In 2016, I met FVR at the book launch of Carmen Pedrosa in Fully Booked BGC.

It was serendipitous in more ways than one.

This was in June, when those of us elsewhere in the political spectrum (i.e., non-Duterte voters) were still adjusting to the idea of Duterte as President. We saw FVR arrive at the launch while Ma’am Carmen was speaking, and as I have been trained to always have a bunch of our independently published books in the car, we scrambled to get a copy of Angela‘s EDSA Uno Dos Tres for FVR.

After the event proper, during which he spoke and paid tribute to Ma’am Carmen, but also poked fun at her seeming fascination with Imelda (haha!), I went up to him to give him a copy of the book, introducing myself as my mother’s daughter. Ma’am Carmen stepped in to introduce me as well, as a young writer who was with a group of old journos on a China trip the year before. FVR’s eyes lit up, and out came jokes you would hear from your grandfather or Tito, that it was easy to laugh-out-loud and roll ones eyes at him.

At some point we sat down, and he asked how Mama was, what she’s been doing—he remembers having sat down for interviews with her in the 90’s for the first EDSA book, and so I said, all of that is in EDSA Uno, plus whatever new information on EDSA that has since come up. He asked what it is I do, what it is Vito does, when I said I was a columnist with The Manila Times, we talked about politics a bit. But it was a very light conversation, the tenor of which was mostly Lolo jokes: “Totoo ba ang glasses mo?” he asked. And when I said yes, he pokes his eye to reveal that his is just a frame with no lenses: “Ito kasi para matalino lang tingnan.”

But the more important conversation I would have with him happened about a month later, when Celeste, a member of his staff, called me to ask if I could come to his office in Makati for coffee. One of course knows to say yes to FVR.

He welcomed me into his office with a familiarity that was endearing, and sat me down at a table with printouts of my recent columns, which was a surprise. He said he had been reading me, and that he was glad that I was giving Duterte a chance. I said well, I didn’t vote or campaign for the guy, but it was early into the presidency, and it seemed like we were all being sour losers if we don’t give him a chance. Besides the majority voted for him, and one respects the process.

He said, yes, yes, and proceeded to talk about how he had pushed for Duterte to run, as he felt it was important to have someone from Mindanao get the presidency. I asked him about Duterte planning on putting all those military men in the Cabinet, and he said it should be balanced out by the civil society appointments. (At that point of course the likes of Gina Lopez, Judy Taguiwalo, Ka Paeng Mariano had yet to be turned down by the Commission on Appointments and so there was some hope.)

He also told me something that has stuck to me since then: there is no reason to fear the military, as long as you know from what line in the structure they come. I thought that was his way of saying that it was “his” men who were being appointed, and that those were good men. But of course given how violent Duterte governance ended up becoming, it was very difficult to even see the military as an ally of democracy the past six years. Seeing military men like Lorenzana etal, who were part of Duterte’s Cabinet, speaking highly of FVR at his wake though, has made this part of the conversation even more stark.

That part of the conversation led to a pretty long discussion about EDSA 1986, and how bad FVR felt that it was rarely being told from the perspective of the soldiers who had been willing to sacrifice what they had been trained to do, for the cause of democracy. He walked me to the office next door, which had a DVD player. He played a documentary that detailed the military’s role in EDSA, with interviews from the lesser known soldiers who were there, who took a stand when it mattered. He was saddened by how many of those who went with him and RAM during EDSA had not been given enough credit, and felt that EDSA in general had also not been valued enough by recent administrations. I thought then, and now, that the hurt run deep. And that it wasn’t really about him anymore, but about all the nameless, faceless others from the military who had sacrificed as he had, at that crucial moment when we got our freedom and democracy back.

When I had this convo with FVR in 2016, Duterte had already kicked-off his bloody drug war, and so we talked about that, too. He felt then that it was a passing thing, the need for someone to make himself felt as a new leader. He trusted then, that Duterte would ease out of it quickly enough.

Of course by the following year, FVR issued critical statements about the human rights and military situation under Duterte:

I have always since wondered how FVR felt about how Duterte’s own propaganda had discredited EDSA, the risks and sacrifices made for democracy and freedom dismissed as nothing more than a Liberal-dilawan exercise—a complete and utter lie, but a propaganda success for the Marcos-Duterte side.

That would be the last I’d talk to FVR at length. There was a book launch in Camp Crame or Aguinaldo the year after that I would go to, during which Celeste told me to come up to him and introduce myself, as he had asked her to make sure I go. It was difficult to squeeze through the crowd, but once he saw me, he called me by name and held on to my arm so he could keep me in place while he cracked a joke or two, about the youth, and the future, and writing.

Which was also how we ended that 2016 conversation in his office. He insisted I keep on writing, that I continued to try to be fair, and open, even of people and things that I might not have imagined myself agreeing to or understanding in the past. He said it is why he continues to write, and makes all those books (he had self-published tons in his old age), as it makes him rethink what he already knows to be true, but also strengthens his convictions for things that he continues to believe in: freedom, mostly, but also I thought, a keen sense of dignity and delicadeza, a rarity in the shamelessness of our political landscape in the past and present.

As he led me to the elevator, he introduced me to his next visitor at the office. And in classic FVR fashion said: “Tingnan mo naman, ang bata pa ng bumibisita sa’kin. Magaling na writer ito!” and then turning to me he said: “Sulat ka lang ha. Tuloy mo lang.”

FVR had a way of making you hopeful about yourself, and nation. That, and the Lolo jokes and laughter, will be always be treasured. ***