met him in the late sixties sa A.S. basement, UP diliman. writer na siya noon, contributing sa Collegian. i was impressed and inggit. ran into him again more than a decade later in the very early 80s, in another basement, the Metropolitan Museum’s, where Metromagazine, the weekly multi-channel tv docu, was being produced for the Metro Manila Commission by marita manuel and jorge arago’s gang of visual artists. he was in the entertainment industry na. from writing movie reviews and PR stuff, he had branched out to screenplays for award-winners such as Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa, co-written with raffy guerrero (1974) and Pagputi ng Uwak, Pag-itim ng Tagak (1978) with lando jacob and direk celso ad. castillo.
at the time i was writing feature articles, later a tv junkie column, for Parade magazine, and on the side reading birthcharts of everyone who asked, including iskho (sun in aquarius, moon in virgo). and then i got into the Philippine Sesame Street Project as headwriter, along with noel añonuevo as light action film director, and iskho gave it a try, writing for kids, na kailangan funny and appealing, like a tv commercial, pero no special fx at ang daming bawal. naloka siya — declared himself for-adults-only.
in ’84 when jorge and most of the gang had moved out of 1818 kansas st. in malate to bliss pasig and landlady evelynne horrilleno was still in the states, iskho and lorrie purisima turned the main house into a coffee house of sorts and called it Kape Talismo. at the time i had moved on from Sesame and joined jorge in putting out a journal on alternative futures (junie kalaw’s call for sustainable development), meeting twice thrice a week sa marietta apts., also in malate; invariably we would end the day in kansas, having cold beer and kamote fries with whoever else happened to drop in on iskho.
“….it was quiet on the hippie front off taft,” sabi ni krip yuson, “until Iskho Lopez came up with his Kape Talismo … celebrity chefs were featured, but the exclusive clientele couldn’t pay in cash or have plastic cards swiped. They had to exchange their lucre for Kape Talismo dollars, if I recall right.” i do recall one night with celebrity chef baboo mondoñedo, but kape-talismo-dollars is new to me, maybe because i never asked. i do remember dropping cash into an urn passed around by santi bose.
martial law pa noon, post-ninoy, and the ferment was real, especially on the “hippie front”. there was a palpable sense of a center that wouldn’t hold, of things coming to a head, and kape talismo (loved the word play) was a great place to hang around with kindred spirits from left right and center, almost presaging the EDSA to come. or maybe good vibes lang talaga ang 1818 kansas, at si iskho na rin, who was also writing movies sunudsunod for elwood perez.
after EDSA parang kinareer na ni iskho ang publishing. in cory times he asked me to write for Bongga, a showbiz tabloid that he was editor of. binuhay niya ang tv junkie column ko and let me go taglish, which was fun. bandang 1990 nuong full blast ang anti-US bases campaign, i was asked to put together a proposal for a multi-media multi-genre campaign for the Philippine Information Agency.(PIA). pinagtulungan namin ni iskho at naibigan naman ni noel garth tolentino ang trabaho namin, inspired! sabi pa niya. except that cory suddenly went pro-bases and we were dropped like hot potatoes, as in, ni hindi kami binayaran kahit man lang for expenses incurred. hayz. laking tuwa namin sa salonga senate nang mapatalsik anyway ang bases.
early in FVR times he was with Manila Standard as lifestyle/entertainment editor; bitbit uli ang tv junkie. and then in 1996 there was ISYU, the all-opinion tabloid with nonoy marcelo as art director that was even more fun than Bongga because i got to write not just showbiz stuff but politics and environment too.
panahon din ni FVR when an advertising bigwig who learned that i was putting together a chronology of the four EDSA days made bulong, in case i hadn’t heard, that rosemarie “baby” arenas, rumored ex-mistress of the prez, was one of the first people to come out in support of the two bandidos. i started asking around, sinong may konek, magpa-interview kaya? iskho to the rescue. kilala niya si mila alora, publicist ni ms. arenas, next thing i knew, we were on our way, katrina, iskho, and i, with gerry gerena who videotaped the interview. i leave it to katrina to make kuwento what she and iskho were cackling about while wolfing down bowls of pistachio nuts behind the scenes.
in GMA times post-garci, when she banned celebrations of the 20th EDSA anniv at the shrine, and nagtawag si jojo binay sa ayala, makati, who should we run into but iskho, with the chiz contingent, if memory serves. from showbiz to politics, why not. the year before had not been great. we were in bistro remedios with him and jorge, noel and ed pacheco — galing sa private viewing ng A la verde, A la pobre (2005) ni briccio santos — and ed and noel, taking turns, kept breaking into song… “don’t cry for me, argentina”… sabay nguso kay iskho a.k.a. “evicta peron” — di na naman nakakabayad ng rent! tawang tawa kami ni katrina, i guess dahil rin cool na cool naman si iskho, tipong what else was new nga naman. which is why the fulltime job sa Manila Times as news desk editor was really good news. and, as it turned out, parang itinadhana.
next stop: malacanang palace, no less. “Uy congrats to kafatid Iskho Lopez,” sey ni salve asis nuong sept 2010: “Bongga. Na-appoint siyang Editor in Chief of the Presidential News Desk. Yup, sa Malacañang na siya nago-office. … Si Sec. Sonny Coloma ang immediate superior niya.”
nakarating tuloy ako sa casa roces, that very sosyal resto across the palace, where iskho hosted a dinner for me in october 2011 dahil di siya nakarating sa august launch ng Revo Routes. noon ko nabitbit si jorge for the last time at umapir din sina leah makabenta at nini yarte, at si noel, of course, bitbit si mayee fabregas. better late than never si direk elwood perez plus 1.
in 2013 when my book designer for EDSA Uno requested a copy of gen. fabian ver’s blackboard map of the EDSA camps that had been preserved and was reported to be on display in the Presidential Museum and Library, walang kahiya-hiyang binulabog ni katrina si tito iskho sa palasyo. as always, iskho was the gracious host: made sure she and partner vito were on the guest list for the day and even met them at the gate (tight ang security, they had to leave laptops and camera behind). he had also earlier scoped the museum (na ang gulo pa raw) and so knew where exactly the blackboard was. siyempre katrina stole some shots on her cellphone. pagkatapos ay nagpameryenda pa si manash sa casa roces, hindi nagmadaling bumalik sa trabaho, must have welcomed the break from palace politics.
huli ko siyang nakadaupang-palad in feb 22 2014. nasa casa roces kami ni katrina to join honey de peralta’s book club Flips Flipping Pages in a discussion of EDSA Uno (2013) on the 18th anniv. jumoin din si iskho, at pagkatapos ay we hied off to BGC to meet up with noel for a long dinner and chat, mostly about ishma, whose anti bio was next on my list. nakabaston na si iskho noon but he denied really needing it, napulot lang daw niya sa taxi, lolz.
tuloytuloy pa for a while ang tawagan namin sa telepono at messaging sa facebook. tuwing may iskandalong nababalita, siya pa rin ang aking touchstone. totoo ba? kung minsan he’d shrug it off, nagpapapansin lang; pag totoo naman, tiyak na may dadag siyang tsismis na delicious. he had quite a network, and he seemed to know everyone worth knowing. once he phoned just to tell me: hoy, si ano, nagsusumbong, tinag-team daw niyo siyang mag-ina! tatawatawa. ahahaha.
nuong ginagawa ko na ang Pro Bernal Anti Bio (2017), may pangalang nabanggit si ishma sa isang interbyu by aruna vasudev na hindi ko ma-place.
ISHMA “We were influenced by three big festivals in the mid-60s that were initiated by the glitterati, principally headed by Rejii Moreno. His film society, for example, showed Kurosawa films like Rashomon, plus the great Satyajit Ray flms – The Apu Trilogy, … Charulata. We even got to see classics like The Cranes are Flying from the Soviet Republic.”
i first asked ed cabagnot who had just shared some vignettes on a couple of bernal films for the book. sino si rejii moreno? sagot niya: “Naku, try Iskho Lopez… He might know.”
ISKHO: Hahaha! Talaga? “Rejii Moreno”??? Sino siya? “HE” pa ang gender, ha! … Virgie Moreno had the Salaguinto Film Society in the mid to late 60s –siguro 1965 or 66 to coincide with Los Indios Bravos.
again, iskho to the rescue! he knew his stuff. and i could go on and on with these memories, ang dami ko pang kuwentong iskho. ngayon ko lang naarok that he was such a part of my writing life, from showbiz to politics. and i’m so kilig for him that jullie yap daza’s nov. 28 column “Passing through” says goodbye to him in the same breath (so to speak) that she says goodbye to altasociedads ado escudero and louie cruz (also gone in late november), noting their “glory days”.
I assume Iskho Lopez knew Ado and Louie, even if it’s not likely that the two moved in Iskho’s circle. Iskho’s last job ended in 2016 with the Benigno Aquino III regime, for which he was chief editor of Malacañang’s news desk. Eternally a free-lance entertainment writer-editor, he surprised his colleagues when he bagged that position, miles away from the stars but close enough to rub elbows with the high and mighty.
Ado, Louie, Iskho: Passion was their calling card.
bongga ka talaga, iskho! talbog kaming lahat! #NotBadAtAll