Goodbye, Bert

By Dr. Billy L. Malang
President, Manila Innovation Development Society (MINDS), Inc

His last music played, Roberto del Rosario was sent on his way recently in a bright, white coffin.  Del Rosario, 71, died peacefully in August.

“We've lost an iconic Filipino inventor now,” I said to one mourner, echoing the sentiments of friends and colleagues assembled to again hear the story of the inventor who shuffled his way into Filipino hearts in 1972, when he gifted the world with his One-Man Band (OBM), an acoustic piano which plays in concert on its keyboard a full orchestra accompaniment of wind, string, and brass instruments to the different dance beats of cha-cha, boogie, disco, swing, and tango.

In demonstrating his OBM, I could still remember how he tripped the dance floor in frenzied step, part-peacock, part-bantam rooster.  He was a dapper dresser who would strut and preen, gloat and chortle, wheedle and scold, and provide altogether entertaining theatre.

With his love of the spotlight and instant opinion no matter the subject, he was a natural as a TV analyst, and then for several years teamed up with Senator Raul Manglapus in the Executive Band to jam with the high and mighty, e.g., Bill Clinton, King Bumiphol, President Ramos, and Mahathir.

He was, above all, a magician at the keyboard, by sleigh of hand morphing from slow and sweet love songs to swirling Mozart opuscules to discordant pop and Bert was savoring every second of it, feigning humility by admitting he learned only by oido and generally enjoying himself with a glee he didn't bother to disguise when his listeners are awed in disbelief.

Bert lived to entertain and he poured all of himself into it, lock, stock, and soul.

In 1974, he swept the world off its feet by his Sing Along System (SAS) invention (subsequently made better known by its Japanese pirates as karaoke).  The SAS is a portable audio device consisting of a microphone and an amplifier combining a multitude of musical sound effects, which enhance the voice of the singer when played in accompaniment.  It was originally designed as a teaching device for students taking voice lessons at del Rosario's Trebel School of Music.

The SAS infringement case is the leading patent infringement case in the Philippines.  While del Rosario's Philippine patent was not enforceable in other countries where it was lavishly copied, he brought local infringers to court.  Following grueling legal battles, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor with finality on January 3, 1998.  His victory was hailed worldwide, particularly by inventors as the triumph of intellectual property protection and a warning to intellectual thieves.

Tenacious at his creative upbeat, he invented “voice color tapes” that grouped multiplex and minus-one tapes into three “voice colors”: blue, orange, and green, determined in turn by del Rosario's patented method of determining a singer's voice range.

Del Rosario, distressed that the Philippines was not giving much attention to its inventors, led the impassioned lobby at Congress for the passage of R.A. 7459 otherwise known as the Inventor and Inventions Incentives Act of 1992. 

He was elected to the executive board of the International Federation of the Inventors Association - the first Filipino ever to attain such a high post.  Of the many international and local honors conferred him as an inventor, he was most proud of the WIPO Gold Medal for Best Inventor awarded him in 1985.  “It was a high note for me,” he told this writer.

Bert first invited me to his posh home in Bel-Air Village, Makati when I was interviewing him for my book in 1998.  He then gave me an autographed CD of his own love songs.  Last time I saw him alive was a couple of years back when I brought fellow inventors to present him a life achievement award as inventor. Some ailment has got him in its enervating embrace now, and so the man who once was feisty Mr. Energy, is in a wheelchair.  Motionless. But when he was presented the plaque, Bert del Rosario, now 69 years old but still full of vinegar, summoned a grand and glorious act of defiance.  He hoisted himself upright for a victorious moment to receive his due encomium.

And men like me who liked his music and inventions, and other men who did not really like his music or his inventions, or his person, large, fierce and fearsome men with bodies of steel and hearts of teflon, bawled their eyes out.

The inventor of karaoke is in a better place now.  We hope he reserves a chair for us.

See you later, Bert.