Narrative Report on the 2014 Philippine Literary Festival.

It was a great experience to be part in a once in a lifetime event. As a teacher learning should be a continuing cycle and like world without borders no amount of barriers can defect the inexorable force of reading and writing. I enjoy life just anyone else and big part of this is my vocation as an educator. Ms. Bajal and Ms. Esquilon, got the information through the Internet that a festival will launch this October, and this is “The 2014 Philippine Literary Festival”, first, questions are brewing into my mind, on the what’s in and out of this festival. But on the latter part, I was informed that the occasion pertains to different famous writers and their works, there are various activities, and one of them is the launching of books, with the book signing segment of Amy Tan and Chang-Rae Lee, two foreign well know writers. Too mention also, series of talks conducted, mainly U.P. Press led by its Director, Neal Garcia, as the moderator, in their thrust “Pushing the Envelope: Trends in New Philippine Writing” on which I attended and enjoyed the exchanging of ideas from one corner to the other. I have pictures with famous fictionist Dean Alfar and his wife, Nikki. On the latter part, someone from the audience asked whether there is monetary promise as being a writer in the Philippines, Dean Alfar caters the question, “I should say that in our country writing profession is not that lucrative, so there is no really a clear promise to someone if it will venture into writing, but all of the results, came from passion,” Right after, we proceeded to the discussion of “Writing Non-Fiction Today” with Chay Holifena and Pam Pastor of Philippine Daily Inquirer and Arnel Patawaran of Anvil Publishing as the moderator. It was an eye opener for me specially on the latter part, when someone asked the deterioration of good writers, it was a simple answer that shocks me, due to the booming of technology where everyone looses their interest to go back to basics, individual focus more on the advantages of the internet, which is for me an inevitable argument. After which, we took our lunch and find time to visit the Ayala Museum, one of the places here in Metro Manila that learners and educators should visit. It has a complete line of our national treasures, from pre-occupation of the Spaniards up to the aftermath of World War II, these include ornaments, jewelries, literary, culture and traditions, and even arsenals that form and part of our history, and all of these are under the safekeeping of the Ayalas. For the final stage of our one day venture, we listened to La Salles’ proud, Prof. Ronald Baytan’s, Danilo Reyes, Miriam College professor and from Anvil John Iremil Teodoro on their lecture in “Literature 101 for teachers”, a one time event that any literature teacher will surely missed, they imparted some tips and efficacy of teaching literature, a vivid part of literature was the launching of Baytan’s book in titled “Literature Matters” a manual for teaching Philippine Literature. However, during the question and answer of the event, a Prof. Mortel of the University of the East, asked on the importance of studying the life of the writers and their literary works, considering with a short period of time, classes will have a difficult to cover the wide varieties of Philippine Literature, Prof. Mortel suggested that classes should tackle only well known writers and their award winning masterpieces that students can easily relate with. Writers like Nick Joaquin, F. Sionel Jose, NVM Gonzales and Dean and Nikki Alfar. John Iremil with his enlightenment on the appreciation of literature, it is deep and wide, where everyone’s golden time should spend reading and feel the exuberance of literature can give, its role to our moving society, its mantra that every human being must absorb, and its breath that keep us alive. We all live from past and we must stay for the future. At the end of the event, I met one of my favorite artists, Dong Abay of Yano. We have pictures that I shall remember until I rest. My most significant role as a witness to this event, is notable, but with the days passing by, We tend to forget that every living thing on this planet has its own humble beginning, and history made ours a better place to live in, but let us consider that in spirit and letters, literature concretized our meaningful life, literature is part of progress, economically and socially, humans discovery may be nothing without the spirit of literature. I may say, that we should continue supporting and proliferate such event for we must embrace the beauty of one’s talent either innate or learned.