Published April 11, 2021, 12:12 AM
Mr. Icban never really noticed me, until I wrote a poem.
I attended the 10-day Singapore Writers Festival and brought home with me this burning desire to write in verse. I used to write poetry as a kid, but I outgrew it. While working for glossy magazines, I started writing poetry again to accompany the fashion editorials or travel photographs when, instead of facts, what I would like to convey was a mood or an atmosphere but moving to the newspaper, I had this mistaken notion that there was no room for poetry in the news, even in the lifestyle beat.
Fond remembrances of Dr. Crispulo Icban Jr., editor in chief of the Manila Bulletin
WELL-RESPECTED MEDIA MAN Mr. Icban’s favorite photo taken in his office while he was press secretary under PGMA administration
In the 1980s, the Icban family would go to the Ali Mall in Cubao on Sunday afternoons for dinner. On the way there from Project 8, where they lived, Mr. Icban would purchase sampaguita from the street peddlers. He’d bring the strings of sampaguita to the mall and, as the family walked around, he would fall behind and eventually disappear. They would find him later standing by the mall entrance holding the sampaguita like he was selling them. He would pretend to be a poor old, deaf-mute man, so that someone would take pity and buy from him the flower leis he had just bought to help street peddlers.
Published April 10, 2021, 12:08 AM
Let me pay tribute to our long-time colleague and editor in this paper who passed away last April 5, Crispulo Icban Jr., everyone’s “Sir Jun” or “Mang June.”
A bright self-effacing man, excellent editor, everybody’s friend, and mentor to all the reporters and aspiring section editors in the paper, he favored no one. In all his long years with the company, (47 years) he did not have an “enemy.”
“He played fair to everyone,” a pillar in the public relations industry told us.
Aspiring journalist-contributors, struggling public relations practitioners, aspiring reporters – everyone knew him as a very generous and humble man, with all his talents, and “power” in the editorial room.
Dr. Florangel Rosario Braid
What indeed is terrifying to septuagenarians and octogenarians like me, is that we are losing some of our colleagues, not to old age but to the dreaded COVID-19. When we open our Facebook pages, it seems like notes of condolences and prayers are beginning to catch up with congratulatory messages on birthday and wedding anniversaries. The same with wakes on Zoom.
Kailan pa ba ito matatapos? Helpless and hopeless, we read reports about the surge, and tents being installed because Metro Manila and nearby hospitals have reached full capacity. Many get treated or are recovering at home. Which is why we cannot trust current statistics on number of cases, mild or serious, or deaths because of the absence of accurate documentation on the out-of hospital cases.
(MANILA BULLETIN)
Senator Richard Gordon said Icban’s death is a “very irreparable loss to the media industry.”
“So very sad that my very dear friend Jun Icban of the Bulletin has passed on. He was a journalist for all seasons. His death is a very irreparable loss to the industry,” Gordon said on his Twitter post.
“He was soft-spoken and totally respected for his kindness and took his job very professionally,” he further said.
According to Gordon, he has known Icban, a former Press Secretary during President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration, for the last 50 years.
“I am sure that we will all feel the deep void from his loss. We condole with the family of Jun Icban and the Bulletin folks. We pray for the repose of his soul and that may he rest in peace,” he said.