Mindorosas 2.0, Lubang Island

Vice-President Leni Robredo will be coming to a famous island in my province Occidental Mindoro at around 9:00 AM tomorrow, April 26, 2022, and the venue is Plaza de Francisco M. Sanchez. Last April 6, the TRoPa held their sorties on mainland Mindoro, specifically in San Jose, Occidental and Calapan City in Oriental.

Lubang Island is known for being the hiding place of Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese World War II straggler who made the island his home and battleground long after the war was over. His story was made into a motion picture in 2019 directed by Arthur Harari. The movie Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle was an entry to Cannes Film Festival 2021 and bagged the Best Original Screenplay at César Awards, France 2022. Click HERE to watch its trailer.

But other than the Onoda story, the folk dance Pandanggo sa Ilaw is said to have originated from the place. It is generally danced in couples, with traditional clothes for both women and men. They carry lighted glass oil lamps on their heads and the back of their hands. Dancing to the rhythm of lilting music, they sway and balance, go around the stage or dance floor, intermingle, manipulate the glass lamps with amazing and spectacular deftness, and maneuver for the dramatic and arresting position on the floor. Swiftly of hands and agile feet, the dancers do not trip or drop the glass lamps that they carry. The oil lamp is called tinghoy.

Cabra Island, also part of the Municipality of Lubang, is the site of the alleged apparition of the Virgin Mary to eight children in December 1966.   The children were pupils at the Cabra Elementary School and this incident hit the headlines and became the subject of debates among theologians and the clergy themselves.  The purported apparitions eventually inspired the 1982 Ishmael Bernal drama film Himala, starring Nora Aunor and with a screenplay by Ricky Lee, which took place from 1966 to 1972.

Lubang too is the place of birth of world renowned human rights advocate Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, SFIC. She was born on February 1, 1921, and her name is synonymous with Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), founded in 1973, where she served as its chairperson from 1975 up to 1996. She worked hard for the release of political detainees despite being jailed by the Marcos government.

Lubang is also known for Pasandal. It is part of traditional Flores de Mayo aside from Santacruzan. In Lubang, it became part of their tradition to have 8 days of dancing known as Pasandal. On the morning of the 9th day, which is the Santacruzan, a mass was held and in the evening, selected beautiful sagalas dressed in gowns to join the religious pageant.

Lubang Island consists of two municipalities, Lubang and Looc. In 2019, according to the records of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), the former has only 13,490 voters while the latter has 7,684 registered electorates. Regardless, the Leni-Kiko tandem went down in history for giving special attention to this small but lovely island in my province. The tandem finds time to visit and build a lasting relationship with those even in far-flung areas or the outskirts of society.

The name of this island came from lumbang, a kind of tree that grew profusely on this island during the early days.  Due to constant use for so many years, the name became Lubang, according to historian Rudy A. Candelario.

The rally organizers selected pasandal as its campaign theme tomorrow.

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Photo: VP Leni Robredo's FB Account

“Mayor Lang” Explained

The Tagalog word “lang”, is short for “lamang”, which is often used as a modifier to provide an accurate picture of the quality, as an adjective or quantity, or numerical count being presented.

For example: “Isa lang ang iboboto ko sa mga konsehal” means “I will just vote one among the councilors.”

But in some usage, it is to limit the scope of the word that may usually carry ambiguous or far-ranging content. For instance, when you want to say “I have voted”, you will use “Nakaboto na ako”. But when you want to say “I have just voted” (i.e. recently, or just now), you will say “Kaboboto ko lang.” Therefore, “lang” in English means “only” or “just”.

But in many contexts, “lang” is used to express a “limitation”. There are uses in certain contexts that are very difficult to translate into English. For example:

“Magtrabaho ka na lang.”

“You just work.”

(Focus. Maybe something will turn up.)

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 “Maghintay ka na lang.”

“All you can do is wait.”

(Just wait for now….)

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 “Kumain na lang tayo.”

“Let’s just eat.”

(No point in doing anything else.)

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 “Umoo ka na lang.”

“Just say yes.”

(It’s useless to complain.)

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 “Manood ka na lang.”

“Why don’t you just watch?”

(Don’t bother with anything else.)

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Just like how Vice-Mayor Walter “Bong” B. Marquez uses the phrase in his campaign slogan in his bid for a mayoralty position in Sablayan. His catchword for May 9 Elections simply reads “Mayor Lang.” His “lang” in this particular milieu connotes a sort of limiting himself if ever elected mayor of this municipality, and constantly reminds him not to exceed his duties and functions as local chief executive of Sablayan. He promised to do only those things required by or under the law, specifically those stipulated in the Local Government Code.

It is his way of emphasizing that he will not usurp his duties and would not be involved in any moonlighting activity and be involved as a clandestine servicer of the government, a “commissioner”, supplier, power broker and be involved, directly or indirectly, in anything that beyond his thrust and mandate as a local official, and in particular, a mayor.

The context of Vice-Mayor Marquez’s “mayor lang” according to him means that he will not capitulate to unlawfully performing his mayoral duties in case he is elected. He is just speaking for himself, he said. He does not care about the other candidates nor does he alludes to his rival.

Nothing in his mind and his slogan that he emphasizes that the mayoralty post is “basta-basta” or in the bastardized lingo, “just-just”.

It is very intellectually dishonest that this use of “lang” is presented as an affront to the esteemed and honorable government position or office that he aspires for. In visioning and animating such values instead, you purify the sanctity of that office.

Nonetheless, elections and political leadership are like a winnowing fan in our hands separating the grains from the chaff.

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(Photo: VM Bong Marquez Facebook Page)

 

Pandanggo sa Dilim and the Leni-Kiko’s Sortie

The Leni-Kiko campaign rally in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro last April 6, 2022, has three important highlights at least from my point of view: it paved the way for Cong. Nene Sato’s declaration of support for the Kakampink tandem, the first-ever dance steps of VP Leni in her entire campaign sortie and it became the venue where my kababayans protested for more than three decades of an intermittent power outage that we are experiencing since January of this year. I will just focus on the last two climaxes for it’s just natural for Cong. Nene to endorse VP Leni for they are both top brasses of the Liberal Party (LP). Let us juxtapose Leni’s fandango and our being the infamous “brownout capital of the Philippines.” 

Regardless of our political affiliations, we are gravely affected by this debacle of power interruptions. We are experiencing this hellish situation even since Leni Robredo was still earning her degree in Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Even when she was not yet a lawyer and married to Jesse Robredo, energy crises have been bugging my people to no end and Cong. Nene was already a vice-governor just two years later. Cong. Nene has never been defeated since 1988 and has been up and down, in a manner of speaking, as congresswoman and governor interchangeably.

After reading a placard with the message "Mga sanay sa brownout for Leni," VP Leni said, "Pero hindi ba dapat hindi tayo nasasanay because ang kuryente, basic na pangangailangan natin. Ang akin lang pong mapapangako sa inyo, kapag ako mismo and pangulo, ako mismo and tututok sa mga bagay na ito." She assured every one of us and that was after she rendered that historic Hanunuo fandango with all gracefulness and gusto. When she said, "Ako mismo," it was tantamount to saying that since the effort of the local leaders are not enough, if ever elected, the veep herself will take the responsibility of solving it.

The crowd roared for they know that electricity is as essential as lugaw in some situations. Even the nationalistic Day of Valor last Saturday, April 9, became a "Day of Brownout" in a large part of the province. Sad.

The apologists of the local power groups and the propagandists of the congresswoman herself say that she should not be faulted for such a predicament. They insist on blaming Governor Ed Gadiano for such a fiasco saying that it is his role as the province’s chief executive to provide basic needs of his constituency, especially electricity even if he was in the position only for less than three years now.

Aside from lambasting the governor for this over spinning rotational brownout in the province, the political propagandists and critics of the provincial chief executive keep on defending the Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (OMECO) and the Occidental Mindoro Consolidated Power Corporation (OMCPC) saying that though the latter had already been ready in supplying the whole power requirement of the province, the contract has been archived at the Department of Energy (DOE) and Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) unsigned by the authorities concerned. They keep on censuring the supposed red tape in said national offices and Gov. Gadiano for unsubstantiated expositions. I do understand they have the right to say this because of political reasons no matter how silly their arguments are. I do believe that electricity and politics are inseparable (I will write a separate blog entry about this next time).

The rally participants found a venue to once again vent their concerns and our province’s endless tragedy that has been hounding us even during the time of the fictitious Majoma.  The million-dollar question is this, how come that after decades and decades of this situation of doom, the concerned sector only managed to provide us with limited power sources and just one producer through the years? They were a failure in this matter and we, the consumers, and the supposed co-owners of the electric cooperative were led to a dark slaughterhouse of uncertainty. 

In the past four decades or so, we are given false hopes by our sitting provincial politicians on this nagging issue of power shortage. The mammoth 18 thousand more or less Leni-Kiko crowd both came from opposing political camps, by the way. The only thing common to them is they are all pro-Leni and Kiko but they differ in their local choices for governor, among other positions.

In the 1990s, people look up the Power Sharing Agreement between Island Power Corporation (IPC) and OMECO as the ultimate solution and expected to electrify every municipality but our aspirations gradually died like a fading candle. The reasons for its failure involve financial, managerial, legal, and technical issues surrounding the agreement besides the fact that the later owner of IPC is a local political leader in the province. We more than ever were left figuratively in the dark. We as a people feel betrayed by these nothing but money-paddled transactions. EPI was allegedly a power company that is about to operate a 45-megawatt geothermal power plant in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro but EPI and OMECO including the rest of the national power industry agencies dropped it like a hot potato for reasons that I’m not privy to discuss but what’s important is, we, the people have again faced a broken political promise for a clean and secured, sustained and affordable power supply that purportedly we will be enjoying in 2017. They again lied to us about our aspirations for a brown-out free (or less brownout) Occidental Mindoro puffed like a balloon of colds in a murky kid’s stuffy nostrils.

In just a wink of an eye and away from the eyes of the public, the EPI and the OMCPC changed roles like harlequins in a circus. With dedication and fervor, Cong. Nene has been bridging coordination gaps among energy national regulatory agencies such as the DoE, ERC, NPC, the NEA and OMECO, and OMCPC, sole distributor and supplier, respectively. Until now, the light at the end of the tunnel is still a thing of the future. We still grope for true and brand new political leaders whose heart bleeds with us in our darkest moments. We still shout and cry for fast-tracking the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) and welcoming all the qualified applicants as power providers and pressuring all the involved power industry sectors to act swiftly on the matter.

But this is a thing that political apologists cannot alter: brownouts, as well as politicians, overstays on this forsaken half of the island we call home. And the people are fed-up with both!

This is their eternal legacy of Pandanggo sa Dilim, similar to Remigio Agpalo’s political analogy/analysis Pandanggo sa Ilaw, a folk dance that originated here in our province, particularly in Lubang Island, in 1965.

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My upcoming entry: "The Inseparability of Politics and Electricity: A Reflection Paper" 

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Photo: Sen. Kiko Pangilinan’s Twitter account

Reference: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1482004/mindorenos-assured-of-sufficient-power-supply-sato