Itās great to see so many us here today as we celebrate and honor the life of our dear friend and colleague Levi Frias.
Even if we are of many different ageās different backgrounds and countries; and different jobs, we have all one thing in common, our admiration for a man who had the vision and the ethics to establish the Metro care and Metro health Institutions which is.
Iāve known the Frias family since 1971, when I was studying at PUC. You see, Leviās father had a brother who lived in Baesa, Caloocan and had daughters who were students at PUC. My first cousin Federico Correces Jr. married one of the Frias daughters Belma and so I met Nalyn in PUC and Evna as well , the rest of the family I met them when I came to Canada in 1977 and met them here in Toronto. We especially congregated frequently at the house of his older brother Noel and Betty when they were still having a residence on Finch West Street.
Levi and I got together in 1990 when I was working with Harlequin as an IT operations analyst. He was working at Rogers as a programmer which was located close by and sometimes, we would have lunch at the coffee garden together at the former Prince Hotel which is Pan pacific today. We would talk about our bosses and our work and how routine the work was since it was a continuous repetition of the same algorithms and procedures day in and day out. He thought it would be a good idea to run his own company and he had so many ideas about how it would be run, and he had ideas about what he would do. Anyway, as time went on, we left our companies, and I soon was with the City of Toronto. But not long after I decided to work with the church SDACC and because things did not work out, I decided to get back to social work which I had a masterās degree in and so I decided to go and work in America. USA. I was back for Christmas in 2007 and he invited me to the NYFCC Christmas party. From then on he hooked me in with the program so when I returned in 2008, he asked me to be the VP of communications and I accepted it. So, like he was, I had a dream of a community Centre for āFilipinos here in the City of North York. Together with Virgilio Cabico EXEC VP, Rose Bacud SEC GEN, Tony Jacildo TREASURER, Joey CaguioaSGTATARMS,Emil Aguinaldo FINANCE, ROSE GARCIA VP MEMBERSHIP, GERRY SORIO VP SPORTS, Nida Bandeira, VP SOCIAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS, Connie Sorio, VP empowerment/Advocacy, Roger Chiong, Charitable and Humanitarian initiatives, Raymond Frias, VP ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS, DOLLY ETOC, VP SENIORS AFFAIRS.
Looking at this list of officers, we could have done it if everyone did their job. But sometimes it was Rose Bacud doing most of the groundwork with fundraising which was the toughest work to do, and I admire her for that.
But things changed drastically when Councilor Pasternak decided to build the hub RIGHT on finch and Bathurst beside the Northview Heights Secondary School. Suddenly all the programs we dreamed about for the NYFCC were available with the HUB. I was invited to join the HUB and be a part of the volunteer program and from the HUB, I was able to get a grant for basketball programs led by Edgar Tojino and chess programs led by Evnato the younger brother of Levi. So I was able to actually use the NYFCC as a means to have approval for the grant and the programs went on a yearly basis. But when covid19 came in, everything came screeching to a halt. All the programs were shut down and accessibility to the Basketball courts inside Northview heights got closed and the programs stopped. While all the activities I mentioned were going on, Levi had already decided to implement his idea for a PSW school and an agency to field healthcare workers TO various healthcare centers and institutions within the city of Toronto. His dream of building a school for healthcare professionals indeed came true and Metro Healthcare is now ably handled by Andrew who was with his Dad all along.
Levi was a Visionaire and a positive thinker, innovator, and leader!
He was an activist, and his ideology of social justice and equal rights were part of his strengths. While he liked dabbling in business, he also liked golfing and basketball because during our sports programs with NYFCC he was always with us from the very start.
Having been brought up by parents who are Seventh-day Adventists, his beliefs are true and steadfast. He believes in the life that comes when the Lord Jesus will come to raise those who have died in his name.
To Levi he believes that in the second coming, our whole personal being will be changed and it does not matter how where and what we are like when we die, He believes in the truth that in the last trump,ā the dead will be raised incorruptibleā. And when that happens, during the second coming, he probably was asleep when he died and then he will wake with sudden brightness as Jesus comes and together with the redeemed, he will be lifted up into the sky.
The question is, are you going to be there with him? Are you ready to be with the redeemed when Jesus comes? This is the ultimate reason why he believed in God.
To Jo Ann, Nathan, and Andrew ,we will cherish the great memories we had while he was around, if not for NYFCC I would never have come to the point of organizing an association of Filipinos from different backgrounds and hold an annual celebration every Christmas and have the best dinner and the best speeches from Levi, the guest speakers, and the fun of dancing till midnight. To Levi Au Revoir, see you in the resurrection morning.
