Bon voyage, AJ!

MANILA, Philippines - This morning after a Mass at 9 o’clock, AJ Perez will embark on his ‘last trip’ which is in a way similar to the one last April 17 on his way back to Manila from Dagupan where he performed at the Kapamilya Karavan at the province’s Bangus Festival. AJ, who turned 18 on Feb. 17 and graduated from high school in March at La Salle Greenhills where the 10-day wake was held, never reached home. The van that he and companions, among them his father, former PAL flight attendant Gerry Perez, were riding in collided sideways with a bus that it (the van, part of a convoy) tried to overtake. AJ was asleep and he must have woken up with angels singing around him.

He will be laid to rest at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City.

In the Dagupan show, AJ performed with child star Zaijian Jaranilla, Kitkat and Matt Evans.

“His appearance was met with a deafening scream by the fans,” recalled The STAR’s Ver Paulino, the only photographer invited to cover the affair, “especially when he sang Unwell. The screaming became louder when AJ invited a female fan to join him onstage and sang Alipin to her.”

According to Gerry, there was no premonition at all that AJ would be gone too soon.

AJ’s farewell performance is on Charo Santos-Concio’s Maalaala Mo Kaya (MMK) which will air on Saturday night, April 30, starting at 7:15.

AJ was being built up by ABS-CBN’s Star Magic as “The New Rico Yan.” The short lives of the two have disquieting parallels: Both graduated from La Salle Greenhills, their wakes were held at La Salle Greenhills (AJ’s remains were later moved to Christ The King in Green Meadows, Quezon City) and they died while asleep.

Goodbye, AJ. Bon voyage!