Honorary woman, prurience, and bullying

I attended the launch of the new book on Raul Roco, Honorary Woman, written by Conrad de Quiros before the popular Inquirer columnist, was felled by a stroke - misplaced for years, and found only recently.

August 5, 2015 marked Raul's tenth death or "home-going" anniversary.

 

It was fun reconnecting last Wednesday with some of the friends of my youth, the finest non-calculating ones one could ever have, per one reading of Robert Penn Warren, in All the King's Men. 

 

Widow Sonia Roco had asked me to write the Foreword. It was a privilege and I obliged.

   

The Sunday Inquirer write up on the lunch (8/9/15) quotes me as saying in the Foreword that Kama Sutra from Raul I got in 1969 when I was about to return to the U.S. in November 1969 to marry Dulce the following month. (I had come home to ask for her hand.)

Am Ulyanin but I must have received from Raul the Jerusalem Bible, Seven-Storey Mountain or the Imitation of Christ, peks man. But, the Naga Public Library, Raul told Conrad,  "was where I read my first prurient literature." At 29. Hmmmm.

Raul was bullied by other, older kids of all ages, including Fr. Murphy, S.J., who'd say, "I'll mash your face and throw your dead body in the swamp," at p. 38. Jesuitical jiu-jitsu of course. (My Makati Elem principal, Mr. Pastor Cortez, would punch us in the tummy.)  "They were always picking on me because I was small," sighed Raul. At 34.

Raul also recalls that "Joker [Arroyo] lived up the road, also in Sta. Cruz [Naga]. Even now, each time my mother sees him on TV, she asks, `Wasn't that the boy who used to deliver our bread in the morning." At 28. "Pompon" was how Raul was called as a child.

He recalled playing patintero, may be unknown to the young today, with their ipods, cps, etc..

Being bullied may prepare one to live in an adult world of disappointments. What does not destroy us can only make us stronger - Nietszche - in this vale of tears where man was not put to be happy. Reinfield.
 

Anyway, memories are made of these.

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Atty. Rene Saguisag is a former senator who authored RA 6713, The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Government Officials and Employees.