THEY buried him last Saturday. The nation lost a true patriot. I lost a great friend.
I met him in 1987 on the set of “On The Spot,” a television public affairs program on the old PTV 4. Program host Lani Echaves-Paredes had asked me to co-host and I jumped at the opportunity because the topic was education and the guests were former University of the Philippines president Edgardo Angara and University of Cebu owner and president Augusto Go, who were both lawyers.
During the commercial break, Gus asked Ed, who was running in the first post-Edsa Senate election, if he already had a campaign coordinator in Cebu. Ed replied that he had none because Danny Deen, his ACCRA Law partner in Cebu, was also a candidate (Danny ran for congressman).
Gus said that he would have loved to volunteer for the job if he had not already said yes to Leticia Shahani, another senatorial candidate, and then blurted, “why not Frank?” In my shock, I could only nod my head in assent when he asked, “Payag ka, Frank?”
I never regretted that spur-of-the-moment decision, though. Gus’s joke started a friendship that spanned three decades during which I learned so many valuable lessons from a great man whose love of country was immeasurable, who practiced, more than preached, humility and who lived such a simple and uncomplicated life that the joke of his friends in Cebu was whether he should get involved in a scandal so that the people would pay him serious notice since they seemed to be interested only in “colorful” lives.
I joined him in all his campaign sorties in Cebu and in the process memorized the late Raul Manglapus’s campaign speech in one day after listening to Team MORAL’s (for Manglapus, Sonny Osmeña, Santanina Rasul, Angara and Joey Lina) pitches in Dumanjug, Barili, Pinamungajan, Toledo and Balamban.
He dropped out of the campaign for a while after he had a stroke while playing tennis in Makati. It was a mild one but his doctors convinced him to spare his body from the rigors of the hustings. His wife Gloria and close friend and Sigma Rho fraternity brother, Ysi Perez, now also deceased, ably subbed for him.
He came back to Cebu on the last week of the campaign to join the miting de avance at the Abellana sports complex. The following morning, I drove him back to the airport in an old Toyota Corolla, a car that creaked and rattled so loudly that during another trip, Gloria innocently asked if it could break down anytime.
Ed was quiet throughout the trip until we were on top of the old bridge and, breaking out of his deep thought, said, “We‘ve done everything that we could” and pointing his fingers up, added, “now, it’s all up to Him.” His face expressed worry and finding nothing else to say to reassure him, I foolishly predicted that he would land not lower than 10th in Cebu. Happily, he would place eighth, the same ranking he obtained nationwide.
After his election, I started calling him Senator but he said that he preferred that his friends continued to address him as Ed. He would win three more six-year terms to the Senate and became its president and during all these times, he remained plain Ed.
My greatest regret had been that he did not win the vice presidency in 1998. He would have been the president after Erap was impeached and ousted by people power and what a great president he would have been.
My greatest regret now is that I was not able to pay him my last respects. But here it is, farewell, Ed, true patriot and friend.