‘Since the PPI was established more than half
a century ago, it would be interesting to note how old — or young — the founders were at that time.’
AS I was preparing two weeks ago for a piece on the press council, I came upon once again the names of the founders in 1964 of the Philippine Press Institute, the national association of newspapers that today is behind the movement to set up local media-citizen councils. As the list was based on 61-year-old data, I thought it prudent to ask a friend about one of the pioneers, Juan L. Mercado. Joseph Tubilan of Cebu Normal University assured me he was still around, but that he had to ask around for Mercado’s whereabouts. Professor Tubilan is a member of the Cebu Citizens-Press Council which Mercado helped set up about 20 years ago. Last Thursday, Tubilan said Mercado had passed on the previous night.
I never knew “Sir” Johnny that well. Thirty years separated us. I was a fifth-grader when he was detained at the start of martial law. He was an editor with the Philippine News Service which would become the Philippine News Agency. Upon his release, he spent most of his years overseas. When he returned in 1986, he chose to stay in his native Cebu. Until 2014, he wrote a column for SunStar Cebu and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I met Mercado only on a few occasions when I was chair of the Philippine Press Council, the PPI’s ethics body. But his gentle demeanor and deep substance left a great impression on me. I have since always regarded him highly. I would like to honor his memory therefore by putting together a few items about the distinguished 11 men with whom he set up the PPI which today is helping a printed medium transition to digital technology.
As listed by the PPI, they were Ramon Roces, Joaquin P. Roces, Hans Menzi, P. K. Macker, Oscar Lopez, Felix Gonzales [sic], Don Becker, Ermin Garcia Jr. [sic], Tarzie Vittachi, Carlos P. Romulo and Mariano N. Querol.
Ramon Roces, the great-grandson of a Manila colonial official or regidor, founded Liwayway magazine in 1923 and became known as the “komiks” king. Twenty-four years later, in 1988, he served another term as PPI trustee. He died in 1993.
His younger brother, better known as Chino Roces, was Manila Times publisher. The Times had gone into receivership in 1930 and their father, Alejandro Roces, became receiver. Because Alejandro also published the Tribune, he stopped the Times to solidify his market. But during the war, the Japanese used the Tribune as a propaganda newspaper. The tail-end of the war saw the deaths of Alejandro Sr. and Alejandro Jr. (Ramon and Chino’s brother) on the same day. After the war, the surviving siblings resurrected the Times with their youngest brother, Chino, as publisher. After martial law, Chino chaired the revived PPI board from 1986 until his death in 1988.
Romulo, whom we remember as a diplomat, general and University of the Philippines president, was in his early 20s, and armed with a master’s degree from Columbia, when he became assistant editor to Conrado Benítez at the Philippines Herald. In 1928, he resigned to join the rival Philippine Tribune of Alejandro Roces. Before he was 31, he was editor-in-chief of the TVT (Tribune, La Vanguardia, Taliba) chain. Five years later, he rejoined the Herald and in 1942 won the Pulitzer Prize in correspondence “for his observations and forecasts of Far Eastern developments during a tour of the trouble centers from Hong Kong to Batavia.”
In 1964 Menzi was in his seventh year as publisher of the Manila Daily Bulletin which he acquired in 1957 from its American founder, Carson Taylor. His father was a Swiss industrialist whose business interests included newsprint. He would be a major publisher during the martial-law years.
Gonzalez was already an editor at the Bulletin, quit, joined the Herald, and then returned to the Bulletin. According to a former Bulletin columnist, Gonzalez quit after a disagreement with a business manager over his editorial prerogative, “but the Bulletin was always his love. He used to come around to the Bulletin just to play ping-pong with us.” A retired Bulletin librarian said Gonzalez “mediated” for Menzi to buy what is today the Philippines’ longest-running daily newspaper. Oh, he would’ve exploded in rage at the PPI’s misspelling of his surname. He was, I learned from other Bulletin retirees, Felix Gonzales Gonzalez.
Later, Gonzalez would hire a Menzi scholar, Pat H. Gonzales, who would rise from cub reporter to editor-in-chief. In 1986, and having started his own paper, Gonzales would himself be elected to the PPI board.
Lopez was the son of one of the founders of ABS-CBN and the nephew of the former Vice President. As a young man, he published the Manila Chronicle which his father Eugenio Sr. had bought from its founders. (The “C” in CBN stands for Chronicle.) He would later head Benpres Holdings Corp., now known as Lopez Holdings.
Querol, Herald managing editor, would later write for the Manila Times (1967) and the Times Journal (1980) and become author of Land Reform in Asia (Solidaridad Publishing House, 1974).
There were three foreigners on the first PPI board: Americans Don Becker and P. K.. Macker, and Vittachi of Sri Lanka. Macker was Herald publisher and Becker regional manager of the UPI news “wire” service. Vittachi, one-time editor of The Ceylon Observer, said to be Asia’s oldest newspaper, was the second Ramon Magsaysay awardee for journalism in 1959.
Finally, Ermin Garcia Jr., although I have strong reason to think that this is a typo on the part of the PPI and that they meant his father, Ermin Sr., founder in 1956 of the Sunday Punch magazine. In 1964 Ermin Sr. was 39 while Ermin Jr. 16. Sources say the son took over two years after his father’s assassination in 1966. Ermin Jr., who still publishes the Punch, served as PPI trustee from 1988 to 1994, and executive director for four terms from 1995 to 2000. I have reached out to him for clarification.
Since the PPI was established more than half a century ago, it would be interesting to note how old — or young — the founders were at that time. The most senior was Ramon Roces, then 66, followed by Romulo, 65. (Although most sources say Romulo was born in 1899, the foundation bearing his name claims 1898.) The youngest were Becker, 30; Mercado, 33; and Lopez, 34. In between were Menzi, 53; Chino Roces, 50; and Vittachi, 42.
Mercado served as PPI trustee for 16 consecutive terms from 1995 to 2010. He would’ve been 95 next month. In my best interpretation, he was the last surviving member of the original PPI board.
Pahulay sa kalinaw, Sir Johnny.
