ANNOUNCEMENT: The UP Press Balay Kalinaw Bookstore is moving to the UPP main office located at E. delos Santos Street, UP campus (near the College of Architecture and the police station). We advise our customers to purchase our books at our main office starting July 14.

Thank you for your continued patronage.

PAGLULUNSAD 2010: UNANG YUGTO

The University of the Philippines Press will be launching twenty-one new titles for the first half of the year 2010. The event, dubbed Paglulunsad 2010: Unang Yugto, will be held on July 23, 2010, 5:00 PM at the Balay Kalinaw located at Guerrero corner Dagohoy Streets, UP Diliman, Quezon City.

The authors and their titles are:

Prof. Virgilio S. Almario

Muling-Pagkatha sa Ating Bansa

Dr. Robert H. Boyer

Sundays in Manila

Mrs. Narita Gonzalez

Prof. Gerardo Los Baños

UP Diliman: Home and Campus

Prof. Vicente Garcia Groyon

The Sky Over Dimas

Dr. Edith L. Tiempo

Commend Contend

Dr. Cristina E. Torres

Americanization of Manila

Ms. Criselda Yabes

Sarena’s Story

Ms. Lualhati Milan Abreu

Agaw-dilim, Agaw-liwanag

Dr. Emerenciana Y. Arcellana

Favorite Arcellana Stories

Dr. Ferdinand Llanes

UP in the Time of People Power

Dr. Jose Luis Danguilan, Dr. Rafael Bundoc, Mr. Jerome Ong, Dr. Philip Aristotle Hermida

Siglo: A Hundred Years of the PGH in the Service of the Filipino People

Dr. John D. Blanco

Frontier Constitutions

Dr. Gémino Abad

Underground Spirit: Philippine Short Stories in English 1973-1989, Volume I, 1973 to 1982

Underground Spirit: Philippine Short Stories in English 1973-1989, Volume II, 1983 to 1989

Dr. Erlyn A. Sana

Teaching and Learning in the Health Sciences

Rica Bolipata-Santos

Lost and Found and Other Essays

William Pomeroy

The Forest

Dr. Samuel K. Tan

The Muslim South and Beyond

Dr. Angel L. Lambio

Poultry Production in the Tropics

Dr. Patricia May Jurilla

Bibliography of Filipino Novels

Prof. Josefina Venegas Almeda

Prof. Therese Garcia Capistrano

Prof. Genelyn Ma. Ferry Sarte

Elementary Statistics

For inquiries regarding the book launch, contact Cheenee at (02) 9266642 / press@up.edu.ph or visit our website at http://uppress.com.ph.

FRONTIER CONSTITUTIONS BY JOHN D. BLANCO NOW AVAILABLE

Frontier Constitutions: Christianity and Colonial Empire in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines by scholar John D. Blanco is now available. Part of the Asia Pacific Modern series, Frontier Constitutions examines Christianity and colonialism, taking "a turn away from the strictly historiographic detailing of dates and events into cultural exploration and configuration," writes National Artist Bienvenido L. Lumbera. He continues: "The book explains the complex impact of Spanish hegemony on the consciousness of the native populace, using art works and litetrature as foundation of insights ..." Lumbera hails Blanco as "a major cultural historian whose innovative practice will profitably light the path of young scholars of the future."

The book tackles everything from Jose Rizal's Noli me tangere to Balagtas's metrical romance. Frontier Consitutions also takes on Christianity as a colonial/colonizing power. Blanco writes: "The exemption of religious authorities from laws under the monarch's rule ... reflected the conviction that the monarchy itself was an instrument of a higher will and that, in cases of emergency or expediency, this higher will had to be upheld by the spritual power and its direct earthly representatives, not the monarch."

Blanco teaches Latin American, Philippine, and US comparative literature and cultural studies at the University of California, San Diego. In addition to Frontier Constitutions, he has published essays examining colonial and postcolonial histories and cultures. His current research examines the rise of divergent worldviews and ethical dispositions in the Americas and the Philippines during the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries.

UP PRESS GOES TO ABAP BOOK FAIR THIS JULY

The University of the Philippines Press (UPP) will be joining the 14th Philippine Academic Book Fair on July 6-10, 2010 at SM Megamall.

Come and visit the UP Press booth. Available for sale are our renowned publications, as well as the titles launched by the UPP for the first half of 2010 which include: Muling-Pagkatha sa Ating Bansa by Virgilio S. Almario, Sundays in Manila by Robert H. Boyer, UP Diliman: Home and Campus by Narita Gonzalez and Gerardo Los Baños (Eds.), The Sky Over Dimas by Vicente Garcia Groyon, Commend Contend by Edith L. Tiempo, Americanization of Manila by Cristina E. Torres, Sarena's Story by Criselda Yabes, Agaw-dilim, Agaw-liwanag by Lualhati Milan Abreu, Favorite Arcellana Stories by Emerenciana Y. Arcellana (Ed.), and UP in the Time of People Power by Ferdinand Llanes.

See you there!

For inquiries, please call the University of the Philippines Press at (02) 926-6642, email press@up.edu.ph or visit our website at http://uppress.com.ph.

A FEAST OF MEMORIES

by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.

I was delighted to receive, recently, advance copies of two new books soon to be launched by the University of the Philippines Press—UP Diliman: Home and Campus, edited by Narita M. Gonzalez and Gerardo T. Los Baños, and Sundays in Manila by Robert H. Boyer. That all these people are known to me is a pleasant bonus— Narita is the widow of our fellow provinciano and mentor NVM Gonzalez, and Beng’s teacher; Gerry was my student and now my colleague; and Bob Boyer taught with our department and has since been a great friend—but the books themselves are the prize.

Narita’s book (I call it Narita’s, although Gerry ably co-edited it, because the memories are mostly hers and her generation’s) is a compilation of reminiscences and reflections about life in what’s often been called the “Republic of Diliman,” a nearly self-contained “communiversity” as Narita and her fellow pioneers call it. The term “pioneer” itself holds a special meaning in the context of Diliman, that wooded, grassy stretch of land on the fringe of the postwar country’s brand-new capital, still occupied in 1948 by the US Army’s General Records Department, with their Quonset huts and barracks that would become UP’s trademark over the next half-century. The pioneers were the first families to move into the new campus—often into a sawali cottage before graduating to a “permanent house.”

The great academic families of UP roll off the tongue in this fond memoir—not just the Gonzalezes, but the Arcellanas, the Lagmays, the Corpuzes, the Bonifacios, the Lesacas, the Monsods, the Nemenzos, the Macedas, the Mirandas, the Hidalgos, the Encarnacions, and the Abuevas, among many others. If, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child, it soon dawns on the reader that it takes a community like Diliman—as it was in the ‘50s and ‘60s, with family and school practically indistinguishable from one another—to raise a scholar. In Narita’s book—which also features the recollections of dozens of other contributors—the babies who are born and the children who break their bones climbing mango trees soon become professors themselves, after a rebellious diversion or two, and take over their parents’ houses in the closest thing the staunchly democratic UP has to a dynastic tradition.

I was never a member of the UP Student Catholic Action nor a fan of the fabled Fr. John Delaney—by the time I came to Diliman, the winds had turned firmly leftward—but it’s hard not to share the wonderment of the characters in this memory of Narita’s, about the genesis of a landmark:

“One evening, during one of those scheduled meals in Area 17, in the home of the Abueva brothers—Billy, Teddy, and Pepe—Father Delaney met an architect. It was quite a fortuitous event. The architect was Leandro Locsin, who was only twenty-six at that time.

“Thirty years later, Pepe Abueva would be UP president and Billy a National Artist, an honor Leandro Locsin would also win for himself. ‘I was the architect Father Delaney was looking for,’ Locsin would recall from that evening. The concept of a church-in-the-round was exactly what Father Delaney wanted.

“Locsin presented a model of this church to Father Delaney. One afternoon, after cleaning up the old chapel, counting host for the next Mass and like chores, Father Delaney called in some ‘sacristines’ and his two favorite grade school volunteers, Evelyn Lesaca and Selma Gonzalez. Not too long ago he'd given the two girls paper dolls, lifted them off the ground in his arms when they were light. Little did he know that they might have something to say about the model of the church-in-the-round. Like the sacristines, the two girls thought the church-in-the-round was a far-fetched dream. ‘A flying saucer of a church’ was the way the girls described it, to tease Father Delaney. They had been so used to the sawali chapel and had been comfortable with it, but now here was this dome model, suggesting a church that not only would look big, solid, and permanent but would also cost a great deal of money.”

Bob Boyer’s book is another kind of treat altogether, although much of it also takes place in the groves of Diliman. Dr. Boyer was seven when the War broke out—“playing war games with my older brothers, reenacting the landings at Leyte Gulf and Lingayen Gulf.” Thus began a lifelong interest in the Philippines, now culminating with Sundays in Manila.

I must confess, with some shame, that I and my wife Beng appear with inordinate frequency in Bob’s book; I suppose you could say that we, among many others, hosted Bob during his many visits to the Philippines, a favor he returned when I went to his college in Wisconsin a few years ago as an exchange professor. When Bob asked me to write the blurb for his book, I was only too happy to contribute these words:

“Bob Boyer offers affectionate—often intimate—portraits of Filipino life and culture, formed over many visits to a country that many if not most Americans know only in the broadest terms: as a staunch ally in the Pacific and its other wars, as the rack of Imelda’s shoes, and as the home of Manny Pacquiao. Bob sharpens that picture with factual detail, but also softens the resulting image of the Filipino with his sympathy and understanding. Whether he’s riding a jeepney, sipping iced tea at the Chocolate Kiss, exploring the mysteries of Quiapo and Mt. Banahaw, or marching up Bataan and Corregidor, Dr. Boyer invariably delights and inevitably instructs; sometimes—like all good teachers do, but ever so gently—Bob disturbs and critiques us with his observations. It’s hard to imagine how a visitor from the snowbound American Midwest could connect so well with sun-baked Pinoys, but Bob Boyer did—and does again, through this eminently enjoyable book.”

Here’s Bob musing on that phenomenon we Pinoys all know about, “Filipino time”: “Unaccountably, between 1:05 p.m. and 1:12 p.m., more than fifty people had materialized— late and together. I was baffled by this synchronized tardiness, except for Tita. Why was Tita not in tune with the others? Perhaps even Filipinos, in certain circumstances, such as a sabbatical leave, misjudge ‘Filipino Time.’ I was still further surprised later that afternoon to discover that what I had thought was the entire photo session was only the beginning. I went to lunch after the session in the reading room, unaware that there were two more sets of pictures taken, one in front of the Faculty Center and one across the road from it, with tropical shrubbery as backdrop. Cora had sent a graduate student to look for me when they noticed my absence, but I had apparently already left. When I later asked a colleague how he knew about the other sites, he said, ‘I followed the photographer.’

“So not only were my colleagues synchronized in their (late) time of arrival. All fifty-some, including Tita this time, were inexplicably in communication about the unannounced multiple sites. They clearly wanted to include me, but somehow, despite their attempts and my watchfulness, I missed the less overt cues of ‘Filipino Time,’ the ones that are so natural to Filipinos that they do not think to mention them.

“Speaking of mending one’s ways, I had to change some of my own behavior because of student politeness. I have the habit, after class has ended and I have gathered up my notes, of chatting with one or more of the students still lingering in the front rows. This is a way of getting better acquainted with students, but I had to eliminate such after-class chats at UP. As soon as the other students heard my voice, they all, including a few on their way out the door, promptly returned to their places to pay attention.”

It’s always interesting to see how others see us, because it gives us another way of seeing others—and, of course, ourselves.

UP Diliman: Home and Campus will be launched June 25, 3 pm, at the UP Executive House, while Sundays in Manila will be launched July 2, 3 pm, at the Sulod Tagibanwa on the 4th floor of the UP Faculty Center. See you there!

UP Press Goes to CEBU!

The University Of The Philippines Press (UPP) will be joining the 37th Annual General Assembly of the Academic Libraries Book Acquisition Systems Association, Inc. (ALBASA Inc), together with other publishers and book dealers on May 19-21, 2010 at the Cebu Grand Convention Center, Archbishop Reyes St., Cebu City Philippines.

Please come and visit the University of the Philippines Press booth. Available for sale are our renowned publications, as well as some titles included in the UPP Centennial Publications and new titles for the year 2009-2010.

The event is organized by ALBASA Inc. (telefax-(032)2540691, albasa@mozcom.com).

For other inquiries regarding the event, please call the University of The Philippines Press at (02) 926-6642, email press@up.edu.ph or visit our website at http://uppress.com.ph.

See you there!

NATIONAL ARTIST VIRGILIO ALMARIO LAUNCHES BOOK ON CULTURE AND NATIONALISM

Virgilio Almario, arguably the most influential and prolific poet the Philippines has produced in the last hundred years, recently launched his latest book at the UP Diliman. Muling-Pagkatha sa Ating Bansa O Bakit Pinakamahabang Tulay sa Buong Mundo and Tulay Calumpit is a collection of essays brimming with the wisdom of the National Artist for Literature. The ten essays offer his views on culture, nationalism, and the education of Filipinos. On the heels of his very successful Si Rizal: Nobelista (Pagbasa sa Noli at Fili Bilang Nobela), another UP Press title, Muling-Pagkatha is another addition to the growing Almario canon in criticism.

The launch was held at the Bulwagang Rizal and attended by UP Press Director Luisa Camagay, deans Elena Mirano and Zosimo Lee, writers Vim Nadera, Eugene Evasco, and more. Lee gave the first Panayam Bulawan while Asian Center director Mario Miclat provided an engaging Confucian reaction to Lee's theses. Poet Joey Baquiran also gave his personal insights.

The blurb of the book goes: Bakit pinakamahabàng tulay sa buong mundo ang Tulay Calumpit?

Ang sagot: “Dahil pagtawid mo mula sa Calumpit, Bulacan, at may dalá kang itlog, pagdatíng mo sa kabilâ sa Apalit, Pampanga, ang itlog mo ay ‘ebon' na.”

“Itinatanghal ng palaisipang-bayang ito,” ayon sa may-akda, “ang mga espasyong nakapagitan at naghihiwalay sa mga bayan, mga lalawigan, mga rehiyon, at mga pulo sa buong Filipinas.”

Sa kalipunang ito ng mga sanaysay hinggil sa nasyonalismo, kasaysayan, edukasyon, wika, at panitikan, nagmumungkahi ang Pambansang Alagad ng Sining kung paano lilikha ng mga bagong tulay sa pagbuo ng pambansang kultura na higit na magbibigkis sa bayan at magpapaigting ng ating pagkabansa.

Muling-Pagkatha is now available at the UP Press Bookstore in Balay Kalinaw, the UP Press Display Room, and major bookstores nationwide. For orders, please contact the UP Press at press@up.edu.ph, call 926-6642, or visit uppress.com.ph.

Arvin Abejo Mangohig