Gaddang in Negros (For Edith Tiempo, literary icon)

MANILA, Philippines - My horoscope for that day, April 22, 2008, said something like this — a close friend will do something right out of left field, so stay alert. 

It was another one of those skeptic days for me for believing in horoscopes. Though I read them when readily available, I do not really take them seriously. That particular day it was quite impossible for it to happen, for I was away from the metro, having just settled in my room at Bethel Guest House, in the City of Gentle People, Dumaguete.

My first time.

I just laughed about it and thought, I have no close friend here, so there goes another blah horoscope.

And then I heard a knock on our door. My roommates, my nephew and niece, opened the door, and I heard voices. I thought it was the room boy. When I got out of the bathroom, I was surprised to see Jonah, a friend I met a year earlier, faculty member then of the Silliman University, film director, fellow UP Diliman alumni. He knew I would visit Dumaguete but I did not expect him there.

The day did turn out to be my right out of left field. But that’s getting way ahead of my story.

Jonah gave me a walking tour of Dumaguete, from the Bell Tower, church, mall, pedicabs, to Silliman U, which is incredibly beautiful. Old structures have always amazed me: who built it, who lived in it and how it stayed sturdy throughout the years. I saw the SU coop, Alumni House, ilang-ilang, and then the SU Library (awarded the Best University Library). During our walking tour, I met Jonah’s friends, former students and co-faculty. 

Each time I would be introduced, I would ask the same question, “Do you know where I can see Mom Edith Tiempo today?”

Ian Casocot, writer, Palanca awardee, SU Faculty member, said, “She’s in her house in Montemar, oh and guess what, it’s her birthday today. I will actually go there later to greet her, I hope to see you there.”

Moses, the unofficial tour guide of SU, after giving me a print-out of the Do-It-Yourself Tour of Dumaguete, similarly said, “I’ll visit Mom Edith, if you have plans of seeing her too, we can go together as her place is hard to find. We can meet at 3 p.m.”

Who would pass up that invitation?

And so after a late lunch at Chicco’s along the Boulevard, we met up at the SU Alumni Office, hired an easy rider, and six of us hied off to Montemar. On the way, we bought Mom Edith’s favorites: cheese bread at the SU Canteen, flowers, and mini cakes.

Ian was with us. He said to me, “I told you we will meet again.” He was with a girl wearing a blue blouse and black pants, short hair and a ready smile, then Moses briefly showed me an article written by him, then the SU hand book with a list of faculty, and pointing to the girl Ian was talking to, told me, this is she.

Lakambini Sitoy. Whoa! Another great writer and Palanca awardee, in my midst.

So in the easy rider was Jonah, Ian, Moses, Lakambini, my nephew and niece. Surreal.

Going to Mom Edith’s house, I was already nervously rehearsing what to tell her: “Oh, I have read your works. Taught them to my creative writing classes. Oh, I so admire you. Oh, it’s such a pleasure to meet you. Oh, may I have an autograph?”

I was not able to say any of those things to her.

When she came out of her room, the smile on my face just would not go away.

My right out of left field.

We had five small pots of spring flowers, three mini cakes and a bag of SU cheese bread, which we all gave to Mom Edith while we sang “Happy Birthday” to her.

She was ecstatic. Dressed in dark pink sleeveless blouse and a dark blue skirt, traces of her youth still showed on her beautifully wrinkled face. The others slowly went out towards the veranda of her beautiful home with a breathtaking view of the sea. Her home, situated on top of a mountain, built nine years earlier, is one of many houses in the subdivision, which her family owns. Edilberto Tiempo, her husband who passed away in 1996, foresaw the prospect of the then bare and idle land.

I struck up a conversation with the Birthday Girl and found some common threads.

My mother was a roommate of Mom Edith’s sister back in the 1950s in UP Diliman. And Mom Edith is a Gaddang like my father and his family. Gaddangs are from Nueva Viscaya, a tribe that prides itself to be industrious and educated with strong family ties despite the migration to other parts of the country.

I told Mom Edith that in November, 2007, the first Gaddang Symposium was held in Quezon City and being the PR officer and one of the organizers, we had tried then to convince her to personally accept an award accorded to her, The Gaddang Award for Literature. She said she knew about the award and was very grateful, but her doctor did not allow her to travel out of Dumaguete. She had not been feeling in tip-top shape especially in this summer heat.

Indeed, the heat was revolting.

But my spirits were soaring, for I spent the next hour just sitting with her, holding hands, trading stories. Never mind that she could not hear me so well and I would have to speak louder than usual. Her eyesight was still perfect though, reading everything written on our shirts.

I mentioned it has always been my dream to qualify for the National Writers Workshop! and she casually said that I should keep on trying, maybe next year. But then she added that I can always sit in for that year’s workshop if I wanted to.

Oh my, an invitation from Mom Edith Tiempo to sit in the National Writers Workshop! And I’m thinking, I am not worthy.

We could not stay long as the easy rider that we rented had a time limit and we were unexpected guests. Her invited dinner guests were starting to arrive for her birthday celebration.

So it was time to go. When we told her we were leaving, she clung to me and repeatedly said, “Do you have to go? Can you stay for the party? You can stay for the party, right?”

She was referring only to me. Am I boasting? Of course I’m boasting. The literary guru, icon, genius, National Artist Awardee for Literature, on her 89th birthday, asks me, a nobody, just a literary fan, one-time creative writing teacher, frustrated writer, sometimes poet, voracious reader, educator, volunteer, mother, daughter, but definitely not at par with her, to stay longer.

I am not worthy. I definitely did not want to leave. But being an accidental guest, I didn’t have much choice but to go. And I left with a smile on my face, on Cloud Nine, thankful for my lucky stars.

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(Editor’s Note: Gina D. Lumauig wrote this piece right after meeting Edith Tiempo on her 89th birthday three years ago in Dumaguete. She never got around to share it with anyone and now finally decides to type her handwritten article as a tribute to Mom Edith.)