By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
But in the 1970s, at the height of the student movement to which I belonged, I learned about the history of the Aglipayan Church or the Philippine Independent Church founded by Gregorio Aglipay and Isabelo de los Reyes. I found out, to my remorseful realization, that it was the Church of the Filipino revolutionaries!
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Colonial-mindedness should have been a thing of the past among us Filipinos. But it seems, the political helmsmen of our government, the educators and cultural policymakers of our society, are just drifting along with the trends set by the Americans. They should know better than to cater to these hollow circus brands of cultural acts. These only paint a deprecatory image of ourselves as a people and nation.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Education in this country is an elitist enterprise that caters only to the thin stratum of the upper middle classes who can afford, but subjects the grassroots to a buwad smell of literacy enough for them to be able to write the names of politicians in elections.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
The political gods and landlords and other would-be gods of this society that subject the vast majority of the Filipino people to penury to be third class citizens of this country are the ones privileged to sing to the high heavens their hearts bursting with greed and profiteering schemes This land is mine, God gave this land to me.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Democracy, Freedom, National Independence, National Sovereignty are but hollow words and phrases that insult our intelligence and rational sensibility and stretch the elastic limits of our forbearance and integrity as a people.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
It is good and salutary that there are cultural guardians among us. We have people who have built fortifications to protect our language from being ripped off and blown away, demolished and trampled upon by ruffians and scoundrels among us.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
And soon the camote dreamers became the ANAKPAWIS, an association of the toiling masses that dream of bettering their lives and the lives of their children and the children of generations of toiling people yet to come.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
My linguistic homecoming has made a remarkable impact on my growth as a celebrator of Lumad literature. It couldn’t be otherwise. The noble expression and stories of Mindanao’s Lumad peoples can only be written and told in the language most akin to their experiences and reality.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Unknown to the Filipino people, their love for and devotion to the English language carries with it an adoration of all things and stuffs associated with the language. Truly, we have fallen into the cultural trap of loving everything English. Or everything that comes with the language of the Americans.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Maybe, the deplorable circumstance of history, making us enslaved to a foreign language and culture, would hold sway for many generations yet to come. And this certainly constitutes one of the fundamental elements that hold back our movement forward to progress, especially to freedom from poverty.
