TEXT INSIDE FRONT AND BACK COVER:

        Generoso Gil, Jr. (1942-1995) was, at one time or another, a seminarian, a campus pamphleteer, doctoral fellow, population researcher, psychology professor, and journalist.  He was associate editor and opinion editor of the Manila Standard from 1989 till his death- in 1995.  He was also treasurer of the Philippine Press Institute and taught at the Ateneo de Manila University, the University of the Philippines, and the Asian Institute of Journalism.
        But what Gerry did most, and best, was opinion writing.  Over a span of 25 years, he wrote (among other things, including scholarly articles and office memoranda) editorials, columns, features, and letters to the editor.  He was a columnist at the Philippines Herald and Manila Standard, and wrote the vast majority of the Standard's editorials from 1989 to 1995.
        He was inclined to be self-deprecating about opinion writing, admitting that an editorial writer is generally regarded as a wordsmith . . who writes elegantly enough to package what his owners and editors want him to say . . the moral inferior of the columnist, who, at least in theory, is writing out of his own convictions." He poked fun too at his column writing: "I've been called everything from a great columnist to a little boy with a slingshot."
        For all his modesty, his colleagues acknowledged his writing to be outstanding for its rigorous research, clarity, balance, and incisiveness. This book is an anthology of Gerry's best pieces from 1971 to 1995, selected for the aforementioned qualities, as well as for their erudition, compassion, humor, and wit.
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        Jimmy Ong is a senior vice president at San Miguel Corporation.  Gerry was his friend-in-need at UP, drinking buddy at Stanford, and partner-in-crime at Imelda's Monthly and the Herald.  Their career paths diverged in late 1972, but they remained members of the circle of UPSCA stalwarts who still get together, three or four times a year, as they have done for the past 25 years.