YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
10/13-15/2011
Since I am a DEADLINE writer, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to choose the appropriate time, when to sit down and write my column for the respective Regular and Lite editions of OpinYon.
When I wrote my Monday – Wednesday, Oct. 10 - 12, OpinYon Regular column, I chose to center on what was my then upcoming Birthday, on Wednesday, Oct. 12, and include a few things that preceded it in my 63 years of life since my birth in 1948.
That would have been more appropriate for this end of the week Lite edition.
However, my birthday would have been in the past tense by now.
Wrong Timing
Also, since I was just getting out of my absence for two issues, I did not have the energy and momentum for a hard hitting serious topic when I wrote it last Thursday.
I had no choice but to go Lite on a Monday.
Now, as I write this supposed Lite column, I’m caught in the wrong timing.
However, I cannot just take a siesta first, and wait for the world to change while I sleep.
If I did, nothing would have changed except that I would be past my deadline by a few more hours.
I would have just made life more anxious and difficult for my editors and Publisher.
Never to Strike Twice
Talking about editors, I thought that there is such a thing that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Well, it just did to me. In the same week that I was recuperating and reenergizing from my Sept. 30 and Oct. 3 Diaryo Pinoy and Oct. 3 – 5 and 6 – 8 OpinYon absences, I lost both of my editors in two different and separate newspapers.
Diaryo Pinoy was re launched in April by former Congressman Jing Paras. He had a little help from Rey Briones, former Congressman Prospero Pichay and Boxing Champion and Congressman Manny Pacquiao. He had big help from our first editor, Susan Cambri.
Diaryo Pinoy was a six times a week tabloid. We did not have a Saturday edition.
Change in 'Dyaryo'
We all went through the experience of transferring editorial offices from the National Press Club building on Magallanes Drive to the the BF Condominium building in Intramuros.
We changed printing presses at least twice.
We failed to come out at least once because of these changes.
Then, last week, Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, Susan edited her last issue of Diaryo Pinoy.
The next day, I received a text message from Toto Fetalino asking me to send my column to another Email address aside from the old one.
The text did not mention anything about a change or changes in the editorial staffing.
I did not give any special meaning to the fact that my column “Kung Bakit Ako Nawala” came out on Thursday rather than Friday, which was my regular day.
I had submitted my column a night earlier (Tuesday rather than Wednesday.) than usual.
Our deadline is the day before.
Susan, No More
However, since I go to Kapihans every morning from Sunday to Saturday, I have to and prefer to write and submit my column two nights before the issue hits the newsstands or half a day before the official deadline.
It had happened before that when I submitted my column a night earlier, it was also used a day earlier because one of the scheduled columnists failed to submit on time.
However, since I was having a tough time writing four columns on four consecutive days and nights (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday), I decided to request my Diaryo Pinoy editor, Susan, for a change in my column schedules from Monday and Friday to Tuesday and Thursdays.
This would also make my pick-up and delivery and distribution of complimentary copies more efficient and rationale.
And so last Friday night I called Susan. That was the first time that I found out that Susan was no more…
New Contact
I was shocked and anxious.
I had texted my excuses when I could not write and submit my column only to Susan via my and her Smart and Sun cell phones.
Unlike in the case of my excuses to OpinYon which I sent in via text and Email, I had not Emailed to Diaryo Pinoy.
Also, I did not know which Email addresses belonged to the paper and which personally belonged to the editors concerned.
And so, I burned the air waves to my new text mate, Toto Fetalino, to clarify everything,
Well, all was well that ended well for me and Diaryo Pinoy. Not so for Susan who is now, I hope temporarily, jobless. It pains when one loses part of the family …
OpinYon Acting Editor
Earlier, I was even more shocked when I found out last Friday afternoon that Alex Allan was gone too …
In an acting capacity, Alex was like our fourth editor.
Our first was Information Technology expert and former Mayor and present VP Jejomar Binay’s and PCSO’s consultant, Ike Seneres. He edited OpinYon issues # 1 up to about # 17.
In the beginning when we were new, small and unknown, we made use of his identity and personality to help us along.
In an interim capacity, next came Al Labita. He was sickly enough to start with. Then, his home in San Pedro burned down and he got hurt further.
One Big Family
Then, came Luchie Arguelles (who is abroad, on her annual vacation, as of this writing. She will be back in two week's time.)
At first, I did not notice her too much, because at our first office in a three-storey townhouse on Finlandia Street on the western side of the PNR tracks, there were several, maybe four, private rooms.
Ray had one to himself. Luchie shared another one with a couple of our staffers.
When we transferred to the lower ground floor of Cityland building on De la Rosa Street on the eastern side of the PNR tracks, editorial was in just one common room with most of the other sections.
We have another office on the third floor for marketing.
However, Publisher Ray prefers to stay in the lower ground floor.
We all became closer to each other as in one big family.
The Launch
This was also the time leading up to our first anniversary and the launch of our Lite edition on August 22.
Our Publisher, Ray Junia, let our editor, Luchie Arguelles, take the reins not only of OpinYon Regular, but also the multiple reins of the preparations for our First Anniversary Celebration and the Launch of OpinYon Lite.
However, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Hearings on the PCSO (starting July 6), the death of our eldest brother, Mano, on Sunday, July 24, the resignation of former Senator Juan Miguel “Migs” Zubiri on August 3.
And the proclamation of Atty. Koko Pimentel as Senator, distracted me.
New Editor Gone
I did not notice too much when Alex Allan joined us and became our Associate Editor.
However, for the past month or so, I was able to get back to my schedule of dropping by the office and perhaps having lunch with our publisher, editors and staff.
Since I had known Alex Allan when he was a Defense reporter and I was the National Telecommunications Commission Commissioner, it was easy for me to re-establish friendship and rapport with him.
Maning Yap Gone, too
Then this morning, I found out from fellow columnist Ka Mentong that Professor Dr. Maning Yap had died and had been buried without our finding out on time.
According to Pastor "Boy" Saycon, Maning's compatriot in the People's Patriotic Movement, he died at the age of 79 on Monday, Sept. 26.
At 6 pm, last night, Wednesday, Oct. 12, the PPM and COPA celebrated a Memorial Mass and Eulogy at the Bonifacio Ridge Condominium, 1st Street, Ft. Bonifacio.
