Last leg: From Leuven to London

In July 2001 our Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Hon. Cesar B. Bautista, wrote a seven-page paper titled "Cultural Diplomacy: Towards Making It Effective and Sustainable."

It starts thus: "Cultural Diplomacy is a crucial tool for achieving the vision/mission of the Embassy. As an element of the strategic process, cultural diplomacy has a dual aim: a) to deliver a keen appreciation of Filipino culture and history by the host country, and b) heighten the feeling of national pride among Filipinos overseas especially the second-generation youth. As a big ethnic group in Britain, Filipinos are expected to contribute to the evolving multi-cultural identity of mainstream society. In achieving both objectives, the result will be the growing respect by the British for the Philippines and our people due to its richness in history/culture."

The Ambassador then cites the possible conduct of a lecture-series on culture-related topics that could feature "some Philippine scholars" such as Felipe de Leon Jr. (on "Aesthetics and Sociology of Traditional Arts") and F. Landa Jocano (on "Cross Cultural Perspectives in Management"). Also raised is the prospect of a "lecture series about Rizal through the eyes of Filipino and European experts such as Dr. Juan Antonio Lalaguna (University of London), Dr. Bill Watson (University of Kent), and Prof. Alistair Hennessy (Liverpool)."

Participation in high-profile festivals (the supreme wish being to finally have a Philippine entry to the Edinburgh International Festival in 2002) is recommended, along with the development of more linkages with major British museums. To this end, the British Museum, cited as "our biggest partner," is currently "working in partnership with the World Convention of Igorots whose annual gathering will be held in London in 2002."

Mr. Bautista summarizes: "Cultural Diplomacy can be a strategic tool in achieving the mainstream goal of the Philippines. It is in ‘culture’ where the country has distinctive and appealing features, a synthesis of the rich history of our islands with influences from various origins.

"In ‘culture’ the Philippine message can rise above the ‘clutter’ of a noisy diplomatic capital. Talents normally abound in the local Filipino communities which can be harnessed to sustain the strategy."

The paper concludes: "With greater interest in the Philippines by Britons, a positive impact on trade, investments and economic cooperation undertakings can be expected, which should (in turn) result in more job generation and increased economic opportunities of the marginalized sector of Philippine society."

Hmmm. Well, can’t say we were unaware of the responsibilities and repercussions attending our 18-day Cultural Diplomacy swing through three countries in Europe. The NCCA had Dr. Beni Santos, Mr. Rio Almario and I playing right up to, er, rather, fitting the bill for the strategy espoused by Hon. Cesar Bautista. Oh, and The British Council helped as well with a generous, last-minute grant from outgoing Director Rodney Bell.

So we suppose the good ambassador couldn’t be happier with what providentially landed on the embassy’s lap for five days on the third week of November.

He showed it too, this soft-spoken, genial man whose modest ways belie his effectivity at any post. He attended our first two engagements: a lunch and round-table discussion with the Filipino Women’s Association (FWA-UK) at the Filipino-run Josephine’s Restaurant (not to be confused with our homegrown Josephine resto) on Charlotte St. in London; and immediately following, our lecture before a mixed audience (but primarily involving members of the Overseas Women’s Club, as energetically arranged by the very helpful Mrs. Loline Reed) at the Tudor Room of the Imperial Hotel on Russell Square.

Two days hence Mr. Bautista rejoined us, together with Mrs. Reed, for an important call on Mrs. Valerie Mitchell OBE, Director General of the English Speaking Union (ESU) at Dartmouth House on Charles St. (As a result of this meeting, expect a Philippine chapter to be formed soon, to join 42 other country chapters that invariably send scholars and the like to competitions and conferences conducted by the ESU.)

And the next day, following a friendly more than an official call on our embassy at Palace Green off Notting Hill, the Ambassador took us walking across Kensington Gardens. Lovely autumn. Friendly swans in and out of the pond. Our end-stop was a hearty lunch at Orangery Restaurant, still part and parcel of Kensington Palace, even as it’s evolved from its earlier state as an 18th-century conservatory.

Our party’s only official engagement that Mr. Bautista regretfully missed out on, and only because he had a previous commitment to meet up with a Philippine trade delegation (or was that another seasonally ubiquitous group of holidaying legislators?) was our final lecture at De Montfort University in Bedford, a good two- to three-hour drive from London.

Suffice it to say that in turn did we appreciate Mr. Bautista’s and his embassy staff’s warmth of reception and efficient handling of the last leg of our tour. Part-time and junior diplomats that we were, only too eagerly did we trade notes and receive counsel from our Ambassador to a pre-eminent culture capital.

Figuratively, there was no gray day for us at the good old town that stands proud as a bastion of merry England.

From the Brussels airport to Heathrow was a brief hop out of the continent to an island kingdom where we would be closer to home with our variant of the Queen’s (in our case, second) tongue. Back to civilization in a way, then, or so did this writer comfort himself, after having coursed through some quaint challenges of translation occasioned by Italian, Flemish and French. Now we could summon our fine reserves of literary memory and language transfer, from Good Ol’ Will to Naipaul, V.S.

Then too we’d have friends welcoming us with open arms, in the tradition of diasporic literary camaraderie. Multi-awarded poet, dramatist and all-around writer Ed Maranan served as the embassy’s Information Officer (and photographer-chronicler). Jun Terra would be around to entertain us with his latest cultural and historical clips, as always. Gene Alcantara, who still runs a Filipino community newspaper despite having been posted at The British Council in Warsaw, promised to fly in to join us for a weekend. Prize-winning fictionist Reine Arcache Melvin, aka Bonnie, said she’d take the train from Paris to catch us for at least one event. Sarah Lowther, until two years back a welcome addition to Manila’s roster of columnists and broadcasters, had also promised a pint of real ale, at the very least.

And so we had reason to be hopeful that our Life-Is-Beautiful tour that had started in Rome, and seen us taking roll after roll of pictures in Florence, Leuven, Ghent, Bruges and Brussels, would now end on an even higher note of merriment, before we flew back home to find some comfort in Milan Kundera’s title Life Is Elsewhere.

(An aside: in our previous column we had mistakenly attributed the English reading of Rio Alma’s poems at the University of Leuven to Lea Punzalan, one of the very cordial and helpful Filipino scholars in our sizable community in Belgium. We stand corrected. It was Ms. Arni Clamor of the superb, mellifluous voice and diction who had done Rio’s Pinatubo poem more than prideful justice. A Philosophy teacher at the university, Arni’s pursuing a doctorate in Theology.)

And speaking of picture-taking, there was another reason we were keening in anticipation on the British Midland flight to Heathrow. Our previous visits to the UK had produced much inspiration, but there was one failure of purpose we had always regretted. And that was the oft-aborted pilgrimage to Stonehenge. This time we wouldn’t let the spirit (so alien yet so kindred) of our fellow Druids and Travelers down.

Thus it was that on a Sunday, our only free day, still aglow after a pleasurable evening of dinner, drinks and song hosted by the Ilonggo artisté Bobi Rodero in his flat till well past midnight, we happily bade a day’s farewell to our gracious home-stay hostess, Ms. Mimi Vasquez, to conduct the long-awaited day’s sojourn to monolith country.

Ah, finally, Stonehenge. And yes, albeit the day was closer to the autumnal equinox rather than the summer solstice, eerily did this writer feel the connection. Holding fast to our guide Ed Maranan’s arm, we trudged carefully around the circle of rocks tall, short, bird-perched, horizontal, rugged and blue, listening to the portable audio elucidation, while keeping an eye out for any sudden beam of light that could herald a skyborne abduction. No, brothers in Neptune, I don’t want to return home just yet; leave me to frolic with these earthlings.

Only after addressing the call of the loo, at the distant end of the car park, were our personal fears allayed. And only then did I manage to retrace the route alone, in Beni’s and Rio’s now distant footsteps, until I rejoined, not our kin from outer space but Ed’s comforting, bemoustached smile, for our last shots of, in... ahhh, Stonehenge.

Followed, of course, variants of a typical English lunch at Salisbury (read fish ’n chips). Followed of course a little blitz shopping for Harry Potter paraphernalia. Such sorcery indeed astride the famed English countryside.

Another highlight of our brief stay was a cozy, precious gathering at Gene Alcantara’s flat in Bayswater. There we joined five Filipino poets of London – Gene, Ed, Jun, and poets in Filipino Irineo Perez Catilo and Lambert B. Cabual, leaders of UMPUK (Ugnayan ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipino sa United Kingdom). It became an exclusive, all-inclusive affair of eight poets reading in double-turns to one another. Jun Terra recited an early poem in U.P. English from memory, before conscripting Gene’s computer to access his translation into Filipino of Neruda’s verses.

Everyone read soulfully, starting with Rio Alma, aware that in this circle we were as monoliths (naks!) and sorcerers (take that, Harry!) joining together in a rare haze of sacred ritual and then some – cigarette smoke (poor Ma’m Beni!), collective post-prandial lip-smacking after indulging in three kinds of paté, roast chicken and assorted breads, salads and cold cuts, and complementary consecration provided by Polish vodka and Laphroaig single malt whisky.

Gene has the audio tape of the historic proceedings, and someday the Royal Society of something-or-other will likely paste up a blue plaque of commemoration by the common door that leads to a strange address with the numerical fraction of 1/2, somewhere on Bayswater.

Love London. Even as the hecticity (!) of a pressurized sked prevented any fresh shot of the Millennium Eye, let alone a glass-bubble ride up the world’s largest Ferris wheel. The Potter-manic cineplexes were full and queue-besieged. Waterstone’s didn’t have any copy at all of Jack McKinney’s hard-to-find sci-fi series. But we caught the last copy of Cebuano novelist Timothy Mo’s latest fictional exposé, Renegade or Halo Squared (meaning Halo-Halo), winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Best Novel 1999.

Piccadilly had fewer lights for the season, or so said our guide Loline, deferring to both post-terror trauma and a possible global recession. Harrod’s discount sales were as high as 50 percent, but the Bedford cabbies said there were hardly any takers, since the Yanks had dwindled precipitously in number. But at Selfridges on Oxford St. it looked much like a more elegant Rustan’s, awash with nattily dressed shoppers, inclusive of Ma’m Beni picking up a Potter set. And at a hospice (read ukay-ukay) shop in Notting Hill, serendipity rewarded us with a £5 copy of Marinduque and Mandaluyong resident (until recently) James Hamilton-Paterson’s Loving Monsters.

Bonnie Melvin and Sarah Lowther did show up, if briefly at one time or another, so that the chain of command in our future photo albums shall remain unbroken. Over lunch at the Overseas Club with the Reeds, serendipity would again shower us with the propitious presence, at a table within Taglish earshot, of former Brit Ambassador to Manila Michael Morgan and his wife Julia. Flashback to the Marcos years. Flash of bulbs for more all-together-now shots.

And the statuesque and incredibly hospitable Mimi Vasquez, who runs a beauty salon and has gained the London franchise for the Body Shots modeling competition in Manila, wouldn’t allow our London visit to pass unclimaxed by a fabulous farewell dinner whipped up in concert with Malcolm, her significant other.

Well, we were only too glad to be of service to significance of country and universal poetry. As gravy, there too was the humbling realization that, lurch as we did from cathedral to leather-bag stall, European monument to ethnic monolith, lecture hall to Pinoy flat of great good vibes, the experience might also result in a little boost, as His Excellency Cesar B. Bautista puts it, "in more job generation and increased economic opportunities of the marginalized sector of Philippine society."

Happy to have been of some help.