ANNA CHANCO. How old were you when you first started writing?
BOO CHANCO. I was 16 years old when I started writing. I was fresh out of high school. I started working with your grandfather Mao Chanco who was then a very prominent journalist. He made me an editorial assistant in a magazine called Orient, which he publishes. So I used to go to the printing press in Del Monte Avenue after my classes at UP and my responsibility was essentially to edit some of the articles, and make sure that the magazine comes out on time.

Q. So is that the reason why you became interested in journalism?
A. Actually, I was already interested in journalism before that. And Tito Mon just give me the opportunity to find out from direct experience that it was something I really wanted to do. After Orient I became a staff member of the Philippine Collegian, the student paper in UP. And thereafter I became reporter at ABS-CBN when I was in third year going to fourth year. I took a summer job and I never left it anymore. So I became a cub reporter and rose through the ranks and became a broadcast journalist. Anna Chanco : Can you please describe your style of writing? Boo: Well, my style of writing is essentially very relaxed, somewhat laid back. The whole idea is to make my writing easy to read and pleasurable for the reader. I make sure the reader doesn't have to work too hard. I use language that is easy to understand so that people will get something out of it easily. They don't have to work at it the way as is the case with the way some other people write.

Q. So how do you decide on what to write?
A. Well, essentially I write for an audience so I look at the audience and ask myself what is of interest to my audience. First of all, what I write must be something current, something that's happening now or something that people can relate to. I also write about things that are interesting based on what I have experienced or read and things that people can use. So that after they've read my article or something that I've written they have some use for the information that I've given them.

Q. So can you tell me about your early years in the newsroom? In terms of the physical location.
A. Well, I started out as a cub reporter in ABS CBN in 1969. I was 19 years old at the time and my job was to cover the police beat. I didn't stay too long in the police beat in fact I was hardly there because I got assigned to cover the foreign affairs beat and then subsequently the city hall beat. So I was most of the time out of the newsroom but then after awhile I decided I wanted to learn how to be a broadcast journalist because my training was in print. I volunteered to help write an evening newscast and I became an associate producer for an evening newscast. As a producer, you have to evaluate the news gathered by the news teams for the day and rank them according to importance. Then you weave a coherent story of all the events that happened that day. You have to learn how to write for the ear, which is different from writing for the eyes, as is the case with print journalism. Learning how to use visual elements like film or video tape is part of the work. All of these must be done with extremely tight deadlines. It is a major calamity if newstime comes and you are not ready to go on the air.

Q. In terms of the people that you worked with, can you describe them?
A. Well, journalists are basically very independent and they are very work oriented to a great extent. To them the story is the most important thing. They may not be diplomatic, they may not care too much about feelings so you have to be able to learn live with that kind of an environment. It is very competitive. Everybody is trying to outscore each other. Even in the same station you compete on the basis of who has the better story.

Q. What about being a cub reporter? What was it like being a cub reporter?
A. Well it is a very humbling experience. Because straight out of college you feel like you know everything but when you become a cub reporter the veterans, including the photographers, the cameramen and even the drivers make you feel like you are the lowest creature on earth. Covering the police beat and even the political beats like Congress and City Hall is a quick way of getting youthful idealism shattered because you end up having to work with veteran reporters and policemen and people whobecause of their work, have become very much jaded about the world. And you are just there trying to learn the tricks of the trade. So you become some kind of a well, a neophyte, really, trying to get into a fraternity. Or something like that because journalism is a fraternity of sorts.

Q. So when does it end? I mean..
A. Well, when you start getting good stories, you start making a name for yourself, then they start accepting you as one of them. You start beating the veterans in some of their stories and they even notice that you have something to give. Then you get recognition for that.

Q. So can you tell me about your first beat.
A. Well ok,my first beat, well… the police was the first beat but really I didn't spend all that much time there. The one I spent time on was the foreign affairs beat. That one is suppose to be an older reporter's beat but somehow I got assigned to it maybe because of my background in college but in that beat you cover with the other top columnists and top reporters in the field. Back then, there were two top beats. Malacanang is the premiere beat and foreign affairs is supposedly the second premiere beat. In a way, foreign affairs is a fancy beat. You dress up to cover and attend functions, you study protocol and good manners and you are oriented towards the big picture, I mean beyond your shores. The diplomatic beat requires you to cover ambassadors, cover international meets. Essentially you cover the secretary of foreign affairs. At that time it was Carlos P. Romulo who was very interesting. So you're never out of news, you always had something to write about, one way or the other. Secretary Romulo also had a good sense of what is news, so that even his casual commentary end up being news worthy.

Q. You were an editor also right?
A. Yes. Eventually I became the editor of the Manila Chronicle. As such it was my job to make sure that the paper is to put together everyday… that we meet our deadline. As leader of the editorial group, I was responsible for the reporters and the editors. I set the thrust of the paper. I got involved in the gathering of the news, also the same kind of work I did when I was head of the news department in ABS CBN. You go to work early to make sure that your reporters are covering their beats and that they're doing the right stories. We have a story conference at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon to evaluate the stories gathered for the day and decide which are the more important ones.

Q. So what was your attitude towards deadlines?
A. Well, it's something we had to live with in print, the press has to run with a certain schedule and you have to meet that. If we didn't get to run our paper by midnight, we could miss the provincial agents who come around to pick up the papers they will send to the provinces by bus and truck. But meeting deadlines is even more imperative in broadcasting because the nine o' clock newscast must come out at nine. You will have dead air if you're not ready. So deadlines are very important. This is where I got my ulcers when I was producing a newscast because it is sometimes difficult to be able to meet that deadline and come up with a really good newscast. Many times the reporters are late in submitting their story and you still have to process the stories to make them usable. Those are difficult things but you have to live with it. It's a day to day thing you go through.

Q. What significant events did you cover when you were writing?
A. Well, I don't remember all of them, but initially the student activism in the late 60's and early 70's was an event that I covered very well. It was very exciting because you're up there getting shot at also, that was interesting. We really had our adrenaline up whenever we covered, sometimes we cover rallies dressed in crash helmets and bullet proof vests and all that, you know, just to make sure that we don't get hurt. Then the suspension of Habeas Corpus was also something that we covered. It was very scary. That was after a national election and the party of Mr. Marcos lost and he was not happy about that. I remember being in Malacanang and overheard Mrs. Marcos express extreme displeasure about Orly Mercado, one of our anchors at ABS-CBN. I relayed the info to Orly and told him that he may want to disappear for a while because they might arrest him. And they did look for him but he was gone by then. I had just left the station when martial law was suspended, we were already taken off air so we weren't even able to write that story anymore. A number of big events too, like some international conferences here, ASEAN and many others I can't remember now. The election coverages also, we've done a lot of the election coverages, overnight things…and what made election coverages interesting is that we get extra pay for annotating a miting de avance. Sometimes the talent fee for one coverage is more than my two months salary. Then there were the usual floods, fires, earthquakes and calamities.

Q. So it seems as though you guys are willing to risk your lives just to get the news?
A. Well, when you're young you don't think much about risking your life. You just go on as part of the day's events. I was the one of the two ABS CBN reporters who covered the Plaza Miranda bombing. I was covering the miting de avance of the opposition party live for television. I was near Quiapo Church, near the opening for the pedestrian underpass. When they started throwing the bombs and I didn't know if I should run or not. I couldn't run because I was on air. In any case, we didn't get scared until way after, when we realized how bad it was. Then we sort of got a little scared. I remember my mother saying that she felt good when she heard my voice reporting on air. But I was kidding her afterwards that it could've been a replay, and she said she didn't know anything about replays so she was pretty much assured that I was safe. It was kinda scary but when you're young and you're after big stories, you don't even think about it.

Q. Last question, what were your memories as a reporter during world War II, Martial Law, Edsa Revolution etc?
A. Well I wasn't born yet during WWII. I don't know much of journalism during he martial law because I dropped out of journalism during that time. It wasn't very safe to do journalism then. I think the best stories that I've covered would be the student activism days, the first quarter storm, in 1969-70, because it was the turning point in our nation's history. The election coverages are also memorable in a way because you really get to go out in the field and do live reports and all that. And essentially those are the big things that are quite memorable.

Q. That's all. Thank you.