But for Nolledo

But for Ding Nolledo, I might have been a roaring success as a lawyer and eventual politician, or an abject failure as a rock star.

Completing high school when I had barely turned 15, I spent much of the summer at an aunt’s homestead in Malabon – a breezy place with a large yard, many trees, and a bungalow with a wrap-around wooden porch. There on a hammock I spent the day reading several books I had prepared for my retreat, and everything else I could lay my hands on. When evening fell, I tried to write.

My aunt brought home these women’s magazines from her office, and some of them had short stories. I noted how this Filipino writer, Wilfrido D. Nolledo, had an utterly seductive way with his storytelling wizardry. His words leapt out at me, their eloquent combinations thrilling me no end. I felt intoxicated whenever I went through his stories, and vowed to attempt to replicate his dazzling narrative style.

But all I could come up with were poems of dreamy romance and angry defiance, while my prose led to one clunky chapter after another in a novel I started. Actually, it was a fictionalized biography of sorts —- an account of the life thus far, dreamy, romantic and angry, of a much older fellow who had taught me how to handle beer and gin and rum on a corner of Dimasalang St. in Manila.

Eventually I tossed the half-completed novel aside. But I kept on reading Nolledo, and kept getting drunk with his prose. His story "Rice Wine" I swooned to when it appeared in Philippines Free Press. To this day, another Nolledo idolater, Cesar Ruiz Aquino in Dumaguete, can recall the passage that served as a blurb to trumpet the story:

"Poetry! Three hundred years of losing our corn to the West and we celebrate a man and his two novels written in Europe. You cannot liberate a slave with a metaphor! So dance the zarzuela; I will take my rice in a mug; not in the harvest."

Those are lines spoken by Santiago, the old man who lives in the slums of Intramuros, and whose daughter Elena he discovers to have become a lady of the night. The story begins:

"When Santiago saw her in the mirror, comb in hand, he knew it was time for him. It was time to leave the hut. For it was the time of the crescent moon, and if there were people he knew in the corner store, it was time for a cup."

And it ends gloriously, poetically – with a passage that became as dear to our young writers’ hearts as Nick Joaquin’s own dazzling opening paragraph for "May Day Eve."

"And when Santiago fell, falling like a tear from a man’s grief, he fell, not on a pile of jute sacks in a sawdust yard beside the estero, but on a cool moonscape of grass in a long ago September, in the hallow of belief, in the pool of all their blood in the mountains whose loneliness became his absence, whose loveliness became his fall."

Between Joaquin and Nolledo —- toss in Jose Garcia Villa —- the lyrical influence proved so inestimable that I consciously sought to turn into a "language writer" more than a stickler for substance and form. Wait, no, that’s not exactly antipodal, or a matter of one if not the other, as I would eventually figure out. But suffice it to say that the fiction and poetry that turned me on in those early days of the ’60s were of the sort that put a premium on riveting, fresh, adroit articulation that was as lyrical as … well, as what was consistently dished out by Wilfrido D. Nolledo.

Toward the late ’60s, when we also made the acquaintance of Quijano de Manila aka NJ, we were doubly happy to realize that the grand man of letters and the much younger "Ding" Nolledo worked together at the Free Press. Their office at Pasong Tamo was where we UP writers (Willy Sanchez, Erwin Castillo, Frankie Osorio…) trooped every Wednesday, as that was our Novena Day, with St. Nick hosting for beers and pulutan. And Ding Nolledo would join our table, together with Greg Brillantes, Pete Lacaba fresh out of Ateneo, and the brilliant artist Danny Dalena. They were all FP staffers, soon to be joined by the young proofreader Eman Lacaba.

Right next door was the ABC-Channel 5 studio, where we also visited regularly, especially when the illustrious playwright and pioneering Peso Book publisher Bert Florentino started recruiting us to adapt short stories into teleplays for the popular and long-running TV drama series Balintataw. Cecile Guidote, now Alvarez, produced and sometimes directed for the weekly series, with Nick Lizaso assisting her and often acting in the episodes, while Lupita Aquino Concio, now Kashiwahara, served as the regular director, at least for the first year or so.

Those were halcyon days for writers barely out of their teens, for which a story or poem selected by the great Nick Joaquin for publication, or a teleplay commissioned by Bert Florentino, meant yet another occasion to celebrate at the FP canteen, with such distinguished company at that. On some occasions, the crossover camaraderie included Joe Quirino, entertainment reporter and budding fictionist himself, and who partnered with Nick Joaquin in their regular forays to Avenida Rizal in Manila to render service as Censors’ board members. They knew their movies, too. So did Ding, who became the premier film reviewer for the Free Press, his weekly output turning into a showcase for verbal dexterity and ludic engagement (read: puns galore).

It was evident, too, that those guys loved and respected one another’s persons and literary caliber. Ding Nolledo was often quiet, but then who wouldn’t be, when the boisterous Nick was on the same table, dominating the place (and imaginably all of Makati) with his booming baritone, hectoring and heckling always, then chortling to himself as he lifted yet another cold bottle of San Miguel beer to his lips.

Greg would sometimes get a word in, edgewise, and so would Ding, but it was in the natural order of the Philippine literary universe then, small and inbred as it was, for everyone to defer to Quijano de M. And not only because he always footed the bill, or that his shirt pocket seemed an inexhaustible fount from which Censors’ movie passes materialized, for waiters, cab drivers, and all sorts of go-fers, us young poseurs included.

We learned all about camaraderie, fierce loyalty, and an unwavering support system. We owe it to Nick, Greg, Ding, Pete, Danny, Eman and Bert what we now still practice, among one another, which is to backstop someone all the way, and act in harmony together, whether it was to join a labor strike or to defend anyone in the company who fell under physical or critical assault.

Like Nick, Ding Nolledo savored the elbow-bending with young writers. Even as he knew that we looked up to him for his trailblazing literary worth, he championed our petty little causes and was quick to offer encouragement.

For his regular keep he served as a journalist for a great length of time, as a feature writer, film reviewer, and editor. But on nights alone he crafted his stories, which gained Palanca prizes every year, it seemed. When the stalwart literary company left Free Press, he joined Nick, Greg, Pete and Danny to start up Asia-Philippines Leader. It was fast turning into the weekly magazine of note (especially for short story writers and poets) when Martial Law, well, intervened.

Somewhere along those years of disquiet, Ding Nolledo and his wife Blanca Datuin moved to Iowa City for Paul Engle’s International Writing Program, and stayed on for sometime, until the good word came that E.P. Dutton of New York had published Ding’s novel But for the Lovers. It was a triumph for the Filipino writer in English, and we all rejoiced with Ding.

He came back, served as an editor for magazines and a newspaper, won the hefty Roman Prize for the novel with a story he had encoded in a computer in Malacañang, so he could also use the printer at the press office there. And then he left again, until we found out it was for good. The Nolledo family migrated to the USA in the late ’80s. And often we would wonder if Ding Nolledo was still writing, and we’d hear how he was, yes indeed, or how Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was his new editor at yet another NY publishing firm, yes, Ding Nolledo was working on another novel.

Each summer in Dumaguete, Cesar Aquino would recite nuggets of Nolledo’s prose to the young workshoppers. As the 20th century ended, Cesar found among his otherwise sorry files a vintage photograph in black-and-white, of the first workshoppers’ and panelists’ group way back in 1962. It had been given to him by Ding Nolledo. At the back of the edge-frittered photo was an inscription scrawled by hand: "Cesar, Tell them our story. – Ding"

I last saw Ding at their home in Panorama City in the winter of 1999. He and Blanca fed me and served beer, and allowed me to smoke as long as I did it in the lanai, where Ding and I repaired to for a long conversation that lasted the whole afternoon. He gave me a hardcopy of a chapter for a possible new novel to be titled "L.A. Encantada." Or something like that.

Previous to my visit, he had honored a request and submitted a long, wonderful essay on living in America that joined others, including Blanca’s own, in the coffee-table anthology Fil-Am: The Filipino American Experience, which was launched in four US cities as 1999 drew to a close. Ding and Blanca joined the launch in San Francisco, where Fil-Ams went up to his table to get him to sign their copies of But for the Lovers.

Our correspondence continued, by e-mail, and he asked for a regular posting of this Philippine STAR column. On some occasions, he’d comment on a particular write-up on a young writer or a literary activity in Manila. It was his way of keeping well in touch. His messages were always invested with equal parts earnestness and light bright humor.

In October 2001 we were both selected to be among the hundred Bedans of the Century awardees. (Naks, ehem, we wrote one another, especially when we found out that Fernando Poe, Jr. was also in the list.) Ding requested that I pick up whatever trophy there was for him. At the memorious San Beda Chapel, I walked up the aisle twice – like Butz Aquino who had to do it a second time for his brother Ninoy – to receive the statuette of the Venerable St. Bede. It was a pleasurable experience twice over.

The weighty, foot-tall statuette stayed in my attic for a couple of years. Ding said it was okay, just keep it, until it found its way to him. Once, his daughter Melissa found herself in town and rang up, but I missed the chance to hand over the Bedan trophy. It wasn’t until last November that another opportunity came, one that reeked of the quintessentially Pinoy support system.

A fellow MTRCB member, the ever gracious Benny Tarnate, offered to have anything I wanted transported to LA, where he knew I had a kid sister, handcarried by a son who flew regularly with PAL. That son would then pass it on to a brother who helped manage a ritzy hotel, and who happened to be a friend of my sister Girlie’s friend. I balked initially, concerned over the weight of the statuette. But Benny insisted it was no problem. And that was how the trophy, his final one as it turned out, finally wound up in Ding Nolledo’s hands.

On the day of the winter solstice, Ding e-mailed: "It has finally reached its destination, the Venerable St. Bede, thanks to you and Girlie and the rest na nagkarga sa procession. Ang bigat pala, pare. Dyahe sa mga nagkarga. Thanks again to you and the others. Makarating sana sa kanila ang pasasalamat."

Weekend before last, dreaded words appeared in my e-mailbox. Melissa reported that she was flying to LA because her father had been taken to an emergency ward, thence to the ICU, of Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Panorama City. Subsequent reports sounded increasingly grim, until Blanca herself issued the sad news that our friend Ding Nolledo had passed away, at 71, on March 6, 2004.

We grieve over his loss. And our sorrow is shared by many friends: Erwin, Willie in Chicago, Cesar, Danny, Pete, Greg, Nick… Recah Trinidad, who during the last Manny Pacquiao fight texted from L.A. for Ding’s number, and managed to speak with him last, made sure an obit report immediately came out in a couple of newspapers. Juaniyo Arcellana wrote another for this paper.

The young writer Gerard Pareja had just texted Cesar that he was overjoyed over finding a copy of But for the Lovers in a sale bin in Cebu City. He said he found it much more to his liking than the novels of other Filipino writers. When he was told that Ding Nolledo had just passed away, his reaction was entirely contextual: "Sad and strange – he leaves when I’m just starting to read his famous work."

Poet Marne Kilates e-mailed his sympathies to the family, with a recounting of his memorable "brush" with Ding:

"I was not fortunate (and old enough) to be a close friend (like Krip) of your Dad’s but like most ‘younger’ writers, I am one drop-jawed fan of his. My last memory of him was one afternoon of beer at a restaurant near the old Technology Resource Center (along Buendia) where Tagalog poet Teo Antonio worked. We had just come from a lunchtime literary function. I cannot recall now what it was. I think Krip was there, and poets Roger Mangahas and Lamberto Antonio, and the late short story writer Val Fajardo, who was Teo’s officemate at TRC. We were all supposed to go back to our own day jobs, but Teo said that Ding Nolledo was visiting so we might as well have coffee with him before returning to the salt mines. Of course it was just an excuse. We decided to take the afternoon off and we never had coffee at all. I can’t remember what we talked about, I suppose a lot of mundane things over pulutan (I think this was shortly before he went to the States for good, because I remember the subject was mentioned), but as happens during these impromptu writers’ encounters, passions rose towards the end when the talk came to poetry and literature. The afternoon did not wear off easily as we kept postponing our goodbyes since, as we usually said, the beer was just starting to taste a bit sweeter. Perhaps we broke off just before dinnertime. And so I met the Wilfrido Nolledo in the flesh and, like the probinsyano Free Press reader that I have always been, I just sat there (at least between the endless arguments) in increasing inebriation and in awe of the man. I have to read But for the Lovers again (I got my paperback edition about two years ago). Savor its language, apart from the thought that I spent one whole truant, tipsy afternoon (and evening) with a great man."

Thus far I’ve read many other such expressions of regret in my mail, among these from Filipinos in the States such as Linda Nietes, Greg Macabenta ("Ding is a loss not only as a person but as a Filipino literary treasure."), Bert Caoili, president of the Filipino Community in Seattle, Lilledeshan Bose, and Josepepe Gotera ("I know that the writers of his generation recognize him as one of the best… My mentor Tita Ayala attests to it. I also know that his literary works will live on in the Philippines because he is a Filipino Writer first.")

Bert Florentino has suggested a "Blog for Ding Nolledo" – to which he has served up some memories as starters, as his "condolence and tribute":

"Eva and I, later with my four daughters, used to visit Ding and Blanca, then childless (‘Mabuti pa ang mga pusa, maraming kuting,’ sabi ni Blanca) in Roxas District where we first rented a one-door apt. I can’t remember the name of their street…" Bert also recalls a reading of "Rice Wine" at CCP, as "translated into Tagalog by Willie Sanchez. Art de Guzman and I formed a reading group (of radio actors and actresses), led by Nanding Fernando. At the height of the confrontation of the father with his daughter Elena, Nanding Fernando would remove his reading glasses because they were being steamed by his passion, but when he removed the glasses to wipe them, he would not be able to read the lines... Art de Guzman and I also produced (he directed) Ding Nolledo’s "Rice Wine" (again) with Tommy Abuel as the young man in love with the unfortunate daughter Elena, which was later shown by Cecile Guidote on Balintataw. We did "Rice Wine" originally with Vic Silayan. Ding! We all miss you and your genius."

But let’s have Ding have the last word, with the following closing paragraph to his last published essay, titled "Saving Fil-Am (Or: I Never Promised You a Theme Park)":

"…Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, when prose was in flower and that visa was not even a twinkle in his eye, Grandpa would enjoy a morning constitutional with his compadre, which meant having San Miguel for chocolate, or Breakfast at Quijano de Manila’s. The talk was about movies, maybe a Tennessee Williams Retrospective (Ah, flores para los muertos!) and literature in general (this was when curling up with a good book was not yet a ‘read’), while munching on grill-broiled tahong (mussels were somehow tastier in the vernacular), doing backup on a Sinatra standard (‘…her hair undone, when I was twenty-one’), and perhaps crying a little in their cerveza. Wasn’t there something down-home and deliciously eclectic about listening to the ‘autumn of my years’ in the middle of May? But then the venue was V. Agan, the humor kind of free-fall and easy, its resonance carrying 359 years over into its natural sequel. For all that was Puro Joaquin, and to paraphrase Ol’ Blue Eyes, if we may, it was a very good century."