Life begins at 90!

The members of my ancient medieval original Ateneo Alumni Glee Club brought six of my family from the United States to the Philippines, to celebrate my 90th birthday.

They were my brother Kenny and his wife Geri; my sister Nancy and her husband Tony; and the two eldest children of my Sister Rita, Susan and Jim. Rita, who was the gentlest of my four sisters, died three years ago.

All six were scheduled to arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport near midnight on Friday, May 19. I was waiting in the area between Immigration and Customs at 10:30 p.m. By 11:00 only four had arrived. No Nancy and Tony. Checking at the computer center, we discovered that their plane was late coming into Detroit, and they missed their connecting flight to Manila. They were re-routed to Philippine Airlines, and scheduled to arrive at 5:45 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Ken and Geri waited patiently at the carousel until all the baggage came up on the belt, and found that the bag with most of Ken’s clothing was not on the plane. Checking with "Missing Baggage", we discovered that their bag had been left in Atlanta, Georgia. The Filipino attendants apologized, and promised to deliver the bag, to my office, early on Sunday morning. So we got the first four arrivals safely into their hotel rooms, by 1:30 in the morning.

At 5:15 a.m. I was waiting for Nancy and Tony at the Centennial Airport, PAL Airlines. The plane arrived. All the passengers poured out, with their baggage. But no Nancy. No Tony. Finally, by 7:00 a.m., the attendants reported that no passengers were left in the airport. We had them paged, and lo! We found them! They also had lost their best baggage. It was left in Detroit. But the Filipina Attendants, very graciously, promised to deliver the bag, to their hotel, on Sunday morning. We had Nancy and Tony into their hotel room by 8:30 a.m.

After lunch, we faced the first crisis: they were all invited to Malacañang for that evening, and three of them had nothing complete that they could wear: Nancy, Kenny, and Jim. We took them to Tesoro’s. None of their dresses fitted Nancy. So the women in the shop, unperturbed, measured Nancy and said: "We will have a beautiful skirt and blouse ready by 6:00 p.m." And they did!

At seven that evening Ken and Jim were elegant, each in a barong Tagalog, and Nancy was dressed like a native Filipina. Ken and Nancy, my brother and sister, were called to the stage when the President gave me the Lakandula Award. She was very gracious to all the members of the family, talking and laughing with them, having pictures taken with them, treating them as if they were long lost friends.

On Sunday noon we had lunch with Oscar and Connie Lopez. Oscar I had coached in basketball, when he was a seven year old student of Maryknoll in Baguio. I was giving retreats to Connie when she was a student in high school at Assumption Convent, located then on the corner of Dakota and Herran, separated only by a stone wall from the Old Ateneo on Padre Faura.

The family was fascinated by the beauty of Oscar’s library; by the artistic design of the library floor; by the peacefulness and charm of the garden; but most of all by the warmth and affection of the Lopez family. Susan was amazed that the Filipina women, when they are 40 years old with five children, "look like college girls!" One of the Lopez boys has triplets. Meeting their mother, Susan said: "I thought she was a teenage high school girl!"

Susan teaches Yoga. When we visited the four Marines who are incarcerated at the Embassy, she discovered that Chad Carpentier was trying to teach himself Yoga, out of a book. She went over the book with him, pointing out what was good, and what was bad. Then they went into a place where they had some privacy, and she gave him real lessons in Yoga. When Chad was lying on his back, with his feet in the air, trying to follow Susan’s directions, it was the first time I heard him laugh.

At the Mass, on my birthday, in the beautiful chapel of Saint Paul University Quezon City, Cardinal Rosales told the audience about my coming to his convento, when he was the Bishop of Malaybalay. He said:

"He told me that he was coming through Malaybalay from Cagayan de Oro, on his way to Davao with a group of actors, and would stop with me for breakfast.

I expected him to come in a jeep, with about four or five students. But he came in a bus! And after the first five students came a wave of ten more, then 15 more! My cook almost died. And they were all young, and all hungry!"

At that time, I know, we cleaned out all his supplies for the next month. But still, on my birthday, for my family, he said good things about me. In the theater, afterwards, Sister Zeta, the Provincial Superior of the Sisters of Saint Paul de Chartres in the Philippines also said beautiful things, and so did Father Ben Nebres, S.J., the president of the Ateneo de Manila. This kind of thing frightens me because I am always thinking of that line in the Gospel: "If people say good things about you – beware! You have received your reward!"

It was Susan who brought the house down. Susan was once a professional actress, in what she calls: "A non-illustrious career." Then she went to clown school and traveled as a clown for a year with the circus of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey. Then she went to Yoga. But when called upon to speak here in Manila she described my visits home to the States during my 68 years in the Philippines. She had the whole theater screaming with laughter. Her ending was: "Thank God his visits were always brief!"

The family was deeply touched by the Ateneo Alumni Glee Club. All grandfathers, now. But we have been singing together for more than 50 years. Subas Herrero came, heroically, in a wheelchair. And he sang! Ed Triviño was there, though he is suffering from Aphasia. And these boys are singing better now than they ever did before! When they are together they return to the joy of their youth, to their laughing, adventurous days in the Ateneo. Many of those in the audience – really, truly – had tears in their eyes.

Mayor Lito Atienza gave a dinner for them. He was waiting for us when we arrived, complete with his wife Beng and with his son Kim, who for years was acting with me. He gave each member of the family a copy of his beautiful book – Manila Reborn. And he explained carefully to them why he had banned the screening of The Da Vinci Code in Manila.

What came through, loud and clear, during our Chinese dinner with him was his conviction that a political leader should be "a public servant". His job is to serve, not to be served. The Mayor is the Chairman of Pro-Life Philippines, and a dynamic campaigner against abortion. He believes that the treasure of every nation is its people.

I had one car from the National Office of Mass Media, but we needed a second one. So Pie Gaspar loaned us her car and her driver for the whole week that my family was here. On Wednesday, May 24, she had them for dinner in her home, complete with music and with impromptu dancing. By this time the family felt perfectly at home in Manila. The evening was filled with laughter, with song, and with animated kuwentuhan. When we left both families were hugging each other, and promising to write.

The family was touched by everything they saw, and heard and felt: the smiles, the courage and the gratitude of the children under the bridge; the peace of soul in the eyes of the old nuns in their "Vigil House", waiting to go home to God; the laughter and the graciousness of the young nuns; our charity hospital for the destitute poor; the friendliness, the generosity, the warmth of everyone they met, from the Mayor to the street cleaner.

My brother Ken put it best. He said: "I am overwhelmed by the love that we find here, in everyone, everywhere."

Personally, I am grateful that he saw the Philippines as it really is, and the Filipinos as they really are – the most lovable people in all the world.

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