YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
10/20-22/2011
Back to the Salt Mines from Dreamland and Sugarlandia.That is how I felt a week ago after a week each of Dreamland and Sugarlandia. Since we launched OpinYon Lite on Monday, August 22, up to the weekend of September 24 – 25, writing four columns a week started to feel like working in the proverbial salt mines.
Something had to give and it did. After our editor Luchie Arguelles left for the USA, I failed to write and submit my columns for both the Regular and Lite editions of OpinYon, as well as my Friday (Sept 30) and Monday (Oct 2) columns for Diaryo Pinoy. In all my absences, I did excuse myself, although a bit late in the game.
Since my vehicles are either out of service or coded on Thursdays, I used to have an enforced stay at home period from 3 – 7 pm on Thursdays. This gave me more time to write. It suited me in relation to our old deadline during the time when all we had was the once a week regular OpinYon. Our official deadline then, was Wednesday. Our actual deadline was Thursday. If you missed both the official and actual deadlines but still wanted to come out in the following Monday to Sunday edition or issue, you had to submit by Friday or at the very, very latest, Saturday morning before our editor woke up.
With the advent of our OpinYon Lite, I knew that I would have a difficult time meeting deadlines. I wanted to write for OpinYon Lite because I felt that it was a challenge to be able to write two very different kinds of columns. Never mind the fact that sometimes you cannot match your mood to the upcoming deadline. It has happened that I wrote a lighter column for the Regular edition and a heavier column for the Lite edition.
I thought of giving up one of my two Pilipino columns for Diaryo Pinoy. However, I did not want to lose my Complimentary copies. My friends in media and in our daily kapihans would miss the copies that they religiously get from me. Moreso, I pitied the traffic aides, security guards, watch your car boys and waiters who would miss receiving a second weekly copy from me.
And so, I continued my pace. My four deadlines were bunched up together on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. My Sunday to Tuesday nights, were my rest nights from writing. My Monday nights were reserved for our Couples for Christ (CFC) Household prayer meetings. We had reduced our frequency of meetings from once a week to every other week. However, lately, we have tended to reschedule our meetings from Mondays to Wednesdays. Then, my Thursday afternoons and early evenings got filled up with a series of meetings for a whole month.
It soon became the rule rather than the exception that I got to submit my Regular columns two days late on Saturdays rather than Thursdays. In like manner, I was submitting my Lite column later and later, until Sunday evening.. Whenever I was running late, I would text or call Luchie to advise that I was not yet finished and would submit late. I would wish that she would just tell me that it was too late and that my column could no longer be included in the next issue. But no matter how late it was, my column could still be accommodated. When your publisher, editors and colleagues are so good to you, you cannot quit, no matter what.
Then, the week after Luchie left for the USA, it all piled up. I gave up. I called or texted my editors to advise them that I was too sick to finish my columns and submit them. I was beset with some kind of computer sickness. My eyes, my back, my upper legs, my lower legs, virtually everything ached. My editors absolved me and wished for me to get well soonest.
As soon as I got well physically, I started to write again. However, I could not think fast enough. I could not easily get my hands on the difficult, serious and tough subjects. I had to go through a warm up period before I could be my old self again.
And that is the rub. Could I be my old self ever again. The iron had turned cold. If it can be said that Years mellow a person, a year of writing had mellowed my writing. In my Regular column last week, I devoted just two paragraphs to criticizing P Noy:
“While we were taking a well-deserved though enforced break and rest, P Noy was going bananas. The island of Luzon was struck by two typhoons – Pedring and Quiel. P Noy had just flexed his tourist muscles. First, he went to the USA. There he succeeded in not having a hot dog, pizza or play station photo op. Just back from his transpacific sojourn, P Noy went to Japan. There, he donated a million dollars for the victims of the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami.
“When he came home, P Noy disappeared from view. Maybe, like Linggoy, he got exhausted from his travels and took a break. However, Linggoy only has to answer to his Publisher and Editor. P Noy has almost a hundred million bosses. Several millions of them were in distress due to the floodwaters caused by Pedring, Quiel and the monsoons. They were waiting for P Noy or at the very least, his relief goods and rescue efforts. P Noy is the President. Linggoy is only Linggoy.” (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Linggoy Alcuaz, OpinYon Regular, Isyu # 13, October 10 – 12).
I now realize that I am doing what I predicted a month ago:
“Observing the time, space and prominence, or lack of the above, given by both broadcast and print media to the topic, I tried to reflect, analyse and conclude on the: “Why?” and “How come?” “Manhid na ba ang tao sakapalpakan ni P Noy?” That is it! During the first year of P Noy in office, the people’s expectations of his performance and the trust in him based on his being the son of his parents, Ninoy and Cory, were so high that he had no way to go but down in the approval ratings in so far as performance and trust were concerned.
“However, by the time period (August 20 – September 2) of the Pulse Asia (With a cousin of P Noy, Rafa Sumulong Lopa involved as stockholder and/or officer.) Survey, people had gotten so used to P Noy’s Ka… ’s and kapalpakans that expectations were so low. As far as the majority of people are concerned, that is it. Period. He can’t do much. Let him be. Let us just muddle through till 2016. We can’t help it and we can’t complain. We had no other choice.” (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Linggoy Alcuaz, OpinYon Regular, Isyu # 9, September 19 – 21).
And so, it’s very tough getting out of a vacation, a hangover with Dreamland and Sugarlandia. See you next week.
