Come back and help our country.” When Felipe III “Ipe” Cruz heard his father, construction industrialist Philip Cruz, say this over the phone, he paused as he gazed at the Manhattan skyline that he had so loved seeing daily from his window.
“Besides, we miss you already,” his dad added. Ipe thus started packing his bags.Part of him said he was going to miss New York, the city that embraced him for the past two and a half years. Part of him said he missed his family and his country as well.
Ipe finished a two-year course — Master of Science in Publishing — at New York University, after which he worked as an intern for almost a year at Hearst Management International, in charge of foreign editions of Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire and Cosmopolitan. At NYU, Ipe graduated with the top award in the NYU program: the 2011 Award for Excellence in Magazine Publishing, besting editors and publishers from Time, Esquire and Elle magazines and the Associated Press.
His brother, Felipe IV “Maki” Cruz, who took up Finance and Marketing at Fordham University, was going home as well.
When Dad calls, a dutiful son listens.
Fast forward, and Ipe is back in the warmth of family and friends for a welcome-back party at the chic Sulo Riviera Hotel in Quezon City hosted by family friend Cristina Cuevas, the dynamo on top of this beautifully refurbished boutique hotel.
Sharing honors is the globetrotting Tetta Agustin, the celebrated favorite Parisian model of Givenchy, who was in town during the holidays with her husband Christian Baverey. Though Tetta and Christian have established residences in Cannes and Brussells the past decades, they now make it a point to stay in Manila during the winter months. “It’s more fun in the Philippines,”seems to be Christian’s new line after discovering the wonders of Palawan with Philip and Ching Cruz and their sea-loving friends from Hong Kong, Allan and Karen Chuang.
The progressive dinner started with cocktails and aperitifs at the Aqua poolside lounge of Sulo. Then they savored the most tender roast beef, foie gras fried rice and tinapa triangles and other specialties of the hotel at Cafe Paraiso. For dessert, the guests walked up one floor to the hotel’s mirror-lined Manansala ballroom where desserts and after-dinner drinks awaited them.
What’s next for Ipe Cruz? Watch him as he mixes his lessons learned from New York with a work ethic imbibed from his innovative and hardworking elders. Where? We are guessing it will be with the top magazine publishing company in the country.
How do you say goodbye?
These days,a lot of flirtations take place in the social network. Former high school or college sweethearts separated by distance and time suddenly reunite after finding each other in Facebook.Whatever happened to good, old courtship practices?
A lot of breakups — some 60 percent — actually happen just by texting. Whatever happened to old-fashioned farewell letters?
So how do you say goodbye to a person who has broken your trust? And who continually makes a fool of you with treacherous lies?
I remember reading one of the most heart-breaking un-love letters that began this way: “Dear XXX, This letter might never reach you. I secretly hope it doesn’t. Imagine how terrible it would be for you to find out that I do not love you anymore.”
That letter was written by a best friend in college who unfortunately — due to a twist of fate — did not marry the person who she truly loved. A few years ago — she who was a smoker all her life — died of cancer. More precisely, she died of a broken heart. Her husband was a cruel womanizer.
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Another couple — both college friends of mine — broke up because the girl, though she still truly loved the boy, was temporarily and foolishly lured by a gigolo. When the boy found out, he told her: “You are the person my parents warned me against.”
He was tweaking the words famously written in a poster of their hippie generation that said: “We are the people our parents warned us against.”
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A gentleman friend of mine says that the goodbye letter he wrote to a girl — obviously he did not truly love her — was in the form of lines from his favorite Irish blessing:
May the roads rise up to meet you
May the wind always be at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And the rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.