My brother Edgar named after the great American author Edgar Allan Poe, was buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani at high noon as befits a National Artist for Cinema after a program in the Cultural Center in his honor. A product of both Silliman and UP he was for the most part self-educated -the only sibling who did not receive a college degree despite the offer of my father to give us the best education that money could buy. This was a bit of a disappointment for a father who wrote the lyrics of the UP hymn who became Secretary of Education and his uncle Vicente Sinco, at the time a UP Law professor, who later President of the same University and founder of Foundation University. When asked why he dropped out of college his stock reply was there was nothing that professors could teach him.

From whence came this hubris? Eddie’s self-confidence stemmed from an insatiable curiosity that led him to devour the books in my father well equipped library shelves. This helped him to master the English prose and develop an encyclopedic memory which allowed him to discuss everything under the sun – subjects ranging from the Greek Philosophers like Plato to pillars of English literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare and from Bernard Shaw to Somerset Maugham. The author who seemed to have a big influence on Eddie’s writing however would be the American Ernest Hemingway, famous for his short sentences which were clear, concrete and concise as in confession. Like his idol Ernest, Eddie had a penchant for the understatement and economy of words refusing long winded paragraphs to make up for lack of depth.

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