To Ivan: A final toast!

By Manuel “Boy” Mejorada

Exactly a week ago, I woke up to find a message on my cell phone that there was a missed call from my good friend, Ivan Suansing, the night before. I was delightfully surprised, because I knew that Ivan had suffered a stroke about one week earlier in Cebu where he worked as editor-in-chief of Cebu Daily News (CBN), a sister company of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

So I returned the call and asked Ivan about his call the night before. “I just wanted to invite you for a beer,” he jokingly replied. That conversation was a happy one. Ivan told me his condition was stable after the stroke, and he was just waiting for his doctors to schedule surgery to repair a damaged artery. He seemed cheerful that morning, and I had no reason to suspect that things could still go wrong.

Yesterday morning, a text message from my former boss, Mark Villalon, stunned me and left me speechless as I presided over a meeting at the Capitol. “Ivan died.”

With that cryptic message, I learned that Ivan and I could no longer share another evening over bottles of ice-cold beer as we used to do when we were still working in the Daily Times, precursor of SunStar Iloilo Daily, more than 15 years ago.

It is always sad to lose a friend, but the sudden death of Ivan when I thought he was on his way to full recovery was really cause for grief. He was one of my closest friends, a man with whom I could freely share secrets, a friend to whom I could pour my own frustrations and share my successes. He was only 42.

Ivan left a young widow, Chandra and two very young children, ages 10 and 7.
Beer had always been the bond that built the long friendship between Ivan and myself. With beer, we could talk long into the night, exchanging ideas, sharing personal plans, and trading jokes. In our younger days, those drinking bouts often lasted till 4 o’ clock in the morning.

In fact, when I met Ivan for the first time in 1987, I shot him the question: “Do you drink?” He was applying for a position as reporter of the weekly Western Visayas Times, which then became the Daily Times, and later SunStar Iloilo Daily. Without hesitation, Ivan replied casually, “Yes.” He was hired on the spot.

But it wasn’t the beer drinking that earned Ivan the job. From his sample articles, I immediately saw the makings of a great journalist. He was already in his junior year as a law student at UP Diliman when the EDSA Revolution disrupted his schooling. He came home to Iloilo and try to complete his law studies at the University of San Agustin. Not having much to do aside from law school, Ivan applied to become a reporter for the Times.

That started a friendship that was abruptly ended yesterday at about 3 o’ clock in the morning after heart specialists worked to repair a damaged artery near his aorta for 10 hours as a result of an aneurism. His heart simply quit and Ivan wrote “30”, the journalist’s term for end to his life.

Ivan belonged to that small group of journalists who regarded their work as a vocation. He could have completed his law studies and become an outstanding lawyer. Although he was the quiet type, Ivan was an excellent debater and possessed a sharp mind that he constantly whetted by playing chess with local masters in Iloilo. Aside from writing, chess was Ivan’s other passion.

I tried, but failed, to dissuade Ivan from making journalism his career. Go finish your law degree, I advised him shortly after he came aboard Western Visayas Times. But the passion for writing was so strong that Ivan ignored that piece of advice.  When the Times went daily in 1988, Ivan would pretend to leave the editorial office at 5 p.m., telling everybody he was off to school. It was only meant to appease me. Later, I found out that he simply went to a nearby store, sit down for 30 minutes and then come back to the Daily Times office at the old Yuhum Building. “We have no class,” he always said.
Ivan would then join us for the endless rounds of beer just as soon as we put the paper to bed, journalese for finishing the editorial work and sending the material to the printing press. There was hardly a night when we didn’t drink beer to end a long day’s work, sessions that often lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

The group included Limuel Celebria, Art Jimenez, Ben Palma and Lemuel Fernandez (he was then our desk editor; now he’s the publisher of ‘The Guardian’). We would argue about poetry, literature, politics, and tried to outdo each other in singing. Singing was never our forte, but with enough beer in our bellies, we mustered the courage to sing.
When SunStar Iloilo Daily was established in 1995, Ivan became its first editor. I was then in the United States working with an American newspaper, The Home News and Tribune, in New Jersey. In 1997, I came home to Iloilo and rejoined SunStar as columnist with Ivan as my editor.

Ivan got me as “ninong” when he married a former student at St. Paul’s College of Iloilo (now University), Chandra, in 1994. To him, I was an older brother, a mentor, and drinking buddy.

I was the happiest person in 1998 when the newly-formed Cebu Daily News recruited him as a senior editor. I felt proud because a protégé had earned the respect and admiration of a big newspaper. About a year ago, I was even prouder to learn that Ivan had been promoted to the position of Editor in Chief. This guy I hired because he said “yes” to my question about beer drinking had really made the big league.

About four years ago, Ivan figured in a vehicular accident in Cebu that nearly killed him. He was coming home from work during a heavy downpour when his car struck a parked trailer van. As he told me afterwards, he thought he was already in the other world. “This is my second life,” he liked to say.

He was very emotional about the unwavering support that his wife, Chandra, gave him as he fought for his life. After the incident, he vowed to spend more time with their children. “I love Chandra more than ever,” he said.

The last time Ivan and I met was on June 18 when I attended the national board meeting of the Provincial Administrators League of the Philippines at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City. He was very excited to learn that I was in town and arranged to meet me for beer at a nice place near the hotel in Lahug. We drank beer and talked until about midnight, when I declared adjournment. “We are not that young anymore,” I told him.

Two weeks ago, news reached me about his stroke. I tried calling him but he was still too weak to talk. He just texted me: “Im k boy. Surgery soon. End of my drinking career.”

A week after that, he tried calling me, and it was only the following day that we got to talk.

I told Ivan that he should leave the drinking to me.
After I write this, I will get together with Lemuel Fernandez and we will raise our beer glasses in salute to Ivan.

Good-bye my friend.