Apay bertdey gayam apo
On Tuesday, the 13th, the President ce-lebrates his 65th birthday. Naragsak a panagkasangay mo, apo!
I will be one of the few who would be able to greet him personally the day before in a venue I cannot disclose. At any rate, we join the nation in wishing him well on his birthday, two days after his late father celebrates his own natal day.
Segue: The senior in a handwritten diary wrote, “June 12, 1972, Monday: Imelda and I have been reminiscing in bed – the long tortuous road from Congress to the presidency; the sacrifices, her tears, pain, and hard work that went into our struggle for power. In 11 years I jumped from congressman to president.
And I have just written the children through Roy Laurence. Bongbong is our principal worry. He is too carefree and lazy. So I wrote him the fatal secret of the Marcos men – “they are brilliant but lazy.” And they tend to be so unless they buckle down to a dogged unrelenting resolve to fight off sloth or a traumatic experience turns them into bitterness that congeals into determined resolve to achieve and be victorious.
I wrote him about me – how the political and financial reverses of father had made me bitter. It had come to a point where I had to get a scholarship to continue my studies. So I became a scholar – a senior scholar in law. I discovered that I had a brain and a photographic memory. And I made the best of it. I must write him about the Nalundasan case and how I vowed to top the Bar after graduating cum laude.
For the boy must get character. I have told him that since we have enemies, he will have to fight the battles I fought in the past against myself and against circumstances had been kinder to me because it had given me the motivation to work hard. I must tell him of his ancestors, his great grandfather of the revolution, the direct line of brilliant and brave men whose saving grace was the character of their women how many failed like Antonio Marcos who had exceeded the record of excellence in scholarship of Rizal – but had not done much of his life because of wine, women and song. The boy must realize his weakness – the carefree wayward ways that may have been bred in him.”
The son is no brat anymore and has now momentously changed into what his father wanted him to be. Time to celebrate the milestone and methinks it would be fitting to honor him in this column with a popular Ilokano song for his birthday :
Padapadatayo nga agsisiragsak
a kumablaaw, mangipaduyakyak
ta nagtengngan ti aldaw
a pannakayanak ni
a napnuan gasat.
Balangat nga naurnos dagiti sabsabong
nga umaymi kenka isaad ta ulom.
Kasta met nga iyawatmi kenka
ti naindayawan unay a palma
tapno isu ti mangipakita ti
ragragsakmi amin a sangapada.
Sapay iti Dios ta ilayonna koma
ta salun-atmo, piam ken regtam
Ken ta singpetmo a nagpaiduma
nga ap-apalan dagiti kas kenka
The poetry-song was coined by Carl R. Galvez Rubino who hails from Currimao, Ilocos Norte and literally translates into “A greeting for a day filled with luck, A crown arranged with flowers will be placed on your head and hand you to show all our joy. May God continue to bless your health, wellbeing, and honesty and your distinguished virtue.”
While we are at it, let me also greet September born lawyers from our law office – Ma. Lulu G. Reyes and Bienvenido M. Maceda, Jr. who have been with us at the then Antipolo Annex Building at Session Road since 1994 , as well as Gizel Ann B. Dalloran-Onahon who came a bit later.
Also, dear friends Doc Willy Occidental, Mike Tank, Jen Herbolario, Alex Rimando, Joseph Rimando, and Kat Gumaya and parang birthday mo na rin Jiepa Buhayo who took the hands of his amore Bessie yesterday.
Naimpusuan ken nabara nga kablaaw ti innak idanon kanyayo.
Sigh!
