Panorama Vol. XIII, No.7 (July 1961)

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Title: Panorama Vol. XIII, No.7 (July 1961)
Issue Date: Vol. XIII, No.7 (July 1961)
Year: 1961
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extracted text: CONTENTS This. Is My Country (Poem) .... Alfdhso P. Santos Rizal ahd Education ........ Dr. Vicente G. Sinco Spacemen’s Language............................Neal Stanford “Biag ni Lam-Ang”............ Dr. F. G. Tonogbanua The Pentagon...................................... Josephine Ripley Brendan Behan..................................... Leonard Casper Dictionary of Occupations ................. Ed Townsend Teacher Preparation .......... Maxims of Mark Twain . Out of Rice, Homes .......... Negrito Wedding First Book on PI Zen ............................ 2 3 15 18 29 31 33 36 44 46 48 52 56 Rodolfo M Aluyen ..........Mauro Garcia ,. Thomas W. Dow Malaya’s Birth Customs ..................................................... 59 Fiber Glass..................................................................................... 63 Continuous Creation ................................................................ 68 Mindanao, Today & Tomorrow ... Sen. D. Alonto 69 Antarctica, No Longer Unknown .. Norma Gauhn 74 Producing a Play ................................. L. V. Avellaha 76 Social Effects of Radios ................... Richard Coller 82 Archaeologists .........................................-............................. 89 The Colombo Plan........................H. E. Alfred Stirling 90 PANORAMA is published monthly by the Community Publishers, Inc., Inverness St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Editor: Armando J. Malay Foreign contributing editor: LEONARD CASPER Art Director: RAMON ESPERAS, JR. Business Manager: MRS. C. A. MARAMAG Subscription rates: In the Philippines, one year F8.50; two years P16.00. Foreign subscription: one year $6.00 U.S.; two years $11.00 U.S. Single copy 75 centavos. Zell your friends about the Panorama, the Philippines’ most versatile, most significant magazine today. (jive them a year’s subscription — NOW! they will appreciate it. Subscription Form ................ 1 year for P8.50 ................2 years for P16.00 ................Foreign subscription: one year $6.00 U.S. Name Street ...................................................................................................... City or Town................................... Province ................................... Enclosed is o check/money order for the amount specified above. Please address all checks or money orders in favor of: COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines is, is. mu do J by Alfonso P. Santos This is my country, my home, my nativeland; You will know her by the brown earth and the brown face; This is my freeworld: Philippines, my Philippines! By the narra, the sampaguita, and’ the kilyawan. You will hear her on the tongue of the Ilocano, The Tagalog, the Visayan, and the Mindanao lad; Smell her in the boiled rice, the daing, and the carabao; Taste her ir^the mango, the coconut, and the basi. her in the June rain and the March wind; Feel Jier in the October typhoons and the April heat; Jouch her everywhere from Batanes to Tawi-tawi, From Samar to Palawan and the waters around. This is my country, my freeworld; land dear and holy, Pride of all Filipinos, the glory of heroes great: Behold her round the sun with three stars bright, Behold her in the santang, sampaguita, and the blue-bell. Panorama MISSING PAGE/PAGES (pp. 3-14) Out of this World SPACE MEN HAVE LANGUAGE OF THEIR OWN Neal Stanford They say you can’t follow a ball game without a score card. It is even more true that you can’t follow the space race without a dictionary. And most dictionaries, even the last editions, won’t do. You have to get a special “space” dictionary. For space men have a language all their own. Otherwise, as you read their journals and listen to their testimony, you find that while they are talking Eng lish, it is Greek to you. There are two main causes for the trouble: these space men use words and abbrevia tions quite outside the voca bulary of the average person. Some they actually make up as they go along, since a lot of the things they talk about, and the problems they run into, have no earthly prece dent. They are not only ex ploring a new universe; they are writing a new language. Then, they purloin a lot of words and phrases you and I have been used to, but give July 1961 15 them a special meaning, a space reference we are igno rant of. The result is that while they are talking our language they are not always getting their message across. One of the interesting things to watch in the “space” hear ings on the Hill is the way congressmen, members of the space committee, start using the space language of the wit nesses. And some have be come quite a little “showoffie,” it seems, at times. Still it is logical: when in space speak as the spacemen do. Below are some samples of this new language, some of the simpler examples, for the more difficult ones are too difficult even to define in everyday language. There are those words you and I use, but which space men have given new mean ing: auntie, beast, console, grain, ivory tower, limb, pad, Principia, saint, Sea-Scout, silo, sunflower, touchdown, umbilical cord, to list only a few. “Auntie” is the term for antimissile missile not your mother’s sister; “beast” is the way they describe a large roc ket; when they use the word “console” they don’t mean a TV set or the keyboard of an organ, they mean the master instrument panel from which rocket and missile launchings and tests are controlled. “Grain,” as these space men use it, is not the seeds or fruits, or grasses, but the bo dy of a solid propellant used in a rocket; “ivory tower” is not a place for meditation (or an editorial writer’s office) but the vernacular for verti cal test stand. “Limb” is not an arm or leg, but the outer edge of a celes tial body; “pad” is not a cus hion, a path, a highway rob ber, an easy-paced horse, nor a beatnik’s hideaway, but the base from which missiles and rockets are launched. “Princi pia” is not a Midwest college or a volume by Newton, but the code name for a project in advanced solid propellants. “Saint” is not a particular ly religious or holy person, but an Airforce study on how to inspect or police satellites. “Sea Scout” is not a branch of the Boy Scouts, but a fourstage solid-fueled rocket be ing developed for vertical problems of space. “Silo” is not a vat for fod der but a missile shelter, a hardened vertical hole in the ground. “Sunflower” is not that large yellow - petalled member of the aster family, but a program to develop a spaceborn system based on solar radiation to supply po wer. 16 Panorama “Touchdown” is not a foot ball scoring term, but the lan ding of a space vehicle on the surface of a planet. And to space men “umbilical cord” is any one of the servicing elec trical or fluid lines between the ground and an uprighted rocket missile before the launch. “Sputnik,” as we all now know, is the Russian name for man-made moons or satellites; but the full Rus sian designation is Iskustvenyi Sputnik Zewli, “artificial companion of the earth.” This Washington article hasn’t tried to get into that large range of words, expres sions, terms, peculiar only to space men: brehmsstrahlung, azusa, cryogenics, dysbarism, emissivity, jetavator, magne tohydrodynamics, mechanore ceptor, spatiography, terrella, etc., etc., etc. But I can assure you there are people who know what these mean, and even use them glibly in con versation. For still a few years, un doubtedly, our present earthy vocabularies will suffice for most of us. But the time is surely coming when space language will be an integral part of daily conversation. Then, today’s language gap will have been closed. * * * BLINDNESS The sympathetic and inquisitive old lady at the seashore was’delighted and thrilled by an old sailor’s narrative of how he was washed over board during a gale and was only rescued after having sunk for the third time. “And, of course;’’ she commented brightly, "after you sank the third time, your whole past life passed before your eyes.” “I presoom as how it did, mum,” the sailor ag reed. “But bein’ as I had my eyes shut, I missed it.” July 1961 17 Ilocano Epic BIAG NI Dr. Francisco To the ilocanos, Lam-ang was the epitome of strength and courage. Like Hercules of the ancient Greeks and Bernardo del Car pio of the old Tagalogs, he went through terrifying or deals and in all of them he emerged victor. He was a man of great wealth and was a gr°at lover, too. He killed ^uen> Ines, and won. He was *thduSmid3 of-4adld men sing}#? handed^jo. avongeTllS-'tSlT^r’s mwrderTHe fought all comets /for the hand of a fair maty Nsome sort of an adventureJstrip hero, a celluloid leading man and a tabloid headliner combined. Biag ni Lam-ang is his life story. The long narrative poem in epic proportions re cites the exploits and deeds of magic of this superman. This long poem is a story that sprang from the people, especially among the primi tive or unlettered, like the folk tale or the folk song or the ballad that has been han ded down from generation to generation, from the remote past, by word of mouth or oral tradition. It is a story ref lective of the traditions of these common people. It is the consensus of many that Pedro Bukaneg, great Ilocano poet, took down the 18 Panorama LAM-ANG" G. Tonogbanua story of Lam-ang in 1640. Bukaneg, however, tampered with this pagan poem and in serted Christian elements in it just like the monks in their monkish way tampered with the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beo wulf. Bukaneg, perhaps, re touched it due to his undying gratitude to the Spanish (Au gustinian) friars who sent him to Manila to study and to help in the propagation of the Catholic Faith. Since Bukaneg handed down to us his written ver sion of the story of Lam-ang, there have been several other versions and translations of this story. There are now two translations in Spanish — one by the poet Cecilio Apostol and the other by the scholar Isabelo de los Reyes. There are also two translations in English — one in prose by Leopoldo Y. Yabes, assistant head of the department of English, University of the Philippines, and the other one in verse by Amado M. Yuzon, former professor of English at Far Eastern Univ ersity. There are four Ilocano ver sions of Lam-ang — the Parayno Hermanos version, the Isabelo de los Reyes version, the Canuto Medina Ruiz ver sion, and the La Lucha ver JULY 1961 19 sion. The English prose ver sion of Leopoldo Y. Yabes is a stanza-by-stanza transla tion of the Parayno Hermanos Ilocano version. In 1935, Yabes published a little brochure on the Ilocano epic. This brochure was the first published in book form of a series of studies on the more important works in Ilo cano literature which the writer has been undertaking during the last few years. Yabes’ study is the only de tailed study in any language on the poem. T n the town of Nalbuan 1 (east of what is now Naguilian, La Union) lived Namongan and her husband, Don Juan (Hispanized?). At the time that Namongan was getting ready to deliver, Don Juan set out for the moun tains to punish an Igorot band. While the husband was away, Namongan gave birth to a baby boy. This baby boy yvas a wonder baby, indeed, because as soon as he was born, he could talk; upon ar rival he addressed his mother and told her that he should be named Lam-ang. He also chose his baptismal sponsor. Then, he immediately in quired where his father was, and Namongan replied that he had left to fight the fierce Igorots. “When Lam-ang was but nine months old, and his fa ther had not yet returned, he resolved to go after his fa ther. Despite his mother’s en treaties, he left to seek out the Igorots. “While on the way, he dreamt, one night, that the Igorots had killed his father and were celebrating the death of his father. He woke up in anger and travelled, swiftly to the place of the Igorots. He found the Igorots feasting around the grisly head of his father, which was in a basket-like vessel atop a pole. Filled with anger and with the help of talismans, he slew the tattooed Igorots. So many were his adversaries that ‘the inhabitants were like unto roosters, hens and chickens at their master’s call—so many were they’. He slew them all, except one whom he tortured by pulling out his tooth, gouging his eyes, cutting off his ears and fingers, so he might give warning to other Igorot hands that there was Lamang to punish them. “After the terrible battle, Lam-ang returned to Nal buan. He asked for some girls to accompany him to the Amburayan river and to give him a bath. So much was the dirt and so evil was the smell from his body that the 20 Panorama waters of the river became poisoned and all the fish in it were killed. “His father avenged, Lamang thought of settling down. He tried his luck for the hand of the beautiful Ines Kannoyan, the most beautiful girl of the region. His mother tried to dissuade him, never theless he pressed his suit for Ines. “In his suit for the hand of Ines, Lam-ang was aided by a magic rooster and a ma gic dog. He took the white rooster and the talking dog along with him to pay court to Ines. On the way, he met another suitor named Sumarang. They quarreled over Ines, and Lam-ang slew Sumarang. “Upon arrival at the house of Ines, Lam-ang found many rivals for the hand of Ines, including several Spaniards. His jealousy aroused, he let his white rooster crow, and the house toppled down. But when Ines looked out of the collapsed house, Lam-ang let his talking dog growl, and the house stood up again. “The fair Ines saw Lamang for the first time, and yet she fell in love with him. It was love at first sight. Ines adorned herself and with her mother came down to meet Lam-ang, to greet her new suitor. From the rooster, they knew the inten tions of Lam-ang. The girl’s parents demanded a dowry equal to their wealth, which must consist of gold and lands. It must include uten sils and furniture of pure gold and rice lands stretching as far as the eye could reach. Lam-ang cocksurely told Ines’ parents that he would acquire the dowry. Then, he set out for home. “Lam-ang, then, fitted out two gold ships and loaded them with treasures. With him went as many of his townspeople as could be ac commodated in the ships. When he returned to Ines, his gifts more than compensated the wealth of his future par ents-in-law. So Lam-ang mar ried Ines, and the wedding was held amidst splendor, with much dancing, eating and merrymaking. “After some time, the headman of the village told Lam-ang that his turn to catch rarang had come. He was asked to fish, as all men of the village were required to do in order to prove their manliness— their daring and courage. Before setting out to comply with the require ments of this sacred tradi tion, Lam-ang told his wife, Ines, that he had a premoni tion that he would be bitten and killed by a big fish call JULY 1961 21 ed berbakan (probably shark) while fishing. True to this premonition, he was swallowed by a berbakan. “That would have been the tragic end of Lam-ang. But the magic rooster told Ines that if the bones of Lam-ang were collected from the berbakan, he might be reviv ed. So, with the help of the diver, Marcos, the bones of Lam-ang were retrieved, and with the loving ministrations of the magic rooster, the magic dog, and Ines, Lamang lived again. A series of invocations and incantations brought Lam-ang back to life, and he appeared before his overjoyed wife as large as life itself.” C INCE TIME IMMEMORIAL, simple Ilocano folk thrill ed to Lam-ang’s daring ex ploits as these were chanted (or recited) by barrio bards and minstrels during wed dings, baptismal feasts, harv est festivals, and other me morable gatherings, to the accompaniment of the kutibeng (native guitar) and to the tune of the dal-lot (an extemporaneous tune). The peasantry loved to listen to the story, and even to recite it themselves, because it re flected the ideals of the re gion, its life and culture, in voking the courage and ad venturous spirit of the Ilocanos. The regional customs, described with finesse, are in the main what they are now; and various flourishing in dustries of yore are still what characterize the region. Brav ery and chivalry, industry and magnanimity are wellknown Ilocano traits. How old is the story of Lam-ang? Is the poem pre Spanish? This is a 'question that has long been unanswer ed, but some say that it was already chanted before the first Spaniards reached Ilocandia. They point to certain passages in the poem which show pagan practices, as when Lam-ang’s father cir cled a clump of bamboo once before cutting it down to make a lying-in (balitang) for his wife who was about to give birth. There are those, however, who hold the opposite view. They call attention to the in vocation to God which intro duces the actual story of Lam-ang and to the marriage of Lam-ang and Ines accord ing to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, among the rivals of Lam-ang for the hand of Ines were Spaniards. To this view how ever, those who maintain that the poem is pre-Spanish as sert that the Christian ele ments of the poem were added 22 Panorama in later years to keep up the story with the times, as it were. In this connection, the pre sentation of the story mate rial in Biag-ni-Lam-ang has been influenced by ideas de rived from Christianity. Bu kaneg took it down in 1640, and in his task to help in the propagation of the Catholic Faith, he tampered with this pagan poem and inserted Christian elements in .it. The poem, to be sure, abounds in supernatural elements of pre-Christian associations. In his teaching of the lofty principles of the Christian Faith, especially in his expla nations of the many myste ries of the Catholic Church, Bukaneg, touched by the ar dor and zeal of the mission ary, employed all means to win for Christianity the peo ple of the Ilocos region. As one of the means to teach Catholicism to the people, especially children, he col lected pre-Spanish folk tales, epic stories, poems and other forms of literature, and re touched them by putting on them some Christian ele ments. And Biag-ni-Lamang was not an exception in this task. The poem not only recites the exploits of the Ilocano hero and thereby furnishes much vicarious entertain ment to the barrio people but it is also a rich source of Filipiniana. In the first part of the poem. Lam-ang’s mother lists the herbs and articles which she would need in her delivery. Doubt less, these are still child birth items in the North. The poem also abounds in superstitions, customs, and other Ilocano folkways. For example, the poem reveals that in the old days, each man, although he might be very rich, had to dive into the sea to catch a rarang. This was a job which appa rently no one could dodge, for Lam-ang had to do it. Was it a test of group loyal ty, or was it a sacred ritual? The poem also contains some humor, ribald humor. After their marriage the two lovers started ribbing each other. Ines asked Lamang to walk a short distance so she could judge his gait, and this was her verdict: “I don’t like your carriage be cause you don’t know how to wear your shirt and trousers, you have bow legs, you walk with no elegance, keeping to yourself the whole path, and you need a haircut very much.” Then, it was Lamang’s turn to criticize his bride, and here’s what he found: “I also don’t like your deportment. You carry your July 1961 23 legs in a funny way, and your legs suggest an indecent movement.” Written in the style of the awit and the corrido, forms that flourished at the height of Spanish power in the Philippines, the poem, in all existing versions, does not exceed 300 stanzas of six to 12 syllables in every line. The Yabes version has 305 stan zas. Vabes, in his introduction to his own translation, wrote: “In the very strict sense, it cannot be called an epic because it lacks such important elements of the epic as profundity of theme and sublimity of thought and language... but the hero possesses the qualities of an epic hero; and his deeds are supernatural, incapable of achievement by an ordinary mortal. It is on the line be tween epic and romance, to assign it to its proper place.” As influenced largely by Virgil, the classical epic de veloped certain devices which to a varying extent have been respected by all poets since. Some of these characteristic devices were: the beginning in medias res, the invocation of the muse, and the state ment of the epic purpose. Other conventions include descriptions of warfare and battles and the use of the supernatural. The speech of the characters is distinctly formal, epic catalogues and * * * BIGAMY What is the penalty for bigamy? Two mothers-in-law. * * * The man was weak and naturally unlucky, and so he got married three times inside of a year. He was convicted and sentenced for four years. He seemed greatly relieved. As the ex piration of his term grew near, he wrote from the penitentiary to his lawyer, with the plain tive query: “Will it be safe for me to come out?” 24 Panorama descriptions are brought in (these often marked by con siderable concrete detail), the epic simile is common, and the whole story is pre sented in dignified and ma jestic language. Substantially, Biag-ni-Lamang satisfies these character istic devices, except the first (the beginning in medias res), but neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey which are attributed to Homer satisfy this particular governing de vice. There are, however, five elements of the epic that are quite important in consider ing Biag-ni-Lamang as an epic or metrical romance. First, it is a long narrative poem which should last from two hours to two weeks to chant. There is no question that the Ilocano story satis fies the length expected in a narrative of this type. Second, the story must be in verse. The poem is suitable for chanting or for recita tion before an audience. Un questionably, the Ilocano sto ry also complies with this re quirement. Third, the characters pressented in the story must be of high position in their re spective social groups to which they belong. Lam-ang, Ines, and the rest of the characters in the story are all of high position. Fourth, the story must re veal the development of epi sodes important to the devel opment of nations or' races. The Ilocano story has such episodes, which reveal the development of the Ilocanos. Fifth, the story must re volve around one central fig ure who must undergo a se ries of adventures of heroic proportions and die a heroic death at the end. This is the element that places a ques tion mark to Biag-ni-Lamang. All existing versions of the narrative has Lam-ang resurrected at the end of the story. From this point of view, the story is more of a metrical romance rather than an epic. Chroniclers, such as Padre Colin, Pigafetta, Chirino and De Zuniga, have attested to the probable existence of Philippine epics. Biag-ni-Lam ang is among them. How ever, whether they are true epics or not remains to be studied. There are no com plete records of practically all of our long stories; prac tically, all of them are in fragmentary forms. It is safe, however, to say that they are long narratives ;in epic proportions, in the meantime that we are to go deeper in our search for and study of them. July 1961 25 For a long, long time, there has been a search for a satisfactory ending of the story. It is quite compre hensible that there should be. But how to find it has always been a great puzzle to re searchers. However, it is here now, found at last after ten years of searching by the au thor. A grand old, old man in Sinait, Ilocos Sur, has hand ed it down to us, if we are to believe him, from older men before him, so he says. And this is the continuation of the story: “After he was brought back to life, and he appeared before his overjoyed wife as large as itself, Lam-ang em braced Ines Kannoyan, and in their extreme happiness, they collapsed on the ground. And, filled with joy, Lamang embraced and kissed his pet rooster and his hairy dog. After that, they returned home. “Then, Lam-ang and Kan noyan repaired to Kalanutian. In peace and in prosper ity, Lam-ang hung the sword for the Gospel, in Kannoyan’s belief that this change of air would induce God to bless them with a longwished, desired child. Lamang read and studied the Word and interpreted it to his tribespeople, but as the months and years went on, no child pulsed in his wife’s waiting womb. “For fifty years, the people of Sinait became more and more jealous over the pro gress of Kalanutian. They looked with suspicion at the peace and plenty that the people of Kalanutian were reaping. They were afraid that Kalanutian would sur pass Sinait. Then Lam-ang learned of this state of af fairs between Kalanutian and Sinait, the spirit of war throbbed in him once more, and shutting out the pleas and sobs of Kannoyan, and in spite of his advanced age left the wall naked of the sword. “When a serious trouble wracked the peace between the towns of Kalanutian and Sinait, in which the inevit able froth and buffet of a final battle could end it all, Lam-ang was chosen to lead the Kalanutian warriors. “The Kalanutian warriors met the Sinait forces at Timmangol, a small, sitio between the warring towns. In the terrible battle that ensued, blood created scarlet lakes and the shapes of the dead decayed in the sun. Lam-ang led his warriors again and again in cruel assaults, until a young Sinait brave plunged a spear through him. Their leader — the supposedly in 26 Panorama vincible Lam-ang — buckling weakly to the .rising ground, the Kalanutions were pan icked, wildly confused, and fled from the field of battle. But true to their word of honor to their dead leader, they stood their ground just outside Kalanutian, and then yielded only to the Sinait forces when they were prom ised that upon surrender their town would be preserved from destruction and their children and women treated with honor. Thus, the power of Sinait over Kalanutian was confirmed, and this was why, up to this day, Kalanutian is still a barrio of Sinait. “The heroic death of Lamang in the field of battle was honored by the Sinait forces. They rendered military hon ors for him. They gathered Lam-ang’s remains, built a funeral pyre for him, reduced his body to ashes, and his ashes scattered all over the re gion. Lam-ang died a heroic death. “Lam-ang’s demise ajso led a wife to grief, for she fol lowed Lam-ang soon after. Her burial was made on Bantay Dayawen (Reversed Hill), from which other Ilo cano tales and superstitions have risen up.” A question now arises: Is this “lost ending” a gen uine part of Biag-ni-Lam-ang? Can it be proved from ex tant manuscripts, if there is any? The grand old man at Sinait who gave this part of the story to us simply says that he got it from older men before him, and he cannot say for certain whether or not there was a manuscript to support this claim. But, I wish to God, this part of the story is genuine, and it will without doqbt make Biag-niLamang a true epic. It will satisfy the last two elements of the epic mentioned above. It will place Biag-ni-Lam-ang side by side with the great epics of the world, and our people can be proud that our country, after all, has one such epic. For the resurrec tion of Lam-ang from the diver-gathered bones, as in the end of the present ver sions of the story, would not, in any way, compose the proof that Biag-ni-Lam-ang be considered the absolute epic. It makes it rather sound like a fairytale or, at most, a metrical romance, of man and woman emerging from the poxed and cratered pat terns of sequences in life, leading a happy existence from then on. But a sequel to the whole thing — the lost ending, now found, if genuine —may make us conclude that the story of the Ilocano hero is an epic after all. July 1961 27 T n any reading and study * of Ilocano literature, in particular, and of Filipino literature, in general, there can be no talk without some how mentioning Biag-ni-Lamang. For there is no doubt that this great work recites the exploits of the Ilocano hero who is the epitome of masculine strength and cour age. It is one work that links the present with our pre Spanish associations, because the Christian elements are almost without exception so deeply ingrained in the very fabric of the poem and the Christian interpretation of the story gives added strength and tone to the en tire work. Lam-ang’s story has come down to us not only in liter ary forms but in music as well. It may be of interest to many readers that there are three episodes in Biag-niLam-ang that have given in spiration to Eliseo M. Pajaro to compose a symphonic poem, The Life of Lam-ang. This composition written in 1951 was first performed by the Eastman-Rochester Sym phony Orchestra conducted by Dr. Howard Hanson, Director of the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, U.S.A. Since the setting of the story is in the Ilocos, the composer took his themes from Ilocano folk tunes like the Dal-lot, Pamulinawen, Ti Ay at Ti Maysa nga Ubing, Manang Biday, etc. This symphonic legend was also part of Pajaro’s Ode to the Golden Jubilee, a massive piece for orchestra, chorus, speech choir, and soloist, which was composed in 1958 to commemorate the develop ment of the University of the Philippines over a period of a half century towards the fulfillment of the Filipino dream for independence, free dom, integrity, and enlightment. The Life of Lam-ang was the orchestral work chosen to represent the Philippines in the Festival of Asian Music held in 1959 in New Zealand. Whether epic or metrical romance, Biag-ni-Lam-ang as a literary piece of work will endure. And its value cannot be minimized. For it will con tinue to inspire artists to re duce it into other forms of art — music, sculpture, paint ing. Filipino literature can not really be rich without it. * * * 28 Panorama CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT THE PENTAGON Josephine Ripley One of Washington’s most unusual government build ings is seldom visited by tour ists. Yet there is probably no building in the capital about which there is more curiosi ty. “Where is the Pentagon?” visitors ask. They stare incredulously and go their way, elsewhere. Perhaps that is because its dimensions are so formidable. Everyone has heard the sto ry of the messenger boy who disappeared within the build ing shortly after its comple tion, and emerged several years later a general. The Pentagon has no street address—to avoid having five perhaps. It is located in the District of Columbia, yet it is across the Potomac in Vir ginia. Well, anyway, in a fin ger of land known as the Dis trict of Columbia which ex tends into Virginia. It has parking lots for some 8,400 cars, but many prefer taking a bus into the heart of the building to hoofing it from one of the parking areas. The Pentagon is a maze of corridors within, and clover leaf highways without. Miss a turn and you may find your self back across the river in the District again. I speak from experience, having ta ken the turn to “north park ing” instead of “south park ing.” This carried me beyond the Pentagon and eventually to the Lincoln Memorial Bridge, after which I started all over again. The five-floor building has 17x/2 miles of corridors. (Which may explain why tourists are satisfied just to look.) It is so designed, archi tects say, that the maximum walking distance between any two points is only 1,800 feet—only a six-minute walk. That is, if you know the way. According to Lt. Col. C. V. Glines (who offers up some startling statistics on the Pen tagon in the U.S. Lady ma JULY 1961 29 gazine) 30,000 daytime emplo yees, military and civilian, work there. It is aji office building for the military, but it contains also: two banks, a post office, telegraph office, airline and railroad ticket offices, a drug store, ladies’ and men’s ap parel stores, bookstore, bake ry, florist, barber shop, laun dry and dry cleaner, an opto metrist, a candy shop, jewel ry store, shoe repair shop, and a uniform store. Buses and taxis tunnel un der the building. Two com mercial bus companies ope rate some 900 trips in and out of the terminal daily. People arrive at the Pen tagon from all directions these days—by land, sea, and air. Helicopters drop passen gers almost any time of day. Several hundred people com mute by boat. The “Air Force navy” operates a regular schedule from Bolling Air Force base across the Poto mac to the Pentagon boat dock. The pudgy, five-sided buil ding has many nicknames, such as the “Puzzle Palace,” “The House of Confusion,” “The Cement Sanitarium,” “The Big Hanger.” It has three times the floor space of the Empire State Building, covers 34 acres of ground, and is surrounded by 200 acres of lawns, flower beds, and terraces. It has two restaurants, six cafeterias, nine beverage bars, and, in the summer, an out side snack shop in the court yard. Colonel Glines estimates that all employees eat at least one meal in the Pentagon. Some 60,000 pounds of food is served daily—all of which makes the world’s largest office building also the world’s largest food service organiza tion. Patrons of the restaurants are said to consume 3,800 quarts of milk a day, 7,000 soft drinks, 35,000 cups of cof fee, and eat 5,000 sandwiches. Church services are held daily, Protestant, Roman Ca tholic, and Jewish. The Pentagon has been so constructed with innumerable stairways and ramps that the entire building could be emp tied in one hour if necessa ryOften quoted statistics in clude the fact that: 10 tons of waste paper are collected each day and sold for an an nual income of nearly $100,000 for the government; 85,000 light fixtures of all types burn out about 900 bulbs a day; 40,000 telephones handle the 275,000 calls made each working day, with more than (Continued on page 88) 30 Panorama Literary Personality BRENDAN BEHAN: The Unmade Bed Leonard Casper The greatest mistake any reporter can make is to ask to have a few words with Brendan Behan, the Wild Irish man of the Theater. Behan is not a man of few words but of whole torrents. He has been called a scalawag and. a buffoon, and there is constant talk of censoring his play, The Hostage. But no one really takes seriously their own threats to deny him free speech, especially since despite his love for profanity and savage talk, his tone is gentle and the look on his face deadpan. The clarity of his speech is not in the least affected by the absence of several up per front teeth. The man is as controversial as his play which concerns the Irish rebellion against Britain, a never-ending subject for professional Irishmen. He is powerfully built but un kempt—like his work; and resembles nothing more than the term once applied to the late Heywood Broun, a drama critic, a man on the other side of the footlights: an unmade bed. He never wears one color but a rainbow: brown suit, gray shirt, blue tie. Fashions have changed so consider ably that they were bound to catch up with Behan; and for a while, now that men are expected to wear unmatched textures and colors, he will be in fashion. . He has often made a living with his hands—at house painting, for example; yet those hands look strangely small and soft, although the nails are bitten back and rimmed with dirt. His complexion is florid, his jaw bold, his nose July 1961 31 many times broken and still front and center and asking for trouble. He has the looks of the man he is, a revolu tionary who has spent his life at it. He fought long and hard in the Irish Republican Army, although now he laughs at the silly ways of those die-hard terrorists in the IRA; he even spent years in jail as a political prisoner—but the ideals, he says, were his alone and no party’s, and he is not sharing the glory of that minor martyrdom with any man. Today he rebels more quietly (although roughly enough for New York City to refuse to let him march in their St. Patrick’s Day Parade), through the lips of his act ors. He has been writing since boyhood. For awhile he was a newspaperman, working for several journals simulta neously, among them the Irish Press. In spite of the fact that he no longer is a terrorist, he takes pleasure from the fact that former President Eamon De Valera, a conserva tive, reads his articles constantly with disgust. His pass port reads that his occupation is “journalist,” not “play wright”: but what journalist ever talked so torrentially in non-sequiturs and stayed on a payroll? A few years ago he was the author of a rowdy best-seller, Borstal Boy, which told of his time in prison. But besides the inside of a cell he knows Europe thoroughly, from 37 years of travel. He knows London, Stockholm and Paris, especially the alleys and gutters where the poor down-and-outer can sleep. Actually he believes that he can work well any where, provided it is a city; the country and its busybody people distract him. There is a kind of primitive strength to the man which makes credible the story he tells that, although once he consumed alcohol prodigiously, on medical advice he gave up suddenly and thoroughly. He is a man of determina tion. “But even in the old days,” he says, “I worked real office hours when I was writing. I pulled myself together —of course I may not have been cold sober, but I was in working shape.” In shape enough to write The Hostage, a hilarious vaudeville of serious elements and brilliant, mocking intellect; of extreme novelty and drive and cut ting wit. His next play is tentatively titled Richard’s Cork Leg; and should be more of the same. Has such a man any choice? 32 Panorama What's that, again? DICTIONARY LISTS 24,000 OCCUPATIONS Ed Townsend Suppose someone said to you, “With summer coming •on, I’m headed out to take a job as a zangero.” Or, perhaps, a friend at a Rotary luncheon mentioned spending some time among the flappers in the Northwest. Chances are, you wouldn’t know a zangero from, say, a wrinkle chaser or a joy load er, and you would credit your Rotary friend for a ro mantic streak he might not have—unless you are one of the inveterate book browsers who have found chuckles in the United States Department of Labor’s authoritative, quite serious Dictionary of Occupa tional Titles. The dictionary is a twovolume compendium of 24,000 different jobs in business and industry—jobs that provide a livelihood for 8 out of 10 Ame rican jobholders today. In all, its updated pages now include some 60,000 occupational ti tles and identifications, from archsupport assembler (just what the title implies) to zangero, a supervisor of irri gation ditches. The “flappers” your Rotary friend mentioned could be identified through the diction ary as male copper workers, not lively lassies in the shortskirted styles of 1961. A wrinkle chaser? He works in a boot and shoe factory to make sure your shoe body is smooth, completely wrinkle free. The joy loader has a coal-mine job. To the men involved, they are just jobs leading to week ly Pay checks. But there is little prosaic about such job names as bushing and bungboring-machine operator, a ti tle with a lilt, or stiff-leg der rick operator, or pulpit man in a steel mill. July 1961 33 The keep-off girl searches insurance reports for suspi cious losses; she may be a friendly lass with a comehither look despite her job. A gandy dancer may be all muscles and no grace; he lays and repairs railroad tracks. A boarder shapes and removes wrinkles from nylon stock ings. A tipper dresses poul try. A chamberman is not a male chambermaid; he makes sulfuric acid. And a pretzel peeler doesn’t do what the ti tle suggests, but places raw pretzels on a conveyor belt. Never confuse a donkey doctor with a veterinarian; he repairs donkey engines for the logging industry. A banking inspector would be lost in the bookkeeping departments of a financial house; his job in volves the inspection of parts of watches. And a leg inspec tor only eyes empty hose in a stocking factory. The dictionary recognizes many workers whose jobs might never be thought of otherwise: the cracker stack ers, doll-eye setters, baseball glove stuff ers, back-pocket attachers, bologna lacers, fan mail clerks, and ribbon tiers who make the little red bows on Valentines. Other classifications catch the eyes — and imaginations: k n e e-pants operators, bag holders, bottom men, plodder men, moochers, leachers, bum pers, knockers, neck cutters, on-and-off men, dieing-out machine operators, first fal lers, and former men. But, there are also listings for backer-up, and build-up men. Some new jobs are showing up. One is sage engineer, not necessarily a wise man as the title would suggest but cer tainly one with a background of technical training. He is a product of the alphabet age: sage is an abbreviation of semiautomatic ground equip ment, and the sage engineer is a specialist who might be found working as an experi mental rocket-sled mechanic or an electric-eye sorting ma chine technician. There are other listings that are in keeping with changed times. One is the au tomobile self-service station attendant, another the laun derette attendant. The newly listed security officer’s job is a result of in ternational and industrial cold wars. The Labor Department up dates the dictionary periodi cally, and it is widely used in industrial relations bv em ployers and union represen tatives who deal with them. One value is to give some uniformity to job descrip 34 Panorama tions and titles, so that fair comparisons may be made. But, complete as it is, the dictionary doesn’t list all jobs. A writer for a labor news paper recently pointed out that the latest dictionary missed such off-beat jobs as the lost-kid finder, a carnival employee whose job involves watching the children wan dering around fairgrounds and carnival sites and round ing up the strays; the hat agers in Hollywood who make old hats out of new ones by an adroit rumbling—and why not old ones in the first place? — and “listen-to” specialists who help those with prob lems by letting them talk them out, at $3 an hour. Those may never make the dictionary; its purpose, after all, is serious and its direction is toward industrial-relations specialists. However, other jobs are nudging their way into the listings year by year. It’s likely that the stick man will make the grade in the next updating. If you don’t know him, he is the at tendant who is charged with keeping others away from a welder working on a subway third rail. BIRTH The little girl in the zoological park tossed bits of a bun to the stork, which gobbled them greedi ly, and bobbed its head toward her for more. “What kind of a bird is it, mamma?” the child asked. The mother read the placard, and answered that it was a stork. “O-o-o-h!" the little girl cried, as her eyes rounded. “Of course, it recognized me!” July 1961 35 Challenge of the Times TEACHER PR (By the Michigan State University Committee for the New Curriculum of the University Unit at Oakland, rT'HAT THE POSITION of the L United States both at home and abroad is precar ious is a proposition general ly accepted as valid. Domesti cally, we find ourselves, at the moment, apparently un able to cope with certain of the problems which have emerged in our dynamic so ciety. Abroad we are chal lenged as never before to show that we possess the phi losophy, the knowledge, the willingness, the energy to ena ble us to take the lead in the establishment of the good so ciety throughout the world. There are those who think that both domestically and in ternationally we have serious ly lost ground in terms of both our coping and our lead ing during the last quarter of a century. Whether or not this be true, there is no doubt that our plight is serious. Per haps it always has been. Equally certain is the fact that the only long-range so lutions which seem to give promise are deeply rooted in and dependent on the quali ty of our educational process. There is little argument that the center of this educational process is the teacher, and we cannot hope for that process to rise in quality above that of the individuals who play this central role. For this reason, a seminar devoted to a consideration of teacher preparation has signi ficance far beyond one which concerns itself with but a spe cial field. It is of little use to discuss programs in engin eering, in science, and in bu siness if the students who ar rive on the university campus to undertake them have been taught inadequately through out their elementary and se condary experience. Compounding our difficul ties, although perhaps if pro perly dealt with, multiplying our opportunities, is the fact that the community as a whole has become a most ef fective teacher, perhaps more 36 Panorama EPARATION Michigan, under the direction of Dr. Thomas Hamil ton, now President of the State University of New York) effective than the schools themselves. Values, attitudes, even the willingness to learn seem in large part to be a reflection of the community rather than learned in the classroom. To a degree this has always been the case; but support might well be found for the hypothesis that there has been an increase in the success of the impact of that portion of the community other than the school, the home, and the church; and there is little evidence that the shift will assure a hap pier situation either for so ciety or the individual. Perhaps a sensible point of departure would be to make certain that it was thorough ly understood that the prepa ration of teachers is a respon sibility of the total universi ty and cannot, with success, be delegated alone to any department or division or col lege. The reason for this stems from the fact that the preparation of teachers is nei ther a simple nor unitary task, but rather a complicated fourfaceted responsibility which can only be borne by the to tal university. It must not be held that each of these res ponsibilities is the exclusive concern of a single sector of the university. On the contra ry, as will be seen, these func tions, regardless of by whom treated, must always be view ed as interrelated, supplemen tary, and complementary ra ther than discrete. First, it should be observed that all teachers regardless of level or speciality must be provided a liberal or general education of excellence. Not all would agree precisely as to what the content of such a liberal education should be, and certainly not all courses which describe themselves as liberal merit the label. In all likelihood, however, the pre sence of liberal programs which pursue their reasonab ly similar objectives by var ious routes is healthy in our July 1961 37 pluralistic society. Certainly there would be fair agree ment that the liberally edu cated person, be he teacher or engineer or doctor, should know something about the so cial world in which he lives, its history and cultural ante cedents, possess an under standing of the nature of science as an intellectual pro cess, be characterized by con siderable ability in the skills of communication so taught as to take full cognizance of the relationship of skills to content. This seems minimal. It also is agreed that teachers should receive this liberal edu cation in the company of those who are being prepared for other professions. Liberal edu cation knows no geographical boundaries, neither does it recognize professional prov inces. That students with va rying professional ambitions can with profit learn together seems obvious. A second dimension of this complex of education design ed to prepare teachers is in volved in providing for pros pective teachers learning ex periences which will make certain that they have com petence in the special field in which they are to be cer tified as teachers. How exten sive this should be cannot be answered generally. Perhaps it would be well to describe the desirable situation in terms of the student achiev ing sufficient competence of this nature that, if it subse quently prove feasible, the teacher can build a graduate program on this undergrad uate training. The elementary teacher naturally presents a special problem in this con nection, for what in fact, is the special competence which he should acquire? Under pre sent circumstances, he should ideally be provided with the most comprehensive “general” education possible. While it can be held that the elementary teacher should be expected to demonstrate a subject matter competence of no less quality than that dis played by the secondary tea cher, there is a point of view holding that the special com petence called for in this case is a thorough understanding of children and how they learn and grow. It is the third function to which the most adverse cri ticism in the preparation of teachers recently has been di rected. This has to do with professional education. Let it be said at the outset that no one concerned with teacher preparation would deny that in some quarters there has been superficiality in this area and fragmentation of courses and subject matter. 38 Panorama Needless to say, this is not the only area in a university where guilt on these charges can be proved; but the fact remains that courses in pro fessional education are in need of constant review and scrutiny both by those with in and without the field. But when all this has been admit ted, the fact remains that it is difficult to see how one could adequately prepare tea chers in contemporary socie ty without the availability of certain of the competencies and knowledge that have been developed in this field. It seems clear that prospec tive teachers should under stand the history of the Ame rican public school as well as the philosophical position on which it rests. A knowledge of the continuing inter-action between the school and the social order is necessary. Si milarly, the teacher should comprehend to the best of his ability the nature of the learn ing process and its implica tions for teaching methods. Finally, there are almost none who would deny the ne cessity for providing, in one way or another an internship through the form of what or dinarily is called “practice teaching.” If there be valid criticism on this, it would be that frequently the practice teaching experience has not been intensive enough nor coupled with an opportunity for learning through study of and reflection on the exper ience. Acknowledging the necessi ty for work in the field of professional education, there remains the problem of how much of the total collegiate program should the prospec tive teacher devote to such studies? Inevitably the ans wer to this question must be quantitative, but it is unfor tunate that such is the case. The important matter is the achievement of certain edu cational objectives, not the number of semester hours ta ken. Informed opinion would indicate that, including the practice teaching experience, the valid objectives of the professional part of a stu dent’s program should be at tainable by most students in from one-sixth to one-seventh of the effort devoted to the total undergraduate program. The fourth and last aspect of the teacher preparation program has to do with get ting each student to truly understand the nature of the discipline which he aspires to teach. This is a somewhat more newly recognized di mension of the teacher pre paration program. It is an educational task which we seem to have performed bad JULY 1961 39 ly. In the field of mathema tics, for example, there are many teachers who are com petent to deal with the sub ject in the manipulative sense. They are able to teach pro cesses and turn out students who can follow directions with reasohable accuracy, but far less success attends their efforts to give to students an understanding of the nature of mathematics as an intellec tual discipline and its proper relationship to other discip lines and, indeed, to the whole history of ideas. Probably by the very nature of the case, this is a function which will have to be performed at least in large part by those who teach the subject matter courses at the university le vel. If it eventuates that some of these university level spe cialists do not themselves un derstand the nature of their discipline in this sense, some embarrassment may ensue. Again it should be empha sized that these functions are by no means discrete. Libe ral education frequently pro vides the necessary subject matter for a teacher, and pro fessional education courses if properly taught can meet li beral objectives. Certainly a thorough understanding of the nature of a discipline should give valid clues to the best methods by which it can be taught. The implications, then, are clear. Only the en tire university is competent in the last analyses to assume the responsibility for the pre paration of teachers. Of recent years we have come to recognize in prepara tion for teaching, as with pre paration for other professions, that the university is not well equipped to do all that is re quired. Just as in medicine there seems to be a desirable division of responsibility bet ween the university on the one hand and the hospital on the other, so in the prepara tion of teachers should the school system share the res ponsibility with the universi ty. The problem, of course, lies in the difficulty in de termining who should do what. Generally speaking, there seems to be agreement that the universities should deal primarily with the theo retical, the scientific, and the substantive, leaving problems of application to be consider ed within the public school system. To be specific, much of what is now taught in the field of administration, busi ness management, and audio visual materials, to name but a few areas, might be learned better under the auspices of the school system. In point of fact, a major improvement in the prepara 40 Panorama tion of teach.ers could be at tained if the universities and the school systems were to re cognize more fully that theirs was a joint responsibility. There might be real merit, for example, in developing a teacher preparation program which in total was of five years in length, but with the last two years shared .by the school system and the univer sity with the student being paid full salary during this period. Some such cooperative ar rangement between the uni versities and the school sys tems might assist in preven ting a loss of personnel in the teaching profession which comes about through the new teacher not being adequately prepared for the shock of the first full-time teaching assign ment. The step from the campus to a classroom with thirty or forty youngsters not all completely dedicated to learning, or for that matter necessarily even decorum, sur rounded by the complexities of the community, the bu reaucracy, the parents, is a giant one. Too many promi sing teachers never recover, and quickly decide that their choice of a profession was illadvised. This “community shock” ef fect has been heightened of recent years for the new tea cher comes to the community with relatively less status than was formerly the case. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that the total educational level of the community is much higher than in earlier times. The new teacher will find it fai more difficult to establish his position as an intellectual and cultural leader than did his predecessors. One of the problems which confronts those who are con cerned with the preparation of teachers in the United States is the lack of career stability which characterizes the profession. All too often the teacher enters his profes sion clearly recognizing that it is not something to which his full professional life will be devoted. The primary rea son for this rests in the fact that so many of our elemen ts * * BLOCKHEAD The recruit complained to the sergeant that he'd got a splinter in his finger. “Ye should have more sense” was the harsh comment, “than to scratch your head.” 4J Iulv 1961 ary and secondary school eachers are women who plan •rom the beginning to teach only until they have assumed their role as wife and mother. Quite naturally, with such a large segment of the teacher population being so motiva ted, it is difficult to build the dedicated, career-minded pro fession which is so needed. Part of the answer to this dillemma lies in attracting more men to elementary and sec ondary school teaching. There is evidence that progress is being made on this front. Making teaching a career to which both men and wo men will be willing to dedi cate their lives is not easy. Some of the difficulty rests in the matter of salaries, and there is no doubt that these need to be increased marked ly. But more than this is re quired. Somehow communi ties must not only accord to their teachers appropriate sta tus, but school systems must provide a situation where able men and women can see for the entirety of their pro fessional lives such challenge that they will not be tempted to desert the profession for other pursuits. This means that school systems must rid the teacher of the necessity for being clerk, janitor, and nurse and must provide a way for the able and energetic to rise in responsibility and sa lary as their careers develop. One of the matters fre quently discussed in the pre paration of teachers has to do with the point at which stu dents should choose their ca reers. On this matter there is some disagreement. Those who favor a late choice ob serve that many bright col lege students do not crystal lize their interests until the later part of their collegiate careers and thus would make the teacher preparation prog ram sufficiently flexible that at almost any time a student might enter into it. On the other hand, there are those who hold that career choices are being made too late and that it would be wise to has ten the procedure rather than delay it. Perhaps the best ag reement which can be reached is that for most students the decision to enter the teacher preparation program should be made at the end of the sophomore year but that the program should be possessed of sufficient flexibility that later choice would be possi ble. U any students of the eduv cation scene have poin ted out that the teacher pre paration program would be far less difficult to operate if the candidates for it were se 42 Panorama lected with greater care. There is no doubt this is true. In fact, the world’s problems would be considerably dimi nished were the supply of an gels less limited. Given the great need for teachers, it seems quite unrealistic to as sume that the immediate fu ture will permit of much greater selectivity than is now practiced. Other professions also are seeking and need the able individuals. It seems un likely, and perhaps unwise, that the teaching profession will be able to attract a dis proportionate share of the gif ted. Even to the extent that se lectivity is possible, the ins truments on which judgments can be made are far from in fallible. Intellectual ability and performance can be mea sured reasonably well, but the more important desire to continue to learn is identified with great difficulty. Health and appearance, to the extent these are relevant, can be ap praised. It is in the area of the prospective teacher’s per sonality that great fuzziness attends the efforts to select. Instruments are so weak, the possibilities of great damage by the projection of stereo types so great that caution must be exercised in acting on the valid proposition that the teacher’s personality is an important part of the learn ing process. It should be pos sible, and is in fact impera tive, however, to provide spe cial educational challenge to the able students who are at tracted to the profession. In our concern for quantity the dimension of quality cannot be ignored. The great danger faced by even a new university will be its failure to take into account the fact that the future will be characterized, as is the pre sent, by great change. In short, we must plan on a so cial order where perhaps the only constant is the lack of a constant. This means that the administration of a university and its faculty must continue to be imaginative using the knowledge of the past but re fusing to be bound by past limitations. Only in this way will it be possible to' attract the quality of faculty essen tial. This exercise of imagina tion in fact is the task of the university, in any event, whe ther it is concerned with the preparation of teachers, law yers, physicians, or citizens. As Alfred North Whitehead has put it, “Fools act on ima gination without knowledge; pedants act on knowledge without imagination. The task of a university is to weld to gether imagination and exper ience.” July 1961 43 MAXIMS OF M “Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.” “If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape the gallows?” “Simple rule for saving money when you are red-hot to con tribute to a charity: To save half, wait and count 40. To save three-quarters, count 60. To save it all count 65.” “Be good and you will always be lonesome. Like me.” “Prosperity is the best protector of principle” “To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.” “It is nobler to shoio another how to be good than to be good yourself, and less trouble” “Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.” “There is an old-time toast which is golden in its beauty: 'When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you never meet a friend.’ ” “Each person is born to one possession which outvalues any he can earn or inherit—his last breath.” “Hunger is the handmaid of genius—or the barmaid, or the housemaid, or the lady’s maid—I don’$ know for sure which it is, but it is one of those, anyway.” 44 Panorama MISSING PAGE/PAGES (pp. 45-48) youth woo their mates like the young are wont to do all over the world. The Aeta maiden, convinc ed that her lover is sincere, simply follows him to his grass home atop a tree. A marriage ceremony is per formed, which consist of pray ers called agboda. Among the Negritos of Aglao and Cabangan, near San ta Fe, Nueva Ecija, when lo vers agree to wed, they go through a ceremony called the “eating” ceremony. A mat is rolled on the ground and a dish containing cooked rice, camote or some other food is placed on top of it. On opposite sides of the dish, the pair sit facing each other. Relatives, friends and others form a ring around the pair. The man takes a morsel of rice or piece of camote and places it in the opened mouth of the girl. The girl recipro cates by likewise putting a morsel of food in the man’s mouth. The onlookers then give a loud yell of approval. Not unexpectedly the girl dashes to the woods with the groom in hot pursuit. She heads for the nearest spring where she fetches water for drinking. This is considered by these people as their first act of labor upon entering the married state. In other regions in Negritoland, the groom, on the day of his marriage, is accompanied by his parents to the bride’s home. The bride is not al lowed to see the groom un til some gifts are presented to her parents. After sufficient gifts have been given to the girl’s parents, the parents of the principals, including rela tives and friends, proceed to a newly constructed bamboo platform some thirty feet high with a ladder leading to it from the ground. Atop the platform the cou ple squat, facing each other. A respected member of the tribe, usually an old man (ac companied by the parents of the pair), goes up and after mumbling some ritual pray ers, knocks the head of the pair together. The ceremony seems to signify that mar riage is a responsibility which entails the meeting of minds of man and woman. After the ceremony, the newlyweds re pair to the house of the bride. The newlyweds live in the home of the bride’s parents for a few days but are for bidden by custom to perform the duties of marital life, un til they have transferred to the husband’s home. The hus band must give more gifts to his wife in order to convince her to live with him in his house. When the woman fi July 1961 49 nally consents to live with him in his home, a procession marks her going there which is called the “leput” or homecoming ceremony. The “leput” procession in which villagers form the train is led by the headman or the “teniente del barrio”. The bride and groom are in the middle of the train and are the center of attraction. The bride goes ahead of the groom and both are attended by four women and four men. respec tively, as attendants. Two “musicians” run from one end of the procession to another, supplying music by beating brass gongs in a crazy, stac cato beat. T N CROSSING STREAMS OT other obstacles in the path, the bride is carried by her father-in-law. Somewhere along the way there is what is considered a critical spot where the bride stops and re fuses to continue the proces sion. This is where she wants to see how many presents are coming to her. If satisfied, she goes on and the interrup ted procession continues. In case the groom cannot give her the sufficient number of gifts she wants, what hap pens? An eyewitness, C. J. Cooke, tells the rest of the story (published in W. A. Reed’s “Negritos of Zambales”): “The husband huddled to the side of his bride and look ed into her face with a very pitiful expression, as if plead ing with her to continue. But she was firm. In a few min utes several people formed a circle, dancing in the same way as their religious cere mony, and announced chant ing low and solemnly an ad monition to the husband’s pa rents and friends to give pre sents to the bride. This was repeated several times, then there came a lull. The bride was still firm in the opinion that the amount offered was insufficient. I had supplied myself with some cheap je welry, and with a few... sa tisfied her desire, so the ‘mu•sic’ started again. “In due time we came to a place in the path that was bordered on either side by small straps of bamboo about three feet long with both points sticking in the ground, resembling croquet arches, six in either side.... “All at once the circle di vided just in front of the arch; two persons on opposite sides joined hands overhead. The bride now stood up. Imme diately her father - in - law caught her in his arms, ran under the human arch, and deposited her gently in the 50 Panorama house of his son. When the husband, from where he squatted under the arch, saw his bride safely in his house, his joy knew no bounds. With a yell he leaped up, swinging his unsheathed bolo over his head, and in a frenzy jumped over the fire, passed over the human arch, and with a final yell threw his arms around his wife in a long embrace.” According to W. A. Reed, the above ceremony varies among Negritos of other hin terlands. However, brides all over Negritoland never miss the practice of interrupting the “leput” procession to re ceive gifts from the groom and his relatives and refuse to stand and proceed until suf ficient gifts are given. Negrito marriages whitfh, as already mentioned, are de void of the usual wooing and courtship turn out hap pily as Christian or other mar riages. However, with the ex ception of the Apayao Aetas, Negritos in other parts of the country marry as many wives as they desire as long as they have enough money or goods to put up as “bride price.” The showering of gifts to the bride is characteristic of all Negrito marriages. * * * BLESSING The philosopher, on being interrupted in his thoughts by the violent cackling of a hen that had just laid an egg, was led to express his ap preciation of a kind Providence by which a fish while laying a million eggs to a hen’s one, does so in a perfectly quiet and ladylike manner. July 1961 51 Pigafetta's Logbook FIRST BOOK ON Mauro Garcia The first book printed in Europe which treats ex clusively of the Philip pines is Maximilianus Transylvanus’ De Moluccis Insulis. This is an account of the epochal voyage of Ferdinand Magellan in the years 1519 to 1522 which led to the redisco very of the Philippines by Eu ropeans in 1521. Maximilianus Transylvanus, Latin for Max Oberwald, his German name, was a German scholar who happened to be in Valladolid at the time of the arrival of Juan Sebastian del Cano and. his 18 compa nions to relate their adven tures to the King of Spain rho was then holding court i that city. Transylvanus’ tutor had him write an account of the voy age in the form of a letter to his guardian, Archbishop of Salzburg, Germany. Transyl vanus proved to be an able historian and wrote his ac count based on his interviews of the returned survivors of the expedition. The Archbishop of Salz burg, his guardian, was most pleased with his ward’s profi ciency in Latin, the classical language of the time in which the letter was written, and realizing the significance of the great voyage, he ordered the printing of the letter. Dated at Valladolid, Octo ber 24, 1522, shortly after the arrival of Del Cano and his 52 Panorama THE PHILIPPINES companions in Spain, Septem ber 8, 1522, the book appeared in no less than two editions the following year. These are the Rome edition, November, 1523, and the Cologne edition, January, 1523. Another edition is said to have been printed in Paris in the same year but its existence is disputed by bibliographers in the absence of known copies of it. As to which of the two edi tions is the first and the se cond has been a puzzle among bibliographers. Brunet (French), Medina (Chilean), Retana (Spanish), and Quaritch (English) believe that the Rome Edition, November, 1523, is the first, and the Co logne edition, January 1523, the second. Harrisse (American), Ro bertson (American), Leclerc (French), Pardo de Tavera (Filipino), and Lathrop C. Harper (American) on the other hand, think the Cologne edition is the first, and the Rome edition, the second. This bibliographic puzzle has once more been brought to public notice with the news of the recent acquisition of another edition — the third, Rome, February, 1524 — of this book. Acquired by Carlos Quirino, Filipino rare book collector of consequence and leading authority on Philip pine maps, the book was one July 1961 53 of the main attractions of his book exhibits he recently put up in his residence for the members of the Philippine Booklovers Society. The puzzle was also one of the main topics for lively dis cussion in the educational conference of the Ateneo cen tennial celebration held also recently when one of the; pa pers presented to the commit tee on history of the confer ence saw it fit to ventilate the subject. What seems to have caused the confusion regarding the priority of the two editions are their dates. If the Cologne edition was printed in Jan uary, 1523, it precedes the Rome edition printed in No vember, 1523, those favoring the former argue. Those fa voring the latter, particular ly Retana, think the Cologne edition was actually issued on 1524, although dated 1523. This point has been settled however by the fact that Johann Schoner in a letter to Reine von Streitberg in 1523 already cites Transylvanus’ book. One authority has attempt ed to resolve the issue with the aid of the calendar. In the olden days, as late as the 16th century, the sequence of the months was not as it is now. The calendar year began in April, so that our first three months in the present calendar were at the end of the year. This being the case, January 1523, the imprint date of the Cologne edition of Tran sylvanus actually follows No vember, 1523, the imprint date of the Rome edition. It may be mentioned in this connection that the copy pre sently owned by the Filipiniana division of the bureau of public libraries, which luckily was saved during the last war and which came from the Tabacalera collection pur chased by the Philippine go vernment in 1925, bears the Cologne imprint. From the foregoing, it can be deduced that the government copy is a second edition. Since the copy recently ob tained by Carlos Quirino, as mentioned above, is a third edition, Rome, February, 1524. the Philippines is lucky to have the second and third edi tions of Transylvanus. [ ocal collectors however have yet to find the first edition of this rare item. An idea of the rarity of Tran sylvanus may be obtained from the fact that a similar item, Fabre’s edition based on Pigafetta’s original account, has been reputedly sold re cently for $30,000. After the issuance of Tran sylvanus in the three editions 54 Panorama mentioned above, the Paris edition of 1523 being under discord and may be discount ed at present, the work has been published in such com pilations as John Huttich’s Novus Orbia Re gionum (1537); Joannes Boemus’ Om nium Gentium Mores (1524); G. B. Ramusio’s Delle Navigationi et Viaggi (1550), which has been reprinted a number of times; Martin Fernandez de Navarrete’s Coleccion de Viajes y Descubrimientos; and J. T. Medina’s Collection de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Chile. An Eng lish translation is found in volume 52 of the publications, first series, of the Hakluyt Society, and in volume 1 of Philippine Islands of Blair and Robertson. Transylvanus’ is not the on ly book published on the fa mous voyage of Magellan. Two other accounts describ ing the voyage are Antoine Fabre’s Le Voyage et Naviga tion faict par les Espaignol and Antonio Pigafetta’s Pri mo Viaggio intorno al Globo. Fabre’s work is often con fused with Pigafetta’s. A dis tinction between the two should be noted. Unlike Transylvanus’ De Moluccis Insulis, which was based from interviews he made of the returned crews of Magellan, Pigafetta’s ac count is a first-hand record derived from his diary kept by him of the expedition. His original diary is lost. Of the few copies he made of his ac count, he gave one to the queen regent of France from which Fabre derived his version already mention ed. At present four manuscripts of the Pigafetta original ac count are known to exist, three in French and one in Italian. Of the French .ver sions, two are found in the Bibliotheque National in Pa ris and one used to be in tjie famous Thomas Phillipps col lection in Cheltenham, Eng land. Sir Thomas’ collection has been undergoing a syste matic dispersion since his death in 1872, and the present whereabouts of his Pigafetta manuscript is unknown. * * * July 1961 55 From the Mystic East by Thomas W. Dow ^Jhtan is the Chinese word for meditation; in Japa nese, it is zen. Contrary to all appearances, college stu dents do medidate. Confucius once said, “At fifteen my mind was directed to study, and at thirty I knew where to stand.” A psychologist would agree that as children we are too ego-centered and full of vitality to be aware of life’s seriousness. But sooner or later we are forced to face life and attempt to solve its riddles. This awakening usual ly comes at some time during adolescence, when the arou sal of sexual love causes a split in the ego, making it turn outside itself. We start to seek the meaning of things. We want to know what life is, what we ourselves are, what it means to exist. In this search students beat out ever newer and more interest ing pathways. The rationalistic faith in the physical sciences which had begun during the Enligh tenment was still strong at the beginning of our century. In the preceding century Schopenhauer, Neitzsche, and Marx had made their inroads for the cause of anti-intellect ualism, but the trend was not yet dominant. It remained for the physical scientists them selves to shatter their own faith. In exploring the mic rocosm, they came upon Hei senberg’s “Principle of Un certainty.” In the world of the atom there was no inexo rable law of cause and effect. They were troubled by the mysterious Planck’s constant. In studying the real world, they distorted its workings by the very process of their ob servation. They could prove that at the same time light was both wave and particle. Einstein’s theory of relativi 56 Panorama ty destroyed the possibility of any fixed points. His fur ther postulation of a universe based on non-Euclidean geo metry destroyed even the cer titudes of traditional mathe matics. Thus many students gave up on the physical sciences and turned tow.ard the social sciences in the thirties. Freud completely destroyed the ba sis for the rationality of man. Communism and fanactically nationalistic socialism won followers by the legion. Yet again the students were disi llusioned by the genuine hor rors of World War II and by the huge gap between the real and the ideal commu nism. From France, the reaction of existentialism quickly spread throughout Europe. Moral freedom was seen to be the main concern of the indi vidual man; and the impor tance of the individual in con trast to the group was em phasized. Experience rather than analysis was subscribed to—thus many existentialists were novelists and play wrights. The failure of exist entialism sprang from its at titude of pessimism and des pair. The existentialist has an overdose of existential anxie ty, and he sees no purpose in life. All he finally achieves is a burden of sadness. Thus there have been rec e n t intellectual reactions against existentialism. The most important movement in this country has been the Beat Generation. Lacking unity and a coherent state ment of its doctrines, “beat” characterizes a certain atti tude of a limited artistic and literary circle. However, the importance of the movement may be proved to lie in its preoccupation with an exotic philosophy called Zen Buddh i s m. Previously, Eastern thought had not been totally neglected. Schopenhauer and Goethe had enjoyed the fruits of Buddhism many years ago. The Buddha was Siddhar tha Gautama of the Sahyas, the “Enlightened One.” The trend of thought he developed has been called Christianity minus a Supreme Being. Just as there have been Christian existentialists, there are exitential elements in Buddhism. The Buddha didn’t claim to be God. He didn’t involve himself in speculations about what comes after death, or what the nature of infinity is. Buddhism was a reaction against Hinduism. The Bud dha was the prince of a rich Indian state about five hun dred years before Christ. Dis satisfied with the Hindu an swers to man’s plight, he gave up wife and wealth to seek July 1961 57 an answer. Wandering about India, after many adventures, he sat down under a bodhi tree until he became enlight ened. Then he spent the rest of his life attempting to ease others along the difficult path he had trod. In many ways, his wisdom and his compas sion resemble that of Christ, f he Buddha’s approach to B life is embodied in his Four Holy Truths. The first of these is that life is suffer ing. The second is that the cause of this suffering is de sire. The third is that the cure for suffering lies in overcom ing desire. The fourth is the way in which this cure can be accomplished, the Eight fold Path. The latter consists of right knowledge, right as piration, right speech, right behavior, right livelihood, right effort, right mindful ness, and right absorption Thus we have diagnosis and treatment. After the death of the Buddha at an advanced age, his movement gradually changed and split into two main bodies, Theravada and Mahayana. Mahayana spread from India into China, where it was influenced by Taoism, and thence to Japan. During the course of these centuries, Zen became a distinct school of Mahayana. Much of the character of Zen is due to the fact that it became institu tionalized in the form of a school of monks or masters, and students or apprentices. The koan, which is essential ly a paradox, was the method used in teaching. The theory was that by transcending lo gic, the student would be ele vated to a higher plane on which he could more easily reach enlightenment. The student had to master the ko ans individually by medita tion. The master provided only problems and whippings. Enlightenment was to be ar rived at through direct intui tion. However, this enlighten ment transcends all means of expression; therefore it is foolish to attempt to describe it. Zen is actually a form of Eastern mysticism. Once the practitioner of Zen has at tained enlightenment, he sees life in a new perspective. He transcends time and eternity, truth and falsity, good and evil. In short, he sees all life as one. ¥ ¥ ¥ 58 Panorama Customs Die Hard Having a Kaby the Malayan Way <T he Malays have a tremen dous fondness for chil dren, and perhaps nothing emphasizes better the hold that their old-world customs have upon them than their common saying, “Biar mati anak, jangan mati adat” which means “Let the child die, but not the custom.” Among the strange customs are those pertaining to the pe riod of pregnancy and child birth, which is believed to be a time of increased activity of evil spirits, a time of great ha zard. From the time of con ception, an expectant Malay mother will thus take precau tions to avert imaginary dan gers to herself and her unborn child. The spirit most feared in connection with pregnancy is the “Pontianak,” supposedly the ghost of a stillborn child. The shape of this spirit is thought to be a vampire that claws into the belly and kills the woman and infant. Ano ther vampire is said to be the “Langsuyar/ a beautiful wo man whose long hair conceals an aperture in the back through which the internal organs may be seen. The “Langsuyar” is commonly held to be the spirit of a woman, sometimes unchaste, who died in childbirth. Not to be over looked is the “Penanggalan,” viewed as a human head with long entrails, a vampire that sucks the blood of the victim. When a woman dies in child birth, eggs will be placed un der her armpits and needles in her palms, in the supersti tious belief that she will not be able to fly and thus become a vampire. A Malay woman during pregnancy will wear an iron nail in her hair or carry a sharp instrument such as a knife or a pair of scissors, in the belief that these spirits of the dead will flee at the sight July 1961 59 of iron or sharp metal ob jects. Another repellent used is lime juice, which the mo ther-to-be applies to herself. Weather conditions, toge ther with lunar and solar ec lipses, are given considerable regard. A pregnant woman must not venture out in hot rain or yellow sunset, as these are times when spirits are supposed to become very ac tive. Various rituals are car ried out if there is an eclipse of the moon. In the State of Perak, during an eclipse of the moon, it is common for the woman to be taken into the kitchen and placed be neath a shelf where the do mestic utensils are kept. She will be given a Malay-made wooden rice spoon to hold and must remain there until the eclipse passes. The spoon is supposed to ward off the spirits. In the case of an ec lipse of the sun, the mother must bathe beneath the house in order that her child will not be born half black and half white. A father, too, takes certain precautions to safeguard his wife and unborn child. Dur ing the first three months of his wife’s pregnancy he takes special care in his treatment of birds and fish. According to the superstition, if he were to lame a bird or accidentally slit the mouth of a fish in re moving the hook, retaliation could result to his child by its being born lame or with a harelip. Homeward bound, a father-to-be would take a roundabout way, so as to lose any trailing spirit. When the time comes for the birth, the local pawang or wizard will select the place for the birth by dropping a sharp-pointed object and mar king the first place where it lands. There the birth must occur. At that point the bidan or midwife, who is given great respect in the community, takes over, and her word be comes law. The selected place of birth will be surrounded with thorns and thorny leaves and bitter herbs; the thorns to scare off the vampire who will be afraid to entangle her entrails thereon, the bitter herbs because they are unpa latable. Nets will be hung about the house because the complexity of them is bound to confuse the spirits. Palm leaves are plaited and dressed as dolls to divert the attention of the evil eye from the baby. Perforated coconuts will be hung in the doorway, in the belief that the multiplicity of entrances and exits will mis direct the spirits. Never to be forgotten is the placing of iron nails between the sheets or under the childbed. 60 Panorama Long labor is attributed to the wife’s sins against her husband and can include the act of adultery. It can be ea sily seen how such supersti tion can cast doubt on the good morals of a woman and bring suspicion and unhappi ness to the home. To protect the newborn in fant from spirits that are be lieved to cause disease, the midwife will take a mixture of betel juice, areca nut juice and oil in her mouth and spit on the baby. She will also give the child a name, which will be permanent only in the event that misfortune, such as illness, does not come upon it. In that case the child must be renamed to mislead the spirits. After the cord is cut, the child is washed in cold water and wrapped in a black cloth to ward off evil spirits. If a boy is born in a caul, a membrane sometimes enclo sing a child at birth, it is a good omen. Probably because it is reputed that one born in a caul can attain a hard ness of body which will make him impenetrable to weapons and, upon death, to decay. The caul is preserved and may be ceremonially disposed of. In royal births it is anoin ted with gold dust or cut ac ross a gold ring to symbolize power. If a boy resembles his fa ther, it is a cause of conster nation. Malays believe in re incarnation, and this resem blance is an indication that the vital spark is about to leave either the father or son. The child’s ear is immediate ly pierced to distinguish him from the father. Conversely, if a male cihld resembles his mother and a female the fa ther, it is considered a good omen. To determine the future prosperity of the child, it will be placed on a brass or tin tray on which are weighed an amount of rice,, seven cloths and an iron nail. Each day one cloth is removed, and on the last day the rice is weighed again. If there is an increase in weight, it is thought that the child will be prosperous. During the first weeks, the child is still considered to be in particular danger from the attacks of the spirits, so he will be spat on morning and evening and his bed will be smeared with sacrificial rice. These and many more cus toms are carried out by the Malays to carry them safely through the period around childbirth. The Malays make up about 40 percent of Malaya’s population; of the remainder, about 38 percent are Chinese and about 11 percent are In JULY 1961 61 dians. The Chinese have ab sorbed some of the supersti tious practices of the Malays and hold many in their own right. When a Chinese baby is one month old, he must be given a taste of whatever food is cooked in the home that day so that when he grows up he will have a strong sto mach and be able to take all kinds of foods. On that day, too, he must be taken out doors so that when he grows up be will not be afraid of the spirits. Another Chinese custom is to shave the head of a young child so that it will not gray prematurely. It is common for a Chinese baby to have one of its ears pier ced immediately after birth to protect it against evil spirits. The Indian, like her Ma lay sister, may wear a sharp nail in her hair to protect herself and her unborn child from evil spirits. In addition she may wear around her neck or waist containers en closing prayers or perhaps a bracelet of ginger on her wrist. Much importance is attach ed to the physical appear ance of the Indian babe. From his birth the head and nose bridge will be molded to give them good shape. Arms and legs will be stretch ed for good physique. Soot in castor oil is applied to the eyebrows to cause growth. A black or silver cord tied around the stomach is believ ed to protect the child from evil spirits and dangers, and it is not uncommon to see a little dark-brown body run ning about, clad only in a black cord about the tummy. The first hair of an Indian ba by is spoken of as “God’s hair” and must be cut only by a priest on a festival day Government spokesmen re peatedly urge the people to take advantage of the bene fits of modern medicine. Throughout this country are to be found many medical centers and hospitals where treatment of disease can be obtained. However, because of the many superstitious be liefs prevalent among these diverse peoples that sickness and death are the result of at tacks by spirits, many times modern medical treatment is rejected in favor of the bomohs or local medicine men who practice the magical arts. * ¥ * 62 Panorama Wonder of Chemistry The Fascinating, Versatile Fabric: FIBER GLASS IN THE basement of the FiLberglas center on Fifth Avenue in New York city, a young woman was complete ly swept away by what she saw. Before her were glass fabrics that never need dry cleaning or ironing; r o tproof, shrink-proof, stretch proof fabrics! Each dazzling display flashed to her mind countless ways in which bright new color and life could be brought into her home. “I expected to see just a very limited selection,” she confessed modestly. “But look at this. It’s fabulous!” Her eyes flashed from row to row of fabrics in colors, designs and textures of unbelievable variety. Elegant prints, sheer boucles and marquisettes, nubby weaves and airy case ments, bright suntoned solids —more than 5,000 styles to choose from! She was in a shopper’s paradise! Not far away stood another woman deep in thought, as she weighed the matter of taste and pocketbook. “We have just bought ourselves a new house,” she said, “and, of course, the problem of de corating it comes up. That’s why I’m here. I figure that the window space in our new home will take at least thirty yards of material just for the drapes. Between $2 and $7 a yard—that’s not considering what it will cost to make them. You can see that it will run into a considerable sum, even at that.” But she was pleased with the material’s practicability. Both of these women, along with thousands of others, ad mired the amazing flexibility of an exciting, relatively new fabric—one possessing pro perties and possibilities far beyond the reach of its pred ecessors. Already the new comer has inspired more mag nificent designs and treat ments than many fabrics have in their history! Besides, its July 1961 63 fiber is as light as a feather and almost as soft as silk. You can light a match to it and it will not burn. You can soak it in water and it will not shrink. Tug on it and it will not stretch. Hang it up in a wet, dingy basement and it will not rot. Expose it even to the brightest sunlight and it will not deteriorate—all this because the fiber is 100 per cent glass. No one really knows who discovered glass, but it is al most certain that the first man could not have been aware of its vast versatility. Today men take batches of sand, lime stone and other mineral in gredients and melt them in a furnace. The molten glass that comes out is formed into various items, such as win dows, bottles, glasses, mar bles, and so forth. Experience has taught us that ordinary window glass shatters quite easily when struck with a stone. But melt the broken pieces down and draw it out into several hun dred miles of fiber. The threads become almost invisi ble to the eye. You can wrap them around your finger and weave them into a window screen. Now throw a stone at the screen and see what hap pens. Aha! This time the glass does not break' A water glass is easy to shatter, but try to pull one apart. It is the ability of glass to withstand tremendous pull that largely accounts for its turning up in unexpected pla ces as fiber. Just as your windows or drinking glasses will not stretch or shrink, rust, rot or wrinkle, so neither will material or fibers made of glass. While glass fibers are mere infants in the family of fibers —hardly thirty years old— still the job performed by them to date has been man size. Commenting on its ma ny uses, one report states : “Inside attractively sonofaced ‘tiles’ for ceilings, glass fibers sound-condition rooms by ab sorbing useless reverberated noises, making the sounds we want to hear clearer and more pleasant. Also unseen in walls and roofs, glass fibers insu late homes and other build ings against heat and cold, sharply cutting costs of heat ing and air conditioning. Al most all home wiring, from the fuse box to the wall out let is glass fiber-insulated.” This is hardly a beginning to the fiber’s versatility. Per haps one of its most dramatic displays of strength is in the field of plastics. Chairs, for example, made, only of plastic are as brittle as window glass. But add glass fibers in the 64 Panorama plastic and the chair becomes stronger than steel, pound for pound. Some 629 New York city buses now are equipped with plastic seat? reinforced with glass fibers. The aircraft industry soars ahead of others in the use of glass - reinforced plastics. Glass and plastics practically surround passengers in the new commercial jets. The nose radome, the pilot’s foot warmer, the control cables, tables, door latches, passen ger seats, cabin ceilings, and a host of other items are all glass reinforced. Today, glass fibers go into battery separa tor plates, protective under ground and above-ground pipe wrap. They are used in disposable air filters and in sect screening, as reinforce ment for structural plastic products, industrial papers, and in what have you. The Fiberglas people say that a few years ago it would have been difficult to imagine boats with completely main tenance-free hulls, molded in one piece; or colored, trans lucent panels that could be sawed and nailed like wood to make patio roofs, decora tive interior partitions or sky lights that absorb infrared light; but they are realities to day because of glass. Today we have glass fishing rods, sleds, skis, crash helmets for jet pilots, bullet-proof vests, auto bodies, airplane parts and many other products. “Put glass fibers in paper, and a few strands of paper tape, %-inch wide, can lift a 3,000pound automobile. Reinforced paper is used instead of steel bands on cartons, as durable tarpaulins, freight car cover ings and heavy-duty packag ing.” Now these powerful fi bers are being turned into yarn for beautifying the in side of the home. Each year about 100,000,000 tiny crystal balls, approxi mately three-fourths of an inch in diameter are remelted into molten glass. In these pale-green marbles that re semble the marbles children have played with for centu ries. men have found cloth, believe it or not. The molten glass is driven through tiny holes at speeds up to three miles a minute. This stretches the glass liquid into long, thin fibers. The fi bers are about one three-hun dredths of the thickness of hu man hair! Out of one small marble alone comes ninetyfive miles of filament. The filaments are twisted or plied together and the glass yarn is ready for weaving. The weav ers receive the yarn and han dle it like any other. The fabric is often so soft that it is hard to believe that Tuly 1961 65 it is glass. Some of the yarns are shot through with jet streams of air to blow up or fluff the yarn and give it its buik. The fabric is put through a special heat treat ment at 1,200 degrees Fahren heit, a process known as “Coronizing.” This treatment softens the woven fabric and gives it its fluffiness and makes it feel like cloth. This same heat treatment makes the fabric permanently wrin kle-proof and does away with the backbreaking job of iron ing. At this point the cloth can be dyed or printed with a wide range of designs, styles and co lors. Finally the material is baked at 320 degrees Fahren heit to set the color and give buyers cloth with almost per fect washability. Since each fiber is made from glass, dirt cannot possibly penetrate it, so the material is as washable as a glass or a dish and just about as durable. Glass fiber draperies and curtains have proved especial ly practical. They transmit sunlight like a stained-glass window and, at the same time, are soft to touch and delicate in appearance. They are also easy to maintain. For exam ple, when the time comes to take the curtains or drapes down to clean, simply dip them in mild soapy water and squeeze the material to free the dirt particles. Since the dirt remains on the surface of the fabric, a mild detergent is all that is necessary to loosen the dirt, without the aid of hot water or rubbing. Then merely rinse the material in clear water and hang it up to dry, or roll the curtain up in a towel first to remove excess moisture, then hang it over a shower-curtain rod or clothe esline to dry. Fiber-glass drapes are ea sier to clean than blinds. Ac cording to a Los Angeles newspaper, the supervisors of a new $24,000,000 courthouse figure that the maintenance cost of fiber-glass drapery installations is only one tenth that of blinds. There is no need to dry-clean fiber-glass drapes. However, if you insist on having glass draperies cleaned commercially, then ask to have them “wet-wash ed” or “wet-cleaned.” Request that they be treated in the same manner as a fine wool en blanket. The danger of sending glass fabrics out to commercial cleaners is that the solvents used in the com mercial process can be harm ful to dyes in the fabric. And, too, the tumbling action of the cleaning process can be abrasive in nature. For the same reason, it is not recom mended that glass fabrics be 66 Panorama washed in a washing machine. When hanging glass drape ries, be sure the fabric clears the floor, ceiling or any pro jection, such as window sills and radiators. The movement on a traverse rod will not da mage the material. Since glass fabrics do not sunrot and are highly fade-resistant, there is no need to have them lined. However, if you choose to line the cloth, then make sure the lining is preshrunk and wash able. While it is not necessa ry to use weights to improve the appearance of glass drapes, yet if weights are used, see that they are rela tively light and are covered with cotton or similar mater ial. While glass fabrics are ideal for draperies, they are not recommended for bed spreads, tablecloths or uphols tery because of the possibility of abrasion. Of course, the fabric can be sewed. But first cut off a practice piece and run it into the sewing machine several times, until you -find the pro per pressure adjustment. Then sew with ordinary cotton thread, but with a sharp nee dle and with slightly looser tensions than usual. * * * DEGREES IN DEGRADATION Phil May, the artist, when once down on his luck in Australia, took a job as waiter in a very low-class restaurant. An acquaintance came into the place to dine, and was aghast when he dis covered the artist in his waiter. ‘'My God!” he whispered. “To find you in such a place as this.” Phil May smiled, as he retorted: “Oh, but, you see, I don’t eat here.” July 1961 67 Continuous Creation The u.s. navy is trying to test a theory that many mys■ terious radio noises coming from outer space may be the whispers of further creation. Dr. Herbert Friedman of the Naval Laboratory, a resear cher, said that experiments with high altitude rockets, and possibly satellites, might provide the answer. If the theory is proved correct it would explode an op posing view held by other scientists that the universe was created in one big bang billions of years ago. The Navy’s planned studies stem from a theory first ad vanced by such men as the famed English cosmologist Dr. Fred Hoyle that the creation of matter is still going on in the vast reaches of outer space. Hoyle’s “Steady State” theory, shared by some scientists but challenged by advocates of the one-shot universe con cept, further holds that galaxies, great clusters of stars si milar to our own Milky Way, are continuously being formed. Finally, it proposes that many of the still-unidentified radio noises from outer space may be related in some way to the process of formation of new galaxies—adding to the billions of such galaxies already known to exist. Cosmic radio noises—sometimes called “the music of the cosmos”—are being picked up constantly by huge radio te lescopes in various parts of the world. And these radiowaves, when converted to audible signals, sound “like gravel on a tin roof,” according to some astronomers. Sources of some of these emissions have been traced to certain stars, constellations and even planets within the Milky Way galaxy, and some to gaseous areas of space beyond that. But the cause of many of the more distant noises still remains a mystery, although some scientists believe they may be due to previously formed galaxies colliding at enor mous distances from the earth. Friendman said the Navy’s prospective tests are not con cerned directly with the radio noise but with a related as pect of the theory held by Hoyle and others—namely, that a particular type of X-rays is also released with the forma tion of “new” galaxies. 68 Panorama Today and Tomorrow MINDANAO Sen. Domocao Alonto Mindanao is nearest my heart not only because it is the land of my birth but also because that region in our country has a rich and color ful history. If the complete history of our country were to be writ ten, and I hope that time will come when historians will do justice to our history, it will be known that Mindanao and its people have contributed in no small measure to the real ization of the Filipino state and the Filipino nation. My forbears were fighting and dying for the cause of Philippine independence and Filipino nationalism long be fore the turn of the last cen tury, and their epic struggle against foreign domination has been recorded, although somewhat grudgingly, in the history books of the former colonizing powers, Spain and the United States. Today, Mindanao is justi fying its great tradition. As it has proved to be a bulwark of native nationalism during the Spanish era, it is today emerging as a major factor in the economic life of the na tion. It is perhaps no under statement to say that Minda nao represents the greatest hope for the solution of our economic ills. For in that rich land mass second only in size to the is land of Luzon lie dormant, undreamed of riches—the un limited natural wealth of the region waiting to be tapped and wisely utilized by man. To many of our country men, Mindanao is still a dark and mysterious land far away. It is only now that Mindanao is emerging from the unknown to the known as far as many of our coun trymen from the Visayas and Luzon are concerned. But the truth is Mindanao and its people have made tre mendous strides in the econo mic, social and political spheres during the last de cade. July 1961 69 Mindanao is the most beau tiful land that God created. Here is a land lush with ve getation. The climate is salu brious. No typhoons cross the island. Blessed rain descends on the land the whole year round, not in uncontrollable torrents but in gentle cascades to keep the land ever fresh and green. To the north are Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur, the land of the Maranaws. Here lies scenic Lake Lanao 3,000 ft. above sea level. The cli mate is cooler than in Tagaytay but not as extremely cold as Baguio. Lake Lanao rep resents the biggest natural dam in the Philippines and the second largest lake in the country. It is in fact the source of the greatest and cheapest electric-power deve lopment in the country. It is the source of the Maria Cris tina Falls which powers the Maria Cristina Hydro-Electric Project. To the northeast lies Misamis Occidental, noted for cop ra and Del Monte Pineapples. Farther east is the province of Agusan, premier province in the country in the logging industry. From here comes peeler logs that command the highest price in the world market. To the northeast is Surigao province, rich in mineral re sources. Iron is found here in great quantities. Its Nonoc is lands contain the greatest nic kel deposits in the world worth billions of pesos. To the west is Misamis Oriental, another copra pro ducing province. Farther west is Zamboanga del Norte. It has also a bustling logging in dustry but it is more famous for historic Dapitan where Jose Rizal was exiled and where he spent the few hap py moments of his adult life in his own native land. In the southwest lies Zam boanga del Sur, a very under developed province. It has al so the greatest area of man grove swamps for fishpond development, some 80,000 hec tares. Zamboanga City, the city of flowers and beautiful Zamboanguenas, sits proudly at the tip of the Zamboanga pe ninsula. Then we have the chain of islands, Basilan Island and the Sulu Archipelago. At the heart of Mindanao perches the province of Bukidnon on a beautiful plateau, with its great cattle industry and cool climate. To the southwest we have the growing economic colosus —Davao province. And sitting astride this province and the neighboring giant province of Cotabato rises the mighty Mt. 70 Panorama Apo, second highest mountain in the Philippines. South center is the empire province of Cotabato, the big gest province in the entire country. Cotabato alone has a land area of 2,296,791 hectares and a population of only 1,200,000. It is bigger than the combined areas of Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan Nueva Ecija, Bataan and Rizal. These aforementioned provin ces have a total population of more than 4,000,000. Superimposed on Central Luzon, Cotabato’s northern boundary will traverse through La Union, Benguet and Nueva Ecija; its coastal plain would be where the sea kisses the sand of Zambales seashores; it southern tip would reach as far as the in terior regions of Rizal after following the fringes of Ma nila Bay, and on the east, Co tabato’s Mt. Butig would be overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This then is the size of Co tabato province which cons titutes only 1/5 of the entire Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan region. The timber and lumber in dustries of the Philippines de pend very heavily on Minda nao as the source of its raw materials. This industry is the third biggest dollar — earning industry of the country after copra and sugar. Forty-two per cent of the country’s en tire commercial timber re sources are in Mindanao, worth billions of pesos of po tential wealth. I have yet to mention the millions of hectares of agri cultural lands, pasture lands, and mangrove swamps for fishpond development. The seas of Mindanao teem with fishes of numberless varieties. And I have not also mention ed to you the tremendous mi neral wealth hidden in Min danao. All these figures by them selves alone do not spell pros perity for the country but coupled with the fact that Mindanao today is settled by Filipinos coming from all re gions and sections of the country, the Uocanos of the north, the Tagalogs of Cen tral and Southern Luzon, the Bicolanos and the Visayans, we have already the man-po wer capable of extracting wealth from the land. There is a continuous flow of set tlers to the more unsettled and underdeveloped portions of Mindanao as Cotabato, Da vao and Zamboanga del Sur. Today, Mindanao truly rep resents the entire Philippines. It has become the real democ ratic melting pot of the di verse elements of our people. July 1961 71 We have succeeded to an ap preciable degree in erasing the barriers and sectionalism prevailing in the older regions of the country. The problem of integrating our cultural minorities, espe cially the Filipino Muslims who comprise the largest cul tural minority in the Philip pines today, still remains. But we have taken concrete steps toward the complete integra tion of the Filipino Muslims. Congress created the Commis sion on National Integration whose prime function is to bring about the speedy integ ration of the cultural minori ties into the body politic. I sponsored the creation of this commission because I believe that Mindanao will not be able to progress as fast as it should unless we succeed in elimina ting the mutual distrust and suspicion between the Muslim minorities and the Christians in Mindanao caused by the dis parity in their educational, social and economic status. It is in Mindanao where the cheapest potential source of electricity is located. I refer to the Maria Cristina HydroElectric Project. We are at present utilizing only 50,000 kilowatts or 1/16 of the poten tial capacity of the Maria Cris tina Falls which according to experts is capable of genera ting 800,000 kilowatts. And of the 50,000 kilowatts being ge nerated, only 38,000 kilowatts are utilized. That is why the Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan Ass ociation is working hard for the immediate establishment of the integrated steel mill in dustry in lligan City in order that the tremendous power available will not go to waste. I am convinced that our re gion has already outstripped the Visayas and that we are fast catching up with Luzon in economic development. I have watched towns and cities in Mindanao grow over night where before there were nothing more than small set tlements and frontier towns. The story of a tenant-far mer who ten years ago came to Mindanao with nothing more than the clothes on his back and today is a prospe rous land-owning farmer who sends his children to the best colleges in Manila, is common to hundreds of settlers. Today you can fly by plane to all the cities and capitals of the provinces of Mindanao. And in almost all cities and in most provincial capitals you can get good hotel accommo dations, air-conditioned suites, air-conditioned cocktail loun ges and restaurants. The tremendous upsurge in the economy of Mindanao is reflected in the rising incomes of its provinces and cities and 72 Panorama in the growing demand of Mindanao residents for cul ture. Fashion on Wings staged by the Woman’s Weekly Ma gazine drew more paying crowd in Mindanao than any where else. Today, Davao City has an annual income of over P4,000,000, just a few thousand pesos below the income of Cebu City, second biggest ci ty of the Philippines and old est trading port in the coun try. The island city of Basilan with an area as kg as many a province in Luzon and with a population of only 150,000, has an annual income of one million and a half pe sos. Inspite of these, the re sources of Mindanao have hardly been developed. I have endeavored to con vey to you what Mindanao is today and its economic poten tial. In closing, I shall para phrase that famous poem writ ten by an American poet and say, “Give us your wretched and your poor. We will wel come them all at Mindanao’s door, and we will make them all rich and happy.” * * * DELAY A woman in the mountains of Tennessee was seated in the doorway of the cabin, busily eat ing some pig’s feet. A neighbor hurried up io tell of how her husband had become engaged in a sa loon brawl and had been shot to death. The wi dow continued munching on a pig’s foot in silence while she listened to the harrowing news. As the narrator paused, she spoke thickly from her crowded mouth: “Jest wait till I finish this-here pig’s trotter, an’ ye’ll hear some hollerin’ as is hollerin’." JULY 1961 73 Bottom of the World ANTARCTICA-No Longer Unknown Norma Gauhn Despite death and unbelie vable suffering, man’s quest for the unknown is shrinking the area still unexplored on the frigid waste-land called Antarctica. A hundred years ago, no one had done more than gain the edge of the huge conti nent, and few had done that. It was only 50 years ago that brave men first penetrated to the South Pole. But by 1950, the “explored” territory was beginning to equal the “un explored.” Now the area awaiting its first human is melting like an ice cube in the warm sun. Since permanent coloniza tion has been impractical, the criss-crossing tracks of ex plorers have led to over-lap ping national claims to parts of the vast continent—whose 5-1/3 million square miles make it almost 1-1/2 of the United States. In an attempt to reconcile differences—or at least define areas of disagreement—12 in terested nations recently met at Washington. They agreed that Antarctica should be used only for peaceful pur poses. The pact, subject to ratifi cation, also would freeze the territorial status quo and en courage scientific coopera tion. The diplomatic agreement supports what explorers have learned the hard way about Antarctica: the physical bat tle against incredible weather and terrain is the limit of hu man endurance. Political con flict could bring further prog ress in the area to a stand still. As early as the Middle Ages mapmakers believed a southern continent might exist. And in 1772 the Eng lish captain, James Cook, reached the Antarctic ice pack, establishing that such a continent would lay south of the 60th parallel. Through the 1800s interest in the area was spurred by 74 Panorama the desire to locate the south magnetic pole, needed for more accurate navigation maps. In 1911 two great ex peditions got under way in an effort to reach the geographic South Pole. One of these groups was headed by Norwegian explo rer Ronald Amundsen, the other by Britain’s Robert Scott. Amundsen placed his na tion’s flag at the South Pole Dec. 17. A month later Scott reached the pole only to find the Norwegians had made it first. Bitterly disappointed, he headed back with his four companions. It was the great tragedy of Antarctic exploration. The five men died after an epic struggle against terrible cold and meager rations. The end came when they were only 11 miles from food and fuel. The age of scientific re search in Antarctic explora tion followed. The first man to fly the North Pole, US Adm. Richard Byrd, duplicated the feat at the South Pole on Nov. 28. 1929. He showed that radio and the airplane made it pos sible to explore broad and dangerous areas. His group also included biologists, me teorologists, and geologists to study life in the white wild erness. In 1946 Byrd headed the Navy’s “Operation Highjump” to conduct scientific programs for training men and testing equipment under severe polar conditions. The expedition also provided the first nearly complete outline map of Antarctica’s ice sheathed coast. In the 1950s came the mas sive expeditions of the Inter national Geophysical Year, marking an era of cooperation in scientific research among nations claiming Antarctic lands. The US Operation Deep Freeze set up a South Pole station that showed a party of men could successfully come through the polar win ter. Other IGY study camps were set up by the British, French, Russians, Japanese, Australians, Norwegians, Ar gentines and Chileans. The Antarctic is still being probed. And the space age has opened up new strategic posibilities for the land at the bottom of the world. July 1961 75 Wanted: an Audience Producing A Play Lamberto V. Avellana The production of a play involves the contributive coo peration of several creative minds, working, it is assumed, towards one ideal: the crea tion on the stage of a presen tation, in whatever form the creators should prefer, its ar tistic integrity and sincerity of purpose being the only re quirements; a presentation in tended for an audience, view ed, applauded or damned, as the case may be, but viewed by an audience that shall have paid adequately for the right to so applaud or damn. A play that is written but not produced is so much ink on book paper. A play must be brought to life, it must be spoken and acted out. As an aria must be sung, a dance performed, so a play must be seen and heard. This can on ly be done with an audience. And here we come to the bur den of the plaint. In the Philippines we put on plays. But the ratio of our theatre-goers to the total socalled educated, cultured po pulation is embarrassing, in deed. In theatre-conscious centers of the world, the box-office determines whether a play is to stay on the boards for se veral years or the financier should buy himself a rope and a ladder. In the Philippines, reputed ly one of the most advanced and progressive of Far East ern nations, a play that ma nages on honest, no-arms-twisted, no-passes-foisted, and non-subsidized run of three to four evenings is consider ed a success. Why, then, do we produce plays, and for whom do we do it? Plays are presented in schools as part of the stu dents’ education and training; then usually, as graduates, they form themselves into dramatic guilds and venture forth with epic hopes of per manently establishing the long-sought-after Filipino na76 Panorama tional theatre. Tiring of this particular aggrupation, they form further splinter organi zations, and from these sece ding sections more little work shops and little drama socie ties emerge, to pop out in all their glory after two months of rehearsals into one play, three performances and a ge neral walk-out to form still another group. This over-re curring pattern of events can continue and has continued for a long, long time, but we are still without a national theatre, without a single prof essional company, without even a two-by-four building which we could say has been formally erected as a theatre, built at least with an intelli gent understanding of the mi nor theatre requirements such as acoustics, dressing-room partitioning, lights, pit and well, set storage and so on. We have had to put on plays in debating rooms, chapels, churches, gymnasiums, radio broadcasting rooms, com mencement halls, movie hou ses and even cockpits. Philippine theatre stints have utilized traditional, con ventional scenery, or no sce nery at all, arena or in the round, proscenium and frontof-curtain. We have perpetrated mira cles and fiascos with one-act plays, three-act plays, foreign and local; we have done read ings, in costume and without, with lecterns and without; tragedies and farces, in Eng lish and Tagalog; we have done originals and transla tions, from Spanish, French, Roumanian, Mexican. W e have tried everything from Shakespeare to Peralta. But still no Filipino national thea tre. Risking the danger of being accused of over-simpli fying the situation, I would like to state simply: the rea son we do not have a national theatre is, we do not have an audience. And the reason we do not have an audience is not that we do not have directors, playwrights, actors, a theatre, good, bad or indifferent in each case, not simply that the cultural level of the person who has one peso twenty to spend prefers Bentot to Fidel Sicam as an actor, the story of Mahiwagang Mangkukulam to Forsaken House. Or would you like to imagine how many SRO nights Bradford Dillman will rake in against Neil Sedaka on Broadway? Then change the locale to the Araneta Coliseum. A safe bet should be, Sedaka stays a month and Dillman goes home after two days. With one pe so twenty, one can witness a chariot race. With eighty cen Juiy 1961 77 tavos one can sit through three screenings of Susana del Vai weeping out her pan creas. So why watch Nick Agudo behind a beard talking to a dagger? A person is asked to buy a ticket to a play and he will have any number of react ions: who’s in it, what is it all about, for what is it, why for three days only, is there bakbakan or not, and why is it in English, the hall is not air-conditioned, that place! I’ll get bitten by surot, what, no bathing suits, no dancing legs, no one will sing a la El vis — what will they do, just talk and talk? Oh, it’s in Ta galog. That’s different, I de finitely cannot go. I’m Visayan. Besides the only “arena” I know goes into pan de sal. And as for the reading — I took it up in the third grade. The situation is not hope less, of course. But we will need time. Time, as they say, is of the essence. Time to develop an audience to such an extent that it will freely attend the theatre, not because they have relatives in the cast, or because they want to criticize the male lead, but because they sincerely want to see a good play, presented well, by a competent, if not always brilliant, cast, in a reasonably acceptable stage house, with the same willing ness and spirit as they would buy an NCAA ticket, a Clo ver Theatre ticket, watch a TV show or attend a movie. Actually the national thea tre has a larger family than we imagine. Besides plays, we must not forget that thea tre includes: ballet perform ances, concerts, recitals, ope ras, musical comedies, zarzue las. How many nights — of relatively full houses — can the ballet groups command? How many people can we guarantee will attend a ser ious concert by local musi cians? people for four nights (including the gala perform ance) when the audience is mostly composed of exhibitionistic grand dames and so ciety debutantes whose only use for the program is to fan themselves with? Now if a concert or a ballet perform ance can stand for only three to four nights with an au dience, does it mean our mu sicians and ballet performers are inferior artists? Now for the opera. The opera has songs even. How many nights? Four? five, in cluding the tickets that were distributed free so that there would be some human beings to sing to? We have had our Jo vita Fuenteses, and now our Fides Cuyugan-Asencios. How many nights on the 78 Panorama other hand, might have been possible for a Joni James? Let’s push our probing far ther. In the search for theatre audiences let us also inquire how many people go out to look over paintings and attend one-man exhibits, sculpture exhibits. On the other hand, do you want statistics on how many people have gone to the Manila Zoo? I should like to join cause with the poor, benighted in dividuals who have embraced the theatre for the sheer love of it, the hopeful groups who. with their continuous knock ing at the door of people’s consciousness for support of the theatre, are thereby creat ing the ambient, clearing the ground, exerting effort and perspiration, spending hardearned money, at times away from school or office, in the clear wish that some day the apathy will be gone, the bar rier shall have been broken, because, finally, the taste for the theatre has been develop ed. So I say to Dr. Montano, keep on with the Arena Thea tre, do it in English in Manila, translate your play into Iloca no and Hiligaynon, change it over to Ibanag and bring it to the rurals areas and there, show them what a play is and how completely it can be en joyed. I take cause with you because you are helping create an audience. I would say to Jean Edades, carry on with discovering young people who like to stand on the stage and take roles. Make them speak in English well, let them have their training, and be reward ed with the thought that with every person who sees them, applauds them, is an actual addition to that audience that we devoutly wish for. To Pimentel — sure, the Passion Play during Lent; you’ve helped swell that au dience. And now television. Per haps, through television to the theatre. The IL-FGU group, the FEU Dramatic Guild, the Ateneo Players Guild, the drama groups of all schools — all these are helping to build that au dience, the audience we need, which must support the na tional theater, that will pay its way in, so directors can be paid, so actors can be paid, so playwrights can write, not because they have to for a the sis, but because they are good playwrights, know their art, and therefore can collect res pectably for their work. Only then, when people in suffi cient number can support the theatre, may we lay down the yardstick of professionalism against their output. To date, July 1961 79 all societies are amateur groups. I will defend to the last my contention that ma ny of these drama groups are amateur only in the finest sense of the word. I believe we should keep on putting on plays, develop ing talent of all forms; in the writing, in the acting, in the producing ends. People who will develop the taste for the theatre must be constantly exposed to it, in its various forms with dramatic litera ture of the past and present, the classics and the modems, in prose and poetry, so that out of the knowledge and act ual contact with all these, there will be a distillation of our own culture, a flowering of our own dramatic theatre art. Let not Nick Joaquin stop with Portrait. Or Guerrero with his several books. The search for the Filipino theatre form in writing has yet to be consummated. Joaquin has borrowed from the Spanish spirit and written in English. Guerrero has used the truth of the candid camera for his creations, dabbling 'in dark, dark tragedy and caricature in farces. And now Antonio O. Bayot, who seems best to have captured the Filipino manner of thought, who has best in fused his characters with re cognizably Filipino behavior. He, it seems, has not borrow ed from the moderns and the avant gardes on Broadway. He has preferred to write as a Filipino about the Filipinos. Probably, he is, at present, closest to what might even tually be the acceptable form of playwriting for our nation al theatre. Of course a way must be made for the experimenting Peraltas, Morenos and Laperias, and Prolific Florentinos. There must be more. They must come forward, and in their search for their style, they shall be helping the greater cause: the search for an audience. We must encourage our playwrights by giving life to their creations, from the prin ted word to the warmth of the stage. The actors should, under able and consistent tu torship by directors, refine their art, imbibing what me thod, approach or interpreta tion is the distinguishing style of their particular group, and passing this on to others on a truly apprentice ship basis; encourage techni cians who must contribute their own artistry in the ex ecution of creative settings, the handling of lights, the mu sic; we must encourage the members of the sales staff to effect measures to make the box-office effective and live Panorama ly; we should continue to pre sent school plays; more and more groups should be form ed so that in the variety of methods and madnesses, a truly Filipino theatre will emerge. The Filipino national thea tre is not just a building. It is not just a Tagalog play. It is not just a set of playwrights necessarily writing about the nipa hut and slums of Tondo, English plays, Tagalog plays — there should be no discus sion here. We should have them all, to develop that awareness in the average in dividual. Theater-aware individuals will constitute the theatre au dience. And that audience, by the power of the box-office, will determine the course and nature of the Filipino theatre. That audience, that paying audience, will demand profes sionalism. It is my belief that the amateurs will not bp found wanting. * * * DEDICATION The visitor to the poet’s wife expressed her sur prise that the man of genius had failed to dedi cate any one of his volumes to the said wife. Whereupon, said wife became flustered, and dec lared tartly: “I never thought of that. As soon as you are gone, I’ll look through all his books, and if that’s so, I never will forgive him!” * * * DEFINITION The schoolboy, after profound thought, wrote this definition of the word “spine,” at his tea cher’s request. “A spine is a long, limber bone. You head sets on one end and you set on the other.” July 1961 81 New Tool for Ideas Sodol o( OK Jjfc, Richard CoIler The notion that “Communi cation is the essence of socie ty” furnished the basis for this study. Since community life fundamental consists of a group of people who have frequent- communication among themselves, many lea ders of rural improvement ef forts have maintained that an increase of communication would greatly assist in rural development programs. This represents an attempt to iden tify and clarify the specific social effects of donated ra dios, a newly-introduced ins truments for the transmission of ideas. Most innovations are usual ly first discussed as news items in these rural commu nities — oftentimes even be fore the innovation itself has appeared on the scene. The inauguration of a program for donating transistor radios to isolated settlements in the ru ral Philippines presented an opportuntiy for controlled re search on this topic. The com munication networks of selec ted villages were studied both before and after the place ment of the radios. In this sense it constitutes a compa rative study of the sources, modes of transmission, and re actions to news and other ma terials that were broadcasted. The findings of this study furnished estimates of the im pact which various types of programs had on different groups within these rural set tlements. These data, plus an effort to assay the role of the radio in community change, render this report most per tinent to current community development enterprises. This study is- concerned with the social impact of tran sistor radios donated to isola ted rural Philippine villages (barrios). A national program for such radio distribution was begun in August, 1959 by 82 Panorama the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE). This agency distributed ap proximately 1,600 of such ra dio sets during the years of 1959 and 1960. This program offered an op portunity to make a “beforeand-after” type of study by examining social life in selec ted barrios both prior and subsequent to the radio dona tions. Specific points of inte rest were changes in world view operations of the com munications network, social organization, attitudes, and so cial perception. The social processes involved in these areas of life were also con sidered. The interviewers lived in these settlements both before and after the radios arrived. Thus the method of data col lection involved a standard interview plus participant ob servation. This was augmen ted by information obtained in the municipal center (poblocion). All of the barrios stu died were in either Batanga * or Laguna provinces. All bar rio surveys met the general requirements of being rela tively isolated and having no electric power, their differen ces in exposure to commerce, social change, and diversity in land tenure patterns are marked. The crops and farm ing practices also varied con siderably. This variation is be neficial in that the general findings which are common to all five barrios thus have a wider range of applicability. The general characteristics of the respondents were no ted as part of the overall back-ground information. On ly about one-third of the in terviewees were still residing in the community of birth, but nearly all were still with in the same district. Physical movement is thus frequent, but quite limited in range. Most of the respondents hadonly a bare minimum of lite racy. World-of-mouth com munication was accordingly most important.. About fourfifths were farmers^ However, most farmers supplemented farm income with other work. Expressions of approval and disapproval registered on a check-list showed that status aspirations and economic mo tives were most commonly ac cepted as valid reasons for shifting residence. City life was seen as festive but un friendly, and providing both status and economic opportu nities but greater dangers. The dangers were perceived as outgrowths of less perso nal social controls in the city, s o that people became “shameless.” The barrio resi dents thus had only a partial knowledge but considerable July 1961 83 distrust of urban society. Suc cess was defined in terms of status improvement plus eco nomic gains. Good fortune was the most common expla nation for one’s “success.” Communication was largely verbal, with important peo ple serving as prime news sources. These people inclu ded the barrio lieutenants, landlords, teachers, shopkeep ers, and recent arrivals from larger communities. Newspa pers and magazines were used by these key people, but rare ly by others. The role of the cinema was insignificant for most. Women generally seem ed to be more active in both reading and relating news to others. Prior Radio Experience Most of the respondents had heard radios elsewhere and did have some idea about types of programs. Usually, those who travelled most al so heard radios most and knew the news best. These prior contacts with radios were found to be mainly ones of hearing music or songs. The radio was thus largely perceived as an instrument of entertainment Listening to radios for news seemed to be most characteristic of older males of a better-than-average income who traveled fre quently. Queries concerning program preferences gave highest ra tings to music and news. Men tended to favor news more of ten than women. A threefifths-majority believed that the radio tells the truth at all times. The focus on enter tainment again appeared in responses about what advan tages the radio might bring to the home. Yet, in consider* DEVIL Some wasps built their nests during the week in a Scoth clergyman’s best breeches. On the Sa bbath as he warmed up to his preaching, the wasps, too, warmed up, with the result that pre sently the minister was leaping about like a jack in the box, and slapping his lower anatomy with great vigor, to the amazement of the congrega tion. “Be calm, brethren,” he shouted. “The word of God is in my mouth, but the De’il’s in my bree ches!” 84 Panorama * * ing the barrio as a whole, news was thought to be the greatest advantages In a more diffuse * sense, the radio was apparently regard ed as an important status symbol. It also seemed to be anticipated as being analo gous to a pleasant and enter taining companion. Consequences of the Radio First of all, the radio was seen as a gift from benevol ent upper-class people to re cipients of a lower stratum. Thus it harmonized well with the barrio mores. Moreover, since the radio arrived through governmental chan nels and was assigned to the barrio lieutenant, people ten ded to place a political inter pretation upon the donation. Thus, the radio conveyed con notations, of prestige and so cial influence which have had their greatest effects on the barrio lieutenant and his rela tionships with the other vill agers. Radio listening had a dif ferential impact upon the va rious age, sex, and occupation al groupings. Generally speak ing, females listened" to the radio the most, particularly young maidens and adult wo men. Storekeepers listen more than farmers, and most men can only listen to a signifi cant degree early in the morn ing and between the evening hours of eight and ten o’clock. The role of women in the communications- network has thus been enhanced, with as yet unapparent effects on the overall social system of the village. The role of the radio in the communications network of these communities has been shaped by the nature of bar rio social patterns. Most vil lagers still rely upon the di rect, face-to-face contact with their associates as a medium of significant communication. The pattern of direct, purpose ful radio listening for infor mational materials seems to be characteristic of only a small minority who play the role of key communicators in the barrio. The radios were anticipated and reacted to primarily as entertainment devices. How ever, prior to the arrival of the radios, this entertainment function was seen in terms of music. After the radios were placed, the concept of enter tainment shifted to such “hu man interest” programs as drama, accounts of personal problems and debates in verse (balagtasan). The growth of such a deep and widespread interest in these programs is consonant with the persona listic focus of barrio life. Another aspect of the en tertainment function of the July 1961 radio has been to furnish a background for social gather ings and companionship of a sort for those who feel lone lyThe sensationalistic presen tations of news have often led to a heightened aware ness of rural-urban differen ces. Barrio people can now enlarge their previous appre hensions concerning city life via crime reports, tales of city family problems, traffic acci dents; and other disasters Radio advertising has al ready begun to take effect, although rural incomes and living patterns limit its im pact. The semi-public character of nearly all radio listening situations provides many dis tractions and so reduces atten tion and comprehension. This situation is heightened by the fact that many programs are urban-oriented and so convey relatively less to rural resi dents. On the whole then, the radio’s effects have been, (firs^ to- increase an awareness of what the rural people view as important rural-urban differ ences. Secondly, is the situa tion of an enjoyment of ’’hu man interest” materials as a source of patterns of conduct, advice, and storytelling be sides. entertainment. Then, third, is the attention given by certain individuals to news and advertising who later communicate selected items to their associates. The amount of such effective listening and communication still re mains problematical, how ever. Social Change Implications It is possible to offer certain ideas gained from the expe riences in this research that may be of value in attempts to utilize the radio as an ins trument for furthering social change. These are offered most tentatively. Only a good deal of trial-and-error and ex perimentation provide really definitive answers. It would appear that the following factors should be taken into account. 1. The radio is seen in the barrio as a mark of status and a medium of entertainment. It makes people “happy and contented.” 2. There is a heavy empha sis in the Philippine culture on giving advice. The radio is valued for the advice it gives, but the advice is limi ted. It is not a matter of howto-do-it, but a matter of how others solve their problems. Much of this advice is disre garded, moreover, because it concerns unfamiliar situations or runs counter to rural tra ditions. 86 Panorama 3. Barrio people pay a good deal of attention to dramas. However, there is no basis yet to conclude that they would see the characters in a dra ma as people to imitate. This is a matter which needs more attention. There is no reason to expect that they" will imi tate any or all of the central figures in a drama. 4. One cannot be sure that barrio people are listening very carefully to a program. It is evident that the radio oftentimes merely provides a reassuring background noise. On occasion they do listen in tently but may not compre hend what they hear. Yet the people do not readily admit that they do not understand. Any program research should be accomplished by careful at tention to and assessment of comprehension. 5. Many subtleties of diff erences in languages between city and rural areas must be taken into account. The villa ger can detect a city person by his speech. If one wished to broadcast a program direc ted toward barrio residents, it may well be that rural in tonation would be necessary. It is strongly hinted that a city person who fails to cope with this speech difference will be perceived as a nonrural “outsider.” Similarly, barrio folkways are different. A city script writer is likely to be quite removed from bar rio patterns. It has happened that Tagalog literature pre pared by city writers for ru ral people is incomprehensi ble to the villagers. 6. The barrio people are most interested in news of provincial and poblacion af fairs. Such programs do not exist. The rural folk therefore rely upon the barrio lieutenant for such information. To provide this news directly by radio over local stations might have both good and bad ef fects. It may possibly enchance the diffusion of more accurate and timely informa tion but it may also under mine the traditional authori ty of the barrio lieutenant. 7. Although the barrio lieu tenant is definitely the most important person in the com munication network, his role as innovator seems much less decisive. The molding of pub lic opinion and the induction of village improvements ap pear to be two separate and rather unrelated activities in these barrios. The communi cation of new ideas directly to the people will thus have uncertain effects on the for mal role of the barrio lieute nant, but leaves the basic problems of leadership for change untouched. The find ings of other studies point to JULY 1961 87 small sub-groupings within the barrio headed by neigh borhood or “situational” lea ders as basic units for the in troduction and acceptance of change. 8. The motives to which one can appeal for acceptance of desired changes are not yet ap parent. Certainly • the motive for increased profits may not be very operative. Considera tions of prestige and status are important. Community pride is at a low level while family pride is high. Keeping up with the Cruzes is a corn * monly expressed motive. How ever, it is not immediately ap parent how this incentive could be utilized. 9. The role of music is not clear. Tagalog songs are used at fiestas, serenades and wed dings. Members of the young er generation who want to appear “modern” sing popular songs in English. There are considerations which lead one to support the utilization of both kinds of music. It sim ply is not clear which kind, if either, would facilitate so cial change. 10. The balagtasan or de bate in verse is very popular. The barrio people have great respect for well polished rhe toric. A rehearsal of reasons for acceptance of certain in novation such as wells or fruit trees would possibly raise considerable discussion. But whether action would follow remains to be discovered. Dis course has many functions other than purveying facts. Actually, most facts are now conveyed in an informal per son-to-person manner. The villagers have simply not yet learned to look beyond the barrio lieutenant and gossip (tAismis) for information. CURIOUS FACTS ... (Continued from page 30) 160,000 miles of cable strung through the building. The Pentagon, even if off the beaten tourist track, is well worth a visit. The con course, with its shops, is a veritable main street. The courtyard at this time of year is festooned with azaleas, wild crab apple blooms, and dogwood. There is an art collection in the mail corridor. Just ask for a map at one of the in formation desks and find your own way around, or if you are traveling in a group, ask for an especially conducted tour. ¥ ¥ ¥ 88 Panorama ARCHAEOLOGISTS Archaeologists are great treasure hunters. Many of their treasures would sell for little on the market, although they are extremely valuable for what they tell us of hu man history, and fortunes are sometimes spent in finding them. Occasionally, discoveries have great financial as well as cultural value — the golden treasures of Troy, of Myce nae in Greece, and of Egyptian Pharaohs, for example — and then the world at large becomes as excited about them as the archaeologists. Most finds, however, are less spec tacular — perhaps the eye shadow used by an Egyptian beauty, a battered amulet with which a Cretan or a Tro jan kept evil spirits away, or the chipped flint arrowhead with which a primitive hunter secured his day’s food. Scientist and ditch-digger, detective and treasure hun ter — the archaeologist must be all these and more. The men and women who devote themselves to the fascinating science of ancient civilization must practise a sort of ma gic. From old scrolls and shattered pottery, from broken armed statues and ruined temples, they must first recons truct a picture of the past and then breathe life into it. They must take us traveling through time, so that we of the twentieth century A.D. may know how men and women thought and felt thousands of years ago. Picking up a stray legend here, a baffling reference in an almost wornout manuscript there, at times nothing more than a strange local name or superstition, archaeologists slowly fit together isolated bits of evidence of long-forgot ten people and cities. Sponsored by their governments, by private research foundations, or by universities, they then organize expeditions that help uncover the final proof. Some of their greatest discoveries are thus carefully and logically planned. July 1961 PI-Australia Link THE COLOMBO PLAN H. E. Alfred Stirling Ambassador of Australia Many countries in the world are celebrating the tenth an niversary of the. Colombo Plan. My own country, Aus tralia, has long been intimate ly connected with the Plan— in fact since that day, some eleven years ago, when the then Australian Foreign Mi nister, Sir Percy Spender, put his idea before the Foreign Ministers of British Common wealth countries gathered at Colombo in Ceylon. Looking back over ten years of the Colombo Plan, there is no doubt in my mind that its most worthwhile fea ture has been the way in which it has drawn together our two countries like a set of grappling irons, and ena bled both you and ourselves to board as friends, the ships of culture—similar yet sepa rate—on which our two peo ples sail. B.C.—Before Colombo — we knew one another as friends and allies—partners in a bit ter war — but our contacts were short-term ones, based on little real understanding of the lives and hopes of our respective peoples or the de tail of the problems, big and small, which each of us faced. After Colombo, our relation ships were put on a perma nent and formally organized basis in many different ways (S.E.A.T.O., for instance), but the symbol and the vehicle for our growing association in great measure has been the Colombo Plan. The direct effects of the Colombo Plan are readily no ticed and easily identified— you here in the University will be aware of these effects and be living amongst then, at work, in your homes and in your social and professional relationships — for an over whelming number of youi alumni and faculty members have gone to Australia to fur ther their studies or to take specialised training and they have gone—not only to learn but to teach—to, bring some thing of the warmth and va riety of Philippine life into 90 Panorama Australian homes, schools and Universities; to make Austra lian friends; to talk about your problems; and to pub licise your country and your culture in all the cities and states of Australia. They come back with a knowledge of Australia and its problems; of Australians and their way of life, and they discuss it all with their friends and asso ciates. At the same time, the ma chinery works in reverse and many Australian visitors, from a wide variety of fields, come to the Philippines un der the auspices of the Co lombo Plan. They too return home with an extenive first hand knowledge of this coun try—a knowledge which can only be of mutual benefit to both countries. Again, directly under the Colombo Plan, the Govern ments of the Philippines and Australia in partnership have initiated various large-scale projects to spur on and ex pand the developing econo my of this country—the cons truction of an Artificial Limb Factory at the new National Orthopaedic Hospital in Que zon City is a case in point— here the Philippine Govern ment is constructing the buil ding in which the factory will be housed and the Australian Government is providing the machinery on which skilled Filipino hands will manufac ture artificial limbs tor the less fortunate of their coun trymen. On a Government level, it makes it possible for countries to base their policies on a more accurate knowledge of their neighbours; on an indi vidual level, it brings into close association a variety of peoples. In terms of econo mics, it possesses advantages for all partners; and, cultural ly, it enriches the life of mem ber nations. I turn now to the indirect effects of the Colombo Plan. The Colombo Plan, because in practice it tends to be limi ted rather strictly to Govern ment to Government relation ships, has a direct effect large ly confined to the public sec tor of our societies. Yet these societies are democratically organized and based on the principle of freedom for the individual and, within the li mits of the law, his right to engage in such enterprise as he may consider to be worth while. As a result, there has grown up in the Philippines, as in Australia, a large and flourishing world of private enterprise. And almost alone among countries of this re gion, the Philippines harbours in this pool of private enter prise not only the executives July 1961 91 and employees of business and industrial endeavour, but an extensive population of fine brains and sensitive minds— doctors, scientists, lawyers, historians, writers, architects, painters, and musicians. Not the least of the indi rect effects of the Plan on Philippine-Australian r e 1 a - tions has been that we in Australia have beaome aware of the existence of this fine ly-trained and culturally bril liant pool of persons and have developed informal and pri vate contacts with them. In terested organizations have invited them to Australia and have held discussions with them—for instance the Asian Pacific Conference of Cardio logy which, was attended by twelve of your senior special ists in heart surgery. Or again there is the recent visit to Australia of the outstanding violinist from Negros, Gilopez Kabayao. On the other hand, seme of our best men from this same corner of the pri vate sector have called on their counterparts here—for instance, Dr. Ewen Downie, the world-renowned Austra lian specialist in diabetes or Archbishop Eris O’Brien, who is a prominent Australian his torian in his own right. And numerous other examples of exchanges of this sort can be isolated. It is one of the many vir tues of the Colombo Plan that we in Australia, through it, have become aware of the rich resources of brilliance which are to be found in the Philippines and following up our discovery, have been able to tap these resources. Un fortunately, however, there remains one difficulty which prevents us exploiting these resources in depth, because to date, they have been judgedto fall outside the strict terri tory of the Colombo Plan— even though, I assure, you, the Colombo Plan 'principle is wide enough to accommo date the exploitation of such resources. In the first ten years, we have launched the Colombo Plan and built a strong rap port between our two Gov ernments and our respective public sectors. It is my sin cere hope that the Colombo Plan will be expanded and developed —broadened —not only to include these very well worthwhile contacts bet ween Government and Gov ernment, but between the professional spheres of pri vate enterprise. This is the task the accomplishment of which I see as the paramount objective of the Colombo Plan as it enters upon its second decade. 92 Panorama Attention: All organization heads and members! Help pour club raise funds painlessly... Join the Panorama “Fund-Raising by Subscriptions” plan today! The Panorama Fund-Raising by Subscriptions plan will get you, your friends, and your relatives a year’s sub scription to Panorama. The Panorama is easy to sell. It practically sells itself, which means more money for your organization. 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