Book on St. John Institute stirs Bacolod folk

One wonders whether it is the St. John’s Institute that has stirred Bacolod folk – or the book about the educational institution, which has captured awards on the national level. But definitely Bacolodnons have been stirred by the announcement that its golden anniversary will also signal the publication of a book authored by Abelardo Fernando.

Hua Ming is a story of faith, optimism and determination with the invincible spirit of its founders – Msgr. John Su and Msgr. John Liu. Their works and lives woven into the history of both St. John’s Institute and the Queen of Peace Church beside it.

The story of Msgrs. John Liu and John Su is itself a saga that merits being written into a separate opus. I have known about their story and how they fled religious persecution from China at the height of the communist revolution. Their trails and travails and their long hikes all bear the ingredients of a saga of courage and determination that ended with them and a band of Chinese seminarians eventually landing in the Philippines.

Both of them and their companions completed their seminary studies in the Philippines. And both had undertaken missionary work as major seminarians before they were ordained as priests.

I had known both monsignors during the days when they were first sent to Bacolod, together with several other seminarians (Chinese).

I remember how they could hardly speak a word of English. And we conversed in Latin, the universal language of the Church at the time, in the early fifties.

Both eventually settled in Bacolod and devoted themselves to evangelizing the big Filipino-Chinese community of the province of Negros Occidental. And their frustrations and their successes are in the book. Both eventually ended up putting up the St. John’s Institute and later, the Our Queen of Peace Parish in the heart of Bacolod’s shopping center on a lot donated by the Montelibanos.

Abe, a newspaperman and former magazine editor, managed to capture the saga of the two priests and the zigzagging course of the St. John’s Institute.

Several chapters of the book were written by the SJI alumni who pounded out their fond memories of their young years in the school and chronicled the big academic, cultural, sporting and social events of Hua Ming.

And one catches glimpses of the ever-smiling Msgr. John Liu and the strict disciplinarian Msgr. John Su.

The saga of the school is by itself worth the book on which it is written from where it stood out in the past until its expansion into the kindergarten and a modern gymnasium in North Point Ayala in Talisay City.

Among the various contributors to the book are Josefina Tiu, Jennifer Cochangco-Ong, Cathy Barcelona-Carlos, Ma. Vicenta Po-Rio, Marlon Geraldoy, Allen del Carmen and Josefina Tiu, Nelia Dingdong-Bernabe and Fr. Noly Que, LRMS, Ph.D.

The much-awaited book will be presented to the public tomorrow at the Sugarland Hotel. Already it has stirred the Bacolod folk.

Iloilo’s poet-essayist

On Tuesday, I went to Iloilo City to try to see Panay writer and freelance journalist John Iremil Teodoro who won this year’s National Book award for his collection Pagmuni-muni at Pagtahak ng Sirenang Nagpapanggap na Sirena. It was published by Invictus Imprenta Igbaong.

It is often just called as the “Sirena Book.”

I wanted so much to meet with Teodoro because his book was praised by no less than Erisa Igloria, a Filipino-American poet, professor of literature in the Old Dominion University in Virginia, USA.

Teodoro is also considered a leading Kinaray-a writer in terms of awards and national publications. Although only 35, he holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from De La Salle University in Manila and has Carlos Palanca awards for literature to his name.

But I forgot that he is more accessible perhaps in his native province of Antique. That makes it almost impossible for me to meet him because San Jose is quite a long drive from Iloilo and could aggravate my spinal injury.

Well, at least, I tried to interview a noted writer who has won honors for the Western Visayas region.

ADDENDUM. Negros Occidental Gov. Isidro Zayco jarred Negrenses on Monday with his advice – “We should prepare for the global crisis that may hit the country during the first quarter of 2009.” He was the first local official who aired such a warning while the entire country seemed focused on the ongoing dramas in both houses of Congress on the NBN-ZTE scandal and the Jocjoc Bolante fertilizer scam. Zayco, however, did not disclose how the provincial government is readying to cope with the fallout of the global financial crisis. Still, it is worth listening to his rejoinder for us to also not forget that we are just as vulnerable as the rest of the world to the consequences of the global financial crisis.