How I Met Marj

Simeon Dumdum Jr.

My wife, Gingging (Ma. Milagros), might have mentioned our attending a workshop at the Development Academy of the Philippines in the mid-1970s. The participants came from the different regional offices of the Department of Public Information. Gingging and I worked with the DPI in Cebu then. During one of the sessions, a colleague from Bohol pointed to a shapely young lady who happened to pass by. “That’s Marj from Bohol,” he whispered conspiratorially. “She’s with the DPI Tacloban Office. Hard to believe she now has two children,” he added. I knew what he meant, she had the original Coca-cola body.

Marj wrote poems, I would learn later. She would later move to Dumaguete with her family, and Dumaguete meant Silliman and Silliman meant writing workshop, and writing workshop meant the Tiempos. I would meet her there when I too joined the workshop. She was with a coterie of writers: Anthony Tan, Grace Monte de Ramos, and Fanny Llego. At one time, the fellows met at her place for a tertulia, a word that has nothing to do with Tertullian.

Friendship happens. It certainly did between Marj and us, Gingging and me. Writing became our bridge, although at times I wished it had as binder a few bagols of kalamay, Marj being from Maribojoc.

I have followed Marj’s career, how she sat at the feet of Edith Tiempo and picked her brains and, in the end, became her avatar. No one can hold a candle to her when writing a poem about kingfishers.

Gingging and I greatly value her friendship.