Signos

In the Language/s We Curse and Dream

Vox Bikol — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:56:24 +0000

This act of bringing into the salon of good taste and civility a word that used to belong to the universe of the obscene does not mean the word easily loses its racy and wicked roots.

Calling Each Other

Vox Bikol — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 01:52:25 +0000

The way we call each other now resolves a long and interesting debate about kinship. The old debate was between the search for the universals in human relations and that which saw in the terms we used to address each other the trait of languages – fluid and symbolic.

The Films Young Filmmakers Make

Vox Bikol — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 02:24:53 +0000

Last Saturday, we have just finished the deliberation for the awards to be given for the 2010 Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival. This is an annual event where the cable channel gives a million peso each to selected young filmmakers. Out of some 100 entries, seven qualified this year.

Kasalogan: The Rivers in Us

Vox Bikol — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:47:20 +0000

In Ateneo de Naga University, the student photographers of the Department of Media Studies have photographed the Bikol River, or at least its vanishing, dying tributary called the Naga River. In the process, they are discovering what the great photographer of monumental landscapes, Ansel Adams, thinks of photograph as "that instrument of love and revelation."

Kasalogan: The Rivers in Us

Vox Bikol — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:45:58 +0000

(The exhibit from students of Department of Media Studies was caught between the Tercentenary celebration of the devotion to our Lady of Peñafrancia and the semester break that followed it. This article pays tribute to the young artists and saw publication on the Art Page of Business Mirror where the author is the resident Art And Media Critic.)

The Power of the Dead and the Literal Ghosts

Vox Bikol — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:10:31 +0000

Halloween in the sense of trick and treating has already found its way into our psyche. The prospects are both hilarious and horrid.

Manay Coring's Journey to the Land of the Perfect Suman Latik

Vox Bikol — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 14:32:54 +0000

When she passed away, she was far, far away from the island of her birth, Ticao. But no matter, Manay Coring always managed when she was alive to link us to that land with her suman latik, a type of suman the preparation of which was long and tedious. The glutinous rice had to be soaked overnight in water before they were wrapped in banana leaves. The leaves themselves had to pass through a scrutiny as regards its age - not too old and not too young.

When Faith is Really Grand Enough

Vox Bikol — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 20:40:48 +0000

Now, that the dust and smoke have all been dissipated and a certain quiet has descended upon our town-city, we look around and start to account for the things that might have been and should not have been.

Excommunicated

Vox Bikol — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:15:42 +0000

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines "excommunication" as being excluded from the communion. This act must be one of the most mysterious acts of the Church. The same encyclopedia describes excommunication as "the principal and severest censure, is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society.

The Myths of the "Ber Months

Vox Bikol — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:01:43 +0000

The countdown for Christmas has already started in major cities and in major media TV networks all over the Philippines. We in Bikol - in Naga especially - do not start counting the way to Yuletide until after September. We know the reason for that: the Peñafrancia occupies our consciousness till the end of that month. Comes November then we begin going with the fashion of the metropolis: exclaim and declare that we have the longest celebration of Christmas.

Fr. O'B's Opus

Vox Bikol — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:55:44 +0000

Amidst the festive rush and celebration of the Tercentenary of the Peñafrancia devotion, there was something else happening in one of the resorts out in Carolina. The place is called Casa Ofelia, owned by one of the students in the batch, Roger Cariño. The former classmates coming from Manila and other places in the region were gathered to celebrate a teacher and his memories.

Nostalgia always has a charming place when people try to remember things. This group, added something to memory - and that was action. They launched a project that transformed the book of Fr. James O'Brien, SJ, into the more accessible electronic form.

Notes on the Pilgrim City and the Pilgrim Province

Vox Bikol — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:08:45 +0000

The celebration does not end with the 300 years. As the fiesta was winding up, an EO or Executive Order from the highest office in the land was released declaring Naga City and the province of Camarines Sur as the Pilgrim Capital of the Philippines.

Last night, as if to confirm the magnificence of the rituals held to honor the Virgin of Peñafrancia, the pagoda carrying the Icon blazed through the dark waters of the Naga River, the votive candles on the river banks never ever more incandescent, and the devotees humbled by the sheer power of this Faith that travelled through continents and dreams. A TV network has confirmed that some 2 million people have descended upon this small city of Naga. Maybe, it did not reach that number but the fact is there were just too many people in the small space of this pilgrim city that anyone estimating the multitude is bound to exaggerate and be convincing.

300 Years and the Eternal Return

Vox Bikol — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 23:52:39 +0000

A day after the Traslacion, I was with kin in the old shrine of the Lady of Peñafrancia. We were waiting for the next Mass, and I was outside looking up at the façade of the Shrine. The icon atop the portal of the church is a copy of the Virgin de Pena de Francia in Salamanca. She is a Black Madonna in the original but in the Shrine she is all dark brown monochrome. She appeared not to resemble at all the image inside.

Rudy F. Alano: Friend, Poet, Teacher

Vox Bikol — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:28:42 +0000

There were two great memories about being with Rudy before that Sunday of his stroke and the massive hemorrhage that followed. One was the lunch we had with at another friend's place. Grace Janer is that friend and that day was ordinary Tuesday. We were out on the porch and our conversation would drift from thoughts about friends and to the soft rains and the tiny birds darting in and out of trees and the blues and ballads we were playing.

Fiesta in Canaman

Vox Bikol — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 03:15:22 +0000

Certain towns are near but if you do not go back there, they recede into the distance, and become very far.

The fiesta in Canaman has brought me back to the charming town that even academics from as far as the U.S. are well aware of. I met, in fact, an American anthropologist who told me he feels he has been to Canaman already, just by reading the essays about it.