HAVE YOU EVER BASKED IN THE PRESENCE OF YOUR IDOL? If that idol happens to be Nick Joaquin, the creative writer, or Quijano de Manila, the journalist, have you been thrilled listening to his baritone voice or animated to sing along, almost imitating his tremolo? And when that idol becomes your friend with a similar passion for music, life turns into moments of checking out spots where music is all. Singing and dancing make the earth spin, and magic raises the curtain on Broadway.
The country’s best writers and cultural institutions paid homage this year to the 100th anniversary of the late National Artist Nick Joaquin.
Ironically, had Joaquin been around, he might never have allowed the tributes and accolades given in his honor. Or maybe, he would, but at great discomfort.
Said writer Jose ‘Pete’ Lacaba, “Sinasabi sa amin ni Nick pag dumadalaw kami sa mga burol ‘ayaw ko ng mga tribute-tribute. Ibalot niyo na lang ako sa banig, itapon niyo ako sa Pasig River.’ Pero tinatanggap din naman niya pag binigyan siya ng award [Nick would tell us whenever we were in a wake, ‘I don’t like tributes. Just wrap me in a mat and throw me in the Pasig River. But he still would accept every time he is given an award].”
Eight years ago, Rosario “Chat” Lachica, 58, made her first visit to the Libingan ng mga Bayani. She was there to pay her last respects to National Artist Nick Joaquin who died in his sleep on April 29, 2004.
Europe, the seat of everything that was grand, powerful, and prosperous, was caught in the teeth of the First World War, the year Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín was born on May 4, 1917. It was half a world away from a boy who would emerge half a century later as one of the greatest literary minds in a poor and exploited country still caught in its own, long drawn-out war of independence in 1917.
Translated by Nick Joaquin
TO THE CHILD JESUS
Why have you come to earth,Child-God, in a poor manger?Does Fortune find you a strangerfrom the moment of...
Read Nick Joaquin's long poem titled "Trilogy for Easter," published in the Philippines Graphic on April 17, 1995.
TABLE OF CONTENTSARIMATHEA'S FRIDAY AFTERNOONCOMING IN FROM...
