The best of Baguio

We had a very fruitful and engaging time last week in Baguio at the 47th UP National Writers Workshop, run by the University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing. This time around, we shared the company of 12 of our best younger and newer mid-career writers: Bobby Añonuevo, Jun Balde, Ian Casocot, Frank Cimatu, Allan Derain, Luis Katigbak, Mookie Katigbak, Jun Lana, Nick Pichay, Rica Bolipata Santos, Tara Sering and Vincenz Serrano.

I was particularly impressed by the work of the two fictionists in English, Luis Katigbak and Tara Sering. Both had been my students when they were undergraduates, and even then they had shown the promise they soon realized. Luis has gone on to write science fiction, music criticism, and advertising copy, among other things. Here’s an excerpt from a story titled “Dear Distance,” the climactic scene which brings the aging but technologically-enhanced narrator into physical contact with a new girl named Jenn5:

She turns her back to me, and I notice three pairs of metallic ridges slowly rising through slits in her shimmery dress. They push up and out, and grow. They begin as shards, then shape themselves further until they resemble swords, then expand, downwards, outwards, row upon overlapping row of shiny leaf-like protuberances, and I realize that what they are is wings. Glorious steel wings sprouting from little Jenn5’s back. More sounds of admiration from the other clubgoers. I am ecstatic. Some people seem to crowd in closer, some seem to be moving away, and in this place, it’s hard to tell which is which, really, and after a while, hard to care.

Jenn5 spreads her wings, turns to face me again, and we continue dancing, our movements unusual and mesmerizing, a city and a seraph engaged in the oldest of rituals in this newest of places.

We dance and laugh and little else matters for now.

We will never really know each other, Jenn5, though eventually — and briefly — we may imagine we do. Whether you are too young and I am inexcusably elderly or vice versa, there will always be things we have in common, and things we will never understand about each other. In the end, distances and surfaces are all we can ever be sure of, and this is no sad thing. In a world that has accelerated almost beyond recognition, it may be the only comforting thought of which I am still capable.”

Tara, on the other hand, has found success as a magazine editor and a writer of “chick lit” novels. In this excerpt from her novel-in-progress titled “Good People,” she flexes her literary muscle in a paragraph worthy of Greg Brillantes:    

With adjectives she didn’t even know existed, they toss praises over his casket so relentlessly it almost makes the dead man blush. Lola Paz calls her departed husband ‘the most generous man I know’ — her mind a camera panning over years of imported clothes, jewelry, allowances, houses, a farm, a roasted calf every time she turned a year older — because she does not suspect, for the time being, that two days after the funeral, the lawyer will read out the will, unrevised since 1985. It lists all his properties and to whom they should go — the houses to his wife, parcels of land to each of his children except Andoni, his old car to Fred, another farm further north to his other son, Michael and his mother, Dina. Within minutes, they will also all discover that the house on the beach had been sold five years ago to an unknown buyer, along with everything else, except the house in town where Lola Paz still lives part of the year. But for now, at the wake, not a soul suspects that the lawyer, a long time friend of the deceased, will utter the words, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s nothing left, actually.’ The lawyer will then think to himself that the formerly wealthy, when they brace for a fight over phantom spoils, are among the most tragic people in the world, and close his briefcase.

Away from the workshop, the highlight of our evenings was a visit to an old Baguio favorite — the singing ensemble On Call, one of this country’s finest, and always a pleasure to hear for their Broadway and OPM medleys and old standards. Many thanks to performers Jett Acmor, Mari Laoyan, Miles Vazquez, and Ivan Cruz, and to their brilliant musical director, Dr. Dennis Flores, for a great show as usual. For the rest of April, you can catch On Call at Forest House on Loakan Road on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and at the lobby bar of the Manor on Fridays.

And speaking as this year’s Workshop director, I’d like to thank AIM’s Henry Tenedero for ensuring that we had a pleasant stay at AIM’s Igorot Lodge. We hope to return next year, with another batch of our best and brightest.

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I’ve often brought Beng shawls and scarves from my foreign travels (because — thinking like a guy — they’re cheaper and lighter than jewelry) but they’ve often ended up in closets and boxes. It’s a good thing they haven’t been used, because they’re now coming out and joining many others that Beng and her UP High friends (who opened a shop called called 57 & Co. — their age, ooops, and its location at Unit 57, Cubao Expo, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City) are presenting in a show and sale called “Romancing the Shawl.”

The shawls and scarves come from India, China, the US, and the Philippines — in silk, cotton, and nylon; they’re machine-made, handwoven, embroidered and embellished in beads and sequins. Handmade jewelry and costume jewelry from the Philippines and abroad will be on sale. The exhibit will also feature watercolor paintings by the art group Kulay Agos and other leading Filipino artists. “Romancing the Shawl” opens at 4:00 pm, Saturday, April 19.

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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.