Welcome and Mabuhay

If you love Marinduque and want to contribute articles to this site, please do so. My contact information is in my profile. The above photo was taken from the balcony of The Chateau Du Mer Beach House, Boac, Marindque, Philippines. I love sunsets. How about you? Some of the photos and videos on this site, I do not own. However, I have no intention on infringing your copyrights. Thank you and Cheers!

Tres Reyes Island view of the Marinduque Mainland

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Oblation Run-University of the Philippines Tradition



The Oblation Run, UPLB( photo from photobucket.com)

The two pictures above are the "OBLATION RUN", an annual activity that had been attracting nationwide visitors and the press in UP. There was no Oblation Run during my college years. The photo is from the web, by photobucket.com (pinoyblogosphere).
The first photo was in the Diliman campus. The second photo was the run in the Los Banos Campus,in 2004. Here's a video of the 2011 Run.

* Historical Notes about the Oblation Run from Wikipedia

The Oblation Run is an annual tradition of the members of the Alpha Phi Omega, one of the prominent U.P. fraternities. Members of the fraternity run around the campus naked (a concept known as streaking) to protest their sentiments about a current political or economic situation. The run started in 1977 to protest the banning of the movie, “Hubad na Bayani,” which depicted human rights abuses in the martial law era.

Contrary to popular belief, neophytes are forbidden to run. "All those who run are full-fledged members who have volunteered" are allowed to run, explains Ojie Santillan, the fraternity's Auxiliary Chancellor. "There is a misconception that the Oblation Run is something our neophytes have to undergo as part of their initiation. That’s not true. We never allow our applicants to join.(the Oblation Run)" Today, the Oblation Run is held on or about December 16th, in honor of the international founding of Alpha Phi Omega.

"The Great Centennial Run"
Exactly, on UP's 100th anniversary day, and in the “UP Oblation Run," 100 UP-based Alpha Phi Omega (APO) Fraternity and several UP alumni on June 18, at 11:00 a.m., ran naked along the University of the Philippines (UP) campus to commemorate the centennial anniversary. They sprinted from the Vinzon’s Hall and stopped at Palma Hall, for short photo opportunity. Jejomar Binay, alumnus and former prime chancellor of APO fraternity led the event. Runners called "Scholars of the People" carried placards, "Serve the People," to petition for the state subsidies to their education.

The History of the Sculpture from Wikpedia:

The idea for the Oblation was first conceived during presidency of Rafael Palma, who was the one to commission Tolentino to make the sculpture. Palma requested that the statue would be based on the second verse of Jose Rizal's Mi Ultimo Adios;

"In fields of battle, deliriously fighting,
Others give you their lives, without doubt, without regret;
Where there’s cypress, laurel or lily,
On a plank or open field, in combat or cruel martyrdom,
If the home or country asks, it's all the same--it matters not".

The concrete sculpture painted to look like bronze, measures 3.5 meters in height, symbolizing the 350 years of Spanish rule in the Philippines. The sculpture is replete with references of selfless dedication and service to the nation, and as Tolentino himself describes it;

"The completely nude figure of a young man with outstretched arms and open hands, with tilted head, closed eyes and parted lips murmuring a prayer, with breast forward in the act of offering himself, is my interpretation of that sublime stanza. It symbolizes all the unknown heroes who fell during the night. The statue stands on a rustic base, a stylized rugged shape of the Philippine archipelago, lined with big and small hard rocks, each of which represents an island. The “katakataka” (wonder plant) whose roots are tightly implanted on Philippine soil, is the link that binds the symbolized figure to the allegorical Philippine Group. “Katakataka” is really a wonder plant. It is called siempre vivo (always alive) in Spanish. A leaf or a piece of it thrown anywhere will sprout into a young plant. Hence, it symbolizes the deep-rooted patriotism in the heart of our heroes. Such patriotism continually and forever grows anywhere in the Philippines".

Originally, the statue was completely naked, but, as morality was prevailing at that time, it was modified by former U.P. President Jorge Bocobo with the addition of a fig leaf to cover the genitals. The sculpture was funded by the UP students of 1935-1936, and was presided by Potenciano Illusorio and Jose B. Laurel, Jr., presidents of the student council during the first and second semester respectively and was dedicated on March 1939 at the University's Manila campus where it stayed until February 1949, when the main administrative offices of the university moved to the new Diliman campus in Quezon City. The transfer of the Oblation to its new home served as the highlight of the move from Manila, which is historically referred to as the Exodus. The sculpture in front of the Quezon Hall at Diliman was installed facing west, purportedly a tribute to the American roots of the university. Today, that sculpture is only a bronze replica (which was recast from the original in Italy, in 1950, under the supervision of Tolentino himself) dedicated on UP's Golden Jubilee on November 29, 1958. The original sculpture is being kept at the Main Library (Gonzalez Hall), the former site of the UP College of Fine Arts, where Tolentino taught.

Several replicas of the Oblation were made for campuses of the University of the Philippines, some by national artist, Napoleon Abueva. 2005 national artist nominee Glenn Bautista,likewise, did his celebrated version of the Oblation in pen and ink as part of his school plates at the UP College of Fine Art under Professor Rebilion. The sculpture was registered at the Intellectual Property Office in the year 2004. Being the main symbol of the university, the Oblation is the centerpiece of many UP-related logos, like those of the Philippine Collegian and other student publications, the UP Cooperative, and the UP centennial emblem.

The U.P. Lantern Parade is a parade of large lantern-floats around the oval of the main campus of the University of the Philippines (U.P.), the Diliman campus. The first parade was held in 1922 but it was institutionalized as a university celebration in 1934 by then UP President Jorge Bocobo. This annual U.P. tradition and competition takes place on the late afternoon of the last day of classes before the Christmas break, just a few hours after the Oblation Run.

The UP lantern parade attracts crowds of people from all over Metro Manila. Each U.P. unit and college creates a lantern-float on a given theme and presents a brief program to accompany the presentation of the lantern before the judges and audience gathered at the administration hall. An Over-All Best Lantern Grand Prize is awarded, along with "Judges' Choice" and "Most Resourceful." Cash prizes are given to the winners.

Having for many years swept up all the prizes, since 1929 to 1989, the College of Fine Arts (CFA) no longer joins the University competition. Instead, groups of fine arts students try to outdo each other in creating lanterns on the theme assigned by the CFA. The parade of the fine arts follows the main lantern parade and promises to provide the most attractive and creative floats in the parade. In 2004, for example, the college floats and lanterns featured Filipino folklore and mythological creatures like the tikbalang, kapre, and nuno sa punso. In celebration of its centennial, their lanterns in 2007 paid tribute to National Artists for the Arts. THE PARADE IS CONCLUDED WITH FIREWORKS DISPLAY. Reference: WikiPilipinas.com

Please note that I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from UP in 1955. The next year I passed the Chemistry Board Examination coping 3rd place nationwide. For the last 30 years, prior to my retirement from FDA in 2002, I have been also active with activities of the UP Alumni Association here in US both in Maryland and Northern California.



Maniya Barredo as Juliet and Nonoy Froilan as Romeo. Balcony scene from the ballet Romeo & Juliet. Choreography by Tom Pazik. Performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2010



From marinduque.gov blog

The first underground river to have been found in Marinduque was recently discovered by a team led by provincial tourism officers. This find, together with the development of existing sites unique to the island, augurs well for combined LGU efforts under Gov. Bong Carrion to promote the island-province as an eco-tourism destination in the region - the San Isidro Cave and Subterranean River, Sta. Cruz, Marinduque, Philippines. Village leaders in San Isidro now bent on carefully preserving the site.

Posted on April, 2012





Due to insistent public demand, the world renowned dancing inmates of Cebu finally had their own version of Psy's Gangnam Style music video. Their first video that went viral was their interpretation of Michael Jackson classic dance, the Moon Walk a couple of years ago.

Despite the heavy rain on September, 29, at least a thousand inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) entertained guests with their ecstatic adoption of the Guinness World Record holder for the "Most Liked in YouTube." Credits to Mark Anthony Bautista for taking the video. Here's some tidbits from an article published in the local paper on Maniwaya Islands.

Freddie Pelaez, former village chair of Maniwaya, said the island got its name from the Filipino word maniwala (believe). According to old-timers, a story went that a visitor with a speech disorder was asked by locals about his impression of the island, and he replied, “Maganda. Maniwaya kayo sa akin (It’s beautiful. Believe me).”

Maniwaya has a land area of 264 hectares and a population of 1,900 or 370 households. The residents’ major sources of livelihood are fishing and farming, Pelaez said.

Local blogger Eli Obligacion in his blog site Marinduque Rising said nights could be creepy on the island with the “strangest bird sounds you’ll ever hear. But when the moon is full and the water is still, you might experience some state of freedom and enlightenment.”

“Maniwaya is still untouched by commercial developers so the bigger number of visitors just come by to spend the whole day swimming and exploring the shore—and maybe taste the bibingka (rice cake) or agar-agar seaweed jelly that the local inhabitants make,” he wrote.



In this production of the best loved classical ballet 'Swan Lake' the naturally gifted Yulia Makhalina dances the challenging role of Odette/Odile while the part of Prince Siegfried is danced by Igor Zelensky. This classic Kirov production includes the familiar happy ending in the final act where Siegfried fights and ultimately defeats the evil magician von Rothbart and at dawn is reunited with Odette.

Iloilo is a province of the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Iloilo occupies the southeast portion of Panay Island and is bordered by Antique Province to the west and Capiz Province and the Jintotolo Channel to the north. Just off Iloilo's southeast coast is Guimaras Province, once part of Iloilo Province but now a province in its own right. Across the Panay Gulf and Guimaras Strait is Negros Occidental. Iloilo's capital is Iloilo City though the city itself is independent and not governed by the provincial government of Iloilo.

I was born in Jaro, Iloilo a suburb of Iloilo City- the capital of the province. However, most of my childhood and teenager years I experienced in the small town of Barotac Viejo- about 60 Km North of Jaro. Barotac Viejo is my mothers ancestral town.

I have a separate article on Barotac Viejo posted in my blogs recently. This posting is about the province. As seen from the video above, the tourist potential of this province is beyond expectation. I hope you enjoyed the short video above. The next video is the Miagao Church-a world heritage UNESCO site.

I do not owned these videos and I apologize for its amateur video presentation

Miag-ao Church (also known as the Church of Santo Tomas de Villanueva) in the town of Miagao, Iloilo is an Augustinian-built baroque church and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 1787 and 1797, its fortress-like design suggests its dual purpose as a place of worship and as a fort used in defending the town against moro raiders.



The Kalutang, a pair of wooden bars that create four basic notes when struck together. Each person carry a pair of softwood bars made from kwatingan trees. Each set ranges in length and width to create truly unique musical performances. As far as I knew, this type of music is only known in Marinduque and originated in the town of Gasan. Kalutang playing is unique to Marinduque. Originally used as auditory signal by farmers, it later came to be associated with the Moriones in the town of Gasan according to Eli Obligacion, Marinduque's well-known blogger. In the 70's Tirso Serdena, a farmer, developed a series of kalutang pairs and used them together with other players to play popular folk melodies. It is now considered part of the town's - and Marinduque's - cultural treasures. The National Commission for Culture & the Arts (NCCA), municipal government of Gasan, Gasan DepEd and Serdena organized a project to teach the art of kalutang playing to elementary and high school students in Gasan town. All recognize the importance of handing down this skill to the next generation.

The Kulintang is different as seen in the two videos below



Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally-laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums. As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music ensembles have been playing for many centuries in regions of the Eastern Malay Archipelago — the Southern Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Eastern Malaysia, Brunei and Timor, although this posting is focus on the Philippine Kulintang traditions of the Maranao and Maguindanao peoples in particular. Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sunda, Indonesia.



I left My Heart in Marinduque

I have always wanted to write a song about Leaving my Heart in Marinduque. This song will be sang to the tune of the famous song in honor of the city by the bay ( I left My Heart in San Francisco). Here's it is: I hope you like it:

The loveliness of Fair Oaks

Seems somehow sadly gay

the glory that was Boac

Is another day!

Ive been terribly alone

and forgotten in Sacramento

I'm going home to my town by the sea.

I left my heart in Marinduque

Near by the beach it beckons me

To be where the Moriones are

Come, visit where ever you are

The morning sun rise by the sea

I don't care!

My love waits at Chateau Du Mer

Near the blue and calmy sea

When I come home to you, Marinduque

Chateau Du Mer will welcome me!


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ABOUT ME

I am a retired (Chemistry Team Leader from USFDA) Filipino-American who loves writing, gardening and photography. My wife (of 56 years) and I enjoy the snowbird lifestyle between the US and the Philippines.

We have a small but very private beach resort ( video above) in the beautiful island of Marinduque, Philippines. I have several blog sites (ten), a personal blog, blogs about Marinduque and about our beach resort and conference center-CHATEAU DU MER.

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Front Yard of Main House
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Amanah Forest Preserve

Amanah Forest Preserve
Living Room of Yong and Ivy Nieva, Cawit

Marinduque On My Mind

"Marinduque on My Mind" -has been published. The book was written through the inspiration of Yong Nieva, Macrine's first cousin on her mother side of the family.

"Marinduque is a strange illness. You come and you would go. You think you are leaving, but its the town that gets away from you. You wish you could understand, and yet you keep coming back". I realized I had a "problem" that I have to deal with; the problem of my relationships to this small island and the areas around it. I therefore decided that someday we can write a book to try to understand what was really happening, that could clarify our feelings, not by thinking descriptively,analytically or rationally.

We must follow the journey to go back in time. Follow a thread, but which one?It really doesn't matter. We just let ourselves be led by an image; a word, a memory; the trails of ink left by visitors who have been won over and those that have been lost. There's so many indeed! "

Here's a short biography of Yong: He is named after his father Guillermo(Will) Sarmiento Nieva,Sr of Boac. He has grown to be known as Yong. After a short stint with Philippine Airlines, in 1980, he got married and lived in San Francisco working for Allstate Insurance for fifteen years. In 1955 he got divorced and moved back to Manila. He is now in the restaurant business. Together with his wife Ivy Syquia Almario, an interior designer, they regularly visit Cawit, Boac starting an "ecologically-correct" family retreat or sanctuary. They named it AMANAH, Nature Reserve.

Here's a summary of Yong's email to us:

Dear Manang Macrine and Manong Dave'

Greetings! It was a lazy Sunday afternoon today and looking at the photos in my e-mail of my project in Cawit " The Amanah", I was struck by the thought of what is it that really beckons me to keep going back to our beloved island, Marinduque. When I started thinking of words to describe the feeling about Marinduque, all thoughts just came in a rush. It became a virtual "collage-series" of events in my young life. How Papa made it an annual mandate that we spent two weeks of summer with Lola Elving and our aunts, uncles and cousins in Boac. Ah, days of reckless abandon-the treks to the beach, and the jam-sessions at night. How we felt so loved by each and everyone of them, which even to this day we cherish. How even our cousins friends also became our friends. And they remember!

This is not only about us-the children of Guillermo "Will" Nieva of Boac. I then thought, "What about others"? What about those, who like me lived in the States, but still carry Marinduque in their hearts. Maybe if we all share via website, the hi-tech way, to answer the question of what really beckons us to Marinduque. Then together we can solve this strange illness.

Surely, the Marinduquenos association all over the US, do not only continue to thrive because of its leaders, but also because if we really look closely, there are many reasons why its members continue to stay in touch. It is a rare gift, if I may say so!

In that Marinduquenos heart, there's still an image- a face of his/her first love, or the first kiss; an incident in his/her young life that forever changed his life; his dreams, his goals, his pains that drove him to become what he/she is now; the emotions felt of being left behind from a good bye; the sound of the rambling jeepney on its way to Balanacan; the scent of coconut oil in early morning hours as you drive the narrow roads; the fear and scampering from the town's idiot or from the town's bully, and why not? the love story of beautiful "Peace Corp" volunteer fell in love and married the handsome local swain! So many essays and narratives to start and follow the "journey".

Manong Dave, could you please design a website for this literary project and invite our fellow Marinduquenos there in US to share their thoughts, hearts and feelings in words and so we can solved (or at least understand) this "strange illness" inside each and everyone of us!

My response to Yong: I am excited of this idea. My suggestion is to create a blog site instead of a website. The blog site is easy to manage. This is where articles could be posted and edited. The blog site is free and easy. I could titled it http://marinduqueonmymind.blogspot.com. I will manage it along with my other blogs on the internet. Once we have collected a number of postings, we can published it ourselves.

I will volunteer to write an article on " I left my Heart in Marinduque ( not in San Francisco), since I did not grow up in Marinduque but married a marinduquena.


NOTE TO ALL MARINDUQUENOS WHO WANTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROJECT:
You may write your article via the comment section of this blog or sent your article to my e-mail, tagajaro@comcast.net

Heart and Eco-Tourism Capital of the Philippines

Garden Wedding Venue

Garden Wedding Venue
Chateau Du Mer House and Gardens

Dave and Macrine Katague

Dave and Macrine Katague
Our Golden Wedding Anniversary-Click on Photo to link to Marinduque Awaits You

Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center

Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center
Beach House, Boac, Marinduque

Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center

Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center
Conference and Multi-Purpose Hall

Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center

Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center
Beach House Balcony at Night