Remembering Sir Max Soliven!

If he were alive today, the late Philippine STAR publisher Maximo Villaflor “Max” Soliven would be 83 years old today. It’s been six years since he has passed to eternal life… yet not a day passes that I don’t think about Sir Max. Usually at this time, I would go to Manila to celebrate his natal day.

Whenever I’m in Manila, Sir Max and I would walk around the entire Glorietta searching for a good book or simply having coffee and talking about life and current issues. Sir Babes Romualdez would join us or Sir Arthur Lopez or we would be in his house talking about history, depicted in his great collection of airplanes, tanks, ships in miniature figurines of dioramas. I’m sure, Dondon, the driver of Sir Max still remembers those years. So if I don’t come to Manila as often as I used to, it is because Sir Max is no longer around… and I would always have the feeling of emptiness.

I first met Sir Max when he was the speaker of our Rotary Club sometime in 1984. I knew him because he was my late father’s No. 1 columnist. But it was during his next visit that I really got to know him when the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (CCCI), where I was then VP external, invited him over to Cebu. As I was his assigned driver, I will never forget the day that I picked up Sir Max at the old Mactan Airport and went to the tarmac to meet him… on his right hand were a bunch of yellow and blue newspapers (he was lugging alone around 8 copies) and it was quite a surprise… it was The Philippine STAR… not the Inquirer!

When he got inside the car… he then gave me the story of why he, Mrs. Betty Go-Belmonte, Art Borjal, and Louie Beltran left the Inquirer and opened up a new newspaper. Here was a fellow whom I hardly knew, pouring his grievances on their management squabble inside the Inquirer, mentioning people I didn’t know… and he talked as if I had knowledge of their internal rift. But being a Soliven fan… I told him that we read him when he was with Mr. & Ms. Magazine and we followed him when he was with the Inquirer (I think the Inquirer was around two years old at that time) and now that he was publisher of the Philippine STAR… we’d still follow his columns.

After his speech we sat down for lunch with the officers of the Cebu Chamber, and during our conversations Sir Max asked us how he was perceived in Cebu. The guys pointed to me for my comments and I was blunt enough to say that he was received very well in Cebu, except that whenever he wrote issues about Cebu… it is usually 3rd hand information… and far from the truth. Then there was silence… you could hear a pin drop. Then Sir Max looked at me and said,…”You are absolutely right! I cannot always verify my reports about Cebu… this is why I need someone here.” Once again everyone pointed all their fingers at me.

It was to be the beginning of a 20-year friendship with Sir Max Soliven, who turned me into a journalist. Back then, I told him that I never wrote any essay in High School nor in College… and he look at this as a challenge just like Henry Higgins being challenged to turn a simple flower girl into a princess in that Broadway musical “My Fair Lady.”

Sir Max was responsible for the title of my column in The Freeman, “Shooting Straight” and when he asked me to write for The Philippine STAR, he put me under the title of “Inside Cebu” in the Good News section. When the Star Group of Companies got The Freeman, Sir Miguel Belmonte asked me to use “Shooting Straight” instead of Inside Cebu.

All this because I believe that the Lord brought Max Soliven and me together and perhaps for God’s purpose. Early on when I showed Sir Max a black and white photo of my late father Jesus Avila together with the late President Ramon Magsaysay Jr., Sir Max would say, “Pres. Monching was ninong of our wedding with Precious.” Sir Max said that we came together for a purpose, because Pres. Magsaysay had an unfinished business after he died in a crash, which is to fight against the evils of communism.

Indeed, the Communists reemerged when then Pres. Cory Aquino released Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Chairman Jose Maria Sison without any conditions… something that irked Sir Max. Today, the Communists are gaining strength. Their allied front organizations are well placed inside the Aquino government and a lot more with the Party-list system. We are being cooked in our own lard if we don’t watch out.

It’s already September where the Cebu media celebrates our Cebu Press Freedom Week on Sept. 16. A year before he died, Sir Max was in Cebu for his birthday and I had my TV interview with him. He really talked about how our precious freedom of speech was snatched away by Martial Law. It was for this reason why Sir Max always respected the views of other journalists, saying, “You don’t know how important press freedom is, until you lose it.” This is one prayer I make to Sir Max, never to lose our freedoms. 

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