The Cecile and Alban Show

From music writer Pablo Tariman comes this announcement about the cello and piano events of the year.


CECILE LICAD, piano
ALBAN GERHARDT, cello
In a duo debut recital
Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater, Sept. 15, 2009, 8 p.m.

Program: Beethoven’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in A, Op. 69; Beethoven’s Cello Sonata 5, No. 2 in G Minor; Janacek’s Fairy Tales (1923 version) and a Prokofiev sonata


Program on Sept. 16, 2009 with the Philippine Philhamonic Orchestra under Oscar Yatco

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major

Andante; allegro
Theme and Variations
Allegro ma non troppo

Cecile Licad, piano

Tchaikovsky’s Roccoco Variations

Alban Gerhardt, cello

Proceeds of the concert will go to the projects of the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines.

Tickets prices:
Orchestra Center and Left: P3,000
Orchestra Right: P2000
Balcony 1 Center: P1,000
Balcony 1 Left: P500
Balcony 1 Right: P500
Balcony 2 Center: P300
Balcony 2 Left and Right: P200

For ticket inquiries, call tel. 357-3811 or text/call cell phone no. 0906-510-4270.

Photo of the cellist courtesy of Mr. Tariman

Behold the Woman

I wish I had written or said this.

Quote of the day: "Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit."

My Boy Carlo

How Carlo Jose Lolarga Trinidad became CJ today I haven’t quite figured out. I guess he TRANSFORMED! That’s the only answer I can think of. When he came into our lives in 1979, I called him by many names like Moopsie, Carlo Warlo, Carl and other forms of endearment that only a doting aunt-godmother could think of. When my own kids were grown, they wondered why I liked giving him personal hygiene products (men’s deodorant mainly) as my Christmas gift. It was for the pleasure of writing on the card the message “Keep on rolling, Carlo Warlo!” Here’s the boy as a boy with his toys some of which are collector’s items and are part of the roving exhibition of "Transformers" robots at different malls in Metro Manila. Keep on rolling, CJ!

Here is the rest of the toy exhibit schedule:
June 20-21 : SM North Edsa (Sky Dome)
June 20 : Robinson's Galleria
June 21 : Shangri-La Mall

June 26 : Mall of Asia

June 27-28 : Robinson's Galleria
June 28 : SM Megamall
June 28 : Glorietta 3

This is a project of Cybertron Philippines and Solar-UIP. Display cabinets will feature Transformers and G.I. Joe collectibles

Bayan Ko in English

With the kind permission of poet Edgar B. Maranan, I'm reproducing his English translation of the nationalist's favorite, "Bayan Ko."

Bayan Ko (1929)

(Lyrics by Jose Corazon de Jesus, music by Constancio de Guzman)



Ang bayan kong Pilipinas

Lupain ng ginto’t bulaklak

Pag-ibig ang sa kanyang palad

Nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag

At sa kanyang yumi at ganda

Dayuhan ay nahalina

Bayan ko, binihag ka,

Nasadlak sa dusa.



Ibong mang may layang lumipad

Kulungin mo at umiiyak

Bayan pa kayang sakdal dilag

Ang di magnasang makaalpas!

Pilipinas kong minumutya

Pugad ng luha ko’t dalita…

Aking adhika

Makita kang sakdal laya!




In the book Bayan Ko! Images of the Philippine Revolt, published soon after the “People Power EDSA Revolution” of 1986, an English version of the song accompanies the original Filipino lyrics of Jose Corazon de Jesus. This translation by Ed Maranan -- with the title My Country -- is different from other existing translations because it can be sung in English, following the melodic line of composer Constancio de Guzman. A revised version of the translation appears in Dream Chasers, the Grade V reader in Anvil Publishing’s Our World of Reading series.




My Country (1986)



Philippines, my country, my homeland

Gold and flowers in her heart abound

Blessings on her fate did love bestow

Sweet beauty's grace and splendor's glow.

How her charms so kind and tender

Drove the stranger to desire her...

Land of mine, in fetters kept,

You suffered as we wept.



Birds that freely claim the skies to fly

When imprisoned mourn, protest and cry!

How more deeply will a land most fair

Yearn to break the chains of sad despair.

Philippines, my life's sole burning fire,

Cradle of my tears, my misery...

All that I desire

To see you rise, forever free!

Open Letter to a Young Director

Dear Raya,

Your tita has to get these things off her chest before she risks those unhealthy things that happen when one “holds a fart in,” as the expression goes.

Yesterday morning , maybe at the hour you just arrived from Europe, I left Pasig City for Bataan on a community outreach project and made sure I could hitch a ride back to Mandaluyong City so I had enough lead time to line up for the 8 p.m. screening of your much-lauded Independencia.

I arrived at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall at a little after 4 p.m. There was a reasonably long queue already for your film. I felt immediately happy for you. I asked a fellow to save my space while I ordered something to eat at a snack bar.

The long and short of it is I totally lost it at some point during those four hours that I and a couple of hundreds of others did who patiently expected we could get in because we were there bright and early.

My understanding of independent cinema—forgive me if the definitions have changed during the past months, I’ve not managed to keep up, being situated most of the time in Baguio where we are not as privileged as Metro Manilans and, yeah, Europeans to catch indie films—is that it is an alternative to the kababuyan and superficiality of flicks churned out by the mainstream. What is more, indie filmmakers are supposedly respectful of their audience. And to produce and direct one, you just need a handful of committed staff and crew members, say 20 or 50 max (?), who share your vision.

Imagine my surprise when Martin Macalintal, who helped organize the French film festival still ongoing at the Shang, told us les girls seated by a coffee bar that 200 of the 290-something seats in the theater where Independencia was going to be shown were already reserved by the producer, Arleen Cuevas. And that these reservations were all confirmed. He had hoped that your producer would at least give due notice if even half of those seats would not be used so these could be freed and more people could be let in. I couldn’t help muttering aloud, “Is that producer Chinese?” No racial slur intended, but those were the first words that came out of my mouth.

Two hundred seats, Raya? She might as well have rented the entire cinema and called for a private screening. Why announce in the papers that there would be this screening of Independencia open to the public at that hour?

When finally the ticket booth opened at 6 p.m., only 20 people were allowed in. There was audible booing. Others just shrugged and called it a day. But there were still a sizable number of people who complained. The more enterprising others decided to contact whoever they felt malakas to in order to get in.

Soon there was this woman in black with shoulder-length hair accompanied by a man with a bullhorn who introduced her as “the producer.” As I quietly fumed on my seat—couldn’t get up because of tender left ankle from a slowly healing sprain and an arthritic right knee—my friends overhead her or her male companion say that sorry lang ang masasabi nila.

An angry mob was forming. Some threatened to blockade the entrance to Cinema 3. Before long, the lady in black announced that she had decided to free, perhaps from the goodness of her heart, those 200 tickets. People, who earlier dispersed, formed another queue which moved rapidly enough towards the girl at the ticket booth until again the tickets available ran out.

The lady in black, who was getting all the flack from outraged people like myself, should have seen that there was a huge hopeful crowd wanting to see a fulsomely praised film by the Philippines’ latest wunderkind. And since money at the box office is not an issue here, she should have quickly made an executive decision with approval from the Shang’s management that an extra screening be allowed.

Which apparently was what happened—another show time that same night was announced through SMS messaging with the tentative words “baka magka 2nd screening arnd 930. 1 hr 20 min lang ang film.”

I didn’t stick around anymore. That afternoon, a dear friend had just gifted me with CDs of Art Garfunkel, Julie Andrews and Carly Simon singing standards, and the rest of what looked like a wasted evening at the mall could still be redeemed. I went home and plugged in a pair of earphones.

Later, friends called up to report that there were three lines that formed outside Cinema 3 for your 8 p.m. screening: one line for those with reserved seats like family members, family friends, including a National Artist, actors like Alessandra de Rossi, etc. The second line was for those lucky to get the tickets let go by the lady in black. The third was for the waitlisted—if there were still vacant seats after the people in the first two lines were accommodated, the rest of those not privileged to be anak ng Diyos would be let in.

Again I point out a vital issue here, Raya. Are we living in a democracy, or are you
or your producer condoning another permutation of elitism? This had to happen on the country's 111th Independence Day, an independence gained after the waging of a revolution whose ideals were guided by the French Revolution. But let us not even get into that.

I’m still hoping to catch Independencia at some other venue, and since I have only reviews from foreigners to guide me, I’m also hoping that it is as good as they say it is. As a friend, who’s a master of irony and sarcasm combined, said, “The film can’t be as great as a Mayakovsky poem, can it? Or even an Ishmael Bernal ouevre?”

Yon lang naman.

From your concerned tita

Frankie and Tessie in the Clair de Lune

Tuesday was one of those crazy-daisy days. But its staccato beat went andante when I ran into Frankie and Tessie Jose on the ground level of the Shangri-La Plaza. He had his cane. I had mine. He wore a transparent plastic eye patch over his right eye. The ever solicitous Tessie said, “Let have coffee,” our code over the years for “Let’s catch up.”

The Joses have always been Frankie and Tessie to me. They never made me feel that I had to address them with honorifics like “Sir” or “Ma’am,” “Mister” or “Missus.” We met when I was a college sophomore who’d occasionally pop in at the top floor of their Solidaridad Book Shop in Ermita, Manila, after I'd read a newspaper announcement about a visiting writer. The first time I climbed the stairs to that floor was when a Russian poet blew into town. On the way to the book store’s literary soiree, Rolando Tinio, who accompanied the visitor in a car, rapidly did an on-the-spot translation from English to Filipino of the poet’s work. With no rehearsal, Tinio read aloud the poem feelingly as only a poem ought to be read before an audience of about a dozen people.

Back to the Joses. Because Frankie and I were hobbling with our canes and a cataract had just been removed from his right eye, Tessie offered to join the Starbucks queue to get our orders—he for an espresso, me for a regular. His first question was: “What have you been writing?” I rolled my eyes and said, “Potboilers here and there.” He smiled, saying, “No matter, you’re still writing, and that’s good.”

“Any new poetry?” Frankie asked as a waiter brought our orders. I poured milk into my cup, averting my eyes when I answered, “A few, all fits and false starts.”

He told me to get a copy of the latest Free Press magazine. He read a poem, he wasn’t sure of the poet, by a certain Sunico. “You must be referring to Rayvi,” I said. “Raul is the pianist, the dean of the UST College of Music.”

Frankie got the little jug of remaining warm milk and poured the contents of his espresso paper cup into the jug, then re-poured the new mixture back into the cup. He was sure it was Raul the pianist, not Ramon the poet-book designer, who wrote the poem. Frankie praised the poem's innate musicality. It was like reading something by W.H. Auden, he added.

He has always watched out for rhyme, including interior rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonance, etc., in the poems that he reads. He is frustrated with a retired Ateneo professor’s books of poetry. I played Devil’s Advocate, saying that the prof is a musicologist. I told Frankie of once dropping by the prof’s modest Quezon City apartment in the 1980s, and hearing a Beethoven concerto playing full blast in his stereo.

“Nevertheless, he is tone deaf when it comes to his poems!” Frankie insisted.

He admires certain Filipino poets in English, prefacing his remarks with “But this is only as far as the boys are concerned.” Topping his list is Cirilo Bautista followed by Krip Yuson, Gemino Abad and “that fellow from Davao,” Frankie shook his head, trying to recall Ricky de Ungria’s name which I uttered.

“Don’t you read any of the guys who write in Filipino?” I asked.

Frankie’s answer was whenever he listened to Bienvenido Lumbera speak in Filipino, he would tell this other National Artist that he (Frankie) couldn’t understand what Dr. Lumbera was saying. “I tell him, how come when it’s Jun Cruz Reyes who’s talking, I get him? And Bien would only laugh.”

Frankie struggled with reading Lope K. Santos’ Banaag at Sikat but thoroughly enjoyed Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada ’70. He once asked a Liwayway editor in the ’60s or ’70s to compile the best short stories published in the magazine for a number of years , and he'd publish them.

Frankie was disappointed with the compilation submitted to him. “They all had O. Henry type of endings! Was that what Filipino writing all about?” he asked.
He continued, “You must remember, Babeth, that I arrived in Manila from the province in 1938 with no knowledge of Tagalog.” He learned his Tagalog along with way.

He hectored on other topics still close to literary shop talk until we drained our coffee. Tessie stepped out to buy load for her cell phone so she could call the driver. Before long, we said our goodbyes, and in my mind, as Frankie walked slowly with his cane toward the waiting car, was a memory of him taking young reporter Babeth in a midnight spin in his sedan with him at the wheel singing along to the soundtrack of The King and I.

Photo of F. Sionil Jose by JULIO SAMBAJON from Howie Severino’s blog

Number Crunching Time

How does Einosuke Rudy Furuya love Baguio? Let us count the ways. A full-blooded Japanese born and raised in the highland city until his family was repatriated to Japan in 1945, Furuya, 75, still considers Baguio his true hometown. He has spent several decades away from it working as a commercial photographer in Yokohama.

For his solo picture show at The Gallery of SM City Baguio, he presents his affection for the place that continues to haunt his dreams. His subject for this second of his “Sense of Baguio” series is numbers. This is his unique way of doing a countdown toward Baguio’s centennial as a chartered city, to be formally marked on Sept. 1 this year.

In her introduction to the exhibition, curator Patricia Okubo Afable wrote: “Furuya brings us the fruits of three years of perambulations through Baguio, past familiar gateways, hidden portals and discreetly-announced welcomes. (His) work takes the pleasures and accomplishment you get from counting and amplifies them. While historians think ‘chronology’ and demagogues point to ‘progress,’ he playfully shrinks Baguio’s past one hundred years into images of numerals. In each house number, stamped label, or hand-lettered mark, Furuya collapses time and place. Then he captures for us, in the sign maker’s momentous claim to identity, our daily striving for privacy, for belonging, and for personal art.”

The numbers are a throwback to Furuya’s innate shyness. As a boy holding a camera at age 10, he was ashamed of taking pictures of people so his first subjects were still life of stones, flowers, grass, other facets and parts of nature that early pre-war Baguio had plenty of.

Furuya said in a message at the exhibit’s opening, “The unique numbers that I found in various corners of town are more than simple numbers. They stand for personalities in a city that is very close to my heart. For this Baguio boy, they represent kinsmen and friends in the land where I was born. I have returned here in quest for these numbers... It has been like seeking old friends to talk to and exchange feelings with.”

Shooting with natural light, he zeroes in on numbers not just attached to gates or doors of private homes and buildings but numbers on the saddle of a horse, most possibly at Wright Park. But the sense of Baguio-ness is ever present.

Furuya said, “As I’m growing older, the more I love Baguio. That’s how important a birthplace is. If I had been born in Mindanao or Manila, I wouldn’t think of Baguio so much. But Baguio is so beautiful and wonderful. It is quite different from before. However it changes, it is still my Baguio.”

“Keeping Count, Homing In,” Rudy Furuya’s exhibition of 120 photos celebrating the Baguio centennial, is still on at The Gallery, SM City Baguio, until June 14. The exhibit will move to the Bencab Museum on Asin Road during the month of September as the museum's offering for centennial month.

All photos by RUDY FURUYA

A shorter version of this article appears in the June 10, 2009, issue of Philippine Daily Inquirer, Northern Luzon Supplement.

The Near, the Dear Jacqui Magno

How wonderful to listen to jazz, at last, in a cool, enclosed space. Because of a strict anti-smoking ordinance in Makati City, there was no cigarette smoke fogging up Merk’s Bar/Bistro in Greenbelt. Nor were there distractive customers chatting away while the performers of the caliber of Richard Merk and Jacqui Magno did their thing.

A great noblesse oblige gesture Richard did by being the front act of the still magnificent Jacqui. She was stalled by traffic caused by the on-and-off downpour Wednesday night. The audience of jazz aficionados waited for her and drank bottle after bottle of their favorite poison.

Richard, seated on a stool to forget the pain caused by a sprained toe, set the mood right away with songs I have not heard sung live for quite some time: “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” “A Foggy Day,” “It Had to Be You,” the even more rarely heard “It Could Happen to You,” the theme from the Nicholas Cage-Bridget Fonda romantic comedy of the same title, “Laura,” “Lullabye of Birdland,” “C’est si Bon” and “All of Me.”

I might’ve missed a song or two because my friend Anna Leah Sarabia and I came in a little past 9 p.m. Nevertheless, Richard’s unrehearsed asides about the songs were informative. The ballad “Laura” had been interpreted by Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett before and Richard surmised that this mysterious woman must’ve been so special based on the lyrics alone: “the face in the misty light,” “she gave her very last kiss to me—that was Laura but she’s only a dream.” He found it ironic that one so special should turn out to be just a dream.

Anna looked around us and saw a couple of children. “You see,” she said, “jazz is now considered safe music. You can bring along your kids and dance.”

When Jacqui strode onstage in her fuchsia and black caftan, there was no taking our eyes off her. Talk about stage presence. And all those eight de-lovely songs she meltingly interpreted! I almost swatted away an old classmate from my St. Paul College days who suddenly re-introduced herself and was eager to chat—she got in the way of my fuller appreciation of Jacqui’s “Here’s That Rainy Day.” Some other day, Jojo Juan.

And on to “Gingie,” a snappy, danceable “Fool on the Hill” accompanied with scatting, her signature “Bridges,” which, according to Anna, the singer used to close her club gigs at Birds of the Same Feather, “Evergreen,” “Our Love is Here to Stay,” “The Very Thought of You” and “How High the Moon.”

In “Our Love is Here to Stay,” Jacqui improvised a couple of times to update the song a bit: “…every IPod and the movies that we know are just a passing fancy and in time they go…”

The weather that night was, as she accurately observed, great for "snuggling, spooning, crooning or just reading a book." Not for me though. I was infected with the second-to-the-last and the last song syndrome all the way home.

Jacqui returns to Merk's, Greenbelt 3, on June 17. It's Pat Castillo's night on June 10. Expect two middle-aged groupies to again sip their vodka while nodding their heads to the beat of jazz.