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Yearly at the onset of the summer months, Holy Week draws lowland crowds to Baguio City for her cool climate.
City old timers consider the trek as an invasion of their homely lackluster lifestyle. It is a time when traffic is at stand still, prices of commodities including restaurant menus sour high, city services strained and seem wanting, parks get crowded and filtered with garbage by undisciplined local tourists.
To local newsmen and women, it as an opportune time and source for various news items be it in human interests, crime, accidents, visits of celebrities, etc.
It is also the time when the “Lucky Summer Visitor” to the city is picked by a select committee of the Baguio Correspondents & Broadcasters Club (BCBC). It is the first activity of the media club after the annual election of new officers a few weeks back.
What is the BCBC and who are its members? It is an organization of working print and broadcast journalists in the city and the Cordillera Region. It was organized sixty years ago as Baguio Correspondents Club (BCC) sans broadcasters, “as an outfit that would support them in the exercise of their profession in the so-called fourth estate”.
The prime mover was Tito Carballo of the defunct Evening News who was also elected president. Organizing members were Vina Masadao, Ben Andaya and Nars Padilla of the Manila Chronicle, Francisco Tanglao and Augustus Saboy of the Philippine News Service, Carballo and Geronimo Evangelista Sr. of the Evening News, Gem Mamuyac of the Manila Times, Atty. Lucio Dixon of the Mountaineer, and Hilarion Pawid of the Baguio Midland Courier. Atty. Gabriel Pawid Keith of the Manila Bulletin and Baguio Midland Courier together with Nick Angel of the Philippines Herald joined the club a year later.
For years, the BCC met Friday nights with special guests in round-table discussions on issues affecting the city and the old Mountain Province, now Cordillera Region. This was held at the Session Café, a popular hub of local and visiting newspapermen, businessmen and politicians all.
The venue was later moved to a radio station along Harrison Road. Vic Agcaoili, the station manager, had the idea of airing live those discussions for the benefit of radio listeners. The one-hour session was then dubbed: “What Now Baguio?”
The weekly program drew crowds from various sectors of the community including government officials who, when time permitted, raised their own questions and opinions. Scheduling guests and discussants became a concern as national officials including cabinet members requesting time to dwell on raging national and local issues.
Fast forward, towards the end of the 1960s, talented young writers increased the roster to a little more than 30. With veteran broadcasters Manny Salenga, manager of a newly opened radio station DZYB, and manager Eddie Ferrer of DZWT, it was time to amend the BCC papers to include broadcasters.
Thus, the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club (BCBC) was baptized. This writer who was then writing for the Philippines Herald became the sixth elected president after Carballo, Tanglao, Andaya, Angel, Evangelista.
In 1971, the declaration of Martial Law spoiled the freedom of journalists to write and express their respective views on issues of concern in the country.
Newspapers, TV and radio stations were shut down. It followed that fresh and independent talents did not find journalism a strong calling in the field of muzzled and suppressed media. Yet in Baguio, a second generation of local newshounds took over the helm of the club holding high traditional work ethics and the towering standards of journalism.
Despite the dark clouds of Martial Law hovering in the country, the crusade for press freedom was silent and hidden in the heart of every true blooded BCBC member.
In 60 years, BCBC members demonstrated their liberal stance in pursuing their profession. Calm and responsible, they have contributed their respective pieces as members of the fourth estate to what the city and now the Cordillera Region is today.
Like any organization, it is not free from weakness which lies around member recruitment. The BCBC is not emancipated from shenanigans with the entry of bogus media practitioners. They are the kind that give a bad name to the noble profession of journalism. Editors and veteran journalists worth their salt could easily detect articles in the ACDC (attack collect defend collect) category.
“It is as it is” as the saying goes.