The story on the demise of VISAYAN DAILY STAR founder and longest-serving editor Ninfa R. Leonardia made the front pages of leading Manila broadsheets, whose editors also paid tribute to her role in propagating community journalism in central Philippines.
“The outpouring of sympathies, prayers and expressions of love for Ninfa warm the heart,” shared the late journalist’s brother, Atty. Evelio Leonardia, former Bacolod mayor and president of the League of Cities in the Philippines.
The elder Leonardia succumbed to a heart attack early morning Tuesday, August 23, at the Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod City.
News of her death was featured prominently in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, The Manila Standard and The Manila Times.
Leonardia founded the Visayan Daily Star in 1982 together with community and civic leaders and a pool of local journalists. It had since been a dominant leading daily in the region for decades.
The paper’s steadfast commitment to fair and impartial reporting under her watch earned the community’s respect for the paper as well as numerous accolades from local, regional and national award-giving bodies.
TRIBUTES
Former Senate President Franklin Drilon referred to Ninfa as “an icon of the Fourth Estate.”
“Bing, please accept my deepest condolences for the passing of your sister, Ninfa. She will be missed,” Drilon’s message of condolence went.
Manila Standard publisher Rolando Estabillo, who was also former chief of Philippine Airline’s public relations team, also sent his condolences to Leonardia’s family.
“A great loss. Condolence,” Estabillo told the former mayor.
For Pinky Concha Colmenares, a section editor of the country’s biggest daily, The Manila Bulletin, said in a message to the family that “Ninfa has a special place in her heart and in my past as a young journalist.”
“I learned much from her through our many conversations on the stories behind the stories. I appreciated the way she always made me feel like her equal even if her stature was way higher than me and the other local journalists in Bacolod,” Colmenares recalled.
Leonardia also became the first female journalist to become a provincial press club president.
“Her prose always stated her opinions in a way that did not insult the people she was criticizing, or over-praise beyond reason anyone she admired. Her wit was inspiring and a delight to hear. Her leadership was strong. She reined in the overly ambitious with her soft-spoken manner,” Colmenares said of Ninfa, whose column, “Twinkling”, rain in the VDS without fail for almost four decades.
Leonardia, who also wrote for The Manila Chronicle following its revival post Martial Law period, indeed, led a colorful career as a journalist and an advocate of community journalism.
She was also stringer for the British wire agency, Reuters, from the 80s through the 90s, in Bacolod and Negros Occidental.*
