O9:45H, 02-262024:
Colonel William Pesase was busy taking phone calls at the headquarters’ kitchen of the 62nd Infantry for the last time as its commander on the eve of his relief, 26February 2024.
Most of those were wishing him well, others were thanking him based on how he replied to them.
He sounded happy, thankful to those who called.
He was smiling when the DNX team arrived, perhaps for the camera, perhaps because that is how he really is: cool, mindful, a man who is not a serious guy but one who takes his job seriously.
By 1000H of 02262024 or 10am on 26 February, Colonel William ends his tour of duty exactly to the month when he was deployed two years ago to head what has now become one of the most accomplished maneuver battalions under the 303rd Infantry Brigade led by Brigadier General Orlando Edralin, a fellow Ilocano.
Sitting ramrod straight on a monobloc chair sporting Army regiulation haircut in his battle dress, he coild be mistaken for a university ethics or psychology ptofessor except thsa he is not.
He offers brewed coffee – black, no sugar, like the one in his cup, the fourth for the day.
Lunch was forthcoming, he said, an offer this reporter and his team could not refuse in honor of a man who had fought for peace, a pangayaw in Negros who fought like a tumandok, a native, as if his life depended on defeating the Communists in an island where politics is as polarized as day is bright or night is dark.
Like yin and yang.
Lunch was pork ribs broth cooked in aromatics.,the two-inch slabs of meat stripped of fat.
Like Colonel William’sapproach to what he does.
“It’s a job, a mission,” he tells DNX in a sit down before his relief.
No sugar. No fat.
Watch this interview with DNX Executive Editor Julius D Mariveles as Colonel Pesase sits down with him a day before his formal relief.
