When the time comes for me to finally stop pounding out words on a keyboard for a living, I will remember fondly all the years I spent working for the Manila Standard. And I hope that the newspaper continues on long after I’m done, like it always has since it started three decades ago.
But first, a small story: Ten years ago, the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of this newspaper, the legendary newspaperman Rod T. Reyes, took me aside. It was the 20th anniversary party of the paper “RTR” had put up in 1987, and I was then serving as its EIC.
“Jojo,” Rod told me over the din of the party music, in his usual soft, fatherly voice. “Will you believe me if I tell you that when we started, I didn’t even think we would last a year?”
I had no reason not to believe Reyes. I am aware that bankrolling a newspaper is always a dicey proposition and is definitely not for the shallow-pocketed.
As they say jokingly about another industry, owning a newspaper is apparently for billionaires who want desperately to become millionaires. But the Standard has been lucky because it has been owned by people who always had more than enough money to pay for the paper’s upkeep, while mostly allowing the journalists who put it out the freedom to do their jobs according to their best lights.
And so here we are, 30 years from that day when the Standard first started publishing and still very much around. RTR himself has already “written 30” (newspaper lingo for having passed on) and I have just served out my second term as editor, leaving the newsroom again after the elections last May.
The man who succeeded Reyes at the helm of the newspaper, Cipriano S. Roxas, also died during my second term. “Zip” Roxas took over from Reyes a couple of years after the paper started and was, in turn, replaced by Jullie Yap Daza.
I worked with all of the people who ran the editorial side of the Standard over the years, including the current publisher, Rollie G. Estabillo. I saw the ownership of the newspaper change hands up close and had the privilege of meeting all of the owners directly or at least the people they put in charge of running the business side.
I grew up—and old—with the Standard. I don’t think I spent more than a couple of years away from it in more than 30 years in the business myself.
From the day the paper started, when I arrived as a refugee from a strike that shut down the very first paper I worked for just months before, I always believed that I had found my home here. With any luck, here is where I am going to stay.
Thirty years is a long time to be doing one thing, especially if you do it on a daily basis. And the reason most journalists seem oblivious to passing of the years is because they focus on the daily news, checking the forest of the past only as it relates to the individual trees of present events.
My old boss Rod Reyes was right to express surprise at the paper’s longevity and the passage of time. No one, after all, can really say for certain if we’ll survive the day, the week, the year, the decade.
But time just flies when you’re doing what you love. And this newspaper has given me all the room to grow as a journalist and a writer, which was all I really wanted to do as far back as I can remember.
If someone asked me where the past 30 years went, I will point with no small amount of pride that I spent nearly all of them with the Standard. And I think that if I had 30 years more to spend in any manner I chose, I’d probably end up doing exactly the same thing.
Mabuhay ang Manila Standard!
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I have nothing but the highest regard, professionally and personally, for the people who put out the Standard. The editors of the paper, in particular, are some of the best in the business; I also count myself lucky to consider most of them longtime personal friends.
The Standard’s lean and mean central desk is run by the reliable and ever-witty Mon Tomeldan, the managing editor. I met Mon 30 years ago, when I was a reporter for the Standard and he was with another newspaper; working with him all these years has made me appreciate his considerable talents—and his corny jokes—all the more.
Chin Wong is an editor’s dream rewrite and wrap-up man—that we share a love for computers, rock music, food and movies is a bonus. Cesar “Sarsi” Barrioquinto is no slouch as editor, either, and he loves cats and all manner of plant life.
Francis Lagniton is our news “trafficker,” ably backstopped by the irrepressible Joyce Pañares at the city desk —a young woman with all the smarts of a grizzled veteran.
My own editor at Opinion, Adelle Chua, lets her writing speak for her because she hardly speaks up at all. Ray Eñano is our sage at Business, and he always seems to be huddled up with our resident rock star-cum-sports editor, Riera Mallari.
Isah Red at Showbiz is in a class of his own, naturally. Isah always reminds me of Truman Capote, with some Queen Elizabeth thrown in for good measure.
I wish I could put in the names of all the other members of the newsroom team in this column, but I just don’t have the space. But I think they know the affection and respect I have for all of them, from the assistant section editors to the lowest-ranked staffers.
That group, of course, includes editorial assistant Fernando “Boy” Bautista, who has the great fortune of celebrating his birthday every year during the Standard’s anniversary. And so Boy, since he came on board, has always had lavish birthday parties, all at company expense.