Routes
Villanueva, Gengos, Treñas, Magos, Muyco, Gentoral, Deriada, etc
Watching my flu from fatigue and rain, I attended Crispin Salcedo Villanueva's visual arts exhibit "Compared to What" opening at Museo de Iloilo, last Friday evening, August 11. Cris won the 2005 Grand Prize of Phillip Morris' Philippine Arts Awards for his entry "Something is Lost. Something is Found -- a work I would personally consider an extreme minimal abstraction and as such is something I can identify with or give high appreciation to. "Compared..." is retrospective. The earliest work is a realist seascape with a 1970 signature.
Pensive of several other things, I came to the museum. My co-researcher Victor Prodigo and I have been on a tight schedule for correspondence for our invitations to three international scientific conferences, all on the latter dates of this year. We have been invited to present two (but will have six published) screened and accepted papers to the 4th Biennial International Conference by the International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) in Adelaide, Australia, three to the 2006 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change in Berlin Germany, and two to the International Seminar-Workshop on Integrated Water Resources Management by the Sustainable Resource Development (SURED) at UP Diliman.
During the viewing, I found myself huddled with Special Program for the Arts alumni Hansel Gubatayao, Ilya Salveron (now nursing students), Ivan Andrada and Rene Sarabia (now advertising students). Near the Atis section, I related to them the Panubok Festival and the opening of the Panay indigenous Bukidnon school for living tradition in Tapaz, Capiz, a Saturday ago. They were excited (especially Hansel and Ivan) to get for themselves some (hand-embroidered) tinuboks with brown butterfly designs. Panubok was organized by anthropologist Dr. Alice Magos, avant-garde composer Prof. Christine Muyco, and very accommodating Local Chief Executive Dr. Eduardo Exmundo. It was supported by the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). I expect Panubok to further institutionalize the preservation of the tribe's heritage through educative tourism.
At the "Darn that Dream" seven-piece collective mount, I had a quick conversation with Atty. Vicente "Benjie" Gengos, Jr and Dr. Kristin Treñas. I can remember these two of the professional sector as among the first visible and palpable protesters in People Power 2.
Gengos, I can recall, is the only elective official whose name has never been insinuated in the controversy-ridden Iloilo City Housing Project in Pavia. Many iterate that, like Mayor Treñas', Gengos' service and honesty in governance is very much needed by Iloilo City. I heard that Pavia Mayor Arcadio Gorriceta does not feel good to hear the project called the Pavia Housing Project because it is not Pavia's, he stresses. I will try to check that in the next Metropolitan Iloilo Development Council (MIDC) Mayors' Meeting with the Technical Working Group (TWG).
In the most recent MIDC forum, the State of Local Governance Report (SLGR) presented by Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) Associate Romona Gananathan, public-private partnership in development cooperation was found to be working well in Iloilo City and in the partner municipalities of Pavia and Leganes. It was found to need strengthening in the partner municipalities of Oton and San Miguel. The issue was promptly noted and given proposed due action by the articulate CUI Program Manager Francis Gentoral.
I have to set the cover of my Hiligaynon poems book manuscript, which won the 2006 Libro Agustino Competitive Book Grant. I have to complete the NCCA grant application for the book of Hiligaynon songs I wrote with Dr. Romulo Pangan. I have to come up with articles for this column I have missed for a couple of weeks. These, etc. "State those!" Dr. Leoncio Deriada, acclaimed Father of Contemporary West Visayan Literature would advise. Sir Leo would often talk about people and, at times, about the eccentricities of these when he wants to relax a little.
How will I divide the clock? How did I divide the clock when I was on three eight-hour shifts as purchaser and cashier for the construction of a building of a presidential emissary barkada-bosing? I used a baby M-16!
This time, I would, instead, listen to my Franciscan Missions guide Vic Fario: "Unify and express yourself on God's canvass. Attend and assist me in our prayer meetings with the informal settlers on the foreshore communities."