Rustica Carpio: Smartest head, softest hands and sweetest heart

Rustica Carpio’s academic and artistic achievements are exceptional. Her curriculum vitae is inimitable, having straddled two exacting worlds: Academe and the arts, all in a blazing glory of prodigious talent. She has won numerous awards for pedagogy, writing, directing and acting through decades dedicated to the university, the legitimate stage and cinema. After her passing, what looms large is the cerebral, compassionate and caring lady, who made the world a much better place when she found it 91 years ago.

Tita Rustie, as she is fondly called, earned her Associate in Arts in Commerce degree from the then Philippine College of Commerce (PCC), now Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), with honors. She then pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree, major in English at Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU), where she graduated magna cum laude. After garnering Fulbright and International House scholarships, she chose New York University (NYU) Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development for her graduate work, earning a Master of Arts, major in speech education in 1956 . For her PhD in Literature from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Manila in 1979, she finished summa cum laude. Later, she became a UNESCO fellow in Dramatic Arts at the National School of Drama and Asian Theatre Institute in New Delhi, India.

She was the first dean of the College of Mass Communication of two institutions – the PUP and the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) and served as director of the Far Eastern University (FEU) President’s Committee for Culture and the Arts. She also served as a board member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) from 1996 to 1998 and the Movie Committee on Appeals of the Videogram Regulatory Board (now Optical Media Board) from 1998 to 2000.

“I have always admired Tita Rustie as a scholar, as she had written so many books, among them the life and times of the zarzuela giant, Hermogenes Ilagan, which was her doctoral dissertation,” confides Arnold Aldaba, information officer at Land Bank of the Philippines, who was her student and later, co-faculty at UST. “When she bagged the 33rd Gawad Urian Best Actress award for the 2009  film Lola, that was the time majority of her fans discovered her erudition as an educator, as they have mostly known her for the supporting roles she played in the movies of Ishmael Bernal, Lino Brocka, Celso Ad Castillo, Brillante Mendoza, et al,” Arnold adds.

The same high esteem for her keen mind is held by her colleague in media and co-faculty at UST, Nestor Cuartero, Entertainment journalist and editor of Tempo and Bulletin, as despite her years, she never tired of intellectual pursuits.

“She was doing an update of her book, Shuttling Through Stage and Screen (first published in 2008) when Ricky Lo and I last had lunch with her and in her files are three finished film scripts that she hoped will soon see the light of the big screen: Lagablab, Fifth Commandment, and Kasalaý Naipit ng Hanging Mainit,” Nestor adds.

Actor-host Ryan Agoncillo, her co-star in the 2013 film directed by Jose Javier Reyes, Ano ang Kulay ng mga Nakalimutang Pangarap, reminisces about Tita Rustie’s hands: “Ang lambot ng kamay niya, ha. Yun ang una kong napansin. Siyempre ‘pag magkasama kami sa eksena, nahahawakan ko yung kamay niya, ang lambot talaga ng kamay niya. At ang galing nya mag-internalize nung papel nya na yaya, na gusto nang idispatsa ng mga inalagaan nya. Iba talaga si Tita Rustie (Her hands are really soft. That was what I noticed about her. Of course, when we did scenes together, I am able to hold her hands. And she is simply amazing when she internalized her role of a yaya, now very old and whose wards are trying to dispose of her. Tita Rustie is really awesome.).”

The softness of her hands is a sentient metaphor for the ease with which she maneuvered her art. She was unselfish in sharing with her co-artists the miracle of creating something that will awe and inspire, mentoring them with deft hands that were literally and figuratively softly caressing. Another student and later colleague in the academe, Bien Mabbayad remembers how she honed his talent on stage in 1998, with method acting:

“Ma’am Rustie was a very kind and considerate mentor, assisting with props and stage setup for the UST Graduate Theater (USTGT) despite her age and stature. We learned about her glorious career as a stage actress since World War II through her good friend, the late Dr. Milagros Tanlayco, as Ma’am Rustie never boasted about it. Our first play was New Yorker in Tondo and she taught us how to block our movements and modulate our voices. The most unforgettable is her advice on fighting scenes: Shake your bodies while moving to make it look like you are actually fighting. I will never forget her as a teacher both for the stage and the classroom.”

But what made Tita Rustie a legend was her heart that beat for bestowing comfort and concern to those she loved. Though she never married and had no children, her nephews and nieces down to grandnephews and grandnieces were recipients of her nurture. This writer will never forget her visit to her classroom in August 2016, handing her a mass card and hugging her tightly, with the words: “Continue to write, as your pen will be burnished by the pain you have to embrace now.”

Her grandniece Mitchie remembers the many people she had helped through the years, sacrificing her time, talent and treasure to tide them over towards better times. “Ang dami po nyang natulungan kahit hindi din naman sobra-sobra ang kakayanan, at hindi sya nanghinayang (She has helped so many though she was not at all prosperous and had no regrets).”

Many rued that she should have been given the National Artist Award, but her old world delicadeza bid her into humble silence until the end. At her passing, legions of her students, colleagues and admirers thanked her on social media for her gift and grace. For those who knew her, they would always see the laurels in her brow, sense the softness of her touch and savor the sweetness of her heart as they mourn her quiet passage from their midst after the gloaming.