RDC joke that never was /Lang-ay’s children

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

People learn everyday. Something that is meant to be a joke no matter how its intention and delivery is made turns out to be a bad one once it is misinterpreted. “Hindi nila na gets, han da naala.”

The spirit of a joke also changes depending on the characters or nature of the people involved in it. Both the sender and recipient should have humor in them so that they are able to detect which ones are jokes and which ones are not.

I am talking about a funny incident that happened during the Regional Development Council 2nd quarter meeting in Bontoc last week.

After the press conference that was held over lunch, the team of newsmen that covered the event took a break to visit the Bishop’s residence over at Tengab and go around other places of interest in Bontoc.

However, we were prevented from leaving right away because our service van was blocked by another SUV. And the guys who looked around for the driver of the SUV came back empty-handed.

And so I asked uncle Joseph Zambrano, the untiring PIA workhorse, to text anyone in the RDC meeting who could page through the public address system the driver or owner of the SUV that was blocking our van.

As instructed by me and Mondacs, uncle Joseph sent a text message to Art Aro of the NEDA who in turn gave the message to his boss director Juan Ngalob. The twisted CP text message was: “paki man announce driver of WFJ 381 is on fire, to attend asap.”

But clearly, what Mondacs and I wanted uncle Joseph to tell his text recipient was for him to page the driver of the van and that in order to make him come faster than the firetruck, he must be told that his SUV is “burning” or “on fire.”

In the imagination, the car should have been the one “on fire,” not the driver. But uncle Joseph’s text message was twisted and resulted to something unexpected.

After analyzing things, I came to imagine how Art Aro and Director Ngalob reacted. I imagined, maybe when Art showed Dir. Ngalob the text message, the latter imagined that a person was burning.

And so the RDC meeting had to be interrupted as Dr. Allaga who owned the SUV rushed to the rescue because her driver was “on fire,” only to find out that the information was false.
At this point, Dr. Allaga already knew that the message was meant as a joke but it changed into a bad one because the recipient and the sender committed sins.

The text message should have read: “paki announce man nga jy lugan WFJ 381 is on fire, attend asap.” So that the announcement to the RDC participants in the hall could have been: “paging the driver of WFJ 381. Your car is burning.”

This manner of catching the attention of drivers who do not know where or how to park their motor vehicles is effective. But the joke must be delivered with caution, otherwise people who do not have the brains to process a joke will take it as serious information.

Uncle Joseph apologized to Dr. Allaga who texted back thus: Apology accepted & gud im nt nerbiosa oderwise ul nt b 4given haha! Usto ah ta nagsori ka keni sir ngalob ta ininterup na pay y presentation!
***
Btw, the coffee and hot pancake on the second floor of the market are genuine and cool tourist attractions. People from all walks of life, foreign and local, of all ages, colors and beliefs go there anytime of the day. I bet my last peso against anyone, Tourism director Pura Molintas has not been there yet.

From Tengab and before going to the market, we dropped by the museum of Igorot artifacts at Poblacion, Bontoc. What you see is as attractive as ever since the last time I was there. No doubt, it is still one of the best museums in the Cordillera, if not in the Philippines .

Aside from politics that gets them into sweet troubles everyday, our officials in Baguio , Benguetand the other provinces should divert their attention into putting up their own museum in their localities.
********
Now on its sixth launching, the Lang-ay festival of moving colors has been adjudged by those who came to witness the line of activities as an admirable way in presenting the different cultures in the province.

Whether the presentations were demonstrated through dance, poem, song or product, the culture of the particular community stood out.

As we witnessed by the side, I could hear the semblance of the gong beat and mixed influence of the southern part of Mountain Province and the northern part of Benguet.

The same is true with the movement of the arms and feet. An influence of Ifugao was also recognizable, especially for tribes in the eastern part of Mountain Province .

A tint of Ifugao and Kalinga design and color is visibly interwoven in the fabric worn by the participants in the street dancing.

Lang-ay, according to Bontoc-Lagawe Vicar Apostolic Rodolfo Beltran, is a show of “our own solidarity with each other.” Although, many saw that other public officials who are congressional bets were inconspicuous or were “not officially invited???”

But, most of all, the children dancers in colorful attire in the Lang-ay were captivating as they swayed away with the sound of gongs.

This time I bet my last peso with DOT boss Pura, the Lang-ay Festival can easily steal the rug from under the feet of the organizers of the street dancing in Panagbenga in Baguio that has not inserted innovations in Cordillera culture as part of its criteria since its conception 15 years ago. –marchfianza777@yahoo.com