|
Short Story
THE CELEBRATION
By Q. LAMBINO DOROQUEZ
July 25, 2009
“To me, it is quite unsettling that
one person would always attempt for her- or himself ‘to steal the
show’—so they say.”
“But, Celia,” Editha responded to
Cecilia’s robust protestation, “Inday is merely proud, and
justifiably so, of her family’s long tradition of public service.”
“I have nothing against family
tradition—even family wealth so long as it is not ill-gotten—as an
excuse or a pretext to do public service. What bothers me is when
certain individuals, who cannot make it on their own, use lineage
for personal selfish ends,” Cecilia insisted.
“We need to view this situation from
another perspective, from a positive one.”
“You know, Edith,” Cecilia went on,
“the case of Inday is something else. This woman is so ambitious and
arrogant—and does not hesitate to cross the demarcation line of
propriety. She tried to be a politician as an upstart—lieutenant
governor and then governor, all a flop. Well, she made it to a
lower, elective provincial position. That’s all.”
Replied Editha in an attempt to defend
Inday from Cecilia’s tirade, “Well, arrogance and abrasiveness
are a downside of our culture, especially among the breeds of
so-called prominent families. Inday is somewhat spoiled. Look at her
name. That is a special one in our culture or society.”
“Ha ha ha, she wants to get special
treatment at the expense of others,” guffawed Cecilia.
“Don’t mock. She merely wants to be
taken as having been born with a silver spoon in her mouth.”
“Silver spoon? What, a caste system?
Let us not dignify that kind of society!” Cecilia protested.
The sun was already up, about thirty
degrees since it rose from the mountain east of the town, across the
Catubig River. Forty years ago and before—when technology had not
advanced yet the living standard of the town—that position of the
sun, as common people then used it as a timepiece anytime during the
day, would indicate it was approximately 9:00 in the morning.
Editha checked her cellphone and it
was 9:10 that Wednesday morning. A gadget of modern technology,
designed for multi-communication purposes, has just confirmed the
time that the sun, at any position in the sky, tells people
accustomed to using it as a chronometer way back to the unrecorded
history of what used to be a sleepy town in Northern Samar in the
Philippines.
“Let’s pick up more of our
conversation this evening after the dusts had settled from the
parade this afternoon, if you got the time, Edith,” proposed Cecilia
as she bid Editha goodbye.
Catubig is quite different now from
what it used to some four decades ago and beyond into the distant
past. But its geography is fascinating if not romantic, yet awesome
and will always be, depending on what part of the year people are
talking about. Some geologists would no doubt argue that Samar
itself—which hosts the fertile Catubig Valley, the rice granary of
Eastern Visayas—is a splinter, among the 7,100 islands of the
Philippine archipelago, resulting from the tectonics that had
continents collide and realign some 25 to 30 million years ago.
Thus the Catubig River started carving
itself, the way it does now, together with other river systems in
the huge island of Samar, soon after the earth had settled and
cooled off and the Pacific Ocean and surrounding bodies of water—the
way they are now and themselves also the aftermath of the
tectonics—seasonally started to send massive vapor into the
atmosphere that came down, as now and conceivably through the next
tectonics, in the form of torrential rains which the river systems
have to empty the resulting floods back into the earth’s largest
ocean and the other bodies of water surrounding the island.
Immediately to the west of the town is
a mountain, running for approximately three kilometers from north to
south, proudly and majestically standing there no doubt for beauty,
a natural barrier, a natural recreation hub, produce resource, and
the early water supply reservoir of a yet undetermined growing
community in the past.
No formal name yet but often referred
to as Ligiron Mountain, which some native folks are trying to
shorten in a somewhat romanticized way to Mount Ligiron. The south
end of the mountain, called Ligiron Pass, is dotted now with
beautiful cottages in the immediate vicinity, largely a housing to
the faculty and staff of the local campus of the University of
Eastern of Philippines-Pedro Rebadulla Memorial Campus—UEP-PRMC for
short.
Ligiron Pass used to have a narrow
trail just for hiking. At the turn of the 20th century before a
wider hiking road was carved, the south end was narrow—running
approximately three quarters of a kilometer in length—right at the
steep, higher elevation of the Catubig River bank. In fact,
ligiron is a term in the local dialect that means in English
“steep and narrow to walk through or negotiate on foot”. The south
end of the mountain fell sharply into the river bank until local
ingenuity carved a fairly passable trail which townspeople traveled
through before the passageway was cut wider in early 1900 to be used
by the local militia and men of General Vicente Lukban’s army to in
part pour en masse from the westside of the mountain in order to
overwhelm the American garrison, then under surreptitious
development, should a military confrontation become necessary.
Recently, engineers have cut a highway through the narrow pass
which, when finished, goes all the way to Catbalogan, the capital of
[Western] Samar, where in turn it junctions with the Philippines
National Highway System which runs from its northern most terminal
at Laoag, Ilocos Norte in northern Luzon to its southern most
terminal at Zamboanga in southern Mindanao.
Mount Ligiron itself, rising hundreds
of feet high from sea level, commands a panoramic, breath-taking
view of the whole town and, including farther south, southeast, and
southwest, the surrounding vast expanse of fertile agricultural
lands—broken only almost in half by the Catubig River which slices
north to south—that in pastoral time provided and guaranteed largely
the economic lifeblood of the people, let alone the usurers and the
absentee landlords. To the north is Apolonio Hills adjoined to the
northeast along the river by Inatupilan Hills. The two separate but
conjoined hill systems—with mostly coconut, pilinut, and santol
trees the dominant vegetation—are a rich green, rolling piece of the
earth year round.
At a peak of Mount Ligiron, right at
the edge of its south end overlooking the river, a good-size picnic
area had been developed with reinforced stone benches placed where
needed, both for recreation and picnics and aesthetics. Reachable
easily via eastside by a fairly wide, nicely-paved winding, hiking
road that easily reminds a world traveler of the winding road to the
Twin Peaks of San Francisco in the United States, the park at the
peak, also referred to as Peak Park—as it has been for over three
quarters of a century now—is a mecca of tourists and the haven of
promenading young lovers. There, too, aspiring young public
speakers, individually and most of the time in solitude for focus,
gaze into the expansive view from up high and start modulating their
speaking talent in well-enunciated diction, amid the sporadic
fluttering and crackling of leaves among trees around—reminiscent of
the rehearses of Demosthenes or Cicero in classical time or Graciano
Lopez Jaena and Manuel A. Roxas of Philippine breed in their
separate generations—as they rehearse their oratories before they
actually speak at the local schools, community civic functions, or
public fora.
In World War II, the Japanese Imperial
Army recognized the strategic value of Mount Ligiron. They dug a
network of trenches and set up machine gun nests and associated
military hardware emplacements on the summit to forestall any enemy
attack that might be difficult to foil on the plains north and the
river east and south of the town below.
Today, Mount Ligiron is no doubt
awaiting further development for social, aesthetics, economic, and
even religious purposes. A tramway could easily be built,
conceivably even by private capital, from the westside adjacent to
the campus of UEP-PRMC. A huge Cross—something of the sort of the
giant Cross on Mount Davidson, in San Francisco, U.S.A., or the
Christ the Redeemer statue, considered one of the new Seven Wonders
of the World, atop Corcovado Mountain overlooking the City of Rio de
Janeiro in Brazil—may yet rise at a point directly overlooking the
town and the river below. The mountain has virtually limitless
development possibilities as a tourist and spiritual hubs for the
good of the town.
It would not be surprising likewise
when one day someone, born to local heritage, will compose another
song that will replicate the beauty and imagery of Catubig River
as composed in the early 1940s by a local musician-composer—or rival
the lyric of I Left My Heart in San Francisco, U.S.A., as
immortalized by Tony Bennett—for in Catubig on moonlit nights during
dry seasons, the moonbeam glistens the river and evoke the romantic
passion of the young at heart. Yet the morning sun also sears the
air and the fog rising from the giant river below into the hillsides
of Mount Ligiron, as people of different persuasions climb halfway
to the sky, through the neatly carved winding, hiking road—like the
way the morning sun of San Francisco sears the air and the fog
rising from the San Francisco Bay, as the cable cars climb halfway
to the sky at Nob Hill—to probe into the seemingly improbable
affectionate heartthrobs of those young at heart, or for whatever
else are the purposes of those who climb halfway to the sky at Peak
Park.
Still at another segment of Mount
Ligiron’s summit, a separate peak, adjacent to the northwest rises
in effect to form the twin of Peak Park—as do, too, the Twin Peaks
of San Francisco. Catubignons, as well as people from other nooks of
Eastern Visayas, might one day wake up to the lyric of a ballad,
imaginably a composition by a local bard, proclaiming the twin peaks
in metaphor to dalagang Filipina, young Filipino woman, as a
Visayan poet of note not long ago would have it, upon whose bosom
sprout proudly two tender but firm peaks—yes, twin peaks—beautifully
created by God that drive young men in their sleep into sinful yet
romantic dreams.
The northern segment of Mount Ligiron
is heavily wooded and thickly forested. In some afternoons in
summer, mists form to produce drizzles which give curious observers
the impression that the thickly-forested area is in fact a mini rain
forest. The tall trees and the undergrowths serve as watershed to a
subterranean natural reservoir that gushes out a year-round spring
even during severe droughts. The spring has been tapped at the
northeast side—ever since anyone in town now living could
remember—into a small, fairly strong, steel-reinforced, concrete
box-like reservoir that stores and conserves water from
contamination and waste when not being tapped at desired, controlled
rate into water containers and bottles by fetchers for local home
consumption.
This mini reservoir—together with
another subterranean spring across the river, just a couple of feet
above sea level, on the foot of Mount Kalingnan—was the main source
of potable water for the town until a reasonably large, fairly
modern reservoir was constructed several years ago at Hingangadian
River, a tributary to the Catubig River, some kilometers southwest
of the town, to provide a running-water system for the growing
community.
In the longest stretch yet from
upstream, the Catubig River approaches the south end of Mount
Ligiron diagonally in roughly a right angle. The long stretch
provides the river with inertia to strike the mountain at that end
with full diluvial force and fury it could muster during rainy
months. But the mountain proudly and stubbornly stands there, as
though the intent by accident of tectonics is for it to be a massive
and towering levee of rock and soil to protect and preserve the huge
flat swat of real estate to the northeast, upon which the town of
Catubig sits on, from the ire and havoc of the river. This explains
why the river instead, tamed by the mountain, swerves eastward to
the right from upstream defying logic but nonetheless submitting to
the law of physics. Yet after some three kilometers on its easterly
downstream course, the river has to veer northward to the left, in a
near-perfect right angle, to submit to—and parallel the rise
of—another mountain, Mount Kalingnan, which runs north from the
south.
Downstream from where its swerves at
Mount Kalingnan, the river streams its way with slight swerves past
Inatupilan Hills, adjoined by the Apolonio Hills close-by to the
west, until after some four kilometers it reaches Mount Kalirokan—not
far from Barangay Domingo Mercader—where the river is forced to
swerve and stream northwest suddenly at a perfect right angle. This
configuration of the river at this juncture makes it difficult for
skippers of larger vessels to navigate downstream on high tide ebbs
and more difficult still on high floods because the swift current
creates a massive maelstrom that could handily quirk beyond control
even a midsize watercraft. In fact, it was on an ebbing high tide
that on April 19, 1900, an American gunboat, chased under pressure
of possible capture by the Catubig militia in conjunction with the
battle of Catubig, was steered beyond control by its American naval
skipper causing it to capsize.
Back to Peak Park or
elsewhere on the summit of Mount Ligiron, visible to the southwest,
just below the peak, is the budding campus of UEP-PRMC, the pride of
the town second to none when it comes to the subject of education.
The campus, with its beautiful quadrangle that rivals the
quadrangles of the colleges of Oxford University in England,
initially started out as the Catubig High School, which came into
being in the late 1940s, almost immediately after the end of World
War II, single-handedly under the effort of the most pioneering
citizen of the town thus far, Pedro Rebadulla, who donated the land
upon which the school was established.
Across the years, the
Catubig High School, which underwent a number of changes in name as
funding to maintain it changed from one source to another,
dramatically prospered. Then it metamorphosed into a college, the
Pedro Rebadulla Memorial Agricultural College—PRMAC, for short—and
finally into a full-fledged university that by name it bears today,
a satellite campus of the University of Eastern Philippines, UEP,
with flagship campus in Universitytown, just in the outskirt to the
east of Catarman, the capital of Northern Samar.
Again from Peak Park or at any point
on the summit of Mount Ligiron, to the east immediately below one
could see the garden flats cultivated by upper grade school students
of the Catubig Central Elementary School as a requirement in part of
their industrial art education classes. The flats used to be laden
with vegetable plants—kangkong, cabbage, camote, etc.—and the
hillsides used to boost the abundance of guava and banana fruits in
town.
The grounds of the town’s central
elementary school—dominated by the Gabaldon [General-Purpose] Hall
and the Home Economics Building and largely defined until now by the
landscaping of lush blue-green Bermuda grass and citrus shade
trees—are breath-taking to behold from Peak Park or elsewhere from
any point on top of Mount Ligiron.
Yet still, Saint Joseph the Worker
Church, immediately east of the central elementary school grounds,
prominently stands as a massive stone edifice, a monument to the
town’s faith in God. Here several years back, indeed every now and
then, visiting high national officials and dignitaries, temporal or
spiritual as well as national politicians, upon arrival—in the past
flown in by mini seaplanes that landed on the calm waters of the
Catubig River during dry season—would be received by the local
pastor to the tune of Te Deum as part of the Mass celebrated
in their honor.
The church is as well a landmark to
the struggle the townspeople had waged against a foreign power at
the turn of the 20th century. Such a struggle proved in no uncertain
terms that they deserved respect and, for those who did not want to
grant it, they stoutly demanded it with a show of sterling valor
under arms with competent local direction. For on April 15-19, 1900,
a leading local ilustrado, Domingo Rebadulla, together with
other prominent townsmen, led a siege of the American garrison
that—by pretense and wily deception—was being set up by the new
colonizer of the Philippines. The siege itself began with a battle
and ended with another battle to roundly defeat and drive away the
Americans.
Yet, at the time this event of
historic proportion took place, no Filipino newspaper or media,
locally or from Manila, was available to record what happened on the
spot. Scanty dispatches by the American military were directly sent
to Washington, D.C., primarily just for service reporting purposes
to avoid gross embarrassment, from where as resource American
newspapers inadequately wrote secondary accounts. It never was
discovered until August 9, 1968, that the American defeat in the
battle of Catubig was in fact among the first few that Americans
decisively suffered at the hands of the Filipinos during the
Philippine-American War. A native of Catubig—fresh from graduate
school in San Francisco, U.S.A., while visiting the U.S. National
Archives in Washington, D.C. as a part of his after-graduation
continental tour of the industrial, cultural, and political hubs of
the United States—was stunned upon discovering from records that the
Americans were roundly defeated.
The historic event evidently escaped
scrutiny by Filipino historians in writing Philippine history books.
An objective look will make a neutral observer wonder why so
important a victory by Filipinos in the battle of Catubig had been
overlooked compared to the well-publicized so-called “Balangiga
Massacre” which, considered from the standpoint of an objective
assessment, easily pales into insignificance.
The clue to the answer is that in
Catubig the Americans were forewarned and the helpless survivors
were treated humanely—as though the treatment accorded was the
precursor to the Articles of the Geneva Convention first promulgated
in 1929. The resulting loss was a shame to the Americans, and hence
to be kept [by them] under tight lid. On the other hand, in
Balangiga the Americans were not forewarned in view of their
arrogance. When the attack came by surprise, they called it a
massacre, with implication of savagery to be used by the Americans
with vengeance as an excuse to resort to the burning of Samar and
turning the island into a howling wilderness. The “massacre” had to
be kept open to the world by excessive publicity to invite sympathy
and to justify the disproportionate revenge that followed, as well
as to portray the Filipinos as savages.
The local populace of Catubig,
however, kept the event alive in their memories, supplemented by
notes some local prominent families had taken for keepsake on the
historic event. The stories alone that a lady—thirteen years of age
at the time the battle was fought and the grandmother of the native
Catubignon who discovered the records in Washington, D.C.—used to
tell were so vivid each time she did before her children and
grandchildren. Still, not until 2003 was a fairly detailed account
of the battle was written by the native Catubignon himself upon his
retirement from gainful employment as an editor at the University of
California. The delay was apparently in part a wait for anyone in
town, especially those who claim to be direct descendants of the men
who had a role in the combat.
“What do you think of the parade and
the program this afternoon, Edith?” Cecilia struck a
conversation—the sequel to the one they had in the morning—with
Editha, who was seated with her husband on a bench in the main
townsquare at the civic center, almost three hours after the 109th
anniversary celebration of the battle of Catubig.
Catubig is hot in April—in fact, to
many by sheer perception, before the advent of outdoor thermostat,
the hottest month of the year. It is also the peak of the yearly
rice harvest season. But the days and nights are usually clear and
the air fresh and clean although sometime humid. So at dusk on April
15, 2009, it was still warm but cold breeze from three zigzagging
stretches of the Catubig River—forming almost like the last letter
of the English alphabet, with one almost a perfect right angle
hugging the town at two sides—and the thickly forested mountains
around were starting to make the evening pleasant as usual at that
time of the year, especially in the open air of the civic center.
The Manuel A. Roxas statue, a prominent structure, even in the
vanishing light of day was simply like that—prominent—and in fact it
dominates the square. But people were milling around, some with ice
cream cones, still discussing the main event of the day.
“The darn civic parade is said to be a
flop and…,” Editha replied as her husband cut in.
“How would you characterize…?”
inquired Leonardo as he cut in noticeably impatient.
“And who was the star or…?” Cecilia in
turn cut in.
“And, Celia, don’t try to bad mouth
Inday again. I know she has her detractors, by envy perhaps, but she
is doing a heck of a job trying to make this town alive. Remember
she, with her family and some friends, came all the way from Manila,
all on her own, just for that celebration,” commented Editha cutting
in, too.
“Bad mouth? Make this town alive? Come
on!” Cecilia complained. After adjusting her jeans while
standing—her curvy waistline when young having been lost to
advancing age—she continued, “You know, Inday thinks her family owns
this town. It is a common knowledge not just in Catubig but even in
northeastern part of Northern Samar.”
“That is pushing your antagonism too
far!” Editha countered.
“Excuse me, Celia and Mahal,”
Leonardo batted in again. “Why don’t I wander around this beautiful
square and catch some cool breeze while you two finish your lively
conversation?” implored Leonardo and walked away hardly getting the
attention of both his wife and Cecilia.
At the other side of the main square,
quite a distance from where Cecilia and Editha were in an animated
discussion, Leonardo ran into Alice, his high school sweetheart who
took the week off from her job in Manila just to attend the
celebration with her teenage son.
“Hi, good evening, Nards; glad to see
you,” Alice greeted Leonardo as she opened her arms for an embrace
under dim light.
“Ha, ha, ha—I have been dying, too,
for sometime now yearning to see you again.”
“Remember the local song we used to
sing together, almost right on the same spot where we are now and
elsewhere in town during our growing-up years?” Alice reminisced.
“Don’t mention it, Al,” confirmed
Leonardo. “It pains my heart.”
“Gee, Nards, don’t address me like I
am a guy, okay? Sounds like you have forgotten ‘sweetie’ just
because…” Alice complained.
“I did not mean it that way.” cut in
Leonardo.
Suddenly all smiles Alice twanged,
“‘Moonlights are here again, bringing love and memories…,’”
Instead of ‘pains’ about which
Leonardo complained just seconds earlier, he joined Alice; together,
as when they were in their late teens many years ago, they sang
Catubig River, repeating the song once and the last two lines
twice for a finale.
“This song is lovely, very lovely,
especially when sung with or by someone you love,” pointed out Alice
as she looked at Leonardo straight in his eyes.
Leonardo in turn stood his ground on
their eyeball to eyeball romantic reminiscence of their youthful
past, which this time only their individual marital knots forbade
them from melting into one the desires of their hearts.
There was moonlight but, with the moon
almost just half, moonbeam was not quite bright. Still they could
see the twinkles of each other’s eyes in excitement under faint
light.
People around the square heard Alice
and Leonardo singing. Soon there was a swell of some two dozens or
more men and women and young adults—Cecilia and Editha among
them—who, attracted, approached the duo. But Editha, upon noticing
the presence of Alice, threw a disapproving, even dirty, looks at
Leonardo, then at both of them. Yet, almost everyone in the growing
crowd started singing, ‘“Moonlights are here again, bringing…,’” and
there was gaiety and spontaneity in the air.
“Does anyone here know who composed
the song?” inquired Cecilia from the thick of the crowd.
“An attorney—sometime in the mid or
late 1970s,” yelled a young man from the younger set in the crowd.
“Nope. I hope you are not doped out by
plagiarism, because Catubig River was neither composed by an
attorney nor in the mid or late 1970s,” an elderly rather stocky man
shouted from the crowd. Continuing, he exclaimed, “It was composed
in the early 1940s by the late Luis Jolejole, perhaps the greatest
musician thus far this town has produced. Shortly after it was
composed, Catubig River whenever sung was the source of this town’s
inspiration amid the depressing, heart-rending conflagration of war
that engulfed the Philippines, yes, the entire world at that time!”
“Thank you, sir, I stand corrected,”
replied the young man. “I guess I merely have gotten used to hearing
the word plagiarism. Yes, ‘doped out’. Nowadays, almost everyone I
run into in this town and in Catarman has been talking of plagiarism
and The Battle of Catubig for about two years now.”
“Plagiarism?” echoed a lady from the
crowd asking with almost familiar voice.
“Who is that?” inquired the stocky,
elderly man unable to get a clear sight due to the dim moon, the
only source of direct light upon the square.
“Cecilia Matadong. And,” after a brief
pause to catch her breath, she continued, “I want to be counted
against plagiarism. There are plenty of talks about plagiarism in
our town. Even the account that put Catubig in the history books in
2003 is said to have been plagiarized in 2007. What kind of people
are we? We seem to be traitors to the brave men that fought the
battle of Catubig!”
“Oh, Celia, you are the person I have
been looking forward to talk with again when the occasion presents
in view of your illustrious daughter in the States,” replied the
stocky, elderly man.
In almost half an hour the crowd was
gone. However, Cecilia and Editha resumed their conversation on the
bench.
“You were talking of antagonism when
we heard the singing. Edith, are you Inday’s drumbeater?” Cecilia
remarked and in part asked a rhetorical question.
“I am just voicing out my perception,”
Editha replied. “By the way, I have been meaning to ask you, now
that we have finally met, about your visit to your daughter in the
States last year. Do you have any story to tell me?”
Glowing up in pride with broad smile,
Cecilia started, “I enjoyed it beyond measure. Rose had a couple of
physician conferences to attend at various places across continental
U.S.A. while I was visiting. She saw to it that coming with her to
the places where those conferences were held was an opportunity for
me to see big cities and other places of interest in America.”
“Sounds like you had a good time!
Anything in particular you could tell me?” Editha became insistent
and curious.
“Every minute of it thrilled me to my
bones; all places of interest were exciting. But the ones I love the
most are the mammoth Niagara Falls in upstate New York, the towering
skyscrapers of New York City even without the World Trade Center
anymore, and of course the majestic Golden Gate Bridge in San
Francisco,” Cecilia elaborated.
“You are so lucky, Celia,” Editha
remarked.
“Perhaps. But remember now, like the
saying goes, ‘…luck favors only those who are prepared.’”
“Yes, graduates of Philippine medical
schools—almost without exceptions, even practicing physicians and
surgeons licensed in the Philippines—seem not to have enough
preparation to practice in the States. They instead work as nurses
or even nursing assistants and lab technicians in the States,
according to what I have been hearing,” Editha added.
“Philippine medical schools alone are
not to get the credit or the blame for the success or failure of any
given graduates. So much depends on the individual, as well.”
“Yes, I know. And, Celia, aren’t we
talking here of Inday’s daughter who is working as a nursing
assistant or lab technician in Alabama, so I am told, despite the
fact that she is an MD licensed to practice here in the Philippines?
Inday does not say anything at all about her daughter, although she
is very articulate about the upside of her other family members.”
“Not necessarily, but, yes, you can
say that,” Cecilia replied. “Well, Inday has intellectual lapses—not
necessarily dishonesty, if you will. In the States, I learned that
she has been writing to friends claiming that her father should get
the credit for the published account of the battle of Catubig
because he had written a draft of the story. However, her father was
not able to finalize it because martial law soldiers and agents,
when they ransacked her father’s law office in 1972, took the draft
away in a brown envelope and presumably destroyed it. That’s
something totally absurd, even verging on insanity.”
“I agree with you, Celia. And that is
the kind of mentality that would plagiarize, given the chance.
Imagine making a brown envelope as her only claim to her father’s
authorship of an important article! Brown envelopes could be very
dangerous, just like plagiarists, if Inday’s rationale can be
upheld. Anyone could just allege losing one containing an alleged
unpublished masterpiece and get copyright to it and other
appurtenances due an author. There are at least a dozen
ramifications,” Editha pointed out.
“Also, Inday brags for no apparent
purpose other than to intimidate. At a private gathering a while
ago, she was telling those present that her husband, like her
father, is a lawyer and works for the richest man in the Philippines
for the past twenty years. Additionally, she pointed out that her
husband has an M.A. degree. What she kind of consciously overlooked
is her daughter, an MD working as a lab technician.”
“Really, Celia, yes, and what we
shouldn’t overlook is her intellectual lapses, to say the least.
What she said is totally unwarranted and unethical, even assuming
that the educational attainment of the person she was trying to
intimidate is far inferior to her family’s. Indeed, she seems to
have gone mad!”
“The irony is that with respect to
educational attainment and places of employment of the person she
was trying to intimidate, the reverse is absolutely true! There is
at all no comparison! Concerning educational attainment alone, the
person has advanced degree in Business from an Ivy League school in
American and all his three children have doctorates in Mathematics,
Physics, and Biology from MIT, Columbia, and Harvard—all Ivy League
schools! And his eldest son works with the richest man on earth in
Redmond, Washington. ”
“I could imagine! But you see someone
who talks like Inday does is enmeshed with insecurity.”
“Yes, and what a shame,” Cecilia
commented. That’s the kind of self-aggrandizement that is
intolerable! Inday seems to have gone mad, yes, you are right. But,
you see, that is the problem when you allow yourself to be perceived
as coming from the rich and the powerful—elite if you will; you are
tempted to create the impression of high expectation on yourself or
immediate members of your family to maintain the status quo of
family economic, political, and intellectual powers all rolled into
one. When your, say, intellectual capacity gets taxed to the limit,
you brag to avoid going on the defensive. It’s difficult to hold
torch that way for long. Eventually you will be cornered by your own
ego and left with no recourse other than to resort to, well,
plagiarism in the case of intellectual pursuit.”
“You are correct, Celia. Now, do you
have something to say about the growing supply of Ph.Ds. in Northern
Samar in particular?
“You are not kidding, Edith. But let’s
reserve that subject for our next meeting. By the way, I met Pepe in
Los Angeles!” exclaimed Cecilia laughing hard as she tried to change
the subject.
“Pepe, who?” inquired Editha laughing
just as hard, but pretending not to know about the person Cecilia
was talking about.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know, Edith.
You know Pepe nga Garong [the fox], your one and only when we
were growing up in this town.”
“Ahoy! I thought he is in Taiwan; any
grey hair yet?”
“Hardly.”
“You know, speaking of Garong
(fox), Langaw (fly), Tayud or Onud (meat),
Bantad (shaker), Tabili (lizard), Kagang (land
crab), etc.—all those and many more are imposed pseudonyms. We call
them bansag in our local dialect, as you know. We are fond of
imposing such a thing, engendered by the given individual’s or by
his or her forebears’ habits and tendencies. This is common here in
Catubig. Have you gotten an idea about the origin of how those
people you know bearing them acquired their respective imposed
pseudonyms, Celia?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. In part you
just responded to your question. Many of them have been around for
generations. But now I could deduce how someone might have gotten
her or his bansag—or how one may get it in the future. Like if you
are a girl, and you are overly aggressive on boys, you could get
called ‘foxy’ or fox, Garong in our dialect, for a bansag,”
Cecilia replied.
“But Pepe is a man!”
“Yes, but remember now he certainly
had merely inherited it,” Cecilia pointed out.
“Ha? You mean if you are a plagiarist
you could get called ohmmm—omang, and that could be passed
onto your children and grandchildren down the family tree?” inquired
Editha. “Wow, you sound funny!” Editha remarked, and without waiting
for Cecilia’s response, continued, “Anyway, in my entire life I only
have a vague understanding of what an omang is. Could you
elaborate, Celia?”
“Well, it is a common metaphor in our
town; say, if you are short of idea or ideas of your own, i.e., if
you have no originality—just like a plagiarist—you can get called
omang. Omang, by the way, is a type of crustacean. There
are over 50,000 species scientists have identified thus far the
world over. However, quite many, especially the terrestrial species,
don’t have their own natural shell or protective shield—housing, if
you will. Many adapt themselves into and live in the empty shells of
mollusks as their own. That is omang.
“Really!”
“Yes. We call the very common mollusk
here in the Catubig Valley as wawang. There are plenty of
them around, especially in moist and shady areas. When you are
cutting grass, for example, your husband or a friend is likely to
caution you from running into a wawang because its hard
shell, which is like a porcelain, is going to mess up the blade of
your sharp bolo or porang or any related cutting
implement. Check around for shells left empty by dead wawangs;
chances are that out of ten, three or even four may have in each
that skinny, crab-like creature enjoying the shell as its own
[home]. That is the omang very common in the Catubig Valley!”
“Alright!” Editha batted in, as
Cecilia pauses as if to summon more knowledge on the subject.
“It is also said that there is a
certain specie of omang, especially the terrestrial kind,
that when still very young, by biological instinct it squeezes in
and lodges itself as a parasite inside the shell of a living mollusk
and in the process eventually kills the host in order to take over
the housing or shell. And indeed, an omang grows fast as a
parasite to overtake and physically destroy the host. Any omang,
just like any other parasite, almost always chooses a healthy host.”
Agreed Editha, “Of course, a parasite
cannot afford to take a sickly host inasmuch as it has to live and
develop itself on the host as resource. Very interesting, but scary
if the comparison is applied to people. Hence a plagiarist tries to
take over someone else ‘healthy’ intellectual work and claims credit
for something she or he does not deserve.”
“Just like the balete tree,”
continued Cecilia.
“Thanks. Now I know what an omang
is, let alone the balete tree for now. It is clear to me now
that plagiarists are too dangerous and deserve to be called omang
as the scorn of our local society and a precaution to people around
whom they interact with from being—well—plagiarized or victimized,”
Editha reacted visibly showing her distaste.
“That probably is going a bit too
far,” said Cecilia.
The two rose from their seated
position and started moving around obviously to get some good blood
circulation.
“Alright, let us go back to your
stories on your visit to your daughter in the States,” Editha
suggested.
“It’s getting late,” Cecilia pointed
out then countered, “how about another meeting?”
“Alright,” Editha consented, “and
let’s do it sometime soon. Let’s include in our next discussion some
disturbing aspects of our educational system, because a
plagiarist—in addition to bad gene—does her or his trade due to
miseducation.”
Editha turned to the sky up and saw
the moon faint and fading. She invited Cecilia and observed:
“Look, Celia, the moon is almost half,
not that bright, but moonlight there is nonetheless, as Catubig
River would have it. The sheen glistens and sparkles on the
ripples of the river at the distance far down below on the stretch
southward to Kanoktan. Mount Ligiron looms big and robust close-by,
Mount Kalingnan silhouettes far in the east, the open skies to the
north is broken in the horizon only by the contours of the Apolonio
Hills. Catubig, with all its natural surroundings, is beautiful
indeed—day and night! Small wonder why those men who fought the
battle of Catubig at the turn of the last century did not hesitate
to put their lives on the line.”
Editha paused, then suddenly Cecilia
took turn:
“Yes, on April 15, 1900, there was
full moon when the Catubig militia chose to challenge the regulars
in the military of an emerging world power. Not that by whim they
wanted to, but of necessity they had to in order to set the example
of principle, righteous pride, and valor to future generations. The
fact that they had chosen to strike on a date with a full moon at
night tells us very well of the wise decision the leaders made to be
effective with the needed 24-hour a day siege and
vigilance—vigilance of which they did not envision succeeding
generations later to commit a dastardly act such as plagiarism or
any malice of the sort on any original, honest account that might
subsequently be written about the militia’s heroic deed.”
“Amen!” Editha, almost speechless but
biting her lips in response to Cecilia’s touching words, nodded with
tears in her eyes. -- #
Copyright ©2009
Q. Lambino Doroquez
All
Rights Reserved
Editor’s
Note:
— The
author dedicates this work to the poor people of the Catubig Valley in the towns of
Catubig and Las Navas, Northern Samar, and to the natural,
geographic beauty of the town of Catubig itself that inspired him to
write this work.
The author wishes to express his
thanks to Rico Gloton for his assistance in locating a copy of
Catubig River and for his personal assessment to the author that the
song is truly a classic; and to Jojo and Merly Tan for privately
recording the song, which they may have immortalized in the process,
on behalf of the author solely for his personal effort in preparing
this work.
To Atty. Randy P. Lambino goes the
author’s admiration in guiding the writing of this work and for his
professional endeavor on facilitating its timely completion.
Finally, the author expresses his
heart-felt gratitude for the understanding of anyone who may have
legitimate right or interest on Catubig River unknown to him or
those who assisted him in this work and that, due to the essence of
time, he is at want of such to further check.
# # #
post comment
|
1 comments
|
