Dr. Romeo M. Zarco, a microbiologist specializing in blood coagulation who led a division of Miami-based heart pacemaker pioneer Cordis Corp., died on Friday. He was 88 and suffered from Parkinson's disease.

Born in the Philippines, Zarco treated starving patients at a bombed-out Manila hospital during World War II -- and buried some of the dead himself.

After settling in Miami, he co-founded the Filipino-American Association of Florida, a social/cultural organization based in Weston. He lived in Pinecrest, near The Falls.

``He was very active in the association,'' said daughter Cynthia Zarco, of Miami Beach. ``He was like the godfather of all the Filipino nurses and doctors in Miami.''

After graduating from medical school in his home country, Zarco earned a master's degree at Baltimore's famed Johns Hopkins University. In 1960, he became the first Filipino awarded a U.S. Public Health Service postdoctoral fellowship, then joined the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, in Miami at the time.

While researching coagulation in organ transplants, Zarco collaborated with scientists at Cordis Research, a subsidiary of Cordis Corp., now a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary.

He joined Cordis Research in 1967, retiring as its president in 1986. He also taught at the University of Miami's medical school.

``Romy,'' as friends called him, was brought into the company by its head immunologist, recalls William P. Murphy, Cordis' founder.

As the company developed implantable devices like pacemakers and stents, ``we needed to know how the materials we were using affected the human body,'' Murphy said. Zarco ran a lab where scientists did just that.

``He was very focused on his work and did it with real serious concentration.''

Even as Zarco rose in the company, ``you couldn't keep him out of the lab. . . . He was very self-disciplined and very wise,'' Murphy said.

Romeo Morales Zarco came from a well-off family in Caloocan, Philippines. His paternal grandfather named him for Shakespeare's tragic hero. His father was a school principal and railway operations manager.

Playing on a tennis court at the family's home, Zarco became good enough to letter at the University of the Philippines. He remained an avid player into old age.

Because it was ``playable 30 minutes after a tropical downpour,'' the home court attracted nationally top-ranked players, Zarco wrote in a 2005 memoir.

He enrolled at the university's medical school in 1938, and writes about working day and night during Japanese bombing raids on Manila. He watched the Japanese invade the city on Dec. 28, 1941.

``Only the sound of shuffling boots, squeaky bicycles and the drone of Jeep-like vehicles accompanied the weary Japanese foot soldiers as they walked down the street,'' he wrote. ``No words were uttered on either side. No emotions shown. Only silent tears and sadness filled the night . . .''

He noted that during the Japanese occupation, ``all the colleges were closed. University officials, however, obtained permission . . . to keep open the UP medical campus on Herran Street in Manila,'' in addition to the dental and pharmaceutical colleges.

Graduation on May 1, 1943, was ``no place for pomp and circumstance during the Japanese Occupation,'' he wrote. He married nurse Soledad Arcenas in 1948, after the war ended.

Zarco practiced medicine and taught at his alma mater before leaving for Johns Hopkins in the mid-1950s.

The family moved permanently to Miami in 1964. Zarco became a U.S. citizen in 1975.

Although her father ``never stopped working,'' he was an accomplished carpenter who built furniture and designed a laboratory, his daughter said.

A garage-workshop tinkerer, ``he was like a mad scientist. . . . Even in his lift chair, he was always trying to come up with a better way to hang his remote.''

Zarco is survived by his wife, daughter Cynthia, son David, daughter Sylvia and siblings Ricardo and Pura.

A viewing will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, at Stanfill Funeral Home, 10545 S. Dixie Hwy., Pinecrest. A funeral follows at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Old Cutler Presbyterian Church, 14401 Old Cutler Rd., Palmetto Bay.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Dr. Romeo M. Zarco Scholarship Program Fund of the Filipino-American Association of Florida. Visit filamfl.webs.com or Vitas Hospice Charitable Fund: vitascharityfund.org.