Dong Puno Live

It is perhaps acceptable for anyone to encounter difficulty in recollecting personal events that happened in Philippine television over two decades ago. Those were very exciting times and one news personality that really stood out was my friend and mentor, Atty. Ricardo (Dong) Puno Jr. (RVP), who passed on last week after years of lingering illness.

He was an outstanding and perhaps the best TV news and current affairs anchorman, glib in both English programs VIEWPOINT over channel 7 , POINT OF VIEWS over Studio 23 and in tagalog, the exciting, face to face DONG PUNO LIVE, that stormed the ratings in 1995.

But I remember him more as a hardworking and innovative television news executive being our Senior VP for News and Current affairs in ABS-CBN. He initiated a lot of bold moves on the Integrated News and Current Affairs (INCA) at the time when ABS-CBN’s dominance in entertainment and news programming was nearly toppled in TV ratings.

That was 1995, a turbulent and transformative year that saw Channel 9’s MARIMAR and GMA-7’s Extra Challenge and VILLA QUINTANA, closing in on our early evening newscast TV PATROL. This shortened gap triggered substantial erosion on the ratings of primetime ABS-CBN entertainment programs causing heavy panic among higher ups. The company decided to restart from scratch.

Looking back, our INCA people responded positively to Dong’s leadership.

He moved to strengthen nationwide and global coverage by establishing regional news bureaus in Baguio, Davao, and Cebu which later expanded to US and EUROPE. He implemented the transformation of Skycable’s channel SARIMANOK NEWS NETWORK (SNN) into what is now the ABS-CBN NEWS CHANNEL (ANC).

He created additional revenues by institutionalizing Saturday and Sunday versions of our major newscasts. He also created profits from otherwise non-revenue timeslots, specifically the phenomenal very early morning TV show at that time ALAS SINGKO Y MEDYA (5:30-8:30 am), hitting P600M in annual sales from nothing.

Internally, he pushed for news and current affairs excellence inside INCA ,thru a News Cadetship program, producing the best news anchors and reporters of today, and encouraged continuing news management seminars from UP, ATENEO, AIM and sending our news gathering and technical news people to international conventions.

In public eye, ABS-CBN NEWS excelled and delivered in historic coverages such as Pope John Paul II arrival on World Youth Day, highlighting the iconic and uninterrupted camera shots of His face from the airport to the Papal Nuncio’s Residencia. Other rememberables were the Flor Contemplacion in Singapore, and Leo Echegaray execution coverages, Ozone Disco fire, Cherry hills Antipolo landslide, Supertyphoon Rosing, the Mindanao bombings, Erap’s all-out war and Abu Sayaff’s hostage stories.

Dong was our boss for just five years from 1995 until 2000 when he was recruited as Pres. Erap’s press secretary. But those years were the golden age of ABS-CBN News and Current affairs. And he was the perfect leader, hands-on, super approachable, meticulous but very inspirational, mingles with everybody in blowouts, dance nights, and “Dong Puno solos” in karaoke parties.

That was really fast and short, but he created opportunites and built careers for so many of us. He was respected, loved and most sought after even in personal problems. And I speak in behalf of many in INCA, who are forever grateful for his wisdom, absolute fairness, his calm and collected approach in problem-solving, in all the victories we shared and the numerous pitfalls we overcame. And more importantly, we all had fun doing it.

Boss RVP, Maraming maraming salamat po sa lahat lahat.