Engr. Rey Cabilin's alma mater. (Photo courtesy of the Biliran Provincial Government.)
(On November. 7, 1988, my best friend, Engr. Reynaldo P. Cabilin, died in an accident in Sogod, Leyte, where he was recently assigned by the company he was working with. He was buried two weeks later on November 21. During the necrological service held at the Naval Parish Church, I delivered the eulogy below. This was originally published under my column "Out of Fancy" in the December 31, 1988 issue of The Biliran Clarion.)
Today, we celebrate for the last time the physical presence of a very dear friend, Engr. Reynaldo Manuel Pitao Cabilin.
Naldo, as he is fondly called by his friends, was born on March 12, 1955, the eldest of three sons of Isidro Cabilin and Anania Pitao-Cabilin. He died last Nov. 7, 15 days ago today. He was 33 years old.
Aside from his family in Naval, Naldo is survived by his wife, Leonila Melgar, with whom he has a three year old son, Mar Reeve, and another child yet to be born.
Naldo is perhaps the most versatile and creative son that this town has ever hailed. He finished his elementary and high school years, with academic honors, here in Naval. For his university education, he studied his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the Southwestern University in Cebu City. He also finished a Master of Management degree at the Colegio de San Jose-Recoletos.
Naldo can already be considered a professional success, a very accomplished one at that, in his own right. And his star was still rising fast at the moment of his death.
However, it is not what had become of Naldo in the past few years that I wish to emphasize here. Rather, I wish to bring you to the time when we were younger, when we dreamed a lot of dreams, when everything was yet a hopeful possibility, when not a few townspeople believed we were just joking, when not a few parents believed we were leading their children to a misguided life.
Let me bring you back to the years between 1973 and 1978, that is, between 10-15 years ago. During Christmas vacation in 1973, we had a concert in this very building, entitled "Advent ’74." In the summer of 1974, we, as a group of young people, staged a very ambitious presentation, entitled "Jesus Christ Superstar." In the summer of 1975, we had a presentation entitled "St. Francis of Assisi." And in the summer of 1976, we presented our swan operetta as a generation, entitled "Ang Mikado."
Except for the last one, all these musical presentations were initially presented in this church, and were also presented in other towns like Kawayan, Almeria, and Biliran for their church-related fund-raising projects. We also went caroling during Christmas seasons. The proceeds of our activities were our offerings to this church.
Through the years I enumerated, Naldo was the director and the guiding light of our creative activities. We believed him, just as we were also possessive of our youthful unity and priorities.
When I speak of Naldo, therefore, I speak of a generation, a mass movement of young people who honestly tried to do something, but were also misunderstood, especially by our parents’ generation.
Let me cite an example of these misunderstandings: We were the first group of young people to introduce electronic music in this church. For this, we were perceived to have bastardized church worship, and many older people stayed away from the church services for some time.
However, time it seems proved our progressiveness right, though we were not accorded the apologies for at least doing an honest experiment. Today, the presence of fast-paced music and electronic gadgets are already accepted facts in this worshipping community.
We introduced several other things as a generation of young people here in Naval. Until college education, the professions, and the advancing years caught up with us, and we had to leave our youthful ways. But we often reminisced our youthful days once two or three of us met together.
Today, we seem to have been given the signal to finally let go of our memorable past. In the passing of Naldo, we lost the creative symbol of our generation. For us, this is the saddest and bitterest reality of all.
We can only hope that, if ever we did something wrong during our younger years as a generation, our parents will forgive us.
To the young people, we can only say that we have already shown you an example. It is now up to you to pick up from where we have started, and to do better things.
In closing, let me paraphrase Shakespeare, who wrote something like this: Parting is such sweet sorrow. But, as always, there will be a tomorrow.
For our generation, let me say, thank you very much.
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