I go Cebu for Wigo—and golf

By Al S. Mendoza

 

I AM here at the PAL Mabuhay Lounge, Centennial Airport (Naia 2), writing this column while waiting for my PAL jet bound for Cebu.

Yes, God willing, I’d be in Cebu Feb. 18 for a business trip.

The trip is both personal and business actually.

Personal because I wanted it so.

Business because it would afford me a chance to have something worthwhile to write about.

If plans didn’t miscarry, I would have  covered the launch of the Wigo, that “little big car” that Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) had planned to unwrap on Feb. 19.

For this occasion, Toyota would bring to Cebu a huge throng that included journalists from Manila to witness the unveiling of the Wigo in Shangri-la Mactan.

To those not in the know, I am also a motoring journalist, having put up the Motoring Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1991.

Before that, I wrote about cars at the Bulletin, where I was mainly a sportswriter from 1974 to 1986 (the year I moved to Inquirer).

How did I put up the Inquirer’s Motoring Section?

“I am not inclined to approving your plan of putting up a Motoring Section in our newspaper,” was the curt reply of Eggie Apostol, the Inquirer founder-owner, when I brought up the idea early in 1991.

I hate receiving a no for an answer, especially if I firmly believe my idea is sound and meritorious.

It took me weeks to argue my case and, finally, in April of 1991, the first issue of the Inquirer’s Motoring Section came out.

It was a breakthrough and today, almost 23 years since its birth, the Inquirer’s Motoring Section is the nation’s No. 1 in motoring business journalism.

I couldn’t be prouder.

And since I retired from the Inquirer in 2006, I haven’t left my two passions in journalism: I still write a motoring column and sports columns in at least five newspapers all circulated nationally.

But back to Wigo.

This latest model from Toyota is championed to be another blockbuster for its novelty and its sheer “bigness” in more ways than one.

Because it is a mere 1-liter, it is big in fuel savings.

Its unit price is a killer and easily ranks as the most affordable quality vehicle in the market today.

Consisting of at least three variants, Wigo’s entry level comes only at a little over four hundred thousand pesos—definitely and absolutely a bargain.

Now if you go for the top of the line, it will not cost you more than P600,000.

Wigo is made in Indonesia, and Toyota has another Japanese car giant, Daihatsu, as partner.

But of course it is not all business in this trip to Cebu.

I would play golf at Alta Vista in the company of such Toyota bigwigs like Toyota president Michonobu “The Rocker” Sugata, Lexus president Danny Isla, Sherwin ChuaLim and, of course, Dagupan-Toyota hotshot Rene So.

Oops, excuse me as I rush out of the Centennial Airport’s Mabuhay Lounge.

Boarding time.

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