Remember “Tang, tarang-tang,” the weekly comedy show featuring Pugo, Sylvia la Torre, Patsy, Leroy Salvador and Bentot? It was given a new treatment at the height of the ideological battles during the late 60s and the early 70s, when a nascent youth movement took on their elders and questioned why the revolution under their leadership had not advanced.
The show’s ditty never escaped the attention of Francisco “Dodong” Nemenzo Jr. since the version promoted by national democratic activists went like this: “Ako’y si Dodong Nemenzo, si Princess po naman ako//Ruben Torres and ngalan ko… Tuwing Sabado, ika-pito, lahat kami ay naririto…” At one time, Princess Ronquillo Nemenzo, Dodong’s wife, asked other elderly activists to secure the song’s complete lyrics, perchance to hear it being sung again in good humor. Joseph Scalise’s help might be needed if he could find any shred of the lyrics, now missing from memory, in the 43 boxes of Philippine Radical Papers.
Dodong Nemenzo, the 18th president of the University of the Philippines (UP) died on Dec. 19 at the age of 89, seven weeks before his 90th birthday. Once a pillar of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP), Nemenzo headed the PKP’s theoretical journal when the party was saddled with serious theoretical and political issues, like the PKP’s surrender to the Marcos dictatorship in 1973, with Dodong reportedly ruing that “mas mabuti pa ang CPP at NPA, lumalaban.” The fight between the PKP and his group, particularly the younger cadres, was so antagonistic that several people were killed, including Omar Verdote, who was stabbed dozens of times. Dodong himself was targeted for elimination until the message reportedly reached the PKP that “if they do it, they will know what terror means.”
Dodong has known trials and tribulations, from getting stoned in Manchester during marches, all because he was at the tail of the march, where a clump of Trotskyites gathered. Then, there is the agony of knowing that despite the hard work of organizing the youth, firming up ties with the workers in the urban centers, and exposing himself to arrest while driving his Volkswagen and looking at a map of a certain village in Quezon City to find out where his reliable cadres were living. Dodong was fortunate enough not to end up like Charlie del Rosario, who was murdered, with a noose looped around his neck, all because he was tagged as the link to Jose Ma. Sison, who had already survived an assassination attempt.
Aside from being a Marxist scholar throughout his life, Dodong should be credited with protecting UP from the abuses of the Marcos stormtroopers. Like the late Dean Armando Malay, he worked to defend students targeted for arrest and harassment by state forces during martial law. He sought guarantees that the consultative groups of students would be recognized and legitimized. Unlike Dean Malay, he never saw his students incarcerated at the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) holding cells in the early days of martial law. Dodong is a pillar of the Pan Xenia Fraternity, which is based at the UP College of Business Administration (UPCBA), to which former Senate President Manny Villar also belongs.
Yet, during the 1970s, Dodong was also a regular at Pab’s Bar, the office of Dean Pablo Botor, the likable chairman of the Department of European Languages at the then UP College of Arts and Sciences, where whisky and whiskey flow at exactly 5 p.m. every Friday. Spirited discussions came liberally during those sessions, in which professors tackle every issue under the sun and munch on finger food. The late Prof. Virgilio Hildalgo, who taught German and moonlighted at UP theater, was a regular with his fiery pork recipes while the literary figures dropped by to narrate their never-ending stories, including one who smashed a mirror at a toilet that never retaliated. Adrian Cristobal used to drop by with his Australia-made Marlboro cigarettes and copious stories, hinting at the kind of spins Malacanang was churning out and the scenarios the propaganda machine was producing or fabricating.
Dodong, fondly described as the “Father of Visayan Marxism,” had written a number of treatises about the path of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines and why the many streams always end up in the same lake, contrary to the strange wishes of foreign scholars like Joseph Scalise, who reduces the fortunes of revolutionary movements to their being swamped by Stalinism and their failure to grasp the more relevant Trotskyite framework. The Trotskyites tried to steal the wind from the sail of Filipino revolutionaries but failed. That is how relevant they are.
Dodong is also better known as the jogger at the UP Academic Oval who does the rounds with his British cigarettes secure in the back pocket of his shorts. That’s how dedicated he was to his running and his smoking. Even as he was confined to a wheelchair, Dodong never retreated a swig of single malt when a visitor presents him with a bottle. He never really lost the spirit. As the Americans say, “Never talk to a man who doesn’t drink.” Cheers, Dodong! (DIEGO MORRA)
