NCCA The ˜Manila Times FRIDAY BY BRYAN NOEL LAZARO


HE Philippine National Historical Society, the oldest voluntary professional organization on the study and research


D e cember 10, 2010


C 5


in Philippine history, held its 31st National Conference on Local and National History, from October 21 to 23 at the Family Country Hotel, General Santos City.


This year’s theme, “Towards a National History: Mindanao and Sulu Local History in the context of National History,” sought to look at the researches and writings about Mindanao, Sulu and other regions; situate these studies in the context of national history; identify gaps that can be addressed by future or further researches; and encourage systematic studies on local and national history. The participants consisted of elementary and secondary teachers/administrators, college professors, history major students and even high school students. Papers in the three-day conference included the following: Conference sessions began with


Dr. Calbi Asain of Mindanao State University-Sulu with his paper, The Historiography of Mindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi: At the Crossroads. His paper emphasized on the need to update our national history to acknowledge the part of Mindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in our historical chronicles. On the archaeological side, Greg Hontiveros of the Butuan City Historical and Cultural Foundation presented Balangay: Re-launching an Ancient Discovery. His paper dealt with recent developments in the ongoing study on the Balangay.


The second session focused on migration. Rudy Rodil of Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology delivered his paper, Agricultural Colonies sa


31st Conference on National and Local History T


Pikit-Pagalungan. He traced one of the roots of migration among the peoples from Luzon and Visayas to Mindanao, particularly in the outskirts of General Santos City. Dr. Domingo Non of Mindanao State University-General Santos City, on the other hand, discussed the migration of Sangil from Indonesia to Mindanao, with his paper, The Sangil Odyssey in Southern Philippines. For the third session, two faculty members of Mindanao State University-General Santos City gave more personality to the face of Mindanao. Marilyn Duran gave faces to a number of Filipinos from Luzon and Visayas, who were exiled in Mindanao during the Spanish Occupation, with his paper, Ang Deportado ng Mindanaw sa Panahon ng Rebolusyon 1896. Dr. Andrea Campado shared how General Santos City grew from its simple beginnings to what it is today, with her paper, General Santos City of Southern Mindanao: From a Frontier Settlement to a Booming City in the South, 1939-2000. Day 2 sessions began with the papers of Dr. Mario Aguja and Dr. Prescillano Campado on Mindanao peace process. Both presenters were from Mindanao State University-General Santos City. Dr. Aguja delivered his paper, The Mindanao Peace Process and ODA: Construction, Evolution, and Challenges. A Dr. Campado, on the other hand, read his paper entitled, The Odyssey to the Quest


Re:view 2010 @


■ Dr. Bernardita Churchill speaks during the open forum


for Peace in Mindanao: Historic Moments, Conjunctures, Evolution and Challenges. Before diverting away from topics on Mindanao, Dr. Violeta Ignacio of the University of the Philippines- Pampanga gave faces to the American soldiers who sought refuge in Mindanao and helped Filipinos fight against the Japanese, with her paper, American Guerilla Life in Mindanao. With respect to the objectives of the conference, Dr. Maria Nela Florendo of the University of the Philippines-Baguio shared her paper, In Search of a Regional History, Teaching and Researching in Northern Luzon. Her paper encouraged scholars to engage in regional history researches. She also gave the teachers an idea to use regional history as an approach in teaching national history. The last two sessions of the conference were allotted for papers, which were not about Mindanao. Dr. Rolando Borrinaga of the University of the Philippines in Palo, Leyte began with his paper, The Calatagan Pot:


A National Treasure with Bisayan Inscription. He disclosed his recent findings about the inscription of the pot unearthed in Calatagan, Batangas. Borrinaga revealed that based on his study, the inscription is of Bisayan language and provides the outline of a three-stage monologue, presumably used by babaylan during mortuary rituals. Dr. Earl Jude Paul Cleope of Silliman University talked next with his paper, Negros Island and the Wave Riders: A Maritime History. Cleope discussed the invasion of Moro wave riders in Visayas, particularly in Negros Island in early 19th century. Digna Apilado of the University of the Philippines-Diliman discussed the impact of Spanish forces in Ilocos with her paper, Spanish Colonial Rule, Environmental Change, and a Regional Work Ethos in the Ilocos, 16t—19th Centuries. Lastly, Lorelei DC de Viana of Far Eastern University presented her paper, Public Health in the Philippines:


Salimbayan Festival CATHERINE OF


Salimbayan Festival


Rosswil Hilario ROMANCING CEBU BY J.I.E. TEODORO


THE answer to the question why there are so many writers in Cebu can be found in this beautiful book edited by Cebuano fictionist Erma Cuizon. The Cebu We Know (Anvil Publishing, 2009) is a collection of essays written by writers of, in and/or from Cebu who have an on going (some, life- long) romance with this city and province in the center of the Philippine archipelago. Literary critic Isagani Cruz, in his short but comprehensive foreword to this book, says, “From this book, I learned that writers can be inspired by almost anything on the island, such as horses, songs, cab drivers, stinginess, trees, seafood, corals, weeds, roast pig, coffee and schools. From what they experienced in Cebu, the writers in this book have woven words of wonder, turning reality into literature and memories into dreams.” For Cruz himself, Cebu City is the place to hide into when he has to finish important writing projects. “Not as distracting as Manila with its innumerable social obligations, and better than Manila with less pollution, fewer crimes and a smaller population, Cebu represents to me a haven or heaven for writing,” he explains. Cruz is from Manila. So imagine if you are a writer born in Cebu? The Cebu-born Filipino- American fictionist Cecilia Manguerra Brainard in her essay entitled “Where the Daydreaming Came From” that opens the collection says, “The very first breath I took was in Cebu. My first words were those spoken by Cebuanos. Even though I’d gone on to live in other places in the world, it is as if I carry a part of it within me always and, likewise, I feel as if Cebu has a place for me


IN HONOR OF ITS PATRON SAINT, SAINT


always.” She talks about their first house in Talisay, Cebu, “the house was made of wood, on stilts, like a big nipa hut. It was situated near the sea and so early on I slept and awoke to the sound of waves lapping the shore and to fishermen shouting as they beached their outriggers. I was used to taking in the sea breeze and having salt on my skin and in my hair.”


Dumdum explains.


ALEXANDRIA, THE TOWN OF BAGAC IN BATAAN HELD


Smallpox Vaccination in 19th Century Manila.


Book Launching


and Lakbay Aral To cap the last day of the sessions, Dr. Bernardita Churchill took the opportunity to acknowledge the participants and co-organizers for a fruitful exchange of knowledge about history and launch volume 56 of the Journal of History (Towards a National History: Local History in the Context of National History). On the third day, host Mindanao State University—General Santos City arranged a discretionary tour for the participants. The participants had a choice of tour to Maitum or to Lake Sebu. Maitum is known as the site where very old cave artifacts and ancient burial jars were discovered. The Ayub Cave and the Sagel Cave in Maitum have been declared by the National Historical Institute as national historical sites. Lake Sebu, on the other hand, is a natural lake in South Cotabato, which is considered as one of the country’s most important watersheds.


The BenCab Museum


THE BenCab Museum caps the year with RE:VIEW 2010, a group exhibition of 38 artists, includ- ing young emerging painters and established artists, working in diverse styles from figurative to nonfigurative and showing a wide range of subject matter and techniques. Participating artists are Leonardo


A REVIEW OF THE COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ‘THE CEBU WE KNOW’ EERTIOLBAN


Brainard also talked about the miraculous Santo Niño de Cebu that saved her life in her mother’s womb who was malnourished during her pregnancy because the war has just ended. This image of the Santo Niño is the same image that Ferdinand Magellan gave as a baptismal gift to Queen Humamay of Cebu.


It is in a convent school in Cebu City that Brainard started to nurture her talent of daydreaming which translated into being an excellent fictionist later. Of course the nuns did not like this. Cebuanos are famous for being romantics and good singers. National Book Award winning poet and essayist Simeon Dumdum Jr. validates this in his essay entitled “He Sings, She Sings.” Dumdum celebrates the beauty of a Cebuano folk art called balitaw, a traditional form of poetry being sung, which is actually a debate between a man and a woman about love. “The balitaw is itself an indicator of a Cebuano trait, a predilection for music. Magellan’s chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, commented on the native’s fine musical sense, a virtue that has survived the longuers of the centuries. That explains why a guitar invariably hangs on the wall of a Cebuano home and in the entertainment industry Cebuano musicians and singers are in a class of their own,”


Cebuano literary critic and historian Resil Mojares problematizes love from the Visayan point of view in his erudite essay “Visayan Love.” He uses poetry (especially that of Vicente Ranudo) and historical and anthropological documents and researches to elucidate on his points. He speaks about how the Visayan gugma (the Visayan word for “love”) was changed by the “Christian guilt.” He says, “Reconstructing desire is a tricky thing. One can discern it only through what traces remain—poems, songs, charms, recorded practices and rituals, full, one judges that the early Visayans were less prone to mystify heterosexual love. Seventeenth-century Jesuit chronicler Francisco Alcina speaks of Visayan males carrying women off to the woods.” He adds, “What is further


interesting is that in this field of unabashed sensuality, women were more sensual, vicious and restless than men . . . Women did not collapse in sights, secretly willing in unrequited love, they were active foragers for both sex and love.” Of course all of these changed when the friars arrived and made sex dirty and sinful. The young Palanca award- winning poet Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, in his essay “Taga-asa Ka?” (Where are you from?), reaffirms his allegiance to Cebu as the home of his blood and imagination. Larry was born in Cebu and grew up there but went to college and later on taught at the Ateneo de Manila University. Physically he is in Metro Manila but his heart is always at home and homing in Cebu City. Currently he is honing his poetic craft in a university in the United


States of America. He ends his essays this way: “When I write, I claim I’m from Cebu. When I’m in Cebu, I write.” My favorite essay in this collection is by the great poet Merlie Alunan entitled “Layover Cebu.” Her family came from Iloilo in Panay Island, and they migrated to Iligan City where her father came from, then they went back to Iloilo, then again back to Iligan. Her childhood is a story of transferring houses, pots and pans, from Iloilo to Iligan. As a young woman, she taught in Tagbilaran City in Bohol and in Dumaguete City and she is now retired in Tacloban City. Cebu City is at the center of all these places, the place for layover. Alunan opens her essay with


the ending of her essay, “My own


CARRIED THE THEME “


AY P


KL


this: “Always, I am going somewhere, on the way toward some place father away, am here now, but would be off—as soon as the bus leaves, or the plane takes off, or this boat sails on toward another port of call. I am in Cebu only for a layover, a few hours, a day, a night’s sleep, a week’s wait, a year’s stay, many years, always knowing that the time to pack would come up sometime, time to give away some of the books, at the excess plates, pots and pans, basins, and pails from the kitchen, find someone to take care of the plants, find a home for the old dog who sheds its fur on the sofa, the cat who does nothing but sleep in a box under the stairs, for they cannot go wherever it is I am going. Wherever that would be, Cebu is always the midpoint of my journey.”


AY P


KLIKSNAAA AYMNIN,


GAA AA


UUAGTRN BGKNOAAEY


THE FESTIV


NTILIHIN.” AL


journey has not come to an end yet. Cebu still serves as my layovers. I know the way to the Basilica del Santo Niño. Some Fridays, it is still possible to go there, to the women bearing flowers and


AIMED TO ENHANCE THE TALENT AND CREATIVITY AMONG


candles, who would offer to pray and dance to


Hers is a wise and elegant voice of a poet, of an old woman with a golden heart who have seen and experienced life at its best and worst. I cannot stop my tears from falling while I was reading


BAGAKENYOS ESPECIALLY THE YOUTH


the Santo Niño for one’s heart’s desire. Old scarecrow that I am, do I even know what my heart desires? I could give them coins and nod, yes, pray and dance for what I do not know I desire. And if I lose my way in the changing landscape of this venerable old city, how would I find it again? I can always ask anyone, appropriating the rough raw tongue of the native that had already become my own, ‘Unsang lugar man ni, dong?’ (What place is this, young man?) . . . Best place for a layover, Cebu.” After reading this book, I feel that like the writers in this


anthology I also know Cebu enough to start a romance with this beautiful and charming city in the Visayas.


❋ ❋ ❋


J.I.E. Teodoro is an assistant professor of Filipino in the College of Arts and Sciences of Miriam College in Quezon City. He has won several Palanca awards and a National Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle for his writings. He hails from a village by the sea in Panay Island but is currently living in Pasig City. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree from the De La Salle University in Manila.


A NINE-DAY CELEBRATION DUBBED SALIMBAYAN FESTIVAL DURING THE THIRD WEEK OF


NOVEMBER. THE C


Aguinaldo, Virgilio Aviado, Augusto Albor, Max Balatbat, Welbart Bartolome, BenCab, Elmer Borlongan, Froilan Calayag, Joey Cobcobo, Charlie Co, Marina Cruz, Melvin Culaba, Don Dalmacio, Antipas Delotavo, Abigail Dionisio, Alfredo Esquillo, Emmanuel R. Garibay, Kawayan de Guia, Raul Isidro, Mark Justiniani, Winner Jumalon, Lao-lianben, Arturo Luz, Joy Mallari, Jordan Mang-Osan, Justin Nuyda, Jonathan Olazo, Camille de la Rosa, John Frank Sabado, Popo San Pascual, Aman Santos, Soler Santos, stevesantos, Dexter Sy, Rodel Tapaya, Roger “Rishab” Tibon, Tatong Torres and Phyllis Zaballero. RE:VIEW 2010 will be on view until 15 January 2011 at the BenCab Museum’s Gallery Indigo. Museum visitors can also view a


new exhibition in the BenCab Museum’s Print Gallery. PHILIPPINE VIEWS, a collection of 18th to 19th century prints, is currently on display. The BenCab Museum is on Kilometer 6 Asin Road, Tuba, Metro Baguio, and is open daily except Mondays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more details, call tel. (074) 442-7165; e-mail bencabartfoundation@gmail.com; or visit www.bencabmuseum.org


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18