Utekk-Kappi Latta: Apay?

ni Rudy Ram. Rumbaoa

Di Nakapappapati, Ngem Pudno
Fil-Am OBSERVER, March 2012 Issue

Opinion Section, Page 5

Utek-Kappi Latta: Apay?

SAANEN a gangannaet dayta a balikas kadatayo. Nagramuten daytoy nga ugali/galad[tayo] a Filipino, iti ballasiw taaw wenno iti mismo a daga a nakayanakan. Ti kinautek-kappi ket bunga/resulta iti nalaus unay a panagimon wenno apal/apas[tayo] nangruna no makitatayo nga adda potensial ti tao nga agrang-ay wenno mangragpat iti arapaapna. Agalikuteg ti panunottayo ngem masaktan ti riknatayo a kas man matagibassit ti nagappuanantayo no isadig iti nagapuanan dayta a tao a rason a tumaud ti ilem. No saan, kas man makalibas a balud iti irurukuas ti panunottayo ti dakes nga apal wenno nangisit a panagem tapno maimameg ti kinatao ti sabali. Saan la a dayta, mabalin pay nga aramaten daytoy a pagkukunsabaan wenno pagsasalisalan ti rikna.

Iladawan ti kinautek-kappi a kas kappi iti uneg ti timba/balde. Ditoy a mailadawantayo no kasano't panagtignay dagiti kappi. No mabasa ti panagwerret ti pampanunotda, maidasig man ti garawda iti pagsasao a "no diak magun-od ti maysa a banag, nangnangruna pay kenka." No panunoten, alisto koma a makalibas dagitoy a kappi iti timba, ngem igawid ti maysa ti sabali no daytoyen ket makapantok iti timba tapno laeng masigurado nga agkammaysada a manglak-am ti padapada nga estado wenno pannakaparigat. Ti analogia daytoy iti ugali/galad ti tao: kayat nga ipababa ti maysa ti sabali gapu ta dina kayat [dayta a tao] ti agballigi. Wenno, adda kadi personal a motibo?

Nawada ketdi a makibinnulig daytoy a termino iti kinaawan sirmata wenno kinaawan panagarapaap para iti masakbayan[na] ken ti sabali, awanan konstraktibo a panagpampanunot nga imbes koma nga adda panagkaykaysa. Iti kaaduanna a mapaspasamak, masansan pay a maaramat daytoy a pagibasaran iti oral nga aspeto ti lengguahe ti maysa nga indibidual ken/wenno komunidad nga agpanggep nga aglibas iti babaen ti pribilehiado a biag; ngem agtalinaed nga aramidnanto latta dayta kadagiti tattao a nakagun-od iti simple a balligi.

Iti napalabas, maipagarup a ti kinautek-kappi ket limitado laeng iti maitudo a puli wenno kameng iti maysa nga etniko a grupo. Ngem napaneknekan a saan. Sapasap. Saanna laeng a seknan ti maymaysa a puli, kultura, edad, nagbedngan [ti maysa ken maysa], relihion, sosial wenno estado ti ekonomia ken/wenno pagilasinan ti kinatao. Mabalin [siguro] a saan a maawagan iti "utek-kappi," ngem itudo ti aramid/aksion iti babaen ti sabali a pangawagan kas iti gura wenno nakaro a di pananggusto [iti maysa a tao] ken/wenno ego [bukod a bagi/amor propio].

The Next 40 Years: OPERATION MANONG AND ITS LEGACY OF SERVICE

By Aurelio Solver Agcaoili

The witnesses and long-time advocates of the work of Operation Manong.
(L-R) Charlene Cuaresma, Adrienne Guerero, and Dr. Amefil Agbayani.

On March 25, Operation Manong will hold a big celebration at the Filipino Community Center in Waipahu, Hawaii, to mark the fortieth
anniversary of its founding.
 
At this gathering—dubbed a reunion—alumni of OM from all over Hawaii, and some from other places, are expected to take part and renew their commitment to the OM cause. 
 
The alumni of OM have been afforded with a newer, smarter, sexier term: OMers.
 
OMers, of course, is Operation Manongers, that kind of a Philippine slang that can enchantingly turn a word into something suggesting action and actor.
 
It is neat and nifty way of affirming what one is part of.
 
The UH Office of Multicultural Services, now the new name of Operation Manong since 2000, has set the tone of the celebration in its website: ‘Yes, it’s been that long. A lot of memories to share. A lot of catching up. And just a good time to rekindle those days of working with youths and the community to make a difference in people’s lives.’
 
The forty years of Operation Manong’s narrative of service is history in the raw. It is also a spunkiness, of daring, of boldness.

Golf Tournament to Raise Scholarship Fund

Kahului- The Maui Filipino Chamber of Commerce Foundation will hold its Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament  on Saturday, March 17 at The Dunes at Maui Lani.

 

Proceeds from the event will   fund the foundation’s scholarship program. Since 1995, the chamber has awarded scholarships to eighty-two graduating high school students. Scholarship applications are due by April 30, 2012. Qualified students  will be presented during the Chamber’s Gintong Pamana Leadership and Achievement  Awards and Scholarship banquet in June.

 

For further information, contact  event chairperson William Ruidas at  873.8605  or at williamruidas303@gmail.com

Search for Outstanding Fil-Am Youth

Honolulu- The Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu is pleased to announce the search for Outstanding Fil-Am Youth (ages 18-35, students and young professionals) to participate in the Fil-AM YOUTH LEADERSHIP PROGRAM 2012, to be held from 11-16 July 2012.  Up to three qualified participants will be chosen from the State of Hawaii and American Samoa.

The Fil-Am Youth Leadership Program is the initiative of Mrs. Vicky Cuisia and Ms. Maria Lourdes Heras-de Leon, President of the Ayala Foundation who has committed to fund the participation of 10 Filipino-American youth (ages 18-35) to the 2012 Ambassadors, Consuls General and Tourism Directors Tour (ACGTDT, 11-14 July 2012) and a special Youth program on 16-17 July 2012.

Notes and Reminders for submission of application to the Fil-AM Youth Leadership Program are as follows:

1.       You must be between 18-35 years old by July 1, 2012. You should be ready to travel, by possessing a valid passport and other required documentation.

2.       Submit your application online with supporting documents, including certificates/letters/any documents supporting information provided in Item 11, as scanned attachments) to the following email address : embassy@philippinesusa.org You will receive a confirmation of receipt of your application. (Kindly cc: honolulupc@hawaii.rr.com)

3.       Please attach at least 1 recommendation letter, maximum of 2, (electronic copy) from your school/community/employer.

4.       Deadline for submission is 15 April 2015 (no extension).

5.       If you are selected, you will be notified via email by 15 May 2012.   Final list of selected participants will also be posted online on the Philippine Embassy website (www.philippineembassy-usa.org).

6.       Participants are expected to commit time and resources on “replication project” echoing and enhancing their learnings during the ACGTD Tour to their peers/stakeholders and to contribute to their respective Filipino-American communities and the Philippines in ways that would advance their causes and interests.

For interested applicants in the State of Hawaii and American Samoa, you may contact Consul Lolita Capco and Ms. Sheila Tarrosa, Cultural Officer at 808-595 6316 to 19, extn. 104 and 105 respectively, for any further inquiry and to request for an application form. You may also send an email to tarrosas@yahoo.com

Baglan, Ablon, and the Indigeneous Healing Ways of the Ilokanos

by Aurelio Solver Agcaoili

All over the world, there is that renewed interest in the things of the old, such as the old ways of looking at the world, and the old ways of how to deal with the day-to-day challenges of life.

 

In Hawaii, for instance, the indigenous ways of the Hawaiian people have found a place in academic discourse, even if there is more to be done in pushing for it to become part of everyday public discourse.

 

The public space accorded to the indigenous ways is a deployment of a political symbol.

 

It means, among others, the recognition that the ways of the indigene, when properly understood, are as legitimate as the ways of anything western, including that almost hegemonic reference to western knowledge based on the science of theory-making, proving under controlled conditions, concluding, predicting, and repeating.

 

The problem with indigenous knowledge is that it is not predicated under those terms of western knowledge.

 

It is also human knowledge, but is not western knowledge if by knowledge we mean here a system of understanding the human being, the world around her, and her relationships.

 

We take the case of the Ilokano baglan.

 

Somewhere in history, the baglan before the coming of the Spanish colonizer was the revered and esteemed religious leader and community healer.

 

She was way above the ordinary, able to commune with the forces of the universe, and like the mangngagas, she could commune with the elements, the mountains, the seas, the plants, and the animals.

 

The Spaniards, unable to understand the ways of this indigenous healer called her the baglan that is weird, insane, imbalanced, psychotic, among other terms that survived when today we tell that someone is ‘agbagbaglan’: ‘Ania man ti kukueen ta baketen ta agbagbaglan manen iti puon ti kayo?’ (What is that old woman doing that she is again doing the baglan at the base of the tree?)

 

I think of this baglan now—and I think of the ways of the old, the primal ways, the ways beyond the reach of the capitalist interest of pharmaceutical companies, and profiteering motives of the health care industry, and how we all become beholding to this external force we call health insurance.

 

In our overly Americanized lives, we fall prey to this scheme, and we become believers of the religion whose maxim is that if you have no health insurance you are doomed in America.

 

Which is true.

 

But if we scratch the surface of this logic of our irrational lives, we see interests galore, the interests of an industry we call simply ‘health’ and the system it has spawned.

 

And we have no control, except to say Amen!

 

Which brings us to the baglan, the indigenous healer that, across history, and in order to get away from the hold of the Spaniards, metamorphosed into so many forms, from the Hispanic herbolario to the negative understanding of what he is in the sense of being a quack doctor through the farcical rendition of his name as albulario, erbolario, or elbolario, and the same farcical rendition of him as a man with a cone-shaped handkerchief tied like a pyramid on his head and muttering inaudible, sometimes pidgin language no one among his hearers understand.

 

The baglan is cousin to the ilot, mangngilot, or agil-ilot.

 

The baglan is twin to the mangngagas.

 

But the baglan is twin as well to the mangngablon, the terms ablon and baglan perhaps coming from the same stem. The phonetic relationship is too close to even doubt: when said, uttered, ablon and baglan sound so close they might be the same.

 

Which leads us to the our diasporic lives.

 

The questions begging answering is this: Have we lost the baglan? Have we lost the mangngilot? Have we lost the mangngagas? Have we lost the mangngablon?

 

There are two answers to the question.

 

Yes, we have lost them.

 

They is no such thing as ‘alternative’ medicine in the United States, not in the way we understand what legitimate medical practice is all about.

 

No, we have them around.

 

They metamorphose into the indigenous healers of our neighborhood, the same people who give as those relieving ritual touch and relief-giving language we no longer hear even as we lead our busy, too busy lives.

 

In a linguistic sense, the baglan is the mangngablon now more legit, more above ground.

 

Because the baglan had to go underground in order to survive, she had to come to the surface with the tacit blessings of those who can command what reason is acceptable in the currency of power and what it does.

 

Yes, indeed, we still have them around. 

 

And they ought to remain around in the eternity of Ilokano time.

Editorial:

Operation Manong at 40

Although now officially called a different term, Operation Manong’s vision to serve the underserved ethnolinguistic groups in Hawaii has remained the reason why public service in this state remains a concern today.

 

With forty years of service, that is more than a generation of concerted effort by a number of committed workers for a just cause.

 

This means that Operation Manong has nurtured a generation of people, and this generation it has nurtured is now nurturing others as well.

 

If we look at the list of its alumni, we have proofs of the kind of work it has done.

 

The list does not stop in Oahu, but goes into the other islands, thus spreading the vision for which it was founded four decades ago.

 

This is the kind of work that we want to see in these islands: sustained and sustaining.

 

We have a number of organizations like this, organizations that declare commitment to making the lives of immigrants better, but those that impacted the lives of the peoples of the Philippines and other ethnicities are few.

 The reason is simple enough: this kind of work, while it is not impossible, is not at all easy.

 

For every resource it needed, it had to creatively figure out where to get it.

 

For every human resource it needed, it had to convince those who have the guts and gumption to stay and serve.

 

For every step of the way in these long years of engagement with the community, it has to be fired continuously by the same vision of access to the goods of public life, of access to education, of access to public life, and of access to full citizenship in this state.

 

A narrative of its founding in 1971 brings us to a group of students and faculty of the University of Hawaii joining hands with the community and the staff members of Immigrant Services Center in addressing the need of immigrant children from the Philippines to get back to the school system and stay there.

 

This act would turn into an operation—a coordinated activity—that zeroed in on the need to address head-on the issues affecting immigrant peoples in the state.

 

For those aware of the political issues in the Philippines in the turbulent 70s, ‘operation’ was a term in those decades that suggested activism, awareness of social issues, and the undying desire to take part in drawing up solutions to the many forms of inequities and disparities of that country, the old homeland of many of Operation Manong’s founders. 

 

Those were energies that came from the young in search of something good—that good that is for all.

 

Many of those who were involved were schooled in this tradition of questing for what is just and fair in the Philippines, and its spilling over to Hawaii was a logical consequence of a sustained engagement that saw its beginnings, in some ways, in those years of activism in the homeland.

 

From the perspective of immigration, Operation Manong is boldness and daring defined.

 

It took a coalition like this one to name what social illness there was that needed addressing after more than 60 years of presence of Filipinos in the state since their coming in 1906, with the first 15 Ilokanos, and in 1909, with the Visayans.

 

Today, and funded by the state through the University of Hawaii, Operation Manong has metamorphosed into the Office of Multicultural Student Services since 2000.

 

With this transformation comes the broadening of its services to include programs that address representation, diversity, and tolerance.

 

We can only be thankful for this story of service of Operation Manong.

 

The next forty years, we are sure, will be more years of commitment to the cause of diversity and pluralism, of tolerance, of access to educational resources, and of fair representation in all aspects of public life.  

 

Of Parents and Youth Drug Abuse Prevention

There’s no doubt that Hawaii is plagued with the problem of substance abuse, particularly crystal methamphetamine, popularly known as ice. It is not enough just to talk about the problem. We should implement specific action plans addressing the issue. There are several programs of the government and other organizations which are aimed at preventing and curtailing the drug epidemic like DARE, Maui Drug Court and rehabilitation centers. These agencies are actively involved in informing and disseminating to the public, particularly the youth, facts about the effects of drugs on their life and future.

The Filipino community is no exception to this problem. Commonly called by its street name as “bato” or “shabu,” this substance has adversely affected many lives and resulted in divorce and  broken families. It’s sad to say that there are even kids who are being abandoned because of this situation.

While there is a lot of help available, the best persons who can shape and mold a person are their parents. Parents play a key role in drug prevention. They are given the responsibility of overseeing the welfare and well-being of their offspring. They are there to support them not only during times of distress but all the time. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.

Make and spend time with your children. Develop that bond of communication and friendship with them. While it is necessary to provide them with material things, (that’s why it is inevitable to have two or three jobs) the intangible rewards that you reap by spending quality time with them, will far exceed the tangible benefits.

Being pro-active and participating in their daily activities assures them of a wholesome interaction.

Let them be involved with sports and other worthwhile activities in the community. In so doing, they are most likely not to wander around and meet the wrong persons.

Most importantly, tell and show them that they are loved and cared for.

Aloha and Mabuhay!

Fil-Am Observer March 2012 Issue