Gail Alexan­der

Lo­cal and re­gion­al lead­ers will at­tend Sat­ur­day's state fu­ner­al for for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Au­gus­tus Mervyn Man­ning who breathed his last at 8.15 am yes­ter­day in the coun­try he had de­vot­ed his life to fur­ther­ing.

"He is at rest," his fam­i­ly said, as scores of peo­ple and callers be­gan flood­ing the Man­ning fam­i­ly home at Vista­bel­la from yes­ter­day morn­ing.

For­mer leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment for 24 years, Man­ning, 69, passed away at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing ad­mit­ted on Mon­day with fever, fol­low­ing the re­moval of a wis­dom tooth on the pre­vi­ous Fri­day. While in hos­pi­tal he had bat­tled a se­vere lung in­fec­tion.

Fol­low­ing a bat­tery of tests, doc­tors dis­cov­ered last Thurs­day that Man­ning had acute myeloid leukemia (AML)–a rare, very ag­gres­sive can­cer of the blood in­volv­ing bone mar­row and red and white blood cell is­sues.

The spe­cif­ic cause of AML is not clear, but it pro­gress­es rapid­ly and is typ­i­cal­ly fa­tal with­in weeks or months if left un­treat­ed. Re­search shows that there is a very low cure rate of 5�15 per cent for peo­ple over 60. Those who are un­able to with­stand in­ten­sive chemother­a­py typ­i­cal­ly live for on­ly five to ten months more.

A source said that while in hos­pi­tal Man­ning had said he was go­ing to die, and had told doc­tors to do what they had to do. Fam­i­ly mem­bers con­firmed that Man­ning passed away peace­ful­ly and im­me­di­ate rel­a­tives who had been with him, had been hold­ing his hand when he passed on. How­ev­er, the clan, while be­ing strong, is deep in sor­row, they added, "There are many tears...."

Con­do­lences from

home and abroad

Trib­utes were made by Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley, Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, par­ty and po­lit­i­cal col­leagues, re­gion­al coun­ter­parts and from as­so­ciates all over the world as far away as Ghana, the Man­ning fam­i­ly con­firmed.

Car­mona tele­phoned Mrs Man­ning and spoke at length with her and son, David. An­oth­er son, Bri­an, cur­rent­ly over­seas study­ing, is due home short­ly.

A state­ment from Pres­i­dent's House in­di­cat­ed Car­mona com­mis­er­at­ed with them, "ex­press­ing words of com­fort, peace and prayer at the fam­i­ly's per­son­al loss and T&T's great loss."

Stat­ing that Man­ning's death is a mon­u­men­tal loss to the Caribbean as well as T&T, Car­mona, via a press state­ment, said, "The Re­pub­lic of T&T has re­ceived the heart­break­ing news of the pass­ing of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Au­gus­tus Mervyn Man­ning. As a states­man and politi­cian of some 41 years, he ex­e­cut­ed his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with gen­uine care and love for the peo­ple."

"His vi­sion­ary and pi­o­neer­ing work in the oil and gas in­dus­try, in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment, civ­il avi­a­tion, po­lit­i­cal and so­cial re­form and ed­u­ca­tion, has cat­a­pult­ed our coun­try clos­er to the at­tain­ment of de­vel­oped na­tion sta­tus. So many peo­ple of all walks of life have been pro­gres­sive­ly and af­fir­ma­tive­ly touched by his life, his lega­cy, his work eth­ic and his vi­sion for a greater and bet­ter T&T. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, his 'Caribbean-ness' was be­yond ques­tion and very dear to his heart. He was a firm be­liev­er in Caribbean in­te­gra­tion."

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley said, ".... Up un­til his death Mr Man­ning re­mained a source of guid­ance and in­spi­ra­tion to a gen­er­a­tion of na­tion­al and re­gion­al lead­ers who still sought his coun­sel even af­ter he left ac­tive pub­lic life."

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar added, "It is with deep sad­ness we heard of the pass­ing of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. On be­half of all in the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, we send our heart­felt sym­pa­thy and prayers to his wife, Hazel, his sons and close rel­a­tives."

Con­gress of the Peo­ple founder Win­ston Dook­er­an said, "Mr Man­ning's po­lit­i­cal life was one of courage, and one in which he nev­er swerved from his com­mit­ment to build­ing a mod­ern T&T. I al­ways felt his vi­sion was laud­able."

St Vin­cent Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves, who'd vis­it­ed Man­ning on Tues­day, was in shock. "This was a vi­sion­ary leader–no po­lit­i­cal leader in T&T af­ter In­de­pen­dence has been a greater re­gion­al in­te­gra­tionist than Patrick Man­ning."

Gon­salves said to­mor­row's Cari­com sum­mit be­ing held over Ju­ly 4-6 in Guyana will like­ly be ded­i­cat­ed to Man­ning and trib­utes from re­gion­al lead­ers will flow there.

State fu­ner­al

In recog­ni­tion of Man­ning's pass­ing, flags were be­ing flown at half-mast at all pub­lic build­ings and for­eign mis­sions from yes­ter­day un­til the day af­ter his fu­ner­al.

Sat­ur­day was cho­sen for the ser­vice and bur­ial to al­low time for for­mal­i­ties such as al­low­ing the body to lie in state in south and north Trinidad.

A min­is­te­r­i­al team met yes­ter­day on arrange­ments. Min­is­ter Stu­art Young (Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice) said Man­ning's fam­i­ly will de­cide on fi­nal de­tails of the state fu­ner­al and oth­er as­pects lead­ing up to Sat­ur­day's fu­ner­al.

A gov­ern­ment state­ment sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed Man­ning's body will lie in state at the South Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Sapa) on Thurs­day.

The body will al­so lie in state at the North Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa) on Fri­day.

Sources said Sat­ur­day's fu­ner­al arrange­ments may en­com­pass the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral, Port-of-Spain, and near­by Wood­ford Square.

A book of con­do­lences will be open to­day be­tween 9 am and 6 pm at Na­pa and Sapa

From Mon­day to Fri­day it will be avail­able at both lo­ca­tions from 8 am to 6 pm.

Books of con­do­lences will al­so be opened at Bor­ough cor­po­ra­tions in Ari­ma, Rio Claro/Ma­yaro Ch­agua­nas, Point Fortin and To­ba­go's As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture.

PNM mem­bers be­gan sign­ing a con­do­lence book at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Man­ning, who joined the PNM as a youth, went on to be­come its third leader in 1986, re­build­ing the PNM af­ter the NAR's crush­ing 1986 vic­to­ry.

A ge­ol­o­gist, he was T&T's fourth and sixth Prime Min­is­ter over 1991/95 and 2001/2010. The longest serv­ing MP, he rep­re­sent­ed the PNM in San Fer­nan­do East for 44 years, re­tir­ing from pol­i­tics in Jan­u­ary 2015 al­though he'd ini­tial­ly in­di­cat­ed in­ter­est to con­test the Sep­tem­ber 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Among health is­sues, Man­ning suf­fered from rheumat­ic fever at age 14, un­der­went heart valve surgery in 1998, had a pace­mak­er in­stalled in 2004, and al­so had cor­rec­tive eye surgery that year. In 2008 he un­der­went surgery in Cu­ba to re­move a ma­lig­nant kid­ney tu­mour, and al­so had the kid­ney re­moved.

In 2012 Man­ning suf­fered a stroke which lim­it­ed some of his move­ment.

In 2008 Man­ning had said he did not fear death.

?Book of con­do­lence

opens at Na­pa, Sapa

The Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to open a book of con­do­lence to­day from 9 am to 6 pm at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa) and the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Sapa).

From Mon­day to Fri­day, the con­do­lence book will al­so be opened at Na­pa and Sapa from 8 am to 6 pm. A book of con­do­lence will al­so be opened at the fol­low­ing lo­ca­tions:

�2 Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion

�2 Rio Claro/Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion

�2 Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion

�2 Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and

�2 To­ba­go at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture.

Night­ly wakes at

Sumadh Gar­dens

Hazel Man­ning, wife of Patrick Man­ning, has in­vit­ed re­li­gious bod­ies and mem­bers of the pub­lic to their Sumadh Gar­dens home to pay their re­spects dur­ing night­ly wakes lead­ing up to the fu­ner­al on Sat­ur­day.