28 years in journalism and the 32nd Cebu Press Freedom Week

Cebu Press Freedom Week is in its 32nd year this week, and amid the challenges facing legacy media in the networked digital era—particularly newspapers, which have historically been at the forefront of Cebu Press Freedom Week celebrations—the annual event remains relevant yet grounded in its roots.

Let me take this opportunity to recall my tenure in Cebu media, from when I first started up to today.

According to an article by the late Erma M. Cuizon in the 2014 issue of Cebu Journalism & Journalists (CJJ), the first edition of Cebu Press Freedom Week as we know it now was held in 1994 and has been held yearly ever since, except for 1996. Cuizon writes that during the Marcos Sr. years from the 1970s to the 1980s, journalists faced persecution, arrests, and killings—particularly in the 1980s—a time when voices were silenced not just in Cebu but across the Philippines.

I entered the Cebu new media industry at a time when press freedom and the press, particularly the print journalism industry, were at their peak in the post-EDSA years. I refer to it as the peak because, in recent years, the country has witnessed the rise of populism, which has threatened press freedom once again, as well as the emergence of social media and digital platforms that have upended the industry.

My own journey began 28 years ago with a print journalism internship at Sun.Star Daily (now Sun.Star Cebu). I hadn't initially planned on entering the field of journalism, as I never saw myself as a writer. However, I had always been an avid media consumer, a passion ignited in the 1990s by the morning AM radio news programs that my late father was fond of listening to.

My decision to pursue a BA in Mass Communication at UP Cebu was influenced by my involvement in high school with a students’ theatre group, where I participated in a stage play that cast mostly college students, including some from the Masscom program. When it came time to choose a college course, I initially chose BS Business Economics at UP Diliman, attracted by my interest in economics and its potential as a preparatory course for law.

However, my father preferred that I stay closer to home and not move to Manila. As a result, I opted to remain at UP Cebu—where I had completed my high school—and enrolled in Mass Communication, the same course as my theatre colleagues.

I have no regrets. Being a part of Cebu’s dynamic and freedom-loving press is both a privilege and an honor, even if that may sound cliché.

After my journalism internship at Sun.Star Daily in the summer of 1996, I interned at DYRC Cebu before my final academic year in college. I then worked briefly as a correspondent there after graduating in 1997 and even tried a stint as a broadcast reporter with GMA News Cebu, back in the days when local broadcast news was delivered in English. I also had a brief period with the pioneering Cebu cooperative-owned newspaper, 'The Independent Post,' before proceeding to law school.

I had an intermittent stint with the Cebu news media, including positions as a copy editor and later as assignments editor at The FREEMAN between 2000 and 2002. Even while I was finishing my sporadic years as a law student, I remained involved with the Cebu press in my capacity as a faculty member of the journalism program at UP Cebu, participating in various projects and activities of the Cebu Citizens-Press Council. (To be continued)