Polibiz
Friends
Who says Valentine's Day is exclusively for lovers? This is also the season to rekindle your relationship with friends.
This gives me more reasons to write something personal which I find appropriately fitted for the occasion. Hence with your indulgence, please, bear with me momentarily, to dedicate this piece to people whom I owe a lot. They had helped me at the time I needed them most -- morally, spiritually, and financially.
Some I may identify directly, others will remain anonymous for private and security reasons.
A Filipino-Chinese couple I befriended during my early years in college for almost two decades had treated me like their own blood kin.
We have something in common. We love theaters.
Ricardo "Ricky" Kapalungan, the husband would recruit me as one of his stage personnel when he produced Henrik Ibsen's popular play "Ghost" with a respected character actress Angie Ferro of Philippine Educational Theater (PETA) playing the lead role and was staged at the Girls Scout of the Philippines Auditorium along Padre Faura St., Malate, Manila back in the seventies.
The couple would invite me every now and then in various occasions for family or social functions.
Rose (of Chinese descent) would separately invite me discreetly without Ricky's knowledge for a private talk somewhere in Green Hills, San Juan, Metro Manila. She made a shocking revelation against her husband. She came up a scheming plan to discredit my friend in a vindictive manner and was asking for my cooperation.
She was asking a favor for the first time in exchange for all the good things she had done for me.
And for the first time too, I found myself "acting" a role. What made it different from what we were engaged professionally was that, it was for real.
And here goes the "mission": confront the other woman who is Ricky's fling. Objective: to regain Ricky's lost love and affection.
The end-result: I made a report to Rose a minute after the incident narrating to her the "mission" was accomplished without fail. Whether my action out of loyalty to the matriarch has improved their marital setback, only God knows.
I never had the chance to make my own personal investigation for I was a total wreck, at least emotionally. Deep in my heart, I did the "mission" against my will. Apparently, I made one happy and the other -- miserable.
It was the last time I have seen the Kapalungans in flesh. A few years later, a source told me the whole family had migrated to the United States for good.
It was because of friendship that kept me and the Kapalungans bonded together; ironically, it also because of friendship that made us apart.
In the local scene, I also befriended by coincidence, a Chinese-Filipino businessman at the height of my conflict with then Lone District Congressman Raul Gonzalez, Sr. back in mid-90s.
Liberal discussions of current burning issues had started our friendship.
He would volunteer in discreet to share with me his personal assessment on controversies surrounding political personalities and issues.
Somehow he eventually became my mentor, a brother and a Samaritan rolled into one.
He would always lend his arms wide open every time I would approach him for help.
He is too generous that made me guilty of myself, feeling I might give him the impression I was taking advantage of his kindness.
But it is inherent in the character of this friend of mine when he does philanthropic deeds without expecting something in return. No wonder blessings are pouring like rains on them making their chain of businesses progressive despite the presence of outside investors.
This piece serves my way of recognizing valuably their love and friendship at this day of the year.
Happy Valentine's Day friends.
(Email: roblesnelson@yahoo.com)