When we started our e-loop some years ago in the wind-up for our golden homecoming, one of the novelties we senior citizens of the Bedan Class of E.S. 1956 and H.S. 1960 initiated was to apply a new nickname for most of us.
We had noted how there were so many “Boy’s” in the group, e.g. Boy Hilvano, Boy Huerto, Boy Santillan et al. So Boy Huerto became Boy H3, after Boy H for Hilvano and a Boy H2 for someone else I forget now. And Guido Tuico in Spain became Boy Madrid, Delfin Amorsolo in Carlsbad turned into Boy Barurot, later Boy Tonting, eventually simply Tonts. Bobby Muldong in San Diego became Boy Tindalo. And of course I have always been Boy Tigas, in past liver and this one.
Our president Lino Dionisio was now called Boy Kulot to honor his follically-challenged pate. And Tony Abad of Connecticut assumed the appellation of Boy iN, short for iNiot, because he misspelled his own nickname one time, iNadvertently turning it into a Mac or Apple unit.
Frankie Casal was called Boy Balbas since his tisoy growth on the chin made him look like a defrocked Benedictine. We all loved him for his gentle, merry, free-going ways, and especially for his generosity of time, effort and spirit. Like most of the group, he was “retarded,” that is, retired, and so he liked nothing better than to volunteer his chauffeur-ing services to any Bedan batchmate balikbayan-ing from anywhere.
He’d meet them at the airport, take them to their hotels or old residences, escort them throughout their stay, especially to and from our special barkadahan bienvenidas and despedidas, sometimes in conjunction with an SBC Red Lions’ game we watched together on TV while making mincemeat of “killer” Lapid’s chicharon, sisig, lechon, grilled pulutan, mani, Boy Bawang, etc., all washed down with cases of San Mig and a bottle or two of single malt whisky courtesy of Boy Tigas.
Frankie a.k.a Boy Balbas was always present. He was very much part of the laughter and of the carousing camaraderie. Foreign-based batchmates, upon their return home, were all praises for his driving skills, escort service, and convivial company. Sometimes we here suspected that he had made a secret industry of it, and thus received bonus dollars that didn’t go to our P.P. or “Papa Pondo,” the funds we kept growing for scholarships we turned over to our beloved Mendiola community — even if some doubters abroad became too gullible and took a running joke seriously: that the Papa Pondo was being decimated for exactly that, for G.R.O.s in our nocturnal activities.
Maybe it was because another P.P., “Pistol Pete” Martinez, served as treasurer. Or that he was always in cahoots with “Meyor” Jun Diangco, kingpin of Pasig, lord of barangays from Metrowalk to Tiendesitas. Then there was Tut V.D. or Tutie Verdel de Dios, who brought hito from his farm ponds for our regular drinking sessions, as differentiated from the hita imaginably caressed as we liked our foreign-based brethren to believe.
Boy Balbas was tight with that group in particular. Count in Boy Tigas. That’s because us First Five always broke away from the rest in sundry air-con parlors so we could smoke outside. And we dared everyone with a survival-of-the-fittest challenge. We suggested putting up an annual ante for the LMS, or Last Man Standing award. The prizewinner would collect everything once everyone else had gone on ahead.
I always thought Boy Balbas might give me a run for that prize. Or better yet, we could share it once we found ourselves the only two left. Otherwise it wouldn’t be much fun blowing that jackpot all by one’s lonesome, whether on hito or hita and some bottles killed solo.
Shoot, it wasn’t to be. Two Sundays ago I woke to an SMS from Doc Boy H. who was out on his usual weekend in Bataan. It had been sent at nearly 4 a.m. It said that Frankie had been in an accident and was rushed to Asian Hospital, where he was now lying in a coma.
I presumed it was a car accident, and felt instantly terrible. Only a week previous, we had been out together a lot, since he had been escorting Tonts Amorsolo, a son of National Artist Fernando Amorsolo. And we had a grand despedida for the chocolate magnate at our usual haunt, the resto Hacienda across Tiendesitas. In fact I had snapped a series of pics of them sitting beside one another on our long table, constantly guffawing about terrible secrets they had shared over the past fortnight.
The text messages came in a torrent. Frankie’s son-in-law Jay and his daughters TR and Bea had first gotten hold of Doc Boy Hilvano, who quickly contacted his brods at Asian Hospital to make sure of excellent treatment for Frankie.
It had been a car accident alright, but what a freak one it was. Another batchmate, Juancho Gimenez, had picked up Frankie on Friday night. With other couples, except for Frankie who’s been a relatively recent widower, they had Peking Duck dinner at the Modern China restaurant in Glorietta, after which they had coffee at UCC across Shang.
Juancho related further that he had then dropped off Frankie at the Sun Valley gate, where Frankie customarily brought his car to keep a friend from having to enter the village to pick him up. Frankie drove the few blocks home, parked his Honda Accord automatic by his house gate. The driver’s door had been stuck and hadn’t been fixed. It wouldn’t open, so he had to scramble out the passenger side. The speculation is that he was halfway out when his dragging foot hit the gear stick and caused the car to roll. Frankie got dragged until the curb stopped the car. His head must have hit the concrete, either of the road or the pavement.
He still managed to holler for help, and text his son-in-law who was inside the house. A neighbor got to him first, pickling him up from halfway under the car. Jay came out and found his dad-in-law still conscious and sitting on the curb. Upon their arrival at the hospital, Frankie began to expectorate blood.
Our buddy Boy Balbas lay in the ICU after a brain operation. He didn’t make it after six days, despite the prayers and Masses offered by our Bedan brotherhood here and abroad. He expired on Friday morning, Sept. 24.
It was pretty hard to take. I was abroad during his last hours, fearing the worst with each SMS or e-mail about Frankie’s condition. I shed tears upon waking up Friday to that danged text of finality.
I loved my dear friend Frankie Casal. He grew up in San Juan, where I also enjoyed teen-age barkadahan. He kept at me, since we all got reunited several years ago, about my SSS papers, since he seemed to have a friend there. When I said I had no time for it, and I had always been intermittently employed anyway, he took the trouble of having my record checked, and handed me a piece of paper, saying it was now up to me to have it updated over the last 10 years of part-time employment with the Ateneo. That piece of paper is somewhere among my stupid piles of files. I will now have to retrieve it to honor Frankie’s memory.
He also lent me his ECOS yearbook, with its collection of our photos for our elementary-school graduation. I said I would have the whole thing photocopied and bound. No one among us had kept his ECOS 1956 yearbook, only Frankie. Ironically, his own photo had been cut out, because he once needed an ID picture, as he said. He dropped me off several times after a Hacienda session, in that danged Accord.
He had helped arrange a photo shoot for a Free Press cover on Senior Citizens’ Rights, and he, LotKu, Tut V.D. and Erick Ochoa, who had passed away two years ago, posed for the cover together with Sen. Ed Angara. And he and Erick, whom he had been helping in the seniors’ crusade, had appeared as guests one time in my TV talk show on the GNN Channel. Now both of them are gone.
I managed to attend the wake on the first night that Friday, coming straight from the airport. But I had to fly out again the next morning, and thus missed the necro and Mass and cremation on a Sunday. Bedans Gen. Tutti Ebuen, “Meyor” Jun Diangco, Tutie Vergel de Dios, and Bong Obligacion helped carry his coffin.
Last Tuesday, we had a despedida for Dr. Lody Sunga who was flying back to New York. In attendance were all the usual smoking-gun suspects, plus Ed Lim, Ruben Roque, Jun Lao, Bert Martinez, Ros Bautista, Boy H, and our Prez Lino “LotKu” Dionisio. At the head of the long table was an empty chair, Frankie’s, with an opened San Mig Light bottle, a plate and utensils, and a cigarette. When we smoked out on the terrace, we brought Boy Balbas’ cigarette along and had a special seat for him, too.
Yesterday was his pa-siyam. We joined his family at Sun Valley. There was much laughter, and still some tears. Today, Frankie would have been 67. Darn it darn it darn it. Our Boy Balbas didn’t even see our Red Lions post a historic Sweet 16 sweep in the NCAA elims. But we will be champs once again, soon, with Frankie’s “Animo!” from wherever.