Dinosaurs Once Roam This Land

They used to dominate the Negros landscape with their huge frame and the thunder of their approach can be heard even from a distance. A welcome disturbance in a bucolic landscape for it means it is already milling season. The climax of the 9-12 months of waiting for the canes to be harvested.

Steam locomotives or Iron Dinosaurs as we call them were used to transport harvested sugarcane from the fields to the sugar centrals for milling. The Insular Lumber Company (ILCO) also used steam locomotives in transporting lumber from the mountains to their sawmill at Fabrica, Sagay City. These magnificent machines are a big part of Negros’ history as  much as the sugar industry.

Today, Negros Island produces approximately 56% of the total cane production of the Philippines. Of the 30  sugar mills in the Philippines, 12 can be found in Negros.* It’s no wonder then that the sugar industry is a major force that shaped the history of Negros.

The sugar industry was introduced in Negros during the Spanish period and by the 1860s Negros was the leading producer of sugar in the Philippines. When Negros sugar industry was shaken by the much publicized crisis in the 1980s, 85% of Negros population fell below the poverty line. Since then, it was an uphill battle for the sugar stakeholders. Several sugar mills were eventually closed down.

Consequently, the closure of the sugar centrals spelled the end to most steam locomotives.  Some were sold to mining companies in the country while some were saved and displayed for posterity as a bittersweet remembrance of the once thriving industry. Others suffered a grimmer fate and were sold as scraps.

Steam locomotive enthusiasts of  FarRail.com of Germany visited Negros in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In the last year of their visit, they were in for some disappointments. Of the 12 sugar mills in Negros, only two are still operating their railway with steam locomotives, the Hawaiian-Philippine Company and Central Azucarera de Bais. The good news is that Central Azucarera de Bais is not planning on closing their railway operation. However, the condition of the Hawaiian-Philippine railway has made Bernd Seiler of FarRail to conclude,

Time has passed over the island and taken away the experience and left broken tracks and blocked boilers.

The chapter of sugar cane lines in the Philippines has almost come to an end.

The fate of the Iron Dinosaurs is a sad reminder of the glory days lost. The year 2008 may be the last year that steam enthusiasts of FarRail.com will ever visit Negros. With only a few railways in operation, traveling all the way from Germany is no longer practical.

Hopefully, a sugar museum will eventually be put up in order to preserve what’s left of the Iron Dinosaurs. In this way, that future generations will have a glimpse of the past and will appreciate the contributions that the sugar industry made in Negros and in the Philippines in general.

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*Directory of Sugar Mills, Crop Year 2008-2009. www.sra.gov.ph
Photos from FarRail.com are used with permission.

The Blade Salon & Spa Opens Branch in Mambukal

The Blade Spa @ Mambukal is now open to serve you.

The formal opening was held today, June 20, 2009, to coincide with the Mambukal Mudpack Festival. The occasion was graced by Negros Occidental Provincial Board Member Patrick Lacson.

The Blade Spa @ Mambukal wishes to offer relaxation services to the guests at the resort. Clients can first take a bath at the Sulfuric Hot Springs Pool just beside the spa. Afterwards, they can get a relaxing Swedish massage for one hour at The Blade Spa. Other services include Body Scrub, Facial, Foot Massage and Manicure or Pedicure.

With the opening of The Blade Spa @ Mambukal, the natural healing properties of the resort has taken a new dimension. Wellness is now the thrust at the resort as well as relaxation. Mambukal Resort is no longer just a venue for family recreation, it has now become a wellness destination.

All the therapists at The Blade Spa have undergone intensive training to ensure the quality of the service they provide.

The Blade Spa @ Mambukal is open daily, from 10Am to 11PM. They also offer cottage service, with the last call at 10PM.

Text and photos by: Sigrid Lo
Visit The Blade Salon & Spa Website

2009 Mudpack Festival in Pictures

The Mudpack festival is celebrated to pay homage to mother Earth and to nurture its preservation. It is the Negrenses’ way of giving importance to the environment. Through the festival, it is hope to raise the level of awareness of the people on environmental issues.

The 2009 Mudpack Festival drew in huge crowd including foreigners. The Mambukal Mountain Resort was fully-booked weeks before the scheduled Mudpack Festival.

Winners are of the various Mudpack competitions were:

Chants and stunts competition- Tribu Kasanag

Drumbeating  -  Tribu Ilahas

Dance – Tribu Poseidon for the dance category

Mixed Media Art – Kenneth Po

Poster Making- Princess Angie Gardos

Ms. Earth Mudpack – Miss Doanne Stephanie M. Peraren

Here are pictures of the Mudpack Festival courtesy of  Annie May Valdez.

Organic Trade Fair Opens at Robinsons

The “Organik Market Fair” opened today at the Robinsons Place Bacolod in connection with the Celebrationof the Provincial Environment Week with the theme “Climate Change Adaptation & Mitigation Through Organic Agriculture.

Organic products form the members of the Organik na Negros! Organic Producers and Retailers Association (ONOPRA) will be on display until June 24, 2009. Organic products for sale are rice, corn, papaya, banana, herbs, fruit wine, and other processed food.

Please visit the booths at the Robinsons fountain area and help support the organic producers in Negros. There will also be lectures and forums on topics related to climate change and organic agriculture.

If interested, here’s the schedule of the activities:

Date & Time	Activity
Day 1: June 22, 2009
11:00 am	Opening of Market Fair
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm	Risks of genetically-modified organisms (GMO) to the Environment and Health
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm	Climate Change on the Point of View of Organic Agriculture
Day 2: June 23, 2009
10:30 am – 12:00 nn	Marketing Opportunities for Organic Products
	-Guidelines & Criteria for membership on ONOPRA
	- Local Organic Standards & Certification of Organic Products
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm	Living Life to the Fullest with Proper Food and Nutrition
3:30 pm – 4:00 pm	Climate Change Adaptation through Appropriate Technologies
June 24, 2009
10:00 am – 12:00 nn	Eco Quiz
PM	Video Showing of all initiatives done on Organic Agriculture in Negros Occidental

Victorias City’s Church of the Angry Christ

Church of the Angry Christ. The name invokes a sense of wonder. Perhaps because anger is one of the seven deadly sins and it’s strange that a Catholic Church would associate Christ with it.

I haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Church of the Angry Christ even though I often visit Victorias City. It was unfortunate also that when we visited several Negros Occidental churches, the Church of the Angry Christ was one of the churches we were not able to visit. So when a friend offered to take me there, I did not hesitate to accept the invitation.

The Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker, commonly known as the Church of the Angry Christ is located inside the Victoria’s Milling Company (VMC) compound. The company built the church to serve the Catholic employees and their families living inside the VMC community composed of seven barangays.

When VMC was in a financial crisis in the 1990s, most people feared that if ever the sugar refinery would be closed, the church would eventually be neglected. Fortunately, both did not suffer such a gloomy fate. VMC has recovered and the Church of the Angry Christ continues to draw art aficionados and Catholic faithfuls from around the world.

Roman Catholic Churches in the Philippines would have an icon or image of Jesus Christ that has  a gentle and merciful expression. However, the Church of Angry Christ defied tradition by portraying Jesus Christ with a fierce expression in its very famous mural.

The church apparently got its now famous name when a foreign journalist called it the Church of the Angry Christ in an article featured in Life Magazine. Another uniqueness of the church is that it depicts Mary and Joseph to have brown skin in traditional Filipino attire and the characters in the Fourteen Stations of the Cross wearing Filipino clothes.

Just imagine the reaction of the townspeople and church officials when they first saw the church mural when it was completed in 1949. Many conservatives probably raised their eyebrows and considered it inappropriate for a church. The combined imagery, vibrant colors and the size of the mural makes it an overwhelming picture to look at. Today, upon seeing the Church, one would wonder who the people responsible for designing this magnificent church were.

I was fortunate that my hosts were from Victorias City with family members previously working with VMC. They provided me with valuable information from the Church brochure and from the stories that circulated inside VMC.

The Church of the Angry Christ was designed and built by Anthony Raymond, who was Frank Lloyd Wright’s apprentice in his architectural firm in New York. Frank Lloyd Wright was considered the greatest American architect of all time, as voted by the American Institute of Architects.

The Church’s building architectural design was modern and futuristic. The building is made up of two sections, the nave and the tower. They are connected by movable beams holding the building up well even during earthquakes. This is a well thought design since the Philippines is in an earthquake belt. The church was constructed for air and light to keep churchgoers comfortable even in Philippine climate where it gets uncomfortably hot during summer.

The Belgian liturgical artist Ade de Bethuene was commissioned to design the decoration of the church’s baptism room. Bethuene opted for mosaic using broken glass gathered by the residents of the mill.

For the baptistery she depicted Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan, and for the facade showed three scenes from the life of St. Joseph, namely, the marriage to Mary, the workshop at Nazareth, and the death of Joseph. For the sides other scenes from the life of Joseph were depicted.

Local artists were also employed to work on the church. Benjamin Valenciano, a carpenter from Victorias, did the images of Mary and Joseph, the crucifix and the Stations of the Cross. Arcadio Anore, a local engraver, executed Bethuene’s designs for the brass plates decorating the pulpit, baptistery and other parts of the church.

The world famous mural decoration of the Church was done by Alfonso A. Ossorio, the son of Don Miguel J. Ossorio who founded and at that time the owner of Victorias Milling Company. Alfonso A. Ossorio was a Filipino-born American abstract expressionist artist of Hispanic, Filipino, and Chinese ancestry. He studied Fine Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachussets, U.S.A. and continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Prior to coming to Victorias to do the mural decoration at the behest of his family who owned VMC, Alfonso Ossorio was already a well-known abstract expressionist artist in New York who became friends with famous abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still.

Ossorio spent 11 months in Victorias City doing the mural decoration. Ossorio used ethyl silicate 40 as painting medium as recommended to him by Ralph Mayer, a paint chemist, to be appropriate for the tropics. The mural which was finished in 1949, has not been retouched until now but the bright colors still looks magnificent.

Ossorio explained in his own words the subject of the mural as follows:

“The subject was worked out in terms of the main action that takes place in the sanctuary, which is the sacrifice of the mass. I had a large seated figure of Christ with hands open, supported by the hands of God the Father that came out of the blue. Adam on one side, Joseph and John the Baptist on the other, Mary, and the beloved disciple, John the Evangelist. Then there were four angels of the Last Judgment, the four trumpeters. And on the beam facing the congregation there was the roll of those who are called, with the triangle, the old Masonic symbol.”

. . .it is the Last Judgment, it’s a continual last judgment with the sacrifice of the mass that is the continual reincarnation of God coming into this world. And it worked out beautifully because the services take place usually very early because of the heat and the church had been oriented so that the sun would come in and strike the celebrant as he stood at the altar with this enormous figure behind him. It worked, if I do say so myself. And although they loathed it at the time it was done it is almost now a place of pilgrimage.”

Indeed, the Church of the Angry Christ has become a cultural religious icon and a symbol of avant garde art. The church features the works of world famous artists that should be preserved for other generations to appreciate. I agree with the many artists who advocate that the church be declared as a Filipino Heritage Site to ensure its preservation.

The church is open to those who want to visit and take a look at the famous mural. Victorias City is 34 kilometers from Bacolod City and can be reached by jeepney or bus. Upon reaching the intersection of the main highway and the road leading to VMC, take a tricycle to the church.

References:

• St. Joseph the Worker Church Brochure
• Alfonso Ossorio interview, 1968 Nov. 19, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
• Panublion – Heritage Site for the Visayan Islands in the Philippines

RatedX Underwear Show

It’s already rainy season but something sizzling hot is about to happen in Bacolod City. Ad Group Promotions Philippines and MMJ Ad Mark Promotions in cooperation with Casino Filipino – PAGCOR Bacolod proudly present – RATED X – a celebrity underwear fashion show featuring  Bacolod’s top models on July 18, 2009 8pm at the PAGCOR Amphitheater, Casino Filipino Hotel – Bacolod City.

RATED X : One Night Only will present a sizzling night of hottest sexy lingerie created by Bacolod’s next top underwear fashion designers soon to hit the country’s newest online underwear shop.

Witness an eye-popping production design by Manila’s best creative team, along with 19 gorgeous models, newest underwear designers and two hottest celebrities, Viva Hotbabe Hazel Cabrera and PBB Hunk Rico Barrera.

This event is sponsored by the following media partners:

5,000 Volunteered for Bacolod Human Flag

Bacolod City may have failed in bagging the biggest human flag but the 5,000 strong human flag formation is the first in the country. The organizers originally targeted 9,000 volunteers for the human flag.

The Bacolod human flag was a part of the celebration of the 111th Independence Day last June 12. The volunteers were city  government employees, and public and private school students. As I’ve mentioned before, the students can always provide the warm bodies for the human flag.

The length of the parade is from Burgos-Lacson to Hilado-Burgos Streets and headed to the New Government Center (NGC). Helicopter units of the Philippines Air Force flying above NGC greeted the contingents.

It doesn’t really matter if the city qualifies for a Guinness or not. As long as Negrenses, and Filipinos in general, put to heart the reasons behind the celebration of the Independence Day.

2009 Mudpack Festival Schedule

2009 Mudpack Festival Schedule
20-21 June 2009

Day 1 (Saturday)

Morning

6:30 – 8:00                       Hataw with Ching
8:00                                    Poster Making Competition for Kids (Start)
10:00 – 10:15                  Panawagan
10:15-10:30                    Opening Ceremony
Ms. Earth Flora & Fauna Presentation
10:30 – 12:00                  Chants & Stunts Competition
Drumbeating Competition
Clay Body Painting Competition (Start)
Mixed Media Art Competition (Start)
Photo Competition (Start)

LUNCH BREAK

Afternoon

2:30                                     Clay Body Painting Presentation and Judging
Mixed Media Art Judging
4:00                                    Awarding
6:00 – 8:00                       Ms. Earth – Mambukal Pageant
9:00 up                              San Miguel Night
Band and Dance Party

Day 2 (Sunday)

Morning

9:00 – 10:00                    Holy Mass
10:00 – 10:15                  Panawagan
10:15 – 12:00                   Solo Dance Improvisation Competition
Clay Sculpture Making Competition (Start)

LUNCH BREAK

Afternoon

2:30 – 3:30                       Tribal Dance Competition
Clay Sculpture Judging
3:30 – 4:30                       Awarding

Bacolod Eyes Guinness for Biggest Human Flag

It seems the City Government of Bacolod is intent on getting into the Guiness Book of World Records. After attempting the Guinness Book of World Record for the world’s longest grill, Bacolod City will again attempt another Guinness. This time it’s for the biggest human flag for the celebration of the 111th Philippine Independence this coming June 12, 2009.

The city government will be needing at least 9,000 volunteers to qualify for the Guinness. It will be a sight to behold with the whole contingent covering the stretch of Lacson from 6th Street all the way down to Hernaez Street as what Councilor Wilson Gamboa said.

Where are they going to get the volunteers? If Bacoleños volunteered for the First Inasal Festival, I’m sure they will also support this endeavor even just for the sake of fun and celebration of the Independence Day. Besides, classes have already opened so the students can always provide the warm bodies needed.

Wanted: Bacolod & Negros Bloggers

Calling all bloggers from Bacolod City and in Negros Island. Ms. Janette Toral, author of Blogging From Home and DigitalFilipino.com Club will be coming over to Bacolod City for a fellowship / networking event where e-commerce industry players and bloggers can catch up and exchange updates.

The event will be on July 4, Saturday, 6 – 11pm. The venue will be at the Lobby Lounge, Casino Filipino Bacolod City

The Program is:

• 6:00 – 7:00 Registration and Dinner
• 7:00 – 7:30 Guest introduction / plugs Welcome Remarks
• 7:30 – 8:00 Updates by Janette
  • Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs 2009 Update
  • DigitalFilipino.com Club Updates (online workshop and other efforts)
  • DigitalFilipino Web Awards 2009
• 8:00 – 8:30 – PAGCOR Updates
• 8:30 – onwards – Raffle, Networking, Games

This will be a free event and there are big sponsors including PAGCOR so expect some great prizes to be raffled off. Also, this will be a great venue for Negros Bloggers to be connected.

If interested, kindly sign-up at NegrosBloggers site we have temporarily set-up. Updates will be announced here at ExperienceNegros.

Hope to see you there!

Lates Update: 13 June 2009