Ang Peregrino Recommends 43: Writing on Air

Writ­ing on Air
URL: http://​har​ingli​wanag​.pan​si​tan​.net/

Some celebrity web­sites you visit once, out of curios­ity, and for­get about after­wards. I vis­ited Writ­ing on Air which is Fil­ipino Jim Pare­des’ blog for the first time two years ago.

And I haven’t forgotten.

For my non Fil­ipino read­ers, Jim Pare­des is one third of a pop­u­lar Fil­ipino singing group APO Hik­ing Soci­ety. The Apoli­nario Mabini Hik­ing Soci­ety, is a musi­cal group/band in the philip­pines. The group was orig­i­nally com­posed of 13 mem­bers: Lito de Joya, Sonny San­ti­ago, Gus Cosio, Renato Gar­cia, Chito Kin­ta­nar, Kenny Bar­ton, Bruce Brown, Butch Dans, Kinjo Sawada, Ric Seg­reto, Goff Macaraeg, Doden Besa, Jim Pare­des, and Boboy Gar­rovillo– all stu­dents from the Ate­neo de Manila high school. Danny Javier joined the group when they were in col­lege. The group’s men­tor was a Jesuit priest, Fr. Anto­nio Cuna, who was my teacher when I was in 2^nd year high school. After their col­lege grad­u­a­tion, the other group mem­bers left the group to pur­sue their own careers. Only three members—Jim Pare­des, Boboy Garovillo and Danny Javier—remained to con­tinue performing.

Last 20 Sep­tem­ber 2008, their group had a reunion con­cert called “Apo Of The Philip­pines” which was held at the Araneta Col­i­seum to cel­e­brate their 39^th Anniversary.

Aside from per­form­ing for APO, Jim Pare­des does life improve­ment sem­i­nars called Tap­ping the Cre­ative Uni­verse, and writes a reg­u­lar col­umn for a major daily.

He writes really well. When you read his posts, you know he has thought it through and that he has some­thing impor­tant to say. And while other writ­ers have this weird knack of writ­ing really long pieces for the heck of it, Jim’s pieces are long but worth it. His posts are POP PHILOSOPHY—philosophical reflec­tions and rumi­na­tions writ­ten in every­day lan­guage and about the rel­e­vant stuff that is hap­pen­ing in the world. He puts depth and makes us pause about what would oth­er­wise be fleet­ing moments in time.

Jim is though and through a nation­al­ist. It comes out in his writ­ings. He’s not a nation­al­ist in the “mak­ibaka” red­shirted activist sense; but I’ve seen him sev­eral times join ral­lies I have joined myself. And he’s not there to grab the limelight—it’s very rare for him to go up the stage, if at all—but he’s there, like every­one else, to sup­port a cause and fight for what he believes in. The good thing about him is he’s always there. And for peo­ple like me who are there all the time as well, that is a more real­is­tic witnessing.

In the end, maybe that is the real power of Writ­ing on Air. When celebri­ties talk–or write—people give them the ben­e­fit of the doubt, and lis­ten, and read. But we do not know what hap­pens after­wards. It really is up to the celebrity to keep the peo­ple lis­ten­ing or not.

Some celebrity web­sites you visit once, out of curios­ity, and for­get about after­wards. Jim kept me lis­ten­ing. And I have not forgotten.

For the great writ­ing, the deep ram­blings, and the pop phi­los­o­phy, Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends Writ­ing on Air this week.