WHENEVER I suffer lesions of depression that I allow others to mercilessly inflict on me, nothing beats my reflections of the Malacanang Press Lounge where some of my fondest thoughts still reside. I consider this as my favorite “rescue” fantasy.
The press lounge is a place generally actively filled with cigarette smoke and profanity. It is where one gets schooled in ribald humor, yanking you forever from the sterile and safe world of diplomatic finesse and protocol officers trailing the Chief Executive.
In this smoke-filled confusion, sassy presidential reporters spend endless hours playing tricks with words, often coming up with statements that could move you from sublimity to nausea. These specimens make me feel like a fossil after almost of them were children of my colleagues. What havoc could happen should they decide to gang up on me?
There was really nothing monumental about lunching at the Palace, but having the president’s undivided attention a whole afternoon is something to revel in.
The newshen would be made up, colored, highlighted, smoothed and glowing, not to be outdone by the men who put on intense neckties flirting for attention, and oh, yes; smelling like the future. To make the whole gang truly cross section, the executive staff and the media relations office were on hand, suffering us, while we choke presidential presence.
A breath away from the murky Pasig River, incumbent presidents warmly welcomed all 27 of us on annual gatherings designed to appease Manila’s “privileged” journalists — especially if there’s a collective complaint that a sitting president has become more accessible to the foreign media is aired. We have covered coup attempts, typhoons, earthquakes, royal drop-bys, tsunamis, golf games, and cabinet wrongdoings (including their exits and entrances) with peculiar detachment.
Then there were the weekly presscons where there is no prepared eloquence.
You don’t shout questions at the president. She or he is politely asked, stammered at, flashed, gushed and whispered to. Inevitably someone mumbles and grunts and all one could make out was this reporter chewing the mike and swallowing it whole!
I have not been spared the brunt of a president, admonishing this novice with “Is there a question somewhere?” or “In answer to your convoluted question.” The chorus of laughter would made me wish I were just dust under the rug.
Travelling with the president around the archipelago after coverages were excursions to pillage and plunder. There was absolutely nothing we laid our eyes on that we didn’t want to buy or keep as souvenirs. The press plane became an instant refugee camp of flora and fauna, fruits, bedcovers and what have you — even the exotic durian.
Then we punctuate our coverages with the usual favorite past time. We inebriate ourselves silly!
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