SCRAPBOOK 2
Written by Nita Umali Berthelsen with contributions from Nati Nuguid and Jovita Rodas Zimmerman, 1999-2000.
Organized, edited, and completed by Karen Berthelsen Cardenas 2012.
@ 2012 Karen Berthelsen-Cardenas
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Then there were the visits to Sampaguita Pictures and LVN studios and the de Leon house in New Manila ? a huge magical garden it seemed to me, and a lifetime later when I came to visit it again because Mark Escaler lived there, I could not figure out why it was so familiar, why I knew the trees, and the turns and that same feeling of wonder.
I enjoyed going to the sets to watch the ?shooting? (it wasn?t called ?taping? then) ? Eddie Gutierrez, Jose Mari; and my cousins would enjoy the movie passes that would be sent over, three by two inch pieces of cardboard, sometimes white, or yellow or pink, depending of it was orchestra, loge or balcony. Sometimes in inch thick bundles.
We also knew Philcoa all too well, Mrs. Tapia from whom she collected her salary, the Malacañan Press Office, and later the PIEO office at Solana and then, briefly, when I was a teenager, the NMPC in what was the ABS-CBN studios, where Ed Finlan took a look at me and asked if I wanted to try out to be a weather girl. Mom offered Malu Maglutac instead.
We were brought to meet Arturo Luz at the Gallery on what was then Highway 54. I remember silently leafing with great respect the art books arranged on a glass shelf on the right wall as you entered.
We would go to the home of Choling Abaya ? I would lose myself among the antique santos, some almost as tall as I was, the celadon jarlets, the Chinese plates. I remember sitting on a low stool, watching Nanding Ocampo in his small sala put the final touches on a painting that would later become mine, after my mom had handed over what was then the princely sum of 300 pesos for a work of someone who had not yet made a name for himself, but mom knew he needed the money and she had an eye for art and back then they all stuck together and gave when they had and accepted when they didn?t.
And then there was the office of Mameng Perez, who was my Ninang, and the excitement when she would open her drawer or her filing cabinet. She once gave me a thick plastic jewel box that looked like crystal and which I used as a sewing box for over three decades. Each time I opened it, I would remember Ninang Mameng and her brother who was a bit slow, but who I enjoyed talking to because although he was grown up we seemed to be on the same wavelength.
There are so many memories of the men, and especially the women - sisters more than sisters is how mom referred to them. I never called them Tito or Tita. It was always Joe, Blas, Adrian, Abe, Ralph, Mary, Nati, Caring, Eggie, Nick, Malang, Ike, Armando. Carmen Perez, though was Ninang, and Charing Querol, well with her it did not seem proper not to say ?Tita?, so I never said her name to her, but wasn?t really trained to say Tita.
I didn?t really know they were significant people; I only knew this was my Mom?s world.
Mom had broached the idea to Armando Manalo about producing a compilation on the life and works of Jim Austria Manalo, who passed away in 1961. Although he thought it a good idea, he suggested that she should also consider putting together a work on the women writers of the early postwar period.
A year or so later, Edna Manlapaz began gathering information for a book on Estrella Alfon. Much in Estrella?s life, mom believed, was for only Estrella to speak or write about, although she did pass on a handful of notes. Mom also gave Edna a copy of Scrapbook, and Edna encouraged Mom to write down anything she could recall about those days.
Mom wrote down a few pages, which we referred to as ?Scrapbook 2?, but she didn?t want to do more than ?bits and pieces?, certainly not anything critical or scholarly. She put it to rest.
Then, Sol Reyes asked me to ask Mom if she could have lunch with her to gain some insight for a lecture (and later a book) on Lina Flor. That meeting must have reawakened interest again of what I had come to think of as the newspaper brat pack of the late 40s and early 50s.
Mom still lived in Copenhagen at the time, and so she asked Nati Nuguid to help her gather photos, stories. She wrote Jovy who also sent her much material. But it was not until late 1990s that mom finally asked me to organize the material.
The names and faces were all familiar to me, if not because they were always popping in at home unexpectedly, but also because when I was old enough to read, I would recognize their by-lines in the magazines and newspapers.
It was great fun lunching with Nati, Dolly, Tuding and Mom, grateful that we had a function room all to ourselves at Tin Hau, our voices a few decibels higher, a must when conversing with seventy year olds now a little slow in the auditory processes.
Charing calls one evening to ask me Rita?s surname. Rita who? I wondered, only to be awakened the next day by that very same Rita, chirpy at 8 a.m., wanting to know which of Nita?s daughters I was, and of course, I wouldn?t remember her, she laughed!
Dolly was a fond memory, a visitor to our house, who would read us stories in as many voices as there were characters. I remembered her as a spritely, curvaceous fun person, and was eager to see how 30-odd years had changed her.
On another occasion, I joined Chitang and mom for merienda, with Jovi and Carl who were here on their last visit from Hawaii.
They recalled the old days, sometimes only half-remembering, sometimes insisting it was this way when another said it was that. I watched and listened to them, the women mellowed by time, children, grandchildren, but who once upon a time, not merely wrote marvelous literature and brilliant pieces of journalism, but also took it upon themselves to try to change their world, to open the eyes of their readers and their contemporaries to a new order that would come to be after the Second World War.
When the book was first conceptualized, Mom had wanted her colleagues to each write a piece about another one in their group. But it was difficult to push the writers, some of them not having taken to writing in a while, others too busy with one thing or another, or others, sadly, had passed away.
Then there was the question of including brief biographies. But there are editions written by writers? associations that address that need.
Finally, the concept revealed itself while looking over some of mom?s old files in my bodega. Although, not exactly a family of pack rats, we had managed to keep quite a number of old photos and letters, maybe a doll or two, newspaper clippings, some stray awards, drafts, even an old box of Mom?s Maja powder. In a sea-green, bestickered, hardside Samsonite, which would be right at home in an old BOAC ad, were letters from Ed Tiempo, Eggie Apostol, Jose Garcia Villa, and Abe Cruz, among others, and photos Mom hadn?t even remembered she had. It was great fun trying to pick out Adrian and Caring, Charing and Mary, sans 50-some years worth of smile lines.
There were phone messages from Chitang and Kerima, mail would pour in with lovely sepia photos, and lunch with Eggie and Charing meant Mom would come home not only with a stack of Pinoy Times, but also tid-bits about the old times.
Photos were also provided by Chitang Nakpil, Mary Tagle?s daughter, Tessa, Tuding Guinto, Jim Austria Manalo?s son Ricky and his wife Pam, Charing Querol, Jovi Rodas Zimmerman, Nati Nuguid, Joe Guevara, and Ginny Licuanan.
But Mom does not leave the picture well alone to provide the thousand words. (Probably a hazard of her profession.) So we have not only scraps of remembrances in photos and, but memories, hers and others? that come together in these long ?captions?.
These have been recorded to refresh memories of readers of the postwar years, and to remind all who stop by to read that there was a breed of women in journalism and creative writing who worked side-by-side, not only as colleagues, but also as good friends, supporting each other while scooping a story, while living lives worthy of being scooped!
First we called it "Scrapbook 2", then "Album". Finally Mom referred to it as "Nice Girls Didn't." I guess it is all three.
In the last stage of completion of what would have been a book, and I had already discussed the material with Karina of Anvil, Mom had a stroke in July of 2000. Getting better became the priority. I became very busy at work. And then, Mom slipped into early vascular dementia.
But even then, I had already written this part of this intro: Mom specially thanks Armando and Edna, who planted the seeds of this endeavor, Sol who agreed to write out her preface ?with pleasure? (although this never came through because we never pursued the book project), and all the friends and relatives who generously provided time to share their memories and their photographs to be included in this production.
But I get ahead of myself. This is a collection that took five decades and several years to happen, and yet another twelve years more. This was meant to be a publication produced over a decade ago, and as I read through it again, I was faced with an editorial challenge. The time reference was the year 1999. Mom spoke of Nati Nuguid as alive, of having just visited Joe Guevara, Eggie?s Pinoy Times is now defunct. Some of those mentioned here have already passed away since then.. Should I redo, the material, I wondered?
I decided not, because the views as quoted on the ?current? state of the industry refer to the 90s, and as such this collection is not only a remembrance of the 40s and 50s, but also a looking back to the way those writers viewed the 90s.
I must apologize for not providing larger higher resolution photos here. That is, of course, to avoid pirating of the images for publication use without permission.
Enjoy this brief journey back in time.
Karen Berthelsen Cardenas
March 2000/April 2012
@Karen Berthelsen-Cardenas 2012
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