Like the losing pieces on a checkerboard, every rainy season cascading mudflows eat up one historic Kapampangan town after another. If there was one thing that would dampen the Kapampangan's proverbial sense of superiority, this would have to be it.
The Kapampangan was never the same after Mount Pinatubo. In rehabilitating the lahar-ravaged region, some government and non-government agencies thought it best to transplant thousands of lahar-stricken families to Mindoro, the Visayas, and Mindanao. A congressman from one of the Kapampangan districts countered that this action would kill the Kapampangan rather than save him. Yet how could the measure be tantamount to killing when it was obviously meant to save lives? So the agencies went on with their projects. Kapampangan families were sent to Mindoro, Bukidnon, and, as the Abu Sayyaf confirmed, to Basilan. Perhaps the comment was just another ploy in the never-ending game of politics.
Kapampangan is an ideology. The name was derived from the vernacular pangpangan which roughly means "the river banks," and ka- which is used as a prefix to denote immensity, as in the words kabuntuk [buntuk means "head" hence "having a large head"] and kayárung [árung being "nose" hence "having an immense nose"]. Roughly translated, Kapampangan means "Greater Pampañgan," which would include portions of Tarlac, Bataan, Nueva Ecija and Bulacan.
However, the term Kapampangan is applied not only to the name of the place, but the people and language as well. Indeed, it is this trinity of Indûng Tíbuan [gabun/land], Daî [tau/people], and Amánung Sísuan [amánu/language] which make up the Kapampangan identity. These three elements are inseparably one and the same. To take one from the other would yield not a Kapampangan.
To demonstrate this metaphysical concept: To a full blooded Kapampangan, a person who speaks Kapampangan who is not of the race nor of the land is nothing more but an overstaying alien; The latter is not qualified to be a Kapampangan. In another instance, a person who is of the land and of the race but can not speak Kapampangan disqualifies himself. As a few fullblooded second generation "Kapampangans" living in Manila proudly declares in Tagalog: "Ang tatay at nanay ko Kapampangan pero kami Tagalog na." Our parents are Kapampangans but we are now Tagalogs.
Kapampangan is an ideology. The congressman was right in one way. The concerned agencies may be saving lives, but they are not saving the Kapampangan. By uprooting the Kapampangan from his Indûng Tibuan, they are unwittingly extracting one essential element of his identity. One of these elements can not be without the other two. By uprooting the Kapampangan from his Indûng Tibuan, they are unwittingly destroying his identity. The destruction of his identity is the destruction of the Kapampangan.
Whose lives are being saved then? Kapampangan lives? When a Kapampangan is sent to Mindoro, Mindanao, or the Visayas he brings with him the language of his birth but it will eventually be demanded of him to use the language of the new place. His offsprings would eventually find no need to keep using Kapampangan. In the succession of a generation or two, the new environment shall have completed its work in destroying the Kapampangan strain. What we will have are a breed of Visayans sporting surnames like Macapagal, Lapid, Manaloto, Galura, Lacsamana, Tayag, or Pamintuan.
If Mount Pinatubo does not let up with its havoc, and if the ultimate solution for the Kapampangan is egress, then the Kapampangan would finally cease to be.
Siuala ding Meangubie
CURRENTS 1st Week April 1995
The Kapampangan was never the same after Mount Pinatubo. In rehabilitating the lahar-ravaged region, some government and non-government agencies thought it best to transplant thousands of lahar-stricken families to Mindoro, the Visayas, and Mindanao. A congressman from one of the Kapampangan districts countered that this action would kill the Kapampangan rather than save him. Yet how could the measure be tantamount to killing when it was obviously meant to save lives? So the agencies went on with their projects. Kapampangan families were sent to Mindoro, Bukidnon, and, as the Abu Sayyaf confirmed, to Basilan. Perhaps the comment was just another ploy in the never-ending game of politics.
Kapampangan is an ideology. The name was derived from the vernacular pangpangan which roughly means "the river banks," and ka- which is used as a prefix to denote immensity, as in the words kabuntuk [buntuk means "head" hence "having a large head"] and kayárung [árung being "nose" hence "having an immense nose"]. Roughly translated, Kapampangan means "Greater Pampañgan," which would include portions of Tarlac, Bataan, Nueva Ecija and Bulacan.
However, the term Kapampangan is applied not only to the name of the place, but the people and language as well. Indeed, it is this trinity of Indûng Tíbuan [gabun/land], Daî [tau/people], and Amánung Sísuan [amánu/language] which make up the Kapampangan identity. These three elements are inseparably one and the same. To take one from the other would yield not a Kapampangan.
To demonstrate this metaphysical concept: To a full blooded Kapampangan, a person who speaks Kapampangan who is not of the race nor of the land is nothing more but an overstaying alien; The latter is not qualified to be a Kapampangan. In another instance, a person who is of the land and of the race but can not speak Kapampangan disqualifies himself. As a few fullblooded second generation "Kapampangans" living in Manila proudly declares in Tagalog: "Ang tatay at nanay ko Kapampangan pero kami Tagalog na." Our parents are Kapampangans but we are now Tagalogs.
Kapampangan is an ideology. The congressman was right in one way. The concerned agencies may be saving lives, but they are not saving the Kapampangan. By uprooting the Kapampangan from his Indûng Tibuan, they are unwittingly extracting one essential element of his identity. One of these elements can not be without the other two. By uprooting the Kapampangan from his Indûng Tibuan, they are unwittingly destroying his identity. The destruction of his identity is the destruction of the Kapampangan.
Whose lives are being saved then? Kapampangan lives? When a Kapampangan is sent to Mindoro, Mindanao, or the Visayas he brings with him the language of his birth but it will eventually be demanded of him to use the language of the new place. His offsprings would eventually find no need to keep using Kapampangan. In the succession of a generation or two, the new environment shall have completed its work in destroying the Kapampangan strain. What we will have are a breed of Visayans sporting surnames like Macapagal, Lapid, Manaloto, Galura, Lacsamana, Tayag, or Pamintuan.
If Mount Pinatubo does not let up with its havoc, and if the ultimate solution for the Kapampangan is egress, then the Kapampangan would finally cease to be.
Siuala ding Meangubie
CURRENTS 1st Week April 1995
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Author's Note:
Through the years, I have learned to change my views on this one. I believe that the most dominant element in determining our identity is our INDUNG TIBUAN. It is the Spirit of the land of our birth that shapes the person to what he is regardless of his parents' original ethnolinguistic background. Our Indung Tibuan has the power to transform someone's spirit and turn him into a Kapampangan regardless of his ethnic backgrounds. Of course when that happens, that person will speak Kapampangan! Bolang la retang magsasa-Kapampangan mu uli mong panaquitan da na ngeni! Pasimbalang!
8/30/2006
Author's Note:
The unnamed congressman in this article is Oscar Rodriguez, now mayor of the City of San Fernando. A visionary, Mayor Oscar Rodriguez, has enacted laws that ensured the protection of the Kapampangan language and cultural heritage of the city he governs.
1 comment:
Through the years, I have learned to change my views on this one. I believe that the most dominant element in determining our identity is our Indung Tibuan. It is the Spirit of the land of our birth that shapes the person to what he is regardless of his parents' original ethnolinguistic background. Our Indung Tibuan has the power to transform someone's spirit and turn him into a Kapampangan regardless of his ethnic backgrounds. Of course when that happens, that person will speak Kapampangan! Bolang la retang magsasa-Kapampangan mu uli mong panaquitan da na ngeni! Pasimbalang!
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