To the people who believe me when I say I did not start the fight with actor Raymart Santiago and that I never kicked actress Claudine Barretto during what is now jokingly referred to as “Thrilla at NAIA,” please accept my sincerest thanks.
Credibility is my only asset as a columnist and broadcast commentator.
Without credibility, my career as a journalist is finished.
If that video on YouTube hadn’t come out, I hate to imagine where I would be now.
In the first two hours after the incident at NAIA 3 was reported, people believed I was the one at fault, that I was the one who started the fight and that I hit a woman.
“He’s really a bad person and he deserves that shiner he got from Raymart and his group,” a friend quoted his friend as saying minutes after the news hit the airwaves.
And then, that video on YouTube came out and suddenly, the tide of public opinion changed in my favor.
I can’t thank enough the guy who took that video and uploaded it on YouTube.
To that guy who saved me: Thank you very much, my friend and savior.
I call you “my friend” even if we haven’t met because you’re heaven-sent.
I hope we can meet so I can thank you profusely. I consider you family out of immense gratitude.
I call you my “savior” because without that video, I would be the most hated and despised man in the country right now, what with all the play-acting that my opponents resorted to in front of TV cameras and radio microphones.
If not for that video, I think I would have resigned as a columnist and broadcast commentator because I would have lost my credibility.
I would have spent the rest of my life at my farm in Puerto Princesa, planting vegetables and dwarf coconut trees on a not-so-fertile soil.
Who knows, perhaps I would have passed on after a year or two because I would have found farming a boring occupation and felt no longer needed by the community.
I’ll tell you now why I think I’m so blessed: My columns in the Inquirer and Bandera; my “Isumbong Mo kay Tulfo” public service program on radio and my stint at TV5.
I feel needed and derive immeasurable self-satisfaction every day because of my work as a print and broadcast journalist.
I would not give up my work as a columnist and broadcast commentator even for a very high-paying job outside the field of journalism.
Take me away from my profession and I might die out of sheer boredom because being a journalist is the only job I know.
They say that many people kick the bucket within six months to a year after retirement because they no longer see any purpose in living.
I’ve been witness to friends dying months after retirement because they did nothing and just stayed at home.
So, again, thank you my friend and savior for giving me a new lease on life.
Respecter of women
As for those who still believe that I kicked Claudine, I can’t make you change your mind.
But perhaps I can convince you if I tell you that Rey Langit, my fellow broadcaster, can vouch for me when it comes to dealing with women.
Yes, sir, the Tulfo brothers still believe in chivalry as our father, the late Col. Ramon S. Tulfo, taught us to respect women.
Langit was witness to an incident many years ago in which I kept my cool even when a woman slapped me, doused water on my face and broke my car’s tail lights in public.
It would be self-serving if I told you the whole story.
So, I’ll let Langit tell it.
You may contact him at his e-mail address: reysky88@yahoo.com.
After all, he was the reason why I got into trouble with that woman.