Para chess hero Sander Severino dies

SANDER SEVERINO, the face of Philippine para chess, lost in time.

Given until 20 to live when he was eight years old due to muscle dystrophy or degeneration, Mr. Severino, through chess, defied it and lived through more than his frail body was expected of him.

On this melancholic Saturday evening back home in Silay, Negros Occidental, his heart, which was as big as his will power and courage, failed him and quietly faded into the night.

He was 40.

Mr. Severino, however, went out fighting.

Just in December last year, or a little over a month before his passing, he gave what little energy was left in him despite the excruciating pain caused by the genetic disease that, day by day, leads to the weakening and loss of skeletal muscles by delivering five gold medals in the ASEAN Para Games in Thailand.

That effort hiked his mammoth total to 16 ASEAN Para Games golds plus four Asian Para Games mints, a bronze in the FIDE World Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities, and, the biggest of them all, a world title for the differently abled.

But that one in Nakhon Ratchasima proved to be his swan song.

The Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) will honor Mr. Severino in its annual awards night on Feb. 16 at the Diamond Hotel along with the country’s best performing athletes and officials of the past year.

He would have wanted to attend it.

“Master Joey, sorry late reply,” he told this reporter from The Philippine STAR. “Thanks for the recognition and invitation to PSA. I said to coach James (Infiesto), that I cannot go.”

“I got sick after coming home from Thailand, I needed long rest,” he added.

He never made it. — Joey Villar