Nosibalasi

PETMALU. LODI. Werpa. Current buzzwords of millennials who have arrogated unto themselves the crafting of some argot peculiar to their generation.

Sorry to disappoint but there is nothing new in this practice of reading/speaking words in reverse. Tombalibanta or baligtaran it was called when I was growing up, with those same terms – I learned at the cusp of adulthood – applying to some sexual position best known by its representative number.

Curiosity picked, this recurrence of an old practice taken as a phenomenon by millennials drove me to look for the linguistic genre under which it is classified.

The nearest I came to is emordnilap – “a word that can be read differently in reverse – it is read one way forward and another way backwards.” “Reverse pair,” it’s also called. As in sleep-peels, pay-yap, stressed-desserts, pans-snap. Even in the name Leon-Noel.   

Concededly, the way it’s done here is not in the emordilap’s strictest sense, with the reversing going beyond the letters and into syllables, the form from print to phonetics. Still, the sense of the word obtains, if loosely.   

Anyways, emordnilap is itself the reverse of palindrome which refers to a word or phrase, or even a sentence that reads the same forward as backward.

Palindrome is exampled in words as radar, level, racecar, madam; in the phrase “a man, a plan, a canal, Panama”; in the sentence “Able was I, I saw Elba.” Got the drift?

Really now, what is novel or millennially exclusive to emordnilap hereabouts?

Why, in 19^th century Las Islas Filipinas there was Plaridel, the nom de plume of the great propagandist Marcelo H. del Pilar.    

As far back as my boyhood days in somnolent Sto. Tomas town, reverse pair was already widely practised. There was a lifelong bachelor better known as Quinwazonti than his real name of Joaquin Tizon. And an uncle – Mironggasbatang – from his other moniker Roming Tanggas.

The barrio drunkard went by the tag Syonga Tongsiok reversed from Asyong Sioktong.

Not even persons with disabilities were spared. Anyone with a cleft lip was called ebung from the vernacular bunge. And those suffering from strabismus – the cross-eyed, that is – lengdu. The blind? Lagbu. The lame? Kulti.

For the gullible, it was alalum, backwards of mulala.  

The hydrophobic sans rabies, dehin goli.

Among the celluloid stars of the era were the Sky-Flakes-faced Ciagar Nobi (Bino Garcia), the archvillain Topakits (Paquito Diaz), the comedians Tochiqui and Pidol, and of course, the tough guy who would be president Erap (a reverse of pare).

So inured was I to names and things said in reverse that I impressed my high school literature teacher with my readily reading rightly the meaning of the title of the Samuel Butler classic, Erewhon.

Then came too the parental terms of endearment ermat and erpat. From whom we got our allowance for the day, the usual etneb, from beynte (20) that is sopi in college, raised from the mosenti, in grade school.  

Hard-up economically, the family could not afford a domestic longkatuts being most of the time alaws atik.        

With the sexual mores of the day, it did not take too much imagination to read the meanings of bogli, etits, keps and ratbu, to cite the least vulgar rendition of prurience.  

In college, the rich boy with the flashy tsekot usually got the materialistic damags (reversed contraction of maganda) among the coeds. Now, perfect emordnilap at the UP-Diliman jeepney routes of ikot-toki.

It was at the state university that conscientization turned me into a tibak who, when protest demonstrations became violent, had to make botak from truncheon-wielding lespu. A word: tibak in this sense is reversed aktib(ista). Not kabit for mistress which is betka.   

The Bohemian dream in my teens birthed my pe-hips days of modams – that’s for hippies, and grass of the hallucinating kind, dummy.

One who did not outgrow those wild flower power days was the rocker Sampaguita who, into the late ‘90s, still rolled and rocked Nosibalasi.   

Hip into his ‘80s, though definitely never the hippie, was the late San Fernando business patriarch and provincial board member Ceferino Laus, meriting a mention here if only for the vanity plate of his car GNONIP, his nickname in reverse.    

Fondly remembered as contemporaries of Apung Pinong in local politics of the ‘90s is the Mexico toughie monikered astig, naturally, and the San Fernando tightwad derided publicly as natmaku.   

Political incorrectness is to call the aesthetically challenged ngetpa, which ironically turned into a weapon of mass mobilization that won three terms for that now dearly lamented Apalit mayor.

And then there’s tongpats, the single term that encompasses all graft and corruption in government, from the Bureau of Customs to the DPWH and everywhere else. 

It can really be as stupid as it gets, not only in politics but in all aspects of life. Hence, the universality of ogag. Proved beyond doubt by that hit eponymous local television series at the onset of the early 21^st century.

Perhaps, the precursor of things idiotical, rather than intellectual, that have come to those born around the new millennium. But that’s another tokwents.      

Remembering Bogart

HE WOULD have been a still-young 61 last Monday, Nov. 27. But it’s been over two years now, since Angelo “Sonny” Lopez Jr., aka Bogart to his very close friends, wrote his final 30.

Still, he’s missed, all too fondly. In remembrance, here’s the eulogy I delivered at the Pampanga Press Club necrological rites for Sonny on 3 June 2015, Holy Mary Memorial Park Chapel B.  

IN ATTENDANCE here tonight is a small universe in grief, with our dearly departed Sonny at its vortex. All of us inter-connected with the common bond of love, of affection, we have for him, and he had for us.

Each of us having taken a part, at some time or the other, in Sonny’s journey through life. Allow me to share mine.

Sonny was serving as city economist in the early ‘80s when he was introduced to me by Ram Mercado, his journalism mentor and publisher of Pampanga Eagle where Sonny was starting his writing career as a columnist. I was at that time moonlighting as editor of Max Sangil’s Live News which shared the same printer with the Eagle, the Bankers’ Press.

Weeks after this first meeting, Ram scrounged a fact-finding mission for Sonny and me to then strife-torn Zamboanga City, where upon knowing we were Kapampangans, the widow of the martyred mayor Cesar Climaco told us to our faces that it was our cabalen Col. Rolly de Guzman that killed her husband. Little did we know then that this same Colonel De Guzman would himself figure in our own almost extrajudicial extinction.

It was in the immediate post-EDSA period that Sonny and I – along with the departed Ody Fabian, Bert Basa and budding journalists Elmer Cato, Jay Sangil and Arnel San Pedro whom we fondly called the “Kamias Trio” – lived unseparated lives chasing after stories, primarily on the insurgency, that took us to mountain lairs of the regular units and urban dens of partisans, even right to the battlegrounds and encounters; and established the Shanghai Cartel, so-called because we shared and wrote our stories at the city’s famous restaurant and phoned these to our respective newspapers and wire agencies in Manila.

Abad Santos

In 1988, we helped Elmer put up the Angeles Sun which within its very first month was taken to court for libel by Mayor Antonio Abad Santos, owing to the column “Political estafa” by Sonny Lopez. The case though was dismissed right at the fiscal’s office.

But Abad Santos would not rest easy. On September 6, 1988, six bodyguards of the mayor, brandishing M-16 assault rifles and machine pistols swooped down on Radio dzYA, ordered the radio staff to leave, and posted themselves at the studio, their guns pointed to the hosts of the Tagamasid program Sonny Lopez and Bong Lacson, even as we continued on the air with the exposes of corruption in the city government and the events at the station which caused a mini-people power downstairs the dzYA building.

All the while through our broadcast, Sonny had his right hand inside his shoulder bag, clutching at the ready, his trusty and rusty .38 pistol with only three bullets in its chamber.      

Vigilantes

It was the coverage of the insurgency in the region, notably the exploits of the urban partisan unit of the NPA, the Mariano Garcia Brigade, that earned us the ire of the military, and merited our inclusion in the order of battle of the right-wing vigilante groups.

At the tail-end of the so-called “festival of killings” in Angeles City in May-June 1988 where over 40 were killed including policemen and para-military forces on one side and a doctor, lawyer and leftist sympathizers on the other, the order came for three newsmen to be added to list of fatalities.

The names were Sonny Lopez of Malaya and United Press International, Elmer Cato of Manila Chronicle and Kyodo; and Bong Lacson of People’s Tonight and the Associated Press.

It was only through the intervention of a friend in the military who separately hid us the day we were supposed to be killed, and a businessman patron who pleaded our case with the head of the vigilante group that we were spared from sure execution, with the most extreme prejudice.

A week later, in a party at the home of the friend that hid us, Sonny, Elmer and I were the only “civilian” guests, all the others were in the police and military services as well as para-military groups. A businessman-looking white-haired gentleman approached our table and introduced himself as Col. Rolly de Guzman and in a soft but firm voice accused us of being propagandists, if not actual members, of the CPP-NPA that warranted our inclusion in the vigilantes’ death list.

We had trouble looking for our balls that night. We went home assured though that we’d been delisted and would live beyond the insurgency wars.

Politics

Sonny’s joining politics did not diminish any his relationship with his media peers. On the contrary, it further strengthened our bonds. As we went all out for him, to the point of lambasting some other political pretenders. Here’s a take from a column in the March 22-28, 1992 issue of The Voice, titled “First was Sonny Lopez.”

WITH THE successful conversion of Clark Air Base from a military installation into a special economic zone emerging as the most viable issue to prop even the most asinine political platform, every Angeles City candidate now claims he first thought of the economic alternatives to Clark long ahead of the others.

That’s a lot of bull. None of the mayoralty bets in the city ever thought of an American-less Clark, much less any alternative uses to the base even as late as 1990.

The truth of the matter is that all of them... slavishly worked for a continuing American presence at Clark. Some even resorted to sponsoring pro-base rallies at the height of militancy among the anti-US forces in the city.

If there is one single candidate who can rightfully lay claim to being the first to not only think of but advocate alternative uses to Clark, this is none other than sangguniang panlungsod-bound Angelo “Sonny” Lopez…

It is on record that one factor that greatly contributed to Sonny’s loss in his Angeles City council bid in the local elections of 1988 was his advocacy for alternatives to Clark.

Against tactical prudence and the heightened emotions of the time, Sonny made the alternatives to Clark – the international airport, the business and industrial zone, the agricultural productivity center – as the centrepiece of his campaign, from leaflets to meetings, grand and small.

Even earlier than that, Sonny had already preached the gospel of Clark’s economic productivity, even without the Americans.

“An artificial economy exists in Angeles,” Sonny often said then in various fora, knowing whereof he spoke, being the former city economist….

Sonny topped the council race, and in 1995, he sought the city mayorship but failed. Publicly dismissed as a quixotic quest of reaching the unreachable star, I found in Sonny’s run a test of character. Witness as I am to its unfolding.

Soon as Sonny made public his aspiration for the city mayorship, immediately came summons to separate meetings with two powerful personalities.

The first in Apalit, with the celebrated Don of the time asking Sonny to be running mate of his preferred candidate, the city’s crying doctor finishing his last term at vice. With the air of a feudal lord about him, the Don promised to open his enormous war chest for Sonny’s campaign.

With a courteous “I am grateful for your offer” followed by a curt “I cannot accept,” Sonny stood up from the table to leave, the Don flabbergasted, having been used to politicos ever in supplication before him.

The second was in Lubao, with our dear nanay ng laging saklolo – to use the term of endearment of Manila Bulletin’s Jun Icban – pleading with Sonny to reconsider and run for vice mayor instead, vowing family support through his campaign, onto his victory, and beyond, re-election and ultimately, the mayorship insinuated there.

Again, Sonny was grateful but firm in his resolve not to back out of his mayoralty dream.

I cannot help but be reminded here of that truism: “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’”

PGKM

Life’s irony played, indeed preyed, on Sonny with his assumption of the post of communications department manager of the Clark Development Corp.

On one hand, it was the fulfilment of his long-time crusade of an American-less Clark serving the Filipinos more.  

On the other, it estranged him from the very group he helped conceive in that advocacy. A confession: the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement started as an advocacy of three – in order now: Pert Cruz, Sonny Lopez, and Bong Lacson.

The adversarial stance of the PGKM vis-à-vis the CDC in policies, practices and projects at the Freeport may have struck sensitivities in us, but it never even dented our friendship. Having long compartmentalized the professional, even the political, from the personal.

Hence, even after a rather stinging banat on the CDC in Punto, there’s always a genial Sonny I meet, absent any mention of the issue taken.

Not in character, his peers at the CDC readily note, firmly fixed to Sonny’s brusko persona.       

All in character, I would say. Fully knowing that behind that hulking presence that earned him the monikers Conan and Bogart, Sonny had a pusong mamon. Bursting with all that goodness, kindness, and compassion for his friends. 

  

  

Same game, different name

CLARK SUB-ZONE for the longest time, turned New Frontier for the shortest, turned Clark Green City, and now branded – with an element taken from the first three names – as New Clark City.

“New Clark City, BCDA’s most ambitious project to date, is a new metropolis that will rise within the Clark Special Economic Zone, in Capas and Bamban, Tarlac. It is envisioned to be the country’s first and only smart and green city, which will feature mixed-use real estate developments, an agro-industrial park, and a food processing terminal.” Read a press release from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority on Tuesday.

Oops, that sounded pretty familiar. It is the same blurb used for the Clark Green City. Same game, different name? Hope not, lest same difference in the resultant (un)effect – nada.    

Trumpeted the BCDA release: “The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) has given Original Proponent Status (OPS) to MTD Capital Berhad for the
development of a 60-hectare portion of the National Government Administrative Center (NGAC) in New Clark City, amounting to Php12.7 billion.”
So, haven’t we heard the sound of similar trumpets before? The ear-splitting blares turning all too soon deafening silence.
On its first outing as Clark Sub-Zone, the area – the greater part of the former military reservation outside the so-called “developed” main zone – was marketed by the Clark Development Corp. to be some “Las Vegas of Asia.” This was before Macau out-Vegased Vegas itself in grandeur.

In its New Frontier incarnation, CDC’s operative word was extreme sports – with wakeboarding up there in its hills – to be built by the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority – as centerpiece.

It was though with its rebranding as Clark Green City that came the dizzying spiral of developments – proposed, projected, promoted, pitifully proving to be no more than propagandized promises.

On the issue at hand, here’s my December 8, 2015 Zona headlined Undeveloping Casanova for the current crop of BCDA honchos topped by Vince Dizon to chew: THERE IS no stopping Arnel Paciano D. Casanova, president-CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.

Vivapolis

On Monday, Dec. 7, Casanova regaled us with the news BCDA, Vivapolis sign MOU to develop Clark Green City, to wit:

PARIS, FRANCE – President Benigno S. Aquino III witnessed on December 1 the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority and Vivapolis, held at the Hotel Scribe here, to foster technical cooperation in the development of Clark Green City — the country’s first ever smart, green and disaster resilient metropolis.

The signatories of the MOU were BCDA President and CEO Arnel Paciano D. Casanova and Vivapolis Representative Michèle Pappalardo.

Vivapolis represents French stakeholders – both public and private entities – seeking to promote a shared vision for sustainable urban development at an international level and to promote the French know-how in the field of sustainable cities.

“The MOU will pave the way to establish a strategic partnership between BCDA and Vivapolis that encompasses a whole range of activities designed to optimize the development of Clark Green City,” Casanova said…

Great job, Sir.

Filinvest

Just last Sept. 8, Casanova dished out to the media this equally fantastic piece of news: Filinvest Land bags BCDA contract to develop 288-ha Clark Green City

Gotianun-owned Filinvest Land, Inc. yesterday bagged the right as the joint venture of state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority for the development of the 288-hectare Clark Green City.

BCDA said in a statement after FLI, the lone bidder, submitted a valid bid with P160 million in development premium payable upon signing of the contract. With that, FLI will become BCDA’s joint venture partner for the development of Clark Green City.

 “We are excited to move forward with our new joint-venture partner and start building what will be known as the country’s first ever smart, green and disaster-resilient metropolis that is expected to significantly improve the lives of our countrymen,” BCDA President-CEO Arnel Paciano D. Casanova said…

We are most impressed, Sir.

Japan

Only a month ago, on Aug. 13, yet another of Casanova’s declarations on the Clark Green City made the screaming headline Japan gov’t to invest in Clark Green City.

The Government of Japan, through the Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport and Urban Development (JOIN), signed a cooperation agreement with the state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority to help the Aquino Administration develop and build Clark Green City as a major economic center in the ASEAN bloc.
The agreement was signed by President and Chief Executive Officer Arnel Paciano D. Casanova and JOIN President and CEO Takuma Hatano during a ceremony at the Manila Diamond Hotel.

JOIN is a Japanese government corporation that aims to invest and participate in transport or urban development projects, involving Japanese companies, such as bullet trains, airports, and green cities. Its target investment worldwide is Y30 trillion by 2020.

Under the agreement, both parties will start to work on the details of the joint venture companies, including but not limited to: the scope of work; function; funding source; authority; responsibility and procedures; and discuss with private sector companies in both the Philippines and Japan as regards to their interest in Clark Green City…

Excellent, Sir.

South Korea

Earlier, on Jan. 6, 2014, Casanova press released BCDA, SoKor firm to build ‘Green City’ in C. Luzon.

CLARK FREEPORT — The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) recently partnered with a South Korean firm in an effort to build the first smart and green city in Central Luzon.

Through a memorandum of understanding, BCDA partnered with Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority (IFEZA). The partnership is expected for Philippines to gain new insights in building the country’s first smart and green city in Central Luzon and to position the new city as the international business district in the Southeast Asian region.

BCDA President and Chief Executive Officer Arnel Paciano Casanova and IFEZA Commissioner Jong-Cheol Lee signed the MOU to explore potential collaborative opportunities in relation to sustainable urbanization with IFEZA’s experience with the Songdo International Business District and BCDA’s planned Clark Green City.

According to Casanova, IFEZA has successfully launched the Songdo International Business District within the Incheon Free Economic Zone in 2009 as an international city that integrates the best practices of urban planning and sustainable design principles with a synergistic mix of residential, commercial, retail land civic uses in a master-planned environment.

Casanova said with the Songdo International Business District as the international hub in Northeast Asia, the Clark Green City is envisioned to complement and create synergy with Songdo by being the international business hub of the Southeast Asian region.

Our highest admiration, Sir.

Global tech

Aye, as early as Dec. 19, 2012, Casanova had already been pushing the buttons, with BCDA, global tech experts to develop ‘Clark Green City’

CLARK FREEPORT–The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) has forged a collaboration with global technology experts on urban planning and information and communications technology (ICT) development with a view to optimizing the potential of the projected Clark Green City in this Freeport.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to confirm a three-way collaboration and the signing ceremony was attended by BCDA President and Chief Executive Officer, Arnel Paciano D. Casanova; Country General Manager for Cisco in Philippines, Stephen Thomas Misa; and Korean-based firm Centios (formerly known as kcss) CEO, Hung Kwon Song.

According to Casanova, the MOU “creates a non-binding framework for furthering discussions under which the parties can explore potential collaborative opportunities and determine business opportunities in relation to sustainable urbanization,” referring in particular to BCDA’s Clark Green City project.
What can we say?

Were the rate and volume with which Casanova has been churning these press releases on the development of Clark Green City but a quarter of their verity, that area, by now, would have been awash in economic vibrancy.

Absent any concrete developments – pun unintended – Clark Green City to us, and to many, remains Casanova’s (un)developing delusory fantasy.   

That narco muck

WORLD’S 8th Best Mayor in 2012.

President, League of Cities of the Philippines.

Chairman, Central Luzon Regional Development Council.

Human rights lawyer.

Narco-politician…

No simple incongruity there but absolutely wrong entry in a resumé as solid as Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan’s.

Hence, hizzoner's vehement denial of any link in the illegal drug trade that was the basis of the National Police Commission’s order stripping him of his police powers last week, along with two dozen other mayors and a governor.

"It is an utterly absurd charge, and I challenge the Napolcom to immediately file charges against me if it has an iota of evidence that I am involved in drugs.” So Pamintuan dared Napolcom.

Furthered he: “Even as I challenge the Napolcom to walk it's talk and file charges against me instead of just maligning me, I call on the agency to be cautious and more circumspect in pointing at anybody supposedly into illegal drug trade, without evidence.”

And spewed: “Napolcom is an investigative body, it should know the law."

Vintage the activist Ka Gatdu there.

And – to me, not necessarily with but standing by him – Pamintuan should have stopped there, having already raised the standard of due process. The burden of proof laid upon the Napolcom, with the imperative of justice – to Pamintuan, et al, serving officials as they are – now all too compelling, if only for the sake of their constituents, if not for their very honor.

Especially as the suspension of the mayors’ supervision over the police was – in the words of Central Luzon police director Chief Supt. Amador Corpus – “because of their alleged involvement in illegal activities which constitute acts inimical to national security or negate the effectiveness of peace and order in the country.”

“Biruin mo ikaw ang pangulo ng League of Cities tapos ikaw pa ang masasama diyan.  Ako ang tagadala ng polisiya, gusto ko we follow the policy of the President, anti-drugs tapos bigla na lang na ganyan.” Lamentation that cuts to the very core of Pamintuan’s political being. And I – standing by him – cannot but feel him.

He should have stopped there. But he could not have helped invoking his patron. For effect – “I have met and talked with President Duterte in many occasions, the latest was about two weeks ago in Malacañang. Knowing him, he would have told me straight on the face if I were in his list of local officials supposedly into drugs, like he did to other mayors linked to drugs," Pamintuan underscored in a radio interview, saying that he would seek an audience with the President after the ASEAN summit to clear his name.

In vain

Pamintuan may have taken the name of the President in vain there.

In a press statement, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency clarified that the Napolcom resolution was effected by an inter-agency intelligence task force composed of the Philippine National Police Directorate for Intelligence, the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and PDEA.

Created in January 2017 through a directive from the National Security Council, the task force vets, validates and updates the list – originally disclosed by the President in September 2016 – on a monthly basis which is submitted to the Office of the President by PDEA as the task force secretariat.

PDEA said it was in September 2017 that this list of Pamintuan et al came out with the DILG comparing “Duterte’s list with the updated list prepared by the Inter-Agency Validation Task Force.”

It would appear that at Pamintuan’s meeting with Duterte “two weeks ago,” the President had already received the list that had his name. Why, the set of Napolcom resolutions were dated Oct. 30 – precisely around that time of the meeting.  See some interesting story there?      

Of the Napolcom resolution, PDEA chief Aaron Aquino was quoted thus: “Undeniably, illegal drugs have contaminated the bureaucracy. The data shows a continuous involvement of government officials and employees in the drug trade.”

Malignant with speculation now, but ace police reporter Jess Malabanan of Interaksyon 5 was quick to point out that it was at the time of Aquino as director of Central Luzon Police Office-3 that three shabu laboratories were raided in Angeles City. Not so veiled an inference there of Aquino knowing full well what he was saying. 

SupportED

As SunStar Pampanga bannered and iorbitnews.com trended, Pamintuan has been avalanched with support from his constituents, both individually and by sector.

The city council has dutifully, if not loyally, issued a statement of support to Pamintuan, stressing how they “have witnessed Pamintuan’s efforts in support of the Duterte administration’s fight against corruption, criminality, and the use, abuse and proliferation of illegal drugs.”

And pledged their “unconditional support” to their mayor on account of his “anti-drug programs and policies that are contradictory to the claim that he is involved in illegal drugs.”

To reiterate, I stand with Pamintuan.

It is just that I believe his redemption from this maculation of his character can only come through the judicial process. Not on Duterte’s say-so. Not even by presidential fiat. No, Duterte – his legions of believers notwithstanding – is no Christ who can transform a Simon into a Peter.

Facebook may even break from the #IamwithEdPam uploads of his supporters but still the muck smacked on his character by the Napolcom resolution won’t wash away.

Pamintuan may take heed of the US president that he so often quoted in the past – the Great Emancipator, with this gem: “I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won't matter. If I'm wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won't make a difference.”

Get your day in court and bring yourself out right, Sir. 

The vanishing Parul Sampernandu

"THERE IS a very big market, not just during the Christmas season but all throughout the year. There is only the need to expand the lantern lines and transform them to other decorative art for events like Valentine’s and even Halloween.”

Master parul maker Roland Quiambao talks of upping the ante for the local lanterns in terms of innovations to make them all-season and take their magical brilliance to the international market.

Quiambao deserves all the support he can get, from government and private business, in this endeavor that surely shall assure the parul craft – and the city – a global niche.

At the rate “innovations” go in the lantern industry now though, the parul Quiambao dreams of taking to the world market may be anything but that which put the city in the Christmas map.

Year after year, a ghost of Christmas long past metaphorically goes our parul sampernandu. An elegy, if not a eulogy indeed, makes this piece published here over three years ago.   

Bedazzled, bothered

IT MADE its Hollywood debut in 1993, holding its own stellar right in a Tinseltown already bedazzled by Liam Neeson in Schindler’s List, Tom Hanks and Denzel Wshington in Philadelphia, Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, and the very young

Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio in their breakout film What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

A year earlier, it was the toast at the World Expo in Spain. Its kaleidoscope of dancing lights and colors rousing Vivas! and Oles! from the dons and donas of the Iberian peninsula.

In Austria, it added up to the magnificence of the Stadtturm in Innsbruck; permeated the Rathausplatz Christkindlmarkt in Vienna with the Filipino spirit of Christmas; and became an object of curious wonder at the Ethnology Museum also in Vienna.

It brought Yuletide joy to the Lord Mayor’s House in Dublin, Ireland.

It was the star of hope, love and joy that welcomed homesick Filipinos to the Good Shepherd Cathedral in Singapore. 

It has become the seasonal motif, indeed the distinguishing seal, in Philippine embassies and consulates in Canada, Russia, Poland, Thailand, Malaysia and the United States.

In New York, it mesmerized the cosmopolitan crowd of Fifth Avenue when it was exhibited at the Philippine Center.

In San Francisco, it became one unifying factor for Fil-Ams when it was displayed at the main entrance of the St. Patrick’s Church, even as it spawned a Ligligan Parul around the SoMa area, initiated by community organizer MC Canlas, a native of San Fernando.

In 2013, it made history as the first-ever Asian (outside China) entry in the exclusivist and revered Xiamen Lantern Festival.

That same year too, it drew crowds to the 2^nd Annual Parol Festival in Honolulu, Hawaii where Vice Mayor Jimmy Lazatin defined the "message of hope that the lanterns of San Fernando bring to Filipinos here and abroad"

It has been all around the globe. All around the country too, from the main avenues of Davao City to Manila’s Roxas Boulevard to the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

It has put the City of San Fernando in the world map as, in the words of CNN, “Asia’s Christmas capital.”

It is the signature craft and product of the capital city. Indeed, its officially registered OTOP (one town, one product).

As well, the core of its biggest fiesta and annual extravaganza – the Giant Lantern Festival, which was awarded as the first runner-up for Best Tourism Event in the Philippines at the recent 10th Pearl Awards in Bacolod City organized by the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP) and the Department of Tourism.

So much has the parul sampernando done for the city and its citizens.

But for the perfunctory paeans like this piece and the obligatory laudations from the local officials at every launch of the annual lantern festival, where has the parul sampernandu gone?

It has made its presence everywhere – around the globe, around the country – but has vanished from home altogether.

The Parul Sampernandu (as proper noun now in keeping with the event) makes its presence only in the Giant Lantern Festival. Its smaller actual edition maybe in some little corner of a lantern craftsman’s workshop in the flood-prone areas of Barangay Del Pilar.

Search all those roadside lantern stalls, whether makeshift or concrete – and despair: They have only flashing LED lights in transparent plastic cables, shaped into stars, flowers, Santa and his reindeer, Christmas trees, even helicopters. But no parul sampernandu  – as we know it: alambre frame covered with colored papel de japon or thin plastic fabric, its price dependent on the number of bulbs and the variety of “plays.”      

This is a sad commentary of the times. We persist in celebrating a tradition, yet, unmindful of its dying. As we are bedazzled by the brilliance of the giant lanterns, so must be, moreso, bothered by the fast disappearance of the parul sampernandu from our city.

The annual Giant lantern Festival is not all there is to the parul sampernandu, There is the greater need of its preservation as craft, as product, for the Fernandinos. Thereby the imperative of its continuity – for generations to come – as cultural icon, as the very symbol, aye, the very soul, of the city.

Duplicitous duality

“COMPARED TO previous years, more airlines are now appreciating Clark’s marketability and its increasing number of local destinations.”

So, reported Clark International Airport Corp. president-CEO Alexander S. Cauguiran, citing the increase in flights – 282 a week – as “confirming the viability of the national government’s dual airport policy” that President Duterte directed on the Clark International Airport and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

No, Cauguiran is too modest to toot his own horn for laying the schema before the then-still president-elect on the Clark-NAIA duality – his lifelong advocacy finding in April 2016 the collective push of local stakeholders in the – what else? – Advocacy for Dual Airport Priority (ADAPT).

Complementation rather than competition. Concedes Cauguiran of the modus vivendi between Clark and NAIA: “Clark can never be the main airport of Manila and we do not compete with NAIA operations since Clark caters to passengers from Northern and Central Luzon while NAIA targets Metro Manila and the Southern Luzon population.”

He enthused: “Right now, we are tapping a goldmine by servicing our catchment population of 21.4 million potential passengers and airlines are appreciating this.” Referencing the Ilocos, Cagayan, Central Luzon and Cordillera regions.

The immediate results are proof positive of Clark’s viability – 1.1 million passengers already just for the period January to October 2017, projected to rise to 1.4 million by the year’s end.

All this even before the start of the construction the new passenger terminal and runway!

Yes, at last, at last, at long last – after the epic mirages of Al Kharafi, Bristeel, Philco Aero and what not – the new passenger terminal is fast shaping to be for real. All of its eight million passenger capacity in addition to its current 4.2 million actual capacity per year!

The project, set for completion in 2022, is – a CIAC press release stressed – “spearheaded by Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and Bases Conversion and Development Authority President Vince Dizon who also led the bidding last August 22 for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) Contract of the new passenger terminal project.”

Ay, there’s the rub – Tugade!

SMC gains edge in Clark airport project

So, reads a headline in the inquirer.net dated Oct. 28. Lousy headline writing there impacting bitter sarcasm, if unwittingly.

There is absolutely no mention of Clark in the whole of the news story that is all about SMC’s long-time dream of an international airport in Bulacan, to wit:

Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) obtained the coveted original proponent status for its proposal to build a P700-billion “aerotropolis” in Bulacan province, giving it a big advantage ahead of a bidding process yet to be set by the government.

This was confirmed yesterday by Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who spoke to reporters at the sidelines of the Philippine Aviation Day business forum in Makati.

Tugade said a final decision would be made by the board of the National Economic and Development Authority, chaired by President Duterte…
“A formal proposal (for Bulacan) was submitted to us, and we have gone over it, the completeness of the proposal. We have forwarded it to the Neda for final approval,” Tugade said.

On another private sector offer to build an international airport in Sangley Point, Cavite, Tugade said they were waiting for the formal submission of the proposal.

Where stands Clark with an airport in Bulacan? Can it maintain its dual airport status with another – a much, much bigger one – in the same neighborhood?

Please do not dismiss this point with a nonchalant “Plano pa lang naman yung Bulacan airport.” It is an insult to our intelligence. 

The “coveted original proponent status” is just much too much for SMC, astute a business conglomerate as it is, to just let go to naught. As the news story itself says: An original proponent status gives a firm an advantage should the project be auctioned off under a Swiss challenge, a bidding process that allows other interested parties to submit competing offers. However, the original proponent holds the right to match the best offer that will come out of the exercise and win the project.

And bringing into the SMC equation the International Air Transport Association with its “support for a new air gateway close to Metro Manila with a capacity of at least 100 million passengers per year” makes a virtual fait accompli.

Ay, even as Tugade is being idolized hereabouts for his “spearheading” the development of the Clark airport as worthy pair to NAIA, he could be idiotizing us with these slick, if duplicitous, moves to bring about SMC’s airport dream in Bulacan.

What says you, Cauguiran, Sir?     

Immunity index

NOVEMBER 2 is International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2013.

Impunity comes in various guises, feeds off indifference, then impacts all too terribly on the people. My take on the subject in this Zona piece of June 2012.   

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.

Enculturation though starts in 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 a “truth.” Or something accepted as a relative 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 un-right, 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. So, where’s the local government?

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. Notwithstanding all those No Helmet, No Travel rules posted just about everywhere,

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?

The culture of impunity most manifest in our roads and highways.

They all flout the law with nothing more than their stupid grins to flaunt, but nobody dares apprehend them. Not even reprimand them. Veritably empowered with an immunity from suit! 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 or extrajudicial 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.