IF you put the Z before the S, wrong. It should be S first, then Z. Last always is Z, the ending letter in the alphabet.
That’s the way it goes (went?) with Ronnie’s family name: Nathanielsz.
You write it wrong, chances are you are not that close to him.
You write it right, spell his surname correctly, you are absolutely his friend.
Ronnie Nathanielsz died on Saturday, November 12 (Manila time), in San Francisco, almost a week after he suffered a heart attack. He was 82.
I spelled his name correctly beginning in 1981, so that, yes, I believe, he considered me his friend—absolutely. Even if I had blocked his bid to write a column at Tempo when I was that newspaper’s sports editor 35 years ago. I know deep in my heart he had forgiven me.
Ronnie had passed on not with his “boots on.”
The seizure had prevented him from doing the TV coverage of Manny Pacquiao’s last Las Vegas fight that saw Pacquiao win an easy unanimous decision to dethrone world welterweight champion Jessie Vargas.
Ronnie’s passing stilled the voice with the distinctly British-Indian accent that was the only one of its kind in Philippine sportscasting, if not broadcasting, for nearly 50 years or so.
That was one trait of his for which he would be known forever.
But Ronnie would be best remembered as the only foreigner (Sri Lankan) given a Filipino citizenship by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos through a presidential edict in 1973. Martial law was a year old when Marcos did that. Who could question the absolute powers of a dictator?
Not strangely enough, Ronnie was the most rabid defender of Marcos.
When the martyred Ninoy Aquino, then still in jail since Marcos arrested him in 1972 on trumped-up charges, was given the chance to be interviewed by Nathanielsz on TV live, Ronnie got pinned down by Ninoy. Ninoy, as everyone knows, was the best president we never had.
When Ninoy sprung a surprise on Ronnie by asking Nathanielsz if he could contradict Marcos, the Sri Lankan was speechless.
That interview triggered incalculable hatred heaped on Ronnie so that when the 1986 Edsa Revolt three years later succeeded, it was reported that Nathanielsz barely escaped a mob out to lynch him when he tried to enter the PT4 compound, which is now an ABS-CBN property.
This is not known to many but the late Rudy Salud, the former commissioner of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), came to Ronnie’s rescue afterward. Rudy resettled Ronnie to a regal vacation house inside Salud’s fighting cocks farm in San Pablo City in Laguna—far from the glare and maim of an angry mob, far from the madding crowd. There, Rudy had taken care of Ronnie for months like he was his own son.
“Every person deserves love from his own brother,” Rudy would say to me later.
When the anti-Marcos rage had calmed down, Ronnie would reemerge—but still under close watch by Rudy, who provided him a bodyguard.
Slowly, Ronnie would climb back to normal life—until he got reunited to the job he loved most: sportscasting. His padrina? Dyan Castillejo, perhaps the only person left as Ronnie’s diehard fan till the end of time.
Rest now, Ronnie. God, in his infinite mercy, had done you good. Bye.
THAT’S IT By telling Peping Cojuangco to give “democracy a chance,” Ramon Fernandez showed his concern for Philippine sports even at the expense of incurring the ire of the country’s No. 1 sports official. Ramon, the outspoken commissioner of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), is angry that Peping, seeking a fourth term as president of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) on November 25, has disqualified his foe, Ricky Vargas, on a technicality as an “inactive” POC member. Vargas has gone to court to protest his disqualification. Abangan!