TIROL. I'm Vicente Tirol. You can call me Vic. I am currently the publisher of Pinoy Times. It's a tabloid-size newspaper. We have two editions. A regular edition, which comes out Monday to Friday, and a special edition which comes out once a week. The special edition is like a magazine whish serves as our weekend edition although it's dated for the whole week. The regular edition was, started in September of last year. Both edition are in Filipino, and sell for P6.00 a copy. The regualar edition used to sell for only P5. But because of the rising cost of newsprint and ink and labor, we had to adjust our selling price. The person who began the paper is our president, Eugenia D. Apostol or Eggie Apostol for short. She was the founding chairman of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Before that she was the publisher of Mr. & Ms. Magazine which came out with a special edition after Ninoy was assassinated. She was already into retirement until a year ago and was just cruising and ballroom dancing. Than things happened and she didn't like what was happening to the media. The Manila Times was being forced to sell to a crony. Inquirer was boycotted by advertisers. And the President was trying to stifle criticism of him in the media. Ms. Apostol said we have to do something. This was also the time Erap was trying to change the constitution. Remember the Concord? Ms. Apostol said we have to do something. But wasn't sure what. So she called people together, including those who were displaced form the Times, and people like Bobbie Malay from UP Mass Comm. And other writers like Lorna Kalaw Tirol who happens to be my wife. Since I also sat in on the meetings, I couldn't resist speaking up. That's how I got into the newspaper. When the staff was being organized, Ms. Apostol said, "We have a publisher", and she pointed at me. Just to explain why a tabloid paper. Ms. Apostol said it was the masa which elected Erap to power and maybe she was partly to blame for that because maybe the masa needs to have a better understanding of the difference between acting and governing. She said that all 50 years in journalism, I've been addressing only the middle class by writing in English. It's about time I had a dialogue with the masses, sabi niya. I'll put out a paper in tabloid form which the people are familiar with, and then price it at only P5 so people can afford it. And it'll be in Filipino so they can understand it. So that's how we came to be created.

ARGUELLES. Ok. So can you describe the circumstances that led to you to be employed on a newspaper.
A. If you're asking how I got started in journalism, well back in high school, I had certain ambitions, certain dreams. I dreamt of becoming a journalist. I don't know whether being named editor of my high school paper had something to do with it. But that's how I got interested in journalism. I enrolled in that course and I finished my AB in journalism from UP in Diliman.

Q. so what was the first newspaper, that you worked for?
A. My first job was with a news agency - the Philippine News Service or PNS. It was a cooperative organization set up by the major newspapers in Manila. Its idea was to have the whole Philippines covered by correspondents who would send in news form the provinces. That would help cut down on costs because if each paper had its own person in every province, malaking gastos yon. So why not just pool resources and have this news service? Its patterned after the Associated Press in the US.

Q. So where was this located?
A. The news desk was housed at the National Press Club. We had reporters and correspondents covering Metro Manila. We also had correspondents in every town and the city in the country. My first job there was as a correspondent. I was covering several suburban towns like Parañaque, Las Pinas, Pasay. I started as a cub reporter. It wasn't easy because I am not like young kids now who have their own cars, chauffeur driven pa. I came from Davao. I was the first to graduate in the family. My father was just a rural health doctor. My mother was a homemaker. So I was taking public transport while I was just a student. To save on transport, sometimes I would walk from building to building. One time I wrote my father saying it's not easy to earn a living pala . Also, the soles of my shoes were almost gone. He wrote back saying, here's some money, buy yourself a new pair of shoes. I was working in tandem with a veteran reporter who showed me what to cover, looked at my writing and gave me feedback on how I was doing. After a few months, after I began working, I had to go back home because my father passed away. I stayed with my mother for a year and continued working for PNS as a correspondent, sending stories through telegram. At that time there were no faxes, no cellphones. Not even a telephone in my town. After a year I returned to Manila and joined the PNS desk. This meant editing other peoples' copy before it was sent to the newspapers.

Q. So can you talk about your first beat.
A. I was covering the suburban towns. It was a geographical beat, I had to cover everything that was taking place there - the City Hall, the police.

Q. Who were the other people that were with you?
A. There were other people from newspapers covering the same beats but I hardly got to see them I did my coverage at a different time of the day. We hardly got together except at the press club where, in the evening, they would go to unwind at the restaurant or the bar. I'd be with them when I could afford it.

Q. So did you have any memorable editors?
A. At the Philippine News Service, I was able to work for a while with Osmundo Abad-Santos, the editor. I didn't get a chance to know him well, but I was impressed by what he knew and how he was managing the organization. With his successor, Romeo Abundo, I learned to be masipag and to jjust work quietly, observe the standards of reporting and be thorough in editing. From the Philippine News Service I moved to the Manila Times which was then the largest selling newspaper in the country.

Q. What year was this?
A. 1969. I joined the Times desk where I processed reporters' stories, editing them, putting in the heads or the headlines, sometimes doing re-writes or I would be given long long speeches to cut down or told to do stories. Sometimes I would be made to cover events like a plane crash where one movie star, Mat Ranillo Jr. died. I had to leave the office at eleven in the evening to go up to Antipolo to cover the crash. There was also a time that the office of the Kabataang Makabayan along Quezon Avenue was bugged by the military. So I was also sent to cover that. I had to do a lot of things at the same time

Q. Who were the memorable colleagues that you had?
A. In the Times I worked under Jose Luna Castro. Joe Castro as he was called in the office authored the Manila Times Manual of Journalism. Which is still being used as a textbook in journalism schools around the country. Among the things I learned from Mr. Castro was about golf. I don't play golf but I learned from him the objective of the game, how its played (because he was a golfer). He was very patient and explained everything to me. He would talk about front nine, back nine, an eagle. That's how I understood the game.

Q. What were your best memories as a journalist or young reporter?
A. Some of my best memories were what I learned about journalists and from journalism while working abroad. I worked for a year in Hong Kong. I worked with regional newspaper and a regional agency. The regional paper was known as The Asian. It lasted a little more than a year. It was coming out once a week if I remember right ,it was circulated together with the Chronicle. This was in 1971. At the same time I was working with the sister organization of the paper, the Asian News Service. In bothe organization, I was fortunate to work with the best Asian journalists at that time. It was a multinational group. Apart from the Filipinos like Vergel Santos, Oscar Rodo and myself, there were also Indians, Malaysians, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Hong Kong Chinese and even Englishmen. Tarzie Vitechi, was Sri Lankan. Allan Chalkley, was an Englishman , from London. I learned more about economic and business journalism from him about journalism in general, and about Asia because he knew the region well. That broadened my perspectives of the region. I enjoyed working with all these people because they were really really good, they wrote well, they edited mercilessly, and they showed me that, 'yung kayabangan ng journalist, wala sa kanila. Some journalists think they shouldn't be using a dictionary. Tarzie always had a dictionary by his side. If there was a word he wasn't sure of , he'd check to see how it was spelled, how it was pronounced, beginnings of the word, the various meanings of the word. Sometimes, he would criticize me saying, Vic, that's a Filipinism. Like the word "trainor" he said; only you Filipinos use that word. There is no such word. The word is trainer. These are things that I picked up from these guys. That enriched my experience.

Q. What other significant events were you able to cover? You started in 1960…?
A. I began working 1966

Q. So you were able to reach martial law.
A. I was back at the Times, after a year in Hong Kong. I returned to Manila in August of 1972. This was when a really big typhoon flooded most of Manila and Central Luzon. I rejoined the Times when, in September, Martial Law was declared. I was working at the newsdesk the night the paper was shut down. A colleague who was at what we called the graveyard shift told us later that when the military came, they ordered the presses shut down, they hung all the phones, they padlocked the premises. My colleague was quite naïve so he asked the soldiers: Pwede ba, can you just let us finish the printing of the paper? Of course not, they said. Kaya nga sinasara ang diyariyo eh, its not supposed to come out anymore. I lost my job just like all the others at that time. At that time, if you wanted to return to work in a newspaper, you had to fill up a form. Requesting for clearance to work as a journalist. They'll see whether you're subversive or critical about Marcos. In my case they didn't even acknowledge my request for clearance. And then I heard about how censors were working in the newspapers. There were military men seated around the news desk to look at all the stories and say this can't be used, this should go in, this should be scrapped. Then they got tired of that and put up a civilian censor. They also got tired of that, so everyday someone from Malacañang press office would to ask, what is in your headline? Hindi pwede yan, baguhin ninyo yan, palitan ninyo yan. Who's on the front page? Who's picture is on the front page? Hindi pwede yan. Ilagay si Imelda, yung First Lady. You have a story about demonstration? Hindi pwede yan. Or you have a story about an encounter between the military and the NPA or military casualties? Di pwede yan. I couldn't work under these conditions so I chose not to go back to the newspapers.

Q. So what about the EDSA revolution?
A. At that time I was working with a population NGO and joining the rallies but I wasn't into media. I was more into what is called development communication. It was only after EDSA that I was invited to join the Press Foundation of Asia where I took care of training programs - planning , organizing and conducting seminars and workshops around the Asia-Pacific region for journalists.

Q. If you were to compare you years from 1966 to the present, what are the differences?
A. One is you don't see the reporters anymore. At the Times, we had rows and rows of typewriters. Reporters would come to do the stories. Now they just fax you stories or e-mail them. There's little interaction between the desk and the reporters. This has good and bad points. A good point is speed. A bad point is, there is no chance for immediate feedback or for setting the answer to a question kaagad. You have to text or call the person to clarify.

Q. So how did you write, was it typewritten?
A. Yes, everything was typewritten or dictated over the phone. We had some very good reporters, like the publisher of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Isagani Yambot. He was covering the Senate. When I was given his stories to edit, there was practically nothing that I needed to change. Another reporter covering Congress was Eddie Monteclaro. He has passed away already. He was fantastic. Even while listening to a session, he would be on the phone, dictating his story. I think he composed it mentally while reading from his notes. there was hardly anything that needed to be changed in the stories he submitted. He had the facility to listen and talk at the same time.

Q. So if you were to describe you years from 1966 to now, how would you describe it?
A. You've probably heard the phrase already - deja vu. We're seeing it all over again. After Marcos, we have this. The same techniquea are used: songs, black propaganda. What's new is the technology. We have the cellphone, e-mail. Its an exciting time. But we also have to be very careful of what we report. We can't be responsible. We have to check facts. Some pictures that we get are anonymously. We have to check them out. These are the constants. The changes are in the technology and, maybe, the people. I work with a younger staff. But they have the same dedication, the same conviction, the same aspiration for change. There's something I'd like to show you that's just been given by our president. It says: " I have tried to be objective; I cannot claim to be detached." by C. Wright Mills. It was just hanging at her home and she said that the office might be the better place for it. I think that we all like getting it from her because we feel that it captures what were trying to be.