LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
“Writing is an art and a craft that needs to be developed through deliberate practice and study over a long period of time.” – Inc.com
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I really never dreamed of becoming a writer or a journalist. What I wanted when I was still a kid was to become an illustrator – just like my idols (Mar T. Santana, Vincent Kua, Jr. and Karl Commendador).
But then, I lived in a far, far away place, somewhere in Davao del Sur. I assumed at that time that I wouldn’t go far if I pursued a career of being an illustrator. So, I decided to change my lifetime dream and pursue another: to be a writer.
I was in high school when I started reading books, the Holy Bible, some novels (because we had to submit a home reading report every month), and magazines. At the library, my classmates would find me reading Reader’s Digest. Among my favorite regular features were “Laughter, the best medicine,” “Life in these islands,” and those true-to-life stories.
There was a time when I tried sending some contributions to Reader’s Digest. They were never published but I still wished that someday I would see my byline in the prestigious American publication (not knowing that several years later, I would be writing for Reader’s Digest. I would be writing not just anecdotes but full-length features about health. The very first article, published in 2000, was about dengue fever).
I was already in college when my first article was published in MOD, then one of the country’s best selling national magazines. In the beginning, there were few paragraph articles, until I finally wrote some in-depth stories.
Some of my MOD features even won me some recognition in the Science and Technology Journalism Awards. My article on HIV/AIDS, entitled, “Who says AIDS doesn’t matter?” earned me an award in the AIDS Media Contest – that led me to a travel grant to attend AIDS international conferences in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Melbourne (Australia), and Durban (South Africa).
Aside from MOD, I also wrote for other magazines like Woman’s Home Companion, Women’s Journal, Woman Today, Panorama (the Sunday magazine of then Bulletin Today), Focus Philippines, Mr. & Ms., Philippine Graphic, Philippine Free Press, and Expressweek (of The Daily Express).
I already graduated from college when I started writing for newspapers. Actually, I started writing for a local daily called Ang Peryodiko Dabaw (now called Sunstar Davao). I wrote mostly agricultural stories since I was working at that time for a non-government organization. This led me to write a regular column, “Agribiz Jottings.” In addition, I wrote another column entitled “Regarding Henry,” which I deliberately took from a movie starring Harrison Ford.
Antonio M. Ajero, then the editor-in-chief of the local daily, saw my potential as a journalist. “Why don’t you write for the Press Foundation of Asia?” he told me. I found out later that PFA released a weekly dispatch (DEPTHnews) which was circulated not only in the Philippines but throughout Asia.
It was through PFA that I was able to join some trainings that iit conducted every now and then. The first training course I attended was on business and economics, which was held in Laguna first, and then later in Cebu and Bacolod.
I also attended another seminar on agricultural reporting, where I had the pleasure of meeting the veteran Juan Mercado. “So, you are the Henrylito Tacio they are talking about,” he told me during our first encounter.
During a break, he asked me if I already had a Philippine passport. (Five months earlier, I decided to get a passport even though I had no plans yet of going abroad) “Yes, I have,” I replied. “Next month, you will be going to Bangkok to attend a training on food security for Asian journalists.”
That was my first trip abroad. I was in my early 20s.
The 1990s saw me venturing into the national dailies. First, I joined Today, where Elmer Cato was my editor. Then after winning the Hall of Fame in science reporting in 1998, I transferred to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, through the invitation of Isagani Yambot.
In 1999, I got the surprise of my life when I won the Journalist of the Year from the Rotary Club of Manila. Journalists from the three big islands (Mindanao, Visayas, and Luzon) were given recognition, and so were three journalists from Metro Manila.
It was also at this time that I got an e-mail from Peter Dockrill. He asked me to meet him in Manila as he was interested in talking with me, and for a possible story to write. I really didn’t know who he was, and so I told him to come to Davao City if he wanted.
He did. We were talking in the lobby of Marco Polo when he inquired if I was interested in writing for Reader’s Digest. I was stunned; I never expected that he would make an offer that I could not answer negatively. And the rest is history.
Being an environmentalist, I wrote for a London-based publication called People and the Planet.” One of its contributors, Don Hinrichsen, became a friend. One time, he asked me if I was interested in co-authoring a paper on water and population for the Washington, D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson Institute for Scholars.
“You can either come to the United States, or I go to the Philippines,” he suggested. Since I had never been to the US yet that time, I asked him if I could go there, instead of him coming to the country.
And that was how I was able to come to the US, a country which I have always dreamed of visiting when I was still a little kid.
Yes, writing is easy, but it is also hard. To those who write, it seems easier, but to those who don’t, writing is such a herculean task. “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people,” wrote Thomas Mann in Essays of Three Decades.
So, how will you become a writer? Well, listen to the suggestion of Uzodinma Iweala: “Write. Write. Write. Don’t worry so much about being published or discovered. Worry about writing what you have to write – what you need to say, and how you’re going to say it. The rest will come.” – ###
