At Gallery MiraNila in Quezon City on Oct. 1, the hardbound volume “Encounters in the Arts” was available for sale at the registration corner for “Cecile Licad Up Close.” But the man behind both the book of reportage and the piano concert was elsewhere—quite out of character, being hands-on if not OC at each endeavor...
Category: In Memoriam
Post
Dante C. Simbulan, 1930-2024: From military officer to scholar-activist
Long before Dante C. Simbulan’s path-breaking study on the Philippine elite, “The Modern Principalia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy,” was published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2005, it had become “the much-quoted thesis on the socioeconomic elite in the Philippines,” according to Mark Turner, writing on the History of...
Post
Like a bridge over troubled water: The life journey of Luis Jalandoni
The melody of the ballad “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” played on a piano, welcomed a large crowd to the Asian Center auditorium at the University of the Philippines Diliman for a tribute to Luis Jalandoni, the ex-priest and former chief peace negotiator for communist rebels who died in exile in the Netherlands on June 7....
Post
Singer Hajji Alejandro: the ‘Kilabot’ with the signature sweet smile
The singer Hajji Alejandro died of colon cancer early this week but in the snapshots posted by his daughter Rachel Alejandro on Instagram, he does not at all project the image of an ailing man before and after his diagnosis. In photos of concerts last December, in which he appeared as her special guest and...
Post
Francis’ papacy, defined by mercy and compassion, was neither rigorist nor laxist
Within weeks of his 2013 election, Pope Francis shocked many by washing the feet of two girls—one of them a Muslim—during the Maundy Thursday liturgy at a juvenile detention center in Rome. This break from liturgical tradition signaled a papacy that would emphasize reform, pastoral openness, and, to some, a controversial departure from established norms....
Post
Reading the mystery of Nora Aunor, Superstar
The words posted by Ricky Lee, National Artist for Film and Broadcast, honoring his friend and fellow National Artist, speak volumes: “Kung wala na ang lahat, kung kalansay na lang ako, ang matitira na lang ay ang sinasabi mong sining” (When everything is gone, when I am but bones, the only thing that will be...
Post
Love and a million thanks to you, Pilita
Pilita Corrales, Asia’s Queen of Song and an enduring icon in the Philippines’ Tin Pan Alley, has bid us adieu at the age of 85. The “heavy heart” with which Pilita’s granddaughter Janine Gutierrez announced her passing on April 12 is ours, too. The mourning is deep for the Filipino Spanish María del Pilar Garrido...
Post
In praise of Edcel Lagman, ‘Bicol’s great son’
Tributes continue to be aired for Albay (first district) Rep. Edcel Lagman, who died on Jan. 30 after a long and illustrious career in lawmaking and defending human rights beginning in the Marcos Sr. dictatorship. In a Facebook post “mourning” the loss of Lagman, Leni Robredo said that when she was vice president, she constantly...
Post
Gloria Romero, showbiz royalty
The Philippine movie industry is neither Mount Olympus nor a monarchy but it has gods and goddesses and kings and queens, albeit with feet of clay. One of them was Gloria Romero, who died last Jan. 25 (the Feast of St. Paul, as reminded by showbiz fixture and Nora Aunor fan Marie Cusi) at the...
Post
I remember Ka Dodong Nemenzo
I encountered Francisco Nemenzo—Ka Dodong to his colleagues and comrades—well before I met him in person. That is, I read one of his papers—isn’t that how we get to know great scholars and thinkers, through the works they have penned? They may be halfway around the world, or they might have passed away long ago,...