On Sunday, December 29, the “Inner Mind on Radio” program over DZMM Teleradyo, which I have anchored for 21 long years, goes off the air upon my retirement from ABS-CBN.
The program is unique in Philippine radio broadcasting. It is the only program devoted to a rational, research-based and authoritative explanation of everything and anything outside mainstream science and religion. Largely ignored and even protested against by orthodox religious fanatics, the program soon developed a cult following among the more discriminating and intelligent radio audience seeking reliable explanation of strange things they have either heard, read, seen or experienced themselves.
It attracted a wide group of listeners and viewers which included the A-B-C classes in a medium that generally catered to the C-D-E.
New program
How time flies! I still recall one day in June 1992 when my former classmate at San Beda College, Joselito Balquiedra Jr., whom we called “Balqui” in school, called and asked me to anchor a new program on DZMM.
Balqui or “LBJ” as he was known, was then vice president for radio of the ABS-CBN network.
I had never been on radio and thought he was joking. “What am I going to talk about?” I asked. He replied, “Your expertise.”
“You mean sex?” I jokingly asked.
“No, seriously, I want you to talk on radio what you lecture and write about, such as spiritual and psychic stuff.”
I couldn’t believe he was serious. He asked me if I could do it every day and I said, no.
“What about three times a week?” I still said, no.
“What about once a week?” and I said that was possible, but I had never done this thing, I protested.
“You will learn,” he assured me.
The only orientation I got was him asking me to sit and listen to Ernie Baron’s “Knowledge Power,” and that was it.
The week after that, I was on the air for a two-hour program on Sunday from 7-9 p.m.
I recall that my first guest was Dr. Lucrecia Kasilag, National Artist for music and former head of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
I invited her because she had attended my Basic ESP seminar where she did very well in the psychic exercises and even bent two spoons through telekinesis.
That was how the “Inner Mind on Radio” began and aired every weekend with almost no fail for 21 years.
Even when I was abroad, the program was aired on tape. We couldn’t do that anymore after DZMM started simultaneous TV coverage of its radio programs.
I took in later on a co-anchor, Frances Gloria, who was part-time assistant in my Inner Mind Development Institute. She died of cervical cancer in late 2008.
Well-known female friends co-anchored the program—Plinky Recto, Cory Quirino, Elizabeth Oropesa, Rosanna Escudero and Charmaine Cruz. Most of the time, however, I handled the program alone.
It was tough because it was originally a two-hour program but I got the hang of it and never noticed the time passing. The audience didn’t as well.
My concept was a program that would rationally explain mysterious or strange phenomena experienced by many, but for which no scientific or religious explanation could be found, such as foreseeing events, encountering dead relatives and other unseen creatures, dreaming of future events, spiritual healing, reading people’s intentions, going out of one’s body and seeing one’s physical body asleep, being seen in two places at the same time.
For the first time, radio listeners were hearing and later seeing knowledgeable people they would otherwise not hear or see—fortune tellers, clairvoyants, faith healers and psychic surgeons, alternative medical practitioners, people who have had near-death experiences or those with other strange powers, like exorcists, albularyo, psychics.
Overnight sensations
Some guests, relatively unknown, became overnight sensations and famous after their interviews on my program. Among these were Dr. Garry Sy; the late engineer Serafin Orijuela, who invented the Bio-Energy, Electric Synchronizer or BEES to treat all types of sickness; the Muslim healer Warka Adala; my former student Anthony Vivero, who discovered his healing and psychic abilities after attending my seminars; the numerologist Mabel Tecson; the late blind exorcist Roger Dumo; the clairvoyant and fortune teller Linda Ferido.
I decided to retire from DZMM because I felt it was time to rest. “Inner Mind on Radio” is probably the longest-running program DZMM ever had.
Considering the stiff competition in radio, this is quite an achievement. After 21 years, I think I have achieved my major objectives of bringing to public attention and consciousness the existence of supernatural events, extraordinary capabilities of the human mind and removing the fear of the unknown by providing rational, authoritative and research-based explanations for them.
For the support, encouragement and loyalty of my listeners and viewers, all over the Philippines, I say, thank you very much. On the question of whether I will go back to radio, only the spirits can tell. I am retiring from DZMM but not necessarily from radio broadcasting.
My weekly column continues, as well as my public and corporate seminars, personal consultancy, past life hypnotic regression, hypnotherapy, paranormal services and lectures not only in the Philippines but also abroad. I may be contacted at tel. nos. 8107245, 8159890 or 0908-3537885. E-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com.