This piece originally appeared in the Manila Bulletin Lifestyle Section on May 1 2016.
A short tribute to Luis Katigbak from his technology tech support
My relationship with Luis was one that was kept mostly at arms length. That is, an arm away from the computer screen. My time with Luis was professional at most, dappled with the brevity that would make me want to record all our conversations about the publishing industry, about writing, and about being a starving writer with a need to satiate gadget lust. I read his byline in the early 2000’s, as we were both contributing to a magazine known as The Reviewer which was then acquired by the Inquirer Group. We met again in 2006 – he, launching BURN Magazine with Kristine Fonacier and Zach Lucero, and me right across the room working on Mobile Philippines. By default as the guy who handled the magazine’s blog and reviewed gadgets for a living, I’d be (one of) his go-to tech support and technology consultant.
Don’t panic if you find yourself looking out from whatever household, or office, or town, or planet you’re in, and start thinking, now here’s the sort of place that just gets so damn tired.
You think of how much your city turns on the dull urges of its greediest and its hungriest, how it moves on the slow metabolism of everybody else in between. And you think of how little difference things made in your life if you had gone this way instead of that way, or if you had taken this opportunity instead of not at all.
But there are days you see a picture or read some words or dream a little longer at night, and you say to yourself, now there’s something I might really want to see. Or somebody tells you—in my case it was Erwin (Romulo), and Luis (Katigbak)—about something exciting they have in mind, and you think to yourself, now there’s something I wouldn’t want to miss.
Sometimes we need to rely on our most wistful and our most speculative selves to show us what should have been and what might have been and all those other things in between. For this issue, we found ourselves relying on the finest writing minds we could gather to put together real words and real pictures. Now we depend on your real sense and actual experience to ignore the disclaimers and the dangers, even for a moment, and weigh the real difference.
from “Don’t Panic,†a note by UNO Magazine issue #68 Guest Editor Sarge Lacuesta
And now the synopsis from Luis Katigbak:
Quark Henares takes us on a tour of the strangest corners of his sex life. Jimmy Abad makes a modest proposal. Krip Yuson reimagines Rizaldry. Butch Dalisay shows us the unseen side of Soledad’s Sister. Robin Hemley discovers a cache of old letters to his great-grandfather from a Filipina girlfriend, dated 1904. Sarge Lacuesta encounters a sexbot. Erwin Romulo reviews some really bad albums. Ramon de Veyra showcases the best comics you missed out on. Frank Cimatu sends Pepe Smith into outer space.
Aldus Santos and Cynthia Bauzon-Arre present the last — and lost — Eraserheads album. Arnold Arre and Clarissa Concio-Tiglao take us for a ride in the cars of the future. Yvette Tan writes about fact and fancy, scar tissue and Sta Teresa. Waya Gallardo dines at the controversial aswang-themed restaurant, Kagat, and undergoes a sort of transformation. Patricia Evangelista writes about the rise of Magdalena. Oli Reyes shares a selection from the unknown history of television. Tara Sering comments on a loopy bit of legislation. Neil Gaiman teaches us how to lie. And Philbert Dy attends an orgy.
And no we’re not telling you who the cover girl is.
You’ve probably heard it from the small world of print, but WTF here it is. UNO is bringing in a brand new team with an official reboot to the magazine this June 2009. You will however notice small changes in the current issues of March, April and May ’09 as we work towards a June affair. RJ Ledesma, our new EIC dragged into this: I’m reunited once again with Yvette Tan and Luis Katigbak from the good ‘ol days of Hinge Inquirer. I’ve finally met the faces behind the names: Juan Caguicla, Erwin Romulo, Ramon De Veyra, and Shawn Yao.
