This column celebrates the vibrant literary culture and heritage of Dumaguete City, in anticipation of its bid to be designated as UNESCO City of Literature under the Creative Cities Network. It is produced by the Buglas Writers Guild, a network of literary artists from Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, and Siquijor. Each week, we will focus on the work of one local writer. For this month, the guest editor is Dumaguete fictionist Ian Rosales Casocot.
___________
The unique thing about Dumaguete’s bid for UNESCO City of Literature is inscribed in its chosen narrative tag, which is to situate Dumaguete as a “City of Stories.” This means celebrating the literary heritage of the city in the way literature has always been seen traditionally—which is primarily through the poems and fiction and essays and dramas published as books by its writers; but also looking beyond just books, and seeing other avenues of expressive writing as literature.
This means considering screenplay writing as literature—and Dumaguete has a burgeoning film culture, as embodied by the local filmmakers championed by Lutas Film Festival, and the fact that one of our homegrown National Artists is Eddie Romero, who was recognized for his body of films.
And this also means considering songwriting as literature—and Dumaguete has a rich heritage of music writing [and exemplary performances] that actually also qualify it to become a UNESCO City of Music. [And yes, songwriting is literature. Which is why Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature for that.]
One of our foremost examples of Dumaguete’s songwriting heritage is the Valentine Songwriting Competition, perhaps the oldest music tilt of its kind in the Philippines, and which has continuously run almost every year since it was established. It started on a lark in 1990, the brainchild of music faculty Elman Caguindangan. He wanted to have an exclusive competition among the composition majors of the then SU School of Music & Fine Arts [now the College of Performing & Visual Arts]. He would serve as the primary music arranger, and then used as a lynchpin the genre of the love song. The event was also initiated by Sigma Mu Lambda, the organization of music students, and it was held at the old Music Sala of Guy Hall, where the Music School was previously located.
The first winner was Casmelyn Joy Quicoy, a popular campus singer, who won for the song It’s Hard to Find Someone Like You. For her win, she was awarded a hefty cash prize of P300. [Second place, meanwhile, went to Maria Rosario ‘Mimi’ Mercador, who won for the song, Valentine Forever.]
By the second year, the contest was opened to non-music majors studying at Silliman who would compete in their own category separate from the music majors. [This distinction would eventually fall away in 1995 as the contest became institutionalized, and would later become a major February event spearheaded by both the College and the SU Culture & Arts Council.]
In the 1991 tilt, one of the hopefuls was a young Suzanne Antoniette Lu [now Bescara]. She was an Accountancy major [eventually graduating magna cum laude], and was part of the Student Government at that time—and the body was co-sponsoring the event. She remembers joining the tilt because of peer pressure: “All the SUSG officers [at that time] were anxious because we were co-sponsoring the VSC, and as far as we knew, wala pa’y ni-submit. So we all tried to make a song! Luckily for me, I had a ‘musical bone.’ So I used this story of two of my old classmates—one from elementary school and the other from high school—who both ended up dating in college. But the boy was a ‘chick-boy,’ and the girl was demure—so they were really from two different worlds! They actually ended up getting married.” From that, she penned her song, Two Different Worlds:
Boy: I’ve been a wanderer all my life, falling in and out of love / Until I gazed into your eyes, I finally found what I’ve been looking for.
Girl: I’ve been a loner all my life, wondering when my time would come / Until the day I saw your smile, I finally found the love I’ve been looking for.
Boy: But could I ever win your love?
Girl: Could I ever trust my heart to you?
Both: We come from different worlds you and I, Could our love survive
Chorus: Two different worlds, oh how different could they be. /This love will transcend, all the barriers that stand. /Two different worlds, oh let’s give this love a chance. I know if we try. We’ll make our world, you and I.
Boy: And now I found my home in you.
Girl: My life’s not empty anymore.
Boy: I’m glad I gazed into your eyes
Girl: Saw in your smile
Both: The love I’ve been looking for.
[Repeat Chorus]
Coda: And now I found my home in you. My life’s not empty anymore.
Suzanne, needless to say, won 1st prize for her category that year. [Quicoy, the first VSC winner, again won, but for the category reserved for music majors, for the song, Time Heals.] The music bug bit hard for Suzanne, and she joined again in the next year’s edition, this time for a song that had a Wilson Philips-vibe. She eventually garnered 2nd place—which is not bad for someone who just went into songwriting on a whim.
Today, Suzanne is considered a pioneering BPO leader in Dumaguete City. A certified public accountant, she has blazed trails as an auditor, a banker, and a software analyst before coming home to Dumaguete in 2004 to be part of the core team that established the Dumaguete site of what was then SPi. She is currently the site director of outsourcing provider Inspiro Relia Inc. Dumaguete, and president of the Information & Communications Technology Association of Dumaguete and Negros Oriental.
And the VSC continues this year, slated on Feb. 14 at the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium.
Over the years, the VSC has also seen major evolutions, including the first win for a Bisaya song for Earnest Hope Tinambacan, for Mata sa Mata in 2005. He wanted to submit a song in that language because, according to him, “I’ve always written in Binisaya since akong training ground sa songwriting is in the church. But my song was [a controversial win]. I was told by some little birds na dili daw dapat makasulod sa top ten kay it was ‘too serious’ for a Bisaya song.” He won anyway.
