Of CDO’s Lost Treasure

The column title “Cagayan De Oro’s Lost Treasure” of Ma. Cecilia Rodriguez’s brought memories of silly stories in my childhood. I did spent three years of my elementary there. I learned that Cagayan de Oro (CDO) literally means “river of gold”. Back then, I believed the story that CDO’s land mass is floating like a boat and that any time would sink in the bottom of the ocean. It had me worried for a time. I also believed that people of old could just pick gold in the riverbeds like pebbles. But this silly musings turned to sadness as I read the column further.

Quarrying had ruined fossils and artifacts dating back as far as 377 AD in Huluga open site. For someone like me who knows only a little of Philippines history during Spanish colonization, such fossils and artifacts means that Filipinos exist as far as that time. It’s a time when Rome ruled the world (when in doubt, google it). I can now say to myself that our ancestors existed (though primitively) when Constantine ruled Rome and in this very year Constantinople was (unsuccessfully) besieged by invading parties of Goths and Huns.

It is apparent that most Filipinos don’t really lack knowledge our rich cultural heritage. I count myself as one of those ignoramus. My only consolation is that I do love to learn how grand our history is but there is no enough resources posted in the net (or have not researched it just yet).

But to have deliberately chosen ignorance of history in favor of gold, how stupid could a politician like former CDO Mayor Vicente Emano get? The works of renowned anthropologist Dr. Erlinda Burton of Xavier University since the 1970s are all for naught.

As the Filipino saying goes “Hindi lahat na kumikinang ay ginto”. In this case, it is gold alright but it is not as precious as the archeological fossils and artifacts that should have been preserved.

Transformers

When I was watching the MTV Movie awards on the tube, I was mildly irritated with the number of nominations that the Transformers got and wondered why it won the Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet. Perhaps it was simply because I didn’t understand the fuss given the seemingly childish movie. All I surmised from the MTV Movie Awards was that it was about robotic aliens trying to take over our earth( which is not a new idea). Well, you can’t blame my squeamishness after watching a scifi movie like War of the Worlds. I didn’t want to waste my time watching another movie with a terrible plot and trying to compensate it with computer graphics. Glad my expectations were proven wrong! Here are the characters:

Characters

Shia LaBeouf ... Sam Witwicky

Megan Fox ... Mikaela Banes

Josh Duhamel ... Captain Lennox

Tyrese Gibson ... USAF Tech Sergeant Epps

Rachael Taylor... Maggie Madsen

Anthony Anderson... Glen Whitmann

Jon Voight ... Defense Secretary John Keller

John Turturro ... Agent Simmons

Michael O'Neill... Tom Banachek

Kevin Dunn ... Ron Witwicky

Peter Cullen ... Optimus Prime (voice)

Julie White ... Judy Witwicky

Bryan Cox ... (voice)

Amaury Nolasco... ACWO Jorge "Fig" Figueroa

Mark Ryan ... Bumblebee (voice)

Summary

It was a typical battle of good vs evil and aliens trying to take over earth. In this case, the aliens played a major role in disrupting the peace of our planet( or should I say, the United States?). The quest was to get hold of a powerful cube Allspark, which has the power to turn any gadget into an intellectual robot. In the end, the triumphed of good was made possible with the help of the weak earthling (compared to the autobots---the robot that can transform into all sorts of cars) in the name of Sam Witwicky.

Plot

The first scene was a military struggle to annihilate a destructive helicopter-turned- robot (Decepticon). This scene was juxtaposed with Sam Witwicky presenting a genealogy of his great-great grandfather. Sam proudly told the class that his great-great grandfather made a great expedition around the arctic circle in the year 1897. He even showed the class all the outdated gadgets of the expedition including the broken eyeglasses of Archibald Witwicky. Unfortunately, Sam’s classmates and teacher didn’t share his enthusiasm on his genealogy. This scene revealed that Sam was not one of those “important” people of his school and that he was more of the butt-of-all-jokes. However, this scene also showed another angle of Sam: though he was resigned to the disinterest of his classmate, he managed to convince his teacher to give him an A instead of a B-. His grade on this subject played a vital role on his getting his first car. His dad wants him to get three As from his subjects and to scrape $2,000. Having made his part of the deal, he at last bought his car. His car turned out to be his guardian Bumblebee, an autobot from another galaxy.

The succeeding scenes further revealed that Archibald Witwicky was indeed important . He was the one who discovered the evil Megatron in the artic regions. Mr. Witwicky’s eyeglasses, which is now in possession of Sam, has the imprint of the location of the Allspark. Sam-the-insignificant-in-school became the only hope in stopping Megatron from destroying the earth.

Analysis

Transfomer was only possible because of computer animation breakthroughs. To hold the interest of the various kinds of audience i.e. computer geeks, action freaks, teenagers, etc, they made the story revolve around Sam Witwicky, an unpopular and insignificant teenager and the gorgeous and sexy Mikaela.

Not only does the movie Transformer showed how robot becomes cars (and vice versa), it also lets you see the Sam, the main character, as a transformer (although in another light). It lets you see the transformation of a nobody into hero.

Sam’s transition from being insignificant to significant started on the day of his having his first car. In American culture, getting a car is a very important event to teenagers. It’s like an initiation of becoming accepted by the caste system of “teenagerhood”. The popular have at least one of these qualities: football player/cheerleader, hunks/gorgeous, and wealthy. Their caste system is further defined on who already has a car, not to mention who got the most expensive car. Having a first car sort of elevates you from the bottom caste (if you unfortunately don’t have the popular qualities). Car represents freedom from parents. Cars signify maturity of a teenager, mature enough to be trusted with a costly gadget.

Sam’s insignificance was further highlighted with his vain crush on gorgeous Mikaela, who is a girlfriend of an ostentatious football player. Sam’s luck seemed to have elevated when he got his car. He was able to go to a picnic by the lakeside attended mostly by the ‘popular’ kids. Mikaela, who walked out of her jerk of a boyfriend, began walking home. It was at this time that he was able to give Mikaela a ride home. Despite the robotic exterior usually associated with apathy, Bumblebee as a car began revealing his humane side by playing the subtle matchmaker, i.e playing a too meaningful song to suggest something (“Who’s gonna take you home?” when Mikaela started to walk home) breaking down to give Sam more time with Mikaela, etc.

The gravity of the dilemma in the movie is emphasized when focused on the military futile attempts to fight the Decepticons. However, the story usually takes a lighthearted turn when focused on Sam and Mikaela’s plight. The military complicated mission captured mature audiences while Sam’s plight captured the younger audiences. This is what made the movie successful.