‘Siete Palabras 2013’ adapts ‘new media,’ reaches out to Filipinos abroad

Cultural presentation during the Siete Palabras program

A KEY Lenten program on Philippine TV, “Siete Palabras”—the communal recitation of the Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ, which are accompanied by reflections from priests and testimonies from lay people—is an experience  Filipinos overseas surely miss during the Holy Week, said a Dominican priest who had directed the program for half a decade now.

“In the past years, we have received requests from Filipinos abroad to make the program available to them because, even if they are no longer in the Philippines, they still desire to be one with us in celebrating the Holy Week,” said Christopher Jeffrey Aytona, OP, assistant director of the Social Communications Division of the Institute of Preaching.

Dipolog international fest fetes gong, bamboo music

Vietnamese duo of Ho Khac Chi and Hoang Ngoc Bic. Lord Norven Namoc

THE MUSIC BORNE out of playing gongs and bamboo instruments cannot simply be dismissed as an obfuscated form of entertainment, for it has always been a mirror of “a life of spirituality, subsistence, and of communing with nature in this part of the world,” said National Artist-designate Ramon P. Santos during the first international gongs-and-bamboo music festival, held Feb. 19-22 in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte.

“There’s a need to trace the roots of these musical traditions in Southeast Asia to fully appreciate and explore their significance,” he added.

Jane Arrieta Ebarle’s ‘Hibla’ series off to New York

Hibla 44

IT IS SAID that when an artist paints, she seems to go through a trance, one that brings her to an abyss of colors, forms and shapes, where thoughts do not exist.

Time may stand still but the hands move. The eyes would follow them while the body gestures according to the form that is slowly creating itself on the canvas.

When Jane Arrieta Ebarle starts to paint, she does not live in this world anymore. She seems to transcend from a mind of chaos to the silence of some place where even she doesn’t  know herself.

“It is only the viewer with an open-ended understanding of art who can appreciate abstract art,” said Ebarle.