Jerry writes 30

IN THE early ‘70s, Jerry Lacuarta, a sacada from Manapla, Negros Occidental, joined the first wave of Visayan migration – media, that is – to Angeles City and Pampanga.

A hegira of two really – Jerry and Frank Olingay of Ang Filipino Opinion who branched out to the R&R industry as an entertainment impresario around the Crossing area and later winning the barangay chairmanship of Amsic.

Jerry started off being public information officer of the National Cottage Industry Development Authority before going to the Manila Bulletin as Pampanga correspondent.

For a time, he served as stringer for Agence France Presse and Jiji Press too. And one of the founding staff of the Angeles Sun.

Jerry holds the distinction of having the most number of terms as president of the Pampanga Press Club – four, and the Central Luzon Media Association – three.

For his exposes, Jerry had his fair share of threats and intimidations. Let me now lift this piece from my book Of the Press (1999), subtitled “Pistol-packin’ Martin”:

The Pampanga Press Club and the Angeles City Press and Radio Club are one in condemning him for acts unbecoming of a government official; acts that are transgressions of the rights of the working newsman.

The Publishers Association of Pampanga expressed solidarity with the two press clubs in condemning his high-handedness and (again!) acts unbecoming of a civil servant.

These newspaper lords even went to the extent of seeking a public castigation from concerned agencies and officials.

The National Press Club and the Federation of Provincial Press Clubs of the Philippines are all set to come up with “more damning” pronouncements and “more concrete” actions to teach him a lesson.

On the other end, press clubs all over the country have started sending their support to his victim.

The subject of this media solidarity is not a national figure. Neither is he of the stature of Burgos, Olivares and Babst.

He is Jerry J. Lacuarta, Bulletin Today correspondent in Pampanga and editor of Pampanga Profile.

The object of the condemnations? The mayor of a southern Pampanga town.

The case? Threats, invectives and intimidations levelled by the alcalde at Lacuarta who had the guts to write about a Tanodbayan case lodged against the mayor.

Truly, the mayor may have gotten more than he bargained for. Indeed, that was a costly “tarantado” the mayor reportedly shouted.

But then, the alcalde is yet to make good his “I’ll deal with you later.”

Your move, Sir. (Pooled editorial headlined Media Solidarity in all Pampanga weeklies on Feb. 13-19, 1983.)

GONZALO MARTIN Jr., mayor of Candaba, hurled threats and invectives at and challenged Jerry to a fistfight in a chance meeting at the Pampanga Agricultural College. The diminutive mayor may have been emboldened by his coterie of bodyguards and a .9MM Llama pistol tucked in his waistband.

Martin was subsequently silenced by the editorials and resolutions denouncing his actions.

In less than a year, if I remember right, Martin died from self-inflicted wounds caused by that very .9MM Llama. What happened, reports said, was Martin boarded his pick-up truck then slammed its door. The door hit the cocked gun in his back pocket and it went off, hitting him. He was rushed to San Fernando but upon reaching the North Luzon Expressway overpass, the pick-up ran out of gas. There. Martin barely finished the Act of Contrition and died from loss of blood.

In the chapter of my book titled “The Libel Tradition” I find another entry about Jerry:

Jerry Lacuarta had a much chilling case in the early ‘80s. There was this US Navyman named Thicke nabbed for international drug trafficking. The haul was a considerable volume of high-grade heroin stuffed inside imported frozen tuna coursed through the Subic port.

Thicke, reputedly with a wide network of contacts in the underworld, did not only file a multi-million peso libel suit against Jerry but even put out a “contract” on the newsman. Friends in the Constabulary like Col. Teddy Carian and Maj. Rey Cabauatan helped neutralize the threat to Jerry’s life.

With the conviction of Thicke, the libel case just faded out.

Jerry was among the most sought after mediamen by both private and public personalities, for his confidence and counsel. He was a confidante of Lilia G. Pineda, then mayor of then Lubao; Willy Castor, president of the National Constructors and Contractors Association; Aber Canlas, undersecretary of the DPWH, among others. It was through Jerry that Pampanga mediamen got to know the then brash aspirant to the Candaba mayorship, Jerry Pelayo.

Jerry was among the heaviest drinkers of mediamen with regular stations at Remedian barbeque, Shanghai Restaurant, City Lunch, and Jail House Rock. And the luckiest of the lot – bar none – having hit the Casino Filipino jackpot not once but twice.

This is of course, before his own epiphany at the rampaging lahar flows of Abacan River in 1992.

In one drunken stupor, Jerry fell from the carabao cart he was riding to cross Abacan and nearly drowned, fished out muddied and all over a kilometre downstream. Thence comes his transformation into a Bible-toting, Bible-quoting, Christian-living newsman.

After his stroke in 2002, the “fighting priss” – as we called him on account of his heavy Visayan accent – retired from journalism and spent his days with his family and the Bible.

He joined His Creator last Sunday, Oct. 6. Rest well, our dear brother.