Artlets in my mind

I was a movie fan when I enrolled at the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Santo Tomas in the early 1970s.

It was the height of the Nora-Tirso, Vilma-Edgar popularity and I was an avid follower of these teenyboppers at the time.

It was a hot rivalry between the two love teams, and individually, of Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos.

I was an admirer as well of radio personalities having grown in the era of DWOW’s Eddie Ilagan, DZXL’s Johnny de Leon, Manolo Favis, Vic Morales, AM commentators Paeng Yabut and Damian Soto, FM’s Divine Pascual and Bingo Lacson etc. so I wanted to be an announcer like them when I would finish college.

I must confess I was a Noranian but I didn’t speak ill of Vilma.

As a matter of fact, I wanted Nora and Vilma to be always together, friends which they were and still are, personally, as they are kumares (fellow and common sponsors in weddings and baptisms) and harmoniously living with one another on and off-cam until I realized those were asking for the moons when I got older and became an entertainment writer myself covering and writing the beat which opened up to the realities in the lives of celebrities and there figuration, configuration and reconfiguration.

I didn’t know I had this idealist inkling in me when I was in my early teens that I wanted to unify not only the competitiveness in the way of Ate (a term of endearment for an older woman or sister by blood of affinity) Guy and Ate Vi were pitted against each other or their respective fans quarrel over them that I wanted peace and reconciliation.

Two years before I went to college, I formed a group, if not a fan club, called D’VENT, its acronym stood for the first letter of the names of Vilma, Edgar, Nora and Tirso.

I was the president and my classmates and high school batchmates were members.

When I entered college, there were celebrities among us, foremost of whom was Espie Fabon who was three years ahead of me. She was in Mass Communications in undergrad and went on to become a lawyer and a judge before her retirement.

Oh! Miss Teen Philippines Geena Zablan was in the height of her fashion and acting career. Geena was a campus belle who I wanted to see personally but only got to meet her forty years after in one of the late fashion designers Goulle Gorospe’s shows as a guest. “School-shoots lang ako no’n (From school I immediately went to shoots),” chuckled Geena who is still very pretty despite the passing of years.

“Lipad, Darna, Lipad” star Nanette Lizares as well as Miss RP ‘71 Onelia Jose were classmates in Philo 1. Nanette migrated to the US while Onelia was married to the late musician Wally Gonzales of Juan de la Cruz Band.

Binibining Pilipinas 1972 runner-up Consuelo Escalambre who just died abroad recently was a classmate from 1st to 2nd year.

The late actor Van de Leon’s daughter Malou de Leon was an Artlets, too.

There are prominent lawyers in our batch, namely Joey Lina, also President of The Manila Hotel, Oscar Herrera, a former Justice of Sandiganbayan and Ramon Esguerra. There are other legal luminaries in our Class ‘75, namely Rizza Capco-Umali, Norma Megenio and Gerry Ramirez. I might have missed the others but I will update my report.

Danny Vibas, a prolific entertainment journalist, was Artlets.

All these come streaming in my mind and still other thoughts are gushing in as the 60th anniversary of Artlets is fast approaching in 2025.

According Nestor Cuartero, Joel Macanaya of Rainmakers, both Artlets ‘74 alums and Henry Tenedero, President of Philets and Artlets Alumni Association, media personalities Piolo Pascual, Ali Sotto, Isay Alvarez, Sandra Aguinaldo etc., all Artlets-educated will grace the diamond year on March 1 next year.

Piolo, Piolo Jose Nonato Pascual in real life, might not finish his bachelor course in Artlets but he considers the pontifical university his alma mater.