Ramon C. Reyes, Ph. D.

While Korina was touring around the Ateneo campus with Monique last weekend, I wandered around the chapel area and stumbled on a wake.  I didn't know that my old Philosophy professor, Dr. Ramon C. Reyes, had passed away at a ripe old age of 79.  He was kind man, steeped well in genteel tradition, quite learned and so generous with praise and encouragement.  I remember to this day his most valued lesson for me, taught not in class, but during one of our private conversations.  The lesson was about confidence.  Apparently, while he was a young graduate student in Louvain, Belgium, he had a girlfriend taller than he.  As graduation drew near (and thus his return to the Philippines), he realized that if he would continue his relationship with the lady, he would have to introduce her to his relatives in the Philippines, and the simple difference in height was a problem that he could not handle.  The lesson was no longer an abstract lesson; it was a lesson in life--had he then the confidence he found later in life, the height difference would not have been a problem at all.  There he was, the Dean of the Philosophy Department, teaching his young and ignorant student about the realities of life by the most effective teaching method--by baring his soul.  I will miss him; go with God, Doc, go with God.

Gerard

When you look back, time flies so fast, sometimes too fast to enjoy life in full.

An email just came in from my friend, the Millennium Bug, and I abruptly learned that another old friend, Gerard, passed away quietly last Saturday, after a week-long bout with pulmonary infection at the UST Hospital.  He was a long-time classmate of mine, and his calm demeanor and occasional wisecracks will be sorely missed.  I first befriended him in grade school--being the matakaw person that I am, I would mooch over his lunch baon of tuyo, which he gladly shared with the group.  In high school, he wouldn't touch alcohol, so whenever we would head over to the beer gardens, he would be the stabilizer of the barkada, and he would get the bill whenever we'd be too drunk to count 1 to 10.  He had an extensive LP collection, and we would borrow those vinyl records for the dancing parties we organized.  We used his house for lots of parties and taping sessions (using TDK Super Avilyn C-90 cassettes, which were top of the line in sound quality back then).  In college, we lost touch--he went on to finish Architecture at the University of the Philippines.  Afterwards, he opened a furniture shop at the SM City North EDSA with a Danish friend, but that business didn't last long; I understand he then went on to work for the SM group.  He was an avid collector of Swatch watches, one of the many ways which he enjoyed life.

Only a handful of his closest friends knew that he was confined.  He suffered a fatal heart attack on Saturday.  Go with God, my friend.