My First College Buddy: Rico Leo Sacaben

For Rico Leo Sacaben: the lives we lived…paths we took…heartaches we’ve withstood…(musing over)

i made quite an exciting bulletin awhile ago, telling my thoughts about how glad i was, seeing you again and being able to talk with you again after 14 years of being away from each other’s lives. but then one silly connection glitch zapped it out… feeling so disheartened, i decided to forego the message, thinking, maybe it wasn’t meant to be posted, so i decided to stand up and and take my very late lunch (got side swept with my students stage play earlier)… but then i stopped to take one last look on my friendster profile, and there, i saw your name jumped out of the screen, since i placed you as one of my featured friends, then i remembered, you asked me yesterday, if i have already read your blogs, so, neglecting the pangs of hunger, i clicked your site and went for the blogs you had casually mentioned in our conversation yesterday. oh, i remember, you’re one of my greatest rivals in writing…hehehe…bragging? huh-huh…

rico, tears welled in my eyes, for what was laid before me, were the very thoughts of a very close friend i lost long time ago. i cried because i realized how wide the gap that separates us from each other and how different are we from the starry-eyed, clueless individuals, with devil-may-care dispositions we were before; before, we were just contented with earning 3.0 in our GE subjects in UP Tacloban (how come you’re good in math while being good in english pati?); we would be satisfied with having to sit under the trees inside the relatively-clean-but-nearly-polluted UP Botanical Garden, not minding if classes are up already. oh how i cried when you left me for UP Diliman…you’re such a jerk then!!! and now…i still think you are…bad habits are hard to break dear…

poring over your blogs, made me want to cry out loud (especially when i read about your dad and how you long for him in your own silent thoughts, all this time…nakarelate ak sobra!), if not for the on-going classes we have next door… i didn’t know all those things ric. you practically had become a stranger to me. i never thought you will be married early for you struck me as the “deviant” one who will refuse to be tied down with society’s conventions. i guess, the only thing permanent in this world is change. and, guess what! you missed asking me to become a ninang to your eleven-year-old son, who i bet is more good-looking than you.

the funny rico i so remembered when we were young was still there, present in all your musings but along with this persona, are the angst you keep as you tread through life. of course, your very eloquent and high-falluting words can never be questioned…you always have the gift of writing, precisely why Dr. Sugbo liked you, even up to now. i guess, you will never lose it even when age catches up with you. however, your beautiful words cannot mask the fact that indeed life has gotten into your system, deep and thorough…

ric, how could we have lived different lives, when i think both of us live on the same plane, that plane of having to make do with what we have as students, (budgeting long-delayed-and-too-small allowance), the plane of having to struggles so hard against poverty (of not being able to buy what we want), the plane of having great dads who we will always love ’til the day we die (…of seeing them die young, 53 and 54, and having to live through the pain of their untimely demise), the plane of having to be government servants (just luckier, my case isn’t as worse as how you described it in your blog, i’m in the academe, dear, this is safer and more idealistic than your turf), the plane of being disillusioned early on with “heart partners” (mine, didn’t just bore a child for it would deeply hurt the people who love me and i am not as brave as you, i can never hurt my mom and dad) and that plane of being able to see beyond the given (as gleaned from your very outlandish blogs’ perspective…too bad, only few of us know this, di ba we are always keen observers no? precisely why our Comm. 2 papers are way too exotic! The Culture of Chili and Teenage Pre-marital Abstinence!).

my reading your blog is actually a way of fully reaching out to you, for you to welcome me back in your life, once again…for i believe that living different and separate lives will not cut the bond that we forged 14 years ago. hey, you were the first one to have that patience to get to know me and my childish ramblings! you have seen beyond the given…you were my first college bestfriend! up to now i still wander why you opt to tag along with me when people back then had shunned me for being sooooo noisy? And remember, we use to cover each other’s back because our eccentrities often lead us to trouble? (i have to cover for you during Dr. Sugbo’s class when you were caught drawing something on the paper while his discussion is on-going, that my dear, earned me Dr. Sugbo’s ire for three good long months! he never talked to me about my paper! he never asked for my draft! i almost got flunked in my comm. 2 ’cause of you! arrrrgggh!) anyway, reading your life is actually inhaling a breath of fresh air for me, since it had made me begin to examine, the life i lived, the path i took and the choices i made…they’re not so different from yours after all…

rico, the distance and time had separate us, but in my heart, you will forever be my buddy, the brother i have during our first year college days and my partner in crime…my “talkmate”, my seatmate (who always draw caricatures out of boring teachers which would be passed on to me, to the bile of our professors who would catch us laughing at your drawings), my confidant, my language “assistant”, my assignment “cross-checker”, okay fine! (this is not out of own volition), my hero and my knight in “rusting” armor…eeeew!

hey, still an Atheist huh? oh well, i’m still a devout Catholic…but who cares! i’ll still love you and accept you like the old times! we will just not talk about how Bible suck and how it is made out of plain paper thus not sacred (sabi mo!), how God rules His land unfairly, ’cause there are poor people while others slept in airconditioned beds (sabi mo!), how faith is practiced wrongly, since Catholics would often curse and swear even right after hearing mass (sabi mo pa rin!), i haven’t crucified your point of view back then and i am not about to begin now… ’cause after all, WE EACH RESPECT OUR FAITH. no matter how different they are. bottom line.

miss and love you rics! time and distance weren’t able to change these…

huh…huh… i almost forgot, bar exams? you terrified? who are you kidding? come on! since when did you get to be afraid of exams? you actually flirted with mind games and brainwracking tests before, (remember the chess puzzle moves you exchanged with Manasseh Bastes, hoping that before the day is through, he will be able to solve it and come up with another move for you to also solve…sige aton baktas ha BL, sige naman an im’ pinsar san move nga hatag ni Manasseh, bisan ka pa mapakdol!). and (remembering this made me roll over with laughter!), the greatest test you actually FLIRTED on is having to actually walk straight to a girl and flatly ask her if you can court her? which, more often than not, would be received with a crashing set down…hehehe…crash, boom, bang! (pati hi katrina nalisang gad la san im’ kaduro nga ka-forward! amo ada pumahirayo sa im’…kay bangin hiya im’ isunod daupon ngan pakianhan…)

now, you worry about not being able to fully grasp the nuances of the Philippine laws? c’mon! you know, you’re better than that…don’t worry, i’ll read and highlight your name in the paper come March…i’ll even buy you dozens to give out…K? kaya mo it intoy!

see you soon and hey, you owe me a date man!!!! you promised…and i’ll hold that close to my heart…wanna touch base mano…and not to mention, the visit i’ll make to Catarman this christmas, you also promised me that…hmm…don’t you ever forget that.

different lives? different choices? different paths? 14 years gap? nope! …the same bond of friendship lingers!

…time for lunch…