Editors’ Note: This article previously appeared in our October 2022 edition. Because of the overwhelming display of their devotion to our Blessed Mother, our INA, by Bicolanos worldwide this September 2023, we have thought it best to re-publish this article about the beautiful song “INA”, music and lyrics by Fr. Fruto Ramirez, SJ, orchestral arrangement by Joseph B. Ruberiano, sung by Floyd M. Tena, and accompanied by the Ateneo de Naga University Choir.

Fr. Fruto Ramirez, SJ, of Baao, Camarines Sur, is a great melodist. His music is simple, yet elegant and highly memorable due to the beautifully crafted melodies. The lyricism he applies in his songs, such as “Ina” and “Hesus, Tinapay nin Buhay“, are derived also from the melodious nature of the Filipino character. From ancient times until the present day, the song forms the heart of our national expression; be it from an indigenous awit, to the Spanish-influenced kundiman all the way to contemporary pop music. In this way Fr. Ramirez’s lyricism is derived from the roots of the Filipino musical soul alongside the way Philippine Catholicism is derived from our ancient animist spirituality. Though Spain replaced our old worship of anitos with the worship of Christ, Mary, and the saints, the Filipino pays homage to Christian figures the same way he did so to his ancestral spirits in old times. In an ironic twist, despite religion being the thing Spain tried to impose upon us the most, it has also been the vessel with which the Filipino has preserved his indigenous consciousness. For this reason, even the most radical revolutionaries in 1896 did not once entertain thoughts of bringing back our old pagan systems of worship – because for them, Catholicism, Spain’s harshest tool of oppression, eventually also became their means to liberation.

This is important to note because this is why I believe the sacred music of Fr. Ramirez is nationally relevant. His preferred choice of style, the kundiman, is native music dressed in Spanish colours. Strip off the European elements and at its core, the kundiman is just as ancient and native as our indigenous song, just as Catholicism itself is in fact a reflection of our ancient spirituality. All in all, the music of Fr. Ramirez is a reflection of the core of the Filipino soul, both in religion and in art.

Joseph Reburiano’s orchestrations are also very effective. It is a pity that our national art institutions do not encompass the entirety of the archipelago. In terms of music and art, we remain quite regionalist. In my five years of education at the UP College of Music, not once had I heard of Fr. Ramirez or Mr. Reburiano. Yet I was familiar with Abelardo, Buencamino, San Pedro, Maceda, and Cayabyab – all of them Tagalog composers! This nation is too poor and deprived of love for art to put in an orchestra everywhere. And that is why I had to listen to Mr. Reburiano’s fine orchestral arrangements without hearing them played by actual musicians. Can Bicol not afford an orchestra? Why Francisco Buencamino’s famous Mayon Concerto, his fiendishly virtuosic magnum opus, does not even properly use a Bicol folk song (using instead “Condansoy”, a Visayan song) – I do not know whether this is due to lack of research or intentional. And because all the tools required for fine music are so centralized in the Tagalog regions, we end up, for example, getting an inaccurate idea of the Bicol musical scene after hearing this piece played in Cultural Center of the Philippines. Our art institutions should broaden beyond this centralization. But no disrespect to the composer – I have performed his Mayon transcription myself before.

All in all, I realize that our motherland has lots of children – musicians especially – with great potential and hopeful futures. But our ignorance and lack of proper tools to make art flourish puts their dreams and hopes to waste. It is our task as children of the nation to defy fate and ensure things do not remain this way.

Marian Songs by Fr. Fruto Ramirez, SJ

At present, Fr. Fruto Ramirez, SJ teaches at the Loyola School of Theology and the San Jose Seminary in Loyola Heights, Quezon. Mr. Joseph B. Reburiano is Conductor and Choirmaster of the Ateneo de Naga University Choir, Naga City.

Featured images courtesy of the Caceres Commission for Communication (Archdiocese of Caceres)

About the author: JOSE JUAN FRANCISCO MARCO RAGRAGIO VALENCIANO is a pianist and graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Music, where he finished with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, Magna cum Laude. He credits his parents for nurturing his love for music which began from childhood. – his mother Daisy and late father Joey, both musicians and professors at the UP College of Music. His father, a sitarist and jazz drummer, introduced him to Indian classical music and jazz, while his mother, a former Madrigal singer and professor of Music Education, cultivated in him the love for European classical music. He was mentored by UP Professors Ces Pitogo, Nita Quinto, and Pia Balasico. Marco believes in following the path of the European composers of the Romantic period, who incorporated the folk music and native traditions of their countries to spearhead the burgeoning nationalism at the time, by applying what they did to a Philippine context. He feels that his interest in the Bikol music scene is one significant step to fulfilling this paradigm.