By Fernando Zialcita y Nakpil
Recently Benito Legarda y Fernandez (Benito Legarda V) passed away — another victim of COVID-19. He meant many things to me. Despite an age gap of more than 15 years, we were good friends. WheAs a fellow scholar interested in promoting a more balanced view of the Spanish period, he would sometimes call me to check on a particular aspect of history he knew I was interested in. I looked up to him because of his high standards. n he reviewed my book Authentic Though Not Exotic: essays on Filipino Identity, his overall admiration for the book did not keep him from criticizing sections of it like my wrong attribution of some 19th century illustrations or my misinterpretation of a passage in his book After the Galleons: foreign trade, economic change and entrepreneurship in the 19th century Philippines. Increasingly, with the passing away of my relatives and other friends, he was one of the few Filipinos I could chat with in Spanish. There was a special bond too because of the close ties between the Nakpil and the Legarda.
Dr. Ariston Bautista married Petrona Nakpil. They consolidated two existing Nakpil houses located on Calle Barbosa in Quiapo, Manila into one single two story house designed by Arch. Arcadio Arellano. Nearby on Calle Hidalgo was the Legarda house, now the site of Manuel L. Quezon University. Dr. Bautista, according to Beniting, was the family doctor of his grandparents Benito Legarda y Tuason and Filomena Roces. They fondly called him, not with the Spanish “doctor” but with the French “docteur.” Ariston, like many of his colleagues in the Propaganda Movement admired the liberal ideas of the 1789 French Revolution. In addition, he loved the French style. A significant part of his house furnishings came from France – dinnerware from Limoges, glass from Baccarat. Ariston, however, as a member of the Propaganda Movement, was a staunch nationalist as well. He believed in patronizing local talents. He advised the Legarda, the Roces and the Prieto (all interrelated) to buy the works of Juan Luna, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and Fabian de la Rosa. A sound advice indeed and a sound investment!
Whenever Ariston and his wife threw a party at their home, the Legarda gladly came as a contingent recalls my mother and her sisters. After dinner, the Legarda women would troop to the kitchen to hug and congratulate Ariston’s sister-in-law Gregoria de Jesus. Always he would ask her to please hang around in the kitchen to see how the chefs from the Hotel de Paris cooked their French dishes. He trusted her extraordinary culinary skills. By smelling and sniffing a dish, she could figure out its ingredients and how it was made. This skill, I am told by a Pampango friend, is something he learned growing up at home in Pampanga. His father would ask the children to figure out the composition of a dish by pressing their noses close to it. Gregoria was a Tagalog, but she loved to cook, invent new dishes and copy complicated French dishes.
There were bonds too between the children of Benito Legarda y Tuason and Filomena Roces, Benito IV and Teresa. Benito Legarda y Roces, Ben for short, became one of the best friends of Juan Nakpil, nephew of Ariston and Petrona and son of Gregoria de Jesus and Julio Nakpil. Similarly, Teresa, Ben’s sister, nicknamed Titic, became one of the best friends of Julia Nakpil, eldest daughter of Julio and Gregoria.
The friendship that developed between Beniting and myself, despite the difference in age, continued the tradition. The last time Beniting and I were together were at a small sit-down dinner hosted by the current Spanish ambassador Jorge Moragas Sanchez in February 2020. As soon as Beniting arrived and plumped down into a comfortable sofa, he asked aloud, “Está Butch aquí?” to which I replied, “¡Ya estoy!” During the dinner, he regaled us all with his wit and stories about Manila.
Adios, Beniting.
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