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HERBERT VEGO
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WHEN a group of four female journalism students from the West Visayas State University asked to interview me, I hesitated. It did not seem right that an interviewer would be interviewed.
“You’re one of the right persons,” one of them counter-protested. “Our teacher’s instruction was for us to interview active newspapermen.”
“Okay,” I recalled a distant past, “I was already working as ghost writer for a daily showbiz columnist of the defunct Philippine Sun and Evening News when I made it to the dean’s list – list of graduates, I mean. I was also freelancing for newspapers and magazines in Manila. And so I did not even bother to participate in the graduation march. I also neglected to claim my diploma at the registrar’s office. What for? Newspaper editors don’t ask an applicant reporter for a diploma; they ask for a sample manuscript.”
“But of course,” Mona guessed, “your four years in college helped hone your writing skill.”
“Four and a half or a half-year longer than usual,” I corrected. “Not really bad because it includes my first year in Veterinary Medicine at UP-Iloilo. I shifted to AB-Journalism at MLQU after convincing my father that my heart was not in animals but in letters. In fact, I made it as news editor of the school organ, The Quezonian.”
In retrospect, I told them that I sometimes wish I had pushed through with my first course.
There are so few veterinarians in the world that they are in demand and better-paid. But why should I regret having chosen journalism when it has always been my destiny?
On second thought, if only to appease myself, I could have been a lousy veterinarian.
“Writing for a living,” I honestly told the students, “has not made me rich. But it’s my writing career that has seen my only son Norbert through elementary, secondary and nursing schools. He now works in New York.”
“Sir,” this time from Alma, “is it really necessary to finish a journalism course to land a newspaper job?”
“No,” I answered matter-of-factly, “Journalism, strictly speaking, is not a profession. You are not required to pass a board exam before gaining access to the news room. You don’t even have to go to college to master news writing. A good journalism book is all you need to learn it.”
They asked me if I had ever worked for government.
“I was 22 years old when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972,” I answered. “I detested writing propaganda for the dictatorship. But my friend Pete Vael, a highly-placed official in the office of then Press Secretary Francisco Tatad, insisted that there was vacancy in his office, and I did not have to write propaganda. Unfortunately, a certain Major Vicente Tigas blocked my appointment on the pretext that I had written anti-Marcos columns in the school paper.”
Afraid I had discouraged my interviewers, I reminded them that building writing aptitude takes time – even a lifetime.
“If you can write, write. If you can’t write, teach!”
I quickly added that had I earned an MA or PhD acronym after my name, I would have taught for a living, too.
“I see you did well in Manila,” one of the girls wondered, “Why did you come home to Iloilo, where there are lesser opportunities for growth?”
“I wanted to be part of history of the Iloilo media,” I quipped. “When I began editing the then weekly Panay News in April 1981, there was no local daily. And the local weeklies gathered dust in the newsstands. The Ilonggos would rather read the Manila dailies.”
It is to the credit of the current batch of editors and reporters that it’s now Panay News that outsells the Manila dailies./PN
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