Remember when journalists worked in barong or suits?
December 15, 2002 | 12:00am
The National Press Club’s golden jubilee celebration, culminating with an awards dinner on Dec. 17, recalls to many the fund-raising dinner dance held some 50 years ago at the Manila Hotel for the benefit of the Press Club’s headquarters which was then a-building on Magallanes Drive.
The dinner-dance was called "Remember When?" because its guest list included prestigious pre-World War II editors, such as Salvador P. Lopez, Mauro Mendez, Modesto Farolan and Trinidad Fernandez Legarda, who later became diplomats. Along that theme, a Big Apple dance and an Old-World waltz were performed by newspapermen and women in costume who had painstakingly trained with the dance instructor Rally Calvo.
Being then a 20-year-old reporter of the Manila Chronicle, I was one of the dancers. So was our editorial writer Rosalinda Orosa and the editors of the society section, Virtudes Guinto and Macrina Ilustre. The Philippines Herald’s performers were Sarah Joaquin of the advertising department and Lourdes Henson, society. Also there were columnists Paraluman Aspillera and Lina Espina. The Manila Times was represented by society editor Jovita Rodas (who later married Honolulu Star editor Carl Zimmerman); assistant society editor Guillermina Mendoza, and popular columnist Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, whose husband Angel Nakpil had just designed a five-story glass and concrete building that was to become the home of the Press Club.
Among the newspapermen who agreed to dance for the fund-raising effort were Teodoro Benigno, then reporter-editor with Agence France Presse; Ariel Bocobo, legislative reporter of the Herald; J.V. Cruz, later to become press secretary and ambassador but who was then a columnist of the Chronicle. Another Chronicle volunteer-dancer was the cartoonist Liborio Gatbonton.
The more difficult job of organizing the fund-raising banquet and selling the tickets fell on the shoulders of senior women editors such as Enriqueta David Perez of the Herald (whose son Bobby became an excellent writer as well as a monk); Cita Trinidad of the Times; Josefina Quiambao and Mary Ruff of the Mirror; Carmen Perez of the Bulletin; and Rosario Querol of the Evening News (whose daughter Cherie is now also an editor).
The Manila Hotel was the country’s premier venue in the early 1950s and the NPC’s dinner-dance was held there. Damage to the hotel from the street battles in Manila in 1944-45 had been repaired. The tower building that now stands annexed to it was not yet there, having been added only in the 1960s. Green potted plants decorated the arched doorways of the vestibule and we turned left towards the bayside ballroom, now called the Champagne Room, which quickly filled up with government officials and other friends of the press who had come for the benefit dinner.
The band of the Champagne Room played sweet music while the waiters served the steak dinner to the guests. Both the Gershwin-type music and the steak were "very in" at the time – tofu-salad meals and raucous pop music would not assault the senses for one more generation.
The National Press Club had just been organized as an institution by senior reporters of the robust Philippine newspapers that sprung up in 1945 after the liberation of the Philippines by US Forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Luciano F. Millan, Domingo Abadilla, Celso Cabrera, Eugenio Santos and Teodoro Valencia, Malacañang reporters of the Bulletin, Times, Chronicle, Evening News and Herald, respectively, had informed then President Elpidio Quirino that the national press was being organized. The President had been sympathetic and offered to help by assigning to the Press Club on lease-basis the piece of riverside land near Jones Bridge.
Jose Aspiras, Francisco Dipasupil, Juan Perez Jr., Liberato Marinas and Ernesto Granada, who were covering the legislature, defense and labor for the same major newspapers, assisted in organizing and mobilizing the press. They became the first officers of the new National Press Club. With the exception of Doming Abadilla, who still shares his talents with us, they have passed away and will be granted posthumous honor scrolls by the NPC in celebration of this golden jubilee year.
With no less than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as guest of honor at the awards dinner, over 30 Golden Jubilarian Scrolls will also be awarded to living Filipino journalists who began their careers in print media in the year of the founding of the National Press Club in 1952, or earlier.
"Are we being awarded because we are septuagenarians?" asked Napoleon Rama goodnaturedly. Most of the awardees are in that age bracket indeed, the other criteria being Filipino citizenship, membership in the NPC , no conviction for libel or other crimes, being journalists primarily (not politicians, businessmen, historians or artists), and of course, whether the NPC executive committee was able to reach them.
After execom chair Alice Reyes leads the assembly in prayer and NPC president Louie Logarta delivers the welcome remarks, and with a short intermission by Jose Mari Chan, the Golden Jubilarians will be called on stage to receive their diplomas.
The popular choice among the committee members was for The Philippine STAR publisher Max Soliven to give the response in behalf of his fellow jubilarian journalists. He was chosen among other publisher-editors and columnists because over the last five decades he has symbolized the successful Filipino journalist – from his early days as a columnist of the Chronicle and then the Times, to his refusal to bow to dictatorship leading to his incarceration in Fort Bonifacio, to his successful grappling of difficult conditions in the industry, steering The Philippine STAR as well as Eastgate Publishing towards success, Max Soliven has embodied the vision of a true Filipino newsman.
If the 19th-century ilustrados who led the Propaganda Movement against colonial rule practiced political satire and strong editorial writing, the post-World War II journalists who founded the National Press Club practiced factual, objective journalism. It was a worldwide trend at the time, but its popularity in the Philippines could also have been due to the influence of American and European editors who had returned to the publishing business after the big war. Millan and Valencia had both come under the influence of Carson Taylor and Ford Wilkins, the American publisher and editor-in-chief, respectively, of the Bulletin. Dipasupil and Granada of the Chronicle worked under managing editor Anacleto Benavidez and news editor Luis Mauricio, both of whom learned their excellent English from Thomasites. Santos, Perez and Aspiras likewise learned their journalism values from scholarly editors like D.H. Soriano, Felix Bautista, Alejandro Roces Jr. and Joaquin "Chino" Roces, whose model was no less than the founder of the Roces-Evening News chain, Don Alejandro Roces Sr.
The post-World War II journalists who founded the National Press Club were very professional – in language, in dress and in their commitment to accurate and objective journalism. No cuss-words or porn pictures appeared in the paper; stories which could not be verified as accurate were not used. A talented Ateneo graduate was fired by the Herald after he reported the arrival of a foreign visitor, quoting airport sources. His editors read a wire service dispatch which said the very important person had cancelled his flight to Manila.
To go to their beats, these professional journalists wore long pants with barong tagalog or polo shirt. Women reporters and editors went to their interviews wearing conservative day dresses or pantsuits. They observed delicadeza and did not argue with their interviewees. Only after the 1980s, partly because of the advent of the tape recorder and the competition with broadcast crews, did some reporters shove microphones into the faces of their interviewees and chase around those who did not want to be interviewed.
Corruption of the press was practically unheard of. The publishers-owners of these postwar newspapers fired any editor or reporter who was tainted by rumors of a bribe. While it is true that some of these publishers advocated policies beneficial to their business interests, such policies were reflected only in the editorial pages. The news sections were clean, accurate and fair. Today, regrettably, most publishers-owners ignore reports about corrupt staff members. There are a few hold-out publishers who admirably insist on a clean, professional newspaper.
The professionalism of the immediate postwar press earned the respect of news sources as well as readers. High government officials and foreign diplomats did not hesitate to grant interviews as they were confident of fair rules of the game – no misquotations or malicious interpretations out of context. If an error appeared in the paper, a correction or apology would immediately follow. The postwar press did not allow itself to be used by unnamed sources of malicious tips. In fact, allegations from unnamed sources were edited out by these professional postwar editors, as is the practice until today in prestigious international papers like The New York Times.
In honoring the golden jubilarians of the Philippine press – those who began their journalistic careers in 1952 or earlier – the National Press Club focuses on a most noteworthy era when the Filipino press was honest, accurate and well-respected. Those were indeed glory days for the print media. Remember When?"
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