It’s not every day you see an inebriated Lolita Carbon onstage with Cooky Chua and Bayang Barrios, singing their cover of Tropical Depression’s “Kapayapaan.” They sway, each voice husky, standing close together on what little space could be stood on in the slice of platform strewn with wires, mic stands, and effects pedals.

In fact, it’s not every day you’ll even see the Tres Marias together again, singing in harmony in the corner of a boxy bar in Quezon City, to raise funds for fellow folk singer and retired singer-composer Coritha, who has suffered a stroke that essentially paralyzed her. If Ate Coritha were here, Cooky jokingly put it, the four of them would have been “Kwatro Kantos.”

At the Hive Hotel some paces away from the corner of Timog Avenue and Scout Tuason Street, Quezon City, on Monday night, My Brother’s Mustache was overfilled with patrons for the “Awit Para Kay Coritha” fundraising gig. There was no longer that glass wall that usually separated the bar’s perimeter from the hotel lobby; occupied extra tables filled the lobby end to end, buzzing with talk over beer and “unplugged” live performances.

Monet Pura, the musikero Chickoy Pura’s wife and organizer of the benefit gig, navigated the expanded seating arrangement, going around for donations to be given to Coritha’s partner Chito Santos, who occasionally watched the show from the bar’s mezzanine.

A distinctive and easy friendliness ran through the crowd, a feeling that both performers and spectators all knew each other, or were at least acquainted in some way. These were our titos and titas who sang along animatedly to John Denver, The Youngbloods, CSNY, Beatles, Paul Simon, Pepe Smith and Joey Ayala (who they also probably know personally).

You almost cannot imagine that some of them have lived through events you’ve only read about, or are pioneers of their respective fields, or have played for audiences of thousands in concert halls, or, for some of the men, used to sport a ponytail—all of them now crowded in this bar.

‘Oras Na’

The lineup of “Awit Para Kay Coritha” culminated with the Tres Marias’ performance, beginning with “Masdan Mo Ang Kapaligiran” by Lolita Carbon’s very own folk band Asin. Prior to them were equally engrossing performances by Toto Sorioso, Chickoy Pura, Maribeth and Lester Demetillo, Corky and Kiko or Old Friends, and Bobby Mondejar and Friends, with a surprise performance by actress Liz Alindogan, who sang a cover of Celeste Legaspi’s “Minsan Minahal Ay Ako.” Each of the Tres Marias had their own individual segments as well.

Most of the “Awit” artists go way back to the time of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship, when gigs were also a form of protest against the regime. This was even before “OPM” (or Original Pinoy Music) was a thing, before the widespread commercialization of music itself.

Among those musicians, Coritha was considered one of the most popular of the protest singer-songwriters during the martial law days. “Oras Na” was famous among dissenters and even among political prisoners; the song is arguably a close second to Freddie Aguilar’s “Bayan Ko” as an influential protest song of that time. It was made popular again during the runup to then president Joseph Estrada’s resignation and impeachment, where she sang it live at one of the first anti-Estrada rallies. Later, she performed the song during the Million People March in 2013, which would be among her last rare live performances.

From their roots performing during the Marcos Sr. dictatorship, it seems unsettling to be reminded of where we are today and who now rules after it was toppled barely 40 years ago.

Throughout the decades, no matter the ups and downs of their popularity in the music industry, these artists have written songs and mounted shows for specific community-oriented causes, beginning during martial law up to the many political demonstrations that followed, to international issues such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to fundraisers for fellow musicians in need. At the heart of it all is music—probably one of the most binding methods (besides food) to build solidarity among people across age groups and backgrounds.

Karaoke for a cause

The show felt like being in a family-reunion-type karaoke night in the best way, except that these were highly talented artists with years of advocacy, musical experience, and maybe also drinking bouts behind them.

Ranging from folk to folk rock to rock to Manila sound, the songs performed during “Awit” were both lighthearted and nostalgic, played on acoustic guitar, sometimes with a keyboard, a cajon, or a violin on the side.

Bayang Barrios, who had begun her set with a cover of Coritha’s “Oras Na,” noted the difficulty of singing the song in its original pitch due to its deceptively simple but high notes. And yet, with her own range and vocal control, she still made singing the folk hit look easy.

Cooky Chua belted a few of her own during her solo segment, including her band Color It Red’s “Na Naman” and a yet to be released song.

Bobby Mondejar and Friends kept a sparkling, lively set with covers of much-loved classics such as “Sweet Caroline” and “Hotel California.”

Chickoy Pura, himself the beneficiary of fundraising shows by musician friends back in 2019 after news came of his lymphoma diagnosis, sang as an encore his composition “Rage (for Palestine),” sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar, his voice, and a gripping but sober emotionality on the continuing war on Palestine.  

It was what the show’s performers had in common: You could tell right off that these are veteran musicians. Here you sit within close range of a tight network of artists who have stayed on the ground, physically within reach of their listeners in small, crowded bars and beer gardens. They compel you to look and listen closely, a masterclass of pulling a riff of notes picked over a fretboard without even sweating, like it was just another Christmas performance.

And in a sense it was: According to Monet Pura, the gig netted P136,600—P95,000 from the show charges alone—all handed to Chito Santos who looks after Coritha. It was quite successful for an event that took only five days to organize.

Full circle

Knowing all of this, watching these performers that have sung during huge historical movements to the next big ones, or in large concert halls, or on TV, now jamming to old songs at a small bar to pool funds for Coritha, who is herself one of the most influential singers of her time and is no longer able to speak, and to top it all off, during a second Marcos presidency—you get the feeling that everything comes full circle in the most ironic, bittersweet, and (from the lens of someone younger) hopeful way. Somehow.

It’s made even more profound by Coritha’s own story, an unpretentious, beautiful woman always captured with an acoustic guitar in hand. She retired in 2000 and had since remained low-profile, but sometime around the ’10s she released a little-known album called “One Earth,” about “the environment, peace, love,” as she described it during an interview before performing “Oras Na” on “Umagang Kay Ganda” in 2010. 

During that period, she could be seen wearing rectangular rimless glasses and simple clothes, almost always with an acoustic guitar slung over one shoulder. There are still some clips online of her performing live as recent as 2014, but there is very little to go on after that.

And then, in 2018, she appeared on TV again, this time in the news, when she lost her Quezon City home along with all her possessions in a fire caused by a lighted candle. In the now viral vlog of newscaster Julius Babao, Chito Santos recalled that before Coritha moved in with him on his farm in Tagaytay, she was still staying in the destroyed property and “sleeping on a folding bed in a tent built by friends.”  

She suffered from depression and had multiple mild strokes spanning that difficult time period. But it was another mild stroke, which occurred early this year, that ultimately caused her immobility.

In the vlog, when Coritha’s partner led the newscaster inside the house, her expression changed from confusion to recognition to pain. A swell of emotions concentrated in the eyes—the heartbreaking image was hard to reconcile with the smiling girl in old pictures.

With others now singing songs for her, the message to Coritha is that she is still known and cherished. More benefit shows for her are slated to take place in the next weeks, some with the same performers as Monday’s gig. The Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit will hold its own fundraising event on Aug. 18, with Noel Cabangon and, again, Lolita Carbon and Bayang Barrios included in the lineup.

Music as proof of life

A takeaway from all these performances that came together in honor of Coritha and her music is that you can feel community and history running vein-deep with music. It’s hard to replicate that sense of community and common interest in a mere studio recording put out on YouTube or Spotify, which is why, with pandemic fatigue wearing off, there are so many concertgoers now looking for a kind of collective experience and communal energy.

Either way, a song will have its own impact and its way of speaking truth to power over generations. Memory is always interesting when it gives itself away. You surprise yourself as you sing along to songs you didn’t even know you knew. It sometimes walks its own path, no matter what happens to the artist herself. 

Coritha, Tres Marias, and the rest of the “Awit” lineup and all their songs give inspiration and context to time. There is no escaping it, but there is a way to enrich and decorate it. The body will fail, movements will come and go, the song will end, but what matters is the singing and the listening. Even when you know it will end, still you love it.

As Coritha once sang of the wisdom of harkening, “May bulong, dinggin mo / Ihip ng ating panahon / May sigaw, dinggin mo / At ubos na ang oras mo.”

Live performances from “Awit Para Kay Coritha” may be watched at CoverStory’s Facebook page.

Read more: Cooky Chua and Joaquin Ignacio on making music and the changing times