KRIPOTKIN

THE WEEK THAT WAS— WITH DENNIS, ANTONIO, CECILE (5/8/06)

2006-05-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

The Labor Day weekend gave us all some relief, and not just from an extraday of lounging around at home or on some island or hilltop. Nothing muchhappened on the agitprop streetfront, again underscoring general apathy inthe face of serial juridical setbacks for the Palace vacationists.

While urban traffic appears to have worsened anew, despite the continuingsummer break for most schoolkids, we sense parallel ennui hovering about.Small business hasn’t been good, we hear. Nightspots and restos don’tenjoy better than tidy noshing. Only malls and moviehouses get the crowds;air-con comfort must certainly be a factor.

Good thing we can be entertained globally — virtually,magic-realistically, you name it. Global is as global goes, so that on thesame week we can have Dennis Rodman on a freak show in Cubao, our divineCecile Licad concertizing in Currimao, and Antonio Forcione (“the JimiHendrix of acoustic guitar”) sharing a gig with Cynthia Alexander.

Maybe there isn’t much by way of inside stuff to keep us awake anymore, sothat we rely on the goodness of globalization to keep us afloat. Culturally, anyway. And of course basketball and jazz are best played, andenjoyed, without scripts, so that Solar Entertainment deserves ourgratitude for the daily overdose of the NBA playoffs, while the BritishCouncil can always be trusted to bring top-class acts to benighted shores.

Exactly a week ago I found myself at the Big Dome, somewhat reluctantly,but still happy over freebie tickets in the company of a couple of fellowMTRCB members who also happen to be basketball freaks.

Gotta hand it to Dennis Rodman; he’s still in condition. Made sure, too,that he did his elaborate stretching exercises before tip-off. But withonly a couple of flashy ex-collegiate stars pumping in most of theirpoints, the aging NBA Legends were run to the ground by our putative RPTeam, with Dondon Hontiveros and Ren-ren Ritualo raining in the triples. Entertainment enough. But hardly one to match the humdingers in the NBAplayoffs.

A couple of nights later, Antonio Forcione planed in from London. No, notAndres Nocioni of the Chicago Bulls (then still seeking a 2-2 tie with theMiami Heat). But Antonio Forcione, guitar master, Italian but long basedin London, thus, courtesy of The British Council.

It was his birthday, too, but we only found that out when a cake with fourlit candles (maybe he turned 40?) quickly followed dinner at the wonderfulreception hosted by BC Director Gill Westaway at South Forbes.

By some quirk of fate — or maybe they recognized one another’s abusedfingers — Antonio had seated himself beside my son Aya, himself no slouchwith the guitar. My ears were cocked all through the paella Valenciana andlengua estofado and pasta atbp. as they exchanged notes (in more ways thanone) and craftwise intimacies.

Actually, when Aya and I stepped into Gill’s place an hour earlier, wefirst spotted Antonio intently listening, up close and down on one knee,to yet another musician doing his thing — on the kudyapi. The performerturned out to be the master player Sumaon Sulaiman from Mindanao, one ofour Living National Treasures.

Later at the dinner table, all I could get in edgewise was a query on howAntonio managed to get all of 11 fingers coming out of a guitar’ssoundhole for the cover photo of his CD album Touch Wood. It was a guitarthat had been “wrecked” in one of his occasional off-the-wallperformances, Antonio said. And the extra finger wasn’t his, but a sessionman’s, someone requested to provide the additional digit for the shoot.

Was that flamenco music we detected in a few of his pieces? And someCeltic strains? Yes, Signore Forcione allowed, warming up to theconversation. He liked to pick up from everywhere, he liked his music tobe eclectic. His last gig had been at Harare, Zimbabwe, where the thumbpiano was the favorite instrument. What he heard and learned there wouldsoon be incorporated into his own compositions.

And flamenco, why, yes, it had impressed him so much early in his youth,the vigor with which guitar strings were struck, and all parts of theinstrument romanced. Yes, definitely, flamenco music and gypsy music hadbeen an influence.

That was the extent of my contribution to the roundtable discussion, assoon Antonio and Aya were demonstrating with a guitar pick, and exclaiminghow they had both picked up the trick of turning it around at an angle fordevilish playing. Antonio also showed how gypsies angled their hands abovethe strings, thrusting the wrist outwards. And both believed WesMontgomery to have been a god.

The cake came, not much to Antonio’s surprise, as he had already receivedone upon checking in at the hotel, and of course he had already heard ofManila’s fabled hospitality. But he gamely blew out the four candles afterour celebratory song, and proceeded to cut it himself, generous slices foreveryone until he realized he had to scale down the portions. Maybe that’show masterful music is played sometimes.

The following night had the Antonio Forcione Quartet performing atCrossroads 77 on Tomas Morato Avenue, back to back with the CynthiaAlexander Group, with a guest stint by jazz vocalist Mon David who was arecent worldbeater in London. Two nights later, it would be at SM Cebu,maybe after a tour of Mactan’s guitar crafts shops.

I missed the Quezon City concert, only because May 4 happened to be NickJoaquin’s birthday, and I had already committed to join writer-journalistfriends at Richmonde Hotel’s Exchange Bar for a Cole Porter jam sessionled by the beauteous, mellifluous Girl Valencia.

No sorry trade-off either, as among the crowd were Nick’s nephews andnieces, plus Egie Apostol, the Llagunos Frank and Jenny, Gerry Peralta,Ernie Yee, Billy Lacaba, Marra PL Lanot and the still-dashing Dick Malay,albeit a steady pound-gainer. And there to give Girl a run for hermicrophone and spotlight were no less than master songsters (andpen-pushers) Cip Roxas, Reli German, Charlson Ong and Marne Kilates.

Hey, none of them may have sounded as ethnically inspired as dear Cynthia,or as scat-brilliant as Mon. But they’d do, they’d do, in a pinch. The wayNick J. always got away with a pinch off Cole P.

And sometime close to midnight a lawyer-friend recounted how he had justcome back from the Ilocos, where he had been privileged with a CecileLicad performance at a Currimao resort. The place and the event, as weheard it, were the handiwork of no less than Dr. Joven Cuanang, thebeloved patron of visual artists, primarily the Pinto Arts Group (cumgallery in Antipolo). Glad to hear that the good doc is spreading hiswings to bless us all with music as well.

Terrific was the week that was, especially since LeBron James tiptoed hisway delicately along the baseline for a game-winner and 45 points in whathas been a riveting series against the Wiz. As I write this, on a Fridayevening, ensconced at Jimmy and Mercy Abad’s aerie in Baguio, I lookforward to Saturday morning for the Cavs-Wiz Game 6. Close-out time inWashington, I hope. Courtesy of Solar Sports, that should be music to myeyes and ears, conducted in the circle of fifths.

THE FAMILY THAT WRITES TOGETHER (5/1/06)

2006-05-09T21:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, yes, they stay lovingly together, even if a daughter is currentlyfinishing studies in New York, and her older sister has moved on to thegreat beyond — well beyond any great wall that enclosed a unique family asa transnational unit of endearing writer-artists. At 6 p.m. this Friday, May 5, at National Bookstore, Shangri-La Plaza, theManingning Miclat Art Foundation and Anvil Publishing, Inc. launch Beyondthe Great Wall, jointly authored by Mario, Alma, Maningning and BanaueMiclat.

The Miclat family, now ensconced in a lovely home in the hills ofAntipolo, manifests its sterling quality as a nurturing collective bysurrounding their breezy residence with a great variety of flora — many ofthem exotic and brought up with tender loving care by Alma and Mario both. They have had a distinctive brand of romance together. Finding themselvesin exile in China at the advent of Marcos’ Martial Law, they stayed for agood 15 years, raising their two daughters who were born there, working inbroadcasting and translation — and as a family, engaging in the arts inseveral modes and languages.

Their long sojourn away from home covered the fateful years and historichighlights of the great dragon waking. More essentially, they learned howit was to adapt to a foreign, often forbidding setting, even as their ownGang of Four enclosed themselves in good old Pinoy warmth of tradition andcaring.

Now they tell their story with a selection of personal essays “on China,the Chinese, and being Filipino.” This fascinating family journal, repletewith photographs as vivid mementoes of those years, also arranges withinfour thematic concerns their individual essays on the arts, culture, theeconomy, politics, and society.

The Preface alone, written by poet, writer and UP professor Mario IgnacioMiclat, makes for immediate interesting fare.

“For 15 years, my family of native Filipinos lived in the shadows of theGreat Wall. All through 1971 to 1986, we experienced the Middle Kingdom indepth and breadth. We made regular sojourns to different places, many ofwhich were restricted not only to foreigners but also to the ordinaryChinese. We were privileged to see a world beyond the Great Wall. It was aworld much bigger than China itself.

“In our first seven years or so, my wife Alma and I lived in the closelyguarded Shibasuo, the Compound Eighteen Mansions. It was situated in awooded area where the ancient Wanshoulu Road wound along the YongdingheCanal at the suburban Western District of Beijing. Our elder daughter,Maningning, was born here. For the most part of our stay in this exclusivecompound for foreign comrades, only four or five mansions were lived in ona more or less permanent basis. The rest served as guesthouses for secretforeign delegations, high-ranking officials of the Chinese CommunistParty, or favored cultural revolutionists of the regnant revolutionarycommittees.

“It was a period that saw Mao Zedong consolidating the gains of his GreatProletarian Cultural Revolution, followed by the ascendancy and then thesudden collapse of the so-called Gang of Four and the abrupt appearance ofa Chairman Hua Kuo-feng. Early on, our Chinese hosts had advised us not tobe too cozy with our neighbors. We could never be sure, so they said, whoour friends and enemies were in a complicated internal and internationalsituation China was constantly in. We were ushered in and out of thiscompound almost solely by a chauffeured Red Flag limousine, a Shanghaigreen car or, later, a Mercedes Benz.

“In 1979, following Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power at Zhongnanhai, myfamily transferred to a freer, but still exclusive, Foreign Experts’Building of the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television. The five-storyapartment building was hidden in a corner of Nanlishilu Street atFuxingmen, just outside the ancient, but no longer existing, city wall. Itwas here that our younger daughter Banaue saw the light of day. In thatsemi-open international community, she grew up with children from ‘thefour seas.’ Now, we were able to ride the public buses, the subway and ourown bicycle whenever our exclusive carpool or exclusive buses could notaccommodate our preferred schedules. Who would think that the bicycle orthe overcrowded buses and train could spell for us the word ‘freedom’ incapital letters? Three more choices were better than an exclusivechauffeured limousine.

“We came back to our home country following the EDSA People PowerRevolution of 1986. Reversing our people’s diaspora, we continuedsearching for ourselves as a family, as individual Filipinos and assporadic writers. Our essays, fiction and poems appeared in either one ofthree languages that we have come to know — Filipino, English andChineseÖ. Some versions in this book are actually translations from theoriginal languages we wrote them in.”

The gentle, soft-spoken padre de familia served as editor in determiningthe four section headings: “Situating the Family,” “Searching for Self,”“Reversing the Diaspora,” and “Finding the Nation.”

“I tried arranging the essays in some particular order, dividing the bookinto four broad themesÖ.

“The book starts with Situating the Family. Alma begins it by reminiscingabout our nuclear family in ‘China: Past and Fast Forward,’ ‘PekingApples’ and ‘China Lass.’ She recalls her roots in ‘Mother of Pearl.’Maningning gropes, trying to understand her parents and her oldergeneration in ‘Morning is a Bit Cold’ and ‘Padlocks, Doors and DoloresFeria.’ I grapple with language in ‘Learning My First Mandarin Words.’“Banaue starts the second part, Searching for Self. Interspersed in her‘Winter Tales’ of the New York subway are memories of ‘snow-coveredwinters’ of Beijing and the ‘sunshiny summers’ of Manila. Maningning triesto fit herself into Philippine life in ‘Fixing My Room,’ ‘Visual Poetry inChinese Bamboo and Xieyi Painting’ and ‘Unveiling Curtsey.’ She cries in‘A Keeper of One’s Voice.’ Alma rubs elbows with Zhou Enlai and Jiang Qingin ‘Chinese New Year in Beijing.’ I bare my writer’s soul in ‘A Confessionof Faith.’

“The third part is entitled Reversing the Diaspora. We have come back as afamily. It goes without saying, however, that China has become so much apart of us. Until now, we like our soup scalding hot. We use chopstickseating Filipino pancit. Alma still prefers her homemade kimchi, yoghurtand apple pie. We greet people that we meet along the way anytime of theday with a hearty ‘Kumain ka na ba?’ instead of ‘Saan ang punta?’

“In January, when the room temperature in our house on a hill inAntipolo plunges down to 15?C (compared with Beijing’s subzero), Invariably dream in my sleep that I plod on frozen ground. In their firstexperience of a tropical typhoon up on our fourth-floor condominium unitin Quezon City, Maningning and Banaue excitedly called me to show the rainbeing buffeted and scattered by the strong wind. They thought it was thefirst sign of crystalline snow. Yet we are Filipinos and the Philippinesis our country. We have to come back.

“It has fallen upon us to share with our people a unique view of a countryas old and as alive as our neighbor China. I start the third part with theessay ‘Beyond the Great Wall.’ In her ‘The Mysterious Smile in theLouvre,’ one can read how Maningning goes back to the Forbidden City evenwhile in Paris. In ‘The Commune is Dead, Long Live the Commune,’ ‘AMassacre in Peking,’ ‘Tiananmen: The Other View (Go Fly a Kite)’ and ‘InQuest of Democracy,’ my Filipino heart sympathizes with the Chinese as anation, as a people and as fellow human beings.

“The fourth part, Finding the Nation, continues our long process ofsituating the family and searching for self, if in a broader sense.Maningning goes ‘Revisiting the National Museum.’ She attempts at lookingfor the Chinese in us even as she delves on ‘The Chinese in the Filipino,the Filipino in the Philippine Chinese.’ I try to decipher meanings in‘Edjop, the FQS and Other Rebo Lingoes’ and ‘From Bakya to Reebok.’ Anearthquake and a failed coup d’etat in the Philippines trigger my writing‘Dizhen! Earth Shake! Lindol!’ and ‘Memories of a September Coup’ aboutsimilar events in China. The penultimate piece bids farewell to specificfriends, ‘Paalam, Mrs. E; Goodbye, Dr. SV.’ The book ends with‘Globalization and National Language.’ In it, I swear in a manner many ofour people do, but in the context of an old-fashioned love of country:‘Only in the Philippines!’ If only for that love, I should be ready in anot too distant future to write a more organized account of our lives inChina as a Filipino family in exile.”

Alma Miclat is SVP of Data Center Design Corporation in Makati. Banaue isa film and theater actress who is graduating in June with a Master of FineArts in Acting at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. Thedear departed Maningning was a multi-awarded artist, poet and writer inFilipino, English and Chinese.

Proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit the Maningning Miclat ArtFoundation, Inc. (MMAFI), a non-stock, non-profit organization. The MMAFIhas been holding the Maningning Miclat Trilingual Poetry Competitionduring odd-numbered years and the Maningning Miclat Art Competition duringeven-numbered years. This year, MMAFI will hold the art competition forvisual artists 28 years old and below, with the grand prize worth P28,000and a glass sculpture trophy by the eminent artist, Ramon Orlina. (For details, e-mail: maningfoundation@gmail.com or acmiclat2004@yahoo.com and visit http://www.maningning.com)

The book will also be launched at the Cranwell International Center ofVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg,Virginia, USA on May 25. Signing tours are also scheduled for New York andSan Diego by next Spring.

Would that all families produce such a journal of how it was to growtogether, whether in strange climes or ordinary times. But then our timesare hardly ordinary, rather prone to everyday strangeness that can onlystrengthen families, whether they are core or extended.

In the Miclats’ experience, they have been admirably core, and more thanthat, they have extended their tender loving care well beyond all walls ofisolation, all borders of national, regional or global understanding.

* * *Caption/s for photo/s:
Antip4 — Mario, Alma, Banaue and Maningning in Antipolo, after reversingthe diaspora

AT-TARIQ & NICK (4/24/06)

2006-05-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

“My old friend the poet Jose Lansang Jr. is dead. Long live.” So went the simple text message from Erwin E. Castillo, poet and novelist.

A couple of days later, on April 13, some of us of the UP Sixties received the following e-mail from Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez in Chicago:“Dear Everyone, ~It’s chilling news.~Erwin, please extend my sympathy tothe Lansang family.~All the best, Willie.”

Willy, also known as Willybog, but who has inexplicably gone fromwilly-nilly to the willies, also sent the following poem as tribute: “Lines for Jun Lansang” — (born Sept. 2, 1939): “He is no Ezra Pound ofSorrento/ No Torquato Tasso;/ He is at-Tariq.// He is no Quijano deManila/ No Jose Garcia Villa;/ He is at-Tariq.// Because he sought thedeep end/ He is Willybog’s friend;/ Au revoir, at-Tariq!” Cesar Ruiz Aquino a.k.a. Sawi in Dumaguete City followed suit with ahats-off homage, titled “Chapeau, Maitre”: “Remember/ Jun/ Lansang/ Sokeen a lyric/ Sense it was sixth. At-Tariq,/ When you sang/ It was June/Even in December.” Apropos the title, Sawi explains it comes from a blurb written by LuisBunuel — meaning “Hats off, Master!”— for Jose Donoso’s novel, ObsceneBird of Night, which Sawi’s own unwritten one of the early ’60s, “PerfumedBirds of Night,” had antedated but not preempted.

So lyrical must have been the times, those ’60s, especially in Diliman,QC, that the fine poems issuing from the young campus poets werequintessentially lyric, that is, “expressing the writer’s emotions,usually brieflyÖ,” (per Oxford American Dictionaries, a software in myiBook). And no one was at his finest as a lyric (also referring to a poetwho wrote in such manner) than Jun Lansang. His poem “Song” was deemed a classic, if by that it meant a faux-canonicalwork that enjoyed the most instances of recitation from memory whenever
\npoet-manquÈs drunk gin at Hong Ning’s in Cubao. Or decades later, whisky\nat South Sea in Dumaguete. \n “Yet sing now of beauty/ Which lasts not forever/ Through all\nmetamorphoses —/ I am terribly lonely.// In the dining hall/ Skin shining\nlike Eve —/ Or dark with layers of night/ I creep into my pall.// I, being\nfree as air,/ Bless all who stand — / As winds ravage leaves of trees/\nWho’d only nuzzle in her hair.// Yet sing now of beauty/ Which lasts not\nforever/ Through all metamorphoses —/ I am terribly holy.”\n\nJun Lansang, characteristically fevered, once said that the Beatles wrote\n“Hey Jude” for him. We believed him. Tense and intense, he lusted and\npanted after girls, went in and out of institutions, and somehow, while\nnever losing that lyric gift, petered off on the poetry in favor of riding\na bicycle up and down Edsa. But that was in the late ’70s and all\nthroughout the ’80s already. I wonder: Was Jun a catalyst for change, the\none that heightened to a climax in February of 1986? That, too, is\npossible. \n

Decidedly, in the ’60s he was the idolized campus poet in UP; all bowed\nbefore him, especially after the publication of his first collection, 55\nPoems, which we all knew Jose Garcia Villa to have subtly hommaged by\nsubsequently putting out his own Poems 55. Why neither didn’t slacken by a\nverse to come up with only 54, as in the old highway before it paid\ntribute to Epifanio de los Santos, must be a historical quibble to be\ndecided by the future of lyric poetry. \n Jun Lansang followed up that volume with Black or Otherwise, with Foreword\nby Leonard Casper — before he was silenced by daemons and damsels (in\ndistress). And then we’d hear nothing of and from him. And then he’d\nre-materialize, as when he wrote a letter-to-the-editor for ERMITA\nmagazine, addressed to MMDA Governor Imelda R. Marcos, suggesting that\nMetro Manila be called “City of Woman.” \n Forthwith, for the June 1976 ERMITA issue he contributed a full page of poet-manquÈs drunk gin at Hong Ning’s in Cubao. Or decades later, whiskyat South Sea in Dumaguete. “Yet sing now of beauty/ Which lasts not forever/ Through allmetamorphoses —/ I am terribly lonely.// In the dining hall/ Skin shininglike Eve —/ Or dark with layers of night/ I creep into my pall.// I, beingfree as air,/ Bless all who stand — / As winds ravage leaves of trees/Who’d only nuzzle in her hair.// Yet sing now of beauty/ Which lasts notforever/ Through all metamorphoses —/ I am terribly holy.”Jun Lansang, characteristically fevered, once said that the Beatles wrote“Hey Jude” for him. We believed him. Tense and intense, he lusted andpanted after girls, went in and out of institutions, and somehow, whilenever losing that lyric gift, petered off on the poetry in favor of ridinga bicycle up and down Edsa. But that was in the late ’70s and allthroughout the ’80s already. I wonder: Was Jun a catalyst for change, theone that heightened to a climax in February of 1986? That, too, ispossible. Decidedly, in the ’60s he was the idolized campus poet in UP; all bowedbefore him, especially after the publication of his first collection, 55Poems, which we all knew Jose Garcia Villa to have subtly hommaged bysubsequently putting out his own Poems 55. Why neither didn’t slacken by averse to come up with only 54, as in the old highway before it paidtribute to Epifanio de los Santos, must be a historical quibble to bedecided by the future of lyric poetry. Jun Lansang followed up that volume with Black or Otherwise, with Forewordby Leonard Casper — before he was silenced by daemons and damsels (indistress). And then we’d hear nothing of and from him. And then he’dre-materialize, as when he wrote a letter-to-the-editor for ERMITAmagazine, addressed to MMDA Governor Imelda R. Marcos, suggesting thatMetro Manila be called “City of Woman.” Forthwith, for the June 1976 ERMITA issue he contributed a full page of
\npoetry, collectively titled “The Philippine Saunas in Four Parts.” One\nomnibus poem had brief parts dedicated to Francisco S. Tatad (“Fervent\nWishes”) and Guillermo de Vega (“Apotheosis”), both MalacaÒang ministers\nat the\ntime. Two other parts we reproduce here: \n “II. Motives (for Francisco Arcellana, Sr.)”: “You live on enviable\nsentiments/ (noble, necessary, practical)/ Your honor was that somehow//\nviolence and rape would not/ overtake you/ But we did not know how it\nwould feel/ when the fire was stoked/ the fuse lit/ the engine raced/ I\nheard your cries in the night/ Rachel, Margie, Viviane!” \n “III. Erotica (for Nick Joaquin)”: “An old crone would intone:/ Catharsis\nfor men/ Catharsis for women/ Bitch in heat/ Bull in stall/ Sweet on the\nskin/ Fever on the face/ Children bewildered/ as if stunned./ The world\nreally hushed/ like in awe./ Combat d’amour/ Combat d/honneur/ Combats des\ninvalides/ Combates perpetueles.” \n Another, longer poem celebrated his fiefdom of the mid-’70s: “Stanzas for\nGigi, or the Saunas Revisited”: \n “all my life I labored/ to lust —/ why must my love be/ sometimes in\nabsentia?/ behold I am here in persona!// when I set aflame my passion/\nunwisely, I was confined/ for months, seasons, and years/ in hospitals,\nprisons and institutions// and were set up, built/ the lovely saunas of\nManila/ the Philippine saunas of Greater Manila:/ die Shulen den\nPhilippinen, GrossManille.// I saw the young women living in/ at the\nMandarin/ the fair damsels of the Rose Tattoo/ precursors of the best love\nof Gimo// the large women of the New Greek Sauna/ magnificent liebchen/\nwho were harbingers sort of/ of Vitarich dressed chicken.// I came down\nwith Margie/ her body, the totem of her body/ displayed in the lobby of\nthe PNB/ sculpted in wood by Solomon Saprid.// And I became her friend/\nwho was simply devious/ apparently deceptive, for self-survival maybe/ I\nset her awhirl, and she pulled me to her.// Sometimes I remember my lithe",1]
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poetry, collectively titled “The Philippine Saunas in Four Parts.” Oneomnibus poem had brief parts dedicated to Francisco S. Tatad (“FerventWishes”) and Guillermo de Vega (“Apotheosis”), both MalacaÒang ministersat thetime. Two other parts we reproduce here: “II. Motives (for Francisco Arcellana, Sr.)”: “You live on enviablesentiments/ (noble, necessary, practical)/ Your honor was that somehow//violence and rape would not/ overtake you/ But we did not know how itwould feel/ when the fire was stoked/ the fuse lit/ the engine raced/ Iheard your cries in the night/ Rachel, Margie, Viviane!” “III. Erotica (for Nick Joaquin)”: “An old crone would intone:/ Catharsisfor men/ Catharsis for women/ Bitch in heat/ Bull in stall/ Sweet on theskin/ Fever on the face/ Children bewildered/ as if stunned./ The worldreally hushed/ like in awe./ Combat d’amour/ Combat d/honneur/ Combats desinvalides/ Combates perpetueles.” Another, longer poem celebrated his fiefdom of the mid-’70s: “Stanzas forGigi, or the Saunas Revisited”: “all my life I labored/ to lust —/ why must my love be/ sometimes inabsentia?/ behold I am here in persona!// when I set aflame my passion/unwisely, I was confined/ for months, seasons, and years/ in hospitals,prisons and institutions// and were set up, built/ the lovely saunas ofManila/ the Philippine saunas of Greater Manila:/ die Shulen denPhilippinen, GrossManille.// I saw the young women living in/ at theMandarin/ the fair damsels of the Rose Tattoo/ precursors of the best loveof Gimo// the large women of the New Greek Sauna/ magnificent liebchen/who were harbingers sort of/ of Vitarich dressed chicken.// I came downwith Margie/ her body, the totem of her body/ displayed in the lobby ofthe PNB/ sculpted in wood by Solomon Saprid.// And I became her friend/who was simply devious/ apparently deceptive, for self-survival maybe/ Iset her awhirl, and she pulled me to her.// Sometimes I remember my lithe
\none/ Zeny who stayed in at Okura/ fair and fleshy, honest and natural/ who\nhinted for a pair of white leather shoes.// and when I met Jo-Ann/ I felt\ncool sensuality/ so magnificent was she/ great body, unbelievable, small\nwet cunt.// why call them whores, Gi?/ were they not women also/ and\nworking students really/ in this or that university?” \n\nAh, Jose M. Lansang, Jr. Erwin, Willy and Sawi all have anecdotes about\nhim. A pity I saw not one of them at his wake in Loyola Park Marikina on\nGood Friday, when he was due to be interred an hour after Christ’s and\nLorca’s “A las tres de la tarde.” Oh, Erwin had been there at dawn that\nday, reported poet Marra PL Lanot. True enough, he left a large, loving\nwreath, too. \n Jun Lansang’s mother Flora was there. So were sisters Risa and Nina (from\nCalifornia, together with Flora), and brother Tos who used to play guitar\nand sing folk songs at CafÈ Hurri-manna on the wrong side of Taft Ave. and\nErmita in 1970. Another brother was there, sorry I forget his name, and Ed\nAbad, brother to Jimmy, and part of the Diliman Area 1 commune. \n Who else had come to say goodbye to Jun? Per Marra, her husband Pete\nLacaba, Bobbie Malay, Terra (Jun, too, I assume), Daffon (Tess?), Jenny &\nFrankie Llaguno, Rol PeÒa & Cynthia, and Dick Malay. Nene Zaballero Reyes\nand family had also left a wreath. \n There was talk of brother Bunny Lansang, and yet another, much younger one\nwho had perished in the mountains as a rebel, just like Eman Lacaba. \nI couldn’t recognize Jun in the two photographs atop the casket; he seemed\nto have put on a lot of weight. Inside that coffin, he looked very sedate,\ndignified, with a little lyric smile playing on his lips. Risa and Nina\nsaid he ate a lot in recent years. He had peptic ulcer; he died of a\nstroke, in his sleep. \n Farewell, At-Tariq. That was the name he gave himself as poet, which for\nyears I surmised was a reverse pun on being slightly “kirat.” But Sawi",1]
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one/ Zeny who stayed in at Okura/ fair and fleshy, honest and natural/ whohinted for a pair of white leather shoes.// and when I met Jo-Ann/ I feltcool sensuality/ so magnificent was she/ great body, unbelievable, smallwet cunt.// why call them whores, Gi?/ were they not women also/ andworking students really/ in this or that university?” Ah, Jose M. Lansang, Jr. Erwin, Willy and Sawi all have anecdotes abouthim. A pity I saw not one of them at his wake in Loyola Park Marikina onGood Friday, when he was due to be interred an hour after Christ’s andLorca’s “A las tres de la tarde.” Oh, Erwin had been there at dawn thatday, reported poet Marra PL Lanot. True enough, he left a large, lovingwreath, too. Jun Lansang’s mother Flora was there. So were sisters Risa and Nina (fromCalifornia, together with Flora), and brother Tos who used to play guitarand sing folk songs at CafÈ Hurri-manna on the wrong side of Taft Ave. andErmita in 1970. Another brother was there, sorry I forget his name, and EdAbad, brother to Jimmy, and part of the Diliman Area 1 commune. Who else had come to say goodbye to Jun? Per Marra, her husband PeteLacaba, Bobbie Malay, Terra (Jun, too, I assume), Daffon (Tess?), Jenny &Frankie Llaguno, Rol PeÒa & Cynthia, and Dick Malay. Nene Zaballero Reyesand family had also left a wreath. There was talk of brother Bunny Lansang, and yet another, much younger onewho had perished in the mountains as a rebel, just like Eman Lacaba. I couldn’t recognize Jun in the two photographs atop the casket; he seemedto have put on a lot of weight. Inside that coffin, he looked very sedate,dignified, with a little lyric smile playing on his lips. Risa and Ninasaid he ate a lot in recent years. He had peptic ulcer; he died of astroke, in his sleep. Farewell, At-Tariq. That was the name he gave himself as poet, which foryears I surmised was a reverse pun on being slightly “kirat.” But Sawi
\nsays it could be an allusion to the Persian Sufi poet Attar, author of The\nParliament of Birds. \n My last strong memory of Jun, although I’m sure he had come to the ERMITA\noffice to get his fee for the sauna poems, was him standing outside\nHurri-manna in 1970, seeing a lady get into a cab. As she did, Jun made\nsure to give her butt a quick pass of the hand, much to her defenseless\nshock. \n But Sawi recalls that Jun once argued with Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo in\nDumaguete, when “Doc” criticized Carmen Guerrero Nakpil’s “Woman Enough”\nessay. Jun defended it. And how at Alumni Hall in Silliman, one whole\nafternoon when Sawi and Willy visited him in his room, Jun just kept\nstaring at Willy, until he finally pronounced to the younger poet: “Your\npoems are poems of darkness; mine are poems of light.” \n\nHere’s a longer recollection of Jun Lansang, from Cesar Ruiz Aquino: \n “For some reason, Jun Lansang in recall strikes me as the first poet I\never met, after having read a lot of English poetry in high school\nincluding Villa. That was not true on the face of it — I had met Willy\nSanchez — and, yes, Edith Tiempo the day before. This was all in the 1962\nSilliman Summer Writers Workshop, the first ever held in the country. But\nWilly Sanchez was too much the fellow youngster, fellow teenage kid in the\nworkshop for me to anything like adulate. Familiarity breeds demythology.\nAnd Edith too much the instantly recognizable teacher (normalcy breeds\ninvisibility).\n “Jun had the gift of madness. Yeah his madness was a gift, albeit a\nterrible one. Everything he did was invested with an uncanny glamour in my\neyes. I guess he was decisive in the formation of my personal idea of what\na poet essentially is.\n “He stayed in the workshop for only two or three days, attended only one\nsession, the first, and packed up for home for no understandable reason,\nperhaps from some original rhyme going on inside his head. I vividly",1]
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says it could be an allusion to the Persian Sufi poet Attar, author of TheParliament of Birds. My last strong memory of Jun, although I’m sure he had come to the ERMITAoffice to get his fee for the sauna poems, was him standing outsideHurri-manna in 1970, seeing a lady get into a cab. As she did, Jun madesure to give her butt a quick pass of the hand, much to her defenselessshock. But Sawi recalls that Jun once argued with Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo inDumaguete, when “Doc” criticized Carmen Guerrero Nakpil’s “Woman Enough”essay. Jun defended it. And how at Alumni Hall in Silliman, one wholeafternoon when Sawi and Willy visited him in his room, Jun just keptstaring at Willy, until he finally pronounced to the younger poet: “Yourpoems are poems of darkness; mine are poems of light.” Here’s a longer recollection of Jun Lansang, from Cesar Ruiz Aquino: “For some reason, Jun Lansang in recall strikes me as the first poet Iever met, after having read a lot of English poetry in high schoolincluding Villa. That was not true on the face of it — I had met WillySanchez — and, yes, Edith Tiempo the day before. This was all in the 1962Silliman Summer Writers Workshop, the first ever held in the country. ButWilly Sanchez was too much the fellow youngster, fellow teenage kid in theworkshop for me to anything like adulate. Familiarity breeds demythology.And Edith too much the instantly recognizable teacher (normalcy breedsinvisibility). “Jun had the gift of madness. Yeah his madness was a gift, albeit aterrible one. Everything he did was invested with an uncanny glamour in myeyes. I guess he was decisive in the formation of my personal idea of whata poet essentially is. “He stayed in the workshop for only two or three days, attended only onesession, the first, and packed up for home for no understandable reason,perhaps from some original rhyme going on inside his head. I vividly
\nremember him suddenly walking out on the session and Nick Joaquin in the\npanel sort of smiling and winking with a poker face.\n “In 1964 I went to UP Diliman to study Comparative Literature under Prof.\nLeopoldo Yabes and I met Jun again. I had meantime read his first book 55\nPoems, which bore as Foreword an excerpt from a letter written to him by\nVilla. Villa wrote, ‘You are writing now not only with depth but from the\ndepths.’ For good measure Villa gave his own next book of poems the title\nPoems 55. \n “Over coffee, I ambushed him with a recitation from memory of his poem\nSong. The first two lines of the poem go: Yet sing now of beauty/ Which\nlasts not forever. When I was done, Jun remarked that he had been\nconsidering revising the second line to Which does last forever.\n “The next day there was a rather early morning knocking on my room at\nNarra Dormitory. It was Jun — inviting me to coffee at Camia Hall, a\ngirl’s dormitory where the UP Diliman girls were prettiest. Here coffee\nwas only five centavos a cup! Where — he asked with relish as he sipped\nhis coffee — in the country could you find coffee at five centavos a cup?\n “Then he took a yellow pad paper and pen to scribble a poem. He wrote:\nResurrected from the flames of human love. It’s for you, At-Tariq said. I\ntook it.\n “And sort of return the line now.” \n\nAs for Nick Joaquin, the great man’s second death anniversary falls soon,\non April 29. On May 4, his birthday, friends led by his literary manager\nBilly Lacaba intend to get together, on a KKB basis, at Exchange Bar of\nRichmonde Hotel in Ortigas Center, there to party for and with Nick, while\nlistening to his favorite lady singer, Girl Valencia, do all the old Cole\nPorter numbers he loved. \n The last three months before he passed away, Billy learned that Nick had\nkept re-reading The Portable Chekhov — his copy falling apart that he\nasked his attendants in the house in San Juan to Scotch-tape the pages all",1]
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remember him suddenly walking out on the session and Nick Joaquin in thepanel sort of smiling and winking with a poker face. “In 1964 I went to UP Diliman to study Comparative Literature under Prof.Leopoldo Yabes and I met Jun again. I had meantime read his first book 55Poems, which bore as Foreword an excerpt from a letter written to him byVilla. Villa wrote, ‘You are writing now not only with depth but from thedepths.’ For good measure Villa gave his own next book of poems the titlePoems 55. “Over coffee, I ambushed him with a recitation from memory of his poemSong. The first two lines of the poem go: Yet sing now of beauty/ Whichlasts not forever. When I was done, Jun remarked that he had beenconsidering revising the second line to Which does last forever. “The next day there was a rather early morning knocking on my room atNarra Dormitory. It was Jun — inviting me to coffee at Camia Hall, agirl’s dormitory where the UP Diliman girls were prettiest. Here coffeewas only five centavos a cup! Where — he asked with relish as he sippedhis coffee — in the country could you find coffee at five centavos a cup? “Then he took a yellow pad paper and pen to scribble a poem. He wrote:Resurrected from the flames of human love. It’s for you, At-Tariq said. Itook it. “And sort of return the line now.” As for Nick Joaquin, the great man’s second death anniversary falls soon,on April 29. On May 4, his birthday, friends led by his literary managerBilly Lacaba intend to get together, on a KKB basis, at Exchange Bar ofRichmonde Hotel in Ortigas Center, there to party for and with Nick, whilelistening to his favorite lady singer, Girl Valencia, do all the old ColePorter numbers he loved. The last three months before he passed away, Billy learned that Nick hadkept re-reading The Portable Chekhov — his copy falling apart that heasked his attendants in the house in San Juan to Scotch-tape the pages all
\nback into place. \n Nick had left a calling card (not his; he never had one) as a bookmark,\nbetween pages 70 and 71, within the story “A Calamity” — where a line\nread: “And reflecting a little, he added: ‘Of course, it is dull for you\nhere. Go ahead if you like.’” \n\n* * *\n\nCAPTION for Chekhov book cover: \n\nThe dog-eared Portable Chekov that Nick Joaquin constantly reread on the\nlast three months of his life. \n\nNOTE: I understand from Juaniyo that he will bring Lansang’s Black or\nOtherwise book. Please also feature its cover, with the caption: \n\nJun Lansang’s second and last poetry collection
back into place. Nick had left a calling card (not his; he never had one) as a bookmark,between pages 70 and 71, within the story “A Calamity” — where a lineread: “And reflecting a little, he added: ‘Of course, it is dull for youhere. Go ahead if you like.’”

* * *CAPTION for Chekhov book cover:

The dog-eared Portable Chekov that Nick Joaquin constantly reread on the last three months of his life. NOTE: I understand from Juaniyo that he will bring Lansang’s Black or Otherwise book. Please also feature its cover, with the caption: Jun Lansang’s second and last poetry collection

ATTENTION: Mr. Igan Oh to be in Ohio

2006-05-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

(for April 10, 2006)

Before last Thursday’s surprise loss to the bottom-dwelling New YorkKnicks, the Cleveland Cavaliers had been the second hottest team in theNBA, just two weeks away from the “Second Season.” And LeBron James wasmaking a strong case for himself for MVP honors in only his 3rd year inthe league.

My fave Cavs had posted a 9-win streak, second only to the New JerseyNets’ 14 (or 15, depending on a pivotal game yesterday). Peaking at theright time, the Cavs got big wins over top-seeded teams Miami Heat andDallas Mavs, while gaining a playoff spot — 4th in the East. Finally, theChosen One (also billed as King James, the Next Great Who, the SecondComing, the Air Apparent, His Heirness — after the Great One that was MJ)is headed for the post-season.

But the Cavs — my darling team — stumbled at Madison Square Garden, andmay have also lost yesterday in another road game, against the dreadedNets who are running 3rd in the East. Then again, we might have taken thefull measure of that potent triumvirate of Vince Carter, Richard Jeffersonand Jason Kidd. As I write this on a Friday, my hopes remain high that LBJthe Phenom will put on another spectacular bonanza and score over 35 forthe ninth consecutive game, and perhaps rack up the rebounds and assistsfor another triple double, his 7th of the regular season and 11thall-time. I’m a fan. That’s for fanatic. Friday and Saturday I wouldn’t have sleptat all, priming my psychic support powers until 1 a.m. yesterday, Manilatime. That’s when I would’ve turned on my iBook, logged on to nba.com, andfollowed the play-by-play with my mental screen going passionately haywire.

That’s what true fans are for: passion. And that’s why I’ve been fallingbehind work for the past weeks, because when the Cavs play I’m mesmerizedbefore my Mac and mental screens — that is, if the game isn’t going onlive on TV.

Why, for the Cavs-Heats game that became an “Instant Classic” the wayLeBron and his good buddy Dwayne Wade put on a riveting duel, I provedeven to myself just how much of a fan I am. Game time was at 2 a.m.Manila. I propped myself up all evening, fought off sleep, ordered pancitCanton from Pasig’s Flower Group of restos based in Orchids motel, andwolfed part of that down well past midnight. Then I brewed some coffee andstarted enjoying the ding-dong affair till the first few minutes of the2nd quarter. ThenÖ TRAGEDY! Alas, by way of Murphy’s Law! Either DSL orour wireless router conked out, and my connection to the Q Arena inCleveland, Ohio froze in real time.

Tarnation! Darn the techie gods of small and big things. Why’d it have tohappen now? Why the karmic downturn? What’d I do, anyway!? Why, I justlarded a street urchin’s palm the day before, with a five-peso coin. AndI’ve even been thinking well of everyone I don’t like or who don’t like meback, even those dolts in UP Diliman. So why do this to me, Bathala!?

I had to rouse up a son with computer smarts, say sorry for breaking uphis summer night’s sleep, plead with him to try and revive our wirelessInternet connection. He gave it a go for half an hour, while I fretted,fumed and F-worded, wondering if LeBron was well on his way to a tripledouble, was outgunning Dwayne, was adding significantly to hisfast-growing legend.

No go. For once the recent Ateneo HS grad couldn’t crank it back up.Something wrong with some system; it wouldn’t reconnect, unlike on a fewother times it had happened of late. Obviously, it was a grand taunt aimedat someone whose patience was a far cry from Job’s. By Jove, I determined however that I wouldn’t let Fate’s middle finger winthis one. Bloody but unbowed, I rang up my younger sister in LA, bylandline thence cellphone. She couldn’t be home till much later, wasconfoundingly ignorant of the momentous match-up that was deep into thesecond half by that time. Try our kid bro in Chicago, she said; he shouldbe home on a Saturday afternoon.

Rang him up. His wife picked up his cellphone. They were on a highway inDes Plaines, ten minutes to home. Well, turn on your TV the minute you getthere, I said, and keep your landline open. If you guys know what’s goodfor you.

So that was how I caught up with Cavs-Heat Part 4, by the middle of thelast quarter, us still down by 5, then tying with a LeBron trey, going upwith another. Dwayne The Flash was positively heroic, but still out-dueledin the end. Nothing was lost in translation as my kid bro insisted ondoing the play-by-play, despite my admonition to just place his handsetbeside their TV speakers.

The long and short of it was that we the mighty Cavs prevailed. TheJames-Wade rivalry got off to another level, we maintained the win streak,and LBJ triple-doubled while scoring 47 (something Kobe cannot do!). Icouldn’t cavil any further, even if while still saying bye and thanks toour trusty bunso, I tried the eMac this time and there it was, connection! Okay, yegads, thought you had me, huh? Tell ya sumthin: y’all just can’tunderestimate a fanatic’s passion. Oh to be in Ohio later this April, lovely month of T.S. Eliot’s less thancruel Spring, and take in the playoffs live at the Q right in LBJ’s homestate. Why, I could even make a pilgrimage to Akron, his provenance,harken back to the days when I asked my Dad for a go-kart so I could repgood old RP in the world finals down that racing ramp.

Oh to be in Ohio deep into May, say sorry to Dr. Edith Tiempo inDumasGoethe: Not this time, Mom, can’t join you in the writers’ workshoppanel, gotta stay the course for all the home games in Cleveland as wesurge deep into the playoffs, carried by TheBron who outdoes himself andgoes Superman-Spiderman-Slam Man berserk and we beat the Pistons in thesecond round! We beat the world champs! We beat the Heat or the Nets forthe Eastern Conference title! We go up against the Spurs with Eva Longoriain the sidelines, and I mosey over and say to her: Hey, your beau willsoon turn as desperate as a housewife.

I carry the trash talk well into June, let the kids handle themselves forenrolment and the first day of college. Heck, I’m in Ohio, center of thebasketball universe, helping make believers of NBA fans worldwide.

Can it be? Or am I losing it? Well, I am not alone. An equally besottedLBJ freak recently posted the following in the online Cavs message boards.From Corporate D, a fan-tasy litany:

“What if... Larry Hughes makes the impact we all think he will? What if...Damon Jones continues to stroke the three at over 55%? What if... withFlip, LeBron and Hughes on the floor together we become a ball stealing,fast breaking machine? What if... Andy, Donyell and Drew continue to smashthe boards? What if... LeBron wins player of the week again? What if... webeat the Nets ON THE ROAD and end their 14-game winning streak? What if...we average over 100 points per game from here on out? What if... everybodycontinues to play like a team and shows the passion from the last 9 games?

“What if... LeBron wins the MVP? What if... LeBron goes 32-7-7? What if...the Cavaliers aren’t satisfied with just making the playoffs? What if...having no playoff experience doesn't effect (sic) LeBron because he hashad to deal with more pressure in his first three years then most playerswould ever feel in the playoffs? And what if... just what if... LeBron andthe Cavaliers win it all?

“What if ... “Believe!!!” That’s the kind of fan I am. I believe! Objective assessment of realitymay say that we’ll only get past the first round against the WashingtonWizards, and promptly get trundled out by the Pistons despite LBJ’s 40points a night, and the Pistons beat the Heat or Nets but succumb to theSpurs (and Eva). But we can dream, can’t we? On to the NBA Finals for theCavs! Oh to be in Ohio in April, May and June. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to lose sleep and get behind on work, log on toCavs games and, in between, indulge in the message boards, where one picksup great good stuff, like a recent exchange that featured a couple ofPinoys, one from right here and the other right there in (Oh to be inÖ)Ohio.

A certain Yzen19 had posted after all that blame-throwing over the lossto the Knicks (which I listened to live on radio, on 105.9FM), about howCavs fans seemed only to be of the fair-weather type. Strow Show, a rudeboy from Australia, responded with a surfeit of sics: “shudup idiot. We’repassionate, we just need somewher to release our stress. wat do u want usto do wen we loose to the KNICKS say omg we were so close better luck nexttime.” And our Pinoy comes back with: “your being passionate is way out ofcontrol. you all want to be the player and the coach. just enjoy the gamesgago”

Mwahaha! And I wasn’t alone with that reaction, as J-Spot the expat joinsin: “Haha! That’s hilarious! You might as well have said ‘pu ta ng in*ka!’ No one would know.” Asterisk supplied by this passionate Cavs fan,one among countless Pinoys tuned in and chirping: “I love this game!”

The online pick-ups are filling up my disk space. Like so: “Just when you think you’ve seen LeBron James do it all, the young Kingcomes back with another jaw-dropping performance. In his last five games,he has scored 37, 36, 36, 46 and 47 points — an average of 40 points,shooting 53 percent.

“But it's more than just slams, shots and scoring. The other parts of hisgame are carrying James into greatness and the Cavs into the playoffs...”

April 03, 2006 — “LeBron James on Saturday accomplished something for thethird time within the last 12 months that Michael Jordan did only threetimes in his entire NBA career; that Larry Bird also did three times inhis pro career. That Kareem did twice, that Magic did once, that JerryWest did once.

“James had 47 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in Cleveland's 106-99 winover Miami — the third time in the last calendar year that James hadregistered a triple-double while scoring 40 or more points.” And: “LBJ has made history with three straight Player of the Weekcitations.” But the most precious has been this one from The Onion, the satiricalonline news site: “According to NBA statisticians, Cavs phenom LeBron James is currently onpace to be the youngest NBA player in history to reach the age of 22.

“‘If James continues to age at this rate, the young forward will turn 22on Dec. 30 of this year,’ said Cavaliers PR director Amanda Mercado, whonoted that NBA legends Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant and‘several others’ currently hold this record, having all turned 22 at theexact same age. ‘We're confident King James can rise to this challenge andset yet another mark that experts once thought to be utterly impossible.’

“Some NBA analysts who have kept track of James’ temporal progress havespeculated he might skip his 23rd year altogether and go straight to 24.”

Mwahaha! Oh but what a monster he’ll be at 24. Barring injury orterrorists depriving the planet of our finest specimen for the Space Age,ah, LeBron will continue to top all stats and make fans and believers ofeveryone.

In this post-Jordan age, it feels oh so good to have a yet-budding icon toroot for anew. Go Cavs! All the way with LBJ! Go LeBron go! Oh to be in Ohio!* * *

A LANGUAGE FOR NATIONALISM (for Apr 4, 2006)

2006-05-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

Of course friends called, texted, e-mailed their support. Some, not all,agreed with the points I raised in that column a fortnight ago. Most wereprivileged to read the pig Latin in my flak vest, so their offers ofassistance stayed private. Some actually said: Hey, own up, you’re playingrope-a-dope, right?

Well... Okay, let’s be a tad bit serious. A lot of hackles have beenraised, for which I’m sorry. No intention there to raise the rage level onthisplanet. But I should have known better than to provoke a bit of afirestorm over “nationalism.” So here’s clarifying some points, inresponse to those raised. A pity that poet Joi Barrios’ intended letter-to-the-editor didn’t seeprint. Not sure she did send it, but it got first play on the Internet.

Basically, Joi took umbrage over my apparently reckless endangerment ofBien Lumbera’s person, given the recent crackdown on perceived enemies ofthe state. I’d like to make this clear. I didn’t label Bien a communist. Even if he were, which I don’t know, nothing wrong there. It’s legal to be a commie in this country. In any case, I’m not into that sort of vintage labeling.What I more than inferred, and decried, was the “nationalist” posturing(being careful now to employ quotation marks, as an indication of botheyebrows raised) of his fan base.

The passages in my column that quoted what I’ve heard in beerhouses andthen some (about “communist candidate” and nothing really memorable in hisworks, something like that) were meant to add some flavor of reportage. Ohyeah? What kind of reportage is that when it doesn’t identify thespeakers? Tsismis reportage, that’s what. Hearsay, firsthand. No need to reveal the identities of those from whose lips I heard thoseviews, to which I must confess a level of tacit agreement on my part. But Joi may have been in her rights to raise the alarm.

As for“red-baiting,” no, I assured her by SMS, I’m not into that either. Just asI don’t have “patrons” whose desires or policies I could’ve been carryingout. Why, I don’t even dislike communists. What I didn’t text Joi was thatI found them rather funny at best. The Left, with its wide gamut of ideological predilections, I respect as awhole, albeit not entire. I told Joi that I’m with her and “them” when itcomes to mounting any civil struggle against the “pang-gigiit” againstReps. Beltran, Ocampo and company. Okey naman kami ni Joi matapos ng mahabang diyalogo sa selfon. Sa wari ko.She said I better clarify all of that. I agreed.

So here it is: I wasn’t red-baiting — which would be an even funnier proposition than anyperceived goals of the intended prey. And I’m not a Commie-hater, sincehardly any gander gets up to ever replace bemusement. As for the reported comments on Bien’s candidacy for the National Artistaward, to relate these to any Commie witchhunt was a stretch, I thought.

Maybe I’m not given to paranoia where I sit or stand. But if it alarmsfriends and colleagues alike, then I regret having included those remarks. What I found admirable in Joi’s heartfelt communication, in private, washer loyalty to her mentor Bien, whose influence she acknowledges withgreat appreciation. In gist, she said she couldn’t allow anyone to attackBien and get away with it. Again, I assured her I hadn’t been on attack mode. It was her rejoinderthat was “banat,” I said, before adding facetious remarks like “buti nalang banat na’ng mukha ko” — to which she replied something about “Botox.”And that’s how our SMS dialectics ended.

Next came a diatribe from Gary Devilles of Ateneo something or other, invery angry Filipino. I can’t comment on his protest over what I wrote onthe National Artist awards, as I sense from his language that he’s so usedto denounce anything in high dudgeon. Aba’y palengkero daw ako, eh siyayung nag-gagalaiti at halos makita na’ng tumiklop ang mga litid sa leeg.

Rosario “Chari” Lucero’s letter, published in this space last week, I canappreciate for its relative elegance and elements of humor, irony, sarcasmand hyperbole. The valid points raised are marred somewhat by academicallyliberal — in more ways than one — leaps of deconstruction. I never equated“nationalist” with “communist.” That inference she made on her own.Neither have I ever put myself “forth as a spokesperson for Philippineliterature.”

Maybe for beerhouses, even as I favor whisky. I agree that Dr. Lumbera enjoys a “primary position” in “Philippine culture and literature.” Never mind the academic “canon”to the left and right of us. Her proposal to thresh out matters ofliterary evaluation in a conference would be welcome had it not betrayedunfair terms of engagement, as well an assumption that a rep from the lushlife can’t partake of an educated exchange.

Jonathan Chua was most civil, for which I am thankful. He too raised validpoints that can be properly addressed, most soberly indeed. He credits Dr.Lumbera with having co-pioneered the “Bagay” poetry movement together withthe multi-genre genius Rolando Tinio. All I know, in my semi-illiteracy,is that some lines of Tinio’s “Valedictory sa Hillcrest” are still recitedfrom memory by lushes like myself. I’m sorry, but I can’t recall a singlepoem title by Bien. True, he still qualifies as an artist, because he haswritten exemplary librettos, some early poetry, and voluminous criticalwork. I don’t dismiss all that. Bien deserves to be a National Artist all right,but for his art and not for his perceived “nationalism.” (More on thislater.)

What I maintain is that if the choice should be between CiriloBautista’s and Bienvenido Lumbera’s totality of artistic merits, theformer would undoubtedly be more formidable. Bien has been ascholar-critic more than a literary artist. But his lifework and influencehave also been formidable, for which he also deserves the highest awardimaginable. And yet, to my mind, not over Cirilo.

The problem, as I sawit, is that ideological accommodation played a part in the choice. I would’ve been very surprised if Paolo Manalo hadn’t joined the Internetcritics. This fellow has long had it in for me, for reasons we both knowbut which would be irrelevant to mention here. I just wish that asliterary editor of Philippines Free Press, Manalo makes a better effort atensuring that contributors receive their fees, for it is a morefundamental responsibility than writing precipitate poetics.

Reuel Aguila was right. I made dabog. Naiintindihan ko rin kung saan siyananggagaling. Nirerespeto ko ang kanyang kakayahan at mga akda, at angbunga ng kanyang batikos ay isa na rin sa aking pinagsisisihan. Hindi konaman gustong makipag-away sa mga Filipinista. Dapat nga tayongmagtulungan.

As expected, the most sophisticated and enlightening take on the brouhahahas been Adrian Cristobal’s. He intelligently takes me to task, but seemsto exonerate me even before he engages in subtle excoriation. Whee! And Ican only agree with his closure: “We should judge writers by their works alone, lest we consider Ezra Poundand Carlos Bulosan to be bad writers because one was a fascist and theother a communist. “That risk belongs to the philistine. May their tribe decrease!”

Others have joined the fray in strange ways, like e-mail-baiting inprivate and then sharing the exchange in public, while masking themselveswith pseudo-addy-nyms. Oh, well. Blithe as blithe goes, to each hisperverse pleasure. Now, for more provocation, possibly, owing to the sensitivity that hasonly led to token politeness, and, well, tokenism.

But let’s get “nationalism” out of the way muna. The reason I place thatterm within quotation marks is that I find the manner in which it iscommonly claimed credit for as unbearably proprietary. The trouble with“nationalists” is that they love to proclaim themselves as such, as ifeveryone else who doesn’t cannot be a nationalist. It’s become a matter of seething too much, denouncing too much, bearingtoo much of a humongous chip on the shoulder for too long, while takingtoo much credit for being the only lovers of country.

I agree with Jimmy Abad. (I hope his letter to the editor appearssomewhere on this page.) There’s no monopoly on nationalism, which is notgauged by the language one uses or where one lives. I love our country forall its faults, our faults, and our own brand of occasional idiocy. But Ido not have to proclaim myself a “nationalist” to the exclusion of mosteveryone else. And I’m tired of having to walk on eggshells due to PCawareness of sensitivity.

Ma. Luisa Igloria, recent winner of the highly prestigious Stephen DunnAward for Poetry, is no less of a nationalist for writing in English, letalone for choosing to teach literature out there in Virginia, USA. By theby, she competes in a much larger, more challenging arena. And yet shedoes us all proud with her Filipino poetry in English. Heck, make thatpoetry, period.

When Eric Gamalinda gets a story accepted by Harper’s, it’s an honor forall Filipinos, whether they write in Filipino, English, or Spanish. Heck,whether they write at all. I am not advocating that we all write in English. I try to write inFilipino, but am better trained in English, as was most of my generationthat grew up in Manila. Let us strengthen Filipino, and all otherlanguages in our regions. Let us not however equate writing in Filipino(or Tagalog), or favoring the writing of Filipino (or Tagalog), withstronger or more authentic nationalism. The demographics alone are against that sort of reckoning. We still havemore Cebuano speakers. Ilocano writers write in Ilocano, Ilonggos inIlonggo or Hiligaynon, Bicolanos in Bicolano. Sure, there are exceptions:a few Ilocanos, Ilonggos and Bicolanos write or also write in Filipino.But more of the same can and do write in English. Contrary to doomsayers for English literary use at the height of thebilingualism debate of the ’70s, greater numbers of Filipino poets andwriters are writing in English, I believe so much more than the increasingnumbers of writers in Filipino. That’s because Filipinos outside theTagalog region have not yet reached any proficiency in Filipino. Somedayit’ll happen, when the electronic media — radio, TV and film — manage toeventually improve that proficiency. For now, there are hardly any venues for literature in Filipino. Hardlyanyone even engages in travel writing in Filipino, or creative non-fictionin Filipino. Which is not saying that it’s an inferior language. It’s justyounger than major literary languages of the world. When a Filipino writes in English, he necessarily takes on a tougherchallenge — that of participation in the continuing evolution of alanguage that has been used for centuries, by the likes of Chaucer andShakespeare and Oliver Wendell Holmes and Salman Rushdie and MichaelOndaatje. When a Filipino writes in Filipino, yes, he is writing in the language ofhis blood, and yet — and this is no invidious comparison — he isupholding, enhancing and reinventing a much younger tradition that “only”goes back to Balagtas and Lazaro Francisco and Amado Hernandez andVirgilio Almario. When Cirilo Bautista writes in English, he vies against the standards ofexcellence that continue to be set in that yet dynamic language.

WhenBienvenido Lumbera champions Filipino literature almost to the exclusionof the merits gained by Filipinos in literary English, I believe he does abit of disservice to scholarship and criticism. Three years ago, I formally argued for a National Artist award forVirgilio Almario because I believed in the total creative worth of hisliterature in Filipino. I even said it was high time another NA award wentto a writer in Filipino, after Amado Hernandez. I would have argued thesame for Dr. Lumbera, but not at the expense of Dr. Bautista. Of course all this has been moot, even when I first wrote on the matter(which is why Reuel is right in saying na nagdabog lang si ako) — giventhe fact that Lumbera was already chosen as the sole finalist forLiterature. Even as this is being written, he could well be on his way togaining the award. I cannot begrudge him or any other writer or Lottowinner any prize. On an aside, as I texted Jonathan, bigyan naman sana ko ng konsiderasyonna sa tanda kong ito, alam ko namang ang nakikitang pagbatikos ko kay Bienay malamang na mag-garantiya na maging NA nga siya. Alam naman natin angsikolohiyang bumabalot sa mga nagdedesisyon. No claiming of any credit, however, in hindsight or with foresight. I justhad to say what I believed in, maybe because I have the guts, or chutzpah,or moxie, or apog. Na magdabog. But again, at the risk of offending sensibilities, even those of myka-barkadang mga Filipinista, uulitin ko ang aking paniniwala na masmahigpit pa rin ang hamon ng pagsusulat sa Ingles. Kayat ang dapat aygalingan pa ang pagsulat sa Filipino. Mas madaling mangyari ito kungilalapag na lang muna ang bagahe ng ideolohiya. Sa ganun ay dadami ang magsusulat ng mga kaakit-akit na kakaibang mgatula tulad ng mga gawa ni Freddie Salanga, Pete Lacaba, RayVi Sunico, BeniSantos at Allan Popa — na siyang mga aral din sa Ingles at nagamit angkanilang natutunan dito. O mga akdang pang-awit tulad ng mga hinahangaannatin mula kina Heber Bartolome at Joey Ayala — at panibagong hinahangaankong si Israfel Fagela ng sisikat na bandang Los Chupacabras. To my calumnists, please understand that not everyone can have a regularnewspaper column. Some of us are asked to fulfill the role. I try topopularize literature, mostly Philippine — more often those in Englishbecause there are more works in English. I am not a critic but a reviewerand a tsismoso. I also try to be light, which is why I dub someone likethe young Angelo Suarez “the Kobe Bryant of Philippine Literature.” Sorryif I can’t similarly laud efforts to tack on to a topical-trendy term like“jologs” for perishable poetry. I am so sorry to Bien and Shayne for the hurt I caused. Couldn’t help it;it couldn’t be helped. Let me end with gravity and flippancy: two sides of the same coin ofeloquence (ahem). “The language of nationalism is in the heart, while theart of literature is in the mastery of universal craft.” That is mine.“Thanks for the intellectual discussion. It’s always hard to defend alosing argument. But you did a decent job of it.”

— From the ClevelandCavaliers message boards, and which we’re all free to say to one another.

* * *

The Editor, Philippine Star Letter to the EditorNational / Nationalist Artist Award I’ve been mentioned in Alfred A. Yuson’s column and in Joi Barrios’response to it. I wish to contribute a thought on the matter. All Filipino writers in whatever language are nationalists, unless it canbe proved beyond reasonable doubt that, following the definition of“nationalism” in the document on National Artist Awards, a writer does NOT“promote national cultural identity and the dignity of the Filipino peoplethrough the content and form of their works.” As Sir Walter Scott has sowell put it, “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, / Who never tohimself hath said, / This is my own, my native land!” I believe that“nationalism” is what is meant by the word “National” in the title of theAwards. Yet “nationalism,” as defined for the Awards, is hardly an artisticcriterion. There are many nationalists who, not being writers or artists,cannot be given the Award. The key word is Artist. The Award then is to beconferred on the sole ground of a nominee’s inimitable achievement in Artas a rich and distinctive contribution to our national cultural heritage. In that light, if by literature as Art we mean “literary works” or “worksof imagination” (poetry, fiction, drama), I believe Cirilo F. Bautistafully deserves the National Artist Award in Literature. Since 1963 to thevery present, he has wrought a considerable body of works in Literature,in English and in Tagalog-Filipino – epic and lyric poetry, the shortstory, the novel – all of exceptional worth and quality. I make noinvidious comparisons. I only insist on Art and artistic merit. Incidentally, I cannot see why, in a given year for the Awards, there maynot be two or even three, National Artists in one or the other artisticfield. On artistic merit alone is the decision based, not on budgetaryallotment.

Gémino H. Abad U.P. Department of EnglishMarch 22, 2006

GRADUATION (March 27, 2006)

2006-05-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Couldn’t help but feel the proud father yesterday, as our three kidsmarched formally out of high school on the same day, in graduation ritesheld in the same campus. Brothers Alyosha and Alaric both made it through Ateneo de Manila HighSchool; oh what a relief. For a while there, their Mom and I were intenterhooks, fearing that the last Math exam would consign them to anothersummer of extra work, a virtual “pass-out” in favor of a DECS high schooldiploma, or sheer ignominy and a life spent as a counter attendant inJollibee or Starbucks. Well, that prospect wouldn’t have been all that bad, come to think of it.Nothing like starting early to raise funds for their father’s long-delayedretirement in an Italian villa. But thankfully, on March 14, eve of the imaginably dreadful Ides, at 10a.m. the promotions lists went up on big boards past Big Boy’s place ofhonor by the H.S. Admi wing. And our boys took their nervous paces fromthe parking lot towards the long-awaited announcement on their antsyfuture. They were stopped on their tracks by Tita Marilou, whose own boy Enzo hadalso made it. “Congratulations!” she chirped. She had obviously gonethrough those fateful boards a minute earlier. I can only imagine what ourboys felt at that moment of cheery greetings. Was she pulling our leg? Wasshe only presuming glad fate? Briefly asking back, “Oh, we passed?” —maybe even with more than a tinge of disbelief — they rushed to the listsand saw for themselves that indeed they would be off to college in June. That both had passed the ACET or Ateneo College Entrance Test weeksearlier may have given them stronger hopes, as much as that welcome bit ofnews had fortified Mom’s and Dad’s own. But everything still hung in thebalance for the last few weeks of schoolyear 2005-06.

The younger boy had to dig himself out of a deep hole after wasting the first term by intently\nsporting a hip-hopper’s attitude all around his small universe, including\nschool — thus earning his dad frequent consultation hours with teachers\nand discipline honchos. \n The text message from his Math teacher soon after the final exam wasn’t\ntoo heartening. After weeks of daily attendance at AHEAD for tutoring,\njust so he could be helped over the hump in Math, he had done well in the\nlast long test, but only barely scraped through the exam. Should we then\nprepare our written appeal already, I texted back. Mr. Dizon was most\ngracious: The next process involved deliberations among the class\nteachers. He advised that we wait for the results. \n I don’t know, but I believe they took our boy’s heroic effort, if at the\nlast minute, into positive consideration, maybe his having passed the\nACET, too. Then again, someone might have raised the dire scenario of\nhaving to listen to the boy’s father again while he raised existentialist\nhell and all sorts of arrogant assessments of their system. So maybe they\njust agreed: Yeah, better give his boy the benefit of the doubt. Heh-heh. \n\nNow, with the youngest child Mirava, there had never been any problem. As\nearly as mid-year last she had already been invited, as a straight-A\nperformer in her own graduating class at Reedley International School, to\nsample a day in the life of a college co-ed in Ateneo. She passed both the\nACET and UPCAT, too, so that my only concern was how to convince her to\nenter the more appropriate institution. Oops. Smiley, folks. \n I had spent all of six-seven years in UP Diliman, and only a semester in\nAdMU, way back in the ’60s. But for certain reasons I now prefer to send\nmy kids to Loyola Heights, at least for their first years in a university.\nMaybe graduate work, if any, could eventually land them in Diliman, or\nthey conduct an undergrad transfer — should they decide to eschew further",1]
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to dig himself out of a deep hole after wasting the first term by intentlysporting a hip-hopper’s attitude all around his small universe, includingschool — thus earning his dad frequent consultation hours with teachersand discipline honchos. The text message from his Math teacher soon after the final exam wasn’ttoo heartening. After weeks of daily attendance at AHEAD for tutoring,just so he could be helped over the hump in Math, he had done well in thelast long test, but only barely scraped through the exam. Should we thenprepare our written appeal already, I texted back. Mr. Dizon was mostgracious: The next process involved deliberations among the classteachers. He advised that we wait for the results. I don’t know, but I believe they took our boy’s heroic effort, if at thelast minute, into positive consideration, maybe his having passed theACET, too. Then again, someone might have raised the dire scenario ofhaving to listen to the boy’s father again while he raised existentialisthell and all sorts of arrogant assessments of their system. So maybe theyjust agreed: Yeah, better give his boy the benefit of the doubt. Heh-heh. Now, with the youngest child Mirava, there had never been any problem. Asearly as mid-year last she had already been invited, as a straight-Aperformer in her own graduating class at Reedley International School, tosample a day in the life of a college co-ed in Ateneo. She passed both theACET and UPCAT, too, so that my only concern was how to convince her toenter the more appropriate institution. Oops. Smiley, folks. I had spent all of six-seven years in UP Diliman, and only a semester inAdMU, way back in the ’60s. But for certain reasons I now prefer to sendmy kids to Loyola Heights, at least for their first years in a university.Maybe graduate work, if any, could eventually land them in Diliman, orthey conduct an undergrad transfer — should they decide to eschew further
\nJesuit education in a relatively placid, rational environment in favor of\nthe excitement of sit-ins and protest marches at the drop of a fig leaf.\nWhy, that nude run and that lantern parade and those frat rumbles they can\nalways savor as a visiting, neighborly spectator. \n For Mirava, who’s only turned 16, I’m particularly concerned over her\nreadiness to cope with the occasional disorder, make that randomness, of\nthe university process. Oh, she’s a bright kid, and academically\nself-disciplined. She’ll likely do well anywhere, and eventually might\nhave to go to UP if she stays on course towards her career goal, which is\nto become a veterinarian at the San Diego or Sydney zoo. \n Why, in Diliman she can also officially join the Archery team, as that’s\nwhere she trains under Mang Jun, well enough to have garnered a silver\nmedal last year in her age-group category in a national open. \n And yet... Okay, maybe the most personal of reasons has to do with my\npart-time faculty duties in AdMU. Every Monday for the past six years I’ve\nheld classes in either Poetry or Fiction, workshop style, for three hours\na week. \n I meet with best buddy Dr. Jimmy Abad for coffee half-an-hour before our\nrespective classes. Or I drop in at the Eng Dept to pick up communication\nand make chicahan with Chair Marlu Vilches or our prospective Ang Ladlad\nparty-list Congressperson Danton Remoto. Or exchange hi’s atbp. with the\nfine young poets and writers Larry Ypil, Vince Serrano, Exie Abola, BJ\nPatino, Gad Lim, Missy Maramara et al., while we wait for the academic\nreturn from Princeton of possibly the finest young poet of late to\npractice out of Loyola Heights: John Labella. \n And so, add to that the possibility of running into any or all three kids\nin campus, perchance treat to fatherly merienda, or just exchange discreet\nlow fives on our way to this class or that. Such heartwarming prospects.\nMy UP buddies should understand. ",1]
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Jesuit education in a relatively placid, rational environment in favor ofthe excitement of sit-ins and protest marches at the drop of a fig leaf.Why, that nude run and that lantern parade and those frat rumbles they canalways savor as a visiting, neighborly spectator. For Mirava, who’s only turned 16, I’m particularly concerned over herreadiness to cope with the occasional disorder, make that randomness, ofthe university process. Oh, she’s a bright kid, and academicallyself-disciplined. She’ll likely do well anywhere, and eventually mighthave to go to UP if she stays on course towards her career goal, which isto become a veterinarian at the San Diego or Sydney zoo. Why, in Diliman she can also officially join the Archery team, as that’swhere she trains under Mang Jun, well enough to have garnered a silvermedal last year in her age-group category in a national open. And yet... Okay, maybe the most personal of reasons has to do with mypart-time faculty duties in AdMU. Every Monday for the past six years I’veheld classes in either Poetry or Fiction, workshop style, for three hoursa week. I meet with best buddy Dr. Jimmy Abad for coffee half-an-hour before ourrespective classes. Or I drop in at the Eng Dept to pick up communicationand make chicahan with Chair Marlu Vilches or our prospective Ang Ladladparty-list Congressperson Danton Remoto. Or exchange hi’s atbp. with thefine young poets and writers Larry Ypil, Vince Serrano, Exie Abola, BJPatino, Gad Lim, Missy Maramara et al., while we wait for the academicreturn from Princeton of possibly the finest young poet of late topractice out of Loyola Heights: John Labella. And so, add to that the possibility of running into any or all three kidsin campus, perchance treat to fatherly merienda, or just exchange discreetlow fives on our way to this class or that. Such heartwarming prospects.My UP buddies should understand.
\n\nFlashback. Forty-six years ago, Bedans of High School Class 1960 marched\nout of Mendiola to go our disparate ways. Most of us had not only\nexperienced being together in the Benedictine campus for four years, but\nall of ten, including six years of primary schooling, so that we’re also\nthe Silver Jubilarians that comprise SBC Elementary Class of 1956. Wow,\nfifty! Five decades past! (Of course some of us were precocious, and\nmust’ve graduated at 12 or 13.)\n In any case, we came together again for Homecoming Day on February 18,\ninclusive of our batchmates who truly came home — from everywhere. We\nattended Mass at the finest chapel in the world, looked up at the grand\ndomed ceiling where a splendid mural promised the glories of heaven and\nthe perdition of hell, relived the years of grinding our knees on the hard\nwood in each pew, and listened to the thanksgiving prayers and remarks\nfrom Abbot-Chancellor Fr. Tarciso Ma. Narciso, Rector-President Fr. Anscar\nChupungco, Alumni Association moderator Fr. Pio Lomibao, and that old\nbeloved battle-axe, our former Rector who’s come back from Spain, the\nnearly century-old (no kidding!) Fr. Benigno Benabarre — all of them of\nthe Order of St. Benedict or OSB.\n After the Mass, we received gold medals, I guess for being loyal\nJubilarians — and had a photo op before the altar, with most of us in our\nold school uniforms: white short-sleeved shirts with the red circular\npatch on the left breast pocket, and hey, khaki shorts and black shoes.\nThen we all trooped to the old familiar quadrangle (well, so many physical\nchanges have taken place, exempt the secluded Roman Garden close by),\nwhere we joined the rest of the celebrators, led by the HS Class of 1956. \n It’ll be our turn four years from now, as High School Silver Jubilarians,\nin 2010, by the time PGMA closes out her term (oh yeah!?). And Boy Tuico\nfrom Madrid will come around again with Turrones de Alicante, and Nito",1]
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Flashback. Forty-six years ago, Bedans of High School Class 1960 marchedout of Mendiola to go our disparate ways. Most of us had not onlyexperienced being together in the Benedictine campus for four years, butall of ten, including six years of primary schooling, so that we’re alsothe Silver Jubilarians that comprise SBC Elementary Class of 1956. Wow,fifty! Five decades past! (Of course some of us were precocious, andmust’ve graduated at 12 or 13.) In any case, we came together again for Homecoming Day on February 18,inclusive of our batchmates who truly came home — from everywhere. Weattended Mass at the finest chapel in the world, looked up at the granddomed ceiling where a splendid mural promised the glories of heaven andthe perdition of hell, relived the years of grinding our knees on the hardwood in each pew, and listened to the thanksgiving prayers and remarksfrom Abbot-Chancellor Fr. Tarciso Ma. Narciso, Rector-President Fr. AnscarChupungco, Alumni Association moderator Fr. Pio Lomibao, and that oldbeloved battle-axe, our former Rector who’s come back from Spain, thenearly century-old (no kidding!) Fr. Benigno Benabarre — all of them ofthe Order of St. Benedict or OSB. After the Mass, we received gold medals, I guess for being loyalJubilarians — and had a photo op before the altar, with most of us in ourold school uniforms: white short-sleeved shirts with the red circularpatch on the left breast pocket, and hey, khaki shorts and black shoes.Then we all trooped to the old familiar quadrangle (well, so many physicalchanges have taken place, exempt the secluded Roman Garden close by),where we joined the rest of the celebrators, led by the HS Class of 1956. It’ll be our turn four years from now, as High School Silver Jubilarians,in 2010, by the time PGMA closes out her term (oh yeah!?). And Boy Tuicofrom Madrid will come around again with Turrones de Alicante, and Nito
\nAbad from Connecticut with bottles of 18-year-old Glenlivet single malt\nwhisky, and Ady Dalton and Jun Aspillera from California with golf clubs\nfor everyone, and Delfin Wenceslao and Bobby Barretto, also from the West\nCoast, USA, with excellent titillating photos of umbrella girls and then\nsome, to add to our burgeoning private collections. \n For now I share heart-felt excerpts from balikbayan Nito Abad’s blog entry\non our Bedan Homecoming, which climaxed in that Mendiola quadrangle with a\nyouthening dance performance from Aubrey Miles. Animo San Beda! \n\n“Class reunions — what a good reason to drink! Being away from the\nPhilippines for almost 40 years made me forget about what we did when I\nwas there. We always find a reason to drink. And if we cannot find a\nreason, we drink, anyway. The cityscape may have changed, I may have aged,\nsome friends may have departed but one thing will never change — Filipinos\ndrink. Before the trip, we were educated on the merits of single malt\nwhisky. And of course, the story must end with a request for a bottle of\nGlenlivet 18-year-old. Hey, being the “rich boy” (local translation —\nmayabang) from America, I said I would bring a few.\n “Well I had the bottles so we had to find a place to drink them. Ding\nReyes, owner of Chocolat (Chocolate cakes? You gotta get them here!)\nobliged. I invited my former classmates. And they came, and Tuttie Vergel\nDe Dios even brought a friend. Her name was Claire and she was nice.\n “One of my invitees, Delfin Amorsolo (son of the famous painter), just\ncould not keep his hands to himself. He managed to elude all of us and\ndisappeared with her!\n “With more bellies to fill but no more booze, Ady Dalton sensed the need\nand invited us to his palatial condominium at Rockwell. Of course, we all\nhad to dress up for this occasion, except someone who came in shorts (sexy\nnaman)...\n “Going to school can be as much fun now as it was 50 years ago even if you",1]
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Abad from Connecticut with bottles of 18-year-old Glenlivet single maltwhisky, and Ady Dalton and Jun Aspillera from California with golf clubsfor everyone, and Delfin Wenceslao and Bobby Barretto, also from the WestCoast, USA, with excellent titillating photos of umbrella girls and thensome, to add to our burgeoning private collections. For now I share heart-felt excerpts from balikbayan Nito Abad’s blog entryon our Bedan Homecoming, which climaxed in that Mendiola quadrangle with ayouthening dance performance from Aubrey Miles. Animo San Beda! “Class reunions — what a good reason to drink! Being away from thePhilippines for almost 40 years made me forget about what we did when Iwas there. We always find a reason to drink. And if we cannot find areason, we drink, anyway. The cityscape may have changed, I may have aged,some friends may have departed but one thing will never change — Filipinosdrink. Before the trip, we were educated on the merits of single maltwhisky. And of course, the story must end with a request for a bottle ofGlenlivet 18-year-old. Hey, being the “rich boy” (local translation —mayabang) from America, I said I would bring a few. “Well I had the bottles so we had to find a place to drink them. DingReyes, owner of Chocolat (Chocolate cakes? You gotta get them here!)obliged. I invited my former classmates. And they came, and Tuttie VergelDe Dios even brought a friend. Her name was Claire and she was nice. “One of my invitees, Delfin Amorsolo (son of the famous painter), justcould not keep his hands to himself. He managed to elude all of us anddisappeared with her! “With more bellies to fill but no more booze, Ady Dalton sensed the needand invited us to his palatial condominium at Rockwell. Of course, we allhad to dress up for this occasion, except someone who came in shorts (sexynaman)... “Going to school can be as much fun now as it was 50 years ago even if you
\nhave to wear your khaki shorts and white shirt. I had to bribe Guido “Boy”\nTuico, who has never in his adult life worn shorts — ‘Just not done in\nMadrid,’ he said — with pretty ladies just for him to wear one. \n “Our red patches came courtesy of Bong Obligacion. He really wanted us to\nlook authentic so he had these patches made. We promised each other to\nkeep the uniform and wear it again in 2010 when our high school class\ncelebrates its 50th anniversary. When you think about it, it’s easier to\nkeep the uniform ready; it is harder to keep yourself alive. More power to\nall of us guys — may we have many more years!\n “We relived old times. For one whole night we were young again, classmates\nagain and right in the quadrangle where we used to play. Gone were all the\nproblems of the present. All that mattered was that we were all brought \nback to yesterday. \n “However, all nice things must come to an end. Soon we had to depart and\ngo our own ways. We started saying goodbyes. With a sorry walk, my\nclassmates left one at a time. We had to go our own ways again and face\nthe world we lived in. \n “We had to leave, but not before we found and saw the red bricks on the\nPlaza Bedista that held our names. In the dark we went through all, one by\none, until we found our own names. I found mine and managed to take a\npicture.\n “I know now that something of me will be left behind for others to see and\nremember even when I am long gone. Hopefully those who are left behind\nwill say a prayer and be reminded that this class of grade school 1956 was\nhere and did not want to leave, wanted to freeze this moment in time.” \n\n* * *\n\nPhoto captions (for photos in order of priority, depending on space): \n\nAt SBCA Chapel — SBC Elementary Class of 1956 and High School Class of\n1960, back in their uniforms\n\nRed and White Ball — At the Red and White Ball, from left, front row: Bong",1]
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have to wear your khaki shorts and white shirt. I had to bribe Guido “Boy”Tuico, who has never in his adult life worn shorts — ‘Just not done inMadrid,’ he said — with pretty ladies just for him to wear one. “Our red patches came courtesy of Bong Obligacion. He really wanted us tolook authentic so he had these patches made. We promised each other tokeep the uniform and wear it again in 2010 when our high school classcelebrates its 50th anniversary. When you think about it, it’s easier tokeep the uniform ready; it is harder to keep yourself alive. More power toall of us guys — may we have many more years! “We relived old times. For one whole night we were young again, classmatesagain and right in the quadrangle where we used to play. Gone were all theproblems of the present. All that mattered was that we were all brought back to yesterday. “However, all nice things must come to an end. Soon we had to depart andgo our own ways. We started saying goodbyes. With a sorry walk, myclassmates left one at a time. We had to go our own ways again and facethe world we lived in. “We had to leave, but not before we found and saw the red bricks on thePlaza Bedista that held our names. In the dark we went through all, one byone, until we found our own names. I found mine and managed to take apicture. “I know now that something of me will be left behind for others to see andremember even when I am long gone. Hopefully those who are left behindwill say a prayer and be reminded that this class of grade school 1956 washere and did not want to leave, wanted to freeze this moment in time.” * * *Photo captions (for photos in order of priority, depending on space): At SBCA Chapel — SBC Elementary Class of 1956 and High School Class of1960, back in their uniformsRed and White Ball — At the Red and White Ball, from left, front row: Bong
\nand his wife, and class valedictorian, Victor Alfonso; back row: Nito\nAbad, Dr. Boy Hilvano, and the future President of the SBCAA, Paulino\nDionisio.\n\nAt Ady Dalton’s — More of the same reunion spirit after 50 years!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n******************************************\nThe opinions, postings, and articles in this group do not necessarily reflect the orientation of Filipino-American_Network, but have been approved due to their relevance to Filipino-Americans. For more info about this list send an e-mail to mchristoffels2002@yahoo.com or Ronald Fabricante at mondetrotter@yahoo.com \n*********************************************\nTo post messages send to: Filipino-American_Network@yahoogroups.com\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n \n YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS\n\n\n\n Visit your group "Filipino-American_Network" on the web. \n To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: Filipino-American_Network-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com \n Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the ",1]
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Obligacion, Fr. Benigno Benabarre, UP Manila Chancellor Dr. Ramon Arcadioand his wife, and class valedictorian, Victor Alfonso; back row: NitoAbad, Dr. Boy Hilvano, and the future President of the SBCAA, PaulinoDionisio.At Ady Dalton’s — More of the same reunion spirit after 50 years!

POETRY, FLOWERS, BIG BUDDHA AND ICE CREAM (Mar 26, 2006)

2006-05-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

I suddenly felt like a waiter who had just asked someone very importanthow he would like his prime rib. Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize poet, had justtold me over a dining table: “Well done, well done.”

In truth he was referring to my reading at the Fringe Club Studio on thethird day of the MAN Hong Kong International Literary Festival conductedfrom March 6 to 15. Now the legendary Irish poet was voicing thecompliment across a small formica-top table in a modest won ton eatery atWanchai, where we were led on the start of a pub crawl by poet andfestival organizer Dave McKirdy.

The company included resident poet-educators Martin Alexander and TimKaiser, as well as Ian Candy, a magistrate who was also a literaturelover. We had soup with a surfeit of long noodles that Seamus and I (Hah!Such savory opportunity for namedropping!) had a little difficultyslurping, or truncating with our chopsticks.

The table also groaned with vegetable dishes and tall Tsingtao beerbottles, over which the talk turned as cheerily frenetic as theconsumption of our late-dinner fare. Festival speaker Charles Foran, whohad come all the way from Canada, joined us as we wound down on our slurpsand gulps.

The crawl had begun on a couple of cabs from the Fringe Club at Central toWanchai, where we got off and surveyed the glittering streetscape thatfeatured an assortment of girlie bars and commercial shops. Sexy FilipinaGROs displaying their gams outside their club tried to inveigle us to stepinside. Offering smiles and polite refusal, we made “Pasintabi po” throughthe curbside’s charming gauntlet.

Up we went a decrepit building’s narrow flight of stairs to enter a tattooshop. Surveying the splendiferous array of designs, we spoke in hushedtones, in the manner of literary footnotes, before releasing ourselves\nfrom the manager’s entreaties for us to design our own. Then we walked\nanother block and crossed the street to Dave’s fave noodle house. \nIt didn’t even seem to have a name. As we stepped out to gather cabs anew,\nSeamus looked up to read a sign that said Spaghetti House, which must have\nreferred to an upstairs resto. “So that’s what I should remember we dined\nin,” he quipped. \n

Then we were off to Lan Kwai Fong, that trendy strip bustling with\nnightspots for yuppies and tourists. We settled on Balalaika, as Seamus\nliked vodka. It had a special feature, an “ice room” which we entered only\nafter being given fur coats — not just for the photo ops. The rest of the\nnight, till nearly 2 a.m., was spent sousing up on beers, vodka, and\nsingle malt whisky from my discreet and trusty flask. \n

Not much of a pub crawl, one might say. But for variety it was tops: from\na poetry hall to a tattoo shop to a noodle house to an ice room and bar,\nand with the very game, very genial Mr. Heaney as premier companyÖ Why,\nwhat a night! \n\nMarjorie Evasco had flown in two days earlier, to catch the festival start\nthat featured a lecture by Mr. Heaney. On mid-afternoon of Wednesday,\nMarch 8, she joined an all-women’s reading to celebrate International\nWomen’s Day, at a program billed as “Half the Sky” conducted at the China\nClub. Marj recounted how Marie Heaney, Seamus’ better half, had climaxed\nthe reading with an Irish song, done a cappella. \n

Later that day, Martin Alexander picked us up at our hotel in Causeway\nBay, together with the Canadian poet-memoirist Karen Connelly, for our\nreading program billed as “Rhyme Across Time.”\n

It was Dave McKirdy’s idea to have “local” poets first read works by big\nnames such as Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou, Heaney and Rumi on the themes of\nMind and Spirit, Freedom, War, Home and Family, and Love, to which each of\nus four featured readers, including Martin, would respond individually", from the manager’s entreaties for us to design our own. Then we walkedanother block and crossed the street to Dave’s fave noodle house. It didn’t even seem to have a name. As we stepped out to gather cabs anew,Seamus looked up to read a sign that said Spaghetti House, which must havereferred to an upstairs resto. “So that’s what I should remember we dinedin,” he quipped.

Then we were off to Lan Kwai Fong, that trendy strip bustling withnightspots for yuppies and tourists. We settled on Balalaika, as Seamusliked vodka. It had a special feature, an “ice room” which we entered onlyafter being given fur coats — not just for the photo ops. The rest of thenight, till nearly 2 a.m., was spent sousing up on beers, vodka, andsingle malt whisky from my discreet and trusty flask.

Not much of a pub crawl, one might say. But for variety it was tops: froma poetry hall to a tattoo shop to a noodle house to an ice room and bar,and with the very game, very genial Mr. Heaney as premier companyÖ Why,what a night! Marjorie Evasco had flown in two days earlier, to catch the festival startthat featured a lecture by Mr. Heaney. On mid-afternoon of Wednesday,March 8, she joined an all-women’s reading to celebrate InternationalWomen’s Day, at a program billed as “Half the Sky” conducted at the ChinaClub. Marj recounted how Marie Heaney, Seamus’ better half, had climaxedthe reading with an Irish song, done a cappella. Later that day, Martin Alexander picked us up at our hotel in CausewayBay, together with the Canadian poet-memoirist Karen Connelly, for ourreading program billed as “Rhyme Across Time.”

It was Dave McKirdy’s idea to have “local” poets first read works by bignames such as Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou, Heaney and Rumi on the themes ofMind and Spirit, Freedom, War, Home and Family, and Love, to which each ofus four featured readers, including Martin, would respond individually
\nwith our poems dwelling on the same themes. Dave also chose music pieces\nto set the mood for each thematic segment.\n And I must say that we all did very well indeed before an enthused\naudience of nearly a hundred people who sat in ascending tiers in the\nintimate hall. It included fellow Pinoys Carla Pacis and Reni Singer who\nattended the festival’s writing-for-children programs, and five lady\nstudents from De La Salle who couldn’t allow mentor Marj a few days off\nfrom Taft Avenue. \n

The supreme compliment came from Seamus, of course, later that night, and\nI like to think that he expressed it apropos our entire ensemble of\nreaders, for truly it had been a magical evening. I was also reminded,\nwhile Seamus wasn’t exactly holding court at Balalaika, unprepossessing as\nhe was, of an anecdote from Ateneo poet-teacher Danton Remoto. \n In 1992 while at Stirling University in Scotland, Danton had attended,\nwith writer-editor Tina Cuyugan, a book launching of Heaney’s Selected\nPoems. As Danton was having his copy signed, the Irish poet was chewing on\na brownie, crumbs of which fell between the pages of Danton’s copy. He\nquickly closed the book, entrapping those crumbs, before walking away in\nbeatific contentment. I wouldn’t doubt that Danton still keeps those\nbrownie crumbs that fell from Seamus Heaney’s mouth. \n

All throughout our binge that night, I had to hold myself back from\nrecounting that episode to Mr. Heaney. Instead I imagined that Danton had\npresaged “The Blackbird of Glanmore,” Heaney’s new poem in his forthcoming\ncollection District and Circle due out this year. From its closing lines:\n “Hedge-hop, I am absolute/ For you, your ready talkback,/ Your each\nstand-offish comeback,/ Your picky, nervy goldbeak —/ O the grass where I\narrive,// In the ivy when I leave.” \n And so it came full circle, the Irish-Filipino poetry connection, when at\nthat ice room Seamus noted that I hadn’t taken my vodka shot entire.",1]
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with our poems dwelling on the same themes. Dave also chose music piecesto set the mood for each thematic segment. And I must say that we all did very well indeed before an enthusedaudience of nearly a hundred people who sat in ascending tiers in theintimate hall. It included fellow Pinoys Carla Pacis and Reni Singer whoattended the festival’s writing-for-children programs, and five ladystudents from De La Salle who couldn’t allow mentor Marj a few days offfrom Taft Avenue. The supreme compliment came from Seamus, of course, later that night, andI like to think that he expressed it apropos our entire ensemble ofreaders, for truly it had been a magical evening. I was also reminded,while Seamus wasn’t exactly holding court at Balalaika, unprepossessing ashe was, of an anecdote from Ateneo poet-teacher Danton Remoto. In 1992 while at Stirling University in Scotland, Danton had attended,with writer-editor Tina Cuyugan, a book launching of Heaney’s SelectedPoems. As Danton was having his copy signed, the Irish poet was chewing ona brownie, crumbs of which fell between the pages of Danton’s copy. Hequickly closed the book, entrapping those crumbs, before walking away inbeatific contentment. I wouldn’t doubt that Danton still keeps thosebrownie crumbs that fell from Seamus Heaney’s mouth. All throughout our binge that night, I had to hold myself back fromrecounting that episode to Mr. Heaney. Instead I imagined that Danton hadpresaged “The Blackbird of Glanmore,” Heaney’s new poem in his forthcomingcollection District and Circle due out this year. From its closing lines: “Hedge-hop, I am absolute/ For you, your ready talkback,/ Your eachstand-offish comeback,/ Your picky, nervy goldbeak —/ O the grass where Iarrive,// In the ivy when I leave.” And so it came full circle, the Irish-Filipino poetry connection, when atthat ice room Seamus noted that I hadn’t taken my vodka shot entire.
\nBefore I could protest, a deft move had him pluck, like a blackbird, the\nshot glass from my hand, and quickly downed it before giving thanks.\nHa-ha! Salut! A half-shot of Absolut in exchange for brownie crumbs. \n\nThe festival’s other big-ticket items included novelist Robert Elegant,\nwhose dialogue with Kunal Basu, another exponent of historical fiction, I\ncaught at Olympic House on March 9, in a doubleheader that also featured\nthe celebrated writer Pico Iyer in a delightful, absolutely witty\ngive-and-take with Hong Kong’s primetime toastmaster, writer and editor,\nNury Vittachi. \n Booker Prize winner for 2005 John Banville was also expected for talks and\nreadings on the second week. Other notable speakers and readers were Su\nTong (Raise the Red Lantern), Tarun Tejpal (The Alchemy of Desire), the\nyoung and well-acclaimed Nell Freudenberger (Lucky Girls), Australian\naborigine and memoirist Doris Pilkington, Chinese-American Gish Jen,\nscience fiction writer Armand Leroi, novelist Brian Castro who changed\nbase from Hong Kong to Australia, Spanish author JosÈ Carlos Samoza,\nMexican journalist Elena Poniatowska, Kiriyama Prize winner and Pulitzer\nPrize finalist Suketu Mehta, children’s stories author Minfong Ho, our\nvery own children’s author Gidget Jimenez, and Ayu Utami, whose sensual\nnovel Saman has sold over 100,000 copies in Indonesia. Many other writers\nwere in attendance. \n On Saturday, March 11, a panel discussion billed as “Making Waves in Asian\nLiterature” was chaired by Jane Camens, with Ayu, myself, and Chris Tao\n(pseudonym for a diplomat whose novel is set in Burma) as the speakers. A\npity that Ayu had arrived only that day, as our respective earthy readings\nand common friends (Indonesian poets and Filipino journalist Marites\nVitug, with whom Ayu had enjoyed an Asian Public Intellectual stint in\nJapan) could have led to stronger camaraderie. \n Four days and three nights at a lit fest in Hong Kong can prove quite",1]
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Before I could protest, a deft move had him pluck, like a blackbird, theshot glass from my hand, and quickly downed it before giving thanks.Ha-ha! Salut! A half-shot of Absolut in exchange for brownie crumbs. The festival’s other big-ticket items included novelist Robert Elegant,whose dialogue with Kunal Basu, another exponent of historical fiction, Icaught at Olympic House on March 9, in a doubleheader that also featuredthe celebrated writer Pico Iyer in a delightful, absolutely wittygive-and-take with Hong Kong’s primetime toastmaster, writer and editor,Nury Vittachi. Booker Prize winner for 2005 John Banville was also expected for talks andreadings on the second week. Other notable speakers and readers were SuTong (Raise the Red Lantern), Tarun Tejpal (The Alchemy of Desire), theyoung and well-acclaimed Nell Freudenberger (Lucky Girls), Australianaborigine and memoirist Doris Pilkington, Chinese-American Gish Jen,science fiction writer Armand Leroi, novelist Brian Castro who changedbase from Hong Kong to Australia, Spanish author JosÈ Carlos Samoza,Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska, Kiriyama Prize winner and PulitzerPrize finalist Suketu Mehta, children’s stories author Minfong Ho, ourvery own children’s author Gidget Jimenez, and Ayu Utami, whose sensualnovel Saman has sold over 100,000 copies in Indonesia. Many other writerswere in attendance. On Saturday, March 11, a panel discussion billed as “Making Waves in AsianLiterature” was chaired by Jane Camens, with Ayu, myself, and Chris Tao(pseudonym for a diplomat whose novel is set in Burma) as the speakers. Apity that Ayu had arrived only that day, as our respective earthy readingsand common friends (Indonesian poets and Filipino journalist MaritesVitug, with whom Ayu had enjoyed an Asian Public Intellectual stint inJapan) could have led to stronger camaraderie. Four days and three nights at a lit fest in Hong Kong can prove quite hectic, especially since another, equally buoyant display offered\ncompetition: the annual Hong Kong Flower Show at Victoria Park. There I\nfound myself one afternoon, jostling with a thick crowd of what looked\nlike Chinese mainland matrons who thought nothing of elbowing a male\ngardener aside to get up close to those fantabulous orchid varieties, the\ncryptanthus and other epiphytes, the fancy gourds and black corn on sale,\nin booth after booth, as well the elegant central displays of horticulture\nturned into elephants, fish, octopus and jellyfish. \n One thing I noted: the schoolchildren out on tour with their\nteacher-guides were not only perfectly uniformly accoutered, but extremely\nwell-behaved, falling in line with nary a sound, and only occasionally\ngushing over some incredibly shaped topiary. \n Wish I could say the same of the DLSU 5 — Ida, Bea, Happy, Kitkat and\nChanelle — whom Marj entrusted in my chaperoning care when she left a day\nand a half earlier. On an invite from journalist and long-time Hong Kong\nresident Isabel Taylor Escoda, I escorted the energetic troupe to Lantau\nIsland (clad in my Ateneo parka, of course, so they’d know whose broad\nback to follow) to climb up a hundred steps to reach the Big Buddha\n(reputedly the largest in the world, if it’s not a close second to the one\nin Kamakura, Japan). Thank Buddha heavens the long-missed artist Arnel\nAgawin came along to share the ice cream cones that came as a ticket bonus\nfor reaching Buddha’s shadow. I’m sure a poem’s in the offing over that\npossibly Tantric connection. \n On the white-sand Silvermine Beach we had a fine picnic lunch, after which\nthe Greenies made out like Mary Poppins before the surf, twirling their\nsouvenir paper umbrellas in glorious hangtime. \n That evening we attended the launch of Asia Literary Review, which\nreplaced the former Dimsum literary journal, with Nury Vittachi keeping on\nas editor. Then it was wine, beer, whisky and pulutan at the Foreign",1]
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hectic, especially since another, equally buoyant display offeredcompetition: the annual Hong Kong Flower Show at Victoria Park. There Ifound myself one afternoon, jostling with a thick crowd of what lookedlike Chinese mainland matrons who thought nothing of elbowing a malegardener aside to get up close to those fantabulous orchid varieties, thecryptanthus and other epiphytes, the fancy gourds and black corn on sale,in booth after booth, as well the elegant central displays of horticultureturned into elephants, fish, octopus and jellyfish. One thing I noted: the schoolchildren out on tour with theirteacher-guides were not only perfectly uniformly accoutered, but extremelywell-behaved, falling in line with nary a sound, and only occasionallygushing over some incredibly shaped topiary. Wish I could say the same of the DLSU 5 — Ida, Bea, Happy, Kitkat andChanelle — whom Marj entrusted in my chaperoning care when she left a dayand a half earlier. On an invite from journalist and long-time Hong Kongresident Isabel Taylor Escoda, I escorted the energetic troupe to LantauIsland (clad in my Ateneo parka, of course, so they’d know whose broadback to follow) to climb up a hundred steps to reach the Big Buddha(reputedly the largest in the world, if it’s not a close second to the onein Kamakura, Japan). Thank Buddha heavens the long-missed artist ArnelAgawin came along to share the ice cream cones that came as a ticket bonusfor reaching Buddha’s shadow. I’m sure a poem’s in the offing over thatpossibly Tantric connection. On the white-sand Silvermine Beach we had a fine picnic lunch, after whichthe Greenies made out like Mary Poppins before the surf, twirling theirsouvenir paper umbrellas in glorious hangtime. That evening we attended the launch of Asia Literary Review, whichreplaced the former Dimsum literary journal, with Nury Vittachi keeping onas editor. Then it was wine, beer, whisky and pulutan at the Foreign
\nCorrespondents Club’s live jazz bar with the DLSU 5, whose IDs I first had\nto check before ordering the booze. A fine night, too, with poetry talk\njamming well with guitar, keyboard, drums and sexy saxophone. \n Then on the last day it was touching base with Jane Camens anew (she’s\nannouncing a new Asian literary prize soon), meeting up with Ayu Utami and\nChris Tao if briefly, bidding farewell and thanks to Dave McKirdy whose\nbirthday it was, to be celebrated with an Open Mic poetry reading at the\nFringe Club, which unfortunately I couldn’t stay around for that evening. \nMemorable it will be, that hiatus in Hong Kong. Well done, indeed. \n\n* * *\n\nPhoto Captions: \n\n1. Nobel Prize poet Seamus Heaney, Tim Kaiser and the writer at a noodle\nhouse\n\n2. Pico Iyer in witty dialogue with Nury Vittachi \n\n3. Indonesian novelist Ayu Itami \n\n4. Canadian poet-memoirist Karen Connelly and Marj Evasco in a\ncab ride to their poetry reading \n\n5. Hong Kong poets Martin Alexander and Dave McKirdy \n\n6. Dragon boat head at Silvermine Beach on Lantau Island \n\n7. La Salle girls in their Mary Poppins act\n\n8. The Big Buddha on Lantau\n\n9-10. Splendiferous flower creatures at the Hong Kong Flower Show 2006 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n******************************************\nThe opinions, postings, and articles in this group do not necessarily reflect the orientation of Filipino-American_Network, but have been approved due to their relevance to Filipino-Americans. For more info about this list send an e-mail to mchristoffels2002@yahoo.com or Ronald Fabricante at mondetrotter@yahoo.com \n*********************************************\nTo post messages send to: ",1]
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Correspondents Club’s live jazz bar with the DLSU 5, whose IDs I first hadto check before ordering the booze. A fine night, too, with poetry talkjamming well with guitar, keyboard, drums and sexy saxophone. Then on the last day it was touching base with Jane Camens anew (she’sannouncing a new Asian literary prize soon), meeting up with Ayu Utami andChris Tao if briefly, bidding farewell and thanks to Dave McKirdy whosebirthday it was, to be celebrated with an Open Mic poetry reading at theFringe Club, which unfortunately I couldn’t stay around for that evening. Memorable it will be, that hiatus in Hong Kong. Well done, indeed. * * *Photo Captions: 1. Nobel Prize poet Seamus Heaney, Tim Kaiser and the writer at a noodlehouse2. Pico Iyer in witty dialogue with Nury Vittachi 3. Indonesian novelist Ayu Itami 4. Canadian poet-memoirist Karen Connelly and Marj Evasco in acab ride to their poetry reading 5. Hong Kong poets Martin Alexander and Dave McKirdy 6. Dragon boat head at Silvermine Beach on Lantau Island 7. La Salle girls in their Mary Poppins act8. The Big Buddha on Lantau9-10. Splendiferous flower creatures at the Hong Kong Flower Show 2006

NATIONAL ARTIST AWARDS, ANYONE? (for Mar 20, 2006)

2006-05-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, a day after initial deliberations were conducted forthe National Artist awards eventually given out in June of 2003, UP'suniversity professor emeritus, the distinguished poet-critic-mentorDr. Gémino H. Abad, wrote a letter to the NCCA's then executivedirector Mafin Yonzon and CCP president Nes Jardin.

Dr. Abad offered his observations on the conduct of the deliberation,lamenting that not much time was given the Committee on Peers, headedby him, to review the comparative merits of the nominees forLiterature.

The letter was dated March 6, 2003, a day after the first-leveldeliberations:

"It was only on March 4 that I knew who the nominees were – VirgilioAlmario, Cirilo F. Bautista, Jose Asia Bragado, Juan Hidalgo,Magdalena Gonzaga Jalandoni, and Alejandro Roces; and on the dayitself, during the course of our deliberations, another 'sector' (theMulti-disciplinary) was authorized to pass to our Literature 'sector'two other names, Bienvenido Lumbera and Bienvenido M. Noriega, Jr."

The actual deliberations started about 10 a.m., so that we were toconsider eight nominees within about two to two-and-a-half hours. Ouranguish then was for lack of time, for so serious an Award, for sogreat an honor, as the title of National Artist on the sole ground ofa nominee's inimitable achievement in art as a rich and distinctivecontribution to our national cultural heritage. Ironically, for lesserhonors (though without doubt they are also very significant) – theMagsaysay Award, the Palanca, even the Free Press – so much more timefor the judges is expended."

He suggested giving the NCCA's research group better lead time toaccomplish their task, especially with regards regional writers, andperhaps allowing the Council of Peers at least three months to conducttheir review and deliberation.

Of course, Dr. Abad commented, he was all too aware of the so-called"budgetary constraints" – which to this writer must constitute themost tricky element in the choice of National Artists every two orthree years.

Particularly telling, too, as part of Dr. Abad's post-mortem – andwhich I will hark back to in my own observations about the way thisdelicate matter is handled – is the following:

"… The documents provided us on each nominee are very helpful indeed,but they are not sufficient for the very day itself: we need to havethought out the matter long enough, consulting with other scholars,reading or re-reading the works of the nominees, reconsidering viewsand opinions, etc., way before the meeting where a decision has to bemade."

Speaking only for myself – if I had known beforehand, and were givensufficient time – I believe I could have made a much stronger case forCirilo F. Bautista than the write-up prepared for him in ourcollection of documents. I must have been chosen, I suppose, as an'expert' on Filipino poetry in English."

I believe of course that Virgilio Almario deserves the highest honorof National Artist; but I also feel that, in his own place in ourliterature in English – which is not comparable with the course of ourliterature in Tagalog – Cirilo Bautista cannot be justly displaced."

Now here's my rhetoric and my beef, born of credible rumors to theeffect that several weeks ago a differently composed Council of Peershad met to deliberate over the new set of nominees, and chosen acouple of names for Literature that would then advance to the secondlevel of deliberations (which in turn had a regrettable end result).Well, to begin with, as for that new set of nominees, it seemed morelike "same-same."

As reported by the usual birdies, the front-runners were CiriloBautista and Bienvenido Lumbera. National Artist for Literature EdithL. Tiempo, who joined that council deliberation, made a strong casefor Bautista. It was also pointed out by some members of thatseven-to-eight-man group that Bautista was the compleat creativewriter. Epic poetry, short fiction in English, a novel and a book ofpoems in Filipino, and continuing works of criticism and journalism –these are Cirilo's domain. For his part, Lumbera's more significantwork was in the field of literary scholarship and criticism.

The Council of Peers agreed to select these two names from thenominees' list to advance to the second round, the deliberations inwhich would be conducted by committee officers of the NCCA. Bautistawould be representative of the Literature nominees for creativewriting, while Lumbera would advance on the strength of his literarycriticism.

Now guess who was knocked off in that second round of deliberations,and whose name as finalist will now be presented – and "lawyered" for– in the third and final round of deliberations conducted by the CCPboard members as well as a few NCCA reps?

Cirilo Bautista is a long-time friend of mine, and Jimmy Abad's. It ishowever NOT this terribly Pinoy factor that causes us much anguishover the choice of Bien Lumbera as the Literature finalist. I havemuch respect for Bien, and with little doubt he qualifies as aprospective National Artist for Literature. Candidly, however, I mustsay that I find his criticism unfairly biased for Filipino andregional writers; he has practically dismissed the works of writers inEnglish. I suppose that's because he likes to be seen as, or is ineffect seen as, a "nationalist."

By the by, not a few writers in English in UP and beyond have askedjocosely of one another, over bottles of beer: "Name me oneparticularly memorable work of literature Lumbera has penned." Thesesame beer house rhetoricians also predict that it is the "extremeLeft" that will be overjoyed by their champion's ascension as NationalArtist. The communist candidate, it has been said rather bitchily.

Now I do not wish this to be construed as an attack on Bien Lumbera.Even as I could only smile over his backers' well-organized efforts atlobbying endorsement in the months leading up to NA deliberations,inclusive of testimonials from California Fil-Am groups andcomprehensive Internet postings, I believe Bien has indeed donesignificant work for Filipino literature. Er, make that Philippineliterature.

The least I could have bargained for, if someone cared to listenduring those two rounds of deliberations, was that both Bautista andLumbera were advanced as finalists for the ultimate reckoning. And,why, both could also be declared National Artists in Literature on thesame year.

But I suppose that's where "budgetary constraints" come into thepicture – that same variable that would have a committee deciding onthe inclusion of departed nominees because the cash involved in thecase of posthumous awardees is significantly less.

If it were to be an absolute one-person choice however betweenBautista and Lumbera, I say give the creative writer the better due,as the scholar, researcher and critic is necessarily a second-tiercitizen in the republic of arts and letters.It may be too late, however, to repair the damage done the literarypersona of the eminent creative writer Cirilo Bautista, one chargeagainst whom, I hear from my usual intelligence sources, during theNCCA second-level review was that his "reclusivity was a mark ofselfishness."

My eye! My word!It does not matter that Bautista prefers to cocoon himself in his roomat home to work on his outstanding poetry and prose, rather than wastehis time socializing at book launchings, or that he only occasionallyindulges in a little beer with close writer-friends. He has beenselfless in mentoring generations of students at De La Salle and USTand at writers' workshops. His literary editorship of and column inPhilippine Panorama magazine has for long years contributed to themolding of young poets and writers. He is the compleat writer, notmerely (sorry, everyone) an epiphyte of a critic.

But that's how the ball bounces, especially when humans can only behuman, subject to possible manipulation. I suppose that since mystalwart friend Virgilio Almario was anointed National Artist forLiterature in 2003 (on the strength of his poetry in Filipino ANDcriticism, and conceivably not because scholar-critic Resil Mojaresplugged for his scholarship on Filipino literature), a trend has beenestablished, with Bien Lumbera's succession, that may keep ourcreative writers in English at bay where the National Artist forLiterature is concerned.

I am sure that "Mom" Edith Tiempo, herself a notable critic, but whosepoetry and fiction will be more of her inspiring legacy, will besaddened by this turn of events. And I can't help but imagine howFranz Arcellana, NVM Gonzalez and Nick Joaquin – our previous NationalArtists in Literature, all of them supremely creative writers inEnglish – may be pshaw-pshawing in their graves.

Maybe we can start calling it the Nationalist Artist awards. Thatshould be just as good a novel term as what's been bandied about asthe "DNA" or Dagdag National Artist. I hear this year Soc Rodrigomight posthumously lay claim to that sorry title. Alas and alack. Apity, for Soc was a poet.

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