I have had several encounters with people larger-than-life. And when I look back, I was probably too dense to know that they were or would become so someday.
I recall the poet and playwright Virginia “Virgie” Reyes Moreno who died at age 98 last week after a lingering illness. I thought she would live forever.
I kept bumping onto her in art exhibits, piano concerts, book launches and what she fondly called tertulia.
If businessmen have their power lunch, Virgie or Barang as we called her, had her tertulia - originally a Spanish word described as a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones.
Tertulia could be set in a cafe probably like Indios Bravos or in a nest such as her home in Malate, or even in an makeshift office and studio such as her incipient UP Film Center where I first met her in the mid-70s.
I was part of a pulutong of budding filmmakers that included my buddy Boy Yniguez, Ernie Enrique, Reuben Domingo, and Joseph Fortin.
I already knew Moreno was a well-acclaimed poet for, by then, she had published her one and only book of poetry “Batik Maker and Other Poems.”
But, honestly, I never read her works.
It was only when she died that I saw “Order for Masks” and I was bowled over.
Immediately without reservation, I was convinced she was, indeed, the High Priestess of Philippine Poetry. Well, there is still Angela Manalang Gloria.
I also knew Virgie was the author of the full-length play “The Onyx Wolf,” which had several transfigurations in the opera “La Loba Negra” and the hair-raising ballet “Itim Asu” choreographed by Alice Reyes that I was fortunate to watch in February 2020.
Barang is the sister of the fashion czar Pitoy Moreno who was, incidentally, my benefactor in those days I was a College Scholar at UP
When I introduced myself to her, Barang’s huge eyes widened still and started to tell me stories about my dad, the painter Hugo Yonzon Jr.
“We loved him! He was our hero!”
She recounted how my Dad punched an apparently arrogant Philippine consulate officer during the New York World’s Fair in 1965.
My Dad was there to do a mural on the second floor of the salakot-shaped Philippine booth, while the future National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco had his on the ground floor.
Barang told me that they, together with other artists, writers, and cultural performers,
were not receiving allowances they were supposed to get from the embassy.
Then, I remembered my Dad telling me how he had to invent dozens of ways to cook chicken neck and wings that they bought (or asked for) from a nearby Chinese store almost every day to survive.
That, while he, with some other Pinoys, were freezing in a basement accommodation. Yon pala yon.
Now, my Dad was a diffident, gentle fellow. Pero kapag puno na ang salop, umilag ka na.
One day, he marched over the consulate office to follow up their allowances and when he received a gruff pabalang reply, he swung his bony fist on the offending fellow’s cheek.
Thereafter, the Pinoys working at the fair started to get their allowances, narrated Moreno.
Aha! I realized where I get my temper.
Barang had a lot of stories to tell. Her office was suffused by the intoxicating aroma of brewed coffee.
And every afternoon that I was there, she would lay on the table varieties of kakanins from puto to empanada to pansit which, I was told, were the best there were in town.
Subconsciously, I later find out, I was to adopt these tiny indulgences from her.
I was able to direct one film project with Barang’s Film Center, technically my first short film.
It was on Botong and his paintings, where my colleagues and I shot his works in the Manila city hall, Philippine General Hospital, and the Sto. Domingo church.
We were allowed by music Maestro Lucio San Pedro himself to use some of his composition for the film.
We were also able to shoot small works with private collectors who refused to identify themselves then because they were afraid that a bonggacious lady from Leyte might steal these from them.
Watch out, her son might be running again.
Pardon my reminiscing, guys. I thought I could fit in my memories and musings of cartoonist Larry Alcala, novelist Frankie Sionil Jose, painter Jerry Elizalde Navarro and installation art trailblazer Junyee in one go.
There are nuggets here and there that could guide us to navigate our options in life.
A breathing spell before the simmering socio-political scene forces all us to take sides.
Here is also wishing we have enough courage to express these forcefully because we believe the country is in peril with six more years of disastrous leadership.
Dapat na pong kalusin.