Reflectors
Dec . 12 - 17 , 2016 Vanguard OPINION 7
Vintage View
By Prof . Rolly Borrinaga
Waraywaray and Binisaya
I believe it is now high time for us to correct two of our bothersome cultural labels and repossess the original ones .
First , the label on our people : we had called ourselves WARAYWARAY ( no accent in any syllable , and no hyphen ). The nearest phenomenological equivalent of this word in English is BRINKMANSHIP – “ n ., the policy of pursuing a hazardous course of action to the brink of catastrophe ” ( New World Dictionary ). This facet of the Waraywaray character , our tendency to be “ brinkmen ”, which had been there when the Spaniards came to our shores centuries ago , seems to be at the root of our notoriety as a people as perceived by other ethnic groups . There is nothing wrong with this label , when put to good and proper use . So let us take it up again .
Imperial Manila spoofed our people ’ s cultural label through the 1954 movie and song , “ Waray-Waray ,” a word
Reflectors
By Reynaldo B . Almenario
which the Tagalogs hyphenated and pronounced with accents on the two “ -ray ” syllables . It is time for us to dismiss or simply ignore the intentional decades-old spoof once and for all .
We should also resist and dismiss the abbreviated label , WARAY ( accented on the second syllable ), with which we are now bombarded with increasing frequency over the radio . This word always meant “ nothing ” or “ none ” in our language , and we should leave it at that . We should no longer allow this word to be appropriated as label of our people .
Next is the label of our language . It was never WA- RAY , or even WARAYWA- RAY . It was always called BINISAYA ( accented on the last syllable ) in published tracks – in the Makabenta dictionary , first published in 1979 , and in the 1890s novena translations of Fr . Antonio Sanchez de la Rosa , OFM , who published the most extensive grammar ( in
1887 ) and dictionaries ( in 1886 , 1895 , and 1914 ) of our language more than a century ago . In 1909 , the cream of the local intellectuals based in Tacloban and Palo , led by Norberto Romualdez , organized the SANGHIRAN SAN BINISAYA ( Academy of Binisaya Language ), aimed at refining our local language . Some of its members had in fact published a Binisaya orthography and guidelines on writing using Roman letters . But the group ’ s adoption of a “ purist ” attitude towards the development of the language seemed to have contributed to its doom . Its surviving members could only offer meek protest when new the labels for our language and our people started replacing the original ones .
We must realize that the BINISAYA label for our language is now open for us to repossess . And then we can adopt a more pragmatic approach in its strengthening and promotion . The Central
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Eradicating Extreme Poverty by 2030
( Last part )
In our last column , we said that the country ’ s coconut industry is where over 20 million Filipinos depend for a living , yet where the poorest of the poor reside . We said there are three major factors are at the root of this situation : prevalent share tenancy ; a prevailing sharing system so lopsided in favour of landowners who take 50 percent to 70 percent of the net income ; and a monopsonistic to oligopsonistic market structure lorded over by traders who dictate buying prices .
In December 2013 , a hectare of coconut farm in Bondoc Peninsula ( Quezon Province ) generated only Php56,776.00 in annual net income , or Php4,731.13 per month at the buying price of Php24.00 per kilo of copra . This income figure assumes that the farm family owns the land ; even so , this is an
income level already way below the 2012 official poverty threshold of Php7,980.00 per month .
Truly , land tenure improvement ( land to the tiller , and enforcement of the lawful leasehold arrangement which requires the leasehold holder to pay the land-owner / lessor only 25.0 percent of the net income ) will do a lot raise the net revenue of the small coconut farmer . But that is not enough . The coconut industry need be re-engineered such that :
Coconut trading is henceforth shifted from copra into whole nuts , thereby enabling the farmers to save on costs associated with dehusking , splitting of the nuts , cooking and drying of the meat . Moreover , with this shift , we do away with aflatoxin that ordinarily characterizes our copra , generally dried as it on open spaces that expose
the raw material to various types of dirt from animals . Indeed , the argument of the American Soybean Association , which lobbied in the US Congress many years ago to ban our coconut oil from entry into the US market , relied heavily on this finding . But with a shift to whole nut trade and a wet process to produce oil , aflatoxin becomes a thing of the past .
Social enterprises , socalled social because farmers co-own and eventually operate these ventures through their organizations , are set up to process whole nuts into products in which the country has almost absolute advantages : the meat into medicinal virgin coconut oil , premium cooking oil , coconut flour , skimmed milk and paring cake ; the water into coco energy drink ; the husk into twines , geo-textile and
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Voices
ByJun Portillo
Politics , Economics , AIDS
I was a victim of revenge sex . I was then working abroad while my wife and children were here back home . One day , I went to a bar . An attractive woman offered to buy me a drink …” Dan * begun his testimony with a shocking revelation : he ’ s infected with the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV which causes the deadly and acute medical condition called AIDS , acronym for acquired immune deficiency syndrome .
We were gathered that week in a resort in Luzon for PHANSuP ’ s annual planning workshop . PHANSuP or Philippine NGO Support Program is the country ’ s “ linking organization ” of the International HIV / AIDS Alliance based in Britain . The event was attended by PHANSuP workers and supporters all over the country . I joined PHANSuP in 2011 as Communications Officer of their program on maternal and family health .
Dan is ranking official of PHANSuP . Until that point , I didn ’ t know he ’ s a PLHIV or Person Living with HIV . PLHIV are people who are infected with the virus and are taking maintenance medication called anti-retroviral as management intervention . We came to know that there were other PLHIV working in PHANSuP at that time . Without the free anti-retroviral from donations , they are at risk of death .
Dan Continues , “ I was flattered . We hit it off right away . We had a great conversation while drinking . I got really drunk . It was then that the woman offered to go home with me . Things went fast . We were in my bed . But I woke up alone in the morning and remembered about the woman in the bar . There was surging panic as I checked on my things . Nothing was missing . My wallet was untouched . The gadgets and all things of value were there , also untouched …”
I remembered Dan ’ s testimony last week on December 1 , World AIDS Day . Dan held the audience like Coleridge ’ s Ancient Mariner and proceeded to tell the story with “ glittering eyes .”
“ I could not believe it at first . I had a one-night stand for the first time and with a young , beautiful and passionate woman . That night I went back to the bar and looked for her . She wasn ’ t there . I was puzzled . It was months after I went home and had my medical check-up that I realized what happened . The lab results showed I was HIV positive .”
Dan would , in the next months and years , wage a great struggle for his life . The struggle simultaneously happening included avoiding stigma and abuse , asking for forgiveness from his family and securing anti-retroviral for himself . According to Dan , the greatest struggle of all was securing that the medicine remains always available . It ’ s a struggle that he ’ d fight to the hilt even after all other battles were won .
Holly Burkhalter , in an article for a magazine published by the US Council on Foreign Relations , wrote , “ The AIDS pandemic continues to grow exponentially , outstripping prevention efforts and treatment programs ; every day it kills 8,000 people and infects 13,700 more .” In our country , there are 24,936 people who are living with HIV / AIDS as of April 2015 , count is from the AIDS Registry of the Department of Health . It does not include the estimated thousands of unreported cases .
AIDS epidemic has impact on economics and politics , and vice verza . At household level , income and expenditure is affected . Researcher Patrick Lundberg and colleagues found out that infection of HIV by a family member results in as much as 40-50 percent decline in household income . Macroeconomic growth declines as mortality hits the most economically productive demographic age group like young college graduates working in call centers .
Limited resources , on the other hand , channels national budgets to more pressing issues like disaster rehabilitation . Politicians choose to spend on infrastructure and other popular projects instead of AIDS which has less percent of voting population affected , unwittingly and silently bringing the epidemic to a future uncontrollable levels .
The disturbing reality of revenge sex together with socio-economic , cultural , and political dimensions all contribute to the complex
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