I HEARD about his recent death from a Facebook friend, who told me that the information came from a military officer. It was weird for one to feel sad about the death of one of those who presided over his arrest and incarceration. But I have long mellowed down and no longer view life using an ideological lense. I have befriended everybody whom I met in the past, wherever they are in the ideological divide. I cherish them and their friendship until now.
I have many fond memories of Sir Gulo, who was not as intimidating as the other officers who graduated from the academy. While most of his fellow officers prided themselves in speaking in English and Tagalog (they even spoke Cebuano with a Tagalog accent), he spoke in Cebuano. And he didn’t speak much, preferring to let his actions speak instead.
I remember him bringing me to the hinterlands of Bayawan in Negros Oriental. I got to know him better during that trip. The experience was memorable because, for the first time, I was travelling with people on the other side of the ideological divide. They whom we considered as our enemies had become my friends.
Thus, when I saw him in the audience after I spoke during the flag-raising rites of the regional office of a national government agency, I did not hesitate to go to him. When I greeted him, “Sir,” he told me not to call him that. “Brod lang,” he told me. But I so respected him I could not get myself to call him “Brod.”
I knew he didn’t want whatever his cover was to be exposed. Even when he became a Facebook friend, he still wanted me to call him “Brod.” Of course, I never did that until I was told that he died of Covid-19 and had to be buried immediately. I could have gone to his wake like I did when another intelligence officer died before him.
Sir Gulo was part of that period in my life when uncertainty ruled and I was trying to regain my footing after nearly losing it all. I remember having been hired to wash dishes in the canteen of the unit’s headquarters and cleaning the yard. I used to ask myself at that time what kind of future was there for me. That period of one’s life can never be forgotten.
Incidentally, how many times have we heard of acquaintances dying in a span of only a few weeks in this pandemic? Those who are peddling the lie that this pandemic is not real should review the Facebook posts of their friends. Even big-name public and private personalities who would have continued living in their “ripe old age” have passed on one after the other.
We can continue living with the lie that the virus is not in our midst. We can adopt a “come what may” stance. But at what cost would that be? That is why I don’t like people, more so government officials, who downplay the danger of allowing the virus to replicate. Steps must be put in place to prevent this from happening. Or else, the death count and not only the number of infected, will rise.