A TRIBUTE TO Q. F. MIRAVITE
                                            		  
 
Once in your lifetime, if you're lucky, you cross paths with someone who will leave an indelible imprint in your
mind for the rest of your life. Such a man I was fortunate to meet. He was Dr. QUITERIO FAJARDO MIRAVITE,
an intellectual giant who mesmerized us with the range of his knowledge and the forceful ways he put such 
knowledge to work. He was way, way ahead of everyone else. He aimed higher, thought deeper and saw farther. 
His approach to a problem was always novel and his ideas refreshingly original. He believed in his talents and 
pursued his ideas with passion and confidence bordering on arrogance.  Some people are rich in ideas, some fluent 
with speech, others prolific with prose. QFM was all three. 

I was privileged to work with him as a staff member of a weekly news publication of the Iloilo provincial 
government, the Iloilo Provincial Bulletin, from 1961 through 1963. It was awfully delightful to watch him whip 
out editorials on a manual typewriter in 15 minutes (he was once correspondent of Agence France-Presse). He 
demanded excellence of himself and of others, but was humane and tolerant of my shortcomings. He drafted 
privileged speeches for some congressmen at a then princely sum of P500.00 per speech. At one time when he 
was busy he asked me to write a speech for a legislator who was set to expose an anomaly. When I submitted 
my draft, he breezed through it and thrust it back to me with the comment, "You have composed a lullaby. You are 
supposed to breathe fire. Get angry and rewrite your piece." When I countered that I needed to temper the language 
since the speech would be delivered in the august halls of Congress, he shot back with his patented half-smirk,
half-smile, "Go ahead, write with fury, then review and take out the offensive phrases. It's easier to moderate
anger than energize meekness."

Before the word "balimbing" came into vogue, QFM had a quaint description of some politicians whom he 
likened to a jellyfish. In an editorial  he explained that a jellyfish worms its way in and out of any hole without
breaking a bone because, "in the first place, it does not have any bone to break." Before they coined the word
"epal", QFM, on instructions of the governor, had a fling with this art. When President Garcia announced he was
visiting Iloilo, the governor wanted to indulge the President by naming the capitol building "President Garcia
Building." Since it was against the law to name government buildings after living persons, QFM offered an 
alternative. He did a facelift on the main portion of the old capitol building, refitted it with curved concrete 
canopies, spruced it up and named that section "President Garcia Hall". 

QFM and I parted ways just before SEAFDEC facilities were set up. He invited me to join him there but I had 
other plans. I carried with me the lessons learned from him. Whenever I met obstacles later in my vocation, I did
not stop and freeze.. If I could not break the barrier down,   I just went around it, the QFM way, and moved on. 

QFM is gone. As with some great personalities in history he set for himself a furious pace but was careless with 
his health.  He died in his prime, maybe short in years but my, oh my, he crammed so much life into those years!
I miss him.  
        



Jose B. Maroma, Jr.
Cabatuan, Iloilo
July 19, 2018