Images NOEL PABALATE

I knew it!

When Minguita Padilla, ophthalmologist, academician, author, health advocate, and also soulful singer, took the center of the room to take our breaths away with her rendition of “Somewhere in Time,” I knew she was singing the theme of the evening, the song of the occasion.

We were all at the Champagne Room, packed with decades worth of romantic memories, right at the heart of the iconic Manila Hotel, where many couples have found love, for the Jan. 8 celebration of the 78th birthday of art and antiques dealer and bon vivant Benjamin Yap, Benjie to hundreds of people who consider him near and dear.

The dress code said Filipiniana circa 1850 and so came the ladies, hair arranged in a delicate chignon, in contemporary versions of the Maria Clara, or the camisa with bishop sleeves paired with silk tapis trimmed with gold, or even the saya de colores while the gentlemen waltzed into the room, like the birthday celebrant, in barong mahaba, or barong Tagalog reaching down to just above the knee, or in traje de paisano. There were a few, who came in Americana, which still conformed to the dress code, the late 1800s being the beginning of the American period following the Battle of Manila in 1899 and I thought I even saw a zacatero or an aguador milling about, dressed appropriately, if creatively, for the occasion.

Indeed, we were “Somewhere in Time,” the theme of the 1980 romance fantasy of the same title starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, for which English musician John Barry composed the song, delicate and aching and at certain points rapturous, soaring with such unbearable longing, a hymn to love that could stand the vagaries of time and its power to break people apart.

Minguita sang it the way she did many moons ago when Benjie also celebrated a birthday at the now defunct Cheval Blanc, the old Parisian-like haunt at the Makati Shangri-La in the 1990s. It was a performance that never left his mind, and so conjuring up this year’s 78th birthday bash, although he was thinking more along the lines of turn-of-the-century Filipiniana, he and his constant collaborator, the impresario Manny Samson, thought a reprise would perfectly capture the nostalgic theme of the evening.

At first, Benjie hesitated. Manny had thought up the atmosphere based on his wishes, to be achieved by the decorations, the costumes, the tablescapes, the flowers, the lighting, and even the menu, which was whipped up in the competent hands of Champagne Room oldtimer Mary Ann Reyes, but Benjie, year on year, always took personal charge of the music, painstakingly listing down the order in which the songs would be played, performed, or heard.

He said to his collaborator, “But ‘Somewhere in Time’”—obviously a favorite of his, as I would hear it every year he throws a party of a scale this grand— “is out of theme.” Manny insisted on it, saying it would all fall into place.

And so Minguita, after we gathered to give the celebrant a toast, sang “Somewhere in Time,” the only non-Filipino song in a charming evening of kundimans, haranas, and OPM ballads played on a violin by wonderboy Merjohn Lagaya or sung live by the young sopranos and baritones, or piped in through the speakers, such lovely songs as “Ikaw,” “Sana’y Wala nang Wakas,” “Ngayon at Kailanman,” and “Saan Ka man Naroroon,” all under the show direction of George Tagle.

This year, as in every year before, the raison d’etre of Benjie’s birthday celebration—“aside from giving my friends a lovely time,” he said—is to raise funds for the House of Refuge, a child-caring institution he founded in 1986, of which he remains the hands-on chairman, to give shelter, education, love, hope, and a brighter future to abandoned, neglected, orphaned, and maltreated children.  

Other than that, his annual birthday dinner is thanksgiving, in which Benjie honors his friends and family, through a raffle, with gifts that this year, as in most years, were literally jewels, as in jade, freshwater pearls, amethysts, gold, diamonds…

A priest, Dr. Boyd Sulpicio, was the lucky winner of an Art Deco amethyst and diamond pendant, which he donated to the House of Refuge by way of an impromptu auction that earned the foundation extra ₱100,000 from the winning bid placed by Benjie’s dear friend Edna Camcam. The birthday celebrant’s brother, Manila Bulletin board chairman Basilio Yap, won an oval amethyst and diamond set of ring and earrings on white gold, but he also waived it for auction for the benefit of the House of Refuge. The winning bid of ₱100,000 was placed by Baby Arenas, also a lifelong friend of Benjie’s.  

Benjie’s friendship itself is a gift worth more than any gold or diamond and his parties are among its most charming expressions.

This year’s dinner celebration, an evening of magic, was a portal to another time, an artistic rediscovery or reminder of what time keeps in its treasure trove of things that have been achieved, accomplished, experienced, survived, lost, sometimes even left unfinished.