Mario Taguiwalo, 1951 – 2012
There will be memorials for Mario on 28 April, 7pm at AIM, and 5 May, 7pm at Club Filipino.
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Mario on the set of Abbo de la Cruz’s Misteryo Sa Tuwa in Lucban, Quezon, 1983. Photo by Uro de la Cruz.
Mario Taguiwalo has forbidden us to mourn him, which is just as well because sorrow is the last emotion we associate with the guy. Hanging out with Mario was like going to the gym: we developed temporary abs from laughing so hard.
Mario asked that instead of grieving we speak of him with fondness. That’s easy.
1. The second thing we learned at the Philippine Science High School (the first was to run indoors at the first sign of rain because the football field was prone to lightning strikes) was that the school hymn was written by Professor Rey Paguio with Lyncir Lagunzad and Mario Taguiwalo of the first graduating class.
Therefore at age 12 I swore that if I ever met the person who wrote the immortal lyrics “And go as we wander o’er/The crests and troughs/of the sea of life that flows” and forced “troughs” to rhyme with “flows” (“The crests and troughs of the sea of life that fluffs??”), I would punch him in the face.
When I met Mario Taguiwalo many years later I not only forgot to punch him in the face but I immediately joined his fan club.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 24th, 2012 at 12:09
he was the one person i was looking forward to meeting at a USAID event – not because he was some hotshot, brilliant COP of a big health project but because he wrote the pisay hymn and was an actor and a fearless essayist and a brilliant COP of a big health project. in a world of hopelessly pegged individuals, he was a multi-dimensional genius. and i know he was your friend. condolence, jessica.
April 24th, 2012 at 15:55
Hehe..crests and truffs…na-nostalgia ako ng onti dun.
Jessica – do you mind reposting his letter to you on this site? Couldn’t find it on Google.
April 25th, 2012 at 17:11
So sya pala yung may pakana nun…hehe…I always hated that song (and that line especially).
April 25th, 2012 at 17:13
BTW, Rey Paguio I met when I was a member of a children’s choir. We sang with the UP Concert Chorus, which he led at the time. He passed away some time ago as well, I heard. Strange, small world.