And I’ll tell you a secret. Back when I was in elementary school, during recess while everyone was eating in the canteen or kicking ball in the field, I would often spend time in the playground where I would sit on the swing and sing “Chiquitita.” I would imagine that I was in a music video with cotton candy clouds as my backdrop, and I’m swinging up and down in a prairie dress, wearing a melancholic face singing “Chiqitita tell me the truth…” In other words, arte nako daan. I would spend those times alone acting like the playground was my stage. I remember that memory as a happy one.

So it wasn’t really a surprise that I insisted on watching Mama Mia in the movie theater last Monday instead of going to the pirates. Continue reading ‘Mama Mia (oops! here i go again…)’

Interesting, interesting. So it’s time to point fingers now? What did he do during his term? Since time immemorial, the Philippine presidency has always been subservient to the Catholic church. That is, I think, our Spanish colonial inheritance. Poor us.

Philippine leader subservient to church on population: Ramos

MANILA (AFP) - - Former Philippine leader Fidel Ramos on Friday hit out at President Gloria Arroyo, accusing her of being subservient to the Roman Catholic Church over population policy.

The attack from the ex-president, an ally of Arroyo, came as he addressed a UN forum on World Population Day.

The Philippines, with a population of about 90 million, has one of the fastest birth rates in Southeast Asia at around 2.3 percent annually, according to the country’s Population Commission. It has been estimated that the figure could hit 100 million within the next seven years.
Read the rest of the entry here.

During a recent bombing in Nabunturan, two teenagers whom my sister Rose met in a contemporary dance workshop died. One female dancer sustained injuries that might leave her disabled. Some say the doctors would have to amputate her leg soon. For a dancer, this is the most terrifying news to hear. In dance, you move with your feet and legs. Your legs allow you to travel across space, to jump, to twirl, to form an arch. So if you lose both legs, or even one of them, you’ll lose balance. Even the idea of having one toe cut off from your feet is still horrible news. A toe makes so much difference.

Losing lives is also another matter. I recall Rose telling me that one of the dancers who died had potential to become a “good” dancer, if she were given time to improve her fundamentals. Most of these dancers she taught came from poor families who couldn’t afford formal training in an expensive ballet or jazz school. What drives them to dance is passion, pure unadulterated passion to create art out of movement.

It is sad to find out that just like that we lose people as collateral damage of “petty” wars between interest groups who have no regard for the lives they have taken in the name of a “cause.” Reports have stated that the bombing was a result of a current, ongoing conflict between the NPA and the govt. military deployed in the area. Perhaps an effect of the President’s declaration of all-out defensive against “terrorists” in Mindanao? Continue reading ‘Dancing Amidst Bombs’

Good news from the homefront (at lease I’d like t o believe). Mindanao is sending a fellow to the Iowa International Writers Program. Finally, somebody from this side of the Philippine Literary Universe. It has been such a long, long time.

Congratulations Teng Manangsakan! Read his entry here. It’s exciting to find out what kind of work he’ll churn out from there.

This gives me enough energy to believe (again) that anything is possible once you set out to achieve what you want to achieve and then ask the RIGHT questions to the universe. Grace isn’t something you should refuse.

(Anybody deserves a seat for instance in the Iowa workshop, not just the ones from the Literary hegemonic circle, who as a little birdie told me immediately raised their eyebrows upon hearing the news about Teng’s acceptance. Politics of representation and market forces surrounding literary production aside, I think those reactions are too petty. We all have our own time under the sun my dears.)

Let things unfold… Shanti.

I met Arahmaiani during the Woman as (Mythical ) Hero workshop in Silliman University, Dumaguete City last June. I find her works very provocative at first look. When I talked to her during the first day of the Performance Art workshop she conducted at Foundation University, I discovered that her artistic philosophy is so renegade, I was immediately drawn to her life and her ouvre. This is one true rebellious nomad (in every sense of the words).

Haupt and Binder writes in Universes-in-universe:

“Arahmaiani is a key figure in the current art scene in Indonesia. She gets around a lot and although her international reputation mainly comes from her performances, she also works with painting, drawing, installation, poetry, dance, and music…”

The image above was taken from http://universes-in-universe.org. Read more about Arahmaiani here.

my new toy isn’t as sleek as a macbook but it isn’t expensive. plus it got huge memory, huge space for my multimedia files, huge everything. i’m worried that my desktop is “mad” at me now that i don’t use it even when i’m home. now, it looks so lonely in the sala.

last week, when i woke up the day after i got my new toy, i immediately sat in front of my desktop, and completely forgot about my laptop. i was so used to working with a big monitor. (lol) anyway, after a few minutes i realized that i do have a new toy waiting for me in my room. my friend told me to “own” my toy. one step to do this, according to him, is to name it. so here goes, i’m naming my toy “Mebuyan.” at first it was Lilith but then i realized i needed a Mindanawon goddess, so I named it Mebuyan.

Meet Mebuyan my new toy. I love it. (Yeah, yeah, I’m such a geek.)

“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something completely great.”–Willa Cather

My recent trip to Dumaguete allowed me to visit new restos and coffee shops. One of those is Cafe Antonio, now my favorite because of its very homey and spacious interiors, reminiscent of Spanish restos I often see in foreign films. The colors are vibrant in hues of orange and brownish reds. I particularly find the artworks hung on the walls really worth looking at, especially the glass mosaics the owner made. Even the windows are characters on their own. Well, it’s not a wonder that the entire coffee shop can be an artwork in itself, as it is really a old house (I think one of the heritage Spanish houses in the city), which was transformed into a commercial place. The good thing is that the owner retained its quaint antique charm. Here’s a photo of one of the windows: