Now, tell me, who are to blame?

Death is the one leveler for all of us – rich, poor, famous, powerful, influential, mortal, ordinary, artista, politico, bakla, tomboy, straight, Catholic, Protestant, masama ang ugali, mabuting tao, jologs, malinis, busilak at nagnanaknak sa ganda.

Rico Yan, Lucio San Pedro and Levi Celerio all died in the past few weeks. Some complained that the two musical geniuses/national artists did not get stellar billing in their death while Rico had a burial fit for a national leader. Is there injustice here?

Life can be as strange as it is diverse. I have come to accept this wholeheartedly. The constants and the variables are extremely numerous and complex. One constant is that goodness cannot be relative. It has to be genuine, otherwise it totally loses its meaning and importance.

But we are different from one another. My cousin, Myra, who is 18, cried a river when Rico died. She grieved like she was Rico’s former girlfriend. They haven’t even met. When Nanay confirmed to me that Rico had passed away (she lost her appetite for lunch. "My heart goes to his mother," Nanay muttered), I went to the Lourdes Grotto and the Cathedral in Baguio to pray and make the Station of the Cross. In the middle of my private conversation with God, I had people coming to me (even with my eyes closed hoping that having no eye contact with people would distance me from them), mindless of my silent moment with God, asking me if indeed Rico had died.

Is the grief of my cousin indiscriminate and foolish compared to the grief of friends and students and music lovers who have known the maestro from Angono and the great lyricist whose name is found in the Guinness Book of World Records?

Is it unfair that Rico who was just an artista, hogged the headlines not just of tabloids but of broadsheets? Are we guilty of indiscrimination? What about Ugoy ng Duyan? And the brilliant choral pieces that the maestro created? And the 4,000 songs that Mang Levi wrote lyrics for? Don’t they both deserve a king’s burial? Who should answer these questions? Who should accord them what they deserve? Who should lionize their memory? Who should weep for them?

In the case of Rico, his fans came out in the streets, on TV, in the La Salle Gym, in his funeral. They lined up from Ortigas to Parañaque, they cried, wailed, pushed and shoved to get a final glimpse of the actor who in his little way touched lives of millions and millions who did not believe the first time they heard the news. Millions who said, "Sayang siya," or "Ang bata-bata pa – ang bait niya." These same millions cried.

Rico did a few movies, TV shows and commercial endorsements.

Who do we blame that in the lifetime of the maestro and Mang Levi, they did not endorse Talk N’ Text and Greenwich? Who do we blame that Maestro and Mang Levi did not have fans clubs like Rico’s Master Dimple, Rico-Judy Ann Fans Club, etc. Who do we blame that the music of Maestro and Mang Levi did not get decent airplay so that this generation would be familiar with their genius and music? Who do we blame that Mang Levi, despite the 4,000 songs he wrote, died a poor man?

I pay tribute to Maestro and Mang Levi for their gargantuan contributions to the world of Philippine music. I grieve for them not only in their death but more so in the fact that when they were alive they had not remembered for what they had achieved. By whom? I don’t know? Whose failure was it? I don’t know.

What I know is that Rico, who was an artista, may not have been esteemed in life like he were the President of a Philharmonic society, but he touched lives and got the love in return.

Say what you want to say about artistas and showbiz – and you can spit it out with condescension – but artistas and show business as they are maligned are almost most loved as demonstrated in the death of Rico Yan.