Missing Conrad, praying he resumes writing

In his column titled “Still, what’s wrong with us?” (Opinion, 8/16/11), Conrado de Quiros stirred a hornet’s nest when he defended an artist for depicting Jesus Christ in many derogatory ways in his paintings and the Cultural Center of the Philippines for showing them to the public.

In September 2014, De Quiros’ writings stopped appearing in the Inquirer and, lately, a picture, accompanying a story (“Raul Roco: ‘Best President PH never had’ immortalized in De Quiros book,” Front Page, 8/9/15), showed him in a wheelchair.

The absence of Conrado de Quiros’ columns created a vacuum in the Inquirer that no other Bicolano can fill. I admire the quality of his writing and I will miss him, as I’m sure many others miss him, too.

I do not know him personally, although we graduated from the same high school in Naga City. I graduated in 1941 when the war broke out. He and a common friend, whom he praised in his column when he passed away, must have graduated after the war.

We are both stroke victims and Bicolanos by birth. He is younger than my 91 years of age, maybe with the same temperament that Bicolanos are noted for. I am a Catholic, a devotee of the Virgin of Peñafrancia like him. I have no gripe against the Church but I appreciate De Quiros’ talent, the quality of his arguments and his guts to stand up to anybody, like the Bicolanos whose names are written in blood for standing up for what they believed in.

I pray that Conrado de Quiros will get well soon, resume his writing which is appreciated by many, a model for many striving young student writers, and a pleasure to read every day in the midst of all the controversies that I read about in my favorite Inquirer with my breakfast coffee.

—AMADO F. CABAERO SR., amacabsenior1@gmail.com