Sunday, November 26, 2006 Gueco: Kuya Imo dies By Malu T. Gueco Aslagan
BREATHING his last gasp in Tokyo, Japan, he died after being blasted with waves of heart attack.
Who was Kuya Imo?
In the 1970s, as an aspiring journalism student at St. Paul’s College, under the tutelage of Miss Esty G. Juco, I learned the ropes of the writing craft. Raising her wand of idealism on us, Miss Juco peppered our classes with talks about her Kuya Imo. How this Ilocano intellectual who was their neighbor in Malate, Manila motivated her to walk on the corridors of writing.
Kuya Imo was her apt description of this man who personified fraternal caring, compassion and commitment. Acting like a brother, he influenced her in the world of words, activism and wise reportage.
Alas! In the 1990s, my professor Esty G. Juco passed away. How I remember her now and how she moved heaven and earth to inspire our group of collegialas.
November 24
Today, the sickening headlines choked my heart in sorrow. Kuya Imo, the icon publisher of The Philippine Star died on the foreign land of the chrysanthemums. To all of us, the reading public, Max Soliven was his name.
Leaving behind his beloved family, his newspaper and legions of fans, he succumbed to cardiac arrest at the airport in Tokyo.
What a sad day for the Philippine terra firma of journalism!
The lonely team at The Philippine Star recounted his life works as follows:
A legend and one of the last of his generation of journalists, Soliven was named Journalist of the Year four times by the National Press Club and the Rotary Club of Manila.
At 27, he was editor and publisher of the Evening News. He spent more than a decade of his career as a foreign correspondent. He covered the Vietnam War in 1954 and 1959. Accused by President Ngo Dinh Diem as an agent provocateur, he was expelled from Vietnam in 1960. He also covered the Middle East and Western Europe from his bureau office in Bonn.
Returning to the Philippines, his famous column “Alikabok” spewed out inside scoops on goings-on at Malacañang, he freely dispensed unsolicited advice to our various presidents starting from the term of the former President Diosdado Macapagal. When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, Soliven was one of the first journalists to be picked up from his home at 2 a.m. Held in a maximum security cell in Fort Bonifacio, he became a cellmate of Beningno “Ninoy” Aquino. When he was released, he was banned from writing and from traveling outside Metro Manila.
In 1985, he co-founded the Philippine Daily Inquirer. By July, 1986, Soliven, Go-Belmonte, Borjal and Roces established The Philippine Star. He died doing what he loved best and what he did better than most - he was a journalist to the end. At six o’clock last Thursday evening, he called up the newsdesk and asked this tagline: “What is the big news there?”
There, my friends, we experienced what his present group at The Philippine Star felt at his untimely loss.
As of presstime, his family has accepted the government’s offer for him to lie in state at the St. Ignatius Cathedral in Camp Aguinaldo when his remains arrive from Japan.
To this columnist, she realizes the irony that the former prisoner who crusaded for press freedom will be now be interred at Camp Aguinaldo. What a contrast in scene in these modern times that his former persecutors have transformed themselves into becoming his friends. Today, his army pals honor his death, former presidents pay tribute to his par excellence life and peers/associates extol to the highest mountains his gallantry, generosity and greatness.
Adios, to you Kuya Imo. Say hello for me to Professor Esty G. Juco and to the legions of writers who fought for freedom. Sacrificing themselves on the altar of heroism, they have crossed the threshold of “nevermore”, their courage is forever stamped in our hearts.
Goodbye, to our dear writer’s model Max Soliven. You have dashed across the lands of headlines, news and columns, splashed your legacy of journalism on the planet earth and grasped the flag of press freedom. Worthily, you deserve your new wings in the abode of eternal rest.
Know what? I have this vision? As soon as you arrived on the city of crystals, your first request to St. Peter was this, “Give my back my old; rusty but dependable manual typewriter - I must start writing to describe this misty, magnificent and mystical scene of eternity!”
