A Lunch Reunion That Took 20 Years

Yesterday, I took off from my usual lunch-at-the-office routine to walk over to Grappas, an Italian resto in Greenbelt 3. The occasion? A 20-year-some reunion with Nookie Ira, a dear friend from school days in the States.

It’s funny how you suddenly realize how many years have gone by and yet when you meet up again, the camaraderie of old comes rushing back and those years seem to just fold up into nothingness and you are joking and talking like old times.

When I took my grad studies in Philadelphia (Philly, for short), there were about a dozen Filipinos in our batch. The batch a year ahead of us also had about the same number of Pinoys. We had cookouts, dinner parties, outings to other states, and we formed friendships that held even as we graduated, got married, had families and went off on different career paths in different countries. A handful of those Pinoys in both batches eventually joined government under different administrations and ended up with Cabinet positions. Imagine that!

Nookie regaled us with his life in the States after we all graduated. He joined Cogent FA and is a CFA charterholder. He is currently on his own and looking at career possibilities in Asia.

Joining our lunch were Greg Yu (he and wife Zsa Zsa were my batch). Greg used to be President of Belle Corporation and is currently Chairman of CATS (dealers of M-Benz cars). I also learned yesterday that Greg had put up Prople BPO together with former DTI and Finance Secretary, Cesar Purisima and some other partners. What’s amazing is that without our knowing it, my daughter C2 and Greg’s sons became good friends in high school and they maintain that friendship till now. Talking of second generation bonding!

With us also was Jack Madrid. Jack was in the undergraduate division of the university but was one of the guys close to us as well. He was with Citibank Manila for some years, moved to MTV as its VP/Managing Director (yup, the yuppy MTV) and is now a director with the newly opened Dell call center in the Philippines.

Arriving much later (and after Greg left) was Joel Bañares. Joel, like Nookie, was part of the “barkada” in school. We spent many days and nights with Lou Ramos, our surrogate mom in Philly, just laughing and having fun. Of course, since we were usually all girls at Lou’s flat, she would assign Joel to take out the garbage after we had our fill of food. Who would expect that our “basurero” would become an Undersecretary of Finance years later? Joel is currently President of In2Power, a private company in the power business.

There was a lot of catching up during that lunch. Who was doing what? How many kids we had. Do you remember so-and-so? Did you know so-and-so is now in _____? Exchange of business cards. Picture, picture. And plans for another reunion if and when Roy Ramos, another friend who happens to be in HK and is now one of the most senior guys at Goldman Sachs, decides to come visit in 2 weeks. In the offing too in that reunion is the planned visit of 3 former classmates: 2 Singaporeans and 1 Indian. I am excited about this possible reunion. These other guys are friends I have not seen since graduation.

It seems that even after meeting up one generation later, the network and bond that was initially established years back in Philly, is still going strong. This time, reunions are planned with family in mind (spouses and kids). And some of those kids may someday wind up in the same university we went to and hopefully, form their own Pinoy network of friends while there.

The circle of life and friendship goes on and on…. 🙂