Tears for Joecap

PATTAYA, Thailand, April 14 — Tears came dribbling down the cheeks of friends and relatives of Press Undersecretary Jose Capadocia not only in the Philippines but in faraway Pattaya, Thailand as well.

Joecap’s death had cast a pall over President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s entourage to the 14th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit. News of the chopper crash that killed Joecap and seven others on April 10 was the most riveting – and gloomiest – for the Filipino group here.

Before, that is, hordes of boisterous red-shirted Thais came rampaging across the manicured lawns and carpeted corridors of the five-star Royal Cliff Beach Resort complex in Pattaya.

But before the red shirts’ rampage that led to the cancellation of the summit, Joecap was the centerpiece of conversation. Members of the President’s entourage and Filipino reporters covering the President’s trip huddled together every time someone started talking about Joecap and the tragedy that befell him and the other presidential aides.

Although the reports on the crash were almost uniform, they were rehashed over and over again as though one version of it was not enough, and the retelling of the tragedy would somehow assuage the pervasive grief.

An all-around nice guy and well-loved by his staff and friends, Joecap made people round him feel comfortable, needed, important, a member of the Joecap team. Friends attest that the guy had no mean bone in him, that he had carefully steeled himself against hypocrisy, the disease that often afflicts people when they gain a certain stature in life.

There was plenty of recollection and remembering. And remembering can often be cruel and emotionally devastating.

“It’s just unbelievable,” a stunned member of Joecap’s OPS staff muttered.

Ruby Jane Villaverde was with the advance party of the presidential staff to the Pattaya Summit. The MARO (Media Accreditation and Relations Office (MARO) officer assigned to the 14th ASEAN Summit, she arrived in Pattaya on April 6. The MARO is directly under the press secretary.

The “cryingest” of the Filipino contingent at the Summit, Ruby recounted that in the morning of Holy Tuesday (April 7), she tried to contact Joecap through her mobile phone. A female apparently picked up the cellular phone but the voice was unintelligible and it faded away quickly. Subsequent attempts to contact him failed.

Asked why she was not crying in public over Joecap’s demise, Susie Zaragoza, another MARO staffer, said she had simply run out of tears.

Another member of the presidential staff said she tried to contact Joecap but after one ring, his mobile phone went dead and contact was completely cut off.

President Arroyo’s moving eulogy at the necrological services for the eight victims of the crash on April 9 triggered another bout of silent weeping.

An officer of the Malacanang protocol office probably best summed up the feeling of loss when he said: “Nawalan tayo ng kasama (we have lost a friend).” (PNA)

LAP/OPS/ssc

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