By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
To save on effort I am filling this space with something I will be posting on our clan’s Facebook page. It refers to qn etiquette I formulated when I was forced to be on Facebook to provide some info on my late father to inform the younger generation (the YOUNG ONES) about him. Of course, I cheated. I posted a column I wrote about him for our Father’s Day issue.
Here was what I noticed about the posts of three relatives—Mario Pekas, Annie Tauli and Vicky Tauli-Corpuz— who are already YOUNG ONCE just like me.
As a backgrounder, Mario Pekas had an elder brother, the late Dr. Thomas Pekas, who was kind of popular as a doctor in our town and in Eastern Mountain Province, in the towns of Paracelis and Natonin.
Mario Pekas is one of three Igorots I know who graduated valedictorian at the Brent International School in Baguio City. I think, the other two graduated earlier than him—Dr. Andrew Tauli (the older brother of the two Taulis I just mentioned) and Mrs. Ursula Daoey who also traces her roots to Besao, Mountain Province.
I really did not know much about Mario Pekas except her younger siblings who were my peers. But I heard so many things about his being a “genius” which I never doubted. The most objective comments I heard were from two people who knew him when he was young.
One of them was Atty. Leguiab from Kalinga who was the head of the Office of Northern Cultural Communities (ONCC) and holding offices in Quezon City in the mid 80s. They were classmates before in Sagada and one of the first things he asked me was, “How are you related to Mario Pekas?” I said, first cousin. Then, in so many words, he said that Mario was a “genius” when they were classmates.
And a few years back I met an old man, Mr. Yadno (whose first name escapes me now) who was a member of a family claiming a wide expanse of La Trinidad, Benguet as their ancestral land. The first thing he asked me after being introduced was, “How are you related to Mario and Thomas Pekas?” Surely my answer was the same, “first cousins.”
I then learned that the man was working at the St. Luke’s Hospital in Quezon City where Mario and Thomas were residing when they were students in the 60s and 70s. He knew them very well and he said that Thomas was a “genius” but Mario, the younger one, “was mas genius.” Of course, Mr. Yadno then related many stories about the brothers.
So when I saw the post of Mario on our clan’s FB account, a “ducducati” — a poetic piece meant to be sort of chanted—which was in our dialect about some bits and pieces on some clan members, our aunties and uncles and other older relatives, I was not at all surprised. It was a great piece, validating his being called “genius.”
From what I heard, Mario Pekas was studying at UP Diliman when he took the US Navy recruitment examination which he topped. Was he bitten by the bug called the American Dream (at a time when college students were shouting “nationalism” and protest slogans down the street) or was it the result of the confusion typical of adolescents? At any rate, he went to the US of A where he got married and raised a family.
As to the sisters Annie Tauli and Vicky Tauli-Corpuz I have to keep things short but will write extended pieces on them in the future.
I first met Annie Tauli in the late 70s at Brent International School where she was teaching Math and Physics. I thought she would stay there for a long time but I accidentally met her again after about a year at UP Baguio where she transferred teaching Math or Physics.
Her younger sister was also UP educated having graduated from UP Manila. Suffice it to say that for many years she was, and still is, the UN Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the whole world.
Looking at the posts on FB of these relatives of mine, I was sort of humbled because they were so humble, limiting what they wrote to the usual tsismis on our clan’s members. Then I burst into the scene, posting a long piece about my late father. In defense I said that I should be rewarded for posting the longest piece at that time.
Who was I kidding? These relatives have gazillions of brain power and can write and post volumes if they wanted to. Annie and Vicky are always writing books for the foundations they formed. Mario can also come up with many books if he wanted to.
And they always made sure there was not even a tinge of “good morning myself” in their posts.
So there is the first moral of the story which should be an etiquette on FB. Maintain your humility.
Don’t be vain like how we lawyers are. When I think about my posts, I cringe due to my “braggadocio” which can be readily discerned.
In closing, I want to inquire from family elders if we had a “takba” (a piece on this will follow this coming few issues) which should make our clan respected in the community. Ha ha. I would like to believe that if we had one, we should be like the princes and princesses. Ha ha.
So as Vicky Tauli-Corpuz grows older, she will become an Igorot High Priestess (a beautiful and intelligent one at that) which should entitle her to her present UN position forever and ever.
But wait. An Igorot High Priestess might be the equivalent of a mentala or menkedet in Kankana-ey, or manggagamud in Ilocano, or mangkukulam in Tagalog.**
