This article was borrowed from Point Cebu, www.esprint.com
Visit their website for more Cebuano profiles.
G. Policarpio
Two months before Christmas
and Christmas carols are already playing on the air. Soon carolers will be visiting houses
and singing familiar Cebuano Christmas tunes, songs like Ani-a Kami (We Are Here) and
Kasadya (How Joyful). Not many of us however, know who wrote or composed these yuletide
notes, for these songs have become popular than their composers.
In 1930, a dramatist named
G. Policarpio needed a song for one of the caroling scenes in his drama “Masulob-ong
Tinagoan.” Other writers of the day whom Policarpio approached for the lyrics found
it rather hard to write something fitting to the melody.
The drama participants were
gathering at Balintawak corner Nueva (now P. Gullas) for a practice when the 27-year-old
poet and regular contributor to Bag-ong Kusog and The Freeman, Mariano Vestil, passed by
Policarpio requested him to write the lyrics, which he did. The result became one of our
most enduring Cebuano yuletide classics which later was translated into the Tagalog Ang
Pasko Ay Sumapit.
The drama was first staged
in Opon where the songs were played for the first time. Soon after, it became a favorite
of carolers in Cebu and even in Leyte, Bohol and Negros.
Mariano Vestil was born in
Lutaw-Sangi near what used to be the American barracks on January 12,1903. He married
Encarnacion Alcordo with whom he had five children.
Ani-a Kami, on the other
hand, was written and composed by Domingo “Minggoy” Lopez, a musician better
known for his composition, “Rosas Pandan.” Lopez was born in San Nicholas, Cebu
on August 12,1912 and died on January 20,1981 at the age of 68.
By: Ybarra
This article was borrowed from Point Cebu, www.esprint.com
Visit their website for more Cebuano profiles. |