Tabag challenged fellow members of GF to come up with GF-inspired workshops within the chapters, online or in-face for aspiring members of the different chapters
Gumil Filipinas President Ariel Sotelo Tabag has laid out a vision as part of an aggressive policy he hopes would be given flesh by members of the association following his inauguration this month as the 15th chief executive of the close-knit group.
The 44-yar-old Tabag, who studied AB Philosophy at the Our Lady Of Angels Seminary in Novaliches, Quezon City, also asked his fellow writers to help him re-energize inactive chapters of the association, which marks 55 years in October this year.
In a speech on June 24 at the Manila Prince Hotel in Ermita, Manila soon after he and other officials were administered the oath of office by the Pinili, Ilocos Norte-born former Press Secretary Herminio Coloma, the book author and multi-awarded fictionist suggested continuing Pasnaan, a workshop for young/amateur Ilokano writers and Innadal, a lecture lecture series for the Ilokano orthography and Ilokano literature in cooperation with different Local Government Units.
Tabag challenged 300 active members of GUMIL Filipinas and other Ilokano writers that their writings focus as well on the protection of the earth and the environment while uniting with others in doing research and writing about climate change.
He presented a 12-point plan he hoped, with 15 other officers with him at the helm, the new leadership would attain during their two-year term ending in 2025.
Speaking in Ilokano throughout, Tabag challenged fellow members of GF to come up with GF-inspired workshops within the chapters, online or in-face for aspiring members of the different chapters.
He asked for their support to continue the tagnawa program, a cooperative effort to produce a desired result, as a brand to produce GUMIL materials from which GF funds may be sourced, and to set up one online and physical shop to manage this.
At the same time, Tabag was clear he wanted to set up mini groups within chapters or individual performers from each chapter to revive the oral traditions of the Ilokanos and reactivate literary fairs and/or festivals to serve as book shops for books produced from northern Luzon.
Old hands in GUMIL Filipinas say literature can be an important tool for creating empathy, allowing people to see and understand the perspectives of those whose experiences may be very different from their own and ultimately creating a society based on empathy and understanding.
Tabag was spot on in his desire to revive oral traditions which include expressions whose domain encompasses an enormous variety of spoken forms including proverbs, riddles, tales, nursery rhymes, legends, myths, epic songs and poems, charms, prayers, chants, songs, dramatic performances and more.
Customs and folklore authorities say oral traditions and expressions are used to pass on knowledge, cultural and social values and collective memory, and they play a crucial part in keeping cultures alive.
They add oral tradition is important in all societies, despite the reliance of some cultures on written records and accounts.
These traditions account for the ways things are and often the way they should be, and assist people in educating the young and teaching important lessons about the past and about life.
Like other forms of intangible cultural heritage, oral traditions are threatened by rapid urbanization, large-scale migration, industrialization and environmental change.
Books, newspapers and magazines, radio, television and the Internet can have an especially damaging effect on oral traditions and expressions.
Modern mass media may significantly alter or over replace traditional forms of oral expression.
Epic poems that once took several days to recite in full may be reduced to just a few hours and traditional courtship songs that were sung before marriage may be replaced by CDs or digital music files.
With him during the two-year term are six other executive officials and eight members of the Board of Directors, and the immediate past president as ex-officio member, assisted where necessary by three consultants and seven advisers, the latter all former presidents of the association first headed by Sison Mayor Art M. Padua of Pangasinan from 1968 to 1971.
He hopes his term would also see the publication of a refurbished version of the Directory of Ilokano Writers which GF published in 1993 to mark the silver jubilee of the association, compiled by Jose Bragado and Reynaldo Duque (editor: Honor Blanco Cabie).
As the officers belly up to the bar, they have with them GUMIL Filipinas’ main objectives:
To provide a forum in which Ilokano writer can undertake common and cooperative efforts to improve their craft of writing literary, historical, research and other works;
To enrich Ilokano literature and cultural heritage as phases of the national identity by encouraging the members to concentrate on writing extensively and intensively about the social, economic, cultural and other aspects of growth and development among the Ilokanos through literature, history, research, or the like;
To publish books of poetry, short stories, essays, novels, historical accounts, research and critical studies, and other writings; and
To assist each member in pursuing his/her writing career and in fulfilling his life as a member of Philippines society.
Experts are one in saying literature confirms people’s identity and encourages them to find their own way to verbalize or write about what matters to them. Literature amplifies people’s sense of self, and in doing so, makes it possible for people to live authentically – both in writing and in their spoken words.
Literature, which mirrors the ills and the good things about society, projects the virtues and values in the society for people to emulate.
In its corrective function, literature, according to experts, mirrors the ills of the society with a view to making the society realize its mistakes and make amends. It also projects the virtues or good values in the society for people to emulate.