40 years and counting  

Yesterday marked the 40th year since this column was first published on December 8, 1982. I had just joined The FREEMAN exactly a month earlier as a reporter. I became a journalist by accident nearly two years prior with another paper. It was my editor-in-chief then, Juanito Jabat, who asked me to do a thrice-weekly column, which I still maintain up to this day, four years into my "official" retirement in 2018.

I still remember what Mr. Jabat told me to bolster my confidence when I expressed reluctance in taking on the job: "Jer, columnists do not apply. They are invited." If the highly-respected veteran Mr. Jabat had that much confidence in a just-starting journalist like me, who am I to refuse? And that started me in this "sideline" career path that has now outlasted my main journalistic profession that ended in retirement after 35 years.

This column originally came by another name, "Human Writes", inspired in no small measure by the political atmosphere obtaining in the latter part of the Marcos Sr. years, and in part by John Lennon's collection of scribblings called "In His Own Write", being a huge Beatles fan. The maiden article set for publication on a December 8, feast of the Immaculate Conception, I wrote that had a slightly religious tone.

But this column went into so many other things after that. I must admit it was through this column that I gained the notice that my main career as a journalist --from reporter to editor-in-chief to publisher-- could probably never have given. I made enemies via this column but I also gained even more friends. I have never been sued for libel on account of what I wrote here. And I never won an award either.

I have always refused to submit samples of my work to award-giving bodies, feeling it absurd to be named "best" in an entire given year on the basis of three to five carefully selected "glowing" samples. If I am to be judged fairly, judge me for my entire body of work for an entire year. That way I will be rated in my best moments as well as in my worst. Any writer, after all, has his ups and downs.

There were actually two awards won out of my writing daily editorials for The FREEMAN, but awards for editorials are institutional, not personal, so they go to the paper. No bragging rights behind the anonymity of editorial writing. One award was given by the Philippine Press Institute-Konrad Adenauer Community Press Awards, the other by the Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards.

What I lack in awards, though, is more than made up by what people say behind my back about the way I write, and which eventually find their way to my ears in casual, off-the-cuff moments. But the greatest compliment I ever got was when USA Today published in its opinion pages on October 27, 2015 a portion of my column plus a link to the entire article in The FREEMAN. A friend in Oregon alerted me to it.

I changed this column's name in 1988 after a daughter died of leukemia before reaching the age of two. I stopped writing for a couple of months. For lack of money to pay hospital bills, The FREEMAN had run a fund drive for the purpose. The response was heart-warming. It was also mostly anonymous. As this column had largely been hard-hitting, I did not want to hit those who, despite everything I wrote, may have helped me quietly.

I mentioned at the beginning of this article that it was by accident that I became a journalist. Well, not really. I had always wanted to be one. What was accidental was how I got in at the time that I did. Without any formal background or training, I applied for a proofreading job at the Visayan Herald, hoping to learn my way from there. But managing editor Cerge Remonde, because of propitious circumstances, made me a reporter.