Cruel year
Cruel year
Updated 11:40pm (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 2, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THIS year has been another cruel year for the arts.
First it was Wilfrido "Ding" Nolledo, who died of pancreatic cancer in San Fernando Valley, California. Few may know him, especially today when literature has been replaced by karaoke, but there was a time, before martial law, when his name rang loudly along with Nick Joaquin, N.V.M. Gonzalez, Bienvenido Santos, and other local literary greats. When he died, he was in the midst of finishing another novel, entitled "A Cappella Dawn." We are truly impoverished, though I imagine it is fortune enough for us to have it even in that form.
We met briefly before martial law in Asia-Philippines Leader and worked together, also all too briefly, in the Daily Globe before he decided to pack his bags for the US in 1989. He was a quiet and intense person, though quick to smile or laugh. He looked at the world with the eyes of a child, reveling in its wonders and awed by its tragedies. He was sorry to go, he said before he left, but having to work for a living was cutting into the time he lived to work--writing. I wished him all the best in the world, and meant it.
Then last May, it was Nick Joaquin who went, dying in his sleep shortly before the elections. Who knows? Maybe he did not want to live long enough to see the results. It would not have been unlike him to register his protest that way. But he had not been himself since Ding died. Ding was his protégé and good friend, and the cruelty of fate must have taken its toll on his stout heart. Nick was a devoted Christian, however he wrote about the pagan wellsprings of Christianity in this country, but even believers have been known to disbelieve life's unbelievable twists. He withdrew from the world to share the company of shadows in his home.
Alas, as it turned out, permanently. Billy Lacaba had been telling me we had a date with him to repair to a piano bar for no other reason than to toast life. We never quite got a common time to do it, until too late. Much later, Billy, his brother Pete and I went to the place, and as the singer sang Cole Porter to the lilting strains of a piano, Billy sighed and said he had done his duty. We toasted to Nick. I thought again what a monumental loss he was.
Last month, it was Lito Tiongson, playwright and filmmaker. He was a committed activist who never forgot the motto, "Serve the people," and yoked his art to that end. His films and documentaries easily show so: "Hubad na Gubat" "No Time for Crying," "Mendiola Massacre," "Beyond the Walls of Prison," "Lean," "Fragments," "Batas Militar." Like Ding, he too was beset by cancer. He was diagnosed with lymphoma early this year, and though he struggled valiantly against it, as he always had against oppression, he eventually succumbed to it.
Lito and I worked in Eggie Apostol's projects on martial law on its 25th anniversary. Lito did the documentary part, I did the book part. A good deal of the material I used in the book, particularly the descriptions about the rallies and demonstrations, I got from the footage in the documentary. Lito proved by his life and work that "committed artist" is not a contradiction in terms. He proved that activism does not impede art (though it can do so when done mindlessly), it advances it. He is another great loss to the community, the artistic and national community apart from the activist one.
Then only a couple of weeks ago, George Canseco passed away as well, from cancer of the liver. Canseco, of course, is the more widely known--or at least his works are. He composed more than 300 songs in his lifetime, many of them now classics, some of them staples in weddings. "Ikaw," "Ngayon at Kailanman," and "Paano Ba Ang Mangarap" are but some of them. His songs have been sung by all the major pop singers in this country, bar none. He was a candidate for National Artist for Music before he died, and it would be a shame if they do not bestow it on him (as on Levi Celerio) however posthumously.
I met Canseco a couple of times in TV talk shows, and on both occasions he was advocating changing the name of the country from "Philippines" to "Maharlika." Seemingly a facetious thing, it reflected his intense pride as a Filipino and his belief that Filipino artistry was second to none. He certainly proved both well justified.
And now Zeneida Amador. Amador I only met a few times, and barely exchanged anything but nods with. But I did hear from her a few times in letters, on the occasions she expressed her appreciation for things I had written, and on the occasions she invited me to watch Repertory.
I remember something the late Rolando Tinio said some time before he too died many years ago at age 60. He and Amador started out seemingly at cross-purposes, Rolando doing Tagalog plays with the aim of raising mass awareness and appreciation of theater and Zeneida doing English-language plays with a literate audience in mind. Rolando translating Shakespeare and Puccini into Tagalog, Zeneida having actors speak with American and English accents. Armed with sharp tongues and caustic wits, they now and then let them fly in the direction of each other.
But in the end they became very good friends. The reason was easy, said Rolando. In the end, the directions they pursued did not greatly matter. They were not different, they were the same. They were linked by the strongest of bonds, which was a common devotion to art, a common passion for theater. They were perfectionists, who earned the eternal gratitude of their wards for the hell they put them through to get to heaven. Amador, like Tinio, will be sorely missed for generations to come.
Same question I asked a couple of years ago when we had artists also dying in droves: Why artists, God? Why not politicians?
Updated 11:40pm (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 2, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THIS year has been another cruel year for the arts.
First it was Wilfrido "Ding" Nolledo, who died of pancreatic cancer in San Fernando Valley, California. Few may know him, especially today when literature has been replaced by karaoke, but there was a time, before martial law, when his name rang loudly along with Nick Joaquin, N.V.M. Gonzalez, Bienvenido Santos, and other local literary greats. When he died, he was in the midst of finishing another novel, entitled "A Cappella Dawn." We are truly impoverished, though I imagine it is fortune enough for us to have it even in that form.
We met briefly before martial law in Asia-Philippines Leader and worked together, also all too briefly, in the Daily Globe before he decided to pack his bags for the US in 1989. He was a quiet and intense person, though quick to smile or laugh. He looked at the world with the eyes of a child, reveling in its wonders and awed by its tragedies. He was sorry to go, he said before he left, but having to work for a living was cutting into the time he lived to work--writing. I wished him all the best in the world, and meant it.
Then last May, it was Nick Joaquin who went, dying in his sleep shortly before the elections. Who knows? Maybe he did not want to live long enough to see the results. It would not have been unlike him to register his protest that way. But he had not been himself since Ding died. Ding was his protégé and good friend, and the cruelty of fate must have taken its toll on his stout heart. Nick was a devoted Christian, however he wrote about the pagan wellsprings of Christianity in this country, but even believers have been known to disbelieve life's unbelievable twists. He withdrew from the world to share the company of shadows in his home.
Alas, as it turned out, permanently. Billy Lacaba had been telling me we had a date with him to repair to a piano bar for no other reason than to toast life. We never quite got a common time to do it, until too late. Much later, Billy, his brother Pete and I went to the place, and as the singer sang Cole Porter to the lilting strains of a piano, Billy sighed and said he had done his duty. We toasted to Nick. I thought again what a monumental loss he was.
Last month, it was Lito Tiongson, playwright and filmmaker. He was a committed activist who never forgot the motto, "Serve the people," and yoked his art to that end. His films and documentaries easily show so: "Hubad na Gubat" "No Time for Crying," "Mendiola Massacre," "Beyond the Walls of Prison," "Lean," "Fragments," "Batas Militar." Like Ding, he too was beset by cancer. He was diagnosed with lymphoma early this year, and though he struggled valiantly against it, as he always had against oppression, he eventually succumbed to it.
Lito and I worked in Eggie Apostol's projects on martial law on its 25th anniversary. Lito did the documentary part, I did the book part. A good deal of the material I used in the book, particularly the descriptions about the rallies and demonstrations, I got from the footage in the documentary. Lito proved by his life and work that "committed artist" is not a contradiction in terms. He proved that activism does not impede art (though it can do so when done mindlessly), it advances it. He is another great loss to the community, the artistic and national community apart from the activist one.
Then only a couple of weeks ago, George Canseco passed away as well, from cancer of the liver. Canseco, of course, is the more widely known--or at least his works are. He composed more than 300 songs in his lifetime, many of them now classics, some of them staples in weddings. "Ikaw," "Ngayon at Kailanman," and "Paano Ba Ang Mangarap" are but some of them. His songs have been sung by all the major pop singers in this country, bar none. He was a candidate for National Artist for Music before he died, and it would be a shame if they do not bestow it on him (as on Levi Celerio) however posthumously.
I met Canseco a couple of times in TV talk shows, and on both occasions he was advocating changing the name of the country from "Philippines" to "Maharlika." Seemingly a facetious thing, it reflected his intense pride as a Filipino and his belief that Filipino artistry was second to none. He certainly proved both well justified.
And now Zeneida Amador. Amador I only met a few times, and barely exchanged anything but nods with. But I did hear from her a few times in letters, on the occasions she expressed her appreciation for things I had written, and on the occasions she invited me to watch Repertory.
I remember something the late Rolando Tinio said some time before he too died many years ago at age 60. He and Amador started out seemingly at cross-purposes, Rolando doing Tagalog plays with the aim of raising mass awareness and appreciation of theater and Zeneida doing English-language plays with a literate audience in mind. Rolando translating Shakespeare and Puccini into Tagalog, Zeneida having actors speak with American and English accents. Armed with sharp tongues and caustic wits, they now and then let them fly in the direction of each other.
But in the end they became very good friends. The reason was easy, said Rolando. In the end, the directions they pursued did not greatly matter. They were not different, they were the same. They were linked by the strongest of bonds, which was a common devotion to art, a common passion for theater. They were perfectionists, who earned the eternal gratitude of their wards for the hell they put them through to get to heaven. Amador, like Tinio, will be sorely missed for generations to come.
Same question I asked a couple of years ago when we had artists also dying in droves: Why artists, God? Why not politicians?
posted by Dante at 7:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home