FOR his full-length play in English, former Panay News columnist Peter Solis Nery received his third Palanca gold medal at the awards night of the 58^th Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature held at the Peninsula Manila on September 1, 2008.

Nery’s play “The Passion of Jovita Fuentes,” is the story of the first Filipina international diva and National Artist for Music, Maestra Jovita Fuentes who hailed from Roxas City, Capiz.

Nery’s play so eclipsed all other entries in the category that it was made the sole winner with no second and third placers.

Nery’s previous Palanca wins include two gold medals in 2007 and 1998, a second place in 2006, and a third place in 2000, all for his short stories in Hiligaynon.

“The Passion of Jovita Fuentes” has been accepted for publication by a Manila-based publishing house, and is being considered for production to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Cultural Center of the Philippines next year.

Nery is currently based in Los Angeles, California where he continues to write, and works as an orthopedic nurse.

 

© Panay News: September 10, 2008

PETER SOLIS NERY wins his fourth Palanca award for Hiligaynon short story this year with the historical revisionist story “Candido” based on the Katipunan revolutionary Candido Iban who was one of the 19 martyrs of Aklan.

Nery’s previous Palanca honors include last year’s second place for the psychological puzzler “Ang Kapid” (“The Twins”), 1998’s first prize for the magic surrealism story of the deaf-mute “Lirio,” and 2000’s third prize for the science fiction “Ang Pangayaw” (“The Stranger”).

A leading figure in Hiligaynon literature and Panay News’ most interesting columnist until August 2006 before he immigrated to the United States as a Registered Nurse, Nery is also the author of the much publicized “Kakunyag,” a collection of 100 erotic sonnets in the Hiligaynon serialized in Panay News’ sister publication, Hublas nga Kamatuoran, in the first and second quarters of 2006.

With his latest Palanca triumph, Nery promises to persevere in his passion and commitment to elevating Hiligaynon as a language of dignity and intelligence. He is planning to publish “Kakunyag” with translation sin 2008, and possibly a collection of his prize-winning stories.

The Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature is on its 57^th year, the longest running and the most prestigious award-giving body for Filipino writers. The awards ceremony was held at the Peninsula Manila on September 1.

 

© Panay News: September 4, 2007

LOS ANGELES – SOMETHING original and exciting is underway. V Entertainment Group concocts an unusual show that will make you laugh out loud, and will keep you thinking after you leave The Pinoy Dreamgays.

This musical is an ensemble of performers who all came from live acts in lounges and bars. They are very interactive to the audience as they are very vocal and upfront. Their jokes are unique, and they have their own brand of humor, sometimes they are rated parental guidance recommended.

Here in this show, these three performers are given a bigger stage to reveal not only their powerful singing skills but also their witty comedic routines.

If you like Joseph Gelito in Pinoy Bistro, Bona in Musikahan, and Thage in The Library in San Francisco, can you imagine the explosion if they are together on one stage? Add another seasoned performer, known for her brassy and belting performances – Djoanna Garcia, you’re in for a great musical ride.

Joseph Gelito gushes, “This is the first time I will take a lead character in an original adaptation here in Los Angeles. I am very excited because we have worked together laboriously to make this something different from all other shows we have done.”

Vic Perez, the director, shares the excitement of his brainchild. “We just wanted to have an intimate show as we were inspired by Joseph’s show. With the producers, we thought that we could make a unique production that can combine all the local performers here in Los Angeles – singers, dancers, actors, and come up with a new style of production.”

The Pinoy Dreamgays is written by Palanca awardee Peter Solis Nery, and directed by Vic Perez.

Showdate is May 20 at 3 pm at the Pasadena Hilton. Presented by Toyota Glendale, Isagenix, Estela Cottle Skin Care, Regina Cabral of Milestone Hospice, Joy Rivera of The Medical Transport, and the Rainbow Connection Global Production.

 

© Richard J. Olivera & Weekend BALITA: April 28 – May 1, 2007

EVERYDAY since February, a Hiligaynon tabloid, Hublas nga Kamatuoran (Naked Truth), publishes an erotic sonnet, a move that has earned it mixed reviews and more readers.

Sales of the newspaper in Iloilo City have improved, boosted by the popularity of the erotic sonnets among its low-income readers, said publisher Danny Fajardo.

But readership is not confined to those who peruse for prurient reasons because the poems speak to anyone who celebrates life, love, and language.

The sonnets were written by Peter Solis Nery, a multi-awarded poet who was also a teacher, monk, politician, Dervish dancer, journalist, to name a few.

Before writing the 100 erotic sonnets, he tried to mount a nude protest when President Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her State of the Nation Address in 2005. He relented when he failed to get a permit to bare in front of the city’s Arroyo Fountain.

Nery is a self-styled avant-garde columnist, comparing his notoriety with that of Andy Warhol and pop star Madonna, the mother diva of reinvention.

Nery’s sonnets take liberties at the literary form, something that some critics chaff at. While these have 14 lines, the poems do away with rhyme scheme or meter. Noticeable are the eight-line octaves broken in two stanzas that present an attitude, question or proposition that the next six lines (sextets) comment on or resolve.

Sonnets

The sonnets in Hiligaynon are melodious and sensual despite the unrestrained use of language to express desire, longing and excitement. Sometimes, their power lies at the concluding couplet or in the abstract comment delivered at the end.

 

XXIV

 

Pila ka bulan, pila ka tuig bag-o nalibot ni Magellan

Ang bug-os nga kalibutan? Ano nga mga baraghal nga kagamitan

Ang iya ginlalang agud lamang masalapuan ang mga isla

Nga nagalutaw-lutaw sa sadto wala-pa-namapa ng kadagatan,

 

Ginteleskopyo bala niya ang berde nga pukatod

Nga daw mga dughan sang higante gikan sa iya sakayan-dagat.

Nahikap bala niya ang mga ulutngan kag ang mga pilas

Nga nagaangkon sang mga likum sang bituon nga Polaris?

 

Ano ang mga bagyo nga iya ginsugata, kag diin sia nagpalipud

Sang ang misteryo daw kweba nga nagbuka para sa dumuluaw?

Wala bala sia nalumos sa mga haluk, o nayanggaw sang talon

 

Sa gintabuan sang mga hita? Natilawan bala ni Magellan

Ang kamulagko sang nawala nga tiil, o ang damil sang dulunggan?

Ang paglutahit sang bug-os nga lawas, paglibot sang kalibutan.

 

[How many months, how many years, did it take Magellan

To sail around the world? What crude instruments

Did he use to find those islands and continents

Floating, drifting in the still unmapped seas?

 

Did he peep at the telescope for the lush verdant hills

Shaped like giant breasts out from his ship?

Did he touch, feel, the nipples, and cuts

That possessed the secrets of the North Star?

 

What typhoons did he meet, and where did he hide

When mystery caved open to welcome strangers?

Did he not drown in kisses, or get enchanted by the forest

 

At the point where the thighs converge? Did Magellan try

The big toe of the left foot, or the taste of an earlobe?

To travel the length of the body is to circumnavigate the world.]

 

Breaking convention

Nery said the erotic sonnets sought to break convention in Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a writing, “where sex is always replaced by metaphors and such literary devices as the full moon cowering behind the clouds.” “What is there to fear in sex?” he added. While some sonnets celebrate homoeroticism, Nery said he has also reclaimed heterosexual sex. The speaker or the persona is maybe a she or a he; sometimes he is a voyeur, sometimes she is a participant.

 

Luyag ko hikapon ka sa liwat, halukan, kag palanggaon;

Labaw pa sa akon pagdihon sining binalaybay sang kaulag,

Labaw pa sa pagpakighirup sang mapalaron nga tinta sa papel.

 

[I want to touch you again, kiss you, and make love to you;

More than me lustfully composing this poem of desire,

More than lucky ink making crazy love to paper.]

 

The sonnets are awaiting a book publisher but, meanwhile, they are enclosed in a plastic binding folder and assigned numbers like songs in a karaoke bar. And so, to recite them is to call out the numbers first, to mark out the sonnets, and remember that they are part of a body of work.

 

© Ma. Diosa Labiste & Philippine Daily Inquirer: March 25, 2006

ILOILO CITY – Mayor Jerry Treñas has refused to grant a permit to a nude protest by a local columnist during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Macapagal-Arroyo on Monday.

Treñas told Peter Solis Nery of The Guardian that he could be arrested because what he planned to do would be considered as “indecent exposure.”

“If he will do that, we will enforce the law,” said the mayor.

Nery plans to disrobe at the Arroyo Fountain in front of the Iloilo Provincial Capitol on July 25 while the President delivers the Sona before members of Congress.

While listening to the Sona through a public address system, the naked Nery wants to make a running commentary on the President’s speech.

The Arroyo fountain is a historical landmark at the heart of the city. It was named after the late Sen. Jose Maria Arroyo, the grandfather of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo who represented the seventh senatorial district of Iloilo, Capiz, and Romblon from 1919 to 1928.

Nery said his protest would be part of the mounting clamor for Ms Arroyo to step down.

“My nude protest is my contribution to the unfolding history of our country,” he said in a letter to Treñas requesting for a permit.

Nery said he envisioned other protesters to join him as they may also be “inspired to undress and protest in the nude.”

Treñas said he consulted city hall lawyers and even met with Nery, discouraging him from staging his protest.

“I respect his constitutional right to protest but he should not do it that way,” he said.

Treñas, president of the League of Cities of the Philippines, is a staunch supporter of Ms Arroyo. He did not grant a rally permit to militants during the President’s visit here on June 30.

In a text message sent to the Inquirer, Nery said he was in a dilemma on what to do next after he was refused a permit.

“I thought that someone with a name and a face determined to go nude will jolt Ilonggos enough. That is my role, to shock them, and now they are starting to notice my call for (the President’s) resignation,” he said in his text message.

Nery discusses sex in his columns and considers himself a “celebrity writer with a real following.” He has posed nude for magazines and pictorials. He used to be a teacher and is also a licensed nurse.

 

© Ma. Diosa Labiste & Philippine Daily Inquirer: July 22, 2005