A Danish-Filipino love story

By Herbert L. Vego

 

THIS nonagenarian Danish friend of mine has decided to spend the rest of his life with his Filipina wife in their farm home, where he recently celebrated his 93^rd birthday the COVID-19 way – that is, with very few guests, .

Henning Blegvad and his Filipina better-half, the former Melanie Estrada, are probably the most popular couple in Barangay Cadinglian, Oton, Iloilo because of their generosity. They are the only private citizens who donated classrooms and computers to the public elementary school thereat.

One morning when I chanced upon them in a coffee shop at the Atrium mall, the gentleman from Copenhagen, Denmark waxed enthusiastic reminiscing the circumstances that sealed his fate with a Filipina wife.  They have been married for 33 years since 1987. And so he considers himself a Filipino by heart.

“How did you two cross paths?” I asked.

“I was a pianist in hotels and clubs in Canary, Spain in 1984,” he recalled. “I needed a maid to clean my house. So I asked a friend to contact a part-timer to do the chore.  One day, this woman showed up and introduced herself as the contacted house cleaner.”

Henning was 57 at that time; Melanie, 20. Though he had children out of wedlock by then, both were single.

Melanie had come to Canary to baby-sit for a Spanish couple. Not even in her wildest dream did she see herself exchanging “I do” with a famous pianist.

In that decade of the 1980s, Henning Blegvad had already built a reputation for himself in the music industry, having recorded original piano pieces and accompanied world-famous American singers. He was more than old enough to settle down.

It was love at first sight for the Dane and the Filipina. They wed in 1987 in Canary, Spain, and thereafter came home to Iloilo.  Having stashed away enough savings to tide them over, he bought her a house and a three-hectare rice farm in Cadinglian.

She had become a true-to-life Cinderella, transformed from house cleaner to “queen.”

On top of their farm’s income, the Dane still receives a monthly pension from the government of Denmark.

“In Denmark,” he said, “a taxpayer is entitled to a lifetime pension in the event he is no longer fit to work.”

While looking at Melanie, he recalled, “Without her, I would never have come back to the Philippines.”

He had already been in Manila for the first time in 1980, carrying a sample of a life-saving laser equipment in the hope of closing orders with Philippine hospitals. Unfortunately, he returned to Copenhagen with no deal whatsoever.

Born in Aurbus, Denmark, Henning started playing the piano at age 7. Music was in his blood; his dad Soeren was a trumpet player.

That early, he was also philosophically inclined. Though he belonged to a Lutheran congregation, he would not swallow hook, line and sinker the lessons taught in religious instruction.

“I remember that when our teacher told us about Jesus Christ walking on the sea,” he said, “I expressed disbelief and asked him to prove it with a scientific explanation. He walked over and slapped my face.”

That experience pushed him to abandon religion and concentrate on his music career.

Sometime in the late 1950s, he was playing piano at the American Officers’ Club in Garnish, West Germany when a very familiar American recording artist, Bobby Darin, walked in.

“Bobby said he liked the way I played,” Henning reminisced. “And so he invited me to perform with him in his global tours. I did it for many years.”

To this day, music producers in Denmark have not forgotten him. The last time he flew home to Copenhagen for a pre-pandemic vacation, one of them asked him to record new piano arrangements for the old love songs As Time Goes By and Le Meir.

-oOo-

 

OUR lawyer friends have been asking how the Supreme Court (SC) came up with a “split decision” in deciding on the constitutionality of  the law (RA 11212)  granting MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) the new 25-year franchise as power distributor in Iloilo City.

The SC en bank had voted 8-6 (8 in favor, 6 against, one abstained), thus reversing the judgment of the Mandaluyong City regional trial court (branch 209) which had declared sections 10 and 17 of the law of RA 11212 “unconstitutional”.

The legal minds are curious because they had expected a unanimous decision. The SC had much earlier restrained the Mandaluyong court from implementing its decision, which could have enabled “expired” franchisee Panay Electric Co. (PECO) to hold over.

Until now, however, neither MORE Power nor PECO has received a copy of the decision.

As MORE Power’s resident lawyer, Alyana Babayen-on, was telling us, “it’s a landmark decision that could land a space in the next bar exams.”

It’s because no similar case involving the expropriation of a distribution utility had previously reached the Philippine courts.

The perplexing question that nags:  What if the SC had sustained the finding of the lower court?

Certainly, it would not revert the franchise back to PECO.

As every Ilonggo knows, Congress had rejected the application of PECO for renewal of franchise because of customers’ complaints over overbillings and inefficiency of service, among others.

Well, let’s wait for the SC decision before further analyzing it.

Kumporme si Castro; pero ambot lang si Cacho because he might opt to file a motion for reconsideration.