Reluctance becomes Amang Bigornia. Projecting himself an accidental writer (he stumbled upon writing when journalist brother Jess used his name to byline a short story), he mentally scratches his head at the prospect of living past 90 when he would've been content to write "30" at 70.
Part of it is this romantic myth of writers living on a short wick, like his idol Ernest Hemingway who had killed himself at 62, not being able to stand, it was said, his impotence with the pen. "It takes a lot out of a person to be a writer. I can't even claim to be one. I was very impatient with words. I write what comes in and that's it," he says.
A man who likes to take his leisure, Bigornia is not quite keen to be so self-immolating even for a pursuit he values like no other. And so he gets to live an unfashionably long (for a writer that is) nine decades as of February 2.
"If somebody tells me he has a secret for living long, I'll call him a liar," he says. He thinks a long life is a divine prerogative, though the divinity in question may not necessarily be Christian nor in speaking terms with Amang Bigornia.
Nevertheless, he believes he's worked himself up to some advantage by being born poor. Walking kilometers to school and doing manual labor in his teens to bring food to the table of a single-parent household in a coastal Ilocos Sur village developed his physique and mental grit. He was too impoverished, he says, to indulge in the vices of the young or to develop an unhealthy taste for rich, fatty food.
But when he became a journalist in the big city-he even served as president of the National Press Club-he eventually caved in to the seductions of hard drinking and chain smoking.
Then came the quadruple heart bypass. The good sense of the clean-living Ilocano teenager resurfaced-but not without the help of strong words from Simon Sawit, who warned him: Don't come for consultation again if you wouldn't quit smoking.
"I stopped smoking there and then," he says. "It's just a matter of respecting yourself. You can't just say I'll do it and not mean it. That's why I think these people who say it's very hard for them to stop smoking are being silly."
He has also cut back on drinking though the circumstances are foggier in recollection. But from the type of daily, heavy sousing that, at times, end with him boarding up at the NPC headquarters for the night, he's down to just one shot. This vodka and rum man would also rather have red wine these days.
The years may have softened the edges but he is far from admitting he's an old man. "I can walk straight. I don't need a cane. I feel as I do 20 or 30 years ago, and I can still look at girls' legs," says this twice-married grandfather of 12 and great-granddaddy of one.
Most significantly, there's a first novel lurking inside him, an extended reunion with his first love, fiction writing, and, from the little he's willing to disclose at the moment, a vicarious return to his small-town roots as well. His collection of short stories also needs pruning, for possible publication. M
"I leave all my problems before I enter the dance floor."
Spoken by someone other than Dr. Solita Camara-Besa-award-winning scientist, 1938 UP College of Medicine (UPCM) valedictorian, and beloved teacher in the same institution-that statement would have a flavor of fecklessness.
But from her, it's a tested prescription for living-ringing true beyond ballroom dancing, a pursuit she so excelled in as to be a bit embarrassed that dancing trophies were crowding out prizes for scientific research.
Painting was another passion she got so absorbed in almost at the expense of science. On a grimmer note, this same singleness of purpose finally melted the bars of gender discrimination she faced in her field during the old days, a time she recalls with some ambivalence.
"At 92, I feel I belong to another era, though that was a time also when it was very difficult for women to have a career, especially in medicine," she recalls.
Whether it's in the ballroom, with a canvas or in a classroom of freshmen medical students, she gets into the flow of things with everything she has, her natural effervescence finding the playful in the proceedings.
Her forte was biochemistry, neither the most engaging nor the easiest subject to digest even by a cream crop of future doctors. Dr. Solita was said to have livened classroom sessions through theatrical touches like diagrams, tables, and drawing analogies from life. In the end, the classroom would sometimes imitate the ballroom with requests for an encore from appreciative students.
The classroom is where she gave the greatest performance of her life. "I think I was able to influence my students not only intellectually, but including their moral development," she says. Among her proteges was the young Juan Flavier, who, as class president of the 1960 freshmen batch, worked with her on a project to instill ethical standards among UP medical students during a difficult time.
A fan of dancing since her teens, she believes she has danced her way to reaching 92 years, though not with a conscious view to doing so. "If you dance just for the exercise, it will do you no good," she points out. "But if you dance for the love of it, then all the nice effects are there: on the brains, the muscles, balance, and on your social life."
Age-through deteriorating muscles and an uncontrolled hypertension-has caught up with her lately. She seems resigned to hang up her dancing shoes for good. Resigned but grateful-since she has had nothing more eventful than sinusitis, tonsillectomy, and appendectomy in her long medical history.
A biochemist by profession, she is her own best counsel when it comes to what she eats, maintaining a low-salt diet on account of her blood pressure. "Knowing something about nutrition, I've been able to make a wholesome diet even at home so that even my husband (the late orthopedic surgeon Augusto Besa) lasted up to 85."
Meanwhile, Dr. Solita, a scientist with 52 published and six award-winning papers to her name, continues to live an active life of the mind and shows no sign of stopping just yet-the mind being, to a scholar like her, the last frontier of mortality.
An elected member of the National Academy of Science and Technology, the highest advisory body of scientists in the country, she actively serves in its various committees. As she circulates in this circle, she always keeps herself abreast of scientific development here and abroad.
She also published her autobiography three years ago and was working with the research ethics committee of the UPCM right up to her 90th birthday. M
At age 21, Florencio Campomanes boarded a slow boat to San Francisco from San Fernando, La Union, and never looked back in a sense.
He has since visited 126 countries, logging in 250,000 miles a year at one time, and at 80, is not inclined to put away his life in a suitcase just yet. In 2006, he still spent seven to eight months traveling.
This is just a side note of course, albeit a singular one, to his long, distinguished career as international chess aficionado, putting the Philippines on the world chess map as a stalwart of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), where he still serves as honorary president.
Dedicating his life to chess, he found that this thinking-man's game does a lot more than keep one's grey matter in peak form.
"Chess insinuates an active mind and the corollary is an active body. It activates all your vitals. When you spend five hours in a really hard tournament, you will perspire like a dog at the end of the session, when all the tension is released," Campomanes says.
A former Philippine champion himself and member many times over of the country's contingent to international competitions, he is something of an extreme gamer in chess, having no patience for playing anything but its fast version.
To keep the rest of him in synch with the game's mental rigor, he observes some regimens. He swears by the detoxifying power of drinking one liter of water every morning, a Chinese health therapy he has been practicing for 37 years.
It makes him feel lighter and move faster. This comes in handy when he plays his second most beloved sport: tennis. True to form, he plays singles to this day and prefers younger, faster opponents to people his own age.
He travels with his tennis bag around the world so that his foreign hosts are wont to include a tennis opponent along with the welcome lei and the native cuisine when he comes visiting.
When it's not tennis, it's either the treadmill or a bracing walk comparable to his favorite promenade along Manila Bay, a routine that takes him 20 times around the back of the Quirino Grandstand.
Letting go of his assistants a few years back, he's now having a second stab at merry bachelorhood, doing chores unassisted, even driving himself around. Having led a cosmopolitan lifestyle, being independent is nothing new to him.
He also hints of an active life under the covers. "Good habit, moderation, and all that won't be complete for a good physical condition without sex. If you don't have that, you might as well be six feet under the ground," he quips.
He is more ascetic when it comes to things that go into his system. While there are no personal diet restrictions, he avoids the fat in meat, stocks up on vegetables, especially ampalaya, and observes moderation in general.
He is proud of his 120/80-mm Hg blood-pressure level and the fact that he's never had any major operations. Despite close brushes with death in some major accidents encountered during his travels, he believes he has nevertheless shaken hands with the thought of dying.
He says: "I'm not afraid of death and my life is an open book. No charades. I have a temper but I'm always true to myself. I don't mince words. I shoot straight. I can face the mirror in the morning all the time without flinching. Being yourself-that's very important." M
If one's ability to aspire is indeed a vital sign, then P. O. Domingo is a frisky 20-something trapped in an 82-year-old man's body.
Two years ago, this top management man of one of the country's biggest conglomerates surprised everyone when he decided to go back to school for an MBA. He was prepared to rough it out, as he did, with classmates a quarter his age.
It was a bittersweet time. He says: "I enjoyed immensely being a student again. I also suffered. I was studying my lessons up to one or two in the morning and at my age, the power of perception and absorption has somehow weakened."
Domingo graduates this year but is not done with the business of aspiring. He still works full time in various capacities, but with a difference. "Old age slows down the processes and tempers the heat of the blood," he says, "but work prevents the atrophy of the mind."
He dreams of living to see the merger of the two financial institutions closest to his heart: the Philippine National Bank (PNB), where he was chief executive officer for a decade, and Allied Bank, which he chairs.
His stint at PNB, which became the biggest bank in Southeast Asia during his watch, was not only one of the biggest stories of his career; it also spun off a tale that starred his health-and waistline.
He ate his way through the pressure of running a volatile business during martial law. When he decided to quit smoking in his mid-30s, he substituted chocolates for nicotine and became diabetic as well.
Thus did Domingo come close to the archetype of the prosperous-looking (i.e. overweight) banker, despite an active sporting life (tennis and golf) that helped take the edge off a stressful job.
When he left the heady world of finance for the cooler groves of academe, the extra pounds went away with the excess stress. Advancing age had a way of pinching the stomach's capacity in his case. But it has also limited his exercise to the stationary bike and the treadmill.
Being CEO of the University of the East and its affiliated hospital, UE Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center (UERM), has other side benefits. "It's nice to relate to the young because you feel young also. I bonded very well with the students here," he says.
He also takes his cue from the old. Networking with other presidents and chairmen of universities-most of them with PhDs - is not something he takes lightly, seasoned though he was in the circles of top bankers and financial executives.
He continues to educate himself by reading, an offshoot of the most basic lesson his academic stint has so far taught him-"As you grow older, you realize that knowledge is a bottomless pit. That when you begin to think you know everything, you're beginning to know less."
For UERM, the very reputation of the hospital is at stake whenever he goes under the knife. "Whenever I'm operated on, the hospital management team is there to make sure I stay alive. It would be embarrassing for their chairman to die on the operating table," he says with a chuckle.
To date, he has survived two cataract operations, a laparoscopic procedure, and a heart bypass. Even with the closest medical attention at his disposal, he believes what pulls him through is the hardy physical make-up he developed when he was young and struggling.
Not born with a silver spoon but with two siblings well into their eighth decade like him, he likes to think that his parents might have passed on something more substantial-genes for a long life. M
Midmorning on weekdays, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Jose Y. Feria is already off to another working day as senior partner of a leading law firm in Makati.
His zeal for the profession is only equaled-and lately, perhaps exceeded-by a strong Catholic spirituality. Every day starts with morning mass at Makati's San Lorenzo Parish with his wife, Concepcion Arguelles-Feria.
"I try to have a simple life. My work here should not interfere with my religious life," he says. "I try to do my work as best as I can here, hoping that I can do what God wants me to do, and so long as it does not conflict with my spiritual concerns."
As legal luminary and prominent lay servant of the church, he is a proud bearer of his father's legacy, the late Supreme Court Justice Felicisimo Feria.
His strong involvement with many religious organizations as leader and member parallels those with many professional and civic groups throughout his legal career.
His participation in the Cursillo Movement, where he's been serving as president for more than 30 years now, is one of his most lasting affiliations.
"You cannot say you have finished your cursillo because it is a retreat for the rest of your life. In [the last] 50 to 60 years, it has always been one of my main activities and I remain very active in it," he says.
As a public servant, work and the religious life are not always exclusive to each other in his life. Before his appointment as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, he served as city councilor of Makati in the 1960s, and as a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. From 1989 to 1994, he sat as chair of the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL).
He continues to serve as chair of the Foundation for Judicial Excellence and as consultant to the Philippine Judicial Academy.
In law as in life, he believes in the fair and the equitable. "For facilities aimed to help our senior citizens, what is important is that they should be available to the rich and poor alike," he says.
Prayer has always been his chief recourse for inner equanimity throughout his many illustrious engagements in life, starting with his days as an exemplary scholar (summa cum laude and valedictorian, University of Santo Tomas, Bachelor of Laws).
He likes sports, notably tennis and golf, which he still plays a little of from time to time. He gets his energy from a moderate diet that has no special restrictions in it despite his advanced age, there being no notable, major sickness that has ever kept him down for long.
With food as with personal habits, clean living is a way of life true to his personal piety. He only gives the occasional nod to social rituals in his profession through light drinking to keep company.
He reiterates an iron-clad conviction of a lifetime with a wistful certainty that can only come from someone with as many years and experiences as he had-"Your religious life is more important than your life on earth. You must always have your life of faith behind you." M
Much has been made of her illustrious lineage as the granddaughter of General Emilio Aguinaldo. It was a pedestal that former Supreme Court Associate Justice Ameurfina Aguinaldo Melencio-Herrera strongly built upon with her own claim to greatness as a highly respected magistrate.
Lately, it's also dawned on this University of the Philippines Law School valedictorian and bar topnotcher that she might have taken after her lolo Aguinaldo-whose Chinese mestizo visage somewhat recurs in her delicate features-in more ways than in being an achiever. The country's first president lived to be 95 years old and his female descendant appears to have the same hardy revolutionary's blood coursing through her.
She works full weekdays and sometimes weekends as chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy, the Supreme Court's education arm. Four years after her retirement from the bench in 1992, she embarked on this new, challenging field that takes her places, sharing professional skills and her own magisterial wisdom to justices, judges, court personnel, and lawyers who aspire for the bench all over the country.
"We go to the regions instead of making the lawyers and court personnel come over to make the programs as cost-effective as we can. Personally, it's good to see those outlying areas and to be able to interact with our judges and personnel," says this former Wall Street lawyer who got started on her judicial career in the remote Aurora province back in the mid-60s.
Surviving her husband, former UP chancellor Florentino Herrera Jr., and with her children all having families of her own, she is a single, hardworking career woman once again in her 80s.
She's so driven indeed that even if she has a personal 10-item pointer for living healthy, she confesses to a little truancy when it comes to her personal maintenance.
"Exercise is prescribed but considering the work I do, I am very irregular about it. I try to exercise whenever I can. Regular rest and enough sleep are necessary, although this also depends on the demands of the job. In my case, you cannot attend to all the paperwork and administrative matters so you really have to work also during the weekends," she says.
What keeps her going goes beyond keeping busy for its own sake. "I am motivated by the need to be able to do something for the judiciary, especially in judicial education which is one of the main components of the Supreme Court's plan for judicial reform," she says.
But she does try to spend time gardening, or watching her grandchildren grow. She says: "Doing what you like doing, or engaging in a hobby, is a form of rest. Having loving children and grandchildren makes a lot of difference to one's well-being, and cooperative coworkers and good friends are a boon."
Even with the genes of heroes on her side, she has had intimations of mortality through illnesses big and small and does believe that a doctor can be a senior's best friend. "Following doctor's orders is a must. I myself have been treated for pneumonia about three times already, most recently last year, and have experienced all the symptoms that come with old age, like the usual osteoarthritis and scoliosis," she admits.
In the end, she believes it's all Divine Providence. "Prayer and faith in God are indispensable. I believe there are no secrets. It's all God's blessings and I consider myself very fortunate on that score," she affirms.M
Clad in his working-day barong, former Senate President Jovito Salonga commands a hush of awe as he puts out in plain sight the scars from that mythic episode in his life, the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing. He got the worst wounds among the survivors, but is turning out to have the longest lease on the second life he's been given.
Not that it's a matter of pride for him to have gotten this far, though he couldn't have been faulted for pointing out this sweet irony to detractors who've been taking potshots at his advanced age and frail health.
Writer Conrado de Quiros quotes Salonga on the subject: "Ang tanong ay hindi kung gaano ka katanda kundi kung ano ang pinagkatandaan mo.
Getting a move on things still marks this venerable statesman at age 86 going on 87. Rather than idly propping himself up on a reputation with more historical mileage to it than most contemporary politicians can hope to have, he labors just as purposefully now as he did when every move he made seemed a logical prelude somehow to a stint in Malacañang.
The man some deem the greatest president this country never had currently works Monday to Friday in his unpretentious office up a quiet street in Mandaluyong, as chair emeritus for the people's organization Kilosbayan, and as a prime mover behind Bantay Katarungan (Sentinel of Justice).
"I also founded Bantayog ng mga Bayani to honor the martyrs and heroes during martial law and the UCCP (United Church of Christ in the Philippines) volunteer committee for poor, retired pastors and religious workers. I enjoy working for all these organizations without thought of compensation," he says. "Like me, all my fellow trustees also donate all their services."
In Bantay Katarungan where he works with lawyers and law students from Metro Manila schools to improve the country's justice system, this bar topnotcher is able to impart not only legal advice but the idealism that has always made him a hit with the young and the discerning.
A Liberal Party insider attests to the senator's "rock-star appeal" with the youth of the party. "In my talks with many members of the youth wing, whether they're in law school or not, all of them say with much fervor that Ka Jovy is their idol," says Robert Ramos, public-relations director of the party's youth wing.
After the 1992 presidential elections, when Salonga weathered more slings about his age and health than at just about any time in his career, he actually wrote more books than before, the most recent of which was a memoir that came out in 2005.
Yet his battle scars are there too to ground him in reality. He has also experienced travails less dramatic but no less serious than those from Plaza Miranda-which left him blind in one eye and difficult of hearing-and from the hands of the Japanese.
He cites his doctors for coming through for him when he underwent an operation in 1978 for a prostate condition, which is still active but is now under control, and when a heart attack a decade later was managed without resorting to surgery.
He does his bit by observing a diet of mostly fruits and vegetables and walking as often as he can. With wife Lydia and son Ed, he goes to their small country home in Laguna to wade or swim in their warm spring pool near Mt. Makiling.
"I do not pretend to be 'very active and healthy,' considering what I had gone through. Undoubtedly, a simple lifestyle and a dependence on a higher power bigger than myself have made all the difference in my life," he says. M
History has always been a living presence in the house of the Pardo de Taveras. So it was in the time of Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, lawyer to the priest-martyrs of the Philippine revolution, Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora. So it is in the days of his great-granddaughter Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera, 87, recipient of the highest award (the Presidential "Legion of Honor") given by the Philippine government.
She says: "I grew up in a family that is very nationalistic. We have a long life span because there is something to live for that is more than even our own family. I live for our people, our country, and for God."
Mamita's strain of this heroic sentiment has simply kept up with the times. This former Secretary of Social Welfare and Development, a medical doctor by profession, fights a war different from that of her patriotic ancestors.
It is a battle she continues to wage to this day as founder and chair of the Alay Kapwa Kilusang Pangkalusugan (AKAP), a pioneer in developmental approach to health care in the communities.
"I still go out a lot to give lectures on preventive health for AKAP. I just don't go to the far places anymore, like those that will take a 12-hour bus ride. Otherwise, I'm always writing and doing something in the office. As long as I can serve, I want to live," she says.
Her passion on this score recalls the young, idealistic doctor who overturned people's bias about her patrician background to the point that she was actually suspected of having socialist leanings!
"In my youth, I was a ballet dancer, a top ballerina in fact. I gave up all that energy for the people, riding on the bus to go to places like Bicol. That's why my friends asked, komunista ka ba?" she laughs.
This Assumptionista also opted to study medicine in UP, to the dismay of parents who cringed at sending their convent-bred unica hija to such a "godless" school. But they must have had mixed emotions when their strong-willed daughter announced she would rather retain the honor of being a Pardo de Tavera-out of great esteem for her lolo and mentor, the first Dr. Pardo de Tavera-instead of adopting her husband's surname.
Even her decision to quit smoking is borne of the same willful idealism. "Here I was lecturing against cancer as president of the Philippine Cancer Society tapos I myself was a smoker.... Also, I thought of what would happen if something happens to me? Who would continue my work?" she says.
She is her own best example of what she preaches. A bad fall led to the use of a walking cane a few years back. But other than that and minor hazards on the job, she remains untouched by anything seriously degenerative, which allows her to keep on working closely with tuberculosis patients at the Quezon Institute and going to infectious-disease hotspots.
She knows she's lived a charmed life. "By nature, I'm a happy person as I haven't had any reason to be unhappy. But nothing makes me happier than when I go to places like Divisoria and somebody will always remember me with affection. That's the best payment I can get," she says. M
Being sharp with numbers comes handy in Cong. Meniong Teves' turf as the House of Representatives' resident tax expert, as successful businessman, and in his younger days, as a high-roller in the games of chance.
Nowadays, Tatay Meniong figures that based on his family's longevity average, the laws of probability are on his side in his bid to live long enough to set up a facility for alternative-fuel production and put up a rice central in his home province, Negros Oriental, within the next three to four years.
"I had an auntie who died at 105. My own father lived to be 87 and many of our relatives go up to 90 and 95 years. We live long as a family, so I'm confident that at 90, I'll still be very active and I can make those dreams happen" he said.
To buttress his odds, this natural-born farmer has another ace up his sleeve: the humble banana. "I believe my power and strength basically comes from banana. Since I was young, I always eat banana up to four times a day. Till now, I cannot eat my meals without it. I just like it," he enthuses.
Banana goes with an unrestricted range of other edibles on his table-including lechon and the Visayan pork specialty umba-but in moderate servings. Tennis and baseball in his younger days and golf, which he still plays at least once a week, keeps him in top form for his busy schedule.
He breezes through this schedule with clockwork precision, his farmer's body clock getting an early head start each day at 4 AM so that by 7 or 8 AM, his working clock is already ticking. The most senior lawmaker since the 11th Congress also holds one of the best attendance records in the House.
Being ready before the gavel is banged sends a pretty strong message to much nimbler colleagues half his age. "I could be a symbol and a model for them. And it brings home what I kept saying that when you seek a public position, you should have the mental attitude of wanting to serve. And the least you can do is be present," he says.
His early career in seafaring, the discipline and unsinkable optimism it bred, got him off on sound footing in business and politics. "A good leader can sail the ship amidst storm and difficulties and chart a good economic and political course for its passengers, the people," he pronounces.
A widower by age 29, long, lonely days at sea as a young deck officer did lead him to smoke. But that, like his nightly drinking and some gambling, are piquant episodes from another era in his life, superseded by the stoic satisfaction of making a difference in public office.
Surviving a close call aboard a ship bombed by a Japanese plane during World War II, he knows how it feels to be handed back one's life. That's why for this man, who has seen the peso-dollar rate slide from 1:1 to perdition, there's only room for unflagging enthusiasm as he works on his pet causes of improving the country's tax administration and lately, improving public school attendance through nutritional interventions.
Sniffing out the country's tax cheats through meticulous research is in fact one of his methods for keeping the knife of his mind sharpened, along with intellectual discussions and lots of reading.
It helps that his son, Margarito Teves, is now the country's Finance Secretary. With Cong. Teves as chair of the House committee on ways and means, he and Sec. Teves are a formidable father-and-son tandem in government. This collegial relationship with his son is nothing new.
"I treat my children as friends. We have fruitful discussions. For example, when Sec. Teves came from London, we have to discuss what is theoretical and what is practical economics," he discloses. M
He soldiers on to a life of judicious physical and mental routine seven years into a life as a private citizen. Having lived through the high mortal perils of his profession, the military upbringing that permeates Ambassador Manuel Yan's lifestyle and outlook has become a fortress for keeping the ravages of old age at bay.
"My military background has trained me to have a regular schedule of activities. Strict military discipline has kept me away from occasions of untoward activities," he says. "I managed to remain healthy by doing my schedule regularly. But at the same time, I see to it that my activities are more or less compatible with my age."
Twice-a-week visits to a popular gym near his Greenhills residence are a mainstay in his schedule. A trainer supervises his regimen, which usually starts with the treadmill, followed by specific exercises to take care of the different parts of the body.
Having gone under the knife for a spinal column disorder 25 years ago-his most serious hospital rendezvous to date-his gym dates are as much for general fitness as for therapeutic maintenance.
But the frailty in the bones brought on by age has not weighed down on the erect military bearing of this lean, professional warrior who survived the Death March, fought in the Philippine resistance movement and went on to become chief of the Philippine Armed Forces. His moderate diet, vice-free lifestyle and equable temperament mark this outer bearing to be an inner one as well.
The gym also substitutes these days for the more strenuous demands of badminton, a sport he loved and helped popularize here as president of the Philippine Badminton Association for nearly a decade up to the early 70s. A seasoned Philippine diplomat to the world, he was an ambassador of badminton to his countrymen. "Badminton does not require height or weight.... That's why it is really a game for Asians, Filipinos."
Logging in 63 years in high-level government service, even retirement cannot quite quench Yan's accustomed interest in world affairs. "I enjoy reading these days, a few books but mostly newspapers and magazines. The idea is to keep up with what's going on not only here but in the rest of the world."
Some items in the news are likely to invite closer reading than most, notably the vicissitudes of the government's engagement with Southern Philippine rebel groups. The final decade of Yan's public service was mostly dedicated to engineering amity with these dissidents-culminating in a landmark 1996 peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front-in his capacity then as Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.
A quiet life away from the public eye is his greatest satisfaction now since leaving government in 2000. And he's glad that despite the demands of his life's work in the military and foreign service, he was able to have a normal and stable family life.
He admires his own parents for not letting age slow them down. "My father was working until he died, though he passed away much younger than me at age 64, while my mother, who lived up to 86, was very active in her own way as a housewife, walking around a lot as she does her chores."
The military roots of this 1941 Philippine Military Academy valedictorian never stray too far from his affections even as a civilian. His select social engagements these days are usually in connection with military or veterans' affairs and he continues to maintain affiliation with the Philippine Association of Generals and Flag Officers.
For his fellow seniors in general, he feels that the government he has served unstintingly since the times of President Quezon can do more. "I think there should be more institutions to take care of seniors, especially those who cannot afford to live a healthy, retired life. And the government is obligated to provide a place where they can retire," he says. M
