The Spy in the Sandwich

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

12:00 PM | Grrrrr

They’re implementing a new online system for faculty loading. And I was like, yey. Then I find out they’re making it three times more difficult with all these roundabout way of approvals and signatures. And I was like, grrrr.

Labels: life, silliman, teaching

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Monday, March 30, 2026

9:00 AM | The Return of Silliman Film Open

It has been more than a half a decade since Silliman University—via the College of Mass Communication and the Culture and Arts Council—was able to hold the Silliman Film Open, the university’s festival of student films that used to be the one date every year, usually around February or March, when budding campus filmmakers tried their hand at cinematic storytelling.

Last March 7, we finally unveiled its latest edition—the fifth under its current name. Although if history has to be told, this endeavor started in 2009 as the 61 Film Festival [because it showcased the final film requirements of the students of Communication 61]; and then briefly, beginning in 2012, as the Dumaguete Shorts Festival, where it became a showcase of short films being created by Dumaguete filmmakers [regardless of whether or not they were Sillimanian]; and finally as the Silliman Film Open [or SFO] in 2015, this one designed to be more insular, screening only the works of currently enrolled students. [By then, other schools, like Foundation University, were already offering their own festivals. We had to change course.]

What happened after its fourth iteration sometime in 2018? There were some unfortunate shenanigans I really cannot be bothered to rehash, but ultimately it was really because of the pandemic, which made organizing it an impossibility. Although, truth to tell, COVID-19 had no power over some of SFO’s alumni, the likes of Andrew Alvarez and Ara Mina Amor and Von Adrian Colina, who went on to make fantastic films on their own while the world stood still in quarantine.

I began missing it though.

I missed it the way one would miss a calling. In 2008, I was invited to the Cinemalaya Film Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines to take part in its Film Congress, and I was there to represent Dumaguete filmmaking. At that time, I’ve only had one short film to my name, and when I was asked in my panel what the best practices of Dumaguete filmmaking were, I could only say one sad thing: there was no such thing as Dumaguete filmmaking.

Granted, we have our very own Eddie Romero, a renowned National Artist for Film. Granted, we have some filmmakers from here, such as Ramon del Prado, Jonah Lim, and Seymour Barros Sanchez. And granted, Dumaguete seems to be a favorite place to shoot for commercial films. But in terms of grassroots filmmaking, at that time, there was nothing. Hence, no best practice.

But I told the audience at the CCP that perhaps we could start some change, however small. When I got back to Dumaguete, and then to my film class at the College of Mass Communication, I had one resolve: to jumpstart filmmaking in this city, by hook or by crook. There are no filmmakers willing to make films? We will move heaven and earth then—and by “moving heaven and earth,” I mean requiring my film class to go beyond just writing film criticism of the movies they saw in my class. I quoted the French director Jean Luc Godard, who once said: “The only way to critique a movie is to make a movie.” Make a movie, I told my classes. They were scared out of their wits, and they were understandably reluctant—but they did manage to turn out films, which to me were minor miracles borne out of sweat, liters of Red Bull, endless coffee, endless bickering among the crew, sleepless nights, panic attacks, and even minor emotional breakdowns. Then again, who said filmmaking was easy? You have to be insane to set out to make a movie, I told them—but the dividends are fantastic.

And what are the dividends so far? We are now on the fifth iteration of the SFO, and many of the films we’ve exhibited in previous editions have gone on to be included at Lutas Film Festival, at the Sine Negrense, and at the Cinema Rehiyon—and one film, Razceljan Salvarita’s I Am Patience, was actually nominated for the Gawad Urian for Best Short Film. The future could bright for Dumaguete film if we actually create an ecosystem where film practice could be established. It is still a fledgling thing—but at least it shows some signs of thriving. Here’s to this batch of student filmmakers, and may they go places indeed.

The filmmakers behind Silliman Film Open 5, with jury members Andrew Alvarez, Tara De Leon, and Renz Torres, festival director Ian Rosales Casocot, and College of Mass Communication Dean Irma Faith Pal [fourth from right]

For the fifth edition, which we dubbed our “comeback season,” we screened only seven short films of varying genres, which included Karisa Marie Barote’s 404: Self Not Found [a science fiction take], Olivia Anne Cabral’s Girls Next Door [a romantic comedy], Jurielle Cornelia’s After the Silence [a domestic thriller], Ryan Rikaz Ibrahim’s Second Best [a crime film that turned out to be campy comedy], Samuel Lagulao Jr.’s Run on Empty [an actioner], Jullan Louise Sido’s Ang Dili Kahulat [a comedy], and Zschaielle Ainsh Tiglao’s When the Wind Blows [a melodrama]. All of them are students of Communication 62, a directing course, and Literature 30, a course on film and literature. [Three other filmmakers, unfortunately, were not able to make the deadline for the festival.]

In the end, the jury composed of local filmmakers Andrew Alvarez, Tara De Leon, and Renz Torres, gave generously and selected a wide swath of titles for awards, including Best Poster to After the Silence; Best Original Song to Le John’s “Naiilang” for Ang Dili Kahulat; Best Production Design to Olivia Cabral’s work in Girls Next Door; Best Make-up Design to Ryan Rikaz Ibrahim and Kessiya Silva for Second Best; Best Cinematography to Ben Guarin, Jeff Jamolod, and Roll Borres for Run on Empty; Best Editing to Angelina Rival for Second Best; and Best Screenplay to Samuel Lagulao Jr. for Run on Empty.

The award for Best Supporting Actress went to Franz Tolentino for Second Best. Ryan Rikaz Ibrahim, who directed that film, won Best Supporting Actor for another film, 404: Self Not Found. That film also garnered Best Actor for Vince Gerard Balbuena, while Best Actress went to Kessiya Silva for Second Best. Jurielle Cornelio was named Best Director for After the Silence, and a Jury Award was given to Zschaielle Ainsh Tiglao’s When the Wind Blows. Ryan Rikaz Ibrahim’s Second Best was finally named Best Film. All in all, a happy ending for a film festival no one thought would make a comeback in 2025!

It was a journey—painstaking and demanding—for all of them.

Samuel Lagulao, for example, is a Creative Writing major, and he had no inkling that the semester that just passed would require him to make a short film. “My fourth year as a graduating student was already heavy with thesis work, my mythology class, and other subjects, but this [film class] was the hardest for me,” he wrote. “The whole experience taught me a great deal, not only about writing itself, but also about the publishing and marketing side of it. Making a film forced me into a different kind of education to what you would normally expect from literary and creative writing classes, one that had less to do with words and more to do with logistics and money and weather and scheduling and accepting the limits of what could actually be done… In film work, [I learned that] talent is important but reliability [on my crew] also matters just as much. A project can survive a lot of limitations, but it struggles when people cannot be there.

He continued: “There were moments when I wanted the camera to hide too much, or the edit to fix problems that should have been solved in the actual shoot, with one scene especially that made that clear when I had wanted to make it look as though a conversation was happening naturally, even though it would really be stitched together from separate footage of people performing against empty space. On paper, that seemed possible. In practice, it was not convincing enough … That was one of the hardest lessons the process taught me. Writing can make almost anything happen because the page is obedient. Film is not. Film depends on bodies, places, light, timing, weather, equipment, and the availability of other people. The actors could not always make it. Some shoots had to be rearranged because one person was free and another was not. One day was cancelled because of the weather. The easiest scene [to shoot] turned out to be the one inside a classroom, probably because it was controlled and contained. Everything else felt exposed to interruption.

“… Now that the film is finished, I remember the strain of it but I also see it more clearly for what it was. It was one of the few times in my student life when I had to move beyond writing something good on paper and face the mess of making something real with other people. … It was tense, expensive, and often frustrating but it also taught me what kind of work filmmaking really is. [But] I am grateful that the process was not smooth since it forced me to understand that a film is never built by imagination alone. It is built through people and limits and corrections and persistence.”

A scene from Samuel Lagulao Jr.'s Run on Empty, which won Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography

For Ryan Rikaz Ibrahim, winner of the top award, joining the festival—and making the film—was a humbling experience. “The most difficult stage was getting the screenplay approved,” he admitted. “… My early drafts were met with strong criticism, [and] at one point, the feedback was direct: the story needed to be rewritten or reframed, because it did not make sense. As someone who was confident in my writing, hearing this was difficult. Each revision felt like going back to the beginning, and the process slowly chipped away at my confidence.”

There were other production challenges, like scheduling the shoot with actors, or even finalizing something as primary as having a cinematographer in place. “But slowly, things began to fall into place,” Ryan said, and then a lot of learning had to be done when shooting commenced. “One moment during filming stood out in particular. While shooting the interrogation scene, the entire team began contributing ideas to improve the sequence. The actors, the videographer, and even I, as the director, experimented with different angles, deliveries, and approaches to the scene. What started as a simple shot turned into a collaborative effort, and that moment reminded me that filmmaking is truly a shared creative process.”

But for him, the real turning point came in the post-production phase. “When my editor, Angelina Rival, sent the first draft of the film, I immediately felt something had changed. The scenes were arranged in a way that matched the vision I had imagined from the beginning. Her work with camera angles, pacing, and sound design brought the story to life in ways I could not have achieved alone. At that moment, the film I had struggled with for weeks finally started to feel real.”

When Ryan’s film was announced as the top winner, he was “genuinely stunned.” He said: “In that moment, it became clear that the victory was never mine alone. It belonged to my actors who poured their energy into every scene, to my editor who shaped the film with remarkable creativity, and to my entire team that helped transform a difficult idea into a finished story. [But] looking back, this entire process taught me the value of humility, perseverance, and openness to criticism. There were times when every correction felt discouraging, and every revision felt like starting over. Yet those moments of struggle slowly revealed an important truth: growth often happens in the most uncomfortable situations. More than anything, I learned that filmmaking is not just about having a vision. It is about trusting the people who help bring that vision to life and allowing yourself to grow through the process.”

A scene from Ryan Rikaz Ibrahim's Second Best, which won Best Film

Filmmaking as a metaphor for processing life. I hope that’s one good lesson instilled with fervor in our current crop of campus filmmakers who made Silliman Film Open 5 happen. Congratulations, everyone!

A scene from Jurielle Cornelia's After the Silence, which won Best Director

A scene from Zschaielle Ainsh Tiglao's When the Wind Blows, which won the Jury Award

Labels: art and culture, dumaguete, film, silliman

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Tuesday, March 17, 2026

6:30 PM | Classes, Done!

It was a marathon of workshops but I finally held the last of my classes today! A huge sigh of relief, really. Now, it’s just all about the waiting and the receiving of my students’ final requirements, and then the grading. Can’t wait for this semester to be over! It was extremely short, which created a lot of class management problems, but I’m glad it’s almost over.

Labels: silliman, teaching

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Thursday, March 05, 2026

11:49 PM | Breather

Tomorrow is the last day of the final exams week for graduating seniors at Silliman University, and the crunch is real. So many final requirements being wrapped up, my head is spinning, I have been working non-stop just to be on top of things academic since last week, but then so are my students. I try to just keep track of things, including my health, and hope for the best. But to echo everybody's complaint: this was an unusually short semester.

Labels: life, silliman, teaching

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Friday, October 31, 2025

9:00 PM | Wake Me Because I Must Be Dreaming! Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!

We got it. My hands are shaking.

I still remember that fraught week in August 2024 when I had to churn out the preliminary bid for Dumaguete City as UNESCO City of Literature – about six pages of questions that needed thorough answers, which resulted to almost 40 pages of the final bid. I was actually set to enjoy Founders Day in Silliman University when then DTI Negros Oriental Director Nimfa Marcos Virtucio and Anton Gabila invited me and Renz for "a cup of coffee" in Adorno Galeria y Cafe. Akala ko coffee lang, turned out they were keen on submitting Dumaguete for the distinction and was roping me in to help them. Of course I said yes. But I only had about one week to put together the pre-bid, because the deadline was on August 31! Oh, the pain! But that week also made me realize: Dumaguete actually could do this, we had everything [except, ehem, publishing houses and translation projects]. We were able to submit the pre-bid to UNACOM on time.

And then I forgot all about it, until UNACOM contacted us sometime in November 2024 to inform us that we were on their final list of recommendees to UNESCO, alongside Quezon City for Film! That galvanized us to do the final bid from December 2024 to March 2025, again fretting over the final questionnaire and other things to do. Together with then Dumaguete City Tourism Officer Katherine Aguilar, we formed a think tank of about 20 people, to make the bid truly community- and sector-driven. I sacrificed finishing several of my books slated for publication this year just to finish this bid. The sleepless nights were abominable. The anxiety was formidable, I went back to taking Ritalin after being off-meds for two years. We submitted before the midnight of March 1, the deadline. [We never were able to do the planned video documentary to supplement our bid. There was just no time.]

I always thought I could have done more, especially for our website – so I was just hoping the bid itself would suffice for the judges. But, truth to tell, I was prepared to receive bad news. I dreaded the coming of October 31. Please forgive me if I cried Friday night. It was my body heaving a sigh of relief.

Labels: city of literature, dumaguete, dumaguete writers workshop, life, philippine literature, silliman, UNESCO, writers, writing

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Friday, October 03, 2025

9:00 PM | Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!

We got it. My hands are shaking.

I still remember that fraught week in August 2024 when I had to churn out the preliminary bid for Dumaguete City as UNESCO City of Literature – about six pages of questions that needed thorough answers, which resulted to almost 40 pages of the final bid. I was actually set to enjoy Founders Day in Silliman University when then DTI Negros Oriental Director Nimfa Marcos Virtucio and Anton Gabila invited me and Renz for "a cup of coffee" in Adorno Galeria y Cafe. Akala ko coffee lang, turned out they were keen on submitting Dumaguete for the distinction and was roping me in to help them. Of course I said yes. But I only had about one week to put together the pre-bid, because the deadline was on August 31! Oh, the pain! But that week also made me realize: Dumaguete actually could do this, we had everything [except, ehem, publishing houses and translation projects]. We were able to submit the pre-bid to UNACOM on time.

And then I forgot all about it, until UNACOM contacted us sometime in November 2024 to inform us that we were on their final list of recommendees to UNESCO, alongside Quezon City for Film! That galvanized us to do the final bid from December 2024 to March 2025, again fretting over the final questionnaire and other things to do.

Together with then Dumaguete City Tourism Officer Katherine Aguilar, we formed a think tank of about 20 people, to make the bid truly community- and sector-driven. I sacrificed finishing several of my books slated for publication this year just to finish this bid. The sleepless nights were abominable. The anxiety was formidable, I went back to taking Ritalin after being off-meds for two years. We submitted before the midnight of March 1, the deadline. [We never were able to do the planned video documentary to supplement our bid. There was just no time.] I always thought I could have done more, especially for our website – so I was just hoping the bid itself would suffice for the judges.

But, truth to tell, I was prepared to receive bad news. I dreaded the coming of October 31. Please forgive me if I cried Friday night. It was my body heaving a sigh of relief.

Labels: city of literature, dumaguete, dumaguete writers workshop, life, philippine literature, silliman, UNESCO, writers, writing

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Thursday, August 28, 2025

10:56 PM | OSA Memories

I remember the last time I directed the Outstanding Sillimanian Awards. It was 2010. I was bound for the U.S. for a writing fellowship on the day of the ceremony itself. So for more than two months, I meticulously prepared everything, from scripting to blocking to music to videos to slides, and then I gave my assistant director just one simple instruction: “Just press this button sa laptop, and the show will start.” I was giving minor last minute instructions over the phone even as I was walking towards my flight at NAIA 1. Then the plane taxied, and I was off, and that was that. I heard it was the best OSA I’ve ever done in the ten years I was directing it. Then I decided to exit on that high, and I’ve never directed another OSA ever again.

Labels: silliman

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Friday, August 08, 2025

9:52 PM | The Pianist as Pinoy

There is a word in music that feels like an apt description for the way pianist Horacio Nuguid plays: “cantabile”—which means the smooth quality of making the instrument sing. This was the thought that stayed with me through Sound Scapes, his piano recital of rare and resplendent works from the Filipino classical repertoire, which unfolded simply and beautifully on the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium stage last 6 August 2025—a respite we didn’t think we needed in the middle of the week. In an age where music-making often feels like a gladiatorial sport—faster, louder, more technically dazzling—Nuguid sat before the instrument with the calm assurance of someone who had nothing to prove. And in that unhurried humility, there was magic.

Nuguid is no stranger to the world’s stages. Trained at the University of Santo Tomas, he would later take his craft to the University of Northern Iowa and to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His career has taken him from solo recitals to orchestral collaborations in the Philippines, Mexico, and the United States, and into close musical partnerships with distinguished singers and instrumentalists.

As artistic director of the Rochester Chamber Music Society, he has carved out a space for music-making that is both intimate and expansive. Honors have followed—among them the Ardee Award for outstanding artist in Rochester—and so has a commitment to teaching: master classes across continents, decades of shaping young pianists at the Young Artist World Piano Festival in Minnesota, and mentorship at the Philippine High School for the Arts. Recently, he has taken on the role of co-artistic director at the Bethel University Summer Piano Academy, continuing the work of nurturing the next generation, even as he brings the voices of our past composers back into the light.

It is with that pedigree that Nuguid makes his debut in Dumaguete, on the Luce stage. The program of Sound Scapes was itself an act of reclamation, designed that way by the pianist. According to him, in the Philippines, so much of our music’s history lies in dust and disappearance—scores lost to war, to neglect, to the indifference of cultural gatekeepers. Nuguid has made it his mission to retrieve these works from obscurity, curating and publishing an anthology—Philippine Piano Pieces (2023)—that has suddenly opened a long-closed window into our pianistic past. Sound Scapes at the Luce was the living and breathing embodiment of that project: nine pieces by nine Filipino composers, spanning decades, styles, and sensibilities, each given a voice on this night in Dumaguete. He proceeded through the program like a lecturer, introducing the importance of each piece at the podium, and then sitting down before the grand piano to demonstrate the wonderfully musicality he had just described.

From the very first notes of “Caricias (Danza)” by Juan de Saliagun Hernandez (1881–1945), who was known as a composer of dances, marches, and music for theatrical performances, it was clear that Nuguid was not merely reproducing what was on the score. His left hand, rich with warm bass resonance, grounded the dance’s rhythm; his right hand let the melody float in the air with limpid clarity. The contrast was a quiet marvel—you could almost “see” the separation of musical notes, and yet they conversed so naturally.

“Poeme” by Carmencita Arambulo (1938–2023) was another personal highlight for me. The 1957 piece is, like what it subtitle claims, “a song without words,” which Nuguid rendered with a tenderness that felt almost private, like overhearing someone’s cherished memory. He let the melody breathe, resisting the temptation to rush. At his age—seasoned, yes, with perhaps the occasional elasticity in tempo—there was no need for metronomic precision. Instead, there was the deeper rhythm of someone shaping a phrase to match the heartbeat of this beautiful song.

“Okaka (Theme and Variations)” by Rodolfo Cornejo (1909–1991) was the program’s playful centerpiece, an intricate work that tested the pianist’s dexterity and interpretive range. Nuguid navigated its shifting moods with ease, from the almost childlike charm of the theme to the more dramatic, harmonically adventurous variations. And then there was “Bontok Ili” by Rosendo Santos Jr. (1922–1994), a piece steeped in indigenous echoes, where Nuguid’s left-hand ostinatos—a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm—pulsed like ritual drumbeats while the right hand spun modal melodies like threads of smoke.

One of the evening’s most quietly moving moments, at least for me, was “Meditacion (Nocturno)” by Filemon Sotto (1872–1966). Here, Nuguid leaned into the music’s meditative intent, letting each chord shimmer and fade, as if allowing the audience to listen not only to the sound but also to the silence that followed. In contrast, “Tarantelle No. 2” by Lucino Sacramento (1908–1984), which the composer wrote for a NAMCYA competition in 1978, burst forth with kinetic energy—and though Nuguid’s tempo was, by necessity, tempered, the rhythmic drive and the joy in the playing were intact.

When Nuguid arrived at “Kundiman” by Felipe Padilla de Leon (1912–1992), the recital shifted into something unmistakably Filipino. The bittersweet lyricism, the gentle swells of emotion… Nuguid played it as though telling a love story across generations. Nuguid’s rendition of “Malikmata” by Antonio Molina (1894–1980) shimmered with impressionistic colors, like a heavy dream one tries to recall in the morning light, unsettling but also bemusing. And finally, “Mayon (Fantasia de Concierto)” by Francisco Buencamino Sr. (1883–1952) closed the concert with a sense of Pinoy grandeur, its elevated folksiness made beautiful with Nuguid weaving together the virtuosity and lyricism that mark the best of our piano literature.

What struck me most, across all these works, was the utter lack of pretension in Nuguid’s playing. Nuguid did not play to impress. He played because this music deserved to be heard again. He played because these scores—many of them once teetering on the edge of oblivion—still had beauty to give. He played because, quite simply, he loved them. And we, listening, were made to love them too.

There were no flamboyant gestures, no exaggerated rubatos meant to elicit gasps. Even the occasional unevenness in tempo seemed part of the music’s lived-in honesty. In an era obsessed with perfection, this was a concert that embraced humanity—its frailty, yes, but also its capacity for grace.

By the final applause—and I was really surprised by the gusto of the audience after many years of watching piano recitals eliciting only tepid responses—I realized what Sound Scapes truly was: not just a recital, but an act of cultural memory. Nuguid had taken us on a journey through our own musical heritage, dusting off forgotten pages and giving them breath again. And as we filed out of the Luce, it felt less like leaving a performance and more like emerging from a long, nourishing conversation, one where every melody had been clear, every note had mattered, and the silences between them had spoken volumes.

Truth to tell, I was not really aware of Philippine piano music much until last Wednesday night. What the concert taught me is that it is a most curious and beautiful thing, a garden of melodies where Spanish-European grace, American verve, and the deep earthiness of our own indigenous rhythms mingle in unexpected bloom. (Forgive the flowery metaphor!) But apparently, like many gardens in our history, much of it has been left untended, its flowers hidden from view. The tragedy is partly logistical: pianists have simply not had access to the printed scores. The few that made it into print—often through the composer’s own efforts—have long since slipped out of circulation, their surviving copies asleep in library archives, or kept as delicate heirlooms, or ravaged by World War II, a fraught period when untold manuscripts and printed scores vanished in the fire and rubble.

But Nuguid’s work tells us that this story does not end in loss. In recent years, there has been a gathering tide of interest in finding these scattered notes, in piecing together a legacy nearly lost. And in August 2023, Nuguid stepped into this story with something remarkable: a published anthology of twenty-five piano pieces by sixteen Filipino composers, each work lovingly rescued, critically edited, and annotated for a new generation. The book and the concert are both an act of scholarship and an act of devotion.

You can listen to most of these piece in Horacio Nuguid’s YouTube channel. The concert was sponsored by the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council. Thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez for explaining the technicalities of the piano-playing for me.

Labels: art and culture, classical music, dumaguete, luce, music, philippine culture, pianists, silliman

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Friday, August 01, 2025

10:00 PM | Swans Descending in Dumaguete

My former journalism mentor in high school—she’s the current Dean of the College of Education at Silliman University—was effusive upon seeing Ballet Manila’s production of Swan Lake last week, on its final night at the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium: “I was in tears when I left the Luce tonight, overwhelmed by a mix of emotions,” Dr. Gina Fontejon-Bonior wrote on Facebook. “I needed this moment at the Luce, immersed in an evening of love, beauty, and grace—after a long workweek, and a heartbreaking news about the health condition of someone I deeply care about. Salamat kaayo, Silliman University Culture and Arts Council, for bringing the artistic creation of Lisa Macuja-Elizalde back to Dumaguete, … for the breath of hope and grace.”

That kind of testimony lingers more than most, I think. More than actual reviews even—which is why I have opted to center this column with Dr. Bonior’s emotive impressions of the ballet. And how do I even begin to review Ballet Manila’s Swan Lake, with Ms. Macuja-Elizalde in her creative peak? I won’t even try. I will try to write about it in a different way.

You hold on to testaments like Dr. Bonior’s it like a talisman, something to pull out when the world begins to unravel. Because the truth is, we’re all slowly unraveling. And if the ache of ordinary life, like illness or bureaucracy or the grief that never leaves you, does not do you in, it’s the quiet despair that comes from scrolling endlessly through your phone in the dead of night, seeking feeling in a world too numbed out to offer it. And then a white bird flies across a hallowed stage in Dumaguete, pirouettes in anguish, and suddenly your chest opens.

What is it about Swan Lake?

It’s a ballet that, by all measures, should be a relic: composed in 1875 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, borne out of the romanticism of a bygone era, stuffed with royal courts and enchanted lakes and girls turning into swans. But it survives, not just in gilded theaters in Moscow or London, but here in Dumaguete—under the shadow of acacia trees, where the salt of Bohol Sea clings to your skin even in the air-conditioned dark of the Luce.

It survives, I think, because it haunts us.

Because it is, at its core, a tragedy of transformation, of doomed love, of becoming something else entirely just to survive. And isn’t that what we all do? The ballerina, at the height of her dance, becomes the swan—and you forget that it is human limbs that tremble and leap and flutter. You see the feather, the wing, the pain of flight.

Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Ballet Manila know this, embody this. And in Dumaguete, that knowledge is received not passively, but with deep and trembling gratitude. Here, I would like to believe that we are not jaded by art. Here, when a ballerina flutters to her death in a fog of heartbreak, someone in the back row weeps silently—and means it. [This is very true! In the performance that I saw, the audience I was with were rapturous when our swan leapt to its romantic demise!] Maybe that’s why Dumaguete is still the kind of city where a ballet like Swan Lake matters. Because we haven’t lost our capacity to believe in beauty. Or to mourn it.

As a teenage high schooler working for The Junior Sillimanian, I was taught by Dr. Bonior [always Ma’am Gina to me] to be precise in my reporting, to sum up a story best in a perfect opening paragraph. She taught me to feel with structured language. And now here she is, decades later, watching a girl in a tutu die for love and magic, and sobbing in the darkness. I think there’s poetry in that.

There’s a kind of redemption in being allowed to feel deeply. It doesn’t happen enough.

Maybe that’s what Swan Lake offers: not just its well-worn story of Prince Siegfried and the cursed Odette and her dark double Odile and the malevolent Von Rothbart, but the whole aching ritual of it. The careful discipline of classical ballet, with its merciless demands on the human body [Ballet Manila, for Dumaguete, did the unthinkable and danced a punishing total of six shows in a row in four days!], and its impossible grace. Every movement honed through pain. Every step a sacrifice. And yet, it is through that rigor a transcendence arrives.

Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, who once danced these roles herself, has now given her dancers the gift of that same transcendence that we, in Dumaguete, got to witness, which is nothing short of a blessing. A miracle, even. Because we are far from the cultural centers of the country. We do not have the reach of Manila, or the glitter of CCP galas. But we have the Luce. We have the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council and its indefatigable leader, Diomar Abrio, with his stubborn devotion to the idea that Silliman University and Dumaguete deserve to see the best this country has to offer. That we are not too small. That art is not a luxury—it is the lifeline.

And so this is why Swan Lake endures, at least for us. Not because of nostalgia, but because of its ability to speak to us across centuries and geographies, across languages and generations. It tells us that love can redeem, even if too late. That betrayal can destroy, but also set one free. That sometimes, becoming a swan is the only way to escape.

And here, in this seaside university town where students still write poetry on napkins in cafés, where strangers say thank you after watching a play, where grief is softened by music echoing from the Rizal Boulevard, Swan Lake finds an audience that doesn’t just watch—but listens. Feels. Believes.

So yes, bring back Odette to our stage. Let her dance again and again in our city. Let her leap and fall, rise and vanish. We will always watch. We will always weep. And somewhere in that act, in that collective surrender to beauty, we are healed. Even if just for one night. Because in Dumaguete, Swan Lake doesn’t end with a curtain call. It stays.

Labels: art and culture, ballet, cultural affairs committee, dance, dumaguete, luce, silliman

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Monday, July 07, 2025

2:34 PM | Paul Palmore Returns!

CATCH THIS ONE OF A KIND THEATRE EVENT ON WEDNESDAY! In his first work as a come-backing theatre artist, Paul Palmore directs and presents a collaborative work with Dessa Quesada-Palm, Alex Cerra, Mayumi Maghuyop, Iniaki Montenegro, and Fionabelle Marie Cabe doing excerpts from James McLure's Laundry Room and Bourbon and Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box, the JULY 9, Wednesday at 7 PM at the Woodward Little Theatre, Silliman University, Dumaguete City! FREE ADMISSION [but donations will be appreciated].

Labels: art and culture, dumaguete, silliman, theatre

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Monday, May 05, 2025

9:00 AM | Incendiary Memories and Diasporic Reckonings

Who says that the body of work of Sillimanian writers are devoid of social issues and is centered only on fruitless formalistic pursuits? Consider the latest two plays in the ongoing Teatro Sillimaniana Festival—Elsa Martinez Coscolluela’s Original Grace, and Linda Faigao-Hall’s Lay of the Land. Both plays emerge from different geographies and aesthetic registers, but they converge on the urgent politics of memory, abuse, and displacement that shaped the Filipino experience in the late 1980s.

In revisiting these works in 2025, we encounter not merely theatrical relics of their time but searing reflections that speak with renewed urgency to contemporary audiences. Set in the wake of the Marcos dictatorship and during the volatile aftermath of the People Power Revolution, both plays interrogate personal and political trauma, the price of silence, and the possibilities of healing.

Coscolluela’s Original Grace, directed by Eazel Sevilleno, stages its battle for truth and justice within the cloistered confines of a convent, juxtaposing legal struggle with spiritual sanctuary. Beatriz Vera [Jade Mary J. Cornelia], a corporate lawyer haunted by a troubled past, is pulled into the case of Carmela Santos [Precious Aranas], a teenage rape survivor whose abuser, Leon Garay, is shielded by layers of patriarchal and familial complicity. The play’s domestic horror is disturbingly familiar: Carmela’s mother Dolores [a very moving CJ Cañete] left for work abroad, a tragic echo of the “OFW economy” that escalated during the Marcos years and exploded in the post-EDSA years as the state normalized the export of labor. The play’s setting—a convent—might at first appear to be a retreat from political terrain, but it instead serves as a charged crucible where class, power, religion, and justice collide. Beatriz’s professional façade begins to crumble as Carmela’s story dredges up her own repressed trauma.

In 1988, when the play first emerged, such portrayals of incest, rape, and female complicity were incendiary; women’s rights were still marginalized in public discourse, and speaking openly about abuse was a radical act. Original Grace dared to expose the fissures beneath the idealized image of the Filipino family—especially the fractured families left in the wake of diaspora and dictatorship. In 2025, its relevance endures: child sexual abuse remains a crisis, and the question of how the law and social institutions fail survivors is still pressing. What deepens the play’s significance today is the recognition of how trauma is inherited and how women—across generations—internalize both pain and guilt.

Coscolluela’s choice to embed the legal battle within the nuns’ convent isn’t merely symbolic; it underscores the complicity of religious institutions in both silence and healing. Characters like Mother Alma and Sister Mary and Sister Lily are not caricatures of piety but fully human agents wrestling with their own ethical limitations. There is no easy redemption here. The staging and performances, particularly by Jade Mary Cornelia as Beatriz and Precious Aranas as Carmela, highlight the emotional tectonics of trauma without collapsing into melodrama. What Original Grace offers is not grace as divine absolution, but grace as the painstaking process of facing the past, speaking truth, and reclaiming one’s agency.

In contrast, Lay of the Land, directed by Tess Gal, unfolds not in the Philippine homeland but in the fragmented diaspora of New York’s East Village—a milieu where identity is as much a matter of survival as it is of longing. Perlas [Liezyl Livestre], newly arrived from the Philippines, steps into a shared tenement space infused with both bohemian American decay and the unresolved specters of martial law. Set during the February 1986 People Power Revolution, the play juxtaposes the euphoria of collective political upheaval with the isolation of the immigrant experience. Perlas’s arrival coincides with the nation’s supposed rebirth, yet her personal displacement reveals how liberation at home can coincide with alienation abroad.

Faigao-Hall’s writing navigates this tension with sensitivity and complexity. Her ensemble cast of characters are not mere emblems of multiculturalism, but embodied critiques of power, history, and belonging. Joaquin [Christian Evangelista], a fellow Filipino immigrant and Perlas’ brother, becomes both foil and mirror to Perlas. He has adapted, assimilated, perhaps at the cost of remembering. Helene, Artie, Gustaf, and Kelly represent various facets of American life—idealism, cynicism, exploitation, and artifice—all of which Perlas must contend with in her search for meaning and footing.

Where Original Grace is intensely internal, Lay of the Land is spatial and relational. The physical space of the tenement becomes a metaphor for a dislocated homeland—shared, shifting, contested. The gallery housed within it reflects the tension between representation and erasure: what gets exhibited, what stories are told, and who gets to speak? The play’s engagement with art and memory echoes Faigao-Hall’s broader dramaturgical commitment to rendering myth and magic real. She subtly weaves Filipino folklore and history into the urban grime of Alphabet City, not through overt fantasy but through atmosphere, rhythm, and metaphor.

The decision to set the play during the climax of the Marcos regime’s fall is bold. In 1986, the revolution promised a rupture from tyranny and the reinstallation of democracy. But in Lay of the Land, that rupture is not clean. The overseas Filipino watches from afar, disconnected from the spectacle of history, burdened with familial expectations and survival in a foreign land. For Perlas and many others like her, People Power did not end suffering—it simply shifted its geography. In 2025, with the political resurrection of the Marcoses and the global backlash against democracy, the play now reads like both prophecy and elegy. The “land” in question is not merely the literal Philippines but the moral and political ground we all must navigate.

Both plays, then, do not merely recall the volatile politics of the late 1980s—they reanimate them. Original Grace dramatizes the internal war for justice and healing within a society riddled with patriarchal silence and institutional complicity. Lay of the Land maps the psychic toll of exile, exploring what it means to hold onto identity, memory, and hope when the homeland itself is shifting under your feet. Each play in its own way reflects a fracture in the Filipino soul—between silence and voice, home and exile, past and present.

In 2025, their meanings resonate anew. The Philippines continues to grapple with historical revisionism, with the return of autocratic figures, and with enduring gender-based violence and diaspora trauma. The brave testimony of Carmela in Original Grace reminds us of the urgent need to listen to survivors and challenge structures of abuse. The lost and searching gaze of Perlas in Lay of the Land calls us to rethink what it means to belong in an increasingly fragmented world.

Together, these plays demand not just witness but reckoning. They do not offer easy catharsis but instead insist on confronting the wounds we have inherited and the histories we choose to forget. In staging them now, we are not merely looking back—we are being asked to choose what kind of future we want to write.

Teatro Sillimaniana Festival is ongoing. Michael Aaron Gomez’s Tirador ng Tinago will premiere on May 3, Saturday, directed by Bret Ybañez. Lastly, Beryl Delicana’s Mango Tree will premiere on May 7, Wednesday, directed by Jorelyn Garcia.

Labels: art and culture, dumaguete, silliman, theatre

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Monday, April 28, 2025

9:00 AM | A Love Letter from the Rainbow

What a way to open the first ever Teatro Sillimaniana Festival! In a showcase of award-winning plays by Silliman playwrights, as helmed by the senior directing class of the Speech and Theater Department of Silliman University’s College of Performing and Visual Arts, Francis Esguerra’s production of Jireh Catacutan’s Una’t Huling Gabi Sa Ramona Disco proved a scintillating beginning—equal parts laugh-out-loud comedy and dramatic exploration about identity and acceptance.

The play primarily follows the journey of Dino [Nico Angelo de Guzman Privado] in finding his birth father. One fateful night, Dino finds himself in an intimate encounter with Andy [Sydney L. Tan], and they soon discover that their lives are somehow intertwined. Dino soon reveals his search for his father, which leads him to an old gay bar in Pasay called Ramona Disco, ran by Nanay Che [Jecho Adrian G. Ponce] and Tita Princess [AJ Delostrico]—and where Dino finally learns the truth, and reconciles his search for identity entwined in the lives of the queer folk behind Ramona Disco.

As directed by Esguerra, the play becomes a powerful act of reclamation, reflection, and representation. This production, at its core, is a searing yet tender exploration of queer identity, familial estrangement, and the possibility of finding oneself in the most unexpected places. The play becomes a vivid tapestry of memory, longing, humor, and hope—all possible because of Esguerra’s commanding direction, and the deeply nuanced performances from its cast.

Like how he demonstrated it with his production of Elsa Coscolluela’s Blood Spoor only a few months ago, Esguerra shows us how his directorial hand is both assured and compassionate, weaving together the play’s deeply personal narrative with theatrical precision and soul. What makes his work truly remarkable is how he interprets Catacutan’s text not merely as a script to be staged, but as a lived truth to be felt. In his director’s notes, Esguerra shares how his journey from performer to director prepared him for the daunting task of bringing such an emotionally layered piece to life: “Now, I am given another opportunity to be the head of a production team… It is another chance to put into practice the theories I have studied, and the practical lessons I have experienced.”

This experience shines in the seamless transitions between the play’s heartfelt monologues, uproarious moments of humor, and poignant silences. Esguerra guides the production with a respect for both form and feeling. He allows the narrative’s emotional beats to breathe, while shaping its structure with clarity and elegance. More importantly, Esguerra ensures that the play’s central themes of self-discovery and radical acceptance resonate with power: “Accepting people as they are can also lead us to accept ourselves and eventually revel at who we really are.” Under his direction, the space of Ramona Disco transforms into more than just a setting—it becomes a sanctuary for broken dreams, awkward truths, and found family. It becomes sacred.

In the role of Dino, Privado delivers a performance that is heartbreakingly authentic. As a masculine-presenting queer man grappling with internalized homophobia, Dino’s journey is rife with contradiction, and his aching confusion of someone desperately searching for his origins while fearing what he might find feels true. Privado portrays these layers with meticulous care—his silences are heavy with things unsaid, his bursts of vulnerability arrive like revelations. [His coño English also makes him endearing.] Privado’s performance peaks in the emotionally grueling Act III, an act steeped in spiritual crisis, where he channels a rawness that becomes almost painful to watch—and yet impossible to look away.

Tan’s portrayal of Andy/Andrea is nothing short of magnetic. With a character that shifts between comic confidence and quiet despair, Tan dances between these emotional states with finesse. Andy is bold, flirty, and fiercely proud—but beneath the surface lies someone who is still navigating the oppressive terrain of “Masc4Masc” culture. “He still sees the need to act masculine to be accepted,” Catacutan revealed—and Tan captures this duality with uncanny skill. What makes Tan’s performance stand out is the generosity he brings to the role. He gives space to every emotion—whether it’s the flirtatious banter with Dino, the devastating recount of childhood trauma, or the climactic spiritual reckoning. Tan’s Andy is never a caricature; he is fully human—beautifully flawed, richly layered, and utterly unforgettable.

As Nanay Che, Ponce offers one of the most soul-nourishing performances of the evening. In the tradition of queer storytelling, the “found mother” is a revered archetype—and Ponce embraces this role with grace and gravitas. Nanay Che isn’t just a character; she is the embodiment of acceptance, strength, and quiet resilience. With every scene she’s in, Ponce’s presence commands attention—both with volume and pratfalls, and also with depth. His delivery is sometimes gentle and sometimes boisterous, but always firm, playful but always wise. Ponce embodies the maternal force that many queer youth long for, offering Andy [and later Dino] the safety and affirmation they have been denied elsewhere. Ponce’s performance is a living tribute to the Golden Gays that inspired the play—a celebration of aging queens who never stopped nurturing.

If Nanay Che is the soul of Ramona Disco, then Tita Princess—brought to life by the vibrant AJ Delostrico—is its beating heart. Delostrico delivers a performance that is both intimate and larger-than-life. She is flamboyant and fabulous, but never one-note. Underneath the loud laughter and theatrical flourishes is a trans woman who has endured, and who continues to give despite everything she has lost. Her chemistry with the entire cast is electric, and her scenes with Ponce’s Nanay Che are particularly moving—two queens holding a kingdom together with eyeliner, sass, and unconditional love.

Una’t Huling Gabi sa Ramona Disco is a play that does more than tell a story—it invites its audience to remember, to grieve, to laugh, and to heal. Catacutan wrote it “to speak about the things [he] found odd or problematic in gay culture,” but he also wrote it as a love letter—to queer youth, to found families, to those who are still searching. And under Esguerra’s visionary direction, that love letter is delivered with both fire and finesse. The cast responded with performances that will be remembered for their honesty, vulnerability, and sheer theatrical brilliance.

I like that we are, at curtain fall, left not just with the story of Dino and Andy, but with a renewed sense of empathy and understanding. The play reminds us, as Esguerra so eloquently put it, that “their story is also our story of discovery, acceptance, love and celebration of the life that we are gifted with.” What a beautiful gift this production truly is.

INTERVIEW WITH JIREH CATACUTAN:

How did you come up with the story?

After writing my first one-act play, Pasilong sa Payag, for my Playwriting Workshop class at Silliman, I took in all the criticisms and thought that if I ever have to write another play, it had to be something that was really close to my heart. The play was also the last creative work I wrote before graduating from Silliman, so I wanted it to be special. I was thinking about what I wanted to see. What little queer boy Jireh wanted to see on stage. For four years, I sort of felt like the token gay kid in class so I decided to lean into it. I am a writer who has the power to tell the experiences of queer men. And in 2023, the story about the Golden Gays was featured in the New York Times and gained traction, I would admit that I wasn’t really aware of their existence, but it inspired me to write about the Filipino queer experience through characters that come from and represent different generations.

What was your intention in writing this play?

In a way, the play was also an avenue for me to speak about the things I found odd, or for the lack of better term, “problematic” in gay culture. Say for example, with Dino, he represents the “masc” presenting queer men who struggles with internalized homophobia. I have encountered gay men who tend to avoid the flamboyant type of gays because they see femininity as “nakakahiya” or a sign of weakness. This is then countered by the character of Andy/Andrea that is open about his sexuality but also struggles with the “Masc4Masc culture” where he still sees the need to act masculine to be accepted or to hook up with other queer men. I also wanted to highlight other themes such as the domestic abuse young gay men go through, spirituality, and even the idea that gay men have to give away something [in this case, Gatorade and monay] just to feel loved.

I also wanted to express the idea of found family through the characters of Nanay Che and Princess who have taken the role of nurturing mothers to young gay kids who are seeking a home where they could freely be themselves. Growing up, I always saw gay characters portrayed as comedic relief. Pushed aside to be the funny best friend or the person who dies of sickness at the end of the movie. With that in mind, I felt it was time to bring these characters to the forefront and take control of their own narrative.

What was it like to write the play?

It was crazy but at the same time, it was the most fun I had. I think all the scenes just fell into place because it was a story I was determined to tell. When I was a senior, I commuted back and forth so when I’m on the bus, a joke would pop into my head and I would immediately write them down on my phone. In the first two drafts, the third act didn’t exist at all. [The play has four acts.] Its addition was needed since the last act felt too abrupt—Dino was being forgiven too quickly. Writing the third act was the hardest for me. I vividly remember writing at one in the morning, sobbing as I typed about the spiritual turmoil that bothered Dino and Andy. I think it was because I went through it when I was younger. There was a time where I prayed so hard to the point of crying, begging Him to make me straight. I guess Act 3 was just the part where I sort of inserted my own struggles as a queer man too. But overall, Una’t Huling Gabi sa Ramona Disco was the story I had the most fun writing. And when it was finally staged, I was just glad that people laughed at the jokes I wrote on the bus. And as the lights dimmed after every act, hearing the audience sniffle and blow their noses meant that they were able to empathize with the characters I’ve written. Hearing the audience laugh and cry was the ultimate pay off, and I just hope that they left the little theatre inspired by the bravery and resilience of Dino, Andy, Tita Princess, and Nanay Che.

Teatro Sillimaniana Festival is ongoing. Elsa Martinez Coscolluela’s Original Grace will premiere on April 26, Saturday, directed by Eazel Sevilleno. Linda Faigao-Hall’s Lay of the Land will premiere on April 30, Wednesday, directed by Tess Gal. Michael Aaron Gomez’s Tirador ng Tinago will premiere on May 3, Saturday, directed by Bret Ybañez. Lastly, Beryl Delicana’s Mango Tree will premiere on May 7, Wednesday, directed by Jorelyn Garcia.

Labels: art and culture, city of literature, dumaguete, silliman, theatre

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Friday, March 14, 2025

11:00 PM | The Way of the Wakwak

It is understandable why the color red suffuses much of the atmosphere—and the metaphors—of Pulang Langob, the restaging of the two-act musical play in Binisaya written by Hope Tinambacan and directed by Dessa Quesada-Palm for the 62nd cultural season of the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council. A blood red moon—projected on the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium stage—is a steady motif in the play’s unfolding, and crimson is the shade with which the play’s lighting design chooses to bathe many of its scenes. Then there’s the title itself, which is “Red Cave” in translation. Red is everywhere.

I get it. Red is such a rich metaphor, since it is on one hand, the color of foreboding and danger—of betrayals, of incursions, and of one specific sense of “blood,” which is deadly. On the other hand, red is also the color of life, of pulsating love, and, once again, of blood, but in another specific sense, which is familial kinship. It doesn’t matter. All of these somehow come into play in this story about a teenager’s quest for identity and purpose, set in a mystical place called Isla Tawak.

The island is populated by various creatures gleaned from Philippine lower mythology, including the kaskas, the sigbin, the kapre, the tikbalang, the duende, the mambabarang, and the manananggal. [Collectively, they are known as “wakwaks.”] It is the setting with which a young man named Lukas [alternately played by Dasig Nalam and Cristopher Anasario, the latter of whom essayed the role on opening night] must come to face his destiny, with a two-fold purpose that begins his journey: first, to escape the clutches of heinous men who apparently want him for a genetic gift he is largely ignorant of; and second, to find his long-lost mother, a denizen of Isla Tawak named Kasing [played by the luminous Anna del Prado], who might be hiding in the island. That purpose, of course, ultimately changes when Lukas comes to know the island and its people—and the dangers they face involving the encroachment of human beings, settlers who hail from another island called Owat. [Hahaha, this is a clever pun. “Owat” means “trickery” in Binisaya, of course—but reverse the word, and the letters say, “tawo,” the word for “human.” Ikaw jud, Hope.]

Lukas arrives in Tawak in the company of his father Jong [played by Mark Peter Lacson], who acts as his guide, and as his conduit to both the island’s native creatures and encroachers—both camps to which Jong, a human, has strong ties with. Upon his arrival and his subsequent meeting with the wakwaks, Lukas spends all of the first act being privy to a series of flashbacks—how the island itself is abundant with natural resources [all of it somehow connected to the santilmo, a rich and mystical source of power hidden and protected in the titular place]; how human beings—led by researchers Jong, Belma, and Magal—came to the island to find a cure for a plague that’s ravaging humanity; how these researchers later on paved the way for other human beings to settle in the island, ultimately convincing some of the wakwak to embrace their ways and values, forsaking their own [Junsly Kitay’s Mamumulong is especially heinous as a Bible-bearing con man]; how Jong and Kasing fell in love—a pairing that eventually came to bear Lukas; and how the suddenly villainous Belma and Magal seek ways to control the island by looking for the Santilmo, which is protected by Kasing, the only one who holds the secret in opening the red cave.

Truth to tell, the story can be a bit convoluted—but it’s somehow easier to understand Pulang Langob as an amalgam of other stories: there’s definitely Avatar and FernGully: The Last Rainforest and Pocahontas in the mix here, with a little bit of The Lion King thrown in, and also a smidgen of Avatar: The Last Airbender, especially in how it ends—but I will not spoil that crucial development in this space. Stories about pillaging colonizers and the native communities they affect are old as history, and there is really no getting away from the usual arcs of this narrative if this is the story that has to be told. They are like the oral epics of pre-history, whose stories sung by succeeding generations of bards are familiar to every listener—but each one appreciated only by one measure: the richness and uniqueness of the telling.

In that regard then, Pulang Langob is a winner in the telling. Ms. Quesada-Palm, the founder of Dumaguete’s foremost community theatre group Youth Advocates Through Theatre Arts [or YATTA], knows why she wants to tell this story: “[The play] explores mythical creatures—often culturally regarded as evil and as troublemakers—and portray them as indigenous guardians of this reservoir of life confronted with difficult choices as they interact with ‘outsiders,’ the humans. They bear local wisdom that has sustained them for generations because of their ethics of care for each other and the natural world. But their values are tested because of contesting ideas, interests, and possibility.” This goes to show the many layers Pulang Langob offers as a story, and it is quite providential that Ms. Quesada-Palm is the one to take the lead in realizing it for the Luce stage. She is very much a sensitive helmer of this story, and she gives it the necessary textures to make the play more meaningful, and impactful in all the necessary places. Judging from the audience reaction on opening night to specific scenes and to specific dialogues, that impact is assured. [She also appears in a brief role at the play’s prologue.]

But singular props—all the flowers in the world!—must be accorded the teller of the tale, both as composer and as librettist. Everyone knows Hope Tinambacan as a musician, him being the lead singer of HOPIA and the founder of the Belltower Project. He is also known for his zany TikToks and social media presence, where he nurtures a persistent—and politically discerning—liberal voice that is, for the most part, unafraid. His work as a literary artist [he writes balak] and as a theatre artist [he is a director and an actor and a playwright and the founder of D’Salag Collective] are not as well known, but this is where I actually find him to be in his most well-rounded artistic mode, where he takes the rhythms of his musicality and the convictions of his social media postings and the expressive forms of his literary leanings, and distills them all in the form of a play. He has done as much for earlier plays he has written, like Wanted: Boarders and Alkansing Alkansiya, but in Pulang Langob he has taken greater artistic risks to tell this story about destiny and purpose and environmentalism and folk mythology and inhumanity and greed.

It took Mr. Tinambacan fifteen years to write this story, which was first drafted under the working title of Isla Tawak. The painstaking writing of it was guided through the years by many mentors, including Neomi Gonzales and Jeff Hernandez in the beginning, and later shaped by extensive workshops at PETA with Vince De Jesus, Upeng Galang Fernandez, the late Jojo Atienza, and Meann Espinosa. It finally made its premiere last year at the Luce, and by popular demand, is now back for a restaging, complete with new songs, all of them arranged by his brother, Juni Jay Tinambacan.

What also makes this production special is the way it connects various theatre artists from across the Visayas and Mindanao, truly making Pulang Langob a veritable Southern Philippine theatrical project. The choreography is by Nikki Cimafranca of Dumaguete; the set design is by Ted Nudgent Tac-an of Ozamiz City, executed by Aziza Daksla; the lighting design is by Anj Enriquez of Iloilo, executed by Keith Marvin Delgado; and the costume design is by Marvin Ablao of Bohol, executed by the cast. The excellence in the various crafts has to be noted, because—the play being the product of community theatre—it is the embodiment of YATTA’s testament: “Community theatre is excellent theatre.”

Still there are things I wish were better in this production: I wish the sound design was better executed—sometimes the mics fail, and the actors’ voices are not loud enough to be served well by the Luce’s otherwise excellent acoustics; I wish the set design—here made very impressive by the central presence of a gigantic balete tree that is also a cave—was movable enough to make way for other visual elements required by specific scenes [like the awkward insertion of a sala scene, when Belma confronts Jong and asks him to take a side]; and I wish there was more economy of characters—Vanessa Santuryo as Cousin Hannah is gone too soon and never returns for the remainder of the play, and I seriously do not get where Mateo comes from, even though he is played by one of my favorite young actors, Sean Montebon. This is nitpicking, however, and does not really distract from the beauty of the play’s unfolding.

One strength that Pulang Langob has is in its ability to evoke emotion. There are moments of laughter, where the audience finds joy in the characters’ playful banter, and moments of palpable tension, where the weight of impending conflict hangs heavy in the air. But perhaps most striking are the moments of collective silence, where the shared experience of the narrative creates a bond between the performers and the audience, a testament to the play’s profound impact.

In the end, I must say that it is the songs that reverberate. The ballads truly break our hearts, from Jong’s plaintive “Liwat Ka sa Imong Mama” from the beginning of the story, to the three duets in the second act: “Ang Kasingkasing Mobalik” with Jong and Kasing, “Nahadlok Ko” with Tang Tasoy and Lukas, and “Sa Damgo Mo” with Kasing and Lukas, which also becomes the play’s musical motif, appearing here and there to underline the emotional gravity of certain scenes.

Then there is the scary undercurrents of Act II’s opening crowd song, “Adlwang Domingo,” which gathers in one space both wakwak and tawo, the latter incisive in their corruption of the former. And finally there is the martial beats of the two villains—Belma and Magal—singing “Bahala Na!,” which is the very embodiment of greed and evil in a song.

In the end, when Lukas realizes what he must do in light of a certain sacrifice, he sings “Lisod Huna-hunaon, Sayon Sabton,” a beautiful song that is both about bewilderment and understanding:

Lisod hunahunaon, apan sayon sabton
Unsa ang buhaton?
Ako bang matuman gibiling katungdanan

Sayon sabton, apan lisod hunahunaon
Unta naa ka sa akong kiliran
Unta naa ka aron ako magiyahan
Lisod hunahaon… apan sayon sabton.

Pulang Langob is the second musical spectacular produced by YATTA, following the success of Scharon Mani, which took Dumaguete by storm in 2016. Both musicals are astounding testaments of YATTA’s growth, with this year being the celebration of the 20th anniversary of its founding. Both are also testaments to Dumaguete’s nascent claim as a City of Stories. The plays say, we are capable of excellent theatre; they say, we have a community of artists whose talents are worldclass; they say, we celebrate this rich tradition of storytelling we have in Dumaguete. Padayon.

The play runs until 16 March 2025. For tickets and more information, go to the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council website.

Labels: art and culture, cultural affairs committee, dumaguete, philippine literature, silliman, theatre, writers

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Tuesday, December 17, 2024

4:49 PM | Plays! Plays! Plays!

I just finished editing and preparing a packet of full-length plays by Silliman writers [most of them Palanca winners] for Dessa Quesada-Palm’s directing class next semester. Was happy to note that three of them are comedies, and one — Lemuel Torrevillas’ Enter Edison, or What’s the Name of the Guy Who Invented Something — is an absolute farce of the first order. I also loved the pre-colonial shenanigans of Leoncio Deriada’s Maragtas: How Kapinangan Tricked Sumakwel Twice, the Basay-set agrarian reform family melodrama in Bobby Flores Villasis’ Eidolon, the rape legal melodrama of Elsie Coscolluela’s Original Grace, and the forbidden love sarswela of Rolin Migyuel Cadallo Obina’s San Nicolas. [There is another musical in the mix: Lakas ng Mahirap by Rosario Cruz Lucero.] Three are by former students of mine: Mike Gomez’s Tirador ng Tinago, Beryl Andrea Delicana’s Mango Tree, and Jireh Catacutan’s Una't Huling Gabi sa Ramona Disco. I have nine in all so far, and waiting to source out three more [one by Edilberto Tiempo, one by Linda Faigao-Hall, and one by Krip Yuson]. This really should be an anthology.

Labels: dumaguete, philippine literature, silliman, theatre, writers

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Sunday, December 15, 2024

11:20 AM | Lina Sagaral Reyes, 1961-2024

The last time Lina and I chatted was only a month ago. She wanted me to join her for a journalism event slated in Mindanao next year. Of course I said yes. Silliman and Dumaguete will miss you, Lina. Thank you for being a gentle guide when I was going through my own mental health crisis during the pandemic.

Lina Sagaral Reyes was a poet and journalist. She was born on 6 July 1961 in Villalimpia, Bohol, which according to her was a "a village of blacksmiths, nipa thatchers, fishers, carpenters, a few teachers, sailors and other professionals, and women who live on their own."

She moved to Dumaguete City and took courses in Journalism and Creative Writing at Silliman University between 1978 and 1983, and made the distinction of being the first female student elected as President of the SU Student Government. In 1987, she was diagnosed with a disease, which doctors claimed would take her life in two years. She wrote furiously in this time, and was quite prolific — but she outlived the diagnosis, and she returned to Bohol, reclaimed her parents' house, and transformed it into the office of the Center for Creative Women. She began researching on the life stories of creative women in villages for the Writers Involved in Creative Cultural Alternatives [WICCA]. She won the Palanca Award for her poetry in 1987 [first prize, for “(Instead of a Will These) For All the Loved Ones”] and then in 1990 [third prize, for “Istorya”]. She would author the poetry collection, Honing Weapons, published by Lunhaw Books in 1987. Another collection, ‘Storya, was published in 1993 by the Babaylan Women's Publishing Collective and the Institute of Women's Studies of St. Scholastica's College.

As a journalist, she wrote for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Mindanao Gold Star Daily, and often reported on the intersection between gender, the environment, climate change, culture, the arts, and mental health. As one of the directors of the The Cagayan de Oro Press Club Journalism Institute, she fostered collaborations with other organizations and drafted programs to enhance the media community. In 1998 she received the Jaime V. Ongpin Award for Investigative Journalism, for an expose on sand dredging to accommodate an international resort. In 2000 she received the National Science and Technology Journalism Grand Prize for an investigation into an algal bloom in Macajalar Bay, and in 2020 her in-depth probe into corporate pineapple farms and their questionable carbon-negative claims won her the Globe Media Excellence Awards.

She died on 14 December 2024.

Here’s a poem by Lina from her Palanca-winning collection, ‘Storya, in 1990:

Here’s a poem in tribute to Lina by Adonis Durado:

And another poem in tribute to Lina by Elio Garcia:

Labels: dumaguete, journalism, obituary, philippine literature, poetry, silliman, writers

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Friday, December 06, 2024

11:49 AM | Last Class of the Semester

Still recuperating, but I got up to attend my last full class of the semester. Slowly and surely ticking off my last classes before the semestral break. Critical Writing Workshop, done! Fiction Workshop, done! Playwriting Workshop, done! Asian Literature, done! And finally done with Literature and Cultural Studies [which I'm just subbing for]. Now to rest.

Labels: health, life, silliman, teaching

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Sunday, December 01, 2024

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.

Labels: art and culture, dumaguete, negros, philippine history, philippine literature, silliman, theatre, writers

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Friday, November 15, 2024

10:00 PM | La Boheme at Silliman

I love the fact that in Dumaguete, I can tell myself: “I want to end this busy week by watching opera.” And watch I did, straight from my last class of the day.

In the photo, that’s Rodolfo and Mimi in this barebones production of Puccini’s La Boheme at Silliman University’s Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium, presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and featuring the performers from Viva Voce Voice Lab. The entire opera was staged, but it was not a full-fledged production — there was no orchestra [only a piano] and there were no elaborate costumes — but all there was were performance, gusto, and the beauty of the human voice. Often, that’s enough.

The show was packaged as an educational outreach program, to teach contemporary Filipino audiences about what opera is all about, and to make a traditionally daunting art form be accessible to those who have only heard about what opera is like and are too intimidated to watch any. Hence, the helpful introduction by artistic director Camille Lopez Molina before the show began [she was very funny]. Hence, the simplicity of the staging. Hence, the supertitles projected on screen that directly translated the Italian lyrics the performers were singing.

Truth to tell, this was my first opera, and although it was done in this format, I was grateful for what it was — because everyone in the audience truly enjoyed the musical spectacle onstage: an audience of mostly students awww’d at the lighting quick romance between the two leads, arrrgh’d at the seeming red-flagness of Rodolfo when he wanted to break up with Mimi, and ohhhh’d at Mimi’s final demise.

[Molina also explained that the company specifically sought out a performance at the Luce because this was Viva Voce’s experiment with raw voice projection, no amplification, in a suitable theater: the Luce remains the only theater in the country with the best acoustics.]

I can readily tell when a Luce audience is appreciative [and Dumaguete is notoriously hard to please], and tonight was one for the books.

At the end, I also realized that this show signaled the end of the pandemic for me. At least culturally speaking. The last show I watched at the Luce before lockdown started in 2020 was Rent, the Jonathan Larson musical that borrows heavily from La Boheme. Four year later, I am watching the OG material on the same stage. My pandemic has been properly bookended.

P.S. It’s now funny to me that when I listened to opera before, the Italian lyrics and the melodic voice made me think they were singing of very important pronouncements. Now I know that they’re just singing of the most mundane things, like: “I left a pink bonnet underneath your pillow. Please pack it for me.”

Labels: art and culture, cultural affairs committee, cultural center of the philippines, dumaguete, life, music, opera, silliman

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Sunday, August 25, 2024

9:00 AM | Reminiscences of a Former Ms. Silliman Inside Man

The current online storm that has broken over the handling of Ms. Silliman 2024—which, as of this writing, has yet to get to coronation night—might puzzle some Dumagueteños, especially the newly arrived to our quaint shores, who might think this is just some small campus beauty pageant that is as negligible as other similar pageants—so why the incessant buzz about it, even from supposedly sophisticated individuals who should know better? This column is a chance to understand why there is a hullabaloo.

Our new friends aside, all the rest of Dumaguete would know why for many Ms. Silliman stands just outside that usual category of “beauty pageant,” and why no one compares it to similar enterprises like Miss Dumaguete or Miss Negros Oriental [or your dozens of town or barangay pageants sprinkled all over the island]. For many Ms. Silliman is uniquely its own thing, an erstwhile celebration of “campus beauty” that is also the epitome of “school spirit”—and “smarts.” There is a reason why it is fondly referred to as a “quiz bowl disguised as a beauty pageant,” which is often said in jest whenever uttered in protest when a more beautiful candidate once again ends up first runner-up to the one who sparkled the most in the Q & A and who bags the crown. It also has a unique history, and a magnificent list of winners—including Palanca Hall-of-Famer Elsa Martinez Coscolluela!—that has made it one of the central events that define the Silliman University Founders Day celebration every August. [Now, it also takes being a Dumagueteño to know how ultimately central Founders Day is to the life of the small city; it is so significantly Dumaguete, it’s even bigger than all the rest of the usual local festivals and holidays. ] Ms. Silliman’s reputation as a unique signifier of Silliman excellence is so entrenched in the Dumaguete cultural mindset that its crowning every year becomes something everyone looks out for.

Truth to tell, I had been so happily out-of-touch with what has been going on with Ms. Silliman this year. I’d been sick for most of mid-August, and had no real strength to navigate the exasperations of people on social media. But as soon as I recuperated and faced the current shenanigans of Facebook, I could not help but feel immediately overwhelmed with all the gossips and pushbacks centering on the current organization handling the annual show. A lot of allegations have been thrown and the landscape has become a total mudbath—all of which I have no real desire for recounting, although I did laugh when the Ms. Silliman pubmats came out and made the case for what not to do if you don’t want your event to look tacky.

But the one thing that caught my eye though was their first poster for coronation night, and I couldn’t believe it. Whoever approved that poster has a complete misunderstanding of what Ms. Silliman is all about. The taste level was already suspect to begin with, but to pose these Silliman women like girls in a harem was also something else.

Also the theme emblazoned on the poster: “A reminiscence of bravery and pioneering advocacies to shape the future.” What in tarnation does that mean? It is a tagline so contradictory and convoluted, it is virtually empty of meaning. For those alumni who used to be proud of “Silliman English,” this is the epitaph.

As a Sillimanian, I felt violated. Because if you are a Sillimanian, there are many enduring traditions that do help define your memories of campus life—dorm life, cultural immersion, a love or hate relationship with cafeteria food, classroom shenanigans, intramural madness, campus publication glory, Founders Day fever—but there is only one that ever feels gilded for many: the Ms. Silliman Pageant.

I’ve served in various capacities in Ms. Silliman pageants of yore, both as a student organizer and then as a faculty adviser. Today, I may no longer believe in pageants as a cultural institution and have actively turned my back on all forms of participation [including judging], but there is one thing about the Ms. Silliman Pageant that gives me pause: the fact that it has served as an earnest laboratory for creativity and event-organizing for a large swathe of the student population—student leaders and creatives who work tirelessly for barely any recompense to hone their skills in whatever it is they’ve showed promise in. That they do this for one of the oldest pageants in the world—it is older than even the Miss Universe—is something still compelling for me. I no longer believe in pageants, yes—but I believe somehow still in Ms. Silliman.

Plus there’s the nostalgia. I was the head scriptwriter for the 50th Ms. Silliman Pageant in 1997, with Michael Ocampo as Chairman, which without doubt was the biggest gamechanger in the pageant’s history, and necessitated the move from the gymnasium to the Macias Sports Complex. The controversy of including a swimwear portion aside, the marketing for that pageant was mind-blowing, it actually galvanized not just the campus but the entire city; hence, there will always be two eras of Ms. Silliman: pre-1997 and post-1997.

I was also the one who later on advocated to separate the talent portion from the coronation night, and to add it to the pre-pageant instead. [I just had enough of coronation nights that lasted until 2 AM because the talent portions ran too long.]

In the 2000s, when I was adviser to the pageant, I wrote an entire history of the Ms. Silliman Pageant to preface the new guidelines we wrote, which we intended to be the pageant bible for future Ms. Silliman Committees to use. I wrote about how it started as a student morale booster and popularity contest instigated by the campus paper in the post-World War II years, which is why the runners-up are called the Miss Cover Girl and the Miss Headline Girl.

I wrote about why the Pan Hellenic Society invented the pre-pageant, to set the pageant apart with its insistence on the intelligence, and articulation, of the candidates. [This is why many people refer to Ms. Silliman as a “quiz bee” disguised as a beauty pageant, and why speech always seem to trump beauty in the final consideration.]

I wrote about why it lost the word “beauty” from the complete title, and why it became “Ms.” instead of “Miss.” [This was Nursing Dean Ma. Teresita Sy-Sinda’s idea—to curb the inherent sexism that is couched in the suggestion of a “miss.” She was the Honorary Chair of the 50th iteration of the pageant, and insisted on this—hence that usage for many years, until this edict has somewhat been forgotten in recent iterations.]

And, finally, I wrote about why the advocacy angle had to be inculcated—because the new guidelines were made in a time when there was a huge push to relegate the pageant to the dustbin of history. It was because, with feminism resurgent everywhere, many people really began questioning the concept of a Ms. Silliman to be outdated—and to be honest, it really is.

The new guidelines we wrote followed a Ms. Silliman Pageant controversy that erupted over cheating allegations [the final question in the pre-pageant was leaked to a favored candidate and that candidate was so incensed by that act she told everyone], and another pageant where only three candidates vied for the crown, rendering all as title-holder and runners-up at once. [The College of Nursing’s Ma. Teresita Sy-Sinda, who had been the pageant’s honorary chair a few years back, reacted to what was happening by banning all her students from joining the pageant for many years, and some college deans followed her suit. We even briefly flirted with the idea of opening the competition to candidates fielded by campus organizations, because we could not get candidates from the colleges and units anymore. I remember being so desperate I begged the Graduate School, which never usually fielded candidates, to join—and I succeeded on that count! The pageant was really dying at that time, hence the need for the guidelines.

Moses Joshua Atega had an alternative ready should Ms. Silliman cease to exist: the Silliman University Campus Goodwill Ambassador, which pitted both men and women, and was designed to compete with similar winners from other schools. The whole enterprise lasted for one year, with Gabriel Enriquez winning in 2003, and begat one other competition from St. Paul University. [Plans to do a Campus Goodwill Ambassador pageant at the Negros Oriental State University, Foundation University, and other schools faltered—hence the final derby fielding all these campus winners did not materialize.]

In my strict version of the advocacy thing in the guidelines we wrote sometime in the mid-2000s, I even wanted the candidates to propose an entire calendar of activities for her chosen advocacy, para dili pang-pageant lang.

Whatever happened to that pageant bible? If it’s lost, is this why the new Ms. Silliman organizing committee seems to be lost on what to do?

Labels: life, memories, miss silliman, silliman

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Friday, May 17, 2024

7:00 PM | For Culture and the Arts!

I hosted the first day of panels for the Philippine Music and Culture Summit last Wednesday with Mayumi Maghuyop. Enjoyed it. I thought it would stress me out, but it was the easiest of all my obligations in the past month. It was a breeze. It was also an all-afternoon affair, but I'm glad to have done this for the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council, in the name of cultural work of course.

Labels: art and culture, life, silliman

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026

12:00 PM | Grrrrr

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9:00 AM | The Return of Silliman Film Open

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

6:30 PM | Classes, Done!

Thursday, March 05, 2026

11:49 PM | Breather

Friday, October 31, 2025

9:00 PM | Wake Me Because I Must Be Dreaming! Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!

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9:00 PM | Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!

Thursday, August 28, 2025

10:56 PM | OSA Memories

Friday, August 08, 2025

9:52 PM | The Pianist as Pinoy

Friday, August 01, 2025

10:00 PM | Swans Descending in Dumaguete

Monday, July 07, 2025

2:34 PM | Paul Palmore Returns!

Monday, May 05, 2025

9:00 AM | Incendiary Memories and Diasporic Reckonings

Monday, April 28, 2025

9:00 AM | A Love Letter from the Rainbow

Friday, March 14, 2025

11:00 PM | The Way of the Wakwak

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

4:49 PM | Plays! Plays! Plays!

Sunday, December 15, 2024

11:20 AM | Lina Sagaral Reyes, 1961-2024

Friday, December 06, 2024

11:49 AM | Last Class of the Semester

Sunday, December 01, 2024

9:00 AM | A Second Homecoming for Elsa Martinez Coscolluela

Friday, November 15, 2024

10:00 PM | La Boheme at Silliman

Sunday, August 25, 2024

9:00 AM | Reminiscences of a Former Ms. Silliman Inside Man

Friday, May 17, 2024

7:00 PM | For Culture and the Arts!