By Inday M. la Vi±a
A Kagay-anon Remembers
IN THE early nineties, my son Cacoy told me that Cagayan has lost some of its charm. My rejoinder was that not only some of its charms but almost all of it! "Bohemian" is an apt word used to describe the Kagay-anons of yesteryears. The town had its fair share of composers, writers, poets, pianists, painters, playwrights and singers.
To name a few, there is Manuel Velez, composer of immortal Visayan songs like "Luha sa Kalipay" and "Sa Kabukiran"ùthe favorite song of Pres. Manuel L. Quezon. Former Misamis Oriental Rep. Teogenes Velez Sr. composed "UP Beloved," the official song of the University of the Philippines. In the 1970s, a Velez niece, Nita Abrogar- Quinto, copped first place in the piano competition of Beethoven's Third Concierto in Manila. She is presently the head of the Piano Department of the college of Music in UP. Her brother, Felipe "Pipi" V. Abrogar, was a finalist of the Metro Pop Music Festival in Manila where he sung his own composition in Visayan. Today, he has a recording studio and still sings his songs mostly about his beloved Cagayan de Oro City.
In 1961, Prof. Lino Abrio won first place in the same piano competition that Nita A. Quinto won a decade later. Though he was an accomplished pianist, Prof. Abrio is best remembered for his great talent as a musical arranger. He was highly praised by his contemporary, Andrea Veneracion, founder of the UP Madrigal Singers. Many of his musical arrangements were sung by the Madz. For over a decade, Abrio was the musical director of the renowned Cagayan de Oro Musical and Cultural Guild. The group performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and around the country.
Pre-war Cagayan was called the Little Italy of the country. There was a piano and other musical instruments in every home. As a young boy, the late historian, Dr. Blas Ch. Velez, recalled that when he strolled in the streets of the town on a lazy afternoon, music was heard from several houses, usually from sons and daughters who were either playing the piano or the violin. Who can forget the town's two prominent piano maestras? Piting Capistrano, Piit, daughter of Gen. Nicolas Capistrano and Trining Reyes-Pineda, daughter of Misamis Gov. Jose Reyes, both graduates of the prestigious Sta. Scholastica College of Music. Then, there is Terry Zamora-Valdehuesa, another well known piano teacher. She is also a soprano who is fluent in Italian for she loved singing arias from Italian operas.
Cagayan lived and breathed music and the arts. Classical music and operatic arias were familiar to the locale and were even hummed in the streets. We heard about the legendary rich patriot, Don Tirso Neri, who was the chief financier of the local army during the Philippine-American war. A small orchestra played to him and his family each time they dined. And do you know that Col. Apolinar Velez played the piano very well?
We used to have a velada or a short musical soiree that was usually held in the houses of "de buena familias" of Cagayan. We had ladies with golden voices like Dolores Roa-Xavier, who once sang at the Manila grand Opera House when she was once a student. Her daughter, Glory X. Santos, Eden Velez, Paz Velez-Miller and her sister, Caridad Velez-Abrogar, were also very fine singers. The late Prof. Emeritus Alfredo Roa of UP was a playwright, composer and editor of the now defunct Spanish newspaper, El Renacimiento. He composed three "Ave Marias" that he dedicated to his wife, the former Conchita Zamora and their two daughters, Letty R. de Borja and Elsie R. Cacnio. All three were sopranos in their own right.
Another Kagay-anon poet, playwright and composer, was Fabian Abellanosa. He had a troupe of actors, singers and musicians who performed his works that were mostly operettas. It is unfortunate that except for a few poems and drama scripts, Abellanosa left no musical scores. His descendants today have no memory of the songs of his once popular operettas. What survived is one lovely song titled, "Pagkagarbosa."
Cagayan's outstanding historian, Filomeno M. Bautista Sr. who wrote the monumental "Bautista Manuscript of the 1900-1901 Philippine-American Revolution in the Misamis Province" and "Glimpses of Mindanao-the Land of Promise", was also a composer. He composed the official song of the Bukidnon Province Bukidnon My Home.
In the last half of the 19th century, we had what Bautista wrote as the "Golden Age of Literature and Arts." There emerged many poets in Cagayan like Vicentico Neri and Toribio Chaves. Chaves has the distinction of being elected in 1898 as the first Municipal Presidente or Mayor of the town. How about that? The golden age poet elected Municipal Mayorùonly in Cagayan!
Then, we have the beautiful Amparo Neri-Domingo, a former Miss Misamis during the pre-war days. She was the first female writer of the Weekly Graphic Magazine. She compiled a book containing her 60 poems and her work was praised by the late Jaime Cardinal Sin and Fr. James Reuter S.J. of the Catholic Mass Media.
Tommy Pacana was a lawyer who was at home with the works of Shakespeare. It is a pity that he went to the great beyond and took with him his poems that were embedded in his heart. But he wrote a fantastic poem of tribute to his dead dog in his kitchen wall. I hope that it is still there to this day. At the time of his death, he was the first Chair of the Cagayan de Oro Historical and Cultural Commission.
Until the end of the 1940s, the New Year's Eve Ball was a big gala affair that was held at the tennis courts by the Cagayan River. There were colorful flashing lights and the main attraction was the comparza. It was a dance competition with several motifs and opened to all ages. A few years ago, a group tried to revive the comparza but they did not succeed. Perhaps, the reason is that the old Kagay-anon spirit is forever lost in the hustle and bustle of its economic progress.
As it was in the past, Cagayan de Oro today is a melting pot. People from Luzon, Visayas and other parts of Mindanao came here to do business, to savor the university town atmosphere, to rest and recreate from the doldrums of life. Most of all, they enjoy the peace and order that is uniquely Kagay-anon. But like the genteel old South of the United States before its civil war, the Bohemian Cagayan before World War II is forever gone with the wind.