The Visayan DAILY STAR will suspend publishing operations effective today. This is the last issue we will produce until further notice, ending almost 45 years of service to Negrenses. The last time this happened was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when unsustainable operating costs forced the newspaper to close for a few weeks.
Back then, the DAILY STAR was able to mount a comeback with the help of a group of well-meaning Negrenses who didn’t want the beloved institution to disappear. Tita Ninfa Leonardia, its editor-in-chief from the very beginning, was blessed with the gift of being able to continue her mission until she passed away in 2022.
I thought I had stepped away from the newspaper a couple of years before that, transferring to another line of work but maintaining ties by submitting my column regularly. But when Tita’s health started to become an issue, I started helping out in any way I could, which ended up roping me back into the organization.
When she left us after a very well-lived life, the role of editor-in-chief fell on my lap, and although I thought I had freed myself from the demanding and thankless life of a newspaperman, which I couldn’t really imagine myself doing, my deep respect for her and her legacy left me with little choice but to take on the challenge.
Being an acting editor-in-chief of a struggling newspaper was a tough and thankless job. It meant no more dinner dates with the wife and family because there is work every night, even on holidays. The only break is Saturdays because there is no newspaper on Sunday. It didn’t even pay well, so I had to keep my day job.
Being responsible for a struggling newspaper that had to drastically cut costs just to stay alive made my night shift second job a particularly tough one. We were operating with a skeletal crew, so there was no redundancy whatsoever. If one of us got sick or somehow became incapacitated, there would be no newspaper the next day. Our editorial team was only one editor, one layout artist, and a couple of reporters and contributors. However, despite those challenges, we never failed to come out with a newspaper, which is an amazing testament to the dedication and health of our plucky team that was singlehandedly responsible for keeping a Negrense institution alive.
If you come to think of it, I don’t know how we were able to pull it off. I had 2 jobs and worked from home for the newspaper. When I had to be somewhere because life goes on, there was no getting away from the responsibility that always followed me around.
I’m actually finishing this article while on an inDrive from Binondo, where I attended the Philippine Press Institute National Press Forum and Community Press Awards, and the DAILY STAR was a finalist for best news website. I should be enjoying dinner with colleagues in the industry but I have one last piece to write, along with a newspaper deadline to meet.
I’ve had to edit the newspaper while seated on the curb while the kids were watching a Formula 1 qualifying session in Singapore. There was a time I had to expedite sobering up just to recover from a crazy night out in Tokyo, because I didn’t think we would stay out so late, which meant I forgot the laptop in the hotel room and still had a newspaper deadline to meet when I staggered back after midnight.
My wife loves to travel, so many of our trips involved me disappearing or detaching from the group to do work, because it never stops, regardless of the location or time zone. There were trips to beautiful places on the other side of the planet where I couldn’t fully be present and enjoy myself because I knew I still had to work when the deadline came.
It took a certain kind of determined commitment, made quite stupid by the fact that it doesn’t even pay particularly well and my personality type and lifestyle refuses to take advantage of the benefits of being the EIC of a Negrense institution. I was probably doing it for my Tita’s legacy, because I guess I still naively believed that what she built shouldn’t go to waste.
Now all that work has to stop, thanks to some people who are demanding that the newspaper cease and desist operations, ostensibly because they are protecting its interests. It is hard to understand how they intend to protect the interest of an institution when they want to stop it from existing, but that is what they want and those running it right now may have been willing to help, but do not want a fight. So we comply and stop the presses.
Whatever happens next to the DAILY STAR, I can rest knowing I did what I could to keep it going for as long as we could. When I started out, I didn’t know what I was getting into. Now that my time with it is possibly over, I have no regrets. There was no riches, influence, or power. Simply the satisfaction of doing my best to preserve a legacy of a great Negrense Tita.*
