The invite to the birthday celebration of one of the nominees to the National Artist in Literature Epitacio Tongohan, also known as Doc PenPen and Bugtong Takipsilim was at 9 am in Lania Annabel’s Restaurant on top of a hill in Sampaloc, Tanay Rizal,
It used to be at 1 pm but it was changed to the morning invitation.
I had to wake up early in the morning so that I could catch up with the party that would give the guests various creative gifts such as a huge fiberglass inscribed with the photo and a poem of the invited poet laureate.
In other words, I arrived at the venue one hour before lunch.
The party was in full swing already with a host introducing each of Doc PenPen’s guests which included poets Ed Cordevilla and Joe Lad Santos, both award-winning wordsmiths. Ed is an undersecretary in the Office of the President while Joe Lad was former Chair of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF), ex-president of Famas and erstwhile Chair of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
During Bugtong Takipsilim’s speech and in his social media spaces, he called on Taclobanon, the President of the Philippines himself, PBBM to please recognize the contributions of poets in society.
“Kakalampagin natin ang PBBM government. First, maganap ang PINAKA. (We will rock them and the Marcos regime. We will encourage the most, the ultimate gathering of poet laureates). Second, PBBM should declare officially, either both, through Republic Act and Executive Order, THE PHILIPPINES as the POETRY HEART OF THE WORLD,” B Takipsilim exclaimed.
The birthday bash of the world acclaimed Father of Visual Poetry was a memorable one.
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