He was the younger brother of our father Bob who is the younger brother of Luis, the remaining three Nery sons after Alfred and Jinggoy died younger than they should have. I have no memory of Tito Mario as a personality from when – as a nine or ten year old – I sometimes came to the house behind the provincial hospital in Cagayan, to play with Paco. I don’t remember much of him either from when he and Tita Inday occupied the house next to the Coca-Cola plant. I knew of him, but really came to know him here in Manila, from my trips to the Philippines, where I always felt welcome at the compound. (And where, more than once, I probably overstayed my welcome.) My uncle was not quite like my father. My father has always been a cooler customer than his younger brother. Tito Mario was more willing to be amused by others and more willing to amuse. He told jokes.  Perhaps, he was simply being an uncle rather than a father. At this moment, random bits of our passing conversations come to my mind. I remember him saying once that, in a Paris street, he had come across my high school chemistry teacher, who was selling flowers and had married a Frenchwoman. I remember him saying, in the Marcos years, that he had had his first meeting with the new owner of San Miguel. Another time, out of the blue, he mentioned that Renato Constantino, the historian, had just admitted being a member of the Communist Party. Tito Mario was a formidable person. He was upright, well-travelled, hard-working, self-made. He was also charitable. I know that when I come to visit the Philippines, as we Nerys in Australia will continue to do, it will be as if a landmark by which I was always able to orient myself had suddenly disappeared. In its presence, we felt at home.

Marleen, Liza, Caryn, Sandra, Philip and Neil, my siblings and I will always be grateful for his care and always remember him with affection.

Robert Nery