Bye bye Alex

It is an everyday routine at The STAR whenever I leave the office at the end of my duty. Before knocking off from my watch, I always make it a point to tell my bosses the day is over as I bid goodbye to everyone concerned. I think, and I knew, Alex M. Fernando, our dearly departed deputy managing editor, cared a lot even if he dismissed my ritual goodbye to him with his usual repartee "Ay salamat!" Roughly translated, it means "Thank goodness!"

That has always been our terms of endearment with each other. You see, I am always the first editor at the office during the day and it’s always Alex who leaves the office the last late at night. A night owl that he was, Alex would hang out close by at the office at Remembrances club in Malate, just in case there would be any late-breaking news to include in the front page.

The rather unknown character of Alex, especially among his drinking buddies, was his being a deeply religious man. He was someone who would never use God’s name in vain. Yes, he cursed a lot when he was angry or he was just being merry. But I never heard Alex made any mean curses. It was part of his usual vocabulary. And his rich vocabulary, both in English and Tagalog, that made him the kind of editor that every budding reporter would like to be trained under his tutelage.

I closely worked with Alex since I joined The STAR more than 10 years ago, the last two years of which was at the office when I got promoted as news editor. He used to breathe down my neck when I was still assigned as a reporter at Malacanang. He would needle me a lot to file a story as quickly as I could whenever there was any big, late-breaking news from the Palace. I think that was the best training I had from Alex on how to work under pressure, beat the deadline, and scoop them all on a big, breaking news.

Stress and pressure are the unseen hazards of our job in media. That is why many of us are afflicted with hypertension and heart problems. Alex and I are both hypertensive. We sometimes, sort of compete with each other whenever our company nurse, Abby takes our blood pressure in the afternoon, of all period in time when we are already "toxic" in being pressed for deadlines. But Alex taught us how to handle pressure at the desk.

He came up with the idea of "5 seconds laughter" in our office when we browse with the story summaries or the photo captions for the day and make fun of the grammatical or typographical errors. Laughter is still the best medicine, and cheapest at that. But when crunch time comes, Alex would always be on top of it.

We lost a very dedicated, humble, self-effacing and most of all, a very reliable, hardworking editor in Alex. We lost Alex M. Fernando, age 48, last Monday when he succumbed to "bangungot." Its rough translation is bad dream or nightmare. Not too long ago, we lost a fellow STAR reporter, Jose "Boyet" Aravilla who at 29 also died of "bangungot" on Sept. 8, 2004.

Browsing through the Internet, the word "bangungot" turns out in the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, where it is classified as sudden unexpected death syndrome, or SUDS, for short. It is also called as the Asian Sudden Death (ASD) Syndrome because deaths associated with it mostly victimize adolescents and adults in the Philippines (bangungot), Thailand (It’s Thai name is lai tai.), Japan calls it hukuri and Laos, too. This fatal bout with bad dream, which strikes while the victim is in deep sleep, is also called a Sudden Adult Death (SAD).

According to Wikepedia, SUDS is rare among Western countries but it is more common among young men in the East and Southeast Asian countries. In Thailand, its cause is linked to eating rice cakes. We Filipinos also believe too much eating of carbohydrate-rich foods like rice and sleeping with full stomach causes bangungot. In one of the medical talk shows I’ve watched on TV, I distinctly recall that doctors advised people who have taken heavy dinner to at least give three hours at the least before going to bed. It takes about this time for the food to be digested. The heart pumps harder while the stomach digest the food. That’s why victims die of cardiac arrest when stricken by bangungot.

Another theory, Wikipedia added, is that it is culturally/psychologically related, but still the common denominator among its victims – a diet rich in rice. The nightmares could vary depending upon the folk tales from country to country but they are usually associated with taboos and intra-terrestials. It has only been recently that the scientific world has begun to understand this syndrome.

Victims of bangungot have not been found to have any organic heart diseases or structural heart problems. However, cardiac activity during SUDS episodes indicates irregular heart rhythms and ventricular fibrillation. The victim survives this episode if the heart’s rhythm goes back to normal," Wikipedia stated.

I learned from the same Wikipedia that there is an on-going genetic study by Spanish electrophysiologist Dr. Josep Brugada Terradellas which manifests that SUDS results from mutations in the cardiac sodium channel gene, whatever that is. But it is simply explained that the possibility of experiencing SUDS can be traced from a chromosomal problem or it runs in the family. Thus, doctors say that families who have kin that have suffered from or died of SUDS must see a heart specialist.

In our country, death due to bangungot is referred to as cardiac arrest which is the medical term used in death certificates to denote the immediate cause of death. Alex, too, had acute myocardial infarction or in layman’s term, cardiac arrest. But most cases of bangungot in the Philippines have been traced to acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis as what happened to Boyet who had eaten two bowls of quick noodles and slept right away.

For those who come out and live to tell their bout with bangungot, they describe it as being awake but actually asleep and could not shake off the bad dream or something stop them from snapping out of it. Victims report being conscious during the duration of the episode, hearing those around him and being aware of his condition but unable to wake up or rouse out of the nightmare. This explains why the victim could be heard moaning or groaning but could not be shaken out of his deep slumber. So no amount of shaking and slapping could wake up Alex anymore.

The death of Alex last Monday came at a time while I was spending quality time with my twin sons who were celebrating their 17th birthday. It was the last joke that Alex played on me. But it will be a hard habit to break leaving the office without any Alex to bid goodbye to from hereon, and calling me Manay.

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