[Note:What follows is the official press release of the Literary Division of the Cultural Center of the Philippines on this year's issue of Ani.]
CCP launches 35th issue of Ani publication
11 November 2009, Pasay City – The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Literary Arts Division will launch Ani 35, The Pinoy as Asian issue, on November 26, 2009, 6:00 p.m., at the CCP Ramp with some of the featured authors reading from their works.
“Ani 35 is devoted to writings by Filipinos on their interaction with other Asian peoples and cultures. This may be interpreted as a response to the call of Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, National Artist, on the need to reconnect with Southeast Asian literary tradition if we are to survive in this age of globalization,” Herminio S. Beltran, Jr., Literary Arts Division chief and editor of the publication, wrote in the Introduction. “We hope this will inspire the birthing of mechanisms and eventually practices in the Philippine literary/publishing world that will start off a more dynamic interaction among Filipino writers and their counterparts in the Asian continent,” Beltran continued.
Ani 35 features 54 authors who contributed for three sections: poetry; prose (essay and fiction) based on the The Pinoy as Asian theme and; Malayang Haraya for poetry and prose contributions outside the theme.
The 54 authors included in Ani 35 are Mark Angeles, Lilia F. Antonio, G. Mae Aquino, Genevieve L. Asenjo, Abdon M. Balde, Jr., Janet Tauro Batuigas, Gil Beltran, Herminio S. Beltran, Jr., Kristoffer Berse, Jaime Jesus Borlagdan, Raymond Calbay, Catherine Candano, Nonon V. Carandang, Christoffer Mitch Cerda, Joey Stephanie Chua, Kristian S. Cordero, Genaro R. Gojo Cruz, Carlomar Arcangel Daoana, Arvin Tiong Ello, Dennis Espada, Rogerick Fontanilla Fernandez, Reparado Galos III, Dr. Luis Gatmaitan, Joscephine Gomez, Malou Jacob, Ferdinand Pisigan Jarin, Karla Javier, Phillip Kimpo, Jr., Ed Nelson R. Labao, Gexter Ocampo Lacambra, Erwin C. Lareza, Jeffrey A. Lubang, Glenn Sevilla Mas, Perry C. Mangilaya, Noahlyn Maranan, Francisco Arias Monteseña, Ruth V. Mostrales, Victor Emmanuel Nadera, Jose Velando Ogatis-I, Wilhelmina S. Orozco, H. Francisco V. Peñones, Jr., Scott Magkachi Sabóy, Judith Balares Salamat, Edgar Calabia Samar, Louie Jon A. Sanchez, Soliman Agulto Santos, Dinah Roma-Sianturi, Rakki E. Sison-Buban, Jason Tabinas, Vincent Lester G. Tan, Dolores R. Taylan, Rosario Torres-Yu, Betty Uy-Regala, and Camilo M. Villanueva, Jr.
For issues of Ani, please contact the CCP Marketing Department at 551-7930 or 832-11-25 locals 1800 to 1808. For authors who want to contribute for the next issue of Ani, please contact the CCP Literary Arts Division at 832-11-25 locals 1706 and 1707, or email aniyearbook@yahoo.com.
Related Posts: “Attacking Other Religions,” “A Proselyter’s Zeal“
My wife and I were commenting on how well-maintained his Avanza taxi was. He said his boss bought it early this year. We could tell he was a careful driver — no sudden lurches, no reckless swerves, no racing with other cars. And he was neat–looking.
Just as we thought our conversation had ended, he handed out two calling cards bearing the name of his church with its weekly Bible study or worship schedules. Then came his five–minute sermon which, judging from his smooth delivery of it, he must have shared countless times to his passengers and just about anyone he met. He is from this so and so church, he says, and, as I remembered it, he preached in a mix of Tagalog and English which went something like this:
This [his church] is not a religion, it is a relationship. I am a born-again [sic]. And as a born–again Christian I am responsible for preaching the gospel. The gospel is simply a three-point message: Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. We are saved by the gospel. How do we get saved by the gospel? Well, three things actually — three keys to the Kingdom. The first key is repentance. This corresponds to the first part of the gospel message, the death of Jesus Christ. The second key is baptism in the name of Jesus, which corresponds to the second part of the gospel message, the burial of Jesus. And the third key is Gift of the Holy Spirit, which corresponds to the resurrection of Jesus.
Despite being interrupted several times by my wife’s instructions for him to turn here and there, he plowed on with his soul–winning sermonette right to where we got off, confident perhaps that he could get a quick harvest out of the “Seed” he earnestly sought to sow in our fertile heart.
Frankly, the last thing we wanted after a whole day’s work is to listen to a sermon at night in a taxi. But we had to be polite, so we just responded to his fervent speech with ah-huh, okay, hmm while wishing we’d get to our destination in a jiffy.
“You were once like that,” my wife kidded after we got off his taxi and were out of earshot. I looked back and saw the taxi still not backing up. “Oh yes, and perhaps much more so,” I replied. “And he is probably pausing for a five–minute prayer beseeching God to touch our hearts so we could finally feel the need to be saved from our terrible, terrible sins — just like I used to do after giving out tracts in the streets and preaching in classrooms or to strangers in a bus.”
Years ago as a new convert to a new religion (depending on which church doctrine one uses refers to, I was actually “saved” four times — when I was christened a Catholic in preschool, when I prayed the sinner’s prayer in Grade six, when I prayed another sinner’s prayer in a more conservative Baptist church in college, and when I was baptized specifically “for the remission of sins” into the Stone–Campbell Church of Christ). I had such a “fire in my bones” that every occasion became an opportunity for my “New Christian” testimony, and everyone outside my church was a “prospect” for evangelism. For after all, we had a unique message of salvation, we were the right church, and we better be busy before the Day of Judgment comes to damn people who did not get to hear our message. “…No one has the right to hear the gospel twice until everyone has had the opportunity to hear it at least once,” we’d chant with Peter Barnes as we marched on under the Star–Spangled Banner of the Baptistic/Restorationist Cross.
In reality though, we were simply proselyting most of the time — converting people to our church, our particular theology, out pet doctrines, and not to the Jesus who would have nothing to do with our misguided zeal and sectarian bent.
Still, I can say my stay with fanatical Christian groups was not a waste at all. It was simply a leg of this lifetime journey towards maturity. When we truly commit ourselves to political, social, and religious ideologies, we will have to go through the passage from Cloud 9 Idealism to Ground Zero Realism during which we initially, like the boy in James Joyce’s Araby, “Gaz(e) up into the darkness [and see ourselves as creatures] driven and derided by vanity… [with] eyes burn[ing] with anguish and anger.” It was also a time to witness how the message of the Cross can change a person for the better.
And, back to riding a taxi, I think I prefer being preached to by the driver than having to wildly scramble for a missing seatbelt and to choke to death in a taxi driven by one whose closest experience to being spiritually high is enveloping the car with his cigar smoke while racing along the city’s narrow streets like a man possessed by legions of demons who, moments before, had just driven thousands of pigs into the sea.
Baguio old–timers often pine for the pine–scented Baguio they used to know. It is indeed sad that the Baguio we smell now is a mix of a whiff of pine scent and the lingering stink from mounds of uncollected garbage and the suffocating fart of jeepneys.
But along with all these depressing sights and smells is the often overlooked toil of our street sweepers like manang Josie of Salud Mitra barangay, shown in the photos above. Manang Josie continues to make the piles of garbage near UBLES look “presentable” even though many residents do not take the time to fix the trash they dump in the area every night. Manang Josie has been in this thankless job for eight years now and says that it is only this year that she has had difficulty keeping streets in her area clean.
The familiar tinkling of bells sounding off from government dump trucks has not been heard in Salud Mitra for weeks now. And the ticks of our city’s garbage “bomb” are getting louder. When it explodes, everyone will surely get bowls of stinking goo for Christmas.
28 elementary, high school, and college students from “Little Kibungan” may not be able to continue their studies this year. They are among the hundreds of residents who lost their loved ones or homes and now live in tents after being temporarily housed at the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) building in Wangal, La Trinidad, Benguet. Should you wish to help these kids , please get in touch with the President of Benguet State University, or the Chancellor of UP Baguio through Professor Faye Abalos (fayestamaria@yahoo.com).
For background reports on the “Little Kibungan” disaster, see the following articles:
♥ “Little Kibungan Takes Comfort in Faith” by Maurice Malanes
♥ “A Benguet Story: Little Kibungan Landslide” by Kat Palasi
Thanks to Rotary International, several families displaced by the “Little Kibungan” landslide are temporarily housed in white “shelter boxes” set up at the Veterans Federation of the Philippines (VFP) headquarters in La Trinidad, Benguet. Hopefully, these victims of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng will soon find permanent resettlement areas where they can have access to suitable livelihood sources.
Almost four weeks after a landslide along the Dominican Hill–Quirino Magsaysay (QM) border ravaged three houses and killed four people, the disaster area looks like a junkyard with wreckage, household garbage, dozens of discarded tires, and at least three fallen pine trees strewn all over the place.
Call them “Epoy,” with a sneer. Tell them they have the most laughable helicopters in the world (certainly not because our government cannot afford to buy the most sophisticated ones, but because funds meant for our armed forces’ modernization plans have been misused for decades).
But the Filipino military pilots have become legendary for their flying skills especially as they snake along narrow valleys and maneuver somewhere in the hinterlands whether during combat operations or disaster relief missions. Their “A1″ ingenuity in making the most out of their Vietnam War vintage UH–1H (Huey) helicopters is also laudable.
During the recent typhoon disasters, they have provided countless logistical support to chiefly civilian relief efforts. In Benguet, the ever–proactive Governor Nestor Fongwan has been coordinating with the military on the delivery of sacks of rice and other goods needed by hundreds of typhoon victims in the province.
Below are photos of two of our military helicopters taken on 20 October 2009 at the Benguet State University (BSU) grounds.
If Tani Ato were a celebrity, his tragic story would have merited a running news story in the national papers. But he is not, so his grief will have to be immediately lost in the nation’s frenzy for the most explosive showbiz scandal and the next presidential polls.
If Tani Ato were a writer, he would have told of how he metaphorically wrote 30 at 73, when the recent typhoon conspired with tons of earth to bury six of his kins at Twin Peaks. He would have graphically described how his tears raged as he frantically dug up his dead, how he washed them clean, and how he buried them in a row of tombs close to his house. But he is not, and all he could do is tell the nosy in unadorned speech about how he lost Ambrosio, 49 ; Oliver, 27; Patricia, 30; Gloria, 27; Keithley, 4; and Jamaica, 9 (mos.).
If Tani Ato were a preacher, he would have waxed eloquent on theodicy and eschatology exhorting people that the disaster is simply the will of God, and all he must do is to have a deeper faith in the inscrutable wisdom of Divine Providence and to be forewarned of Armageddon and be assured of Heaven. But he is not, and he is still probably wondering why he had to bury his own children and grandchildren and if in his remaining years on earth he will have to bury too his other surviving relatives, with none left to bury him.
He didn’t have to lecture me about coping with tragedy. I could see how, after being battered by a storm, he has striven to get on with his life: I could see it in the deep lines of his face, in the unpracticed way he pointed at the encased photos of his dead loved ones; I could hear it in his simple retelling of a nightmare that, from hereon, would haunt him during every heavy downpour at night.
He is just one of those hundreds of residents in Tuba, Benguet who will have to nurse a wound in the heart for the rest of their lives. He is just one of those thousands of voiceless, faceless victims of calamities across the country whose harrowing struggles with the random changes in life must be shared with the rest of the world if only to make us more humble, sensitive, compassionate, generous, just, thankful.
♥♥♥
The road to Twin Peaks…
Five years ago, I covered the inauguration of this new modular bridge in Tuba, Benguet for DILG–CAR’s official publication, Gongs and Drums. Everyone was jubilant then, for the bridge primarily meant easier transport of goods from the vegetable farms to the market. Now, the bridge was used by grief−stricken villagers to transport their muddy dead.
Abigail Daculan, also a former Local Government Operations Officer (LGOO) and now our school nurse at UP Baguio, was back to her usual Community Organizing stance as she helped distribute relief goods (thanks to the UP Baguio Community and Café by the Ruins) directly to the affected families.
This large "thank you" note and at least 10 other similar streamers now decorate the contested forest park beside the Baguio Convention Center (BCC). PGMA's order barring any plan to plant high-rise buildings in the area should finally make GSIS and SM redirect their joint business interests elsewhere. sms photo
Related Article: “Kids Thank PGMA for Saving Forest Park”
PAKAAMMO
Siasino? AMIN DAGITI YKALINGA NGA YOUNG PROFESSIONALS DITOY BAGUIO KEN BENGUET ["Young" ka no saan ka pay nga agtawen iti 46, ken "professional" ka basta naggraduarka iti Voc/Tech nga kurso wenno College degree, adda man trabahom wenno awan].
Apay aya? BAKA MET ADDA ORASYO KAKABSAT PARA ITI MAYSA NGA EXPLORATORY MEETING MAIPANGGEP ITI PANNAKABUANGAY ITI MAYSA NGA ASOSASYON TAYO.
Kasano ngay diay KALPRA? Makitinnulong tayo a iti KALPRA, it being the de facto umbrella organization of all Kalinga groups in Baguio and Benguet. Mayat koma no mapabileg tay pay ti panagkakaduatayo babaen iti kastoy nga organisasyon. Adu ti mabalin tay nga maaramidan karkaro ta kas kuna ni mam Lucia Ruiz ken Annielyn Pucking, adda nasurok nga 10,000 nga Kalinga young professionals ditoy Baguio ken Benguet.
Kaanu ngay ngarud ken sadinno? 5pm, 30 October 2009, Lin–awa Center for Culture and Arts, 203 Lopez Building, Session Road, Baguio City
Bernadette Balway, Froilan Calsiyao, Ma. Teresa Ganongan, Annielyn Pucking, and I initially met yesterday night (23 October ‘09) at the Lin–awa Center to discuss the prospects of organizing a group as this. The result of the discussion will be shared with those attending the 30 October meeting.
Umaykayo kakabsat! 
♦♦♦
LIN–AWA
I had never heard of Lin–awa until last week when I attended the wake of William Dannang at the Cathedral of the Resurrection where I met Mrs. Ruiz, Bernadette and Annielyn. (It was then that they broached the idea of forming an organization for all young Kalinga professionals in Baguio and Benguet.) I discovered that we shared the same passion for the enrichment of Kalinga indigenous knowledge systems and practices, and that they have long been active in promoting Kalinga, or Igorot culture in general, here and abroad. More importantly, I learned that this NCCA–accredited institution has been conducting workshops on Kalinga dances and instruments, aside from providing scholarship assistance to members of its group of peformers and helping document of indigenous knowledge. For me, a teacher who needs to re–learn the intricacies of his culture and a father anxious about his children forgetting their indigenous roots in the concrete jungle of the city, finding Lin–awa is truly exhilarating.
Related article: “Three Cordi youth to join ‘First Voices’ in Canada“
EXTRA! EXTRA! Erap to Run in 2010 Polls!!!
SO?
♦♦♦
Erap: “This is the last performance of my life.”
Great. Politics is showbiz after all. The next presidential election is his “last full show” where he, the beleaguered silver screen hero, gets to rise from the ashes of his incinerated foes thus immortalizing his iconic existence in the hearts of his adoring fans. [Background Music: Charles Tindley's "(I) Shall Overcome"]
♦♦♦
The point in Erap’s Arthro ad: He could barely run.
♦♦♦
Erap and most other presidentiables are experts at generalizations. They hear the rah–rah–rah siz–bom–bah from their bailiwicks (or their bootlicking minions), and think it’s the whole nation cheering them on.
♦♦♦
Some think Erap is the country’s last best hope. Ay apo met, agpanunot tay met ah kakabsat. Neh, buyaen tay kadi daytoy barbareng adda mapili tayo a natartaraki pay nga artista kas next President op da Shubisripablik hehe:
Dào shénme shān shàng, Chàng shénme gē. (“When you go climbing up their mountain, you’ve got to learn to sing their songs.” – Bryan Todd’s translation)
40 Chinese and non–Chinese individuals took their first Mandarin/Putonghua (pinyin) lessons at Hotel Supreme on 17 October 2009 from 3:00 –5:00 pm. They are expected to continue their language classes over the next seven Saturdays.
Hosted by the Baguio Filipino–Cantonese Association (BFCA) under the leadership of Hotel Supreme manager Peter Ng, the free crash course is into its second batch of learners. The first batch was offered only to Filipino–Chinese learners, and had 15 enrollees only four of whom eventually finished the course. The four graduates –– including CPA–Lawyer Cristeta Leung and Marlyn Ramos Galera–– are among those now teaching the second batch.
The first session introduced Chinese numbers and personal pronouns using the inductive approach to language learning in which the participants were first given a “feel” of the target language and allowed to figure out Mandarin grammar, phonetics and syntax minus the usual standard classroom lecture. To reinforce the learning points for the day, kiddie songs were taught to the learners toward the end of the session.
Session 1 Songs
1. Shige Xiao Pengyou (“10 Little Friends,” round song sang to the tune of “10 Little Indian Boys”)
yīge, liăng ge, sānge péngyou
sìge, wŭge, lìuge péngyou
qīge, bāge, jiŭge péngyou
shíge xiăo péngyou
2. Wode Pengyou Zai Nali (“Where is My Friend?”; sang to the tune of “Where is Thumbman?”)
yī, èr, sān, sì, wŭ, liù qī…
wŏde péngyou zài nălĭ?
zài zhèlĭ!
zài nălĭ?
wŏde péngyou zài zhèlĭ!
Learn Putonghua online @ mandarintube.com . Get helpful L2 learning tips from Bryan Todd @ languageexpert.com.
Two weeks ago, my wife and I took our two kids to watch the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP)–Baguio’s musicale, “Joseph the Dreamer” at the Saint Louis University (SLU) Center for Culture and the Arts (CCA).
It was a delightful treat with all its 17 songs rendered in an enthralling mix of pop, rap and praise — the serious and the comic, the classical and the contemporary, the liturgical and the spontaneous. Its creative appropriation of a foreign theme for a Pinoy audience connects with today’s generation for whom a Charles Heston–era retelling of ancient Hebrew stories has become soporific.
All performers virtually form a cross section of the Baguio community — teens and elderlies, students and professionals, academics and business folk, private individuals and government officials. This demonstrates how Christian ministry can effectively meld with social involvement or public service.
What is most impressive to me about this musicale is the willingness of two distinct Christian institutions — a CICM–run school and an Evangelical church — to work together in packaging a gift to our 100–year old city and its multiethnic denizens.
May we continue to see more interdenominational work among Christians in the city.
♥♥♥
HISTORICAL NOTES
The Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM) began its work in the Philippines in 1908. It recently produced a docu, “The CICM Legacy in the Philippines,” a mini–version of which can be viewed @ cicmphil100. Among the CICM priests who have helped enrich Igorot ethnography and Cordillera Studies in general were Fr. Francis Lambrecht and Fr. Francisco Billiet whose works, Kalinga Ullalim and Ifugao Orthography, “immensely contributed to the growing repertoire of Cordillera folk songs” (Saboy 1997, 7).
Meanwhile, the UCCP was established in 1948 as an “organic union” mainly of the following denominations: Presbyterian Church, the Philippine Methodist Church, the Evangelical United Brethren, the Congregational Church, and the Christian Church/Church of Christ (Disciples of Christ). For a backgrounder on this nationalistic church, see “The United Church of Christ in the Philippines: Historical Locations, Theological Roots, and Spiritual Commitment” and “Unity in Diversity: The Birth of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines” respectively written by Mariano C. Apilado and Isagani V. Deslate (see Kwantes 2001, 335– 358; 2002, 28–56). Among their more prominent members today are the likeable Juan Flavier, the venerable Jovito Salonga, and the indefatigable Fidel Ramos.
♥♥♥
THE JOSEPH STORY RETOLD
Joseph is such an intriguing Biblical character that one Hexateuch (Genesis–Joshua) expert has this patriarch pictured as an icon of forgiveness in contrast with the image of a God who needed gradual “moral education” by his own creatures (Segal 2007). The very idea surely raises eyebrows especially among the more conservative wings of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, but this scholar’s work as a whole is an interesting read for those who wish to have a peek into how different interpretive communities struggle with sacred texts.
Andrew Bard Schmookler probes into Segal’s speculation @ nonesoblind.org, and Rabbi Mier Kahane engages Segal in a debate the first part of which is shown below:
The Joseph story is about love and jealousy, and crime and guilt, about loss and pain, and transformation and forgiveness. In contrast to the Cain and Abel account, what is dramatically different in the Joseph story is that Joseph is both the long–suffering victim and the powerful figure who, remembering his own victimization, must decide whether to punish or forgive.
Joseph never seriously considers retribution. Rather, acting almost as a drama therapist, he leads them into a symbolically related journey that changes them. Theirs is not a total transformation, but as Judah’s actions demonstrate, it is one of significance. And in this depiction of the sinner and his capability of change, there is important validation of the place of forgiveness within the moral order, even when justice would have indicated punishment. (Segal 2007, 23)
Works Cited:
Kwantes, Anne C., ed. Chapters in Philippine Church History. Manila: OMF Literature Inc., 2001.
__________________ . Supplement to Chapters in Philippine Church History. Manila: OMF Literature Inc., 2002.
Saboy, Anatalia M. Indigenous Ethnic Songs of the Cordilleras. Manila: NCCA, 1997.
Segal, Jerome M. Joseph’s Bones: Understanding the Struggle Between God and Mankind in the Bible. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.
Ilokana teacher and writer Monica Supnet Macansantos notes in her paper, “Crossing Geographic Boundaries: Transporting the Ilokano Homeland,” that for the diasporic Ilokano “moving away… is not an act of abandoning one’s home, one’s heritage, but… a way of adding to the community’s history, by grabbing, like the Ilokano epic hero Lam-ang, the chance to become heroic…”¹
This is true for Efrenia Fé A. Maclean, an Ilokana from Bacarra, Ilocos Norte who was at UP Baguio on 05 October 2009 to share insights from her successful teaching career abroad in a lecture on “Language, Culture, and Identity.”
She has made a name for herself in the U.S.A as a teacher and educator for over thirty years now. Three of the awards she recently received are the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship, Fullbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program (Japan), and Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. She is also featured, along with two American teachers, in The Learning Classroom: From Theory to Practice, a documentary film cum multimedia instructional material jointly produced by the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Starting out in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a highly effective kindergarten teacher in the early ‘70s, she went on to build a distinguished career being a curriculum developer for the bilingual/bicultural education program in Hawaii, gradeschool teacher in Michigan, National Science Foundation (NSF) fellow, Reading First facilitator with the Michigan Department of Education, and presently an associate member of the Washington-based Teacher Advisory Council under the aegis of The National Academies.
Maclean’s professional track record bears imprints of her Ilokano identity. Her early exposure to a multiethnic society, for instance, enabled her to treat her Black, Hispanic and White students fairly at a time when racial discrimination was rife in America. And at a time when teaching “Culture” in America was tantamount to stereotyping other cultures, she offered a “horizontal” approach for studying culture – “there’s just one race, only different ways of life.” One way she instilled this concept in class was through a “family tree” project in which her students learned lessons on cultural commonality and diversity. Of course, it was natural then for her to teach her students a traditional boardgame called sungka, the Philippine version of the African mancala or the Indonesian congklat. Coming from a very “musical culture,” she also had the chance to introduce songs from the Philippines to first graders who at the time were not really expected nor taught in school to sing “with the right tune,” a skill which was supposed to be developed in higher grades.
Growing up in a rural school where students regularly and successfully competed with those in the urban centers also helped, for her first teaching assignment was in a rural school where most lived below the poverty line. Here, she had the chance to help boost the learning competence of students normally not expected to excel academically, thus proving that poor children could compete with their more privileged peers.
Her being kuripot (frugal) paid both material and non-material dividends too: discardable things became award-winning teaching materials that proved more durable and practical than the commercialized ones; recycled papers which a nearby factory deemed useless became valuable scrap books showcasing children’s creative works; neglected stacks of wood were turned into sturdy benches and desks through a parent-child-teacher cooperative project, which instilled pride and a sense of ownership among “Section 2″ gradeschoolers who did not get enough furniture as those in “Section 1” did. Owing to a sound training at the Philippine Normal College, she was averse to the idea of segregating “smart and not-so-smart students” into different classes, and did her best to provide avenues of learning to all regardless of the section they belonged.
“When one always buys things, when one always depends on others, he becomes lazy,” she would remind her pupils. Her class learned to be productive, economizing on the use of available resources and optimizing time. Guided by one who walked her talk, the children developed the habit of saving used or throw-away things for some projects and doing things without being told. Here, she would inject the Ilocano concept of being manakem (sense of responsibility, precociousness; from nakem = roughly, “conscience”).
In these and other snapshots of her teaching career, Fé Maclean concretizes the fact that, as she put it, a Filipino’s “American experience… is a product of what he brings and the circumstances he encounters in the United States. He uses language to participate in the immediate culture he finds himself in and chooses his own identity.”
No doubt, the identity she had as a top Philippine Normal College graduate about 40 years ago is far different from the “Filipino-American” that she is now. But there is no doubt that a diasporic Ilokano like her continues to extend abroad the reach of an identity commonly and chiefly characterized by frugality, self-reliance, resourcefulness, and productivity.
So she is home even when far from home. For America may be in her name, but Ilocos is always in her heart.
***
¹ Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, et al., eds., Sukimat: Proceedings of the 2007–2008 Nakem Conferences (Batac, Ilocos Norte: Nakem Philippines, 2009), 88.
A midnight landslide last Friday (09 Oct 09) crumpled three houses along the Dominican Hill-QM border in Baguio City, killing four people [not five as earlier posted, see comment] and displacing four families.
smsaboy photo
smsaboy photo
smsaboy photo
“Language, Culture, and Identity:
A Perspective from a Fil-Am Educator”
(Lecture)
by Ms. Efrenia Fe A. Maclean
Visiting Educator from the U.S.
05 October 2009
2 P.M.
UP Baguio Multi-Purpose Hall
Hosted by UPB’s
Graduate Committee/Sentro ng Wikang Filipino
of the College of Arts and Communication
OBLATION, UP BAGUIO (sms photo, 28 Sept09)
Markus Balázs Göransson has just completed his thesis for his MA in Conflict Studies and Human Rights. The title of his research is “The Power of Peace Pacts in Struggle: The role of the bodong system in the Kalingas’ mobilisation against the Chico River Dam project in the Cordillera Mountains, the Philippines.”
Meanwhile, Tom Kips is delivering a public lecture on the decline of Kalinga tattooing tradition on 8 October 2009 at the CSC Research Laboratory (see below). Tom is pursuing his MA in Cultural Anthropology.
Both are graduate students of Utrecht University and research affiliates of UP Baguio’s Cordillera Studies Center (CSC).
Short reviews of their works will be posted on this blog later.
REVIEW
Not just a source of historical trivia
By Scott Saboy
Philippine Daily Inquirer [http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/]
First Posted 00:57:00 09/02/2009
Filed Under: history, Books
Fragments of a City’s History
Edited by Delfin Tolentino Jr.
Cordillera Studies Center
University of the Philippines Baguio, 2009
BAGUIO CITY turned 100 years old on September 1 and a new book was released to recap the sounds and stories of its past.
Among these sounds are the rustle of pine trees, the crash of timber, and the thunder of a thousand hoofs rampaging across a vast pastureland toward a mound of salt.
There is also the sound of the labored breathing of Igorot people shovelling through dozens of landslides along a new wagon trail, the roar of bombs reducing the city to ruins, the countless frantic clanging of post-war reconstruction, and the bustle of an ever-expanding urban marketplace.
These are the sounds now drowned in the rage of jeepneys and taxis snaking along the city’s roads and of disco or karaoke hubs dotting its heart.
And then there are the stories, most of them now largely forgotten.
The history of Baguio consists of multiple narratives put together in Fragments of a City’s History: A Documentary History of Baguio, published by the University of the Philippines Baguio’s Cordillera Studies Center.
It is a collection of carefully chosen texts taken from 20 documentary sources. The selections detail the economic, cultural, religious and social accidents that contributed to the development of a vast Ibaloi pasture land into a colonial hill station and the country’s summer capital.
Among the stories that the book reconstructs is that of how Ibaloi headman Mateo Carino multiplied his cattle and land when Baguio had not yet been appropriated by the Americans, and how this land evolved into one of the finest colonial hill stations in the world.
The book also presents the story of how some of the city’s famous streets (like Chugum, Guisad and Kayang) acquired their native place names; how foreigners got to reserve for themselves the finest spots of a “cloud-world” in the orient while the natives got to live along the margins of the lands they used to call their own; how sympathetic westerners sought to repair the damage done by their own fellows who had amused themselves into thinking that the primitive locals “might have been devils striving to force a way out of hell!”; and how personalities carved Baguio into a modern metropolis.
These are stories chronicled in the letters, diaries, travel reports, government issuances and other historical documents that make up “Fragments of a City’s History.”
The anthology begins with a history of important Ibaloi families and the Spanish settlement of Benguet and ends with an account of how Baguio became a regional capital and bustling metropolis in the 1960s.
Discourses
For sure, it is “not a comprehensive selection of texts,” as the book editor, UP Baguio professor Delfin Tolentino Jr., admits. But it does present a variety of lenses through which readers may get to understand how “the identity of the city has been formed by a wide range of discourses.”
You may regard, as does James Joyce, that history is a nightmare. Or as one that, as Cicero would have us believe, “testifies to the passing of time … illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.” Or one that “has many cunning passages, contrived corridors and issues,” as T.S. Eliot put it.
Whatever view you take, “Fragments of a City’s History” will certainly not just serve as a source of historical trivia. It is an important resource for those who wish to explore the drama that was and is Baguio. It is also for those who wish to probe into the identity of a place once vaunted as “the cleanest, healthiest, most beautiful and best governed city in the country.”
A myth is a kind of story told in pulic, which people tell one another; they wear an air of ancient wisdom, but that is part of their seductive charm. Not all antiques are better than a modern design — especially if they’re needed in ordinary, daily use… myths aren’t writ in stone, they’re not fixed, but often, telling the story of the same figures — of Medea or of dinosaurs — change dramatically both in content and meaning. Myths offer a lens which can be used to see human identity in its social and cultural context — they can lock us up in stock reactions, bigotry and fear, but they’re not immutable, and by unpicking them, the stories can lead to others. Myths convey values and expectations which are always evolving, in the process of being formed, but — and this is fortunate — never set so hard they cannot be changed again, and newly told stories can be more helpful than repeating old ones.
♣ Marina Warner, Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts, and More (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 19.
Donna Rosenberg defines myth as “a sacred story from the past” that “may explain the origin of the universe and of life, or… express its culture’s moral values in human terms” (1997: xxiv). It involves the interplay of the human and the superhuman, the natural and the supernatural.
As myth, in the words of Daniel Pinchbeck (2007:10), “imparts a structure to space and time” and “weaves a world into being,” it creates an identity around which its believers unite. Exploring the myth of a particular culture, then , means understanding its worldview.
Many dismiss myths today simply as vestiges of a primitive (i.e., unenlightened, irrational, irrelevant, worthless) past, finding neither sense nor redemptive value in attempting to understand a worldview that seems so “out of this world.” To these people, myths are useful only to the hopelessly superstitious or to the hard–nosed academician armed to the teeth with theories used to tear apart ideologies.
But there are still many of us who agree with Rosenberg who noted that myths are
the source of our most important attitudes and values, the principles by which we live, and the ideals for which we sacrifice our lives. They create meaning out of nothingness, sense out of nonsense, order out of chaos, and purpose out of aimlessness. Myths meet genuine psychological needs. They make a culture’s spiritual beliefs and values concrete and understandable. They are a spiritual compass that guides us along life’s journey. [1997: xxvi]
In this light, we laud a new work on Bontoc mythology by an yFontok, Antonina “Toni” Magkachi Manochon. She has just successfully defended her masters thesis, “Interpreting Selected Myths and Folktales as Expression of Bontoc Worldview,” at the University of the Philippines Baguio. Operating on the theoretical grids of Psychoanalysis (Freud & Jung), Structuralism (Strauss) and Functionalism (Bascom), she unravels the mythological fabric of Bontok culture and gives us an accurate perspective of an often misunderstood indigenous concept of being and becoming.
According to Toni’s adviser, Prof. Delfin L. Tolentino, this work is significant for its informed analysis of Igorot myths. Works on indigenous myths, he explained, have usually been geared towards some pedagogical or didactic end, often neglecting a critical and creative treatment of the subject.
Reading the work reminds one of Marina Warner’s words:
…myths are not always delusions, that deconstructing them does not necessarily mean wiping them, but that they represent ways of making sense of universal matters, like sexual identity and family relations, and that they enjoy a more vigorous life than we perhaps acknowledge, and exert more of an inspiration and influence than we think. (1994: xix)
I share the hope of Prof. Tolentino and Dr. Elinora Peralta−Imson, thesis reader, of seeing more Igorots engaging in similar researches in order to help preserve and/or develop indigenous culture.
We look forward to seeing Toni’s work in book form as the governor of Mt. Province himself, Atty. Max Dalog, was heard to have exuberantly vowed to publish the work soon.
Works cited: Pinchbeck, Daniel. 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007; Rosenberg, Donna. Folklore, Myths, and Legends. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Publishing Group, 1997; Warner, Marina. Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts, and More. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
Posipos (lit., “turn around,” “twist”) is a healing ritual of the Kalingas in which relatives and friends gather in the home of a sick person to pray for his recovery (i.e., “turning” him from illness to well–being). The event includes exhortations by elders, a fellowship meal over a carabao, cow, and/pig butchered for the occasion, and dancing. It is akin to apogid (apo = “God” + gidigid = slicing) which essentially means a curing ceremony involving the offering of an animal to God as part of a bargaining process aimed at securing God’s extension of a sick person’s life.
One such ceremony transpired in Bayaksan, Taloy Sur, Tuba, Benguet last Sunday at the residence of Tommy Dannang, a Kalinga of the Banao tribe and currently a sheriff at the RTC in Baguio. Mr. Dannang has been in and out of the hospital for the past few months and, as many Igorots with prolonged illnesses are wont to do, has resorted to the traditional way of healing to supplement the curative powers of medical science. For those of us young Kalingas who have long been distanced from our indigenous roots, it was another learning session on Kalinga culture mainly through the informal speeches of Judge Francis Buliyat, Joseph Dupali — our merry master of ceremonies — and other Kalinga elders.
The gathering demonstrated how Kalingas translocated from the province to a regional center have perpetuated their indigenous practices while adapting these to a multicultural setting, as shown in the following:
1. Traditionally, the sacrificial animals for a posipos were provided by the children or other relatives of the sick. In this case, it was Mr. Dannang himself who bought a pig and a cow. Too, the ritual used to be hosted only by the traditional baknang (aristocrats), but it has now become the privilege of any educated and relatively well–to–do Kalinga.
2. Illustrating the indigenization of a foreign religion, the practice has melded with Christian theology as shown in how God is addressed and how Bible passages are sometimes invoked by the elders in their exhortations. Some church leaders were even present to join in the well–wishing. The sap–uy (pray–over) led by Mr. Dupali was not much different from a regular Christian prayer session except for the slice of meat and diket (rice cake) on the table and the freedom of other elders to inject their thoughts to the intercessory prayer led by one of them.
3. As confessed by Mr. Dupali, the traditional posipos he knew as a teenager was boring to the young with most of the elders brooding over someone’s state of health. Posipos should be a festive occasion, he insisted, because it looks forward to a better day for the sick. So in this occasion, tadok/pattong (traditional dance/gong–playing) and the swapping of anecdotes became important parts of the affair.
In all these, I saw the resolve of my elders to exemplify a gentler face of Kalinga. I also noted their desire to promote a healthy view of their customs in relation to mainstream culture, and so with them keeping the gate of innovation open, a greater chance for the indigenous to survive in the pluralistic present is assured.
Parenthetically, I wish Christian missionaries who really want to positively influence our culture would seriously look into how practices as this could be the conduits of their message of reconciliation and peace.
♣♣♣
KALPRA and Kalinga Day Updates
The Kalinga Professionals and Residents Association (KALPRA) is currently headed by Prof. Alex Gumabol with Rocky Pallogan as vice president. Other officers are Tommy Dannang (Secretary), Joseph Dupali and Greenfields Pinateg, (Business Managers), Jun Maymaya (Treasurer), and Atty. George Dumawing (Auditor).
According to Judge Francis Buliyat, the 2010 Kalinga Day (February 14) will be hosted by Tanudan Municipality. Details to be finalized in the next few months. Hosting has completed its rounds among the municipalities of Kalinga, except Rizal.
♣♣♣
…our most spiritually gifted sages warn us time and time again that we shouldn’t equate our limited and faulty concepts of God with the actual Supreme Being of the universe. Adherents sometimes ignore this sound advice and use incomplete concepts of God as wedges of separation, leading to sectarian strife and, regrettably, religious warfare. Where God comforts and heals, religions sometimes confuse and divide. This is especially true when God is enlisted in the cause of human projects like the creation of governments or the realignments of territorial boundaries. Non–religious ideologies such as Nazism and Communism produced a vast harvest of death in the twentieth century, and yet we still must count the human costs that have resulted from the politicization of God.
♥ Jeffrey B. Webb, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Exploring God (Indianapolis, IN: Alpha, 2005), 326.
Xaverian missionary priest Rocco Viviano, in his article, “Remembering the Forgotten: The Present Roman Catholic Perspectives on Interreligious Dialogue,” captured the importance of the interfacing of faiths this way:
…interreligious dialogue should be taken up as an interconfessional Christian endeavor in response to the question that the present pluralistic context poses to all Christian communities: ‘How are you Christian churches going to witness to the God of Jesus Christ without losing the integrity of your faith while at the same time not overlooking the signs of God’s grace that are to be found in the world and particularly the religious experience of individuals and communities of faith?’ [in E. Acoba, et al., Naming the Unknown God (Manila: ATS/OMF, 2006), 77]
Viviano’s observation and suggestion became more relevant to me when I attended the “Inter–Faith Encounter 2009″ hosted by the Department of Religion of Saint Louis University (SLU) on 25 September 2009. 91 participants representing 13 “Spiritualities” (faith systems) gathered for the event which was centered on the theme: “Journeying together toward an integral human development.”
The Spiritualities are Ageless Wisdom, Ananda Marga, Bahai Faith, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Catholic Christianity, Cordillera Indigenous, Eckankar, Ecumenical Coalition of Spiritual Missionaries of the Philippines, Hare Krishna, Hinduism, Islam, and Latter Day Saints.
Representatives of these groups were allotted five−minute presentations in answer to the question, “What are the teachings and practices of your Spirituality that contribute to the integral/total/holistic development of humans and the whole of creation?” The discussions fell into four segments interspersed with five−minute question−and−answer periods.
For an ex–sectarian preacher like me, the nearly three–hour sharing of beliefs and practices was refreshing and enlightening. Initially, the penchant for an I’ll–prove–you–wrong debate I got conditioned in as a one–time member of an exclusivist Christian group wanted to break loose. It got quickly chained, though, and my thoughts got attuned to the prevailing spirit of the affair: tolerance. As I came to understand it, the tolerance the participants commonly held was not something that denied differences, but one that respected differences while exploring points of agreement; it was not something that naively asserted the absence of mutually contradictory beliefs, but one that celebrated whatever divine truths each faith system has.
The forum sought to “identify… commonalities and points of convergence [of] people with religious and spiritual convictions.” Toward the end of the activity, SLU Theology professor Gil Reoma summed up these “commonalities and points of convergence” as follows:
1. All are believers, we live according to our beliefs. Our faith gives meaning and purpose to our lives.
2. We are one; all religions come from one Source.
3. We live by principles, of the law of nature, of the Divine.
4. Affirmation of the Divinity in different names both as transcendent who is Totally Other than and immanent who is with us.
5. Affirmation of our Nature: we are Spiritual Beings (Souls).
6. We have ethical practices guided by love and respect.
The forum was a venue where one is made “to look at each other’s beauty,” as one Brahma Kumaris guru put it. And that beauty, she continues, is made visible when we look into our fellow’s eye, into her/his soul and be made to realize that we are one in that plane of consciousness where color, gender, and ethnicity do not exist or do not matter.
It was another learning session where one becomes more conscious of the multiple meanings we attach to words wrought by the various cultural millieu we grew in. It was one which urges us to ponder further how we must deal not only with institutionalism and sectarianism but with relativism and syncretism as well.
Surely, it is doubtful whether a forum as this could actually and totally dissolve differences among those who belong to various persuasions. What is certain, however, is that it multiplies the possibility of cooperation in a community which seeks to “foster the culture of caring.”
Kudos to apo university president Jessie Hechanova and SLU!
INTERFACE OF FAITHS. SLU museum curator Isikias Pikpikan (inset) shares the core beliefs and practices of the indigenous peoples of the Cordilleras, the Igorot, with 90 other participants in the 25 September 2009 interfaith dialogue held at the AVR of the College of Human Sciences (CHS), Saint Louis University (SLU). sms photo
Salaknib Rules 3rd Baguio Centennial Arnis Cup
Baguio Midland Courier, 01Oct09
by Scott Saboy
Salaknib Martial Arts System struck 6 gold, 2 silver and 9 bronze medals to grab the overall championship in the 3rd Baguio Centennial Arnis Cup held at People’s Park last September 21.
Irisan National High School came second with 5 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze medals followed by YMCA Sphinx (4G,5S, 2B), Baguio Central University (3G,4S, 4B), San Vicente National High School (3G, 2S, 5B), and Rizal National High School (3G, 2S, 4B).
113 arnisadores representing 12 arnis clubs in the city took part in the tournament mainly sponsored by the National Institute of Information and Technology (NIIT) in coordination with the Baguio Centennial Commission. 11 minor sponsors also supported the event.
The first tournament was held last February with NIIT as overall champion, the second in June with YMCA Spinx taking the title. The final tourney is tentatively scheduled this December.
In his welcome remarks, NIIT school administrator and event organizer Vladimir Cayabas stressed that the series of activities not only aims to celebrate the city’s centennial but also to highlight the need to preserve and develop indigenous sports as a vital component of Filipino national identity.
Guest speaker Councilor Rocky Balisong also underscored the twin goals of sports – physical development and responsible citizenship. “Victory,” he said, “doesn’t necessarily mean winning. What’s most important is that you played the right way.” Long known as a strong supporter of arnis and other sports, he urged the participants to invite more young people to engage in sports and so help solve juvenile delinquency.
Salaknib members display their arnis skills in an exhibition during the third Baguio Centennial Arnis Cup held at People's Park.
Salaknib founder Rei Samson (L), 4th dan, poses with some of his students during a break in one of their training sessions at Burnham Park.
See related article @ filipinofightingarts.
Even in the most miserable conditions, in the most inauspicious circumstances, love blossoms and brightens one’s small patch of sky. Perhaps that is where hope ultimately resides, not only in the supreme courage of those who would die for their beliefs but also in the small kindnesses of those who could not.
♥ Priscilla Supnet Macansantos, “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times,” in Celeste T. Subido, ed., The Baguio We Know (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc., 2009), 51.
My parents and most of our neighbors in my hometown didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the Martial Law era, so I grew up thinking that Ferdinand Marcos’ iron rule spelled only greatness for our country: Marcos built our extensive irrigation systems and flood-control structures; Marcos made concrete highways that lasted for years; Marcos ensured the rule of law and struck fear in the hearts of cattle rustlers and other criminal elements; Marcos made the Philippines glamorous on the world stage of politics and the arts; Marcos…
After high school, I was to see the dark side of the Marcos years primarily through my readings of the horrifying accounts of abduction, torture, murder, and other forms of repression during that period. And I began to notice the cracks on Apo Makoy’s hallowed statue that had long cast a great shadow over Ilokandia. The rays of truth about desaparecidos and glossy propaganda in an autocratic state shot through the cracks and an epiphany of some sorts finally dawned on me. And so mine became another coming-of-age mini-story.
No, this doesn’t mean that I have to totally demonize Marcos and everything that has come to represent him. It just means that when Imelda says she doesn’t have anything to regret about Martial Law or when she talks about beauty and truth and God, I want to puke.
***
The books were all ears, as were students poring over research materials, and the lower floor of our school library temporarily suspended its “Shhh!” policy. The impassioned readings about harrowing stories of repression and abuse were too electrifying to miss:
♣ “Sa Panahon ni Hitler (Bangungot)” ni Luchie Maranan (read by the author herself)
♣ “Martial Law (sa pananaw ng hindi ipinanganak ng panahong ito),” blog post ni “annemarxze” (binasa ni Christian Fajardo)
♣ “Para Kay James Balao” ni Priscilla Supnet Macansantos (binasa ni Shekinah Queri)
♣ Kabanata 26 ng Etsa–Puwera ni Jun Cruz Reyes (binasa ni Abigail Torreliza)
♣ Mula sa “Tutubi, Tutubi, Huwag Kang Papahuli sa Mamang Salbahe” ni Jun Cruz Reyes (binasa ni Faye Abalos)
Of course, my favorite reading was that of Professor Abalos whose vocal manipulation of the text can melt a metallic heart (at boses pa lang yun ha hehe… ).
May we not forget these and other mini–stories of anguish so that we can, in times of merriment, remember that we can now freely chat and laugh because brave souls in the past were willing to be gagged and silenced for our sake.
I am honored to share with our readers the following article penned by one of the preachers I have come to admire for his inspiring cross–shaped testimony. May this article help my former churchmates in the (Stone–Campbell) Church of Christ in the Philippines to finally and fully understand and confess the sterility of a patternistic theology and the inauthenticity of a sectarian life.
∞∞∞
[posted with permission]
THE PLAGUE OF PATTERNISM
♥ Edward William Fudge
Part 1 — Background
All Christians agree that Jesus is our pattern, and that healthy teaching consistent with trusting and loving him provides a secondary pattern for living as well (2 Tim. 1:13). This short gracEmail series is not about that. It is about an oddity and aberration that has marked the Christian tribe into which I was born and raised, and from which home base I now serve the body of Christ at large. That particular tribe is the Churches of Christ. The peculiarity is at once a doctrine, a way of reading the Bible and an approach to “doing church.” We can call it patternism. Today, most mainstream Churches of Christ have left this peculiarity behind, at least as a matter of emphasis. Those who have done so often describe the transition in terms of the Israelites being delivered from Egyptian slavery.
For readers who might not know, I will say that the Churches of Christ flowed from the merger of two 19th-century, back-to-the-Bible movements, led by three former Presbyterian preachers. The smaller movement resulted from the work of Barton W. Stone, who had been a participant in the famous Cane Ridge Revival. The larger movement was initiated by the father-son pair, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, who had emigrated from Ireland and Scotland to America. The Campbells called for the restoration of “primitive Christianity,” which they defined primarily in terms of external details of the institutional church.
Just as God provided Moses an exact pattern for building the Tabernacle, said the Campbells, so he had provided an exact pattern for his people to follow when restoring the apostolic church of the first century. And if people of good will would only use their common sense, the Campbells believed (following the steps of the English philosopher John Locke), they would soon discover that divine pattern and agree on its details.
But there was a flaw in the Campbells’ proposal. It is true that God gave Moses voluminous and exact details for the Tabernacle and its furnishings (Exodus 25-40), and also concerning the priests and sacrifices (Leviticus). But if we read the New Testament from cover to cover, we will not find a book that even slightly resembles Exodus or Leviticus. Indeed, when the writer of Hebrews refers to the “pattern” that God gave to Moses, he is making a contrast with the Christian order. He is not suggesting that Christians also have such a pattern for the church (Heb. 8:1-6). Nor does the biblical writer suppose that Christians will ever build or reconstruct God’s spiritual house. They cannot do that, even if they wish, for the “true tabernacle” is built by God and not by man (Heb. 8:2).
Part 2 — The ‘CENI-S’ jigsaw puzzle
The New Testament Scriptures contain numerous guiding principles for Christian believers, both individually and together in community. However, it does not contain detailed instructions for the church, of the sort that God gave to Moses for building the Tabernacle. But pattern-seekers are very serious about serving God, which causes them to be both creative and persistent. “Surely a pattern is in there somewhere,” they reasoned, “even if it is not immediately obvious. Perhaps it is fragmentary and under the surface.”
And with that, they began to scour the New Testament Scriptures for scattered bits and pieces of any pattern that might be hidden there. They gathered a verse here and a phrase there. Occasionally, they picked up an entire paragraph. Then, when they believed they had found all the parts, they carefully assembled the pieces — like some giant jigsaw puzzle — to create their divine blueprint for the New Testament church. But for what did they look in their search? How did they recognize a pattern puzzle piece when they saw it?
Pattern puzzle pieces come in three shapes, according to Church of Christ pattern-seekers. Each piece bears the form either of an express command (“C”), an approved example (“E”), or a necessary inference (“NI”). But the picture on the completed puzzle is surrounded on four sides with a very thick border. According to the pattern-seekers, this means that every detail of church structure, worship, leadership, and ministry must be “authorized” by one of those puzzle pieces, or else it is unlawful. By their reckoning, silence does not mean consent. It means absolute prohibition (“S”). We will refer to this doctrinal system as “CENI-S,” an abbreviation for “command, example, necessary inference” and “silence.”
At this point, it is important for us to point out a crucial distinction. It is always a good thing (and there is never any harm) for anyone to ask sincerely, “What has God commanded?” or “For what has God commended others?” Nor is it bad to use our brains in seeking God’s will. But there is very great harm indeed in creating a human system of doctrine, and binding it on others as a test of Christian fellowship or as a condition of salvation. That is what I mean by “patternism.” That is what turns something inherently healthy into something that is foul and diseased. That is the “plague” that gives this little gracEmail series its name.
Part 3 — A necessary plan that never worked
We had as well face it straight on. The pattern-seekers, well-intentioned as they were, created something that the New Testament does not require, suggest or even envision. It is no wonder that their scheme of commands, examples and necessary inferences, and the underlying assumption that everything not “authorized” was automatically forbidden, has been a horrible disaster. From the very beginning, the “CENI-S” approach was hopelessly ambiguous, completely unworkable, and incapable of consistent application.
For example, most patternists dismissed as irrelevant some commands that were inconvenient (such as feet-washing) or shaped by culture (such as a holy kiss or a woman’s veil). They made other commands, originally intended for limited application (such as Paul’s Gentile collection for poor Judeans), into permanent, universal law. They declared some historical events, however incidental, to be binding as “approved examples” (such as Paul’s weekend bread-breaking at Troas). But they dismissed as unimportant other events recorded in the same biblical context (such as eating in an upper room).
Inferences which one person viewed as “necessary” were considered entirely unnecessary by others. Conclusions based on inductive reasoning were assigned a level of certainty that is logically possible only through deductive argument. Other conclusions, properly based on deductive reasoning, were nevertheless flawed because their premises included human assumptions instead of biblical propositions. The whole approach had been fabricated by uninspired men, and it had no moral power. Its survival required constant persuasion (at best) or political pressure (at worst).
About 35 years ago, I attended a lunch meeting of preachers who considered compliance with their pattern a necessity for faithfulness to God. As they were about to go their separate ways, a wise senior member warned the others, “If all the preachers and elders in our brotherhood suddenly died today, I am afraid there would be no faithful churches left within one generation.” To which I thought (and might have said aloud), “That is because your whole system originates with men. If it were from God, it would not have to be constantly propped up to survive.”
Part 4 — Restorationism eclipses unity
For Thomas and Alexander Campbell, pattern theology was primarily a way to restore the primitive church. The restoration of the primitive church was a means of uniting believers in all denominations. When believers united, the world would convert to Christ. The world’s conversion would trigger the beginning of the Millennium, which would climax 1,000 years later with the return of Jesus Christ (the Campbells were post-millennialists). But the Campbells’ dream was not to be. Historical events, particularly the American Civil War, proved to be more than their utopian theory could endure.
Without the Campbells’ series of cause-and-effect connections, the goal of restoring the primitive church gradually pushed aside the goal of Christian unity, and restorationism emerged as the reason for Churches of Christ to exist. In the process, pattern theology (“CENI-S”) increasingly became sectarian and legalistic, both in tone and in form. The problem was not a bad attitude or a defective application of principles. The problem was the two-part assumption that God had placed in the New Testament Scriptures a detailed and mandatory pattern for the true church, and that the “CENI-S” principles provided the key that was necessary for its discovery.
Patternism prevailed as the primary mindset for most Churches of Christ until about the mid-20th century. In its wake were at least six (some say as many as 20-25) sub-groups or mini-Church of Christ “brotherhoods,” each usually recognizing only its own members as fellow-Christians, or certainly as the only “faithful” ones. Most of the “regular members” (“clergy” and “laity” were not in their vocabulary) were decent, loving people. Most of their preachers were bivocational, sacrificial and devout. Yet, for members and preachers alike, “evangelism” often meant telling Christians in other denominations about “the New Testament church” (or “true church”), and “conversion” occurred when someone left another denomination and joined a Church of Christ.
By the end of the 1950’s, most larger, white, urban, American Churches of Christ were well into the process of abandoning pattern theology, in favor of a less institutionalized and more personal understanding of their faith. Patternism continued in many congregations that were either smaller, African-American, rural, or the products of church-plantings outside the USA, all of which tended to be dependent, traditionally-inclined and susceptible to authoritarian influences from outside. But an era was about to pass, and things would never be the same again.
Part 5 — A very helpful book
As measured by the patternism that traditionally characterized Churches of Christ before the 1950’s, the mainstream was on the wrong side of almost every disputed issue. The truth is that patternism’s logic did not really allow the whole parade of “innovations” — Sunday Schools, multiple communion cups, “located preachers,” fellowship halls, church kitchens, or support of benevolent or evangelistic institutions from the church treasury. Of course, if consistently applied, patternism also would have excluded church buildings, traditional “worship services,” permanent church treasuries, and patternistic preachers.
But patternism itself had been wrong from the beginning. It was foreign to the Bible, a distraction from the gospel, and a constant competitor with Jesus for top billing in sermons and debates. Among mainstream Churches of Christ with Sunday morning attendance of 200+ persons, congregations strongly advocating the “CENI-S” principles today likely represent a very small minority. The most diligent continuing proponents of this system of interpretation are a sub-group of churches who identify themselves as “non-institutional” — ironically, as it happens, since their separate existence is justified only by a thoroughly institutionalized view of the church and everything pertaining to it.
I close by mentioning a very helpful new book, titled A Call to Unity: A Critical Review of Patternism and the Command-Example-Inference-Silence Hermeneutic, by Barry L. Perryman (Lander, Wyo.: IRM Press, soft cover, 83 pages, 2009). An associate professor of biotechnology at the University of Nevada-Reno, Dr. Perryman inspects the “CENI-S” hermeneutic from beginning to end in light of the Scriptures. It will come as a surprise to some to learn that Jesus himself rejected the first-century version of patternism’s principles, or that patternism can become what Paul called “another gospel.” For more information about Call to Unity, contact the author directly .
Today, with the emergence of new, and concededly more titillating, tourist destinations, many will admit that Baguio has “fallen from grace” from its once lofty position as “Summer Capital of the Philippines.” However, perhaps more than anything, this collection of works reveals the Baguio that is so much more than the handmaiden to tourism that some may falsely believe is the answer to this city’s ultimate salvation. This collection of works provides a glimpse into that “view from within” of a place forged in consciousness that transcends boundaries of time and space.
♥ from the Introduction
Lalo ka raw mapapalapit kay Bro ‘pag isinuot mo ang mga tsinelas na ito (It is said that these slippers can get you closer to Jesus). Sige ‘tol, try mo lang. Malay mo, you may yet be able to see the imp in you transformed into a cherub nyehehe.
