Genealogy of Macrine's Maternal Side-The Nievas

Dave and Macrine Katague of Marinduque and Northern California

In 2003, there was a reunion of the Nieva clan in the Philippines organized by Rene Elizalde Nieva, Macrine's first cousin. We were invited but not able to attend. Rene wrote in his invitation that he is in the process of writing a book about the Nieva clan. He said the book will be privately published with limited printing which will include a general history starting on the possible roots of the Nieva family as well as the achievements of various members of the clan and their contribution to the betterment of Marinduque and of the Philippines. As of this writing date, I have not heard on the status of Rene's book.

In his invitation he invited all the direct and indirect descendants of the children and spouses of Calixto Nieva and Epifania Morente. Note that Rene is the great-grandson of Calixto Nieva and Macrine is also the great-granddaughter of Calixto Nieva , thus Rene and Macrine are first cousins.

I just can not believe that my six grand children are now the great-great-great grand children of Calixto Nieva and Epifania Morente.

Calixto and Epifania Morente had six children, four boys and two girls as follows (from oldest to youngest) along with their spouses.

1.Juan Nieva had two wives. The first wife was Isabel Decena. When Isabel died Juan remarried Elvira Sarmiento. Juan Nieva is both Macrine's and Rene's grandfather. He was the first governor of Marinduque and also the grandfather of the current Governor. Rene and Macrine are first cousin of Jose Antonio (Bong) Nieva Carrion, the current Governor of Marinduque.

2.Victoria Nieva married Doroteo Mercader

3.Dionisio Nieva married Salud de la Santa

4.Gregorio Nieva married Maria Arevalo

5.Jose Nieva married Trinidad Carmona

6.Rosita Nieva married Dr Angel Mayuga

Rene's invitation also included the descendants of the brothers of Calixto, namely Pedro and Francisco Nieva. It also included the brothers and sisters of Epifania Morente, which included not just the Morentes but also the Roceses, Abadas, Trinidads and the Kasilags. Incidentally, the Reyeses are second cousins of Macrine and the other Nievas of Marinduque.

This article will concentrate on the descendants of Juan Nieva and his two wives, Isabel Decena from Santa Cruz and Elvira Sarmiento from Buenavista..

Children of Juan Nieva and Isabel Decena ( from Oldest to Youngest)

1.Calixto Nieva married Juanita Jambalos
2.Blanca Nieva- single was killed by the Japanese during World War II
3.Elena Nieva married Bernardo Jambalos, Jr ( brother of Juanita)

Children of Juan Nieva and Elvira Sarmiento(from Oldest to Youngest)

1.Guillermo ( Willie) Nieva married Dr Celina Elizalde
2.Rosario Nieva married Ramon Carrion
3.Ester Nieva married Rafael Seno
4.Monica Nieva married Conrado Luarca
5.Elizabeth Nieva married Romulo Santo Domingo
6.Asuncion Nieva married Dr. Rafael Ocampo
7.Fr Constantino Nieva- single

For the purpose of this article, I will discuss only the descendants of Elena Nieva and Bernardo Jambalos, Jr. They have seven children as follows: ( From Oldest to Youngest)

1.Macrine Nieva Jambalos- married David B Katague from Iloilo ( that's me)
2.Sister Guia Jambalos- Order of the Cenacle-single
3.Bernardo Jambalos III married Loreta Mercader
4.Fe Jambalos married Edgardo Lazarte
5.Edgar Jambalos ( deceased) married Asuncion Pagalunan
6.Jean Jambalos married Mitch Maeda
7.Rosario Jambalos married Michael Levin

Note that Rene Nieva is the oldest son of Guillermo Nieva and Dr. Celina Elizalde. The younger brother of Rene, Yong is my partner in our literary project, I left my Heart in Marinduque ( not San Francisco). http://marinduqueonmymind.blogspot.com

Macrine's telephone buddy and first cousin from Vancouver, BC, Canada Olga Luarca Quiazon is the oldest daughter of Monica and Conrado Luarca

The current governor of Marinduque is the second son of Rosario Nieva and Ramon Carrion

This posting continues with the offspring of Macrine Jambalos and David B. Katague. They have 4 children and six grandchildren as follows:

1.Dodie( Diosdado) Katague married Ruth Carver- They have 3 children, Philip Winchester, Alexandra and Marina Katague
2.Dinah E Katague married David E King- They have 2 children, Ian and Elaine King
3.David E III-single
4.Ditas Macrine Katague married Nick Thompson- They have one child, Carenna Nicole Thompson

Fe Jambalos has two daughters, Lanie and Ella
Jean Jambalos has two daughters, Yuri and Yuka
Rosario has two children, Carlos and Zehara
Asuncion Jambalos has three sons, Edmund, Nonoy and Jhun-Jhun and a daughter, Marilyn
Bernardo Jambalos III has five children and three grandchildren as of this writing date.

Accomplishments of the children of David B and Macrine J. Katague are discussed in detail at
http://theintellectualmigrant.blogspot.com

Some Interesting Vignettes:

The marriage of Calixto and Juanita Jambalos was not approved by their father Don Juan Nieva. Juanita was the daughter of a barrio businessman from Laylay. During those time, if you are from the barrios, you are not welcome or accepted to the social group of the main town of Boac. The Jambalos family although well off were considered TAGABUKID ( from the bonies). Don Juan Nieva wanted his lawyer son to marry Enriqueta Nepomuceno, one of the popular socialites in Boac. When Juanita died, Calixto did not marry again. Soon Calixto also died and every one in town claimed he died with a broken heart. Enriqueta in the meantime was waiting for Calixto. Enriqueta never married and died as a spinster.

Blanca Nieva graduated from Nursing School at Philippine General Hospital and was earning well. When their father died, she helped in sending her half-sister Rosario to College. She supported her sister and spoiled her by dressing her up to maintain her place in the high society of Boac at that time.

Elena, is the third child of Isabel Decena from Santa Cruz. Isabel died giving birth to Elena. Elena was therefore nursed by the sister of Isabel, Regina Decena Reforma. Elena and Policarpio Reforma ( son of Regina) shared the same breast milk of Tia Regina. When Elena was five years old, she and sister Blanca as well as brother Calixto, were brought to Boac where their father Juan Nieva remarried Elvira Sarmiento from Buenavista.

Elena grew up under the care of Lola Victoria ( sister of Juan Nieva). They lived in the old Nieva Building at the foot of the hill leading to Mataas Na Bayan. Elena later went to college at the University of the Philippines and finished her Bachelor Degree in Education.

When Juanita Jambalos-Nieva( wife of Calixto) died during childbirth, Elena and Bernardo Jambalos II ( brother of Juanita) were made in-charged of bringing the corpse from Manila back to Marinduque.
During the trip, people mistook them as husband and wife. Their romance started then and later were married at the Boac Catholic Church.

Today, if I had to guess, there should be more than five hundred members of the Nieva clan, just based on the six children of Calixto Nieva and Epifania Morente all over the world. If you include the descendants of Pedro and Francisco Nieva, the two brothers of Calixto, it could reached to more than a thousand Nievas all over the universe. If you are a member of this clan, please let me know. Someday, I may be able to trace the Nieva genealogy all the way to Spain, as I did with my mothers name "Balleza", several years ago. My e-mail is in this site and I am also in Face Book.

2010 Job Census Opening in Santa Rosa County

Ditas Katague, Director of Census, 2010, Office of the Governor, Planning and Research, Sacramento, California

The following press release was published yesterday by the Press Democrat and written by Mary Callahan.
Santa Rosa census office gears up for 2010 count. Apply now for temporary jobs in spring

Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 3:55 p.m.

The 2010 count of American residents is still five months away, but census workers have been at work throughout the year laying the groundwork to get as accurate an audit as possible.

Thousands of temporary workers are needed in the spring to collect data and perform other functions in connection with the census count.
Job information is available at www.2010censusjobs.gov or by calling 1-866-8610-2010.

Job applications are already being received for the thousands of temporary jobs available to make the count and officials said there is too much at stake to get it wrong.

About $400 billion a year in federal funds distributed to states and individual communities is apportioned according to census results, with each person not counted representing an estimated loss of about $3,000 to his or her community, one study suggests.

An undercount in the 2000 census is estimated to have cost California $1.5 billion from 2002 to 2012, the PricewaterhouseCoopers report said.

Planning, commercial development and provision of public services, as well as non-profit grants, also depend on the data. And congressional apportionment is also based on population.

“It really comes down to, again, power and money,” said Ditas Katague, the Census 2010 director for the Governor's Office of Planning and Research.

Katague delivered her remarks Thursday during a pep talk at the Santa Rosa census office marking its official opening and the approaching run-up to 2010 and the April 1 census deadline.

But the office, located in a business park on Corporate Center Parkway in southwest Santa Rosa, has actually been operational for more than a year, preparing to manage the completion of the census in Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties, office manager Bryce Velasco said.

A key operation was completed last spring, involving a 2 1/2-month canvass of all residential addresses in 22 Northern California counties, all the way to the Oregon and Nevada borders, Velasco said.

“Someone actually physically went out to every address on every street and marked every house,” he said.

The next big push involves community outreach, particularly to at-risk communities to help build confidence in the census process among those at risk for being under counted.

The homeless and immigrants who may fear deportation sometimes distrust government questionnaires, even though census takers take oaths to keep census data confidential.

The Census Bureau, Katague said, has learned that most people have “trusted messengers” in their own communities whose word they're more likely to believe then, say, a bureaucrat's.

These are people in community groups, churches or who are service providers, Katague said.

“We will search them out and target our recruiting to those people if at all possible, as much as we can, to pull them from the community,” Velasco said.

Thousands of temporary workers are needed in the spring to collect data and perform other functions. Job information is available at www.2010censusjobs.gov or by calling 1-866-8610-2010.

The 10-question census form - one of the shortest in history - will be mailed out to all households in mid-March with instructions that residents fill it out and return it by April 1.

Census workers will visit households whose forms weren't returned. In 2000 the response rate was 71 percent in Sonoma county.

Rigodon De Honor -Dance with the Stars

The Grand Entrance and Parade of Participants- Note my matching Barong to Macrine's Terno! Macrine did not used her matching removable butterfly sleeves bolero, since it was a very warm evening.

About eight years ago, Macrine and I had the honor to be invited to participate at the Rigodon De Honor dance at the Grand Ball of the May Flower Festival in Boac, Marinduque, Philippines.
Right in the middle of the Dance Promenade

The Rigodon de Honor is an elegant dance which was brought to the Philippines by the Filipinos who returned from their travels abroad during the Spanish era. This dance takes its name from its opening performances at formal affairs such as the President's Inaugural Ball and other Festivals in Philippines and also in other parts of the world. In Marinduque, members of the provincial government, including the Governor and his wife, legislative officials, and other prominent members of the town are usually invited to participate in the Rigodon. Traditionally, a ballroom waltz dance would follow the Rigodon. This particular dance is a form of quadrille which is a historic dance performed usually by four couples in a square formation.

In Marinduque, it is an honor to be invited to participate in the dance. It meant you belong to the high society of the town and recognized as a leader in the community. Macrine and I were invited to dance at the Grand Ball of the May Flower Festival in Boac in May, 2001. At that time Macrine was the President of Marinduque International Inc-a non-profit worldwide organization based in US and Canada whose main goals is to conduct medical mission to the needy in Marinduque every other year. At that time, I also served as acting Treasurer of the organization. For the whole month of May, we (sixteen couples) practiced almost everyday. Near the end of the dance, a part called the CADENA ( it means chain) had to be performed perfectly, otherwise confusion and mayhem could ruined the dance. Attached is a video( taken during the Philippine Gala of the Filipino-American Community of Washington, D.C.) for your viewing pleasure, I found in You Tube! The video is a bit grainy, but does illustrate the movement and choreography of the dance. Note that the women are wearing their ternos( with butterfly sleeves) and the men their barongs.

This second video is better filmed and dance by our younger generation from the Philippines, Kalilayan Dance Group of Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental. This dance is similar to the rigodon dances during the Spanish era. As I mentioned above, to be invited to participate in the Rigodon is considered as the subtle way of "branding" certain members of the community to specific social ranks. Usually performed as a party opener, the Rigodon starts off by calling the names of the participants; first the rich and influential who will compose the cabezera or headline followed by the not so popular and lesser ranking dancers who will then form the costados or sideline. The Cabezera's will start the dance movement and then followed by the costados. What a way to brand and assign social ranks in the community!

Cloyne Court, Episode Eighteen

Cloyne Court, Episode 18
By Dodie Katague
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Rated "R" by the Author.

Based on a true story that took place in Berkeley, California in the late 1970s.

_________________________________
After a few weeks, I attributed private body characteristics to people when I saw them at meal times or walking down the main hallway. Just as I would meet people and recognize them by a distinctive facial feature like a big nose or a dimpled chin, I would also think, “That’s Susan, nicely trimmed pubic hair, or there’s Jennifer, big half-dollar sized areolas.”

The other woman taking a shower was Cindy, who I had first met at the telephone switchboard. Her breasts were shaped like pears and sagged. This morning, she wasn’t sporting the nose ring, but as I looked her over, I saw a flash of gold in her shaved pubic region. She had a gold ring attached to her labia. I had never seen one before. As I imagined how and who did the actual piercing, a tingle went through my groin.

Before becoming desensitized to seeing a naked female body in the shower, I worried about embarrassing myself by getting an erection. While that possibility always remained, fortunately for most of winter quarter at that time of morning, it was cold in the large shower room and nothing could coax a chilly Willie to raise its bulbous head in excitement. At least, not mine anyway.

The man showering opposite the two women was Richard Hein, whom the women in the house nicknamed 'Dick Fine'. He was a six-foot tall Adonis with short curly blond hair, a muscular V-shaped chest and a washboard stomach. Richard didn’t earn his nickname from his six-pack abdominals. He had a ten-inch long male member that was two inches thick in its flaccid state, and I was only guessing. I never actually measured it. I had no idea what it looked like in an erect state, but many women did, hence his nickname. He was a second-year senior, graduating in five years instead of four. At twenty-one, he had more worldly experience than a freshman. He walked the halls and played basketball in the courtyard with a self-assured air and an innocent smile that attracted women like night bugs to UV lights. He had certainly zapped his share.

Down in the showers after a basketball game when it was just the guys showering, someone tried to get Dick to tell stories about his love life. "So, Dick, who are you fucking this weekend?"

Dick was a gentleman and wouldn’t brag. "I have a dinner date with Lorna tonight."

"Lorna?" someone said. "She's the ugliest women in the house. Are you desperate?"

"She asked me out."

"And you said yes? You'll need three paper bags. One to put over your head and two to put over her head in case one breaks."

Dick just smiled with confidence.



Web Site: Cloyne Court Home Page

Time of the Year for "Autumn Leaves" to Fall

As I look at my backyard window( see photo above) a few minutes ago, the beauty of the maple trees in my yard with its yellow, orange and light red leaves getting to fall in the next couple of days, reminds me of the song Autumn Leaves. There are several interpretations of this song by several musicians, but this video is one of my favorites. Moreover, the autumn scenery in the video is just mesmerizing. Autumn or Fall is one of my favorite seasons here in Northern California. However, next week when these leaves start to fall, I will certainly spend a number of hours raking these leaves and definitely an aching back after wards. But this is the way of life here in Northern California this time of the year. Enjoy this video.

Three Recent Controversial Films, I love!

Do you enjoy watching controversial film? I do. If the film is not controversial, I find it boring and a waste of time. The following are three controversial films, that I have seen recently. The following are the synopsis of the movies and the controversy behind the movies. The first movie, Brokeback Mountain was touted to be the greatest love story ever filmed. I agree since I cried at the end of the movie. The second movie, Da Vinci Code was a bit of disappointment, since I enjoyed the book more than the film. The third one is not as clinical as the original book and I also enjoyed viewing it very much. If you have not seen these movies, I guarantee it is worth your time, especially if you like controversial subjects, as I do. Again, these movies are for mature audiences only.

1.Brokeback Mountain (2005)
D. Ang Lee
Almost a quarter of a century after the similarly-themed Making Love (1982), this Best Picture-nominated melodrama appeared with its story about two young cowboys who had an unexpected tryst while shepherding in 1963. It told how their ill-fated love affected their married lives in the following three decades. This was the first mainstream gay/bi-sexual romance film, heavily-promoted by the media, to receive multiple awards and critical/public acclaim, with eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture (and ultimately three Oscars) from major A-list film-maker and Best Director-winning Ang Lee. The much talked-about film quickly became the most honored movie in cinematic history - it had more Best Picture and Director wins from various film organizations than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List (1993) and Titanic (1997) combined. It was also the critical darling of the media and the expected favorite to win, although Crash surprisingly took the top honor.
However, some conservative Catholic organizations cited the film as "morally offensive" for its open portrayal of a homosexual relationship, and others criticized the film as sexually propagandistic. Conservative Christian fundamentalist groups heavily cited the film as glorifying homosexuality and for pushing a sexual agenda. However, those who were critical of the film were labeled "homophobic". Although widely hailed as a "breakthrough" film for gay cinema, neither of the film's two lead actors, nor its director, nor its screenwriters were gay, and the film was originally advertised in trailers without specifically referring to the film's 'gay' themes or scenes.

2.The Da Vinci Code (2006)
D. Ron Howard
Director Ron Howard's much-anticipated, big-screen religious conspiracy thriller with the tagline "Seek the Truth" was faithfully based upon Dan Brown's best-selling fictional book. It told about an investigation by symbologist and Harvard professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and French police cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) after the discovery of the murder of the Louvre Museum's elderly curator Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle).
The man's naked body was found with symbols and an enigmatic encrypted code written in blood, a scrambled numerical sequence, and a revealing pose. [He was murdered by self-flagellating albino monk Silas (Paul Bettany) in the employ of devious Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina).] This information led the wrongly-accused murder suspect Langdon and Sophie through a byzantine trail of clues -- to a millenarian secret sect called The Priory of Sion (with heretical theories about the marriage of a mortal Jesus Christ with Mary Magdalene and fathering a child - the real Holy Grail!) and crippled Grail scholar Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen). The search also led them to knowledge of the Priory's centuries-old battle with the clandestine Catholic sect Opus Dei regarding a 2,000 year old conspiracy to hush information, new findings about the Holy Grail, to Da Vinci's master work The Last Supper, London's mythical Church Temple (where a group of Templars Knights were believed to be buried), and Sir Isaac Newton's tomb at Westminster Abbey.
Several Catholic and Opus Dei groups, as well as conservative Christian groups, called for a boycott, mostly during the making of the film, accusing it of blasphemy. Even albinos were offended by the film, and lobbied for changes to the way the film portrayed them. Yet the tedious film was received lukewarmly as a convoluted, flat and stultified bore.

3.Kinsey (2004)    
D. Bill Condon
This serious and engrossing biopic was about controversial, Midwestern human sexuality researcher Dr. Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson) who laid the groundwork for the coming sexual revolution, with its tagline: "Let's talk about sex". It stirred up continuing protest about the impact of his pioneering work, interviews and liberal publications on morality and behavior. Kinsey startled the world with the publication of his Kinsey Report (aka Sexual Behavior in the Human Male) in 1948 and its follow-up Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).
The non-erotic, non-exploitative, and non-prurient film was attacked by morality extremists for its candid and frank drama about the famous Indiana University doctor's obsessive life-work. It illustrated how Kinsey's own wife Clara McMillen (Oscar-nominated Laura Linney) had painful sexual problems with her inexperienced husband during their honeymoon, and then later was engaged in an extra-marital affair with her husband's bi-sexual assistant Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard) - who also had a homosexual encounter with Kinsey and appeared in a full-frontal scene; and that a young Kinsey was punished with a confining genital strap to prevent him from masturbating by his ultra-moralistic, bullying, and repressive minister father (John Lithgow). In the film's final heartbreaking interview scene with an older, middle-aged lesbian subject (Lynn Redgrave in a cameo), she expressed how she was freed from homosexual guilt ("You saved my life"), after experiencing lesbian feelings.
Concerned Women for America (CWA) protested that the film was "an attempt to cover up sex researcher Alfred Kinsey's horrifying reality." They accused the film of misrepresenting how Kinsey actually had encouraged pedophiles to molest children (in the name of science). Other neo-Puritanical proponents thought the film was another example of how Hollywood was normalizing perversion, attacking Christian values about sexual morality, and promoting a "pro-homosexual agenda." And an advertisement for the film was initially rejected by PBS' WNET in New York because the film was deemed too commercial and provocative.