Note-taking

Browsing the Jan. 30, 1936 issue of The Graphic was like going through a time machine, except that the past did not seem so different from today. Long before Alex Eala at Wimbledon, we had the Gavia brothers, Leonardo and Juanito, who were the unfulfilled promise of Philippine tennis in 1936. For every Pacquiao, Diaz, Nepomuceno, Yulo, and Eala, there must have been others who were not given the chance to succeed and shine. There was a shrill article on euthanasia that enumerated the criminal penalties for doctors who encouraged or engaged in assisted suicide. I didn’t realize it was an issue 90 years ago. I was surprised to find an advertisement for “Cutex” that has since become the Filipino generic word for nail polish.

Crime reportage remains the same. In Bulacan, five men were sentenced to imprisonment for six to 30 years for “assaulting a pair of eloping lovers in Nueva Ecija.” I’m not a lawyer, but the sentence seemed light considering that the accused pounced on Antonio Sta. Inez and Gaudencia Joson, who were eloping to the man’s home in Gapan. They beat up Sta. Inez and “criminally assaulted the girl.” Not only was this a gang rape, but Sta. Inez died from the beating some days later. Yap Hing was hacked to death by a robber who looted his store on Azcarraga Street.

A bit of good news on the crime page was the discovery of a thief’s hideout on No. 43 Estero Cegado. It wasn’t quite the cave of Ali Baba. The retrieved loot included “six typewriters, three adding machines, several cash registers, radio and electric parts, 12 cans of gasoline, 24 cans of lubricating oils, 16 cans of Veedol and Cycol engine oil, and one revolver.” Not petty thieves indeed, they specialized in office equipment and supplies for a car repair shop.

Government funding, then as now, can be a topic of conversation. In 1935, during the Depression, a law was passed providing $450,000 for the repatriation of jobless Filipinos in the United States. Out of an estimated 30,000-50,000 Pinoys or OFWs eligible for a free trip home, a little over 70 applied, resulting in Congress slashing the $450,000 budget in 1935 to $100,000 in 1936. Another item that required funding was land reform, or the redistribution of large estates owned by the religious corporations into smaller parcels to be sold or given to the tenants. Agriculture Secretary Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez announced a P10 million asking price for six estates, namely, Buenavista (Bulacan), Dinalupihan (Bataan), Lian (Batangas), Baclaran (Parañaque), Capellana de Malabon (Rizal), and San Pedro Tunasan (Laguna). Lacking funds, the government proposed being the guarantor for tenant payments.

I have stray notebooks brimming with stray bits of odd and fascinating information that, like the 1936 Graphic material, cannot be developed into a full article or essay. Looking at my physical notebooks and the mass of files I have on my laptop recently reminded me of Doreen Fernandez, who taught us how to take and organize notes.

Note-taking was something we were taught in freshman English class. During the semester on writing the research paper, our textbook was by a certain Kate Turabian, who provided abbreviations for Latin phrases that wouldn’t look out of place on a brass anting-anting sold in Quiapo. These shortcuts littered our footnotes: “e.g.” was short for e[xempli] g[ratia] “for example,” and usually introduced a list of examples within parentheses or prose; “i.e.” was i[d]. e[est], “that is” to clarify statements or define something. Then there was “etc.,” which meant “et cetera, “or” and the rest,” or “and so forth.”

Turabian is still around, but now speaks to another generation. Two items I found memorable but frustrating were “ibid.,” “loc. cit.,” and “op. cit.” The former was just two letters short of “ibidem” and referred to a source “in the same place” as the source cited in the preceding footnote. While “loco citato” referred to “the same page” of a source cited earlier, but not in the immediately preceding footnote, “opere citato” referred to a “previously cited source but on a different page.” My students use different citation styles that have made all this Latin obsolete. But then we still hear Latin intoned by lawyers and lawmakers: subpoena duces tecum, subpoena ad testificandum, pro bono, prima facie, motu proprio, and so on. I get an earful watching the Senate impeachment trial. Why can’t we call out the crap and demand simple, direct language? Why can’t there be penalties for legalese made sleazy by the performative lawyers defending the Vice President?

See Also

The Philippines’ ube paradox

As I write this column, I have one screen open to the 1936 Graphic, another on Word, and yet another tab with the livestream of the impeachment that drones on. My real challenge these days is not multitasking, but focus, digging up raw historical data, and putting together a jigsaw puzzle to make sense of the past. And while I do all this, I think beyond to 2036, when a younger historian will go through my notebooks and try to piece together what we are in 2026.

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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net