The chorus of little voices reciting in unison the vowel letters, AH! – EH! – IY! OH! – UH! and sounding off the letter-combination Ba! – Be! – Beh! Bo! – Boh! to the melodic beat of Maestrang Osta’s bamboo-stick pointer rings still crisply in my ear.

Maestrang Osta wielded her bamboo-stick pointer akin to a fairy’s wand rather than a Maestro’s baton for conducting an orchestra.

With a quick flick of that wand on our young bodies and confused mind we were forced to memorize mechanically the katon’s alphabets, their individual and combined-letters sounds altogether.

Thus I went thru my very-first formal-reading lessons or Katon lessons under the tutelage of the old Maestra in her then typical nipa-roofed San Buena residential house cum nursery or pre-school classroom.

Pag te’em na yo katon ag mga pangadye’ para sa premerong komonyon pasado nang mag Grade 1. When the whole katon booklet and prayers for receiving The Eucharist in first communion were committed already to rote memory we pass on to Grade 1 primary school.

TE’EM NA! literally means ‘memorized already’. It is obviously now a Boie’nen slang or idiomatic expression as recently used in Buhi Online Facebook.  It is perhaps used idiomatically to mean ‘we know the deal’, ‘we know the deal on this’, ‘we know the spin on this’ or perhaps ‘we were not born yesterday’.

Shenanigans and outright fraud and corruption in public service and government are almost common knowledge to many of us – te’em na! Chris Edward San Luis says.

The graphic images posted recently in BOL Facebook by Ting Villadares III are strong proof of fraud in the Rinaga’ River Revetment or Riprapping project that was obviously managed by the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways).

Long before that river-bank-revetment project to the tune of 45-million pesos (according to Ting ) came to be –  some river-bank property owners had already put up their own riprap-based revetment protection such as in the adjoining properties of the Lorenzos’ and Constancios’ in San Pascual.

Their river-bank structures are obviously more durable and have withstood already so many typhoons and severe flooding and are still standing. Were these privately funded and already existing structures and many similar ones also conveniently claimed payment for by the contractor or contractors of the DPWH project for the Rinaga River?

Those that the contractors built from scrap or should I say plastered on the river banks that were easily washed away by Pepeng’s-triggered floods – will the contractor rebuild those as these had not even seen their first year anniversary?

If not, will our elected-local-public officials starting from Mayor Rey Lacoste and especially his Sangunnian Bayan (SB) do something about it?

These Boie’nen functionaries are in the best position and have the sworn responsibilities to protect public interests particularly in the case of the said Rinaga River project.

It is also in their self-serving interests to do something about it if they are running for reelections! They should at the very least pass a Municipal Resolution to demand explanation from DPWH on how such an expensive project had been so flimsily constructed!

Or are their lips sealed tight as the facial portraits printed in Philippine-Peso Bills are!

Let us demand too an explanation why obstructing structures that illegally are squatting along the river and on the river banks that constrict free water flow were not dismantled in the supposed-rehabilitation of the river.

On the cash bills it is understandable that their mouths are shut because most of the faces on these are of dead people. Except I think for one, if I am not mistaken,  who is currently alive but perhaps has very good reason to keep her mouth shut richly!

The problem I see is the Boie’nen and Filipino attention-span, focus and commitment on public issues.

We quickly forget and easily relegate important community issues even those pertaining to our public safety and security  to memory until the next similar catastrophe strikes.

Then again we will be croaking in unison sans Maestrang Osta’s wand, BA-HA’ DI’DI’ BA-HA’ AD’TO

Ba – Be – Beh – BO’ – BOH!

Jacqueline Bermejo’s now infamous Facebook entry on Typhoon Ondoy’s devastation and human catastrophe in the Philippines:

[SIC]“buti n lng am hir in dubai! maybe so many sinners bak der! so yeah deserving wat hapend!” [SIC]“

Whoever authored such calloused statement quickly went down in infamy especially with the Filipino-web community and immediately caught Philippine-media attention.

In Biblical times sinners were punished swiftly with tangible wrath of God – as an example, The Great Flood that only Noah and his kin survived.

The righteous Noah, his family and select menagerie of animals had a second chance to restart in a new world without sinners.  We don’t have that second chance.

In Buhi’s mainly-countryside belief, that many so called learned people refer to as superstition, supernatural entities are the unseen guardian of the integrity and purity of the natural environment.  Or perhaps their conscience’s alter ego.

Defilers and destroyers of their natural environment right away are dealt with with unexplained illness, insanity or even death.

‘Nae’stapan’ is the Boie’nen concept of the supernaturals’ manifestation of their warning or punishment to offending mortal for spoiling the supernatural’ and even the natural worlds of mortals.

Supernaturals such as the ‘Enkanto’, ‘Taong Liped’, ‘Doende’ and the like are all around us. They are unseen lurking especially in remote places such as in jungles, desolate-cool streams and potable-water springs or ‘burabod’.

Perhaps if people start considering the defilement and destruction of our natural heritage such as the Lawe’d, Kaoma-an and Kabokiran as sins and punishable transgression of the Enkanto, Dwende and Taong Liped domains, many Boie’nen will have to think twice first not to be lax or derelict with their responsibilities for the protection and preservation of Boie’s environmental endowments.

Environmental transgressors will burn with unexplained fever at night, go suddenly insane or worse die of unexplained causes.  Such are how God  and the Supernatural manifest their wrath and punishment.

Such would be the fate of many elected public officials, public servants, unscrupulous businessmen who manage to elbow their fish-cages or illegally buy their way in unauthorized areas in Lake Buhi, the illegal loggers, and those who toss their garbage anywhere convenient to them and similar unconscionable people.

Sinners they are, sinners they shall be in our eyes and heart for the sake and assurance of our good-environmental posterity.

The incorrigible sinners in Noah’s time were timely served ultimatum before their final punishment – death by drowning.

Who will deliver the ultimatum to these sinners in Buhi? God? Enkanto? Taonglipe’d? Dwende?

For now let’s just wish:

Magkae’re’stapan sana adding mga bagading tawo, na sabi ngani’ ni barkadang Chris Edward P. San Luis:

MGA BAKOON NA E’DA’ PAKI LABE’T!