‘Fight for love’

Cong B. Corrales .

JULY is the birth-month of Mindanao Gold Star Daily. Thirty years ago yesterday, the very first copy of GSD circulated in the city and gave Cagayan de Oro City its very first daily newspaper that defied the one-year test.

Frankly, I really didn’t know the more intimate details of the paper’s history until my return to it on June 27, 2015, and served as its associate editor. Years before that, I used to be a staff reporter of another daily newspaper in the city. That didn’t pan out well because that paper had a penchant for delayed salaries and payments of my social remunerations.

So, I decided to be a freelance news correspondent.

Like all fledgling news correspondents, I was struggling to make ends meet. But as a freelance news writer, I could sell my stories to any news media organization, be it domestic or international.

Herbie Gomez, this paper’s editorial jefe, offered me to submit stories to GSD since I’m not officially connected with the other paper anymore. He had only one request, though, that I submit my story first to GSD before I submit it to other media outfits I was writing for. Well, at least three hours of lead time from other outfits. The day I started contributing stories to GSD was the day my journalistic career turned serious.

Before, with the other paper, I had 50 percent of my story being the paper’s banner story. It was not because I was an enterprising or “Boombastic” writer. It was because there were only two of us as staff reporters in the other daily. Being one of many correspondents across the island, in GSD, you had to battle it out to byline the banner story.

Don’t worry, it was a friendly competition. Each correspondent had to out-scoop each other. The end result was we had the most comprehensive banner story on any given subject because at least two correspondents worked on the same story. The story would have covered all the bases, so to speak.

Also, if I was struggling to make ends meet before, now I can make ends meet on time, albeit still struggling. But I was paying my bills on time, this time. This is because in all my years working with GSD, it has always made it a point to pay its people on time, a thing that I, unfortunately, could not say for the other outfits I wrote for before, be it domestic or international.

It was when I worked as a correspondent for GSD that I learned how to view news events more critically. I wasn’t going to slack off and submit a haphazard article and be relegated to the inside pages. I concentrated more on the whys and hows. In other words, I was more invested on the context rather than the political intramurals on the surface of an event. I shied away from the “he said, she said” or more popularly known locally as “sabong” journalism.

It was because of this internal competition in GSD that I dare say I improved my writing. At least, it caught the attention of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, for one. I owe a lot to GSD to my journalistic career.

So, after a four-year stint with PCIJ, it was only proper to return to the paper that gave me my break into serious journalism. Not “new,” but just serious journalism. The decision was fairly simple to make. I wanted to apply all the learning I acquired from PCIJ to THE paper that gave me the opportunity to have opportunities opened to me.

It was at this time that I got to know GSD a little more. I did not know of it in a classroom sort of discussion, mind you. I learned about the paper’s history through informal chats with president emeritus Ernesto Chu.

He would tell us about the days when he drove across the island to personally establish the paper’s bureaus. Yes, you read it right. Imagine, establishing your paper’s presence in at least 20 cities and 24 provinces. He was on the road most of the time. And does he rest on his laurels? No. Now, he wants to establish a strong presence on the internet superhighway. And we will be right there beside him in that undertaking.

When you get to know what the paper has gone through to get where it is at right now, you simply feel pride and love. I am proud and grateful to be with Gold Star Daily.

This paper is a product of love and perseverance. Marketing executive Amor Barlisan suddenly blurted in the middle of the newsroom years ago: “Fight for love!” It has since become the paper’s unofficial motto.

Here’s to 30 years more. “Fight for love!”