More Mario memories

Indulge me, please, as this is the way I manage my grief over the loss of writer-patriot Mario Ignacio Miclat. I met him and his family a few years after they returned to the country following 15 years of political exile in China. I was assigned to write about him for The Sunday Times Magazine, supplement of the then Gokongwei-owned The Manila Times. I don't have a copy anymore of my article, but I do recall the magazine cover of that issue--two photographs of Chinese landscape and architecture taken by Mario himself. I vaguely remember the article's title as "Bayan-bayanan sa Beijing." What struck me upon visiting their first home, a condo unit at BLISS Pag-asa in Quezon City, was how orderly and clean it was. Fast forward to the time they moved to another condo on Quezon Ave., QC. I entered the hallway and just perfunctorily left my walking cane on a corner. Then Mario showed up and in a strict and annoyed tone wondered aloud what the cane was doing on its spot. I realized that he was like my husband Rolly Fernandez in seeing to it there's a place for everything and everything's in its place. When the Miclats make a trip to Baguio in December during Alma Cruz Miclat's birth month, instead of us treating them to a meal, they play gracious hosts to us. In the inner group are Mario's fellow UP academics Del Tolentino and Ben Tapang and their family friend Mitos Benitez. Over Japanese dinner at Hamada at the Baguio Country Club, we used to watch Raj's antics. Talk would last until the restaurant's closing time. In this photo Mario is shown with his Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas award for his lifetime's literary output and with his family and Church Cafe confreres. From left are Mario, Alma, Raj in the arms of mother Banaue Miclat-Janssen, Fe and Pastor Sunil Stephens, Roger and Fe Mangahas and myself. Happy times--so many to look back on to lessen the sting of his departure.

The soulful lass from Bataan

Alma Cruz Miclat with a copy of Soul Searchers and Dreamers, Volume 2 Below was my introduction to the author of Soul Searchers and Dreamers, Volume 2, at last night's Zoom book launch-cum-birthday celebration. Even before she retired from her day job as a business executive, Alma Cruz Miclat has been dallying with words. I first encountered her words, not Mario's, not Maningning’s, the other writers in the family, in the anthology The Writers’ Wives edited by Narita Gonzales. I noted that she was a diary keeper during their long, 15-year exile in China. But Mario, as she wrote it, “did not want me to record anecdotes in my small diary. He was afraid that if found by others, the diary would be misconstrued as notes of a spy, or a class enemy, or a counter-revolutionary.” Nonetheless, Alma’s essay in that year 2000 collection stood out in my head, especially when she waxed lyrical in describing “the first snow in our life. Snow was not only a most beautiful sight in winter. Its whiteness covered the coal-blacked smokestacks, the dusty red bricks, the withered leafless trees, the pavements sullied by frozen spit.” I came away impressed with the writer’s command of language and her sharp memory. Since then I have followed her writings in Inquirer and other anthologies the latest of which is To Be in History: Dark Days of Authoritarianism edited by Melba Maggay. I found out that she was the daughter, one of eight children, of an ex-USAFFE medical attendant who became a fisherman after the war and a mother who helped sell fish in the market. Alma wrote in an understatement, “It was not an easy life.” But she came from a generation that valued education as the key to getting out of hardship. She went to the University of the Philippines where she became an activist and met the love of her life, Mario, whom she married in an underground ceremony where they exchanged bullets instead of wedding rings. O, sino-sino sa atin ang may ganyang bragging rights? Maraming pinagdaanan sina Alma at Mario. Kasama na ang pag-aaruga ni Alma sa kanyang asawa hanggang bumalik ang kalusugan nito upang mabuo ang pangalawang nobela kasunod sa Secrets of the 18 Mansions. Tumungtong ngayong araw na ito si Alma sa edad setenta. Mukhang napapanahon na para siya rin ay lumikha ng mahabang istorya. Kaya mo, Alma. Ang tingin ko sa mga maikling ulat mo sa Soul Searchers and Dreamers ay marikit na mga practice pieces para sa mas malaking obrang susunod. Am I scaring you off on such a happy occasion as tonight? No intention to do that. But my dreams for you, dearest Alma, are as vast as the Great Wall of China that you once traversed. May your 70s be the start of something big! NOTE: The book can be ordered through maningningfoundation@gmail.com or 09189057311. Payment for the book can be coursed through BPI Savings Account No. 0326-0448-45; or GCash: Banaue M. 0999-5042898. Delivery charge will be on the buyer.

Family and friends at Alma Cruz Miclat's Zoom event hosted by Dr. Orestes P. Monzon (third from left, top panel)

The Book Lovers Day I missed

I was so taken up cooking yesterday's adobo that I forgot to add my bit about the observation of International Book Lovers Day, normally landing on the ninth of August of every year.

My husband Rolly and I share a computer so when he's busy reading and working online, I take it as my cue to read. When it's my turn to use the PC, he brings out his current reading fare--Adrian E. Cristobal's The Tragedy of the Revolution. He likes reading history, non-fiction generally.

Which suits me well because when I want a current and complicated political issue explained, he gives the historical context of why Filipinos behave the way they/we do, with lessons from the past unlearned or ignored.

My reading preference veers towards fiction and creative non-fiction or the essay. I am currently reading Yiyun Li's novel The Vagrants set in post-Mao Zedong China. I keep remembering the expatriate lives that Alma Cruz Miclat and Mario Ignacio Miclat led there as they carried out their patriotic duty to our own unfinished Revolution.

The book is a Christmas present from Delfin Tolentino, and he has been checking up on me if I've opened it. One of the fulfilling pleasures of my life is talking book talk with this retired professor.

I must confess I read slowly and in snatches. My eyes tire easily which is my cue to look after my grandchild and watch her at play.

The second photo shows my pile of books left unread or half-read--all Filipiniana that I acquired either at Mt Cloud Bookshop or at the Philippine International Readers and Writers Festival last year.

Another festival is going online this weekend, the First All-Filipino Online Bookfair Aug. 16-18. But at the rate I'm reading my pile of books at turtle's pace, I'll resist the temptation to peek at the latest titles available.

Battle scars of a mother, wife and, now, retired grandmother

Alma Cruz Miclat at Mt Cloud Bookshop for an author's talk

Battle scars of a mother, wife and, now, retired grandmother