The Editor-in-Chief’s Eulogy for His Rotary Club of Manila Sponsor

Perhaps the most difficult of goodbyes belong to an affinity akin to one of a younger brother to an older brother. And this, I find difficult to express without shedding a tear amidst a melancholic mood, albeit the virtual nature of this necrological service as I chose to have my recruit read this timeless eulogy.

Rare is a Manila Rotarian who has witnessed his brother literally grow from childhood to his elementary and high school years towards the doorsteps of Service Above Self. A bespectacled thick-haired Obstetrician-Gynecologist, fresh from his UP Medicine and UP-PGH stint, in the winter of his youth, suddenly, entered the clinic of my mom who was then computing the grades of her students in her capacity as Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Perpetual Help College of Medicine in Biñan. I was then a fourth grader languishing on my rather difficult assignment as I sat across the table opposite my mom who was supervising me. There, I met my future sponsor to the Rotary Club of Manila, a meek physician far from what his fellow Manila Rotarians would come to know several decades hence.

A godchild of my mother as she was his wedding sponsor, Cesar was a budding doctor raring to fulfill his aspirations. He sought advice from my mother as he was under her tutelage during his formative years in Obstetrics and Gynecology because he was in a dilemma between pursuing a Gynecologic Oncology fellowship at PGH and the desire to earn a decent living, his parents having embraced the chapter of the immortals early in their lives. My mother became a guardian to him as she was instrumental in finding him his first job. It could not have come at a more opportune time as our PD Peping Tamayo was in need of a male Obstetrician-Gynecologist assistant where my mother highly recommended him. Thus, the genesis of what would be a borderless fusion between two families where family gatherings were commonplace, with Cesar being present at my most triumphant moments in life, during my elementary graduation party at home, my high school graduation party at Alabang Country Club, my college graduation party at the now defunct Luigi’s Steakhouse along Tomas Morato and my law school graduation at the then Makati Shangri-La, witnessing me at my finest hour, as I completed each of them with flying colors at the top of my heat.

I was beginning to scale management responsibilities as Chairman of the Bioethics Department when I received a persistent invitation from him to be a member of the Rotary Club of Manila, oblivious of its stature as the first club in Asia. Despite undergoing the most exacting of deliberations for membership for which I thought the club was not for me, Cesar never gave up on me, moving mountains in ensuring that I would be one of his STAR Rotarians on his year of service as President. Truth be told, Rotary was a vague concept to me and while in depth Rotary knowledge was never Cesar’s cup of tea, he more than compensated for the kind of fellowship every Manila Rotarian would yearn to have, weaning me from being under his shadow, from a “visiting Rotarian” which PP Benny Laguesma coined to tease me, to a club officer climbing the ladder of Rotary hierarchy and later, a district EXECOM member, all because his mentorship, while never patent, was a driving force towards the Rotarian I was bound to become.

While the District Governorship was not a path he was bound to cross despite his commonplace congeniality, his greatest strength remains his neverending pursuit to constantly inspire me to be the best version of myself in a competitive sea of Rotarians. He knew I had more to harness having seen me at my best and at my worst. A constant fixture at many a World Famous Music Chorale gathering at the Central Colleges of the Philippines, with his playful bantering, phenomenal ballroom dancing skills and old school boys’ ways, his tenor voice would certainly reverberate to the heavens above as his greatest legacy remains in turning crisis moments to punchlines, seeing life, not in a chaotic perspective, but in a rollercoaster of laughing no end. Yes, this was the Cesar I knew. He was a gift to Rotary, not in its intricate rudiments, but in his ability to motivate Rotarians to Service Above Self.

Indeed the magic of Rotary works in mysterious ways. Cesar and I belong to rival fraternities yet our brotherhood has withstood the test of time. His penchant for light moments has instilled in me the value to SERVE TO CHANGE LIVES even as one clandestinely lives in brewing poverty, to dream big, and IMAGINE ROTARY as the realization of our life long aspirations.

Rest well in the Lord’s abode my mentor. You are the bridge from the seasoned to the young. How I wish you could have lived longer to show the way for the next generation. God had a reason to take you too soon. My mom and PD Peping perhaps needed an assistant in proverbial stork appointments. The world is gradually evolving yet you remain my fairytale story in Rotary, a legend that lives forever. Goodbye President 101 because deep in our hearts you are always number one. Claim your eternal rewards which the wheels of Rotary have earned for you. Godspeed my godbrother until our paths cross once again.