Remembering

It is All Soul's Day, or almost, and I remember colleagues in PR practice who have been gone all these many years.

One was Emcy Corteza-Tinsay, who was a lawyer first, but took up PR as her life's work. She owned and managed a PR firm, Business Relations International. Elegant and charming, she had numerous contacts in government and business, and counseled firms in the sugar, embroidery and apparel and other industries. Emcy was the first lady president of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (1973-1974) and was its guiding hand until she died. She also served as corporate secretary of Philippine Advertising Counselors.

Shortly after we started our own PR agency in 1989, when we scarcely had any Clients, Emcy called me and said, "O, you help me. We are organizing the Air Safety Foundation and my friend, (Capt.) Bobby Lim, would like to use some PR. Come..." And we did, and had a good rewarding time with that, and other projects with Emcy. One thing this lady pointed out to me was, be proud of your corporate identity. "Put in your logo anywhere you decently can. That represents you and what you stand for."

Tony Vasquez was a whiz kid in PR. He worked at Citibank and other financial institutions before he put up his own PR agency, The Word, in the 1980s. He was very active in initiating moves to improve bank marketing and communications as a professional discipline. Tony knew so many things, corporate and marketing and events, and philosophy. His mind was so active that when you talked to him, you had to be all ears, because he would go from communications audit--which I had not heard of-- to media relations and what the other guys in PR were up to. But he was generous, with advice and good word for others. I offered to publish any book on Philippine PR that he might care to write-- he had been in PR work since 1962--, but he never got around to it. Tony died in the U.S. maybe 10 years ago.

I also remember Leon "Lenny" Hontiveros, chairman of JWT Group in the Philippines and my boss at Lexington (PR). A gentleman of the old school, Lenny spoke softly and with great authority. He had run his own advertising agency that had serviced Pepsi for many years when JWT invited him in the late 1960s. He was a kind man, and had one of the sharpest minds I had seen in his business. When he trusted his people, he left them virtually alone. After Client meetings, he would treat me to his favorite, noodles, wherever we were, Makati or Quezon City.

Another Tony was de Joya, the Tony de Joya. An original, sui generis. Like Lenny, Tony made his mark in advertising (Lenny and Tony worked together early in their careers, in an ad agency), but fancied himself a PR person as well. Many of AMA's (the agency he founded and owned) campaigns for Nestle were PR-orientated, as well as its work for JETRO (Japanese External Trade Organization). Tony always had the big picture in mind, what a campaign or project can do for Client, and also for the country. Nobody talked like Tony--he was precise, forceful, charming and rather hard to stop. In PR, Tony was one of those who organized the Asean Confederation of PR organizations. The likes of Tony de Joya do not occur frequently.

Still another Tony, Tony Mercado, who was my friend. These three Tonys were all Ateneans, and it showed in the way they wrote and spoke, with care and gentleness, and vigor. Tony Mercado was chairman of Basic Advertising, one of the most successful agencies here in the 1980s and 1990s. Tony Mercado kept on saying, Yes my work is advertising and marketing, but my heart is PR. He had his pulse on campaigns whose impact would be last long , and benefit not a market alone, but the larger society. Like the CMMA and the revival of Radio Veritas, and his agency's Values campaigns for DBP, PLDT and Pop Cola. Tony worked for the Church as well and created programs that would ensure that his people in the agency were always to be on the top of their game.

Elsewhere I have written of Jose Carpio, Pete Teodoro and RR de la Cruz. I was fortunate to have known them, these three, and the five I have just briefly recalled here. They all did landmark work in PR. I think they were all friends or at least knew each other.

How did it look like, the first time they met (in heaven, come on!, in heaven). What did they discuss? And who presided at their meeting? I have, as a matter of fact, an idea.