ALIGUAS MANGALDAN: Celebrating Life, History and Culture of Mangaldanians

Fire Damages Public Market

Our town is still reeling from the economic dislocation caused by the massive floods in October. Funds for rehabilation projects are still being sourced. In the meantime, many of our Kabaleyans are hard pressed making both ends meet due to loss of business, damaged farm crops, lower purchasing power in the local setting.

And here we get another disaster: the other day, a huge fire damaged a big portion of the town's public market. That dislocates many of our small scale businesses, eroding their capital base.

Some suggestions have come up to raise funds for the reconstruction of the market. Will anyone take the cudgels of providing assistance to those who have just lost their businesses so they could bounce back and help the local economy?

Calling all Mangaldanians abroad to come together and pool resources to extend assistance to our Kabaleyans.

Here are some pictures of the fire's aftermath sent to Aliguas Mangaldan by Atty. Maria Paz Serafica.

   
 

Coming Together, Extending a Helping Hand

An informal group of Mangaldanians in the Greater Vancouver Region (BC, Canada) watched and boisterously cheered Manny Pacquiao last Saturday, Nov 14th. After the overflowed adrenalin settled down, they pulled out bottles of light beer to celebrate and address another concern. The group, for lack of a better description, styles itself to be referred to as: Vancouver 4 D Boyz.

The topic they choose to converse about was how to extend a helping hand to our Kabaleyans in Mangaldan. No megaprojects, just a plain target of "let's pass the hat", then look forward how that can be turned into a support fund for the town's rehabilitation projects. The spirit of camaraderie was so strong such that cash and pledges reached just below a $1000 mark within a few minutes after it was agreed to pass the hat around.

Emboldened by the result, the group is planning out simple fund raising projects capped with a Valentine's event in 2010. The proceeds will go to an ongoing rehabilitation project in Mangaldan.

The core group consists of: Pepe and Rey Tan, Ronnie Limon, Philip Fabia, Edwin Fabia, Djoma de Guzman and Redz Idia.

Coming Together to Rebuild Our Beloved Mangaldan

by Djoma de Guzman

The Celebration of Life, MIO's 2009 Mangaldanians Grand Reunion, was rated by participants as a huge success. The event organizers led principally by Silverio "Kuya Boy" Moulic of MANYJER and Marie Aquino-Junio of MAREVA, assisted by Ditas Palisoc-Sarzaba of MAONCA and Rusty Cervas-Miraflor of MAREVA and solidly backed by the tandem of Jun and Joey Tumaneng deserve all the kudos going their way now. Our hats off to you folks!

Just before the reunion, a historic calamity descended on our town Mangaldan as well as many other towns nearby. Massive rains built flood levels never seen before. No home was spared from a gut-wrenching spectacle of damages, physical and spiritual. As pictures and videos trickled in to the pages of Aliguas Mangaldan, one suddenly realizes the astute knowledge of our forebearers to build homes on stilts as protection from flood waters.

Keeping in mind the difficulty that our Kabaleyans were going through, the reunion participants came together in Las Vegas to raise some funds to be sent for the rehabiltation projects in our town. The extent of the damage has so far been quantitied in Pesos. We can only speculate on the dent on the spirit to nurture hopes, to believe that life can be better going forward. How does it feel to abandon your home and bring your family to safer grown, see the waters reach for the ceiling and, when the flood has ebbed, return to gape at what little is left to recover? How did our farmers feel to see crops collapse in the waters, fertile soil dragged away by raging floods, farm animals disappear?

Our Kabaleyans are trying to pick up their lives. For us who have chosen to live a better life in a country of choice, what are we going to do to assist them to to get their lives back on track?

Aliguas Mangaldan will try to connect with our townmates, gather stories about how they are coping and rebuilding lives. We look to publish reports from the municipal government about various rehabilitation projects. It will be left to the different groups of Mangaldanians to use these information in deciding how to come together in rebuilding our beloved town of Mangaldan.

Some of us may opt to work with groups of people in the barangays and focus on building a partnership with them. Some of us may take the easier route of brick-and-mortar projects. And some of us may even go for the longer term project of developing responsible and compassionate leaders from the ranks of today's youth. Whatever route we take, it would be toward a common vision of a vibrant, livable, well managed community of Mangaldan.

2nd Anniversary! Aliguas Mangaldan

Viva to the Aliguas Mangaldan community. We all make it happen!

Coincidentally, today, Sep 26th marks the second anniversary of the launching of Aliguas Mangaldan. Special great thank you to Atchi Marie Aquino-Junio for pushing the project into the web world.

Salamat ed sikatayon amin!

Here’s a trail of email showing how Aliguas Mangaldan is bringing together the Mangaldanians from across the seas.

Cheers and peace to all,

Djoma de Guzman

________________________________________
From: Visperas, Peck [mailto:Peck.Visperas@kcc.com]
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 12:59 AM
To: djoma3@telus.net; livinghopeny@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Request connection

We had a conference call earlier. Aliguas did it again. It’s like Nokia, connecting people.. from Mangaldan, that is..
.
Cheers..pec

________________________________________
From: NORMAN SOLIS [mailto:livinghopeny@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 3:30 AM
To: djoma3@telus.net
Subject: Re: Request connection

Salamat din Kuya Djoma sa tulong ninyo. I was able to talked to Nida and Lito already. Si Kuya Peck pa nga who called me here and put me on a conference call with Lito.  Thanks for everything!

_____________________
From: Jose S. De Guzman [mailto:djoma3@telus.net]
Sent: Friday, 26 September 2008 5:56 PM
To: Visperas, Peck; livinghopeny@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Request connection

Thanks Pec as well as Dadong. Pastor Norman is certainly glad to know how to reach Nida and Lito.
Have a great reunion planning, Pastor Norman!

________________________________________
From: Visperas, Peck [mailto:Peck.Visperas@kcc.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 2:45 PM
To: livinghopeny@gmail.com
Cc: djoma3@telus.net
Subject: FW:

Good Day Pastor Norman! Greetings from Down Under.

Djoma has requested me to attend to your request. Lito hasn’t got an e-mail address yet but I will relay any message from you. He knows about the reunion and I think he is coming. Alternatively, you can post comment on Aliguas, Australia site re: his birthday. He will get it.

Regards,

Pec
____________________________________

Pastor Norman,

Here’s Dadong’s reply.
Thanks, Dadong.

Djoma

________________________________________
From: GERARDO PALISOC [mailto:dadong@shaw.ca]
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 8:50 AM
To: djoma3@telus.net
Subject: Re: Nida C.

Hi.. Djoma,
Yah ... I already sent it to Alex Caballero & Boying Yap they already contacted Nida C.
as far as i know.
Thanks
Dadong

From: Jose S. De Guzman [mailto:djoma3@telus.net]
Sent: Friday, 26 September 2008 1:31 AM
To: Visperas, Peck; 'Gerardo Palisoc'
Cc: 'NORMAN SOLIS'
Subject:

Pec and Dadong,

Would you be able to work out this connection request from Pastor Norman?
Aliguas greatly appreciates your efforts.

Best regards,
Djoma

________________________________________
From: NORMAN SOLIS [mailto:livinghopeny@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 6:55 AM
To: djoma@aliguasmangaldan.net
Subject: NEED HELP FOR OUR BATCHMATES

Some time ago, Rigolito Tandingan (Australia) posted his 50th b-day. Then Nida Carino posted comment the MNHS75 Reunion in Las Vegas.  --these are our batchmates. I'm trying to contact all our batchmates for our Grand Reunion cum MNHS 65th Anniversary in March1-7, 2010. Can you please give me their email addresses or any contact info so that I can send Reunion info to them too? Thanks again!
--
In His Service,
Pastor Norman

Aliguas Mangaldan...a Celebration of Life!

by Co-editor Djoma de Guzman

Every now and then, the Frontpage of Aliguas Mangaldan captures the forum's vision of, "a space for the celebration of life, a linkage to Mangaldanians' ancestral birth place and a collaboration forum to assist our town of Mangaldan, Pangasinan."

This particular August 3, 2008 page depicts how immigrants build the social network with Kabaleyans to get them through to adjusting to a new country-of-choice, how the immigrants come together to pool their resources to extend a helping hand to our hometown of Mangaldan, how from across the seven seas they share in celebrating and thanking the well-lived lives of those who have been called to the next life, how lost and long-lost friends and kins are getting reconnected and, the beginnings of a planned and unwavering effort to record the culture and history of the hometown so that today's generation and the next to come will understand and appreciate a place our Kabaleyans fondly call, "say baley tayo a Mangaldan!"

On Sep 26 2008, Aliguas Mangaldan will be celebrating its 2nd year of launching. So much water under the bridge has passed since that first day of publication. The web statistics say there are now at least 130,000 page views in the site from its starting day. During the early weeks, Aliguas Mangaldan ranked only in the top 60 pages of Google and Yahoo. Currently, because of the avid readership and enthusiasm of Kabaleyans in sharing their celebrations of life, Aliguas Mangaldan holds a ranking in the top 5 web pages of the leading search engines under the keyword: Mangaldan. Aliguas Mangaldan is what it is now because of the collaboration of our beloved Kabaleyans to build it as, "Our Aliguas Mangaldan."

For those who may find a need to search for someone or view an old article, there is a widget at the upper right hand panel, a green colored box that says, BLOG BAR. Just type a name or a place or an event on the search space, then click go (keep the site button marked as "This site") and you will find the links to articles published inside Aliguas Mangaldan that are related to your search choice.

On behalf of co-editor Marie Aquino-Junio, we thank all of you for making Aliguas Mangaldan what it is now and we continue to count on your participation in "Celebrating Life!" For posterity, here is the Aug 3 2008 Frontpage of Aliguas Mangaldan.

Aliguas Mangaldan is a space for the celebration of life, a linkage to Mangaldanians' ancestral birth place and a collaboration forum to assist our town of Mangaldan, Pangasinan. This is your website to connect with our townmates back home and abroad. It is a volunteer project initiated by some members of Mangaldan Residents of Vancouver (MAREVA), British Columbia. All 'Kabaleyans' across the world are invited to send and share your stories and pictures.

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