Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Yap: R u free?
By Januar Yap
Meanwhile
It is excellent to have a giant strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.—Isabella, “Measure for Measure” by William Shakespeare. Thus went her text message. I met her, a senate beat reporter now, when she was covering the late Raul Roco’s sorties in the 2004 elections.
“Pupunta ako sa Dilliman for postgrad creative writing,” she says, in Tagalog, “because I think I’m losing a part of me.”
Is something wrong? “Yes, terribly wrong. You see I hang out with these reporters, and all they ever talk about is how much payola they got from this and that senator. It’s so cheap, so unliterary.”
Why are you hanging out with them in the first place?
“Ugh, had I known. But, really, I’m just starting, I’m afraid I might miss the bigger stories if I leave the pack,” she says.
Soon, you might just end up like a Holden Caulfield, a Scrooge, or maybe just trade your soul to the devil. “God forbid, I wasn’t raised that way,” she sighs. She is young, prettier when she lets her hair down and intelligent.
Is the press really that powerful? Hugh Cudlipp says, “A newspaper may successfully accelerate but never reverse the popular attitude that common sense has commended to the public.” TS Mathews explains further, “...it can’t start the bandwagon rolling, or change its direction after it started.”
Each time I hear “ladies and gentlemen of the press,” I pray Red Sea will part again or some stone tablet hurled on some heads. Quickly, my thoughts go back to Mighty Aphrodite-on-the-line. I’m all set to tell her how awfully beautiful she is and say, “The Philippine press needs you.”
“I think I’ll teach literature,” she says. And write journalism on the side?
Is our press clean? Is it powerful? “Can we eat out sometime?” I want to send the message, but I might just end up as an insertion in someone else’s organizer. “I’m free,” she says, but maybe I’m just imagining things.
(januariusmail@yahoo.com)
(September 20, 2005 issue)
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