Nino and papa's music

 "Gigising si Gaspar! Gigising si Gaspar!" Thus the dreamish words classical music legend Fides Cuyugan-Asensio in the Cinemalaya indie film  “Nino” by Director Loy Arcenas.

Cinemalaya has always been my favorite venue for watching  excellent acting, especially from veteran film and stage performers who effortlessly shine in their meticulous characterization of roles. Such is the case of “Nino” by Director Loy Arcenas. His casting boasts of the ever-regal but acting-reclusive Fides Cuyugan-Asensio who pits acting bravura with equally talented but always accessible (you always see them in GMA-7 teleseryes) Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino, Raquel Villavicencio and Tony Mabesa.  Here’s the sysnopsis: 

The Villa Los Reyes Magos, the decaying mansion of the Lopez-Aranzas, is the only remaining emblem of the once illustrious family of Gaspar and his sister Celia. When former congressman Gaspar slips into a coma, his opera doyenne sister Celia waits for a miracle through her grandson Antony, who she clads in Sto. Niño garb. But harsh reality in the figures of their children, Merced, Mombic, and Raquel, pushes the inevitable: the impending sale of the mansion to give way to a commercial venture. Celia wages her last battle to regain the glory of the past by hosting a splendid tertulla, her final eulogy to her own moribund class.

 I believe the role of Celia was tailor-made for Fides Cuyugan-Asensio, what with the character’s penchant for opera singing and the like. I also like the representation of the Sto. Nino in child performer Jhiz Deocareza while he is running around the old house with a wood sword and caped/crowned just like the Child Jesus. And in a family drama like this, you can’t help but be engrossed not only with the story, but with how differing personalities are fleshed out on the big screen. I like the scene of the gathering of old friends who sang to Gaspar  serenading him as if it is a grand opera night before he died.

Tony Mabesa's role playing of a person in coma is somewhat a replication of our family experience.   My father fell into coma for almost eight months before he died in November 2003.  A year and six months after mama’s death, my father, Papa Ponching to many, died  November 16, 2003 a Sunday, due to pneumonia after being bedridden for almost eight months brought about by complications arising from an operation on his brain (hydrocephalus). I have told relatives and friends that  Papa could have been dead during the second week of April due to the gravity of the hydrocephalus  if not for that incident when he fell from our stairs. Maybe Mama pushed him so that the hydrocephalus and tumor could be detected. '

Music is papa's world and passion. He will always sing to us old songs of his generations. He brags that he always won during competitions and his fond memories with his guitars and choirs.   I vividly remember when i was a child is his penchant to singing of lullabyes for us to sleep. Then on weekends our house will be filled with reverberating music from his collection of long playing albums of old songs.

 During the early days of his coma, we were given the option to remove the (breathing) tubes since they said that he will not wake up. But we held on our faith. Then one day, he started to talk though soft and slow until  he became normal for only a short period. We asked him what he remembered during the time that he was in coma. He said that he just remembered the voice of Beng-Beng or Bro.Stephen. Since Beng-Beng was based in Australia and he could come home due to his religious obligations there, I just I asked him to send us a cassette tape which recorded his recitation of the Holy Rosary, songs of praise and words of wisdom.It is said that when  a person is in coma, or he is in  the brink of death, the last sense that he will lose is the sense of hearing. Thus, the popular superstition that if someone is going to die, whisper to his ears words of love and kindness which will he will bring in his journey to the afterlife.

When we were growing up, I remember times when Mama scolded us, “Buti nga kayo di nyo naranasan ang magtinda ng kamatis sa palengke.” Then she would cry. Perhaps, this was her way of saying that whatever the benefits we were enjoying then were due to their hard work..This is something that children have to realize: that parents will sacrifice a lot for the future of the kids. If mama would say the “kamatis” story, Papa, on the other hand, would tell us stories when he was still a security guard in a government agency before they got married in July 1968. Papa was a security guard by day and a student by night taking up library science. When he graduated, he proceeded to be a librarian in the same office until he retired in early 1990s.

"Gigising si  Papa! Gigisng si Papa!" perhaps will be my version of Fides Cuyugan's lines.  Faith is always the best weapon.