AT OUR Lady of Peace Hospital in Paranaque, I chatted with this 93 year-old writer, People Power key player, and priest. Unbidden, Rabbi bin Ezra’s plea, from Robert Browning's work, surged up: “Grow old along with me/ “The best is yet to be.”

Fr. James Reuter also marks today a diamond anniversary: that of making his first vows in the Society of Jesus. He poured 69 of those 75 years here as teacher, playwright, writer, coach, chaplain – and friend. In 1984, Congress unanimously made this New Jersey native a Filipino citizen.

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“Bob Hope said 75 candles on his birthday cake made it look like Los Angeles airport runway,” I crack. Overhead, a jet making its final landing approach for the Manila airport. Its whine drowns out our laughter.

Jim Reuter joined the Jesuits, as a 22-year-old novice, in Pennsylvania.

In 1938, he arrived in the Philippines. He was to teach at Ateneo de Manila and Naga. When broke out, the Japanese military jailed him, with 2,154 other Americans, in Los Banos.

Hard labor, short rations (“two ounces of rice in the morning and two ounces at night.”) constant threats marked the next three years – until liberated. “Prison camp taught me three most important things in life,” he wrote. “Breakfast, dinner and supper.” Clothed in rags, the prisoners shuffled barefoot, vulnerable to hookworms and disease.

“Shanghai Lil had a checked career,” Fr Jim recalls. In Barracks 20, detained Maryknoll sisters befriended her. Noticing a nun’s shoes falling apart, Shanghai Lil gave her red nightclub shoes. “You have no permission to refuse,” the nun’s superior said. Take the shoes.”

Internees’ hatred for the brutal concentration camp commander: Konich was intense. “The nuns (nonetheless) prayed for Konichi”, who later was caught and tried. He asked for instruction in the catechism.

“At the foot of the gallows, he was baptized and received his First Communion… When the trap door sprang, Konichi fell. The priest underneath anointed (with oil of extreme unction) the hands of Konichi still kicking on the ropes…that is why I am grateful whenever anyone says: ‘I am praying for you.”

In Febrauary 1945, Filipino guerrillas assaulted Los Baños as US Eleventh Airborne paratroops dropped four hundred meters from the camp. All guards were killed in 11 minutes. Then, a tall black paratrooper stood in the door.: “If you folks would get out into the road, we’re plannin’ to evacuate you all in a li’l while,” he drawled.

The late Fr Leo Cullum distributed remaining consecrated hosts as the chapel caught fire.” The nuns ran past us to their Amtrak. So did Shanghai Lil and her friend, the Maryknoll sister, holding hands. We could see the red shoes flying.”

After ordination at Maryland in 1946, Fr Reuter returned to the Philippines. “He became, “a priest whose parish was stage, radio, printing press, shooting lot, dressing room, director’s booth, the theatre”. In his Manila visit, Pope John Paul II cited him “for faithfully and courageously upholding truth, justice and integrity in Catholic Communications.”

That stand led to confrontation with the Marcos dictatorship’s censors. Military Intelligence Security Group shut down “Signs of the Times” Fr Reuter edited this newsletter for religious groups. “Death of a Cobbler” reported military torture of an ordinary citizen. Fr Reuter found himself under house arrest.

As People Power One started, Marcos troops bobby trapped the Catholic station Veritas. Fr. Reuter got an underground station on the air: DzRJ's radio station facility -- hastily christened "Radyo Bandido”. Newscaster June Keithley, and team gave People Power a voice. They did it just a few blocks from Malacañang too.

“When monopolized by government or vested interests, media's power is easily used for propaganda purposes,” the Magsaysay Foundation noted in its 1989 Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. “In open societies it is often squandered in trivial entertainments.

“Fr Reuter swam against this tide… (He) employed his gifts as writer, theatrical director, and broadcaster, but most of all as teacher, to make the performing arts and mass media a vital force for good in the Philippines. ”

He has now resigned from the groups he formed and served: from National Office of Mass Media and the Philippine Federation of Catholic Broadcasters. Now and then, he works out on stationary bike -- a far cry when, as a young chaplain to lepers in Culion, he’d swim to the next island and back for exercise.

His eyesight is dim. Some prayers are whispered to him when he celebrates mass. But he keeps to the beat of his Ateneo Glee Club boys. “Their average age is 66 now,” he notes. “We’ve been singing for over 50 years.”

He recalls giving retreats of election to 11 who were debating whether to become Jesuits. All decided to marry, “I was priest at most of their weddings. At the last concert, their grandchildren were singing for their lolos.”

“I am overwhelmed with the goodness of the people God sends to me, he wrote in his last column. I have been thanked for giving my life to the Philippines... But whenever you give, you always get back more than you have given. I have tried to be a priest. A priest is a bridge... a bridge between God and man... Being strong, sometimes, means being able to let go. I know that now is the time to “let go.”

“The last of life (is that) for which the first was made,” Rabbi bin Ezra taught. “Our times are in his Hand/ who saith: A whole I planned, / Youth shows but half.” (E-mail: johnnylmercado@gmail.com )