Remembering Ninang Gilda
In remembrance of Ninang Gilda's birthday anniversary on June 4 (she would have been 93), I want to write something about one of my dear friends in life really. She was the age of my parents but she was so youthful-minded and me so stubborn and self-absorbed, we clicked! I felt lucky I got to know her up close. She was one of those authoritative, iconic figures who was actually very approachable and warm, it's disarming.
When we were studying English in high school, we actually got to read a short story by her that I couldn't forget but also couldn't fully remember now. It had something to do with a runaway panty and I simply remember it being original. I told my teacher I actually knew the writer as she was a close family friend. The teacher just ignored me. She was the wife of one of daddy's schoolmates in UP LAW Class of '52. In retirement, my father's "barkada" or friends and their wives had a round-robin method of treating each other out for lunch once a month, and me being available most of the time, was part of the group. So was Macoy and driver Ely who sat in a different table. I got to know prominent lawyers as regular folk who were simply hanging out and eating lunch and sharing stuff. This was their way of a get-together and our (family's) way of getting out of the house other than the regular scheduled grocery.
When we were younger, the Fernandos used to visit our house in Apo where the kids hung out but I was too young to be really aware of what was actually taking place. Ninang Gilda would gather the children and read to them. She even published a children's story book with all the names of their and our family's children (excluding me) written in the dedication. I’m sure I have it somewhere. Once, when the Fernandos were having marital trouble which occurred frequently, they went to Apo for solace, sometimes separately. They found comfort in mommy and daddy and this is where they drank and sorted out stuff. Yeah, probably like an after-party drunk. I miss those days when people/guests actually visited us. That means there were people downstairs and we stayed up late listening to the unintelligible conversations, the tinkering glass and occasional laughter.
In her later years and me being an adult already, we had a chance to be close ourselves. I remember being a member of Shape Center Gym in the 80s where she was also a member. She was actually more agile than me. She was a very lively individual. In control. On top of things. Sexy and fit. A health buff. She was after all, the proud daughter of a doctor and she knew how to take care of herself. Despite being endowed with all these "assets", she was no snob. I guess being a writer, you were more interested in other people than despite your good looks, you didn't care how people regarded you. I was not exactly her goddaughter. My second sister Sandra was. But somehow since it was us who saw each other every now and then, it was me who she considered a goddaughter so I called her "Ninang" or godmother. She herself had I don't know...6-7 children? Uninitiated, she never really talked with me about them. Although it would have been ideal, I'm not necessarily close to them and it doesn't really matter. I had befriended the most interesting member of the family.
What I most remembered dearly about her was her closeness to daddy. They shared a commonality even lacking in both my parents. Daddy was a war veteran in WWII and Ninang Gilda wrote extensively about the war. In the late 2000's, she interviewed daddy in his very dusty library (in Sanville now) about his personal accounts in the Bataan Death March to commemorate Independence Day and published this for her article for the periodicals. She had a column for The Philippine Inquirer "Forever 81" and daddy reading the newspaper daily also read this. It was his way of keeping in touch with society which he would shun otherwise. Except for the entertainment page, I wasn't one to read the dailies. When she told me about the title of her column alluding to the popular teen fashion outlet "Forever 21", I simply frowned not really "getting it". First of all, I wasn't a customer of Forever 21 and I wasn't aware she had a column called "Forever 81". She just shrugged it off. It didn't matter to her that I was either being childishly rude or even dense.
I was belligerent to my parents at a certain point after College when life wasn't turning up great for me and even with Ninang Gilda, I didn't hide my contemptible attitude. You see, I was angry with my world and showed this mostly to the closest people in my life. My parents. Their friends. I almost blamed them for my sad situation. I'm sure Ninang Gilda noticed this as she and I didn't hit it off right the first time. Being the "maldita" that she was, she once wanted me to "hook up" or get in touch with an American who was interested in writing about the "dystonic" people of Panay because at one point, I also suffered dystonia although mine was drug-induced and not hereditary. I was taking anti-depressants at the time to cure me from imagined ills. When I finally asked about the American, she retracted on the offer and said and that the American was no longer here.
On fairer days, we both loved watching movies together and I looked forward to her treating me out to the theater. It didn't matter what we watched but I remember all those that we actually did. One time it was a comedy starring Gina Alajar and Roderick Paulate. Another time, it was a contemporary love story with KC Concepcion and Richard Guttierez directed by a College classmate Joyce Bernal. Although I have a Bachelor's Degree in UP Film, I never worked for the Film Industry and was not necessarily a movie connoisseur. I was basically in for her company. Since she had an opinion on most everything, I noticed how she critiqued the storyline, the characters, even their characters names after the movie was over. She was after all, a writer and producer of plays and probably knew a lot of local talent but in a dissecting, objective way. She was no "fan girl".
Now, this being the Philippines saturated by American cinema, we also had the chance to watch those together. When we watched Revolutionary Road, I remember her telling me she identified with the woman and she imagined Tito Elo as the husband. It had a different resonance with me but sure, why not? People can interpret movies in their own lens and knowing Tito Elo as a regimented Meralco Executive and her being in the Artsy department, worldly and sophisticated herself (and probably mismatched with Tito Elo), it would still hold consistent. We also watched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Although engaging from start to finish, it was a little gritty for me but her being older than me loved it. She loved talking to me about the rape element in the story and although it was not my cup of tea to be talking casually about that stuff, I just nod in approval. We also got the chance to watch The Curious Life of Benjamin Button with Brad Pitt and we loved it but I distinctly remember my time with her watching an Art Movie at Shangri-La. This after all is my favorite kind of cinema. Given the choice, I would watch more of these quiet ones and forego with the Hollywood stuff. I know if she were alive today, she would still want to watch big-budget and she would welcome them all but she would know how to "look" at movies, not be fazed by the dazzle and overblown treatment because it was the stories she was after and she watched them plentifully. The last thing I remember her raving about was Hellboy.
She had a keen mind but she wasn't the haughty intellectual most people may consider her to be. She was the teacher I never had, the mother I never knew. She was a hugger and not frugal in saying what she thought about you. She had this belief that the Philippines used to be the long lost continent of Lemuria, hence the general mysticism and spirituality of the place and in her latter years, although Catholic herself, she didn't believe in the church anymore as she told me we were the actual "saints" doing the saintly work on earth and not those dead ones thrust upon the people by the Catholic Church. She had an army of maids to look after her and give her a bath. She was fluent in English but insisted on being Filipino all the way both in taste and mindset. I haven't read 95% of her books although I have some personally given to me and some given to daddy that I have yet to read. I am almost reluctant in reading about her famous or infamous"aswangs" from folklore (I have in my roof studio) as I am not really interested in them. I am more interested in the "History of the Burgis" which unfortunately have no copy of. She had socialite friends after all and she once showed me their face beauty regimen in the car. She had luminous skin, a distinct voice, contagious laughter and joie de vivre. So unique!
I just wished I saw more of her after daddy's own passing in 2015 when their "barkada" get-togethers all but dissipated. I almost feel regretful for not visiting her in her Panay residence and asked how she was because I was scared of driving alone at that time but I always greeted her Happy Birthday on her birthday over the phone and she was always thankful and sounded as if no one else greeted her. Our relationship wasn't a sappy one. We didn’t cater to each other’s strengths or weaknesses. It was more intellectual and mutually respectful and supportive. Both of us were not the plastic type and we weren't given to small talk. We spoke our minds out loud, hers being louder than mine. She never read a thing I wrote but she told me I was a good writer. Unlike her celebrity status, I have a few circle of friends, some of whom I am only now getting reacquainted with. In retrospect, my life so far has been full of snags compared to my successful contemporaries' which are but a handful but knowing she was a part of it and I had the privilege of getting to know her up close, I wouldn't have had it any other way. *I only wish she had actually read a thing I wrote*.
Gilda Cordero-Fernando
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