The Taboan Writers’ Festival is one of the largest of its kind in the Philippines with a diverse program catering to an audience of all ages.

NCLA head Dr. Hope Sabanpan-Yu formally opened the festival.

Every year since the Taboan Writers’ Festival started in 2009, I have been attending almost all of its celebrations. Over that time, I’ve watched it grow. I’ve become some kind of a mainstay. I have met hundreds of fascinating people — readers, guests and fellow writers.

The Taboan Writers’ Festival is one of the largest of its kind in the Philippines with a diverse program catering to an audience of all ages. Taboan, a Visayan word for “market,” is a flagship program of the National Committee on Literary Arts (NCLA) of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), and it sets up shop in a different region every year.

There are two main goals of the festival: To raise interest on literatures in the Philippines and to encourage exchanges among Philippine writers and readers. At the festival, the audience gets to experience the authors live and discuss literature and current interests with likeminded people. This year, the theme was “Lawas/Literatura” or “Body/Literature.”

This year, I traveled with my delegates from Central Visayas, who were all excited to be at the festival for the first time. The small and idyllic city of Naga in the Bicol Region offered a friendly atmosphere with its fascinating surroundings. Participants from all over the Philippines registered for the 11th Taboan Writers’ Festival, which kicked off on 7 October.

Being the head of NCLA, I formally opened the program at the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture (CBSUA). Dr. Alberto N. Naperi, CBSUA president, welcomed the writer-delegates. This was followed by the reading by Dr. Yvonne Esperas, Eastern Visayas coordinator of the NCLA, of the keynote address of author and scholar Merlie Alunan.

In her speech, titled “Sampulong Guramoy,” Alunan noted how mother languages endured over and through the years though not without repercussions. She highlighted that it was only in the last 40 years or so that our regional literatures were given due attention, citing the efforts of different advocates in different parts of the Philippines.

She also exhorted the audience to speak in and listen to more than one language, stating “(t)he potent economy of these words: sampulong guramoy. Two words to carry in one’s head, a daughter’s shield and comfort against loneliness, fear, confusion. The complexity of the body reduced to its most fundamental agent — 10 fingers of one’s hand to hold what are dear, to stay against danger, to create and uncreate. Hilinga tabi ang dae nahihiling. Please, see the invisible. Bone-deep in the archipelago of every self, please see the invisible: To write a nation, the enduring words of every mother tongue in this beautiful archipelago. May our stories, poems and songs flourish for the next one thousand years of our young republic.”

ROUSING welcome for the Taboan writer-delegates.

I first heard the phrase “sampulong guramoy” in an interview given by Bikol writer Merlinda Bobis, author of the novels Banana Heart Summer and Fish-Hair Woman. It was a phrase her father had used telling her how he worked with his 10 fingers to send her to school. She used the term in her fiction to “be a homage to all our workers, especially our workers in the farm. Our fishermen, our workers who have to deal with the daily activities of nature and the disasters that come our way.” (agam.ph/podcast-video/)

Pia Benosa of the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society Inc. delivered a talk titled “Protecting the Body: The Intellectual Property Rights.”

The parallel sessions slated for the afternoon — “Body Politics” (moderated by Dr. Isidoro Cruz and with speakers Edgar Darren Bendanillo and Jose Edison Tondares); “Foreign Bodies” (moderated by me and with speakers Kevin Lagunda, Cheeno Borden and Kenneth Michael Baba); “Body and Soul” (moderated by Merdeka Morales and with speakers Mark Bonabon, Renato Vibiesca and Maria Eloisa Perez); “Sound Body” (moderated by Dr. Yvonne Esperas and with speakers Rhodora Bande, Alfredo Rodriguez and Richard Kinnud) and “Warm Bodies” (moderated by Dr. Joyce Arriola and with speakers John Jack Wigley, Nathan Go and Jenna Bien Dolovino) — amplified literature in manifestations of the printed word to debate key issues of present-day reality and to emancipate readers by shaking and stirring genres and ideas related to the body.

The Nagueños tour of the city followed the sessions. This “literatour” was designed by Victor Dennis T. Nierva who served as the guide while going through the different sites in Naga City.

Carlos Ojeda Aureus, in his collection of short fiction entitled Nagueños (University of the Philippines Press, 1997; Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2012), according to Nierva, narrated: “An intimate relationship with Naga City — its thoroughfares and alleys, corners and edifices, churches and schools, parks and transport hubs. Though his stories are varied experiences of individuals — forgotten alumnus, a man in his midlife, a priest revolting against his church, a mother grieving, a wife keeping the memories of a husband — one of the main untold characters of his stories has always been the city.”

Taboan Awards honorees Dr. Susana Cabredo, Monsignor Noe de los Santos, HP and Rufo Tuy Jr.

The literatour was a journey through each spot mentioned in the book where the writer-tourists were given a brief background of the place, its significance to the city and the people as well as a reading of an excerpt from the story where it is mentioned. The places in the literatour itinerary were Ateneo de Naga University’s famed Four Pillars, the Naga Metropolitan Cathedral, Universidad de Santa Isabel, the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary, the Porta Mariae, Plaza Quince Martires, Dalhugan and the Naga Train Station.

To cap the first day was the Pili Local Government Unit Night held at the Pili Municipal Complex in the capital town of Camarines Sur. A sumptuous dinner was prepared for the participants who were treated to an evening of song and dance. Festival director Frank Peñones joined the delegates who attended the activity.

The first session for the second day was a plenary, “Liminal Literature of Bikol,” participated in by Mia Tijam, Jerome Aler and Rochelle Ann Molina. This was moderated by Victor Dennia Nierva.

The morning parallel sessions that followed for the second day consisted of “Body Nutrients” (moderated by Jimmy Domingo and with speakers Abelardo Belleza, Adhoniz Rebong, and Roilingel Calilung); “Written on the Body” (moderated by Dr. German Gervacio and with speakers Lenin Carlos Mirasol, Chuckberry Pascual and Leia Margate); “Body Beautiful” (moderated by Dr. Priscilla Macansantos and with speakers Airen Sajulga, Rodel Añosa, Mark Kevin Agcaoili and Aljane Baterna).

In the afternoon were the parallel sessions including “Rotten Bodies” (moderated by Merdeka Morales and with speakers Jose Edison Tondares, Erwin Sustento and Maria Carmie Flor Ortego); “Minding the Body” (moderated by Dr. John Bengan and with speakers Adem Rubio, Lynette Carantes-Bibal and Herlyn Alegre); “Body Shop” (moderated by Dr. Juliet Mallari and with speakers Angelito Nambatac Jr., Mark Anthony Angeles and Peter Dalura Jr.) and “Youthful Bodies” (moderated by Dr. Isidoro Cruz and with speakers Jeffrey Javier, Michael Kevin Monforte and John Leihmar Toledo).

FESTIVAL in session with delegates, participants and guests. facebook.com/taboan2019

The highlight of the evening of the closing program dinner and socials at the Camilo Guevarra Hall was the Taboan Awards 2019 honoring five outstanding Bikolano writers for their invaluable contributions to the literary arts and their impacts on communities — the late Reynaldo “Tootsie” Jamoralin, for his courage and commitment to human rights and the environment, in action and in writing; Rufo Tuy Jr., for journalism that seeks the truth and promotes the Bikol language; Dr. Emelina Gagalac-Regis, for promotion of sustainable practices through science and art; Dr. Susana Cabredo, for leading in the intellectualization of a Bikol folk literary form; and Monsignor Noe de los Santos, HP, for his translation of the Bible.