Ronald Manila (Off Air)

Ronald Manila reports to a job of great import every day.

He is the Executive Producer of the Filipino Language Radio Program for the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), the world’s first multicultural public service broadcaster. This post entails him to oversee all the affairs of the program; most essentially, in the selection and translation into Tagalog the news and lifestyle feeds coming from Sydney, Melbourne, and the Philippines, before they are transmitted to the household and drive-time radios of over a hundred thousand Filipinos in the land down under.

By reporting to work, he is in the service of his fellow kababayans who should find great relief in keeping abreast of the goings-on without having to suffer from deciphering Australian twang for hours.

However Manila is reminded of these, he remains unfazed and unaffected. He is quick to downplay his job and insists there is nothing extraordinarily great about it.

“I only present the news. I tell them as they happen and I am not allowed to make commentaries.”

Given Manila’s natural gift of chatter and quips, it must take discipline and restraint to comply with this set-up that’s virtually unheard of in the Philippine airwaves that are bombarded by lengthy analysis and jumpy conclusions from the announcers. But he maintains he would not trade his seat with anybody.

It should be noted that prior to his work at the SBS, Manila has never committed himself full time to any media outfit.

Straight out of Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in Business Management, he worked at the Philippine Department of Trade. His tenure there ended shortly as he submitted to the calling of the legal profession. Two years would elapse before he realized he heard the wrong calling. He dropped out of law school and first set foot in the corporate world through Nestle Philippines.

At his early 30s, Manila resolved to leave the Philippines with his then-pregnant wife and two daughters, and a young but growing PR firm that he himself started, to carve an entirely new life in Sydney. By leaving the country, he was not escaping to a greener pasture, but to a society that is more vigilant against shameless iniquities that his chosen industry exposed him to with no repentance.

“I was tired of the corruption, bribery, and dirty politics in the Philippines. Here in Australia, you barely hear news about these and under-the-table negotiations.”

Optimistic that his past work experiences would be easy baits for a job, he did not wait long to distribute his resume to any company in Sydney who would accept it. This effort would prove futile, but did not leave Manila or his family daunted.

“We were able to save up enough money in the Philippines to sustain us for a period in Sydney even without work, so I didn’t feel hopeless.”

It would take five years of bumming, as he likes to call his occupation in their first few years in Sydney, before SBS appeared in the picture and asked him to go on board. He has an impressive portfolio of freelance writing, for no less than the Philippine Star, Miscellaneous Magazine, and Business Magazine in the Philippines, and Café Society, Filipino Times, and Bayanihan Newsletter in Australia; but his niche was in the corporate world of marketing. It never occurred to him that one day, he’d be clocking in and out for a full-time work in media.

“It all somehow just came to me. I had a short stint at Fairfax Media through a Filipino friend who works there as section editor, then I started contributing to SBS.”

When SBS offered him his current post 7 years ago, he accepted it and never looked back.
He would say luck played the most important role in his breakthrough in Sydney’s discriminating job market. But his so-called bumming years would oppose that with good decisions and hard work. It was then he finished his 2-year Masters of Arts in Communications Management at the University of Technology in Sydney.

“My wife and I always believed that an education from an Australian university would put us at par with the Australians.”

This strong intuition ultimately proved both right. His wife, who also finished an MBA here, is now a Senior Financial Analyst at Rail Corp. Manila talks of her with deep respect and admiration, as he does of his daughters, two of which already in university.
As far as professional life is concerned, he goes by the oft-repeated advice, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” But at home, Manila wants his family to remain entrenched in Filipino-ness, such as attending Sunday mass together, staying close with the whole clan, and even in the most common of Filipino delights as Leche Flan on special celebrations.

He might not be too eager to make a big deal out of the favor he grants to thousands of Filipino radio listeners, but he looks snug and at peace with where he is and with what he has achieved. Self-regard is unnecessary, he would say. True enough, if it manifested in him at all, it’s only for having made the right decisions in his younger years and landing a job that he enjoys.

“I love what I am doing. This is it for me. I will do this until I retire.”

~~~
I met and interviewed Ronald Manila for the Bayanihan Newsletter, one of the two Australia-based monthly publications catering to the Filoz, a.k.a. Australia-based Filipinos. This was the first assignment given to me by the editor, Domingo Perdon, with whom I got in touch so I can make official use of my writing (unofficial use would be thru my personal blog and journal) whilst I was discovering the land down under.

We had the interview in his desk space at the SBS Building in St. Leonards. SBS or Special Broadcasting Service is the world's first multilingual and multicultural radio and television service. As I mentioned in the article, his job seems of importance, but he is the most relaxed boss I have ever met. I didn't even have to conduct the interview along the outline set by my guide questions; the moment we sat down was his cue to start talking. We started at 3 and ended at 6. I'm sure he would have proceeded had he not needed to go home early to dinner with his wife and daughters.

The whole afternoon passed as not an inch of an interview, but more like a long conversation, which was very unfortunate in my part since I was not able to jot down a single information, putting myself later to self-torture by way of writing the whole piece entirely out of my [poor] memory. It also didn't help that he waxed almost every verbal paragraph with jokes, both hits and misses.

A few days after our [official] conversation, Sir Ronald left for the States with his family. He said if not for the trip, he would have helped me find casual work. That would have been a great opportunity, alas an untimely one. He recounted how he extended the same help to my fave princess of funk, Ala Paredes, who is already based in Sydney with her family. He submitted to Ala's great talent, but as he would say, "Her ego is as big." Ouch.

On December 26, he asked for my permission to reprint my profile on him -- the second time around for the newspaper supplement the Australian Embassy is organizing for Australia Day. I hope he was serious. I said yes, of course.

my profile on Ronald Manila, as it appeared in the December 2008 issue of the Bayanihan Newsletter