Ramon Tulfo is the last person anyone would think to be interested in spiritual, paranormal and psychic stuff.

He is known as a hard-hitting, foulmouthed radio broadcaster who takes to task corrupt and abusive government officials and law enforcement officers. As a result he eats libel suits and death threats for breakfast.

He goes about his business carrying a gun and followed by a coterie of fully armed bodyguards trained in martial arts. He goes to the firing range regularly and can shoot straight. He is known as a heavy drinker, a night owl and a lover of beautiful women.

This was the former Inquirer columnist’s reputation. He never believed in anything I wrote and even considered them nonsensical. He told me he often wondered why Inquirer ran such topics.

And so it came as a shock to me when Tulfo called me up one day in the early 2000s, inviting me to have lunch with him. We had never met. When I asked him about what he wanted to talk about, he replied, “I want to ask you about reincarnation.”

He was serious.

And so a date was set and we faced each other in a restaurant for the first time. He said he came across the book “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch, and it got him to thinking about God and religion in a way he never did.

He said Walsch’s books made sense to him and wanted to know more. Fortunately, I had read several of Walsch’s books to be able to answer his many questions about spirituality, mysticism, etc.

Reincarnation

But what he zeroed in on was reincarnation. He bombarded me with so many questions: Is there a proof that we have lived before? Why don’t we remember our past lives? Is there a way of recalling who we were? What about karma? Is there predestination?

That became one of the longest lunches I’ve ever had in recent memory.

Ramon interrogated me like I was a suspect in a murder case. I was completely amused by his questions and I noticed his sincere desire to know. He was not challenging me, nor testing my knowledge about these subjects. He was hungry for the truth as I saw it.

That first lunch was followed by several more lunches and meetings in various places, including a trip to a mystical place called Ciudad Verdadero in Lucban, Quezon.

Four lifetimes

Without my knowledge, Ramon underwent a past-life regression session with my assistant, Frances Gloria. He vividly recalled at least four lifetimes which cleared up some aspects of his present life.

For instance, he saw a lifetime in which he was a western cowboy, a gunslinger who was a sharp shooter with both left and right hand. That must explain why in this lifetime, he loves guns and could shoot with either hand.

In another lifetime, he was a ship captain; that must be why he loves the sea and sailing. Another lifetime he was killed by a tiger in Africa. That must be why in this lifetime he hates cats and killed one in his youth.

Samurai warrior

Somebody who is a psychic also saw him as a Japanese samurai warrior. In this lifetime he is partly Japanese and a lover of swords.

Having opened up his inner mind to the mystical, spiritual world, Ramon began to attract individuals, especially women, with an open third eye and mediumistic tendencies, which reinforced his beliefs in paranormal phenomena and reincarnation.

There was, for example, a well-off woman who involuntarily went into a trance and channeled a feared Metrocom colonel whom Ramon knew. The dead colonel, speaking through this frail woman, revealed things to Ramon which no one else knew about. This official had been assassinated.

After several years of exposure to mediums, psychics, new age gurus and mystics, Ramon has changed his reading habits. Instead of Playboy and Penthouse magazines, he would most likely be seen reading the Modern English version of the King James Bible.

Last week, President Duterte appointed Ramon as special envoy to China. That’s why he had to give up his column of more than 30 years in this paper. His column will surely be missed by his followers.

For comments, consultancy, past life regression and books, e-mail [email protected] or call 09989886292, 8107245.