Wenceslao: Remembering Tonee Despojo

Wenceslao: Remembering Tonee Despojo

Tonee Despojo was an old friend, so reports about his recent passing away came as a shock. Tonee was a newbie fotog when I joined The Freeman in the early 1990s. When he was later “pirated” by the Cebu Daily News (CDN), I was also “pirated” by SunStar Cebu in what should go down in history as one of the landscape-changing events for Cebu media. The birth of CDN happened when a group of media practitioners here formed a short-lived cooperative that dared to challenge the existence of traditional media outlets run by elite families.

I remember former The Freeman editor Jerry Tundag recalling to us that one time when Tonee was so caught up in a joke that he ended up in an altercation with the late Gabby Malagar in the old TF newsroom. One time, Tonee found me jogging inside the Cebu City Sports Center while he was preparing to join a group of newsmen and amateurs practicing a game of football.

“I don’t want to end up like that man when I get old,” he told me, pointing to a man rehabbing from the effects of a stroke on his body. Tonee reportedly passed away peacefully while he was asleep. Meaning that he didn’t have to put up with the sad effects of a stroke on his body.

The last time I met Tonee was when we were chosen as judges for different categories of the regional press conference hosted that year by the Department of Education in Central Visayas and held in Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental. He already had white hair and was already called “Tatay Tonee” by a younger generation of Cebu journalists. He was, of course, younger than me by a couple of years.

Tonee was a photographer dedicated to his craft. He treated his job like an artwork and was meticulous in composing a photo. He got excited every time events happened, no matter how small, and that excitement often peaked when historic events unfurled. He was a hands-on fotog and found ways to be at the forefront even while helping develop new talents. He worked best when he was in the middle of major events.

Tonee was a great talent in a period when photojournalists were not given their due. And when he later gained respect and his creativity was allowed to bloom, a new technology virtually erased whatever he achieved. When he passed away, the traditional media was already struggling to survive.

I don’t know how Tonee adjusted to the changing times. When I retired, social media was taking over and Cebu’s print media was struggling. Social media offered new possibilities but we were already too old to learn. As they say, it is difficult to teach old dogs new tricks. In the old days, it would have been enough for him to set up a studio and retire in bliss. But photo studios everywhere are struggling now with a democratizing technology. It is the same contradiction between the old and the new that desperately needs a synthesis.

Rest well, Ton. You will no longer look for good angles for scenes that God is unfurling where you are now.

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