The Guinayangan Republic

I was awakened by noises at my place down the hall, though muffled, I heard raspy voices. I rushed the door to advise them to move away farther from the wall for I was a day sleepless. Out and grabbed my slipper and went to the source of the noise. It was kids from my neighbours. They were arguing about something. With my sleepy mood sluggishly noticed they were holding comics, a very colourful one, published by Marvel perhaps. Comics caught my eyes and indefinitely zipped my lips to seal the words that I was going to tell them. Instead of hushing them I slumped, seated down and jointly flipped with them as if I am with their age. Who can resist drawings and art works appreciation if you were kids who grew up reading those?



Aliwan Komiks -Courtesy of GASI

I smelled the sheets and sniffed it like grading a wine (hmmn). One psychologist said smell is one of the evocative memory infuser. The inks and paper really have unexplained mixture of scents that would dwell in your memories as peg of something you had experienced. Hmmmm…Holiday Komiks, Aliwan Komiks, TSS, Shockers, Pioneer,Precious,Kilabot and of course Pilipino Komiks (No? you still can’t remember?). How about Jim Fernandez, Mar T. Santana, Vincent Kua Jr., Pablo Gomez, Vic Poblete and Elena Patron? Okay, if not, you really are not of my age category. How about Mars Ravelo and Carlo J. Caparas? There you go, you can relate don’t you?, though Mars Ravelo is older than writers I just used for inkling above (yes older than my father). Probably because Mars Ravelo and Carlo J. Caparas’ immortal novels made their way to Philippine TV series and movies recently. Komiks is simply the English word “comics”, probably adapted to fit the orthography of Tagalog. I was one of the lucky persons who have seen the fruits of the finest publications like the “GASI”, “ATLAS” and more.
Forgive my age, some of the names I knew doesn’t ring a bell in your ears especially those who are grown up with the computers and internet. But, I wouldn’t trade my growing up years for we also have rich memories in comics. Rich as what you have- and the new “you brag about” Manga classics and Marvel comics. Manga is just as old as Komiks I should say, up to this day, young people still addicted to anime and Manga comics which rooted from the art of comics.



Planet Opdi Eyps - Roni Santiago 1979

Sundays of the 80s were like days of launching Sony PSP portable consoles in Japan, the enthusiasm was the same of that level. Why? Funny Komiks and Holiday komiks were coming (Yoo-hoo!)Woot woot! Aling Pilar(1) yelled at us not to crowd the window sill of her store as we crammed for a queue. I like Funny Komiks it was one of my favorites not because it is the only laminated paperback issue, it’s because of Tomas and Kulas (though a parody of Tom and Jerry), Superkat, the stubborn kid NikNok and the famous “Planet Opdi Eyps”. More also to “Devil Car” – the front runner story of Holiday Komiks by Vic Poblete (probably influenced by movie “The Hearse”) it was paired with finest illustration of Lan Medina teamed with contributing artist like Karl Comendador. Funny Komiks brought fine upbringing to my young mind those days. I was inspired by superkat hero, combating villains that really expressed heroism as a noble virtue. The Matsutsu and Bardagul duo of Planet Opdi Eyps, that sometimes frustrate you when you see the page like “Ipagpaumanhin nyo po ang kadahilanan na ang Planet Opdi Eyps ay sa susunod na Linggo na lamang ilalathala” (Yaikks). “A week of waiting and writer can just hang us to nothing (hump!)”. Renting of comics cost 35 to 50 centavos a piece by reading it at the stand. At night it cost 75 cents by taking it home. Aling Pilar’s daughter Ate Susan(2) would always string two lengthy thin braided ropes to hang and separately itemized the old and the new arrival issues. The first layer stashed the old one and the highest level as for newest issues. I used to hate Ate Susan for hanging the frequent readable komiks way beyond my reach. I hated my height, and wished I could be taller; I have always lost the grabbing competitions on getting the newest komiks on display. Upon arrival of issues, Ate Susan has always ridiculed us by halting the rent queue. It’s because of cardboard layering needed to be sewn with ridge through the centrefold to tighten the binding which were just staplers. Finally after half an hour, she had finished it and we were done drooling with our saliva to read it. The frustrating part was, if the first reader of the copy was my arrogant friend Romano. He was a very good example of a spoiler, who telltales what had happened to Armageddon car when it was hit by the possessed Devil Car. Spoiling it just like watching a replay movie where plot is already heard. So I just shut my ear not to hear him. Sometimes I retaliated by telling them a newer stories about Zuma (snake freak Man) when I luckily grabbed the Aliwan and Pioneer at its pristine issues from my uncle (he’stall and could get easily to unreachable comics stand).



Holiday comics- Courtesy of GASI Graphic Arts Service, Inc.

It was the wonderful years of my life. Imaginations sometimes are larger than life. I can tell you, even the 80s komiks’ stories can’t be produce by Philippine Cinema to properly depicts the story that conveyed by the writers. However our mind those days could perceive and imagine what those stories were about. Figure drawings and symbols sometimes were easily grasped even the intensity of what illustrator wanted us to think. Ate Susan usually knocks on our door early in the morning to collect our borrowed komiks because somebody was on queues waiting to rent them. I strongly disagree that Komiks could pollute our mind, where parents those days were telling us. Living in a small town with an inadequate public library, I recall the absence of encyclopaedias. We turned all of us to “komiks” as research page. When my classmates had assignments that we couldn’t illustrate, we just cut and paste from Komiks pages with appropriate illustration as what our assignments described. Just wait for Ate Susan to scold us and let our parents bought the komiks for good (You already knew why).
I learned a lot from Komiks besides interactive conversation readings. You will learn also to draw from komiks. Were all things I had loved to do from tracing the hard-to-copy one and carbon-copy the easiest one.. My better sketching ability then became my hobby today probably because of loved to komiks. Often times we mingled and criticized as well as praised some of the writer’s story. There were times we were betting for the next plot that would be published on the following week and we brainstormed our critical opinions for the next issues. Remember the clause like … “Abangan ang Susunod na Kabanata” and …”May Karugtong…” When you were hung by a thread with story and clause like that. There was no difference if you’re watching TV series like “Heroes”, “Lost” and today’s suspense. It is indescribable. Months had passed and my sister Aileen competed with the same rentals hence made me not to queue anymore (Nice!)
So I went back to my room and waved goodbye to noisy kids, letting them to shout to what level they want.”Bye buddies easy on flipping. Use saliva!” -I said (gesturing my finger damping by it)
Walking back to my door, I suddenly asked myself, “What happened to those “Kinalakihan kong Komiks? So here I am, injecting something to Blogosphere. Thank you, Mr. Google… “Bing Bam Bung” (Famous Larry Alcala komiks’ series – I just used it as incantation) and article is done. I was recently aware that komiks still exists and also there is a contemporary way on luring readers – “web comics” for you to read. See http://www.webkomiks.com/.
Continuing my web surfing to get excerpts as well as confirmed my rusty memories about those writers and illustrators, wow! They are blogging (nope! not that they are using web that makes me amazed) It’s because I see them in pictures. There were just vague names for me they were older but still with humorous attitude. They were blogging and telling about their masterpiece, what had inspired them and what had made them written such stories. These people were my once admired citizens. I remember, I have dreamed of becoming like them. When I was on my 4th Grade, the one I admired was Vincent Kua Jr. I like his style on horror genre’, reminds me of Tim Burton’s style of storytelling and character illustrations of course. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch “Corpse Bride” and read two of Vincent’s masterpiece the “Gallery of Terror” and “3 Minutes of Horror” any similarity? You bet there is! Take note it was illustrated by Vincent Kua Jr during 80s. By the way “Pokwang” certainly got his moniker or screen name from Vincent’s “magnum opus”-Pokwang. You know what? Pokwang the comedian looked better similar to Liborea McCormick also one of Vincent’s finest comedy story. Though he died last October 2005, I’m his fan now in Facebook. I am still looking for other writers, hoping there are still alive or better yet can still use Facebook so I can be a fan of them. For each one I will find, I will post this write-ups and a simple message where I have been keeping it till now. The words are… “THANK YOU!!!””THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR FILLING UP MY YOUNGER YEARS!!”

-by Cornelio Cenizal

(1) Pilar Dimaala – our neighbor in Manlayo still alive today and with her Grocery Sari Sari Store.
(2) Susan Dimaala – youngest daughter of Aling Pilar, successor of her business.

Works Cited
Cruz, J. Dela. Web Komiks Your Pinoy Komiks Portal. (accessed October 7, 2009).
Komiklopedia. December 27, 2007. (accessed October 7, 2009).
Magic, Black. Vic J. Poblete’s Devil Car. October 2005. (accessed October 7, 2009).
Valiente, Randy. Vincent Kua Jr. Official Site. (accessed October 7, 2009).
Santiago, Roni. “Planet Opdi Eyps.” Pilipino Funny Komiks. 1979.

Boñon 4 bags,Carandang 2 bags, Canoy 3 bags, Cenizal 2 bags and 3 sacks of pebbles. .. And names had been calling and assemble everyone by my teacher till it ended with names in Z. What were those for, you may be puzzled… An inch a day that’s our mission! During the mid 80s at Manlayo-Calimpac Elementary School now Don Guillermo Elementary School. A month ago of that day, I had been overhearing the voice of our principal thru PA system the late Generosa Lomarquez addressing the problem before that mission came to fruition.



I remember her on a PTA meeting calling for cooperation of the parents and students who were coastal settlers of Manlayo. During those days, we still lived at the adjacent fences of our school, coastal side facing east. During high tide our classrooms were always deluge by sea water overflowing from creek through the swamp nearby. Ebbing of such magnitude our school suffered from salt water flooding, destroyed some of our books including our artworks stored in less elevated cabinets. We locally called that inundation “Taib” as in high tide. Mrs. Josefina Arca and Mrs. Lita Maghirang rooms, my teachers at that time, where the one initially affected by the flooding. Weeks after the whole school submerge by the sea water, and it’s like the whole school grounds were estuaries of Ragay gulf. Every student gets wet so that they could come to school.

"Taib" has never been a hassle for me. I make the salt marsh's brackish water as a play pool. There were times I just stripped and dived right there besides classrooms building, where water were almost neck-deep. During those days, we test our toy sail boats (cut and shaped from Styro foam with canvas or plastic cellophane as sails) and we raced like in America’s Cup. That was hasty fun.

The faculties suddenly have noticed that it was not good for us. We were left behind by other school who had already been overtaken us with some lessons we were supposed to be in.
I recalled one day when a memo came. I read it loudly in front of the school with my uniform soaking wet from salt water flood. Overall, the school mission was to cover the low level sections particularly the ground beside our classroom where we play a lot. The goal was an inch a day of sand fillings above the current height. Mr.Capule our Agriculture teacher measures it with a deficiency of 1 yard high. So if we could make an inch a day we would have finished it in 2 to 3 months excluding the day without classes.



Manlayo Elementary School inundation overlay

Day one, everybody was impressed with the progress. We almost reached 2 inches mark. By the way I forgot to mention an attachment of that memo, there will be additional extracurricular merits for the section class with the most number of sand and pebbles (rock on!) .Most of the time, we had weekly citations of the most number of sand bags donated. More often than not I was always top of the lists. No I wasn't cheating. It’s just that I lived nearby, about 2 minute walk from the school. So you already have an idea how I got the most sands to dump. Weeks passed, it seems we all endured the chores with the smiles and burst on the hands of course. Ms. Generosa Lomarquez, with her willingness to turn that daunting ordeal to educational one, she genially advised her teachers to do something coherent with the chores –Mathematics (brilliant idea!). She even revised the verbal problem solving by making number of bags as examples on mathematics lessons. Making it fun and educational so as ignoring the sweating we had. The ground we are reclaiming became our giant math board. Pebbles became our imaginary tally marks. After all mathematical concept came from our old ancestors using as such as basic tools for counting. It became extracurricular competition. My classmate Nestor Ervas with the revered dream to make it at top of the merits' list. He was taking up the Ante’ by filling up his pocket with sand and pebble and had it made to be counted.


Back two weeks ago to the present while I was cooking for dinner and watching news at the same time. I faintly heard words like teachers and student story over the news. So I walked to the living room and heed to the story. SECS are now abolishing teacher’s use of light corporal punishment likes “caning” shouting or yelling to students, categorizing it now as unlawful. My reaction to news is simply not overwhelming since I grew up witnessing and experienced some of it. But I do agree in some point, in reality it has to be, considering it’s painful and humiliating for the punished one. But neither had I condemned teachers. Human whatever his age do perform willingly under pressure. Continuing my watching over the news, the chores like “sand and pebbles“we did those days are no longer allowed. On the contrary, I do understand the Faculty of those days. Instead of waiting for the Ministry of Education to act (considering the corruption during Marcos days). We did it by ourselves and so proud of what we have learned in arithmetic, better than just reading the books. What's more, we prevented the flooding, thinking it could never be done. School superintendent came and cited our efforts, though I missed my toy-sailboat racing and the swimming of course. But I said to myself "its better now at least I don’t have to walk thru the flood just to attend class".


Manlayo Today, without the flooding

Two years after construction of the new school classrooms finally facilitated. DECS had reclaimed the muddy area with a new ground level. The contribution we had for 3 months were done by the Pay Loaders and Bulldozer for almost just a day. (Sigh) I had myself been watching it on our window day after day when I was a kid. Though new graded soil over-topped the sand and pebbles we sweated, it became the foundation of the initial reclamation. Looking back those days we really have to laugh but mostly being proud of ourselves. I realized how desperate we were despite the fact we’re so fortunate in having such intuitive arithmetic class session. You may comment and ask if it is true? Yes it happened ladies and gentlemen we were like Dutch people saving Netherlands from sinking.

This article has been in my blog's draft page for quite a while, as my habit of choosing the right words and grammar before publishing it (what a shame). Strangely though, two weeks before the Ondoy tragedy(I can provide the draft's time stamp if needed).It's very untimely that I have made flooding improperly discussed as auspiciously funny, since typhoon Ondoy(Ketsana) brought enormous tears to most of our "kababayan" . Lately, I was contemplating that publishing it could alleviate the depressed feeling of those who were affected (I hoped). First of all I would like to stress out in my story that everybody can be a part of collective team efforts to overcome things as huge as flooding. We were toddlers but we overcome such inundations without problem. Secondly, as people we can overcome desperation and spin it to our advantage (like what our principal did, coherently making fun of our task to educational one). Recollecting such teamwork we did with my schoolmates, it was an "esprit de corp" (-that older people could have shamelessly done). It's ironic that people are trying to be helpful when tragedy has already happened, yet you couldn't oblige them to help you when you were preparing against it. It’s a shameful human nature to show affection to others when people are in suffering yet he cannot show helpful attitude to others when his fellow actually needing one. We feel sorry for their lost but we never sorry when we throw things to drainage and clogged them. We pray for ourselves but we never pray for others. We joyfully rejoice when we are not affected but we feel sorry for victims when we are watching them over the news. We people haven't figured it out; God is trying to make us united on avoiding it much more than tackling the aftermath. Don't be so naive with your sorry feeling watching them. Next time plan ahead and work us a team and overcome the next "Taib" of our life.

-by Cornelio Cenizal

Map Courtesy of Google Earth

In this information age, it’s easy to aspire anything you want to do with your life. You only need a piece of paper, a relatively fast personal computer, the Google and a will to share your thoughts. Then you can be an instant amateur-informative writer. A simple idea spark, and information are all at your dispense. I am very happy writing articles from time to time. My inspiration switch to higher ground whenever I read a relative number of comments from my published anecdotes and informative stories. These fueled me to write more and changed my senseless Saturday to a valuable one.

When I wrote “Ang Parola Sa Atin”, I visited lots of website as my source information. Then there was an article I stumbled upon which makes me astonished. It's about a breakthrough research by an Oil explorer. "Ragay Gulf has a potential source of hydrocarbons which makes up natural gas". I hope my newly found information will not make you disinterested if you had already read such news. For others, lets me share you an informative one.

Perhaps, almost every morning, Guinayanganin and other people living in this southern part of Quezon probably gaze towards its horizon. Never realize the present potentials of Hydrocarbon. At this very moment while we are sipping are coffee, a research drilling on Ragay gulf are taking place. Over 4 years since 2003, numbers of contractors has been passing its interests on Ragay Gulf Service Contract 43(“ SC43”) see link, and recently a company PEARLOIL(Ragay)Ltd, has assumed operatorship of the said contract. Ragay Gulf under our nose has been studied by known Oil Research conglomerates including PNOC(see link). Such research had produced 93 reports,303 maps, charts and related seismic data. As I read the articles (referenced and bibliography citations have links below) more of it were Geological and Seismic data which even my geek mind cannot (most of it) perceive. I only absorbed and probably had grasped are mundane activities and typical layman terms they have written. Apparently, paying attention to my high school and college Chemistry has paid off at least I was diluted most of the info. Contracts that were approved by the government are mostly Geological and Geophysical studies, 3 to 4 drilling of Wells for researches purposes in the span of 4 to 7 years (see link). Positive news were published by Oil and Gas magazine- that Ragay gulf geology has highest percentage of similarity to Palawan and Nido thus making the Gulf having carbonate potential in frontier basin. I’m sorry but the information is mostly jargon. Yours truly hate it making myself a big parrot, saying things that even I have certainly no idea, nevertheless the exact meaning of it. My point is, Guinayangan with its vast numbers of professionals, probably has produced at least one Geologist or Chemists that can enlighten us in layman version of that information written on my links; to make us understand the easiest way to know whether possibilities are really not that remote; or it will benefits all the towns surrounding the Gulf. As of now research still inconclusive but positively on steady progress till 2013.

If God’s will, Guinayangan shall going to have a different life far from what we had in foreseeable future. Think about what manpower and human resource it needs. That its entire technical human resources they require will be source among us Guinayanganin. My once thought about that forsaken gulf altered my true beliefs that things happen for a reason. If really all that maturity of sedimentary deposits in Ragay Gulf is a divine interventions, we (Guinayanganin) are at the dawn of success.

-by Cornelio Cenizal


References:
Linda R. Sternbach,John R. Conolly. “Philippine Ragay Gulf geology similar to Palawan and Nido.” Offshore Magazine, PenWell,August 2000: 1-4.

PNOC Corporation.
PNOC Exploration Corporation (accessed September 24, 2009).

Scandinavian Oil.Gas Magazine. “By Province.” Scandinavian Oil.Gas Magazine. Oct 5, 2007. (accessed September 25, 2009).

Pascual, Redentor D. "Upstream Petroleam Activities In the Philippines." 5th PPM Workshop Sulu Sea-East Palawan Basin Case Study. Cebu City, 2006. 1-6.