Danny suffered a stroke last year, which paralyzed the left side of his body. When he came to my office in a wheelchair, he looked gaunt and thin, his crew-cut hair sparse, with more whites where there was none before. I was crestfallen.
Recently, I visited Danny at home, together with my friends Father Joe Cremades and Manoling de Leon. Father Joe likes to visit the sick to bring words of comfort and peace of mind by giving the sacrament of confession, which he calls a passport to heaven.
When Danny saw us, he broke into a soundless sob, his face bony and old morphed into a childlike and pitiful look. How can this be? The man is immortal! A Zorba the Greek. A free spirit with a lust for life!
Father Joe recalled that Danny did a film interview of the bishop of Pampanga which was used in a documentary of Opus Dei. He thanked Danny and embraced him like a child. Father Joe’s embrace of a sick person reminded me of Mother Teresa. It was a humbling experience.
Then we left the two of them to spend private moments in the sacrament of confession. Father Joe loves this kind of apostolate.
In our early years (1962 to 1971), I marveled at Danny’s skills in getting in and out of romantic interludes, be they smooth as mayonnaise, or cutting as chainsaw teeth. Never tamed. Never hesitant. Danny was prepared to pay the price for taking his romances into high adventure. He was the only film director/copywriter in the ad industry in the Seventies. He lived his cinematic lifestyle to the hilt.
Since the Sixties, Danny and I worked as a team on many creative assignments. We were a perfect fit, Aquarians both. Magkabagang (molar-to-molar friendship). We both grew up in bucolic nooks in the coconut provinces of Southern Tagalog. I in Majayjay, Laguna, he in Mauban, Quezon, both lush and remote towns, where townsfolk were models of conservatism, old-fashioned spirituality and helpful neighborliness.
For high school and college, our mothers sent us to the Ateneo of the Fifties and Sixties. There we imbibed ratio studiorum, a Jesuit curriculum dominated by classic and modern literature, history, arts, philosophy and theology.
Our promdi roots and Jesuit courses in the humanities were a fantastic combination. Working in an ad agency after college, our minds blossomed on Ayala Avenue, but our feet remained firmly planted in the rice paddies of Majayjay and Mauban. We made terrific presentations of creative ideas in Tagalog or English – idioms, accents and all, to the delight of clients.
All of Danny’s ideas communicate authentic Mauban sentiments and expressions. In the early Sixties at Ace-Compton (now Saatchi & Saatchi), Danny shocked American expats at Procter & Gamble by presenting a Mayon Cooking Oil commercial which opened with: "Rosa! Bangus Dagupan Yan! Ipiprito mo lang, binaboy mo pa!"
In the Seventies at McCann Erickson, bastion of Madison Avenue jargons, Danny broke tradition by creating "Lakas Loob," an indigenous selling idea for Eveready batteries. It dramatized a Boy Scout rescuing a drowning man during a stormy night.
And who can forget the hysterical plea "Ibalik nyo ako sa Pilipinas!" the TV campaign against illegal job recruiters Danny did for POEA? Danny’s slice-of-life commercials rival top-rated soap operas.
Our most controversial assignment was done for President Marcos during the snap election of 1985. "Tama na, sobra na!" was the powerful battle cry of Cory Aquino’s propaganda team.
The main issue against the candidacy of Cory Aquino was her inexperience in governance and political know-how. Cory was "just a housewife," as the chauvinist politicians put it.
To combat the powerful appeal of Cory’s "Tama na," Danny and I decided to create the infamous "Ako’y Babae" commercial as our final-round knockout punch. "Ako’y Babae" voiced out the angst and fears of a theoretical plain housewife suddenly burdened with the punishing complexities of a president’s job.
The commercial was a shocker. The visuals showed coup d‘etats and social chaos and a government that had lost control. Over the scenes was the voice of a woman sounding pitifully lost, helpless, hopeless. "The Babae" commercial provoked outrage (and fear) among TV viewers.
I was identified as the author and quickly pilloried in newspaper columns. I received death threats and I became worried for my family’s safety. My friend, Telly Bernardo, hid me in his house until the EDSA Revolution blew over.
My close friends admired my iconoclastic and gut-wrenching advertising. They said I was only doing a professional job for a client, just as lawyers, accountants and surgeons did. To my contra partido, I, of course, was nothing but a first-class asshole.
After the EDSA revolution, Danny and I were back in harness. Our next challenge was to turn around the image of DBP from a crony bank to an institution of professionalism and integrity. We persuaded the DBP board, headed by Jess Estanislao, to mount a campaign espousing a return to Filipino values. Remember "Delicadeza and Palabra de Honor"?
Our Part 2 idea was "Pamilyang Uliran," a campaign promoting countryside entrepreneurship. Danny filmed the beautiful true-to-life struggles of Narda Capuyan from Baguio and Virgilio Dytuco of Pampanga and other family enterprises as models for self-employment and job creation.
Danny is the only creative director alive who can write scripts, cast, hunt for locations, direct and edit his own film commercial.
The DBP Values Campaign received high honors for inspiring and espousing Filipino values. It was the talk of the town. I was invited by colleges and universities to talk on the role of family values in development communications.
After Father Joe finished giving confession, Manoling and I re-entered the house to banter with Danny. We compared ages: I am 68, Father Joe is 72, Manoling is 73. Danny signaled 64 using his fingers as he broke into a shy smile. I also gave Danny my pasalubong, pancit palabok, which I personally cooked. (Danny always brought me fat and juicy crabs for my family whenever he came from Infanta).
Before we left I was handed an envelope with a thank-you note scrawled gingerly by Danny’s weakened hand. Like a child he bade us goodbye by waving a white handkerchief. His face shone bright and happy like a baby’s. I felt good. Danny was in full control of his spiritual life. Thanks to my friend Father Joe Cremades, the saintly priest in white soutane.