Inventing A Hero, Heralding A Hero

Today is Bonifacio Day, the day marked red in our calendars to honor Andres Bonifacio, the Great Plebeian according to our local historians. The day students from elementary to college also celebrate since they will have more time to watch tv or go malling. But what do we really know about Bonifacio? Well, our teachers in elementary, particulary in the subject Sibika at Kultura, taught us over and over again the following things about the man:

He was born in Tondo, Manila.
He came from a poor family.
His father and mother died while he was still 14, forcing him to stop schooling and became the breadwinner for his younger brothers and sisters.
He made canes and paper fans, which he sold in the streets, for living.
Because of low income, he supplemented his studies through reading a lot and self-study.
He read Rizal's novels, Victor Hugo's Les Miserable, and the lives of the presidents.
He married Gregoria de Jesus.
He founded the Katipunan and presided the Tejeros Convention.
He was executed by Aguinaldo's men at Cavite.

These are the facts about Andres Bonifacio that long time ago, when I was still wearing my porontong and watching Voltes V and AstroBoy, I memorized by heart. But what if the things we know about Bonifacio were all bogus and were just fabricated by our early historians? What if the qualities and facts attributed to Bonifacio were all just invented?

American professor of history Glenn Anthony May wrote in his book titled Inventing A Hero: The Posthumous Re-creation of Andres Bonifacio that our historians have committed the crime of misleading the younger generation of Filipinos by reconstructing and cleaning Andres Bonifacio's image, making him an ideal hero which would eventually promote nationalism among Filipinos. He supported his claim by challenging the authenticity of Artigas and de los Santos' accounts about the Supremo's life in which the latter two indeed failed to prove their accounts as genuine since they haven't cited even a single source for their information.

If this is true, then who really was the man in whose statues we erected in our plazas? Sounds like very Da Vinci Code-ish, isn't it? This is the challenge for our present day historians: refute what May claimed Bonifacio was!

-oOo-

Speaking of heroes, our very own Efren Penaflorida was awarded by CNN as Hero of the Year for his dedication and passion to educate our unfortunate fellowmen through his mobile classroom which he called as "Kariton Klassroom". Efren is one of the unsung heroes which was recently noticed by international institutions such as CNN because of his selfless humanitrian act. His deeds are inspirations for other Filipinos, including yours truly. But sad to say, a lot of personalities as of the moment, most of them politicians, are now riding the band wagon of Penaflorida's success and popularity. Of course, the government will not be absent from the scene. Instantly, upon Penaflorida's arrival, they honored him the Order of Lakandula Award. If they have honored Penaflorida prior from heralding him as Hero of the Year by CNN, people won't give any color of malice to it. But now, I think it's too late. Philippine politics --- very lousy.

Senseless Killings

The Maguindanao massacre was a wanton act of violence done by men without a residue of conscience left to themselves. As innocent people's dead bodies were recovered, everyday increasing in number, it makes me ponder why people would kill mercilessly just for the sake of power. The political system of this country has already succumb to the quagmire of corruption, deception, and violence; I just hope that our justice system is not, that its integrity is still intact and that it is still an institution where justice, especially for those lives waisted in this heinous incidence, is served.

I condemned the violence that took place in Maguindanao. I hope that the government will make sure that justice will prevail. As for us concerned citizens of this country, we will never close our eys nor shut our mouths regarding this issue.

-oOo-

May the souls of those who passed away in this massacre rest in peace and may justice prevail.

"Iiiiiii....... Cheeeee...... Creeeyam..... Fooor.... Saaaa.... Leeee...."

Today marks the first day of our formal in-house review for the Nursing Licensure Exam. This is one of our school's programs in trying to enhance our examination performance in the much dreaded board exam. Although at first I have qualms about it, beacuse I think the school must focus first on improving its instructional method of the curriculum in the classrooms, I was eventually convinced that it is necessary at the end because there were some topics discussed during the first session of the review that were not taken in our regular classroom lectures (or maybe they were discussed in our classroom lectures but I wasn't just listening because my teachers were kinda boring... har har har).

Our first lecturer, his name was Mark, tackled about Community Health Nursing. He opened his lecture by introducing to us a secret "Latin chant" which according to him will help the chanter fulfill his heart's desire, in our case, to pass the board exam. And so we chanted together while holding each other's hands. The cryptic Latin phrase that our lecturer taught us sounds like this: "Iiiiii...... Cheeee..... Creeeyaaam.... Foooor..... Saaaa..... Leeeee....."

As I close my eyes, chanting the words, I was thinking what the phrase meant. When I looked at my right, I could even see mommy Liezl, one of my classmates that is close to me, teary-eyed! Everybody in the cinema (our venue was in SM City Digital Cinema 1) felt the surging of an unknown eerie force. Goosebumps crept all over our body. Suddenly, we felt that we became the center of the universe in the metaphysical world!

"Iiiii..... Cheeee..... Creeeeyam..... Foooooor..... Saaaa.... Leeeee....." On and on we chanted and hummed. Then it entered my mind. For Sa Le? Sounds like FOR SALE? I listened more attentively. Creeeyam? Hmmm.... Am I hearing the word CREAM here?

And then, all of a sudden, I was disconnected to the LIGHT because finally I realized that after all this time, all I was chanting was nothing but the phrase : ICE CREAM FOR SALE!

I was deceived! And we couldn't help but laugh to the max of our stupidity!

When we were all settled down, the lecture began. I was thinking it would be a boring lecture since Community Health Nursing (CHN) is a boring subject to most student nurses, but I was wrong. It turned out that our lecturer knew how to keep the lecture alive by throwing out jokes and likewise by "casting a curse" that if we won't listen and participate with him, we won't be able to pass the 2010 board exam until 2020, which we took seriously inspite of knowing that it was just a pure joke. "Lahat talaga ay gagawin n'yo ano para lang makapasa sa board exam kahit na patuwadin pa kayo?!" Exactly!

Our lecturer insisted that if he will say an important word or concept, we should repeat it loudly at the top of our lungs. At first, I was annoyed by it because I felt like I returned back to my elementary years but at the latter part of the lecture, I found out that listening to lectures or instructions and repeating the concepts over and over again helped me retain it without even exerting much effort. Another thing, Sir Mark, also used pnemonics to simplify and breakdown novel-like concepts of nursing and it work. By using pnemonics, memorization and even understanding complex ideas and knowledge in nursing were made easy. "That's why nursing is also an art because we find ways to make it easy and fun through innovations," remarked Sir Mark.

I also noticed while the review was going on that our lecturer was fond of letting us recite over and over again, from time to time, the line: "I can do it, I can make it, I will pass the board exam! And be the number one!" The line at the end had finally became a mantra in the whole cinema that I could even mumble it during my sleep. We were like little children in a pre-school class. We were like fools. But I know it was not foolishness. I can understand the principles behind it. It was the principle of the power of the spoken words, the principle of affirmation, the principle of centering, and the principle of attraction. The Bible taught us about it, ancient philosophers and great men relayed it to us, and even present philosophical scholars like Paulo Coehlo and Rhonda Byrne talked about it. So I bought it. I joined the chorus everytime Sir Mark let us say it aloud.

At the end of the lecture, we sat there for almost 8 hours and we didn't even noticed time passed us by so quickly, our brains were refreshed and discovered new techniques in studying. Our hearts too were filled with laughter with all the intellectual and nasty jokes our lecturer shared, and our spirits were strengthened with the conviction that we will be able to face the challenges of taking the board exam in the future with boldness and confidence. I just hope that this good experience we had will be sustained until the end of our in-house review. And I know that God will always be there for us.

P.S. Whenever we say something stupid and funny, our lecturer called us DUGYOT. At first I was thinking what dugyot mean and so I searched for it on the net. I found out that it was a Pinoy slang for poor hygiene practice. Ha ha ha! Si Sir MArk talaga, dugyot! Toinks!