BBT SEASON 5  
Rodil F. Fadri

GREENHORNS CHAMPS 

Heart-break kids no more. The Greenhorns beat the Playboys 73-71 in the BBT 2004 finals at the St. John Academy Gym on Sunday (Sept.12, 2004). It’s the Greenhorns' first championship in 14 years. Down by seven with less than four minutes to go, the Greenhorns’ solid team defense enabled them to overtake the Playboys with 51 seconds left. The Playboys had a chance to win or send the game to overtime in the last 14 seconds but their three point try missed and their follow-up shot was blocked. In the game for third place, Candelaria repeated over Gudalupe to bag the 2^nd runner up trophy.

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JOURNEYS
RONELO F. FABABEIR

I first met Mang Minyong sometime in 1999. It was after hearing the 7 o’clock mass at San Beda church when I spotted him right there, standing on his frail small frame at the front of the church’s gate clad with yellow Ninoy T-shirt and faded maong shorts.

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For this issue of Silak, I posed the following question to the listers –

“Given the current financial crisis of the country, anticipated to affect funds for Banton, as in any other municipalities, what project in Banton do you think should be given priority by the new municipal and provincial administration?”

Only one gave an opinion though. Here it is:                      

The municipal government with the full cooperation of the Bantoanons should prioritize the strengthening of the power sector. Banton is now blessed with basic infrastractures necessary to establish a better social and economic status. However, the power sector continues to deteriorate and it is alarming that the present status of the National Power Corporation would create consequences unfavorable to Banton. The municipal government must tap resources in the private sector to help in the study, planning and implementation and evaluation of projects necessary to revitalize and strengthen this important sector of development. The Bantoanon community as well must be willing to accept changes or reforms and that may include price adjustment in energy, energy saving programs, tax reforms, etc.

One of the reasons Banton can not have a self-sustaining development is the lack of a reliable power.  Once Power is stabilized in Banton, other sectors like transportation, communication, health, education, agriculture, etc. will also take off. Power is the backbone of development, without it economies of any community is doomed to fail.

Bantoanons must cut on importing products like vegetables, poultry, and animal feeds from nearby communities. These can be produced in Banton, the municipal government and private sector must work hand in hand to support our farmers and fishermen. There are new effective technologies available in the agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries and these need only to be transferred, acquired, learned and utilized by the Bantoanon end-users. It is here where the local government and the non-government organizations can play an important role. 

Bantoanons must learn to patronize our own products.

We can not always rely on the National or provincial governments. We must do it our way. 

    INSIDE

Banton 2003 Update
Feature
   Sports Feature
       BBT Season 5
      Greenhorns Champs
Literary
Book Review
   Is the Battle of Sibuyan Sea
       Really the Greatest Battle in
      History?
Yagting@yahoogroups.com
Bigaon 

Forefathers

There in the island where the waves rock the beaches of sand and stone, my father was born. There, in his childhood, he skin dived to learn the wisdom of the stonefish and the sea horse. Music to him were the songs of the maya and the oriole; his dreams caressed by habagat and amihan winds; his temper teased by bamboo and cogon grass; his religion buried in the ancestral hills where molave and narra shot its bulging muscles into the mercy of the mountain gods. 

My father roamed the wilds and tamed the carabao so that rice stalks could bloom in fields of green; he spanned the seas in his leaking baroto; cajoled the moon so that he could make love with fire and rain; he smiled when his anger ceased in the sweltering heat of afternoons; he braved the anger of typhoons and volcanoes willed to him by the gods; he danced under moonlight, tattooed in brown blood....

The strangers came and my father offered them his bowl of rice; let them drink his native wine; let them sow the seeds in his island; let them teach religion; let them harness his intelligence to join the family of man.

But the wars came. My father, an avid reader of Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini and Aguinaldo, remembered how his father honed his bolo to fight those who wanted to take away his freedom: his, land, his joys and his soul.  My grandfather took to the mountains when the burst of the krag spilled blood in Pasong Tirad.

My father felt the agony of betrayal in Bataan. He cried cradling his son in his arms when the bayonet of war pierced the young man's heart.  

Alone, my father bore the anguish in peace.