The Lucky Worm

I discovered the limits of my world when, during my early years in college, I began to wonder how people could easily find a job. For want to finish my studies, I applied for work as a janitor, office clerk, and as a cub reporter for a news wire service and an evening broadsheet. I didn’t even reach first base because my interviewers’ curt replies were: “Study some more, hijo” and “Read some more!”

But, as luck would have it, representing my school in an inter-university quiz contest sponsored by the then Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) gave me the needed break to enter the “professional world” – the government broadcast media.

No matter how I love this job, I realized that the control levers of society called competition and professional jealousy could greatly affect one’s momentum.

Naïve as I was, and disgusted at how some colleagues jockeyed for “lucrative” beats, I left the media and jumped from one private company to another and worked as a staffwriter, medical representative, associate editor, communication specialist, and executive director.

Riding on dove’s wings

In my long career as a journalist that spans almost 40 years, I have interviewed countless personalities – government leaders, academics, scientists, religious, farmers, students, and ordinary men and women in the streets. Those interviews were, of course, intended for print and broadcast media.

From the working press to the exciting world of the press office in a diplomatic environment, and up to an international nongovernment organization as now, such kinds of interviews were dime a dozen.  How I influenced readers in the process of reportage governed by the tyranny of deadlines is another matter, suffice it to say that I have tried my very best to be as balanced and as plain as possible in discussing issues that affected our daily lives.

Stepping on biblical and medieval ground

In the Syrian winter evening of February 2001, I felt the excitement as the plane taxied at the runway of the modern Damascus International Airport (Arabic, مطار دمشق الدولي). Checking out, I was temporarily held at the Immigration Section by mustached military/Immigration officials as they verified the purpose of my visit.

Military people peered at the door of the immigration office where I sat for more than an hour whispering, Filipini, Filipini (Filipino, Filipino)!

 

At that moment, I realized how world politics could affect travelers. I heaved sighs of relief an hour later after the officials confirmed that I was headed for Aleppo to work as a Consultant Science Editor/Writer for the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).

 

A revolution of lowered expectation

Humor at primetime slot is a very pervasive component of television programming, which has brought about a revolution of lowered expectation. This is because daily boob tube sitcoms abound 10 pieces a cent, which could well provide social scientists empirical data on why legions of Filipinos voluntarily succumb and wallow into vicarious experiences for “wholesome family entertainment.”  

This form of entertainment deadens and anesthetizes the people’s sensibilities against a daily diet of government scams, political razzmatazz, gory killings, and sizzling movie gossips (anchors, advertisers, and TV stations earn millions this way, do they?) especially on Sundays. 

However, such form of entertainment brings to the fore the Filipinos’ proclivity to laugh at their own humor—at themselves—with the end result that people, especially the young, become intellectually malnourished and virtual idiot box trash bins. 

Man: an evolution conscious of itself

Man is nothing but evolution become conscious of itself. In the movie, Jurassic Park, we saw the monstrosity of man and beast – humongous dinosaurs ruling the earth with their size and strength, and man taming the world with his brain. 

Do you realize how big the human brain is? Dinosaurs may be huge, but their brains are as small as a pea. But the most striking difference between humans and dinosaurs is not our larger brain, but how we use them. Unlike other creatures, humans wear clothes, grow food, sing songs, read books, and build airplanes like Enola Gay to drop atomic bombs—but worship God still! 

Such differences stem from our ability to think, reason, make choices, and modify the world. Each of these abilities depends on our capacity for language—the ability to think in words, form concepts, and have ideas. From these, we develop a thirst for knowledge and a hunger to understand. 

Through language, we are able to ask questions: Why do we fall in love? How do planets and stars move? Where does rain come from? What makes wind “visible”? Why do plants grow? Why do flowers bloom?  

Being rich, being poor

I am rich, not filthy rich, but rich in experiences, competitive spirit, in understanding my past, in confronting the present, and in imagining the future.  

Born in Pangasinan from a poor family of eight, I am rich because as a young lad, my perception of poverty and affluence was a 10 centavo coin inside my pocket. And I felt rich. I am very competitive because I argued with my parents for my high school education. On graduation day, my father was up the stage twice pinning a little something on my shirt. Lucky worm, I said to myself. I finished my BSE from FEU after seven years! What kept me from dropping out of college was an allowance of P25 as a campus writer, and a part time office job with a monthly salary of P100. 

Just like changing the lens cap

(My farewell speech delivered before the Australian Embassy staff in Manila on 31 October 1997.) 

I’m looking at a certificate which represents 16 years, four months, and 12 days of service for the Australian Embassy in Manila, the most meaningful part of my professional life as a journalist. 

There is always a penalty for “replacing the lens cap for the last time,” as Mr. John Patrick beautifully puts it. And that penalty is delivering a farewell speech. 

I said meaningful because as a Press Officer working in the background, I was a witness during those 16 years to both national and international events as they unfolded before my eyes – APEC, ASEAN, ministerial visits, MOU signings, etcetera, ad infinitum – as two countries tried to forge and strengthen existing bilateral ties that formally started 51 years ago in 1946, coincidentally the year I was born.