'Toy napigket nga daga
Pitpitenmi nga umuna
Danggayanmi't kankanta
Takkiagmi a napigsa
Kettang ken bannogmi
dikam igingina
Mannamili
Ilokano Folk Song
Nakem Conference—and How It Came to Be
 |
A Solver Agcaoili, UH Manoa |
The idea of putting together a conference specifically addressing the crucial issues about Ilokanohood—and in extensu—Filipinohood during the centennial of the coming of first sakadas to Hawai`i came from Prof. Precy Espiritu, then coordinator of the Ilokano and Philippine Dram and Film Program of the University of Hawai`i at Manoa.
As early as 2005, Manang Precy and I had burned the wires to draw up what could be called the concept paper for the conference she had in mind. It was enough that our minds were running parallel and I was humbled by the knowledge that her vision, is, in many sense, also my own so that instantly, I felt that to put together a gathering of scholars is one of the many ways that we can do to recognize the sacred sacrifices of those who have come to this land long before we realize that we are all beneficiaries of these sacrifices.
“What do we call this?” she asked me, she in Honolulu while I was in Los Angeles where I was based at that time.
“I do not know at this time, manang,” I told her. But at that time, I was already toying with something. I just did not know—I was uncertain even—if I could defend the concept and the title before the court of Ilokano reason.
“That is up to you now,” she told me.
“I will,” I told her.
That night, in the faint glow of a Torrance light I could see from my window, I knew. The gathering would have to be “Nakem”—“Nakem Conference.”
Why “nakem”?
Simple: nakem is a keyword in Ilokanoness, in Ilokanohood, in Ilokano mindset. It is linked, in some ways to the Tagalog “loob” and the Visayan “buot”—both keywords in the accounting of personhood—in the accounting of that sense of being and becoming—in those languages
So what is nakem?
It is consciousness. It is the seat of the moral life of an individual.
It is that which determines with finality what makes an ethical conduct—it is that which distinguishes virtue from that which is not.
Nakem makes up the individual as a person, a human being; it makes her/him a human being fully alive.
Nakem is fullness of life, the embodiment of that which is good, hence we have “nanakem a tao”—the individual with the virtue.
So from that initial idea, we have come full circle, with the steering committee working so hard to make this Nakem Conference a reality: Precy Espiritu, Josie Clausen, Raymund Liongson, Clemen Montero, Julius Soria, and I.
We will see you here in Honolulu on N ovember 9-12. Padanonendakayonto!
Nakem Centennial Conference
Secretariat
E-mail: nakemconference@yahoo.com
or precye@aol.com
Phone: 808-956-8405. FAX: 808- 956-5978
Website developed and maintained by Raymund
Ll. Liongson