First posted 09:54pm (Mla time) Aug 23, 2005
By Bayani San Diego Jr.
Inquirer News Service

AT the dzRH office in Star City, co-workers fondly call her “Tiyang.”

After all, Fidela “Dely” Mendoza Magpayo, 85, is the country’s favorite aunt—dispensing sound, if at times stern, advice to love-struck radio listeners for over six decades now.

Her voice (still as dulcet as ever) was her passport to fame. But older sister Lulu Magpayo was the first radio star in the family.

Pre-war debut

“She was the contemporary of Lina Flor, Rafael Ortigas, Koko Trinidad, and Bimbo Danao,” Tiya Dely recounts. “I used to tag along and was soon asked to sing (in a show with Atang de la Rama and Gerry Brandy). First, on IB, which was owned by the same family behind I. Beck department store on Escolta. Then I joined RF, Radio Filipinas, sister company of Radio Manila.”

Dely made her radio debut right before the Pacific War. Later on, at 19, she was recruited by comic Andoy Balunbalunan, partner of Dely Atayatayan, to join the troupe on kzRF.

Not even the Japanese Occupation could keep Ms Magpayo away from the radio and the stage.

“When the war broke, all radio stations were padlocked,” she recalls. “Then kzRH, which was seized by the Japanese, was opened with the new call letters PIAM.”

She sang on PIAM and in various provincial shows. “I sang only Tagalog songs [in the provinces] because most of the people were members of the guerrilla movement.”

For those road shows, the singers were paid in goods. “If the show was held in Canlubang (Laguna), we were paid with sugar.”

When the war ended, Dely wasted no time in resuming her career: “I joined dzRH, which was under the Luz Mat Castro group. Soap operas were the top raters. I was in ‘Gulong ng Palad,’ ‘Aklat ng Pag-Ibig,’ ‘Prinsipe Amante,’ and ‘Camay Theater of the Air.’”
One day, station producer Ray Oliver asked her to host “A Date With Dely,” a Saturday evening game show.

“A year later, on Oct. 6, 1953, we started ‘Mga Liham Kay Tiya Dely.’”

Meanwhile, she also waxed records, headlined stage shows, and top-billed movies. She recorded for Villar, Mico, Mercury, and Bataan Records, which was owned by the Mystery Singer, Cecil Lloyd.

Under the Bataan label, she recorded her most memorable hits—“Una Kong Pag-Ibig” and “Pamaypay ng Maynila.”

After Liberation, she also moonlighted as a leading lady at the Manila Grand Opera House, sparring with the likes of Angel Esmeralda, Pugo and Togo. “I was employed at the Department of Foreign Affairs (she is a graduate of Foreign Service) at the time, as confidential secretary to the DFA chief, Elpidio Quirino. I made P1,440 a year, or about P120 a month—a big sum in those days!”

True calling

But Dely found her true calling as on-air counselor.

So popular was her “Tiya Dely” radio drama serial, it was made into a major movie by Larry Santiago Productions in 1958. She also acted in the movies and was reunited with Pugo in “Sebya Mahal Kita.”

“I learned a lot from Pugo,” she says, “especially comic timing.”

Back on radio, she successfully diversified via other formats, like the talent contest (“Hamon ng Kampeon”) and the kundiman show (“Serenatang Kumbidahan”), but her advice show proved to be the most enduring and endearing.

In 1957, she moved to ABS-CBN’s dzXL, owned by the Lopezes, where she stayed until martial law was declared in 1972. “I then transferred to Veritas, dzBB and dwWW,” she says.

The road home

When ABS-CBN reopened with dzMM post-Edsa, she rejoined the Lopezes but, in 1990, she was lured back to her old home, dzRH, now the Elizaldes’.

It was as if Tiya Dely’s show mirrored Philippine history itself (her radio serial was also turned into a TV drama anthology during the Marcos regime).

Then as now, she personally reads all the letters sent to her show.

“We average 20 to 30 letters a day,” she reports.

Yes, Filipinos are quite a problematic lot and they’ve found a straight-shooting confidante in Tiya Dely.

If you ask her, the most confounding problem she ever had to solve was a listener’s unwanted pregnancy.

“She was a substitute teacher from the Visayas,” she says. “Fortunately, among my listeners was a childless couple. I got them together.”

Another memorable letter she found quite funny. “It was from the wife of an LVN employee. She said her husband wasn’t turning over his salary. I told her to visit the studio every Friday, collection day.”

Her LVN colleague was dismayed!

For logging in 65 years on the air, she has been hailed as “First Lady of Philippine Radio,” a title she finds a bit daunting. “I don’t know why they started calling me that. I hope the others won’t feel slighted.”

Standout

Occasionally, she looks back on her days as a cub reporter for dzRH. “Florentino Das, a Filipino who sailed from Hawaii to the Philippines on a boat, was honored by the Navy in Malacañang,” she reminisces. “I was assigned to cover it.”

At the ceremony, Dely the greenhorn stood out from among the uniformed testosterone pack.

“President Ramon Magsaysay himself grabbed my mike and gave me an exclusive,” she gasps. “I guess he took pity on me. Back at the station, everyone congratulated me for a job well done!”

Five decades later, Tiya Dely returned to Malacañang—this time, to receive the Pama-As Gintong Bai award from the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and President Macapagal-Arroyo.

Even at the Palace by the River, Tiya Dely played the role of Aunt of Perpetual Help to the hilt.