Thank you
Eleven years ago, I was promoted editor-in-chief of the Philippines Graphic magazine. For some reason, it felt like an invitation to a Russian Roulette.
Just the thought of filling the shoes of such greats as Nick Joaquin, Jose “Pete” Lacaba, Gregorio Brillantes, Adrian Cristóbal, Butch del Castillo, Ernie Tolentino, Inday Espina-Varona, and all the rest of those who sat as the magazine’s helm from Day One, gave me the chills. I was probably one of the youngest and most inexperienced editor to ever hold the post.
But there it was, quiet on the table, wrapped in the cold, heartless metal of a pistol whose one and only bullet was meant for me.
In a country like ours where journalists are murdered with impunity, to sit as editor-in-chief is like a summons to a suicide mission.
I lost no time looking into the magazine’s history. Born 1927, three years after Liwayway hit the newsstands, the Graphic culled in its pages a motley crew of articles out to serve and entertain a growing English-speaking readership in Manila.
The format was simple: political analyses, silver-screen tattle, people sketches, movie and theater reviews, and yes, literature. When the ownership exchanged hands (if I’m not mistaken, that was after the Second World War) — from the Roces family to the Aranetas — the format hardly changed.
Called the Weekly Graphic, it became one of the most successful venues for New Journalism, a veritable writing experiment which brought traditional, straight-laced reportage into the very hands that shape the writing of literature.
But more than a stylist’s haven, the Weekly Graphic under editor-in-chief Luis Mauricio, was an act of defiance. In fact, its articles were much too brave to go unnoticed by the powers that be. On the night Presidential Decree No. 1081 was declared in Sept. 1972, Marcos placing the whole archipelago under martial law, the Weekly Graphic was forced to shut its printers down, its doors padlocked. The magazine’s editors were soon arrested.
Four years after Marcos was ousted through People Power, the magazine reopened under new management — the ALC Group of Companies.
Amb. Antonio L. Cabangon Chua, together with National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin as the magazine’s editor-in-chief, started a journalistic and literary expedition on June 12, 1990 which carried the title all throughout 30 years and across the ablest editors and writers.
The job was at the very least exacting, too tall an order for someone as new to the position as I was. Even from the start I felt I had to struggle with both the forces of the elements and rogue governments, to say little of the expected office strains and discontents, as did the other editors. I knew I was in for a boxing match with the Fates, and winning this fight was all I needed to get the job done.
Easier said than done. At the foot of this gargantuan monument to people’s rights, shaped by the previous editorship and exacting journalism of Graphic’s former editor-in-chief Inday Espina-Varona, lay the fundamental requirements demanded by accuracy, brevity, and context — what I call the ABCs of good journalism — and the ethical standards required for all this to work.
Each day was a rendezvous with either the bullet or the bribe, the sort of stewardship where stasis is anathema, cowardice pariah, and ego deserving only of mockery. Daily we wrestle with censorship, prior restraint, pressure from powerful entities. Weekly, we come out with a publication that was no less a miracle as the resurrection of Lazarus, thanks to ‘Amba,’ our beloved boss, who never once dictated how our stories should go.
Because of that freedom, we ran the newsroom as steadily as would a seasoned ship captain traversing stormy seas. All too often the fear of sinking was there, haunting us, ever the monkey on our backs. However, come Thursday, Hell Day, we make sure to knock the damn thing off our shoulders.
I cannot remember exactly when I crossed the line to where there was no turning back, but I’m glad I did.
I owe whatever humble feather rests on my cap to some of the finest editors with whom I had the honor of sharing the printed page: Psyche Roxas-Mendoza, our managing editor; Fil V. Elefante, a Jaime V. Ongpin awardee for Investigative Journalism and associate editor; Alma Anonas-Carpio, multi-awarded journalist and poet and literary editor; Guillermo Altre and Malou Francisco, our page artists; and Susan Bermas, senior editorial assistant. Our advertising team led by Marvin Nisperos Estigoy and Dennis Guevara worked day and night to keep the magazine’s financial neck above water.
But over and above everyone else, my gratitude goes to all the esteemed authors who generously gave their time and support to the magazine. They were the real flesh and blood of the publication, the very breath which took the magazine from one run of the printers to the next.
The yearly judges in the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards (Krip Yuson, Susan Severino Lara, Gémino Abad, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Charlson Ong, Dean Francis Alfar and Sarge Lacuesta), our esteemed guests year after year, our partners in the country’s top academic institutions and publishing houses: to you we owe the grandest celebration. There’s no repaying the generosity and friendship you have shown me and the other editors.
You know who you are. Your friendship is the only thing I have the honor of claiming. For that alone I owe you a lifetime of gratitude — and maybe whiskey, a slab of ribs and some cream puffs.
The Philippines Graphic will continue despite the horrors brought on by the pandemic. That is good news.
As for me and the other editors, a new chapter beckons. Surely the writing will not cease, neither will it succumb to the darker calls for restraint now that the Terror Law has arrived. I will insist aloud on our claims to humanity and human dignity regardless of the dangers such writing invites.
Today, I say goodbye to what had been my second home for nearly 12 years. Hasta la vista, baby. ’Twas a wild ride.
