MLE/Nakem/TMI in Bayombong

The First of August, the Death of Cory Aquino, and an Appointment with Ilokano Writers and Amianan Culture Warriors

 

It was the first of August.

 

In the early hours of the pre-dawn light when my journey had led me to the snaking roads of Santa Fe, the text message came as a jolt: Cory Aquino, at 3:18 AM, was dead.

 

I had time to think: the road was closed to traffic, what with a freight truck carrying empty Pepsi Cola bottles skidding while on an uphill climb and filling the two-lane road with bottle fragments.

 

The country’s weather station had predicted a storm coming along the path I would take to go to Bayombong in Nueva Vizcaya where I was to lecture on the issue of  “becoming-nation” as this bears upon the issues of mother language education, cultural democracy, and linguistic justice—abstracts all that have demanded of me so much of my vacation time.

 

Dr Boni Ramos, research director of St. Mary’s University, had been able to put everything in order before taking a quick trip to Manila to welcome his returning son from Texas who had gone on there for a couple of years to work as a nurse.

 

No, I did not go to the home country for the R & R, understood by those who have the dollars to squander.

 

I did my own R & R: resistance and radicalism, if this struggle to bring back our languages into the classroom could be taxonomized this way.

 

My R & R of two months, thus, was work, work, and work.

 

And this work took on various twists and turns, with two books to finalize (Kallautang and Sukimat) and with a war to be staged and to be won (Mother Language Education nationwide campaign) that included a lecture series that brought me from the Amianan provinces up to the Zamboanga-land.

 

The last of the series of lectures—two of them—I had to cancel for lack of material time.

 

The soul has to rest—and the body too even if the mind is all too willing to put on some more nights on the road, with no decent sleep at all.

 

Or else, burn out is not something that we like to go through.

 

The SMU lecture was mind-boggling, with an audience that was collectively ready to take part in the MLE campaign to resist this homogenization of Philippine education and to radicalize our view of cultural pluralism and linguistic rights.

 

After the obligatory Q and A, we headed to one restaurant Bayombong takes as its pride, with the dish definitely evoking memory of home cooking.

 

There was a heavy downpour before and after, a good sign, a good luck.

 

Next, we went to see one Ilokano writer, one of the best women writers who taught students how to write well: Professor Ruperta V. Asuncion.

 

Manang Perting is what we call her.

 

Loving and kind and generous with her compliments, she is the epitome of a long-lost aunt who means so well with her words.

 

She is sick with cancer.

 

But she is strong, bubbly, happy to be home in Bayombong although she says she misses her own home in Los Banos, she misses her garden, she misses her solitude.

 

For she lived alone, and yet she lived in full communion with herself as she was always on the ready to offer her talents and gifts to others.

 

At about past 1:00 PM, we went to see her so we all could sing and dance, dance and sing, and reminisce those things we want kept in the heart forever.

 

I am so happy you came, she said.

 

We are so happy we came to see you, we said, in a choir-like way, when finally, at about 7:00 PM, we gathered the courage to say goodbye.

 

We stayed put for many hours: we stayed put to enjoy each other’s company: Rheo Domingo, Romeo Gervacio, Andy Toquero, Rogie Baysa, Peter La. Julian, and myself.

 

Dr Boni, her brother, was there, of course.

 

At the lunch hour, we were more: Ched Arzadon, Gloria Baguingan, Henry Navarro, Roy Aragon, and Jane Aragon.

 

But now, we had to say goodbye: Dr. Baguingan’s pinakbet and getta-a-daludal were waiting for us.

 

When writers get together, expect the togetherness to get around.

 

We went home with that thought, the darkness enveloping the memory that will come to light our way, pristine and primeval, as we face the terrors and surprises of each day.

 

I tell Manang Perting: Do not go anywhere. I will see you in December. We will do a video documentary of your life.

 

I am not going anywhere, she says.

Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya

August 1/09

Order Nakem Essays

Cover page of
Nakem: Essays on Amianan Knowledge
(Honolulu: ILLP, 2008)
Edited, translated, and with a critical introduction by
Aurelio S. Agcaoili, Ph.D.

Cover design by
Tony Igcalinos

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3rd Nakem International

3rd Nakem International Conference held

Nakem Conferences, a movement that saw its inauguration during the 2006 Centennial Celebration of the coming of the first 15 Ilokanos to Hawai`i, held its 3rd international conference on May 28-30 this year.

Attended by 165 scholars, academics, cultural workers, writers, university and college administrators, educational leaders, government leaders, and researchers specializing on Amianan languages, cultures, and literatures, the conference was held at St. Mary’s University in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines.

Enthemed “Panagkakannayon: Kultural ken Lingguistik a Diversidad iti Masirsirmata a Nasion iti Amianan iti Pagilian ken iti Exilo/Continuity: Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in the Imagined Amianan Nation in the Homeland and in Exile”, the three-day conference draw more than 60 conference papers on a variety of topics that hewed on the need to celebrate the Amianan nation mediated by the Ilokano language.

Scholars speak of a variety languages and cultures in the Amianan, with as many as 48 according to one estimate. Of the 48, the lingua franca is Ilokano.

The conference had as keynote speakers Dr. Miriam Pascua, president of Mariano Marcos State University; Hon. Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, chair of the Commission on the Filipino Language; Hon. Saturnino Ocampo, commissioner of the Commission on Higher Education; and Hon. Carlos Padilla, member of the Philippine House of Representatives.

Pascua, whose university, MMSU, first hosted the Nakem conference outside the United States, spoke of the need to go back to our cultures, to our languages, to our literatures in an effort to truly come to grips with who we are. Failing to do that, she says, would make us directionless. She promised to turn MMSU into a university that is sensitive to the pursuit of multiculturalism and diversity as a ways of life not only in the academe but also in the communities her university is found.

Nolasco extolled the need to go back to the mother language of the child in basic education, a novel approach to Philippine education and in response to the challenges posed by the bilingual policy of basic education. The policy is also seen in tertiary education at the expense of the diversity of languages and cultures of the country, and thus resulting in cultural denigration, failure in basic education, and widespread illiteracy.

Ocampo, for his part, spoke of this diversity in the Amianan as a social and educational resource, insisting that to speak one’s language is to express the soul.
Padilla reminded the conference participants that the ‘imagined Amianan nation’ as mediated by the Ilokano language is not an imagination but is, in fact, a reality. “The Amianan nation is here—it has always been here, and it has been here longer than we think,” he said. “To say, therefore, that we are still imagining it is a bit late.”

Three presidents of higher education institutions graced the occasion either as speakers or paper presenters: Dr. Zacarias Baluscang, Apayao State College; Rev. Fr. Manuel Valencia, CICM, St. Mary’s University and the host institution; and Dr. Miriam Pascua.

Other topnotch leaders of the Department of Education from the regional offices joined the conference as speakers and paper presenter, with the Deped Ilocos Norte under Dr. Norma Florendo bringing in the biggest number of participants, as they did at the 2007 Nakem Conference.

Nakem Conferences is part of an international advocacy for cultural pluralism as a way of in the Philippines in among the exilic communities of Filipinos abroad including Hawai`i. In Hawai`i, majority majority of the Philippine population are Ilokanos, with roughly 85 percent.

Dr. Bonifacio Ramos of St. Mary’ University; Dr. Alegria Tan Visaya of Mariano Marcos State University; and Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawai`i convened the 3rd Nakem International Conference.

Nakem Conference International, the overseeing body of the Nakem Conferences, is under the auspices of the Ilokano Language and Literature Program of the University of Hawai`i.