Art

(This column appears in today's edition of the Leyte-Samar Daily Express)

Hi there! It’s another weekend. Yes, today’s title was inspired by the recent controversy about some supposedly work of art. And this is also a continuation of the Bahandi Samarnon award in my Alma Mater Christ the King College

But first this which blew me away: an online campaign for Ernie and Bert to get married? Just what got into their minds?

And that art show at the CCP. What freedom of expression? It’s not a matter of freedom of expression. It’s regulating one’s freedom of expression. Okey, it’s a government agency, but 70% of those who financed it are Catholics. Ok, while we are into it, maybe the artist would like to consider coming up with similar work which will distort the images of Mohammad, Buddha, the Dalai Lama and other great religious leaders. I am no art connoisseur, but I do not disagree with F. Sionil Jose when he said “It isn’t art” when he referred to that CCP display which caused this much brouhaha.

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Book Launching. The CKC Community will be hosting the launching of two new books by Fr. Antonio Maria Rosales, OFM. The books entitled “The Jesus’ Letters” and “My Son, Francis” will be launched at 3:00 pm tomorrow at the Frs. David and Leopold Auditorium at Christ the King College.

The CKC President Fr. Mar Tubac and the author Fr. Tony will deliver their respective messages. The CKC VP for Academic Affairs Dr. Florita Calesa will present her review on “The Jesus’ Letters” while Mr. Venancio Bajet, the Dean of the College of Teacher Education will deliver present a review on “My Son, Francis”.

The event will capped by cocktails and a performance of the CKC Youth Chamber Orchestra.

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As I have earlier mentioned in this column, the late Jose Gomez was honored during the 1^st Bahandi Samarnon Awards. I thought I’d like to share some materials about the man which I got from Carl Bordeos. Here’s the first part:

“An American SVD Father referred to him as ‘The Music Man of Samar’ in a published article in the Leyte-Samar Studies journal of the Divine Word University (of Tacloban
City. An admirer was quoted to have referred to him as an ‘Immortal Communicator of the sweetest sounds’ to Calbayognons and Samarenos. A cultural worker called him a ‘genius’”

“Whatever accolade we may give to the most prolific composer of Samar songs, lest we forget, Jose Cinco Gomez was a Maestro, a fitting title to a great and humble man who consecrated his life to give every Calbayognon and Samareno music and pride.”

“Born on February 27, 1911 in Barrio Tabuk (now Obrero) of Calbayog City, Jose was the eldest among the seven children of Licarion Gomez and Benigna Cinco. His siblings were Conrado, Ricardo, Angeles, Josefa, Francisca and Trinidad.”

“He took his elementary and one year in high school at the Colegio De San Vicente De Paul (CSVP now Christ the King College. Formal education stopped for Jose in high school, but the process of informal education continued.”

“In his autobiography, he claimed that he was ‘interested in music since he was a child’ and was very much influenced by his father, brothers and sisters who often met together to have a family concert.”

“Both of his parents had musical training. His father while studying Surveying at Ateneo Municipal once conducted the Ateneo Band. His mother studied at the La Concordia College. It was his father’s hobby to play the piano after each working day, and the young Jose would tinker on the ivory keys. Seeing interest in music, Licarion provided him with a tutor, Sofio Camilon and further exposure came when he played at the CSVP as a banjo-playing character.”

“He once worked industriously at mastering an instrument that he borrowed from his cousin Antonio Gomez. Since the instrument lacked the pads for stopping the air, he experimented with many different kinds of materials as substitute for commercial pads. One of his solutions was to use animal skin. In order to keep the skin soft it had to be repeatedly immersed in water. So the young musician played with a pail of water at his side in which he would periodically dip the entire instrument. With his brother, he learned to prepare home-made bamboo reeds for the saxophone.”

“His interest expanded to musical arrangement and he pursued it with the aid of an old family victor phonograph. To identify the arrangement of each instrument on a particular recorded selection, he had his brother Conrado hold the adjustment lever of the phonograph to maintain the ‘slow’ speed while he took notes of his observations on paper.” (to be continued)

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This is it for now. Let m leave you with something to ponder about this weekend. From Harvey Fierstein: “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”

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Have a nice weekend everyone! Ciao!

Wazup CKC?

(This column appears in today's edition of the Leyte-Samar Daily Express)

Hi there! It’s a new week. Forget about our new Senator who promised to be into things Mindanao. How I wish one day we could come up with someone who would say that in his list of priorities would be the concerns of the voters, err people from Eastern Visayas. I have saved my usual acerbic comments on the world around me for my forthcoming columns. Today, it’s going to be about CKC.

Two columns ago, I mentioned about my alma mater Christ the King College and what’s currently being done by the new College President.

Today I have decided to feature the 10-point Road Map towards formulating the CKC Educational Life Project for SY 2011 – 2013. This was synthesized from the "Go and Teach” Franciscan Education General Guidelines 2009, by the Secretariat of Education in Rome. This was also a part of Fr. Mar Tubac’s speech during his installation as CKC President.

Here’s an enumeration of the 10 points which is expected to serve as guide for the CKC community in the years to come.

1. That the first challenge for Franciscan Education today is how to offer the youth with clarity, creativity and audacity a new framework of relations with God, nature, humanity and ourselves.
2. That Franciscan Education is called to integrate in creation the following perspectives of the physical world: scientific, symbolic and religious. It offers a vision that makes it possible to understand the world not only as a natural place of human existence, but also as an expression of love, wisdom, power, greatness and beauty of God, a world in which it is possible to encounter God as the foundation, and our brothers and sisters, helping them feel welcome and loved.
3. That Franciscan Education leads to a genuine “ecological conversion” and the true “environmental justice” based on the values of expropriation, respect and solidarity of the distribution of natural assets.
4. That in Franciscan Education, Francis of Assisi is presented as a model of man who had reconciled with nature, with God, others and himself so much so that his greeting of “Pace et Bene”, “Peace and Good” has become a universal motto. Thus, the “spirit of Assisi” initiated by Pope John Paul II at the end of the 20^th century, has dynamics of peace and dialogue among world religions, is an educated platform to educate to the horizontal level the value of peace which is the basis of a real and actual Christian humanism. Peace then, although is a gift of the Kingdom, is a task and a social responsibility of believers and all persons of goodwill.
5. That Franciscan pedagogy or art of teaching develops the relationship with the God revealed by Jesus and lived by St. Francis. Therefore, it promotes a genuine and deep personal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in an alliance of communion that takes the whole person, body, mind, heart and soul.
6. That Franciscan Education offers adequate mediation to a pupil or a student in school so that he could be able to know his inner self accept it with serenity. This deep knowledge of self favors a genuine love for oneself and true self esteem that helps to avoid a situation that can lead to a narcissist or pessimistic and hostile situation towards self.
7. That in students’ educational journey with teachers’ accompaniment, meeting and talking are the main mediations. This is a dialogue that involves the respected acceptance of the mystery of other person, trusted listening and emphatic understanding of each situation. It is a trust that will certainly grow with time and allows a clear discernment and a good evaluation of the different moments of the educational process.
8. That Franciscan Charism is embodied “in the concrete reality of each culture and time in which we live”. Under this condition, Franciscan Education develops a harmonious and progressive process of various aspects that involve the concept of person as relation, oneness and integral unity. A process where a person has the leadership, the ultimate responsibility and decisive action of his own education.
9. That Lay Teachers are primarily educators / formators and their educational work goes beyond simple transmission of knowledge. This awareness undertakes to guide the students toward truth and goodness by means of knowledge and the practice of human, Christian and Franciscan values, being faithful witnesses for them.
10. That Franciscan Education, in order to articulate faith with culture, makes us of various educational means, among them of utmost importance are that Institution’s Educational life Project, on-going spiritual formation of educators, and the appropriate facilities of the entity that own this educational institution.

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This is it for now. Have nice week everyone! Ciao!

Doing something good

(This column appears in today's edition of the Leyte-Samar Daily Express)

Hi there! It’s a new week. And we are a month away to the Calbayog City fiesta. Nope, I was not thinking of “The Sound of Music” when I came up with today’s title. That’s what came to mind when I decided to devote today’s column to the Bahandi Samarnon Awards held recently at Christ the King College.

And my take on the recent (news) developments? So Koko is set for his oath as the new member of the Senate, or so said some news reports. Welcome to the club who are enthusiasts of everything investigatory. Oops, me and mouth!

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The Bahandi Samarnon Awards. A good number of the members of the Gomez family were at the Frs. David and Leopold Auditorium at Christ the King College last Friday. They were on hand for the 1^st Bahandi Samarnon Award.

The award committee headed by Dr. Francie Santos identified the late maestro Jose Gomez as the first recipient of the award. Jobart Gomez, a grandson of Jose Gomez was delivered the acceptance speech. I’ll feature that speech in this column next week.

In her welcome message, Dr. Santos informed the guests that the award aims to acknowledge the sons and daughters of Samar who have excelled in the field of the arts; and later, there will also be recognition for other fields.

Seen at the event were Fr. Marcelo Tubac, ofm, Mrs. Edita Paculan, Agueda and Intoy Chan, Pio Santos, Jerry Perol (of Metrobank Calbayog), Chat Gonzaga, among others. Also present was Fr. Marlowe Rosales, ofm who conducted the CKC Youth Symphony Orchestra who performed some Jose Gomez pieces.

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Mayor Aquino was invited to deliver a message during the Awarding Ceremony. However an equally important engagement prevented him from making it to Calbayog in time for the program. He requested me to read his message parts of which I would like to share with you today:

“…the Franciscan community should be commended for this worthy but challenging undertaking. Achievement Awards are so many that it runs the risk of being a commonplace. But in this case, in the case of the Bahandi Samarnon Awards, it is nice to note to have a group of Samarnon acknowledge the achievements of their fellow Samarnon. It should not take outsiders to acknowledge what good there is that is being done in Samar. It should not take outsiders to acknowledge what great achievers, what great people there are in Samar. Before we look far and wide, let us look upon ourselves for examples worthy of emulation. There should be so many of them just lurking around.”

“Now a question: Where can this Award find its significance? In this world characterized by political bickering, economic difficulties and what have you, don’t you think we should be looking at how we can help alleviate or reduce the incidence of poverty, maintain peace and order and provide decent jobs to our fellowmen? And let us not even start discussing about caring for the environment. That almost sorry scenario is exactly where this Bahandi Samarnon Award will find its significance. This is exactly where this activity finds its proper place. This ceremony calls for us to be able to do something good; or at least to manifest our ability to do something good out of the dire conditions. This is manifested by the life of the first awardee which the award committee has selected for tonight. He serves as both an inspiration and a call to action.”

“Jose Cinco Gomez. No need to recall details about his life. No need to memorize the titles of his works. The name speaks for itself. But then, knowing his name and his person is not enough to honor to the man who has contributed much to the development of music in Samar.”

“It is proper that we honor Jose Gomez. It is proper that we respect the works of Jose Gomez. But after taking a close look at the life story of this man, he deserves more than just us memorizing the lyrics of “Calbayog”; more than just us tapping to the vibrant beat of “Kamote”; and more than just us being familiar with lively tunes of his Samareno folk songs. The life and times and the works of Jose Gomez tell us two things: to be proud of our heritage; and to cultivate the hero in each of us. The times might have changed, but the call for us to be of service to our fellowmen and to be good sons and daughters of Samar remains. Like Jose Gomez, let us look beyond our mundane concerns in life. We have our own capabilities and abilities that can make a difference. Nobody among us is too small so as not to be able to do something for our beloved Samar.”

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Greetings: Happy Birthday Congressman Mel Sarmiento. He will turn a year older on Thursday.

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This is it for now. Let me give you something to think about this weekend. It’s from Plato: “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”

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Have a nice week everyone! Ciao!