Mercado: Saving Mang Romy

Sunday, July 10, 2011

MY FRIEND, Romy Yusi, underwent an emergency surgery of the colon last April. His case was similar to that of the late president Cory Aquino, according to his son, lawyer Jun Yusi.

Since then, he has been in and out of the hospital, mostly in the Intensive Care Unit. He is also on a thrice a week dialysis treatment.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

After his sudden operation at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, he was taken home. His period of recovery was so slow that he could not stand by himself.

There were a few times his aide assisted him to be ambulatory but he was able to do only a few steps every time. Easily fatigued, he felt faint and had to be restored to his wheelchair.

With Tony Brown, who was his regular companion in his nocturnal jaunts, I visited him at his Villa Angela residence. The handsome man-about-town who was admired by girls for his good looks, hardly moved. His legs, now covered by a blanket, atrophied from disuse, he admitted.

We cheered him up and he responded with a little smile. I sat by the lounging chair beside his bed. We put on gauze masks to protect the patient from possible infection.

On the wall facing him across his bed was a large LCD TV set where an old war picture was showing.

Romy, former president of the Metro Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is not known to be a religious guy. It took me a lot of courage to suggest that he receive an anointment of the sick.

There is adverse reaction by the proud in spirit to suggest undergoing a sacrament often misconstrued as a last rite for the dying. He did not say yes or no, so we decided to get a priest to do the anointment, plus a possible act of penance.

When Brown and I met Rev. Fr. Sol Gabriel at the “Perfect Loaf” in Nepo Mart, we thought he was the right priest for the purpose. We sneaked a time with him after his breakfast and told him of our mission. Father Sol, however, was leaving for the US on the next day to attend the funeral of his late benefactor in Gardenia, Los Angeles.

He suggested we ask another priest to administer the rite. But we insisted he was the type of Confessor who would be acceptable to the gravely ill. Father Sol said he would be back after 10 days. We told him we will wait until he returns from the US. The priest, the only minister in Pampanga who had dispensed with the ‘second collection’ was known for his brilliant homilies and counseling.

Romy Yusi is a solo child from a poor couple from Mitla, Porac. He was raised by his late mother who supported the family by her skill in cooking native concoctions (kakanin). The young Romy helped his mother by stirring the sticky ingredients of “malagkit” that cooked slowly in a huge vat. When cooked and cooled, the product was placed in a round bamboo-weaved basket called “igu.” This, Romy took around the Angeles poblacion area and peddled to regular customers.

When I first met Romy in 1971, I noticed his large and strong biceps, “developed by mixing sticky malagkit over slow fire,” he admitted. He sent himself to college by working as a factotum and errand boy of Tiring Lazatin and Dodo Tinio, leading sugar planters of the era. His tasks included walking miles of vast sugarcane fields in Porac.

When his security agency was earning enough, the first thing he did was to buy several cars. It was like Imelda Marcos who, deprived of decent footwear in her poor days, stocked up on shoes – thousands of them – in keeping with the law of compensation.

Romy established the Royal Security Agency in 1972. He started with several guards to form a ragtag outfit. Today, his agency is the largest outside of Metro Manila going north.

There was a time when he purchased am L300 van; then he acquired a Mercedes van. Soon after, he got a Mercedes car. Not content with these he got a Starex van which he gave up to be replaced with an Altis. He gave up the last and got a Camry. “Romy, what are you going to do with all these vehicles?” I inquired. He did not respond but he got a new Nissan SUV soon. A few months later, he was using a new Montero.

Last July 7, having learned that Fr. Sol has arrived from the US, we hastened to see him at the Holy Spirit Parish church in Marisol village.

The kindly priest, one of the most admired priests assigned at the Holy Rosary cathedral in Angeles, quickly changed to fresh clothes, and we rushed him to the hospital’s ICU. Our friend Parish, an adopted member of PMA Class ’88, served as driver.

“You don’t have to speak,” Fr. Sol told the sick man whose mouth was stuck with a respirator, and a feeding tube inside his nostrils. Unable to talk, Romy made a slow vertical motion across his throat, as in a slashing sign, the padre recalled.

The priest, who was well-loved in parishes where he was assigned (Angeles City, Bacolor, Guagua-Del Carmen; Manibaug-Porac) prayed over our Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awardee (in Labor and Employment). He provides employment to over 200 guards supporting an average of five family members.

The sick man meekly and gladly responded with the pray over. Fr. Sol told the former poor-boy-turned millionaire to find meaning in his suffering. “At a later time, you would feel how blessed you are for your pains,” the popular preacher told him.

Certainly after his brief session with Fr. Sol, a wave of calm swept Mang Romy to sense peace. It was a calm of the soul he has never found in his fame and success. Miraculously, we hoped that he discover grace and ultimately his spiritual redemption after his travails.