Barican, ex-Erap spokesman, dies

MANILA, Philippines - Former presidential spokesman and lawyer Fernando “Jerry” Barican, who had been comatose after a stroke in August, died at the Makati Medical Center Friday night. He was 66.

“I am not privy to the details, but he has been in a coma for a long time now. He never woke up since he became comatose,” Trixie Cruz-Angeles, a friend of the family, said.

Barican also underwent surgery after a heart attack in February.  

His remains lie at the St. Alphonsus de Liguori Church in Magallanes Village in Makati City. Interment is at the Manila Memorial Park in Sucat, Parañaque at a date and time to be announced later.

A necrological service is set at 7 p.m. tomorrow.

A known student activist, Barican was detained upon the declaration of martial law. He was a former leader of the Samahang Demokratiko Kabataan and the chairman of the University of the Philippines student council during the First Quarter Storm in 1970. 

He ran but lost for the Senate in 1978 together with the late senator Benigno Aquino Jr. under the opposition Laban party.

He ran for the Senate again in 1992 under businessman Eduardo Cojuangco’s Nationalist People’s Coalition.

Barican graduated magna cum laude and earned his law degree at UP. He took his masters of law degree at Harvard University in 1979.

After working for the late congressman Millicent Fenwick in the US Congress, he came home to join Bank of the Philippine Islands and start his private legal practice.

He taught law at UP and served on the board of the Philippine Constitutional Association.

He joined the board of the Development Bank of the Philippines after serving as spokesman for former President Joseph Estrada in 1998.