Goodbye, Sid

Sid Gomez Hildawa, 1962 - 2008

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. today, and found two text messages bearing the same sad news. One from Roel Hoang Manipon, the other an unknown number. Our friend Sid Hildawa is dead.

I could not go back to sleep. It's two more hours before my regular walking schedule, so I tried to pass the news to other friends.

Sid was an architect, painter, and poet. I have always admired his dedication to art. Last week, I learned from Elvert Bañares that he was sick. I tried to contact him but he could not be reached. He must be at the hospital, recuperating. But today I got the news he has passed away. I learned from another blog he died of typhoid and dengue.

My first encounter with Sid Hildawa was at his exhibit at the old Ayala Museum many, many years back. I did not know him. He did not know me. His show was just right after the Tiananmen massacre, and his works looked to me like enlarged graphing paper painted over thinly by white, so that one could barely see the drawings underneath.

His second show that I went to was the ode to Mona Lisa at the CCP. It was his statement on the duplicity of art offered by the xerox technology, so that even Da Vinci's obra is no longer safe from reproduction/modification. To a probinsiyano like me getting an introduction to Manila's post-modernism, the huge artwork looked like a giant gift-wrapper. I would learn later that Sid had been given a 13 artists award.

As artist, Sid was indeed way ahead of me, or of the many.

I first met him at an NCCA meeting for the National Committee for Museums and Galleries (NCMG). That was around 1991 or 1992, when I was still with Nayong Pilipino. I admit (as I have admitted to him) I had a crush on him. He had a religious aura then. He was wearing a white shirt and looked like a seminarian. Precious Leaño introduced me to him, but I knew he would forget me just as soon as the meeting started.

In 1995, Sid and I met again at the 2nd Iligan National Writers Workshop. Our friendship started there. We worked out together at a nearby gym. At the workshop he became a hit with his "Wind)ow to the wind" poem. But in a trip to Marawi, all of us fellows discovered something about Sid. He snored. And how he snored. No wonder his roommate Roel Hoang Manipon preferred to stay out late at night to early morning in Iligan. Where we spent the night at Mindanao State University, no one wanted to sleep beside him. Good thing he had such good humor to accept all the ribbing.

After that workshop, Sid came up with a publication called "3ng" an anthology of poems and artworks in limited edition. We had to submit 30 copies of our work and he bound them. We had a launch at Penguin Cafe in Malate. Later, that same year (1996?) we would both find ourselves teaching part-time at the Philippine Women University. He taught painting; I taught Theater Arts.

Then he seriously pursued literature by taking an MFA in creative writing at DLSU. He would always text everyone whenever he had a poem published in Sunday Inquirer, Starweek, or any publication. He would invite everyone to a poetry reading he was in. He won his first Palanca with his play "Heartbreak Motel," and later for his poetry.

He visited me in Antique in 1999, when I organized the Antique Arts Festival. Came back again for Binirayan two years ago. He was here last year at about this time to monitor our museum project for the NCCA. Sid and I had nurtured a friendship that was genuine enough to bridge our distance from each other. Our text messages to each other were sparse, our meetings rarer, but we knew we have a friend in each other everytime we would meet and hug, or exchange news about each other in his office at the CCP.

This morning after I received the message from Roel and I couldn't go back to sleep, I took out the book "What the Water Said," which he gave me on September 3, 2004. He wrote on the frontispiece: "To Alex, from many waves ago till now, Sid." I used to kid him that the book's title must be "What the waiter said," referring to our private jokes about attractive waiters whenever we had a chance to go out for dinner together.

In "Cleaning" he wrote: "age is determined by one's/surrender to soil." But I am sure Sid did not surrender, because all his life he was defining his own space. In "God explains space to His angels" he said:

"....Space is the disposable
furniture of a mind
enmeshed in its own
metaphors, brandishing
a meter stick under
our immeasurable
sky.

You'll need wings."

By now I am sure Sid has his wings.

I will surely miss you, my friend.