Silliman, sleeping, eating, laughing

For many years after finishing college, during my annual vacation leave from the newspaper writing business in Manila, I took sentimental journeys to Silliman in Dumaguete, where my heart belongs, as it does too, to my hometown of Gingoog City in Misamis Oriental. A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Silliman, thanks to an invitation to join a bunch of Manila-based journalists to observe the celebration of the 50th year of the founding of Silliman’s Cultural Arts Committee. This committee has been responsible for the artistic and cultural outputs of the university’s literati and culture vultures — of novels, poems and essays; concerts and operas, Broadway musicales, lectures and national and internationally-known workshops that trained many of the country’s topnotch writers.

The Manila media were given a glimpse into this year’s series of cultural presentations, through a looking back and looking forward musical, Handulantaw, and a production directed by the late Evelyn Rose Aldecoa, of Broadway’s Stephen Schwarts and John-Michael Tebelak’s Godspell, which demonstrated that imagination, dance and artistry and proper English diction are alive and well in this famous university.

The university’s student goodwill and cultural ambassadors took us to Silliman Hall, a historic landmark built in 1909, eight years after the founding of then Sillliman Institute in 1901, and up a flight of stairs, to a museum housing contemporary ethnographic and archeological artifacts collected from indigenous communities. Jaded, the journalists contented themselves with staying in their vans and viewing the edifices on campus: the picturesque church that could be seen from the decks of boats docking at the waterfront; a massive library, the Luce Auditorium which has the best acoustic system hereabouts, the gym, the dormitories, the engineering and nurses’ colleges, the cafeteria with its famous cinnamon bread, and of course, the century old acacia trees lording it over expanses of green grass. Walking inside the campus and mingling with students (mostly Catholics studying in a Protestant university) hailing from Luzon to Mindanao, then walking along the long stretch of a wind-blown boulevard are treats by themselves.

We headed for the Mariyah gallery of Kitty Taniguchi, about 15 minutes away from the campus. Although she had no time to fix up her gallery, Kitty enthusiastically took the group through her workplace. Fascinating are the terra cotta sculptures of faces and scenes, with religious undertones, and huge mural paintings on the walls. Kitty has exhibited with groups of sculptors and visual artists in Manila. Five years ago her gallery was the site of the 2nd Dumaguete Open Biennial Terra Cotta Art Festival and Exhibit and Competition.

We were taken to the home of Karl Aguila about half a kilometer away from the Antulang Beach Resort. The house, made of stone, bricks, adobe and hard wood put together by Karl, a furniture maker whose works have been exhibited and bought by collectors in Europe, is a tourist attraction. Each nook and corner of Karl’s house has surprising features — stone heads of Buddhas, vases, primitive paintings, astonishingly shaped tables and chairs. Most of all, Karl’s terrace and balcony on the roof have a great view of the sea, a cove, actually hemmed in by cliffs and hillsides, where dozens of yachts owned by foreigners (married to young Filipino girls, what else) are docked.

The two-day jaunt took journalists around the city of Dumaguete, whose image, known to be a place for gentle people, is now shattered by a series of unsolved crimes, is still, by and large, worth living in and visiting. Once the mode of transport was the tartanilla, a carriage drawn by horses wearing jute sack diapers to catch their droppings. Today, as is everywhere in the country, the roar of pollution-causing motorized pedicabs clogging the streets are ear-splitting. We saw the city cathedral, its original structure built in 1893, and the Campanero de Dumaguete, built in the 1760s as a lookout tower to warn locals of impending raids by seafaring marauders. It’s fascinating watching how the city has grown — with commercial buildings housing call centers, commercial banks, beauty parlors, food marts, restaurants, ihaw-ihaw joints, a sprinkling of night clubs, tourist inns, the popular Bethel House which is about the only place in town banning cigarettes and liquor. There’s the public market that should be a must-see-and-buy, for fresh fruits, dried fish and meat, and bodbod kabug (banana-leaf-wrapped delicacy made of bird seeds) and suman from Tanjay.

We were taken to the provincial tourism office where native handicrafts (ladies’ bags, blouses, neckpieces made of seashells) are cheap, and cottages representing municipalities stand. We saw the provincial capitol, the sports oval where health buffs puff and huff in the mornings.

If we had time and the energy, we could have visited Apo Island in Dawin, a marine sanctuary, the white sand bar of Manjuyod, a seven-kilometer stretch of premium white sand, the city of Bais to watch, from aboard a launch, dolphins and pygmy sperm whales on Tanon Strait; the Mabinay Caverns, the Caroro Falls of Valencia. We could have gone up to Camp Look-Out, Silliman’s retreat place in the hills of Valencia; this is where the Rose Sobrepena Village for the Tiempo Creative Writers Workshop stands.

When you’re in the city, where can you stay? The Silliman cultural affairs committee had requested the owner/entrepreneurs of hotels and restaurants who are Silliman alumni, to host the discriminating media.

There’s Florentina Homes, an apartment-type hotel tucked away in a quiet, residential area in the city. The hotel is composed of three European-style stand-alone buildings that house nine apartments. 

Coco Grande, located right in the heart of the city, is a Mexican-style red brick wall hotel, with a piano bar and lounge, a coffee shop and a fine dining restaurant. It has 24 guest rooms featuring amenities including cable television.

La Residencia Almar’s Don Atilano was once the old governor’s mansion in the province. A favorite choice for continental cuisine in Dumaguete, it faces the boulevard and so is cool and inviting especially at night.

The media had lunch at KRI, a restaurant owned and operated by Dumaguete’s renowned young chef, Ritchie Armogenia. Ritchie whips up a menu that combines Western and European tastes to sooth the Filipino palate.       

For great seafood dishes, there’s Lab-As, located along Flores Avenue. Seafoods are fresh, some of them swimming in aquariums, and the preparation is quite pleasing. Outside the restaurant is Hayayay Treehouse Bar, which offers grilled seafoods and meats at night, and features a lively band.

Antulang Beach Resort, 40 kilometers south of the city, is the first Philippine resort with villas with individual pools, heated Jacuzzi and spacious rooms decked out in Canadian pinewood. Spread out on ten sprawling hectares of cliffs, hills and dale, with bougainvillea blooms and lots of trees giving the place a forest-like atmosphere, a nice view of the sea, and isolated white sand beach with large, natural rock formations. Owned by the amiable Lee family, it is run by Annabel Lee Adriano and her husband.

It was at the Antulang Beach Resort that the media group had a farewell evening program. A poem by the late National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo was read by former Miss Silliman Arlene Delloso Uypitching. There was lots of music provided by Silliman artists, and soul-lifting remarks from CCA head Diomar Abrio and Ian Casocot. It was a good ending for Manila artists who all said they want to go back to Antulang — and Silliman.

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