A beautiful, lovely wedding!

A blushing bride.  A handsome groom.  Proud parents.  A church lovingly decorated with Baguio flowers.  A park-like backdrop, with a white Christmas tree and stately pine trees (the ones left remaining).  A superb ballroom and flawless dancing by the couple. 

Watch all of these, in your Facebook, or borrow someone else's FB to watch this really beautiful video. Not to be missed!!! Congratulations and best wishes to  Ryan Ray Tabangin and Hana Espejo Tabangin. And to the proud Class 61 Papa, Ray!

How do you say "water"???

English like a native 

Linda Grace Cariño December 1, 2012

“LINDS, say water,” commanded my friend Lisa. I complied.

“Again,” she insisted. And again I complied. Then added, “Why?”

“Again.”

“Water. What is this about?”

Lisa laughed. We were out walking somewhere in Baguio, catching up on each other after rediscovering us, both teaching at the U.P. at Baguio circa 1980 or thereabouts. Lisa and her sister Ana had spent childhood summers with my family on Kisad. It was great to pick up as young teachers 20 or so years later.

And finally, she blurted out: “You’re the only one from Baguio I know who says wohter,” as in pronounced correctly.

Me: “What do you mean?”

“Everyone else says wahter.”

“Wahter?” Me again.

“Yah. Wahter.”

“Hmm. Well, you say water.”

“Wahter,” said she. And both of us cracked up.

From that day, I listened carefully to how Baguio people pronounce the word. And true enough, I soon came to conclude that a good number of us do say wahter, my now late father included. When he was alive, he was particular -- picky, even -- about having ice-cold water available at all times. The stuff had to be around for harmony to reign in the house. He was always saying, “Get me some ice-wahter.”

English spoken among Baguio natives is a dialect all its own. Though it is basically American-accented, perforce of history, thrown into it are a lot of odd bits of Ilocano, the Baguio kind. Ilocano (Iloco, actually) as it is spoken in Baguio is different from the way it is spoken in the flatlands. It is “hard” – transliterated from the Ilocano natangken – as against the lowland “wet”: nakabasbasa aya. 

My ear first attuned to this wetness one summer in Santa, the Ilocos, in the house of a friend named Jackie Bello. They didn’t say wen with the guttural schwa sound we use, but stretched it out, weeen. They also said aya every other word: wen aya, haan aya, apan tayo, aya. That and la. Wen la. Napanen la. Inakon la. In Baguio, we say wen, napanen, inakon. And with that schwa sound in heavy evidence. Not for us those long, stretched out vowel sounds.

So then, one of the Ilocano words which figures in Baguio English is this word ngarrud, found in our conversations like it was part of the English dictionary. Said, of course, to stress a point. So it’s yes ngarrud, not just yes, if you already said yes and they keep asking.

There’s also man, as in: get man the pen. Nonono -- man here doesn’t mean a person at all. It means something like the Tagalog nga: get nga the pen, a little word there to punctuate the request, much like that Malay tack-on, la. Get the pen la. Okay, la. Very good, la. Surely itself the origin of the Ilocano la.

Then there’s this other word, ngay. Used, for example, when a decision has to be made, like in "What ngay (are we going to do)? How’s that ngay?” I suppose that a loose translation into English could be from ngay to then: What then? How’s that, then?” Ngay can also figure in an argument. A could accuse B of eating all the ice cream, for instance: You ngay. You ate all the ice cream. You’re so rawet. That last word means greedy. And ngay there means: what about you -- you’re a fine one to talk.

Another little word is met, a hard met now, not a wet one. It means something akin to the Tagalog naman. For example, in answer to the question: Did you mail the letter already? The answer could be: Yes met, as in, need you ask? Or you could be told: Your boyfriend is such a schmuck. To say: No met, means that he’s actually alright. Or someone could say: I’m surprised so-and-so actually delivered, and you could answer: What met do you think of him? Naman.

Besides having incorporated those little words into the local English, I find that the Baguio native stands rare among his/her countrywo/men as a one who says s/he is going downtown. Non-native speakers (a little joke there) say they’re going “to Baguio” (hweeer?), to “the plaza” (Theater? -- thinks the native), to the “bayan” (Bayan Park?) when they’re going to town. (To be continued)

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/opinion/2012/12/01/carino-english-native-256097

City hi DOB: 1916

Councilor Peter Fianza wants grand city hi centennial

... correction please!! the photo caption above says "Baguio now" but that is wrong.  Can you guess which year the photo was shot?  AND... if you have a nice photo, any theme, Baguio-now related, could you kindly share?  Many many salamats!!...

After it being recognized by the National Historical Commission that its foundation year was 1916 instead of 1919, the City Council may just help the city’s, and northern Luzon’s, biggest public high school have a grand centennial celebration four years from now.

An ordinance filed by councilor Peter Fianza want that June 16, 1916 be instituted as foundation day of Baguio City National High School. Theordinance, if approved will grant a P70,000 annual city subsidy starting next year to said school for its celebration of its foundation day and P100,000 in 2016 when it turns 100 years old.

Section 3 of the proposed ordinance states that: “Following the approval of this ordinance, the city shall immediately work out the recognition and marking of the school as a historical school.”

In filing the resolution, Fianza took note of efforts to establish that BCNHS was indeed founded on June 16, 1916.

It was BCHS (no national yet) Class of 1956 and member of the MPHS-BCHS-BCNHS Alumni Association Edward Tipton who sought that further research was needed to establish the real foundation day of the school.

NHC acting executive director Emelita Almosara in her letter to Tipton dated Dec. 14, 2010 pointed out among others, that: “a provincial high school was organized in Baguio, with three teachers, and offering both industrial and agricultural subjects.”

She added that a “general course high school called Mountain and Richard Harris was its principal in 1927-1927. The general-course high school is different from the normal school; from the trade school, and from the agricultural and farm schools.”

Another source, Almosara cited was that the “Baguio Trade School was the old name of the Mountain Province High School. It had an annex or extension in Trinidad Valley, the Trinidad Agricultural School, which could be confirmed by the 1902 report saying agricultural courses were offered in the high school in Baguio. 

She added that in 1956 Larry Wilson said that the “first secondary school in Baguio was the normal school founded in 1916, later named Mt. Province High School,....”

NHC executive director signed a certification on Sept. 27 last year that says: “Three important events transpired in 1916; the first year of the secondary course or high school level was established; a normal course was added and the Trinidad Agricultural School was established in La Trinidad as its extension school. The secondary or high school level and normal curriculum of the school, therefore, officialy started in 1916, marking 1916 as the foundation of the high school.”

With the certification, BCNHS principal wrote the City Council, through Fianza, requesting the it should recognize June 16, 1916 as the school’s foundation day. 

She added that “while the NHC certification provided only the year (1916) as marking the foundatyion of the school, with the opening of classes being normally int he month of June, it will not be difficult to conclude that the Baguio City National High School was founded in June of 1916,..” 

Posted by Pigeon Lobien, Facebook. 21 November 2012

Mr. Mayor

Where can you find about …

-  The city’s BJMP Foursome…

-  The children of Baguio

-  Sister city Tabaek, South Korea

-  Donors for kidney patients

-  The Barangay Poverty Reduction Team Orientation

-  Support for the Clean Energy Project

-   Tallest Christmas tree atop Session Road

-  "Trusted Manong and Manang" at the Police Office

-  103rd Charter Day Celebration

-  Beautification area at Burnham Park by the Jewish Association

-  18th Edition of Panagbenga (Blooming of Flowers)

Read more...

The current Mayor of Baguio City, Mauricio (Morris) Domogan, has his own blog, filled with news and views about goings-on in the city.  This website is so easy to remember!!

http://mauriciodomogan.com/

Guessing Game No. 28

Passenger safety and customer services are foremost in his mind, in his calling.
He is included in the Dona Aurora Elementary School group of graduates.
He played with the BCHS School Band for four years, under Mr. M. Balangue.
His birthday fell on one day last week.
One sister lives in Canada.
Perhaps he will be one of our class organizers/logisticians  for the triennial reunion in San Francisco, in 2014, hopefully.

I think you do not need any further clues!!!!
Take a shot at a guess…

Photo courtesy of Facebook

Pastor Frank

Pastor Frank is going back to the Philippines.  As an obedient Servant of God and as a life choice, he will continue his ministry there.  He and his wife Estrellita will have a challenge on their capable hands:  people of all ages: seniors, parents, youth, children will benefit from their experiences, healing words, and comfort of prayers. 

Frank is one corner of BCHS61 trilogy of pastors: Pastor Joe and Pastor Rey are the two other pillars.

We wish the Frigillanas all our best wishes on this new chapter in their fulfilling lives!  They will be available to meet, with full heart and soul, socially or otherwise, with our classmates.

 Their website is: amazinggraceph.org  He is also found in Facebook.

Class 61’s Wordcrafter: Remembering Joedax

By Ramon Dacawi  October 31, 2012

WE, lesser mortals, can only borrow Douglas McArthur’s lament to explain why we couldn’t go home to say a prayer or two before the graves of our loved ones in this week of remembrance for the departed The famous army general explained that “the deepening shadows of life cast doubt on my ability to say again, ‘I shall return’”.

My pro bono doctors’ advice against stress provided alibi against my boarding the bus to remote Hungduan, Ifugao. That’s where my parents, both unschooled laborers, and my youngest brother, woodcarver Manuel, were buried. To make up, I resolved to make the rounds before or after the Nov. 1 crowd at the Baguio cemetery where some of those who had touched my life rest.

It would take time, as their tombs are scattered. They were my superiors, in age and experience, mostly Baguio journalists who had reported to the Great Editor in the sky: Sid Chammag of the Manila Bulletin; my editor Steve Hamada and his wife Lulay (nee Abellera) near where his dad, the venerable Sinai Hamada, founder of the Baguio Midland Courier, inside the circle lies with his wife Geralda (nee Macli-ing); editor Jose “Peppot” Ilagan of the defunct Gold Ore and his mother, public school teacher Colasita (nee Lambinicio) just outside the circle; dzHB newscaster, Sunstar Baguio editor and secretary-to-the-mayor Willy Cacdac at the memorial park below, near human rights lawyer and occasional writer Art Galace and my teacher Emmett Brown Asuncion. It will take me time locating the tombs of Rufino Candelario, my father’s immediate superior at the Pacdal Forest Nursery, and those of his wife and children Romeo and Leon, who were my early teachers.

My rounds would end up at the plot where my elder brothers Joe and Danilo rest with Janet, Manong Danny’s special daughter. The plot is a choice one, situated behind the wall just after you enter the first gate of the overcrowded patchwork of graves, right behind where a mausoleum was recently built. It’s a curiosity, as it’s quite spacious, purchased and reserved by Joe, our eldest brother who was known for his lack of material acquisitiveness, a trait he shared with many of the journalists of his generation.

I learned of Joe’s plot reservation when Manong Danilo died of aplastic anemia. Manong Danny kicked the bucket a few months after my buddy, Peewee Agustin, drove him to the Army training camp in Tanay, Rizal, so he could see his only son, Ronald, get recognized as a cadet, on his way to fulfilling his dream as a military officer.

First night of the wake for him, I learned why Manong Joe reserved the plot. He passed on before dawn of July 30 last year, a year and a half after he began a grim battle against cancer. The ailment was diagnosed a month after he retired September, 2009 as personnel officer of city hall.

During visits to his room at the Pines City Hospital, I noticed Manong Joe’s gift of humor and repartee that marked his student leadership days coming back. He reminded me of Peppot, his friend and fellow journalist at the defunct Focus weekly under former city councilors Des Bautista and G. Bert Floresca. From his own hospital bed, Peppot would lighten up visitors with his wit and spontaneity, so that those who came to comfort him ended up being the comforted.

It takes courage – and love – to put up a front to lighten the impact of one’s passing on –on family and those who one knew. Manang Corazon, Manong Joe’s widow, asked their four children where their dad would be laid to rest. At the risk of being intrusive, I reminded them there’s more than space at the plot he had reserved and where we buried their uncle Danilo.

Gently, Manang Azon revealed my brother Joe had reserved the plot for his younger brother Ramon. She explained he was concerned that I’d go ahead of him because of my incessant gulping and puffing, habits I never learned to give up years after our pro bono family physician, Dr. Julie Camdas-Cabato, diagnosed me as a sugar magnate without a hacienda.

At the wake, city councilor Peter Fianza confirmed my brother’s original intention for buying and reserving the plot. Peter, forever gentle, forever a true friend, told me Joe had worried my drinking and smoking would eventually do me in.

Despite his reputation for bluntness, my brother had kept me from his intention for the purchase of the patch. He knew quite well, too, that warning me of the dire consequences of my lifestyle would trigger another argument between siblings that we both took time to learn not to inflict on each other. That’s why he asked others to tell me to slow down on vice.

My eyes welled after Noel Padilla, my nephew Joris’ brother-in-law, came to fetch me for the hospital at three o’clock in the morning. Still, I fought back tears even when I saw my nieces Jennifer and Joann moaning over their dad’s remains covered by white hospital sheets. At the morgue, I put up a front of calm in quiet conversations with the doctors who had propped up his fight against the big C.

My reaction to my pre-need gift was one of ambivalence. Yet when the mist cleared, it was clear my brother fitted novelist Richard Paul Evans’ reflection about some people we meet along this journey to the grave called life: Those with softest hearts sometimes build the hardest shells.”

As former city councilor Edilberto Tenefrancia noted at the necrological rites, Joe was not really a popular figure at city hall, what with his uncompromising adherence to civil service rules as if he were serving in Singapore. Dr. Rhey Bautista, the educator who honed Joe in academic leadership at the then Baguio Tech, described him as “Mr. Clean”.

Sorry, but Joe’s work ethic and ethics are meant not meant for this Third World. That’s what I told a friend and job seeker who asked me to lobby for him before the personnel officer. “Tell him to apply on his own, as rating of applicants is based on merits, not on endorsements,” Joe told me in the presence of the applicant. And that was it.

We had our differences. For years, he’d walk to and from work, something I was only too tired of doing since way back in high school. Often, I’d be aboard a taxi and pass him by, reining in the impish thought of offering him a lift or fare. He was task-oriented as I’m now and then a petty country club manager. I finished college in five years, stalled for a year by the parliament of the streets and recovery from alcohol-induced jaundice. He got his bachelor of arts degree after 15 years also marked by student activism that the University of Baguio nurtured and his early love for print and broadcast journalism. I inherited his shoeshine box and then rented out ponies at the Wright Park while he and Willy Cacdac elevated themselves as caddies at the Baguio Country Club. He played football and competed in sipa in the Inter-scholastics while I only covered sports events.

Joe, Willy, Manny Salenga and George Jularbal lost their jobs at radio station DZHB and RMN-IBC when martial rule was declared. Still, Joe’s story on the declaration made the headline of the Baguio Midland Courier, which military authorities curiously forgot to shut down earlier, as they did all the other media outfits.

In 1980, Joe yielded to me his news editor post at the Courier, with the blessings of Steve Hamada, who succeeded his dad Sinai as editor-in-chief. Steve tried to climb Mt. Sinai, but people still asked him how he was related to the venerable Sinai, the Igorot lawyer, short story writer, Philippine Collegian editor and founder of the Courier. In the same token, people would now and then ask if I was, in a way, related to Joe.

“Tell them Sinai is the father of Steve, while I’ll announce Jose is the brother of Ramon, not the other way around,” I advised Steve. (E-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments).

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/opinion/2012/10/31/dacawi-remembering-joedax-and-company-250747