Sun.Star Network website
‘AMAZINGLY PRETTY’

On why he chose blue to be the dominant shade in the Sun.Star website’s new look, Garaygay says it is relaxing to the eyes and makes for more hours of browsing, aside from it being the official color of the Internet.

And visitors are not complaining, either.
Gabriel F. Cudal Sr. of Virginia Beach in the US said he was impressed by the “amazingly pretty” pages that greeted him when he browsed through the site on November 11, the start of the dry run for the new design prior to its official launching on November 20.

Cudal said he surfs the site for news from the provinces, particularly in his hometown of Bolinao, Pangasinan.
Next best thing
Another visitor, Iva Llanos, said she was pleased with the improvements, and considers the site “the next best thing to being home.”

The layout is “better” and makes it more enjoyable to surf the website, added pagsaganda@digitelone.com.
Reader Jens Hauge, jens.hauge@mail.dk, agrees that with the new design, it’s now easier to navigate around the site.

The website, Internet home of the Sun.Star network of community newspapers and managed by the Sun.Star Network Exchange, will continue to provide the latest in news, business, sports, feature, and perspectives on issues from such urban centers as Manila, Baguio, Pangasinan, Pampanga, Cebu, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Davao, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga.

With Leo.Mamicpic@ucsfmedctr.org saying he looks forward to reading news stories from Dumaguete City and legarde1030@yahoo.com, an Ilonggo now working in Abu Dhabi, UAE, for the latest updates from Iloilo City, the website is committed to improving coverage in all its areas of operation.
Message board
To make the site more interactive, Sun.Star network online is adding a message board, which will serve as venue for readers to comment on articles posted at the site or other relevant issues.

Other new offerings at the site are: an improved search engine that allows searches by location or by relevance to the keyword; an online payment provision for website products like information packets and the Cebu Yearbook; and downloadable PDF files of all 12 Sun.Star papers but initially starting with Sun.Star Cebu.
Sun.Star network online will also continue to come up with timely web specials to serve the needs of readers.

When the website came out with its first special section on deposed president Joseph Estrada’s impeachment trial in December 2000, the response from visitors was overwhelming. At that time, network hits reached a peak of 6 million.
Featured in the section were news, photos, and analysis on developments in the historic event.

Other specials that the website came out with include one on President Arroyo’s first 100 days in power, the national elections in 2001, Valentine’s Day, Christmas celebration in the Philippines, tourists drawers Sinulog in Cebu and MassKara Festival in Bacolod, Sun.Star Cebu’s 20th anniversary celebration, and the economic conditions in the country.
Super B!
The website also hosts Superbalita pages, which feature news stories from Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro in the vernacular.
After all, site statistics in 2002 show that the Superbalita homepages enjoy a high readership among visitors, placing fourth in the most accessed directories of the Sun.Star network online.

All throughout 2001, Superbalita was also among the top five requested pages of the website, together with the network, Cebu, Davao, and Pampanga homepages.
On the average, the Sun.Star website enjoys hits of a little over 5 million monthly. When a visitor requests a page in the site, all the components of that page like text files, photos, icons are counted as hits.

The website also gets an average of over two million page requests monthly from some 300,000 visitors.

The new Sun.Star website design will be launched today at the Laguna Garden. The launching is sponsored by event partner Smart Communications Inc. (Sun.Star Network Exchange)

Sun.Star Cebu blazes online trail

IN its early years, the Internet was a novel way of delivering the news.
Now, it is an indispensable part of any news operation.

The Sun.Star Cebu website expands the paper’s reach to thousands of Cebuanos outside Cebu. Sun.Star Cebu Online’s mandate is daunting: to live up to the standards of its offline counterpart—the biggest and most awarded community newspaper in the country.

Sun.Star Cebu Online started in 1996 at the www.sunstar.com.ph domain.
Since then, it has undergone several redesigns and reprogramming to make browsing easier for readers.

With the consolidation of the Sun.Star network of newspapers into one website, Sun.Star Cebu Online (now at www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/) has benefited from the wide reach of the different members of the Sun.Star network.

Sun.Star Cebu Online started out only with the main news sections: Top Stories, Metro, Sports and Opinion.

It has since expanded to include Lifestyle as well as Sun.Star Weekend, which has a site to itself.

The website will still expand its content to include the special interest pages and will incorporate new web interactive features prepared by the network. (Max T. Limpag, Sun.Star Cebu Online Editor)

‘A unique band of newspapers’

The Sun.Star Publications Network is a unique band of community newspapers in the country. It operates in a way that one paper complements the other. One paper acts as a big brother to another. It is both Sun.Star’s pride and challenge. It presents the network a lot of challenges and trials both in its operations and administrative functions. The success of Sun.Star Cebu, first as a provincial then as a regional paper, has led to the birth of the Sun.Star Publications Network.

Sun.Star has newspapers in Baguio City, Pangasinan, Pampanga, Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, General Santos and Zamboanga. It has a bureau in Manila. Its joint ventures with other regional newspapers rest on the Sun.Star principle that a newspaper can transcend mediocrity and poverty if given the right resources, techniques and ideals. (Mildred V. Galarpe, Sun.Star Network Exchange)

How the network is run from Cebu

Everyday, Sun.Star papers send their news, opinion, feature, business and sports materials to Sun.Star Network Exchange (Sunnex) through electronic mail. This is the unit that processes all materials from the network papers for website posting and news exchange.

The same materials are processed for news subscription to Filipino newspapers in the United States.

Sun.Star maximizes available technology in dispatching materials to its different affiliates, using e-mail and web posting. Aside from news materials, Sun.Star also maximizes technology to send advertisements to other network publications.

Another edge of the network is its presence in key urban areas. Sun.Star Pangasinan, for example, need not send a photographer or a reporter if a big story develops in Baguio. They just request Sun.Star Baguio to get the story for them.

When Camiguin was hit by flash floods this year, affiliates from the Visayas and Mindanao did not send reporters to the area. They, instead, relied on the coverage of Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.

When suspected kidnappers from Cebu were seized in Davao, Sun.Star Cebu just asked Sun.Star Davao for the story and the picture. Sun.Star Cebu got the story and the photo, while other Cebu newspapers did not.

Advertising edge

The set-up of the Sun.Star Network offers advertisers a way to get their message across at a lesser cost but to a wider audience.

An advertiser who wants to reach the Bacolod market need not advertise in a national paper at a very high cost for a limited reach. The advertiser can advertise in the Sun.Star publication in the area for a focus on a specific market. It’s money spent wisely.

The Sun.Star Publications also make up for the distribution deficiencies of Manila-based papers. National papers cost more and arrive late in the urban centers outside Manila, while the regional publications cost less per copy, circulate earlier and more widely. The regional paper does not only carry heavy local editorial content but the top national stories as well, through the network exchange.

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ANNIVERSARY EDITORIALS
Beacon at the road to Sun.Star Cebu’s survival, growth

Reviewing the editorials, one can sum up that course, with these highlights:

Birth. Affirmation on public good as high motive. Fear and resolve. Criticisms against the paper. Signs of success. Growth and expansion. Honing of craft skill and ethics. Refinement of work procedures. Assaults on the paper. Concern about credibility and responsibility. Accountability to the public.

Look again at excerpts of some of those anniversary editorials and see what we mean.

‘From a dream’
“Sun.Star Daily was born not in some corporation board room, not by entrepreneurs who had spare money to invest.

“This paper arose from a dream shared by a number of local journalists — to work and be a part of a community newspaper that is adequately equipped to serve its public well...”— Nov. 25, 1982

‘Swirl of controversy’
“Sun.Star Daily was born in a swirl of controversy. Much of the truth of that controversy still has to be told, the claims of each side still have to be settled.

“But no matter. In one year. gauging from readership growth and advertisers’ recognition, Sun.Star has proven that a newspaper can gain public acceptance in less time than the traditional period by keeping faith with the principles under which a newspaper must operate — accuracy, fairness, and courage tempered with responsibility...”— Nov. 25, 1983

‘We have survived’
“Allow us the luxury of jubilation today.
“...We have survived, so far, the assault of several devaluations of the currency, tyrannical increases in the cost of newsprint, power and other factors of production, and the spectre of a dwindling newspaper audience whittled further by the more urgent and basic requirements of consumers.
“A larger threat to press freedom, we said to one another in the industry, may not be an authoritarian regime but the strangulation by the high cost of publishing..”— Nov. 25, 1984

Responsibility to community
“Sun.Star Daily is aware of, and enforces, its responsibility to the community. The newspaper, like any other news organization, can be faulted for lapses every now and then, but not for not trying earnestly to uphold public interest over that of a few individuals.”— Nov. 25, 1985

Love-hate relationship
“Some public officials understandably can’t have much affection for a paper, especially if it uncovers their mistakes or misdeeds.
“...This breed of public officials often nurtures a love-hate relationship with a paper: They love it when it pays attention to their virtues, they hate it when it reports their faults and sins. If you consider the amount of space used on the latter, it’s mostly hate, very little love.”— Nov. 25, 1986

Readership, public acceptance
“... Official independent confirmations, announced in January and October this year (1987), say that Sun.Star (1) leads in readership over all newspapers circulated in Cebu, (2) is six times bigger in readership than the next local paper, and (3) places fifth in readership in urban centers throughout the country, dislodging even some Manila-based national papers and besting all other provincial papers in the country.
“... Readership...is still the most visible and tangible expression of audience acceptance...The only gauge that is available and advertisers respect is the number and kind of people who buy the paper.
— Nov. 25, 1987

Larger challenges
“Sun.Star Daily, thank God, has been able to overcome most of the woes of infancy and at 7 now hopes to tackle the larger challenges of community journalism.

“* Like the upgrading of values in reporting and interpreting the news.
“* Like expanding to areas that received little attention before, such as national issues that affect our readers, business and social developments, the suburbs, and the rest of the region.”
— Nov. 25, 1989

Special reports, code
“... Sun.Star, in special reports, revisited the typhoon Ruping tragedy twice — first, 100 days after it struck, and, second, one year after that.
“... Along the way... Sun.Star examined pressing community problems other than coping with disaster.
“The special report on the problem of city abattoirs and unfit meat has made a big splash on the City Hall officialdom, creating ripples until now. The special report on the monstrous traffic problem in Metro Cebu placed the problem in clearer perspective: what is being done and what can still be done by government and citizenry...”
“...Year Nine was particularly significant to Sun.Star journalists because at last they completed and adopted a Code of Standards & Ethics. The standards set the measures against which their skill in craft can be measured. The ethical rules provide the guide for behavior in dealing with the public they serve.”— Nov. 25, 1991

Sun.Star bashing
“The last two years Sun.Star has been buffeted by criticism with an intensity and virulence unequalled in previous years of its more than a decade of existence.
“The assault came from a few public officials, mostly those aggrieved by its coverage, and some sectors of the media that did not agree with what Sun.Star has been doing in local journalism.”
— Nov. 25, 1993
(The subject on Sun.Star bashing will be treated lengthily in a separate Retro piece.)

Expanding into a net
“...How do we expand without abandoning commitment our community and our public?
“The answer, we believe, is the Sun.Star Publications Network (SSPN).
“Through joint venture agreements with 12 other regional papers in the growth centers of the country, Sun.Star is able to reach out to new frontiers without deserting its home, to share modern technology and skill ofr audiences of other member papers without neglecting its own audience, and to spread the evangelism of committed journalism, without abandoning its practice.
“It won’t be easy. The work won’t be unlike nurturing 12 new publications in different parts of the country where cultures, values, and personalities are different..
“But then the road to Sun.Star’s success has not been easy. Only those who watched Sun.Star from a distance(not necessarily geographical) thought it was a breeze.”
— Nov. 25, 1995

Old enough, young enough
“(Sun.Star Cebu at 15) is old enough to know the workings of the industry, the nuances of journalism, the facets of high technology, the interests of its readers, and the dimensions of its market.
“It is young enough to try new ways, push frontiers, and reach for the sky, to remember always that idealism must not flee with the years that are lived and gone.
“Sun.Star is old enough to understand the responsibility of using wisely and well its freedom and power, to learn the humility of accepting that public trust is so difficult to earn but so easy to lose.
“It is young enough for its journalists to face day’s challenge of putting out a good paper with zest and fire, to embrace the routine of of meeting deadlines on Year 16 with the same passion as when it was producing its virgin issues on Year 1.”— Nov. 25, 1997

Great power, responsibility
While a newspaper is a business that must make money to buy newsprint and ink, pay its workers, and earn profit for the owners, it is much more than that.
“It is the custodian of public trust, which is no small responsibility. The people who own and run the paper must place public interest above private interest, which is no easy task.
“Public confidence in a paper depends upon how it values that trust.
“...A paper’s credibility rests on public trust.
“Which grows by accretion. Like deposits of soil on river bank, credibility takes time to build. But soil on the bank slowly gained can be washed away by the swelling of the river in one heavy flood. A paper’s credibility can be lost just as quickly.”— Nov. 25, 1998

Feeling great
“(At 17, we at Sun.Star) feel great, not for the pains of birth and the early years of growth, not for the myriad crises that afflict struggling community papers, but for the exhilaration of survival, the joy of being trusted by readers and advertisers, and the self-fulfillment and honor of dominating the field.
“Being on top is both an achievement, which must be valued and protected, and a challenge, which must be met each day, for the paper to continue to deserve its singular place in regional journalism.
“It is not just a matter of pursuing the standards of fine journalism. It is also embracing public good over other competing interests to preserve the paper’s integrity and credibility.
“...Trust is earned, hard-earned, after several tests in which the paper is rigorously examined for lurking agenda other than public good.
“And the tests never stop. Every time a reader parts away with his money to read the paper, the scrutiny continues.
“We produce the paper every day with that sobering thought.”— Nov. 25, 1999

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The Last Cause
Ex-priest takes on the Holy Grail of Newspapering.
By Cherry Ann T. Lim

SUN.STAR Cebu prepares to celebrate 20 years of service to the community with the will and fervor that brought it to the top of the game, undiminished. Rising paper costs and weak advertising revenues are among the dragons that need slaying if the newspaper is to forge ahead in the new millennium, so Sun.Star has suited up a man accustomed to battling forces greater than himself. Orlando P. Carvajal, executive vice president-general manager of Sun.Star Publishing Inc., spent 11 years of his life in a cassock before disillusionment blew out his passion for the calling and he fell into the willing arms of the corporate world.

After taking on the Catholic Church, challenging its views on infallibility and divine institution, among others, he also fell into the arms of a woman named Carmelita, now his wife, with whom he has a son.

On his way to becoming the top man of Sun.Star Cebu and president of Sun.Star Management Inc., which handles Sun.Star’s affiliates nationwide, Carvajal became assistant vice president for Visayas-Mindanao of Vitarich Corp., vice president for the Sarmiento Management Corp. Bandag Division, and president of Banco Davao.
In 1995, he entered the Sun.Star family when he teamed up with cousin, Jesus “Sonny” B. Garcia Jr., president of Sun.Star Publishing Inc., and became publisher of Sun.Star Davao and Sun.Star General Santos.

Did you always want to become a priest?
It just occurred to me in my sixth grade. I was asked to participate in the Flores de Mayo. I was dressed like a priest. That started the idea.
(Also) we were poor. We were looking for a free scholarship. Priesthood somewhat offered free education. I was the first seminarian from Barili in 24 years, so I received a lot of financial help. I finished my theology studies in the US on a full scholarship.

Why did you leave the priesthood?
When I was detained by (former president Ferdinand) Marcos for my social work as a priest, I saw the Cebu Church as noncommittal in the fight against oppression and Martial Law. Namangka sila sa dalawang ilog. I had expected the Church to lend its power and prestige to defend human rights. That made me question a lot of things. I began to see the Church as more of a bureaucracy trying to preserve itself.

You graduated valedictorian in both elementary school and high school. But with a theology background, didn’t you find it difficult to make the transition to the corporate world?
No. First, I prepared for it. I went to AIM (Asian Institute of Management) to study. I wasn’t going to flounder around. (He also attended the Ateneo de Manila Graduate School of Business.)

What changes did you institute in the companies where you worked before joining Sun.Star?
At Vitarich, I tried to implement my work philosophy that the place of work should not just be for earning a living but for total human development. I tried to have programs for intellectual development and spirituality and not just for earning money.

What innovations have you started in Sun.Star?
First of all, for cost control, I have (employed) zero-based budgeting. This means you question everything. You start from zero. Everybody has to justify his expenses.
I have also initiated a program that includes being more flexible with customers.
Then, I made department heads more accountable (for the concerns of their own departments). I have also given employees more flexibility in their job responsibilities.

What innovations do you still intend to introduce?
My project next year is maximization of technology. I want to move a step higher in the creation of a paperless office.

What is your management style?
I like to work in a collegial manner, by consensus with my officers. I believe in giving my officers accountability, responsibility. I encourage a lot of individual initiatives. I (also) like management by walking around. When I need to ask a question of managers, I don’t ask them to come to me. I go to them. I teach management as I manage. My profession is really teaching, that’s what I do best. I take pains to explain why things must be done a certain way.

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A month of Sundays

The sunday columnists with Life and Leisure executive editor Nelia G. Neri (standing, right) and Life and Leisure editor Pura L. Kintanar (standing, left). They are (seated, from left), Dr. Fe Mantua Ruiz, Calixto Paquiao, Dr. Dana Ruiz Sesante and Evelyn R. Luab (standing).

Memorable experience everyday while editing Sabrina and her various aunts: dodging brickbats and flak.

Pura L. Kintanar
-Life and Leisure editor

How can I ever forget the time when a foreigner called and insisted that I should give him the name and address of a certain letter sender? His purpose was to help that lady, very noble indeed. However, I have to stick to my self-imposed rule: that everything is treated with utmost confidentiality. So, I turned down his request gracefully. Again, there was a time when a woman felt that she was the one featured in Women’s World. She felt alluded to. She felt curious. I had to employ all tact and diplomacy to convince her otherwise. Eventually, we ended up as friends.

Dr. Fe Mantua Ruiz
- Women’s World columnist

Among the numerous and pleasant experiences I have had doing Women’s World, one stands out: a simple elderly lady came to see me in the clinic. She was grateful for some medical advice I gave her. It seemed that she had written me months earlier about her skin problem, which for many years had troubled her. True enough, there was not a trace at all of the eczema on her arms and legs. She stepped out for a while, came back with a cheeseburger from a fastfood place nearby. Her way, it seemed, of repaying me. I was so touched by her gesture. That is why Women’s World for me is a fulfilling and rewarding labor of love.

Dr. Dana Ruiz-Sesante
- Women’s World columnist

Receiving a Camma award a few years back for my columns at Sun.Star was a very humbling, enriching and rewarding experience, but the Sun.Star pictorial for lifestyle columnists and writers last Oct. 15 was even more memorable. Acceptance and a sense of belonging are treasures one earns and keeps. At that pictorial, warmth and an easy camaraderie flowed. The feeling of acceptance into the huge family of Sun.Star was certainly great and nothing beats a sense of belonging.

Evelyn R. Luab
- Light Sunday columnist

If I’m not mistaken, this is already my seventh year of being a fitness columnist. The reason why I was able to sustain my column for all these years is because I enjoy writing and sharing with readers the fitness knowledge I have acquired for the past 25 years. Yes, the joy of serving our community and giving them the latest information about fitness and how to take good care of their bodies keeps me going. Also, the support from Sun.Star and my readers is one of the reasons why I keep on writing. I always receive calls and feedback from my readers. One unforgettable call came from a reader who wanted to make an appointment with me. I asked her what her problem was and she told me she just wanted to see me personally. When she arrived at my office, she went straight to me and held my arms. She then touched my chest and said, “Are you Superman?” I was so surprised when she said that, but then she apologized and humbly said, “I’m sorry, forgive my behavior, I am two months pregnant.” So, I just laughed and understood. (Basig nangala).

Another memorable experience was when another lady called to say that she was so mad at me because I wrote an article about slimming products and weight loss gadgets which to me, were a hoax. She told me angrily that I should not make negative comments about the product. But I told her calmly that I just wanted people to know the truth and not be deceived by these products. Again, she shouted at me and then banged the phone. I just shrugged my shoulders and hoped she would realize her mistake. A week later she called to apologize for what she did. In fact, she invited me to her store and asked me if I would be her consultant for her fitness products. We had a long talk and she was so thankful for my advice because I was able to open her mind and make her see that it was not right to deceive people.

These are just some of my unforgettable experiences. As a columnist, you can’t help but encounter different views and comments from your readers.

Calixto Paquiao
Fitness and You columnist

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Public figures who don’t want their reputations, and ambitions, savaged in a media frenzy should never forget they live, as Tennessee Williams puts it, in a glass cage.

Individuals who claim a degree of public prominence, either through position or special circumstance (like actors and instant celebrities), have to be careful, even in their personal behavior, not to be caught in the act of committing, or even be accused of committing, any wrongdoing.

One act automatically triggering immediate media attention is physical violence, even if the circumstances seemingly justify the display of this extreme behavior.

Many high-profile stories have involved public figures who, unable to restrain their tempers or for no apparent reason, physically lashed out at their victims.

Media’s reportage of these acts is justified when the public’s right to know outweighs the individual’s right to privacy. From prominent persons commanding a lot of respect from the public is also expected a code of conduct and reputation that bears up to scrutiny. Scandalous and aberrant behavior also has the qualities of drama and conflict, which ascribe the act with a high degree of newsworthiness. This makes it difficult for any media institution to ignore it.

Even resulting follow-ups where the involved parties “air their sides” only prolong the unwanted publicity.

Privacy boundaries
But expectations for people in the news to be self-restrained should also apply to media.
Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute writes that journalists must balance the often contradictory concerns of public good and individual personal privacy. (www.poynter.org)
Media needs to be self-critical especially when the coverage involves ordinary citizens accidentally thrust into prominence, such as victims in a tragedy or public scandal.
Steele advises jour-nalists to ask themselves these questions before writing or using the story:

n What is my purpose for seeking and making public this information?
n Does the public have a justifiable need to know? Or is it only some people who want this information?
n How much protection does this person deserve? Is s/he a public official, public figure or celebrity? Is the person prominent by choice or chance?
n What is the extent of personal harm committed through this invasion of privacy?
n Have I taken the side of the person who will bear the brunt of negative publicity?
n Is there an alternative way of reporting that minimizes the violation of the per-son’s right of privacy? Are there private matters that may be left out while still accurately and fairly reporting the story?
n Can I focus more on an issue involving system failures rather than on personal limitations, which may turn out to be one-time mistakes?

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THEIRS is a story about starting small and making it big, and the two decades that made all the difference.

Newspaper dealers Danilo Ybañez, Teodorico Romales Sr., Jairus Villanueva and Randy Robles have been with Sun.Star since its creation 20 years ago.

More than most other people, they saw how the paper grew from being a mere challenger of that time’s leading news dailies to becoming the country’s number one community newspaper.

Romales was 43 when Sun.Star publisher Jesus “Sonny” Garcia told him of the plan to put up a paper that would challenge the ones already in circulation.

Romales, who was already working with Garcia in the distribution here of a Manila-based business daily, found the idea impossible.

One local daily was dominating the market. The chances of its patrons shifting loyalty to a completely unknown paper were slim.

“Dili ta magsilbi ana, sir. Lisud kaayo na tumbahon,” Romales recalled telling Garcia. (We can’t compete with that newspaper.) The next thing Romales knew, he was doing the rounds at the Colon area, distributing to subscribers his initial quota of 40 copies. He later expanded his area to include the vicinity near Fuente Osmeña.

Always cracking jokes and acting like a bully to his friends, Ybañez, for his part, still carries some traits of the typical newsboy that he was more than twenty years ago.
When Sun.Star opened, Ybañez, 42, knew he had found a way out of the small earnings he received roaming the streets.

Soon after Sun.Star went into circulation, he gathered fellow newsboys to distribute for him his initial deal of 200 copies. He had no idea that 20 years later, he would be distributing daily 3,320 copies of Sun.Star Cebu (6,210 on Sundays) and 8,900 copies of Superbalita (10,000 on Sundays). Robles distributes about the same number of copies, after starting out with 200 twenty years ago.

Villanueva, for his part, assumed control of the business from his father, Jeorge, who had to attend to another family business outside Cebu after establishing himself as one of Sun.Star’s biggest dealers. Like the other pioneering Sun.Star dealers, Villanueva’s father started out from scratch, patiently allowing the business to ride on the paper’s steady growth over the years. Whether a paper is selling or not, the news dealers are the first to know.

When Sun.Star was starting, its dealers knew something big in Cebu was happening. Robles recalled the enthusiasm with which Cebuanos met the newest newspaper in town.
“Better-written stories, better layout, better editing” were the usual comments subscribers made about the paper, Robles said.

It would not be long before Sun.Star rose above the rest of the pack.
If competition among newspapers is tough, the one among news dealers is tougher.
Newspaper dealers in Cebu don’t observe jurisdiction. Ybañez said they once tried dividing the city’s areas among themselves but dropped the idea after finding it impossible to control the sub-dealers and newsboys.

They also tried to form themselves into an organization that was supposed to create a system that would professionalize the business. This too died before it could reach the drawing table.

Like the newspaper companies themselves, the newspaper dealers had to learn how to coexist while competing.

Something that puts food on the table should always be treated with respect, they said.
Twenty years from now? They’ll still be the same newsboys – and worth another follow-up interview, they said.

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Though the days are dire with doggone
news, and even if this paper’s staff goes stiff after the deadlines, there’s someone who, come hell or high water, remains sunny, starry-eyed even.

Make your day. Meet again our mascot. Upfront – whether jutting out like a figurehead on the façade of the Sun.Star Building or heralding the flag or masthead – he sets the pace for this paper. If “the child is the father of the man,” so does this newsboy define this daily’s attitude in good stead through all these 20 years: Always on the go. Right on time. On the track. Up the beat. In high spirits, for better times ahead.

Our messenger is our message. Never mind if he’s not always the bearer of good tidings. Never mind the whole nine yards of disasters – natural or man-made – and the tragic- comic dimensions of the human condition that wraps up fish, as well as history, in a hurry. He never blinks through the blur, either. He is always there.

Through the whirl of who, what, when, where, why and how; through the scope of flashes and scoops, there’s also the story of how the kid stays in the picture.

Taking off from the logo used by the pre-Martial Law Manila Times that was still closed in 1982 when Sun. Star started, the icon of a newsboy – a brainchild of this paper’s former art consultant Mario A. Ricardo, Sr. – was nearly jostled out of the limelight by another newspaper-vending mascot.

Though the stance is the same – as if striding towards the sunset, with one arm thrusting forward the day’s news – this sculpture by Gabby Ylanan seemed to throw its weight around four months after it was finished. Standing at 107-centimeter and weighing 86 kilos, its heft rendered it an intimidating aura though it was beaming, open-mouthed. For one, the world-weary outlook of deadline-beaters seemed to have rubbed off on the mascot’s frazzled face.

Unveiled during the sixth anniversary cocktails at the CAP Arts Center last Nov. 25, 1988, Ylanan’s mascot was placed like a sentinel in front of Sun.Star’s old office along Osmeña Boulevard, just across a row of honky-tonk joints. Where pimps and drunks held sway, the worn-out face of the mascot wasn’t really out of place.

But when the paper’s Nov. 27, 1988 issue hit the streets, the mascot beside Sun.Star’s masthead was Ricardo’s niño. Breezy does it, or so the mascot could have muttered, with his cherubic mien and happy-go-lucky stance, the slingshot around his neck tossed in the wind.

If this newsboy mascot looked refreshing, it was due to several revisions in Ricardo’s hands. According to him, editor-in-chief Pachico A. Seares asked him to go over a lot of sketches of the mascot’s face before the final drawing was approved.

And so it came to pass that the impish-looking mascot, sometimes portrayed in past anniversary editorials as jumping over a hurdle or scaling a cliff, has edged out the sculpted mascot who’s now taking it easy in the air-conditioned office of Glenn Romero, the company’s telephone operator.

Meanwhile, our niño has not aged ever since. Still raring to respond to a community’s challenge (“What’s up, kid?”). Still timely as any answered prayer
(“Give us this day our daily news.”).

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News that didn’t make you break out into a sweat. Better yet, new tips for coping with a bad case of the sweats.

For three years – 1991, ’92 and ’93 – Sun.Star Daily came up with “News/Info You Can Use.”

This one-page compilation featured how-to’s about various topics bearing on day-to-day living.

Then Sun.Star Daily reporter Edralyn L. Benedicto capsulized the information in bullet form to make this easier for readers to take note, file mentally and retrieve for future use.

Witty line drawings sketched by Bobong Ancog, the paper’s former cartoonist, visually anchored these nuggets of information.

So, while Sun.Star Daily was making itself known in community journalism through its main news pages, specials like “News/Info You Can Use” performed less stellar but still indispensable roles for its readers.

After all, knowing that kids hate stiff or slightly gummy textures in starchy foods will never find its way to the front page. But today’s hard news is tomorrow’s fish wrap while raising healthy, happy kids is something that tends to hang around, say, forever. MQT

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