Heroes in our hearts

Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

We rarely sally forth on our own due to a bum knee these days, but wild horses couldn’t stop us from traveling alone to the Bantayog ng Mga Bayani on Nov. 30, to pay tribute to the 19 “real heroes” who were being especially honored by a grateful nation that day.

They included our cherished friends and Inquirer colleagues, Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc and Behn Cervantes.

It was a bright and festive day, made even more joyous by many instant and retroactive reunions with “old” friends and coworkers from the arts and media.

They continued to defy the onus of relentlessly advancing age with their still spirited and engaged view of life.

In all that feisty fun and frolic, we made sure that we found a quiet moment at the Bantayog park to express our thanks to the Cervantes and Magsanoc families for the abiding gifts that Letty and Behn have turned out to be—and for the personal graces and memorable moments we had shared with them through decades of friendship.

A montage of golden memories filled us with warmth and gratitude. In Letty’s instance, they included the time when we were tapped by Eggie Apostol to “succeed” her as editor of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, and Letty found time to go on a “clubbing” date with us for hours, seemingly just to shoot the breeze about dissa and data—but actually to prime and mentor us for the plum task and treat ahead.

We also can’t forget her thrillingly inspiring words to us when she got us to write a daily column and edit the Saturday Special section of the Inquirer.

At the end of our meeting, she shared, “You know, Nes, every day, when I come to work, I remind myself—what a great privilege it is to work for the Inquirer!”

Behn Cervantes

Felt declaration

The simple but fervent way she said it hit us to the quick—and we have made her felt declaration our own motto and mantra, as well, up to this day.

In Behn’s case, our memories are more theatrically and personally more dramatic, idiosyncratic—and “crazier!”

Like the time when he got us to agree to accompany him on a visit to his relatives in Camiguin, where they had a beach house, and we missed the regular ferry, and he impulsively and impatiently decided to hire a small motorized boat to make the sea voyage to the island on our own—and the boat’s motor stalled!

For about 30 minutes, unsuccessful attempts were made by the nervous boatman to revive the recalcitrant motor—as Behn sang “appropriate” songs from musicals, like “Bali Hai” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” (while we prayed for dear life and rescue)!

Another half-hour later, the waves on the open sea were becoming really high and rough—and even our loopily exuberant friend got the message, stopped singing, and joined us in fervent prayer for other boats to rescue us—which happily happened, to our chastened relief!

Finally, and perhaps even more tellingly, we recalled with a wide grin the time when Behn appeared on TV for a long interview, and was asked by the program host who his best friends were.

Behn’s laconic reply: “Nestor Torre.” The interviewer pressed him: “Who else, Behn?” Our bestie friend just sat there with a small, puckish and enigmatic smile on his face, and said nothing else—until the TV host got the point.

Thanks, Behn, the feeling is feelingly reciprocated—with sugar on it!