Media pay last respects to beloved Gani

True-blooded journalist, Gani is a great loss to the industry.

There was so much outpouring of love for the 'true journalist and gentleman'.  And literally, too.

Flowers and wreaths overflowed from the funeral room that they had to be lined up even outside the building beside the parking lot and through the driveway.

"Wala nang pagsidlan sa loob eh (They couldn't be accommodated inside anymore)," Cita Guyagoy, a long-time secretary of the former publisher at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said.

Prayers came intermittently from morning to evening from all sorts of people:  media practitioners, students, teachers, colleagues, friends, classmates, politicians, government workers and members of the diplomatic corps.

No less President Benigno S. Aquino III visited the wake on Sunday, March 4.  He was seen in the company of the Prietos, owner of PDI, on the same evening.

"The president was here.  I appreciated the gesture," said Mildred Yambot, second wife of Gani.

During the special tribute, organized by the PPI and NUJP on March 6, there weren't enough words to describe him --- well-mannered, soft-spoken, man of few words, best-dressed journalist, excellent, not bossy, loving - all these and more.  A loop of his photos from activities that he attended in the past provided a fitting background to the eulogies.

"He was probably one of the best, if not the best,"  said broadcast journalist Professor Winnie Monsod.  

To members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP),  Isagani Yambot was a staunch press freedom fighter.  "To the end, he fought for it.  One time, and the first time, I saw him cry in the anniversary of the Maguindanao massacre.  I then saw the other side of him."  Nonoy Espina, director of NUJP, who flew in from Bacolod City, said.

"He reads a lot.  He is a voracious reader,"  said Ramon Tuazon, president of the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC).  Yambot was special lecturer on journalism at the AIJC.

"He is all that I am not," said Tony Lopez of BizNewsAsia.

Professor Danny Arao, vice-president for public affairs of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, said that he was the best-dressed publisher.  "Owing to the many suits he has at the Inquirer (including) libel suits," Arao jokingly said.

In his speech during the media night, PPI chairman-president Amado Macasaet, said that Yambot's legacy to Philippine journalism is worth continuing and his brand of journalism is worth emulating.  "I am sure he inspires everyone.  He is over and above anyone else that I have worked with in the past,"  Macasaet said.  Jestingly, he said that they share one thing in common, "both of us are hard of hearing".  But unlike him, he said,  Gani does not shout.

Yambot was trustee of the Philippine Press Institute since 1990's, once executive director and chairman for two consecutive years from April 2009 to June 2011.

Early this year, he already prepared his speech on 'Media Accountability' for the PPI's 16th National Press Forum scheduled for April 23.  His last stint was at the students' forum at the Unibersidad de Manila last January where he was resource person on ethics and media accountability.

Everyone agreed that Gani is a big loss to journalism and will long be remembered by the community of journalists who he worked with directly and indirectly.

His death allows for a reflection on "how we are as journalists", said one young journalist.

Isagani M. Yambot succumbed to cardiac arrest on March 2.  He underwent quadruple by-pass operation last week of February and said to be recuperating.  He was 78.