My first note is a sad one, coming so soon after the death of a well-loved teacher in the English department of the University of the Philippines, Prof. Pacita "Pachot" Fernandez. The UP community lost another titan with the recent passing of Dr. Alfredo V. Lagmay – a National Scientist and longtime professor of psychology, whose teaching and research influenced generations of Filipino psychologists and social scientists.
The forthcoming history of the University of the Philippines – which I’m helping to edit – contains numerous references to the contributions and ideas of Lagmay and his colleagues in the philosophy department, people such as Ricardo Pascual, Armando Bonifacio, Ruben Santos-Cuyugan, O.D. Corpuz, Pepe Encarnacion, and Cesar Adib Majul, some of whom – like Lagmay himself – would become luminaries in other fields such as political science (Corpuz), economics (Encarnacion), and history (Majul). These teachers and scholars had towering intellects, and they established – for those of us who were their students and who followed them into the professoriat – a standard difficult to match but ennobling and exhilarating to even aspire for.
Lagmay himself took his PhD in Experimental Psychology under B. F. Skinner at Harvard in the mid-1950s, but he returned to devote the rest of his life to promoting the study and teaching of psychology in the Philippines – especially the new approach of Philippine Psychology or Sikolohiyang Pilipino, which takes the particularities of our culture into account, fusing psychology with linguistics. (Instead of accepting the traditional notion of "bahala na" as an expression of leave-it-to-God fatalism, for example, Lagmay chose to see it as an expression of resolve and risk-taking in the most stressful, unpredictable situations.) Lagmay was also a staunch advocate of academic freedom and fought many good fights on its behalf.
It must have been around 1968 or 1969 when I first met him; he used to pick up his daughter Cherie at the Philippine Science High School in his white Rambler American, and while I was only 14 or 15 then, he did me the great honor of treating me as an adult, once telling me (years before I would find out for myself) how so much of the academic life was tied up in committee work – a phenomenon he described as "comitology."
But our most memorable encounter took place just a few years later, when I was 17 and in the thick of the short-lived but exuberantly defiant Diliman Commune, a student uprising in February 1971 that barricaded the UP campus against the military hordes massed at its gates. I was new on the staff of the Philippine Collegian, and our editor Tony Tagamolila felt it was imperative for us to publish an issue during the Commune; but the printing press was out in Quiapo. The barricades meant that while no one could get in, no one could also get out without attracting unwelcome attention.
So, close to midnight, we went to the house of the only professor I personally knew who might be able to help us: Alfredo V. Lagmay, who lived out in Purok Aguinaldo. We roused him from bed and explained the situation. Without any if’s and but’s, Dr. Lagmay pulled his Rambler out of the driveway and we piled in. I can’t remember what story he must have put past the guards on the other side of the barricade, but he took us as far as we needed to get on a regular jeepney, and the Collegian came out with its special Commune issue. Many, many thanks, Professor, for that and a whole lot more.
He and I picked up our love of writing from our father, Jose Sr., who wanted to be a lawyer but who was too poor to finish college. This was why my mother – a 1956 BSE graduate from UP – spurred us to get our degrees no matter what it took. After many twists and turns, I got my AB in English in 1984, at the age of 30; Jess just got his in Journalism, thanks to the Polytechnic University of the Philippines’ special program for working and older students, at the age of 49. As soon as he graduated, Jess entered law school at the University of the East to achieve a lifelong dream of his and to realize my father’s as well. (Our sister Elaine also became a lawyer relatively late, after she had already built up a successful career in finance.)
I suppose Jess had the advantage of maturity in this competition, but he speaks of his law classes with the bubbly enthusiasm of the freshman that he is. Keep it up, brother! Incidentally, first place went to UP, and third place to Ateneo; I can live with that.
A gentle person whose quietness disguises a robust passion for life, Tony has been the writing community’s unofficial keeper of secrets – and the source, we sometimes suspect, of riotously good but probably apocryphal stories about writers and their escapades. As it now turns out, his best-kept secrets were his own. They are these poems, and in these poems, written in a plaintive, almost archaic, vocabulary.
Critic Lily Rose Tope calls the book Tony’s "secret garden of sentiment and words. The poems are personal, intimate, at times revealing, and yet like the man himself, introspective, mysterious, gently evasive. His poetic garden is a wordsmith’s paradise where neologisms and verbal inventiveness are the norm. It is also a romantic site where love takes center place in the poetic architecture – the heart hurting, hurtful, desiring, desirous."
I found myself with a free hour on my hands a couple of weeks ago and remembered Clinton Palanca mentioning to me once that he went up to that floor for his fix of French books. I don’t read French, but any bookstore that has a corner for such rare treats must have something more, and I gave up my usual foray into the seafood section of Farmers Market for a stroll though the NBS shelves.
What a cornucopia it turned out to be – shelf upon shelf and row upon row of books in glorious disarray; there was some effort to put all the books, say, about the vacation-spots of England in one corner, and all the computer books in another, but ultimately a grand disorder prevailed, refreshing and compelling in its challenge for you to explore the place for its hidden prizes. I’d stopped buying books for some years, having hopelessly fallen behind in my reading of what I already had, and I’d forgotten what a pleasure it was to brush the deckled edges of carefully bound books or to savor the prose of an unremarked genius.
In the end, I came away with a fine balance between interests old and new: the hardbound and well-illustrated In Search of Shakespeare by Michael Wood (P500), and a thick paperback I just couldn’t resist, Infinite Loop (How Apple, the World’s Most Insanely Great Computer Company, Went Insane) by Michael S. Malone (P360). There went my budget for crab and shrimp, but I’m not complaining.
"As a foundation," Ginny says, "we create and implement projects geared towards the promotion of literacy and education by making books more accessible to Filipinos. Our flagship project, Buklat-Aklat, is a 400-book-strong mobile library that goes around public schools and barangay halls in the Philippines. To date, we have benefited over 1,000 schools since the project started in 2001.
"We’re looking for volunteers who can help us with the creation and maintenance of our official website; getting educators and literacy experts to give free workshops and seminars to public school teachers in the schools we will be touring in; story-telling sessions for the public school kids in the schools that we will be touring in; and suggestions as to where the Buklat-Aklat library can tour, and when."
All forms of assistance are welcome. If you think you can help, please e-mail Ms. Mata at matalu@nationalbookstore.com.ph, or call their office landline at 631-8061 local 1111.