Hola / Salut / Kumusta / Hey there / Hallo!

I am under an avalanche of work, so I just wanted to share videos I've just watched (Well, I can't work non-stop!  ...while having my morning coffee!) on the defining moments taking place right now in France.

Estoy sepultada bajo un alud de trabajo y solo quisiera compartir algunos videos que acabo de ver (bueno, no se puede trabajar sin parar!!  Mientras tomaba una taza de café!) sobre los acontecimientos definitorios que están pasando ahora mismo en Francia.

Hugs, abrazos, mahigpit na yakap, baisses, auf wiedersehen!

        Isabel           

                                                                                             Tax the Lear Jets, Tax the Yachts

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Wolff explains why the people are pissed that governments have used the people’s tax money to bail out the banks who created the financial crisis in the first place, and then demanded that the people accept austerity measures, cuts in social services:

Richard Wolff | Masterfully Explains France's Yellow Vest Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPPQ5R80SlI

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This Frenchman (sounds young) talks about the first Yellow Jackets on Nov. 17 in Neubourg, northern France, and that it is about far more than taxes and will not end soon:

The Unspoken Reason Behind The Yellow Vests Protest - Timothé Vorgenss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNs3rv40z-I

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Images and sounds, some scary, some thrilling:

'Gilets jaunes': How the movement escalated in France

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crhUlzI2pgU

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This is an explanation of the rebellion against the fuel tax (Attention au subtext!!):

France's 'Yellow Vest' protests: Spotlight on taxes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQhzVQtCA4&t=9s



STOP THE GOVERNMENT RACKET!

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And finally, my favorite videos, of ordinary citizens taking over toll plazas and roundabouts, letting vehicles pass free, and the cops sign their petition, and explaining the lies being told by mainstream media:

Yellow vest interviews, The French have nothing left

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpxiKNTiiv4

Reporters: What do France's 'Yellow Vest' protesters want?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUjr4cvdmbM

Another

I've been finding out more about the Yellow Vest movement in Paris.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0GHWSi_cXY


And this one on William Blake:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_gNG-hgT3U


I identify with William Blake for lots of reasons.  When I watch his docus I feel more okay with my life.   I am considered weird and crazy by my own kids and my handful of friends (all women, a few fellow interpreters and translators).  I feel very close to the spirits, to the dead, who I know are more alive than we are here.  I myself feel dead here.  This life is not a propitious place for feeling truly, intensely alive. We have all seen or read or experienced this, over and over.  It isn't subject to argument anymore.

I have never felt comfortable in human society except when I am with simple people, which means in 99.9% cases, people who are not rich, who are not complicated, though I do have one or two friends I love who are well off because they worked very hard all their lives and who are white but perhaps of Italian American, or Italian Chilean origin.

    Native Song, 1999   Santiago Bose

Because I have been single since I was 39 when I ended an unhappy marriage, and would have liked to have found a companion who could have understood how my consciousness works, who could have had a rich inner life that he would share with me, but never have found anyone, it has been a hard life and I hope to die by the time I am 72. I am bored by most people though I am not an unkind person and I treat people well unless they do not deserve it, which is rare, and when I meet someone of this kind I just move away.  Sometimes it takes a long time before I realize that I should put an association to an end. Most of the time it is just a case of, I can relate to 25% of the person, and they can relate to 10% of myself, and we just make the most of it insofar as our association can be one of mutual cordiality and respect, and reciprocal assistance on the basis of equality and freedom.


The thing that makes me happiest of all, is when I lose myself in research on Hispanofilipinas, and when I make an effort to write, to explain the important points I discover in my research, and to try and write fiction recreating Hispanofilipinas.  It is very difficult for me to write because I need to be unemployed and quiet.  This means I have to have money to live on.  This means my production of texts has been very irregular and continues to be so.  It can't be helped.  Besides, I don't produce texts that are the product of my imagination alone.  I write to bring back a lost world, one that I did not know in this present incarnation.  I know I was alive in Hispanofilipinas, and the history books wake up my sleeping and lost memories.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ACCUSED ME OF BEING A KASTILALOY -- someone who is trying to make a big deal that she is of Spanish origin. This is a lie.  I am not an elitist.  This is what I find utterly ridiculous about the claims that Rizal was Chinese because he had a great-grandfather who was Chinese. Rizal felt himself to be a pure Filipino, full stop.  I had a great-grandfather who was from Andalucia.  But I have never felt anything else but a pure Filipina.  I never considered myself mestiza de español.  I never learned to speak Spanish at home or from my father.  It is not a racist point with me.  It is a spiritual point.  I have no connection to the land-owning oligarchy and I have never been slavishly religious. Yes, as a child I prayed a lot and asked to see the Virgin. When I lost something I prayed hard to St. Anthony. I spoke to Jesus. I loved the stories of the saints and still do.  But I am not a Catholic by self-definition.  I am like William Blake, though I do not see visions of angels. I know they are there.

I know that the period between 1872 and 1913 was cataclysmic for Filipinas, that the entire Spanish colonization was very difficult, and that the period from 1900 to the present was a reaction, and a pact with the Devil.  A trade that was forced on Filipinas because she had no choice, but basically her children decided to trade their souls for a false material development without sound foundations and with the continuation of tyranny, this time under the rule of the former slave owners, the principales, now speaking English and acting like Little Brown Brothers.

Unlike many colonized nations, in both cases of Spanish and American colonization, except for some violent resistance, the yoke was accepted.  It wasn't like the Aztecs and their vassals, or the Incas and their vassals, where the native peoples traded one oppressor for another who was more powerful, more violent, but the new oppressor was of the same color and race.  We accepted or succumbed or parlayed with a different race both times.  And so at the very base of both colonizations was racism.  It had to be so.  This also happened in Hispanic America.  But no numerically significant new race was born in Filipinas, not with the primary colonizer race (neither with the Spanish nor with the Americans), yes with the Chinese race, which had been carrying out a tacit colonization through trade and blood mixture, and it is the one that has had the most perduring characteristics, though very much of a silent, unobtrusive but nonetheless influential kind.  Filipinos already have many inner characteristics that make us similar to the Chinese people.  BUT WE ARE NOT CHINESE.

Faith and Science in the Time of AIDS, Apologies to Dr Jose Rizal, 1999    Santiago Bose

Filipinos are a very complex people, very resilient, very adaptable.  But Filipinos do not love other Filipinos, and this is the worst aspect of our people.  Filipinos do not want other Filipinos to develop their great potential.  Filipinos want to use other Filipinos, just as they have been used by other races.  Filipinos do business with their own fellow Filipinos, I mean buy and sell, as if their fellow Filipinos were commodities, or else they treat them worse than dogs without owners.

It is a great shame.  The Spanish already taught Filipinos hypocrisy and false pride, and sadly, after Spanish and American colonization Filipinos have lost virtues:  kindliness, hospitality, generosity, self-sacrifice, respect, courtesy, loyalty, faithfulness, simplicity, non-materialism, love for study and knowledge.  Honor.

Of course, this has happened to all the nations of the world.  But it is not an excuse, it is a diagnostic of a spiritual disease.  A spiritual and a cultural disease.

And it is not the end of the world either.  It is part of our passage from childhood to adulthood.  We are like teenagers who did not receive an education in values.  Yes, in repression and getting ahead, going through life the easy way, skipping important stages of individuation, of learning to be an integrated, whole, responsible, reliable, trustworthy individual.

                                Let It Bleed, 1994   Santiago Bose

After you have gotten through life being dishonest, being a sheep, a spoiled brat, taking advantage of others to do all the hard and dirty work for you (and then resenting and insulting them for it, saying they are ungrateful, dishonest blablabla, which is what YOU are), ass-kissing and currying favor to get ahead, breaking the law as long as you don't get caught, making promises you know you will never keep, lying with a smile, acting like butter doesn't melt in your mouth, brazenly covering up the others' crimes and taking the money, etc. etc. etc. --- still life will ask you to keep making decisions farther down the road of life and choosing the left or the right hand.  And if you don't come clean, it will be up to your children to do it for you.

The Americans taught us terrible things.  That you can get away with everything if you are a fast talker or a smooth liar.  But even before the Spanish, it was already there.  Our concupiscence.  The masters and the slaves.  The lazy and the obedient.  The ones who wanted more and more, and the ones who gave and gave and suffered in silence.

Well...the Chinese are also a very old and very corrupt people.  Theirs is an ancient civilization and no such ancient civilization is alien to corruption. Yet, it was the British who introduced opium in China.  And when China resisted, Britain crushed her imperial house.  So the Chinese called the Westerners white devils.  The Japanese had imperial dynasties made strong by the ethos of honor and courage. But the mass rapists and murderers of Nanking dishonored the nation and it is very strange that Japan has refused to teach those historical facts to its postwar generations.  Japan considers itself to be a superior race, this is why. The whites of Asia.  Beneath them, the Germans.  The rest of us Asians were therefore not deserving of human rights.  The war crimes were equivalent to quashing ants.  Rather large ants.  With memories.

Pinay's Curtain Call, 2000   Santiago Bose

After all, the Filipinos, compared to those two nations, are rank amateurs.

I still say:  it is enough.  I want it to end.

Now that we have danced with and slept with Hollywood, are we still going to continue as locusts, maddened addicts to base pleasure and mindless materialism, birds of prey for our own kind, or isolated communities steeped in mutual dislike, envy, meaningless competitiveness, and zero solidarity, no vision of ethical society, bankrupt of enlightened spirituality.  Why do we not see the ugliness of the poverty and misery around us and realize it is also ours?  Our poverty, our meanness?  Oh, it's okay. As long as we can go home to the gated village, the mansion in Disneyworld Forbes or Dasma and Alabang. How is it that a people so prone to shame, feels no shame in front of the rest of the world, at how their own best people are reduced to slavery and being sexual chattel?  How can a people be so STUPID.

Even in Chile this is happening and I find it no less abhorrent and sad.  Rich people make me sad.  I don't like to associate with them because they frighten me.  There is something terrifying about emptiness.

Here is the art of Santiago Bose.  He to me is the Filipino artist who has masterfully represented the Filipino unconscious.   To transform ugliness, terror, despair, dead religion into truth, light, revelation, is to me, Art.





#artsitter #santiagobose #freetrade #smileyface #colonizer #colonized #unaware #crossfit #civicreflex

A Thought

 

              

William Blake, Visions

   I just listened to a talk Vince Rafael gave in Ateneo on Rey Ileto's Pasyon and Revolution and by no means did I listen to it all, this is why this is just thinking aloud based on what I heard him say about the Tagalog verses in Pasyon, a book written in English, and his theory that English was some kind of blessing for Tagalog, and that the words of the peasantry were more important than the peasantry who spoke them.  Now all that is pretty hard to swallow whole.

   Ateneo, La Salle, Letran, Santo Tomas, not to mention the women's colleges -- there are good, even great universities in Filipinas, but universities were originally meant to give universal thought to society and to produce citizens committed to the development and progress of their country.  Not professionals and technocrats whose only commitment is the aggrandizement of their personal cachet and bank accounts and growing the gap between the privileged and the forgotten, the admired and the despised, the praised and spoiled and the enslaved, exported as slave labor.

    So great universities are those that make the countries they are in, greater.  Not poorer, not more corrupt, not more desperate just to feed their children.  They must produce professionals committed to finding ways to conserve the environment, to exploit resources sustainably, and not to sell their own people and country down the river to the multinationals (on whose boards of directors they aspire to sit -- if you are a director, you get a fat salary without lifting a finger, and there is no limit as to how many boards of directors you can be a member of. It's just a Rich People's Club).  Not to become politicians ready to use the public treasury as their own wallet for subsidies for their own businesses, to control the legislature and the judiciary so they can commit crimes with nary a worry of ever having to answer for them because they can make them the law of the land.  Democracy.  Sure.  Since 1946.  Who can question that Sacred Text?

    Open your eyes, look at Filipinas.  If you are in your 40s you can compare what she was like in 1970 and what she is like in 2018.  Could the United States have "given" Filipinas freedom?  No, all the U.S. did was put in their guys.  And that's everywhere, including the universities.  Especially the universities, and the churches.

     If we had truly great universities, 90% of our youth would not be cheated of their future just because they are poor, malnourished. They would not be condemned to ignorance and stupidity, and forced to agree to be trafficked.

      If there were a true Church in Filipinas, it would have done something long ago to mediate a peace process between the fighting armies, to help the families being broken apart by the OFW racket.  But no.  All priests and nuns do is act like priests and nuns.  It's all an act.  

      And you know what?  The same thing has been going on in Chile, in a less scandalous way, but elite rich Chileans ought to know better than to treat their fellow citizens like their chattel.  The Church here is being unmasked and exposed because very early on the Chilean people lost their innocence, unlike the Filipinos who are eternal religious virgins.  

      It is, however, the same evil that has taken over, all over the world.  ALL OVER THE WORLD IT IS THE SAME EVIL. Wherever there are still countries that help their citizens, that still have a lot of land, resources, natural wealth, the Evil is already getting to work on them, inventing falsities to be able to justify invading and reducing them to rubble, whether through economic panic or war, THEN their companies or their buddies' companies can then start to "rebuild" and "democratize" and "modernize", protected by the AMO's strongmen and weapons, of all kinds -- worldwide oppression mechanisms and bribed cohorts.  The Entire World is now a Mafia.

       In point of fact, Evil is profiting from the divisions between nations, between political and economic systems, between language groups and racial and religious groups.  It always has.  In all of the ruling circles, evil has nested and spawned.

      So don't believe that Filipinas is the private problem of Filipinos living inside Filipinas, as if you people who live there are the owners of it and so are the only ones who matter, at walang pakialam ang mga ibang pilipino na hindi tumitira sa Pilipinas.  This is not a problem of addresses and passports.

      But of course, nobody listens, nobody cares, and the institutions continue to act like they own everything, and they talk to each other, and even if nobody amongst the outsiders cares what they say,  it doesn't matter because they control the media, they have their choirs to preach to, and the huge business that they've controlled ever since the Americans arrived (not just in Filipinas, this is worldwide now).  And some of the entrenched, entitled parasites were already in control even before the Americans arrived. Yes, under the Spanish, or the Dutch, British, French, Belgians, Germans or the native royal families

      However, ALL HUMAN EMPIRES DECLINE AND FALL.  And even if this Empire is actually serving and is bossed by NON-HUMANS, the Galactic Federation is already working on getting the non-human parasites out of here.

      We human beings still have to get off our asses and do what we have to do, nevertheless. Even if it means for starters, waking up and expanding awareness, then taking baby steps. Taking action.  Building something invisible.

       Why is it so difficult to practice the Golden Rule?  Why are there so many fake Christians going to mass and looking the other way, acting deaf, blind and dumb?  I guess they have done it so long their brains atrophied and their souls gave up on them and left.

       I do know that it is a waste of time to think about the people who will never assume their human responsibilities farther than their own self interest.  But anyone reading this, or even anyone on this same vibrational frequency knows what they need to do, and they do it without fanfare, without a user's manual or human resource dept. guidelines.  Without giving any importance to whether they will get any kind of echo or whether "success" will come to their door and give them a prize (probably just to then send them off in chains to the gulag, or to the ovens).  We must continue to do the right thing, and change our mental and emotional habits that keep us inside the vicious mental circle that we have been CONDITIONED never to question, and to feel Stockholm Syndrome attached to forever.

      Believe me, the powers that rule the Universe are not interested in the tiny minority of reprobates and greedy unconscious and conscious enemies of Life, who are owned by the Darkness and work for their self-destruction.  Because we are tiny human beings they look huge to us.   But Earth is just a dust mote in the Major Plan.  We're just here for awhile, it's a boot camp, then we leave our physical vehicle here and head off to more interesting places.  It's not hard, because this is such a dump (I mean that so many of our fellow inhabitants here are dumpsters).  

      Don't give up, ever.  This is a planet of chimeras, but the heart, mind and body, in unity --this is actually what The Holy Trinity always meant-- never lie and they are our sure compass, because they are moved by soul and Spirit.

      Be true to your Being, be faithful to what you are.  Follow that quiet inner voice, no matter the price it demands of you.  For you will illuminate your final triumph.  The world will bend to your intent, the Red Sea will part, because Humanity is destined for Freedom.

      Because we are such potentially powerful, divine beings, the Evil has put us to sleep and keeps us mind-controlled, deceived and alienated from ourselves and each other.   

       And for now, try and break out of the silence, learn to talk to Spirit, Spirit is in you and in everything and everywhere around you, most of all, in the inner landscapes where your consciousness sees Light, where you heart feels Love, in capital letters.  For we need sustenance, we need support as we cross this desert, to be as gentle, tranquil camels serving the caravan of the humanity that wants rebirth, and reconciliation with Earth, all animals, and Spirit. That sustenance, support, love, loyalty, gentleness, tranquillity are all within.

        Finally, the less recognized, the more anonymous, the more ignored, the more insignificant we are, the better.  Being is why we are here.  Not Winning.

Hugs from ---
                                 Me-You-Us
                                                     Present-Past-Future
                                                                                        Light-Love-Divinity 
                                                                                                                           (Body+Spirit-World)



I call on William Blake's visions.  He said he was visited by angels each night.  He was always poor, happy with his wife, and worked hard all his life on his art with very little recognition and support only from a few who recognized his greatness as an artist and a human being.  
                                              
                               

                                             William Blake,  The Vision of Christ
   
                                                        

                                                 William Blake's Visions

Tagalog words and Spanish roots / Palabras tagalas de raíz castellana

Lana = Lana (wool)

Arendá = Arrendar (rent)

Kalatas = Carta (letter)

Kalmá = Calma

Kurdión = Acordión

Kurós = Cruz

Korona = Corona

Turote = Trotar (to trot)

Pareho = Parejo (the same

Komediahan = Comedia

Palsó = Falso

Aspiá = Espía

Sisté = Chiste

Pileges = Pliegue (fold)

Makontrá = Contra, tener mucha contra, espíritu de contradicción

Malabatiba = Jeringarse.

Parti = Parte

Koles = verdura

Kangrena = Gangrena

Metsera = Mechera

Minudensia = Menudencia

Mesa = Reclinatorio

Misa = Misa

Punsión = Punción

Kapiraso, piraso = Pedazo, fragmento

Pino = Fino, delgado

Kadena = Cadena

Birso = Verso

Sapin, aporohan nang balat = Aforrar, forrar, superpuesto.  Aforrar de/con piel

SOURCE:   Diccionario Tagalog-Hispano Serrano-Laktaw

The videos below are no longer available  (18 May 2024)

Part 1 Tagalog and Spanish Words   

https://youtu.be/zl_I8uManx8

Part 2 Tagalog and Spanish Words
https://youtu.be/iA8fWm8Ljec

Dear Family, querida familia,

I decided to go ahead, let it rip, and make this video about Spanish words that became incorporated into Tagalog, and some very interesting transformations of meanings that took place in the process.

Decidí rajarme con el huevo en la sopa y hacer este video sobre las palabras españolas incorporadas al tagalo. Y comentar algunas transformaciones de matiz que sucedieron en el proceso.

Mujeres yendo a misa / Women going to church mass

I hope you find them interesting.  I had to do two videos, Part 1 and Part 2, because my camera cut me off just when I was talking about "puta".  👀👀👀👿👿💩💩

Ojalá los encuentren interesantes.  Tuve que hacer dos videos, Parte 1 y Parte 2,  porque mi cámara me censuró mientras hablaba sobre "puta".  jejeje

Con cariño / Affectionately,
Isabel

Materialism is Truly DEAD

       "Why the materialist, neo-Darwinist conception of the universe is almost certainly false. ...the materialist view simply cannot explain the Universe, it can't explain the fact that there seems to be purpose in the Universe, which materialism denies. And it can't explain the existence of human consciousness."

Por qué el concepto materialista, neo-darwinista del universo es casi con certeza falsa....la visión materialista simplemente no puede explicar el Universo, no puede explicar el hecho de que parece haber un propósito en el Universo, lo cual el materialismo niega. Y no puede explicar la existencia de la conciencia humana".

    I saw this video of Rupert Sheldrake last night and he talks about the world view of Animism -- the quintessential Filipino worldview and relationship with the world -- and how it is making much more SENSE in the era of Quantum Mechanics and the study of the human consciousness.

I really urge you to listen to this scientist refute materialism:

Vi este video anoche, de una charla de Rupert Sheldrake, en que habla sobre la visión del mundo del Animismo - la quintaesencia de la cosmovisión filipina y de nuestra relación con el mundo - y cómo está haciendo mucho más SENTIDO en la era de la Mecánica cuántica y el estudio de la conciencia humana.


Les pido encarecidamente que escuchen a este científico refutar el materialismo:.

Rupert Sheldrake - Is The Sun Conscious?

     I know, I know, it sounds really outrageously New Age, but it's (1) to reel you in by engaging your humorous curiosity, and (2) it really is an interesting way to stretch the limits of our conception of Reality, which is SO FLAT anyhow and overdue (like, 2,000 years) for a good stretching and elongation, as in yoga.

Lo sé, lo sé, suena escandalosamente New Age, pero es (1) la intención es atraer tu curiosidad humorística, y (2) es una manera interesante de empujar y estirar los límites de nuestra concepción de la Realidad, que de todas formas está TAN PLANA y hace un buen rato (como 2.000 años) que necesitaba un buen estiramiento y elongación, como en el yoga.

  And for my dear blog visitors who have a 
hard time understanding spoken English but can read subtitles, just turn on the subtitle box and the English subs will appear.  You can just pause and read.  I doubt there is a Spanish subtitled version yet.

    Y para mis queridos visitantes del blog que tienen dificultades para entender el inglés hablado pero que pueden leer subtítulos, sólo tienen que activar la casilla de subtítulos y aparecerán en inglés.  Puedes hacer una pausa y leer.  Dudo que haya todavía una versión subtitulada en español.

¡Un beso y un abrazo desde los Andes!

A Big Hug and a Kiss from the Andes!!!



.....there are all these words down here that are repeated from a paragraph above...don't mind them...I'll stick in some pretty bees...


...hay una duplicación de un párrafo de más arriba, no hagan caso...voy a meter algunas abejitas bonitas....



 y habla sobre la visión del mundo del Anim
ismo - la quintaesencia de la cosmovisión filipina y su relación con el mundo - y cómo está haciendo mucho más SENTIDO en la era de la Mecánica Cuántica y el estudio de la conciencia humana.




Les pido encarecidamente que escuchen a este científico refutar el materialismo:

Comment

Just quickly, I don't have time to do a trilingual thing...
Rápidamente, ya que no tengo tiempo para hacerlo trilingüe...

When I write in Tagalog I use three dictionaries, two modern, one archaic.
Cuando escribo en tagalo, ocupo tres diccionarios: dos modernos y uno arcaico.

I enjoy it.
Me entretengo mucho.

Okay.  

(1) Important:  The fact that P. Burgos wrote a novel about a true historic event, clearly to disseminate an egregious crime committed by _all_ of the friar orders was and is significant.  The novel was not published until 1958 by Luciano de la Rosa, apparently an insular, a Spanish Filipino, former member of the Philippine Assembly (the Congress under American rule), who was a correspondent of W.E. Retana.

Iglesia de Paoay, Ilocos Norte

Bien. 

1.-  El hecho de que P. Burgos escribiera sobre un evento histórico verídico con la clara intención de diseminar un crimen egregio cometido por todas las corporaciones religiosas, era y es significativo.  La novela no fue editada mientras vivió, fue publicada por primera vez en 1958, por Luciano de la Rosa, un español filipino que fue miembro de la Asamblea filipina (el congreso durante el régimen neocolonial norteamericano), y corresponsal de W.E. Retana.

It was a novel that for its time (1870s) was the equivalent to Noli Me Tangere for the 1890s, and even if it was never published while he lived, it still was probably read by some people and word got out to the friars of its existence.  P. Burgos also wrote several other writings that were easily construable as anti-friar.

La novela para su tiempo (los 1870) era el equivalente de Noli Me Tangere en los 1890, y si bien no vio la luz mientras su autor vivía, igual es probable que fue leída por algunos y que corrió el rumor de su existencia y los frailes supieron de esta.  Además el P. Burgos escribió otras cosas fácilmente tachadas como anti-fraile.

(2)  P. Burgos was a priest, i.e., a member of the elite of Hispanic Filipino society, even if native secular priests occupied the lower rungs (with respect to the Spanish friars).  He was, however, not a pure native, but a Spanish mestizo, son of a Spaniard who was a lieutenant in the Spanish militia (this seems to have been a reservist corps), and his mother, Florencia García, was "a popular*** beauty of Vigan" and probably a Spanish mestiza from a good family.  So in the social hierarchy P. Burgos felt no social inferiority to the Spanish administrators and friars.

2.-  El P. Burgos era un sacerdote, o sea, miembro de la élite de la sociedad hispanofilipina, no obstante el hecho de que los sacerdotes seculares ocupaban un escalón inferior (respecto de los religiosos españoles). Sin embargo, no era nativo puro sino mestizo de español, hijo de un español que era teniente de la Milicia española (al parecer un cuerpo de reservistas), y su madre, Florencia García, era "una belleza popular*** en Vigan", probablemente una mestiza de español de buena familia. Es así que en el contexto de la jerarquía social, el P. Burgos no se sentía socialmente inferior a los administradores y frailes españoles.

Iglesia de Miag-ao, Ilo-ilo

(3)  Padre Burgos dedicated his novel to all Filipino mothers.  In other words he says:  Well done, heroine of my novel, doña Luisa, María Pérez (the name she used once she began her life as an outlaw)!  Killer of friars, avenging wife and mother.  May my fellow countrywomen follow your example of courage before the oppressor and compassion and love for the oppressed.

This is the only instance I know of in which a Filipino of immense historical weight -- A PRIEST! -- issued a call to the Filipino woman to break the rules of society for the good of her country...until the women of the Katipunan, and that was during the revolution, which is not the same as peacetime.

3.-   P. Burgos dedica su novela a las madres filipinas.  En otras palabras, está diciendo:  ¡Bien hecho heroína de mi novela, doña Luisa, María Pérez (el nombre que ella usó a partir de entrar en la clandestinidad)!  Asesina de frailes, esposa y madre vengadora.  Que mis compatriotas sigan tu ejemplo de valentía frente al opresor y compasión y amor por los oprimidos. 

Es la única instancia que yo conozca en que un filipino de gran realce histórico --¡¡UN CURA!!-- hace una llamada importante a la mujer filipina a romper las reglas de la sociedad por el bien de su país...hasta los 1890 cuando las mujeres de la Katipunan se suman a la rebelión --pero eso fue durante la revolución, y no en tiempos de paz.

(4)  Do you think that in the Filipinas of today a movie could be made of "The Black She-Wolf", of a _woman_ (OMG!!!) who systematically tracks down the friars who took part in her husband and son's murder, and her daughter's rape and disposal of her child, and kills them?  

I kinda doubt it.

4.-  ¿Crees tú que en la Filipinas de hoy, una película podría realizarse sobre La loba negra, que trata de una MUJER (¡Susmariosep!) que sistematicamente busca a los frailes que participaron en el asesinato de su esposo e hijo, y al que cometió la violación de su hija y mató a su bebé, y los mata uno a uno?

Yo como que lo dudo un poco...

(5)  And so, Padre Burgos, as Rizal also would, years in the future, knew that death awaited him, sooner or later, and he went ahead and acted in accordance with his conscience, and he also acted like a man, whose first duty was to defend his country and people, and prove that the Filipinos were not an inferior race.

5.-  Entonces, el P. Burgos, al igual que Rizal lo sabría años al futuro, sabía que la muerte lo esperaba, tarde o temprano, y aún así siguió adelante y actuó en consecuencia con el mandato de su conciencia. También se comportó como un hombre cuyo primer deber era defender a su país y pueblo, y probar que el filipino no era una raza inferior.

  Liliw, provincia de Laguna


AND SO MY DEAR FRIENDS, FAMILY, COUNTRYWOMEN AND MEN, YOU SEE WHY HISTORY IS SO IMPORTANT.  HISTORY CONFERS IDENTITY, AWAKENS OUR POWER AND FAITH.  IT OPENS UP THE FUTURE.  WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT AND WHO YOU ARE, THAT YOU ARE SOMETHING VERY GREAT AND GOOD, THEN YOU HAVE BEING. WHEN YOU HAVE BEING, YOU ARE REAL.  THE REAL MAKES THE UNREAL RETREAT.    


ASÍ ES QUE, QUERID@S AMIG@S, FAMILIA, COMPATRIOT@S, USTEDES VEN POR QUÉ LA HISTORIA ES TAN IMPORTANTE:  LA HISTORIA CONFIERE IDENTIDAD, DESPIERTA EL PODER INTERIOR Y LA FE. ABRE EL FUTURO. CUANDO TE HACES CONSCIENTE DE ESTO, SABES QUÉ Y QUIÉN ERES, QUE ERES ALGO MUY GRANDE Y BUENO, ENTONCES TIENES SER.  CUANDO TIENES SER, ERES REAL. Y LO REAL HACE RETROCEDER A LO IRREAL.




La Basílica menor del Nazareno negro, Quiapo, Manila.
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*** //  De la Rosa was writing in the Spanish used in North Americanized Filipinas of the 1950s, and 'popular' in his English-influenced Spanish usage meant the same as "popular" in English = admired, socially accepted.  In Chile today 'popular' still means "of the common people", 'del pueblo'.  

***De la Rosa escribía en Filipinas norteamericanizada y 'popular' significa lo mismo que "popular" en inglés, o sea, admirada, socialmente aceptada.  En Chile hoy por hoy, 'popular' aún significa "del pueblo".