Magandang hapon po, maayo nga adto. Ako po si Bombit Largoza. I’m a mid to late-career academic at De La Salle University. I do behavioural and experimental economics.

I first met Ma’am Marj 31 years ago, as a student enrolled in what I believe was the inaugural Women in Literature course at DLSU. I was the only straight boy in that class but back then, it didn’t matter.

Anyway, many will disagree, including herself, but I’m convinced I got Peak Evasco. Early 90s Ma’am Marj was at the apex of her pedagogical powers, a real enchantress, the wisest of women working an overhead projector.

Over the years, whenever the chance arose, I’d sit in her grad school poetry classes or attend her public readings and lectures, including a most memorable one in March 2007 entitled “The Art of Healing and Poetry”. This was delivered at the annual convention of the Makati Medical Society. I was a doctoral candidate at the time — just not to be the kind of doctor who could actually help people. 

Twenty years can pass so quickly on a university campus. The community’s grown so large, there’s almost no chance you can bump into each other on a regular basis. But like all of you, I’ve had my good share of moments of grace with Ma’am Marj, whether just the two of us having ensaymada and hot chocolate somewhere in Malate, or with friends we miss dearly, like the late Dr. Jimmy Ong.

Time spent with Ma’am Marj is like those two birdhouses at the front and back roofs of this gallery, where the eaves meet. At least that’s what I think they are. Have you noticed them? They’re exquisite, like everything in this place, a small spot for itinerant tiklings like myself to rest, recover, and refresh before flying off somewhere, likely a building of glass and steel.

After she retired, I wasn’t sure whether I’d get to spend any kind of time with her again; the woman is everywhere, as you know, and belongs to multitudes.

So it was a real gift literally bumping into her in September 2019 at our University General Assembly. I soon found out she was back to teaching that term, this time offering the inaugural course in Pathography, writing about illness and death, but also healing. I’d been in full-time university admin for close to three years by then, but asked to sit in her class that Saturday…which also happened to be her birthday.

Actually, I’ve changed my mind; 2019 might have been Peak Evasco, but for an intensely personal reason. I took that class, and another one, graduate-level on the Art of Translation, in the nine-month period between the deaths of my parents. 

So here we are, in December 2019, having brunch at Le Bar in Sofitel Manila, on my mother’s first death anniversary. My mother had loved it when Ma’am Marj read Is It the Kingfisher at my wedding. I always tell friends: blessed is the boy who grows up with two women in his life: a loving mother, and, what Ma’am Marj will always be to me — a cool Auntie.

The world went into lockdown three months later, so Ma’am Marj and I switched to long-form email correspondence. I highly recommend emailing Marjorie Evasco to anyone should we ever have to endure two years of enforced isolation again.

By February 2021, we’d all gotten used to Zoom, and that’s how I reconnected with Dinah (Roma), and met Prof. Leo Abaya who had lovingly agreed to design the book. It was Prof. Leo who offered rhizomes, or subterranean rootstalks, as a motif, not just as a digital illustration, but later painstakingly implemented as embossed prints.

Prof. Leo as some of you may know, succumbed suddenly to cardiac arrest in May 2021. I never had the chance to meet him in person, but his presence lingers tenderly over every page of this book. Br. Hansel Mapayo SSP, full of good counsel, arrived by the grace of God, to help us continue the work.

For our non-academic friends, a Festschrift is a book honouring an eminent scholar, made up of contributions from colleagues and friends, presented during her lifetime, usually on a significant occasion: one’s retirement year, or in this case, a 70th birthday, one’s Platinum Jubilee.

Earlier this year, I’d worked on the Festschrift of another dear mentor of mine Dr. Tereso S. Tullao, Jr. That one was a special edition of the DLSU Business and Economics Review, a Scopus-listed journal which he had edited for nearly 20 years. It consists of six essays by colleagues and former students now in the profession.

Not to compare, but Ma’am Marj’s Festschrift currently stands at 447 pages. The world record for Festschrifts belongs, as I understand, to Joseph Vogt, the German classical historian. It spans 89 volumes. Dinah, I know you’re on sabbatical, but at the rate we’re going, if we reopen the Google Drive, who knows..?

Last night, 15 of us got on a boat to watch the fireflies along the banks of the Abatan River. Toward the end, one of our companions, seated at the back, called out to Alvin Pang in front asking “Alvin, you going to write a poem about the fireflies?” 

Immediately, Alvin, whose work I quietly hold in great esteem, replied, “They’ve been done by many.” Moments later, after a pause, at half-volume, he asked the question one can only think about in near-total darkness: “Can a poem be better than being here?”

Ma’am Marj, can a book be better than being here? Thankfully, on this day, we do not have to choose. Here is Rhizomes and Rhythms, your Festschrift, your liber amicorum, your book of friends. And we are here. Happy birthday. You’ve been beautiful for 70 years. Many happy returns.

Amarela Gallery, Panglao
21 Sept 2023