The highlight of this year’s Summit was the involvement of the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy, Ms. Leslie Bassett, who delivered an eye-opening and inspiring presentation about the contributions her government has made to the progress of Mindanao. Ambassador Kristie Kenney, who is a blogger herself, graciously sent in a video greeting as well.

There were only about 80 Summiteers who attended MBS3 (not counting the members of the core group, organizers and speakers); however, it was good to see first-timers and bloggers from never-before-represented cities such as Ozamis and Dipolog. It is one of the objectives of Mindanao Bloggers to see more and more places in Mindanao become part of the Community.

Friends from Metro Manila graced the 3rd Summit, as resource speakers and as guests. We are ever grateful to Aileen Apolo and Janette Toral for the high-value content that they have been contributing to the Summit ever since its inception.

In behalf of the Community, we would like to express our grateful appreciation of the warm welcome extended to the bloggers of Mindanao by Mayor Tinnex Jaraula. The good mayor delivered a rousing speech about what bloggers could accomplish towards addressing issues affecting the Philippine South.

There were quite a few politicians who joined the bloggers at MBS3 — this was expected, owing to the upcoming elections early next year. It was good for the bloggers to hear directly from the candidates about their political platforms and advocacies. However, it should be reiterated that the Mindanao Bloggers Community is a non-partisan entity and does not endorse any candidate or political party.

PBA’09 – Mindanao

What made MBS3 unique was the hosting of the Philippine Blog Awards 2009 – Mindanao Region on the same day. This was the first time that the PBA has held a regional awards effort, and we would like to give honor to the Awardees:

• Uniquely Mindanao Blog: Hola Zamboanga!
• Mindanao Destination Blog: GenSan Online News Mag
• Mindanao Advocacy Blog: SOCSARGEN Peace Initiatives
• Mindanao Bloggers’ Choice Award: DavaoBase

Present during the Awards Night were PBA President Juned Sonido, and Coy Caballes, who directed all three Awards Nights (the main event in Quezon City, and the ones in Cebu and Cagayan de Oro). Also attending MBS3 and PBA’09-Mindanao was Jay De Jesus of TitikPilipino.com.

The next Summit

In order to apprise the assembled participants of the latest developments in established blogging communities across the island, four speakers presented the highlights of the past year’s activities in their localities. Dr. Jaime Haw Jr. did the presentation for Davao City; Avel Manansala for General Santos City; Ryann Elumba for the Zamboanga Peninsula; and Edu Ragpala for the host city.

At the conclusion of MBS 2009, the next host city for the 4th Mindanao Bloggers Summit was announced to a cheering audience. Zamboanga City will be the destination of the bloggers of Mindanao (and friends) in October 2010.

Kudos to the bloggers of Cagayan de Oro! And see you all in Zamboanga next year!

The Zambo bloggers started becoming active and participatory in the Mindanao Bloggers Community around last year. They even sent tentative feelers to the MB core group as to the possibility of their hosting MBS3. This is a clear indication that they could very well be prepared for the opportunity to host the 4th Summit next year…

Present during the meet-up at the Country Food & Tea House (excellent choices of loose-leaf tea, by the way) were Yolynne, Ryann, Jerome, Pics, Jet, James (aka “John Lazy”), Cedric, and others. Some of those who came had never before met their fellow Zamboangueño bloggers. And this is why I found the meet-up gratifiying: because there is an apparent willingness to strengthen the local bloggers’ group in Zamboanga.

I was also able to meet a couple of Tausug bloggers, and they told us that they have a very active group of about 50, and they blog about Moro and Muslim topics, among others. Getting to know them, especially Nur Danial, was an eye opener for me, and has made my resolve to broaden the scope of the Mindanao Bloggers Community even stronger.

We’ll hear more about what’s been going on with the bloggers of Zamboanga Peninsula from Ryann Elumba, who will deliver a report at MBS3. Ryann is the blogger behind Hola Zamboanga!, and the one who designed the creatives for MBS2.

Last 19 October, I also went to Isabela City, Basilan. Another first for me! I’d like to express my gratitude to Yolynne for introducing me to RJ Ian, who took the entire day off on a Monday to show me his beautiful city. Thanks to RJ, I was able to visit some schools in Isabela and encourage high school and college students to take up blogging. We certainly need more man-on-the-street accounts of what’s really happening on the much-maligned island of Basilan.

I’ll certainly make a trip to the Zamboanga Peninsula again soon and, God willing, for a much longer stay. I’d love to be able to visit Pagadian and Ipil, as well as other places in Basilan Province. I’ve visited Dapitan and Dipolog back in 1996, but going back to those places to get acquainted with the bloggers there is on my priority list.

Muchas gracias, amigos de Zamboanga!

Diagnosed with mild learning disability during childhood, Ben’s focus of attention has always been his art. Rightly so. In 2002, he won first place in the Asian Fellowship Painting Competition of the prestigious Vermont Studio Center launched from Vermont, USA. Last year, in New York City, where he based himself after his Vermont fellowship, he was the only Filipino among the more than seventy international, surreal visual artists featured in the grandest-ever birth anniversary celebration of John Milton and what is considered as the greatest English poem, his Paradise Lost (see photo).

666 Screaming by Ben Banez

Earlier, in 2004, the president and executive director of Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in Brooklyn, NYC, while viewing Ben’s painting, commented to a fashion photographer that Banez is the “greatest living surrealist from the Philippines.” This comment from contemporary Surrealism’s prime mover, Terrance Lindall, himself the organizer of Milton’s biggest birthday bash, may have been trivially said. But today it is qualified by another achievement in Banez’s career: his name, profile, and sample work recently are published in a German edition of “The International Encyclopedia of Fantastic, Surrealist, Symbolist, & Visionary Artists” or Lexikon Surreal for short. Thus, Bienvenido Bones Banez, again the only Filipino in the inventory, now appears along with Surrealism greats such as Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs, Keith Wigdor, and Jon Beinart to name a few, in the same book.

In page 35 of Lexikon Surreal, Banez’s work, “666 Screaming,” appears in full color (photo); while in page 44 his profile is printed in German. Translated into English, it reads:

BANEZ JR. BIENVENIDO BONES

(Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines, 1962- ) Filipino visionary, male, lives and works in the USA. Studied in the Ford Academy of the Arts in Davao City, Island of Mindanao; associate professor in the Philippine Women’s College-Davao. 2002 winner in the Asian Fellowship Painting Competition of the Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, USA., and has lived since in the USA.

If greatness also means winning an international art fellowship, the admiration of a globally-distinguished artist organizer, and being genus among a roster of historical figures and international achievers, then, this Mindanaoan artist has at least cut himself a slice of the surreal pie.

Banez’s art is expression of belief in Evil gaining dominion over the Earth. Injustice, inequity, conflicts, wars, environmental destruction, and human suffering—all these, manifestations of the rule of Evil—a perception old as Judaeo-Christian doomsday prophets and feasted upon by the human mind ancient to modern.

What makes Banez a paradox among surrealists is his depiction of hellish conditions not as murky depths, but psychedelic sceneries where spectra of colors enthrall viewers. Figures—human, geometric or biomorphic curiosities—lose tactility and become translucent images and luminosities swirling, shimmering, or disintegrating in a world bereft of gravity.

Marvelous colors, resembling jewelry and precious stones, at closer look turn out to be viral, cellular infections, acid-chemical concentrates, or spreading volcanic lava, eating up human figures, corrupting techno systems, and contaminating the cosmos—the artist’s vision of bio-chemical warfare, pandemics, and natural catastrophe combined to destroy the Establishment. Neonlike brushstrokes snake through his canvases—flowing traffic that entangle on physical perversions and gets jammed on a plexus of human agony nestled on infernal flame.

Esthetically mesmerizing the colors are in a Banez canvas, the portrayed perversion and misery of humankind are as morbid and offensive to good taste. Apparently, the artist captures the viewer with chromatic wonder; then, in succeeding moments, pounces on his cognitive faculties with horrors of the wages of sin. This visual irony fits well with Surrealism as originally defined by spokesperson Andre Breton: Beauty must be convulsive, or nothing! This context, Banez earned his ticket to the theater of the absurd where Hieronymus Bosch and company once sat and dreamed.

It is notable that Banez, despite his psychedelic colors, is no drug abuser. His recent works indicate he evolved from common representational surrealism into surreal abstraction, his figures and images losing physical and material volume, reduced to astral constituency, something only the very rare eye of contemplation could see.

Achieving surrealism by abstraction is not common turf of surrealists down history. This is what Banez should look forward to and discover the other half of man’s nature created not to languish in murky infernal depths. It does not set him apart from his fellow Filipinos but pulls them up as artists universal as any other race.

Lexikon Surreal is authored by Gerhard Habarta. Measuring 9 x 6.75 inches, it is printed hardcover, with ribbon. It contains 1,122 artist biographies from 69 countries in 464 pages, with 950 black and white and 458 color reproductions.
For more information visit www.lexikon-surreal.com.

“iBlogforPeace seeks to broaden the discourse on peace by providing an online platform for civil society, particularly the unorganized and the bloggers community, to take part in the conversations in their own contexts and engage in dialogues with kindred individuals and groups such as peace advocates. It hopes to help influence and change dominant public opinion and culture skewed towards armed and violent resolutions of conflicts and convey the urgency of fostering a culture where peace can thrive.”

Mainstream media, in struggling with the balance between fair reporting and “entertainment value”, fails time and again in portraying the whole truth when it comes to Mindanao issues. This is especially true when it comes to news coverage about conflict between Muslims and Christians, government forces and rebels, etc. This was the main point of discussion during MediaNation 5.2, to which I was invited to contribute my thoughts. MediaNation is an annual conference participated in by the country’s distinguished tri-media industry decision-makers.

Bloggers, through their down-to-earth and man-on-the-street reportage, are viewed as potential providers of the much-needed balance.

The objectives which led to the formation of the Mindanao Bloggers Community coincide with the objectives of iBlogforPeace. Thus, IID has invited MBC to be a partner in the iBlogforPeace initiative. Together, a greater awareness of the real issues — and hopefully, the real solutions — might be achieved.

Please help spread the word. You, the blogger, may take part by actively writing about peace, and about iBlogforPeace. You could also display the iBlogforPeace badge on your blog. When more people become mindful of peace initiatives and join discussions with a growing number of concerned individuals, sustainable progress in communities and self-determination of peoples will have a chance at last.

DCM Leslie Bassett

Unprecedented in the Philippine blogosphere, a dignitary of a foreign mission will be taking part in the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit this month. The United States Embassy, whose ambassador has been known to frequent Mindanao on many official trips, will be represented by the Deputy Chief of Mission, Ms. Leslie A. Bassett, who will deliver the keynote address on 24 October 2009.

Originally, U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney had enthusiastically agreed to grace the MBS3. Unfortunately, Ms. Kenney–who had earlier met with the Mindanao Bloggers in Davao–had to beg off due to urgent matters this month. But, we’re very happy to welcome Ms. Bassett to MBS3 and Cagayan de Oro City. According to her office, this will be her first trip second visit to Mindanao.

The newly-appointed DCM arrived in Manila on 26 June 2009, after previously serving as DCM in Mexico. She has been assigned by the U.S. State Department to Botswana, Colombia, Israel, South Africa, El Salvador and Nicaragua. In the State Department, Ms. Bassett worked for the Under Secretary for Political Affairs and at the National Security Council. She is a distinguished graduate of the National War College, holds a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and received her undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of California at Davis.

We look forward to a meaningful meeting with DCM Leslie Bassett, and a wonderful experience with all participating bloggers at MBS3 in Cagayan de Oro this month!

The theme of this year’s PBA is One Blogging Nation.

For us in the South, it was decided by the MBC core group, along with the bloggers of CDO, to hold PBA-Mindanao in Cagayan de Oro City, on the same day as the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit. What this means is, there will be special awards exclusively for Mindanaoan blogs (the same is true for Visayas blogs). There are four special awards for Mindanao:

Mindanao Advocacy Blog

In line with the objectives of the Mindanao Bloggers Community, the Best Advocacy Blog is a blog that exemplifies how an online publication can bring a worthy cause to the consciousness of a broad audience. It is a blog that inspires its readers to take action and participate in an ongoing discussion of the issues at hand. Special points go to blogs that promote the best and true images of Mindanao.

Mindanao PhotoBlog

The Best PhotoBlog is one that brings the most beautiful images of Mindanao to the fore. It is a blog that evokes passion and inspiration, and clearly shows the blogger’s love for Mindanao. However, it must not be a site that harbors untrue or doctored images that lie about the true nature of Mindanao’s land and people.

Uniquely Mindanao Blog

This blog, as soon as it is viewed, is clearly identifiable as being from and about Mindanao. It evokes a feeling of belongingness among Mindanao readers, and an appreciation and understanding of what Mindanao truly is among non-Mindanaoan readers. The Uniquely Mindanao Blog champions the objectives of the Mindanao Bloggers Community, and contributes to the realization of these goals.

Mindanao Destination Blog

Beyond being merely a blog geared towards tourism, the Best Destination Blog strongly represents the locale (city, town, region) that the bloggers writes about. This blog is passionate about the promotion of his or her chosen locale for tourism and/or business, and publishes news and opinion articles for a well-rounded view of the destination.

To be considered for the PBA, you must nominate your own blog; or, you can recommend a blog for nomination. The process is quick and painless. Just submit your blog and follow the instructions. (There is one glitch, though: if you want to nominate more than one blog, you must use a different email address for each submission.)

There are many, many deserving blogs out there. Mindanao bloggers can certainly win in the PBA Major Categories, too, but let’s nominate blogs that deserve to win in the special Mindanao Awards categories. This is very much in line with the MBC’s objectives: to bring out blog content from Mindanao out into the open.

The deadline for submission of nominations for Mindanao and Visayas special awards has been extended to the 27th of August 2009.

The event will be on the 24th of October 2009 at Pearlmont Inn, Limketkai Drive. Program starts at 8am to 5pm. Also, this year’s theme is: “Mindanao Bag-ohon ang Panan-aw” or “Changing the way people see Mindanao”, which aims to uphold Mindanao through the nice things and places it has to offer and expunge the negative notions the world has about it.

I bet you the bloggers of Mindanao, wherever you are right now, are all excited about the MBS3! For those who are interested to join, please sign up in our Pre-Registration Form.  Cagayan de Oro is waiting for you!

In attendance were GenSan’s bloggers, both seasoned and neophyte, all under the tutelage of Avel Manansala. It was a good group, coming from various age groups, interests and backgrounds.

I was able to introduce WordPress to the participants, and hopefully, allow them to appreciate the power and flexibility of this awesome blogging platform. Admittedly, at present very few bloggers in GenSan use WordPress. But after that first seminar, I am hoping that the numbers will increase. Especially that more and more bloggers there are getting into niche blogging and content specialization, I am counting on their looking to WordPress as their next publishing medium.

Lyle was “discovered” during the 2nd Mindanao Bloggers Summit last year in this city, when he was asked on the spot to give an impromptu presentation on Google AdSense. He is quite the speaker — very engaging and interesting. And so, I look forward to doing more blogging seminars in tandem with him in the near future.

I’d like to thank Avel for making the blogging seminar possible, as well as Coffee Club 101 for hosting the group for two days. This coffee shop is most certainly a blogger-friendly establishment — and serves quality coffee to boot!

Speaking of which, the bloggers of Cagayan de Oro are also conducting a similar event this week. Kudos to ChiQ Montes and her crew for this effort! Blog on!

Spearheading the CDO bloggers’ group is ChiQ Montes, who is a Web developer and WordPress themes designer. She was also one of the tireless volunteers of WordCamp Philippines 2008, held in Manila last 6 September 2008.

As with the past two Summits, MBS3 will be held sometime in October. I will leave it to ChiQ and her group to announce further details — exact date(s), venue, program, etc. — as they get finalized. I sincerely hope that we will see even more bloggers from more places in Mindanao (and beyond) attending the Summit in 2009.

In behalf of the Mindanao Bloggers core group — Andrew, Ria, MiGs™ and Winston — I’d like to extend our congratulations to the CDO Bloggers! You have our full confidence and support!

This group is now being led by Chiq Montes, who was one of the tireless volunteers at WordCamp Philippines 2008. Last 8 December, I also got to know Goma, Bang, Ding, Cloyd, Robstroy (who was also at MBS2), Amelia (whom I had already met last June 2007), and Mike Abonitalla.

They’re a fun bunch, and they seem to have just the right amount of enthusiasm to be able to sustain their presence in Northern Mindanao. They were very eager to learn about the experiences of the Davao and General Santos groups. The CDO bloggers are rarin’ to be a much more active part of the Mindanao Bloggers community.

It is indeed remarkable that groups of people who are geographically, socially and even religiously disparate can come together as one cohesive community. Beyond the cities of Davao, General Santos, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro, other areas are now coming online: Dipolog, Malaybalay / Valencia, Kidapawan…. I just wish I could touch base with the bloggers of all these places very soon!!

The CDO group is obviously very excited about the prospect of hosting the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit. Well, the core group of MB originators (Andrew, Ria, Migs, Winston and yours truly) are going to arrive at a decision very soon.

Cagayan de Oro is one very progressive city. At a casual glance, it’s very hard to tell whether Davao City is still in the lead in terms of development. Population- and geography-wise, Davao is still much bigger, but CDO is clearly making large strides towards economic and social progress. As a destination, the city of golden friendship is more than ready to host the Summit in October 2009.

Kudos and more power to the bloggers of CDO!!!