Point of View

On Sept. 29, the family and friends of the late Ivan P. Suansing will mark his third death anniversary. I would like to honor his memory by writing about his place in journalism, the great heights that he reached at a young age, and his contributions to Iloilo media. Ivan’s career is a model for struggling journalists and broadcasters, a fine example of a man who upheld the highest ethical standards, and displayed a genius for writing that made his family and friends proud.

Ivan was just 43 when he died. But at such a young age, he had already reached the dream position of every journalist — the editorship of a major daily newspaper in the country, the Cebu Daily News. He could have marched to higher levels of glory and achievement had a coronary ailment not ended his life three years ago. He is a man whose memory will never fade. In fact, when one talks about Iloilo media, he can’t possibly leave out the name of Ivan P. Suansing.

I was editor of the Western Visayas Times, a weekly newspaper that was the forerunner of “The Daily Times,” which later evolved into the SunStar Iloilo Daily, when Ivan just showed up one day at our editorial office in the Yuhum building, looking for me. I didn’t know the guy, but he had read our paper, and wanted to become a contributor. He left a few sample articles and asked the staff to show these to me.

When I opened that envelop and read the articles, I knew that I had stumbled upon a genius for writing. At once, I directed the office staff to call his home number and ask him to see me that same afternoon. It was past five o’ clock when he came, and at the time, I had a five o’ clock habit: beer drinking. My first question to him was: Do you drink beer? He smiled sheepishly, and said “Yes, of course.”

We drank until midnight, and we parted ways with the knowledge that we would be friends forever. Ivan wasn’t the talkative type. When we were together, he would just stay quiet most of the time, and give you that knowing smile whenever I provoked him into joining a discussion. Ivan never changed much until the day he died. He was humble, unassuming, and a loyal friend.

Not many people know that Ivan could have been a great lawyer. He was in his junior year at the UP College of Law when the EDSA Revolution took place. Somehow, that upheaval in the nation’s history disrupted his studies, and Ivan came back to Iloilo with nothing much in mind on what to do next. He saw our paper and he was drawn to join us.

I didn’t want him to stop studying law. My work as a journalist also distracted me from seriously pursuing my law studies. I told him, “I’ll accept your application on the condition that you’ll continue studying law and become a lawyer.” The naughty and mischievous side of him gave me a grin, and said “Yes, boss.”

Every afternoon, at exactly five o’ clock, I literally drove him out of the editorial office of our paper, with the express command for him to attend classes at the University of San Agustin. For several months, that was our routine; he left the office at 5 p.m. and came back at around 7 or 8. I thought he was religiously attending classes, which gave me a sense of fulfillment. Little did I know that he was playing a game on me. After a few months, an informant told me that Ivan was actually spending the time playing chess on Guanco St. He just waited long enough to make it appear he had gone to class and then hie back to the office to join the nightly drinking session.

We lost a good lawyer, but gained an outstanding journalist.

Ivan’s writing ability was superb. He had a natural ability to find the right words to express his ideas. The flow of his writing was flawless. His writing style was simple, yet elegant. He observed an economy of words. In every sentence that he wrote, there was hardly a single word that could be considered unnecessary. Each word was crafted with a precision of a Swiss watchmaker.

At the start, Ivan displayed a flair for sports writing. There was no nationwide live broadcasts of the PBA games, and basketball fans in Iloilo kept abreast of the professional league through the radio coverage of the Radyo ng Bayan. It was here that Ivan showed his talent for sports writing. With a bottle of San Miguel Pale Pilsen by his side, Ivan would sit near a transister radio and listen to the blow-by-blow radio coverage of the PBA games. He had a piece of paper and pen ready to join down key plays and keep a running total of the score.

When the final buzzer was sounded at around 9 p.m., Ivan would then pound on the typewriter (there was as yet no computers) and turn out a well-written story about the game in less than 30 minutes. That wasn’t all. The next morning, we would read the stories about the PBA games in the national papers, and we couldn’t help but admire Ivan’s work. His stories were better written than the reporters who actually watched the games. He had a knack for making the action come alive with words, that’s why. It was a talent that is seldom seen in newspaper writers.

We were more than co-workers in The Daily Times. We were soul-mates. We were friends. When we were not together in the newsroom, we were together at our favorite watering hole, drinking beer and talking about literature until the wee hours of the morning. Our drinking sprees were always enjoyable intellectual discussions. Making up the group then were Limuel Celebria, Ivan and myself. It was during this time that Lemuel Fernandez was taken into the group as our desk editor; he got his baptism of fire over bottles of beer as well.

Ivan and I parted ways when I left “The Daily Times” in 1991 and put up a weekly paper, The Sentinel. He also went to edit The Daily Informer that was established by Bernie Miaque. But we continued to meet regularly for beer bouts. Our favorite place was The Tavern, a restaurant owned by now city mayor Jerry P. Trenas on Delgado St. near SM. We had a regular Saturday night session, just the two of us, and we talked about politics, literature and sports.

In 1995, I went to the United States to try out in the big league of journalism. I became a reporter for a daily newspaper in central New Jersey and moonlighted as news editor of a weekly Filipino newspaper. I came home in 1997 for a vacation, but I was recruited first by then congressional candidate Joemarie Gerochi, and then “pirated”  by his opponent for the 1998 congressional race in the second district, Boboy Syjuco. My original plan of just coming home for a brief vacation was scuttled. But this brought me and Ivan together again at the SunStar Iloilo Daily.

Then Ivan was offered a job at a new paper that was being put up by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Cebu to challenge the stranglehold of Sunstar Daily and The Freeman. The paper was to be called “Cebu Daily News”, and Ivan was its first news editor. After wrestling with the offer for a few weeks, Ivan decided to roll the dice and relocate to Cebu.

But our geographical separation didn’t cause our friendship to grow cold. When he came home for Christmas, Ivan never failed to organize drinking parties at his home in Lapaz. When I visited Cebu, he played the role of tour guide and host. Beer, literature, writing and newspapering sustained our friendship. As the years went by, I watched Ivan’s career in Cebu with pride. His paper won as the best community newspaper award of the Rotary Club of Manila. He was promoted to Editor-in-Chief. I also worried for him when I heard that he met a near-tragic car accident. He was driving home in a heavy rain when his car rammed into a parked trailer truck; it was a miracle he survived that accident.

Our last beer session was sometime in the last week of June 2005. I attended the general assembly meeting of the Provincial Administrator’s League of the Philippines (PALP) at the Shangrila Hotel in Lahug, Cebu. When he learned I was in town, he arranged to pick me up at around 9 p.m. after he had “put the paper to bed,” journalism slang for finishing the editorial work for the printing to start. We drank at the Ayala business park just across the hotel, and he had taken along a young desk editor to join us.

A few months later, I was distressed to hear that he was undergoing heart surgery after suffering from a mild cardiac arrest. I talked to him by phone, and he assured me there was nothing to worry about. One early morning, I saw a message on my cell phone alerting me to a missed call from Ivan. I quickly returned the call and I was happy to hear he was in good spirits. He was due for surgery in a day or two, and he said he wanted to invite me for a couple of beers. Perhaps it was his way of building up the courage for a serious surgical procedure. I found his humor reassuring.

Then, on Sept. 29, I received a text message from a close relative of Ivan that he was in bad shape after the operation. I prayed hard that he’d make it past the critical stage. Several times during the day, I tried to get updates on his condition. By early afternoon, I received word that he had died. At once, I went to his parents’ home in Lapaz to condole with his father and mother. A true and loyal friend was gone forever.

I’m certain that had Ivan continued to live, he could have climbed the ladder of success in the journalism world all the way to the top. He could have stood side by side with Amado Doronila, Ma. Ceres Doyo and Ernesto Granada and give testimony to the tradition of Ilonggo journalists for excellence. And to the end, Ivan didn’t change. He was humble, unassuming, ethical and a stickler for the basic tenets of journalism.