I DIDN’T realize that there are so many media persons today covering Pampanga until yesterday when the Pampanga Press Club resumed the monthly forum being held at Park Inn Radisson in Clark. It was held in abeyance due to the pandemic.
Noel Tulabut, the current president of the PPC, introduced the reporters in attendance and clearly, there were so many new faces in the banquet hall. The conference was also attended by our hosts, Ann Olalo, the hotel general manager, Nian L. Rigor, vice president for marketing and communications, Andrea Madlambayan, another top official of SM and Walid M. Wafik senior vice president for operations. Wafik talked about the SMX convention center built adjacent to the mall which has a scheduled opening sometime in May this year.
Compared to when I started in the sixties, when there were no fax machines, celfones, iPads and laptops yet, being a beat reporter during this time is lot easier. We placed long distance calls to our newsroom and it takes long hours before it will reach the desk.
I belong to the second generation of reporters from Pampanga. With the death of Ram Mercado some years ago, only I and Lino Sanchez Jr. remain standing. The third generation reporters the likes of Bong Lacson, Tonette Orejas, Perry Pangan, Lincoln, Noel and few more others are still very active. There were in their generation who went ahead to the great beyond, the likes of Sonny Lopez and Ody Fabian.
Now I want to tell the story of the first generation reporters of Pampanga. They should have been alive today they will be amazed on the stride made in local journalism. My favorite among them wasn’t even my brother Greg who started as a reporter of the defunct Manila Chronicle in 1949 with Monching Mitra and Art Sampang as colleagues. My favorite was Armando P. Baluyut aka Arpiba father of Lincoln. Apong Mandong was a former policeman from Bacolor town. He resigned as a copper and started publishing the newsweekly The Voice with no staff except for Lincoln and of course with some help from me and Ram. The publication saw its birth in 1955. Initially, the newsweekly was a tiring one man job with him as editor-publisher, proof reader, advertising and circulation manager altogether. The life blood of the paper was the judicial notices which he shared with Luzon Courier which was published by the late Tomas San Pedro.
In those years, the most popular newspapermen in Pampanga were Silvestre Songco, Lino Sanchez Sr., Tomas San Pedro, Macario Fabian, Hector Soto, Marcelino Pangilinan, Butch Maglaqui and my brother Greg. Newsmen based in Camp Olivas were the more popular and influential considering their proximity to and their state of rubbing elbows with the military top brass. It was also in those years when the Philippine Constabulary had four zones and Camp Olivas was the headquarters of the 1st PC Zone. The there were only few constabulary generals in the whole organization? Notable among those assigned in Camp Olivas were Generals Lucas Cauton, Rafael Ileto, Felizardo Tanabe, EmilioZerrudo, Tomas Diaz and Romeo Gatan, among others.
I was publisher-editor of the newsweekly Pampanga Examiner and no staff. It was a one man job. It was that period when I was starting to learn the ropes, so to speak. The tabloid publishers like Baluyut, San Pedro’s Luzon Courier (where Bren Z Guiao who became Pampanga governor started his writing career), Lino Sanchez Sr.’ Pampanga Tribune, Ram Mercado’s Star Reporter were displayed on most newsstands. Those were the interesting years. Only a handful of us. No hao siaos.
The local publishers like Apong Mandong and Tatang Tom had the unusual knack of knowing where to get financial support/advertising. Their invited columnists were the one espousing causes and undertaking individual crusades. In my case I was not contented being a correspondent of a national newspaper and one of Apong Mandong’s columnists. In between newspapering, I engaged myself in other ventures and became a radio commentator of the two radio stations in Angeles City, the Puyat owned DZAB and the DZYA, owned by the late Boss Danding Cojuangco.
Ram was my regular partner in covering the beat or whatever you may call it, and he has this to say of me in one of his writings. Max didn’t read the news in whatever accent, neither did he recite Pampango poetry. He was a hard hitting, thunder and lightning commentator. At that particular period in Pampanga, the national law enforcement agencies tagged Central Luzon particularly Angeles City as a hotspot. This was the period when the Huk movement was at its strongest. And it was in Angeles City where I based my editorial operations. As a young newsman full of idealism I got into trouble either from the dissident groups, the military and from local politicians. Those events any newsman will experience will make him or her hard boiled. Luckily there are still some among the present crop of local journalists.