FOR the 59 years they were married, the loving husband Aquilino “Nene” Q. Pimentel Jr. had only one request to make of his wife Lourdes “Nanay Bing” each time they faced trials—which, as anyone familiar with the late political leader’s life knows, came aplenty. His request, nay, command, since the first time he was whisked away by state security forces for criticizing the dictator and martial law, was just, “don’t cry.”
Nanay Bing remembered that day well, the first of many moments she had to be brave for Nene’s sake and the family’s, because she totally embraced all that he stood for. As Cagayan de Oro’s very popular mayor, the feisty Nene had no qualms speaking his mind. He would repeatedly pay for his independence, with five detentions to boot, but each arrest only made CDO’s young lawyer-mayor even more determined. And each time he was put in jail, the tiny southern city’s residents would erupt in protest, marching on the streets to demand his freedom.
The charismatic leader attracted such a big following in Mindanao, and eventually the rest of the nation, that he subsequently became one of the founders of the PDP-Laban, a political party that started so small it was often the butt of jokes: people said it held its conventions inside a Volkswagen Beetle. As it turned out, PDP Laban zoomed to national prominence as one of the pillars of the united front that eventually booted out Ferdinand Marcos in a bloodless regime change in 1986. In 2016, one of its members would, in fact, be elected President with a commanding 16 million votes.
In all the years Nene Pimentel was in public service and the public eye, it was his wife Bing who stood as low-key sentinel. True to her promise, “I never cried” each time adversity would come, she recalled to BusinessMirror on Sunday night, at the wake of Nene. The former Senate President and key member of the Constitutional Commission tasked by President Duterte to review the Constitution died at 5am Sunday (October 20) from complications due to lymphoma.
While she didn’t cry during Nene’s political trials, Nanay Bing said she had to break her promise when the doctor gave the dreaded verdict recently: there was nothing much they could do for the 85-year-old leader, as cancer ravaged his body. Daughter Gwen Pimentel-Gana said her “Tatay” had enjoyed some remission for some time, but six months ago, the cancer came back, “with a vengeance.”
“I told myself, on hearing what the doctor said, that this time, I need to cry. And I did cry, long and hard that day,” Nanay Bing recalled. It was then that the inspiration for what would be her latest song suddenly sprang. “Please just let me cry,” she found herself singing impromptu to her dying husband, and when she realized she was composing yet again another song, “I took out my cell phone and I just had to record the first part” so she could reconstruct it and put down the notes.
Love and music, Bing sighed, had defined much of their 59-year-old relationship, a partnership founded on rock-solid values that defied all political storms. “Imagine this, in just a little over six months, we would have marked our 60th wedding anniversary, and I was planning another renewal of vows (They renewed vows on their 50th at the Archbishop’s Palace in Mandaluyong City nine years ago). I was planning to make it [their 60th] some sort of a musical,” said Nanay Bing, a CD of whose previous musical works were produced a few years ago.
With Nene gone, Bing hopes the last song she’s composing [“work in progress,” she said at the wake] could be played in time for his final journey—maybe at the necrological rites at the Senate that he served so well, or in Cagayan de Oro City, where a hero’s homecoming is being prepared.
The title of the song? The widow of Nene had a simple reply, “Please just let me cry.”
Image credits: Nonie Reyes