Recap:The NCCP Radio Station DYSR was in danger of closing down prematurely and not making it to the ‘80s. In 1978, a new crew came onboard, and the marching orders were clear – shape up, or ship out!
It was under these daunting circumstances that I came to be a part of DYSR, early in 1978. I had started as a student intern in the second semester of SY1977-78, but was so into radio broadcast that I completed my entire internship period (over 100 hours) even before the year was out. So they hired me, to let me continue working – which was what I wanted. With Boy Panajon and Romy Capilitan riding shotgun on my on-the-job training, it was a fast track to local recognition as a broadcaster. But Boy and Romy made sure that I paid my dues.
I distinctly remember my very first major newscast – the 12:15 pm midday report. Boy had painstakingly built up from scratch that dead slot into a well-received and anticipated news source for the Dumaguete community. Romy backed him up all the way with the top national and foreign news developments, still hot from the smoking manual typewriter in the newsroom (right next to the announcer’s booth and master control room) – I knew of nobody then who could out-type Romy in transcribing often-hard-to-make-out national and foreign news recordings. At times, when Boy was already on the air delivering the local news (which was the first segment, after the headlines and intervening reminder), Romy was still banging away at the typewriter, and just as Boy finished the local items, with nothing else more to read, Romy would nonchalantly hand in the national and foreign news items! It was amazing!
But that was the kind of working rapport the two of them had also built up through the years in striving to make DYSR a credible news-and-public-affairs media outlet in Dumaguete. They had mutual respect for each other’s talents, and trust between them – especially when the going got tough, which was practically all the time insofar as DYSR was concerned. It was hard to change SR’s reputation (and niche) as primarily a Protestant outreach voice, like a solitary boat in a Catholic sea. However, with the political winds of change in the late ‘70s (remember the Interim Batasan Pambansa, and the Pusyon Bisaya which was the only solid opposition slate to slip under the radar of the juggernaut KBL?), along with oikoumene on the religious front, and DYSR was at the crossroads of history – in terms of big challenges, within and without.
My maiden major newscast came, I thought at the time, quite early – still just a probationary, I was unsure of myself, not yet seasoned. However, Boy insisted that I could do it already, to which Romy concurred – if albeit somewhat reluctantly. Anyway, at that particular time there was a big public affairs event out of town, and Boy had to go there himself to cover it. As Boy related it afterwards, he was with Ely Dejaresco at the time, and they were monitoring the newscast as they rode in Ely’s Beetle out of town. Ely had asked who was delivering the news, and Boy said that I was pinch-hitting for him, adding that I was “good enough.” Then, the news came on – and beginning from the headlines all the way to the tail-end weather report, I punctuated my first major newscast with “– or, rather –” every now and then to make on-the-air corrections! We just laughed about it afterwards (at my expense), but the main thing was that, more and more, Boy was giving me the midday anchor slot, freeing him to make the rounds in gathering local news and personal interviews.
Romy, while still a little leery about his favorite newscaster being replaced by a greenhorn – just sucked it up – and he provided the needed support. I also made the extra effort to come across as being a reliable newscaster. My exemplar was Rudy Arbas – he made it sound so effortless and yet masterful at the same time. However, Romy insisted that it was just a faí§ade – Rudy wasn’t really a journalist; he was just a news presenter – and we were the real, working journalists. Aside from Rudy, I studied the different news anchormen of MPI radio – and there were a lot of them, all of them worthy of emulation. (My personal favorites were Bon Vivar and Bert Asoke.) Later, when I had gained more confidence, I went on to also delivering the 7 am newscast (vice Rudy, who had the 6:15 to 8 am morning show slot). It was heady experience, but I was eager to improve myself at whatever cost, and hungry for actual airtime.
When Glynda Descuatan took over the programming helm of DYSR, she got the prime time slot (6:15-8 am), and morning newscast. Usually, Rev. Dominador Antone delivered the 6-6:15 am Visayan newscast (Doming’s 5-6 am program slot was “Protestant hour”) but later it was Romy who more and more came to the station early to do the job. Romy’s mainstay newscast was the evening roundup in the vernacular, but like a good soldier he did what had to be done – no matter what time it was. With Glynda at the helm, things started to turn around for DYSR – commercial loads were picking up, and local interest was also stirred up. Muffet Dolar and I in the meantime were gathering the youth gen-set to listen to DYSR via our DJ time slots.
Thus, together we achieved what was probably the zenith of DYSR’s popularity at the end of the ‘70s and beginning of the ‘80s – but that’s only my perception and opinion. And all throughout those days Romy was not just a mentor/adviser but also a friend – who wasn’t shy about criticizing what needed to be criticized, and just simply acknowledging a good job or some victories. On the air, Romy sounded just like many other vernacular newscasters; he was even a bit apologetic for that, but his attitude was to be consistent always, and humble. He was always there to put me in my place (along with everyone else in the announcing staff) whenever things got to the head – the adulation and popularity that comes with the territory. For Romy, quality radio broadcasting was about content (with creative innovation), consistency, and humility. In terms of broadcast journalism, he stood for accuracy, fairness, and responsibility. Today, these values appear to be “old-fashioned” and passé – because by and large, it’s true: these values are hard to come by these days.
I miss those days; those were my early formative years, professionally. And I miss all the colleagues, too, who – day in, day out – came up to the DYSR studios to do what they do best. For me, Romy is like the “Avatar” – the last air[wave]bender! Now, he’s far from home – on the “underside” of the world, perhaps basking in the glow of our twilight years, and seeking true peace and fulfillment. He had confided in me once that, at heart he was really just a country boy, and would always be one. So he’s now an expatriate countryman of ours; the man has indeed been taken out of the country – but the country can never be taken out of the man!
Read related article: The expat countryman: last airbender (Part One)
