Two Bedan promdis win

I saw Jose Ong for the last time last Tuesday in his wake in Manila Memorial, as if he were only sleeping. “Danny” was how I, along with his SBC Law ‘54 classmates, called him (I was with the ‘63 batch). I again asked why “Danny?” Just about everyone called him Joe. A daughter retold the anecdote that that was how a colegiala called him and it stuck. I did not have the heart to press whether that was how he had introed himself to her. Ninoy and Butz Aquino, all the way to Digong Duterte ‘72, cemented the Bedan TsikBoy legend. Lady-Killers.

Joe/Danny was the one I hitched a ride with in Jan. 1971; he was on his way to Manila (BIR) from Ayala Avenue/Paseo de Roxas. Having been recruited by Joe McMicking and Bedan Mario Camacho, in San Fran, I had just signed a contract with EZ Zobel and Bobby de la Fuente (‘54, No. 2 in the bar, after classmate Florenz Regalado, with record-breaking 96.7 percent and 95.95 percent). Joe and Ben Aban ‘55, helped me, pro bono, on tax issues and refused to bill my paying clients, just because I was such a nice guy. Anyway, on reaching Manila and seeing a rally led by Ateneo lawyer Roger Rayala, I got off and bade goodbye to Danny, to join my kind of people. Ayala could have provided me a nice home in some plutocratic enclave, had I not resigned that same afternoon, but a more professional group of people I couldn’t find.