DESPITE THE ordeal we had to go through to get there (as I recounted here last week), Beng and I had a great time in Dumaguete with the fellows and staff of the Summer Writers Workshop, now lodged once again with Silliman University.
This year’s fellows were Lawrence Anthony Rivera Bernabe (UP Visayas), Noelle Leslie G. dela Cruz (De La Salle University), Ma. Celeste T. Fusilero (Ateneo de Davao), Rodrigo Dela Peña (London PR Consultancy, Dumaguete), Arelene Jaguit Yandug (Xavier University), Bron Joseph C. Teves (Silliman University), Marguerite Alcarazen de Leon (Ateneo de Manila University), Dustin Edward Celestino (UP Diliman), Joshua L. Lim So (De La Salle University), Liza Baccay (Cebu Daily News), Fred Jordan Mikhail T. Carnice (Silliman University), Ma. Elena L. Paulma (Xavier University), Anna Carmela P. Tolentino (De La Salle University), and Lamberto M. Varias, Jr. (UP Diliman).
Arriving midway through the three-week workshop, we caught up with the fellows frolicking on a break at Antulang Beach, a first-class resort about an hour out of Dumaguete. The ride’s worth it, because of the spectacular ocean view over an infinity pool, and the tastefully appointed cottages and cabanas available to the harried weekender.
The workshop itself proved fruitful, with National Artist Edith L. Tiempo and her daughter Rowena providing the fellows with a taste of what it was like in the old days, when the Tiempos held forth on “objective correlatives” and other notions that critics today may find outdated but which, to creative writers, make intuitive and everlasting sense.
Over dinner hosted by SU President Ben Malayang, we were assured of the university’s continuing support for the workshop, and of Ben’s own commitment to liberal education—to ensuring that all SU graduates, be they writers, nurses, or mathematicians, get a proper grounding in the humanities. I’m confident that, with sustained cooperation and consultation between SU and the writers who’ve kept this endeavor alive since 1962, the Dumaguete writers’ workshop will remain an indispensable guidepost in the development of the Filipino writer in English.
ANOTHER PLEASANT discovery in Dumaguete was Bethel Guest House, a relatively new hotel on Rizal Boulevard facing the bay. In years past, we’d favored staying at the South Seas on the other side of campus, because of its seaside location and its poolside rooms (and, for inveterate smoker-friends Krip Yuson and Jimmy Abad, its liberal smoking and drinking policy). But last summer we were disappointed by the creeping shabbiness of the lodgings and the slowness of the restaurant service, so Beng and I decided to try out Bethel—which, to begin with, cost half the South Seas’ tariff, and was much more centrally located.
Run by Christian owners (thus a strict no-smoking and no-liquor edict in the rooms, no great loss to me), Bethel turned out to be cleaner and quieter than most hospitals, with all the amenities you can expect from a modern hotel: air-conditioning, cable TV, and, boon of all boons, wi-fi on all the floors (not free, but cheap at P100 for five interruptible hours). The ground-floor cafeteria looked out on the sparkling bay; the food was good and reasonably priced. The staff was smart and courteous, handling our requests for a late checkout and airport transfer with a smile. On every floor was a balcony that hovered over Rizal Avenue and a view of the bay. That prospect alone was worth all the trouble of getting there.
I WROTE in praise of painter Jason Moss a few weeks ago, forgetting that I had another talented painter to recommend to my readers, one to whom I had an even more personal connection: my second cousin Lotsu (yes, that’s his name) Manes, a former winner (in 1996) of the Shell Art Competition and a prime exemplar of the realist tradition brought up to date.
I knew Lotsu (or “Nonong,” as we more prosaically call him) since he was a shirtless kid with a play trowel and a bucket in Romblon, and—as an artist of another sort—I‘ve been very happy to see him come into his own as a serious painter devoted to his craft, aside from being a doting father and husband. When Beng and I decided to leave our house in San Mateo, we turned it over to Nonong for his use as a studio, and the last time I visited there, after an absence of many years, I was glad to see the evidence of his labors. An abandoned house taken over by an artist is never wasted; it becomes decrepit only as a cocoon is later shredded; new wonders and beauties are birthed, even in grime.
You can see some of those wonders in Nonong’s second one-man show titled “Kamunduhan” (at Blanc, 2E Crown Tower, H. V. de la Costa, Salcedo Village, Makati, running until May 31). Let me quote from the catalog notes, written by Karen Ocampo Flores, to give you a sharper idea of Manes’ work:
“Manes’ figuration is borne of careful skill and keen sensitivity to light, shade and color. These are the basic demands of traditional realism, which he manages to honor and subvert with his subtle iconography. By utilizing realism’s power to unravel iconic scenarios from everyday objects, Manes attempts to fuse two perspectives: the sundry of domesticity as seen by a typical father, and the musings of an observer of social realities partly distilled from mass media.
“This play on reality is conveyed quite literally with a thing common to nurseries and classrooms: the inflatable globe, that piece of plastic used as representation of the world. A child easily encounters the twin functions of this object altogether: it is both a teaching tool for the rudiments of geography, and a plaything for all sorts of imaginings. Truly a laudable invention for the stimulation of left and right brain functions. This model world and its presence in his home provide for Manes opportune ways to expand the specific into generic models of positions and situations that not only bespeak of global affairs but about human behavior in general.”