My First Published Article Was On The Salinas Salt Spring

Funny how serendipity works. I've been trying to put some order these past few days to the mountains of books, magazines, newspaper clippings, xeroxed materials, photographs, notes, and other souvenirs of the past that I was able to keep since high school. And among the items I was able to salvage from further attack by dust, humidity, cockroaches, termites, and silverfish in the basement of our house was a folder of clippings and photo copies of some of my earliest published articles.

Among the standouts in the file was the very first article that I ever wrote and got published -- one on the Salinas Salt Spring that included the legend of how the grief of a mountain maiden named Yumina over the treacherous killing of her lover Gumined was rewarded by the gods with the creation of a pearly white hill that for ages and ages gushed forth with salty water believed to be Yumina's tears.

While re-living the wondrous emotions I felt the first time I saw my piece on page 101 of the January 1, 1968 issue of the Ilocano magazine Bannawag, I thought of finding the original copy that gave me my "beginner's luck" as a writer. Here, I took a photo of both the magazine's cover and the page where my piece was:

Cover of the January 1, 1968 issue of BANNAWAG on the left; my Salinas article on the right.

I wrote the piece on pad paper when I was in my senior year at St. Mary's High School in Dupax and mailed it through Uncle Kusep (Jose Castro) who was then working at the Municipal Hall in Malasin where the post office was (there was only one Dupax then).

You may say I probably made history not only at St. Mary's but also in Dupax when that piece came out. For as far as I know, I was the only one from Dupax at the time who ever broke print in a nationally circulated publication. And to think that I was only 16 at the time.

Okay, here's a close-up shot of the article:

This piece was my first writing to see print. Probably it was also the first from Dupax to ever get published in a magazine circulated not only in the Philippines but also among Ilocanos in California and Hawaii.

For those who need magnifying lens to read it, don't worry. Here's a faithful transcription of the text:

Tao, Lugar, Pasamak

CHARLES CASTRO

St. Mary's High School

Dupax, Nueva Vizcaya

Salinas Salt Spring

TANGSIT TI NUEVA VIZCAYA

MAKUNKUNA A TI ubbog ti asin idiay Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya ti maysa kadagiti sangagasut ket maysa a pagdidinnamagan a buya ditoy lubong. Kas makitayo iti ladawan, nakaaramiden daytoy nga ubbog iti dakkel a turod ti asin; agarup a sangagasut a kadapan ti kangatona. No kinapintas ti pagsasaritaan, kapintasan ngatan iti kunak.

Kadakami a taga-Nueva Vizcaya, ti Salinas Salt Spring ti kapintasanen a buya. Ta kas itay kunadan, "There's no place like home." Nupay pangadayuen (agarup sangapulo ket dua a kilometro manipud iti Central Bambang), pagaayatmi pay laeng a mapan pagpipiknikan aglalo no iti tiempo ti kalgaw.

Malaksid iti kasla perlas a kinapudaw ti galpang, adu pay dagiti napipintas a buya iti lawlaw ti Salinas Salt Spring. Masarakan ditoy dagiti nadumaduma a kita ti kayo a kas iti saleng. Nalamiis kem makapabang-ar ti puyupoy ti angin.

Ania ti pakasaritaan ti Salinas Salt Spring? Kasano ti ilulutuadna?

Idi kano un-unana a panawen, adda maysa a prinsesa a kasla birhen ti kinapusaksakna. Yumina ti nagan daytoy a prinsesa, anak ti maysa a datu.

Nagdidinnamagan ti kinapintas ni Prinsesa Yumina. Adu dagiti nagrayo kenkuana. Ngem dua laeng ti kapingetan, da Indawat ken Gumined.

Tapno marisut no siasino ti mangikut iti puso ni Prinsesa Yumina, nagsalip da Indawat ken Gumined iti panagpana. Nangabak ni Gumined ket isu ti nangasawa iti prinsesa.

Kalpasan ti sumagmamano nga aldaw manipud iti panagkasar da Gumined ken Prinsesa Yumina, inawis ni Indawat ni Gumined a mapan aganup iti kabambantayan. Ngem idi makadanonda iti kabambantayan, pinatay ni Indawat ni Gumined. Inyawidna ti bangkay ni Gumined sana imbaga iti prinsesa a natnag ni Gumined iti rangkis.

Napalalo ti paanagladingit ni Prinsesa Yumina. Impaipanna ti bangkay ti asawana iti lugar a nangabakan idi daytoy iti panagpana, sana pinatay ti bagina. Nem sakbay dayta indawatna kadagiti didiosen a magaburanda koma nga agassawa iti adu nga asin a kas tanda iti nakana a panagladingitna.

Nagkubuar ti baybay, nagdalluyon iti kakasla bantay, ket nalayus ti yanda. Idi agkalman ti dilubio, makita ti kasla perlas ti kapudawna a turod ti asin iti disso a nakatayan da Prinsesa Yumina ken Gumined.

Manipud idin agingga ita, kas tuloy ti sarsarita, madlaw pay laeng ti nakana a panagladingit ni Prinsesa Yumina no agpusuak ti naapgad a danum iti rabaw ti galpang.

No kayatyo a paneknekan ti kinapintas ti Salinas Salt Spring ― buya a pagtangsit ti Nueva Vizcaya ― umayyo kitaen. Ngem tapno ad-adda a maragsakankayo, iti tiempo ti kalgaw ti yuumayyo. Narigat ngamin ti bumallasiw iti karayan Bambang no kasta nga agdinakkel ti danum. Mangitugotkayo metten iti kamera a pagalayo kadagiti nadumaduma a buya. ―#

Enero 1, 1968 o BANNAWAG o 101

POST SCRIPT

1. I don't remember how Mama reacted to my achievement but I recall Papa was obviously happy when he saw my bylined article. When he asked where I got the accompanying photo of Salinas Spring, I was about to lie to him (knowing his thunderous voice when he is angry). But then my better self mustered courage and I told him I cut out the picture of Salinas from the page of his NLAA souvenir program that he kept in the lakasa where Mama also kept her valuable clothes and jewelry. When he kept silent, I knew my lucky star held.
2. I got paid five pesos (P5.00) by Bannawag for that piece. I don't recall if it was Uncle Kusep who delivered the registered envelop that contained the Money Order from Manila, but I did recall that I felt I was already a millionaire when I had the check-like item encashed, again thru Papa's oldest brother Uncle Kusep.
3. You may laugh at P5.00 nowadays, but in 1968 that amount was already money then as you could buy at the time an atado of galunggong for 50 centavos, a huge piece of squash for 10 centavos, a small can of Ligo sardines for 25 centavos, a can of Target corned beef for 80 centavos, a ganta of rice for 50 centavos, a bottle of Coca-Cola or Royal Tru-Orange for 10 centavos, an chicken egg for 10 centavos, a Mongol pencil for 10 centavos, a double-cone sorbetes for 10 centavos, and San Miguel beer for 50 centavos.
4. Aside from the popularity I got from relatives in Bagumbayan and in I-iyo who read my Bannawag article, among the "fringe benefits" I got was a fan mail from a certain Mildred Malabed of Batac, Ilocos Norte, also a 4th year high school student at the time. We kept writing each other even when I was already in Los Baños but we got to meet only when she was already in her internship as a nurse at the De Ocampo Hospital and came to visit UPLB with her boyfriend.
5. I wrote an English version of the article in 1974 and, again, I was lucky to get it published in Kerima Polotan's weekly Focus Philippines magazine. It was titled "Witchery at Salinas Salt Spring" and earned for me sixty pesos (P60.00). Unfortunately, I could no longer find a copy of the magazine nor a xerox of the article. I guess this should be reason for me to visit the National Library soon, in addition to doing more research on what that repository and the National Museum have on Isinay and Dupax.
6. Again, the amount that that Salinas article gave me may not mean anything now, but when I was a student it was already manna from Heaven to me. At the time I could already subsist on an allowance of P40.00 per month. You could buy a pair of Levi's jeans near Quiapo Church then for P40; the BLTB fare between Manila and College, Laguna then was P1.10 (or a little more); for faster and cheaper travel from Mayondon to any point before Tutuban, the Metro train then charged a mere 25 centavos; a bowl of mami plus a piece of siopao in any Ma Mon Luk restaurant then was only P1.50; and jeepney fare then was only 15 centavos.

Why Salinas Salt Spring Means A Lot

I have yet to write a more meaty account of why the town of Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, is dear to me. But for this blogpost allow me to focus on its Salinas salt spring if only to substantiate that, apart from barangays Buag, Barat, Almaguer, and Indiana, plus the Bambang public market and the Bambang Central Elementary School, there are other places in that town that I could consider part of me.

For newcomers, Salinas is that oddity in the province of Nueva Vizcaya that used to attract local as well as foreign visitors when the word tourism was not yet a household word. It is one of the places that Nueva Vizcaya, particularly the municipality of Bambang, used to be very proud of when the salt mound (that we Ilocanos called "galpang') and the spring that made it grow were both still alive. 

The salty geological structure was in fact enshrined in the Vizcaya Hymn that we used to sing with fervor in the elementary grades in this stanza: "...Winding Magat and Salinas spring, this is our Vizcaya home!"

Salinas is important to me because, aside from having been mesmerized by it since I first stepped on it as a pre-school kid (carried on the shoulders of my Uncle Anton Pudiquet), it was also the subject of the very first article I ever got published.

I will post in a separate blog that Salinas article once I find it in my "junk files". But for now, allow me to revisit the Salinas salt springs with you.

Salinas on the Web

I googled “Salinas salt spring in Nueva Vizcaya” and my search led me to http://www.wondermondo.com/Countries/As/Philippines/NuevaVizcaya/SalinasSprings.htm where there is a photo of Salinas that carried this caption: Salinas Salt Spring before the earthquake. Scanned postcard from the page of Jack Kintanar Cariño, public domain due to the expired copyright length.

The earthquake the caption referred to most probably was the July 16, 1990 temblor that devastated large parts of Luzon, including the Cordillera (Baguio, Benguet), Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, La Union, and Pangasinan. 

When I googled Jack Cariño, I found out – sadly but still thankfully – that the great photo was not of recent vintage but an archive picture taken or painted (as indeed it looked like a painting) during the American colonial era in the Philippine Islands. 

You may ask how come. 

Well, first, the photo showed US soldiers with their characteristic boots and coverall outfit. And second, the caption on the photo itself said “A 229 – A Mountain of Salt, Mountain Province, Philippines” which means that the Americans who first saw it may not have been so literate on Philippine geography that time for Nueva Vizcaya as a province already existed long before the American colonialists came.

Be that as it may, I'm still thankful for the photo as it portrayed how the Salinas salt spring looked in the olden days. There are bonsai-like trees with their roots clinging on the pearly rock. The mountains in the background show the characteristic brown grasslands that may have been burned to renew the cogon or tanglag grass for the cows, or to attract deer with the resulting ashes.

Here's the photo:

The same wondermondo.com site fortunately had this generous writeup titled “Salinas Salt Spring”:

Once upon a time there was unique monument of nature near Bambang town - a snow-white mountain of travertine formed by a powerful spring.

The glistening white hill with rimstone pools (just similar to the fantastic rice terraces in Ifugao) attracted attention of people since ancient times. Nearby village -- Salinas -- got its name from it. This beautiful spring turned into major tourist attraction.

Unfortunately since the earthquake from 16th July 1990 this spring has changed its course and the white mountain has turned into a dirty grey hill covered with inscriptions and graffiti. Most likely the tectonic forces tightened some fissures and water found other ways.

Happily there have been found two more springs with active travertine formation processes in the nearby Macalong barangay, Bambang.

In 2004 local people found out that water is flowing again from the base of former springs. By this time the rural people in this part of Luzon were overwhelmed with the cultivation of tilapias -- small, tasty fish diversifying the daily meals of Filipinos.

In spite of the popular belief that water is too salty for freshwater fish, local enthusiasts tried their luck in artificial fishponds with springwater. This was complete success -- fish grew well and were a lot more tasty than elsewhere. In other pools the meat of fish has got soily taste but here the salts are cementing the ground and the water is cleaner.

Currently more than 30 fishponds have been arranged and in this way the people of Salinas got compensation for disruption of the former tourist landmark. Salinas Salt Spring is a protected monument of nature since 2000.

Popular myths. 

Often there are met two faulty myths regarding Salinas Salt Spring:

• Many believe that Salinas Salt Spring is formed by the salty water of Pacific Ocean which miraculously travels 75 km inland and is rised 400-500 m above the sea level. This is wrong. Deep artesian water in most areas of the world is salty, often a lot more salty than the ocean. And it happens that this salty water comes up through fissures, and, as it reaches the surface, it precipitates the salt.
• Cupola and terraces are formed by clean table salt (sodium chloride). Wrong -- if this would be pure table salt, it would dissolve in the wet climate of Luzon very quickly. Salinas cupola and terraces are formed by travertine which for most part consists of limestone. Water in the springs though is slightly salty -- thus there might be some rock salt involved as well.

The author and owner of the www.wondermondo.com website is Gatis Pavils, holder of BSc. Geology and MSc. Environment degrees.

There is also this photo black and white that shows Salinas still white even as it already had the handiwork of vandals:

Photo from http://manilajc.tripod.com/valerio.htm

At first I thought the photo above was of recent take, possibly in the 1990s. But I'm having second thoughts because the blogsite that carries it is a memoir of a former World War 2 guerilla named Escolastico "Restie" M. Valerio presumably from Bulacan but now based in New Jersey. Anyway Guerilla Resty had this account (reprinted here as is, unexpurgated) on Salinas that went with the photo in his blog:

"...at pagkatapos nito ay inatasan kaming tunguhin iyong malapit sa Salinas Salt Spring o bundok na mina ng asin, wlang labanan at ankita namin ang malipetan itong minanganng ito, may 20 metro ang lapad nito sa nilalabasan ng asin mula sa ituktok na undok, putting-puti ang asin sa itaas buablit sa ibaba ay kulay dilaw naman hangang sa kapatagan." (Source: http://manilajc.tripod.com/valerio.htm)

How Salinas Looks Today

It has been decades, nay, half a century, since I last set foot on Salinas. From hearsay, I learned it had been "killed" by the July 1990 earthquakes and since then the spring stopped flowing, and soon the salt mound lost its pearly white color. No wonder when you are near the bridge in Lamo, Dupax del Norte, you could no longer see the formerly visible white mound in the direction of Salinas.

This 2010 photo I found in the internet should say a lot:

Photo from http://s613.photobucket.com/albums/tt220/mscheca/?action=view&current=6.jpg&newest=1

Yes sir, yes ma'am, plus or minus the graffiti you see on its gray sides, Salinas salt spring that used to be a pride of Nueva Vizcaya is no longer something to be proud of.

Each time I travel between Baguio and Dupax via the Salinas-Pingkian road, however, I never fail to look in the direction of where the pearly white salt hill used to be nestled among the grassy mountains of the former Forestry Nursery area. 

I also entertain the thought that one of these days the "galpang" will come back, as indeed the salty spring has oozed in other parts downhill -- and benefiting salt-water-loving tilapia plus their fishpond owners (including my second cousin Steve Pudiquet of Barat).

Perish the thought of another killer temblor, but since an earthquake has plugged the hole that allowed the mineral water to come out from the bosom of the earth to form the salt dome, I also have this feeling that most probably another earthquake will unplug the same hole or open a new one that would spawn a new pearly mound that will make Bambang and, for that matter, all of us Nueva Vizcaya natives sing once again.

• 
  

(NOTE: Please see also my blog "My Very First Published Article Was About Salinas")

Isinay Songs: "War Sipan Uwar"

This year's joint Patron and Town Fiesta of Dupax del Sur (held April 28-30) featured an Isinay cultural presentation that highlighted, among other things, the making of glutinous rice into daluj-daluj (roughly equivalent to the Ilocano iniruban) and lupeyup (probably the same as the Ilocano tinubong).

While the performers simulated the cooking of such delicacies, a group of senior citizens sang Isinay songs, including "War Sipan Uwar" -- the tune and lyrics of which were said to have been authored by the all-around musician and Isinay Bambang composer Isabelo Gonzales Sr. (1917-1980?) who served as Vice Mayor of Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya.

This April 30, 2011 photo shows some members of the Bona^ si Isinay Dopaj cooking glutinous rice delicacies during the Dupax del Sur joint patron and town fiesta while other senior citizens sing classical Isinay love songs in the background.

"War Sipan Uwar" rivals "Dattut Ittuam" and "Osan Lavi" in terms of popularity among serious advocates of Isinay music. In fact, it has reached the Internet through a video recording by Ms. Myra Bangad, a music teacher of Nueva Vizcaya General Comprehensive High School, and posted at YouTube on Feb. 8, 2007 by a thoughtful Isinay identified only as basteroger.

As I write this post, Myra's version has had 1,885 "hits" compared to her other renditions -- Dattut Ittuam 1,462 and Osan Lavi 1,290. The lyrics below (slightly different from the ones sang by Myra in YouTube) were sang by members of the Bona^ si Isinay Dopaj during the Dupax del Sur fiesta held April 28-30, 2011.

WAR SIPAN UWAR

(i)

War sipan uwar si aru ar

Marin manluman toy si-a iman

Si inaru^ an pipeyara^

Mantunat giting di ataya ar.

(ii)

Gayjayan tuwa marin meawa

Engatan ta on ingong-an ta

Ta man siari uriam itapli

Mantunanat giting di atajua ar.

(iii)

Uriam mos an pan-ipijan

Sara nien matam on uriam santan

Neir mos an masden sipan

Mari mo, mari mos an mapottang.

(iv)

Gayjayan tuwa marin meawa

Engatan ta on ingong-an ta

Ta man siari uriam itapli

Gomgomom mantunat ipatoyta.

(v)

Gayjayan tuwa marin meawa

Engatan ta on ingong-an ta

Ta man siari marim ilo^lojom

Mari mos, mari mos an mapottang.

Mari mos, mari mos an mapottang.

………………

I don't know how you take this, but I encountered "War Sipan Uwar" only last year -- first thru YouTube and then during the Bona^ si Isinay anniversary last December. Well, perhaps I was too engrossed with the songs of Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, and the Beatles when my father used to sing it along with "Dattut Itwam" and his version of the "Imbestida" which went something like: "Amunglan tuvun si lavay... susun bialar an navayvay...!"

I’m putting my neck on the chopping board here, but for the sake of non-Isinay readers, here’s my attempt at translating the first two stanzas of the song into English:

THE VOW I MADE

(i)

The vow I made to my loved one

Will not fade for you are indeed

The one I love and my destiny

Until the day I die.

(ii)

True love has no end

Let’s keep and treasure it

Please don't throw it away

Until the time of my death.

--charlz castro

Welcome to the Isinay World!

Mavves an ejaw [o mu lavi] ira^yu lom-an, pinavlen man-ange pusunar an iiva! (Good day [or night] to all of you, dear kind-hearted brothers and sisters!)

Manggayjaya on pirayawa^ podda toy ampayla mu man-oj lojom tiye suung di mundowar an panlilliro-an taun Isinay ya naka-ali ayuttu blogspot uwar. (I'm very happy and honored that even as this corner where we Isinays are revolving on is small you still bothered to visit my blog.)

Aboleyan tau mot mu dattut tun lugar si ittuan si osat-osa iritau besan. (Let's already ignore from which place each of us have come from.) Urian tau mot pisyan belengon mu Irupaj man o mu Ibambang o mu I-aritao ri aarua tau war an mambasa on manalinut tien website. (Similarly, let's no longer pay attention as to whether fellow readers and keepers of this website are from Dupax or Bambang or Aritao.)

Mavvesar beyaw appion tau ya mansindara^da tau ta wey mu satien maun-unam poran blogsite/website taun Isinay si satye suwerteyar anun taw-on an 2011 ya bimmutta. (It's better that we help one another so that this very first blogsite/website for us Isinay in this reportedly lucky year 2011 has come out.)

Nanung un ilapu an ipublish ri dee ya poran jayjaya^ an ibolejas si satien Isinay blogsite, iyam-amta^ man di satie iva yuar an Isinay blogger. (Before I start publishing the many things I want to reveal in this Isinay blogsite, allow me to introduce your brother Isinay blogger.) English tay ri gamiton tauwar toy wapay nin i-censor ditau ri mantonar si satien blogging facility mu uran dan tatmoon di pansusutsuran tauwar. (We will use English for the time being lest the owner of this blogging facility would censor us if they won't understand what we talking about.)

My name is Charles Pudiquet Castro. I am a nature-loving, admittedly quite introvert, sometimes seemingly reserved and harmless, university-educated citizen of the Philippines who speaks and writes "passable" Iluko, Isinay, Tagalog, and English, and knows a few words in Spanish, Cebuano, Bicol, and Bangla. I've been a resident of Baguio City since 1978 and have a spot near Kennon Road tthat houses my Igorota wife, my journalist daughter, a grade-school adopted daughter, a jungle of house plants, and a number of cats, dogs and chickens.

I’m a natural born Filipino with 50% Ilocano, 25% Isinay, and 25% Pangasinense in my blood. On my mother’s side, my Apong Lakay (grandfather) hiked for two weeks along with a group of farmers and a caravan of carabao-drawn carts to Nueva Vizcaya in the 1920s from Dingras, Ilocos Norte in search of land to till… and, while working as kaminero (road construction and maintenance laborer) in the Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya part of the Cagayan Valley Road, he met my Inang Baket (grandmother) who also migrated to Nueva Vizcaya along with other tobacco farmers from Tagudin, Ilocos Sur. They later settled in the formerly headhunting territory of the native forest-dwelling Ilongot/Bugkalot tribe in upstream Dupax, subsisted on bunog (goby), paltat (catfish), dalag (snakehead fish), igat (eel), agatol (freshwater crab), tukmen (river clam), agurung (lance-tip snail), bisukol (apple snail), pako (edible fern) and other river edibles; made kaingin (swidden farm) to plant biit (upland rice), diket (glutinous rice),  dippig (plantain), papaya, beans, and squash; and converted katanubongan (reedy river banks) into bangkag (rainfed farm) that they planted to tobacco, corn, sweet potato, cassava, peanuts, sugarcane, and the pinakbet vegetables (eggplant, tomato, bitter gourd, okra). It was my maternal grandparents that taught me love for life close to Mother Nature including tree-, bird-, insect-, vegetable- and fish-identification.

On my father side, I never saw my grandparents but I heard that my lolo was a migrant from Bimmaley, Pangasinan who must have traveled to Nueva Vizcaya as a salt and salted-fish trader, was attracted to the tales of tame usa (deer) and bavuy si eyas (wild pig) in the Dupax of the 1910-20s and, while working as an atsero (axe-using logger) who specialized, I guess, on felling and converting into square logs molave (Vitex parviflora) and narra (Pterocarpus indicus) trees, he met an Isinay maiden who happened to own a dozen or so nuwang (carabaos or water buffalo) and a few patches of payaw (ricefield) in the then sparsely populated Dupax. The result of their union included my father, the youngest of a brood of five, whose first assignment as a teacher was at the Palobotan Primary School in the upstream part of Dupax where he probably caught his first glimpse of an Ilocano farm maiden who would become my mother. They settled near the hills in the north-western part of town called Domang where they housed and schooled me and my seven sisters.

And so it came to pass that one of the offspring of the above confluences as well as the product of such places is your river-loving, tree-climbing, insect-eating, and formerly bird-hunting forester-writer-environmentalist who had this luck (nitivu^ in Isinay; naigasat in Iluko) to speak Isinay and Iluko and to live in two places as a boy — in my parents’ home in the Isinay part of the town and in my grandparents’ place in the Ilocano-dominated barrio east of central Dupax..

As it were, the wind beneath my wings for creating this site for Isinay speakers/advocates/friends/dreamers is the fact that the Isinay world, as well as the Isinay language and the Isinay culture itself, is now fast vanishing. 

I shall let you know more about this sad reality in future blogs but for now let me caution those who will visit this site that, indeed, some words that you will find in the future entries in this site would be Greek, alien or utterly gibberish to you. 

Rest assured, however, that there will also be a generous sprinkling of essays written in English (Filipino English, that is) to give non-Isinay speakers a closer look and/or a vicarious experience at how we Isinays breathe, drink, eat, walk, laugh, cry, make a living, make love, make war, et cetera.

Andiye itsoraar? (How do I look like?) Otoy ye, medyo mango^ngot toy pulimin talaga an Irupaj ri mambevoy si matungar an soy-ang! (Here, somewhat dark for it is in our blood as natives of Dupax to play under the sweltering heat of the sun!)

Charlz Castro with a pawikan (green sea turtle; Chelonix mydas) kept under a Tausug fisher's seaside house on Marungas Island, an hour's ride by pumpboat from Busbus, Jolo, Sulu. [Photo taken in 1983 by Abe Villasin]