A newspaper reader doesn’t usually expect anything big to read on a Monday. Sunday is normally a lazy day for journalists, except for some occasional landslides that for some unknown reason mostly happen on weekends, in which case the next day’s front page photos will have politicians looking mad at nature for making the lives of their constituents difficult.

“We will rebuild, we will survive. Let’s show to the world the resiliency of Cebuanos,” they would be quoted in the captions as saying, as they stand tall among ruins and debris.

But this paper’s issue last Monday (March 16) was different. Its banner story talked about the Commission on Election’s plans to make next year’s automated elections credible. Really? Credible? Wow!

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We’re organizing a songwriting seminar-workshop to raise funds for TSINELAS. It’s going to be held this coming May. It’s going to be a four-day (two weekends) event to be held at the Tsinelas headquarters at the Saint Theresa’s College compound along Gen. Maxilom Ave.

We’re going to talk about the basics of melody writing, lyrics writing, musical arrangement and recording.

Award-winning musicians and recording artists Ian Zafra, Jude Gitamondoc and Brian Sacro have initially agreed to join us as speakers. I also invited myself as speaker, and myself said yes  (haha).

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One good thing about working in a newspaper…

… is that you get featured every once in a while.

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Let’s forget for a while the decent rules of argumentation and debate and pretend that name calling is the only morally acceptable technique in crushing one’s political opponent.

If you were not busy anticipating Beijing last week, you would notice how our politicians provided us with a different kind of Olympics by calling each other names. Here are some of the names they used and what they mean in contemporary or historical usage.

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WHILE you’re reading this, presumably over froccino and choco chip cookies, school children elsewhere in the province are being made up in the image and likeness of mermaids and fairies and ogres in a bucolic dream of placing their barangay in the self-conscious map called tourism. We’re becoming an island of festivals and all you care about is your coffee getting cold!

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Film is good; support from Cebuanos even better.

(more fotos of last night’s ‘confessional’ cebu screening here)

Text received last night: “Cinema One people announce that February 29, Friday, will be the official screening date of the indie film ‘Confessional’ at SM City Cebu Cinema 1. There will be two blocked screenings (7 p.m. and 9 p.m.) Tickets will be pre-sold at specific outlets. Ticket price and other details will be announced this week.”

Director Ruel Antipuesto also told me the movie’s official promotional music video (Sinesine) will be shown on RCTV starting this week.

For more info about the movie and the team behind it, please visit http://cebuano film nga daghan kaayo’g awards

Been offline since Wednesday to join Capitol’s “SuroySuroy Sugbo – The Southern Heritage Trail”. The project has a point, really, got to admit. Works good for Cebu Province, works even better for the Gwen Garcia image. What’s the trip all about? It’s actually touring the towns and eating a lot of budbod and bakasi and being shown the same Sinulog dance every 30 minutes. I’ll be writing an article about the experience next week, so that’s it for now.

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Caught in a time warp, these people! What ‘popular music’ are they talking about? I’m not a huge fan of Bisrock – many Bisrock songs suck bigtime. But despite its flaws, Bisrock has done what Cebu Flop Music Festival can only dream of, that is making Binisaya songs popular to the masses. ‘Nuff said!

You are asked to list down a few good things about Cebu. What will you say aside from mangoes, hanging rice, ampao, danggit, and vigilante killings? Is there anything else? To guide you, here are these words that you can use: “laid-back” and “idly urban.” And I swear I’ve read the phrase “rurally urban” to describe this confused feeling of rushing forward to economic progress while holding on to the old and familiar.

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