This Leave-Taking is Tentative

(For Consul Susie Natividad)

Recited at the despedida party for Consul Natividad, Waipahu, Hawai`i, September 7, 2007.

Today’s allure is a stubborn sun setting.
It is a miracle moment we make to celebrate
What memory can afford to give.

It is this laughter, singular and peculiar,
Is fleeting, the image forever in the nooks
Of dreams that live on, leaving us too soon.

We count the hours, the days, and the minutes
And we can only end up in goodness: the soft touch
Of the wind on the face that searches for the familiar,
Say the shrine in our hearts where the angels
Go to rest, count the blessings, account the good deeds.

It is the same with each one, we know.
Even consuls bid goodbye and we see that now,
And even as we lick our wounds
The song of departure begins.

The pilgrim begins to take the first step.
She is here ever seeing us, her thoughts at home
Her heart abroad or so we believe.
She watches for the sand and surf and sun
She carries in her pocket or writes in her books.
But she looks for spring stones, summer soil,
And autumnal seasons marking her going away.
She remains among us, the consul will.

We recall the chirping of birds on Pali,
On the top of trees hugging on to the forgiving mountains
Giving birth to the sound of stories we need to tell
Now as in the future or in the forever-ness of sweet songs
We keep. After this day is another story.

The leave-taking begins. Let it begin.


Aurelio S. Agcaoili, Ph.D.
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
September 27, 2007

This Leave-Taking is Tentative

(For Consul Susie Natividad)

Recited at the despedida party of Consul Natividad, Waipahu, Hawai`i, September 27, 2007.

Today’s allure is a stubborn sun setting.
It is a miracle moment we make to celebrate
What memory can afford to give.

It is this laughter, singular and peculiar,
Is fleeting, the image forever in the nooks
Of dreams that live on, leaving us too soon.

We count the hours, the days, and the minutes
And we can only end up in goodness: the soft touch
Of the wind on the face that searches for the familiar,
Say the shrine in our hearts where the angels
Go to rest, count the blessings, account the good deeds.

It is the same with each one, we know.
Even consuls bid goodbye and we see that now,
And even as we lick our wounds
The song of departure begins.

The pilgrim begins to take the first step.
She is here ever seeing us, her thoughts at home
Her heart abroad or so we believe.
She watches for the sand and surf and sun
She carries in her pocket or writes in her books.
But she looks for spring stones, summer soil,
And autumnal seasons marking her going away.
She remains among us, the consul will.

We recall the chirping of birds on Pali,
On the top of trees hugging on to the forgiving mountains
Giving birth to the sound of stories we need to tell
Now as in the future or in the forever-ness of sweet songs
We keep. After this day is another story.

The leave-taking begins. Let it begin.


Aurelio S. Agcaoili, Ph.D.
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
September 27, 2007

2007 Conference on Ilokano and Amianan Cultures

Ilokano & Amianan Conference and
TMI Convention to be held in October

By Dr. Aurelio S. Agcaoili
Ilokano Language and Literature Program
University of Hawai`i at Manoa

An international literary conference and writers convention will be held October 27-28, 2007 at the Philippine Consulate General on Pali Highway, Honolulu, Hawai`i, the United States of America.
The literary conference, to be held the first day, and the Timpuyog Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano iti Amerika/Global (TMI Amerika/Global) convention the second day, are under the joint auspices of the Ilokano and Philippine Drama and Film Program, University of Hawai`i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai`i, the Timpuyog Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano iti Amerika/Global, GUMIL Hawai`i, the Tugade Foundation, and Annak ti Kailokuan iti Amerika. The Nakem Conferences, Inc. and the International Academy for Ilokano and Amianan Studies are also co-sponsoring the two-day event.
On October 28, the Ilokano Writers Guild of America/Global, also known as Timpuyog Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano iti America/Global, will hold its regular organizational convention aimed to ratify its bylaws and elect its new set of officers.
Themed “Kammayet-Oneing,” the convention will gather the members of TMI and its crop of successive leaders, including those who are supporting its causes.
The conference, “Literatura Ilokana ken Amianan ken ti Masakbayan/ Ilokano and Amianan Literature and the Future,” aims to explore the ways by which the heritage literatures of Amianan—the contiguous areas of Ilokos, Cordilleras, and Cagayan Valley and the exilic literatures of peoples from these places who have out-migrated to other parts of the Philippines and abroad—could be preserved, promoted, and perpetuated.
Writers and cultural workers as well as individuals who believe in the cause of sustaining and nurturing the languages, literatures, and cultures of Amianan are enjoined to take part in this conference and convention. Some of the topics to be discussed in the conference’s plenary sessions are the following:
• Resisting the global by getting local
• Writing and resistance from Ilokano
• Writing and resistance from the Cordilleras
• Writing and resistance from Cagayan Valley
• Linking up the Amianan: the literary linkages
• Cultural strategies in the preservation, promotion, and perpetuation of the literatures and cultures of Ilokos and Amianan
• Creative writing from the Ilokos so far
• Creative writing from the Cordilleras so far
• Creative writing from the Cagayan Valley so far
• The revolutionary in the Amianan cultures
• Imagining the revolution: the case of Amianan writing
• Translation and its future
• The future of Amianan literatures and creative writing

For the TMI convention, the writers guild is expected to firm up its resolve to pursue the aims of promoting a committed and socially and ethically responsible creative writing culture among Ilokanos and those writing about Ilokanos and the peoples of Amianan or Northwestern Luzon, the Philippines, and about the Ilokanos and peoples of Amianan in the diaspora.
For those interested to take part in the literary conference as speakers and paper presenters, send abstracts to: Dr. Aurelio Agcaoili, nakemconferences@yahoo.com; Dr. Lilia Quindoza Santiago, nanilqs@yahoo.com. A website, literatura-ilokana-conference.blogspot.com, has been created for this conference and updates will be sent to those who will register online on this website.
For more information on the writers convention, please contact: Sinamar Robianes Tabin or Lorenzo G. Tabin, lgt52244@comcast.net; T. Gabriel Tugade, tugadefoundation@myexcel.com; or Brigido Daproza, azorpad@yahoo.com.

We are not rich because my father works in a faraway place

It was my daughter's sentence, "We are not rich because my father works in a faraway place."

A verdict.

I held back my tear when I heard her say that and that was two days ago when here in the Manoa of the many rainbows, the liquid sunshine ruled our days.

There was a constant in these last few days: the chanting of the birds on April shower tops, in their fall glory, in baby pinks and soft yellows and dainty white, each Angelus time. There is God and the God is the Mannakabalin-Amin. And no less.

In these faraway parts of exile, some thousands of miles away from the dear daughter, the is that unnamed pain that gnaws away at your heart when you hear stories like my daughter's.

The last born who does not know me much except through my telephone calls and that once-a-year rite of family renewal that takes me to faraway places as well, away from the family home in pursuit of linguistic democracy and cultural justice in the homeland.

She knows one thing: that I am always away, that in these faraway places I go to, in the homeland as in other lands, she knows I am always scouring for something that will put food on the table, for some cash that will pay for her tuition, for some small luxuries like that rite she and her mother would go through come weekends, a rite of irregularity but gives off some balming effect on her, making her forget where her father is, why he is not coming home like those fathers of her classmates who come home each night and read to them bedtime stories.

At six and in her third year of formal schooling in that invented torture we call pre-school, she has somehow learned the difference between having a father around and therefore one could invariably be rich and having a father slaving it out in lands she does not understand where except that when I call in the evenings, she goes to the window and say that the sun is still up in our home in the foot of the Marikina hills.

And then she would ask, in crisp Tagalog, her manner of questioning like an angel in that innocence I want to freeze in my mind to assuage the pain I keep in my heart: "Diyan sa inyo, Papa, gabi na? Wala nang araw?"

Something thugs at my chest when I hear her say these words. I remember that when I was still in California and she was three-going-four, she asked me: "Dito umuulan ng malakas. Tingnan ko sa bintana, ang lakas! Diyan sa bahay mo, papa, umuulan din ba?"

These things do not have value to the homeland that does not offer anything except this rigodon of corruption and indecency among the filthy rich, among the callous politicians, and among the churchmen whose simony is holding us hostage, we believers, we who are trying to believe. No, we do not have a chance, not even when we pray to all the saints. The clue is in the rage that we are able to summon so that with its power, we can finally get out of this cynicism that is killing us: There is no hope in the homeland.

Each time I link up with friends, I am jolted of news: many are leaving the homeland, and this departure knows no end.

With Joe de Venecia torn between his President Gloria Arroyo and his son on the latest scandal that has something to do with some people getting rich quick with their commissions from the Chinese businessmen, we cannot see an end to the continuing OFW-ization of fathers and mothers and children to lands unknown, to countries strange, and to employers who are opportunists.

I know. A niece left teaching in Science to do childcare work in Singapore.

Yes, the daughter is right: we are not rich--I hope we were--and so her father has to go away and look for something so there would be food on our family table.

From my office in the University, I look out the window. The homes of the rich on the ridges of verdant mountains that look out to the Diamond head greet me with their pomposity.

I take a deep breath.

I count the days, the weeks, the months--the times I will be away before I take that plane ride to home for that blessed renewal come what may.

You be good, I tell the daughter. Study well.

I do, she says, with glee, her innocence marked by the boast she tells of how many stars she got on her paper today.


A Solver Agcaoili
UH Manoa
Sept 20/07

Ampapayyot, Or the Bird of Our Childhood Days

I keep recalling its name, this bird of beauty and grace. And yet I kept on forgetting that name too. I had to call good informants, the couple Filipinas and Rizal Aguilar of Waipahu to check myself if I got things right. A friend from New Zealand would like to know what this bird whose picture he shot in Alcala, Cagayan is called in Ilokano.

The query first went to two more senior faculty members in the Ilokano program of the University, and made helpless and impotent by their Americanization, the query eventually landed on my lap. No, on my e-mail. Ethics would dictate that I have to respond, but respond I would and should with certainty. I had my hunches, of course, that run the gamut from sibeg to kiaw to pagaw to pirruka to lalawigan to alimuken. But here is it: the ampapayyot.

Ampapayyot, I say, repeating the name over and over again. Ampapayyot, and the word got on a new meaning, a new sense, a new memory, a new life.

There is a whole lot of magic in that word and I am transported back to the days of want and dreaming-on when the start of the rainy months spelled food from the resurrected land: abal-abal from the trees and soft 'lusod' soil; aros-aros from the paratong of our courage, when we were not fazed by stories of snakes and ghosts but went to climb those trees in the hills and felled all those bees that went to the frying fan and then chewed with much childhood gusto for their milky, almost buttery taste; and those simot-simot that we tricked by putting a lamp in the middle of huge laundry basic filled with water to guarantee that once their wings got burned they would land on the water, never to fly again, and thus giving us the ethical reason to make them good fare.

But the summer days were fun as well: those were the days of 'silo'--the pagaw was game for the entrapment. Or the tukling.
Or the billit-tuleng. The branches of guavas were prey for the 'tirador'. Summer was 'palsiit' season as well as war with the children at the other side of the river.

So this ampapayyot is a trigger to that memory I have almost forgotten.

I thanked the New Zealand-based friend for that rendesvouz with the past.


A Solver Agcaoili
UH Manoa
Sept 20/07

Coming Full Circle with Dr. Godo Reyes

He came to the Nakem, this great man.

I did not know what to do initially. But he was there, in wheelchair, his faculties waning but he was there, in body and soul.

I held my tear when I saw him--and I manuevered the program to present him to the assembly.

The first time I saw him up close was when, in that 1982 GUMIL conference in San Fernando I won the on-spot-writing contest with my entry "In Obiter Dictum" he handed me a big trophy. I have kept that copy of Bannawag where I was there brimming, accepting the trophy and some wise editor captioned the picture with an apocalyptic sentence: `two generations of poets' and some words that completed it.


A Solver Agcaoili
UH Manoa
Sept 20/07

Talking to Manong Johnny the Nationalist Artist

No, he has not been given that honor but he more than deserves it. Ilokano writing in the 60's onwards cannot hold without that name, without the artistic examples of that man. If good manners were the ruler for the National Artist award and not the anomaly that it has always been--the anomaly that those selecting know only two literatures, that of Tagalog and English--then Manong Juan SP Hidalgo Jr could have easily won that award.

But there is politics of taste. And there is that bad politics of taste.

Well, we cannot have it all, and Manong Johnny was well aware of that.

Somewhere in time, I have written my kudos to him in a poem I dedicated to him but whose line I cannot now recall or whose hard copy I do not know where.

In exile, I have spoken with him several times, and last night's three-way call, with Terry Tugade on the other end of the line, was one of validation and insight and inspiration.

For here is a man who was not greedy with anything, not with power, not with position of authority.

For he was always gracious--gracioso, that rare quality of person we writers have somehow lost in the flurry of our small victories, believing that these small victories define us. There is a huge lie in this, a fantasy, and we do not see the trap in the Palanca awards we have won, accidentally, or that Gawad Komisyon we were able to hit right because the judges simply liked your entry.

No, awards do not define a writer even if lately, this is what a Palanca award has become.

Many of us joke that awards do matter, but we take them matter of factly, and we are there for their fund-raising value.

Manong Johnny is not us: he did not care about literary contests.

I remember another writer who is like him: Bien Lumbera the National Artist. He won a literary award somewhere, perhaps once, and then went on to train the better writers of the Republic. And the Magsaysay came in handy.

Like Bien, Manong Johnny was more of a guru than a greedy writer, greedy with accidental successes.

I remember seeing him for the first time when I was beginning to write. I went to those GUMIL summer seminars when the telegram was still the way to communicate that one was able to hit it right with some kind of a minor award for some minor short story you have written with the exuberance of your youth.

I remember the Father Rector, the telegram on hand, announcing to the gawking seminarians, that I have won such and such and that I was expected to get my award from some resort.


(To be continued>>>)

A Solver Agcaoili
Sept 20/07
UH Manoa

2007 International Ilokano & Amianan

2007 International Ilokano & Amianan
Literatures and Cultures Conference

KAMMAYET: TI LITERATURA ILOKANA KEN AMIANAN
KEN TI MASAKBAYAN

(ONEING: ILOKANO AND AMIANAN LITERATURE AND THE FUTURE)
Philippine Consulate General, October 27-28, 2007

Jointly sponsored by:

• ILOKANO LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I
• GUMIL HAWAI`I
• ANNAK TI KAILOKUAN ITI AMERIKA
• TIMPUYOG DAGITI MANNURAT NGA ILOKANO ITI AMERIKA/GLOBAL
• TIMPUYOG DAGITI MANNURAT NGA ILOKANO-FILIPINAS
• NAKEM CONFERENCES INC.
• NAKEM CONFERENCES PHILIPPINES, INC.
• THE PHILIPPINE CONSULATE GENERAL


UMAYKAYO, APO, TA AGKAKAMMAYETTAYO.

UMAYKAYO, APO, TA SELEBRARANTAYO TI PANAGRIRIPPUTONG DAGITI KANANAKEM, KANNAWIDAN, KEN KAPAMPANUNOTAN DAGITI ETNOLINGGUISTIKO A GRUPO ITI AMIANAN A FILIPINAS.

UMAYKAYO TA PASANGBAYENTAYO TI BALLIGI ITI DANGADANG A PANANGIRUPIR ITI KARBENGANTAYO ITI PAGSASAOTAYO, ITI KULTURATAYO, ITI KINAASINNOTAYO.

UMAYKAYO TA AGMAYMAYSATAYO ITI DAYTOY A GANNUAT.

Para iti dadduma pay nga impormasion, umawag iti:

• Ilokano Language and Literature Program, Universidad ti Hawai`i,
956-8405, Dr. Aurelio Agcaoili, Nakem Conferences
• GUMIL Hawaii, Bring Daproza, 676-0820
• Annak ti Kailokuan iti Amerika, Pacita Saludes, 839-8016
• Timpuyog Dagiti Mannurat iti Amerika/Global, Tito Tugade, San Francisco California, 650 952 2568
• TMI Global/Amerika, Loring and Samar Tabin, Utah, 801 982 0428

A Solver Agcaoili
UH Manoa/Sept 07

2007 International Ilokano and Amianan Conference

2007 International Ilokano & Amianan
Literatures and Cultures Conference

KAMMAYET: TI LITERATURA ILOKANA KEN AMIANAN
KEN TI MASAKBAYAN

(ONEING: ILOKANO AND AMIANAN LITERATURE AND THE FUTURE)
Philippine Consulate General, October 27-28, 2007

Jointly sponsored by:

• ILOKANO LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I
• GUMIL HAWAI`I
• ANNAK TI KAILOKUAN ITI AMERIKA
• TIMPUYOG DAGITI MANNURAT NGA ILOKANO ITI AMERIKA/GLOBAL
• TIMPUYOG DAGITI MANNURAT NGA ILOKANO-FILIPINAS
• NAKEM CONFERENCES INC.
• NAKEM CONFERENCES PHILIPPINES, INC.
• THE PHILIPPINE CONSULATE GENERAL


UMAYKAYO, APO, TA AGKAKAMMAYETTAYO.

UMAYKAYO, APO, TA SELEBRARANTAYO TI PANAGRIRIPPUTONG DAGITI KANANAKEM, KANNAWIDAN, KEN KAPAMPANUNOTAN DAGITI ETNOLINGGUISTIKO A GRUPO ITI AMIANAN A FILIPINAS.

UMAYKAYO TA PASANGBAYENTAYO TI BALLIGI ITI DANGADANG A PANANGIRUPIR ITI KARBENGANTAYO ITI PAGSASAOTAYO, ITI KULTURATAYO, ITI KINAASINNOTAYO.

UMAYKAYO TA AGMAYMAYSATAYO ITI DAYTOY A GANNUAT.

Para iti dadduma pay nga impormasion, umawag iti:

• Ilokano Language and Literature Program, Universidad ti Hawai`i,
956-8405, Dr. Aurelio Agcaoili, Nakem Conferences
• GUMIL Hawaii, Bring Daproza, 676-0820
• Annak ti Kailokuan iti Amerika, Pacita Saludes, 839-8016
• Timpuyog Dagiti Mannurat iti Amerika/Global, Tito Tugade, San Francisco California, 650 952 2568
• TMI Global/Amerika, Loring and Samar Tabin, Utah, 801 982 0428

Prepared by:
A S Agcaoili
UH Manoa/Sept 07

Waiting for Someone who Arrived

Some days are not sunny down here in this land of hypervaluated paradise, with tourists' dollars propping up hotel and resort rates you have no way to compete what with your meager teacher's pay.

Us lesser mortals can only gawk at those who have padded pockets and who can afford to watch the sun set from their resto's seat by the sand and surf.

Even in paradise, life is not fair as there are the moneyed and there are the trying hard to look like one. Or just plain penniless like those vagabonds in the land of plenty, those who search for lunch money from the garbage bins artfully strewn all over Waikiki.

But this is not the point of this story.

The point is that on September 10, a man from another surf-sand-sun part of the Americas--from California, flew in to sit down with us and talk about the conference we are to hold on October 27 and 28.

I almost forced him to come to Honolulu since kingdom come.

I threatened him with fire and brimstone from hell if he did not and the threat began in the Manila summer of heat and hot politics and continued right after we sent the invites to those who have signified their interest to come and take part in the largesse we call Ilokano and Amianan Literature, the kind of literature that is liberating, human, and humane--a literature that does not include in itself the lessons of fascism and dictatorship and make these lessons as virtues.

No, literatures, I would say. And cultures too.

Because this 2007 International Conference on Ilokano and Amianan Literatures and Cultures is all about inclusion, the future, and courage--not the kind of cowardice some writers and pretenders resort to to put down other people's initiatives and tell, to all those who care to listen, that Goliath they will become to stand in the way, and Goliath they will become in their destructive frenzy to ostracize those who cannot toe their line. Talk of small successes going into the head, and this is it.

But the September 10 Honolulu airport ritual is different, something close to comedy, that lighter side of life and living where annoyance and laughter are one and the same.

What happened was so funny you cannot believe that a pillar of Ilokano 60s writing can afford to make us laugh, us who know less because we do not share the history of the 60s and the make-love-not-war gospel of the Caromina boys made up of Peter Julian, Precy Bermudez, Terry Tugade, Lorenzo Tabin, Ben Chua, and Tante Domingo.

For Terry Tugade--he hates the Tito monicker for goodness' sake--was one comic you can easily forgive on that day.

No, that night, in this Honolulu of our lost innocence.

Because he arrived at the airport but moved to the departure area where he thought I would pick him up, like they do, for heaven's sake, in San Francisco. There, those who arrive go to the departure area to be picked up. Of course, I got to know this fact of life in that northern California city afterwards, in between the laughters punctuated by guffaws that can only mean celebration--the celebration of our foibles and our human errors.

(An aside: there was one Tito who was a dictator and fascist and we do not think that he, this present 'Tito' shedding off into Terry can have his way to become one, not at the TMI Amerika where he reigns supreme at the envy of them, the lesser mortals who want to rule because they cannot write--or if they can write, they need to put their head in between their legs so they can think better.)

Where are you? I say, on my cellular, its battery saying goodbye.

No answer.

I go around. Round and round.

I keep calling, Where are you, man?

No answer. I go around. Round and round.

No Terry Tugade.

I call again. Where are you, you San Francisco man?

I am here are at the departure area? His voice is paint, perhaps angry for waiting or hungry for starving between airports. The sun in the west is beginning to hide in the Kapolei Mountains past Waipahu, past the Pearl Harbor of War and Remembrance and this cycle of War and Remembrance, with or without Burns' "The War" on PBS.

I go livid and furious. What? You arrived and you are at the departure area?

I see Terry smiling some squirm, one he probably learned when he was young in Dingras and playing hide and seek with some mango tree owner whose mango tree Terry and company would rob of its green fruits, salt on hand.

I gas up, take the wrong turn, and hit right up an exit that leads me back to the east where I came from, to Waikiki, to the University.

Oh, it's a long drive, with no other possible exit except to hit Nimitz and there go hide and seek with the Honolulu Police so you can make that quick U-turn in some dark corner of a dark street with your dark thoughts.

I calm down.

I tell myself. This is something different: you arrive and you go to the departure area to be picked.

I see the novelty of the thought and my inability to see such a new perspective.

Next time I go to San Francisco, I will try that technique, I tell myself.


A Solver Agcaoili
U of Hawai`i, Sept 11, 2007

Revisado a Version-Dekada Setenta

DEKADA SETENTA

(Maidaton kadagiti alumni ti Northern Luzon Teachers College-Mariano Marcos State University College of Education, Laoag City, iti panagtataripnongda manen. Pacific Beach Hotel, Honolulu, HI, Septiembre 8, 2007. Imbasa met laeng ti mannaniw iti daytoy a taripnong.)


Panagrarana dagiti mailiw a rikna daytoy.
Panagkikita met agpallapalladaw a pulpul-oy
Maipalpalais dagitoy kadagiti dalluyon
Ket iti maila a barukong nga agapon.

Mano kadin, aya, kakabsat, manon a tawen
Manon a pinullo a nabartek a samiweng
Ti adda iti baet dagiti lagipyo a manglalangan
Dakayo a taraken agkapuyo a pakasaritaan?

Lagipek ita dagiti daan a darikmat.
Kanalbuong kadi, aya, ti nangpaksiat
Kadagiti darepdep iti tanap ni regget
Kadagiti tagainep iti manursuro ni gaget?

Apay ta nagtalappuagaw dagiti kur-itan
Kadagiti dakulap ti ubing nga adalan?
Apay nga immadayo dagiti nasudi a kararag
Nakipagkatangkatangda iti angin, kas kaniak?

Dakayo a patanor ti lulem iti dekada setenta
Ania dagiti narasay a lualo iti panangaskasaba?
Ania dagiti batibat kadagiti himno ti rinnupak
Iti kakaisuna a pagilian a paidam iti ragragsak?


Nabati ti nabati, a ta adda dagiti salamangka
Ti kinabannuar, panangidayyeng ti malmalanga
Iti orasion dagiti tarumpingay, wenno mutia
Mahika dagiti agsapa nga insikog ti sirmata.

Pimmanaw dagiti pimmanaw, a ta ania ngarud
A panagkiraos ti kasukat ti maimaro a birtud
No ti panagsagaba ket sandian dagiti appigud
Igamerda piman iti sadiwa a dara a maarub-ob.

Narikor a sublian ita ti dekada dagiti dung-aw.
Awan kadagiti gargarit’ silaw ti rabii a mawaw
Kas ita, iti dayeg ti tallaong ti panagrarana
Datayo a mangipapusot’ estranghero a rikna.

Babawientay amin a mabalin a mababawi.
Ngem adda patingga ti pakawan a kaasi.
Uray dagiti agkudaap nga agibit, agpulloda met
Ta kalpasan ti sennaey ket arig ti kammayet.

Tuluntonen man dagiti antigo a linabag
Ayna, awan sadiay ti birbiroken nga anag.
Adda kadagiti maiduldulin nga isem
Iti panangdagdagullit iti pamulinawen:

Daytay kigaw nga arapaap, di makaidna
A kadagiti baybay aglansad, agpagungga
Iti agpang dagiti dawel ken kurang a kappia
Iti henesis ti dumadangadang umuna a rikna.

Kas iti isusurnad ita wenno isasangbay
Iti daytoy a tallaong dagiti an-andingay
Kadagiti panawen nga agsubli iti tellaay
Tapno manen riingen agdudungsa a murmuray.


Panangaklon iti nagsasarak a parmata itan
Iti tanap ti agallaalla a katkatawa a di piman
Sipapasnek panagsawar talinaay ti pagindegan
A ngem ta masansan a mapitotan ti kaibaan.

Agsisinnublikayonto manen, ammomi.
Agpipinnasarabokayonto kas sangaili
Iti labes dagiti lugar ken basingbasing
Agsisinarakto met laeng dagiti laing.

Aglugaykami ngarud, dakami a nanumo a saksi
Iti daeg taripnongyo, dakayo nga annak ti ili
Mannaritakayo itan iti maulitto a lilinnangen
Ket ti sagutmi ket bendision ti Mannakabalin.


A Solver Agcaoili
U of Hawai`i at Manoa
Honolulu, HI/Sept 8, 2007

Daniw-Dekada Setenta

DEKADA SETENTA

(Maidaton kadagiti alumni ti Northern Luzon Teachers College-Mariano Marcos State University College of Education, Laoag City, iti panagtataripnongda manen. Pacific Beach Hotel, Honolulu, HI, Septiembre 8, 2007. Imbasa met laeng ti mannaniw iti daytoy a taripnong.)


Panagrarana dagiti rikna daytoy.
Panagkikita met dagiti pul-oy
Maipalais dagitoy kadagiti dalluyon
Ket iti maila a barukong nga agapon.

Mano kadin, aya, kakabsat a tawen
Manon a pinullo a nabartek a samiweng
Ti adda iti baet dagiti manglalangan a lagipyo
Dakayo a taraken pakasaritaan nga agkapuyo?

Lagipek ita dagiti daan a darikmat.
Kanalbuong kadi, aya, ti nangpaksiat
Kadagiti darepdep iti tanap ni regget
Kadagiti tagainep iti manursuro ni gaget?

Apay ta nagtalappuagaw dagiti kur-itan
Kadagiti dakulap ti ubing nga adalan?
Apay nga immadayo dagiti nasudi a kararag
Nakipagkatangkatangda iti angin a kas kaniak?

Dakayo a patanor ti lulem ti dekada setenta
Ania dagiti narasay a lualo iti panangaskasaba?
Ania dagiti batibat kadagiti himno ti rinnupak
Iti kakaisuna a pagilian a paidam iti ragsak?


Nabati ti nabati, a ta adda dagiti salamangka
Ti kinabannuar, panangidayyeng ti malmalanga
Iti orasion dagiti tarumpingay, wenno mutia
Mahika dagiti agsapa nga insikog ti sirmata.

Pimmanaw dagiti pimmanaw, a ta ania ngarud
A panagkiraos ti kasukat ti maimaro a birtud
No ti panagsagaba ket sandian dagiti appigud
Igamerda piman iti sadiwa a dara a maarub-ob.

Narikor a sublian ita ti dekada dagiti dung-aw.
Awan kadagiti gargarit’ silaw ti rabii a mawaw
Kas ita, iti dayeg ti tallaong ti panagrarana
Datayo a mangipapusot’ estranghero a rikna.

Babawientay amin a mabalin a mababawi.
Ngem adda patingga ti pakawan a kaasi.
Uray dagiti agkudaap nga agibit, agpulloda met
Ta kalpasan ti sennaey ket arig ti kammayet.

Tuluntonen man dagiti antigo a linabag
Ayna, awan sadiay ti birbiroken nga anag.
Adda kadagiti maidulin nga isem
Iti panangdagullit iti pamulinawen:

Daytay kigaw nga arapaap, di makaidna
A kadagiti baybay aglansad, agpagungga
Iti agpang dagiti dawel ken kurang a kappia
Iti henesis ti dumadangadang umuna a rikna.

Kas iti isusurnad ita wenno isasangbay
Iti daytoy a tallaong ti an-andingay
Kadagiti panawen nga agsubli iti tellaay
Tapno manen riingen agdudungsa a murmuray.

Wenno panangaklon, kunatay koma.
Panangaklon ti nagsasarak a parmata
Iti lugar dagiti agallaalla a katkatawa
Agbirbirok piman iti natalinaay a pagaponan
A ngem ta masansan a mapitotan ti kaibaan.

Agsisinnublikayonto manen, ammomi.
Agpipinnasarabokayonto kas sangaili
Iti labes dagiti lugar ken basingbasing
Agsisinarakto met laeng dagiti laing.

Aglugaykami ngarud, dakami a nanumo a saksi
Iti daeg taripnongyo, dakayo nga annak ti ili
Mannaritakayo itan iti maulitto a lilinnangen
Ket ti sagutmi ket bendision ti Mannakabalin.


A Solver Agcaoili
U of Hawai`i at Manoa
Honolulu, HI/Sept 8, 2007

Daniw Panagretiro

RETIRADO, RETIRADO

(Ken Manang Remy Baclig, miembro, GUMIL Hawai`i. Imbasa ti mannaniw iti selebrasion ti panagretirona, Ewa Beach, Hawai`i, Septiembre 8, 2007. )

Agretiro ti bagi, Manang Remy, ngem saan ti ayat
Agburayok daytoy kas iti derrep a ginnasanggasat
Ita nga oras ti saksi ti amin a daniw ti panagdalliasat
Panangnanam iti rikna ti al-alawen a rugso iti bigat

Ngamin ta ti aldaw nadonan, kas iti panagapon ti puso
Panagbirok iti taeng iti palasio dagiti amin a dungngo
Iti sulinek, kas pagarigan, dagiti amin a pangngarig
Sadiay a daytay kadkadua let agpasalakan iti allawig

Bilangentay dagiti kanito iti panagregreg dagiti busel
Panagsubli iti ikot ti panawen kalpasan ti basingkawel
Agbukar ti sabong iti panagbukar dagiti darepdep
Agpaikot kas iti alimpatok ti init iti saklot ti nepnep

Kadagiti ramaytay nga ikkan iti numero dagiti dawel
Ngem mano, aya, Manang Remy, ti basbas ti anghel?
Mano a pannagibi, mano a panangiyindayon, aklili
Mano a panagduayya iti takiag ti malalaki a rabii?

Kumpasam ketdit’ tadek kadagiti luppon’ Manong Eppie
Salaenyo ti sala ni innala, sala ti bagi iti bagi a kas idi
Iti pantok dagiti al-al nga agkammaysa, lagip man laeng
Iti turod makalay-at a darang, ay, saan a barengbareng!

Aglugaykami ngarud ita, iti panagretiro, udi ti inanama
Panaglak-am nam-ay iti naunday met pannakilumlumba
Iti pitik ti kanito nga itan, Manang Remy, ket tagikukua
Itan ket tagiurayen ti sardam a panagungar ti kararua.

Aurelio Solver Agcaoili
Universidad ti Hawai`i
Sept 8/07, Ewa Beach, HI

A Son's Letter and the Sensitivities of a Bruised Nation

(Note: This is a privileged e-mail of my son to me, the son who has the same name as my own. I have urged him to take up linguistics at the UP Diliman and to pursue the ends of liberation linguistics, one area of interest he had started when he wrote his thesis for his BA degree in philosophy. I must say I have been fortunate to have a son who understands what diversity is all about, and the demands for justice, fairness and democracy that diversity entails. I have, somehow, invested in him the hope that one day soon this country will wake up to the fact of cultural and linguistic injustice it has inflicted upon the people other than those belonging to the regions of English and Tagalog languages.

It is a privileged e-mail and it was meant for me but I am taking the liberty to post it in my blog. I thought that this letter is symbolic, more than ever, of that growing awareness of the young of what has happened to this country for the last seventy years since the imposition of that deplorable Tagalogization policy of the Philippine Commonwealth under the guise of the Philippine nation and nationalism.

I asked my son, Aurelio II, to accept in my behalf my Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino award for Ilokano poetry and the Palanca for Ilokano short story. At the KWF, I asked him to read my short 'acceptance' speech. At the Palanca, it is different, of course.

I had known all along that his twin experiences will somehow make him see up-close the kind of struggle many of us 'minoritized' and 'othered' cultures, languages, and literatures of this country are waging, the kind of 'culture' war we have to fight and win. There is so much sorrow in all these, so much misery, so much injustice. The only way to the path to healing is to begin the rite of naming our wounds and pains.

The Ilokanos are not the only ones wounded here. With an estimated 170 or more languages of this country, with only two functioning with certain prestige (English and Tagalog masquerading as P/Filipino), we have to account the rest. Where are they?

The Palanca Awards realized recently that it needs to give that token recognition to Sebuano, Hiligaynon, and Ilokano and so the short story genre for these languages are now being contested by many writers from the regions.

So here is the letter. My only contribution to his piece is to give it a title.)



A Son's Letter and the Sensitivities of a Bruised Nation

By Aurelio A. Agcaoili II

To be honest, itay, nanliit ako sa Palanca. I felt like a teaspoon, some purely ornamental detail that the night can do without.

I was a representative of a winner, and not the winner myself. That night, I saw a universe of difference between the two, and what pains me is that I can't do anything about it.

I want to go upstage without representing anyone else.

I want my name to be called, and not some name gravely familiar and familial.

I want to feel victorious, not from a second-hand glory, but from my own blood and sweat and words.

I want to prove to myself and to everybody else that I can do it; I know I can.

But then, there is a big difference between what can and what does.

And the fact that I am nothing but some faceless, wannabe-writer who hasn't proven anything yet, remains.

Don't get me wrong, itay. I'm really happy and proud of you. It's just that I also want to be proud of me, of my own capacity, and that night, I can't. I simply can't.

I was further demoralized because of an injustice that reeked that night.

Amidst the prestige, the tailored clothes, the scrumptious food, there it was, this injustice towards the non-Tagalog and non-English literatures.

In the air, I can sense the belief "to write in Hiligaynon, in Ilokano, in Waray, etc., is to write in an unimportant language, in some language only familiar and applicable to some remote region in the country" being exhaled and inhaled by these so-called literary giants of the country.

I saw the winners of the "regional literature" categories coming up on stage with this chin-down behavior, as if abashed. Even from a distance, I sensed humility in their eyes, one that clearly reflects a perceived lesser position within some national literary strata.

Masakit ito para sa akin.

I can only imagine how one feels to write using his own native tongue, and be perceived as inferior because of that.

I have more faith in these so-called "regional writers" than I have the writers in Filipino, i.e., the LIRA clan, or writers in English.

Pagmamahal na lang talaga ang nakikita kong dahilan kung bakit ka pa magsusulat sa Ilokano, sa Waray, sa Hiligaynon, kahit na may Ingles at may Tagalog na pwede mong gamitin upang, well, maging National Artist for Literature.

When you think about it, it's alarming how an award-giving body that professes to know literature and culture is unaware of the othering it does to the languages, to the literatures of our countrymen.

Or probably -- and this is the more alarming -- this award-giving body knows, yet it remains silent, because the people behind the Palanca are themselves agents of this oppression, benefiting much from the hierarchy and hierarchization of our literatures.

Given all these, I can only pretend, itay, probably like everybody else.

I clapped, I laughed, I chose the right utensils for each meal, and acted as if I know things beyond my grasp, as if I was there only to appreciate the professed beauty and the power of literature.