Getting Back Home

Ces Oreña-Drilon, Photo by TOWNS (The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service)

Dear Ces,

     I hope you have access now and then to your mobile; or to a radio or tv signal.  I hope you can see how strong as steel your colleagues  in the news department have been, how they followed procedure; to the letter, because your safety and that of Jimmy Encarnacion  and  Angelo Valderama  were at stake;  how resolute  they are now, how everybody wanted to drop everything  and go to Jolo town, but they remained tough and did their best job ever, because lives were at stake; because they wanted to equal the high standards of competence and commitment that you have set, and that this is how best they can ensure your safety.  When you walk through that  door  again, you will see the tapes, you’d be proud of them. As you would be, of even competing media organizations.  

     There’s this usual “personality-test-question” that uses the phrase “to hell and back”, and many people misunderstand the question “if you need to go to hell and back, whom do you want to bring with you?” and give the name of a “bad person” as an answer, they think the question means, if you’re going to go down whom do you want to take down as well.  But it says, “…and back”. That question,  as  i’ve  seen it interpreted elsewhere, means:  if you have to go on a difficult mission or a perilous trip, whom do you want to bring with you? Because  you have every intent  of coming back.  So you choose someone who has qualities that will help you surmount the brimstone  and  find your way home,  you choose  someone whom you personally know as intelligent, street-smart, alert, perceptive, with clear sight and a keen sense of  hearing,  someone selfless with a brave heart and a sharp mind, has a good sense of direction, can find their way even without a map,  and someone who will not let go until you get back.

     If I have to go to hell and back, i have a shortlist of names : and there  in  that list,  is an ABS-CBN  journalist.