The first dialogue taken from the archives of the Romblongroup Website
reveals that the creation of the Romblon Discussion List (RDL) in
cyberspace did not happen overnight. The first message posted by the
moderator, Ish Fabicon (a.k.a. Doc Simp) on June 26, 1998 did not
say let there be RDL but said, "send an empty message to romblon-subscribe@yahoogroups.com."
By sending nothing
to this address the sender is included in the mailing list known as
Romblon Discussion List (RDL) once approved by the moderator. The
responses to Doc Simp's empty invitation were as follows:
From Bernie Festin
< BERNFES@a...> posted on June 29 on the subject of Romblon
or Odiongan:
"Changing
the capital of our province is a political hiatus. It will create
a debacle for the province of Romblon. Besides, what benefit will
the province gain? Nothing, but conflict and divisiveness! ...
"Anyhow, there's nobody in Romblon who will risk his/her political
career. It's a political suicide! This is interesting. Perhaps we
might cite examples of Romblom politicos who lost during elections
because they embraced unpopular issues."
Gerry Falsado
<gerpiel@c...> from Singapore responded on June 29:
"A change
in our province' capital is just like changing a worn out shirt. It
will just simply change the outside perspective a little bit but will
never help much in trashing out those problems that Romblon is facing
right now. Economically, we're lagging behind most of the provinces
with same size and population. Tourism wise, though we've got plenty
of beautiful places to be proud of, yet most tourists still prefer
those established tourist attractions in other parts of the country.
I think what Romblon needs is political maturity, a political machinery
without any traces of 'trapo', pro-active and pro-people 'bloods'
that will successfully propel Romblon into the next millenium. Who
needs this capital change? What we need is political rebirth...and
we need it BADLY!!"
Felix Barraca<FdeLix@c...> from Hongkong responded on Jun 30:
"Nothing
has really to be desired at this time but unite and go forward to
alleviate poverty. How can we become instruments and catalysts in
the development of our place should be the issue and bury for a while
this divisive talks about Odiongan or Romblon. We may have all the
menities and comforts of the developed world where we at now, but
we'll find how heartbreaking to see the lapses of indigence once we
visit the place. At this time, I really don't know, how can I be of
help? My worries are in my family's perimeters. I would be very grateful
if we can setup fora and sites where we can actively interact and
stretch out our worries (as far as I'm concerned) to Romblon province
as a whole. I'm just around the corner of the Phil. Archipelago, I'm
in HK and the travel to my place in Tuguis, Looc, Romblon is not really
difficult. I had the chance to visit Looc last April and it was politics
everywhere. My dad was once a Mayor in Looc in the early 60's.. Kadya
ang akong pamangkot sa akong mga kasimanwa hay kung paano kita makabulig
sa pag-asenso it aton ginapalangga nga probinisya it Romblon (loosely
translated as, my question to my town mates is how we can help our
beloved province of Romblon). Where and how shall we start?.."Ish"
thank you for submitting my address to the listmaker."
From Dante Fadriquela
<dff@a...> posted on July 2 on the subject of Bantoanon, ASI.....dialect:
"What is
the official name of the Bantoanon dialect? We always call it ASI.
But entry in the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) is ASIQ. In
some parts of Mindoro they call our dialect KALI-KALI. Maybe from
the root KALI, "this one".
On July 3, 1998
(on the seventh day of moderating) Doc Simp <fabicon@e...> posted
the following message:
"The Romblon
discussion list is now a week old today. We now have 49 subscribers.
One more and we'll finally, start the 2nd 50. Please encourage others
to join the list. The subscribers currently are Romblomanons based
in the U.S.; Singapore, Malaysia, Hongkong, Holland, and Pinas."
The creation of
RDL is owed to the dedicated efforts of Doc Simp to extend the province
of Romblon beyond the geographic boundary of the Philippines. Starting
from 49 members, it has now grown to 213 and still growing.
After reading
the monthly articles of the contributors and the daily output of many
interesting and intelligent e-mail correspondence, the RDL has surpassed
all expectations. It transcended the false impression of detractors
that RDL would only be engaged in cyber chatting. The most revealing
attribute of the dialogues is the common expression of expatriate
Romblomanons on how they can "become instruments and catalysts
in the development of our place" as quoted from the above posting
of Felix Barraca.
Many things and
events have happened since then such as the Romblon Convention held
in 2002 and other projects accomplished in the past five years. These
projects were accomplished primarily through the cyber dialogues.
CD-ROM will feature interesting dialogues for the benefit of our new
listers and the general surfing public.
