Tita Eggie

By Al S. Mendoza

I MOVED TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer because of Eugenia Duran Apostol, who is fondly called Eggie. That was in 1986, shortly after the bloodless February Edsa Revolt that toppled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.

I was plucked out from the Bulletin Today (now Manila Bulletin), where I began as a sportswriter in 1974.

Before moving to the Inquirer, I had also worked as interim sports editor of Tempo (Bulletin’s sister publication that I helped put up in 1981 with founding editor Recah Trinidad and now Bulletin sports editor Ding Marcelo).  In a concurrent capacity, I was also editor of the Bulletin Saturday Sportsweek, and literary and sports editor of Panorama (the Sunday magazine of Bulletin Today).

But I also held the major position of editor in chief of Panorama when Eggie came along.  Besides being Panorama editor, I worked on the side as sports columnist for both Tempo and Bulletin Today.

The various positions I held at the Bulletin then had my parents, other relatives and friends band together to discourage me from moving to the Inquirer.

“The Bulletin is an established newspaper business and leaving it for a new paper seems crazy,” they chorused.

“Wala ca lad cama anaco, akin et umbaba ca nid datal ey?” my mother (May her soul rest in peace) said.

In short, I was being restrained to leave the No. 1 newspaper in the land.  And they were justified: In the Bulletin, my future appeared 99 percent secure.

Still, I ignored them all.  The Inquirer wasn’t even six months old then, but I saw in the Inquirer a newspaper that I felt I could really relate with.  Belong to.  The paper symbolized idealism, freedom, bravery.  Transferring to the Inquirer was, by far, the riskiest move I had ever done in my journalism career. 

I trusted my guts. 

I felt the new challenge would give me a brand-new joy.

I leaned anew on a favorite line of mine: The future belongs to the brave.

You have no guts, you lose life’s thrills.

You don’t praise joy, you live a dull life.

You take the future for granted, you are cowardly.

Call it instinct, but I also saw another future in the Inquirer, a future of a different kind. Maybe the kind that uplifts the spirit, nourishes the soul?

Twenty years later, I’m looking back. As The Beatles sang it, “It was twenty years ago today.”

I marked my 20th year with the Inquirer last August 1. I share this milestone with Eggie – I call her Tita Eggie – who did a tremendous job changing the course of my chosen calling. It was a ride worth taking again in the next 20 years.

But before embarking on it anew, may I salute Tita Eggie for winning this year the Ramon Magsaysay Award for distinguished journalism, literature and creative communication. It was a long overdue award for the bravest, most inventive journalist this country has ever produced.  I’m sad that Tita Eggie has left the Inquirer years ago, but I know her heart remains entombed in the paper’s masthead. A mother never leaves her child.

Tita  Eggie is 80 but don’t look now.  She doesn’t look it.  Get a glimpse of her when she does ballroom dancing and you will now what I mean.  When not boogie-woogieng, Tita Eggie busies herself looking   after her pioneering “Mentoring the Mentors” educational program and the empowering the people worldwide movement.

Boundless energy.

Tireless.

Fearless.

What a lady, indeed.

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