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He was introduced to us young instructors in English by a lady
professor who had studied literature under Mark Van Doren in
Columbia University. He looked very young, thin, and almost shy.
“Let him lecture in your classes, meet with your students,” she
told us.
So I did, that very day, in my class in English
3: Introduction to Literature. He asked for a copy of T.S. Eliot’s
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and proceeded to talk about the
poem and the poet to my curious students. He read the poem with
feeling to my curious students, who were just a few years older than
him, and a few of whom had already shown precociousness if not
genius. David was an instant hit as a very widely read and very
knowledgeable boy in his early teens.
He would come regularly to Diliman to meet with
our students, and interact with members of the UP Writers Club, the
older (professors) and the younger ones, the Ravens. He would invite
us to his home in Ermita, in a squatter compound in the corner of
Mabini and T. M. Kalaw streets. He had a stuffy salon of sorts with
a name in inscrutable French translated by one as “The Cave of
Angels.” He would have poetry readings and show us his art work,
some drawings in smudged board. I think his guests including a few
from “high society” contributed drinks and some food.
David was hailed as the boy genius. How someone
who seemed to have no formal schooling developed himself had become
the subject of speculation. David and his family must have been
survivors of the battle for Manila in February 1945, lost their
home, and built their barong-barong amid the ruins of their
neighborhood. A story went that a literate Englishman adopted David,
wandering about Luneta, brought him to Hong Kong, and initiated him
to the life of books and art. One doesn’t really know much.
He became part of the literary and artistic
community, particularly the Ravens group with Adrian Cristobal,
Larry Francia, Andres Cristobal Cruz, and others—even joining the
group in a rally before the US Embassy protesting the killing of a
Filipino by a sergeant named Roe at Clark Field. The seven
protesters played on the serviceman’s name by calling the atrocity
the “Roe Deal.”
I lost track of David after I left in 1957 for
graduate study abroad. He had himself gone to London which has since
been his base.
He visited Manila in the late 60s bringing home
something new in art – kinetic art and his bubble machine. I am
not sure if his exhibit was at the Cultural Center; probably not,
because he was one of three artists who picketed the opening of the
Main Theater, with the First Lady and the glitterati present. I
asked him why, and David said the massive CCP building reminded him
of fascist architecture in Europe. The locals would later call it
“edifice complex.
-- Elmer A. Ordonez
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