Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Doreen - Wili Fernandez' Well Lived Life

On November 26, 1958, fifty-one years ago today, Wili Fernandez and Doreen Gamboa were wed at the Malate Church. I have reprinted the bride's article on Wili's passing below.by Doreen Gamboa Fernandez on Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 7:04pm.

After Wili passed away in 1998, Doreen remembered Wili in this essay, "The Well-Lived Life".

Wili Fernandez, interior designer, I first met at the Cafe Indonesia of the 50s, where Toots Dila led a jazz group which drew both aficionados and all visiting musicians with an urge to jam. When Wili entered, the band would play Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady", his favorite song, or "Audrey" from the Brubeck Time album. He loved jazz, with Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington as favorites. But when he heard something not to his taste, he would plug in an earphone and listen to his portable radio.

Thus friends remember Wili not only for his prowess as an interior designer, but for having known and lived the good life.


Theater he loved, and he designed some sets for local theater groups. While in New York designing the Philippine Center, he refused to stay with all the others—not only because the Waldorf Astoria was his favorite hotel, but so he could sneak out almost nightly to watch plays. Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neill he especially liked, and saw everything he could catch, sometimes twice. And musicals like "A Little Night Music" and "Sunday in the Park with George".

His zest for good food all friends remember. A true gourmet, his appreciation was intuitive, built-in, instant. In 1969 Geny Lopez asked him to write a food column for the Manila Chronicle, one that would "make readers' mouths water", because of his gastronomic experience here and abroad, some of it shared with Geny, for whom he designed ABS-CBN. "Yes'" said Wili, "I'll eat; Doreen will write." And so we did, till the paper closed after martial law.


That was my education as a food writer. While I pondered what spices flavored a dish, he knew through the tip of his tongue. When he tried couscous or bears' paws for the first time, the experience registered in his consciousness, alongside food from his Palawan childhood, and binatog a friend's mother cooked during the Japanese Occupation. He shaped me as a food writer, because the researcher in me learned about savoring through the senses, about judgments reached through intuition rather than logic.

Travel complemented all his interests—food, theater, art, music, architecture and interior design. On his first trip to New York, he gawked at the buildings, and when I said, "Para kang turista," he answered proudly, "But I am a tourist, seeing the Seagram Building for the first time!" He got a tour of the new Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center by writing to Rudolf Bing that he had come halfway around the world to see it. "Wear comfortable shoes," we were told, "this is the equivalent of a 14-storey building." Yet he considered eating fresh-caught fish at seaside on a Greek island one of his peak experiences, alongside seeing the Parthenon, and spending whole days at his favorite Museum of Modern Art.


Savoring the comforts of great hotels in London, Rome, Hong Kong, etc., was fun, but also research for his work. His enthusiasm came from understanding all that an interior designer must do: create spaces for actual people to live in, fill them with comfort and efficiency, and make them enclose beauty as well. He collected art even when he could barely afford it: the work of the young and the great. He once told Fernando Zobel: "I can't afford you; your paintings are always just beyond my budget." And the wonderful Fernando answered, "Then I'll paint one for your budget"—and did, a small one that is a cornerstone of our collection.


Wili's well-lived life was a constant search—research for his work, a hunt for beauty and its standards, a quest for significant experience. It was undoubtedly fun—sitting in an old Kyoto restaurant, with tempura served singly, like jewels; perching on a stool in a New York diner, awaiting an egg sandwich "seaboard" (to go); tasting the best Belgian chocolates (Mary's, where they are displayed like museum pieces) and best-of-season mangoes from a friend's Zambales farm.

After his death, letters remembered him in many ways. Marla Yotoko Chorengel's poem pictured him still "whirling in a dance of life ... savor[ing] the flavors of timeless time". Fides, who grew up in a room he had designed, saw "his touch and colors enliven our daily life". John, (US ambassador to Venezuela) and Nini Maisto wrote about this "wonderful and gentle man, always busy with his professional life ... always so wise in his observations and his don de gente".


Maribel Ongpin remembered how in the 1984 political upheaval he had personally made sandwiches for her Namfrel (volunteer National Free Elections volunteers). The children of Tito and Rory Lagdameo knew a side no one else did: on his lap they heard stories of Kokak, the frog in the garden, and passages from Shakespeare.

The well-lived life, he showed us, was not just being a bon vivant and enjoying himself. It was part of growth, of his commitment to Philippine design, of his gratitude for the good things with which God had blest his world.

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Thursday, October 14, 2010

A MIRACLE IN THE FAMILY OF MAN - IN CHILE


The 33 Chilean miners were rescued with the help of everyone in Chile who could, with no political agenda and with the help of foreign countries who sent in equipment but most of all bolstered by the miners' Faith in God. The leader said there was a 34th person there with them, which provided hope.

Brings to mind the terrible and cold hearted attempt at "rescue" by U.S. authorities of the Katrina disaster in Louisiana which, still to this day, still has left many victims seeking the government's assistance.

Chile is a third world country...the U.S. is the richest country in the world.

What a contrast.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Doreen- Outstanding Filipina, A Dear Friend

“I’ve heard about you and glad we're finally getting to meet." This coming from a fellow graduate student at the Ateneo Graduate School campus, after one of the classes I attended in 1955. I learned that she was a graduate of St. Scholastica's College and was now pursuing a Master's degree in English Literature at the Ateneo Graduate School. I also found out that she had already been writing a regular column on food which, eventually, appeared in one of the Manila newspapers.


The course that I had hoped to pursue towards an M.A. degree I was enrolled in at the time was English drama. Since most of the Ateneo classes – grade school, high school, and college had already moved to their new location at Loyola Heights, Quezon City, the Graduate School classrooms were the only ones remaining in Padre Faura. The only classes still at the Padre Faura campus in 1954 were the Ateneo College of law and the Ateneo graduate school waiting to move to a spot on Salcedo Village, Makati City.

I must confess that greetings especially from young ladies hitting me frontally usually floor me and I am often left speechless. This time, however, I managed a self conscious smile and asked for her name.

“ Call me Doreen.” She said and added, “I am the older sister of Neal Gamboa your fellow Jazz lover.”

Instantly, I realized that at last I got to meet Neal Gamboa’s, sister. There were two of them: Doreen the eldest was next to Neal followed by Della. I met Neal in 1959 when I began teaching at De La Salle College after earning my A.B. degree (major in Journalism) from the Ateneo de Manila before it became a university.

I met Neal at our mutual watering hole even then already well- known as CAFÉ INDONESIA, where jazz and sate attracted many aficionados. Owned and managed by a handsome statuesque mestizo Dutch Indonesian gentleman named Pete Alfonso, Cafe Indonesia was a favorite hangout of Jazz aficionados and after hours executives who worked in the area in the '50s. At first meeting one might mistake Pete to be a movie star for his good looks and his imposing height (6’2”). But Pete was THE gentleman that he was through and through. Café Indonesia boasted of a nightly jazz combo led by Ariosto Toots Dila, a trumpet player who enjoyed clowning around as he played and led the combo.

After a semester, I decided to drop out of the course and thus saw Doreen less in the Ateneo Graduate School scene since, Meanwhile, I was invited by Fr. James B. Reuter, S.J. to act in his coming play written by James Barrie – DEAR BRUTUS. It was slated for presentation at the Law School auditorium on Padre Faura. Fr. Reuter was assigned for years at ATENEO DE NAGA and had just been transferred to the Manila campus for other duties like teaching and directing stage plays.

I was so happy seeing Doreen again and doing the thing she liked best – selecting music and handling the musical background for stage plays produced by Fr. Reuter. Actually, when Fr. Reuter began teaching at Ateneo in 1952 directly from his Ateneo de Naga assignments, Doreen was already doing the musical background for Fr. Reuter’s radio plays that were on every Tuesday over DZRH. The group was known as the AVE MARIA PLAYERS GUILD. I managed to act in supporting roles only.

"Dear Brutus" was well received by the Manila community who had already been following Ateneo drama ever since Fr. Henry Lee Irwin, S.J. had made a name in Philippine Theatre for his classical plays, many of them by Shakespeare.

In the coming years, I developed my friendship with the Gamboa family particularly because I had fallen into the “habit” of visiting their home on Estrada Street just two short blocks from La Salle College where I taught subjects in the Lia Com course. The fact is I was a daily lunch guest of the Gamboa household. I just could not have enough of the dishes prepared by their wonderful cook named Daling. By then I was already a close family friend not only of Doreen but of the entire family.

It was at this time when I developed the nightly habit of unwinding by going to CAFÉ INDONESIA and listening (and sometimes singing) with the Jazz combo. Soon we had a clique, so to speak, and among them was a young heavy set chap named Willie who preferred to spell his name Wili. He was a recent architecture graduate who liked Jazz and whose company I enjoyed. I did not know at the time that Wili already had some feelings for Doreen who also came to Café Indonesia Restaurant with her brother Neal and other friends. In time, Doreen and Wili Fernandez became a couple and regular habitués of the jazz cocktail lounge.

This friendship with Wili and Doreen went all the way through to the times when we began to start our families. Wili and Doreen became godparents of two of our five children. Over the years the couple would invite me and Chita to this or that restaurant in Manila and savor the new cuisine, for already Doreen and Wili had gotten involved with food not only of the Philippines but special dishes from other countries.

In time, Doreen began to write a column on food which was praised by many food magazine editors. Doreen had lots of energy despite the fact that from her youth she was beset with terrible ailments which included diabetes. But, Doreen the courageous and bubbly friend that she was, just took these medical problems in stride. She taught at the Ateneo University, teaching mass communications subjects and headed the communications department of the university. Doreen also produced several books on food while focusing on local Philippine dishes, especially the ones from Negros Occidental where she was born.

Doreen, no doubt was a gifted lady who wrote books in elegant English and took part in local and foreign conferences related to food and the culinary arts. Wili, on the other hand, established a firm that offered advice on interior decoration. This took Wili to foreign shores on assignment by clients who saw his artistic touch in designing hotel rooms and the like as well as their furniture. As luck would have it, Wili, like Doreen, also suffered from numerous types of ailments, but this did not prevent him from pursuing his artistic works that today still exist in foreign countries.

While Doreen and Wili were winning raves in their respective fields – she for her culinary arts involvement and classes in mass media at the Ateneo, Wili for his sought after designs, their bodies suffered continually through the years.

Doreen was active not only in drama, especially theatre production by Fr. James B. Reuter, S.J. where Ateneo and St. Paul plays were enhanced with the quality of musical background that Doreen had selected. In the field of food writing, a foundation was created in honor of Doreen’s memory known as the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award.

Wili passed on in the late 1960s and Doreen was left to manage her projects and the liquidation of assets of Wili’s design firm as well.

Then on a trip to New York where Doreen was to deliver a paper, she decided to bring along not a nurse for a change, but Della, her only sister. It was in New York just before she delivered her paper when she suffered the attack which brought her to the ICU.


She told Della that she was ready to go and not to try resuscitate
her anymore.

Doreen Gamboa-Fernandez died of pneumonia June 24, 2002, She was 67. Her death came as a shock to many at home, especially her friends, students and fellow writers of various disciplines whom she had inspired and supported through the years.

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Friday, June 4, 2010

POCH ESTELLA -FAST FRIEND AND ATHLETE


As a grade school student in my first boys school, San Beda, I got to befriend Poch who as a young boy, already exhibited his keen sense of comradeship. I got to meet Poch and other Spanish-Filipino boys in San Beda where they preferred to study. They were known as mestizo grade school students of San Beda College ran by Benedictine Spanish priests.

When I left San Beda and moved to Ateneo for grade five I no longer saw Poch and even began to cheer for another team the Ateneo Blue Eagles. It did not take long before the war came and I was happy to discover that Poch and his family were living near our home on Arlegui Street near Malacanang Palace.

His folks had decided to move into a two story house just around the corner from ours. The Japanese Occupation left Poch and I with much time to play for me to while away our time. By this time Poch was already known to basketball teams especially San Beda where he began to play in the senior varsity team and in Soccer teams as well - for it had come to be known that mestizo boys played excellent Soccer since before the war. Poch was a mestizo.

In fact, his name Jose Estella the III was significant because his grandfather Jose the Ist whom I met briefly at their house was actually a humble but well known composer of Filipino music known as Kundimans. One famous composition of the grandfather was ANG MAYA now a part of outstanding compositions by many Filipino composers.

When I resumed studies after the war at the Ateneo campus on Padre Faura, it was in my second year high school. There Poch and I were classmates once morel and so we were together again. He was an excellent athlete in both fora = basketball and Soccer, and one who never took himself seriously. Most schoolmates who got to know him as a fellow student and star athlete of the school team, enjoyed Poch's practical jokes and good humor.

It was during his performance with the Ateneo basketball team when he was selected to play with the Philippine Football team in the 1954 Asian Games. During his time other known Ateneo athletes included Luis "Moro" Lorenzo, Chole Gaston, Jose Rusty Cacho and Freddie Campos. In the Soccer field he shared accolades with Louie Javellana, Ole Orbeta, Bong Tanco and Mingging Imperial.

In the crucial game between Ateneo and La Salle for the NCAA championships Ateneo beat La Salle 2-0 on January 17, 1952. Poch was quoted in saying "This was my crowning glory for all the hard work my teammates and I put in as a two sport athlete of the Ateneo de Manila".

After graduating from Ateneo Poch became popular in his role as sales manager of the Volkwagan Beatle - extremely popular in the country in the fifties and he set a record in sales.

Even while employed Poch did not abandon his athletic activities by playing as a professional with the YCO paints Soccer team and a mestizo organized team called Turba Salvaje.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Behind the scenes in Supreme Court practices

A PRIMETIME news program reported recently the alleged attempt of various personalities to thwart the release of "Shadow of Doubt", a book authored by Maritess Vitug, founder of the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

Shadow of Doubt by Maritess VitugPurportedly, the "Shadow of Doubt" contains information about what the Philippine supreme court is all about. Vitug said that the book also uncovers how processes inside the high tribunal are manipulated by some of the country’s most powerful people.

To be launched on March 16, the book entitled Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court is published by Newsbreak and written by its editor in chief, Marites Danguilan Vitug, author of The Politics of Logging: Power from the Forest (1993) and Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao (2000).

We will try to obtain a hard copy or, if possible, download a soft copy of Shadow of Doubt book by Maritess Vitug through various sources on the web, so that we will be able to blog about it.

A patriotic Filipino-American doctor

Dr. Martin Bautista was in the lineup during the previous Philippine elections having traveled with his wife, also a medical doctor to the Philippines. This time he again vied for a senate position under the Kapatiran Party. He lost.

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The Philippine election is over. I have returned to Guymon, Oklahoma where I have spent much of the last twenty years of my life. I left in winter--in my heart, many more seasons ago--to join the campaign of Noynoy Aquino to transform the future of our country. It has been an intense, bruising, bewildering hundred-twenty days, marked by hours of confusion, stress, frustration, and also by special moments of excitement, passion, kinship, hope and inexplicable joy.

I did not lack energy or enthusiasm. I immersed myself completely in the campaign, fully involved in town meetings, debates, media engagements. I spoke, attacked, parried, promoted, persuaded, and in the end, I placed 35th in the senate race.

What did I accomplish?

Looking back now, in the placid Oklahoma spring, I have a simple answer: I helped. True to my code as a physician and my values as a Filipino, I answered
the call of Noynoy Aquino as he reached out, and Filipinos at home and abroad responded, and now we have a new President Aquino. This was not an exercise in nostalgia. It was a collective expression of hope. Hope shared by millions that government corruption would be stanched, as indeed it will be; that new men in office would try harder, as indeed they will; that the burden of Filipino families would be lighter, and life, somehow, would be better, as indeed it will.

It is why I am happy and gratified, without a Senate seat, but with the knowledge that I have been of help, if only in a small personal way, to President Noynoy, and in the final analysis, to the Filipino people whom he will serve honestly and well.

A few words of sincere gratitude to all the men and women of goodwill ( many more than I had expected) who gave the campaign material and moral support. In behalf of Noynoy Aquino and in my own behalf, let me say, thank you. Maraming, maraming salamat. All of us can say together, with one voice, in this proud moment of history: I helped. Yet the struggle is not over. The work is not done. Actually it begins now and will continue with every passing day. President Noynoy will continue to need us, each one of us ("Kayo ang Aking Lakas"). Let us be unselfish in our assistance, unstinting in our cooperation and unwavering in our dedication to help him recover and restore the hope of a nation which seemed to have been irretrievably lost.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Tomorrow...Perhaps

Here is a recycled poem composed by a very dear friend.

TOMORROW…PERHAPS

All day today, I have looked for you

In the secret places

Where I keep you hidden, like a jewel,

Too precious to share with others.

I like to think that you are mine alone,

Although I know others have as much or even more claims to you than

I might have.

I choose to delude myself

For in the mazes of my thoughts,

My passion is yours too.

And so I look for you,

Knowing you will be there

For me…

If not today

Perhaps…tomorrow.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

VILLAMOR -WORLD WAR TWO HERO


WAR suddenly came to the Philippines when I was just 11 years old. After a week in the hills of Antipolo preceded by the frenzied evacuation trauma, we were finally back home in Arlegui just as Manila was declared by President Manuel Quezon as an “open city” to allow the Japanese Forces to securely march into Manila without having any shots fired.
Villamor received military decorations from the Philippine and the United States governments for his wartime services and heroism. Just before Manila became an “open city,” Filipino fighter pilots using the pre-war double wing type of single engine planes, and engaged Japanese fighter pilots who were carrier- based. Among the fearless Filipino pilots at the time was Jesus Antonio Villamor. He is the son of Ignacio Villamor, who was the first president of the University of the Philippines.Villamor did not “plan” to be a hero. One of seven children, he studied commerce at De La Salle College in Manila, hoping to pursue a business career. In 1936, he joined the Philippine Army Air Corps (PAAC) Flying School. He never foresaw that this would change his life forever.

Because of Villamor’s outstanding performance as a cadet, he was picked as a sponsored scholar to take advance flight training in the U.S.. With his superior mind, Villamor breezed through the course in three years instead of the usual four years. Soon, Villamor found himself in B-17 and B-22 cockpits as part of the U. S. Air Force’s Strategic Bombing Squadron training. After a series of postings, Villamor, returned to the Philippines and was singled out as the leader of the 6th Pursuit Squadron in time to go into action the moment the Second World War began. Terribly mismatched -- Villamor flying the old-style double wing fighter plane versus the Japanese Zeros fighter pilots -- he and his squadron of Filipino P-26 fighters nevertheless held their own against the fully armed and trained Japanese pilots in dogfight after dogfight. One journalist even fashioned his report thus: “The Filipino pilots etched their courage and skills in the skies above Zablan and Batangas airfields. Alas, in no time at all, Villamor’s overwhelmed unit was terribly beaten.”Joining the underground guerilla forces during the war years, Villamor continued unabated his fight against the Japanese Forces in his role as intelligence officer somewhere in the Luzon hills. On December 27, 1942, Villamor was able to slip past the Japanese Forces aboard the submarine “Gudgeon.” He then established a chain of direct communication from the Philippines with General Douglas MacArthur, who was by then based in Australia, coordinating the activities of various units operating in Luzon, Mindanao and the Visayas. Villamor acted as the “clearing house” for information, which greatly assisted the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (Usaffe) to map out a strategy that led to the liberation of the Philippines in 1945.

For his bravery as a pilot and ingenuity as an intelligence officer, President Ramon Magsaysay awarded Lieutenant Colonel Jesus Antonio Villamor the Medal of Valor on January 21, 1954. As further tribute to one of the greatest World War II heroes, the Philippine Air Force’s principal facility in Metro Manila has been named Col. Jesus Villamor Air Base in honor of this Filipino hero. In 1946, he was appointed director of the Bureau of Aeronautics, and assisted in the planning of the Manila International Airport, and later became its director.

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Drama of It - by Daisy Hontiveros Avellana


DAISY HONTIVEROS AVELLANA.....Joan of Lorraine

"When reading the typescript for the first time, I came to the end of THE DRAMA OF IT by Daisy H. Avellana...I burst into tears." wrote Carmen Guerrero Nakpil , known to close friends and fellow writers as Chitang. "No, they were not the lachrymose over-sentimentality of this dotard about to turn 87, but the instant, hot, scalding recognition of an adolescent, the kid sister of Leoni and Mario Guerrero, for I had happily had a front seat at the Avellana life-theater....It's one big, great tale not only about the Avellanas, but also about how life used to be lived in this country, about art and theater, about dedication to ideals and unfailing courage and untainted ambitions and, above all, undying generous magnificent love."

Thus went the Foreword by Chitang Nakpil, of the book, THE DRAMA OF IT , the biography of Daisy Hontiveros Avellana, Philippine National Artist for Theater.

In her 176 page memoir by Daisy we are right on the front seat of Daisy's and Bert's life story replete and enriched by their radio, stage and movie involvements and successes.

I was proud and so was Mama Sarah to have been a part of those exciting years with them and Barangay Theater Guild productions especially the excellently rewritten script of Uncle Nick Joaquin A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS FILIPINO painstakingly crafted by Daisy and Bert, National Artist for Film and Theatre before ther gala presentation at the Aurora Gardens, Intramuros (circa 1955).