Perok and Rina Rodriguez

Originally written for the Rotary Club-Ormoc newsletter

Peter “Perok” Rodriguez and Cristina “Rina” Pongos grew up a stone’s throw from each other in Bonifacio St, Ormoc City but this convenience would only have a small role in the he said, she said story of their romance.

Rina’s earliest memory of Perok goes back to 6^th grade when she first formally met him. It was a big deal then that he was 8 years older, but as she would admit today, she had a crush on him ever since and even had a code for him, “Chori Burger”.

Years passed and the time when Rina was allowed to go out came. She would see Perok painting the town w/ his colors, mostly at the Swing disco doing half-naked cartwheels and

getting on his ride with a couple of girls. She was easily disenchanted and would relay these youthful exploits to her dad, the late Atty. Benjamin Pongos, who kept on telling his two daughters that one of them ought to marry him. “Kung makakita lang ka niya mag tumbling, tumbling, ma turn-off jud ka dad!”

Rina moved to Manila to study Accountancy at UP Diliman. At that time, her acquaintance with Perok had reached easy-banters level. She remembers getting a call from Perok asking her to tell Maric, her older sister who was already based in the US, to come home with a wedding gown as he would marry her here. Perok, who was also a kabarkada of Rina’s older brother Bennet, became a kuya figure to her.

Following her graduation from college and a few years’ work in Manila, Rina came home in 2007. She joined the BCBP Singles, an endeavor that Perok now claims was her strategy to get closer to him as he was already a member of the community. Rina refutes this confident assumption, reminding him that she was still dating somebody from Manila then.

In those years, Perok was actively looking for somebody to settle down with. His fellow members started teasing him to Rina, downplaying the long-distance relationship she was in. None of them knew they were all playing prophetic.

This mild encouragement turned into a full-blown pep-talk after a Bo Sanchez concert at the Abellana Complex in Cebu that the Singles attended. Rina came late in her car and got stuck in a parking ordeal. She called up her male friends for help, but by Somebody’s playful blessing, she only got through Perok’s line. Rina (resignedly) shares that at the very instant she spotted him amongst the busy crowd, walking towards her car, he “took her breath away” for the first time. The Singles saw them enter the event together and the “walang kamatayang sungog” peaked.

That night made her see Perok in a different light. It did help that they would pass each other’s homes almost every day, but it was the community that buoyed up whatever was brewing inside. Perok would occasionally ask Rina to help him compose prayers and talks, a gesture that Rina admired as she was so used to guys competing with her. She found Perok very confident, but also humble enough to ask for her help.

Fast forward to 1999, Perok finally asked the already unattached Rina out. She only said yes on his second dinner invitation, and the third, which was to join him and his family at the beach for the Holy Week. Rina did not have an idea that before taking her, Perok had announced to the whole clan that the woman he would bring to that gathering is the one he would marry.

At the April wedding of their fellow BCBP members Mike and Charity Tan, Perok and Rina lay bare all their feelings for each other. By the end of the night, they were already engaged. Rina remembers being congratulated by their friends. When she asked why, they answered that Perok had told them they were getting married in August. Her jaw dropped in shock, but by instinct, she replied, “Pwede sa December lang?!?”

A bit worried that all of the evening’s surprises were only fruits of a drunken night, Rina stayed up until 3 am with her friends. Perok kept her on such state until he called up at 7 pm the next evening. She was no longer Rina, but “Darl.”

As in all stories, Perok and Rina’s love affair has two versions, his and hers. But however the two goes, the end is the same. They got married on December 11, 1999 and moved to one address.

~~~

Perok is my father's younger brother while Rina is my mother's distant cousin. They now have four kids: Andre, Kyra and Peter who are all in grade school, and little Ben, in preparatory school.

Little Boy Green

This little boy

Lived at the

Same village as we did

When we went to Beijing

In October 2009

He was so cute

We first saw him waiting for his ride to school

With his ayi

I waved hello

While balancing on a scooter (w/ my one hand)

And a camera on the other

He just stared at me

But his ayi was very friendly

We went to the park

And played for a bit

When we returned

He was still waiting

I couldn't help but ask for a photo

The friendly ayi

Smiled

A "no worries" smile

Thus this single photo (and oh, a stolen other)

Of Little Boy Green

Little Boy Green, the first time I saw him

(This is the stolen shot)

Maria Alyssa Villarosa Rodriguez

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

"Youth"

By Samuel Ullman

~~~

Alyssa turned 18 this year. She is taking up Social Development at the Ateneo and is planning to pursue Law after.

Note from the Blogger

My plan to make this blog reach a billion entries continues.

But with the frenzied scrutiny of sentences and story structures that happens in every post before I allow it to see the light of web posting, I'm thinking that this possibly could not be achieved within a lifetime. I'm going take it easy on the prose then and allow (more) photos to paint a thousand words when appropriate.

I am currently working on a couple of profiles. To be posted soon!

Best,

Ivi

Ryan Tominaga

It is a tease to my little girl's heart that when I think about one of the most amazing nights I have ever been part of, I remember Ryan.

That very night, the cosmos playfully arranged him right next to me, but the four men on stage who make up one of the most important bands ever, their music that span several genres, generations and zeitgeists, the 96,002 people who were with us, filling every inch of space in the mighty Rose Bowl arena, reduced him to an insignificant detail. Only that very night.

Because when these events turned into a great story, almost like a knee-jerk response, my memory placed him at the center around which every other detail spun. We don't easily disremember a great night; but slowly, its repercussions fade and it becomes just the backdrop of the littler quirks that have personalized and made the experience ever more real and memorable to us.

My brother-in-law Pancho bought my ticket from his officemate, Tony, who is Ryan’s friend. We did not plan to meet before the concert. I searched for my seat among the ninety-six thousand and four, and when I thought I found it, I flashed a smile at the person seating next to it. Ryan.

“Welcome home,” he said. (Or was it “You’re home,” “Yep, you found your home”? What I’m only sure about is, “Home.”)

The night’s roll call, on its own, guaranteed an amazing experience, so I didn’t mind the prospect of being seated rows away from Pancho and my sister – alone. Besides, anonymity exhilarates me. But by twist and turn courtesy of the playful cosmos, I found myself in the company of three people I’ve never met before.

Tony, two seats away and really funny (I told him at the end of the night, “You are at par with Bono in entertainment value.”), introduced himself as “Latino, not black,” and his girlfriend Caroline, the "all-American American." By instinct, I burst into "Sweet Caroline, den den den," surprising even myself (and there were no glasses and glasses of beer involved), and eliciting a with eyes rolled-grin from Caroline like I wasn't the first who dared.

Tony did not say he was a huge U2 fan, but he sang along with Bono to almost every song in the band's repertoire, most of the time whole-heartedly (glasses and glasses of beer involved). Throughout the night, he would alternately poke fun at Caroline or at Ryan (“Come on, Ryan! It's U2!” when Ryan stayed glued to his seat and to his mobile.). But when the evening segued into the quintessential rock love song, With or Without You, he mellowed down and sang not along with Bono, but directly to his sweet Caroline.

The entire night, Ryan Tominaga -- him around which every other memory of the night spun -- was seated to my right. He is part Japanese, part Nicaraguan, and part Hawaiian; though at face value, you could never have guessed. There's a handsomeness to him that his baldness and olive skin dull, but he stands attractively. He reminded me of Powder, and at the same time, thought that he best epitomizes Max, the fictional Jew-in-hiding in Mark Zusak's The Book Thief. It may sound far-fetched (he's not Jewish), but I had just finished the book then.

A conversation was off to a good start. Ryan, as it happened, knew a lot of Filipinos at work and talked favorably of them. His grandmother, of whom he spoke as tenderly, is a Catholic. And he is openly romantic. He mentioned traveling to Japan, Hawaii and Nicaragua to know more about his roots.

I don't know about you, but I find crossing miles of strangeness to know more about oneself an intent that manifests one's profundity. Looking back, I think I was smitten with Ryan.

I wish we talked more, but Bono went onstage. The vibes that they radiated from The Claw (as they liked to call their humongous 360 Tour platform) were strong enough to spell a uniting cast over the whole stadium. I was too struck; my surroundings (by this I mean the 96000-amazing crowd) swirled into one pulsating entity. Song after song after song, I could not believe I was a part of it. It was just me, the crowd, and U2.

But in retrospect, I would see it was all natural ecstasy. Because the moments that I would remember with more precision and color were not only of me and U2. In fact, the band steps back and zooming in was the chorus of "Stuck in a Moment that You Can't Get Out Of," (the moment I would have stayed in for a long time) when Ryan urged me to sing along, karaoke style. Darn, I did not completely memorized that part, so instead, I burst into smiles to fill in the blanks. Before the concert, I told him it was my favorite U2 original.

When Bono burst into the monosyllabic chapter of With or Without You, the coming of the end of the concert dawning on him, Ryan sprang off his seat.

"Oh ooo ooo ooo... Oh ooo ooo ooo ooo... Oh ooo ooo ooo... Oh ooo... With or Without Yoooo..."

The whole stadium "Oh ooo-ed" along, but all I could hear now, some 8 months later, is Ryan at my right. Everything else swirls away into the background.

(P.S. Or I think about Ryan, and I remember that most amazing night.)