I HAVE had what might be charitably described as the Bataan Death March of domestic and business stress lately, and I have a great deal of catching up to do. I don’t want to get into all the details, because they wouldn’t mean much to most people, and I have already vented at length about it to those who could relate, or at least commiserate in a small degree. But, I am finally at the point at the beginning of this week (Monday, May 11) where I am seeing signs of getting my wheels back under me, though it still may take a while. In the words of the immortal Hunter S. Thompson, I am like the man who has been all the way out to the edge, with no grip at all for a while, who is starting to feel his grasp return.
At least I hope that is the case. On top of everything else, on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 5, less than 24 hours after returning from a short vacation and already up to my eyeballs in problems, I was informed that my long-time boss, mentor, and dare I say good friend Dr. Dante A. Ang, the owner and Chairman Emeritus of The Manila Times and its related family of companies, had passed away at the age of 83.
DAA, as he was known to people who knew him, had been in poor health for some time. His mind remained laser-sharp until the very end, but his body had been failing him for a while, which he found extremely annoying; he was an active man, and being told that he needed to rest was not what he wanted to hear, but eventually his condition grew bad enough that he had no choice. I last spoke to him, briefly, on April 22, just shy of two weeks before he died. He had forwarded me some files and asked me to “take care of it”; I knew what that meant, and he knew I knew, and taken care of it was. I asked him how he was, he said, not great, and frustrated that he couldn’t get up and do more, but he would weather it. Only he didn’t.
Now that I have the chance to write about DAA and what my relationship with him meant to me – and make no mistake, I would not be what I am today without his tutelage, encouragement, and the doors he opened on my behalf – I find that so much of it is something that I need not nor do not want to share. Plus, several other of my dear colleagues have already written beautiful eulogies to him, which is why I’m posting this here and not in the paper; I doubt I would steal their thunder, anyway, and I certainly don’t want to look like I’m trying. For reference, I would invite you to read the obituary published hours after his passing by our Lifestyle Editor, Tessa Mauricio-Arriola, and the column written by Rigoberto Tiglao on May 8. There have been a few others.
I’ll put it this way: DAA was the second of only two people in my entire life who have told me, “This is what you’re good at. Keep at it, because you are important.” The first was my own father, who passed away almost five years ago. Dad gave me encouragement when I was at a low point of my life; DAA, who accidentally became a sort of stepfather to me, gave me the opportunity to pass or fail at applying my skills, and to apply them to things I never dreamed of.
I will miss him. I will miss our casual conversations, our debates – I wouldn’t call them arguments, but they were at times spirited – and those moments when he shared something personal. And even more, those moments when he showed a genuine loving interest in what was personal to me. My daughter cried when she heard he had died; so did I. And I am not so conceited to think I was special, because he was like that with all “his people,” and that’s part of what made him special.
To some of my friends and family, it is impressive that I was so close to someone who was a titan of Philippine media, and a legitimately important historical personality in this country. To me, he was just the boss. And even though he’s gone, I don’t think I’ll ever work in such a way that I would risk doing something that would let him down. Thank you, my mentor, my friend, and enjoy your well-earned rest. We’ll take it from here.
