Two different worlds in Oriental Mindoro

MANILA, Philippines - Somebody got murdered two years ago on Boquete Beach, Puerto Galera, near the sandbar, in a place called Elizabeth’s hideaway. The victim, for we can assume that he was for the most part victim, had a gambling debt, and the assassins came to collect. The hideaway resort is now being run by a sibling of the departed, and cousin of the owner of the beach house next door. The new manager always wears fatigues, and it’s not unlikely that he carries a gun, the cousin says.

There were eight or nine of us in the 2nd Adverbum Writers Retreat: Four professors from the University of the Philippines, one of them visiting from Australia; two fellows with works or plans in progress; the sales manager of a leading publishing house, a journalist, and the retreat organizer Almira Astudillo-Gilles, in whose beach house Boquete Breeze right beside Elizabeth’s hideaway the writers were billeted for four nights, five days, coinciding with the nearby Malasimbo Music and Arts Festival in the mountains of Mindoro less than an hour’s drive away.

On a Thursday morning early we set out for Mindoro, the onset of summer fast on our heels on the South Luzon Expressway, and thereafter on the chartered ferry crossing over from Batangas pier, where even the dolphins seemed shy in that pass. Chari Lucero and Reuel Aguila of the UP Filipino Department, Isabel Banzon and Australian poet Dennis Haskell of UP’s Department of English and Comparative Literature, and yours truly were to read and discuss the work of Penelope Flores, professor emeritus of San Francisco State University, and brainstorm with inspirational speaker and aspiring motivational author Padma Siap of Cebu, aside from trying to get some of our own writing done if the spirit so moved us. At midpoint Gwenn Galvez of Anvil Publishing joined the group, after helping oversee the launch of an anthology of new fiction, Maximum Volume, in Manila.

Flores, former afternoon teacher at UP Elementary before migrating abroad, had wanted feedback on a manuscript she was working on, based on the life of her grand uncle Maximo Viola, a friend of the national hero Jose Rizal’s, sourced from rare memoirs of Viola which the grand niece had painstakingly researched and was now trying to shape into a whole book, not a historical novel, mind you.

Flores had given each of us readers a couple of different chapters from the work in progress. I received chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7, titled Viola and Rizal meet German scholars, is set in Berlin 1886. It begins:

“One bright clear day, Rizal came bouncing up the stair landing of my walk-up apartment loaded with books. He came from the Berlin Royal library. Rizal had this habit of walking and doing errands early in the morning…”

Here is a trove of esoterica from Rizal’s little known friend, with the writing itself strong on the research aspect. However, as I told the author, I had trouble getting a narrative grip on proceedings, not surprising since Flores herself said that this is not a novel. But in the realm of creative nonfiction, it straddles the borders between genres and risks the ire of ardent Rizalistas and other straitjacketed historians by taking certain liberties like putting words in the mouths of her subjects. The material is undoubtedly rich in possibilities that the National Historical Commission should sit up and take notice of this raising out of obscurity of Viola, the national friend.

In between swims, swigs of beer and rum, smokes and sumptuous meals courtesy of the Astudillo cook Lucy ably assisted by the househelp Helen, there was ample time to write and read, read and write and talk about literature, time enough to take photos of hawks battling crows on the beach front as Aguila did, space enough to breathe easy away from the madding city. One, however, does not have to be actually writing to be writing, because material can be gathered while sleeping and dreaming, while snorkeling, smoking, snoring, strolling, samba-ing in Malasimbo.

On a Friday the last day of February the band of writers went up to Malasimbo to check out the arts and music festival, see and listen to kindred spirits even for just a few hours. The installations with artist Olivia D’Aboville as curator were a sight to behold, the correct and unhurried use of space and light on rolling terrain and a view of Puerto Galera bay in the distance.

There was Agnes Arellano with her Avatar, Billie Bonnevie with his Dap-ay, Alwin Reamillo with his suitcase tribute to three friends recently passed – Dick Daroy, Debid Sicam, Gerard Baja; Wawi Navarozza and Ling Ramilo’s flowing shredded wall of orange, Gus Albor with his curious landscape complete with mirror, young artist Pia and her giant many-sided mask Pol, after polygon. There was also a performance artist near the Dap-ay, half buried by a cliff on Tanawin Point, covered in soil and what could be latex and all the while attached to pieces of string.

When darkness fell in the valley of Malasimbo and the lights went up on the art pieces, the bands began to play. On the first night there was a band from Davao called Crowns Down, which had the flying fingers of Eric Johnson down pat, ably supported by a horn section: a via musicom a la Mindoro. The acoustics were excellent, the sound whole and unembellished, and in a while Low Leaf too regaled the audience with generous doses of house and funk. At the Dap-ay, Bonnevie and company did their impromptu gig of percussion round the bonfire, the drums’ sonic rhythm rising to the star-filled sky.  

On Sunday evening we were back in the valley, this time to hear Mishka Adams and Jose Gonzales and Good Leaf, among others, while feasting on the bestselling adobo and kesong puti pan de sal washed down with steeply priced beer. Mishka, good to see her back, seemed to be missing the ghost of Jaco Pastorius, but her folk jazz vibe was not to be missed. Gonzales mellowed out the crowd further with his tunes in lower register a la Nick Drake, dreamy and dangerous. Good Leaf harkened back to the days of Sandinista of the Clash, with strong reggae beat and reverb bouncing off the hills. Mishka’s mom Agnes texted later to explain the comparatively thin sound of the Adams’ set: the other guitar’s line suddenly stopped functioning, eerie because it had belonged to recent Bontoc bus crash victim Sicam, the ghost of David.

Earlier that day the whole party drove back the octogenarian Flores to her hometown of Calapan, where we were welcomed with a traditional putong pomp and ceremony. Her town mates prepared quite a spread of lechon and the works, the prodigal daughter and Viola niece coming home. How different their dance was compared with the Dap-ay bachannal! As different as night and day.

Coming down from Malasimbo past midnight the world seemed a bit changed. The road was pitch black and uneven back to the sandbar, guided only by a cellphone flashlight, and the reflection of stars and imagined fireflies. Crickets in their chorus and nameless beasts and angels. There was much writing to be done, and reading too even if Manila was still a world away. Where was it I had read that if there is anything that art teaches us, it is that the human condition is private? Or that the best defense against evil is originality? Maybe it was the poet Joseph Brodsky speaking to the poet Seamus Heaney. Malasimbo and Adverbum left us with a touch, made us lose this skin with the crooked crooked beat.