Touch Me Not

Jose Rizal used the words, Noli Me Tangere the spoken words of Jesus to Mary Magdalene (according to John) after his resurrection, for the title of his great novel. As early as 1534, the Italian painter Antonio de Correggio illustrated this scene of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and so named his painting, Noli Me Tangere. Other painters followed and also used the same words as the title of their paintings. During the medieval period, Noli Me Tangere were words used to describe a disease – a “hidden cancer.”

Jose Rizal published his novel Noli Me Tangere in 1884 to raise political concerns during the Spanish colonization period. Today, we still feel this ‘social cancer’ that Rizal so long fought for but never resolved.

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Last Thursday, September 11 was the gala show of Jose Rizal, The Opera at Resorts World. As veteran writer/ critique and good friend Nelson Navarro and I entered the theater, we were skeptical but came out impressed by the lyrical beauty of Filipino language and music.

 National Artist for Music Felipe Padilla de Leon first staged his full-length opera of Noli Me Tangere in 1957 at the Far Eastern University auditorium. This play was basically forgotten until it was brought to Chicago and then New York two years ago. What’s clear is that the Filipino lyrics by National Artist Guillermo Tolentino is as ‘singable’ as Italian or any language used in opera. With a first-rate cast, deft staging by Freddie Santos and under the baton of Rodel Colmenar, this production really took wing. There was never a dull moment. The powerful cast consisted of: Sal Malaki as Cristomo Ibarra, Rachel Gerodias as Maria Clara, Jonathan Velasco as Padre Damaso and Antoni Mendezona as Sisa.

Thanks to Jerry Sibal and Edwin Josue, Executive Producers and Loida Nicolas Lewis who says she was reduced to tears in Chicago that she worked heaven and hell to bring De Leon’s underrated masterpiece home.

We sat right behind DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario and in front of the two sons of Felipe Padilla de Leon, my good friend NCCA head Felipe Mendoza De Leon, Jr. and Nelson’s UP law classmate Madangal De Leon, now a CA Justice.

This opera surely took us by surprise. When good talent work together and they are given the chance, the result is sheer magic. It is just too bad that opera in Filipino was never given the chance after De Leon’s first salvo almost 60 years ago. The problem is that we suffer from cultural inferiority complex that gets in the way of creativity and self-confidence. Taglish and pop sidetracked the flowering of Filipino art that can match the best in the world.

More people should watch the show and then resolve that we will never allow ourselves to be second class in anything. Noli Me Tangere, The Opera runs at the Newport of Performing Arts Theater, Resorts World Manila from September 21-28.

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The closure of the Mandarin Oriental last week, September 9, 2014 brought an end to an era in our country’s history. I was five years old when the hotel opened its doors a few years after martial law in 1975. My father was still under house arrest but was allowed to go around Metro Manila.

As a true GI (Genuine Ilocano) my dad made Mandarin his “Makati office” specifically the Captain’s Bar. For some 18 years, roughly from 1988 to 2006, the year he moved up to journalists’ heaven, he was there everyday. He was at the Mandarin by 7am, nursing his morning coffee, patented pipe dangling from his lips, a portable phone (like a cellphone) on the table when it was not yet in the mass market. Often drifting to lunch at Tivoli or Tin Hau, he would rush home by 3pm to pound his column on his typewriter, shunning the laptop to the very end.

Why Mandarin? Well, everybody moved to Makati for good after the EDSA revolt. It became passé to hang out at the Sheraton or Manila Hotel, which took over from the Hilton when Marcos seized power and tamed the media. In the martial law years, Doroy Valencia’s 365 Club at the Intercon in Makati was the in-place. The Peninsula’s cavernous lobby was the city’s living room, too big and too busy for my father to feel at home.

The Mandarin was always an elite business and expatriate hotel. It had an air of vast power and wealth. Danding Cojuangco once reigned there because Cocobank was just across the street. The crowd was drawn from other citadels of power nearby—Petron, Citibank, Bank of America, PCIB, DBP, etc. My father dared to assert his presence when the media got back its teeth and being publisher of a major paper and a daily columnist demanded and merited some kind of deference.

 Long-reigning Mandarin GM Helmuit Gaisberger and PR chief Charisse Chuidian regarded him as a choice client, according him courtesy befitting a king. In those magical years, the reigning queen of the Mandarin lunch crowd was Rosemarie “Baby” Arenas. The two of them were the very best of friends. 

Always dressed in natty Hong Kong business suits, dad could not be missed. Wherever he sat, he became the center of the room. Cabinet members, taipans, socialites and beauty queens, the famous and infamous, came by to exchange pleasantries and tidbits. That’s how he gathered inside information and often ‘outscooped’ his own reporters.

I think my dad hit the real big time when the newly-installed President Fidel Ramos publicly declared that the first column he read in the morning was Max Soliven. It made up for the years when he was accused of “Cory-bashing” and the palace got him convicted for libel that was thrown out on appeal under the Ramos regime. FVR boosted dad’s ego and his stature in the industry beyond his own imagination. You can imagine the parade of friends and supplicants at Captain’s Bar. Under Presidents Estrada and Arroyo, his influence rose even higher. Erap and GMA even made it a point to drop by my mother’s Dolce Fontana bistro at OB Montessori where he set up an alternative breakfast club for a bigger crowd than Mandarin could take. This turned into the Tuesday Club at Edsa Shangri-la which survives to this day.

It was also in Mandarin Oriental when my dad had that unfortunate encounter with Fidel V. Ramos leaving him humiliated and vowing, “If he wants war, he’ll get war.” Of course a damage control operation followed shortly from the Ramos camp with various emissaries sent to appease my dad.

Mandarin Oriental was also a witness to that infamous incident involving my dad and the German Ambassador Wolfgang Gottelmann. What had apparently led to the unfortunate exchange was my dad’s column on that day attacking the European ambassadors for “meddling” in Philippine affairs by opposing the execution of Leo Echegaray, a man convicted of raping his own young daughter and awaiting execution by lethal injection. The ambassadors went to the National Penitentiary to show their countries’ opposition to the death penalty.

All these and many more memorable occasions with family and friends plus great names make up the celebrated history of Mandarin Oriental in the Philippines. Mandarin Oriental, Manila has been recognized as one of the city’s most iconic hotels since its opening.

Together with the rest of the patrons of this truly luxurious hotel, I look forward to welcoming you back in 2020 Mandarin Oriental. So long for now!