CRISTINA VIENNA PERALTA ABU-DAYYEH, MRS. PAOAY PUERICULTURE 2011

CRISTINA VIENNA PERALTA ABU-DAYYEH

MRS. PAOAY PUERICULTURE 2011

By: Fe Macalma Labagnoy

One does not need to be a prolific writer to write down the attributes of a successful, beauteous and fine lady. The words simply come in and fall into their right places in her story. Her name alone, Vienna, already evokes clear images of the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria.

Cristina Vienna Peralta, a true-blooded Paoayena, was born to Mr. & Mrs. Baltazar Peralta, Sr. (nee Generosa Llaguno, an elementary school teacher).  I have known her since our elementary days at Paoay Central Elementary School.  She was a standout, not only for her bearing, beauty and height but also for her vivacious personality: a reflection, even then, of her positive outlook in life. 

Vienna and I finished elementary together after having our own shares of wonderful childhood memories.  Just like the others, we also waded during recess in the floodwaters of Barangays Pambaran and San Juan, and got scolded by our teachers for doing so.  We had unforgettable days of fun together; we enjoyed endless after-class games of “tumbang preso” and “hide-and-seek” with our classmates: Dennis Catubay, Merly Atchazo, Patty Clemente, Hector Tabije, Roy Zambrano, Helen Tabije, Victor Gonzales, Minda Cabalteja, Judith Maculam, Hayle Labucay, Aida Academia, and Percy Correa, among others.

Vienna finished her secondary education at Ilocos Norte School for Craftsmen (INSC) and mine at Paoay North Institute (PNI). But our paths would cross every now and then during our growing up years, and every time, I couldn’t help but notice her turning into a young lady who was smarter, lovelier and  more statuesque  than before.

My friend Vienna went to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) for college and earned the degree Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1980. Not surprising at all then when she landed a lucrative job as a nurse in Saudi Arabia a year later. She even worked with a big company, Arabian- American Oil Company (ARAMCO). 

It was in Saudi Arabia where she met her loving and good-looking husband, Tyser Abu-Dayyeh, a pharmacist by profession. Not long after, Cristina Vienna Peralta became Mrs. Cristina Vienna Peralta Abu-Dayyeh and the mother of two handsome sons and a pretty daughter.

Fate had it that the Abu-Dayyehs would settle and make their mark in the United States in 1994. Vienna worked as a nurse until 1997 after which she decided to put up her own business. Tired of working on a 12-hour shift, she started with one Care Home facility which has grown into the six Care Homes she owns and manages today in Las Vegas, Nevada. With her hands, heart and mind devoted to caring for the sick and the aged, Vienna is bound to leave an indelible mark in her chosen endeavor and profession.  

Undoubtedly, Vienna shall be known as a hardworking woman with a loving heart. The frustrations and disappointments she encounters in line with her work could not, in any way, dampen her burning desire to help others. In fact, she spends most of her time managing her Home Care business in Las Vegas, Nevada even if her family is based in San Jose, California.  Proper quality time management allows her to successfully assume three concurrent roles: a devoted wife, a responsible mother and a no-nonsense entrepreneur. 

Vienna has worked her way to the top. She is the perfect epitome of sweet success attained through hard work, perseverance, dedication, determination, diligence and intelligence...and kindness of heart. A hard feat, indeed! Yet, Cristina Vienna made it!

The struggles, nonetheless, do not end here as Vienna continues to dream big not only for her profession but also for her family. She looks forward to the time when all her children are done with their studies, and are happily and securely settled with their respective careers and families.  She is one proud mom, and rightly so. Tamer, her eldest son, has already graduated from the University of California (UC) in San Diego, but still wants to pursue his master’s degree. Her second son, Amer, is in his fourth year Premed course, and aims to be a doctor. Her daughter, Tamara, is in her senior year in high school. A long way to go!

Cristina Vienna Peralta Abu-Dayyeh... her life... is, indeed, one lovely story in progress!

                                                                                                                                                                           

Paoay Church At Night

Thank you to Hershey Barao for the photo.

Imagine A World Without Filipinos

Imagine a world without Filipinos
Abdullah Al-Maghlooth | Al-Watan, almaghlooth@alwatan.com.sa

Muhammad Al-Maghrabi became handicapped and shut down his flower and gifts shop business in Jeddah after his Filipino workers insisted on leaving and returning home. He says: “When they left, I felt as if I had lost my arms. I was so sad that I lost my appetite.”

Al-Maghrabi then flew to Manila to look for two other Filipino workers to replace the ones who had left. Previously, he had tried workers of different nationalities but they did not impress him. “There is no comparison between Filipinos and others,” he says. Whenever I see Filipinos working in the Kingdom, I wonder what our life would be without them. Saudi Arabia has the largest number of Filipino workers — 1,019,577 — outside the Philippines. In 2006 alone, the Kingdom recruited more than 223,000 workers from the Philippines and their numbers are still increasing.

Filipinos not only play an important and effective role in the Kingdom, they also perform different jobs in countries across the world, including working as sailors. They are known for their professionalism and the quality of their work.

Nobody here can think of a life without Filipinos, who make up around 20 percent of the world’s seafarers. There are 1.2 million Filipino sailors. So if Filipinos decided one day to stop working or go on strike for any reason, who would transport oil, food and heavy equipment across the world? We can only imagine the disaster that would happen.

What makes Filipinos unique is their ability to speak very good English and the technical training they receive in the early stages of their education. There are several specialized training institutes in the Philippines, including those specializing in engineering and road maintenance. This training background makes them highly competent in these vital areas.

When speaking about the Philippines, we should not forget Filipino nurses. They are some 23 percent of the world’s total number of nurses. The Philippines is home to over 190 accredited nursing colleges and institutes, from which some 9,000 nurses graduate each year. Many of them work abroad in countries such as the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Singapore. Cathy Ann, a 35-year-old Filipino nurse who has been working in the Kingdom for the last five years and before that in Singapore, said she does not feel homesick abroad because “I am surrounded by my compatriots everywhere.” Ann thinks that early training allows Filipinos to excel in nursing and other vocations. She started learning this profession at the age of four as her aunt, a nurse, used to take her to hospital and ask her to watch the work. “She used to kiss me whenever I learned a new thing. At the age of 11, I could do a lot. I began doing things like measuring my grandfather’s blood pressure and giving my mother her insulin injections,” she said. This type of early education system is lacking in the Kingdom. Many of our children reach the university stage without learning anything except boredom.

The Philippines, which you can barely see on the map, is a very effective country thanks to its people. It has the ability to influence the entire world economy. We should pay respect to Filipino workers, not only by employing them but also by learning from their valuable experiences. We should learn and educate our children on how to operate and maintain ships and oil tankers, as well as planning and nursing and how to achieve perfection in our work. This is a must so that we do not become like Muhammad Al-Maghrabi who lost his interest and appetite when Filipino workers left his flower shop. We have to remember that we are very much dependent on the Filipinos around us.

We could die a slow death if they chose to leave us.

Catubay, ay Catuday gayam.

This song was popular during the late 60s. I especially like it because the title sounds like my beautiful family name. Ehem.

Sand Dunes and Puro Beach in Masintoc

Summer is here and now is a good time to head to Brgy. Masintoc.


The sand dunes are picturesque and if you climb up the hill at the edge of the sea, you will be rewarded with a breathtaking view of the China Sea and the coastline towards Fort Ilocandia to the north and Pangil to the south. The water this time of the year is warm and calm and the sand, although gray is sugar-fine.

Paoay Church Colonial Architecture

Previously published in Philippine Real Estate Magazine, February-March 1996
Text and Photos by Roger Gaspar

PHILIPPINE COLONIAL CHURCH ARCHITECTURE
Earthquake Baroque: Paoay Church in the Ilocos

The town of Paoay seem to be isolated from the rest of Ilocos Norte, so enclosed the town is surrounded by tall, old mango and acacia trees, that a newcomer would not know what to expect. Only the tip of the belltower exerting itself to the sky gives a hint of what lies beyond the fortress of trees.

At the end of the long, narrow road leading from the Manila highway to the town proper, the hundred-year-old Parish Church of Saint Augustine awaits silently, considered as one of the most striking edifices in the country with its huge buttresses flanking the sides and rear facade.

It has been a wonder how and why such huge wall reinforcement was ever fancied by the early church builders. Was it just another way of impressing the people by demonstrating the strength of the new religion--that is, Christianity--or was it just a result of the rivalry among Catholic church builders who were trying to outdo each other? The answer is more humbling and simpler.


Earthquake was, and still is, one of the most destructive natural calamities in the Philippines. This harsh reality is severely evident in the church building practices in the Ilocos. As a response to earthquakes, church builders devised means to make sure that the church held up against the fury of the earth. Wall buttressing was a promising solution because it required a simple building method and simple materials. In the case of Paoay church, however, the dreadful paranoia of church builders became the epitome of earthquake-resistant churches in the Ilocos region.




The church was started by the Augustinian Fr. Antonio Estavillo in 1694. It was completed in 1710 and rededicated in 1896, just three years before the expulsion of Spanish rule in the country. The style of the church has been dubbed “Earthquake Baroque” by Alicia Coseteng, one of the early authorities on colonial church architecture. Because the buttresses extend out considerably from the exterior walls, the entire visual experience becomes three-dimensional, unlike most of the churches in the country where the inherent beauty of the church is limited only at the facade.




The buttresses are a visual spectacle. One can easily imagine them as giant sentinels poised to protect the church from adversaries. The rhythmic flow of massive form cascading down from the pinnacles to the ground, emphasized by spiral relieves visible on each side of the buttresses, alludes to a Baroque character. Yet, the dark receding plaster and exposed coral stone wall, complete with foliage overgrowth, creates a momentary feeling of being in some exotic Javanese temple.

The materials used for the walls were a mixture of coral stone and bricks. Large coral stones were used at the lower level of the walls, while bricks, smaller and more manageable to transport, were used at the upper levels.


The mortar used for the coral stones and bricks dramatizes the desire of the builders to make sure that the church stood against natural calamities. The other ingredients added to the mortar were as exotic as the style of the church itself. Regalado Jose, in his book Simbahan, points out that leather straps were mixed with the mortar. Felipe M. de Leon, who wrote The Filipino Nation, adds that the “stucco was said to have been made by mixing sand and lime [with] sugarcane juice, which were boiled with mango leaves, leather, and rice straw for two nights.”


Another unusual idiosyncrasy that seems to be typical to many Ilocano churches is the existence of a step buttress at the sides of the church, at or near half of the length of the exterior wall. There seems to be no other reason for building this other than as a means to access the roof. In the early days, this would have been necessary when fixing or patching the cogon grass roof. What throws off everyone’s speculation is that the stair-like buttresses have steps that were built too steep and too far apart for a normal person to climb. But perhaps, they were built in such manner in order to save valuable space. If the step buttress on the left of the Paoay church was built properly, it would have jutted out far beyond the boundaries of the church fence.



The facade of the church, even as it is beginning to lean towards the front, still manages to be as equally impressive as the buttresses. Viewed from the side, the giant buttresses look like huge volutes making the facade appear as a massive pediment rising from the ground. The facade is divided vertically by square pilasters that extend from the ground and all the way to the top of the pediment. The Gothic affinity of the church is suggested by the vertical movement of the pilasters and the finials that cap them at the top of the pediment. The facade is also divided horizontally by stringed cornices that extend all the way to the edges. The cornices extend to the sides of the church and wrap each buttresses around, adding attention and articulation to the massive side supports. At the apex is a niche, while the otherwise stark plaster finish is embellished with crenallations, niches, rosettes, and the Augustinian coat-of-arms.


The facade is complemented with a belltower located at its right hand side. Belltowers are a very important element in the overall composition of colonial churches, both for its function and aesthetics. For practical purposes, belltowers were used as a communication device to the townspeople. In the case of the Paoay belltower, it also played, ironically, an explicit role in the lives of the Filipinos during the war.

Climbing the belltower is almost like going back in time. Inside, the musty smell of coral stone, coupled with rotting wood scaffoldings and stairs, relives the dark days of the Katipuneros when they climbed up and down the shaft and used the belltower as a lookout during the revolt against the Spaniards.

The view from the top of the belltower is absolutely magnificent. On one side, one can roam with his or her eyes the vast span of land until it merges with the China Sea. In some sense, it is still used today as a lookout point, not by the Katipuneros, but by mischievous kids from the nearby high school who often flee from the wrath of an angry teacher.



As one enters the edifice, the church abruptly relinquishes the powerful strength of the massive buttresses that they discharge at the exterior. Inside, the church has a very solemn, almost sentimental ambiance. The interior looks bare and empty. Regalado Jose mentions in his book that the ceiling was once painted with a scene similar to that of the Sistine Chapel in Italy. Unfortunately, the original ceiling is no longer in existence today. What is left is a cavernous maze of trusswork with exposed and rusting corrugated roof sheets.


Compared to its still magnificent exterior, the Paoay church looks austere and stark inside, with but a few old images of saints and a simple wooden cross at the altar, that it is hard to imagine now how it looked like a hundred years ago. Only on Sundays does the Parish enjoy quite a number of worshippers. It is sad to think that on any other day, except for an intermittent bus loads of Taiwanese tourists, the church suffers from the lack of patronage.



It is impossible not to be compelled by the exotic quality of the church, as demonstrated by the huge and powerful buttresses. Yet, there is also a sense of humility behind such exuberant assertion, as expressed by the pensive interior. But the most enduring impression, perhaps, that any visitor takes with him as he departs from the church, are the poignant memories of a tumultuous yet glorious past of a nation, imbedded among the layers and heaps of huge stones and bricks that make a church.

Paoay Postage Stamp

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This must be an old stamp. I haven't seen one actually. But I'm so proud of this church.

Adobo ken Kaldereta

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Adobo and Kaldereta, oh how I miss them! Nagimas.
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Proudly Paoayena

Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales
Justice of the Supreme Court
http://www.supremecourt.gov.ph/justices/j.carpio-morales.php

Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales started her career in law in 1968 in a Manila law firm where she was Assistant Attorney up to 1971 when her former professor, then Secretary of Justice Vicente Abad Santos, took her in as a Special Assistant at the Department of Justice.

She worked for seven years at the Justice Department as assistant
lawyer, researcher, assistant special lawyer and finally senior state counsel before she became a judge.

Three presidents recognized her public service by appointing her to the Judiciary. President Ferdinand Marcos appointed her as RTC Judge, Branch 132 in Pili, Camarines Sur. On November 4, 1986, President Corazon Aquino designated her as Pasay City RTC Judge. She was promoted Executive Judge and held that position until 1994 when President Fidel Ramos appointed her to the Court of Appeals. On the nomination of a Court of Appeals colleague and upon the unanimous endorsement of the members of the Judicial and Bar Council, she was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and was sworn to office on September 3, 2002. Until her appointment to the High Court, she headed the CA 7th Division.

Justice Carpio-Morales finished her AB (Economics, 1964) and Bachelor of Laws (1968) at the University of the Philippines. She has participated in legal conferences here and abroad and was a bar examiner in Legal Ethics in 2000.She was also conferred the Ulirang Ina Award for Law and the Judiciary by the Father’s DayMother’s Day Foundation of the Philippines,Inc.


Justice Carpio-Morales was born in Paoay, Ilocos Norte on June 19, 1941. She is married to Eugenio T. Morales, Jr. with whom she has two sons, Eugenio III and Umberto.

Message from Ilocos

Wow, I love this video. I think this was meant for the couple's child and relatives in Italy. The messages however could very well be meant for all who are toiling abroad, away from family. The old folks in the video also sing "Dungdunguen canto" for the folks abroad. This video says a lot in under nine minutes, a lot lot more than many of the pretentious short films I've seen. This video entitled 'Ilocos Norte Part1' is lifted from YouTube.com. You may watch part2 from YouTube.com