Friend

 Our Moment is the Only We Have 

From ZAMNAI with Love

Three scores and fifteen years ago

You basked in the glory of the earth

And that all and sundry may know

That dear life is not all full of mirth.

You were born in Katipunan

A Zamboanga del Norte town;

Dipolog and Cebu drew a plan

Architecture is just around.

Saudi Arabia. America.

Land of rich oil. Land of the free.

La vida: dulce y amarga.

And Dodong cannot disagree.

There is a time for everything.

Time to laugh and a time to cry,

Time to lead and a time to sing,

Time to be born and a time to die.

A hero said, "To die is to rest."

And Dodong left a legacy.

Leader, he is: one of the best

Of great ZAMNAI with ecstasy.

God is good to shower us with grace

And follow up with His mercy

The charity we must embrace;

A blessing for eternity.

After all, words are said and done

We shall pursue eternal life

And the hard-earned riches are gone;

Only the moment is our stripe.

An elegy is written for you

Dominador T. Santos, Jr.

Rest in peace. Lives just come and go!

You live the sole version of who you are.

(N.B.) Life is a mystery. It is short and fleeting. We must do our best version of it as we have at the Moment. On Sept. 25, we have a phone talk. I wished him the best of luck. And what I heard later he's out of luck. 

I first met Dominador T. Santos, Jr. (Dodong) years ago when he left the hot desert of Saudi Arabia to seek a cooler place and landed in the Windy City of Chicago.  Friendship blossomed as he was a likable fellow. He came from Katipunan, Zamboanga del Norte where my High School Biology teacher came from. Then Dodong became one of the presidents of ZAMNAI, whose founder and first president was his high school classmate, Beresimo "Nonoy" Refugio. Then the arrival of HUDYAKA, in Chicago. This became the annual ZAMNAI celebration, the brainchild of Zambo del Norte's former governor Rolando Yebes.

Dominador "Dodong" Santos, Jr. gained leadership prowess as a vice mayor of Katipunan, Zamboanga del Norte, through his involvement as a town planner and a project manager for a commercial complex, and his employment in Saudi Arabia.

I wrote this elegy as a dedication to our friendship. Rest in peace my friend, Dominador T. Santos, Jr.