(This is the second of a three-part tribute to teacher Emmett Brown Asuncion, director of the University of Baguio Science High, written after he reported to the great classroom in the sky early evening of September 2, 2009.)
WAKES and funerals are also for the living, as much as they are for those being mourned and buried. Elaborate or simple, the final rites help those left behind cope with grief. So it was Monday, at the funeral of Erano “Ka Erdy” Manalo, the esteemed executive minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo. As it was during the vigil and funeral for President Corazon Aquino when crowds, estimated at two million, stood and waited, some for days and in the heat and rain, hoping for a glimpse, or be consoled just being near.
Here, alumni of the University of Baguio Science High continue to grapple with personal and collective loss, since news spread that angels descended on the hospital bed of Emmett Brown Asuncion evening of Sept. 2. They mourn for one who hammered into them Latin declension and English grammar, how to stage plays, cheer, sing for the Christmas cantata and whatever he felt they needed to know and learn.
Defying conventional rules of teaching, Emmett established and enriched traditions of learning and rites of passage unique to Science High. His legacy took time to be fully grasped and appreciated, veiled then by his scolding and – as those who passed through him said so during the wake - tantrums over a simple mistake, singing out of key or beat, a moment of inattention, lack of focus or any infraction of Emmett’s Rules of Order.
They recalled the brilliance, rare passion and unusual sacrifice with which he molded and prepared them for the world out there, where many have now established their places in the sun. How they wished they were home for the rites rather than pay tribute and try to pick up the pieces through Facebook.
As it wasn’t Advent, those who made it back skipped “Rorate coeli desuper…”, that opening hymn for the Christmas cantatas of yesteryears. They took comfort in other lyrics - “To Sir, With Love” and Yvonne Elliman’s “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” . Batch 2010 came in gray, white and red to render “Home, Sweet Home”, passed on to them by JV Cawis (Class ’02) and others who took on Emmett’s calling.
To help them cope, Matimyas Bautista (Batch ’94) set up big a white board in front of Funeraria Paz’s Chapel C, for them to write “What I learned from Sir Emmett”. To reiterate the instruction, one scribbled the school motto: “Verbum sat sapienti” (One word is enough for the wise).
Dazed over their common loss, they initially wrote expressions of gratitude, about Emmett being their father and grandfather, one who will be dearly loved and always fondly missed. (I was gripped with fear –and hope – that Emmett would rise from the white and blue casket to remind them about the simple instruction.) Some of the lessons learned began appearing on the board on the fourth night, together with quotes he used to repeat, like “Am I making sense?”
“He was the first to really appreciate “Bohemian Rhapsody’ as an English phrase,” Batch ’84 somehow summed it up.
They posted on tarpaulin Emmett’s farewell letter to them - his children. It speaks of darkness finally fading, the laughter of the past bursting forth in the open sky, and, “Then across the darkness, I salute the Dawn”.
Joel Aliping (’82) worried he’d again find Nestor Gatchalon, Emmett’s neighbor and friend, by his lonesome vigil until dawn. So on the third night, Joel and three others returned with candles to check in the wee hours. They shut off the lights and then lit a candle that ignited others, like in in those Christmas cantatas Emmett used to direct, this time in silence. Joel then asked them to put off the candlelights and, in the silent darkness, reflect on who Emmett was and is to them.
They were unsure on where the necrological rites should be, with many insisting it should be at the University of Baguio. They then decided to have it right where they were, with the proceedings beamed on a screen in the adjoining Chapel D the funeral parlor offered for the spill-over. After all, over here is over there, and over there is over here.
Beaulah (Zeny) Badua (’70) said Emmett could have gone much earlier for three times during those seven months she and Liza, Nestor’s wife, stood by his hospital bedside A trained medical technologist who turned to Christian ministry, she knew it was almost time when his blood pressure fluctuated frequently on Sept. 1, Baguio’s founding centennial.
Emmett was then seeing movements through the window of Room 337 of the Baguio General Hospital. Beaulah gripped her teacher’s hand and asked if he was seeing angels. Emmett, too weak to speak, answered with a guttural – yes. He passed on peacefully early evening of Sept. 2.
After mass, Pastor John Fianza (’80), opened the ecumenical service. Pastor Raul Fernandez, brother of June (’88) and Leandro (’93) delivered the message - about Emmett’s encounter with and deliverance to the Almighty. The Fernandez home was Emmett’s home after he retired some eight years ago. He was their second father.
They found comfort from Reinaldo Bautista Sr., the former university president who co-founded their special school. Kuya Rhey recalled how the idea of drawing the top elementary school graduates took form in 1963, when the first Star Science Section opened to compose Batch ’67.
The best teachers, among them Emmett, Ernesto and Adelina Alcantara, Mr. and Mrs. Jaime Castro, were tapped to mold the young scholars.
City mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr., and his wife Joy, both of Class ’85, came to pay their respects, lifting their spirits. So did Dr.Virgilio and Mrs. Lilia Bautista, whose 11 children, including Matimyas, were among those Emmett molded. So did those who transferred to other high schools come to pay tribute. They, too, are family of equal status.
In Emmett’s death, they were introduced to his two surviving siblings, Sister Anicia and Sister Julia, both Catholic nuns. Another sister, Sr. Cecilia Agnes, passed on years back. Sr. Anicia said they were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for Emmett, he who wanted to be a priest but ended up delivering sermons to his students.
Corinthia Naz (’75), one of five siblings who graduated from UBSH, prayed for fine weather during funeral on a Monday. But the morning sky didn’t clear up and rain started falling as the cortege passed the Naguilian Rd. checkpoint. Those who walked kept on, among them Jorge Borja, who had served as their scout leader, and other teachers.
The disc player inside the funeral car spun five pieces (starting with Secret Garden’s “You Raise Me Up”) throughout the over a kilometer procession. Fog crept in from the west as the cortege descended on the Baguio Memorial Park below the public cemetery.
Pastor Fianza offered the final prayer before Class 2010 encored with “Home, Sweet Home”. Pall bearers representative of the years then lifted the casket to the newly dug grave. At 25 past noon, Emmett’s casket was lowered near familiar company. A grave separated him and Baguio newsman Willy Cacdac, his friend and fellow coach in oration who passed on three years earlier, during a sunburst in July.
They released balloons and then the lyrics of the school loyalty song wafted in the air. The balloons billowed to the east as they rose. Above the memorial park is a row of pines, standing like sentinels over the grave now fully covered with flowers.
Then it poured again, as in “rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum” – “.Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just”. Or “Heavens, open from above, and from the clouds rain down the Just One.” (email:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments)