 Good afternoon everyone. You must be so tired already. We're at the tail end of this two-day conference, so allow me to put a period to at least this group here as we wrap up everything. My paper is Popularizing Amindanaoan Cultural Landscape. It's a very different title from what is printed there in the program. When I first got the first design, I was supposed to have a full hour, and that's why I prepared my talk and my PowerPoint to suit what would have been an hour of talk and question and answer. But when I arrived here, because the communication had already been, I had left already and no internet connection, so that's when I realized it's been shortened, so allow me to still use my PowerPoint, but along the way I'll go very quickly so that I will not go behind time. Well, following the speech or the talk of Carlito the junior, here is now Carlito the senior. And following also on Pam, there will be some interfacing in terms of her own experiences as a researcher in this particular field. Before the dawn of the Spanish colonial eras in the Philippines, the indigenous also known in Mindanao as Lumad and the Moro peoples of Mindanao had a rich cultural tapestry. Manifested through material culture and cultural practices in the fields of theater, epic chanting, storytelling, and dancing, revolving around especially rites of passages, our ancestors in Mindanao revolved a cultural landscape comparable to that of our neighbors in Southeast Asia. There have been a lot of ethnographic studies around here and there's also been as a result of that an upsurge of interest in this particular field. The chanting of epics was a major part of the life of our indigenous cultures long before the colonizers' occupation of the islands. Being mostly of the oral tradition, these have been lost to the baguaries of time and could no longer be retrieved, but we're so lucky that a number of them could still be retrieved until today. The best example is of course the Darangin, which predated the entry of Islam to the Philippines in an ancient folk epic of the Moroanau. There is also the whole collection of Lumad epics and this was mentioned by Una Paredes this morning in her keynote. The chief of which is the Ola Hingan, sometimes also referred to as the Ola Ngihin, and it has an outreach that includes the Higaunons of northeastern Bukidnon and Agusan, the Bukidnons themselves, the Lianon Manobo, and the Obo Manobo. But apart from the epic chanters, there were also storytellers and today we are lucky to have access to the English translations of these stories. There are other aesthetic practices, proverbs, ritual, ritual boasts, myths, and other forms of verbal art, as well as songs that have survived through the past centuries which collectively show the need to be grounded in a native literary tradition that can serve as the crucial foundation for a national literature. As rites and passages, rites of passages and religious rituals constitute the heart of the people's indigenous belief system around which their aspirations, hopes and dreams are anchored, this tend to involve elaborate preparations as well as celebrations. As was already presented in a number of papers, there's a very rich, complex set of symbols in all of these. And there are a number of examples in many of the indigenous communities across Mindanao. Because Islam had penetrated Mindanao much earlier than Christianity, most of the communities reached first by those who introduced this faith embraced Islam which spread across the territories dominated by the Magindanao, Sulu, Bwaya, and Sultanates and the Lanao principalities. These communities resisted Spanish hegemony in some cases which were violent armed resistance. And of course through some of the papers we have already heard a lot of discussion has also been in terms of the Spanish entry and occupation that had impact on the people's cultures. This gradual process of culture change was endured during of course the American occupation and now we saw the onslaught upon waves and waves of migrant settlers from the north who had already earlier discarded most of their indigenous roots through the 400 years of almost of the Spanish occupation. As they slowly embraced the cultural ways of the migrant settlers including the Christian faith, the indigenous people especially the Lumads began to discard their own even as some of them continued to hold onto bits and pieces of their indigenous roots especially in terms of language and agricultural rituals. Thus we get the process of giving up some of these age-old practices. From the autumn years of the American occupation to the first decades of the Republic there began a strong push towards the Filipinos' acculturation to American culture facilitated by the introduction of the public school system and the entry of mass media communication systems. English became the main medium of instruction in schools. As textbooks were mainly in this language and teacher's training were primarily conducted in English. However in the 1930s to the 1950s there were an upsurge of militant cultural productions in the field of theater literature and songs spewed by a very strong nationally sentiment with the likes of Amado Hernandez, Lupi Santos, Jose Corazon de Azuz, Atan de Lerma, Dlerama, and others. There were also stirrings even in the field of the early films in the 1930s. However in the same period the country was introduced to Broadway theater stage plays through the westernized education that was provided in mostly private schools for privileged children along which experienced comedies and tragedies as well as western classics performed in their English versions. Things began to change during the early part of the Marcos presidency in the 1960s swept by the global movement of youth's awakening awareness and militant response to social issues. Filipino students and artists began to revisit their historical and cultural roots to seek inspiration in the radical shift of their engagements. Student activists and cultural workers drawn to the national cause espousing an anti-American rhetoric labeled as colonial mentality opted for what they considered Filipino. Arising out of most composites and artist circles in Metro Manila this movement spread to at least some of the urban centers in Mindanao like Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Illigan, and Butuan. When the late Ferdinand Marcos declared Marcial Law in 1972, one of the major unintended consequences of his authoritarian regime was the flowering of a nationalist-oriented militant expressions of popular culture from theater to songwriting from poetry to visual arts. As student activists and cultural workers committed themselves to the task of conscientizing the masses they explored all the various art forms to convince them to take part in the National Liberation Movement. Songwriters began to write songs mostly in Filipino which swept across campuses and the ranks of the militant people's organizations as they were sung in rallies, demonstrations, labor picket lines, and soon even heard over the radio and even got incorporated into some of the militant movies. In Mindanao, the group of Asin made inroads with their songs on social and ecological issues choosing a number of indigenous instruments in Davao City. We had the Lumad music being influenced into the music of Joey Ayala, Bayang Barrios, the Bagung Lumad, and so on. Eventually, we also have indigenous persons themselves like Wawa Isawa, Kokoy Pandian, and even earlier we had Carlito here who began to write their songs in their own indigenous languages. The recent political prisoners began also to write songs and visual artists also championed social realism depicting the social ills of the Mindanao society as they had done it also in Metro Manila, in Cebu, and in Negros. But it was theater, the mounting of theatrical productions where Mindanao's popular culture really soared. And there were four streams that began to emerge. One was inspired by the activist groups of marches and rallies in the streets combined fiery speeches with street theater. These were short productions which combined militant songs and poems, both retrieved from parts of poems written by poets of earlier nationalist eras or contemporary ones. The second stream was pioneered by the Philippine Educational Theater Association or PETA. For a while, PETA's main preoccupation centered in Metro Manila with its programs in developing a nationalist theater company mounting mainly plays in Filipino written by local playwrights or even translated from western sources. As they also made inroads into television like the Balintatau and training programs for actors playwrights and directors. As it envisioned to be a national theater movement, PETA began reaching out to the provinces. Its first workshop involved a church-related social action center based in Tagong, which is now part of Davao del Norte. This workshop led to the organizing of community-based theater in this locality who were producing mainly locally written plays in Cebuano The third stream was promoted by churches both Catholic and Protestant and the first one to venture into this was Father Donga Linsoga who founded the Coulombugan Dance Theater Group in Lano del Norte and he mounted plays like the Maronata. Added to this was the experience of the Mindanao Sulu Pastoral Conference Secretariat that was able to develop a Mindanao-wide network of community-based theater groups who mounted everything from Dula to Lato-Sarcella and had networks that involved various groups and the fourth stream was this movement that began in Marawi City with the entry of Frank Rivera initiated by the Mindanao State University Academic Affairs and an off-shot of Bethes Integrated Theater Arts Workshop in 1974 it involved Rivera and his early group of artists who tapped into the richness of the Maranau culture came up with a play called Mangakuentong Maranau featuring Pilandok a local trickster which is already now Mindanao and Theater Complex there until today an MSU is still very active the other one who promoted this and who founded the Kaliwa Theater Collective they produced a number of theatrical productions that tapped into the rich cultural traditions of the Lumad peoples like Sinalimba or Yaorakan along this line also his team of cultural workers immersed themselves among the Manovo Sobarakan Valley to Tabato the Zobano of Sabuanga listen to their myths and historical narratives learn their dances and music and produce unique musical plays that also at the same time expose the reasons why there is the disenfranchisement and the marginalization of the Lumads today the culture of our the Katara and other groups they have all followed the example of Kaliwa and still a few of them are still very active although quite a number are still very much university based there was even a group of all women called Bibuyan and today they are a bit disperse but every now and then they have reunion performances in the field of visual arts Bert Monterona Katige Abraham Garcia began the trend of producing paintings appropriating the images symbols, colors of the Moro and the Lumad peoples today there are quite a number of visual artists who are mountain exhibits showing works following this trend including Kublai Milan John Kias Boots, Dumlao and others so we can say that Aminda now when visual aesthetic started to arise and this attracted now buyers from Mitro Madilla and abroad and all this arose as activists and culture workers of Mindanao began to equate Filipino with being indigenous because most of the unique Moro and Lumad cultures are still very prevalent across Mindanao compared to other parts of the country lately there has been also areas that we can add to this list namely literature filmmaking and book and journal production in the program there's supposed to be a showing of one of the films that have a recent recently and which has attracted attention by winning awards at home and abroad and this would have been Ariel Barbarona's Tupo Guimatoy screening it but the filmmaker is not around so you watch that you get a good example of the kind of films, independent films that Mindanao filmmakers are doing now the years covering the late 1960s to early 1990s was perhaps the period when the movement to popularize a nationalist oriented culture with progressive content and we step into the rich indigenous cultures that have reached this peak but with the people power of the EDSA event in 1986 the consequent fragmentation among those advocating national liberation movement following the election debacle and the operation ahus which was this operation weeding out suspected deep penetration agents among the CPP NPA membership as well as the rise of globalization the advent of computer technology and information and the rise of the millennial generation all of these have led to activism in all fronts taking a noose dive so also the ranks of cultural workers whose numbers have dissipated as they grow older and needing to settle down with only a few second liners taking their place France have also become very scarce as fighting agencies moved out of the Philippines many NGO cultural institutions have folded but there's still a few brave souls who persist to keep the flame burning and it is perhaps the visual artists who are able to sustain the momentum of producing works that are still anchored in indigenous cultures because some writers very few they haven't even come up with a mid- and up-produced album lately. In terms of the theater scene it's very dismal as most community based groups are not any more mounting place the only ones that do so are those that are university based many others are content with just mounting musical productions showcasing indigenous dances and music in hotels in bars or when state and academic institutions have special occasions in the contemporary era however there are promising initiative in terms of literature book production and filmmaking lately a group of writers producing poems short stories and essays are creating waves across Mindanao especially those around the Illigan again the Oro area and Dabao regions lead by those attending creative writing workshops well most still write in English there's a great number writing in Bisaya. Their writings have found their way beyond campus publications as local papers and journals are publishing their works and publication of anthologies and book and journal publications are also appearing and possibly we can also say that most of these still cover more on Luma histories and ethnographies and as we said here already there are other areas there are other gaps that need to be filled in like studies on the peasant migrant settlers Mindanao has produced a few film makers and I have already attracted national international attention we have mentioned that already. A further boast of Mindanao's cultural legacy has been the interest on the part of local government you need to promote tourism through festivals like Dabao's Kadeyaoan, Malay Balayska Amulan and Butuan's Balangay Festival Practically every major cities and towns have their own festivals showcasing the cultures of their specific areas as this would take a few days there's a number of things and one is Beauty Contest and Chelle had already presented her paper on this this have helped promote consciousness and appreciation of local indigenous cultures as they drew huge crowds to these exhibits and events but even then there is really very good visibility and a certain need for cultural workers and researchers to do a critique of most of these festivals and lastly and I was following I'm just following on Pam's report paper this afternoon the state's National Museum tries to do its best to have cultural exhibits but they are still mainly in Manila although there are initiatives in the provinces and as Pam already indicated there is a growing number few cities now have their own museums worth exploring like Dabao, Mati, Kedapao and Kotabato Kagean de Oro their own outreach however is limited to the middle class so I end by saying that in all of this from museum to literature to films to theater the entire field of popular culture much work needs to be done the grass roots the actual communities from where many of the stories are arising from would be able to deepen their understanding of Mindanao as a living cultural landscape thank you very much good afternoon maybe field questions from here any questions for any of our speakers before we go out for coffee we could just stand up