BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
9/3-4/2011
The latest foray of international gangsterism by the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has caused people from countries that suffered the ruthlessness of modern-day imperialism to reminisce on the positive aspects of the Cold War. Although it was costly because of the unbridled arms race between the US and the then Soviet Union, it significantly produced its own built-in mechanism that prevented the spiraling of the conflict to one of cataclysmic global war.
To the “pacifists,” the arms race was something of a negative legacy. But to the realists, the race for nuclear superiority was seen as a natural deterrent that prevented reckless attempts to engage in incalculable adventurism. From there, the concept of a balance of power evolved to a balance of terror, and out of that looming shadow of nuclear war, a highly demarcated geo-political landscape was carved.
In a world then polarized by two ideologies, the important thing a country could do was to keep itself out of the military alliance. The socialist bloc had their war machine known as the Warsaw Pact, and the capitalist bloc had its NATO while hypocritically pirouetting as the “Free World.” Nonetheless, it was during that period that the so-called “Non-Aligned” bloc came to birth and gained relevance.
In fact, many international relations analysts attribute the peak of the Cold War as the Golden Age of the non-aligned movement because it was during that period when they succeeded in enhancing their international prestige, in bargaining for more economic assistance in exchange for keeping themselves out of the alliance, and most importantly, in keeping their territory free from proxy war that traditionally was understood as civil war, except for the added dimension of ideology.
The Bandung Conference in 1954 laid down the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the socialist bloc, it was promptly substituted by the warmongering policy of “unilateralism.” The Five Principles include: 1) Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2) Non-aggression; 3) Non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4) Equality and mutual benefit; and, 5) Peaceful coexistence. It was the attending leaders of the non-aligned nations, principally of China’s foremost statesman Zhou Enlai who came out with that novel idea.
Peaceful coexistence was most relevant despite the frosty relationship between the two contending superpowers. As one pretends to wage war in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” the other supported the “people’s war” for national liberation. Nonetheless, the Soviets and the Americans inhibited themselves from any direct confrontation that could easily escalate into an all-out war, although limited or proxy wars continued to rage in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In that context, the proxy wars remained an internal conflict that need to be settled by the people in that war-torn state pursuant to the principle of peaceful coexistence.
Even as countries in the Third World were subjected to the rigors of subversion and destabilization, on the whole, they were able to resolve their internal conflict. The two superpowers by the compulsive realism of the balance of terror had to respect that peace agreement, thus effectively putting forward limitations to interference. More so, if it would partake of an act of aggression against a member-state of the military alliance set up by the US and the Soviet Union.
Today, weak states cherish the invaluable positive legacies of the Cold War. There is no doubt it elicited obedience to international law; and for all the acrimonious debate at the UN General Assembly, respect for the international body was maintained. It is for this why they could not comprehend why Russia and China had to unilaterally forego the Cold War after they shifted their economic system to capitalism. They could not in fact see the logical connection. It was considered tragic for it constricted their strategic influence even endangered their territorial integrity and survival.
Some say that had it not for their old arsenal of nuclear weapons left over by the arms race, criminal states like the US and its confederates in NATO could have easily completed in erasing them from the map by the simple expedient of fanning the flames of separatist rebellion. In fact, no sooner after it metamorphosed to Russia, it found itself surrounded by a string of US military bases stationed in the erstwhile Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Georgia.
It even has to fight a bloody internal rebellion in Chechnya. As if to consummate the move to isolate it, the US enticed the former members of the Warsaw Pact to join the expanded umbrella of NATO, and humiliating it by threatening to install an anti-ballistic missile system, virtually at its doorstep, in Poland, Hungary and Romania.
China, too, experienced its own bloody upheavals beginning with the infamous agitation for “democracy” by disoriented students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 who clamored for the selling of their country to imperialism. Later, agitations spread deep into Lhasa in Tibet and Urumqi in Xingjian province. All these happened after the end of the Cold War.
The absence of any power to check the onslaught of US and NATO aggression eroded much the stature of the United Nations to a point that it has almost been reduced it as the mouthpiece of the US State Department. In that sense, international law reverted as a mere idealism of Hugo Grotius. Jingoism which was once restrained by the balance of terror regained prominence. All these were amplified by the US and NATO forays in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya shamelessly carrying the banner of the UN and even requesting lackey states to contribute to the peacekeeping force to internationalize their war of aggression.
In the unfortunate case of Libya, even if the US and NATO had the permission of the UN Security Council because of the favorable vote cast by China and Russia to impose a “no-fly-zone”, the scope of that UN resolution was limited to preventing Qaddafi’s forces from using their aircraft to strafe and bomb rebel positions or to use them to transport troops. In military parlance, the “no-fly-zone” was strictly confined to grounding the Libyan air force. But as events unfurled, the resolution became their license to savagely carry out gangsterism against Libya. In that the UN became a fait accompli to commit aggression against an independent state. It is for this why many are saying it could not have happened had Russia and China not capitulated to ending the Cold War.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
A tale of two pension funds
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/1/2011
Two pension funds dominate the skyline of social security in the Philippines: The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) with its 1.5 million members and the massive Social Security System (SSS) that serves 29 million workers in the private sector.
The SSS is celebrating its 54th anniversary this year and various festivities are set to mark the occasion, from special benefits for members to an awards ceremony cum tribute to journalists. But to me, through all its 54 years, it was in the past 10 years that the SSS distinguished itself when it surmounted adverse political and financial challenges arising from what many see as unprecedented corruption under Gloria Arroyo. Its older sister, the GSIS, wasn’t as fortunate as it was overwhelmingly damaged by the worst political and financial abuses of the past decade.
The SSS’ 29 million members, along with its thousands of staff and employees, indeed have good reason to celebrate today: At the start of the Arroyo era in 2001 came an immediate existential challenge when the newly-appointed leadership mounted an attempt to initiate the fund’s privatization. The SSS union, the Active and Concerned Employees of the SSS or AcceSSS, staged daily lunch time pickets (which I joined) in front of SSS offices nationwide and succeeded in ousting the Malacañang-appointed “privateer.” If privatization pushed through, the SSS could have faced the same fate as many privatized pension funds all over the world — enticed into the heady and freewheeling private sector financial speculation that unraveled in the 2008 financial collapse. The SSS, in staying public, was thus more conservative and preserved itself.
Also to their credit, active employee-leaders of the SSS put on a brave and militant face against the Arroyo administration, which led the latter to tread carefully in appointing the next administrator.
Fortunately, the new administrator kept herself within the strictures of sound management. It was not until the last appointment made by Arroyo in the wake of the ZTE-NBN scandal that the peace at the SSS was broken.
In all, while the pension fund cruised through 2002 to 2009 successfully, trouble brewed and persisted at the GSIS. A political appointee was entrenched by the past government to head the state pension fund. Without any known credentials, this political scion enthroned at the GSIS proceeded to establish his fiefdom; discriminated against career officers; and redirected GSIS policies to disastrous results.
One of the first things that the then newly-installed GSIS administration did was to “privatize” the P20-billion fund, by transferring its deposits from the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines to the Union Bank of the Aboitizes. As the latter had only a tenth of the number of ATMs of Land Bank, this severely inconvenienced GSIS members, notwithstanding the clear violation of the law requiring all government funds to be deposited in government banks. After this, many GSIS programs were also redirected on the pretext of building up the fund’s financial resources, but which redounded to reduced benefits.
The GSIS union, in the wake of imagined euphoria post-Edsa II, first attempted a dialog with management but was faced with intransigence and hostility. To cover up this increasing tension, bigwigs at the GSIS purportedly increased their media budget tenfold to paint a rosy picture. Union leaders were eventually fired; and they are still waiting for justice and restoration to this day.
Unlike the GSIS, SSS staff and employees, along with their roster of members from the private sector, were all impervious to the political machinations of Malacañang. The militancy of the SSS union put the Malacañang appointee on the spot very early on.
While a balance of power at the SSS helped maintain adherence to sound management and financial policies, the concentration of power at the GSIS led to alleged massive abuse of its funds.
These abuses at the GSIS ultimately led to the $1-billion investment in Wall Street schemes that caused it hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in the 2008 crash. The present GSIS management recently reported pulling out of these investments. But, without any prosecution in the offing and with nobody knowing how much the past GSIS administration lost in that Wall Street bloodbath, isn’t this just papering over past misdeeds?
On the other hand, the SSS rose from the dark Arroyo decade clean and strong. Kudos to its management, professional staff, and thousands of employees for this. I look forward to my retirement age in a few months’ time, knowing that my contributions are wisely managed. As professionalism and alert union activism have been key to maintaining a healthy SSS, we’ll always be in support of these. To the media affairs office of the SSS, our congratulations for your continued support of information freedom! That is a supreme evidence of the kind of professionalism SSS management is known for.
(My new e-mail: mentong2011@gmail.com. Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The ALBA: A Latin American Revolution” with Ambassadors Manuel Perez-Iturbe of Venezuela and Juan Carlos Arencibia Corrales of Cuba; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/1/2011
Two pension funds dominate the skyline of social security in the Philippines: The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) with its 1.5 million members and the massive Social Security System (SSS) that serves 29 million workers in the private sector.
The SSS is celebrating its 54th anniversary this year and various festivities are set to mark the occasion, from special benefits for members to an awards ceremony cum tribute to journalists. But to me, through all its 54 years, it was in the past 10 years that the SSS distinguished itself when it surmounted adverse political and financial challenges arising from what many see as unprecedented corruption under Gloria Arroyo. Its older sister, the GSIS, wasn’t as fortunate as it was overwhelmingly damaged by the worst political and financial abuses of the past decade.
The SSS’ 29 million members, along with its thousands of staff and employees, indeed have good reason to celebrate today: At the start of the Arroyo era in 2001 came an immediate existential challenge when the newly-appointed leadership mounted an attempt to initiate the fund’s privatization. The SSS union, the Active and Concerned Employees of the SSS or AcceSSS, staged daily lunch time pickets (which I joined) in front of SSS offices nationwide and succeeded in ousting the Malacañang-appointed “privateer.” If privatization pushed through, the SSS could have faced the same fate as many privatized pension funds all over the world — enticed into the heady and freewheeling private sector financial speculation that unraveled in the 2008 financial collapse. The SSS, in staying public, was thus more conservative and preserved itself.
Also to their credit, active employee-leaders of the SSS put on a brave and militant face against the Arroyo administration, which led the latter to tread carefully in appointing the next administrator.
Fortunately, the new administrator kept herself within the strictures of sound management. It was not until the last appointment made by Arroyo in the wake of the ZTE-NBN scandal that the peace at the SSS was broken.
In all, while the pension fund cruised through 2002 to 2009 successfully, trouble brewed and persisted at the GSIS. A political appointee was entrenched by the past government to head the state pension fund. Without any known credentials, this political scion enthroned at the GSIS proceeded to establish his fiefdom; discriminated against career officers; and redirected GSIS policies to disastrous results.
One of the first things that the then newly-installed GSIS administration did was to “privatize” the P20-billion fund, by transferring its deposits from the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines to the Union Bank of the Aboitizes. As the latter had only a tenth of the number of ATMs of Land Bank, this severely inconvenienced GSIS members, notwithstanding the clear violation of the law requiring all government funds to be deposited in government banks. After this, many GSIS programs were also redirected on the pretext of building up the fund’s financial resources, but which redounded to reduced benefits.
The GSIS union, in the wake of imagined euphoria post-Edsa II, first attempted a dialog with management but was faced with intransigence and hostility. To cover up this increasing tension, bigwigs at the GSIS purportedly increased their media budget tenfold to paint a rosy picture. Union leaders were eventually fired; and they are still waiting for justice and restoration to this day.
Unlike the GSIS, SSS staff and employees, along with their roster of members from the private sector, were all impervious to the political machinations of Malacañang. The militancy of the SSS union put the Malacañang appointee on the spot very early on.
While a balance of power at the SSS helped maintain adherence to sound management and financial policies, the concentration of power at the GSIS led to alleged massive abuse of its funds.
These abuses at the GSIS ultimately led to the $1-billion investment in Wall Street schemes that caused it hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in the 2008 crash. The present GSIS management recently reported pulling out of these investments. But, without any prosecution in the offing and with nobody knowing how much the past GSIS administration lost in that Wall Street bloodbath, isn’t this just papering over past misdeeds?
On the other hand, the SSS rose from the dark Arroyo decade clean and strong. Kudos to its management, professional staff, and thousands of employees for this. I look forward to my retirement age in a few months’ time, knowing that my contributions are wisely managed. As professionalism and alert union activism have been key to maintaining a healthy SSS, we’ll always be in support of these. To the media affairs office of the SSS, our congratulations for your continued support of information freedom! That is a supreme evidence of the kind of professionalism SSS management is known for.
(My new e-mail: mentong2011@gmail.com. Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The ALBA: A Latin American Revolution” with Ambassadors Manuel Perez-Iturbe of Venezuela and Juan Carlos Arencibia Corrales of Cuba; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Newsboy Linggoy complains against 'Lite'
YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/1-3/2011
Last week, Tuesday, August 23, 2011, we completed several kinds of yearly, 12-month or 52-week cycles:
Our weekly paper, OpinYon, completed 52 issues on August 15.
It published its first issue of its second year on Monday, August 22. That night, we celebrated our first anniversary with a modest dinner and program at the historic Kalayaan Hall of the Club Filipino in Greenhills in San Juan City.
Practical Lesson
A practical lesson for the future is to serve dinner to those who have roles in the program before unleashing them on the stage. My role was to introduce the columnists and staff of OpinYon. I arrived late for the 6 pm Mass and just about almost on the dot for the rest of the program.
Since I had had a long day (Neal Cruz’s Kapihan sa Diamond Hotel in the morning, PAGCOR sponsored Plaridel lunch at the Pan Pacific Hotel, and the whole afternoon at the Senate), I had planned to freshen up and change shirts.
There was no more time. The program was proceeding. I saw the lechon. I got some. I put some sauce. Then it was my time.
I went up to the podium on a very hungry stomach.
Ergo, my vision was going around in circles and I could not focus on my script. I must have jumped and skipped several of our columnists and their bio sketches in the process.
Ray Who? Dunnit
Our publisher, Ray Junia, completed a whole year of doling out enough money to subsidize our weekly.
Well, to those who only know him as “Ray Who?,” he has already accomplished the following:
From the original tabloid sized weekly with a cluttered front page, the third issue (September 6, 2010) sported what Ike Seňeres taught me was a “Tall Boy” format with an uncluttered front page.
Somewhere along the line, he came up with the best newsprint our lack of ads could buy.
Ray held the paper together thru three editorial eras – from the time we did not have to explain who Ike Seňeres was to the transitional Al Labita and the personal tragedies that engulfed him and finally to Luchie Arguelles. I hope I did not miss any editors in between. Hehehe!
This was one time I could have edited an editor completely out of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’s history.
Radyo OpinYon
He has experimented with several phases of Radyo OpinYon.
We started with Monday to Friday, 7 – 8 pm, night programs on DWBL at Paragon, EDSA.
Then, we shifted to 5 – 6 pm, still Monday to Friday, on DWAD at Dumlao on Shaw Blvd.
Now, we will be on the air once a week, very early on Sunday mornings (630 am) only on DZRH over at the CCP Complex.
After a year with a weekly opinion paper that was being taken seriously, he launched the “Lite” Thursday to Saturday issue.
The ‘Lite’ Edition
When I first heard two to three months ago that we were going from once a week to twice a week, I was the first to complain.
I was not complaining as a columnist but as a “newsboy” or delivery boy of our complimentary copies as well as the paid for copies of our subscribers who belong to weekly Kapihans.
First, our cost would double. I believed that we should first expand our exposure, our market and our outlets.
Second, it would complicate the delivery to our subscribers who attend weekly Kapihans.
With the weekly, the shelf life of an issue is a week or seven days. With the twice weekly, the shelf life is down to three days.
In practice, we would end up delivering two issues, one new and one old at the same time.
Glorified Newsboy
Finally, those “sukis” of OpinYon who live on complimentary copies will quarrel with me if I only give then one issue per week.
So, we will end up subsidizing their literacy maintenance doses at double the cost of before.
Well, anyway, I’m not the owner, publisher, editor nor even just the circulation manager. I’m just a glorified “newsboy” who tries to follow orders.
So, twice a week it will be. But I dread the day we go daily or even just thrice weekly.
That’s a shelf life of just two days. And, our newsprint is so nice. What a waste!
Except for the weight, I wish I were delivering encyclopedias instead.
Or, better still – Yearbooks! They are usually just one volume.
Then, when they are past their shelf life, we could consign them to BookSale.
Career as Columnist
Except for my column in our college paper, “The Guidon” (Our Editor-in-Chief is now Justice Antonio T. Carpio. Our Managing Editor is now Chief Justice Renato C. Corona), I cannot remember completing a year writing a column for a newspaper.
In 1986, I wrote a column for the then new “The Manila Standard” (Our Editor-in-Chief was Rod Reyes (later Erap’s Press Secretary) under the pseudonym E. K. Walis, since I was in Cory Aquino’s government then as Deputy Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission.
Before I could complete a year writing my column, I was promoted to commissioner, became very busy and stopped writing.
In 1990, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (the Editor-in-Chief was Dick Pascual) suffered an epidemic among its columnists – plagiarism, sickness and travel. The Publisher Eufemia “Eggie” Apostol got me as a temporary contributor for just a few weeks.
However, my brief stint would get me entangled with an unprofessional mercenary and would be assassin, Jack Terrell.
Comic Strip?
In 1995 when John Gokongwei bought “The Manila Times”, Malou Mangahas became the Editor-in-Chief. We had often met at parties given by Joan Orendain (a corporate public relations practitioner and pro bono PR adviser of the RAM). She probably liked my humor and my satire. She got me to write a column. It turned out later that what she wanted was a comic strip.
I made Xerox copies of my old Standard and Inquirer columns and submitted them to her before I started writing.
Up to that time (mid 90’s), I wrote my columns with a typewriter and submitted them in coupon bond.
All throughout my stint with the Times, Malou chided me for not writing funny columns.
When it became obvious to her that I would not be funny, she terminated me at the end of the year. Fortunately, I was not alone.
She also terminated UP Professor Luis Teodoro and a couple of others.
Stint in ‘Sex’ Tabloids
In 1996 or 1997, I wrote a column briefly for a Pichay English tabloid. Unfortunately, our circulation was so small.
Rey Briones was our Editor-in-Chief.
If I remember right, Pichay was a successful owner of a string of sex-laden tabloids.
One day his wife rebelled and threatened to leave him.
As a peace and love offering, he founded a decent English tabloid and promisedhis wife that he would scrap the indecent publications once his new decent paper made enough profit.
That meant never!
Writing vs Health
Although, as the top amateur delivery boy of OpinYon, I objected vehemently to the expansion to twice a week, as a writer, I volunteered to write for both issues.
Aside from this, I’ve been writing twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, since mid-April for Diaryo Pinoy, a Pilipino tabloid.
Former Congressman Jing Paras is the Publisher and Susan Cambri is the Managing Editor.
Since I am a deadline or last-minute writer, I usually write my columns at night after dinner.
Normally, I finish after midnight which is a dangerous time.
My wife waits for me before going to bed.
This is against her doctor’s orders to sleep early. That is very dangerous for her underperforming kidneys.
My children are asleep already by that time. That means that if I encounter problems with the Internet, I don’t know how to transfer my column to my USB on my own.
I’m in danger of losing my whole column as I did two weeks ago.
Column-writing occupies me four nights a week.
Writing and Religion
I write Sunday and Thursday nights for the Thursday to Saturday and Monday to Wednesday OpinYon respectively. Then, I write Wednesday and Saturday nights for the Friday and Monday Diaryo Pinoy respectively.
Our Monday nights are reserved for our Couples for Christ prayer meetings. My wife and I joined up in June 2003 through a three-day and two-night Strategic Christian Life Program held in Tagaytay City.
One of our single separated classmates committed suicide within a month. We joined a Household (The basic CFC unit) where we were eight couples then.
One wife died of cancer in less than a quarter. A husband died within the year. The widower and the widow dropped out. Two couples dropped out. Two other couples joined us. One new couple dropped out. The wife of the other couple stays at home and is with us only when the venue of the prayer meeting is in their condo.
An old couple dropped out. An old couple that had transferred to Cebu came back. The husband of our leader couple died last March.
In the meanwhile, we had shifted from weekly to just twice a month prayer meetings.
Is this an indication that journalism and mass media are on the way up and religion is on the way down?
They Survived
Don’t bet on that, our Church and our religion, the Roman Catholic, have been around for two thousand years.
They survived Herod, Pontius Pilate, Saul who became Paul, Atilla the Hun, Henry of England, Luther, Mass Media, Fr. Damaso, Bishop Aglipay, Hitler, Stalin, Television, Malls, Computers, Internet, the RH Bill, Mideo Cruz…
The writer of our Issue # 39’s front page banner story, Manuel Vicente Arsenio/Zaragoza Araneta/Tuason Alcuaz, died on Sunday, July 24.
His family is still not sure whether to commemorate the 40th day since his death on Friday or Saturday, September 2 or 3. There will be 6 pm Masses on both days at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on Broadway Avenue, New Manila QC.
If you want to verify the correct and final date, please call Mano’s Globe Cell phone # 0917 893 0027.
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/1-3/2011
Last week, Tuesday, August 23, 2011, we completed several kinds of yearly, 12-month or 52-week cycles:
Our weekly paper, OpinYon, completed 52 issues on August 15.
It published its first issue of its second year on Monday, August 22. That night, we celebrated our first anniversary with a modest dinner and program at the historic Kalayaan Hall of the Club Filipino in Greenhills in San Juan City.
Practical Lesson
A practical lesson for the future is to serve dinner to those who have roles in the program before unleashing them on the stage. My role was to introduce the columnists and staff of OpinYon. I arrived late for the 6 pm Mass and just about almost on the dot for the rest of the program.
Since I had had a long day (Neal Cruz’s Kapihan sa Diamond Hotel in the morning, PAGCOR sponsored Plaridel lunch at the Pan Pacific Hotel, and the whole afternoon at the Senate), I had planned to freshen up and change shirts.
There was no more time. The program was proceeding. I saw the lechon. I got some. I put some sauce. Then it was my time.
I went up to the podium on a very hungry stomach.
Ergo, my vision was going around in circles and I could not focus on my script. I must have jumped and skipped several of our columnists and their bio sketches in the process.
Ray Who? Dunnit
Our publisher, Ray Junia, completed a whole year of doling out enough money to subsidize our weekly.
Well, to those who only know him as “Ray Who?,” he has already accomplished the following:
From the original tabloid sized weekly with a cluttered front page, the third issue (September 6, 2010) sported what Ike Seňeres taught me was a “Tall Boy” format with an uncluttered front page.
Somewhere along the line, he came up with the best newsprint our lack of ads could buy.
Ray held the paper together thru three editorial eras – from the time we did not have to explain who Ike Seňeres was to the transitional Al Labita and the personal tragedies that engulfed him and finally to Luchie Arguelles. I hope I did not miss any editors in between. Hehehe!
This was one time I could have edited an editor completely out of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’s history.
Radyo OpinYon
He has experimented with several phases of Radyo OpinYon.
We started with Monday to Friday, 7 – 8 pm, night programs on DWBL at Paragon, EDSA.
Then, we shifted to 5 – 6 pm, still Monday to Friday, on DWAD at Dumlao on Shaw Blvd.
Now, we will be on the air once a week, very early on Sunday mornings (630 am) only on DZRH over at the CCP Complex.
After a year with a weekly opinion paper that was being taken seriously, he launched the “Lite” Thursday to Saturday issue.
The ‘Lite’ Edition
When I first heard two to three months ago that we were going from once a week to twice a week, I was the first to complain.
I was not complaining as a columnist but as a “newsboy” or delivery boy of our complimentary copies as well as the paid for copies of our subscribers who belong to weekly Kapihans.
First, our cost would double. I believed that we should first expand our exposure, our market and our outlets.
Second, it would complicate the delivery to our subscribers who attend weekly Kapihans.
With the weekly, the shelf life of an issue is a week or seven days. With the twice weekly, the shelf life is down to three days.
In practice, we would end up delivering two issues, one new and one old at the same time.
Glorified Newsboy
Finally, those “sukis” of OpinYon who live on complimentary copies will quarrel with me if I only give then one issue per week.
So, we will end up subsidizing their literacy maintenance doses at double the cost of before.
Well, anyway, I’m not the owner, publisher, editor nor even just the circulation manager. I’m just a glorified “newsboy” who tries to follow orders.
So, twice a week it will be. But I dread the day we go daily or even just thrice weekly.
That’s a shelf life of just two days. And, our newsprint is so nice. What a waste!
Except for the weight, I wish I were delivering encyclopedias instead.
Or, better still – Yearbooks! They are usually just one volume.
Then, when they are past their shelf life, we could consign them to BookSale.
Career as Columnist
Except for my column in our college paper, “The Guidon” (Our Editor-in-Chief is now Justice Antonio T. Carpio. Our Managing Editor is now Chief Justice Renato C. Corona), I cannot remember completing a year writing a column for a newspaper.
In 1986, I wrote a column for the then new “The Manila Standard” (Our Editor-in-Chief was Rod Reyes (later Erap’s Press Secretary) under the pseudonym E. K. Walis, since I was in Cory Aquino’s government then as Deputy Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission.
Before I could complete a year writing my column, I was promoted to commissioner, became very busy and stopped writing.
In 1990, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (the Editor-in-Chief was Dick Pascual) suffered an epidemic among its columnists – plagiarism, sickness and travel. The Publisher Eufemia “Eggie” Apostol got me as a temporary contributor for just a few weeks.
However, my brief stint would get me entangled with an unprofessional mercenary and would be assassin, Jack Terrell.
Comic Strip?
In 1995 when John Gokongwei bought “The Manila Times”, Malou Mangahas became the Editor-in-Chief. We had often met at parties given by Joan Orendain (a corporate public relations practitioner and pro bono PR adviser of the RAM). She probably liked my humor and my satire. She got me to write a column. It turned out later that what she wanted was a comic strip.
I made Xerox copies of my old Standard and Inquirer columns and submitted them to her before I started writing.
Up to that time (mid 90’s), I wrote my columns with a typewriter and submitted them in coupon bond.
All throughout my stint with the Times, Malou chided me for not writing funny columns.
When it became obvious to her that I would not be funny, she terminated me at the end of the year. Fortunately, I was not alone.
She also terminated UP Professor Luis Teodoro and a couple of others.
Stint in ‘Sex’ Tabloids
In 1996 or 1997, I wrote a column briefly for a Pichay English tabloid. Unfortunately, our circulation was so small.
Rey Briones was our Editor-in-Chief.
If I remember right, Pichay was a successful owner of a string of sex-laden tabloids.
One day his wife rebelled and threatened to leave him.
As a peace and love offering, he founded a decent English tabloid and promisedhis wife that he would scrap the indecent publications once his new decent paper made enough profit.
That meant never!
Writing vs Health
Although, as the top amateur delivery boy of OpinYon, I objected vehemently to the expansion to twice a week, as a writer, I volunteered to write for both issues.
Aside from this, I’ve been writing twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, since mid-April for Diaryo Pinoy, a Pilipino tabloid.
Former Congressman Jing Paras is the Publisher and Susan Cambri is the Managing Editor.
Since I am a deadline or last-minute writer, I usually write my columns at night after dinner.
Normally, I finish after midnight which is a dangerous time.
My wife waits for me before going to bed.
This is against her doctor’s orders to sleep early. That is very dangerous for her underperforming kidneys.
My children are asleep already by that time. That means that if I encounter problems with the Internet, I don’t know how to transfer my column to my USB on my own.
I’m in danger of losing my whole column as I did two weeks ago.
Column-writing occupies me four nights a week.
Writing and Religion
I write Sunday and Thursday nights for the Thursday to Saturday and Monday to Wednesday OpinYon respectively. Then, I write Wednesday and Saturday nights for the Friday and Monday Diaryo Pinoy respectively.
Our Monday nights are reserved for our Couples for Christ prayer meetings. My wife and I joined up in June 2003 through a three-day and two-night Strategic Christian Life Program held in Tagaytay City.
One of our single separated classmates committed suicide within a month. We joined a Household (The basic CFC unit) where we were eight couples then.
One wife died of cancer in less than a quarter. A husband died within the year. The widower and the widow dropped out. Two couples dropped out. Two other couples joined us. One new couple dropped out. The wife of the other couple stays at home and is with us only when the venue of the prayer meeting is in their condo.
An old couple dropped out. An old couple that had transferred to Cebu came back. The husband of our leader couple died last March.
In the meanwhile, we had shifted from weekly to just twice a month prayer meetings.
Is this an indication that journalism and mass media are on the way up and religion is on the way down?
They Survived
Don’t bet on that, our Church and our religion, the Roman Catholic, have been around for two thousand years.
They survived Herod, Pontius Pilate, Saul who became Paul, Atilla the Hun, Henry of England, Luther, Mass Media, Fr. Damaso, Bishop Aglipay, Hitler, Stalin, Television, Malls, Computers, Internet, the RH Bill, Mideo Cruz…
The writer of our Issue # 39’s front page banner story, Manuel Vicente Arsenio/Zaragoza Araneta/Tuason Alcuaz, died on Sunday, July 24.
His family is still not sure whether to commemorate the 40th day since his death on Friday or Saturday, September 2 or 3. There will be 6 pm Masses on both days at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on Broadway Avenue, New Manila QC.
If you want to verify the correct and final date, please call Mano’s Globe Cell phone # 0917 893 0027.
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