Xn3cTs

Read “The Da Vinci Code” in 2005, after deliberately ignoring it for quite some time because of the hype. And then saw the movie later.

Well, the wealth of information (esp. regarding symbols) is generally sound. But it doesn’t hold a candle to the erudition of Umberto Eco’s “Foucalt’s Pendulum.” (I have yet to understand the elaborate explanation of how Foucault’s Pendulum works…)

One thing I liked in the novel is the rather sympathetic portrayal of the head of the Opus Dei, Bishop Aringarosa.  (Not so in the movie.)  I’ve heard a lot of negative publicity regarding the Opus Dei and their founder Jose Ma. Escriva. (From the late Larry Henares, in his TV show and Philippine Daily Inquirer column, as well as from a Filipino priest who studied in a university run by the Opus Dei…) Bishop Aringarosa may be ultra-conservative in his theology but in the end, when the time came for his faith to be tested, his heart proved to be ultimately in the right place.

Also, it had a more hopeful, happy ending than “Foucault’s Pendulum,” which was darker and more poignant. Eco’s novel bewails the lack of understanding that so-called believers/enlightened ones have. Parang si Elsa sa Himala: “Walang himala! Ang himala ay nasa puso ng tao!”

(more…)

Some people say that Christianity has been misunderstood. It looks to me more like it is Christianity which has misunderstood! The world, perhaps even Christ!

I’m not associating Christ with Christianity. When Nietzsche wrote “Der Anti-Christ” (usually translated as “The Anti-Christ”), his polemics was directed more to Paul and Christendom/Christianity, (a note in the translation says that it is probably more fitting to translate it as “The Anti-Christian.”) The same with Kierkegaard, his beef was with Christendom (the bureaucracy of Christianity). Christianity, as we know it today, is according to biblical scholarship, largely the work of Paul the Apostle.

(more…)

Personalism vis-a-vis Parochialism

(A Reaction to a Piece on Personalism by Verdman)

—

(an old piece written in June 2004)

—

“Walang personalan. Trabaho lang.”

- a line from a movie about a cop (played by Rudy Fernandez) who summarily executes a criminal (”Markang Bungo” yata… not sure though…)

—

“i think (i could be wrong, most of the time i am), that the root of our problem is our personalistic approach to life. we easily sacrifice objectivity in order to accomodate our personal affiliations, thus negating our chance to cultivate values that are necessary to achieve real progress. personalism is in every fabric of pinoylife. from the moment of birth (kung sino ang magiging ninong), up to the time of death (kung sinong asawa ang may karapatan sa bangkay). whether business, sports, politics, gov’t, etc…. personalism always plays a part. nothing wrong with cultivating personal ties per se, we are a social animal afterall, it’s when personalism is accomodated at the expense of objectivity, this is where corruption starts, first morally, then leading up to plunder.”

- Verdman (a nom de plume), On Personalism

—

What’s the problem with personalism?

The way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with personalism per se. In fact, it is precisely this personalism that makes Noypis so lovable, and as Ninoy put it, “worth dying for.”

It is when personalism clashes with “objectivity” that the problem arises. It thus degenerates to parochialism. Parochialism, i.e., my interests over your interests, my family over your family, my clan over your clan, my my hey hey!… Parochialism, narrow-mindedness, “subjectivism,” bigotry…

The Philippines is relatively a young country. We’ve only started to think of ourselves as one nation during the 19th century, the credit mainly to the ilustrados (which include Rizal). (See Leon Ma. Guerrero’s “The First Filipino.”) Probably no small wonder that we’re still trying to find our bearings… still trying to get our act together.

(more…)

Am reactivating my blog. It went down the first week of September after we got banned by the original host. For what reason, I don’t know. Most of the posts for August are gone because I wasn’t able to back up the uploaded files. Anyway, will do my best to re-post these pieces. In the meantime, here’s an old Christmas essay I wrote four years ago (with a few updates because, well, it is 2008).

best regards,

ian

———-

Christmas Hues (Blues?)
by Michael Ian Lomongo

“And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?”
- John Lennon, “Happy Christmas”

—

Four years ago, the Philippine Daily Inquirer showed this graph which showed that more and more Filipinos no longer feel that happy feeling that used to come with the Christmas season.

Of course, a lot has been written about the depression that comes with the holidays. That feeling of loneliness that just becomes heightened and aggravated because of all the hype, the sense of promise and expectation in this so-called season of love and redemption…

Everyone, at some point in his/her life, must have experienced just how that felt.

It’s as if your whole being is prepped up for an epiphany… a miracle… some magical transformation in your life… for God to reveal his/her face, or even just his/her name…

Maranatha… please, Lord, come.

Just some small miracle… something that would make the anxious hoping and waiting worthwhile…

But it just never came. It never comes.

Or, it probably came and went, without our noticing it.

(more…)

isang eulohiya para kay Ramon Jose Leyran, sinulat noong Octubre 10, 2003.

—————————————————————–

Lamay: Pakikiramay, Buhay, Kamatayan
ni Michael Ian Lomongo

Kung di ako nagkakamali, nabuo raw ni Wency Cornejo ang kantang “Habang May Buhay” sa isang lamay. Kakaiba nga ang lamay ng mga pinoy: sa mga probinsiya, may pasugal (madyong, baraha, trembe), may inuman pa sa iba, may mga laro (juego de prenda), may kantahan, kwentuhan, tugtugan, may pakain din (kape, tinapay, biskwit, sopas, kendi, atbp.). Para ngang lagi tayong naghahanap ng dahilan para magkaroon ng selebrasyon.

Minsan, meron akong kababata at kaklase sa elementaryang namatay. Malalaki na kami nang maaksidente si Rhey sa motorsiklo. Natural, nagkita-kita sa lamay ang mga dating magkakaklaseng bihira nang magkasama-sama. Meron din kaming kaklaseng nasa ibang bansa noon. Tumawag siya (si Elna) sa telepono at nakibalita sa isa sa amin, at ang sabi niya: “Magkakasama kayo d’yan? E ‘di ang saya-saya n’yo!”

Hindi na siguro kakatwang makakita ng mga taong tumatawa habang tumutulo ang luha sa mga lamay. May lungkot dahil sa pangungulila sa isang kasama o kaibigang hindi na makakahuntahan o makakabiruan. May saya dahil may pasasalamat sa magagandang ala-alang pinagsaluhan ng magkakaibigan.

(more…)

posted in autografitti, Monday, May 10, 2004 10:53 pm… also reprinted in Gai Olivares’s column at Daily Tribune…

________________________________________________________________________________

Post-Election Blues (For Jojo and Other Kindred Spirits)
By Michael Ian Lomongo

I voted for Eddie Villanueva.

Nope, I’m not a JIL member. Nope, I’m not a born-again Christian. I see myself more as a “renaissance” man (which incidentally also means “born again”), but I doubt if die-hard born-again Christians would see that as a sign of kinship.

Actually, I’m a pantheistic Nietzschean-Buddhist-Christian. In other words, “colorum.” Registered voter, unregistered religion.

Why then did I vote for Bro. Eddie?

Both in Ayala (April 29) and Luneta (May 6), as the yellow-clad people around me would start chanting, I’d hear strains of Radiohead’s classic song in my head: “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here…”

In the first place, my spirituality is not of the evangelical-charismatic type. I prefer Taize-like celebrations, or Tibetan eerie, monastic chantings, or Cynthia Alexander’s Indian-inspired rock hymns.

But I did join them in the prayer for our country. I may not be wearing yellow but my heart was bathed in a golden-yellow light. With shades of green. I truly felt that even if our convictions were not the same, we were… are, united in desiring change, radical change, in our country’s state of affairs.

(more…)

A Thousand Bitter-Sweet Poems for Women
By Michael Ian Lomongo, March 21, 2001

Last March 10, I watched PETA’s “Komedi Club,” a festival of 10 to 15-minute plays written by members of the PETA Writers’ Bloc. In celebration of the International Women’s Day, the plays featured during that weekend (March 8-10) were written by women playwrights (except for Nick Pichay’s “Kahit na Magtiis”). The line-up included “Flight,” an interpretative dance choreographed and performed by Martina Gonzales-Quesada, Regina Lasam, and Verni Severo, incorporated with a poem by Inge Saltarin; an adaptation of Liza Magtoto’s Palanca-winning “Despedida de Soltera“; Sheila Crisostomo’s “Emergency” (the grand prize winner of the second Charley dela Paz Awards of the PETA-PDP Writers’ Bloc); Nick Pichay’s “Kahit na Magtiis”; and Lallie Bucoy’s “Isang Libong Tula para sa Dibdib ni Dulce.”

I liked the last two plays best.

(more…)

We’ll be in Intramuros tomorrow to participate in the opening activities of the NCCA for the Philippine Arts Festival. Am posting our statement on the project and its Tagalog translation.

best regards,

ian

ARTISTS’ STATEMENT on

“URBAN WONDERLAND: THE TURO-TURO PROJECT”

The Neo-Angono Artists Collective presents new spheres of visual engagement through “Urban Wonderland: The Turo-Turo Project” - a site-specific zone intervention work wherein the group collaborates with the local community and residents of Intramuros. Graduating from the original concept of a “mural,” the work aims to transform several parts of the façade/structure of a chain of stores and eateries situated across the National Commission for Culture and the Arts building on Gen. Luna St. Appropriating the theme of “Public Art” as a modern allegory, the installation work reflects the geographic mosaic of location and identities. The work would touch on some episodes of Philippine history side by side with present social realities. The jarring juxtaposition of disparate elements in the work represents issues of displacement and the blurring of boundaries while hinting at questions regarding the nature of power and the use of art as a mechanism for social change.

As a descriptive reference to the “public,” the collective’s work hopes to serve as a contemporary rhetoric, integrating art into the public realm. This would be experienced on the day of production (February 1, 2008), when the group places life-sized and free-standing images of personages and characters scattered along the front parking lot of the work’s site. As a way of examining contact zones presented as dioramas of site-responsiveness, the public is invited to interact with the free-standing images by inserting their heads through some of the figures, to be photographed and integrated into the “scene” as a vital part of the project.

(more…)

Dug this up in my files. In 2000, I was still teaching in Adamson University. I taught mostly “Logic” and “Philosophy of Man.” From time to time, I’d be given subjects like “Art Appreciation” and “Rizal.” One day, I was approached by a co-teacher from the English Department. She was coaching a student who was about to enter a speech contest of sorts (a declamation contest?). Either the topic was about Rizal or the new millenium. (Remember, this was the year 2000.) She asked me to write a piece for this student. I sort of liked the topic and so came up with this piece. The repetition of one sentence in the last paragraphs was done precisely because this was written as a kind of “speech.” Hahaha. I even picked up Fidel Ramos’s “pole-vaulting into the new millenium” crap.

best regards,
ian

————

THE PHILIPPINES WITHIN A THOUSAND YEARS
by Michael Ian Lomongo, January 31, 2000

More than a hundred years ago, Dr. Jose Rizal wrote an essay in which he asked what would become of the Philippines within a century. In this particular essay, he argued for the urgent necessity of basic reforms such as the institution of a free press in the Philippines and its representation in the Spanish Cortes, that is, if Spain wanted to preserve the Philippines as a loyal colony. Still, with the penetrating insight of a social analyst, Rizal more than just hinted at the independence that the Filipinos would eventually seek. It was just a matter of time — and a question of whether the separation between Spain and the Philippines would be marked with gratitude and love, or hatred and resentment.

That question, of course, would be answered less than a decade after the essay “Filipinas dentro de cien años” was published in “La Solidaridad.” Now, with our freedom having been finally won and our friendly relations with Spain having been restored, we ask - as Rizal once did, if not with the same insight, at least with the same urgency: what have we, as a nation, gained and learned in the past century, and what can we look forward to in the coming years, in the advent of the new millenium?

(more…)