Celebrities Up Close

Living in Manila offers close encounters with celebrities/hallowed people. One of those I met a year or so ago was National Artist Napoleon Abueva (see image).

It was the first mass of a friend's newly-ordained priest-son in our parish and she invited my family to the affair which was followed by a reception. When she led us to the table she had reserved for us, I balked. In fact, when I saw a table close by, I asked if we could just stay there where mere mortals like ourselves werejavascript:void(0)
Publish Post stationed, but she insisted and so it was. Also in the illustrious table was Fr. Catalino Arevalo, Mr. Abueva's wife, a lady well known in the parish. My family and I were the ordinary mortals.

Napoleon Abueva is a nice old man. He spoke about his works, how he procured materials for them, etc. without being boastful. And to show how down-to-earth he was, before we parted ways, he mentioned our family name, a clear indication that he was listening when we were being introduced. Though I'm sure that by now he has since forgotten us, I won't take that against him. It was enough for us to have been treated the way we were in the table where he was. His wife was as simple, no airs, nothing.

Fr. Arevalo had a lot of stories to share too. And after that particular evening, we had some other encounters with him. For the wake of a good friend James, we offered to pick him up. The drive to Makati was long so we had a chance to converse. He answered my questions and didn't seem impatient doing so. Oh, and before that, we also picked him up to say mass at a house in the area but that was too brief an encounter. Another time, after he said mass, I liked his homily and sent him a text message for the complete list of his enumerations. He sent the list via text very quickly. I was so thrilled because he's known as one of the great Jesuit minds in the Philippines and served as an adviser to Pope John Paul II years back.

Then there's Chito Tagle. Okay, Bishop Chito Tagle (see photo). He was our teacher in college and back then, he had just graduated from college himself. Later, we learned he had become a priest and as he was a good Philosophy teacher, we chose to attend one of his talks when a friend invited us. After the talk, we sought him out and introduced ourselves. His immediate reaction "oh you're the one from the province." Did that offend me? Not at all. Maybe it was the perpetual lilt in my voice? How I moved? How I acted -- that made him know even then that I was from the province. Who cares? People from the province are not to be looked down upon in the first place. Their roots just set them apart because they have a certain graciousness, right? a certain simplicity, right? Haha.

Anyway, fast forward to a few years later. He was appointed bishop of Cavite. I wrote him a congratulatory letter and though he didn't respond to it, weeks later, we received an invitation to his installation (the invitation was his response, I guess) complete with a parking ticket. So we went all the way to Cavite and when after the ceremony was over we lined up to kiss his ring and he saw us, he said my name -- he hadn't forgotten.

Years later, we saw him in a church nearby. He deliberately went to us to say hello. Another great Filipino mind and he knows us.

Now the female celebrities.

Years back, when I was in a mall, a plastic bag fell off my lap to the floor. Right in front of me was COD, preening herself in front of a glass panel in a computer shop. Like her, I was waiting for my son who was engrossed in Counter Strike. She looked at me, at the package, and moved away. A good Samaritan she wasn't. COD is a broadcaster.

Another broadcaster like her is more solicitous. Last year, we were at a venue which did not have air-conditioning. She asked where I would position myself, turned on the fan and directed it to me. Her initials, TMP. We have become friends since and when once her son hadn't arrived home, she called me up to ask if I knew where her son was. Her son is a classmate of my son.

Still another broadcaster I met, but more recently was CFR. I needed to get something from her for a tribute to a good friend, but she offered to bring it to the house. No celebrity airs there and once before a play, it was she who called out to me to say hello. She even knew my name.

Tessa Prieto-Valdez. Now this girl/lady seems to be having a lot of fun and shows it. Her outfits are deliciously outrageous, so with her make-up. She wears false eyelashes up to there (very long and curled), carries a dog to the mall and loves the attention. Once she saw me looking at her in a mall and she smiled warmly. I couldn't help myself. She was right there and who wouldn't look at her?

Many years back, saw Imelda Cojuangco in church and she said "hello." SO did Tingting Cojuangco, also in church.

Not so Miriam Santiago. Though when I wrote her years back, praising what she was doing in the Bureau of Immigration, she promptly answered my letter, in person she isn't too friendly. Maybe she is shy? Oh and one should see her in church. She always has this red bag and matching shoes and her two adopted daughters look like docile ---s, following her around as she goes to the front row even after the mass has started. Is she the reason why the church now has ushers who bar anyone from going inside when the mass has begun?

Also wrote Roilo Golez when he did a superb job as Post-master General and he answered my letter. So did Randy David when I emailed him a letter, relating how much he impressed my son who said he ought to run for President of the Philippines. And Angelo Reyes. Yes, he answered my letter. You see, back in college, we had a teacher in Economics, a Colonel Reyes. He had this military air about him, unsmiling, fast-talking, always prepared for class. So that when once I heard a General Reyes speaking on TV for the first time, the voice reverberated. I recognized the voice and when I looked up from what I was reading, I saw my teacher. But I had to be sure and so I wrote him. And he answered my letter to say that yes, it was he.

Fr. Nebres introduced us to GMA when we went to his mother's wake. She shook hands and smiled, mumbled a few words even, but apparently she was not with us. Her eyes had a distant look to them. Her mind was elsewhere.

Former President CCA we've also seen at mass, but she isn't at all friendly. Now Alex Compton, Richard Gomez, they smile. Alex even said hello.