Let me tell you about my dear friend, Renan Joseph Manzano.

He was my batchmate back in our grade school days, but I never really got to know him until grade 6. We called him "Renan" back then. I remember our classmates in 6A calling him "black bird" and he'd just laugh along with them. He also used to be the one who'd make me feel better when I got picked on by bullies in class.

After our grade school graduation, we had no contact at all until the summer of 2005. We met again in Ahead - our review school for college. He introduced himself as "RJ" and after his introduction, I asked "Kelan ka pa naging RJ?!" and it was the start of a once again found friendship in that very long summer in Ahead. There was a time that I went to class with an eye patch. He noticed I had my hankey over my eye the whole time and asked if I was okay and if there was anything he could do to help. We'd aslo oftentimes kid around with our seatmates when we thought there was something funny about the lecturer. There was this one time where we had a lecturer who used his hand to erase the white board and then immediately rub his forehead. Just imagine how gusgusin he looked and how hard we were laughing when the lesson was over!

Once again I thought that would be the last time I'd see him, so I was really surprised to see him again in school. He was also part of Santugon, one of the student council parties in school. I jokingly asked him for his Santugon pin when I saw it pinned on his huge ID. He didn't give it to me, but he asked Carlos Medalla (running for one of the Reps) to give me one! haha... I saw him a lot around campus even after the campaigning and elections. It would oftentimes be an exchange of hi's and hello's because I'd usually see him in the ten minutes we were given to get to our next class. I saw him again, but didn't bother to say hi anymore because I was in a hurry. Little did I know that that would be the last.

At around 11 in the evening yesterday, I received an IM from a blockmate of mine asking if I knew RJ Manzano. I said I did, and what he said after that struck me - RJ had just passed away that Thursday morning.

At first I didn't make such a big fuss about it, but when I looked back on the times we've spent, I started feeling really sad. He died because of an aneurysm. He was operated on and was in a coma for two days, but... You fill in the blanks... *sobs*

Pambihira ka naman Renan, di ka man lang nagpaalam sa akin ng maayos. Kung kelan ko pa naisip na lagi na kitang makikita (di tulad ng graduation nung grade school), saka ka aalis. Salamat sa mga magagandang alaala, hinding-hindi ko talaga makakalimutan lahat ng pinagsamahan natin. Mamiss kita, sobra. Ikumusta mo ako kay James ah? Paki sabi sa kanya na miss ko na rin siya. Hanggang sa susunod nating pagkikita kaibigan!