Over the past days, we received several e-mails particularly from Eddboy Resabal and Ruperto Payot regarding the demise of Boholano novelty singer and comedian Roman "Yoyoy" Villame of an apparent heart attack, some five hours after being rushed to the Las Piñas Medical Center complaining of chest pains.

While still in Grade I, I heard from my uncle, Macario Inot of Getafe, Bohol that he had a fellow driver in MB Liner named Yoyoy Villame who composed and sang novelty songs, some of which are even revolting to the traditional Filipino values.

Later on in elementary, we heard from our stereophono the 45-rpm records of Yoyoy's songs like "Mag-exercise," which hit the charts in 1977. We also heard his toungue-twister "Butse Kik" and his first recording entitled Magellan (1972), which was the beginning of a long span of albums and recordings of Yoyoy's humorous yet politically relevant songs in Visayan, Tagalog and English that was uniquely his own style.

But I admit having memorized his song "Philippine Geography" when I was about to graduate from elementary.

Dubbed "The Novelty King," Villame recorded more than 40 albums in his career as a singer. In our entire public life, we only met Yoyoy not more than three times but not that up close and personal.

The last time I saw Yoyoy was during a national convention of the Philippine Councilors League in Manila because he was then a councilor of Las Piñas City, having been elected in 1988 and went on to serve as councilor there for 10 years. He ran in 1995 as vice mayor but lost.

I could also remember when there was this intrigue that Yoyoy, at the height of his fame and career, refused to claim that he was from Bohol but later on this was belied with his hit but controversial movie, "Bol-anon Ko Nyor" that stirred the hornest nest in Davao City when the late Judge Enrique Inting registered a strong howl of protest when a scene of that movie showed Yoyoy washing his face in the toilet bowl.

At the time of his death, Yoyoy lived at the Doña Josefa Subdivision in Pilar Village, Las Piñas City. He is survived by his children Hannah, who is also a singer; Apple, Olivia, Roman Jr., Lillian and John.

In the Internet, we noticed that there was this circulation about his burial in a Roman Catholic cemetery. But I just did not give so much attention to it as Yoyoy's remains still lie in state at that time.

What was consoling on the part of the Boholanos is that the country's novelty king's children chose to bury his remains in his own hometown in Calape, Bohol. Goodbye Yoyoy. You certainly made Boholanos shine in the field of novelty music and songs.

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