Full military honors at Soliven burial

The cremated remains of STAR chairman and publisher Max V. Soliven, who died Nov. 24 last year, were laid to rest at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City yesterday.

Soliven was accorded full military honors and a 19-gun salute during the funeral rites.

The pageantry of the military honors was complemented by personal touches: the release of white doves at the precise moment of his burial, accompanied by a stirring rendition of "Love is a Many Splendored Thing," a favorite of Soliven and his wife UNESCO Philippines Secretary-General Ambassador Preciosa Soliven.

Prior to the burial, Soliven’s remains were brought to the St. Ignatius Cathedral at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City for a Mass that was celebrated by his nephew, Fr. Louie Soliven David S.J.

The funeral Mass was attended by President Arroyo, who was seated next to Mrs. Soliven’s, daughter Sara Soliven-De Guzman, her husband Jon and daughter Maxine.

Around 400 mourners composed of relatives, friends and other people whose lives were touched by Soliven in a personal or professional level showed up to pay their last respects to a legend in Philippine journalism.

The mourners included government officials, including Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Sen. Alfredo Lim, Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando and wife, Marikina Mayor Marides Fernando, Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales, BIR Commissioner Jose Mario Buñag, former AFP chief of staff Gen. Benjamin Defensor, and former environment secretary Heherson Alvarez.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, who was in Cebu for the ASEAN Ministers’ Meeting, was represented by wife, Lovely.

The diplomatic corps was represented by Canadian Ambassador Peter Sutherland, French Ambassador Gerard Chesnel, British Ambassador Peter Beckingham, Italian Ambassador Reubens Fedele, and Argentinian Ambassador Mario Shuff.

Also present during the ceremony were Soliven’s siblings Willy, Vic, Mercy and Ethel, as well as business tycoon Lucio Tan, prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, STAR editors and columnists led by STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte, and teachers and staff of the OB Montessori School in Greenhills.

After the Mass, Mrs. Soliven thanked all those who shared their moment of grief. She said that despite his death, she was thankful that her husband passed away quietly and peacefully.

"You are now in a better world. Max’s spirit will live on," she said.

Mrs. Soliven also thanked President Arroyo, whom she said Soliven championed because he believed that the country should be united and supportive of the President.

She said they chose Jan. 10 as Soliven’s burial day because it is also the death anniversary of his father, war hero Benito Soliven.

The government offered to bury Soliven at the Libingan ng mga Bayani with honors for his gallantry in the battlefield.

During World War II, Soliven joined the forces that fought against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines as a guerrilla volunteer while he was a cadet of the Ateneo de Manila Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC).

His father was also a World War II veteran, whose exploits during the war in the Pacific were chronicled in Soliven’s column.

The 77-year-old Soliven was on his way back to Manila from Tokyo, Japan when he died of acute pulmonary and cardiac arrest last Nov. 24. He was rushed to the Narita Red Cross Hospital, but doctors’ efforts to revive him failed.

At the time of his death, Soliven was the publisher and chairman of the board of The STAR, People Asia Magazine and Mabuhay, the in-flight magazine of Philippine Airlines.

One of the most widely read columnists in the Philippines, Soliven’s column, "By The Way," came out regularly in The STAR, which he co-founded with the newspaper’s late founding chairman Betty Go-Belmonte and columnists Art Borjal and Tony Roces in July 1986.

A winner of various national and international awards, Soliven was most recently made an officer of the Legion d’Honneur by the French government.

He also received the coveted Incomienda de la Orden Isabel a Catolica from His Majesty King Juan Carlos of Spain in March 2000.

Soliven was a graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University, which honored him with its highest award, the OZANAM Award.

He is survived by his wife Preciosa, children Sara and Jon, Rachelle and Bob, Marinella and John and eight grandchildren.