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eqpablo-blog · 5 years

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AT PEACE ON THE CAMINO: A TRIBUTE TO MY FRIEND, JERRY BARICAN By EQ Pablo

I was a high school classmate and friend of Jerry’s from UP Prep. I have a number of high school friends with me tonight. Just last February, we commemorated the 60th anniversary of UP Prep’s founding. Jerry wasn’t with us when we marked the occasion with a grand alumni homecoming at the Sofitel—he was at the ICU of the Makati Medical Center following a heart attack, which he had miraculously survived.

He did, however, contribute what could very well have been the final piece he would ever write, which he did not even want attributed to him but which I being Chair of the Legacy Committee heavily quoted in our Commemorative Book.

Let me thus share with you in the words of the late great Jerry Barican himself, the context of our 50-plus year friendship. He wrote: "We are the Prepian Class of 1966. We first climbed those pitted but stately steps to the third floor of Rizal Hall in the late summer of ’62. John Kennedy was in the White House; Pope John XXIII had just convened Vatican II; Diosdado Macapagal was newly-installed in Malacanang; Carlos P. Romulo had just become UP President; and a streamer at the top of the stairway landing proclaimed the admonition in greeting that ‘Punctuality is the courtesy of kings.’

"Even the Beatles hadn’t yet burst in on the scene, and Woodstock and the hippies were still years away. ‘Downtown’ was Avenida Rizal and Escolta, not Makati...The price of a ticket to a first-run movie cost one peso and twenty centavos. Hi-tech was ‘Ban-Lon,’ Japan’s expensive and shimmering synthetic cloth. It was still the two-lane Highway 54, built by the Americans in 1945 to bypass Manila, not today’s EDSA. The hangout was A&W Drive-in in Cubao. It was a season of happiness and an age of innocence unencumbered by the worries of adult life, though we were as yet unaware of it. The drug culture had not yet arrived and our rebellion was confined to the occasional surreptitiously-smoked cigarette.

"Padre Faura was a quiet street flush with bookstores like Erehwon and La Solidaridad, restaurants like Cucina Italiana, and Acme supermarket. Ateneo was at the corner of Dakota, now Adriatico. We would occasionally hie off to lunch at the Phil-Am Life Building’s air-conditioned cafeteria on Isaac Peral (now UN Avenue). Saturdays were for swimming and PE classes on faraway Diliman.

“What we learned in those four years changed us forever. But even more so, we acquired values and treasured friendships.”

That’s what Jerry and our high school classmates were first and foremost to each other: Friends, we just cared for each other, nothing profound about it.

However, another of our high school friends, Boo Chanco, recently wrote in his Philippine Star column, “I have known Jerry since we were in the same UP Prep freshman class way back when. We were together for four years of high school in UP’s Padre Faura campus.

“Jerry was the star in our UP Prep 66 class. He was a bundle of talent in one neat package. He won the declamation contests, bagged best actor for the two years we staged Broadway musicals, edited the school publication and graduated first honorable mention too.

“Of course, in college Jerry was the student leader who was at the thick of it during the First Quarter Storm. Jerry, while still an undergrad, defeated several College of Law seniors for the chairmanship of the UP Student Council. He was the first Student Regent.

“In the 70s, he pursued a law degree. He taught at the UP College of Law, went to Harvard for a Masters.”

In fact, Jerry was newly-arrived from Harvard when in January 1981 I married Clem Luciano, also from UP. I remember very well standing at the driveway of the Archbishop’s Palace anxiously awaiting the arrival of my bride, when who should draw up in a taxicab but Jerry, wearing a suit and all. He alit and promptly approached me to ask for money to pay his fare! Which is not to say that Jerry didn’t have any of his own—he was one of the most gallant and generous people I knew. There was one time that he treated me and another classmate and close friend in grand style to an all-expense paid weekend at the flagship Peninsula Hong Kong. Each of us had been booked into a suite of our own, courtesy of Jerry, and it was the first time, probably the only time, in my life that I would ever ride a Rolls Royce—with its trunk tied down with a rope because it could not be properly closed, what with all of Jerry’s luggage and balikbayan boxes. That was Jerry for you.

I forget now what it was that we were talking about, but once, when we were both serving in government during the Estrada Administration, me with the Department of Public Works and Highways and he, of course, as Presidential Spokesperson, Jerry asked me what it was that I was doing with Erap as though I had absolutely no business being there with the President. That was also Jerry for you, thinking that it should only be him.

Last March, after I lost my wife Clem to lung cancer, Jerry texted me: "Hi, EQ. I just found out from Vic about Clem’s passing. She was a good person and the world is a lesser place without her. I will pray for her and all those she left behind, especially you. Don’t reply. You have other things to do. Jerry." That was also Jerry for you, brief yet sensitive. He made it a point to stop by Mount Carmel to pay his last respects to Clem in person, even though he was still recovering from his heart attack. In fact, he couldn’t stay very long because he had just come from the hospital for a check-up.

The last time I saw him was about two months ago, prior to my departure for Spain to walk the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. He was at CIBO in Greenbelt with Lenny De Jesus with whom he had become good friends from his Presidential Spokesperson days and remained so. He looked good, and was his old jolly self. He told me that he was fine and with a laugh, tried to reassure me: “Don’t worry about me, EQ—a lot of people are praying for me to stay alive.”

My last SMS exchange with him was when I was on my way to the airport for Spain, on August 26. At that time, he was already confined at Makati Med. "Praying for you, Jerry", I texted him. "TY", he replied.

After that last SMS exchange I prayed for Jerry, along with Clem and my family and friends, on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, wherein I had to walk an average 25 kms a day in about 10 hours for six days. The regular pilgrim would cover the same distance in six to seven hours. He would start at 7 AM and finish up by 2 PM in time for the late Spanish lunch. Setting my own senior pilgrim pace, I would start at 11 AM so that during the first half of my walk, I would find myself in the company of other pilgrims, but by the second half, for about four hours, I would have the Camino all to myself, sometimes up to 9 PM, at times walking through densely-forested areas. If for nothing else, this only made my experience highly conducive to deep thinking and I made sure to use that special time and opportunity I was given to pray and reflect on my relationships—with my God, with my Clem, with my family, with my friends, including Jerry who by that time had lapsed into the coma which would prove irreversible. The end result was that I found myself cocooned in peace as I led the simple life on the Camino which made it feel like a little corner of Heaven here on earth.

Jerry, you and I also had a little corner of Heaven here on earth when for four years, from 1962 to 1966, we, together with our friends, led the simple life of high school students. To this day, I still remember how we celebrated our graduation and friendship with a trip to the beach in Bauang, La Union on a passenger jeepney provided by your Mom. From there, we proceeded to Baguio where the lot of us descended en masse upon my grandfather’s house. Baguio was very memorable to us because it was there that we had gone on our first educational tour ever at UP Prep, back when we were freshmen. Coincidentally, when news of your passing reached me it seemed only fitting that I was once again doing the La Union/Baguio trip again being friends—this time with my children, Lia and Joao.

Jerry, you were always a good man as well as a good friend. Now, it is my turn to reassure you. It's all right. Everything's fine! I know where you are—at peace on the Camino. Have a great walk. No need to reply—you have other things to do.

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