Jose F. Lacaba’s Notes on Bakya and Other Essays, says Rolando Tolentino, “brings us readers sixty years back to the core of Philippine pop culture, and beyond. Pete Lacaba ... clearly paved the way for pop to pop in the mainstream... [He] continues his exemplary writing in the cultural sphere of pop in Notes on Bakya, mostly in the pre-martial law era with the stellar account of the inauguration of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and beyond with his writing of the night Lino Brocka died, on the travails of becoming a scriptwriter, and on ceasing to be a poet in English. This book navigates the life, times, and mind of a writer at the peak of his long writing career.”