THE RIGHT MOVE

Growing up, I remember waking up to copies of Manila Bulletin, including its sister tabloid, Tempo. As a kid, I would jump to the entertainment section to get my daily fix of comic strips and horoscope. As I grew older, I devoured its lifestyle section after skimming through the headlines. Then I would go back to flip through each and every page, till I found my fingers smudged with ink.

Over the years, as more media outlets started publishing newspapers, my family added other titles to our daily delivery. While adulting schedules eventually deprived me of the luxury of time to read the papers from cover to cover, I remember favoring to get my daily dose of information from less thick newspapers for a time. But having grown up with Manila Bulletin, I found myself going back to the "original", and with that, I developed a more profound appreciation for the richness of MB's contents. To me, Manila Bulletin feels like home.

In my 20s, and working as a broadcast journalist with ABS-CBN, I wanted to foray into journalism which was my first course at the University of the Philippines before I shifted to my major – Broadcast Communications.

I was privileged that I was offered an opportunity to write a column for MB back then. Unfortunately, my hectic schedule in television and radio deprived me the time to pursue the column. Twenty years after, I never imagined I would once again have the opportunity to write a column here at MB which I always wished I was able to do when I was younger.

My vision for utilizing the gift of media aligns with the mission of MB to strive for a better society through positivity instead of destructive criticisms as evident in its news coverage, without compromising integrity and the courage to uphold the truth and empower the people through information.

The same principle holds true in my personal life which I carry even in an oftentimes brutal campaign. My mantra has always been — we do not need to put other people down just to lift ourselves up. That's why as honest and even oftentimes brutally frank I can get, especially when principles of truth and justice are involved, you still won’t hear me engage in mudslinging, backbiting and any form of negativity.

In retrospect, that's probably the foremost reason why Manila Bulletin feels like home –it is a nostalgic form of "aide-memoire" of my youth, while also a reminder that the present and future dreams I have, not just for myself but for our society, are dreams worth pursuing.