LJM an angel to poor folk, media’s underclass

IN TRYING to ease the pain from Inquirer editor in chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc’s passing, I strive to find sense in the encounters I had with her.

LJM, in my memory, stands out for two reasons: She made the Inquirer an ally of ordinary folk and she loved us, province-based correspondents, an underclass in the media industry.

In the first, I remember LJM putting the difficult plight of my “kabalen” (province mate) Angelo de la Cruz on the paper’s front page from the day he was taken hostage by Iraqi rebels in 2004 up to the time the crisis was resolved in his being freed alive.

Like our Northern Luzon Bureau chief, Rolando Fernandez, she was not the type who told you what to do at every step of the way. I believe this was trust at work.

Freedom

I was given the freedom to explore the story as it developed, to understand the context of De La Cruz’s embrace of the risks of working in Iraq as an oil truck driver, and to empathize with his neighbors and kin who kept vigil in Barangay Buenavista in Mexico, Pampanga.

But LJM pressed me to beat the deadline. “What’s taking you too long?” she asked in her signature raspy voice, not balking.

She did not know there was no Internet connection in the village. I didn’t have an Internet-connected mobile phone either, so was photographer Edwin Bacasmas. We had to travel to the town hall to use a telephone to connect to the web. LJM kept her patience—never cursing, never shouting.

My special report on the Xevera housing controversy was an Inquirer scoop and it was LJM who put it out, again on the front page. She was in the United States when my report remained idle for some weeks in the news desk. It saw print a week after I sent her a text message.

She sent back a short reply: “Sorry.”

LJM continued to be concerned about the victims of the supposed scam. She asked me, through now Central Desk director, Juliet Labog-Javellana, to file follow-up stories.

LJM also put many of my stories on the front page and sent me checks for enterprising pieces, the types that other dailies did not pursue, like the house of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Lubao town amid talks that she would seek a congressional seat in Pampanga after ending her term in 2010. That home was too big to be ignored yet no one reported about it except the Inquirer.

“That was a magnificent story, Tonette,” LJM told me on the phone. “But are you really fit to work again?” she asked, sounding like a true “mother hen.” I was then just three months to my recovery from a stroke in 2009.

Helping correspondents

With little prodding from Sir Rolly, LJM also stood by correspondents who were in dire need due to health concerns.

Anselmo Roque of Nueva Ecija, Maurice Malanes of Baguio City and I received financial help although we were not regular employees of the Inquirer.

She was not stingy with praises. Former Pampanga correspondent Bert Basa recalled that LJM summoned him in 1992 to the Inquirer office, which was then at Intramuros in Manila.

Unexpectedly, Basa received a certificate recognizing his sustained coverage of the 1991 eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo. “Keep it up, Bert!” LJM told Basa, patting his shoulder.

LJM was proud of me, telling Among Ed (former Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio) that I was one of her best correspondents.

I was not aware LJM was sick or had been confined at St. Luke’s Medical Center in December.

Because Sir Gani (the late Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot) was not anymore around to take the cudgels for us, correspondents, I turned to LJM. My last “sumbong” two weeks ago was the delay in the release of bonuses for the Inquirer’s top performing correspondents. Strangely, I did not get a reply.