SHORTLY AFTER EASTER, MY HUSBAND, SISTER and I drove up to Lingayen, Pangasinan, for an occasion of great personal significance to me and to our family. I was going there to receive recognition as an ?Outstanding Pangasinense.?
The honor has been dubbed the ?Asna Award,? from the ancient Pangasinan word for ?salt,? which used to be the province?s main product and from which it drew its name (from ?pang-asinan? or salt works). ?Asna,? said background documents, ?describes the good quality of a man?s character or demeanor,? as in ?Maasnan impan-ugali,? or ?He is of good character, affectionate or solicitous.?
The awarding rites also coincided with the first celebration of ?Agew na Pangasinan? or Pangasinan Day. Actually, this year marks the 430th Founding Anniversary of the province, but the circumstances and actual date of Pangasinan?s founding were previously lost in the mists of time.
Pangasinan Day used to be celebrated every Nov. 13, the birth anniversary of the late Speaker Eugenio Perez, a leading Pangasinan politician (and father-in-law of former Speaker Jose de Venecia and grandfather of senatorial candidate Joey de Venecia). But on April 13, 2009, Gov. Amado Espino, perhaps unhappy with the confusion attending Pangasinan?s founding date, created the Research and Study Committee ?to determine the exact date of the Pangasinan Charter.? He appointed former Vice Gov. and president of the Lyceum Northwestern University Dr. Gonzalo Duque (he is also a lawyer and is the brother of former Health Secretary and now Civil Service Chair Francisco Duque) to head the committee of local historians, researchers, civic leaders, educators and the media to determine the date that comes closest to the actual establishment of the province of Pangasinan. The committee finally settled on the date of April 5, to commemorate two important events: in 1572 when Pangasinan was established as an encomienda by the Spanish colonial authorities, and in 1580 when Pangasinan attained official status as a separate political unit.
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THE GIVING of the Asna Awards coincided with a Grand Ball that served as the inaugural event of the newly-refurbished Sison Auditorium, named after Teofilo Sison who during his stint as a pre-war governor had the edifice built near the Provincial Capitol.
The ravages of war and neglect soon took its toll on the circular structure, a small wooden pavilion which, so speakers noted, leaked so badly when it rained and became the haven of drug addicts and host to illegal and unsavory activities.
I remember traveling with the party of then newly elected President Fidel V. Ramos and hearing him hurl a challenge to transform the Sison Auditorium into a cultural center to rival those of its neighbors. It may have taken 18 years, but last Monday I walked into a gleaming cream-colored edifice inspired by European architecture and embellishments with a huge chandelier in the center of the dance floor, and fully air-conditioned at that.
Fittingly, it was FVR who led the inauguration of the Sison Auditorium that morning, but he was no longer around to receive the ?Balitok sa Pangasinan? award, a special category for a truly outstanding son of the province.
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AMONG THE OTHER awardees, I personally knew only two: Menardo ?Nards? Jimenez who pioneered local television when he chaired the RBS Broadcasting Network, now GMA-7, and is now a leading economic advisor to the Pangasinan provincial government; and Rodolfo ?Rudy? Tan Cardoso, a townmate and relative by affinity, who in his prime was a leading international chess master.
Every time I meet Nards Jimenez, the awards night included, he unfailingly brings up my father, Erning Jimenez (no relation to each other). As a student at the Great Plebeian College in Alaminos City, Nards tells us, he fell under the tutelage of my father, who took him under his wing and monitored his progress in school and even long after his graduation. ?I was his favorite,? he says of my Papa, and recalled even visiting him in our family home on Annapolis Street, Cubao. Thus it is always a pleasure to meet up with the silver-haired business leader, soaking up not just his fond memories of my father but even his wonderful sense of humor.
?What hard work it is receiving an award,? he whispered to me as we went up the stage and sat through the long speeches, struggling to balance afterwards the framed citation, the heavy trophy, the bouquet of roses and even the basket of native goods handed us.
Receiving the ?Balitok Award? with FVR was writer and novelist F. Sionil Jose, who has immortalized his native Carmen in a series of novels that hark back to a provincial boyhood and to the struggles of a feudal society. It was really a ?fan moment? for me, when he told me that he ?reads my work.? All I could say was: ?But I have been reading you all my life!?
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THE OTHER Asna awardees were: Police Supt. Eric Noble of Sta. Barbara for community service; Dr. Francisco Duque of Dagupan for medicine; Dr. Westly Rosario of Dagupan for aquaculture; Santiago Villafania of Sta. Barbara for arts and culture; and Rey Villar for government service.
A special citation was given to former DTI director Jaime Pasagoy-Lucas of Alaminos and Dagupan, for being the founding president of Ulupan na Pansiansia?y Salitan Pangasinan (Association for the Preservation of the Pangasinan Language) which champions the ?preservation, development and spread of the Pangasinan language in all sectors of society in Pangasinan and for Pangasinenses anywhere in the world.?
Having grown up mostly in Manila, I must confess my Pangasinan is inadequate. Perhaps being an Asna awardee will fuel a desire to be a better Pangasinan speaker!
