Penguin Café

I was born in Malate but my Bohemian life there started only in the mid-1990s. Like any native of any place, I was quite unfamiliar with the popular haunts the small, Manila district had to offer despite the fact that most of the bars frequented by folks from out of town were a mere walking distance away from where I lived.

I have to credit my friends from Instituto Cervantes for having introduced me to one of the most iconic Malate watering holes, the Penguin Café on the corner of Remedios and Jorge Bocobo street near the famous, Remedios Circle. It was flanked by equally popular dining places as the Bistro Remedios and Café Adriatico, the Oarhouse and the Korean Palace restaurant along Adriatico Street.

A few blocks away were the Café Carribana and El Tercer Mundo, the latter also owned and run by Penguin proprietress, Amy Miciano.

Penguin was the quintessential “artiste’s place”, serving up bubbly cocktails along with “Earth Music”, poetry reading, paintings, installation and performance arts, photography and dance. It was one of the best places to be on a Friday or Saturday evening and into the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning.

It was not unusual to bump into famous actors and directors, photojournalists and reporters, painters, ex-pats and esoteric yet interesting people who can neither paint nor write or were born with two left feet.

Malate, back then, was a place to let it all hang out—literally and figuratively! You can get drunk with pitchers of Zombies, and Chi-chis, Margaritas, Mojitos, local beers or you can choose a different kind of high with some hashish, ganja, acid or whatever anyone was smoking and no one would judge you for your indulgences.

On one very wild night, an artist friend opened up a show of his photos and for us, that meant we would round up professional musicians and street players like myself and we’d just play any tune. Grace Nono would render her trademark chants and I’d play with her backup musicians. This impromptu performance would commence right after the ribbon cutting thingy and without waiting for a cue, someone would just bang on the drums and shake the “rain sticks” and all hell would literally break loose!

In the melee, someone would unwrap a huge bundle of incense sticks and light up. That’s when we know it’s time to jack up the ganja and chant and howl and up the tempo, madly and insanely banging on the skins, tapping the tables or bottles with whatever we could get our hands on. It would be mad frenzy of primal screams and melodic moans, howling, laughter and all this while the music never let up and never losing rhythm and everyone was in one synchronized trance that no one dared to snap out of!

In between thuds, thumps, rattles and howls, I would take my Nikon FM2 and take quick snaps of stoned musicians and artists and mesmerized spectators. It was a time when analog was king and film was my fuel. To this day, I am amazed at how I was able to work while under such an altered state of consciousness. It was almost superhuman to think that I would still be able to label each roll of film I’ve shot with both a number sequence and date and I would find exposed rolls neatly secured in their plastic cases, ready for processing in Quiapo.

It was also there where I came in drunk from tequila and couldn’t hold everything together that I messed up the urinal with so much puke that I had to unclog the fucking drain with my bare hands!

This was what Penguin meant to all of us who converged on any given night, not only on the weekend. The bars would usually close at 2:00 am but it was not uncommon to find us lingering until the magtataho came peddling his protein fix which was a welcome reprieve for those nasty, Tequila hangovers.

One never really got up and dressed to go to Malate. You just went in whatever you were wearing at the time you decided to or you’d show up as casually as the house clothes you had on. Besides, one never “decides” to go to Malate but rather, compelled to show up whether or not you had the money to spend or people to see. You just made up an excuse to go and that was it! Once you get to Julio Nakpil St. or Remedios, there’s a good chance you’d bump into someone like the late, Jess Armas; Marissa of Episode Café; Hank of the Verve Room or the late, Ditas Gomez who was one of the liveliest party-starters when she was around. There was Hanna Lagman who got me deep into filmmaking and tv production and almost got me to get my arm inked permanently! There was the late Larry J. Cruz of the LJC Restaurant chain or Ronnie Lazaro with Joel Torre and Raymond Red in tow.

Anyone who was in the media, theater, filmmaking, advertising, business, and the arts was there and we discriminated no one! Buskers like me would play any instrument they could get their hands on but I preferred the African, Dhoumbek or the egg shaker or the kubing or an empty cigar box to play percussion with.

There was the eccentric, Jess Abiju who would don garish costumes and float around, looking for someone to sketch and make into a caricature. There were Neco and Nancy who had a table of hand-made jewelry over at Episode. Romano, the Colombiano; gay couple, Hans and Budoy; there was this American writer, Scott Decker from Boston who became a good friend and one who introduced me to Tom Waits; Christian Becker and Bo Razon playing impeccable, Afro-Cuban music; Jose Dufort, backing them up on drums; Migui Gomez, who educated me on the finer points of knife collecting and cigars in general and Victor, who always bought my orange-flavored, Isabelas and Coronas.

Back in the day, I would walk down Julio Nakpil with a box of “treated” cigars and ten pesos in my pocket and at the end of the night, I would come home drunk as hell with the same ten peso-bill still in my pocket! I could barge into any bar: Episode, Penguin, Café Havana and I would find someone who’d buy me a drink and all I needed to do was go hop three or four bars and have a couple of beers in each and I’d be all set! If I’m lucky, someone would roll up a Bob Marley and I’d be flying high as a kite on top of the 6 or so beers I’ve already chugged!

There may be thousands of stories and secrets and mysteries that went on in that hallowed place, much like there were thousands of magical moments in the tiny district that locals and foreigners will always come to love. Sadly, at the turn of the millennium, Penguin and most of the Malate bars we’ve called, “home” would go the way of the dodo. I myself, would finally grow up, clean myself out and took the media profession seriously while the others would retire permanently from the restaurant business. Like the ghosts that once haunted it, Penguin Café and the rest of the bars of that era, would live only in our deepest of hearts and fondest of memories.