> Honoring
the past
MY friend Divina Valenciano-Acker who came home from
Massachusetts, USA for her dear mother’s funeral two Sundays ago
confided to me that while she felt good about the noticeable
transformation that the city of her birth has been undergoing
through the years, her heart broke every time she dropped by one
of the city’s popular spots whose hallowed ground has been usurped
and profaned by makeshift stalls and noisy bawls by hustlers and
traders.
Is that how we treat our national hero? Is that how we manage our
plazas? How insensitive have we become? And I hasten to add: Is
that one of the grave reasons why we can’t extricate ourselves
from our woeful state as a nation divided because we can’t even
honor the man who gave his life to make us one?
Divina said she couldn’t believe things are happening that way,
especially in her old hometown which is the only place she wants
to return to. In Europe and even in China where monuments of Dr.
Jose Rizal stand, people regard our hero with awe and reverence,
its hallowed space never to be vandalized or abused by the
commerce of man.
It is by honoring our heroes that we remind our countrymen of the
disciplined, tolerant, caring and freedom-loving people that we
want to always be.
Divina grieves losing the Plaza Rizal of her youth. With such
revolting carelessness, she fears that our sense of dignity and
pride as a nation are no longer in the hearts and minds of our
people.
Frankly, I felt ashamed for looking like I have not done anything
to prevent such shameless desecration. I felt I have no moral
ground to tell her that many well-meaning Nagueños have condemned
such act but the provincial government that manages it was simply
too callous and insolent to heed our plea. I thought I should tell
her that by sudden twist of fate, or through our prayers, those
makeshift stalls are now gone, hopefully for good. But what’s the
use? The harm has been done and it would take years and reformed
deeds to prove that such sort of thing would not happen again.
Divina, who belongs to one of the city’s oldest families and whose
father was one of the city’s fearless heroes during the liberation
of Naga from the clutches of the superior Japanese Imperial Army
is so concerned about the preservation of Bicol culture and
history.
In her latest email to me, she said she’s on some spadework on her
desire to contribute to the preservation of our city’s cultural
heritage. She assured me she would help out the James O’Brien
Library at the Ateneo de Naga University where her friend, local
historian Danny Gerona is the Director of the Institute of Bicol
History and Culture.
She further informed me that she has been collecting old photos of
the first few families in Naga that date back to the Spanish
times. Rich collections and archival pieces serve as link to
Naga’s, and by extension, to Bicol’s glorious past.
“My cousins (from the Valenciano-Abella family ) own one of those
rare original paintings of my lolo’s sister married to Abella and
(I’m) trying to convince them to display a piece of Naga’s old
history, “ she wrote.
A highly intelligent woman about four years my junior, Divina is
happily married to a Jewish-American economic analyst whose
remarkable sense of history has, I believe, further deepened his
charming Bicolana housewife’s historical sensitivity.
Like Divina, I wish to enjoin our fellowmen to build upon the
achievements of our nation’s history, and to honor those who had
sacrificed in its cause.
And let it be reiterated that to honor the past helps us honor the
present.
* * *
One word that we can’t associate with politicians is the word
“sincere”, as in “Sincerely Yours”. The word “sincere” came from
the Spanish word “cera”, as in the English word “ceramics”.
A character of Dan Brown, author of the phenomenal best-seller
“The Da Vince Code”, in his newest novel, Digital Fortress,
explained that during the Renaissance, Spanish sculptors who made
mistakes while carving expensive marble often patched their flaws
with cera – “wax.” A statue that had no flaws and required
no patching was hailed as “escultura sin cera” or “sculpture
without wax”. Thus, sin cera came to evolve in the English
language as without flaw — honest or true. So when a friend ends
his/her letter with the phrase “without wax” before scribing
his/her name, you know what he/she exactly means. You will find
some romantic fling with the word if you read Dan Brown’s latest
paperback which tells of a lady cryptographer who was trying to
break a mysterious code to save the world’s most expensive
intelligence reconnaissance machine. If you are cyber-savvy and go
for non-stop thriller, you will enjoy reading Brown’s latest book.
