Jack The Scribbler

Very few remain aware of the Thursday Institute for Transformative Ideas, a small group of self-proclaimed experts, many of whom prefer to drink in Quezon City,  because its members live there.

Like most Filipinos, members of the Thursday Institute—overworked males with few useful skills such as myself—offer solutions to the country’s urgent problems without being asked. The enthusiasm with which they propose ideas are usually proportional to the amount of alcohol they’ve consumed so far.

Which is to say that the idea being discussed gets crazier with every gulp of beer (i.e., capital punishment for traffic violators, a proposal seriously considered on the fifth round of drinks.)

Perhaps the most hotly-debated topic in recent memory involved public transportation, a favorite subject next to Maureen Larrazabal and plasma TVs.

The group recently discussed the pros and cons of putting up a bus rapid transit system along EDSA, the country’s main thoroughfare.

Establishing a segregated—and possibly even elevated—lane along EDSA to be serviced by an extended bus would do wonders for commuters. It was exactly the same system implemented in Bogotá, Colombia, one member said, with the conviction of someone who has never been to South America.

The concept was later lost in the haze of idle chatter and inebriation. After all, they knew very little about what they were talking about.

But then again, ignorance never got in the way of their enjoyment.

This explains why every Thursday, the institute named after the fourth working day of the week has kept on meeting at the same watering hole for the past three years.

Stormy weather, political instability, and professional responsibility has not diminished their commitment to drink, pontificate, and indulge in one-upmanship in the establishment that has become their second home.

Thanks to their regular patronage, the watering hole—located along Maginhawa St. in UP Village—has informally named a dish in the group’s honor.

Dubbed the Thursday special, the dish consists of tenderloin tips fried with garlic and served on a hot plate. It is so tasty that you can have it any day of the week.

Unfortunately, for the past few weeks, the institute’s weekly meetings have been postponed indefinitely.

The establishment that has hosted the group’s meetings has been shuttered by the Quezon City local government, citing what appear to be reasons of very little consequence.

A few months earlier, when the establishment encountered difficulty in securing a liquor license, no one took it seriously. The restaurant’s patrons—both sober and otherwise—thought it was just a wrinkle easily ironed out by a combination of charm and chutzpah.

They were wrong.

In September, the establishment—together with a row of three similar restaurants beside it—was served with a closure order.

To this day, the order remains in effect.

Besides depriving its owners of a fair return on their investment, the order also substantially reduces our chances of getting cold beers, a nice table, and tasty pulutan during Thursday nights, an injustice any way you look at it.

ADRIAN Cristobal could have written the great Filipino novel.
Unfortunately, his social, political, and journalistic engagements  arguably prevented him from doing so.
After all, everybody needs to earn their keep, a lesson not lost on Cristobal, who, despite having occupied the helm of the Social Security System (SSS) during the Marcos regime, emerged as one of the Philippines’ highest paid and most versatile literary artists.
His early fame and eventual fortune did little to destroy nor discourage his abilities, allowing him to produce a lecture that dealt with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, formulate a preface to an imaginary Philippine literature anthology (in the tradition of Stanislaw Lem and Jorge Luis Borges), and compose I, Suliman, a short story reminiscent of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius and Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian.
Meanwhile, his pieces for dailies and weeklies were as well-written as those produced without a regular deadline, reportedly prompting a female sex therapist to make a flattering but nevertheless risqué comment about his writing style.
He even wrote in Taglish at least twice for his column in a local English language daily. The first was intended to poke fun at the colloquialisms of a certain presidential daughter while the second was to underscore the confusion plaguing the national government’s language policy.
Although he freely admitted that the pieces he wrote for newspapers were “perishable,” Cristobal later agreed to have them published in  Pasquinades, a collection of columns for the defunct Sunday Globe Magazine.
When the book was launched at the Manila Hotel’s Champagne Room in September 1993, Cristobal was, during that period, teaching at the University of the Philippines.
However, unlike lesser mortals, the college dropout never asked nor demanded for a teaching slot.
Cristobal was invited to teach by the state university’s English department, hoping that he would boost its writing program, which, like UP’s coño kids and communists, was not taken very seriously.
To ensure the invitation’s acceptance, Cristobal was offered full use of a small library as his classroom. Named after National Artist for Literature Francisco Arcellana, the room, at that time, was one of the few department facilities that was airconditioned.
While what UP offered was a small consolation—and the pay even smaller—Cristobal agreed to teach in the same institution whose Board of Regents he was a member of decades earlier.
In June 1993, Cristobal began to meet his dozen or so students, which he immediately christened the X-Men, after a group of comic book superhumans whose adventures he followed when a grandson convinced him to read about it.
As a result, his students—mostly English and Mass Communication majors—were instructed to name themselves after any one of the group’s characters.
Shortly after the class adopted the names Storm and Cyclops, among others, Cristobal, not to be outdone, proclaimed himself as Professor X, also known as Charles Xavier, who headed the fictional group.
During the first few meetings, Professor X asked his underlings what they expected from class.
An English major, who adopted the name Bishop, said that he wanted to write like the professor.
“Just having half your wit would be enough,” he said, trying his best to flatter the man of letters.
The professor tried to hide his amusement.
“If that happened,” he replied, “what would that make you?”
The class suddenly fell silent, recognizing that the situation was ripe for a razor sharp one-liner.
“You’d be a half-wit, that’s what,” the professor said, smiling.
The student laughed and took it in stride.
It was, after all, a put-down that could come from the one and only Adrian Cristobal.

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This was published in the January 2007 edition of Personal Fortune, the monthly magazine of BusinessMirror.

From an October 9, 1993 Philippines Free Press article entitled Response by Adrian Cristobal, a speech read by the late Filipino writer immediately after Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. delivered the opening remarks for the launch of Pasquinades, Cristobal’s collection of columns. In his speech, which was also published in the same issue, Locsin said that Cristobal and him had a pact never to publish their columns because “these things are perishable stuff.” “If you didn’t catch Adrian’s light pieces in the Globe, you have yet another opportunity to skip them in this volume,” Locsin quipped.

DON’T go away.
Besides, you can’t. All the exits are closed.
This is my revenge.
But to be serious—for once.
thank you, Teddyboy, for words that penetrate right through the sacrum. There is a bare bodkin in my thorax.
I now regret that I didn’t ask you to write the introduction.
There will be a next time.
to be serious, it is a starless, dark night outside. The firmaments are one black hole.
The reason for this is that all the stars have come down from the heavens to gather here at the Champagne Salon.
I am tempted to retire in glory.
But first let me say that the book in your hands—they should be in your hands—was written without the thought of fortune or fame. As a matter of fact, they were written with absolutely no thought at all. That is why I am a columnist, or a potential Cabinet member.
Having reached this pinocchio of my success I feel entitled to give some advice to the writers present.
First, you must have a wife as a gravitational force to my chaotic universe, the radiant source of virtues of which my being is deprived, the lifeforce that breeds the six siblings that are the envy of Lear.
Second, you must have an editor of consummate altruism—that is, free of charge—and talent.
Third, a publisher like Anvil in the corporate manifestation of the compleat kulitatrix Karina Bolasco. Note: Kulitatrix is not a Latin word, it means makulit, but charmingly so.
Third, to make the launching the success that it is, you need friends, solicitors like Tony Baranda, Annie Ringor, Boy Togonon, Ernie Tolentino, Joe de Velezsky, Butch del Castillo, Maricel Lopez, Myther Bunyag, Alice Reyes, Raoul Victorino, Michael Tan, Cesar Sarino, Joe Velez (did I say that already?), Leslie Bocobo, Pinky Roque, Malou of Raul Contreras and Raul Contreras himself, Guillermo Picache, Maricel Lopez (did I say that already?).
But most of all, you who are gathered tonight whom I will remember in my will.
Your presence is not a tribute to my humble gifts, which are considerable, but to that friendship without which life would bot be worth the price of a book.
Talent is a matter of opinion. But friendship is a matter of fact.
I toast you all.

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From the groupie dept. Fans of Adrian Cristobal can read two essays included in Pasquinades, the 1993 National Book Award winner for the essay category, by clicking here and here.