Press freedom is in the heart

CEBU CITY – The subject I hate most discussing is "freedom of the press." You don’t talk about it. A journalist simply has to remember that freedom carries along with it the burden of responsibility. If ever we should lose our freedom, as we did in September 1972, then we must fight to regain it. That’s all.

Yet, I was grateful for the opportunity to talk about it to a group of editors, journalists and hopeful young journalism students yesterday in the Fernan-Cebu Press center (a building erected thanks to an endowment by one of Cebu’s most distinguished sons, the late Chief Justice and Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan – after whom the second bridge from Mactan to Cebu island via Mandaue is also named).

My co-speaker in a forum to commemorate the 11th Cebu Press Freedom week was Press Secretary for Mass Media, Cerge Remonde, five times president of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas ((KBP) before he joined the GMA government and was ultimately elevated to Cabinet level.

Cerge was one of the up-and-coming young, energetic radio broadcasters from Station DYLA, the "labor" channel, when I first met him many years ago, the virtual "poor boy" from Argao, Cebu, who fought his way up to success.

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Another great Cebuano journalist I must salute is our STAR Cebu Bureau Chief Valeriano "Bobit" Avila. Twenty years ago, when I met Bobit, he was the wealthy owner of several moviehouses and other enterprises, engrossed in business and sports – for instance golf, and motorcycle "adventuring." I challenged him to become a journalist so he could better serve to actively "push" his city and province to aspire to become "the next Singapore."

Bobit took up this gauntlet and eventually became our newspaper’s bureau chief. As for Cebu, it grew by leaps and bounds to become the Queen City of the South, in reality, not just in name. Looking at glittering Cebu today – with another jewel of a hotel, the Hilton, added to its "offerings" is to realize that the once laid-back, sleepy "town", a city older than Manila but half-asleep, resting on the laurels of its "history" has been transformed into a dynamo of business, commerce – and entertainment.

Last August 21, Bobit Avila received the 12th Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Award (CAMMA) for "Best Talk Show" in the television category. (It’s the equivalent of the Catholic Mass Media Awards in Manila). Avila’s TV show, Straight From the Sky has been on the air here – seen all over the Visayas and Northern Mindanao – for the past five years and is still going strong. His advantage is that it’s aired from Cebu. While all talk shows emanating from Metro Manila are shown late in the evening, his show appears on prime time here, on SkyCable, at 8 p.m. every Monday, with replays on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Among Bobit’s scoops which led to his show’s popularity was a one-hour television talk with Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. (another Cebuano, by the way) at the height of the failed attempt to impeach him. The mainstream networks had failed to get Davide to speak on the air, but Avila convinced him to speak out on his Straight show. He cornered GMA on one of her sorties, and got a full hour interview with her – the first full TV interview cadged by a non-Manila journalist.

Avila says his show is more "development-oriented", underscoring the good news rather than the "bad news" of which mainstream television is full enough. Good for you, Bobit!

Sometimes, in our pessimistic and dakdak society, we need what one British editor friend of mine tagged, "the journalism of hope."

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Incidentally, the 12th CAMMA Awards held in the Cebu Catholic Television Network (CCTN Chapel), was a near sweep for our sister publication, "The Freeman", now being run by STAR President and CEO Miguel G. Belmonte – who commutes between Manila and Cebu – together with Editor-in-Chief Jerry S. Tundag (who was with us yesterday). "The Freeman", whose motto on the masthead is "Free and Fearless" – Cebu’s most combative newspaper since the year 1919 – got the award for "Best Editorial", written by Jerry Tundag. It also bagged first for "Best Editorial Cartoon", sketched by Ramesh Rosillo, and "Best Column" by Fr. Roy Cimagala.

We’re proud of our connection with "The Freeman", and Miguel reported yesterday we will be constructing a new building and installing presses for the daily newspaper – the blueprint is in the process of being firmed up.

What more is there to say about our Forum yesterday? It was interesting and the Open Forum had been lively. Once more with feeling, let me say that "freedom" and journalistic integrity and courage can never be discussed. It must be lived. Or died for. "The Freeman" has already lost two of its journalists to murderers. One was gunned down a few months ago. The other was Leo Enriquez (whom I wrongly identified in an earlier column as having worked for the SunStar, another daily). The truth is that Enriquez was a two-fisted columnist of "The Freeman" who fearlessly assailed the Communist New People’s Army for its depredations in Cebu and the Visayas. In 1988, shortly after this writer had sworn him and other officers of the Cebu "National Press Club" into office (he was vice-president) he was gunned down on his way to office from his home in Mandaue.

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Cebu is truly one of the bastions of our liberty. It was not in EDSA at the People Power "barricades" in February 1986 that the move to topple the Marcos Martial Law regime began.

In December 1985 and January 1986, Cebuanos were already holding militant "Freedom Marches" led by brave Cebuanos like Inday Nita Daluz, our friend Doding Holganza, and many others. I used to fly down to Cebu to join hands with them. It was their fire and fervor in defiance of the dictator Marcos and his military goons that put us Metro Manilans to shame.

In the defense of freedom, Cebu has always been in the forefront. Even during World War II, the Cebu Area Command under the late Col. Jim Cushing which was one of our most active and successful guerrilla movements (The late Senator Landring Almendras was one of Jim Cushing’s guerrilla battalion commanders). It’s a pity that the story of the Cushing guerrilla army hasn’t been fully told.

The late Jim, alas, took heavily to drink after the war. He told me many yarns about his "boys" and their exploits during the war – which were tremendous. He learned to fight barefoot, Jim recalled, and live on dried corn, because his "soldiers" were barefoot and corn-fed. "They were the best!" He declared.

Jim wanted me to write his biography. Sadly, he got tired of waiting for me to write the book. One day, he showed up at my home in Paco and asked for his diary and notes back because, he said, he had found another "writer." I was leaving for Europe the next day, so I reluctantly gave my friend back his notes. He was headed back to the Visayas on an inter-island boat when, I read in a London newspaper a week later, the "hero" succumbed to a heart attack. Jim will be to me – always – a hero, who fought with a pure heart and loved our country.

The irony of it all is that two months later I got a telegram from a Director I knew in Hollywood. It said: "Quick, quick, Max. We need a script on the life and guerrilla exploits of Col. Jim Cushing. We hope to do a blockbuster on him."

Too late. Hollywood could never have made Jim a hero – he already was – but that movie would have made him famous, and his Cebuano fighters, too, as they richly deserved.