LRT-2 passengers enjoy piped-in poetry readings

Rather than listen to Rihanna’s latest ditty, how about a poem by Rio Alma?

The Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) started broadcasting throughout the LRT Line 2’s stations and trains yesterday the poems of Filipino authors as read by celebrities.

The LRTA launched its “Tulaan sa Tren” project in coordination with the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the Optical Media Board (OMB) and the Book Development Association of the Philippines.

The LRT Line 2’s public address system will regularly broadcast poems by National Artist Jose Garcia Villa, Jose Corazon de Jesus, National Artist Virgilio “Rio Alma” Almario, Jose Lacaba, and many others.

The poems will be read by well-known figures such as OMB chairman and television host Edu Manzano, television host Miriam Quiambao, singer Nikki Gil, broadcasters Lyn Ching-Pascual and Rhea Santos, Tintin Bersola and Julius Babao, and actress-environmentalist Chin-Chin Gutierrez.

NBDB chairman Dennis Gonzales said that through their project, “we hope to arouse the interest of the public in the works of our poets and writers, for them to look them up and read them in books.”

In the launching ceremony at the LRT Line 2’s base station in Santolan, Pasig City, Almario hailed the project as a good strategy to get people to rediscover their love for Philippine literature.

Almario said that in the 1890s and the early 1900s, brilliant Filipino poets were regarded as celebrities and people attended the public reading of their works much as people flock to the concerts of popular singers today.