Pasil library proj gets boost from Germany

By Ramon Dacawi

PASIL, Kalinga -- An  ongoing campaign for support to the establishment of a community library and museum for this remote town last week got a much-needed boost from shotokan (traditional) karate students in Germany who had their teacher deliver P30,000 for the project.

Expatriate Igorot martial artist Julian Chees turned over the amount Monday to television journalist Dhobie de Guzman, head of Berdeng Karunungan which is spearheading the library-cum-museum project.

The sum was pooled by students of two karate clubs – the Bushido Siegen-Rolf Ringe and Karate-dojo Goettingen – which recently invited him to conduct a seminar on advanced kata (formal exercises) and kumite (sparring) techniques of shotokan under the Japan Karate Association.

Chees, a fifth-dan blackbelt and kata champion in  the 1993 World Shotokan Karate Championships, was here on a week-long homecoming to fulfill two Igorot rituals and sustain his personal ritual of supporting village and humanitarian causes.

Before returning to southern Germany, he visited Joshua Paway, a nine-year old boy who was born with a hearing defect and being raised alone by his mother, a laundrywoman.

“I  hope this can help you and your kids this summer,” he told the solo parent whose struggle to raise two young boys was recently featured in the weekly papers by former journalist Annabelle Codiase-Bangsoy.

Doctors are waiting for Joshua to turn 10, during which they will extract a rib cartilage for implant into his ear to enable him to hear.

Chees rushed home to Maligcong, Bontoc, Mt. Province for a “mangmang” ritual in memory of his aunt Dolores Pursen-Hilgert, a nurse and fellow expat who recently succumbed to cancer in Germany. While home, he visited and provide fund support to David Chumacog who was confined at the Mt. Province General Hospital.

Last Sunday, he asked a tribal elder to perform a “daw-es” (cleansing ritual) which is traditional  done to free people of bad luck or the influence of evil spirits they might have encountered while helping people in need.

“I forgot to have the ritual done after we returned to Baguio from that relief mission in Capiz last Christmas,” he said.

That was when he delivered  cash and rice worth some P900,000 to victims of typhoon Yolanda in barangay Concepcion in Dumalag town and to the St. Andre Mission and San Nicolas de Myra Parish in Tapaz, Capiz.

The amount, together with an additional P100,000 he coursed through the donation drive launched by the Midland Courier for the typhoon victims, was raised by his students, friends and acquaintances in Germany where he has been residing for 31 years now.

He also set aside P100,000 from Shoshin Kinderhilfe, a humanitarian foundation he and his students established in 2004, that was used for those undergoing regular hemodialysis treatment for kidney failure and medicine support to other patients. .