Memories add life
We got together recently, my old Coke team and I, to do… what? “Take note”? “Weep over”? Or simply to laugh, eat, spend, celebrate, cry a lot over the passing of our dear friend, Linda Barretto.
First, let me explain why I wrote “my old Coke Team.” George Balagtas, who used to be our leader and cheerful head, passed on a few years back. Among the leaders still alive today, I am the oldest. I joined McCann in 1979. Our office was at Midland Buendia until there was a fire down below. We moved temporarily to the Philippine Plaza, which was another one of our clients.
Eventually we moved to Eurovilla II. That’s when we got the Coke Team together. At the time the market share of Coca-Cola was 30 percent. When I left — if memory serves me right — it was at 60 percent. We were part of the market turnaround. The larger Coca-Cola team was made up of three companies then: San Miguel Corporation, which later incorporated into Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc. or CCBPI that did the bottling and distribution; The Coca-Cola Export Company or TCCEC, that sold CCBPI the syrup; and McCann-Erickson (Philippines), Inc., which handled the advertising. We always worked together, the three of us.
Then Neville Isdell, redheaded, 6’4”, became president of CCBPI, working with Kingking Celdran who was maybe 5’2”. I remember the two of them marching together in military costumes when we decided to “declare war” with the competition. Of course there was also Tony Eames of TCCEC, but most of the internal attention went to Neville and Kingking. They were the bosses.
At McCann we were George, me, Jojun Loanzon (who is a pastor now) and Linda Barretto on the Accounts side; Tessie Tomas and Kathleen Mojica on the Creative side; and Roger Rigor on the Talent side. We had decided to launch Coke 12 by putting on shows at town plazas of key cities. We hired the VST & Co. as musical talents. They were already past their prime but still they added life — “Coke Adds Life” was our slogan then — to our show. Every show had huge crowds.
We were all dressed in Coke T-shirts, wearing military hats. I manned the Kodak slide projector. No laptops yet then. Linda held the flashlight so I could follow the audio with a change of slides. We went all over the Philippines. After we finished launching Coke 12, we launched Coke Litro with a resealable cap.
I remember being at the airport in Iloilo. We had just arrived and were waiting for everyone who was part of the show when a huge cargo plane came into sight followed by a trail of black smoke and fire spewing out of one of its visible engines. I stood frozen, knowing that plane had our equipment for installing resealable caps. In between those launches we had other launches for Sprite, Hi-C, Mello Yello. We were busy!
Now some of us are in our 70s, most of us are in our 60s. We don’t know the people who run Coca-Cola anymore. George has died. Charlie Carballo, too. Meckoy Quiogue, personal friend and client. Kingking Celdran has gone, too. And now our cherished Linda B.
I showed up wearing black because I wanted to mourn Linda even if only for a day. She was very dear to me. I didn’t recognize Patty, Jojun’s wife, because she was wearing a mask. I didn’t recognize Tessie either because her hair was all white. Not a function of age. She had it dyed for a drama she was shooting. It took her 10 hours to get this look, she said.
Jojun looked so good, so respectable, so much the wonderful pastor he has become. “Promise me you will do this for me,” I said. “Never mind if I’m Catholic and you’re Born Again. I want the same thing when I die.” Tessie said she wanted the same sendoff, too. Butch had lost so much weight and also wore a bright printed shirt. I don’t remember him wearing anything like that when we worked together. His wife Leah also joined our memories of the times we had together. Kathleen looked pretty much the same. I promised to give her an anting-anting so she would find a boyfriend. Someone said, “It’s too late.” I said, “No, I got married at 73. Never too late to be happy.” Dulce Aristorenas showed up as full of joy as before. She had blue-green steaks in her hair. I had violet streaks in mine. Working in advertising never really dies.
We laughed a lot, reminisced a lot. We even got Roger Rigor on Zoom. He looks wonderful. Age has taken away some hair from his front but he has grown a long ponytail to compensate.
We were happy. We were desolate. We lamented Linda B with love and laughter, saving our tears for home. Good times pass quickly, we all agreed, but wonderful memories always last forever.
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