Raul Locsin stories

In life, Business World Publishing Corp. publisher/editor and Ramon Magsaysay awardee Raul Lacson Locsin stood tall.

A favorite story is how Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., then headed by Antonio Cojuangco, early on threatened to pull out its advertising support if the business paper did not retract an unfavorable staff-written story. At that time, losing PLDT advertising was equivalent to losing the business of current big spenders like Globe Telecom or Smart Communications.

Mr. Locsin told Tonyboy Cojuangco’s boys to go ahead.

After three months, PLDT wanted to return as an advertiser – starting the next day. That proposal was politely turned down. Instead, PLDT was told that the earliest the newspaper could accept its business again was in the next quarter.

PLDT waited and – when it was allowed – placed its ads.

Mr. Locsin also liked to tell stories about his early years as a business reporter covering such beats as the Central Bank. His techniques in getting those much coveted exclusives or one-of-a-kind stories even during press conferences are classics. An often-used technique was to go to the presscon ahead of everybody else or leave later than everybody else to interview the man-of-the-moment alone.

Another technique was to ask a question that nobody else but the interviewee understood and preferably one which could be answered by just a yes or a no.

Equally plentiful as Mr. Locsin’s stories about his life as a journalist are the stories about Mr. Locsin’s toys.

He liked European-made cars, which he would drive just slightly slower than he would his beloved Harley Davidson when he would bring some of his sub-editors to monthly lunches. During those lunches, a finishing school of sorts, he would talk about food and wine, quote Shakespeare, and talk about everything from politics to philosophy.

In the middle of closing pages in the afternoon, it is not unusual for a huge remote-controlled red car to whiz by the hallway with Mr. Locsin, his eyes exactly that of a little boy with his first car, a hand at the joystick.

Or, he would sit down beside a truly harassed sub-editor (trying to meet the deadline) and leisurely show Lady Murasaki’s book, "The Tale of Genji", unfolding on a laptop screen – the melancholy words accompanied by computer-generated action – which was still new in the market.

My favorite story about Mr. Locsin happened after the BW building in Balete Drive was completed and plans were being made to move. I told Mr. Locsin I didn’t want to move because there was, well, this little matter of the White Lady that makes an occasional appearance at night.

Mr. Locsin grinned and said there was no such thing. When I persisted and asked him why he was sure, he grinned some more but said nothing for a couple of seconds. Then, he told me a "secret" – it seems he and a couple of other cub reporters had a slow day and invented the White Lady. They had no idea the hoax would spread as truth. Mr. Locsin had that same look on his face when he died last Saturday.