AS I stare at a blank computer monitor this Sunday afternoon, about to write an inaugural column for Pinoy Watchdog (Pinoywatchdog.com), my memory goes back some twenty years to a modest office where my Los Angeles community journalism career had a humble start. That small office belonged to Asian Journal (AJ). AJ was barely a few weeks old when Roger Oriel, its publisher, invited me for lunch at a Filipino restaurant right across from the A J office. Roger offered me the position of managing editor to take the place of erstwhile managing editor Larry Zabala, who was balancing two jobs, a night job and the managing editor position at AJ. The offer to put a fledgling Fil-Am newspaper to bed once a week was too good to pass up. I accepted Roger’s offer and thanked him for considering me.We had one computer, a few desks and a couple of telephones. Our receptionist was Lisa Penaranda (as in Lisa Minelli) whose husband, Ver, an avid outdoorsman, owned a modest printing business. My first couple of issues was hit-and-miss, and one weekend night, we failed to finish production work and missed our printing schedule. But Cora Macabagdal, a principal in AJ, who was dating Roger Oriel at the time, did not raise her voice even an octave when she came in the office that morning. Bleary-eyed for having worked overnight, I acknowledged our shortcomings and took responsibility for the missed opportunity. After a couple of weeks, everyone sort of grew into their jobs; we settled into a cadence, and there was no more missed printing schedules.
The Macabagdal-owned restaurant was a bistro, and it sits adjacent to a shop of well-known beautician-stylist Monet Lu. At lunchtime a group of Philippine Consulate people would drive the mile from the mid-Wilshire district to Beverly Blvd. to have their lunch at the bistro. It was the “in” Filipino restaurant that time.
Cora, the Macabagdals’ oldest daughter, was one of my wife’s closest girlfriends. They both had worked with Oscar Jornacion, publisher of the then California Examiner and a former partner of Roger Oriel. When they were still partners, Jornacion and Oriel owned a one-floor brick building along Beverly Blvd. near the corner of Occidental Blvd. When they parted ways due to a dispute, the brick building was sold, and Jornacion rented a one-floor building along San Fernando Road, in the Atwater district of Los Angeles. He also purchased a used rotary printing press, which fit in the back of the San Fernando Road property.
It would not be long after this move when Cora would part company with Jornacion. The speculation then was that, after parting ways with Jornacion, Oriel would establish his own newspaper and compete with his former partner. So it was a not surprise that Asian Journal was born a few months after his split from Jornacion. Cora, not surprisingly, also left Jornacion’s California Examiner, where she was the top-grossing account executive, and no one was surprised when she joined Oriel’s Asian Journal early on. The match-up was perfection. Oriel, a certified public accountant and businessman and Corazon Macabagdal, easily the highest grossing account executive in the Fil-Am community publishing industry, with a charming personality to boot.
For the Oriel-Macabagdal tandem, publishing a community newspaper that promises to be more progressive and innovative, compared to the sedate, but decades-old California Examiner would seem to be a sure thing. But it was doubtful at the outset whether Asian Journal would play a newspaper’s traditional role in social responsibility and advocacies for relevant social and political issues in the communities they serve.
Inured to some Pinoys’ penchant for filing libel cases to shake down well-meaning and crusading journalists and publishers, it is not difficult to understand why would-be publishers like Oriel and others would shirk from their traditional mandates as advocates due to the costs of litigation that results from losing such lawsuits, even if some of these suits do not always reach the litigation stage every time. What becomes paramount to publishers like Oriel, Jornacion and many others in involved in the industry is the commercial success and viability of the enterprise, first and foremost. On this score, I consider AJ a success story. But they have a long way to go from being recognized as an advocate for any kind of reform or social consciousness.
Cora Macabagdal and Her Quest for Financial Success
During her career as an account executive with California Examiner, Cora had dated a few eligible bachelors including a well-known Jewish-American immigration lawyer and a young Fil-Am dentist who had his practice in Orange County. But this latter gentleman, reportedly, turned out to be gay. Cora, who was quite naïve in the ways of love, often turned to us for advice. A charming, soft-spoken and statuesque, but slightly overweight woman, Cora was the toast of upright single men looking for a good wife, and, occasionally, married Lotharios who were looking for fun. But she successfully defended her honor from the wiles of the playboys, and as far as we know, she never had to suffer a nervous breakdown as a result of having her heart broken. My wife, who attended her wedding to Roger (I was not invited as I had just resigned as managing editor), related to me that Cora’s father wept openly when he and Cora did the ceremonial father-daughter dance during the reception.
My family considered Cora one of our closest friends. She even coined a nickname (“Manay”) for our baby daughter Justine, whose birthday parties she had attended more than once when was still single and Justine was still a Teddy bear-loving toddler. Cora also has a sister, named Kristina, who is a few years older than my daughter. She still calls me “Tito.”
Cora knew what she wanted to be, and listening to her talk about her goals, I concluded that she would like to achieve financial success, and who doesn’t? Only, in her case, I believe, it was an over-riding ambition. I remember in the late 80s after we bought our first brand-new Honda we took her and another California Examiner account executive with us for an overnight trip to Las Vegas. It was summer, and we arrived in Vegas a few ticks before midnight. After checking in at a motel, we hit the gambling casinos, and Cora and Rody Trinidad, the account executive, played until the wee hours of the morning, and both lost a lot of money.
On our way home, we stopped at Primm, and she and Rody continued to gamble at Whiskey Pete’s, and Cora had to whip up a credit card because she had lost all her cash earlier in a losing streak. That did not seem to faze her because she made a lot of money as the highest grossing AE of California Examiner. Besides, she was a single woman, and she could easily recoup her losses in one payday. The four of us also loved to eat Japanese food, and it was not beyond us to drive 15 miles down to Santa Monica, then the site of Todai, one of the best all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurants in the Los Angeles basin, at $12 buffet dinner per person. It was no pain because at the time, gas was like $2 a gallon.
The marketing and advertising sales profession is fraught with dangers for beautiful women like Cora, and it is not uncommon for a few single women account executives and other female sales persons to get entangled in compromising relationships with some male clients who do not have scruples. So we were relieved when we heard the news that Cora was dating Roger. He was divorced from his first wife when he dated Cora, and the couple’s budding romance, more or less, coincided with the birthing pains of Asian Journal.
Now, some twenty something years later after my short stint with Asian Journal, I find myself again at the helm of another fledgling newspaper that is full of idealism and fresh ideas. In between these two projects, I’ve been involved in the creation of two other news magazines from 1998 until 2005. These two monthly publications – LifeStyles and AWE Magazines – sadly had to fold up, not because of editorial incompetence but due to financial difficulties. I do not claim having made any significant contribution to Asian Journal’s success, having worked there only for about four years, first as a managing editor, and in 2007 up to the present, as a correspondent who was paid a paltry sum per article and picture(s) that I turned in and got published.
In fairness to the Oriels, especially to Cora, I was the one who sought the correspondent position, and I am quite sure that she took me in because we still considered each other as friends. Even though I did not accumulate great wealth while under their employ, the experience of chasing the news almost on a daily basis gave me an adrenalin jolt every time my dispatches were published on the front page. Today, another opportunity to pursue what I really love has opened its doors one more time. I am excited to find what’s behind these doors.
In the next issue of Pinoy Watchdog, I will continue my chronicle of the Asian Journal Story, the way that I witnessed and experienced it.
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