ON December 2005, the Arts Council held a fundraiser at the ballroom of the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel. Benjie Diola directed an all-star cast that performed songs and dances from well-known Broadway spectaculars. Most of the cast were in the opening number – “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” It was.
Cebu City First Lady Margot Osmeña and Arts Council president Petite Garcia were in “Big Spender” from “Sweet Charity,” with Dominique Reigel, Lot Lot Neri, Mariter Klepp, Alice Plaza, Sonia Yuvallos and Elvira Luym.
Benedick Leyson and Joy Tenerife sang “Sun and Moon” from “Miss Saigon.” Maxwell Espina came next with “The Surrey With a Fringe on Top” from “Oklahoma.” He was in cowboy costume and so were Marget Villarica, Joan Tiu, Marielou Pintor, Alice Queblatin, Cookie Chan, Sheila Colmenares, Connie Cimafranca and Cherry Lynn Callelero.
I did the Charleston number as Herod in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and made the audience split with laughter. Flappers were Vivina Yrastorza, Lydia Alfonso, Marissa Fernan, Elena Young, Petite, Margot, Dominique, Sonia, Alice, Mariter, Elvira and Lot Lot.
Most of the girls were also in the sequence from “Annie” having a campy time. The audience did have a campy time when Annie appeared, not a little orphan but a full-grown Karl Hudson in a skimpy red skirt and tight bloomers beneath.
Marissa and Dr. Emerson Donaldo had their shining moment singing “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man,” There was a collective swoon when Teresin Mendezona came onstage in flaming red gossamer to the strains of “Hello Dolly.”
Her tuxedo-clad chorus line included Winglip Chang, Clint Escaño, JP Mendoza, Jaime Chua, Manny Noval, Dr. Emerson Donaldo, Fr. Jun Agravante and Omar Espina.
Then came “Greased Lighting” with Tessie Javier, Margot O, Petite and Joan Tiu. Rhina Echivarre sang “Think of Me” from “Phantom of the Opera,” and with Vice Mayor Mike Rama, “Fallin’” from “They’re Playing Our Song.” Just as powerful was Monette Aliño who sang “What Kind of Fool Am I” from “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.”
Soprano Candice Cabras was next with “One Look” from “Sunset Boulevard.“ Most of the girls in the cast donned sailors’ white ducks for “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” from “South Pacific.”
There were love duets performed by Oche Pelaez and Fr. Jun Agravante, from “Camelot”; Francis Onglatco and Lorraine Dytian, from “The King and I”; Maria Celeste Celeste and Dr. Randy Libres, from “West Side Story”; Bing Lim and Crystal Esmero, from “Jekyll and Hide.”
“What a Circus” from “Evita” had Mariquita Yeung as Che Guevara and Benjie Diola as Eva Peron, with Tessie Javier and Eric Berdon doing a wild tango.
The finale had everyone in the cash on stage for “Ease On Down the Road” from “The Wiz.” What happy times those were. Margot O was Dorothy, with Mike Rama as the Lion, Randy Libres as the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man was Marco Protacio, general manager of the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was in Cebu on January 12, 2006 for the inauguration of the Gullas Medical Center of the University of the Visayas
in Banilad. The date was chosen as it was the 117th birth anniversary of Don Vicente Gullas who had founded UV in 1919.
President Gloria spoke in Cebuano which elicited much applause and loud cheers from those present. Doing the honors were Don Vicente’s children – Eddie Gullas, Jose “Dodong” Gullas, and their sister Inday Cering Lucero.
On April 27, President Gloria was back in Cebu, this time to inaugurate the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel in what had been since the 1980s the Cebu Plaza Hotel.
Welcoming the president were the general manager Hans Hauri with his wife Bo, Cardinal Ricardo Vidal, Tourism Secretary Ace Durano, Metrobank’s George Ty and Alfred Ty, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Francisco Benedicto and a large presence of Cebu luminaries.
For a group of us there was a special merienda held one afternoon by President Gloria at the Malacañang of the South. It was on the same day as Kadaugan sa Mactan, for she wore T-shirt that said it was that day.
Honoree was Carmen Campbell for the “heroic” stance she had taken defending the President of the Philippines. It happened like this. One morning in March, Carmen and her sister Teresin Mendezona went to mass at the Mabolo Parish.
In his homily, Carmen felt that the priest was unduly attacking President Gloria. She got up from her seat, marched to the altar and told the priest, “Excuse me, but what you are saying is….”
End of homily and the beginning of the buzz which spread like wildfire all over Cebu, and in no time to Malacañang itself while President Gloria was precisely with Cardinal Vidal and her press secretary Cerge Remonde.
Carmen’s telephone was ringing constantly for days, and she’d repeat her story.
One day her husband noticed that Carmen was giving more explicit details of incident, and told her, “Must you go into that all over again!”
“But it’s the president,“ Carmen shot back, “She wants to know how everything happened.“ In a short time, Carmen received a letter of commendation from President Gloria and the promise that when she’d come to Cebu they’d get together and talk about it.
The opportunity came on April, and a guest list was drawn to have merienda. Carmen and her husband Harry Campbell were present as were Felix Guanzon (presidential assistant for the Visayas) with his wife Marlene, Teresin Mendezona, Amparito Lhuillier, Pinky Chang, Anna Marie Dizon, Teresita Moraza Mendezona and Angie Mathieu who led a special prayer for the president and everyone there present.
I took some pictures with my camera which I brought with me a few days later when I went to Spain on Qatar Airways. I arrived in Madrid early in the morning and had decided to stay a day a the Hotel Paris to rest before going to Zaragoza.
I went to El Corte Ingles at La Puerta del Sol and asked my film to be developed. At the given time, I went to the photography counter, and gasped when I had been given the wrong package of pictures.
The girl at the counter insisted that the photos, of all things of a wedding, were mine, no mistake about it. I explained that the owners of those photos would be as disappointed as I when given my photos which had been taken in the Philippines, with its head of state no less.
They turned everything upside down, and I could feel they were a little miffed about my name-dropping. It’s true, I insisted and showed them my diplomatic ID, so that they’d know who I was. Of course, they were found.
They apologized but I shrugged it off saying it would be one more anecdote to tell some time in the future, as it is now.
When I got back to Cebu, I was told another anecdote wherein Carmen figured, this time in the United States where she had been for a short visit. She was in a restaurant with my cousin Maga Picornell Anson, talking in Spanish, and laughing no end.
That was at a time when President Bush urged all Hispanics to learn English and speak it. Somebody at the restaurant, a WASP type, approached them and admonished rudely, “Speak English.”
Carmen then shifted to her American twang to tell him,“I speak three languages and Spanish just happens to be one of them.” The WASP made a hasty retreat.
She did not get an invitation to tea at the White House, but at the next meeting of Amigos de España she did get heaps of congratulations.