Masako Watanabe/Pacific Daily News/mwatanabe@guampdn.com His father’s son: Roman Dela Cruz stretches before starting a training swim at Ypao Beach. Dela Cruz is training for the 14th Annual International Cocos Crossing Sunday in Merizo. TO THE POINTRoman Dela Cruz said his father Victor Dela Cruz‘s motto had always been: “Try to do something good for somebody else.” It’s the reason why Roman Dela Cruz will honor his father’s memory by swimming in Sunday’s 14th Annual International Cocos Crossing. Victor Dela Cruz was going to swim in the race to raise money to help build a library for his alma mater, Don Bosco Technical Institute, in the Philippines. To help out, call 472-1008.

For more than eight months, Victor Dela Cruz would swim about 10 hours a week, watched over by his sons and a family friend.

The 59-year-old was training to swim the 14th Annual International Cocos Crossing as a means to raise money to help build a library for his alma mater, Don Bosco Technical Institute, in the Philippines.

But a little more than two weeks ago, when Dela Cruz decided to tackle the 2-mile stretch in Tumon Bay from Ypao Beach Park to the Hotel Nikko Guam for his first saltwater swim, something went terribly wrong.

On the morning of May 8, Dela Cruz was supposed to meet his sons, Carlo and Roman, and family friend and lifeguard Chris Benito for a training session. But that morning, Benito had to work and Carlo Dela Cruz, who had watched his father swim for the first 20 minutes, got called to work for an emergency.

Roman Dela Cruz arrived at the training ground a few minutes after his brother left and jumped in the water to catch up with his dad but he never did — Victor Dela Cruz had drowned in the water off the Guam Marriott Resort.

“He was in really good shape, but for whatever reason, just the way things went, his number was called,” said Roman Dela Cruz, 29, co-founder of Fökai Industries.

“So now, basically what I’m doing is, I’ve committed a big part of my life to bringing some kind of closure to my father’s death. So I’m swimming the Cocos (Crossing) not as a race but as an attempt to honor my father and complete his last good deed.”

Roman Dela Cruz, a bodyboarder and mixed martial artist, said while he swam the 2.2-mile Cocos Crossing in Merizo two years ago, it’ll be a challenge for him to have only two weeks of training to complete the arduous swim. Benito said it would be dangerous for a swimmer who has trained for only two weeks to attempt a race that takes most swimmers more than an hour to finish.

Roman Dela Cruz, however, is an exception because of his high level of physical fitness and familiarity with Guam’s waters, Benito said.

With the help of his brothers Carlo and Victor Jr., and Benito, Roman Dela Cruz is confident he will finish after building his endurance the last two weeks by running, biking and even swimming the course that so recently claimed his father’s life.

“I try not to focus on the waters that killed my father but more so on that those were the waters that made him so alive,” he said.

“Doing the swim, you know I’m glad I’m in water because I think it’d be embarrassing to show all those tears.

“I haven’t really said goodbye to my father, and I never will totally say goodbye to my father but my Dad was a very, very good man, and I think for me this is another way to bring honor to the life he lived.”

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Originally published Thursday, May 27, 2004