A dozen years -
and Easter Sunday

It was Holy Week in the year 1982. As we look back now, that was one Lenten Season when we, the pioneering people behind the Visayan DAILY STAR, were regrettably distracted from the practices and traditions, because that was the time when this newspaper was a-birthing, and about to come out with its very first issue. We were all running around, going through dry runs, debugging the system, all tense and apprehensive about the project that, we were starting to realize, was the most Quixotic we have ever ventured into.

***

Oh hindsight, it is to be admitted that we deserved the angst and the problems of launching the STAR. It was certainly an undertaking only the most foolhardy would have attempted. I remember very clearly that it was on the evening of March 10, 1982, when there was news that the stars had aligned into a quadrant and it was supposed to be a very auspicious day. The STAR pioneers, then and there, decided that we would put out a daily newspaper, to be called the DAILY STAR, and would have its first issue come out on April 12, or 33 days after, because it was Easter Sunday!

***

Hasty and frantic calls to participants were made, and, through some miracle from the stars that we can not, to this day, understand, we made it! Now we hardly remember the arguments, the doomsayings, the pitfalls, the warnings. All we focused on was that the maiden issue of our STAR would hit the streets on the Day of the Resurrection, and the Lord, so good to us then and up to now, smoothened the way for us to do so.

***

But before that momentuous day, we encountered sudden problems that, in our enthusiasm, we failed to anticipate. Two days before P-Day (Publication Day), we found out that we had no circulation or distribution system, no team to handle that aspect of newspapering. Still our prayers were answered, in the simplest way. A well-known news distributor in the city just accidentally happened to come by, and, on hearing about the problem, volunteered to help out.

***

That was not the only problem we had to hurdle, others would not resolve themselves in such convenient ways. We went through fire, literally, typhoons, earthquakes, floods, misunderstandings, disagreements, and, most of all, horrible financial problems, so that most of the time, as we worked on the next day's issue we would be dreading that it might be the last. We were operating on the proverbial shoestring, and with the very minimum of staff, all of whom had to be masters of several aspects of both reporting and printing.

***

In all that time, the STAR moved seven times, each to a more spacious place, although not much better than the last. Our seventh home was so decrepit, we had to cover our heads and wade in stinky water everytime strong rains fell. The place was so worn down that a former bureau chief of an international wire syndicate who visited us, later told his colleagues that the DAILY STAR was operating in a firetrap. Well, we survived the firetrap, ironically, our very first office that seemed very sturdy, was the one that had burned down after only a few days of publishing.

***

Now the DAILY STAR is in its own home, and, we wonder: Have 24 years actually gone by since that Easter Sunday of our launching? How did we go through two dozen years, with most of our original partners and fellow workers still around? Oh yes, we went through much hardship and agony, but there were sweet rewards, too, as when the STAR was featured in at least two journalism books with very complimentary coverage, or when it began getting, year after year, since it started, the prestigious Konrad Adenauer Foundation-Philippine Press Institute journalism awards, and twice the honor of being named the Most Outstanding Community Newspaper in the Country by the Rotary Club of Manila, the oldest Rotary Club in Asia.

***

As we mark our 24th anniversary today, which is Holy Wednesday, we meditate and thank the Good Lord for all the blessings, guidance and inspiration we have received all these years. We will therefore go through today, tomorrow, Good Friday and Black Saturday in relation to the sacrifices through which we were tested all these years, and look forward to the Day of Resurrection and rejoicing, Easter Sunday, our true anniversary!*

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