Indung Kapampangan

 

Kapampangan misapwak
King legwan na ning alaya
Gabun ding pantas at marangal
Sibul ning lugud, karinan ning tepangan
Batis ning katalaruan at panamdam makabalen
Ligaya mi ing mie payapa
King malugud mung kandungan
Kapampangan, sale ning legwan
Kapampangan, sandalan ning katimawan
Kilub ning pusu mi atin kang dambana
Luid ka! Luid ka!
Palsintan ming Kapampangan

NOTWITHSTANDING THE lack of understanding of the amanung sisuwan among many Kapampangans themselves, most especially the young generation nurtured in Taglish, the Himno still carries deep stirrings in the hearts of the cabalen. Stirrings of pride rising straight out of the greatness of this race.

A race that produced revolutionaries in all epochs of Philippine history from Tarik Soliman to Francisco Maniago onto Maximino Hizon and Jose Alejandrino, from Don Pedro Abad Santos to Luis Taruc. A race that readily offered its own sons at the altar of martyrdom in Jose Abad Santos, Jose B. Lingad, and Ninoy Aquino.

A race that birthed the first Filipino priest and nun, hence most naturally be the one to produce the first Filipino cardinal – Rufino Jao Santos.

A race of literary giants in Juan Crisostomo Soto, Monico Mercado, Jose Gallardo, Amado Yuson, to cite but a few. A race that produced two Philippine presidents in Diosdado Macapagal and beloved daughter Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and a Senate President in Gil J. Puyat.

A race of legal eagles that made the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court as their exclusive aeries – Vicente Abad Santos, Renato Puno, Estelito P. Mendoza, Artemio Panganiban, to name the most prominent.

A race of intrepid mediamen from Jose Lansang and Jose Luna Castro to the current crop managing editorial desks and broadcast networks. A race of artists, from Vicente Manansala, Galo Ocampo and E. Aguilar Cruz to BenCab, Rafael Maniago, and Willy Layug.

And of actors: Rogelio de la Rosa, the first “King of Philippine Movies” himself, leading a pantheon of stars in the celluloid world, further enhanced in brilliance by the director Brillante Mendoza, first Filipino to win at Cannes.

A most beautiful race – as much for the number of titlists in all national pageants as for the blushing comely barrio maidens.

Indeed, a race to be proud of. Luid ya ing Kapampangan!

 

Angeles City at 196

 

DECEMBER 8 marks the 196^th foundation day of El Pueblo de los Angeles, when the settlement Culiat, established in 1796 by Don Angel Pantaleon Miranda and his esposa Doña Rosalía de Jesús, separated from its matrix San Fernando and was officially named in honor of the holy patrons Los Santos Angeles Custodios. 

“A history built on resilience, culture, and the enduring spirit of every Angeleño,” read a blurb from the city LGU of this year’s commemoration, instantly opening the memory bank of my earlier stories of Angeles City. This one from February 2006 focuses on aspects of heritage.    

Heritage of sin

DON Angel Pantaleon de Miranda, in his storied goodness, had only supremely sublime ends in founding Kuliat. Conversely – more aptly, perversely – Angeles, the city that rose out of Kuliat, was conceived and birthed from the loins of an occupying army. How the Don must have convulsed in his grave! 

The epithetical “Sodom of the Pacific” summed up the city’s not so distant American past, and impacted in its present as well (Or as badly?). 

Sin City has been so etched in the national psyche as an Angeles legacy that it simply cannot be buried in oblivion, not even by the thousand tons of Mt. Pinatubo ash and lahar that devastated the city. Or, if one may, phoenix-like it formed, flew and flourished from that very volcanic ash. Whichever, Sin City is there as ever in all its shameful – or should it be shameless? – ignominy. An unwanted but indefeasible heritage. 

Heritage. The word is one hot issue these days, rising from the teapotted tempest that brewed out of the proposed city council resolution of the Honorable Jay Sangil to declare the Grand Palazzo Royale as a city heritage site. Precisely, the alderman argued, to focus on the good and the beautiful in the city and veer it away from its sin image. No fireworks were exchanged though in the council hearing at the Palazzo itself with learned members of the community opening their cultural and historical reservoir of knowledge that was greatly appreciated by all those present. 

So, Grand Palazzo Royale may not fit the heritage tag but, in the words of Tourism Director Ronnie Tiotuico, more than qualifies as a “prime tourist attraction.”  Interestingly, Tiotuico pointed out that the craftsmanship involved in the construction of the Palazzo, being a skill passed down from preceding generations, is by itself a heritage. 

Presently though, a presumed (presumption mine) cultural cognoscente who was not present at the hearing came out in print with a scholarly disquisition on heritage. Thanks to his erudition, we barbarians whose comprehension of heritage was bounded by its dictionary definition of “property that can be inherited” were enlightened with the element of time, historical significance, cultural impact, and ethnic identity that make heritage… well, heritage. 

In the practical application of this new-found learning, I am now inclined to lobby the city council to declare Fields Avenue as a city heritage site. It meets the qualifications of time, having been there for as long as anyone can remember; of historical significance – of world proportions at that, playing a pivotal, albeit leisurely, role in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, care-giving to battle-fatigued American GIs; of cultural impact, being the melting pot of Waray, Cebuano, Bicolano, Ilonggo, Ilocano, and Capampangan culture, pulchritude, even idiosyncrasy, if not perversity; of ethnic identity, Fields Avenue is uniquely Angeles City’s. 

A bonus: Fields Avenue has an international reputation, being the point of convergence of foreigners, no, make that a miniature United Nations in the city, with its share of just about every nationality: American, Australian, British, Belgian, Swiss, German, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, whatever. To some others though, Fields Avenue could make the Interpol’s rogues’ gallery on the profiles of some of its habitués. 

Yet another international factor for Fields Avenue is its having more hits in the Internet than the Angeles City and Pampanga websites combined. Then there was that spread – publicity, good or bad is still publicity – in the glossy GQ magazine titled “The Sex Trade, Part 1: Pleasure, At Any Price,” indeed a crowning achievement for Angeles City’s famed avenue of the senses.

Even more qualified than Fields as a city heritage site is the Area, also uniquely Angeles City’s. Pre-war pa, it even holds some anthropological significance being the long-preferred locus of the rite of passage of Capampangan males. The Area easily coasted through the American Period, the Japanese Occupation, and the American Re-Occupation, and survived a number of conflagrations sparked by righteous religious vigilantism. 

The Area – it is privately acknowledged – even serves as a zone of peace: the combatants – policemen, army troopers, insurgents of all persuasions – laying down their arms there to lie down in the arms of its denizens.  

Sin City forever. A fitting heritage for Angeles. Pronounce that the American way -- 
“ein-jeh-less.” Translating to “without angels,” as in where there is sin there are no angels. Haven’t we read something to this effect somewhere? Yes, The Sinners of Angeles, magnum opus of the Capampangan writer I revere most, Tatang Katoks Tayag. Now, that’s one literary heritage Angelenos should be most proud of.

2025. TO BE FAIR, sin has since been expunged from the city’s image not so much by human design as by some karmic irony or poetic justice: Clark’s past as the bastion of American imperialism drawing in all sorts of camp followers, prostitutes most infamously; Clark’s present as special freeport zone generating investments, trade, tourism, and employment.   

For bad, for good. Indivisibility makes Clark and Angeles – that is the city’s indelible heritage. 

Blast from a quarried past

Drone shot of idle backhoes and dump trucks on Porac quarry sites last Nov. 22. Contributed photo

P40-M IN REVENUES AT RISK.

No less than Engr. Romeo “Buddy” Dungca, chief of the provincial quarry regulatory unit KALAM ((Kapampangan a Lulugud at Matapat), has sounded the alarm over the immense losses to be impacted upon Pampanga if the shutdown of 40 quarry sites in Porac which the operators themselves imposed take the full 15 days they set. 

“Nakiusap lang tayo kung pwedeng pag-usapan. Hindi natin pwedeng ihinto nang matagal yan. ‘Yan ang utos sa amin ni Gov Nanay dahil diyan kumukuha ang Kapitolyo sa pantulong niya sa mga Kapampangan,” the former multi-term Bacolor mayor noted in an interview with media persons last Monday, Nov. 24, with the closure of quarry sites into its fourth day.

That sand quarrying takes premium among the locally sourced incomes for Pampanga is solidified in numbers at the Office of the Provincial Treasurer: P5 billion from 2019 to 2025, directly translating to P714,285,714 per year, P59,523,809 per month, P1,984,126 per day.

That despite this massive contribution to the provincial coffers – and undoubtedly, their bank accounts too – the operators and haulers decided to shut down all operations impacts the gravity of their grievance against the Porac local government, notably Mayor Jing Capil, on allegations of double taxation, arbitrariness in policies and processes especially in issuing clearances, and outright harassment.   

In the great scheme of things, the Porac quarry dispute is but a ripple in the otherwise all-too-smooth state of the quarry industry since the ascendancy to the Capitol of Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda in 2010 and through her three terms, onto the tenure of Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda from 2019, and back to Nanay Gov.

There is some dynamics manifesting here, a recurrence that just made me hark back to the Capitol’s management of quarrying pre-Pineda times. Here’s something risible published here Oct. 10, 2007:   

Defining ‘Q’

QUARRY (1). n., pl – ries. 1. A bird or animal hunted; prey; game. 2. Any object of pursuit (Middle English querre, entrails of a beast given to the hounds, from Old French cuiree, variant of co(u)ree, from Late Latin corata, viscera, from Latin cor, heart.
Quarry (2). n., pl – ries. An open excavation or pit from which stone is obtained by digging, cutting or blasting. – tr.v. quarried, -rying, -ries. 1. To cut, dig, blast or otherwise obtain (stone) from a quarry. 2 To use land as a quarry. (Middle English quarey, quarere from Old French quarriere from quarre (unattested), “square stone” from Latin quadras, square.
The lexicographic definitions of the word quarry – the Grolier International Dictionary used here – are too clear for any misunderstanding. (What? No mention of sand in the definition? Well, sand, along with marble, mayhaps only came later to join stone as materials being quarried.)
Well-defined as it is, still – in Pampanga – the word quarry has assumed myriad connotations and varied denotations well outside the parameters of its dictionary meaning.
It was not so long ago that the word quarry meant all of these things: some tracts of lands and fishponds, some choice lots in premier subdivisions, condo units along Manila Bay, and the heart of a Mutya ning Kapampangan finalist.
In that same period, quarry assumed the synonyms of top-of-the-line sports-utility vehicles like Lincoln Navigators and Humvee 2s, luxurious S-type Mercedes Benzes and 7-series BMWs. Forget the Pajeros, they were for paisanos. The Patrols, to the bodyguards as back-up vehicles
Still then too, quarry connoted grand palaces and stately mansions sprouting in rustic Porac.
Ah, those attributions were well within our first dictionary entry of the word: “object of pursuit.” The pursuers making prey of the collection pot for their own ends.
In our common understanding, quarry meant digging. For sand, that is. Still, misunderstanding persists.
Again, an instance in the recent past.
Threatened with suspension over the reported indiscriminate quarrying in his town, my once favorite mayor, rolled his Rs in his spirited defense that: “There is no quarrying in Mexico. There is only the scraping of lahar from private agricultural lands in pursuit of our noble objective to make them arable again for greater productivity and prosperity of our people.”
Only scraping and not quarrying? Even when the lahar scraped was used as pantambak (filling materials) to the pinak (marshland) atop which SM City Pampanga rose? 

One month after the Reverend Governor Eddie T. Panlilio took his seat at the Capitol, quarry assumed the definition of P1-million per day. And at the same time confirmed the earlier definition of quarry as unexplained wealth and plunder.
So we are now all agreed on all that the Q word stands for? Not yet.
Our good friend Mayor Buddy Dungca of Bacolor raised hell when Capitol quarry operatives known for the eponymous BALAS (Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisinupan) moniker stopped desilting operations along the Gugu Creek to relieve the waterway of the volumes of lahar that settled there after the heavy rains of August and September.
The spectre of Oct. 1, 1995 in Cabalantian was poised like Damocles’ Sword upon some barangays, thus the mayor immediately ordered and implemented sustained desilting operations.
Apparently incensed at some insinuations from the Bacolor folk that his stoppage of the operations manifested a most-unpriestly, if not inhuman side, of Panlilio, the governor hit back by declaring that what was being done was not desilting but quarrying, with the qualification that “what was dug was sold, and not used to buttress the earthen dikes or given to the residents as pantambak.”
So there, yet another qualification to the Q definition: “that which is sold.”
Truly, quarry is a very dynamic word. 

 

Ombudsman redux for 'Congtractor' Dong

 

                                                                                   FB photograb

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- “Congtractor yan eh… People didn’t believe that there would be accountability whatsoever in violating the law, harap-harapan kasi nga walang manghuhuli. Bawal iyan eh. It’s a prohibited activity, it’s a conflict of interest found in so many laws on corruption so mahirap na makatakas diyan.”

A mouthful there from Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla on Nov. 20, confirming that former House Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. is among lawmakers being investigated for alleged involvement in the flood control anomalies.  

“Congtractor” is a recent portmanteau referencing congressmen who also own or manage construction companies that have secured contracts with the Department of Public Works and Highways.

In the case of the former Pampanga 3^rd District congressman, a bigtime infrastructure development player bears his very name -- A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading Co., Inc.

Of the Top 10 contractors that snagged the lion’s share of DPWH flood control contracts in Pampanga culled from the “Sumbong sa Pangulo” website last August, A.D. Gonzales Construction and Trading Co. Inc. ranked Top 5 but was awarded the largest funded single flood control projects in the province, to wit:  

1)     the Abacan River diking and slope protection project in Mexico, Pampanga at a cost of P270.194 million reported completed on March 6, 2024; and

2)     flood control works on the Pasig-Potrero River and the San Fernando-Bacolor section of the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin Tail Dike at a cost of P257.255 million and completed on June 5, 2024. (Erroneously placed in La Union in the sumbong website).

One more project listed under A.D. Gonzales Construction is another Abacan River diking, also in Mexico but distinguished as Phase I, with a cost of P96.496 million and completed on Nov. 23, 2023. 

It was precisely these projects that haled Gonzales to the Office of the Ombudsman in September 2023. 

Sto. Cristo barangay chair Terence Napao shows copy of complaint. 

Complainant Terence Napao, chairman of Barangay Sto. Cristo, and president of the Association of Barangay Captains in Mexico, Pampanga alleged that Gonzales and DPWH officials “conspired to corner” P611,577,718.40 worth of flood mitigating projects which were awarded to the construction company bearing the congressman’s name and with business address adjacent to the residence of the then-deputy speaker in the capital city.  

Family enterprise

In his complaint, Napao claimed that Gonzales owned 77% of the shares of A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction and Trading Co. Inc. until 2015, when he held a 25% share.

According to Napao, Gonzales’ son Aurelio Brenz, then a councilor now vice mayor of the capital city, became the company’s president and majority shareholder, while the congressman’s daughter, then-provincial board member now Pampanga 3^rd District Rep. Alyssa Michaela Gonzales, sat as secretary and treasurer. 

All in the family. At the proclamation of 2025 poll winners: CSF VM  Brenz, Pampanga board member Mymy, former House SDS Dong, Pampanga 3^rd District congresswoman Mica. File photo 

Another Gonzales son, Aurelio III, is the company’s vice president while another daughter, Aurelio Michaline is a director along with the congressman’s elder sister Zenaida Quiambao.

“Any right-minded citizen would easily figure out why and how a senior deputy speaker, a city councilor and a bokal (provincial board member) owning a construction company and with DPWH officials under their beck and call were favored with hundreds of millions worth of government contracts,” Napao alleged at the time. “With huge projects such as these, it would be the height of naiveté not to sense a collusion between the congressman’s company and the DPWH.” 

The Office of the Ombudsman dismissed the case in 2023. 

Vindicated

Feeling vindicated by the turn of events in the exposè of flood control anomalies and the attendant public outcry last August-September, Napao resolved to refile with the Office of the Ombudsman the case for violations of Section 3 (e and h) of RA 3019 (the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), and the “Possession of Prohibited Interest by a Public Officer” from Article 216 of the Revised Penal Code against former Gonzales Jr. and members of his family who comprise the A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading Co. Inc.

Napao said the complaint is unchanged from the one he filed earlier, asserting that the facts have not lost weight despite its dismissal.  

“These projects are glaring examples of conflict of interest in public service, manipulated to favor the family-owned business of then-Congressman Gonzales, a known super-rich contractor in Pampanga,” he alleged.

Rehashed

“I recall that a case against me involving the same projects filed before the same Ombudsman was dismissed sometime in 2023 for lack of merit. It appears to be a rehashed and recycled subject, if any.”

So was quoted Gonzales by the media on Nov. 20 citing a statement he reportedly sent to House of Representatives reporters.

“While I welcome any inquiry on the matter, I am not aware of an ongoing Ombudsman formal investigation against me on prohibited interests,” added Gonzales.

Aside from Gonzales, Remulla said investigations are underway for nine other politicians moonlighting as government contractors. 

“Isa-isa yan. Kailangan hihimayin mo kasi maraming magaling magtago e. Marami namang hindi na nagtago, talagang ginawa na lang. Yung (gumawa) na lang muna ang unahin natin, tinatawag ngang low-hanging fruit,” he said.

 

 

Immunity Index

CULTURE OF impunity. The phrase so oft applied in unsolved media killings, extra judicial executions, abductions and disappearances, that it assumed exclusivity for human rights violations.

Culturalization though starts small, petty things, which often repeated, graduate to big things. Like the culture of the lie attributed to Goebbels: If a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth.

Hence, if a wrong is done often enough, it becomes not necessarily right, but altogether tolerated, aye accepted as a no-wrong.

Thence – to my simple mind – rises the culture of impunity. Impunity, if I remember my seminary Latin right, rooted in im – without, and punitas – punishment.

So even as I continue to join my media comrades raise clenched fists every 23^rd of the month to remember the Ampatuan Massacre of November 23, 2009, and shout for an end to the culture of impunity, I keep my own impunity index on the petty side of things unright, if not illegal.

Like the passenger jeepney drivers dropping and picking up commuters in No Loading/No Unloading Zones right under the very noses of traffic enforcers.

Like the passenger jeepney drivers – again! – taking the outermost lanes and zooming through red lights right on plain sight of traffic enforcers.

Like the passenger jeepney drivers – again, again! – keeping their vehicles’ headlights off in the dark of night. That’s no simple driving with reckless imprudence, that’s wanting – not waiting for – an accident to happen. So where’s the LTO?

Then there are the tricycles traversing stretches of the national highways in direct violation of the law, being confined only to crossing them.

There too are the whole families of three, four, five, once I saw even six, on board single motorcycles, where but tandem riding is decreed.

And helmetless motorcycle riders or those who wear them on their elbows not on their heads.

And what do you make of the padyak-sikels who lord it all over city streets – making terminals atop bridges, counterflowing traffic at will, do pick-and-drop passengers wherever?

They all flout the law with nothing more than their stupid grins to flaunt, but nobody dares apprehend them. Not even reprimand them. And these are but the “small folk” far below the ladder of power and influence in local society.

If, in their “lowness” they can get away with these small violations, so can the high and the mighty get away with bigger violations, murdering newsmen not exempted.

Ending the culture of impunity in this country is ever invoked at each unsolved high profile killing, abduction, disappearance.

Ending the culture of impunity in this country should be invoked at each unpunished illegality, no matter how seemingly trivial.

Ending the culture of impunity in this country demands the draconian exercise of political will. By all persons in authority. With full respect to the rights of the people, but of course. 

Will. Will not. A whale of a difference in the nut.

(First published June 21, 2012 before the culture of impunity reached hellish proportions under Duterte) 

     

   

 

Pork: A Recurrent Evil

         Image from the National Council of churches of the Philippines page

A RECURRENT evil. Aye, make that the eternal scourge of the Filipino nation.

Rushing to fill up this issue’s Page 4, I rummaged through nearly forgotten stories that would still find some relevance in these times of plunderous misgovernance. And voila, this from Sept. 23, 2013 ringing timelessness in its truth. Especially viewed from the INC spectacle just past.

Pork to perdition

PORK IS evil.

So spake retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno at a gathering of Methodist churches at the Good Samaritan Church in Quezon City last week.

“The pork barrel is an evil practice and it is our duty to fight evil by engaging it and not running away from it, not escaping from it,” he declared. “The fight against evil requires that we not only start the fight but we finish the fight. The fight against evil demands a period. The fight cannot be postponed by a comma, cannot be suspended by a ceasefire. Evil deserves but one end—defeat.”

No war of attrition there but the war to end all wars. 

As well addressing all men of faith, the esteemed magistrate said: “In sum, the Methodist position in regard to abuse of governmental power is clear, unchanging and unchangeable. Our North Star has always been and will always be the Word of God. We maintain that government derives its power from God; that it is the sovereignty of God that counts, it is the sovereignty of God that controls, it’s the sovereignty of God that should dictate the direction of human destiny.”

So sadly, some divine attribute arrogated unto themselves by those in government, thus: “However you look at it, the pork barrel scandal is all about abuse in the exercise of the powers of government, especially the legislative power over the money of the people.”

Indeed, “the only rationale of the government is to maintain order by promoting good and not evil, and above all, the government must be an instrument of God, hence no government can subvert the sovereignty of God.”

Indeed, government – at least in the case of the pork barrel scam – did just that.

The evil of “mass theft” of the people’s money compounded and complexed by how it was “misused against the people’s interest.”

“It was misused for political patronage; to buy the loyalty of people whose politics is for sale; to corrupt our system of making laws; to corrupt our systems of enforcing our laws; to corrupt our system of election; to perpetuate poverty; in other words, to violate the dignity of our people, to demean our democracy, and worse of all, to defy the sovereignty of God.”

Drawing the lines of battle thus, “between God’s power and evil people in power.” Verily, the final conflict, Armageddon itself, to be waged there.

Pork is an abomination.

Haram, as the Qur’an proscribes -- "Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah." [Al-Qur’an 5:3].

In the Old Testament too -- "And the swine, though he divideth the hoof, and be cloven footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch, they are unclean to you." [Leviticus 11:7-8]. The same phrase in Deuteronomy 14:8 reverberating.

As well as – and more terrifying – in the New – “And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding.  So, the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.  And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.” [Matthew 9:30-32, King James Version]. 
And so, the devils went into the congressional pork, and, behold, the whole House of Congress rocked violently and now lies precipitously on a steep cliff, teetering to fall into the sea of rage of a people wronged, and to perish…  

Pork is damnation.

In both its scriptural and political sense. Woe unto you, pork scammers. Hell has a special place for you.

Abolish pork. Be saved.   

Duh?  
 

 

That Yolanda-effect

Donations from the United Nations, European Union, and the United States in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda reached $231,587,655 (P11.19 billion) or 26.77% of the total foreign aid received by the Philippines. Rappler

THERE IS something in the series of earthquakes and typhoons of late that I find far and away from the previous calamities that impacted the nation.

Not so much in terms of intensity or in the scope and scale of devastation, as in the global response and concomitant relief. So, has anyone even noticed some semblance of international aid groups coming to Cebu or to any of the disaster-impacted areas?

Donor fatigue? Political intrigue? Whatever, I dare not think. In matters of analysis of this magnitude, I am poorly equipped. Mine is just to look back to what has come to me as Yolanda-effect from the perspective of relief.

Here’s a Punto! piece dated Nov. 23, 2013 – aye, 12 days short of 12 years, and finding some relevance if only for this.

Epiphany            

“GOODNESS IS self-edifying; ethical living satisfies the conscience; virtue is, as proverbially advertised, its own reward, and don’t look to God for a bonus.”

Thus, the language maven William Safire iterates a moral doctrine in his work subtitled The Book of Job in Today’s Politics.

“Prayer has a value in itself. That’s the flip side of the negative, don’t-look-for-a-material-payoff lesson. The truly religious person, in Joban theology, not only worships God with no payoff in mind but is uplifted by that unselfish love.”

So, I rearranged the order of Safire’s paragraph to transition to the point whence this discussion takes off.

PAYOFF TIME. Emphatically tolled across the globe by the devastation wrought by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Notwithstanding the aforesaid Joban precept.   

“We will never forget what the Philippines did for us in 2011.” So was quoted Kenzo Iwakami, the team leader of the Japanese medical mission to Leyte. In reference to the Filipino nation’s contribution to relief efforts at the time Japan was ground zero of the destructive earthquake and tsunami that killed over 15,000 people. 

                               Philippine Embassy in Japan photo

Seconded Dr. Joji Tomioka, sub-leader and medical coordinator for JICA’s medical team for disaster relief: “This time, we have to help you. Because two years ago, you helped us. So, this time, this is our turn.”

In what could be its largest military overseas aid deployment to date, Japan has dispatched two warships carrying some 1,000 troops, along with 10 planes and six helicopters to join relief efforts in the Visayas. It has likewise pledged $10 million in aid.

Purely personal payback it was to Kenji Hirakawa who donated 200,000 yen (P87,000) to the relief efforts “for all the troubles my father may have caused to the Filipino people.”

“My father lies sleeping in a mountain somewhere in Luzon,” Hirakawa said in the letter he sent to the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, qualifying his old man was a member of the Japanese Imperial Army that occupied the Philippines in World War II and never made it back home. 

A tug at the heartstrings was that Japanese pre-schooler who went to the Philippine embassy to donate his piggy bank savings.

PAY IT FORWARD.  In 1939, some 1,200 Jews “who otherwise would have almost certainly died in the Holocaust” were given sanctuary in the Philippines.

“The people of the Philippines will have in the future every reason to be glad that when the time of need came, their country was willing to extend a welcome hand.” President Manuel L. Quezon’s word at the time proved prescient, if not prophetic, today.

“A particularly heroic piece of history (that) should be recalled by the global Jewish community, which owes a debt to the island nation.” Wrote Alan H. Gill, CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, in JTA, the Global Jewish News Source.

And the Jewish nation did. Setting a field hospital right at ground zero within seven hours of the arrival of the Israel Defense Force, its 125-member delegation of medical doctors, nurses, technicians, lab workers treating as much as 300 patients a day. And members of its Homefront Command coordinating logistics comprising over 100 tons of equipment and supplies.  

                               IsraAID photo

Aside from treating injuries and ailments, 12 babies have been delivered, the first of whom was named “Israel” in gratitude to the volunteers. Enough to move one to tears.

Writes Gill further: “These efforts now come full circle, especially for one member of our team arriving in the Philippines later this week, Danny Pins. In addition to being one of our development and employment experts, Pins’ mother and grandparents were among the German Jews who fled to the Philippines to seek safe haven in 1938. His posting, in many ways a homecoming despite previous trips to the country, is highly symbolic.” 

“Today, in the wake of one of the worst storms in history, with perhaps more than 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, we are fully committed to fulfilling President Quezon’s prophecy and returning the favor to the Filipino people. Not just because we are Jews, the heirs to this nation’s life-saving actions, but because we firmly believe in mutual responsibility and the idea that each individual life is valuable beyond measure.” Beyond mere payback, there rises international solidarity, indeed, One Humanity, most manifest in the Filipino value of kapwa.  

SOLIDARITY AND FAITH. The greatest means to survive, and ultimately triumph over a disaster.

This, the people of Pampanga have shown to the world, rising over the devastation, death, desolation, and despair wrought by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, and the lahar rampages that buried whole communities in the aftermath. 

“The desire among Kapampangans to help is spurred by our own Pinatubo experience.” So articulated San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David at the launch last Saturday of the “Pampanga for Visayas/Palawan” mission which calls on the Kapampangan faithful for donations, the archdiocese’s 94 parishes serving as drop-off centers.

A number of business groups, socio-civic organizations and committed non-governmental of organizations throughout Pampanga are likewise engaged in raising funds and relief goods for the victims of Yolanda.

The Kapampangan community, quoted the Inquirer of the good Among Ambo, is “extra generous because of our awareness that we have to look back and to give back.”

Awareness evolving to sanctifying grace.

Thus, Ignatius of Loyola: “…to give and not to count the cost, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to seek for reward, save that of knowing that we do Your will.”

Hence, Francis of Assisi: “…where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy…For it is in giving that we receive.”

Enough to restore one’s trust in the innate goodness of man, to renew one’s faith in his God.

The ravages of Yolanda are an epiphany for all the world to witness, to experience, to believe.

 

                      Photos: USAID, AFP