Breeding and Professionalism Matters

Remember Jerome Sala? That young man from the province of Bohol who bested others in ABS-CBN's Star in a Million 2005 show?

Well- he got married and started a hollow blocks business in his hometown of Pilar in Bohol. Management problems, I heard, had him with no projects despite winning that prestigious show.

And he did it again!

No, he did not win anything but I heard from the grapevine that Jerome Sala Ucab is banned from performing anywhere in Tagbilaran City and worst in the whole province of Bohol due to a conflict with Mayor Dan Lim and Governor Erico Aumentado. Sources say that Mr Ucab was requested to act and sing in the Dagohoy Musical to recap the Sandugo festivities on July 26 (Sunday) but he turned down the offer due to management (again!) and money matters. Chismosos and chismosas who heard the angry call of Mayor Lim was happily shocked with the words the famous mayor is known for.

Such a waste of talent! Mr Ucab should not let that Star in a Million win bloat his ego and become his waterloo. Fans of Mr Ucab should defend him now and perhaps explain his side.

Meanwhile, Cesar Montano and his wife Sunshine Cruz, who were asked to act on that same musical readly accepted their roles. Montano, who proudly wears his Boholano heritage everywhere, is proud to be part of that musical and is rehearsing his role when I wrote this.

This goes to show how breeding and professionalism affects a person.

(All pics from wikipedia.com)

"Ang di marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan..."

I adore Cesar Montano. Not because he is now a star, but because he is the type of guy who knows where he came from and never deny that fact just because of his present status. Montano has done many good things for Bohol and he is a proud Boholano. Way to go Cesar Montano!

This is also a note of million thanks to the Ayalas, specifically Bea Zobel Jr and the Ayala Foundation for the great things they have done to make Bohol even prouder of its cultural heritage. We salute you Ma'am for being a Boholano by heart.

Montano, Ayalas toast Bohol heritage

By Pablo Tariman

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 02:39:00 12/15/2008

THREE years ago in Bohol, actor Cesar Montano showed me the interiors of the Baclayon town church, built in 1727 by the Jesuits using coral-stone blocks from the sea and egg white and plaster to glue the blocks together.

With it gilded altars, Baroque and Classical inner façade and its retablos highlighted by images of saints, I told the award-winning actor, “What a beautiful venue for concert!” Later, I would test the acoustics and found it excellent.

Earlier, I learned that film scorer Nonong Buencamino recorded the choir music used in the Marilou Diaz-Abaya film “Muro-Ami” in this church and the award-winning film was actually shot on Bohol Bay.

Later, Montano also told me about the church’s historic pipe organ, which was installed in the choir loft in 1824 and years later found itself in a state of disrepair.

Experts say the Baclayon pipe organ has the character of Spanish Baroque organs and its parts could mimic the sound of birds through the little pajarillo pipes. It can also enhance melodies with the tinkling of the cascabeles, an ornamental stop with bells on a wheel drum and campanillas.

Through the assistance of Patricia Zobel de Ayala and the Ayala Foundation Inc., the organ’s pipes, wind chests, manual keyboard, pedal and other accessories were repaired extensively and restored to their original form.

Saturday morning last week, I saw Montano at the Tagbilaran airport and told him about the Baclayon concert, which would officially herald the coming to life of the newly restored Baclayon pipe organ.

In the evening, I found myself on the church choir loft with Montano and wife Sunshine Cruz, watching a concert featuring composer-conductor Cristobal Halffter and pianist Maria Manuela Caro on the pipe organ.

In the audience were Jaime Augusto Zobel, Sofia Zobel, Patricia Zobel and Bea Zobel Jr., who is 

behind a renewed restoration program involving Bohol’s cultural heritage.

So fragile

Pianist Maria Manuela Caro opened the concert with Antonio de Cabezon’s (1510-1566) Tiento del Primer Tono, followed by a Handel largo solo arranged by AR Parsons.

As the first two numbers unfolded, one realized the musical instrument was so fragile. It needed a focused assistant to keep it in tune and go through its complicated parts, like its ornamental stop and its tambor (big wood pipes) used to create rumbling sound similar to a drum.

Bach’s Aria and the 7th Variation of the Goldberg Variation had a fairly good reading, and I suppose this piece is better off played on the piano to preserve its original nuances.

One got to finally hear the uses of the big wood pipes and the reed stops with Juan Bautista Cabanilles’s “Batalla Imperial.”

The piece is a musical replica of a military battle and was properly the most virtuosic piece played on the program.

The evening was highlighted with Halffter playing Christmas carols from different countries. He concluded with a contemporary piece that ended with the use of the organ’s pajarillo pipes echoing the sound of birds, and we thought that was the most charming and compelling number from the concert.

The significance of this concert is that the Zobel family helped bring back to life the remaining musical symbol of the town’s cultural heritage while also assisting the town embark on a massive restoration campaign to preserve its historical, cultural and natural sites, including local traditions in craftsmanship.

Late in the night after the concert, Lani Schoof (wife of Hans Schoof, owner of Baclayon’s Peacock Garden Resort and Spa) treated Montano and company to a late-night cap.

Schoof, who is German but very Boholano (and Filipino) at heart, earlier showed us his Rizal collections in his cigar room, including furniture from Heidelberg where Rizal stayed in Germany.

It was an uncanny coincidence Montano had played Rizal in Abaya’s “Rizal.”

Montano remarked before the night cap ended: “It would be nice to hear Cecile Licad play in Bohol next year after this historic pipe organ concert in our historic town.”

Pic of Montano and fellow Boholano Rebecca Lusterio (Panaghoy sa Suba) grabbed from getinvolved.wordpress.com

Concert to showcase "Bisaya" culture

MANILA, Philippines - A mono vinyl record (we could tell from the scratchy sound) of Yoyoy Villame’s “Mag-Exercise Tayo” in Bisaya, with a rondalla, wafted through the house speakers at the CCP’s Silangan Hall.

It must’ve been the original version; since Villame, who was proudly Bisaya (Visayan), jump-started his career in his native Bohol.

As the song played on, organizers of the concert “Si Lapulapu, Si Rosas Pandan: A Bisaya Musical Extravaganza”—set Nov. 22, 8 p.m. at the CCP Main Theater (Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo)—dished out some interesting bits of music history and linguistics.

"Did you know,” asked Bal Endriga, president of concert presenter Kadugong Bisaya Foundation, “that the song ‘Sa Kabukiran’ by Manuel Velez was originally a Visayan ditty, and that the word ‘bukid’ in Bisaya means ‘mountain’?”

Endriga continued, “I felt proud when, in my youth, I learned that the tinikling was the national dance. Until then I had known it as a game we played in Leyte as children … we used bamboos named after a native bird, the tikling.”

He added that the classic Yuletide carol, “Ang Pasko ay Sumapit,” was, in fact, a Tagalog adaptation of the Visayan “Kasadya Ning Takna-a.” In other words, for Endriga and friends, it’s cool to be Bisaya.

True focus

The richness of Visayan culture is the focus of the presentation, which will star these performers mostly from the Central Philippine region: Leo Valdez, Joey Ayala, and former Bagong Lumad band mate Bayang Barrios, Cesar Montano, Elizabeth Ramsey and daughter Jaya, Verni Varga, the Philippine Madrigal Singers, Rachelle Gerodias, Jose Mari Chan, the Philippine Dance Sports Association, Nonie Buencamino, Raki Vega, Deeda Barretto, Jerry Dadap’s Andres Bonifacio Choir, Ballet Philippines, Modern Ballet Dancers, and Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group.

“We’re not attempting to separate or distinguish ourselves from the rest [of the local cultural groups],” Endriga explained. “Rather, we want people to appreciate the diversity of regional traditions throughout the country. That is what makes Filipinos unique.”

Survival

Former UP president and Kadugong Bisaya chairperson Jose Abueva talked about the group’s goals, foremost of which is to make all Pinoys aware of, maybe even learn to speak and write in “Binisaya” or in its other linguistic kin, Cebuano, Ilonggo and Waray. Abueva believed this would ensure the survival of these dialects.

An interesting aspect of the concert, program director Chris Millado said, would be the set design by Kenneth Cobonpue, a renowned furniture designer, also Bisaya, whose clients reportedly include Brad Pitt and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

But more than anything else, the show promises to be fun. Villame’s songs in the repertoire is enough guarantee.

from INQUIRER.net

A Bisaya in Manila

Being a Bisaya in Manila is one of the most embarrassing situations most Visayans would agree. Especially when the Tagalogs would make fun of our strong accent. Don’t mind Cesar Montano even if he insists he is a Boholano. He was raised in Manila.

I don’t know why most Tagalogs would make fun of our accent if the case is only to communicate.

Language sometimes is not just a barrier but a case of double jeopardy. Take the Tagalog being taught in the classrooms in our elementary years as an example. Our books taught us to use paaralan, kwaderno, datapwat, palikuran, etc., actually nonexistent terms in conversational Tagalog used only by some in the most remote of places if not only in books. The Tagalogs do not use those terms. That makes us Bisaya a laughingstock.

I could not remember my teacher correcting me when I say Nasaan po ang ating palikuran? She gave me an excellent grade for that.

Not to mention of course the way the Bisaya pronounced the e as i or vice versa! Listen to a Bisaya say the word Manila. Most would say Pupunta pu ako sa Manela. I just don’t know why. Ask Annabelle Rama. She’s adept to that. Jusko day!

And the Tagalogs laughed.