Tribute to Workplace Mentors 1

We all have our mentors, those who’ve left some indelible imprints on our character through various stages of our lives. Before my mind gets fuzzy, let me run through some of my workplace superiors and the lessons I learned from them:

Frankie Evangelista, kind-hearted and funny boss

The late Frankie “Ka Kiko” Evangelista. Quite an institution as a veteran TV news and public affairs anchor, he was my boss in Channel 13, my second job. He never flaunted he was “boss,” treated us like family and felt secure with his subordinates being such a bunch of extremely talented people. Among my colleagues were gifted writers Danny Javier, member of then up and coming singing sensation Apo Hiking Society; and Gemma Nemenzo, a scion of the brainy Nemenzos of UP (University of the Philippines).

Frankie treated us all equally and was generous with his praises. He knew how to motivate just by a tap on the shoulder or a humorous off-the-cuff comment—most of the time said in his disarming Tagalog accent. He referred to Gemma and me as “my girls” in a fatherly way.

The late Bren Guiao, my boss in RFM Corporation before he became Pampanga governor. We had a pretty tense incident after our head office inauguration. I don’t remember how it started, but our conversation grew into a shouting match. Probably piqued by my stubbornness, he told me to resign, so I did—and walked off. That was the last he saw of me.

It took years before I could muster the courage to tell him how sorry I was. He welcomed me with no recriminations, just like a father would. When he became Pampanga governor afterwards and I occasionally visited him with some of his former staff, he made it a point to see us even briefly even if he had hordes of politicos and kababayans waiting in line. He would then treat us to the best restaurants in the provincial capital, and send us back to Manila with loads of Kapampangan goodies.

Bren Guiao (top photo) and Bert Pasquin (bottom photo, extreme right), my PR mentors

He and Bert Pasquin, his then right hand man in RFM, whose path I crossed with in three other companies, patiently taught me the rudiments of public relations and news writing—even if I hated disciplined writing because I was more at home with creative writing.