Edgar Lores of the Society of Honor asked if the Philippines has any philosophers, in other words, are we a thinking people? No one in the talkative group could provide an answer, perhaps it was a resounding no, but no one had the heart to say, “No we don’t have a philosophy of our own, therefore, no philosophers because we love fiestas and siestas, but never thoughts, for we don’t like deep, ‘babaw lang.â€
Backtrack a bit, to the time when Jim was five years old. He is the ninth of ten children. His father Jesus Paredes, Sr., Horacio de la Costa, S.J., and Leon Maria Guerrero were in the same honors’ class in Ateneo, all graduated summa cum laude. Both Paredes and de la Costa had a calling for priesthood but it was only Horacio de la Costa who responded to the call. When Jim was five, his father died in a plane crash. The plane was called Mt. Pinatubo, so named because it was the tallest mountain in Zambales, the province of the plane’s main passenger. It was a presidential plane, carrying the late President Ramon Magsaysay, crashed on a mountainside in Cebu, killing all passengers. If the plane hadn’t crashed, Jim’s father, Magsaysay’s speechwriter and adviser, would have been appointed as Secretary of Education.
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