Filipinos at Pacquiao weigh-in

So many Filipinos attended the Pacquiao-Cotto weigh-in, most of them waving the Phiippine flag. Filipino pride. But it only makes it look like only Filipinos are on the Pacquiao wagon.

I think it’s also time Manny also take on the Asian mantle and mention Asian pride as well. He’s a truly Asian hero.

New Tax Codes: Are we on crisis management or what?

Through pretty self-congratulatory announcements, some local government units in Cebu have recently let us suffering citizens know that these LGUs have just approved new tax codes.  These codes (read complex vs. pedestrian laws) were filed and passed in a jiffy, letting everybody in that our local legislators are not only super-intelligent but hyper-efficient beings cut for their jobs.

But pretty cut off from reality and from the rest of the people on earth they’re sworn to serve.  The governments of the world, ran by lesser beings, are still debating which industries and sectors to help and how best to help (i.e., where to get the money?).  These governments understand they face the dilemma of needing money and not squeezing it from the already suffering taxpayers. After all, who suffers really? And the US seems to be taking the bull between the horns by just concentrating the attention on their popular president and what his wife may be wearing.

But here in Cebu, are we in crisis or what?  If what, well and good–bring on the taxes.  But if we’re in a crisis, Lord, who can really pay higher taxes?  If we’re in a crisis–heck, do they even know we’re in a crisis?

David Foster Wallace at 46

How do you write about the news that a great writer, a much more keener and much more vibrant observer than you, decided to end his own life, and he was ten years younger?

things, in a few years time, I may totally miss about the fiesta señor

Things, in a few years time, I may totally miss about the fiesta señor

1) Just the “pit señor”. Everybody’s already been adding the “viva”, even in the basilica itself, where before it used to be this stand-alone greeting: pit señor! yes, sangpit is really the leading contender for what the salutation pit means, unless there’s a really old cebuano word pit. but since the sto. niño tradition of dance and candles is not really that old, it just must have been the shortening of sangpit. whatever viva sangpit señor is still absurd

2) Sinu…(l)og the dance. During my grade school and high school days – and even a short while like ten years ago, when the carroza passes by during the procession, people on the sidelines shouted “pit señor”, many times over as we imitate the sinug dance, with whatever we’re holding, usually a candle or a handkerchip. Now, people just wave at the niño, as they probably would do, too, for Piolo Pascual. We’ve done away with a tradition so thoroughly unique to the Cebu worship of the Sto. Niño.

I suspect a newcomer to the rites thought people ought to cheer the niño and conceived of them waving, simply because he or she had not witnessed the sinu(l)og at all before and did not know the older sinulog tradition.

3) The sinulog being the sinulog on its own. Years from now we’ll all be calling it a “mardi gras”. That term will then totally win out when the Sinulog itself gets to be celebrated on the Tuesday.

4) Traslacion. Three or four years ago, somebody began to use “translacion” to refer to the transfer of the niño to mandaue, honestly thinking he was right of course, but thoughtlessly relegating the old, and correct, term to the bins of history. Thankfully now everyone’s awakened to the fact that we’d always called it traslacion. I hope at least “traslacion” do get fully reinstated. Even as a new traslacion has been added to the tradition – the transfer of the virgin from Guadalupe to the basilica, and then accompanying the niño going to mandaue to join San Jose, the patron saint of that city.

5) Poor old San Vidal. The ancient Cebu City fiesta and cathedral procession must have taken place on San Vidal day, the patron saint of the cathedral and the ciudad del santísimo nombre de Jesús. Celebrations later, the Sto Niño was introduced into the picture as the Agustinians translated the image the short distance from San Agustin (which everybody referred to the church until it became the basilica del sto niño in 1965 or -6) to the cathedral and from there to join the San Vidal procession on San Vidal Day, the fiesta of the city.

When worship of the Sto Niño, or the child Jesus, became very popular all over Christendom, the Catholic Church set a day especially for it, and Cebu and everywhere else began to celebrate the fiesta on Sto. Niño Day. And the Sto. Niño procession little by little became the procession for Cebu City, now an official fiesta with its own day.

And San Vidal? And Cebu City? All you parishioners from outside Cebu City: Have you ever wondered why, for the fiesta of the city, the procession does not start from the parish church – which of course is the cathedral? That’s the reason.

Ask Dr. Michael Cullinane for more details.

hin

High school formal writing themes starting with… 2

The illusive serial killer strangled all his victims in a breath-taking sort of way…

High school formal writing themes starting with…

I will be presenting the following play in the school auditorium this month and you can show your support by sending in your contributions, which I can assure you is money well spent. Meaning the money will all be spent.

My first hand experience with sex…

Just to enroll me here, my parents had to forego…

Do I know how to make a takyan, a top, a kite…

Freud help me here, but are my strongest fantasies of sex, or of fame or power…

School has just started but Christmas is only 6 months away…

Nurses

Congratulations to the new-again nurses who had to retake the board examinations. They were made to retake the exams, purportedly to regain the reputation of Philippine nurses which had admittedly been hurt by the cheating scandal. But while the new nurses may now appear to really have “earned” their new credentials, buttressing the reputation of Philippine nurses and the integrity of their licensing examinations will take no less than the overhaul of the entire PRC section for the nursing board.
All of them should be kicked out, and their nursing licenses revoked, and they should have been the ones ordered to retake the examinations to get back their licenses. If not bar them for the rest of their lives. The leakage and cheating originated from their end, and so the scandal involved them more than it did the thousands of board takers. The fault was called on the wrong court.

comic moments

This is to file away really intolerable comic moments.

QUOTABLE MISQUOTES

If there’s a will, there’s a wealth. I’m willy-nilly.

The early bird misses the late worm.
Oh no, there is always a late bird, too.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, but nowhere else.

Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the earth,
From the rich.

Tired of apathy?

I want to sing or make a speech or harangue my audience while on an airplane flight. Nobody can walk out.

bloodline

I suppose when it dawns on me I had a past life, I’d first like to find out what I had looked like. Damn if we’re not supposed to know but the internet would have changed all that.

And the families with claim on my blood–do their blood go on to our next lives?

PATERNAL:

Aleonar – (Bohol via Carcar, Cebu)
de Veyra – (Tanauan, Leyte)
Tegley – (Barili, Cebu; now spelt Tigley)
Rodecindo – (Cebu City)

Alegado – (Carcar)
Alo – (Cebu City)
Barceló – (Carcar)
Benedicto – (Leyte)
Campugan – (Carcar)
Dandan – (Barili)
Estrada – (Barili)
Lauzón – (Leyte)
Mercado – (Barili)
Ricaplaza – (Barili)
Tamaca – (Leyte)
Vergara – (Barili)
Villahermosa – (Barili)

MATERNAL

Yap – (China via Cebu City)
Tapia – (San Nicolas, Cebu City via San Fernando, Cebu)
Castillo – (Bohol)
Gerasta – (Boljoon, Cebu via San Fernando, Cebu)

Alía – (Tagbilaran, Bohol via San Fernando)
Florido – (Cebu City)
Geniblango – (Talisay, Cebu)
Duterte – (Spain via Cebu City)
Salamoren – (Boljoon)
Sacel – (Dauis, Bohol via San Fernando; now spelt Sasil)
Suárez – (Cebu City)