SAINTS OF THE PRESS: REMEMBERING BACOLOD’S PEN-BEARERS

 

On All Saints Day, we light candles and say a prayer for those who wrote before us. And writing about the resurgence of print made me remember the demise of the Visayan Daily Star, as well as the journalists and columnists of my youth; they who, in some way, inspired me to take communications as a profession.
 
Their labor was no less a vocation; and, like the saints of old, they too bore witness. Tita Ninfa Ramos Leonardia chronicled the city and helmed the Visayan Daily Star with grace and grit. Primo Esleyer gave voice to ordinary Negrosanons. Tito Rolly Espina held power to account. Mode Sa-onoy preserved the stories that defined Negros itself. Henry Villalva gave life to sports beyond the mundane and the mundial. And Sis Marilou Villanueva just made life a little more tasty. 
 
Saints are remembered not for comfort but for conviction. These writers, too, chose truth over ease, often at personal cost, and trusted that words could heal, challenge, guide, even feed a community.
 
This day matters because gratitude is a form of faith. To honor them is to acknowledge that a free press is built on sacrifice, and that their columns, now yellow and archived, still shape how Bacolod, and Negros, understands itself.
 
May they and their work always be remembered. And may we be worthy, too, to write in their light.