Man Of Peace! Jesus G. Dureza And The Secret In Handling Crisis With a Smile

The book “Walked With Presidents” written by my former editor, Jesus G. Dureza, will soon see print and I am honored to be asked by him to write part of the foreword.

I decided to write not just a short piece about this man who, along with veteran Davao City newsman Antonio Ajero, led me to the world of journalism which made me into a public servant that I am today, but a full-length article.

I first met Jesus G. Dureza when I was a 17-year-old.

He was a young lawyer who had just topped the Bar Examinations but took the job of Editor of the Davao City community newspaper Mindanao Times.

The first assignment he gave me was to interview a visiting NBA player who was so tall that I had to virtually look up to the sky to see his face.

I don’t know if it was Jess Dureza’s way of teaching me to focus high in life but that was what I did.

That was 50 years ago and looking back to that moment, I now appreciate the lessons that this Man of Peace had taught me and moulded me into what I am today.

In all of the years I had known him, I never heard of Jess Dureza being involved in an ugly altercation or quarrel with anybody.

He had always been the jovial and ever-smiling man who always cracked jokes, never mind if some of these were re-runs and corny.

It should not be a puzzle then why he walked with six Presidents of the Republic, most of the time assuming the role of a peacemaker.

I still call me “Sir Jess” up to this day because I always referred to him some of the most important decisions in my life – when I substituted for my father as mayoralty candidate in 1995 and when I decided to resign from the Department of Agriculture in 2019.

In all of those times, what I heard were calming advices from a level-headed Man of Peace.

Jess Dureza will always be one of my models in handling the most difficult crisis without pressure and always with a smile.

(Excerpts from this post will be part of the foreword of the book “Walked With Presidents” by former Peace Adviser Sec. Jesus G. Dureza, my political campaign manager.)