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Friday, November 14, 2003
Jovellanos: Pangasinan not a dying dialect
By Mel V. Jovellanos
Tagnawa Notes
NOW it can be said: The Pangasinan language, contrary to our detractors, is not a dying language.
This was a categorical statement made by Dr. David Zorc, a senior linguist of a world-famous Language Center in Maryland, USA, very recently. He was a guest of the "Ulopan na Pansiansia'y Salitan Pangasinan" during a symposium held at the University of Pangasinan.
According to Dr. Zorc, an American citizen married to a Filipina, Pangasinenses are finally rediscovering the Pangasinan language.
"You even have a new grammar book, a new dictionary and other vernacular publications. Furthermore, you have successfully organized several associations dedicated to the dissemination and strengthening of your language. Definitely, it is not a dying language."
*****
Agrarian Reform Secretary Roberto "Obet" Pagdanganan wants to run for a seat in the Philippines Senate come 2004. He has been opening irrigation works, farm-to-market roads and distributing hundreds of shallow wells all over the country with a regularity that has been astounding his peers. Where does he get all those seemingly inexhaustible funds? He has also been cutting down (literally) to size many haciendas and distributing farm lots to tenant farmers.
There have been many DAR secretaries since the time of late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos but one mystery that continues to baffle everyone is the giant Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.
How come the DAR, from the times of Marcos, Cory, Ramos, Erap and GMA, has woven an untouchable net around that controversial Luisita property?
How come all other haciendas nationwide are being "commandeered" by the government, subdivided and distributed to the landless except Luisita?
This might boomerang to the Senate aspirations of Secretary Pagdanganan. One unsolicited advice to the secretary, however: If ever he will run for a national office again, for him to drop the letter "O" in his nickname - from Obet to just Bet. To Ilocanos and Pangasinenses, Obet has a bad connotation. This is why the Bulacan ex-governor has failed twice in his bid for the Senate.
If he will change his nickname to just Bet, then maybe he will be our best bet in 2004.
Secretary Pagdanganan was in Pozzurbio recently. The articulate DAR secretary inaugurated the fifteen-million-peso farm-to-market road connecting Sition Papallasen with the provincial road in Barangay Amagbagan, Pozorrubio, his entourage which included Congressman Mark Cojuangco, presided over the formal ribbon-cutting of a multi-million-peso irrigation system also in the same barangay which will produce three cropping of rice in the Talogtog-Amagbagan-Malasin area. This massive waterworks program is part of the DAR's agrarian reform infrastructure support project.
*****
Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez continues to preside over the meetings of the core group that will oversee the holding of the Fercolla -- Fernandez, Coquia, Llamas -- family clan reunion. This grand reunion is a biennial affair. This year's reunion will be spearheaded by the Fernandezes. Two years ago it was manned by the stars of the Coquia group, headed by Fercolla's most senior elderly citizen, Justice George Coquia.
The grand reunion will be held on the 30th of December 2003 at the People's Astrodome in Dagupan City.
In the morning right after the Holy Mass, the prime movers of the clan will supervise the placing of bronze markers on the sides of the 78-year-old Rizal Monument at the City Plaza, containing the Spanish and Pangasinan versions of Rizal's "Mi Ultimo Adios" (My Last Farewell) or "Kaonoran Ya Patanir". This cultural endeavor is a special project being sponsored by the Fercolla clan.
In-between the Fercolla families are groups of original Dagupan families, which included the Villamils, Jovellanoses, Hortalezas, Siapnos, Bernals, de Venecias, Manaois, Reynas, etc.
The Fercolla is virtually a "Who's Who" in Dagupan City. The Clan's contributions to Dagupan are indeed incalculable. Long live, Fercolla!
(November 14, 2003 issue)
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