Folkerie

As a follow-up to the previous post about kudyapi (2-stringed lute), I give you the master himself, Manlilikha ng Bayan Samaon Sulaiman , a folk music artist from Maganoy, Maguindanao. He was awarded the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (National Living Treasure Award) in 1993. As envisioned under R.A. 7355, “Manlilikha ng Bayan” shall mean a citizen engaged in any traditional art uniquely Filipino whose distinctive skills have reached such a high level of technical and artistic excellence and have been passed on to and widely practiced by the present generation in his/her community with the same degree of technical and artistic competence. ~ NCCA He died in May of last year. A year later the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) paid tribute to Sulaiman with Mamayog: the Music of Samaon Sulaiman , a set of audio recordings with a book containing more than 300 pages of transcriptions of these recordings and a monograph about the Maguindanaon kutyapi, published by the Gawad ...

by Fr. Joemar Sibug, OP (from his Slice of Life column) photo courtesy Hans Brandeis I ARRIVED in Davao City for my new assignment last September 5, 2011. One of the things we needed for our mission house in Bajada was a bell. Our religious community uses the bell for our wake up call in the morning. We also use the bell to gather the members of our community, like for example at meal time and prayer time. And so I tried to look for a bell in Aldevinco. I was hoping to find one that is “Mindanao inspired” and at the same time functional – one that would fit the purpose. Then I chanced upon this souvenir store that sells all sorts of “antiques” or old items. They have a wide range of items for sale – from small furniture, to house decors and traditional musical instruments of Mindanao. They also have what I was looking for – bells of various sizes and sounds. It took me a while to finally choose and buy a bell that will answer our need. But what caught my attention was the array of tw...