KANNAWIDAN: THE YLOCOS FESTIVAL

           The province of Ilocos Sur has recently celebrated its Kannawidan Ylocos Festival. This year marks the province’s 193rd year based on the Royal Decree dated February 2, 1818 separating Ilocos Sur from Ilocos Norte. Prior to this date, the stretch of Bangui in Ilocos Norte down to Luna La Union is called Ylocos which is a term to refer to the coastal inhabitants. It literally meant “from the lowlands”.
          Ilocos Sur especially Vigan is branded as the Heart of Ilocandia by the Philippine Historical Committee. It’s a province very rich in culture and heritage. Kannawidan means traditions and this province got to showcase all what she has. On January 31 to February 6, 2011 several activities were lined up for the celebration.
           There was the tribal performance of the cultural communities of Ilocos Sur which is so fascinating. They displayed their talents as well as their indigenous costumes. Partuat ken Patanor Trade Fair showcased the products of the province such as longanisa, bagnet, garlic, bibingka, tinubong and many other foods including handicrafts. There was even eating contests of these delicacies of Ilocos Sur as well as basi drinking contest. Traditional games were played and bingo as well. There were Sarsuela and Komedya Ilocana which were shown. Choir competition was also held.  

          A battle of brains and beauty was witnessed during the Saniata ti Ilocos Sur pageant. Art exhibitions and competitions were also conducted. On the spot painting was done by the Saturday group from Manila while The Ilocandia Photographic Society put up its photography exhibit at the Archbishop’s Palace.
          It was a fun-filled week of celebration of the Kannawidan Festival in Ilocos Sur.

MIRROR, MIRROR 3

          It has been 3 months that passed since third grading had entered the semester. And now, we are already leaving it again. Every grading period, I always have to get ready for myself for the new erudition to come. What are the discoveries that I have gained? In this grading period, I have learned a lot again.

          Through the days that went by, I have learned on how to put up HTML Images. On how to display an image on a page that you need to use the source attribute. The value of the source attribute is the URL of the image you want to display on your page. There is also the Alt attribute that is used to define “alternate text” for an image. The value of the alt attribute is an author defined text. The alt attribute tells the reader what he or she is missing on a page, if the browser can’t load image. The browser will then display the alternate text instead of the image.  Another was the align attribute used to position the image within the text. Either on the left side or right or middle or top or bottom is the alignment of the text. Adjusting the sizes of the images, I had already learned them too. On how I can make a picture larger or smaller changing the value in the height and width attributes on the image tag. I had also learned in this grading period on how to use the HTML Links. There is the anchor tag and the href attribute used to point to any resource on the web, an HTML page, an image, a sound file, a movie, and many more. I had also learned about hyperlinks, hypertext and hypermedia and more on multimedia.

          With this grading period, I was not able to encounter any problem because I had deal to them easily. I hope this will continue until the end of the school year. And I just faced these challenges easily because I had understood them without difficulty. Moving on, I will continue myself improving on the technology world and also with the cyber world. I hope I could always join in the flow so that I won’t be able to be distracted.

THE BRAND NEW ME

          It was the thirteenth day of December in the year 1995 when my mom gave birth to me as their second daughter. And it was also the day when I first saw the beauty of life that God has given to me. And now, I am already experiencing the luxuries of life for over 16 years. I thank God a lot for giving me this chance to continue my journey of life in this New Year, 2012.

          As I grow in world, I have gone through problems and challenges but for this new year to come, I hope to live with lesser troubles that come. With the new days to go by, I hope to have improvement within me. I hope I would develop more skills that will surely help in reaching my dreams. I hope I could get ahead of those dilemmas that made out of my mind in which I needed to do what is not supposed to be done by a kind of girl like me. At our house, I hope I could be a better daughter to my parents so that they will no longer experience headache due to my mistakes. In my studies, I hope I would become a better student in all fields of learning. This year carries a big challenge in my schooling. This year, I will soon be graduating in the secondary level of education. And hopefully, I will now enter a new stage of my life as a student, the tertiary level of education. I hope I will have a good start this year so that I would still have the chance to append more memories in my life. And on the part of being a simple girl in our community, I hope I could help more teen to change their lives and turn a new leaf and see the loveliness of the world. I hope I could make a change despite being a teen. On the lighter side of my life, I thank God for giving me good friends, for letting me know more friends and for showing me the true nature of friends around me.
          Gone were the days of me being a bad daughter, a bad student, a bad girl and a bad friend. I thank God for giving me this life. I hope I will always be like a simple girl they used to know. And they will never leave me despite being me. And that I will still enjoy life the way it seems to be.

ILOCANOAK!

          Every where we go, wherever our feet direct us, we always carry our own home, on where we came from. No matter what we do, still inside of us is our true nature, the nature of being Ilocanos and especially, our own dialect that we use to communicate every day, Iloko.
          Located in the northern part of the Philippines, Ilocos Region is at northwest of Manila and includes area of the China Sea as a buffer zone on the western side of the region. Ilocos is a place like no other because it's where you can find unique towns and cities like the Heritage City of Vigan and Buri Capital San Juan at Ilocos Sur, Bangus Capital Dagupan City at Pangasinan, Bangui Windmill and Sinking tower of Badoc at Ilocos Norte and more tourist spots. But more on this are the way how Ilocanos treat foreigners at the places. With the practices and ways of living of Ilocanos, tourists enjoy staying here. So, they also adores them for Ilocanos know three languages; English, Filipino and of course, Iloko dialect. This is so rare that even some Ilocanos can't learn but still, they always try to improve themselves. Yet, they'll be more proud to say that they're Ilocanos if they know the Iloko language.
          We, native people of Region I must always use the Iloko language as we communicate to our fellowmen. We must always keep in mind that Iloko is our mother tongue. And that we should be more proud to be Ilocanos, for Ilocanos are great people. Be proud and say, "Ilocanoak!, Iloko ti dayalekto mi!".

LOVE ALL THE WAY

          Every child always wants to receive gifts, presents from their elders during Christmas time. Of course, anywhere you go, a child would always say it. Christmas is the longest running festivity or celebration of Filipinos. When ‘ber’ months start to count, people will already start to prepare for Christmas. Even after December 25, Christmas is still in the air for January is still a part of Christmas.

          As I grow in this world of ours, we have been celebrating Christmas with almost all of our family members. Every part of the family shares food for the celebration. Every Christmas Eve, we always have a party to make Christmas more colorful. Christmas anyway, is the celebration for the birth of our dear savior Jesus Christ. It is an annual celebration of Roman Catholics as a thanksgiving to the Lord. Christmas is the time for everybody to learn the true meaning of having friends. It is the time of forgiving those who have sinned to us and it is the time to give love to everyone. Christmas is also the time to reminisce the things we had done all throughout the year and also to learn from them. This celebration is an unlimited commemoration on the birth of our savior; it is for all people standing beneath the ground. Our family always prepare for this thing. We always wanted to be happy during this day and also to be with the whole family to celebrate. I, myself had already been used to be on this occasion, I am already used to see every kind of scenario during Christmas time. But of course, I always wanted to receive gifts from my parents, grandparents and relatives. In my entire living, I never wanted to skip any part of Christmas without my family. During Christmas, it is my time to forgive those whom I hated, ask for forgiveness to those who hated me too, and to be thankful to God to all the blessings that HE had given to me. All of these, I learned form my parents; that eve though we are at the midst of hardships, we must always be thankful to God, for having us and letting us continue the run of life.

          In my total breathing, I had been celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. And as for me, Christmas won’t sense without my family and my friends. Celebrating Christmas seems sensible having the true essence of it; forgiveness, sharing, thanksgiving and Love.

THINK WISE, THINK RIGHT

            Every people in this world have the right to fight for their own goodness, their rights. And on opportunities, it’s the person that decides for his own advantage. Laws are created to be followed and not to abide. Problems are visiting us to choose the right thing and to tolerate us.

          A person is born to live happily. A person is born with rights to be followed. Priority rights of people are to have food, clothing and shelter and of course, the right to live. Other principal rights of people are to go to school and be educated, religious freedom, freedom of speech, press and assembly, criminal trials and due process of law, right on having privacy of a person, and so with the rights of women. These are just some rights commonly acknowledged by people. We, people have many rights and we must fight for them especially if we know that we are correct. We are born to have them in and not to just put them away. And most of all, we are born to benefitted by those rights.

          Everyone has its own opportunity to decide. We are all free to choose for our own profit or gain. Opportunity comes only once so we must always think wise in creating decisions in life. Opportunities are blessings from God that we must not take for granted. And being wise in creating decisions leads to happy life and peaceful progress.

          We are created by God to live. Rights are to be given to us and opportunities come along the pathways of our lives. So we must always think wise and think right in everything that we do. And remember that we have only one life so we must treasure it, always.

DESPITE BEING TEENS

          Our national hero said, “Ang kabataan ay pag-asa ng bayan”. In English translation, “The youth/teens are the hope of our country”. Are we really the hope of our country? Is Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado Y Alonzo Realonda right?

          Every time, you see teens all around. By looking to their looks and moves draws an impression of no hope. But first impressions last and don’t judge the book by its cover. They may say that we, some teens are still immature. We may still dependent but in some ways, we can make a difference. That even though we are still young, we can also create a change in small ways. In our community there is what everybody calls the “Sanggunian Kabataan”. This is an organization that is being ruled by us, teens. By this org, we can also make a difference. Not only in our own places but also in our schools where we learn every detail of life everyday, there are school organizations in different fields of specialization that promotes the youth in different endeavors. These organizations let teens get involved in different activities to get them away of accidents. It is also to put them away of unusual habits that lead them to bad things. With the help of these organizations, either in our community or in our school, we can all make a difference.

          We may still be young and still can not be independent; we can make differences in our own small ways. That we still can prove that Dr. Rizal is right and that our country can trust us and lastly, we can make a difference despite being teens.