Chicken feet for the Soul

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.

 

 

 

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