Ibangon si Ina

Ibangon si Ina

An oil painting on a 36 x 48 inch canvas

It was probably two weeks ago when I started my painting which I intend to be my entry for this year’s GSIS Art competition.  It was my friend, Lander Blanza who reminded me that the competition is forthcoming.  I was just ordering a smaller canvas for me to paint on and form my collection anew when he suggested for me to make a painting for the competition.  This will be my third time to join said completion. My first entry was “Welcoming Kauai” who was still to be born at the time.  My second was about three years later, the different faces of Marcus, who was then a few months old.  I never placed in any of these paintings. 

Of all the paintings I have made, this is going to be the most painful not only for me but my wife and most of all, my children.  The reference picture is that of my mother-in-law on her death bed.  She was celebrating her 95^th birthday when this was taken. She shall perish the day after.

Reference pic for cropping

Why did I choose this picture?  Since the theme is open, I decided I would do something patriotic or some semblance of it for my entry.  The idea is to represent the country as an ailing mother.  I told my wife that my idea was to stage a sick woman in her hospital bed.  It was her who suggested that maybe I can use my mother-in-law’s picture during her last days here on earth.  She said there must be a picture like that from our children.  True enough, it was Mickey who supplied me with several pictures of her.

I selected one picture I liked, cropped it to make it more dramatic and started painting. 

Final pic reference

Painting is a continuous process of creation and thinking.  While I was putting on layers of paint, I was thinking of several ways to make not just a painting of a sick woman but a representation of the motherland.  First off, I thought the title shall be “Ibangon si Ina”.  While this title is very clear in Filipino I was thinking of what would be the more appropriate English translation for that is how a bilingual artist operates.  Several ideas came to mind.  “Raise Mother”; “Revive Mother” and “Lift up Mother”.  Based on the context of my intention, I do not think I like to use the word raise as this may also mean rearing children.  I do not like to use revive either.  My idea is that the country is almost beyond reviving.  I need a word that would depict the sinister effects of our present situation and how we can rise above.  I am more likely to choose “Lift up Mother”.  Why Ina and not Inay? They both mean mother.  The idea is that ina is more a generic mother, hence, the motherland as opposed to Inay which can be a specific mother of someone.  That settled in my head and two days after, I decided that the title shall be “Tulungang Ibangon is Ina” or "Help lift up Mother". This way the painting would be directing the audience to action.  But then again, several days after, I decided that would not only be too long, but stating the obvious.So at the moment, I tend to use the original title I had in my mind -- "Ibangon is Ina"

AS can be seen her head is being caressed by a man, probably a son (citizen) who kneels down on her bed to reach her and be closer to her. He clutches her hand assuring her that he is close by and ready to help her.

By the second week, I was halfway through.  It was at this time that I had another idea.  Why don’t I give her the Philippine flag for a blanket?  So, I did.  I managed to make a small portion of the sun appear to show a glimmer of hope and yet, not a single star would show depicting that we are not yet within the aspiring age -just at the threshold of survival.  Then while working on the blue portion of the flag, I had another idea.  Why don’t I include rings on both ends of the red and blue suggesting these to be the connection of the country being finally raised to greater glory in the future.

 Why an old mother to represent the country? The country in its existence has been in turmoil from the time of colonization of Spain to the present time from the hands of our own countrymen.  So, the Philippines, while comparatively a new nation with barely more than a hundred years of existence as an independent nation, has yet to see better days from the time of the its discovery till the present time.  It may also be a picture of Melchora Aquino, a heroine among the annals of our hstory who may not have played a direct fighting stance with the oppressors but has changed the course of history through her efforts nonetheless.  

Although my mother-in-law died the day after her birthday, I know the woman she represents in this painting will not. If only we will all learn and know how to take care of her, she will blossom into a fine, elegant woman again after having been born anew.   

My next problem is the submission.  I don’t know why but the organizers have decided to have the submission of entries done in one day – April 26 2025.  This is a very big problem because this is the day we leave for Sapporo, Japan for a fie day stay there.  When I mentioned this to Lander, he was good enough a friend to suggest that he will submit this on my behalf.  God bless his soul. 

So I continue to finish the painting which I believe would be completely done next week, do the paper works and send it to Lander’s house and pray that something good comes out of all these efforts exerted. 

The Perfect Party

  Everything fit to a tee. Two of our teachers came. Ms Tecson and MS. Eliza Santos Tamayo. The festivities started with a sumptuous lunch followed thereafter by games while wearing T Shirts I designed. Then an even more sumptuous dinner was served afterwhich everybody changed to their individual interpretation of a 70's retro outfit. There was a live band providing music and we all danced to our heart's content. While I joined the dancing and naturally made a fool of myself, I did not care - I have had several shots of whiskey. I danced the chicken dance with the batch's salutatorian who I was actually looking forward to meet so I can tell her an amusing story which happened fifty years ago - she approached me to tell me she copied a word she heard from me say it at home and got scolded for it! To this day, I could not remember what it was but I sure remember her, innocent face impressed on my mind to date. In fairness, she couldn't remember the incident much more, the word.

At around 11, some of the attendees left for home but more of us stayed behind. We played bingo with cash prices provided by Marietta Galang! At around midnight, we all left for a merienda at Chowking, compliments of Blesilda Brillantes. We stayed ar the restaurant until 2 am until we decided to call it a night. Sd expected, I couldn't sleep with too much excitement still flowing in my blood.

A few hours later, we had breakfast, took more pics and departed for home around past 1. Most of us agreed to have a reunion everytime we could until none of us are left behind like the veterans of world war II who paraded the streets post war until there was no one left. I call it "matira Matibay!" We reunite until the prices are down to diapers, canes and a competition of who has the most beautiful caregivers!

Child Rearing

 Spare the rod and spoil the child!”

“It takes the whole village to raise a child”

A wise man was once approached by a pregnant woman. She asked the wise man, “How old should my child be to start teaching him to be disciplined?” The wise man asked her, “How many months have you been pregnant?” The woman said, “three months along the way.” The wise man said, “Oh no, you are three months late!”

These are some of the anecdotes and sayings about child rearing I have come across and obviously my favorites. Actually, there is no fool-proof way to raise a child. This is because as the child grows, a lot of factors kick in like the environment, the media and peer pressure to name a few. Some of these are beyond a parent’s control. Just the same, it would be wise to study some useful nuggets of wisdom here and there and feel what one thinks is most apt given a situation.

Now that we have raised four children, my wife and I are down to enjoying four grandchildren. Sometimes, we are at odds ends deciding our actual roles in their development. Are we not obligated to raise them properly? Is raising them the sole responsibility of the parents? Should we not be in complete control ourselves? Are all we shall be good for is to enjoy, pamper and spoil the children? My best guess is no, and I am betting my bottom dollar (kasama na pamato) that we are just as responsible. In the villages of Africa, probably having observed how lions behaved where the lionesses take turns in caring and rearing for the young. These lionesses are the hunters of the pride and yet, during a hunt for food, one or two adult females are left behind to tend for the young.This is extended to breast feeding. A lioness who has just given birth will feed on another mother's offspring. The male, supposedly the king of the jungle, waits for the kill and yet, will have the privilege to eat first. Well, his responsibility is to secure the safety of the territory and the whole pride, a not so simple task considering that his stay with the pride lasts for two years the longest and another takes over. This probably is the source of the saying, “It takes a whole community to raise a child.” I believe the wisdom it partakes. Consistency is one of the key elements for a child to distinguish and remember what is good and what is right. If one of the caretakers do not re enforce a lesson, the child is most likely not to learn it.

Will it be wise to give in to a child’s wishes especially when our patience is being challenged and in all desperateness, just because we have a lot of things to do,i.e. surrender our cellphones so that they will be off our backs? It does not take a rocket scientist to know that that is not what one should do. If we give in to their wishes, we are letting them discipline us and not the other way around.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” has been with us for a very long time. The non-advocates would probably frown upon this nugget of wisdom because it has been abused. The older generation, and by that, I mean generations much older than I am, believed the rod to mean a literal one. Thus termed as the "carrot and the stick" once referred to as reward and punishment where they took the punishment literaly with a slap or beating for a misdeed. Times have changed and the rod is now more of a symbol of discipline. Not giving into the demand of a little boy is a rod. Not surrendering to the outlandish cries of a toddler and sticking to your decisions is a rod.

We must remember that life is about choices. Our choices determine what kind of life we shall lead. We should let our children reap from their correct choices and suffer from the wrong ones. They will learn more from the results of their actions than being told of the consequences.

Parenting is no easy task. One has been blessed to take care of God’s gift, we should not ruin it. In the end, a child who has grown believing of false entitlement and undisciplined will prove to be a lonely man, all alone with everybody hating him or her and will never earn true respect and admiration from peers but instead will be loathsome and hated for his/her self-proclaimed privileges.

One day on a River

 Once again, one of my works is going to be displayed at the GSIS as I join notable artists in an exhibit. I am experimenting a new form, this time giving my impressions of our Yanagawa River cruise in Fukuoka, Japan. I am attaching my work and a little poetry that should go with it. I will attach it at the back of the painting.

One day on a river

I ride the donkobune with care,

strange boatman in his white happi coat

in traditional kimono greets me,

smiles, utters words not understood,

he gestures where I should sit.

He uses his long bamboo pole,

pushes, stirs and starts the hour long journey.

He navigates the canal with care,

knows each turn as he has done

a thousand times, with different

faces, color or weight. He does not care.

He blabbers continually, probably narrating

an important tale of samurai bravery

or of a beautiful maiden bequeathed

to a mortal as told in lore – all lost to me.

Going underneath a long bridge

he breaks into a song, with a melody

more peculiar than its words.

how can the still waters be so clean,

I wonder. Nary a paper cup nor plastic

can be found anywhere. It does not smell

like I am used to with the esteros in my own land.

Just majestic, willowing trees

calmly listening to the breeze.

Then, an egress perched on a tree

flaps its wings as if to welcome me

to his abode.

I traverse the canal with nameless

strangers, oblivious of my existence

as I am of them. Just like the river and

everything I see and experience.

All I get to do is wonder - if anything

concrete shall be retained in my head.

Tito Rolly

Impressions of Yanagawa

Watercolor on paper

25 x 36 in

The Senate and PRRD

 The recent appearance of former PRRD before the senate gave me some personal insights. Remember. These are my personal insights.

 First of all, once again, he has shown the lack of proper breeding and no sense of decorum. I wonder what kind of household he had growing up and what kind of family he had reared.  He constantly cursed and even with extreme pride.  Never mind. We have always known the kind of man he is.  Let us just say his conflicting pronouncements gave me a headache. 

To paraphrase the main theme of his statements, he said, sounding noble to his minions by the way they clapped and cheered, “I shall be held liable for all the killings. Do not blame it on the cops… If I am given another chance, I shall do these again.”  Was he true to his words? I have reason to believe that the former President’s pronouncements are not really that gallant. These pronouncements may even be ignoble.  When confronted by Sen Risa Hontiveros if his commitment extended to those innocent civilians who died from the police, his response can be attributed to either, he did not understand the question fully or that he thinks he has something up his sleeves.  He waivered saying something like “walang maniniwalang abugado dyan.”  So, he believes, just like Roque, that his smugness is coming from a technical standpoint.  Me lusot, ika nga. The Bill of Rights guarantee that no person shall be a witness against himself.  Therefore, his words cannot be used against him.  These have to be proven which might take a long time maybe until his death and then he shall go scot free.  Also, he is a septuagenarian, a mitigating circumstance in the Revised Penal Code of the country.  What that means is that he cannot suffer the full extent of the law.

On a deeper level, cops who followed his directives should be held responsible and cannot claim they were just following orders.  A subordinate should ONLY follow lawful orders.  To kill an accused without the benefit of a fair trial is wrong in any country, in any jurisdiction, unless it is a dictatorial form of government, perhaps.  Duterte knows this, as a matter of fact, he said no PMAer would have followed had he categorically said that.  However, there are a lot of footages that see him explicitly or impliedly mentioning this directive. This can even be felt with his pronouncements before the Senate. He probably thinks because he was the President, he was giving a lawful order because, in his way of thinking, that is his way.  Well, is he correct?  The death penalty is no longer being meted out to even heinous crimes by our laws.  So, even if any criminal who will be found guilty in a court of law, cannot be given the death penalty.  Duterte’s claim clearly is in violation of the principle of “innocence unless proven guilty.”  A principle lost on all his believers.  Even more problematic is his admission having told the police to plant evidence just to pin down a suspect. According to him, that was his way when he was still a prosecutor.   How horrible it will be for a parent if his/her child is suspected and planted evidence and be killed just so he will have no more “problems” with criminal elements. Such was the case when out of nowhere, the government would have a list of addicts and pushers and be accosted and killed as in the famous “tokhang” series.  Imagine if you had a quarrel with a neighbor or a Barangay captain and they included your child to that list?  What a nightmare that would have been, right?  True enough, it happened many times before. Imagine, no right to a fair trial. Duterte’s kind of justice. Kill and get rid of these criminals.  Futhermore, there are evidences now that point out that big time criminals are not touched because they are being favored. But that has yet to be proven. 

Well, he always said he is going to hell. There is a strong possibility he will.  Life is all about choices and he made a choice.  At least there is one thing we can agree on .

In Aid of Legislation

  The country has been witness to very interesting events in congress today.  Thanks to the introduction of the internet, youtube and other platforms, one of the functions of government, the legislature and its inquisitive nature to investigate in aid of legislation, and how the players perform such function is now open to every citizen who has the mind to watch and observe how these things work and the trimmings that go with it.  Sometimes, though, I find myself in a quandary whether such opportunity is good or bad for the country.  For one, many observers can be misled and come to misguided conclusions simply because somewhere along the way, something has been lost, like the real purpose for why such a thing is happening.

For starters, I find it odd that congressmen and senators would, instead of ferreting the truth out of their resource speakers by trapping them and inadvertently admitting their participation with illegal activities, just like Luistro or Gutierrez and/or the other young congressmen who are probably lawyers, these lawmen would use intimidation like they would a stubborn child, which actually, does not hold water, after a long while.  We would always hear a congressman threaten a witness by citing him or her in contempt, sometimes for more than one until said witness is banished till kingdom come.  What they fail to take into consideration is that it becomes too ordinary it is no longer a threat.  A child who has been admonished for an offense, will likely be immune to a punishment that has been given repeatedly over time until such punishment does not serve its purpose anymore. 

What perplexes me more is that when a witness has already given an answer, they would pounce on the witness if such an answer did not conform to what they expected.  It is common knowledge that the onus probandi or burden of proof lies on an accuser.  If they think the witness is lying, it is their duty to prove that such pronouncement is a lie but nevertheless, they should take the answer as it has been given at face value. For after all, they always claim that they have the records that belie a testimony given.  Remember that the proceeding is just in aid of legislation, hence, the committee is not a court of law and as such, the main proponents should neither be accusatory nor give a verdict in nature and should be thankful for their resource people for making themselves available and be of assistance to the task at hand, make laws that are logical and sound.  Instead, what the public sees is a game of intimidation to the point of bullying their witnesse, shouting and rebuking their testimonies.One must remember that these witnesses are not to be considered as criminals and have yet to be proven as such in a court of law.  There was one senator who was heard to say, “Napipiikon na ko sayo!”  like as if he was talking to an errant child.  Had I been the witness, I would have said, “that is your prerogative, your honor, but I have given you my response!”  Another senator that gets into my nerve is a newly elected senator who even before interrogating Guo, uttered, in all arrogance, “humanda ka at pihadong papawisan ka ng husto sa mga itatanong ko!” Was that even a proper utterance from a certain person who shall be addressed as “Your Honor? Said senator is known to have a show that actually condemns before it hears which, of course, is contrary to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.   I also heard another senator a while back, saying to Guo, “You have to prove to us that you are innocent!” A very wrong notion, if you ask me for the simple reason that again, the burden of proof lies on an accuser.  I have been a one-time debate coach and I have always been telling my team that the negative does not have any responsibility to prove its case for the burden of proof always lie on the affirmative and that the negative’s responsibility is just to negate unless the affirmative has either proven their case or the negative is on the attack.  She, as a lawmaker should have known better, shouldn’t she?

Sayang lang, I can see that Cassandra Ong, notwithstanding her pronouncements that she has only reached, and not even finished Grade 6, can communicate in English rather well, as in her testimony, she was just the interpreter of the Chinese as they neither speak Tagalog nor English, the medium of instruction in the country. And yet, she can, in the words of Congressman Abante, drive circles around their heads.  It seems that these people have rehearsed what they are going to say until a verdict of reasonable doubt has been established and they are acquitted.   At a very young age, she owns fifty-eight percent of a company that has earned billions which is very unlikely.  It is apparent to me that she is a mere dummy and is being used by these POGO operators to gain advantage out of our laws which hopefully will be corrected by the proceedings in aid of legislation. I got that assumption just listening to her testimonies and yes, they need not have to cite her in contempt.   I wonder what kind of law should come out of these.  Just the same, I am still hopeful that the Filipinos’ real interest shall be served.

Of Shameless and Alzheimer's

     When I get to discover what I feel is a good movie, or in this case, a Netflix series, I cannot stop watching until I have finished the whole thing.  My latest is a series called Shameless. I am now on its eleventh episode of the eighth season. Three more to go.  Anyway, it is about a dysfunctional family at the south side of Chicago, said to be known for its disreputable location where poverty stricken families, homeless, addicts, and drug pushers thrive. The Gallagher family, due to a neglectful father, is supposedly headed by the eldest daughter, Fiona, played by Emmy Rossum, who had to single handedly raise her siblings since she was herself a toddler because the father, Frank, (William H. Macey), is a no good addict, alcoholic who is always wasted. The mother, Monica, was herself an addict and a bipolar who came and went always abandoning her family. The children, naturally, had to live using cunning ways to get by.  They grew up to be thieves and con artists just to survive and a dog eats dog world.

                The family had a trusted husband and wife neighbors who owned a bar named Kev, an almost naïve but honest man who loves his wife, V, an African American. They are joined in by a Russian hooker who forced her way to their lives until she ended up owning the bar because of her intelligence.  The series has introduced interesting characters all throughout the entire show and I am really enticed to watch it in between work. 

                Anyway, the father, Frank, is just no ignorant fool.  In spite of his addiction and alcoholism, there lies a man who has developed his own philosophy in life.  In one of the episodes, he blurted out his thoughts on Alzheimer’s which I have been thinking about since I have seen my mother being afflicted with the disease.  Frank said, “Alzheimer is an evolutionary advantage that we’ve developed so we won’t have to be aware of the depth of misery we face in our dotage!”

                I have always thought along those lines.  Alzheimer’s to me is a coping mechanism.  It is something that numbs away our pain having to see how we deteriorate and not be a part of a society who does not give a damn on destitute and old folks while they are trying to survive in a world that only cares for those who can live independently and better yet, comfortably.