It was July 26, 1986. In theater parlance, it would be the dress-tech – the technical dress rehearsal held the day before opening night.
We were “rehearsing” putting the paper to bed; of course, most of the editorial staff were seasoned journalists who knew what to do – even the production staff were old hands in publishing – but coordinating the work flow for a new set of people took some fine tuning.
For the first editorial meeting, we crammed into the office of the chairman, the inimitable Betty Go Belmonte, on the ground floor of our old building on Railroad corner 13th Street in Port Area. The accounting and admin staff occupied the space outside BGB’s office, and the newsroom and production area were across the hall.
BGB sat at her desk on one side of the room. Publisher Max Soliven took the seat in front of her desk. The others in the staff sat where they could; I was the peon – proofreader, editorial assistant, I even did pasteup – so I perched on the edge of the desk at the other end of the room.
The trial issue had just been put together – eight pages with no ads; it was kept that way for many months, notwithstanding people coming in with cash wanting to place ads – and was being dissected by the bosses. Page by page, comments on what was good, what could be better. I don’t remember much of it really, except MVS blowing his top at a grievous error on the Sports page: parts of a story had been jumbled up.
Let me explain. In those days, it was literally cut and paste: the text was printed out from the typeset machines (I think they were called Roadrunners), run through the waxer and the pasteup artists literally cut up the text and pasted them on the dummy sheet. In this case, the paragraphs had gotten mixed up, hence the MVS outburst, with a “Sanamagun” or two thrown in. Needless to say, it never happened again (I think…I hope!).
The STAR started on a prayer and a dream. The nation had to rebuild, after years of tyranny and plunder. Not just the government, but the citizenry needed to step up and help in national development. And to do so, the people had to be informed, had to know what was going on in the country, all over the country, so they could knowingly and responsibly contribute to the common good.
That was the rationale behind the very lean issue: with just eight pages, more copies could fit in the weight allowance we were given by the airlines that brought the copies to the provinces. So more people nationwide would have access to the news.
I re-read our very first editorial, written by our publisher, entitled, “A star is born.” In it, he set forth our mission, and the commitment and faith that would be our guide and strength:
“…we constantly harp on the need for a War against Poverty when, in reality, what our country and our people need most in this hour of continuing confusion and crisis is a War on Ignorance. It is ignorance that keeps our people in bondage and in despair. It is only knowledge – a knowledge of their rights, their worth, their capabilities and what they can achieve – that can set them free.
“We have called our newspaper ‘The Philippine Star.’ And we have borrowed a biblical phrase as our motto – ‘Truth Shall Prevail.’ We believe that each individual who helps truth prevail is in himself or herself a ‘star.’
“And we pray that God’s star will guide us and teach us to be true to our nation’s goals, to our manifest destiny, to each other and to ourselves. For we believe that the Lord did not give us a ‘miracle’ at EDSA, a miracle which was implanted like the tiny mustard seed in the hearts of all Filipinos and grew to animate and inspire us all to throw off the shackles of tyranny, only to abandon us now…
“We, the Filipino people, having wandered in pain and sorrow in the desert of despair for two decades, agonizing, in Ninoy Aquino’s poignant words, ‘through the long, dark night,’ are looking for a star to guide us home.
“May our ‘Philippine Star,’ on this homeward pilgrimage, shed some light to dispel the encircling gloom and help lead our hesitant steps towards that inexorable dawn.”
The journey from Vol. I No. 1 to Vol. XLI No. 1 has been an eventful one. Through good times and not-so-good times, through boom years and lean years, prosperity and pandemic, The STAR has walked alongside the nation – a star, always The Philippine Star.
Today we live in a brave new world, so different from what the world was four decades ago. The challenges today are complex, even daunting – climate change, geopolitical instability, technology evolving rapidly, frighteningly so in some cases – but we face this new world unafraid. Through over 14,400 issues in 40 years, The STAR has shone the light on truth, and kept the faith. We will continue to do so for as long as God our Father, in whose name we serve, provides the light that enables us to shine.