Gerry Gil's Creations
In the year 2000, it
was 5 years since the untimely demise of Gerry Gil; 16 years since he
started anonymously writing letters to the editor; and 13 years since
he wrote the last known letter included herein, having thus created
within that 3 year period as many as 40 personalities from over 350
letters, all during the interesting time frame starting 2 years before
the revolution that toppled strongman Marcos of the Philippines and the
chaotic months that followed.
This period of letter
writing preceeded his return to journalism, and taken together, can be
viewed as Gerry's great contribution to Philippine editorial writing:
how his journalistic forays and joustings in the political arena via
the editorial page unmasked the absurdities and banalities of the
politics and powers-that-be of that period, in a uniquely humorous and
irreverent manner unmatched by any other writer.
And Gerry was the creator
of form when history, humor and journalism intersected.
It is hoped that this
website will amply serve the students of recent Philippine political
history, editorial and communication writers, and humor-mongers like
most of us.
Herein are majority of his
letters, scanned and retyped from the trove of hard-copy files found
after his death, or from his computer disk files. They are
presented in various groupings: a selected
list
of letters
with common topics, the chronological
a
list of all the letters, a list of all the persons
mentioned in the letters, and a roster of the letter writers themselves.
Author Jimmy Ong, in the
1997 book of Gerry's writings, Wordsmith
With A Slingshot expounds on Gerry's letters to
the
editor in his Introduction.
The book won the National Award
for Journalism A few samples
from the book are presented. Other
writings and obits are
also included in this
website.
GERRY GIL
Website launched 8/20/2000. Latest update 1/16/2016
If you have comments or suggestions, email Danny Gil ferngil@aol.com