Farewell, Dean Luis Teodoro – VERA Files

March 18, 2023


Journalist and journalism professor Luis Teodoro, a leading light in Philippine media, passed away March 14. He was 81.

Photo by Carlos Conde December 2022, UP

 

By Babeth Lolarga

Here he is, wearing his well-ironed, clean-cut look

Never one to be caught in blue jeans,

Rumpled shirt or sneakers,

Not even when in the midst of romance

When i think of him, i think of a pen

With which he skewered the fascists

The pigs, the insufferable boors in the halls of

Power, prospect of prison notwithstanding

Today he departed without so much

As a quick goodbye to those many who

Saluted him in his life and are now bereft

Of a rare paragon of media virtud

Oh Louie, i wanted you so to reach

Your nineties, become our

Grand and Grumpy Old Man of Letters

But your heart couldn’t bear this nation’s

Repeated betrayals!

Go, do not let your spirit tarry here,

Go to what we know to be a place for

Divine peace and justice and all

That was unreachable in temporal life.

**********

Journalist Roby Alampay remembers Luis Teodoro

We all called him “Dean” not because that’s the title he had at the UP College of Mass Communication, but because he was a pillar in the Philippine journalism community and our never-ending struggles not only to be free, but to be better.

 Whether railing against governments or slapping his forehead over one of our own, Dean Luis scarred his own face with crows’ feet and furrows. But the more time I spent with him the more, to my eyes, those frown lines became more about with his cackle.

When I was much younger, when I was in fact his student, I thought he had a permanent grimace. I have to struggle to remember him that way now. Because THIS is how he is now etched in my heart.

He was my teacher then one of my bosses, a wise member of our board, when I joined SEAPA. By the end of that stint I felt privileged (and also at moments awkwardly presumptuous) to be confident enough to call him a friend. Never, however, to the point that I could plainly call him “Luis”.

Salamat at paalam, Dean Luis Teodoro. Maraming, maraming salamat po.

*********************************************

Farewell LVT

By Red Batario and G Sevilla Alvarez

The staff and officers of the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) deeply mourn the passing of Dean Luis V. Teodoro, mentor, partner, friend, colleague, and kindred spirit.

We will sadly miss his biting commentaries that cut to the quick but tempered by his sense of justice and humanity, his unwavering faith in a kind of journalism that can transform people’s lives, and his wellspring of inexhaustible wisdom that guided many of us when darkness seemed impenetrable.

To Dean Luis, farewell and thank you for gifting us with the knowledge and understanding of what journalism is and should be.



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VERA Files

VERA Files is a nonstock, nonprofit, independent media organization. Founded in March 2008, it is published by veteran Filipino journalists taking a deeper look into current Philippine issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”

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