Remembering Ruben Cusipag fondly

Social media is flooded with the report on the death of Glee actor, Cory Monteith, who was found dead in his hotel room (Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel) in Vancouver Saturday (Sunday, Manila time) due to drug overdose, news reports said.

But there’s another death in Canada we grieve over: that of newsman Ruben Cusipag.

We learned about the passing away of Ruben only yesterday from another friend in Canada and we immediately wrote his wife, Tess, who replied: “I am still devastated because it was so sudden. This morning was his funeral so we gave him a good send off. His Upsilon brods gave him their farewell.”

Ruben was a reporter of the Elizalde-owned Evening News before martial law was imposed on Sept. 21, 1972. He was one of the journalists thrown into prison during the early days of martial law.

In late 1974, Ruben immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto where he published Balita.

Balita was not the usual community paper that chronicled merely the social activities of the Filipino immigrants. As Balita’s profile states, “ Cusipag’s views evolved over time, from assertive politics to a milder apolitical tone, and Balita lived up to its promise to provide frank, sincere, and honest-to-goodness discussion of the Philippine problem.”

Yvonne Chua and myself (and briefly Romy Tangbawan) were Balita’s Philippine correspondents. We provided Balita stories monthly.
This was before the coming of the internet and we were sending our stories by fax.

In 1993, Ruben wrote the book “Portrait of Filipino Canadians in Ontario (1960-1990)”. It was his homage to the hardworking compatriots he dealt with during his early years as an immigrant in Canada.

Ruben was active in the Filipino community and was awarded “Most Outstanding Filipino-Canadian.”

In 1996, Ruben had a vehicular accident. He was coming home after putting to bed Balita’s issue for the month and he was hit by a car. He was badly hurt and when he recovered after several months in the hospital, his wife Tess took over supervision of the newspaper.

Aside from managing the paper, Tess, a teacher by profession, resigned from her job to devote more time taking care of Ruben.
Ruben and Tess accompanied me to Niagara Falls when I visited them in 1998 when I was on a Marshall McLuhan fellowship. They also extended the same hospitality to Yvonne when it was her turn for the Mc Luhan fellowship.

His physical disability did not diminish his interest in the political situation in the Philippines. He relished stories and anecdotes about Philippine politics. I remember him chuckling when I was sharing with him Erap jokes.

We will always remember Ruben fondly.

Ruben completed life’s cycle. He was born July 12, 1938 and he died July 9, 2013, three days short of his 75th birthday.