Rejoinder for Matet’s Wall

Well said, my dear.  Unfortunately, wherever and whenever there are at least two individuals politics obtains because you have disparate souls and sets of dreams and aspirations.  To the extent that you want to obtain consensus amongst individuals politics becomes necessary, albeit maybe a necessary evil. 

 

How progress is construed is crucial to the verity of your formulation. Progress cannot simply mean embracing the new while discarding the old. What is most important to the individual is increasing the mastery of freedom over necessity. Unfortunately, politics determines both freedom and necessity.

 

If you are the only one in the sun you can do whatever tickles your fancy. But if there is me to spoil the landscape, then you better make sure to take into account what tickles my fancy. Else there will be conflict between us. Politics is nothing but the art of conflict resolution to establish a consensus.

 

The laws of politics boil down to last person standing. One has to survive to look after one's interests. The politics of laws, other than natural laws, demands you saturate the landscape with kindred proclivities as yours to ensure your interests prevail.

Advice and Apology for Marek

To Marek . . .An Apology and An Advice

(Forgive the Adults, They Don't Know What They Are Doing)

 

    XXXIII            (i)

 

Who can explain, for you to understand

Why your world is all a mess and tangle?

You hold the stars in the palm of your hand

For it's your main job to build the castle

Of dreams that you can cling to, else growing

Up would have no meaning. It is a job

That adults are supposed to be giving

You all the help they can give instead of

Their sabotage at each arduous turn

In your road out of childhood, that alone,

You'll navigate. Finding, on your return,

A broken home from your first vacation:

Forgive the sins but don't forget the sense

Of lose, for which you'll build the recompense.

 

    XXXIV        (ii)

 

Don't look for justice -- life is never fair.

Neither you nor I, had asked to be born.

But we trudge along, now that we are here,

To make the most is our utmost concern.

Sometimes we get lucky, but being good

At what you do is what counts in the long

And oftentimes rather treacherous road

Up ahead. To tell the right from the wrong

You'll need the compass of experience

From adults -- whether they love you or they

Do not care a breath for your existence.

Time can be both your friend and enemy:

Molding the very substance of your soul

Whether you give your best or none at all!

 

    XXXV        (iii)

 

Do not begrudge the folks who have failed you

People can't give the which they don't possess

Let their shortcomings instead propel you

To push the envelope and find redress

For every kith and kin who might betray

The radiant rainbow of your childhood dreams

Some total stranger may by chance defray

The needed passport to some lofty schemes

Chances are kind to those prepared at heart

That every possible combination

Of trying circumstances may impart

To the less astute certain perdition.

For each venture you take, defray your best,

Leave time and chance and fate to dream the rest!

My Last Hurrah

        My Last Hurrah!!

(XXXI)*                [1]

Through a few crossroads passed sans looking back

Nor venture on the odds speculate

Nor feign excuse for shortcomings, alack,

Onward through many storms I navigate.

Else dwell malignant in the tide of Time,

Fall hostage to self-made predicament,

And dream of glories of yet unborn prime

To spend the twilight days in deep lament

Of ill forfeited opportunities.

For sure, this juncture will its mark imprint

Much more than just unsettling memories.

To mark on it as much, was my intent:

     Leave to the gods frustration's litany,

     To keep my rendezvous with destiny.

 

(XXXII)*                [2]

Thanks to you all it has been a pleasure.

May our paths cross in yet productive ways.

Your endeavors may, in ample measure,

Accrue rewards of fun and sunshine days!

And for the few who went out of your way

On maybe many a few occasions

To rescue one otherwise dismal day

From the clutches of some futile questions,

Nay, inertia of impending ruin,

Not for lack of gratitude I seemed

To fail to reciprocate for certain

A favor owed. Rather, it is bedeemed

That good deeds do self-compensation make

    In doing them, rewards the doers take!

A Worker’s Lament

(Typesetting at 4th Quarter Lobster Shift!)

 

Last page is done, so is the day

And one by one, we take our way

The time we spent pasting those pages

Gladly we sent to distant ages.

 

What words to speak, what verse is there to write?

What device can make reason usher in some respite?

Give me words of wisdom to save the common sense

From such taste of boredom akin to violence!

 

Oh, these newspapers, Why! they're such a crowd

And their publishers all seem so pleased and proud

With odds and ends to drown the bliss of ignorance

Prose and verse to crown the Glory of Irrelevance.

 

One might argue: Why get so annoyed?

Tough work to pursue, tougher still unemployed

What with inflation going up by the hour

'Tis no simple mission to get worth for your dollar.

 

Well, then, it is obvious, there isn't any choice;

Methinks it takes genius, takes cunning otherwise;

Some take the drudgery, all day, nine to five,

Mischief and trickery, nay, sin to survive!

__________________________________________________

<c> 1979 New York City, Constancio II (Segundo)

More1 Comments on Grandfather Tales

Constancio S Asumen Jr The Dagohoy Rebellion lasted 89 years and was quelled in 1829, 128 years before Tatay Insoy's passing on. He was reputed to have been 108 years old when he died, that puts him at 20 years old at the end of the Dagohoy Rebellion.
It is safe to assume that he moved to Mindanao as his father's dependent. Putting him at age 10 when he moved to Mindanao is a viable proposition. I don't have any idea which position he occupied in the siblings seniority order. So 10 is just splitting the difference.
By and large the story line is viable. What makes it dubious is the hint that it was the Simpron end of the clan who was from Inabanga. Mana did tell me today that Tatay Insoy's family was from Calape.

Mildred O. Asumen Yes, Kuya Jun (Felicisimo Jr) left for Australia 10 years - son of Uncle Mimi, then Uncle Nemesio (Mening) died a year ago and their sibling - Auntie Rosa, a teacher of Cabadbaran, Agusan. lola abing's descendants are in claver.

Constancio S Asumen Jr Neng, correction: Ingko Mining was not Nemisio. He was Hermogenis or Hermohenis. He was the one who initiated me into overnight deep-sea fishing when I was 13 to 14 years old. This was during the period between graduating elementary school and starting high school. We got so poor, everybody had to quit school and help out.
Those were the good old days I treasure dearly through the rest of my soujurn in the sun.

Constancio S Asumen Jr By the way, both Mano Mimi and Ingko Mining were raised by Nanay and Tatay like both were their sons until Mano Mimi had to go to Cebu to study high school.
This was the reason that your Papa and Mano Mimi were very close emotionally. They grew up like siblings.

Rommel O. Asumen So lolo mimi went to San fernando ,cebu to study hi school. Coz papa graduated in norte dame san fernando,cebu. Every Fiesta we would always go to san fernando. I had to drive him coz he will be to drunk to drive home.

Constancio S Asumen Jr I thought Oya Onday's town was Santander. If Notre Dame is in San Fernando then he was in San Fernando because I know he graduated from Notre Dame.He must have lived in a private boarding house (casera).
I read most (if not all) of your Papa's high school diaries because there was nothing much to read when I was laid off from school in Wangke.

Rommel O. Asumen Papa stayed with a family Suico and the Paradela's.It was not a private boarding house. I met all of them. They were nice people. so every fiesta we were there.

Constancio S Asumen Jr There was another side story to your Papa's going to high school in Cebu. He was deprived of the validictorian honors on graduating elementary school in favor of Salome Erazo who was one of the big shots in Cabugo.
This was a big deal because a validictorian automatically gets free tuition in high school. Tatay wanted to prove to the world that your Papa can excel even in a wider field, be a big fish in a larger pond.
Your Papa acquitted himself with flying colors by graduating top of his class in Notre Dame. We had a three-day banquet in Wangke for the occasion.

Constancio S Asumen Jr Mano Mimi should only be your uncle and not lolo. He was treated as the oldest son of Tatay. And I don't know where he went to school. I was then too little to pay attention to such details.

Rommel O. Asumen Yup people in san Fernando think the same. This the first time i heard about 3 days banquet.

Constancio S Asumen Jr He could not have been staying with a non-relative family. It must be one of those arrangements where you pay the monthly cost of board and lodging and laundry.
That he developed an amicable relationship with the family sounds inherent to what develops between long term tenant and landlord.
I had visited your Papa's living arrangement both in Cantilan (1 week) and Cubao (2 weeks). In both places, he did manage to develop a pleasant relationship with the landlady, because they were unusually pleasant to me.

Constancio S Asumen Jr Yes: Tatay had a penchant for lavish, no holds barred festivities when he got his mind to it. But when you invite practically the entire township it inevitably becomes a three-day affair.
One carabao and a couple of hogs were slated for the occasion. The day before the main event those who volunteered to help came to make preparations. A patch of meadow near the house was cordoned off for a dancing hall.
A local band was organized ad hoc for the occasion. The band leader was also the chief chef Mano Siso Taer. Then the day after the main event the helpers stay behind to clean up.
To a child's view it's a three-day fiesta because as long as there is company a good child is always pampered.

Rommel O. Asumen prodigal son

Rommel O. Asumen I remebered that last asumen reunion in Panatao in the 70's. A carabao was also slaugthered.

Constancio S Asumen Jr I look at it as privileges of being a first born.
Actually, because of Mano Mimi and Ingko Mining your Papa had an advantage. He had someone to look up to for pattern on how to handle the outside adult world.

Constancio S Asumen Jr This must be during their 50th anniversary, after I had my disappearing act.
For the ones I attended, I think the victims were only a couple of goats. Tatay did not have any carabao then.

Mildred O. Asumen correction on the wrong impression that Papa lived in an expensive casera...i used to be accompanying papa when he went to san fernando's fiesta... he lived with suico and paradela as a working student. most of his buddies would love to reminiscing their past- they helped him cleaned the whole school so they could have papa along with them for a barrio dance -baile. And could recall one of the old maid teacher who would love to retold the story how papa graduated as valedictorian, wherein most of the teachers contributed to papa's wardrobe- one teacher bought the shoes, another paradela old maid bought the pants and suico bought his polo.

Constancio S Asumen Jr Mildred,
Not to speak ill of the departed has always been one of the codes of ethics I adhere to religiously. And I am not about to violate it now, in the twilight of my years.
You are an accomplished engineer so this phenomenon should be familiar to you: There is a region in the strain continuum that the most tenacious materials as steel and titanium would exhibit fluid flow, the laws of solid mechanics cease to govern and those of fluid mechanics would take over.
To portray your Papa as a working student in high school would be analogous to crossing that solid/fluid divide. Protocols of civil and rational discourse would cease to govern.
I concede there might have been occasions that he would work. But it should have been more by choice rather than by brutal circumstances, not because he had to. None of Tansoy's children ever recoiled from work.
But to claim your Papa was a working student would be an insult to working students everywhere. Worse, it would be an affront to and defilement of the noble sacrifices and endeavors of my parents, who may have fallen short of their goals when they found they could not afford to send their other children to college. But their devotion to the cause of educating us never ceased.

Mildred O. Asumen Uncle jun,
the stories i have heard is not from papa but from people who were there when he has high school which i draw this conclusion. these people don’t have anything to gain to tell those stories to me... and consistency of information has been established talking and hearing stories from not one nor 2 people but a dozen.. and not just one time stories but on several ocassion when we go either on fiesta, community service leave of papa, all souls day holidays... papa does not talk much about his past... he could talk family tree, lineage and other things except his past...

Constancio S Asumen Jr Mildred,
I’m sure your Papa had his reasons to demure from discussing his past. So let us respect those reasons and not second guess him. Ditto, the people you heard the tales from. They had filtered the unfolding of events with their own prisms.
I am proud to be your Papa’s brother, and prouder still to be my parents’ son. I can assure you this: there is nothing in the family’s past that I know of that needs to be hidden. If anything, they need to be heralded far and wide and should serve as inspiration for struggling families everywhere.
We have managed to overcome all sorts of adversities. Some of them may be reckoned as self-inflicted but we overcame nonetheless. In the realm of parenting, my parents acquitted themselves with flying colors and I cannot be but proud of them.

Mildred O. Asumen Uncle jun,
"agree with you... what lolo and lola have done have been an inspiration to lots of families in claver and elsewhere. They have struggled and overcome all the obstacles and have raised above their level their children's welfare. there is no question about it... . as papa told me once - it is a legacy one parent could give when they raised the bar of comfort and welfare on their children and the next generation and his sample was your family... lolo was a farmer/fisherman and lolo and lola produce your generation as professionals - geophysicist, accountant, ministers, librarian, etc. and papa's brood - physician and group of engineers... like uncle titing - got physician and engineers too. and it’s now our generation to prove that legacy to our children...what would be the outcome would remain to be seen..."

Constancio S Asumen Jr Mildred,
Amen to all that. My endeavor to engage myself in the exchange of ideas with my writing, is integral to my devotion to upholding the legacy that my parents handed down to me. Namely, to transcend the constraints circumscribed by the immediately given parameters of engagement with the outside world, to go beyond what is being provided by the here and now. I may not give a dent on the situation but the least I can do is try.

Comments on “Tales from my Grandfather”

Michael Asumen so that's where my father name comes from...very interesting....
Constancio S Asumen Jr
I'm not sure whether he knows it or not. But wittingly or unwittingly he upheld the tradition with FlorenLy and ElCon.

Rommel O. Asumen
Papa told me a different story. Asumen came from Inabanga, Bohol. Moved to Surigao during the Dagohoy rebellion.


Constancio S Asumen Jr
Well, your Papa's story probably is closer to the truth considering that he was some 12 years older than me. What's good about that angle is that it's easy to research the Dagohoy rebellion as it is part of written history.

So we can reconcile the chronology with grandpas believed age and story, as I learned it and told here.

Do you volunteer to do the leg work? ...
This post was made urgent by Uriko’s (Newton Mark Constantine Rodriguez) intimations that he and his father are researching the Asumen ancestry and discovered some “Jewish blood” in our ancestry. I consider that angle nonsense and told him so. In the first place being “Jewish” is not a matter of ethnicity but of religion.

Anyway, I’m glad to learn of your interest on the matter. Stories orally transmitted are bound to contain inaccuracies here and there. I just hope that we can establish a coherent, preferably verifiable version sooner than later before everything is muddled to oblivion.

Constancio S Asumen Jr The name Inabanga does ring a bell. It is something I kind of heard ever so often as a kid but not quite sure of the context

Rommel O. Asumen Papa was able name relatives who still lives in Inabanga. I have met some of them in Cebu.

Constancio S Asumen Jr So were they Asumen or Alonggi?

Rommel O. Asumen
No.i am trying to recall. Let me make a quick call to Cebu.

Constancio S Asumen Jr
Somebody in Facebook even opined that the Asumen's came from Mindanao then migrated to Bohol. I dismissed it as without any basis in fact because of the way we were confined in Claver to the Bol-anon speaking community.

Rommel O. Asumen
Papa told me that our last name was Quinones. And during the Dagohoy rebellion Lolo changed to Asumen. Papa told me that all bolholanos with spanish names were persecuted. How i wish i wrote all this in a log book.

Constancio S Asumen Jr Now that does not make any sense at all. Didn't you suspect that Asumen is Spanish? Third person plural or second person of the verb aumer (to assume as in assume responsibility) or alternately asumir, a rare version of to dawn,or something such; it's been some time since I had Spanish conjugation lessons.

Constancio S Asumen Jr You can still research it now. Just be careful about your sourcing in the internet. E.g., I'm hesitant to take Wikipedia as gospel.

Mildred O. Asumen
as i could remember with Papa, we were from Quiñones clan, our forefathers changed it to Asumen. ASUMEN is an invented name which iis derived from the influential family of Osmeña - moved the "a" and removed "o" for easy traceability since our great grandfather was one of the trusted leaders of Dagohoy from Inabanga. Even Lola Abing told me that story before...

Michael Asumen I learned from you guys....i like this discussion....very interesting

Elcon Asumen Acumen sounds cool to me

Constancio S Asumen Jr The Osmeña angle that Mildred brought up kind of drags us into the penumbral margins of nobility. Be careful when you get too far above the hoi polloi. It can get dizzyingly unnerving up there. At least with the Alongi's we are much closer to earth. I could not recall a famous Alongi in history. Not that I demure from any claim to fame, so to speak.

I do recall in the transition from 1st to 2nd grade there was a debate in the family with tatay asserting that we were used to be registered as Asunem instead of Asumen. That some school teacher bungled it up somewhere.
The question before the house was shouldl we let the mistake of NEM instead of MEN stand or shouldl we endeavor to move mountains and effect a restoration. I recall it was decided that there was already too much in the public record with MEN and there really was nothing much to be gained with NEM. So tatay decided to let it be

The point relevant to Mildred's angle here is re-arranging the component alphabets to the name. I recall that chatter when I was in 1st grade but nothing much came of it.

It's worth pursuing though, especially with the preponderance of available information in cyberspace.

Suggestion: with all the esoteric angles being introduced here, maybe we are better served if you post them as comments to the blogpost. In that way the thread is consolidated in one location. Just a thought.

Mildred O. Asumen this is first time i have heard of alongi... names that came out from Papa was more of the Sempron of Inabanga... this is the side which he has contact at least of the roots in Bohol. One thing one could do is make research in Inabanga to find out our roots, the family history...

Constancio S Asumen Jr The Simpron connection is more consistent with my recollection. I used to overhear Nanay Orin's (as all of my siblings used to call grandma Asumen) reminiscence of events in Inabanga with evident nostalgia. Even Tay Ignacio in Iligan, who is Tatay's first cousin, used to sprinkle his reminiscence with Inabanga.

I understand there is a planned reunion of the 2nd generation Asumen’s slated to take place in Bohol next year. Maybe it will be an opportunity for the 2nd generation to dig out the roots and document it for posterity.
Sounds like a worthwhile project, if anybody asked me.

Tales from my Grandfather

It is probably more appropriate to call this piece Tales (from and/or of) my grandfather. Since there are numerous narratives of the “tales of” genre which I intend to dwell upon later, I decided to settle for the “tales from” angle for now.

The urge to take stock of one’s legacy comes natural in the twilight of my years. A reckoning on my heritage is an equally urgent need, if nothing else but to provide the necessary backdrop to the narrative, which may have been told before in one form or another.

The story I heard from my grandfather, who was one of 7 or 8 siblings, was that his father’s family owned a sizeable church-front property in one of the towns in Bohol. I don’t recall having heard the specific name of that particular town. Maybe some of my older siblings can fill that in later. The property was unceremoniously confiscated or expropriated by the friars.

Instead of fighting back what would have been a certain lost cause, his father just picked up and moved his family* to Mindanao, using ‘Asumen’ as the new family name, replacing the original ‘Alonggi’ or Alongi. Among his siblings grandpa Insoy (short for Lorenzo or Lorencio**) was the only one who eventually ventured to the mountainous part of Surigao, where virgin forests for homesteading were still available aplenty.

He became one of the pioneers in Wangki or Wangke. That he managed to claim a place for himself, undaunted and unbridled by the subterfuge of some of the more domineering clans, was a tribute to his fortitude which we, his descendants later dubbed as “the Asumen trait.” The rest settled in the rice plains adjacent to the nipa swamps of Gigaquit (Bunot).

The most relevant point is: for any Asumen (or Asumen-associated*** person) whose family originally hailed from Mindanao, I’m certain the ancestral tree can be traced to mine, based on grandpa Insoy’s account. So for whatever it is worth to you, I hereby claim some sort of familial relations with you, be it consanguinity or conaffinity.

With a song in my heart: regards and carpe diem, I wish you well. Or as Spock, one of my all time favorite movie characters would none-passionately say, “live long and prosper.” May the winds (of change) be at your back.


*This reflex to “get up and go,” I later identified in my memory bank as “the Asumen resilience,” and claimed it to be an Asumen trait. I relied on it heavily when I was confronted with the thankless task of making a choice that would irreversibly alter my career trajectory. It was an event which resulted in “a wealth of memories screaming to be told,” as a casual acquaintance would reckon. Thus, I was disconnected from the Asumen family for a while and have not completed the tedious and toilsome process of reconnecting.

**I recall vividly when we were in the process of writing grandpa’s grave marker that even father was not quite sure what grandfather’s formal name was. When one is in the process of establishing a new identity somewhat obfuscating formal labels vestigial of the old identity has its advantages.

In my personal memory banks, I have this to retrieve: My younger brother’s name Florencio was deemed to be derived from a combination of grandma’s name Florentina, and grandpa’s name presumed at the time, circa 1951 or 1952, to be Lorencio.

***Father was the only son of three siblings. Amongst grandpa’s direct descendants we count some Samontina’s and at least one Tadem as my immediate (first degree remote) Asumen-associated cousins.