Face-to-face revival for Silliman workshop 

Taking over as director-in-residence was Dinah Roma, University Fellow and Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at De La Salle University Manila. Having authored four books of poetry, she has been conferred UMPIL’s Gawad Balagtas for lifetime achievement.

Workshop coordinators were J Maxino and Kaycee Melon, while Hellene Piñero, Deo Mar Suasin, John Edgar Rubio, Angela Gabrielle Fabunan and Aaron Jalalon formed the able secretariat.

Resident panelist Cesar Ruiz Aquino, the institutional memory also known as “the Fellow who stayed” (after attending the pilot edition in 1962), has authored six books of poetry and an autobionovel. He was honored on the second week with a tribute titled “Ceasura” that featured readings of his works by some of the Fellows at Libraria.

Regular panelist Timothy Montes earned his master’s in Creative Writing in Silliman, has received national prizes for fiction, and presently teaches at DLSU Manila. He was one of the screeners for submitted applications this year, together with Roma, Aquino and resident poet Myrna Peña Reyes.

The other two regular panelists were premier poet Marjorie Evasco, professor emeritus of DLSU Manila, where she teaches in the Literature graduate programs, and yours truly, who celebrated the revival of F2F partnership with co-super-senior “Sawi” Aquino by sharing Delimondo corned beef barbacoa flavor before marveling at the freshly stocked library of old friends Annabelle and Edo Adriano. 

Guest panelists were playwright Adrian Crisostomo Ho, former television writer for GMA-7 and TV5 who now teaches at DLSU Manila, where he is an Associate for Drama at the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center; Maria Elena Paulma, a Palanca award winner for her first book of stories, and currently the vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines (USTP), Cagayan de Oro City; and multi-awarded premier poet Joel M. Toledo, who teaches Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Santo Tomas. He had just returned from a repeat Rockefeller Foundation Creative Arts Residency for Poetry at the Bellagio Center in Italy.

The 12 Fellows were Vince Agcaoili, who teaches literature at the University of Asia and the Pacific and is preparing his first book of poems; Bryan Mari Argos, author of the first Hiligaynon novel written for children and young adults, and a part-time college professor and the tourism officer of the City of Roxas, Capiz; Ava Arnejo, a poet and fictionist from Sogod, Cebu; Eunice Joy Bacalando, a playwright who’s finishing her MFA in Creative Writing at DLSU Manila; Carlo Bautista, the youngest of the batch at 20, an undergraduate at DLSU Manila who has written prize-winning short fiction; John Dante, a Cebuano fictionist, essayist, dramatist and poet who introduced high fantasy in Cebuano literature.

Mina Deocareza, a writer and editor based in Makati City, who holds a BA in Creative Writing from UP Diliman; Jorisse Gumanay, an assistant professor at UP Cebu now working on her PhD in Literary Studies at Silliman; Al Osiris Ingking, a writer and engineer based in Cebu City whose stories in English and Cebuano have been selected for inclusion in literary anthologies; Michael John Otanes of Gen. Santos City, a graduate of Mindanao State University and currently an editor in a UK-based travel publication; Yudi Santillan III, a creative writing student in Silliman; and Marielle Fatima B. Tuazon, a Palanca award winner for the Kabataan Essay English category who will graduate this year with a BA Philippine Studies degree from UP Diliman.

I joined the first week’s panel with Adrian, Elena, Sawi and Dinah, while Joel came in for the second week to panel with Dinah, Sawi and Tim. Despite the shortened calendar (down from the traditional three weeks), many side activities complemented the morning and afternoon sessions at the Silliman Anthropology Museum.

A series of lectures by some of the panelists, plus balik-Fellow Dr. Noel Pingoy, was held at the Romeo P. Ariniego Art Gallery, where art exhibit openings and book launchings were also conducted, including a book of poetry, Young Enough to Play, by Angela Gabrielle Fabunan, who was kind enough to gift me a copy. Adrian Ho delivered a scintillating lecture on “Probing the Poet ChatGPT: Notes on Poetry and AI.”

Out-of-town workshop sessions were held at Asri Balili in the mountain town of Valencia and at Café Panganod in San Jose, which also offered panoramic views of the lowlands and Tañon Strait. An experience the Fellows missed was staying at the Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village up in Camp Lookout, which was still undergoing rehabilitation.

The genres of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama and Sugilanon (Hiligaynon for timeless folk tales, but also applying to Cebuano) were all amply represented, with impressive quality. Eunice Joy Bacalando’s one-act play in Taglish, My Titas na Manananggal, was presented as a reading by a Silliman drama troupe, while the Sugilanon entries and their translations into English were discussed by facilitators Elena Paulme and Marj Evasco.

All of that transpired almost unbelievably within two weeks, with unstinting support from SU English and Literature department chair Alana Leilani Narciso, SU Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center coordinator Lady Flor Partosa, Silliman U. officials and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).