The color pink is not one I associate with a very macho and seniority-conscious organization like Upsilon Sigma Phi, the oldest fraternity in Asia at 93 this year. And yet, at the farewell rites held Feb. 6 at Mt. Carmel Shrine for the late Antonio "Tony" Atienza Hidalgo, writer, publisher of Milflores books, international civil servant and illustrious Upsilonian, each living brod (short for "brother") of his held a pink rose and solemnly placed it atop his coffin.
I was afraid the rites would be marked by blustery speeches. It was for a reason that "barbarians" or non-sister sorority members like myself refer to this frat's members behind their backs as "Upsilon yabang" because some members are so full of themselves and seem to enjoy the sport of putting their brods in positions of influence and power.
But to their credit, the frat has produced outstanding citizens like patriot Wenceslao Vinzons, assassinated Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., the Laurel brothers (Jose Jr., Salvador and Sotero), past University of the Philippines presidents Salvador P. Lopez and Onofre D. Corpuz, journalist-professor Armando J. Malay, poets Gemino H. Abad and Raul R. Ingles, Sen. Joker Arroyo, Latin American studies expert Modesto "Chibu" Lagman, filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik, even couturier Pitoy Moreno.
My fears were laid to rest that evening. The rites began with a simple roll call of Tony's fraternity batch mates from 1960. The living ones answered with a clear, strong "Here," "Present" or "Aye." When Tony's full name was announced three times in a row, there was silence until a batch mate piped up that Tony could not respond because he was no longer with them; he had departed.
The eulogies by writers Efren Yambot and Ricardo "Dick" Malay and retired diplomat Oscar Valenzuela were short, touching, humorous in parts and revealed the personality of the deceased.
Efren recalled how Tony brought him and other brods to the University of Santo Tomas campus where Tony was courting a junior faculty member, Cristina "Jing" Pantoja. Her office was inside an old, imposing building with a Latin inscription carved on the façade.
Efren bragged that he could understand Latin and volunteered this translation of the Latin aphorism. He said that it just meant "Bawal ang umihi dito (Urinating is forbidden here)." Tony was flushed with irritation at his brod. Obviously, he was embarrassed before the woman who he was courting and who would eventually become his wife. For a time, he snubbed Efren because of this incident.
Efren remembered a time when his play was severely criticized. He went to Tony for words of comfort because he suffered from writer's block. Quoting a French writer, Tony told him that writers are like caravans travelling in the desert at night; dogs are howling at them, but the caravan ignores them and keeps on moving. Consoled, Efren proceeded to write another play.
Dick asked Jing if her Thomasian education clashed with Tony's more secular background. He wondered what it was like to live with an intellectual of Tony's caliber. In a word, the widow replied, "Tough!"
Oscar recalled meeting Tony during his application period in the fraternity. The more senior brod noted how Oscar was partial to the works of existentialist writer Albert Camus. They discussed his works, thus sparing the neophyte a possible rough manhandling which was part of initiation rites.
Later, Oscar and Tony became fast friends, exchanging and discussing books. Among the more memorable discussions was the need for a philosophy grounded on Philippine realities to underpin the leftist ideology that was then sweeping the country in the late '60s. Both were sympathetic to the movement for social change. Each went on to contribute his bit in their spheres of influence.
A little-known anecdote about Tony was he was even photographed joining an anti-Marcos demonstration, and the picture landed in the newspapers. This caused Jing's sudden termination as a teacher at UST while in the middle of her class.
At the end of the rites, the pile of pink roses was bundled up and handed over to slim, dry-eyed, serene-looking Jing. In her brief response, she said she realized that marrying an Upsilonian came with a package deal. She had to embrace and accept the brods, too, entertaining and feeding them when Tony brought them home.
The Pantoja-Hidalgo love story is evident in Jing's collections of essays where Tony figures as a steadfast, dependable partner and literary equal (they served at one time as the INQUIRER's grammar police). Certainly, he is the love of her life. He brought his convent-bred wife and their family to live in politically volatile countries in his line of work as a ranking officer of Unicef. They lived for sometime in countries like war-torn Lebanon and Burma which experienced a military upheaval. For a writer like Jing, these foreign postings deepened her writings.
Looking back at their relationship in an essay in the book “Telling Lives: Essays by Filipino Women” (Circle Publications), she was 22 and Tony 23 when they married. She wrote: “Neither my husband nor I had planned on marrying so early. We were bright and ambitious and gregarious, our heads full of plans for 'making a name for ourselves' and 'changing the world'...
“I was myself also scandalously unprepared for even the role of housewife. My husband still likes to entertain our friends with tales of my early mishaps: the bacon that I drowned in cooking oil, the eggs that got stuck in the pan, the pancake mix that I poured directly into a hot frying pan and watched in awe as it rose to the ceiling like some gothic castle, the rellenong bangus that I sewed up with bright blue embroidery thread, the socks that I left soaking in Chlorox for a week, the pocket-sized front yard which remained totally bare until my father-in-law came one Sunday morning with some flowering shrubs and planted them himself.”
Lucky Tony--he lived long enough to celebrate his golden year as an Upsilonian last year. And a few days before Valentine's, his brods sent him off with offerings of pink roses. This flower is the frat's official one. In the language of flowers, it symbolizes admiration. I cannot think of a more romantic, sensitively masculine gesture than that.
As for Jing as she struggles to come to terms with the loss of Tony, I am sure, that in time, like the iconic American essayist-novelist Joan Didion who bore the death of husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, she will “make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends...”
In that same book “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Didion realized towards the end
“why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.
“I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.
“Let them become the photograph on the table.
“Let them become the name on the trust accounts.
“Let go of them in the water.”
To Jing, from your wide writing family, here is our inadequate bouquet of words.
Photo from Antonio Hidalgo's Facebook profile, used with his family's permission, shows Tony (left) and Jing (second from right) with fellow writers Ralph Semino Galan, Erlinda Panlilio and Susan Lara.
I was afraid the rites would be marked by blustery speeches. It was for a reason that "barbarians" or non-sister sorority members like myself refer to this frat's members behind their backs as "Upsilon yabang" because some members are so full of themselves and seem to enjoy the sport of putting their brods in positions of influence and power.
But to their credit, the frat has produced outstanding citizens like patriot Wenceslao Vinzons, assassinated Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., the Laurel brothers (Jose Jr., Salvador and Sotero), past University of the Philippines presidents Salvador P. Lopez and Onofre D. Corpuz, journalist-professor Armando J. Malay, poets Gemino H. Abad and Raul R. Ingles, Sen. Joker Arroyo, Latin American studies expert Modesto "Chibu" Lagman, filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik, even couturier Pitoy Moreno.
My fears were laid to rest that evening. The rites began with a simple roll call of Tony's fraternity batch mates from 1960. The living ones answered with a clear, strong "Here," "Present" or "Aye." When Tony's full name was announced three times in a row, there was silence until a batch mate piped up that Tony could not respond because he was no longer with them; he had departed.
The eulogies by writers Efren Yambot and Ricardo "Dick" Malay and retired diplomat Oscar Valenzuela were short, touching, humorous in parts and revealed the personality of the deceased.
Efren recalled how Tony brought him and other brods to the University of Santo Tomas campus where Tony was courting a junior faculty member, Cristina "Jing" Pantoja. Her office was inside an old, imposing building with a Latin inscription carved on the façade.
Efren bragged that he could understand Latin and volunteered this translation of the Latin aphorism. He said that it just meant "Bawal ang umihi dito (Urinating is forbidden here)." Tony was flushed with irritation at his brod. Obviously, he was embarrassed before the woman who he was courting and who would eventually become his wife. For a time, he snubbed Efren because of this incident.
Efren remembered a time when his play was severely criticized. He went to Tony for words of comfort because he suffered from writer's block. Quoting a French writer, Tony told him that writers are like caravans travelling in the desert at night; dogs are howling at them, but the caravan ignores them and keeps on moving. Consoled, Efren proceeded to write another play.
Dick asked Jing if her Thomasian education clashed with Tony's more secular background. He wondered what it was like to live with an intellectual of Tony's caliber. In a word, the widow replied, "Tough!"
Oscar recalled meeting Tony during his application period in the fraternity. The more senior brod noted how Oscar was partial to the works of existentialist writer Albert Camus. They discussed his works, thus sparing the neophyte a possible rough manhandling which was part of initiation rites.
Later, Oscar and Tony became fast friends, exchanging and discussing books. Among the more memorable discussions was the need for a philosophy grounded on Philippine realities to underpin the leftist ideology that was then sweeping the country in the late '60s. Both were sympathetic to the movement for social change. Each went on to contribute his bit in their spheres of influence.
A little-known anecdote about Tony was he was even photographed joining an anti-Marcos demonstration, and the picture landed in the newspapers. This caused Jing's sudden termination as a teacher at UST while in the middle of her class.
At the end of the rites, the pile of pink roses was bundled up and handed over to slim, dry-eyed, serene-looking Jing. In her brief response, she said she realized that marrying an Upsilonian came with a package deal. She had to embrace and accept the brods, too, entertaining and feeding them when Tony brought them home.
The Pantoja-Hidalgo love story is evident in Jing's collections of essays where Tony figures as a steadfast, dependable partner and literary equal (they served at one time as the INQUIRER's grammar police). Certainly, he is the love of her life. He brought his convent-bred wife and their family to live in politically volatile countries in his line of work as a ranking officer of Unicef. They lived for sometime in countries like war-torn Lebanon and Burma which experienced a military upheaval. For a writer like Jing, these foreign postings deepened her writings.
Looking back at their relationship in an essay in the book “Telling Lives: Essays by Filipino Women” (Circle Publications), she was 22 and Tony 23 when they married. She wrote: “Neither my husband nor I had planned on marrying so early. We were bright and ambitious and gregarious, our heads full of plans for 'making a name for ourselves' and 'changing the world'...
“I was myself also scandalously unprepared for even the role of housewife. My husband still likes to entertain our friends with tales of my early mishaps: the bacon that I drowned in cooking oil, the eggs that got stuck in the pan, the pancake mix that I poured directly into a hot frying pan and watched in awe as it rose to the ceiling like some gothic castle, the rellenong bangus that I sewed up with bright blue embroidery thread, the socks that I left soaking in Chlorox for a week, the pocket-sized front yard which remained totally bare until my father-in-law came one Sunday morning with some flowering shrubs and planted them himself.”
Lucky Tony--he lived long enough to celebrate his golden year as an Upsilonian last year. And a few days before Valentine's, his brods sent him off with offerings of pink roses. This flower is the frat's official one. In the language of flowers, it symbolizes admiration. I cannot think of a more romantic, sensitively masculine gesture than that.
As for Jing as she struggles to come to terms with the loss of Tony, I am sure, that in time, like the iconic American essayist-novelist Joan Didion who bore the death of husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, she will “make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends...”
In that same book “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Didion realized towards the end
“why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.
“I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.
“Let them become the photograph on the table.
“Let them become the name on the trust accounts.
“Let go of them in the water.”
To Jing, from your wide writing family, here is our inadequate bouquet of words.
Photo from Antonio Hidalgo's Facebook profile, used with his family's permission, shows Tony (left) and Jing (second from right) with fellow writers Ralph Semino Galan, Erlinda Panlilio and Susan Lara.
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