MEDIUM RARE 
 

Quoting Jimmy Laya who was quoting Imelda Marcos, “The water will rise. The land will rise. The curtain will rise.”
Sounds like a real haiku, except that Mrs. Marcos and Mr. Laya were not talking about nature and her quirks, but the Cultural Center of the Philippines which, according to the former First Lady, is “the biggest landowner” and, by implication, the biggest taxpayer hereabouts.

Still, after all these years of working pro bono for CCP, Mrs. Marcos has to line up and beg Congress for a budget. A few days ago, just hours before CCP paid her a tribute on its 55th anniversary, the unsinkable, indomitable IRM got what she wanted: a ₱2-billion budget for 2025. She got it, she said, by “refusing to move” and patiently waiting to be recognized by members of the House of Representatives. In a humorous aside, she recalled that this begging for funds was nothing new, it happened even “when I was married to Marcos.”

The funds will come in handy; the theater that she has described as “the sanctuary of the Filipino soul” should be fully renovated by end-2025, in the Year of the Serpent (a sign of luxury, according to followers of the Chinese zodiac). Nobody wanted to give a hint of what the new look will be, not even Mr. Laya, and maybe it’s just as well. Some secrets are meant for keeping.

The tribute to Mrs. Marcos was held in CCP’s Gimenez Theater, aka Black Box, where the entertainment was preceded by a four-course dinner, during which she sat between her daughters, Senator Imee Marcos and Irene M. Araneta. In her welcome speech, Senator Marcos noted that with the collapse of the third wall and its takeover by the digital world, there should be “no more starving artists.” Listening to her were Kaye Tinga, CCP president; Fe Roa Gimenez, Glenda Barretto, Vicky Sales, Dulce Romualdez, Marivic Vazquez, Thea Gimenez, Lulu Tan-Gan.

Then a group of singers and dancers came on stage, some of them deftly balancing pots and candles on their heads. But almost immediately the mood was altered, for as soon as Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Jonathan Velasco switched to a familiar melody, the crowd burst into applause: Christmas was in the air!