Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Since Jerrold Tarog’s Quezon came to movie screens everywhere last October 15, the debates it has initiated have been fruitful, but also wild. Is the film respectful or disrespectful of its subject matter? Shouldn’t the family have been consulted? Where are the merits of Quezon’s presidency in the film? What’s history and what’s fabulation? Should heroes remain on pedestals, or should they be brought down to our level? The simmering discourse finally erupted when a Quezon descendant took the director and his actor, Jericho Rosales, to task during a recent post-screening Q&A, accused them of being reckless and unfair, and dropped his mic in a dramatic huff. No one has exactly the same take on the film, although everyone has suddenly become an armchair historian.
I do believe most of these questions could be answered if only people bothered to supplement their viewing with the book tie-in published by Anvil Publishing—Quezon: The Story Behind the Film. For example, for those who have penned defenses of Quezon by saying that the film used mostly American colonial sources, here’s a quote from screenwriter Rody Vera from the book: “We decided to use Carlos Quirino’s Quezon: Paladin of Philippine Freedom as our template, which was by far the least hagiographical of [all the books we’ve read for our research] and covers a lot more detail that probably even other books might have referenced.” That’s hardly an American colonial reference.
The book is a small tie-in volume to Tarog’s long-awaited conclusion to his “Bayaniverse” trilogy, but I think it is more than just a supplement; it can create real conversations. Because everything you want to know or have questions about the film—the intent, the quarrels, the historical liberties, the controversies brewing in the echo chambers of Facebook, X, and Reddit—are all here, in the quiet candor of words. Here you will find the story of the film laid bare, and its intentions illustrated—all our myths about heroes, all our compulsions, all our complicities.
The book has nine parts, including an introduction by the historian John Ray B. Ramos; a producer’s notes written by Daphne O. Chiu-Soon; a message from the director which he had sent to every preview screening in the country; a section on movie stills and photos; a timeline of Manuel Quezon’s life, career, and legacy; a list of key references for those who demand historiographical integrity; and a timeline references—all very helpful, of course. But reading the book, I was more drawn to two specific sections of the film’s making: Rody Vera’s screenwriter’s notes, and an extensive interview with Jerrold Tarog, where he lays bare his intentions in making the film, his struggles in crafting it, and his hopes over what audiences might finally get from the story.
Vera’s essay reads like a confession. “Adapting into film the life story of any historical figure requires focus,” he writes. “It’s like confronting a huge slab of stone, the stone being the whole life of the real person, and chiseling away what is irrelevant.” It’s the best image anyone has ever written about screenwriting. You cannot put everything about your subject matter in the film! And as metaphors go, you realize it’s also how nations are made—chiseled, curated, reduced to fit the narrative of convenience.
Quezon, in hindsight, is less the hagiography we were taught in history class [if at all] and more an excavation of the man who shaped the architecture of our political soul. The screenwriter recalls reading Recah Trinidad’s ominous line from Kasaysayan: The Story of the Filipino People: “Quezon laid the groundwork and the precedence for the declaration of Martial Law and the establishment of dictatorship by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972.” That realization, Vera says, became the film’s premise for him—and you can feel the pulse of that realization on every scene.
What the film does quite well, and so with this book, is restore nuance to a figure we have long turned into a statue. In Tarog’s story, Quezon is not just the dashing Commonwealth president of gargantuan monuments and of cities and provinces named after him—he is also the cunning tactician who invented our brand of politics: cronyism as governance, charm as statecraft, charisma as national hypnosis. “It was thrilling,” Vera admits in his essay, “to apprehend that while Filipinos were given the opportunity toward attaining self-rule in a colonial setup, socio-political criticism was never lagging behind.” That observation hums like both celebration and elegy.
Tarog’s own message reads like a director’s meditation on faith—faith in cinema, faith in conversation, faith in the possibility of understanding history through art. “The whole idea behind this trilogy,” he notes, “is the exploration of the concept of Bayani.” Then, in one perfect passage, he writes: “We are removing them from their statues, from the giant monuments erected for them, and we are bringing them down to our level as humans.”
It’s a mission statement that could also describe what this small book achieves. The pages strip Quezon, Luna, and Goyo of their mythic varnish and leave us with the humans underneath—flawed, luminous, sometimes monstrous, always Filipino. Tarog insists: “History is a series of events where good people do good things, good people do bad things, bad people do bad things, and bad people do good things.” That sentence, simple as it is, might be the most honest distillation of the Filipino condition.
And yet, the essays in the book are not content to stay in the archives of the past. They hold a mirror up to our present. “If you read books about Quezon,” Tarog tells Anvil in the interview that rounds off the collection, “it feels like you’re reading about what’s happening now.” It’s true. Every page feels like déjà vu—political strongmen, moral gymnastics, the endless pageant of power and spectacle. When Tarog says, “It’s only a democracy in name, not in practice,” you can almost hear the sigh of an entire country.
The brilliance of film [and book] is that it refuses to simplify. Vera’s notes brim with self-awareness: “Is Quezon’s story therefore an allegory? Allegory, I guess, in this case is pointless. I think the film is more of an ‘origin’ story, that helps us understand why we are what we are as a nation.” To read this is to realize that every nation is, in fact, a genre film—revised, reshot, rebooted by every generation, with the same plot: a people trying to become a people.
The book also delves into the struggles of the film’s making. In Tarog’s interview in the book, you can sense exhaustion in his answers, but also grace. He recalls how “it probably took me a year or more” to compile a timeline of Quezon, Osmeña, and Aguinaldo, threading through “more than fifty books.” He admits the film’s limitations: what had to be cut, what could never fit into two hours of cinema. “Honestly,” he says, “Quezon’s life is very complex to study. Every decade of his life has something interesting, something dramatic that could be turned into a film. So to do justice to Quezon’s story, it would have to be a miniseries.” That miniseries will probably never happen—but we can imagine one with the expanded universe of a national soul, a patient curation of thought and struggle, of humor and disillusionment.
Tarog’s honesty is disarming: “Maybe [Quezon] was the only guy we had back then, or maybe he was the only one who could win over everyone else.” That may also be the secret horror of Philippine history: that our heroes were often just the best players of terrible games.
For those still bracing for controversy—those who suspect Quezon will be accused, as Heneral Luna once was, of reflecting too much of the vagaries of our present politics—the answers are already here. “Viewers will always watch through their own lens,” Tarog reminds us. “Life is messy and complicated.” The film does not impose judgment, especially on its characters; the book reflects this. For Tarog, it simply presents, with startling clarity, the continuum of power we have chosen to inherit.
But what lingers most for me from the book are the quieter insights. Vera muses on the camera itself as a metaphor, since the beginnings of Philippine cinema is a vital touchpoint in Quezon: “[Cinema] is but merely a projection of how its producer wants to be perceived, how he wants the truth to be told.” The line could describe Quezon, or any politician, or any filmmaker, or all of us, caught between image and self. “Who was that Filipino politician,” he asks, “who once said: ‘Perception is real, the truth is not’?”
I like how the book serves as a good footnote to how we have viewed the film. It reminds us that the film is really about us—our appetites for heroes, our addictions to myths, our uneasy laughter in the face of impunity. Tarog writes, “Ideally, our action is in the real world, not in the comments section.” And maybe that’s the invitation the film, and its book, gives us: to step out of the comments section of our history, and into its pages.
9:00 AM |
A Second Homecoming for Elsa Martinez Coscolluela
She is one of the best writers I know—although when you mention that to her, Elsa Victoria Martinez Coscolluela would demur. Once I remember her referring to her brother, the late David Martinez, as the better writer in the family. Granted, he was also a Palanca winner—he did the astonishing double whammy in 1997 by winning the Palanca first prizes for both the short story and poetry. But I think Ma’am Elsie is in a class of her own, and I will always be her grateful reader.
Admittedly, I first knew about her from two things. First, in high school, I came upon her short story “After This, Our Exile,” which won third prize at the 1972 Palanca Awards. I did not exactly know the import of her name yet, but I remember being blown away by the story’s instinctive feel for hacienda life in Negros, able to look beyond the gloss and see the rot behind the glitter of sugar. Second, when I knew more about her upon entering college at Silliman University, I learned that she was in fact crowned Miss Silliman in 1964—and I was quite astonished to realize one can actually be a great writer and also be a campus beauty queen. [Alas, when you’re younger, you tend to pigeonhole people into specifics. I later learned beauty queen writers were actually not uncommon. The equally great Dumaguete writer Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas was crowned Miss Negros Oriental in 1970. There’s also Jacqueline Veloso-Antonio who was Miss Dumaguete in 1985 and Miss Negros Oriental in 1987—and while she would not really call herself a writer, she is in fact a fascinating essayist, usually writing about local culture and heritage.]
Ma’am Elsie is still a beauty after all these years, and I have always taken to her as a kind of long-distance mentor. We chat often on Messenger, and the last time I was in Bacolod early this year, she went out of her way to take me out to dinner. I find this personal relationship with her very humbling. It is an honor to be friends with one of Silliman’s greatest writers.
The thing about Ma’am Elsie is that she is prolific. She writes poetry. She writes essays. She writes short stories. And she writes plays of various kinds—theatrical ones, of course, but also ones written for television and film. In the late 1960s until the 1980s, she was so prolific in her literary output that eventually she was elevated to the Palanca Hall of Fame in 1996—for the feat of having won five first prizes. Which is not something very easy to do. [For the record, she has won a total of 24 Palanca Awards.]
I love her plays. Her subject is so varied, but she returns often to the Negros of her childhood—which is in Dumaguete; and her adulthood—which is in Bacolod. That she is considered one of the foremost writers of both Negrense capitals means she has the pulse of Negros in her writings. And thus she is able to write truthfully about the place, and about us.
The thing about her plays, however, is that they’re seldom performed, if ever, even if they have won awards. The recurring joke about winning the Palanca for the play is that, after the awards ceremony, these plays find home not on the stage but in the drawer. But not for lack of trying by these playwrights; who wouldn’t want to have their plays staged? The simple reason is this: theatrical productions of local plays are very rare—unless you’re Nick Joaquin, Rene O. Villanueva, Nicolas Pichay, Floy Quintos, or Rody Vera, or, of late, Vincent de Jesus, Carlo Vergara, Dustin Celestino, Joshua Lim So, Guelan Varela-Luarca, or Eljay Castro Deldoc. You will notice a preponderance of Manila writers. The seeming exception seems to be Glenn Sevilla Mas from Iloilo, but he does work and live in Manila. Even in regional theater, play selections tend to favor Manila writers. How many times have we seen Marcelo Agana Jr.’s New Yorker in Tondo in Dumaguete? Or F. Sionil Jose’s Progress in Cebu? Too many times. They’re classics, of course—but their constant rotation in terms of local production seems to come at the expense of local writers.
One of Ma’am Elsie’s most famous plays is In My Father’s House, which won the Palanca in 1980. This is a Dumaguete play, based on the lives of her father and uncle who lived through World War II in Dumaguete, and who suffered tragically during the Japanese Occupation of the Oriental Negrense town. [Dumaguete would only become a city in 1948.] After the play won the Palanca, it was performed everywhere—at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila and at the University of the Philippines-Diliman in Quezon City; in Singapore; in L.A.; even in Tokyo. But it was never staged in Dumaguete. Here it was, a quintessential Dumaguete play, but never performed in Dumaguete itself.
That is until 2013, when the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council took the chance of bringing it back home, under the direction of Amiel Leonardia. I was part of that cast at the Luce Auditorium, and we were honored to be part of that history in the making.
And that’s the thing. There are so many playwrights from Silliman and/or Negros Oriental. We have Ricaredo Demetillo, Bobby Flores Villasis, Linda Faigao-Hall, Rosario Cruz Lucero, Roberto Ponteñila Jr., Lemuel Torrevillas, Alfred Yuson, Leoncio Deriada, Edilberto K. Tiempo, Luna Griño-Inocian, Dessa Quesada-Palm, Rolin Migyel Obina, and many others. Ang among the younger set, we have Beryl Andrea Delicana, Earnest Hope Tinambacan, Karla Longjas, Junsly Kitay, Michael Aaron Gomez, Benjie Kitay, and Jireh Catacutan. Their plays keep winning plaudits everywhere—but they remain unstaged.
Which is why last year, Dessa and I took the initiative to start staging Palanca-winning plays by local writers, to be directed by our student directors at the Speech and Theater Department of Silliman University as part of their senior thesis productions. We thought this would give their works a chance to come alive. We started with the Palanca-winning one-act plays by Bobby Flores Villasis last year. This year, we have continued this project with the Palanca-winning one-act plays by Elsa Martinez Coscolluela. Staging In My Father’s House in 2013 was her homecoming to Dumaguete; this play festival should serve as the second one.
Last November 28, we finally raised the curtain on the first playdate of the Elsa Martinez Coscolluela Play Festival at the Woodward Blackbox Theatre at Silliman University. We knew the endeavor is partly to honor our beloved Dumaguete [and Bacolod] playwright, but we also were aware that the project is still essentially a laboratory for Silliman’s theatre students. We were going to watch student-directed plays, not professionally staged ones—and for that, we knew it will mostly be a hit or miss affair depending on the strengths of the student director involved. [You take these things with a grain of salt, always hoping for the best.]
Which is really to say: I was awed by what I saw of the Set A plays that night—with Bret Bonnie Ybañez directing Japayukisan, the opening play, and Francis Esguerra directing Blood Spoor, the final play for opening night.
Mr. Ybañez took the melodrama of a young woman arriving home from abroad to attend her father’s funeral and keeping fiercely the secret that she works as a Japayuki [or nightclub entertainer] in Japan, and staged the play with surprising restraint and subtlety. [Even with a delicious catfight involved!] Even with a forlorn scene of having closure with an old boyfriend! [This scene actually made me tear up.]
What made the production work was that Mr. Ybañez knew how to get to the interiority of the story; he also knew that good casting for our protagonist would be enough to telegraph the emotional core of the story. Mass Communication student Joriz Angel Palermo as Mayang the Japayuki truly gets to the heart of her character so well: we commiserated with her when she grappled with her secret; we ached for her when she confronted her sister and mother about having to support her family while her siblings got the privilege of going to school on her dime while she stripped away her dignity in a mob-controlled bar in Japan; and we rooted for her when she was tearing the hair out of a nosy “family friend.” When she is later confronted by her ex-boyfriend to get to the heart of their breakup, we finally comprehend where she is coming from and the extent to which she has arrived at a hard-earned worldly wisdom: “We don’t always get what we want. Plans miscarry, feelings change, dreams die—.” Heady stuff, and yet I like that at the end of it, the two characters choose to be kind to each other, to say goodbye in tacit understanding of their parting. Powerful stuff.
Mr. Esguerra, on the other hand, has the luckier hand in directing a material that invites the epic and the atmospheric. But he also shows that he knows what exactly to do with every beat of the story: he begins the play with bird sound in complete darkness, then with the actors coming in from the direction of the audience, screaming incoherent pain in that darkness—until suddenly, a shaft of stage light shows us a woman on centerstage cradling a dying, bloodied girl. Then we get a sense of the other characters in the melee, all looking bloody, and then we understand that this is a community of Mindanao lumad, their homes having been randomly attacked by the military. There is much wailing, and recrimination, and later on, some quiet moments when the characters ponder their fate with each other. And then all of that gets embraced with some uncanny use of supernatural elements—fog and chanting and blinking lights do the trick—which are somehow tied up with the age-old beliefs and rituals of the hurting tribe. It is a very serious play, but it works. It is also very bloody and deadly, although all the violence occurs off-stage. I quite liked it. I admired how Esguerra knew how to pace the material, how to block, how to use music effectively, and how to detonate the drama with eerie silence. I like that he has a good sense of stage spectacle, which is rarely achieved by most student directors.
As of this publication, Set A [Japayukisan and Blood Spoor] would have finished their two-day run. You can still, however, catch Set B [First Fruits and Late Journey Home] on December 2 and 3, and Set C [The Captive Word] on December 6 and 7. The first two plays were more than the worth of the measly P200 ticket. If you are in Dumaguete, do yourself a favor and catch the remainder of the festival. This is truly a celebration of Dumaguete’s literary heritage.
This year, Dumaguete City is the official Philippine endorsee to become a UNESCO City of Literature in 2025, and it deserves that distinction truly. Doing this kind of theatre festival, of putting life to the literary works of our local literary artists, is very much a part of that effort.
I spent the morning bingeing on Mervin Malonzo’s Tabi Po series! I’ve meant to finish the three books since the first volume came out in 2014 [and the last in 2017], so I finally set aside time this Sunday morning to do just that. Thanks to Michael Reyes of 451°F Books and Café [ IG: @451bookscafedgte ] for lending me the last two volumes so that I could binge!
I find it fascinating that Jose Rizal’s novels continue to be the template for many contemporary stories, including the latest run of GMA’s Maria Clara at Ibarra. Malonzo’s take is not exactly the novels, but he takes many of the characters to populate his tale of aswangs in Hispanic Philippines.
There’s one particular excerpt in Isyu 3 that struck me the most, because it sums up very well the Filipino in the post-EDSA period. The old revolutionary Matanglawin is attempting to rescue Isagani from a mob about to lynch him for the cannibalistic murders of Padre Damaso and Padre Salvi, among others [who are actually the victims of Elias, the main aswang of the series]. Matanglawin attempts to placate them by telling them that if it were true Isagani is guilty of these deaths, then he should be considered a hero for saving them from the systemic abuse these people were actually guilty of. The town people’s response is telling. This is the stuff of the Marcos Restoration.
12:11 AM |
Mabuhay ang Kalayaan. Isabuhay ang Kalayaan. EDSA at 37.
37 taon na mula nang magkapit-bisig ang mga Pilipino sa kalsada para bawiin ang bansa. Kahit ilang dekada tayong dinahas ng estado, nanlaban tayo gamit lang ang ating pag-asa. At ang pag-asang iyan ay pinaloob ng "Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo" sa isang kanta.
Sa anibersaryong ito ng EDSA People Power, hinaharap natin ang katotohanan. Na hindi natin natupad ang lahat ng mga pangako ng pag-asang iyon o napangalagaan ang kalayaang ating napanalunan. Marami sa atin ang bigo.
Ngunit aawitin pa din natin ang mga salitang iyon. Ibabahagi pa din natin ito sa mga napakabata pa para malaman kung anong tapang ang kailangan para huwag tuminag, magdasal, at itulak ang gumugulong na tangke.
Dahil ang EDSA ay hindi lang kalsada. Hindi lang ito alaala. Ito ay ang lakas ng bawat Pilipino na gawin ang tama, lumaban nang may pagdamay, hindi kalupitan. Buháy ang EDSA sa bawat isa sa atin, at ang kantang ito ay isang paraan para ito marinig. Para mapaalalahanan tayong tapusin ang ating sinimulan.
The filmmakers behind 11,103 have been making this film for a long time, and my family is honored to have been part of this project, although we’re not in the final cut. (We will be in a separate feature.) The film features survivor stories of state-sponsored violence during the martial law years of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and our contribution is our family's story. It will premiere in the U.S. on the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines, September 17, in Redwood City.
Congratulations, Mike Alcazaren and Jeannette Ifurung!
1:00 PM |
A Bibliography of Martial Law Literature in the Philippines [With Links]
GRAPHIC BY RAPPLER
I first compiled this list in 2016 to help counter the notion put forth by Duterte that “there were no books or films about the Martial Law.” Exactly six years later [sigh], I’ve decided to update this — complete with [legitimate] links to most of the books, films, and music listed. In doing this though, I’ve discovered this sad truth: most of the items here are [1] out of print, [2] hard to find [even the movies!], and [3] being sold at sometimes extravagant prices by third-party sellers, no wonder we’re not helping in countering the disinformation. Even the most avid researcher will find it hard to get their hands on these. There’s also not a lot that would be considered “pop literature,” pang-masa. This is a challenge for authors, publishers, and distributors.
All items arranged alphabetically according to authors’ surnames. All links lead to legitimate publishers’ and/or retailers’ sites. If I have missed out on a title, please email me at icasocot@gmail.com.
Why Cage Pigeons?by Mila Aguilar
“Liham sa Kaarawan ni Pinang” by Tomas F. Agulto
“Doktrinang Anakpawis” by Rio Alma
“The Bells Count in Our Blood” by Merlie Alunan Hagkis ng Talahibby Lamberto Antonio
“Dead Weight: In Memoriam” by Cirilo Bautista
“For Emmanuel” by Luis Cabalquinto
“Young Rebels” by Luis Cabalquinto
“Etiopia Idiay Negros, Ngem Saan a Negros Iti Etiopia” by Peter La. Julian
“Pagdiriwang” by Emmanuel Lacaba
“The People’s Warrior” by Emmanuel Lacaba
“An Open Letter to Filipino Artists” by Emmanuel Lacaba
[Note: Emmanuel Lacaba’s poems are collected in Salvaged Poems]
“Prometheus Unbound” by Pete Lacaba [as Ruben Cuevas]
“Santong Paspasan” by Pete Lacaba
[Note: Pete Lacaba’s poems are collected in Mga Kagilagilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran]
“Paglilimi ng Isang Empleyado sa Gobyerno” by Loreta M. Medina Clearing: Poems of People’s Struggles in Northern Luzonby Jason Montana
“Brave Woman” by Grace R. Monte de Ramos
“Paghiwagas sa Bilangoan” by Don Pagusara
“Kuwarenta” by Benjamin Pimentel
“The Story I Would Have Wanted to Tell You Had I Met You Yesterday” by Lina Sagaral Reyes
“A Survivor Talks to Her Ghost-Husband” by Lina Sagaral Reyes
“Sister Home for the Weekend” by Patria Rivera Versus: Philippine Protest Poetry, 1983–1986edited by Alfrredo Navarro Salanga [Note: poems from this anthology are not listed here]
“Tumatayog, Lumalawak ang mga Bilding at Resort” by Romulo Sandoval
“Sa Ala-ala ni Sister Bernard Tahimik na Tagapaglingkod ng mga Detenidong Pulitikal” by Isagani R. Serrano
“List(ing) Poem: Towards the New Filipino Society” by Eileen Tabios
“My City of Baguio” by Eileen Tabios
“The Rebel’s Son” by Eileen Tabios
“What Can A Daughter Say?” by Eileen Tabios
“Daluyong sa llaya” by Efren Abueg
“The Red Wagon” by Estrella D. Alfon
“In the Country” by Mia Alvar
“A Tall Woman from Leyte” by Gina Apostol
“A Tale of Two Diaries” by Cesar Ruiz Aquino
“A Taste for the Fine Whiskey of the Bourgeoisie” by Gregorio Brillantes
“You Got It All” by Ian Rosales Casocot
“Mga Lamat sa Moog” by Danilo A. Consumido
“Amnesty” by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.
“In the Garden” by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr. Bukal ng Tubig at Apoyby Levy Balgos dela Cruz
“Paalam sa Buwan” by Levy Balgos dela Cruz
“A Theory of Relatives” by Daryll Jane Delgado
“Fallout” by Maria L.M. Fres-Felix
“Mading and Pepito” by Allen Gaborro
“Alamat ng Sapang Bato” by Fanny A. Garcia
“Red Roses for Rebo” by Amadís Ma. Guerrero
“Sino Man Sa Atin: Kwentong-Kambal ng Magkahilerang Kamalayan” by Chi Balmaceda Gutierrez
“Ang Pagdating ni Elias Plaridel” by Ave Perez Jacob
“Dugo sa Kanyang Pagsilang” by Domingo S. Landico
“Kabilang sa mga Nawawala” by Ricky Lee
“Si Tatang, Si Tandang Senyong, Si Freddie at Iba Pang Tauhan ng Aking Kuwento” by Ricky Lee
“Tipaklong, Tipaklong, Bakit Bulkang Sumabog ang Dibdib ni Quintin Balajadia?” by Alfonso S. Mendoza
“Sulat Mula sa Pritil” by Norma O. Miraflor
“A Sickness in the Towns” by Resil B. Mojares
“Isang Araw sa Buhay ni Juan Lazaro” by Jose Rey Munsayac
“Back of the March” by Denis Murphy
“The Execution” by Charlson Ong
“Syeyring” by Jun Cruz Reyes
“Utos ng Hari” by Jun Cruz Reyes
“Langit-Langitang Kumunoy” by Victor Antonio Reyes
“At The School Gate” by Sandra Nicole Roldan
“The Safe House” by Sandra Nicole Roldan Bitter Country and Other Storiesby Ninotchka Rosca
“Generations” by Ninotchka Rosca
“The Southern Seas” by Ninotchka Rosca
“Insurrecto” by Joel Pablo Salud
“Good Intentions 101: SY ‘72-‘73” by Menchu Aquino Sarmiento
“Negros” by Eileen R. Tabios
“Force Majeure” by Eileen Tabios
“The Man in a White Suit” by Eileen Tabios
“Pork” by Eileen Tabios
“Redeeming Memory” by Eileen Tabios
“The Bridge” by Yvette Tan
“Maria, Ang Iyong Anak” by Wilfredo Pa. Virtucio
“Ang Suhito” by Januar Yap
“A Wedding, A Divorce, A Profession and Two Funerals” by Karl M. Gaspar
“From Yeh Yeh to Go Go” by Nick Joaquin [as Quijano de Manila]
“Once Upon a Time in Manila” by Alfredo P. Hernandez
“Against the Dying of the Light: The Filipino Writer and Martial Law” by Ed Maranan
Bonsai by Reuel Molina Aguila
Ligalig by Reuel Molina Aguila
Maliw by Reuel Molina Aguila
Satirika by Reuel Molina Aguila
Esprit de Corps by Auraeus Solito
So Sanggibo A Ranon Na Piyatay O Satiman A Tadman by Rogelio Braga
Here Lies Love by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim
Pambansang Bayan by Bon Ilagan
Ang Panunuluyan ng Birheng Maria at San Jose Sa Cubao, Ayala, Plazamiranda Atbp., Sa Loob at Labas ng Metro Manila by Alan Glinoga, Al Santos, and Rody Vera
Anatomiya ng Korupsyon by Malou Leviste Jacob
Juan Tamban by Malou Leviste Jacob
Macli-ing by Malou Leviste Jacob
Isang Makabagong Pantomina Sa Tawi-Tawi, Cotabato At Iba Pang Pulo by Anton Juan Jr.
Ang Kagila-Gilalas Na Pakikipagsapalaran Ni Juan De La Cruz by Emmanuel Lacaba
Ang Panahon ni Cristy by Ed Maranan
Buwan at Baril in Eb Major by Chris Millado
Batang PRO by Bienvenido Noriega Jr.
Bongbong at Kris by Bienvenido Noriega Jr.
Sinalimba by Don Pagusara and Fe Remotigue
Bombita by Tony Perez
Isang Araw sa Karnabal by Nicolas Pichay
Alipato by Nonilon Queaño
Ang Sistema ni Propesor Tuko by Al Santos
Oratoryo Ng Bayan (People’s Oratorio) by Rody Vera and Allan Glinoga
Burles by Rene O. Villanueva
Kaaway sa Sulod by Rene O. Villanueva
May Isang Sundalo by Rene O. Villanueva
Sigwa by Rene O. Villanueva
Kaaway sa Sulod by Rene O. Villanueva and Rolando S. de la Cruz
I contributed my voice to this chorus of Filipino writers urging everyone to vote Leni/Kiko 2022 for the sake and love of country. [This is the second batch video, by the way.]
Isang paalala galing sa inyong mga kaibigan at mga katrabaho:
Sana yang iboto mo, ay yung katulad mo na mabait
at may pagpapahalaga sa ating mga katrabaho
sa mundo ng panitikan, patalastas, telebisyon at pelikula.
Sana ang iboto mo ay yung katulad mo na masipag
na nauuna sa pagtulong sa mahihirap
at sa mga biktima ng mga kalamidad.
Sana ang iboto mo ay yung katulad mong matalino
na hindi nagpapakalat ng fake news
at ng mga paninira sa kapwa.
Sana ang iboto mo ay yung katulad mong matapang
na hindi umaatras sa ano mang hamon ng panahon.
Sana ang iboto mo ay yung katulad mong mabuti
na nagsisilbi sa iyong kapwa at sa bayan.
Sana ang iboto mo ay yung katulad mong matapat
sa ano man tungkulinge na pinagagawa sayo
at hindi nanglalamang sa kapwa.
Sana ang iboto mo ay yung katulad mong masinop
na may pagpahalaga sa pera
at hindi nagnanakaw.
Sana pareho din ang iboboto natin na mabait,
masipag, matalino,
matapang, mabuti,
matapat at masinop
… na katulad ni LENI at KIKO.
Pag-isipan mong mabutie…
para sa kinabukasan ng iyong pamilya at bansa.
I have never been to a political rally in my entire life. Going to one—braving the stifling crowd, bearing the heat and the exhaustion, enduring the often bloated and meandering speeches of politicians—just feels like the most extreme form of rendering political support, even if you do believe in voting for that politician in the coming elections. It has never been a line I was willing to cross, although I am very much a political animal and I believe in the importance of political expression.
But go to a rally? Not a chance.
It is already enough that at the height of election season we have to navigate city streets where the faces of politicians running for public office leer at you from every street corner and from every tree that has been made to suffer the indignity of having to be papered over by an assortment of posters and tarpaulins. It’s already quite disconcerting to see them smiling at you with their blown-up Photoshopped faces, their “friendliness” almost mercenary. But to go to a rally where these “friendly posters” become fully bodied? Not a chance.
And yet there was something different in the air in the days going towards April 20th in Dumaguete. You could say that it was part conviction, part trepidation, part desperation, part anger, and part hope that were stirring the atmosphere. For months, all these feelings could only truly show expression via social media posts, often resulting to rabid sparring with others who are, in the words of comedian Ogie Diaz, “from the other parlor.” And while we acknowledge that social media has indeed impacted how politics are managed in this day and age, for better or for worse, I think people have been craving for a “physicality” of that political expression, even if they have never done it before.
The rallies in other places—Cebu, Pampanga, Davao, Bataan, Bohol, to mention only a few—were already providing us a template with which to sate this need for a physical demonstration of a political stirring. But beyond that need, and beyond being awed by the thousands who flocked to these rallies before Dumaguete happened, I think there was also a conviction that this election was “different.” It almost felt as if the Election of 2022 was a referendum on the very core and spirit of the nation. So much was at stake. Given the chance to publicly voice out one’s political convictions, you had to be present, for all that it was worth.
I think of my friend Marita Ong, proprietor of O.K. Mart, who also confessed to me that she had also never been to a political rally before. “But this time feels different,” she said. She had to come.
So she came to RUSI Ballfield on the 20th, and also 40,000+ others—not counting the 15,000 crowd that gathered at the Rizal Boulevard in a separate rally that was also a miting de avance of the city administration slate early that evening.
We went, not because of artistas. As a political rally virgin I didn’t even know there were performers involved. But a friend from theatre, Hope Tinambacan, who sang during the rally and was part of the Sidlak group of performers, commented: “Para syang cultural show, not a political rally!”
We went not because we were bayaran. Most of us spent our own money to get this thing going, to participate in the spirit of this being a “people’s movement.”
We went because we felt the need to be counted—and we needed to meet this reckoning with history full-on. In the years to come, when I will be asked: “What did you do in 2022 when the country called on you to do the right thing?,” I want to be able to say that I contributed my voice to the movement that signaled best our love for country.
I came with friends and family, knowing that this was a red [or pink!]-letter day for all of us. We prepared by printing our own shirts, with design from a pair of Cebu graphic artists [Phawip and Dawie of The Con Artists] who willingly donated it to anyone who wanted it. We prepared by plotting out, days beforehand, what food and drinks we needed to have, and what chairs we needed to bring. [We ended up deciding on an easy-to-carry platform—which served us perfectly as a common chair, as holding area for our bags, and as riser to bring us to workable heights with which to see over the heads of the gathered throng. It even accommodated the occasional stranger who needed rest from the grueling day.] We prepared because we had no idea what to expect. All of us were political rally virgins.
Our friends Anna Espino and Carlo Regalado prepared by also doing their own shirts, and crafting out their own placards and banners. I loved Carlo’s take: “Mga Mang-aagaw ng Kanta sa Videoke for Leni!” I knew many others were preparing the same thing. [Two of my favorites: “Swifties for Leni!” and “Mga Palahubog for Leni!”]
Many volunteers, led by leaders such as lawyer Golda Benjamin, prepared by fine-tuning and executing many of the essentials of very difficult logistics. Others volunteered to give performance. [One of my favorites was seeing Dumaguete medical frontliners perform "Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo." That made me tear up.] Others prepared by readying food [cupcakes! candies! biscuits and cookies!] and bottled water and fans and pink roses made from art paper—all given out for free in the duration of ten long hours as people milled about the rally venue. One of my best friends, the dentist Xandro Dael who previously voted for Duterte in 2016, loved the fiesta atmosphere of it all: “I love the keychains, pins, pencils, and food! Daghan kaayo!” he said. “Doughnuts, siopao, cookies, silvanas, ice cream—all in pink!”
We did not expect that kind of festivity at all. [Is this common in political rallies?] I overheard someone say, “Mura’g Hibalag, Buglasan, og Pride Parade combined.” True enough, there were many members of the LGBTQ community around—some in fabulous pink drag. [One appropriated the horns of Maleficent, all done in pink, and sashayed all over RUSI Ballfield, to gleeful applause.] There were also, delightfully, cheerleaders doing their routine—even in the blasting heat of the afternoon sun.
We were there since 1 PM, sheltered for a bit in neighboring restaurants to wait out the sun, came back to the grounds at 4 PM, and stood in our designated spot until 11 PM. That’s seven hours of standing up along with the rest of those thousands inside RUSI Ballfield; no one in their right mind would do that without the clearest conviction that they were doing the right thing.
And when the rally finally started around sunset with a couple of well-known comedians, the crowd only got bigger, the collective energy growing brighter by the minute. When I looked around, I was astonished that I could see people all the way to the margins of the ballfield. I was even astonished by the demographics on full display: this was a very, very young crowd—all of them incredibly impassioned. One young guy behind us, someone clad in white-washed jeans, a white shirt, and an opened polo shirt in various baby pastel hues, and who was there with his barkada, was a bundle of energy that was infectious. He was fun and demonstrative in his participative shouts, which only egged on the rest of us who were near him.
It wasn’t all flawless, needless to say. A former action star and athlete running for senator had to do an embarrassing kissing bit with a female rallyer. [In 2022? In the wake of the #MeToo movement worldwide?] And one incumbent senator with an embarrassing campaign tagline dragged on forever with what was supposed to be a short stump speech, meandering about railroads and the various possible acronyms for W.O.W., and peppered his “I love you’s” with strange insults hurled at the audience—at one time telling all of us, “Ang laki-laki ng mga ulo nyo.” He went on forever and did not make sense, and he said his goodbye a thousand times—and soon the energy that built up all throughout the evening noticeably went down. [Even the energetic young man behind us was now sitting down on the grass, noticeably grown quiet.] It was such a downer, not even the great Kuh Ledesma who immediately followed him could reignite the energy that was previously there. It took Gab Valenciano’s performance prowess to bring up the energy again—and thank God, because that was the crucial moment going into the very heart of the rally. Kiko came on with a heartfelt call for action, and then there was, finally, Leni.
The crowd went wild.
From Cong. Josy Limkaichong’s introduction to the presidential candidate, I remember the awe in her voice when she beheld the crowd from the stage: “In my whole 20-year political career, I have never seen this many people in a political rally in Negros Oriental.” [True! Oriental Negrenses are famously reticent in political demonstrations.] Later on, in a private chat, she would admit that she was overwhelmed with the huge crowd and with the unexpected turnout—and for once she was not sure how the diverse crowd [composed mostly of young people] would react to her message: “To be candid with you, it was my first time to address a crowd of that magnitude, and I wasn’t sure if my message would come across the Millennials and Generation Z.”
From what I witnessed, it clearly went over very well—and so did Leni’s call for better governance in a time when it is most needed. As my friend, the writer Tara De Leon, later on commented (borrowing from the title of a famous movie): “The kids are all right.”
Two days later, I was back in my old haunt where I work best: a hotel café along the Rizal Boulevard. One of the waiters there [name withheld to protect his privacy] told me: “Sir Ian, I was there, too—right after I got out of my shift at the hotel. And I’ve been trying to convince my friends and family here and in Siquijor to vote for Leni, even though some of them are voting for [he who must not be named].” And this waiter proceeded to tell me about the research that he did, all the articles he read, to arrive at the conclusion he has: he has to vote pink. Clearly an informed choice—and I was happy for that!
Politics is essential and should not be reduced to a flippant vote come election time. Politics is the distillation of everything one believes and holds dear—a cumulative core of everything, from sociology to history, from science to culture, from morality to legality. It is not nothing. Who you vote for is the sum of who you are as an individual and as a person of the world.
In the light of those 40,000 and counting, I am gratified to know there is still some light and decency left in this world. I am throwing off my old cudgels of despair: I love finally knowing that I am not alone in the fight against the darkness that threatens to further engulf us.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, and its color is pink.
[PHOTOS BY MELISA MAGHANOY AND ROBBIN DAGLE OF RAPPLER]
[1] From “Oust Duterte matrix suspect” to “Congratulations, Hidilyn, the entire Filipino nation is proud of you” in two years. What a flex.
[2] Gratifying to hear the “Lupang Hinirang” while the Chinese flag flew second place.
[3] Filipino women always do the heavy lifting around here. So, go Golda Benjamin! And vote for Leni Robredo!
[4] In a sporting event like an Olympics where participation and support is heavily political, you cannot suddenly erase the political from Hidilyn Diaz’s win just for ... vibe’s sake. Hides brought it up herself in her very first post-medal ceremony interview with Gretchen Ho -- which was poetic justice since both of them were ensnared in that “matrix” kagaguhan in 2019.
A few months ago, I posted this on Facebook: a search for video essayists on YouTube that tackled Filipino culture, history, and the arts. The resounding response in the comments was that there was none. It gnawed on me for a long time, which is why I decided to test the waters late last month. [I have two video essays up over at my channel!]
I’ve also since discovered a few like-minded souls, and here are some Pinoy creatives trying to fill the gap:
1:51 PM |
Video Essays on Philippine Art and Culture
My YouTube channel is just something I’m trying out for several reasons:
[1] I was surprised to know I already have more than 2K subscribers with hardly any content, which made me feel like this was an untapped platform for me;
[2] I’ve been looking for a YouTube video essayist [parang Vox] on Philippine arts and culture, and there’s none, so I felt there is an unfilled niche;
[3] I need to somehow have an outlet for my teaching persona since I’m not teaching anymore;
[4] I had to find a way to learn to love my video voice [I hate it!]; and
[5] my recording and editing skills are very elementary [I’m only using my Photo Booth camera and my iMovie editing app], but I know all good things start small and that's how you learn anyway: jump off into the deep end.
I have two video essays up on my channel so far—and a bunch of older videos and Eddie Romero movies. Comments welcome, but please be gentle. Subscribe and hit the notification bell if you're so inclined.
Someone recently asked what is my reason for staying in Dumaguete. A long time ago, the same question was asked the literary power couple Edilberto and Edith Tiempo, and their answer was simple: “The Dumaguete shoreline.”
On good days, when I walk by the famed Rizal Boulevard, I get what they meant. There is something about this specific view that tugs at the heart, and convinces you this is ample reason for staying. But I’m starting with a Tiempo story because my own answer is different—but literary.
People forget that the literary is in the heart of being Dumaguetnon, or of being Oriental Negrense. We who live here live in a place that’s practically the heart of Philippine literature—or at least one of its vital organs—and not just because this is home for many of our beloved writers, but also because its landscape has been thoroughly etched in so many poems, so many short stories, so many essays, so many novels, and so many plays. And not just by our homegrown writers; Dumaguete lives in the pages penned from so many writers from other places, all inspired by what they see as its bucolic air and its gentle people (and often its mystery), seduced by the “literary” spirit of the place, with many of them coming here to incubate in that particular atmosphere.
I remember the American writer Tim Tomlinson going for a diving vacation in Apo Island without prior knowledge of Dumaguete. “When I passed through the place,” he told me, “something struck me about it as a haven for writers for some reason.” Once he got back to Manila, he asked a poet friend, “What do you know about Dumaguete?” And that’s when he got to know a bit of Oriental Negrense literary history—that it is home to the oldest creative writing workshop in Asia, that it is home to two National Artists (Edith Tiempo and Eddie Romero), that it is home (and incubator) to so many contemporary writers who fill the pages of our anthologies and the shelves of our bookstores.
Grace Monte de Ramos is a poet from Siaton. Simon Nino Anton Baena is a poet from Bais. Rolin Miguel Cadallo Obina is a playwright also from Bais. Bobby Flores Villasis is a poet, fictionist, and dramatist from Bayawan. (His short story collection, Suite Bergamasque, is a sinful take on the denizens of the Rizal Boulevard sugar mansions, and many of his plays tackle the highs and lows of our landed class.) Ernesto Superal Yee is a poet and fictionist from Tanjay. (His novel Out of Doors is a scintillating love story with the backdrop of his city’s sugar country.)
Then there are the Dumaguete writers, like César Ruìz Aquino (read Chronicles of Suspicion), David C. Martinez (read A Country of Our Own), Artemio Tadena (read This Craft, As With a Woman Loved: Selected Poems), Jose V. Montebon Jr. (read Cupful of Anger, Bottle Full of Smoke), Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas (read Upon the Willows and Other Stories), Myrna Peña-Reyes (read Memory’s Mercy), and Edilberto Tiempo (read More Than Conquerors)—each of those books containing either glimpses or full vistas of life in Negros Oriental, for better or for worse (at least for drama’s sake).
A lot of them do reflect on some painful truths and social commentary—for example, the Dumaguete in Lakambini Sitoy’s novel Sweet Haven (hidden under the moniker Donostia) goes deep into social hypocrisy, and the Dumaguete in Elsa Martinez Coscolluela’s play In My Father’s House chronicles the sundering of family at the height of the Japanese Occupation during World War II. In Edith Tiempo’s story, “The Black Monkey,” a crippled woman battles her fears in the hills of Valencia also during the war.
Merlie Alunan has anthologized literary memories in The Dumaguete We Know, and together with Villasis edited the seminal Kabilin, the coffee-table book commemorating the provincial centenary in 1991. Dumaguete figures prominently in the fiction of Aida Rivera Ford (read “There’s a War Out There!”), Jaime An Lim (read “The Axolotl Colony”) and Antonio R. Enriquez (read “Butong”), the poetry of Anthony Tan (read “To a Tree Near a Boulevard”) and Ricaredo Demetillo (read “Banyan Tree”), and the plays of Lemuel Torrevillas (read “Looking for Edison or What’s the Name of the Guy Who Invented Something”), all of whom lived in the city in the formative years of their writing lives.
When you tackle the works of writers not from the province, you’ll be surprised to find Negros Oriental at the heart of some of their works: discover Bacong’s Leon Kilat in Krip Yuson’s novel The Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café; climb the foothills of Valencia in Gemino Abad’s poem “Casaroro Falls”; chart the heartbreaks of the Rizal Boulevard in the poems of Cesar Aljama (“Dumaguete Nights”), Ricardo M. De Ungria (“Dumaguete Blues”), Nerisa Del Carmen Guevara (“Boulevard Tree”), Jose Wendell Capili (“Hugging the Shore”), Jeneen Garcia (“On a Night Boat From Dumaguete”), and Diana T. Gamalinda (“Dumaguete”); dive into the dark (and sometimes fantastic or erotic) side of Dumaguete in the stories of Marianne Villanueva (“Dumaguete”), Leoncio Deriada (“Tartanilya”), Rosario Cruz Lucero (“Conundrums”), Dean Francis Alfar (“Six From Downtown”), and Susan S. Lara (“The Other Regina”); court nostalgia in the essays of Marjorie Evasco (“Tertullias at San Jose and a Family Album”), Francis Macansantos (“Two Masters”), and Timothy Montes (“Silliman in the Eighties: Of That Time, Second Person”).
There are our prominent historiographers who helped create the story of our past, such as Earl Jude Paul Cleope (read Bandit Zone: A History of the Free Areas of Negros Island During the Japanese Occupation), Caridad Aldecoa Rodriguez (read Negros Oriental: A History), and T. Valentino Sitoy (read A History of Christianity in the Philippines: The Initial Encounter), as well as cultural researchers whose outputs are foundational in Philippine cultural studies, such as Elena Maquiso (read Ulahingan and Mga Sugilanon sa Negros) and Priscilla Magdamo-Abraham (read The Folk Songs of the Visayas).
I once hosted a “litera-tour” of Dumaguete sometime in 2017—and I loved the energy of literature brought to life in the actual geography. There’s a kind of voodoo in that conjunction. That’s the seaside bench in Villasis’ short story “Menandro’s Boulevard.” That’s the Redemptorist Church in Alunan’s poem “The Bells Count in Our Blood.” That’s Escaño in Justine Yu’s “Sweet Baby.” That’s Jo’s Chicken Inato in my own story “A Tragedy of Chickens.”
An anthology should really be compiled, if you ask me.
So why do I stay in Negros Oriental? There are many reasons—but foremost among them is the privilege of being at home, literally, in the place conjured in the literary dreams of many writers I love and respect. It’s enough of a reason to stay.
8:54 PM |
Reading 'Quezon' Between the Lines
