According to my late father, you would have two chances to pick up pre-Internet lessons on practical journalism. The first chance would be enough, and the third dangerous. Lights in his newsrooms were off, and only the touch typists of typewriters, computers, and laptops would survive in these dark rooms. I learned it the hard way.
At a leading newspaper’s research department in 1999, my eyes would not have hurt so badly had I practiced touch typing. Not just the hard way, I needed to learn my lesson at the soonest time possible. Thank God after unlearning the “tuldok” system and relearning the proper assignments of fingers touching the keyboard, my 20/20 vision was immediately back. I had to be fast to learn and relearn the art of fast typing.
Disciplining me, Tatay Rene closely followed my journalistic skills, typing skills, and leadership skills as I served twice as student council president. He put a premium on timeliness. He advised me to always beat the deadlines and quit beating around the bush. “Stop it and pass your article,” he kept on saying, and two of the last being, “Stop it and finalize the pages” and “Stop it and adjourn the meeting.”
The way he made instructions, it was as if he knew I knew it all. Guess what? By that, he’s building confidence in me, my craft, my leadership potentials.
All it takes is honest-to-goodness research, including Internet research, on my part to clear doubts and perfectly close the pages because, if not, he said that I would need to say goodbye to my chance to learn journalism. If there’s a need for him to advise me only to plant “camote,” he would advise me that instead of him seeing me struggle in the field with little improvement. Gain fast, mature early, and stay focused. If not, he said, he got good news for me: “Pwede kang maging pekeng peryodista, kaya huwag kang ganyan.”
Now that he’s joined his Creator, I would miss his wits and bits of fatherly and godly advice. His nose for news was unparalleled. His training on me was so smooth he didn’t fail to be a role model, knowing that around 50 would-be scribes were watching his bylines, understanding what they represented before and what they represent now. The real deal of his 50 cents lies in the practical lessons learned by his 50 informal trainees. “Mabait si Ka Rene, ikaw pa ang malilibre,” the trainees put it.
The guessing games are a no-no. Read more, guess less, his one broadsheet correctly points out. God wants us to explore his perfect ways, and be understanding too, and all we have to deeply acknowledge is His awesome power. He is a God of second chances. We should be humble before Him. Tatay Rene committed mistakes in life but more than made up for them. Hindi naging huli ang lahat kay Tatay kaya walang hanggang pasasalamat sa Diyos.
DC Alviar
Professor DC Alviar serves as a member of the steering committee of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). He was part of National University’s community extension project that imparted the five disciplines of a learning organization (Senge, 1990) to communities in a local government unit. He writes and edits local reports for Mega Scene. He graduated with a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University in Los Baños. He recently defended a dissertation proposal for his doctorate degree in communication at the same graduate school under a Philippine government scholarship grant. He was editor-in-chief of his high school paper Ang Ugat and the Adamson News.
