According to own script, Rudy Fernandez lets God

“LET GO, LET GOD,” ACTION STAR Rudy Fernandez often said in the two years that he battled periampullary cancer, a rare and aggressive form. On June 1, when he asked to be brought home from the Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC) in San Juan, he and his wife, actress Lorna Tolentino, handed the helm over to God.

On Saturday, less than a week later, he let go.

He had the sequence down pat—down to the last fadeout. His “pack-up” instructions are being carried out, to the letter.

Fernandez, also known as “Daboy,” a “bankable” action star at his peak until his last movie in 2002, turned 56 on March 3. He may not have gotten the “maximum extension” that he prayed for since being diagnosed in March 2006; but he swung most aspects of the bargain he made. For one, he died peacefully at home, surrounded by immediate family and close friends.

And although he had lost a lot of weight, he wasn’t disfigured by skin eruptions—the gloomy certainty presented by a third round of chemotherapy that he thumbed-down early this year. “I’m not going ugly,” he told the Inquirer, laughing, during an interview in late April.

Quoting the doctors on the day he left CSMC, one of his bosom buddies, Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., said Rudy’s body “rejected” the last infusion of an alternative drug, Rexin-G.

On Saturday at 6:15 a.m., in the White Plains house he shared with Lorna and their sons Ralph, 22, and Renz, 19, a handful gathered for a solemn sendoff. Rudy died in his sleep.

Movie pals and routine “watchers” Amy Austria, Tirso Cruz III and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada were there. Sen. Bong Revilla and Gina Alajar—the alternates— had left just two hours earlier.

In the basement, which was equipped like a satellite ICU (intensive care unit), few visitors had been allowed since Daboy’s final homecoming. As a rule, even among the closest of the close friends, those who tended to cry were kept at a distance.

Last night, at the Heritage Memorial Chapels and Crematorium in The Fort, Taguig City, where Rudy’s remains lie, there were no more such rules. “Gusto ko, maraming bisita (I want a lot of visitors),” Daboy told us in that last interview. That, he’s certainly getting.

On television, his sons said their “Papa” would be happy if fans came to the wake, whatever their stations in life. Interment is set on Thursday after a necrological Mass at 1 p.m.

On Friday night, one of Rudy’s bosom buddies, Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla told the Inquirer that the actor’s blood pressure had plummeted, and that he was rushing to his friend’s side. When Revilla got there, Rudy had “stabilized.”

It was just like Daboy, the prankster, to do that, some friends agreed. His manager, Lolit Solis, said Saturday Rudy decided to go on the day she was supposed to leave for Macau. “I told him I’d be back on Wednesday. I bet he did this so I’d stay.”

June 1 was Rudy and Lorna’s 25th civil wedding anniversary. There was supposed to be another big celebration on June 22, their church wedding anniversary. “That would be nice,” Rudy told the Inquirer six weeks ago, “although every day is a big celebration for me now.”

Also this month, he was to receive the Ulirang Artista award from the Philippine Movie Press Club. Last year, he was the recipient of the Famas (Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences) Fernando Poe Jr. Memorial Award, and the Film Academy of the Philippines’ FPJ Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Watcher-buddies” Revilla, Cruz, Austria and Alajar, plus Phillip Salvador, were at the funeral home Saturday morning to condole with Lorna.

“This is a very sad day for the industry,” Cruz said. “LT is heartbroken, but at the same time at peace.” (Rudy used to look forward to Cruz’s visit, saying, “I love to hear him read the Bible.”)

On learning of Rudy’s death, singer-actress Sharon Cuneta, who is currently in Rome for a series of movie premieres for “Caregiver,” sent this text message to the Inquirer: “My heart is broken ... I visited him the night before I left for San Francisco. When I arrived in San Francisco on May 29, I spoke to him again. He was very lucid pa. The last things he told me were: ’Salamat (Thank you) and I love you.’”

Delia Razon, who starred in Rudy’s first movie “Luksang Tagumpay,” remembers the young Rudy as a “shy, but obedient kid... He was always hanging out, playing on the set. He was his dad Gregorio’s pet,” Razon recounted in a phone interview.

Rudy was an affectionate colleague, she said. “He was always respectful. Every time he would see me in show biz gatherings, he’d stand up and greet me.”

Daboy is a bona fide child of Philippine movies. He made nearly a hundred films, making his screen debut at 4, on the suggestion of actress-sister Merle Fernandez, in a movie titled “Luksang Tagumpay” (1957) directed by his father, the late actor-director Gregorio Fernandez.

Rudy considered “Bitayin si Baby Ama” (1976) as his turning-point role. “Natono ako sa (I found my niche in) action [movies]”—and also to true-life characters. Two of these characters won for him Best Actor awards: two from Famas, “Ruther Batuigas... Pasukuin si Waway” (1984) and “Victor Corpuz” (1987); and one from the Film Academy of the Philippines, also for “Waway.”

Public service was another persistent calling for the actor (he always said former President Joseph Estrada was his “role model”). In 2001, he ran for mayor of Quezon City but lost to Feliciano Belmonte.

Given “more time,” Rudy told us, he would “find a way to serve the public, especially now that I may no longer be doing too much movie work.”

Asked once what people did not know about him, Rudy replied, “Na masayahin ako at palabiro (That I’m jolly and mischievous), rarely serious.”

Lorna admitted in that late-April interview that Rudy often ended up consoling her about his condition.

Indeed, his manager Lolit Solis said, she was keeping an eye on Lorna who, she believed, had simply “put up a brave front for Rudy.” The only time Daboy saw “LT” cry, Solis said, was when he gave her instructions for when he finally left.

The night of June 1, Lorna said in a text message to the Inquirer: “The battle is out of our hands. I have surrendered Rudy to God.”

Rudy had beat her to that, actually. He went through the motions of undergoing the treatments, he said, “because I’m a very positive person and I’ll try anything.” But he saw the signs clearly: “I’m going soon. I’d like the maximum extension, if possible, plus quality time. But I’m prepared.”

And so whatever extra time he got after he was diagnosed, he made full use of, with an uncanny ability to set aside nagging concerns to “enjoy life.”

In March, when he and Lorna were in the United States for a second cycle of Rexin-G, they made time to watch the Paquiao-Marquez boxing rematch in Las Vegas.

Daboy had ample time to prepare for his death, said Solis.

“He chose the clothes he would wear in his coffin, where the wake should be held, and where he would be buried,” she told the Inquirer yesterday morning. “He is wearing a black coat and tie. He chose the coffin from a brochure sent to Lorna some months back.”

Three good things that the affliction brought to his life, according to Daboy: “Tumingkad ang lahat ng kulay (all colors became vivid); LT and I got to live our marriage vows to the fullest; and my conversations with God became very personal and more intense. But of course naman—we’re about to meet. I need to know where I’m going.” With a report from Marinel R. Cruz and Bayani San Diego Jr.

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