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Sandugo’s Loy is Sinulog’s Loy
By A.M.B. Apalisok

Loy naturally is Tagbilaran’s, nay, Bohol’s,  Loreto Monceda Palapos.  For those who go for some sense of irony, if not a sense of xenophobia, Bohol’s Loy is a product of Cebu City’s Colegio de San Jose-Recoletos (CSJ-R, now the USJ-R) who hails from Dalaguete in southern Cebu.   

      Chances are, well, here I must correct myself posthaste?it’s not by chance that he’s a true-blue Cebuano from a specific area in Cebu where accomplished generations come from.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that the nooks and crannies of other places couldn’t produce their own artists and achievers; it’s just that this particular swath in Cebu gives the impression that it has more of them.  And Loy Palapos comes from this area.     

      Here lies sweet irony.  It comes naturally to Loy to claim that he feels more Boholano than Cebuano.  Being married to a Boholana obviously was the start of his life-long affair with the province.  Thence there was no stopping his total immersion, which means giving his all to the province’s culture, history, and current civic activities, lending gravitas to the province’s social scene.  This Cebuano had thus chosen to conduct his life as a true-blue Boholano, a time-honored case of one’s loss being the other’s gain.  Loy Palapos is Bohol’s gain.   

      If being and feeling Boholano is to bear witness to the city’s and province’s dynamics and development, then Loy is one of the current prima inter pares contributing witnesses.  Among his many honest-to-goodness involvements in various socio-cultural-civic and tri-media activities in the city and province is his serving as chair of the Bohol Sandugo Foundation ,Inc.     

      It’s not for me to give a rundown of his accomplishments and curriculum vitae.  (That’s his area when he writes of other people, in some other part of this paper.)  In fact, he had written much about other people’s accomplishments it makes me wonder if he ever bothered to look at his own numerous ones.     

      Which brings up my insistence, after deductions and reductions, that the invisible, unknown hand behind Cebu’s Sinulog is Loy Palapos.  No one need tell me that, much less Loy Palapos himself.

      There was the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  Loy was the assistant regional director.  Those were times when I sporadically met Loy during sportsfests of government agencies.  More often, he served as the emcee at opening ceremonies.  Once, he even saw me from a throng of paraders and mentioned my name on the microphone.       

      From his vantage then, I believe the cultural part of youth development, in this case the historic Sinulog of Cebu, was conceived in its current form.   

      I look back through the decades and get more convinced that the design, from the conception to planning, coordination and implementation, had the imprint of Loy Palapos.  Yet one never heard his name mentioned in the build-up.  Which is just as well.  I always knew him as someone beyond petty acclamations, and was always proven right.     

      It is for educated and well-bred Loy Palapos to know his place in the scheme of the universe and bestow credit to his boss, as was proper.  (It’s not unlike a miraculous economic turnaround of our country at this point in time; it would be to our president’s credit.  The invisibles are the economic planners and enforcers.)  That boss for his part eventually turned the Sinulog over to a government unit that’s in the best position to give it continuity? the local government.  One gentleman deserves another.         

      I have always looked at Loy Palapos as my mentor first and friend foremost.  Thus I address him differently at different times as either Sir or Nong Loy.  The Sir is a vestige of my years at the then Divine Word College when he, still in his twenties then, was teacher, stage play director, and school paper adviser.   

      The Nong Loy was a product of an innocent question I posed long ago, at the Cainggit Beach.  I call your wife Nang Marie, why shouldn’t I call you Nong Loy?  I like the sound of it, he had answered.   

      As his properly placed humility had often shown, from Sinulog to Sandugo, his is a creative mind secure unto itself, the kind that spells immeasurable and meaningful service for his beloved place and time.  Luckily the place is Bohol, the time is now, and the man is Loy Palapos.  Had he not been in its midst, Bohol would have had to invent him.

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