My New Year postscript

(This column appears in today's edition of the Leyte-Samar Daily Express)

Hi there! Belated Happy New Year everyone! It’s been nine days since we welcomed the new year, but I believe it’s never too late to share my usual (annual) whining about the world around me. First things first. It happens every time (or should I say every year?), I mean these new year’s resolutions. And I was tempted to call today’s column just that – My New Year’s Resolutions. I think I said this last year, and I’m saying it again this year. If my memory serves me right, during my elementary school years, among the things we were made to do after the Christmas break were just about that – New Year’s resolutions. Needless to say, I always had a hard time coming up with a composition enumerating things I promise to resolve in the next twelve months. Well, it was hard for me until I realized that a new year’s resolution is nothing but a list of (empty) promises that one does not intend to keep.

So, what’s my New Year’s resolution? After failing to make good the good number of resolutions I made many ‘New Years’ ago, I have decided that my new year’s resolution is not to make new year’s resolutions anymore (redundant ano?). Seriously, does it always have to take a new year for us to mend our ways? The not-so-good ways, if I may add.

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Flashback to December 31. Pagpaligad ponkan tikang sa purthan tipasulod san balay, lukso pag abot san alas dose, pagsabrag sensilyo sa mga parte san balay, abrehe an ngatanan nga suga sa panimalay, pagpatingug san sensilyo sa bursa. And let’s not even start discussing why people love paputok so much. So, did I miss something else? I mean the various pamahiin on how to attract luck or good vibes during the new year. Oh yes, while we are into it, we might as well include taking a bath before the event. It’s more than a month away yet, but feng shui experts (both the real and fly-by-night types) are all over the place doing the forecasts for the Chinese New Year. Suddenly I’m lost on which animal they are celebrating next year. So what about it? I just can’t understand why many among us should get gaga over it. I’m still having a hard time looking at the connection between Filipino belief and traditions (or should I say Catholic faith?) and that of the Chinese. Well, the (Chinese) food of course is a different story. And yes, I remember many among us collected twelve (or was it thirteen) round fruits on Christmas eve. I’m sure a good number of households ended up with rotten fruits days ago. Thanks (again) to that belief of collecting fruits in time for the New Year. Oh, it’s such a colorful mix-up, I mean our Catholic faith and the Chinese practices for good luck. I wonder where the RH bill can come in.

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Just an afterthought . . . aside from the fruit vendors, the paputok vendors and the soothsayers raking it in in time for the new year, the usual New Year scenario was about the paputok. If they did it in Davao, why not do it all over the country? Why not ban these firecrackers? I don’t think the DOH ran short of reminders as to the dangers of the paputok. And it just occurred to me, they the (DOH) always took time to warn the people of the dangers of that stuff, but come New Year’s eve, they (the DOH) or the doctors are same people on the frontline to treat people who got injured by – no need to emphasize - paputok. No question about those who got hit by accident, but for those who put the injury upon themselves, meaning nabuthan ngan nadigasya kay nagaputok, why not just leave them alone to learn their lesson well, and if possible let them bleed to well, wherever, you provide the answer. Or, why not have the DOH charge all those expenses on ADs and treatment to those paputok vendors in Bocaue and all over? Just a suggestion. (Smile, it’s a new week)

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Local updates. The City of Calbayog and DepEd Calbayog are set to host EVRAA 2010. A coordinative meeting was held last Saturday, January 8, 2011 at the DepEd Calbayog Conference Hall. I’ll give you details next issue.

Christ the King College has reopened the (CKC) Samar Archeological Museum. It has been renamed The Fr. Cantius Kobak, ofm – Samar Archeological Museum. A simple opening ceremony and ribbon-cutting was held at the refurbished CKC Music Room (the museum’s new home) at the Technical Building grounds of Christ the King College. Among the guests was U.P. Professor Rolando Borrinaga. More details in the coming issues.

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This is it for now. Let me leave you with some lines from Dr. Rolando Borrinaga’s speech when he paid tribute to the late historian of Samar, Fr. Cantius Kobak, ofm: “The reopened museum is appropriately named after the late Fr. Cantius Kobak, ofm, who will forever remain a giant insofar as research on the history and culture of Samar is concerned. His generosity in sharing his source materials also helped other scholars such as William Henry Scott and Bruce Cruikshank to write and publish scholarly studies that have expanded and depended the understanding of Bisayan history and culture during the past 30 years.”
Ciao!