I spent my childhood thinking of Bohol as populated not by humans by monkeys so small you need a microscope to see them. To my lovely Boholano friends, I didn’t make this article up as I learned these things from my elementary education, which fed me with pictures of your beautiful island as nothing but mysterious hills and primates, and a little bit of Dagohoy in between.

If you, readers, don’t know Francisco Dagohoy, he was the leader of the longest rebellion against the Spaniards in the Philippines that took place in the island of Bohol from 1724 to 1829. It was so successful it took 85 years to fail.

Dagohoy’s story is intimately linked with the Chocolate Hills and the Philippine Tarsier. My grade school books told me Dagohoy built chocolate hills and cloned tarsiers when he was not out chopping off heads of Jesuit priests.  As an inquisitive grade school pupil, I learned Dagohoy got his name from “dagon” (Visayan for amulet) and “hoyohoy” (Visayan for gentle wind).

Dagohoy initially wanted his followers to correctly call him “Talisman of the Gentle Breeze” but realized English wouldn’t arrive in the island until 200 years later. Nevertheless, Dagohoy’s amulets gave him the ability to leap from one chocolate hill to another, which made the tarsiers turn green with envy because they could only hop from one tree branch to the next. Dagohoy also had clear vision inside dark caves and forests, which made the tarsiers even more envious because it took them 45 million years to grow their eyes that big and fix them permanently in their skulls just to develop night vision.

But the tarsiers couldn’t afford ill will against Dagohoy, especially since their patron, with all his love for Bohol, couldn’t rotate his head 180 degrees. Ha-ha, loser! Besides, Dagohoy fed them with crickets, spiders, grasshoppers, and kidneys of Jesuit priests in his zoo-like headquarters in the mountains of Danao town. The tarsiers stayed with Dagohoy until he was bitten by a dog named Rabies, and died. I read this in grade school.

After their hero’s death, hundreds of Dagohoy’s followers preferred death inside a cave in Barangay Magtangtang, Danao than surrender. Their skeletons still remain in the site. Among the skeletons found are those of small creatures with eye sockets bigger than the skulls themselves. These small creatures couldn’t be other than tarsiers. The tarsier population in Bohol started to dwindle after Dagohoy’s death, I read in grade school.

When I was in Bohol on an “Accompany-A-Balikbayan-Sister” travel grant recently, I took advantage of the tour to check my facts. And I was surprised at how accurate they were. The tarsiers do not only have eyes bigger than their heads, they have also failed to recover from Dagohoy’s death and continue to mourn inside cages owned by private individuals in Loboc, Bohol.

I also learned from our tour guide that “despite the protection status of the Philippine Tarsier, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has granted special limited permits for this display of the Philippine Tarsier in Loboc. Here, tourists can see the Philippine Tarsier up close and personal and take pictures. Unfortunately, the Philippine Tarsier here are semi-captive, being kept in cages along the Loboc River. Here, the animals are not in a sanctuary and as such, these shy animals have miserable lives and normally don’t survive for long.”

If you’re not familiar with the Loboc River, it’s a body of water actor Cesar Montano built so he could shoot his award-winning film “Panaghoy sa Suba” in 2004. The movie was so successful it inspired Spaniards to establish the town of Loboc in 1602.

Back to tarsiers, they are caged and dying in the name of tourism. I suggest you visit them while they’re still there, and while I continue to check my facts about Dagohoy and the Chocolate Hills.

Sun.Star Cebu. July 27, 2010.

If it happens in Pinamungajan–or Timbuktu, or Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland–it happens everywhere.

The task force should be handled not by policemen or NBI agents but by musicians, particularly lyricists. You call the police or the NBI when it’s about drugs, or alcohol, or guns, or Joavan Fernandez. But when it’s about videoke violence, call the songwriter. Unless our law enforcement institutions include “Lyrics as Cause of Violence” in their training, drug raids and checkpoints will never solve videoke killings.

This is Google Research I’m talking about, the most reliable source of information for very serious researchers, like college freshmen and humor columnists. My comprehensive Google research told me video killings are intimately linked to the lyrics of the song that caused the fight. Take “My Way” for example.

A dozen articles dissecting the lyrics of “My Way” crop up when you google “videoke killings.” If you think I’m making this up, here’s an excerpt: “The number of killings connected to singing of the song (My Way) may simply reflect its popularity in a violent environment…The song’s ‘triumphalist’ theme might also be a factor.”

“The lyrics of ‘My Way’ increase the violence,” the study continues. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody…It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.” The typical Filipino irritates.

It makes sense. Remember the last time you went videoke-ing with your friends, and there’s this guy in the next table singing “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” with all the braggadocio he could muster and you were so damn annoyed by it? Of course you don’t blame the lyrics. “I know just how to whisper/ And I know just how to cry/ I know just where to find the answers/ And I know just how to lie” is down pat annoying but only because you hate Air Supply to begin with.

You want to blow Hitchcock and Russell and their legion of fans to smithereens, not that drunk in the next table. And we’re not talking about the Bee Gees yet.

Now, imagine that same guy screaming, “For what is a man? What has he got? If not himself–Then he has naught…The record shows I took the blows. And did it my way.” Man, that guy’s annoying!

In fairness to Sinatra, he didn’t write “My Way.” It was Paul Anka, who re-wrote it from the original French, which he described as “a bad record, but there was something in it.” That “something” is murdering videoke singers all over the country. Creepy.

The Pinamungajan incident offers an additional twist to the videoke rage phenomenon. The song is not “My Way,” thank God, but Fred Berame’s Cebuano classic “Samtang May Kinabuhi.” In the context of the videoke rage in the country, the song sounds equally creepy.

No, we won’t dissect Berame’s lyrics right now. We’re running out of space. Besides, I hear somebody singing “My Way” at the videoke bar outside, and I have a mission to fulfill. Give me that gun now.

By Insoy Niñal
Sun.Star Cebu, July 20, 2010

ug sa dihang di na ganahan manguli ang mga participants. ing-ana kanindot ang music video workshop niadtong sabado ug dominggo.

more photos

more photos

“sinesine” ni kevin

CEBU’s art scene is probably one of the most alive in the country today, with local musicians, painters, filmmakers, photographers, poets, writers and other artists churning out works like their lives (not livelihood) depended on it.

They are not difficult to find. Check out places like Kukuk’s Nest, Turtle’s Nest, Handuraw, The Outpost and other similar holes and they are there, guzzling beer, discussing Kant, rehashing jokes, plotting revolutions, or simply staring at empty space.

They are many, if you consider how Cebu is just a small community. And their number is growing, with more and more artists from neighboring provinces in the Visayas coming here in search of soul mates and a place to call home.

They may not be a tight, first-name-basis community but they are a sharing group, with disciples of one form of art sharing tables with those of another form of art. They know their works complement each other, so they pass art around, like glass in a tagay session. They have a word for it: collaboration.

In many occasions, the sharing comes in the form of seminars and workshops: veterans guiding neophytes, or wannabes inspiring has-beens (it doesn’t matter) – both ensuring that the art scene lives at least a generation longer.

They may not know it, but the generosity local artists are showing to each other is what keeps Cebu’s art scene going.  (By Jimi Stuart Salvador)

PHOTO BY ARCHIE UY, NU107 Cebu relaunching, july 2009

WHY I’M WITH LUDABI

When national televisions air prime-time shows that use mixed-up languages and vernacular, some raise a concern.

No, they are not as exacting as stern conservatives are. They too agree that language must journey with the times, albeit cautiously and consciously. They just want their language, which their forefathers used to tell their tales, to be free from whimsical bastardization.

Cebuano is a language spoken by about 20 million people making it the most widely spoken member of the Visayan languages. It is named after Cebu, the Philippines’ second largest metropolitan. To say, Cebuano is a language used by a people whose cultural and historical significance transcends far beyond recorded history. But Cebuano, just like many languages suffers from misuse and “bastardization,” as former Cordova Mayor Arleigh Sitoy, Cebuano language champion.

“True, we cannot deny that the Cebuano language too must evolve with the time so as to remain useful and relevant. But we cannot just allow it to be bastardized by unconsciously changing its grammar or mixing it with other languages or vernacular that ultimately destroys its otherwise beautiful cacophony,” Sitoy said. Think about funny cellular phone messages.

“However we should not also become too purist about it because we might alienate younger speakers,” he furthered.
Now springing back to full health, Sitoy, the national president of the Lubas sa Dagang Bisaya (LUDABI), takes it upon his shoulder more persistent than before to let the Cebuano language flourish.

A year ago, Sitoy suffered from a severe stroke that ultimately affected his functions as president. And without a helm, LUDABI, entered a period of dormancy.

“Now, I’m challenged to take on the job I have committed myself to do,” he said.

Currently, Sitoy is occupied with initiatives such as: First, the formation of LUDABI chapters composed by students and young professionals intended to bridge generation of speakers and ultimately to cultivate among the young the love for the local language.

Second, the continuation of the integration of the teaching of the Cebuano language in grammar schools (which started in the municipality of Cordova) and the partnership with the University of Bohol to credit the study of the Cebuano language as tantamount to having a masters degree.

Third, the expansion of LUDABI’s membership. And fourth, more importantly, is the compilation of a Cebuano grammar book that will complement the recently launched Cebuano Dictionary, an initiative carried on by his father, another Cebuano language champion, Atty. Adelino Sitoy, currently the mayor of Cordova.

“Ultimately, our vision is to make LUDABI a vehicle to let the Cebuano language flourish and develop more,” he said. By that he means that Cebuanos and those who speak the language may develop greater affinity and affection towards the language to appreciate its songs and literature for example.

After all, the Cebuano language is not only a tool of communication. More than that, it is a reflection of the Cebuanos’ aspiration, their life—their soul. JSC