Just recently, I was able to reunite with my former boardinghouse mates. They are like “ghosts” who came back from a previous life.
We were practically empty vessels then when we shared a boardinghouse in Katipunan in front of Ateneo as young impressionable college students. Meeting each other again after around 50 years, our individual cups are now full. There’s so much to catch up with that two or three hours of being together are not enough to share individual experiences.
That house was like a way station in the train of life. Boarders came and went in a continuous loop of hellos and goodbyes. It was a moving gallery of minds and faces. You never knew whom you would meet there.
One character I will never forget was a dark hulk of a man from Mindanao, who wore thick spectacles. I think he was taking up masteral studies at the time we met. He was a talked-about campus figure who once edited the college literary folio that published high- quality literary work, some of which were his works. At the boardinghouse, he used to join us during mealtime and was very friendly. One time I overcame my timidity and asked him to comment on a short story I wrote for my freshman English class—with a title that makes me cringe now in embarrassment. It was nothing but an amateurish imitation of the mock-ironic tone of Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. What was significant for me was that he took time to read it and then said he found it OK. I thought he was just being polite or patronizing, but he went even further: he got it published in a now defunct magazine that he was then editing. We never met again after he left the place but that kindly unexpected gesture of his galvanized my dream of being a writer. Alfredo Navarro Salanga was his name.
In our lunch reunion, we were glad Amando “Say” Tetangco had time to drop by. A quiet type, brainy and sharply observant—that’s how I remember him then. In fact, we already could sense then he was going to be somebody after graduation. Lo and behold, many years later, he became a governor of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and superbly helped tame our country’s inflation during his long term. Upon our prodding, Say casually revealed that he now sits in the board of several prestigious institutions and conglomerates. With all the other offers he’s getting, he has the luxury of choosing the best. After all those years of high-stress as BSP governor, Say looks impressively none the worse for wear. A cool hand, indeed, still youthful looking.
Jimmy Florcruz was a young Bulakeño who was likeable and easy to befriend. We gravitated to each other because we were both very casual about our studies. We considered ourselves “outliers” in that elite school. Good-looking, lean and athletic, he made a good accounting of himself in the intramural cross- country race in the year he stayed in the boardinghouse. He later on transferred to another school and became an activist. He went to China on a student exchange program. The timing of the trip coincided with the declaration of martial law and his group were consequently marooned in China. Jimmy and other colleagues decided to stay in that country after being warned by friends that activists were being rounded up and jailed, or worse, made to disappear. For many years, he couldn’t return home. While in China, he grabbed the opportunity to work for CNN as one of the network’s China correspondents. He has now retired from CNN and is happily married to Anna, a winsome Filipina he met in Beijing. I understand he is currently writing his autobiography. On vacation from his teaching job in Beijing and Tokyo, he is enjoying seeing old friends and classmates. He is also involved in a project that aims to reawaken the cultural heritage of Bulacan.
Joe de Jesus was a bespectacled scholar from Naga City when we met in the said boardinghouse. His quiet, ever smiling demeanor belied a sharp, inquiring and absorbing mind. We lost touch after college and I just learned during our reunion lunch that he migrated to the States and is now retired. He and his wife Suzie come home to the Philippines from time to time to do volunteer work for several agri projects that support indigenous tribes. I tried some of their products such as wine and rice made from native produce and they’re quite good. Joe lives the Ignatian ideal of being a “man for others.” No wonder he and wife Suzie both display that glow of fulfillment.
Then there is Ver Eco who was able to track us down one by one after all the years. Ver has a degree in chemistry but ended up in the IT business. Now contentedly retired, he and his charming wife Nini reside in San Jose, California. Bitten by the travel bug, this couple has been to all the tourist spots of the Philippines. Immune to senior moments syndrome, Ver can still vividly recall our boardinghouse antics, escapades, and even embarrassing moments. A social butterfly even in those youthful days, Ver was only too happy to join any school club who would accept him, including the glee club and a singing group, which, I suspect, he joined because some of the members were attractive girls. Ver and I go a long way back to elementary days in Angeles, Pampanga, where he graduated at the top of our batch. Big-bodied and tall, Ver was also an intense basketball player who did not hesitate to go bruisingly physical with anyone at the backyard court at Eagles Nest.
Sitting beside me at our lunch reunion was Art Valencia who I remember was our math wiz. Decent, kind and studious, he never took part in any of the shenanigans in or out of the boardinghouse. As far as I know. Filling in the details of the years in between, he said that he worked with Shell for years, got married to a childhood sweetheart, sired two or three fine children who now have stable careers. He says at some point in his professional life, he bailed out from the business world to save his health. He now teaches at the Ateneo’s John Gokongwei School of Management and seems to enjoy it. To Art, zero stress plus zero worry equals an infinity of happiness.
In spite of the long interval, we didn’t lose our sense of warmth, oh-shucks camaraderie as if we were back at the old boardinghouse after a long summer vacation. The room had that easygoing atmosphere. We dropped labels like executive, governor, programmer, lecturer or journalist and simply shared moments with each other freely for no other reason than the joy of doing so.
Admittedly, time has left some of us wobbly and scarred. Two of those present literally have long scars on their chests due to heart bypasses, a price to pay in the game called success. Truth to tell, each of us is contending with his own personal health issues.
But I thank the good Lord for the soul refreshing opportunity to meet again these friends from the past.
I sense what the poet said: There is always a hidden significance in any encounter with a being, thing or place.
Indeed, we must have packed along something of great value years ago when we left our sometime abode called Eagle’s Nest.