Ka-Blog!

    San Beda’s (and La Salle and San Lorenzo’s) Prof. (later Dean) Raymundo Briones died of heart attack this last Holy Week.  I was not able to go to his wake.  His remains were taken home to Lipa City much too soon for me to re-arrange my cluttered schedule.  I am sometimes busy, you know.
    He introduced Philosophy to the clueless freshman that I was.  Until I graduated five and half years later, he was our department chair.  He had a ready and radiant smile that dominated his round face inspite of his huge eyeglasses. He was impressively intelligent and–this was more important to me–very patient. 
    Obviously piqued by a critical "The Bedan" issue, he only had this to say:  "Our school is comparatively better than most."   Faced with a class of philosophy majors who visited the Sistine-like San Beda Church less and less, he said, "On the question of God’s existence, faith is all there is for me." 
    I remember these two statements because these were his only ones I did not agree with.  In the former, I thought he uncharacteristically missed the point.  In the latter, I thought he was being uncharacteristically dumb. 
    I have had many philosophy teachers after Prof. Briones–mostly Marxists.  Had I kept correspondence with him, I am sure I would have disagreed with him more.
    But he is now dead. 
    I do not know why but it has become usual for the living to remember the recently departed with unusual kindness. 
    But I remember differently.
    I am sometimes unusual, you know.   

Photo taken from Ares Gutierrez’s blog.