The workshop goes to Bohol

National Artist for Cinema Eddie Romero wrote in reaction to our column last week on the Dumaguete workshop, expressing his homesickness for his old hometown.

The venerable Mr. Romero, who has also been a successful scenarist and, unbeknownst to many, a short story writer in his earlier years, has always been delightfully articulate. I hope he doesn’t mind my quoting his message in full.

"Your Dumaguete notes for today (May 10, 2004) brought back sad and happy memories. I must try and go back for a visit before the month is over. Have to check on a new survey of a small property at Camp Lookout (do you know it?) anyway. I was there about almost six months ago, but since I hardly ever see anyone there nowadays since most of my adolescent period buddies are gone and most of the few remaining ones are dead drunk by noon, three days is about all I can manage. Have never been much of a seminars enthusiast (phlegmatic nature, not intellectual bias, although been to enough to wish them all well), but perhaps if you have something going on at Silliman I might drop in. Some cousins of mine own Foundation University. Talk about neglected items, I owe Edith Tiempo a visit. Someday soon I expect to get organized."

In turn did I try to encourage Eddie, in an e-mailed reply, to visit with his fellow National Artist, "Mom" Edith, perhaps when she’s done directing the 43rd National Writers Workshop, which begins its third week today, back in Dumaguete.

Yes, I also told Eddie, I’m quite familiar with Camp Lookout, which is Silliman U’s property with summer cottages up on the foothills of Mt. Talinis. It used to have a terrific view of the coastline and the islands of Cebu, Bohol and Siquijor across Tañon Strait. On clear days that would include the northern coast of Mindanao.

I say "used to," as the last time we went up a couple of years ago, the panoramic view was somewhat blocked, from the usual vantage point on the main cottage’s balcony, by overgrown trees and rather unkempt foliage. We were told that the occasional presence of "Nice People Around" had somehow affected the efforts at maintenance around Camp Lookout, ditto the private cottages even higher up the mountain trail, including the Tiempos’ own Airy Nest.

That summer haunt is on hold, for the nonce. A pity, as it’s only a brief if tortuous tricycle ride up a winding dirt road from the scenic and highly pleasant garden town of Valencia, where a special market treat is the breakfast of champions that is budbod kabog (a kind of suman made of millet or birdseed). This is usually taken with hot, thick chocolate. Hands down, it’s the delicacy of delicacies in Negros Oriental.

That column last week on the Dumaguete workshop elicited another rejoinder, from native daughter Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas, this year’s awardee as Silliman University’s Distinguished Alumna for her lifetime achievement as a creative writer. Our lifetime soul sister – poet, fictionist and critic – wrote from Iowa City where she teaches literature.

"Your anecdote of the ice cream vendor on the boulevard made me sooo homesick, brought me right back to my childhood and the summertime pleasures of ‘dirty ice cream’ on tiny cones straight from the Tagumpay man’s cart, ever so much nicer than the Magnolia ‘half-bricks’ at Dainty (which downtown spot Jollibee usurped)."

Indeed, fine memories spell the enchantments offered by Dumaguete. Such memories can get faulty, however, even very recent ones. Erratum: That should have been pedal-driven, not "motor-driven," when we wrote last week in reference to the Nestlé Kimi carts selling ice cream and frozen products all over town, from the airport to the seaside esplanade that is Rizal Boulevard.

Another recent addition to Dumaguete’s treats which we failed to mention is South Sea Resort’s splendid kinilaw sa gata topped with crushed chicharon. Ah, to die for. Then there are the fine menu items available at the restaurant and coffee shop of Residencia Al Mar on the boulevard, as well as at Mamiya’s on the same strip.

A newly-opened establishment right by the Silliman campus, alongside the popular Jo’s Inato, which specializes in grilled chicken on a spit, and which has brought this Bacolod-inasal rival to Manila, is Body and Sole. Nothing like a good massage after a session of wrestling with young writers’ manuscripts.

Wait, I take that sporting term back. The quality of fiction and poetry submitted by the selected fellows this summer was of an unusually high caliber, such that in the first week where we served on the panel, only a couple of poems at most may have suffered from a less than generous appreciation.

The fellows were lucky, too, this year. Or perhaps they earned it with their collective work. Last week saw them being escorted to Tagbilaran City, where the sessions were held at Villa Alzhun. It marked only the second time that the National Writers Workshop was privileged to migrate to a neighboring island. The first time also had Bohol for a second destination and venue, about a decade ago if I recall right.

This time out, the middle-week sessions were sponsored by the Provincial Government of Bohol’s Center for Culture and Arts Development under director Nelia Lungay Recimilla, in cooperation with Villa Alzhun, Holy Name University and its president, Fr. Romeo Bancale, SVD, Mr. Lyndon Boiser, Atty. Tommy and Mrs. Roselima Abapo, Vicky Wallace of Bohol Bee Farm, and Atty. Myrna T. Pagsuberon.

The effort to transport the 14 writing fellows and the panelists led by Dr. Edith Tiempo was also generously supported by the Boholanos of Eastern USA, led by Florentino Gulle, Suzette Boiser, Naomi L. Fabiosa, and Julito and Cristy Magalanes.

Not only the fellows turned out lucky. First-week panelists Jimmy Abad, Butch Perez, Cesar Ruiz Aquino and I couldn’t help but cast a suspicious eye on the luck of the draw. We would easily have traded places with guest panelists Marjorie Evasco, Susan Lara and Anthony Tan, who took over the middle week. But then we should also acknowledge that Marj was primarily responsible for bringing the workshop over to her home turf.

Last Thursday, or so the fellows reported – specifically Hedwig de Leon of DLSU and Ginny Mata of UP Diliman, who even took the trouble of e-mailing us her photos – Mom Edith left after the morning session to return to Dumaguete. The afternoon session was then held at Ananiana Resort on Panglao Island across the causeway.

The customary stopover was made at Dauis Church, after which dinner and a poetry reading were hosted by Mr. Lyndon Boiser at his residence on Remalodor St. in Tagbilaran.

Dinner the next evening was in turn hosted by the Abapo couple at their beachfront home. Saturday, the visiting writers’ last day in Bohol, featured a whole-day tour that included the Loboc River Cruise, capped by a concert by the Loboc Children’s Choir, as coordinated by theater stalwart and cultural activist Lutgardo "Gardy" Labad.

Him we still remember as a very young man during our PETA days under Cecile Guidote, when we first learned "to remember and to sing," even as we helped translate, into Tagalog, Nick Joaquin’s immortal Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, and participated in its performance under the stars at Rajah Sulaiman Theater.

From Fort Santiago to Dumaguete to Panglao Island, then, it has been a steady stream of streaking stars and ice-cream memories, of nights and days spent in the company of kindred spirits in literature, theater, music and all other related arts, chief of which remains the vocation of song. Yes, it’s the endless song of recall. And wonderfully, of re-living our own early experiences whenever we hear of how another young generation marvels at its luck in a halcyon season.