Dolphy and ACJ: End of two eras

By Andrew Jonathan S. Bagaoisan

Rodolfo “Dolphy” Quizon and Angelo Castro, Jr. (Courtesy: ABS-CBN)

From Makati Med to Heritage Park, they did not end. The ordinary and the famed both came to pay their respects to this great. And when time or distance prevented, Filipinos tipped their hats to Dolphy all the way to cyberspace.

The King of Comedy’s final days saw a nostalgia trip in pop culture as his past performances made a comeback on TV.

With that, the tributes on Twitter and Facebook recalled Dolphy’s unforgettable characters and their impact on generations of viewers.

Similar sentiments echoed as our reporters took the pulse of those who showed up at the hospital and the memorial park.

It was no different back in April when another TV luminary, anchorman Angelo Castro, Jr. passed away.

The physical line was shorter, the media noise less, but the collective recollection streamed nonetheless—especially online.

Viewers old enough to remember revisited the days when newscasts in English were still the norm for late-night.

Salamat, Tito Dolphy at ABS-CBN’s Dolphy Theater (Videos upon clicking – Shot by Anjo Bagaoisan)

In Dolphy’s wake, Filipinos resurrected John Puruntong and Pacifica Falayfay.

The deaths of famous people conjure up not just personal memories of them, but also the zeitgeist (the spirit of the times) during their heyday in the public eye.

And now in this age of the digital village, we have realized all the more a shared loss of one less character who embodied our hopes and experiences.

With the loss of figures like Dolphy and Angelo Castro, we are also nudged to look back to their times and reflect how things have differed since.

The night Dolphy died

By Andrew Jonathan S. Bagaoisan

Sol Aragones breaking Dolphy’s death on ABS-CBN News Patrol. (Shot by Anjo Bagaoisan)

I will remember where I was when I learned we lost Dolphy.

The big story that day was the extreme traffic wrought by keeping the Metro Manila buses along one lane of EDSA. Our van was at a concrete island on the turn to Quezon Avenue from EDSA.

After we aired a live report for TV Patrol, the news desk told us to stay put while deciding if we would do another for the 11 p.m. newscast.

It was nearly 9 and raining. A crew mate and I were already settling down from dinner, shut in our crew cab.

The desk editor on duty called. “Who’s on standby at Makati Med?”

I gave the name. “Okay. You get ready too,” he said, and hanged up. I called our guy at Makati Medical Center.

“Nag-tweet na si Ruffa,” he said. “Nag-aabangan na dito.”

We read Ruffa Gutierrez’s post via a workmate’s Blackberry: “R.I.P Ninong Dolphy.”

The Net was already abuzz, but no one was yet confirming it.

Commentators on DZMM radio were still bantering about the traffic, cryptically telling listeners who texted queries, “Please wait. We still don’t know.”

At the ABS-CBN newsroom: Monitoring TV channels covering Dolphy. (Shot by Anjo Bagaoisan)

By then, we were told to pack up, pick up some hardware at the base, and proceed to Makati Med. Another crew watching traffic elsewhere in EDSA was diverted there too.

The TV news break greeted us when we got to ABS-CBN. Dolphy’s partner, Zsa Zsa Padilla, confirmed that Dolphy had indeed passed away.

And just like that, our headlines quickly shifted gears from commuting to the loss of a showbiz great.