Barack Obama



Born from the womb of democracy
Offspring of free will and freedom
You are a sparkling rainbow
Of human dreams and hopes
So true and so real
So spiritual and divine.

A rainbow christened humanity
Of the West and East
Of Asia and Africa
Of Europe and Americas
Of the Home of the Human
And a Universe of Creation.

You are an Archetype
A living Symbol
With roots in the US and Kenya
And branches in Indonesia
A full tree in the wide West
Adorning the forest of one World.

A spectacle of a Universe
In a quagmire of its own weakness
Waiting the herald of a vision
Of love and faith
Of justice and peace
Welcome, beloved Barack Obama.

Landicho honored on retirement from UP

From Manila Bulletin

Domingo G. Landicho, who will retire as a full-time professor of the University of the Philippines this year, will be honored by the Department of Filipino & Philippine Literature of the College of Arts & Letters this month by colleagues in the academe, in the media and by writers and scholars starting this August till the end of the year.

Radio Balintataw, hosted by Cecile Guidote-Alvarez of DZRH, will sponsor a month-long Landicho Festival, featuring the reading of Landicho�s poems, and a radio dramatization on Andres Bonifacio and Dupluhang Bayan which was staged by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) during the Martial Law regime.

The U.P. Institute of Creative Writing (U.P. ICW) and the Department of Filipino will jointly sponsor Premyo Landicho in the Landichohan sa Modernong Duplo, the forerunner of the popular Balagtasan as proposed by Vim Nadera, Director of the U.P. ICW, where the participants will render impromptu poetry on topics they will pick up during the contest on Aug. 27, at the Faculty Center Conference Hall, Diliman Quezon City, in recognition of Landicho�s role in the propagation and popularization of the oral tradition of Filipino poetry on radio, television, balagtasan and poetry dedication to important events and coronation of beauty queens during fiestas and other festivals. The winner will be awarded with a glass sculpture by Ramon Orlina.

The culminating activity in honoring the retiree will be the publication of the book Himaymay: Diwa at Pagkatao ni Domingo Goan Landicho sponsored by the Department of Filipino and jointly edited by Dr. Ma. Josephine C. Barrios, associate dean of the College of Arts & Letters; Dr. Glecy Atienza, chairperson of DFPP; Dr. Roland B. Tolentino of the College of Mass Communications; and Dr. Edna May Obien-Landicho, a playwright and theater director in her own right.

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