MY TRIBUTE

I don’t know if I’ve outgrown this, but I used to have such disdain for on-air personalities. It’s ironic, since I’m a promo writer by profession. I was a young, 21-ish copywriter at NBN/PTV-4, a nepo hire straight out of college. But instead of joining their news and public affairs division, I signed up with the creatives and merchandising department.

It was a great fit. I liked that the main difference between writing news and writing commercials was that you can’t fabricate news. I still do this kind of work today, with sports blogging as my main outlet.

I was part of a team assigned to get PBA player spiels at a game in Araneta Coliseum. The nice thing about working at PTV was getting free front row seats at PBA games, but you also had to do your job. I get that some players want to avoid the media during halftime, but some of them really have huge egos.

There was one superstar in 2003 who stuck with me. We asked him to record a short promo and he refused. He kept asking if he’d get paid and kept saying the copy was tacky. Over time, I’ve seen personalities trash my copy in front of me. At first, I was angry, but now I wonder if they had a point. Sometimes, I wrote just to get it done. But still, the copy back then was just: “Hi. This is ______ and you’re watching the PBA.” Super basic. It wasn’t like saying that would have killed him.

This was also during the time when PBA ratings started to dip. The network war between GMA and ABS-CBN spilled into the PBA’s timeslot. The league was no longer a Top 10 show. Both networks began airing action-packed dramas that appealed to the entire family, solving the PBA’s hold on viewers.

On top of that, fans were becoming more critical. They saw PBA players as aloof and money-driven. Fortunately, Fritz Ynfante was there. He was part of the PBA production team as a director and helped convince the player to do the promo. He even knocked on locker room doors and asked team managers to assist us after the game.

I’d heard of Fritz’s reputation even before I joined NBN/PTV. But I’ll never forget how kind and approachable he was that day. I don’t know if it was because of him, or because the PBA eventually required players to be more media-friendly, but those ambush shoots before and during halftime became easier.

Of course, players like Willie Miller, Mark Caguioa, Olsen Racela, and Asi Taulava were always open to helping promote the league. But I still stayed guarded in case I encountered someone difficult. I also remember that same player we had issues with was anxious about a second round of promo shoots. We didn’t go back to him. We were still a bit salty.

Since I was part of the creatives team, I didn’t work closely with PBA production that much.

But I will always remember what Direk Fritz did for us.