Flores Para Los Muertos

*Dedicated to my high school batchmates who have gone ahead to prepare for our ultimate reunion.*

I've long been intending to write something about my high school classmates. I wanted to express my heartfelt thanks to them for some of the best moments of my life. I wanted to tell them how grateful I am for the gift of friendship they have given me, and how unbeknown to them they have contributed to the person I now am.

For most of them, I can do that anytime I want to. I can do that whenever I meet with them in small unplanned reunions, in big organized school homecomings and yes, during coordinated and deliberate projects such as medical missions and the like. After all, they are just a phone call, an email, or a text message away.

After all, they are still with me in the world of the living.

But there are those who have gone ahead to the final homecoming. Some in the prime of their youth, others in the peak of their adulthood. They are those I wish to give tribute to here now. They are those whom I failed to thank and have taken for granted in the confusion of my own self-centered juvenile follies and my reckless drive in the rat race called life.

And I thought that doing this during this year's day of the dead or All Souls' Day would be most appropriate. Allow me then to burden you with what may seem trivial to many by putting down my thoughts about each of them here in this virtual community which otherwise is host to many happy and cheerful moments in life.

- Alfonso is Alfonso Salvador. He was our high school class valedictorian. He came from a public elementary school but was so gifted he consistently topped the class from the moment we were in our freshman year in Ateneo. He lived in the same town I did. I still wonder how he could end up with the highest marks in our tests and examination despite the fact that he worked as a passenger jeepney conductor every afternoon after class. He went on to become a government scholar at the Ateneo de Manila finishing a degree in Physics. Instead of staying in Manila and pursuing higher studies or taking on some lucrative job, he came back to our province to teach high school physics in one of the provincial public high schools. Just two years into his teaching job, Alfonso was stricken with meningitis (some rumors had it that he was a victim of a mangkukulam or sorcery by people who envied him) and tragically was unable to recover. We remember Alfonso for his prodigious academic talents.

- Art is Arthur Manalo. He was your classic spoiled brat being somewhat born to an affluent family. His family is originally from Pampanga. When his father was assigned to the Naga Coca Cola Bottling Plant as its Manager, Art and his other sibling were enrolled in schools in Naga and Art became an Ateneo high school student. He did not excel in academics but was active in co-curricular activities and was a member of the the glamorous counterpart of the Boy Scouts called Explorers. After high school, he was accepted in the US Navy and was among those who were sent to the Vietnam war. But he had some heart problems and underwent a by-pass. After being discharged, he lived in California where he studied film making and came back to the Philippines to pursue some personal film making projects. One day, in his ancestral home in San Juan (Manila), his younger brother found his body in his apartment where he was living alone, apparently a victim of cardiac arrest. We remember him for his nasty but harmless pranks on us.

- Bill is Evelio Bulao. Just like Art, he's no intellectual giant but in our later years, he proved to be a reliable hand in many of the batch's projects. During high school, he's one of those guys you would not want to mess around with. He had a mercurial temperament and you wouldn't want to cross his path then. But he indeed was a very different man when I met him several decades later. He was a silent worker for our medical mission up until two years ago. Just about a week after our medical mission in 2006, Bill was fatally shot, apparently a victim of some land dispute. We remember him for his quiet enthusiasm.

- Eddieboy is Eddieboy Badiola. Eddieboy was a good looking lanky guy who would make many girls from the counterpart exclusive girls school swoon. He was one of the avante garde dudes of our time, often the first to sport the latest in guy fashion of our time, e.g. paisley design shirts and bell-bottom slacks. He loved music and became a third of the three-member folk-rock singing group in the 70s (the other two were me and Larry Santelices, Tara's dad). He eventually focused his time on religion and devoted most of it to his religious music ministry. A few years ago, his cigarette smoking days caught up with him and caused a fatal complication in his respiratory ailment. We remember him for his music.

- Francis D is Francisco Dagñalan. Francis was a wonder kid out of Sorsogon, the southern most province of the Bicol region. He was literally a baby fresh out of his diapers when he came to Ateneo de Naga high school. I remember that during the first days of school he was always accompanied by what we currently refer to as "yaya" who wiped his perspiration, changed his shirt and gave him a glass of milk during recess or breaks. But contrary to such seeming immaturity, Dangie, as we fondly call him was a real genius. He could figure out the answer to many algebraic problems in no time and even while the rest of us were busy pencil-pushing. He took up Law in UP and eventually became a Commissioner of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board. He was being prepped up to become the head of the HLURB by the Vice President De Castro and had the very strong support and endorsement by Senator Biazon at the time of his untimely death caused by a fatal dosage of an anti-gout medicine. We fondly remember Francis as the baby-genius of the class.

- Gil is Gil Brioso. He was a year older than most of us and as such, he possessed a disposition more mature than many. He was a quiet guy who preferred to show his mettle in the field of high school military training. I have little information of Gil after our high school graduation. His death would have almost gone unnoticed were it not for a batch mate who happened to stop by in front of a church and noticed a black banner carrying Gil's name. Curios, this batch mate went inside the church and found Gil in a coffin being mourned by relatives. Gil succumbed to a heart attack. We remember Gil as an example of an officer and a gentleman.

- Jimmy is Jaime Vargas. Jimmy was a suave guy. He had many admirers from the girls school. Jimmy married his boyhood girlfriend but was unable to have a family because not two years into his marriage, Jimmy had a fatal motorcycle accident on the day after our very first successful high school reunion. We remember Jimmy in the mold of James Dean. He was quiet. He was a handsome guy. And he liked the fast and dangerous life and was a daredevil in motorbike riding. It seems he had dared and lost.

- Jobsky is Job Bisuña. Jobsky is your ultimate revolutionary in the mold of those activists during the First Quarter Storm (the years just before martial law was declared). But Jobsky was no UP activist, he was no street parliamentarian, he was not even a placard-bearing demonstrator in the usual rallies and street marches so common before and during the military dictatorship regime. For Jobsky, his kind of revolution was working right where the masses were. He was working with the farmers and other under-privileged and economically oppressed. He was in the barrios. He was in the mountains. After Martial Law, Jobsky was named Most Outstanding Farmer by then Dept.of Agriculture Secretary Dominguez and was sent to Thailand on an exchange program. His life with the farm-hands and the difficult life in the barrios led him to a life of daily alcohol intake. He died some years ago of a liver ailment. We remember Jobsky for his frank but gentle demeanor.

- Joey E. is Jose Encinas. He had a stutter which to us was funny and we would kid him no end for it. But when he sang, the stutter magically disappears. He loved girls and was almost constantly chatting about his "crushes" or those whom he believed had a crush on him. Despite his speech inadequacy, Joey had a successful career as a drug salesman. He eventually resigned from the drug company where he was employed and started his own drug distributorship. He was in fact a source of some of the medicine we used during a couple of our medical missions. Like Jobsky, Joey also succumbed to a liver ailment.

- Jun Bungo is Elmer Gallardo. We fondly gave him the monicker "Bungo" or Skull. It's a long story but the short of it is that he resembled the face of one of our teachers whom we call Phantom (a comics character) whose symbol was a skull. So we called Elmer Junior Bungo. Elmer became the City Administrator of Naga City for a number of years until he had a stroke that caused his early retirement from the government service. A second attack a few years later proved fatal. He went to UP for his college education and was my fraternity brother. Every time I see the comic character, the Phantom, I remember Jun...este Elmer.

- Nano is Mariano Bañares. We fondly called him "Kamikaze" for his daring almost reckless drives to the hoop regardless of who or what was in the way during his high school varsity days. After college, Nano started a small softdrinks dealership business. He would drive his tricycle around the city in his "porontong" shorts collecting from his clients. He wasn't in big business but was earning enough to have a good life. He had a cardiac arrest one day that ended his young life. We remember Nano as the one who made our shy math lady-teacher, Ms. Murillo, red in the face (not in anger though) when he told her that he had a big crush on her.

- Paeng was Rafael Tolentino. He stood tall among us and was a star basketball varsity player likened to then national basketball star Freddie Webb, for his quick-as-lightning, high-flying and almost unstoppable drives to the hoop. He always carried a basketball to school. His father was merchant marine ship captain which allowed Paeng to have the latest in toys, footwear and other athletics wear. Like Nano, he too was felled by a heart failure. We will always remember Paeng as the high flying forward of the Ateneo de Naga High School Varsity circa 1968-69.

- Reylic is Reynaldo Licup. He was one of the the pranksters of our batch much like Art was. But Rey was low-profile. During college, he had a liking to photography and was instrumental in the creation of a strong and active AdeN Photography Club. Rey died some years ago, a victim of a foul play. Some say he was shot in cold blood by a jealous husband who happened to be a local official who took offense on Rey's closeness to the wife. The murder remains unsolved to this day. We remember Rey for his passion for photography.

- Ric is Ricardo Versoza. He was actually a year ahead of us but had to stop schooling during his high school junior years. When he returned, he became our batch mate. Ric was a leader in class and just like Gil, he possessed a maturity that most of us did not have. His word was one every body believed and followed. Ric had stints in the the middle east as a contract worker. But as the economy took a downturn, he was among those who had to find work locally. He was first struck with tuberculosis which confined him to his hometown. In a state of depression, he suffered a stroke which left him bed-bound for some years. His frail body was unable to withstand the physically debilitating twin disease and soon gave up. He died in his hometown in the company of his family. We remember Ric as a quiet but firm and courageous class leader.

- Aton was Arthur Nabua. He was the class cartoonist.He excelled in creating comics illustration and had the best handwriting style in all of AdeN HS'69. He won most of the contests that required skill in drawing or even painting. Aton usually comes out on top of the many on-the-spot drawing contest in our time. In later years, he became a partner in a banner/streamer making company. He was happy every election season as it was the time his company would most profit from the candidates' promotional spending. Aton never married and was stricken with cancer while he was in his late 40s. We remember him best for his fine water color works.

- Endoy is Rosendo Mendoza. As far as I can recall, Endoy was one of those who had very little time for such things as barkada or outings or girls. As young as he was, he already did many things that most of his batch mates would only be doing some years later. Endoy during our high school days was already an accomplished commerce-man. He was already an astute vendor having come from and grown into a family of business people whose main occupation in life was being market stall vendors in the then new and growing Naga City public market. While we fuzzed about the new record of the Beatles or Dave Clark Five or Beach Boys, or spend the night tackling those economic subject homework, Endoy was already mastering the art of vegetable pricing, cost of transport and such things that real-life economics people had to face with. Endoy succumbed to diabetes complications just a few years out of college. To us, Endoy was your ultimate market vendor.

Rene is Renato I. Angeles (died April 23, 2009). That middle initial "I" stands for Irigo. Yes, Rene was my first cousin. He was also a friend and a high school batch mate. Rene went with the beautiful crowd. He was a real charmer vis-a-vis the girls. He was the quite type but had the colegiala-killer eyes and curly hair. He was one of those guys who was almost always on top of the chatter of the girls of the next door girls school. He probably was the among the first who settled early on married life with a stunner of a wife. But life was not always kind on Rene. He had a string of jobs and struggled a bit in raising a family but succeeded nonetheless in raising a decent one. On a hot mid-day of April 23, 2009, he was with his former supervisor and was on an inspection trip when he felt dizzy and had difficulty breathing. He was rushed to a hospital but was unable to recover. He succumbed to a heart attack. I mourn the death of a cousin, a friend and a dear school mate. I thought I was going to see him this October for our HS Ruby Anniversary celebration. We will miss him.

We have other school mates (not necessarily high school batch mates) who have also gone on ahead earlier than many of us. We remember them, too, in this feast day of the souls:

1. Roland Cabral - our grade school first honorable mention awardee. He died in a road accident one evening on his way from Naga to Manila to visit his children.
2. Deme Briñas - a college school mate who fatally fell from a JD bus when he hit his head on the concrete sidewalk gutter, early one morning while on his way to a final medical check-up with the Philippine Airforce. Apparently, he felt dizzy due to the fact that he has not yet taken food that morning in preparation, ironically, to his medical check-up.
3. Manuel Raposa - our grade school valedictorian. He was just walking leisurely along Roxas Blvd with his girlfriend when out of nowhere somebody attacked them. He sustained a fatal knife wound from a suspected thrill killer. The crime remains unsolved to this day.
4. Alex Belone - our grade school salutatorian who went to the Phil. Science High School under a scholarship. He came back to the province as a dyed in the wool student activist and led many demos and rallies in Naga during Martial Law days. He eventually took to the hills to join the armed struggle. In 1981, he was captured, tortured and killed by the dreaded CHDF or the Civilian Home Defense Force. His body was attached to tricycle and dragged around the town for people to see and to spread fear among the town folks. We remember Alex for his outstanding class experiments which contributed to his plum rewards of a PSHS scholarship.

There are other contemporaries whose death I may not have been aware of, or because of my own aging and failing memory I cannot now remember, but who, just the same, deserve my thanks and gratitude for being part of my happy and exciting past. To all of them, too, I dedicate this post and say a prayer for them.

May they all rest in peace.

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