Pride, Sadness, and Hopes of a
Samarnon in California
By
CESAR TORRES*
March 26, 2004
For a true and concerned
Samarnon and a proud Filipino, to be at ease wherever one maybe is beyond
our wildest imagination. For those who are a little more discerning and
reflective, we will never be free of Samar. We will never be free of the
Philippines except perhaps, beyond the grave.
Our sojourn in the Golden
State of California is a testament to our unceasing restlessness. In our
waking moments, there is a never-ending parade of images and emotions on
Samar where the past and the present are one. But the future seems bleak,
enshrouded by dark and gloomy clouds of uncertainty.
Every now and then, our thoughts wander into the hills, valleys, and plains
of the Samar mainland and the islands, the bays, and coves and the blue
waters off Maqueda Bay. We remember the azure skies, the white-capped and
angry waves smashing on the seashores during the Habagat monsoon
season, the soothing and warm raindrops falling on our skins, the houses
teetering on the seashores lapped by the waves.
We remember the fresh and exotic shellfish and the harvests from
the Maqueda Bay, food for the palate which are not available to most of us
in California because the prices would be prohibitive.
Despite the massive destruction of its rainforest, we are still
amazed at the lush greenery in the mountains and the hills, the swaying
fronds of the coconut trees, and the promise of more food for the Samarnons
if we can maximize the utilization of our land.
I remember keeping my silence, adjusting and swaying my body to
the constant shaking of our car when traversing the terrible roads from
Tacloban to Catbalogan and vice versa (at least when I was there in
August-September 2003 last year), the blown tire of the passenger vehicle we
were riding with cousins from Calbiga along the “Death Road” connecting the
Pan-Philippine Highway to Villa, my 24-hour worry that Lydia and her cousins
have been ambushed or had met with an accident or were held up by
drug-crazed minions of the Lost Command while coming back from Tacloban to
Calbiga when it turned out that the car they were riding had only conked out
because of the road thus giving them the opportunity to renew family ties
with their aunt in Guinkasang-an and to stay the night in a community which
could be labeled a “liberated area”.
From Villa, we rode the motorboat to Catbalogan early in the
morning in the company of some professionals and teachers, the leadership of
the town, students, and ordinary citizens. The boat ride was gratifying and
the conversation — despite the noise of the motorboat engine — was
enlightening. Viewed from the sea, the islands seemed so green, and the
distant shores so calm. With a jolt we recalled that in Metro Manila we
passed by sordid and squalid areas which my brother pointed out to me as
communities inhabited mostly by Samarnons, some of whom were originally from
Villa and Catbalogan. And we wondered why they would continue to live in
Metro Manila as squatters or as garbage scavengers in Payatas when Samar was
so beautiful, so inviting and full of promise, from the distance anyway.
Why? Oh why?
Despite our absence of eight years from Catbalogan, we were not expecting
any dramatic changes in the town. But we were still hopeful that under the
leadership of Jesse Redaja, in whom we had high hopes when he presented
himself as a leader of Samar’s capital town almost a decade ago, Catbalogan
should be able to show some improvements. When we had anchored, the wharf
was a beehive of people, and tricycles, and motorboats. But someone forgot
to collect the trash and the garbage on the side of the pantalan, the
same situation as in Villa.
As
to our hopes for some changes in Catbalogan, sure enough, there was an
imposing white structure on the side of a hill and a lovely house protruding
to the seashore. We saw a tower. We were told that this was used for
telecommunication. In the area of Information Technology, BBCS Data Systems,
an Internet Service Provider, had state-of-the-art computers. It was
bursting at the seams with high school students.
The
streets of Samar’s capital town were congested. A canal where we used to
swim during high tide was littered with trash and garbage. Many shanties
were perched precariously on the side of the hills. But despite the
occasional frown and far away looks of the people and the students who came
from all over the island, we could read on their faces their determination
to strive, to persevere, and to surmount the challenges and difficulties
confronting them.
We
marvel at the graciousness of the Samarnons (including the Branch Managers
of the Metro Bank in Tacloban and Catbalogan and the chief of the Security
Unit in the Tacloban airport), the passion, the commitment, and the concern
of some leaders — in Samar, in Catbalogan, in Villareal, and Calbiga — who
unfortunately were not in positions of power and authority. We were
convinced of the esteem and the high regard accorded to us by the educators
and mentors in our hometown, and the loyalty and the unabashed nostalgia of
bosom friends.
In
the midst of all these competing images, the image of the wan and mournful
smile of my five-year old nephew, who is dying of leukemia in Silanga and
whose parents will not have enough money to buy drugs that will ease his
pain while on his way to the Great Beyond, continues to haunt me. I do not
know what to think.
I
cannot articulate our despair and hopelessness at the incredible
expectations of us by our cousins and relatives; my silence and the idiotic
smile on my face because of my inability to say anything to cousins
informing me that an attractive niece had become a Japayuki (“Kapit
sa patalim…”, rough translation: “Grip the edge of a razor blade to
survive…”, as her widowed mother who cared for my children in the UP
sheepishly admitted to me). From statistical data available to us, we knew
that poverty in Samar and the Philippines is so endemic. But it was still
mind-boggling when the stark faces of poverty are reflected on your loved
ones, on our destitute cousins, nieces and nephews who could not be employed
despite college degrees and who were at a loss what to do with their lives.
How did they survive from day-to-day?
Wherever we went, there was always the yelling of the multitude of children
some of whom will grow up to become drug addicts and drug pushers, menials
and servants around the world in this Philippine Diaspora, high school
dropouts, jobless and unskilled members of the labor force in an economy
buffeted by “The Clash of Civilizations” which could escalate into a fight
to the finish for contending systems of belief that could end contemporary
civilization as we know it, potential gangsters and possible kidnappers,
canon fodder of the military, or idealistic cadres and fighters of the
protracted guerilla war for “national liberation” of the National Democratic
Front.
Nor
can I shake away the lilting and haunting melody of our Samarnon love songs
and the coy and winsome smiles of the Samarnon lasses and the passionate and
fevered glances of their suitors.
This passion for Samar reached fever-pitch when we had to leave the
Philippines in late 1985 for fear of the unknown and the very real perils
that could have befallen my loved ones and myself. I was not proud to leave
the Philippines at that time. But leave we did, arriving in San Francisco,
the so-called “City-by-the-Bay”, reputed to be the “Most Beautiful Place” on
earth, with $10 in my wallet.
The
Fiesta as Our Entry Into the Samarnon Community in Northern California
After months of humiliation, hopelessness, frustration and constant desire
to go back to the Philippines except that it would have been embarrassing to
admit defeat in America, we were finally able to establish ourselves, thanks
to the unselfish help of a fellow Samar High alumni from Calbiga. We then
gravitated to our fellow Samarnons in San Francisco. Our mood of entry was
through the pearly gates of heaven, the Samarnon and Catholic fiesta
celebrations. In Manila we only attended one fiesta celebration —
just the Villahanon fiesta. In America, I could not believe the
number of fiestas I attended. We even went as far as Canada to
attend a fiesta of the Basaynon Katig-uban. In my entire life in the
Philippines, I never danced the curacha. But I loved to watch those
graceful curacha dancers, anyway, clapping my hands to the beat of
the music, sometimes sung by Joseph Uy. I would even toss a gala
every now and then. In California, I could not believe that I had to dance
the curacha as a matter of honor and as a duty, an integral and
unavoidable part of the self-imposed burden of community leadership.
Attending fiestas broke the monotony and the homesickness of being
strangers in America. The celebrations also afforded us the much-needed
break from the constant demands to speak English with our Samarnon accents,
interspersed every now and then with “You knows…” and “Gonnas…”.
We
were invited to all conceivable Samarnon fiesta celebrations. We
prayed, we attended fiesta masses, we marveled at the food which were
so plenty. In one fiesta in San Francisco, I counted 17 courses! One in Los
Angeles, had seven lechons. During the eating (referred to us
“luncheons”), we would glance at our fellow “Patronizers” who would heaped
so much food on their plates but would only eat one-third of the food they
got and just eat the crispy skins of the lechons, not the meat. The
uneaten food would be left on the tables or thrown to the garbage cans. And
I would remember the simple, the naïve, the malnourished, the emaciated, the
sickly, and poor believers in the Catholic Saints in Samar; and the burning
lines of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical,
Populorum Progressio
which outlines the sacred obligation of the Catholic Church to help the
poorest of the poor.
Our
experience with Samarnon fiestas is difficult to explain. One time
in Los Angeles during the Catbaloganon fiesta, the organizers were
fined some $700 or $800 dollars by the administrators of the public hall
that was used as the venue of the celebration. The infraction? A guest was
seen drinking Budweiser beer by the public facility administrators. Since,
alcohol is prohibited when using public facilities in Los Angeles, the
believers in St. Bartholomew had to pay. Imagine, how much $700 or $800 can
do to help the aged and the homeless children in Catbalogan.
During one Villahanon fiesta in Los Angeles which celebrates the
feast day of the first saint in all of America, the Sta. Rosa de Lima of
Peru (sometimes I wonder which is poorer, the Philippines or Peru), the
venue of the celebration was in a hall in a very lovely park. It had blue
ponds with swans gliding on the water, flowering plants, trees, well-kept
lawns, and colorful birds chirping on the branches. It was truly a
beautiful place for a fiesta celebration. A mass was celebrated by
three priests. When that part of the mass where the worshippers would give
their offerings of money to the priests came about, five uniformed security
guards descended on us. They forced the priests to stop the mass. We were
of course very angry and on the verge of declaring a second
Filipino-American War in Los Angeles except that Gen. Aguinaldo and Gen.
Lukban had already surrendered to the Protestant American soldiers. The
reason for the apparent insult to the Catholic “Little Brown Americans”?
The rules for the use of the park prohibit the solicitation of money inside
the park. Our one-dollar offerings were construed as money-making by the
park security guards. So it was illegal.
We
were allowed to continue with the mass. But the hermano had to make
some $250 offering to the guards in the park. After the mass, we moved over
to the dining hall which was part of the park facility. Since alcohol was
prohibited, what we did was to transfer the whisky to coca bottles. From
there, we poured them to paper cups. We were at a loss what to do with the
curacha since a Samarnon fiesta without curachas and
galas is unheard of. Since money-making or solicitation was likewise
prohibited in the dining hall, what we did was to place a box in an area of
the hall which could not be scanned by the moving video camera. With our
galas clutched in our clinched fists, we surreptitiously dropped our
dollars inside the box while looking around if the guards had seen us.
Since the dining hall was so crimped, we eventually moved to the house of
the hermano and the hermana bringing with us the two untouched
lechons, lots of other foods, and cases and cases of Budweiser and
other hard drinks. There we ate, and drink, and danced, and talked up to
the wee hours of the morning. Nobody mentioned the guerillas of the Sindero
Luminoso or the Tupac Amaru in Peru who were fighting the establishment so
that they can live a Christian life in the birthplace of the Sta. Rosa de
Lima.
During a Calbiga fiesta in Los Angeles, we expressed our admiration
at an hermana who came with her family all the way from Australia so
that she could sponsor the fiesta celebration to the Lady of the
Annunciation in Los Angeles. We wondered: Would her entry into heaven be
less assured if she just used her Australian dollars to help the very poor
in Calbiga or to try to convert the prospective Muslim suicide bombers in
the Middle East to Catholicism? I am still searching for a theological
explanation for that admirable show of faith.
Involvement
in the Non-Religious Organization Samareños of California
But
fiestas, for all their divine promise of going to heaven for the avid
“Patronizers” including us, were not psychologically and intellectually
fulfilling. Besides, I had the suspicion that the fiesta organizers
just wanted to ensure that the Saints intercede for them with the Virgin
Mother, with St. Peter and the Lord so that they are forgiven their lapses
and human frailties here on earth. Hence, we were flattered when the
remnants of the leadership of the Samareños of California, a group organized
in 1969 or 1970, invited us in 1989 to help them revive their organization
which had gone into hibernation for 10 years in some nooks and crannies of
the foggy and fabled hills of San Francisco.
The
organization was formed by a group of first generation Samarnon immigrants
representing the entire island of Samar – the North, the East, and West.
The
simple Constitution and Bylaws that the pioneers of this organization
crafted together was not ambitious. It did not speak of a “vision” and a
“mission” for the organization. There is nothing that addresses the need to
help each other in this “land of milk and honey”, to link their arms
together in the struggle against discrimination and underemployment, nothing
about programs and projects to help Samar, and nothing about enhancing and
maintaining the desirable and functional civic, cultural, and artistic
practices of the Samarnons.
But
the compelling desire to be together was irrepressible to assuage their
nostalgia and homesickness. So they organized.
For
nine years, the organization limped along. In that period of time, they
organized parties in hotels in San Francisco. The ladies wore their
ternos and their brilliant gems. The gentlemen wore their ill-fitting
suits and unattractive ties. They danced the curacha, visited each
other, occasionally back stabbing each other, had home parties and prepared
kinilaw, invited some priests from Samar, and boasted to the ruling
White politicos in San Francisco that the leadership of the organization
could mobilize hundreds of Samarnon voters for or against a politician in
San Francisco, thus flexing their muscles to pursue the goal of Filipino
empowerment in America. We are unaware if they undertook some
socially-redeeming projects back in Samar.
From 1989, the year of our involvement with the Samareños of California, up
to the present, a period of 15 years, this organization has survived. We
may not have rocked the foundation of Samarnon culture and society whether
in America or in Samar. But at least when Samarnons meet in the streets of
San Francisco, we do not meet as strangers. And most importantly, we talk
about Samar.
Given our limitations and the Samarnons’ peculiar civic culture and
intellectual orientation, what else have we accomplished aside from our
claim that the dancing parties and the beauty and popularity contest —
where several mayors from Eastern Samar attended the coronation of Her
Majesty, Queen Patrocinio Figueroa-Masi I — we held three or four years ago
indicate that the organization is alive?
Over and above everything else, we wanted to proclaim that we were relevant,
that we personified the best qualities of the Samarnon.
How
did we flesh this out? For a start, we have sorted and packed books,
magazines, and journals for the Books of the Barrios Program which were
shipped to schools in Eastern Samar. We have participated in a “Pistahan”
festival sponsored by the Philippine Resource Center in San Francisco
enabling me to ride a float in a parade in downtown San Francisco as some
kind of Apolinario Mabini. In 1998, among the many provincial and regional
organizations in Northern California, it was only the Samareños of
California which participated in the Centennial Celebration of Philippine
Independence through the efforts of Outstanding Samar High Alumna nominee,
Beatrice Duran.
In
July 2000, we were the only provincial organization which co-sponsored the
symposium on Mindanao and Sulu, the first such symposium to be held outside
of the Philippines. This symposium and the ensuing mass action where my
one-year old grandson sat on the shoulders of his father while brandishing
placards against the political and governmental leadership in the
Philippines at that time may have signaled a change in the direction of
contemporary Philippine history.
In
November-December 2001, we were one of the sponsors of the UP Staff Chorale
Society, the Philippines Ambassadors of Goodwill, during their concert tour
of the US and Canada dubbed “Songs of Love and Healing”. Dragging ourselves
fearfully, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when the world was
reeling with the carnage of September 11, 2001 where poor victims were
jumping from the 112th floor of the Twin Towers in New York to
die by being smashed to bloody bits and pieces on the streets below so that
they could escape certain death by being incinerated to burning flesh and
bones in the top floors of the Twin Towers, we exerted every effort to make
the UP Staff Chorale Society’s concert tour a success, especially in Los
Angeles when our fellow Samarnons opened their hearts and their homes to the
27-member choral group.
We
have honored outstanding and highly accomplished professional and young
Samarnons. We have undertaken a search for the Most Relevant Samarnon
Hometown Association which was won by the Guiuananons of Northern
California. We have assisted in enhancing Samarnon art and culture back in
the home island. We have intermittently published a newsletter, “Tingog
Han Samar in California”.
But the pinnacle of our passion to help our fellow Samarnons was our
miserable attempt in shipping two container vans of hospital and medical
supplies intended to the provincial hospital in Catbalogan in 1997. There
has yet to be a closure on this sensitive issue which dramatizes the
administrative incompetence of our leaders and the nauseating corruption of
the Bureau of Customs.
We
had other plans, but they have been relegated to the cobwebs of our fading
memories, which included the aborted plan to sponsor an epic poem based on
the legend of a giant in Eastern Samar, Makandog.
The Siren
Call of Samar to Alienated Misfits in California
Our
contention that we represented the best of the Samarnons, would invariably
force us to situate our boast with the quality of our leaders in Samar, the
select group who are entrusted with power, authority, and the responsibility
of administering and managing Samar and the Philippines so that we are not
the “basket case of Asia, one of the poorest countries in the world,
maligned and constantly insulted by other nations, the source of servants,
menials and ladies of the night, the place where the vacuum cleaners with
sexual organs come from, and a nation where some Filipinos have been
referred to by CNN as slaves”. Did these leaders in Samar exemplify our
articulated statements that we in America, the Samareños of California
personified the best qualities of the Samarnons?
The
linkage was inevitable.
Moreover, our interest was not exactly without any selfish motivation.
Without letup, our cousins, relatives, nieces, nephews, friends, and alumni
associations would pepper us with letters asking for our help. They would
call us long distance, collect. We reasoned out that if the Philippine
economy were progressive, if Samar were progressive because of competent and
effective leaders, our cousins, relatives, nieces, nephews, friends, alumni
associations would not be pelting us with their constant supplications for
assistance. So it was logical that we had to take interest in what was
happening in the Philippines, in what was happening in Samar. Even if we are
here in the Golden State of California speaking ungrammatical English with
an atrocious Samarnon accent, we could not sever the ties that bind us to
our families in Samar and the Philippines. They are invisible, but they are
stronger than steel.
Moreover, after years of associating the stupid lines of a stupid movie to
us Samarnons, we have ultimately stopped being amused at the inane
expressions: “Waray-Waray, Waray Bugas, Bahala na Bukas, Manigas”
(rough translation: “We have nothing, we have nothing, we have no rice,
let tomorrow take care of itself, die if you have to die through apoplexy”).
When viewed side by side with the unflattering image of Samarnons as
squatters and servants in Metro Manila, of being the No. 1 denizens in
Muntinglupa or Bilibid, of being categorized by the NEDA as one of the most
depressed regions of the Philippines, our feeling of self-pity engendered by
the connotations of being “Waray-Waray” needed some psychological
outlets. [I had a long-running debate with one of my esteemed leaders of
the Philippine political system in the Internet, the re-electionist Senator
Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, Jr. Stumbling in the Internet on a speech he
delivered at the Ateneo the Manila University on the various linguistic
groups in the Philippines, where he referred to the Samarnon linguistic
group as “Waray-Waray”, I asked him as a Cebuano-speaking Cagayano how he
would like to be referred to as a “Way-Way” the Cebuano equivalent of “Waray-Waray”,
how the Taga-ilogs would react if they are referred to as “Walang-Wala”, how
the Ilocanos would react if we refer to them as “Awan-Nga-Awan”. I have
become closer to Senator Pimentel since last year when he honored me with
his invitation to have breakfast, dinner, lunch, merienda with him in Metro
Manila. I even organized two forums in San Francisco where he was the
resource person. I have not heard him say, “Waray-Waray”, at least not in
my hearing.]
We had
to clutch at something that could buoy up our sagging spirits, that would
solidify our pride in ourselves, so that we could diminish our despair and
sadness in being Samarnons and in being disrespected Filipinos. We had to
comfort ourselves that despite everything, there is hope for a better
tomorrow if we could only have role models for our people, exemplary
Samarnons whose examples can be emulated, leaders who can articulate the
agenda for progress, who can mobilize us, and inspire us to do the best we
can to ensure a better future for their children and their children’s
children.
Contemporary
Samarnon Role Models
In
contemporary Samar, we had some vague ideas of some outstanding Samarnons.
From 17,000 miles away across the Pacific Ocean, we have read and heard of
Deng Coy Miel who is with the Singapore Straits Times and the fame
and acclaim that he has achieved not only in the Philippines but
internationally as well. He is a shining example of the best among the
Samarnons. We have heard and read of the sacrifices of Charo Nabong-Cabardo,
how she has offered the ultimate to the Filipino people, her life, how she
has gone back to Samar from Metro Manila so that she could devote her
talents and unwavering commitment to the island of Samar and its people by
initiating the organization of the now-famous Tandaya Foundation.
In
the not-so-distant past, there was Senate President Jose Avelino, a summa
cum laude graduate of the Ateneo who went to the Pontifical University
of Santo Tomas. As a student, he had an enviable scholastic record at
the Ateneo that favorably compares with or better than that of Dr. Jose
Rizal. In 1934, he was the most highly educated public figure from the
Samar-Leyte Region and even the entire Philippines. No wonder, he had the
confidence to offer himself as President of the Philippines.
Here in America, we have the Doroquez brothers. We dream that one could be a
potential candidate for the Nobel Prize in Medicine in view of his current
researches with probity into Genetics and the uncharted waters of Genomic at
one of America’s foremost research institutions, the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
How
about Raul Daza? A lawyer and a certified public accountant who passed both
examinations with flying colors, he also captured the imagination of
freedom-loving Filipinos when he fought against the conjugal dictators by
escaping to California. Some thought that he was a highly principled leader
and a true alumnus of the University of the Philippines. However, in the
not-so-distant past, some Samarnons have expressed their disbelief at the
track record of Daza in the political and legal realms of the Philippines.
There are Samarnon writers, artists, journalists, revolutionaries,
politicians, and princes of the Catholic Church. There was the Villahanon
priest, Fr. Rudy Romano whose abduction — and torture because it seems his
tongue was cut and he was drowned alive somewhere in the Visayan Seas — in
the hands of still unknown elements has rocked the international religious
and political order from the European Union to the US Senate. Others have
been invested with awesome power and authority. But could they serve as role
models and examples to our youth? We take note of the contributions they may
have made to Samar and Philippine society. But have they captured the
imagination of Samarnons and the Filipino people? Unfortunately, we think
not.
Could Eddie
Nachura Serve as a Role Model?
In
ranging far and wide, in going back into our history, in reflecting on the
leaders of Samar in contemporary times, Eddie Nachura exemplifies, somehow,
the qualities that make him stand out as the most preeminent Samarnon of
this generation.
How
do we justify this assertion?
In
sticking our neck out for Eddie Nachura, we judge him on his uncommon
intellect, his writing abilities, his survival instinct, his infinite
patience and unwavering commitment to serve the Samarnons despite continuous
repudiation of his extraordinary qualities and qualifications, and of course
the accord that he has been invested with by his peers, by the legal
profession, and the rest of Philippine society.
First, there is Nachura’s academic achievements. In the Samar High School —
once the pinnacle of both public and high school education in the third
largest island in the Philippines — he had the distinction of graduating as
Valedictorian, Editor-in-Chief of the school paper, and President of the
Student Government. These achievements might be dismissed as sophomoric but
I don’t know how many outstanding graduates of Samar High School have been
able to do what he did. We can even ask that poor movie actor how difficult
it is to finish high school. Compared to Eddie Nachura, we can assume that
he did not have the brains and the intelligence good enough for high school
studies, the diligence and the discipline, and the perseverance to study,
attend classes, take innumerable quizzes, take departmental examinations
when our hands would shake with anxiety and nervousness, for four years.
And yet he has the temerity of offering himself as the savior of the
poverty-stricken and internationally maligned 83 million Filipinos. [An
intellectual ninny as leader of the 83 million Filipinos might be a blessing
in disguise, though. We don’t need to waste our hard-earned money and our
time by studying in high school. With a high school dropout at the top of
Philippine society, a high school diploma and a college degree would be
insulting to him. We can tell our children to just finish with their
elementary studies so that they will not insult their leader. Instead of
wasting their time going to high school and dreaming of college education,
they can start planting camote, bilanghoy or going through carrion
and garbage in Payatas or sniffing shabu when they are done with the
elementary grades.]
An
unfortunate incident in the UP disqualified Eddie Nachura from continuing
with his studies in Diliman. He probably became a rake in Catbalogan where
he pursued his AB in Samar College after being kicked out from UP. But he
did graduate; he then proceeded to the San Beda College of Law, where he
graduated with honors. He was one of the bar topnotchers in 1967. In
conclusion, he might have been a drunkard, but he was not an intellectual
moron.
Still as a lawyer: Eddie Nachura was Dean of the Arellano College of Law, a
prosecutor of the House of Representatives of the Impeachment Trial of
President Joseph Estrada, Undersecretary of Legal Affairs of the Department
of Culture and Sports, a
Professor of Law and Bar Reviewer of the best
colleges and schools of law in the country, i.e., San Beda College,
University of Santo Tomas, Arellano Law Foundation, UP Law Center,
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, Manuel L. Quezon University, and San
Sebastian College. He is the author of the best selling “Outline-Reviewer in
Political Law”, and editor of the legal tract, “Liberal Views on
Constitutional Reform”.
He is of course
the incumbent chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments.
The House of Representatives
may not be our dream of a collection of the best brains in the country. But
not all of them are intellectual nincompoops either. Hence, it is still a
distinction for Eddie Nachura to be elected Chairman of the Committee on
Higher and Technical Education.
We adverted to his
incomparable patience and humility in serving Samar despite successive
heartaches in the hands of the very people he wanted to serve. If Samar’s
political culture is not warped and the political and social standards of
its leaders are not distorted, under normal circumstances, Eddie Nachura
could have become a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1971
because of his intellectual brilliance. But he was cheated by the trapos
(rough translation: “traditional politicians”
or “dish rags”). Successively, he presented himself as the Samarnons’
representative to the Congress of the Philippines. But the naive, ignorant,
selfish, and greedy political culture of our people could not appreciate his
qualities and the potential contributions that he presented to them. Again,
he was successively repudiated, trampled politically, and derisively pointed
out as an abnormal aberration by the triumphant victors and their followers
in a god-forsaken-society.
These successive political
debacles should have given him pause that perhaps God did not intend him to
become the leader of the Samarnons, as someone who personifies the better
qualities of our people. In 1993, we were witness to the lament of Chit
Nachura. Almost in tears, with a voice choking with anguish and profound
unhappiness, Chit expressed her terrible sadness at the kind of people we
are when even the mentors of our youth in Catbalogan did not hesitate to ask
for some “gifts” from Congressional candidate Eddie Nachura before they
would perform their duties. But Eddie smiling sadly, calmly countered that
in his case, no matter what, he would continue to offer himself to Samar and
the Filipino people to his dying day.
Finally, as if Divine Providence had finally
concluded that Eddie Nachura had passed the divine test of infinite patience
and perseverance flung along his way, he finally won a mandate from the
electorate of Samar in 1998. He earned another mandate in 2001 when he was
pitted against two Samarnons who unfortunately were associated in one way or
another with the two most corrupt institutions of the Philippine
bureaucracy, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs. The
two gentlemen may have excelled in their respective endeavors at one time or
another. But as prospective statesmen, mentors, leaders, and mobilizers of a
feudal and a traditional community for rapid change and development, I am
frankly at a loss to understand why they would think that they had the
qualities needed for such critical and urgent tasks. Be as it may, Eddie
Nachura had to triumph.
We are a proud Samarnon and
Filipino, but terribly unhappy with the conditions in the island, which, of
course cannot be dissociated from the rest of the Philippines, and the
international economic and political order. Despite the constant
lamentations that we hear, we are still hopeful that we can avoid going in
the direction of a Rwanda where rivers were pouring rotting corpses instead
of clean water, or a Somalia which has reverted to a brutish society of
thugs and lawless chieftains without any laws, or a Cambodia and its Killing
Fields with its mountains of skulls. Hence, we have ventured into this
unpopular and risky business of judging people. But as that expression
goes: “Kon diri kita, hin-o man? Kon diri yana, san-o pa?” (“If not
us, who else? If not now, when?”)
In
this instance, we are aware that this paean can blow up in our face. The
future is still enshrouded in a thick mist reminiscent of the fog that
covers the hills of San Francisco every now and then. For all we know, Eddie
Nachura might still become the greatest Samarnon scoundrel who ever lived.
After all, appearances can be misleading. And the future is yet to unfold.
Or he might just be the elitist that he is reputed to be, a misplaced legal
luminary and intellectual who happens to come from one of the most depressed
regions of a depressed country. Indeed, a sharp contrast. But at this
moment in Samar’s history, it is difficult not to express our admiration of
Eddie Nachura and to point him out as personifying the best qualities of
Samar and the ideal Samarnon.
Servants, Kidnappers, Drug Addicts, Political
and Social Disorders, a Society on the Verge of a Breakdown: Is there Hope?
Samar and the Philippines
are in a bad shape. In 1997, four years before the economic meltdown caused
by the tragedy of September 11, 2001, almost 32% of Filipinos had income
below the poverty threshold. In 2004, the data on poverty in Samar and the
Philippines could be worse. We know that unemployment is massive.
Corruption and incompetence is rampant in the Philippine political and
administrative system. The Philippine economy needs restructuring in the
light of the impact of globalization. There is rampant criminality, drug
addition, hold ups. The Philippines is undeniably the kidnap capital of the
world. There is talk of a military junta. We are involved in the fight
against terrorism and fanaticism. And the Muslim secessionist movement in
Southern Philippines continues to fester with a possible linkage to a
violent Muslim fundamentalist and expansionist group, the Jemaah Islamiyah,
which makes no secret of its ultimate goal of detaching Mindanao and Sulu
from Luzviminda.
And what is very sad is that
more and more young people are being drawn into the idealistic and romantic
embrace of the National Democratic Front. They must be prepared to offer
their lives for the dream of a socialist, egalitarian, productive, and
respected Philippine society. Even members of the middle class who have so
much to loss and who are totally ignorant of the meaning and significance of
“national democracy” and “historical determinism”, believe that the
situation in the Philippines is hopeless, that the only way by which our
myriad of political, economic, cultural, and social ails can be remedied is
for a national bloodbath to occur to cleanse us of our national malady. Of
course, this is easy to say if one were 17,000 miles away from the place of
the carnage.
Reform or revolution?
Political and administrative competence or national meltdown? Hope for the
future or national despair? International insults or international respect?
These are questions, among others, that the concerned Samarnon, the
concerned Filipino wherever we are, will have to grapple with.
In the process of sifting
through the complexities and ramifications of the issues confronting us, the
intellect, the patience, the experiences, the passion, the leadership, and
the example provided by Eddie Nachura will serve as the beacon light to the
Samarnons and to the Filipinos in this generation.
In our opening paragraphs we
cited the difficulties, our anguish, and the hardships of our people,
including those who are dear to us. We are not saying that if elevate Eddie
Nachura to a pedestal and clone him 10 times, and do the same for other
competent and sincere Samarnon leaders and administrators together with the
national officials, princes of the Church, members of the civil society and
the battalions of our soldiers, that our pain and our anguish will disappear
in one month. We know this is not so. It will take hundreds of thousands
of us working together, guided by a common vision, persevering, sacrificing,
and deriving strength and inspiration from each other for the 83 million
Filipinos to dream of a better tomorrow, a society where some of its
unfortunate citizens are not subsisting on garbage in Payatas and Smokey
Mountain, nor sleeping under bridges or in catacombs in cemeteries or
selling their bodies so that they can survive another day or sniffing drugs
to quench their constant hunger. But without Eddie Nachura and people like
him, our future is dark and gloomy.
On February 14, 2004, during
the 35th anniversary of the annual reunion and gathering of the
Samareños of California at the Gateway-Sheraton Hotel in Burlingame,
California, a suburb of San Francisco, the Hon. Antonio Eduardo B. Nachura
was the Distinguished Guest of Honor. He finally graced the gathering of
our group after years of repeated invitations. Accepting the invitation was
a welcome respite from the multitude of attention that confronted him in
Samar and in the Philippines. Despite numerous invitations to address a
forum at the Philippine Consulate, do a radio interview for a Filipino radio
program, conduct a dialogue with Filipino veterans in San Francisco, and
socialize with some Samarnons in the San Francisco Bay Area, Congressman
Nachura just rested and developed the theme of his discourse.
He regaled and mesmerized
the more than 250 Samarnons and their guests with his extemporaneous speech
concerning the need for Samarnons to look back to the land they have left
behind, to assist in whatever way they can, especially in the education of
the Samarnon youth, and to re-examine their thinking regarding the Overseas
Absentee Voting Law and the Dual Citizenship Law which grant new legal
rights to Filipinos outside of the Philippines.
His speech was well-received
and highly commended.
After five days in San
Francisco, he flew to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. His visit and his
dialogues with Samarnons and Filipinos were front page news in the Filipino
press in Southern California and Nevada. His media coverage by the Filipino
press in Southern California was massive, a privilege not accorded to just
any politician who happens to drop by California. This was solely for the
benefit of the most preeminent Samarnon of his generation, Eddie Nachura.
*The
author was Assistant Professor of Political Science in UP Diliman. He was, among others, Assistant to the Vice
President for Development and Public Affairs of the UP System, when he
chaired the Skeletal Force that organized the UP at Tacloban in 1972, the
only UP undergraduate to be appointed to the position. He was involved in
the planning of the establishment of the UP in Southern Philippines and the
investigation and study of the Mindanao State University System when he was
with the Philippine Center for Advanced Studies. He was a Senior Consultant
of the think-tank Development Academy of the Philippines, a Special
Assistant of a Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Technical Consultant
of a Deputy Minister of Local Government. A resident of the San Francisco
Bay Area in California at the moment, he works for the State of California
which gave him an award for “Sustained Superior Performance in 1997”, the
only Filipino honored with that award that year. His community involvements
includes being Acting President of the Filipino-American Council of San
Francisco, President for five years of the Samareños of California, a member
of the Board of Directors of the UP Alumni Association of San Francisco,
Board Member of Save-a-Tahanan Foundation, and Acting Chair of the Pamana ng
Lahing Pilipino Foundation-United Way of San Francisco. He has three
degrees in Public Administration and Political Science from the UP, one
earned him a lifetime membership in the Pi Gamma Mu International
Social Science Honor Society. He has written numerous articles and other
researches. His latest work is “Paalaala: In Remembrance”, a
collection of articles and a photo essay of issues confronting the Filipinos
all over the world which was published in 2002 in San Francisco by Pamana-United
Way. He has the distinction of being the political science professor in the
UP of Vice-Presidential candidate Senator Loren Legarda, Amina Rasul and
candidate for Samar Governor, Melchor Nacario.
