Oral History of Roman Floresca

August 16, 2008
Interviewers: Waldheim Leandre Ngo & Jaime Miguel Pabalan

Ngo: Good afternoon. Please state your name for the record.

Floresca: Oh. My name is Roman Floresca.

Ngo: And your position…

Floresca: I am the assistant business editor and currently the agriculture and environment editor of the Philippine Star.

Ngo: So from our research we got that you graduated from UE?

Floresca: Well, I wish I graduated but I only finished third year of engineering and then I dropped out of college. That was many many years ago and then a few years ago I went back to college. I enrolled in business management. I did not finish it either, I had two semesters left but then I was offered a teaching job at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

Ngo: That’s still in UE right? I mean your… the one… the business management course you took…

Floresca: Is in UE.

Ngo: So why… why journalism?

Floresca: Well, I really… I think I love math. Ever since I was… I have been going to school; I had consistently higher grades in math than in English. I think I took after my father who’s a… he’s got an easy time with numbers. But at the same time I got a mother who loved to read and I see all my sisters who are reading books. And I thought what to get about out (of) reading books. So I did… I tried reading books myself. And I have to enjoy it. I got to enjoy reading books so I read a lot of books. But at the same time I really wanted to be an engineer because I felt at ease with numbers.

Ngo: So when did you get into the field?

Floresca: Journalism.

Floresca: Back in UE I was enrolled in the college of engineering. I had good grades in engineering. In fact, I was… In our batch I was… I ranked either first or second. Until there was a semester I was… I had to take up an elective course in English and I chose to enrol in expository writing. And after our first semester, our prelim exams, my professor made, I was member of the school newspaper. I said “No,” then he said “Why don’t you try it? I think you’ll like it?” So I did try it and the rest is history. I loved, I kind of enjoy being a member of the student newspaper and I forgot about my engineering, though, I really wanted to be an engineer.

Ngo: So did you start of at the Philippine Star immediately?

Floresca: No. Well in fact I… I went from one job to another. I even had a job writing technical drawings. Technical drawings for the… for the… that was with the company, the firm of my brother-in-law. Because my brother-in-law used to manufacture scientific instruments, physics and laboratory instruments, for high school students. He would… he would design and make a prototype of a laboratory material or laboratory equipment or laboratory facility and after that he would give it to me. I would make the technical drawings and after I finish with my drawing you can throw away the prototype and just… I draw not only the end product then type process from raw materials. So you can throw away the prototype and just use my drawings so you can replicate… you can replicate the prototype.

Pabalan: Kailain po kayo nagstart with the Philippine Star?

Floresca: I was with the Philippine Star from the very start. That was in July 1986. But before that I was with Inquirer for four months. Before Inquirer I was with Malaya, before Malaya I was with the Philippines News Agency and before that I was editing a magazine which me and a few others published. We were doing well at the time but we ran into some misfortunes so I decided to seek employment but before that I was with a… an agricultural magazine and before that I was with the PR… Zorilla and Partners. I don’t know if you’ve heard about Zorilla and Partners, it used to be a big PR firm in the Seventies. And before that I was with Business Day, the old Business Day.

Ngo: The old Business Day. Who was running Business Day?

Floresca: Raul Locsin.

Ngo: You said… so your first encounter with a newspaper was Malaya?

Floresca: Well, Business Day is considered a newspaper, it was in 1977… ‘75.

Ngo: So you started off with Business?

Floresca: Yes. Business Day.

Ngo: And then… And then you moved on to… the next news publication you went to was Malaya?

Floresca: Yes. But in terms of newspapering, in terms of being a journalist I was with the Philippine, ah, the Philippines News Agency before Malaya. The Philippines News Agency is a news service. We have reporters… they have reporters who cover all the beats and they turn in their stories. What PNA does is it has its own editors, it processes the news, and then it sells the news to newspapers. The Philippine Star used to be a client of the Philippines News Agency. The other newspapers used to be clients. The radio stations and some big companies used to subscribe to the PNA because they wanted to get ahead, the information ahead. So the business of PNA is to sell, to sell stories and most of the clients are newspapers.

Ngo: What was your position in PNA?

Floresca: Reporter.

Ngo: What types of reports do… did you usually cover?

Floresca: Well, I covered the Securities Exchange Commission.

Floresca: The stock market.

Ngo: Okay. What was you position… and then after Malaya you said you worked for Inquirer?

Floresca: I was a reporter in Malaya, I was a reporter in Inquirer.

Ngo: What was your position in Inquirer? What were you reporting about?

Floresca: Agriculture. Yeah, agriculture bill which includes also the natural resources. Agrarian reform.

Ngo: When did you transfer to Philippine Star?

Floresca: You know I was not happy with the… the Inquirer. At the time Mrs. Betty Go-Belmonte, Max Soliven, Art Borjal… we were all with the Inquirer and they had some misunderstanding with Eggy Apostol, who was the… who was the owner at the time. They had a partnership. They were partners in reviving the Inquirer but they had some disagreements so the others decided to break out. The others decided to strike out on their own and these included Max Soliven, Betty Go Belmonte, Art Borjal and they put out a new… a newspaper which is the Philippine Star. And when I got an invitation to join them I took the invitation.

Pabalan: So nung pumasok po kayo sa, ay, when did you finally decide, di ba engineering po yung pinasukan niyong college till… ano, why did you decide to go into the newspaper business?

Floresca: Well, in terms of having a job you mean? I cannot… I cannot find a job as an engineer because… I wasn’t… I’m not an engineer. I wasn’t able to finish the course so nobody will take me in as an engineer. What skill do I have left now? What other skill do I have except writing? So by force of having no other choice, no other skill, no other qualification, I’m forced to be a journalist.
Ngo: But isn’t it pretty hard to get a job as a journalist as well? I mean it wasn’t stable. You should get a desk (job).

Floresca: Yeah. Well, especially nowadays there are only three maybe four or five stable media organizations. You have Philippine Star, the Inquirer group, Bulletin and well, maybe Journal… the Journal group. I said maybe, it’s like I’m not quite sure. And Business World used to be making money but now it’s kind of a question mark. So if you are not connected with these organizations… and they are not taking in any new people. Nowadays we have a hiring freeze; we are not taking in any new people. So you are forced to go… to find a job… to take a job in any of these small newspapers which… in fact there are a lot of newspapers that wrapped up and managed to stay in the business for a year or two then after that…

Ngo: So you’re not talking about the fly-by-night titles?

Floresca: That includes all those fly-by-night publications. There are some that are not fly-by-night but they could not keep up with the costs and they’re losing heavily so if you are… unless you have some other purpose for putting (up) a newspaper you will only be losing… you’re continually losing money. So in that sense, it’s difficult to fins a job because all the good jobs in the stable newspapers’ are filled up.

Ngo: And you have one of them?

Floresca: Yeah but I worked for it. I started from the very lowest.

Ngo: Would you… what would you say were the most ground-breaking news you’ve covered?

Floresca: Ground breaking news… oh… I really don’t know.

Pabalan: Significant events that you’ve covered?

Floresca: Significant events… I did cover the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front back in ‘86-’87. The reason why that’s because the main… the head of the Philippine panel was at the time Ramon Mitra, Jr. who was the secretary of agriculture and since I was covering the agriculture beat, I was also covering his affinities as a… both as a secretary of agriculture and as a chief negotiators for the Philippine panel with the… during the peace talks with the NDF. The NDF was represented at the time by Satur Ocampo and Antonio Zommel, who has passed away, and Satur Ocampo is now a member of congress. And I think together with Mitra then was former vice president Guingona. At that time Guingona was the chairman of the commission on audit.

Pabalan: As a young reporter po, what were your… the best memories you’ve had? What were your best memories as a young reporter?

Floresca: Oh I have a lot of good memories as a young reporter. I was able to… I was able to tour the entire… practically the entire Philippines. Well I haven’t been to Jolo, I haven’t been to Zamboanga but I’ve been to Mindanao several times. I’ve been to Davao, I’ve been to Cagayan de Oro, I’ve been to Misamis Occidental, Bukidnon, Surigao, I’ve been to almost all the islands in the Visayas, I’ve been to Negros, I’ve been to Panay, I’ve been to Samar, I’ve been to Leyte, I’ve been to Mindoro, Palawan. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful tourist spots, I’ve been to the underground river in Palawan, I’ve seen Mayon Volcano and I’ve travelled abroad as a… being a reporter… as a reporter.

Ngo: Correspondent.

Floresca: Well, you can go abroad, mostly in our case it’s by invitation. We get invited sometimes to attend a conference… an international conference like the first one we attended in Australia in 1987… ’88.

Ngo: So by this time you were already working for the Philippine Star?

Floresca: Yes, I was already with the Philippine Star. My first trip abroad was with the Philippine Star, that was in Taipei, Taiwan in 1987 and then the following year I went to Australia to attend an international conference for agricultural journalists. Again in 1990 I went to Japan to attend another conference. In 1992 was the first time I went to the US to attend another international conference then I’ve been to Europe, I’ve been to Germany six times, I’ve been to London, I’ve been to part of Italy but not Rome, I’ve been to Canada, I’ve been to Japan four or five times maybe, I’ve been to China about six times, I’ve been to… I’ve been to Singapore and I’m going again next week. And then I’ve been to Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau.

Ngo: So you’ve pretty much travelled all over the world.

Floresca: Well, I haven’t been to Africa, I haven’t been to the Middle East, I haven’t been to South America. But never mind.

Ngo: Well, aren’t… back in the day weren’t journalists more… kind of silenced because of, I don’t know, several…

Floresca: Because of martial law?

Ngo: Yeah, the martial law.

Floresca: I was still a student then. I was a member of the student newspaper in UE, you call it The Dawn. It’s still The Daw actually, you still have… the student newspaper is still alive.

Ngo: What was your position in the student newspaper?

Floresca: I started as a probational reporter then I became a regular reporter, I became the business manager, I became the associate editor and then I became the editor-in-chief in 1974.

Ngo: So basically you moved from the bottom up?

Floresca: Yeah.

Pabalan: Do you have any memorable editors?

Floresca: Memorable editors… I learned a lot from our… well, our advisor… well, he would… (everyone) has to call him advisor of The Dawn, our student newspaper, he was actually consultant. He would… he would give us encouraging words. He would encourage us and give us good advices on how to improve our skills and mostly it was “read this book, read that book” and because of that we were… we learned the styles of the classic writers, we got immersed in the classic styles which are, up to now, still good. It still sounds okay. And then as my editor, the one who influenced me the most, he’s a guy named Manny Almazan. He was also a former editor of The Dawn about five years ahead of us. And then he was my boss, I also worked with the UE publications department. And then he would go over my copy. He would edit my copy and then out of his… by editing my copy he was actually helping me a lot grow as a writer, he would let me see my mistakes… my errors. He really improved my copy and because of that you learn. You compare your old copy and your edited one and you’ll see the difference and from there you lean a lot of things. Which is why… sadly, I don’t know… I don’t know why our many… some of our reporters nowadays, they commit the same mistakes over and over and over again. They don’t even read what’s… they don’t even compare their work… their rouge copy with the ones hat come out because the ones that come out are the edited copies. Now, there are a lot of award winning journalists who’s works are judged according to what comes out in the newspaper but that’s not… that’s not them.

Ngo: That’s the editor?

Floresca: That’s the editor. Well, of course there are a lot of reporters who really can write but there are also a lot who don’t know how to write. And you’d be surprised some of them… these people have been in the profession for twenty years. You begin to wonder… how come the people… well, it’s not only in the journalism profession that you find these kind of people. They’re everywhere, they’re in every… they’re in every industry, they’re in every kind of profession.

Ngo: Well, in this light what would you say to the recent development of newspaper wherein most… well, you can consider most news nowadays as sensationalized?

Floresca: Yeah, well, especially in radio… on television. But if I’m speaking for the Philippine Star, we are not sensationalized. We take pride in saying that we are sober. We take pride in saying that we are fair. Something bad about somebody, about a political personality, a company, we don’t put it out without asking the person or the company involved. To answer, there are some newspapers, I will not name names, they would go ahead and print whatever it is and then the following morning its “Oh, what can you say about this?” To us that is unfair.

Ngo: Well, isn’t that the part where, there is this law called the right of reply?

Floresca: Well, you know that should not be necessary. A law like that should not be necessary if all newspapers and journalists are responsible enough to get the other’s side before whatever controversial issues are printed.

Ngo: So this is where the ethics come in?

Floresca: Uh huh. But the case on television is different. Are you watching TV news?

Ngo: Yeah.

Floresca: I don’t know but I don’t watch TV news. You know why? Well, I remember one time there was a… there had been a lot… there was a line up of news and then there was this announcement from Malacanang, the president issuing a statement about a very important national issue. Well, of course the TV station carried those news but their main story for the day… the news about the… about Malacanang and that the present issued a statement on a very important national issue lasted for fifteen seconds. But you know what took probably a minute and a half, maybe even two… it was the story about this retired basketball player who went into a sauna bath and had an argument with the attendants there they were running after each other into the streets, something like that. We have no sense of… I don’t know… to me that’s not news. Well, maybe its news to some people but you don’t give that type of broadcast to… what is more important? What is the importance of that? Although, a lot of people enjoyed watching that, I’m sure. And I don’t… one other thing… I don’t know if you have noticed. There is a snatching incident, a holdup incident and then the culprit, the criminal is apprehended. You notice that on TV this criminal is… the victim and some other people are allowed to strike… to strike at the apprehended criminal.

Ngo: So, it supposedly shows how the emotional outburst…

Floresca: But subliminally, what does that tell young people? That it is all right to take vengeance, to harm somebody anyway he is a criminal. Imagine. That is the kind of thought that we stick into the minds of young people.

Pabalan: Di’ ba kuminsan po scripted pa po yung mga ganyan?

Floresca: Exactly!

Ngo: Sir, this one film that I saw… it was basically talking about this… how people scripted… well, supposedly this documentary that was scripted. They planned every move the person makes. And sometimes they would make the person repeat that exactly just to make it seem as if it was actually happening right in front of them.

Floresca: Yup. So, no conscience di’ ba? And that is done only in the name of ratings. Because of what the people want to see. Commercial… very commercial. I mean, that is one difference between the print and the broadcast especially television. If you look at our front page… the front page of the Philippine Star, the front page of the Inquirer, the front page of the Bulletin, the front page of Malaya, Standard, Manila Times… I would say that ninety percent… no, eighty… eighty percent of the stories that you find in there on the front page are stories that are the most important. But in television, what do they… well, they carry stories about Malacanang issuing statements on this issue but generally those are no the top stories. Parang singit lang eh. They’re only forced to come up with these stories. They come up with these stories and they devote like fifteen seconds, thirty seconds for those stories while other consequential, parochial are given exposures running into three minutes even longer. There is even a follow up. Away ni Kris Aquino.

Ngo: In your experience as a journalist have you ever covered very sensitive issues wherein, several powerful bodies were being… I don’t know… somehow harmed or threatened.

Floresca: Well, not really. You know, one thing about being a business journalist, those things that lead to bodily harm are very very very seldom. It’s not a common situation in the business journalism profession. To be in a middle of a conflict between two parties that conflict that might result to bodily harm for one or the other. That situation is common among people who cover the police bit, the political bit, the armed forces bit but not in business.

Ngo: So would you say that you are perfectly fine with the situation now or would you trade it for something else?
Floresca: No, I’m fine. In the first place that’s what I… that’s the only thing that can give me an employment. Well, as far as I’m concerned, it pays well enough. I guess if I’m… I can’t think of other jobs with my qualifications where I can get the salary that I’m getting now. I’m forced to go with this. But I would have wanted to be an engineer. Truth is I wanted to become a scientist and join the NASA.

Pabalan: How about any memorable colleagues?

Floresca: Colleagues? I had memorable colleagues but there is not one particular person that… I had a lot of memorable colleagues but I cannot think of one who stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Pabalan: So, do you have any massage for aspiring journalists out there?

Floresca: Well, I’ve always ad this one message for any aspiring journalist and that is… read… the more you read, the better journalist you ought to become.

Ngo: What about in terms of writing?

Floresca: It comes naturally, when you are a wide reader. You read and read through styles you get, you feel, you get to become an expert on that field. You know it’s sad that many of today’s young writers seem to have forgotten how to read. I did ask one… I was asked to be part of a panel to select the incoming editors of the school newspaper and I asked only one question. “What was the title of the last book you read?” Nobody could answer my question. You know during my days, when I was a student, in high school, that’s when I started developing… acquiring the habit of reading books, I would go to the library and borrow a book, a novel. Kasi there is a library card where it shows who borrowed the book ahead of you. More often than not there were only one or two names in those books. And sometimes there are books with no names at all. They are not new books. They are old books, they’ve been there for. And then in college when I finally joined the student newspaper, I had a few colleagues; we had a contest paramihan ng librong mababasa. Our minimum was two books a week. If your just a couple of books… that means... and then it also came to a point where you gave me a book this thick with less than five hundred pages and I wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want that book. I wanted the think ones. War and Peace, Crime and Punishment… you know those books?

Ngo: Yeah. So what kind of books did you like to read?

Floresca: Those things. Novels. I even read philosophy books. Basic philosophy, history books, all, everything.

Ngo: So all those contributed to your past as a journalist?

Floresca: Yes.

Pabalan: Thank you very much.

Ngo: Thank you for your time.

Floresca: Sige, I hope I was able to give you something of value that you can use. Are you going to be graded for this?

Ngo: Yeah.

Floresca: Sige.