THE Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) — through its Cultural Exchange Department (CED) — and the Philippine Madrigal Singers (MADz), through the Andrea O. Veneracion Sing Philippines Foundation Inc. (AOVSPFI), hold a regional music camp with outreach concerts. Featuring the Sing Philippines Youth Choir (SPYC) tour group of 2019-2020, the successful event was in partnership with Batangas City, one of CCP’s Kaisa sa Sining Regional Arts Center in Luzon.

Composed of 40 singers selected from SPYC batches 1 to 3, the SPYC tour group members come from 24 provinces/communities all over the country.

The week-long music camp in Batangas City, which is the Luzon leg, include sessions on singing and breathing techniques, enhancing capabilities of the singer and enabling them to contribute strongly to their respective voice sections.

The pool of trainers is led by MADz choirmaster Mark Anthony Carpio together with MADz alumni UP Department of Voice Music Theater and Dance Chairman Cecilia Valeña, bass-baritone Emerson Flores and MADz Executive Director Alfred Allan Samonte.

The outreach concerts were held at the Batangas City Convention Center on Saturday at 5 p.m. and the covered court of Barangay Iligan, Batangas City on August 23 at 3 p.m.

The SPYC project was launched in June 2014 by the MADz and the CCP CED.

To date, the SPYC has 155 choristers/members from 72 provinces/local communities across the country.

The Sing Philippines movement brings to life the vision of National Artist and MADz founder Andrea Veneracion of a nation singing in harmony and united in songs.

The next strategic goal of the SPYC organizers is to further advance the music training (through music camps in the regions) of a pre-auditioned group from the three batches; present them in local outreach performances this year, in an international concert tour in 2020; and finally have them participate in one of the prestigious choral competitions in Europe in 2020.

Preparations for the Visayas and Mindanao legs of the music camp are underway.

For a moment in her life, Shawi Cortez was stuck. For 20 years, she was helping out with the family business which was operating a cable TV system in Northern Luzon and Cavite.

In the midst of that Shawi constantly felt like she was in the wrong place.

“There were certain moments in my career that I felt like I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. The tasks became burdensome and there was no joy. I knew in my heart that if I did not do something I was passionate about then my life would be meaningless,” she said.

This was when Shawi realized that she needed to do something that she loved and was good at. Ironically enough, Shawi, who graduated with a degree in Business, has always been passionate about teaching.

“Teaching and training was kind of a God-given gift so I was naturally always geared toward Education. When I started the search for my calling, these were the themes that came to mind: education, children, nature, and outdoors.”

Just as the famous quote would say, once you have decided on something that you love, the Universe suddenly moves in your favor, it was during her search that Shawi stumbled upon a forest kindergarten on social media and something inside of her came alive, “Something just clicked and I knew this was something that I wanted to pursue.”

Shawi soon pursued her dream and lea

Forest School Philippines aims to teach kids independence through its famed nature walks where kids go in nature to observe, meet new friends, and just be who they are. It provides an avenue for children to trust their instincts, ask important questions and discover the world in a unique and independent way.

“I was stuck for most of my career life and I do not want anyone to experience that. I am passionate about unlocking people’s geniuses so they live their lives doing what they are meant to be doing,” she related.

“The sessions are child-led. The students take charge of their own learning through unstructured play. The school leaders and coaches (we do not call ourselves teachers) are in the background and do not meddle with their learning. They are free to explore the forest and choose what activities they want to do for the day. Even our conversations are unstructured, we often ask them, ‘what do you think?’,” she explained what the aim of Forest School Philippines is.

The concept is to let the children be confident enough in their abilities by giving them the tools that they need to succeed.

“They need help getting dressed? We do not dress them up, we show them parts of the shirt. They need to cross the stream? We do not carry them, we show them where they step. These tiny opportunities of letting them think, letting them feel and letting them experience sets them up for the future,” she qualified how children are taught the ropes.

“When they are given the power to decide, they become responsible for that choice. They get to know themselves and know that they are capable of doing bigger tasks. That is how their confidence is built. And when they grow up confident, there is no limit to what they can do for themselves and the world,” Shawi emphasized.

She also said how this experience can help them face the challenges of life.

“A child who is confident and can speak up prepares him for the highs and lows of life. A confident and independent child can stand up to issues like bullying and peer pressures that children face when they grow older.”

Today, Forest School Philippines is thriving in Cavite and has seen many success stories from her students but Shawi wishes for more of the Philippines to experience this unconventional approach to learning.

“I know it’s a long way to go but we take it one child at a time,” she said.

When asked what keeps her going, she answered, “Aside from the assurance that this is what I have been called to do, it would be knowing that I am helping a child discover his capabilities. When a child knows what he wants and can think for himself then he won’t have to waste his adult years pleasing other people. He can live a life of his own and others through his unique gift and geniuses.”

It looks like now, with the vigor of a Forest School Leader, Shawi Cortez is charging on to the future.

And the best part about it? She is developing a whole new generation that is forging along with her.

Visit forestschoolphilippines.com for more information.

The strongest affection that binds humans is believed to be this wondrous thing called love.

Yet, countless times love is also known to have brought heartbreaks to many. This seemingly dark side of love has caused some to doubt if it is worth loving at all.

Unrequited love is rather common between the sexes. Even long-time lovers can find love slipping through their fingers. Love can wane unexpectedly. Thus, heartbroken lovers grieve over failed relationships, failed romances and failed marriages. To them love is something that, by its fleeting nature, is doomed to fail. It is but a beautiful bubble that could burst anytime.

So, when Paul the Christian apostle stated that “Love never fails,” was he exaggerating the power of love, or was he ignorant of the reality of so many broken hearts?

Love that never fails
Interestingly, the Greeks have defined love in distinct forms. Eros is the attraction between the sexes. Storge is the love among blood relatives. Philea is love among friends.

Agape, though, is considered the most ideal and the most desirable affection. It goes beyond strong liking arising from having a common race, nationality, culture, and the same interests and creeds. It is said to be grounded on values and principles. At its best, agape can move one to give his own life for the sake of another.

Paul described agape this way: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not keep account of the injury. It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthans 13: 4 – 8)

Why unfailing
Patient and kind. “True love waits,” goes one old song. It could not have referred to eros or romantic love. Eros in many examples proves to be largely selfish love. “It’s now or never . . . so love me tonight,” blurts another popular song. It apparently expresses a strong desire for a ‘one nightstand.”

On the other hand, agape is inherently patient; it is willing to wait out adversities for the best interests of the one loved.

Not jealous, bragging and puffed up. Agape, being unselfish, does not get jealous of another. It is devoid of egoistic pride, an overestimation of one’s true worth.

Does not look for its own interests. Agape love is basically ‘others-minded’, not wrapped up in oneself. It is therefore self-sacrificing. Yet it brings indescribable happiness and self-fulfillment to the one who loves. As Jesus noted, “There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.” (Acts 20:35)

Does not keep account of the injury. Agape lovers, in some way, must be capable of “selective amnesia.” They ignore affronts to themselves or forget them altogether. They would rather not dwell on the injury inflicted on them by ill-willed persons, knowing that those are imperfect humans just like themselves. Those who possess agape are also great forgivers. They subscribe to the saying, “The first to forgive is the strongest, the first to forget, the wisest.”

Believes all things. That is, only the good or positive realities about others. It is not being gullible or naïve. Agape-driven souls would rather search for anything of virtue about others, not allowing themselves to be blinded by bias or prejudice. They imitate God, who does not look only for errors even in imperfect humans. (Psalm 130:3)

Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. One who applies principled love would never take delight in anything immoral, corrupt and harmful. He would have passion for truth, and live it for all it takes.

Bears all things, endures all things, hopes all things. A rare trait of agape that lifts it above every other emotion is its ability to stand adversities. One who exudes agape could withstand perhaps the most tragic, the most trying circumstances in life. Why?

This love is founded on a strong faith in God and an ever-bright hope for an everlasting future. The agape-inspired believer would never give in to doubt or fear, even in the face of seemingly hopeless situations. He believes God is stronger than his fears, having the power to rescue him anytime.

How strong is agape
Agape love is undoubtedly the love that conquers all. Jesus, who epitomizes love, stated confidently to his disciples: “Have no fear, for I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33)

Motivated by love for Jehovah God his Father and love for mankind, Jesus had overpowered every evil force brought to bear upon him by Satan and the world. No temptation nor threat could break his integrity. Yes, it was Jesus who demonstrated the conquering power of love in a most spectacular way. He gave his life for us.

This harmonizes perfectly with the use of agape in John 3:16, saying, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone excercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.”

Happily, agape too can empower the faithful to “keep conquering the evil with the good.” (Romans 12:21)

In a small farm a Christian man had to endure countless times his neighbor’s rude and uncaring behavior. This neighbor had kept ignoring the farmer’s appeals that he keep his pigs from stomping around and destroying the farmer’s camote plants.

One late afternoon the farmer, a Jehovah’s Witness, cooked a dish of fish and camote leaves, then brought a bowlful to his unfriendly neighbor.

Surprised, the neighbor asked, “Do you really mean to give me this food?”

The farmer replied, smiling, “Yes, of course. But please, I could have cooked more if only your pigs had not ruined much of my crops lately.”

The unexpected gesture apparently “disarmed” the unfriendly neighbor. From then on the two neighbors had become good friends.

And the pigs? The neighbor who owns them had never let them loose on the farmer’s crops again.

Source of love’s unfailing power
Agape love is therefore all the godly virtues rolled into one — kindness, patience, endurance, mildness, righteousness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Those who manifest this love are a powerhouse of goodness and always a source of joy, relief and comfort to others.

Can anyone cultivate it in himself at will? The truth is, imperfect, sinful humans can have agape only with the help of God’s Holy Spirit, his active force. The Holy Book refers to it as “the power beyond normal.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) One can ask God for it in heartfelt prayer.

Agape is indeed the love that “never fails.” Why? Because “God is love”, and God never fails. (1John 4:8)

BY MAX SUCQUIT JR
LIGHT FOR LIFE

A university scholarship program which helps graduating students taking up Business, Finance and IT-related courses to achieve their educational goals aims to empower and prepare the next generation of Filipino leaders especially in the financial sector.

As one of the world’s leading names in financial data, Refinitiv provides global firms with information, insight and tools to trade faster and smarter. It is beyond its bold vision for the future of the financial community that the company is likewise committed to prepare a strong generation of leaders through its Philippines branch’s Academe Linkage Program.

“The Philippines is teeming with talented students who just need the right opportunity to excel and showcase their skills. Refinitiv is in a position to help them unleash their potential and guide them in their growth as individuals and as leaders,” Refinitiv Philippines Director for Contributed Operations and Manila’s co-site lead Lei Buendia said.

Under the program, Refinitiv covers the scholars’ school charges during their final year, including tuition fees and a book allowance. They are likewise given a chance to serve their internship at the company and eventually work there.

To date, more than 80 students from the De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, Far Eastern University (Manila and Makati campuses) and Lyceum of the Philippines (Laguna and Manila campuses) have been named Refinitiv scholars, 33 of whom completed their internship with Refinitiv.

A total of 62 scholars have been hired as full-time employees, with the rest scheduled to join the company by the last quarter of this year.

“The true value of the scholarship lies beyond the financial support I’ve been given,”said Darcy May Amadeo, a graduate of Business Administration from LPU-Laguna and now a content analyst with the company Financials group.

“The training and exposure I get from Refinitiv is a good headstart to my career,” she added.

On the other hand, LPU-Manila’s Executive Director for the Department of Linkages and Standards Tina Aquino believes that “Beyond Refinitiv’s goal of bringing people and ideas together to create synergy, the company is creating an environment with its customers and partners, including our university, to confidently manage change and transform it into greater opportunity.”

Through its talent development and employee-led initiatives, agile culture and collaborative approach to excellence, Refinitiv continues to position itself as an employer of choice.

With its university scholarship program, it is effectively working to develop people who will contribute toward driving and sustaining the company’s — and the nation’s — growth.

THE Commission on Population and Development (Popcom), in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), launched at the Department of Foreign Affairs on August 9 A Millennial Man for Others: The Life & Times of Rafael M. Salas (Popcom, 2019), a biography of the UNFPA’s first executive director.

Written by Palanca award-winning fictionists Jose Dalisay and Carmen Sarmiento, the 185-page A Millennial Man for Others chronicles his life, from his birth and upbringing in Negros Occidental province to his career and achievements until his death in 1987.

Affectionately known as “Mr. Population,” Salas was one of the first Filipino advocates who made the crucial links between population and development and sexual and reproductive health and rights, both in the Philippines and overseas.

After becoming the UNFPA’s first chief in 1969, Salas nurtured the agency with care and imbued it with his foresight and vision. Under his leadership, the UNFPA grew from a relatively small body to the world’s largest provider of multilateral development assistance on population dynamics through the prism of sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality.

As UNFPA executive director, Salas had carried the rank of UN undersecretary-general, the highest UN office ever accorded to a Filipino.

“It is an honor for us to carry on Rafael Salas’ legacy at UNFPA in this historic 50th anniversary of UNFPA and the 25th anniversary of the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), where Mr. Salas’ vision became a global consensus when 179 governments, including [that of] the Philippines, agreed on a call for all people to have access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including voluntary family planning, and safe pregnancy and childbirth services,” UNFPA Representative in the Philippines Iori Kato said in a statement.

The launch served not only to mark Salas’ 91st birth anniversary, but also as an occasion to gather some of the most prominent figures in government, business and civil society.

These included Kato; Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernest Pernia, who delivered the opening statement; 2005 UN Population Awardee Dr. Mercedes Concepcion, who participated in a panel discussion with Dalisay and Sarmiento; and Ambassador Carmelita Rodriguez Salas, the late UN official’s widow, to whom Pernia turned over a copy of the biography.

Those interested to secure a soft copy of the book can send an email to rafaelmsalasbook@gmail.com. For more information on the book, visit popcom.gov.ph.

TOKYO: The works receiving one of Japan’s most coveted literary awards, the Naoki Prize, have something new in common: For the first time in 85 years, all six of the nominated authors are women.

Japan is home to what many consider the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, written in the 11th century by noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu. Its modern fiction has been defined mostly by long-established male writers, such as past Nobel laureates Kenzaburo Oe and Yasunari Kawabata. And for decades it has been dominated by Haruki Murakami, whose surreal blend of magical realism and pop culture has made him an international bestselling author.

But Japanese literature is beginning to look different as new voices, including young writers, women and the elderly, receive domestic and international recognition.

On Friday, two women, Natsuko Imamura and Masumi Oshima, were presented with the Akutagawa and Naoki prizes. Since 1935 the Akutagawa and Naoki have recognized serious and popular fiction, respectively, and provided their winners with a commemorative watch and 1 million yen (a little under $10,000). Even more valuable is the prestige its winners receive from media attention and, increasingly, a clear path to wider audiences through translation.

Consider, for instance, the 2016 rise of Convenience Store Woman. Writer Sayaka Murata’s novel, inspired by her own jobs, has sold more than 600,000 copies in Japan since it won the Akutagawa Prize that year. Murata, then 36, and still working part-time at a convenience store, shared the stage with actress Naomi Watanabe, known as “the Japanese Beyoncé,” as one of Vogue Japan’s “Women of the Year.” Two years later, the English translation of Murata’s novel was an editor’s best-of-the-year choice by the New Yorker, the magazine that helped catapult Murakami to stardom.

“International markets grow when talent emerges,” said John Freeman, who published work from Murata and Murakami as editor of the anthology Freeman’s. ‘’In the past two-and-a-half decades, there’s been an explosion of good writing coming from Japan…. That wave is cresting now with writers just barely 40 years old.”

Publishers in the United States and Britain are seeing a growing audience for novels in translation, experts say. Translations of half a dozen prize-winning works by female authors from Japan were published last year in the United States, with Yoko Tawada’s The Emissary taking a 2018 National Book Award for translated work.

“The number of new voices that have been made available to Anglophone readers over the last few years has been encouraging,” said David Karashima, a professor at Waseda University who has translated Akutagawa-winning fiction.

Karashima said there were still not as many women published in Japan as men, but this may be changing, in part because there are more women on selection committees for literary prizes. He added that translated Japanese fiction is itself going through a “mini-boom.”

“Outside of Japan, over the last five years or so, there seems to be a great thirst for fiction by Japanese women writers,” Karashima said.

And there’s evidence of a demand in Japan for stories that look different from those mostly produced by men in the past. The latest Akutagawa and Naoki winners are bestsellers this summer. A recent issue of the Bungei literary magazine on “South Korea, Feminism and Japan” required two reprints, a first in more than 80 years.

Erika Tsugawa, a US-based translator who runs the blog Tsundoku Reader, said she has also noticed a wave of new writers entering the field in middle age or after unrelated careers. She recalled a computer programmer who “used anger to fuel her novel writing” about the injustice she received while raising her two children. Another writer, Chisako Wakatake, 63, won the Akutagawa in 2017 for I’ll Live by Myself, a story about a 74-year-old widow adjusting to life alone. She began writing full time at 55.

Fans hope that the popularity of new voices will lead to appreciation of diversity in expression and identity in a society that’s often stereotyped, even within Japan, as a monolith. Tsugawa said that publishers haven’t helped by favoring for translation “very ethereal and very quirky” novels associated with the style of Murakami.

“It was a revelation when I could read Japanese novels and there was all this stuff out there,” Tsugawa said. “There’s freshness there that doesn’t make the bestselling list.”

“TICAO feels on the edge between laissez-faire island time and impending tourism development. For now, the sweet, rotting scent of copra weaves through the trees and — except in the few small townships — concrete barely interrupts the bamboo and thatch structures.”

This is how Lonely Planet describes one of Masbate province’s three major islands. But no matter how well-written it is, that passage could never truly capture its essence. That essence lies in Ticao’s fantastic stories, and film critic and anthropologist Tito Genova Valiente has made sure that these tales — populated by diwatas, demons, engkantos and other supernatural entities — live on.

These stories are contained in The Last Sacristan Mayor and the Most Expensive Mass for the Dead: Tales from Ticao (Ateneo de Naga University Press; 82 pages; 2017), which manages to take its readers on an unforgettable trip to that island in the Bicol region where Valiente hails from.

As a columnist for a business-oriented newspaper, Valiente does not really get to use poetic language or discuss extraordinary events and beings. It’s quite a pleasant surprise to discover that his sure-footed prose has retained a good dose of Ticao’s strange magic. The book happens to be his first foray into fiction, though he has said he would rather call the anthology a “field notebook,” explaining that these are stories told to him and his siblings when they were growing up in Ticao.

Indeed, unlike the usual folktales, the author is present in the narratives. In the title story, “Isidoro, the Last Sacristan Mayor and the Most Expensive Mass for the Dead,” Valiente reveals that “Isidoro was my great-grandfather, the son of Jacinto Agovida, who migrated to Ticao Island from Buhi,” and goes on to say that “Lolo Doroy was said to be one of the best campaneros of his generation.”

“When the priest he was serving was dying, the old priest would summon the campanero to ring the bell. I could see them again, the devils and they are tempting me, the priest would cry. The big bell would be rung first, the one with the body that was made of gold and silver coins donated by one of the wealthiest families [on] the island. Then Lolo Doroy would ring the small ones, the tiniest sending out the brightest of sounds, the tinkling even reaching the barrios around Mt. Diwata,” he writes.

The next story, “The Song for Dolores,” is all about the woman whom Valiente described as “the person taking care of me.” Dolores, whom he affectionately calls “Mamay,” is part of the clan and is known for her gift of cooking suman latik. Everyone in the family wondered what made her suman latik extra special and, one day, he and his Aunt Thelma decided to spy on Mamay as she cooked the delicacy:

“She peeped into the pot and, her eyes closed, opened her mouth. Out came tiny winged things dropping white and yellow and black things into the rice cake. The colors melted and formed a sea of yellow and black and white — the color of the perfect suman latik. Then she sang a plaintive song about trees and leaves and flowers. She sang and sang until the fire went out and the kitchen turned dark.” Instead of being alarmed by Mamay’s unusual cooking technique, the author writes: “No wonder, no one could cook suman latik like Mamay.”

Then again, there are some stories that are on the earthy side. Perhaps, the earthiest of them all is “The Cult of San Benito,” the hero of which is a farmer named Adolfo who happens to be a devotee of the saint. The highlight occurs when Adolfo performs a curious ritual to venerate San Benito that involves getting naked and climbing up a coconut tree. Valiente writes: “Up there Adolfo was fulfilling his promise to San Benito, the patron saint of the gloriously impossible. Adolfo was swaying as the entire island also trembled. The man with the biggest penis [on] the island was looking at the moon. He was threatening the dark night with his organ, its head silvery and mighty in the wind. He was flying to the moon.” The phallic story, though, stays classy. In fact, Generation Z readers would probably be amused because it literally has a lot of “big dick energy.”

Meanwhile, “The Lost Procession” is an incident report of sorts that involves Diday, the author’s grandmother. Apparently, Diday — who was only 15 years old when the story happened — and two of her cousins had followed a phantom procession. The Devil supposedly wanted to mislead them. Fortunately, his nefarious plan, whatever it was, was thwarted.

“When the bell was rung three times that early morning, the Devil scampered and hid inside the room of the priest whose thighs, the women whispered, were as large as the timber that served as the pillar mundi of this old church. There, the young Devil was safe to plot about [the] procession at two in the morning and arrange kisses between those forbidden to have that passion,” Valiente writes.

The anthology only has eight short stories, but readers get a most priceless bonus in the form of Valiente’s afterword, “Listening to Enchantment: Fieldwork and Folklore.” In it, he states: “When I started to gather these stories, I just wanted to remember the island and the kin I left there. In the process of the long fieldwork, I was able to look into the connection between memory and myths, remembrance of disturbances in the past and the construction of the cosmogonic myths, and the blurring of the sacral from the secular.”

Another delightful bonus is the art of Ryan C. Cuatrona. The dark cover shows an ancient archway adorned with gargoyles. A golden bell is also shown on the topmost part of the cover. Then, when you open the book, there is a pen-and-ink rendition of an old and bent sacristan mayor holding the bell’s rope. Cuatrona’s drawings appear intermittently throughout the book. The only drawback is that you’re left wanting to see more of it.

That said, Tales from Ticao is one of those books that you dread finishing because you know you’re going to get greedy about it. You’re going to ask, “Where am I going to get my next fix of this?” Perhaps, not even the ringing of bells could lead you away from this sort of temptation.

The Last Sacristan Mayor and the Most Expensive Mass for the Dead: Tales from Ticao costs P350 and is available at the Ateneo de Manila University bookshop in Quezon City; Solidaridad Book Shop in Ermita, Manila; Mt. Cloud bookshop in Baguio City; and Savage Mind Bookshop in Naga City, Camarines Sur province. Orders can be made through www.adnu.edu.ph/upress or www.facebook.com/adnupress.

Laro, the Filipino word for play, has taken a whole new meaning through the changing times. From denoting outdoor activities such as piko and patintero and the enjoyment of toys such as manika and jackstones indoors, laro today generally refers to gadget-use.

Nevertheless, there remain many who believe this should not be the case because the concept of laro has always gone beyond mere recreation for Filipinos.

In a 2003 article for National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA), anthropologist Artemio Barbosa noted how Filipino games early in their development indeed “intended primarily for amusement and played whenever suitable opportunities arise,” but were later regarded by scholars as “frequently simplified and (are) secularized ceremonies of older culture.”

Barbosa also cited that laro can take the form of palaro, “a group of special occasion games during wakes, festivals and town fiestas.” These can be competitive in nature with a winner declared at the end of the contest.

Traditional games in the country know no social class as they are shared communally nor gender as both sexes can play the likes of habulan, piko, patintero, tumabang preso and agawan base, among others.

While a child is hardly aware of it, Barbosa further noted that particular games played at certain times in a child’s intellectual development influence the physical, mental and moral vitality of kids.

Given the positive benefits of play in the upbringing of children, Barbosa wrote it is imperative for families to step up and take on “the very important role of transmitting traditional games [to them].”

“The family, specifically the parents, reinforces the child’s learning process… As traditionally practiced in the Philippines and the neighboring countries, children learn from their parents. It is the obligation of the parents to help their children learn social customs, standards and values of his culture,” he wrote.

Truth be told, however, the modern lifestyle adapted by Filipinos rarely allow parents to teach children Filipino games. Add to that constrained spaces that limit open areas needed for active play and of course the bias of kids towards gadgets.

Nevertheless, to reiterate, there fortunately remain members of society who, like the determined young children who play agawan base, refuse to allow traditional play to disappear in this digital era and will fight to champion this important part of Filipino culture.

And yes, they can be regarded as modern day heroes in their own right, with one of them noted interior designer Bambi Mañosa-Tanjutco.

Art and play

Mañosa-Tanjutco earned her Interior Design degree from Assumption College. On the advice of her father — the late National Artist for Architecture Francisco “Bobby” Mañosa — she then proceeded to complete a Masteral Degree in Art Education at the University of the Philippines. Apparently, she was happy to do so since she had long endeavored and enjoyed giving art lessons to children even when she was just in college.

And so, with her latest diploma in hand, Tanjutco established the Creative Kids Studio in 1995. The art school not only caters to the gated communities of Alabang but also allows Tanjutco to reach out and help underprivileged children.

Twenty years into its foundation, Creative Kids Studio led Mañosa-Tanjutco to embrace anew advocacy. In 2015 the studio mounted a month-long program to promote the children’s right to play while raising funds for Unicef Philippines to benefit the survivors of typhoons Ondoy and Yolanda. It culminated in a public exhibit at the Alabang Town Center which carried the theme, “Laro.”

“When I did the art exhibit before with the kids of my studio, I had to introduce the games to them to have like a patikim so they know where to draw their art from. Like literally, play piko and patintero with them outside on the street.

“Afterward, the parents were telling me their kids had so much fun and asked when the next play date would be,” Tanjutco recalled to The Sunday Times Magazine in this interview.

“Then the parents requested na sana daw I can make another palaro. But I told them these are games you and I used to play, you can do them at home, you don’t need, like, a formal setup to do it,” she continued.

Certainly for Tanjutco, play was a huge part of her childhood, just like most kids who grew up before the Internet era.

“I remember growing up, that’s how we used to do it — we’d play these games in San Juan at my grandparents’ house. After lunch, everybody would get together and we would have like a patintero challenge, even between cousins like girls against boys or titos versus titas, so it was really fun.”

She is also a witness on how play serves as a reminder for the older generation of the fun that they had in their youth.

“True enough whenever I talk to different artists and mention this, everybody had a story about their favorite Filipino game — how they used to play it, what tactics and strategies they had for taguan, patintero, agawan base and all that.

“There’s always nostalgia and so I think all these stories bring generations together somehow, because way back when, it was a lolo making kwento to the apos how they used play.”

This commonality was all the more apparent during the 2015 exhibit where an area was solely devoted to play side by side with the artworks.

“We had piko patterns on the floor and it was very cute to see an older generation, teach the younger ones how to play it. It makes them proud they know how. Kasi normally it’s the younger kids teaching the older ones how to use the cell phone but it was so cute to see how a grandfather was teaching his grandson how to play piko, and he hear him say ‘Oh magaling ako sa piko, this was my favorite.’”

It was then Tanjutco realized how play can actually be the main focus her endeavors.

“I realized how it was doing something, how it was crossing generations, crossing boundaries, so I thought this doesn’t have to be just something we do every August for Buwan ng Wika but an activity that can be had on a regular basis, like after Sunday lunches of families.”

‘Awit at Laro’

The 2015 exhibit therefore led to an extended advocacy titled Awit at Laro, which people came to know as a project between Tanjutco’s foundation and Original Pilipino Music icon Gary Valenciano. However, it did not see fruition until two years later.

“When we did the exhibit with Alabang Town Center, they asked me, ‘Can we put fashion at the end of the campaign?’ We had creative storytelling, games in the town, we had art exhibit and they said we need to have a fashion show.

“So I said, how do I connect fashion show to laro? Then I thought we need to have really interesting music. The music needs to come into play and that’s when I approached Gary.”

When she proposed the idea to Valenciano — to create music associated to Filipino games and to be used for a fashion show — the latter instantly liked the idea.

“Then he asked me, when do you need it? And I said the fashion show is in about six weeks, and he said, ‘I can’t do it in six weeks!’”

Tanjutco also laughingly recalled how she tried to convince Valenciano he can make it happen being Mr. Pure Energy himself, but it quickly dawned on her she wasn’t being realistic.

“As I look back, I remember my dad, at the end of the exhibit, asking if the project [of incorporating music and play] is pushing through but I told him Gary couldn’t do it. My dad, a musician as well, was surprised of the deadline I actually gave Gary. He said, ‘Six weeks? How could you ask him to do it in six weeks!’ He understood, he knew.”Though the project didn’t pan out that time, Valenciano made good his promise by putting an album together.

More than two years in the making, the “Awit at Laro” album came out in 2018. It carried tracks that reimagine childhood play through songs sung by Valenciano and fellow OPM icons including Lea Salonga, Ogie Alcasid, Joey Ayala and KZ Tandingan, among many others.

“Awit at Laro crosses generations and crosses social classes. It appealed to mall goers; to those who sponsored the project and bought the album and the book and gave it away as Christmas gifts; and so on. We were therefore able to distribute and reach out to a lot of people .

“But just to be clear, we’re not saying this is the answer to the [gadget generation]; we are just saying it’s an option. Like instead of hanging around and looking at Facebook and Instagram and all that, maybe for just 15 minutes play can bond people together and create memories this way — that’s the whole context of this [advocacy].”

‘Baro at Sayá’

The success of Awit at Laro inspired the both Tanjutco and Valenciano to finally continue what the former had in mind back in 2015 — a fashion show with original music that celebrates Filipino play.

“Back in 2015, when I couldn’t come out with the music to go with play, I asked the organizer of the mall if they can create Filipino wear for kids too. Because people always associate Filipiniana with formal occasions or weddings so it doesn’t necessarily appeal to the youth.”

Thus was born the concept for “Baro at Sayá by Awit at Laro,” a fashion show featuring select designers who will present modernized Filipino wear to a younger generation with the goal of starting them young in wearing and being proud of their culture and heritage.

The show, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt Manila in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig on September 22, is headlined by Len Cabili, Ito Curata, Rhett Eala, Zarah Juan, Marga Nograles’ Kaayo, Anne Marie Saguil, Paloma Zobel’s PioPio, and led by Rajo Laurel who also serves as overall fashion consultant for the project.

“I started young with the kids so if I have different generations coming together in the spirit of fun and family, and now fun fashion, I think we’ll be able to hit our goals. Maybe, hopefully one day it becomes something you’ll find in your closet and not for purposes of a costume.”

In giving the featured designers directions for their collections, they each took inspiration from an Awit at Laro song assigned to them.

Describing his suite for the show, Laurel said he involved actual play in his design process.

“I actually made my own fabric for the collection and asked my nephews and nieces to help. One weekend I brought them some fabric and paint and we just had a blast. I wanted to truly incorporate the sense of play in the collection and what better way to do this by literally playing with my nieces and nephews. It was fun!”

Equally as excited to showcase Filipino culture through fashion, Eala shared he will show off the stately side of Filipiniana. “Our pieces combine several fabrics and techniques of embroidery to highlight our mixed cultures. Each piece was made to reflect the rich culture that we represent made wearable and relatable for the modern woman.”

Meanwhile, Nograles will highlight traditional weaves in her work. “We took inspiration and put together our favorite weaves that represented Filipino songs and play. Then we mixed some hand beading and embroidery by the indigenous tribes we work with and topped them off with fun Filipino accessories. Each piece we’ll present will therefore tell a fun and unique story.”

As for Anne Marie Saguil of Amarie, she is anchoring her collection on embroidered wearable art. She said it is also her goal to empower the Filipino people through art, craftsmanship, culture and sustainability. “The design process for this collection was quite different and a lot of fun for me because childhood, fun and play were the central theme for the clothes’ colors and silhouettes. As a result, the collection took on a younger playful vibe but is nevertheless suitable for the adult modern Filipina.”

Finally, for Paloma Zobel’s PioPio, the collection is all about the Filipino family. “We thought it would be fun to include the Mañosas, our brand ambassadors, in all stages of this project. Awit at Laro is all about family, generations and going back to this holistic childlike mentality where we showcase the importance of playing and our traditions.”

All in all, for Tanjutco, Baro at Sayá is not only a new platform to promote fun and traditional play.

“We want to show that it is possible ‘love your own’ because the more we use local materials, the more people get to produce. And the more they produce, the more you uplift the community — which means you uplift a family, you uplift a life and that’s pretty much how we want this whole thing to come together.”

Nation building

Having satisfied herself in showing The Sunday Times Magazine how this endeavor progressed through the years, Tanjutco sentimentally imparted how the lessons her late father gave her guided her through her advocacy.

“If my dad were alive still today, he would have been really proud because this was what he kept on pushing for. I just feel his spirit pushing me to do this.

“He said it really doesn’t matter what job you end up with or what line of work, but what matters is what you are doing contributes to nation building. He stressed that I always have to think of that — how you can help your country — and we sincerely believe this is one way to do it,” she ended.

BY CHRISTINA ALPAD

Gershon (not his real name) is a well-respected professor of math in a prestigious college in the metropolis. At 45, he has taught the subject diligently for more than a decade. He is a likeable figure in and out of campus. Although he has begun thinning at the top, his bright smile and sun-ny disposition have endeared him to students, making his chosen subject less cumbersome and daunting than it usually appeared to them.

Yet unknown to most people around him Geshon has been on a most difficult personal struggle. Married at 30, he is suffering from multiple obsessions — he craves for every gulp of hard liquor, and also burns with sexual passion for young, brown-skinned females.

Remarkably, Gershon has masked both obsessions with a seemingly sober front. He does not fre-quent bars and neither is he ever known to have made undue advances on his female students. So everyone regards him the ultimate “Mr. Nice Guy.” Even his wife, herself possessing a simple and quiet beauty, hardly detects Gershon’s secret cravings.

“Yes, Gershon sips brandy and whiskey but only on social occasions,” Erna admits. “I couldn’t im-agine him staying out at night with the boys — even when with hard-drinking friends.”

For some reasons Gershon seems to have developed a kind of inner strength that keeps him from freaking out, as it were, despite his demons within.

“There are moments when the urges would flare up, and I have to hold a tight grip on my flesh,” Gershon would tell his only confidante — his senior psychiatrist.

It must have been a tenseful episode. It would pass silently somehow, but how it leaves him in indescribable guilt and agony! And the thing keeps coming every now and then — almost without warning.

The syndrome is not really uncommon, behavioral experts agree. Every male, no matter how ed-ucated and well bred, evidently harbors a ‘dark’ moral side. A part of him, figuratively alluded to as “Dr. Jekyll” marks him as a decent, morally upright person, almost unlikely to stoop to deca-dent behavior. But another side, his “Mr. Hyde” makes him feel like a hungry predator out for booze or female flesh, whichever inflames his fancy at the moment.

An alcoholic can resort to concealing his vice by secretly sipping booze from a small dark bottle of energy drink. On the other hand, a flesh-hungry maniac secretly indulges in pornography or voy-erism. The more voracious ‘wolves’, however, can break out into acts of lasciviousness — or even rape!

This fact may well explain why we often hear or read of reports that seemingly respectable men as teachers, office executives and even priests or pastors have been involved in sexual harass-ment and sexual abuse.

Interestingly, the Bible has this to say of such persons: “God gave them to uncontrolled sexual passion … violently inflamed in their lust toward one another.” (Romans 1: 26, 27)

Understanding sinful cravings

Behavioral studies should enable us to understand more fully the inner personal struggle indi-viduals like Gershon are going through. At the outset such behavior may be generally viewed as “aberrations”. Yet, it will sound rather harshly unfair to treat the afflicted souls with blanket con-demnation, considering that practically everyone of us is in a constant struggle with a personal weakness, seemingly a little monster caged within.

The Holy Scriptures acknowledge with candor that “war within us”. The apostle Paul was brutally frank with himself when he wrote, “For I do not understand what I am doing. For I do not practice what I wish, but I do what I hate.” (Romans 7: 15)

Does It mean Paul had been a slave of his sinful flesh for life? Or had he eventually gained mas-tery over his weaknesses?

Like Paul writers of Bible epistles stand out for their candor, at times revealing their own charac-ter flaws, with no pretensions of self-righteousness. This all the more makes them credible and trustworthy.

Paul’s self-struggle, though, evidently had a happy ending. Nearing the end of his life — he hav-ing been sentenced by Roman Emperor Nero to death for being a die-hard Christian – Paul wrote to his young protege Timothy, “I have fought the fine fight, I have run the race to the finish, I have observed the faith. From this time on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me as a reward in that day …” (2 Timothy 4: 7, 8)

Even early Christians in Paul’s days were no outright “saints”, morally flawless and absolutely above reproach. The apostle acknowledged that some of them came from a shameful life of sin — “thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners”. (1 Corinthians 6: 10)

Then he concluded, “But you have been washed clean; you have been sanctified; you have been declared righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 6:11)

That they had to continue putting up the fight against their own weaknesses was also part of the change into a “new personality” — a gradual but sustained transformation into an ideal that is patterned after God’s own image. (Ephesians 4:24)

It certainly would be unrealistic to imagine any human today without any flaw in personality or character. Indeed, you may know of certain ones with some outstanding qualities that seem to mark them iconic. Endearing and charming as they appear to be, each one, though, definitely har-bors some despicable traits known only to someone who has lived that long and that close enough to him.

Like our man Gershon, that Anyone is constantly struggling to be what he wants to be, but at the same time agonizes to avoid becoming the person he keeps getting to be. He feels possessed by a force, an emotion or inclination, over which he has little or no control.

To that category may belong such individuals as homosexuals, lesbians, pedophiles, maniacs, and addicts. Their addictions are stronger than their desire to be the kind of person they could ever want to be. This adds to their guilt and self-condemnation.

A day-by-day victory

Anyone who honestly acknowledges his character flaws but bravely puts up a constant fight against them certainly deserves our sympathy, respect and admiration. Just imagine what it takes for an alcoholic, a lustful but self-restrained pedophile, and a tobacco or drug addict to suppress their addictions day after day, moment after moment! Such attitude inspires us to also take up our own personal battles with ironclad determination.

The wars within us — our struggles with serious imperfection — can go on and on without letup, even till our very last moment alive. How have most victorious survivors coped with them?

Invoking ‘power beyond normal’

Many self-confessed survivors point to an extraordinary power source that accounts for their re-markable victory over their seemingly persistent weaknesses within`. That power is called faith. Not blind faith that has no grounding at all on reason.

Some swear it was their hearfelt invocation of God’s help that have infused them with the “pow-er beyond normal”, believed to be God’s holy spirit (Philippians 4: 13).

Through the years, this unseen force for good eventually has empowered those earnest believers to overcome their weaknesses and put on a stronger “new personality”. They undergo a tremen-dous transformation that skeptics could not understand. But they do matter as something realistic and undeniable to those who believe in a loving, caring God.

The quote “Your energy introduces you even before you speak” is embedded in my head like a post-it and comes to the forefront of my mind when I meet new people. People can pretend and manipulate through words but energy never lies. There are some people who are heavy just like rainclouds but there are also people who are like sunshine — bringing light wherever they go and that is how I can best describe Avril Rodriguez.

From the moment I met her nearly a decade ago, Avril has always had that calming effect on peo-ple. I have witnessed her zen nature countless times when Avril and I worked alongside each other as educational therapists for learning disabled children. Her energy was more than enough to calm a room (including myself). So, it came as no surprise when I learned that she carved her own path as a Authenticity and Wholeness Coach on top of her other roles such as a Yoga Thera-pist and a Life Coach.

Avril always knew that she wanted to help people heal and become whole on all levels.

She shared, “I considered studying Medicine but then decided to study Psychology instead. I was convinced that most of us get in our own way when it comes to living joyful lives and I wanted to help guide people through that.”

The path soon cleared for Avril around the same time that she was completing her Graduate De-gree in Psychology.

“I used to have anxiety and panic attacks in grad school, and they would come and go for some years. This led me to practice yoga and meditation to keep the anxiety at bay.”

As a lover of learning, it was natural for Avril to dig deeper into the therapeutic benefits of both yoga and meditation.

This soon led her to be a part of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Bonifacio Global City’s Complemen-tary Medicine Services.

“I was honored to be the first person to have a regular Yoga Therapy practice in a major healing institution.” Avril soon found herself working with patients who were living with Parkinson’s, migraines, tinnitus, epileptic seizures, frozen shoulders, and survivors of cancer and strokes,” Av-ril mentioned.

She then continued her quest to healing and studied Theta Healing and Neuro-Linguistic Pro-gramming.

“Both of these techniques work heavily with the subconscious mind to resolve any belief systems and thought patterns that may be keeping us stuck in certain life or health situations. Thoughts can seem like such harmless things but I have seen clients crippled in life because they believe they were not good enough to have a chance at success.”

Aside from that, Avril also recently got certified in Aroma Freedom and is currently studying Tra-ditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture.

“I guess I’ve always been on the search for my own wholeness. As I encounter techniques that help me along the way, I naturally become curious and want to learn more about them. As I learn how they help people, I want to share this wholeness and help as many others as I can to reach this freedom and sense of peace as well.”

Avril takes all of her newfound knowledge into her practice as an Authenticity and Wholeness Coach.

“I empower and support my clients in making changes to their lives. Some want to be healthier, start a new career, find fulfillment and purpose in their lives, gain clarity, find inner peace and joy, have better relationships, find their abundance, etc. Using different tools and techniques, I help my clients uncover what is blocking them from successfully accomplishing these changes, then we resolve these blocks. I often give additional exercises and activities to help bring clarity and enhance the implementation of these planned changes. I ensure that the changes my clients ask for help with align with their inner selves, so that these are internally motivated and do not cause internal conflict,” she said.

“Most of the time we try to conform to what others expect of us, even if these are not things we truly desire for ourselves. Every time we put others’ expectations of us over our own, every time we make ourselves or our lives smaller to appease others, every time we play the passive-aggressive card because we don’t stand up for ourselves, we fracture a part of ourselves. I work with my clients to resolve and heal these fractures, so that they can live whole and complete in themselves,” she continued.

Avril is often left astounded at how much her work has helped heal her clients, most of which she helps in private one-on-one sessions, group workshops, and retreats. She is also quick to share her affirmations and insights on her social media feeds.

But she is quick to note that the first step actually belongs to her clients who are willing to under-go the work it requires to heal and be centered.

She then ends with an important reason as to why being centered is important and why it’s worth a shot, “When we are centered, we are firmly anchored in ourselves and our direction in life. When we are centered, there is no cognitive dissonance, no internal suffering. When we are cen-tered, we feel safe and capable of living good lives. When it is the opposite and we feel lost, off-balance, or out of control, we feel hurt, confusion, and fear.”

And for Avril, the true fulfillment comes when she sees her clients growing into their own light and sharing it with others for she believes that this is truly what would make the world a better and brighter place not just for one but for all.

To know more about Avril, you may follow her on Facebook and Instagram @lifebyavril or email her at life@avrilrodriguez.com

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Quezon City’s pioneering artisanal Kamuning Bakery Cafe celebrated its fifth “World Pandesal Day” on October 16, and as in past years gave 70,000 pieces of pandesal, cheese, canned goods, rice and and other food items for free to the community.

Done in the same date of World Food Day and World Bread Day, World Pandesal Day is a unique civic and cultural project which hopes to honor the humble yet great Filipino bread pandesal.

“I want to honor our unique bread. Humble siya kasi hindi siya mahal pero great siya kasi lahat natutuwa — mayaman man or mahirap, powerful or ordinary,” said realty entrepreneur, writer and Kamuning Bakery owner Wilson Lee Flores in an interview.

The event, Flores added, also highlights the need to solve age-old social problems of hunger and poverty.

“World Food Day din today — it’s a reminder to the world na may problema ang mundo sa hunger and poverty.”

Basking in the success of his now annual event, Flores revealed it was a parable that actually in-spired him to start his World Pandesal Day charities. This was despite the fact that he was just be-ginning to run his newly-acquired small business.

Specifically, it was the Bible story of a humble boy who shared five bread loaves breads and two fishes, which Jesus Christ multiplied to feed over 5,000 men plus many women and children that inspired him.

“So kahit anong mangyari, commitment namin ito na magbahagi sa lahat ng kapwa natin every year,” he pointed.

Getting more sentimental, Flores also noted why he considers World Pandesal Day as Kamuning Bakery Cafe’s way of thanksgiving for the public’s continuous patronage since 1939.

“After 80 years, nandito pa rin ang Kamuning. Kahit na madaming bread factories, madami nang modern bakeries na malalaki, buhay pa ang Kamuning Bakery and a lot of people still buy to us,” he added.

This much love and support from patrons became even more evident when a destructive fire in 2018 heavily damaged the bakery. And yet, people still flock to the makeshift Kamuning Bakery as it slowly rebuilds its heritage.

Among various VIP guests who graced the event and also gave away free food packs include Sena-tor Cynthia Villar, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte and Regal Films founder Mother Lily Monte-verde who also recalled her memories about the humble pinoy bread.

“We eat pandesal during the Japanese war — World War 2. That’s why lahat puro tipid,” recalled Monteverde.

“Ang mga kinakain namin saging, walang mga isda, walang bigas pero may pandesal. Also, memo-rable din ang pandesal sa akin kasi isa sa mga unang films ko din na nai-produce ay ‘Peter Pan-desal’ in1976 starring Niño Muhlach,” she added.

Meanwhile, as a continuation of the month-long celebration of Pandesal Month, Kamuning Bak-ery Café will be organizing the second part of free medical, dental and optical missions in its premises in Quezon City on October 27 from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. The first one was held on October 6.

Ever since Flores bought and revived it four years ago, Kamuning Bakery Cafe had also donated four public school buildings in rural areas, like for Sta. Rosa Elementary School in historic seaside Balangiga town in Eastern Samar province, the Villa Bacolor Elementary School in Tarlac City of Tarlac province and others.

Second of three parts

GIDEON stood up. He had gone to sleep in the nude, and from the bed he staggered to the bath-room, his laptop’s remote in hand, ready to scroll through his Spotify playlist for some mood mu-sic he could ease himself into to become alive again. Soon, the room drowned out the outside noise with the Celtic musical mysticism of Enya — a throwback to his ‘90s youth, to be sure, he could admit that, but then again what passed for music these days proved bewildering to him.

In the bathroom mirror, he checked his face for blemishes, silently cursing the necessities of all-night duty hours. But the haggard look, he chided himself, was only, hopefully, temporary — it was all about medical apprentices paying their due, and he did start medical school a bit late; he was of a generation ahead of his batchmates, whose millennial fancies and foibles he somehow made his own, as much as he tried to understand what made them tick. He survived, didn’t he? He could survive this internship as well. A few more years and he would finally be home-free, perhaps a consultant in some hotshot hospital unencumbered by sleepless nights, save for dire emergencies needing his attention.

And yet, there was no denying the dark rings around his often-bloodshot eyes, their puffiness dangerously close to becoming full-fledged eye bags. The stubble on his chin made him look old-er than he was. And the muscles in his biceps and chest, once gym-honed, were lacking tone.

Still, at forty-two, he could pass for a handsome younger man, he decided. But perhaps not too easily this time, like when he was thirty-eight and looked like someone a decade younger, which were instances that gave him such a kick whenever they happened. At the back of his head, some wiser version of him would always say, So what?, but it was a voice easily ignored. He felt a small surge of nostalgia for the foolish nonchalance only the young could have for their looks. Only the young could “morning the night,” as they used to call their all-night melees, and still look fresh and alert enough to go to an eight o’clock class. And only the young could think this would last forever.

But in his forties, he suddenly found that sleep deprivation — something he could carry off easily in his youth — cut deep. The haggard look was now a rehearsal for what he might look like in his fifties. He sighed.

Gideon began washing his face, careful to spread the suds of the toner just gently enough. He knew enough about the telling nuances of getting older, face-wise, for a man. The “devil’s horns” above the eyes — those slight bony ridges that appeared only in the late twenties — became more prominent, cleaving the forehead forever from the smoothness it once had. He found his soapy fingers massaging that. The nostrils flared more, and the nose became bigger. He massaged that. Then there were the beginnings of tiny, tiny lines between, and around, the eyes — from all those years of frowning too much, or laughing too much. He massaged those, too, more in hope-fulness that they could disappear. The jawline also became more prominent and thick, erasing the inchoateness of a young man’s ovaline face. He felt the skin around his jaw and chin, and shaved off what remained of his stubble. What was it they called a man’s clean-shaven face? Ahit pogi. And yet the face staring straight at him in the mirror, devoid of pale imitations of beard and mustache, felt ridiculously like it was trying too hard to look younger. What he would give for a face untouched by time and effort.

Dennis, he thought once more. He signed. What he would do to possess the pulse of beautiful, long-lashed eyes. And what a waste to lose that pulse.

NATY the nursed had hurried off to call the resident who had yet to appear and do his rounds, and Gideon had turned to the two boys, told them it was perhaps better to wait somewhere, prefera-bly the benches that lined the hospital corridors.

“I’ll have the nurse call you both in later,” he said. “Just as soon as we know what’s wrong with your friend.”

The boys nodded in meek, frightened silence.

Much later, Dr. Lento finally arrived, much too late, and looking like he was clearly summoned from bed by Naty’s frantic telephone calls. But he had arrived long after Gideon had already dis-covered a small puncture wound in the right lower half of Dennis Mainit’s belly.

It was slight in diameter, almost undetectable — something a small ice pick could make.

“Jesus Christ, who did this to you? How come you never said anything about being stabbed?” the senior physician asked the boy, who was not answering back.

“Can anything be done, doc?” Gideon asked.

But they knew the small wound was far deeper and deadlier than it looked, its gash only a wink to the deep slash underneath, perhaps already perforating his intestines.

The blood and intestinal contents, including the feces, might have since spilled into the ab-dominal cavity, and the bacteria might have already eaten through the sterile cavern. It would not be long before there would be peritonitis. Or worse: a ruptured abdominal aorta, gushing blood into the peritoneum like a mad river, the body a ticking time bomb.

Already, the boy was exhibiting a rapidly extending abdominal distention, and soon shock would take over from the lowered blood pressure. That was why he was groggy, dehydrated, blacking out.

“Let’s get him to the operating room,” Dr. Lento said.

“Is there anything I can do?” Gideon asked.

“You’re an intern, right?” Dr. Lento asked Gideon as the boy was being wheeled out of the ER.

“Yes, doc.”

“Stay here. I doubt there’s much you can do.”

TIME was a cruel chronicler of changes. The grind of the years — measured by the wails of chil-dren in the early morning, the skirmishes played hot and cold on the marriage bed, and the hours kept to retain the fragile hold of things — were etched on skin, in the fine lines around the eyes and mouth, the furrowed knot on the brows, the guarded and bitter pleas of darkening eyes.

He thought, invariably, of his mother.

She had been a great beauty in her prime, Gideon thought as he walked, head bent low, braving the downtown mid-afternoon crowd to find his way to his suki dimsum place for a meal he knew he could enjoy by his lonesome, away from all the usual cares and all the usual people.

He remembered how his mother looked from all the old photos she kept in tattered hard-backed albums, detailing a life completely alien to him, a past that’s a whole different country where he had no passport for. In those faded black-and-white purveyors of memories, his mother was a 1960s glamazon in Sta. Catalina town, three hours south of Dumaguete, where she had grown up and where, after a marriage she said she made of complete convenience, she came to own a small plantation managed by a slight man she said was my father, an indecisive, poor excuse of a landowner who never learned to love her properly. That unhappiness was mysteriously absent in their photos of the old days. In them, her hair was always perfectly coiffed, her party dresses per-fectly small and black and pert, her smile perfectly dazzling. His father looked dashing enough, but there was indeed an indifferent smallness to him that made him disappear into the sepia.

But the 1970s were unkind to Negrense sugar hacenderos, and when they lost their mortgage to the bank at the height of the sugar crisis of that decade, she lost everything else as well — her car and her house were repossessed, her husband died of a heart attack, and her friends deserted her. And all she had left, Gideon remembered her saying, was a hunger to survive, without quite knowing how to navigate the savage years. Still she braved all the indignities, moved to Dumaguete for what she hoped was a reinvention, and sold morcon that she made herself, door to door, day after day, despite the scorching heat or the torrential rains — and somehow she scraped enough to feed and school four fatherless children. (Gideon was the youngest.) She fad-ed quickly from the world — but her voice, acidic and taunting, never wavered. “I have done eve-rything for you,” was her bitter mantra to her children, said always in a voice full of regret, of re-criminations. By then she lost, too, the sheen of her youthful looks: she was all skin and bones in her mid-40s, darkened by the sun and her labors, toothless even. She could not afford dentures. But she’d dye her hair black when the grays crept in, determined to slow down at least that part of her diminishment. It was a flailing.

He was twelve when she caught him kissing the boy next door, in the tenement she was renting in along Calle Santa Rosa, which she shared with five other families who were exactly like them — presently poor but with memories of some glorious past they longed to recapture. In the delir-ious thrashing she gave him afterward — Gideon could still remember the sting of the belt on the flesh of his back — his mother moaned out, with mythological forcefulness, all her bottled-up ire: “I have done everything for you! I have lost everything because of you!”

That he would be thinking of his mother now as he walked downtown Dumaguete to get his lunch perplexed him somewhat — it had been months since she died, and he had never even gone to her funeral. His sister Renata, who was a martyr, could never forgive him for that, although the twins Patrick and Xandro were, at best, indifferent, and had the best excuses not come either: school was just about to start for the kids in Los Angeles, and it was impossible to secure flights that soon. It would have been awkward, the four of them getting together even to say goodbye to someone they’d all felt — without quite articulating it — had robbed them somehow of a child-hood free of fear.

But it had also been years since Gideon and his mother last saw each other, and the last words they had spoken were harsh and bitter, and for Gideon, they contained the barest excuse to final-ly close a chapter of his life he could never begin, nor want, to fathom.

Even now, crossing Perdices Street to get to Howyang, burned by the ambush of these ghosts, he refused to register all these too fully, content to take the recollection in as stray, inconvenient reminders, like accidental shards from brushes with memory. Inside Howyang, he lined up to pay for his meal at the counter, and recognized the familiar face behind the cashier. My God, after all these years, she’s still there, he thought. That triggered one more recollection: how this dimsum place used to be located somewhere else, on another street, in another incarnation as a burger joint, and in that far away past, Howyang used to be called Taster’s Delight, a staple of his high school days, and it was popular because it made the best cheeseburgers in Dumaguete — a sim-ple but heady mix of coleslaw, beef patty, a slice of cheese, and homemade mayonnaise of some magical concoction.

Those cheeseburgers were still the best-tasting he’d ever had in his life. Still, he knew nostalgia was the ultimate preserver of the sensations of lost things — in memory, they were even more sensational. But all he could see now was the fact that the same woman behind the cashier of this dimsum place was the same cashier behind that burger joint. But there were lines now etched on her face. He was a high schooler then when he frequented Taster’s Delight with his friends, and now here he was a man on the cusp of middle age, struggling through the end of medical school — and she was still here doing exactly the same thing. It felt as if time had stopped for her, while at the same railroaded over her with all the marks of its ruthless passing. How many years, he wondered, had she sat behind the same machine? Did she still recognize him and see him also as a changed man? Where did the years go? How do we evolve to take in the cruelties of time pass-ing and call it living?

“Just morcon, sir? And rice?”

Gideon startled to the present. He felt the cashier’s indifferent eyes brushing over him. He quick-ly nodded.

“Yes, just the morcon.”

“That’s P150, sir,” the cashier said — and no flicker of recognition at all in her eyes.

He felt a pang of disappointment, which surprised him. Gideon quickly handed over the exact amount, which she then dutifully rang up.

“Thank you,” Gideon said, walking away.

To be concluded next Sunday

Six months before she took over the reins of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) as general manager, former Cebu City Police Director Royina Marzan Garma already knew she would have all eyes on her following controversies that never let up in and around the agency. She was coming at the heels of a big one as well, with the most recent allegation of graft and corruption reaching the top leadership at PCSO, thus forcing President Rodrigo Duterte to appoint her as re-placement.

Garma still had 10 years to go in her career as a woman in uniform in the Philippine National Po-lice (PNP), but dutifully retired from the force to heed the call of country where she was needed. The post is her very first civilian job.

Originally from Cagayan Valley, Garma secured a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from Cagayan Colleges Tuguegarao in 1995. She then enrolled at the Philippine National Police Acade-my (PNPA) and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Public Safety in 1997.

Eager to keep learning and building up her credentials, she then secured a Master in Education Management from Rizal Memorial Colleges in Davao City in 2007, thereafter completing her most recent course just this year as Executive Doctor in Leadership from the University of Makati.

Bringing all these to PCSO, Garma ends a highly successful career at the PNP where she served the force for 24 years. Among her notable achievements during this time includes heading the Women and Children’s Protection Desk in Davao City; assuming the post of Chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the Davao City Police Office; and Station Commander of Police Stations 1 and 4 of the Davao City Police.

Given her excellent performance across various assignments, Garma was deservingly promoted as Superintendent during the last term of then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte from 2013 to 2016.

Thereafter, she was designated Deputy City Director for Administration and became Acting Re-gional Chief at the 7th Regional CIDG from 2017 to 2018, and finally reached the pinnacle of her career in the force when she became Cebu City’s first woman Police Director in July 2018.

Now as the new leader of PCSO, Garma says her ultimate goal is “to make poor people’s lives bet-ter, the middle class comfortable, and the rich to give more.”

She strongly believes that with this guiding principle, PCSO can make true its promise to the Fili-pino that “Sa bawat pisong tulong, tungo sa pagsulong!”

Now that she has settled into her role as PCSO chief, Garma is all the more ready to fire up a new year of growth and transformation at an agency which can do so much good in society. Innovation is at the forefront of her strategy to achieve much needed changes at PCSO, with her stellar track record in public service — buoyed by transparency, accountability and a higher level of leader-ship — earning her the confidence of the government and those in her care.

In this exclusive interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, the feisty former lady police colonel talks candidly about her personal and professional history, addresses issues already hounding her office and the kind of leadership she believes she must pursue in assuring that the principal gov-ernment agency mandated to raise and provide funds for health programs, medical assistance and services, and a host of other charities endeavors for the Filipino people is fulfilled.

The Sunday Times Magazine: What was your reaction when President Rodrigo Duterte appointed you to the PCSO as general manager?

GM Royina Garma: Six months prior to my appointment I was already aware that I might be ap-pointed as general manager of PCSO. But I just waited for the President to inform me nung malapit na talagang ibigay yung position sa akin. So I am — actually hindi naman happy – but pa-rang I’m glad na ako yung pinili and nandun yung trust, knowing — and I’m sure he’s also aware of — the concerns and issues PCSO was facing during that time na in-announce niya. So yun ang unang naramdaman ko — that I must not fail him. Whatever happens I must not fail him; and I must not fail.

So you have worked with the President for a very long time…

Yes, because I was assigned to Davao City. That was my first assignment and he was mayor during that time when I first reported for duty. Yung career ko kasi halos in Davao City. Even when I was assigned to CIDG, na-assign din ako in Davao. Siguro nakita niya how I worked and how I per-formed there.

How strict are you as a leader?

Parang nag-research ka na, ha (laughs). Yeah, I’m known sa lahat ng offices na pinapasukan ko na istrikto ako. And I implement resistance [to arm-twisting or under the table transactions] talaga, and without favoring [anyone]. I cannot be influenced by anyone. So yun yung style of leadership and management ko since pumasok ako sa PNP.

Remember the time [in 2016] when the President said he wanted to abolish PCSO because of cor-ruption issues? But it seems with your appointment he is hopeful again that the agency can per-form its true function. What can you say about that?

Maybe it’s because everyone is very hopeful din naman na ma-address yung concerns. Remem-ber na PCSO was created way back in the 1930s pa and mag-i-85th anniversary na kami on October 25. So ganun ka-strong and solid yung foundation ng office ng agency, and ganun din kaim-portante yung opisina.

Now, knowing the style of the President when he said, “I will close PCSO,” ibig sabihin lang nun, do not interpret what he said literally. If you know him, ibig lang niyang sabihin, “Malala ang problema n’yo! Gawan mo ng solusyon kasi ganun siya kalala!”

Ganun lang siya, ganun ang ibig niyang sabihin when he said that, so he’s dead serious talaga na “Do something!” Ganun lang ang instructions niya.

This question was already asked of your predecessor at the agency but we would like to ask you the same: Why do you think the President would assign somebody from the military or police es-pecially in income-generating agencies like the PCSO or the Bureau of Customs?

Although alam ko na ito nung hindi pa ako ang humahawak ng PCSO, nung hindi pa ako nag-retire. I also asked him why. Sabi niya, kasi mabilis mag-decide ang mga pulis at military. Second is, risk-taker, ganun. So sabi niya, six years lang ang stay niya sa gobyerno as President. And actually, kung mabagal, six years is not enough para ma-implement yung reforms na gusto niya na ma-implement, yung ipinangako niya sa mga tao. So when I was assigned to PCSO, dun ko rin talaga na-realize na tama talaga siya. He wants things done very fast.

When I got here mabagal nga and it’s not my usual speed. Because sobrang daming rules, like the Civil Service placement of personnel. Everything has to be written in memo [form]. And then they have to leave by 5 p.m., after five it’s OT [overtime] na. Sabado is overtime, Linggo is over-time, a holiday is overtime.

How different were things then when you were still in the PNP?

Nung pulis kasi kami, wala eh. Kung hindi mo matapos by 5 p.m. you have to stay until tomorrow if needed. You have to finish everything. Dito hindi, so nanibago ako and I’m sure nanibago rin yung mga AGMs [assistant general managers]. Kasi kaya nga may nag-comment na masyado raw akong impulsive when I decide, it’s because I’m used to deciding quickly talaga – ora mismo. Dito, memo muna (laughs), parang ganun.

Sabi ko, do I need to put that in a memo? It’s routine, inherent siya sa work. Nasanay kasi kami sa police na you can decide on the spot. Even an ordinary policeman, PO1, once na nasa kalsada ka you have to make decisions. Hindi ko na tatawagin ang chief of police ko, “Hello, legal ba ang ga-gawin ko, huhulihin ko ba ito?” Sa police, pag nandun na, gawin mo na yung tama. Dito [you ask], tama ba gagawin ko? Dito pag gagawa ng contract, tatanungin ko muna lawyer ko, si OGCC [Office of the Government Corporate Counsel]. Yung pinaggalingan kong organization, you have to do it, basta legal, tama, you do it na – now na. Yun yung nabago.

Is this your first time to be in a corporate position?

My first job was at the PNP, and this is my second job (laughs).

So you really had to make major adjustments…

Nakikita ko lang yung corporate [setting] pag nanonood ako ng telenovela. Ah, ganun pala siya (laughs).

When President Duterte stopped STL operations and the Keno game because he suspected cheat-ing, how much did it affect the revenues of PCSO for its charity programs?

Of course, when the operations were suspended, nakaapekto yun – may losses ang PCSO. But I think nung nag-resume na, things became better. Yung suspension was just temporary to correct lahat na dapat ayusin.

Kasi during that time, ang daming problema ng STL; ang daming AACs (Authorized Agent Corpora-tions) na hindi nagbabayad ng dues at may mga na-implement na policies na hindi consistent sa contracts at sa IRR (Implementing Rules and Regulations). So ako, tama lang na i-hold para i-review.

Same with Keno, it was losing in terms of prize fund, so nagkaroon ng restructuring sa price and sa lease. So ngayon, kumikita na ang PCSO. May mga ganun na dapat ayusin na kung hindi niya pina-hold parang wala lang – sige na lang, hintayin na lang malugi, bahala nang mali. So this time, na-optimize namin what is due [to the] government because of the suspension of the games and the lifting of the President.

What can you say about prevailing reports that the PCSO is earning large sums but only on paper, so that actual collection figures don’t match figures on paper?

Yes, that is true. On paper parang ang laki ng income ng PCSO but ang dami ngang underneath that, and that’s from STL. You see, even if STL pays, malaki pa rin ang effect ng taxation. Kasi ang naiiwan sa PCSO is around 40 percent lang from the total gross revenue.

What concerns a lot of people is how this situation affects the Individual Medical Assistance Pro-gram (IMAP); what can you say about that?

Actually, IMAP is not the only program of PCSO. We have many programs related to medical and health concerns like ambulance donation, but the most popular is IMAP. Of course, we used to give a really big amount before taxation was required for PCSO. Malaki talaga ang puwedeng ib-igay, but because of taxation naapektuhan yung IMAP fund namin. May fund pa rin even if meron kaming contribution sa Universal Health Care, but for the other programs, medyo tinanggal namin kasi nag-focus kami sa IMAP.

And yung ambulance donation, nandun pa rin siya. Yung mandatory contributions namin sa ibang ahensiya, because we are mandated under the law, tuloy-tuloy pa rin ang bigay namin, including sa sports and shares of LGUs sa lotto and STL. Likewise sa PNP and NBI, tuloy pa rin yung pagbib-igay namin. Yung sa Ilocos, we just turned over the last contribution namin sa Philippine Crop In-surance amounting to P42 million.

There had been discussions in Congress on why PCSO is taxed when it generates income for chari-ty. What is your take on this?

We already submitted to Congress and nag-lobby kami to exempt PCSO from taxation, sa docu-mentary stamp tax. We hope Congress will also consider our request. Kailangan din siguro ang lobby ng citizens, pagtulung-tulungan kasi nga apektado rin ang medical assistance program at ang daming nagre-request ng ambulansiya, ng sponsorhip sa programs ng welfare and charitable institutions. Bumaba talaga ang binibigay namin.

Moving on to less major questions, since this is just your second job and your first corporate job, how do you relax from all the stress that comes with the office?

Parang walang time. Honestly, even in my sleep, nasa isip ko si STL at saka si Lotto. Lotto because expired na [ang contract] and we are finalizing the terms of reference so medyo stressful yun.

Madali lang i-address [the continuing Lotto operations] if I want to just patch it up for two years and ma-survive ko lang – madali lang gawin yun. But I’m not looking two or three years lang, eh. I’m looking beyond the term of the President, that when the President leaves – siyempre co-terminus lang ako – maiiwanan ang PCSO na masasabing the games are owned and controlled by PCSO.

So yun yung tinitingnan kaya napaka-ambisyosa ko (chuckles). Kaya ako nai-stress kasi I’m not on-ly working on the two years term but I’m looking beyond or up to 10 years.

To meet your goals, what innovations and changes have you started to institute at PCSO given the full trust of the President?

I’ve already started kung ano ang gusto kong mangyari dito sa PCSO. On my first day, I said I want-ed transparency so we launched the Hotline, yung “Ipaalam Kay GM,” and I received a lot of in-formation that’s why sometimes my decision-making is affected because I have to base it on the complaints or make those as my guide.

Although the year given is over to implement the rationalization plan for PCSO, which I think is on its seventh year, we need to implement it fully now. So nabulabog when I terminated all the con-tracts of confidential agents and job orders. I [also] directed HR to place the personnel kung saan sila dapat, based on their plantilla. So nagkaroon ng reaction from the personnel, but you see, if you are going to implement a plan which was approved six years ago, pero hindi siya fully imple-mented, magkakaroon talaga ng negative reaction. Ganun talaga if you introduce change. I don’t care, sabi ko, because kailangan talaga ayusin. May matutuwa niyan, meron talagang hindi matu-tuwa. Ganun talaga yun. Sabi nga, damn if you do, damn if you don’t. It takes guts lang talaga to implement, as long as tama siya. May ganun akong style.

Next is yung game rebranding natin because of the confusion ng lotto and STL draws namin, which was effective October 1 sa renaming, rebranding of the product from Swetres and EZ2 to 2D and 3D and yung STL Swer2 and Swer3, para hindi ma-confuse ang public sa kanilang tinatayaan. And then yung strict implementation ng STL IRR nitong 2019. So yung strict collection what is due for PCSO this time. Sabi ko, walang pakiusap, everything in the contract we have to follow. Yun yung ginagawa namin ngayon. Looking forward, I hope for the Lotto, matatapos namin yung bid para may bagong system tayo. And then for now, I directed Gaming [Sector] to come up with terms of reference on how we will accommodate proposals on how we can discover new games and how we conduct test runs for all those offers. In fact, there are around seven new games submitted already, so I directed Gaming to come up with terms of reference so all of them can be accommodated.

Have you looked beyond your tenure at PCSO in terms of what you intend to do careerwise?

I cannot go back to PNP. Sana kung may government office na puwedeng pasukan after [my term here in PCSO], bakit hindi, pero sana related sa police work. Yung law enforcement-related yung work.

What if a position at the Philippine National Police Academy opens for you, like dean perhaps?

Naku, kawawa naman yung kadete (laughs). But puwede because I have a masters in Educational Management.

But seriously, kung hindi na ako babalik magtrabaho I will just focus sa hobby ko – which is mag-tanim, mag-garden in Davao, in Catalunan Grande. Yun ang gusto ko, hindi para sa income o yumaman. Sa akin, just to focus on my hobby, in case after this wala nang work. We’ve started planting trees including durian five years ago. Magiging farmer ako after this!

As the highlight program for the celebration of Indigenous Peoples (IP) Month, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is organizing a national forum on indigenous peoples knowledge dubbed “Kalkali” (Kankana-ey word for conversations) held at the Maryhill School of Theology in Quezon City on October 28 and 29.

The forum takes on the theme “Vital Wisdoms: Learning with the Indigenous Peoples” (Buhay na Dunong: Pagkatuto Kasama Ang Mga Katutubo).

“Vital Wisdoms” refer specifically to Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) grouped into five domains by Unesco, namely: oral traditions and expressions; performing arts; social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship.

Rather than adopting the notion of “learning from,” which conjures up “unidirectionality and exotic others” spins, the theme espouses “learning with,” which marks learning as a social relational process. At the same time, it considers the diverse positionalities and agendas among actors, be they IPs or non-IPs, involved in conversations on ICH in the Philippine context.

The eight sessions in this two-day “Kalkali” will feature speakers from IP communities together with representatives from concerned sectors who will share their views and experiences pertaining to ICH in the Philippines.

In the process, the forum aspires to generate issues, new perspectives and debates on, but not limited to, the aesthetic, legal, moral, ethical and pedagogical dimensions of ICH, which will inform current and future initiatives and advocacies in safeguarding ICH in the Philippines.

Forum director is University of the Philippines-Diliman anthropologist and professor Eufracio Abaya.

The forum expects active participation of teachers, local government functionaries, researchers, mass media workers and related practitioners from across the country.

October is National Indigenous Peoples’ Month in the Philippines by virtue of Presidential Proclamation No. 1906 signed in 2009.

Leading the celebration is the NCCA, headed by its chairman, National Artist Virgilio Almario, executive director Al Ryan Alejanre and deputy executive director Marichu Tellano.

The Subcommssion responsible for the programs and month-long activities is NCCA’s Subcommission on Cultural Communities and Traditional Arts (SCCTA) composed of the National Committee on Central Cultural Communities headed by Commissioner Alphonsus Tesoro, the National Committee on Southern Cultural Communities headed by Elmalyn Abatayo and the National Committee on Northern Cultural Communities headed by Federico Dalayday.

SCCTA works with support from the NCCA Secretariat through its Plan/Policy Formulation and Programming Division led by Bernan Joseph Corpuz, and the Cultural Communities and Traditional Arts Section led by Renee Talavera.

Student films from the University of the East College of Fine Arts, Architecture and Design (UE CFAD) are gradually making their present felt in the international and local film arena.

This year, “Yero” (Corrugated Galvanized Iron) won Best Short Documentary at the third 21 Islands International Short Film Festival in New York. The 13-minute documentary also competed recently at the 21st Ismailia International Film Festival for documentary and short films in Egypt and is part of the official selection of the exground filmfest 32 in Germany from November 15 to 24.

A final project for the video production class under professor Richard Legaspi, it reveals the harsh conditions inside a corrugated-iron recycling factory, as seen through the life of two workers, Armando Bucog and Rowil Galicia.

“Yero” also vied for honors at the 30th Gawad CCP Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video or Gawad Alternatibo at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and at the 6th Nabunturan Independent Film Exhibition or Nabifilmex 6 in Compostela Valley.

Meanwhile, “How the Beasts Got Hyped” by Elvin Jay Macanlalay, Bryan Marticio and Mars Sanchez was part of the official selection of the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival in India, the Kinolikbez X Documentary Film Festival in Russia, the first Philippine International Film Festival in Korea, the 17th Hyperfest International Student Film Festival in Romania, the AFFF Athens Fashion Film Festival in Greece, the Lift-Off Global Network — First time Filmmaker Sessions in the United Kingdom, and the 2019 Music Shorts Film Festival in the USA.

The documentary, also a final project under professor Legaspi’s class, focuses on the daily routine of “hypebeasts” or people who are “beasts” (obsessed) about the “hype” (in fashion) and their mutual interest in street-style fashion, which provides a sense of community among its followers.

Another UE entry, the animated film “Maling Akala: Ang Misteryo ng Unamuno” by Macanlalay and Arvileen Yongzon, has been recently nominated in AnakTV’s Sinebata 2019. Produced by Piko Productions as a requirement for professor Ronwell Bacani’s class, the five-minute animation takes on a legendary Philippine mythical creature named Bungisngis and a mischievous child named Ron Ron, as they journey through the woods after a calamity hits their village, Unamuno.

“Maling Akala” also vied for awards at Nabifilmex, Gawad Alternatibo, the student category of Pagwanawanan Film Festival, second Manila Student Film Festival, Recoletos Film Festival, 11th Philippine Animation Festival or Animahenasyon 11, and CineKasimanwa: The Western Visayas Film Festival. It was also exhibited at the Sinehan sa Summer 2019 in New York and is one of the 20 finalists in the open category of the 6th Urduja Film Festival in Pangasinan this month.

“Yero,” “How the Beasts Got Hyped,” “Maling Akala” and “Dumbo,” another animated film project under professor Bacani’s class, represented UE in the first Cinestudyante Film Festival at Santolan Town Plaza from September 25 to October 1.

“Dumbo” is directed by Jonica “Nica” Aque based on the story and character design by Ariane Semana, produced by Zyon Kierulf, edited by Kim Bautista, production design by Charl Cercado Poyaoan and cinematography by Jessa Victoriano and Matthew Bautista Adolfo. A short traditional animation about a kid who unknowingly becomes depressed from feeling left out, alone and from having inattentive parents, which are too much for him to bear, it was also nominated at AnakTV’s Sinebata 2019.

Another UE student work, Rexie Robles Tamayo’s “Mga Bangkang Papel sa Sapang Delubyo” competed in the short film category of the 26th Annual Filipino International Cine Festival or FACINE in San Francisco, California on October 26. The short film revolves around Tutoy, a naïve child with a penchant for Greek mythology, who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a tragedy and feuding siblings.

From theater to cinema, filmmaker-actor Massimiliano Finazzer Flory — who has been investigating the life of the greatest painter of all time, Leonardo da Vinci, and the relevance of his genius to contemporary generations since 2011 — brought him to render his investigations through a masterpiece itself in “Being Leonardo Da Vinci, An Impossible Interview.”

In collaboration with Rai Cinema under the patronage of the National Committee for the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, Finazzer Flory has weaved an interesting almost true-to-life presentation with da Vinci himself talking about his art in the Italian language (with English subtitles) used in the 14th century.

Both film and play shows two journalists from New York and Milan – unaware of each other — who are looking for a scoop about the 500th anniversary of the revered Renaissance artist.

They explore his works of art and they pass through the places where the master had travel and stayed until they come to his grave in Clos Lucé where they meet him face-to-face. He grants an interview with them as he reveals his thoughts as artist, scientist, inventor and even his belief in the Supreme Being.

In cooperation with the Philippine-Italian Association and the Embassy of Italy Manila, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) presented to the media and stakeholders on Thursday the controversial and enlightening film that gave Flory the Best Actor Award in the Los Angeles Actors Awards in January, the Best Narrative Feature in the Festive International Film Festival 2019 in Los Angeles and Narrative Film Honorable Mention in the 2019 Los Angeles Film Awards, among others.

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine after the special screening, Philippine-Italian Association general manager Alessandro Millani said that the Philippines is the second country after Japan that so far has activities arranged for the 500th anniversary of the Italian master.

“Being Leonardo Da Vinci, An Impossible Interview” is the featured film in the Italian opening of Cine Europa in Manila at the Cinematheque Center, Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), Kalaw Street, Manila on November 19.

No less than Finazzer Flory himself will do the film presentation at 5 p.m. and screening at 7:30 p.m. both on first-come first-served basis.

A Masterclass is held on November 20 at the CCP Dream Theater, followed by a short movie screening.

On November 21 at 7 p.m., the theater play — with and by Finazzer Flory and the special collaboration of Filipino actor, director and playwright Lito Casaje — is mounted at the CCP Little Theater.

The Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) draws its 52nd Theater Season to a close by responding to an issue that has long been met with silence: the HIV epidemic in the Philippines.

Together with esteemed HIV advocacy organizations The Red Whistle and LoveYourself, Inc., PETA launches the Acting on HIV campaign with Rody Vera’s anthology drama “Under My Skin,” directed by Melvin Lee, as the frontliner.

The Acting on HIV campaign reaches out to audiences through an immersive experience that promotes treatment and awareness on HIV, debunks myths and misconceptions about the disease, and pushes to eradicate stigma around Persons Living With HIV (PLHIV) through workshops, exhibits, an online EduSeries, and talkbacks with HIV experts back-to-back with every show of “Under My Skin.”

PETA now also becomes part of LoveYourself, Inc.’s annual Mass HIV Screening event and The Red Whistle’s annual Project Headshot Clinic in November this year. PETA Executive Director Beng Santos-Cabangon shared that it is through this campaign and partnership that various groups can unite and strengthen their cause.

“PETA believes that by using the arts as a medium, “Under My Skin” and other advocacy-oriented activities can become an effective platform for probing, conversations, and a coming-together of various HIV experts and advocates,” said Santos-Cabangon. “It is through this safe space that we aim to humanize the HIV issue that has long become taboo in our society.”

As the cases of HIV rise in the country, PETA and its partners now use the stage as a platform to advance the HIV advocacy and tap into larger networks.

“In the past, PETA has been successful in tackling sensitive topics through theater. Since the early 2000, PETA has been active in mobilizing and forging strategic partnerships to help further advocacy work,” shared PETA Artistic Director Maribel Legarda.

“We believe that theater can be another approach to HIV awareness, be an effective means of public engagement, introspection, and action,” Legarda added.

While The Red Whistle and LoveYourself, Inc. both employ their own particular approaches to the HIV issue, the Acting on HIV campaign gives the opportunity to collaborate. LoveYourself, Inc.’s response to the HIV epidemic has always entailed a holistic approach that covers education, prevention, testing and treatment.

“The arts can act as a bridge for people in the midst of crisis,” noted LoveYourself, Inc. founder and executive director Ronivin Pagtakhan.

In similar fashion, The Red Whistle responds to the HIV epidemic by addressing the need for a change in mindset. “Theater has the ability to move people to understand the issue more. We need to shift perspectives around HIV-related stigma and change attitudes towards our sexual health,” said The Red Whistle president Benedict Bernabe.

“If we want to change people’s minds, we need to tug on their heartstrings first. This is why the arts is an important and necessary component, not just for awareness and education, but also for behavior change in the HIV advocacy,” he added.

Acting on HIV’s frontliner, “Under My Skin” will feature artists and HIV advocates such as Cherry Pie Picache, Roselyn Perez, Miguel Almendras, Mike Liwag, Anthony Falcon and more. It will be on play from February 7 to March 15, 2020 (Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays/Sundays at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.) at the PETA Theater Center.

A romantic comedy, a Pulitzer prize-winning drama, a Broadway musical and a fairy tale with a twist ushers the 83rd season of Repertory Philippines. What makes it more exciting is that new directors and a new theatre concept welcome audiences starting with its first offering for 2020.

Filmmaker Carlos Siguion-Reyna directs the rollicking yet passionate “Stage Kiss” by American playwright Sara Ruhl from February 7 to March 1.

It is interesting to see how he takes up estranged lovers who are ironically re-thrown into each other’s arms by being cast as lovers in a 1930s melodrama. The kisses onstage rekindle their love backstage. Or could these rub the uncouple the wrong way?

How this New York Times’ Critic Pick of 2014 comes out in the hands of a multi-awarded Filipino movie director all the more makes the play worth watching.

Nilo Cruz’ “Anna in the Tropics” is staged from March 13 to April 5. Directed by New York-based production designer Joey Mendoza, the story revolves around new lector Juan Julian who periodically reads the world-renowned novel Anna Karenina to under-educated factory workers rolling cigars by hand. The story they hear slowly changes their perspective in life.

The play is set when manual labor in the 1920s is threatened by automation.

“The play revolves around art and literature and how these will pull the characters together,” Mendoza said. Though hope was in their midst as they sorted relationships and worked through their difficulties, the play is tragic, just like the Russian classic.

Comebacking “REPper” Toff de Venecia is at the helm of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” a story of whirlwind love challenged by dire straits. To what extent the couple will fight for their relationship is key to visualizing the fallibility and wonderment of humans.

“Vital here is how to present a 1945 Broadway musical to a contemporary audience. We want to make the issues that confounded society back then relatable to present-day culture,” De Venecia explained.

Singers Nikki Gil and Gian Magdangal are Julie Jordan and Billy Bigelow who both lose their jobs in the name of love. Redemption comes after a tragedy, reaffirming that life should not be defined by one’s parents’ success or be held back by their failure.

“If I were in Billy’s shoes, I’d still choose love, even if I know I’d go poor. Because with love, you’ve already won. The rest of the journey could be positive or negative. It’s up to you to change the world,” Magdangal said.

Both he and Gil are now taking voice lessons.

“It’s a different kind of voice placement when you are singing for a classic play. I’ve had experience with contemporary stage acting and singing before but it’s my first time to do this. You throw your voice in a particular way when doing Broadway,” Gil affirmed, who is back to theatre after five years.

“Carousel” will run from May 1 to 24.

There’s a new take on the beloved “Snow White” musical which runs from September 12 to January 31, 2021. Called “Snow White and the Prince,” it is written by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman.

Thespian Joy Virata directs the play, bereft of seven dwarfs. Instead, the lead girl befriends seven unusual, jolly miners looking like they’re from the ghetto; one even sporting a Mohawk. But the usual goodness winning over evil is expected to cap off the fairy tale. Snow White still wears her blue and yellow ensemble, only this time, she sports a knee-length skirt with black, heeled pumps. This may come as the chillest children’s story ever.

During the interim between the first three plays and the last, REP will launch an out-of the-box approach on staging performances. Called “REP Unplugged,” it will utilize unconventional performance locales under the direction of theatre wonderkid Ed Lacson Jr.

“It could happen in a warehouse or a bar. As long as it’s out of a comfort zone,” Lacson emphasized.

It came about because of a technical glitz during one production and the actors had to make do without electricity. An edgy kind of theatre, “REP Unplugged” is literally an alternative kind of art that’s unplugged from the rest of REP’s 2020 season.

REP President and CEO Mindy Perez Rubio alludes the year 2020 to perfect vision for the company.

“We have a formidable line-up of plays for the upcoming year. A unique mix that can attract all types of audiences, even school children. Isn’t that so perfect?” she said.

Founded in 1967, the REP is the only theater company in the Philippines that regularly produces Western modern and classic plays and has staged 450 productions.

For the year 2020, first-time artistic director Liesl Batucan shared that playgoers can expect a new creative spirit that stays faithful to REP’s legacy in the furtherance of excellence in theatre art — which some people simply call it love for art.

BY ELAINE VERONICA LUBAG

Last of three parts

THERE were four more walk-ins that early Saturday morning — all in quick succession — providing a distraction for which Gideon was thankful: a teenage girl with asthma who could barely breathe despite the nebulizer; a man who accidentally shot himself in the foot and severed two toes in the process; another man who was DOA; and a woman who complained of a mystifying headache and nothing more, and who eventually decided to go home after an effusive display of drama about the people in the ER not caring at all for her medical welfare. The boy had been taken to the Intensive Care Unit — he knew this from Naty — just as dawn was breaking and there was now a shock of deep blue scattering throughout the skies outside the glass walls of the ER. Apparently, Naty said, it was decided surgery could not help the boy, and it was only really a matter of time now. Gideon suddenly felt tired.

“Has anyone told his friends? They’re still waiting for him, right?”

“Dr. Lento has, doc.”

“His family — are they coming?”

“We’re still trying to find his emergency contact, doc. I think someone’s trying to contact the university registrar for his information.”

“I knew him,” he muttered to no one in particular, but Naty heard.

“You did? How come you never said that earlier? Do you know how we can contact his family?”

Gideon shook his head.

“No, I meant I knew him very casually. He looked very familiar. I’ve seen him before.”

Naty looked at him, glancing up from her paperwork with her brows furrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

He shuffled his feet and said, “Duty’s over. Got to go home and get some sleep. Good morning, Naty.”

“Take care, doc.”

As Gideon walked the long corridors back to the doctor’s lounge where his locker was, he thought of that summer night a few months back when he had, out of sheer boredom, succumbed to the temptations of one of those hookup apps and met Dennis Mainit. He might have installed it on his phone only more than a year ago, but he had always kept his Grindr presence discreet, barely checking it for months at a time, believing himself much too worthy to need anything like it. After all, hadn’t he attracted more than his fair share of conquests? When he was in his mid-twenties, two boys barely out of their teens wrote poems about him, but he broke their hearts anyway. He was known among his friends as the one guy in their group who could routinely disappear from the dance floor of some club they’d be in, a guaranteed hookup in his arms. He was a looker in his twenties and a dashing man in his thirties, carefully manufactured from a relentless observance of diet and gym time, but the stress of medical school had gotten to him without the elasticity of youth to put him back together again. The sleepless nights and the constant anxiety eventually took a toll: he had grown a paunch, his muscles turned to jelly and there were now faint lines on his face. The anonymity of Grindr gave him occasional respite, luring most of his dalliances with a photo that was six years younger than he actually was. And when they asked for his age, he’d say, “Thirty-six.”

He could still easily pass for thirty-six, couldn’t he?

“You’re not thirty-six,” Dennis told him up front.

They had decided to meet under the tungsten light of the second lamppost along Calle San Jose, which was convenient enough for Gideon — it led directly to his front door in his apartment in the poblacion.

“Of course I’m thirty-six.”

Dennis gave a little shrug.

“Won’t you come in? My apartment’s just right in there,” Gideon said, pointing to the front door. He found his slightly pleading voice almost an embarrassment. But what had he got to lose? He was already out here on the sidewalk committed to meeting a stranger, and the boy was already outside his own apartment. Carpe diem, he told himself, although carpe noctem was more like it.

The boy allowed himself to be ushered right in — and under the generous light of the living room, where they had entered to music playing on Spotify, Gideon could finally see fully everything about the boy.

He was not tall — perhaps 5’8” — but wasn’t that tall enough for a local boy? He was dressed casually in a flower-print polo shirt, blue jeans and canvas shoes, as if in preparation for some informal revelry his college friends were throwing later somewhere in the party district of Escaño. He was beautiful, even striking, carrying his beauty like it was a privilege he alone completely understood. His skin was a brilliant brown, his mouth was full and his eyes — long-lashed and colored in the deepest pools of russet — had the look of arrogance to them, which immediately electrified Gideon. Dennis Mainit looked like a young divinity pretending, coyly, to be innocent.

“Enya,” the boy said, noticing the music in the room.

“You listen to Enya?”

“No. My parents do. It’s a little too old school for me.”

Gideon frowned a bit, but nodded.

“You live alone, Gideon?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s not bad.”

“I like having my own apartment.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’d like to answer that in the morning.”

The boy gave a quick knowing smile.

“Your name is Dennis, right?” Gideon asked.

The boy nodded slowly, looking at Gideon straight in the eyes, knowing full well that the older man could not take his eyes off him.

“And how old are you, Dennis?”

“I’m nineteen. You’re not thirty-six.”

“Fine, I’m not. I’m thirty-eight,” Gideon lied.

“It does not really matter how old you are, anyway. You’re a dad.”

A dad?

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m a twink, yes?”

Gideon swallowed a bit, and nodded.

“I’m a twink,” the boy said, and he casually took off his shirt, revealing a lean frame, skin glistening in their light brownish hue, young muscles defined in just all the right places. “And you’re a dad.”

“I’m a dad?”

“Yes, you are,” the boy said, taking off his pants. “Aren’t you, daddy.”

Gideon could feel his breathing becoming shallower.

“You’re a daddy.”

The boy was now walking toward him, clad only in his blue briefs, until Gideon could feel the boy’s warm, semi-naked body pressed up against his own still fully-clothed self. The boy’s hands were suddenly all over him, cupping his hardness, massaging his back — and then, when Gideon moaned, he felt the boy’s mouth on his neck, his tongue working on Gideon’s skin, and soon the boy’s lips were on his own, and the kiss was electric and cruel — and all too brief.

It confused Gideon momentarily to register why the boy was stopping, but soon he saw Dennis dressing up. He was fast, and soon he was at the door.

“Are you leaving so soon?”

On Gideon’s face was a look of bewilderment.

Dennis only smiled. “I don’t go for dads. Next time, don’t catfish anyone with an old photo. It just feels a little too desperate, even for me.”

And the boy left.

He would be in the middle of the darkness of the ICU now, Gideon thought as he reached his locker in the doctor’s lounge, in the hum of desperate machines trying to keep him alive. But he knew Dennis was bleeding inside the air-conditioned cocoon of that terrible room, and he knew the boy was dying by the minute, his organs betraying him bit by bit, poisoned by the gravity of the ice pick’s puncture. Perhaps, Gideon thought, the boy must also know there would be no more daylight for him. Gideon gathered his things; he was slow, but soon enough he was at the exit bound for home, the morning light an affront he had to shield his eyes.

ALL is wreckage, Gideon thought. He looked at his reflection in the mirror inside the men’s CR of Barefoot, and surveyed the cold, craggy silences his life had become. Outside the tight shale-gray confines of the CR, he could hear the deep, sustained thump-thump of the music from the dance floor — the hypnotic haze, the peaks and the drops of EDM. He finished washing his face, and prepared to go out again, back to one of those anonymous and dimly lit corners of Barefoot, where Michael was waiting for him, perhaps flirting with the college girls he was sure were around, chugging his third bottle of San Mig Lite.

“What took you so long?” Michael asked when Gideon returned, his voice louder to carry it above the din.

“I was just washing my face!”

Gideon’s voice, too, was loud, fighting back against the persistent push of the music and the chatter of people.

“Here? Why?”

“Just trying to keep myself awake, I guess. I barely had any sleep this morning after duty.”

“But you used to be a party boy, Gids. Didn’t you tell me that?”

“Used to be was ten years ago.”

“So you’re telling me you’re just getting old?”

“I’m telling you that one of these days, all these things you think are so much fun” — Gideon gestured around, indicating the dimness punctuated by a dance of bright colored lights, indicating the thump-thump-thump of dance music, indicating the crush of gyrating, screaming bodies — “wouldn’t be so much fun anymore, you’d rather be home and sleep.”

“I know that —”

“You do?”

“But I’m only young once!”

Michael laughed.

“Yeah, you’re only nineteen, how can I forget that.”

The boy raised his bottle of beer to him.

“A boy was knifed here last night,” he told Michael, his voice a little too low.

“A boy was what —?”

“A patient I had to attend to last night.”

“What about him?”

“Someone stabbed him with an ice pick here last night.”

“Someone what —?”

“Never mind,” Gideon sighed. “Let’s go home, Mike. I need to sleep. Or you could stay here and —”

But Michael was already on his feet, which surprised Gideon. “Let’s go,” Michael said. “I don’t mind going home. It’s not much of a weekend tonight. There’s barely any people here. I heard someone got knifed here last night.”

In bed, in the growing darkness of his apartment, the hum of the air-conditioning competing with Enya’s plaintive sound in low volume, Gideon felt Michael’s hands snaking around him, pulling him closer to his hardness. “I can’t do another round, Mike, I’m tired,” Gideon whispered.

The boy sighed dramatically.

“You should get a boyfriend your own age,” Gideon said. “I can’t keep up with your energy, to be honest.”

Michael was now a tease, sidling up to him and whispering in his ear: “Just one more round, Gids, please. I need the release.”

Gideon sighed. “Fine.”

He felt Michael fidgeting around in the dark, positioning his body in just the right angle to thrust. Gideon closed his eyes and winced. And when the first powerful thrust came, he felt it like a kind of stabbing — a violation that roiled him. And he thought of Barefoot all of a sudden, its darkness pregnant with music and smoke and bodies, and in the midst of all the gyrations, he imagined Dennis standing in the middle of the dance floor, lean and helpless in his nakedness. With each moaning thrust he felt, Gideon also felt a stabbing pain — and he imagined the puncture deepening in Dennis’ brown flesh, going deeper and bloodier as Michael went on and on. The pain was unbearable, Gideon could only grit his teeth, but Michael was relentless.

And when the boy was finally sated, he slumped on top of Gideon’s withering frame. Gideon could feel tears slowly forming, the pain still raw and radiating from deep within him.

“Thank you, babe,” Michael said, as he snuggled to sleep. “Hey, don’t forget, I need P1,000 for Monday.”

Lying there, spent, Gideon stared only at the deepening dark; Enya had long been banished into silence, the sound of the air-conditioning underlining only a hollow sorrow. He closed his eyes, and he imagined the ghost of his mother looking at him now with the same look of scorn she threw at him which burned so much in his last memory of her. There was only violation, especially among men, she had said, more or less.

You can never find love among faggots, she spat.

You are an ugly woman with an ugly soul, he shot back.

Ha! You’re a faggot with fading looks, and you deserve the worst of all violations.

Was she right?

In the expanding gloom of his room, he replaced one ghost with another —Dennis Mainit alone in the ICU, clinging to dissipating life. Gideon imagined the dark look in Dennis’s once-beautiful eyes, which would have a completely different texture by then; they’d have known the end was coming by the mute sparkle of little, desperate tears.

So much strange beauty, even in the eyes of death.

And so much waste, Gideon thought, the pillow soaking up his tears. So much waste for which beauty could do nothing, nothing at all.

“Kumain lang kayo nang kumain ha,” bade award-winning actress Sylvia Sanchez, as she busily placed plate after plate of homecooked dishes in the middle of the table.

It was almost like a scene from one of her teleseryes save for the fact that she didn’t have any “teleserye children” around the table but instead The Sunday Times Magazine team and The Manila Times Digital TV crew just before this exclusive interview proceeded.

Oh and also, it should be noted she was serving a very festive meal in an uber trendy kitchen, quite unlike the basic ulam at kanin and austere setting her popular drama anthologies tend to show. Because you see, TV’s Nanay Luz Magbunga on ABS-CBN’s “Pamilya Ko” actually lives a very comfortable life in a sprawling home within a posh subdivision, happy and thriving as wife to long-established businessman Art Atayde and mom to five beautiful and well-bred children.

And yet, there remained a most striking similarity between the real Sylvia Sanchez at home and the unforgettable roles she’s been portraying from one hit teleserye to the next. Both Sylvias are very simple and down-to earth, very warm and genuine, and devoid of any pretense. In fact, she wasn’t the least bit conscious when The Sunday Times Magazine arrived and caught her in a far from glamorous house dress and half her head in curlers.

“O ayan ha. Nakita n’yo na ‘kong naka-duster at rollers kaya close na tayo ha,” the highly respected actress gamely quipped, as a bunch of star struck camera and light men almost blushed in surprise.

They were all the more chuffed when after lunch, the famous actress followed them to the living room where they were setting up for the shoot and merrily served them mounds of kakanin for dessert. Her hospitality also left a very interesting impression as she excused herself to change into her celebrity clothes — the colorfully humble rice cakes waiting to be hand in a roomful Arturo Luz pieces and other priceless artworks from the masters.

Indeed, as the interview proceeded, amid the remarkable and endearing contrast of her lavish home and unassuming ways, it all became clear why Sylvia Sanchez turned into television’s favorite mother. It’s because this talented woman is as real as real can be; whether in person or in portraying a character. She is blunt as she is sweet, strict as she is indulgent, sensible as she is principled, and credible as she is inspiring.

What follows are the very words of one Jossette Campo-Atayde — a wife of strength and devotion, and a mother of wisdom and boundless love — who also happens to be the beloved actress that is Sylvia Sanchez.

This exclusive is definitely a must-read for women and a goldmine for lessons on how to live a happy family life while keeping one’s identity and dignity for life.

The Sunday Times Magazine: Since your breakthrough role as an unwavering mother afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease in the hit series “The Greatest Love,” mothers have looked to you as a role model in caring for their families. But what are you really like as the woman of this lovely home?

Sylvia Sanchez: Normal ako. Ever since pumasok ako sa showbiz, artista ako on cam, but off cam, ayoko magpaka-artista kasi hindi totoo yun eh. Mas gusto ko talagang nasa bahay — kumakain, makipag lokohan sa mga anak ko, sa mga yaya ko at mag-alaga lang sa mga bata kung walang trabaho.

So even with your stature as a celebrity, do you really enjoy being a homemaker?

Nae-enjoy ko lahat lahat. Pagluto, pagayos ng bahay, pagayos ng kwarto namin. Gusto ko lang maayos lahat, kontento na ko dun. Honestly, OK nga lang sa akin yung wala na ako masyadong cash, basta pag nabuksan ko yung pantry ko lahat kumpleto. Alam mo yun, yung hindi mamomroblema yung asawa ko o mga anak ko pag nasa trabaho ako at oras na ng pag-kain? Security blanket ko talaga ang pagkain. (Laughs)

Pag hindi kumpleto yan, meron ditong palaging, nag-che-check, si Ria [Atayde, the actress and her daughter]. Bubuksan niya yung pantry tapos pag wala na yung ibang laman, pi-picturan niya yon tapos i-se-send niya sa Viber namin, “You have a big problem Ma!” Tapos mapapatakbo na ako sa grocery! Pero thank God si Ria, even if people see her as a sosyalera or inglesera, very responsible siya na anak. Pag may taping ako, siya ang pupunta sa grocery para sa mga kulang sa bahay.

Having brought up Ria in our conversation, and then of course there’s your son Arjo who is also an actor besides yourself, how do you make sure they don’t bring their celebrity into the house?

Ang usapan namin, dito sa bahay may daddy and mommy na kailangan niyo sundin kahit kumikita na kayo, kahit sabihin nilang kilala na kayo. Wala sa amin yun dito sa bahay. Wag tayong mag yabangan dahil pamilya tayo dito. So, kung ano mang character ang meron ka sa teleserye mo, ang rule namin is iiwan yon sa trabaho at hindi iuuwi dito.

But even if Arjo and Ria didn’t go into show business, they’d still be living quite a privileged life along with the rest of your children. How then do you keep them grounded?

Yun naman yung pinagmamalaki ko sa pamilyang ito — sa aming mag-asawa at sa mga anak ko. Kasi may regulasyon kami dito na dapat marunong kang tumulong sa ibang tao. At pag tumulong ka, wag mo nang ipapaalam sa iba. Pero [in saying that] I don’t mean against ako sa mga na dya-dyaryo or nagpapa-dyaryo pag may nagawa sila, especially pag sikat ka kasi talaga madya-dyaryo at madya-dyaryo ka naman talaga. Hindi ako against dun pero dito sa bahay namin, yun yung unang regulasyon namin na tumulong sa iba.

Happy ako sa mga bata kasi ako hindi naman talaga ako mayaman o anak ng mayamang-mayaman talaga. Kaya nga ako naging bread winner ng pamilya ko sa probinsya [in Agusan del Norte] kasi kailangan ko tumulong para umayos yung buhay namin.

Swerte lang ako kasi maganda yung buhay ng asawa ko. Di ba sinabi ko nga sa iyo kanina na alam mo naman mga lolo’t lola, yun yung mga spoiler sa mga apo kasi right naman nila yon i-enjoy dahil ang responsibility ng pagpapalaki nasa magulang na yan. But nung nakikita ko yun noon, sabi ko sa husband ko, paano later on kung hindi natin kayanin ibigay yung binibigay nila sa mga anak natin? Baka magalit naman sila sa atin.

Then there was a time na itong si Ria, dahil masyado silang exposed dun sa magandang buhay ng mga kapatid niya, dumating sa point na nagtanong sa akin minsan habang namamasyal kami sa Picnic Grove at may nakita siyang mga batang lumalapit at nanglilimos sa amin, “Mommy, why are they poor?” She was only seven years old at that time and it was such an honest and innocent question because they didn’t really know na may ibang buhay doon sa meron sila.

Hindi ko muna in-explain mabuti nung araw na yun kay Ria yung sagot but then and there, nag-decide ako na dalhin sila sa Mindanao kung saan ako nanggaling. Kasi nung bata kami, tumatakbo kami sa mga maisan, sa mga tubuhan. Naglalaro kami dun walang mga tsinelas. Alam mo yung mga ganun? Mga batang kanto talaga. Sabi ko, kailangan ko siyang i-expose sa ganitong klaseng mundo.

So dinala ko sila ni Arjo dun. Arjo was nine years old naman that time when Ria was seven. Tapos nagulat sila. “Bakit may ganito? Bakit OK yung buhay namin pero dito halos walang pambili ng pagkain?” Ang daming nilang questions and that was when I told them the reality that not everyone is as lucky as they are so they need to share their blessings. So every year since then, pumupunta sila doon ng Christmas or summer to share what they have. At tuloy-tuloy yun hanggang sa youngest namin ngayon na nine years old din.

How do you get to do all these — teach your children the proper values, keep them grounded, make sure they’re fed well — when we all know you’ve always been a working and a very busy woman?

Time management lang talaga. Monday, Wednesday, Friday taping ko. Tapos Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday nandito ako sa kanila. Tapos sinasabi ko lang sa mga anak ko kahit magka-asawa kayo, kahit magka-apo ako sa inyo, kailangan every Sunday sa akin ang lunch or dinner. Kasi nakita ko yun sa pamilya ng asawa ko. Wala kaming ganun sa pamilya namin ha. Hindi uso sa amin yun. Pero sa mga Atayde, mga negosyante na busy silang lahat, but every Sunday, together silang lahat kasama ang mga anak. Sabi ko, magandang gawin ito sa mga ka-apo-apohan ko. So ginawa ko rin sa mga anak ko. So every Sunday Arjo, Ria and the rest of my kids, lunch and dinner. After that, bahala kayo basta nandito tayo for our meals together.

You certainly seem to be thriving as mom to your children, raising them well and guiding them as best you can. On TV, you’ve become the favorite pick for important mother roles in family-centered programs. Who do you credit for how you’ve turned out in this real-life role that also translates into the roles you’ve had as an actress.

Syempre yung nanay ko. Teacher yung nanay ko [by profession].

Alam niyo sinasabi ko nga minsan, tuloy tuloy yung blessings ko, sa mga anak ko, sa pamily namin — non-stop. Tapos sabi ko sa Diyos, “Minsan hindi ko na deserve pero binibigay mo pa rin.” Kasi alam ko hindi ako perfect; hindi ako mabait all the time. Meron din akong kalokohan, maldita din ako. Pero bakit ganun yung binibigay sa akin? So iniisip ko ano kaya yung rason? And ang naging reason sa akin na nakikita ko, siguro dahil, modesty aside, mabait ako sa nanay ko. Hindi din ako perfect daughter pero masasabi ko I’m one of the best na anak. Yung nanay ko, hanggang ngayon sa akin siya. Hindi man ako pinamanahan ng nanay ko ng material things, kasi mahirap kami eh, pero nagpapasalamat ako kasi meron siyang mas higit pa sa material na pinamana sa akin, which is yung puso niya. Kasi yung kabutihan niya, nabigay niya sa ‘kin. Yung mga ginagawa niyang tama na sa tingin niya ay tutulong sa kapwa, binigay niya sa ‘kin, pinamana niya sa ‘kin.

Tapos yung pagiging walang kayabangan kasi sabi ng nanay ko pag pine-praise ka, say thank you. Namnamin mo yun, enjoy-in mo yun, but wag mo ilagay sa puso’t isip mo totally, kasi yun yung ikakayabang mo.

So yun, yung pagiging matulungin at yung pagiging-humble, yun yung pinamana ko rin sa mga anak ko. At sabi ko sa naman sa mga anak ko, ipamana niyo din yan sa mga anak niyo.

Isn’t it hard to talk about values and more so pass on these on to your children who are part of the millennial generation?

Nararanasan mo na ba bilang nanay ung pag nakiki pag-usap ka sa kanila umiikot yung mata nila? (Laughs). Kasi si Ria sa school nila, common na yun, yun mga “duh!” (rolls eyes), yung mga ganun. So sabi ko sa kanya, “Isa pa tutusukin ko yung mata mo! Ginaganon ko sila and nagpapasalamat ako na kahit anong gawin kong pangaral sa mga anak ko nakikinig sila. At sa tingin ko, kung hindi sila mabuting tao, hindi yun papasok sa kanila.

Besides your mom, who else do you credit for the woman you’ve become? Another mother who molded you and guided you?

Ang isa pang nanay talaga sa akin is yung manager ko na umalis na, pumanaw, si Tita Angge. Ay grabe yun. Grabe yun magmura pero pag hindi ka daw minura nun, hindi ka daw niya mahal. Pero yun yung front lang niya eh.

Nanay ko yun na napaka-lambot ng puso, napaka-bait na tao kahit nasosobrahan na, at na-ta-take advantage na.

And si Tita Angge din ang nag-turo sa akin kung paano mag-manage ng kita ko. Sasabihin niya sa akin, “O, may pera na tayo, sige ipasok natin sa ganitong negosyo at lakasan lang ng loob.” Nakuha ko rin sa kanya yun, and I’m grateful na natutunan ko yun sa kanya kasi ang artista hindi naman for life sikat ka eh. Hindi forever na nandiyan ka na ikaw yung queen. Pag nasa peak mo na ikaw, may time talaga na bababa ka at merong papalit sa iyo. Ngayon, anong gagawin mo pag nangyari yun at hindi mo pinaghandaan ang future mo?

And after Tita Angge, may isa pang naging nanay sa buhay ko at siya yung isang tao na after 27 years sa pag-aartista ko, siya yung tuloy-tuloy na naniwala sa akin at from doing sexy roles, tapos kontrabida roles, I became the dramatic actress the industry and the public considers me to be today.

Kaibigan ko na siya nung Production Assistant pa lang siya sa ABS-CBN hanggang naging Executive Producer na siya ngayon at mataas na yung pwesto — si Ms. Ginny Monteagudo-Ocampo. Siya yung kaibigan ko na siguro nakakita rin ang puso ko, ng pagiging nanay ko. Pinagkatiwalaan niya ko ng role dun sa “Mundo Man ay Magunaw” as kontrabidang nanay, tapos sa “Be Careful with my Heart,” tapos sa “Ningning,” ginawa niya kong lola.

Then nung pang fourth show namin sabi niya, “Time mo na. May something.” Sabi ko, “Bakit?” Sabi niya, “May puso ka bilang nanay. Iba ka.”

Sabi ko pa sa kanya nun, “Ms. Ginny, wala akong fan ha. Hindi ko kaya maging lead sa programa.” Pero sabi niya, “Magaling kang umarte. Marunong kang umarte at maganda yung piyesa natin. Yun yung “The Greatest Love,” so merong binigay sakin ang Diyos na anghel sa pagkatao ni Ms. Ginny Ocampo na pinagkatiwala sa akin yung proyekto na iniba ang takbo ng career ko.

Ibang klase ang ugali ng taong yan, saludo ako sa kanya at thankful ako kasi minsan talaga hindi mo alam kung sino yung lalaban para sa iyo; sino yung ibibigay ng Diyos para sa iyo. Nakita ko kung pano rin niya ginapang yun. Nung nakita niya sa akin yung talent ko at sinabi niya, “Hindi ko ito bibigay sa ‘yo dahil kaibigan kita. Kasi kahit kaibigan kita pero hindi ka marunong, ako yung mapapahiya. Pero ito, para sa ‘yo ‘ito; puputok ito.

Dinasal ko din yun eh. Sabi ko, “Lord, ibigay mo na after 27 years ko sa career na ito, kakapalan ko yung mukha ko, akin na yung Greatest Love kung talagang ito na yon.”

After the Greatest Love, you did “Hanggang Saan,” again a mother role with your own son Arjo and it was also a hit. And now, you’re doing “Pamilya Ko,” another family drama with Joey Marquez as your husband who becomes unfaithful to you, and quite a big brood of children. Among all these famous mothers you’ve played and are playing on TV, who among them is most like you?

Itong si Luz ngayon sa Pamilya Ko. Mother siya na matapang, karaketer — eh ako yun sa totoong buhay. Siya yung nanay na saktan niyo na ako, wag lang mga anak ko. Ako yun eh, tayo yun, hindi lang ako — lahat tayong mga nanay.

Tapos lahat gagawin niya, kumakayod sa palengke, nagbebenta para sa pamilya niya. And dumating din ako sa point na yun dati, na nagbebenta ng kandila, nag tia-tiangge sa Greenhills, ginawa ko na rin yun. Pupunta ako ng taping tapos magdadala ako ng bayong-bayong na mga t-shirts at kung ano-anu and ibebenta ko sa sa mga co-actors ko. Bakit ako mahihiya eh para sa pamilya ko yun?

Because women look up to you as a role model for their own families, do you sometimes feel you have to put your best foot forward all the time?

Hindi ko yun iniisip kasi mape-pressure ako if I do that — yung artista ako, kailangan maganda ako, kailangan maayos palagi, hindi. Kasi ako, pag may mga tao, hindi ako magpe-pretend na kailangan batiin mo lahat sila, nakangiti ka all the time. Kasi off cam hindi naman ako artista. Like sa inyo kanina nung dumating kayo, diba yung istura ko? (Laughs). Pero hindi ako nahiya kasi ito ako eh di ba. Pag on cam ako, syempre kailangan mag ayos. Off cam later on, makikita niyo jologs na naman ako. Mas masaya yun eh kesa mag pre-pretend, magpaka-sosyal. Hindi kasi ako yun eh. Kung anong nakikita nila, yung lang ako.

In getting to juggle a career and raise a family, what are your tips specifically to the working wives like you?

Ang swerte ko lang din sa asawa ko kasi never siya nag demand kahit kaya niya kong pa-stop mag trabaho. Puwede naman ako actually dito sitting pretty na lang, pero unang una, ayoko kasi hindi ako yun. Ako kasi breadwinner ng pamilya namin and of course, ayokong ikargo yung responsibilidad na yon sa kanya. Kasi ang pinaka-hate ko magaway tayo sa pera.

Thank God na hindi niya ko pinapa-stop kasi alam din niya na nag-e-enjoy ako. Kasi kaming mag asawa meron kaming usapan. Magtrabaho ka, mag-tra-trabaho ako. Pero make sure na from 7 to 9 p.m. wag lalagpas ng 9, magtatawagan tayo. Like ako, hindi talaga ako palatawag all day na nagche-check kung saan ka, ano ginagawa mo, kasi madami siyang meeting. Ayoko yung maya’t-maya sumasagot siya sa phone tapos sasabihin ng mga kaibigan niya na under siya. May kanchawang ganun yung lalaki.

Eh ako strong character ko, hindi ako insecure eh, pero pag-dating ng 9 o’clock, na hindi parin tumatawag, tine-text ko na yan, “Masarap ba ang buhay ng single? Maganda ba yung katabi mo?” Yung mga ganun na lokohan, so tatawag na siya, “Nasa meeting ako!” Tapos maririnig ko nasa meeting nga. Ganun lang.

Nagaaway din kami like all other couples and we make an effort na ayusin yon. Kasi ako, sa relasyon, ito din ang natutunan ko. Alam ko later on iiwanan din ako ng mga anak ko eh, iiwan din tayo ng mga yan eh at mag kakanya-kanyang buhay. So alam ko talaga na ang maiiwan sa akin, yung asawa ko. So dapat, mas inaalagaan din natin ang mga asawa natin. Like pag punta akong grocery, iniisip ko muna kung anong gusto ng asawa ko, tapos yung sa mga bata na.

So it’s important to make a your husband feel he’s still the man of the house even if you’re also working?

Masarap isipin natin na equal tayo but the reality is, hindi eh. Kahit ako, ang strong ng character na tao, but once naghanap ang asawa ko na “Ano yung pagkain dito,” dapat naka-prepare yon. So ako pag may trabaho ako, meron ako dito si Yaya Cherry na siya ang naka-focus sa amin ng asawa ko. Bago ako umalis, nakahanda na yan, sasabihin ko, “‘Day, yung lunch ng sir mo ito, yung dinner ito.”

Kasi baka bukas sabihin niya, “Taping ka lang nang taping, wala ka nang panahon sa akin.” So kahit yun man lang pagising, “O, nag breakfast ka na?” Yung mga ganun I make sure na gawin ko yon.

Tapos minsan kung busy ako ng sunod-sunod, I’ll surprise him with a phone call na, “Saan ka pupunta mamayang gabi? Gusto mo bang mag-dinner tayo?” Kailangan din natin bumawi. Hindi lang sila.

It seems you have achieved what you said earlier in the interview how you always want everything to be in place — be it actual things in the house and most especially your family life. Given that they are, what else are you looking forward to as a wife and mother?

SS: Na makita ko isang araw ma-fulfill lahat ng anak ko yung mga pangarap nila sa buhay nila. Yung successful sila physically, emotionally, financially — lahat na. Para sa akin ang tanging hinihiling ko nalang ngayon — dati kasi nanghihingi ako eh tapos binigay naman ni Lord at sinobrahan pa — is Your will be done, bahala Ka na. Yun lang happiness, wala lang kaming sakit… At ito pa pala! Sinasabi ko sa Diyos pag nakikipag usap ako sa kanya, yung para bang kung may unang mamamatay sa pamilyang ito, ako sana yun. Hindi ko kaya yung mga anak ko at asawa ko ang mauna. Kasi lahat ng dumaan na problema sa buhay ko, lahat ng dagok, kinaya ko na eh; dinaanan ko na. So sa tingin ko, ano pa yung problemang hindi ko kayanin? Na mawala yung anak ko at yung asawa ko…. Pero Lord wag muna ngayon ha, gusto ko muna magka-apo!