It is at the start of November when we make that pilgrimage to memorial parks to visit loved ones who have left the physical world. I am usually unconventionally cheery because this also happens to be my birth month but in recent years that excitement had faded knowing that some of my friends in the tech industry are no longer with us. As a tech journalist for two decades, it is about time I give tribute to these friends. They are not just my friends; they are my Heroes. They inspired me to become what I am today in the industry.
I have several heroes in the Philippine tech scene, but I will dedicate this column to the three heroes who are already gone in our world. One was an I.T. Professional known for his involvement in the country’s first connection to cyberspace; another was a former Radio DJ who became a Tech Magazine Editor thanks to his passion for Apple and anything related to gadgets, and a Mobile Professional who passionately advocated the use of Windows Mobile devices in our daily lives.
JIM AYSON
I first met Jim Ayson in the year 2000 through the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel #rx931 – the official chatroom of Monster Radio RX 93.1. We did not chat that much, but I learned through the other chatters that he founded PhilMusic.com, the haven for all Filipino musicians since the mid-90s. We met for the first time a year later in an informal EB (eyeball) in Katipunan where we discussed technology and music. I thought this fella was so cool!
I eventually learned that he was one of those responsible for the Philippines’ very first connection to the internet in 1994. His narration of this momentous event is forever etched in the Philippines’ tech history.
In 2003, he was one of the editors of a new tech magazine called m|ph. My girlfriend bought the magazine, but I ended up owning it because its content made me interested in mobile devices. I loved reading his reviews on smartphones which gave me a better understanding on other mobile Operating Systems like Symbian and its UIQ version. His feature on 3GSM (the predecessor of the Mobile World Congress) opened my eyes even further to the world of mobile devices. His column, SIM in the City, was not only easy to read, but it also educated me on what was happening in the telecommunications industry. He left the magazine after a year, and we sporadically chatted through Yahoo! Messenger.
We reconnected again in 2009, the year social media in the country started to boom thanks to Facebook and Twitter. A year later, we met again for a project involving our two respective companies. This gave us an opportunity to bond even further and learn more about the developments in the telecommunications industry. He advocated for the use of mobile data, which, during that time everybody was scared to use to avoid accidental charges.
At this point, I knew Jim to be an internet pioneer, a telco professional, a music junkie and a prolific writer. Did I miss anything? Personally, I considered him a social media influencer. Not the ones we see who always dress to impress or promote paid product endorsements. He is the type of influencer who simply speaks his mind beyond technology. His posts against misinformation about Martial Law in the 1970s lead us to join the #Never Again: No to Dictators, No to Martial Law Facebook Group. The group is still active up to this day and continues to fight the growing misinformation being shared on social media.
In the following years we would exchange messages on Twitter and meet occasionally with our colleagues in the telco industry over dinner. We would see each other during telco eventsand there was never a time he would miss greeting me at those functions. In one event in 2015, he was about to leave when we saw me chatting with my fellow media colleagues. He shook my hand before heading out of the venue. That was the last time I saw him.
Jim Ayson passed away on November 10, 2015.
ADEL GABOT
There was no social media in the year 2000. All we had back then were Internet Relay Chat (IRC — the Discord of the 90’s) and E-groups, which became Yahoo Groups (a group mailing list done mostly via email). We had no MP3 players back then, so I always tuned in to a couple of FM Radio stations. One of them was 103.5 K-Lite, where I first heard the voice of Little David, a.k.a. Adel Gabot. I used to call their Wednesday night show “NiteLite” to share my reactions to their show’s topics. We met Adel in one of our Yahoo Group’s EB (“eyeball” – the term Gen X used for physical meetups for online communities) in 2001.
After he left his career in FM Radio, he joined Mobile Philippines (m|ph’s new title) as their new editor-in-chief. I thought the new role is a perfect fit for him – a gadgeteer and a Star Wars geek with a perfect command of the English language. His way of writing was different from the other editors of m|ph, in an effective way because it somehow enriched my vocabulary. He was not afraid to express his opinion on product reviews, especially if it was not an Apple product. Yes, Adel was a die-hard Apple fan. Approach him with your Microsoft Windows related problem and he would tell you to “Get a Mac!”
At that time, Apple did not have a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant – the precursor of the smartphone) and the first iPhone was still probably in development, so his weapon of choice was Palm. He boasts of his “Holy Trinity” of devices: Sony Ericsson for mobile phones, Palm for PDA, and Apple for his laptop.
His affinity for Palm and Apple led me to the user groups MaPalad and PhilMUG. MaPalad, founded by another tech enthusiast Jason de Villa, was the Palm Users Group of the Philippines and PhilMUG was the Mac/Apple counterpart. I joined their groups with the purpose of learning more about the tech behind Palm and Macs, even though I belonged to their “enemy group,” Pinoy Windows Mobile – which ran Windows on mobile devices.
While Adel and I have met a few times, I was not close to him. However, I felt I knew a lot about his life through his personal blogs. I loved reading his blogs that discuss his day-to-day activities, ramblings, Star Wars and other pop culture stories, and of course his love for Apple and Steve Jobs. It was one of my favorite past times because I learned a lot, not only with the topics he shares, but also absorbing the way he wrote them.
Adel Gabot passed away on March 25, 2020.
NORBERT AQUENDE
This is the toughest part for me to write about. I met Norbert through Pinoy Windows Mobile, a user’s group for Windows Mobile Smartphones and Pocket PCs. After a few months of participating in their forum, we got to be close when I acquired my first Pocket PC – an ASUS A620BT. We met in Greenhills to teach me how to use and maximize my Personal Digital Assistant. That would become the first of many hangouts with Norbert.
We would normally meet at EDSA Shangri-La Mall because he has access to the mall’s free WiFi provided to him by Airborne Access. I never got bored talking to Norbert as we never stopped a round robin discussion around Windows Mobile, Microsoft, and the telco industry. This would go on for hours, and we would continue talking inside my car when he was supposed to go home hours ago!
Norbert showed me how to talk to people with confidence. He was never intimidated even when the other person was a CEO. He was so confident about himself that sometimes he even inserted jokes to lighten up the conversation. Speaking of meeting people, he was responsible for helping me connect with others professionally. Whenever I asked if he knew someone from a particular company or industry, he would always suggest to me a name from his phonebook.
We became colleagues in a distribution company for DOPOD, the brand before it became HTC in the mid-2000s. It was an opportunity for us to do some real work based on what we have planned in Pinoy Windows Mobile. We both dealt with enterprise clients and used our expertise in Windows Mobile to provide solutions for them. Eventually, our roles were divided, with him concentrating on enterprise while I did retail and marketing logistics. Somehow, this development made us competitive with one other. I did not like it, but I knew that we had to prove ourselves – we both didn’t want to lose.
There were instances where we felt tensions in our work relationship, and one way for us to decompress was to play LAN games in a computer shop. Our favorite was a place called Gamefrog in Metrowalk Ortigas. We played CounterStrike, Warhammer, and Call of Duty. I remember a time we did not even talk after work, but I found him playing alone in a computer shop near the office. I sat beside him, and we played CounterStrike one-on-one. It was serious at first then it would end up with both of us laughing, accusing one another of cheating.
In the following years we collaborated when he was hired by Microsoft. With my background in retail providing sales and product training for frontliners, I was tapped to give lectures on Windows Mobile and how to sell them. He always invited me to his events and never failed to introduce me to his colleagues, some of which I am still connected to up to this day.
He also introduced to me to the early Philippine startup scene. I met Jay Fajardo, the man behind the Airborne Access WiFi that powered EDSA Shangri-La Mall and Seattle’s Best Coffee, through Norbert. We attended his Roofcamp meetups where we met other Startup founders and venture capitalists.
With all the things we have done together for more than a decade, I felt Norbert was more than just a friend. He was like my brother from another mother. Aside from sharing the same passion for Microsoft and Windows Mobile, we both loved the Macross mecha anime series. Coincidentally, we were both diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in the same year.
Unfortunately, he died a year after he was diagnosed. He passed away on November 15, 2017. I met his mother for the first time at his wake. She told me Norbert has mentioned me a lot of times throughout the years, to the point he considered me his best friend. I was already heartbroken when I heard the news of his passing, but I was really crushed when I heard this anecdote from his mother.
In a nutshell, I have learned a lot of things from these three people whom I have idolized for years. I carry them along with me, and hopefully I’ll be able to pass them along to my kids, and the next generation as my legacy.
