Women and widowers of substance

Oh, what would we do without our women holding up half of the authorial, editorial and publishing sky?

As in such wide extremes of professional interest as design work and national governance, trust the Filipina to do her part, indeed forge ahead in pushing the envelope, when it comes to being a writer, book conceptualizer, editor and publisher.

A couple of recent noteworthy titles bear this out. The first is by that formidable, unmistakably gracious doyenne and master of the essay, "Chitang" Nakpil.

Whatever: A New Collection of Later Essays, 1987-2001 by Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, published by Ateneo de Manila University Press, contributes another jewel of a title to our appreciably growing hoard of Filipiniana.

The collection assembles a total of 91 brief essays "chosen at random from a pile of more than two thousand short pieces written over a period of fourteen years, between 1987 and 2001," and which "appeared in several Metro Manila dailies (mostly Malaya and a few in Manila Times and Sun-Star) as editorial-page columns."

Happy are we over the effort to posterize these choice essays now grouped casually under such thematic headings as People, Places, Controversies, Allusions and Alarums, Journalism, and Personal History.

Lady Chitang’s preface gives us an early sample of her trademark ease of articulation that is often accompanied by a quizzical raising of a mischievous brow and a faint, occasionally self-deprecating smile.

"The title, Whatever, is a reference to the millennial way of ending an argument. It used to mean ‘anything’ or ‘everything’ or ‘no matter and ‘in any case,’ but has now become a catty, disdainful but peaceable, way of granting a hearing without necessarily agreeing with an opinion. It is now the trendy equivalent of saying, all right, have it your way, but this is my take on the subject. The essays in this book are offered in that spirit."

About trends and trendiness, civilized arguments across a coffee table, and peaceable resolutions Nakpil is certainly knowledgeable, having been a genteel arbiter on many a cultural question or divide since her "first stage (between 1946 and 1972) of essay writing during which I wrote a daily column for the editorial page of the Manila Chronicle and published two collections of essays, Woman Enough (Vibal Publishing, and reprinted by the Ateneo de Manila University Press in 1999) and A Question of Identity (Vessel Books)."

During one of our last sessions at the Ateneo in a class on critical writing the past semester, we made sure to take up a couple of pieces from this book. The first was "My Own Personal Ateneo," from the last section Personal History. We wanted to give the kids in class a glimpse of Ateneo history, however personal, however it sounded more like a name-dropping journal entry.

As the author herself says in her opening paragraph, "because ... I have been its most enamored groupie, I feel I am entitled to a meltdown of name-dropping." Yet in the hands of an engaging writer, even this social technique turns laudatory, of both the individuals and the times, rather than merely bibulous.

We get to share in the glory years, for instance, after the chronicler has clued us in on her kinship immersion (her grandfather, father, uncle, brothers, and "... all my male uncles and cousins on my father’s side were fanatic Ateneans").

"I became a sort of mascot of their friends and classmates, imbibing their laughter and their premonitions. My favorites were Horacio de la Costa (nicknamed Skeezix after a comic strip character); Lamberto Avellana, who became a film maker par excellence; Manuel de Leon, future LVN... Pictures boulevardier; Henry Quema, who was to become a Magsaysay cabinet member; and Alberto Romualdez, father of the now Secretary of Health. The Ateneo basketball cheers ‘Fabileoh’ and ‘Halikanu-kinikina,’ which continue to rock the stadiums today, were devised by Skeezix and rehearsed in our dining room. Raul Manglapus also practiced his ‘Blue Eagle, King’ on our piano."

Lady Chitang confides, of course, that her first husband, Ismael "Toto" Cruz," was an Atenean, and that younger generations in her clan carried on the tradition. But that "All this Atenism was somewhat diluted (betrayed, was my brothers’ word for it) when I married a La Sallite, Angel Nakpil, who had to sit patiently through many family dinners, battered by the fine derision of my Ateneo menfolk for La Sallites in general. He survived only because my brother Leoni always carefully preceded his excoriations with a formal phrase: ‘Present company excluded, of course.’"

Mrs. Nakpil should now be reminded that the former term La Sallite has given way to La Sallian, ostensibly because its bearers realized and regretted the erstwhile diminutive connotation. But then, we must also say that any woman who can marry across the rivalry must be one of great humor and substance.

The other essay we took up, "Men and Women," is one of those signature pieces so characteristic of the trend-bucking, trailblazing exercises toward fresh insight that Nakpil is noted for.

It is delightful, bemused commentary that Nakpil offers as she describes the ways of men – foreign and local – at a salon where they are ministered to by the "girls (who) lead them gently here and there, turning their heads this way and that, spreading their fingers and toes in a ritual of ineffable consolation."

With familiarity that doesn’t quite border on contempt, rather intimately manifests mild disdain, Nakpil concludes: "The salon is also patronized by a few Filipino males who come in fresh from their power lunches. Their attitude to women is markedly different. They behave, not like grateful puppies, but like Masters of the Universe. They have a baroque fastidiousness as they gesture, wordlessly, with lordly fingers to indicate to their favorite girl: ‘the usual.’ The whole thing speaks volumes about gender, nationality, and culture."

A pity that a recent serious essay by Nakpil isn’t included here – one that posits that there are two Filipinos – and which her fellow literary historian now based in New York, the dramatist Alberto Florentino, saw fit to post in the Internet after it appeared in Malaya.

Still and all, there is enough here to entertain and emancipate us, the latter from the drudgery of often turning venereal victim to a "boredom of columnists."

The second book, From This Day Forward: Widows and Widowers Write, edited by Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio, published by Anvil Publishing, Inc., collects 21 essays on widowhood from a sterling roster that veritably reads like a Who’s Who.

The anthology’s contributors are Bambina L. Buenaventura, Cesar A. Buenaventura, Eric S. Caruncho, Doreen G. Fernandez, Lanelle Abueva Fernando, Rafael A. Gonzales, Narita M. Gonzalez, Hilarion M. Henares Jr., Lorna Patajo Kapunan, Jaime C. Laya, Victor A. Lim, Maribel G. Ongpin, Jose S. Orosa, Marily Y. Orosa, Agnes Prieto, Beth Day Romulo, Bienvenido A. Tan Jr., Isabel Caro Wilson, Marilen P. Yaptangco, Nina Lim Yuson, and the editor, who also offers a Preface and an Introduction.

A poem by publisher Karina Bolasco precedes the collection (an excerpt: "I now know/ what is left endures/ and of/ what is found/ the marvelous/ must be let to swell./ That/ between dust and dew/ in me/ rests,/ and rises/ the wherewithal/ from this day forward/ to love fiercely still."), while the brilliant painter Phyllis Zaballero gifts the book with the cover painting.

Editor Panlilio has done such a marvelous job in assembling these writers and presenting the anthology the way it runs, from delight to delight in the sharing of riveting intimacy and grief, as well as wisdom and humor. Her persistence has paid off handsomely with contributions from initial demurrers, such as Jaime C. Laya, who eventually relented and wound up offering light and bright advice on this and that side of Life’s ledger.

To wit, in "Suddenly A Single Father," he writes on the prospects of marrying again: "A marriage of people with their respective children, households and Balance Sheets is remarkably like complex and high-stakes M&A (mergers and acquisitions) deals that I sometimes work on. The issues are identical: governance (who is the boss), organization (who does what), finances (who signs checks, who pays debts), human relations (allowances and disciplinary standards for both sets of children), headquarters (where they will live), dispute resolution (how to end quarrels), dissolution (who gets what if the merger unravels), etc. Mergers do not always result in economies, with the possibility in this case of having to maintain possibly three households – his, hers and theirs."

And yet some of the other contributors show how they’ve managed to transcend the early bereavement and sudden aloneness, by rediscovering good company and fine romance with a counterpart, as in the charming stories of Marily Orosa ("To Love Again") and Jose Orosa ("Finding Heavenly Favor"), and Bambina Buenaventura ("Second Chances") and Cesar Buenaventura ("Twice Blessed").

For the rest of the widows and widowers – like Nina Lim Yuson who still senses her departed spouse inhabiting an electric fan ("From then on, whenever I feel a slight breeze or hear the wind chimes in our porch, I know Joey is around and loves me." – from "Third Time Around"), or the deeply private Maribel Ongpin ("Bereavement was for real and calamitous, but just for me and not for public consumption." – from "A Future to Face") – perhaps Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio sums it up best:

"I should like to make the most of life, whatever the number of years yet remain to me on this blessed earth, and continue to explore my potentials as a human being, whether alone or with a loving companion – ‘n’importe qui, n’importe quoi,’ the French say. Oh but it would matter very much who that is.

"It is good to be alive. La vie est belle."