By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
If you want to buy something that is not brand new, you scan the various social media platforms. Anybody can just post “for sale,” free of charge, anything one wants to get rid of. Back in the day one combed the classified ads section of the Manila Bulletin. For local items in the Cordillera, there was the Baguio Midland Courier.
Then came out the national publication that beat them all– BUY AND SELL. It was all advertisements the bulk of which were composed of classified line ads, for free.
Of these publications, only Manila Bulletin is still around.
One of my weekend entertainment when I was still Metro Manila based was to go trough the BUY AND SELL, look for interesting cheap vehicles and go see them. The cheap ones are usually almost junk but if it was an interesting model, I would go and see these if I could somehow make them run. That was how I meet one who was selling the bodies of a Ferrari F40, a Bentley and a Lamborghini Countach. All convertible or top-down sports cars.
It turned out these were made by the highly talented seller, made of fiber glass or galvanized steel sheets. When I met him, he just came from the US, and we immediately hit it off. Well, what did you expect when two people crazy about cars start conversing about these? To make the story short, the guy became my friend and I and my law partner ended up handling his court cases regarding their house and lot in Manila. We became close enough and his wife—a beautiful former model– also became our friend.
Over the years we remained in touch even if the couple had been going back and forth to the US. When we relocated to Baguio because of ZigZag Weekly, the couple came up for a break a number of times.
Life went on, and then, one late morning after many years, the guy walked into my office here in Baguio. I was so happy to meet him again, among so many other things, to talk about his latest luxury sports car creations. But then I noticed he was with a younger girl, many years his junior. And they were with a boy, about six years old….. their kid.
Needless to say, the guy and his tall, beautiful and former model wife must have parted ways along the way. Realizing that, my feeling was like I was punched in the gut. For the wife also became my friend. Yes, it was a heart breaker.
When you are a friend to a couple, there is the expectation they will always be the same, always a couple. But things happen, which is quite unfortunate.
I never met them again. But their reality got replayed so many times over the years in the various annulment of marriage cases I handled. Unfortunate these might be, life has to go on.**
