Orlando C. Sanchez and Johnny Bitang Sr.

“Take care of all your memories… for you can’t relive them.”
—Bob Dylan, “Open the Door, Homer,” from “The Basement Tapes” [1975]

Orlando C. Sanchez and Johnny Bitang Sr. were my colleagues in The Freeman and Sun.Star. As their editor, I had worked closely with them, when the going was tough and journalism was both arduous and fun and better things were still to come. Mitch Albom wrote in “For One More Day” [2006] that “sharing tales of those we’ve lost is how we keep from really losing them.” Even better, tell the stories, share those memories before the mind closes its doors. Continue Reading

Wrong ‘mayor’

The host of a radio station’s night talk show contacted by phone a reporter of its sister TV station. The reporter was then in Dumaguete City to pursue the story on the killing of lawyer Noel Archival. Archival was returning from a court hearing in Dumaguete when his vehicle was ambushed by armed men in Dalaguete, Cebu.

After getting an update from the reporter, who said “Mayor” was with him, the host asked that the mayor be put on the line.

For 30 minutes or so, the two talked about the incident, with the host believing it was the Dumaguete mayor he was interviewing. Continue Reading

Ecleo, no!

Told about a planned police operation against fugitive Ruben Ecleo Jr. who faces two arrest warrants, a news editor asked the chief photographer to assign a photographer to accompany a reporter who’d cover it.

Ecleo, supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association and former congressman, was convicted in the murder of his wife Alona Bacolod-Ecleo and on two counts of corruption. Ten years earlier, on his first arrest, a gunfight claimed 20 lives when police descended on his hometown in Dinagat Island, Surigao.

The photo chief asked the photographer if he’d cover the planned new raid. He refused so the chief turned to other photographers. Continue Reading

Beauty under fire

Years before Ryan Borinaga became entertainment editor of Banat News, he was a hard-news reporter covering police and military.

Gay and proud, Ryan wants to look his loveliest when he steps out. Before going to bed, he is fastidious in his beauty routine.

One night, he was about to doze off when his newsroom alerted him about a fire that struck the old high school building of University of Cebu along Sanciangko St., Cebu City.

He jumped out of bed and, with a bag that contained notebook, pen and recorder, he rushed to join other reporters at the fire scene.

And they stared and stared at him as he went about his work.

Back in the boarding house, he knew why he grabbed their attention: his face was still covered with the white bleaching cream he had put on before going to bed. Continue Reading

Most guidelines of newspapers and broadcast stations include the reminder to wear one’s press ID “and other visible insignia.”

That’s more useful in crisis situations such as protests, riots, and the like to tell clashing groups that one is a journalist and not a participant in the conflict.

Not all the time though.

During a standoff in Bogo, Cebu, still a municipality at the time, when supporters of the mayor prevented Commission on Elections officials and the police from taking ballot boxes containing election returns from the town hall, thugs pounced on Alex Badayos, Sun.Star Cebu chief photographer. Continue Reading

Those were the days when broadcast stations had no reporters and relied on the newspapers for their local news.

One morning, S.D. Tecson, handling the morning prime news slot of dyRC, marked stories on a copy of “Republic Daily” (fetched by a messenger from the paper’s office and printing plant along Colon, near D. Jakosalem St.). He numbered the stories in the order in which he would read them. Continue Reading