Playing with Fire
Happy birthday, Manang Letty!
By Gonzalo Duque
THE special committee that’s undertaking a holistic research and study of the province’s history met last Thursday, the official “first meeting” of the newly formed Pangasinan Historical Institute, our local version of the National Historical Institute headed by Prof. Ambeth Ocampo.
We’re happy to swap banters with Board Members Jaming Libunao and Alfie Bince, our orig partner in this effort (the other one is Jun Velasco, who seems to have shied away after the proposed trip to Spain was cancelled) and a representative of Ranjit Shahani, who begged off in order to attend the birthday bash of his mom, former Senator Leticia Shahani. Happy birthday, Manang Letty, and congrats for your appointment as a board member of MECO.
In that meeting, the group which included Dr. Perla Legaspi, has decided to request Pangasinan Heritage Society chair Arabella Arcinue, to make a research on claims that the first ever mass by Spaniards in the Philippine Islands was held in Bolinao, and not in Limasawa. The subject has elicited deep interest among local historians including Mons. Louie Ungson in light of an account that a group of Franciscan priests on the way to China suffered a shipwreck during a storm that swirled them in the air and dumped into Bolinao. The following day a mass was held in that westernmost town as an expression of gratitude to the Lord. .
Exciting exchanges among the committee members even touched on the none existence of Datu Kalantiaw, whereas Princess Urduja , the group agreed, was a real person.
Of course, other historians would dispute that, including former Gov. Tito Primicias who once claimed that Urduja was just a legend.
Why this big bother has to go back to the past? Hmm, as we said earlier, a country or province that does not know its past has no soul.
Did you notice that there is a new aura among us, Pangasinenses now, since … ahem, we began this Pangasinan history business? Please thank Gov. Spines who boldly put it to reality. And also, Provincial Administrator Raffy Baraan. And all the kindred souls who have stood by us.
It is to be admitted, as no less than a self-styled critic, a US -based Fil-Am, triflingly wrote in the internet that the whole thing began when Jun Velasco suggested that we wrote in this column our dismay over the absence of Pangasinan’s founding date. We were then wondering why we had been unquestioningly swallowed hook, line and sinker the claim that the birthday anniversary of the late Speaker Eugenio Perez on November l3 was to become Pangasinan Day.
And so the rest is history. And each time, the subject has brought more and more brilliant ideas to the fore. We, in fact, did not only succeed in fixing the date of the province’s founding date on April 5, 1580. We also, through the suggestion of our publisher, Ermin Garcia Jr., paved the way for the setting up of the provincial historical commission, as mandated by the provincial board, which shall work like a local NHI.
As that famous astronaut put it, one step for man is one big step for mankind. In our case, the search for a province’s founding day resulted in the founding of a historical commission. Historic.
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We congratulate the organizers of the “Global Agenda 2010” who gave Pangasinenses a ringside view of our embattled if precarious environment.
These are times of great peril … there was a killer flood in Mexico the other day… and there are unceasing reverses of nature in many places around the world! Mother Earth is really being beaten black and blue literally, and thousands of deaths are recorded.
We should really prepare for anything in these uncertain times. But don’t forget the God Almighty, who is our great savior.
