Joker earned sobriquets in his storied life. The Great Dissenter. The Maverick. The Defender. He was even called The Scrooge for his economical use of office funds.

But there was one area he didn’t scrimp on. And that was offering his sharp legal mind, for free, to those who need it most but can afford it least. If he had a good heart, it was because his favorite form of exercise was to bend down and pull someone out of the gutter.

Which he did when he was still Citizen Joker. When he arrived at the Senate, he already had a life’s worth of achievements, great victories he won without wearing the mantle of parliamentary immunity. This country owes much of its freedom to him, as do hundreds whose liberty he secured.

Joker was an incorrigible fiscalizer. He loved to tilt the windmills and tussle with the powerful. He was a solitary gunfighter, drawing strength from the righteousness of his crusade, never taking comfort in the number of people who share his belief.

Joker Arroyo was a patriot first class. Having walked in his shadows, I will always remember him as the boy in the fable who had the courage and the candor, who never failed and never tired, to shout that the emperor was wearing no clothes.

In our next Wednesday Group dinner, we will raise a glass to you.