Goodbye Eric! (1955 - 2000)
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FILIPINO CHINESE ASSOCIATION
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HIGH SCHOOL BAND
gone before us along the road which all must travel” (Antiphanes)
When I was asked to write an article about Eric Clarin , the first thing I did was to reminisce our San Beda High School days. Those were indeed exciting times- of student marches, of boycotts, of cutting classes to go to Gala, Recto, Podmon, Mayfair, of playing billiards at Legarda,of buying Taiwan-made LP’s of our favorite rock groups, of Marcos and Martial law . Do I have any recollection of Eric Clarin in high school ? The answer to that is- no. The only thing I knew about him was that he had this monicker “ Charles Bronson” , and that he played tennis. I may have exchanged pleasantries with him once or twice but that was all I could remember.
UP. Diliman, in 1973 was an extraordinary experience to many Bedans who were familiar only with the cloistered walls of the Abbey. It was a place of immense size teeming with students of different races, personalities, ideologies, persuasions and intelligence. It was natural for us Bedans to group together initially, but later on, some of us joined fraternities and were never heard of again, but quite a number elected to remain unattached to any fraternity - this was the path we chose.
Eric and I soon found ourselves attending the same classes and we discovered that we both wanted to become doctors. We hit it off naturally. Aside from myself, there were 3or 4 others whom we hung out with- namely: Ned Manalili who was taking a Business course, Not Ocampo (Arnulfo Ocampo) the math wizard from the UP College of Engineering who often corrected his Math Professors during class ( but that is another story), Roy Gan ( Rudolfo Gan) who eventually became a surgeon, Noe Peneyra ,now a surgeon somewhere in Bulacan and Dodi Diomampo another aspiring doctor who came from another school but who would stick it out with Eric and I during the rest of our Premed days.
Eric was a varsity tennis player at UP. We ( the group) decided to take free lessons from Eric. After several sessions, we discovered one very important thing- we had no future in tennis. Of course, Eric did not tell it to us directly , it wasn’t in his nature to disappoint people especially friends. After this realization our tennis was thereafter purely limited to ogling at Eric’s coed students ( some of whom were campus heartthrobs).
The time came for us to further pursue our dreams of becoming doctors. I went to Med Proper 1 year ahead of Eric and Dodi who took additional courses at UP. Even while I was at UERM, Eric would still find time to visit. A year later , Eric was a freshman at UERM. It was at UERM where new friends were discovered including my future wife .After Med School, Eric for a time went to the US to fix his immigration papers , although his immigrant status was approved, he wanted to practice here in the Philippines. Eric always found reasons for going back to the Philippines like when I got married I chose him as my bestman.. Eric applied for residency in Pathology at the Lungsod ng Kabataan where my wife was also training. This is where he met his future wife, Martha who was the Chief MedTech of the Lab. They eventually got married then, Eric went to the US to train in Pathology in New York. It was his first dilemma; he could not take his family with him to New York as their application was still pending When we went to New York Eric visited us and treated us to see his favorite musical “Les Miserables” . After several years, he was able to bring Martha and his 2 kids to the US. He had finished his residency and was now in fellowship training. There were times when Eric and Tata would call us up at home and we would talk for hours about their plans and about their family. I failed to mention earlier that Tata (Martha) was my son’s godmother.
The last time I saw Eric was last year, when he brought his entire family for a visit We talked about his plans to practice in the US and then retire in the Philippines. Eric had one dream and that was to win the mega lotto. If he wins – we were all going to retire and spend our days traveling. But this was not meant to be.
Early this year we went to the US for a vacation and called Eric while we were at Las Vegas. I didn’t know that this was to be our last conversation . Eric advised us to limit our spending to $50.00 because nobody wins in the casinos anyway. Thereafter, we made plans to visit them in New York next year.
It was Sunday, Oct.1, 2000 here in the Philippines (Sept.30 USA), when I got an urgent call from Tata’s brother telling me the shocking news : Eric had died while playing his favorite sport. I could not believe it, I was numbed- how can somebody who is in his prime, and had so many plans suddenly die? His death devastated us- it was as if a part of my soul died. The rest is history. ( Eric died on the day of his father’s death anniversary.)
If there is anything that I learned from Eric’s death, it is that, tragedies bring out the best in people. Our batch SBCHS73 was there to support Eric’s family from his wake to his interment. I learned that our batch can always be relied upon for support .As Eric was being laid to rest and as Fr. Ed was praying, memories of high school, college, all the funtimes , the trials and triumphs we experienced came rushing to my head like torrents of water cascading from a waterfall. I remembered all the members of our batch who either went to the wake or who were at San Beda Chapel : The PMT Boys ( Ato Valera, Van Valdez, Chito Agoncillo, Ricky Villongco , ) Danny Paz, Marlo Sanchez , Louie Dionisio, Jess Balmaceda, Oca Cruz, Boy Tuazon and other members of our batch who could not make it but were there in spirit. And Oying Pineda, Danny Clarino and Froni Velante who navigated through heavy traffic to witness Eric’s interment.( Froni, himself has so many stories to tell about Eric) I was very proud to be a member of our class. Amidst the sorrow that we all felt as we threw flowers into Eric’s silver casket, this passage kept on reverberating in my mind:
“ To every thing there is a season, and time to every purpose under the
heaven;
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance…..”
I guess for the rest of us, it is time to move on to another chapter in our lives.
Bob Barzaga, 4-45
