Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Things take time. Just came from my fiction workshop, where we tackled the second draft of their first short story required in class. Call me satisfied! Admittedly, my rhythm for teaching workshop was kinda off when I came back to teaching last year, because I had to relearn everything again, especially the process, after three pandemic years of not doing it. But it does come back, slowly. Today I’m satisfied.
In the dark days of the pandemic, Krip Yuson approached a bunch of us to do a series of Senior High School lesson plans centering on the works of National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo, with the goal of transfiguring her works to other creative modes. This was a collaborative project between the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Niccolo Rocamora Vitug chose to do “From Poem to Song via Soundscape,” using Tiempo’s poem “Bonsai.” Alaric M. Yuson [a.k.a. Anygma] chose to do “Transforming Edith L. Tiempo’s Poetry to Hip Hop/Performative Rap.” Susan Severino Lara chose to do “Enhancing The Literary Content: From Critical Essay to Meme Adaptation,” using Tiempo’s critical essay “Enhancing The Poetic Content.”
And I chose to do an adaptation of the short story “The Black Monkey” into a screenplay.
This was around 2021, or thereabouts. [My memory is hazy!] But now we’re on the last leg of this project, and CCP has promised to make the material available online soon! This is really one good way to make the works of our National Artists become alive again.
Thank you, Beverly Wico Siy, for shepherding this project!
12:51 PM |
A Grand Finale to the 2022 CCP Arts Academy
Have you ever had that feeling that you've done your best, and now it's up to the fates for that one last go to end up at least satisfactorily? We — the mentors for literature, dance, theatre, visual arts, music, and film — workshopped and workshopped and workshopped for five days straight, and now it came to this: a recital involving all the participants for the closing ceremony.
With barely half-a-day of rehearsals to iron out the kinks and to determine what needed to be done [choreography, choice of pieces, etc.], we were in it because everyone wanted it. In fact, we started the week thinking a final performance was going to be optional for each workshop. By Wednesday, all the mentors were keen to do at least something. By Thursday afternoon, we had some idea about what to do. By Friday morning, the rehearsals began. By Friday afternoon, the performances were on the slot.
AND IT WAS TREMENDOUS. It was like watching a concert of all the arts coming together in a spectacular and unexpected grand finale, with everybody doing their best to make everything work. You couldn't tell that most of the dances — sometimes paired with poets or with theatre artists — were improvised on the spot. It was just all seamless, certainly not without its flaws [a missing cue, a missing mic, etc.], but altogether fantastic. This is why in this video, as the last performers took a bow, we are all so generous with our applause, because we recognized that we just did something magical — and that all that hard work actually went to something tangible.
I think I echo my other co-mentors when I repeat what I said to myself at the end of the program: "Oh my God, they all actually learned something from us." We actually observed that our participants — 188 teachers from all over the Philippines — were hungry to learn, were willing to absorb something new and challenging, and most of all were generous to share their [sometimes newfound] talent in front of everyone. We made them dance, write, act, direct, make music, make art — and in the end, we were all very happy.
Thank you, Cultural Center of the Philippines Arts Academy [Chris Millado / Ron B. Mirabuena] and Silliman University Culture and Arts Council [Diomar Abrio] for making this possible. And congratulations to all my co-mentors [Dessa Quesada-Palm, Cheenee Vasquez Limuaco, Angelo Sayson, Aiken Quipot, Elvert Bañares, Juni Jay Tinambacan, Joseph Albert Perez Basa, W Don Flores, Ramon del Prado, and AK Ocol] for forming such a formidable group of resource speakers.
The year has been very dark and unexpected in its tumult, but also ironically generous with its apportioning of much-needed reckoning and hindsight. I cannot allow myself to celebrate today with full heartedness. In my estimation, I have been both a success and also a failure as a teacher, and the sum that comes out of that is an average fool only trying to make sense of his day and what must be done, trying to do his best, sometimes failing to do so, and often heartened by the discovery that I have done something worthwhile in my teaching to someone. It is not easy being a teacher. I have many students who appreciate what I do, but also just as many who call me a “terror teacher” who demand too much for a minor subject. [Sometimes that gets to me, and I ask, what for all these?] But I am proud of the students who took that as a challenge, and also bothered that for many others I do not—cannot—do enough. It’s World Teachers’ Day, and I can only wish I live up to what is celebrated. I never feel I do.
A current online education dilemma: I teach humanities classes where I regularly refer to pop culture, e.g. films, music, videos, to make a point. But posting lecture videos with these teaching materials now invite Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms to regularly tag my videos for copyright violations. I always try to dispute the claim, citing fair use/educational purpose in the pandemic—and for the most part, I'm glad the copyright claim is always waived. But still ... strange times this new normal.
I like online class. It also means cats on the prowl jumping on someone’s lap, dog sounds sometimes mistaken for a baby crying, [sometimes the sound of a baby crying when there is no baby at all], frozen faces captured in mid-blink, voices chopped up they sound Chinese, the househelp suddenly streaking across the screen, a faceless avatar [“My camera is not working, sir”], the whirr of distant chainsaw, an archipelago in one Zoom call, the disembodied din of everything in a submarine, the professor in short shorts striving for meaning—bridging distance and hoping the lesson arrives fully in the pods of each one’s anxious seclusion.
I was watching this trailer for a documentary on the evolution of graphic design, and it made me think. Sometimes I'm struck with what for me is the relief of being born at the right time, especially when it comes to the digital divide of generations. In journalism/publishing, for example, I was editor-in-chief of The Junior Sillimanian (the high school paper) in 1991, right around the time things were starting to go digital. Our first issue for the year was something assembled through the help of the old linotype machine, a huge contraption with a keyboard upfront and a boiler at the back that essentially "cooked" on the spot the metallic letters you typed in which you then assembled by hand to make metallic impressions for each page of the paper. By the second issue, we were using a desktop, the print resembling dot matrix letters that smelled of the future. In terms of desktop publishing, I started doing page design using Aldus Pagemaker which became Adobe Pagemaker which became InDesign, each change in platform requiring enormous will power for reeducation. (I hated InDesign when it first came out. Now I can't live without it.) When I was in college, we were assigned a journalism teacher who made us do headline writing by counting type -- there was a mathematical formula, and all -- which was the way they did it before the digital shattered best practices in journalism and design. I found that class incredibly sad, to be "taught" by someone who clearly didn't know what was current. She didn't last the semester. I can't remember who she was, and I don't know where she is, but she has since become the voice at the back of my head always warning me, "Keep up, keep up. Don't get stuck in the old ways of doing things. The moment you start complaining about new platforms -- I hate blogging, I hate Facebook, I hate Twitter, I hate Instagram, I hate Snapchat, etc. -- that's the moment you become old and irrelevant." It's a harsh reminder that's not entirely true, but it helps keeping me on my toes.
This video below [made by the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses] is powerful stuff. Do you have to face a Martial Law victim pa to be convinced of their story? This is why for those I know who are voting for Bongbong Marcos (and thank God, there's not a lot of them), I have not unfriended you in my social media. But in real life, you're not my friend anymore. You are a traitor to history and common decency.*
* I have found belated joy in just pouring out my id -- unribald, ad hominem derision -- on Marcos-loving traitors. No more well-reasoned discourse, because that has never been their language anyway. To quote Game of Thrones: "Shaaaaaame. Shaaaaame. SHAAAAAAME!"
12:10 AM |
Observances of Silliman Institute in 1905 from An Observer in the Philippines by John Bancroft Devins
“I trust that you will visit the Silliman Institute at Dumaguete," said Governor Taft when outlining our trip to the southern islands. "It is only a few days ago that one of the provincial officers from Negros was speaking with me about this school, and he made the remark that no effort of Americans had done more to bring about a good feeling between their government and the natives of that island than the establishment and conduct of this institution."
From another source similar testimony was borne to the excellent character of the institute, which bears the name of its donor, the Hon. Horace B. Silliman, LL.D., of Cohoes, N. Y., who gave $20,000 to found it. The city of Dumaguete is exceptionally healthful and the Institute is located on a beautiful palm-shaded tract of nearly five acres on the main street, near the Governor's residence, and fronting the beach. It is easily accessible, not only from the province in which it is situated, but from the populous islands of Cebu and Bohol, where the same dialect is spoken.
The friendly spirit and practical co-operation of the Provincial Governor and other prominent persons at Dumaguete in all that pertains to the school enterprise and the general plans of the station are everywhere seen. That Dumaguete is a station of exceptional salubrity and exemption from disease has been shown in the fact that Dr. Langheim, one of the instructors of the Institute, has by judicious and watchful care and sanitary precaution saved the community to a large extent from the fearful ravages of cholera which visited Iloilo. The medical work of Dr. Langheim is varied and exacting; besides' his services at the Institute, he has important duties as general superintendent of the Board of Health for Oriental Negros.
The Rev. Arthur J. Brown, D.D., the Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, through which Dr. Silliman presented his gift to the Filipinos, visited Dumaguete in 1901. In "The New Era in the Philippines" he gives his impressions of the place and the work in these words:
"The location is the most healthful and beautiful that I saw in the Philippines. The land rises gently from a pebbly beach to a noble mountain range. The lower levels are covered with plantations of tobacco and sugar cane, higher slopes with hemp, and summits of the mountains with heavy forests of hardwoods. Across the clear water the islands of Siquijor and Cebu are seen, while farther away, but in plain view, are the outlines of Bohol and Mindanao. I drove for several miles in various directions from the town in order to get some idea of the adjacent country. The result was surprising. In this alleged uncivilized land on the other side of the globe, I found such roads as I had not found in China, outside of the foreign settlements, and which would be considered even in New England good country roads. Back from the road were continuous cultivated fields, while lining it were the picturesque bamboo and nipa houses of the people nestling in groves of banana, cocoanut, mango, papaw and breadfruit trees. A more charming drive could not easily be found.
"The advantages of Dumaguete as the site for the Silliman Institute are: (1) Its accessibility to a large population. While the parish of Dumaguete has only about twelve thousand, yet, as already explained, the place is within easy reach of the populous islands of Bohol and lower Cebu. (2) The absence of competing schools. Superintendent Atkinson told me that while the Department of Public Instruction contemplates the establishment of an agricultural college on the other side of the island of Negros, and an industrial school at Cebu, it has no plans for anything in Dumaguete beyond the public schools, and that we could have a comparatively clear field for the development of the Institute. (3) The friendliness and intelligence of the officials and people. The opposition to American occupation in this region was slight, and there would have been none at all if it had not been for the malcontents from Cebu. Now an American can travel with perfect safety in any part of the island. The influence of Rome appears to be comparatively weak. The people have driven the friars off the island and the Roman Catholic churches are in charge of native priests for whom the people apparently care little. The Governor of the province, Senor Demetrio Larena, and his brother, the Presidente of the municipality, impressed me as unusually fine types of Filipinos intelligent, able and broad-minded. They, as well as the best people of the place, are outspoken in their gratification over the location of the Institute in their city, and give it their cordial support. The Governor sent the prospectus of the Institute to every village in the province, and his own son is one of the pupils."
Dr. Silliman and the Presbyterian Missionary Board intended to make the Institute an industrial school, but it has been impossible to carry out that part of the plan at first, owing to the illness of the American who was sent to take charge of it, and because the students were able and willing to pay the required fees and equally unwilling to work with their hands. Several branches of manual training were started, and Dr. Brown urged the teaching of gardening as well as printing and carpentering.
"For, oddly enough," he says, "while the Filipinos understand the culture of sugar, tobacco, hemp, bananas and cocoanuts, no vegetables can be had in Dumaguete, except a coarse, stringy sweet-potato. The soil of the Institute grounds is too sandy for cultivation, but there is an abundance of fertile land to be had within half a mile. With the growth of the School, such a tract will be a necessity. There are thousands of boys within the vicinage of the Institute who need just such training, need it as much as boys anywhere. But here again the Malay indisposition to labor comes in. These people are utterly unable to understand why Americans always want to work. They must be taught the necessity and the dignity of honest toil.
"The curriculum of the Institute is an excellent one, having been formed after the model of our best Indian schools. It assumes that students should not be less than ten years of age ; there is a middle department and a high school, with electives in drawing, botany, natural history, book-keeping and shorthand. The students were fine-looking boys, and with the white suits and red sashes, which they wore at the reception given to us, they presented a striking appearance."
The need of a hospital building at Dumaguete is so imperative that the Mission Board allowed Dr. Langheim to use $1,200 granted by the Government for the superintendency of the medical work in the district, for the purpose of erecting a small hospital. The medical work of Oriental Negros, with a population of 150,000, has only three physicians : the army surgeon, a Filipino doctor and an American missionary. Dr. Langheim's work in a single year consisted of 1,655 treatments, including 210 surgical cases. In November, 1903, the Institute and Hospital buildings were dedicated. The exercises were interesting, with tall palm trees waving above the visitors who had come from the United States, England, Ireland, Spain, China, Canada, Russia, as well as other provinces in the Philippines. The decorations of palm leaves and Japanese lanterns were pretty. The Governor of the province delivered an address, and the presidente of the city also spoke, closing his address with these words:
"Let us do all we can to help these people who have come over here to do this great work."
One of the leading gentlemen of the province made a good speech in Visayan. The exercises were in English, Spanish and Visayan. The occasion was peculiarly interesting, too, because from that school were selected the two boys of all those in that province who were best fitted to go to the United States for an education.
The Rev. Lewis B. Hillis, of Manila, gives these impressions of the Institute after a close study of the school and its instructions from the first:
"One of the suggestive features of the Institute is the universality of boy nature. They cut and mark the desks, draw pictures of the teacher and of each other, hide one another's things, whip tops, spike tops, play baseball, football, march in civic processions, wear a red ribbon which stands for 'Silliman,' have a college yell and a cheer leader, mass together and make life uneasy for the Chinaman who dares to allow one of them to pay a few cents more for an article than the man before paid for it; swim, play truant when they think they will not be missed, and frequently have a severe attack of sickness when they have not their lessons. It is a peculiar characteristic of the Visayan that he prefers to bat flies or kick the football to playing a regular game. Whether or not this will continue to be the case, remains to be seen.
"The democracy among the students is another interesting feature. Formerly when boys went to the Institute they had servants to carry their luggage and to take care of their clothes. It was considered undignified, in fact disgraceful, to do any manual labor. The majority of the students are sons of wealthy parents, but there are a few who are working their way through. Now they have a standing in the School which accords with the real worth of each one. Often a promising man is sent from some other station in the hope that he may make a good preacher. One was sent from Cebu a few months ago. He was under the impression that when he became a Protestant he had finished all that there was for him to do, and that others would provide for him. When the instructors asked him to work, it hurt his feelings, and he almost organized a mutiny among the graciados :
"'We did not enter the Protestant religion to become servants,' he said, and he started back to Cebu.
"Another man, a teacher, about twenty-eight, who had been accustomed all his life to being considered far above labor, was anxious to go to the School, but he had no money. He was offered a chance to clean the floors, because that was the only thing to be done at the time. The teachers knew that he would object, and were sorry to discourage him, but they were practically forced into making the offer. He accepted and did it very well. In a few weeks there was some translating to be done, and he was asked to do it. It would take but little of his time and be far better for the School than the other work.
"'Yes ; I will do it, but it does not take much time; I can clean the floors, too.' Some of the boys support themselves: One has just arrived from Iloilo. Another works as clerk in the afternoon and evening in a store. One has a wife who runs his salt works while he attends school. One is a silversmith. Most of them are sons of the hacienderos large planters but occasionally there is one who cannot pay his tuition.
"What has the School accomplished? It has attracted the talented pupils. One self-taught, so far as the teachers can learn, painted the building on a contract, but stranger still, when they wished for a picture of Washington, he brought in his own painting, which would attract favorable comment as the work of an untaught schoolboy anywhere. I thought that they must be poor judges of painting when they spoke so highly about it, but I changed my mind when I saw the picture. A secretary of the insurrection, who is easily one of the best Visayan scholars around there, is a student. A boy's paper in Virgil was almost perfect. One young man from a family that opposed his attending the school came in the morning and arranged his teaching so that he could do it in the afternoon. A short time ago he passed the examination in Dumaguete with the highest mark given at that examination. He now receives a salary of $60 a month, and is stationed nine miles from Dumaguete. But it took the combined influence of his family, which weighed little, the long distance, which was considered little, and the teachers at Dumaguete to prevent his arranging his work to teach one-half the day and ride in for School the other half. A school that attracts that kind of material is not made in vain. The Constabulary, the Educational Department, the merchants and men in the offices who had clerical work to do, place great temptations in the way of the boys, but there are rarely more than half a dozen who leave the School in a year unless it be from sickness or poverty. They like it. And they are learning to work in the printing plant and at other things around the building."
Dr. Silliman is deeply interested in this school for the Filipinos, which he desires to follow Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes in Virginia and Alabama. Whatever men and means can accomplish will be done to insure its success. The trades to be taught in the Institute are carpentry and cabinet-making, printing, farming and gardening, masonry and bricklaying, and blacksmithing. Dr. Silliman will erect the buildings that will be needed for the teaching of these and other trades and equip them with machinery and tools. He is also now erecting two dwellings for the missionaries who give their time to the Institute, and two for the missionary members of the station. Dr. Silliman feels that the help which they will give to the Institute will be a fair offset for their rent.
The industrial department of the Institute will be developed gradually as circumstances justify. Land has been secured for gardening near the Institute grounds, and a farm at a little distance for the teaching and practice of agriculture. It was fitting that Dr. Silliman should receive from the Board of Missions "its hearty appreciation of his intelligent, sympathetic and generous plans for the Institute," and a pledge from the Board that it would "unite with him in every reasonable effort for the uplifting of this important institution."
With the American Government sending Filipino youth to the United States to study in the schools and colleges of this country, and Dr. Silliman providing for others in their own land, there will be an opportunity in four or five years to see which method produces the better result. The generous gifts of Dr. Silliman for the practical education of hundreds of young Filipinos have not been equalled by any other American, and the Government officials are very hearty in their approval of the Institute, and justly so, for his motive is worthy of all praise: "To give the students such training, physical, mental and moral, as will best qualify them to help the inhabitants of the islands to improve the conditions of their civic and social life."
From "Chapter 28: The Silliman Institute" of An Observer in the Philippines: or Life in Our New Possessions by John Bancroft Devins (New York: American Tract Society, 1905). You can read the entire book here.
9:00 AM |
Life in the Early Days of Silliman University Part 2
In celebration of the 114th Founders Day of Silliman University, I'm posting another article titled “Two Reminiscences,” an interview story by E.O. Constantino, published in the 28 August 1957 issue of The Sillimanian.
The Silliman Hall by 1904.
Jose Gamo
Yes, I came to study in the Silliman Institute in 1901, but I had to leave the school after one and a half years. My father took me out the school as advised by Dr. and Mrs. David Hibbard.
You see, I got into trouble with a dormitory mate; Miguel Paterno by name, I think. That was his name, and he's dead now, I suppose. I was six, este, seven years old then, the smallest and youngest among the twelve internos of the dormitory. The others were externos, I think. After classes in the afternoons, physical education was held on the schoolyard. We had boxing, chinning-the-bar, dumbbell and ring exercises. One afternoon, Mrs. Hibbard supplied us with rubber ball, like your baseballs today, but much more soft.
Pupils were grouped into twos, and each group was given one ball to play with and you can imagine that many of us had never before that time laid hands on one. And we zealously guarded the ball assigned to us, keeping it in a joint locker after the period. One time, Miguel Patero and his partner played near where my partner and I were. Their ball rolled past us, and they could not find it anymore. It must have gotten lost in the thick bushes nearby. They wrenched our ball from us, and took it for their own. I was enraged for Miguel Paterno, who was very much bigger than I was, hurt my arm. I ran to our locker, grabbed a small knife that father gave we for sharpening pencils, and faced him. We grappled awhile before Mrs. Hibbard could stop us. I wounded him on the wrist.
That night Dr. and Mrs. Hibbard had me bring my own beddings and told me to sleep in a corner of their bedroom. They feared that Miguel would take revenge on me. In the morning, Dr. Hibbard wrote my father; within a few days my father took me home to Bayawan about 103 kms. from Silliman.
I never came back to Silliman until 1912 when father had already died. Father was right. I realized that it was difficult to remain uneducated. That year, I left my work in our farm to apply as a working student at Silliman. Dr. Hibbard, instantly recognizing me, welcomed me warmly. I told him my problem and he gave me work first as a waiter in the dormitory which was then much bigger, then as a sweeper, and later a helper of Mr. Charles A. Glunz in the Industrial Building.
In 1917 I had a lady classmate, Adela, este, Rosario Ilano, whom I married that year. She has been dead many years, God bless her soul. She was the sister of Dr. Josefa Ilano, a member of the Board of Trustees of the University. That was the end of my schooling in Silliman. I never finished any course for I returned to work in my farm after marriage. But my only two children finished high school there, one daughter, who is a practicing attorney in Manila, and the other who went to study pharmacy there, too. I have a nephew and two nieces who are schooling in Silliman University.
Alfonso Viliran
It seems to me that Mrs. Hibbard spoke a little Cebuano at the start, that was how we understood her explanations. I think there was somebody, a very charming Filipino woman whom she went around with, who, I heard, helped her study the dialect. Of course I did know a few English words for I learned them in the Spanish school where I went to before I enrolled at the Silliman Institute. There were pupils who were only seven or eight years old, they had had no schooling until they came to Silliman. I was already twelve. A few were eighteen, nineteen, or twenty-one, and they knew more English than I did. The Spanish School in Dumaguete where I studied, the caton y catecismo was converted into a government-run grammar school by the American soldiers. It was a young American lady who taught us a few English words. Miss Berry, I can’t recall her first name, carried an English-Spanish book which was used as a text in the grammar class. Later she taught at Silliman Institute after she married a faculty member there, Rev. Walter O. McIntire.
Mrs. Laura Hibbard taught us very well; her teaching was so effective that when I left school in 1906, I passed a junior teacher examination given by the government. I became a teacher that year, holding various teaching and administrative positions. I remained a public school teacher until my retirement in 1928. Mrs. Hibbard taught us geography and standard arithmetic. I knew all the countries and cities on the globe and on the big geography book that we used. Even now I can recite the different continents: Asia, Australia, Europe, Russia, America, and—uh, China. We drew the maps of the whole world, having been told to copy everything, and to include the scalings in the legend of their respective drawings.
I think it was Dr. David S. Hibbard who taught us physiology. We learned all the parts of the human body; you know, today, this subject is required of medical students only. Grammar? Oh, I knew all parts of the speech and could give examples, too. For instance, Dr. Hibbard would read a sentence, then he would ask: “Alfonso, please read this sentence.” I could already read a little then:
“The man who walks on the road is my teacher.”
“What part of speech is ‘The’?”
“’'The' is an article.”
“How about ‘walks’?”
“Verb, third person, singular number.”
“’Man’?”
“’Man’ is a noun, sir.”
“What case?”
“’Man’ is in the nominative case.”
We enjoyed our schooling very much. I don’t write to Dr. Hibbard anymore for I think he is now very old; he probably spends his days sitting on his chair. He was about thirty years old when I first met him in 1901. It was in 1956 that he wrote me last; I mailed him a very long answer. You know he said that he sits alone thinking of our old days in Silliman Institute. “Alfonso,” he wrote, “I wish we could have classes again in that old school building of ours. I can see you clearly, the fifteen of you sitting on one long bench, a good bunch of barefooted kids; I remember when Mrs. Hibbard and I whipped you for being naughty, or not studying your lessons.”
5:59 PM |
Life in the Early Days of Silliman University Part 1
In celebration of the 114th Founders Day of Silliman University, I'm posting an article titled “They Wanted To Be There: One of the First 15 Students Recollects,” an interview story by Samuel Serate, first published in the 28 August 1956 issue of The Sillimanian.
David and Laura Hibbard, the founders of Silliman University
“No fanfare marked the formal opening of Silliman Institute,” Dr. David S. Hibbard, first president and founder of Silliman, wrote many years later. “In fact, there was no ceremony of any kind. No government nor any other dignitary was present. I remember coming down that morning from our quarters and seeing fifteen boys gathered in the room on the first floor of the building. There was not a pair of shoes nor a single hat among them. I do not remember seeing any of their parents with them. The boys were there because they wanted to be there.”
Alfonso Viliran, now 67, his hair gray and his voice weak, was one of the 15 barefoot boys “who wanted to be there.” That was 55 years ago today, but Viliran remembers some of those days better than the more recent ones.
Yet, life was not easy, even in those days. Anyway, not for the serious student. Viliran used to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to prepare his lessons, especially Standard Arithmetic. Philippine History was also considered an indispensable course. Dr. Hibbard’s desire that the boys learn about his native land made it necessary to teach them United States History. English being the medium of instruction, it was necessary to learn Grammar. And reading was the magic key that opened the treasures of the printed page.
Since the beginning, Silliman believed that mere facts and information do not make an educated man; so in addition to Physiology and Geography, the study of the Bible was added to the curriculum thereby giving the young both knowledge of the world around them and awareness of God in the world.
Morning classes began at 7:30 and ended at 11:00 o’clock. The boys went back to school at 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon and were dismissed at 4:30 after Physical Education which consisted of boxing, chinning-the-har, dumbell and ring (argolia) exercises.
Opening ceremonies in the morning included singing patriotic songs such as “The Star Spangled Banner.” “Columbia,” “The Gem of the Ocean,” and “Of Thee I Sing.” And Viliran fondly remembers that Dr. Hibbard never failed to start classes with the beautiful “Lord’s Prayer.”
The Institute had no school building of its own at the time, so classes were held in a tented house owned by Mr. Egnacio Gonzales west of Rizal Avenue. The two-story building had lime-stone foundations that walled in part of the lower story. The posts were of first-class hardwood, and the walls were of wood. The house was built to last for years.
Viliran himself did not stay long in Silliman. He left school after five years, unable to pay even the P2.00 monthly fee needed to pay for his studies. For two of those five years, he studied on a scholarship grant from the Dumaguete Municipal Council after placing first in the qualifying examination given by the government. But his training at Silliman qualified to teach in the public schools.
Now a retired public school teacher after 22 years of continuous service to his government, Viliran lives on his pension in the house his earnings have built for him just a stone’s throw from the Silliman campus, across the street from the University Mission Hospital.
He speaks of Silliman now with a lump in his throat, his voice breaking with uncontrollable emotion. And he smiles when he talks of Washington’s birthday and July 4th, the two official holidays grandly celebrated at Silliman. They had programs and parade around the town. The Sillimanites with the white sailor caps “that came from the States” and a red band around and across their chests attracted the admiration of town who would say, Baling mga toga Silliman, dili mga siponon.
Gradually, the boys acquired decent clothes. On ordinary school days, they wore closed-collar coats, but on special occasions they put on coat and tie. “We dressed like gentlemen in those days,” says Viliran, in conscious criticism of the casual fashion of today.
But the best tribute to the reputation of Silliman was paid by many Spanish students enrolled at the Institute despite the fact that at the time there were two schools in Dumaguete operated by Spaniards.
All this Viliran remembers, as he does the names of his classmates that memorable 28th day of August 1901: Pablo Bueno, Jacinto Catada, Simeon Emilia, Doroteo Flores, Jose Gamo, Lorenzo Gonzales, Daniel Larena, Patricio Larena, Andres Las Pinas, Eduardo Montenegro, Miguel Patero, Antonio Periquet, Gerardo Periquet, Geronimo Sobremisana. They were fifteen pupils, young in years, strong in heart, of high courage—the first of the eager young ones who year after year keep coming back to Silliman.
An assembly of students at Silliman Hall, first built in 1903.
Prof. Gloria Macabagting was very good at paraphrasing. Once her graduate class settled down, she’d tell everyone to gather near her around the small conference table, and to bring out their copies of their assigned reading for that session. Then she’d proceed to read every single line written in the photocopied handout, stopping every three sentences or so to paraphrase what she had read so far in the name of explication; and then paraphrase the same passage once more, but in a different way; and finally—to make sure everyone was on the same page as her in their quest for a deep, profound knowledge of their area of specialization—would paraphrase the same passage one last time, like so:
Henny Penny is a hen.
It is said that Henny Penny is a female chicken.
The fowl that is Henny Penny is the female variety of the chicken class.
1:06 PM |
Negros Oriental at the Outbreak of the Revolution and Why Fiesta is a Strategy
The Presidential Museum and Library has a good read on the unfurling of the Philippine Revolution in the Visayas, just in time for the 117th anniversary of Philippine Independence Day. (Let's just not settle on the controversial nature of this date for now...) But I find the article's mention of what exactly was happening in Negros Oriental a little too scarce, so here's an excerpt from "Negros Oriental in the Context of the Philippine Revolution"
by Earl Jude Cleope, current Dean of the College of Education here at Silliman University to provide better details...
The banner used by southern Negros revolutionaries in their three-day uprising against the Spanish authorities, which resulted in the establishment of the Cantonal Government of Negros (with the red field up to show solidarity with the other revolutionaries). Image courtesy of Malacanang website.
It must be established that when the Revolution against Spain began in August 1896, Negros Oriental, by then a relatively new province (established 1 January 1890), did not immediately feel the impact of the revolution. The same situation had been observed in other areas of the Visayas and Mindanao which, like this province, did not play a very significant economic or political role in the Spanish government. This situation seems to suggest that the revolution against the Spaniards, notably in its early stage, was late, if not absent, in many parts of the country.
It is possible to speculate a number of reasons why the participation of the province in the revolution came rather late. First, the peculiar geographic condition of the country separated the province from the national capital. Physical distance and the poor state of transportation and communication facilities which connected the disparate islands of the archipelago at that time combined to isolate the province from the events unfolding in other parts of the country.
Second, the leadership profile of the province at that time was composed mostly, if not all, by political leaders who were generally mestizo—a mix breed of Filipino and Spanish or Filipino-Spanish and Chinese. The elite, as they have been called, had vested interests that somehow influenced their actions. As T. Valentino Sitoy contends “…the rest of the Negros elites (sic) were disinterested, if not in fact, hostile to the revolution.”
Third, the inhabitants were widely perceived to be peace-loving people who preferred to stay out of trouble. The common expression “walay tay labot” has been pointed out as the verbal manifestation of such behavior. This view is supported by the comments Negros Oriental Governor Ferrer included in a letter to the Governor General in which he described the inhabitants of this province as “... peaceful in character, that no association whether authorized or secret existed, and that no person who because of their (sic) past conduct deserved to be watched.”
Fourth, there was no revolutionary army in the province. The absence of this army in Negros Oriental is supported by the fact that Pantaleon Villegas, popularly known as “Leon Kilat,” led the revolutionary forces in Cebu, although he himself was a native of Bacong (Sitoy 1990:12). Nevertheless, Caridad Rodriguez in her book Negros Oriental and the Philippine Revolution pointed out that about this time Pedro Baguio of Guihulngan and Diego de la Viña of Vallehermoso were already organizing some revolutionary activities. However, considering the distance of these two towns from Dumaguete and other towns, their activities were indeed an exception.
...
It is interesting to note that when Manila fell to the Americans in that “infamous” mock battle of Manila on 13 August 1898 the province was peaceful and remained quite even two months after this event took place. It is apparent at this time that both the leaders of this province and the people were closely watching the developments in the national front and carefully calculating their next moves.
Surprisingly, when the revolutionary leaders of this province did decide to join the revolution, they took the cue from Negros Occidental. After the liberation of Bacolod by the forces of General Juan Araneta on the first week of November 1898, Don Diego de la Viña immediately dispatched his son, Jose, to see the General “for instructions on what actions to take in Negros Oriental.” As a result, Diego de la Viña’s was commissioned as General de Brigada, Commandante del Ejercito Filipino, Provincia de Negros Oriental by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo who instructed him to “immediately rid Negros Oriental of Spanish forces garrisoned in said province, and hereafter, to organize a Provisional Revolutionary Government.” (Rodriguez1989: 84)
The March for Liberation
A close examination of the events surrounding the march for the liberation of the province could shed light on the fundamental question whether driving the Spaniards away was indeed the core of the revolutionary events in the province. As recorded by historians, the march for the liberation of the province started on 17 November 1898 after Gen. Diego de la Viña informed all the capitanes municipales in the towns of the strategy to converge all forces from the northern and southern towns and join forces to attack the capital town Dumaguete. Contrary to expectations, however, the march to Dumaguete turned out to be no more than a parade. Although imbued with the spirit to fight and the will to defend the province, the revolutionary forces which began their march from Vallehermoso in the north and from Siaton in the south found no opportunities for fighting on the way. As reported by Fr. Juan Lorenzo of Hiligaon and Fr. Lorenzo Cordon of Siaton “there was no fighting nor any losses of lives and property. Neither were there any outages nor retributions.” This is in reference to the southern towns liberated by forces headed by Major Felipe Tayko.
Apparently, at the time of the scheduled march, most of the Spanish civil guards, friars, and officials had already left the towns earlier for fear of their lives. With the declaration of independence by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo on 12 June 1898, the Spaniards also saw their situation worsening. When the American reinforcements arrived after the defeat of the Spanish fleet by Commodore George Dewey’s fleet on 1 May 1898, Spanish authorities realized that the Americans were now in control. On 23 November 1898, most of the Spaniards in the province left for Cebu. Gen. Diego de la Viña entered Dumaguete on 24 November 1898, the day after the departure of the Spaniards. As a result, the revolutionary forces entered the capital without the slightest resistance. November 24 was the bisperas of the town fiesta and many people from the neighboring towns and places were in the capital to celebrate the feast of the patron saint of Dumaguete. Indeed the fiesta celebration on 25 November 1898 was a very joyous occasion since, except for a few like Fray Pedro Bengoa who decided to join the rebels and who officiated the mass of the liberated Dumaguete, the Spaniards were no longer around.
As far as the timing for the siege of Dumaguete was concerned, the choice of the date, 24 November 1898 (Rodrigues 1989:93), to enter the capital remains historically controversial. On the one hand, the deliberate avoidance of a military confrontation by the revolutionary forces pointed to a lack of guts or might and tended to becloud the revolutionary spirit. On the other hand, the manipulation was considered a brilliant idea for it averted the needless loss of lives and property. Moreover, from the perspective of Foucault’s concept of negotiations for power, this deliberate avoidance of conflict assured the leaders of the revolution a certain number of advantages, foremost of which was keeping intact the structures of power over which they had vested interests. From the events that took place then, it would be difficult to insist that driving the Spaniards away was the core of the revolutionary events in the province.
The Liberation
After the liberation of the province, the officials were faced with the task of organizing the local government, the most urgent of which was deciding the kind and form of government to establish. This was a tall order for a young province still trying to put its acts together. On the one hand, while Negros Oriental leaders still considered themselves under the Malolos government of President Emilio Aguinaldo, the leaders of the neighboring province of Negros Occidental, who all belonged to the “landed aristocracy” (Rodriguez 1989: 107) created on 27 November 1898 a Cantonal government for the entire island of Negros similar with that of Switzerland. Among others, this system proposed the independence of Negros from the rest of the islands (Rodriguez 1989: 107). As well, this proposal was aimed at winning the support of the United States in the event of a Spanish invasion. Interestingly, although Negros Oriental leaders were not represented when then system was introduced, they followed orders from their counterparts in the Occidental. As Prof. Rodriguez puts it, “there was no question about the loyalty of the Negros Oriental leaders to President Aguinaldo’s government, but at the same time they found themselves following directives from Negros Occidental” (Rodriguez 1989: 107). From the outset, it was readily apparent that some conflicts of interest were bound to arise. This apprehension became a reality when the United States and Spain finally agreed to sign the Treaty of Paris on 10 December 1898 in which the Philippines, without the knowledge of the Filipinos, was ceded to the U.S. in the amount of $20,000,000.
It is the middle of the school year, and while most college students are out to grab what little vacation they can have in the wonderful, lazy doldrums of semestral break, I still see the grade schoolers and the high schoolers going about their daily grind in Dumaguete, chasing their after-class hours in their uniforms and constant chatter.
Sometimes, when I’m surrounded by these kids in some café like Poppy’s, their chatter cuts through me two-ways: in equal parts fascination and irritation—the last because, by God, they can chatter so with undiscovered decibels; and the first because they become a kind of time machine to old foggies like me. You listen in, and you are amused by the exchanges that are a mix of bragging, wonderment, and budding ennui, all underscored by a lingo informed by the Internet, anime, computer games, hiphop, and celebrity culture. Often, they speak English with a twang culled from years of watching Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. The young today are different creatures. But then again, each generation marks itself by its dissimilarity from the one that comes before.
I think about the specificity of how I grew up, and I’m horrified to know that my own childhood is something I have not exactly mined for remembrance or analysis, conveniently compartmentalized in a box of memories to be slowly forgotten. I don’t know why this is so, and sometimes I think, “Is it too late to try?”
But there are days when I’m forced to comprehend the memories I have forsaken. Sometimes I read a book, and it ignites a flash of memory that would make me laugh as well as unsettle me, for the very articulation of something I too shared in my past, but have lost in the dimness of adult life. That happened to me, too! How have I forgotten that? I’d think. Which is why, when I’m able to, I take out Bob Ong’s breakthrough bestseller ABNKKBSNPLAko! and make it required reading for my Philippine literature classes in the university where I teach. It is the one book that seemed to have been written to map out my own lost memories of growing up in a Philippine public school.
The book’s an easy read, enough to make it as a suitable opener for Filipino writings, which most incoming college freshmen seem to be largely ignorant of, save for Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere—and sometimes, not even that. The Filipino language of Ong’s book is accessible enough for most people, even for those of us in Negros where English is the preferred second language.
But what delights me about the book is its subject matter: it is a casual and comedic confession about life growing up in Philippine schools, from the competition in pencil sizes, to the fervent collection of “stationery,” from the enterprising teachers who had makeshift sari-sari stores over their desks, to becoming literature through the adventures of Pepe and Tagpi. (In my case, it was Bantay and Henny Penny. A dog and a chicken taught me Filipino and English.)
I don’t remember much, but I remember the intricacies of the “badge” system that fleshed out my school’s policy of “speak in English only.” I remember the pospas and the nutribun. I remember Mrs. Valencia, my favorite Grade 1 teacher, pinching my ears for daring to disrupt my classmates’ attention by drawing the Super Friends in my notebook. I remember falling in love with this beautiful girl in first grade—let’s call her Dee—and how I stayed in love with her till the sixth grade. I was so in love, I went to my mother sometime in third grade, and declared my intentions: “Mother, I want to marry Dee.” She only laughed. I don’t remember studying a lot, but I do remember reading my first sentence. I remember playing truant lots of time to watch a movie, and I remember one furious fistfight in Grade 2.
One time, during a “gang battle” of sorts in that grade, I threw a small rock at a kid, which landed squarely on his forehead, causing so much bleeding. Later that night, the kid and his mother stormed over to my house, and demanded redress, and my mother had no choice but to shoulder the medical expenses. After the spanking, she turned to me angrily, and gave me some Bible verse about how important it was to restrain oneself, even during a fierce fight. “If you get into a quarrel,” she said, “you should throw bread instead of stone!”
“But I had no bread with me!” I shouted back.
Which made her laugh. Or so I was told.
Then there’s surviving Math class. I just read an article from The Atlantic Monthly, which proclaimed that “being bad at Math” is largely a myth. This is interesting because I grew up believing I was never a Mathematics person. In grade school, I somehow refused to memorize the multiplication table, for example, because I kept finding myself asking things like, “Why is 2 x 2 = 4?” Always the why. (Which may be one factor why I became a writer instead.)
So every time we’d get these competition quizzes in class, like pitting two classmates together in a two-lane race—where every correct answer to flashcard mathematical problems gave one a chance to step forward where the teacher (and the finish line) was—I’d lose. The winner got to sit down, and the loser had to go over the race once more, until he or she wins. One time in Grade III, I lost to the ENTIRE class.
(But, whatever, I graduated valedictorian anyway, ha.)
I was always bad in Math, except when they gave us one of those “window” exams, and for some reason, I’d always rate high. Not until junior high in Silliman University did I learn to love Math. I loved the intense concentration every exam demanded. I loved it, and all because of Prof. Alice Mamhot. She was a patient teacher. She knew the value of listening, and so she refused to have us write down notes while she was lecturing, always intoning to us a sentence in mock Spanish: “No puede calabang en grande de baha.” And after we were done understanding everything she’d written on the board, she’d throw up her hands and say, “Copy break!” And then we’d finally write everything down in our notebooks. Somehow, that system worked for me. I learned to listen, and I learned to love Math with her. And during one periodical exam, I astounded everybody by getting a 99/100. I got a grade in the 90s that year.
So yes, we all have good Math in us. We just need good teachers.
I wonder what else I can remember from those growing up years...
This is interesting because I grew up believing I was never a Math person. In grade school, I somehow refused to memorize the multiplication table, for example, because I kept finding myself asking things like, "Why is 2 x 2 = 4?" Always the why.
So every time we'd get these competition quizzes in class, like pitting two classmates together in a two-lane race -- where every correct answer to flashcard mathematical problems gave you a chance to step forward where the teacher (and the finish line) was -- I'd lose. The winner got to sit down, and the loser had to go over the race once more. One time in Grade III, I lost to the ENTIRE class.
(But, whatever, I graduated valedictorian anyway, ha.)
I was always bad in Math, except when they gave us those "window" exams, and for some reason, I'd always rate high. Not until junior high in Silliman University did I learn to love Math. I loved the intense concentration every exam demanded. I loved it, and all because of Prof. Alice Mamhot. She was a patient teacher. She knew the value of listening, and so she refused to have us write down notes while she was lecturing, always intoning to us a sentence in mock Spanish: "No puede calabang en grande de baha." And after we were done understanding everything she'd written on the board, she'd throw up her hands and say, "Copy break!" And then we'd write everything down. I learned to love Math with her. And during one periodical exam, I astounded everybody by getting a 99/100. I got a grade in the 90s that year.
So yes, we all have good Math in us. We just need good teachers.
5:48 PM |
Things Take Time
