Fan Days at Pei Ching

When Marichu Llora (you don’t remember who she was, do you?), the late Larry Santiago Productions contract star, sent me her picture taken by Tropicana, I became an instant “star” at the Tabaco Pei Ching High School in Tabaco (then a town, now a city), Albay. Writing to the stars (with self-addressed stamped envelopes, don’t forget!) and asking for their autographed photos was the favorite pastime among the students at Pei Ching.

There was some kind of a “contest” who got the most number of replies. While the others wrote to more better-known stars, I secretly wrote to the “less” popular ones and they did answer back. Favorite choices (because they promptly replied) were Jean Lopez, Mitos Seva, Luz Valdez (often photographed by Santos Portrait) and, of course, Susan Roces (photos by Uni-Art and Phil-Art taken from various angles, some of them showing her with hair set like a giant ice-cream cone).

So when Marichu Llora, Maria Victoria (who became direk Temyong Marquez’s home companion) and Marietta Sanz (from LVN, mother of Criselda Volks) sent me their autographed pictures, my schoolmates were stunned. How did I do it? Secret (up to now, hahahaha!).

Fresh from her finishing a finalist at the Miss Press Photography search, Helen Gamboa wrote back but said “so sorry” she couldn’t enclose her photo “dahil hindi ko pa nakukuha sa Tropicana.” Tagalog Ilang-Ilang Productions starlet Mila Montanez became my pen-pal and so was Lalaine Bennett to whom I first wrote a letter after she came home as fourth runner-up from the 1963 Miss Universe pageant in Miami, Florida. Soon, Lalaine joined the movies (she’s now a widow, living in the States).

“I must have spent a lion’s share of my allowance on that ‘contest’,” I told my friend Raoul Tidalgo while on a quick tour of my old alma mater where I graduated from high school and studied Chinese (up to Grade 5) in nineteen-forgotten. “Those were our Fan Days in Pei Ching.”

Raoul and I, together with other journalists from Manila, were in nearby Iriga City last February for the Tinagba Festival (of Festivals), spearheaded by Madeleine Alfelor-Gazmen, the city’s energetic mayor, and I invited Raoul on a quick side trip to Tabaco for, you know, old time’s sake. (Trivia: STAR columnist and S magazine publisher Wilson Lee-Flores’ mother was among the Chinese teachers there; she was a prim and proper lady who attended classes in cheongsam. It was a pity Wilson, who was with us in Iriga, didn’t go with Raoul and me to Tabaco; it would have been a nostalgic root-tracing for him. Sigh.)

The massive gate is as imposing as I knew it then, but the buildings don’t seem the same. The pagoda, surrounded by pine trees, is still there but the swimming pool, never used during our time, has disappeared. The three slides standing side by side with one another are older now but they look serviceable still. The dormitories, one for boys and another one for girls, have been converted to offices. The library, still full of books and journals and the latest newspapers and magazines, was where I read the news about the suicide of Marilyn Monroe, and I grieved for her then as I do now when I watch again, and again, her movies (Some Like It Hot being my favorite, with Tony Curtis and the late Jack Lemmon as her leading men).   

There’s something about growing and growing older that seems to shrink people and places.

“Those buildings appeared so big to me back then,” I told Raoul. “How come they seem to have become smaller?”

From the classroom in one of those “big” buildings, I would watch the Mayon Volcano from my front-row seat in full majesty on a bright day and hiding like a shy, dainty Bicolana during bad weather.

From across the school was the Mayon Theater where we watched movies of Premiere Productions and “independent” companies. The theater is gone, replaced by a sprawling mall owned by one of my schoolmates. Sampaguita movies were shown exclusively at the Mans Theater near the market but it was razed by the first of the three big fires that hit Tabaco in the last decades. That’s where I watched Susan Roces movies (Ang Maganda Kong Kapitbahay, Susanang Daldal, Susanang Twist, Mga Anghel sa Lansangan, Tulisan with Amalia Fuentes, Floradema Ang Bilanggong Birhen and many more).

“I was a Susanian then and I still am,” I told Raoul.

Our teacher’s maid said that she once worked at Susan Roces’ house and we believed her (could she had been lying?). We touched her arm in total disbelief. She was near Susan Roces and we vicariously experienced being with Susan Roces, too, by simply being with the maid who got near to her. (Trivia: Back then, I told myself I would apply as gardener at Susan’s Wilson Street home when I got to Manila. Dream never fulfilled.)

On the way back to Iriga the next day, I took Raoul on a quick tour of Tabaco City. We prayed at the church, located a stone’s throw from Pei Ching, and visited the old, historic house of poetess Angela Manalang Gloria.

The quick visit was not enough, neither for me nor for Raoul.

One of these days, I promise to visit Tabaco again and relive those fun Fan Days.

(Note: Tabaco Pei Ching High School will celebrate its 90th foundation anniversary on Oct. 29 and 30, and there will be a grand reunion homecoming. For more information and inquiries, graduates are requested to call Willy Ngo at 0927-4805358 or Cai at 0921-4865323.)

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