IT WOULD have been journalist Nelly Sindayen?s type of party: A small group of journalists and an odd assortment of newsmakers, many of them opposition leaders, academics or diplomats, gathered in a private house to swap stories and sing songs over potluck dinner.

This was one of the ways news got around in the dark days of martial law, when government kept a tight lid on ?unofficial? news like rebellion, corruption and military unrest. It was Nelly, Time magazine?s long-time stringer in Manila, who had made this ?alternative? press conference-cum-party an institution of sorts during those dangerous times.

That evening of April 20, more than 23 years after martial law ended in a people power revolt, some 30 to 40 of her friends had gathered to pay tribute to Nelly, who passed away on April 4 at the age of 59 from complications of a diabetic stroke. She had been buried the same day, in line with Islamic tradition, in the Muslim cemetery in Taguig.

As before, guests stacked boxes of pizza, bowls of pasta and bottles of wine on a buffet table as they filed into the home of freelance journalist Joan Orendain, who, like Nelly, had hosted many a party-cum-press conference in the old days. Some of the old veterans made it: Gaby Tabuñar, former president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap), of which Nelly was a regular member; former diplomat Luz Benigno, wife of Focap?s founder, the late Teodoro ?Teddyman? Benigno; former New York Times correspondent Alice Villadolid (one of Nelly?s teachers at the University of Santo Tomas); Eggie Apostol, founding publisher of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Daily Inquirer editor-in-chief Letty Magsanoc, columnist Domini Torrevillas, former TV host Maan Hontiveros, former beauty queen Au-au Pijuan, to name just a few.

Early years

Tony Spaeth, Nelly?s long time associate at Time and now editor of Power Magazine in Hong Kong, flew in with Jim Erickson of Time?s HK bureau for the occasion. Oliver Teves of the Associated Press read a letter from former Far East Economic Review correspondent Sheila Ocampo-Kalfors, now based in Stockholm. There were also friends from Jolo who shared little known facets of Nelly?s early years in provincial journalism.

The ?Milestones? section in Time noted the passing of Nelly, described as its ?irreplaceable stringer in the Philippines.? Tony, who had worked with Nelly for over two decades, had provided the explanation in an earlier published tribute: ?Very few reporters can score the difficult interviews, get the scoops, secure the private phone number of a dictator?s daughter whose husband had just been kidnapped by? communist rebels? or get invited to a Makati society party in which a coup is being planned on speakerphone. And then publish that information, get in hot water with the government, and less than a week later, sneak into an Army camp to talk to the rebel general who was on the speakerphone ? even though he?s under house arrest. That was the role Nelly performed for Time, and better than anyone I have known in my business.?

Nelly, known for her wide smile and passion for singing, was one of the more popular representatives of an age when much of the news was not offered freely in press releases or lunch conferences. A reporter walked the beat ? down Mendiola bridge, where lightning rallies often turned violent; through mud paddies in the countryside where insurgent battles raged.

Looking back, Inquirer Investigative Team editor Fernando ?Boy? del Mundo, former bureau chief of United Press International in Manila, in his own published tribute, called Nelly ?one of those vanishing Filipino practitioners of honest-to-goodness shoe-leather reporting.?

It was also a time when a competitive journalist?s closely guarded directory of news sources? numbers and addresses treaded the gray area between what government defined as ?subversion? and what journalists pledged as their professional duty. The late Teddy Benigno, then bureau chief of the Agence France Presse, said journalism called for ?brinkmanship? ? and Nelly was one of the best at it.

Living with danger

One can surmise, from the stories shared by her friends from Jolo during that gathering ?that walking on the edge was never new to Nelly.

Born to a Christian father from Alaminos, Pangasinan, and a Muslim mother on the island of Siasi in southernmost Sulu Archipelago, she grew up as ethnic and religious tensions began simmering anew in Mindanao.

Siasi then was a busy trading post between the bigger island of Jolo and the nearby Malaysian ports, a melting pot of Chinese traders, Samal boat people, Tausug natives and Christian settlers. Anthropologist Gerard Rixhon, a former Oblate Father and director of the Notre Dame High School in Siasi, where Nelly went to school, recalled those days as ?relatively peaceful? although there were tensions over trade and land.

Nelly was in her elementary grades when her own father was murdered over a land squabble. Her elder brother, Bonifacio, shared that they lived with the fear that the traditional cycle of ?rido? (clan war) would play itself out. A stepbrother had also been killed.

Gerard said Nelly was in his geometry and algebra classes. He recalled a very independent girl, one who took care of enrolling herself and dealing with school authorities without the help of parents or kin. She was also the editor of the high school paper.

She left for Manila immediately after graduating from high school in 1964, enrolling at the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas.

Standing her ground

Nelly and Gerard met up again in the late ?60s in Jolo, where she became editor of the Sulu Star, one of Sulu?s first weekly newspapers. ?She was practically a one-man team there,? he recounted. Even then she was a jolly, song- and party-loving girl, recalled Priscilla Abubakar, a friend in Jolo.

But she always stood her ground. At one time, recalled Gerard, he and Nelly were under fire from the Catholic Women?s League (CWL) of Jolo for publishing an article by Walden Bello, which the ladies felt had been critical of folk religious traditions. Nelly defended her decision to publish the controversial article but offered to publish the CWL?s side too.

In the early ?70s, Islamic activism was making itself felt in Mindanao. Nur Misuari, a professor at the University of the Philippines who would go on to form the secessionist Moro National Liberation Front, was campaigning for a seat in the Constitutional Convention and winning supporters among young Muslim students.

The Sulu Star, although financed by the Oblate Fathers, walked the line between the warring sides. Nelly had schoolmates and friends from both sides.

But when martial law was declared in 1972 and a full-blown secessionist war erupted, both Gerard and Nelly decided to close down the paper rather than submit to military censorship.

Nelly flew back to Manila. She never returned to Siasi.

She rented a room near the railroad tracks in Sampaloc district and began her career again in Manila as a correspondent for the Bulletin Today. The late Antonio Nieva, who hailed from Zamboanga and had known her from her Sulu Star days, and Bulletin editor Ben Rodriguez, who had roots in Jolo, were supportive.

Cool under fire

But Nelly quickly moved out of the ?kababayan? network, getting a job as assistant reporter in a Japanese news agency, Yomiuri Shimbun, and a girl-Friday job with the Far East Economic Review, until she landed a stringer?s post with Time.

One of Nelly?s contemporaries, Marilyn Odchimar, now with the Thomson-Reuters news agency in Frankfurt, also e-mailed an anecdote about Nelly, which was read at the party.

She and Nelly were covering a demonstration at the St. Joseph?s College in Quezon City in 1977 when the military surrounded the compound and wouldn?t let anyone out. The two decided to call for help from an American correspondent, Victor Laniuskas, who was head of Focap at that time.

Marilyn said it unnerved her a bit that Nelly was flirting and exchanging pleasantries with Victor instead of immediately getting to their problem. ?Hi, Victor. How are you? You know, Marilyn and I are here inside St. Joseph?s??

A white unmarked car then approached the gate and a policeman told them to come out and get into the back seat. As Marilyn recalled it, a young man seated beside the driver identified himself as ?Lieutenant Panfilo Lacson.? They were then brought to a police station in front of Nepa Q Mart in QC. Marilyn turned to Nelly with alarm: ?Have they just arrested us??

To make the story short, Lacson (yes, now a senator) left them at the precinct. Marilyn stood hand on hips and protested loudly while the desk sergeant went through all the things in her handbag. Nelly, wrote Marilyn, sat nonchalantly opposite her, ?puffing away at a cigarette, smiling at times, saying nothing.? Midway through the inspection, a Colonel Abando of the office of Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile entered the precinct and told the police to release them. They were relieved and after saying their thank-you?s and goodbyes, the two young reporters waited for a cab outside the precinct.

Nelly then turned to her and said: ?Naku Marilyn, buti na lang yung bag mo lang ang binuksan (Oh Marilyn, good thing it was only your bag that was searched). I was scared stiff while he was inspecting your bag. P_____a! I have here in my bag a letter from Nur (Misuari, the wanted MNLF leader at that time). It has details on where, when we?re supposed to meet??

The guests at Joan?s party laughed at the story. It was an open secret that Nelly had the best connections to the Mindanao rebels and pretty much any other rebel group at that time. But she had a way of smiling and singing her way through danger.

A timeless maneuver

But the rebels were wrong if they felt they had Nelly in their pocket. At a party in the home of Jose ?Peping? Cojuangco in February 2006, one of the guests had turned on the speakerphone to let Nelly hear the details of a new coup plot from someone alleged to be then Scout Rangers? commander, Gen. Danilo Lim. The conversation was promptly reported in the website and next issue of Time. But the alleged coup failed, Lim was arrested and Nelly?s party friends denied the conversation ever took place. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez later tried to force Nelly to testify against her sources.

But Nelly abided by the two major rules that guide professional journalists: First, tell your story truthfully to your readers. Second, protect your sources of information ? even if it means defying a court order to tell the truth. These rules may seem contradictory ?another gray area bordering on civil disobedience ? but it is at the heart of the journalists? code of honor.

In some countries, journalists have opted to go to jail to defend the code of confidentiality. Others have caved in. (Time Inc. in 2005, in a decision described as ?deeply disappointing,? ordered one of its reporters to hand over his confidential notes to a grand jury investigation on the leak of a CIA officer?s name.) The Philippine is one of the few countries in the world that has a shield law (the Sotto Law, 1946) which recognizes a journalist?s right to withhold the identity of sources, although it includes a ?national security? exception. New anti-terror laws again bring this issue to fore.

True to the journalist?s code, Nelly and Time magazine issued a statement saying they were standing by the truth of their story. But Nelly did not want to testify against her sources. For a while, she dodged Gonzalez? agents and moved around with a couple of bodyguards who looked like hardened Tausug warriors. Then she disappeared. Despite a reported hold-departure order, she managed to slip out. She flew to Hong Kong (on Time?s expense).

But there was no job waiting for her there. Her youngest daughter joined her for a while. (Another daughter was already working in Australia). But after eight weeks or so doing nothing, Nelly probably felt like a fish out of water ? and was totally bored.

Time magazine, said Tony, couldn?t decide what to do next.

Well, Nelly knew. She just quietly came home. She lay low for a while and didn?t answer her phone. She waited for the political winds to change. She knew the ins and outs of Manila politics so thoroughly that it was only a matter of time before she began appearing in press gatherings again and, soon enough, inviting rebels and newsmakers back into her apartment for story-swapping and singing sessions. Now that?s a timeless maneuver, vintage Nelly.

In one of her last parties, coaxed by friends after she suffered a stroke in 2007, National Security adviser Bert Gonzales and Economic Zone director Lilia de Lima took the microphone and sang.

Living on her own terms

A single mom to her two girls ? Sari, now 24, and Junne, 18 ? Nelly was an ?astoundingly strong Asian woman,? who lived on her own terms? ?with nerve and verve,? said Tony, who started the evening of reminiscing after a Catholic priest and a Muslim imam had said short prayers.

After swapping Nelly stories, Joan took her seat at the piano and friends came up to sing. It was a pleasant evening. But well, somehow, it just wasn?t the same without Nelly ?taking everything in stride after a long day?s work ? huskily singing ?Summertime? an? the livin? is easy.? It was like a cycle had ended.