Rest easy, Jimmy

Cong Corrales .

IT was you who showed me the ropes when I was just starting out in the newspaper industry, then as a layout artist.

I just got married and was unemployed then. Emilio had bought a personal computer and along with it the Pagemaker software which I didn’t really mind because I mainly used the spanking new MS Word software for writing short stories, mama’s dissertation, and other clerical errands Emilio had me do.

One day, Emilio brought a copy of a local daily and in it was a house ad to hiring a “typesetter” — layout artists were called that then. In it, it said the applicant should have average knowledge on Pagemaker. That’s when I taught myself the basics of the Pagemaker.

Jimmy Salvo Diango taught me all the possible shortcuts of Aldus Pagemaker 3.11. Before that, I hardly had to use the mouse to design a page. Whenever I was in a rut, designing a page, he was always there to give layout suggestions.

He taught me the tricks on almost all of the “kiniat” (that was how he used to call it) in my page layout of the showbiz section of a local daily years ago. He taught me the practical application of the “rule of thirds,” the eloquence of minimalist and monochromatic designs.

Jimmy made my first few weeks in the newsroom less daunting. I don’t know how he exactly did it but he made designing pages fun.

I recall you were also the one who goaded me to write. You encouraged me. I wasn’t really into news writing but had written a short story which I showed to Jimmy. He goaded me to have it published in the Cebuano version of the newspaper. The problem was all my written works were in English. But Jimmy saw right through me and told me not to find a reason why I can’t but to just do it.

He had told me our Cebuano version has employed the sharpest and fastest translator in the galaxy, Yul Caringas. That was how the sci-fi series of the “Moravian Revolution” was born in the local papers.

Now, I had extra money aside from being a typesetter. Terry Betonio would clip the stories so it would be included in the billing by the end of the month.

It was also Jimmy who encouraged me to take up photography. I remember, when Emilio gave me my first SLR camera, I told Jimmy wouldn’t have much use of it since we work in the newsroom almost 12 hours each day. The very next day, Jimmy also bought his own so we could shoot together. “Wala ka na sa’y lusot run,” he told me grinning.

We told our editor-in-chief then, Carlos Conde, that we would like to contribute news stories and photos for the English version of the paper. Caloy was gracious enough to give us our break. I remember our first deployment was in Northern Mindanao Regional Hospital, now called the Northern Mindanao Medical Center.

It worked out well because my mother used to be the chief of nurse at the hospital and knew most of the emergency nurses. I had more access to the emergency room than most reporters. As Jimmy would taunt me before: “Sa wala’y pabor-pabor.”

Jimmy and I learned a lot of things in that emergency room. We learned that Caloy wasn’t going to use all the gory photos (e.g. bones sticking out of the knee) we took which we thought were what the other photojournalists were supposed to take. We were wrong. We learned how to respect the space of a grieving widow and families. We learned all these together.

After we were retrenched from that newspaper, we both went our separate ways. Jimmy continued designing pages for other printing presses and I, having caught the news bug, continued to write news stories and taking photos for other news organizations as a freelance correspondent.

I still did page designing gigs on the side, though. As Jimmy would encourage to acquire new skills, one also needs to nurture them by practicing it. Jimmy encourage me to explore the possibilities of each skill. It was because of Jimmy’s nurturing spirit that I was able to land a layout job for Mindanews. Yes, I started out in Mindanews as their in-house layout artist in Davao City.

Years went by and we met again in a now defunct local daily. I was to be the chief of reporters and he was the main layout artist. It was the now defunct Periodico News Network. When that closed shop, we would sometimes bump on each other in the streets. I learned he had tried the networking business. That was the last thing I knew about Jimmy.

He was interred on Friday. Jimmy, I could honestly say that you played a major role in my development as a journalist. I regard you as one of my professors at the “Pamantasan ng Puso.”

Bai, you will be missed. Rest easy, igsuon.