO POETICS-8

 

HOW CREATIVE WRITING MAKES US CREATIVE AND NOT DESTRUCTIVE AND THE ETERNAL LESSONS I LEARNED FROM MY GF PRESIDENT

A Solver Agcaoili 

 

I am not privy to the details of the 2009 Pedro Bucaneg Awards unlike one PBA awardee who pretends to be an Ilokano writer but can only write clumsy sentences in Ilokano in one clumsy column that he has used to announce his almost-absent presence and promote his senseless self-aggrandizement.

 

His pathological case is classic: he has the temerity to announce his own brand of good news, but his manner of announcement is that of the croaking of frogs.

 

He believes that he is the messenger incarnate to save Ilokano Literature from all its troubles but does not realize that he is himself one reason for all these troubles.

 

He probably does not even know that Ilokano Literature—and the ground of this literature, the Ilokano Language—is beset with all policy and related structural bottlenecks in the Philippines and elsewhere.

 

Using a post-Marxist critical frame to revisit what we have got in Ilokano Literature, this PBA awardee perhaps has no clue that the fight is out there and not in his myriad egotistical claims to some illusory puffy greatness. 

Delusions, indeed, can be grand. 

 

But we learn along the way, and humility, that virtue that makes you rooted to the ground, can teach a thinking--read: thinking loudly; read: logical; read: reasonable--writer a lot of things including the capacity to cry foul when injustice of any kind strikes.

 

Oh to remind this PBA awardee who probably does not know a whit about the Latin language what humility is. 

Oh to remind him that he is clumsy with words that heal is pure joy. 

Humility, sir PBA awardee, comes from ‘humus’, the ground. 

You can check your dictionary. 

I have known this before you even started to write in Ilokano, if you care to learn about your own personal literary history. 

You understand the meaning of Johnny-come-lately, with the latecomers becoming in the end the oppressors?

 

And if this PBA awardee needs some lecturing about declension on the Latin language, I can recommend some good professors that taught me the magic of words that soothe and salve the bruised soul. 

These are the words, sir, your honor, that heal.

And so he must be reminded: these are not the words that destroy, as he is doing, with his childish taunts and equally childish blackmails. 

 

This is the reason why I have chosen to fight him back even if initially I did not choose this fight.

 

I have other better things to do than to stoop down to his level. The problem is in our silence, there could be a Goebbels. And so I have chosen to speak up. 

And so I have chosen to speak truth to his own version of his own power however empty this is. 

This PBA awardee has asked for it; his soldiers, unwitting as they all are, have asked for it. 

And here I am, asking him, bring ‘em in, bring ‘em on.    

 

Let me start by quoting the president I have served faithfully, that one president of GUMIL Filipinas whose vision and views and vantage points about GF as an organization and about our collective literary life intersected with my own.

 

He was the president who I could converse with.

The word--and the reality behind that word, for the sake of the PBA awardee, comes from con+verso, and which literally means 'with word'. 

In the four years that I served GF and him as my president, we had that: con+verso.

I am certain the meaning of the word 'converse' is beyond this PBA awardee, as he probably had not had the chance to know anything about the theory of symmetry of communication by Harbermas, in his critical reaction to Gadamer, and which, for goodness' sake, Rorty would synthesize.

 

One hell of a requirement for symmetry—and thus, justice—in communication is that those who are hiding behind the veil must come out into the open. 

Why hide in the shadows if you have nothing to fear? Shadows--oh, they are all afraid of the light. Bring 'em in, bring 'em on!

You have not heard of the ATheory of Justice, much less read its front cover--if only to brag that you have seen it--that book that could have taught us to be just, that book written by Rawls? 

 

I pity the PBA awardee and his unthinking soldiers. Bring ‘em in, bring ‘em on!

 

But back to my president, Honor Blanco Cabie.

 

On March 17, prior to the PBA awardee’s admonition that all those at the 41^st convention should either get out of the Our Lady of the Angels Seminary Hall or should turn their back when my name would be called and my medal would be given, Cabie--Manong Honor, I called him then and it is the same honorific address I use today--emailed me. 

 

Cabie's email, a copy of which I will always keep, is in full contrast to the PBA awardee's urgings to the convention participants--for all of them--to discredit me via the internet and some colluding website, the way he has done to me and to some other TMI officers several years ago and which he continues to do so. 

Was the PBA awardee thinking that PBA is the be-all and end-all of my creative writing life? 

What was he thinking why he was thinking that way?

Did he ever know that he did not know that he did not know what he was doing? (I guess he will be confused here. Bring 'em in, bring 'em on!)

He has started years ago this agendum to discredit anyone who crosses his path, uncomprehending as he is, to cite one creative writer I truly respect. 

Since he is uncomprehending, since he is so full of himself, the least that he can do is discredit himself and his numerous illogicalities. 

Or he can always opt to self-destruct.

I challenge him for a one-on-one on-the-spot creative writing in any literary genre in Ilokano, which he thinks he knows, and in Tagalog and English, which I doubt he has the linguistic and aesthetic competency. 

In this challenge, he can take all of his unthinking foot soldiers--all his pawns--as his judge and arbiter. 

These foot solders and pawns can also be trained by him to give him the applause he craves so much and the argumentum ad populum he so obsessively desires.  

Of course, he does not understand this--he has no idea--what that ad populum thing is all about because that is his basic need in the first place. 

On the other hand, he should at least allow me to take independent critics with me, independent-minded literature teachers, and freedom-loving students of Ilokano Literature. 

 

Fair is fair.  We will see where his inutile logic would lead him.

That PBA awardee does not know one thing: that some places are sacred, sanctified. And the sanctification comes from a living memory, one pulsing with the eros to keep on respecting life and people and the places where their memory thrives. 

That PBA awardee does not know one whit: that I walked the halls of that sanctified place, the halls of that seminary, dined with the seminarians and clerics and monks when I was a professor of Philosophy of Language, and Ethical Theory, and Knowledge when Ariel Tabag was a student!

 

I know that hall the way I know the back of my hand.

I had a scholarly talk in that hall prior to GUMIL Filipinas getting in there many years after.

And I had delivered a professional talk there on the critical hermeneutic issues of language from the questions of signs, symbols, and meaning to the questions of ontology, epistemology, truth and lie when hermeneutics was just a new discipline even at the University of the Philippines where I was a student, and then as a professor, and then as fellow of the Institute of Creative Writing where I helped train some of our best Ilokano writers today, much, much better than the ability of this PBA awardee with his phony claims to greatness. 

And seminary students and professors were there to listen to me long before the PBA awardee learned to write a stodgy column, a column that has become the wellspring of his endless boast. 

He should be reminded, no, he should be given a stern warning because he is old to know what true knowledge and true conversion are: that there are two kinds of column writing.

One kind of column writing could last as flavor-of the-month and another one could enter into the timelessness and universality of literature. 

As a critic of Ilokano literature, none of his works meet my standard for the second. 

Now, he should go berserk for not giving him my approval of his work.

 

He probably does not even know that I was one of the first in the Philippines who tried to specialize in hermeneutic philosophy, one area he is trying to trod on, unsuccessfully, to say the least, with his consistency in 'illogicalities' and completely unknowing anything about fallacies, such as, for goodness' sake, his fallacy of accent, when he brings out only the part/s of a discourse he arbitrarily uses to advance his skewed, slanted, and stupid cause. (Think of a faded, botched, erased document here, as an example. There are erasures, true, but there are also palimpsests. And from these palimpsests, he will surely be found!)

But with so much boast he could now be bloated with all the air he is sucking in. 

 

This PBA awardee of a man, believing that he is one brilliant messenger of Ilokano Literature, must know what these things are. 

I declare a challenge if he knows any of these problems in Ilokano philosophy of language--and the huge, big problems that concern Ilokano language and Ilokano literature.  

 

Now I share this lesson of humility I learned from Honor Blanco Cabie, my GUMIL Filipinas President. 

His email is personal but I am making it public because of the public nature of what it says and because it provides a pragmatic context to the discourse I want to look into in these series of ‘pathologies’ on Ilokano poetics that I am working on.

 

Here is the full text of that letter (italics mine):

 

ariel,

 

i have it from the usually very reliable grapevine that you have been chosen this year's gumil filipinas pedro bucaneg awardee.

 

your manang rose joins me in congratulating you. the award is long deserved.

 

the judges -- messrs. prescillano bermudez, manuel diaz (both of pangasinan) and mario tejada (of ilocos norte) -- did one helluvah good job.

 

malaksid no addanto pakakumikumam iti akademia, ammok nga addakanto ditoy pilipinas intono nailian a kombension ti gf -- april 11-12 -- nga isunto ti panangawat dagiti addaan gasat kadagiti addaan rimat a pammadayaw.

 

panawento dayta a panagiinabrasa, in the lingo of gumil "panagiinniliw kadagiti pada a gumiliano ken gumiliana, dagiti kukumpadre ken kukumadre."

 

i am bushed up by the award, having had the opportunity to work with you, up close, in pushing the agenda of gumil filipinas in making the literature of the samtoys something that younger generations of ilocanos would hopefully take pride in.

 

i am one of those who witnessed your unconditional efforts, sometimes criticized by some who did not have the level of your eye range, as we worked together when you were the secretary general of gf from 1997 to 1999, and from 1999 to 2001 when you were the vice president and i was sitting there as ex-officio director while shuffling feet between my very jealous mistress of a job and monthly meetings of the ncca committee on literary arts, even if joe bragado did not want, and never wanted, to course project proposals for gf through me.

 

from the sidelines, in mid stream of a thankless, if punishing, job in the academe and the almost always tensive newsrooms, i doff my hat and join the others in asking you to continue your strides in helping make iluko literature a show window of a rich culture.

 

you make us proud.

 

manong honor

 

I did not know much about the details of the 2009 PBA.

 

The first persons I have had the chance to get to know that I was chosen were: (a) Ariel Tabag; (b) Honor Blanco Cabie; and (c) Amado Yoro. Aside from them, I did not get any official announcement, not even from the Awards Committee. And I did not do anything to know, and which is contrary to the vested interest in the letters of the PBA awardee. 

My getting to know such news from Tabag was accidental. 

GUMIL Hawai'i had asked me to work on the various advertisements the organization was able to solicit for the GF souvenir program. 

I took the trouble of scanning those ads and remitting the money for these ads to the GF account in Manila. Tabag, among other things, was in-charge of the souvenir program. 

 

When this recognition from my peers--a humbling experience, I must say--sank in so many days later, Yoro filled me in with other details, from which I got to know that my president, Honor Blanco Cabie, was also nominated and that I was chosen instead of him.

 

The first feeling I had was this humbling experience grounded on that humility that I have learned from Cabie my GF president, the same humility I have seen in him, that generosity of spirit that I have seldom seen from brilliant Ilokano writers, much less from some PBA awardees.

 

One thing I learned in this is this: that creativity and humility have so much power as these virtues put a premium on persons. Cabie has those creativity and humility—and these sterling virtues were au naturel in him.  

 

The opposite of those virtues, of course, is pretense and its cousin, destruction. 

Here is that gnawing feeling that you are the best of them all because you write bland sentences for a bland column that the literary history of the Ilokano people will never take a second look anyway.

 

Now I remember the story of demiurgus in my ancient philosophy that this PBA man has probably not heard of.

 

By the way, I received the Pedro Bucaneg Award exactly on the day of my birthday, April 11.

 

But I did not turn 60 on that day.

 

I turned to the God of truth and language and meaning and justice.  

Note Bene:

Pathology Number 7 is ready for uploading. Precy Bermudez has given his approval to cite from his letter. Tomorrow, I will upload it. Bring 'em on.

 

 

Pathologies of Ilokano Poetics 7

 

WHY SUBSTANCE AND ARTISTIC VISION

ARE NECESSARY IN THE PBA AND LFA

 

A Solver Agcaoili

 

 

Now that we have a new leadership at the GUMIL Filipinas, we can only wish Ely Madarang Raquel the best.

 

For now is the test of a new leadership that promises, we hope, to break away from the usual state of affairs—the kind of a moribund ‘flowing on’ that has defined GF for a long while.

 

There are challenges that this new leadership, now marked more and more by some younger writers, must face, and face squarely.

 

The first of this is that stagnation that is now twin to GF, that, except for the annual convention, there is nothing much that is happening really in terms of a politically conscious intervention to causes bigger than the problems of Leona Florentino Awardees and Pedro Bucaneg Awardees.

 

The current arguments—as can be gleaned from the second open letter of one Pedro Bucaneg Awardee and which letter he sent to all those who are in his list-serve—can be reduced to the following:

 (a) That the Selection Committee manipulated the process to accommodate and

(b) That the age of the awardee, whether Leona Florentino or Pedro Bucaneg, must remain at 60.

 

In the April 7 email with the title “Command Responsibility” that Prescillano Bermudez wrote and sent to a certain Inez Ricafuerte, with cc to “Baldovino” [presumably Baldovino Valdez] and Mario Tejada [presumably Mario Tejada, a member of the Selection Committee], Bermudez says: “Ti emailko ken ni Kabsat Amado (Yoro) idi napan a tawen agpaay laeng kadakami a dua—awan sabali a nakaibagaanna. Private affair dayta. Dagiti naaramid iti Pedro Bucaneg Award 2009 naaramidda nga adda pammalubos ti Hunta Direktiba ken directly or indirectly responsibilidad ni Kabsat Baldovino Ab. Valdez kas president ti GF. Ket inawatna—sipapakumbaba nga immawat iti dispensar. Nagparintumeng a nagpadispensar—impagarupmi a ti pudno winayawaanna dagiti nagbiddut! Ngem anian! Adtoy manen ti silulukat a suratmo, most upright Brother, Judge, and Executioner (sic)! Imbag pay ti immoral a babai ta saan a binakal dagiti immoral a lallaki! Agbibiagtayo iti sidong ti demokrasia. Awan pilpilien ti PBA a padayawan—kameng man ti GUMIL Oahu wenno GUMIL Hawai’i wenno TMI. Manakem a kabsat iti pluma da Apo Manuel S. Diaz ken Apo Mario Tejada—saanda a madiktaran. Kas imbaga ni Kabsat Rogie Baysa, agpaparehokami iti pili. You might be right, we may be wrong. Kas tao, agtamedtayo iti di mabubos a pammateg ken panagayat ti Tao a nailansa iti krus a nagkuna: “Ama, pakawanem ida, ta dida ammo ti ar-aramidenda….”

 

The gist of the response of Bermudez to the gist of the accusations of the writer of the second open letter clearly cancels out the accusations, as we can see that procedures sanctioned by the GF Board of Directors were followed to the letter by the Selection Committee. We see a corroboration of this fact in the letter of Rogie Baysa, then Secretary General, to a certain Ric Agnes, thus: "Nabasak ti emailmo maipapan iti kunam a saan a mabigbig ti baro a cirteria ti pannakapili ti Pedro Bucaneg ken Leona Florentino Awards. A saan a rumbeng a maibaba iti 60 a tawen ti maikkan iti daytoy a pammadayaw.

"Ladingitenmi nga ibaga kenka a dimi mabalin a salungasingen no ania ti nagsasaritaan dagiti Board of Directors iti miting a naaramid idiay Metro Manila. Ta no dimi tungpalen daytoy, saan koma met a nagun-odan ni Apo Elizabeth Madarang Raquel nga innomenario dita Hawaii iti Leona Florentino Awards. Awan pay 60 a tawen ni Madam Ely. Ngarud, awan pay koma ti karbenganna nga umawat iti dayta a pammadayaw. Ngem gapu ta nasupusopan ti paglintegan iti Pedro Bucaneg ken Leona Florentino Awards, naited kenkuana ti pammigbig."

Thus far, the facts of the case are clear. 

 

I should not be writing about these things.

 

I should just be keeping silence, my mouth shut, my eyes closed, and pretend that all is peaceful and quiet in the GF’s frontlines.

 

Like some other writers who believe that all of these eventually are useless exercises, with complete wastage of brainpower and creative rage that we otherwise could use for some other more fecund purposes, I could just lie low and wait for the tide to ebb and come back pretending unscathed, unharmed, with no bruises.

 

But all of these have been going on for sometime and there has not been any let-up as holier-than-thou writers and pretenders are always on the ready to pounce, paws ready for the kill.

 

For this is what we have become as Ilokano writers: we have tasted blood, and blood is so good we want some more.

 

And so, the many seemingly brilliant writers or pretenders could now act, according to Bermudez, as ‘judge’ and ‘executioner’.

 

This leads us to the purpose of this piece: the call to account all those who have received the PBA and LFA.

 

This call requires for transparency: for all documentations that provided justification for nomination so that these could be scrutinized by the public for the claims to:

(a)   the substance of the body of work and

(b)  the ‘great’ contribution of the awardee for the development of Ilokano Literature.

 

In so doing, we should be able to figure out how to respond to so many questions why some awardees of Leona Florentino, for instance, have been accorded that recognition, and the writing Ilokano public just kept mum about the whole thing as if God had decreed that it be so, this lording it over us by those in power at the GF.

 

The facts of one case of an awardee, for instance, suggest to us that only one member of the Selection Committee of the Leona Florentino Award made all the decisions, with the other members coming to know only of the result, ipso facto—after the smoke of triumph had settled to shameless breast thumping and to that characteristic swelling of the head and equally shameless swelling of the ego.

 

In the book “Saritaan ken Sukisok: Discourse and Research in Ilokano Language, Culture, and Politics”, a book published as the initial proceedings of the 2006 Nakem Centennial Conference of which I served as the main editor, Ely Madarang Raquel’s conference essay which she presented at the 2006 Nakem Conference speaks of “Four Ilokano Women Writing: An Exposition of their Select Work” (pp. 125-141).

 

In this conference essay, Raquel, following an exploratory sample, writes of the work of (1) Alegria Tan Visaya, (2) Aileen Rambaud, (3) Pacita Saludes, and (4) Gladys Menor.

 

The first three women writers we know well, their respective works something we can have a glimpse of what literary hope and vision for Ilokano literature are all about.

 

In that part of her discussion on Gladys Menor, Raquel wrote: “This poet and essayist (Gladys Menor) is still a neophyte but has already shown her ability to write in the Ilokano language.” She quotes Severino Pablo’s assessment of Menor’s worth in his book “Dalipato” and cites him, thus, “…an Ilokano poet to watch in the State of Hawai’i” (p. 137). The clue and cue here is "to watch": we are, indeed, watching!

 

This conference paper was read in 2006; Gladys Menor was awarded the Leona Florentino in 2005, per the list of the 2009 Souvenir Program of the 41^st National Convention of GUMIL Filipinas, with her in that pantheon of Ilokano women writers and cultural workers in the likes of Josefa Edralin Marcos, Manuela Ablan, Pacita Saludes, Dedicacion Reyes, Luz Flores Bello, Estela Rimorin-Gordo, Onofrecia Ibarra, Cresencia Alcantara, and Ruperta Asuncion.

 

In 2006, Raquel had called her a neophyte, with but a meager production (“feature articles”, mostly), with few poems, one of which was the “Calayab” (pp. 138-139) that is not worth a Leona Florentino at all, as this lacks resonance, lacks poetic tension, but simply plays upon sentimentalism devoid of sentiment for a barrio she left behind.

 

If this is not a clear case of giving recognition to a neophyte, to borrow Raquel’s taxonomic label of Menor’s Ilokano writing life, I do not know how else one calls it.

 

If, indeed, the writer of those two open letters cares for truth—if indeed he cares for the survival and life and the thriving of Ilokano Literature, something we truly understand that is bigger than his swollen ego—then we ask, who nominated Gladys Menor to the Leona Florentino Award? What was the basis for her winning that recognition by her peers, many of which are 60-year old Ilokano writers like that writer of the two open letters?

 

Clearly now: the two incontrovertible requisite for recognition were—and are: (a) substantive and sustained writing that has produced some of the greatest work written by an Ilokano in any language and (b) great contribution to the development of Ilokano Literature.

 

The challenge—huge and heavy, on the shoulders of Ely Madarang Raquel is for her to prove that she is no longer president of GUMIL Ilocos Norte alone or a close friend of some other GUMIL chapters and leaders, real or having nightmarish fantasies, and GF awardees anywhere in the world.

 

Now we must begin to account. Now.
 

 

PATHOLOGIES OF ILOKANO POETICS 6

 

 

THE FLAWED LOGIC OF A PEDRO BUCANEG AWARDEE

A Solver Agcaoili

 

 

In order to be taken with seriousness, writing of any kind in any language must have some kind of a plausible logic.

 

There could be some ragged and rugged edges somewhere—that we can grant the writer so that editors and proofreaders may have something to do, which, during the time of the recession of aesthetic values in Ilokano Literature, this ‘something to do’ which translates to employment is necessary to put food on the table.

 

But the writing that one sends to a list-serve for everybody to gawk at and consume as if there were no tomorrow, and which for the lesser Ilokano writers take as an occasion to get even, in a rumor-mongering fashion, with those whose nerves they cannot tolerate—this form of writing devoid of logic, is, at best, unnecessary.

 

To be kind, this is done by some old people who flaunt their being more than 60 and their being Pedro Bucaneg Awardees so they can all scare us to our little corner, and there, in the quiet of our fear, we get to learn to say ‘Amen’ to them. 

 

Perhaps this scare tactic worked for some people in the past, but with younger people having access to more possibilities for wit and wisdom today, the old argument of old people cannot hold water any longer.

 

Some younger Ilokano writers are even wiser than some of these old ones, to say the least, with the body of work of the younger ones more substantive than what some of the older ones can show.

 

We now ought to account our freedom to write and the logic that goes with that freedom.

 

The other name for this one is social responsibility especially for people who have reached the age of 60, which, following the undocumented logic of the requirement of the Pedro Bucaneg Award—and the Leona Florentino Award—given by the GUMIL Filipinas, should be the age of recognition, by your own peers, of (a) one’s sustained effort at producing a body of work with a clear artistic vision and (b) one’s effort to contribute to the development of Ilokano Literature.

 

The requirements are conjuncts, joined as it is by that connective marker ‘and’ that makes the conjuncts inseparable as they are both required.

 

Otherwise, an ‘or’ could have been used.

 

 

We can see the spread—a real pandemic like this swine flu—of almost nameless chit-chats on message boards of internet sites, with one administrator even claiming that he is opening a thread in order to start a conversation on the issue about the Pedro Bucaneg Awards, because, he writes, following his logic, the issue of the Pedro Bucaneg Award is serious.  (Why, is the issue of Leona Florentino Awards less serious because them the awardees and nominators do not have anything to wash before the gawking public otherwise also called the lesser Ilokano writers? Let us see.)

 

My interest in all these is that of a trained teacher of literature, literary history, literary criticism, and practitioner of hermeneutics.

 

I trust that all of the Pedro Bucaneg Awardees and Leona Florentino Awardees living and dead know what these things are because they all have been awarded for the reasons stated by GF in the handing of these awards, presumably not to friends and compadres and comadres, but to real, honest-to-goodness writers who do not make the mistake of confusing bland Ilokano column writing to serious Ilokano literature.

 

These are things that I am interested in and I do not care if I am being lambasted when the logic of the lambasting is adequate, and more so when it is forceful.

 

It is one of those things that I have had the chance to teach in universities, an act that sharpens one’s skills even as you teach yourself persuasion and humility at the same time.

 

In the academe, the exchange of properly thought-out ideas is common; it is the life of an academic to reside in the world of ideas, test those ideas even as he resides in that world in order to make these ideas fecund, possible, plausible.

 

It is when the logic of decapitation—that very logic in that first open letter—is deficient or missing that I care about.

 

For good writing and therefore, good literature, is twin to logic.

 

If literature—the good kind—does not have the enchanting logic to persuade you to get into its world, what would literature offer in order for the reader to be convinced to get into that world being opened up?

 

Which brings me to the logic of the first open letter that I received in the mail, with all those names listed also as recipients.

 

So many people have come to receive and consume that letter—some of them friends and colleagues.

 

That first letter—printed on a clean bond paper now and properly filed for future use and to remind me of this dark history of Ilokano literature, a history authored supposedly by an 'esteemed' and 'respected' (this claim is dubious) writer to whom we mistakenly look to for courageous inspiration and moral ascendancy—came in the evening when one forces oneself to sit down and gather one’s thoughts and write from the scratch of the day’s toil.

 

It reads in perpetuity now as this first open letter lies menacingly cold on my desk, peering at me, and taunting me, “We are the GF, remember, fella? What are we in power for?”

 

One part of that first open letter concerns me: “Ita a tawen, 2009, patiek a tapno maakomodar ni Aurelio Agcaoili a gayyem ken kadua ni Bermudez iti TMI, sinukatan manen da Bermudez ti pagannurotan ti (Pedro Bucaneg Award)! Mabalin kanon a maawardan ti agtawen iti nababbaba ngem 60! (Kano ta agsipud ta agpapan kadagitoy, awan GUMIL Chapter a naikkan iti pagannurotan ken wagas ti panagpili iti mapadayawan iti PBA.”

 

In the succeeding part, the first open letter says: “Gapu iti dayta a sistema da Bermudez ken Valdez ken dagiti padada a manipulator, patiek a balangkantis dayta a medalia nga iyukkorda! Medalia nga awanan anag, awanan kaipapanan.”

 

First off, we look into the logic of the convoluted statements of the letter writer.

 

One, the redundancy of the phrase, “Ita a tawen, 2009”. You do not write that way, sir. Come up with something cleaner, a neat and nifty phrase. My first year student in Philosophical Analysis spots you right off and say, Go back to planting camote!

 

Next is the phrase, “patiek a tapno maakomodar ni Aurelio Agcaoili…” Who cares about what the letter writer believes in? We are no longer in the Dark Ages where belief is what matters even if one’s belief is about the eternal fire of hell for serial exaggerators and those who cannot distinguish lie from truth. That second concept ‘tapno maakomodar ni Aurelio Agcaoili’ is totally unnecessary and the letter writer commits another fallacy here: hypothesis contrary to facts.

 

And then this messing up of a causality that is not in there in the first place, thus committing another fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc.

 

In another light, the writer of the first open letter commits argumentum ad hominem, confusing the issue with the person. How did he receive his Pedro Bucaneg if he is as illogical as he writes? Isn’t that the premise of good writing—which is what is being recognized in the PBA—is good and sound and solid logic?

 

The fact is: I have not had any communication with any of the Awards Committee; I do not even know who they were to have asked to be ‘accommodated’. 

(On the one hand, this writer of the first open letter must have his moles within GF or must have his puppet strings tied to some of them to have known the ins and outs of what was happening such as the composition of the Awards Committee and the names of the nominees. How lucky and well-place can he be, a privilege and entitlement that I do not have, to be honest). 

Even if I did know them--and I know them by their good deed and their good work--did  that letter writer think that I was so desperate to be a PB awardee as if that was my first recognition? Ha, ignorance is bliss, and he can have all the forms and ways of ignorance he wants. 

 

But the more sinister subtext of the suggestion of that phrase is that the members of the PBA Committee are writers with integrity who can be corrupted!

 

Ipso facto, as I get to sit down now, I am more humbled by the fact that Prescy Bermudez, Manuel Diaz, and Mario Tejada—three people I have always looked to for inspiration and courage—have honored me so and in the process of doing that, have put their honor at stake for me.

 

The writings of these three people are part of the literary history of the Ilokanos because their respective works have resonance. I teach their works at the University of Hawai’i. I had taught their works at the University of the Philippines, both in college and graduate school.

 

I am a student of Ilokano literary history and criticism and I have seen works that can be part of the canon of our literature. The letter writer’s work cannot pass muster. If there is one critical judgment we can offer with respect to his work, this is it: stodgy.

 

I cannot thank them enough for this belief in me and in what I can do for the Ilokano people and their literature and language.

 

The letter writer’s question on the age requirement is simply water under the bridge. That is not my ballgame but GF’s. And if he wants some answers, he must honestly read and read again the 2009 Souvenir Program of the GF National Convention.

 

This leads me to his diatribe: “balangkantis dayta a medalia nga iyukkorda”.

 

I did not go to the convention to receive the award. What I did is to write to the chair of the Awards Committee Prescy Bermudez to thank his committee for their trust in my body of work.

 

I also wrote to the GF President Baldovino Valdez and his leadership to thank him. I asked Pacita Cabulera Saludes to receive the award for me.

 

What about the verdict of the letter writer that this is a “medalia nga awanan anag, awanan kaipapanan”?

 

Let the literary history of our Ilokano people be the judge.

 

The letter writer has conveniently forgotten that history has its own power separate from the power holders or from the pretending Ilokano writers.

 

 

 

  

 

PATHOLOGIES OF ILOKANO POETICS 5

PATHOLOGIES OF ILOKANO POETICS:

THE SENSELESS LACK OF VISIONARY AESTHETICS

IN SENESCENT WRITING AND SENESCENT LOGIC 

A Solver Agcaoili

 

The 2009 Souvenir Program of the 41^st GUMIL Filipinas Conference spells out the aims and purposes of GUMIL Filipinas, this group of writers that began with clarity of vision on how to promote the writing and reception of Ilokano literature.

 

Sadly and pathetically, some pretenders to Ilokano writing have mangled this clear vision and have their own delusion of grandeur in its stead.

 

I quote from this document—my main source—to remind those who have forgotten what wisdom and civility and prudence are all about.

 

This is also a good reminder to those pretending writers who have lost what graciousness means in order to advance their cause of decapitating other people so that their swollen sense of self could swell more and more.

 

On the Pedro Bucaneg Awards, the souvenir program states: “…maipaay kadagiti lallaki a mabigbig iti panagsuratan ken addaan dakkel a naitulongna iti panagdur-as ti Literatura Ilokana. Saan a nababbaba ngem 50 ti tawenna, makapagsao iti Iluko ken uray ania a lengguahe ti pagsursuratanna. Maysa laeng ti mapadayawan tunggal tawen bayat ti kombension national iti bulan ti Abril. Kangatuan a pammigbig nga ipapaay ti GUMIL Filipinas kadagiti lallaki a mannurat” (“…given to recognized male writers and who greatly contributed to the development of Ilokano Literature. With an age not below 50, can speak Iluko, and writing in any language. Only one male writer is awarded each year during the national convention in [the month of] April. Highest recognition given by GUMIL Filipinas to male writers” [translation supplied]). 

 

On the Leona Florentino Awards, the same souvenir program states: “…maipaay kadagiti babbai a mabigbig iti panagsuratan ken addaan dakkel a naitulong iti panagdur-as ti Literatura Ilokana. Saan a nababbaba ngem 50 ti tawenna, makapagsao iti Iluko ken uray ania a lengguahe ti pagsursuratanna. Maysa laeng ti mapadayawan tunggal tawen bayat ti kombension nasional iti bulan ti Abril. Kangatuan a pammigbig nga ipapaay ti GUMIL Filipinas kadagiti babbai a mannurat.” (translation: “…given to recognized female writers and who greatly contributed to the development of Ilokano Literature. With an age not below 50, can speak Iluko, and writing in any language. Only one female writer is awarded each year during the national convention in [the month of] April. Highest recognition given by GUMIL Filipinas to female writers” [translation supplied]). 

 

In articulating some of its aims, GF states without equivocation its definition of what it regards as the qualifications of awardees of PB and LF.

 

In that important definition, there is that inseparable phrase, two conjuncts, in fact, that have been overlooked in the past especially in the giving of awards to some pretenders to Ilokano Literature: (a) “recognized” and (b) “great contribution”.

 

Let us have some smart logic here, based on traditions of  “recognition from peers”.

 

Recognition from peers simply means that a writer being considered must be able to show “a body of work.”

 

And a body of work here means that that writer being considered must have sustained his or her writing all through the years, but not necessarily so such that that writer is now senile or at least close to it as some would argue.

 

In the better award-giving traditions, the age requirement is deemed even an inutile requisite that smacks of decency and democracy as it accords recognition only to those who have reached 60 but not necessarily capable of showing a body of work but only some stodgy columns about inanities or some poems or two about a nostalgia for one’s ‘gekgekgek’ of a barrio without any critical consciousness, a nostalgia without a critical context.

 

Let us get real: think of the better Ilokano writer here as an intellectual and not some pretender you pick on the wayside.

 

That writer must have the gift of artistic vision, a gift we can draw from that body of work.

 

Failing to have that artistic vision, what can the PBA or LTA winner offer, even if that writer has reached that flimsy and facile 60-year old requirement?

 

Any writer wanting to have that PBA or LTA without that artistic vision must be told: Hey, you pretender, get out! Now, let us account.

 

It is artistic vision that we want to see; it is not how a pretending writer is well connected.

 

It is not how that writer is able to dance the indelicate dance of the Ilokano literary curracha.

 

This dance, well, we have them.

 

And there are good dancers among our rank.

 

For real, many of the younger Ilokano writers are not idiots—far from it.

 

Some are even smarter than those who can flaunt that they are already 60 years old and thus, have reached the age of patriarchy and thus, too, have now become Ilokano literary feudal lords and masters.

 

In better award giving bodies, there is even the recognition for young writers—a concept that seems to be ‘unknown’ and ‘alien’ to GF.

 

What has GF done, so far, is to recognize old and dead writers.

 

In doing this, GF has left out younger generations to look for inspiration elsewhere.

 

Then again, the younger generations know their literary theory, their literary history, their literary criticism, and the real art and craft of writing drawn from their readings of other world literatures.

 

Ah, they can challenge the older generations who can write stodgy columns but who have not read Neruda or Paz or Eco but only their own stodgy columns and their own ‘paspasarak’ award-winning pieces they do not tire of reading and re-reading.

 

Think of these braggarts and catch them in their creased pants and creased foreheads if they know the connection between the political unconscious and the reflexivity of literary production and consumption, much less the connection between displacements and estrangements, and diasporic Ilokano writing.

 

We realize too soon: zilch. No can, they say, no can.

 

When I was secretary general and then vice president of GF, I argued for the removal of the age requirement for these awards.

 

I argued for its removal because it was plain and simple a case of silliness as some 60-year olds today argue for fear that they become another emperor without those clothes he thought he had while parading before the gathered public.

 

I argued—in the same way that I argued for the recognition of GUMIL Oahu so it can legitimately get out of GUMIL Hawai’i and that argument became a resolution—that the age requirement is a clear case of discrimination, a form of institutional and organizational injustice.

 

Any writer worth his or her salt, I argued further, must be able to readily recognize the sources of all forms of injustice and do something to end these forms.

 

The pretender of a writer, of course, can always pretend.

 

That principle was followed during the four years that I served GF and the presidency of Honor Blanco Cabie, one of our more respectable writers whose body of work has yet to be recognized by GF because some other people in the right places have been recognized for their lousy work ahead of him.

 

 

(Who knows, for instance, that Cabie is one of our foremost sonnet poets, in English and Ilokano? Is there anyone who has come across his journey poems written in airports and airplanes, the whole account a fecund semiotics of the vast possibilities of the journey motif in every person’s life?  But who reads Ilokano literature written in English among those who espouse senescence and ‘compadrazgo’ as the basis for the PBA and LFA?)

 

In those years of service too, I tried to recast the concept of the ‘annual convention’ into an honest-to-goodness ‘conference-style’ exchange and diffusion of ideas and knowledge on writing, literature, and criticism in general, and the art and craft of Ilokano criticism in particular. 

 

Which worked for a time, and then this aesthetic recidivism to the path to mediocrity. Who wants to hear “how to write a poem” for 41 years, pray, tell me?

 

The problem with Ilokano poetics is that many of us have turned too prosaic that we have forgotten that literature ought to make us more human and humane.

 

That it should make us sensitive to all forms of social iniquities.

 

That it should equip us with the sensibilities that make us understand more about human life and not about award-only for the 60-year old Ilokano writer.

 

That it should arm us with a liberating perspective so that we are able to see the world of human life more fully in the round.

 

The trouble with writing stodgy columns just to fill a page is that we lose sight with the renewing metaphor of life, that metaphor that suggests and reveals vim and vigor, that metaphor that can open up to us a cosmos with its vast possibilities.

 

It is that same metaphor that teaches us humility—a virtue that is needed by old people in their 60’s who have not learned to be morally upright but only flaunt their absent moral ascendancy based on the flattering ‘im/possibilities’ of the compadrazgo relationship they have nurtured parasitically and virally infecting in a pandemic way many Ilokano writers—like swine flu—through all the years.

 

Those of us who are students of Ilokano literary history try to understand that there is much power in historical consciousness that is critical and creative, a consciousness pre-formed and pre-shaped not by what impotent prose an illogical columnist can dish out to make us believe that his cause is most just and fair, but by that vision to create an artistically possible world for all our people.

 

This leads us to the challenge for the current GF leadership.

 

The challenge for this leadership is this: Get real.

 

The challenge for Ilokano poetics is for all leaderships of all Ilokano writers groups to acknowledge that our ranks have become a fertile ground for people who are morally and aesthetically corrupt, decadent, devious. 

 

The challenge for all of us is to win the young—to win them young.

 

However, we cannot do this winning of the young—an urgent program of action—unless   the clanging-cymbal kind of moral ascendancy of the senescent tyrants of Ilokano poetics, and thus, Ilokano Literature in general, remains the standard for what is good for us and for our Ilokano literature.

 

We must acknowledge this: these Ilokano literary bigots and tyrants are entrenched in the corridor of organizational power.

 

The challenge for all of us is to give a full accounting of all the PBA and LTA given and recall all those awards given to those who cannot prove (a) that they have a recognized and substantial body of work and (b) that they have contributed greatly to the cause of promoting Ilokano literature.

 

Fair is fair.

 

And may I remind that the leadership of GF is a leadership for all GF members, in the Philippines and abroad.

 

We need to account this leadership with seriousness if we want Ilokano literature to not only live but to thrive—and to thrive forever.

 

And the time to do this is now.

 

It is high time we put some real brains to the GF after all those years of despair.

 

 

REGATHERING-ILOKANO VERSION

PANAGGUUMMONG

 

(Sinurat para iti 2009 DWCL International Grand Reunion, Hawaiian Hilton Village, Honolulu, Hawai’i, May 2, 2009)

 

Umaytayo amin ita iti salonan ti kebbakebba

Lagip laeng ti pagpuonan kadagitoy a duadua

 

Nga iti daytoy a rabii ket ti pananggibus aripapa

Ngamin ta kastoy ti saritaan: ti mutia ket iti ima

 

Ikutantayo daytoy kas panangikut kakaisuna nga alipaga

Nga iti barukongtayo ket ti sagrado nga apuy ti kararua

 

Saantayo a nagpapaudi kadagiti panaglak-am

Kadagiti adu a pannakidaya kadagiti pagnakman.

 

Datayo dagiti in-inabot’ Divine Word College iti saririt

A koma iti nagkaadu a pakasaritaan maipagtangtangsit

 

Ket ita daytoy ti aldaw ti panagtagiben manen

Panagsubli kadagiti amin a ladawan a nasken

 

Kas iti sirmata dagiti nasantuan nga aldaw

Nga iti likmot ti pagadalan ket di aglagaw

 

Tapno iti paripirip dagiti malem ket ti narayray a silaw

A kadagiti sulinek dagiti siled ket ti din pannakawaw

 

A kadagiti barukong ket adda kas tagainep

A kadagiti agragut a rikna ket ti darepdep

 

Nga iti udina ket ti naayat a panangipannakkel

Ti Divine Word College, pagadalan a basingkawel

 

Kadagiti magapuanan dagiti adalan a minuli

Kadagiti duduogan a tulagan para iti puli

 

Ta ti Divine Word, kadagiti pasiliona iti agnanayon

Ket ti awanan patingga a sursurona, agkankannayon

 

Ti awan patinggana a panagarapaap iti sursuro

A kadagiti bangkag ti puso ket ditoy nga agpullo

 

Ket ita, iti daytoy a panagguummong iti adayo

Ket ti ladawan iti barukong ti pagadalan nga inatayo

 

 

 

Iti saklotna ket dagiti amin nga imbagtayo

Nga iti labes dagiti oras ket ti panagkurno

 

Sagrapentayo ngarud ita ti basbas ti taripnong

Datayo nga iti pagadalan nga ina nagsalinong

 

Tapno kadagiti tiempo ti naunday a ngatangata

Ken ti pannakapatalged kadagiti adu a duadua

 

Manot’ naibati a kaasi, imbatit’ di nanglipat nga ili?

Mano met dagiti aniwaas ti kinaasinno ti naisubli?

 

Ti adda ita kadagiti maibinggas agguumong a balikas

Nga iti pananglaglagip ket napalabasen ti ranggas

 

Datayo amin ti kasilpo dagitoy: datayo ken aminen

Iti daytoy a taripnong dagiti amin a langenlangen

 

Datayo nga immadayo iti pagadalan tapno agsubli

Agapon kas iti init iti malem iti saklot natalimeng a rabii

 

Mano, mano kadatayo dagiti agsublit’ atiddog a lagip

A kadagiti sinilong ti pagadalan a dati ti agparipirip

 

Ket sadiay ti kasin-awan pay laeng a danum ti bubon

Nga iti bigat ket ti agur-uray a makaep-ep a daton?

 

Kastat’ Divine Word: sadiaytayo a nagsakdot’ adal

Sadiaytayo a kadagiti agdan daytoy ket nagpangal

 

Maysa iti kada addang, dua iti kada ubing a kibaltang

Ngem ta ti Divine Word College ti rugit’ panagimatang

 

Nga iti awanan ressat dagiti araraw a nabiag

Ket irurukma dagiti amin a sanaang iti kalasag

 

Iti panagguummongtayo a kas adalan a manglaglagip

Ket ti panangsaluad ti panagipateg ti sursuro iti isip

 

 

Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, PhD

University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI