The most recent event was held at the grand ballroom of the Cebu City Marriott Hotel to celebrate the lasting friendship between the Philippines and the United States of America. A well-thought-out program, featuring well-known and some yet-to-be-discovered homegrown talents, was the highlight of an evening of genuine camaraderie and good cheer.
For starters, the spirited and versatile University of San Jose Recoletos Dramatics and Cultural Ensemble rendered a medley of favorite tunes from the Broadway musical Oklahoma to put the guests in the right mood. What followed soon was a program of Filipino-American music as performed by the association’s business executives-turned-entertainers, led by tenor Del Ordoñez, who sang a mesmerizing Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha.
Martial arts enthusiast Herbert Buot did his original interpretation of South of the Border, while Warfe Engracia, fondly called Cebu’s Singing Doctor, drew wild applause for his rendition of the romantic love song, Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific.
Easily the crowd’s favorite was lady singer Jackie Garcia’s On the Wings of Love. But the surprise of the dinner reception was the always extremely reserved Sonny Espina with his own version of Nat King Cole’s Love Letters. An encore was simply in order. Everyone wanted more, and, surprise, surprise, he gladly obliged.
As associates and guests continued to muster not-so-difficult-to-find courage to perform, by bursting into song or by sharing gut-splitting stand-up jokes, the seven-year-old Justin, son of respected corporate lawyer Amay Ong Vaño and his wife Aileen, somehow placed a lump in everybody’s throat with his captivating delivery of Martin Luther King’s celebrated speech which is forever moving, quick to touch the heart and stir the soul.
Exciting parlor games, which are popular in both countries separated by the wide Pacific Ocean, with attractive prizes given to the victors, reigned for the remainder of the enjoyable occasion. But the luckiest winners of them all were Domingo Marquez, who won a complimentary round-trip to America, while Rod Enriquez, head of the engineering department of the Cebu City Marriott Hotel, is busy getting ready for a scheduled holiday to Sydney, Australia, courtesy respectively of Northwest Airlines and Philippine Airlines, our first national carrier and Asia’s first airline.
Guests of honor were US consular agent John Domingo and Rodion Reyes, who heads the Department of Foreign Affairs in Cebu. They were ably assisted by USDA’s Patrick Manuel Quianzon and Marriott’s general manager Christiane Wasfy.