Santi Bose aka Santa Rose

I received this email from Bob Boyles:

In San Francisco, in 1976, while waiting on my flight to Osan AFB, Korea, I struck up a conversation whith a retired Air Force Master Sgt. on his way back to the Phillipines. We parted ways at Travis AFB, California and he presented me with a handmade pen and pencil holder for my desk that I would occupy in Korea. It is in the shape of a Valentine type heart, obviously handmade, with two holes on the top of the heart for pens or pencils. It appears to have been glazed in a kiln (?) with hand painted reddish orange braid around the top-left edge of the heart and blue-green braid around the right edge.
On the right side of the heart is handlettered
SOUVENIR
BAGUIO CITY
1969
On the left side of the heart is handlettered
MAY '69
I don't recall the name of the man who gave it to me in 1976 but he had told me he had gotten it from a "kid about 17 or 18 years old named Santa Rose" while he had been stationed with the USAF in the Phillipines in 1969. I was 27 yrs. old in '76 and I just stuck the heart in my duffle bag and somehow the heart has manged to stay wiht me through all these years and many, many moves.
There's no name on the heart but I came across the heart yesterday while showing my 11 year old granson some of my Air Force and travel keepsakes. My grandson is a pretty clever kid ( not just because he's mine ) so he wanted himself and I to research Baguio City. When we looked Baguio City up on the internet we also came across " Santi Bose " which, to me, was very close to " Santa Rose " that the man had called the "kid" that made it in 1969 (?).
That's all I can recall about how, where and from whom I obtained my Baguio City 1969 heart but my grandson and I are letting our curiosity get the best of us. Will you please take a moment or two to share your thoughts on my ( now, according to my grandson ) OUR small treasure which is 3 inches by 2 and 1/2 inches in size.
Thanks for taking the time to read this "book" that I've written here but a reply would thrill us both.
~~Bob Boyles and James Ferguson ( 11 yrs. )

Rishab!

Baguio Writer's Group member Rishab is on his 5th one-man show. He will be replacing fellow BWG Baboo M at the Ruins of the 15th. Nice take of Frida

Rugi

Here's the new transformation of our friend Baboo. Rugi means beginning. Go to the launching. Kayo rin, her other art is culinary:

Standup

Being a "socialized" eventologist who ends up poorer than I started with each new event, another masochistic venture today and tomorrow. The Stand Up Against Poverty event in Baguio. It already started kanina when the Vocas Artists starring Chang Mai-bound Kigao Rosimo, Shunt Verdun, Rene Aquitania and the rest performed their poverty installation at the pavement beside Skyworld. The pedestrian traffic was blocked by this radiating chalk sun while Rene and Alan Manalastas came out with their Taong Grasa performance anew. Of course, the people had no choice but to watch and the City Demolition Team were waiting and waiting and making kalabit to me and EV Espiritu on when do we stop this traffic hazard. Well, EV and Kigao were bent on making the demolition squad fuming so they would demolish the art installation of colorful wire ghosts. I am so nervous because my name was in the permit even as I was still shuttling back and forth City Hall to get that permit. Well, all went well as they say. We dismantled our own thing. The one who was tasked to make people sign the Anti-Poverty said that 2/3 don't want to sign. Hmm. Tomorrow is a more challenging one. A free concert by a country western band right smack at the Hangar Market where the vegetable trucks dump their wares and carrots are being washed on the puddles. This is in conjunction with the comboys (porters) as we set our stage on their karitons. Punks from Malabon would also be having a gig there. Pretty tough ha?

Ed Maranan

Manong Ed Maranan will be launching his new poetry book, Passage: Poems 1983 - 2006, at the Cordillera Coffee house, SM Baguio, 15 Oct. 2007, at 5 p.m. The Baguio Writers Group will be reading excerpts from the great book and also their favorite poems because it is after all World Poetry Day. A Swedish translation will follow because we are also talking about a potential Nobel Prize winner here.

Ha Long Has This Been Going On

The Baguio Writers Group last weekend came out with "To Be Or To Do" with the country's top poets talking about the birthing of their poems. Padma and I will be coming out with a full recount of that wonderful afternoon in the next entries. Maybe you will see some of the poems at padma's blog and also here. This is "Ha Long" by UP Baguio Chancellor Priscilla Macansantos who warned us of not wearing too many hats. She just won an award in mathematics. She has no image to accompany this poem and I remembered I have a photo in my laptop, "Ah, iyan pala yung grandeur of stone" was Luchie's remarque.

HA LONG ^*

I have forgotten how to
Unburden myself,
Find release
In vast spaces
And calm, deep waters,
Seek comfort
In the quiet grandeur of stone.
In airless rooms
And enclosed spaces,
Far from the sea
And other manner of living
I have spent my days
In habits and gestures
That have lost their meaning
From sheer repetition.
And the months and years
Have left me
No longer young, nor gladdened
By the setting of the sun.
Until Ha Long
Bay of a thousand stone islets
Rising from spent coral,
Its caves revealing secret sculptures
No human hand can fashion.
There is so much legend here,
Ha Long
Of battles fought, and won,
One can almost know hope again.
And my diminished spirit rises
As stone out of water;
It is as if, like this singular place
One can be old, yet young again,
And like the bay,
Let time’s patient hands
Shape the course of this, and every life.

-- Priscilla Supnet Macansantos

^* Ha Long Bay
Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam
UNESCO World Natural Heritage Area
(Philippines Free Press, July 4, 1998

The Highest Poetry Lecture-Forum This Year

will be held at the Wolfson Room of the Baguio Country Club this Saturday at 2 pm. Krip Yuson, Marjorie Evasco, Marra Lanot, Sid Hildawa and Baguio Writers Groupmembers Ed Maranan and Butch and Priscilla Macansantos would be talking to only 60 people. Padma Perez would be the moderator. The title of the forum BTW is "To Be or To Do?" aka "Toby Tugo," "Do Do Be Do Be" "Tubig or Tudo (Water or Rain)"

Lady Valerie

If you are from Baguio, you should know Lady Valerie, the organist of Pines Hotel. Where is she now? The Baguio Writer's Group would like to know because we are coming up with a concert on September 15 at Baguio Country Club. We are going to get Josie Esquejo (who used to sing in Hyatt Terraces), Councilor Richard Carino (pianist in Pines and Hyatt), Gou de Jesus, Ivan Cruz and members Baboo M and Day. We are thinking of getting Comelec Commish Brawner who plays the trumpet and others. This is 70s nostalgia and hope Lady V, the Ballroom Queen, would indulge us.