From proofreader to newspaper owner

MANILA, Philippines - He was part of The Philippine STAR 10 years ago, assigned to proofread the typewritten columns of the great Max Soliven. Quitting in 2001 and going into numerous businesses, Rommel Ynion is now returning to journalism, this time as owner of a daily newspaper in Iloilo City.

Ynion’s company Maxposure Media Group recently acquired the 10-year-old The News Today and its sister publication, Mezzo, a glossy magazine, in what he described as a perfect “homecoming” to the land of his birth.

“I always wanted to be a journalist,” he says. “And what better place to practice journalism than the place I call home.”

Everyone who hears of Ynion’s good fortune could not believe his humble beginnings. A college dropout, his first job was as messenger in a money remittance firm. While filing forms one afternoon, a “magic question” struck him.

“I began asking myself, ‘What will become of me if I keep doing what I have been doing for the next 10 years?’ I didn’t like the answer. So I had to make a decision to change the course of my life,” he says.

A self-confessed bookworm, Ynion thought of making a career out of reading and writing. So one day, he walked into the office of a newspaper in Intramuros and applied for a job. A lady in the HR department refused to accept his application because he lacked a college diploma. So he went straight to the editor-in-chief and told him of his dream of becoming a journalist someday and that he could work as a janitor even without pay as long as it was inside a newspaper office. He was hired. His first assignment: proofreader of the obituary section.

Sometime in 1994, a big fire broke out in Quiapo at 2 a.m. and Ynion, still in the office, heard an editor complain that the night reporter supposed to cover it was sick. He sensed an opportunity. He approached the editor and sheepishly asked if he could cover the fire since he had just finished reading the obituary section for the day. The editor agreed. So Ynion rushed to the scene of the fire and wrote about it. The following day, his report was on the front page with his first byline. He became a correspondent from then on.

After a year, Ynion sought better opportunities and found it in The Philippine STAR. Publisher Maximo Soliven was his idol, so one day he walked into the STAR’s office for an entrance test. He passed it and got a proofreading job, and lo and behold, he was assigned to proofread Soliven’s columns.

“It was a big break for me. I idolized Max Soliven. To me, he was the Michael Jordan of journalism so it was an honor for me to be his proofreader. After my work as proofreader, I covered the police beat at night as a correspondent,” he remembers. Six months later, Ynion became a regular employee of the STAR.

“Although I wasn’t the best employee there in terms of talent and skills, I enjoyed the environment in Philippine STAR. That’s where I learned how to deal with my work and the people around me more effectively,” he recalls.

Three years later, Philippine STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte promoted Ynion to editor of the shipping section of the paper, a position he didn’t believe he deserved because there were employees who were more senior than him.

“I got it because of a special report I wrote on shipping. I was only able to do that report because my father was an insider in the shipping industry,” he says.

In 2001, in his sixth year with the STAR, the magic question started creeping into Ynion’s mind once more: What would he become if he kept on doing what he had been doing for the next 10 years? Again he didn’t like the answer, so he resigned and went into business. He soon realized that in business, it’s not what you know that matters but whom you know. With a network of connections established from his journalism career, business proved to be easy. He had friends in high places all willing to support any business he wished to go into. He went into media consultancy and served big businessmen and politicians, then into construction, where he built and sold houses. He also went into advertising, trading, and more recently into the restaurant and hotel business. He even has a scrap yard, a garbage-hauling firm and security agency.

But his most favorite of all his “babies” is the newspaper he recently acquired. For him, it’s like returning to his first love.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to go back to journalism almost 10 years after I left the STAR. God has been very good to me. I hope to lead this newspaper to become number one in Iloilo and the western Visayas. I also want to support The Philippine STAR to be the number-one national newspaper in my region,” he said.