Max Soliven, 77, publisher-chairman of The Philippine Star, died last Thursday at the Narita Red Cross Hospital in Tokyo, Japan. He died of acute pneumonia and cardiac arrest.

Soliven who wrote a well-read column called "By the Way" is perhaps the last of the lions of old-guard columnists of national papers - after the departure of Louie Beltran, Art Borjal and Teddy Benigno, one after the other.

As a columnist, Max Soliven had few equals - only pretenders to the throne. Some may have better style - but they did not have the richness of history and the stone house of facts that Max in his wide world of writing possessed. And then, those who had as much facts, alas, did not have Max's tough, no-nonsense style.

When we still wrote a column for the Philippine Star, he used to reminisce his days with the departed founder-editor of the Chronicle - who Soliven shares three facets in life: lover of travel, sense of history and strict disciplinarian when it comes to media work.

Soliven loved travelogue as Jun Dejaresco did - and both would regale people with their knowledge of the place being visited long before they arrive the destination making them both lovers of history. Max told his Star employees jokingly: "Don't do anything that I would not do." The Chronicle editor wanted to know every facet of newspapering - including learning to use the linotype then.

Soliven had the passion for exceptional journalism - he was acerbic in his criticisms but lavish in his praise for good media work. But he was conservative on one thing. He continued to write his columns in the old Olympus typewriter, not the computer, and sent them via fax from abroad or his home office because he "loved the sound of typewriters."

His last column came in a three-paged, single-spaced Tokyo hotel stationery tackling the issue of Japan - the country he had fought ironically as a guerilla volunteer of the ROTC during World War II.

Max Soliven had his own biases and favorites including his close friendship with Marcos crony, Lucio Tan. Of late, he had been tagged as the publisher of the President GMA's favorite newspaper: The Philippine Star which has been quite apologetic to the present dispensation, at least on the front pages. But in his columns - it was always two-way traffic for the irrepressible story-teller, he was hitting friends and foes alike when the occasion called for it.

This was perhaps an antidote, a balancing factor - if one can stretch the argument - for the virulent, anti-GMA The Philippine Daily Inquirer and the noted blandness of the Manila Bulletin. The three papers are now the Philippines' leading dailies in circulation: Inquirer, Bulletin and Star, in that order. To Soliven's credit, he founded the Inquirer, with E. Apostol and Betty Go-Belmonte in 1983 and the Star in 1985 with Art Borjal, among others. He is an important media man of the century.

For decades, he was an imposing giant - an icon of journalism - GMA calls Max - whose place in Philippine mass media will be solely his and hard to fill.

At 27, Max Soliven was already editor-in-chief of the Evening News, and was responsible for its shoot to fame - becoming No. 2 from No. 7 in no time at all under his leadership. He covered Asia and Europe extensively and has been named four times as Journalist of the Year by many prestigious organizations, having covered so thoroughly nine presidents, as well.

Max Soliven was known to be vain (he had a set of wigs) and a king-sized ego which was a butt of jokes in social circles. But he had certainly earned his bragging rights - having dealt with kings, presidents and rogues here and abroad. He practiced what he preached by not abandoning his country even in the most desperate of times. Soliven also took the Big Picture in analyzing trivia that separated him from the boys. Most of all, he has hard-working with a motto written in his own heart: Stop whining, start working.

But intelligence and hard work are not the stuff why Soliven in December 1 will be accorded a hero's burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. It was his staunch defense of press freedom and democracy in the Martial Law days and his espousal of enlightenment in the midst of darkness and deception that earned him the honors.

He was arrested on the first day of Martial Law and incarcerated for months alongside Filipino martyr Ninoy Aquino. He was released but remained a social and media pariah in the dark days of Marcos' terrorism but he survived - not giving up on the Philippines for that final day of reckoning that occurred in 1986 at EDSA.

His fighting words which included some expletives were matched by his actions which were as vigilant as his words. He was charged with libel by former president Cory Aquino whose court cases he attended without rancor or debate.

Those of us in the media, somehow feel orphaned by the sudden loss of the old guards of opinion writing, Beltran, Borjal, Joaquin, Locsin, Roces and now Soliven.

We did not always agree with their opinions and their biases - but we gave them respect because they drew the lines and the limits of licentious journalism and went back to their bed rock of inspiration: the common good.

It is their consistency in this regard that makes good writers like Max Soliven simply one of the best. And among the best, he was exceptionally good.

The Chronicle bids him farewell.