'At one point, I overheard her daughter Wendy Regalado say, as she embraced Gilda, 'Nakita mo kung gaano karami sila? Lahat sila nagmamahal sa iyo.' Gilda nodded.'
As we were quarantined in our homes by the pandemic, Belgium-based writer Nash Tysmans aired the cultural community’s frustration over not being able to assemble to openly mourn Gilda Cordero Fernando’s passing.
Onward to 1976, when I worked as a Life and Leisure reporter for the Daily Express. I got a phone call from Gilda, who had just released “The Culinary Culture of the Philippines,” now a rare book. She said in a pleading tone, “I sent a press release about the book. Pakisabi naman kay Tere na ilabas lang. Please!”
Even in her car I was scribbling, she was so quotable. I asked her what she thought of those critics who chastised her for publishing expensive books. Her riposte: “Show me their manuscripts, and if they’re good, I’ll publish them myself!”I don’t know at which point we became friends and met each other regularly to talk and eat. I think it was in the 1980s, at the height of the Middle Forces’ opposition to Marcos.
The show’s ambience was electric. Gilda feared that anytime, the Constabulary or military would swoop down on the organizers and stellar models. Nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the event was well covered by the “mosquito” and foreign press. That’s when she proclaimed to all and sundry that she loved Rolly more than me. Almost every time I visited her, she ensured that there was pasalubong for him. Later on, the pasalubong took the form of her watercolor paintings. She even did a portrait of him called “Rolly’s Morphing Tower of Hearts.”But there’s eeriness to this generosity, a bit of the aswang in her. Once she insisted that I bring home another painting.
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