Tormis statue
Cebu’s first press freedom martyr
Tormis statue
The stories a journalist writes or broadcasts could cost his life. Antonio Abad Tormis paid with his.
BY MARIT STINUS-CABUGON
September 2022
IN the early evening of July 3, 1961, Antonio Abad Tormis — a lawyer, newspaper editor-columnist and radio commentator — had just left a barbershop along Borromeo St. in Cebu City and was inside his car when three shots from a hired killer’s gun were fired, two of them hitting Tormis in the heart.
News of the Tormis killing “spread like wildfire not only in Cebu City but throughout the nation,” reads a part of the 1969 Supreme Court ruling affirming the conviction of Tormis’ killers and the mastermind. “The violent death of Tormis, who was regarded as a leading local citizen, one whose credentials as a crusading newspaperman had been impressive, arrested the concern of an awakened public.”
The huge crowd as the car bearing his body passed city streets during his funeral days later showed he was widely known and respected by the Cebuanos.
People filled the streets to say good-by to the fallen newspaper editor and broadcaster.
Long list
Tormis’s name is one in a long list of media workers who paid “the ultimate price” for exposing the wrongdoings of people in public office. His sacrifice must not be forgotten or trivialized. “All journalists … are invited to stand defending at all cost the cause for which he sacrificed,” Estrella Dator-Castro of the Southern Leyte Press Club wrote in an acrostic poem during the 1964 unveiling of the first Tormis marker along the street where he was killed. (The first marker, set up on Nov. 18, 1964 by the now defunct Philippine Federation of Provincial Press Clubs, disappeared, presumably destroyed, when the Masonic Temple — where it was moved to an eye-level position on one of its pillars — was renovated. A new marker was reinstalled in September 2010 by the Cebu City Government under the initiative of the Cebu Citizens-Press Council [CCPC], which was informed about the disappearance in the same year.)
2010 marker (right) by Cebu Citizens-Press Council, with Mayor Mike Rama at the ceremony. 1964 marker by Federation of Provincial Press Clubs of the Philippines, with Mayor Carlos J. Cuizon leading the rites.
How can we relate to Tormis the journalist, his work and life, considering the half-century that has passed since the 1961 murder? How can we put ourselves in his place, behind the microphone or behind the typewriter during moments when words flowed from his head to the fingers that punched the keys of the typewriter?
From bust to statue
Atty. Pachico Seares of CCPC probably didn’t think that far when he first broached his plan to have a bust of Tormis made. Look for a sculptor, he asked me. I found one through renowned Cebuano painter Boy Kiamko. He is Chris Java, sculptor and painter, who lives and works in San Fernando.
With a mix of new technology (Messenger) and old (landline phone), I was able to start the negotiation that led to the making of a statue, instead of a bust, of Cebu’s first martyr of press freedom.
July 19, 2022 visit to check on the progress of the making of the Antonio Abad Tormis statue. Among the visitors at sculptor Chris Java’s JavArts in San Fernando, Cebu: CCPC’s Marit Stinus-Cabugon (top, extreme left) and businessman Rod Ngo ( above, right, with the artist and his work). The statue was installed Sept. 21, 2022 at the CJJ Media Gallery in Museo Sugbo.
Businessman Rod Ngo was interested to have a memorial of Tormis and install it at the CJJ Media Gallery at Museo Sugbo. Rod’s talk with his media friends and the sculptor saw the idea of a bust evolve into that of a full-bodied, life-size statue with the figure of Tormis seated at a table working on his typewriter. Rod commissioned Chris Java for the statute to be finished and installed at the CJJ Media Gallery in Museo Sugbo during the 2022 Cebu Press Freedom Week celebration.
The work of the sculptor is not easy. Particularly when photos of the subject, in this case Tormis, are few and only from a certain angle. Tormis’s family provided some private photos, including one of a younger Tormis and his wife, both looking seriously into the camera. Yes, photography was a serious matter in those days, every click of the camera precious and carefully prepared for and executed.
The worry of sculptor and client must be whether the finished product would be recognizable as the person his family and friends remembered Tormis by. Not to worry, Ngo said. More important is the act of memorializing the martyr of press freedom martyr, even if not all the statue’s features, caught only in faded photos, would match those of Tormis in his life.
Offered his life
Tormis was only 45 when his life was cut short. He “[offered] his life for is contemporaries and those yet unborn,” to quote Mrs. Dator-Castro’s acrostic poem again.
The statue sculptured by Chris Java and displayed at the CJJ Media Gallery at Museo Sugbo, offers the viewer, journalist or not, a glimpse of the life of Antonio Abad Tormis as newspaper editor and writer. It also expresses, from today’s generation of journalists, appreciation of the risk of their work, Even then, as it is now, a story could cost the journalist’s life. 