PORT OF SPAIN: Trinidad and Tobago yesterday bade farewell to Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning, who served as prime minister on two occasions and remembered as someone who sought not only the social and economic development of his country, but the entire Caribbean.
Manning, 69, who died less than 24 hours after he had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on July 2, was up until September 2015, the longest serving legislator here.
His son, Brian Manning, in his eulogy, called for the establishment of a regional fund to provide housing for low income people throughout the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
He said it should be called the “Patrick Manning Development Fund” and housed at the International Financial Centre here.
The younger Manning also called for the re-establishment of the Divine Echoes Orchestra that was disbanded by the People’s Partnership government soon after it replaced the Manning administration in 2010.
He told the mourners that his father truly believed that music was an avenue to help young people channel their energy, lift lives and spirits.
Among the regional and international dignitaries attending the three-hour service were the president of Dominica, Charles Savarin, the prime ministers of St Lucia, St.Kitts and Grenada. Former Bahamian prime minister Hubert Ingraham was also among the mourners.
”He was no armchair regionalist,” Trinidad and Tobago President Anthony Carmona said at the State funeral officiated by Bishop Claude Berkley at the packed Holy Trinity Church in the heart of the capital.
Tents were erected at the nearby Woodford Square to accommodate thousands of people who turned up for the service, reminiscent of the environment in which Manning would campaign for political office.
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, recalled that his friendship with Manning dated back to their years at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica in the 1960s.
Gonsalves described his former school friend as “a human being of the highest quality” who will always remain “in the hearts and minds of every Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean national”.
“That is more important than any monument in his name,” Gonsalves said, adding that the former prime minister was “possessed of a spirit of generosity”.
Gonsalves, said that Manning would have celebrated his 70th birthday a few days after his next month, and that they “were tight political buddies,” who spoke almost daily and collaborated on several initiatives.
Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said that after a friendship lasting more than 35 years “I have never heard him to speak of anything for himself, it was always for Trinidad and Tobago”.
Following the State funeral, the body of the former prime minister was taken to a chapel of a funeral home for a private service for members of his family.
Manning is survived by his wife, Hazel, a former education minister, and two sons.