From Yoyoy to Budoy
Like most people now, the first order of my day is to check my email box. More than from the newspapers – I should be ashamed to admit this, as I do write for this newspaper -- I get most of my news from or through my email box.
So, the other day, I get mail from one of the numerous electronic groups (egroups) that I have signed up with entitling me to get whatever mail these groups send out regularly. To be sure, many of these get thrown away soon after only their headings are read.
The other day I get email from an artists egroup. It was news from yet another artists subgroup; the filmmakers, whose mail routinely ends up in the trash or recycle bin. Not that I'm not interested in filmmaking but often, their news is too particular or personal – as with most egroups -- and hardly ever intersects with my interest in the kind of filmmaking news that I will read.
Not this time though. The heading just grabbed my attention, even if it was only peripherally related to filmmaking. It said, Yoyoy Villame succumbs to heart attack. Along with the brief news article was a picture of Yoyoy Villame with a palor, sagging jowls and a wide neck common among men and some women who, as they age, get to be more and more like the young Michelin man.
I have never met Roman 'Yoyoy' Villame in person. I would have wanted to. There are many things about him and his music I wanted to know that only a personal encounter or close observation could provide.
Yet, by the time my writing had veered towards cultural reporting or reflecting Yoyoy was off the charts and he himself had moved away from the haunts where he first made his mark; the bus terminals in Bohol through which his buses plied and when they stopped would echo with his songs entertaining fellow drivers, assorted passengers, terminal denizens and, soon, the whole country.
He had moved to Las Piñas City where he got into local politics. He became a city councilor. He served in that capacity for 10 years then ran for vice-mayor in 1995, but lost.
I am not familiar with his discography but it would be a reasonable guess that some of the 40 albums he made in his career he would wax after this move. I would only recently know that he did, in fact, star in some movies – reason enough why his death would be news for a filmmakers egroup to carry and post – some of which were said to be critically acclaimed. Perhaps the movies and not so much his roles.
His first song and album carrier, “Magellan,” was for me, his best. It wasn't so much a novelty song as a parody of historicism at the precise time when Marcos was to launch his grand vision of reshaping or revising Philippine history with himself playing the grandest role of all as the then present day Malakas of the bamboo birth myth of the Filipino leading the Philippines to her historically fated greatness as a country rebaptized as Maharlika.
Of course, at this time, I didn't realize it as such. I would mostly remember it as a song that two daughters of an American missionary would sing endlessly to the chagrin of their parents. This they admitted as being the first Filipino song they really liked enough to want to introduce it to their friends back in the States when they would go home on furlough.
They had no problems with the lyrics. They were in English. But what they really liked and liked to learn that got them into stitches every time was the inimitable way Yoyoy sang it. For this they asked our help.
Unknown to them and to us and decades before anybody has ever heard of call centers, we were already training for speaking English the way our mutha would be and is proud of. We were, to their frustration and, somehow, our triumph, no help.
Fast forward. Errol 'Budoy' Marabiles was beginning to make his mark in the local music scene. The press was beginning to notice him. I would be among those who would interview him. In these interviews and in informal conversations, even before his star was beginning to rise, Yoyoy was a name he always mentioned.
Yoyoy was Budoy's idol. Budoy realized that Yoyoy's enduring appeal was his mass appeal. Yoyoy was a man of the masses. For the music executives and critics Yoyoy's songs were novelty songs. Meaning, quite disparagingly, his songs were baduy.
Budoy knew that his songs should be more than that. His songs had to be more than baduy. They had to be Budoy. And, that's what they are.
Budoy still has a long way from 74 years old, 40 albums and a few movies. Yet, he is already there. Like Yoyoy, his songs might fade, his star might fall, but his music will remain. Like Yoyoy's, it has always been there.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
05.17.07 kulturnatib
Miting de abanse
If I did not know better, I would have thought the queue was for Spiderman 3. No, it was not. The line, made up of college kids mostly, was for registering to get into an art exhibit. Well, technically, to be able to join in the mock elections that was part of the opening activity for the Miting de abanse exhibit.
The exhibit, running until the end of the month, is held at a bar, Impit Purok, that had closed down at the Matina Town Square (MTS), Davao City. It is organized by the Davao Arts Foundation, Inc. (DAFI) and its recent offspring organization DAFI Jr.
DAFI apparently has this arrangement with MTS that has them using for exhibit space – nominally named Dugukan -- whatever space becomes available when a tenant clears out and, conversely, has them clearing out when a tenant moves in. So, for the previous Miting de abanse, in 2004, the space available then was across from the space that is being used now.
DAFI Jr., is made up of students from colleges and universities in Davao City and they contribute the bulk of the works that make up the exhibit. In fact, this is their inaugural project under the curatorial guidance of senior artist Rey Bollosos.
The older DAFI seems to have done an exemplary job of guiding and inspiring these kids whose works show a precocious maturity, technical facility, experimental bent and thematic depth.
One notable example is the mix media work of Boboy Buenaventura. It is a picture of the boxer-hero turned politician-wannabe Manny Pacquiao. It is cut up into small pieces and pasted onto matchboxes which are set a centimeter apart on all sides.
The picture is in sepia tone and Pacquiao is dressed in the turn of the century coat reminiscent of those coats worn by Rizal, Aguinaldo and the rest of those heroes. It has the archival feel appropriate for such pictures.
Because of the distance between the boxes, it takes a while for the gestalt to be complete. But as soon as that happens, there is no mistaking the image.
It is funny. It shows how ridiculous a Congressman Pacquiao can be and mostly because how he could even try. But then, it is also sad. The joke seems to be on all of us.
Angela Chi is another of these young firebrands. She is a budding performance/installation artist. More than the rest we were able to converse longer as she helped me locate a printer and a photocopying machine at which my artist statement for my performance piece was printed and multiplied.
She expressed her desire to get into art school, perhaps even at the UP Cebu Fine Arts Program while even now finishing a course in creative writing.
Her piece in the exhibit is the most experimental involving a live participant, who, cannot immediately be distinguished as such. Perhaps, this is the point Chi wants to make. But, the making of such point is fraught with difficulties the least of which is the general unreadiness or inability of the audience to perceive it.
Still, if she persists, she will learn something. Along with her and the rest of the DAFI and DAFI Jr, the general audience as well.
If there is anything good that will come out of the elections it will be how the artists in Davao are continuing to realize that art and life may not be so separate after all and such separation means the poverty of both.
If I did not know better, I would have thought the queue was for Spiderman 3. No, it was not. The line, made up of college kids mostly, was for registering to get into an art exhibit. Well, technically, to be able to join in the mock elections that was part of the opening activity for the Miting de abanse exhibit.
The exhibit, running until the end of the month, is held at a bar, Impit Purok, that had closed down at the Matina Town Square (MTS), Davao City. It is organized by the Davao Arts Foundation, Inc. (DAFI) and its recent offspring organization DAFI Jr.
DAFI apparently has this arrangement with MTS that has them using for exhibit space – nominally named Dugukan -- whatever space becomes available when a tenant clears out and, conversely, has them clearing out when a tenant moves in. So, for the previous Miting de abanse, in 2004, the space available then was across from the space that is being used now.
DAFI Jr., is made up of students from colleges and universities in Davao City and they contribute the bulk of the works that make up the exhibit. In fact, this is their inaugural project under the curatorial guidance of senior artist Rey Bollosos.
The older DAFI seems to have done an exemplary job of guiding and inspiring these kids whose works show a precocious maturity, technical facility, experimental bent and thematic depth.
One notable example is the mix media work of Boboy Buenaventura. It is a picture of the boxer-hero turned politician-wannabe Manny Pacquiao. It is cut up into small pieces and pasted onto matchboxes which are set a centimeter apart on all sides.
The picture is in sepia tone and Pacquiao is dressed in the turn of the century coat reminiscent of those coats worn by Rizal, Aguinaldo and the rest of those heroes. It has the archival feel appropriate for such pictures.
Because of the distance between the boxes, it takes a while for the gestalt to be complete. But as soon as that happens, there is no mistaking the image.
It is funny. It shows how ridiculous a Congressman Pacquiao can be and mostly because how he could even try. But then, it is also sad. The joke seems to be on all of us.
Angela Chi is another of these young firebrands. She is a budding performance/installation artist. More than the rest we were able to converse longer as she helped me locate a printer and a photocopying machine at which my artist statement for my performance piece was printed and multiplied.
She expressed her desire to get into art school, perhaps even at the UP Cebu Fine Arts Program while even now finishing a course in creative writing.
Her piece in the exhibit is the most experimental involving a live participant, who, cannot immediately be distinguished as such. Perhaps, this is the point Chi wants to make. But, the making of such point is fraught with difficulties the least of which is the general unreadiness or inability of the audience to perceive it.
Still, if she persists, she will learn something. Along with her and the rest of the DAFI and DAFI Jr, the general audience as well.
If there is anything good that will come out of the elections it will be how the artists in Davao are continuing to realize that art and life may not be so separate after all and such separation means the poverty of both.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
05.09.07 kulturnatib
An invitation
Some weeks back I received an invitation. This same invitation was sent, I believe, to other artist-colleagues in the network of the Visayas Island Visual Arts Association (VIVAa) of which the groups I belong to, the Lunâ Art Collective and Pusod, Inc, are active members. The invitation was to participate in an exhibit in Davao City.
This exhibit is organized by the Davao Artist Foundation, Inc. (DAFI). It is entitled, Miting de Abanse 2007: An Art Exhibit. This will be the 3rd of such exhibits that have been organized by this group and have been timed to coincide with national elections such as that in 2004 and 2001.
The title is obviously taken from the very language of our political exercise. Although, in recent years with the weakening or even disappearance of a clear-cut party system, the miting de abanse hasn't been the grand election campaign opening salvos of yesteryears.
Thus, while the miting de abanse of the politicians have been on the wane and going on its way to becoming a political – and expensive – curiosity, or even memory, the miting de abanse of the artists – a threadbare affair, if I know anything about these efforts - are making a headway into the consciousness of the general public, at least in that part of the country.
Abe Garcia, a leading member of DAFI, claims that the immediately previous miting de abanse, 'Miting de Abanse : A Satiric Exhibit of 2004, at the MatinaTown Square, a leading commercial establishment in the city, was such a hit, that it caused heavy vehicular and human traffic. It continues to inspire many of the Davao youth especially the artists, according to him.
The DAFI is among the growing number of art groups in the country who, though eschewing the often exclusivist label of 'social realism,' believe that art does have something to say about the life and times of a people, of persons and even individual artists and that relevance is an important yardstick by which art and artists should be measured.
Thus, this show as with the previous ones, encourages the participating artists to be at their critical best. These are the critical votes in the ballot of paintings, sculptures, prints and other media, that could help inform or influence the actual votes. More than fifty of such votes are expected to be cast in this exhibit.
Mine is going to be one of them. I have accepted the invitation. I am doing a performance piece entitled, 'Piggy Party : Yet Another Year of Our Piggetry.' This performance was originally done during an art event, at the Tapas Lounge, Crossroads, Banilad.
As with many of my performance pieces, this is an interactive piece, where audience participation is a critical element of the entire work. The audience is going to made to swallow a piece of wafer. The host partaken during holy communion.
These will be taken from a ballot box where earlier a poster calendar from one of those liquor companies that feature a bikini clad girl is paraded around then torn to bits and, like ballots, stuffed into the ballot box.
The entire performance will be accompanied in the background by the most famous soundtrack cum ringtone of the 2004 elections featuring the incomparable voices of Garci – who is running for congress in his home district a few hundred kilometers from Davao City – and GMA who is running for her political life in a continuing drama about the open secret of how elections are massively manipulated and cheated in this country and by her highness then and, widely expected again, now.
Along with DAFI and the participating artists, I am or should be under no illusion that we will be no more than flies in the ointment in this thoroughly cynical electoral exercise. If, even that.
But, we should also be able to say, especially to ourselves, that we did not just curse the darkness. We lit our lights. Even if these will cast the hues of sarcasm, irony, confrontation, denunciation and, yes, disillusionment and hopelessness.
Some weeks back I received an invitation. This same invitation was sent, I believe, to other artist-colleagues in the network of the Visayas Island Visual Arts Association (VIVAa) of which the groups I belong to, the Lunâ Art Collective and Pusod, Inc, are active members. The invitation was to participate in an exhibit in Davao City.
This exhibit is organized by the Davao Artist Foundation, Inc. (DAFI). It is entitled, Miting de Abanse 2007: An Art Exhibit. This will be the 3rd of such exhibits that have been organized by this group and have been timed to coincide with national elections such as that in 2004 and 2001.
The title is obviously taken from the very language of our political exercise. Although, in recent years with the weakening or even disappearance of a clear-cut party system, the miting de abanse hasn't been the grand election campaign opening salvos of yesteryears.
Thus, while the miting de abanse of the politicians have been on the wane and going on its way to becoming a political – and expensive – curiosity, or even memory, the miting de abanse of the artists – a threadbare affair, if I know anything about these efforts - are making a headway into the consciousness of the general public, at least in that part of the country.
Abe Garcia, a leading member of DAFI, claims that the immediately previous miting de abanse, 'Miting de Abanse : A Satiric Exhibit of 2004, at the MatinaTown Square, a leading commercial establishment in the city, was such a hit, that it caused heavy vehicular and human traffic. It continues to inspire many of the Davao youth especially the artists, according to him.
The DAFI is among the growing number of art groups in the country who, though eschewing the often exclusivist label of 'social realism,' believe that art does have something to say about the life and times of a people, of persons and even individual artists and that relevance is an important yardstick by which art and artists should be measured.
Thus, this show as with the previous ones, encourages the participating artists to be at their critical best. These are the critical votes in the ballot of paintings, sculptures, prints and other media, that could help inform or influence the actual votes. More than fifty of such votes are expected to be cast in this exhibit.
Mine is going to be one of them. I have accepted the invitation. I am doing a performance piece entitled, 'Piggy Party : Yet Another Year of Our Piggetry.' This performance was originally done during an art event, at the Tapas Lounge, Crossroads, Banilad.
As with many of my performance pieces, this is an interactive piece, where audience participation is a critical element of the entire work. The audience is going to made to swallow a piece of wafer. The host partaken during holy communion.
These will be taken from a ballot box where earlier a poster calendar from one of those liquor companies that feature a bikini clad girl is paraded around then torn to bits and, like ballots, stuffed into the ballot box.
The entire performance will be accompanied in the background by the most famous soundtrack cum ringtone of the 2004 elections featuring the incomparable voices of Garci – who is running for congress in his home district a few hundred kilometers from Davao City – and GMA who is running for her political life in a continuing drama about the open secret of how elections are massively manipulated and cheated in this country and by her highness then and, widely expected again, now.
Along with DAFI and the participating artists, I am or should be under no illusion that we will be no more than flies in the ointment in this thoroughly cynical electoral exercise. If, even that.
But, we should also be able to say, especially to ourselves, that we did not just curse the darkness. We lit our lights. Even if these will cast the hues of sarcasm, irony, confrontation, denunciation and, yes, disillusionment and hopelessness.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
05.03.07 kulturnatib
Cavemen and women
Had a bum stomach not intervened last Saturday, I would have had my first initiation into the small group of cavemen and women in this city. I would have been able to join them on a cave mapping exercise at Baombil Cave in the mountain barangay of Lusaran. But, my abdominal caves had a different agenda.
This, however, would not have been my first time inside a cave. The first time was years ago when, on an improperly considered invitation, we went inside the underground river that is the source of Kawasan waterfalls in Alegria. Also, that could have turned out to be our last.
That was the worst possible way to get into a cave. We only had one plastic bag wrapped flashlight wielded by this crazy German whose name I now forget. He was our host, guide, the self-appointed guardian of the waterfalls and he went so far ahead of us that we were in complete darkness as soon as we cleared the mouth of the cave. We didn't have a line, no helmets and no shoes; only had a fool's appreciation of the danger we put ourselves in.
That was foolhardy, bravado caving. That was the proper and potentially fatal introduction to how NOT to do caving. It was scary enough that since then caving was not up on my to do outdoors list.
That is until JumpOff Point, an outdoor specialist company set up shop, and I became friends with the cavemen and women of the Cebu Speleological Society. Many of them were part of that group last Saturday as well as staff of JumpOff Point.
Ursulo 'Dondon' Dimpas, Jr., was in that group. He works with a computer company to earn his living. But, he works with nature to live his life. While we were climbing Mt. Kanlaon last Holy Week, he was vertical caving with another group in Mabinay, farther south from where we were in the same island of Negros.
Also in that same group – both the Mabinay group and the group last Saturday -- was Gelena Asis. She is the president of the CSS. She teaches sustainable tourism subjects in a local university while pursuing a Masteral Degree in Environmental Science. Her Masteral thesis proposal is on the conservation of Cebu's caves which was reportedly turned down by her professor for being such a pioneering study. None in the faculty had enough competence on the subject to adequately review it.
Dondon, Gelena and the CSS – about 20 or so members half of whom are active -- are exemplary representatives of our modern cave people. They are professionals committed to exploring, conserving and protecting our caves as a unique biosphere that is important for our larger environment.
This, especially for Cebu that, even with severe forest denudation, continues to have water from caves and pools that is characteristic of its geological formation which is mostly limestone or karst.
Aside from increasing our knowledge of our cave system, of which Dondon says less than 10 percent have been explored and an even lesser percentage mapped, the CSS does an immediately appreciable service of helping to pinpoint water supply sources.
Being able to do thus, they are able to advise residents especially in the mountain areas on whether their water supply is clean or contaminated depending on its source. They are also able to better explain to these same residents and students in general how it is imperative that water sources are protected from becoming contaminated or polluted by showing how this happens as, indeed, it is happening with pesticides and other ground water pollutants.
In both the Mabinay and the Baombil explorations, there were representatives from the US National Speleological Society, Glen Malliet and Charles Festersen, who were in the country on a familiarization trip. They, as well as other foreign groups – a British team did some pioneering cave exploration and mapping in Toledo and elsewhere in the early 90s – are interested in our cave systems and, especially with the NSS, being able to help develop local expertise and experience and, most immediately on this trip, sharing some equipment with the CSS.
Caves are beautiful. But, they are also very fragile and susceptible to damage. A hundred years worth of accumulated formation at a few millimeters per year can be damaged just by the touch of our normally oily hands. And then there are the unique dark-adapted organisms.
This beauty and also its utility is at the same time the dilemma most serious cavers face. To call attention to this beauty is also to run the risk of its destruction.
Yet, as the experience in Lamak shows only the concerted effort of the community with the help of groups like the CSS and government agencies like the DENR in regulating access, extraction of resources and then the education of people in general will ensure the continued existence of caves in their natural state.
Had a bum stomach not intervened last Saturday, I would have had my first initiation into the small group of cavemen and women in this city. I would have been able to join them on a cave mapping exercise at Baombil Cave in the mountain barangay of Lusaran. But, my abdominal caves had a different agenda.
This, however, would not have been my first time inside a cave. The first time was years ago when, on an improperly considered invitation, we went inside the underground river that is the source of Kawasan waterfalls in Alegria. Also, that could have turned out to be our last.
That was the worst possible way to get into a cave. We only had one plastic bag wrapped flashlight wielded by this crazy German whose name I now forget. He was our host, guide, the self-appointed guardian of the waterfalls and he went so far ahead of us that we were in complete darkness as soon as we cleared the mouth of the cave. We didn't have a line, no helmets and no shoes; only had a fool's appreciation of the danger we put ourselves in.
That was foolhardy, bravado caving. That was the proper and potentially fatal introduction to how NOT to do caving. It was scary enough that since then caving was not up on my to do outdoors list.
That is until JumpOff Point, an outdoor specialist company set up shop, and I became friends with the cavemen and women of the Cebu Speleological Society. Many of them were part of that group last Saturday as well as staff of JumpOff Point.
Ursulo 'Dondon' Dimpas, Jr., was in that group. He works with a computer company to earn his living. But, he works with nature to live his life. While we were climbing Mt. Kanlaon last Holy Week, he was vertical caving with another group in Mabinay, farther south from where we were in the same island of Negros.
Also in that same group – both the Mabinay group and the group last Saturday -- was Gelena Asis. She is the president of the CSS. She teaches sustainable tourism subjects in a local university while pursuing a Masteral Degree in Environmental Science. Her Masteral thesis proposal is on the conservation of Cebu's caves which was reportedly turned down by her professor for being such a pioneering study. None in the faculty had enough competence on the subject to adequately review it.
Dondon, Gelena and the CSS – about 20 or so members half of whom are active -- are exemplary representatives of our modern cave people. They are professionals committed to exploring, conserving and protecting our caves as a unique biosphere that is important for our larger environment.
This, especially for Cebu that, even with severe forest denudation, continues to have water from caves and pools that is characteristic of its geological formation which is mostly limestone or karst.
Aside from increasing our knowledge of our cave system, of which Dondon says less than 10 percent have been explored and an even lesser percentage mapped, the CSS does an immediately appreciable service of helping to pinpoint water supply sources.
Being able to do thus, they are able to advise residents especially in the mountain areas on whether their water supply is clean or contaminated depending on its source. They are also able to better explain to these same residents and students in general how it is imperative that water sources are protected from becoming contaminated or polluted by showing how this happens as, indeed, it is happening with pesticides and other ground water pollutants.
In both the Mabinay and the Baombil explorations, there were representatives from the US National Speleological Society, Glen Malliet and Charles Festersen, who were in the country on a familiarization trip. They, as well as other foreign groups – a British team did some pioneering cave exploration and mapping in Toledo and elsewhere in the early 90s – are interested in our cave systems and, especially with the NSS, being able to help develop local expertise and experience and, most immediately on this trip, sharing some equipment with the CSS.
Caves are beautiful. But, they are also very fragile and susceptible to damage. A hundred years worth of accumulated formation at a few millimeters per year can be damaged just by the touch of our normally oily hands. And then there are the unique dark-adapted organisms.
This beauty and also its utility is at the same time the dilemma most serious cavers face. To call attention to this beauty is also to run the risk of its destruction.
Yet, as the experience in Lamak shows only the concerted effort of the community with the help of groups like the CSS and government agencies like the DENR in regulating access, extraction of resources and then the education of people in general will ensure the continued existence of caves in their natural state.
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