Visayan Daily Star EIC dies at 89

MANILA, Philippines — Ninfa Leonardia, editor-in chief  and president of the Visayan Daily Star in Bacolod City, passed away at 5:30 a.m. yesterday.

Leonardia, 89, succumbed to a heart attack at the Riverside Medical Center in  Bacolod City, her brother  Evelio Leonardia, former Bacolod mayor and League of Cities of the  Philippines president, said.

She co-founded the Visayan Daily Star in 1982 and was the longest serving editor-in-chief of the  Bacolod-based newspaper.

“Our family grieves the loss of our pillar of strength and clan matriarch.  But we are definitely sure that with her life-long commitment and dedication to journalism, where she had displayed her unique talents and established an unquestioned integrity during all these decades, she will also be missed and honored by the fourth estate,” her brother said.

“Among the high points in her career were having been elected the first woman provincial press club president in the country and founder of the oldest daily newspaper in our island, the Visayan Daily Star,” he added.

“As we will dearly miss her, we salute her with our love, respect and deepest admiration. Our family thanks everyone who had been a part of her life and her work, and who had made her the woman of substance she has become,” he said.

Leonardia was president of the Negros Press Club from 1965 to-1966 and 1979 to 1980.

She was named an Outstanding Negrense  by the Negros Occidental provincial government and won the Outstanding Journalists of the Philippines Award  from the Rotary Club of Manila  in 2003.

She was among the first batch of Mother Rita Barcelo Awardees from La Consolacion College as  Distinguished Alumni, Women Helping Women Awardee of the  Soroptimist International-Bacolod 1984 and an outstanding journalist awardee of the Negros Press Club.

Her wake will be at the Acropolis Gardens at Barangay Bata, Bacolod City until Saturday. She will be buried at the Bacolod Memorial Park after a funeral mass at the Sacred Heart Shrine (Lupit Church) at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

She is survived by her brothers Evelio and Prospero Leonardia, in-laws, nephews and nieces.