A night with a poet & Salinawit lovers

MANILA, Philippines - That Wednesday night after Ondoy at the Conspiracy Garden Café was not our first to join a Salinawit get-together. Many times in the past three years, we have ventured out, not so much for the performance which we knew was always engaging, but more for the chance to connect once again with friends and meet new ones. This was to us, a better social climate than Facebook which is catching the world by storm.

Salinawit trailblazer Pete Lacaba had gathered together despite the bad weather old faces Bayang Barrios, Cooky Chua, Lyn Sherman, Ricky Davao, a new regular Mara Viola, the esteemed Conrad de Quiros, Princess Nemenzo who apparently has never missed a Salinawit night, Mara’s friend Arlene Estrella from Vietnam, and a couple from the US.

Michael Konik, record manager in L.A., and his attractive morena fiancée Fil-Am Charmaine Clamor were promoting her album Jazzipino of Filipino songs given a jazz treatment and distributed by Viva Records in the Philippines. They were set to leave the next day but had been told they couldn’t leave without dropping in on Conspiracy. So here they were shooting the breeze with the regulars and Charmaine later singing three songs in a jazzy version with the amazing Ferdie Borja on the piano that left us all agape.

It was this kind of crowd Conspiracy attracted — the alternative singers, musicians on the fringe, writers and painters. We knew that Conspiracy was set up in 2003 by Gary Granada, Bayang Barrios, Cooky Chua, Joey Ayala, Cynthia Alexander, Lyn Sherman, Noel Cabangon. Typically, none of us, Bayang says, are business minded and don’t know how to run a bar. It now somehow manages to survive, mostly through the efforts of the kitchen staff who serve good inexpensive bar food and drinks. Pete considers it as Salinawit’s homebase with shows scheduled there almost monthly.

Salinawit which is Pete’s personal advocacy started during drinking sessions with buddies in the ‘70s when he would convert lyrics to fit the drinking mood. His very first Salinawit song to the melody of Love Me Tender and titled Nakaliliyo reads Ang pag-ibig ko sa ‘yo, Nakaliliyo. Parang beergincoke ito: May sipang kabayo. Pagsinta at pag-irog ay lapad, bilog, longneck at kuwatro kantos, Basi’t lambanog. One can very well see, therefore, what kind of love the adaptation extolled.

In the ‘80s, Viva Films asked Joel Lamangan to direct a film based on Nick Joaquin’s May Day Eve. Pete was to do the theme song and he thought of adapting the theme from Moulin Rouge Where is your Heart. The film never pushed through, but Pete got his second Salinawit Ngunit Nasaan Ka.

When his mom got sick and was hospitalized, Pete worked on his adaptations while keeping her company. By the time she died, he had completed 30 songs and like the journalist he is thought of writing 30 or closing the book of Salinawit.

But friends urged him to continue and as of today there are 101 Salinawits of Pete Lacaba. In 2006, Salinawit made its debut at a performance venue, Black Soup with performers Isha, Bodjie Pascua, Susan Fernandez, and Glaiza de Castro singing from Pete’s songbook. For a Valentine special in 2007, Tina Monzon Palma made her Talk Back show on TV a Salinawit night with performances by Isay Alvarez, Robert Seña, Arthur Manuntag, Girl Valencia, and Pinky Amador. “Tita Midz” Siguion Reyna’s Aawitan Kita sa Makati staged a Salinawit night with Pinky Marquez, Bimbo Cerrudo, Ricky Davao, Cris Villonco, Bayang Barrios, Allan Alojipan, Raul Montesa, and Tintin Escudero. There were other shows in other venues some engineered by Reli German who had then joined the group.

This sensational concept continued to gain adherents with individual singers discovering gems of adaptations, some without even a by your leave from the author for their live performances. We ask Pete what he was doing to pursue rights to his Salinawit. Like other artists we know, he is content with a simple request for permit to use. In matters of album production, however, only Vince Camua’s use of Pete’s Yun Lang from That’s All of Brandt & Haymes has successfully hurdled royalty requirements.

Pete is no stranger to translations and adaptations. As a poet, screenwriter, and journalist, his body of published works like Sa Daigdig ng Kontradiksyon and Sa Panahon ng Ligalig in 1991 included translations of foreign poetry into Pilipino.

Neither is the music industry new to adaptations. In the past we remember Jenine Desiderio’s hit single Hindi Ako si Darna came from Karyn White’s Superwoman. We were also told Warner Music came up with an album of Tagalized songs from English originals like Payong and Huwag Mong Pigilan from Rihanna’s Umbrella and Don’t Stop the Music; Isisi Mo sa Akin from Sorry Blame it on Me by Akon; and Sa ‘Yo from With You by Chris Brown.

But somehow, Pete’s Tagalog translations come across differently. Tita Midz wrote in her Tribune column, “I hold that not anybody can do a Salinawit. Pete Lacaba is no musician, but he loves music in a crazy, close to obsessed manner that makes his translations work.” We know that it is because his heart is that of a poet, his cadences and rhythms are those of a bard, that his songs hit the audience where it counts most.

(E-mail me at [email protected])