Heartbreaking, ‘tauntingly salacious’ piece

Gilda Cordero Fernando’s column titled “Secret!” (Lifestyle, 10/27/13) left me aghast. Now she writes about her sexual perambulations in various motel rooms with a man who was anyway already her “secret” husband.

The mark of a good writer is to be decently discreet, not tauntingly salacious. Heretofore I had looked forward to reading Fernando’s Sunday columns as if I were anticipating a ballet performance at the Cultural Center. But now what I saw on stage was a striptease—even acts of copulation. Dirty-dirty-dirty.

I have always thought that Fernando is deserving of a National Artist award. Now I am convinced that she is more worthy of a Henry Miller trophy.

Gilda, dear friend, you have broken my heart.

—RAUL R. INGLES,

professor emeritus,

University of the Philippines