THE MARIANO Marcos State University (MMSU) is all set to host the 2007 Nakem International Conference to be held May 22-25 at the university’s Teatro Ilocandia located in its main campus in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

With the theme: “Panagpanaw ken Panagindeg – Exile and Settling in Ilokano and Amianan History and Culture”, the conference is made possible with the collaborative efforts of MMSU and the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s (UHM)  Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages and Literature’s Ilokano and Philippine Drama and Film Program (IPDFP).

The conference will gather around 160 scholars, academicians, and cultural and community leaders to reflect on issues of exile and settling in Ilokano and Amianan history and culture.

Forty-two papers tackling issues on migration, exile, and return; Ilocano settling and material and non-material cultures; and culture change, translations, and transformations will be presented by academicians, researchers, and Ilokano scholars from higher education institutions, Department of Education, and other agencies in the Philippines, Hawaii, the United States Mainland, and Canada.

A welcome program and dinner sponsored by the Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte will be held at the Fort Ilocandia Resort Hotel on May 22, 7 p.m. Expected to grace the occasion are Governor Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Ilocos Norte Second District Representative Imee R. Marcos, and Laoag City Mayor Michael V. Fariñas.

Conference keynote/plenary speakers

Dr. Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, chair of the Philippines’ Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) and professor of linguistics of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, will keynote the formal conference opening on May 23, 8 a.m., at MMSU’s Teatro Ilocandia.

Dr. Nolasco, a leading scholar in Philippine linguistics, is expected to delve on the urgent need for a critical questioning of the methods and approaches to cultural and knowledge production particularly in the area of creative writing, literature, and language research in Northwestern Luzon and in the diasporas.

The KWF chair will also tackle the issue of linguistic and cultural capacities of the peoples of Amianan to assert and affirm their linguistic and cultural rights in the face of the continuing dominance of languages and cultures from the political, economic, and cultural centers of the country.  

On May 24 at 8.a.m., Dr. Aurelio S. Agacaoili, IPDFP coordinator and Nakem conference director; Dr. Lilia Q. Santiago, University of the Philippines Diliman professor and conference co-director; and Dr. Alegria T. Visaya, MMSU professor and co-conference director will discuss the philosophical, cultural, epistemological, and policy directions of Ilokano and Amianan Studies.

Juan SP. Hidalgo Jr., a notable Ilokano writer and translator and recipient of a Cultural Center of the Philippines Award, will address the conference closing program on May 25.  He is expected to share – in Ilokano – his stories and struggles to continuously promote, preserve, and produce works of merit that reflect the realities and dreams of the peoples of Amianan.

Hidalgo is a painter, poet, essayist, critic, novelist, short story writer, and translator. For a time, he played bit roles in Philippine films and served as associate editor of Bannawag.  He founded the Gunglo Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano (GUMIL)-Philippines.

Conference backgrounder

The 2007 Nakem International Conference was conceived in November 2006 at UHM when UH and MMSU held a joint administrators’ conference as initial step in the implementation of the two universities’ memorandum of understanding on international exchange.

In the conference, Dr. Alegria T. Visaya, MMSU professor and Board of Regents secretary, presented a paper on “Homeland Ilokano studies at MMSU”. Dr. Agcaoili, IPDFP coordinator, on the other hand, presented “Ilokano studies at UH”.

In an earlier round-table discussion, President Miriam E. Pascua of MMSU and Dr. Agcaoili agreed to utilize the Iloco Research and Information Center of MMSU as country headquarters of Nakem and the International Academy for Ilokano and Amianan Studies-Philippines chapter.

It is also at this gathering that Dr. Visaya was assigned chair of the Philippine technical panel and together with the United States group headed by Dr. Agcaoili, they approved and scheduled the 2007 Nakem International Conference.

The idea of putting together a conference specifically addressing the crucial issues about “Ilokanohood” and to some extent – “Filipinohood” – during the centennial of the coming of first sakadas to Hawai`i came from Prof. Precy L. Espiritu, then coordinator of the UH-IPDFP.  Dr. Agcaoili, likewise, felt that to put together a gathering of scholars is one of the many ways that can be done to recognize the sacred sacrifices of those who have gone to Hawai’i long before it can be realized that “we are all beneficiaries of these sacrifices”. Espiritu and Agcaoili are both professors of Iluko literature, film, and drama at the UH-Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures.  According to them, they initiated the Nakem conferences as a gift of the IPDFP to the State of Hawai’i and to Ilokanos everywhere.

According to Agcaoili, “nakem” means “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, as human being; it makes 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 virtue”.