How Asturias Got Its Name

There is no official record that shows how my town, Asturias, got its name, nor is there any living person here who can tell why this town was named Asturias. It is only known that prior to 1877 part of this town up to Guinabasan River, was only a barrio belonging to the town of Balamban under the name of Visita Naghalin (immigrants) as its inhabitants came from different places of the country. In 1877, the Visita Naghalin and the Visita Baga cawa, now Santa Lucia, then a barrio belonging to the town of Tuburan, agreed to separate from their respective mother towns and joined to form a new town which is now the town of Asturias.

It so happened that the separation movement was led by Don Eugenio Alonso, the most prominent and most respective person in the community. Señor Genio, as he was commonly known, had many close friends of the Spanish community in the capital; foremost among them was the Provincial Governor himself. These Spaniards often came to visit Señor Genio and spent a couple days in his hacienda, now the well known Hacienda Doña Pipang of Sergio Osmeña. It is presumed therefore that some of these Spaniards came from the province of Asturias, Spain, and it was their suggestion to Señor Genio to name this town Asturias in memory of the place from which they came. The same thing might have happened to Granada, a sitio of barrio San Isidro, Asturias, inside his hacienda where Señor Genio constructed his big country house, Granada being a historical city of Spain.

My sister saw this bit of essay in our grandma's old papers. The essay was written in her handwriting long before her handwriting became corrugated. She must have written this in her younger years. To honor her, I'm sharing this essay with everyone, to help Asturiasnons out there who don't know how his/her hometown got its name, and those who would be inspired to know how their towns got their names.

Weaving Talents Towards Excellence: An Oration Piece

Whew! It's been a long time since I last posted here. There's a somewhat heavy reason for that: I accidentally clicked on a website that literally copy-pasted one of my blogs here. What a discouragement that was for me! Someone else earned from my work. But today, after deciding to open my blog again after months of neglect (more on because of dismay, actually), I realized that it's ok if someone plagiarized my work, what's more important is that I have helped other people as well. I know how difficult it can be at times to make essays and reaction papers (why else would other people come to me to make one for them..aside from laziness? haha!)

Anyway, here is an essay I wrote for my student. It's an oration piece, more of. I was her coach for the oration themed Weaving Talents Towards Excellence (she didn't win though). I hope this will help you too. 

Friends, honored guests, fellow language learners, we are all gathered here today, in line with the festivities being initiated, a tradition in the making, of celebrating & showcasing the talents we are endowed with, in pursuit of excellence.

Let me share to you a secret, or perhaps I should say insecurity I kept to myself until this moment. Upon reading the theme we have for this year’s festivity, “Weaving talents towards excellence”, only two words registered in my mind clearly: talent, & excellence. Which of the two am I better at? Or should I say, do I even have either of that? Believe me, that’s what was running my mind. To find out for myself, I asked Google first to find a better understanding of those two keywords. The answer I got was that “talent is natural & excellence is a choice”. Personally, that eased my anxiety for only a bit.

Forgive me if I lack faith in myself. As a Filipino, it is normal. We normally lack faith in ourselves as a people, don’t you agree with me? I know, at the back of your minds, you do. Even Lee Kuan Yew, the father of Singapore, said that in a speech in an event in Manila in front of many top leaders of our society in 1997. Mahathir Muhammed, the architect of modern Malaysia, said that also in his speech at the University of Santo Tomas in May 2012. Lack of faith in ourselves is a great cultural flaw we have come to accept. We are in this stage of acceptance now, and the step we need to do next is to find ways on how to untangle the threads of insecurity and low self- image in the skeins of history and weave faith, positivity, & healthy, wonderful self-image as a people to rebuild the Filipino spirit, to create a better-looking tapestry for the future. As what Alex Lacson said in his book Faith in the Filipino: 12 Wonderful Things about the Filipino & our Motherland, we need to rediscover our beauty, potential, and greatness as a people, those that God endowed in the Filipino & our Motherland.

If lack of faith in us as a people is one great hindrance towards progress and national development, then as a person, my lack of belief in my talent and capacity is my hindrance towards better self-image and excellence. But, somehow, acknowledging the fact that I am now standing here in front of you and not someone else from my school is giving me assurance that I, indeed, have a talent: the talent of being able to understand & speak the languages of the world. I am a Filipino; I am one of the best communicators in the world. Delivering this oration in front of you is my beginning. And I believe in the promise of small beginnings. If Google is right that excellence is a choice, and I believe he is, this is my step towards better self- image, towards excellence.

So, to those of you here who, like me, are taking their small steps towards achieving excellence, we are in this together, with our tangled skeins of insecurity and self- doubt. Together let us untangle them and begin weaving threads of positivity & faith in ourselves to be able to hang a frame of a tapestry of excellence that we can show off and be proud of.

It All Started There

it all started as me
it all started as he

i was on my own
he was on his own

we were walls apart
in his life i was not a part

but a moment sparkled
i was startled

it all started there
and my felings became bare

it was a kiss
a lasting bliss

i am a beauty i am told
and he was a beauty i want to hold

each moment was magic
beyond its end, it's tragic

certainty is a question
for now everything's fiction

Pointless

Pointless, yes i know
my love for you is pointless.
Pointless, for I belong to him,
he who has neglected my heart.
Pointless, for we do not belong in each others' world.
Yo go on with your life,
a life I'm not a part of.

Pointless, that's me to you
I fall and fell, but keep on coming back,
Pointless, yet I don't find it nonsense.
You and I are matched,
You and I are attached.

Pointless and again
half of my world is empty
And emptiness can't be fulfilled
if I find you at the half of your world, drifting.

The Nature of Man

The nature of man. Sigh. This was one of the most complicated topics of conversations and debates, which often end up in fights and disagreements. Similar to which came first, the egg or the chicken. Which would you believe in, evolution or creation. Another sigh.

Yet, learning comes in unexpected means and in unexpected places. So was my realization of the nature of man, relatively. I learned it while watching the movie transformers, when Ironhide asked Optimus Prime this: “Why are we fighting to save the humans? They are violent and a primitive specie. Optimus replied, “Were we so different? They are a young species. They have much to learn. But I see goodness in them.” It was in this conversation that I grasped what a human being is compared to other species, and his nature.

For me, human are products of evolution. I believe in that. Our ancestors used their intellect so much which resulted in the civilizations we have had, from the simple Neolithic Mesopotamia to the very complex Industrial Age. Together with the technology which it brought was the complexity of man’s laws and mores and morality. I also believe in that part. It is our nature to find answers to everything, and then blame it on a supreme being when we could no longer explain it. Thus began our religions. The more I believe in this. Yet there are things that are other-worldly. Another dimensions, they say. Well, there certainly are beings like that. I’m inclined to believe in that.

Relative to the other members of the animal kingdom, we are a young species indeed. Our technology’ progress has advanced well and is now fast-paced. And so are our lives. I agree to the notion that we have a knack for things that are harmful to us: power and longer life. In our pursuit to attain longer lives, we are actually making the future of our own specie short-lived by polluting our home. We certainly use power to control our environment. Its either we use it for good or evil. We put ourselves higher than the other animals, that we are different from them. That we alone think. Is that so?

This is indeed a complicated topic that I don’t even know where I’m leading to and much more how to end this writing. Smile. No, a grin. Perhaps I will end this with what I answer to my students every time they ask me about man’s existence. If we think we are different from other species just because we are sentient, don’t forget that we started changing our environment only a mere 10,000 years ago. Compare it to the four Billion years of our mother earth’s existence. And, let us not forget, beyond that 10,000 years, it was not humans who roamed and dominated this earth.