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.
