The world, and more notably the Caribbean, will remember Mr Patrick Manning the former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago who died recently as a dedicated regionalist who did more than his fair share to improve the lives of the people of his country and help his Caricom neighbours.

Indeed, a fitting eulogy to Mr Manning was delivered at his State funeral yesterday by Dr Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Mr Manning, he said, died with his honour intact, his character unblemished, and his life’s work meritorious and rightly celebrated.

That celebration of Mr Manning’s life would not be complete if it neglected what former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson described as the sound tenets that guided Mr Manning’s regional and international outlook. Those tenets, Mr Patterson pointed out, were “the imperative of action in unity, the unique quality of our cultural heritage, and the inherent worth of promoting our common humanity”.

Born in August 1946 in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, Mr Manning, after graduating from the University of the West Indies, Mona, with a degree in geology, plunged almost immediately into politics in his homeland.

He was first elected to Parliament in 1971, when he was in his 20s, and in 1987 became leader of the People’s National Movement.

After the 1986 general election he was one of only three Opposition Members of Parliament and was tasked with the strenuous job of rebuilding the party founded by Dr Eric Williams.

He served three terms as prime minister totalling almost 14 years. Most notably, Mr Manning presided over an economy in which there was growth without the budget deficits that frequently occur in oil/gas-rich developing countries.

It was during his stewardship that free education was introduced. Additionally, his times in office saw Trinidad and Tobago being a source of financial aid to Caribbean Community countries, especially Guyana and St Vincent, and he ensured that the financial contribution of Trinidad and Tobago to regional institutions was always paid in full and on time, an example often lost on some Caricom members.

Throughout his many years in public service, Mr Manning showed no appetite for material aggrandisement. Indeed, if there was something that drove him apart from politics it was his zeal for a fundamentalist perspective of Christianity.

But in spite of this fixation, he showed a genuine tolerance for differences in personalities, ethnicity, colour, class, and religion in public policy.

With his passing, Trinidad and Tobago will certainly miss a patriot, and the Caribbean a true regionalist.