Many of the eulogies for Ateneo Law School Dean Jose Maria “Joey” Hofileña, who passed away on February 26 and whose inurnment takes place today, Sunday, March 8, spoke of his love for his wife of 35 years, Chay, and how they were destined for each other.

They were, in fact, “bagay”— a perfect pairing, an “It Couple” for my generation of Ateneans. I have known them long enough (Joey, or Ooway, as we called him, since 1978; Chay since I think 1982) to remember their previous relationships, but when I first heard the news that they were together, I, like many others who knew them, thought, “bagay”! What a match, I thought. Perfect for each other.

Each one was a campus figure, blessed with good looks and real smarts, deeply grounded, socially engaged, kind-hearted. Like many others, I thought they truly were fated to be together.

Joey was an elder brother in high school. When I and others from my two-years-younger batch joined Dulaang Sibol, the theater company founded by Onofre Pagsanghan, the great Mr. Pagsi, Joey and his batch mates were the incoming seniors who welcomed us and made us feel immediately at home. A friend and classmate, the painter Gejo Jimenez, described our collective experience in his eulogy: “I do remember how I felt. Loved as a brother, looked after, seen. It certainly was like a family for me, with Mr. Pagsi like our second father.”

Even then, Joey was already what his friend and colleague at the Sycip, Salazar law firm, Attorney Tito Lopez, said he was: the “fair-haired,” “favored” one. He was the lead actor in plays, he was on the track and field team, he was an honors student. When he was cast in a starring role, we would think, “bagay.” When he won an award, we would say, “well-deserved.” (This was decades before a younger generation taught us the more emphatic spelling: “Dasurv!”)

Tito, also a friend from high school and Dulaang Sibol days, described in his eulogy one of Joey’s defining characteristics: he had an easy grace about him. He was always calm, even-keeled, rather like Hugh “Glory” Conway, the central figure in “Lost Horizon” (one of the books Mr. Pagsi read aloud to us and, when they were freshmen, to Joey’s class too) — but without the World War I background.

Calm center

This was one of Joey’s virtues that Maria Ressa, like Chay one of the founders of Rappler, pointed to in her eulogy: He was the calm center in moments of chaos. Joey was also always charming, rather like Jay Gatsby, another of those fictional characters we read about in those distant days — but without the bootlegging and the shady past. I’d almost say that Joey was one of those fortunate ones who did not dwell in the past but lived entirely in the present. 

And for whom things always fell in place.

When Joey found the love of his life, we thought, “bagay.” When he graduated valedictorian of his law school class, we thought, “naturally.” When he went to Harvard Law School for his master’s, we thought, “of course.” When he was hired by an American law firm, we thought, “sounds right.” When he made partner at Sycip, Salazar, and relatively quickly, we thought, “bagay na bagay.” And in 2018, when he was appointed Dean, we thought, “what a great choice for Ateneo.” And also: “Dasurv!” 

This is not to say that Joey, and Joey and Chay, had things easy. He, and they, had their own challenges to meet, but he, and they, assumed their burden with that easy grace.

It is his death that brings us up short. One day he was in the news and on social media, celebrating Ateneo Law School’s performance in the bar exams; the next, we hear news about him being in the ICU, and a mere couple of weeks later, a mere second in time, we receive the terrible news: He has passed on. We plead, “this cannot be.” We pray, “this isn’t the right time.” We think, “di bagay.” 

The ancient Greeks understood tragedy to be a matter of inevitability; it is meant to be. Our modern understanding of tragedy, however,  is exactly the opposite: Tragedy is an accident of circumstance, entirely unexpected. In this modern sense, Joey’s sudden illness and death are unbearably tragic, a note out of time. 

Joey’s older brother Jimmy, another icon of my generation from the storied Hofileña family, has deeper roots in our Catholic faith than I do, and in his eulogy he asked us to consider Joey’s passing under the aspect of eternity. “Gone too soon,” he said, repeating what many of us were thinking. Then he asked what no one, certainly not me, thought: “But was he really?” He recalled the many good things Joey had done in a truly remarkable life, and aired his hope that in the fullness of time we would all see through God’s plan for Joey.

I was, I am, grateful to hear Jimmy’s reassurance, his pledge of hard-earned faith. It will take me, and perhaps some others changed by Joey’s life and death too, some time to reach that stage. We have to work hard to earn our fate. But this, right here, is what I recognize as Joey’s parting lesson. 

This man of easy grace left us a difficult gift: the gift of difficulty itself. “Di bagay”? We have to learn to zoom out, and struggle to find that higher perspective where the difficult fact, the untimely death, begins to make sense. “Bagay,” but in the fullness of time. – Rappler.com

Veteran journalist John Nery is a Rappler columnist, editorial consultant, and program host. “In the Public Square with John Nery” airs on Rappler platforms every Wednesday at 8 pm.