By JUDE BAGGO
www.nordis.net

Drinking coffee is a way of life. Life stories are shared while drinking coffee. Laughter can be heard while people are having coffee. Friendships are strengthened when coffee is served. Hot heads can be cooled down with a cup of coffee. Most of all, coffee became a culture of our hospitality especially in our (Cordillera) communities.

Recently, we visited a community in Namal, Asipulo, Ifugao. We were lucky to arrive at the area before the strong rain fell. We enjoyed resting in the front porch of the house we stayed in while watching the rain and the accumulated water passing through man-made canals around the house. While sitting around, we were a recipient to the aroma of coffee being brewed and prepared in the kitchen. The smell also of burning wood reminded me of home in the village. Read the rest of this entry →

By ALDWIN QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

On the first week of classes this school year, although some of the children were a bit sad because their vacation days of play and no homework is over, the greater number though looked glad and excited to enter on the first day of their learning and meeting more playmates as well. It did not seem to matter that they were to deal with the same already normal problems of every school year opening: the lack of chairs, outdated textbooks, lack of classrooms, among others.

During a lunch break in one of the schools here in Baguio City, a pupil with all smiles went to the picnic area to eat her baon but two of her classmates arrived and sat with her. She stopped and watched her classmates bring out their baon, opened their lunchboxes, one had longganisa while the other had hotdogs. They asked the girl why she was not bringing out her lunchbox. She just smiled and replied: “sige lang, busog pa kasi ako,” (go ahead, I am still full). Read the rest of this entry →

By MICHAEL UMAMING
www.nordis.net

On this issue Mike, a government employee working with NEDA-CAR, begins and promises this biweekly column. Sudok, is a Sagada Kankana-ey term implying clarifying or verifying well or narrating well as in: “Ta sudoken nan kinwani na (I will verify/clarify well what he/she said).” It could also mean to narrate well as in “Ta sudokek nan ikkakkana (I will narrate well what happened).” — Ed

The Philippine Science High School (PSHS) in CAR, now located in Irisan, after four years of borrowing the campus of the Baguio City National High School in San Vicente Annex has moved classes to June 17, 2013. But it will open classes with a big problem.

Last May, I visited the new campus with my son an incoming second year student. I learned beforehand that the school site was the temporary dumping facility for non-biodegradable wastes before they are brought down, accordingly, to Urdaneta, Pangasinan. I did not expect to see a pile of stinking garbage dump that gave me head and stomach aches. Read the rest of this entry →

By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

“The LORD has heard you whining and saying that you wished you had some meat and that you were better off in Egypt.” — Numbers 11:18

Freedom as Mental

Our country celebrated her 115th year of independence last June 12. National independence does not only mean freedom from the clutches of colonial powers. Rather, it involves all aspects of life. It is not only political and economic; it is also mental. It would also mean freedom from the enslavement of peoples’ hearts and minds popularly known as colonial mentality.

Colonial mentality is commonly understood as a systemic feeling of inferiority of peoples who have been subjected to colonialism relative to the values of foreign powers which had previously subjugated them. The concept essentially refers to the colonized peoples’ acceptance of the colonizer’s culture or way of life as intrinsically more worthy or superior. Read the rest of this entry →

By INNABUYOG-GABRIELA
www.nordis.net

In the morning of May 31, a series of bombings startled Barangay Lat-ey, Malibcong, Abra. Background: The day before, relatives from neighbouring barangay, Gacab, warned of a military encounter in the said area. The 503rd Brigade of the Armed Forces of the Philippines was in pursuit of the so called rebel group, New People’s Army. In the early morning of May 31, the residents of Brgy. Lat-ey heard helicopters and jet planes flying over their neighborhood. And by 9:05 that morning, bombs started to drop in their home land (barangay area).

A Fact-Finding Mission was conducted on June 4-7 by Cordillera Human Rights Alliance and Innabuyog-Gabriela in response to the reported bombings. The mission revealed that two bombs were dropped near Barangay Duldulao, Malibcong, Abra. At least two bombs hit barangay Lat-ey. One bomb did not explode which still poses danger to the community. Read the rest of this entry →

By MARY LOU MARIGZA
www.nordis.net

The government is poised to privatize local general hospitals. This PNoy regime is abandoning its obligation of providing for health services to the Filipino people who sorely lack medical infrastructure. This “Matuwid na Daan” is floundering in giving the people much needed medical care. Worse, it brands medical personnel serving the poor and deprived in interior barrios as “enemies of the state”.

It was some time ago that 42 medical workers having a seminar were arrested and illegally detained as “enemies of the state” for providing much needed medical services to the downtrodden and deprived. It is a sad state of affairs if those who volunteer their services to the grassroots are accused of coddling the enemy of the state. It is a sad state of affairs when doctors and nurses have to resort to sit down strikes and silent protests like wearing black ribbons to protest the deprivations they as medical personnel are suffering daily. It is no wonder our medical professionals would rather work abroad separated from kin and kith so they can keep soul and body together. Read the rest of this entry →