Kumbento '88 Alumni Association, Inc.

Dear all,

I wish to inform everyone that we have now started the initial steps towards the registration of our group in the Securities and Exchange Commission as KUMBENTO '88 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION INC. For info, we have already reserved this name in SEC.

As the next-best-step after the successful 20th Anniversary Reunion of Kumbento '88, this will pave the way so that we can already have a legal representation in order for us to pursue our higher goals of raising funds – be it in scholarships, sports and other worthy activities with a core purpose of reinforcing further the K88 brotherhood to culminate towards a five-year time capsule for PCC's Centennial Anniversary in 2013 which also is our Silver Anniversary year.

In this note, I am personally inviting you to form part of the initial composition of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES for the Kumbento '88 Alumni Association Inc.

Should you accept this invitation, you as an incorporator / trustee, shall help manage the affairs of the organization, including coming up with policies and guidelines, and managing its funds. As your name and signature shall be in our incorporation papers, we expect that by joining the Board of Trustees, we can rely on your active participation in the activities that the organization will set in the near future.

A meeting will be called as soon as we are able to complete the fifteen trustees. Please do let me know if you are up to the challenge and I hope you can reply to this email by Wednesday, April 2, 2008.

Cheers and Long Live K88!

Joey Manalad
K88 President (de facto)

Master Rapper

Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!
Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!

The clapping of the hands was in unison, serving as the guiding beat. We were all in a line that was slowly forming into a semi-circle. And in the middle was the star, the entertainer rapping his heart out.

Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!
Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!

Ask anyone from our batch, and I am pretty sure that this particular scene would rank among the more memorable recollections of our graduation. His act may even outrank Ferdie’s valedictory addresh, or Edmund Fullido’s stage strut.

Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!
Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!

I don’t remember what he was saying in his rap anymore. I’m not even sure if I was able to hear him clearly at that time. But we didn’t care. We didn’t care whatever it was he was mumbling, or should I say rapping about. What we cared about was the spontaneity of the moment. It was graduation practice at the PCC grounds. That only meant that classes were already over. Exams and other requirements were finally done with. And we were just waiting for that glorious day when we would all be able to receive that much-coveted diploma.

Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!
Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!

It was that careless abandon which we felt we were entitled to after four years of toiling it in high school. And he represented it through his display of rapping prowess, or lack of it, depending on your standards and opinion. But as I said, who cared? He was definitely enjoying himself. And so were we.

Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!
Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!

After all these years, we still do remember the vivid memories. And most probably, until we have that grand reunion come our silver jubilee, this subject shall inevitably pop up in our reminiscing drinking sessions. And maybe by then he will even provide us with an encore.

Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!
Yo! Yes, Yes, Yo!

Take a bow, Master Rapper Mon Agner.

The Poetry of Tears For Fears

by Gary C. Devilles

I’ve been a literature teacher for quite some time and ever since I started teaching poetry or other genres I never failed to incorporate songs or popular culture in my pedagogy because primarily, I find a lot of artists or musicians poetic and that secondly, teaching literature through popular culture makes things more interesting for students such that they realize that the songs they enjoy are not far from the literary pieces they struggle to understand in terms of poetic devices or conventions.

One of my favorite artists is Tears for Fears. Back then when we were in high school we were captivated by their music and the strange dance maneuver of Roland Orzabal. Of course, I wasn’t really paying much attention to their lyrics then, probably because of my limitation and second I was more concerned with their melody. If it’s danceable, then most likely it’s good. The 80’s is the age of new wave and people were less concerned with poetics than body language. Now, of course we don’t dance as much. We are more comfortable listening to the 80’s music through our mp3s and iPods and this is when we begin to pay attention to what they were saying and try to make sense of what the songs meant for us then.

Consider Tears for Fears’ album, The Hurting, where almost all the songs in this compilation reflect the tedium, rebellion, and angst experienced in our youth. The first stanza of the song The Hurting sounds like a de profundis or a crying out loud of the soul who experiences pain from the depths of hell:

Is it an horrific dream/ am I sinking fast/could a person be so mean as to laugh and laugh/ On my own/ could you ease my load/ could you see my pain/ could you please explain the hurting/.

The persona here or the one perceived speaking in the song is asking these rhetorical questions addressed to someone who is probably not there since the line, on my own, explains explicitly his or her condition of isolation. In the Greek Tragedy this is called Agon (hence the word, agony, as a derivative of this Greek word agon), the articulation of character’s dilemma and problem. Alienation or isolation is one of the oldest problems articulated in drama and poetry and yet in this song we confront again this problem as though it is something new. This effect of seeing something old as new is known in poetry as defamiliarization, the effect of making the familiar unfamiliar. As one proceeds with the song, one learns that the pain is caused by one’s inability to communicate or understand other situation as articulated in the lines that goes:

Could you understand a child when he cries in pain/ could you give him all he needs/ or do you feel the same.

Such inability to communicate or failure to understand necessary leads to confusion with what one thinks and feels as the song continues with

All along you’ve been told you’re wrong when you felt it right/ and you’re left to fight the hurting.

The song actually ends powerfully with the resolution that fighting is futile and that acceptance of pain and suffering seems like a necessary process or stage that everyone goes through as the third stanza reveals that one has to feel pain and sorrow, touching pain and surrendering to it just like a child does. Perhaps the answer to the lingering problem of loneliness is not in being with someone since psychoanalyst Carl Jung once said that loneliness is not inimical to relationship. One can still feel alone even with others and the constant search for answers becomes the paramount condition of human existence. One asks questions because one continues to live.

Touch the hurt and don’t let go/ get in line with the things you know/ learn to cry like a baby / then the hurting won’t come back.

However, existential questions articulated in The Hurting become more critical in the song Mad World where the loneliness of persona is much more palpable and brought about by the inanity of lack of purpose and sense of direction. The French has a term for this kind of condition, which they call ennui and the ennui in this song is workaday world that seems caught in an endless circle of deceit:

Bright and early for their daily races/ going nowhere, going nowhere/ and their tears are filling up their glasses/ no expression, no expression/ hide my head and I want to drown my sorrow/ no tomorrow, no tomorrow.

This experience of tedium and ennui becomes more problematic as the song in the end reveals that such experience starts much early in life, when children are made to feel good and yet their teachers fail to understand what’s going on with them:

Made to feel the way that every child should/ sit and listen, sit and listen/ went to school and I was very nervous/ no one knew me, no one knew me/ hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson/ look right through me, look right through me.

If teacher-student relationship in grade school can be alienating, it is not surprising that almost all form of social filiations, lovers and even familial are not spared from this trauma and as such becomes the running theme almost in all songs in this compilation. Pale Shelter talks about one’s insecurity despite the provisions given to the persona, and in Ideas as Opiates, security in one’s beliefs becomes a comfortable excuse or relief when in fact admitting almost instinctively that belief is quite arbitrary:

And lies spread on lies/ we don’t care/ belief is our relief/ we don’t care.

One cannot even resort to memories as possible source of solace. If in TS Elliot’s Cats (became a musical and famous for the song Memory) one can invoke memory as the reason for being granted another life, for Tears for Fears memories fade and the scars still linger:

The more I talk/ the more I say/ the less you seem to hear/ I’m speechless in a most peculiar way/ your mind is weak/ your need is great/ and nothing is too dear/ for you to use to take the pain away/ memories fade.

This song may as well an echo of the song Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel in the late 70’s where the persona speaks to darkness as an old friend and sees people talking without listening. We cannot be certain whether Roland or Curt was influenced by the critical stance of the artists in the 70’s, but their songs in this album really captured what it meant to be alone, to live in a dog-eat-dog world, to suffer from the maddening crowd. Almost twenty five years ago, we were dancing to these tunes, couldn’t care less if they are saying something more. Now that we are beginning to feel the grip and extent of what they were saying, I wonder if we can still dance the way these songs were rendered before. Or shall we be forever be in an ironic situation as the song Start of the Breakdown tells us:

We love to laugh/ love to cry/ half-alive/ we love to go slow when we’re dancing for rain/ dry skin flakes where there’s ice in the vein/ and we love to cry/ half alive.

The song asks, is this the start of the breakdown. Can anyone provide an answer?

The world keeps spinning for Julia Fordham

by Gary C. Devilles, Correspondent, Manila Times

Like the troubadours of yore and the romantic poets today, renowned pop-jazz artist Julia Fordham reminds us once again of our myths and ideals about love, warning us of what love may cost, and promising us of the grandeur love brings. This season of romance, Ayala Malls brings Fordham to the Philippines in a rare concert series.

Fordham has recently completed her tenth album, China Blue, which marks a high point in her 20-year career. "I started at 16," she says, "joining bands and playing music and dropping out early from school to concentrate on being a musician." Her first album, Happy Ever After, was an instant hit. Listeners all over the world immediately liked her songs since these captured the essence of the eighties—the enigmatic and flimsy relationships as expressed in the song Invisible War and the innocent musing or the reflective stance of people back then in Where Does The Time Go.

In China Blue, we encounter Fordham seeking once more an inner dialogue with herself only this time more cognizant of a world that has changed dramatically. She says this album speaks of a sense of personal completion and one of the songs included, titled For You Only For You, strangely articulates this experience of moving on and taking hold of one's emotions. As the song goes, one may cry like a river over and over again for heartaches. But one should remember that a sea of love runs deep in veins. The singer intimates that the capacity to love almost always outweighs the pain of broken relationships and unfulfilled desires. She echoes what philosopher Roland Barthes said about lovers and beloved—that the beloved may be privileged to be desired and adored but ultimately it is the lover who becomes more in touch with his humanity.

When Fordham was asked about what she could tell Britney Spears if she will be able to talk to her, she says she only has sympathy for her. "I would want Britney to run away from the maddening crowd and the media that constantly make a circus out of her life. Actually I don’t like to read gossip magazines especially if the stories in them are painful." Fordham understands what it meant to be under the brutal surveillance of a watchful eye being a public figure herself.

She reminds us not to be overwhelmed by the world we live in and that despite the "bad hair days" or what her sister would call as "cake days", one should be reminded of the palpable fragility of our existence that is better spent with someone who really matters as expressed in the songs, Holiday and I Want To Stay Home With You. Fordham confesses that she loves the simple things such as afternoon tea with friends and family at home. "I have this wonderful set of tea cups," she volunteers, "and my house is this cozy space with wooden floors and ceiling, located near a hill I always love to trek."

The Manila Times asked Julia her reason for releasing China Blue via NovaTunes, an independent Internet company. "The world is constantly changing," Julia opines, "and one cannot just fight back or ignore such force. We all know that a lot of recording companies are closing and this is creating a tremendous pressure over artists to be more creative in terms of marketing." The songs in her album can be bought by downloading them.

Regarding the viability of this marketing strategy, she says that the problem of piracy is one that cannot be easily solved by simply promoting the original. In the age of mechanical albeit digital reproduction, the challenge for the artist is still to be able to sell as this is a source of livelihood without totally controlling the very instrument of production. After all, the success of an artist can also be gauged from the "replicating potential" and "reinterpretation" of his or her work.

Fordham lauds local singer Nina for doing a very good job in her rendition of her Love Moves in Mysterious Ways. This for her is also a measure of an artist’s popularity. Ultimately for Fordham, such marketing strategy of releasing work through the Internet is also a philosophical and political conviction on her part as an artist that strives to be independent with only her audience in mind. She feels her commitment to music and the people who love her should not in anyway be hindered by the business aspect of the music industry.

There are ten songs in this album that tell us who to love, what to do if betrayed, and how to cope if we fall out of love. Indeed, we are constantly in love— searching, longing, losing, and pained by love as the song The World Keeps Spinning tells us. The hypnotic and seductive poetry of Julia Fordham in this collection also discloses that despite the overwhelming feeling of being in love, the world continues to spin beyond the reach of time, with no finality, but with a future that we can only call an assurance. One poet says that the heart is a landmine, and in the Glorietta Mall as Julia Fordham croons everyone with China Blue, bidding us like lost lovers and absent friends, with a breeze that sends a sad tune as the song goes, our hearts explode from within.

Name Calling

It was a time when Personal Computers here in the Philippines were as rare as Plasma TV’s in our present time. It was the mid-80’s and only the privileged had PC’s in their households. And Wawet was one of those privileged kids who had them in their home. And they didn’t only own one PC. The lucky bastard had three of them. Yup, they had three PC’s that they use in their home at a time when PCC couldn’t even include computer subjects in our high school curriculum.

And so, one fine Saturday afternoon, Eric Joson, Regie Fronda and I planned to pay Wawet a visit in their home in Marietta to get a chance to play some computer games on their PC’s.

As we were already approaching Wawet’s house, we realized that we had some sort of, umm, a name problem. You see, back in those days, Wawet wasn’t called Wawet in PCC. He was called either ‘Hilario’ or ‘Faustino’. (Calling him Wawet wouldn’t come until our college days in the Ateneo.)

You know how we were in high school. We sometimes called our classmates by their whole first names, or their whole first and second names (Rey Carlo, John Michael – my wife calls it the telenovela-double-name syndrome as in the case of Dingdong Dantes’ character who was always called ‘Carlos Miguel’, to be spoken in one breath) or by their family names (Pueblo, Atillo, Balajadia, Bersalona).

In Wawet’s case, everybody in PCC called him either ‘Hilario’ or ‘Faustino’.

But which was which? Was Faustino his first name? Or was it his family name? If we rang their doorbell and his Dad answered, whom shall we ask for? Hilario or Faustino? It would have been an awkward conversation if something like this happened.

“Nandyan po ba si Faustino?”, we would ask.

“Ahh, mga iho, sinong Faustino? Lahat kami dito sa bahay na ‘to eh Faustino ang apelyido.”, his Dad would have replied.

That would have been embarrassing.

So before ringing their doorbell, Eric, Regie and I had some discussion on two concerns. One, which name is which. And two, who among us would be the one to ask in case it wasn’t Wawet who comes out of the gate.

I am not quite certain how we were able to resolve the name problem. Maybe we just based it on Wawet’s class number. He was positioned before Regie Fronda in our class number. Ergo, his family name couldn’t have been Hilario. As to who was assigned to ask the question, I already forgot.

Luckily, when we rang their doorbell, one of Wawet’s sisters answered us and we asked the correct question:

“Nandyan po ba si Hilario?”

A Class Section By Any Other Name

by Gary C. Devilles

To dismantle the idea of a pilot section is to dismantle elitism and elitism is part of the bigger problem of factionalism and fascism. Philosopher Hannah Arendt says that it is wrong to accuse only Nazis of fascism since in truth, fascism exists in varying degrees and contexts. In my case, my experience of elitism happened in schools. When I transferred to a private school, I knew already its implication. Some of my friends even construed it as a form of social mobility, since the divide between private and public school is symptomatic of class conflicts. It is not that in public school elitism does not exist. In Bagong Ilog Elementary School, we were already told that we belong to a “pilot” section, honors class, special education, etc. Pilot section is already a form of dividing between “us” and “them”. So when I went to PCC, I knew somehow that my education comes with a price tag or a label. I may not exactly be aware of the political economy of our education but I was being indoctrinated to this ideology of “brand-consciousness,” in so far as our society labels, categorizes, or polarizes us into black and white, public or private, elite or hoi polloi.

The branding does not stop in the type of schools, once admitted to PCC, I realized that branding goes all the way to sections, cultures, and codes. In public schools, sections are numbered but in PCC there were names, like Lakandula, Soliman, Humabon, Sumakwel, Dumangsil, Sikatuna, Lapu lapu and Kalantiaw, all names of pre-colonial heroes, except that I only recognized Lapu lapu of course (It was only when I was teaching history in Ateneo that I learned some of these heroes were actually fakes or fictive but back then no one cared or bothered to know these names, for they are after all just names). In grade 6 we would have pre-colonial titles of nobility like Gat, Lakan, Rajah, Hari, Hadji, Sultan, and Datu. It’s a good thing this Filipinization stopped in grade school and when we entered high school our sections were more cosmopolitan like Cardinal, Robin, Eagle, Oriole, Hawk, Lark and Falcon (For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine having the Filipino equivalents like Maya, Kuwago, Pato, Langay-langayan, Kulasisi, Sabukot, Manok, Uwak, Tagak, and Banoy). Sophomores were names of planets like Jupiter and Saturn, juniors were names of scientists like Galileo and Copernicus, and seniors back to epic heroes like Lam-Ang and Bantugen. In high school the practice was that we would carry our section until we graduate but do we ever stopped that these names mean nothing other than the arbitrary signifiers to meaningless signified? How does one essentially see through a Lark or Falcon, Jupiter or Mars, Ibalon or Lam Ang?

Branding extends to our daily lives with the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and even the things we use. Hotdog is Swift or Purefoods. Before Jollibee or McDonalds, we had Kramburger or Jester. The well-to-do classmates dine in Shakeys from time to time but for the rest we usually settled for turu-turo. In cafeteria, we have Slush Puppies drink but I was more loyal to Aling Patring’s Iskrambol. Ice Cream would be Magnolia or Presto. Gums would be Bazooka Joe or Tarzan. Soft drinks would be Pepsi or Coke. For notebooks and bond paper we have Sakura or Cattleya, Steadler or Bensia for pencils and erasers, Bic or Scribbler for pens. For shoes the fashion was Haruta, an imitation of Bass, but others would wear Bandolino and Greg. The sneakers of my classmates would be Tretorn, Standsmith, or Chuck Taylor but mine was Marlboro (which unfortunately until now I’m trying to figure out how in the world a shoe got its name from a cigarette brand). Underwear of course would be Hanes but mine was YC (Remember their famous jingle ad that goes like “YC Bikini Brief, YC Bikini Brief for a man who packs a wallop?). These brands definitely mediate our choices but no one at that time tried to see if these choices are really indicative of freedom or are we being constrained more by these limited choices. Aren’t all these just pomp and circumstance, pageantry, and advertising? How much of the brand can really hold on to its essential attributes? Today these brands are quickly replaceable and dispensable. Nobody remembers Olympia typewriter or Pocketbell anymore and I wonder how many artifacts or objects will be obsolete in the near future. I tell my students that they maybe proud to be Ateneans but in the final analysis, isn’t Ateneo’s rank 375 out of 500 universities all over the world? How proud can you get with that picture? Sad that education nowadays is very much extended marketing.

Sections or brand names reveal how commodified our culture is. If we could only dismantle brand consciousness the way Germans broke the wall that divide them before, then perhaps things would be easier as admitting that a rose by any other name is still a rose. But the enigma of brand is part of a long history of our subjection for which power is intrinsically linked. Right now we address ourselves as one nation or one people, but the truth is our geographical condition makes it difficult to recognize similarities and affinities and we become more enamored by our differences. Dismantling brand consciousness is an enormous task of self-reflexivity and critical discernment. Hence, transcending sections pilot or otherwise becomes a political will and collective action. This is not a task for “pilot section” alone, everyone as Joey said should move beyond the comfort zones and familiar circles. But if we can achieve it in our batch then there is no need to be surprised if we could do it in the grand scheme of things in the future. The reunion is definitely a good start although we have to admit that much work is still to be done if we are to dream big and extend our communities imagined or real. This country deserves more from the fascistic tendencies of our government officials. For the meantime, a drink is always a good to start things up, have fun and be reflective. The ancient Greeks call such gathering as symposium. They drink and philosophize. We may not be Greeks or Germans, but hey, San Miguel or Carlsberg isn’t that bad either. Cheers to us all!