“Two hands for service” the better attitude
IN RELATION to our appreciation last week of the efforts of Elmer Apolinar Tadeo to preserve heritage sites and other historical items, especially chanted and bamboo instrumental renditions of songs of Gobang people in Bangilo, our equally appreciative congratulation also goes to literary- minded “Iling” Elveña vda. de Magannon. She showed me her booked collections of lyrics and song compositions by Bangilo authors that she gathered and typed during her years of service in the catholic diocese of Bangued, Province of Abra. She said she gave one autographed copy to the late writer Agustin “Doming” Manangbao Bagayao, a former mayor and, later, librarian in the Municipality of Malibcong of the same province. The “other special copy” she said she had intended for me because of “your early vernacular compositions” is still better kept under her care. Memorabilia are a diamond for her. Moreover, the contents of said book-bound collections carefully Olympiatyped by her own hands sound better with her very voice joining that of her Bangilo salidummay friends in Patucannay, Tayum, Abra, where she resides at present. May her tribe increase!
-o0oI thought I have stayed long enough and driven through all the streets of Baguio, but no, thanks to the boom of road-widening going on. The seemingly endless (depending upon one’s emotions) new detours gave me chance to see more side streets of the City. One-lane traffic afforded one used to beat traffic lights holier time to pray the oft-neglected rosary although the Lourdes Grotto up Dominican Hill is not much a tourist talk anymore unlike the stony Lion down scenic Kennon Zigzag.
-o0oLast weekend, I went to a nearby province to see how my grandnephew Jake is faring in his elementary studies in the new environment. Because the morrow would be a school holiday, we decided to go to the farm of my cousin with whom he is staying. A number of coconut trees she had planted some ten years ago were now bearing fruits, a certainly rewarding find on that sultry high noon, especially so that we had to ascend some hilly portions along the way each time before descending somewhat on the other sides.
Upon our arrival at the farm proper, Jake right away volunteered to do the job of climbing one tree that bore the right-aged bunch. To gain a steady footing on the first hacked footrest, he had to be pushed up at first upon the tree trunk he started embracing. When I tried to use one hand, I could not push him up, at least not properly, but when I pushed him up with both hands, he slid up with no problem. I, too, did not need to put too much effort to accomplish what I had to do to help.
The above incident gave me an idea to settle a needless bone of contention between two assistance providers in their communities. These two aid providers, both artificial persons, have similar very noble aim of alleviating the sufferings of families in time of bereavement. Unfortunately, however, these artificial persons are handled by natural persons that are all of strong personalities and convictions as to ideas and ideals. Now, we say birds of a feather flock together but also say that like poles repel each other. So it can be concluded that each side is right and each side is wrong but surely not in the same aspect. In other words, a factual event has intervened where, for the moment, there is no meeting of ways or where one such can be enforced without hurt to either side. But one thing undoubtedly remains just in case it is sincerely held true to both sides: the mission to really help beneficiaries in their dire moments, the aid to be given coming from the beneficiaries themselves bonding together with other potential beneficiaries and put in trust only in the hands of those natural persons now gone apart “for principle”, as one side reasons out for the “irrevocable” parting of ways but continuance of agreed service in the “correct way” it knows.
This being the case, in the case at hand, the parties at loggerheads can turn the case into a no-case. Can they not co-exist in an ecumenical manner to render service? “Yes, they can,” says the grapevine, “they are not canto-boys, unless they chose to retire also from the honored group of homo sapiens.” We hope and pray not. “We want them, not the lawyers, as bragged by one side, to enjoy life,” observed wiser monitors along the Halsema Highway. True indeed, “two warm helping hands” are a better option to plastic, nay, scandalous, oneness! Governments, whether secular or ecclesiastical, bow to that, no matter the play of language.