How far can you go to look for your long-lost friends?

Friends are the wool sweaters that keep us warm in the Decembers of our lives. They are the buoys that keep us afloat when our spirits are dragged down to the abyss of uncertainties. They are the anchors that connect us to the realities of life. They are the laughing gas, our Energizer Bunny, the strong coffee that perks us up in the morning, at night.

We make many friends along the way because sentient beings need to foster relationships outside their family for survival. No man is an island, yes. Unlike our boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife — both real, perceived and imagined — we don’t normally celebrate anniversaries with our friends. But we remember the friendship forever. So every day is a celebration of sorts.

Of the many friends we meet, a handful will stand out. Then somewhere along the way, we lose our contact with them. Some friends that we lose along the way just remain in our memory banks, remembered only when there are stimuli that necessitate the trip down memory lane.

But there are friends we have not seen and not heard from for ages who remain a voice in our head. They are the friends we pray to see again just so we can thank them for what they once meant in our lives and what they will mean again to us when we meet them once again.

 The question now is: up to what extent are you willing to search for your long-lost friends?

For my male college best friend Jay Capiral and me, it took us 20 long years to find Jojo Robeniol and Edd Uñamayor, two of our very good friends who, till the time we found them again, were always the topic of our conversation, the footnote in our prayers at night, our extra wish on our birthday. We even went to the extent of believing in Santa Claus despite our creeping date with the Big 4-0, just to believe that the Ho-Ho-Ho Man would lead us to finding them.

Finding Jojo in Hinigaran

Jay and I met Jojo Robeniol in UP Los Baños where we all studied for college. Jojo, Batch ‘84, was taking up Agricultural Business; Jay, Batch ‘87, was pursuing Agricultural Economics after shifting from Veterinary Medicine; I was Batch ‘88, enrolled in the Communication Arts curriculum.

In those days when all we had was a beautiful dream of bettering our lives in the future, we found ourselves staying in one room at Ilag’s Dorm. We treated our room like our home. There was division of labor. We even shared our allowances. Because I only had two pairs of pants then, Jojo always lent me his tight-fitting, low-waist Lois jeans. When we became short of resources, Jay would always find the way to put food on our small dining table. I would always be the emcee every time we had a short program inside our room. Believe me, we were only three in that room but we managed to make it appear that there were 30 people there because of our laughter.

After Jojo finished college in 1990, we lost touch of him. He never left an address. I went to his former house in Santa Rosa, Laguna but he and his brother were no longer there. We asked some friends from Bacolod to look for him, too, but everything yielded no results. We tried to type his name on Facebook but it was also futile. We looked around. We would stop on the road, look left and right inside the church thinking we saw his simulacrum in the faces of other men. But we never found him.

Sometime in March last year, I chanced upon a woman named Julie Robeniol on Facebook. I sent her a PM hoping she was somehow related to Jojo. It took her almost three weeks to answer. But it was worth the wait. Yes, Julie and Jojo are siblings.

Last weekend of March 2010, my phone rang at around dusk time. “Bummer, hello. This is Jojo. Jojo Robeniol!” I shrieked! I shouted! The search was over. Next thing we knew, Jay was booking us a flight to Bacolod. So, one weekend of June 2010, we became reunited with Jojo in Hinigaran, a town off the city of Bacolod.

We found out Jojo was wishing, too, to find us. But because he was practically on his own, his time was solely devoted to manning his sugarcane plantation in Hinigaran. Jojo also introduced us to his three young “sons.” He’s a single parent to his adopted children. To them he devotes his life.

Since then, we have never been apart.

Rediscovering Edd in Roxas City

After we found Jojo, Jay and I launched a manhunt for Edd Uñamayor. Jay and I had been looking for Edd the same time we were looking for Jojo. 

Edd, tall and lanky at almost six feet, was a hairstylist in Los Baños when we were in college. His impeccable English and his colored bangs drew us to him. He used to take up Mass Communications in UST but decided to stop studying because he already wanted to work. From Pasig where he grew up, he relocated to Los Baños — on Lopez Avenue to be exact. Edd, early on, knew he could live a nomadic life. He used to manage a salon named La Uñamayor in Los Baños in the late ‘80s until he decided to put up his own called Looks.

Our friendship started with banana cues, which he offered to me before he cut my hair one rainy afternoon of 1988. In those days, we called him Madonna because of his penchant for everything that was associated with the pop icon.

Aside from Madonna hits, Edd was instrumental in introducing to my repertoire some of my favorite songs now like Piano Man and New York State of Mind by Billy Joel. He had sophisticated taste for movies — he only watched those that made it to the Oscars’ list. He was never a fan of local showbiz, except for Nora Aunor, whose many beautiful films became the subject of our many sleeplessness nights and sleepy days.

When both Jay and I left UPLB to pursue our careers in the early ‘90s, we left Edd in Los Baños. We would pay him a visit from time to time. One day, we did not find him in his salon anymore. We searched for him in the whole of Pasig but we did not find him. We also did not find him on Facebook — Madonna was hip but he was never techie. We made several trips to Los Baños and talked to almost all the hairdressers on Lopez Avenue to sound us off once they had news about Edd.

Towards the end of summer, a friend from Los Baños sent me a contact number of Edd. With uncontainable excitement I dialed his number. We found him! Next thing we knew, Jay was booking our flight to Roxas City, where Edd maintains a salon called Petit. We told Jojo about it and he, too, was willing to join us to see Edd. He would go to Roxas City from Bacolod. Francis Laurea, another UPLB close friend (Batch ’86, Sociology) who is now an admissions director in a university in Iloilo and with whom we have always communicated ever since we all left Los Baños, also decided to be part of our rendezvous with Edd.

At the Roxas City airport, Edd met us with tears welling in his eyes. There we were, outside the arrival area, in the middle of a narrow road, huddled in a group hug. We were crying and shrieking at the same time, unmindful of the crowd.

That moment — when Edd, Jay and I boarded a tricycle going to our hotel to meet Jojo and Francis — we rekindled our friendship. Amidst the noise of the tricycle, we found joy and peace.

Finally, after 20 years, we all have found what we were looking for — long-lost friendships.

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at

bumbaki@yahoo.com. If you wish, follow me, too, on Twitter@bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)