Reprinted with the permission of the author
from Philippine News Online 5/12/04
Part 1
AMONG the enjoyments I find in life is that of observing people.
In fact, I like to go beyond observing and write about them. But that was early in my life.
Perhaps this was because I was fortunate enough to be the firstborn grandchild on both sides of the aisle – the Joaquins and the Kabigtings, my mother’s family. While I spent my first three years with my maternal grandmother, I was back with my mother Sarah soon after, who was by then an instructor at the Far Eastern University. My father, Porfirio Joaquin, better known to friends and family as Ping, was a jazz pianist.
Long before I was born, he already played in various places, in major cities in Asia like Hong Kong, Surabaya and Shanghai as well as in ocean-going luxury liners.
Growing up the first grandchild gave me an advantage in getting to know other members of my father’s family. There were seven boys, my father being the eldest, and two girls. I had an artist uncle who could draw an exact likeness of anyone’s face using pen and ink; and one quiet uncle who was suddenly yanked into the war and never came back.
But the one who fascinated me from the very first was Uncle Nick, whom we called Tito Onching. An obedient son to my grandmother Salome, Uncle Nick nevertheless had a strong stubborn streak. He was the only one among all the children to face my grandmother, a schoolteacher, and categorically state, “I have learned enough in school. I am leaving it and am going to study on my own.”
Thus he never went back to school and spent his days reading in libraries.
Another quality which left an impression on me as a young child and which still continues to impress me today was Uncle Nick’s devotion to the Blessed Mother.
At Arlegui Street where we lived, just a short block from the main gate of Malacañang, Uncle Nick would religiously attend the first morning Mass at 5 a.m. every day at the San Sebastian Church.
There, he got to befriend a number of Dominican priests.
Fluent in Spanish, the language of my grandparents and parents, Uncle Nick got to polish his spoken and written Spanish with these clerics. Perhaps it was this friendship with the Dominicans especially after he won an award for winning a writing contest with his story, “La Naval de Manila,” that led him to consider the priesthood. Soon after he was offered a scholarship for novitiate studies at the Dominican Seminary in Hong Kong.
At about this time, I was already out of high school and excitedly pursuing a career in the merchant marine services or, so I thought, and learning about the practical side of seamanship. By sheer coincidence our ship docked in Hong Kong at the very time he was in the seminary.
So I got to visit Uncle Nick who looked happy and angelic in his postulant’s soutanne.
He was so pleased with the unexpected reunion that he took me to their cafeteria and introduced me to his fellow postulants. As it turned out, however, Uncle Nick found it best to live the life of a writer and serve the Lord in his capacity as a layman. He soon left the novitiate and returned to Manila.
While I was growing up with my uncles and aunts, I was always the center of attraction until my sister appeared on the scene. Still, Uncle Nick doted on me in his own way. One Christmas, he gifted me with a series of verses which he titled “Tony Boloney” more like a ditty and even my parents enjoyed this piece.
My mother Sarah, who by this time was aware of her brother-in-law’s keen writing gift, asked Uncle Nick to write his style of poetry or prose and promised that she would handle its publication. This took a little time since Uncle Nick, while strong-willed, never showed any conviction that this was what he wanted to do. One reason could be that he disliked being the center of attraction.
He even hated having any pictures taken of himself by anyone.
Later I got to use this as a threat for him to stop teasing me about the Jesuits who were my teachers at the Ateneo. This “feud” was his way of having fun with his eldest and first nephew in his brother’s family. During impossible moments Uncle Nick would torment me by making jokes about the Jesuits inasmuch as he favored the Dominicans.
What would usually stop him was my saying: “If you do not stop this I will write about you!”
I was already in high school then and was quite capable of writing a piece about him, especially since he was beginning to be noticed as a writer.
This remark never failed to stop him. He just hated publicity about himself.
