Looking back, I do not see that I have accomplished anything at all. No published literary work, no riches, no influence. My treasures are my two daughters, but they are treasures that belong to another realm.
But I have honesty to boast of in many of my professional dealings. For example, I can never drop names simply to get through red tape. I am dropping names here because this is the truth.
The names belong to celebrities, a number of whom I met way back when their stars had not yet risen or when these stars were not even breaths of gas in the astronomical vastness called space.
Ramon Chuaying, who now lords it over as one of the largest local record producers and international record label managers, was the right-hand man of James Dy, owner of Dyna Records and now one of the top honchos of the Philippine-Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Ramon is a small wisp of a Chinoy, but even then was very determined to move ahead.
In the ’70’s, Warner Records was a babe in the recording industry inthe Philippines and needed to be pushed as the licensed partner of Dyna Records. Ramon was given the task of doing precisely this and therefore worked double-time to bond with radio announcers like me and persuade them to play his records. Those vinyl long-playing records were liberally distributed among us, along with the 45-rpm’s “lifted” from those LP’s which were stark reminders that we were to play them as “plugging” material for the airlanes.
Ramon would gamely negotiate the five-floor staircase of the old GSIS Building in Arroceros where my radio station was located and when the elevators weren’t working (which was fairly often), just to deliver both LP’s and 45 rpm’s.
Ramon would subsequently be the main Warner Brothers man in the Philippines, although the main-lady was Bella Dy-Tan, daughter of James. (A Dy son, Jameson, would eventually take over Dyna when James got really big!) Bella was a gracious young lady whom I often saw at the Dyna office along Raon in Manila. She became a beloved record producer later, and her untimely death from cancer was deeply lamented by both recording artists and workers.
Manny Villar was a schoolmate at the UP College of Business Administration. I was one batch ahead, but my horrible academic performance forced me to spend more years than I normally would have had so one can say Manny became my batchmate too. He has always been good-looking, mestizo, not too tall. He was usually very quiet and serious and but in those days already showed a palpable competitive spirit.
Manny and Rufo “Bingo” Cruz, to whom I much closer, vied for the UP Business Guild presidency in our final year in college. Bingo won, because Manny was not so much of a campaigner. There was no charisma then. I was not privy to Manny’s own academic performance, but I know he was not up there with the likes of Romulo Neri, who has headed the AIM, the Philippine Congress Budget Division as a protege of Speaker Jose de Venecia, the Department of Budget and Management and the National Economic Development Administration.
But look where Manny is now. Somewhere his “sipag at tiyaga” paid off, and his loyalty as the beau and later, the husband, of batchmate and now Congresswoman Cynthia Villar. I was so touched when, in covering a major news event at the CCP complex, Manny called out to me, by my name, when he spotted me on the way to our crew cab.
I belonged to a UP-BA group of girls that included Susan Panlasigui and Cynthia “Cindy” Brinas. Susan’s boyfriend since college, Narciso Abaya, later became Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Susan is currently undersecretary at the National Anti-Poverty Commission.
The Abaya couple and I have remained friends.
Cindy’s father used to be Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, but I did not find out about this until later. I was amazed at the Brinas residence, but UP being the great equalizer then, the hint of wealth and power was no big deal to a small-time poor girl whose mother struggled at sending her to school. Our friendships went beyond nice clothes, matching shoes and big allowances. Income status never really mattered.
Cindy married Solomon Carpio, one of the heirs of the Tirol clan which owned, among others, huge chunks of Boracay island, if not Boracay itself. Again, I did not know this then.
One of my group-mates, Rita Chanyungco, was said to have been courted by Nur Misuari, later head of the Moro National Liberation Front. Although I do not remember having met Nur in person, I do know that Rita married her college boyfriend who most certainly wasn’t Nur.
Another name-droppable in my list is Maita Gomez. Maita vied for Miss International after winning the local Miss Philippines title. Her life turned around in her senior college years when she joined the leftist underground, leaving behind a life of comfort and popularity.
Maita probably will not remember this, but we used to walk together along the UP Arts and Sciences pathway on the way to our respective destinations after English I under Sylvia Mendez-Ventura. She was naturally beautifully tanned, too tall for someone her age in that era. Her flat sandals had a difficult time disguising that height each time she was among less-endowed folk like us.
Atty. Ed Angara was ONLY my business law professor in my junior year at the UP-BA. He conducted his three-hour weekly class on Saturdays at a siesta-timeslot. This would ordinarily have been a boring class, but Angara’s quiet charm and well, nice looks, were enough to make me faithfully attend it. I was obviously enamored, because I sat in the front row and kept seeking his attention by asking questions.
Perhaps Angara would remember me well, too, because once, when Imee Marcos stood up an early evening TV program I used to produce, Angara agreed to fill in the urgent guest slot (at 3 hours notice)…and he was already UP President then!