Buddy Gomez

Tomas "Buddy" Bayhon Gomez III (March 25, 1935 – July 22, 2021) was a Philippine journalist, businessman, and politician, who most notably served in a number of posts in the administration of Corazon Aquino.

Early life and career Gomez was born on March 25, 1935, in Calbayog, Samar, to a prominent family. He is the son of Tomas Arquiza Gomez Jr. and Helen Rowland Bayhon. His grandfather was Senator Tomas Gomez, Sr., who represented Samar in the Commonwealth Senate.

He began his career in 1957 at DZCA Radio Reloj, which at the time was owned by the ABS-CBN network. In 1961 he began working as a management trainee at Ayala Corporation, where he would remain for 25 years. He spent much of that time working directly with the corporation's then-chief executive Enrique Zobel, first as his executive assistant and then in a number of more senior posts. By 1972 he was Manager of the Commercial Centers Division (now Ayala Malls); executive director of the Filipinas Foundation (now the Ayala Foundation), and the firm's Public Relations Director. The position was an important one, not only because of sizable Filipino community in Hawaii, but because former President Ferdinand Marcos had taken up exile there, along with as well as his family and 89-person strong entourage. Colonel Arturo Aruiza, a Marcos confidant who joined the former dictator in Hawaii, described Gomez as a "plague in our lives, whose chief preoccupation was to keep track of our doings."

After returning to the Philippines, President Aquino appointed Gomez as her Presidential Press Secretary in January 1990. He was also appointed as Cabinet Officer for Regional Development (CORD) for Metro Manila, during which time he supported the election of Ignacio Bunye (who had worked for Gomez at Ayala in the 1970s) as Chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Authority.

Following the election, he was appointed as president and Chairman of the then state-owned Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation by President Ramos, serving for a number of years.

Gomez died on July 22, 2021, while undertaking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Galicia, Spain, during the Year of Mercy in honor of St. James. Having departed from the town of Sarria on July 18, Gomez had completed 75 kilometers out of the 115 kilometers to Santiago de Compostela by the time he reached the town of Arzúa, where he died on the night of July 22 in a pilgrims' hostel. Gomez had chronicled his pilgrimage on his blog prior to his death, and following his death, his children went on to complete the remaining 40 kilometers in his memory obtaining his pilgrim's certificate posthumously.