First word
WITH much surprise and in sadness, I learned the news yesterday of the passing of Manila Times chairman emeritus, Dante Arrevalo Ang, or DAA, as he was fondly and officially called within the Times family. It was fitting and interesting that the news was first announced and delivered by the newspaper which he worked so hard to obtain and sustain.
The Times is truly the great project of his life, which he nurtured and sustained with great deft and dedication.
In yesterday’s announcement, I was startled to discover that he and I were born in the same year, 1942, at a time when our country and our people were literally being driven from pillar to post by armies and bombs of Japan, and when proud America and its muscle were nowhere in sight.
As members of the cohort war-baby generation of the 1940s, Dante and I shared in infancy the experience of fleeing from the Japanese, and it may be because of this that we, through the years, developed an easy affinity with each other.
In the postwar era, our lives were intertwined through our common interest in mass communications and politics. We briefly worked together when I was editor and associate publisher of the Philippine Daily Globe. We both moved in the circle of Blas Ople, a top adviser of President Ferdinand Marcos. He became the principal owner and chairman of The Manila Times.
During this period, when he was my boss and employer, DAA invited me to occasional meetings and chats to exchange information and advice on the latest developments.
I remember the meetings well, because they were often concerned relating to the Times requests for assistance on my part, and he asked for some advice for some matters concerning some new project of his.
The last time we had a long talk, DAA disclosed his project to build a research facility in Subic which the Times leased or purchased from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. He was full of optimism about the new project. And he sought to engage my interest in it, because stem cells could mean we could become centenarians if we kept our noses clean and avoided the trap of getting rich quick schemes.
Before I could find out what was happening to the stem cell project, this new development of his passing fell out of the blue.
I had no chance of sharing with him that stem cell science is a slippery slope. It has glittering promise, yes, as a boon to humanity. But we must mount the slope with great care and restraint.
Alas, DAA will never know now what has happened to the holy grail of stem cell science.
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