DAVAO CITY: When I saw him last week in his Roxas Boulevard office in Metro Manila, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was looking well. But I immediately found out why he sent his son Zandro, a 21-year-old Oxford London student who was on school break, to read his speech at a Manila university the day before. Zandro was a “hit” by the way to the young university students. His father‘’Bonggets”- a his friends usually call him - had stomach problem and had been subsisting on water and hot tea. But he was otherwise in his usual high spirits. We had a good chat for over an hour.

FIRST SIGHT - Flashback. I was a young Davao journalist then during martial law but also practicing law. I joined a delegation from the Davao media to Malacañang to meet then President Ferdinand Marcos who was already reclusive because of his ailment. That was the first time I spotted young Bongbong who was unobtrusibly standing in a corner by the window curtains just watching closely what was going on. My take then was that he was closely looking after his father who was just seated on a chair talking to us. Everytime FM would take a glance toward his back, as if wanting something, the young son would oblige. Then he would promptly return back to his corner.