I started my journalism career alongside Yoyong at the Philippines News Agency in 1975 with Fred Roxas as Central Luzon bureau chief and Joe Pavia as general manager. Yoyong writes slowly but oh-so-precisely. His syntax and grammar ever in perfect synch.
Uncontroversial and a friend to practically everyone, Yoyong served well as media handler for the Nepomuceno couple during their respective incumbencies as Pampanga governor, and as personal adviser to his compadre Gov. Manuel “Lito” Lapid before his (Lapid’s) suspension in January 1999.
At the time of Gov. Juanita L. Nepomuceno, Yoyong wrote the column Views from the Capitol for The Voice which served as the offi cial line of Apung Saning’s administration on the issues of the time.
Yoyong could have made a very good diplomat.
At the height of the Cold War, he was able to seat at one table, from dusk to dawn, the resident CIA operative in Angeles City and a partner on one side, and a KGB sleeper on the other.
George Morton, American Civilian In Angeles – there goes your CIA, he he – and The Voice columnist, along with his friend George Roberts of the Pacific Stars & Stripes sat face to face with an editor of the Soviet Union’s Izvestia in a beer battle at the Jailhouse Rock Disco managed by Toy Soto.
Needless to say, nobody lost the battle with everybody winning the bottle – round, after round, after round, after round…Till no one was seated aright.
THE FOREGOING is an edited version of an entry in Chapter 1: As it was of my 1999 book Of the Press, a chronicle of the Pampanga Press Club.
Yoyong was buried Tuesday in his hometown of Porac. He was the last to pass to the great beyond among the founding fathers of the press club established in 1949, three years before the birthing of the National Press Club.
With silent prayer, I remember the eight that fathered what is now, arguably, the oldest press club in the Philippines: Silvestre “Beteng” Songco of Manila Times-Mirror-Taliba, Romy Arceo, Emerito de Jesus of The Evening News, Alejandrino “Toto” Songco of the Philippine News Service, Lino Sanchez, Sr. of The Manila Times, Don Tomas San Pedro of Luzon Courier and Pampanga Newsweek, Don Armando P. Baluyut of The Voice, and Yoyong.
In remembering them comes to mind the journalism of the past – of scoops and press collect calls, of negatives sent via Philippine Rabbit buses to the Manila editorial desks, of field coverages in Huk-Army and later NPAPC encounters, of clandestine interviews with insurgents “somewhere in Central Luzon,” of the perfunctory “SS” to spice up crime and insurgency stories, of love-hate relationships with the public aff airs of Clark Air Force Base, of toilet press conferences at Camp Olivas, of orbit and kuryente, of kartikul and ‘tin ken?, yay, even of armed harassments, death threats and multiple libel cases…
Alas, now but memories to cherish. And yes, be inspired with.
Blessed am I to have had a full share of their experience.
Godspeed, Yoyong.
And please give my regards to all your fellow founders, and our PPC peers who joined the editorial board up there in recent years — Sonny Lopez of Malaya-UPI, Ben Gamos of Times Journal, Rizal Policarpio of Balita, Jerry Lacuarta of Manila Bulletin, Rolly Lingat of DZAP, Toy Soto of Times Journal, and brothers Ody Fabian of The Voice and Dante Fabian of Sun-Star Clark.
Aye, what timely thoughts for All Souls Day.
