A GOLDEN BOUNCY EVENT...

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OUR GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY -

On August 5, 1959, Fr. James B. Reuter, S.J. officiated at our wedding held at the Pinaglabanan Church, San Juan Rizal. A small reception followed not far from the church. This picture on the left is Fr. Reuter blessing the rings. (on the left)


On August 22, 2009 we commemorated our 50th wedding anniversary with a 
Mass held at the St. Francis 
of Assisi Parish in Sacramento 
City officiated in by Fr. Anthony 
Garibaldi. A reception was held at the  
Embassy Suites Hotel ballroom not far from the Church.

Philippine presidential hopefuls...

TONY ABAYA


I am not a political writer but this time - for the first time - I have to make mention of a relevant individual who knows much and with quality substance about the coming presidential elections in the Philippines in May 2010.

I am referring to Tony Abaya, a dear friend and dynamic, articulate writer in English. Here is his latest column.


Also, his website

Biography of Nick Joaquin

I am in the process of writing the official biography of Nick Joaquin National Artist for Literature. I have started this project one year ago but I am still interested in getting in touch with people who can help enrich the writing of the book,” he added. I can be contacted at my residence at 4645 Winter Oak Way Apt. 309 Antelope California 95834 . Contributors can also call tel. no. 916 348 8414. My e-mail address is tony.joaquin@gmail.com Contributors are asked to send photos of Nick Joaquin or of themselves if these are available via email or mailed via postal service. Nick Joaquin died on April 29, 2004, at 82. Shortly after his death, two of his written biographies were published in Metro Manila, one on the journalist Emilio (Abe) Aguilar Cruz and the other on Sen. Edgardo Angara. My father was the jazz pianist Porfirio (Ping) Joaquin, older brother of Nick. Nick was my teacher and inspiration.

SR. JOAN CHITISTER- SPIRITUAL WRITER

In her excellently written book, The Gift of Years, Sr. Joan focuses in her introduction a scene:

It is a January morning in County Kerry. the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the craggy islands below me is roild with whitecaps and angry palisades of water crashing against the tiny islets in their rocky midst. the windstorm of the last two nights have drenched the hills on which this small Irish stone cottage clings, left them dripping water from bare branches hours later, sent the tiny rivulet of water outside my window rushing wildly down the mountainside to the valley below. It is an average Kerry winter day.

But not average for some. In the last two days of rocking, howling wind, five Irish fishermen and their trawler have been reported missing at sea. This morning, they were pronounced dead, the sea too wild yet to even attempt to recover their bodies.

Who they were, how old they were, I do not know. But one thing I do know - life and time are ghost creatures for us all.

Most of us, inch our way through life, sure on the one hand that it will never end, certain on the other that it will surely be ending for us soon.

Is at moments of such quiet consciousness that is is important come face to face with what it means to age, to be older, to be old, to become an elder in society."

Sr. Joan continues and states that Life is about becoming more than we are, about being all that we can be. Whatever we are doing, however old we are, wherever we fall on the social economic scale

THE GIFT OF YEARS is for those who are on the brink of "old age" ...and knowing themselves to be young and healthy, are very surprised by it.

On the chapter LONELINESS she writes -

A burden of these years is that
we will hole up somewhere and mourn our age,
our change in life, our losses.

A blessing of these years is that
we will make ourselves available to the
world that is waiting for us even now. even here.

A Mediterranean cruise aboard Royal Caribbean Lines

(Atop a hill near Amalfi - Tony, Nico, Chita and Mikee)
----------------------
Last June, Chita and I went on a Mediterranean cruise with our grandsons Mikee and Nico. We first took off from San Francisco Airport up to Barcelona, Spain but with a stop over at Amsterdam airport.

Using the usual means used by tourists - cruise ship, chartered bus, and on foot we four covered sites like the Rambla plaza in Barcelona, the port of Naples in Italy, and a brief visit to one of the casinos in Monte Carlo.

We hired a van driven by an engaging Italian driver who in his fractured English managed well to inform us of the hilltop views as you can see on this picture on the right.





Being a part of the place, which is Pisa, we tried to conform with the pattern...and that is why we leaned like the tower (see left).

Mikee and Nico who went on their frist cruise some years back with us to the Caribbean enjoyed this one much better especially because of their visit to The Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and moreover both met wonderful people who were from Scotland and Ireland in the cruise ship.

Tita Munoz - A Friend and Fair Lady

My family and I had already settled in California for several years when I took one of the yearly vacations to the Philippines to visit my very close friends and fellow professionals in media and marketing whom I worked with in the past. Seeing Manila, the city of my birth, never fails to give me that needed boost of energy, and I always leave with a heavy heart. Perhaps, it is because I really miss the Manila that my uncle, Nick Joaquin, has written about and cherished in his books and plays.

It was in a party given to me by former friends where I saw Tita Munoz. She was slender, a bit of gray hair peeping from among his brown tresses and having seen me across the room raised her hand and voice and called my name, “Tony! Hace tiempo…” and at the same time rushing toward me when we exchanged a strong abrazo and a soft peck on my cheek.

We both were holding our drinks, she her non alcoholic iced tea and me my scotch, no ice. And before long we were updating each other on the intervening years as we sat in a corner area of the open-air azotea. It was at this time when she caught on that I was no longer living in Manila but in California. She asked me “How long are you staying? And I answered, “About a month”

Her dark eyes lighted up and she smiled her beautiful perfectly formed teeth at me. “Good.”

In the next few minutes she told me that she was appearing in a cameo role in a current soap opera with the name Victoria Hills. And she added that she needed one male partner also to do the same cameo in the TV soap and she thought I would fit the role with my salt and pepper hair. I was not able to conceal my delight and said, “I am game -- if we can do it within my time frame, for I have to return to California at the end of four weeks.”

Finally, I was at the studio set and so were the cast and crew at 5 in the afternoon. I knew some of the actors, which included Roderick Paulate and Herbert Bautista, and met a few young beauties in lead roles.
I learned that the modus vivendi of soap opera production, as practised in Manila, was to shoot all the sequences and episodes during one 12-hour session–nonstop starting at 5 p.m. straight through 6 the next morning. Yes, no one had any sleep at all. And that was what Tita and I did. In the TV series, we both played the role of former lovers who, after having lived abroad, now old and grey, happen to return to Manila and to “accidentally” meet once again. Too bad, I could not stay to watch the episode but I did cherish those moments with Tita.

Then I had to leave for California and did not hear from her for several years again. Then, some years back I read about Tita’s having been victim to a hypertensive stroke, which left her paralyzed accompanied by the heartbreaking report that she was now living alone in a dwelling with other poor elderly women in a sort of community place. On April 11, 2009, Tita died of a heart attack.

Our friendship, actually began in the mid 30s in San Juan where we both lived. Tita lived with her brothers and sister on J. Ruiz, while I was two streets away on G. Reyes and N. Domingo Street. Tita was two years ahead of me in school. While she was second grade at St. Joseph’s Academy, I was in kindergarten.
Right after the second world war, Tita met and married an American military officer, and they left for the U.S. After four years I saw her again back in San Juan, and she admitted with pain that her marriage did not work out.

As an actress, Tita popularized the part of the “contrabida.” Tita certainly showed how well she could act. And with her mestiza features, she was extremely good. Before television came to the Philippines, Tita was already doing extremely well in radio, because she spoke English and her native Spanish very well. Eventually, Tita became the highest-paid Philippine radio talent in the early 50s.

With the arrival of the new technology known as television, Tita was among the first radio personalities to migrate to television. The “First Lady of Philippine Television” also made history with the very first lips-to- lips kissing scene, opposite actor Ronald Remy.

Tita’s versatility and dramatic talent was showcased in the challenging lead role in “Sorry, Wrong Number,” adapted from the 1943 American radio play by Lucille Fletcher. She played the role of a woman who learns accidentally that she is about to be murdered. Tita won acclaim in that enviable play.