Rey Vergara

Of the four classmates who passed away recently, I will miss Rey the most. I didn’t really know the others like I knew Rey. He’s an extremely nice guy, cheerful, always cracking jokes.

Last year, he, along with Lita (Manalastas) Watanabe, was the guest speaker at the PHS graduation ceremonies. We were all so proud of both of them. Here’s my blog about it.

Earlier in the year, he took us to this place in Bagac, Bataan where his boss at San Jose Builders bought this huge property and was buying old houses from all over the Philippines and restoring them to their previous glory. Check out my previous blog on Bagac.

We were able to attend the wake a couple of days before his interment. Here we are, before the arrival of Edgar Pineda, Danieper Carlos and Aurora Mallari.
Standing from left are Allan Sanchez, Ned Canlas, Romy Rodriguez, Mike Estacio, Romy Catap. Seated: Rey M, Marilyn Liwanag, Tonette Gomez, and Rey's brother.

Note: I lost this picture and I'll have to figure out how to get it back. Sorry.


Rey, you'll definitely be missed.

Diyos ko, me-shock ku keng news a ini! E ku apanwalan. Kayabe ke pa mu y Rey last April king kekatamung alma mater anyang graduation da ring batch 2008.

I cried a lot, at me-depress ku with the news of the untimely passing away of Rey. I again asked myself what I was doing working so very far away from my family. Pero after all the tears, and after me-kalma ku, I had to be realistic. I support my parents, and the monthly regular support is not that low. Kasi pwera pa keng living expenses, as nong ka-mal deng panulu ra. At siyempre, atin pang papagaral a anak, ating aliwang anak a e kamag-anak a papagaral pa mu rin, at ating dapat panipunan mu naman para keng pamag-retiru. And we are able to also enjoy quality time together whenever we are together or travelling together, discovering new cultures, meeting new friends...

Ing panalangin ku mu, sana e na ku pa kuanan ning Apung Guinu hanggat e la pa fully settled din anak at malyari nong lakwan on their own.

Lits

Malungkut tamu ngan talaga ne. Y Lits pin eya mipakali and we ended up talking about retirement but at the same token, we believe pag oras tana talaga kahit nukarin tapa, Karin ing kapupuntalan tamu. We just have to make the most of it while we can still walk straight,taste the food, see the sights, hear the birds and the bees.

We included Rey on our prayers for the souls of the departed (my brod-in law in the Phil) passed away at the age of 61 recently. Prayers for his family too.

Ulitan ku ing invitation to come over and visit us (kilala yu kami o e kakilala ok mu, just let me know and e-mail me) Talagang Masaya kami inyang mikit ikit kami deng akaklase/batchmates, keni Spain. Is that not why we are working, is to have fun too? Emu asaling pera ing kuwentuhan inyang magaral tamu elementarya, high school and even college.

Alyce, hope Ima is doing well and call me when you get back to UK. Nung buri yeng sagiran (is this correct?), atin tamung friends mu naman king UK, Rome and I think, Germany din.

Hope to hear from you guys/gals,

Mary Miranda Custodio

We were able to meet at Imelda's place on Sat-Feb.21, 2009 as planned. On our prayers before meals we offered special prayers for the late Rey V. Also most of us stayed until later & were able to attend the 7pm mass wherein Imelda & Dan offered mass for Rey V. Ed brought some pictures with him during high school & some on our reunions.
It is unbelievable to know how time flies & we all have passed half way or more in our lives. It is sad to know that friends only meet or re-unite on another friend's funeral. Sana we can do better than that.
On a happy note, Mon was able to join us in our meeting last Saturday. Siyempre we were lucky to hear some songs from him once again (this time for free!) . Ed, Boy Dizon & of course Cora also entertained us with their songs.
I will send out the minutes of the meeting later.

With warm regards,
Elaine Castillo Lababit

Malungkut ku king balita na mete ne i Rey Vergara. Tahimik keng pengadi, pekisabyan, pepasalamatan keng pagiging Rey na kekatamu at kanacu. I have very good memories of him.
Aniang atiu pa king San Jose Builders pepadala yang tau keng Medical Mission Sisters Loyola Heights Q.C. para ayusan ing kekaming danum at kuryente. Pati gamit pepadala na at ala yang tinggap a bayad.
Paki-abut ing kacung condolence keng pamilya na. May he rest in peace.
Please keep me updated. Pamisa ke keni London.
Dacal a salamat.
Sr. Lita

Neng atiu ku Menila, daralanan ke opisina na para makipagkuwento king San Jose Builders, nung nuya presidente. Neng misan minum ditak at mipagkuento keng milabas. Maganaka tune kaklase, misan sinopan na ku iniang pagawa ke bale ku San Fernando. Iniang mangailangan balas JASHS panambak, misan mung aus, pepadala yang truck a balas agad. Kakuyad na ning bie, a miss ke Rey. Balu ku malungkut ta mu ngan.

Teng Gorospe

Tutung makalungkut ing balitang ini. Agaganaka ku pa kanyang tataglus kaming Rey quetang bale dang malapit quing conung pale bayu me dalakitan ing tete papuntang Sta. Ana at mamyalung kaming chess bayu ku muli quing Candaba balang Viernes kaibat ning clase tamu. Tawli ming pamiquequit Rey kaybat na nita, quing Menila na. Makidame kami kareng akalakwanan na at ipangadi taya.

Rey Torres

I remember him as a tall, chubby and a jolly person, and proud of him when he became one of the speakers together with Lita in the last commencement exercises of Pampanga High School, at paulit-ulit queng babasan itang e-mail a maca pariquil carelang adua.

We would like to express our condolences to his family, we will pray for the eternal repose of his soul and may he rest in peace.
Dan and Imelda(Yujuico) Danganan

Dacal a salamat, Ed keng balita. I'll pray for him and those that he left behind. I've always had good memories of Rey in high school. He was active in the Explorer Scouts, and we had a group that enjoyed the dictionary game -- given the meaning, and first letter of a word, guess what it is -- that improved our vocabulary.
Nung atin ko pang fond memories of Rey, please share with our group.
Rene Cerdeña

Deng letratu, (please see my blog on Bagac - Rey M) mekwa la ketang bandi ning San Jose Builders king Bagac, Bataan. Ing mesabing lugar kumpletu ya facilities keng water activities. Bala mu ata beach resort style ya ating sariling bungalows cumpletu gamit.

Keng belwan yu ngan, y Rey V. yang President & Gen. Manager ning San Jose Builders, metung kareng maragul a developer, builder and construction co. king Pinas. Pero e mu akit kaya ing katasan, asme kababa lub.

Anya rugung mabye ya pa y Rey V, andat mikit kami Pinas pane nang sasabyan kana ku. "Ed ngana: mag schedule ka kareng ka klasi tamu USA potang muli la Pinas pwedi tayang gamitan ing resort alang bayad sabyan mu kaku agad." Ngening ala ne dugu. Sayang e ke man dugu apagbigyan keng aluk na kana ku. May he rest in peace.

Ed Sale

Maka-shock ing balitang ini. Talagang makalungkut. This is very close to home. Yes, all we can do now is reminisce the good times we shared with Rey during our high school days.

...Angel

Below is an invitation from Rey, dated on my birthday in 1972. (It's an old document so it's a bit faded. You may click on it, click 'All sizes' on the top left corner to view larger size - Rey M). I remember that we had a good time in Villa Victoria on May 6, 1972. Being away from the Philippines, I was able to spend a couple more happy days with Rey in 1999 and 2005. After that, just clean funny jokes by e-mails.

Nestor

Melungkut ku qng kecang belita tungkul kang kong Rey Vergara... balamu kapilan pamu inyang akayabe taya ken. Matula kung balik balikang isipan ngeni agyang qng sinaguli mung panaun inabe yuku at akilala kiya mu naman. Mipalyarian yang atuklasan ku ing mabilug at masanting yung pamiyabe-abe.......

Pakipanalangin ku ing kapayapan ning Caladua na at misalba ya bie keti babo yatu...

Dakal a salamat,
Lilibeth

Rey, rest in peace, Buddy.

Sloankyne Yancey Simeon

My grandniece Fel (Cong Naring’s grand daughter) went to Mother Theresa of Calcutta Hospital on March 11 to deliver her first baby with husband Albon. She wasn’t going into labor so she was sent home, early the next morning she went back and she finally had the baby. Unfortunately, he was born with the cord around his neck and he wasn’t crying. He was rushed to the hospital ICU. On March 14 Sloankyne Yancey (Sky) Simeon passed away. Donna and I went to the hospital and they had us hold Sky and all the sad memories from Elijah started flooding back. Sky was a beautiful baby boy who looked like his Dad, fair skinned like his Mom. At first, they said it was septicemia. But at her first check up, Fel was told the official cause of death was diaphragmatic hernia.

Cong Naring got some materials from our cousin Atching Gitang who owns a funeral parlor and created a beautiful casket for him. They had an overnight wake at Albon’s house in Sabanilla, Mexico and he was buried on the church grounds of the Catholic chapel in Masamat reserved for babies.

While we’re at the subject, the first quarter of the year is barely over and we already have four high school classmates who passed away: Rey Vergara, Cresencia Garcia Bautista, Marilyn Roncal and Antonio Basilio. Please say a little prayer for their souls along with Elijah and Sky.

Greetings from Blog Land Mar '09

I’m not exactly sure where to start. It’s been a while and I’m all rusty for being idle for so long. I’m sure I’ll probably get dirty looks from those who’ve experienced it but at worst it feels as if I’ve survived the lahars of Pinatubo, and at best a small fire. This was my first major virus and I just had my PC reformatted. I took it to a friend and of course since it’s a 110V, he plugged it into a 220V socket. Yup, the power supply blew out. That’s what happens with us cheapies, trying to save a buck by not taking it to a regular computer shop. So I ended up spending more. Anyway, back to the virus…

My hard drive was contaminated along with all the other drives, folders, not to mention my laptop, my external hard drive and even my digicam memory stick! I had some contaminated pictures stored in my PC so I had them transferred to my contaminated external hard drive, as well as the ones from my contamindated memory stick.

Does anyone out there know how to clean out a WD external hard drive from viruses? ALL MY PICTURES ARE IN THERE!! So now you can understand why I feel as if I’ve survived a small disaster – alive but losing all my priced possessions.

Friend Ruston said memory sticks are so cheap now so I went to CDR King at the mall to get a new one to upgrade the 512MB which Rach gave me as a Christmas gift three years ago! The 4G one cost a measly 380 pesos which is roughly less than 8 bucks. I got home and inserted it into my camera – of course it does not work! The day after, with my camera in tow, I tried to exchange it. The store tech said it was not compatible with my camera, something about the gig being too high. So I told him to give me one that’ll work. He had me try a 2G which costs 80 pesos less. I inserted it into my camera and that was fine. I asked him what happens with my 80 peso difference and he said, “You have to consume it, Sir.” Then he further told me I have to pick out an item with equal or higher value after realizing I didn’t know what he was talking about with consuming 80 pesos. The stupid look on my face probably gave me away. That’s how I ended up with a set of 80 peso head set that I don’t know what to do with.

So now I have a memory stick which allows me to take gazillion pictures, a freshly reformatted PC with a 220V power supply and a 110V monitor, but no Internet. Didn’t want to mess around trying to hook everything back up jeopardizing burning something out so I had my niece Jack (a hardware expert) and her friend Remy come over to help me put everything together. Did I say I can type so many words a minute but that’s about all I know about computers and anything hi techie stuff for that matter? So of course they were here plugging things here and there and I was basically watching trying to get out of the way. Jack even hooked up my stereo Bose speakers so I can potentially watch and listen to YouTube once again.

After everything checked out, here comes the Internet issue again. I wanted to switch from SmartBro to PLDT DSL for some savings in the long run but Remy suddenly suggested “why don’t you go dial up?” I basically told them to explain dial up to me as if I’m a third grader. It’s been a while but I remember dial up from the old AOL from years ago. The way it works is that one buys a card not too different from a phone card and it allows a user to enter some numbers in the computer and dialing up a phone number accessing the Internet that way. Remy happened to have some cards with her and she set things up for me. These cards are part of Jack’s business here. It’s a bit slower than DSL but for my purpose, it’ll do. I figured I’ll think about getting DSL when we come back from the California. By the way, if you’re trying to call us through our land line and you get a busy signal, chances are I’m on line in which case you’re better off calling us through my or Donna’s cell phone.

And now that that’s off my chest…

I’d better take advantage of this momentum since my writing juices seem to be flowing at the moment. Pardon my lack of pictures – see above.