INTRODUCTION

PEOPLE
Yano
Romeo Lee
Manny Villar
Nur Misuari
Benjie Paras
Dino Ignacio
Eraserheads
Jerry Barican
Obet Verzola
Jessica Zafra
Zider Lubiano
Myla Algarme
Gary Granada
Raymond Red
Mike Defensor
Jerome Bailen
Eric Altamirano
Amante Jimenez
Miriam Defensor
Malou Mangahas

ISSUES
ID
UAAP
STFAP
US Bases
Collegian
Frat Violence
SAMASA split
SR controversy
Sexual Harassment

It was in one of those dimly lit, poorly ventilated rooms at the topmost floor of Palma Hall where I first saw Professor Jerome Bailen. He was wearing faded jeans and a brown jacket over a plaid shirt. He was smoking pipe, the smell of which would later stick in my memory like a sore thumb, along with his weird, muffled laughter.

He Who Taught Sex...
The course was Anthropology 187 (read: Sex and Culture), the elective most students would salivate over. Bailen started teaching the course in 1974, when it was first offered in UP. As he gave a rundown of the class requirements, I concluded that he did not belong to that school of educators who found it orgasmic making their students live through tons of readings, paperwork, and exams. Aside from the group report and final paper, he demanded only one thing: that at the semester's end, we would also remember the "culture" part of the course.

Oftentimes, he would not meet the class because he had to attend to his "other responsibilites." Being a forensics expert, his services were often required in completing legal narratives and in naming unidentifiable corpses. As if to justify his absences, he told us of his involvement in the identification of the burned bodies in the 1996 Ozone Disco tragedy. I learned from my seatmate that Sir was also part of the team tasked to name the victims of the sunken M/V Princess of the Orient in 1998.

Tales from the Crypt
One night, I heard Bailen's name mentioned on TV. The show was featuring the case of a Navy enlistee who was found dead inside his cabin. His batchmates, citing the suicide note found on top of his table, said de Guzman committed suicide. His family and Bailen, on the other hand, claimed he was murdered. Later, I learned more of Bailen's involvement in high-profile cases. In 1995, he asserted that Flor Contemplacion could not have killed Delia Maga, stressing that the former was left-handed (or was she right-handed?) and the real killer was not. And in what I eventually discovered as his baptism of fire in media limelight, he was one of the anthropologists who declared in 1986 that the Tasaday tribe was a hoax.

Yet creepy tales of death, intrigues, and threatening phone calls would not frighten off Bailen. He said all those were an integral part of his vocation. Besides, he believed he was "the only one who ha[d] a stomach for [those cases], and maybe, … the only one with the courage to defend [his] conclusions."

A Life Less 'Ordinary'
But dead bodies were not always part of Bailen's life. Anthropology was not even his original interest. In 1960, he finished an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts at UP. He then enrolled at the UP College of Medicine, but he did not finish his degree and instead taught science at the Philippine Wesleyan University in Cabanatuan City. Thereafter, he studied M.A. Psychology in UP, but after coming across the word "anthropology" in one of his books, his interest shifted. In 1965, nine years before he finally earned his M.A. in Anthropology, he became a faculty member at the department where he is currently an Associate Professor.

In between teaching Anthropology, identifying dead bodies, and working as consultant for the organization Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND), Bailen engages in yet another one of his diverse interests - chess. Aside from winning tournaments here and abroad, he served as coach of the UP Chess squad, and taught the game in a P.E. class. In a published interview, Bailen said he prefers to die falling off a mountain or coming down from an exhumation site - anything, as long as he was doing something meaningful and useful. But at 58 years old, when he still looks full of vigor, perhaps it is quite immature to talk with Bailen about his death.

I just don't know about the sex part…