Wednesday, October 16, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 209.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Friday, October 11, 2024
6:27 PM |
Han Kang, Nobel Prize Laureate
The New York Times on Han Kang’s win. This is a very good analysis of why we needed this first Asian female writer [and first South Korean] to be our Nobel Prize laureate this year. It’s a perfect stand against entrenched patriarchy [and in South Korea, a fitting rebuke against poet Ko Un, long considered the probable Korean to win the prize but who is now facing a backlash for allegations of sexual harassment].
Labels: asian literature, literature, Nobel Prize, writers
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Wednesday, October 09, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 208.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Monday, October 07, 2024
9:52 PM |
Flowers for an Anxiety Attack
I had a small anxiety attack today, so the s.o. surprised me by buying three dozens of my favorite flowers. Arranging them gave me something to focus on, which was quite calming. Also: this is love.
I wish everyone an anxiety-free National Mental Health Week!
Labels: life, love, mental health
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 207.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, September 29, 2024
9:00 AM |
Two American Women in Negros, One War
A war will always be ripe for stories. Always of atrocities and sacrifices, and always of perseverance and often of hope. World War II—the last great war that engulfed most of the world—has been the subject of many such stories, and I was reminded of this last September 22 when we commemorated, alas without much notice from the people of Negros Oriental, the 79th anniversary of the surrender of the Japanese forces in the province to American soldiers. This was months after a wave of liberation all over the country started in 20 October 1944 when Gen. Douglas MacArthur famously landed in Leyte, together with President Sergio Osmeña, who became head of the Commonwealth after the death of President Quezon in exile. That landing was a precursor to the end of the war—a seemingly hopeful harbinger, but with it came a rise in grim ferocity and suicidal courage by the Japanese occupying the Philippines.
Negros was largely spared the level of atrocities that attended many areas of the Philippines—but that does not mean we did not get our share of terrors. On 26 April 1945, the Americans finally landed on Negros Oriental soil, in Lo-oc, the very beach in Sibulan where the guerillas had snatched their first victory against the Japanese in 1942. In Dumaguete, only a few days after that landing, the people who spent the last three years hiding in the mountains came down to find isolated ruins [the town of Dumaguete was spared the conflagration that wiped out many other places during the war], but things soon went back to normal—albeit a nerve-wracked one exposed to the evils of humanity. The Japanese had fled to the hills of Valencia, in a last ditch effort to escape surrender, hoping for better and more winning outcomes in the fast-changing tides of warfare. They stayed there for almost half a year.
Finally, on 22 September 1945, they surrendered at Basak Ridge near Guinso-an Bridge in Nasig-id, Zamboanguita. Leading the Japanese forces was Col. Satoshi Oyei who, in a symbol of surrender, handed over his sword to Col. F. Wilson, of the 503rd Airborne Division, with none of the Filipino guerillas in attendance. Oie was the head of the 174th Independent Infantry Battalion, which was stationed in the Dumaguete Garrison, and they were the last battalion who held on to Negros Oriental—fighting in the hinterlands of the towns close to the provincial capital. From the write-ups of history professor Justin Jose Austria Bulado, we learn that the Japanese were suffering from a lack of morale and they were in dire need of food. The remaining Japanese troops under Oie finally came down from the hinterlands and surrendered to the Americans. There were no guerrillas present at that time since Oie and his men intentionally chose—and requested only for—the Americans to accept their formal surrender as they feared guerrilla retribution. The defeated Japanese forces were then sent to the Trade School building in Dumaguete where they would temporarily stay, awaiting their transfer to the various prisoner-of-war camps in the Philippines and in Japan. Oie was later on tried for war crimes in Manila, and was executed in the early hours of 23 October 1948, three years after his surrender in Zamboanguita.
Stories of what World War II was like in Dumaguete and Negros Oriental will always continue to fascinate me—and I am happy that we are blessed with a rich literature detailing its gruesome unfolding, some of it historiography and some of it literary. We have Caridad Aldecoa-Rodriguez, whose 1989 multi-volume work on the history of the province has one book dedicated to the war years, and inside it we learn of the war in terms of numbers and names and bare details. We also have Earl Jude Cleope, whose book Bandit Zone published in 2002, tackles the history of the so-called “Free Areas” of Negros Island during the war. We also have Justin Bulado who has written many articles about the important local personages during the war years, including wartime provincial governor Guillermo Villanueva and former Dumaguete mayor Mariano Perdices. We also have Salvador Abcede, war hero and guerrilla leader in Negros who largely operated in the mountains of Tanjay, who would release a war novel titled Nita based on his experiences and first published in 1984. We also have Edilberto Tiempo, who wrote two novels set in World War II—Watch in the Night from 1953 [later published in the U.S. as Cry Slaughter! in 1957] and More Than Conquerors in 1982. We also have Scott A. Mills, who published Stranded in the Philippines in 2009, where he wrote about the war experiences of Prof. Henry Roy Bell and his wife Edna, both American teachers at Silliman University.
And then there are the memoirs, a significant number of them—“significant” because Dumaguete is not really a place you would think of when you think of World War II in the Philippines. But despite that, a great deal of literature has indeed sprung from our corner of the occupied world of that time. What struck me most about these war memoirs set in Negros Oriental, however, is the fact that a great number of them were written by American women. [A quick aside: According to Dr. Cleope, there are also two unpublished accounts of the war years in Dumaguete from the Japanese perspective—one by Komei Fujitomi, who was first lieutenant of the 174th Independent Infantry Battalion, and another by Kyuji Yamada, who was corporal of the 31st Educational Flying Corps of the Japanese Imperial Navy.]
One such American memoir, We Did Not Surrender, was written by Silliman teacher Abby Jacobs in 1983 but published only in 2003—a book I have yet to read. Jacobs, the sister of Metta Jacobs Silliman and sister-in-law of Robert Silliman [yes, the namesakes of the present building housing the Silliman University Library], had earlier written an unpublished 27-chapter narrative, also about the war, titled “Soldiers Without Shoes,” but I am not sure if the final book is based on that earlier memoir.
About two years or so ago, I read within a span of a day, and without any intention in my part, two other memoirs by American women, and both published in 1947—only two years after World War II officially ended. These were The Sun Was Darkened by Alice Franklin Bryant [published by Chapman and Grimes in Boston], and Escape to the Hills by James and Ethel Chapman [published by The Jacques Cattell Press, and one must note: while the authorship of the book signifies the two names of the couple, the writing within clearly had been done by Mrs. Chapman alone].
Two years ago, when I began reading these two memoirs, I was coming off from a first-day high of renewed research on the literary history of Negros Oriental, the manuscript of which I finished about seven years ago, fully intending to go over it again in an exhaustive edit—but which I inadvertently abandoned because … life happened. [And there was also a crippling pandemic.] I had dusted off one chapter of that work on the literary history of Negros Oriental—focusing on the formative years of our written literature between 1901 to 1945—for the sake of including it in the second volume of Hugkat the journal of Dumaguete and Oriental Negrense history and culture I’ve been co-editing with Dr. Cleope—and in doing so, was dropped into a rabbit’s hole ushering me into these war memoirs.
Another thing that struck me about these memoirs was this: while the books are connected by several commonalities—the authors are both American women living in Negros Oriental when the World War II broke out in the Pacific—the perspectives are so different from each other. One is clearly the work of a middle-class woman teaching in an American school during the American colonial period; the other is clearly the work of a privileged individual married to an American landowner. The run of their stories is similar—fleeing encroaching Japanese forces into the foothills of the province and living off the land for months on end, and finally getting captured and sent to Bacolod for processing before being interred in the concentration camp for American POWs at the University of Santo Tomas. They also detail atrocities and hardships and the constant fear of the unknown suddenly befalling their lot. But the voices that tell these stories are so different.
Alice Bryant was born Alice Franklin in Fredricktown, Missouri, on 1 May 1899. In The Sun Was Darkened, she talks about being married to a man several years her senior—William Cheney Bryant—who was an American official assigned to the Philippines: “[M]y husband’s roots were deep in the Philippines,” Mrs. Bryant writes in the memoir, “where he had lived and labored since 1902, for many years as a provincial governor and afterwards as a coconut planter. He had, in his youth, vigorously and paternally administered head-hunting Ifugaos, Ibilaos [sic], Manobos, and turbulent Moros. The latter he had pacified in the province of Cotabato, and one of the of the most powerful datus had admired him so much that he had adopted him as a son.” She continues: “These things he had done long before I met him. For the fourteen years just past he had become a coconut planter… Because of my husband’s seniority in age and accomplishments, I have always felt too respectful to call him by his given name, and hence commonly refer to him as the Gov’nor, and sometimes address him as Your Excellency.”
That coconut plantation happened to be located in the town of Pamplona, in the middle of Negros Oriental. And in the beginning of Mrs. Bryant’s book, she tells of a sojourn from America, where the couple purposely left their young daughter Imogene in the care of relatives, before journeying back to the Philippines where their livelihood was located. This was in 1939, and when they started back to Asia via a steamer, most friends and family begged them to stay, fearing an eventual outbreak of a war; they, however, insisted on going back. I like the part when they finally arrive in Dumaguete, where Mrs. Bryant writes: “How happy we had been on the inter-island boat when we saw the Horns of Negros! These well-named precipitous summits of a jungle-covered mountain rise to a height of 5,000 feet, and are so distinctive that, when we saw them, we knew we were almost home… / Now we were so near the shore that, to our right, we could see palms bending gracefully over the beach. In front of us was the pier and, to the left, buildings belonging to Silliman University, a missionary institution, and some fine residences along the waterfront. This was all we could see of Dumaguete…because the town is almost completely hidden by the coconut palms and acacias.” They are met at the pier by American peers, and then she continues: “We motored over to the Far Eastern Grocery, the leading grocery of the province, to get the things [my husband] had already ordered. The Chinese in the store seemed happy to see us back—indeed everyone seemed happy. Perhaps a warm climate predisposes people to be light-hearted and carefree.”
After a few passages, they finally arrive home in their Pamplona plantation. We learn she loved her thatched vine-covered house, perfectly maintained by good servants. She talks of her daily routines at the plantation house, and describes the people that visit her [like “snaggle-toothed old Mrs. Reyes”] or surround her [like “Lame Maria”]: “Life on the plantation was pleasantly secluded, but we were by no means cut off from the world. Good magazines kept us well-informed on current events. News came over the radio from Manila and London, although occasionally we listened to many far-scattered stations.” Later, she would describe their social life as spare but enjoyable: “We went off the plantation very little. Once a week we went to town to do our errands. When they were accomplished my husband had a game of gold with Filipino friends while I taught my Spanish dancing class. Then I would join him and other club members on the lawn in front of the thatched clubhouse for a cold drink while the sunset flamed above us and around us. / Occasionally we attended a ball. Filipino parties have an atmosphere of great enjoyment. Some were given in the club, some in private homes. One of the finest we attended during the year was a ball given after the wedding ceremony of the daughter of one of the sugar planters. Of Spanish descent, she was the most beautiful bride I have ever seen, and her white gown and lace veil were rich and elegant. After the ceremony at the Catholic Church at Bais, we went to the bride’s home. The several hundred guests found tables loaded with a profusion of rich food—pigs roasted over an open fire, turkeys, boned fowls stuffed with sausage, meat pastries, cakes. For me, the dancing was far more important than the food and drink. Filipinos and I agree on this point. In a swirl of pink organza, I did the cariñosa, a pretty flirtatious native dance, with the governor of the province.”
Two years after the Bryants arrived back in Pamplona, in 1941, Pearl Harbor exploded and sent America into the hell of war. Mrs. Bryant prepared for the war the only way she could: with caution, and also increasing helplessness. She writes: “Although I had considered war a possibility, such was my ignorance of military affairs that I was astounded both at our isolation and the speed with which the Japanese were taking the islands around us. I had not realized they would be inevitably be taken, until that fateful moment when the Gov’nor announced, ‘It’s begun!’ Then I had at once sensed our helplessness.”
But she also had an eye for detail, and gossip, which no history book could contain: “An American quartermaster captain became the ranking officer of the province. Poor fellow! Nervous and irritable, he was unpopular with everyone. He was in a climate and a country he hated. He was in an almost hopeless situation and he was worried to death. On one occasion, he ordered an ambulance to hurry to a PT-boat that was wrecked south of Dumaguete. Through someone’s blunder the ambulance was late in arriving, and a mad died in consequence.” And this is why I love memoirs as a complement to history books: they add color and opinion to what is only barebones fact in history. The man is not named but a quick reference with Caridad Aldecoa-Rodriguez’s book makes us deduce this might be Major Robert N. Vesey.
Pamplona being safely far inland, and away by many kilometers from Bais or Dumaguete, the Bryants would invite other people to take refuge with them during the war, most of them American teachers in Dumaguete. Her descriptions of each guest, often withering, is such a delight to read—especially for one Mahitable Smithers, a spinster and businesswoman who just happened to be in Dumaguete when the war begun: “She was nervous, pessimistic, and noticeably lacking in any joy of living. Her headquarters were in Manila, but she happened to be in in our province when the war erupted.” Ms. Smithers was, in fact, not invited to stay with the Bryants, but she showed up anyway. She soon surprised everyone by doing her share of domestic duties and for being surprisingly agreeable—unlike Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard who “often woke us up in the night…[and during siesta] disturbed us by reading aloud, talking, walking around, and going in and out… Hints were lost upon them.” [Smithers, however, would change when everyone gets captured and transferred to Bacolod.]
Later, we learn that the Bryant house in Pamplona was the actual residence President Manuel Quezon and his entourage stayed in before being spirited out of the country via submarine to exile. Mrs. Bryant writes: “Once we returned home after having Sunday dinner at the colonel’s, we were surprised to find two cars by the house. Then we saw two strange girls lying on a basket spread on the lawn in the shade cast by the house. They were both asleep, so we went up the stairs. On the verandah, a plump Filipino was asleep on a divan. Another was in an easy chair with this head thrown back and his mouth open. Just then, the mayor of Tanjay came out onto the verandah. ‘It’s the Quezon family and their party!’ he said to us in a low voice so as not to awaken the sleepers. ‘They escaped from Corregidor on a submarine! I brought them here to take a siesta. Quezon is in there,’ pointing to our room…. At once I sent for my servants, who were not far away in their respective homes, and we soon had a supper prepared, which we served on the verandah to the Quezon family, the politicians who accompanied them, and our houseguests. Quezon was very nervous. He drank one glass of ice-water after another and smoked incessantly. Mrs. Quezon talked as incessantly as her husband smoked, telling how they lived in a tunnel on Corregidor and escaped by submarine…” Again, these are particular and lived-in details you will never read in a history book.
Eventually, with the Japanese occupation of Negros Island in full swing, the Bryants had to leave the comforts of their plantation house and venture up the more challenging terrains of the mountains. She found the jungles beautiful—but also was aware of the lurking, unseen dangers. She was also cognizant of the hardships ahead. “The jungle was so devoid of food that there was not much animal life about us, and what creatures there were preferred to remain unseen,” she writes. “No doubt there were pythons, but we saw none. During the hours of darkness, we heard the barking of large fruit bats… Unfortunately there was one species of widely distributed small animal, which immediately invaded our shelves—rats!” She would see the challenges overcome her companions—especially Mrs. Miller: “She had been the most optimistic of any of us before the Japanese entered our province, but now she saw armed enemies behind every bush, and insisted very brusquely on having brought up … against our wishes several large, heavy suitcases that she had filled with things that could be of no use in the mountains.”
What makes this memoir memorable is the fact that the Bryants were close to the powers that be in Negros Oriental—evident in the fact that their Pamplona residence was the chosen refuge for the President of the Philippine Commonwealth before going to exile. This meant they were close to the political goings-on during the war, including the fate of Pepe Martinez, a local official killed by the guerilla for collaborating with the Japanese. In this memoir, we get behind the scenes of these wartime political happenings, complete with transcribed conversations. Very juicy!
Eventually, the Japanese would capture the Bryant party in the mountains, and they would thgen be taken to Dumaguete and eventually to Bacolod, then to final internment in Manila. I finished the book quickly, finding quite interesting a narrative of the war from a privileged woman’s point-of-view. Further research would reveal that, after the war and after settling back in American society, Mrs. Bryant became a leader in the anti-war movement and also an officer of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She later on became a candidate for United States Representative from the 1st Congressional District in Seattle, Washington, and also ran for the Senate. She died in Seattle on 7 June 1977.
But The Sun Was Darkened was actually my second book which I read that fateful day when I stumbled onto American memoirs about the war in Negros Oriental. I only read it because I had finished quickly something I stumbled into online: an e-copy of James and Ethel Chapman’s wartime memoir Escape to the Hills. The Chapmans were missionary teachers at Silliman University when the war broke out—and both were exemplary members of the Dumaguete community, so much so that today, the Science Complex at Silliman is named after James. He was an entomologist, who played a critical role as an academic and later as a University administrator, responsible for building up the reputation of Silliman in science research. [In preparation for the war, he was also chosen as the provincial supervisor in-charge of food and rationing.]
From the Silliman University website, we learn that “while in Silliman, [Chapman] taught biology, chemistry, and physics, with a special fascination with myrmecology, the study of ants. It was this passion for what many would term as ‘hard sciences’ that brought him to Silliman in 1916 when he joined as a science faculty. He arrived with his wife, Ethel, who joined Silliman as an English teacher.”
Ethel the English Teacher was the one responsible for the riveting memoir she wrote under both their names about their extensive experiences in the mountains of Negros Oriental during the war. I didn’t intend to be so caught up by Escape to the Hills I scanned the first pages just because—but soon found myself riveted by its very engaging writing. I found myself reading nonstop—and if you can understand my ADHD, you know this only happens rarely.
The memoir is so good because it is so thrilling. I loved having a fantastic mental picture of Dumaguete right before World War II broke out in the Pacific in December 1941. I loved the details of the inhabitants preparing for the war to come, rationing food and preparing shelter in the mountains.
I loved learning from the book that Abby Jacobs was a super woman! Asteeeeg! University President Arthur Carson’s order was for all the women and children to immediately evacuate Dumaguete when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, but she stayed behind in campus with the men, and went about the task of publishing The Daily Sillimanian, to print factual information about the war for the Dumaguete community, in order to combat the hysterical fake news they were already being bombarded by. She stayed on that job right until the very end, when she was forced to surrender it. Together with her family, she was eventually ferreted out of Negros via submarine, but stayed in Australia and found work with the military. She was with the liberation force that entered Manila in April 1945.
I loved learning from the book that even with the war going on, James Chapman was still the fervent biologist that he was, going about their evacuation places still collecting plants and animals for study. [The section on ants is endearing! And the section on food was strangely delicious, and enlightening!]
I loved learning from the book that despite all the dangers, they still found time to set-up a “Jungle University,” catering to the education needs of their neighbors in the mountains of Negros.
Finally, I loved learning about surviving the war from the point-of-view of an ordinary English teacher.
I am truly amazed by the bravery and the resourcefulness of our early Silliman teachers. The section that details their eventual interment at the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila was a painful passage to read, and showed how the prisoners had to resort to furtive politics to get things done. [Yes, like the Bryants, the Chapmans were also eventually captured by the Japanese, and imprisoned in Manila].
To be honest, Silliman University should be reprinting this valuable Chapman memoir, first published 77 years ago and long out of print. [Thank God I found a copy to read online.] Because it’s really sad that we only know them now as buildings and nothing else: Ethel Chapman is a building for nursing students, James Chapman is a science building, and Abby Jacobs is a residence hall.
Buildings in their memory are nice. Their stories, preserved and read today, would even be better.Labels: books, dumaguete, history, negros, war, world war II, writers, writing
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Wednesday, September 25, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 206.
Labels: poetry
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Friday, September 20, 2024
4:11 PM |
At the Therapist.
I finished therapy with my psychiatrist yesterday. She’s recommending new antidepressants. She reminded me: “Your meds is just a tool,” to which I said: “I’ve learned to accept they’re not magic pills, but they help.” She also reminded me: “You’re doing so much. Executive dysfunction happens when you’re overwhelmed. Try to do only the things you really are passionate about.” Which is also what I tell myself, constantly, and I’m still learning how to do this. We talked about mindfulness, we talked about expectations management. She’s giving me a new exercise to do, something about having a double when I do things. It intrigued me. “I love that you’re looking at all these like a child in wonder,” she told me finally. I took that as a compliment.
Labels: life, mental health
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 205.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
There are things that are never constant, and are often lost: socks, my sanity, umbrellas. I bought another umbrella today, on a day speckled with rain. I had given up finding the brown foldable one that had kept residence inside my bag for a couple of years now; but I still miss the black one I used to have, which was designed like a cane — I liked walking around with it, making tapping sounds on the ground with its tip. For some reason, that brought me tiny jolts of strange pleasure. So I bought a similar one today at the department store downtown, never mind that it’s not portable and also not easily put away in a bag. I will probably lose this umbrella again sometime soon. But what are things that are always lost? They remind me only that life is fleeting, nothing and no one is indispensable, but the music you make with umbrella tip on ground, that’s something to smile about.
Labels: life
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Wednesday, September 11, 2024
You are such a positive force in my life, I honestly can’t say how I would have survived the pandemic without you by my side. You are all of the good in the world in human form, and you bring so much light to so many people’s lives. You deserve all the happiness this world can give you, and I wish you the bestest 30th birthday today.
[Photo courtesy of Shi Mei Estimada]
Labels: birthday, life, love
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7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 204.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Monday, September 09, 2024
10:09 PM |
Memories of Writer Friends Who Have Vanished From My Life
I am rereading an essay written by an old friend from back in the day, in the early 2000s. It is one of my favorite pieces of literary criticism cum personal essay, a postmodern critique of the music of Joni Mitchell, which I loved so much I included it in my first book, an anthology of young Filipino writers, which garnered for me my first finalist citation from the National Book Awards. [This was in 2003.] It is still a powerful piece of literature. But I do wonder where my friend is now. Come to think of it, I have known so many people in my life, in my journey as a writer, who like me wanted to be writers, too. So many of them were so good. But whatever happened to them? Why did they stop writing? Where are they?Labels: life, writers, writing
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And I feel a bit sad. Yesterday was the last exhibition day of the
EDDIE ROMERO MEMORABILIA EXHIBIT, which I curated for the National Museum of the Philippines, with F Jordan Carnice.
It was an honor to work for this exhibit, and we have so many people to be thankful for: the
Romero family, especially,
Joey Romero; everyone at the
National Commission for Culture and the Arts, especially
Lou Izabelle Danganan; everyone at the
Robert and Metta Silliman University Library, especially
Sarah Angiela Ragay; everyone at the
Dumaguete City Tourism Office, especially
Katherine Aguilar; and last but not the least, everyone at the
National Museum of the Philippines Dumaguete, especially
Shi Mei Estimada [and a huge shoutout to
Mark Anthony Singson who assembled all the panels!].
Thank you to everybody who came to see the exhibit!
Labels: dumaguete, exhibits, film, people, thanksgiving
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Saturday, September 07, 2024
9:00 PM |
I Like My Saturday
I like this Saturday. I had things to do but I also mostly followed my feet, letting things flow organically without letting a schedule determine things. Turns out, it was a perfect way to meet and spend time with good friends — and we didn’t even have to make appointments with each other! What a way to see Ernest and Gayle and Poc and Shimei and Vince and Toulla and Hersley…
And then, of course, the s.o. is finally home from Vietnam! Here's us with hugs all around with his mom and aunties.
Labels: dumaguete, friends, life, love
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Friday, September 06, 2024
12:00 PM |
An Edith Tiempo Binder
In the dark days of the pandemic, Krip Yuson approached a bunch of us to do a series of Senior High School lesson plans centering on the works of National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo, with the goal of transfiguring her works to other creative modes. This was a collaborative project between the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Niccolo Rocamora Vitug chose to do “From Poem to Song via Soundscape,” using Tiempo’s poem “Bonsai.” Alaric M. Yuson [a.k.a. Anygma] chose to do “Transforming Edith L. Tiempo’s Poetry to Hip Hop/Performative Rap.” Susan Severino Lara chose to do “Enhancing The Literary Content: From Critical Essay to Meme Adaptation,” using Tiempo’s critical essay “Enhancing The Poetic Content.”
And I chose to do an adaptation of the short story “The Black Monkey” into a screenplay.
This was around 2021, or thereabouts. [My memory is hazy!] But now we’re on the last leg of this project, and CCP has promised to make the material available online soon! This is really one good way to make the works of our National Artists become alive again.
Thank you, Beverly Wico Siy, for shepherding this project!Labels: education, philippine literature
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Wednesday, September 04, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 203.
Labels: poetry
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Friday, August 30, 2024
1:05 PM |
I Remember the Ugliness of the Old Dumaguete Presidencia
Sometimes I cannot believe the Dumaguete Presidencia used to look like this, and just only a few years ago, before it was finally restored beginning in 2018. The original 1937 design by the great architect Juan Arellano totally disappeared over the ensuing decades with ugly additions and renovations. And what is the plaza now used to be a parking lot, often with dump trucks right in the middle of everything. Growing up in Dumaguete, I used to bewail how ugly our City Hall was, and I had no idea that beneath all that ugliness was an old gem waiting to be restored. Today, it is the National Museum of the Philippines Dumaguete. [Photo from DumagueteInfo Net Service]
Labels: architecture, dumaguete, heritage, history, memories
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Wednesday, August 28, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 202.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
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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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