Goodbye, procrastinators!

By CHITO DELA TORRE
June 22, 2012

Simple negligence is a common blunder Filipinos commit.  Its loudest equivalent word in Waray are “pagpasibaya”.  Left unattended for as long as time goes by, a thing may be engulfed in a misfortune but embrocaded with value at a not so later time.  A late realization of that thing’s worth could create bedlam, which may find an absconder the greater beneficiary when other better options are not available to a supposed legal owner.

Pagpasibaya sometimes proceeds from “pagpaumaya” (or “pagpasiumaya”) ot “paubaya”, meaning, giving way to another, or from temporarily giving up dominion over a thing.

Sometimes, laches develops when a supposed owner starts claiming ownership or opting to already use the thing that has been left forlorn for a time. That’s where a quondam denial becomes an assertion which results of continued failure to decisively assert only tend to complicate.

The Philippine’s claim over the Scarborough Shoal is a discomforting example here.

It seems, Filipinos are all too late in fortifying their assertion over those small islands which, whether we like it or not, are now totally under the control of alien Chinese.  We should have sustained our assertion right from the very first moment that we though that those islands are ours.  Like our surrounding territorial sea waters, we should have not just left that archipelagic part uninhabited, or unexplored.  “Yana, dara han pagpasabaya, nagmumuas na lugod kita,” is the usual blame we hear from the ordinary citizens.

From the early 80s to early 2000s, we used to hear about Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean vessels fishing our realm of the Pacific Ocean.  But we also used to hear about our Philippine navy and coast guard always unable to stop those alien ocean marauders.   We always heard the usual alibi, our own vessels were no match to those.  And so, almost always, ginpasibay’an ta nala an mga langyawanon.  “Kay waray ta man kapas” was the most painful alibi.  Up to now, our armed forces are not effectively ready to protect and defend territories that we have been made to believe as ours.

China might have been watching events.  Once, we thought Sabah in Borneo was ours. But we stopped our claim somwhere at many times in the not so distant past, until we no longer heard about it.  It was a case of pagpasibaya.

Since Palacio de Malacañan was erected, only a few muslims’ groups were warring against non-muslims and non-christians yet, and eventually, christians, first, as our own Waray historical accounts of moro raids say, to pillage small to big establishments, then to claim the entire island of Mindanao as independently theirs after failing to force to their knees the Warays, Bikolanos and Tagalogs in the 1600s to mid-1700s, and finally, to secede.  Secession has always been the last expression at arrogating a territory no matter to whom it belonged and who reigned over it.  Thus, there used to be a Mindanao Secession Movement that serious talk of which had eroded the conscience of some Waray’s until year 2001.  (Did you recall proddings to establish a Waray Republic? it almost had the embellisment of a Leyte-Samar Indepence Movement?  That was between 1999 and 2001.)

With our negligence, some original parts of municipal territories have already effectively been lost to the more enterprising neighboring towns, never mind if the latter were even smaller in both land size and human population.  Local government officials should have been seen an constantly crusading to reinforce their protectional claims over their territorial boundaries, first, through passage of a resolution or ordinance, next by elbowing with the government’s lands survey authorities for the conduct of without-let-up survey that in the end will determine the exact locational boundaries between towns, or between towns and cities, or between towns/cities and a province or provinces.  Today, ginpapabay’an ta la gihapon ine nga kamaihaan na nga development must.  That is why, some barrio folks migrate to that place which seemingly cares for them, for their products, and for their lands, farms and crops.  In this wise, however, the national government should not simply wait until local government officials start knocking on its doors.  The problem is actually already “national in scope”, and therefore alarming.  It is time the national government seriously create a body that will study closely this problem, with the end in view of putting a total stop to it.  The national government and all the local government officials should not anymore procrastinate.

It may help recall here that before 1990, or up to 1992, an estimated 2,000 hectares in the northwestern territory of Basey in Samar province had reportedly been claimed by some enterprising residents of the neighboring town of Sta. Rita as already belonging to the terrirory of Sta. Rita.  No giant steps were ever made to correct that threat to the territorial integrity of Basey.  If my memory serves me right, about a thousand hectares, if not just hundreds, belonging to the town of Villareal (Samar) were being claimed by its neighbor, Pinabacdao (Samar).  I think that issue had reached the sangtguniang panlalawigan and Villareal officials were doing their level best to reinforce their own claims.

Just last May 25 and June 15, some baryohanon of Basey expressed a common observation.  Some parts of their barrio’s territory are no longer producing an income for their own barrio because those parts had already been arrogated by the next villages as part of their own territories.  That may have a bearing on a barrio’s internal revenue allotment and on overall economy.  Alas, the barrio officials themselves did not know then, as much before, what to do and how go about with that situation.  At least Marlou Palo and Michael de la Torre, both products of the community organizing training coordinated with KAISAMPALAD Inc. through non-government organization coordinator Judy Torres, had suggested certain courses of action to take.  The only problem now is not a single course has been arrived at by those who should be making a decision at the barrio level.

These economic and geographic landscape events happen in other towns in the Leyte-Samar region and in other regions across the Philippine archipelago.

What we have just demonstrated as our form of protest to the controversial – suspected as “fixed” – split decision that gave American pugilist Timothy Bradley the champ’s belt that should have rightfully belonged to our own lawmaking boxer Manny Pacquiao, should be replicated, although in translated forms, in addressing out problem of pagpasibaya involving Scarborough Shoal and losing barrio territories.  The best leaders to start this move are our national, regional, provincial, and municipal officials. Well, isn’t it that they, too, were ostensibly one with the whole world in acknowledging Manny as the June 9 winner in Las Vegas?  As a result of our persistent efforts and outcry, at least the World Boxing Organization (WBO) had determined that it was Bradley who was outboxed and that it was Manny who actually won.  Another good outcome, the good tidings from America, two former-boxers now American senators are pushing for a legislation that will at least ensure that boxing decisions will no long be as had occurred on Manny.  Well, Manny himself, briefly after his twelfth round with Tim, remarked that he won.  The world witnessed that outpunching performance Manny did.  The world saw Tim helplessly couched on a wheelchair after his win by split decision was announced after he himself believed, before that ring announcement, that he was defeated.

These, and our own experiences, should guide us in overcoming the misfortune of neglect and abandon.

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“I am not sure I can handle it." We often hear this remark when a comrade hesitates to accept an assignment. Why is he unsure of himself? Because he has no systematic understanding of the content and circumstances of the assignment, or because he has had little or no contact with such work, and so the laws governing it are beyond him. After a detailed analysis of the nature and circumstances of the assignment, he will feel more sure of himself and do it willingly. If he spends some time at the job and gains experience and if he is a person who is willing to look into matters with an open mind and not one who approaches problems subjectively, one-sidedly and superficially, then he can draw conclusions for himself as to how to go about the job and do it with much more courage. Only those who are subjective, one-sided and superficial in their approach to problems will smugly issue orders or directives the moment they arrive on the scene, without considering the circumstances, without viewing things in their totality (their history and their present state as a whole) and without getting to the essence of things (their nature and the internal relations between one thing and another). Such people are bound to trip and fall.