Which One, Which One for Lunch? photo by Cecilia Brainard

"Which One, Which One for Lunch?"
(Photo by Cecilia Brainard, taken in Kenya)

Let's Light Up the World! , photo by Cecilia Brainard

"Let's Light Up the World!"

(photo by Cecilia Brainard, taken in Turkey)

Cecilia Brainard in Panel "Getting Started as a Writer"

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard in a Panel "Getting Started as a Writer", UCLA Extension's Writers Program

*Cecilia Brainard in Writers Program Panel "Getting Started as a Writer" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLsCT3mFUIs

I LOVE ICE CREAM! photo by Cecilia Brainard

"I LOVE ICE CREAM!"
Photo by Cecilia Brainard, taken in India

BURMA: MOVING FORWARD by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

BURMA: MOVING FORWARD, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

BURMA: MOVING FORWARD

Copyright 2012 by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Published in the August 2012 issue of Zee Lifestyle Magazine

            It was the image of the calm but determined Aung San Suu Kyi quietly defying the ruling generals who personified Burma (or Myanmar) to me. Because of her, I monitored events in that country: in 1988 students had been massacred; in 2007 Buddhist monks had been beaten and killed; Aung San Suu Kyi herself had spent 15 years in house arrest; then in 2008 Cyclone Nargis devastated the country. For decades, life was bleak in Burma, but suddenly in 2011, for reasons analysts will spend decades discussing, the military junta dissolved itself and held a general election in 2010. Aung San Suu Kyi, or The Lady, as the Burmese lovingly call her, was elected to the lower house of parliament. Her party, the National League for Democracy, won 43 of the 45 vacant seats in the lower house, still the minority, but it’s a beginning.

            A group of us, 16 in total, headed by John Silva, visited Burma last April right after the general election, just when Burma was opening up to the rest of the world. We were warned that April is the hottest time in Burma, but we didn’t complain because we knew we were witnesses to the country’s dramatic political change. 

For the first time tour guides could openly talk about politics, the generals, and Aung San Suu Kyi. Less than a year ago, they could not even mention The Lady’s name. The Burmese seemed surprised at the number of foreigners visiting their pagodas, markets, and museums. “Where you from?” several Burmese, including Buddhist monks, asked us. While we enthusiastically snapped their pictures, they too took pictures of us. We were as much a novelty as they were to us.

            Our first stop was Yangon, the former capital, which has retained its old world feeling. There are sparkling lakes, lush parks and colonial buildings, which even though neglected are still charming. At least for now Yangon is not riddled with high-rise buildings. It has numerous pagodas and temples including the famous 2,500 year-old Shwedagon Pagoda, which houses eight miraculous hairs from Guatama Buddha. Called the heart of Yangon the Shwedagon is lavishly decorated with gold, diamonds, and precious stones; it is said that the umbrella at the top of the pagoda has nearly 5,449 diamonds, 2,317 rubies, and the tip is crowned with a 76 carat diamond.

            We stayed at the Traders Hotel, which was walking distance to the Sule Pagoda, another remarkable site. What impressed me most was the religiosity of the people in the pagodas, how fervently they prayed with their eyes closed, their faces serene.

Our hotel was also near Scott’s Market with its countless shops selling clothes, bags, antiques, gems, puppets, and other items. Shopping there and throughout Burma was great. Prices were good, although one had to haggle ruthlessly as prices are very elastic in Burma.  

     

        
From Yangon we flew to Bagan, a dry plain hotter than Yangon. The entire area has over 2,500 pagodas and temples; our guide said you only had to scratch the dirt to find ancient ruins. At sunset, we climbed to the top of a temple and viewed the surrounding temples and pagodas turn shadowy gray, their spires jagged fingers pointing at the golden sky — an unforgettable sight.

            Indeed Burma is very “photogenic.” At every turn there is an interesting image to capture. Inle Lake was another such place in Burma. The lake, which has an altitude of 2,900 feet, was pleasantly cool. The lake has villages around its shore, accessible via small boats.  Houses are on stilts along the shore. Fishermen have the most unique way of rowing; standing up they use one leg to row. People plant vegetables on floating garden beds. Here we saw other ethnic groups – the Padaung (or longneck Karen) and the Pa-O with their black and red clothing and turbans.

            One night it rained and the next day the lake was like a mirror, reflecting the mountains, sky, villages, and boats with Rorschach precision. It was still another precious image that stayed with me, along with countless other images of Burma.       

            It was in Mandalay where I started to get the feel of the real Burma as opposed to the tinseled tourist’s view. Despite its romantic name, Mandalay seemed more oppressed, dustier, dirtier. While we carried on and saw Mandalay’s tourist spots: the Teak Temple, Mahamuni Buddha, Palace Complex, and the Mahagandayon Buddhist monastery (where over a thousand monks processed for their 11 a.m. meal), I could see that the children were malnourished. This was disturbing, given the rich natural resources in Burma, including natural gas, lumber, tin, coal, precious stones, and agricultural products. Here to me was evidence that the country’s wealth had not filtered to the general population.

            On the way to Maymyo, a hill station near Mandalay, our guide Nan pointed out gas pipe lines that would go all the way to China. Nan complained that while Burma was sending its natural gas to China, the local people had to endure brownouts. It was true: our huge Mandalay Hill Resort Hotel had to turn on their generators at night.

Nan also talked about how the Chinese have taken their teak lumber, “even the roots.” Driving up the mountains to Maymyo, we saw that there were no huge trees, just recently planted ones. Nan talked about seeing totally denuded forests.

This made me think: If Burma’s products are going to Thailand, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, China, and Malaysia, some people in Burma are making money, so why are the ordinary people poor? Why is Burma one of the poorest countries in the world? 

I didn’t have the answers but I understood a little of what the Burmese have been clamoring for – basic freedoms and a better life. It was right for the generals to have taken steps toward democracy and hopefully a better future for the Burmese. 

           

-end-

For photographs of Burma, click here 

 

 tags: travel, Burma, Myanmar, Asia, Buddhism, Aung San Suu Kyi,Yangon, Rangoon, Asia, tourism, Cecilia Brainard

LET'S GET THE COFFEE GOING SO WE CAN DANCE!

"Let's get the coffee going so we can dance!"

(photo taken by Cecilia Brainard in Mexico)

Good Night!

Good Night!
(Photo taken by Cecilia Brainard in Kenya)

Cecilia Attacked by an Elephant!

Cecilia Attacked by an Elephant!
(photo taken in an Elephant Orphanage in Malaysia)

Oscar V. Campomanes' CECILIA MANGUERRA BRAINARD, SCENOGRAPHER

My third short story collection, VIGAN AND OTHER STORIES (www.anvilpublishing.com), is a finalist of the 31st National Book Awards of the Philippines. I thought I'd share the Introduction that Professor Oscar V. Campomanes wrote for this book.

Vigan and Other Stories is available from Anvil. Check also National Bookstores in the Philippines. In the US, contact Linda Nietes of Philippine Expressions.  The book is also available in e-book form in Kindle and Nook.

Introduction

by Oscar V.Campomanes

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Scenographer

                It gives me great pleasure to introduce this new anthology of Cecilia Manguerra Brainard’s fiction even as she really needs no introduction to a Philippine readership. As the young scholar Marge Rafols discovered in a recently completed study of Brainard’s institutional politics and creative work, Cecilia has consistently pursued a rather telling strategy, of which the publication by Anvil of this collection is only the latest example. Despite extended residence in the US for much of her adult life, and her considerable publishing success in that country, Cecilia has primarily oriented her writing to—and sought to circulate/publish it for the most part in—the Philippines, wanting Filipino readers to have first access to the fruits of her labors as a literary artist. Rafols reads this bifocality of Brainard’s career as an institutional politics on the writer’s part that addresses two major concerns: the constant need for diasporic storytellers like her to affirm and sustain a connection to and an investment in the cultural development of the ancestral homeland; and the endemic institutional invisibility or exclusion of Filipino Americans and migrants in the American cultural and political arenas (Rafols 2010). One, obviously, has everything to do with the other, and both can make sense, as Rafols amply demonstrates in her accomplished study, when construed in the context of the “special” (that is, neocolonial) relationship between the Philippines and the United States.

            The cultural and political liminality in US society to which Filipino Americans and migrants had been historically and chronically doomed (a fate that is beginning, fortunately, to look up)—on account of the politics of self-disavowal of the American Empire which is now the object of a flourishing Filipino American postcolonial critique—might in some way explain the effet de retour of diasporic identity politics of the kind Brainard manifests. And the strategy to reorient one’s work as a writer to readers back ‘home’ without much care as to its potential for recognition from an American or international audience could perhaps mean, at one and the same time, an investment in Philippine literary culture, and an oblique but pragmatic realization of the nearly irremediable lot of Filipino American and migrant marginality in the colonizer’s context. One is then led to the unlikely wager that by contributing to homeland cultural development as the priority, the diasporic writer might effectively escape from the limiting and oppressive determinations of American institutional invisibility or paradoxically induce American establishment culture and institutions (still the arbiters of global literary visibility and celebrity) to take notice of one’s iconoclastic work or perspectives resulting from such a politics of location and self-displacement.

            Whatever the actual results of such an institutional and publishing strategy in terms of critical and publishing coups in the United States, Cecilia’s ‘wager’ has been rewarded by an unusual number of local critical studies devoted to her writing, and the sustained interest expressed by Filipino academic students in her literary innovations,  cultural activism, and personal identity politics. Apart from Rafols at Ateneo and others I know, University of Santo Tomas literature professor John Jack Wigley wrote his splendid MA thesis (2004) on the strategic and political gynocentrism of Woman with Horns and Other Stories, and the up-and-coming local literary critic of Filipino American literature, Frances Jane Abao of the University of the Philippines has rigorously located When the Rainbow Goddess Wept in an emergent tradition of the ‘ethnic bildungsroman’ (2001). By the late 1990s and early 2000s, other Filipino American and migrant writers like the poets Eileen Tabios and Ma. Luisa Igloria, the fictionist M. Evelina Galang, even Filipino diasporic writers from other global locations like Australia, Europe, and Japan, had begun to follow Cecilia’s lead and, at the very least, to count publication in the Philippines and access to a Filipino readership as an important component of their individual quests or career aspirations. The ‘return effect,’ in Brainard’s own case, saw not only the eventual republication of When the Rainbow Goddess by both an American trade publisher and university press after first being published as Song of Yvonne by New Day in Manila, but also a spate of critical studies of this novel and her other works by feminist and Asian American literary critics like Helena Grice, Dolores de Manuel, Guiyou Huang, C. Hua, Rocio Davis, Alicia Otano, S.T. Leonard, etc. in American learned journals, critical anthologies, and reference volumes.

            What has been said of Carlos Bulosan’s village stories that “[they] are so simple as to seem effortless”—something similar having been said of N.V.M. Gonzalez by a crusty American critic that the latter’s stories are “so understated as to seem so artless”—may be said of Brainard’s fictions, generally, and of her stories in this collection, in particular. I qualify this seemingly left-handed assessment by citing a caveat made by the same critic of Bulosan’s village stories that, in fact, “such stories are the most difficult to write.” Cecilia’s style is even more spare or sparing, letting the words do the barest work possible of depicting action, description, or sequencing the events, for example. I’d call this style, which seems fairly unique to her (even when compared to that of old masters like Bulosan and Gonzalez), as scenographic, to borrow a term from cinema. In flash-fiction pieces like “The Dirty Kitchen,” “Flying a Kite,” and “The Che Guevarra Night,” this tendency and skill of staging fictional character, event, or setting as barely apprehensible scene/s—moving at a pace like that of briskly edited montage—is in most evidence. But the scenographic style also marks the stories that seem to form a cycle by their common setting of Ubec (Brainard’s noteworthy fictional inversion and immortalization of her beloved city of birth, Cebu), or are presented as separate pieces that can stand on their own, from their obvious provenance as chapters in an abortive novel (“Vigan,” “The Rice Field,” “Tia Octavia,” “The Last Moon-Game of Summer,” “Sagada” etc).

            Like Manuel Puig’s cinematextual idiom in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Jessica Hagedorn’s filmic crosscuttings in Dogeaters, or M. Evelina Galang’s phototexts (as I call her ‘verbal pictures’) in One Tribe, but again less opulently so, Brainard’s fictional scenography seems calculated, by contrast, to allow for the emergence of what Walter Benjamin once predicted, marveling at the power of the cinematic, as a new habitus of perceiving and thinking, to which Benjamin gave the enigmatic appellation “the critic in a state of distraction” (1968 [1955]). This is another way of saying that Cecilia’s stories, by their narrative minimalism (they are so scenographic as to seem uneventful), ostensibly seem to create the ample space for a more active readerly collaboration that is not so much consciously thought out as reflexively elicited. Here I have in mind a story like “Romeo” which  willfully violates the rule that first-person narration cannot be omniscient, suggesting that it can be scopic if the forgiving reader is willing to supply the missing angles of vision—a pretty defamiliarizing strategy of rendering fictional action as scene/s best exemplified and demonstrated by the clairvoyant narrator of “My Mother is Dying” or in the epistolary exchanges between immigrant mother Nelia and the Old World grandmother (‘Mama’) about the errant Filipino American daughter Mindy/Arminda in the delightful yet poignant story “Flip Gothic.” In short, Cecilia’s compositional aesthetic allows for that strange physics that the technology of cinematic vision and storytelling—one that penetrates and dissolves dimensional planes—enables, or makes eminently imaginable, according to Water Benjamin.

            I would like to speculate that this scenographic style is very much in accord with what the late Southeast Asianist scholar Les Adler once determined to be Brainard’s historiographic politics of keeping the lives of her men and women characters—set as these are in both historical and contemporary milieux—“continually in the camera’s eye” (Adler 1996). Watch these stories unfold, do not simply read them, in other words. When watching them—like they were projected on the screen of one’s osmotic imagination—do so, as Walter Benjamin says, as if one is engulfed by the flood of scenic images (mindful in some way that they are strategically arranged or sequenced by the writer’s filmic and historiographic sensibility), and thus as if moved to connect them, if only half-consciously, to one’s subliminal image-repertoires of a history shared with so many others, which would otherwise remain fragmentary and unarticulated, but, in the hands of a skillful and unobtrusive verbal auteur like Brainard, now form some absorbing montage of seamless and crosscut continuity shots.

Works Cited

Abao, Jane Frances P. 2001. “Retelling the Stories, Rewriting the Bildungsroman: Cecilia Manguerra-Brainard’s When the Rainbow Goddess Wept.” Humanities Diliman (January-June).

Adler, Les. 1996. “Acapulco Sunset and Other Stories: A Review.”            Pilipinas 26 (Spring).

Benjamin, Walter. 1968 [1955]. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Reflections, transl. Harry Zohn and ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Harcourt Jovanovich Inc.

Rafols, Margarita. 2010. “Hide and Seek: Redefining ‘Filipino’ in Cecilia Manguerra-Brainard’s Fiction by Filipinos in America (1993) and Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America (1997).” BA Literature Thesis, Ateneo de Manila University

Wigley, John Jack. 2004. “Representations of the Female Body in Cecilia Manguerra-Brainard’s Fiction.” MA Literature Thesis, University of Santo Tomas.

PROFESSOR OSCAR V. CAMPOMANES teaches critical theory and literary/cultural studies in the Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University; and semiotics, media criticism, and culture theory in the Communication Program of the UST Graduate School. His recent essays regarding American empire critique, Filipino American postcoloniality and literary history, and cultural semiotics have appeared in such journals as PMLA, Japanese Journal of American Studies, and Philippine Studies; and the anthologies Positively No Filipinos Allowed (Temple 2006; Anvil 2008) and Vestiges of War (NYU Press/Anvil 2002). An anthology of his critical writings is currently under preparation for publication both in the Philippines and the United States

~~
Read also
Leonard Casper's Possibilities of Humaneness in an Age of Slaugher (Review of When the Rainbow Goddess Wept) 

tags: Philippine literature, Philippine American literature, Filipino, author, writer, novel, fiction, short stories, books

Cecilia Brainard's VIGAN AND OTHER STORIES (ANVIL), Finalist National Book Awards

I'm happy to learn that my third short story collection, VIGAN AND OTHER STORIES (Anvil, 2011) is a finalist of the prestigious 31st National Book Awards in the Philippines:

NB: 31st National Book Award Finalists Announced

The National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle (MCC) are pleased to announce the finalists for this year’s National Book Awards. The names of the winners will be revealed during the awarding ceremonies that will be held on November 17 at the National Museum.

31st NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FINALISTS

JUAN C. LAYA PRIZE FOR BEST NOVEL IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

1. Super Panalo Sounds!, by Lourd Ernest H. De Veyra, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

2. The Survivors, by Antonio Enriquez, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House 

JUAN C. LAYA PRIZE FOR BEST NOVEL IN A PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE

1. Ang Huling Dalagang Bukid at Ang Authobiography Na Mali: Isang Imbestigasyon, by Jun Cruz Reyes, Anvil Publishing 

FICTION: SHORT STORIES, ENGLISH

1. Beautiful Accidents: Stories, by Ian Rosales Casocot, University of the Philippines Press

2. Better Homes and Other Fictions: Collected Prose, by Connie J. Maraan, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

3. The Names and Faces of People: Collected Stories, by Vic H. Groyon Jr., C&E Publishing for De La Salle University

4. Vigan and Other Stories, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Anvil Publishing 

FICTION: SHORT STORIES, FILIPINO

1. 100 Kislap, by Abdon M. Balde Jr., Anvil Publishing

2. Alitaptap sa Gabing Maunos: Mga Kuwento, by Lamberto E. Antonio, Ateneo de Manila University Press

3. Dadaanin, by Alwin C. Aguirre and Nonon Villaluz Carandang, Anvil Publishing for De La Salle University

4. Kay Lalim na ng Gabi at iba pang Kuwento, by Agustin C. Fabian, Ateneo de Manila University Press

5. Wag Lang Di Makaraos: 100 Dagli ( Mga Kuwentong Pasaway, Paaway at Pamatay), by Eros S. Atalia, Visprint, Inc. 

FICTION: SHORT STORIES, ILOCANO

1. Karapote: Antolohia Dagiti 13 A Nasuerte A Sarita, by Ariel S. Tabag, GUMIL Metro Manila 

NONFICTION PROSE, ENGLISH

1. Ben on Ben: Conversations with Bienvenido N. Santos, by Leonor Aureus Briscoe, Anvil Publishing for De La Salle University

2. Between Loss and Forever: Filipino Mothers on the Grief Journey, by Cathy Babao Guballa, Anvil Publishing

3. Lush Life: Essays, 2001-2010, by Alfred A. Yuson, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

4. Peace Warriors: On the Trail with Filipino Soldiers, by Criselda Yabes, Anvil Publishing

5. Six Sketches of Filipino Women Writers, by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, University of the Philippines Press 

NONFICTION PROSE, FILIPINO

1. Aklat ng Ulat: Mga Sanaysay sa Dalawang Dekada ng Pamamahayag, by Lamberto E. Antonio, Ateneo de Manila University Press

2. Almanak ng Isang Aktibista, by Rolando B. Tolentino, University of the Philippines Press

3. It’s A Mens World, by Beverly Siy, Anvil Publishing

4. Mga Pilat sa Pilak: Mga Personal na Sanaysay, by Eugene Y. Evasco, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

5. Pacman: Kuwento ng Pag-asa, Tiyaga, at Determinasyon, by Manny Pacquiao, Anvil Publishing 

ANTHOLOGY, ENGLISH

1. Babayeng Sugid:Cebu Stories, edited by Erma M. Cuizon and Erlinda K. Alburo, Anvil Publishing

2. Hanggang sa Muli: Homecoming Stories for the Filipino Soul, edited by Reni R. Roxas, Ilaw ng Tahanan Publishing

3. The Anvil Jose Rizal Reader: On the Occasion of the Sesquicentennial of His Birth, 1861-2011, edited by Ani V. Habúlan, Anvil Publishing

4. The Davao We Know, edited by Lolita R. Lacuesta, Anvil Publishing

5. Turning Points: Women in Transit, edited by Rhona Lopa-Macasaet, Anvil Publishing 

ANTHOLOGY, FILIPINO

1. Laglag-Panty, Laglag-Brief: Mga Kuwentong Heterosexual, edited by Rolando B. Tolentino, Romulo P. Baquiran Jr., Joi Barrios, and Mykel Andrada, Anvil Publishing

2. Samtoy: Dagiti Saritami Ditoy, Ang Aming mga Kuwento, edited by Ariel S. Tabag, National Commission for Culture and the Arts

3. Talong / Tahong: Mga Kuwentong Homoerotiko, edited by Rolando B. Tolentino, Romulo P. Baquiran Jr., Joi Barrios, and Mykel Andrada, Anvil Publishing

4. Telon: Mga Dula, edited by Luna Sicat-Cleto, Rolando S. Dela Cruz, Tim Dacanay, Elmar Beltran Ingles, Nicolas B. Pichay, and Rene O. Villanueva, National Commission for Culture and the Arts 

ANTHOLOGY, ILOCANO

1. 29 A Napili A Sarita Iti Iluko, edited by Juan AL. Asuncion, Ariel S. Tabag, and Efren A. Inocencio, GUMIL Filipinas

2. Kastoy Nga Imbunubonmi Dagiti Balikas (Antolohia Dagiti Daniw Iti Iluko), edited by Joel B. Manuel, and Ariel S. Tabag, GUMIL Filipinas

3. Nabalitokan A Tawid: Antolohia Dagiti Napili A Sarita Dagiti Ilokano, eidted by Juan AL. Asuncion, Joel B. Manuel, and Ariel S. Tabag, GUMIL Filipinas 

GEMINO H. ABAD PRIZE FOR POETRY IN ENGLISH

1. Balsa: Poemas Chabacano, by Francis C. Macansantos, National Commission for Culture and the Arts

2. Geographies of Light, by Dinah Roma Sianturi, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

3. Ruins and Reconstructions: Poems, by Joel M. Toledo, Anvil Publishing

4. Tala Mundi: The Collected Poems of Tita Agcaoili Lacambra Ayala, by Tita Agcaoli Lacambra Ayala, edited by Ricardo M. de Ungria, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

5. Tales Of The Spider Woman, by Merlie M. Alunan, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House 

VIRGILIO S. ALMARIO PRIZE FOR POETRY IN FILIPINO

1. Ang Pantas (The Prophet), translated by Ruth Elynia S. Mabanglo, C&E Publishing for De La Salle University

2. Baha-Bahagdang Karupukan: mga tula mula sa kalahating-daigdig, by Jim Pascual Agustin, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

3. Dalawang Pulgada at Tubig: Mga Tula ng Tahimik na Ligalig, by Emmanuel Quintos Velasco, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

4. Distrungka, by Teo T. Antonio,University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

5. Ilaw sa Mata, by Joaquin Sy, Marne L. Kilates, and Benito Tan, Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran

ISAGANI R. CRUZ PRIZE FOR LITERARY CRITICISM IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE 

1. Dead Stars: American and Philippine Literary Perspectives on the American Colonization of the Philippines, by Jennifer M. McMahon, University of the Philippines Press

2. From Wilderness to Nation: Interrogating Bayan, by Damon L. Woods, University of the Philippines Press

3. Tomas Pinpin and Tagalog Survival in Early Spanish Philippines, by Damon L. Woods, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House 

ISAGANI R. CRUZ PRIZE FOR LITERARY CRITICISM IN A PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE 

1. Alinagnag: Sanaysay ng mga Panlipunang Panunuri sa Panitikan, by Rosario Torres-Yu, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

2. Balagen: Edukasyong Pangkapayapaan at Panitikang Pambata, by Rosario Torres-Yu, University of the Philippines Press

3. Sawikaan 2010: Mga Salita ng Taon, edited by Roberto T. Añonuevo and Romulo P. Baquiran Jr., University of the Philippines Press 

GRAPHIC LITERATURE

1. Private Iris Case 18: The Programmer’s Puzzle, by Jaime Bautista and Arnold Arre, Blue Cow

2. Trese 4: Last Seen After Midnight, by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, Visprint 

ALFONSO T. ONGPIN PRIZE FOR BEST BOOK ON ART 

1. Film: American Influences on Philippine Cinema, by Nick Deocampo, Anvil Publishing

2. Philippine Ancestral Gold, by Florina H. Capistrano-Baker, John Guy, and John Miksic, edited by Florina H. Capistrano-Baker, Ayala Foundation

3. Puentes de España en las Filipinas: The Spanish Colonial Bridges in the Philippines, by Manuel Maximo Lopez del Castillo-Noche, edited by Stephanie Cruz, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

4. The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo, by Ma. Victoria Herrera, Clarissa Chikiamco, Cid Reyes, and Rod Paras-Perez, Vibal Foundation and Ateneo Art Gallery

5. Mamayóg: the music of Samaon Sulaiman, by Juliet R. Biean and Jesus T. Peralta, National Commission for Culture and the Arts 

PROFESSIONS

1. Frontlines of Diplomacy: Conversations with Philippine Ambassadors, by J. Eduardo Malaya, Anvil Publishing

2. Is Franchising For You?, by Armando Bartolome, Anvil Publishing

3. Promoting Philippine Enterprise Development, by Andrea L. Santiago, C&E Publishing for De La Salle University

4. The Local Government Code Revisited, 2011 Edition, by Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr., Central Book Supply 

SOCIAL SCIENCES

1. A Clash of Cultures: Early American Protestant Missions and Filipino Religious Consciousness, by Melba Padilla Maggay, Anvil Publishing for De La Salle University

2. Bound by Law: Filipino Rural Poor and the Search for Justice in Plural-LegalLandscape, by Jennifer C. Franco, Ateneo de Manila University Press

3. Komunista: The Genesis of the Philippine Communist Party, 1902-1935, by Jim Richardson, Ateneo de Manila University Press

4. Lungsod Iskwater: The Evolution of Informality as a Dominant Pattern in Philippine Cities, by Paulo Alcazaren, Luis Ferrer, and Benvenuto Icamina, Anvil Publishing

5. Manobo Dreams in Arakan: People’s Struggle to Keep Their Homeland, by Karl M. Gaspar, Ateneo de Manila University Press 

SCIENCE

1. Pinatubo: The Volcano In Our Backyard, by Robert Tantingco, Holy Angel University

2. Stellar Origins, Human Ways: Readings in Science, Technology, and Society, by Ma. Asunta C. Cuyegkeng, Ateneo de Manila University Press 

LEISURE

1. 100 Questions Filipino Kids Ask, Volume 2, by Alai Agadulin, Javier Asuncion, Victoria Bravo, Kata Garcia, Emylou Infante, Glenda Oris, May Tobias-Papa, and Cynthia Villafranca, Adarna House and Liwayway Marketing Corporation

2. In My Basket Cookbook: Travel Collection and Recollections, by Lydia D. Castillo, Anvil Publishing

3. Top 10 Pinoy Travels, by Scott Lee Chua and Rommel J. Estanislao, Anvil Publishing (3 volumes: Cebu, Davao, Manila)

DESIGN

1. Almanak ng Isang Aktibista, by Rolando B. Tolentino, designed by Zenaida N. Ebalan and Karl Fredrick M. Castro, University of the Philippines Press

2. The Future Begins Here: The De La Salle University Centennial Book, 1911-2011, designed by Studio 5 Designs, Studio 5 Designs for De La Salle University

3. Lungsod Iskwater: The Evolution of Informality as a Dominant Pattern in Philippine Cities, designed by Felix Mago Miguel, Anvil Publishing

4. Philippine Ancestral Gold, by designed by Ige Ramos, Ayala Foundation 

MANILA CRITICS CIRCLE SPECIAL PRIZE FOR AN EBOOK

1. Alternative Alamat, by Paolo Chikiamco, Flipside Digital Content Company

2. High Society, by Paolo Chikiamco and Hannah Buena, Flipside Digital Content Company

3. The Long Weekend: A Komix Novella, by Adam David, Flipside Digital Content Company

4. The Top 25 Power Words Every Call Center Agent Should Know, by Rye Gutierrez, Flipside Digital Content Company 

MANILA CRITICS CIRCLE SPECIAL PRIZE FOR A BOOK BY AN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER

1. From the Desk of the Editor….Felix B. Bautista, edited by Felix S. Bautista Jr. and Gigi B. Rapadas, 

2. Mistresses Play, Men Stray, The Wives Stay: Etiquette and Misetiquette, by Julie Y. Daza

3. Si Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata, by Ricky Lee, Philippine Writers Studio Foundation

4. Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry, edited by Khavn De La Cruz and Joel M. Toledo, The Antithesis Collective Publishing, Co.

  

 

  

Video Clips of Book Launch of MAGNIFICAT

Video clips of the Book Launch of MAGNIFICAT: Mama Mary's Pilgrim sites, Makati, June 30, Powerbooks in Makati. Ten of the contributors were present: Angelita Cruz, Ma. Ceres Doyo, Tess Lopez, Guia Lim, Kris Sendin, Marsha Paras, Tessa Herrera-Tan, Lynley Ocampo, and Jaime Laya. The book's editor, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, was present with her son, Andrew Brainard. Karina Bolasco, Joyce Bersales, Gwenn Galvez and other Anvil staff were also present.


The links below are sequential, starting from the Introduction, followed by the readings of the contributors.  Enjoy!


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First Part of Launch MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES

 First Part of Launch of MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES


or go to the YouTube url below.
The short clip includes introductory talks at the Makati book Launch of this Marian book

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Doors - San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

I'm thinking of the elegant carved wood doors in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Photos by Cecilia Brainard

DOG WITH SHOES - PHOTO TAKEN IN MANILA

Dog with Shoes - photo taken in Fort Santiago, Manila.

FEEDBACK RE MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES

Feedback from Julie Wolski re MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES. Julie is one of the contributors to this anthology:

I finally finished reading the book this weekend.   Thank you for compiling the different Holy sights where Mother Mary is venerated.  I'm so happy to read the different experiences of Mother Mary's devotees because I was able to place myself in most of these locations and it brought back beautiful and spiritual encounters I'll never forget.

Most of your contributors are awesome personalities and most of all you.   Congratulations and my most heartfelt appreciation for all you've done.  God bless you in your future endeavors.

Julie Wolski

Linda Nietes and MAGNIFICAT

And here's feedback from Linda Nietes (book seller, Philippine Expressions) about MAGNIFICAT:
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Today, I received my contributor's copy of Magnificat and like a mother waiting for the birth of her first child, I waited with much hope that the edited copy of my piece will be perfect. Since this is my first try at formal writing, my thanks to editor Cecilia Brainard for including "When Mama Mary Called from Fatima" which I wrote in memory of my oldest sister, Violeta Puzon. So, friends and clients, if you want to read my essay which is one of 15 essays by various authors on Mama Mary's Pilgrim Sites, the book will be available soon from Philippine Expressions Bookshop. If you enjoy the book, tell me; if you do not, tell Cecilia. :-)

My hope is that whoever reads the book will be imbued with more love and devotion to our Blessed Mother.

Feedback MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES

I'm happy to share an email from Lucila Dypiangco, fondly known as Mrs. D. by STC graduates. Here's her response when she received her complimentary copy of MAGNIFICAT: Mama Mary's Pilgrim Sites. Mrs. D. helped me find contributors and we also used one or two pictures that she sent, in the book. Thank you Mrs. D!

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Dear Cecilia,

THE BOOK just came, and I wasted no time!  I tore the thick Manila envelope open, grabbed its contents and started flipping through the pages.  What precious treasure you managed to pack into this unassuming little volume!

So far I have read only the pieces written by the Theresians to whom I am forwarding this (Cc-line above), as well as by my daughter-in-law, of course.  They all seem to be imbued with that filial devotion we share as Mary's devoted children, but each bears its author's special mark as each of our own children distinguishes him/herself from the rest of the siblings.

My sincere congratulations to you for achieving such a masterful feat of gathering all these gems and stringing them together into a beautiful living rosary.

My heartfelt gratitude to each of your contributors for unselfishly sharing their private personal experiences with us and for inspiring readers for generations to come.

You are all great and I am grateful.

Love,
Mrs. D/ Lucila Ocampo Dypiangco

MAGNIFICAT BOOK LAUNCH PICTURES

2024 Update: A Catholic religious book that I collected and edited has a new edition - MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES gathers 24 people's accounts of Marian sites wherein they found comfort, solace, and sometimes miracles. The pilgrim sites include familiar shrines in Lourdes, Vailankanni, Guadalupe, Fatima, Ephesus, as well as lesser known ones including several in the Philippines (Antipolo, Manaoag, Odlot, Caysasya and more).  It is available from Amazon.

Magnificat: Mama Mary's Pilgrim Sites (Anvil 2012) was released yesterday, June 30 at Powerbooks, Greenbelt 4, Makati. Ten of the contributors were present: Angelita Cruz, Ma. Ceres Doyo, Tess Lopez, Guia Lim, Kris Sendin, Marsha Paras, Tessa Herrera-Tan, Lynley Ocampo, and Jaime Laya. The book's editor, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, was present with her son, Andrew Brainard. Karina Bolasco, Joyce Bersales, Gwenn Galvez and other Anvil staff were also present.

A number of the guests were from the Santa Ana Church Cofradia, guests of Jaime Laya who wrote about the Shrine of Our Lady of the Abandoned in Sta. Ana Church.  Theresians also graced the event. Quite a number of contributors to the book are graduates of St. Theresa's College.

The book, Magnificat: Mama Mary's Pilgrim Sites, includes 24 articles focusing on Marian pilgrim sites, eight of which are Philippines sites.  The book is published by Anvil and available in Powerbooks and National Bookstores.  In the US, contact Linda Nietes of Philippine Expressions for copies.

Group photo, second from top, l-r: seated, Jaime Laya and Cecilia Brainard
Standing l-r: Kris Sendin, Marsha Paras, Lynley Ocampo, Tessa Tan,Tess Lopez, Guia Lim, Angelita Cruz, and Ceres Doyo

Group photo, third from top, l-r: seated, Mila Abola, Andrew Brainard, Cynthia Cervantes,
Standing l-r: Meng Sandico. Joy Damo, Maribel Paras, and Lynley Ocampo

MAGNIFICAT STORIES, Philippine Daily Inquirer article by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

2024 Update: A Catholic religious book that I collected and edited has a new edition - MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES gathers 24 people's accounts of Marian sites wherein they found comfort, solace, and sometimes miracles. The pilgrim sites include familiar shrines in Lourdes, Vailankanni, Guadalupe, Fatima, Ephesus, as well as lesser known ones including several in the Philippines (Antipolo, Manaoag, Odlot, Caysasya and more).  It is available from Amazon.

Don't forget the book launch of MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES is June 30, 3 p.m. Powerbooks,Greenbelt 4. Here's a link to an article by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo that came out in today's Philippine Daily Inquirer:

"Magnificat" Stories
by M. Ceres P. Doyo
June 28, 2012, Philippine Daily Inquirer
 
Mama Mary. That is how she is fondly called by many Filipinos who have a special devotion to her. Frankly, I don’t know how the name came about or who started it. I did not hear anyone calling her Mama Mary 25 years ago. She was called The Blessed Virgin, The Blessed Mother (with or without “The”), Mother Mary, Our Lady and Santa Maria with their equivalents in Filipino languages and dialects, Birhen Maria among them.

As it is used now, the Mama in Mama Mary would translate as Inay or Nanay (Mother), which is more intimate than the titular and honorific Ina (ng Awa, or Mother of Mercy, for example). Ah, but the Bicolanos would protest because Ina, as they refer to the Virgin of Peñafrancia, is not merely a title but a claim, a declaration that she is their mother.

I spent some quiet time figuring out the semantic loads of the maternal titles used to describe Mary. I then sort of realized that Mama Mary is a Filipino coinage. Or is it? Anthropologists, sociologists and even the language police might know the answer.

Now most Filipino Christian Catholics (sorry, I’m not comfortable with the word “Roman” before “Catholic”) call her Mama Mary in whatever language or dialect they are speaking. They can’t sound more intimate than that. The convict in prison, the penitent, the supplicant, the prostitute, the sinner, the saintly, doting mothers, macho fathers, irrepressible sons and daughters—you hear them whisper, cry out or affectionately utter the name Mama Mary. How personal, like the way the neighborhood tambay (bum) would say “bahala na si Lord” in referring to the compassionate God next door. So, si Lord at si Mama Mary. How Pinoy.

If I am waxing Marian it is because the book “Magnificat: Mama Mary’s Pilgrim Sites” (167 pages, published by Anvil) will be launched on Saturday, June 30, 3 p.m., at Powerbooks in Greenbelt 4, Makati. The book (price: P295) contains 24 essays by devotees on their experiences in Marian pilgrim sites in the Philippines (eight in this book) and in other countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, India, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the United States). Also included are short write-ups on other international Marian pilgrim sites. Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle gave the book an imprimatur.

The book editor, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, collected the stories. Brainard is a writer and editor (19 books and counting) known in both Philippine and Fil-Am communities.

The essays are varied. Many are personal. Celeste (pseudonym of a contributor), writes about her unwed daughter who was pregnant and how mother and daughter embarked on a spiritual journey to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. A surprise ending waits.

Linda Nietes-Little, seller and promoter of Filipiniana books in America, writes about her pilgrimage to Fatima with her convert-husband and ailing sister Violeta “who brought me back to Mama Mary.”

Penelope V. Flores, a professor at San Francisco State University, writes about her visit to the Maryam Monastery in Lake Tana, Tigray, Ethiopia. Using a local twig brush, she began painting “as if Mama Mary told me, ‘Lose yourself. Paint my Lake Tana emanation and your canvases will show feelings.’”

“At Maria Lanakila, Our Prayers were Heard and Answered” by Millicent Dypiangco is about her yearning to have a child and how her prayers to Our Lady of Maria Lanakila in Maui, Hawaii, were answered with the birth of her daughter Miranda.

Jaime C. Laya writes about the Shrine of Our Lady of the Abandoned in Sta. Ana Church. My own story is about Our Lady of Caysasay in the heritage town of Taal, Batangas.

Each essay begins with a photograph of the Marian image in the pilgrim site and basic information. The book also contains prayers for devotees. “Magnificat” can serve as a pilgrim’s guide book and show a path for those in search, on a journey or simply trying to find their way home. The simple stories may hold answers to questions. The book is by no means exhaustive but it may lead readers and writers to other unexplored and little-known Marian sites laden with inspiring stories.

There’s a Marian site in Indonesia that I visited some years ago. It is the Shrine of Our Lady of Sendang Sono, a “little Lourdes” tucked in a lush, forested place outside Yogyakarta. I wish I had written about it. Maybe next time.

The other “Magnificat” contributors are: Lucy Adao McGinley, Angelita Caluag Cruz, Maria Ciocon, Millicent Dypiangco, Ma. Milagros T. Dumdum, Almira Astudillo Gilles, Ma. Teresita Herrera-Tan, Fe Aida Lacsamana-Reyes, Guia Lim, Ma. Teresa Z. Lopez, Aimee Gaboya Ortega Lucero, Lynley Salome R. Ocampo, Ma. Cristina Padilla-Sendin, Marsha C. Paras, Rev. Dr. Sebastian Periannan, Brian Ascalon Roley, Julia H. Wolski, and Linda Yamamoto. Dr. Paulino Lim Jr. wrote the Introduction.

In her blurb, writer-editor Erlinda E. Panlilio says: “Running as a leitmotif in all the essays in this book is the writers’ palpable love for Mama Mary. Each writer has undergone a change in his or her life or outlook following a visit to a Marian site. Some may have experienced a ‘miracle,’ or felt consoled and renewed, others a deepening spirituality, or an epiphany, an insight into the divine. Although we know that Jesus is the only Way to the Father, it is our belief in the power of Mary’s intercession to her Son, borne out of the Bible’s Cana story, that makes us all turn to Her, whom Her divine Son will never refuse.”

Magnificat, as Mary’s prayer-song (Luke 1: 46-55) is known, is a fitting title for this little book of praise and gratitude. Ave Maria!

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com