Farewell, Nazer :'(

Farewell, Nazer :'(

I first met Councilor Nazer or 'Kulas' when he was not yet a municipal official. His father, Councilor Boying, was on the phone asking for help because Kulas's phone was missing. I said sure, and a few minutes later, Kulas was in the office recounting what went before.

Kulas was very courteous. But to me, his nickname didn't suit him at all. JND would've been a lot better, to stand for his formal name of Jan Nazer David.

To my surprise, he called me Tito and did the customary pagmamano, which embarrassed me. But why not, considering our age gap and all? He must have been properly coached by his father, whose grandmother was a cousin of my grandmother on the Junio side. This means, technically, Kulas was my kaanakan (pamangkin or nephew), but I am not sure to what degree of consanguinity because our elders never told us. (A few years earlier, I learned from Coun. Boying that his father, the former mayor, Atty. Jaime Junio, once appointed an uncle of mine, Juanito Odon, as the town's police chief. The Junio family -- "'di sila iba sa amin." In Pangasinan, "aliwan kanayon ed baaw.")

Together, Nazer and I drafted a statement, then used the power of social media to hilt, if only to recover his missing phone.

Kulas struck me to be an atypical guy for his age. He had a confident gait, a towering height, clear and fair skin, aquiline nose, and eyes that can be described as chinito with a little droopy quality. He also possessed a deep voice that perfectly matched his dashing, well-sculpted features. In short, he's every inch an Adonis. Girls must have swooned around him all the time.

But I was bothered by his perfume. It was too strong for my hypersensitive nostrils, so I was about this close to telling him, but I wasn't sure how to put it diplomatically. We'd just met, after all.

But because he had no airs about him, he was easy to talk to and a pleasure to serve. He was, in Pangasinense, maoyamo, like a tupa (sheep) that's maamo.

Anyway, between breathlessness and a pounding heart that warned me of asthma-like symptoms, the communication strategy Kulas proposed to me proved effective. The one who found the phone brought it on his doorstep. On that same day.

He was, of course, profuse with thanks.

After he was elected as number 1 town councilor later on in the succeeding year, I rarely encountered him directly. But whenever I was in his line of sight during some official functions, he would give me that disarmingly sincere smile. If his father and grandfather were gifted with the common touch, the princely Nazer had a certain X factor in dealing with people. He was down to earth without effort despite the kind of looks and lineage he had. He must have been a ladies' man, but he was surely a gentleman in deportment and temperament.

Perhaps he was not aware of it, but I was behind every report that mentions his presence in meetings, the script he used for a Women's Month program as host, and another script for a cooking show video for Nutrition Month. The last direct contact I had with him was through a letter for request for a fiesta message, which he still owed me.

When I received the bad news, it was 2 AM. Fresh from sleep, I absentmindedly opened my phone and read our office group chat. At 2 AM. An act I would instantaneously much regret.

No matter how I tried and no matter how long I prayed (for him and for me that I might be able to calm down and regain sleep), I couldn't get myself to sleep again after that news, even up until the sun rose at 6 am. Good thing there was no work on that day, a Friday.

But it was not to be a time for us, sleepless zombies, to take some rest. Our office team had to make statements, research on Nazer's official functions and accomplishments, find the best photos of him, contact his family and workmates, lay out stuff for publication, etc...

I especially dreaded the gaggle of media entities that was sure to swoop down on us, hungry for details. Except for an online canard that quickly went around together with gory videos which I didn't have the heart to view, I had no knowledge of what exactly happened, occurring as it did in a faraway bridge in San Carlos City, outside LGU jurisdiction. It's a bridge that routinely victimizes motorists, local lores insist.

I wish I had known him better, knowing how good a young man he was, but in a way, I am glad I didn't get close to him at all, or else his sudden loss would've stung much, much worse.

Yet the sad news of his sudden demise was still utterly devastating to me and to us all in the LGU.

But who are we to say no to fate, to even ask God why? In the end, we are only consoled by the knowledge that he is now home where he truly belongs.

- with Boying-Kulas Junio