[Newsstand] ‘Bagay’— Dean Joey Hofileña’s parting lesson

Most of the eulogies for Ateneo Regulation College Dean Jose Maria “Joey” Hofileña, who handed away on February 26 and whose inurnment takes place at the moment, Sunday, March 8, spoke of his love for his spouse of 35 years, Chay, and the way they had been destined for one another.

They had been, actually, “bagay”— an ideal pairing, an “It Couple” for my technology of Ateneans. I’ve recognized them lengthy sufficient (Joey, or Ooway, as we known as him, since 1978; Chay since I believe 1982) to recollect their earlier relationships, however after I first heard the information that they had been collectively, I, like many others who knew them, thought, “bagay”! What a match, I assumed. Good for one another.

Each was a campus determine, blessed with beauty and actual smarts, deeply grounded, socially engaged, kind-hearted. Like many others, I assumed they really had been fated to be collectively.

Joey was an elder brother in highschool. After I and others from my two-years-younger batch joined Dulaang Sibol, the theater firm based by Onofre Pagsanghan, the good Mr. Pagsi, Joey and his batch mates had been the incoming seniors who welcomed us and made us really feel instantly at residence. A buddy and classmate, the painter Gejo Jimenez, described our collective expertise in his eulogy: “I do keep in mind how I felt. Liked as a brother, sorted, seen. It definitely was like a household for me, with Mr. Pagsi like our second father.”

Even then, Joey was already what his buddy and colleague on the Sycip, Salazar legislation agency, Legal professional Tito Lopez, mentioned he was: the “fair-haired,” “favored” one. He was the lead actor in performs, he was on the monitor and subject staff, he was an honors scholar. When he was forged in a starring position, we might assume, “bagay.” When he gained an award, we might say, “well-deserved.” (This was many years earlier than a youthful technology taught us the extra emphatic spelling: “Dasurv!”)

Tito, additionally a buddy from highschool and Dulaang Sibol days, described in his eulogy one among Joey’s defining traits: he had a simple grace about him. He was all the time calm, even-keeled, reasonably like Hugh “Glory” Conway, the central determine in “Misplaced Horizon” (one of many books Mr. Pagsi learn aloud to us and, after they had been freshmen, to Joey’s class too) — however with out the World Warfare I background.

Calm middle

This was one among Joey’s virtues that Maria Ressa, like Chay one of many founders of Rappler, pointed to in her eulogy: He was the calm middle in moments of chaos. Joey was additionally all the time charming, reasonably like Jay Gatsby, one other of these fictional characters we examine in these distant days — however with out the bootlegging and the shady previous. I’d virtually say that Joey was a kind of lucky ones who didn’t dwell previously however lived fully within the current. 

And for whom issues all the time fell in place.

When Joey discovered the love of his life, we thought, “bagay.” When he graduated valedictorian of his legislation college class, we thought, “naturally.” When he went to Harvard Regulation College for his grasp’s, we thought, “after all.” When he was employed by an American legislation agency, we thought, “sounds proper.” When he made accomplice at Sycip, Salazar, and comparatively shortly, we thought, “bagay na bagay.” And in 2018, when he was appointed Dean, we thought, “what an important selection for Ateneo.” And likewise: “Dasurv!” 

This isn’t to say that Joey, and Joey and Chay, had issues simple. He, and so they, had their very own challenges to fulfill, however he, and so they, assumed their burden with that simple grace.

It’s his loss of life that brings us up brief. Sooner or later he was within the information and on social media, celebrating Ateneo Regulation College’s efficiency within the bar exams; the subsequent, we hear information about him being within the ICU, and a mere couple of weeks later, a mere second in time, we obtain the horrible information: He has handed on. We plead, “this can’t be.” We pray, “this isn’t the correct time.” We expect, “di bagay.” 

The traditional Greeks understood tragedy to be a matter of inevitability; it’s meant to be. Our trendy understanding of tragedy, nevertheless,  is strictly the other: Tragedy is an accident of circumstance, fully surprising. On this trendy sense, Joey’s sudden sickness and loss of life are unbearably tragic, a word out of time. 

Joey’s older brother Jimmy, one other icon of my technology from the storied Hofileña household, has deeper roots in our Catholic religion than I do, and in his eulogy he requested us to think about Joey’s passing beneath the facet of eternity. “Gone too quickly,” he mentioned, repeating what many people had been pondering. Then he requested what nobody, definitely not me, thought: “However was he actually?” He recalled the various good issues Joey had completed in a really exceptional life, and aired his hope that within the fullness of time we might all see by means of God’s plan for Joey.

I used to be, I’m, grateful to listen to Jimmy’s reassurance, his pledge of hard-earned religion. It is going to take me, and maybe some others modified by Joey’s life and loss of life too, a while to succeed in that stage. Now we have to work laborious to earn our destiny. However this, proper right here, is what I acknowledge as Joey’s parting lesson. 

This man of simple grace left us a tough present: the present of issue itself. “Di bagay”? Now we have to study to zoom out, and wrestle to search out that larger perspective the place the tough reality, the premature loss of life, begins to make sense. “Bagay,” however within the fullness of time. – Rappler.com

Veteran journalist John Nery is a Rappler columnist, editorial guide, and program host. “Within the Public Sq. with John Nery” airs on Rappler platforms each Wednesday at 8 pm.