Reminiscing Roy

Your name brought me luck when I was able to answer my current events quiz when I was in grade school. Our first encounter was during your house-to-house campaign in 1984 during the elections of the Batasang Pambansa for the Member of Parliament for the then combined district of Las Piñas and Parañaque when you went out of your way to enter our humble abode and shook hands with an 11 year old boy who happened to be down with high fever.

Twenty-one years later, we became fellow Rotarians at Asia’s First Rotary Club where you were one of the firsts to make me feel at home amid a teeming multitude of captains of industry I could only idolize from afar. And just when we became very close friends because you marvelled at how detailed I featured your every speaking engagement at our weekly BALITA that we kept in constant touch through the wonders of social media where you would report your latest interview, you left this world in a flash, living up to your monicker as Mr Project Mercury.

While the multitude of Filipinos who look up to you as a defender of Philippine sovereignty mourn the loss of a patriot, I bid farewell to an Officer and a Gentleman, a man of deep seated knowledge with whom I had the rare privilege of exchanging views on almost any topic under the sun, a lofty man who saw an ordinary citizen like me as no different from family.

PVP Roy Golez, I will miss our frequent old school boy bantering whenever you see my picture in the company of beautiful ladies where you would jokingly threaten me with an investigation by an ethics committee based on the 4-way test and bring a whole new meaning to the word, “learning”.

Rest well in calm seas and steady sail, being the Navy officer you have always been, as I thank the Good Lord for the rare privilege of crossing paths in this earthly life with an icon who descended his pedestal to embrace reality and see the future of our nation in the eyes of the common man.