Great pleasure reading about former student

The man is now CEO of the Bank of Singapore, one of the world’s largest banks. His biggest challenge as the bank’s top honcho is an enviable one—continual increase in business, although he admits that people are quite a challenge.

Renato de Guzman was featured in the Feb. 24 issue of the Inquirer’s Business section.

As an English teacher, I personally had the pleasure of having him in one of my high school classes at La Salle Taft. In class, he was known as “Bing.” Being inclined to name my dear students more uniquely, I called him “Guz,” which affectionately turned into “Goose.”

During those, the happiest, days of my life, my reputation was that of being strict in class, but my guys and I horsed around a lot on the football field, the basketball court and the old “handball” courts.

The De Guzman trademark was an impish, what-me-worry smile which, probably unknown to Bing, was my all-time favorite, as he was my favorite “wise-guy.”

As a tennis player, I “collided” with him, so to speak, and I must say that playing against him was both a pleasure and a pressure.

The feature article of him in the Inquirer has him expressing appreciation of his wife as one who keeps the family together, although the writer fails to mention the number of their children. I’d say Bing’s wife is a most fortunate woman.

It feels great to read about Bing today.  Hope one has the good fortune to say hello and, hopefully, still be remembered, since those days at the Polo Club when he so graciously hosted me on the tennis court while I waited on my two sons going through training under the Willie Hernandez Tennis Academy, named after the most all-around sportscaster the Philippines ever had.

—BOBBY G. KRAUT,

bobbykraut922@yahoo.com