CEBU - The Freeman editor-in-chief Jerry S. Tundag is named outstanding citizen of Compostela for 2009, sharing the recognition with nine other professionals from Compostela “who attained success in their individual endeavors and careers.”
Also named outstanding Compostelanhons are retired judge and The Freeman columnist Lorenzo Paradiang, former Philippine Sports Commission chairman Lucresio Calo, Cebu City Councilor Jose Daluz, Cebu City Planning and Development Officer Nigel Paul Villarete, Negros Oriental provincial police office assistant director Rey Lyndon Lawas, Soledad Gabutan, Engr. Virginia Velasco, Mr. Nonato Mascarinas, and Marieta Diaz.
The honorees will be awarded on January 17 during the town’s 90th founding anniversary. They were chosen for the “prestige and honor” they have given to Compostela.
The screening committee said Tundag was chosen because of his important contribution to the Cebu media.
Tundag, whose roots can be traced from barangay Cabadiangan, Compostela, applied for work as proofreader at the defunct Visayan Herald in 1980. Even with no formal journalism degree, he was instead hired as reporter by then managing editor and now Presidential Management Staff Director General Cerge Remonde.
Before the end of 1982, he was taken as a reporter for The Freeman and, a year later, was invited by Reuters to be its Cebu correspondent, a sideline position he would hold for nearly 20 years.
At The Freeman, Tundag rose through the ranks, becoming an editor in various capacities until he was asked to head Visayan Herald in 1987, when it was acquired and revived by The Freeman. The Herald eventually folded up for good after two years.
Tundag rejoined The Freeman, reassuming the weekend/associate editor post he held before he left to head the Herald. In 2003, he was formally appointed editor-in-chief of The Freeman.
Aside from writing editorials for the paper, Tundag also writes a thrice-weekly column in The Freeman, as well as another column for the San Francisco-based Manila Bulletin USA.
In 1987, Tundag traveled to the United States, Japan, Singapore, and to Indonesia as member of the Philippine delegation to the Third Asean Editors Conference. In 1992, he was lone representative of the Philippines to the US government’s International Visitors Program, a Fulbright program administered by the United States Information Agency.
Compostela Mayor Ritchie Wagas said he hopes that the yearly recognition would encourage other Compostelanhons to excel in their respective fields of endeavor. –Jose P. Sollano/JMO (THE FREEMAN)