Medal of excellence

By Elson Elizaga / September 14, 2006

THE most admired and respected mayor of Cagayan de Oro is Justiniano R. Borja, who started his administration in 1954. Borja was responsible for the phenomenal growth of the city since 1959, when he opened the Cogon Market. A statue built in his honor stands at the Golden Friendship Park. The monument was made by the National Artist for Sculpture Napoleon V. Abueva.

According to historian and anthropologist Dr. Antonio J. Montalvan II, Borja was called the Arsenio Lacson of Cagayan de Oro because "he was, above all, no-nonsense. He ruled without fear or favor. He had political will. Most importantly, he remained simple and would walk to and from his office without any bodyguards. His funeral cortege, which I personally witnessed, was attended by legions of Cagay-anons, many of whom openly wept at the sight of his bier which was placed atop a decorated float. Shops and establishments were closed for business at their own behest."

Montalvan adds: "Borja is the only city mayor who has been given multiple honors, proof of how much he was loved by the city that he served so well. There is JR Borja St., JR Borja Memorial City Hospital, and the Divisoria statue. He was also the only city mayor of Cagayan de Oro who was honored by Xavier University with an honorary doctorate degree honoris causa... Many male babies were named Justiniano, complete with the nickname of Tiñing... Raf Benaldo, who who once served as undersecretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), once told me that Tiñing Borja has become the benchmark for the city’s public servants, a fact that, sadly, no one has capably equalled."

Today, the administration of Cagayan de Oro City is dominated by the PaDayon Pilipino-Lakas-Christian and Muslim Democrat party. Its leader, mayor Vicente Y. Emano, an ally of president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, boasts of many infrastructure projects such as the construction of Bulua Market, the renovation of Cogon and Carmen public markets; the construction of Taguanao-Balulang road, the Bulua-SM road, and the Nazareth-Carmen bridge. Emano also claims credit for generating new investments because of trade missions abroad.

But the political opposition criticizes the mayor’s management style, which is characterized by lack of transparency and consultation, and disregard for heritage preservation. The mayor himself admits of approving projects that have no required legal documents. One major construction has no Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC). It destroyed a huge portion of an ancestral, archaeological site.

Emano also reported of having approved the planned groundbreaking of a P4.6-billion development project of Ayala Land in December 2006 when this project has not yet acquired an ECC according to the Environmental Management Bureau. Other development projects, like the Carmen-Nazareth bridge, have no reported ECCs.

Opposition has demanded for the publication of contracts, but the mayor has a standing order for City Hall employees not to release government documents. Opposition also accuses the City Council of being the mayor’s "rubber stamp" prior to the entry of opposition councilor Zaldy Ocon. When Ocon expressed criticism of City Council procedure about a huge loan, the City Council majority suspended Ocon without due process. The City Council based its decision on a mere motion by vice-mayor Michelle Tagarda Spiers, who used a verbal statement from an unidentified "drunk, old man" as reference. A judge nullified the suspension.

In August 2006, the mayor issued a memo, "reminding" the City Council not to summon anyone without his permission. Spiers responded by saying the mayor has right to make such an order, further supporting opposition claim that the executive and legislative heads of the City Hall are united.

Local newspapers and radio stations have issued reports about City Hall financial anomalies involving millions of pesos, quoting the Commission on Audit. The mayor and several councilors claim that all transactions are in order. But a regional court recently found the mayor and other officials guilty for lying on a case about the renovation of the Cogon Market.

The mayor often describes new investments through his radio programs, giving the impression that his administration is largely responsible for the growth of Cagayan de Oro. But a 2006 report by the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) excludes Cagayan de Oro from the list of most competitive cities in the Philippines. Its small neighbor Iligan City, to the surprise of even its residents, is mentioned instead. One criterion used in the AIM research is quality of life.

Despite these issues, DILG-10 is preparing documents to nominate Emano for the Konrad Adenauer Medal of Excellence (Kame).

(An online version of this article is in the section "OFFICIALS"of cagayan.elizaga.net.)

Tsada Spain, Tsada India

By Elson Elizaga / August 31, 2006

THE birth of Jon Finn has prevented me from joining this year’s Cagayan de Oro fiesta celebration. But after seeing the numerous, ugly posters of the event, let me offer several suggestions to the organizers, from where I am as proprietor of Nazca Graphic Design & Photography:

 

ON LOGOS AND BILLBOARDS. Keep your logo simple. The elements should be visible when the logo is reduced to one half of an inch or less, because you need that size for your stationeries. Think of the logos of National Geographic and Deutche Bank, minimalist but memorably witty.

 

If you make ornate logos, the details will melt when the logo is decreased. If you use the logo for the Favicon in your website, you’ll be forced to create a 16x16-pixel graphic. If Favicon sounds gobbledygook to you, you probably know a little about cyberspace, where much of anything global is happening. A Favicon is an icon that appears in the address bar of a web browser.

 

Ornate, text-heavy, cluttered logos and billboards are a waste of money. Shake a newspaper while reading and take a walk in the street full of people. That’s about the same experience of a driver speeding at 40 kilometers per hour on the highway. He doesn’t care about reading the numerous text and cluttered graphics because it’s extremely dangerous. Have you ever seen Guess, Marlboro, and other top world companies put up a billboard with more than one photo and 20 letters each?

 

ON GOING GLOBAL. The posters say “Going Global” and “Unveiling Our City to the World”. But Cagayan de Oro has always been global. There are signs of international relations with China, Spain and other Asian lands in archaeological sites.

 

Since then, this city has received numerous visitors and migrants. My friend, the historian and anthropologist Dr. Antonio “Nono” J. Montalvan II, wrote that American governor generals William Howard Taft (who became the 27th US president), William Cameron Forbes, James F. Smith and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. came to our city.

 

Websites about Cagayan de Oro are also abundant. In 1998, I helped put Cagayan de Oro on a world map with the discovery of the first recorded megamouth shark in Southeast Asia. The map is hosted by the Florida Museum of Natural History. Our family is also hosting the promotional cagayan.elizaga.net.

 

The only time Cagayan de Oro almost become a Hermit Kingdom was when our politicians panicked with news about SARS. The City Council filed an ordinance banning non-Cagayan de Oro SARS victims from entering our hospitals. The draft ordinance even described the residents as “citizens”, as if Cagayan de Oro was a state.

 

If we have to “unveil” anything, that would be the City Hall financial records. In advanced, democratic cities, all government records are open, unless doing so would jeopardize national security or individual privacy.

 

ON TSADA. Organizers call this year’s fiesta “Tsada Kagay-an”, explaining that tsada -- an abbreviation of pachada, meaning “nice” or “beautiful” -- is unique to Cagayan de Oro. But Nono wrote in the online forum of the Heritage Conservation Advocates that tsada comes from the Spanish word fachada, "facade." He added that “’Tiene facha’ is someone who has ‘form.’”

 

That’s an interesting etymology. But I also saw a curious entry in Banglapedia, an online reference, indicating that pachada is a type of fine cotton from India:  “At least six varieties of fine cotton as well as woollen fabrics are mentioned, of which bafta, shanbaft, makhmal, sakelat (Persian scarlet stuff), sof (wollens, camelot of Arabic origin) are of Central Asian origin, while pachadi (or pachada), jhimbartali, chautar were definitely produced locally or in the adjoining areas of Bihar.”

 

My Indian friend Mathew Kuzhippallil, a painter and movie director, sent me an email explaining that da in pachada means “clothing”. Clothing could have been brought to the Philippines by either Indian or Chinese traders.

 

ON TIME: If we have to go global in our communications, we have to agree about time. Alvin Toffler in his “The Third Wave” mentioned time standardization as a prerequisite for an industrial, organized society. And yet, in Cagayan de Oro, the watches of many professionals, and the watches of radio stations, hospitals, schools, legal offices, and government agencies are not synchronized. Most are advanced by 10 to 15 minutes -- to the amusement of our visitors.

 

A friend joked that a dead watch is better than one set to an advanced time. At least, the dead watch is correct twice daily.

 

To set your watch to accurate, atomic time, follow the links indicated in cagayan.elizaga.net. You won’t miss it because of the clock logo on the left column. From there you can download a program that connects your computer to an atomic time server.

 

ON KAGAY-AN. Pronounce it the way you want, but remove the hyphen. The word kagay is absent in all Philippine languages, according to the linguist Dr. Lawrence Reid.

The Super President

By Elson Elizaga / August 23, 2006

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not giving comment on the leakage of the nursing board exam. I figured that if she does so, she would be put on the spot.

If she says the nurses should take the exam again, her statement would suggest that cheating is wrong, and that the officials responsible for the leakage must be punished.

If she says otherwise, she would be saying that cheating is acceptable.

My suspicion is she will wait for a month or so. And then when she is asked about the leakage, she would just say, "That’s an old issue."

*****

FPJ ran for president and lost. So now we have an FP––a "fake president", according to that general accused of mutiny.

But I disagree. We cannot determine whether Arroyo is FP or not. More like HP (hypothetical president).

Every student of nursing and medicine knows the five steps of the scientific method: observation, hypothesis, experimentation, further examination, and conclusion.

What’s the observation? Hello Garci Tapes, claims of tampering of ballots, the killings, and the President’s apology. And the hypothesis? Did she or didn’t she?

Do we have an answer? No, because we have not examined the evidence.

In 2003, Arroyo spoke grandiosely about "knowledge-based societies" and "education, science and culture" at the Unesco headquarters in Paris. But today, we have not proceeded to the experimentation phase regarding allegations about her role in the elections. So, we cannot make any conclusion.

We have a hypothetical president, a maybe president, a pwede-na president. And she is just so happy about it, as happy as she is about the 38 percent corruption rate––whatever that means––in Cagayan de Oro. Floating in the limbo of doubt and suspicion, unable to prove her critics right or wrong, she rallies the nation to move on and leave the "past" behind.

This call for ignoring evidence is not the domain of science, education and culture; it’s the realm of faith and religion.

*****

When shell-shocked caregivers returned from Lebanon, Arroyo ruminated on the idea of producing "super maids"––maids who "can administer first aid, attend to emergency procedures such as evacuation when there is a fire, can speak the language of the country of employment, aside from performing the usual chores of housekeeping and cooking."

The concept is clearly inspired by the blockbuster "Superman Returns".

But what’s a super mayor, a super Comelec official and a super congressman? What’s a super president? An omnipotent god of the country?

Huluga and the president in Spain

By Elson Elizaga / July 5, 2006

THE Huluga archaeological site in Cagayan de Oro can be used as a reference for business and diplomacy. Material remains from China, India, Thailand, and Spain were found here. If a Cagayan de Oro official would go to Beijing on a trade mission, he could tell his host, "Do you know that our relationship is 2,000 years old?"

That kind of statement would certainly attract interest, fascination and goodwill.

But because the mayor has destroyed a huge portion of Huluga––with the support of president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo––this heritage site has become a black eye to our leaders. City Hall takes great effort to avoid the subject in its cultural and investment programs.

Recently, for instance, Nanette Roa of the Historical and Cultural Commission of the City Hall wrote an article about the history of Cagayan de Oro for a book publication, but the article doesn’t mention Huluga.

As early as October 2003, vice mayor Michelle Tagarda Spiers declared that the Huluga issue was dead. But she was mistaken because when mayor Vicente Y. Emano went to Seoul, he was asked to explain about my letter on the "Cultural Terrorist in Korea."

Emano was also asked about the subject in China when he went there as head of a trade mission. Groups in India and Germany this year have also become aware of how the City Hall has treated our heritage site.

And recently, I sent a digitally-signed PDF communication to a Spanish minister, this time referring to the head of our country:

"Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is in Madrid for an audience with King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero. She will also invite Spanish businessmen to invest in the Philippines.

"Allow me to tell you that Arroyo’s management style has ruined a heritage site for the sake of ‘development’. We are concerned that Spanish economic assistance will contribute to further destruction of our heritage.

"Arroyo supported the construction of a P600-million bridge in Huluga, a Philippine archaeological site guaranteed protection by law. The bridge has no Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) and Archaeological Impact Assessment (AIA). It has destroyed the venue of a prehistoric settlement which was visited by Spanish priests in 1622, leading to the conversion of our ancestors. I found a Spanish coin minted between 1788 and 1808 in this place, among other artifacts. The coin bears the image of King Carlos IV.

"Huluga is a symbol of Spanish and Philippine relations in my city, and yet Arroyo has chosen to have this site desecrated. Furthermore, Arroyo also misled the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco): On September 29, 2003, Arroyo delivered a speech that profusely thanked Unesco for its efforts in preserving Philippine heritage, but the next day, Arroyo allowed the inauguration of the destructive, illegal bridge in Huluga.

"This issue and related others are described in http://heritage.elizaga.net.

"We understand that the people and government of Spain are concerned about cultural conservation. The HCA is pro-development and welcomes foreign investment. If Your Excellency is invited to a meeting with Arroyo, we suggest that Arroyo be asked how she can ensure that Spanish economic assistance will help preserve, protect and promote Spanish and Philippine heritage."

My email included a photo of the Copper 8 Maravedis coin. The artifact is worth only about P200. Found among earthenware sherds and obsidian flakes, it is of little value compared to the magnificent, priceless paintings of the great Juan Luna which hang in the Senate of Madrid. But she could have shown this item to King Carlos to illustrate her respect for Spanish heritage no matter how seemingly small. It would also suggest that the millions of Spanish money she was asking would be taken good care of. Instead, to impress her host, she used words that indicate how violence, war, and terror have become essential in international relations. She described Spain as the Philippines’ "partner in the fight against terrorism." 

I guess that means terrorism maintenance will keep the partnership going. With political assassination already a major industry in the Philippines, we have clearly demonstrated that we can achieve excellence in this endeavor.

Lesson number one

By Elson Elizaga / June 14, 2006

OUR helper named Marites is a witness to a distinct style of police education. She was in Cogon Market one day last year, selling home-made mango ice-cream when a policeman in blue uniform grabbed a boy on the run. The policeman put the boy's hands around his back and locked them with a handcuff. Then he gave the boy a powerful kick to his chest, sending him down 90 degrees to the cemented street.

Marites heard a light flicking sound as the boy's head hit the surface, his face flinching with pain. On her knees, she held the boy and gave the policeman a piece of her mind: “Isog kaayo mo basta gagmay, no?” (You are so brave with the small ones?) But the policeman snapped, "Gusto ka maapil? Unsa man diay ka, kauban mo ani?" (Do you want to be involved? Are you with this kid?) Then the policeman lifted the boy up like an animal.

 

Marites, who has two children, learned later that the boy had stolen a blue ball pen, a pencil, six notebooks, and a grade three pad of paper from Cagayan Educational Supply near Ororama. The boy then proceeded to take a backpack from a Maranao street vendor, who frantically called the police.

 

As I listened to Marites, I thought how easy it is for the poor to draw blood from their own kind. How swift and crystal clear the concept of crime and justice. And how blurred our ideas of right and wrong when incidents like this involve the powerful.

 

One of our friends who heard this story said he wished he was present at the scene in Cogon Market. He said he would have told the kid: “Sige lang, dong. Pasensiya lang. Pagdako nimo, banat jud para mahimo kang mayor. Kay bisan pila pa imong kuhaon, wa nay musipa nimo. Ikaw pa ang manglaparo.” (Be patient, kid. When you grow up, work hard so you will become a mayor. Then, whatever you take, nobody will kick you anymore. You will even slap people.)

 

Marites agreed: “Mao bitaw nga  ingon nila ang pobre mangawat sa ayha mudagan. Pero ang politiko mudagan sa ayha mangawat.” (That’s why they say the poor steal and run, but the politicians run then steal.)

 

Such comments are unfair, of course, for all politicians and the kabus. And I don’t understand the need to hit the mayor. Has it anything to do with the kid being hard-headed? Perhaps, but that impact, for all we know, could have caused some hemorrhage. If that kid survived the attack, he could grow up and apply for membership in BM29 instead of the honorable Padayon Pilipino, and maybe, just maybe, a guy on a motorcycle will pass by and put a bullet through his head.

 

***

The housemates of Pinoy Big Brother Teen edition are most likely back in school, secured with their fat earnings, like Kim who’s got P1 million, a 3G cell phone, and a supply of text messages from good friend Gerald.

 

But other students and their parents are not as happy after the declared bankruptcy of College Assurance Plan Philippines, Inc. (CAP) and Pacific Plans, Inc. (PPI). Several people in Cagayan de Oro are also edgy because TPG Corporation, another educational insurance firm, appears to be in trouble.

 

TPG has closed its large air-conditioned office at the corner of Hayes and Corrales Streets. The signboard is still there, but its staff has transferred to a small room at the third floor of Cheradel Building. This is just a collecting office. It’s smaller than an Internet café.

 

The education committee of the City Council has summoned a representative of TGP, and discovered that TGP has applied for “rehabilitation” -- an indication that TGP is having financial difficulty.

 

Nobody kicked anyone during that meeting, of course. Because that is against the law. I heard the dialogue was quite civil, educational and humane.

Siya Carmen

By Elson Elizaga / May 30, 2006

DRIVING from Opol on our way to do a photographic project at Museo de Oro, my palalabs and I were caught in a traffic jam of biblical proportion at the highway along RER subdivision. To conserve gas, I switched off the ignition, but when I slid down the windows to get our quota of oxygen––aacck!––we got carbon monoxide instead.

It was hot, humid and dense. The street vendor selling cold, bottled water looked like a terrorist, covered from head to toe. We were stuck for almost an hour. Eventually, finding a left-turn exit near Makro, and seeing the ominous, maddening buildup of vehicles at Marcos Bridge, we surrendered and decided to return to our home sweet home in Barra.

At night, finding the streets peaceful and suitable for human habitation, we left our residence again and this time succeeded in reaching Museo de Oro after just 15 blessed minutes. Lourd Ostique was still there at 9 p.m., comfortable inside his air-conditioned office, so neat and sparkling we felt we were inside a five-star hotel. We were happy––thank you, Lourd!––and contemplated about the possibility of regularly working at night and sleeping in the morning instead.

Times have changed, really. Today we are assured that the repair of Ysalina Bridge will be finished in June. But this will be small relief. Vehicles are multiplying like rabbits and I don’t see any sign of intelligent response anywhere. The traffic czar Ramon Tabor and a councilor, Maya Enteria, true to their being lawyers, react predictably to the chaos by talking about filing a case against the contractor. And yet, no one at the City Council had the nerve to sue mayor Vicente Y. Emano and UKC Builders for building a P600-million illegal bridge in outer space. No councilor demanded Emano to explain the desecration of our ancestral home. Only councilor Zaldy Ocon questioned the shady transactions related to the building of the Cogon, Bulua and Carmen markets.

There’s also a bridge that’s supposed to connect Kauswagan and Macabalan long ago, but it’s unfinished and idle and useless. Why are our lawyers not talking about filing a case against anyone here?

Don’t we have experts in the City Hall except lawyers? Where are our graduates of public administration, accounting, engineering, history, statistics, and traffic management? Don’t we have a City Planning Office? Don’t we have a Master Plan?

I’m afraid that despite, if not because of, the many infrastructure projects that the administration is bragging about, street vendors will soon be selling Comfort 100 in our streets. It’s the brand name of a handy container for urine, popular among drivers and commuters in Thailand during the traffic jam era. You have one design for men, and another for women. We will import them from China. They will be marked with "Filipino passion. Thai perfection. Chinese diction." They will be sold 10 pesos a dozen and, just like in the movie Mission Impossible, they will self-destruct a minute after collecting liquid, until your car smells like a public toilet.

Do you know the story from 89.3 Killer Bee about the two coeds who wanted to go to Lourdes College and barangay Carmen? They were such in a hurry that when they got inside a motorcab, one of them exclaimed telegraphically, "Ako Lourdes, siya Carmen!"

The driver replied: "Ako pud si Dodong!"

A little confusion there, but as Yoyoy V. would put it, "Nagkaintindihan din sila." The students reached their destinations on time. No problem.

But they can’t do that again today. If they tell Dodong, "Ako Lourdes, siya Carmen!", Dodong would certainly give an expression of concern and would most likely deliver this speech: "Mga miga, sorry jud kaayo. Grabe ang trapik ron kay gisirhan ang tulay. Lisud kaayo bisan diha sa Lourdes kay di ta kagawas. Maayo pa magbaklay na lang mo, then musakay mo ug banca paingon sa Carmen. Singko ra man ang plete. Wa man pud buaya diha, ingon nila. Pero kung gusto mo ug long cut, sakay mo ug jeep paingon sa Taguanao. Mahal lang. Kung late na jud mo sa inyong klase, diretso na lang mo sa SM. Bugnaw pa."

The Hyphen in Kagayan

 

By Elson T. Elizaga / May 14, 2006

 

YES, I’ve been suggesting for the removal of the hyphen in the word Kagay-an, as my friend Mike Baños wrote in his column last week. But I’m not saying we should change the original, native pronunciation. I'm mainly interested in helping the word attain visual stability. And one way to do that is to remove the hyphen.

 

I’m trained in graphic design, and I’m aware that any word broken by a hyphen appears weak, fragile, and disjointed, as if the sections are connected by pieces of thread. Notice how the word gains progressive visual stability when we remove the hyphens: Ka-gay-an, Kagay-an, Kagayan.

 

This effect explains why editors avoid placing the distracting hyphens at the end of titles, and why hyphens are absent in the default option of Microsoft Word.

 

The hyphen is a pronunciation guide, used mainly in dictionaries. We don’t have to use it to divide the syllables in our day-to-day writing unless the rules of grammar say so. Many languages, when written in the alphabet, do not use hyphens in most cases. For example, in English, we don't write Philippines as Phil-ip-pines and Microsoft as Mi-cro-soft. We can also read Tignapoloan and Tagoloan correctly without the hyphen because we know that loan is not the English word of banking and commerce.

 

My suggestion for the removal of the hyphen in Kagayan -- I’ve just deleted it -- is not meant to ignore the native speakers who pronounce the word as kagay-an. I like the distinct sound of the glottal stop there. I’m proud to be kagay-anon, and I would be happier if we change the name of the city to Kagayan de Oro. Just remove the hyphen because it’s superfluous. It’s bad for logos, proper names, and titles. That’s why we won’t find Sony-Erickson anywhere except as a typographical error. Nits Arancon has a TV program called Sil-ip. Why not change it to Silip? Anyway, everyone in Cagayan de Oro knows how to say it. Right, Su-san Pal-mes?

                                                   ***

I wonder if there is an anthropological study on the hyphen. I want to know if certain cultural groups use it more frequently than others. Apparently, the Tagalogs are not particularly interested in it. They have no trouble with nakaraan,  higaan, and Bataan. But we Kagayanons seem to have less faith in our readers. So, we usually write Biga-an instead of Bigaan because we’re worried that it would be misread as began. We also use Camaman-an instead of Camamanan. Some even prefer Tignapolo-an and Pigsag-an. Why do we have this propensity?

 

Perhaps we just want to be sure we would be understood, like the Slovaks during “The Hyphen War”. A year after the fall of the Communist government of Czechoslovakia,  Slovak politicians in 1990 demanded that the name of the country be spelled with a hyphen to distinguish the two groups of people in that place. So, the president came up with Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. During the succeeding months, this name was criticized and repeatedly revised.  They couldn’t even agree on whether to call the hyphen a hyphen or a dash. Eventually in 1993, Czech and Slovak politicians agreed to settle their deep-seated differences by splitting the country into two states.

 

I thought kagayan, like Czechoslovakia, was a combination of two words: kagay (river) and an (place). But according to the linguist Dr. Lawrence Reid, the reconstructed root word of kagayan is *kaRayan, which is a single concept meaning “river”. Its variants (karayan, kahayan, kagayan, and others) also mean “river”. So I don’t see any need to split the word, unless I’m making a phonetic illustration.

 

Hyphens are useful in other ways, of course. Grammar and style books devote pages to explain their functions. Batman and Superman have no hyphens, but the creator of Spider-Man fought a great battle to keep it. As for the ñ in Baños, that’s another story. Mike is the expert. He has a coat of arms to prove it. I’m just glad someone invented the period.

 

Elson T. Elizaga is the proprietor of Nazca Graphic Design & Photography. He is also the webmaster of cagayan.elizaga.net, which contains a note on the etymology of cagayan.Send comments to elson@elizaga.net