Ramy Diez: Still El Bruto

To this day, when we try to count the number of persons we would consider a friend, high up on the list would be Ramy Diez whom we met in the late ’60s when we moved as writer of The Manila Times publishing to become contributor in its TV station ABC-5 where Ramy was station manager. His short stint there gave us invaluable lessons in life we will never forget.

Ramy was both aggressor and dreamer. He took risks like no one else we know. It was during his years at ABC-5 that his inherent gifts bloomed and prospered, as did the station itself and its workers. It was under his term of office that such exceptional shows like Doroy Valencia’s Over a Cup of Coffee, Ninoy Aquino’s Insight, Max Soliven’s Impact and The Big News under Tony Tecson began lording it over all other competitors.

Ramy produced the first TV documentary Rites of Summer about Holy Week practices all over the country which we wrote and Romy Vitug shot; and the first local action thriller Agent 44, the pioneering Filipino drama series Balintataw directed by then Lupita Concio which became the standard by which all drama shows would later be measured, and many other achievements.

To those wondering why Ramy has been known as El Bruto, this is the explanation: Ramy had another life apart from broadcasting which was motorsports. Ramy says it was a moniker given by the French wife of Pocholo Ramirez, an active member of the team, presumably due to his performance on the track. Whatever it was, the name stuck since it absolutely fitted Ramy.

Despite this love for dangerous sports, Ramy remembers only one vehicular accident in Davao where he rammed his VW Kombi into a parked gasoline tanker loaded with 20,000 liters of gasoline, but came through unscathed. He had also never been sick a day in his life until 1984 and his bout with the Coronary Artery Disease and recently an Aortic Valve replacement. After leaving TV-5, and after Martial Law when the station never reopened, we would hear of Ramy’s involvements with the first commercial satellite broadcast when no one knew how it could be done, the historic extrapolation of election results, being part of the Thrilla in Manila monumental 1975 boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, rebuilding two languishing networks, and successfully covering the Presidential Trip of Marcos to China at a time when China was a closed society.

It was this confidence, this derring-do that we felt was Ramy’s most important legacy to us. His bout with Coronary Artery Disease at age 47 made him aware of the fragility of life. He quit smoking, started eating healthy food, became a golfer in 1998, became a marathon runner, turned down car racing activities,   joined the Philippine Heart Association, and produced HeartWatch, an advocacy program on Cardio-Vascular disease prevention.

He doesn’t believe in retirement. “I still have a couple of interesting consultancies, I will work for as long as I am mentally and physically capable. I hate to vegetate. I am easy to please now, unlike before. But I still have no patience for people who make the same mistakes over and over again, I am angry at graft and corruption in this country and the hypocrisy of the thieves both in government and the private sector.”

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