Journalist Teodoro Benigno Jr. passes away – INQ7.net: I’d heard the news that TeddyMan Benigno was in a bad way two months ago. Now, he is gone. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but his massive popularity among older folks wasn’t shared by people closer to my age. I recall that one of the more enjoyable topics of conversation I’d have with people who read the newspapers was swapping examples of Benigno’s mixed metaphors. My favorite was “The Indians are circling the wagons.”
He will be missed. The past few years showed him despairing of the country, saying that the only thing to turn it around would be a bloody revolution. He kept being proved wrong in what would spark such an uprising, but he never gave up hope that it would take place. He didn’t have a high opinion of the younger journalists who have taken over the profession.
His success was due of course, to his hard work, his reputation for professionalism and personal integrity, and his writing in a style people liked. A columnist once grumbled to Cory Aquino, saying TeddyMan was, really, not a very good writer at all, and Cory shrugged, saying, “but ten times as many people ready TeddyMan as you.” And she was right -in large part because the blustery, purple prose and mixed metaphors are what newspaper readers like and consider good writing. The highest tribute newspaper readers of a certain age can give to a columnist is to call him “hard hitting.” Hard-hitting TeddyMan undeniably was. Rest in peace.
editorsweblog.org: has news of something I wish I’d known about,
We are now back in Paris after one week in Seoul where the 12th World Editors Forum was held from 29 May to 1 June. We were 350 editors from around the world, hundred more than last year in Istanbul.
Opinions of the Secretary of Justice 2003: lists the opinion I secured from the office in 2003 –
No. 65 On the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 8491, otherwise known as the “Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines,†particularly its provisions changing the colors of the Philippine flag and the elements of the national coat-of-arms and national seal.
I love purple prose so TeddyMan is some kind of a hero to me, hehe. So what if he’s ma-borloloy?; he gets his message across and quite resoundingly so. If I may make a comparison, Nick Joaquin is to tropical gothic as the likes of Teddy Benigno are to tropical baroque. With the death of the two writers/journalists, both Victorian(?) schools of writing are now officially dead.
Oh, there’s no shortage of Victorian prose. I’d suggest some younger writers actually write Victorianesque prose much more competently than some of our elders. Nick Joaquin was sui generis.
Like who?
Well, Clinton Palanca comes to mind. 🙂 Where the heck is Clinton Palanca?
Clinton’s in the UK.