DEATH is so faithful to the living. It is envy we do not wish to befall us. When a loved one dies, we reminisce. We remember the departed as if we are capable of holding time and have the power to choose which ones to go and which stay with us.

I met Maning Ravanera some 30 years ago. I was a student volunteer at the Centre for Alternative Rural Technology, Inc. (CART). He was a young officer of the court that is being looked upon by confreres as defendable. tough. Masaligan. Masandigan.

We clicked immediately. I do not know if it was because of the kinilaw, he asked me to do, as his first order to a neophyte in the group tasted so good, or our conversations. We clicked instantly, and at the end of the night, we exchanged keys. He had my motorcycle keys and me, his beetle Volkswagen’s ― that that inimitable pagong.

We have fought many battles. Against illegal pollution and illegal fishing at Macajalar, Gingoog, and Butuan Bays. Illegal logging in the vast watersheds of Cagayan de Oro, the preservation of Cagayan de Oro’s Huluga archeological complex. Fighting coal-fired power plants, years before the global consensus that climate is caused by human activities.

We were called tree-huggers, doomsday sayers, anti-development activists, economic saboteurs, and whatever. We prodded on.

When in trouble, NingRavs is the go-to guy. When a court ordered leaders of the Task Force Macajalar: Sir Orlan Ravanera, the late Longskie Magallanes, and I not to go near the anti-logging barricades, NingRavs defended us in court.

When Longskie and I were sued by a driver of a logging truck we apprehended for physical injuries, NingRavs secured our acquittal.

When CART closed in 2008, and I found myself jobless, NingRavs and Damins offered me a vacant room in their boarding house. They are family to me. Batin is like a sister. My parents recalled that long before we became confreres, I had already met NingRavs and Damins. NingRavs then was courting Damins who did nursing duties in Gingoog City. Ambot lang og wa ba kaha nagbasol si Damins nga iya ko gi injectionan og bakuna when I was a kid, everytime mag-tagay mi ni NingRavs.

When I started to take journalism seriously, NingRavs encouraged Batin to write. Right Bats? Then beat me to the draw when a certain Ilya Kristin R. Ravanera got a by-line in the Inquirer’s Young Blood. I stopped thinking of ever writing for Young Blood, since then.

NingRavs is so loved, that is why he lasted so long even after his stroke. God gave him Damins, indubitably, the best wife in the world. And Batin whose grit is off the charts.

NingRavs. when you meet Ernest Hemingway, please ask him how many shots of Scotch did he drink when he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls? And please tell him that he was so damn right.

“Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Salamat NingRavs!