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Princesa Urduja, suddenly, is in the consciousness of people these days because of an animation film now showing in the metropolis. I would like to share with you an old piece that I wrote under an old byline... I originally wrote this for Gabriela, the women's org, then t he Women's Feature Service (WFS), a feminist news agency, syndicated it. This version was culled from Filipinas magazine USA. You may view the graphic version @ this link -http://www.urduja.com/princess.html 
By Chit Balmaceda Guiterrez
Princess Urduja, ancient accounts say, was a 14th century woman ruler of the dynastic Kingdom of Tawalisi in Pangasinan, a vast area lying by the shores of the Lingayen Gulf and the China Sea. Pangasinan was an important kingdom then, and the sovereign was equal to the King of China. Known far and wide, Princess Urduja was famous for leading a retinue of woman warriors who were skilled fighters and equestrians. They developed a high art of warfare to preserve their political state. "These womenfolk took to the battlefields because the male population was depleted by the series of wars which came with the rise and prominence of the Shri-Visayan Empire in the sixth to the 13th centuries," the accounts said. Strong and masculine in physique, they were called kinalakian or Amazons.
The saga of this unique princess was the stuff of legend. Parents and teachers tell her story like they would a fairytale, or the biography of Gabriela Silang, an 18th-century revolutionary, or Tandang Sora, a granny who fed members of the Katipunan.
The legend of Princess Urduja can be attributed to the famous story of a Mohammedan traveler, Ibn Batuta of India. In 1347 he was a passenger on a Chinese junk, which has just come from the port of Kakula, north of Java and Sumatra and passed by Pangasinan on the way to Canton, China.
Urduja, who had a particular fascination for the renowed "Pepper Country"--pepper being considered black gold then--was quoted by Batuta as saying, "I must positively go to war with that country, and get possession of it, for its great wealth and great forces attract me."
For a time, feminists tried to revive the Urduja story but were discouraged to learn that Batuta's account of the voyage to Tawalisi was labeled as either an intrigue or a fantasy. Scholars, considering the story absurd, declared Urduja a myth.
The Philippines' national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, in Dr. Austin Craig's 1916 paper "Particulars of the Philippines' Pre-Spanish Past" was quoted as saying in one of his letters: "While I may have doubts regarding the accuracy of Ibn Batuta's details, I still beleive in the voyage to Tawalisi". He went as far as to calculate the distance and time of travel from the port of Kakula. Rizal's commentary was triggered by a scholar, Sir Henry Yule, who wrote in his time that: "Tawalisi may be found only in a Gulliver geography."
Today, years after scholars have passionately debated whether the 14th-century heroine is a product of mythology or history, Princess Urduja continues to fascinate Filipinos. In Pangasinan, the Governor's office building in the coastal town of Lingayen is called the Urduja Palace. So is a hotel along the highway.
Urduja's name still has great resonance among the Ibaloi, one of the major ethnolinguistic tribes in the Cordillera region. Dr. Morr Tadeo Pungayan, a respected scholar of Ibaloi culture and professor at the St. Louis University of Baguio City, said, "Linguistically, Urduja is Deboxah (pronounced Debuca) in Ibaloi. We've always had a woman named Deboxah from time immemorial among the generations of Ibaloi. The name usually describes a woman of strong quality and character who's nobly descended. That name is an Ibaloi name. That's why Ibaloi trace their ancestry from Urduja".
The Cordillera tribes, also known collectively as Igorots, pride themselves as being the only ethnic group that doesn't talk about the origin of man according to Spanish chronicles. Among the tribes, genealogy and family history are orally passed or transmitted. The Ibaloi, just like other highland tribes, could easily trace their ancestry. This is ensured by their custom of naming newborns after ancestors to help keep their memory alive and evoke affection and protection. "No Ibaloi will bear the name of an ancestor unless she's related," Dr. Pungayan explained. While the Bontoc tribe bestows the name of an ancestor to a grandchild, the Ibaloi style is namesaking the great-grandchild, he added.
A book on the history of Benguet province, written by Anavic Bagamasbad and Zenaida Hamada-Pawid, shows the Benguet genealogy tracing tribal family lines from the year 1380 to 1899. The book says, "The extent of inter-settlement alliances is climaxed in the memory of Tublay informants with the reign of Deboxah, Princess Urduja, in Pinga. She's acknowledged as the granddaughter of Udayan, an outstanding warrior of Darew. Her death signaled continuous decline of kinship and alliance between highland and lowland settlements."
The Darew mountain range is remembered as the earliest settlement in the mining town of Tublay. The close relations between the Cordilleras and Lingayen are well-accounted for in Batuta's chronicle. It said that the Kingdom of Tawalisi was very extensive, including the vast areas up to the fringes of the Benguet mountains and the Cordillera ranges in the east of Luzon.
"The ruler," Batuta further said,"possesses numerous junks with which he makes war upon the Chinese until they sue for peace and consent to grant him certain concessions."
Despite recent research, however, most academicians remain cold to oral history, saying that such accounts still have to pass through the stringent rigors of scholarship.
Today, some historians consider the issue of Urduja's historicity as closed. Compounding the issue is the lack of archaelogical evidence on the existence of the Shri-Visayan Empire.
In fact, other aspects of Philippine history are being doubted,too, especially since the late William Henry Scott, an American historian in the Cordillera, proved that the so-called pre-Hispanic laws--the Kalantiaw and Maragtas Codes--were faked or invented by psuedo historians who only wanted fame or riches for themselves.
Dr. Jaime Veneracion, the University of the Philippines head of history department, said that the old Chinese scripts which may have chronicled Urduja's kingdom have remained inaccessible for their archaic language and calligraphy.
But history buffs like writer Ed Reyes remain undaunted. He says: "The researchers aren't conclusive, given the fact that the Philippine history has only been covered in writing for the last 500 years".
Filipinas Magazine, June l999
Visit their site at www.filipinasmag.com
KAPWA–2: International Conference on the Relevance of Filipino Psychology & Indigenous Knowledge in the Age of Globalization 
One of the most important features of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSP) is the tendency to view the world in a systematic way where all things and beings operate interdependently. Harmony with other people and the environment is a much-needed trait today in our shrinking global village. This orientation is called “kapwa”—the "shared self"— in the Filipino traditional Practices (IKSP) value system, as expounded by Sikolohiyang Pilipino.
The Heritage and Arts Academies of the Philippines Inc. (HAPI)— a foundation dedicated to enhance, strengthen and rebuild ancestral Filipino IKSP— is presently initiating an international conference in Iloilo that will bring together indigenous knowledge-holders and the academe under the unifying paradigm of Filipino Indigenous Psychology. This first systematic attempt to formulate an Asian psychology is known in academic circles as Sikolohiyang Pilipino (SP) and is the first psychology that accommodates the harmony-seeking worldview of the indigenous people (kapwa). 
The planned event is titled “KAPWA-2— Filipino Psychology and Indigenous Knowledge: The Relevance of Local Frameworks in the Age of Globalization”. It is a follow-up to the successful SP conference “Pagkataong Filipino— The Theory, Practice and Values of Philippine Personhood” (KAPWA-1), which was held in 2004 at UP Diliman. KAPWA-2 will examine the significance of ancestral IKSP and academic endeavors, such as Sikolohiyang Pilipino, in the 21st century.
Calendared on 26-28 June 2008 as part of the UP Centennial, the event will open on June 25 with a photo exhibit at Museo Iloilo. The conference-proper will commence the following day at the auditorium of UPV Iloilo Campus, with an art exhibit and workshops by Schools of Living Traditions (SLT) as sidebar events. A one-day symposium on June 28 will convene SLTs at the library of UPV Iloilo. The conference will extend into a week of film showings (June 30-July 5) at the Museo Iloilo.
Unlike most conferences exclusively designed for the academe, KAPWA-2 will provide a forum for the intangible heritage by programming the traditional representations of knowledge: Oral histories, myths, dance performances, indigenous arts workshops and ethnic films will augment the theoretical papers. This is a conscious attempt to help re-define Philippine/ Asian social sciences— beyond the pervading scope of Western academic models.
By design, the lumad (keepers of ancestral traditions) will share their special knowledge in its original format— where the conference participants will experience the pre-lingual voice of man in the melodic “lectures” of epic chanting, instead of merely ingesting the analytical discourses about these ancient prayers. During KAPWA-1, for example, one elder entranced her listeners with 20 minutes of spirit invocation while playing her two-stringed kudyapi. Her rendition, placed at par with readings of theoretical papers by PhD holders in anthropology, needed no further explanation. 
KAPWA-2, therefore, will convene not only the formal scholars from different Philippine universities and the Living Traditions representatives, but also Filipino artists, cultural workers, media, and professionals, who are actively involved with preserving IKSP in their lifeworks.
This is an attempt in balancing the theoretical with the culture-bearing practices. Research papers/ films and lectures of international discussants— from Japan, Korea, Tibet, New Zealand and USA— who have long pointed out the importance of IKSP to formal education will attest to the significance of the SP paradigm for the Asian social sciences—beyond the scope of mere Philippine Studies.
These studies shall be compared with existing culture-strengthening theories from the fields of anthropology, humanities, art studies, sociology, history and the unifying paradigm of Filipino Indigenous Kapwa Psychology and Asian Personhood. Presenters include: the Assistant Secretary General of UNESCO Korea Seunghwan Lee, the Fil-American scholar Dr. Lily Mendoza and her husband Dr. Jim Perkinson, the director of the Tokyo Mineiken Research Institutes of Films on Folk Culture, Himeda Tadayoshi,, GAMABA awardee and ethnic chanter Federico Caballero from Panay Bukidnon, anthropologist Alice Magos, child rights advocate and psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Marcelino, Filipino UNESCO Commissioner Felipe de Leon, Tala-andig SLT founder Datu Victor Saway, Hablon specialist Dr. Henry Funtecha, filmmakers Kidlat Tahimik and Auraeus Solito, and Ifugao ritualist Jason Domling, among many others.
kapwa2008@gmail.com
(Excuse this one unabashed blogging / bragging.. but.. ) \/ Jack with sister Jessica & her hubby, Romeo Cleto  The maternal family of Jack Kintanar Cariño [http://www.jackcarino.multiply.com] -- better known as the Kintanar clan of Cebu -- will be honored as the UP Centennial Family in the upcoming UP Grand Centennial Alumni and Faculty Homecoming & Reunion on June 21 at the Araneta Coliseum.
Although Jack's paternal family -- the Cariño Ibaloi family of Baguio -- is equally deserving of the award, the Kintanar branch of their family was chosen for the citation because of the sheer number of UP graduates or alumni within the family -- that means lolos and lolas up to the apos or grand children.. (By the way, the Kintanar clan is the same family where personalities from both sides of the political spectrum come from, e.g. ex-congressman Simeon Kintanar of Cebu, a general, the late Rolly Kintanar of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the late Jennifer Maria Kintanar Cariño of the New People's Army's Jennifer Cariño Command, [http://jackcarino.multiply.com/journal/item/18/Jennifer Maria Cariño: Oh,To Die Young].)
 Jack's mom, Josefina Kinatanar Cariño. Jack's mother, Josefina Kintanar Carño, 82, (UP Diliman, AB English) the eldest among the Kintanar brood, will be attending the awarding ceremony together with her sisters and brothers, now still in their productive senior years.  CONGRATS, Jack... you have two proud branches of the family. Jack's mom talking to son-in-law, Geoff.
Today's issue of the Philippine Star carries a review of The Baguio City Yearbook 2008 by Butch Dalisay, great author and columnist for the Philippine STAR's Arts and Culture Section... Dr Jose "Butch" Dalisay Jr. is also a professor of English at UP Diliman. His blog has a link below. Link: http://www.philstar.com/index.php?Arts%20and%20Culture&p=49&type=2&sec=40&aid=2008042726 http:ww.jackcarino.multiply.com/journal/item/58/
Arts and Culture More treasures from Baguio
PENMAN By Butch Dalisay Monday, April 28, 2008 Our recent visit to Baguio for the UP National Writers Workshop — an annual pilgrimage, really — turned up another bonus in the form of a new publication passed on to me by writer Chi Balmaceda Gutierrez, now Baguio-based: the Baguio City Yearbook 2008, which she co-edits with Jack Kintanar Cariño. Baguio City is gearing up for its centennial next year, and this yearbook is a picture- and story-rich contribution to that great city’s history. I flipped through it quickly, and much as I’d like to say that the pictures of old Baguio alone are worth the price of the yearbook, I soon found myself engrossed by the articles, nearly all of them written by Baguio oldtimers. The yearbook focuses on “Baguio’s Forgotten Ibaloi Heritage,” and one of its most fascinating stories (written by former UP workshopper Nonnette Bennett) is that of its cover girl, the resplendently named Eveline Chainus Guirey, who became Baguio’s first Carnival Queen in 1915 at the age of only 13. The daughter of a wealthy Igorot or baknang family, Chainus, as she was called, was said to have been known for her “golden smile and intelligence.” She wore a gold-plated tooth adornment called a shekang, and her clothes were made of green and purple silk. Alas — in a tragedy worthy of Poe — this pretty young woman did not live long, succumbing to tuberculosis at age 18. The article reports that when Chainus died, “Schools were closed, classes suspended, and a large crowd (of VIPs) attended her funeral on Oct. 5, 1920.” One sister — Helen, born seven years after her death — is still alive and preserves the memory of Chainus Guirey. The yearbook has many other stories of Baguio lore — for example, about women cargadores who carried rations and ammunition for American soldiers during the War, about Benguet cowboys who looked over the vast cattle holdings of the Ibaloi, and about the “haunted” Laperal House on Leonard Wood Road — but one that touched a personal chord was a report, by architect Toti Villalon, on the rehabilitation of Teachers Camp, where I spent many a summer as a high-school conference- and partygoer. Indeed, Baguio’s white-and-green, colonial cottages are as unique as the city’s pines in the Philippine landscape. And you can’t put down the engaging piece written by Linda Grace Cariño on “English Like a Native,” which traces the way English has been indigenized by Baguio speakers. For example: “Notice how natives say ‘country club’ like it was one word? Papanam? Diay countryclub. Manila cousins like to affect the answer: the club. The climbers actually say count-ry club, as in count your blessings.” For true Baguio sons and daughters — or even avid visitors — there’s a long list of all the things every self-respecting Baguio native should know (e.g., “The only thrift shop you knew was the Pines Thrift Shop near the Justice Hall, managed by Mr. and Mrs. Woelke (it was the first ukay).” I don’t know if I should be proud of admitting to understanding one of these “insider” factoids (“You knew what Chaparral signified”) — but that’s another story. Baguio City Yearbook 2008 is available for P350 at National Book Store and other outlets. For inquiries, e-mail the editors at baguioyearbook@gmail.com. * * * And speaking of Baguio memories, workshopper and journalist-poet Frank Cimatu informed me that a literary anthology — a collection of essays, stories, and poems about Baguio — is now being put together for publication in time for the city’s 2009 centennial. If you’re interested in submitting your work to this anthology, please email Prof. Grace Subido of UP Baguio at miscommunication.arts@gmail.com. * * * Toward the end of the UP Writers Workshop a couple of weeks ago, one workshopper raised a question that, I’m sure, has occurred more than once to many a young writer: “After the workshop, what?” Writers workshops can be intoxicating, providing writers with something they’ll be hard put to find anywhere else: the company of sympathetic souls who understand what they want to do, and also how hard it is to do it. Workshops can occasionally get nasty and end in tears (or worse), but they serve, for the most part, to reaffirm and reinforce one’s commitment to the writing life. The kind of “mid-career” workshops we now hold at UP aren’t even intended any longer to dwell on grammar and the other basics of writing; they’re meant to focus and to sharpen writers’ attitudes toward their own work and that of others. Admit it or not, entry-level workshops do a service to writing, the individual, and the environment by discouraging the unfit from wasting any more paper (and then again, I can imagine how some workshop judgments can be spectacularly wrong; workshop panelists are hardly gods, and have their own hang-ups to deal with). In the UP Writers Workshop, we don’t want people to stop writing; indeed, we want them to press on, more resolute than ever, and surer of their own voices. But, yes, after the workshop, what? I wanted to tell the fellow what immediately came to my mind: “Many more years of solitary confinement and hard labor.” It’s a fair summary, in many ways, of the writing life. You can drink and talk all you want, you can bask in the afterglow of Rilke and Plath and Neruda and whoever moves you, and quote them till the cows come home; but when it comes to your own work, it’ll still be just you and the blinking cursor, and maybe a tepid cup of coffee or a half-finished cigarette. No nodding readers, no owl-eyed critics, no triumphal bouquets, no one to say, “That’s good, can’t wait for the next chapter.” But just think: a hundred years ago there were no workshops, no writing programs, not even computers (and, in many places, not even electricity). But authors churned out 300-page books. Writing is always a solitary act and solitude can get lonely, but the books get written and suddenly there’s more than you listening to your voice at 2 a.m. * * * E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net. LINK: http://penmanila.multiply.com/links/item/1/Pinoy_Penman>PinoyPenman</a>
Good news! An early-bird applicant to the Global Pinoy Magazine has been given the choice to either work at the magazine's Makati CBD Philippine Office or as Marketing Staff in the United States to work side by side with the staff based there. Now, the Global Pinoy Magazine is still looking for contributing writers and photographers. On layout stage now is the Independence Day issue and subsequent issues of the US East Coast Edition, which will come out ahead of the other separate editions for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Europe and the US West Coast. Rates for Cover Story is P3,000 and the rest of the stories -- P1,500 to P2,500. For photos, we pay P500 per published item. I am now preparing the Global Pinoy Magazine-US West Coast Edition for September and onwards -- esp the Christmas Issue. The following may be of help to interested parties:
Topics: - The Filipino, here and abroad (OFWs in general, migrants & exiles, success stories, sob stories, etc)
- Food, fashion & lifestyle
- Pop culture
- The Arts ( performing arts, visual arts, film, literature, architecture, photography, etc)
- Cultural studies
- IT ( including the Pinoys in the blogging world, Internet, etc)
- Business
- Sports
- Anything at all under the Global Pinoys' sun
Photographers will be assigned or may submit features on Philippine Tourist Destinations through a photo essay which will be published as the magazine's centerfold.
Related LINK -- http://anvalerio.multiply.com/journal/item/38/Wanted_Writers_and_Photographers
The Global Pinoy Magazine is looking for writers and photographers, as well as contributors, for its Independence Day issue and subsequent issues in the US East Coast and US West Coast. Writers will cover the following topics: - The Filipino, here and abroad (OFWs in general, migrants & exiles, success stories, sob stories, etc)
- food, fashion & lifestyle
- pop culture
- The Arts ( performing arts, visual arts, film, literature, architecture, photography, etc)
- cultural studies
- IT ( including the Pinoys in the blogging world, Internet, etc)
- Business
- Sports
- Anything at all under the Global Pinoys' sun
Photographers will be assigned to feature Philippine Tourist Destinations through a photo essay which will be published as the magazine's centerfold. Interested parties may email their curriculum vitae and sample of works to: For further inquiries, you may also PM me here. Related LINK -- <ahttp://anvalerio.multiply.com/journal/item/38/Wanted_Writers_and_Photographers>Wanted: Writers and Photographers</a>
Man Asian Prize Exec
Director
to Meet with Local Writers, Jan. 24
Peter Gordon, Executive Director of the Man Asian Literary Prize, will be in Manila on Thursday, January 24, to promote the prize among Filipino writers and to speak on "International Opportunities for Filipino Writers." The UP Institute of Creative Writing is hosting his talk, which will be held that day at 2:30 pm at the AVR Room, 2nd floor, Rizal Hall (Faculty Center), UP Diliman.
The Man Asian—informally known as the "Asian
Booker"—was established in 2006 and made its first award in 2007 for the best unpublished novel in English or English translation by an Asian. Filipino fictionist and UP professor Jose Dalisay Jr.'s novel Soledad's Sister
made the shortlist of the inaugural prize, which drew 243 entries from all over Asia. The deadline for the 2008 Man Asian is March 31.
Gordon will speak about the prize and on literary publishing in Asia in general. The UPICW is inviting all
interested writers, translators, publishers, teachers, and students to attend the lecture-discussion, which will also feature Dr. Dalisay and fellow novelist and columnist Alfred "Krip" Yuson.
Peter Gordon is also a founder and former Director of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival (held each March in Hong Kong), founder and editor of the
Asian Review of Books, and publisher at Chameleon Press. He writes a weekly op-ed column in the Hong Kong daily The Standard and is chairman of the Russian Interest Group at the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.
Browse on Baguio History In the late 16th century, the Spaniards colonized the Philippines.
Seven years after the Spaniards settled in Manila, a Spanish official, Juan de Salcedo, went to the North and into the mountains to search for gold. He then stumbled into a land of fertile valleys, virgin forests and ore-rich streams.
Gold was found and armies of soldiers, priests and fortune hunters came . Numerous battles with fierce mountain tribes resulted in loss of life and livelihood. The Spaniards found the mountain people difficult to rule, thus they parcelled the com mandancias into rancherias that they placed in the hands of the landed gentry. 
In the summer of 1892, a young American zoological collector named Dean C. Worcester was approached in the wilds of Mindoro Island, while at work, by Domingo Sanchez, a member of the Spanish Forestry Bureau. Sanchez, in great detail, told of a fabulous country in the Luzon northlands at an elevation of 5000 feet which had a perpetual temperate climate and was sometimes visited by frost. Worcester, like all Americans suffering in the steamy lowlands of the archipelago, listened to the dream picture hopefully. Upon his return to Manila en route back to America, he browsed through Forestry archives and found enough about the truth of Sanchez’ shangri-la to whet his adventurous spirit. Two years after Dewey’s guns silenced the Spaniards in Manila, Worcester reappeared as a member of the first Philippine Commission under the direction of Judge William Howard Taft. In July 1900, Worcester and a party of curious Americans decided to explore the truthfulness of the Spaniard’s story and began the ascent to Baguio. In Washington, the then Secretary of War Ellihu Root was also watching hopefully. Almost every one in the party except the dogged and persistent Worcester was skeptical. Frost, pine trees, cool breezes...they no doubt grumbled under their shortening breaths as they toiled throu gh the heat and dense jungle vegetation that gave the lie to Worcester’s hopes. Until the globetrotter Frank G. Carpenter wrote, “all at once, within a space of 100 yards, the party left the tropics and found themselves in a region of pines carpeted by thick, short grass. At sunset, they looked down...on what is known as Trinidad Valley. That night, the most skeptical of the party, buried under blankets, acknowledged that Worcester’s faith in Domingo Sanchez had been j ustified.” When the Americans came into the Cordillera after Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States of America for $20,000,000 in the year 1898, they rejoiced in discovering these pine covered hills and the cool heights that were ideal for summer retreats from the smelting heat of the lowlands. The wide low valley of Kafagway, a rancheria of 20 houses owned and headed by Ibaloi chieftain Mateo Cariño, was found in the year 1900. America then was just learning how to use the horseless buggy, while a village of Ibaloi Igorots, now known as the Benguets, were settled in their thatched huts in the area which is now Burnham Park. Baguio was derived from the abundant moss-like green plants the indigenous inhabitants called Bigyiw or Bag-iw. Also in the year 1900, the Americans established the first civil government in Benguet. Kafagway which is now known as Baguio became the capital. In a the report of the Philippine Commission of 1903, an America governor-general said, “By shifting a portion of those stationed in the lowlands to Baguio for a proper period, and the reverse, the term of duty of the of troops in the Philippines Islands could be much extended and consequent saving made in the cost of frequent transportation to and fro of troops from the United States to the islands.... moreover, the Government would not so frequently suffer the loss of service and efficiency of its employees on account of the effects of a tropical climate.” Thus, on June 1, 1903, a resolution was passed by the American colonial government naming the town of Baguio the Summer Capital of the Philippines. They built the Kennon Road and completed it in three years. It became the first road to connect Manila to the Mountain Province. 
The city prospered in the years before World War II but was destroyed by the repeated bombings during liberation by the American air force who wanted to flush out the dreaded Japanese under Gen. Yamashita. From the ruins, Baguio rose into a commecial and industrial center of the Cordilleras. On July 16, 1990, a great earthquake devastated the city, destroying many of its buildings and commercial establishments. A year later after the killer quake, Baguio has risen, a new city, proud of its rich heritage and legacy. Today, Baguio City is a self-governing member of the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR). It is composed of the province of Abra, Benguet, Ifugao (where the famous Banaue Rice Terraces are located), Kalinga, Apayao, and Mountain Province.
-- by JACK & CHi, with excerpts from various
sources including a metal tablet at
the Igorot Steps, Upper Session Rd.,
Barrio Fiesta Restaurant
* * *
 Safe Sex Poems.
The Baguio Writers Group is mulling on giving away prizes for the safest and the sexiest poems during the poetry reading at Rumours Bar along Session Road, Baguio City on Dec. 1, Aids Day, at 9:30 pm.
The audience may vote for which is the safest and which is the sexiest.
Posporo Flower (ha-ha-ha!)
1. Safe Sex by Donald Hall* <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/264> If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words; if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if they desire only the tribute of another's cry; if they employ each other as revenge on old lovers or families of entitlement and steel— then there will be no betrayals, no letters returned unread, no frenzy, no hurled words of permanent humiliation, no trembling days, no vomit at midnight, no repeated apparition of a body floating face-down at the pond's edge *From “White Apples and the Taste of Stone” Copyright (c) 2006 by Donald
Hall. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 2. Safe Sex Sonnet by Mary Mila** When reason calls to be set free
the mind need always fashion cause
and cloister want behind staid dress
though somehow, someday, we all face death. When passion calls to be given reign
there's reason enough to stall
to check the flesh and rising blood
and clothe desire beneath a hood. One avenue is straight and paved
another barely cleared.
Both seed and harvest need their season
and flesh and blood their time to leaven
**This just came out from Three Quarks Daily:
3. Social Security by Terrence Winch No one is safe. The streets are unsafe.
Even in the safety zones, it's not safe.
Even safe sex is not safe.
Even things you lock up in a safe
are not safe. Never deposit anything
in a safe-deposit box, because it
won't be safe there. Nobody is safe
at home during baseball games anymore. At night I go around in the dark
locking everything, returning
a few minutes later
to make sure I locked
everything. It's not safe here.
It's not safe and they know it.
People get hurt using safety pins. It was not always this way.
Long ago, everyone felt safe. Aristotle
never felt danger. Herodotus felt danger
only when Xerxes was around. Young women
were afraid of wingèd dragons, but felt
relaxed otherwise. Timotheus, however,
was terrified of storms until he played
one on the flute. After that, everyone
was more afraid of him than of the violent
west wind, which was fine with Timotheus.
Euclid, full of music himself, believed only
that there was safety in numbers. ********************************************* Press Release *"Ribbed, Dotted or Strawberry: Poetry Reading on Safe Sex"* The Baguio Writers Group and Ubbog (a group of young Cordillera writers)
will hold a poetry reading on safe sex Dec. 1 at 9:30 p.m. at Rumours Bar on
Session Road, Baguio City. The event marks International AIDS Day. Entitled "Ribbed, Dotted or Strawberry," the reading features 10 poets who will celebrate sex and romance without life-changing results like pregnancy and STD. Open-mike reading follows. Volunteer readers are welcome and encouraged not to be intimidated by the subject. Safe sex has a wide scope. As one of the members said, it could just be gazing at the moon and thinking of the beloved. Or it can be as raunchy as torrid kissing, heavy petting, mutual masturbation. You may read your own stuff, read another's or heckle those whose idea this is. The poems that will be read for the night include Ma. Luisa Igloria’s latest poem sent from Ragdale(USA) where she's on an artist's residency; she composed "Osculation Station" for the event, while Babeth Lolarga will read an excerpt from her long poem "From the Calendar of Anger." Please text or email Babeth Lolarga if you'll be in the shortlist of 10 readers. Her number is 0916-242-1637. The sponsors are Rumours, Philippine NGO Council on Health, Population and Welfare and DKT Philippines. |
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