Santi shantih Santi

There is family, and there is family.

The first one you’ll fight and die for, as much as join up a Ping-for-Prez campaign for. The second sustains you, reminds you always about what you’ve been through, all the "sadness or euphoria" as one more good friend like Jimmy Fabregas used to sing in the ’80s at a speakeasy on Shaw. Let me explain.

Yet pretending to be the sensitif who picks up all sorts of vibes from the noosphere, plus of course the dailies, TV, and irregular tsismis over voice calls and text, I resolved some days back that no November in recent memory has given me such pause, as the last one, to consider dear Ishmael Bernal’s canny use of Herman Merville’s "When it’s a grey November in your soul" in naming a ’60s cafe on A. Mabini St. in Malate. Oh, yes, last month was a sleeper and a cropper. Irony of ironies, the schmaltzy Sweet November played on HBO on the last week.

A grey bummer, last month was. Read somewhere that Venus would turn forward around the 21st, or something. And so immediately deduced a velvet spring of sorts where everyone would be singing Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, if in less than a romantic way. Well, we’re all still probably singing the last two bars, with particular stress on the last two words of the song title.

November came and went, and it was godawful. December dutifully followed, with the promise of an end to Ramadan, a new moon and all that, soon to turn crescent. Hokay, darn those paranoid Aussie bureaucrats and copycat Canadians. As if we needed that. (But tell me, how can a car bomb blast off from a no-parking, no-standing strip on Ayala Ave., fronting the Allied Bank Bldg.? C’mon, guys, get real, as Franz Arcellana and Ces Drilon would say..)

In any case, that should be the least of our concerns. Another dear friend – as this piece is all about friendship, especially in gloomy times – texted recently that "inner becoming" gets heavy flak especially around Advent. That means extreme pressure on the universal gamut of soul-search, the entire Age of Aquarius shebang. (Hey, spotted Gigi Dueñas some days back at HBO’s nostalgia feature, Apocalypse Redux. That tell us something?)

And so we’re all under the planetary gun, we who continue to hope for Peace Love Flowers Happiness and perhaps a life-changing triumph at the lotto. And under some sort of grace under pressure, we recognize that we’re all in this together, this sense of anomie as November turns into December, these parlous times when every daily’s picked up the habit of trumpeting what some rock-solid Catholic priests (you know, the middling, meddling type) think of movies, aesthetically, technically, and morally.

My Sweet Lord. Has it gotten this bad, the times?

I considered writing a piece titled "The slough drag of despond" – when someone threw a further spanner in the works ("Spaniard," per Lennon, John). A Strawberry Fields look-alike, Santi Bose, passed away.

Yah, sure, how bad can it get? Right after Nonoy Marcelo too, he did. One more loss, one more death in the extended Pinoy family, on a year that has seen us grieve over farewells to Franz, Doreen Fernandez, Larry Alcala, Ruth Roa…

Well, life’s like that, John A. from paranoiac Sydney would say, having flown home for a Christmas holiday. We gotta take the middle road, he says over the phone, that’s what I’ve learned to do.

Yes, John, but in this country you take the middle road and you turn into charcuterie care of some LRT or MRT coach. Or worse, some cell phone snatcher jaywalks just to keep you blitz company.

But Johnny Altomonte came at the right time, reviving reveries of the turn into the ’70s, when at Cafe Hurri-Manna on the wrong side of Taft, we listened to Let It Be and Across the Universe. And a couple of years later Santi Bose had his first one-man show, and whaddaya know, the pre-dated declaration of Martial Law rained on his art parade. A question of cause and effect, we might say. Or call it some foreshadowing of Kahloism. If I’m not making sense to you, you’re not Blue House.

But hey, listen, over the weekend in Baguio a lot of friends gathered on Quezon Hill, in Santi’s place which has always welcomed a lot of friends over three decades, and will continue to, I suppose, especially if it’s repainted all in blue.

As I write this I’m hoping I can catch the last rites up there, before good old buddy is taken on Saturday to a crematorium in Dagupan, since Baguio has outlawed open-air, fiery farewells after the last one that sent Robert Villanueva up in plumes of smoke – gongs beating – to his Installer.

But if I can’t (sorry, Baboo M., a rain check on that chicharon pulutan), Santi’s innermost family of Peggy, Diwata, Lilledeshan and Mutya have given assurance of at least a couple of necro nights in Manila, perhaps at U.P. where Santiago Bose became Santi. And on Thursday the 12th, some friends are organizing In Memoriam – an artists’ get-together to remember Santi Bose, from 4 p.m. up at the CCP’s fourth floor.

Last Tuesday morning, it was Bencab who first forwarded text about Santi being rushed off to the St. Louis hospital after a stroke, his third or fourth in the last 3 to 4 years, if I recall correctly. But this time it looked bad daw. An instant brigade of texters from Baguio to Manila and back pulled and prayed for him, as did a team of doctors. But by mid-afternoon our friend was gone.

And the tears flowed, and the curses rained within, over why we had to be caught at work somewhere and couldn’t rush home to offer an immediate candle before our Santi Bose wall, where eight vintage works manifested more than a surface shrine. No, I couldn’t until later in the evening.

But an hour after confirmation of his demise, I kept stumbling into his name in my cell phone directory. Whenever I clicked on S, it was first to hove into view. I decided to text him farewell: "Paalam, mahal kong kaibigan."

What transpired was very Santi, heh-heh. And the following e-mail is what I posted that night to kindred spirits here and abroad:

"Sorry. Have to be the bearer of bad news. Our dear friend Santi Bose passed away today at the St. Louis University hospital in Baguio City. First heard before noon of how he had another, this time major, stroke. Eight doctors reportedly tried to save him. But he had a heart attack in the process, and was said to likely stay comatose and brain-damaged. They gave up, Santi went on ahead of us, at about 3 p.m., like, hey, Jesus. On the scene were friends Mitos Benitez Yniguez, Su Llamado, Karlo Altomonte and Bencab.

"His daughter Lilledeshan texted later that she was on her way up with her mother Peggy, and that the wake would be held right at Santi’s place on Quezon Hill, with cremation on Sunday.

"Intend to go and join friends over the weekend. Can bring along your sentiments, and offer these to his immediate family.

"Texted Santi’s number at 4 p.m. after having shed tears. The reply came: "C ya in heaven." We went on for a while. Me: "Ows? Maniwala akong nandun ka." S.B.’s cell phone: "You doubt it for a minute?" Me: "Hanggang dyan, nambobobola ka pa." Etc. Of course Su finally owned up. Otherwise I would have tried a voice call. But I’m sure Santi was using her as a medium.

"Shantih shantih shantih"

The global response was as immediate as the original cum all other kinds of families we learn to love and care for in our long lives.

From New York, artist Sammy Sta. Maria, who had worked with us for Ermita in the mid-’70s, was buena mano with his expression of shock, thence heartfelt condolence. "Last time I spoke to Santi was when he exhibited in the East Coast and Canada a couple of years ago. Please apprise us of related news…"

Poet Ed Maranan in London replied next: "Pakipaabot na lang ang aking pakikiramay kay Lilledeshan. We were supposed to see each other in London, but I had to fly to Manila in September, so missed her trip here. Santi will be missed. He was a year behind me in grade and high school in St. Louis. A very quiet little boy, as I remember. Magkatabi lang ang mga tindahan namin in the old Baguio market, back in the ’50s and ’60s… I don’t know if he had deep problems, but seems like he was in heaven all his life."

Rowena Torrevillas in Iowa City and Eric Gamalinda in Manhattan sent their sympathies. Then Eileen Tabios from San Fran: "Oh. Inarticulate now. But please pass on my appropriate condolences. How lucky I am to have had the chance to meet him… Without him, there would have been no book entitled My Romance. My romance with Santi – too short in this lifetime. But hopefully in the next…"

From Singapore, Joyce Garcia Kropp wrote: "I can’t believe it. Just at well before 5 this morning, as I was sorting my things/life out, I said good-bye to Santi. He had given me this print of his tall tales, er, tails (is that Freudian?) series. I absolutely hated it, this Igorot with a tail on his behind… Santi knows how much I think of him. But… please, could you scream for me? It shouldn’t be plaintive, but something just as primitive to celebrate his passing on to better things. And tell him I forgive him for his socialized pricing. Give him all our love…"

From Germany, Liz Reyes: "…sad and wrenching news… May he rest in peace and rise again, like Jesus, among us. The thought of Santi brings on a great flood of memories, of Baguio, of Mother Time, of the visual artists of Cordi, of Robert and BAG et al. Please bring along my deepest condolences – and tears – to his extended Baguio family."

Glenna Aquino somewhere in Malate wrote back, too: "No wonder then the last time I saw him ang higpit ng yakapan naming dalawa. What about the Manileños who can’t go to Baguio, wala bang tribute?"

From Bhutan, Bimboy Peñaranda, who was orig family from the ’70s, a heartfelt cry, ending with: "Mukhang ngayon lang tumatama sa akin. Ngayong umaga na napakaliwanag at linaw. Walang ibang makikiramay sa kanya dito kundi ang kalawakan…"

From Marianne Villanueva in Palo Alto, I think: "I have two of his paintings in my home here in California. I bought the first one, ‘The Blue Room,’ when I was 17. I saw it in the Kamalig Gallery. I had my father loan me the P1,500 for it. Decades later, my mother acquired another of his paintings, ‘The White Room,’ and sent it to me in California. Santi, wherever you are, I just want you to know that when I look at your paintings, I enter other worlds."

From Manhattan, Lara Stapleton recounted how a friend of hers, Rosanna Brillantes, a student filmmaker "who was recently denied funding by U. of Texas because they consider the Philippines a terrorist hotbed," was a niece of Santi. "She is really devastated with this on top of everything else. He was the artist of her family of course, the bohemian (OH, SANTI! People exclaimed.) He encouraged her to fight the system and make her film… She’s off to Cebu on Monday. I’m so sorry to hear…"

Her fellow New Yorker Paolo Javier, a young poet, sent his condolences as well. "I never met the Man, but I’m familiar with his work. It is a great loss. I attended the Vestiges of War book launch last nite (Thursday, Dec. 5), and Angel (Shaw) announced Santi’s passing. She was at a loss for words. So were we all…"

Together with Ruth Roa, Santi had helped out in the Anvil book, co-edited I believe by Angel Shaw and Luis Francia, and designed here in Manila by RayVi Sunico

Again from SF, a follow-up note from Tabios re "other local Bay Area friends of his doing tributes during" a presentation at the Pusod Center last Friday.

Further, "Specifically, it was Santi’s notion that the Filipino artist needs to be as aware and open as possible to the diverse influences in the universe, including but not only Filipino. And that such engagement would only enhance the nature of that Filipino artist’s work. (Need I say that Santi’s indigenous credentials are unquestionable?)"

She also quotes Santi Bose in her Preface to My Romance: "When I bring in art magazines from around the world to the artists in Baguio, it’s because I wish them to have a bigger concept of the world – to look at the Philippines and their art from many angles. I believe art empowers people, gives them a stronger vision of looking at their environment."

That was Santi alright. And more.

In January 2000, at a book launch at the Filipinas Heritage Library where then Veep GMA was the guest of honor, Santi handed me his camera for a photo-op of them together. La Gloria was surprised when right before the click, Santi covered his face with a sheet of paper. No telling if she was amused, although Santi did try to explain that it would be part of a series of photos he planned to be taken of him with important personages, but always with his face covered.

Hmmm. Yeah, that was Santi, too.

And from Ermita to Sagada and Bangaan and Baguio and Antipolo we laughed and traded secrets to further merriment. Oh, he’d bemoan and bewail inequity and injustice and ka-plastikan and ka-Hudyohan – but always he’d break out into that garrulous laughter that almost approached the exceptional quality of his overnight snoring, so from-the-depths, so exploratory of globes, universes, and sundry other cesspools of consciousness.

In San Fran he stole ceramic elves from front lawns and deposited them elsewhere, as parts of a conceptual installation project.

We’re all sure he’s still doing it, installing himself grandly as a found object in Elysium. And like Maximus’ gladiator-friend at the end of that movie, we can only say see you soon, my friend. But not yet, not yet. Mwahaha.