Bong O. Wenceslao
Wenceslao’s road to the journalism profession was circuitous. While still with Southwestern University’s campus publication The Quill, he was offered a reporter’s slot in the Visayan Herald (now defunct). He worked part-time in dyLA.
But a bigger concern drew away Bong, as colleagues call him: the fight against the Marcos dictatorship.
Some seven years later, he was back, more serious about resuming his journalism career at dyLA. But as writing was his real passion, he left broadcasting to be a reporter at The Freeman. In 1997, he joined Sun.Star Cebu.
As a journalist, he believes he is no longer out to radically change the world but merely to make a difference through his writing. His columns reflect his causes: freedom, nationalism, justice. Twice, he was awarded best in column writing by the Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards.
Columns
Vote buying and conceding
TODAY is May 13, election day. I reckon that on this day majority of Filipinos of voting age will exercise their right of suffrage and troop to the polling precincts to choose names they want to fill the various government positions made available, including those for senators, congressmen and party-list representation, plus those for local government units.
An election roundup
THERE'S reason for Akbayan senatorial bet Risa Hontiveros to be optimistic about her chances of making it to the Magic 12 in the May 13 election’s senatorial race. Her ratings in the surveys have been rising consistently, which means she is doing the right things in the campaign.
Joavan’s arrest and escape
SO JOAVAN Fernandez escaped from detention?
A few days after the Talisay City Police Station was praised for finally arresting Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez’s problem child and his city’s “menace,” the errant one humiliated the police Wednesday night by fooling his guard and then dashing into a waiting vehicle.
Dirtiest campaign in city?
THIS is perhaps among the dirtiest—both figuratively and literally--electoral campaigns in Cebu City in the past few decades. And the problem is that candidates are abetting it and their supporters are relishing it.
Burned City Central School building
I RECEIVED the information about Rommel Hermosisima’s death through our batchmate in City Central School, Dr. Fe Marie Maningo-Perez. The last time some of us met Rommel was in his residence in Poblacion, Sibonga. Funny, but when my family and I passed by the Poblacion on our way to Simala the other Sunday, I got this urge to visit Rommel’s house. I didn’t.
Risa’s rise, what Ka Teddy needs
TWO people have so far asked me to help them prepare a list of candidates that they would vote for the Senate on May 13. I told them to first write my two favorite senatorial bets, Makabayan’s Teddy Casiño and Akbayan’s Risa Hontiveros, with the remaining ten candidates to be listed in the coming days. Ka Teddy and Risa first, I repeated.
Pablo John up close
I DON'T personally know One Cebu gubernatorial bet Pablo John Garcia. When a fellow columnist who once worked at the Capitol asked me to compare “PJ” with Liberal Party (LP) gubernatorial bet Hilario Davide III, I was stumped. I told him that, from the statements he made when he was Capitol consultant and his answers to criticisms when he became third district congressman, he sounds much like suspended Gov. Gwen Garcia.
Muddled probe on death of ‘shoplifter’
RELATIVES of Mario Alfie Ducayag, the shopper who was killed inside Metro Gaisano-Colon, roamed the vicinity of the Cebu City Prosecutors Office yesterday. This following Monday’s failed attempt by the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) to file a case against the store’s security camera operator, Jeffrey Aquino, allegedly the one who mauled Ducayag, without their consent.
What Ace should regret
JOSEPH “Ace” Durano, the former tourism secretary who wants to regain his old post as fifth district congressman, said a mouthful in his recent visit to San Francisco, one of the towns in the Camotes group of islands. The Camotes islands are included in the fifth district together with Danao City and the towns of Carmen, Borbon, Catmon, Sogod, Compostela and Liloan.
Guingona ambush and CPP impositions
IN DECEMBER of 1986, the local leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) held a press conference in one of the hinterland barangays overlooking Cebu City.
The party was founded on Dec. 26, 1968 and every December thereafter occasioned some celebratory activities. The government of then president Corazon Aquino was negotiating with the rebels for a lasting settlement of the conflict and a ceasefire was in place. That gave the local CPP leaders the daring to surface and show off their armed might.
