If it happens in Pinamungajan–or Timbuktu, or Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland–it happens everywhere.

The task force should be handled not by policemen or NBI agents but by musicians, particularly lyricists. You call the police or the NBI when it’s about drugs, or alcohol, or guns, or Joavan Fernandez. But when it’s about videoke violence, call the songwriter. Unless our law enforcement institutions include “Lyrics as Cause of Violence” in their training, drug raids and checkpoints will never solve videoke killings.

This is Google Research I’m talking about, the most reliable source of information for very serious researchers, like college freshmen and humor columnists. My comprehensive Google research told me video killings are intimately linked to the lyrics of the song that caused the fight. Take “My Way” for example.

A dozen articles dissecting the lyrics of “My Way” crop up when you google “videoke killings.” If you think I’m making this up, here’s an excerpt: “The number of killings connected to singing of the song (My Way) may simply reflect its popularity in a violent environment…The song’s ‘triumphalist’ theme might also be a factor.”

“The lyrics of ‘My Way’ increase the violence,” the study continues. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody…It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.” The typical Filipino irritates.

It makes sense. Remember the last time you went videoke-ing with your friends, and there’s this guy in the next table singing “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” with all the braggadocio he could muster and you were so damn annoyed by it? Of course you don’t blame the lyrics. “I know just how to whisper/ And I know just how to cry/ I know just where to find the answers/ And I know just how to lie” is down pat annoying but only because you hate Air Supply to begin with.

You want to blow Hitchcock and Russell and their legion of fans to smithereens, not that drunk in the next table. And we’re not talking about the Bee Gees yet.

Now, imagine that same guy screaming, “For what is a man? What has he got? If not himself–Then he has naught…The record shows I took the blows. And did it my way.” Man, that guy’s annoying!

In fairness to Sinatra, he didn’t write “My Way.” It was Paul Anka, who re-wrote it from the original French, which he described as “a bad record, but there was something in it.” That “something” is murdering videoke singers all over the country. Creepy.

The Pinamungajan incident offers an additional twist to the videoke rage phenomenon. The song is not “My Way,” thank God, but Fred Berame’s Cebuano classic “Samtang May Kinabuhi.” In the context of the videoke rage in the country, the song sounds equally creepy.

No, we won’t dissect Berame’s lyrics right now. We’re running out of space. Besides, I hear somebody singing “My Way” at the videoke bar outside, and I have a mission to fulfill. Give me that gun now.

By Insoy Niñal
Sun.Star Cebu, July 20, 2010

Magpasalamat ang Tsinelas sa EWIT mountaineers ug sa Lamac Multipurpose Cooperative sa kalampusan sa maong proyekto.

Ang pagkatkat dili gara-gara, dili palabwanay sa abilidad. Ang pagkatkat, gawas nga pakigsuod kini sa kalikopan, pakigsandurot usab sa mga tawo nga nagpuyo sa bukid o sa palibot niini.  Ug ang gibuhat sa EWIT nagmatuod nga dili kini imposible.

(more fotos of BOOKid here)

HIGH SCHOOL students from a mountain barangay in Pinamungajan, Cebu who are receiving education assistance from a group were given a personality development seminar recently.

The experience was unique for the 23 high school students from Lut-od National High School because it was the first time they were given a chance to learn about themselves in a non-academic setting.

“Me Na Me: A Personality Development Seminar” was held at the Hidden Valley Training Center and Resort in Barangay Lamac.It was a weekend of learning and fun which they shared with the Tsinelas volunteers from University of the Philippines Visayas Cebu College (UPVCC).

The seminar, which was prepared and facilitated by UP Tsinelas, was aimed at making the participants discover and appreciate their potentials.

The high school students were hand-picked by the Tsinelas Association Inc. for the seminar. Tsinelas is a nongovernment organization that gives educational assistance to poor students from remote mountain barangays in Cebu Province.

As direct beneficiaries, the 23 students received trainings and seminars from Tsinelas, aside from the basic material assistance for their schooling.

They were selected through consultations between Tsinelas representatives and faculty members of the school.

The new batch of beneficiaries underwent a series of talks and activities during the seminar, which culminated with an event called “amazing race” prepared by the UP Tsinelas facilitators.

The seminar was sponsored by Eleanor Lesigues, a registered nurse from Pinamungajan. Though she’s now based in the US, she regularly finds time to visit her hometown. In her last visit, she decided to share her blessings with her fellow Pinamungajanons.

After the seminar, the participants were given school supplies. They will receive more assistance, like shoes, uniforms and allowances from Tsinelas.

Lorenzo P. Niñal, Tsinelas executive director, said the association will support the students until they will finish high school.

Tsinelas is also supporting students from mountain barangays in the towns of Sibonga and Asturias, and from a fishing village in Cordova town.

( Rachel Mae A. Sarmiento, UPVCC, SUN.STAR NEIGHBORHOOD, May 16, 2008 )

We had to clown around to help a patient survive the ordeal.

Gamayng tuba after everybody had left. Ug may tiguwang nga niduol ug nangutana, “Mga rebelde mo dong?” Tubag: “Tagay ta noy.”

University of San Jose-Recoletos Tsinelas volunteers listen to Anislag National High School principal Mrs. Tangaro talk about the problems of the school.

adto na mi noy.

(Tsinelas dental mission. Barangay Anislag, Pinamungajan, Cebu. May 21, 2008 )

PAMUHUAN Festival in Pinamungajan is one celebration that will be a subject of future debates, at least among the town’s residents and history buffs, as to whether it authentically represents the town’s origins.

If tradition is to be followed, ‘bunga’ is the root word of Pinamungajan, not “pamuo,” as the festival suggests. It’s “bunga” to the town’s old folks and thugs, fish vendors, the naughty barber across the church plaza, even the parish priest who has spent more than half of his life hearing the confessions of the town’s sinners.

It’s “bunga” to the natives.

But a debate on the matter at the moment is a spoiler, a damper to an otherwise festive celebration of being one town, one people. In this case, the town’s elite, not the ordinary folk, are the teachers of history. So, Pamuhuan it is, as of the moment.

Besides, Manny Pacquiao and his fans don’t care. When the country’s boxing icon visited the town yesterday and acknowledged his roots in Pinamungajan, the townsfolk cheered, rendering everything else about the celebration less significant.

“Makita ninyo sa akong nawong ang akong kalipay (you can see in my face how happy I am),” Pacquiao told the crowd gathered at the Pinamungajan Municipal Gym.

The municipality, poor since birth, finds in Pacquiao a new reason to feel proud of home and to reach out to reestablish familial roots. So the town council submitted a resolution honoring Paqcuiao for his contribution in making the town proud. They also unveiled a marker dedicated to Pacquiao. The marker carries the town’s origin as farming and fishing village.

In her speech, Pinamungajan Mayor Geraldine Yapha admitted having second thoughts about organizing a festival. But she assured the public: “This is not the best but the most that we can do.”

Pamuhuan, the organizers say, is a festival about the townsfolk’s bayanihan spirit, where neighbors work together during the harvest so they could bring home food enough for the family to survive yet another day.

The debates will take care of themselves.