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Hi kiddo,
I must tell you about Tonggie's AMA Computer University graduation ceremony
at the Folk Arts Theater.
Your lola, Auntie Cutie, Tonggie and I hied to the Folk Arts Theater
really early yesterday. My FX was off-road that day so though the ceremony
was to start at 8 a.m., we were off at 6 a.m. to make it to the CCP
complex before 7 a.m.
Tonggie had to be there early anyway because he had to collect his toga
from the grad costumers (Rent-a-toga.) There were hordes of people
-- parents in their Sunday best, graduates in their togas or out of
them so as to show off THEIR Sunday best (some of which were inappropriate,
e.g. thigh-high slitted party dresses), siblings young and old, lolos
and lolas, and assorted vendors selling bottled water or paypays
or corsages or even scalped tickets to the ceremony. Tonggie was in
a long-sleeved shirt and a deep burgundy necktie that I had to tie for
him.
We were told the ceremonies would begin at 8 a.m. It would be a multivenue/multicast/
telecast/webcast event. We were at Folk Arts theater, but there were
another few thousand grads in Araneta Colisseum and another few thousand
in Cebu and Davao and all were linked via the Internet. Impressive!
Alas, ceremony started at 10!!! Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, commencement
speaker to 15,000 AMA graduates, was running late. The 10 a.m. beginning
was a false start because it was 30 minutes of infomercial for AMA Computer
college projected on the stage backdrop. After the infomercial, the
emcee announced a nationwide 10-minute pee-pee break (after all this
was a graduation ceremony that was being simultaneously delayed and
relayed in Manila, Quezon City, Cebu, and Davao.) Twenty minutes
and a few thousand liters of weewee later, the graduation ceremony resumed
with the "AMA song" belted out by this diva I-forget-her-first-name-but
can't-forget-her-last-name Misalucha dressed to the nines in an evening
gown (this was 10:50 in the morning!) I failed to see that this was
a portent of things to come.
Now finally, there is a procession of faculty members into the Folk
Arts. Simultaneously, in Araneta, President Arroyo marches down the
aisle with the other AMA faculty members and the President of AMA.
The Papal-like President of AMA Amable V (the fifth) Aguiluz addresses
the audience in another infomercial. The Aguiluzes must really love
the name Amable because like the pontiffs they have numerical Amables.
XII seems to be the latest loving incarnation.
AMA the V then trots out a couple of foreign partners -- one from Harvard
and one from Carnegie-Mellon. Thankfully, these two deliver speeches
addressed to the graduates and not informercials for their institutions.
We then had the graduation proper. The graduates were asked to rise
in batches to be acknowedged. A lady vice president of AMA went through
platoons of them, asking the grads to rise as she named their
degrees and thereafter to 'take their sets.'
Now the valedictorian, a young woman, addresses the motley crowd. This
is where the influence of TV on the Pinoy (show biz na show biz baga)
really showed. She works the crowd like an emcee. (Shades of Magandang
Tanghali Bayan!) Then she tells the audience she will read a letter
to her mom. (Melodrama as in Dear Tia Dely.) Now this is a webcast-cum-telecast
so direk cuts to teary-eyed mom in audience. And the crowd gasps
in sympathy.
Now we move into heavy drama.
She addresses her dad who is in faraway Bahrain or some such God-forsaken
sandy country. But wait! AMA has set a phone link so she can actually
talk to her Dad (ala Oprah baga or perhaps even The BUZZ
or S-files!) So she talks to her dad who is so thrilled and he says
in Tagalog, "Oh how I wish I were there to hug you" He is
happy that his daughter has graduated with honors and wild horses could
not keep him away. He must see her.
And -- voila!-- he comes on stage!!!!!! (Ala Oprah, AMA
has jetted him from the desert sands to his beloved Pearl of the Orient.)
And there is hugging and crying! Even this huge dark cargador-type
fellow beside me pulls out his striped hanky and honks tremulously into
it.
And now quick change of script: the dad starts praising the lord and
exhorts the collected audience to value hard work and education (ala
El Shaddai on Sunday TV)
In true Pinoy fashion, a mother in the audience is overwhelmed by all
this and she faints dead away. People next to her swarm towards the
woman. And the gallery runs to the rails to make ocioso! Buti
na lang this is Folk Arts, and not Araneta where GMA is, else her
bodyguards would have had a cow!
Then GMA gives the commencement address but after all that Oprah-El
Shaddai brouhaha, it is flat and uninteresting. I feel like telling
her to see her dentist because something is wrong with her pustisos.
She says parench for parents and gradwaich for graduates.
Now in all this excitement and after 5 hours in Folk Arts, Lola needs
to go to the john. I accompany her down this dark corridor in the bowels
of Folk Arts, which has one 10-watt bulb valiantly struggling to light
the tunnel's 30-foot length, and stand guard at the door. A squirmy
woman comes out of the gloom heading for the banyo too. Seeing
me, she stops. I tell her it's okay. I'm just escorting my mom. She
presses her knees together, says she'll go later, and frog-walks
back into the murk. Napagkamalan Chester the Molester pa ata
ako. Or maybe because I had Lola's bag slung under my arm, she mistook
me for a mugger.
Soon after that Lola comes out of the john, having thankfully found
a clean booth. We head back up into the theater, me vainly looking for
the squirmy woman and vindication, and leave to wait for Tonggie and
Auntie Cutie in the bright sunlight of the parking lot.
Thus endeth the multivenue/multicast/showbiz graduation of Tonggie who,
by the way, got a medal for being best in his course.
Miss you lots.
((((((((())))))))
"8{>
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