Kulaman Burial Jars in Laan Magazine

Another important thing that happened last year is that the burial jars of Kulaman Plateau was featured in the maiden issue of Laan, a regional travel and advertising magazine, and the article, of course, was written by this blogger.

The magazine generously gave my article a whole spread and half a page, and copies of the magazine were distributed in government agencies and business establishments, and tucked in the seats of the Executive Class units of Yellow Bus Line, a la Smile magazine of Cebu Pacific airline.

I wasn’t able to attend the launch, so I don’t have my own copy of Laan, and I don’t have my own photos of the article. But below are the cover page and the contributors’ page, which I grabbed from the Facebook account of the magazine. My special thanks to Louie Pacardo, the managing editor and a fellow blogger, for asking me to contribute.

Kulaman Burial Jars in Tau SOX Festival

I’m back, after almost a year of not touching this blog. (My “latest” posts, dated half a year ago, had been prescheduled.) I can’t promise to blog regularly again, but I will post important updates.

I’ve been preoccupied with a lot of other matters, especially literary activities. Other local writers and I, I’m proud to say, have done many things, most of which were firsts. We formed writers associations, albeit informal for now. We created Cotabato Literary Journal, a monthly online publication. And we organized several poetry readings and writing seminars. I was also diagnosed with a mental illness, and I’m still on medication up to now. (But don’t worry, I’ve gotten so much better.)

As to the updates I must share with you, let me start with Tau SOX: Festival of the First Peoples, organized last year by the regional office of the Department of Tourism. The one-week event aimed to highlight SOX (short for SOCCSKSARGEN) as a land where early men (tau) lived. The organizers invited me to give a talk on the limestone burial jars of Kulaman Plateau, in a forum that also included a talk on the clay burial jars of Maitum and a talk on the burial practices of Tedurays.

I wasn’t able to take good photos and extensive notes of the event, so if you want to know more about it, check out the news article on NDBC and the post by local blogger Hajar Kabalu. Truth be told, I had a very small audience, even if the venue was the activity center of a mall. It was past lunchtime when it was my turn to speak, and most attendees had gone somewhere else. Nonetheless, I believe the right people stayed and listened, and I’m glad for the opportunity to spread more awareness of Kulaman burial jars.