Thanks, Glenn

Do I believe in ghosts and spirits? I don't know. Let me just say, though, that in the office, I am probably one of the few who has not yet been spooked by what some of my officemates would swear are a number of unexplainable apparitions and related phenomenons.

Most of those in the office who, like me, work late into the night, have at one time or another seen or heard typewriter keys (in the old days) or computer keyboards being used by somebody, or something, that they could not see.

Others swear by their wives' virginity when they married them that chairs would sometimes skim across the office on their casters by their lonesome. And there are those who insist having noticed doors creaking open and then slamming shut without human intervention or manipulation.

I used to listen to such tales with great patience. Narrated by people who were otherwise sane and known to be God-fearing, educated and responsible lent these tales credibility that was hard to ignore. If only I could, I would have wanted to just succumb to the urge to believe.

Not that these tales do not give me the creeps. They do, especially when I remember them just as I realize I am the only one left in the office. But never having seen any of these events always got in the way of my believing. If to see is to believe, then I guess I am disqualified.

To be sure, I do not crave experiencing an event. If I can have it my way, I would rather not see or hear keyboards pounding or chairs moving by themselves. If there is a thrill to be scared in such a manner. I want no part of it. It is a kind of thrill I can do without.

I did get to experience relatively tamer events, what I call the intrusion of dead people into real time thoughts. I mean, there have been a few times when thoughts of people just enter your mind not knowing that at the time you thought of them, they were already dead.

My latest experience with this kind of phenomenon, if I can call it that, involved Glenn Basubas, an old media colleague and long-time friend of mine who passed away only last Wednesday. If spirits do exist, then Glenn may have paid me and my wife a visit on that day.

I was home at the time, nursing a fever from the heavy rains of the Monday before, when the wife suddenly asked if I had seen Glenn lately. I have not seen Glenn in maybe two years so I said no. But I added that I probably would see him soon, maybe when election time swings around.

My recollections having been sufficiently provoked, we began to share fond and often funny memories of Glenn, including some youthful mischiefs we engaged in, and a few private jokes thrown in. They were light and happy thoughts, unbroken by any sense of foreboding.

Some two hours later, on the same day, Michelle So of SunStar called. She wanted to confirm with me if Glenn had really died. I was incredulous. I told her she was the first person to break the news to me as I have been cooped up sick all day in the house.

I promptly ticked off a series of texted inquiries to a few mutual friends. It was from Jesse Bacon in Manila that I got the shocking confirmation. Bobby Nalzaro of GMA-7 also texted me to inquire and it was to him that I first passed on the confirmation.

Later, when I got well enough to finally visit the wake of Glenn and talk to his family, I learned that it was right about the very time that my wife and I were talking about Glenn that he passed away, of liver failure, in Ormoc City where he was visiting a sister.

Glenn had been sports editor of The Freeman for about a decade and was one of its best writers. And he stood by Nito Jabat and me as we and a handful of others fought on and refused to let this paper go under during its most crucial fight for survival in the early 1980s.

While I did not share some of Glenn's passions, we remained good friends, which was easy because we go back a long way, having cut our teeth in journalism at about the same time in 1980. Thanks, Glenn, for saying goodbye with fond memories, not by moving chairs or pounding keyboards.