Tito Pepe remembered for making people laugh

MANILA, Philippines - Girlie Lluz of Las Navas, Northern Samar cried when she heard the radio flash report yesterday that Pepe Pimentel was found dead in the bathroom of his house on Scout Tuason Street, Barangay Laging Handa, Quezon City.

Several years ago when Girlie and her classmates at St. Rita High School were stranded by a flood that inundated Metro Manila, they were given a ride by their “Tito Pepe” and delivered to the doorsteps of their respective homes at past midnight.

“Pepe was always ready to help,” former senator Eddie Ilarde told The STAR. “I’m honored to have had the privilege of working with him. He was hard-working, never late and never absent. He made people laugh not with self-deprecating jokes but with his funny reference to his mother-in-law. That was a myth. The truth is that he was close to his mother-in-law.”

Two of them, actually – the mother of his first wife, with whom Pepe has three children, and the mother of his second wife, Cecilia, with whom he also has three children. Pepe’s only brother Narciso Pimentel, noted for his Balitang Barbero column, died of heart attack several years ago.

Foul play was ruled out by the SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operatives). According to initial investigation, a housemaid found Pepe lifeless at around 10:30 yesterday morning. He was about to take a bath and must have slipped and hit the floor head first. Pepe reportedly usually took 30 minutes to take a bath and when he didn’t come out of the bathroom longer than that, the housemaid became curious and  checked him out.

Residents of Scout Tuason fondly remember Pepe walking around the area, picking up trash during his regular rounds. He was barangay captain of Laging Handa for 10 years (1997 to 2007).

He was reported to be 88 years old but Ilarde said that he must be “around 82 or 83” because he’s older than him. Ilarde is 79.

Born Jose Gonzales Pimentel, Pepe was the very first champion of the original talent-search show “Tawag ng Tanghalan” in the early ’60s. He became a household name when he co-hosted the noontime show “Student Canteen” on the old CBN (which later became ABS-CBN) with Ilarde, the late Bobby Ledesma and the now-US-based Leila Benitez from 1954 to the mid-’80s.