Friends still here and friends no longer with us

I know this is late, but received word of director Tikoy Aguiluz’s death on the eve of an out-of-town trip, and so was unable to attend his wake.

First heard of his walrus moustache in Ermita magazine in 1976, where he did a film on Mount Banahaw, the magic mountain and the cult that lived on the foothills of Quezon, the Tres Personas Solo Dios. This I remembered while on a beach in Catanduanes, mulling a

First heard of Tikoy Aguiluz’s walrus moustache in Ermita magazine in 1976, where he did a film on Mount Banahaw, the magic mountain and the cult that lived on the foothills of Quezon. He was instrumental in the founding of the UP Film Center, along with the poet and mentor of poets Virgie Moreno. Tikoy was a fellow member of the Cinema Evaluation Board for several years in the 2000s, where anyone could see his passion for cinema was undeniable.

rock formation off the capital Virac called Tres Caras de Hesu Kristo.

He was instrumental in founding of the UP Film Center, along with the poet and mentor of poets Virgie Moreno, back when they were still drawing up blueprints.

Post-Edsa, Tikoy was my first assignment as staff writer for Midweek magazine, and interviewed him in one of the government buildings off Quezon Circle for which he served as some kind of consultant. He had at the time just finished his documentary on Conrado Balweg, rebel priest.

For which article he sent me a gift for Christmas that year, a Johnny Walker black, not sure now if it was Christmas but certainly felt like it.

Finally, I was able to catch his debut feature Boatman years after its release, in a decrepit movie house along Quezon Boulevard in Quiapo, by which time it had already earned a cult following, and watching it in a district described famously as the country’s armpit only meant that life was imitating art, or vice versa, one and the other cohabiting and intermingling.

Got to see Ronnie Lazaro recite his immortal lines while on the toro stage with Sarsi Emmanuel, ganito ang pagyare kay mare habang na sa Saudi si pare. And the writer Freddie Salanga as the club manager shouting out at the young lovers who flew the coup, mga ingrato! All this while the bedbugs of Quiapo were feasting.

Must have been difficult to watch, especially that last scene, but the images remain etched in faltering lurid memory.

Then he was a fellow member of the Cinema Evaluation Board for several years in the 2000s, where anyone could see his passion for cinema was undeniable. It was like a religion to him, indeed a matter of life and death, and as the craft’s battering ram who brooked no compromise might have rubbed some people the wrong way.

For his baby Cinemanila in 2006, Tikoy recruited me as juror and unofficial reviewer and we screened countless entries both local and foreign well into the night and at times the wee hours at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts building in Intramuros and even once at the Manila Hotel when the foreign jurors started coming in, fortunately near my place of work at Port Area.

Among the films screened was Lav Diaz’s epic episode of a lizard princess which had one foreign judge who resembled Mr. Bean gnashing his teeth, and another by Jeffrey Jeturian also strongly in contention, and Tikoy chuckled good naturedly that he wanted Diaz and Jeturian engaged in a cockfight, gusto niyang ipagsabong. Unforgettable, too, was one festival foray to a multiplex in Makati where we waited for what seemed like eons for fellow juror Lupita Kashiwahara to show up, and when she did she was sweet and we were ready for dinner or another late-night screening, hard to tell our minds were already a blur from sleeplessness and cinema.

The last meeting to decide the winners of Cinemanila 2006 was held at the Magallanes village residence of director Briccio Santos, at the time future head of the Film Development Council and who had played the cuckolded husband of Hilda Koronel in Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising.

Post-festival, Tikoy handed me my honorarium after one CEB screening, not a peso more or less than previously agreed on, and with it a T-shirt that has held up well through the years, a black one with the words printed in multiple choice style — Cinemabrocka, Cinemalino, Cinemanila, the last whose box opposite it was checked.

Scarcely heard from him through the pandemic, but he was busy painting and posting his latest works on his Facebook feed, and even invited me to one of his shows at SM Aura, Rara Avis 2, where after party pictures revealed among the guests was his star in Segurista, Michelle Aldana.

The last thing I sent him was a verse exercise written on cellphone about how action stars have invaded the Senate, maybe there’s a movie there or maybe not, but I suggested to him to hold a simultaneous exhibit of his paintings and films. Where, he asked. I said possibly My Cinema where we used to screen for CEB, let’s talk to the FDCP.

But the father of guerrilla filmmaking must have let out a guffaw, perhaps nonchalantly shrugged, those things were beyond him now.