Tribute: Joe Dacawi. 1945 - 2011

Harvests from the Internet relating to Joe:

Jose S. Dacawi. He belongs to the second generation of Baguio-based journalists. Together with his DZHB colleagues, he lost his job when Martial Law was declared in September 1972. As the Baguio Midland Courier was curiously spared from clamp-down, he then wrote the
"Martial Law declared" for his headline story.

3 generations of golfers make history at Fil–Am

Another history was etched on the historic fairways of the world’s biggest and oldest amateur golf tournament with the exciting participation of players from three generations.

Thirteen year old Jan Zeddrieck Dacawi, a certified champion jungolfer many times over, joined hands with father and lawyer Joris Karl Dacawi and grandfather Jose Dacawi in facing the best parbusters of the 61-year old Fil-Am Amateur Golf Tournament.

Playing in the prestigious annual golfest, which attracts almost a thousand players from here and abroad, meant overcoming the short but tricky Baguio Country Club and the back-breaking and winding Camp John Hay fairways in four straight days.

Jan, a freshman at the UB Science High School, has a 19 handicap—lower than the elder Dacawis who enjoy handicaps of 20.

“I don’t think there are players like them. Maybe brothers like the Alviars but not coming from three generations,” mused Anthony Del Leon, the amiable BCC general manager.

However, Jan was forced to join the Baguio Jungolf team after the latter formed a team for the two-week Fil-Am golfest. “We could have played together at SummerCap,” laughed 42-year-old Joris who is just in his first Fil-Am tournament while son Jan has enjoyed the perks and challenges of three tournaments.

Joris’ 66-year-old father Jose, a former veteran newsman and known as Jodax in the media circle, has played in two Fil-Ams. Jodax has since then retired as city human resource management officer last year and keeps fit by brisk walking and playing golf.

Rest in peace, Joe.

Joe Dacawi, Farewell

Prayers, memories, condolences: goodbye, Joe. We mourn your leaving us, but we rejoice that your physical suffering has finally ended.

Joe Dacawi, veteran newsman for Midland Courier, head of Human Resources at City Hall, beloved City High classmate: we offer you our deepfelt wishes for a good afterlife with Our Lord. To your grieving family, we offer our prayers.

Summer 2011, and we lost one of our dear Class 61 classmates.

Guessing Game 25: Where was this photo taken?

Perhaps you might be able to pinpoint where in downtown Baguio this vantage view would have been, to take this photo. Do share your thoughts on this!

Oblation Ijay UP Baguio

A number of Class 61 went on to become the first ever crop of alert and eager freshmen at UP Baguio for the school year 1961-1962. Are you one of them? Louella? Diana? Who else? What was it like?

An extra-ordinarily beautiful photo of City Hall.

Another old Auditorium photo!

This is a photo taken from the Facebook's Old Baguio Historical Club, showing the Yaranon ladies in front of the city's Auditorium, taken in the 1950's.

Auditorium at Burnham Park

The Auditorium, just below City High, holds a lot of high school memories for many of us. It was here where we saw a lot of choral and dance practice, sat in hard round wooden chairs with pretzel-design iron backs, sweaty palms just before a performance, VIPs sitting in front. Because I had older siblings, I was quite young when we attended school functions there: I was usually nodding off to sleep when the performances and programs held in the evenings started. And I remember being carried out by my father since I was in deep sleep at the last number: those steps were all I recall of the school event.

This is a bit of history of the Auditorium: it was constructed and finished in 1943, and where the Queen of the Baguio Carnival, Miss Martina Salming, was crowned. She comes from the Carino-Carantes clan, and her escort was Dr. Hillary Klapp, a US-educated doctor of Igorot descent and family friend of the of the Carinos.

Do you have any photos of the Auditorium that you could contribute? Much appreciated.

http://manilacarnivals.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

Guessing Game No. 24. They met in Baguio!

When we were in the elementary grades in the early fifties, a 17-year-old girl from Finland was crowned (by Hollywood actress Piper Laurie) the first Miss Universe at a glittering ceremony in Long Beach, California.

Nobody could have imagined that she would become an adopted daughter of the Philippines when she married a Filipino gentleman. Their love story was immortalized in a movie entitled Now and Forever.

Later in the year, she was invited to crown that year’s Miss Philippines. During her stay she met her future husband in Baguio through a blind date.

Lawmakers discarded their usual "parliamentary sobriety" when she called on then Senate President Eulogio Rodriguez and Speaker Eugenio Perez. Smitten by her beauty, then Rep. Ferdinand E. Marcos (Ilocos Norte) introduced himself as the only eligible bachelor in the House and confessed that his knees gave way after meeting her up close and personal.

She crowned Cristina de Leon Galang (1953 Miss Philippines), with Benigno Aquino Jr. as her escort. Two days before her departure, she danced the rigodon de honor with the winners of the Miss Philippines contest and prominent social figures during the Farewell Ball. Shedding tears, Armi left the country for Hong Kong and Japan with a heavy heart.

Indeed, she won the hearts of the Filipinos particularly the then 25-year-old chap who studied banking, marketing and foreign trade in Columbia University and at the same time worked with the Philippine National Bank in New York. Friends in the know believe that one of the reasons why she was swept off her feet by him was because of his dancing skills. He was an expert in mambo, samba, rumba and other ballroom steps.

He followed her to Tokyo where their romance blossomed until they mutually agreed to get married on her 19th birthday on Aug. 20. He gave her a three-carat diamond engagement ring. But love couldn’t wait. On the wee hours of May 3, he was involved in a scuffle when he defended her from a drunken American newspaperman who tried to harass her inside the Cosmopolitan Nightclub.

Before the incident, she chose to give up her Miss Universe crown and title, her plans to take up physical education and language and make more movies but decided to marry that day instead. He was sporting a black right eye when he exchanged marriage vows with her (who wore a blue nylon lace gown and carried a small bouquet of roses), officiated by Rev. Fr. Bruno Blitter, at the St. Ignatius Church in Yatsuya, Tokyo, with her sister Irma Kyromies as matron of honor and Roberto Villanueva (then VP of Chronicle Publications) as best man, a close friend. She received a brand new 1952 Cadillac as a wedding gift.

After their two-month honeymoon in the US and Europe, the couple settled in the Philippines. They had five children and six grandchildren who now live in different parts of the globe, namely: Arne, Anna-Lisa, Jose/Jussi, Eva-Maria and Miguel/Mikko (the only one based in Manila).

He became the Forbes Park barangay captain and also Honorary Consul of Finland which elated her no end. She became a Camay Girl and she posed with her family for print and commercial ads.

Hilario died of a heart attack on September 7, 1975, and Kuusela married an American diplomat Albert Williams, on June 8, 1978, and they now reside in California.

I recall that my sister Carmen and her friends in Class "55 "stalked" her and got a black and white photo autographed by her.

Do you have any recollections of our long-ago past? (50 years!) Send them in!

(from various sources)