Music reconnects us to ourselves, our Alma Mater and the world!
The lockdown is giving us ample time to play the piano and revisit the piano pieces we used to play.
This Sunday, the feast of Corpus Christi, I’m featuring the “girls” of Saint Joseph College (now Holy Spirit School), when the school was popular for its music department. The department was not only popular to the other Boholanos, but also to the girls in the school, themselves.
The piano studio of the school was just below the cloister of the nuns, facing what was then Libertad Street. The old building is gone. It used to house a beautiful parlor which we used as our entrance and exit, when the rain was heavy. A beautiful porch with blistered stairs would lead us to the parlor. To the right of this parlor was the office of mother Teofana Dompor, the school cashier. From Mother Teofana’s office was the office of the Mother Directress, Mother Bellarmine. Mother Bellarmine was prim and proper. Before she entered the convent, she carried the name, Dulce Romualdez. She is the elder sister of Madam Imelda Marcos. She was the first Filipino directress appointed by the S.Sp.S congregation to head the school after the Boholano President, Carlos Polestico Garcia, declared the “Filipino first” policy. Before her were German sisters who acted as the school directresses.
On another side was the stage leading to the canteen. This canteen, beneath a big acacia tree, was managed by Mother Soledad. Then, there was the volleyball court, just across the road adjacent to a place we called “Nang Orba’s”.
The school chapel was still in the main building, adjacent to the library. Everyday, there was music played from the piano and there was vocalization heard all over under the tutelage of Ma’am Fe Rocha Lumayag. I remember her students, Pura Potes and Ching Inting. Enriquieta Borja Butalid (or Ma’am Equit) also taught piano lessons at St Joseph College with Mother Deolendis and Ms. Aurora Termolo (the former Ms Borja). Ma’am Equit was also our Social Studies teacher until her marriage to Rolando “Roly” Gatal Butalid. It was just recently when I learned that Nong Roly and I share the same great-grandparents.
My mother truly idolized Ma’am Equit. The latter was the conductress and trainor of “Sanghimig Choir” when Ma’am Equit was the first lady of Bohol. That was the time we called “the martial law years”. The Tagbilaran Bohol Choral Group trained by Ma’am Equit emerged as the national champion, two years in a row. I really had an enlarged photo of the “Sanghimig Choir” framed and hung in the ancestral home. It was my mother’s pride and Bohol’s pride, too. And during this pandemic, Ma’am Equit is maximizing her time teaching piano lessons in her home in Tagbilaran
Teaching her grandchildren some piano lessons is Norma Tecson Francia. She was already out from the music school at Holy Ghost College, Mendiola when I heard her name at St. Joseph College. A cousin and contemporary of Ma’am Equit, Norma was one of the Tecson children who studied at St. Joseph College during my high school days. Later, the family relocated to Metro Manila. I came to know them from the pictures displayed in the piano room where I took piano lessons conducted by Ms. Teresita Manalo.
Norma’s house was a beautiful house just across the old location of Holy Name University. It’s where “Marbella” now stands. Yes, it was a beautiful green house with its side balcony having a perfect view of Tagbilaran bay. Norma is a concert pianist and had her advanced studies at the Juilliard School of Music, U.S.A. I never imagined that Norma and I would become intimate through the late Mrs. Guillerma Simpao. And so we became close friends and now, facebook friends.
Another music enthusiast is Monina Cimagala Camacho with sister, Yvone Cimagala (Tria). It’s Yvone who has become a facebook friend. Though she is very much younger, she became a friend through my other bff, Carol Corpus Zapatos. I was in Manila, long time ago, when Carol brought me to that posh subdivision where Yvone lives. She is really in the right address where one of President Cory Aquino’s daughters lives. Yvonne’s house is very impressive. Aside from the structure, she has two pieces of Orlina’s blue glass sculpture materials. To own one is a fortune.
This time of the Covid crisis is bringing Yvone back to her grand piano. Seeing her on facebook is a “concierto” by itself like Norma in her abode in Tagaytay.
Yvonne’s elder sister, Monina, was a Mayor of Candijay in post EDSA times. The Cimagala siblings have music in their hearts. A brother, Toti, was also a pianist. Toti was a classmate, and he, too, became a mayor of Candijay. All of the Cimagala siblings spent elementary at St. Joseph College. They stayed there until high school except for the boys who went to Divine Word College (now HNU). Their mother was a good singer and their father was a good lawyer. He was the former Dean of the College of Law at Divine Word College.
Monina is a lawyer and she plays the piano as she teaches her grandchildren piano lessons at Antipolo.
Nice seeing all of these ladies on FB. Hope we still could find time with our Alma Mater and play our beautiful music together.
