125-DREAMER: The Eternal Childhood of Robert Alejandro

Robert Alejandro, beloved Filipino artist, designer, and co-founder of the stationery and craft store Papemelroti, passed away on November 5, 2024, at the age of 60.  

Born in 1963, Robert was the "ro" in Papemelroti, a family-run enterprise founded in the 1970s, which became a household name in the Philippine and was known for its unique and eco-friendly products. 

Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavors, Robert was a prominent figure in the Philippine arts community. He hosted the children's television show "Art is Kool," inspiring young minds to explore their creativity.  

He was also a founding member of Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang INK), the country's first and only organization dedicated to children's illustration.  

Throughout his life, Robert generously shared his talents, conducting free art workshops and contributing his illustrations to various causes.  

Diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016, Robert faced his illness with remarkable courage and resilience, continuing to create and inspire until his peaceful passing.  

In a social media post, his family through Papemelroti described him as "a vibrant, passionate spirit whose creativity, generosity, and warmth endure in the countless lives he has touched." 
(sources: Philippine Daily Inquirer, GMA Network , Papemelroti)

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The photo above is of an interview I did of Robert, published in The Evening Paper in July or so of 1996.  I don't have the full clipping, but I luckily managed to recover the original Word file before it was laid out and sent to press. And here is the article, the first interview I ever conducted, and quite possibly the first piece of journalism I ever wrote, as my publications hitherto had been of a literary nature.

125-DREAMER

The Eternal Childhood of Robert Alejandro

by Lakambini Sitoy

Robert Alejandro is petrified by the camera. His lip quivers, the ends of his mouth stretching in a nervous grin. In vain, the photographer tries to get him to pose: put your elbow here, tilt your head just so. The shutter clicks. Robert regards it like a little boy in a dentist's chair watching the inexorable descent of the drill.

Personal publicity has never appealed all that much to the 32-year old co-owner of the Papemelroti chain of stores: he would much rather direct his full attention to a host of current projects, all of which aim to make the world a brighter place for other people. At present most of his time goes into designing the Eureka Family Amusement Center, on the fifth level of SM Megamall. 

"It's a very exciting job," he says as he weaves through the crowd at the escalators. There is an undercurrent of repressed energy in his words; his eyes sparkle. "Everything's all up to me. I have complete freedom to do whatever I want."

Entering Eureka you understand at once. The owners of the enterprise have given Robert complete license to play. Colors and shapes bombard you from all sides, along with a medley of sounds--the rush of a little roller coaster above the toots and honks of about 20 video game machines playing simultaneously, and piped in somehow, a children's song. Everything is beeping, whirring, flashing. Robert moves happily past an unfinished train track, the roller coaster, a boat ride, a barricade protecting some kind of construction, which has been painted with bright flowers and whimsical shapes. This is kiddie heaven. He is home.

"I'm in charge of conceptualizing the designs, the colors, the overall theme of each display ... even the music," he says. The decor is reminiscent of the cute stylized icons on Papemelroti's trademark brown stationery, which Robert and his four sisters design. But this is Papemelroti in full color and 3-D. The boat ride is hung with fantastic birds in hot pink, yellow and blue. On the walls by the train track are lopsided spirals. On top of the bank of violent videogames are robots, in benign red, yellow and silver hues. 

All of this takes time, inspiration and effort. Not surprisingly, Robert's calender is filled for the next few weeks: there's Eureka, plans for more Papemelroti products (everything from paper to t-shirts to furniture to figurines), a children's book which he will design for Tahanan Publishers, and even an exhibit of his paintings, along with some friends.

"To be honest, I'm still not going to take that exhibit seriously," he grins. 

Robert's refusal to descend into the 9 to 5 morass of adulthood has kept him perennially energized and inspired. He recently completed a six-month project with Glico's World in Cebu, designing a 6000 square meter, 3-floor theme park, his fourth. But he never seems to run out of ideas. In fact, each project seems to provide the impetus for the next one: the more he creates, the more he needs to create.

"Even if nobody paid me, I'd still draw, work: it would drive me nuts not to do anything," he says. 

The leather datebook/planner he carries is a testament to this: he opens it randomly, and there, squeezed into the little spaces for notes, are circles of paint he has turned into smile-faces, tiny figures, memos to himself in the looping irregular scrawl that Papemelroti patrons have grown to love. There's a two-inch Taj Mahal, from a recent family trip to India, and there are his mother, father and sisters, bags and all, in a row. When Robert was in college he had more time, and turned his planners into pop-up books. If some unscrupulous character stole and sold Robert Alejandro's scribblings he'd make a mint.

Entrepreneurs have realized the possibilities inherent in a nice young man who'll work for the heck of it, and twice or thrice a week people call up Robert with offers for a job. Generally he has a hard time saying no, especially when it's a friend on the other end of the line, or if there's something unusual to do, like a perfume bottle for a company based in France.

"Then I just say, where can we meet?" he laughs. 

Sometimes, though, he's found himself guided by unknown forces.

"I've had to refuse projects because I simply don't have time. But in other instances, I don't know why I refuse. Sometimes I feel that God is managing me. Intuition has made me steer away from a bad client in the past."

And what is a bad client for Robert Alejandro? Someone, he explains, who wants to have a finger in every pie, who won't give a designer the freedom to be the artist that he is. Just as unpleasant are clients who maintain a haughty distance between management and workers on a project.

"Those people who are just out to make a fast buck...they get no support from me," he says, adding, "In the long run a theme park is not so much the property of the (people who own it) as of the people who worked on it."   

As the creative director of a project, he is immune to the kind of business interests that often entail hiring talent at the cheapest possible price. Robert will mediate on behalf of a worker, asking a project manager to give a particular artisan the price he deserves if he is good. This way, he earns the respect of the workers, and runs into no problems with management--because he is open to any comments from them, and vice versa.

Another thing that rapidly gains him the respect of construction artisans is his refusal to just point and order. At Glico's World in Cebu, he painted along with the workers and once swarmed up a tall ladder to demonstrate how a particular figure was to be positioned.

"I gain the respect of the people who execute my designs, because they see that I can do (the dirty work) as well," he says. "People tell me I could make lots more money if I had people working under me, but I hate having to play the boss."

Robert's vision of a perfect world goes beneath the shiny, bright-colored surfaces that he designs so well. If possible he would redo the power plays and other nasty things that lead people to stifle the vulnerable child within them. It's a tough assignment. But he won't give up. After all, his Pocketbell Pager ID identifies him as 125-DREAMER. 

Dreams though, can be attained. Right now, at work on the Eureka Family Amusement Center, he's conceptualizig a science museum for children that he envisioned while at work on Glico's in Cebu. When the idea struck, it seemed like the most fantastic project in the world. But no doubt when the science museum at Eureka is finished, he'll be wanting to work on something else.

"If I've done it before,it's not very very appealing to me," he admits. "But if it's a wonderful project (you're proposing), I know I'll make time."

`Wonderful' to him includes illustrating a book of Oscar Wilde-ish fairy tales, for a friend whose work has been ignored by publishers because it's not `grown-up' enough, not `realistic' enough. Robert's sympathies lie not only with the underdog, but with other people like him who have refused to surrender to the cynicism of the adult world. They are the eternal children--Carl Jung's puer and puella aeternus--people who, if they manage to overcome the jaded criticism of the grown-up world, are gifted with lightness, capable of flight.