Felixberto Baguyo, Jr. posted Wage Increase A Must where he stated that wages in the Philippines aren’t rising despite the rise in cost of living. He pointed the reason that the government did not want to incur additional cost to the investors – who are foreigners and are growing in population. He is correct, however that is not why my heart is heavy on this matter.

OFW population keeps rising. We work for foreigners, while the foreigners are invading us ecconomically and making use of our resources to further advance their economies. Basically what is happening is that the foreigners are taking advantage of the resources that our social studies teachers are praising that we have plenty of, while our own people are shipped outside the country to become slaves of other nations.

It’s really frustrating because we should be the ones to take advantage of our own resources, but what is the government doing? We are deprived of our own possession, instead they are offered to the our masters. We don’t realize it yet, but we really are being colonized. We are once again under the control of other nations.

Kuripot, Gastador, Tikalon, Damak, Maisug, Manug-Hiwit, Aswang

Philippine regionalism is one important factor to consider why Capicenos have been branded as aswangs, and in understanding why the myth has been perpetuated for over 100 years. Archipelagic Philippines has been populated by divided and competing tribes whose highest politico-economic achievement as a civilization have been the short-lived minor kingdoms in Pangasinan and Mindanao. Prior to Spanish colonialization, there was no sense of national identity, and much less appreciation about other ethic groups and cultures. The small, diverse and self-sufficient tribes have been scattered and isolated across thousands of islands. Having primitive maritime technology, they did not have active inter-island trade and much less opportunity for cultural exchange. It was only in the last 350 years, under the Spanish rule, that we evolved a concept of a nation. And even today, we are still struggling to accept it. Until the last century estrangjeros or pangayaos have been fiercely rejected by the tumandoks. Hence, whatever information we had about other regions could have just been trickles information. Bits and pieces of information are sewn together to make a derogatory collage of peoples of other regions.

Our diverse ethnicity is the foundation of our rigorous regionalism. We are a 7,000-island nation with over 100 ethnic groups. Overall, we are overwhelmingly Malayo-Polynesian under the broad Austronesian linguistic family. But underneath, we have more diverse ethnicity, subgroups, and sub-subgroups, hastily categorized into generic groupings of Ilocanos, Pangasinense, Kapampangan, Tagalog, Bicolano, Bisaya, Mindanao minorities, tribal groups, Chinese, Spanish, and Western and other minorities. Ilocanos are Ivatans and Ibanags, and their many variants; Pangasinense have the Cordilleranos (Igorots and their variants); Bisaya is classified under three main groups of Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), Cebuano and Waray. But under that, there are distinct sub-groups like the Aklanon, Karay-a, Romblomanon, Sibuyanon, Masbateno, Cuyonon. Each one of these has another layer of diverse ethnicity (e.g., Mambusaonon, Sapianon, Sijuiornon, etc.). Southern minorities include the Tausugs, Maranaos, Samals, Yakans, and the Lumads. The Lumads alone include the Manobos, Tasadays, Mamanwas, Mandayas, and Kalagans. And like our nomenclatures, they also have distinct diversity.

As indicated above, regionalism is not only a distinction due to geographic locale, rather, it is an ethnic divide highlighting cultural, social, economic and political differences - over 100 of it. In our attempt to make our region different from the others we highlight our dissimilarities. Such that, we never cease to find what is ridiculous in other cultures. We stockpile our arsenal of insults against them, so that, ultimately, we want them to be inferior to us. Sociologists point out that an individual ethnic group, united by a common language, invariably views the world from its own set of filters, experiences, beliefs, traditions, standards, biases and vantage points, a condition known as ethnocentrism. Ethnocentricism means judging other cultures as inferior based on your own culture’s superior cultural vantage point. Over time, an ethnocentrist world-view can hastily summarize a region into one common derogatory characterization. For instance, the Tagalogs have a crystallized world-view and common characterization of Bisaya as aswang, mangkukulam and katulong. The most degrading of which is aswang, and Capiz is said to have the worst concentration of aswangs.

Regional characterizations are not without bases, however. Ilocanos have been said to be frugal because their arid land does not allow large-scale cultivation of food and cash crops. Therefore, other regions dismiss them as kuripot. Tagalogs, living in the center of Philippine culture, politics and economy, having the first glimmer of electric lights and cooking gas, thought they are in the center of the universe. Anywhere outside their region had hitherto been a bundok. Hence, Americans going to the hinterlands was said to have gone to the boondocks. That literally landed into the English dictionary as a legitimate word - owing to the arrogant and ethnocentrict Tagalogs. The King of Spain gave generous encomiendas to conquestadores from northwestern Spain settling in Iloilo and Negros. In the heyday of sugar plantations, from the turn of the 20th Century to the roaring 60s, briefly disrupted by war but put to a final end by Marcos cronyism, sugar barons lived in Southern opulence and lavish lifestyles. The 3 percent Spanish sugars planter families, having their own sugar centrals, railways, piers, and shipping lines, have had every right to boast - guina pala, guina piko! But if the other 97 percent also brag, they are on their own. Hence, the Negrense and Ilonggos earned the tikalon moniker. Fierce resistance from attempts to Christianize the Mindanaonons earned them the savage, bloodthirsty reputation. Of course, regional attributions to Masbate, Siquijornons, and Samarenos as manug-hiwits could likewise be explainable. For instance, an MGB episode a few years ago featured an age-old modus operandi in one Samar hinterland about the locals secretly adding toxic herbal concoction into the beverage of strangers, only to be “healed” with an antidote for a fee. Although Bisayan and Tagalogs alphabets are almost exactly the same, our pronunciation did not highlight the different sound of paired vowels. Hence, enthocentrict Tagalogs’ criticisms against us. Remember the PLDT ad about a Bisayan katulong? “Sir, tumawag si GG.” for which the boss asked, “Si Gigi or si Jayjay?” The katulong answered, “Si GG, sir.” It would be a full time job to document all the insults, ridicules and mockeries that we hurl against each other.

But there have been tangible events that did earn a region an insulting reputation. If a province or one region was to be branded as aswang country, it should have been Samar-Leyte. There had been no single pre-Hispanic record about aswang anywhere in Philippine folktales and literature. Hence, the earliest written record about aswang in the whole 7,000 islands ever is by a Westerner, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. On February 14, 1565, in Samar, he wrote about being warned by the natives about the existence of aswang and how terrified they had been listening to howling noise around his encampment one night. But Legazpi’s account did not come without motives or reason. He came from Medieval Europe, itself rife with burning accused witches at stake, predisposed to the Count Vlad story, and with a mission to introduce faith. This perfectly jibed with the situation of Samar tribe that, without an army, only hoped to drive away Spanish colonizers with horrific tales about aswang and by actually making terrifying nighttime noise around their encampment. The reason why this first aswang manuscript did not stick to Samar-Leyte region is probably because this account had not been reinforced by other socio-cultural factors in the region. Such that, Samarenos did not create and maintain an aswang out of themselves. We did.

In summary, regionalism is partly due to the absence of a sense of nationhood - each tiny ethnic group or tribe, isolated by mountains and seas, existed alone for centuries without contact with the others. When they finally have contact, their crystallized ethnocentrict world-views, predisposed Filipinos to ridicule and degrade people from other regions. Each region had been given a brand or moniker. It is unfortunate that Capiz had been branded as aswang. The continued Filipino regionalism, along with complex web of factors that we will discuss more, sustains our aswang brand. In order to minimize it, we need to respect and be sensitive to other regional cultures.

In the succeeding posts, we will examine the other factors and elements that created, strengthened and perpetuated the aswang brand to us.

Sapianons are invariably associated with the Capiz Aswang tradition, to the extent of being ridiculed and humiliated. For decades, Capizeños, and Sapianons for that matter, have earned a moniker that is culturally derogatory, but inadvertently prank in this time and age. As you very well know, almost everyone outside Capiz is itching to ask us, given the opportunity, a standard question of whether or not aswang really exists. Generally, we would vehemently deny it. Denial would be laborious because you need to present a broad array of scientific, historical, social and cultural facts, theories, postulates and propositions, hoping that you are talking to an enlightened human being. When they insist, we would give them what they want to hear. We tell them stories from our Pandora’s box of age-old “actual” and “proven” stories from “reliable sources” passed down to several generations. We often detail the cadence of a horror event, grizzly “real” aswang episodes, even exaggerating it until they shiver and tremble in fear. A dismissing disposition could be a lamentation of how hopeless the long Philippine Airlines wait list was in Roxas City Airport, even with the evolution of domestic service and expanding capacities of Fokker-50s, to BAC-1-11s, to 737s. The same is true with the crowded, ardous and troublesome sea travel, even with today’s roll-on-roll-off (RO/RO) innovation. If we could just fly, why bother with the ordeal. Capicenos would sometimes boast that while some countries fly the best planes, we have the best pilots flying without planes. Digressing more, we could always volunteer wishful hindsight scenarios of how World War II had been averted if our vampires crushed the Japanese advance. Our forebears would have been enlisted by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt to dismantle the Axis powers so Russia did not have a chance to race for Berlin. With that, the Cold War and the arms race could have never took place. By now, the whole Western world would have bowed down on our doorsteps, the Philippines had been made a U.S. state, with Roxas City as its capital. The largest air force base could be in Sapian, and genetic research would be in full swing on how to further improve the aswang DNA strains for other applications, even for space travel.

The aswang brand to us is a valid generalization, both a legacy and a birthright, of being a geographically and organically a part of the Capiz ethno-historical tradition. Filipinos are more clannish rather than ethnic, and far more regionalistic rather than patriotic. As such, they tend to promote their own region’s superiority by downgrading other regions and ethnic groups (e.g., Ilocanos vs. Visayan, Capiznon vs. Ilonggo, etc.). Talk about crab mentality. Additionally, we are part of the blame because our own local ethic traditions strengthen that myth; our folktales and superstitions highlight the aswang tradition. Local folktales, branding and ostracizing individuals and local families as aswang, confirm the belief - to the mixed pleasure and terror by our regional detractors. For generations, our culture has institutionalized the existence of soothsayers, sorjuanos and arbularyos. Professional soothsayers are the creation of the myth, and the myth lives on with our continued patronage. It is a symbiotic relationship between the mythical healers and the myth itself - each one requiring the other, sustaining each other, surviving together. More importantly, the colonialization by Medieval and monastic Spain established the foundations of an intricate anthropological and sociological web that cajoled us into creating, believing and perpetuating the aswang myth. And because of its mythological nature and the Filipinos predisposition to superstition, it has remarkably evolved to become the centerpiece and the most pronounced feature of the Capiceno and Sapianon belief system and world view. 

In the succeeding items, we will attempt to discuss, from a systems approach, the components and elements of this myth. We will also attempt to articulate how these factors interacted with each other to formulate, confirm and sustain that enduring ethno-cultural brand.

FEMOCRACY AND HOME ECONOMICS 3

US MIGRATION AND THE OTHER FACE OF THE FILIPINA

Filipino migration to the United States started way back during the era of colonisation. The Americans forced the Spanish out of the Philippines in 1898 and the new colonisers sent Filipinos to North America between 1901 and 1935. They mainly worked as errand boys, janitors and houseboys. During World War II, many of them served the US Army’s First Filipino Infantry Regiment.

Few decades after World War II, a lot of Filipino war veterans and their families were permitted to migrate to the United States. The presence of American Air Base in the Philippines also gave Filipinas a chance to migrate to the US and other allied countries as brides. They had very limited employment opportunities then and most if not all were subjected to racial abuse. We heard stories but we can not begin to comprehend the appalling treatment these pioneers had to endure before they successfully managed to adopt and assimilate to the American culture. 

Like typical Filipinos, they struggled to send their children to school. They believed that education is vital if their children were to survive and blend in to western culture. Many of these children, and their children afterwards, successfully finished their education and had decent work. They mainly found employment in industries dominated by women like nursing, teaching, child care, sales, hospitality, and factory work. Filipinas and other migrant women from different nationalities happily filled the available jobs that American women vacated to pursue better careers.

Today, there is no turning back for women in the developed societies. Their main role in society: homebuilding, care giving, raising and nurturing the next generation are all but marginalised. They argue that it is urgent and necessary to penetrate business and politics as they have social and emotional intelligence about interpersonal relationships that few men have. They claim that men are more interested in profits; they are convinced that women’s motherly qualities will put human and social concern on the agenda like children and women’s adverse conditions in other parts of the world.

While that is a valid enough reason, I tend to agree more on the notion that the real motivation is hard economics.  Now more than ever women find themselves driven by money, they simply cannot afford to stay at home . This may be due to the privatisation of health and education, the cost  of petrol, the continuing flow of digital must haves, the basic necessities of westerners like entertainment, recreation, travel; and the irrepressible urge to keep up with the Joneses e.g. second car, spa bath, pool, renovations, etc. etc.

This economic pressure is luring women to the top jobs. They don’t want just any job anymore; they are aiming for top- level, high- paying jobs that used to be dominated by men. Time is precious for high- earning busy career- women, the financial disincentives of childbearing have become so high that a great number of them now choose to shun marriage and baby- making altogether to concentrate on the pursuit of a career. The homes in the developed societies reflect the appetite of global capitalism for all talent, female and male, at the expense of the family.

Modern Filipinas are following that same path. Filipino- Americans as they rightfully call themselves successfully integrated and continue to labour and insist that young bloods attend colleges and universities and make something out of themselves. The same pride and conviction is shared by Filipinos in other western societies and in the Philippines itself. With the dawning of globalisation upon us, there is an assortment of employment opportunities for Filipinos worldwide from hard labour to top level jobs. Few Filipinos today are patiently breaking the grounds in higher education, medicine, law, engineering and business while many are successfully competing for top corporate jobs.

But while career divides homes  in western families, it has an entirely opposite result in migrant families. Through family sponsored migration, Filipino families reunite and help each other. Filipinas do not feel as much guilt and not suffer as heavy a consequence for pursuing a career compared to their western counterparts. They can look forward with confidence and go out there knowing that Nanay and/or Tatay, Mama and/or Papa, will be around to take care of the home front.

When competition in the femocracy is fierce and the going gets tough, Filipinas have large willing families to rely on.  Thus, the other face of the Filipina: qualified, capable, competitive, confident.

Petropolitik, Sapian and China - Eleventh in a Continuing Series

Let’s talk about a commodity not related to gas prices, but suddenly related to it just because President Bush said that America is addicted to gas. Bush the Elder once said that catsup is a vegetable. So, what the heck. My story today is about addiction to tobacco. I’m reminded of this topic as I started reading Christopher Buckley’s book entitled, Thank You For Smoking. That book is a satirical comedy on the machinations of Big Tobacco’s chief spokesman, Nick Naylor, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying hard to remain as a role model for his son. It also detailed high-level lobby in US politics, an Iron Triangle of lobbyists, members of US Congress and officials Federal agencies, as tobacco lobby fought head-on against the health establishment.

On FVR’s first day in office, the Palace Household, an office that’s, well, exactly managing the Palace household, had been taken over by the new administration. At its helm was Ambassador Lolita Haney, FVR’s aunt. Her gunner was Mrs. Paynor, wife of incoming protocol officer, and later Ambassador of Palace Protocol, Marciano Paynor. That morning, we have been disappointedly surprised. Mrs. Paynor had told us point blank that no cigarette would ever be lit inside the palace. The smoke deteriorates national treasures by Amorsolo, Juan Luna and other great Filipino masters that were hanging all over the palace walls. She added that even camera flashes ruin them. That’s ironic because FVR is aptly known as Tabako. Later on, we would equally be disappointed that our favorite caterers, Jade Vine, Ria’s Cuisine and Makati Skyline, would, from that day forward, be replaced by an endless fare of tuna sandwich and, oh well, tuna sandwich. We would later regularly see Century Tuna delivery trucks. FVR had a problem with cholesterol and his carotid would later be operated on. After a few months serving the FVR Administration, I never ate another tuna sandwich for years, until I got tired of pink salmon and discovered white albacore.

We had a smoking club under the Cory Administration. Our president was Ruben D. Torres, former Secretary of Labor and later, Executive Secretary. The membership spanned through different levels of the hierarchy. At that time, there were lead crystal ash trays all over, and as long as it does not get into the eyes of non-smokers, you’re fine. Just sit in the corner and light up, the high velocity air flow and filtration system will take care of it. Our club shared cigarettes and lighters, exchanged palace news, and bartered favors.

But it had been different under FVR since the only ash trays inside the palace are the ones for FVR’s chewed up tobacco. We would now have to go out through very heavy bullet- proof French doors, you have to lean your weight forward, into the patio or a terrace. Getting in would be more cumbersome because some doors lock you out. You have to either hope somebody inside would look outside and beg you way in, or go back to the entrance and through guards and a maze of hallways and stairs to be back to where you started. But life went on.

Through two administrations, smoking time for VIPs and staff alike took its unspoken toll on many occasions. Sometimes, the convoy’s itinerary had to be planned to have a smoking whistle stop. Venues of programs, locations of stage, riders in a particular vehicle of the convoy, and VIP holding rooms are often influenced by staff and VIPs’ smoking habits. Central Bank’s Falcon jet had to wait in Mactan International Airport because we could not find a cigarette vendor. We had to get a smoking holding room in Sarabia Manor (Iloilo) for Mrs. Ramos who was stressed about the number of people who showed up in a supposedly very private lunch with her family in La Paz. Lai Torres explained to her, “You are the First Lady now, so they are all your relatives suddenly.”

The arrival of Estrada Administration did not change the FVR “no smoking” policy even if the incoming Administration itself had its smoking club. On the morning of Estrada Inauguration, as I parked my tora-tora alongside the gleaming rides of national elites, I saw Triple V and more than half a dozen aluminum-clad catering trucks! Goodbye to one century of Century Tuna. On that day of Estrada Inauguration, like I did for the Ramos Inauguration, I would be the conductor of the bus shuttling incoming Cabinet members from the landing area to Palace luncheon, to Quirino Granstand for the Inaugural Address, to a Grandstand mini-reception, and back to the Palace for the first Cabinet Meeting, and the Inaugural Ball. Upon arrival from the Presidential oath taking in Barasoain Church, Erap went straight to the Drawing Room to try the President’s Desk. Then lunch was served. As he was walking out from the President’s Office for lunch, a giant chandelier, wires shorted out and cut the chains, fell down, missing him and his wife by a few feet. We were outside the office door waiting to hail to the new chief when we heard a big thud. Thud! No one will ever know whether it was a premonition of what will be a failed presidency, or the revolting spirits of the presidents past, or both.

But lunch was super, all the king’s best caterers and finest china for the first day of the newest presidency. It was exclusive for 300 people composed of the Estrada Family, very close friends and political allies, and yes, acolytes like us. Mostly, they were familiar faces of the silver screen, business and politics.

After lunch, we congregated to our usual smoking time. New smoking faces have been directed to the only and the best smoking spot by by the Pasig River. Then there was this short, balding, dark man who did not look familiar; he stood next to me asking about palace life. He was generally nice but curt sometimes. He told me he is an incoming Undersecretary of Tourism. So I politely asked why I never saw him in company of the elites, or at least, the power circles of Tourism Department. He said that he is from Jamindan, Capiz but he lived in the States for decades; has two houses there, in fact. But Erap, a close friend, had asked him to come home and help. So, you are from Jamindan, I’m from Sapian. Yes, he said his Dad was a mayor, and yes, he knows some Orilloses and Hondrados. Well, the only person I know from Jamindan is the late Nong Boy Advincula, husband of Nang Venus. He said he knows the Advinculas but he is not in a hurry to go home as yet because he had lots of work waiting for him. I did not ask for his name, but at the Cabinet meeting that day, I surmised from the list that his name was Orestes Ricaforte. I never saw him again. Never heard anything until two years later. After the downfall of Erap, I saw on the news that his wife, Yolanda Ricaforte, was the auditor of Erap’s jueteng money. Deng! His work waiting for him was counting Erap’s money. Had I known then, I should have volunteered to work under him and would have already paid up all my debts to Gee Ann Ballie Tupaz and NN Alvarez!

Anyway, at the second Erap Cabinet Meeting, our smoking club continued to expand. A new member was Undersecretary Fely Villareal, known to Mambusaonons as “the Madre,” daughter of former Speaker Cornerlio Villareal, Sr., who even ran for mayor in Mambusao. At that time, she was GMA’s deputy in Department of Social Services and Development. We shared cigarettes and lights, and assigned someone as a look out in case GMA suddenly calls her. GMA kept Undersecretary Villareal very busy and she had to put out halfway-lit cigarettes. What a waste.

I hoped to see them both again at the next meetings. But Erap did not convene the Cabinet for many months. On that second meeting, he said that since he was the President, he would not use the scripts we prepared. Neither would the agenda be as long as FVR’s. Whoever had issues among Cabinet would have to resolve it themselves and he would sign anything. He just asked us to enjoy the Manila Hotel catered lunch, which of course, was a pleasant surprise for us to be free from tedious minutes and the scourge of Century Tuna. The third Erap meeting and the last Cabinet meeting I will ever attend will be a Manila Bay cruise aboard the newly refitted BRP “Ang Pangulo.”

THE SAPIAN COMMUNITY NETWORK (SCN) is formed to unite charitable Sapianons and work with Sapian Online in organising programs and projects to mobilize resources that will contribute in the development of the town and well being of its people.

VISION:

1. Help maintain and improve the contents of Sapian Online
2. Introduce materials that would help improve the educational and social awareness of Sapianons
3. Propose profitable projects and offer charitable services that would benefit the people of Sapian
4. Encourage the involvement of local Sapianons to sustain the projects:

Immediate Goals:

1. Addition of “Featured Sapianon Section” in Sapian Online.
2. Facilitate the flow of information around town with the production of Sapian Based Newsletter written in Sapian dialect.
3. Set up an SCN Center where members can organise the projects and services.

Long term Goals:

1. Undertake research and continue to gather materials to provide more historical resources for our hometown
2. Continually maintain and find ways to improve the contents of the website to keep people interested. (Example: competitions in town and the website.)
3. Continually maintain, improve and expand the profitable projects and charitable services in Sapian (SNHS Scholarship Fund, Adopt a Sitio Project, Medical Assistance Fund, Livelihood Development Schemes, etc.)