The man interviewed for this story died a year after this was published.
Just this morning, five years later, his son texted to say that he found
the clippings among his late father’s stuff — and that he
found my mobile phone number still stored on his old man’s SIM card.
‘Thank you’s’ were exchanged. We’ll probably never hear from each other
again or get to meet personally for beer or coffee. But I did tell him that it was one of those stories I really enjoyed doing; writing it was its own reward.
* * * *
Old Inquirer page spans generations
‘MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE’
By Volt Contreras
July 4, 2004
Page A1
EVEN when reduced to a wrapper for mangoes sold in the streets, an old,
crumpled page of the Inquirer never ceases to move readers and make minds
meet.
Coming home with fruit bought from a nearby stall last May, Wilvia Lao
Manatad, a college student in Bohol, noticed that the wrapper used was the
paper’s Letter to the Editor section dated Jan. 25, 2002.
A particular item made Manatad keep the newsprint long after she had
relished the mangoes: A letter from Ramon Alfonso Fuentes, a 75-year-old
former radio broadcaster, who sadly compared today’s radio-TV anchors and
news readers to those of his “Golden Age” in the ’50s.
This led to a remarkable correspondence between total strangers, between two
distant generations, between a youth looking for role models and a graying
mentor willing to share lessons about his fading craft.
Manatad, a mass communications student, immediately wrote Fuentes at the
address he gave in the Letters section, asking him to tell her more about
the “hefty and exacting standards” adhered to by radio personalities during
his day.
The letter reached Fuentes, now a business consultant based in Cubao, Quezon
City and an advocate of senior citizens’ rights, last June 1. He contacted
the Inquirer last week to relay the “unusual” chain of events set off by
that mango wrapper.
“What prompted me to write you this missive is your invitation to the
readers to get in touch with you if they’re interested to know the Golden
Age of broadcasting,” read the handwritten letter from Manatad, which
Fuentes showed this reporter.
“I’m a mass communications student and one of my upcoming major subjects
this school year is broadcast journalism,” she wrote. “Getting acquainted
with the Golden Age of broadcasting through you would probably prepare and
place me in a better position to understand the subject.”
Note-in-a-bottle saga
Manatad, who gave her return address at Dait-Norte, Buenvista, 6333 Bohol,
said she just “chanced upon” Fuentes’ letter to the editor on “old and torn
pages of the Inquirer used to cover the mangoes I bought from a nearby
store.”
To a visibly amused Fuentes, “this is a wee bit like the saga of the
note-in-a-bottle thrown out to sea. After many years, in a faraway land, the
note is retrieved and a story unfolds.”
“Don’t you think it exceedingly delightful?” he told the Inquirer. “Has
there been anything like it before? I shall cherish and treasure the
letter.”
“For the Inquirer, it proves that no matter that the pages are torn and
tattered and old, the contents leap out at the reader and are appreciated,”
he added.
Fuentes said he mailed his reply to Manatad last June 2.
‘Total anarchy’
In the Inquirer interview, he gave a sampling of what he imparted to the
Boholana student.
Compared to the discipline and “tact” observed by his generation of radio
men, he said, “there is total anarchy in broadcast today.”
For example, he and fellow anchors at the time would be reprimanded or
sometimes “fined” by management for grammatical errors, wrong diction, or
mispronounced words.
But today, radio or TV scriptwriters easily get away with “monstrosities,”
like __th year anniversary, or “weirder” terms, like month anniversary,
week anniversary, monthsary and weeksary.
Anchors then delivered the news in a more “sedate, professional style”
rather than in a “news bark,” he said. “News (then) was never meant to be
shouted.”
Tips from a master
He’s concerned that Manatad and other masscom students are “getting the
wrong idea of what newscasting is all about. Don’t forget that when you are
on radio, you are a guest in a person’s home and you’re not supposed to
shout at that person.”
Back then, he added, a news reader would never make side comments or
wisecracks in between reports. A field reporter would also “not address the
news to the anchor” but make it clear that he’s speaking to the listeners.
“We were not allowed to mention any commercial brand, otherwise the station
will bill us according to the corresponding (advertising) rate.”
Worse, “we could get fired.”
Today, he noted, anchors thank their shoes and clothing sponsors or even
their hairstylists on air.
“The greatest anarchy is in time management,” he lamented.
War-time voice
How come, he wondered, today’s radio stations seem to give time-checks that
are “totally different” from one another? It was also a no-no during his
day for programs to exceed their alloted airtime.
Manatad has, no doubt, asked pointers from the right man-what with Fuentes’
wealth of broadcasting experience.
The native Ilonggo was already going on-air just before the end of World War
II.
In April 1945, at age 17, he was hired as an announcer in a radio station
operating from a US military camp in Iloilo City, where he also served as a
mess boy.
Having worked for American troops and later obtaining an economics degree in
the US after the war largely explains Fuentes’ command of the English
language.
Axed during Marcos time
From the ’50s, he alternated his stints as a broadcaster with his work in
his consultancy firm. He did newscasts for Manila Broadcasting Co., and
later over DZAQ-TV, which then operated Channel 3. In the ’60s, he managed a
radio station he put up with a compadre in Bacolod City.
In 1978, under the Marcos regime, Fuentes began hosting “A Message to the
President,” a syndicated public affairs program on DZMB-FM. The 15-minute
show, which aired comments coming from the audience regarding public
services, got the ax “upon the orders of Malaca¤ang” in 1982, he said.
He would return to the radio booth 20 years later, this time as a voice for
his fellow elderly: Fuentes hosted the weekly “Senior Citizen Speaks” on
DWSS-AM. The program was stopped last Jan. 2, however, due to a change in
the station’s ownership.
Not just anybody
In his January 2002 letter to the editor, Fuentes described himself as “one
of the last few living relics” of a period in Philippine broadcasting when
networks put a high premium on work experience and seniority and “did not
pick just anybody off the street and make him [do] newscast like they do
now.”
“There were many nuances of professional discipline then that are sadly
taken for granted today by the so-called new-wave broadcasters,” he wrote.
Fuentes said he hoped to meet Manatad soon to personally thank her for ”a
most unusual experience” of having his ideas picked up even two years after
coming out in the Inquirer, the page recycled by a street vendor-and
literally bearing fruit.
