We are now UP’s G-olds!

Do you believe that sometimes the dead reaches out to us? Well, it happens. Like when we decided to dedicate this year’s Papet Pasyon to the late Prof. Elmo Makil, who was chair of the voice department of the UP College of Music and who passed away last Jan. 1. It was he whose voice we recorded when he sang so poignantly the song of Jesus and Judas, as accompanied by the classical guitarist Prof. Lester Demetillo. Those beautiful songs were composed by the late Prof. Rodolfo de Leon for the lyrics I wrote.

We did not know how to reach Prof. Makil’s family, but one day before we performed at the Baluarte de Santa Isabel in Intramuros, I got a phone call from his wife, Mrs. Lorna Makil, who told me that she was flying in from Dumaguete when she read the news, and that yes, she will come with her family to see the show and hear her husband’s singing voice again.

Well, that was no accident, that she was flying in before the show and her reading the news on her way to Manila. Yes, her husband had reached out to her, making sure she came just in time.

We had two shows, on April 15 and 16. The other one was at the Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church in Proj. 4, Quezon City. In both venues, we received enthusiastic applause from children and adults after every song.

Now that this annual show is over, for me it means resting after many weeks of sewing the clothes of the puppets, arranging and gluing their wigs on and enlarging their features. For my daughter Amihan, who directed the show, and the UP Teatrong Mulat puppeteers, who did a fine job of manipulating the heavy puppets, it means no more rehearsals and performances until next year.

Now that each puppet has been wrapped in cotton bags and packed in their boxes, I must attend to this other project, beginning Thursday, May 8, and every Thursday thereafter, until we reach the big day of the UP General Homecoming on June 21, at 4 p.m. We, some 20 Golden Jubilarians, must rehearse the dances and songs for a short script I wrote which I entitled Dedication.

"When they could praise an epoch as best, they call it the golden age." – Seneca

For over two months now, the Golden Jubilarians meet at the second floor of UP Bahay Alumni in Diliman and dance! Dance as though our lives depended on it. For when we look at the few Diamond Jubilarians, with canes or in wheelchairs, we know that 10 years from now, we, too, will no longer be able to dance. We would like to encourage more of Class ’53 to attend our meetings in preparation for the UP General Homecoming to show the world that before we graduated 50 years ago, we helped move our beloved Oblation to the talahib fields of Diliman, that we helped many others to plant the acacia trees that now proudly line the Academic Oval, that we bore the burden of studying in hot army barracks, with only two buildings around, the College of Law and its mirror edifice, the College of Education, that before the buildings were constructed and while they grew floor by floor, we gladly walked around the huge construction holes and mounds of soil and stone, mud and slush during the rainy season.

How time files! Now we look at each other, white hair and wrinkled faces, and could hardly believe that it has been 50 years since we left Diliman to start our careers and families. Some of us never left, of course. That verdant 460-hectares campus garden, Diliman of the purest white talahib flowers and blue mountains beyond, is too beautiful to leave behind. Now that I am English professor emeritus and Manuel is sociology professor emeritus and both of us are still teaching or doing research, we agree that our best decision was to reside as close to the UP campus as possible. Here at Teachers Villages, we are only a song away from the libraries and theaters and classrooms of the University. And most important to Manuel, a hiking area, the UP Academic Oval, seven late afternoons a week.

To come back during the Homecoming is a joyful occasion, but to help prepare for it is really quite important because it is a chance for us to show how much we value our alma mater. In the meetings before our dance rehearsals, which is conducted by our chair, Atty. Eduardo C. Tutaan, he repeatedly asks for donations of computers for UP, aside from ads and capsule class histories for the Homecoming book. Being the only writer from the College of Liberal Arts, I have been asked to write the script and the history of Class ’53. What can you do when the only two other writers, Andres Cristobal Cruz and Rony V. Diaz, are too busy to attend the meeting? I miss Joe Joya who was my co-chair when we were Ruby Jubilarians 10 years ago. I only wish National Artist Napoleon Abueva and other fine arts graduates and others will come to join us.

Yes, I only hope that more of Class ’53 will come and join us because it is loads of fun. See how Atty. Marcelino C. Ilao and Mrs. Remedios Santos-Serrano can still do dips in a tango, and how Engr. Benjamin V. Aquino and Dr. Carmencita Salvosa-Loyola do an energetic boogie woogie! Ever since Ms. Lydia Buendia, our live wire dance maestra, gave up synchronizing our steps, meaning we are now free to lock elbows and turn around when we want to and not to turn around because we feel dizzy, ay! it’s been total freedom! Of course, we must be able to do the switch for the music changes from the pasodoble to the rumba, etc. In the beginning, we were told that we must accept that at our age, when it comes to dancing, we are all mentally retarded. In reacting to some objections, "Nah, all I mean is your feet can no longer follow what your brain says," said Ms. Buendia with a laugh.

Do call the UP Alumni Office at 920-6868 if you wish to join us, or just come to the second floor of Bahay ng Alumni. Our next meeting is on May 8, 4 p.m., and we will be meeting every Thursday at 1:30 p.m. thereafter.

Let’s renew friendships and make new ones. By the way, aside from Class ’53, the Homecoming will also toast the Diamond Jubilarians of Class ’43, the Ruby Jubilarians of Class ’63, and the Silver Jubilarians of Class ’73.

Plato said it best, "Certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom, when the passions relax their hold." Then, as Sophocles says, "You have escaped from the control of not one, but many."

So forget muna the aching bones and SARS. We’ll wait for you, UP G-olds! Do come! Enjoy!

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Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio is English professor emeritus and University Professor from the University of the Philippines. She is also the founder, playwright artistic director of the well-traveled puppet troupe, UP Teatrong Mulat.