I never really knew how my parents met until I was 17 years old. I was in the UP College of Architecture when I had a classmate who said she also grew up in Bacolod, though I could not remember seeing her in the early years, given that Bacolod was a small town and that people would usually bump into each other in church or at birthday parties.
On one occasion, I asked my mom if she had known this family name of my classmate and she quickly said without batting an eyelash, "That classmate of yours, she's the daughter of your Tita Manon, the one who introduced me to your dad".
I was thinking to myself, "How small could the world be?". So I tried to find out more about how my parents met and noticed one thing - all throughout their lives, the presence of National Artists were there all along.
The Order of National Artists in the Philippines first started as an award in 1972. It then became an Order in 2003. A good number of the people who were around my parents during their courtship days in the 1960s eventually became what we know today as National Artists.
My mom, loved to write things and going through her stuff after she passed away, I saw this note she made about meeting my dad in 1965. She wrote, "Our first meeting was at the office of Robert Borja, where Manon Campos and I were working in his furniture business as interior designers. That evening Manon and I went with Larry to see Billy Abueva's latest works in sculpture at his home in Diliman, Quezon City. Also there were Jerry and Virgie Navarro, Robert Borja and of course, the host and hostess, Mr. & Mrs. Abueva".
Billy Abueva as we know became National Artist for sculpture many years after, while Jerry Navarro became National Artist for painting.
Art was the invisible yet highly palpable bond between my mom and dad. My mom was an interior designer who went to school at the New York School of Interior Design with Tita Manon. She was in New York at the same time Tita Manon was studying in Parsons School of Design. That was after Tita Manon had studied under my dad at the University of Santo Tomas College of Fine Arts.
My dad, well, he was this art professor by day but ad agency creature by night. He lived and breathed art. He was a scholar of the Spanish government in the early 1950s to Spain together with two other National Artists in the making, Cesar Legaspi and Arturo Luz, to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.
Side notes to my parents' love story include these : my mom's family name, Ramos, was also my dad's middle name. Though both had come from Negros Island, the Ramos family of my mom comes from Bacolod and is hardly related to my dad's Ramos family of southern Negros (Kabankalan and Himamaylan).
I viewed their courtship as an interesting one. On one side was the small town boy coming from Kabankalan, who was very practical in every sense, having seen World War II as a teenager and stood as an elder among his kin when they were orphaned at the onset of the war.
On the other side was this petite lady who grew up in a less stressful environment when compared side by side to my dad's hardships. My dad finished high school in Kabankalan, while my mom was schooled in Assumption in Herran St. Both were from Negros. Both had spent time studying abroad. But destiny had led them to meet in the melting pot of Manila, through these serendipitous events with National Artists in the periphery.
They married in 1967 at the St. Peter and Paul Parish in Makati, lived nearby until 1975 and in that year, made a monumental move to relocate to Negros despite my dad's flourishing career in art and advertising in Manila.
Through the time they stayed in Negros, many other artist friends came by to see them in their abode. Jose Joya helped start the Art Association of Bacolod, of which my dad was one of the founders. Billy Abueva came by again, Cesar Legaspi stayed, Malang came by, and my dad's tukayo and compadre, Larry Alcala, eventually settled in Bacolod. National Artists all.
Their earthly union lasted for 18 years until 1985 when my dad contracted amyloidosis, a rare disease which to date has no cure apart from treatment options focused on relieving symptoms and prolonging life.
My mom, Joan Ramos Tronco went on to live life as a widow in Bacolod for a good 29 years. She was reunited in heaven with her love, Larry Tronco in the early morning of February 9, 2014.
I would not be surprised if in heaven, they all gathered once again with the National Artists who had passed on.
The blogger, Lloyd Tronco, is an Artist, Writer, Entrepreneur and Designer.
He is a Negrense based in Metro Manila.
I recently visited Silay in my first ever trip outside of Luzon in in three and a half years. Blame it on the pandemic, my family and I have been limited to travels 250km away from home at the maximum. This trip was short but I was really thankful for it for it allowed me to have a glimpse of what life would be like for a Talonggo (Tagalog-Ilonggo) in a post-COVID-19 world, with all the adjustments in terms of travel preferences.
Upon arrival at the Bacolod-Silay Airport, Atty. Eli Gatanela and wife Elena, whisked me away to the hills in Patag for a lunch hosted by Raymund and Yves Javellana. Raymund as we may have known, is the dynamo behind turning the Ruins into one of the top tourist attractions in Negros, once of the 12 most fascinating ruins in the world, and one of the best landmarks in the Philippines, which was recently voted by netizens as the Best Heritage Site for 2016 sponsored by Choose Philippines, the travel website of ABS-CBN.
Raymund and Yves have blissfully relocated themselves in this private enclave of like minded nature and serenity lovers in the cool environment of Patag in Silay. As they prepared a sumptuous lunch, I zoomed in on the callos, which is often present in Negrense lunches. I've written about callos in the past and Raymund and Yves' callos is really up there with the best.
Throughout the short visit to Negros, the culinary highlight this time was the Lumpia I brought home to Manila. My cousin Tina Tronco-Baldevia messaged me the afternoon before I would fly back to Manila if I would want to bring home Lumpia from Silay. All of us in the family love lumpia made of ubod (coconut pith).
In the seventies, I knew that there would be a lunch to be hosted at home because our kusinera, Elenita, would stack up lumpia in the freezer the on the eve of the lunch. I'd open up our freezer and you'd see all the lumpia stacked up in rolls with the green sibuyas dahon jutting out.
I picked up the lumpia from Tina's house on the way to the airport and was excited to have this for merienda when I got home to Manila. For those who aren't familiar with the Lumpia of Silay, this is the unique derivation of the Chinese spring roll created with the ingredients we find in abundance in Negros, the sweet spot of the Philippines.
The Lumpia of Silay is distinct and unlike those in most parts of the Philippines. While most "fresh" or uncooked (sariwa) lumpia elsewhere consists of sautéed vegetables in a white flour-and-water wrapper, and occasionally in some parts garnished with ground peanuts or a sauce, the Lumpia of Silay is different.
The soul of the Lumpia of Silay is the ubod or coconut pith. The ubod is always fresh as can be. The coconut tree cut down for ubod only hours before, so that the pith is not only white but sweet and juicy yet crunchy. The crunchiness accentuated by shreds of chicharon (pork cracklings) and a leaf of local lettuce.
As for the freshness of the ubod, as far as I remember, in Negros, there were small trees just for ubod sometimes planted between full-size nut-bearing trees. That's farm to table for you, long before farm to table became a buzzword.
I thank Tina for sending me off with a box of Lumpia from Silay. More than a week after we had the last piece of lumpia here in Manila, this Talonggo is still craving for lumpia of Silay - the culinary capital of Negros.
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