he mourners were seated, hushed. It wasn’t at all like in a sosyalan wake where attendees hopped seats to make beso-beso . No, this was a Methodist church, where the atmo- sphere was somber and sedate. With a friend, I walked up to the coffin and peered down. It was only a split-second glance, but long enough to hear a question buzz in my head—why does he look smaller? In life, he was tall; he loomed bigger in life. Bigger than life.
Then a colleague, muffling a chuckle, whispered from behind me: “You’re not scared he might rise and scold you—again?”
The man in repose was Jose Luna Castro, a pillar of Philippine journalism, our editor in chief in Times Journal , the martial law-era newspaper where I laid the foundation of my career. He had also been editor in chief of the pre-martial-law Manila Times . It was a day in July, I believe, in 1986, and we, his former staff, came to say a last goodbye.
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