When reports on the passing of Max Limpag, my former SunStar Cebu colleague, broke, I was immediately reminded of Raffy Uytiepo. Raffy and Max were among the leading personalities I could remember when the running craze hit Cebu years ago.
Max, like me, was an editor of SunStar Cebu during that time, while Raffy frequented the newsrooms of the Cebu papers to submit press releases of the races he would organize. Raffy often wore running gears and I always admired his seeming fitness. But he also was an entrepreneur, owning a “batchoy” restaurant in a mall near Fuente Osmeña. That was why I was surprised at the report that he had passed away years before Max had a heart attack.
Max was, I felt, so fanatical with his love for running that, soon, running enthusiasts would frequent the newsroom every Friday to join the “night runs” he and the other editors and reporters organized. I did my own “run-walks,” switching from running to walking and ensuring that I would not be drawn into a run-all-the-way race. My thing was to finish the race and to not necessarily be the first to reach the finish line.
Before Raffy passed away, he seemed to have changed his obsession from being a “running man” to an Elvis Presley impersonator. He became known as Raffy “Elvisaya” Uytiepo and was invited to Elvis shows nationwide. I don’t know if his obsession with fitness also went away when he started obsessing with being an Elvis clone.
I once had an online conflict with Max after my retirement in 2019 and when I admitted to helping the late Edgardo Labella win the Cebu mayorship. He criticized me for that but what caught me off guard was when he raised ethical questions without knowing the facts. I joined the campaign only after I retired and after asking the editor-in-chief what the parameters were in my columns. I was told not to write anything about Cebu City politics, and I did that.
I never met Max face-to-face until his passing. Meaning that we failed to talk about that conflict and failed to reconcile fully. But he will forever be a colleague. Thus I, too, mourn his passing.