Growing up with The Freeman

The Freeman turned 90 yesterday. This is a very big achievement considering that the newspaper’s contemporaries have long closed shop.

Aside from being Cebu’s oldest newspaper, The Freeman is also known as a training ground for most of Cebu’s journalists. Name a media personality in Cebu and he or she would somehow have a connection with the newspaper.

I am one of The Freeman’s trainees. I joined The Freeman way back in 1998 when I was still a 3rd year Mass Com student at UP Cebu. It was then editor-in-chief Noel Pangilinan, who was teaching in UP at that time, who recruited me to work for the paper. Many things have happened since then. I have learned many lessons and have met different people. My 10 years or so with the paper is nothing compared to the years that Mr. Jabat, our publisher, has given to the newspaper. Nevertheless, I still grew up here. This is my growing up story with The Freeman.

I was assigned to the regional offices beat when I joined The Freeman. My first ever coverage, a press conference called by the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center to announce cost-cutting measures, landed me my first page 1 story. Back then, reporters were so scared to have a story on page 1 because then managing editor and now editor-in-chief Jerry Tundag was assigned to edit page 1 stories. He was known to be very strict when it comes to the facts of the story and how the story was written. I was scared. Well, at first. I later on came to enjoy being edited by Sir Jerry. He is strict alright. He is downright frank, too. But all of it was just to make better writers out of all of us. Sir Jerry is known to rewrite the stories he edits, a reporter is lucky if he retains a sentence or two. My very first achievement in The Freeman was when Sir Jerry retained some of my paragraphs.

When I graduated from college, The Freeman introduced me to another aspect of journalism – lifestyle writing. I was named assistant editor to the four editors of the Lifestyle Section, Marivir Auxilio, Philogene Florita, Mayen Tan and Vince Escario. The people from the news section would make jokes that I traded my strong words with adjectives by joining the Lifestyle section. Marivir, Sir Phil and Vince have long left the newspaper. But the things I learned from them, I still practice now especially that I am back in Lifestyle, with Madame Mayen as my boss.

My early years with The Freeman were not just all work. We had fun, too. Whether its for a few pitchers of Stinkaya in Marina, sisig at Maynila, karaoke at Ayala Center, billiards at El Garaje, barbecue at Larsian or bacon and cheese at Shakey’s Fuente, we did not let the stress of the daily grind in the newsroom get to us. The late night adventures with then News Editor Francis Savellon, then Opinion Editor Roy Ho, and fellow reporters Karenjen Lechonsito, Leonora Albino and Angie Tuñacao were as exciting as the news items that came out in the paper.

Many people have come and gone in The Freeman. I myself even went away for a while. The Freeman’s partnership with the Star Group of Publications has brought a lot of changes, and there are a lot of new faces in the company, too. But one thing has remained unchanged - The Freeman still continues to give opportunities to budding journalists, a great legacy aside from providing fair and fearless journalism.

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