In his friends’ minds, no doubt this was in honor of Carlos Abrera, our dear departed only two years ago. Acknowledging her appreciation of his cooling sojourn was his widow Emily, Cultural Center of the Philippines chairperson, who’s leaving for New York next week to attend to some private foundation matters. I’m sure Caloy will join her at the Big Ey-pol, such are the spiritual ties that bind them.
’Twas during a road trip to Baguio in the summer of 2004 that I heard of the accident that took Caloy from us. Now I can’t take the Asingan detour from the highway, to avoid Pangasinan’s congested town centers, without recollecting that stab of sorrow and torrent of tears on any drive to the summer capital.
Speaking of the spiritual, it seems whenever we revisit Baguio – poor, progressive/retrogressive Baguio – other memories can only reload the cache of sweet stuff the past was made of.
The present? Throngs on Session Road, verily like Quiapo’s, especially now that SM on the old Pines Hotel hill beckons like a mecca for DVD pirates and fast-food junkies. Smoke-belchers among a myriad of jeepneys, vehicular congestion where there was hardly any a decade ago. Off the market, a veritable Pasay of blue-collar human traffic.
The spectrum’s other end underscores the enclave lifestyle that besets the cities of our affection: pockets of green and pine and genteel café lounging at John Hay, the Country Club, parts of and beyond Quezon Hill, or at the institutionalized Café By The Ruins.
On a Sunday lunch at the last-named venue, I recognize a familiar face on an artwork hanging al fresco past the dap-ay or circular stonework serving as communal hearth. I amble over to verify. Indeed it is Robert Villanueva given homage, his visage occupying the lower right corner of a mixed-media tapestry of sorts. And across him on the lower left, why, it’s a faded mugshot, also in gray and white, of another celebrated Baguio shaman, Santi Bose.
Twin peaks of personalized memories. Between them is a flood of recall. I thank the eponymous artist for this tribute. Later I find out from Karlo Altomonte, provender of good cheer and stuff, that the artist is named Kigao Rosimo. He knows his forbears, the ties that bind, the flood that flows; thus must he be commended.
On the ruño wall concealing the CR’s are very attractive paintings, framed and elegant with their indigenous flavor of colorful images, symbols and geometric designs. I find out that they’re part of the current café display of Jordan Mangosin’s works. This highly talented fellow I recall to have concentrated on what he called solar art at Tam-awan Village. Handmade paper was subjected to configurations of representational design burned through with the sun’s rays, focused along by a magnifying glass.
It was an art form claimed to have been pioneered by Santi, who of course claimed a lot of deeds in his prime, which was from birth. Mwa-ha-ha.
Thank Kabunian for Ruins and its frequently edifying art, so that even if one noshes there without a glimpse of the great good Bencab in the flesh, one still feels privileged.
Another venue, lesser known, that helps make up for Baguio’s urban gloom-and-doom settings is the quaintly named Oh My Gulay – a café and vegetarian resto on the former roofdeck of the De Guias’ building right on Session.
Former, that is, because Kidlat Tahimik a.k.a. Eric de Guia, in yet another howling fit of inspiration, installed a barrel-vault plexiglass roof over the entire deck, vast as it is, and installed therein a marvelously eclectic assortment of movie set parts, facades, hagabi or Ifugao couch, and many other priceless wood artifacts.
What he has created is an indoor park that has a rock pond with an arching wooden bridge, a corner centerpiece of half a galleon used for his indie cinematic work-in-progress on Magellan, a Muscovite’s edifice exterior, a gallery, a maze of levels and passageways that drives kids giddy with delight. And all over are table settings for the group bite or intimate chat. On one end is a raised stage for any and all kinds of performance/production, from the Pinikpikan to a theater group intently rehearsing a musical play that weekend before last.
Thank Kabunian for Santi and Robert and Jordan and Kigao and Bencab and Kidlat, and Karlo of the next generation, who now heads that theater group. And Kidlat’s sons, filmmakers themselves, who’ve tiled up portions of the pavements on Session, so that Baguio retains vestigial charm despite the horde’s pedestrian assault on those very sidewalks.
Last Tuesday, descent unto Manila of our lingering affections was made easier by yet another kind of assault on the senses – at Penguin Gallery Café in Malate, where the neo-manqué Da Vinci, Cesare Syjuco, mounted the second of his serial poetry-cum-music gigs to herald his CD-in-progress. This was one was billed as "Home Is the Underground" – a performance night that showcased the multimedia artist’s and his family’s gifts of unadulterated precocity, in more ways than one.
In more ways than one too was his extended family present, as writers and poets Jim Libiran, Vim Nadera, Angelo Suarez and several other shamelessly Gothic strippers and masochists took turns to regale an equally insatiable SM crowd.
Gelo flung his shoe and miraculously avoided breaking bottles and glasses on a far table, maybe because his oracles were muffled by masking tape over his mouth already full of wads of Dadaist slogan paper. Another fellow stitched his lips with needle and thread before vocalizing poetry. A senior citizen invoked the savant spirit of Pepito Bosch and had everyone cowering in the face of ineffability. Including the many children scrambling around as if in excited wait for the premier screening of Da Vinci Code.
Strange city. Strange Remedios Circle goings-on.
Count in the blessings of offertory proferred by guitarist Bob Balingit of the legendary punk band The Wuds, performance artists Rene "Cocoon Man" Aquitania and Noel of Pinikpikan, the fisherman/painter Tata Raul Funilas in ecclesiastic robe, art doyenne Judy Freya Sibayan, poet/muse Natasha Betita, poets Gil Yuzon, his daughter Bianca, and Benedict Ros, the shock duo of Ian Madrigal – who could be Opus Dei the way he performed penitentially – and inventor/composer Lirio Salvador who plucked at the knobs and dials of his gleaming contraption.
And, of course, as penultimate class act before the Under/Uber Guru Cesare A.X. did his thing on vocals and guitar – the Faustian progeny by way of Jean Marie, with Maxine Syjuco joining the readers of sublime poetry before taking her place in the band, along with sisters Mickey and Trix, bro Aegee and pal Macky.
Wattanight. Such that the eminent actor Ronnie Lazaro was rendered agape as a spectator, as were videographer Egai Fernandez, direk Butch Perez and his 11-year-old apo-poet-prodigy, Solana, nouveau chef Louie Llamado, multi-genius artist Bogie Tence Ruiz, and slumming divas Gilda Cordero Fernando and Mariel Francisco, as well a legion of other sparkling creative forces that chanced in on the coup.
Last Friday, indie filmmaker and broadcaster Gerry Cornejo shared the night’s documentation in his program "Open House" on RJTV 29. And the entire cabled nation was held in thrall, from Batanes to Jolo.
So many good and great artists in our midst, and mostly we know them as friends, so that there are countless more whom we don’t know, but are there, as truth is out there, ready to abduct us towards alien rapture. And yet, what rules our lives but petty public disputes between legislators enjoined to go back to remontado ways and a disputatious, intemperate Justice Secretary who can’t pull his foot out of his mouth?
So much to treasure in our artists’ gifts and blessings, and yet, what do we have ruining our spiritual lives but media-savvy name-makers such as Atty. Filomeno Aldo who wants to become the Ely Pamatong of the anti-porn crusaders kuno (maybe they should take up citizenship in Las Vegas), or a Batangas bishop, why, even the Palace’s Executive Secretary – all speaking out of turn against a movie starring Tom Hanks!?
We have an overload of priceless treasures, and yet we also get an overdose of hoary pap. Such a fascinating country it is, of inexhaustible contrapuntal material. Such a wealth of real and unreal families, while so many live skeletons still rattle around in their Freudian slipcase closets.
Don’t we just love it!