Friend of a fractured man

22 years ago this month they found my friend Romy Bernardo hanging from a light fixture in a filthy public toilet in Manila. They said it was suicide.

I met this remarkable man on my first trip to Manila in search of a dealer for the line of dental equipment I represented. I had interviewed three dealers the first day and Romy was the 4th. I was jet-lagged and disappointed with the results of my initial interviews. I was a bit surprised when this gaunt, hatchet-faced man started interviewing me instead of trying to sell me on why he should have the agency.

One of the first things he asked was what I thought of the Philippines. This was my first trip so all I could base my opinion on was what I'd seen between the airport and the hotel. It appeared to be clean with frequent yellow tee shirt clad street cleaners clearly visible. Of course, I had read a lot about the country and knew it was ruled by the dictator Marcos and his peripatetic wife, Imelda (of shoe fame). Never one to shy away from expressing an opinion, I told Romy that it appeared to me that Marcos had been good for the country.

His eyes grew sad as he looked around my elegant suite in the recently restored 5-star Manila hotel. During WWII this storied structure was the headquarters of the occupying Japanese and later for MacArthur upon his much acclaimed return.

Looking out the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Olympic sized pool he said "Do you have the courage to see the real Manila?" Accepting his dare, we climbed into his ancient VW Beetle (with mismatched fenders) and went to Asia's worst slum, the Tondo, ironically located just beyond the bougainvillea festooned wall that protected the pool at the hotel. The streets in the Tondo were so bad there were times I thought the car would be swallowed up in a pot hole. At one point, stalled in traffic while breathing humidity-laden, exhaust-filled, 90 degree stew we watched two men stripped to their shorts have a fist fight on one corner while a hooker performed sexual favors across the street. The crowds of raggedly dressed occupants ignored the action bent on avoiding tripping on the fractured sidewalks. Seeing me scrunched in my seat trying desperately to hide my whiteness Romy asked, "Are you afraid?" Not waiting for an answer he said, "Me too." Thus began a decade-long friendship.

It was an unequal friendship. I had little to offer this financially poor man who at various times had as many as 15 street urchins living with his family in their concrete two story, one bath bunker that served as shop, home and orphanage. He was an optimist, a communist, a first-class engineer, a humanitarian. He wore the same dark blue, or iron gray ill-fitting safari suit every day. It was always freshly laundered.

He and his wife, Zena, worked for the US Navy for several years in Vietnam during the war. They managed to save $50,000. When they came back to Manila they started a dental dealership. Romy managed to land the prestigious Siemens dental equipment distributorship. His first customer was Malacanyan Palace (think Philippine White House). He ordered two complete operatories of equipment at a cost of almost $50k. The day before Romy was to clear the shipment which entailed paying several thousand dollars in duties, Marcos, for political reasons, closed the bank in which Romy had his account. Romy went to the colonel in charge of Malacanyan and explained that he could not clear the shipment unless he could get his money out of the shuttered bank. He was told in no uncertain terms that it was not the government's problem and that if he did not comply with his contract to equip the President's clinic he would be arrested and sent to jail.

Eventually Romy borrowed the money from his uncle to clear the shipment and he installed it on time. He invoiced the Palace the agreed upon price of $85k.

He was never paid a penny.

Not only was he never allowed access to his hard-earned money in the bank, he and Zena also ended up owing his uncle almost $60k with no means of repaying it.

Here's the kicker... every time Marcos would have a dental treatment, a military jeep would show up at Romy's home, often unannounced, at 4:30 in the morning with lights flashing and haul him to the clinic to inspect the equipment and certify that it was working perfectly. He would then sit in a small anteroom until the President's appointment ended just in case something went wrong during the treatment. He was never paid for his time.

Is it any wonder Romy believed the only solution to his country's ills was communism? In his way he tried to change his small portion of the world by setting an example for his children and those he came in contact with. Money meant nothing to him. Over the next few years we tried to develop dental equipment that would be affordable to the thousands of dentists in the Philippines who could not practice because they could not afford equipment. We were only marginally successful.

Several years after our first meeting I arrived in Manila only to find that Romy had disappeared. Zena claimed not to know where he was. I had always known that Romy was a manic depressive so, along with Zena and his children, we were afraid he might have harmed himself.

It was a time of political turmoil in the Philippines. Over the next two years there was a growing populist movement against the Marcos rule. The People's Power movement was formed after Marcos's main rival, Begnigno Aquino, was assassinated by a lone gunman who was instantly killed by security guards. Aquino's funeral attracted over 100,000 people, many of whom blamed Marcos for their hero's death. It was the start of the dictator's downfall.

I'm telling you this history because it was the People's Power movement into which Romy disappeared. Somehow, after attending a couple of the movement's rallies, Romy ended up on Marcos's hit list. Someone inside the administration warned Romy so he went into hiding. When after two years we reconnected, Romy told me he had not slept in the same bed twice in two years. During this period he was an underground organizer for the People's Power movement that eventually forced Marcos to flee to Hawaii. Begnigno Aquino's wife, Corazon, replaced Marcos as president.

When I last saw Romy he was excited about the future possibilities for his country. Was it his disappointment when Aquino turned out to be the typical corrupt politician that caused him to end his life or was he murdered by the remnants of the Marcos SS (secret service)? No one will ever know.

The world needs people like Romy. People who believe that there is a brighter future. People who believe in the basic goodness of their fellow man. People who dream unachievable dreams. Here's to Romy...

Sleep, and in the veil of night
Dream of valor in the light
When comes the awakening dawn
It is your dreams you act upon