SUANSING’S ‘BRAVE’ DAUGHTER SPEAKS
‘I promised papa
that I will not cry’
“A long life deprives a man of his optimism”
--ERNEST HEMINGWAY
By Alex P. Vidal
In viewof the “promise” she gave her father in the bedside before he died, ten-year-old Samantha Suansing “did not cry” when Ivan, 43, succumbed to heart ailment at the Perpetual Succor Hospital’s heart center in Cebu City last September 29.
She too vowed not to cry when her father, the first and only Ilonggo editor-in-chief of the Cebu Daily News (CDN), will be laid to rest at the Christ the King Cemetery in Jaro, Iloilo City on October 8.
“I am stronger now and I promised my father that I would be brave starting today,” Samantha enthused hours after Ivan’s body arrived at the St. Joseph the Worker Chapel in Sambag, Jaro from Cebu last October 2 for a six-day wake.
His body, placed in a white casket, arrived at around 1:40 p.m. on board Air Philippines escorted by his father Horacio Suansing, Sr., 81, and mother Annabillia Palma-Suansing, 72; sisters Vivian and Evelyn Rojo and brother Horacio, Jr.
“I cried only four times and this was when my father was admitted in the (Cebu Doctors) hospital (last August 31 after Ivan felt a throbbing headache when he reported for work),” Samantha explained in straight English.
“I accepted his fate because my Auntie Inday (Evelyn Rojo, Ivan’s elder sister) already explained to me why Jesus had to take him away. God loves my father so much and my father would have suffered if He did not take him away,” said Samantha, Grade V pupil at the Mandaue Christian School in Mandaue City, Cebu.
‘TAKE CARE OF YOUR BROTHER’
Presenting an intrepid face, Samantha, born March 30, 1995 in Iloilo City, recalled that her father only asked her one thing: “Take good care of your brother, Sam.”
Ivan was referring to his second child, five-year-old Isaiah, who Samantha said, “was very closed to my father.”
Ivan had wanted to survive the six-hour operation to repair a damaged aorta because Samantha said, because “he promised to bring my brother to the Lapu-Lapu Side Bridge to watch the waves which never happened.”
According to Samantha, Isaiah had been badgering their father to bring him to that famous bridge named after the late Supreme Court Justice Marcelo Fernan, “because Isaiah loves to watch the waves.”
The greatest gift her father gave her? “A cat named Gary he bought a day before my 10th birthday.”
How about the most unforgettable experience with her father? “When he brought us all (mother Chandra and Isaiah) in Bohol (in June 2005) where he taught me how to swim and offered to become my personal coach when I participate in the Milo Olympics.”
Samantha said her father, a former chess champion in the UP Diliman, Quezon City where he studied law in the post EDSA Revolution, already had taught her how to play chess and even egged her to hone her skills more and join in big tournaments.
What else did her father teach her? “Most of all, he wanted me to just be always in the top five in our class which I did, but recently some of my subjects were affected when he started to be admitted in the hospital,” said Samantha who considered Ivan as her “best teacher.”
IN AND OUT
Ivan had been coming in and out of the hospital since figuring in a near-fatal road crash on the last day of November 2001.
“A long and ugly scar to the left of my chin reminds me of that near-fatal road crash on the last day of November 2001, and how somebody up there must have loved me. A little lower and my throat would have been slashed and that would have been it; a little higher and I could have been blinded, badly disfigured -- or dead,” Ivan wrote in his last column written two days before he died.He added: ”Goose bumps are what I get whenever I conjure up images of that bloody accident: A late night drive, rain, metallic wreckage, spurting blood, shredded flesh, good Samaritans I may never ever meet again and say ‘thank you’ to.”“For instance, I have never seen the taxi driver who, unlike several others ahead of him, didn't refuse when some strangers loaded me into his cab. As we sped off, I remember opening the door of the vehicle to spit blood and a few teeth outside so his white seat cover wouldn't get spoiled.At the hospital, I dismounted and walked on my power, staggering into the ER to the utter shock of those inside. I imagined that with half of my face reduced to shreds, I must have looked like a zombie that had risen from the grave to haunt the living. I forgot to pay my fare.Ivan stressed that his “life-changing experience” had taught him “the value and unpredictability of life and to appreciate my own mortality. You're here today, but maybe gone tomorrow. You're on top of the world now, but maybe six feet underground the next moment.”
Well-loved by both his peers in Cebu and Cebu public officials, CDN will name its news room as the “Ivan P. Suansing Room”. An organization of Cebu editors will also launch a fund-raising campaign for the scholarships of Samantha and Isaiah who will now permanently stay in Iloilo City.
THREE WISHES
He only had three wishes, according her sister Evelyn P. Rojo: “1. To see my children grow up; 2. To work at the CDN; 3. To love my family.”
Evelyn said Ivan was “so lucky” because he was “very prepared” when he died and was “at total with the Lord.”
When Ivan, born August 26, 1962, was rushed to the operating table, “everybody, including, perhaps, Ivan himself, knew that he had a slim chance to survive.”
Samantha was only three years old in 1998 when her father, then outgoing editor-in-chief of Sun.Star Iloilo and mother, Chandra, now 33, left La Paz, Iloilo City to stay in Cebu City where Ivan first acted as news editor of the newly opened CDN, sister publication of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
‘I promised papa
that I will not cry’
“A long life deprives a man of his optimism”
--ERNEST HEMINGWAY
By Alex P. Vidal
In viewof the “promise” she gave her father in the bedside before he died, ten-year-old Samantha Suansing “did not cry” when Ivan, 43, succumbed to heart ailment at the Perpetual Succor Hospital’s heart center in Cebu City last September 29.
She too vowed not to cry when her father, the first and only Ilonggo editor-in-chief of the Cebu Daily News (CDN), will be laid to rest at the Christ the King Cemetery in Jaro, Iloilo City on October 8.
“I am stronger now and I promised my father that I would be brave starting today,” Samantha enthused hours after Ivan’s body arrived at the St. Joseph the Worker Chapel in Sambag, Jaro from Cebu last October 2 for a six-day wake.
His body, placed in a white casket, arrived at around 1:40 p.m. on board Air Philippines escorted by his father Horacio Suansing, Sr., 81, and mother Annabillia Palma-Suansing, 72; sisters Vivian and Evelyn Rojo and brother Horacio, Jr.
“I cried only four times and this was when my father was admitted in the (Cebu Doctors) hospital (last August 31 after Ivan felt a throbbing headache when he reported for work),” Samantha explained in straight English.
“I accepted his fate because my Auntie Inday (Evelyn Rojo, Ivan’s elder sister) already explained to me why Jesus had to take him away. God loves my father so much and my father would have suffered if He did not take him away,” said Samantha, Grade V pupil at the Mandaue Christian School in Mandaue City, Cebu.
‘TAKE CARE OF YOUR BROTHER’
Presenting an intrepid face, Samantha, born March 30, 1995 in Iloilo City, recalled that her father only asked her one thing: “Take good care of your brother, Sam.”
Ivan was referring to his second child, five-year-old Isaiah, who Samantha said, “was very closed to my father.”
Ivan had wanted to survive the six-hour operation to repair a damaged aorta because Samantha said, because “he promised to bring my brother to the Lapu-Lapu Side Bridge to watch the waves which never happened.”
According to Samantha, Isaiah had been badgering their father to bring him to that famous bridge named after the late Supreme Court Justice Marcelo Fernan, “because Isaiah loves to watch the waves.”
The greatest gift her father gave her? “A cat named Gary he bought a day before my 10th birthday.”
How about the most unforgettable experience with her father? “When he brought us all (mother Chandra and Isaiah) in Bohol (in June 2005) where he taught me how to swim and offered to become my personal coach when I participate in the Milo Olympics.”
Samantha said her father, a former chess champion in the UP Diliman, Quezon City where he studied law in the post EDSA Revolution, already had taught her how to play chess and even egged her to hone her skills more and join in big tournaments.
What else did her father teach her? “Most of all, he wanted me to just be always in the top five in our class which I did, but recently some of my subjects were affected when he started to be admitted in the hospital,” said Samantha who considered Ivan as her “best teacher.”
IN AND OUT
Ivan had been coming in and out of the hospital since figuring in a near-fatal road crash on the last day of November 2001.
“A long and ugly scar to the left of my chin reminds me of that near-fatal road crash on the last day of November 2001, and how somebody up there must have loved me. A little lower and my throat would have been slashed and that would have been it; a little higher and I could have been blinded, badly disfigured -- or dead,” Ivan wrote in his last column written two days before he died.He added: ”Goose bumps are what I get whenever I conjure up images of that bloody accident: A late night drive, rain, metallic wreckage, spurting blood, shredded flesh, good Samaritans I may never ever meet again and say ‘thank you’ to.”“For instance, I have never seen the taxi driver who, unlike several others ahead of him, didn't refuse when some strangers loaded me into his cab. As we sped off, I remember opening the door of the vehicle to spit blood and a few teeth outside so his white seat cover wouldn't get spoiled.At the hospital, I dismounted and walked on my power, staggering into the ER to the utter shock of those inside. I imagined that with half of my face reduced to shreds, I must have looked like a zombie that had risen from the grave to haunt the living. I forgot to pay my fare.Ivan stressed that his “life-changing experience” had taught him “the value and unpredictability of life and to appreciate my own mortality. You're here today, but maybe gone tomorrow. You're on top of the world now, but maybe six feet underground the next moment.”
Well-loved by both his peers in Cebu and Cebu public officials, CDN will name its news room as the “Ivan P. Suansing Room”. An organization of Cebu editors will also launch a fund-raising campaign for the scholarships of Samantha and Isaiah who will now permanently stay in Iloilo City.
THREE WISHES
He only had three wishes, according her sister Evelyn P. Rojo: “1. To see my children grow up; 2. To work at the CDN; 3. To love my family.”
Evelyn said Ivan was “so lucky” because he was “very prepared” when he died and was “at total with the Lord.”
When Ivan, born August 26, 1962, was rushed to the operating table, “everybody, including, perhaps, Ivan himself, knew that he had a slim chance to survive.”
Samantha was only three years old in 1998 when her father, then outgoing editor-in-chief of Sun.Star Iloilo and mother, Chandra, now 33, left La Paz, Iloilo City to stay in Cebu City where Ivan first acted as news editor of the newly opened CDN, sister publication of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment