Veteran journalist Jessica Soho opened up about her nearly 30-year working relationship with the late Mike Enriquez, a prominent news anchor who passed away on August 29.
In a heartfelt post, she revealed that their relationship was mostly business-as-usual, colored by Enriquez’s characteristic gruffness and dedication to the job.
“Truth be told, in all of the almost 30 years I’ve worked with Booma or Mike Enriquez to the public, I was not accustomed to him being nice to me,” Sojo shared on Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho’s Facebook page.
She recounted how Enriquez was more often grumpy and stubbornly set in his ways, particularly when it came to his professional preferences, such as insisting on using specific terminology during newscasts.
However, it was during their last face-to-face interaction that Enriquez showed a different, more jovial side.
“That was my last face-to-face encounter with him,” Sojo wrote.
“Maybe that was his way of leaving a sweet memory – then, I was simply a colleague, not a newsroom boss. And he was simply Booma.”
She also highlighted Enriquez’s quirks, like his love for peanuts, which he would sneak into the studio despite it causing him to cough while reading the news.
“It got to a point when I had to investigate who supplied him with the peanuts,” she humorously noted.
Sojo described a touching moment shared between the two after Enriquez had undergone bypass surgery. During a conversation about life and health, she offered him a glimmer of hope and relief, an interaction that stands out in her memory.
“I will always miss him—the grumpy, peanut-chewing-coughing Booma, our hard-headed and set-in-his-ways news anchor, the Booma of that little newsroom that was so much a part of our lives,” Sojo concluded.
“The newsroom will never be the same again.”