“I didn't expect him to go so soon, I wanted him to stay for his birthday,” the widow of former Negros Occidental Governor and Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Montelibano Jr. said yesterday.

Miriam Jhay Montelibano said the doctors in Manila had told them to be prepared as the former governor had become very weak.

But Montelibano, who was suffering from gastric esophageal cancer and had been undergoing treatment, wanted to come home, “He loves Negros, he never wanted to be in Manila ,” his wife said.

So on a borrowed PLDT plane he was flown home to Bacolod on Christmas eve.

“He didn't want to be in the hospital, he didn't want to be put on a ventilator and be a vegetable,” she said.

“And since he came home he was really happy.”

Her husband lived through Christmas and New Year's eve and she was hoping he would make it to his birthday, too.

He could not have many visitors because he was immune-compromised, she said, but people called or dropped by to visit with her.

Mrs. Montelibano said her daughter, Corazon, wanted to get messages from friends on video as a gift to her father on his birthday but that was not to be.

On Tuesday night he could not sleep and asked for medicine to be able to so, she said.

On Wednesday morning he did not wake up and kept sleeping and sleeping and suddenly at 9 p.m. his blood pressure started to drop, Mrs. Montelibano said.

We tried CPR on him and the Amity ambulance crew came to bring him to be hospital but he could not be revived, she said.

At 9:55 p.m. Wednesday he was declared dead from cardio pulmonary arrest at the Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod City where he had been rushed from his home.

“His body was weak and tired, he just stopped breathing. He went very peacefully, he was at peace with the Lord,” she said

The former governor died four days short of his 75 th birthday on Monday, Jan. 7, she said.

His remains now lie in state at the University of Saint La Salle Chapel in Bacolod City .

At the USLS chapel yesterday morning, Mrs. Montelibano, who had not slept since he passed away and looked exhausted, had tears in her eyes as she told of her husband's struggle with cancer and various complications since April last year.

DON'T SMOKE

We found out that he had cancer on April 29, 2007 because he could not swallow food, the tumors in his esophagus were blocking it, she said.

And the cancer he had was very aggressive, it's called gastric esophageal cancer, or stomach cancer, she added.

The first chemo treatments in Manila had shrunk the tumors but there were complications, he got pneumonia at the hospital, she said.

I think the cancer did not spread but the emphysema he had was also complicating things, she said.

“Tell your readers not to smoke, that was his last message. He said he wanted to tell every person with a cigaret, look at me,” she said.

SERVED THE PEOPLE

He wanted to be remembered as man who served his people faithfully and was true to them, she also said.

“He hated the politics, he loved the service,” she said.

Her husband loved building and doing things to make life for the people more comfortable, he cemented more roads in Bacolod City than any administration before and after him, Mrs. Montelibano said.

The former governor and mayor was generous, honest and he loved people rich or poor, he did not have any class distinctions, she said.

“He was disappointed with the country right now, and the way politics is now. For him public service was a vocation, a sacrifice,” she said.

He learned from his father, Alfredo Montelibano Sr., the first mayor of Bacolod City and a World War II leader in Negros, that “those who have more should give more”, she said.

‘HE WAS MY ROCK'

Asked how life will be without her husband,” Mrs. Montelibano, in a near whisper said “I don't know, he was my rock.”

“I thank him for loving me so much…I loved him also so much,” she said.

Mrs. Montelibano, who is originally from Australia , said Negros has been her home for 35 years, and she will continue to live here.

The former governor and mayor is survived by his children Andy, Dondi, Allan, Philip and Corazon.

No definite date has been set for his funeral as two of his sons, Dondi and Allan have yet to return from the United States.*CPG

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