On the scene reporters descend, piecing together narratives for their audiences like clockwork. Except there is nothing regular at all about the job of reporting the news. Unfamiliar territory, jargon, security threats, disturbing vistas—here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges news gatherers face. Continue Reading

No day off, reporting in three languages—these new leaders of the newsroom meet challenges head on while keeping the troops happy and in line. Still “one of the boys,” but they now make the rules.

Archie Mangubat Modequillo

The Freeman editor-in-chief Archie M. Modequillo considers the readers’ shift toward social media as the paper’s biggest challenge. He wants a change in the paper’s culture to rise to the new challenge, and is confident this can be achieved with everyone’s cooperation in “improving content and adapting new technologies—even if slowly but consistently.”

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Journalist, publicist, advertising executive—Jess Perez Vestil was all that. Plus teacher, actor and poet besides.

Vestil’s love for his mother language and country gave birth to “Yutang Tabunon,” the Cebuano translation of the Philippine national anthem.

The late multi-talented journalist answered the call of then Cebu Gov. Emilio Osmeña, who sought the Cebuano version of “Lupang Hinirang.” Continue Reading

It was shortly after World War II that Dioscoro B. Lazaro took charge of the newspaper in Cebu known as The Republic Daily. It held office at the Republic Building along Colon St., near the corner of D. Jakosalem St., Cebu City. It was the rebirth of the newspaper founded by Don Mariano Jesus Cuenco known as The Republic.

Lazaro was not a Cebuano; he was from Manila. It was the Cebuano senator, governor and congressman Don Mariano Jesus Cuenco that brought him to Cebu. When he came to Cebu with his young wife, they lived on the upper floor of The Republic Daily (in 1968, he was able to build a house in La Guardia, Cebu City, that people up to now refer to as the “Lazaro House”). Continue Reading

THERE is perhaps no other Cebuano journalist in Manila who has ranked as high in the editorial hierarchy as Napoleon “Nap” G. Rama Sr.

He was publisher of Manila Bulletin from 1987 to 2004, where he also wrote a column. Rama, who passed away on Jan. 10, 2016 at age 92, was also a political writer for the Philippines Free Press for more than a decade.

He was a lawyer, a political figure and a prolific writer both in English and Spanish. Continue Reading