Ruben Toledo 1955-2008
I was very young, 18 years old maybe, when I first met him. I was a scholar of the CCP Dance Company, now Ballet Philippines (BP). “Who’s the gorgeous guy?” I whispered to my friend, Maribeth Roxas, as he stepped into the rehearsal hall. Always on the look out for partners who were taller than us, we were stunned when we saw this dashingly handsome, tall, young man. His name was Benjie Toledo.
She did become Benjie’s girl and I did become his partner mostly.
We became a foursome, double-dating during breaks at Harrison Plaza where our boyfriends got all the attention. We went to gay bars too – the ‘in’ thing to do in the 70’s. I don’t know why Maribeth and I punished ourselves. Walking into a gay bar with two handsome men meant pure condemnation. I overheard one gay say sarcastically, “Uy ang gandang bakla (What a gorgeous fag),” as he looked straight into my eyes.
In the 70’s and 80’s we were young vibrant dancers touring Australia, Southeast Asia, Europe and the USSR. Maribeth and I would shop in high heals while Benjie and Nonoy tagged behind carrying our load. Benjie was always bursting into laughter and I loved to make him laugh by ‘insulting’ him whenever he was my partner.
I’d say, “Hoy Benjie, nag sipilyo ka na ba ng ipin? (Did you brush your teeth?)”
“Wa ha ha!”
“Nag deodorant ka na ba?”
“Wa ha ha!”
“Pare, buhatin mo naman ako (Haul me up). I keep falling when you lift me …”
“Eh pare naman, kasalanan ko ba kung para kang isang sakong bigas (My friend, is it my fault if you’re like a sack of rice)?”
Well he was right. I was heavy. Benjie was a sensitive partner – the kind that makes you look good before making himself look good – and all the girls felt secure dancing with him. He also partnered Maribeth, who changed her name to Elizabeth Roxas and became a star of New York’s Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Lyd Lyd Gaston, another formidable dancer/actress in New York, and Gina Mariano who now resides in Europe.
All was not perfect for our picture-perfect Benjie though. I had qualms about writing this undisclosed detail in his life, something only the dancers knew about, so I asked permission from his guardian Tony Fabella if I could include it in my story. Tony said it was part of his life and not writing about it would make my narrative incomplete.
Whenever he was tired he had ghastly nightmares – and during our tours he was always tired. He would be in a sort of frenzy, scream, pound on doors and virtually attempt to escape from something traumatic. Why, no one ever knew.
Was there something in his past that caused this? Not even his guardians, Tony and Eddie Elejar, could tell.
Benjie was brought by a mysterious woman to Hospicio de San Jose, an orphanage, at the age of 4. She never went back to get him. He had no birth certificate, was without family and his only link to the past was his mother’s name, Rosa. He stayed at the orphanage till he was in grade 6 after which he transferred to a seminary in Bicol. When he
returned to Manila he studied at the University of the East.
There, a friend introduced him to Tony who took him to the CCP Dance Company. Tony and Eddie became his guardians in a quaint apartment in Maytubig St. Under their tutelage, his career in dance and modelling flourished.
I noticed a kind of solemnity veiled behind Benjie’s sunny disposition.
He always had a faraway look, like he was pledging something to the future. I sensed it was a determination to make something of his life. Despite the love that poured from people he was a lonely soul. When we all went home to our families every night he must have felt isolated and Benjie masked this with the brightest smile. In between dancing, he modelled and entered a world far removed from the Nutcrackers and Swan Lakes at the CCP. I do know he made friends with many models who remained his friends throughout his life.
In the early 80’s Benjie left for Hong Kong, then the US. I was not to see him for almost 25 years. He later told me he managed as an events supervisor, retailer and whatever else he could handle just to survive.
Making it in New York is an impressive thing for someone who had nothing but talent, persistence and a goal. When Nonoy went to New York in the 90’s he stayed with Benjie who embraced him like a long lost brother. Nonoy brought back a video of them bonding in his apartment and there was our Benjie beaming and calling me pare all over again. How happy his face was. Nonoy again sensed his loneliness in the hard slog that was New York.
Two years ago I got a surprise phone call. “Pare … guess who this is? Wa ha ha!”
“Eh di sino pa kung hindi si Benjie Toledo!” I screeched,
recognizing his booming laughter.
He was in Japan on his way to Manila but we talked for an hour picking up from where we left off; trying to squeeze two decades in 60 minutes. I was talking to my kid brother again at last. When I finally saw him I was again stunned. At 50, he looked as dashing, trim and robust as I last laid eyes on him. “Benjie, I thought I would never see
you again,” I whispered during a serious moment. For some strange reason, I really felt this reunion was significant.
He stayed briefly for that visit but returned to Manila several times. Again, I sensed something mystifying in Benjie. With that same faraway look, he told me he had been going to mass and receiving communion every single day for the past years.
He was making a new baffling pledge to the future but this time he was in a big hurry. He wanted to do so many things; establish business partnerships in Manila, see old friends and meet new acquaintances. I found him fairly makulit and would
tell him so in exasperation. Finally, I promised I’d give him the best-looking Filipina dates even though speed seemed to be the prerequisite.
“Teka lang,” I said, “looking like that … how come you never married?”
His face turned serious as he muttered, “… a heartbreak … but I haven’t really found my soulmate.” Benjie was always surrounded by women but kept back some 30% of his love when it came to relationships.
“Well she’s out there somewhere and I’ll help you find her!” I said smugly.
“I’m not sure I can be with Filipinas …” he added.
“Oh yeah?” I exclaimed. “Be careful of what you say because you will end up with one.”
Then he broke into the vintage: “O, pare! Saan na ang date ko!?”
To which I said, “Eh bakit ka ba nadmamadali (Why the heck are you in such a hurry)?”
An ominous question.
Not long after he found out he had cancer, stage 4. His time was running out. We were all shocked to hear that he was diagnosed with something called Mestastesez Adinocarcinomano Primary or pancreatic cancer. His lungs and liver had
mestastesized and the cancer cells had invaded his kidney, adrenals and skull. He had quietly endured stomach pains in the past but an acute pain last November forced him to seek medical help. The news spread quickly and friends offered their heartfelt support.
Thanks to former BP dancer Peping Antonio’s emails to friends all over the world, personal contributions poured in A benefit show, organized especially for him
and Tony Fabella by Miguel Braganza, was held at the
Wings Theatre in New York. Special healing masses were also arranged by friends at the San
Lorenzo de Ruiz Chapel in the States and by Rosky Hilado in Manila. All throughout the seven-month ordeal, Benjie remained positive. He wanted so much to live.
He wrote me: “My fifth chemo was Feb. 20, 2008 and the next chemo will be next
Wednesday. Then I have a break for 14
days for my CT SCAN to see whether the tumor is gone or healing. And I'm very sure it is healing and disappearing fast. I am so blessed that you have me in all your prayers. Thank you … Little donations go a long way. Right now I’m feeling good everyday. Very positive and praying a lot, offering all my sufferings to HIM. THANK YOU once again. Benj”
Even as the cancer in his lung, liver and head were considerably reduced, his body eventually resisted chemotherapy and health declined. He lost weight and shaved his head. By then his stomach had bloated because of the fluids retained in his lungs and liver.
God sent angels to take care of Benjie. Jojit Fernandez, her husband, Martin Musial, Jojit’s sister Chico Bonoan and her husband Tody, who was his primary
doctor, plus Jay, Tody’s brother were his bona fide family in the States. Benjie always spent weekends, Christmas, Thanksgiving and holidays with them. After he was diagnosed in November, he stayed with Chico & Tody since they lived close to the hospital. They did all his errands in his days at St. Joseph’s Medical Center.
During the various times he returned to Manila, we just heard about his visits. “Hey,” I’d tell Nonoy, “I heard Benjie’s in town. How come he’s not calling us?” And I found out why. He had found his soulmate, the one I promised to give him but failed to. He found her on his own and she was to take care of him till the end.
Mara was a model he met in the early 80’s. As everyone moves on to find his or her niche in life, she and Benjie went their separate ways after their initial connection. They bumped into each other again in Manila early last year. It is difficult to describe the phenomenon of two soulmates recognizing eachother at last given the fact that commitments are set up in place. All I can say is, God may have worked out Benjie’s ultimate request – to find the love of his life – and granted it to him at the conclusion of his journey. God chose Mara because of her strength to love absolutely and then let go.
Benjie was deliriously happy because she spent those precious last moments with him. “I’m living for Mara,” he told a very good friend, Lady Sandy – he, who never had a enduring relationship. “He admitted he could never love anyone completely,” Mara adds. “There was always this fear of being abandoned and he was so happy to love someone unconditionally at last.” It was Mara who taught him to dish out love at 100%. And Benjie too, in sharing his last moments with her, brought dazzling enthusiasm into her life.
Her description of his final days is moving. “He had a burst of energy from April to mid May when I was with him. First of all, he felt great to be back home in Manhattan. We walked, dined out, watched movies and just talked and talked every day. I had to go back to Manila and by the time I returned in June he was already confined at the hospital.
“When he had acknowledged his fate and submitted everything to God, we talked about what would happen after he goes. He told me he wanted to be cremated and then he bequeathed his ashes to me. I was to take him back to the Philippines for his final resting place and I decided on a crypt in Santuario de San Antonio in Makati so I can visit him everyday. When I told Benjie this he cried like a child, saying, ‘At last I will have a home.’
“At St. Joseph’s,” Mara continues, “I saw how he inspired the hospital patients and staff. My most tender recollection of him is that he remained faithful and prayerful up to the final days. How he touched people’s lives! There was a Jamaican nurse, Sharon, who would always give him a hug and together they would bow their heads in prayer. He moved everyone to pray. He was really loved. He had an aura that drew people to him. During those days, Benjie was still stretching his legs … you know … he was still so flexible! I exercised him … and our friends would constantly massage his legs.”
Benjie’s close friends, Jesse & Edna Limson, Orly and Leah Bartolome, Diana Medina and Alberto Cruz were those who visited him everyday, giving him food and doing errands for him. Dr. Joel Lantin, his second primary doctor, also became close to him. He fondly referred to them as ‘the gang’ and Benjie constantly told them, “I will always take your worries, your problems and sickness and offer it to God and pray for you.” He was submitting his anguish to heaven for everyone he loved.
Mara relates, “In the early morning of June 25, he started having cramps starting with left finger to the thighs to the feet, suffering, suffering so much in the whole body. He cursed this pain. Morphine didn’t help. All he had to do was push a button for it to drip inside his body but he didn’t. And there was a tube that kept draining out liquid in his stomach. He just kept shouting, ‘Mara! I wanna go!”
Later in the day when two friends came over he said to me, ‘Mara, ayusin mo ako’. He wanted to look good up to the very last moment. The nurse awakened me at 4 am the following day to say that his breathing was slowing down. I held his hand and called Dr. Bonoan, Jojit and the gang to come immediately. They didn’t make it on time. I was the only one with Benjie at 4:50 am on June 26 when he drew his last breath.”
A Filipino priest told Mara that Benjie was a chosen soul, someone who prayed for others, and who died a saintly death. A memorial mass at the Blessed Sacrament Church in New York was held on June 28 and attended
by close friends and colleagues. Present were Benjie’s beloved gang.
Goodbye Benj. You will be my brother for keeps. I will always
remember your laughter, your looks, your determination, your success, your sadness and your fears. You had an incredible journey on earth where friends loved you more than a mother, a father, a brother or a sister could ever have. Alone, you made something out of your life. You lived, Benjie. And your soulmate did come for your transition to paradise.
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