Eulogy for Butch

Herbie Gomez

 I’M giving way to lawyer Ed Tamondong’s eulogy for the late lawyer and Gold Star Daily columnist Butch Bagabuyo that was delivered by lawyer Berchman Abejuela on June 25, 2016. The lawyers were very close friends.

Atty. Tamondong writes:

I’ve jotted down my thoughts because I don’t want to miss what I’d like to say of our departed friend.

I have known Butch since grade school at the city central. We were classmates in the fourth grade where I remember him as one of the bright boys of our class.

We took different sections in the last two years of our elementary, but we were together in scouting.  He would often invite us, his fellow boy scouts, to their house in Burgos for meals and served us lots of food because his family ran a food outlet.

Our central group took different ways when we went to high school.  Many went to the provincial high. Butch and I found ourselves at the Ateneo de Cagayan where we had our first taste of Jesuit education that mold its students to be “men for others.”

I’m not clear now if we’ve graduated high school together in 1958.

In college at Xavier University, we often met in the campus and in the school corridors and greeted each other almost casually. There was not much in common we could talk about. He had his own set of friends, and I my own group.

Then we lost touch as we pursued our separate interests. I went to Ateneo de Manila to take up law. I was to learn later that Butch worked in the office of then Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez and pursued law in the same institution.  Probably because of so many pursuits that may have distracted him, Butch became a lawyer 10 years after me.  But in no time he caught up and became at par with the leading law practitioners in the city. Since I was based and practiced law mainly in Manila, Butch and I did not see much often as barristers.

But down the road many years later, our paths would meet again as professionals in pursuit of common political ideals for good governance. We would be together in founding the Social Democratic Party in Cebu in 1981 together with former mayor and assemblyman Reuben Canoy, former press secretary Kit Tatad, and Chief Justice Jun Davide, and in the formation and promotion of Mindanao Independence in the ’90s.

We were not always together on the same side in our political struggle.  But in the last great political exercise, when a son of Mindanao reluctantly made a shot for the presidency, we found ourselves fighting under one flag, as it were.

Both of us tried our hands in politics.  We ended up frustrated. We realized, to our sorrow, that merits will not win you votes. Only money can. Which we did not have. Or maybe because politics was not in our stars.

It was during our professional bonding and shared endeavors that I saw my friend Butch up close.

He was by no means an angel or a saint, for who is? But he had manly character.

He was a tough advocate and a tiger in the courtroom. He was unyielding and a formidable court and political adversary. He did not hit from behind but always attacks frontally.

Butch was not awed or intimidated by big persona. I saw him tangle with the high and mighty in government; and forcefully denounced judicial misconduct. For which he was chastised a number of times. He was a true lawyer/warrior to the end.

Butch, to be sure, had shortcomings, as we all have. He may not have been an ideal spouse, but who is?  Nobody is perfect. But he was, as I discerned it, a good, loving father. I gathered this from his daughter Mary Ann whom I talked to shortly before Butch passed away on the night of June 16. She talked with nostalgia and deep affection about his father despite the great distance that separated them, she from Canada and Butch in the Philippines. (Kita gud mga lalake kadaghana good father but not necessarily good husbands, with due apologies to the Mrs. around.)

Butch loved life and fought hard for the causes he believed in. He enjoyed the company of friends and happily drank with them.

The last image I had with Butch was the day after Digong Duterte vanquished his rivals. We were happily savoring his victory at the VIP Hotel. It was to be the last time we would be together.

I did not visit the wake of Butch. I want to preserve and see in my mind’s eye the last happy moment we were together, like I always do for dear departed friends.

Butch may be gone. But it is said that “To live in the hearts of people we leave behind is not to die.”

Goodbye, Butch. Hasta la vista.

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The family of Butch announced yesterday that the interment will be at 8 am tomorrow (Saturday) at the Oro Gardens, and not at the city cemetery as announced earlier.