In a week’s span, we lost two icons belonging to two disparate eras, and we’re lucky to have known of them in our lifetime—Dolphy who made society laugh at its foibles; Maita who made society fight its foibles. Never have two people been so different, it seemed.
I met Dolphy only in connection with media tycoon Eugenio “Geny” Lopez Jr., the patriarch and chair emeritus of ABS-CBN, after the latter died in 1998. Dolphy, in a way, owed his TV career to Geny, who gave him a TV show at a time when the movie industry was just coasting along.
Weeks after Geny’s burial, we had to sit down with Dolphy to ask him his recollection of the great businessman and his relationship with him. The interview was for the coffeetable book “Pinoy Television: The Story of ABS-CBN,” which we in Benpres Publishing were producing for ABS-CBN.
We didn’t have to wait long for Dolphy to arrive in the studio. He was there even before midnight, and, as usual, a crowd of fans, followers and hangers-on waited for him. As we sat down in front of him by the mirror in his dressing room, he right away told us how he was happy to spare time to talk about “Pareng Geny,” about “Kapitan.”
He was easy to talk to, even as he was being made up for the taping of “Home Along da Riles.” It was obvious he had a place in his heart for the late patriarch.
He recalled how, in TV’s early days, Geny himself went all the way to the MBC Channel 11 studio on Taft Ave. in Manila, where Dolphy had a show. Geny wanted to convince Dolphy to join ABS-CBN. Geny’s father, Don Eugenio Lopez Sr., the founder of Meralco, ABS-CBN and the newspaper Manila Chronicle, had just plucked his eldest son Geny out of Manila Chronicle to run ABS-CBN.
This was what Dolphy recalled, as we wrote in the book: “Pinuntahan ako ni Ading Fernando at sinabing gusto raw akong makausap ni Mr. Lopez. Sabi ko, about what? Tungkol daw sa TV show. Nag-uumpisa pa lang ang TV noon… Pinuntahan ako ni Geny at sinabing bibigyan daw ako ng regular program.
“Ilang beses ko siyang nakausap. Magandang kausap siya. Sabi niya, magkano ba ang tinatanggap mo rito? Ganyan, kako. Kung bigyan kita ng ganyan, okay na ako diyan kako. Walang usapan masyado. Hindi ka ba diyan agrabyado, sabi niya. Eh, kung kailan gumanda saka na lang ang increase, sabi ko.”
‘Buhay Artista’
Thus was born the weekly “Buhay Artista,” featuring Dolphy and Panchito—the wacky pair who livened up the Sunday evening of practically every Filipino home. Before “John en Marsha,” we grew up with “Buhay Artista”—who would forget the hilarious segment where Dolphy would translate every line of the song being recited by Panchito, from Tagalog to English? (Was that all ad lib by Dolphy? It seemed so, but then, Ading Fernando was also a great writer. We never did get to ask Dolphy.)
However, Dolphy and Geny weren’t only about legendary careers and businesses. Their worth as individuals went beyond what they earned, or beyond the bottom line. Their significance extended to how they helped build and redefine lives. They made an impact on people’s lives—from their families to their colleagues and employees, indeed to the bigger society.
Of the same age, both 84 (had Geny lived), they belonged to that generation which built and valued relationships—be it in business, show biz, or social networks—and stayed loyal to such relationships. Note how in signing on Dolphy for ABS-CBN, the two didn’t quibble about money or business contracts. It was just a verbal agreement and a handshake. And Dolphy stayed on in ABS-CBN for 40 years.
The generation of Dolphy and Geny had values which today’s generation might deem old-fashioned, like loyalty, hard work—and “malasakit” (we’re hard put to find an exact English translation for this). They didn’t expect their rewards to come overnight; that generation wasn’t used to instant gratification.
And their breed knew “utang na loob.” They put a premium on giving back—they have “malasakit” for the people they worked for and for those who worked for them.
But as they worked hard, they played just as hard. That made them very interesting men, to say the least.
You wonder now about today’s young—who perhaps didn’t know much about Dolphy and certainly, not Geny. These kids make and “pick up” relationships—“relationships”—on Facebook; they can delete these as fast as they make them. And it’s their “wall” of photos you meet—from the food they eat to whom they’re with. Rather narcissistic, you say. No, just cool. But that’s the era. You wonder if they have the forbearance and acuity to build relationships; if they know that relationships are built, not just uploaded on the screen.
Maita
Maita Gomez belonged to the ’60s and ’70s—the generation that had to turn society on its head, to right things. Maita and her activist generation lived and died for what they believed in; some still do. They wanted not only to reform society, but more so, to revolutionize it, to do away with its capitalists and imperialists and the bourgeoisie.
In my school days, we looked up to Maita as a romantic heroine—the beauty queen who gave up a bourgeois life (a rich husband and a fine home) to join the nationalist movement, and to even go underground. From glamour to guns.
As it turned out, Maita’s rebellion wasn’t just a phase. She lived all her life working and fighting for the disadvantaged in society. As her close friend Toni Serrano Parsons told us (see related story on Page 1 and Lifestyle p. D5), if Maita had one regret in her life, it was that she didn’t make it in a political career where she could have worked more for the poor.
When she died last week, she had just retired from her work with an NGO. She didn’t give up fighting up to her last days.
It would not be sweeping to say that Dolphy’s generation, who experienced World War II, wanted survival and pioneering work, and having done that, to enjoy their society. Maita’s generation saw what was wrong with that society and wanted to change it, from top to bottom.
Both generations enriched our lives, or, at least, lent flavor to them—without having to Tweet.