Welcome to Breaktime Musings, a segment of the BusinessMirror’s BM Broader Look podcast that features topics at the fringes of business. Today we podcast the essay partly based on the remarks delivered by Butch Fernandez, BusinessMirror’s senior political reporter, at the February 3, 2022, “Blas Ople Forum on Philippine Overseas Employment: Past, Present and Future,” marking 95th birth anniversary of the late Labor Secretary and Senator Blas Ople. Fernandez, a journalist, remembers how the former labor and foreign affairs secretary and Senate President remained a lifelong newspaperman at heart. Titled “Covering the essential Blas F. Ople,” this essay by Butch Fernandez, which I will read for this podcast, was published in the February 2022 edition of the Philippine Graphic magazine.