An Isinay's Account on the Katipunan

Pagsasalarawan ng Araw ng Kalayaan sa Limang Piso

SA PAGDIRIWANG ng ika-117 taon ng Araw ng Kalayaan (Philippine Independence Day) kahapon ay napanood ko sa TV ang mga naka-sombrero at kakaiba ang suot na mga tanod sa dambana ni Jose Rizal sa Luneta (na ang tawag noong una ay Bagumbayan).

Ayon sa anawnser, sambalilo at uniporme raw yun na hinango mula sa kasuotan noong himagsikan ng mga Katipunero na siyang nanguna sa pagpapalaya sa bansang Pilipinas sa pang-aapi ng mga Espanyol.

Habang nanonood ay nagkataong hawak ko ang librong Isinay Texts and Translations ni Ernesto Constantino na kung saan aking itinutuloy ang paghango ng mga salitang Isinay na wala pa sa aking ginagawang diksyunaryo.

Tingnan mo nga naman ang pagkakataon: Tamang-tama na ang pahina ng nasabing libro na aking kinukutuhan (kada may patalastas o kaya'y di ako interesado sa dinadakdak sa TV) ay nasa Isinay Personal Narratives at ang talambuhay na aking binabasa ay may binabanggit tungkol sa Katipunan.

Ang bahaging iyon ng libro ay bukod-tangi dahil siya lamang ang may binabanggit tungkol sa Katipunan. Ibig sabihin, maski pala napakalayo noon ng Kaisinayan sa gitna ng Rebolusyon laban sa mga Kastila, inabot din pala ang aming bayan ng mga pagkilos ng Katipunan!

Verbatim at phonetical na isinalin ni Dr. Constantino mula sa naka-tape na pagkukwento sa wikang Isinay Dupax ni Apu AMBROSIO PATING Y UMAMOS at may petsang 1981-12-28, eto ang mga talata na kung saan dinaplisan ang Katipunan:

Saon si Ambrosyo Pating i Umamos. Ni-anaa^ si taw-onar mil otso siyentos otsentay dos. Siriyen a-unga^, man-oha' tay, sinalsalinwana' ira Ama on si Ina. Ot aytu, e, inloova^ si eskuwela, si aytu eskuwelan Espanyol sirin poto^. Ot nan-eskuwela' si pitun taw-on si eskuwela miyar an sitiyen Dupaks, Nuweva Biskaya. Ot pingsaneyan dimmatong di apituwar an taw-on ya ahayhayana' an iyoy Manila i Ama', mu war kuwartar an inamung na an masewen liman lasus an pesos ot nayir toy dimmatong di Katipunanar. Ot dimmatong di Katipunanar. Pingsaneyan dimmatong di Katipunanar ya nayir mos di kuwartar an inamung da Ama i Ina an masewen liman lasus. Ot besan ya' war inappiyan di Katipunanar dari situ beveyoy Dupaks ot ginarilya ra ot sinamsam da ri lom-anar an pambilay sitiyen beveyoy. Pingsaneyan navus diye an nasamsam, kabayu dari, nuwang, bavuy, manu^. Lom-anar an ilan da an pantahu, ineya ra lom-an, pahoy, ta andiyen kasangkapan. Alimbawa sa-on, ya' ineya ra ri sanwal uwar dari, eeng, kamiseta. Maserotar dari an eeng, ineya ra dira. Lom-anar an pambilay, ya' ineya ra. Kabayuwar dari, ineya ra lom-an. Pahoy, inavansen da. Ot pingsaneyan, ay, navus diye, siya an inappiya ra ya dimmatong si opat an taw-on ya dimmatong di Amerikanowar dari situ Dupaks, an amung nira'da si aytu Pilipinasa an nanggera pay lat Pilipinasar.

Pansinin na ginawa kong bold ang mga salitang dinaplisan ang Katipunan.

Two-edged sword kung baga ang puntirya ko diyan: Una, dinaplisan as in di gaanong natumbok. At pangalawa, dahil ang kuwento ni Apu Ambrosio ay konting patama sa mga kasapi ng Katipunan na namayagpag noon sa bayan ng mga Isinay.

Para higit na maunawaan ng mga di nakakaintindi ng wika naming Isinay, eto ang English translation ni Dr. Ernesto Constantino sa nasabing talata:

I am Ambrosio Pating y Umamos. I was born in the year one thousand eight hundred eighty-two. When I was a child and I was still small, my father and mother took care of me. And they sent me to school, a Spanish school in the beginning. I went to school for seven years in our school here in the town of Dupax, Nueva Vizcaya. When the seven year came, my father wanted to send me to Manila, but the money that he saved of more than five hundred pesos was gone because the Katipunan [soldiers] came. When the Katipunan came, the money which my father and mother had saved of more than five hundred pesos was already gone. Now, what the Katipunan did in the town of Dupax was to raid it and seized all the means of livelihood in this town. When they had finished commandeering, horses, carabaos, pigs, chickens... All that they saw that were for subsistence, they got all, rice, and any personal belongings. They ordered all personal belongings to be taken. For example, myself, they took my trousers, clothes, undershirts. They took the beautiful clothes, they took them. All means of livelihood, they took. The horses, they took them all. Rice, they confiscated. When what they did was finished, the Americans came here in Dupax as if to help the Philippines and to wage war also against the Philippines.

By the way, the above narration of Apu Ambrosio is the opening paragraph of his autobiographical contribution to the book Isinay Texts and Translations. 

The paragraph that followed it described his recollection of the arrival of Americans in Dupax ("kabalyeros an Amerikano on atatah-oy an kabayu... sindarwan baril on revolber di Amerikanowar dari an dimmatong situ Dupaks... siriyen taw-on mil nuweve siyentos... buwen si Novyembre...") but included, again, something on the Katipunan:

"...bayaw ot diyoy la ri Katipunanar dari an mangab-avansen sitiye beveyoyar dari Dupaks on kompormen beveyoy." (But the Katipunan who were commandeering goods in the town of Dupax and other towns were still there.)

I have yet to research who the Katipuneros that marauded the Isinays of their horses and carabaos and pigs and chickens and rice and clothes he referred to were at the time. But if this revelation by Apu Osyo^ means something, it could be that he did have a genuine axe to grind against the Katipunan guys who operated in Dupax in the late 1890s.

Pwedeng idagdag diyan na noong una pa man ay marami nang kabayo, kalabaw, baboy, manok, palay at damit ang mga kalahi kong Isinay!

Sait si Nomnom Mipun si Buksing

SINSIMBAN MOT di napeyawusar mansu^nut diyen nanlaban da Pacquiao on Mayweather si sinnintuh siri Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Bayaw ot mantuna besan, dioy la tay ri sait di nomnom uwar si naapyar. Immoya^ mot otya lohom nantanom si kamote siri piyo^ uwar as-asup Carolotan. Immeyava^ mot otya lohom si baiyurar siri Palobotan ot namahut si giyun nanung an tanoman tut kompormen buen si ayu.

War binuttan di sinnintuh dar ampay ya namerdit ehaw.

Mavves otya mu urian an inyap-appo^ di kampu rar dari, pasi tatahu war darit television (ma-America man o mu ma-Filipinas), an “Fight of the Century” anu tiyen pangilan otya mu siran ira Manny on Money si apaddeyan si batang on arangeyan si sintuh.

Poster da Pacquiao on Mayweather an nisa^dang si as-asup beyuwar nahiggiraw on napintolan an rebulton si laman on letrar darin DUPAX DEL SUR.

Bayaw ot, wara, awor si gulir di naapyar.

Ingong-a ri oras uwar an navayan an nanme^me-ong, nandasdasal, nandiydiyat, on nannansor an parakpakon otyan Manny si nget sorre on neyyir tuyong nan birung, papong, pasiruk, pavantu^, on pamerdit taheng ri beyandahar alaban na.

Bayaw ot, dahomar toy panay tawas boon ila ya amunglan tappi^ lohom ri sintuh di manu^ tauwar! Inayan mot di pamatoyar an marin maselevan di alisto nar dari an right straights on left hooks Manny?

Ot si Mayweather pisya, beyanduh, toy mu marin buti^ lan buti^ on mangipit si lima inapya nar, udi toy amunglan mewot on meyongngaw poddan buwengon ri innunar an mangop-op.

Ahayhayanar ba^baon, mu labentador otya, suyut o mu mentis ri binuttan di laban di duwar darin buksingero!

Alikaha on Sait si Nomnom
Amplamu nin dattun lugar si mundo war an dioy rat nambuyat saren buksing ya dioy ta dioy rat malikaham podda, boon ila ya na-highblood, si resulta nar.

Alimbawa, dioy si nibalita an natoy anun lahay siren mampahawan an mambuybuyat libre yar an live coverage si Pac-May boxing siri Metro Manila.

Dioy pat ama anu siri Antique an binaril na ri beyuntahu nar an mae-as mot la iman, nanwala^ tay si alikaha nar mipun si saren laban si buksing.

Siri America, dioy ra anut mandemanda an bayaran Pacquiao dirat milyones. Nalugi ra ampay anu, ni^bus toy urian imbutatta^ Pacquiao an dioy si aro^dah di wawanar an aveya na.

On ohavan lohom, dioy si imbalitan di TV yar an mari anun nambayar di Presidenten di beveyoyar Cambodia si posta nar para i Pacquiao.

Doddorah on Daddarama
Malilliwa tay nanung an matoy ri doddorah on daddaraman di tatahuwar an mahilig si buksing boon ila ya kampe i Manny Pacman sovret saren buksing da i Floyd Moneyweather.

Otoy ta dingnge^ pay besan ye an binawe pay anu Gayweather ri naun-unar an imbaha na an mi-oy si hamun di “Pambansang Kamao” tauwar an rematch. "No more rematch!" inaddi na.

Gayweather, adyo^ a, toy tin-aw u ri inngaron dat mango^ngotar an alaban Pacman. Neyir ampay anun inapya na mu marin mambuti^ on, amunglan bakla, ya pum-ot, manipit, on mangop-op i Pacman.

Otoy pay ta i-ong-ongongot anu ri Nevada Sporting Commission (or whatever) an ma-suspend anut Manny si si^nun buwen mantunat sintaw-on, mi^bus toy in-ap-ap na anu ri gi^gi^no nar an sait si aveya.

Beyandah! Nasambut mot la iman ri manu^ tauwar si panetten di hurado war siri Nevada, nillat osan esepon da.

Pamosong si Deyomdom
Ay bilay! Mavves lohom toy si osar an interview ra i Mayweather, in-iptaw na an ampaylamu sinambut nat Pacquiao, saludo tay anut in-aamtan Manny yar si buksing.

Osar tay an imbaha na ya umalin tu anun mampasyal on manlang-ay situ Filipinas.

Mu matuwan nantayo^to^ si pusu nar dararen in-ivtaw Mayweather, mamis an dongngen. Mu marin bulbulataw, maserot darare an pamosong si sait si nomnom di abeveyoyan tauwar dari an mantuna besan ya mandeydeyomdom si pinangagu^ dar i Pacquiao.

Umalit tu Filipinas si Mayweather? Mu man-Iloho tau, attu ye otya savayatan tauwar: “Ket wen a, barok… isupay a mawarsiam met ti Pilipinas uray sangkakiddit iti ginabsuon nga inabakmo.” “Ala ngarud, darasem ta umaykan… ta amangan agbaliw pay ti panunotmo, yo^!”

Mavves tay otya pisya mu iluuy Mayweather ri sin-eyawas nar podda an ama na, pasi si Arizza an datin ara^dan Pacquiao si physical conditioning nar nanung nan nan-otan si kodal Mayweatherar (dohlan siya anut nambaliw espiya an nangibutatta^ mu andiye innurar sambuton si Manny).

Mavves, adyo^, toy ampaylamu besan lohom ye ya ginanapan pay Mayweather ri suhat tauwar si beveha nar. Imbaha na mot la iman an uria na mot ahayhayan an man-rematch da i Manny, udi toy insatsat na pay an “sore loser” on “coward” anu ri pamatu^ tauwar an Pacquiao.

Aboleyan taun umali ra ta maporoban da an man-angen tatahu ri Filipino war dari.

On urian tau otyan saiton si nomnom mu ahayhayan dan manlingaling situ Filipinas. Toy bintahe taun Filipino riye lalo mu miluuy ri dee yar an sports journalists on camera crew si TV.

Amplamu anden kalasen si weather, avvesan tau mu umali ra Mayweather toy tsansa pay an matetteyan di entero war mundo: 1) mu aniya na serot di beveyoy tauwar Filipinas, 2) mu sangkanan ipaspasirayaw tau ri in-aserot on in-aguapo Filipino war dari, on 3) mu aniya na aumis on alin-awa ri panalinu tauwar an Filipino si urumar tatahu.

Man-engat da lohom a ta urian dan beyunon di in-a-appo^ dar, pasi mara^da^waw on manbali-baliwar an ba^ba^ da.

Toy mu urian dan ipaar siri longav dar di atdi yar madahet an inugale… irasal tau ta mari ran mas-e, o mu masuwitan, o mu manbolos si in-aro^lot dar tu an mangoppah si nabobov-onar mamis/masing-aw an maan, isira, ot-ot, merienda, on pulutan siri ayon dar panlingalingan.

Boon lohom adi…

Alimbawa na ta omoy ran tun man-iyat on mangiluuy si seksi yar darin mamariit si dagat tauwar dari an panunan si serot, iilang na otya ta marin ma^duman di ngo^ngot dar si atung di soy-ang tauwar…

On iilang na ta marin asivon di pating tauwar dari ri alatar lan buwengon/bullang an aping dar!

We Once Welcomed Floods

FOR A TOWN that rarely gets killer floods the likes of those that have become "the new normal" in many parts of Metro Manila each time, the occurrence of a big one is certainly headline news in Dupax the highlights, side events, and variations of which would last for many days if not weeks.

One such big flood occurred August 12 as a result of the hours of torrential rains brought about by Typhoon Labuyo that hit Nueva Vizcaya. Apart from swaths of ricefield many of which have yet to grow grains, the swollen rivers and their rampaging waters reportedly carried in their path at least two carabaos, four cows, and an Isinay farmer named Mariano de la Cruz.

This is not to trivialize natural disasters like the water event that hit Dupax, Bambang, and Aritao. Yet there was a time when we welcomed the swelling of rivers.

Yes, welcome as in we were happy the river became big.

Why? Because, at least for us river-loving kids, the floods meant not only a cleaner river but also new swimming and fishing holes.

The angry river quite often brought out or surfaced a boulder, or took away the lumut (algae) from the stones and thus made them fit for use as bubbur (rubbing stone) once again.

As soon as the waters subside and the sun shines brightly again, we barrio kids would look for toppled down bamboo clumps or logs stranded in midstream. These flood collaterals often had deep portions beside them that we call pual in Ilocano. Pretty soon, you would see us use the elevated or protruding parts as diving board.

For our bolder elders in I-iyo, the floods meant a bonanza of logs and tree branches brought down from the hills, particularly the timber concessions and kaingin patches upstream.

I remember, for instance, the image of Uncle Karting "Manmanaas" Jasmin waiting on the river bank for a floating log with a coil of long rope. Once he sees a good one, he would wade or swim to meet it, lasso his catch with the rope, then pull it to the shallow part with the help of a carabao.

There was also once a bamboo structure on one side of the river called asar. It was meant to filter the eel and dalag carried downstream by the strong current.

Oh yes, that asar was the one and only such fishing gear I saw in my entire boyhood in Dupax. I guess it didn't catch enough fish for its builders/owners to share, or probably its foundations were no match to the strength of the river's current and soon got washed away.

When Typhoons Gave Us Plenty of Guavas

CHILDREN today welcome typhoons because they would mean vacation from school, transport money saved or used to buy junk food, and plenty of time to watch TV.

It is certainly a different "normal" compared to when I was growing up and was a pupil at the Dupax Central Elementary School.

Back then, strong typhoons made me and my sisters happy because they gave us time to play with younger siblings all day and to catch up on reading the Bannawag.

Particularly in my case as the eldest, typhoons also provided a good excuse from not doing such chores as sweeping the yard, splitting firewood, watering the plants, and taking the goats to pasture.

One thing about typhoons that I cherished most as a kid, however, was that it meant plenty of creamy and steaming pising on the dining table.

Pising is Isinay term for what Tagalogs call ginataang bayabas. It simply consists of peeled and thinly sliced ripe guavas that are boiled in coconut milk and brown sugar.

Served hot, the pising is certainly a filling and nutritious dish fit for cold, windy and rainy days.

I'm not sure if other mothers in the neighborhood cooked it as a viand for their brood, but I guess Mama saw the practicality of the pising as food during typhoons.

Among the probable reasons why she resorted to that was the fact that our backyard used to have plenty of guava trees and a few coconut palms.

So what's the connect?

Well, it so happens that typhoons coincide with the time when guavas plenty of fruits. And when the rain-reinforced winds blow, they do us the service of bringing down lots of fully ripe guavas including those that escaped my guava-eating climbs or my sisters' su-it (fruit-picking pole).

Not only that. The shaking and twisting of trees by the typhoon would send down the fully mature coconuts, including ones that have para in them, which would be prize for whoever would do the honors of husking, splitting, then grating the nuts preparatory for cooking the guava into pising.

Dupax: Once Upon a Forest-Rich Town

There’s a town way up there among the hills
Everybody there’s happy and gay
All the people there are busy all the day
Yet sweet smiles you see everywhere.
Oh town of Dupax… I’ll never forget
My humble home where I freely love to roam
Town of Dupax… keep me closer unto thee
Ever and forever we will sing thee mabuhay!

THERE ARE TIMES when, walking down a garbage-littered city street the likes of those we see in less-visited parts of Metro Manila, half-forgotten images appear in my mind’s eye and then, even if I have set myself for a busy work day, I surrender to the itch to write.

And knowing that just like other flashbacks they would soon disappear -- forever -- unless captured and held on the breast like an old friend just passing by, I pound furiously at the computer, consoling oneself that, oh well, deadlines can wait but not inspired moments which, when left unembraced even for only a fleeting moment, will surely don't come back as vivid and as sweet as they first came knocking on the consciousness.

A thing like that occurred to me sometime back when I was still with a World Bank-assisted project based at the Department of Finance in Malate, with the song about my town above sending off the myriad images that while parading in my memory surely kept me oblivious of the filth and the garbage and the noise and the concrete and steel jungle that is Metro Manila.

The images were of course more than the fleeting and intangible shadows of a bygone era in Isinay country. For one thing, they came in full color, along with the scents and the sounds even, that were part of the now fast vaporizing mementos of a reluctant city dweller compelled to be like that by circumstances that point towards the need to earn a decent living and keep family and soul intact.

The Dupax I write about was, of course, the quiet, pastoral, and clean town of my birth that I used to know. It was not yet partitioned into the Sur and the Norte that it is now, even as the municipal hall was located in Malasin (a barrio whose only advantage over the old town was that it was more centrally located, was nearer more progressive Bambang, and had a Sunday market that sold vegetables, fish, meat, bolos, petrol lamps, plowshares, bolos, harmonicas, rubber for slingshots, raincoats, canned goods, clothing, blankets, and second-hand clothes that Mama then called relief but which we now call ukay-ukay).

Yes, Dupax... where I freely loved to roam.

WHEN I WAS in the elementary grades, my teachers (including Papa and Uncle Ermin) used to mention with pride in our Social Studies classes that Dupax was the biggest town in the whole of Nueva Vizcaya. That was many years before the creation of Quirino Province from what used to be called the forest region of Nueva Vizcaya. and there used to be a map of Nueva Vizcaya in every classroom at the Gabaldon and Pre-fab buildings showing Dupax was a giant compared to Bambang and Bayombong and the second widest was Maddela. I remember somebody told us the total population of Dupax then, including its barrios Malasin, Ineangan, Lamo, Inaban, Mabasa, Mangayang, Sta. Maria, Belance, Bitnong, and Palobotan, was around 20,000 and we took pride in that, thinking that at least we were more in number than Aritao and Santa Fe (towns that I heard used to be parts of Dupax during the Spanish colonization period).

It was also during my grade school years that Dupax was timber-rich, judging by the number of sawmills that it had. There was one sawmill in Belance, another in Banila, another in Carolotan, and one near our part the town – a stone’s throw from the cemetery. Almost without fail, rain or shine, fiesta or not, I think even on Sundays, truckloads after truckloads of logs passed by the road connecting my boyhood barrio, Iiyo (aka Surong and Palobotan), to the ili (town proper).

The logs came from the forests forming the headwaters of Carolotan and Navetangan rivers on the East or the forests upstream of Banila in the South. They were carried by muddy and rusty trucks they call “logging” the fronts of which, to my best recollection, were equipped with winch and steel cable sets. On lazy afternoons, the sound of the logging trucks approaching our side of town gave us chance to play a how-many-logs-in-the-truck guessing game. The choices were isahan (meaning the truck carried only one huge log), dalawahan (two logs), and tatluhan (three logs).

Note that decades later, when I was already a forester, I remembered those isahan logs of my youth when I saw a cross-section of a dipterocarp log mounted in front of the Bureau of Forest Development office in Davao City; I swore to myself that my town’s logs were definitely more humongous than those in Davao.

Replicas of those logging trucks, complete with green paint and tin-covered “engine” and swinging back four wheels, were made by the Mamaoag brothers and sold for 50 centavos (half peso). My friend and neighbor Oret (Aurelio Calacala) made them build one for him then – for only 50 centavos, he said.

I envied how he and his older brother Base (aka Junior), who also had one of those mini logging trucks, were able to haul home a small mountain of fuelwood from the sawmill by just using those “trucks.” I could also only watch with envious glee each time I would be in the company of the two brothers and other Isinay boys when on weekends or during vacation from school they rode their wheeled toys downslope on the hill across the road from the sawmill while waiting for the engines to stop, signaling that outsiders like us could now go rummage, dig, and pull from the huge piles of sawdust, slabs, barks, trimmings and edgings whatever sawmill wastes we could haul.

Okay, Papa did manage to build me a “truck” once and I was thankful for such rare occasions of fatherly care. In fairness, Papa’s truck had four fat and perfectly circular wooden wheels (most likely crafted in the elementary school’s carpentry shop) and a “head” made out of solid wood (but no GI sheet cover). It also had a body strong enough to wheel around on the gravelly road in front of our house any one of my smaller sisters then -- it was Tessie or Judith I think, but certainly not fat Arlyne nor sensitive Merlie.

But the truck was not as heavy-duty as those of the Calacala brothers and I think it was good for only a couple or so trips to the sawmill – plus a not so smooth downhill ride in the spot where other boys with logging trucks waited for the sawmill to open. No sooner had I began to like my truck than its sapwood wheels split, and I was scared (always scared) of Papa’s “gaddemet salamabet ubet!” scolding, so I just parked the thing on one corner behind the kitchen and went back to using sako (jute sack) for hauling slabs, edgings, trimmings and dipterocarp barks (this last one dried more quickly and were preferred for cooking because they ignited faster and produced charcoal).

Oret is long gone now (his older brother Base/Junior said he has gone missing, probably salvaged by his Japanese-treasure-hunting activity companions). But up to now I don’t know how I never got to try buying myself one of those beautiful mini logging trucks. Maybe it was because Papa already made me one. Or perhaps the Mamaoag brothers only made trucks for relatives like the Calacalas. And then, too, it might have been that I was not yet making money then from selling scrap iron, vinegar and catsup bottles, and discarded aluminum caserolas to the presumably Chinese “bote-landok” buyer that came to Dupax weekly.

But looking back now, I think I just was not destined to be a logger or even a logging truck driver – I was born to be an environmentalist forester. In those days when the grassy hill now occupied by the Bautista family was still open-access pasture and playground for the Isinay kids in my neighborhood, I would shun their rough play with their trucks and rather veer away to enjoy the song of the cicadas and the comfort given by the shade of the mango trees.

Some other days I would prefer to gather sapang, look for kitkitiwit fruits, or listen to the mountain breeze as it shook marasaba mangoes from their unreachable promontories rather than join my playmates' unending quarrels -- in Isinay -- on whether eroplanos were faster than jet planes, or whether mangoes were sweeter than mansanas, or whether Manila was farther than Bayombong.

No Poems and Short Stories Yet in Isinay

ARE YOU LOOKING for samples of poetry and short stories written in Isinay?

I'm putting my Isinay neck on the chopping board here, but here's a bit of advice to the linguistics, literature, and poetry enthusiasts/students/researchers among you who may be in such a mission now: stop looking.

Yes, fellow word lovers, as of today I have yet to find what passes for a poem or even a synopsis of a short story written in Isinay by an Isinay.

It is a sad reflection of my hometown's language, I know. But I guess the apparent dearth of Isinay prose and poetry may have been the consequence of decades if not centuries of the marginalization of the Isinay language -- which in turn is caused in part by the bullying of Isinays by non-Isinays.

By marginalization, I mean my ancestors may have also been poetic and imaginative, but they chose to keep their romantic musings and creative juices to themselves lest they would invite the ridicule of the more literate colonizers, including the Spanish mestizos, the Hispanized Ilocanos, the Americanized Isinays, and more recently the dyed-in-the-wool Tagalogs.

Bullying? Well, certainly the earlier Isinays were not indifferent to the finer things in life. But it was probable they didn't pour out their thoughts, feelings, and dreams on paper because doing such would expose them to being considered backward and "uneducated" (that is, they couldn't write in Spanish, English, Ilocano, or Tagalog) by those who think they were more superior and educated.

JUST YOU WAIT. It may be a case of better late than never, but with the call for Isinays and language activists to bring back the glory of the Isinay language, we may soon see the blooming of Isinay literature not only on paper but also in the social media and the internet.

In the meantime, it may help if you look at the lyrics of the Isinay love songs (such as the War Sipam Uwar).

A Game Taught Me a Lot of Isinay Words

AS A BOY growing up in Dupax when it was still a far-fetched dream for us residents to have electricity, I played a game that taught me a lot of Isinay words many of which are no longer used.

We called it “prisiner” – a corruption of Prisoner of War. I guess they don’t play it now but it was a favorite when the Dupax Elementary School (a.k.a. Gabaldon) was still not full of buildings as it is now and pupils had a wide and grassy school yard both in front and at the back to play team games on.

Prisoner was a game that consisted of two competing teams with at least five players each. It was sort of a tinnoran (catch-me-if-you-can) game where both teams have a base each and a "prison" of sort some meters away from the base.

In my case, my favorite base was the school's flagpole as it enabled one to sneak into the Gabaldon building, run behind Home Economics and then the Pre-Fab buildings, and then crawl behind the enemy's base.

One team assigns one runner to go on midfield or even beyond an imaginary border with the other team. The latter team in turn fields its own tonnor (catcher) to run after the intruder. If this second runner is able to ti^dun (tap) the shoulder or any part of the batang (body) of the intruding first runner, the latter would be taken in as prisoner.

The prisoner would be allowed to manme-ong (sit) a few meters from the arresting team's base. The object now for the prisoner's team is to rescue him by sending another runner to invade the prison and tap the prisoner's body. If successful, the prisoner would be taken back to his team's base.

The thrill here is that 1) the rescuer may risk himself being caught by the enemy and becomes an additional prisoner, or that 2) the rescuer may not only be able to get back his imprisoned teammate but even get a bonus of catching the prison guard/s if the guard/s happened to have left their base earlier than the rescuer.

This means that the license to catch is given to the one who left his base later than the object of the catch. There is thus a need for both teams to selev (watch) who in the opposing team has not touched his base before running out to the field so that it could send someone to catch him.

To win, a team has to have good runners as well as ones who know how to mangikulkulepot (run zigzag or evasively or in a way that makes him difficult to tap). It would also help if beforehand one team already knows who are the weakest runner or runners of the other team. It is these weak runners in one team who would be matalenan (the object of interest) by the opposing team.

One strategy is also to send a runner to surreptitiously go behind the enemy line and when no one is looking he would manduuru^ (crawl) then quickly run and tap the prisoner and thus set him free.

Another effective move is for a team to field out a supposedly weak runner as papan (bait) to tempt the opposing team to send a catcher. And when it does, the first team would send a follow-up runner, usually the fastest, to go tap the catcher before he could get near and touch the bait.

A variation is for one team to send out three or more runners all at the same time. The target is to divert the attention of the enemy and leave the prisoner unguarded, in which case another follow-up runner would be sent to either rescue the prisoner or to catch the catchers of the opposing team.

How long does one game of Prisoners last? It depends on how long the participating players are free from their classes or school assignments. The game is often held in the afternoon before official school dismissal time, or when there are emergency teacher meetings and the pupils have no better things to do.

Depending on the number of players, the team that has more players left on base becomes the nanambut (winner). Conversely, the team that gets more members caught and imprisoned is the nasambut (loser).

Normally there would be accusations from both sides of being a maagu^ (cheat). There would also be cases of a maviyaw (cry baby or oversensitive) player who would quit the game if he stumbles or if his shirt gets torn during the game.

On rare occasions, there would be heated arguments and, fanned by durdurug (eggers, jeerers), the concerned pupils would engage in sinnintuhan (fist fight) along with unung (wrestling), or pinna^tilan (sweeping one another off balance with the feet).

Often, too, the game would end without any team being adjudged winner. This was when both teams had equally good and evasive runners -- or when the school bell rings to signal it's time for pupils to go home.


LOOKING BACK, I know of no other game in the Gabaldon school that I enjoyed participating most than this one. It increased my circle of Isinay friends and taught me such words as tonnorom, ikulkulepot, selevam, ti^dunom, talenam.

Equally important was that the game taught me and my schoolmates the value of team work and the advantages of running fast and barefoot at that.