Pagunsan: father, teacher and touring pro, comes home

“Get well so we can go back home to Bacolod and I’ll take care of you.”

Saying those words to his father, Juanito, might be of out of character for Juvic Pagunsan. But like the way his “Papang” had convinced him to get better at golf in the past, Juvic probably just wanted to lift the spirits of the pale, sickly man seated beside him in the car on their way to the hospital.

The relationship of the two personalities in local golf—Juvic being the odd superstar whose career has been marred by run-ins with organizers, his fellow pros and even the press, and Juanito, a tour journeyman credited for molding the swings of the country’s best golfers like Bianca Pagdanganan and Aidric Chan—was one that was out of the ordinary.

Juanito and Juvic didn’t really see each other eye to eye and if someone needs to relay a message to the other, that task often falls on Juvic’s uncle, Rey.

It was actually Rey, himself a touring pro now spending more time teaching, who gave Inquirer Golf the details of that heart-tugging car conversation that couldn’t have been so important especially for Juvic. One of the rare times that the father and son finally got to talk again, it was a reunion set up for the wrong reason. It turned out to be their last pep talk as Juanito, who raised Juvic to become one of the country’s best shotmakers, passed on due to complications arising from a long bout with pneumonia on Sunday.

“That situation probably makes it doubly painful for Juvic since he wanted to put things back in order again for both of them,” Rey said in Filipino.Strained as their relationship was, Juvic was never remiss in providing for the needs of not just his parents but also his siblings. Juvic even gave his father an SUV since the Camp Aguinaldo range where Juanito earned his keep as a teaching pro is so far away from the Santa Rosa home he also built for them.“Juvic was already offering his father a sedan replacement for the old SUV but he preferred to keep it because it saves him on gas,” Rey said.

Seeing his father’s condition worsen at the hospital, Juvic begged the doctors to save his father’s life.

“Please do all you can to keep him alive,” Juvic was quoted to have told his doctors after being told that his father was revived after flatlining due to cardiac arrest.

Juanito didn’t make it the second time.

His remains was cremated yesterday on the same day that his mom, Rosalia, celebrated her 89th birthday.

For the big family of Pagunsans, it was difficult to come together especially in this time of the lockdown. The man who usually takes care of the funny stories in family gatherings was now just inside a small urn.

Lolo Pago was home. INQ