News of his demise yesterday turned the skies grayer. It came a month after Bobi Valenzuela’s death, another great lover of good food and life’s riches. Writer Edilberto Alegre’s image in my mind remains that of a “hiping (hippie) kulelat.” He always dressed like an overaged flower child, hair tied in a ponytail, loose pants held up by drawstrings and a t-shirt that had seen better days for his top.
But his credentials as a scholar cannot be dismissed. Together with the late Doreen G. Fernandez, they reconstructed the lives of early Filipino writers in English with their two-volume Writers in Their Milieu series. They went on to co-write defining books on Pinoy cuisine.
Eddy was known for handwriting his manuscripts. When she was still alive, Doreen was his “secretary,” encoding pages of Eddy’s scribblings. Once the two posed with Bookmark’s Lorenzo Tan for The Sunday Times Magazine for which I was doing a story. Doreen whipped out a comb from her purse and started combing Eddy’s hair before the photographer clicked the shutter.
In 1996, Eddy came up to Baguio. My husband Rolly, a certified Filipiniana bibliophile, brought his collection of Alegre-authored books for his autograph, and he beamed with pride at seeing his life’s work before him. He told Rolly that he must have earned a good amount of royalties from him alone He wrote on the introductory page of Kinilaw: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime research and the insights too are ‘ no-repeats.’ Glad you keep going back to it. With thanks, eddy.”
My most vivid memory of Eddy was as I was passing through Tacloban City, Leyte, with the crew of the defunct tv show “Womanwatch.” We had just interviewed survivors from the catastrophic Ormoc flooding and stopped by the capital city for lunch. Eddy met us, walked with us for several blocks only for us to stop at what seemed to me a hole-in-the-wall eatery. It was not air-conditioned, and our bodies were craving for small creature comforts after our work and long bus trip. Eddy bought rice in heart-shaped packaging from the sidewalk (I know there’s a native name for that, but it escapes me now). Then he ordered with the voice of authority. He instructed us to wash our hands thoroughly. What came after was one of the best seafood meals of my life: ruby red crabs oozing with fat and eaten with our hands.
Eddy took us also to a town in Samar known for its banig (mats), and we crossed San Juanico Bridge while I hummed the martial-law period propaganda song about it: “San Juanico Bridge, symbol of love…You’re an inspiration, a product of wisdom of the First Couple of our land.” While we waited for some made-to-order banigs to be woven, Eddy talked about a terrible kind of pulutan (drinking side dish) that even he would not touch. It’s the head of a dog. Eddy said no matter how many hours you boil or grill it, you can’t kill the rabies virus.
His good friend Linc Drilon has many letters from Eddy and is thinking of compiling them into a book. We hope that project pushes through. As another friend Alex Dacanay said of Eddy, “We still have great need for him.”
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