IN MY YOUTH, I used to enjoy writing a hodgepodge column for my high school campus paper.
In one of my more professional columns in the Ilonggo newspapers during the first decade of the new millennium, I used the word “potpourri” for my writing style of mixed assortments.
‘Hodgepodge’ simply means “a confused mixture.”
I think I would like to revisit the style.
***
The ideal column length for most Ilonggo newspapers (and dare I say Philippine newspapers) today is 1,000 to 1,200 words.
I struck a bargain with my editor to write in the proximity of 800 words.
And when the topic calls for it, I sometimes can go up to 1,200.
That, or I immediately default to a series.
***
But sometime in 2003 or 2004, I was writing a column of about 400 words.
I’m pretty sure I asked that my columns were printed one font size bigger than the regular op-ed font size.
Of course, in those years, I always got what I wanted.
I mean, I always get what I want.
But in those days, I was physically in Iloilo; and when things don’t go my way, I harass the typesetters and layout artists for weeks.
***
But now, I’m all over the world.
(I don’t even know from where I’ll be sending this article.)
I cannot hover over the shoulder of the layout artist to get exactly what I want.
And I don’t stress myself with things I can’t control.
I give my excellent instruction and expert opinion, but if the editorial team wants to f*ck things up, I let them.
I mean, it’s not like I own the newspaper.
***
Frankly, I’m just happy that my editor and publisher understand me.
Or if not that, that they understood how the great Danny “DF” Fajardo valued every little thing I say.
However little, however crazy, however seemingly insignificant, however hodgepodge.
***
One of my most cherished moments in Ilonggo journalism history is when I met DF formally for the first time.
It was for my interview before I joined Panay News in December 2005.
For good measure, I told DF my history of newspaper writing since September 2000.
How I didn’t really want a job, but it was offered to me as a challenge.
As if to put my creative writing talent to the test.
***
By then, I already had two Palanca awards.
And I didn’t want to write columns as other people write them.
I wanted the distinction of being “the heart” more than “the brain” in the Ilonggo newspapers.
That I turned out to be funny and thought provoking—a real agent provocateur, wasn’t the original plan.
It was something I discovered as I continued to deal with readers.
And especially my critics and detractors who thought they could control what should be printed in the newspapers.
Oh, how wrong they were!
***
When I told DF that I would be writing crazy things, that maybe I would not be writing traditional Panay News articles (I did read Panay News before my interview!), all he did was show me a sculpture of an eagle behind his desk.
Yes, that same spread-wing eagle you see on the masthead of Panay News.
And DF told me, “You can write anything you like in my newspaper. I want you to let your imagination soar high like an eagle. I trust you.”
I trust you—those are beautiful words to hear from a publisher to a writer.
***
I like to think that I never failed DF.
In all incarnations of my writing for Panay News—and there are many: short poems, love letters, novel-in-installments, literary miniseries, transcriptions of my social media posts, stream of consciousness, and whatever the next 52 years will invent, I have kept to the wings, the mind, and the dream of the eagle.
***
So yeah, I think I’m going to have a different direction in my column starting July 2021.
Just to shake things up.
But also to reinforce the idea of my unpredictability.
My beautiful craziness.
An in print sampling of all the 1,083 things that cross my mind in my daily waking hours.
It’s going to be a real hodge-podge.
***
I hope you like it.
But I really don’t care if you don’t!
I mean, rats are also entitled to their own hodgepodge.
And who says only an eagle’s hodgepodge matters?/PN
