For the PEN’s 50th year, PEN founder F. Sionil Jose requested some members to reminisce on the 50s, and my brief talk follows:
We Manila Chronicle staffers of the 50s were, pardon the cliché, one big happy family. Close camaraderie made us brothers and sisters under one roof. Now and then, Big Brother Ernie del Rosario, our editor-in-chief, would announce “Bangao! Bangao!” This meant an impromptu salo-salo. Editors would fork out P10 each; the rest, a peso each. Copy boys would be sent to the nearest Chinese eatery for the food which would be laid out on desks joined together and covered with banana leaves which magically appeared from nowhere.
The Chronicle then swarmed with characters. Managing editor Anacleto Benavides would have been perfectly happy living in an igloo. We would be shivering on cold December mornings made colder still by the air conditioners. Yet Ben’s electric fan would be running full blast while he was conducting a Beethoven symphony over his radio.
Besides being a music buff, Ben, a graduate of veterinary science, was a recognized authority on baseball. One of Ben’s delightful eccentricities was typing out his joke for the day. Here are a few of Ben’s jokes on me: Baby is so modest, she closes her eyes when somebody starts telling the naked truth. / Baby is so modest, she pulls down the shades when she changes her mind./Baby is so modest, she can’t face bare facts./Baby is so modest, she won’t dress a chicken. The joke I like best, however, was on a bungling reporter… Why is he like a young flower? Because he is a blooming idiot.
The “Baby” jokes bring to mind another character, Percival Picardo. He belonged to a group whose members would dive into the ocean to retrieve treasures from sunken ships. To this day, I don’t know if Percy discovered any treasure. To this day, likewise, I don’t know what Percy wrote for the Chronicle. But daily, he would ask me: “Baby, are you still in love with me?” I would reply: “Yes, madly. Desperately. Passionately.”
Another humorist, Celso Cabrera, twitted politicians in his Sunday column “Inside Malacañang”. But he was never sued for libel because he would write, “A certain official who looks like Speaker Amang Rodriguez, said this and that.” Although Celso laced his reports with humor, he was a thorough-going nationalist who held up to ridicule the misconduct of our leaders. Once, after eavesdropping on a closed-door session in Malacañang, he shocked readers by quoting Senate President Jose Avelino who said, “Porque estamos en el poder?” (What are we in power for?) Incidentally, to this day, trapos know what they are in power for.
Our publisher Don Eugenio Lopez was a supreme nationalist, and many editorials reflected his stand on national issues. By the way, despite Don Eugenio’s immense wealth and influence, he was the most approachable man in the Chronicle. All one had to do to see him was to call up his secretary Susan, and in a few minutes, Susan would call back and say, “You may now see him.” Little wonder that later, at the National Press Club elections, we would all vote for the same candidates, following only too gladly the dictate from upstairs without question, like obedient children of an all-knowing father. We were indeed one happy, united family.
To my mind, the dominant figure was I.P. Soliongco the most erudite and literate Chronicler. His background encompassed literature, philosophy, history, music, the visual arts, economics, jurisprudence, international law and, of course politics. His daily columns and weekly book reviews attested to this. Like Don Eugenio, he was intensely nationalistic and unwaveringly placed the country’s interest above everything else. He often told me: “When the annals of Philippine journalism will have been finally written, the Manila Chronicle will occupy a distinct place for its uncompromising nationalism.”