Editors’ Note: Soledad “Choleng” Dato Hidalgo wrote weekly articles under bylines: My Two Cents’ Worth, From My Vantage Point, Perspectives, and With Hue and Cry for Naga Times, Bicol Tribune, Bicol Mail. The prolific writer was also the author of feature articles in magazines like The Bicol Digest, BICOLANA Magazine, other dailies, and commemorative souvenir programs. The second of our featured series of articles written by Choleng Hidalgo, she writes about her brother, Luis G. Dato (b. July 4, 1906 – d. January 29, 1985), famed Bikolano poet, writer, educator and public servant from Baao, Camarines Sur.

Last Friday, at a loss as to what to write about for this week’s column, my friend and I sauntered into a seminar jointly sponsored by the Philippine Press Institute and the Bicol Mail at the Holiday Hotel. Who should turn out as guest speaker but my one and only brother, Luis Dato, whose subject for the morning session was “Bikol Culture.”

I was the most surprised member of the audience, I must confess. For while Mr. Dato spoke, I suddenly discovered how little I knew about my own brother. He is one man who can intertwine his talk with personal anecdotes which added spice to what I had expected to turn out into a dry academic discourse. He could say nasty things about other people and get away with it. His treatment of some controversial subjects must have piqued some listeners, but his down-to-earth sincerity made one think twice.

One may disagree with Mr. Luis Dato most of the time but one is forced to respect his individuality. He prefers to be away from the flock. He can never be a Yes-man. And he will probably be standing for what he thinks even if he stood alone. He said he came in formal black because he was attending the funeral of Bikol Culture. All his colleagues, Salazar, Arce, etc. – are either dead or dying, just as he himself has one foot in the grave. He wondered whether we have among the young those who are willing to take up the cudgels for the preservation of Bikol Culture.

Well, for one thing, there is the Kabikolan, a society made up of old and young people who are seriously interested in Bikol Culture. But Mr. Dato claimed that it had to take a foreigner like Father James O’Brien to appreciate our culture and to work on a documentary of it.

As an exponent of Combined Dialects representing the different regions to make up a national Pilipino Language, Luis Dato was his vehement self when he said he would die fighting, if fighting need be, to integrate the Bikol dialect which he said is a complete language into the national language.

My brother will probably murder me for this, but my opinion. is quite different. I believe that each region should use its own dialects as a means of communication instead of resorting to foreign language like English.

We should use Tagalog for practical purposes since it is now being used by most media men, radio and TV, movies and comic, books, etc.

Although I concede that an ideal Pilipino language would be the combination of all major dialects representative of all regions so as not to injure any regional pride, any attempt at it would mean tedious work and study which will take a generation, at least, to achieve.

I must say that Mr. Dato loves his Bikol as much as he loves himself. But then, how many of his kind are still around today? Dato is a dreamer, an idealist, and a poet. He flies too high. He is indeed above us ordinary mortals with our feet still firmly planted on terra firma. And this must be the reason, he said, he has never been a crowd-getter.

Brother Luis always me reminds of (Henry David) Thoreau and Walden Pond. He is a lonely man fighting for recognition in a callous and materialistic world. Geniuses are usually rewarded when they’re six feet underground. We have legions of painters, poets, sculptors and musicians who have spent their lives in complete anonymity and poverty. Yet today they still live in the memories of men long after the tyrants and emperors and kings have been forgotten.

In this age of Atomic Bomba and anatomical “Bombas,” Brother Luis is an anachronism. I would be the last to register surprise if my brother really zeroes in on his plan to erect his own monument. It would be remembered as a monument to his deep-seated cynicism.

Header image: A stylized photograph of a church in Baao, Camarines Sur (credit: Luis G. Dato FB page)