FOR MANNY C. ON HIS 70th BIRTHDAY

Dear Manolet: 

You would have turned seventy this 20th day of August.

It took me more than a month before I could write this blog.  Somehow, I needed the time and the distance to digest everything that happened.  It was not easy that in about six weeks, two people who are so close to my heart left this life that resulted this gaping hole in my existence.  

I had a really bad feeling when I saw you during that dinner held at my house when the friends decided to get together for no reason at all aside from getting together.

I had warned the others who arrived earlier not to react to how you looked because the previous time we saw each other was on the set of a series I was doing --- and I did not have the guts to tell you that you did not look good --- or even ask you if anything was wrong.  That was less than a year ago --- and when you arrived at my residence, we were all shocked at the physical deterioration that had taken place.

You said you were not feeling well --- and we knew you are not well at all.  That was why our friend Erick literally dragged you to the hospital the following Monday to make sure that we knew what was wrong with you.

And find out we did.

We were convincing you to have yourself further checked ... but you were hesitant.  I knew you well enough to know what went on in your mind when you displayed this kind of behavior. And I knew that the more I insisted, the more you would stand your ground.  Despite all the cajoling from both Erick and I, you always found an excuse for delay.  You said you will have yourself confined when you were ready.

That was why a little after a month from the dinner I received word from your nephew that you already died.

Manny, I did not know how to react.  I was about to give a speech when I got the text message stating that they found your lifeless body perhaps more than twenty-four hours after you expired.  We always warned you about living alone ---   but you always had fifteen thousand reasons why you did not want a live-in housekeeper or domestic companion.  After much argumentation I would mutter in exasperation, "Bahala ka."

So even to the very end you never wanted anyone living with you 24/7.  You asked me if I knew of someone who can be your part-time companion with a specification: "Gusto ko yung lalake na mauutus-utusan. Ayoko ng babae. Maarte." And I laughed.  

I did not know that that was the last conversation we would ever have.

Even if more than a month has come to pass I still have not fully absorbed the fact that you are gone.  Although we would not talk for stretches of time ... for one reason or another ... it was different when I knew you were just a text message or a phone call away.  When our schedules got all messed up or I was too preoccupied filling my days with work, we could waste months with absolutely no communication.  But then each time we find ourselves in conversation, it was as if the time that elapsed did not matter.  Every encounter was only the continuation of a timeline of friendship.

As it should be.  Everyone who knew us were aware that we met when we were eight years old.  

You just moved three houses away from where I lived in Pasay City ---- and one fine day you saw me playing cards by myself and you pushed open the gate of my house to ask if you could join me in a game of ... Old Maid.   How were we to know that this would be a premonition of sorts.

It was years later when we saw each other again at the canteen of then De la Salle College.  Again, one of our favorite shared anecdotes was how we reacted when our eyes chanced on each other and you went, "Joey?" and I tentatively asked, "Manolet?" and what followed was an ear-piercing scream that was heard all the way to Taft Avenue.  

Ever since then we were inseparable.  It was always Joey and Manny. We laughed the same laugh.  We had a delicious way of sharing stories.  We swapped opinions --- and, boy, did we really bitch in a manner that our lacerating wit can conceive.

Now when I look back, I realize that in all the major moments of my life, you were there.  

You were in the cast of my very first successful professional endeavor as a writer in The Boys in the Band in Taglish, directed by Tony Espejo and staged in Hotel Mirador, running close to two years.

You were in the cast of the very first sitcom I wrote for then BBC Channel 2, directed by the late Quito CuUnjieng entitled Sandy's Cousin, starring Ronald Bregendahl and meant as the launching pad for a beautiful new talent named Sandy Andolong.  Remember how you and I together with Benggot PeBenito would spend the day in school then take a Love Bus ride all the way to Broadcast City because our taping started at 12 midnight to about seven the next morning?  Then we would just go home, change clothes then go back to school for the classes we taught?

You were in the most important movie of my writing career: I remember asking Peque Gallaga if I can create a character for you and I was overjoyed when he agreed.  Shooting Oro, Plata, Mata was a joy because you, Don Escudero and I were together in one frenzied night when we shot the opening party scene.  The following day we shot the ending of the movie --- I wrote the role of Emilio based on the idea of Gallaga to show the change of power in the sexes as a result of the devastation of the war.  You were in the opening and closing of the movie --- but more important was the fact that the three of us ( you, Don and I) were together for that once in a lifetime experience.

And you were cast in the very first movie I directed.  I do not remember how many movies I have written and directed that you played one role or another ... but it was the comfort of having you on the set ... or the fact that there was always someone there to infect everybody with laughter.

Or the time when I decided to move out of my parents' house and asked you to accompany in my house hunting where we ended up in the South Syquia Apartments in MH del Pilar suddenly awed by the beautiful art deco architecture.  That was when you impulsively decided to move out of your family home as well: I remember the day we moved into Syquia in our separate residences --- you on the second floor of Building 2 while I was on the fourth.  And some people actually thought that we were living together because we had the same address.

There were too many memories to share. I mean, it could not be helped.  We have known each other for sixty-one years which was more than a lifetime for unfortunate others.  We both lived through the Remedios Circle days when that was the most fashionable area of the city: we survived Coco Banana, Subway and all the other clubs where it was a weekly ritual to party from Saturday evening until sunrise of Sunday.

There were the New Year's Eve parties you hosted in your apartment where you actually dedicated time and effort to cook a terrific meal for your friends as we greeted each passage of yet another landmark in our lives.  You would take out your best silver and flaunt your culinary talent --- something about you that very few people knew.  We had spent so many new year's eve together that I wrote a song to celebrate those unforgettable occasions: "Isang Taong Lumipas" was made even more unforgettable by the music of Ryan Cayabyab.

We lived through all that.  And later those vacations in Boracay, those crazy trips to Hong Kong and Bangkok.  I got to see how you viciously collected those Versace plates that you carefully arranged in a buffet cabinet that came crashing down during an earthquake.  I remember how you were in a state of shock after finding a dozen or so plates diminished into shards and how you casually and non-challantly shrugged your shoulders and said, "Oh, well." 

That was so much like you for you never show others how you felt or what went inside your mind.  You never wanted anyone to catch your vulnerabilities or make others feel responsible for your problems ... down to the very end.

Yes, these past few years we had our differences because of choices we made.

But despite the arguments we had about politics, we never really let that create a crack so big that it could become irreperable. We may not agree on a lot of things to the point that I unfriended you in Facebook because I found your online ranting toxic ----and hurting the feelings of so many people we knew. But, in the end, we just never talked about it.  You never asked me why I cut my social media connections with you.  There was more to our friendship than the ramblings of politics to put an end to a lifetime of camaraderie.  

That is why even after so many weeks that you have left, I am still not used to the fact that you are no longer there.

We will soon have another dinner in my house --- and that empty seat will remind all of us that this space was reserved for you... only you.

We will miss you as we are missing you now and I know that all my life I will be missing my best friend.  But to quote a line from that song, "It is the laughter that we will remember ..." because that was something you gave me for sixty-two years.

And I know that you are somewhere out there (with Don) chattering endlessly, bitching at your best and perhaps remembering too ... remembering the best of years when Don, you and I shared the same table and lived our lives like no other.

Only a few remember that your nickname was not Manny but Manolet.

Happy birthday, Manolet.