The Kapampangan

THERE IS much ado about the Kapampangan.
More than a tribe, the old Kapampangan prides himself as a separate race. Perhaps in bitter rebellion against the diminution of his once vast kingdom that was said to have stretched from the mouth of the Pasig in Tondo to the upper reaches of the Chico River in Cagayan Valley.
Mayhaps in a vicious reaction to the consequent waning of the primacy of his lingua franca which is now limited to just the province and the southern half of Tarlac, plus a single town in each of Pampanga’s contiguous provinces of Bataan, Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.
He may not be the distinct species that he likes to make of himself, but the Kapampanga unarguably stands out when ranged against his Filipino fellows. You will know the Kapampangan easily.
Food is his passion. A gourmand is the Kapampangan as he turns snails and frogs, dogs and field mice, pythons and cobras, locusts and mole crickets into exotic dishes rivaling ambrosia itself. And no meal for him without the attendant condiments of toyo, patis and aslam.
And who could love the pungent buro more other than the Kapampangan?
How the Kapampangan loves to party! Just about every occasion is a cause for celebration. A Kapampangan fiesta is unrivalled in the excesses of bacchanalia. The fattened calf or pig, even good old Bantay , get served on the Kapampangan table. Beer goes by the truckful. No money is no excuse to feast. E ka makapagtaó? Ala kang marine tau. Nananu ya itang mag-five-six king kantu? Feast for the day, all the year to the usurer.
Fashion is an everyday statement. In colleges and universities, the ubiquitous Kapampangan student is the one dressed to the nines but with barely a dime. Just about everywhere he is togged as though ever-ready to a party.
Dance is a religion. Even before the fad of disco and ballroom dancing, the Kapampangan has had – dating to the turn of the century, the 19th to the 20th pa – Circulo Fernandino in the capital town, Bachelor’s Club, later Thomasian in Sto. Tomas, Old Legs in Bacolor, Batubalani in Guagua, Maharajah in Macabebe, Now and Then in Minalin, and a host of other annual formal dances where the local crème de la crème shine in their best fineries.
Porma is his way of life. When a Kapampangan earns – even barely enough – the first thing he buys is a car, never a house. Why? Ninanu ka, malyari meng apidala-dalang pamorma ing bale?
Now you know the reason behind the labeling of the Kapampangan as mayabang. Part of this also is his “sugar mentality” raised, no doubt, in the province’s once fertile sugarlands. More than a sweet tooth and a diabetic constitution, the Kapampangan possesses a saccharine tongue.
Just you listen when he woos the object of his affection. Or eavesdrop to his whispers to the subject of his seduction. And wonder no more why the Kapampangan is a lahing sibuburian, if not a lahing pipikutan.
The Kapampangan’s mastery with words is manifested too in the number of cabalens in literature and in the media. Just about every newspaper in Manila has a Kapampangan for an editor, columnist, deskman or reporter.
Of course, there are the laughables about the Kapampangan.
When deadly H-fever epidemic was wreaking havoc in Metro Manila and elsewhere, it was joked about that Pampanga would be spared. Why? The Kapampangan has no H in his language, silly.
Which brings to mind that tongue-twister that landed me a grade of 70 in high-school Pilipino after I read it thus: Hako hay naiipan ng anging hamian hat hako’y napa-alak-ak, a-a-a-a-a.
Having not the letter H in the language is nothing to be ashamed of though. This is part of the Kapampangan’s Spanish heritage. Remember in lengua Español, the letter H is silent. O, nanu pang asabi mu?
Positivizing the negative is a Kapampangan attribute. Finding opportunity in adversity is imbued in the Kapampangan character. Yes, there was more than sloganeering or rhetorics in the late Governor Bren Z. Guiao’s E co magmalun, mibangun ya ing Pampanga immediately after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. It was a call to the resiliency innate in the Kapampangan. Proven in time by the leaps and bounds the province has taken rising, then soaring from the Pinatubo’s ashes of devastation and despair.
There too was Governor Lito Lapid’s novel and noble meaning to the derogatory dugong aso imprinted in the Kapampangan psyche. This, when the uncolleged Lapid extolled it as the virtue of katapatan, of canine loyalty to an elder, to a superior, to a friend – before then President Fidel V. Ramos, credited for much of the salvation of Pampanga from obliteration and its subsequent rehabilitation and renewal.
Of course, there will be some debate on loyalty here, given the historical aberration of the Macabebes betraying Emilio Aguinaldo to the Americans in the second phase of the War of Philippine Independence. That, though, is another story.
For now, let us just be. Celebrate Kapampangan pride. And passion too. Luid ya ing Kapampangan.
(This piece is a reprint of my Zona Libre column in The Voice – December 6-12, 1998. Then as now, it is a relevant read for Pampanga Day.)