MABALACAT, Pampanga – As journalists are wont to say about colleagues who pass away, Dante Fabian wrote 30. He succumbed to a heart attack at age 49 around midnight last Friday May 2. He was rushed to the Rafael Lazatin Memorial Medical Center (RLMMC) in Angeles City ( 75 kilometers north of Manila) by Pesie Minoza of dzRH AM (a nation-wide radio network) after he felt pains in the chest.

Accounts by Joey Pavia of Punto! Central Luzon (a daily news paper circulated Central Luzon-wide) have it that Fabian followed up a case of a worker at the Clark Freeport (former United States military base) who committed suicide, met with Minoza for a late dinner, felt the chest pains and requested to be brought to the RLMMC.

Minoza said Fabian at first did not appear to be in danger as a nurse dispensed him a medicine to lower his blood pressure, but he suddenly looked awful! The doctors and the nurses tried to revive him but he was declared dead at 11:20 PM

‘Dante’ is a brother of the late Fyodor ‘Ody’ Fabian who was a well respected journalist and was a vanguard of the National Union of Journalist in the Philippines (NUJP) Pampanga chapter. The elder Ody also died of heart attack back in 2005 at 47 years. Their father Mac Fabian, who died of cancer also at age 47, was also a journalist and a peasant leader.

The Fabian brothers in their years of newspaper practice both preferred to prowl the nights particularly of Angeles City to chase police stories.

While Ody Fabian once served as the Managing Editor of the national tabloid Peoples Journal and was the sturdy spirit behind The Voice, a multi-awarded and hard-hitting tabloid in Pampanga; Dante was the Managing Editor of Sun Star Pampanga up to his death recently.

They are survived by their mother – Digna, two brothers – Jun and Homer, and two sisters -- Harlie and Lilibeth.

Dante’s remains will be at the St. Jude Thaddeus memorial chapel in Mabalacat (a few kilometers up north of Angeles City) this morning, the same chapel where elder brother Ody lied in state about three years ago. He will be buried at 2:00 PM today, May 7, at the Mabalacat Public cemetery.