The first two had passed away early, many years back, I was told. Joe Zagala, my bully of a seatmate for four years of high school, had "gone AWOL." Nobody knew where he was; he could’ve taken off for the States a long time ago. But then, as punong-abala Lino Dionisio said, he and Nito Abad in the US had kept track of most of San Beda College’s High School Class of 1960, including those abroad. Zagala was one of several exceptions.
Yu, Peter, seatmate to my left. Long unheard of, too. But then he had always seemed friendless, truculent. He’d come into his own only during a Math exercise, when he refrained from glancing at my desk, the way Joe Zagala always did, without fail, heh-heh.
How about the rest of the back-row boys? Veneracion, Eddie? Venal, Venancio, aka Boy? Valera? Villamar? Eddie, he used to come to these get-togethers; maybe he’s still with San Miguel. Yes, I say, he was one of the few classmates I’d still run into over the past decade. And Boy Venal is still a kagawad in San Juan. Really? That’s funny, I always thought it was Valera who was the San Juan boy. No word on Valera; he’s disappeared. That right? No surprise there.
Valera was a late transplant, meaning someone who didn’t start out in San Beda with most of us, all the way from grade school or first-year high at least. He came in on our junior year, a short, wiry fellow with an attitude. He had his collar perpetually turned up, and correspondingly assumed a James Dean stance. I recall how he was much of a loner early, and some toughie from another class tested him by ridiculing his James Dean pose. There was a quick case of fisticuffs at recess. In that brief flurry, Valera had proven himself capable, except that at some point he slipped, and wound up getting the seat of his pants muddy for the rest of the day. But then he had passed the initiation.
Somehow he also managed to get into an entente with his seatmate Venal, who was tall and rangy, with a commanding presence, so that no one tangled with him. They started hanging out together. At one point Valera got it on with the meztisillo ladies’ boy Joey Arellano, who had Zara as a bosom buddy. Zara and Venal arranged for a "square" for the following day; they would serve as "seconds."
Over lunch break, most of Class 3-31 trooped over to the tree-lined fringe past the football field, and Arellano and Valera squared off inside the circle. Again Valera proved fast on his feet and with his fists, sending Arellano down twice with well-timed punches. The third time he went down – with his wimpish sibling Luis watching with concern – Valera turned weird. He whipped out a bundle of newspapers that had been stuck inside his pants leg, unwrapped a mean-looking knife, and started brandishing it menacingly across the fallen Arellano’s face.
I marveled at how both Venal and Zagala quickly stepped in and pushed Valera back. The poor fellow was admonished over his non-sporting conduct. Later, Valera would try to explain, to anyone who cared to listen, that he knew Arellano, Jose to have many friends in our batch, so that he was just sending a signal. He said he was afraid that after knocking down his adversary thrice, he’d get ganged upon. The stoic Venal hushed him up.
With Boy Venal, it was a different, more ghastly experience I recall witnessing, out of campus. San Bedistas who had to walk down Azcarraga to get a jeepney ride on Morayta, by FEU, often had problems with guys from San Baste – mostly dropouts, we figured. They’d lie in wait and make bakal. Often they’d just pluck out a stick of Spud from one’s shirt pocket, this while wrapping a pa-friendly arm over one’s shoulders. Times they’d go brazen and ask for loose change. And we’d just shake our heads quietly and walk on faster. But one afternoon Venal stood his ground, and wound up getting into a fray with two or three of the toughies.
A certified wimp even then, I felt no shame in just standing there, some distance away, and failing to come to the classmate’s rescue. Pierre Tierra was with me, and maybe one or two other guys who were also part of what would now be called the nerd squad. But the next day we didn’t hear anything from Venal. He was an old soul, evidently wise to the ways of rough-and-tumble street life. In fighting off the bakal boys, he did all of us a service. It put a stop to the waylaying practice.
Many more memories of high school life in and out of campus came flooding back after I received a couple of unexpected SMS messages, from Mon Arcadio and Lino Dionisio. Somehow Mon had gotten my cell phone number, and now they were asking me to show up for a get-together of SBC HS ’60 at Villamor Golf Club. Bienvenida daw for Nito Abad who had just come in from Jersey City, and a despedida na rin for Bobby Barretto who was leaving for the US.
Erick Ochoa had rung me up in the past, but I always seemed to be taken up with something at the time, so that he had given up on me. It seemed the ’60 batch had been meeting for sometime, or so I learned when I texted Lino and Mon back that I might make it this time.
About 30 had already gathered at a special dining section of the clubhouse when I got there, to what sounded like delirious cheers and hoots. Most of the guys were unrecognizable, but then that was because a lot came from other sections, and only those from our class still seemed familiar, as facial blasts from the past. I trooped gamely down the line and shook hands with everyone, and soon we settled down for dinner and drinks. More guys kept coming, to hoots and cheers when like myself they were showing up for the first time.
Chester "Tuti" Ebuen, a PAF pilot and former ranking officer, hosted the event. Apart from him, still recognizable were our valedictorian Vic Alfonso, Melvin Martin, a still beaming Jun Lao (who gleefully recalled how I was called "Eggyolk"), Frankie Casal who still looked like a priest, Boy Santillan with whom I had been close buddies with, silver-haired Red Liboro, and the ever upbeat Erick Ochoa, who was proud of his biz card saying that he headed something called the Coalition of Responsible Senior Citizens Inc.
Lino Dionisio updated me on the batch’s efforts to assemble on a regular, nearly monthly basis since 2003. So that’s why Erick had kept calling. Plans were already afoot for SBC HS Class ’60’s golden year in 2010. Lord, that’s five years from now, I mock-protested. How many of us will still be around by then?
Lino said only about 12 percent had gone on to the great battlefield past Mendiola, per his estimate. From a total number of some 300, only a little over 30 were known to have passed on. But then a lot had turned global Pinoys, and there was no telling whether missing fellows like Zagala, Uy, Valera, and the Arellano brothers, among others, hadn’t yet gone defunct.
Lino ran a website in collaboration with Nito Abad, who still had to show up that evening. We had the SBCAA1960@yahoo groups.com for regular posting. I asked about other guys I had been close to, and whom I knew still stayed in Manila. Red Simbulan, who had set up Comic Quest. Bert Martinez, whom I had also associated with in UP. Ding Reyes, whom I had lost track of, despite friendship with his younger bro, the art critic Cid. And where was Serafin "Boy" Hilvano, a PGH doc? Oh, he’s coming; he’s usually here with us, Lino and Mon Arcadio said. Mon turned out to be a doctor himself, in fact the head of UP Manila. It was from Jimmy Abad of UP Diliman that he got my number.
Carlos Chuidian? Gone, early. Frank Camahort? Missing. Ricky Delgado? Boy Cruz? Tierra? And Gov. Rod Valencia of Mindoro? Oh, we’ll get to them sometime. How about Secada, that over-aged tisoy who regaled everyone with his playboy ways with women? Someone said he’d been busted on drugs in the States, a long time ago. Hmm, again, not surprising; he’d been voted Most Likely to Drop Out.
A surprise presence was fave English teacher Otto Jimenez, with whom, during a smoking break outside, a few of us shared old memories with: how he’d enter the classroom all stiff and stern-looking, with a heavy book balanced on his upraised right palm; how he introduced collegial corporal punishment, the "Knock" that penalized any misdemeanor with a sharp knuckle rap on the noggin. We had all gotten "sampled," until he had us doing it to one another. This night, however, he owned up that he had realized rather late how some guys started applying extra-hard raps that led to more trips to the football field or some street at San Beda Subdivision behind our campus.
Otto also spoke of his experience with the Light-a-Fire Movement during the dark Marcos days, and how he had been arrested and had to do time. Someone brought up the matter of the Spanish Benedictines totally disappearing, how Pinoy "Fathers" had completely taken over our Alma Mater. How Fr. So-and-So had ran off with a lady, and Bro. So-and-So had made away with a printing press and started a business. Otto Jimenez, who had memorably played the title role in Brother Orchid, as performed by the faculty, smiled and shrugged; that was how it went, even in a religious community that had us getting high on incense during High Mass, while singing such rapturous songs as Tantum Ergo, No mas amor que el tuyo, and O Lord I Am Not Worthy.
Mon Villamar, Secretary to the Sangguniang Bayan of Marilao, Bulacan, came late, with what looked like a bodyguard, or was it a valet? So did Ricardo Veloso, who reminded me of how his family’s fine printing press had done an excellent job with the Pasig: River of Life coffee-table book. Nito Abad finally showed up, vindicating my recollection of him as the Poolhall King off Legarda St.; so smooth and suave were his shotmaking, "preparasyon" and "placing" that he must have broken in Amang Parica and Bata Reyes in Yankee Country, we joked. No naman daw, albeit he agreed that his early training in angles and "preparasyon" had served him well. Yes, now he’s president of Global Service Systems Corp. in Connecticut
Boy Santillan said he’d given up his two-pack-a-day habit. Atty. Red Liboro upped the ante: he had been smoking as many as five packs a day before he quit, cold turkey, over a decade ago. Admirable. Erick naturally butted in to say, "Now, that’s being responsible as a senior citizen." And made a pitch anew for his coalition, which was conducting an invaluable information service. We looked at his card again. Indeed, the tagline read: Service for a Better Citizenship, with the SBC in caps, bold, red. Ingenious.
It was a boisterous, rousing gathering that eventually led to a group shot, after which I had to take my leave for deadline commitments. The very next day, Lino Dionisio reported through the SBCAA1960 e-group that "Doc" Boy Hilvano and Bobby Barretto had shown up late, and that he had inserted their mug shots in the group pic. Great. Good to have shared in the reunion with bogeys, ghosts and friendly spirits of the past, especially now that we were all turning into responsible senior citizens. May our senior moments exclude the fun times together in the Fifties, when we purred as Red Cubs and eventually roared as Red Lions. Animo San Beda!