Sweet Sixteen

One of the great things about working at The STAR is this strong sense of family that permeates the newsroom. It may be a bit of a mess, the clocks may not all show the same time, an avalanche of paper may threaten to fall on you from overflowing boxes any minute, electrical wires may curl like endless spaghetti, but this really feels like home. Someone once commented that we look like an unmade bed, and there may be some truth to that, because it does feel so comfortable.

It helps that many of us in the editorial staff have been here for as many years–or almost as many–as the paper has been publishing, and in the course of 16 segments of 363 days (we’re off on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) we have shared ups and downs, loves won and lost, pounds gained and lost–but mostly gained. I don’t know how it is in other papers and other offices but eating together has been one of the strongest binding forces here at The STAR. Sometimes I think the corporate or political folks who invite an editor to lunch or dinner must get the shock of their life when they are told that the entire editorial barangay must be included, all or nothing. And the second shock must be when they discover how matakaw we can be–some of us, at least (my lips are sealed on who the champion glutton is).

It also helps that, side from eating, we also laugh together–a lot. And the laughter comes so often–and so loud–we’re so familiar with the sounds we know exactly who’s cracking up without having to look up from what we’re doing. And it’s as easy to laugh at one’s self here as it is to laugh at the next guy: insults–cariño brutal–are thrown face front, never side or back, and the rule is you take as good as you give–puro personalan ito. How can you not laugh at that?

We share a lot of things, food mostly, but other things too, like blood, which we have been doing as our anniversary "gift" through the Philippine National Red Cross for so many years now. (The STAR received the Scroll of Honor from the Red Cross last week.) We share our corporate and individual blessings through our Operation Damayan program, started by our founder Betty Go Belmonte in the very early years of the paper. Damayan’s Adopt a School project, the first of which we highlight on the following pages, is the latest of many, many projects employees undertake on their own time, supported always by the resources of the paper. And we share too in the triumphs, such as photographer Revoli Cortez’s first prize in the Phil. Press Institute’s One Asia Assembly 2002 photo contest, announced the other day.

Sixteen great years for The STAR–here’s to sixteen times sixteen more. Share them with us; be part of our family.