Doveglion & Other Cameos

The 1930s were the time of the glamorous amateurs who renewed excitement in the Philippine ring. Their fights made ring history--for example, the epic contest between Roger de la Rosa and Leleng Padilla. There had been a change in the image of the Filipino boxer, form the frankly proletrarian gaudiness of Pancho Villa to the sauver Adonis grace of De la Rosa and the Padillas. The ring had moved up in style. Roses banked the ring when Pempe fought, and society girls roared with the crowd. - Pempe Padilla Stops a Fight

"He spent four years in the fourth grade because he was always playing hooky. He spent most of his time hunting for an anting-anting. Night after night, he would lie in the cemetery, with a string running from his mouth to a banana tree, waiting for a spirit to come to him, using the string for its tightrope." - His Sons Remember Laurel

"I don't have to do anything except be my beautiful self. All I want to be is an angel in a barong tagalog." - Viva Villa!

Those quotes are from three of the "cameos" compiled in this volume--and the cameos are good news pics indeed. Whatever, in reportage, be the stuff that turns event into epiphany, interview into evangel, Quijano de Manila seems to have been on to it. The stuff is here and it's mellow.

Published by National Bookstore in 1977

227 pages / Paperback