Lyca Benitez-Brown was my boss for 7 months, April to October, in 1983. She was the executive producer of the Pinoy Sesame and I was her headwriter for the first 45 (of 90) shows of the season. We found each other again 27 years later on Facebook. I was working on my 3rd book on EDSA and she graciously shared her story of Radyo Bandido. I haven’t written a love letter in ages, LOL, but one is never too old, I find.
Dear dear Lyca,
I’ve long been wanting to thank you for making me kulit back in ’83 to take on the headwriting of Sesame just on Ketly’s recommendation, even if I had no experience writing for children. You refused to take no for an answer until it was djahe na — like I was making pa-importante — so finally I said yes, okay, fine, I’d give it a try, even if I was scared half to death.
It was a most challenging, and crazy, time for a free-lancer who never before and never again worked fulltime (except on my own books). But as it turns out, it was worth the fears and tears, not to speak of the hard work — living breathing Sesame 24/7 for the many months it took me to get the hang of it, and a seventh month to come up with a writer’s guide.
As I moved on to write TV docus and books and blogs, atbp., I found that the rigorous Sesame training always stood me in good stead. It’s not just the discipline of working / writing with clear goals in mind, but also of taking and handling criticism creatively, rather than tearfully, haha. I have you and Feny and Sesame to thank for that.
THANK YOU ALSO for Radyo Bandido in the time of EDSA. So sorry that my EDSA books don’t give you the credit YOU deserve pala for the BANDIDO handle, which was absolutely inspired and so serendipitously appropriate. (Ipapasok ko sa reprint, promise!)
Nation was fortunate to have you and Peque, with your production peeps, on the side of Ketly (and the two boys :-) in those crucial 12 hours of the revolution when the danger of bloodshed was oh-so-real! Your 2006 essay, “AIR WAR: The Story Behind Radyo Bandido,” is certainly one for the history books of that wonderfully radical time.
Who would have thought that 36 years later we’d be back battling the Marcos curse yet again, this time on social media where YouTube, Facebook, and Tiktok videos twist martial law and EDSA history to favor the villains.
What works best, I find, are the simplest formats — one falsehood at a time, straightening out the skewed, and skewering the Marcoses in turn. Yes, time to get back to Sesame mode, but for adults only, for a change. Hope springs eternal.
Happy 70th, Lyca, and cheers to a happy new trip around the sun!
Love,
Angie