The Trinity

By Valred Olsim

The cross-carrying armored conquerors came with ordained swords – purging the pagan relics and substituting them with the Christian religious icons. Then, the paths were named after the Saints, and villages were named after Christian doctrines, events and symbols. The unification of lands at the foot of Montanosa was named “La Union” (The Union), and the valley town where the Cabacera (Capitol) overlooks “three prominent hills” was named “La Trinidad” (The Trinity).

The skeptic may insist that La Trinidad was named after Spanish Soldier Guillermo Galvey’s wife, Donya Trinidad, but Galvey’s military records show no wife, and the name “La Trinidad” was actually recorded to have been given by Galvey’s successor Commandante Manuel Scheidnagel, decades after Galvey’s death. As an imperative, Conquistadors dedicate a subjugated place to their Christian faith, or to the Royal crown…not to their wives or girlfriends.

Before the Trinity of Benguet, there was the island of “Trinidad (and Tobago)” which was encountered by Christopher Columbus in his “third” voyage. It was named similarly to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity which holds that God is three consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit— or as "one God in three Divine Persons".

The number three is popular in the context of symbolism and spirituality. It can refer to the harmony of “Mind, Body, and Spirit”, the “3^rd Dimension”, the “three wishes”, the resurrection on the “3^rd day”, the “three stages” of birth, life, and death, the “three timelines” of past, present, and future. Hence, the number “three” is said to mean “completion”.

An i-La Trinidad friend reminded me that for a successful life, one must have the three essentials of friends, family, and faith. A day should be fun, fruitful and fair. And we should always have the three values of love, hope, and joy. Three is indeed, a special number. Just the same, the Trinity (La Trinidad), is a very special place to me.

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With newfound vigor, I’m back to the job of telling good stories about the Trinity (La Trinidad). Despite the mounting number of meetings and paper works, we made sure that we will have a year-ender event which is related to tourism. Hence, we have organized the 2^nd La Trinidad Tourism Conference on December 20, 2017 at the beautiful Mt. Kalugong Eco-park. We imagine it to be a meeting of tourism stakeholders and tourism-interested members of the community, and at the same time an avenue to appreciate the gems of our town (since the yearly conferences will be held on the different tourist spots of La Trinidad). We will also have an afternoon music jam to further add value to the event experience while offering coffee and wine to the attendees! Due to the limited capacity of the mountain park and the unique condition of the access road, we only produced 200 tickets to effectively manage the activity. Interested persons may visit the Mayor’s Office for the registration forms and tickets! Asen taha shiman da! Men-iila tako isdi! Kitakits!

BACK TO WORK

Aside from absorbing some mounting collections of letters and codes, the six month sabbatical I had also re-educated me about life’s lessons that I sometimes overlook. Indeed we are all eternal students of this life.

I am back for work, and I thank my workmates for holding my designated fort. Salamat talaga kakadwa! Even though the La Trinidad-LGU is naturally modest, the 2017 year just as the past years, is their year of awards and rewards. La Trinidad is again a recipient of the “Seal of Good Local Governance Award” which proves that the LGU has a passing mark in financial administration, disaster preparedness, social protection, and peace and order, and also in the essential areas of business friendliness, tourism, culture and the arts, and environmental protection. La Trinidad was also awarded with the best Cooperative Office in the country, the Red Orchid award for No Smoking implementation, the National Gawad Kalasag for our Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, and various awards and citation on the Regional and Provincial levels for Solid Waste Management, Agriculture, and many other areas. It is good to be back to our service-oriented agency.

Despite the challenges of our everyday, we are still the lucky ones who live to work (not work to live) –this entails the presence of “purpose” which is the very core of a meaningful existence. This also means that we will spend more than half of our lives with work and workmates more than our personal interests and loved ones. Hence, our 8-5 or 40 hours of weekly work (not including regular overtimes) compared to only 30 hours weekly awake time for family, should be at least comforting and meaningful. Lest we want to live the tragedy of being immersed with 8 hours of conflict and negativity every day, we have to try our best to encourage a healthy and supportive working environment for all of us lowly workers.

As a laborer for the past ten years in different institutions, I hope to humbly share three tips on how to effectively work with workmates: 1. Speak kindly, 2.) Be Organized and, 3.) Smile, always.

As they say “it is not what you say, but how you say it”. Workers do not mind doing extra work if they are tasked respectfully and considering the basic human dignity. I am not really a judgmental person, but I do judge people according to how they treat the smaller people; the janitor, the security guard, or the lowly salary–grade 1 to 5 employees. The power-trippers, or the people who only respect power but treat the rank and file like disposable slaves, unfortunately arouses gossips, politicking, and needless stress and contempt in the work place. As a reminder for the lucky junior and senior officers (even the heads), kind words uplift the lower rank employees and build an environment of trust and positivity.

When I was younger (and as an artist and rock & roller), I worked with chaos and recklessness. Despite surviving for some time, there were couple of times that such care-free outlook cost me important ventures. Some workmates advised me to learn the skill of management and organization. This will prevent blame-games and confusion at work because all the levels of tasking and specialized delegations will be covered for efficiency. I am still learning those skills.

Smile. Energy, as they say is contagious. When you enter work with the look of depression, your co-workers and even clients will have the tendency to spend the day with the same drive and perspective. Smiling is the most inexpensive and the simplest way to encourage a lively and healthier working environment. As doctors remind us; Smiling contributes to the success of our work, our health, well-being, and happiness! Smile at work everyone!

La Trinidad at a glimpse

La Trinidad at a glimpse 

(Valred Olsim Eternal Student Column for SunstarBaguio June 13, 2017)

At 4 in the afternoon, we discovered from the heights the beautiful valley of Benguet, the lovely sight of which surprised us all, so that even the soldiers gave vent to their admiration by joyous shouts – Lt.Col. Guillermo Galvey,1829

During the Spanish era, the valley of La Trinidad was originally called “Valle de Benguet” from the local term “Benget,” which means the stench emitted by the mud-covered swamp area.  Its original settlers were Ibalois, who grew rice, kamoteng kahoy, sweet potatoes, gabi, and sugar cane on hillside gardens and terraces along the mountain slopes. Power and wealth were measured by one’s ownership of land and livestock. These were shared by holding the prestigious feast called “Peshit”.

For centuries, the whole Gran Cordillera went undiscovered, not until the Spaniards heard about the gold-rich Igorots trading with the lowlanders. Earliest Spanish visits by Captain Garcia de Aldana and Don Alonso M. Quirante were recorded as early as the 1620s.

Although the District of Benguet was established in La Trinidad by 1846, it was only in April 21, 1874, under Commandant Manuel Scheidnagel, that “Valle de Benguet” was renamed “Valle de La Trinidad” (La Trinidad Valley). Despite popular acceptance that it was named as “a fitting tribute to Galvey’s wife - Doña Trinidad de Galvey” – recent research has revealed that credit should have probably gone to Scheidnagel, having been inspired by the three prominent adjacent hills (in effect, forming a Trinity: a religious icon of the Christian campaign) overlooking the Poblacion church, where the seat of government, the Cabecera, was established.

After the Revolutionary period in 1900, La Trinidad grew vegetables via the Trinidad Farm School (now Benguet State University). Along with socio-economic changes, the concepts of freedom of religion, titling of lands, formal education and the democratic election of leaders were introduced. Paid labor and money became an important feature in the economic lives of the people. Such time of plenty is fondly recalled by old folks as that “time of blissful peace.”

In contrast, the Japanese occupation and World War II were turbulent times. Residents were imprisoned without formal charges and pitilessly tortured. This prompted able-bodied men to join the guerrilla movement, while their families fled for safety to the mountains.

 

After liberation, on June 16, 1950, La Trinidad became a regular municipality by virtue of RA No. 531.  To get back on its feet, La Trinidad went on a massive production of vegetables. For this, the municipality soon came to be widely-known as the Salad Bowl of the Philippines. And with the establishment of the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post, the valley solidified its status as Benguet’s marketing hub of highland vegetables.

Owing to the need to diversify and with the introduction of new varieties, strawberries soon became the town’s main product by 1980s. Growing acclaim for these red and luscious strawberries earned La Trinidad for itself the title “Strawberry Capital of the Philippines.”

Farmers likewise ventured into cutflower production, and by the 1990s, many barangays in La Trinidad were soon growing chrysanthemums, roses and a variety of flowers. Barangay Bahong, a major flower farming community, was named “The Rose Capital of the Philippines”.

By the turn of the century, migration and urbanization paved their way in, bringing with them a colourful tapestry of peoples not only from the nearby Cordillera and Ilocandia regions, but from all islands of the archipelago.

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La Trinidad will be celebrating its 67th foundation day this Friday (June 16, 2017) at the Municipal Gym. There are many things we hope and pray for La Trinidad, our home; we passionately hope and pray for the cooperation of the community in many programs of the town, as well as dedication and wisdom for our officials to work for the common good of the community. We hope that we will all love and take care of our home, La Trinidad, for the very simple reason that…it is our home.

Try the Free Online Courses!

For most of us who are too busy to upgrade our skills and knowledge, and consequently our resumes, online learning or e-learning may be the answer! Of course if we can just divert some of our energy from surfing facebook to this, we may take advantage of the many free online courses we find in the web. Among the sites I found for this are; COURSERA (https://www.coursera.org/), KHAN ACADEMY (www.khanacademy.org), OPENCULTURE.COM, and of course ALISON (www.alison.com). 

  

I’ve completed two courses in the online learning site Alison (This is something I can add-up in my Resume); one is Tourism Studies, the other is Psychology. Among the e-learning sites I mentioned, Alison has, by far, the most organized materials albeit too simple. However, I recommend this for those who are just starting (the other sites may require you to submit research).

My Advice: Yup, you can cheat your way to completing the course online (e.g. by clicking ‘done’ when you haven’t read the materials yet) but in the end what matters is how much you’ve learned.  The Diploma or the Certificates are mere scrap papers if you have not acquired the skills and the knowledge identified in the course’s learning outcomes.

Note however that most of these learning sites (like Alison) require payment for the Diploma/Certificate (the parchment is shipped from outside our country, and the frames are awesome;). The ‘transcript’ or the ‘Learner Record’, however is free and is downloadable as PDF file. Further, upon completion of a course, Alison will e-mail you  an 'evidence' (a personalized company letter) that may be attached in your resume as a record of such ‘accomplishment’ if you can't afford the Diploma/Certificate (haha!). 

If that does not motivate you, just imagine inserting “Diploma in Social Studies” in your Resume’s ‘Education’ part!

Bluejeans: Hope

I’ve just seen the numbers. This month, another set of hopefuls who have passed their professional licensure exams must have gained a gleam in their eyes, probably still celebrating what they have thought of as a great victory. Towards the end of this year, hundreds of thousands or even millions of new nurses, teachers, engineers, criminologists and all other professionals will find themselves in the first steps of their career – confident, believing, imagining.

Ironically, national news reports had been confirming the growth of our unemployment and underemployment rates, (as if we have never known of it); the oversupply of nurses and teachers and other graduates who have resorted to taking call center jobs or even jobs in retail stores, or the unlucky professionals who have spent most of their lives seeking for a permanent job. The truth, however, of the hideous link between population, oversupply of professionals, unemployment, and poverty is kept behind a curtain of cheap optimism. Unable to find a proper solution to these economic problems, our government has been promoting overseas work as a noble alternative to earn a living. For the hopeless professional, it is not just a noble alternative, it is the ONLY alternative – to work and earn a decent wage, not minding the pain and homesickness of being away from home and family.

In this society devoid of humanistic goals, in this society built on enterprise and money - making, and which the new professionals find themselves a commodity, rather than a human being, what is then there left to do?  For some who still hope, they pursue higher studies; they take up graduate school, not on the assurance that they will be employed after, but in hopes that they may be someday, some take up Medicine or even Law, but even Lawyers would chuckle on the fact that there are a lot of them in the country, “throw a stone in session road and you are sure to hit one”.

The dilemma that our generation of today has to face is numbers - more people, more schools, and more competition. New professionals find themselves competing with last year’s new professionals, or even the other professionals from years ago who haven’t been employed until now, or even among themselves. In the process, they are reduced to their innate tendency to self – preservation, call it acts of realism, or maybe, just simply being practical. They are trapped in a suffocating chaos, competing for vacancies of jobs and even of positions; there is not much hope in this “dog eat dog” world, this neurotic society, this jungle that is ruled with only one law: “survival of the fittest”. Whether we like it or not, we will be submerged to the absurdity of life and of living. 

The irony is; we cannot afford to give up even if our ideologies can’t cope up with reality, in the end, we must accept that we can never defeat the system, that we cannot blame the government or the school, our parents, or the “flying cockroach”. We can never make the world revolve around what we want, or what we have exactly dreamed of; nevertheless, even if we have grown cynical with just about everything, perhaps, the best thing is to keep even the tiniest amount of “hope”, that tiny thing left in Pandora’s Box even with all the evils released. Hope that someday, and maybe someday…”things will get BETTER”.