Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
A SIGN or a strange coincidence? Panky Torralba, an official of the Presidential Communications Office, sent me a photo of the large, framed photo of Cerge Remonde, my late husband, hanging on some wall at the PCO office in Manila. What Panky didn't know was that some 30 minutes earlier, I had a conversation with myself about my failure to visit Cerge's grave. The "conversation" had ended with a thought: I'll write about Cerge in my column. After all, Cerge was a very public person; he was the press secretary and had interviews for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The physical remains of our dearly departed may indeed be at the cemetery, but their spirits, the essence of their lives, are everywhere, within and around us. I wouldn't have entered the world of journalism if not for Cerge.
Cerge would have turned 66 on Dec. 21. He died at 51 on Jan. 19, 2010, or two days after the annual Sinulog celebration, which he — a devotee of the Santo Niño — had joined. The following Friday, Cerge left Malacañang for the last time. A sign or another strange coincidence, but Friday after Sinulog in 2001 had been Cerge's first full day as press undersecretary. That was Jan. 26, 2001, the day President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act into law, the first law she signed as president.
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