A hobby becomes an obsession

How two successful PR and advertising practitioners who had been in the business for more than 20 years decided to write a book about Philippine chess is a clear example of how a hobby can become an obsession.

The two authors, Tony Benedicto and Frankie Lacambra, relate how, from chess enthusiasts playing skittles on Sunday, they ended up writing a book.

The book, "The Philippines vs. The World," is now available from Context Communications, Inc., phone number 727-52-51, e-mail address [email protected].

The project began to jell when the two started writing a chess column and later a sports column for a leading metro daily and a weekly magazine.

After being at it for more than five years, the two realized that every time they wrote about the exploits of Filipino chess players in some of the world’s most prestigious tournaments, they were actually recalling a milestone or a great moment in Philippine chess.

Tony and Frankie wanted a book that would serve as an inspiration to the present and future generation of chess players, particularly those eager to make a career out of professional chess.

But the desire to produce a book may have started much earlier, as early as when Benedicto, along with FIDE honorary president Florencio Campomanes, formulated the First Pepsi High School Championship for one of the former’s PR clients.

The tournament, originally designed as a PR-Marketing promo for Pepsi Cola, attracted some 150,000 participants from 16,000 public and private high schools all over the Philippines.

So successful was the project that it was made mandatory in all Philippine secondary schools by the Ministry of Education and Culture under Minister Juan Manuel and was later adopted as the National Juniors by the Philippine Chess Federation.

From that tournament emerged two of our grandmasters, Joey Antonio and Bong Villamayor, as well as many of our international masters and Asian junior champions.