A cousin once came home breathless from school. He was telling us about this cheer leader who rallied everyone during an assembly. The cousin was telling us how they -first year students - were straining their neck to find out who this brave guy was. They could not him see, covered as he was by the bigger senior students. Then, like some scene from the Bible, the crowd parted and revealed this small guy, his legs spread as if straddling heaven and earth and yelling the old war chants against all other basketball teams who dared to challenge the tribe in Queborac.
His name: King Pasilaban.
That would not be the last time I would see him lording over bigger guys, and bigger spaces.
In the early 70s, a group led by Mon Lee, staged "Pororopot." The play was in Bikol, in a period when plays staged in the Jesuit school were in English. The language was coarse, ordinary, and real. The story was a pastiche of the silly and the sublime. Hidden like a locket of precious hair of a departed loved one in the play was the politics of the play: trenchant and brave.
There were many good actors in that play (the playwright, Mon Lee, was one and Jorge Caudilla was another). But there was King Pasilaban.
The voice had developed a metallic edge. It fitted his role as the Judge of No Instance. He made the officious ridiculous. He delivered lines, which always brought the gym down, give and take the stoning coming from the Sta. Cruz area then.
In the late 70s, we put up Teatro Bikolnon. The group had many good actors. Jems Jacob long before politics was a speck in his universe was part of this. Jess Grageda who could memorize a script in a week or less and who could steal a scene from anyone was in the group. Another member was Aton Nabua whose deceptive simplicity made difficult roles like Ragueneau, the baker friend of Cyrano de Bergerac (who became Cyrano de Queborac in the translation/adaptation of Rudy Alano) a gem in local theater then. Pempe Valiente, my brother, was part of this group. Pempe with Herminio Brazal and other friends would write and stage the play "Octavio" that, in language and humor and politics, was a younger sibling of "Pororopot."
Then there was King Pasilaban.
I believe the reason why I never performed a play in Bikol was because I had to contend with all these excellent actors. I had to contend with King.
We (Grace Janer, Rudy Alano and Janet A.) travelled to San Fernando last year where King was taking a respite from all the chemotherapy sessions. We discovered two things: there were indeed 6 bridges to cross before reaching the place where King was and that no amount of cancer cells could destroy the humor of our friend.
A few months more after that, text messages circulated that King had passed away. Friends rushed all the way to San Fernando only to discover that King was still very much alive then. The same friends related how King had to ask them to go home because "tapos na an bilar" (the wake is over.")
Last April 10, 2010, Friday, the sad news of King's passing came.
I am imagining where he is now. I can hear him say: O, dear, kumusta na?
The good actors are all there now with him. They can stage a Bikol play if they want. They should warn the angels though, King is here and he is bound to steal scenes from anyone of them.