For those who don’t know Toti Fuentes, he is our very own keyboardist, musical director, composer and arranger who made it internationally, accompanying famous song artists in the US in their concerts. He certainly helped enhance the country’s musical reputation in the eyes of the world.
His mother was a pianist and she gave Toti his first lessons in piano-playing. A former seminarian, Toti went to UST Conservatory of Music to study music. Two of his brothers are also musically inclined but it was only Toti who embraced music for a living.
Toti crossed paths with Rico J. Puno who was the front act in a concert in a seminary. Both neophytes, the two of them developed instant rapport and soon they were playing together in a regular show billed as “Rico and Toti” at the then popular Spindle Bar in Quezon City. After that they clinched a recording deal, and in their first record was the song “The Way We Were,” rendered in Rico’s own inimitable way and which became one of the biggest hits in the 70s. Toti on the other hand became one of the country’s most sought-after musical directors, working with then popular artists like Pilita Corrales, Basil Valdez, Verni Varga, Jacqui Magno, The Apo Hiking Society and Hajji Alejandro among others.
After making it big here, Toti decided to try his luck in the US. But he didn’t go there just to find work as a musician. He went in search for his “soulmate,” something he believed was predestined by God. “When I was young, I used to dream of a girl with a crooked teeth,” he said. “She was the girl of my dreams, and I went to the US to look for her.” He found her in 1979 in Chicago, he said, a simple, provincial girl with the same gap in her teeth that he used to dream about! “Hindi siya city girl, pareho kaming probinsyano,” he said. Their chemistry was instantaneous and soon they got married and raised a family. Toti and Joni has three children, two of them Toti himself (with assist from a midwife) delivered because Joni did not want to go to the hospital for her date with the stork.
It wasn’t easy at first being alone and struggling in a foreign country. But with perseverance and hard work, Lady Luck smiled at him eventually and he became one of the very few Filipino keyboardists to make a name in America.
Now, Toti still performs despite the fact that he is afflicted with cancer, a very rare kind that affects only four in four million people. His cancer necessitates him to take oral chemotherapy that costs R200,000 a month! It’s a good thing he has medical insurance in the States, he said. He has lost a lot of weight but he said he has been cured.
But what proved to be the bigger trial and pain for him and his wife was the death of her only daughter Sarah, not his cancer. Sarah, only 19 years, pretty of course and talented, committed suicide by locking herself inside her car to die from deadly fumes from the exhaust. Her car was parked in front of their old house.
Toti said his wife, to this day, still can’t talk about it. Sarah’s ashes were brought to Chicago, but it was her wish to be buried in the Philippines. “She’s an American but she died a Filipino.” They still don’t know what exactly made her want to die, but Toti said her best friend also committed suicide and Sarah was depressed by this, and by his father’s illness.
Toti and family stayed in the Philippines in l999 till 2003. They went back to the US but Sarah came back in November last year upon the invitation of Francis Lumen. Sarah committed suicide in March this year. “She died instead of me, maybe because she knew I still have a lot of things to do,” Toti related. Toti has a scholarship foundation which he founded in l988. He sends to school poor students from Samar, Laoag City, Baguio City and other places. “She became a sacrificial lamb of sort for me.”
Toti shared with us something he called “a wild idea” of his. Next year, he plans to walk from Chicago to Los Angeles, California to raise funds for cancer survivors. “My wife calculated that if I walk eight hours a day, I will have covered the 3,300 kms. distance from Chicago to LA in three to four months. I don ‘t know, as I said it’s just a wild idea. But who knows? I’d like to do it.”
Before her daughters’s death, Toti composed a song entitled “Heaven Will Wait.”
Playing Toti’s character in tonight’s episode of “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” hosted by Ms. Charo Santos-Concio, is Ricky Davao who said he volunteered to do so after watching Toti’s interview with Cito Beltran. “I was moved to tears and I told my manager (Bibsy Carballo) about it. ABS-CBN got so interested in his story and we taped it soon enough.”
Also in the cast are Chin-Chin Gutierrez as Joni; Carl John Barrameda as the young Toti; Eva Darren as Caridad, Toti’s mother; Pocholo Montes as Francisco, Toti’s father; and Miguel Vera as Rico J. Puno.
The story was written by Gilbeys Sardea and directed by Mae Cruz.
Don’t miss this episode on Toti, the dreamer and survivor.
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