THE OTHER day, a municipal councilor paid for my coffee.
I had come first in the coffee shop.
Ordered my coffee, and lost myself to writing column pieces in a corner.
I may have glanced up, noticed him, and smiled or waved.
But it wasn’t meant to be a morning for us.
He came with two men, and from the little I noticed of it, they were talking business.
***
I was still writing my advance column pieces when he left.
He waved to say good bye, I waved back.
Then, I smiled satisfied.
If I could write three articles in one coffee sitting, that’s a great day.
That’s about a week’s newspaper work done for me.
***
Sometimes, I can just write two at a sitting.
I still write everyday.
But it’s not all newspapers column.
If you still haven’t noticed, I’m also writing Frontpage on the weekends now—Saturday-Sunday issue.
Frontpage is journalistic reportage.
Human interest stories.
I like writing them although they’re still a little tedious to do.
***
I’d like to be “there where the news happens”.
Like, there was a theatre festival in Negros.
I had to cross the sea to be able to write it.
Did I have to cross the sea?
No! I’m friends with the festival people.
They could just email me the program, the press brief, the photos.
***
But I don’t like that kind of reporting.
That’s “reporting from a press release” as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t like that.
My joke: “If #ThePSN wasn’t there, it didn’t happen; if ThePSN didn’t write about it, it’s not newsworthy.”
***
More and more, I am convinced that the Internet has destroyed our reality.
The thought of everybody singing and dancing even if they don’t know how to sing or dance has always scared me.
When mediocrity takes over because everybody can publish and have an opinion, that truly scares me.
***
Fortunately, I’ve established my position.
Sure, the cancel culture can always cancel me; but no one can take away my confidence now.
Let mediocrity reign, and I’ll be happy to understand that I have been the great one.
And I will die with that happy thought: everything else that comes after me is mediocrity.
***
What has the world come to?
Piolo posts a reunion photo of matinee idols of the 1990s and it’s news fodder for about a week.
Isn’t there something else better we can talk about?
***
I resisted talking to Buko Juice Man around Dinagyang season.
He became a viral sensation on January 17.
When I finally decided to meet him for a story, it was already March, two months after his overnight celebrity.
I wanted to know how his life was changed by Internet stardom.
We’ll, he still peddles buko juice at the Parola Wharf.
But I like how he’s more adjusted to customers, and his public image now.
***
But my biggest motivation for Frontpage was the amount of media mileage that one crazy celebrity smearing cake icing on a waiter on her birthday was getting.
People were talking about it for weeks!
With inordinate attention given to stupidity, how much attention do we have left for the real stuff?
***
I have two options: Go on with my life, and plant camote.
Or, take on a mission of changing the journalistic landscape one article at a time.
Plurality may truly destroy our old standards, and lead the post pandemic life into chaos and confusion.
***
I have no grand illusions that all that I write are worthy of the paper they are printed on.
But with all honesty, my intention is always to do better.
I do things to do better.
It could be just a process of honing my writing skills.
It could be just professing my humor.
***
But I know my intention is never about money, never about selling a story, or a newspaper.
In a most unusual way, I am just about the truth.
Some things may be grand; some things may be ordinary; but it’s all the truth…
As truth comes to me!/PN
