For Mary Jane Ortega, the PDE staff is family
After having been busy writing to help distressed compatriots overseas where I was a denizen for over three decades, I was surprised to get one bright morning in my news feed a message from Mary Jane Ortega.
What could it be about?
My heartbeat quickened, and I felt an adrenaline rush. Mary Jane was a three-time mayor of San Fernando, La Union, and a well-liked former Comptroller of the defunct Philippines Daily Express (PDE).
She had information about the reunion of the PDE staff, which had been postponed.
We called her different names at PDE —Ma’am Mary Jane, MJ, MJO, or simply Mary Jane. For her, it did not matter.
What mattered was the Daily Express Family – former staff and colleagues at the fondly remembered newspaper.
MJ’s message gave me a sense of belonging, warming the cockles of my heart, even though I felt like an outsider, not having attended the reunions regularly.
In her message, she said Jojo Ventura, former copy boy at the Editorial Department, would give an update on the reunion schedule.
I was informed about the last reunion by veteran journalist and Presidential Awardee Antonio Q. Alabastro.
Mary Jane mentioned she had attended a meeting. Out of curiosity, I asked if I could write about it, but she said it might not be necessary.
After some hesitation, she said, “It’s about helping members of the PDE family in need.”
That is Mary Jane. Helping seems to be inborn in her. She is concerned not only about former Daily Express staff but also about others.
Irene C. Hernandez-Camua, who now works at the Quezon City Public Library, recalled how Mary Jane reached out to her upon learning that Irene’s son Marc Louie was seriously ill.
Initially, Mary Jane met Irene to extend financial assistance, but later, MJ also asked her daughter to give Irene a substantial amount.
“Hindi ko makakalimutan si Ma’am Mary Jane Ortega,” Irene said.
(I can’t forget Ma’am Mary Jane Ortega.)
Hong Kong-based Virgilio Bello Lumicao said, “I’d say Mary Jane is the most dynamic of all the surviving PDE Family members.”
But she is more than that!
Lumicao, a friend and a mentor, added, “As top executives faded away during the post-EDSA decades, MJO remained the adhesive that made us all stick together like brothers and sisters as we journeyed towards the inevitable…”
The top executives he referred to were lawyer Juan S. Perez, Jr., PDE publisher; Enrique “Pocholo” P. Romualdez, executive editor; Neal H. Cruz, managing editor, among others.
In the mind’s eye, I could see the late Publisher pass by the Proofreading Section, walking with confidence and sartorial elegance in his two- and three-piece suits as he headed towards his office at the PDE building at 371 Bonifacio Drive, Intramuros, Manila.
The way he smiled and moved or turned his head reminded me of his son, former Undersecretary Juan Antonio “Jeepy” A. Perez III, who was the Executive Director of the Commission on Population and Development ( POPCOM).
Jeepy headed the Proofreading Section while studying for his pre-medicine degree at the University of the East, where he graduated cum laude.
Vir added, “It was her who made former employees realize that, in diverse ways, they had been cogs in the wheel of the enterprise that served as a launchpad for the careers of the youthful 700 or so people who joined Daily Express when it began hiring staff weeks before printing its maiden issue on May 7, 1972.”
Vir was the first head of the PDE Proofreading Section. He was the first Page 1 Editor of the broadsheet Riyadh Daily in Saudi Arabia’s capital. It is now only published online.
I was lucky to join the well-remembered daily in October 1975. Pocholo—known as the “Editor’s Editor” — gave me opportunities for a reportorial job, but it was in another newspaper that I became one.
Servillano “Nonoy” de Dios, a friend and former Supervisor at the Daily Express, recommended me for a writing position to his boss, Johnny Redoblado, a veteran journalist.
But after six months, Leticia M. Locsin, Business Day (now Business World) managing editor, asked Redoblado that I transfer to the Editorial Department.
Many Daily Express staffers were already veterans of the Fourth Estate. Pocholo went over their copies and red-penciled them, his voice booming inside the Editorial room when he called reporters’ attention.
But Alex Allan’s copy was always clean as a whistle.
Alex penned a warm and friendly letter, reminding me of Salvador P. Lopez, who wrote a letter to a young man, and Mario Vargas Llosa, to a young novelist.
Lopez’s letter was in the form of an essay included in the 1940 prize-winning book “Literature and Society” while Llosa, a Peruvian Nobel Prize awardee in 2010, wrote the book “Letters to a Young Novelist” published in 1997.
Alex’s letter is addressed to the PDE Family and makes a little fun of himself.
“I use my index finger to tap on buttons, symbols, icons, etc., on the phone, but often my other stiff fingers hit something else. That’s the reason I have to be careful about how I write,” he said.
Alex —like myself and others— may have missed reunions but considers himself a PDE Family member.
“Kim has been in touch with Loida Berbano, Jojo Ventura, and the ever-there-for-us Daily Express family, Dr. Jeepy Perez,” he said.
Going to a more serious topic, he discusses his wife Linda’s health condition.
“Some of you know Linda has had Parkinson’s Disease for almost 20 years. However, she was rushed to the hospital on April 11 due to collapsed and infected lungs and has been in the ICU since then.
“Our children Kim, Sandy, Travis, and Nadia have been taking care of her, although it is Kim and his daughter, our granddaughter Aljun (Dr. Kristen Aljun Allan), who have borne the brunt of responsibility due to their proximity to the Amang Rodriguez hospital, and Aljun being an intern there …Thank you, too, Charlie and Marlyn. Thank you all.”
What is impressive and admirable is that, while Alex is sad, to say the least, because of Linda’s condition, he is still his usual self, his humor biting and sardonic in his Facebook posts, promoting change and reforms in society.
