I even learned that our music teacher Mrs. Anita Peña’s two boys are now ALSO medical doctors, both of them: Dr. Levi Hope Peña and Dr. Leni Luck Peña (there you go, apparently those are the correct spellings). She absolutely adored those two boys of hers, that’s why she even went out of her way to explain the origin of their names to us, her music class.
Ma’am Anita—who must have been the tallest teacher in Baguio—was a music pioneer in her own right. She had formed this four-voice “girl group” with Mrs. Thelma S. Ferrer (the only piano teacher in Baguio Central School), Miss Basilisa O. Peña (my Grade 3 adviser, no relation to Anita) and Mrs. Leonora C. Adalim (my Grade 5 adviser). Don’t be impressed how I remember even their middle initials. Kids in my day had to memorize practically the biodata of their homeroom class-advisers. The title “Maestra” and “Maestro” carried such high esteem, and embodied the essence of substitute parental authority. If they whacked our provocative little bottoms whenever we misbehaved, no parent sued them in court for “child abuse.” Not a one.
In fact, many millennials may find this hard to believe, but do you know what our parents did if we came home with a welt on our behind because Teacher had spanked us?
Our parents gave us a follow-up beating at home that’s what, “walanghiya kang bata ka, pinahirapan mo na naman si Maestra kasasaway sa iyo anoh?!” Parents and teachers in the 1970s—they were in cahoots!
Those four music teachers—Mesdames Ferrer, Adalim and the two Peña’s—became known as the “Central Minstrels” and they were all over the city. They would get invited to perform at school programs, division meets, and countless “meet-and-greet” receptions for visiting high government officials from Manila. Their repertoire was an eclectic ‘playlist’ of kundiman, opera and Broadway. In my 1975 Baguio Central School, they were like the “Spice Girls” in DepEd uniforms!
For some reason, names of people in my generation were a portent of unique things to come. Long before Tiger Woods came on the scene, I already had a classmate named Tiger McNamara, my first Fil-Am friend in campus. He was an authentic karate kid (a brown belter if I remember right) who always stood by the little people (mostly moi).
The name Bert was all-too common, so stylized versions like “Bart” (with an “a”) became the fad in the 80s and 90s—like US Olympic gymnast Bart O’Connor. But even back in 1974, I already had a classmate named Bart Serrano. He was from Cabanatuan.
Names taken from the bible were dime a dozen. There was the Old Testament patriarch ABRAHAM Biteng, Lion cage survivor DANIEL Astudillo, Moses' successor JOSHUA Cariño, and a cross-enrollee fron Tarlac DELILAH Samson (that's a real classmate's name, I swear!). I already mentioned my best friend Revelacion "Reve" Velunta, who I learned is now an international theologist and author of several books.
And then there’s Mrs. Adalim’s nephew, Reynaldo Romero—the second anchor of the triumvirate of proud gays in my class that I wrote about. Long before I even became aware of Filipino fashion designers like Pitoy Moreno, I was already going crazy admiring Rey’s sophisticated fashion designs which he drew on pages of Grade 5 ruled pad. Make no mistake, I’m no lousy artist myself—a drew a syndicated cartoon strip “Anak ni Bugoy” in the 80s that came out on the Gold Ore and Malaya—but I could never draw a woman’s face. All my cartoon strip characters were male.
Rey could draw a woman’s face of any age, facial characteristics, hair style, front view, side view and everything--with his eyes closed. He could draw Soidemer Timbol—prettiest girl God ever made and our class muse—in under ten seconds. He tried in vain to teach me. He would take one look at my best attempt, scratch his chin and say, “Babae yan? Bakit kamukha ni Kingkong?”
The unique thing about Reynaldo Romero was how he signed his work. He wrote his name as “Wreigh” which was even more elaborate than the “Rhey” convention (adding a useless letter “h”) that was all the rage in the 90s.
He explained it to me, “it’s called adding oomph to an ordinary name, tranforming a common name to a unique name without changing it, that’s the challenge.”
I was totally impressed, “Galeng! O sige turuan mo ako, ano rin pwede kong gawin sa name ko para gumanda?”
Wreigh said, “Palitan mo.”
