Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Tantingco: A glimpse into the Golden Age of Kapampangan Literature By Robby Tantingco Peanut Gallery
IT WAS nearly four hours of non-stop Kapampangan speeches, Kapampangan poetry reading, Kapampangan declamation and Kapampangan debate, not to mention the Kapampangan songs performed by a choir, and the Kapampangan songs performed by folk singers as well as by rock singers. Even the National Anthem, required by the Constitution to be sung only in the national language, was sung in Kapampangan.
By the time the curtains closed, my nose was bleeding from the sheer overload of Kapampangan, but after years and years of nothing but English and Filipino, four hours of Kapampangan was still not enough for me.
The event was the Aldo ning Amanung Sisuan, co-sponsored by the Academia ning Amanung Sisuan (Anasi) and the Center for Kapampangan Studies held May 17 at the Holy Angel University Theatre.
The program featured the launching of a Kapampangan poetry book and the coronation of three Kapampangan poets laureate, all based in the United States.
It was a show hatched in the Internet, cooked on both sides of the Pacific Ocean and served on the very day an unseasonal typhoon crossed Luzon from west to east instead of the usual east to west.
The weather was so bad throughout the day that I actually considered canceling it for fear that no one would show up. But our honorees had come all the way from across the planet just for this show and I thought, if they could literally cross an entire ocean to be with us on this day, my God, our invitees from Manila and the different towns of Pampanga and Tarlac could and would surely come.
True enough, they came, mostly in cars, jeepneys and tricycles, many others just walking in with umbrellas mangled by the wind. One by one the poets and poetesses arrived, the men in barong and the women in long gowns, some wearing their golden laurel crowns. What a surreal scene, I thought, and an apt metaphor: these survivors from a bygone era coming in from the storm, but no amount of wind or rain could knock the crown off their head.
I made sure they received the royal treatment they deserved: a brass band and a rondalla welcomed them at the lobby, and they got a 1000-seater air conditioned theatre with state-of-the-art equipment and the Governor no less as guest of honor.
Years ago, our poets enjoyed positions of privilege in the community. Today, you see them selling plastic ware in the public market or loitering in the City Hall or the Capitol hoping to catch the attention of some politician so that he would include them in his campaign sorties in some future election.
The event last May 17 gave me a glimpse of what the Golden Age of Kapampangan Literature probably looked like.
The poets, not the politicians, were the heroes on stage. They spoke classical Kapampangan, which sounded like music to my ears, and I understood every word of it.
Everything made sense to me, even the measured lines and the rhymed stanzas and the archaic syntax, and I think it made sense to the audience as well, because they clapped and cheered and laughed at all the punch lines and in all the right places.
The program dragged on and on while the world outside was going down the drain, and yet for the people inside the theatre, the only reality was the beauty of the Kapampangan language and the joy in celebrating it.
The program began with a young poet, Roilingel Calilung, explaining the significance of the event. It was your regular opening remarks, except that it was in poetry.
The first of two crissotans followed soon after: "Insanu ing Migit Mayap, ing Ketwan o ing Kayanakan?"
Crissotan, as you know, is debate in verse -another evidence of the Kapampangans' ability to break into a song or a poem at the drop of a hat.
The theme of young-versus-old continued with a performance of a basulto (Kapampangan folk song) by a traditional folk singer alternating with a RocKapampangan soloist, to show the contrast between their styles and to underscore the passing of torch to the next generation.
This was followed by the book launching and the second crissotan: "Sucat la o E Sucat Makialam deng Pengari karing Anac dang Talasawa?"
After that the curtains fell for the intermission, during which teasers from Jason Laxaman's Kapampanganovela were shown as well as an MTV featuring photographs of historical figures animated by computer to make them appear to be lip-synching Mon David's Atin Ku Pung Singsing.
The audience roared when the photograph of Governor Ed Panlilio appeared on the screen to sing the last line of the song and wink at them.
The curtains rose again for the resumption of the program, revealing all the local and US-based Kapampangan poets assembled on stage for the coronation of the three new poets laureate, namely, Rafael Maniago, Ernesto Turla and Renato Alzadon.
The Poetisa Laureada, septuagenarian Eufrocinia de la Peña, sat on a throne surrounded by other poets laureate, all wearing their old laurel crowns. The three new poets laureate alternately genuflected or bowed before the Poetisa Laureada to receive their crown, like knights kneeling before their queen.
Next, the Governor as Guest Speaker announced the passage of the Provincial Board resolution creating Provincial Language Council and designating the last Friday of August each year as the Aldo ning Amanung Sisuan. He spoke in flawless and elegant Kapampangan, which made me even prouder of him as my governor.
The last two performances were both highlights: a polosa by young polosador Renie Salor and a closing poem by former Pampanga vice governor Cicero Punzalan, who still looks exactly as he did in his campaign posters in the 1970s.
When the program ended at 8 p.m. and the audience went to the next building for the reception, the sky had cleared and the stars were starting to emerge from the clouds.
Who would have thought that such a beautiful evening could come after such a violent storm?
