I can write a 365-page biography of him. His life story, if grabbed by the producers of Viva Films, will turn into a movie blockbuster. Listen to him speak for 45 minutes and you’d wish you had 25 hours to listen. Thousands of people I’ve met in life, but few will compare to this story…
Jacinto Villarosa Mendez is the third of seven children of Victorino and Anita Mendez. In elementary and high school, he studied in Ubay, Bohol and in college, took up law at the University of San Carlos. To support his studies, he mopped floors in the homes of relatives in exchange for free board and lodging. He lifted wood at the pier as kargador to earn a peso. On his final year in law school, his father, a firewood dealer, decided that his brothers and sisters would stop school to allow him to graduate. Jack did not allow that to happen. He stowed away on a boat and worked as a security guard in Manila. “I was assigned at a furniture company,” he told me, “and had to squat on top of tables each night as there were snakes everywhere.”
