The MSU-IIT hosts the 2018 National Literature Month (NLM) on April 24-25, 2018 at the Mini-theatre and at the Kalinaw Hall of the Institute for Peace & Development of Mindanao (IPDM).
The nation celebrates NLM by virtue of Presidential Decree 986 signed on February 10, 2015 by then President Benigno Aquino III.
The NLM celebrates Francisco ‘Balagtas’ Baltazar Day and honors other national writers like Emilio Jacinto and the National Artists for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera, Cirilo F. Bautista, Virgilio Almario, F. Sionil Jose and the late Jose Garcia Villa, Edith Tiempo, and Francisco Arcellana, among others.
Last year the Institute celebrated NLM emphasizing the Spoken Word Poetry or, what is popularly known among the young as ‘Hugot’.
Stellar performances by some of the pioneers of the Spoken Word Poetry in the country like Kooky Tuason and Lourd de Veyra, Vim Nadera and Joel Toledo were held at the Gymnasium. Their local counterparts joined them through the performances of their own compositions in Sebuano and in Filipino.
This year’s celebration will have the participation of children of evacuees, members of the Iligan National Police Office and women troopers of the Philippine Army’s Task Force Ranaw.
Workshops and a showcase will follow a forum on playwriting, poetry and on storytelling for children by invited writers Santiago S. Diokno, Rebecca T. Añonuevo and Genaro Gojo Cruz.
Diokno is scion of the prominent Diokno family in Manila. He is a prize-winning playwright, architect, contractor-businessman and a media practitioner. He finished a degree in Mass Media and Literature from De La Salle University and a degree in Architecture from the California College of Arts in the US.
Añonuevo is a prize-winning poet and in 2013, she received the SEA (Southeast Asian) Write Award from the King of Thailand. She finished her doctorate at the De La Salle University where her dissertation was adjudged the best. At present, she is President of the Navotas Polytechnic College. She has published six collections of poetry and she runs her own publishing company. She and her lawyer-husband, JP Cuñada were former writing fellows of the Iligan National Writers Workshop.
Gojo-Cruz is likewise a former writing fellow to the Iligan National Workshop. He is a faculty of the Department of Literature of the De La Salle University. A prize-winning poet in his own right, he has published sixty (60) books of stories for children.
The Institute’s resident cultural groups, the Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG) and the Kalilang Traditional Cultural Ensemble will perform during the NLM program.
The NLM celebration is funded by the National Commission for Culture & Arts and the Institute. The Project Director is Dr. Christine F. Godinez Ortega.
by Christine F. Godinez Ortega, Office of Publication & Information (OPI)
The MSU-IIT Cultural Development Office’s (CDO) Kalilang Ensemble was featured in the documentary film celebrating Alab Panitikan (National Literature Month) produced by the National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA) and Living Asia Channel (LAC). The Alab Panitikan is celebrated in April each year.
The documentary on Alab ng Panitikan had its LAC world premiere on Sunday, October 23, 2016. It featured cultural groups from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The Institute’s Kalilang Ensemble and the MSU Sining Kambayoka music ensemble led by Jamaludin Casnor represented Mindanao.
Excerpts of the Darangen were performed by the two groups and were filmed inside the MSU-IIT campus and at the Mini-theatre on April 23 this year.
The NCCA team was headed by Rene Napenas, Head of the NCCA Public Affairs and Information Office (PAIO) and Roezielle Joy Iglesia of the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF). The Living Asia Channel team was headed by Thess Visda, Production/Logistics Director and crew Rodel Mercado (Production Assistant) and Dickie Neri (Videographer).
The NCCA PAIO donated NCCA publications such as magazines and three volumes of Sagisag Kultura to the MSU-IIT Main Library.
Napenas also dialoged with the AB English Mass Media class at the Mini-theatre during a lull in the filming of the documentary.
The visit of LAC, KWF and NCCA was arranged by the Office of Publication & Information (OPI).
The pioneering Culture and Arts Studies Center (CulArtS-C), proudly announcing the Southern Philippines’ leadership in Cultural Studies, has been established at the MSU-IIT.
The Center shall be a repository of studies, pedagogy, and creative productions. Adapted from the trans-disciplines of cultural studies notably that established by Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall in the University of Birmingham, the principles developed in the 1960s are translated into new paradigms of study in the Philippine context.
Culture and the Arts shape experience and perception, and determine social order.
The Center’s position in North-Central Mindanao highlights its crucial role in the intersections of cultures.
The Center is mandated to also generate knowledge and a practice as it currently offers a graduate course with tracks in Performance Studies, Literature and Creative Writing, and Arts Administration.
Founder is Professor Steven P.C. Fernandez, DFA, also Founder of the Studies Program and Artistic Director of the Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG).
The program approved by the University’s Board of Regents was established with support from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
In celebration of April as National Literature Month, the Institute through the Office of Publication and Information and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts hosted Dandaniw, a poetry forum, and an open mic session on April 8, 2016 at the CASSalida Theater.
Dandaniw an Iluko word meaning ‘oral poetry’ is also a part of collaboration with the regional conference entitled Current Issues and Trends in Language and Literature: Globalizing the Local which is organized by the senior students of the Department of English, College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS).
The forum was attended by distinguished literary icons in the Southern Philippines, namely: Prof. Hobart P. Savior and Prof. Roger F. Garcia from Xavier University, Dr. Victor N. Sugbo from UP College Tacloban, Dr. German V. Gervacio and Dr. Steven Patrick C. Fernandez from Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology.
The event began with a conversation with the poets on Creative Writing, The Use of Language, and Transcreation.
“The never ending accommodation of imagination” said Prof. Savior when asked about where he gets his motivation to write. “Imagination is limitless. It may be a cliché but imagination brings you somewhere. However, your responsibility is to pin down, that your imagination is relatable to others and that your imagination is something that will do something whether personal, institutional, or on the societal level.”
It ended with an open mic session at the HRM Laboratory where some original compositions of acoustic songs and spoken word poetry were performed by members of The Authorities, a group of young aspiring writers who submit to the authority of words in giving meaning to the being. They are Ric Anthony Pacaldo, Jibril Monsanto, Karl Anthony, Raymond Beltran, AJ Baterna, Rohanimah Ace Guro, Earl Ross Espere, Faith Brillantes, and Kim Ashley Escalona.
The pioneering MSU-IIT Culture and Arts Studies (CAS) Program is the recipient of a One Million-and-Forty-four-Thousand-Peso Grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) coursed through the MSU-IIT as conduit of the grant.
The NCCA under the Office of the President (OP) is the lead institution in the country’s policy implementation for cultural and heritage development. It manages the government’s endowment for the arts. The grant for the MSU-IIT CAS Program supports scholarships and partly subsidizes the operations of the program covering the period January to December 2016.
The CAS Program is the first and one of its kind in the country introduced as a “ladderized” diploma and Master’s degree graduate course which opened classes in August last year.
Fourteen students compose the first batch completing inter-disciplinary tracks in Performance Studies, Arts Administration, and Literature and Creative Writing. Scholars are accepted based on their proposed research and/or creative production requirement.
The NCCA has provided grants since 2009 for the study and subsequent conduct of a viable CAS program, a discipline that was conceived in 2005. A discipline such as the CAS program was implemented after passing through a long-winded route of layers of bureaucracy. The CAS program was finally approved by the MSU Board of Regents in 2015.
Founder of the program is College of Arts & Social Sciences (CASS) Professor and Performance Studies scholar Prof. Dr. Steven P.C. Fernandez.
