Fr. James Reuter Receives Golden Dove for Lifetime Achievement
“I came to the Philippines in 1938 and have never regretted one moment of the time. I have been in media in the Philippines for a lifetime – from 1938 until the present. And I feel that media and the Filipino people have given more to me than I have given to them and they are the most lovable people on the surface of the earth. God bless you all!” With these few simple words, Fr. James Reuter received the Golden Dove Award for Lifetime Achievement from the KBP last November 13 in Tagaytay.
Sitting in his wheelchair, Fr. Reuter, who turned 93 last May, looked frail as he received the Golden Dove trophy. But when he spoke to accept the award, his words rang clear and true. He was obviously pleased to receive the award. One of his aides said Fr. Reuter has even quarreled with the doctors at the Our Lady of Peace Hospital in Paranaque City (he now lives in the hospital) over their objections to his traveling to Tagaytay City for the 18th Golden Dove Awards night.
Fr. James Reuter had already received many honors for his many accomplishments: as an educator, a social reformer, a playwright, a writer, and a producer and director of stage plays and radio and television programs. In 1989, he won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. He is also the recipient of the highest award given by the Pope, the Pro Ecclesia Et Pontific Award. In 1996, Fr, Reuter, an American born in New Jersey, was granted honorary Filipino citizenship by the Philippine Congress. But the Golden Dove Lifetime Achievement is a special tribute to Fr. Reuter’s work in Philippine broadcast media.
Fr. Reuter’s broadcasting career began in 1941, three years after he landed as a young Jesuit in the Philippines, then an American commonwealth, to teach at the Ateneo de Manila and continue his theological studies. He worked as a writer for the number one radio program at that time, The Commonweal Hour, with young Filipinos who would later distinguish themselves as lawmakers, statesmen, intellectuals and writers, such as Leon Maria Guerrero, Filipino nationalist, diplomat and writer, and Raul Manglapus, one the country’s most respected senators who served from 1961 to 1967 and was well known for his prose and oratory.
At the end of the war, in 1945, Fr. Reuter was sent back to New York to complete his studies and was ordained in 1946. By 1948, he was back in the Philippines to resume what was to become a life-long career of teaching and producing radio and television dramas which espoused family values. Fr. Reuter directed the weekly TV series “Family Theater” through the late 1950’s and “Santa Sita” from 1962 up to the proclamation of martial law in 1972.
Fr. Reuter’s career in radio was not limited to writing, directing, and producing radio programs. In 1960, he established the Philippine Federation of Catholic Broadcasters, now known as the Catholic Media Network (CMN). Its stations, whose policies and actions he influenced, played a key role in ousting the Marcos government in 1986 by broadcasting the People Power revolution at its critical stage ahead of the major networks, which were closely watched by the authorities. Even before People Power, Fr. Reuter already had a brush with martial law. As a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), which was openly critical of the martial law regime, Fr. Reuter had sufficiently drawn Marcos’ ire to be put under house arrest for several years.
That no one seriously questioned the propriety of an American priest getting involved in a coup d’état shows how many Filipinos have come to regard Fr. Reuter as a de facto Filipino. This view was affirmed by both Houses of Congress when it gave Fr. James Reuter honorary Filipino citizenship in 1996 and awarded him the Congressional Medal of Achievement in 2006. On November 13, 2009, Fr. Reuter was awarded the KBP Golden Dove Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Philippine broadcasting not only because he elevated broadcasting through love for his craft but because he practiced his craft with a love for those he served.
