Goodbye, Sammy

By Alfredo C. Garvida, Jr.

Contributor

I received the shock of my life at about 7 o'clock in the morning of July 2nd when my cousin, INEC director Omar Garvida, called to inform me that Sammy died an hour earlier from an asthma attack. I could not believe my ears upon hearing of Sammy's death. I knew he had been suffering from an asthmatic illness but to learn at an unexpected time that this illness finally took him away was just unbearable.

I first met Sammy when I was on my second semester in law school. The late Maddela, Quirino Mayor Arnold Agullana (a relative of mine), who was then working as a technical assistant of Congressman Roque Ablan, Jr., had invited me to attend a meeting of  The Young Nacionalistas, which, from my personal understanding, was the youth arm of the Nacionalista Party. The YN was then tapping the Ilocano students to join their cause, most especially to lend them support on their stand against widespread thievery in the government-subsidized Philippine Virginia Tobacco industry which was at that time hugging the news media.

Along with some fellow Ilocano students, I attended the meeting, which was held in the morning. I was introduced to Sammy and Joel Nicolas, who were Arnold's pals in the YN. Aside from explaining their organization's objectives, they asked us if we could represent the Ilocano students in an arranged dialogue with the chairman and members of the board of the Philippine Virginia Tobacco Administration which was to happen at 7 p.m. that very same day at a certain high class restaurant somewhere in Quezon City. It was a very short notice and our first instinct was to decline the invitation, but the magnitude of the issue which involved money intended to benefit the Ilocano farmers that was messed up big time by conniving people in and out of government was so compelling that even faced with time constraint, I accepted the invitation--in behalf of the Ilocano students, which I had no ascendancy to do so at that instance. I was relieved to know that no word of objection came from my fellow students after my acceptance of the invitation. But I was resolved that we were going to join the dialogue not as mere window shopping items but to directly and substantially participate in the discourses. I therefore asked for a written brief about the issue. They furnished us a position paper, well written, clearly the authorship of a fine journalist. I asked some verbal pointers too, which Sammy and Arnold eloquently gave. 

The brief was awesome, from my own perspective, not only on its substance but on its journalistic shape, which made me more inspired to "do battle" with the PVTA people that evening. A lot of Ilocano students, from UE, FEU, PSBA and NU, came to attend the dialogue, which, I had surmised, must have made Chairman Moreno and his Board perspire in terms of the restaurant bill they'd pay. The media was there too, and being the assigned lead man in the dialogue, I felt a bit intimidated by the presence of TV cameras and reporters from the Manila Bulletin and the Manila Times. Sammy gave me a reassuring nod, and tap on the shoulder, when I took my seat to engage these "men of brilliance" in what was to be an historic encounter between Ilocano students and people in government suspected of having connived on the thievery of the Ilocano farmers' money at the dialogue table. I was a first year law student but I was feeling like a seasoned litigator fielding questions and throwing them back at the "accused," because I was inspired and moved by the brilliancy of the brief that I belabored to take to heart all afternoon prior to the dialogue. 

We felt victorious after the dialogue, for we felt we indeed nailed our counterpart to the ground on the issues of trust and accountability, as what the morning press had reported the following day. The brief, from where I snatched all my arguments, was written by Sammy, which stoked the start of our friendship thus.

That dialogue contributed immensely to a wholesale reform in this government-subsidized industry and gave birth as well to the Ilocano Students Alliance of The Philippines (ISAP), which made me its first chairman. In a way, it was Sammy and his scholarly brief that made all this reform possible. 

Sammy was always there when we had important agenda to take on, giving pointers, editing our press releases and using his clout to get our press statements printed on the broadsheets—because he had so many friends in the press; because he was a pressman himself: for the government, I later found out. I thought he was an activist like me until one day when we had no money for our usual drinking session with his friends at the National Press Club, he took me to Malacañang and went directly inside the office of Kit Tatad, the press secretary, who handed him some amount which was more than enough for our purposes that day. He beat my inquisitiveness to the draw by immediately confiding to me that he was a confidential employee of Malacañang, working directly for the press secretary.

His journalistic prowess was always the subject of my envy, his introspection was beyond words as were his perspicacious analysis of events and scenarios. He had introduced me to famous people: politicians, journalists, academicians, activists, leftists and rightists alike. Sammy was a bookworm; a walking encyclopedia if you will. You ask about science, military history and strategies, medicine, arts and culture, social imperatives, historical names and places, politics—just turn to Sammy, he knew the answers, and he would also elaborate if you'd ask.  I always thought that he was a communist, or left-leaning intellectual at least, for he used to lecture me about Mao and Lenin; where their ideas differ, and all the nuances in capitalism vis-à-vis socialism. His perspective about the Middle East, Israel's impregnability, the Mossad and the CIA, and their connections in the Philippines would mesmerize you to the hilt and seize your brain to wander for a while in the thrilling landscape of espionage.

We used to hang around for a few drinks at the National Press Club with his peers. I remember introducing to him the late Haydee Yorac whom we chance-met at the NPC one day. Haydee was my friend as she was my next-door neighbor at the apartments owned by my first wife's family in Quezon City. She was then a budding lawyer and employed at the UP Law School, where she graduated too. Sammy and Haydee hit it right off the bat and I was reduced to being their audience when their intellections started to roll. I felt rewarded that night: from the verbosity and introspection of these two brilliant people.

I remember that year when the ASEAN was held in Manila. Sammy wrote both the policy speech of the late President Marcos and the complimentary speech of Speaker Cornelio Villareal, and he did them in my apartment with a typewriter that was overdue for the junkyard. He did Villareal's speech for Mac Vicencio, the then National Press Club president, who was the Speaker's main man in the media and who was Sammy's buddy too. Because of Sammy, I became friends with Mac. The three of us used to hang around at the hotel suite of the late Pepe Cruz, who was then running for mayor of Malabon. Sammy and Mac were his main strategists. It turned out too that Pepe was the nephew of Don Jose Paez who was married to an Ilocana named, Mercedes Garvida, my father's aunt (small world). Pepe won the mayoralty election in Malabon but did not live long enough to take his oath of office as mayor of Malabon as he was assassinated with a carefully installed time bomb on a gift package delivered at his hotel suite on one lazy December day. 

After my third year in law, I migrated to America with my first wife who was assigned by the Department of Foreign Affairs as a staff at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. I never came back for a vacation until 21 years later, when Romy, my brother-in-law, then a PNP general, was implicated in that infamous Kuratong Baleleng alleged rubout. My parents-in-law (on my second wife) had asked me to come home to get firsthand information about Romy's situation. Romy's wife and my wife were sisters. Readily I realized that Romy needed a media adviser. Sammy was the first guy I had in mind. I came to Ilocos Norte to visit my hometown, Bangui, after all the years and to ask Sammy's help. He followed me to Manila on a day trip a couple of days after. I fetched him at the bus terminal late in the afternoon and we arrived at my in-laws' residence on time for dinner. 

It was on that dinner that I first found out of Sammy's asthmatic illness. Sammy felt ill at the dinner table; he could barely breathe. He was suffering from a serious asthmatic attack, as what my sister-in-law, a physician, had diagnosed. We rushed him to the hospital nearby "for temporary medical aid', my sister-in-law had cautioned, then rushed him again to a better equipped hospital somewhere in Pasay after he was stabilized. I stayed behind to accompany him in his private suite. I had to, for my sister-in-law confided to me that his condition was serious. 

He stayed in the hospital for about five days. Given his condition, his mission for Romy never materialized, although he gave some public relations pointers before he left home to recuperate. I returned to the Philippines for good two years later to run for mayor of Bangui. Sammy was the source of my campaign strategy although he had forewarned me that money—in short, vote-buying—ensures victory, a stark contrast to the election practices during my father's 26 political reign in Bangui. Sammy was right, and I lost despite his cutting edge campaign advice. 

Shortly after that election, Sammy gifted me with his published book of poems, highlighted by "A Rosebud Caged In A Glass." I never held Sammy to be a passionate romancer but "Rosebud" had proven me otherwise. His poems also unmasked his eternal loyalty to President Marcos whose presidential greatness he had articulated all his life. 

You can't debate with Sammy and expect to win. He is assertive, verbose and loud-talker, which freeze his adversary in a frustrated trance at times, but will relent when seized by the breadth of his intellectual assertions. 

Samiris, better known as Samuel Albano Bangloy, a poet, journalist, situational strategist extraordinaire, my most endeared friend, loving father of five lovely kids and devoted husband to Claire, was laid to rest last Thursday, July 10, 2014 at the Laoag Cemetery. I will miss him dearly but his wisdom and friendship will always be in my heart until my life becomes no more. 

Goodbye, Sammy, my beloved friend! May you rest in peace and be showered with the good graces of God in His Kingdom.