This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 8, April 3-9, 2005
The Guerrilla Is Like a Poet
and Other Songs
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO Who says classical music is
only for the well heeled? Whoever says so may want to listen to Songs of Love
and Struggle, a new compact disc album produced by Julie de Lima. Produced for educational
and cultural exchange, the 52-minute album is to be distributed in the
Philippines by IBON Foundation. Especially featured in
Songs of Love and Struggle are six poems by NDFP chief political consultant Jose
Maria Sison, set to music by activist musicians Danny Fabella and Levy Abad, Jr.
The poems are: “The
Guerrilla is Like a Poet,” “The Giant Oak,” “What Makes a Hero,” “In Praise of
Martyrs,” “Sometimes, the Heart Yearns for Mangoes,” and “The Bladed Poem.”
Two of these, “The Giant
Oak” and “Sometimes, the Heart Yearns for Mangoes,” were read at poetry
festivals in The Netherlands where Sison and wife De Lima live in forced exile;
the rest were taken from Sison’s book Prison and Beyond. The music for the poems is
arranged for this album by Josefino Chino Toledo, who teaches at the University
of the Philippines (UP) College of Music
in Quezon City. Soprano Rica Nepomuceno does the vocals for all the songs in the
album, while internationally-known pianist Ariel Caces provides the
accompaniment. Protest
songs as classical music One is accustomed to
hearing protest songs, particularly the contemporary ones, rendered as either
folk music or marching hymns, and in a few cases as rock. That the Sison songs in
this album are rendered as classical music thus tempts one to set the CD player
so that he hears these pieces first before the other ones. Hearing the
performances of these songs by Nepomuceno and Caces, as arranged by Toledo, it
may be said that the songs are done justice. Nepomuceno’s vocal feat
combined with Caces’ sophisticated piano moves capture the mood of the songs,
and blend these with the unique classical flavor: they evoke the determination
in “The Guerrilla Is Like a Poet” and “The Bladed Poem,” the sadness and
resoluteness in “What Makes a Hero” and “In Praise of Martyrs,” and the
contemplative mood of “The Giant Oak” and “Sometimes, the Heart Yearns for
Mangoes.” Nepomuceno and Caces know
just when to be loud and when to be mild. Their renditions of the Sison poems
hit the listeners in the heart. Of the Sison poems in this
album, “What Makes a Hero” (“Whatever is the manner of death/There is a common
denominator/A hero serves the people/To his very last breath…”) and “In Praise
of Martyrs” (“We praise to high heavens/And for all time/The heroes who die/In
the hands of the enemy…”) are likely to become anthems of sorts soon, what with
many of the old activists having departed forever in the last four years and
many progressive mass leaders being sent to the next life by violence. In “Sometimes, the Heart
Yearns for Mangoes,” we are reminded that life in exile is no picnic:
“Sometimes, the heart yearns/For mangoes where there are apples/For orchids
where there are tulips/For warmth where there is cold/For mountainous
islands/Where there is flatland…” In the end, however, we are taught the
loftiness of doing one’s best to serve one’s native land even from faraway
shores: “The well-purposed continues/To fight for his motherland/Against those
who banished him/The unwelcome exploiters of his people/And he is certain that
he is at home/In his own country/He’s at home in the world.” But of course the Sison
poems are not the only songs in Songs of Love and Struggle. Patriotic
songs Also in this album are five
other patriotic songs: “Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa” (Love for the Native
Land), based on a poem by the anti-colonial revolutionary Andres Bonifacio set
to music by ex-political detainee Luis Salvador Jorque; Danny Fabella’s “Anak
ng Bayan” (Child of the Nation), which has become a favorite among student
activists – being about a youth who takes to the hills to fight for freedom and
justice; “Mutya ng Pasig” (Pearl of Pasig), “Lupang Hinirang”
(Beloved Land; not the Philippine national anthem), and of course “Bayan Ko”
(My Country) by Jose Corazon de Jesus and Constancio de Guzman. “Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang
Lupa” passed from hand to hand during the revolutionary wars against the
Spanish and American occupations, and set to music became sort of a second
national anthem together with “Bayan Ko” (written and composed during the
American colonial occupation) during the struggle against the Marcos
dictatorship. “Mutya ng Pasig”
and “Lupang Hinirang,” rarely heard these days except on the TV shows
Paco Park Presents and Aawitan Kita (I Will Sing to You), are given a new lease
on life, so to speak. The significance of placing
these songs side by side with the Sison poems is that it shows the continuity of
the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation. But before you get to the
“heavy stuff” in Songs of Love and Struggle, you are treated to four
entertaining classic folk ditties: “Pamaypay ng Maynila” (Manila’s Fan),
“Usahay,” “Sarung Banggi,” and “Mag-asawa’y Di Biro” (To
Wed Is No Light Matter). They are in the album to show that even amid struggle,
the Filipino does know how to love – and laugh even.
Nepomuceno and Caces Overall, Songs of Love and
Struggle would indeed be useful for educational and cultural exchange purposes.
It would, in particular, show Filipino expatriates eager to discover their roots
that their fellow Filipinos in the Philippines do know how to make and sing
great music and not just the infantile “tunes” that are imposed upon FM radio
listeners these days. Last but not least, it
shows that protest songs can be rendered as classical music – meaning that the
genre is definitely not just for the velvet crowd. Sison, who took a degree in
English Literature from the University of the Philippines (UP) with honors in
1959, has been noted as a writer since his university days. Considered the
Philippines’ leading revolutionary, he has authored several books, including two
poetry anthologies: Brothers and Other Poems and Prison and Beyond.
He won the Southeast Asia WRITE Award in 1986 in Thailand. Fabella and Abad are
members of Musikangbayan, a protest folk group that has released three albums:
Rosas ng Digma (Rose of the War), Anak ng Bayan (Child of the
People), and Songs for Peace. Fabella is also with Sining Bulosan, the
cultural arm of Migrante International. Toledo, who teaches at the
UP College of Music,
is the founding director of the Metro Manila Community Orchestra and the UP
Festival Orchestra, among other music groups. Nepomuceno took a degree in
Music at UP under the tutelage of Fides Cuyugan-Asencio, and pursued further
vocal studies in Vienna. She presently studies at the Conservatorio G.B. Martini
in Bologna, Italy. Caces, besides being an
accomplished classical pianist, is also a conductor. Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Review of the CD album Songs of
Love and Struggle
Produced by Juliet de Lima
For distribution in the Philippines by IBON Foundation
Bulatlat