Friday, November 16, 2007

Ragipon and Sibalenhon migration

At any given time, there could be only about 5,000 people in Sibale, my island hometown in Romblon. This number has remained fixed, more or less, over the years and may even decline—in fact, has been declining—since the phenomenon of globalization had reached Sibale’s shores. My former math and music teacher in the elementary grades, Lorna Fesalbon, attest to this. Mrs. Fesalbon, who has since retired and now lives in Cavite, told me last week that enrolment in the lower grades in the island is treading on the single-digit level.

Sibale, which is the northernmost municipality of the island province of Romblon, is a politico-geographic anomaly. It is nearer to Mindoro than to the provincial capital, which is six hours away by motorized boat. Pinamalayan, one of Oriental Mindoro’s largest towns, is only one-and-a-half-hours away. Sibale does more trade with Pinamalayan than with Romblon, or even with Banton, Sibale’s mother town, or Corcuera, another island neighbor. Banton, Sibale, and Corcuera speak the same Asi language, and they form a triumvirate called the Maghali Islands, which literally means “brothers”. Most family surnames in the Maghali starts with the letter F.

Sibale’s small population came about not by design or what social scientists call family planning. It happened because of economic necessity and the desire of its people to survive and overcome the harshness and difficulties of island life. These force many Sibalenhon families to leave for places where the jobs are; where they could forage for better incomes and eke out a life of small comfort. Many Sibalenhons, as soon as they are able, leave, in pursuit of the Sibalenhon dream.

The Sibalenhon are migrants. They are everywhere: in the wadis of Al-Khobar, in the prairies of Minnesota, in the cold lands of Saskatchewan. He is in Chicago as he is in California. He serves on a ship calling on ports as faraway as Durban in South Africa. There is a Sibalenhon working in a kibutz in Israel, as well as a wife working as a hospital nurse in the boundary of Kuwait and Iraq. Counting the migrants and their families, Sibalenhons could number over ten thousand souls.

Like millions of Filipinos, Sibalenhons converge in foreign communities, seek each other out, and together share their stories and yearning to go back home once they are in each other’s company. In Batangas where my family and I have settled, we being migrants ourselves, the Sibalenhons are ragipon.

The English language, or even Tagalog, has no equivalent for ragipon. The nearest that Shakespeare can come out with for the adjective are the words “numerous” and “innumerable” which do not at all capture the color and essence of the native ragipon. Balagtas himself could use “napakarami” or “sanlaksa” but still these words are cold, flat and dead and do not convey the strength and vibrancy that ragipon does.

Ragipon is a gathering of numerous people or things of the same breed and kind. It means getting together really close to project warmth and camaraderie and unity. It is a communion without the convulsion of differences and the clash of varied political views; a purposeful coming together with deliberate intent to tighten the ties that bind, and to share. It is the habit of the porcupines inching toward each other until the seabed blackens with their sheer number. It means an association of an identified race.

“Ragipon ka Sibalenhon sa Disyembre 8 sa Lipa” thus means “Sibalenhons from all walks of life will come together in Lipa City on December 8.” This is a big event of Sibalenhon migrants from all over Luzon. Since September, my Sundays meant for the children have been devoted to my participation in the activities leading to the big day on December 8. On that date, Sibalenhons in Batangas, Cavite, Bulacan, and Metro Manila will converge for a celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Concepcion because they themselves, for one reason or another, could not go home to Sibale where the main celebration will be. You are invited. Please come and experience our warmth and camaraderie as itinerant islanders. This is an opportunity to experience ragipon.

Sibalenhons, and for that matter, the Asi tribe, are so unlike the Westerners who, once they have left hearth and home, prefer not to be disturbed in their new abode; who prefer to be left alone, isolated and lonely in the wilderness of their minds and of their environment.

The Sibalenhons are migrants, yes, but they bring with them wherever they go their love for company, not to assuage their loneliness but to assure them of their identity—their being islanders—which remains uniquely intact despite the distance from the mother lode of that identity. They welcome intrusion but of their kind. They find solace sa pagragipon, knowing that whatever globalization may bring and regardless of what globalists may think, Sibale, their home, will remain a standing citadel to protect them from the winds of modernity that seek to erode their centuries-old cultural moorings.

Ragipon is thus an emblem, a badge, a mark on the forehead that demonstrates the Sibalenhons desire to see the sunlight like a fern growing out of a mossy trunk.

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