FAREWELL TO A FRIEND
For Rogelio Salvador Lachica Juliano Jr.
(January 22, 1961 - April 7, 2007)
FAREWELL TO A FRIEND
Dear Ogie,
Yes, I was there at the Guerrero Theater for your curtain call. I wouldn’t have missed it. After all, how long have we known each other?
The people who spoke during the service—I mean, performance, all praised you for your contributions to Philippine theater; particularly, your work in U.P. where you’ve practically lived your entire life. They praised you for your work as an actor, director, and costume designer, and deservedly so. That was something we all knew. Some spoke of your temper and tantrums, not without basis, but hardly anyone spoke about your soft side. They didn’t know you had that, Ogie. I knew. I know.
It was also at the Guerrero Theater that we first met for the first U.P. Summer Theater Arts Workshop in 1978. You had just graduated from UPIS, I had just finished first year in college. You had just turned 17, I was a few months from being 16. We naturally gravitated together, perhaps because we were among the younger ones in the group that included Chris Millado, Dennis Cid, Ino Manalo, Joey Nombres, Rene Requiestas, Carme Sanchez, and thirty or so others (we were not the youngest – Mimi Orara was then 12). By the time the cast party was held at the end of summer in Margot Andolong’s house, I suppose we already could count each other as friends.
When the Theater Arts Program officially opened the following year, you were officially the first freshman to enroll in it. In the first Introduction to Theater Arts class with Behn Cervantes, we found ourselves with Chris Millado, Ces Mangay, Betty Mae Piccio, Jorge Ledesma, Ben Ramos, and Nicolas Deocampo. Necessarily, we all got involved in the Dulaang U.P. productions that year – Rene Villanueva’s Burles directed by Jonas Sebastian was the season opener, do you remember? Nanding Josef played the lead, and Ces, Chris, and Betty Mae were the Stage Managers.
I began disappearing from U.P. soon after that. To this day, I still remember the day you took me aside and earnestly told me – “Dennis, why do you keep on disappearing just like that without telling anyone? Don’t you realize people actually look for you and care about what could possibly have happened to you?”
I knew then that I not only had a friend; I had a friend for life.
We would go on to work in productions together in U.P. with Anton Juan, Tony Mabesa, Behn Cervantes, Cris Vertido, and later with Amiel Leonardia and Alex Cortez. Sometimes we would be both actors. Later we would be working as fellow designers – you doing costumes, I would be doing lights. Much later we would consider ourselves luckier than most of our other contemporaries for getting the chance and opportunity to work with Teatro Pilipino and Gantimpala and PETA and Repertory Philippines, at a time when crossing to other production companies was still very much an issue.
Do you remember the Larawan tour we had in the Visayas? Do you remember how, one day when we are at the beach, that you prodded me to form an organization to be composed of both speech and theater majors? We actually hatched the plan right there at the beach, and we both talked to Chito Jao who became our first recruit. We did get to form the U.P. Speech and Theater Association (or U.P. Spectre) and we were all proud that only did it get recognized by the Department and the College, we got cited as one of the University’s outstanding organizations only in our second year!
But what people remember is how vehemently you refused to be one of the officers of SPECTRE. Not by any chance. You’d even made yourself absent during the elections just to make sure you were not elected. But elected or not, you were SPECTRE’s mother. We all still have a laugh to this day when we recall how you led us into the dungeon under the stairs and clean it of grime and dirt just so we could have a home in the Palma Hall, one that still holds very dear memories to most of our peers to this day. (Who was it who just wrote to say she went to the room recently – now the office of the College Student Council – just to feel the presence we had left and still revel in it?)
And what about the projects you most willingly shared your time and family resources with? The coffee maker you manned for a week in the AS walk during one college week? And your house! How many Christmas parties and induction rites did it host during that time? I’ve lost count how may times I have ended up sleeping in the living room couch!
We acted in each other’s plays, despite your vocal protestations that I would never amount much as an actor. Over the years, we spent much time in and out of class together, anywhere. How many nights did we share musing and ruminating in Anton’s flat in Kamuning? And what about the overnighters in Fiesta Carnival and Araneta Center along with our other friends? And the Lantern Parades that we joined it with you costuming everybody else! And theater! You agreed to act and supervise the costumes in my thesis production. Of course the misanthrope in you complained openly about the problems I had caused you, but you and I know that it was a grumbling that masked the care and concern you had not only for the production but more importantly for your friend.
Irma was almost about to blurt out during the Guerrero service that now we would not able to know whether, as you say, I really married the wrong person. Of course it is a putdown that you always had for every other person I was becoming attached to. Despite that, you were the only wedding sponsor among our friends who actually made it to our wedding in Kawit in those pre-coastal road days (and we were to find out much later that you almost did not make it back in time for the performance of Marat/Sade later that evening – people still remember how you were stripping your clothes from the CCP entrance all the way to the Batute as the house had opened by the time you got there). And you agreed to serve as Godfather to Ira and Mira on their baptism. Don’t worry about them to much and about the fact that you hadn’t given them a gift in years; they’re now old enough to take care of themselves.
When Ishmael Bernal was looking for an Art Director for “The Graduates” and I recommended you, I know I didn’t have to worry. In fact, you stayed on longer in films and television far longer than I did after that. When years after, I desperately needed a replacement for an actor who had quit during production, you willingly stepped in without question. Whenever Irma and the kids and I needed anything from you, we now we will always get it – after your put-on protestations, of course. We took it for granted that you were a friend, and that you’d always deliver.
But you had other plans, obviously. And because I did believe that you’d be around forever, I didn’t have the chance to thank you enough for all that you are and have been to me and my family (my mother still keeps photos of the weekend we spent in Lipa). I know that apologies will not be able to make up for the time that we could still have shared together, but I would like to think that the selfless person that you are, you would not have anyone believing that you are.
Ogie, Irma and I are grieving. Philippine theater has lost a true artist. We’ve lost a true friend. We’ve not said it often enough, but we love you. Dearly.
Farewell.
Dear Ogie,
Yes, I was there at the Guerrero Theater for your curtain call. I wouldn’t have missed it. After all, how long have we known each other?
The people who spoke during the service—I mean, performance, all praised you for your contributions to Philippine theater; particularly, your work in U.P. where you’ve practically lived your entire life. They praised you for your work as an actor, director, and costume designer, and deservedly so. That was something we all knew. Some spoke of your temper and tantrums, not without basis, but hardly anyone spoke about your soft side. They didn’t know you had that, Ogie. I knew. I know.
It was also at the Guerrero Theater that we first met for the first U.P. Summer Theater Arts Workshop in 1978. You had just graduated from UPIS, I had just finished first year in college. You had just turned 17, I was a few months from being 16. We naturally gravitated together, perhaps because we were among the younger ones in the group that included Chris Millado, Dennis Cid, Ino Manalo, Joey Nombres, Rene Requiestas, Carme Sanchez, and thirty or so others (we were not the youngest – Mimi Orara was then 12). By the time the cast party was held at the end of summer in Margot Andolong’s house, I suppose we already could count each other as friends.
When the Theater Arts Program officially opened the following year, you were officially the first freshman to enroll in it. In the first Introduction to Theater Arts class with Behn Cervantes, we found ourselves with Chris Millado, Ces Mangay, Betty Mae Piccio, Jorge Ledesma, Ben Ramos, and Nicolas Deocampo. Necessarily, we all got involved in the Dulaang U.P. productions that year – Rene Villanueva’s Burles directed by Jonas Sebastian was the season opener, do you remember? Nanding Josef played the lead, and Ces, Chris, and Betty Mae were the Stage Managers.
I began disappearing from U.P. soon after that. To this day, I still remember the day you took me aside and earnestly told me – “Dennis, why do you keep on disappearing just like that without telling anyone? Don’t you realize people actually look for you and care about what could possibly have happened to you?”
I knew then that I not only had a friend; I had a friend for life.
We would go on to work in productions together in U.P. with Anton Juan, Tony Mabesa, Behn Cervantes, Cris Vertido, and later with Amiel Leonardia and Alex Cortez. Sometimes we would be both actors. Later we would be working as fellow designers – you doing costumes, I would be doing lights. Much later we would consider ourselves luckier than most of our other contemporaries for getting the chance and opportunity to work with Teatro Pilipino and Gantimpala and PETA and Repertory Philippines, at a time when crossing to other production companies was still very much an issue.
Do you remember the Larawan tour we had in the Visayas? Do you remember how, one day when we are at the beach, that you prodded me to form an organization to be composed of both speech and theater majors? We actually hatched the plan right there at the beach, and we both talked to Chito Jao who became our first recruit. We did get to form the U.P. Speech and Theater Association (or U.P. Spectre) and we were all proud that only did it get recognized by the Department and the College, we got cited as one of the University’s outstanding organizations only in our second year!
But what people remember is how vehemently you refused to be one of the officers of SPECTRE. Not by any chance. You’d even made yourself absent during the elections just to make sure you were not elected. But elected or not, you were SPECTRE’s mother. We all still have a laugh to this day when we recall how you led us into the dungeon under the stairs and clean it of grime and dirt just so we could have a home in the Palma Hall, one that still holds very dear memories to most of our peers to this day. (Who was it who just wrote to say she went to the room recently – now the office of the College Student Council – just to feel the presence we had left and still revel in it?)
And what about the projects you most willingly shared your time and family resources with? The coffee maker you manned for a week in the AS walk during one college week? And your house! How many Christmas parties and induction rites did it host during that time? I’ve lost count how may times I have ended up sleeping in the living room couch!
We acted in each other’s plays, despite your vocal protestations that I would never amount much as an actor. Over the years, we spent much time in and out of class together, anywhere. How many nights did we share musing and ruminating in Anton’s flat in Kamuning? And what about the overnighters in Fiesta Carnival and Araneta Center along with our other friends? And the Lantern Parades that we joined it with you costuming everybody else! And theater! You agreed to act and supervise the costumes in my thesis production. Of course the misanthrope in you complained openly about the problems I had caused you, but you and I know that it was a grumbling that masked the care and concern you had not only for the production but more importantly for your friend.
Irma was almost about to blurt out during the Guerrero service that now we would not able to know whether, as you say, I really married the wrong person. Of course it is a putdown that you always had for every other person I was becoming attached to. Despite that, you were the only wedding sponsor among our friends who actually made it to our wedding in Kawit in those pre-coastal road days (and we were to find out much later that you almost did not make it back in time for the performance of Marat/Sade later that evening – people still remember how you were stripping your clothes from the CCP entrance all the way to the Batute as the house had opened by the time you got there). And you agreed to serve as Godfather to Ira and Mira on their baptism. Don’t worry about them to much and about the fact that you hadn’t given them a gift in years; they’re now old enough to take care of themselves.
When Ishmael Bernal was looking for an Art Director for “The Graduates” and I recommended you, I know I didn’t have to worry. In fact, you stayed on longer in films and television far longer than I did after that. When years after, I desperately needed a replacement for an actor who had quit during production, you willingly stepped in without question. Whenever Irma and the kids and I needed anything from you, we now we will always get it – after your put-on protestations, of course. We took it for granted that you were a friend, and that you’d always deliver.
But you had other plans, obviously. And because I did believe that you’d be around forever, I didn’t have the chance to thank you enough for all that you are and have been to me and my family (my mother still keeps photos of the weekend we spent in Lipa). I know that apologies will not be able to make up for the time that we could still have shared together, but I would like to think that the selfless person that you are, you would not have anyone believing that you are.
Ogie, Irma and I are grieving. Philippine theater has lost a true artist. We’ve lost a true friend. We’ve not said it often enough, but we love you. Dearly.
Farewell.
Comments
haven't heard from you in a while. what's your contacnt info (email/phone)?
dennis
www.upmin.edu.ph
best regards